Thursday 13 - Eyes

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He's All About Making Others Happy

So for the second day in a row Super Z's teacher wanted me to call her.
Yesterday the problem was roughhousing and not paying attention. I have come to expect this report. I am getting quite adept at grounding him from his bike for these offences.
Today? Today was special.
Today's problem was pinching girls' butts.
"What!?,"you ask.
You heard me right. My four year old son got in trouble today for pinching the behinds of multiple female classmates.
Mrs. Lee told me that she told him to stop and then fifteen minutes later he was doing it again, just reaching out and grabbing a pinch of the nearest girl's booty.
Mrs. Lee took him out in the hall. She told him in no uncertain times that he had to stop.
My angel nodded and acted contrite.
10 minutes later another girl was assaulted.
That time he was put in time out.
After time out Mrs. Lee asked him if he was going to stop.
Super Z nodded, but he couldn't let it go there. He had to explain his actions, "But Mrs. Lee, they like it. It makes them happy. It makes them laugh. I just want to make them laugh."
How can you punish that? I mean, he just wants to make the world a happier place.
I can't even begin to imagine where that boy comes up with this mess.

Wordless Wednesday - Jamming With Papaw '05

I'm The Mama

I dropped Super Z off at school a few minutes late today. His tardiness had something to do with me feeling like death warmed over and a lack of preparedness regarding lunches for Play Day.
Because we were late, I actually had to get out of the car to take him in. Usually, the director meets all of the children at the car and ushers them in.
Almost as soon as I got out of the car a lady emerged from the building. I recognized her immediately. She isn't the director of the kindergarten, but she is the Day Program Director, meaning she oversees Mother's Morning Out and kindergarten. I have seen her several times. You would think that this would mean that she has seen me. Right?
I told her that I was sorry that we were late while she checked out my still wet hair (because Hello? I am feeling like death warmed over, remember?) and my comfortable shoes.
Finally she said, "You aren't Super Z's Mother are you?"
Um, yea.
"Oh, well I have only seen Dad. I guess I wouldn't put you two together.," she says.
um...what?
I just smiled, kissed my son, and headed on my merry old crappy looking way to work.
As I got onto the interstate I realized that I was angry. Sometimes it takes me a minute.
What does that mean exactly? You wouldn't put us together? What the hell do you have to do with us being together? What exactly are you trying to say here lady? My husband is too good looking for me? Is that it?
I hope that my general crabbiness today is making me take this worse than I should. I hope that I feel much better about the whole exchange when I am once again in the pink.
You wouldn't put us together??? What the hell?

A Resurected Book Meme

I am finding inspirations for NaBloPoMoFo all over the place. My inspiration for this posts came from Blue Momma's archives. Sounds kinda kinky doesn't it?
Well I LOVE books. I LOOOOVVVVEEEE them. They are some of my very favorite things, so I fell in love with this meme instantly.
Feel free to make this meme your own if you are a book lover like me. I don't mind being your inspiration at all.
I have read 55 of the 100 books here. I am currently reading 2 others. I want to read 11 more. The others i haven't heard of or am just not interested in reading. I am going to look up the ones that I haven't heard of. Who knows? I may have to add them to my list.

This is pretty simple. From the list below:
-Bold the ones you’ve read
-Italicize the ones you want to read
-leave the ones you aren't interested in as they are.

1.The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2.Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3.To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) (I am reading this right now.)
10.A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12.Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13.Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16.Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King) --- I read this 13 times when I was in the twelfth grade. I loved it.
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)---Oh the memories of my high school term paper. If I have another son, I think I'll name him Holden. Although Holden was a messed up kid.
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible - I have read a lot of it. When I was in Jr High I tried to read it all. I forget how far I got.
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) - Love it
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)---Didn't like it
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)---Several times.
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)---Currently reading
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)-----I LOVED this book when I was 11.
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100.Ulysses (James Joyce)

Fun Monday

Our host this month is Hootin Anni. She has given us a little Mother May I assignment.
- 30 GIANT STEPS - IN ANY direction. You may have to make a few turns and pivots so you won't run into any walls or such...don't want any injuries today! WARNING: Avoid any obstacles in the way- if there's a door...open it & continue, if there is a wall...pivot AROUND it. You may end up outdoors! Or perhaps if a small apartment....down the hallway....who knows?!! :::thinking::: "Oh gawd, if there's a pool at the end of your thirty steps, I sure as H E double L hope you can swim!!!!"After the 30 giant steps, Stop!TAKE A PHOTO AND/OR NOTE WHAT YOU'RE SEEING!! Then, take 15 baby steps back.After the 15 baby steps, Stop!TAKE A PHOTO AND/OR NOTE WHAT YOU'RE SEEING LOOK in any direction -to your right, left, up [more than likely, not down ---that'd be your feet!!]. What you see is what we get!!Stop!It's all about your first glance after the giant/baby steps!!!

