A good lesson

Yesterday Joseph spent the day with my parents and they took him to the park. When he got home we were chatting about his day and all of the sudden he blurted out "Ipoopedmypantsattheparktoday!" We talked to him a little bit to find out the story (he was playing hide and seek and didn't want to stop to go to the bathroom) and talked to him about why he can't be doing that kind of thing. Then he had this to say:

Joseph: Well, at least I learned a valuable lesson.
Me: What was that?
Joseph: Never poop on the playground!

Ah yes. That's a life lesson for you right there.

Joseph's down to his last 3 days of school now. I admit that I'm a little daunted by the prospect of having both kids at home full time for 3 months. I'm sure we'll be fine but it could be interesting for the first couple of weeks.

Joseph's answers are:
1. Pepperoni pizza
2. Tech Dudes
3. Grandma (I just asked him and that's what he said)
4. Brooks
5. New York in a tall building

Joseph trivia

More kid trivia to amuse myself with:

1. What is Joseph's favorite food?
2. What is Joseph's favorite toy?
3. Who is Joseph's favorite person?
4. Who is Joseph's best friend at school?
5. Where does Joseph want to live when he grows up?

The answers for Elle Belly's are:
1. Peas and cheese
2. Bun Bun, a little pink bunny
3. Me
4. 11:30 PM (Mom, I expected you to get this, you were there!)
5. Amanda and Bill aand Pam's son Joe. We call him Big Joe around these parts. (Ben, the reason we didn't make you either of the kid's godparents is because you're already their only uncle. You have a built in title already.)

Elle trivia

How many can you get right?

1. What is Elle's favorite food?
2. What is Elle's favorite toy?
3. Who is Elle's favorite person?
4. What time was Elle born at? (Don't look back and check!)
5. Who are Elle's godparents?

Soooo fuuuullll

We ate at Mongo's Grill tonight. I am so full. It's a really fun restaurant. You go through like this buffet line type thing where you pick out all your veggies and meat and spices and sauces and everything. Then you take your bowl up to the grill type people (I think that's what they're called). They grill it up right in front of you on this huge round grill. It's actually kind of fun to watch. A bunch of people have their food grilled at once but somehow they keep track of it all. It was fun, I reccomend it.

Joseph liked it too. He had milk and crackers.

I have to go now. Cheap Seats is on. I loves me some Sklar brothers.

More of the kids

Here are a couple of more pictures that I stole from mom.

Proof that Elle will eat anything I give her. Yes, that is a lemon she's chewing on.


Uncle Ben is funny.

The list

I saw this somewhere else and I'm going to steal it.

List ten (10) things you want to say to ten (10) different people. Do not state who these people are. Do not confirm or deny any ‘comment speculation’.

1. You need to stop letting people walk all over you.
2. You don't know us well enough to try and tell us what's best for us. Stop being so controlling.
3. I'm sorry for how I acted. I thought I was so grown up back then.
4. I used to have a little bit of a crush on you.
5. I think you might be gay.
6. I always thought you were kind of a bitch.
7. It's your fault. I don't understand how someone could do that.
8. I didn't really like those cookies you gave me that one time.
9. I wish I had never met you.
10. You're not nearly as cool as you think you are.

Ok, in the interest of peace and love I'll just say that if you think one of these is about you it's probably not.

My kids

Joseph the ring bearer


Elle the table centerpiece

Wedding weekend

Ok, I'm just going to say it: Joseph was the cutest ring bearer that has ever been and ever will be. We sat in the second row so that if he needed to sit down during the ceremony he would be able to find us right away. When he first started walking down the isle I couldn't even see him, I just heard all these murmers and chuckles. Then I saw him walking slowly, slowly down the isle. He was holding his little ring pillow so carefuly and turning towards each person who wanted to take a picture of him. When he got to the front he went right to his assigned place and loudly announed "A lot of people want to take my picture today!" He was so good during the ceremony and stood nicely and (mostly) quietly the whole time. At one point he decided that not everyone would be able to hear what was being said so he tried to do some sign language but otherwise he just stood there smiling. What a doll.

The wedding itself was lovely. Amanda was beautiful, the food was good, the reception was fun and a good time was had by all. It was a really nice day. Oh, and Ben did his Lola dance which I think is one of the 10 things every person should see in their life. As Matt said, no wedding is complete without it.

