Whatever, Crazy Lady!

I'm pretty sure Blake and I will repeat this conversation in 40 years when I'm riddled with dimentia.

Me: We need to listen for the guys to come. They're coming to fix mama's oven.
Blake: Ok mama. Whatever you say.

Happy Birthday Jimtini!

Yesterday was my BFF Jim's birthday. I can't remember if he decided a few weeks ago to start working backwards after this birthday or just keep celebrating 29 each year. Either way, happy 29th birthday Jim. Only I, yo mama and your dad (hey Jim's Dad! Grrrrrrrowwwwllll!!!) need to know your true age today.

Jim and I were supposed to get together this coming weekend to go to the Miss Gay Iowa pageant in Cedar Rapids, however a financial deficit has cancelled the trip. I'm pretty sad and I know Jim is too because we had a FUCKING BLAST last year in Des Moines. We adopted several new phrases, like you do when you have a drunk weekend with one of your friends. The kind of phrases only the two of you understand. Some of our phrases were

"Sweet Lincoln's Mullet!"

"See you at church on Sunday!"

"How's your sister?"

"Shut up! She doesn't know any better!"

"You can't say 'Mary'."

"He was so gay, he opened his mouth and Tim Gunn fell out."

"He's gayer than a sequened clutch purse full of rainbows."

I miss Jim a ton since I haven't seen him since our NYE bash. Here are pictures from that event and yes, that was all of our alcohol for just the two of us. No wonder we're fashioning hats and braziers out of my kick-ass napkins!







I'm certain Jim and I will eventually see each other again, although it feels like never. I miss you Jimmy! Come party at my wet bar soon! Wow. That was dirty. I sincerely apologize.

oh-no-you-di-int!

There's a blog I check out every now and again. I don't have it on my blog roll because it's not updated frequently, or if it is I don't have any sort of sense of urgency to check it out. Anyway, this woman has a 3 or 4 month old baby and she's a SAHM. (That's Stay-At-Home-Mom for those of you keeping score). So on one of her recent posts she talks about how she isn't a SAHM so she can sit and eat and watch TV all day and then she goes into this huge laundry list of things she did before 9am. She did 2 loads of laundry, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, made some cookies, bath time for baby and cleaned 2 bathrooms.

I question you.

Was your baby in a coma this entire time? Just before this she talks about how her baby gets up between 5 and 6am. I'm not saying it's not possible for her to do all of this before 9am but I just think it would be hard with a new baby. I remember Emily as a baby and she was a GREAT baby. I could get about anything done because she never made a fuss but all of those things? I'm thinking it would take until at least noon. Then baby goes down for a nap and you watch Springer and eat potato chips. Come on lady! You're not fooling anyone!

Don't try to act like you're super-SAHM. We know the drill. Some of us have had babies too. There's no trophy at the end, trust me. You're not going to win some kind of blue ribbon for best wife and mommy. In fact, at the end of the day all you're really going to get is ignored by your husband when he gets home from work while he watches TV and disrespects your clean toilet by dribbling on the seat. You might get a short, "mm" as he eats your cookies and swipes all of the crumbs off of his shirt onto your freshly vacuumed floor and couch. Then, exhausted from juggling 20 things at once today and just wanting to pass out in bed you'll get a smack on the ass and that familiar poke through the jammies on your back. NOW he wants to pay attention to you.

Yeah. You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get one by me, Missy! Trust me. I got an A+ in this subject.

Hellrrrr...*tap, tap, tap* is this thing on?

I try not to check my blog's sitemeter too often. I think it would be pretty easy to get obsessed with it and I really just don't want to go there. I did check it tonight, however and have found that I doubled my monthly visits from June to September. Wow! I was pretty impressed with myself. Now I want to know who's out there. Who are you, lurkers? Why do you come here? Is my blog one that you check frequently or maybe one you just check out every once in a while. I'm really curious. I've been outing myself to some of my favorite blogs over the past year and I think it would be interesting to find out who all of you silent peekers are. If you're feeling brave, please send me a comment. If you would prefer for me to read it, but not publish it, I can do that too. I try to respond to all of my comments so don't feel like you will only be ignored!

