Oh the humanity!!!!

I sent these 3 innocent purple peeps out into the harsh climate of our dining room table after dinner. I began to wash dishes and turned around only when the children scurried out of the kitchen with gleeful giggles. That's when I saw it. The carnage! It was terrible. I had to look away. Then I slowly looked back, realizing that someone...someone must preserve and record the crime scene until the proper authorities could be notified. I took the following graphic photograph immediately. Along with the clues I captured in this picture, and the knowledge of my individual children's tastes in food and their personalities, I've decided that I know who preformed these heinous acts. The greasy little toddler fingerprints on the table next to the torso, the fact that the eyes have been eerily retained in their original form (for the most part, except for that whole missing head thing), the fact that Katherine doesn't really like peeps, and the teeth marks on the amputated ears bunny all lead me to name Lauren as my prime suspect. That naughty girl! Why on earth would anyone just take one bite from each body part but leave the rest? I think she may need therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

Today I took the girls to Kid City. It is precisely what you'd expect from a place named Kid City. It's a big fenced in area with lots of little kid sized buildings and roads on which to ride tricycles and scooters. It's really quite cool. The bank has a non working teller station and deposit slips for kids to fill in and a bunch of counting activities. The fire station and grocery store have uniforms for the kids to wear and other fun items that you'd expect to find in those types of places. The library was stocked with books and a puppet theatre and there was also a nice grassy Park area where we ate our snack. The only downsides are

1. it's mostly outside so it's dependent on the weather.

2. some of the buildings (the fire station in particular) have that moldy smell that comes from damp carpets and wall a/c units. Blech!

3. McDonalds has invaded. There is a small McDonalds complete with drive-thru and uniforms, where the kids can feed junk food to their peers. That makes me sad. I really do my best to keep my girls away from that stuff and here it is popping up in their playtime. Darn marketers.

The pro's outweighed the cons and we will be back.

More crime stories to come on Easter morning when Mom solves the "Mystery of the missing bunny ears" bwahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!

A day at the park

So I figured I'd better start getting my money's worth from this GPS that Woody gave me for my birthday. So I sat in our driveway and plugged in "Parks and recreation" and picked one that sounded good. Off we go to the Hillsboro River Sate Park.

The park itself was lovely. Tons of wildlife, a huge pool, lots of walking trails, clean etc. The playground equipment was a bit too old for Lauren but we had fun none the less. We had a nice picnic lunch. Fed a squirrel a ton of grapes and bananas, befriended an inchworm and in the process learned about love and loss. Of course I'm talking about Katherine. My little animal lover who wanted to bring the inchworm (who I suspect was actually a Caterpillar) home and let him live the good life with us, surrounded in the glow of her love. I talked her out of it by telling her that he would miss his mommy and daddy so after many kisses and snuggles, she set him free...then proceeded to talk about him every three minutes and muse about what he may be doing right at this very second. Really now. Aren't we all a little bit like that after a loved one leaves? LOL

After lunch and the inchworm drama, I loaded the girls into the double stroller and headed off along the river to see the sights. Between the girls chatter, we heard a lot of birds, the babbling of the river and the wind in the trees. We saw a couple of alligators, some fish, some turtles and lots of poison ivy.

As much as Katherine loves the outdoors and animals, Lauren is not nearly as fond of it. She screamed on the suspension bridge (I wanted to scream too but I swallowed my fear for K's benefit...for future reference, I hate bridges, and wobbly ones really make me nervous) she screamed about walking over a spider web, she screamed about the bugs that made themselves at home on our picnic blanket and she screamed about the woodpecker pecking.

All in all however, it was a fun trip. We are home. Lauren is napping. Katherine is playing quietly and I'm getting ready to work a bit. Then we are off to dance class and hopefully Daddy will be home when we return.

Woody is out of town again

And I seriously think I may lose my mind. Katherine and Lauren have been not napping, screeching, crying, screaming, not eating and being pretty much unbearable all day. And just when I think I can't take anymore, they do something super-cute which makes the anger melt away. UGH! Right now, they are playing together under Katherine's bed with all of the teddy bears. K even figured out how to use her blanket to make a "tent" for the cave. How there is even room for those two under the bed with all of those bears is beyond me. At least I can hold out hope that bedtime will come early.

