Evan's big adventure

A year or so ago, my parents started this tradition of taking each grandchild on a trip with them each summer. They usually travel to Jacksonville once a month for my dad's job, so usually the trips are to Jacksonville. Because 3 of the grandkids are school-aged now, there were not enough Jacksonville trips to go around, so mom and dad have taken Evan with them to Pigeon Forge, TN for 3 days and 2 nights. He is having a ball. They stopped in Cherokee for a picnic yesterday afternoon and Evan enjoyed some baked beans and fried chicken. As his daddy said yesterday... that boy loves him some baked beans.

They also visited Newfound Gap.

Evan's favorite part appears to be rock-hopping and playing in the freezing cold mountain creeks.

We are thrilled he is having such a good time. That child is at his very happiest when he is with his GranNan and Poppy. Corin and I try not to take it too personally, but we know where we rate.

Meanwhile, Pressley is thoroughly enjoying her temporary role as only child. She has been a joy. I know she misses her brother though because she asks me 10 times a day, "Whes Evan?"

I never heard of a child getting shingles!

Sorry it has been a while since I've updated. I get quite annoyed when I go blog-stalking and my friends have not posted anything new, so I really have no excuse for my own neglect. We have been very busy since we got back from vacation. The biggest news is that Evan has shingles. We noticed a spot under his arm when we were on vacation that looked like something had rubbed him raw and then scabbed over a bit, but we really didn't think much of it. Then, on Friday morning when he complained about his side itching or hurting, I looked under his arm at the "spot" on his trunk and that original blister, for lack of a better term, was surrounded by about 12-15 more, smaller spots. I called my mom to ask her if she had ever seen or heard of such a thing and she had not. We spent the better part of the day on Friday with mom, Beth, Will and Abby at the pool. Friday night, I showed the new "blisters" to Corin, who thought we ought to take Evan to the doctor in the event these spots were the result of a spider bite. So, on Saturday morning while I was birthday gift shopping, Corin to Evan to the pediatrician. Diagnosis: shingles. Seriously?? I said the same thing everyone who has heard this story has said...."Shingles? I have never heard of a child getting shingles!" Some internet research has revealed the following: 1) Shingles are not all that uncommon in children; 2) adults who have had chicken pox are supposedly immune; 3) the condition is only contagious to those who have not had chicken pox and who actually touch the rash (in other words, it is not an airborne thing). So, we have kept Evan from swimming, but other than that, life has been business as usual. We just make sure he keeps his shirt on.

Pressley is still full-on in the throes of the terrible twos. One minute she melts our hearts and the next minute she tries our patience, but I guess that is to be expected. I am certain there are cute Pressley stories to be told, but I'm just drawing a blank right now. I do have a cute Evan story from the beach that I just have not had a chance to type before now. We'll title it "out of the mouths of babes, part II":

Usually Corin bathes the kids, whether in the tub or in the shower. One night while we were on vacation, it just seemed to make sense for me to bathe the kids in the shower with me. So, I had Pressley on my hip trying to get her hair rinsed out under the shower head and Evan was behind us. Suddenly, out of the blue, he says (very matter-of-factly), "Mommy. You have a big bottom." Well, true enough. I learned two important lessons from this experience: 1) it is time to get back with the program on Weight Watchers, and 2) Evan is too old (and too honest) to see me naked. Must invest in a good robe and go back to letting Corin bathe the kids.

We are home

Too tired to blog. Just wanted to let you know that the pictures are posted under Albums link on the left hand side. I must warn you that there are 163 of them. However, that is significantly less than the 500 some-odd I culled through for you. You're welcome.

Who do these kids belong to?