It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again

I don't think I've ever written about my fear of a certain song. It's a song that's freaked me out since high school. If it came on the radio when my bestie Tanya and I would be driving around we would both scream and then fight each other to change the station. Yes, she was freaked out by it too for the same reason as me. The song? "American Girl" by Tom Petty. I know, right? Not what you were expecting. Here's why it freaks me out. Remember "Silence of the Lambs"? Remember when the girl was in her car rockin' out to this song when she pulls up to her apartment and then gets knocked out and thrown down that hole by freaky guy? Yeah. Freaks you out too now, doesn't it? Even still when this song comes on I change the channel. It's kind of a bummer because it's a great tune. Tonight those feelings changed.

I don't usually watch "Ugly Betty". The only time I see it is the last couple minutes of it before Grey's comes on. Tonight Betty rocked out in her apartment when her cute neighbor started playing this song on his guitar. She was so cute dancing around that I actually watched it and let the song keep playing. IN FACT I even rewound it (dontcha love DVR?) and showed it to Adam when he came in the living room so he could see cute Ugly Betty dancing. NOW, I'm thinking about downloading it from iTunes. If I do I'm not sure I'll ever play it in my car but maybe this irrational fear is finally starting to subside. I wonder if Tanya still changes the channel when it comes on. I bet she does. I wonder if she watches Ugly Betty....hmm...

The boys in our family are crazy

Adam
Adam's been putting in bookoo hours at work lately. He worked close to 60 last week and had in 25.5 by the time he came home on Tuesday night. That means we've been having to eat dinner without him. When he comes home he pretty much eats then goes to bed. Last night I stayed up late watching TV and goofing on the computer. As I got in bed Adam started talking in his sleep again. He said, "Oh yeeeaaahh." It was in a tone like someone just reminded him of an old friend's name. As I laid there giggling the "Oh yeeeaaahh" turned into more of an, "ooooooh yyyyyyeaahhhhhhh." Something a little dirtier. Then he did it again. It made me wonder, just what is this long lost friend doing?

Blake
Blake has decided to skip his daily 1.5 hour 2:00 nap for the last 2 days. Then, he falls asleep somewhere between 6:00 and 6:30. When this happened on Monday my sister had come over that evening and we both tried to wake him up for dinner but he just wasn't having it. I told my sister, "I hope he doesn't wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 3 o'clock in the morning."

"What time did he go to bed?"
"Around 6:30-ish?"
"Well...that's, what? Nine hours of sleep? Yeah."
"Aw, lord."

Well my alarm went off at 7:30 the next morning and he was already up but that's not unusual.

Yesterday the same thing. No nap but this time we also had to go to the family museum for Emily's dance class so he got an hour of good playing in from 5-6 o'clock. Just a couple minutes after we got home Blake said, "Mama, what did you do with my blanket? I've been looking for it for 20 minutes." (We had been home for about 6). So we went in his room, he found a blanket and he curled up on the bed. In a sleepy voice he said, "Have Emily wake me up when it's supper time." Then he passed out. Well, again, no one could wake him up for dinner. At about 10:30 I was walking from our bedroom to the kitchen and I saw Blake stirring around. I went in his room and it was kinda cold in there so I had him get under all of his covers, instead of just the blanket. I told him good-night. As I walked back by he said, "Mama, tell me when dinner's ready, ok?" Awwww! Poor little dude had no idea it was like 4 hours after dinnertime. I got him up and made him something to eat. He was up until around 11 then it was back to bed. Adam called this morning and said when he got up at 5:30 Blake was up, in the kitchen with every light on in the house.

The funny things Blake says
Last weekend Adam and I hung out outside with some of our downstairs neighbors. One couple has 1 boy and another has 2 kids, both close to Blake and Emily's ages. All of the kids were playing in the apartment of the one kid and we were right outside so we could see them in there. Blake came out a little while later and when I asked him why he wasn't playing with the kids he said, "Because the dog is mean to me." My neighbor said, "Blake, we don't have a dog." I asked him, "What's the dog's name?" "Smokey." We all laughed at him. Blake had gone to the wrong apartment. He went to the house where the 2 kids live. Unfortunately the only one that was home was the dog, lol.

