elegraph: a blog

thanks, i think

2011-11-07T08:16:00.005-06:00

While clipping LO's nails before school, I fumbled through an abridged, PC version of the origins of Thanksgiving. When I was finished with both, I asked LO if he wanted to say something he was thankful for. "I'll start," I said. "I'm thankful for you."

He turned his head to me and smiled. "Really?"

"Yes! Now, your turn."

"I'm thankful," he said, "for you... cutting my nails."

pumpkin pancakes

2011-10-04T09:14:00.010-05:00

Hello there, and Happy Fall. Someday I'll write an actual what's-happening-in-our-world post, but for now, I must share with you the recipe for what turned out to be a pretty darned good breakfast this morning. We already had a late start to the morning, getting up later than usual (around 8am - Tuesday is the the one day per school week when we don't have anything on our schedule), so it was iffy as to whether or not LO was going to wither away from hunger before I got these made (they do require a little more effort than regular pancakes because of having to separate the eggs and beat the whites) - but they were so worth it (I think LO would agree)!

(Click here for the best Pumpkin Pancakes ever. Credit: The Curvy Carrot)

I used 2% milk instead of skim, and I slightly reduced the butter. I doubled this batch, so I omitted 1 T. total of the butter. And I didn't have pumpkin pie spice, so I had to quickly cobble together a batch before moving forward with the recipe (thank you, Internets, for putting hundreds of thousands of recipes - including spice blends - at my fingertips).

These pancakes are light, moist, and melt-in-your-mouth - with a nice, light pumpkin and spice flavor that isn't too overpowering and goes really well with the sweetness of the syrup. I doubled the batch and ended up with 16 pancakes - I'd anticipated fewer, so I sure hope these freeze well, because I have 7 left (Each of us ate 3 pancakes - still trying to figure out the science behind how a 4-year-old boy can eat as many pancakes as his parents do AND a container of applesauce to boot).

(Wowwww, could I have used more parentheses in this post or what?)

blogger is buggin'

2011-08-27T20:01:00.004-05:00

Just a quick post to say that I promise, I do try to read my friends' blogs! Unfortunately, blogger has been giving me fits for a little while off and on, especially those blogs that require word verification in order to post a comment. So lately I haven't been able to post comments on some blogger blogs! So, my bloggy friends, just know that I do visit! :-)

you win, mom.

2011-08-19T08:18:00.005-05:00

When LO was not yet a toddler and I would long for him to say his first words, when I would imagine the sweet conversations we would have someday, I used to inwardly roll my eyes when my mom would chuckle knowingly and tell me that one day I would be all, "I wish this kid could just be quiet for ONE SECOND!"

My friends, today I think I have hit that point. (Don't tell my mom, 'k?)

I think the toughest part of it is that he wants me to actively participate ALL THE TIME! "Come look, Mom! Look! Mom! Come look!" It's the "come" part that gets me. Moving my eyes in the direction of the action isn't good enough for him - he's not satisfied unless I stop what I am doing and physically move my body right in front of whatever it is he's doing. I think we are both ready for preschool to start! :-)

4-year stats

2011-08-03T20:34:00.005-05:00

Just wanted to share that my LO isn't really all that "L" anymore! At his 4-year check yesterday, he weighed 39.24 lbs. and was 42.44 inches tall (just over 3.5 feet). He sure feels heavy when I'm carrying him sleeping from the car into the house, but his weight was only in the 77th %ile (his height was in the 90th %ile). His visit was good and he was super-brave with his booster vacs. :-)

ruthless carnivores need love, too

2011-08-01T16:45:00.007-05:00

Have you seen this video of a shark gobbling a seal? (credit: Discovery Channel, Planet Earth) My son had a very interesting reaction to seeing an encore of footage on the Today Show yesterday. Sitting beside me on the sofa, he got very quiet, tears welling up in his eyes, and he said in the saddest, sweetest voice I have ever, ever heard:

"I think that shark just needs a little love." [insert sound of my heart cracking in half]

(I mean, never mind that poor, defenseless seal! Give that great white some love, already!!)

four

2011-07-12T23:41:00.012-05:00

LO just celebrated his fourth birthday Tuesday. *sniff*

A little bittersweet for me, knowing that as my one and only, going forward, four feels like his last year of "baby-ness" - I need to soak in this last year - every "r" pronounced like "w", the roundness of his cheeks... I have never really shed tears over a birthday before, but I found myself getting a wee bit verklempt the morning of his birthday as this cliche thought rang in my head: My baby is growing up!

We started the morning with a bowl of special birthday oatmeal (i.e., the way we usually prepare it BUT with sprinkles!), a small present, and then his swim lesson (he started class last week)... I heard his instructor randomly ask how old he was (not knowing it was his birthday), and he said grandly, "I'm four years old!" And of course it didn't get due response from her since she had no idea that he turned four just today. Same thing happened at IHOP, where I took him for his birthday lunch (requested meal? "Pancakes and bacon!")... his showing the waitress his shirt with the 4 on it and saying, "I have turned 4!" got little more than an "Oh, yeah?" from waitress, since of course he never said, "It's my birthday!" But he didn't seem to mind much. :-) It was pretty low-key today, with a few more presents throughout the day and time making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and playing with presents. It feels more like a birthday week since he started opening presents Sunday before Daddy left for his business trip. This Friday he and I will catch Winnie the Pooh at the theater, then Saturday will be spent at an interactive museum, and Sunday we'll celebrate his birthday with family.

I don't know if it's age creeping up on me or if this past year has just gone by in a blur... or maybe it's the fact that it's late, but I can't get my thoughts straight! So here's my stream-of-consciousness ramble about the past birthday year (little-known fact: I once aspired to be a writer. Glad I didn't - I suck at this!!):

LO started his first year of preschool last fall. Initially it was pretty rough for him, so he was transferred to a smaller class with other kids who were having trouble adjusting, and he flourished in many ways, though because of the broad age range in this class he wasn't challenged as much as I had hoped. But his teacher was a kind, caring person and it was good exposure to social situations with other children as well as taking direction from other adults.

I can say with confidence that LO is completely potty-trained as of last fall. He also is much more confident going in public restrooms and has recently begun (mild TMI alert) standing up to pee, which is a HUGE deal for Mommy, especially when we go out with Daddy, because urinals are a wonderful thing (or not - ew - but they're awfully convenient).

This spring, his speech has changed a lot! No more "bewy" for "belly" or "mudzer" for "mother". His "r's" still lean toward the "w" sound. He went from using his entire arm to write (moving it at the shoulder) and holding his crayon like a pointer to correct grasp and resting his forearm on the table. He loves to write and often misspells things phonetically, and we still have to remind him that letters have to be placed on the page in a certain order and from left to right. He is beginning to read more and more, but he doesn't like to be "quizzed" - he's much more forthcoming with it if it feels like self-discovery but is slowly beginning to have fun with it when we ask him what something says. Also, he's finally making peace with the fact that his name isn't spelled phonetically!

Among other firsts that I'm sure I'm forgetting (ugh), this past year he had his first (and hopefully last, at least for a while!) trip to the ER (for a pretty severe cough), first movie theater (Kung Fu Panda 2) experience, first time in the pool without mommy and without a life preserver (swim lessons). He loves to draw and makes elaborate pictures, most oftentimes Thomas- or Cars-related, but sometimes animals and people, and he will draw things from different perspectives (overhead, side, front). He's quite good at making block letters too! His current "cool" thing is to draw thought bubbles over someone's head. :-) (One day when I'm not feeling too terribly lazy, I'll dedicate a post to his artwork!). He likes to pepper his conversations with "Well...", "of course", "and I was, like...". He says things like "it's too medium-sized" and if something has 3 or more colors, it is "multi-colored". He thinks it's hysterical to talk about poop and other gross things. He likes to say he is grown and to say that his head is as big as Daddy's (maybe) or Mommy's (not a chance, kid!). He still very much loves Thomas the Tank Engine and Cars (Cars 2 was a BIG hit with him!) and also really enjoys Veggie Tales (most oft-requested: "Dave and the Giant Pickle"). When we get fresh veggies from my parents' garden, he wants to play with them. :-)

Since the spring, he has been going to OT and PT for sensory integration therapy, to work on his proprioceptive sensory issues, and we're seeing some good progress - mainly OT-related; sometimes he just doesn't feel as motivated to work on the PT stuff, so we are working on that. I cannot wait until the hot breath of summer lets up so that we can spend more time outside!

One thing that hasn't changed: he still makes taking his picture feel like herding cats! Here are some of my attempts at getting a 4-year pic - the "cutting of the eyes + cheesy grin", the "I can't stop laughing hysterically at your repeated pleas to get me to stop laughing", and finally, the "Really now, get this camera out of my face, yes?"

He doesn't mind pretending to be a horse or a puppy or some sort of animal, but ask him to pretend to be *somebody* and he's not quite sure what to do with himself. The other day, I told him I was going to pretend to be a princess, and he was quite unsettled by that. He said, "How about you just be Mommy, and I'll just pretend to be myself? I'll just be your little boy."

Forever and ever, little one.

i guess it's better than saying "butt"...

2011-06-24T17:13:00.003-05:00

(After a swim at my parents' house)

LO: [squirms in swim trunks]

Mema: Do you need help adjusting your trunks?

LO: Yeah... I think they got shoved up all the way into my large intestine!

(nothing important, just thought this was pretty)

2011-04-01T21:36:00.012-05:00

Max&Chloe pave angel wing pendant necklace

Hey! Let's pretend for a second that I write for a style blog, shall we? I'm not really a necklace person ~~since ornate necklines don't really go with plastic 'flops or Chuck Taylors~~, but I just saw this via The Look 4 Less and think it's super-cute. The one above is CZ, and there is also a diamond version too, but I actually like this one better because it looks more like a wing. Not to mention, it's way cheaper than the diamond version.

And really, I'd probably wear this with 'flops anyway.

"hi," she says sheepishly...

2011-02-09T08:31:00.023-06:00

Hello! 2011 is upon us, and I let that and the entire month of January slide by with not so much as a whimper on the blog. But don't let that fool you! A lot has happened since my last post - a lovely Christmas with my side of the family (holidays are usually spent this way since most of my in-laws reside out-of-state), followed by trip to Florida on St. Pete Beach, where we rang in the new year (sleeping)... then mid-month we quietly celebrated the first day of the last year of my 30s, but not before my poor little boy came down with a bout of whatever nasty virus is running around this winter, which despite our best efforts (lots of doses of Airborne!) C and I also got to lesser degrees. Last January, C began a new postion in his company, being transferred from a subsidiary to the main company. This year, he has begun a new position within the same company - a great opportunity, but it will be quite challenging and has already required a bit of travel.

Oh, and of course I can't forget to mention the snow... the 2011 blizzard that has kept me and LO holed up in the house for the most part. Luckily, our respective illnesses had pretty much dissipated, so our little fam was able to enjoy a couple of days of fantastically unseasonable weather - 70-plus degrees the last Friday / Saturday in January! I had told myself in preparation for the impending blizzard that this wonderfully spring-like interlude would be enough to recharge my batteries. I had no idea how bad it was going to get.

A mere three days later, we had drifts in our back yard that got up to almost 2 feet (snow that built up in front of the back porch but not on it), and that isn't even the snow that crept up against the north side of our house - I didn't even bother to measure that. The predicted 9-12 inches was in fact almost 20, at least what I could measure. Our schools have been closed since last Tuesday. And unlike cities that are prepared to deal with longer, more brutal winters every year, this kind of snowfall is an anomaly here. No one comes to plow our neighborhood streets. Postal service comes to a halt. Stores get completely depleted of bread, milk, and eggs (and Cheez Its! :-/) in anticipation for most of the city to shut down. And let me tell you, not in my 9.5 years of working there did my former employer ever shut its doors due to inclement weather - and they stayed closed for two days last week! With C gone most of last week on business, I didn't dare venture out in my snow-averse car with no 4WD and sorely wished C's SUV weren't sitting in airport parking (and really, where would we have gone anyway... practically everything in our little city was closed). But it is what it is! And what it is to LO is snow ice cream. :-) He wanted it (again) yesterday, but by then I didn't trust the snow that was left on the ground (after all, I watched a bunny the size of two Christmas hams leave a "present" in our back yard yesterday) and assured him that (unfortunately) we would experience another snow tomorrow (5-8 inches were projected). And this morning the small patches of ground that had just begun to peek out from underneath the melting snow are once again covered. This morning he whined because I wouldn't make him snow ice cream for "breffisk". Currently, there is a glass bowl nestled in the snow catching snowfall for ice cream this afternoon, if he can bear to wait that long!! The phrase "fresh condensed milk" has now taken place in his vocabulary, which makes me smile since sweetened canned milk is, like, the total opposite of fresh. All in all, God has been so good to keep us safe and warm. I can't complain one bit (even though I have! It's the cabin fever talking!!).

Unfortunately, my birthday present (laptop) is not cooperating with me re: downloading pictures, so this post will just be a long, wordy one. I promise my next post will be shorter and have photo or two. And though I have already shared this on Facebook, I'll post it for my family who enjoys reading the occasional "LO-isms":

Each night, LO gets three bedtime stories. On a regular evening, I read two and C reads one. Last night, C was at martial arts practice and wouldn't get home until after LO was in bed. I always read three when C is gone in the evening, but LO always reminds me nonetheless.

LO: You read three books tonight.

Me: When I'm not here, how many does Daddy read?

LO: One.

Me: But why?

LO: Because mens read one book, and old ladies read two.

(Flattery will get you everywhere.)

PS: Happy birthday to my sweet niece, who turns 8 years old today. She is my family's sole February birthday. :-) January was a big birthday month for other lovely members of our family too: C's grandmother, two nieces (one celebrated the big oh-five an, the other celebrated her sweet sixteenth!), and my dad. :-)

snl short: stumblin' (feat. andy samberg, paul rudd, paul mccartney)

2010-12-19T23:56:00.003-06:00

This made me laugh out loud each time I watched it. :-) Andy Samberg is completely nuts, and this has to be my favorite since the short with Ellen Page. PS, Am I the only one who thinks Paul Rudd has an unusually big head? I suppose I am sensitive to these things since I myself have an oversized cranium. 'Tis the brains, I guess. ;-)

the voice of reason

2010-12-17T12:26:00.002-06:00

(Lunchtime)

Me: Do you want some more carrots?

LO: Yes! More carrots and more fishsticks.

Me: Well, there are no more fishsticks...

LO: Mommy, cook some!!!

Me: They take a long time to cook... I can make you some chicken nuggets [in the microwave]. Would you like some chicken nuggets?

LO: Well, chicken nuggets take a long time to cook too. [pause] So I think you should give me a cookie. And two M&Ms.

ugly desserts and school lunch confessions

2010-12-06T11:54:00.019-06:00

So a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I needed to do the mommy thing and make some homemade goodies for LO's preschool class for Thanksgiving. What possessed me to try out a new recipe I can't explain, but I did. And I'm pretty much so scarred by the outcome that I probably won't try this recipe again!

