communication gap

you may have noticed a lack of posts in the last week. sorry 'bout that. just have been very busy-

a) getting t.willie settled into preschool
b) getting bilbo ready for his vacation
c) getting around to those pesky house cleaning jobs that are not easy to do with a small "helper"
and also
d) just not much to blog about

but i did want to share with you a short conversation between t.w. and i.

he: gammie?

me: t.willie?

he: yes, gammie?

hahahahahaha he kills me!! such a short attention span, he forgot he started the conversation!

grateful:
1. for the beautiful weather
2. that when the "check engine" light lit up on my car, it didn't mean anything except that my gas cap was loose-yay!
3. that t.w seems to like school pretty well, although he says "there's too much kids!"

underwear acrobat

ta da!!!

look ma, no hands!
the flying dutchman!

grateful for:
1. unconventional photo ops
2. cooler weather cooler weather cooler weather
3. have i mentioned cooler weather?

her new dress

365 Days. 365 New Outfits. 365 Dollars.

that's the idea behind this chica's very cool blog, "new dress a day". several months ago, marisa lost her job. to help herself out of a rut, she decided to challenge herself with spending $1 a day, every day for a year to buy and remake a dress.

day 245

she's cute, she's perky and her accompanying anecdotes are really funny.

she is currently on day 263 and her upcycled frocks are pretty amazing!

check this out:

huge dress before
huge dress after
pink dress before
pink dress after
last example-
red, white and blue before
red, white and blue after so, check her out, she will inspire you to go ahead and keep that old bride's maid dress!!

oh, and one last thing, take a gander at these two pics- the first one is my niece, kip and the second one is miss marisa above....they are possibly twin sisters of different mothers!!


grateful today:
1. that the rain stopped
2. that i get to torture my daughters any time i want
3. that t.willie's bedtime is EARLY!

they grow up so fast (sniff sniff)

big day today- t.willie's first day of preschool. he was pretty excited but nothing like i was! seriously, this grandma needed some time off!

we bought all the supplies the school requested, the nap mat, the lunch box and he was ready to go...several weeks ago. it took him a while to understand "school would start SOON."

he'd ask "when i go to school, gammie?"

last night, he saw me packing up his set of extra clothes for "emergencies", and asked me what i was doing. i told him they were his extra clothes for school. he thought about that for a few seconds then started running down the hallway as he said "i better get my mat and bwanket!"

so you would think the excitement would have carried over to this morning, but NOOOOO!

first, he woke up too early, so that he was whiney about an hour after he got up. then, he refused to actually eat his breakfast, refused to wear what had been chosen for him- choosing instead, this bathing suit and ball cap ensemble. then he stalled when i said it was time to go.

so i get him in the car, we arrive at school, and he sees all the other kids. he did look pretty interested...until we were about to go through the gate to the preschool area. he stopped short and told me "i'm not going in dare." well, it was early, i didn't push it. i let him walk around a bit and peek into the windows that looked into the basement-level rooms. when it was time to go in, i actually had to carry him because he was quickly moving in the opposite direction.


once inside his room, he realized that was the window we had looked into. he didn't pay any attention to his teacher, ms. fannie, just checked out all the toys. as a couple more kids arrived, i thought he seemed to be relaxing a bit. so i took my cue from a mom who was kissing her boy good bye, to go. he kissed me, barely even looking at me, and that was it! he was totally fine- that's our boy!

grateful:
1. that t.w.'s first day went smoothly
2. that you can still find a preschool for $10 a day
3. that i will have two days a week to do what i want

friday funny

a cartoon, a joke and a story

cartoon-

joke- What did the fish say when he swam into the wall?
Dam

story- t.willie was taking a bath yesterday. he was having a great time playing with lots of cups and scoops and a watering can. i was across the hallway checking email but would go check on him every few minutes, as he has strong urges to dump water on the floor.

at one point, he called me in there. i went in and asked him what he wanted. he pointed to a little cup of water setting on the side of the tub and said, "dat's my pee dare." i repeated, "that's your pee there?" "yeah", he proudly answered. i looked closer and saw that, indeed, the "water" was yellow. as i was reprimanding him and dumping the offending liquid into the toilet, i could not help but picture him and the accuracy it took to execute the crime.....boys, ya gotta love 'em!!!

grateful:
1. for gentle summer storms
2. magazines in my mailbox
3. boxed flavored noodles

fireflies in my stomach

so, my online pal, yael, wanted to know what new music i had discovered. i will, again, remind you all that i am not quite up with current trends and such. so this "new" music is actually a year old but it's new to me!!

