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September 28, 2009

Tessalitapitabread turns 4...watch out world.

Saturday was Tessie's 4th birthday. I think this was the first year she actually anticipated her birthday. We talked about it a lot beforehand and she was so totally stoked to see September 26 finally arrive. I was slathering white canned icing on her cake so that she could decorate it with sprinkles when she walked into the kitchen with her cute little morning face and just smiled at me.



I hugged her and wished her happy birthday and she said "I don't even feel any different!". Then I told her she could put the sprinkles on her cake and she just dumped the entire tin of sprinkles in one spot. She said "this is where I want the dinosaur to go!". I said "um...like one of your toy dinosaurs? maybe we can draw one??" She said "no! the cake one like last year". Uhhh...well...Gayleypoo is in Florida now so where the hell will we get a cake dinosaur? I said "OH DON'T WORRY, Daddy will draw any dinosaur you want on your cake!" She was not amused but she decided that a pterodactyl would suffice. Cake problem solved. Of course there were those who thought it was a bat, but Tess was fine, so we were fine.



The party was very good....the friends were good...the presents were way good. Tess...not so good. I am a huge Tess fan. I think she's smart and funny and very cheeky but what do you do when your child turns into a wretched spoiled BRAT? I think she might have just gotten overwhelmed by being the center of attention or something but she was ungrateful, rude and pretty much awful about her gifts. This carried over into Sunday where she acted like a manic freak. One minute she loved everything and everything was great and the next, she was complaining that she didn't really love anything we've done for her or given her.



I thought about it a lot yesterday. I've always tried really hard to not own my child's bad behavior, just to try and correct it. But really, is it possible to chalk rudeness up to "well she was just overwhelmed" or "she's only 4". No, I don't think it's OK to do that. Tess has been fortunate enough to not have me unleash on her the way I did with her older siblings. I was a single mom with something to prove. I wanted my kids to be a good reflection of me and I wanted them to not be the kids that other people dread seeing so I was probably harder on them than they deserved. This is the day where Tess starts getting those lessons as well. I think she's a doll, she's wonderful and caring and all things good, but there's the potential for badness and I'm gonna make like barney fife and nip it!nip it! nip it!

Posted by krystal at 9:20 AM | Comments (2)

September 26, 2009

Where do these kids come from?

We have a rule. If Jake, who is 18 and out of school, is not coming home at night, he is to either call or text me and let me know. We've had times where he forgets and I return the favor by calling him at 5am to see where he is. I guess he got tired of that because now he's pretty good about it. Last night's text message said "I won't be home, I'm spending the night at a brothel". I was so happy he remembered to text!

Posted by krystal at 11:27 AM | Comments (1)

September 22, 2009

Homecoming

This past Sunday I went to church. I know...amazing. My friend Steve who is a Catholic priest always says ch ch...you know what's missing? U R. So when I type about church to him I call it chURch.
I'm one of those people...the ones who don't like going to church very much. I went regularly as a kid and as a young adult but now I'm sorta tired on Sundays and I would much prefer a mimosa instead of an hour of guilt and committees that need me to sign up. I'll be honest too, while I suspect God is out there, I also find myself feeling a bit confused about exactly how I should know this. My mom said that's why it's called "faith". Maybe some people are better at that than I am. I don't know....that's what I say for now. I don't know.

So without going into my shallow feelings of why I would feel dumb for blindly following the big guy in the sky, I'll just tell you about Sunday.

Sunday was Homecoming Sunday at my church. It's the day that welcomes back people who have moved away, people who just don't make it to church often and ones who are there all the time. There's special singing, a guest preacher and TONS AND TONS of food cooked by the best cooks in Spotsylvania County.

As a child homecoming meant that my mom and my nannie spent the entire day Saturday cooking and the weeks before that cleaning the church and making it look nice even though my old church had peeling plaster and no air conditioning. We'd wear nicer than usual church clothes but not too many because homecoming was HOT. We'd sit through the service, eat the best meal ever and then go back to the swealtering hot church for afternoon singing. The adults LOVED this. The kids did not love it so much. We were hot and bored and full...and there's no TV at church. But I fondly remember homecoming because my nannie made banana pudding, and we ate outside...all of us. We sang and sang and sang in the afternoon. We were Marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. I remember the songs of my youth word for word but I can't quite remember the lyrics to Boom Boom Pow. Maybe it's old age.