***Semi-related long nostalgia moment sidebar alert***: When I was a little girl, probably about second grade or so, my mom started packing our school lunches - a sandwich, a "fun size" bag of chips, a drink, and maybe a mini candy bar or Little Debbie snackcake. Specifically, I remember the peanut butter sandwiches - sometimes PB&J, and sometimes peanut butter and syrup. Now, I don't know if this was a concoction exclusive to rural kids or if it was something that other Okies enjoyed, but I know my hubby sure thinks it's odd... and to this day I get an occasional craving for PB&S - not in a sandwich, but just kind of stirred up in a little bowl - except I have switched out the Griffin Waffle Syrup for pure maple. Anyway.

The point is, my mom used to make these sandwiches on white bread - peanut butter on one side, and jelly on the other. The PB&S was made by mixing the two namesake ingredients and slathering it onto the bread.

I guess my mom used a lot of syrup! By the time I would open my lunch bag, the syrup or jelly had completely soaked through the bread. I was horrified! This went on for quite some time. At some point, for reasons even I cannot explain, I got the brilliant idea of bringing the uneatened sandwich home and hiding it in the piano bench. What a genius scheme! I'm pretty sure I thought that those sandwiches would either be sucked into some Chronicles of Narnia-like secret portal or I completely overestimated the bench's capacity for sandwiches, because for some reason, this plan made complete sense to me. (As opposed to tossing the sandwiches in the cafeteria trash can.)

I'm not sure how long I did this - obviously not very long... since, you know, it was a piano bench (that was also already partially filled with sheet music and piano lesson books) and not a fifty-five-gallon drum - but one day I did the drill... sneaked back into my bedroom and lifted up that bench lid... and there were no more sandwiches in there. After an "Oh, crap!" epiphany, I whipped around to see my mom standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. There was a brief moment of silence, and then she spoke. "What do you think I ought to do?"

I burst into the most convincing fake crying jag I could muster. "I don't know. Spank me?"

I didn't get spanked that day, but I remember she gave me a speech that entailed something about the risk of ants in the house and whatnot. Clemency! I suppose that's the net result of having done something so mind-boggling that your parents are too ~~amused~~ flabbergasted to punish you.

So, did my PB&J sandwiches get better? I honestly can't remember. But that experience has completely shaped the way I make LO's sandwiches for school. Seriously. PB on both pieces of bread, jelly in the middle. Problem solved! /end Memory Lane detour

OK, so the point is that if I cared so much about how LO would deal with sub-par lunches, how on earth could I have possibly felt OK with sending these to school with him:

These look nothing short of mini-BARF PIES. The color! The white specks! The lumpy appearance! The "rustic-looking" crusts! My only saving grace is that at this age, kids aren't trying to impress anyone with aesthetics. I have a few more years yet before I'm dealing with that. The taste, though? Only decent.

In theory, these are precious. (Check out Bakerella's recipe and photos.) They're supposed to look like itty-bitty pumpkin pies!! I think my problem was, I didn't let the cream cheese soften enough; I should've creamed the cream cheese and sugar together first; because I didn't do the first two things, I over-beat the filling, which caused the eggs to stiffen (boo!) but did nothing to get rid of the white cream-cheese specks. But anyway. Barf pies.

Frankly, I don't know how to do a clever wrap-up to this post, so we'll just leave it at that.

Barf pies. Perhaps next year I'll make these for Halloween.

texas weekend recap

2010-11-27T09:29:00.023-06:00

Hi, all - hope you had a great Thanksgiving! I enjoyed my fill of a little turkey and a lot of starches. :-) Sorry I've not been so bloggy lately - we've been busy, sick, and have had computer issues in the past few weeks! There's so much I'd like to share that I will have to break it up into multiple posts. (Also, lesson learned: Do not type your blog post in a Word document and expect to be able to cut and paste it into your blog. UGH!!)

A couple of weeks ago we drove to Denton, Texas, so that C could attend the 10th Annual Iaido Embukai (iaido = a Japanese sword art; embu = demonstration; kai = group), and while he was participating in that, LO and I could meet up with some friends who live not too far from the area. We left an hour later than we'd planned, it rained heavily almost the entire drive there, I pulled my usual stunt of packing things we didn't need (e.g., fifty tubes of lipstick) and forgetting things we did need (e.g., LO's toothbrush and toothpaste, my contact lenses),and LO got uncharacteristically homesick... but we still had a great time!

We drove down on a Friday. The next day, LO and I met up with three friends (with their kids) I have known since our elementary school days in the blink-and-you'll-miss-it town of Collinsville, Oklahoma - one of them I've continued to keep in touch with over the years, the other two I have Facebook to thank for reconnecting us! Mish suggested we meet at a kid-friendly place called Going Bonkers. I'd never been before, and the website looked nice - a place where we could all chat while our kids played safely. People, a warning: NEVER go to this place on a Saturday, ever. DO NOT be fooled by the photos on their website. On a Saturday, it is fifty times more crowded and overwhelming than those photos lead you to believe! Seriously, when we walked in, this place smacked me in the face with the dizzying heat of wall-to-wall people - those who know me well know that being stuck in hot, crowded places is my FAVORITE, ugh. That, and trying to keep up with a three-year-old in the padded, netted, rat-maze insanity they call an indoor playground had me really wishing I had sprayed myself head-to-toe with Secret. BUT, despite the craziness, it was so awesome to see everyone, and I hope to do it again in the not-too-distant future at a venue that won't have me ripping my hair out.

The following day, I got to meet up with Chalna! She and I got to know each other through an online moms' group whose common bond is our July 2007 due dates - which means that we were all going through similar things with our pregnancies - and subsequently, our kids - at the same time... I think that really made more of a difference than any other demographic in common could have. There are a small handful of ladies in the group that I clicked with, and even fewer who I can honestly say have helped keep me sane - Chalna is definitely one of them! We had attempted to get four of us from the group together in the Dallas area for a get-together this fall, but unfortunately with busy schedules, we couldn't make it happen. Luckily, Chalna and her family were still able to meet up with LO and me for a couple of hours on Sunday before we headed home, and of course she was just as lovely in person as I'd anticipated. And I was so excited to finally meet her sweet boy Colin! It took a few minutes of warming up to each other, but soon Colin and LO were having a great time together. For days afterward, LO was still telling me one of Colin's jokes. And, may I just express my gratitude over Chalna and her husband not even batting an eye when at lunchtime LO decided to fill his mouth full of milk and then let it run out all over his shirt (a little reminiscent of my meetup with another great mom from the group, April this past summer, when LO decided to grab a handful of food - I should mention that the food in question was QUESO). My only complaint is that the afternoon ended too quickly. Another meetup is surely in our future. :-) (And by the way, Chalna, LO totally asked just a few days ago if he could have one of those cookies that "Aleisha" made (Oops - he met so many people that weekend and was getting the names all mixed up - but clarified himself by explaining that he was talking about "Colin's mommy". ;-))

The boys sharing laughs over a couple of sopapillas

Lastly, I should mention that if it weren't for our Garmin GPS, I don't think I could've braved driving around that little patch of north Texas to meet up with my friends without my hubby! I feel like Garmin made that GPS just for me! Yay for the Garmin - you changed my life, ha!!

i ♥ free stuff: shutterfly.com

2010-11-24T13:08:00.009-06:00

OK, so I have been meaning to post about so much lately - our weekend in Texas, our inability to shake the sickies here, the grossest-looking dessert ever, and other life happenings. However, I had to take a slight detour to blog about this very cool thing that Shutterfly is offering to bloggers: 50 free holiday cards (Thanks to April for bringing this to my attention)! Since LO was born, I started sending out photo Christmas cards that I designed myself and was in the process of narrowing down which photo(s) I wanted to use so I could start making this year's card, so the timing is perfect. I enjoy making my own, but Shutterfly's vast selection is too cute (and in this instance, too free!) to be ignored - here are two designs that have caught my eye so far (each image is linked to its specific Shutterfly page):

(images credit: Shutterfly.com)

Have fun perusing and choosing, my blogger friends! If you participate, just be sure to blog about and link back to Shutterfly's site. I shall return to regular blogging after Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! :-)

zipper pouch

2010-11-04T14:45:00.010-05:00

My lovely sister-in-law won me this camera tote by Jo Totes (though it appears to only be available in red now)! Not cluing me in, she entered a giveaway at MCP Actions that I had also entered in order to double my chances of winning. I received it earlier this week (thanks SO much! :-)). It has adjustable padded dividers in it so that you can configure it to your specs. The thing about it is, I knew it would be big, but I was very surprised at how HUGE it was! Certainly not something I would want to carry in addition to a handbag. So I decided I would try to make a zipper clutch that could hold some of my handbag basics and then some, but would be compact enough to stow within the tote. The result: not exactly stylish enough to carry alone as a clutch, but it certainly serves its purpose! I still struggle with some of the elements of a zipper pouch, but I'm going to keep making them (and if need be, ripping out the zippers of sub-par completed ones to reuse) until I can really put together something super-polished.

ETA: I taught myself how to make a zipper pouch researching crafty blogs all over the 'net. This tutorial is a pretty straightforward one.

sewing is scary

2010-10-27T15:17:00.010-05:00

This year, LO has expressed that he wanted to be so many things for Halloween: a ghost, a bat, a pumpkin. I wasn't sure how to pull off either of the first two costumes, but I decided a pumpkin (or the idea of) could be relatively easily executed.

Call it stupidity or confidence, but I only bought one shirt to work with, so I prayed that I wouldn't screw it up! I decided to machine-applique (my first time!) the jack o'lantern features instead of doing something easy but temporary like adhesive felt since he would be wearing it more than once. Unfortunately, he missed out on his preschool's fall festival today, as he's sick - when he tried on this shirt yesterday, he promptly barfed on it, poor guy. So... yay for washability. :-/

The hat is polar fleece stitched shut at one end and the corners sewn together, just like the winter hat I made him a couple of years ago. I don't know why I bought an entire yard of fleece for this hat (for some reason, I have problems buying fabric in any other increments other than one full yard) - I think I might try to do a fabric swap with a crafty OSU fan down the street. :-) The stem is felt that was rolled and partially sewn / partially hot-glued; the leaf was cut from adhesive-sided felt. I think I'm going to add some green ribbon curls for vines. (The oranges don't clash as badly in person than they do in these photos.)

I know that when he gets older, it will be harder to please him in the Halloween costume area, but as it is, his face lit up when he saw the finished shirt.

Oh, and I should mention that preschool has been going well (except for the fact that between illnesses and fall break, he still has yet to attend a full 2x/ week). Sorry I haven't been in a posty mood lately; hopefully next time I'll have more to report.

a nighttime conversation, big-boy-bedside

2010-10-05T21:41:00.004-05:00

"Momma?"

"Yes?"

"If a blue-footed booby chick dies, its parents won't mate again for a year." (I believe this is true.)

"Hm."

"If a blue-footed booby chick has no bones, its parents won't mate again for a year." (This one, I'm dubious about.)

"OK, honey. Good night."

random rant: oh, the huge manatee*

2010-09-17T12:40:00.009-05:00

Refreshingly, my son enjoys a documentary called Equator: Power of an Ocean, and because it is about life on the Galapagos Islands and Palmyra Atoll, he just simply calls it "The Galapagos Islands". It's a nice change of pace from the kiddie fare we're subjected to on a daily basis. We had had it on the DVR for months and decided that we would buy the DVD for him so we could erase it from the DVR.

He requested to watch it today. It wasn't long before he was throwing a fit about something. Then I realized what it was: leave it to LO to lament that the DVD doesn't have the commercials! "I want to watch the WHOLE Galapagos Islands!!!"

Frustrating? Very. Surprising? Not really. I clearly recall how he enjoyed talking about one commercial that had "Scary! Stealthy! Superbugs!" It just didn't dawn on me that he considered those just as much a part of the documentary as the coconut crabs and blue-footed boobies.

*Eh, all right... I know manatees don't live near the Equator!

ready... or not?

2010-09-14T22:09:00.006-05:00

Please forgive any ramblings; I was behind in posting this and didn't want to put it off any longer, so it might be a little incoherent, as it is past my bedtime! ;-)

LO started preschool last week. It wasn't something that was on my mind for a long time, but earlier this year, it dawned on me that LO could really benefit from a part-time preschool program, that I felt like he would enjoy the opportunity to spend time with other children his age, which he doesn't get often at all, being an only child of a stay-at-home mom, with all of his local cousins being teenagers or young adults. This preschool is through the church in which I grew up. It's full-day, but only one day per week. After taking LO with me to visit with the director (whom I have known most of my life) and tour the school, I got a really good feeling about the school. My biggest apprehension was the schedule (full-day as opposed to half-day) - had it been just 2-3 hours a day, I would've been happy to try a two-day program, but as it was, I felt one day was good to try out. We have the option to add the second day at any time.

The first day, which was last week, went well beyond my expectations, the only hangup being naptime, which I had anticipated. Even potty breaks apparently went well! When we picked LO up from school, he was all smiles. I was ready to burst when I saw him; this is new to all of us, as LO's only time away from us has been when he has gone to my parents'. I was just thrilled with how well the day went. He wasn't forthcoming with details (as per usual), but he would answer specific questions (which we had information on in a written report), and he even told Daddy that he played with a boy named Jack.

Yesterday was day two. The morning routine went well, and LO seemed eager to go back to school. When we took him to the classroom and said our goodbyes, he said, very matter-of-factly:

"Don't leave me."

I gave him a firm but quick hug and said my goodbyes as he walked into the classroom and was greeted by his teacher. I went to sign in and didn't see Daddy, so I assumed he had already headed outside. When I got to the car, he wasn't there; I turned around and saw him walking out the door. He had hung back and watched LO just a little bit longer to make sure that he was OK, and everything seemed fine.

All day long, I just felt kind of off, with butterflies in my stomach. I had a difficult time focusing on things and didn't get a lot accomplished. I finally made my way out the door to pick up some fabric and run by the grocery store before I had to pick him up. When I returned home, I still had an hour before school ended. That last hour wasn't miserable, but I was pretty anxious to go pick up my boy!

When I got there, he was calm, fiddling with his backpack, his back to me. He was still happy to see me, but he didn't seem cheery.

His teacher told me what I probably knew all day long: it had been a bad day. He had cried off and on all day, and potty breaks were difficult - no accidents, but each visit to the restroom resulted in a screaming fit. The only time he was in good spirits was playtime and lunchtime, and even at lunchtime he wasn't eating well. There were moments when the teachers and director had thought about calling me... but when they would ask LO about it, he would tell them no, that he was OK! So he would recover for a while and then get upset again, so they just tried their best to comfort him. Apparently, part of his anxiety stemmed from when the other kids would get excited or animated. His teacher and I both told him that any time he wanted his teacher to call Mommy, that she would!

I'm not sure how to feel about all of this. I would anticipate that he might be a little anxious or even maybe very upset at drop-off, but my hope is that he would recover after a bit of time after getting involved in the busyness of school. It breaks my heart that his entire day was distressful, and I am not sure how long we are supposed to "press on" if these kinds of days continue.

