Jack's birthday

I'm just bad at this NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) stuff, I missed another day... or two.... Oh well.

But boy did we have a busy day yesterday.... that's my only excuse. We had Jackson's birthday party which was at a movie theater from 12 to 5. That's 5 long hours with 15ish eight to eleven year olds. We saw Planet 51 and the kids all loved it. The adults thought it was just okay (or at least I did). The best part as far as the kids were concerned.... while the aliens were seeing the human man naked for the first (and only) time one of them cocked his head and said... "uh that's an odd place to put your antenna." Brad and I were a little surprised the movie went 'there'. But there was much high pitched giggling from the little girls sitting in front of us and when polled later boys and girls alike cited that as their favorite part.

Before and after the movie we were in a party room that was actually situated on a balcony of sorts overlooking the main lobby of the movie theater. It had several games for the kids to enjoy; a basketball shot game, Foosball, ping pong, and air hockey along with a chalkboard the length of the room. The downside to all these games with balls was that occassionally the balls ended up down on the lobby floor. Luckily there were no serious injuries. Here are a few pictures....

Jackson looking sweetly at his brother (ok maybe he was looking at him with that know it all, I'm in charge today look - but from a distance it looks kind of sweet, wouldn't you agree?)

One of my favorite kids in the world (and Jackson's too) Jake.

Josh's ice cream cup exploded on him... oops.

Jack was in kindergarten with Niall and they've been friends ever since.

Teddy was in kindergarten with Niall's brother Devlin and they've been friends ever since. (it's nice how that's worked out so well!)

Teddy's best friend Matthew

Teddy

Chae, Sophie, and LaLia (Sophie and Jackson have been in class together since preschool and are known to carry on like an old married couple)

That's the card Sophie made for Jackson that includes a picture of them at the end of second grade - how cute is that.

Jack opening presents with Brad and the kids looking on.

At one point a bunch of the boys started an impromptu game of telephone...

While the girls played basketball and air hockey.

Then we took some group shots.....

Isn't this a handsome looking group!

Okay, perhaps they are a bit crazy at times

This is their movie star pose

Here they are very, very mad. Jack's so mad he's hiding.

Jackson couldn't believe that everyone was so surprised by my antics.

I think they've all had enough... well maybe not Jackson and Matthew.

Camela

Two little stories from today

1.) Whenever you leave the house (really it could be anyone leaving - we could have just met you) Bandit GOES BALLISTIC. He barks and jumps and runs and barks and runs back and forth across the house and more than anything he barks and a close second is he runs to whatever window he can see you from best (he travels around the house as the car drives away) and runs up to it as if he could go through it. Well..... we went and got our Christmas tree today and when we got back we were thrilled to discover Bandit had broken one of the windows and there was glass all over the dining room. Luckily the glass is double paned and even more luckily somehow Bandit didn't get hurt. AND even more, more luckily Brad had an extra window just hanging around in the basement. Seriously who has an extra window in the basement. Do you think there's any chance Bandit will learn not to slam the windows so hard?

2) We got back from seeing the Blind Side to drop off my MIL and then Brad and I were heading back out to go on a dinner date. I walked Ricky to drop some things off and was told that Jackson had inadvertently hit the Christmas clock with a tennis ball he was throwing for Bandit and it shattered the glass front. Then - not realizing it was actually glass, thinking it was just plastic, he through some of the pieces at Teddy's face. OMG. Jackson felt awful. (of course only awful that it was glass and could have actually hurt Teddy, not that he'd thrown something at his face - oh and he felt awful about the clock to begin with as well.) Luckily no one was injured and our extremely wonderful babysitter had it all cleaned up and out of the way lickity split. She said Jack was a model boy after that.

Camela

Decorating progress pictures

One of the fake trees; it's in the living room. I found a note in each of the two boxes of Christmas tree ornaments that I had written to myself last year. (I crack myself up) It says: CHRISTMAS TREE PLANS (1) Real tree in fam rm - Red & Gold ornaments w/a few others special ones (2) Fake Tree in Piano Rm - red, white, silver ornaments (3) Tree up high above door Tie securely left over gold OR silver shiny snowflake ornaments. We put the tree up high before I read the note so I didn't put the ornaments on it. I'll have to put them on when we take it down... oh well.

