Quote of the Day

My parents are visiting us this weekend to help watch the baby while my husband puts up our much needed fence (our dogs always think the grass is greener on the other side, in this case our neighbors yard), while I work on in house things.

My seventy-four-year-old dad, due to his age, was designated the "official babysitter" for the weekend. So he can sit down and take it easy while making sure our toddler doesn't put her fingers in the light sockets, doesn't eat anything off the floor, and doesn't get into anything that she shouldn't.

But since Olivia loves to run and be chased, it's more of him sitting down in a comfortable chair, her running into the kitchen, him getting up to bring her back, him sitting down, then her running into the library, him getting up again to go get her, him sitting down again - the process never ending. After awhile, what's the use of sitting in a chair at all he says. Poor dad, oh well, Happy Father's Day! Anyway, in the midst of his anxiety he yelled, "Someone turn on that purple boy show!"


I guess Barney, the dinosaur, has a new name - the illustrious Purple Boy.

But I ask you, does anyone really know if Barney is indeed a boy? Or perhaps the now deceased televangalist, Reverend Jerry Falwell, would have a different take all together: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/276677.stm

The Things We Try Even Though There Isn't Any Damn Way

Picture of Emmy
Tonight, just after my husband arrived home, we decided to head for the park with two dogs and a toddler in tow. Olivia has finally learned to walk by herself and it took about ten minutes to pass two houses just to get to the park with the two dogs wanting to walk a million miles a minute while the toddler was well, toddling along behind – slowly.

At the park, Stephane headed over to the tennis court on site. He had the great idea for all of us to go inside, lock ourselves in and let the dogs and baby run free, uninhibited. After a few minutes, my husband gets the crazy idea that our dog, Emmy, who is a Labrador/Greyhound mix, can intuitively, if challenged, jump over the tennis court net, just like a poodle would do jumping through a hoop.

Now we all know how high a tennis court net is (unless you’ve been living under a rock all your life), and we all know that even for us to get over a tennis court net, we have to walk up to it, slowly put one leg over and then manipulate our other leg over, all while balancing ourselves and not falling over. So how is a medium size dog that took me a whole year just to train to sit, going to find the ambition to suddenly jump over a tennis court net, and the second question is, why?

But in any case, my husband felt she would do it. So he ran around the tennis net to the other side, called her, and then she came bounding toward him, went to the side where she could walk through between the two nets, and arrived next to him. Wagging her tail and happy as a clam.

“See I told you she wouldn’t do it. She’s not that dumb.”

“No, I think she will.”

So he ran again over to the other side of the net, yelled for her to come, and just like before, she ran around and met him there again. Wagging her tail, happy as a clam.

“How many times are you going to try this?”

But my words mean nothing when my husband is trying to prove something. After several times, he had Emmy, Daisy, and our toddler, Olivia, all coming to him when he called only now all three of them were walking to the end of the net and going through the opening of the two side by side tennis courts. Even Olivia, who just turned 15 months, was smart enough to know it would be a lot easier to follow the dogs and walk around than to try to jump over the tennis court net like “daddy” was proposing. There was no jumping the net for any of the three.

So I give my husband credit, because he tried, but even if he put two dog biscuits and a baby teething biscuit on the other side, there wasn't any damn way, any of them was even remotely considering jumping that tennis court net. But the good thing is that he tired them out with walking several times around that tennis court and right now, all three are sound asleep so I can write this. Now that’s progress.

Getting Ready for Grandma's House

How I long for the days when we grabbed a change of clothing, bagged up our toothbrushes, jumped in the car and left for places unknown and of course “the parents house”. That was before family hood. Now it’s a regular event just to get ready to go to the actual event.

This weekend, a three hour drive away, will be my niece’s and nephew’s graduation party on Saturday. Both my husband and I just got home from a long work week and several things need to be done before we can leave for this trip: the lawn has to be mowed, the baby has to have a bath (her hair is sticky on one side), the litter box needs changed, all the pets need food for the weekend, we have to eat dinner and then we can start packing. Clothes for all, diapers (not for all), diaper wipes, toys, socks, clothes if it gets cold, clothes if it gets hot, pajamas, baby barrettes, camera for the party, two cards and two graduation gifts. I have to find a good book to bring because my sister doesn’t have cable, makeup, a brush, throw away any food that won’t make it until Sunday from the refrigerator, and we have to do laundry because I am out of underwear and we all (at one time in our life) have thought well, we’ll just go without it until we have time to do laundry. And that one experience was all that we needed to know, to never do it again.

And that is just the precursor to leaving for only a weekend trip with a baby. Maybe we just shouldn’t go and spend a nice relaxing weekend at home. (And the second I make this decision I know my mother will find out and I will start to receive a plethora of phone calls on my answering machine saying, “Debbie, where are you!”

And how do I know this? I received a guilt trip for the past month for deciding to go on our vacation (which we planned a year in advance) instead of going to the yearly family reunion. Let's see, a family reunion in the country eating fried chicken and sitting on fold away chairs or a Florida resort drinking margaritas and sitting on the beach. Hmm. Such hard decisions I have to make.

“But are you sure you don’t want to change your plans to come home a few days early and go to the family reunion?”

“No mother.”

“But. . .”

“No mother.”

Stay tuned because I have two vacation stories to post, and they are quite funny if I do say so myself. Just to give you a little idea so you will come back and read it.

The first story is about our Vacation in 2006 in Williamsburg and Hilton Head. I wrote this awhile back and never published it because I couldn’t find the pictures. And believe me; you have to see the pictures. I couldn’t figure out which title is better for this one. Either-
A Hurricane, a Cockroach, and a Cat
-Or-
A Hurricane, an Immensely Hairy Man and a Cat
(Cast your votes now. No, really don’t. I'm not as advanced as American Idol where you can call in and vote. And pay a $1 for it of course.)

The second story about our Vacation last week in Florida is,
Hotel Ceiling Chains, a Kentucky Faith Healer and Yes, another Cockroach

There were a lot of crazy things that happened. I’m not sure if I’m just around when craziness happens, or that I have an aura that draws this craziness to my life. Maybe it’s a unique perspective to see the insanity in everyone and everything. In any case, I hope it doesn’t indicate that I’m going to have some mental disability when I’m old and gray and be one of those people who end up in a mental ward, where I talk to myself and look out of iron barred windows saying, “Birdie, birdie.”