The weekend prior to preschool had had some out-of-the-ordinary moments - a few potty accidents (one of which I didn't react to very well), a weekend houseguest, and a few hours' stay with my parents while I had to do an errand - none of these things were really issues, but they all happened in the same weekend, and were outside the norm for LO. Also, I handled drop-off a little differently, leaving more quickly than the first time... I've just been wracking my brain trying to figure out anything that could have triggered such a day. Also, when we had gotten home and he subsequently fell asleep on the couch, he woke up all sweaty, as if he'd had a fever and it broke. I'm wondering if he just wasn't feeling well all day.

When we got home, I asked him some specific questions about his day based on the written report. I asked him if he played with Jack that day, and he told me that Jack was getting on his nerves (What on earth??). He was able to sing the song they'd learned that day (one that was new to him), tell me about the story they read and what snack they'd had that morning. He also was able to tell me what the quote on his coloring sheet said. So it was evident that he had been paying attention and learning.

So I'm still hopeful about the preschool program for now. I know that it is a very different schedule than he's used to - he's not used to mid-morning snacks OR juice, which I know is the reason that he isn't eating his lunch well, nor is he used to being around so many kids at once. And naps! Ugh. He doesn't nap very often here, but I thought there might be a slim chance that he would nap after playing... nothing doing. But really, dealing with that many kids would be no problem if Mommy or Daddy were there, even if in the pheriphery. I'm just going to keep praying hard that if I need to change this direction we're going, that God tells me! Preferrably in a billboard on the way to school or in a post-it note stuck to my car keys. Clear signs, please! :-)

stuff

2010-08-16T22:29:00.006-05:00

Soooo much going on! Got some paint for the dining room (finally! Can't wait to cover this oppressive chalkboard green with a lovely taupe), was sick two weeks ago but got better just in time to take a trip south of the Okie border to visit some childhood friends, one of whom I haven't seen in almost 2 decades. Also had the added treat of getting to visit with another childhood friend (who wasn't able to make the meetup) on our way back home. I love those girls!!

Prior to the trip, guess who washed her husband's new iPhone in the laundry! I'd like to be able to tell you that his throwing it in a bowl of uncooked rice overnight (and at one point even baking it in the oven in said bowl of rice) fixed things, but in the end, the battery just wouldn't hold a charge. It was fried! However, if you can believe it, a trip to the Apple Store and a confession of what transpired got him a brand new phone at no charge!!! Whew.

Threw my lower back out the following Tuesday - I'll save you the cautionary tale about my poor body mechanics, but let me just say that I have never felt so scared by pain before - I mean, at least with childbirth you know that it's supposed to hurt a lot! So you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I am to feel almost 100% today, thank God! (And you can probably imagine the state of my house by now, having either been gone or under the weather for two weeks...)

Trying to get some things in order for LO's first day of preschool in September! I can hardly believe it. Even though it's just one day a week right now (with the option to make it two days), I'm a little nervous because it's a full day. My preference would be 2 half-days a week. I worry about their mandatory noon-ish naptime since he rarely takes naps anymore, and really, the naps he does occasionally take are late afternoon when he passes out on the sofa, despite my best efforts to keep him awake! And we certainly have never implemented a scheduled wake-up, so this should be very interesting. And potty breaks... oh, man, do these people have a challenge on their hands. He's pretty much potty-trained, and yet. It's very difficult to get him to go somewhere else besides home. And really, just thinking about how great and yet how crummy it has been going just wears me out, so we'll leave it at that. ANYway. I really am anxious to see how well my little stickler adapts to this new change in his routine.

And oh my gosh, I am the worst wife ever for thinking that today was the 15th instead of yesterday... because August 15th is my husband's birthday! I overheard him tell our son yesterday AFTERNOON (as in, half the day was gone before this was brought to my attention!!) that it was his birthday, and I'm all, "Nuh-UH, it's tomorrow, whatever." ARGH! :-( AND my saying "NO WAY!" led LO to also keep telling his dad that no, it's not your birthday today! To make matters even worse (if that could be possible), the poor guy thought I was bluffing when I didn't wish him a happy birthday, thinking I might have something special planned. How horrible!!!!! I love you, honey!!!! I will make it up to you soon!!!!

Finally, I have to give my sister-in-law a super-huge-thank-you-shout-out... I had posted yesterday about a giveaway for a camera tote I'd had my eye on for MONTHS... well, guess whose sister-in-law won it, and guess who she's giving it to??? Turns out, she decided to enter the giveaway just to give me more chances to win. How awesome is that??? Thank you, K!!!!!

(PS - Sorry for all the superfluous punctuation. :-/ It's just been that kind of a month thus far.)

camera bag contest

2010-08-15T15:51:00.003-05:00

Hello! I have talked about this camera bag before, but via The Pioneer Woman's blog (specifically, the photography section), I have recently discovered MCP Actions, who is hosting a giveaway for a Jo Tote's camera bag. And now there are three different styles! I really think the Missy is super-cute and reminds me of a Marc Jacobs bag, and the Rose is cute and comes in great colors, but I think I'd like to get the Tote just for its innards - it looks super-roomy. I know these are considered "affordable", but I just can't bring myself to pay for one when I already have a perfectly acceptable camera bag. But to WIN one...!

PS: Sharing on Facebook, Twitter, or your blog gets you an extra entry for each one you do (just be sure to post a comment each time you do one). Oh, and if you *like* MCP Actions on Facebook or follow her on Twitter for the first time, you can earn extra entries for those as well. Good luck!

eyes

2010-08-13T16:54:00.004-05:00

etsy like

2010-08-01T13:24:00.002-05:00

Via one of my favorite blogs, I found this etsy shop. LOVE those recycled wood signs! And the photographs inspire me. ♥ it!

three

2010-07-21T00:13:00.010-05:00

Birthday photo garland idea stolen from April (thanks!) :-)

Well, LO’s third birthday has come and gone (July 12), and I’ve been having a difficult time articulating what I want to say about this past year. So I thought I would go ahead and wait until I had some concrete stats from his 3-year well exam: he weighs 34.6 lbs. and is 39.75 inches tall - though they let him keep his shoes on for that (??), so I guess 39.5 is more accurate.... He was hesitant to go to this appointment – come to find out he did not want to have his throat swabbed again (at a visit several weeks back, poor guy had a strep culture done which made him gag… and then throw up), which made complete sense, but it didn’t occur to me that he was even thinking about that since we had been to the ped’s office one time since then and he had no problem going. That’s one great thing about this age – that my son can better communicate things like this – I was then able to reassure him that there would be no throat-swabbing at this visit!

We are nearing three weeks of underpants-only potty training, and I have to admit that after the first chaotic week, things have been going rather well (knock on wood). One thing he will do these days is wait until the last possible millisecond, and that stresses me out a bit… especially when instead of just making his own life easier by going to the potty, he will ramble on, “I’m not gonna pee my pants, I’m not gonna pee my pants” and then launch himself like a pinball around the house, bouncing from sofa to loveseat, running around the coffee table and up and down the hallway as if he’s trying to run away from his own loaded bladder. And heaven forbid I suggest he might go take a potty break – no bribe, reasoning or plea will get him to budge. Such a stubborn, independent streak! I’m sure we’ll survive. When he does remember that he can have an M&M for a reward, he will pick a color that matches his shirt that day (unless there are still yellow and brown ones left, which he will pick because… yep, you guessed it!).

This past year, LO has had a few firsts: plane ride, state fair, trip to the ocean, transition to big-boy bed, pony ride, potty training. His dinosaur-themed birthday was a small affair, with just some family and a good friend of mine and her sweet little boy. Unfortunately, this was my first year to have the DSLR, and I messed up the lens the day before the 4th of July... meaning no holiday - and no birthday - photos with it. I am grateful we have a point-and-shoot also, but it is still new to me and I have yet to take good pictures with it. VERY disappointed! :-(

A few (few? Right.) words about my little boy: LO is very creative and inventive – give him a can of white Play-Doh, and it becomes snowdrifts, milk, and even shaving cream – all for the sake of reinacting storylines from his favorite Thomas books or TV shows. He builds elaborate setups with his wooden blocks for his cars, engines, and toy animals. One of his favorite activities these days is drawing and coloring. He loves to draw pictures of Disney Cars and Thomas engines. Everything he draws has a face, with those hollow Orphan-Annie eyes and smile, and sometimes a nose. He draws awesome spider webs, and also flowers (which look suspiciously like spider webs…). He can draw shapes and patterns – zig-zags and spirals (he makes cool snails!), and circles, squares (both of which he taught himself) and triangles. Any animal that he draws with a tail ends up with the longest, curliest tail ever, be it brontosaurus or turtle. Sometimes his drawings are very basic and simple, and sometimes they are quite fantastically elaborate.

He has a few sight-words under his belt: (e.g., stop, go, bat, cat, dog, fox, bed, mom, dad), some he can read or spell aloud, or both, and one day he even wrote the word “Fox” unprompted, which started as “xoF”, then he wrote the letters in the right sequence, but from right to left, and then finally in the right direction, but his “F” was backwards… he has a cute toddler drawl, wherein “bed” sounds like “bey-ad” and “milk” is “mee-yelk”.

He has grown to detest having his picture taken, which works for and against me because some of my favorite snapshots of him are candid moments taken on the sly. He’s also beginning to request that he be called by his given name each time I accidentally call him by one of a thousand random pet names we have for him.

Although he is always enamored with Disney Pixar’s Cars and Thomas the Tank Engine, a new favorite is “Kung Fu Panda”. He also has become rather attached to his stuffed Little Foot and Cera from “The Land Before Time”. He LOVES books, and one of the most consistently wonderful times of day is when we read bedtime stories.

He is somewhat shy if people try to get too close to him, but I have seen him be so charming it kills me – on our way to the ped’s office, he waved and said “Hi” to nearly every person (and car driving by) that we saw, and even threw out a “Hey, guys!” to a family we saw in the hallway as if he’d known them all his life.

On any given day he can have the most horrific tantrums and be so stubborn I want to tear my hair out, but generally he is just terribly funny and affectionate and sweet. One of my favorite things in the world is to go into his room when he just wakes up – he’s at his sweetest and most cuddly. Sometimes he will tell us about a dream he’s had, and sometimes he’ll just make up a story or talk about a character in a book or movie.

Well, just as I was having problems beginning this post, I'm finding it difficult to wrap it up! It's been a fantastic, exacerbating, bittersweet, wonderful three years with this kiddo, whom I love with all my heart! Soon "LO" isn't going to be an appropriate pseudonym for him... but let's not rush things...

"strictly bathroom"

2010-07-05T14:06:00.004-05:00

(For those of you not interested in potty-training gabbery, you might want to check back later.)

Just wanted to post a little bit about potty-training. LO has been essentially been night-trained for a while now and does a fairly good job of pooping in the potty, but peeing is not as consistent. But because it is evident to us that he has sufficient bladder control and understanding of the sensations of going, we decided that at almost 3, he was ready to make the switch to regular underpants. We "ran out" of pull-ups about a week ago, and holy cow, it has been a nightmare!! Wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth, and lots of laundry and spot-cleaning of floors. There are four different types of flooring in our home, and LO has made his mark on every surface. And he has reverted to pooping in his pants the past few days, so that's been tons of fun as well.

But we have had two tiny, marvelous victories today! Twice today, he has run to the bathroom on his own when he had to pee. Oh, sure... he pooped in his pants in the interim, but oh, my goodness, how I am enjoying the sweet sounds of... well, the sweet sound of nothing. No screaming, no crying, no yelling... just the sound of a pre-schooler's feet pitter-pattering to the bathroom and the squeak of the hinges as he tries to push open the already-open bathroom door. Such a 180 from yesterday, and even from this morning, when he fought me as I carried him to the bathroom the millisecond I noticed he was crossing his legs. Yes, I was that desperate to keep my floors dry today that I carried him off despite his freaky-outty protests. It wasn't pretty... and he didn't pee. So to have this switch in attitude so suddenly makes me estatic - and wary. Praying this is a good sign!!

tcb

2010-06-28T09:45:00.010-05:00

It's been a crazy few weeks around here! Fitness bootcamp = FAIL (but still hope for me - I might try it again!), me sick, LO sick, visits from out-of-town family (love and miss you all), dinner at a friend's home (thank you!), hubs's and my 10-year wedding anniversary, my 20-year high-school reunion, an overnight guest, Father's Day (and Aquarium outing with friends - thanks for meeting us!), a trip with LO to the museum, and LOTS of crazy preschooler antics amongst all that. Looking forward to a little get-together with a few female friends and family this weekend, and of course, family and fireworks on the 4th. OH, and let's not forget, someone's about to celebrate birthday #3 in a couple of weeks, and his parents STILL have yet to formulate any kind of festivities plan.... Holy cow.

Before I "TCB", I'd like to give a shout-out to my father-in-law, who has recently discovered the elegraph blog via our old family blog, which I just couldn't keep updated (Hi, Pops!). :-) I'm happy that there is a small handful of relatives who like to read elegraph now... it really is much more fun for me to keep up with just one blog. So, HI and LOVE to all of you!

Now, to take care of some business at hand:

Recently I was asked how my hubby and I met, and I regret I only had time to give the gutted-out, 60-second version. So in honor of our 10-year anniversary which we celebrated this month, I have written up the long (*yawn*) version of it here.

A while back, someone had asked for the recipe for the ranch dressing that I make: OK, well... I'm afraid there isn't just one recipe that I use, but rather a culmination of ideas from different recipes, the base being this one, minus the lemon juice. Then I have added a pinch of sugar (a la Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution recipe, which I can't seem to find on his website, gah!). Sometimes I use regular milk, sometimes I use buttermilk... I am more likely to use regular milk because it's what I have on-hand (plus, who knew that regular supermarket buttermilk had all those additives!), though I have to admit, I like the taste better with buttermilk. Sometimes I use sour cream, sometimes Greek yogurt, sometimes a mixture of both. I have also used ideas and ingredients from this recipe (two things being the garlic mashed with salt and the flat Italian parsley), and in short, the dressing just never comes out the same.

I was also asked for this recipe, my absolute favorite banana nut bread recipe in the whole wide world...

***

I'll just tell ya now, I'm too exhausted in my thoughts to put together any kind of update on LO, let alone post any pictures from any of the aforementioned goings-on... other than just to say that LO has been a complete terror these past few weeks (tonight was especially trying)... I think he might not be feeling especially great, and I am trying to keep an eye out for signs of a sinus infection. :-/

Let's just see if we can get through this week, shall we?

the kid knows more than we think!

2010-05-31T17:46:00.006-05:00

LO and I are drawing pictures in the living room. Daddy emerges from the kitchen, where he has been working on enchiladas from a new recipe.

Me: How's it going in there?

Daddy: Pretty good.

LO: Daddy, how you doin' in there?

Daddy: I'm doin' OK!

LO: Daddy! How you doin' in there??

Daddy: Good! I'm making us enchiladas.

LO: Daddy! How are you doin' in there?? Now I want Daddy to say, "I think there's gonna be a problem!"

Daddy: I think there's gonna be a problem!

Me: Why did you want Daddy to say that?

LO: Because he's a man.

exercise in futility

2010-05-20T12:27:00.005-05:00

(At the table, eating lunch):

LO: [grunts] I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't dooooo it!