The newest tree. It's in the kitchen and perfectly sized because it's so narrow. It is where I'm putting up all the ornaments the kids have made over the years. I've been wanting to do this for a few years and thrilled I finally got around to getting it done.

The garland on the stairs that you see right as you walk in the front door.

The only real hallway on the first floor. The tree and garland can be seen from the street as you drive up to the house.

The snowflakes that are opposite the front door. A few years ago they were lighted stars which is really what I wanted. But then they died because we sort of ended up using them as a night light on the first floor until they burned out somewhere in the spring (oops). So the next year we went to get a replacement (cuz we couldn't get them lit again to save our lives), but they only had snowflakes. Then the same thing happened again last year and now this is the third string of odd lights we hang there. (and each year I like the strand less). But it's part of my grand plan to be able to turn off all the normal lights and only light the house with Christmas lights and candles for the party. Hopefully this will be the year. No lights - woo hoo!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day, spent with family and friends.

Our dinner was wonderful and I'm very thankful for my family. My parents divorced 25 years ago and I am very thankful that I was able to have both my parents and in this case my Dad's extended family along with my MIL all sitting down together for a nice, peaceful and fun Thanksgiving dinner. It's nice to be related to adults.

We had my grandfather who is 93 years old (I think) who still bowls every week and drives. He lives with one of my cousins who unfortunately had to work and wasn't able to be here. My Mom and step Dad and my Dad and step Mom and Brad's mom. My Dad's brother Gary and his wife Carol, his sister Marla and her husband Keith along with their two high school age kids; Sarah and Kevin. And my sister and her husband and my two wonderful nieces along with their Colombian born au pair, Angelica. My sister's girls and my boys ran around like crazy people as they often do and totally and dramatically destroyed my relatively straight bedroom. The boys did a reasonable job cleaning it though so it ended up being okay.

Teddy was in a good mood and overall very lovely and helpful all day long. It's so nice when I get glimpses of my wonderful boy. (another thing to be thankful for this year)

Camela

I'm sensing a theme

We went to some parent teacher conferences today for Teddy; four to be exact. One was band and we learned from him that Teddy is not as organized as he could be and often forgets his sticks and music book - Brad and I were shocked speechless... Our Teddy!!? Not organized? No. Not prepared? It can't be. Okay I'm done with band, now for the other classes.

Challenge Reading: Teddy is a really great kid, I really like him but he's consistently rushing through his classwork to get to whatever book he's reading instead of working more carefully on what he should be working on. He's getting a B but should easily be getting an A in my class. He's just not putting forth his best effort or really much effort as all. He's really smart and is basically skating by on smarts alone. With just a little bit of effort he'd have an A.

English: Teddy's a good kid; funny. He really rushes though his work during class, doing the bare minimum so he can pull out a book to read. Uh, he, um, well, he's really not putting forth much effort in here. He's getting a B but with just a tiny bit of effort, really just using the class time for what it's for; reviewing his work alone and with peers, he'd be getting an A. He is very smart and really should have a high A in here.

Social Studies: (very matter of fact) Teddy is getting an B. The place he could really bring up his grade would be in tests and quizzes, well except the county assessment. He's one of only 3 kids to have gotten 100% on the multiple choice part of the test and he got a perfect score on one of the written sections and only 2 points off of the other, so he did really well on that. He's really smart but he usually rushes through his classwork so he can pull out a book to read. Though even with that sometimes I'll call on him after he's been clearly reading for a while; head down, clearly engrossed in his book. I'll call on him to sort of point it out to him that he needs to be paying attention and he always gets the right answer so it's hard for me to even say anything about it. (Brad suggested she take the book away from him as soon as she sees it). He is really smart and is skating by on it. He's not putting forth any effort in here and with just a little effort on his part; even a quick review of the material before a test, he'd be getting an A.

Camela

Thanksgiving countdown - 3 days to go

On today's Thanksgiving agenda is;

- Grocery shopping for all the supplies. Brad did this earlier today and woo hoo, we have most of what we need - CHECK

- making the cornbread for the new cornbread stuffing recipe that I am going to make this year. It's a whim but man did it look good when I saw Michael Symon make it on Food Network. I'm not going so crazy as to make it from scratch or anything crazy like that, but I'm making the Jiffy Brand that several people I know like. I've made a part of what I need because Brad totally ignored the list I gave him and decided I said I needed 2 cups of cornbread instead of the 8 I actually need (he's at the store again right now).

