Belated Bree Birthday Bash Babblings

I was trying to see how many "B" words I could work in there.  Not my best attempt, but I still managed to amuse myself for a few moments.  But as usual, I digress...

My baby is three!  Being the loving mother that I am, I woke her up on her birthday, cuddled her gently, gave her a soft kiss and told her she was three-years-old now.  I then handed her the want-ads from the Sunday paper and suggested she look for her first job prior to selecting her new apartment as her income would indicate how big of a pad she could afford.  Oh, stop it.  Jason got me out of her room before I got all of her clothing packed.  Damn him.

Instead of cramming all of our loved ones into our more-than-slightly overcrowded home, we elected to throw a joint birthday party with our friend Jack (Happy Birthday little Dude!) at Nana's church this time around.  We had pumpkin decorating, cake, a LOT of presents and even a couple of jugglers, The Juggling Hoffman's.  I'm pretty convinced that the male half of the Hoffman's was a bartender at one of the establishments that I used to frequent in college.  Based on my typical state of mind (and inebriation) during college, while on Main Street in Newark, it's highly probable that my memory may be a bit flawed and this guy has never been in a bar in his life.  Regardless of any questions regarding his previous employment, he and his Mrs. treated us all to a really good show.  I think everyone enjoyed themselves, especially my mother, Jason's mother and my Aunt Liz, who spent the show making jokes amoungst themselves that I understand were really not at all appropriate for a three-year-old's birthday party.  I think you all know where I get that mentality from now, don't you?

Thank you to all who helped us celebrate Bree and her birthday!
xoxo
Deb

Happy Columbus Day! Well, not really.

Nick had Friday off from school for Columbus Day (which was actually Monday, so I'm not sure why his school celebrated it on Friday, but I digress...)  Anyway, both kids had no school on Friday, so rather than have to actually take care of both of my children by myself for another day, I respectfully requested that Jason take Friday off and we do "family crap" together.  Please note that my "respectful request" sounded like "Unless you want me to find out how much I can get on the black market for a semi-potty trained four-year-old boy, you might want to take the day off from work."

Rather than being trapped in the house with his beloved children and cranky wife, Jason packed his family up and took us all to Milburn Orchards for the day.  Apparently every school in the region decided to fill their school buses with the kids that annoy the teachers the most and send them to the orchard for the day, as well. 

Despite that, we had a good time.  Nana showed up once she was finished with work, which meant that instead of two kids to keep track of, we had two kids and a Nana to try and keep out of the baby goat pen.  And if you're reading this, Lane, for the last time, NO, we will not get you a baby goat for Christmas.  Just like your grandchildren, the baby goats will grow up and no longer be cute and fluffy. 

The kids and I got lost in the maze several times.  Yes, I'm aware that I can see over the maze but I have no discernible sense of direction. Incidentally, having Jason standing outside the maze "patiently" directing me out of the maze?  Not so much with the helpful but it did appear to entertain everyone watching me.

xoxo
Deb

When arts and crafts go bad

Unlike my last post, there is a story here.  And based on the picture, I'm fairly certain that I don't need to tell it.  I'm pretty sure you can all figure it out for yourselves.

xoxo
Deb

Comic relief

There's no story to this.  Just had to share.

xoxo
Deb

For Chrissee

Whenever I question whether or not I am Bree's actual mother all I have to do is watch her in a shoe store. Trust me, she's mine. Girl loves her some shoes.

How stinking cute are these? Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the all-pink ones are very sparkly. Those are the ones that she wore on the first day of school that helped to spark new friendships.

Please note, she wore the blue ones today and also received compliments.

xoxo

Deb

School Dazed

Yup. The picture says it all. Despite my best efforts, Bree is in preschool. I tried locking her in her room and barricading the door with stuffed animals and outgrown clothing, but Jason fought his way through and rescued his princess. Damn him.