Okay, so I did this twice. Once into the outdoors and once on down the hall into the depths of my house.

Mother may I? #1 - THE OUTDOORS

I left my computer and took thirty giant steps out of my bedroom door, across my kitchen, into my living room, out the front door and across the porch (It should be noted that I have REALLY long legs, my giant steps are pretty giant.) I ended up in front of my bushes to the side of my porch. I am not sure what this bush is. It is green in the spring and summer, but in the fall it sheds its leaves and sprouts tiny white flowers. It is very pretty. I don't trim it back. I let it grow and grow, so that it blots out the view of my neighbor's house. I am social like that.

So then I took 15 baby steps back across my porch and ended up backing down the steps where Princess H was sitting. She happened to be the prettiest thing around, so I took a seat and snapped her picture. I hope that the sitting down is okay. I mean she looks so much cuter from the side. The top of her head is nice and all, but not as nice as those pretty blue eyes.

Mother May I? #2 - THE INDOORS

So this time I took my giant steps right on past the front door and down the hall into Super Z's room. I ended up in front of his Ark. His Pappy, my Mom's husband, built this Ark for Super Z while he was still in my belly. This is the reason why my son feels that he is entitled to two of every Beanie Baby. He loves this almost as much as I do.I then took my 15 baby steps back into the hallway. I ended up in front of my shelf. My Mamaw gave me this shelf when I got married. It has been on the wall in every house that I have shared with Randy. It is one of those things that I will keep forever. On this shelf are several of my blue glass pieces that loved ones have given me over the years. I love me some blue glass. The black cat is a gift that my best friend/cousin Becky gave me when we were in the 6th grade. On the middle shelf is a picture of Randy, Super Z and I at Super Z's baptism. On the bottom shelf there is a picture of me and my Mom when I was a baby. What does this shelf say about me? It says that I am sentimental. It says that I like moons. It says hey world, this girl puts together a mean shelf.

If I Were Rich

Blue Momma, of the Fish Bowl fame, put up a meme about what she would do if she were rich. I am a follower of Blue Momma, so I have taken up the torch.
I was going to save this meme for Tuesday, but I have been thinking about it since I read her post. I figured it would be best to go ahead and get it out of my system.
Let's see...how RICH is rich? These things are important when you are planning. For the sake of this post, let's say I won a million dollars.

What would I do if I won a million dollars?

The first thing that I would do is buy a house. Obviously, I mean I have only been complaining about this constantly lately, right? I think I would buy this house.It is less than $170,000. It has plenty of room and it is in a great school district.There are nice big trees in the yard and a patio off the back. And what is that there on the front? It looks like a porch to me...oh yeah. It is the kind of house that I am aiming for anyway. This one just has four bedrooms instead of three, because the million dollars is making me feel all extravagant. What more do you need? Of course I would have to furnish the house and maybe decorate a tad. I am not a decorator by nature, but I am sure that my sister would insist on overseeing a bit of that kind of thing.
When I was done with that though, the rest of the money would go into savings and investments. That is right, I am cheap deep in my heart. Deep deep in my heart. I would have to grow my money or I would feel like a lunatic.
Another example of my lunacy? I would continue working. That is right, I would just keep on going to work everyday. I would like to think that I wouldn't work overtime anymore, but other than that? No change.
The only trips I would plan would be better family vacations. We would go on nice two week vacations every year. We might even go to places that you have to get to on a plane. I know, extravagant.
Of course there would be a huge party celebrate my good fortune and you would all be invited. And of course I would buy a few very nice gifts this Christmas. I mean it would just be selfish not to, right? But, mainly it would be the house and the savings. How boring is that?
Feel free to pick up this meme if you want. It is nice to dream.
Now I am going to go apply for Deal or No Deal. Come on big money.

Update: I got my blue dot! Thank you Blue Momma. You rock the bowl 100%. You are the original bowl rocker. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

In other news: how cute is this?
I just thought that I would throw this out there for posterity's sake. So that on the days when they are plotting to kill one another and whining, "She bit me.", "He hit me.", "She touched me.", "He hit me.", "She has my car.", "He hit me.", "You do not need to hold her!", "He hit me.", "You were my Mama first!", "He hit me.", that they really do love each other...sometimes.

