My Darlings

Anna and Jonathan after Anna's dance class last week. Aren't they so cute??? I love my little darlings!

I'm getting surgery on Wednesday...

And THIS is what I am worrying about:

1.) Did I get my son the correct pencils when we went school shopping this morning? It said regular, # 2 pencils, which I understood to be the skinny ones, but other people have to get their upcoming kindergartners the fat ones. Fat pencils, skinny pencils? Did I read the list right? What if I got the wrong ones? I can't stop thinking about this. School starts in 3 weeks.
2.) I forgot to cover a plate while reheating some pasta for Jon, and now the top of my microwave is all splattered and nasty. I am concerned about this, in case someone who is 4 feet tall comes into my home to judge my cleanliness. Because the only way I can even see the offending tomato sauce is if I bend way down and crane my neck up.
3.) Am I going to need to remove my nail polish when I go in for surgery? Because that is really going to irritate me, because I really love the shade I have on, and I don't own the shade. I put it on at someone's house, and it will be hard to bend over and polish my toenails after my surgery. Although, this might be justification for a pedicure next week? I can't go around with naked toenails, not in the summer time, especially not since my feet probably won't even FIT into real shoes right now. I have practically worn my Rainbow flip flops every day since March. Even though they are green and don't match most of what I wear.
4.) My bathtub is dirty. I really, really, want to clean it. I keep thinking that I should clean it before I get my surgery, because I won't want to clean it afterwards. But then doing anything like that aggravates my pain.
5.) My chin seems fatter than usual. I am wondering if my face is swelling from not feeling well, or if I am gaining weight? Which would not seem fair, since I have not been eating very much, and the scale says I have actually lost a little weight since last week. But if so, then why does my chin look fatter?
6.) I have a mole on my arm that I am really worried about. I think it might need to be removed. I am convinced that the 12 minutes total in my entire life that I have spent in a tanning bed has given me immediate skin cancer. I am really, really worried about this mole.
Not the cyst that is being taken out, along with my left ovary and left Fallopian tube, that will be biopsied. I am irrationally concerned that this mole is the real concern, and here I am worrying about my ovary, while this mole is being allowed to develop out of control! AAAHHH!
7.) I am reading a novel called Bed Rest and I am not sure I want to keep reading it. I am pretty sure the pregnant lady and her husband are going to split up. I want to tell the girl in the book, Stop! You aren't really mad at your husband! At some point in most pregnancies, you just stop liking your husband. It has nothing to do with your husband, it is simply that you don't like ANYBODY. Especially if you are on bed rest. Because everyone who has the freedom to come and go as they please just irritates the crap out of you! Especially your husband, even though he is just coming and going to work, not really as he pleases, because he is the only one you can pin any blame on for your situation! He is the only other one beside yourself that had any part in getting you in this situation in the first place. Therefore, he stinks. So I am worrying, because I think the book is going in a direction I don't like, but then I really want to know what happens with the baby... I just wanted a relaxing chick-lit book to read. I didn't expect it to get all serious and tense.
So I am having surgery on Wednesday, and these are the sort of things that are occupying my mind. I have never had surgery, never been put under, but I am really not concerned. I am worrying about getting my house cleaned, finishing my final for my class today or tomorrow, the nursery at church next week does not have enough volunteers, placing my AVON order on time, how busy August is going to be, MY BABY BOY IS GOING TO START KINDERGARTEN AND HE MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE THE RIGHT PENCILS!!!, and other miscellaneous items...

Another Running Record from my class

This time I had to observe and write down everything my subject child (Anna) did while engaged in sociodramatic play. (She was playing house with her cousin, T.) I wish I could fit the video on here, but it was too long. Their facial expressions are hysterical to watch. I did a dramatic reading of this to Dave. He was cracking up and saying, You can't make this stuff up!

