I told you it was hot here

We made our first trip to the beach this weekend. We went far too early in the day, so I had to constantly slather the fishies with sunscreen. Redfish looks like he can burn in approximately 3.2 seconds, so he was covered most of the time. We let him out for just a minute to sit in the sand (read, shove it in his mouth) and feel the water.

The Scientist and I wanted to (learn to) fly kites so we made a WallyWorld trip first. What the heck ever happened to the plain ol' diamond shaped kite? There were dragons and cartoon characters and fairies and animals and flowers. No plain primary colored diamond kites. And certainly no black and gold ones. And I'll just say that the directions for how to put these flying cartoon characters together were obviously written by someone who does not claim English as their first language. Or perhaps their second, for that matter. The flying dragon never did take to the skies. Impossible. We did manage to tame the shark kite into its full construction and then flying, although it had an annoying habit of divebombing the ocean when the winds changed.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Please try to ignore the bra straps hanging out of my shirt. Can we speak for just a moment on how hard Blogger makes it to work with pictures?

Mom Tagged Me

She doesn't know it, because she wouldn't know a blogging tag or meme if it bit her behind, but in essence, she did. She sent this to me in an e-mail and since I am a bit at a loss for words today this seemed easy. The restful night sleep I got last night has rendered my floors clean, living room and dining room cleaned up and there are BIG plans for the garage today. BIG. Red Fish is the man of the hour (Actually, 10 hours to be exact).

If any of my family is reading this and feels compelled to comment, please note the blog etiquette of not outing me as far as name, location, birthdate, high school GPA, first boyfriend, preschool preference, or passport number (not that I need one. Damn.).

Four Things About Me:
1) I used to hate my nose. Now I love it.
2) I have a complete fascination with geisha girls, polygamy and carnies.
3) I have no interest in visiting China
4) I could eat shredded parmesan cheese by the bowlful.

Four jobs I have had in my life
1) Ice cream girl at Baskin Robbins
2) Desk attendant in a residence hall
3) Middle school science teacher
4) Waitress
(not necessarily in that order)

Four places I have lived:
1) Clemson, SC
2) Columbia, SC
3) Auburn, AL
4) Palmyra, NY (and no, we're not Mormon)

Four places I have been:
1. Mexico
2. Brazil
3. Japan
4. Italy

Four of my favorite foods: (four? Really? Just four?)
1) Any pasta
2) Sushi
3) Tortilla Soup
4) A good steak


Four places I'd rather be:

1. Anywhere with Clemsongirl (it's her birthday, it's her birthday)
2. Somewhere fabulous that does all your laundry for you
3. Any hotel that has good linens. By myself. With a book.
4. On my beautiful patio by the pool, entertaining friends, with (good)gin and tonics in our hands (extra lime of course)...Oh, wait. I don't have a beautiful patio. Or pool. So, how about same friends on the cement front porch with box wine in juice glasses? Hold the lime since they're not on sale this week.

It's a whole new world

Insert pageant voice singing the theme from Aladin here. Red Fish and I Had It Out two nights ago. I played hard ball and I think (after an hour and a half beginning at baout midnight) that he finally got the picture. I'm not heartless. I went in every 10-15 min. to pat his back and speak sweetly to him. In a very sweet and soothing voice I'd murmur, "Mommy is winning isn't she? My goodness but Mommy must really, really want a good night sleep. Ohhhhh, my. Isn't it terrible when Mommy plays hardball, sweetie?" Little nuggets of comfort like that. He'd smile up and me and roll back and forth in glee when I'd go in. When the door would shut again he'd scream in rage. I think he finally wore himself out.

Last night my boy proved himself to be just as smart as I thought he should be. He slept from 7 until (drumroll please) FOUR AM!!! I figured after 9 hours he probably deserved to eat something so I fed him and popped his cute little self back into the crib. Somehow he seemed much cuter at 4AM than he had seemed previous nights at midnight. He peeped once and then I didn't hear from him again until 7 when I went in to wake him. I know, crazy to wake a sleeping baby, but I do want him to nap with purpose today.

Pretty cut and dry today.

Here are today's basics.

Five things that make me happy today
1) Our school system seems to have more holidays than not. We get three days off for Mardi Gras for crying out loud. We have a week off for T'giving. We have over a week off for Easter. Today is not a holiday. Praise God.

2) My oregano and parsley (curly leaf AND Italian- because that's how I roll) seem to have given the herbal middle finger to the one month we consider "winter" around here. Apparently no one else in the herby daycare I've got going out back filled them in that they had better go ahead and expire like they're supposed to in the winter since one month was about all you get around here as far as months with a mean temperature less than 70 degrees. They have instead used said month to grow to the size of bushes and now smell delightful in my spaghetti sauce.

3) The gnats and mosquitos are temporarily at bay since today is one of the 30 days in the year that it is not 128 degrees outside. It is also slightly breezy. This means that my children will have no indoor time in which to mess up the two rooms of the house that I've managed to clean this morning.

