Not a post on their own, but if you smoosh them all together? YES!…The sequel
-We found a black widow and her egg nest underneath the seat of The Son’s pedal car today. Needless to say, I spent a good hour tonight googling pictures of black widow bites and their symptoms. Since he is seizure free and no limbs have fallen off, I think we are in the clear.
-Remember that tick I found on my breast? (Breast sounds so clinical, but I really don’t like boob, we usually call them Nur-Nurs around these parts.) I found ANOTHER ONE. I am pretty sure this means either a. My breasts spend to much time outside or b….. actually there is no b, a is the right answer. I have breastfed more than my fair share in the great-outdoors. I think only women who live in mud huts and wear sarongs everyday have me beat at this point.
-Every time I tell The Son that big boys drink from cups, not Nur-Nurs, he grabs my hand and says “Nap-nap, Mama. I sleepy.” Can you tell nap time is one of the three times a day he still gets to nurse?
-We went camping about ten minutes away from our house this weekend. We came home and watched The Incredibles, took Benadryl and had naps yesterday morning, and then resumed our regularly scheduled camping experience. Shoeshe went with us on Friday night, and you know what she negated to tell me before she said she wanted to come? She has NEVER BEEN CAMPING!! (that gets one more exclamation point because we live in a gorgeous state, perfect for doing outside stuff)! She also did not bring a sleeping bag. When I tried to give her one of ours she refused….she slept on the cold, hard ground with a wee little mat and a blanket. I am assuming she will run screaming the next time someone offers to take her camping.
-We sing songs around campfires. I know, I know that sounds corny….and it probably is, but I do not care, I love it. Friday night Shoeshe had her guitar and played, and The Son and my Grandpa sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star together, and then my Grandpa sang You are My Sunshine to my Grandma. I hope I never, ever forget those moments. (Remind me to tell you sometime about when my other grandparents renewed their vows on their fiftieth anniversary.) Last night we were roasting marshmallows (smarmallohs to The Son), my mom started singing and The Son said, “No Grammy, onwe ((only)) Swoesee ((Shoeshe)) sing. I want Swoesee.” Aww. He loves her. (could be all the presents)
-Shoeshe left some guitar thingy and a book at the campsite. Whenever she comes to visit, The Husband and I play this little game called, “What will Shoshe leave us this time?” She just got back her camera and a bag of jewelry from the last visit. I am hoping next time she leaves that sweet (insert our Alma mater here) sweatshirt she was wearing.
-The Son has had a black eye this week (it came from an overly enthusiastic hug from a stick wielding, almost two year old buddy). Today before we put him in the tub to wash away the woodsmoke/bug spray/marshmallow odors and the playground dirt held on with pancake syrup and layered over dried leaf bits held on by more marshmallows he looked ready to pose for a neglected child poster. He even had on a droopy pull up and one sock. I did not take a picture, and it was only cute because he has never looked like that before.
-An extremely heavily edited version of this was published here. They left out the parts about The Husband, and I hate that because he should get every accolade possible heaped upon him for his superb daddy skills. It is still super cool to have something I wrote published in a real live magazine. They sent me several copies, so if anyone wants one, let me know and I will mail it to ya…..it is a real magazine, but they don’t exactly sell it at Wal-mart.
-We are going away (I know, are we EVER at home anymore?) at the end of this week with the elder (edited: but not old) Huckablogs, so this and maybe only one or two more posts will be all you get this week. How about you do this to keep yourself occupied, and email the results (heyyou at thehuckablog dot com) for a future post.
Filed under Breastfeeding, Family-blame the DNA, Friends-All three of them, Parenting for Dummies | Comments (3)Oh, Snap!
The Huckablogs are spending a couple of days with the elder Huckablogs at their country compound in picturesque Middle of Nowhere. I tried to post last night, but the only computer available hadabrokenspacekey. Very.VERY.ANNOYING. Going through internet withdrawal, I swiped MMIL’s work laptop to get my daily fix. Must have email. Must have email, ahhh, spam, that’s the stuff.