Mom: What can't you do, hon?

LO: I can't dooooo it! Unh!

Mom: What can't you do?

LO: I want Mommy to stop saying, "What can't you do?"

Mom: [pause] Well, then I want you to stop saying, "I can't do it!" (mature approach... I know...)

LO: I can't doooo it!

Mom: What can't you do??

LO: [pause] I don't know.

pack a lunch for this post, because it's a novel...

2010-05-14T21:26:00.011-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates here! It's been busy, but nothing has really been all that post-worthy. So guess what - I'm going to bore you with the details anyway! Lucky you!! :-)

Let's see... I have been experimenting more in the kitchen. Translation: I have been making things that go beyond “just add water and seasoning packet.” And I have been enjoying it! One of my favorite things to make this spring has been my version of rice or pasta primavera – brown rice or dittalini topped with sautéed squash, asparagus, mushrooms, carrots, garlic, fresh basil… and then drizzled generously with homemade ranch dressing and sprinkled with shredded Parmesan… Leave it to me to make a fresh, light dish nice and fattening (as is the Okie way)! But oh, that dressing…

I’ve tried making so many things lately! Some were big hits (e.g., sweet potato and chicken curry, chicken enchiladas with this sauce); some were meh (graham crackers – but still on the lookout for a good recipe). Some were big hits that I will probably never make again (cheese crackers), just because the effort didn’t seem worth the end result (because, I mean, Cheez-Its, right?) and didn't seem that much healthier than their storebought counterparts anyway. Some of the new things I’ve tried involve LO’s assistance (the best pancakes recipe ever, the aforementioned graham crackers), and he loves to help!

We've been doing a little gardening! With LO's help, I've started a tiny herb garden and have planted a couple of pots with flowers. Hubby threw together a small, raised veggie garden... I can't wait to feast on the squash, tomatoes, and other fresh things when the time comes!

The weather simply hasn’t been cooperating for us, but I will not complain since our roof is still intact! So many people have been hit with such horrible weather around here (tornadic winds, baseball-sized hail), and yet we didn’t even have so much as a power outage here (thank goodness for underground power lines!). But we haven’t been outside much in the past week because of the rain. LO still goes to library storytime every week, and it is such a joy to watch him participate! He has so much fun there, and he even sings with everyone else now! Our Mommy and Me tumbling class had such promise until it abruptly got cancelled a few weeks ago, so I am looking to find another weekly activity for us that involves interaction with other kiddos. Kindermusik is on my to-try list…

Mini-rant #1: Purchased a sweater from JCrew.com that online looked like an airy, gauzy short-sleeved cardi that could be a summer wardrobe staple… only to find that in person it was scratchy (and surprisingly so, considering it’s cotton knit!) and I promise, it looks like it was fashioned out of old nude pantyhose. Maybe I should’ve ordered the pink instead of the beige... UGH… returning! If only they'd had a place to post customer reviews... I wouldn't be boring you with this story right now! ;-)

Mini-rant #2: Chomping at the bit to make no-knead bread, but I didn’t have a 6-qt. Dutch oven. Found the perfect one at Walmart.com, but I saw it was sold in-store as well, so I decided to just go get one. Picked it up along with some groceries and failed to notice until I got home that the in-store price was $15.00 more than the online price! I had no idea that the online price would be different! So, because they will not honor online prices on in-store merchandise, I returned that one and ordered another one “ship-to-store”, which means I get it for the online price and no shipping charges, and pick it up at the store. I fail to see how this makes any sense at all! I suspect they’re just going to make me wait two weeks and then pull one off the shelf to give me. :-/

In other news, I signed myself up for a fitness boot camp, which starts this Monday. Three days a week for four weeks. And boy, am I nervous! The only time of day it would work for my schedule (i.e., making sure that LO was taken care of) was… 5:30 in the morning. Me. However, I am motivated to make it to camp on time each day because there is a consequence of 20 push-ups for being late! I cannot do push-ups!! When I did yoga regularly, I was pretty good at holding my body at plank as well as lowering myself down… but lifting my carcass back up? I’m terrible even at girl push-ups! To make matters worse, I haven’t been to yoga in months! So my regular exercise routine since January has pretty much been bupkis. I expect to be mildly-to-moderately humiliated for at least the first week of camp. We’ll see!

Finally, I leave you with a few pictures from the past couple months:

Air Show - April 2010

Riding a ride at the local carnival - May 2010

First pony ride, at a local BBQ and music festival - May 2010

Chillin' in the backyard

homemade homestyle tortillas

2010-03-27T16:38:00.009-05:00

Once upon a time, there was a queen from an enchanted land (where it snows on the first day of Spring even when it was a sunny 75 degrees the day before) who really had a last-minute hankerin' for some quesadillas, but she didn't have any flour tortillas in her pantry. Because she wasn't in the mood to pack up the little toddler prince and go to the supermarket for one flippin' ingredient, she was resigned to making something else for dinner until an idea came to her: maybe she had the ingredients on hand to make tortillas! She found a super-easy recipe on Tasty Kitchen and decided to give it a try. As they cooked up, it appeared they would have a more homestyle thickness to them. She took one off the griddle, slathered it with butter and took a bite...

She jumped for joy. She took pictures. She wrote about it in the royal blog.

Recipe for Healthy Homemade Tortillas (calls for canola oil instead of lard or shortening)

Recipe for Roasted Tomato Quesadillas (surprised that the ratings aren't higher - it's a huge hit with all three in the kingdom, with cheddar used instead of chihuahua or Monterey Jack)

I'd like to say that they all dined happily ever after, but subsequently, the queen discovered she didn't have any cheese and realized that she couldn't avoid the supermarket after all. :-/

The End.

(Note: This may or may not be based on a true story, as the protagonist refuses to admit that she really allowed her household to run out of cheese.)

"Witch Creek"

2010-03-26T20:58:00.004-05:00

Hey there, just a short note to say, my cousin Neal Hallford and his wife, Jana, are working on an independent horror / suspense film called Witch Creek. And since I understand that independent films need a lot of word-of-mouth, I wanted to post the teaser trailer on my little place in the blogosphere. You know... since I have such an enormous readership and all! ;-)

This has been a PSA for the advancement of creative endeavors of people I know. Thanky.
;-)

the post for which i can't think of a clever title..

2010-03-19T23:14:00.010-05:00

The verbal “I love yous” I get from my son are few and far between. Except for a very sweet and random “I love my mommy” said to no one in particular while we were out to dinner with friends several weeks ago, I can’t remember a time after he turned two that I've heard those three lovely words.

At least, directed toward me…

The other day while he and I were playing with Play-Doh, I cut a squiggly shape from a piece that I’d rolled flat. “It’s a plesiosaur!” he exclaimed… and he grabbed the piece from my hands, brought it up to his cheek and nuzzled it. And I kid you not, that little boy said unabashedly, “I love you, plesiosaur!”

A few months ago, he filched the ladybug card from a batch of insect photo cards he’d strewn all over our living room floor and declared his love to it as well.

But the best one was a night I wasn’t even home, when C was in charge of the nighttime routine… C tucked him in bed and said, “I love you”; as he walked to the door, LO said, “I love you, Daddy.” *melt*

Believe me, though… I don’t begrudge Daddy any of those kinds of moments. I love that my son can verbally express his affection when he wants. Right now, I’m perfectly content settling for the cuddling, the reaching for my hand, the many requests for my presence in any given situation. Just like when I'm chasing him around to take his picture, and he refuses to look at the camera not just despite my begging but because of my begging, I know my little stubborn guy is going to make me work for those words! I hope I truly earn them in his eyes.

***complete change of subject and brag alert***

OK, so my son knows his shapes and is familiar with octagons; there is a window in the children’s area of our local library that has eight sides. LO and I have talked about it. We call it “the octagon”, and I have said to him, “Let’s go to the library and look at the octagon!” Now, granted, that was back when that sort of thing thrilled him no end; now the act of just going to the library is sufficient enough without having to entice him with oddities like eight-sided windows, and it certainly isn’t something we’ve talked about for several weeks.

Tonight my two-and-a-half-year-old son says, “The ceiling is not an octagon because the dark brown parts are not put together yet.” I look up: there are six pieces of crown molding (i.e., “dark brown parts”) and two places that do not have crown molding because there are openings where no wall meets the ceiling there (i.e., the places where the "dark brown parts are not put together yet"). That’s eight sides, y’all!! I ask him if he and his daddy talked about that before, or if he just came up with that himself. He says, “I just said it myself, and now I’m telling Mommy.” Which cracks me up because sometimes he will parrot something from a book or TV show and I will ask, “Well, who says that?” And he will say, “I did!”, like “Duh, Mom! I just said it!” :-) But yes, Daddy confirms that they never spoke about the ceiling before... this kid just blows my mind all the time!

/end brag

just because i gotta write this somewhere...

2010-03-14T23:01:00.003-05:00

I told my son to stop messing with the ink pens I was sorting in the office today.

His reply? "Au contraire."

(Seriously, who is this kid??)

sites of note

2010-03-04T10:03:00.005-06:00

Thanks to Chalna, I have now discovered Pioneer Woman. I thought it was pretty cool, but what totally hooked me is her section on photography. Now I can see there is so much stuff on her site that I will pretty much have to dedicate an entire afternoon to perusing it.

And thanks to K at My Child's View, I am now a fan of MckMama, for pretty much the same reason: the photography stuff. This site too is one that I will have to take some time to really explore.

And both women appear to "do it all" with their respective housefuls of children. As I've only scratched the surface of both sites, hopefully I'll find some inspiration and tidbits to apply to my own life.

the pitfalls of spelling everything

2010-02-27T12:46:00.004-06:00

Do you sometimes spell out things to keep your little ones from understanding what you're talking about?

LO has mentioned he wants to watch the movie "Up". Having heard a little about the storyline, hubby and I are a little hesitant to let him without us doing a run-through first. So today I say to C:

"Hey, while LO's napping, we should watch U-P."

Um, beg pardon? (I'll add that one to my "best not to spell" list, along with "PB & J".)

february wrap-up

2010-02-24T16:55:00.022-06:00

Well, it's been a week and a half since our return from Clearwater, FL... for better or worse, it was an adventure! But we survived. :-) Poor LO came down with a cold (thanks to yours truly, who was just getting over one before we left), and to make matters worse, it was cold and windy! The biggest disappointment was that after driving almost an hour away from our hotel to Tampa's Busch Gardens, paying 12 bucks for parking and waiting in line for almost 20 minutes, we were told at the admissions counter that LO was too young to go on the safari (our main reason for taking him), and to add insult to injury, the kiddie stuff was SHUT DOWN until spring... we ended up spending the nicest day of our trip indoors (and LO's first day of finally feeling himself somewhat) at a nearby aquarium. LO didn't even realize what he was missing and thoroughly enjoyed the aquarium that day, even having been to a different aquarium the other day - once he was feeling better, he was cool to just go with the flow. LO was such a trooper throughout the 5-day insanity (and he was completely awesome during the flights), and it had little pockets of loveliness that we'll always remember... it was his very first time to see the ocean, and oh my, did he LOVE that powdery Gulf sand!

In other news: LO is now sleeping in a big boy bed! He did wonderfully in transitioning, starting with the nap first, then overnight. Honestly, we couldn't have asked for this whole transition to go any more smoothly, knock on wood! And even though he can get in and out of the bed on his own (with his stepstool), in the mornings and after naps he still waits patiently in bed for one of us to come in to greet him before he will get out. I'm sure it's still a psychological thing carried over from being confined in a crib, and I'm wondering how long that will last, but for now I am glad! Our little boy is growing up!! *sniff*

Completely changing gears, I found the coolest camera bag from Jo Totes via Design Mom's blog - and she's holding a giveaway that ends tonight... just thinking about how I didn't take our DSLR on our vacation because I didn't want to consider the camera bag one of my carry-ons, this tote would've been the answer, as you can not only carry your camera and lens(es), but also the (pared-down) contents of your handbag. Very cool (though wondering if that thin cross-body strap would've ended up digging into my neck at some point during the trip) - I like the idea of carrying the DSLR with me more often... I've got a 20-year high-school reunion coming up this summer that I was thinking about lugging the "big camera" to, and I have no interest in carrying around the camera bag and a handbag. So add "acquisition of very cool camera tote" to my "To Do Before Reunion" list which as of right now includes "turning back the ravages of 20 years on my face" and "losing 40 pounds in 4 months". See, completely feasible!

Finally, I leave you with this sweet, goofy little face:

maybe we should tone down the praise a notch.

2010-02-10T19:11:00.003-06:00

This afternoon, I told LO, "Oh, you're so cute!"

Without missing a beat, he replied, "And so smart." :-)

what the february??

2010-02-01T16:13:00.013-06:00

Where did January go??

January ended with an ice storm and 5+ inches of snow. I tried to make snow ice cream for the first time - maybe my mom made it with us as kids, but I don't remember it. Well, I wanted to do it like Paula Deen, with condensed milk, but when I opened the only can in the house, it was so old that it wouldn't even pour out of the can. And it was brown. Upon further inspection, I saw that the label had a copyright date of 2001. Yummy. So I threw that paperweight in the garbage and tried to make it with regular milk. It came out like ice cream soup, but LO enjoyed it just the same. (I'm certain he would eat a spoonful of dirt as long as it was mixed with a little sugar!) The next day, LO got to play in the snow, and we coaxed him back inside with promises of his first hot chocolate!

At month's end we also had to say goodbye to our dog, Nosey, a min poodle that my husband inherited from his mother 11 years ago. He was 16 years old. Nosey weathered the passing of people he loved, and I believe that that made him fiercely loyal to my husband. For years, when C would go on business trips, I would turn in for the night, yet Nosey would sit and wait faithfully at the door for his master. Thanks for your companionship all these years, boy.

LO updates: We are in the process of transitioning him to a big-boy bed! We have all the accoutrements, except for the most important element: a mattress! It will be shipped to us in two weeks. I am so excited about this transition because, knock on wood, I really feel like he is ready and that we won't have a bedtime fight on our hands. We used to have a ritual of carrying him to bed after reading bedtime stories in the living room. But for the past few weeks he has wanted to walk to the bedroom instead... and while of course he's old enough to do this, it is just so precious to follow behind him to the bedroom, he looks so grown up! He is so excited about the idea of a big-boy bed, I think he will do great.

He has recently begun to refer to himself in the first person finally! For quite some time, he has always referred to himself as "you". So this is a big deal for us. :-) I also have to brag that tonight during bedtime stories, my baby decided to recite a large part of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"! (I know the poem also, but that isn't my doing; he learned it from television, I'm afraid....) This kiddo has a crazy memory, reciting sections of several of his storybooks and even reciting the whole book if it's short enough. One evening, he "read", word for word, the first several pages of this book, a childhood favorite of mine.

