And the Verdict is...

Well of course, even though it came to my attention at one point that my blog wasn't making it through some internet security filters because of this post. It is beyond me why so many people (other moms, especially!) see the need to sprinkle their writing with profanity. Here are some interesting observations on the subject.

It Was For Real!

The Scholastic book offer was the real deal- Yippee! I not only received the new Harry Potter book on the day it was promised, but this weekend the t-shirt arrived in the mail (lucky recipient: John Mark) and my $50 coupon to the Scholastic Store came tonight. I've been on a shopping spree! I purchased:

along with some Magic Schoolbus and I Spy Easy Readers for my little guys. I'm still gloating about my good fortune... can you tell?

I've been on a bargain book binge lately. Last week I went to the library book sale where I made some good finds, and managed to get sore thighs in the process. You couldn't have made me do squats in the gym, but I'll do it at a book sale. In case you can't fathom how one could get sore thighs at a book sale, here's how: with a bag of heavy books in both hands, look on top of table, inch forward, squat to see what's under the table, up again to see what's on top, inch forward, down again... around an entire gymnasium. I could barely walk the next day. Then, when we went to Indianapolis to pick up the kids (more on that next post) I stopped in Half Price Books and found some goodies on the clearance shelf. Love a good book, and speaking of, the final Harry Potter came through for me. I was becoming progressively more annoyed with JK, but she redeemed herself in the end. More on the summer reading later!

(And while we're at it, if you love a good magazine, you'll be interested in Robin's contest in honor of her 100th post! Thanks, Karen!)

An Unusual Occurrence

A funny thing happened today. I received a phone call from a lady who said she was from Scholastic. She was calling because I recently placed a book order for the new Harry Potter book from DeepDiscount.com ($17.99 plus free shipping). The book is supposed to arrive "on or around" July 21, but apparently, Deep Discount really screwed up and mailed the books out way too soon and this lady was calling to find out a) if I had already received the book (I hadn't) and b) if I did receive it early, would I please wait until midnight on July 21 to begin reading the book? It was a peculiar call, but I think it was authentic. I received a notice from Deep Discount yesterday that the book had shipped and I thought, "Wow... they must use a really slow shipping method..." I assured the lady that I was a 38-year-old mom, not a crazed Harry Potter fan, and she didn't need to worry about me spilling the beans. She said Scholastic was giving $50 gift certificates and a free Harry Potter t-shirt to people like me to thank us for our restraint. Well, for a $50 gift certificate to the Scholastic Store, they can have the book back! I didn't have to give her any information; she already had my email and address that she had received from Deep Discount. So we'll see what happens here. But it's all very interesting, wouldn't you agree?

Night

As any new parent knows, night-time with children can be an adventure- though usually not the kind of adventure one goes looking for. These adventures usually involve poop, spit-up, croup or colic; adventures I liken to that show on the Discovery Channel, Man vs. Wild where the poor man gets dropped somewhere in the wilderness and has to eat bugs and raw fish, wade through frozen streams, and hide from wild bears or hyenas. These are not adventures anyone would deliberately choose, but with parenthood, they come with the territory.

The good news is that as the baby grows older, the adventures become fewer and farther between, allowing the parents to fall into some semblance of their former sleep patterns. The bad news is that the parents sometimes lose their night-time groove, a necessity for handling nocturnal emergencies. Because one never knows what may happen in the middle of the night.

Admittedly, John and I are on the losing side of the the night-time groove thing, John more than I. Occasionally we are still tested, like last night for instance. Now, John is a very light sleeper, but although he can hear a mosquito land in the room, he is only semi-coherent once he wakes up. This tends to add to the confusion. Last night he heard a child coming toward our bedroom. It was Nathanael, and he was coughing and crying. We've heard enough episodes of coughing and crying to know that this is not good. John was on it:

"He's going to vomit!" John cried. "To the bathtub! The bathtub!"

