Just thinkin'

Well, autumn has sort of arrived in Houston. . .just in time for the kids not to TOTALLY burn up at Trunk or Treat tonight before church--not so many sweaty princesses this year, though Thad did shuck his Power Ranger costume earlier than planned. . .and on the way to Trunk or Treat, Victoria made me tell her all of the things she had ever been for Halloween. When I got to the part where she was Baby Bop when she was 18 months, Thad said, "Sistuh, I bet you wuh vewy cute."

Had a friend with a babysitting emergency last night--mother of 16 year old twins and a five year old. . .husband owns his own business. . .they had a shindig to go to, and the twins had homecoming, and Thomas was the fly in the ointment. He came over and a lovely time was had by all until 5:15 this morning when he began throwing up in our sink. The good news is. . .he made it to the sink. The sad news is, I had to call his Momma at 5:15 to come and get him. But the fancy doin's were over, so she and his Daddy were glad to arrive and whisk him away.

We also had a three hour family fun movie on Friday ("Stranded" a new version of "Swiss Family Robinson"--with no ostrich or giraffe but still with pirates), and two soccer games on Saturday, and between all of that and a sleepover and the time change and Trunk or Treat--well, tonight after I got them to sit still--the kids were tired. I was afraid that after all of the excitement and sugar it was going to be one church wide game of "Whack A Mole." As soon as you got one kid down, another would pop right up. . .but they were all tired I suppose, because no one got taken out and the only crying was from the newborns.

At one point we were singing a very lovely multi-part, round-like song called "The Greatest Commandment." The Sunday night crowd was good and so about 400 of us singing acapella in harmony was an amazing thing. . .and even more wonderful than that as we began to sing, Victoria laid her head on my right shoulder, and Thad laid his head on my left, and the contentment that settled over me was a gift of God.

"All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided. . .great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me."

Addendum to below: Conversation Heard this VERY Morning

6:05 a.m. Two rumpled blond haired children sitting at the top of the stairs

VICTORIA: Thad, do you know what that burning smell means?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

(a very excited )
THAD: Yes!!!!!!!!!!!! It's almost Cwismas time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I must go and buy a Yankee Candle this VERY DAY to light whenever the heater kicks on--one that smells of Yuletide cheer!!!!

Dust Bunnies Roasting on a gas heater flame. . .

Well, with Halloween only a week and a day away, we are actually SUPPOSED to go below 50 degrees tonight. . .48 is the forecast. Oh, joy!!! It's also cold in Arkansas according to Stephanie.

Sarah has this really funny post about how her kids think that baked potatoes smell like burning dogfood. Well. . .

Friday morning, it got down to 50 degrees outside, which corresponds to a chilly (for Houstonians) 68 degrees INSIDE. I turned on the heater at about 5:30 a.m.--exactly FIVE minutes later Victoria enters my room all sleepy and disheveled looking and says, "Mommy, you know at Christmas time when we have all the lights and mistletoe on the stairs? Well, it smells like that."

So, forget chestnuts roasting on an open fire, sugar cookies baking in the oven, cinnamon scented pinecones on the freshly cut fir tree. . .evidently Victoria thinks the smell of Christmas is dust bunnies in the vents burning up from the heater not being fired since March.

Thad and the Transformers save the Pilgrims

Okay. . .so I'm not trying to showcase Thad here, but he is on a roll lately.

To engender more autumnal holiday cheer (and 'cause I liked 'em), I bought these





Aren't they cute. . .all nesting and the like. So, I get them out to let the kids play with them today. . .then we have 2 soccer games, etc. They are both loving soccer, but watching his sister's team play is not Thad's favorite way to spend an hour. . .lots of whining about going to the playground ensues. So, today I came prepared with these mini Transformers



'cause it was worth the $3.59 to give him something to do. He enjoyed the Transformers AND the soccer game today. Therefore, I enjoyed the soccer game too.

Now he is in the floor with the Transformers and the holiday decorations singing a song--words and tune of his own creation--that goes something like. . .

"Transformers in the Pilgrim house.
Transformers in the Pilgrim house.
Gonna blow the roof off and safe the Pilgrims.
Gonna blow the roof off (*BOOM*) and save the Pilgrims. . .
In. . . the. . .house. . ."

He continued, but I can't relate the rest. Then he began begging anyone who walked through the room to play Transformers. . .where the other person always gets to be the bad guy. Thad likes to save the Pilgrims, I suppose, while someone else destroys them.