- moving the tables around. I've decided to put several tables end to end and have one long table for the 21-22 people we have coming and I'm going to put it starting in the dining room and crossing the foyer and ending in the living room. I'll put a sign on the front door that tells people to come in through our garage - we're a casual bunch so that doesn't bother me at all. (As an aside to the number of people - we knew we were having 16 or 17 people coming (not sure about my BIL's mom yet) but hadn't heard from either my dad & step mom OR my mom and step dad. I think it's kind of funny that I managed to get answers from everyone except my parents. But today we learned that they are coming as well which is absolutely wonderful, I'm thrilled everyone can make it.)

So the table move though is going to require quite a bit of rearranging. First we need to move the drum set (in the LR also known as the music room) to the basement. I'm afraid I'm going to have to move the Xmas tree I already assembled in the LR as well and I'm not yet sure where it's going to go. Then the kitchen table moves to the dining room and the round "puzzle" table goes to the kitchen for our meals till after thanksgiving. Then the fold out dining room table from the sun room moves to the living room and the leaves for it need to be brought up from the basement. (I have this super cool folding table that has 2 leaves and expands to seat 10 I think, certainly 8. But without the leaves you push it together to card table size and then the top folds back onto itself and ends up half the size of a card table and has worked as a hall or foyer table in the various places we've lived for many years.

The best part about this table arrangement is that I can totally get everything set up now, or maybe tomorrow and it'll be out of the main traffic patter of our normal lives - so it won't bother our normal routine. And we'll then be able to use the round puzzle table as a serving table and people can fill their plates in the kitchen and then bring it to the table. I think it's a stroke of brilliance.

On tomorrow's agenda - making the stock for the stuffing, finding the table cloths, setting the table.

Camela

A couple of things

- I was struggling for a blog post tonight and Brad said I should write... "My husband's home, my husband's home" and let that be it. I almost went with that.

- When Teddy got home he was delightful and I saw a glimpse of my wonderful sweet kid - the one I know still hides inside his current surly exterior..... for about 10 minutes and then he ripped the foam finger Jackson was playing with and made Jack cry. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

- While cutting in around the baseboards today Bandit stood roughly three feet from me and barked and barked and barked and barked. I asked Jackson to throw a ball for him or something and he refused. I told him I was going to get rid of the dog if he didn't help me out (he knows full well I want to get rid of the dog but won't as long as the kids really, really don't want us to) and so he said - ... "weeeeell if you put it that way, I'd be happy to"

Okay, I'm all tapped out now.
Camela

My fun day with Jackson

It started first thing this morning - well if you don't count the little battle of wills that went on getting him into the shower first - and we went to his favorite restaurant Bob Evans for breakfast where he just about died and went to heaven with the ability to dip his french toast into whipped cream.

We headed from there downtown while he continued to quiz me with his Wimpy kid book questions to the aquarium. I tried and tried to get some nice pictures of him at these places but my camera shy little boy made that darn near impossible. We started almost immediately in the 4D Polar Express experience. It was fantastic though I have no idea what it has to do with aquatic things you expect to find in an aquarium!!! If you've not seen a 4D movie they are great fun; in addition to the 3D thing going on with the glasses you get poked in the back when the big pole comes towards you and water squirts you in the face if someone on screen sneezes and you smell chocolate if someone's drinking hot chocolate - so fun. The whole theater was just having fits of laughter (well except the really little kids who were screaming in terror but they were quickly removed so all was well).

We moved from there and explored "Australia" which Jackson particularly loved - lots of cool snakes and lizards in addition to all the fish. Then we went into the normal aquarium exhibits and saw lots of sharks and a big huge turtle we named Hugh to make it easier for us to talk about him. You can see the main tank from a lot of different places so we were always tracking Hugh. (as a side note: my dad can't say Hugh - he can't say the H sound when it's followed by a U sound so it comes out as "you" - it always makes me laugh. He can say "H" and "YOU" but not "HUGH" - he clearly didn't watch enough Sesame Street).

