Here I go again

This blog really would have worked if my iphone interface hadn't gone nuts.  On my phone it looked like the formatting of the blog wasn't working.  Anyhoo, upon looking at it now, I will be revising the look soon.  And maybe even trying the "on the go" thing again.

The impetus?  The other day, AG mentioned some story I have told them about little Cody, that I never actually wrote down.  I had forgotten the story altogether.  Yikes.  And also, as there are no more pre-schoolers, I can already see how quick that stage went by collectively.  It was long and hard while in it, but now is SO short!  Weird time concepts!!  And now, no, I can't remember the story she mentioned!!

I can't believe that Baltimore trip was so recent.  It seems like 3 years ago!!

And also?  There's a crazy mockingbird in the bushes RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE that is singing at 3:52 a. m. As if I don't have enough insanity rattling around right here inside my head!

Good news first?

Well, I have good news and bad news! The good news is that Geof and the boys had a great day in Baltimore and at Ft. McHenry! It was sunny and in the 70's. They looked at some big historic ships in the harbor, then took a water taxi over to the fort.

Anna Grace and I stayed in. She napped, managed to keep a pancake and milk down, and passed out for an hour. Sweet silence and stillness after a few days of craziness in prepping and traveling! Then she felt well enough to ride in a little stroller down to the harbor to meet the guys for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was very bland, even compared to my cooking! And apparently Baltimore isn't high on the chain's list for cool memorabilia! (you might ask why we weren't enjoying seafood at every meal, but that's because we HATE seafood.)

Then we walked about a half mile back to the hotel in the rain. It was actually kind of nice because I came prepared with "emergency ponchos", or as some might see them, colorful trash bags with hoods. It was also nice because we are from TX and one generally doesn't walk in the rain for fear of electrocution. All the commuters whipped out their umbrellas as if their weatherman might be in some way trustworthy! ( I thought I had erased all this so I made a quick post with a picture.)

7th inning rally

Anna grace and I were able to join the guys for dinner after a yucky day of illness away from home ( which is the worst kind in my opinion). Then it rained and we enjoyed walking about a half mile back in it, without our normal risk at home of electrocution.

Baltimore

Hopefully we'll see the more as we stay longer. They call it Charm City, but I think that might be a little haughty.

My first impressions were not favorable, clearly. I've been a variety of cities, but this is the first time I considered that I might get mugged. And we were in the touristy part!! Haha! I wouldn't dare give someone my iPhone4 to take our picture!

I am being harsh, but I really am willing to keep an open mind. Tomorrow is DC. I hope the people there don't stare as much!

My sweet socialite

Anna Grace is so amazing. We are at a play place killing time (if you know me at all, you know which one). When Cody was this age, he would not go in to a place like this without at least one very good friend, or if it was empty! Jackson always had Cody, which very well may be his epitaph, it is so shaping his life. But my little social butterfly will only play if there's another girl. She waits hopefully until she can attach herself as the friend comes in. We're still working on 'my name's Anna Grace, what's yours?'. But the body language almost always works, and I think that is wonderful. I hope she never has a shy stage like I did. I hope she's class president and captain of something or another.

In the front yard of our house after school she hangs right in with the 1st through 5th graders. She gets hurt more and left out some, so she does love some same aged company! It's almost too bad she doesn't have a younger sibling. Almost.

Saturdays

Almost every Saturday Geof tries to get the kids to help straighten the house. We are terrible at making them clean up each evening, so it is pretty out of hand by the weekend.

Seems like we've tried everything to persuade them to actually do any picking up. They inevitably waste more energy on flopping around acting inept than they would if they would just take things to their room!!

This morning Geof asked, "what would supernanny say to us?". I'm not sure, but I know it would have more to do with us than our kids!!

I think maybe my problem is that I just don't even want to listen to them groan and complain! I've tried teaching them how to break it down, and several other techniques, but to no avail. What to do, what to do. All input is welcome!

Out

Imagine my surprise when my parents, Abilenians for over 30 years, decided to move a mile away from me! It's a lot like winning the lottery, and that's not just to do with the money they're saving us on babysitting and tranquilizers, (for me, not the kids. Why would that even cross your mind? I might be slightly offended. But I digress.)

Altho, I'm out among the living tonight and doggonit if we can't find a restaurant with a reasonable wait. I must have been out of the loop longer than I thought! It's 7:15 for goodness sake! Don't people need to get home to bed? I don't know if I can make it through the DVD I (obviously ambitiously) rented! Land sakes! Okay so is that enough slang to demonstrate how old I am? Waaaay to old to be drinking caffeinated beverages at this hour. Gotta go, were being seated!

Wow

I got a little nostalgic for my childhood today.  I was kind of in a funk, except that's normal, so I don't know that I can really call it that.  So anyway, let the dog out, left the door open.  Smelling the fresh warm-ish air coming in made me happy.  So I left the housework (yet another day) and went to the garage to figure out what I could be productive about outside.  Hmmm, too windy for trying out my Windex Outdoor Window hose gadget that I've had since last spring.  But I decided that trimming some low limbs from our front trees with a dull saw would give me a great upper body workout.  And also I didn't have another saw.  Whatever.  Sooooo, then, I decided our totally overgrown front bushes would be a great hideout if I just trimmed some branches to hollow out the area between them and the house.  You know, the area I should be worried about child abductors hiding in in the middle of the night.

Well let me go ahead and decline the mother of the year award.  Because ALL there has been is weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Must be the close proximity of all three siblings?  The fresh air?  The opportunity for imagination to run wild for 3 hours in the beautiful spring day?  It could be so many wonderful things really.  I actually just told the little one that her choices were to go back outside or take a nap.  And here she sits.  Weeping.  And nashing her teeth.

Second of All

I worked too long on making this look personal, but I can not figure out how to make ALL the text the same color.  Oh well, maybe I'll sick Geof on it later.  It's so exciting.  I know you'll be dying to check back and see!

First of all

Yeah, how cute is that picture.  Okay, now that that's out of the way...I used to have a blog.  And now 2 years later when I look back at it, I really like the journaling element.  No, it's not up anymore, so don't try to find it.  Like I said, journaling element.  So recently Big Mama mentioned about how much of a lady-in-waiting she is to her daughter.  Those words resonated in my heart.  Because I try everyday to walk a fine line between making my little Her Majesty happy, and downright spoiling her and humiliating myself in the process.  So I decided to give it a go again.  But this time, I'm coming at it from a different angle.  (See sidebar.)   Because quite frankly, I need more than a tweet space in order to capture the things that this child, and her brothers, say and do!  It took me QUITE awhile to set this up, so hopefully my tiny plan will work out.  I don't know though.  Every time I pull out my iphone in the car at any time, all three of them recite their indoctrination from school "DON'T TEXT AND DRIVE!"  Don't worry.  I'm not.  Really.  Okay, maybe at stop lights.