I was awakened at the point John cried "Vomit!" and joined the chant: "The bathtub! Go to the bathtub!" Anything that involves vomit and carpeting is immediately a crisis. Scrambling for my bathrobe, I finally made it to our bathroom. Nathanael was huddled by the bathtub in confusion.

"Mommy, my fwoat hurts."

"Your throat hurts?"

"Uh-huh."

"You don't have to throw-up?" John asks incredulously from the bed.

"No."

John turns out his light and is out again. Nathanael and I pad into the kitchen, where I try to talk him into a glass of water, but he has his sights set on better stuff. I finally give him a Chloraseptic Sore Throat Strip and hand him a plastic cup. "Here," I tell him. "You might decide you need some water." He drags his blanket back to his room and I head back to bed.

Not a minute later, we hear glass shatter. John bolts upright in bed: "GLASS!" he shouts. "STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" His instincts are good, but his follow-through could use some work. "Hush!" I tell him. "We've had enough commotion for one night." He lies down again and I scramble back into my bathrobe to discover the newest crisis.

Nathanael greeted me in the kitchen, "I knocked a gwass over." Apparently someone had left a juice glass on the bathroom counter, where he had knocked it onto the tile between the sink and the toilet. "It's ok. Go back to bed." I told him. I began picking up pieces of glass off the tile, and in a moment of serendipity, I spied the missing pepper shaker sitting on the tile behind the toilet.

One never knows what may happen in the middle of the night.

A Day at the Water Park

10pm and we are finally back home today and my exhausted kids are all in their beds. The cats, who have had no one to play with today, are running all over the house. Bad cats!

My day started early, first by dropping John Mark off at carpentry camp, then Becca at church, then the little boys at VBS. It struck me that somehow I had managed to send all my kids away for three hours... but I had a piano lesson at home. Oh well. After VBS, we all went to the water park (Uncle Matt picked up John Mark later) and had a great time. My mom and I floated in the wave pool and the Lazy River, and we even got her down one of the big water slides! AND...

I finally did it! I got so sick of the offerings available in the women's swimwear department that I went and bought myself a pair of knee-length black swim trunks. Yes, in the men's department. Every time we've been swimming this summer, I've grown more and more perturbed that we women are expected to parade around in a swimsuit with nothing more to help us out than a pitiful little skirt and some heavy-duty spandex, while my teenage son, who is thin as a rail, wears baggy shorts down to his knees. What is wrong with this picture??

So last night over pizza, I told Becca I had bought swim trunks to wear to the water park. She had a look of horror on her face when she asked, "You ARE wearing something else too... right?" My mother rolled her eyes at me and explained "She's on a crusade!" And the thought of me on a crusade wearing nothing but a pair of men's knee-length swim trunks seemed so funny that we laughed until we cried and I almost choked on Mississippi Mud Pizza.

So today I did it, and I wore my nice knee-length swim trunks (and a matching swimsuit, lest you think I have really lost my mind) and I walked happily all over the park without worrying about scaring the other patrons. Should have done it a long time ago. I might let John borrow my new trunks... maybe.

What I Did On My Vacation

Summer "vacation" is almost over and school will be here in less than three short weeks. Sigh. Where did my summer go? I'll tell you: my family came to visit. For three weeks! Oh, we've had a wonderful time playing, shopping, swimming, fishing, wallpapering, and traveling, but I am now 3+ weeks behind on laundry (things are on a washed-as-you-need-it basis now); wallpapering and painting tools, school books, and luggage are scattered from the front door all the way through the house; the house hasn't been vacuumed in at least two weeks; and I have a stack of summer reading that is now destined to be fall reading. But hey, it's been fun!

My parents stayed at a cabin at one of the lake resorts and took whatever kids were available on any given night. The little boys had Mega Sports Camp the first week, so John Mark, Becca and Philip stayed out there most of that week. They swam, fished, hiked with Daddy D, made crafts and played games led by the resort staff. Mom taught Becca to paint, Philip got poison ivy, and John and I ran kids back and forth, back and forth to the lake. One night we got lucky and all the kids except for John Mark and Philip were at the lake, so John and I managed to get away for a quick bite at Red Lobster (we love the lobster fondue) and a movie, Evan Almighty. The next day John and the two boys went to help a friend set up her quick-set pool (that's a misnomer if there ever was one) and I scraped wallpaper off the walls.

