Charlyn’s Web

The kids and I went to stay with my parents for a few days last week.  My good friend, Boo Boo was unexpectedly in town for business plus relatives from out of state made good reasons to make the drive.

The van was great to travel in.  KJ actually made it without any throw up mishaps, which is wonderful.  It is, unfortunately, a common problem for her.

The visits with Boo Boo and husband were short but very nice.  Husband had not seen the two girls in person yet so now he can envision the “live” versions.

It was fun to visit with my Aunt and Uncle and their kids.  Two who were visiting from out of state- one brought her boyfriend.  Checking the poor man out- how many times did he have to answer the question “is this your fist time in this state?”  And none of us thought to ask him what he does for a living.  I am sure all of our faces are a blur to him.  There are two large families for him to get used to but I don’t think he was exposed to all of us/them at once.  Let him adjust slowly- don’t want to scare him off too soon.  It was good to be able to sit around and talk some- as much as we could with three wild kids cooped up in the house- it was hot outside.  Whose kids were those, anyway?  And why did they come home with  me?

My Mom’s back started bothering her again.  I didn’t know shingles could reoccur so often.  She gets stressed from the extra pressure of the garden needing attention and my Dad crabbing at her about it.  She even got a shingles shot this year.  She has help in the house this year, and had some last year too but it doesn’t seem to help.  She likes to have the garden and preserve the produce- she’s “frugal” ya know.  And she likes it better than what you can get in the store but I’m beginning to think they really need to do something different.  I will have to start making “noises” about cutting back and maybe in five years or so it will sink in and she’ll actually do it.  It took me years of talking to get her to get help in the house.  Some of what she has “put up” is getting pretty old too which is a little bit scary but she will NOT get rid of it.  Wasteful, ya know.

On the way home I felt the beginnings of a headache.  I took some medicine at the gas station but it still was hurting pretty bad with still an hour of driving left.  So I fumbled around in my purse and took more.  I made sure there wasn’t too much traffic around- so don’t you worry.  Speaking of traffic- it’s getting heavier out there.  I expect it to be heavy right out of the Big City and also some when we get closer to home but the last few times we have made the trip, it has seemed to be continually busy.   The girls were entertaining themselves but unfortunately, they were using their high little girl voices and making lots of noise- not good on a Mommy’s headache.

We made it in time to unload and get the Church’s Block Party, which was good fun.  I talked, Brett took photos and herded kids.  The kids had fun getting their faces painted, watching the dunk tank and bouncing in the bouncy house.  Life is good.  🙂

We took our little Sunshine in for her 3 year checkup last week. She wowed the Doctor with her smiles and laughs. She was cooperative through the whole thing- even when the Doctor pulled some built up ear wax out. Our Doctor is moving out of the area and she will be sorely missed. We’ve been with her through all those infant check-ups, three times over. She sat through my list of questions with number one- once she was so anxious to see my list she grabbed it from my hand. (Tip for all Doctor appointments- make a list! I get amnesia when I enter that small room.) Some how the list kept getting shorter with each kid. She is verbal and we shared the same type of humor. Now, with fewer and fewer appointments ahead of us (Lord willing), we will not get to know the next one as well.

Anyway, how the children grow! For those of you who don’t have kids or for those that it’s a foggy memory- to monitor the growth of children they are put on a chart that determines what “percentile” they are in. If a child is in the 50th percentile then they are average- 50% of kids are shorter and 50% are taller.

Here’s the stats-

TG- 36 pounds (close to the 90th percentile) 40 inches (90th percentile)

KJ- 37 1/2 pounds (just under the 50th percentile) 43 3/4 inches (75th percentile)

HP- 62 1/4 pounds (just under the 90th) 53″ (4′ 5″- Over the 97th percentile)

KJ looks like she is still the “Pixie” of the family. As a perspective at three she was 30 pounds and 38 1/4 inches.

Time has been flying!

Zing!

What was that?  Oh,  just two weeks of my life.

