For Halloween J is...

Sickie-boy.

Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. But what can you do?

He had his costume all picked out- one for trick-or-treating, and a separate one for his school party. Obviously, he missed out on the school party. And it looks like he'll be missing out on the treating, too. I'll probably bundle him up and take him to the next door neighbor's house, just so he can at least say he got to. How can you deny a child their rights to things like trick-or-treating? It's just cruel.

But it hasn't been a total loss. The other night it was record-breaking cold down here, and so we lit a little campfire, and J and the nephew and the sister and I had a little campout in the yard. I can hear the grandmotherly types out there telling me that's the reason he's sick today, but it was worth it.




Hot dogs, marshmallows, foraging for leaves and twigs for the fire, and of course, the pumpkins. It was all a blast for them... and for us.

And overheard, as they sipped their hot chocolate together...

"Wow, Stee-mon, that was the best campout ever, wasn't it?"

Moments I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

BTW, you'll notice that the gazebo is missing it's top. We're really not that ghetto, it's just that we took it down for TS Fay, and decided we might as well wait until hurricane season is over before putting it back up. We're probably safe to do so now. :)

J goes on a field trip

I use that term very loosely. Because his school is small and is only Pre-K, they don't have the required insurance etc. to take the kids on a proper field trip. So, if a kid's going to attend, a parent has to take them. No big deal, except that mapquest lies like a dirt dog and leaves nervous mothers stranded in bad areas completely lost and clueless.

We'll leave it at that.

We arrived late, which suited Jonas just fine. He would have preferred that we simply turn around and go home. But I'll be damned if I'm going to drive 2 1/2 hours somewhere only to give up.

So, Green Meadows was nice, and the day was perfect for a petting farm. But our tour guide was a total waste of time. Why they'd hire someone who hates kids and knows nothing about animals to work at a place full of both baffles me, but there you have it.

And did I mention that my kid refused to pet, or even look at, any of the animals. The closest we came was the last pen we stopped at on our way out-- a little pot bellied pig. Go figure. No fuzzy ducks or cute little goats for my boy!

It wasn't a total loss, though. They had tractors to climb on, and a hay ride, and a lame-o train that circled around a couple of acres of completely empty enclosures. All of those things ranked high on J's list of entertainment.

I was going to do a cute little narrative of the day, but I'll just pile a heap of pictures here and call it done. I'm honestly too tired to do it much justice.


Obligatory sheep photo

More drugs, please

Good lord, sometimes life can be crueler than fiction.

As of Sunday we didn't have a single operational vehicle in our driveway. It always seems to happen that way, and usually when the bank account is at it's emptiest. Why is that?

Fortunately, hubby's car was an easy fix-- just needed a new battery. At least, that's what we thought. But after purchasing said new battery and installing it, the little beast still gave trouble starting. Ends up there's a bad terminal, too. Not a major problem, but one hubby wasn't interested in addressing at 10 pm while hunched over the hood of his car in the dark, flashlight between his teeth, in a drizzle. It got him to work today, so I'm assuming that it's still ok.

My car, on the other hand. Well, has anything ever been cheap or easy to fix on it? Nope.

So, after just paying off all of our credit card debt, I had to go and plunk down a huge sum of money this morning for a new serpentine belt and tensioner. Who knew that a tensioner was an expensive part?

My biggest predicament with the car being broken today, of all days, was that not only did I have to get J to school, but had to be back by 11 because his class was putting on a "funny feet parade" in honor of the letter F. Cute, right? J proudly designed his own funny foot coverings out of some of those little foam craft sheets and lots of stickers. He was quite proud of them. How could I miss my baby boy's shining moment as leader of the parade?

The mechanic assured me that he'd have it done on time, and I'll be damned if he didn't pull it off-- I pulled out of the shop at 10:50! I made it just in time to watch J throw a temper tantrum and refuse to participate in the parade because a piece of his little costume had come undone. So we sat and watched the rest of the school and I cheered them on while he stood in the corner, arms crossed, sulking.

After that, it was a trip to the dentist for me. I could stop here, but why?