The Dreaded Bullet Post

I have a lot going on today, so I figured I would do a bullet point post to catch everybody up...hehe and save myself time, because I am lazy.

• My good friend Leigh, who is having twin boys, had a diaper shower today. She got quite a few diapers, but not as many as she needs. God, I can't even get my head around how many diapers you would need with breast fed twins...whew.
• My Mom, my sister, my niece, and my nephew came to town for the shower. Super Z and Princess H couldn't have been happier. We always love it when THEY come to see US. More often than not it is the other way around.
• Randy had to replace the water pump on my washer. Apparently, a washer leaking water all over the floor every time you wash clothes is a sign of a bigger problem, who knew?
• When Super Z woke up yesterday he said it burned when he peed. I looked at his penis and noticed a little redness. I made an appointment and Randy took him in to the doctor. It turns out that all it was was a little soap irritation. Uh, apparently he was cleaning it a little too vigorously...
• While he was there, Randy asked the doctor to check out Super Z's ears because of the episode Wednesday night. Turns out that my baby, who hasn't complained since I "fixed" him, has TWO ear infections. That is right, one in each ear. Ouch! I can't believe that he only complained that one night. He is now on antibiotics and ear drops. The combo of champions.
• When Randy picked up Super Z from school yesterday, his teacher told Randy that I needed to call her. When I called her she told me that Super Z had a bad week. Apparently, his fighter within has once again reared his ugly head. As a result, Super Z is grounded from his bike this weekend. I can't help but wonder if the double ear infection had something to do with his behavior. I don't want to be one of those Mothers who makes all kinds of excuses for her child's behavior, but it is a possibility.
• Since Princess H woke up this morning, she has been coughing like a 65 year old smoker. I am a bit worried about her. I would be willing to lay down money that Randy will be back in the Pediatricians office come Monday.
• Randy got a part time job two weeks ago. He is working two hours a day taking deposits out of ATMs. He worked with ATMs before he started staying at home with the kids, so he jumped at the offer. It isn't much, but he enjoys his time on his own I think. In six months or so he will be going back to work full time. Just thinking about it makes me sad. I kind of like having him around all of the time.
• I have met my first weight loss goal. Since May I have lost 60 pounds. Go me.
• Super Z is now in the 28th percentile for height! This is the first time in his life that he has been above the 10th percentile. Yay Super Z! He also weighs 40 pounds. I can't believe how much he has grown this year. Last year he was 30 pounds.
• I am poor. I need money. I need money for Christmas presents. Please send your donations to....Well it isn't quite that bad yet. But the Christmas/birthday season is always a drain around here. And what in the world is up with these gas prices!?! Bah...not quite humbug, but bah.
• Have I mentioned that I want my own house? I really really want my own house. I really do.

I'll be back tomorrow with a more coherent post, I promise. I hope everyone is having a great weekend!!

Haiku Friday

A night time ear ache

my baby needs to be held

Mamas have magic

***

The dream wakes me up,

it is hard to catch my breath

then I feel you there.

***

This certain color,

a green washed with pure sunlight,

perfect bedroom eyes.

***

Running through the house

A million miles per hour

she tries to keep up

***

These children of light

and their Father, my best friend,

That is my treasure

***

Moments of silence

are very hard to come by

in my house of noise

I Fixed It

Super Z came into my room at 4 a.m. this morning. He was crying, the miserable cry that children can only cry in the blackest hours of the night.
His ear was hurting him. It was hurting him like it has so many times before. He was crying in the same way that he cried when he was 13 months old and had an ear infection for 3 months straight.
He got tubes when he was 15 months old. That was a small miracle for us. The boy who couldn't go three weeks without an ear infection went for years.
But when he came in last night, I knew exactly what to do. It all came back to me.
I picked my baby up and carried him into the living room. After a dose of Tylenol and an ear drop, I held him in my lap and rocked him.
We said a prayer together asking Jesus to help his ear feel better. After that he asked me if I would hold him until he went to sleep.
I agreed and just continued rocking my baby as the clock moved closer to 5.
When he was finally asleep, I held him for a bit longer. I felt him breathing against my neck and I breathed in the scent of him. The scent that has changed from that of a baby to a that of a boy since the last ear infection.
After a while I was able to lay him down and head back to bed. He slept peacefully for the rest of the night.
I went in and woke him up this morning to ask how he was feeling. The boy who usually greets the morning with tears smiled sweetly and said, "Don't worry, Mom. You fixed it. I knew you would."
I wonder how long I will have the power to fix things? I hope he thinks so for a really long time.