Doctor visits, disorderly drunks and roadside cows

I took Lauren to the after hours pediatricians because she was complaining that her belly was hurting. Plus she was just not acting like herself so I figured bladder infection, off we go at 10pm. I was trying to get her to pee in the stupid bags that they give you to collect samples and she was drinking Gatorade. She'd put on the lid, take it off, drink some and repeat over and over again. When the Dr. came in, she was putting the lid on and she looked right at him as she tightened it down and said "there, that should do it!" He even laughed.

The upside of the night was when we were leaving. Some car had just dropped a drunk guy off on the side of the road, outside of the clinic. He was hollering, gesticulating wildly and uh, barfing in the grass. Since it's a pretty busy 6 lane road, I figured I'd call the police to get him out of there. I'm on my cell phone with the dispatcher telling him about the drunk guy when, I KID YOU NOT, I see two big honking bovines strolling down the shoulder of this busy road like they own it. So I tell the dispatch guy, "dude, I need to tell you something but please don't think I'm nuts. I'm just heading home after taking my toddler to the dr....but I swear there are also two cows rambling down the side of the road, just around the bend from the drunk guy."

After I hung up with the police, I just started giggling. I mean, that fella was snookered. What is he going to think when he runs into those cattle in the middle of Tampa at midnight? I'd love to see his face.

January 2007

 

January 12, 2007

 

So Lauren is two. What would our family be without her? She is such a delight. Ornery? Yes. Testy? Sure. But those eyes can just melt my heart. And the big “I wuv you soo much”’s combined with the bear hugs are flat out killing me. She’s also taken to kissing me on whatever exposed skin happens to be showing. Last night, she did it in her sleep. Kissed my belly then rolled over and passed back out. I thought my heart might just burst that very second.

 

Today she started daycare at Ms. Candace’s. She was only there for two and a half hours but we all deemed it a success. She had fun and wants to go back. I got some errands run and a couple of phone calls made. And I think I even completed one full thought from beginning to end without getting interrupted. Do you know how gratifying it is to realize that my brain has not actually turned into a squashed turnip?

 

We almost had her weaned (down to 2-3 times a day) until the holidays when she got the ear infection and was on me like white on rice. Now we are back to the old cycle and as soon as Woody is able to be in town for a couple of weeks in a row, we will give it another shot. For now, I’m going to try to relish the last few weeks of nursing my little girl. She really doesn’t want to give it up but I am ready to reclaim a bit of my freedom back…not to mention my body.

 

January 21, 2007

 

Woody had his Lasik and is now glasses free. He seems pretty happy after the initial trauma of having someone fry his eyeball with a laser while he was conscious. <SHUDDER>

 

Lauren went to Mrs. Candace’s for two full days last week. I asked Candace to call me if Lauren started acting like she was getting unhappy. When I picked her up at 4:30, Candace said that her naptime was pretty rough but other than that, things went well. The next day the phone rang at 1 and I figured it was time to go and pick Lauren up. How’s that for pessimism? Instead, it was Candace letting Lauren tell me how great of a nap she took. Awesome!!!

 

Katherine and I had a lovely morning on Friday when Lauren was in daycare but then Katherine decided that she didn’t need a nap and it all went downhill after that. Maybe next Friday will be a better “big girls day” for us.

 

Yesterday morning, we packed up the family and took a trip to a farmers market down in Bradenton. It was ok but lot smaller than I expected. We did get a bunch of fresh veggies and fruit. After gorging ourselves on strawberries, we had a nice quiet afternoon. In the evening, Woody talked Katherine into getting on her bicycle. She did great and we all took a trip around the block. The training wheels will stay on for a long while since technically, the bike is a little too big, but she did really well. Lauren rode the tricycle. By rode, I mean she rode while I pushed it. Her legs aren’t quite long enough to reach the pedals yet.

 

How pitiful are we? Florida people who don’t know diddly squat about the nearby beaches. Even if we aren’t beach people, which we aren’t’ really, it is probably our job as hosts to out of town-ers to be able to point them to a nice beach. So, this summer we are going to try and hit as many beaches as we can in the area. This morning, we all packed up and headed to Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs. It is a lovely state park with playground and picnic areas. After you drive through the park, you come out on a causeway to a little island about a mile offshore. The beach is nice, the area is clean and there are a lot of old people, which is awesome when you are self conscious of your figure like I am.

 

We spent a couple of hours there playing in the sand and trying to fly our kite. Some little girls were playing in the water and started screaming SHARK!!! And sure enough, there was a fin….but it was a dolphin, not a shark. He was feeding in the shallows, on the giant mullet who were flinging themselves out of the water all around the island. We drove over to the sponge docks and had lunch at an outdoor Greek restaurant, which was delish. Then the girls whined most of the way home.