The second week, July 4th week, Mom and I wallpapered my bathrooms, which, though very pretty now, are still in a state of disarray. On July 4, Daddy D rented a pontoon boat and he and John fished for most of the morning until Grandma Crocker, Aunt Dottie, Uncle Steve & family arrived for lunch. We took the kids tubing in the afternoon, and that night we lay on the back lawn of the resort and watched the fireworks over the marina.

July 5 was my birthday, but the guys were planning on fishing again. John asked what I wanted to do: "I'll go shopping with you all day if you want me to..." He knew he was on safe ground making that offer, and fishing all day is not my idea of how to spend a birthday. I said I would rather go to the spa. So the guys went fishing while Mom and I took Becca and the little boys to O'Charley's, Kohl's, Linen's N Things, Bed Bath & Beyond, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and the Mall. Of course, shopping with three little boys is not my idea of how to spend a birthday either, but Mom told them they had to be very good as a present to me. It was a tough present to give, but amazingly, they did pretty well and Mom and I found the matching bath mats, towels, and accessories for the freshly papered bathroom.

I briefly saw my husband on Friday, our 16th anniversary. John had to work, so Mom and I drove to Lexington with John Mark, Becca and Philip for the State 4-H Communciations Day competition while Daddy D kept the two little boys and their cousin, Tyler. We stayed with my Aunt Mattie, who happened to be having a cookout for some of the family. I saw cousins I haven't seen in 20 years, so it was a lot of fun. One of my cousins decided to leave his two children at Aunt Mattie's for the night too, once he saw we were visiting. Although they were quite tired the next morning, all three kids did really well at the competition. Becca won Champion out of eleven competitors; Philip won champion with two older competitors in his category; and John Mark, although he made a perfect score from both judges, won third place, much to his dismay. Although it wasn't the best presentation I've seen him do, it was a solid demonstration and a good job. He tends to be cocky at times, so it was a good experience for him to do well but still be out-performed by equally talented speakers. We turned around and made the trip back home that afternoon and celebrated that evening with a family dinner at Olive Garden.

And this week? Well, John is in Texas and I've been running back and forth, back and forth... The three little boys go to VBS every morning and John Mark goes to an all-day Carpentry Camp at the community college. This is a really neat experience for him and he is earning partial college credit as well. As a class project, they are building a playhouse that will be auctioned off for charity. He really likes it, but he's managed to hammer both his thumb and his hand so far.

This morning, I dropped everyone off at their various locations and Mom and I pretended it was still my birthday and went to the spa. It was wonderful! We had to hurry and pick up the little boys at VBS, but Becca watched them in the afternoon while we had lunch and perused the antique shops downtown. It was a gorgeous afternoon and I had a wonderful time shopping with my mom. Uncle Matt picked up John Mark from carpentry camp and we all went to Pizza Inn for dinner.

Tomorrow, in addition to the already-scheduled activities, Becca has a project with the church youth group and in the afternoon, we are all going to the water park with the VBS (because of this year's "Splash" theme).

And that's what I did on my summer vacation.

Bits n' Pieces

John Mark and Becca have been volunteering two hours a week this summer at the pregnancy crisis center, helping at the front desk, cleaning, and working in the thrift store. This morning, Becca is attending a weekly purity study group and working in the afternoon, so I went ahead and dropped John Mark off too. I told him that if he worked in the morning, he could walk to the library afterward and stay there until it was time to pick up Becca. It's only about 6 blocks, but you would have thought this was the adventure of a lifetime. He exulted to his 13-year-old cousin, "I get to spend all afternoon at the library!" Perplexed, the cousin replied, "This is a good thing??" To a book-loving boy, it is a grand thing.
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John has been waging an ongoing battle against the squirrel and rabbit colonies that continue to raid his garden, with some success. But early this morning we were awakened by a grating "CAW-CAW-CAW!" There were crows in the garden. Dejectedly watching them, John sighed, "I just cannot take on the entire crow population."

