Show Me Your Booty

We've been busy lately, as evidenced by the fact I have not bothered to blog in like two and a half weeks. I've just heard once or twice that things like fresh air and exercise are supposed to be good for kids or something, so we've been outside a lot. Then we come inside and I herd the kids to bed and all I want to do is sit on the couch and not use any part of my brain. This is why I watch "Dating in the Dark". No brainpower required.

We did, however, make a trek to Minneapolis for my cousin's wedding and then on to Nantucket with the whole fam. It was a nice time. Some things I did not do while there:

1) Meet "the man from Nantucket". I did, however, buy a t-shirt proclaiming that I am the man from Nantucket. I live for irony.

2) Get in any major fights with a family member. This is a big one.

3) Refrain from jumping in the pool with my clothes on. The fact that Tate tipped over in his inner tube and got stuck upside down underwater with his feet flailing madly above the surface may have had something to do with this.

4) Refrain from jumping in the pool with my clothes on again. Tate apparently had a vendetta against the pool after it kicked his ass the first time, so he marched right on back in, only this time he had no inner tube. All that chlorine snorted up his nose must have short wired something in his brain.

5) Manage not to make a fool out of myself on the flight down. I'm what some would call a nervous flier. At this point, my family would call it a screaming, bucking, hyperventilating, looking-like-someone-who-just-got-electrocuted flier. It's not pretty. I thought ahead on the flight home though, and started drinking pretty much immediately. The fact that it was only 11 am played no part in my reasoning.

All in all, a successful trip. My mom, sister and I went on a house tour where we got to mingle with a bunch of snooty women who all got some magic, East Coast memo to wear white capri pants, pastel shirts, sweaters with ropes and gold chain things printed on them slung jauntily over their shoulders, and big straw hats. We did not wear any of these things because we're just lowly Midwesterners. I don;t think I impressed any of them when I yelled "Hey, Joanna, look at me!" and opened my mouth to show off my partly masticated brownie. While at the tour, we also experienced what we dubbed "Booty Gate". All the houses made you put on these shoe-condom thingies so we wouldn't track in our mud and germs all over their house. Imagine the uproar when one of the houses ran out of booties. Not a booty to be found. Then the people in charge started trying to get women to give up their booties as they left the house so some of the sad, pathetic little booty-less people could have some.

No one would give up their booties. It was booty madness. Some of these women were about to start throwing chairs or Louis Vuitton purses or their kicky little wedge heels at people in order to get booties. It was pretty much impossible for my sister and I to not start snickering "Give up the booty! Give me booty or give me death! I'll kick your ass for some booty!!" When we finally procured booties for ourselves, we decided that it was everyone for themselves, bitches. Therefore, as we walked out of each houses, we hid the booties under our shirts and steadfastly avoided looking at any of the booty-less masses as we passed. Hey, I don't give up booty to just anyone. I was afraid at any moment I'd turn around and see some Botox-ed, collagened, Lilly Pulitzer-wearing grandma come sprinting towards me intent on getting my booty.

We also went to the beach, swam in the pool, strolled around the town, chased Tate out of the street a million times because it was made of rock and looked just like the sidewalk, and frolicked on a centuries-old Quaker cemetery across the street. We figured the Quakers were a pretty chill group so they would be ok with it.

I would post pictures of the adventures, but something is screwy and the powers that be that live in my computer are not letting me. Bastards. They're all on my Facebook page anyway. And now, since it's been so long since I've blogged, I must stop, for I am spent. I should have stretched first. Hopefully I'm not sore tomorrow.

Ha HA!

Since his surgery a couple weeks ago (no fevers yet...yay!), Tate seems to have a new outlook on life. Mainly, everything is incredibly freaking funny. He wanders around the house all day going "Ha HA!". He sees something humorous on TV? "Ha HA!" Mom drops something on her foot and hops around cursing madly? "Ha HA!" Nora uses her peanut butter and jelly sandwich as hair mousse? "Ha HA!" He puts his underwear on his own head and runs around like a lunatic? "Ha HA! Ha HA!" At least he finds humor in the mundane. Because at this point, underwear-on-head-running-around is a pretty stock activity around here. It's a strange day when that doesn't happen.

He's changing so much lately. All of a sudden he just seems smarter and calmer and...less toddler-ish. I sit back and watch with an odd mixture of pride and mourning. Everyday he surprises me with something new that he knows and everyday I seem to need to fight back tears as I remember the little baby that he was, and is getting farther and farther away from. He likes to play outside by himself now. I watch him as he plays pretend and as he picks up his toys and dresses himself and writes shaky "T"s on his aqua-doodle, and I'm so proud at what he can do, and wonder what new thing he'll be doing tomorrow. I listen to him exclaim "Oh, my GOODNESS!" as he runs away from me and the face of Elmo imprinted on his big-boy undies peeks at me over the back waistband of his shorts. Soon he'll be in preschool, and then I'll turn around and he'll be in grade school and then all of a sudden he'll be graduating high school. Then he'll get married and have kids of his own and I'll be all old and wrinkly and wondering what the hell happened to my bladder control and when I started needing to wear Depends and to take my teeth out at night and put them in a glass by my bed and then I'll be DEAD.

Ah, good times.

Nora, on the other hand, is still my baby. And really lookin' fine these days. This is what happens when she spills something on her dress and it's late enough in the day that there's really no point in putting a clean one on her and neither of us can really be bothered to give a crap about what she looks like.

Now, that's a special looking kid.

And I'm thinking I may have to do something about her hair. Everytime I put pigtails or braids in her hair these days, they last approximately 2.4 seconds before getting savagely, forcibly undone. Then she ends up looking like this for the rest of the day. Imagine a few chunks of slimy crackers and ravioli hanging off the ends and you've got the perfect image of how great she's looking by about 5pm each day.

Nora, aka the reincarnation of John Denver

You're fired.

I long for the days of pigtails. Ah, pigtails. I shall never forget you. Perhaps we'll meet again someday.

RIP Pigtails. 2008-2009.