This past Sunday my cousin Justin gave the sermon. Justin and I grew up together. We would laugh hysterically as we pronounced our last names "weeee-yums". He grew up to be such a wonderful man, overcoming so many odds. In his sermon he talked about the saints who have gone on before us. He spoke about how we grew up with people loving us and watching out for us and guiding us as we grew. He talked about my grandmother who taught our Sunday school class and her friends and the others who really truely shaped our lives even when we weren't thinking that they were. The next day tried to shape his sermon into something that I could live with. I don't know if God is there...but if he's not...is it so wrong to love being a part of such love and grace?

Why's it so hard to figure this all out?

Posted by krystal at 6:29 PM

September 21, 2009

covenant

cov⋅e⋅nant  /ˈkʌvənənt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [kuhv-uh-nuhnt] Show IPA
Use covenant in a Sentence
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–noun 1. an agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.

I didn't post the definition for anyone but myself. I just found out this weekend that where we live, there are covenants. I guess every neighborhood has them? My bad, holmes. Luckily we did not find out about the rules for living here because we'd broken them, even though we have. About a month ago an elderly man came to the door and invited us to a HOA potluck. Now our hood has a voluntary HOA so we volunteered not to join even though it's mostly about paying dues for parades and house decorating contests. I'm not much of a joiner. I have known and liked very few neighbors in my life. In fact, I love Stacy and Al from our old place and now we've become friends with Bill and Robin. That makes 2 neighbors in my entirety that I've been friends with in my 20some years of being an adult. Anyway, Dan is a joiner and a nice guy. He wanted us to go to the potluck and Robin wanted to go so I made banana pudding for the first time in my life and we went. The gathering was in a cul-de-sac and when we got there people were already sitting in their little circle of friends circle. Per the norm, I stood awkwardly outside of the circle. It isn't as though I don't have friends, I just only like my friends and I'm not good with breaking ground to make new ones unless I'm uh, tipsy. Thank goodness for kids. I was able to spend my time talking to Kendall and Lauren and chasing Max so that I could avoid interaction with the people in the circle who I am SURE hated me just for breathing in their air. (paranoid much? yes. yes I am). Dan talked to people. Robin mingled and met and got to know people and Bill talked to the guys in the military who approached him probably because he's one of them. Meanwhile, I shifted from foot to foot feeling my stomach ache from nerves. I could not wait to leave. After the meal they had a meeting where we were introduced to the covenants. I didn't read them until we got home. It's a good thing, because I almost cried. We do not belong here. Trash cans aren't allowed to be in site of the neighbors? I knew it wasn't just a coincidence that ours were the only ones I've seen since we moved in!! There are rules for how many trees and how many shrubs we have to keep alive and maintained and groomed on our property. WHO KNEW? UGH!! I hate yard work and the only servant people we knew moved away because the economy sucked. Anyway, so back to the circle. The lady who has lived here 20 years stood up and told the group that some young boys have been peeing in her yard, which wouldn't be so bad if her 80 year old mother-in-law hadn't been flashed in the process. She said that she does not pee in our yards and we should not allow our kids to pee in hers. I guess she has a point, but we needed a meeting for this? Many times the "end of the block" got brought up because of kids gathering, throwing rocks into the road (this is apparenlty the cause of car accidents...the cars slip on rocks or something?? jeeez) and you know, just gathering. The whole kid thing seems to be a real problem with these folks. Robin and I kind of looked uneasily at each other everytime the end of the road got brought up since that's where we live, that's where our kids are playing. Right about now I decided I needed to go. They were discussing the vandalism at THIER end of the street and how you should just call the police on people selling things door to door. I whined for the 20th time to Dan that I wanted to go home and he finally helped me gather up the closest 3 kids (even though one wasn't even mine) and go home. I like our neighborhood, it's nice. There's a reason that it's nice too...covenants. But I have to say, at first glance, I don't care much for the folks carrying the torch. In the mean time, we'll get up to snuff on the rules and move our trash cans before we get arrested or something. Other than that, I'll be hiding out inside or in the back yard. I've met enough neighbors for now.

Posted by krystal at 6:44 AM | Comments (2)

September 20, 2009

RIP grace face from outter space

Gracie got hit by a car last night. We're all sad, but nobody is as sad as Kendall. She was such a good mom to our sweet puppy.



