Happy Halloween!!

Go forth and get candy kids. And make sure you bring Mommy all the Kit Kats and Almond Joys.

I'll be sure to post lots of cute pictures of the Kiddley Beans* tomorrow. I know everyone loves pictures of other people's kids in their Halloween costumes so we'll see you back here tomorrow!

*No, my kids aren't dressing up as some sort of legume tonight. Kiddley Beans is the cute name that my husband call my kids. I can only hope that my spelling of it is correct. If it is not, I'm sure my husband will let me know.

Woking hard to be the fun one.

A couple of weekends ago we took the kids to see Boone’s Cave Park. I was a little hesitant at first because my friend Jennifer told me that we would need flashlights.

Ugh! The last thing I wanted to do was crawl around in a dark creepy cave. However, I could tell my husband really wanted to go. It was a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon and we didn’t have anything else that we absolutely had to do so I said, “Why not. Let’s go.”

My friend Jennifer is "the fun mom" (my son has already asked me why he can’t go live with them) and my husband often tells me that I’m too serious.

I am. I can’t help it.

In college, my friends used to call me The Voice of Reason. Oddly enough I was never offended by this nickname. I was quite proud of it! I like to think being The Voice of Reason kept us out of trouble but I’m sure my friends would say it kept us out of fun.

So, this one time I decided I wasn’t going to keep us from doing something fun. We put on our old jeans and sneakers and grabbed our flashlights. The park is less than 30 minutes from our house so we were there in no time. We parked and headed down the trail towards the cave.

Apparently Daniel Boone’s family moved to the banks of the Yadkin River in 1750. Legend has it that Daniel Boone used to hide from the Indians in the very cave that we were going to explore. I have to say that the thought of being in a cave that Daniel Boone was in was pretty exciting even to a boring old no-fun mommy like me. Although the serious practical side of me wondered how it could be possible that over 250 years later anyone would know if this was the exact cave or not.

We took the trail (which was a set of wooden steps that had been built going down the side of a large rock outcropping) and made it to the entrance of the cave. We had to stoop down to get into the cave. I’m not sure what I was expecting…maybe the Luray Caverns which I had visited before and was quite impressed by. I can assure you, this was no Luray Caverns but it was free and it was just the right size for a three and 4 year old.

My husband and the kids crawled into the cave and started going further in. I however stopped crawling because I could feel my chest tighten as thoughts of getting stuck in the cave crowded into my head.

I couldn’t do it. I didn’t go in.

It had nothing to do with the fact that it was dark, wet and dirty but everything to do with the fact that I have a touch of the claustrophobia. Sometimes I can’t even sit in the third row of my parent’s mini-van without feeling like a caged animal.

My kids didn’t seem to mind that I wasn’t going in and followed my husband into the cave about 100 feet until the opening was too small and they couldn’t continue any further. They turned around and came back happy as clams. The knees of their jeans were dirty and they were gabbing happily about the cave and how dark and spooky it was. I think they were disappointed that they didn’t see any bats. I was just really glad we took flashlights. All fun mommies know that you should always take a flashlight when you are going to explore a cave!

After the cave, we let the kids play for a little bit at the edge of the river. Then we decided to take a hike on one of the trails. The sign at the beginning of the trail said simply “Cottonwood Tree”. We walked about 20 minutes until we came to a giant Cottonwood tree. We “ohhhed” and “ahhhed” and turned around and headed back up the trail. It was only when we returned home and I did some research on the Internet that I discovered the tree at over 160 feet tall is the tallest Eastern Cottonwood tree in our state.

All in all it was quite a nice afternoon. The kids got to play in a dark and spooky cave and we all got some exercise. And I wasn’t the stick in the mud that I normally am! Maybe, just maybe, if I keep working at it, one of these days I will be “the fun mommy”.

I want my personality to be sparkling, not my shirt.

The other day as I was getting the kids ready for school Peter asked, “Why did you Bedazzle your shirt?”

Bedazzle my shirt? What the heck is he talking about?

I looked down and noticed that the shirt I was wearing had some teeny tiny little gold sparkles in a small circular pattern on the front. I have worn this shirt for two years now and Peter has never mentioned the little crystals before. He possesses the observational powers of his father. “What?? Your hair has been 2 shades darker for how long now?”

Peter and Sarah have been aware of the Bedazzler for several months now – ever since they started watching the Magic School Bus. Prior to the Magic School Bus, all the shows they have watched have been on Noggin or PBS so I have never had to deal with pesky commercials. However, now that they are going through a Magic School Bus phase I keep hearing things like,

“Mom! You need a Quiktop to prevent spills and keep your drink fresh!”

or

“Mom! We need an inflatable Ready Bed because it is ready when you are and is perfect for sleepovers”

or

“Mom! We need Aqua Dots. It's fun for us and there’s no messy clean up for you!”

As surprised as I was that they were airing a Bedazzler commercial during The Magic School Bus, I was even more surprised to see Tana from the Apprentice hawking it. If you will remember, she was the runner up on season three. What? You don’t remember her? Then you must not love reality TV as much as you think you do.

Part of the reason she didn’t win the Apprentice (aside from the fact that she turned into a complete bee-yatch in the last episode) was that in one of the tasks she spent many hours searching Manhattan for a Bedazzler to “spiff up” some t-shirts they were trying to sell. I’ve put "spiff up" in quotes because is anything that is Bedazzled really and truly "spiffed up"? I think not.

Long story short, it annoyed Donald Trump that she wasted time on something so stupid and I have to say I agree. I’ve mentioned my wardrobe previously and my lack of expertise in that area but even as horrible as it is even I know that no one in New York City wants anything bedazzled. Heck, most people around here don’t even want anything bedazzled so it really annoyed me when my son – my own flesh and blood – accused me of wearing a shirt that had been Bedazzled.