The Transformers will receive double duty in church tomorrow. . .and hopefully in addition to destroying the roofs of Pilgrim dwellings then SAVING the distraught Pilgrims, they will also be able to keep my five year old on the pew. I guess I could do the cost analysis to see if it has truly been worth the $3.59, but I'm sayin' it is/was/will be.

My Boy

I have a little boy.

He is a carbon copy of his father. . .so it's a good thing I love his daddy and his daddy's quirkiniess so much, 'cause the apple landed RIGHT UNDER that tree.

He is a sweet boy. He loves me. He likes to sleep with my nightgowns because they "smell like mommy" (which is Lavender and Camomile lotion from Johnson and Johnson. . .which is the same thing I used to put on him when he was a baby which is why I started using it--'cause it smelled like my babies).

He tries to use me as a jungle gym in church. We have a discipline plan--but he still tries. Sunday morning we sat in the balcony on a row that had no pew in front of it--just the walkway. At some point during the opening song, he fell (for reasons unknown) from the pew on all fours onto the floor. He is also skinny--so his khakis sort of stuck up in the air above his bottom. He had barely touched the ground before I lifted him bodily, one-handed mind you, by his pooching khakis, back onto the pew accompanied by a stern reprimand. He did, however, give the visitor behind us a thrill, because after church she complimented my one-handed retrieval of the loose boy and said it was all she could do not to faint from holding in her laughter. His Daddy missed the whole thing even though he was on the same pew.

Apple. . .tree.

My boy has a very sensitive fairness meter that only he knows the limits of. You can, without any warning whatsoever, tread upon his sense of fairness causing his shoulders to droop as though laden with the cares of the world. This is normally (and immediately) followed by him flopping face first onto any handy piece of furniture (my lap is also considered a piece of furniture by the inhabitants of my house) or running upstairs to do the same on his bed.

He has a "helper" in his Sunday morning class--a man in his 50's who has to use a walker because of a motorcycle accident he had at the age of 22. He slurs his words and moves slowly. Thad speaks to him after church every Sunday when he sees him. Sometimes the man doesn't notice him at first, but Thad keeps on tugging on his coat sleeve until he gets his attention. Then he waves, and says, "Hi," and gives him a hug.

My boy will walk up to his sister and kiss her on the cheek just because he thinks she looks pretty that day.
("Victoria, be still. I need to kiss you.")

We held him out of kindergarten this year in favor of a bridge class. THANK. GOODNESS. His teacher's whole goal for this school year is just to get him to finish his work in the allotted amount of time. When I told him he needed to work more quickly he said, "My teacher says to do your best,and my best is not fast." He also says, "My hands are slow like my feet." He's really not slow--he just chooses to meander~saunter~sashay through life. Atleast he is self aware.

And on Monday night when he said the prayer for supper, during his conversation with God he said, "And thank you for the good Bible story yesterday. . .and if I was in heaven, I would just look at you, and hug you, and kiss you. . ."

By the grace of God, I have a little boy.

"Have yourself. . .a merry little Christmas. . ."

No--I have not lost my calendar or my mind. . .but I have begun Christmas shopping in earnest. In fact--Thad is all done. . .from the T-Rex Mountain to the Doodle Monster to the mini Transformers to a minipack of superheroes to add to his collection to a game of HiQ to a couple of things for his stocking and two Christian books about how good little boys should behave. All he needs is a pack of Pez and a dispenser (Christmas tradition dontcha know) and Hershey Santas and a huge candy cane full of M&Ms--two other traditions--all from my own childhood.

Done. . .done. . .done. . .and started on Victoria and done for one nephew and did my mom's shopping for my kids while I was at it.

I just love to be DONE. Now I am not tempted by the siren song of *SALE* *SALE* *SALE*--and no matter WHAT I might see that is just PERFECT--well, I've spent the budget for the boy, so I'm really and truly DONE!!!!!! And the day after Thanksgiving I will be at home hidden away up in my bedroom wrapping Christmas presents so that on Christmas eve all I have to do is sneak said and wrapped presents downstairs to distribute in piles under the tree and then I can have another cup of wassail and make Tony watch "It's a Wonderful Life" even though he does not care for Jimmy Stewart but seeing as how he's so cute and Jimmy Stewart was unavailable at the time, I married him anyway

Okay. . .that's all. I'm just so very, very happy to be DONE!!!!!!