The other day I was on the phone with my sister when Blake came in the bedroom naked. I told him to put his clothes on. "Jus weeve me awone, ok mama?" was his response. He says it so often it doesn't even make me mad anymore. I told him again to put his clothes on and he said he had to go potty. He went to the bathroom and came back and when I again told him to get dressed he said, "I'm just going to lay here until I air out." I thought my sister was going to have a coronary on the other end of the phone, she was laughing so hard. Apparently that's been a popular story at her work this week.

Let's bowl, let's bowl, let's...rock and roll!

Emily's birthday bowling party went off without a hitch. We all had a really good time. I ended up having 5 girls RSVP that they were coming. Then 3 didn't show up but 2 did that I wasn't expecting (actually, they both DID call but for some reason I didn't get one of the voicemails and another one called the morning of the party).

I made bowling shirts for all of the kids. I got the idea from a magazine and they had links for the graphics on their website that you could print on transfer paper. At first I wanted to do this but wasn't going to because of the expense. Transfer paper is expensive. Then my sister told me she had about 50 sheets of it. So, 2 days before the party I found nice Hanes t-shirts at the dollar store. I was planning on 11 kids and they had 10 bright orange ones and 4 blue ones, all kids sizes. Well I couldn't pass that up. I did all of the girls shirts in orange and the boys in blue. I put a big picture on the back of a bowling ball striking pins and then a small pin with their name underneath it on the left chest on the front. Because I thought I might have some girls come that didn't RSVP, I made extra shirts without names. I was glad I did since I had a couple girls I wasn't expecting. Here you can see them all in their shirts. I've blurred out the kid's faces that aren't mine b/c I'm not into putting up pictures of other people's kids out on the Internet.



Poor Blake dropped his bowling ball on his bare foot about 2 frames into his game and he wasn't so much into bowling after that, as you can imagine. I got him to bowl a few more frames, but that was it.

One of the funny things that happened at the party was when I was cutting the cake. One of Emily's friends came up to me and said, "Mrs. Warren?" Well I just ignored her because that's not my name! That's my MIL's name! Then she finally tapped me on the arm and said, "Mrs. Warren?" Oh! Right! That IS me! My bad! What a reality check that was. That'll make you feel old real quick.



Anyway, we all had a good time and I think it was a better decision than going to Chuck E. Cheese or anything like that.

I Can't Talk To You Right Now...

I may have mentioned in a previous post that my sister and BIL are going on a long overdue vacation at the end of this month. They were married for 20 years this past May and the only vacation they've taken was on their honeymoon...20 YEARS AGO! Even then they went to Wisconsin Dells only to find it mostly closed, not yet open for the season.

So in a couple weeks they're doing it up right. They're flying from here to Las Vegas for four days. Then from there they're going to Anaheim to Disneyland for two days, coming home on the 3rd day. I helped them book the vacation and was more nervous than my sister when I was about to push that final "CONFIRM" button. I don't know how many times I repeated the phrase, "OK, is this right? Is this how you want it, the flights and everything?" She was just ready to hand over the credit card and get it done. Call me crazy, I just like to be a little more cautious before spending over $2200, even when it's not my own.

So today my sister was over and she decided she wanted to see Donny and Marie while she's in Vegas. They're performing together for a few months at The Flamingo and I think my sister saw it as a great opportunity to see her childhood idols live. Just like when she was 18 and my mom would take her and a friend on a weekend trip to Anytown, IL to see them perform while I got to stay at my grandma's house, where I hated it because it was scary, and all they would bring me back was maybe some lousy Lady and the Tramp record and a chance to sneak a peek at some blurry poloroids of Donny Osmond hopping on his tour bus and maybe that's Marie in the background but I can't really tell because there's a fat woman in front of the picture-taker who's wearing a turquoise t-shirt she has carefully cut into shreds and then put about six beads on each strand so as to make a wearable art piece out of her homemade Donny and Marie shirt! But I'm not bitter. (But really! Mom never took me and one of my friends to go see, oh, I don't know, Guns N' Roses at some out of town show where we'd get to stay overnight in a hotel and then go swimming and shopping the next day...BREATHE AMY!)

