tea time

i went to tea with my sister-in-law, her mother, sister and niece yesterday. didn't want to, but felt obligated. our other sister-in-law stacy and my mom were supposed to go as well. however, mom stepped on a nail that pierced her shoe and foot and was excused due to surgery recovery rules. stacy could not make it either. so.

tea houses are not my thing. i am ashamed to admit i attended far too few tea parties with tori when she was a little girl. some, but not enough, in retrospect. and i'd never gone to a tea house as an adult. coffee shops? oh, i'm there. (or i would be, if my town had one. darn you, starbucks! oh, who am i kidding - mcdonald's playplace is as close to a coffee shop experience as i'll have for the next ten years. and they do sell lattes now...)

but i digress, as usual. back to my intended lamentations.

taryn's family is . . . spirited. they bicker. (a family of four daughters may be the cause? food for thought.) i'm not judging; i'm just not accustomed to it. my original nuclear family didn't bicker. my own family doesn't bicker. (although during andrew's and tori's teenage years? "could you find anything more stupid to argue about?" was oft-uttered by me.) my friends' families do not bicker when i am present. who knows what goes on in private, which is kind of my point - taryn's family does not always constrain their bickering to private times and places. again, i'm not judging; just uncomfortable.

but! yesterday? no arguing. none! lively debate, but respectful. the food? meh. everyone ate faster than i, but this is normal. the price? ugh. but worth it because taryn wanted it. i like to make my family happy, see.

and it gave me a good idea (maybe. i think. maybe.) for mother's day: my sisters-in-law and i will serve a tea to grammy, timmy, ethan and catie. grammy does love her some playtime with the grandbabies, and with this plan, we can avoid her doing any work without her even realizing it. score!

stay tuned, my faithful reader (that would be me) to be regaled with tales of mother's day glory.

oh! almost forgot! this is how we will serve our chai lattes at grammy's mother's day tea party. yes we will. oh, stop with the negativity - it'll be easy!

i love fresh flowers

i received a flower from timmy for the first time ever. daddy and he shopped (unsuccessfully) for a new motorcycle battery while i cleaned the kitchen. when they returned, timmy brought me a beautiful yellow . . . dandelion. from our yard.

whenever they've been gone, timmy always runs into the house all excited to tell me what they did, to whom they talked (and to whom he gave a wink) and show me the chewing gum daddy gave him.

so, as usual, i met them at the door when timmy rang the bell and he held up his little fist clutching the dandelion and said, "here, mommy. i have a lovely yellow flower for you. you can smell it!" i did. surprisingly, dandelions do smell nice.

they do not, however, last long as a cut (or torn) flower. an hour later, it was completely brown and shriveled. fortunately, there were puh-lenty more in the yard for timmy to pick.

i don't want to wear undies. ever.

oy vey! when will this kid be potty trained? the experts say, "don't worry. your child will not be walking down the aisle in diapers." yeah. those are some uplifting words of encouragement. i get chills.

today, timmy and i had lunch with susan at our favorite place, taco rio. we're chatting away when timmy gets a funny look on his face & says, "oooooo-uh" and grabs his hiney with both hands. i ask, "do you have some poopies?" he replies, "noooooooooo. i have no poopies. no poopies are coming. susan, why do you have two rings on your hand?" this guy can change the topic like nobody's business. (big sigh)

i love this little person more than i love my next breath. really, i do. having said that, he has been such a hiney-head the past few weeks.

he. challenges. everything.

lips pursed, left eyebrow raised. just standing his ground. asserting his will. reveling in his little baby-guy independence.

i avoid the battle whenever possible, but i cannot back down when directly confronted. sure, it would be easier for us now to just ignore his defiance, but we're not in this parenting thing for the ease. we're trying to raise a responsible, respectful, productive adult.

it worked the first two times. andrew and tori are both great adults. this third child, though. i'm sure it's no different than it was almost twenty years ago (who can remember that long ago?), but some days i think we may be wearing a shiny spot on the ol' time-out chair.

and then there are times like last night. we were rocking at bedtime and i was singing, by timmy's request, amarillo by morning along with his beloved george strait greatest hits cd. the end of one of those endless days. if i recall correctly, we suffered two time-outs between the tub and the jammies. timmy rested his head on my shoulder and his little hand patted my arm and he said, "that's some lovely singing there, mommy. good job." oh, man, i love this kid.

o chickie, chickie! wherefore art thou, chickie?

it's hard to believe chickie's been gone 10 months now. i received chickie at my baby shower for timmy. in june of last year, timmy and i spent some time in chicago visiting brand-new baby arie (tim had to work, so it was just mommy & timmy). of course timmy took chickie, his very best friend in all the world. chickie and he had not spent one day or night (or half-hour) apart since timmy was old enough to express his preference for him.

on our last full day in chicago, michelle & baby arie and timmy, chickie and i went to the lincoln park zoo. chickie did not make it home. i explained to timmy that night that chickie'd been left at the lincoln park zoo and maybe another boy who didn't have any chickie took him home to love him. timmy was sad. he has never stopped talking about chickie. he frequently tells strangers that chickie is at the zoo in chicago (until last month, he said "sugar-cago").

i began the hunt for chickie and/or a replacement even b/f we left chicago. if i had to estimate, i'd say i've probably spent 70 hours looking so far. about a month after we returned home, i found a plush chick from a wildlife fundraising thing - the "fur" was similar and it was a chick, but it looked nothing like chickie. when it arrived in the mail, i gave it to timmy and told him the mailman brought a new chickie for timmy to love and hug. he was mildly taken aback. he said, "this isn't chickie. this chickie has big huge eyeballs." it took only moments for timmy to love "new chickie" but he is still patiently awaiting the day the mailman will bring "old chickie" home.

during a recent ebay search, i came across a very similar chickie. so similar, in fact, my heart almost stopped. until i realized the chickie on ebay is teeny . . . and hollow (with a plastic egg inside). but it's the same maker (hallmark / heartline) and the little bow is similar, the head and wing and eye shapes are the same. timmy loves his "tiny little baby chickie" but when he called grammy to tell her about it, he said, "and my old chickie will come home from the lincoln log zoo."

it gives me hope that we'll find another original chickie soon, and timmy will be able to tell people old chickie came home from "lincoln log zoo."

my first 12-of-12

seems like such a simple concept. take twelve pictures of your everyday life on the 12th of each month and then scrap them. cathy zielske's first try was what caught my attention, causing me to check out susan keuter's 12-of-12 blog and sign up for her email reminders.

talked my friend susan into it, and maybe her sister sharon, too. they, of course, had an exciting april 12th. they went to a quilt show or auction (something creative and exciting)

i didn't leave the house all day. timmy was feverish and woke up several times in the night, so like any good . . . uh, tired . . . mom would do for her baby, i snuggled in mommy's bed for a while watching my friends tigger & pooh.

he finally got hungry, though, so i made oatmeal. then, since i was up anyway, i decided to load and start the dishwasher, vacuum the living room and do some laundry. oh, and the laundry remains undone. but i did make some no-bake cookies. that's just as good, right? no, really - wouldn't you rather have no-bake cookies than clean socks? no . . . me neither.

aaaaaaaaaaanyway, my first 12-of-12 day turned out extrmely boring. but at least i put in an attempt. i even chose which twelve pics i'd use and "sketched" a layout in pse. sent it to susan and sharon (& susan keuter), too. with march 12th 2008 on it. yeah. march. when i finally get around to actually scrapping it, though, i'll use the correct month just to make it interesting.