I've not mentioned this before, but it's something he's always done: it cracks me up when we sing songs - he will not sing with someone. When all the kids sing at the library during storytime, he might move his hands like the other kids but never joins in the singing (though sometimes he likes to break into solo after everyone else has quieted down). When I try to sing along with him, he stops every single time! Sometimes I trick him and sing at the same time he does, but that sure makes for a choppy song since he will immediately stop and wait to make sure I'm not going to sing again before he continues. Even if I stop in mid-word, when he starts again, he'll just sing the part of the word I didn't say! It's hilarious, and thank goodness he doesn't get frustrated with me for interrupting his singing like that. :-) Hubby and I try to model singing in unison for him, but most likely our warbling is just motivation to stop singing altogether!

Potty training... oh, where do I start. He's nowhere close - he knows how to go and some days he does OK, but C and I have to be the ones to initiate every visit to the potty. He refuses to go on his own and sometimes throws tantrums if we insist he go, which we do after every meal. Here's the insane thing: we can drag him kicking and screaming to the potty, yet once his rear end touches that potty seat, it's practically impossible to get him to leave, whether he's accomplished anything or not! He wants to stay on the potty for the rest of his life - I'm practically begging at that point for him to please just wrap it up! *sigh* No one ever said toddlers were easy or made sense, did they?

Well, that's quite a lot of blathering for one night; I think I'll stop there. As for the subject of my next post: we're taking LO on a little adventure soon... his first trip to the beach!

pumpkin bread!

2009-12-04T22:41:00.005-06:00

Oh, man... 'tis the season for holiday baking! I've never baked with canned pumpkin before, so I don't know if this is typical, but it seemed the supermarkets I frequent were out of stock for a long time, even as far back as September... I found two cans a few weeks ago and have been itching to make something with them (not pie)... and I made this recipe today... oh my word... SO good. I substituted 1/3 of the flour with graham flour and 1/2 the oil with applesauce (lack of ingredients in my pantry!)... but I substituted 1 c of the sugar with 3/4 c brown sugar just because. Also, I failed to read that it said to use 3 7x3 pans, not 2 8x4 as I had done... so it took about 15 more minutes to bake. Totally worth the wait! My only regret is that I didn't have any chocolate chips to mix in it. The recipe says that the bread is even better the next day! Can't wait to have some with my coffee in the morning.

In other quasi-news, I finally finished designing our photo Christmas card (no, it's not this one, I promise!) and am ready to upload it for printing. I can't believe how grown-up LO looks in the picture!

a little this and that

2009-11-22T15:21:00.004-06:00

Life keeps happening, doesn't it? A pot-pourri of happy and sad and exciting and bleh moments. Ironically, living a life that is full of bloggy moments makes one too busy to blog about them. But here I am today to inform you that, of all things to care about blogging about, I have made a pineapple upside-down cake from scratch. Even the pineapple was fresh! LO is napping now, but I assume any moment he will awaken from the scent of warm cake wafting through the house. I halved the recipe (we - and by "we" I mean my husband - ate a majority of the pineapple, and I used what was left over), cut back on the sugar just a teensy bit and substituted about 1/3 of the flour with graham flour. Heavenly! Like the bananas that I use in my banana bread every so often, this pineapple was most likely going to go to waste if I didn't do something with it today.

Autumn is my favorite time of year. The changing of the leaves on the trees is one of the most beautiful things I can think of. And as much as Oklahoma weather makes me groan, we do have some gorgeous Autumns!

We had our fireplace chimney-swept and are ready to start our first fire... if only the weather would cooperate. As it is, today after LO's nap I will get an afternoon snack in 'im and then take him outside to mess around on the tricycle and maybe play with sidewalk chalk (and ultimately dig in the dirt with his bare hands) because the day is just too darned pretty to squander! Too warm to start a fire in the fireplace? I won't complain one bit!

Some LO updates: In typical "terrible twos" fashion, his favorite hobby lately is to shriek whenever he doesn't get his way or if a toy doesn't cooperate. Not yelling or crying... eardrum-piercing shrieking. Sometimes there is angry hand-clapping or knee-slapping that goes along with it, and sometimes the offending toy gets chucked to the ground. But it appears that everything frustrates him. He'll color in a coloring book with reckless abandon and then suddenly be devastated that he used that particular color at all. He'll put a sticker on a piece of paper and if it's not super-straight, there will be toddler gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands. I wouldn't categorize it as great fun for all involved, that's for sure. One day he was sent to time-out for throwing a tantrum that shook the walls of the house, and I asked him if he knew why he was in time-out. With a pouty cry, he said, "Yehhhhhssss."

"Why?"

Pause. "Because you [sic] threw your puzzle pieces down in anger." (He still gets his pronouns confused...)

Oh, my gosh, if I didn't think that was the cutest, most grown-up thing I'd ever heard... almost made me want to give time-out clemency. Almost.

LO can also recite his 7-digit telephone number and can spell the word "spell" (the latter which he learned from the show "SuperWhy!"). With enough coaxing, he can spell his name (or his truncated name, the first 4 letters), though when asked, sometimes he initially starts with "S-P"...

We are doing what I like to call pre-potty-training... mainly because if I don't call it that, then it sort of feels like *failed* potty training, you know? I would say he poops / pees in the potty a majority of the time, but he still wears a diaper and will go in that too. One big step, though, is that on a few occasions lately, he has come to Daddy or me and told us he needed a diaper change. Though he doesn't always do this, the times he does are a big deal for us!

LO is just growing up so fast. Looking and acting so much like a big boy these days. When did this happen?? Cleaning out my emails the other day, I came across one that I had sent my husband at work a thousand years ago: "Guess what? [LO] can show me where his ears and his feet are all by himself!" And now, those days are a distant memory... where has our little baby boy gone?

And now... I hear someone stirring from his nap. Time for some pineapple upside down cake...

Hope everyone has a blessed Thanksgiving.

illustration friday: frozen

2009-10-17T10:21:00.006-05:00

Well, it's been a while since I posted! Lots of things going on here: LO has been on lots of adventures: the Aquarium, "A Day Out with Thomas" at a railway museum, the State Fair (twice!) and the pumpkin patch, among other daily pursuits... busy, busy, busy. And then, of course, most recently we've all caught some sort of bug around here at casa de elegraph, so LO's latest adventure out has been to his pediatrician's office, who said his flu test was negative but he might still have the flu... which is frustrating because if your test is neg, they won't give you an anti-viral. Luckily, he seems to be on the mend now!

Hubby seems mostly recovered.. and me? I've been feeling like an elephant is sitting on my chest, but hopefully I too am on the tail-end of this sickness. I have brief bursts of the feel-betters that cause me to over-exert myself and feel crummy afterwards, so I'm trying to take it easy now...

It's been a very long time since I've participated in Illustration Friday, and though I thought it would be fun to submit something, I won't lie: this is something I've created a while back. BUT, it fits the theme, so there!

Since LO was born, I started sending out photo Christmas cards, and I enjoy designing my own. This was one of the designs I came up with last year (but didn't use). So, if you get one of these in the mail this Christmas (with a different photo, of course), sorry for the spoilers!! :-)

(click on image for larger view)

making up

2009-09-12T14:16:00.005-05:00

Whew - it's been a while since my last post. Though lots has happened and a bajillion photos have been taken since my last post, I have been on the lazy side about sharing anything with anyone. I promise to be better soon. Maybe.

LO has become increasingly restless in the crib at naptime before he falls asleep, sometimes playing in his crib for a full hour-plus before I get to hear nothing but sweet whir of the humidifier coming through that baby monitor. And I have to admit, most days, naptime is when I have a moment to actually get ready for the day. (When does that change, mommies? Is there hope for me??)

So this afternoon, after reading a few stories together after lunch (during which he yawned more than once), I put him down for his nap. After a long period of him rambling and carrying on conversations with stuffed animals, I hear this nervous "huh-huh-huh," like a laugh-cry. I check on him to find that he was standing up, his foot kicked back behind him, ankle wedged in between slats of the crib. Definitely not in a good position to hold onto the crib so as not to lose his balance. And his ankle was really stuck! I felt a little panicky for what felt like several minutes (but was probably no longer than one) as I eventually worked his ankle out from between the slats. Mini-crisis averted... until that little nut began to stick his foot back in between the slats. At that point, I lost my temper. "Don't you dare put your foot back there! Do you understand me?? NEVER put your feet in between the slats. If you do, you will be in BIG TROUBLE - do you understand me??"

That kid dropped to his mattress like his legs had been kicked out from underneath him, and he snuggled into his favorite gween blanket. "I don't want you to get stuck, and I don't want you to get hurt," I told him as I walked away and shut the door again.

Within a minute or so, I hear this over the monitor:

"I'm sorry I yelled at you."

My heart sank. I think there is a time and place to raise your voice, but I'll be the first to admit I have done it when I shouldn't have. And I have apologized to him for it. Apparently, he thought he deserved an apology today!

The next thing I hear is:

"Don't! Ever! Put! Your! Foot! In! Between! Those! Slats! Again!"

Now, I know part of the emphatic way he said this comes from the way we read those signs in The Poky Little Puppy ("NEVER DIG HOLES UNDER THIS FENCE AGAIN!"), but it was enough to do me in. Surely I didn't want that to be the last thing he thinks about before falling asleep, did I?

I opened his door. He was still lying down, playing around in the crib. "Do you want to cuddle with me in the rocking chair?"

He jumped up and smiled at me. "Yes."

As we rocked, he asked me to sing "The Hiro Song" from the new Thomas movie Hero of the Rails, but since it's new to me and I really don't know the words, I hummed through a lot of it, which he found quite amusing.

He fell asleep in my arms... the first time in a while I have had the pleasure of rocking my little boy to sleep.

chocolate gravy

2009-08-10T14:29:00.004-05:00

I just made some of this:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1726,150187-229199,00.html

Y'all familiar with chocolate gravy? I know it's typically a southern thing, but rural Oklahoma is not unfamiliar with this food! I remember getting bowls of this at my grandma's as well as one of my aunt's houses. After reading "The Poky Little Puppy" to LO (you know, that part about spooning chocolate custard into the pups' bowls), I got a sudding hankering for chocolate custard, pudding, whatever. I didn't want to go to the trouble of custard, and I didn't have any cornstarch for pudding, so I pulled up a super-quick choco gravy recipe that I could whip up in a skillet. The results? Not bad, but waaaay too sweet!

Next time, I think I will try this recipe, which has way less sugar:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,175,132181-251196,00.html

happy birthday, bro!

2009-08-04T10:39:00.005-05:00

Since I just found out my brother, Mr. Middle Child, reads my blog from time to time, I just want to say Happy 40th, old man! Love ya! :-)

(And Whew! to his reading about the slideshow in a previous post and not having a clue that it was for HIS surprise party this past Saturday! Hee! Thank goodness I kept it cryptic... I mean, you never know....)

Now I'm off to pore over some DIY wedding planning blogs and websites, as I have been honored with the task of designing the Save the Date cards for my eldest niece's wedding next spring! *sigh* When I was her age, she was younger than LO is now. Hard to believe! She is going to make a gorgeous bride. :-)

i heart atticus finch

2009-07-30T12:39:00.004-05:00

Don't be like me... a 30-something who has never read To Kill a Mockingbird until now. I'm just past the halfway mark, and I cannot believe how awesome this book is.

That is all. :-)

can someone tell me where the mute button is?

2009-07-28T10:12:00.004-05:00

I'm working out the kinks to a surprise slideshow for someone, and LO has been at my side for a good portion of its assembly. Today I finally burned it to DVD and was testing it out on our TV.

About halfway through, I hear this coming from Mr. Peanut Gallery beside me: "Well, THAT'S lame!"

This is something I remember saying in a fit of frustration during my work on this project (our DVD software was incredibly difficult to work with and also had occasion to lock up for no apparent reason - once it did this before I had saved anything - I had to reboot and start from scratch). Now the task before me is to get him to associate a less rude phrase with the slideshow before we present it to friends and family. Because how cool would THAT be to hear my 2-year-old shouting, "That's LAME!" during the most sentimental moments of the slideshow, right??

Unfortunately, the DVD has a glitch at the very begininning, so it's back to the cyber-drawing board for some un-kinking. As I eject the DVD from the player, I sigh and start to say, "Mommy..." I actually wasn't sure how I was going to finish this sentence, but it didn't matter, because LO did it for me:

"Mommy is confused."

As I search my memory to figure out when or where he heard this little gem, it dawns on me that perhaps, maybe... my little one was just being observant.

exhausted

2009-07-23T08:33:00.005-05:00

I won't bore you with the details, but I had difficulties getting LO down for the night, then he woke up again at around 1am and didn't go back to bed until after 3am. LOTS of "Want to" this and "Want to" that... and lots of me giving in to make him stop screaming. (Normally, I wouldn't be so weak, but his behavior during all of this was very unusual and perplexing.) And he STILL woke up before 7am. It was a rough night for all of us, and when he woke up this morning, he wasn't in much better spirits. Thank goodness, after getting some nice, warm "oapmeal" in his tummy, he seems to be as close to his old self as I could hope for at this point. I am SO looking forward to taking a nap when he does, and to not having a repeat performance tonight!

In the same spirit of last night, I just wanted to share an oft-occurring breakfast dialogue:

LO: [sitting in high chair, finishing up a bowl of oatmeal that is large enough for any adult] Want some mo' toast? (translation: Hey - I WANT SOME TOAST)

Mom: OK! [puts bread in toaster]

LO: You can't eeeeeeeeeeat it!

Mom: Yes, you can... but I have to toast it first.

LO: You can't HAAAAAVE it! It's TOOOOOO TOASTY!!!!! [squeals high-pitched squeal]

Mom: It's almost ready...

LO: [squeal gets louder] It's not WORKING!!!!!

[Frazzled, Mom pops toast up prematurely, which means that "toast" is really just a warmed-over piece of bread. "Toast" is buttered and served. LO is sated. The end.]

getting into character

2009-07-21T15:10:00.008-05:00

I don't know what parent hasn't at one time or another read a story to his or her child in a funny voice, or changed up voices to fit different characters within a story. I guess the times that hubby and I have done this have rubbed off on LO, who is "reading" from a Thomas & Friends book. Basically, he is speaking as Peter Sam, who isn't going to look for a "silly lamp" because "I'm a really useful engine, not a really silly one." (The reason for shooting the vid from behind? I was trying to be stealthy. ) ;-)

PS Dig the 'do? I'm taking him to get his hair cut today. :-P

like a switch has been flipped...

2009-07-13T08:15:00.005-05:00

LO had a pretty good birthday yesterday (and a nice time at his party the day before). But more on that in another post.

I just wanted to take a moment to mention that overnight, and coincidentally on his second birthday, LO stopped saying the proper and cute "Yes" in favor of "Yeah." He has NEVER answered us with a cursory "Yeah" before. And that is if he cares to bother himself with answering us anyway (another thing that seemed to manifest itself on his birthday) - for example, this morning I asked him if he was finished with breakfast. No answer.

"Are you finished?" Silence. "Are you ready to get out of your high chair?" Silence.

The most aggravating thing about this is that even though he is not making eye contact, I can tell the wheels are in motion up there: "OK, hold out. Don't say A WORD. Keep her wondering. Let's see if she will get me out of the high chair anyway. Yes. YES! She's doing it! I have the power!!!!!" (Of course, he still says "Yes" in his head....)

the post in which i confess i don't know what i'm doing

2009-07-08T14:08:00.010-05:00

I'd mentioned before, briefly, that I had other art projects I've been working on. What I didn't mention is that I'm kinda struggling. BUT, I wanted the person to know that I am indeed trying! Exhibit A:

Thanks to P for your patience!