 

January 29, 2007

 

This evening was parents’ observation night at Katherine’s ballet class. The girls did great performing for all the parents, grandparents and siblings. Katherine was just a tad bit distracted by us and was making the cheesiest faces ever. Their spring production theme was announced and Katherine’s class will be the colorful birds in a zoo. That should be interesting.

 

Today was pretty chilly here so we stayed in all day. The girls were pretty good for me. We did circle time, danced, played a game and they helped me clean house for awhile. They both took naps which is always good. Katherine got to go over to Sophia’s house across the street for an hour to play too. It was a nice winter day.

 

January 29, 2007…a little later in the evening.

 

Katherine was eating her after dinner snack and Woody was giving Lauren “the talk”. You know, the one about how shirts are not napkins, napkins are napkins? If you are a parent, you probably know all about “the talk”. Woody looks at Katherine and says “what are we going to do with Lauren?” and Katherine just shrugged her shoulders. I said “send her to live with the gypsies”.  After a bit of discussion about what gypsies are, (I swear you can not say anything around here without going into a long convoluted discussion about it) I mentioned that gypsies have dancing monkeys. Now both of my kids want to go live with the gypsies. So, if you are looking to get rid of your kids for awhile, might I suggest using the dancing monkeys to sell them on the idea?

 

 

December 2006

 

December 5, 2006

Katherine and Woody are in IL at Nana and Grandpa’s farm. They had snow the day before they arrived so Katherine is having a great time making snow angels and just playing. I miss my little chatterbox so I called today. She’s got a bit of a cold and sounded very stuffy but through the snot, the excitement and wonder still came through loud and clear.

 

I told her I missed her and she said “guess how much I miss you? All the way to the sky and back a hundred ninety nine thirty five times!”. Wow! I miss her that much…squared.

 

December 8, 2006

 

Dylan is the little red haired boy from Katherine’s class that says he’s her boyfriend. Katherine says “daddy is my boyfriend but Dylan is my friend”.  I had invited Dylan over for the gingerbread decorating party on Sunday but his mom just called and said he won’t be able to make it. We had a fun chat though. She said Dylan is in love with Katherine and he’s introduced him to her. Katherine is a lovely little girl and she thinks Dylan has good taste. LOL Apparently Dylan is suffering for his love. He has an older brother named Spencer and Spencer is ribbing poor Dylan to no end. Spencer drew a picture of Dylan rescuing Katherine from a big snake and he drew little hearts all around them. Dylan was ticked. I was laughing really hard when she told me that. I did not tell her that Katherine’s daddy and I are watching her son closely. J

 

Katherine and Woody are due back tomorrow from Illinois. I’ve gotten a lot done around the house and for work while they were gone as well as spending some quality time with Lauren. We’ve had a great time but I’m ready for the other half of the household to be home. I just don’t sleep well when my family isn’t all together under the same roof. Ok, so I’m a chicken. Go ahead, you can say it “bwack bwack!!” I haven’t been to sleep before 1am all week. I swear, I lived on my own for many years and now I get all whiggy….whatever. So last night, Lauren was sleeping and I was working at the computer. I hear a CRASH which sounds like someone has thrown a rock through a window. I FREAKED OUT! After summoning all of the bravery I have, I finally made it to the playroom where the stupid rats had pushed their ceramic bowl over the edge and dumped it on the next level of the wire cage. Grrrrrr.

 

December 11, 2006

 

Katherine has a great ear. Today, we were watching the Muppets Christmas Carol and Kermit was on for about 2.2 seconds when Katherine said “mom. That’s Earnie’s voice coming from that frog!” I listened for a few seconds and realized she was right. Kermit and Ernie are obviously done by the same puppeteer. I called my mom and she said that yes, she’d just heard something about how they were both done by Jim Henson. So funny that Katherine would notice that. I’ve been watching the Muppets and Sesame Street for oh…30 some years, and I’d never put them both together.  It reminded me that a long time ago, she heard a song and said “that’s the same man who sings in my little people video” and it was.

November 2006

 

November 1, 2006

 

Ok. Lauren is killing me with cuteness. Katherine has a game where she says “guess what” and you say “what” and she says “I love you”. Super adorable…I know, Right? Now, if you say “guess what” to Lauren, she says “I wuv you” then grins and buries her head in your shoulder. Killing me I say.