July 23, 2009 Recorder: Jamie Dooley
Child: ANNA DOB: 12/22/05
Setting: Anna & her 4 year old cousin T. playing house together.
A: Let’s play baby dolls, T! T: I wanna play Vampire House! A: NO! T! I wanna play regular house! I want to play baby dolls together! T: NO! VAMPIRE HOUSE! A: IT’ WHAT I SAY! Not a vampire house! T: Anna, it’s just called a vampire house, we just like to scare people! A: Oh, okay. We’ll just call it that.
A sits in rocking chair, holding baby in lap. T. stands at nearby play kitchen, cooking with pots and pans. A taps the top of the toy counter and says: Pretend this is the oven. T takes play food and sits it on top of the counter. A: DON’T TOUCH THE OVEN! T stops and looks at her. A: It’s hot! T shrugs his shoulders. T: I don’t care if it’s hot! T touches the “oven” again. A: This is a real oven, I not kidding you!!! T: It doesn’t look like it! A: It doesn’t look like it, but it’s really, really real! T: I don’t care! T. walks away. A: standing up from the rocker, It’s really really real! It’ll KILL you! T: I don’t care if it kills me!
A: Hey! We can put our babies in that! T. has walked over and selected a toy stroller to push. T: I don’t want to push our babies! I have to mow the lawn! Anna and T get in a struggle over the stroller, her pulling the front, and him pulling the handle from the back. A: I don’t want it to be a lawnmower! T: I had it first! A: It’s not a lawnmower! T, it’s for our baby walking! T: I had it first Anna! A: No! Gimme it! T: I HAD IT FIRST! T: How about we share it? A: I don’t want to make it a lawnmower! A takes it forcefully, puts her baby doll inside, and runs away. T: Maybe I can ask Jonathan for help. T
then finds a shopping cart. To himself, he says, Oh! He picks up a baby doll carrier, and runs after A. T: Anna, here you go, it’s for you to take care of the babies. A: Thank you, T. But you can’t have the stroller! T: No! I don’t need it! I’m going to use the shopping cart for lawnmowing! A: OK! T comes back into room, jumping up and down, pushing the shopping cart. T: I’m a jumping bunny rabbit! A: We can be a jumping bunny rabbit family! T: Ok! A: You be the daddy bunny, and I’ll be the mommy bunny. T and A sit down together and play with an Ernie doll. T: I didn’t know this can zip up! A: We can take off the coat! A: Can we take off the coat, T? T: Yeah. A: How??? I’m the Mommy, and you are the Daddy, T, and we have a baby. Her name is still Ballerina. A: Hey, I have a new baby! T: Where? A: Here, I’ll show you! T leaves room. A follows him: Let’s play house! T: I have to go potty. A: Oh, I do too! T uses potty. A: T, you shouldn’t touch the sides, ‘cause it has germs on it. T: I know! A: Are you done, cause I have to go potty too! T: Well, go use the other one! A: No, that one pinches me. T: Yeah, it pinches me too. A: Do you have 2 bathrooms at your house? T: Yeah, One doesn’t pinches my butt, and one does. T gets up. A: Here, can you hold this please? T: Sure, I’ll hold the baby, you go potty. T holds the baby while A takes a turn at the potty. Then they swap the baby back and forth while they take turns washing hands. T: I am an alien. A: That baby is not an alien! WE ARE PLAYING HOUSE! T. throws the baby down, takes his shirt off, and says, I’m done! I’m going to have a fightdown! A. sighs and stomps her foot, picks baby back up, and goes to sit down by herself.

One of the funniest things about this was how carefully Anna and T swapped the baby back and forth while they were taking turns using the potty, and washing their hands (I know this wasn't sanitary!) but then T abruptly ended the game, and threw the baby down. He was over playing house! He rips his shirt off, all Incredible Hulk-like, and ran off to find Jonathan and have a "fightdown."

Summer Fun

The four cousins have spent a lot of time together this summer. I am so glad we live near each other! From left, Jonathan, 5, Justine, 11, Trystan, 4 and Anna, 3. They were at the zoo, being sea turtle researchers.

This box entertained them for a long time the other day, and then it turned into an all out war over who the box actually belonged to. Hearing them fight over the empty box that is one of many used to hold their too-many-toys irritated me, and they were put to bed early.

Jonathan wanted to eat his food inside the box.

Anna thinks our Fazoli's after Sunday church routine is the MOST FUN EVER! Love that enthusiasm for pasta! I mean, that look on her face? That's really how I feel about pasta, but as an adult, I have to control myself and act a little more nonchalant and restrained.