Ok, so I know we've been at the beach for over a week now. There was one rain day when we went to the jumping place, but imagine my surprise this morning when children who supposedly belong to me say they do not want to go to the beach OR the pool today. What?!? Seriously?!? Children who tire of the beach? Surely these are not the same children I gave birth to. Nevertheless, we decided to go roll with it and take the opportunity to do something different, so we went on a dolphin cruise. It was fun. We saw lots of dolphins and the kids even got to "drive" the boat. I'll post photos when we get home. Right now I'm on a courtesy workstation computer at the Marriott and I'm thinking that figuring out how to post pictures from here will be way too complicated for me to figure out. Later alligators...

The party's over (almost)

My kids are down for their naps and Beth's are outside having their pictures made by the family photographer, so it is quiet here for a brief moment. The extended family is headed home tomorrow and my family is moving to the Marriot for a few more days since Corin missed the first part of the week. As much as I love being with the whole family, I will be glad to have a somewhat calmer few days. The cousins love each other to death, but the longer they are all together, the more they act like siblings -- and not in a good way. We have had a ball. The weather has been great until Corin got here. It rained most of the day yesterday and off and on today. Yesterday, Corin, Beth, and I took the kids to a jumping place just off the island. They thoroughly enjoyed it. I took a bunch of photos that I will try to post later. Today we managed to get about 45 minutes at the beach this morning and about 2 hours this afternoon, as well as a little time at the pool.

This will be my last entry until after we get home. I've been using my dad's laptop, so I'll be offline for a few days now. We'll be back on Wednesday, so look for new photos on Thursday.

Greetings from Hilton Head

I don't have much time to blog. It is utter chaos around here most of the time. I am so glad to have my "village" around me with my kids. I tell you - it is certainly taking a village to raise these kids this week. I have learned to do pretty well for myself at home, but add the excitement of two cousins, the beach and the pool, and suddenly I definitely need the village. I can't wait until Corin arrives Wednesday night. I miss his company. And I miss my helper. I have always known that Corin is a great husband and SUPER daddy, but when he is gone, I appreciate him even more.

My dad has already taken about 250 photos. You think I'm kidding.... I've tried to upload some of the photos, but I am encountering some sort of error. If I can work out the kinks, I'll post some.

Corin is home!

I finally have my husband back - briefly. Corin finished up the brief he's been working on last night around 6:15. I picked him up from work and we went straight to meet Chad and Jennifer at the Trace Adkins concert at Chastain. It was awesome!! This concert was my birthday present from Corin and we were "in the pit" right behind the tables. So, our view was fantastic. Last summer when we saw Vince Gill, the only way we could see who was on stage was to look at the monitors. Not so this time. We had such a good time. (I even shook my honky-tonk bedonk-a-donk a little.) It was a nice way to spend a little time with my hubby after not seeing him all week. I will try to post a few pics when Jennifer sends them to me. Don't worry. There are none to document the bedonk-a-donk shaking.

This was our view of the stage from our seats. Close enough to see him sweat!

This is the man that sat behind us that looked like he could've been Trace's dad. So, of course, we had to have our picture made with him.

The packing didn't go so well yesterday, but I finished packing about 30 minutes ago and the plan is to have lunch with Corin and then the kids and I will drive to Hilton Head this afternoon. Corin's hearing is Wednesday in Delaware, so he will fly to Savannah that night and spend the rest of the week with us. Right now we're trying to find a place to stay for a couple more nights after my family leaves next Saturday so Corin gets more than 2 days of vacation. I'm fairly sure he has earned about 2 months as hard as he's been working lately....

If my dad takes his laptop, I'll try to post entries and photos from HH.

