pray for the toads

There are two toads that live in the window well of the basement here at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
I'm sure when they found this sun dappled spot filled with a mixture of stone and leaves they thought it was the perfect hideout from predators.
What they didn't know is that 6 children from the ages of 3 to 8 would soon be arriving to scare the living daylights out of them.
Everyone had to hold them. They went very still. The big cousins were somewhat gentle. The younger the child the stronger the hold on the toad.
It was all very friendly until Addison could not keep from squeezing the little one.
Both Grandma and I had to rescue the toads from a death grip.
We were both immediately wet upon by the toads.
They were using whatever defenses they could to get back into their safe haven.
Will decided to name them Chunk Face and Little Ben.
The children disappeared for a good twenty minutes yesterday and came back reporting that the toads can "Jump very high" which we took to mean "fall very far".
We had to set a mandate, "Do not visit the toads."
Scott is sure they will be going to see Jesus before their time.
Yesterday Chloe and Will were begging to have another visit.
Will said, "Mom, can I please visit the toads?
I promise I won't throw them up in the air this time."
"Did YOU throw them up in the air?"
"Just once but I caught it right away!"
Say a prayer on the toads behalf.
As of this morning we are not sure what has happened to Little Ben.
Let's pray he has made his way to safety instead of meeting his maker.

road trip

When I was little, my parents drove us 4 kids from Illinois to California every other summer in a Plymouth Volare.
I have vivid memories of waking up in Texas stuck to light blue vinyl seats, hot and crying, because the air condtitioning did not make it past the front seat head rests.
I also remember Burger Chef, a fast food restaraunt, that stuck prizes right in the wrapper of your cheeseburger.
And I remember wearing no seat belts and the four of us being laid down to sleep in the back of Blue Bessie rolled up like small sausages in sleeping bags as we made our way across the country at night.
We entertained ourselves by coloring, playing the alphabet game and singing John Denver songs.
We tormented our parents by asking every 7.9 minutes, "Are we there yet?"
Their ultimate threat was, "Do we need to pull over?" We did, on occasion.
We did not pull over every time we had to go to the bathroom, however, and unless you caught Dad before he passed a gas station exit you knew you had missed your opportunity.
We NEVER turned around. We were always moving forward.
Sunday afternoon after church, we loaded our three boys into our mini van to head from Palo Alto, California to Fort Collins,Colorado.
Our plan was to reach Elko, Nevada by 9 at night. Or 1:30 in the morning as it turned out. We were also crammed in like sausages with all of our gear.
But this is traveling in luxury, tsgs.
Each child had their own fabric covered seat, coloring books and favorite reading material, not to mention their own air conditioning nozzle.
We also set up a mini entertainment system on the cooler using the laptop and small speakers.
Scott brought his i-pod downloaded with Disney tunes and we hit up Trader Joe's for snacks.
These kids are traveling in high style. There should be no complaints.
Just in case you were wondering, in between California and Colorado there is a whole
of brown. And some desert. And some more desert. I saw a tumbleweed.
But suprisingly with all of the fine accoutrements and high quality snacks, the conversations were the same.
About 17 minutes out of Palo Alto, one of the boys said, "Are we there yet?"
Scott did indeed threaten to pull over somewhere in Wyoming.
We sang every single Jonas brother song we knew.
Yesterday, we stopped 8 times to use the bathroom. The children have not yet learned to sync up their bladders.
The highlight was last night as we pulled up to the hotel in the middle of a lightning storm, when Addie said,
"Mom, I don't have to go the bathroom anymore....."
"Oh, I'm so glad...."
"Because I went a little bit in my pants."
"Stop! STOP! Hold it in!"
And so the road trip continues. You couldn't have one without a little high drama.
Today the fun the begins when we get to Grandma and Grandpa's.
Colorado here we come!

