I’ve officially gone batty. My Susie-homemaker dreams have way over-extended my meager home-ec abilities. We’re hosting a Halloween party for the neighborhood kids. I volunteered to be in charge of the cookies.
I have lots of cookie recipes and ideas ripped out of several magazines. The magazine calls for cutting out the bat shapes with a cookie cutter. Now who in the world has a bat shaped cookie cutter. Oh, yeah, SANE people.
Not me. I drew a bat ( ok a very bad bat profile) and cut 24 bats out by hand.
Yes I am really that insane. More pictures of my insanity to follow.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
What? 5 months you say?
Ok, I’m very late on Ian’s 5 month post. I could post a whole page of excuses, but the real reason is probably denial. How can my “wee bairn” be 5 months old already? That little guy rolling over on the floor, holding his head up and blowing raspberries is MY baby? No!
Between his 4th and 5th month milestones Ian took his first plane ride. He met a whole host of family and was spoiled rotten. He also had his first long separation from his Daddy.
Speaking of Daddy, Ian has really started interacting with Mark. He coos when Mark comes home from work, grins big drooly grins when he happen sto notice Mark in the room, and belly laughs at Mark’s playing with Ethan.
Ian has slept through the night several times now, but not regularly enough to even call it a common occurrence. He doesn’t have a “schedule” and rarely conforms to any expectation, other than my grudging acknowledgment that yes, the 16lb (approx.) son is the real man in charge around here.
In a week we’ll be celebrating Halloween. Ian will be dressed up, sort of. Mostly he’ll get to giggle as Ethan transforms into a pirate and gets high on sugar.
Sorry this is so late, little boy. It’s all your fault. I’m having too much fun snuggling with you and rolling you back over to actually sit down and share my thoughts with anyone else.
Between his 4th and 5th month milestones Ian took his first plane ride. He met a whole host of family and was spoiled rotten. He also had his first long separation from his Daddy.
Speaking of Daddy, Ian has really started interacting with Mark. He coos when Mark comes home from work, grins big drooly grins when he happen sto notice Mark in the room, and belly laughs at Mark’s playing with Ethan.
Ian has slept through the night several times now, but not regularly enough to even call it a common occurrence. He doesn’t have a “schedule” and rarely conforms to any expectation, other than my grudging acknowledgment that yes, the 16lb (approx.) son is the real man in charge around here.
In a week we’ll be celebrating Halloween. Ian will be dressed up, sort of. Mostly he’ll get to giggle as Ethan transforms into a pirate and gets high on sugar.
Sorry this is so late, little boy. It’s all your fault. I’m having too much fun snuggling with you and rolling you back over to actually sit down and share my thoughts with anyone else.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Ethan Nature Boy
My Gramma, as previously mentioned, lives in the “forest”. Well, it’s actually a wooded lot on Kentucky Lake, but to city-boy Ethan, it’s the deepest darkest forest. Thankfully, the deepest darkest forest is inhabited by very cool animals. (And also lots of spiders, but we’ll refrain from speaking of those in case Eddie is reading this.)
The first morning at Gramma’s we woke up before anyone else (of course) and were startled to find a doe and her fawn hanging out on Gramma’s front porch. Apparently the fawn found the unplanted plants on the porch to be too much to resist. His mother was at the corner of the walkway and I’m sure she was using amazing deer-mother telepathic skills to tell him “Get off those people’s porch. You can’t just walk up and eat things right off humans’ porches. You have no idea where they’ve been!”
Later that day, after the monsoon had ceased for an hour or so, Granny came on a walk with us. We found a tiny little box turtle and brought him home, hoping he would come out of his shell. He never did, so we put him back outside, where he probably drowned in the 4 inches of rain we got that afternoon.
Gramma, being the grandmother to 8 grandchildren and, now, 3 great-grandchildren, is not hampered by a little Noah-eqsue flood when it comes to entertaining children. She had a box of toys all ready to be explored by Ethan’s disturbingly active imagination. Granny also supplied her share of toys and the Aunts all brought in toys as well.
Well, except for Aunt Tennie- she brought her dog. Poor Jazz is probably still sleeping off all the exercise he received while at Gramma’s house. Ethan chased, petted, tickled and generally harassed at least 15 pounds off that little pug dog.
Uncle Eldon brought himself- and that was quite enough entertainment. Uncle Eldon, who is actually Ethan’s great-great-uncle, played with play-doh and earned himself sainthood status just by putting up with the endless round of questions that come out of my eldest son’s mouth. Ethan was sad when “That big kid” had to go home.
Sunday morning we went walking again and Ethan said “Look Mamma, my turtle’s all growed up.” Indeed it had- and changed species as well. That cold Kentucky rain has amazing powers. Ethan’s box turtle from Saturday, no bigger than your thumb, had metamorphosed into a dinner plate sized snapping turtle. We did not take that turtle home.
When the sun went down and the aunts and uncles, deer and turtles had all gone home we amused Ethan with records played on the victrola. He, of course, had never seen a record, much less a victrola. Since we’ve been home he’s asked me several times why we don’t have a record player. I tell him we’re poor city folk and have to make do with CD-Rom drives on the computer.
Thanks to all the family who helped entertain my rambunctious little man. Special thanks to Uncle Eldon for having us over to his house to play with his adorable grand-daughters, and to “Aunt” Susie for her stamina- and for teaching Ethan how to pee in the lake.
We miss everyone very much. Ethan keeps asking who is coming to visit him today.