Sorry. I'm better now. So, Donny and Marie. My sister's a big fan. She's almost 12 years older than me so she's in that Osmond generation. We looked online and found there were tickets available. We knew when we originally booked the trip that we also got tickets for them to go on one of the Hoover Dam tours, per my BIL's request. Before we booked the tickets to D&M we wanted to make sure it wasn't going to conflict w/ the Dam tour. I looked up the itinerary on Expedia and didn't see the Dam tour on there. I call Expedia customer service and pretend to be my sister (with her permission of course!)

Them: Expedia, my name is (insert random foreign name here) how can I help you?
Me: Yes, I'm looking at my itinerary and and I don't see my reservations for a Hoover Dam tour.
Them: OK, let me look at your trip, what is the itinerary number?
Me: (number)
Them: This is the trip to Las Vegas?
Me: Yes.
Them: Are you referring to your Disneyland park hopper passes?
Me: "..." Uh, noooooo. I'm referring to the tour we're going on at the Hoover Dam while we're in Laaaaasssss Vegasssssss. (I said that part kinda slow because apparently she didn't understand.)
Them: I don't see any Hoover Dam activities on your itinerary.
Me: Well I booked them and paid for them so it should be on there. I just need to know what day we're doing it.
Them: Let me look here. It's $90 for two people.
Me: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Them: So I can go ahead and charge that to your credit card.
Me: Great except for I've already paid for it.
Them: It's not on your itinerary.
Me: I can't talk to you anymore. You're really frustrating. I'll have to call you back once I look at my papers and maybe then I'll get someone else to talk to.
Them: Um, ok.

Before this my sister had called my BIL to see if he wanted to go to the D&M show with her. She was going to go either way. Meanwhile I'm in the background heckling like a ghetto queen. "She want to know if you gowen to da show! Duz she buy one ticket or two? Eee-thah way she gowen!" So he's going then. We reserve the tickets and while we're doing that we realize we never did book that Hoover Dam tour in the first place. We had no recollection of picking a day, which tour time they wanted, nothing. It never happened. Oops! Sorry crazy foreign Expedia Customer Service Representative! My bad!

Seven Years Ago

Seven years ago today you came into our lives. You were the first grandchild on my side of the family and it was a given that you were going to be spoiled to death! In fact, you already were! Before you were born you had a closet full of clothes and brand new furniture. Your dad and I were over the moon for you even while you were still in my tummy.

On September 10th, 2001 we went to the doctor for an appointment. I can remember the weather that day was absolutely perfect. The temperature was not even a little hot or cold. The sky was a bright blue and there were puffy clouds in the sky. I was in a great mood. After getting weighed and having my blood pressure checked the nurses suspected I had pre-eclampsia. They made me lay down because my blood pressure was so high. The doctor came in, took one look at my chart and said, "It looks like we're going to have to get this babe out."

Your dad and I were pretty nervous. We were told to immediately go over to the hospital for tests because they may need to admit me right then. Well everything had come back fine so they let me leave, told me to eat a big meal because I might not get to eat again for a while and then come back after 5pm. (They weren't kidding. That was Monday and I didn't get to eat again until Friday!) On the way home I literally had to tell your dad a couple times that this was it, it was go time. It just wasn't sinking in. We went home, I washed some clothes, packed a bag, called family and we headed to a buffet, lol. Neither one of us could really eat. I remember sitting there almost crying because I was scared and excited. There's nothing like knowing your life is about to change forever. As we were both sitting there not talking we realized the song we danced to at our wedding had just come on. It makes me almost tear up thinking about it.

Well we got to the hospital, I got hooked up on every machine they have and a cot was brought in for your daddy. You developed quite a reputation at the hospital, even before you were born. You did NOT want to stay on the monitor so they could track your heartbeat. At one point a very kind and patient nurse was in my room sometime after 2am just rubbing the monitor all over my belly trying to find your heartbeat and keep it. She would find it, hook everything up and you would move. She must have done that over and over for almost an hour. Your dad slept peacefully the whole night. Even snored. I on the other hand watched every stupid thing on TV. The 1st shift nurse came in the next morning and said, "Oh. I've heard about THIS baby." She wasn't having your games. She went up there and stuck a little thing just under the skin on the top of your head and they monitored you that way, lol.