Once the Dolphin show was over we hit the souvenir shop and picked up Bailey (named after one of the dolphins) he's a monkey with a National Aquarium sweatshirt on.. (of course he is). Jackson was done with the fish and wanted desperately to paint pottery which was definitely on the weekend agenda, though I was thinking we'd do it on Sunday. But no, we headed over there and he made two penguins one in Steelers' colors with a 7 on the back named Ben and one with Redskins' colors with number 17 on the back named Jason - he did a great job and I totally forgot to take any pictures.

Finally done with the pottery (my little vase which will be a gravy boat of sorts took much longer than Jack's things) Jackson begged me to go back to Bob Evans for a repeat of his breakfast. He wore me down and back we went. Throughout the day I tried to take pictures of Jackson but he thwarted me at every turn. I caught him once, and finally at the end I convinced him to pose with his new friend Bailey. Here are some pictures of our day.

I love this kissy fish but I swear I've seen him before - can someone tell me where. I'm thinking he's maybe the narrator of a Disney cartoon my kids used to watch or something like that.

This is Hugh; our friend the turtle - or probably more correctly a tortoise (oh and he only has 3 fins/feet so I'm glad he's found a home here.)

A dolphin mid-air. I tried to get a lot of those but only managed to get a few

Another midair dolphin

A dolphin playing with a ball


And now for many of my pictures of Jackson for the day!

Jackson lying on a huge anchor in the Inner Harbor

As much of his face as he was willing to share with me

Jackson with the lizard lady

Jackson in the 4D movie

Jackson with a dolphin swimming by

I caught him - woo hoo!!!

Jackson at Bob Evans the second time

Finally my baby granted me with a nice picture with his new buddy Bailey.

A few things

Teddy and Brad are in VA. Teddy called me from a Japanese restaurant where he is clearly feeling very grown up; away with his dad. They went for a swim, watched a bit of TV and then headed out to eat. Tomorrow they're going to the comic book convention and I'm sure they're both very excited about it.

Jackson and I started our weekend at the book fair where he chose a few a few books and a really cool, very large, pen (nearly 2 feet long) that has a rubber replica of a foam finger - I really like it. Then we went to Uno's and had a lovely time as he quizzed me with the Wimpy Kid Do it Yourself book. He humored me by going into Target that was right next to Uno's. I'm on the lookout for a few more snowmen for a little collection I'm putting together on top of a cabinet and have been wanting to buy a small tree for the kitchen to hang all the kids hand made ornaments in one place, so I knew they might have something that I liked for that too.

In the tree section I found this small lighted tree that is already in a pot and I thought 2 of them would look great on the front porch so I looked closer and discovered they were on sale and came in a package of 2 for $40 - can you say sold. Then I looked for the tree for my kitchen and I narrowed it down to a short fat little tree that was really cute and a tall thin tree that was also wonderful. I had originally been looking for a short tree, but decided on the taller one (it's only 7.5 feet which is a normal size, but in the 11' high kitchen it'll look pretty small so that's still good). I picked it because of how narrow it is. Its overall footprint is just not that big and I think that'll be perfect for where I want to put it.

Brad will probably find out that I bought three more trees by reading this blog post while he's away (Hi honey) - and he'll shake his head and think what am I going to do with her (or at least that's what I hope he thinks). I'm hoping to have them put together and roughly in place, if not decorated before Brad gets home. (My family coming for Thanksgiving are going to think I'm confused about which holiday is happening since I believe we'll have 6 trees up in the house - though the two little ones will eventually go outside and the big, live one won't be bought until after thanksgiving).

Tomorrow Jack and I are heading to the aquarium and maybe a movie too, though he doesn't know about that possibility at the moment.

Camela

Some more random things

My new nativity set

I've been wanting a new nativity scene for quite some time. Actually it's only the figures that I wanted to replace because I like my manger. So this year I decided to actually find one and it took approximately half an hour and someone else's idea.

I was IMing with my friend Camille and surfing the web for choices and she so nonchalantly through out there - this is the one I want, I just haven't gotten around to getting it and she sent me the link to the Willow tree nativity set.