The cats probably won't miss her at all.

Posted by krystal at 5:17 PM | Comments (3)

September 18, 2009

dear teacher please excuse trevor

Every morning Trevor walks out of his room with a new reason why he can't go to school. One day he had both Alzheimers AND aspbergers. The next day he told me his shoulder felt like it hurt so badly that his arm might fall off in school and make a huge mess. This morning he just walked out, looked at me, and said "swine flu". Then he walked over to the cabinet and got the cereal out and giggled.

Posted by krystal at 7:03 AM | Comments (1)

September 7, 2009

ISTJ seeks inspiration

I am completely addicted to the idea of fixing up my house. It's a nice house, very nice. It needs something though. It needs a change from the 1980s to a more modern look. That's the point where I lose all of my umph. I know I want the kitchen to look warm and inviting. I don't want to paint my cabinets but I do plan on stripping the pink and blue wallpaper. I know I want my teal and pink curtains removed from the living room and dining room, but I don't know if I want to paint the walls or focus on new window treatments.

I watch hours and hours of HG tv and buy tons of magazines but it's just not in my makeup to make my house look like one of those houses. I lack creativity and I lack the balls to make choices that might be worse than what we already have. I stare and stare at my teal and pink curtains wanting to just rip them from the windows until I figure out what to put there, but then I get scared that I'll never move past that and the windows will be worse than they are now with their pretty in pink theme. I have creative friends though...we'll figger this out, RIGHT FRIENDS?

Posted by krystal at 11:11 AM | Comments (4)

September 5, 2009

head case

I've had a headache for 2 solid weeks. I believe that over the course of those two weeks I've downed at least 75 tylenol, maybe more. It got so bad that I went to the doctor and just whined that my head hurts really bad. Luckily I went to the one who said "awwww, take these pain pills". He also took my blood just to make sure I'm just suffering because I have huge brains. I'm sure I'm fine, but it really sucks when one part of your body spoils it for the rest of you. I feel fine otherwise.

This weekend is going to be pretty fun I think. Today we're going to Amy and Tyler's house for a party and then tomorrow Jake's having a surprise party for Jordan here. The really cool part about having the 25 teenagers over is that Jordan and Caylor's band is going to play. They're called A Quiet Harbor....let's hope they're sorta quiet so we don't get booted out of the 'hood. I'm sure it'll be fine though since Jake's friends are all pretty nice kids. In any case, I think Dan and I are going to go hang out w/ the neighbors and observe from their deck...that way we will know if things get loud enough to piss off the neighbors!

Posted by krystal at 10:20 AM

September 1, 2009

I've already learned this lesson

I can't do atkins. I love carbs, my body dies a thousand deaths if I try to give them up. I'm not even talking about beer. I can't live without carbs. Day 2 of doing low carbs and I feel like I have the flu. No more. I will just try something else. (like being fat)

The world has been going fine for us lately. We had a baby shower for Angel at our house Saturday and that was so fun. It's pretty much a given with our friends that when we girls get together, the men can come too. That way there's someone to watch the kids while we drink. Karina is the cutest little baby girl ever and I really think she likes me. I hold her just right and she doesn't cry til like, Terri holds her. HAHA...Just kidding Terri.

The kids started school and it's fine. Kendall loves it, Trevor is making an honest effort to sit at the table and do homework and Jake is playing runescape all day. He decided to wait a semester for college. It's my fault. I forgot to pay his tuition and he'd have had to reschedule all of his classes. I think he really just didn't want to go, but whatever. He'll get back there soon enough or he'll have to figure out how to do more than sling bbq for a living.

Tess is excited about turning 4. We're going to take her to see Walking with Dinosaurs on the 19th and then on her birthday we'll have the normal chaotic shindig here. I can't wait.

Max is getting so smart. He says a billion words and some are even in English. I just can't get past how much he learns without me teaching him. Today he pointed at an S and said ESSS. Of course, then he pointed to an A and said ESSSS....but still. He's brilliant.

We're having a massive Halloween party here at our house on Halloween so if you're reading this and don't hate my guts, please plan on attending. Don't fret about the fact that I hate halloween and would throw a terrible party...Gayle and Wil will be the ones throwing the party, we're just the venue. It'll be smashing (pumpkins) fun.

I guess that's it. PEAS.

Posted by krystal at 7:01 PM