Farts R Us

In my continuing effort to provide my children with a highbrow sense
of humor, I have opened a door. It started innocently enough.

We all know how much Iove my iPhone. One of the first apps I
downloaded from the App Store was called "whoopie cushion". Much like
it sounds, a little box with a pink whoopie cushion icon appeared on
my phone. Every time you push the button,my phone emits a different
"fart" sound. You know who loves fart sounds ( besides me, of course)?
My three year old!

Yes, Griffin and I spent a solid 10 minutes giggling over the various
sounds coming out of my phone. He enjoyed it enough to start asking
for it by name: "Mommy, can I play the fart game?"

Today, while in the dollar store, I found something even better: a
real whoopie cushion! I brought it home to show my son the real thing.
He spent most of the evening blowing up and "deflating" the whoopie
cushion, much to our mutual delight.

Sometimes, there's nothing as funny as a good old fashioned fart joke.

I Know, I Know

We leave for our vacation in a mere 2 days, and what am I doing?
Laying on the couch, drinking wine and watching So You Think You Can
Dance. Productive? No. Enjoyable? Yes.

Sent from my iPhone

The Future Is Now

I am updating this blog from the palm of my hand! Yes, I realize that
technically I'm sitting right next to my computer, and not actually
"on the go" at the moment. But Imagine the possibilities!

I will demonstrate a small snippet of my newfound bloggerific
abilities by posting a photo of the loudest dog known to man. Don't
let the sweet face fool you!

Sent from my iPhone

Crunch Time

We are rapidly approaching that time of the the summer I like to call "crunch time". Our weekends are getting few and far between, and all of those grand plans we made at the start of the summer are staring us in the face. The big question: will we have time to fit it all in, and if not, what will go on the back burner?

In my past life as a retail manager, there was never a question, the answer would be "no, we will not fit it all in." At that time, I had one free weekend a month, and those were typically filled up with plans at least six months in advance. While I do not miss that type of rigid scheduling, it was nice to know there was a cutoff somewhere. Now, I have high hopes and aspirations, but then quickly degenerate into stress and tension when these jam-packed weekends present themselves to me.

I am looking forward to our upcoming vacation, but that is another kind of "crunch time". Thanks to Delta's $15.00 "first bag" policy, we are trying to restrict ourselves to 2 checked bags. I am a championship overpacker at the best of times, but faced with a STRICT limitation like this, I am a quivering mess. On the one hand, my kids are small, and their clothes take up little room. On the other hand, they are kids, and prone to spilling, drooling, an the occasional bout of "spit up", and we need to be prepared for these occurrences by bringing multiple shirts, shorts bathing suits, you get the picture!

I will try my hardest not to let my stress about our summer plans keep me from enjoying the very things that we are looking forward to, but it's hard. I'll just keep telling myself "one day at a time" until I wake up and it's autumn already.

Let Freedom Rain

We had high hopes for this Independence Day weekend. On Friday morning, we packed up our family and headed out to IHOP for a breakfast of champions and a planning session. A three day weekend stood before us, ready to be filled with family bike rides, beach trips, parades and kids carnivals. Ah, how optimistic we were!


Friday was filled with errands in preparation for the festivities. While there were clouds overhead, we were still dry at noon, debating on whether or not we could squeeze in a trip to the playground before heading home. Our debate was finished when the sky opened up for a mini-monsoon that continued on throughout the day. The rest of Friday was spent cooking delicious Southwestern Eggrolls, and getting psyched for Saturday's big event, the parade!


Saturday morning dawned cloudy and cool, but dry. My husband and son were able to sneak out for a bike ride, while the baby napped and I packed us up for the parade. I saw a few beams of weak sunlight poke their way through the clouds, and I smugly thought that we'd be all set for a 45 minute parade. Uh-huh.


As our car pulled into the tiny town post office, the sky turned ominously gray. Before our seat belts were off, the rain was falling. We hunkered down in the car until we found a break in the clouds, then made our move. The baby and I set up camp under a tree, the boys put on their rain gear, and we waited for the parade to come through.

Waiting for the parade to start...

Someone was thrilled that he was allowed to play in the puddles!

Watching the first REAL parade with Daddy

In the end, we got to see our parade, Griff got to wave his flag (bought for $1, and repaired approximately 5 times before the parade actually started!), and a good time was had by all.

Yay!

Gun Control

My husband and I are not, shall we say, gun enthusiasts. Naively, we thought by not buying toy guns for our little guy, we could avoid the idea of weaponry for our kids, at least for a little while.

Yeah, right.

Daycare is beautiful in that your kids are exposed to all kinds of things, including other kids who play "shoot the bad guy" games. It's not uncommon for our little guy to run around with his toy golf clubs, taking aim and making the obligatory "gun noises" that little boys seem to make almost instinctively.

While I am not crazy about this practice in general, I had to laugh this morning when I overheard my husband nicely ask Griffin to call his shooty toy a "power wand" instead of a gun. When I saw the look my son gave him, I had to laugh even harder. It was like seeing a preview of his teenage face, embarrassed both for and by my husband. Add an eyeroll, and he could have been a very short 13 year old.

They grow up so fast.