We went to the Wet Side of the state to celebrate my parent’s Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary.   I had planned most of it and was not handling the stress well, as you can see from my Packing post before we left.  What to wear?  Did I remember everything for the party?  Then we got there and I thought of the things I needed but didn’t have.  Sigh. I put together a tri-fold poster-board of their younger years, their wedding pictures and then some photos of us as a family. That took time but was fun.  The Adults in the family, yes- we let The Col. come along, went out to dinner on Saturday night.  HP and his older cousin were in charge of themselves but we had a neighbor teenager came over to supervise the girls.  They thought she was neat.  It was very nice, although the outfit I had planned on wearing didn’t work out  but luckily I had over packed.  The bad part was then I carried a cream purse while wearing black.  I am sure EVERYONE who saw me was flabbergasted at my fashion faux pas.  Probably ruined their dinners.

Many people came to the Open House;  Mom was thrilled that some of her old friends that she hadn’t seen in years came.  It was lovely.

Then we changed our clothes, packed things up and headed home because The Col.’s Folks were already here after driving from another state.  We spent a fun week with them.  The kids had a wonderful time and I think they did too!  We took them to exciting places like our favorite grocery store in the city about an hour from here.  Yes, I said “grocery store”.  It’s a neat place with cheap and good produce- no meat though as it’s run by vegetarians.   Then The Col. took them to his doctor’s appointment.  Come visit us and you too can share the excitement.  Then come back to the home place and have kids climb all over you while they are singing at the top of their lungs.  Ah, life with three kids….

We have been talking for quite awhile about our car situation.  All of ours are OLD.  I heard some people talking about their “old” cars the other day and I had to laugh.  They were talking about their 1991 models and I informed them that our “newbie” is an ’86 and we aren’t even driving it.  The ones we are driving are older than that and have over 250,000 and 300,000 miles on them.  The three car seats are crammed into the back of the main run around car so tightly it’s hard to get the belt buckled around HP and his booster.  Hardly any leg room in the back because the front seat has to be so far back for The Big Tall Guy.   But being cheap, oops,”frugal” we didn’t relish the thought of car payments.  So The Col. started combing through Consumer Reports for recommendations and searching Ebay.   He found a used one he liked and went for it.  So we are now the owners of something we never thought we’d own- hold on to your seats, a Mini-Van!!!! Gasp!  What a difference a few years and a few kids makes.  The van is a 2001 Honda Odyssey and was in Reno, Nevada.  The owner very generously offered to meet us on the state line.  So Saturday we caravaned with Gramma and Grampa a ways down the road and then took off for  a total of a 6 hour drive.  We messed around looking at the van etc. for a couple of hours then headed back.  We pulled in at midnight.  I don’t think us Old Folks are fully recovered yet.  But we really like the van.  It’s comfortable for all of us- even the Tall One.  Lots of leg room.  We can stand outside the doors to buckle the kids up without straining our backs.

That’s been our adventures!  Maybe things will slow down a bit now.

Are you laughing?

Packing used to be quite a bit easier- that was before I had choices or at least not very many choices.  Now I am checking the weather, laying out outfits, changing my mind.

This out fit would work- pants, two different tops… which shoes?  Oh, shoot!  Start over.

Then there is the purse.

Gosh!

I am so not good at this.  I have been asking HP and The Big Guy which shoes to wear for church, etc.  Once HP told me that he didn’t like the shoes but I thought that I’d just wear them anyway.  But then I asked TBG and he looked at my feet, then at HP and I knew  he didn’t think they looked good either.  Sigh.  So I wore flip flops.  I hate cold feet.

It’s those fashion discomforts we have to go through to look like we have some idea how to dress ourselves.

I had better go finish or I will not be wearing anything.  HP is done packing, TBG will take two minutes.  Life is not fair.

But I look better in a dress.

When we were cleaning out Brett’s Dad’s house after he died, I opened up the microwave to find a cup of coffee in it.  He had evidently put one in there to warm up and forgot it.  Whenever I would open up our microwave to find a coffee cup forgotten in there, I would think of him.

After it’s finished cooking/heating something, the new microwave will beep every minute or so to remind you that there is something still in it.

I think I’ll miss finding forgotten coffee mugs in it.