Dis-

-jointed, -connected, -combobulated. . .and any other dis- words you can think of?

Welcome to the blog of "I shouldn't have had that last couple of bites to eat" and "I'm tired and should really just go to bed on my incredibly full stomach."

More than anything, I'm blogging to keep myself awake. I did, indeed, have one too many bites of seafood salad on a Ritz tonight. . .and I am tired. But Tony has class at church from 8:15-9:30, and I kind of like to be awake to see him when he gets home. I like him, ya know.

So. . .after my "dis-" blog, I am going back to this website to tinker.

As I have told you before, we have plans for a new home in the near future. Near future to us means beginning construction spring or summer of 2008 so by summer of 2009 we are all moved in. . .or at least are ready to move in. We are talking long-term planning for most folks. . .but when you are thinking of an entire house, well, two more years is short term for us.

Until the time comes that we actually break ground, we dream. . .and even in our dream-like state we know that though we have definite opinions of what we like,






we are not interior decorators.

We are a little nervous about how much furniture will fit where, etc. So tonight, on a whim, I did a search for an automatic room designer. . .and low and behold if Better Homes and Gardens didn't deliver.

Should you care to furnish the rooms of your dream house to see if all of your wishes will come true. . .then click on over, and have some good, clean fun.

Now I'm off to play for a bit, then tackle the dishes in an attempt to "work off" some of that seafood salad. Wish me luck.

Not at all what I intended

I'm still here. . .not much to report. I'm listening to a PBS thing about the freedom riders of the 1960's and how school children who were marching got carried to jail. I don't know as much as I should about Civil Rights. . .some of what I know is tainted by where I was reared.

I'm from the very deep south. In fact, my kids (at school) will hear a story this week about how I saw the evidences of segregation in the town in which I grew up. . .as in when the old one-screened movie theater was being renovated, a large sign was removed from the building. It had been put up there to cover the large painted letters that said, "Colored" and pointed to the entrance that blacks had to use to get to the balcony. And in the back of the old feed and seed store, there were two water fountains. . .side by side. No signs there, but we knew what they had been used for.

I had to explain segregation to Victoria a couple of years ago. She did a report on Rosa Parks in 1st grade. Her teacher, Mrs. Johnson, is an excellent teacher. . .and is black. . .and is from Selma, Alabama. Victoria came home talking about "Dr. King" one day. I'd never realized until that day that I don't ever call him "Dr. King"--I call him "Martin Luther King, Jr." It's a small difference in vernacular, but a noticable one once I realized it. Anyway--Victoria did a report on Rosa Parks.

The funny part was that she did a play in which she, a blond-haired, blue-eyed, white girl played Rosa. And for her bus driver she chose to ask Shane--a dark-haired, brown-eyed African-American boy. He got to tell her she had to give up her seat or he would throw her off the bus or have her arrested. Mrs. Johnson and I both had a good laugh over that one--and a deep sigh over how times have changed.

The sad part was that I had to explain segregation to my 6 year old. The only way I knew to tell her how bad it was, was to say, "A long time ago, Mrs. Johnson couldn't be your teacher, and Shane couldn't be your friend. It would be against the law for Mrs. Johnson to teach you. . .or for me to teach some of the kids I teach."

The good part was that after the explanation Victoria said, "I think that was a very bad idea."

We will read a story this week about Matthew Henson. He was with Robert Peary when he discovered the North Pole. I know there is some controversy about actually who discovered the North Pole and when it was done, but Matthew Henson was there right at the beginning. He was born one year after the Civil War, and was the only member of the party that discovered the North Pole not to receive a commendation. . .because he was black. He wasn't recognized for his contribution until 50 years after the fact. I have to tell some of my kids what it means in the story when Peary refers to Henson as, "My faithful colored boy." I don't have to explain it to the black kids--they know what colored is--but I do have to explain it to everyone else. And that's a good thing--we've come a long way--I see the tensions still, but I also see the changes.

So this was not at all what I intended. . .it just sort of spilled out. . .and to quote Forrest Gump, "And that's all I have to say about that."

You just gotta love it when. . .

. . .you get back to class after standing in front of over 500 6th graders and their parents for over 40 minutes handing out honor roll ribbons during an awards ceremony and realize that your zipper is undone.

Yup. . .just a little humbling experience for my Tuesday. Thought you might could use some perspective and a laugh.