cousin fun

I love nothing more than being with my family.
The anticipation of being together is almost more than we can handle.
I could run a good block or two with all of the excess energy that their arrival generates.
My kids are no different. I must have been asked 37 times in the last 4 days,
"When are they coming?" They, being the most fun people in the world. Cousins.
This Tuesday the Aughtmons, Clements and Moodys met up at the Boardwalk for $.75 night.
It was a cousin extravaganza.
There were rides and cotton candy and sea spray in the air that you really couldn't smell for all of the sweetness of the cotton candy and I really have never seen children (or Scott for that matter) inhale cotton candy so quickly.
There was a smoked turkey leg that I saw featured on the Food Network that I was determined to try. I found it. I ate it. I believe the turkey, while alive, was the size of a small velociraptor. I don't think I will be doing that again.
The Aughtmon boys immediately formed a mini gang around Sam, their cousin who knows almost everything about sports and legos and video games.
And Addie also said that his cousin Hope is his second favorite person in the world which is a very high accolade coming from someone who usually takes a good 5 days to warm up to anyone.
And you need to know there was some laughter.
Because that is what happens when cousins get together and ride some crazy rides.
In all these years of riding the carousel at the Boardwalk and throwing metal rings at the mouth of the clown, Aunt Jenny almost made it in.
(I have never once made it close.)
Next year is your year, Jen, I feel it in my bones.
Addison missed the clown entirely and hit Uncle Van with the metal ring instead.
And my nieces, Aly and Claire, made me ride the Tsunami with them.
It is a ride that whips you around in a circle so fast that whoever is sitting on the outside gets smashed flatter than a pancake. That would be me.
Claire would say, "I can't hold on." And smash into Aly.
Aly would start simultaneoulsy, laughing and crying from all the laughing and smash into me. And then I would just be frozen in laughter, not breathing, tears streaming out of the corners of my eyes, my mouth open so wide my chin was tucked into my neck like Jim Carrey's Fire Marshall Bill.
Not attractive but fun.
Then there was just the general excitement of being together.
You can't just come down from the joy of all that sugar and kinship in a moment.
I believe there were still a few children awake around 1:00 in the morning,
just chatting. You can't get enough of cousins even in the middle of the night.
This morning we are going to hug each other good-bye and wave as they pull away and start the count down.
The count down until we get to be together again.

kung fu mommy

This Saturday, Addison got to go to his friends birthday party at a martial arts studio.
He was very excited. Until we got there.
Maybe it was all the parent on lookers but Addison did not want to participate in the exercises. The punches and wide horse stance and bowing and such.
I could tell he just needed a little prompting because normally Addison loves to punch things and stand like a horse.
His friend's mom, Katie, was also trying to persuade him to join in.
So she said, "Come on, we'll go to!"
So Katie and I took our flip flops off and made our way out onto the mat behind the line of little boys.
We were very obedient as to how to place our feet and punch at the air.
We were the very loudest at shouting "Kee-yah!" after each punch.
Then the intstuctor showed us how to place our feet for the side kick.
All this time, Addison stood off to the right of me and twice asked me,
"I don't want you to do kung fu, Mommy."
I think this is because he was dazzled by my form. The sheer audacity of my shouts and punches.
Or maybe he had a premonition of the future since my first kick landed on his jaw and sent him reeling backwards with a bloody lip.
Yes, a bloody lip. Who knew I had such powerful kicks and absolutey no coordination and foresight into where such a kick would land?
As Katie kept up her kicks, I whipped Addie up in my arms and flew to the restaurant
next door for an ice filled coke to staunch the blood flow.
I was also hoping to bribe him a bit with a large carbonated beverage to get that horrified "my-mom-just-kicked-me-in-the-mouth" look off of his face.
As Addie soothed himself with a coke, we headed back to the studio to watch his friends finish the class.
He only ventured back on the mat once the goodie bags came out.
One of the dad's glanced over at me and asked, "Is he okay?"
"You mean, since I kicked him in the face and gave him a bloody lip?" I answered.
"Should I call CPS now?" he asked.
I hope he holds off on making that call.
But if they come to try and question me, I guess I can use my ninja kicks to fend them off.

never the bride giveaway winner

And the winner is....Commenter #22 Rebecca!

Here are your random numbers:

22 Timestamp: 2009-07-15 14:38:23 UTC

Congratulations! Send me your name and address to
tiredsupergirl@gmail.com so I can ship you your signed copy!
I love giveaways.

mr. golden sun

So I've been subbing for the last two weeks and needless to say,
I am just a bit short of exhausted.
The upside is I am getting a tan with all the fine outdoor living on the
preschool playground or maybe the downside...I could be getting leathery.
The last time I taught full time was before Scott and I got married.
I was 25, energetic, and pulled up my sleeves to tank top setting while baking out
on the playground during afternoon recess.
There were a lot of teachers there who were older than me. A lot older.
In their 30's I think. And they donned sun hats and sunscreen and lip balm
before they went out in the afternoon.
I felt a little sorry for them. Whereas I soaked in the lovely rays of sun, they shunned them.
And I have to tell you the first afternoon out on the playground as the sun beat down on my face and arms last week, I thought,
"Oh my lordy, I need a sun hat. And some 75 sunscreen and some petrolleum jelly to guard my fragile lips."
I am officially the old lady teacher in her 30's.
And moreover, last night I went as far as to look for a hat at Ross Dress for Less and all I could find were some malformed straw cowboy hats that looked like something Venus Flytrap from WKRP in Cincinatti would wear (now I'm really dating myself) or derby hats that made me look like Tom Landry coaching the Dallas Cowboys (also dating myself.
I ran into my friend Melissa and her two girls, Grace and Faith, there and gave them a fashion show of terrible hats. The girls looked away in shame. Melissa just laughed.
So I am out to bake another day in the sun.
Hopefully, the leathery wrinkles won't start popping out for a few years still.
Anyone know where to by a full body sun hat?