Preparing for the beach

I've been trying all morning to start getting our clothes together at least for the beach trip that is supposed to start tomorrow. The kids have been jumping on the beds, knocking over carefully stacked piles of clothes, etc. Now, my youngest child - who is not potty trained, mind you - has decided that she'd like to spend the entire morning in her birthday suit. No amount of coaxing can get her into a pull-up or pants or a shirt. So, I'm now reduced to following her around the house saying, "Are you sure you don't have to pee-pee? How about now?" This all probably stems from the fact that she decided this morning she wanted to change her own diaper. Really?? Then she insisted on putting her own pants on. Fine. We've been building up to that for a while. But THEN, she found a pair of bloomers I was trying to pack and insisted she wanted to wear them as a top. She spent about 15 minutes walking around the house trying to squeeze her little head and arms into the leg holes of the bloomers....squawking all the while about the difficulty. So, she has already spent the better part of the morning topless. Anyhow, I have resigned myself to the fact that I will now have to clean up pee at some point in addition to all the other stuff I have to do.

In addition to all the drama with Pressley, Evan has decided to collect all the stuffed animals, blankets, pillows, and books he can find and create a big pile in the middle of the floor. Lovely. He is calling the pile our "presents" and making me come look at the "presents" every five seconds. Arrrgggh.

OK, update on the Pressley situation. She has peed, but on the hardwoods, which is actually the best-case scenario. And, it grossed her out so much she happily accepted a pull-up from me, although she is insisting, of course, that she put it on herself (which, as I type, has still not happened). Well, back to the grind. Thanks for "listening." Hilton Head or bust....

From the mouths of babes

Dialogue at tonight's dinner...
Me: Evan, please eat your meat and not just your noodles.
Evan: (annoyed, with a huff) Mommy, I'm eating the nipples AND the meat.
Me: You mean the noodles?
Evan: Yeah. The noodles.

What the heck is the point of a swim diaper??

Warning: For those of you who do not have kids under the age of six, you might want to hit the back button on your browser and check back another day. If you do choose to keep reading, I'll try not to make it too graphic. As for my friend Shay, she should feel right at home since her blog is all about her child's bodily functions....

So, we've been spending a lot of time with my sister and her kids this summer. Since Beth is a teacher, she and Will and Abby are free for the summer to play with us. One of the things we've been doing is taking in the free weekday movies at the Mall of Georgia. Don't ask me if I have calculated how much these free movies are costing me in gas at $4 a gallon to get all the way up to the Mall of GA. I have indeed done the calculation and I am blocking it from my mind. The point of these outings is more about getting out of the house and spending time with cousins than about getting something for nothing. I'm just glad I don't have to pay for the movie on top of the gas it takes to get there. Anyhow, we went to one of these movies this morning and I thought it would be fun to throw the kids' bathing suits in the car so that after lunch we could let the kids play in the fountains outside the food court. (For those of you not familiar with the Mall of GA, this is an acceptable summer activity. We did not get chased away by mall security.) I'm guessing from that if you read the title of this entry, you are starting to see where this is headed. Pressley, ahem, made a deposit in her swim diaper. I was not aware of this until it was time to go. When I scooped my child up in the mostly-white beach towel I brought to dry the kids off, I smelled trouble. When I unwrapped the towel, I realized the extent of the trouble. In addition to being a gross mess, Pressley was also refusing to acknowlege that the fun was over, so to add insult to injury, I had to carry her to all the way to the car. Ick! My point is this: I don't know what a swim diaper is designed to do, but it clearly is not designed to contain all deposits. When I got home, I had not choice but to strip all of her clothes off (and mine) and throw everything into a hot, bleachy washing machine and hope for better luck next time.

Well, if you have stuck with me through all of that, I'll reward you with a cute Pressley story to get that mental picture out of your mind and replace it with another. Before said fountain incident, the movie of the day was Alvin and the Chipmunks. Though we have seen it a thousand times at home, we saw it for the first time in the theater. While Pressley was still paying attention, there was a scene where one of the chipmunks jumps onto Dave's forehead and they spin around in a big physical comedy gag. All the kids in the theater were hooting, of course. Pressley began chuckling when she heard everyone else laughing and then looked up at me with a big smile and said "That's funny, Mommy." I'm not sure she knew what was funny about it, but she was having a good time, and that is all that matters. (I'm also not sure that the story is funny in print becuase half of what made it so cute was the way she said it. But, I wanted to end on a less disgusting note, so you got the story whether it is funny or not.)