In other news, this is how the past few days have gone:

LO had his 2nd 4th of July in which he had his first ice cream cone (but not ice cream - he has had that before!) and his first swim in the big pool. He was not a huge fan of the latter, though I was able to snap a smiling face with the camera:

Monday I caught a caterpillar, and LO and I put it in his little plastic bucket which was especially made for collecting bugs (however, its design is a little flawed in my opinion, so I don't recommend this over, say, a jelly jar with holes poked in the lid) so that LO and I could look at it closely. Unfortunately, the "caterpillar" turned out to be a cutworm (read: PEST), so as far as LO knows, I let it go to roam free in the grasses (but we all know what fate that cutworm met!). Look at its crazy Storm Trooper face!

We also went to the park later that afternoon. We stopped on the trail to look at the geese, but quickly had to flee once they realized they were being watched. Among other things, we played around in the sand by the swing sets, and while I was snapping pictures of LO squeezing the life out of handfuls of sand:

Look at his expression... GRR!

a bunch (flock, gaggle?) of ducks sneaked up *thisclose* behind me. The waterfowl around here, they are not shy!!

And lastly, it is worth mentioning, my baby boy is turning TWO this weekend. There has been nothing more joyful and bittersweet in life than to watch my baby grow up. Talk about not knowing what I'm doing! First-time parenthood has been the best ride of my life!

thoughts

2009-07-07T15:25:00.003-05:00

I have a friend who is hurting right now. She is a woman I have gotten to know through an online moms' board - though some might find those types of friendships superficial, I'm here to tell you, some of those women have been with me through the good times and the bad, sending me good wishes when I was celebrating, and (((hugs))) and prayers when I was struggling. I've even had the privilege of meeting three of them in person! :-)

In one of her replies to the thread she started, asking for prayer, she posted a link to a particular post from this blog. I've seen this blog before - so heartwrenching, the blog of a family who has had to deal with the unthinkable. As I neared the end of this blog post, tears literally sprung from my eyes - and it startled me a little. And I was so grateful that my friend was able to find comfort from those words. I hope you do, too.

two-year pic

2009-07-03T15:47:00.006-05:00

I still reserve the right to keep on a-snappin' - I'd like to take him to the same location his one-year pics were done and see if we can't get some good ones of him on his tricycle - but this is the one I've decided on so far:

7.02.09

Hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th!

things i have recently learned from my son

2009-07-02T19:09:00.005-05:00

Just wanting to start a list of these little gems:

1) Scissors are for "scissing"
2) Foods are "tasty"; therefore, beverages are "drinky"

More to come, I'm sure...

elephant ;-)

2009-06-29T13:33:00.006-05:00

C'mon, Ms. K... surely you can see the elephant NOW, right? ;-)

"prehistoric creatures" watercolor duo

2009-06-28T13:56:00.014-05:00

I've been wanting to replace the prints in LO's room for a while now with my own artwork. Recently, we had to take a larger print off the wall by his crib because it was within his reach when he stood up in the crib, and the void it left was bothering me. I recently got a frame that was a near-perfect match for the frame above his crib (and that also hung out of LO's reach), but it needed artwork. Instead of trying to match what was hanging above his crib, I decided to just replace that artwork, too. It needed to be simple, colorful without being too loud, and boyish, yet something that could grow with him. And because I have other art projects I'm working on, it needed to be quickly executed. Over the weekend, I came up with these:

The painting on the left was sketched out on watercolor block before I began painting; the one on the right, which I painted first, was painted freehand.

The prehistoric creatures in the above paintings are based on the illustrations in this dinosaur sticker book by Allan Eitzen. And when I say "based on", I totally mean I tried my hardest to sketch them out on the watercolor block just like they are in the book, though I decided to go with emotionless faces and toothless mouths in place of angry faces and flesh-ripping teeth. ;-)

;-) And, quite frankly, I think they complement the collaborate effort of LO and me, which hangs on an opposite wall, above his dresser:

This was painted landscape-wise, but hung portrait-wise because my husband totally saw an elephant. Now I do too! :-)

2009-06-24T23:05:00.006-05:00

To follow up from the last post, LO's eyes were checked out yesterday by the pediatric ophthalmologist, and thank God it turned out to be nothing. It was one of things I just couldn't in my good conscience ignore, and my husband agreed.

More prayers are needed, though, for little 4-month-old T, who this week has been diagnosed with cancer - acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Upon being diagnosed, he was immediately admitted to the hospital to prepare for treatment. He has undergone surgery to start his chemo and test his bone marrow. Such a nightmare for any family. I just saw some photos of him several hours post-op, and he looks so good, it's hard to believe that poor little guy's body is going through all that. Stay strong, little T!!

On a much lighter note, today's temps once again hit triple digits, so after his nap and a snack, I slathered some sunscreen on LO and took him to a local park's so-called "spray park" (I keep wanting to call it "splash pad"). It was his first time there, and he completely loved it!

Stay cool, y'all!

a praying parent

2009-06-20T22:12:00.006-05:00

I don't normally express my religious or political views on this blog, but something touched me this evening and I had to share it, even if it was here with my audience of three. :-)

When my husband goes out of town, I take a picture of LO at some point each day and send it to him via cell phone or email. Today after I took our daily picture with the cell, I grabbed the regular camera and took several more. In one of the flash pictures, there was something about his right eye that has me concerned.

I don't want to jump to conclusions about it because it could be absolutely nothing, but I also want to have this looked at by his pediatrician and / or a pediatric ophthalmologist as soon as possible. I remembered that an old school friend I'd reconnected with on Facebook was a pediatric nurse, and so I asked her if she knew of any good pediatric ophthalmologists in this area. Her reply was that she had a friend, also a nurse, whose child(ren) had been seen by a doctor that she absolutely loved. She also mentioned that he was a Christian. How wonderful that she even knew this about him, not to mention that she felt this was important to note about a medical provider she was recommending to me.

When LO was born, a friend gave me a book called The Power of a Praying Parent. Admittedly, though I'd gotten several chapters into it, it has been months since I've picked it up. But if ever there was a time I needed to work through my struggles with prayer (and believe me, I have struggles), it is now as I pray for my little boy's health.

This evening, I cracked the book open at the place where the bookmark was wedged, and there it was: "Chapter Twelve: Enjoying a Life of Health and Healing." The chapter begins, "When my daughter was four years old she was diagnosed with an eye problem...." The issue the author's daughter had is different, but you can bet that caught my attention.

I love the Lord and am so grateful that He knows to communicate with me in a very in-your-face way when warranted: "Hey - I'm talking to YOU!"

And as for finding out about LO's eye - if you have any prayers and positive thoughts to spare, we'd appreciate some!

no rest for the weary (or is it "wicked"?)

2009-06-18T21:50:00.003-05:00

... at any rate, no rest for me. Or LO, who after a MAJOR freakout session at bedtime is still awake and now in front of the TV watching "Classical Baby" while I pound out my frustrations on the laptop keyboard. Here's hoping that he gets enough sleep tonight so that he's on his best behavior for our lunch date with a friend tomorrow...

"faux"-to shoot

2009-06-14T14:16:00.006-05:00

I love taking pictures of my little boy!!

His two-year birthday is fast approaching (*sniff, sniff*), and hubby decided that instead of hiring a photographer this year, we (read: I) would take pictures ourselves. I want his two-year pics to really be special - not an easy task with a point-and-shoot (that does have some manual features, but they're limited), so I've been practicing like a mad woman, trying to figure out clever and creative ways to get LO to stay put long enough to snap his photo. In these practice shots, you can see he is literally cornered in our back yard:

6.08.09

In other news, hubby took LO for his first bike trailer ride the other day. The trip was brief, but my husband is looking forward to doing this all warm-weather-season long...

6.11.09

goodbye, alice.

2009-05-29T22:20:00.005-05:00

storytime - 4.21.09

Alice, our dear Maine Coon calico, had to be put down today due to health issues. We're not certain of the onset of her malady, but by the time we had realized she was sick, the time had come to put her to rest. She had been my husband's cat for several years before we ever met, and one of her sibs, Chumley, belonged to my husband's brother. I was never a fan of cats before, but those two won me over.

She lived a long life - almost 17 years - and is one of the few cats (I'm guessing) who could cross "See the Grand Canyon" off her to-do list (something she did with my husband before we were together). She was big and skittish but very loveable. She liked to spend a good amount of time chilling under our bed, but when she would come out to spend time with us, she was always very good with our little boy and seemed very connected to him - and the feeling, I'm certain, was mutual.

The picture above was taken in April, before we knew she was ill.

Goodbye, girl. We love and miss you.

desperate for a good night's sleep... but not that desperate...

2009-05-28T10:22:00.004-05:00

Second-year molar teething has robbed us of a good night's sleep for several days now. Poor LO - I have felt his gums back there, and one day I can feel a tooth breaking through, and the next day it's retracted back into the swollen gum...

Someone told my husband today that the traditional Creek Indian remedy for teething pain is applying a paste made out of squirrel's brains. SQUIRREL'S BRAINS!! Ever the skeptic, I tried Googling it and came up dry. All I have to say about that is, Y'all try it first and let me know how it goes... WOW...

random

2009-05-20T11:42:00.002-05:00

For lunch today, I gave LO a small slice of my black bean quesadilla. He's now noshing on it while shouting over and over again, "Case... of... dia!!!"

home again, home again, jiggety-jog

2009-05-15T10:20:00.007-05:00

We just got back Tuesday evening from our trip to see friends and family in the Chicago area. It was LO's first *long* road trip, and I'm pleased to report, he traveled better than we could've dreamed (except for a puking incident mid-way in St. Louis)... Thank goodness for portable DVD players! He didn't need it the whole time, but BOY, did it save our bacon a time or two.

Both of LO's paternal great-grandmothers are still living, and he got to meet his paternal grandpa's mother for the first time, as well as my husband's sister and her family and some extended family as well. (Thank you, SIL & fam, for letting us come visit your home and play in your "playground", LOL) . We had a lovely Mother's Day at Great-Grandma's with family.

LO also got to play with some friends his age at a little indoor play area called Little Monkey Bizness. He loved it thoroughly (as did I, spending time with their moms), though my heart dropped to my feet when he fell over the little wall climbing onto a banquette (sorry, son... no banquette to catch your fall on the other side!). Aside from a bumped nose and some fat tears, a few minutes later he was up and running as if nothing happened, thank goodness! Boys sure do make you want to wrap them up in bubble wrap sometimes...

Another cool experience was the Brookfield Zoo. What a nice zoo - the layout was just wonderful, and it was the perfect size, though we didn't get to see everything.

There were some annoying minutia throughout the trip - of course, the puking incident in the vehicle practically 5 minutes away from our hotel; misplacing my sunglasses before the trip and having to resort to the spares... then losing the spares during the trip; the 5am fire alarm incident Saturday that had me frantically scooping my little boy up in a blanket and running outside the hotel shoeless and disoriented (no fire, just a broken water main). Two more brief alarm mishaps that morning prevented us from going back to sleep once we returned to the room. We fared better than one family with an infant, though - their room got flooded!

And then... the camera. Our camera died on the way home, with the lens still extended. I was glad that it happened on the way home from our overnight stay in St. Louis and not while we were in Chicago, but we have had that camera for just over a year. It's a Canon G9, folks. Just wanted to put that info out there, as a little research on the 'Net has revealed that this is something that has happened to other G9 owners as well. I read somewhere that this happened to someone after only owning the camera for 7 months! From what I've read, it appears to be a fixable problem, though... Until then, we'll need to find another way to transfer our vacay pics to the computer.

TGIF, y'all! -kg

addendum to 'random' post

2009-05-01T21:14:00.002-05:00

LO's shoes came TODAY. WOO!!!

random

2009-04-30T15:41:00.004-05:00

Rain, rain, go away! Today would've been the day our lawn service would've come to trim our lawn for the first time this season - and boy, does it need it! But it is not to be. It has been raining since yesterday, and it's not projected to let up for several days. It'll look like a jungle by the time it's dry enough to mow...

We are at the tail-end of our colds here, which means that the mucus is THICK (TMI, sorry...). Not the most pleasant phase for a little boy to deal with, but it, in addition to his feisty behavior, tells me the end is near! Woo!

Some might think it's best to have crummy weather when you're forced to be indoors so as not to be wistful or tempted, but quite frankly, it has driven us both a little batty. Even when it wasn't raining during our illness, it was gloomy-looking outside. I miss the sun! We also missed library storytime this week. :-( LO has made several tearful pleas over the past several days to put his shoes on him so we can go outside, poor kiddo...

In other news, I have been searching for shoes for my little fat-footed toddler... no easy feat (pun intended). He needs a wide (and perhaps an XW), which are really hard to find in retail stores. That's why I love Zappos.com and Piperlime.com! Both websites offer free shipping and free returns, which makes it almost painless to order shoes for LO. If they don't fit, I can return them hassle-free. The selection of wides is relatively vast compared to stores. I can order different sizes and / or widths in the same style and return what doesn't fit. Which is fantastic, considering that one brand's sizes / widths can vary from style to style (frustrating!! Yeah, Stride Rite, I'm talkin' about YOU!).

(One more thing about Zappos - I don't know if everyone experiences this with them, but I receive my orders, like, yesterday! They are fast!! I just placed another order today and, fingers crossed, hope to have them by Monday or maybe even Saturday, in time for our vacation...)

spring cold...

2009-04-25T21:39:00.003-05:00

It's official: LO and I both have a cold. The good news is, I think we have plenty of time to knock it before we head up north for our family trip. We have traveled with LO when he was in the thick of a bad cold, and it's hard enough to get a toddler to sleep away from home, much less when he doesn't feel well.

I think I read somewhere that if you are already sick with a cold and you are exposed to another infected person, you won't prolong each other's colds. And in our case, one of us had to have caught it from the other, so we must have the same virus anyway. Frankly, I hope that's true, because I've had enough of this "keep away, don't breathe on me" kind of atmosphere, and I'd prefer to comfort and love on my little boy with reckless abandon when he doesn't feel well.

"testing, one, two, three... sibillance... sibillance"

2009-04-24T14:38:00.018-05:00

Ahem. LO (a/k/a Little One) here. So my mom has decided to go almost a whole month without blogging? About ME? That's just wrong. So I have decided to tell you a bit about what's been going on in my world these days!

Let's see. The weather has been so nice these past few weeks, so Mom and I have been going to the park quite a bit. Much to Mom's dismay, I'd rather muck about in the sand and mulch than climb the Big Toys, so she broke down and bought me some sand toys to take to the park. :-) The other day, we saw a gaggle of fuzzy little ducklings and a bunch of turtles swimming around in the pond. One turtle even came ashore to snap up a scrap of bread someone left behind for the ducks.

Now that Mom has come to the realization that I am washable, ha ha, she has also been letting me paint with watercolors. It's crazy-fun! She used to fill my brushes for me, but now she lets me muddy the pans so that it looks like I have a set of gray paints...