Well and ... I loved it. But of course my first reaction was I can't have the same one as her - I don't want to steal her idea. And certainly there have to be others out there that I'd like just as much, right?

And I'd need to stop using my manger because it wouldn't fit with these figures, so I kept looking, but I kept coming back to it. I especially liked how Mary is holding Jesus, I don't think I've seen that before; he's always nestled in with some hay, which is certainly fine but I just loved the love of the Jesus in her arms. I also loved, loved, loved the stars; I have a real thing for stars. And well then there's the camel. My name is Camela so it's not surprising that I have a warm place in my heart for camels (which, by the way, is what my college roommate called me; Camels)

I narrowed it down to a few and showed them all to Brad and he didn't hesitate when he saw it - "That's the one. It's so you... the whole sun and the moon and the stars thing, that's it!" and he walked away. (I say to the kids - I love you more than the sun and the moon and the stars in the sky - which is what my mom used to say to me).

Anyway, it came today!!! I'm so excited. I've set it up and I love it.

Go Green compressed bamboo towels


The nativity set shipped from a place called ThinkBamboo and it comes with a 10 pack of Go Green compressed bamboo towels. I've got no idea why. Maybe I should use the towels to keep the nativity set clean. Maybe they're just so jazzed about how teeny tiny they can pack the towels they want me to be wowed by it too? I have no idea, but I will say they do manage to package them very, very small and the towel itself is a good sized towel that I'm sure I could poke my finger threw if I so desired. The kids thought they were cool, so that's something.



My CPA calculator

In 1995 I passed the three day CPA test and got to put cute little letters after my name (which I never do). It took me 6 months to accomplish this, but I got it done nonetheless. For a part of the test you are allowed to use a basic calculator that they provide. It just has the very basic of functions but we were all thrilled to have it. It's more than 14 years later and darn if that thing doesn't still work. It's never had its battery changed, in fact it's screwed shut with no intention of it ever being opened. I just think it's amazing that it still works. A little aside about calculators... I was an economics, accounting and finance major where math was used in varying degrees in most of my classes and I was not allowed to use a calculator until my senior year in college, before that there were often pages worth of calculations to figure out an answer. And now today, my 11 year old son in 6th grade GT math was asked to buy this seriously intense scientific calculator for school. We won't let him use it at home, which used to really piss him off.


Speaking of 11 year olds

He was so in a mood tonight. So darn ornery it was difficult to speak civilly to him. He borrowed a book from the library but it's a bit different; it's called a book swap (I may have already mentioned that in an earlier post) and he's supposed to go to a website and talk about where he is and what book it is and some other things and then pass it on to someone else who will do the same thing once they've read it. Brad found the book on the floor in the corner near the bathroom.
B: Ted what's the deal with this book
T: it's a book (so full of attitude)
B: are you done with it?
T: yes (he didn't say but you could certainly hear in his tone "you idiot")
B: don't you need to do something with it?
T: No, I'm done (same tone)
B: it's a book swap book you need to do the stuff it says to do
T: (yelling from upstairs) OPEN THE FRONT COVER. READ WHAT IT SAYS. DO WHAT IT SAYS
Me to Brad: Beat him
B: TED, GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW
They go back and forth for a minute until Ted reluctantly apologizes and heads upstairs book in hand
T: I'm just going to put it on my bookshelf (the tone was back)
me: beat him


Then later he is packing for his trip with Brad this weekend which OMG has been one stupid ordeal after another and finally - finally - I'm able to get him up to bed. But right before he's going to get in bed he runs out of the room and down the stairs while I take calming deep breaths to keep myself from doing something I'll regret (at some point). He runs back (after a reminder) with my old MP3 player which I never fully understood how to use.
T: Mom, teach me how this works.
M: I'm not sure I know
T: it's yours and you don't know? (please hear the mocking tone there)
M: I'm sure I could figure it out, but I'm not going to try, it's way past your bedtime and you're going to bed right now.
T: I just put fresh batteries in it
M: that's good to know
T: I can't find my sansa shaker, I need music this weekend
M: that's a darn shame you didn't think of this before right now. (I got up to leave)
T: you've totally ruined my life

Camela

My schedule

Brad left on Sunday night and came home tonight in time to meet me in the parking lot of Teddy's 8pm basketball practice. Tomorrow night Brad will take Jackson to his basketball practice while I get Ted. On Friday Brad is picking Teddy up from school early and the two of them are heading down to VA to go to a comic book convention (cuz there hasn't been enough of that in our lives) and won't be back until Sunday. Jackson and I have a fun Mother/son weekend planned including trips to the Aquarium and to a paint your own pottery studio - he's ever so excited.