10 Things I Hate About Me

1.) My inability to remember which switch is the fan, which is the light. What switch does what. I have lived here for over six years now, and I still can't keep it straight. I still don't know which switch turns on my kitchen light or my dining room light. Do either of the switches on the wall between the kitchen and the dining room have anything to do with the kitchen? Or are they both designated for the dining room? If my life depended on it, I could not tell you. I am like a stranger here. I also don't really know where anything is in my own kitchen. And I do cook in it quite often.
2.) My inability to keep my house clean. I don't know how other women do it. I really can't figure out what I am doing wrong. What is the secret here? It's not just dust and dirt, it's the clutter. Maybe I can blame this on my children? I seem to have noticed that parents spend their children's childhood blaming everything on them, and children grow up to spend their adulthood blaming everything on their parents.
3.) My stupid conversational tics. Like my habit of trying to anticipate what another person is saying, to the point where I am cutting them off and trying to finish their sentences for them. I am really just trying to understand what others are saying, but I annoy myself and I must annoy others too. Also, saying "like" too much. I thought I would outgrow this. I thought it had something to do with being young. Now I am not so young anymore...How wrong will it be when I am 70 and saying "like" all the time? Or maybe all the old people will talk like this. Maybe the trend 40 years from now will be for people to speak concisely and meaningfully.
4.) My tendency to spend 3 hours worrying about everything I said and did in a group setting for every 1 hour that I actually spend in a group setting. For example, I was at a leadership meeting for church this morning, and it was 2 hours long, and it ended around 11, so it was not until about 6 PM that I stopped obsessing over my behavior. That was 7 hours spent worrying, but I had to allot myself an extra hour because I felt especially stupid and unable to shut up this morning. I feel sorry for my husband because everytime I leave a social gathering, we get in the car, smiling and waving goodbye, like normal people, and then as we drive away, I launch into my, Did I say anything stupid? What do you think so-and-so thought when I said that? Do you think they know that I actually meant THIS? And yes, I know there are drugs to help people like me. I've tried them and they make me fat.
5.) My terrible habit of procrastination. My class is over in a week. I have none of my assignments done. Not one. I have not read a single chapter since the midterm. I have not started on the final exam. I also have a test in Orlando (part of the coursework I am taking through the state) one week from today. I have not looked at any of the materials since I finished the class over a month ago. So now I have a crazy amount of stuff to do and will be stressed out this week. If I could just accept, OK, I'm a procrastinator, but I always get stuff done, and in general, tend to do well.... But no. I make lists all the time, I think about everything I have to do all the time, I worry over my lists all the time, all without actually doing any work towards accomplishing anything. If I could spend a quarter of my time and effort actually doing stuff rather than just agonizing over how it is not getting done, or feeling guilty because I am not doing it, then I would be able to do so much more with my life. What I do is just spin my wheels. I burn a lot of fuel without getting anywhere. I wish I could change. Either start pacing myself, or say, okay, I am not going to even think about that pile of stuff until July 19th. Either of these options would help me considerably, in the feeling-less-crazy department.
6.) The way I can't seem to savor anything. If I am reading a good book, I just keep reading it, as fast as I can, and then I get to the end so quickly, and I am so disappointed. Why didn't I slow down? Why didn't I put it down after each chapter and either let my thoughts settle, laugh a little more at the humor, or let my anticipation build if it is a suspenseful book? Now the book is done and I wish I had spent more time with it. Also, food. Last night, I went to dinner with a friend and we split a really decadent desert. Did I eat my half slowly, lingering over each delicious bite? No! I ate it like it was a chore, or a race. (We had separate plates so it was not like I was competing for my half or anything.) It was as if someone had asked me, stopwatch in hand, How fast can you clean that plate? Ok! GO! Or the way I check my watch 10 or 15 times during a movie... trying to calculate, factoring in the previews, and the listed movie length time, just how many minutes are left in the movie? Am I bored or displeased with the movie? No! I just feel a compulsion to know how much time I have left to enjoy it. When I used to attend yoga class, I would check my watch. Yep. Turn on the Indiglo on my Timex to sneak a peek to see how much time was left in the class. I wanted to laugh out loud when the instructor would say at the end, Feel yourself coming back into your body.... Umm, I never left! I've been here the whole time, and if you could hear what I was thinking, all the thoughts that have been racing through my head, you would probably declare me hopeless in the Yoga department.
7.) My inability to give up hope that beauty products can make me more beautiful or make my hair less frizzy, or make my eyelashes more voluminous, or whatever it is. I can't give up hope that you can buy improvement for your appearance at Target. I fall for new beauty products far too often. I see the commercial, and yes, I think some small irrational part of me thinks that I might actually look like Penelope Cruz if I can obtain this product she is endorsing. Or whoever it is... doesn't really matter, chances are, I'd rather look like her than me. Even more ridiculous is when I let advertisements convince me I have a problem that I really don't have. Like deep smile lines or crow's feet. I'm just not there yet, but I am worried, and I wonder if I should go ahead and start using this product, as a precautionary measure... Or maybe I do have this problem, but I've been waltzing through life, 29 years old, completely unaware and therefore still happy, not knowing that my pores are huge and congested. Now I go look in the mirror, and I think, Oh, goodness. How could I not have seen this before? I am even uglier than I thought!