Slap a bowler on me and call me Chaplin! ;-)

And when I need to get cleaned up after painting or playing, Mom breaks out the bathtub crayons for me. Woo!

Even when I'm getting clean, I still get to make a mess! Life is good.

We go to the library every week! We try to make it on Tuesdays, but there is a Wednesday storytime if we can't make it Tuesday. (Really, I don't mind Wednesdays because the librarian that day blows bubbles before storytime! My favorite!!) We sing songs, but usually I sit quietly during the group sing, and then when everyone else is finished, I break out into a solo. :-) Afterward, we check out a gazillion books. It is so much fun having new stories for Mom and Dad to read to me all the time!

And I've been trying to make it over to Mema and Grandad's house once a week. I love to spend the day over there because they have a big yard and a swingset with a slide... plus lots of crazy-neat stuff all over the yard - some of it kid-friendly, some of it mom-cringeworthy, but Mema and Grandad make sure I stay out of trouble... I took my very first nap over there this week! I've had trouble napping there, but Mom figured out that Classical Baby's "The Poetry Show" can make my eyelids heavy after a hard morning of play, even in unfamiliar napping territory. :-)

This past Saturday, Mom and Dad took me to something called the Big Truck Event in a neighboring city. I got to see and sit in a firetruck, concrete mixer, police car, backhoe loader (my favorite!!), and even a Schwan's truck! I swear, sitting in that backhoe loader was like a dream come true!

Today, we're just kind of taking it easy, hanging around the house. Mom got me a jigsaw puzzle a few weeks ago. I'm still trying to figure it out, because it's so different from the puzzles I'm used to, but Mom and I work at it together - I'll put together sections, and then Mom will put the sections on their proper place on the board. Today I put four pieces together all by myself!

(Left: This is the face I make when I can't make pieces fit. Grrrr! Right: I put that pig together all by myself!)

AND, if that's not keeping me busy enough, I have so much to look forward to in the months ahead! In May, we're headed up north to visit family and friends, then when we return home the following week we'll go to the annual local arts and music festival (my first time!). And psst, Mom and Dad don't know I know this, but they're going to take me to see "Thomas and Friends Live!" in July. It's going to be a busy summer. I can't wait!!

a conversation...

2009-04-01T16:39:00.003-05:00

(Coming home from the grocery store the other day...)
Me: Hey, buddy... you put your sunglasses on upside down!
LO: Dey aw wite-side-up.

I'll let y'all decide for yourselves:

snow!

2009-03-31T13:00:00.006-05:00

(Or, "hnow!" as my LO calls it.) Just like our area of Oklahoma to have its heaviest winter snowfall... in the Spring! We got almost 6 inches in as many hours, and it was fluffy and sticky, which made for some nice, packable snow... by day after next, it was as if it was all a dream. Other than swampy yards, not a trace of that beautiful snow remained anywhere. That's how it should be! Here to enjoy in all its splendor on a Saturday, then gone in time for people to have clear, safe roads for their commute to work Monday...

3.28.09

i seriously need a good under-eye cream.

2009-03-25T13:44:00.003-05:00

All the chronic eye-rubbing I did for a solid decade has caught up with me, darned allergies. I not only am beginning to look my age, I'm surpassing it. Any day now, someone is going to ask me if I'm LO's grandmother. And all the drugstore brands I've been trying out have yet to do me any good.

Any suggestions?

words are funny little things, hm.

2009-03-20T21:40:00.007-05:00

Y'all know that the word pulchritudinous means "physically beautiful"? Just putting that out there in case someone ever called you that and you felt the urge to punch that person in the neck for it.

Better yet, let me use it in a sentence: Nicolas Cage's hair is not pulchritudinous.

random thoughts

2009-03-18T13:21:00.004-05:00

My son is down for his nap, but he is still babbling. One of the things I tend to do while he settles down for sleep is to goof around on the laptop because it's a quiet activity (well, yes... folding laundry is considered a *quiet* activity, but where's the fun in that?).

So here I am again. So much is going on with my LO... I have been thinking about how his precociousness, while fascinating and engaging, is bittersweet, because it has in some ways robbed me of his "babyness". His capacity for language and memorization blows my mind on a daily basis; he just seems to have grown up overnight. I suppose I should look on the bright side - he seems so grown-up in many ways, but he still has those sweet little baby cheeks and belly! Everybody wins.

On a random note, here are some things we have learned this morning:

When Mommy is drinking her morning coffee, do not shove Tigger up in her lap, causing her to spill coffee all over her lap, the chair, and Tigger, and insist that she make Tigger chase you. (Lest you've forgotten, please refer to the sock monkey incident of two weeks ago.)
You should not assume that every book with black and white illustrations is a coloring book.
You can't get away with saying "Damn it" by saying that Percy the Tank Engine said it.

Switching gears yet again, WOO! to the weather we've been having lately. We've been blessed with some unseasonably warm weather here during the winter months, but now we've got nowhere to go but up as the First Day of Spring approaches.

happy saturday

2009-03-07T11:18:00.004-06:00

Today, my bliss is sitting in the house with the windows open, enjoying the breeze while noshing on leftover lasagna for lunch (which, in my opinion, is almost always better than when it was freshly baked the night before).

Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far!

random rant: clutterfest 2009

2009-02-27T12:40:00.006-06:00

I had no idea I had this spiral notebook addiction! I have been trying to clean out the clutter in our home office because it looks like a "Before" picture on one of those organization shows. My poor husband worked from home one day a few weeks ago, and he was miserable because it was such a dysfunctional space to be in. So... I sorted through mountains of papers and shredded or filed everything. I went through the aforementioned spiral notebooks (there were about a half dozen) and ripped out used portions to toss or shred. One notebook ended up being from my old job and had client information in it, so I had to shred the whole thing. I'd just as soon scrub a toilet with my eyebrows as shred paper - the fact that I had to rip those pages out of a notebook was just the icing on the cake. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for having tackled that task and having these cleaned-out notebooks on hand... that is, until I went to file some other papers away in the office closet and found that ANOTHER STACK of spiral notebooks had been tucked away in a semi-clear storage bin. I was crushed.

I have other things that I could certainly stand to let go of... a handful of my old business cards (let's face it - the fact that I have any sort of attachment to them is LAME); a whole BIN of old letters and cards from friends as far back as the 4th grade (Dear Keisha, How are you? Do you like that new Scrable show? LYLAS, ***); college assignments, research papers, and textbooks (not counting the lit books - I will keep those forever!); manuals for cell phones I no longer use but that I can't bear to toss because I haven't gotten rid of the phone either... I could go on and on.

But the year is young yet, and I have hope for myself that come January 2010 things will be different. In a good way.

when the worlds of oil changes and diaper changes collide

2009-02-21T11:57:00.009-06:00

Perhaps my son has too much of a mommy-centric view of the world. Case in point: he advised me the other day that this mechanic was "holding a nose-sucker... and a purse." :-)

fare thee well, kitteh...

2009-02-15T18:55:00.006-06:00

Chillin' out in our kitchen - 2/08/09

After six weeks to the day, Mr. Stray Cat's stay at chez elegraph has come to an blissful end: he is now purring happily in the arms of his NEW OWNER!! Hurrah and YAY!

Bless his heart, he was getting bigger and bigger while his abode within the confines of our baby gate stayed small... he did get to scat around our home a few times to burn off some energy - which tended to be a bit of work for us to make sure he didn't try to go into our newly-carpeted dining area (another YAY!) on the off-chance that he might do something that would leave him with eight lives... although it was interesting to see him interact with our other pets when he was out, pouncing on our poor, unsuspecting old poodle and turning our old territorial cat into the devil's spawn...

Today my husband took him to a friend of ours (I'd mentioned in a previous post that she had recently lost a cat to illness), who wanted to meet him to make sure he was a good fit for her and her other pets before committing to him. Just in case she fell in love on the spot, he did pack up the cat's little carpeted bed, food, and medical records to take with him, though we did steel ourselves for the possibility that he would be bringing him right back home if it didn't work out.

They bonded right away, I'm told. Thank you SO MUCH, Meghan - we're so grateful that we were able to find this cat a home with someone we know will love and take great care of him!

a valentine's day treat for my virtual decorated shoebox...

2009-02-13T11:51:00.012-06:00

This gem, from my good friend Andi, was in my inbox this morning. And this, folks, is why I can receive maybe two emails on average per year from her and still consider her my dear close friend:

(credit: unknown)

random rant: the grammys

2009-02-09T09:57:00.005-06:00

SORELY DISAPPOINTED that Jason Mraz did not take home a Grammy last night for "I'm Yours". We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. was a Christmas gift from my hubby (he knew I really enjoyed Mr. A-Z), and I can't stop listening to it! This CD truly puts a smile on my face, and "I'm Yours" is my favorite song on it. I tend not to follow music trends (i.e., I'm old), so I didn't know it was a hugely popular song on the charts (it apparently made chart history), but I'm not surprised.

Oh, and I was just shocked to see M.I.A. and her "Today's-my-due-date" belly bouncing around during that "Swagga' Like Me" performance... and while I thought it was pretty careless of her to be out there, I suppose it's not that different than Amy Poehler rapping days before she gave birth (which was HILARIOUS!!). Plus, maybe M.I.A. was just trying to get the show on the road - something I understand, being a mom who went 9 days past her due date. ;-) And I've got to give her a little credit for being in such good shape that she could do more than just get up from the sofa without having to catch her breath...

and the melt-a-heart award goes to...

2009-02-05T08:01:00.005-06:00

LO tends to memorize quite a bit of what we read to him, and sometimes we will hear him rattle something off at some random moment - e.g., when he is playing with his toys, I might hear him say, "Simple Simon met a pieman" or "'Hoo-oooo-oooo!' said the goblin" and so forth. Sometimes it's verbatim, but most of the time it's paraphrased snippets.

This morning after a diaper change, while I was getting him dressed, this from The Little Golden Book About GOD came out of nowhere: "People we love, we keep in our hearts... for God is love." (Of course, it sounded more like, "Pee-poh we wuv, we keep in our hahts... fuh God is wuv.") I know these are abstract concepts and that he's mainly just reciting something he's remembered from a book, so who knows how much or little he actually understands about what he said.... But OMG, if that doesn't melt a mom's heart at 7:52am - even before she's had her morning coffee - I don't know what will!!

doodle

2009-02-01T13:25:00.003-06:00

I know I'm supposed to be focusing on art that might go in my son's room, but I've got bunnies on the brain right now.

I was going to do a doodle for Illustration Friday's word of the week ("flawed") featuring a slow-and-steady tortoise passing a napping hare (i.e., the hare's plan to take a nap during the race was flawed), but I wasn't happy with the outcome, so it got scrapped in favor of just goofing off with the Wacom (again).

budding artiste?

2009-01-31T13:01:00.004-06:00

My LO sketched out this masterpiece, which he dubbed "kite", January 21st. I'd been meaning to post it but have forgotten until I saw this post from Poodle Soup's blog. Note the grand flourishes -- wholly intentional, I'm convinced. ;-)

"ohhhhhhhhh! -klahoma..."

2009-01-30T14:41:00.007-06:00

"Every night, my honey lamb and Iiiiiiiiiiiiii sit alone and talk..."

... about this fickle Oklahoma weather. I'm convinced that "Oklahoma" is Choctaw for "dress in layers." The picture above is from Wednesday. And believe it or not, we are predicted temps in the upper 60s tomorrow. What gives, Mother Nature? Yeah, I know... this is nothing new for Oklahoma. We were very lucky in our area not to have been hit as hard as some others unfortunately have, which got it as badly as we had it last winter.

'shroom

2009-01-25T22:05:00.005-06:00

little mushroom

digital

Whee - my first illustration with the Wacom. (Er... at least, the first one I felt like sharing.) This one was done in Elements 6.0.

[insert homer simpson drool sounds here]

2009-01-22T18:36:00.007-06:00

My dad is notorious for giving us kids an obscene amount of food at Christmastime. Included in this food basket were a gazillion apples and oranges. Now, LO does like apples, so I have split an apple with him here and there, but I just knew the clock was ticking on their shelf life. So I decided I would make a pie. I had no idea how easy it would be, made tons easier since I used that ready-made pie crust that you just roll out (ever since they came out with that stuff, I've not made homemade crust since).

Here's the picture of the pie I snapped with my cell phone and sent to my husband this afternoon:

And no doubt that the photo alone made him salivate like Pavlov's dog, even with the mangled crust (caused by my all-thumbs attempt at removing the crust shield). What can I say? My man loves apple pie.

And oh, my... I don't mind saying, it ain't pretty to look at, but it's the best apple pie I've ever tasted (with apologies to my late paternal grandmother - sorry Granny H!!).

Recipe here.

random thoughts and prayers

2009-01-22T10:56:00.007-06:00

In addition to the birthday shout-out to niece #7 in my last post, I'd like to add one for my dad and niece #4, whose birthdays are also this month! Love you guys!

Big hugs and prayers for little D, a boy my LO's age, who underwent heart surgery yesterday. (I might add, this is not his first surgery! He's such a strong little guy.) Things apparently went well, so I hope for a speedy recovery for D and comfort for him and his family!

Oh my gosh, there is a small chance that we have - dare I say it? - a taker on the stray cat! I'm sorry to say it has come out of tragedy (the prospective adopter just lost her 2-year-old cat to illness), but I am so excited that this cat might have a chance to go to someone that we know will love and take good care of him! I'm praying that it works out.

Fingers crossed that the dining room carpet installation happens this Friday... or at the very latest, Monday!!!

Today it is projected to get up to 70 degrees here!!!!! Which means I definitely need to get LO out of the house today.

That's all for now. Have a great Thursday!

poo, poodles and digital doodles

2009-01-19T18:22:00.009-06:00

So it feels like day eleventy-thousand with this stray cat. Though my husband continues to attempt to brainwash me into keeping this cat, I just don't know if I have it in me to take on another pet for the long haul.

In other news: two days fresh from the groomer, our geriatric poodle decides to celebrate MLK Jr. Day by rubbing his foofie-head in his own poop. Then after being bathed, he proceeds to poop in the living room. AND after taking one millisecond to flush said poop down the toilet, Mommy returns to find LO putting his hand in the poopy spot on the carpet. Mommy then lets out a shrill scream not unlike one out of a scene from the goriest slasher movie. LO's hands are then unscrewed at the wrist, tossed in the trash and replaced with fresh, clean hands. From IKEA. (A girl can dream, can't she?)

And all this before 11am.

Now, onto the artsy part of this post:

My super-supportive husband got me Photoshop CS4 for Christmas and a small Wacom Bamboo* for my birthday! Yay for getting older! As I work out the kinks (the tablet is very straightforward; the PS software, not so much), I'll be posting some of my digital doodles soon.

***
And a shout-out to my youngest niece - Happy Birthday! All of 3 and cute as can be! :-)

*If you want to get one, Best Buy and Amazon have it for at least $10 cheaper than Wacom lists it.

cutest toddler on the block

2009-01-10T13:29:00.005-06:00

Those are size 6.5w shoes, and they are too small now... we have a giant on our hands...