Around 6:30am the doctor came in, started me on pitocin and broke my water. A couple hours later I was on the phone with your Aunt Lisa, who was at work, getting ready to open the bank. Daddy and I were watching The Today Show. I was only half paying attention to the TV because I was on the phone but it was then that the first tower was it. When I was still on the phone the 2nd tower was hit. We hung up and it was all your daddy and I could watch on TV. I'm pretty sure the entire nation felt the same. At that point I didn't want you to be born on that day. As my contractions got stronger I secretly wanted you to just wait. Don't be born today. It's a terrible day to bring a baby into the world. Please wait. Sometime around 7pm we couldn't watch any more. We turned the TV off and put on a CD of instrumental music I had brought. It was a huge contrast going from something so violent to something so peaceful.

I wont get into the long dreary details of everything that followed but needless to say, you waited. You waited until 4:58am on September 12, 2001. I wasn't awake when you came into this world. Through crazy circumstances that don't matter I was put to sleep while Dr. Patrick took you from my belly. Your daddy got to be the luckiest man in the world at that point. He got to hold you first, feed you first and change your first diaper. He also got the stress that followed when mommy didn't wake up. I know he was scared but everything came out fine. I finally got to see you that afternoon. Do you know why I got to see you finally almost 9 hours after you were born? Because your daddy yelled and screamed fought in a rational way for it. Your daddy talked to every nurse he could find until he convinced one in charge that you should be brought to the ICU to be with me and it was just the three of us for the next three years.




You were the best baby. You never cried unless you wanted something. You slept through the night from the first moment you were born. We never knew if you were teething until a tooth showed up. You definitely had us spoiled once Blake showed up!



Your first word was "mama". You said it on Easter Sunday, 2002. We watched you crawl, take your first steps and destroy a Teletubbies cake on your first birthday. We worried every time you got sick and cheered at every school program and dance recital. We put band-aids on scrapes and scratches and held ice to that giant goose egg you got on your head in preschool. We cleaned up puke when we realized the hard way that you were allergic to eggs. Your face was so swollen I seriously thought daddy was giving a bath to an asian baby and not you.




We've gotten mad at your sometimes, like the time you poured water into the big can of formula we bought for Blake with our last $20. We've also celebrated the little triumphs like getting yourself dressed and finally mastering 'cat's cradle' earlier this week.



You are one of the biggest joys in our lives and I can't imagine my life without you being in it for the last seven years. You make us laugh everytime you laugh. Just seeing you smile makes me smile. I can't wait to watch you grow into a young woman, (just don't be too quick about it, ok?)

MOPS think they're better than me...

This morning I woke up late. Like really late. Emily has to catch the bus at 8:11 and school for her starts at 8:30. Also today was a preschool day for Blake and he has to be there at 9. It takes about 20 minutes to get there. I had set my alarm for 7:30. I got up at 7 because I had to pee, then made the fatal mistake of "just laying here for a few minutes". I woke up again at 8:30. Oops!

Luckily when I woke up everyone was dressed but me so I dropped Em off at school and headed to preschool with Blake. We only ended up being about 5 or so minutes late. As Blake and I were walking in the door to the church there was a member of MOPS letting the other MOPS in the door. The church keeps all the doors locked for security due to the preschool so you either have to have someone let you in or ring the buzzer for the office and tell them who you are. As I passed the MOP I said, "Yeah, we're a little late. Mom overslept this morning." The MOP said, "Huh. I WISH that could happen to me." As though she would never allow herself to oversleep. Like I'm the lesser parent. Yeah, well at least I don't call myself a cleaning apparatus!

A Conversation With My Son...

Me: (While driving) Blake! Stop pushing your feet against my seat.
(He stops for a second, then does it again)
Me: Blake! Do you want me to tell your dad you were pushing your feet on the seat again?
Blake: No you wont.
Me: Wanna bet?
Blake: Stop saying I'm gonna get a bet because I'm not!