I am too tired and feeling too insecure to figure out the other 3 things right now. I am sure you can pick out at least 3 more things I hate about me from the above list, like how I get tired at 8:45 PM, or how insecure I am about EVERYTHING. Or maybe you can just think of your own 3 things you hate about me. But please if you do, don't leave them as comments. I don't think my ego can withstand it right now. Good night.

Anna's New Teeth

AFTER THE CROWNS very fake smile. She's so silly. No more corn on the cob, apples (unless peeled), celery sticks or carrot sticks for her. She can still have corn, just cut off the cob, and apples, cut up, and celery and carrot, maybe, but just cut a lot smaller. We just have to be careful!

BEFORE THE CROWNS The front tooth with the big hole in it, the one right beside it, and then the other tooth beside the other front tooth... 3 teeth fixed with porcelain crowns. We had them crowned because they could not be filled, and the dentist would not just pull them. She broke them once when she was 2, then got some decay where they were broken from nighttime nursing (sort of like bottle rot, minus the bottles...) and then she fell again last May in a hotel room and further broke them. I am very happy with the work he did, and maybe now, I won't have to answer the WHAT HAPPENED TO HER TEETH??? question. And, yes, we had to get them fixed, our other option was to just let them get more and more decayed, and that could have led to abscesses eventually.

AFTER THE CROWNS (This picture is a little creepy, like we got beauty pageant work done on her teeth. They really look very natural, not like this picture... She is trying too hard to show her teeth!)

BEFORE THE CROWNS (She still looks like a princess, either way!)

Anna had her princess crowns put on this week! When they told her they were going to put crowns on her teeth back in June, she decided they must be princess crowns. Anna did a great job at the dentist, we were all very proud of her. She was pretty funny at first after she had the laughing gas when we took her home, but later, she developed a very frightening, angry edge to her personality. My mom's neighbor said, Oh, she's just coming down off those drugs. Great! But by the next morning, she was back to normal. I stayed up really late and then slept with her with her light on because I was feeling nervous that she had been under sedation. But all was well! And since she has not gotten any more cavities, hopefully this will be the last of it.

Kansas Pictures

Anna and Mama (me) hanging out at Grandma Lu's House. Kansas, Summer 2009.

Jonathan and Anna, giving each other hugs on the back porch.

They are REALLY cute!

My Mom, me, Anna and Jonathan.

Anna and Grandma Lu. Lu is short for Ludella. Her last name is Spurlock, but I always called her Grandma Avon growing up because she sold Avon for many years.

Grandma Lu and her Jon Boy, as she calls him. I think he will be taller than her soon...

Anna and her new friend Emma!

Jonathan holding a cool bug shell that Uncle Wayne found for him.

Just hanging out on the porch. The weather was perfect while we were there. Best weather possible.

Jonathan hanging out with his great-Uncle Wayne.

My Mom on the way to the rodeo. She had put some super duper gel in her and then she wore her brush curlers all the way there. When she took them out, her hair looked awesome. I teased it some and made it look extra special.

Anna and me, in Aunt Debby's SUV

Not the most flattering picture of my Mom and I, but for some reason I really like it... I guess because we are happy.