Last night we went to the Middle of Nowhere County Fair…..and…..I got hit on by a Carney. Yes, the 400 pound man wearing a greasy t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and hairy arms thought I still had IT. I tried to hand him my four fuschia tickets so that I could ride the Cobra all by myself. (I am the only Huckablog who will ride anything fun. Yet. I had to give birth to my own roller coaster buddy, but he is a little wee just yet.) So Mr. Carney leaned in real close to me as he helped me in to the spinning bucket of death and said, “Honey, keep your tickets. This ride is on me and you can ride all you want.” Um. ewww. Did I mention that The Husband, The Son, MMIL and FFIL were like fifteen feet away watching from the side lines? Smelly Mr. Carney then made the ride go backwards….for a really, really, REALLY long time. I stumbled out of the SBoD (spinning bucket of death) on my own so he would not try to help me down. The Husband did not seem at all jealous when I told him about my new admirer. He laughed at me instead. I tried to tell him about the Taco Bell employee who gave me a free fruit freezee thing because I was “working it.”, but it seems that he does not feel threatened by carneys or teenage fast food employees. (Please do not send me emails about how your Daddy is a Carney and he has sleeves and works triple shifts to put you through Wellesley or something. I get it. Carneys are people too.) I felt really sick (maybe from the half a fair eggroll? Or the half a fair barbeque sandwich? Or the half a cold fair hot dog?) after the SBoD ride, so I shared my grape sno-cone with The Son and we went back to the compound.
Oh speaking of The Son, it seems when you go to the fair with your Gigi and Pappaw, you get to ride what ever you want. He rode an alligator shaped kiddie coaster, spinning ladybugs, a sparkly, wheelie-popping motorcycle, and a rotating Jeep. I went to strap him into the Jeep, and the seat belt (you are going to think I am exaggerating here, but this is the truth, I swear!) was half a bungee cord, and the other half was one side of the blue seat belt from a Wal-Mart shopping cart. It still had Wal-Mart imprinted on the faded fabric strap. I was then supposed to tie the two parts together around my precious only child’s abdomen. Yeah right. I asked the skinny, Lucky smoking carney if I could ride with The Son and he said, “if you think you can.” I wedged into the “back seat” (really that would be ten inch fiberglass wide spot)of the toddler sized Jeep, hung on with one arm, leaned forward and held The Son tight with the other. With a creak and the three non-burnt out bulbs flashing, we jerked forward, and I slipped deeper into the “seat”. It spun, and spun, and went entirely too fast for a kiddie ride, and I was extremely grateful when the ride ended.
Last night I stayed up way late enjoying my in-laws DISH. I watched Project Runway, The Rachel Zoe project, Top Design, and then some show about a scary British hair stylist. I stumbled to bed at two or three AM, and then this morning went to the Middle of Nowhere County fair parade with The Son and MMIL. He loved it; fire trucks, horses, floats, bands, and beauty queens–what is not to like? Actually, I enjoyed myself too, I love doing stuff like that. On the way back to the compound, about twenty minutes away, I realized that we had forgotten to pick up The Son’s pictures (stay tuned for those) we had taken! When I brought this to MMIL’s attention her response was “OH, CRAP!”. Immediately The Son said, “OH, CRAP!” Great. Now my baby knows a PG-13 word. Always the quick thinking educator, she said, “Gigi said OH, SNAP! Can you say OH, SNAP?” So for the rest of the day we said, “Oh, Snap!” whenever crap would have been appropriate. I am not entirely sure that The Son bought it, but he has not repeated “Oh, Crap” again. He is probably waiting until he is at church in front of my eighty year old grandmother. It’s okay, MMIL. My Mom accidentally taught him “shut up” while yelling at her dogs.
Can you hear my Mom somewhere moaning about what I post online? “Oh, SNAP!”
I am the Walrus. Coo-Coo, KaZOO!