Oh, and here are the pictures from the first day of preschool:

Sad News

On Wednesday night I had to sit the kids down and give them some sad news. My sister had called to tell me their dog had passed away the night before. Coti was a German Shepherd that they got as a puppy I think around 11 years ago. In the last couple of months she's gotten progressively worse to the point where she wasn't eating and couldn't even get up. I had just talked to my sister the night before and she was telling me her hubby was afraid he was going to have to take her to the vet to have her put down. They got lucky and she passed in her sleep that night. Since the kids are only almost 7 and almost 4 they've always had Coti around to play with. Coti knew when the kids came she would get a little extra attention, a little extra playtime and a lot of extra bones from my son.

When I got off the phone I shed a few tears. Not really so much for Coti but more for the kids. I've never had to "sit them down" to tell them anything. I dreaded doing it but I knew it had to be done. Being a Cancer makes you an overly emotional person anyway so of course I broke down a little as soon as I started to tell them. I think it scared them a bit so I really tried hard to keep it together. This wasn't the worst news you could tell anyone, by any means. Really no need to freak out!

Both of the kids reacted exactly how I thought they would. Blake didn't really understand. I told him that Coti was sleeping and wouldn't be at the house anymore. He said, "I know. I know she died." Emily looked at me for a second and started crying. I came into the room prepared with kleenex so I was ready. Emily had typical 6 year-old questions. Where is she now? Did they bury her? Will they get a new dog? Will it be a little dog? So we talked for a few minutes and she calmed down. I told her she might feel sad again later. I told her if she had any other questions to let me know. She seems fine now but I imagine the next time she goes out to my sister and BIL's house she might feel sad again.

Sarah Palin. The next beer guzzling, daisy duke wearing, halter top sportin' Vice President. Go Junior!

I do not consider myself to be a political person, beyond any means. Nor do I make it a habit to talk politics beyond the general, "I hate Dubya...", "stop shipping jobs overseas...", and "gas is too frickin' high!" I do not know a lot about politics, and perhaps to most people's dismay, I don't really care. I do vote, at least in presidential elections, and I do pay attention to the issues being addressed.

As were a lot of people, I was pretty surprised by John McCain's choice for his VP. I obviously had not been paying attention to the list of possibilities as thrown out by every "expert" on TV, the Internet and print journalism. Quite frankly I didn't really care. I have already made my choice to vote for Obama, however I was someone interested in who McCain was going to pick. When I heard it was a 44 year-old FEMALE Mayor from Alaska I was like, "Uh...what?"

Again, I don't know much about her, I don't really care. Of course like 99% of the country I do know that her 17 year-old daughter is pregnant. I also know that daughter's name is Bristol. Bristol. That alone made me at least look her up in wikipedia and find out the names of her other kids. First, there's Track. That's right, Track. He's the oldest. Then came Bristol. So...Bristol, Track. After Bristol comes Willow. Yeah, that was a great VC Andrews series...Willow. Pretty sure I read it while I was pregnant with one of the kids. Pretty sure it didn't inspire me to name one of my own flesh and blood after the main character. Ok. Next comes Piper Indy. Finally, Mrs. Palin gave birth to her 5th child, just this last April, I might add. He's a cute little bugger. Was diagnosed with Down's Syndrome prenatally. Yeah. He's cute. What? Oh, his name? Trig. Duh! So, NASCAR fans. Let's spell this out in a way you can understand:

Track: a surface to race on
Bristol: a NASCAR track in Bristol, TN
Piper Indy: Piper manufactures airplanes, Indy: Short for Indianapolis Motor Speedway-hosts the Indy 500, IRL (Indy Racing League) and NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Willow: Willow Springs International Raceway--Hosted the first two NASCAR events west of the Mississippi
Trig: Well, she's a fan of guns just like most NASCAR fans are and all guns have triggers. Was that mean? Sorry.

Here's what I want to see. No matter who wins the next election, I want to see Sarah Palin at the very next NASCAR race. I want to see her in a Dale Jr. cut off tank top, daisy dukes and a straw cowboy hat. I want her to have a beer in one hand and her baby in the other. She'll be front and center and the one in front of a microphone shouting, "GENTLEMEN...START...YOUR...ENGINES!"
Then she'll let out a big "WHAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOO!" Yep. Can't wait.

Stepford Spouses in Training?