Jonathan and my Mom sat together on the flights. This was on our way from Orlando to Memphis.

Anna spent the entire flight from Memphis to Kansas City studying the emergency procedures brochure very, very carefully.

My cousin Brandi and I! Love her!

Anna with Emma, my cousin Justin's daughter. 3, 4, and 5 yrs old. In Grandma Lu's basement, which I adore so much because it has remained virtually unchanged since my own childhood.

Jonathan at a Wal-Mart we stopped at on the way in from Kansas City to Wichita. He had spotted his first of many interesting "Kansas bugs."

Anna, graceful and sweet. 3 years old.

Anna and Emma were instant friends. When it was time for them to leave the big 4th of July gettogether, Anna, said, Wait! I have to say goodbye to Emma. And she went running down the gravel road, and they hugged by Emma's car and kissed each other on the cheeks like two little old ladies! So funny.

Anna does her own hair. She rocks it.

Jonathan found the hiding place in Grandma Lu's basement. What a happy home Grandma Lu and Grandpa Jerry have made for us all.

Anna loved this guitar. I love the striped carpet in their basement. It's the same carpet that has always been there, and it's stripes make the basement bedroom seem really looooooong.

Anna and her great-grandma Lu playing Barbies. We went to Thursday morning garage sales, and I spent about 12 bucks on Anna, and got a huge assortment of treasures. She even got a cool blue Barbie scooter, which she just loves. She wants to be like aunt Meredith.

My red, white and blue pedicure. I went with my Aunt Rowena, and the guy there gave me the best pedicure I have ever had. He used oil instead of lotion and gave me a massage that did not leave me feeling like I had stress fractures in my feet. Usually I just tell them, no massage, please! Also, I've never had little flowers or rhinestones. What do you all think? Cute or a little trashy?

While I did not enjoy the rodeo, (or as Anna calls it, the radio) I have to say this hat made for some fun pictures. Why did I not enjoy the rodeo? Horses stomping up dust right in my face that made me choke, huge red wasps buzzing around everywhere, cigarette smokers everywhere, bbq smoke blowing on us, dangerous bleachers that made me a nervous wreck because of the kids (and Anna did fall and hurt herself, and it was during the prayer, and I had to carry her out screaming), tiny little children going mutton busting (I had signed Anna up, until I saw what it actually was. They let the sheep out of the chute and the kids come out, holding on for dear life to the bare backs of the sheep, as the sheep charge forward, knocking them off and to the ground in the first few seconds. As Anna said later, "Those were RUDE sheep. And they were all nasty and brown. I wanted white sheep, like in a BARN."

Me and Anna and Jon on my Aunt Rowena's front porch.

Anna at the rodeo. She was pouting. She said, But I want to ride a sheep! and she stomped her little foot, and then she went and sat off by herself. She was really bummed for a while, until she saw how rough the sheep were with the kids.

After the very first horse came stomping by and blew dust in our lungs and faces, (don't sit on the front row!) Jonathan said, "I'm going up high, Mama." He went up to the top bleacher and sat all by himself, until Aunt Ro and Wesley and Nick joined him up there. Jonathan loved the rodeo and he did not want to leave. I wanted to leave because of the terrible way they were treating the calves. I thought it was awful the way they roped them and threw them to the ground. Then my Mom started saying very loudly that I belonged to PETA, and then a lot of people were looking at me like they wanted to shoot me. I was probably just feeling a little paranoid, being so far out of my element as I was. We had to stop at Wal-Mart on the way home for some emergency Benedryl since I was coughing and wheezing like crazy. But I think, the rodeo was entirely worth the trip, to watch my cousin Julie's little boy Wesley, out there mutton busting with the rest of the kids. He wore shorts and tennis shoes, and most of the kids had full on cowboy gear, spurs and everything. He was number 15, and we kept thinking he would back out. His older brother Nick even got scared for him and went over to try and talk him out of it, but Wesley went ahead and did it. He did pretty well, also!