I spent over an hour vacuuming today.

If you walked in and looked around at my litter strewn, trackless carpet- you would say “Girlfriend you lied on your blog!”

To which I would burst into an out of tune version of “It’s My Blog and I’ll lie if I want to, lie if I want to!”

But to be honest,  I haven’t lied to you….yet.

I vacuumed the walls, blinds, ceiling, and window sills in the living room, hall and “Grandma and Grandpa’s room” (the guest room).  I sucked up lots of spiders and webs.

KJ asked “Are Grandma and Grandpa H coming?”  No, I said.  Harrumph.  One would think I only cleaned when people come over.

But what I didn’t tell her was that the OTHER Gramma and Grampa might be coming… soon.  Chanting through my brain, to keep me motivated- “the in-laws are coming! The In-Laws are Coming!”

They are going to walk in here and see the thinned down Big Tall Guy and think “She doesn’t feed Our Little Boy!” (He’s been on a diet and has NOT been happy when I fix good food.  Honest!)

They will see the brown, oh so brown children and say “She doesn’t put sun screen on the Precious Little Ones!”   (I do, sometimes, but especially HP will tan if he walks by a window, honest!)

But they will not see spider webs, at least in the living room.

OK- to be real- my In-Laws are great people and they would not think those things.  But it does provide great motivation!

The in-laws are coming!  The In-laws are Coming!  THE IN-LAWS ARE  COMING!

Yea!

I have talked about Privacy here before. Children don’t seem to think anyone needs any- until they reach the Teenage years. Then all they are concerned about is their own.

When my youngest is a teen, I am going to stand outside the bathroom asking over and over if she is done. I will not be satisfied when she replies that she will come out when she is done so I’ll try the door. She’ll yell that she will COME OUT WHEN SHE IS DONE! Unsatisfied still I will then lay on the floor so I can peer through the gap between the door and the floor. Then I’ll be able to ask her more specific questions as I watch her feet move about.

Are you done peeing?

Are you done washing?

Are you done with the lotion?

I’ll be laughing, I’m pretty sure she will not.

I sent HP out to the Shopee to get milk from the fridge we have out there.  Of course, KJ decided to tag along.

The Big Guy bought a new impact sprikler that shoots a long ways.  He has it going this morning between the house and the shop.  I told the kids they would have to go out to the driveway, instead of taking the path, to avoid getting wet.

When they came in- KJ announced that they didn’t go to the driveway that they ran along the path when “the sprinkler wasn’t looking!”

They are so sneaky.

I had a lovely Mothers Day.

Really.

It is often one of those days that gets lost in the Chaos of May around here.  An attempt is made by my Loving Husband to recognize the Mother of his children (that’s me!) but it is usually a special hug and a prodding of the children to say “Happy Mothers Day!”.  Believe it or not, I am content with that.

This year, I got a lovely card from him, coffee brought to me in bed, a large bottle of Arbor Mist Peach Wine (only the fancy stuff around here!) AND a Blue Tooth headset.  So now I can get ripped and drunkenly talk on the Internet for free.  LOL!  If you believe that, we need to talk.  Also a lovely meal out at Taco Bell- we really know how to live it up.

Loving Husband came at me with a strange thing in his hand, I saw a blue light flashing and as he tried to put it over my ear; I exclaimed “Is it Blue Tooth?”  He was surprised that I knew what that was, so was I.  He hooked it up and got Boo Boo on the computer.  What fun!

We are getting so high tech with Fast Internet service and Blue Tooth.  But I still have to heat up my coffee on the stove.  The poor, dead rotting hulk of a microwave still lurking on the counter is a sad reminder of what was.

Caveat: We haven’t had time to go shopping for one yet.  The choices in town are very poor so we will have to travel out of town to get one.   I just like to sound pitiful.

I drink coffee slowly.  I don’t know why, just do.  I have an insulated cup to keep it warm longer but it still gets cold before I get it down.  When this happens, I heat it up in the microwave.

Except  today, my coffee is cold and my microwave is deceased.

Gosh!

I had to warm it on the stove.  I felt like I was  in the Stone Age.