Blakey started preschool today. I know, right? Where did that come from? Well I had found a preschool a few months ago that was reasonably priced. It's at a church. I got the application papers and then just kind of spaced off mailing them in until last week. Then I wondered if they even have an opening anymore. So I called. Busy. Called again. Busy. This went on about four more times last week. So I e-mailed. Nothing. Until Sunday afternoon when I finally got an e-mail back. The lady said, yes, we have one opening left, call me tomorrow. So I called, left a message and she called me back in the afternoon. Everything was a go.



Last night on my way home I went to find the place because, being the spectacular parent that I am, I have never even checked this place out. I was planning on doing it last week but, well, you can see how that turned out. Found the place no problem.



So today I take him to his first day. He was sporting his Batman backpack that he had to have when we were buying Emily's school supplies. As I'm parking the car I realize I'm the only one actually driving a CAR. All the rest of the mothers are driving mini-vans. Weird. We go into the church, go downstairs to the pre-k part and there are other moms who apparently had kids enrolled last year b/c they all know each other and they're chatting it up. They're all talking about their homeschooling and how it's going and about MOPS meetings. MOPS is a group of women that meet at the church a couple times a week...month...don't really care. Mothers Of Pre Schoolers. That's what they call themselves. MOPS. I'm just waiting for the invitation. I know it will come. That's when I get to tell them I'm not interested in becoming a Stepford Wife, nor do I want to join a group of mothers and wives that call themselves something that is also a cleaning apparatus. Just let me take and pick up my kid and leave me alone. I thought the invitation was going to come when I went to pick up Blake. One of the moms pointed at me while she was in the middle of a conversation she was having with another mom about MOPS. I thought, "Aw, lord. Here we go." She said, "Your name is Amy?"

"Yeah."

"And this is your son's first year?"

"Yep."

"Was he scared?"
"Heck no. He couldn't wait for me to leave."

(Because I don't produce clingy, crying kids. It's called I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-C-E. Later we can talk about whether I was sad, but Blake, heck no.)

"Wow. Really?"

"Yeah. I told him I was leaving and he said, 'ok.'"



Luckily just then the teacher came out to dismiss the kids. What a relief. I got out of that one. We'll see what happens on Thursday. I may have to fake a bout of diarrhea, run off towards the bathroom, make a left and jump in my car.



They sent home a calendar of some of the topics they'll be talking about this month. On the 18th they'll be talking about the color black and they said the kids can wear black. Well all of Blake's black shirts are not so much appropriate for a church preschool. They're filled with things like guitars, skulls and snarky phrases like, "Lock up your daughters." So while he was in class I headed to Target. There I found the PERFECT shirt. It's a black tshirt with white stitching. It has what looks like a white long sleeve shirt underneath it. In big white block letters across the front it says PRESCHOOL. OMG! I snatched it up, hardly even looking at the size. Then I realized I had a 4T which is what he wears now but a 5T would be better. Luckily they had one. I also immediately called my sister to tell her of my awesome find. Whoohoo! I can't wait for him to wear it. I hope there aren't any Stepford Kids wearing the same shirt on that day.

Also this morning Emily almost missed the bus. We walked out just as the kids were getting on. Emily pointed and shouted, "Oh no!" I said, "Run Emily! Run!" She made it just in time. I asked the one mom who was outside watching my little Forrest Gump try to catch the bus if the bus was early or if my clock was slow. She said there was a note sent home that the bus was coming 5 minutes early now. Never got that note. Our neighbor girl downstairs also didn't get the note and she DID miss the bus. As I was cooking dinner tonight Emily said, "Look at this." Out from her backpack in the little front pocket she produces the note about the bus. It's all folded seven ways to Sunday and looks like it was run over by the bus.

"That would have been nice to know before we got up this morning, Emily."

"I forgoooooot."

Suuuuuuuuure.

Still no RSVP's for Emily's birthday party in 2 weeks. Well, except for the neighbors downstairs. Hopefully the other moms are like me and just keep putting it off or forgetting about it. I did put my email addy in there in case they're also like me and just don't like calling strangers. Hopefully we can get a few of the girls from Em's class to come. She'll be so bummed if they don't!