Anna and Jonathan at my Aunt Rowena's big 4th of July party. Jonathan has probably never had so much fun in his life! We had a great time. People in Kansas aren't kidding around when it comes to fireworks. My kids have never seen such big ones. I can't imagine the fortune my cousins spent collectively on all those firecrackers! It was a really nice night though, lots of family there, and the kids had a blast. Jonathan and Anna loved meeting and playing with all of my cousins' kids. There were so many kids there!

Ok, I know I am always saying Anna looks more like her Daddy than me, but this picture looks straight out of the summer of 1984. She looks just like me here. I think it is the wierd foggy quality of the photo also, that reminds me of pics from my own childhood.

This boy needs a dog! He has SO MUCH FUN with Tuffy (he renamed him Scruffy), the Cairn terrier at my Grandma's house, and also with this dog, Riley, my Aunt Debby's little Westie. We were out in Howard where she lives, and the kids had so much fun there.

This is the house my Aunt Debby just bought for 2700 dollars a few weeks ago. She has a real talent for buying houses cheap and then putting a ton of labor and effort into them, and turning them into beauties. She's been flipping houses since before it was really a thing people talked about. When I saw this place, I thought, Omigosh, what an enormous, overwhelming wreck! But she sees a lot of potential, and she's done it before, and I do believe she will make this house into a jewel. I can't wait to come back someday and see what she did with the place.

Jon in Aunt Debby's backyard in Howard.

Anna at the park in Howard. When I asked her what her favorite part of Kansas was, she answered, the turning chairs (referring to the barstools at my Grandma's that spin around) and the park in Howard with the big twisty slide.

My Mom. In her hands is a stolen object. Apparently, my Aunt Debby has been going into this yard and trying to wiggle it out of the ground for a while now, but she was not strong enough by herself. So my Mom and her were able to steal it together. They are so silly. My Aunt Rowena, Anna, and I were all in the getaway car.

There's that hat again.

Aunt Debby and my Mom (they are sisters) with their um, find. Or steal, however you want to look at it. If anyone lives in Howard and you or a relative are looking for a missing plant stand (or whatever this thing is), I can tell you where to find it...

Jonathan with his new best friends. He told me that he thinks we are actually supposed to live in Kansas. We were walking outside one day and he let out this big sigh, and said, I just love Kansas. He loved hanging out with Wesley and Nick, my cousin Julie's 2 boys. Here they are bowling. Jonathan gave up halfway and went and played at the pool table for a while. I had a goal: reach a 100. I had bumper lanes, and still couldn't do it!

Anna, Jonathan, and Wesley and Nick Detter.

Grandma Lu, Anna, Jonathan, and Grandpa Jerry. This was the day we left. They made a pound of bacon and nine eggs for breakfast that morning.

Nick and Wesley Detter, Jonathan, Grandpa Jerry.

How many of us gals can you fit on one couch? Grandma Lu, (mother to Rowena, and my Mom, Donna) on left. Then Ro, and her daughter Julie. Then my mom, and me! We should have squeezed Anna in there to keep the mother/daughter thing going. This couch is funny, because it is rather petite, and it has a tendency to make everyone who sits on it look bigger than life. As a teenager, I would have done almost anything to avoid being photographed on that couch! But now I'm just fat and happy. I may be a whole lot fatter than I was when I was 14 and came to KS, but I am also a whole lot less crazy than I was.

At a McD's on the turnpike. On the way back to Kansas City to catch our plane to DETROIT to get back to ORLANDO. It was the craziest flight itenerary ever! We did not get all the way home until after 2 in the morning. We left at 12 noon central time. The kids were super, super good! I was about to throw myself down in Detroit and have a fit. We almost missed our plane because my Mom refused to believe that I could read and understand English. We were supposed to get on an elevator and get on this little red train that ran above terminal A. She insisted that I was not a "real person" and therefore did not know what I was talking about, and that the directions I was referring to were actually in Chinese. Yes, they were in Chinese, but they were also in English. We had to run probably almost a mile to get to the other end of the terminal. When we finally got there, and got in line to board, Jonathan shook his head and said, We should have just taken that red train. This was almost our breaking point. I don't lose my temper very often but I was about to. We traveled more miles in the air on the way back between Detroit and Orlando than we did the entire distance between Orlando and Kansas City on the way there. Does anyone else understand just how far north Detroit is?

Grandma Lu, Mom, me and Anna.