The first morning at Gramma’s we woke up before anyone else (of course) and were startled to find a doe and her fawn hanging out on Gramma’s front porch. Apparently the fawn found the unplanted plants on the porch to be too much to resist. His mother was at the corner of the walkway and I’m sure she was using amazing deer-mother telepathic skills to tell him “Get off those people’s porch. You can’t just walk up and eat things right off humans’ porches. You have no idea where they’ve been!”
Later that day, after the monsoon had ceased for an hour or so, Granny came on a walk with us. We found a tiny little box turtle and brought him home, hoping he would come out of his shell. He never did, so we put him back outside, where he probably drowned in the 4 inches of rain we got that afternoon.
Gramma, being the grandmother to 8 grandchildren and, now, 3 great-grandchildren, is not hampered by a little Noah-eqsue flood when it comes to entertaining children. She had a box of toys all ready to be explored by Ethan’s disturbingly active imagination. Granny also supplied her share of toys and the Aunts all brought in toys as well.
Well, except for Aunt Tennie- she brought her dog. Poor Jazz is probably still sleeping off all the exercise he received while at Gramma’s house. Ethan chased, petted, tickled and generally harassed at least 15 pounds off that little pug dog.
Uncle Eldon brought himself- and that was quite enough entertainment. Uncle Eldon, who is actually Ethan’s great-great-uncle, played with play-doh and earned himself sainthood status just by putting up with the endless round of questions that come out of my eldest son’s mouth. Ethan was sad when “That big kid” had to go home.
Sunday morning we went walking again and Ethan said “Look Mamma, my turtle’s all growed up.” Indeed it had- and changed species as well. That cold Kentucky rain has amazing powers. Ethan’s box turtle from Saturday, no bigger than your thumb, had metamorphosed into a dinner plate sized snapping turtle. We did not take that turtle home.
When the sun went down and the aunts and uncles, deer and turtles had all gone home we amused Ethan with records played on the victrola. He, of course, had never seen a record, much less a victrola. Since we’ve been home he’s asked me several times why we don’t have a record player. I tell him we’re poor city folk and have to make do with CD-Rom drives on the computer.
Thanks to all the family who helped entertain my rambunctious little man. Special thanks to Uncle Eldon for having us over to his house to play with his adorable grand-daughters, and to “Aunt” Susie for her stamina- and for teaching Ethan how to pee in the lake.
We miss everyone very much. Ethan keeps asking who is coming to visit him today.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
The Kentucky Trip-Ian's bit
My family is populated by opinionated, stubborn, loving, but most of all, talkative, women. Oh there are plenty of men to round out the gatherings and gives us people to cook for, but my mother’s family is most definitely matriarchal. I’m sure in the “olden days” the women of the Owen/Wade/Aldridge clans would sit around and chat while working on a quilt. Today we migrate towards Gramma’s dining room table and a deck of cards. Talking is just easier when your hands are busy shuffling a few decks and your mind is trying to remember the rules of the latest game that Aunt Tennie has found.
Ian, with his love of the middle of a table- any table will do as long as it is hard and has a great big light above it searing his little green/hazel/brown eyes- tended to interrupt our card games this trip. Tennie soon discovered, however, that Gramma’s chandelier makes the perfect hanging place for a wind chime and that wind chimes are glorious entertainment to a 4.5 month old baby. When he wasn’t lying smack dab in the middle of the table he was being held, cuddled, rocked, and generally spoiled rotten.
Uncle Eldon is convinced I don’t feed Ian at all. Aunt Tennie is convinced I’m feeding him the special puppy chow for “large babies”. (It’s not that he’s fat, it’s just that baby Eliza is so femininely petite. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
Just to prove that he really is a paragon of baby correctness (and that his mother is a paranoid freak), Ian rolled over three times while we were at Gramma’s house. I’d give you more details, but I missed it all three times. Yeah, that’s fair. Also, he hasn’t done it since.
Before you ask, there are no pictures of Gramma holding Ian because she was invariably rocking him to sleep. I heard her mutter on more than one occasion that I was abusing the poor baby because I didn’t have a good rocker with a good squeak to it.
Yeah, he looks abused, doesn’t he?
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Visiting with Autumn
Ethan has an interesting, self-made, version of the “How do we get to Grandma’s house” rhyme.
First we ride in a car to the airport, then we take a bus to the terminal, then we take an airplane, then we take a car ride over the river, through the hills, over the lakes and into the forest. And that is what we did last week. For the rest of the week I’ll be posting snippets about our trip and pictures of the grand adventure.
First stop: “the barrel of crack” to meet “Aunt” Elizabeth (who is really Ethan’s godmother) and Miss Autumn. Miss Autumn is my three-year-old goddaughter and the most gorgeous three-year-old girl on the planet.
Don’t believe me?
Check out the blond cuteness.
Oh- and yes we are fairly sure that having Ethan in a UK outfit while sitting in a UT decorated chair is inviting the apocolypse.
First we ride in a car to the airport, then we take a bus to the terminal, then we take an airplane, then we take a car ride over the river, through the hills, over the lakes and into the forest. And that is what we did last week. For the rest of the week I’ll be posting snippets about our trip and pictures of the grand adventure.
First stop: “the barrel of crack” to meet “Aunt” Elizabeth (who is really Ethan’s godmother) and Miss Autumn. Miss Autumn is my three-year-old goddaughter and the most gorgeous three-year-old girl on the planet.
Don’t believe me?
Check out the blond cuteness.
Oh- and yes we are fairly sure that having Ethan in a UK outfit while sitting in a UT decorated chair is inviting the apocolypse.
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