Later, summer (sucka!) -- I'll be seeing you in nine months. It's been great (not really, but I'm cordial God damn it).
Summer's gone, time for soccer, football, pumpkins and non-crispy grass.
It's also time for pumpkin pasta, apple muffins and chili (except for the fact that Aaron spilled his all over the couch and floor last night; had I thought of it quick enough I wouldn't have scrubbed the holy hell out of the carpet so that I could FINALLY RIP IT UP and expose the hardwood floors, damn it).
I called our hair-cuttin'-lady today to make appointments for the boys to get trimmed up tomorrow. I've been seeing the same lady for over 15 years now, she has a daughter a year younger than me and a son a few years younger.
Today when I called, I was told her son-in-law was killed Friday in a motorcycle accident. He and his wife have four kids and one on the way.
I'm shocked. I'm crying -- this hits way too close to home. My mom died when I was four, Aaron's father passed away before he was born. We both know what it's like to be in those kids' shoes, to be raised without one of the most influential people in your lives.
I don't ask this often, but if you pray or send out thoughts to people -- could you do that for them please? I cannot even comprehend what that family is going through, they need all the positive help they can get.
Everytime we get some free time around here (meaning: Aaron's home during daylight and not spending four God-forsaken hours to mow the yard), instead of running to the sewing area and working on the two three baby blankets I need to make and work on the quilt (um, yeah, hi, over-analyzing it, I know) I've been running to the kitchen instead.
To bake.
It's addicting.
I thought my next perfected gluten-free recipe would be brownies. Turns out, no, notsomuch. Can't get the baking time right with the balance of ingredients. It's damn infuriating.
And then I made my dad a German Chocolate cake and ohmyheavenlyfuck, that was awesome. But I'm lazy. So... haven't posted that yet. Argh.
This morning I was catching up on some work email and making notations in a spreadsheet, when I had to type today's date -- 9/11.
It's amazing how one second you're fine, the next you flash back seven years to an absolutely devastating day.
My mother-in-law was in town, helping Aaron pain the nursery. I was five months pregnant with Griffin. The weekend prior, they were giving me a hard time for making them paint "white-on-white" (white trim, cream walls). I was sick with a yet-to-be-diagnosed case of pregnancy induced asthma.
That Tuesday morning I came downstairs, my mother-in-law was shaking on the couch. The television was one. Thirty seconds later, the second plane flew into the other tower.
The horror and fear was palatable thousands of miles away for days. You could feel the death. Feel the worry of everyone searching for family and friends. The air was thick emotion, like moving through muddy waters.
The following week was horrible - everything was speculation and everyone was still searching, searching, hoping, hoping.
And now, seven days later, it feels the same. I'm unable to move, unable to breathe. Just sitting, looking at my home. Watching my son play with Star Wars toys and watching Dora, like it's just any other day. But it's not.
We've been looking forward to watching Sid the Science Kid ever since we first heard about the show this summer. The boys first watched it one day last week while I was working -- I was impressed. Griffin immediately pulled out a piece of paper to make himself a chart of how often he wants to go to Target and look at Legos.
Yeah. That would be every day.
So I was all ooooohhhhh, awesome, charts! and decided that we needed to save that episode and watch it as a family this weekend.
Oh my hell.
Now, I will say they have ROCKIN' hair. But oh my hell, they are obnoxious.
Not to say science needs to be serious at all times, but the mom and the teacher movin' their groove thing? Talk about ruining a child's expectations of how a parents should dance. And he carries around a microphone that he can make give him applause? Hell no, we're not getting one of those -- my kids have inflated egos enough, thank you very much.
Luckily, Sid pulls his shit together and gets Scientific on our asses.
More shows need to get Scientific on our asses. And I'm not talking Eureka scientific, which forces us to explain to Griffin that it's not really science, a lot of what they do isn't possible. Yes, yes, maybe someday someone can bend the time-space continuum but not now, honey. No, no not for your first science fair. Maybe something with dissolving aspirin in hot and cold water instead, mkay?
But, the boys love this show. They enjoy watching the episode. And we've decided to suspend allowance for a short time to work on a chart instead (it was Griffin's idea).
He picked out a Lego he wanted, Aaron and I decided on an appropriate amount of squares (and what those squares equated to) and Griffin's excited.
And I'm really hoping this ends the Let's go to Target and look at Legos! mantra.
Tuckie's going through his autumnal shedding-of-his-skin, which is completely disgusting.
This is directly correlating to the beginning of my autumnal shedding-of-my-mouth. Now, normally when I share that with people they're all ewwwww but you know what? Be happy I'm not posting a picture of that disgustingness. And seriously, I cannot be the only person on this damn planet who sheds their mouth-skin twice a year. Impossible.
Tuckie's shedding is slow-going, but I guess it always is. His appetite decreases, his skin starts looking gray, his shell looks muddy brown. He'll be a "new" turtle in no time, but I really dislike all this shedding business, it makes me concerned about his health. Well, that and the fact that he's got bloodshot eyes, like he's sneaking back from the bar at 2 a.m. and I've got half a mind to ask him how many lap dances he paid for.
So we're back to the Vitamin A eye drops. And I yelled at Aaron to Get That Damn Fish Out Of Tuckie's Habitat. I fucking hate that fish (it makes cleaning the tank nearly impossible) and it doesn't even have a name. So I call it the Pregnant Shit in my head, but not out loud. Because I'm a good mother, goddamnit.
And really, this whole Fish thing is really just another one of Aaron's Experiments. Like that damn betta fish he has living on the back patio. Which lives in one of Tuckie's old habitats that has a full inch of green sludge all over the surface. Do you know why we have a betta living on the back patio? "To eat the mosquito larvae." Guess who has to have a lid on their habitat to keep a bird from eating the fish? Right! The betta! Guess what can't lay mosquito larvae with a lid on a habitat? Right! Mosquitoes! Quess who has three buckets of water surrounding the habitat so he can grow mosquito larvae to feed to the fish? That's right! My husband! It's a mind-numbing never-ending series of "experiments" over here.
And yes, this is a longish post to distract you from the fact that I haven't worked on the quilt. It totally worked, didn't it?
When Griffin started first grade a few weeks ago I was giving other parents high-fives in the hallway. Hell, when Griffin went to preschool as a four-year old I was giving other parents high-fives in the hallway.
But when Darwin went to His First Day of Preschool today I got dizzy.
My baby? In preschool? No, no, not my baby; not in preschool!
Awwww, crap. ::sigh::
This whole kids-growing-up-getting-older-bullshit is ridiculous.
