Caitlin’s running commentary as she devours a bag of Sponge Bob fruit snacks, but not before carefully examining each one before she plops it in her mouth…
“Patrick is naked!”
“Squidward is NOT naked!”
“Sponge Bob is not naked! But he is naked at night. At night he only wears his underwear!”
This might be a sign that our new guilty parenting indulgence of letting the girls watch Sponge Bob while we finish dinner in peace might be a little out of hand.
I have fought the good fight against the full blown kid birthday party for Caitlin. However, this is her last summer at daycare and she wants to invite her entire class to join in the celebration. It will be a great way for her to enjoy time with some of her friends before they all part ways in August to attend various elementary schools. I keep telling myself that.
We’re having a family cookout on her actual birthday, followed up by a small weekend party at the generic Chuck E. Cheese in town. I’m using the term small lightly, as their are 17 kids in her class. But considering one of my co-workers told me they had 100 guests, including parents, at a pool party for her 6-year-old son last year, a guest list of 17 seems doable, especially when we don’t have to deal with the post-party cleanup. That and the fact that I have a 10 percent off coupon for a party package makes me a happy mama.
But our birthday girl dreams big and I’ve had to reel her in a few times when she starts with the crazy birthday party talk. In the past few weeks she’s told me she wants a pony and then a horse at her party and at one point she was practically begging me to book her party at either a bounce center or Chuck E. Cheese. The bounce center was definitely not an option as it is way on the other side of town. Now there is a Chuck E. Cheese about 20 minutes from our house but why drive so far when we have a lovely generic Chuck E Cheese, which I shall call Chuck E. Lite, at our local mall, which is only 5 minutes away?
So I told Caitlin that Chuck E. Cheese was far, far away from our house. So far that some of her friends might not be able to attend her party if we held it there. Then I pumped up the idea of Chuck E. Lite.
Caitlin’s response, “But mommy, didn’t God build a LOT of Chuck E. Cheese’s?”
The days of me being able to tell her Chuck E. Cheese is practically on another planet are slowly grinding to a halt.
She is so on to me.
Warning: This post is oozing with girliness and you may find it revolting. But I want to win this freakin’ tutu.
I saw this 5 Minutes for Mom fantasy tutu contest promoted at Island Life and I cannot resist these tutus! Especially with a soon to be 5-year-old who may soon be breaking in her first pair of ballet slippers. (If mama will stop procrastinating and register her for classes.) I think most little girls go through a ballerina stage and pretty much anything to distract my girls from the Bratz sensation is cool with me. And frankly it wouldn’t be so bad to add a little more girliness around here since we brought home a burping Shrek doll from McDonald’s. (Read on …)
Waterfall, originally uploaded by blondemom.
Operation Head to the Mountains Without the Kids or Cell Phone Service or Internet Access for 48 hours was a rousing success!
The hubby and I went to the North Georgia Mountains this weekend. We have never spent the night away from both girls and we wanted to get away for a little belated 10th anniversary celebration without Dora, Diego, or Boots interrupting our thought processes. Plus, we’re going to the beach with the girls in a few weeks and we figured we’d start resting up now.
It sounds cliche, but it was indeed a luxury to lounge in bed, on the couch, and on the front porch of the cabin without anyone pushing the mama concierge button for juice, snacks, or assistance in the potty. We went hiking on Saturday and saw several beautiful waterfalls and a gorgeous mountain lake. We also scoped out Helen, Georgia, for a possible family trip this fall or next spring. We stayed in a cabin in Blairsville, Georgia, a rural area on the other side of the Chattahoochee National Forest. The hubby surprised me by booking the exact cabin we had stayed in 12 years ago when we were a few months away from becoming engaged. We marveled a lot this weekend about how much our lives have changed in that time. Way back in 1995, he was living in Florida and had faxed the directions to me at my office in Nashville because neither of us had e-mail. (Gasp.) I’m still amazed that I found the cabin by myself back then after we retraced my original trip along the meandering highway that follows the Ocoee River because neither of us had cell phones at that time, either. (Double gasp.)
Blairsville is in a dry county, so we bought our favorite champagne and some wine before we headed out of town. We also made a Target run. Priorities, people. Priorities.
Any way this morning on the trip home we realized we had committed the ultimate vacation foul. We left a nearly full bottle of Merlot on the counter in our cabin.
I didn’t need waterproof mascara for preschool graduation after all (although I might need it to read this post.) I was too busy laughing, smiling, and trying to get the perfect picture. It was like the parent preschool paparazzi in the aisles! The kids said the pledge of allegiance and then assembled in the back of the church so they could march up to the stage to Pomp and Circumstance in their shiny red caps and gowns. The hubby shot a fantastic video and even put finishing touches on the final movie with a photo montage. I don’t know about you, but we definitely don’t take enough video of our kids. There was cake and punch and balloons in the church basement. There were little girls twirling in dresses and holding hands. There was a toddler shoving strawberries in her mouth as fast as she could eat them. (That would be Amelia.)
I heard this song on the radio this morning on the way to work and somehow it just seems to fit.
My Wish
Rascal Flatts
I hope that the days come easy and the moments pass slow,
And each road leads you where you want to go,
And if you’re faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
And if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin’ till you find the window,
If it’s cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile,
But more than anything, more than anything,
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.
I hope you never look back, but ya never forget,
All the ones who love you, in the place you left,
I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
And you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God’s grace, in every mistake,
And you always give more than you take.
But more than anything, yeah, and more than anything,
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.
There is a little boy in Caitlin’s pre-K class. I will call him Stephen. As in Stephen King Jr.
Apparently he loves to scare the girls. He knows all about Spiderman, monsters, “ghostes,” and strangers with knives.
Yes, strangers with knives.
One afternoon last week Caitlin was her usual excited, hyper self when I picked her up at daycare. She grabbed my hand and insisted that I go out to the playground to see the house on the hill, which in reality is a small storage shed behind the play ground, just on the other side of the fence. And then she said something about a stranger hiding a knife in the house on the hill.
WHAT?!!!
My heart stopped for a second. As she continued talking nonchalantly about her day’s activities I realized that Stephen King Jr. was at it again.
I told her he was just teasing her and that the “house” was no house, but a storage shed and that there was no mean stranger with a knife. I told her that school was a safe place and that no strangers can come in as they have door locks with a special code. I also told her to please go straight to her teacher the next time Stephen King Jr. tells a scary story about strangers with knives.
Now apparently Stephen has gone back to spinning somewhat harmless tales about Spiderman and “ghostes,” which I can tolerate a little better. She’s not mentioned the strangers with knives story again.
It’s a good thing, too, because the mama whoop ass can is on the shelf, just waiting to be opened.
Oh, and little girl at the playground last weekend who returned Caitlin’s heartfelt “bye” with a snotty “bye BABY!” and shutting your car door, thereby making Caitlin cry? The mama whoop ass can is also waiting for you.
Speaking of school, Caitlin’s preschool graduation is tonight…the cameras are charged up! Now, I’m off to find some waterproof mascara.