Sometimes in life it's a good thing to understand your limitations.
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My mom and I finished papering the hall bath yesterday, and plan on finishing the master bath today. I am very pleased with the results! Tonight we are all going to see Ratatouille at the drive-in. If I could just get the laundry done, I would consider this a highly productive summer.

My Favorite Artist: Mary Cassatt

This week on "Let's Get Real Monday," Randi challenged us to name our favorite artist... this is a challenge because I could easily name a half dozen "favorite" artists! The one who springs to mind first, however, is Mary Cassatt. She was an American Impressionist painter and is especially famous for her pictures of mothers and children, which, I suppose, is the reason her art is so appealing to me. Out of all of her wonderful art, this one is my favorite.

One of the wonderful things about nursing my babies is that they were close. There is a special intimacy between a mother and her nursing baby. We gazed into each other's eyes for long, precious minutes, and when they got older, they would use their free hand to caress and explore. Occasionally, if naptime were near, they would "sing" themselves to sleep. Those were sweet moments, and Mary Cassatt captures them perfectly.

Mother and Child, 1908, Oil on Canvas

A Very Good Day

July 1, 1990 was a very good day. Seventeen years ago, I met my future husband.

He had just arrived in Baton Rouge from Indiana two days prior, ready to begin his first engineering job out of college. Actually, he saw me before I ever saw him. He had asked his campus minister for recommendations on where to go to church, and the minister gave him the names of the two largest CoC's in Baton Rouge. He picked one, and that's where he saw me. But that's really his story to tell. Mine begins that night, because we had shown up at the same place, a "Sunday-Night Sing-Along" which took place every Sunday night after church at the home of an older couple, Joe and Candy Lackie. Someone had invited John that morning, and when I walked in the door, there he was. Hmmm.

After singing that evening, he began telling stories from his month-long, post-college adventure in New York City. I thought he was cute, fascinating, and of course, it didn't hurt that he sang bass. He didn't say much to me that evening, but the 4th of July was coming up, and the Singles' Group was having a party. Being in the college group, I was not automatically invited to this, but as a senior at LSU, I had begun attracting the attention of some of the men in the Singles' group. After a couple of rather tedious dates, I had learned the fine art of date-evasion, but one of them had invited me earlier to this particular party. Evasively I had explained to him that I had to work that day and didn't know if I could make it. But suddenly I decided I could make it.

After work that afternoon, I showed up at the home of David and Jocelynn Goff and their four girls, and my gamble paid off- John was there! I followed him around shamelessly. He was flattered, but being a novice in the romance department, he wasn't sure what to do with me- especially since I wasn't such a big talker. But John, never at a loss for words, carried the conversation. As we left for Wednesday night church together that evening, I remember feeling a slight pang of disappointment at the car he was driving: a beat-up, 10-year-old Toyota Celica that didn't even have air conditioning. There are some moments in life where you can catch a glimpse of your future, and this was one of those moments- I just didn't know it at the time, and it's probably just as well.

I left for Panama City the next day, my 21st birthday, because a bunch of us had been invited to stay at a beach house for the weekend. The following Sunday, John took me out for lunch at my favorite restaurant, Drusilla Seafood, thereby securing Most-Favored status with me. We spent the rest of the afternoon experiencing the power of cayenne pepper by making inedible Jambalaya together. The romance was off the ground. We made a Big Mistake later that week by attempting to play tennis, and we have never again tested the strength of our relationship with another tennis match.

John is the only person my mother ever told me not to date, since I made the mistake of telling her the stories he had shared the first evening we met. Those are not the kind of stories a mother wants to hear, and she scolded, "Oh Sandy, don't marry him! He'll make you sleep in bus stations!" But I think she knew it was already too late. I was hooked, and almost a year later, on July 6, we were married.

It was a very good day.