Then on Monday Brad's mom will show up for about 10 days. We have parent teacher conferences on Tuesday night and basketball practice on Wednesday night and then of course Thursday is Thanksgiving and we are hosting for 16-17 people, which we love to do, but of course it doesn't happen all by itself. Sometime between now and Thanksgiving, all the Christmas junk that is in the middle of the rooms (read boxes of artificial trees and other assorted decorations and piles of normal non Christmas stuff that needs to be taken out of the house) needs to find a home and the house needs to be cleaned, food shopping needs to happen, and a whole bunch of food needs to be made for people to begin arriving at 12:30 to watch football with dinner to be served at 3:00.

Then of course we will have 9 days until our Christmas party. So the rest of the decorating will have to happen and at some point we'll need to do more shopping (after we actually sit down and decide what to serve) and lots more food will need to be prepared, and I'll have to figure out what to wear (last year that never made it on the list and I was running around getting stuff ready till the bitter end and ended up just leaving my jeans on all night long - which I guess is better than taking them off at some point.) Of course there will also be lots of MIL entertaining happening in there as well; at least a movie or two, some shopping, hair appointments...

There's just lots of stuff
Camela

More fun with the 6th grader

Teddy: hum hum hum (the same three notes over and over from a Jonas Brothers show)
Jackson: Teddy stop
T: hum hum hum
J: Teddy!!!
T: hum hum hum
J: would you just stop it!
T: hum hum hum
J: TEDDY STOP IT!!!
Mom: Teddy would you please stop
T: STOP WHAT?
M: humming
T: but he's being SO annoying
M: silence
T: He is!!!
M: silence
T: he's totally annoying me
M: silence
T: he's over there telling me to stop humming and I want to sing!!! (He was totally serious and completely annoyed)
M: Ted, I think you're annoying him
T: HUMPH!!! OH FINE!!! GREAT, JUST GREAT!!!!
M: Ted
T: JUST FINE!!!! FORGET IT!!!!!
M: Ted, why don't you go upstairs and finish your homework there.

My darling Teddy - let's try again

I just reread (is that how you spell that?) my NaBloPoMo posts and see I've been mostly ignoring my darling eldest son and well we can't have that now can we.

He's in shall we say a difficult stage. He's 11 going on 48, smart as a whip (and he knows it too which is not necessarily a good thing - can you say EGO), in 6th grade, he has my looks only done just perfectly but he is Brad. If ever on this planet there were two people who were the same exact individual it's these two.

Brad has conned the poor unsuspecting Teddy into liking the original Star Trek, which is extremely upsetting to me. But it's so true that Teddy and Brad will randomly have conversations in the middle of the mall about which episode this or that reminds them of. Unfortunately more and more it's Ted who brings this up. "Wow Dad that's just like Trouble with Tribbles" (that's the only actual title I know). Jack and I slink to the other side of the aisle when this happens.


Brad's an engineer and I'm a CPA; we're both very good at math and so far it looks like both boys are also going to be very good in this area as well... but when first learning math it was very difficult for Teddy and I to have meaningful conversations about it. Brad and Teddy process things in exactly the same way which is starkly foreign to my very logical brain. Brad could explain things to him in what I consider this odd, random, a$$ backwards way - really using only 1/2 sentences because immediately Teddy would totally and completely follow what he was saying. Whereas I'd try to go over things in a logical step by step method and Teddy would run screaming from the room beyond frustrated. For quite a while he didn't believe I knew a damn thing about math until he finally literally tested me; absolutely sure I would get all his problems wrong. When I got them all immediately correct he accepted that we get to the answer differently but if he'd be patient I could in fact help him completely understand something - and now we do just fine. The funny thing about this math thing is that Jackson and I process things the same way and the opposite thing is proving true with Jackson - he can more easily follow what I'm telling him than Brad.