I am not really a walrus. In fact there are no walruses (walrusi?), or any kind of sea mammals anywhere in this post, I just like the title. You know me, anything for a Beatles reference. We had been planning on going to the zoo for several weeks, and the day we had planned to go dawned cool (for August in the South anyway), cloudy, and gloomy. We decided to go anyway and were joined by the last minute addition of MMIL and BIL! It was awesome because the zoo was practically empty of annoying people. (Although there was this one lady who kept screaming at her kids and was not wearing a bra, and she REALLY needed a bra. She could have tripped on those things. Did I ever tell you about the waitress at the restaurant we always went to in college who never wore a bra? We had to duck when she passed out our food. Remember her Cat? Tark?) What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the zoo.
So anyway, I have been holding on to the pictures that we took the day we went to the Capital City Zoo for three weeks now just waiting to be inspired to write a post about them. It turns out that looking at other people’s zoo pictures is boring. So I made a silent, short film instead. Cannes here I come!
Enjoy.
Hupdates
I am down to the teeniest tinest dosage of Lexapro possible and the ughs are back. Dizzy? Check. Nauseous? Check. Tired? Check. The computer screen is whirling around, so I went to post a really cute post I wrote ages ago about my bridesmaids….and it is gone. Poof, the computer gnomes ate it. So I was going to post pictures of our trip to the zoo….and I could not look at the screen long enough to re-size them for the blog.
In an effort to get some fresh air and try to clear out the cobwebs in my brain, I suggested we give the Olympics (The Son call them the Dum Dum Dums because of the music) a break and head outside. I know, a family project! How about we clear out the weeds over in our side yard. The Husband will chop ‘em down, and The Son and I will tote them to the curb. I knew it was bad when I heard him curse. My husband NEVER curses. Not even Damn. Or Hell. Or Bitch. (Obviously I have no problem with the aforementioned vernacular). As The Husband was cutting bushes around our air conditioner, he accidentally cut a wire instead of a branch. Damn! Hell! Bitch! We may be having a cool summer, but it is so not noneedforAC cool. He has been scurrying like a little mouse (a sweaty, pissed off mouse) from the attic to the garage to the yard to Lowes and back again. And….I just heard the AC kick back on. YAY! My Husband rocks!
So, that is why you are getting a cobbled together, barely coherent post today. Now, I am off to bed to seethe about the silver on the uneven bars. SO.FREAKING.UNFAIR. I need sleep, tomorrow The Son and I have to get up early to drive Grandpa to Capital City to get the bandages off from his corneal transplant he got today. Your prayers are most welcome.
Filed under Family-blame the DNA, The Husband, lexapro lexplains it | Comment (1)Our Brothers’ Keepers
My brother is exactly three years and one month younger than me. If I squeeze my eyes tight and try to remember my very earliest memory, it is of my dad holding me up to peer through a cloudy pane of Plexiglas at a smiling nurse holding my downy-headed brother. My second memory? Waking up from an afternoon nap in tears because I had a dream (napmare?) about my little brother being “really sick”; of my mom holding my hand as we tiptoed through the blue and red nursery to peek at him peacefully dozing in his crib.
My entire cognizant life I have been an older sister. I would be lying to say that we never fought, that I never did anything cruel, that I never wished I was an only child. However, every single happy memory I have of my perfectly nuclear family of origin includes him. I suppose I thought he would be present for all of my happy adult memories too, but that is naive. He is an adult. He has his own life, a life of which we are just a teeny part, a life I cannot force him to share. The big sister in me wants to tell him what to do, to tell him to get his brilliant, snarky ass back in college, to not partake in nicotine, to call his mother. Do I want to be my brother’s keeper? It would appear so.
I met my brother-in-law almost seven years ago, of course he was not my BIL then, he was just J.