here is fireflies by owl city...love the song, love the video...enjoy!



check out his other songs too...

grateful for:
1. air conditioning in my house
2. air conditioning in my car
3. air conditioning in the stores

the lowe's fairy returns

yes, it's a bee-you-ti-full day in the neighborhood when the lowe's truck pulls into my driveway! as you may recall, our old, decrepit washing machine died in april and the lowe's fairy brought us a new one. since the dryer held on a bit longer, it has not been replaced until today. and what a happy day it is!

other random news-

t.willie has finally realized he can climb out of his crib. i knew this day would come, but i have been dreading it. when you can no longer control kids, they start controlling you! yes, you can put them into bed but they can take themselves back out...damn! okay, he's almost three, i guess we'll just have to deal with it.

here is a picture of a visitor who came to the door:

say hello to mr. cicada...yikes! i hate those things!


grateful for:
1. my new dryer
2. discovering new bands(music) to love
3. restful(read "boring") weekends

the things he says

t.willie, like most preschoolers, says a lot of funny things. he is smart and he is observant and he hears everything!

the other day, he and i were throwing a pillow at each other, just being silly. after a short while, he started throwing things off his mother's bed. when she asked him what he was doing, he laid down and said "clearing a spot, gammie wore me out!"

a couple days ago, t.w was whining and carrying on about something (or nothing!) and it was getting on my nerves. so i told him to stop his fake crying. he whined back at me "i can't stop my fake crying!"

today, he and i went to the hospital to visit bilbo who is currently working there (doing construction). so i explained that this was a hospital and we were going to meet pop there. as t.w. and i were approaching the automatic glass doors, he looked upward and said with assurance, "this is the airport!"

and the best one:

we were at my parents' house and animal planet was on tv. the story was about a three legged dog who had been taken in by a caring family. i said to t.w. "see, that dog is missing a leg. but he doesn't mind."
and he thought for a few seconds and said "let's find him a leg."

grateful:
1. that the long, hot summer is coming to an end...i hope!
2. for fresh corn on the cob
3. that a funny little guy lives with me- i mean t.willie, not my honey, bilbo baggins! although i am glad he lives with me too!

it's about TIME

so one time, a long long time ago, bilbo, the gals and i went to michigan at thanksgiving time. bilbo's mom was living there at this time, and we had never been. it was winter time, of course, and there was snow on the ground. when it came time for dinner, my mother-in-law had done the whole deal-thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.

now, i forgot to mention, that we had left thanksgiving day, after first eating dinner at my parents' house. we drove however many hours(i forget the time) it took us to get to michigan, and the very next day ate that big dinner at my mother-in-law's! i gotta tell ya, i did not need another big meal at that time! but it was yummy. she was, at that time, as now, a very good cook.

so where this story is heading, is this... bilbo's mom had, at that time, a clock/radio/phone on her bedside table. i had said that i liked it and she said so did she. and she told us where she had gotten it and said that she thought they still had them. well, at that time, i was in the market for a new clock radio and i liked the idea of one with a phone attached. heck, you could tell the time, listen to music AND talk on the phone all at the same time!

so we went and bought one and took it home.

fast forward in time twenty one years and we are now talking current time.

the other evening, bilbo was getting ready for bed and was reaching for his sudoku book when he heard the radio on my clock/radio/phone come on. at this time, he called me into the room. he said it came on, played two lines of a song and then went off. i didn't believe him, as he has been known to bullshit from time to time. but i turned the radio on and it was playing the song he said he heard.

yeah, weird, i know! but it got me thinking and i remembered that time, so long ago, that we had gone to michigan at thanksgiving time and gotten it.

so i said, "remember that time we went to your mom's for thanksgiving?" he said "yeah." so i mentioned that the girls had been 5 and 3 at that time, so it was like, 21 years ago. a good ripe age for a clock/radio/phone!

well, at my bedtime that night, i set my alarm and went to bed. the next morning, the alarm came on at the correct time and i turned it off. i laid back in bed to wake up a bit more and ten seconds later-BOOM! on came the radio again! i just laid there and giggled at that time, thinking about our conversation the night before.

well, i thought, i guess it's my clock/radio/phone's time.
time for a new alarm clock!

grateful:
1. for appliances that stand the test of time
2. for time to reflect on the past
3. for good times with my honey