Its the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Do you remember when you were a kid in Sunday school or pre-school or day camp and you would get those little cups with a seed in them and you were supposed to take it home and plant it and learn something about life and nature, etc.? I have no recollection from my childhood of ever having one that grew into anything but a nuisance. Anywho, back around Easter, Evan brought home this little biodegradable cup from Sunday school. In it, he informed us, was a pumpkin seed. He was eager to plant the thing, and since the one thing we've never done since we moved into this house is plant any decent landscaping, Corin found a little spot in our border bed to plant the little guy. We were all very excited later in the spring when the little green shoots sprouted up through the mulch. Evan got more and more excited as it grew. He was just sure we would be growing our own pumpkins by fall. I was skeptical, but tried not to be a kill-joy. Then the thing flowered and I became a believer. Now, we are 3 months in, and the little pumpkin seed that could has taken over our entire yard. OK, not the entire yard (though that would not be impossible given that our entire yard is smaller than an endzone), but at least 20 feet of the "flower bed" we planted it in.

I don't know if you can appreciate the size of this thing from the pictures, but it is enormous. (There is monkey grass or some such thing that lines the entire bed and the pumpkin vine is behind it with the big, big leaves. I'm a city girl, so I would not have been able to tell the difference between said grass and said vine before this experience, so I'm just guessing that some of you may have need help as well.) So, if anyone out there reading this doesn't have time to make it to Burt's Pumpkin Farm come October, feel free to stop on by and pick up one of ours. I promise I'll post a picture of all the jack-o-lanterns we make for Halloween. Actually, my brother-in-law reports that if we let all the flowers turn into pumpkins, none of them will grow bigger than softballs. Rather, to get decent sized pumpkins we need to pinch off some of the blooms. Who knew? But, I think that Evan will be more impressed by number than size, so we'll just let them all go and see what happens.

The Maine event

Sorry it has been a while since I wrote. Last Friday, Corin's uncle Bill passed away after a long battle with cancer. So on Sunday, Corin and I traveled to Maine for the wake and the funeral. While I only had the pleasure of being around Bill twice (once at my wedding and another time when he was in town for a conference), I have heard many a story and know he was lovable and loved. Bill was Corin's godfather, and Corin has had the honor of being godfather to Bill's delightful daughter, Barbara. Barbara once came to stay with us when she was on her way to study abroad in New Zealand when she was 16 or so. She was lovely and intelligent then, and she has grown into a beautiful and talented young woman. She delivered the most moving eulogy at her father's funeral that I have ever heard. (The priest also said it was the most beautiful eulogy he had heard in 22 years of performing funerals.) As a parent, I can only pray that my children will have such wonderful things to say about me when I'm gone. I wish I had a copy of it so I could share it with you, but I'll have to just settle for saying it was quite a tribute.

After the funeral services, Corin and I had a relaxing afternoon driving around coastal Maine and taking in the sights before we drove back to Boston to fly home the next morning. We walked along some really scenic beaches and ate lobster on the shore while the waves lapped over the rocks ten feet from our table. I did not have my camera because the occasion for the trip was not happy and it never occured to me to take a camera. However, it did occur to me that I didn't know when I might make it back to this beautiful part of the country, so the least I could do was capture some of it on my camera phone. The quality of the photos is not ideal, but you'll get the idea.

The harbor at an old civil war fort that we visited near Kittery, Maine.

The bird that sat at our table and begged for bread the entire time we were eating. This photo was taken from my seat at the dinner table at the restaurant.

The view from the bench where Corin and I sat for 20 minutes just talking and watching the waves break over that cluster of rocks in the bottom left corner. Very relaxing... If I had had my real camera with me, you'd be able to make out that sailboat in the center of the frame a little better.