The preschool she's attending eases the little ones (and their parents) into the year with short sessions with only half the class for the first day but Bree already made a friend. Due to my insane need to be on time for everything (it's genetic, I can't count how many family weddings for which my parents and I arrived at the church before the priest. Thanks, Mom!), we were twenty minutes early. Eventually Bree's classmates and their parents began arriving and the last to show up was a little girl with long dark curls. We'd never seen her before but she and Bree must have known that they were kindred spirits. They looked at each other, squealed and ran to one another. Bree told her that she had pretty hair and that she liked her shirt (red with puppies.) Bree's new friend, Gabriella, returned the compliments focused on Bree's shoes (which really are quite awesome) and her Princess backpack. They then each giggled, jumped up and down a couple of times and each ran back to their parents. They then ran back to meet again and repeated the compliments. And then each returned to their respective starting points. To then run back and repeat the compliments. And then... you get the picture.

The teachers took pity on us after about seventeen renditions of "Bree meets Gabriella" and let us into the classroom. Bree played with play-do and when it was time to sit in a circle she first had to HELP THE TEACHER CLEAN UP THE PLAY-DO. That's right, the child that won't pick up a single toy at home helped a complete stranger clean up. Circle time went pretty much as I expected. Bree sat down for 3.8 seconds, got bored and left the circle to go play, very quickly demonstrating to her three teachers and the rest of the parents present why her nickname is "Chaos." I so enjoy the looks of complete and total pity that I routinely receive from total strangers courtesy of my beloved children.

Nick has also begun school again. Surprisingly, his teachers didn't retire or go into a witness-protection program to avoid him, so there wasn't much new for Nick this year. Same classroom, same teachers, but a couple a new-to-Nick students. I tried to explain why some of his classmates from last year weren't in his class any longer. He got bored and walked away from me while I was in mid-explanation. That happens a lot with Nick. His main source of concern is that the "marble-toy" hasn't made a reappearance in his class yet. Whenever I try to talk to him about school he reminds me of the missing marble toy and mutters in a very grumpy, threatening voice about "needing to have a talk" with his teachers about this. I kid you not. And while I did get plenty of shots of him with his eyes open for the annual first day of school picture, this one cracks me up, so this is the one I'm posting.

xoxo
Deb

p.s. For my fellow Fantasy Football-playing friends and loved ones: Based on having a couple of Saints on my fantasy team, I'm starting a petition to have them stripped of the Vince Lombardi trophy. 'Nuff said.

Passport Picture Drama

Jason, Chaos, Mayhem and I needed to get passports for an upcoming vacation. Seems like a simple enough undertaking... fill out the forms, get the pictures taken, take out a second mortgage to pay for the passports and go order them. Seems easy, right?

Yeah, you haven't tried to get pictures taken of Chaos and Mayhem, have you now?

I went first, by myself, to Walgreens to have my picture taken so I could explain to my little darlings what to expect. (Please note, any terms of endearment used in this entry towards my childen is completely and fully sarcastic.)

A couple of days later, I take my cherubs to Walgreens and go to the photo counter. I explain to the two very nice ladies that I need to get passport pictures taken of my son and daughter. The two nice ladies look at the kids. The kids smile back sweetly at the ladies. One goes and gets a stool for them to sit on and the other gets the camara ready.

At this point it started going downhill. Mayhem sees a toy that he wants to look at and I, who uses every opportunity possible to bribe him into good behavior, explains that he can look at it once he has had his picture taken. Insert Mayhem temper-tantrum here. Chaos, not be be outdone, adds her shrieks. After a few minutes they got tired of screaming and started hitting each other. A display of stuffed animals got knocked down at some point. The nice lady with the stool was now holding the stool in the manner of a lion tamer, trying to keep my angels away from inflicting any bodily harm to her.

I AM NOT EXAGGERATING.

I give up. Take the kids home. Start researching military preschools. Jason decides that we'll give it another try and the four of us head back to Walgreens. Same two nice ladies. Same stool. Stuffed animals display was once again upright.

Guess what? The kids behaved perfectly. Jason looked at me and acutally said "I don't know what the problem was, they're fine."

Yup. I hit him with the stool.

When I went back later to pick up the pictures, the two nice ladies were describing our two visits to another lady. They were all laughing. I don't think the first two ladies are so nice any longer.

xoxo
Deb