I decided that I was going to take a picture of the shirt to let you guys decide if I need to rethink wearing this shirt. But I soon discovered it is very hard to take a flattering picture of yourself.

Now, let me just say that it has taken me a lot of courage to post this picture. First of all, I hate, hate, HATE almost any picture that has ever been taken of me. Even if most people say it is a nice picture I will find something wrong with it. I get this annoying trait from my mother. This drives my father crazy about my mother and now it is driving my husband crazy about me. But they vowed to love us for better or for worse so I’m not too worried.

So now that you guys know that I hate almost any picture of me, you know that I must abhor this picture and I do! The width and depth of the nostrils alone are going to give me cold sweats tonight when I realize that I have posted the picture on the Internet for the world to see. And the wrinkles around my eyes look really deep in this picture…much deeper than the seem to me when I am staring at them in the mirror while pondering whether or not my anti-aging cream is working. I’m pretty sure based on this picture it is not.

The thing that really and truly annoys me the most about this picture is the massive amount of flesh where I used to have arm muscles. When I look at this picture I am reminded of my dear sweet Grandma Lois. I knew I always took after my Dad’s side of the family and now I have the arm dangle to prove it.

But the whole reason I posted this picture was to show you that, contrary to the popular opinion of a certain almost five year old boy, my shirt was not Bedazzled. Do you agree?

I guess my house isn't clean enough for a 3 year old!

Sarah and I were at the grocery store earlier this week. We were on the aisle with all the cleaning products and she pointed and said, “Mommy, who’s that man?”

“That’s Mr. Clean,” I said.

“Oh! Well, maybe we could ask him to come over to our house!”

If only.

Timing is everything...

Sarah and I were leaving Wal-Mart yesterday. She was strapped into her car seat and I was loading the back of our SUV with groceries and talking to her. As luck would have it, right as I was saying, “You know better! We put boogers into Kleenex not into our mouths!” I looked up to see the father of the guy who I spent most of my college years with a giant crush on walk right by us.

I did not say hello. Instead I put my head down and pretended not to see him. He did the same thing. Can you blame him?

Peter's version of "Guess How Much I Love You"

The other day as we were heading out, we drove past my parent’s house and my dad was heading into his shop. He saw us and waved and we waved back. Peter said to me, “Mommy, I love Grandpa more than you do!”

“You do? I don’t know about that. He’s my Daddy after all!” I replied

“Well, I love him a lot more than you because he’s my Grandpa!”

“Oh, yeah. Well how much do you love him?”

“I love him from our house, to the moon, to our play set, to the shop, to the beach and back to my room! That’s how much I love him!”

“Well, that is a lot! I think I love him that much too!”

Chocolate covered pretzels

I've been busy this week making lots of these...

And these...

And these...

Don't they look delicious??

My kids loved them. And why wouldn't they? Almost anything is good covered in chocolate. Hmmm...does anyone have a recipe for chocolate covered broccoli?

Peter, who has a birthday coming up soon, even asked if I could make some of these for his birthday cake. Ah, birthday pretzel rod cake. But where would I put the candles??

Peg, that boy ain't right...

For the last 8 months or so, Peter will abruptly declare that he is not getting married. He will say it out of the blue as if someone has just asked him about his feelings on marriage. I find this behavior very odd for a not quite 5 year old. The only thing I can figure is that maybe some of the girls in his class at school have been talking about marriage. I know that on the playground the girls will chase the boys around and perhaps he thinks marriage is what happens when one of the girls catches one of the boys …he wouldn’t be too far off.

I don’t make a big deal out of his declarations because I don’t want him to think it matters one way or the other. And of course it doesn’t matter one way or the other but I keep screaming in my head, “You have to married! I want lots of grandbabies!” Although one could argue that he could still give me lots of grandbabies without being married. That, however, is a whole other post.

Back to the story at hand…at least once a week Peter will declare, “I am not going to get married!” To which I try to reply nonchalantly, “That’s fine. You don’t have to get married if you don’t want to.” But yesterday, he declared gleefully, “I love all the computer games on Legos.com so much that I think I want to marry them!”

I think a statement like that might even scare the little girls on the playground away. Good thing he’s cute!


***Edited to add - Even as I am typing this Peter is in the other room telling my husband that he is going to play baseball for the Red Sox when he grows up. This, of course, makes my husband very happy. Peter then asks if any of the Red Sox are married because he is going to be one that is not. This, of course, makes me very sad.

Sweet Treat

There are a lot of fringe benefits gained from living next door to your parents. Among them for us are free and convenient babysitting, delicious Sunday lunch served right after church, free use of a riding mower and access to a wonderful front porch equipped with a swing and lots of rockers.

Last night as I was drying the dinner dishes my mom called me to ask if we had finished dinner.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Have the kid’s had their baths yet?” she asked.

Baths? Ha! Wasn’t really planning on giving them baths.

“Um. No,” I answered.

“Good! Send them over here with their pajamas and I’ll give them a bath while you and Dan run to Dairy Queen.”

An impromptu run to Dairy Queen! What could be better than a quick trip to Dairy Queen with no kids?

We got 45 minutes of uninterrupted talk with each other. We got to listen to bad 80’s music in the car without anyone yelling for us to “turn on my songs”. (Why is it that all stations insist on playing "the best of the 80’s" on Saturday night?) We got to eat without having to wipe melted ice cream off of anyone’s nose or ear. And best of all, when we got back home, our kids were clean, in their pajamas and ready for bed!

If anyone of you ever has the chance to live right next door to your parents, I highly recommend it…almost as much as I recommend the Chocolate Xtreme Blizzard at DQ!