never the bride giveaway

As always, I love a good summer read.
My friend, Rene Gutteridge and Cheryl McKay, have co-aughtored a new fun
sassy book called Never The Bride

and I can't wait to plunk myself down on the couch and plow through it.
Of course, I never tell my writer friends that I plow right through their books
because I know it has taken them months maybe years to write and I don't want them
to know I finish it off in a few days.
But if it's a good book that can't be put down, it really is their fault anyway
so they should just write lousier if they want me to take longer to read it.
The last project Rene and Cheryl worked on together was The Ultimate Gift novelatizion which Cheryl wrote the screenplay for.

For any of you who say The Ultimate Gift in theaters you know it was a keeper.
Never The Bride tells the story of Jessie Stone, a women who has dreamed up hundreds of marriage proposals and fantasized about falling in love. This mostly amounts to a lot of doodling in her journal and not so much falling in love with actual persons. Until God shows up one day, in the flesh, and becomes a part of her every day life.
The back cover asks,
"What will it take to convince her that the Almighty has a better plan than one she's already cooked up in her journals? Can she turn over her pen and trust someone else to craft a love beyond her wildest dreams?"
And I'm hooked. It's the next book on the nightstand next to my bed.
If your hooked, too, and wish you had it on your nightstand put your name in the comments because Rene sent me an extra copy of Never The Bride to giveaway....because she is cool like that.
Giveaway ends July 15, 2009.

thoughts on a sunday night

So at a birthday party the other afternoon, I was talking to another mom, Donna,
who writes and we started talking book ideas.
I told her about some I'd been thinking about.
(When I say thinking about what I really mean is I have writer's block and am playing a lot of computer solitaire and biting my nails and pondering things like who will win "So You Think You Can Dance" and procrastinating doing my laundry and yelling at the children "Go outside - it's summer!")
And she told me about her memoir that she is working on which sounds very interesting and how about how she grew up Irish Catholic and about the guilt and such.
And I said,"Really? I'm not Catholic and I totally have guilt!"
We had a bonding moment which was a little sad that our spiritual bonding could be about guilt.
But I told her that our denomination is much more laid back than it used to be but back in the day you showed you were following God by not doing wrong things like wearing lipstick or dancing (which goes to show you why I have guilt since I am addicted to lip gloss and enjoy "So You Think You Can Dance" so much).
And she said,"Oh, I went to a legalistic church once.
It made me feel like I had to be perfect.
If you're Catholic it's okay if you sin because it's all our fault anyway."
And tsgs, after the laughter subsided, I had a playground epiphany.
Way down in my heart for lo, these many years,
I have been thinking all along that maybe someday I will wake up and be perfect and get everything right if I just try hard enough and don't do anything wrong.
Now I know this may surprise you but mostly I sin everyday and a lot of times it involves the inability to say no to chocolate.
This is very frustrating when you think you can only have a good day if you do everything right.
The problem with this line of thinking is that I keep forgetting that there is only one right person.
There is only one who is sinless and holy. That would be Jesus. Not me.
Every once in a while, I think he has to remind me of that while
I am standing out in the sun watching my kids play.
He lets me know that he knows my mess and he's currently working on my mess and he loves me regardless of my mess and maybe I should relax a little and trust him in spite of my mess.
I'm going to try to remember and do that when I wake up tomorrow.
It would be the beginning to great day.

so i think i can dance

Many of your know I have a strong affection for dancing.
I have an even greater affection for High School Musical
because it is cheesy and has good catchy songs and random choreography
breaks forth in the halls of learning of East High.
Sometimes I break out into random choreography in the halls of my own home
but the children just look at me in shame.
But my sister-in-law, Cheri, knows how to make dreams come true.
She knows that I am made for musicals. So she put me and Scott in one.
Thought you might want to peruse it as you are celebrating this 4th of July
weekend.
Try to ignore the fact that it appears that I don't have any teeth.
The children got a little scared. But my musicality is spot on
and try though he might, Scott can not outshine my raw talent.
Enjoy!

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