Dichotomy

 This just so neatly illustrates the difference in my children's personalities.

What's in a name

So one of my little boys gets on the bus today, looks up at me and says:
"It's not Timothy* anymore, it's just Flash. Flash the kid."
'Nuff said.


*Names changed to protect the innocent, of course.

The Great Gummy Bear Saga of 2011

If you ever get the urge to buy your kid a giant gummy bear, do yourself a favor. Don't.

Now while this might seem like common sense to most people, it apparently wasn't to me.

I was in World Market at some point during the summer and saw these huge gummy bears. I'm telling you these suckers were at least five and a half inches tall and three inches wide. Stupid me thinks, 'Oh, cool, Alex loves gummy bears. He'll totally flip when I bring home this giant one. How fun will that be?'

Bad idea.

Well, the reaction was what I wanted. He loved it, and I felt like super-mom until super-mom got the bright idea to take said giant gummy bear over to grandma's house the next day to show her. Now I have to point out that it was high summer in our neck of the woods, and at this point temperatures were reaching the mid if not the high nineties every day.

Back to the gummy bear.

Alex showed grandma, who thought it was cool (if a bit weird) and then he promptly forgot it in the car that night. Sigh.

Sometime the next afternoon we were heading back over to my mom's house and I opened the car door to a horrific sight.

Alex had left the gummy bear in its plastic case in the front seat.

The gummy bear melted in the ninety plus degree heat, oozed out of the packaging and left an enormous puddle of red, sticky goo all over the front car seat.

Words cannot express.

Have you ever tried pulling up a melted, giant, gummy bear off of your car seat? No, I bet you haven't because you are probably a sensible, sane human being that doesn't buy the stupid giant gummy bear in the first place. It was like pulling up tar, it was like pulling silly putty out of the carpet (yep, done that too), it was like trying to get gum out of hair (haven't actually had to do that one. yet). Oh. My. Gosh. 

The good news is that, with ALOT of hot water and soap, my car seat is surprisingly no worse for the wear.

I never. ever. want to have to do anything like that again. But, knowing myself, and unfortunately I know myself pretty well, I'm sure that something ridiculous like this will happen again in the near future.

I'm overdue you see, it's just how my life works.

Gotta love the classics.

In case you're new to this blog (Hi!) or haven't read some of my older posts, I work at a school (which I love, most of the time) and I also have to drive a school bus (which I don't love, most of the time).

This however, is one of those times that I did love driving the bus.

I was down to my last stop and had three boys who were still on, so it was fairly quiet (which is extremely unusual for the bus) when all of a sudden one of my little guys who is in first grade belts out with:

" Take me down to the paradise city
   where the grass is green 
   and the girls are pretty
   Oh won't you please take me hoooome!"

I'm tellin' you he did Axl Rose proud.

It's supposed to be red!

The other night I woke Sarah up to make her use the bathroom when I tucked Alex in. We've been having some, ahem, issues at night this last week.

Nothing serious, probably just her drinking too soon before bed, but I was very tired of stripping a soaking wet child (which I'm sure she was sick of) and bed in the middle of the night and washing all of her bedding, so I thought that I'd hedge my bets by making her get up and use the potty.

Well, when I picked her up out of bed she was apparently dreaming. Really hard.

Sarah: Red!
Me (very startled): What?
Sarah: It's red!
Me: What's red?
Sarah: It's supposed to be red!
Me: What's supposed to be red?
Sarah: It's supposed to be red!!!

At this point I gave up, she was very adamant that whatever it was was supposed to be red. Alex and I both started cracking up, and Sarah used the potty and went back to bed without a peep.

... And She Creeps

Last night Sarah and I were alone because Alex was spending the night at a friends house, and we always make these our 'girl's night.' It's nothing huge, but we hang out, cook, paint our nails, watch a movie Alex wouldn't be caught dead watching, things like that.

We usually have a really good time and enjoy being girly.

Well, I told Sarah to go get ready for bed while I finished some things up, and while I was walking towards her room to tuck her in I noticed that the lights were out.

Perfect. I could play 'And she creeps' with her.

This was a game that my mom used to play with me at bedtime when I was little that always involved lots of squealing and giggling. You hide under the covers while mom slowly creeps towards you saying, "Here she comes... and she turns... and she creeps... and she creeps..." walking as quietly as she can towards the bed until she pounces on you and tickles you. Tons of fun. 

So here I am playing the game and creeping into Sarah's room and she's giggling up a storm, when all of a sudden: 'gigglegiggle fart giggle fartfart giggle', and then of course I started cracking up...

It was priceless. 

Whee

I hate EOG's and Sarah has strep throat.

Yay.

Movies in the park

I absolutely love North Carolina. You know why? Because what we did last night would have been crowded, expensive, and a total hassle if we had done it in California.

Our local parks and recreation department is hosting a summer "Movies in the Park Series." How cool is that? Last night, the movie pick was Pink Panther 2, admittedly not something that I was dying to see, but Alex loved the first Pink Panter movie so I packed up Sarah, invited Grandma and Grandpa, and off to the park we went.

What was even neater, more cool, cooler? (Sorry, I'm not very grammatically correct late at night...) was that you could boat-in to the movie too. The park that is on the edge of the lake, and you just moor up in the cove in front of this gigantic inflatable movie screen.

Cool huh? I thought so too.

I was all excited about this part, thinking we could go with my parents in their boat... until my mom judiciously pointed out that containing Sarah (a very restless 2-year-old), on a boat, for several hours, in the dark, would probably not be the best idea. Good thinking mom!


Usually Sometimes, I forget myself and my romantic, idealistic side shouts down my logical side...

So anyways, we parked on the grass with our blankets, snacks, drinks, and ten-gallon tubs of bug repellant and proceeded to have an absolutely wonderful evening. I think that last night is going to be one of my favorite memories of this summer. Cheesy movie notwithstanding. Maybe.

Typical

Alex's idea of hanging up the towels...

Ya gotta love it.