4) Dinner is done. See #2.

5) Mt. Washmore (to steal a phrase from Clemsongirl) is being conquered. This is why only 2 rooms are clean. Rome wasn't build (or burned) in a day.


Five Things That Are Just Unacceptable Today

1) The kitchen floor. And The Most Wonderful Woman On Earth doesn't come for another week. There are things on it that I'm certain I don't recognize.

2) The fact that I have to go to Walmart. Someone should open a business doing Walmart runs for people. If I had the cash I would pay someone to do it. But I don't. Which is why I'm making a Wallyworld run instead of driving 45 min. to a Target. Anyone want to calculate how much 1.5 hours in the car would cost me?

3) It is completely possible that I have re-injured my toe. The Scientist asked what happened. I took this to mean "What on earth could you have done now? How in the world is one so clumsy as to do this twice in a month?" I answered that I was pretty sure that (being the human milk bar and all) I couldn't see where my foot was going to land when it swung out from my body. By the time it clears the boobs and swings into my field of vision, disaster cannot be averted. It seems a reasonable theory to me... Regardless of how it happened, it hurts like hell and may require a visit to my pantry pharmacy tonight.

4) There is no TV on tonight. At least nothing trashy or tabloid enough for my taste. No Rock of Love for another 5 days. High School Reunion doesn't come on until tomorrow. WAIT?! Is Idol on tonight or tomorrow night? Tonight may be salvaged. My dear friend SD maintains that she had to resort to watching Ultimate Fighting when she was recovering from having baby girl. I haven't gone there yet and will try to hold off as long as possible. I do not forsee it being necessary.

5) Could Redfish please learn to sleep for more than 4 hours in his bed already?!!! Unacceptable, unacceptable, unacceptable. We are both in for a long day since I am a wus (for lack of a more descriptive and perhaps more appropriate term) and brought his screaming, manipulative self into our bed at 12:30 last night. This ended any hope for sleep for me for the night as he really seems to sleep best when he presses up against me. I think he also must find my increased heart rate soothing when I jerk awake just before falling off my small sliver of bed. The Scientist was attempting to pacify my irritation by murmuring little things like "he just wants to be near his mommy." Well no offense to the little fellow, but there is a time and place for everything and when you are 7 months old and 23 lbs., nighttime is a time for sleep and your own personal and spacious sleeping space is the place to do it. I swear when I finally flung the door open and picked him up, he chuckled. Imp. It's a good thing he's cute.

Eggstraordinary

As geeky as that title is, I thought it was appropriate given the ROCKIN' appetizer I made for the Shindigity-dig yesterday. It is chicken salad, it is (still) delicious, it was certainly not my original idea, but does indeed warrant the geeky post title, no?

Shindigity-dig

Turns out that the Scientist and I have still got it. And no, I'm not talking about THAT. THAT is none of your business. I'm talking about our ability to entertain. The big Easter shindig was at our house yesterday. Can you judge a family party by the number of husbands who have their wives drive them home while they recline in the third row of seats? With the hiccups? One man (we'll call him Border Patrol, or BP for short) went house hunting on our street with The Scientist. BPs wife would be sooooo thrilled if he found a house on our street and could spend any night he wanted in our garage (where The Scientist holds court whenever he can).

Apparently (and according to The Scientist and his cohorts), the resurrection of our Lord is best celebrated with a cold beer in hand, gathered with a whole bunch of other dudes around the bed of an old pick-up truck. At least it's not on blocks in the yard. That's about the only thing that saved the exterior of our house from looking like an episode of My Big Fat Redneck Wedding yesterday. We even had the mini bouncehouse set up with lots of shoeless children running around outside it. There was lots of racing around and shreiking and what not. That's actually why we invited people over. To use their children to run the sugar rush off of ours.

Inside, it wasn't much better. BP's wife brought muscadine wine. We determined that it definitely had the potential to take us out in two glasses or less. That is some serious stuff. Not to be toyed with. I, being the human milk bar, limited myself to one glass. It was enough. She's bringing the blueberry kind next time.

All in all, it was a good time and thanks to those of you who came and brought decadent dishes with you. WHY did I refuse to keep some of that trifle and WHERE did those rolls come from? SD, if you could post that as a comment, the trifle maker and I would really appreciate it. I would apologize for The Scientist's bad influence on your husbands and promise that it will not be happening again... but, we all know it will. In his defense, he did have the yard cleaned up and had the kids in bed by 8:30.

Today? He's useless, the lush.

I Married a Genius

** Attention Clemsongirl, do not read further. At least wait until Coach is home... **

The Scientist just came in from a run to the store for lightbulbs (of all things) and picked up some fancy beer (for me- he slums it) and (drum roll please)...

some Sicilian Pistachio Gelato.
A whole pound, in a cool, clear jar thingy.

If I were a diabetic, I would be putting myself into a sugar coma tonight.