As for the difficult stage thing - here's a bit of our interaction last night (of course Brad’s out of town)

We moved a small love seat that had been in our room into Jackson ’s room a while back and he’s taken to sleeping in it every night. Last night I put Jackson to bed on the couch and was waiting while Ted got out of the shower. I went down and put out the recycling only to find them fighting and Jackson near tears when I came back upstairs. Teddy had decided that the memory card in the Sansa Shaker that Jackson had been listening to all day long belonged to him and that it was imperative he retrieve it right that moment complete with threats of memory card and Sansa destruction. I got Jackson calmed down and back in bed and went in to talk to Teddy.

M: what were you thinking, he was already in bed

T: he was not in bed

M: yes he was

T: no he wasn’t

M: Jeez Teddy, I put him there, of course he was… lights out, door closed, past bedtime, these are clues.

T: he was not in bed! He was on the couch.

(oh for the love of God – please give me strength)

M: That’s where he sleeps, it’s where he has been sleeping and it’s not the point. It’s past his bedtime, you knew I was putting him to bed, his lights were out, his door was closed. If you have an issue to discuss with him it can wait until the morning, you cannot disturb him after he’s gone to bed!

T: he wasn’t in bed!

(I get up and leave the room so as not to rain all my icky parts all over him while I explode)

Camela

Random thoughts

I'm totally stealing this idea from another friend's blog.

The Wizard of Oz part 2
I was totally looking forward to watching the rest of the movie with Jackson to hear what he had to say next about it. I was particularly looking forward to the flying monkeys - I mean how was he going to explain that one. But no-oooo. My darling husband let me sleep in this morning which was delightful, but they finished watching it without me while I was still in bed. And I didn't even find this out until after Brad was on a plane to FL this evening so I couldn't even ask him what Jackson said.

Flag Football
Jackson's last game was today and they shut out their opponent. Jackson scored at least one TD (I missed the beginning of the game so I don't know what happened then). It's totally fun to watch him turn on the afterburners and just flat out out run everyone else on the field. Though next year he'll be playing in the 9-12 year old group as a 9 year old and I'm guessing he won't be the fastest anymore. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Disliking people
Hi my name is Camela and I dislike people. It's a problem for me. And really more than disliking them, I don't do them well at all. I've tried to get over it, but I swear I just can't - though I guess it's possible I just don't want to at this point. Most people who know me think I'm this loud, very personable, "people-person", but oh jeez is that not the truth. Thankfully Brad likes people and they like him so he smooths things out for me.

Being funny
Sometimes I can manage it and clearly like now, sometimes I just can't. Oh well. I don't know why sometimes the amusing little anecdotes just fall out of me and other times I'm as dry as the desert.

Camela

The Wizard of Oz - from Jackson's perspective

Jackson is watching the Wizard of Oz for the first time. He's less than a month from turning 9.

First let me say that I know that lots kids watch this movie over and over and over again when they are little and it's just not a big deal - too young to really be scared of it. But I loved the ritual of it - watching it once a year and being scared and being excited to be scared and whatnot. BUT, I didn't want my kids to be scarred by it like some adults I know (you know who you are) so I wanted them to be old enough to watch it before I let them see it. When Teddy was about 6ish he and I watched it together and it was fun, but then I guess I forgot about Jackson - so here we are tonight.

So we're all sitting here watching it and it's just not going according to plan....

Teddy is playing on the computer and Jackson is half watching him and half watching the movie. And Jackson is doing a running commentary of the movie's special effects. It started off with "Mom, is this whole thing in black and white"

Then while watching the Wicked Witch of the West show up in Muchkin Land he's yelling at the TV "Hey she just showed up through a trap door. See! See! It's right below her!"

Then my personal favorite.... Glenda the good which is leaving Munchkin Land and if you remember she does that in a bubble that gently floats away getting smaller and smaller until you can't see it anymore. Jack just looked back to us and said... "That bubble is staying the same size." Brad was not following him and said "No bud, it's getting smaller what do you mean?" "Da-ad, it's just moving to a greater distance away so it looks smaller. Look" and he held his hand palm out towards Brad and slowly pulled it away and with a total know-it-all attitude he said "is my hand getting smaller?"