He was just emerging from a dark time in his adolescent years, and had come to live with his four year older brother, my adorable new boyfriend, to “get his life together”. The first night I was introduced to J the three of us talked for hours in their tiny, oh so gross, apartment. My big sister gene immediately kicked in. As The Husband and I got married and settled into our new matrimonial bliss, J would come over almost every day and camp out on our couch. By this time he was every bit as much my brother as JHJ. We moved towns; so did he. We still saw him several times a week while he was in school, he would be there anytime his brother wanted to have “guy” time, anytime he was sick of dorm food, anytime he missed us. I slowly, but surely, started to spend more time with my BIL than I did my brother…and I noticed. Did my brother? Is that when I stopped being a confidant?
Now that BIL and JHJ are both bona fide adults, they do not seem to need us as much. Or, they do not let us help as much; no more subsidizing emotionally, physically, financially as we once did. The Husband feels this loss as keenly as I do, he has the same “keeper” urges as I do, he loves them both every bit as much as I do. The worst part is that one of our brothers lives less than a mile away, but the span is the same. Miles or despondency, the results are equal. Both of these grown men do things that make The Husband and I want to bang our heads against the wall with irritation and consternation, do they feel that way about us? Is it a singularly elder sibling affliction?
When do you let them go? Have we waited too long? Do we wash our hands and act as though we are merely acquaintances with a shared past history? Do we spend Thanksgiving reminiscing and cordially asking to pass the potatoes? Is it too much to yearn for the relationships we once had, that of dare I say, friend? Is this part of those growing pains that should have happened to us in our teens? Did we both come from such close families that it makes the gulf smart all that much more? Is this an argument for a sibling for The Son, or against?
Filed under Family-blame the DNA, lexapro lexplains it | Comments (3)The Baby Question
The Son will be two at the end of August. We are getting a lot of the “So when is The Son going to get a little sister?” questions. What is that all about? Is The Son not as cute as he used to be? I think it is because he is so darling that people want us to produce as many as we can.
Before The Son was born I only wanted one child, The Husband wanted two, four years apart (The same distance in age as his brother and him). He said that as soon as The Son was fully potty trained that he wanted to have another one. Now The Husband is starting to seriously think that The Son is plenty, our family feels great just as it is. He is not so sure that he wants me to make him an appointment for a vasectomy, but he is open to the idea in theory. When I was in the middle of PPD hell, I was confident that I was NEVER doing this again. But now…..I kinda have baby fever. I have gotten to hold a few lately, and ooohh the smell! The Son does not smell like that any more. Instead of breast milk and lotion, he smells like cheese and dirt. He is just growing up so fast. Talking in sentences, eating with utensils (he did pretty well with CHOPSTICKS last night.) peeing in the potty, asking for his cup (rarely) over nursing, and of course there is this.
I hate that he is out of his crib so early. He still does not sleep through the night, but he will say “Boat bed now, Mama.”
I would not expect a big announcement from The Huckablogs anytime soon….but we do think about it a lot. We still toss around names (Micah, Elijah, or Simon for a boy, Ruth, Martha, or Elizabeth for a girl), I still tell myself what I would do differently with a second baby (arms reach co-sleeper instead of bassinet, a whole lot more of the sling and a whole lot less, if any, swing and bouncy seat, cloth diapers, ((crunchy AP things I guess)). I guess the answer to the baby question is **shoulder shrug**. If we did have another kid how could we possibly love them as much as we do our little monkey?
I would hate to have this happen to our second born.
Filed under Family-blame the DNA, Parenting for Dummies, The Son | Comments (8)Delicious
A couple of weeks ago when Ma and Gabs were visiting, The Husband and I took Gabs and The Son to the Krispy Kreme. At their big store in Capital City, they have the bakery behind glass so you can see the doughnut making machinery. The doughnuts, and the cheeks, taste as good as they look. The Son loves machinery so he was superpsyched by the doughnut machines (Or perhaps it was just the sugar?). He was so cute and curious the guy operating the machine came up front and gave him a raw doughnut to play with. The Son said, “Ewww! Yuck!”, and then proceeded to try eating it.
Filed under Family-blame the DNA, Photography, The Son | Comments (2)