Pictures

Here's Belly dressed as Link, and Belly crying after being told to TRY the food before he decided he didn't like it. Ah, dinner time fun. My husband thinks I'm terrible because I waited to get a good pic of his pain before addressing the situation. But my fellow bloggers understand!

As for costumes, honestly I just keep putting stuff together until it works. For this one, I used the cardboard back from a coloring book to make the shield, then glued construction paper over it. The hat was a total trial and error with my fancy paper folding and heavy glue applications until it started to take shape as something he could actually put on his head.

Lately, something strange has been happening to me. I'm suddenly overly sensitive. And I don't mean for a couple of days, I mean for the last month. I'm constantly second guessing myself, worrying too much, and I find myself on the verge of tears (which is sooo not standard operating procedure for me) I know, rare is the mom who always feels like she's got it all together, right? Lately I've felt I'm dropping the ball a lot. Missed bills, late movie rentals, budget blow ups, hey, I even forgot my husband's birthday. It's like I have this massive To Do list in my head, and sometimes I'm overwhelmed. And over stimulated. Ever felt like everything is just too loud and too fast? When 3 people talk at you all at the same time, and the phone's ringing, and you just sigh because you don't know what else to do? That's how I feel. Now, I'm not going to go have a breakdown of anything as self indulgent as that, but I REALLY need to slow down this weekend and gain some perspective.

Crafty Momma

One of my little known talents is being able to whip up a costume on a day's notice out of paper towel rolls and glue. Just call me Momma McGyver. With help from a friend, I've sent my kid off as an orphan for an Annie play, St. Patrick (complete with rubber snake) and this morning, I sent Belly to school dressed as Link, from the Legend of Zelda. He even sings the song, "Link, has come to town, to SAAAAVE the Princess Zelda!"
Today is fairy tale dress up day, and I assumed Belly would want to be a prince because when I tell bedtimes stories, they are the Brave Prince Belly and the Honorable Prince Golden Boy. But no, he insisted he had to be Link. With Golden Boy and DH giving me details, I dressed little man in green pants, a brown shirt, a construction paper green hat (that HAD to be round in the front and pointy in the back, they said) with a cardboard shield and even a fairy, glued to one of Daddy's IBEW pins :)
I'm impressed, dammit.

Pictures to come as soon as I find the USB cable for my camera....

BTW I've added some rad Momma Bloggers to my blog roll. Stop by and see how great they are.

Uh Oh

I'm pretty sure DH doesn't read my blog. So any of his friends or acquaintances, don't mention this post, okay?
Yesterday was his birthday. Guess when I remembered that little fact? Yesterday morning. Was getting ready in the morning and glanced at the calendar to make sure there were no field trips or anything... and there it was. Oops.
Needless to say my gift wasn't thoughtful or even very interesting. I had to take the bus in the rain at lunch to go get one. That sucked ass.

On to bigger and better things... MARIO KART!!! I lurve Mario Kart! We were playing until well past bedtime last night because it's so much fun. Then this morning I saw an ad for WiiFit, some kind of work out thing. *sigh* is there anything the Wii can't do??

Golden Boy's new favorite website is http://icanhascheezburger.com He likes to read them out loud for Belly, and use silly voices. Yep, this is what we do at home.

Yesterday is snowed. SNOW. At the end of April. Are we in Chicago or Antarctica?!

Now if you'll excuse me, I haven't had my coffee yet, and so I'm not quite normal. I bid you good day.

Lowered Life Expectancy

There have been lots of kids on our block lately, visiting grandparents, aunts, etc. So my darling Golden Boy has been playing outside every evening. Rules were laid out plainly on Monday - stay on this block, on this street - I should be able to walk outside and see you. DO NOT go into anyone's house unless you check with your parents first. That one I gave to all the kids on the block.
Last night at 7:55 I tell GB that he has five minutes left to play, then it's time to come in. At 8pm, I look outside and see bicycles abandoned on the grass, but no children. I call his name and get no answer. Slip on my shoes and open the door to see another mom standing at my gate, asking if her kids are in my house. Umm, no. So we walk a few houses each way, calling to the kids. And let me tell you, we're loud. Not frantic nut cases, just loud. Her husband takes a look around the block in case the kids decided to press their boundaries. Nothing. Now we're starting to worry.
Finally, a kid next door opens the front door, and I hear the kids inside. They come out, I remind them of the rules, and wait for my blood pressure to return to normal.

Today, dear husband goes to the eye doctor. Allow me to preface this by saying that just yesterday I created a budget plan for us, and talked to him about it, and said we need to strictly follow this because we have some big expenses coming up (like day camp) and we need to make sure everything's covered. Well today the doctor tells him he needs some fancy ass lenses for his glasses, plus NASA grade contacts - to the tune of about $350.

To make matters worse, the parking meter ran out while he was in there, and there was a $50 ticket on the truck :(

SO now I'm going to be poor AND die young!

Human Development

Golden Boy's class is studying human development this month, or as the kids say between giggles and outright snorts, Sex Ed. Mind you, only about a quarter of the book they're reading is actually about puberty and sex. Oh, and nocturnal emissions. What fun THAT chapter will be! Most of it deals with decision making, honesty, doing the right thing, etc. It gives scenarios and asks the kids to think about how they'd handle them. One of them talks about families with adopted children, about a parent losing a job, kids cutting classes at school, things like that.
The school sent home copies of the text book ahead of time so the parents would know what the kids were learning. Golden Boy's BFF from school showed the diagram of a woman's reproductive system to my mom and said, "That's just gross. Do you see the baby in there?!"
So today Golden Boy whips out his treasured cell phone to call me after school and tell me they talked about "Umm, you know *pause* that stuff *pause* that's inside a male.... *quietly whispers* um, yeah, sperm? Well, we talked about it today." So since he's opening the dialogue here, I ask him if he understood it, if it was confusing, if he had any questions.... and instead he moves onto the next subject.

Not since my little angel was born have I felt so unsure of how to handle something as the mother of a BOY. At what age do boys er, discover themselves? When is he going to insist his little brother return to his own room, because he needs personal space? I do the laundry and change the sheets, and I'd have noticed any "emissions"... but what else do I need to be aware of?? For cripe's sake, I was never a BOY (as my husband likes to point out when I wonder why they act like savages sometimes) When we were kids we obsessed over who was getting boobs and periods first. What the heck to boys wonder about??

Ten Years

Today is our tenth wedding anniversary. When we got married, I was only 20, not even old enough to indulge in a glass of champagne (legally at least) to celebrate. My husband was only 23. We had nothing but each other, and a newborn expecting us to get our proverbial shit together and take care of him. Here we are, ten years later, and we've been through so much to get here. We've built this life, and now have two amazing sons to share it. We're both so different now, than the kids who made that pledge so many years ago, who didn't know what those words truly meant. Now they seem to take on much more significance. They're no longer abstract ideas of what love is.
Normally I don't get all sentimental about anniversaries, or commemorating certain days. But I feel like this is something BIG, something worthy of celebration. And so I shared it with all of you :)

Mad Skillz

Wasn't even planning to blog today, but Belly said something that was totally share-able yesterday.

We were playing out in the back yard, which for Belly means pushing our little swingset to it's limits. It was getting late and cold so I told him it was time to go inside. He protested loudly, and told me he was working on his swinging skills.
To this I said, "Belly, come on. You've already got mad swing skills, time to go in."

He looked at me scornfully and said, "No, I don't have MAD skills. I have HAPPY skills!"