Brad and I both just totally cracked up.

The Wicked Witch zooms off after the snow wakes Dorothy and friends up from the poppy field and says "Fly, get there as fast as lightening" (or something along those lines) to which Jack responded "it's not as fast as lightening - you'd be there already"

They walk into Emerald City for the first time; Jackson jumps up and says "out of nowhere guess - I think they like green" (he thinks he's so funny)

I'm enjoying things from his perspective; it's given a whole new twist to the old movie.

Jackson's new robe

A couple of years ago I got the boys bathrobes which they were excited about and wore a couple of times until they realized the ties came out and then it was way more fun to tie things up then wear a stupid old robe. Well, about two or three months ago Jackson started wearing his robe again. It still has the little tie thing inside of it but he's been mostly holding it shut while wearing it. He started by wearing it after he got out of the shower but then it evolved into putting it on when he's just going to watch TV in the mornings on the weekend.

Not too long ago he came and very politely asked if he could have a new robe; one that had a tie that worked. Now of course I could have just fashioned a tie out of something (even a tie), but the robe was also a little small for him by this point so I told him we could probably work something out. Well today, I was at Target and came across the cutest robe that had Jackson's name all over it..... Okay it really had skulls all over it, but I knew that Jackson would absolutely LOVE it. I thought about hanging onto it to give it to him for his birthday or Christmas, but I decided a robe was something I could just give him so I did. And he was so gleefully delighted he jumped up and down and said thank you a million times. He immediately put it on and I'm fairly sure he's going to want to wear it for the whole weekend.

I went down to take a picture of him for this post and being Jackson, who hates pictures with a passion that took some work. He finally agreed if I let him put on sunglasses... uh sure. Then I took a bunch of pictures and thought several were very cute so I decided to include them here. Thank you to Camille for this blog post idea - I was totally stuck.

Even Bandit the evil wonder dog thinks he's a little scary.

He knows he's cool.

I totally tricked him into smiling. He was so mad when he saw the picture.

My Hometown - Annapolis

In trying to find a way not to miss any more days of posting in November I am stealing an idea from my friend Camille's blog. Apparently she has some sort of journal jar that has little pieces of paper in it with questions on them and one of the questions was: Describe the main street of your hometown.... And well that's a great one for me.

I grew up in Annapolis, Maryland and I believe in my heart of hearts it's the very best place in the world. If you've never been there you should book a trip as soon as you can - the warmer months are the best.

Annapolis is a quaint historic town at the mouth of the Severn River right where it opens up to the Chesapeake Bay. You sail under the Bay Bridge heading towards the Severn River at the last minute you bear left (port since we're on the water) and head down Ego Alley; so named because many a person takes their boat both sail and power down this narrow strip of water sitting smack dab in the middle of Annapolis to show off. And there you sit sipping a cold beer taking in the beauty that is Annapolis.

The main street of Annapolis is in fact called Main Street and it's one of the prettiest streets in the world. It's a one way up hill brick paved street starting at Ego Alley and ending at Church Circle. It was originally paved in big beautiful cobble stones. Sometime well before I was born the cobbles were replaced by brick and the old cobbles somehow became the retaining wall in the back yard of my grandparents house who lived a bunch of blocks from Main Street. Church circle is as you guessed a circular street that surrounds a church; St. Anne's Episcopal Church to be exact. This is the church I grew up in. It's the church my mom went to when she was a kid. It was the church my grandpa went to when he was a kid. The little cemetery within the wrought iron fence that surrounds the church has headstones that date back to the 1600s.

The street itself is lined with quaint little shops full of old Annapolis Charm. A delightful mix of homemade ice cream, wonderful baked goods, nautical shops, and plenty of preppy clothing stores. If you need a bright pink belt with green trim and a whale buckle there's no doubt you can find it here. Main Street is the place to go for all kinds of things; Docksiders or espadrilles or flouncy church hats, ropes, lines, canvas bags, a bushel of crabs, a cold beer, a night out, an afternoon stroll, a nice time with old friends, amazing people watching, history, beauty... peace.

Can you tell I love and miss Annapolis - we may have to figure out how move back there.