Can you believe that this was taken a WEEK ago... 78 degrees and short sleeves in the middle of winter in the Sooner state. Love it!! (Of course, by that evening, it had dropped 30+ degrees, but that is the very nature of Okie weather....)

stuff

2009-01-08T12:09:00.006-06:00

Here's a brief sumpin'-sumpin' on the el gato stray-o:

She's a "he"... which means I'll have to stop calling him "girlfriend"
He weighs about 4 lbs, I think... I honestly can't remember what the vet had said...
By the vet's estimation, he is about 4.5 to 5 months old
His bloodwork for feline AIDS and leukemia came back negative
He is really sweet and calm
Yesterday while LO and I were at the store, he barfed a puddle roughly half his size (thank God for ceramic tile flooring)*
I really don't think I'm up to taking in another pet
This whole situation has really made me infuriated at the people who do not bother to spay or neuter their pets and then abandon the offspring... I'm not saying that this was the case with this little guy, but more than likely it is
My son approached me today during snack time and said, "Want some... cat food..."

Now, onto the artsy part of this post:

The other day we got a catalog for Restoration Hardware's baby & child division. That in itself irks me because recently I was able to pat myself on the back for having cancelled almost all of our catalogs in an attempt to reduce clutter and do something green. But anyway.

They have sent this catalog to the wrong family, because as much as I like RH, I was bored by their offerings in this kids' catalog. Lots of stripes and polkadots and not much else. Very limited color palate. For me, these colors and designs are fitting for an infant (one that never spits up, that is!), but as my son gets older and develops his own unique personality and interests, I find myself wishing that there were more options out there for him.

Someone recently was kind enough to ask me about some of my artwork, and it made me realize that as much as I like to doodle, I have very little work that is actually display-worthy. Gotta work on that if I plan to sell someday!

So, in summary: I had recently revealed my goal to create four real (read: sell-worthy) pieces of artwork by July. I think I would like to pursue that with a focus on what I would like to see in a little boy's room. It's a small step in the right direction, but I'm getting more and more excited as I see little things begin to come together creatively.

*OK, OK... as an English major, it should've been painfully obvious that the ambiguity of that sentence makes it sound like LO was the one who barfed... but it was the cat. The CAT! So no, there was no need for "clean-up on aisle 5", thank goodness!

oh, dear...

2009-01-05T12:10:00.004-06:00

So after making several calls this morning, I in my naivete did not realize how difficult it would be to find a safe place to take the stray cat. And I was really sad to find out that animal control shelters (at least in my area) only keep animals for a small handful of days before destroying (their words, not mine!) them - so those were not an option. All of the no-kill places are filled to their respective capacities. This kitten isn't feral - it's young and sweet - I just cannot imagine not being able to find its owner or any other willing home.

Our little stray has an appointment with our vet to get a checkup and vaccinations (and confirmation on the gender). We will be making posters today for distribution later this evening. And we will see what transpires over the next few days. This throws my plans for new dining room carpeting into a tailspin, as the night before this kitten came into our home we had scheduled an in-home estimate for this coming Friday.

So my husband and I are toying around with the idea of *gulp* keeping it. And now that I know how dire our options are, I'm feeling more at ease with keeping it around until we can find its rightful (or a suitable) owner. Our LO has been fascinated with it, even bringing his Tigger around for an introduction. This morning I asked him what the kitten's name was, and without any hesitation, he said, "Dinah." (I suppose that is what happens when you sing "I've Been Working On The Railroad" in the car the night before.) Perhaps it might be a "Dino" instead - we'll find out tomorrow.

meow

2009-01-04T21:03:00.006-06:00

This morning, we were in the midst of breakfast when we heard a faint whimper outside our backyard door. It sounded like a puppy; it turned out to be a young orange tabby, maybe six months old, huddling behind a plastic storage bin next to a pile of dried leaves that had blown upon our back porch. Deciding to temporarily take this stray in is not without its risks - we do have indoor pets (a cat and a miniature poodle) who are old enough to get mighty cranky at the whiff of a newcomer... and heaven knows we don't need anyone peeing or pooping in protest around here!

I've got a call to the local Humane Society to make tomorrow, but in the meantime this kitten is within the confines of our XT Gate that we used around our Christmas tree (to keep it out of reach of toddler hands). We've also given her a little litter box, moist dog food and water, and a little towel to cozy up on, which she is doing right now. In fact, currently she is so content that we are almost tempted to keep her. That is, until we remind ourselves what we'd be getting into...

For one, our pets are old and set in their ways and do not like to have their world disturbed. Additionally, our cat, a Maine Coon, is unlike any cat I've ever been around: she's calm. She doesn't use our furniture as a scratching post. She is affectionate and not aggressive toward our son, who would just as soon sit on her as give her a small pat on the head. And the most important thing: after many years, she won me - an anti-cat person - over. Perhaps her mellow nature is due in part to her age (she is about 15 years old), but the point is, this new cat - well, I can tell she is trouble incarnate.* I am not used to cats like that!

Oh, well... enough about a cat that we are not going to keep. Hopefully she does have an owner who will claim her once we take her to the shelter. (She sure is cute, though...)

*1.10.09 - Okay, okay... so he's not "trouble incarnate". I gotta give this cat a fair turn; he has turned out to be sweet as can be!

the oddville press

2008-12-30T08:29:00.006-06:00

If you're so inclined, check out the online publication, The Oddville Press, whose issues are comprised of short stories. One of the stories featured in Vol. 1, Issue 2, "Overdue" (p. 23), is written by one of the smartest, most talented people I've ever known, someone whom I always knew I'd see published one day. You go, Sherri!!

sooooo cute...

2008-12-29T11:42:00.004-06:00

I just put the LO down for his nap, and though he is quiet now, a few minutes ago he was saying over and over again, "Jinga bells, jinga bells... aw deh way... open... seigh!"

new site addiction

2008-12-29T10:40:00.007-06:00

So a few weeks ago, my mother allowed me to peruse the collection of "I Can Read" books from my brothers' and my childhood. I'm lucky in that even after a half dozen other grandchildren, my mom still has these books, and now my LO will be able to enjoy them as well. I picked out a few of my favorites, but I was disappointed to see that one of them was not among the bunch. I decided to browse the web to see if I could find information on the book, a sweetly illustrated one about the sun and how it didn't want to shine, but some animals polished him up and helped him shine again.

And that brings me to the reason for this post. Googling for info led me to a message board called whatsthatbook.com. By 12:45 this a.m., I found myself on page 42 of the list of the children's book messages, seeing what others were searching for... and hoping I would run across a post that I could give a helpful answer to.

Additionally, there's been another book on my mind: a little board book that had a plastic spine, much like what I've seen on cookbooks and whatnot, and in my memory it was shaped like a shopping cart. I couldn't remember the name of the book, but it was one of my very first favorites and I remember carrying it around everywhere. And wouldn't you know it... someone else posted about this very book (a Playskool book called "Let's Go Shopping"), and their post was correctly answered - along with a picture of the book! - and I got to take a nice trip down memory lane. Turns out, it wasn't shaped like a cart after all, but a net bag. But it's the one! Hopefully someone will be able to help me find that sun book.

ADDENDUM 12.29.08: Holy cow and NO WAY!!!! I made it to page 58 of the posts, and I can't believe someone posted about the same book I was looking for. It's called "How the Sun Was Brought Back to the Sky." My brain can rest now. I LOVE this site!!!

merry Christmas to you and yours...

2008-12-22T09:50:00.009-06:00

I just wanted to share a list of songs that make me feel all warm and fuzzy during the holidays. Most of these evoke memories of Christmas as a child, while some are more recent favorites:

(No Place Like) Home For The Holidays - Perry Como

Celebrate Me Home - Kenny Loggins

We Three Kings - Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlin

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Take 6 (If you've never heard this version, do yourself a favor and find it!)

Winter Wonderland - Harry Connick, Jr. (the one from the When Harry Met Sally... soundtrack - again, worth the trouble to find and listen to it)

Go Tell It On The Mountain - James Taylor

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! medley - Ray Conniff and the Ray Conniff Singers (You remember, don't you? It's the one with "Count Your Blessings" and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" in it)

Sleigh Ride - Boston Pops Orchestra

Christmas All Over Again - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

The Day That Love Began - Stevie Wonder

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year - Johnny Mathis (Andy Williams does a pretty good version too!)

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Perry Como (Johnny Mathis' version, too!)

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer - Gene Autry

O Holy Night, Joy To The World, Silent Night, and O Little Town Of Bethlehem, among other traditional songs

Anything and everything by Nat King Cole

***

It's been another good year for us here at the elegraph household. We are warm and safe and cared-for by one another. And as we fight holiday traffic, get bumped around by hostile shoppers, and stress about all other facets of the modern traditions, let's not forget the real Reason for the season.

"For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

-Luke 2:11, New KJV

random: "dr. horrible's sing-along blog"

2008-12-20T21:55:00.004-06:00

I share this with you, only because I am a purveyor of the obscure (and someone who enjoys NPH)...

"sometimes they make me wear hats"

2008-12-15T13:53:00.007-06:00

My very first sewing project post! So this is the fourth incarnation of this hat, which I put together yesterday, and the first version where I decided I should not be so lazy and actually use matching navy thread instead of just using what was already in my machine (which was white)... which meant winding another bobbin, so I suppose that was good practice for me, huh.

I didn't follow the Martha Stewart tutorial to a tee, but if I hadn't had that tute to guide me, I'd have never been able to make this on my own. It's about 90% Martha:

Hm. For some reason it looks Cookie-Monster-blue in this pic, but really the fleece is a dark navy.

The Martha pattern tells you to stitch this hat at the top and one side (essentially forming a tube then closing up the top), but because I cut the fabric wrong (i.e., I cut it so that the hat would have been more stretchy vertically instead of horizontally), I had to fold it over instead of across, so the hat ended up with two side seams instead of one. Not a big difference.

The tute did not instruct me to do so, but I had read somewhere where zig-zag stitching would allow for more stretch, so that is how I stitched the cuff down. Note that I went all the way around the hat, and the end of my stitch actually met the start of my stitch, as shown here. You have no idea how proud I was, hee.

And here is the final product as shown on my reluctant model. I think it is fact and not opinion that there's nothing cuter in this world than a little toddler with his ears covered. Had his eyebrows been covered as well, I might have passed out from cuteness overload:

"This is the puddin' face that Mommy and Daddy fall victim to every night when I beg and plead for just *one more* bedtime story... you cannot resist the puddin' face..."

"Someboddeh hep me!"

design mom's "12 days of Christmas" giveaway

2008-12-10T17:35:00.005-06:00

So one of the cool things about discovering some great sites / blogs is that 99.99% of the time these people have a pretty cool blogroll / link list. Sometimes I browse these lists and discover such awesome things - like Design Mom (found via Sarah Jane Studios). First off, thanks to her blog, I now know about Spoonflower, a way to help save the handmade children's goods movement, a woman who can turn big t-shirts into fabulous wearables... and her giveaways. I have not yet participated in one, but my-oh-my, she has given away some wonderful prizes in the past! Her latest one:

DESIGN MOM 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY EVENT

begins December 12 and goes through December 15. Go check it out!

i had no idea...

2008-12-02T20:37:00.002-06:00

... that I could fall in love with Martha Stewart's website in such a short amount of time. Is she kidding me with all these tasty crafty ideas?? (Ideas, I should add, that I'm not afraid to try!) I can't wait to try the polar fleece hat idea for my LO - with some minor tweaks to add a chin fastener of some sort. What toddler doesn't look sooooo precious in a winter cap?? The hat he wore last year was a Hanna Andersson winter pilot cap, but if I can make him a hat instead of buying another Hanna Andersson one, not only will I feel crafty, but I'll save scads of moolah! I just bought two yards of dark blue microfleece for a fraction of the price that I paid for his cap last year.

(Okay, enough writing about sewing - time to do some goofing around on the sewing machine!)

yawn... it's late, but...

2008-11-30T20:33:00.004-06:00

I just wanted to say YAY on my new sewing machine... I got it on sale, which means that an already inexpensive model was a total steal, so I didn't feel too guilty about being a total sewing machine virgin (well, not really... I dabbled in high school, ha ha! - but that was a lifetime ago). I mean, I know I must've threaded a machine in Home Ec, but I certainly don't have any recollection of that, so today was essentially the first time I've ever threaded a machine. It's pretty much the most basic Kenmore model made - it got great customer reviews, and if my mom's 20+ year-old Kenmore is any indication, I'll have this one for a while if I take care of it.

So today I already tried sewing hook-and-loop tape on one of the dog belly bands I handstitched a while back in which the iron-on Velcro started coming off (bond gets stronger after washing, my arse!). Cuts through that stuff like buttah... no more sore fingertips from handstitching h&l tape! Now, I have to admit, there is something kind of fun and peaceful about hand-sewing, but it's s l o w, and I am really excited to try new things with this machine. Maybe someday I'll make something post-worthy? We'll see.

elegraph: a blog

thanks, i think

pumpkin pancakes

blogger is buggin'

you win, mom.

4-year stats

ruthless carnivores need love, too

four

i guess it's better than saying "butt"...

(nothing important, just thought this was pretty)

"hi," she says sheepishly...

snl short: stumblin' (feat. andy samberg, paul rudd, paul mccartney)

the voice of reason

ugly desserts and school lunch confessions

texas weekend recap

i ♥ free stuff: shutterfly.com

zipper pouch

sewing is scary

a nighttime conversation, big-boy-bedside

random rant: oh, the huge manatee*

ready... or not?

stuff

camera bag contest

eyes

etsy *like*

three

"strictly bathroom"

tcb

the kid knows more than we think!

exercise in futility

pack a lunch for this post, because it's a novel...

homemade homestyle tortillas

"Witch Creek"

the post for which i can't think of a clever title..

just because i gotta write this somewhere...

sites of note

the pitfalls of spelling everything

february wrap-up

maybe we should tone down the praise a notch.

what the february??

pumpkin bread!

a little this and that

illustration friday: frozen

making up

chocolate gravy

happy birthday, bro!

i *heart* atticus finch

can someone tell me where the mute button is?

exhausted

getting into character

like a switch has been flipped...

the post in which i confess i don't know what i'm doing

thoughts

two-year pic

things i have recently learned from my son

elephant ;-)

"prehistoric creatures" watercolor duo

a praying parent

no rest for the weary (or is it "wicked"?)

"faux"-to shoot

goodbye, alice.

desperate for a good night's sleep... but not *that* desperate...

random

home again, home again, jiggety-jog

addendum to 'random' post

random

spring cold...

"testing, one, two, three... sibillance... sibillance"

a conversation...

snow!

i seriously need a good under-eye cream.

words are funny little things, hm.

random thoughts

happy saturday

random rant: clutterfest 2009

when the worlds of oil changes and diaper changes collide

fare thee well, kitteh...

a valentine's day treat for my virtual decorated shoebox...

random rant: the grammys

and the melt-a-heart award goes to...

etsy like

i heart atticus finch

desperate for a good night's sleep... but not that desperate...

[insert homer simpson drool sounds here]

meow

yawn... it's late, but...