You see, I've got this weird sort of tolerance for local anesthetics. It's happened in the past on three occasions in this particular dentist's chair, and he's well aware of it. He has me come in about an hour before he's ready to get started, he gives me the good stuff, and then leaves me to sit so it can take effect. Today it didn't work. We went two rounds- four injections each, and only the slightest bit of numbing. Finally, I told him to go ahead and just start drilling. Two excruciating hours later, I've got a new temporary filling holding a tiny fraction of tooth together, and he stated that when I'm ready for the actual root canal and crown, he's going to refer me out to a surgeon who can do full anesthesia, then drops the bomb that in order to get a crown on this tooth I'm going to require gum surgery as well. I'm now strongly leaning towards simply extracting the offending molar and being done completely and forever. I'm waiting on insurance to give me quotes to make the decision final. Even the dentist agrees that it won't be too much of a loss to go that route. Maybe he just doesn't want to see me back in his chair, white knuckling the armrests. Really, he's a great guy, and it's not his fault.

Perhaps the only saving grace of the day is that J fell asleep in the car on the way home from Abuela's at 6, which means I can probably drink myself into oblivion before he wakes up at 2 a.m. ready to start a new day.

And really, I do have cute and uplifting things to share with you. But it'll have to wait until the right side of my face stops throbbing.

Hello, Stranger

How did it get to be this long since I've posted anything? Seems like time flies lately. We are so darn busy with day to day stuff that I often don't even find time to sit down until well after 9 at night. Heck, some nights I pick J up from Abuela's house and he's asleep before we even get home. Makes me sad and feels like such a wasted day because I adore those sweet cuddly evenings with him after a long day of being apart. But what can you do? We're not the only folks in the world with wacky schedules, I know, so it hardly seems worthy of complaining about. But still. There are weeks where I feel like we've done nothing constructive together, and that all of our time is spent rushing to get from one place to another. Really all I want is to be able to cuddle up with him on the couch with a big stack of books, or a pile of legos, and not have to worry about what bags need to be packed for the next day, what lunches, what time we have to be where, and whether or not we even have clean underwear and socks for the morning.

And I catch myself trying to make up for our lack of time by spoiling him in little ways... a new DVD to watch at Abuela's. A new Hot Wheels car for not giving me a hard time in the morning. A Pokemon figure just because. Like he needs more STUFF, and as if silly little toys are going to make up for all the time we're losing out on.

He feels similar, I know, because he's clingy, whiny, and has even begun reverting to baby talk sometimes. Instead of saying "Mommy, can I have some juice?" He'll whine, point, and say "Juice! Juice! Juice!". Frustrating, but we just keep telling him that big boys use their words, and wait until he uses them to give him what he wants.

But it hasn't all been chaos and negative around here. Last week we celebrated two birthdays in the family, as well as our anniversary. We've never been ones to really go overboard on celebrations. We didn't take a romantic honeymoon after our wedding, and usually we simply go out to dinner, or bring home takeout. But this year we decided that we really needed to do something a little more special. In the time crunch that we've been in, it seems that our relationship has been given the biggest share of neglect. I mean, when it comes to everything that HAS to get done, we sometimes forget that we need to take time for US, too. We both took Friday off of work and reserved a nice hotel room on the beach.

I don't know if I can remember the last time we've spent any sort of time together, and it was wonderful. We had a nice dinner out, and then just simply vegged together at the hotel. Here's the view we woke up to in the morning.



Not the greatest picture, but we didn't think to bring a camera. This was taken with my cell phone from our balcony where we sat and sipped our coffee while watching the sunrise. Spectacular.

So that's what we've been up to. Other than that, we're just steadily working on our growing list of things we want to try and make for our handmade Christmas gifts. So far the list is HUGE, but the FO pile is tiny. I'm starting to get a bit nervous. But we'll get it done, I'm sure.

Today is my day off from work, but I have a silly staff meeting to attend, which eats a big chunk out of my day. But once we're home and done, J and I have a date with the sewing machine. He wants to help make another pair of 'puppy pants'.