Oh, funny story. At the rehersal dinner Joseph got it into his head that he wanted to marry Amanda so he tried a few tactics to get her interested. He offered to wrestle Matt but when that didn't work he moved on to trickier tactics. He tried telling Amanda that I told him that Matt told me that he didn't want to marry her anymore. I'm shocked she didn't fall for that. After a while he gave up and set his sights on Amanda's little brother. They played Playmobil together for a while and at one point Joseph looked at him and said "You're cute. I love you. I knew from the first time I saw you that I liked you." Oh my god. I was just crying from laughing so hard. I wonder what this poor 16 year old kid thought about a goofy 5 year old professing his love for him over dinner at Mexican Village?

Joseph's Special Day

Joseph is so excited about the wedding coming up this weekend. He's been talking about his "special day" for the past week. He's convinced everyone is going to be there to see him carry the rings. He's so funny. Out of nowhere he'll say something to me like "Mommy, did you know bearer is just a fancy word for person who carries the ring?"

He and Jesse went and got his outfit for the wedding last night and Joseph was so excited about it that he wanted to wear it home. He's so cute.

I'm having trouble typing because I had fake nails put on a couple days ago. I went to the local beauty school to have my nails done and to have a pedicure. The whole thing took 4 flipping hours. About 3 of that was my nails. To be honest she did a pretty crappy job too. They're really lumpy and bumpy. I was all excited because the woman who did them told me she was graduating on Friday so I thought she would be good but she ..... wasn't. So now I'm debating. Do I go back again and have them redone? Do I go somewhere else and have redone? Do I go back and have them taken off? Do I wait a couple of weeks and have them redone when I have them filled? Do I get annoyed and weepy when I think about the fact that one of my few attmepts in the last several years to do something girly ended up with me having lumpy, bumpy nails?

On the bright side Amanda came with me to watch Elle while I was worked on and we had a really nice time chatting and gossiping. Afterwards we went shopping. It was funny to spend my day getting pampered (sort of) and then shopping (all I bought were diapers). I felt like such a girly girl. The day was fun overall so I shouldn't complain.

What I will complain about is the sucky way that two reality shows I watch went last night. I can't believe the fricken hippies won the Amazing race. They annoyed me to the end and sometime I actually found myself rooting for Eric and Jeremy over them. Eric and Jeremy! What does that tell you?

Then, the Top Chef incident. Don't even get me started on that. To get rid of Dave over Tiffany was crap. The only did that so in the final episode good (Harold) can triumph over evil (Tiffany). I predict that at one point Harold will whine about how this is not how he's used to cooking and then later he will say "I'm a chef man, that's what I do". I predict Tiffany will never lose her perpetual bitch face. Tune in to find out if I'm right!

Soooo cute!

Babies love choking hazards on pointy wooden sticks!

She was fine, she was being watched very closely. And it's such a cute picture!

Hot or Not? The text edition

In addition to being a great way to whore yourself out for attention Hot or Not is also a dating site. People can click on your picture and find a little blurb about you. If they like you and you like them you can meet up. We all know how amusing the pictures can be but I only just discovered how great the little blurs are. I would like to share a few with you that I swear are 100% unaltered in any way. On with the show!

"Just a good looking man hopeing to meet a full figure lady careing honest love to make love 5.5 to5.11 tall . nice round hips 120lbsto180lbs according to weight Hurry"
This is probably the guy who will take you to the good looking man. Hurry! And bring your spell check along!


"ex royal navy engineer left for my daughter jessica. married but lookin 4 fun"
Wow, that's not sleezy at all. Nice of him to leave the Navy for little Jessica. Too bad he can't be bothered to stay faithful to her mother for her.


"Nice guy looking to spend some time with a nice lady.Want to spend time getting to know you.nonsmoker/nondrinker a must. want to grow with the lord?"
Looketh unto the Lord and Lord commandeth you to go forth and post thy picture on Hot or Not.


"We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them. I'm interested in riding and building bikes."
That's deep man.


"music is everything. punk is not what i do, its who i am. i drink and support abbortion and gay mariage. dont like it? get over it."
If you really support those things you might want to learn how to spell them.


"many big hours of enjoyment with magnificent fun-time operation! take on train, brings mountain of pleasantness. fall into the world with this one new thing! that name is...me! me! who knows what we can find if we look on the train?"
What the hell?

That's all for now folks. These people give me a headache.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

That is all.

Open house

We went to Joseph's new school's "open house" last night. I put "open house" on quotes because that's not really what it was. "Open house" implys that you can just come and go whenever and not miss anything. "Open house" does not make you think that if you get there 15 minutes after it's scheduled start time that you are going to miss the entire question and answer period. Not that that happened to us. Or that I'm bitter. At all.

Anyway! The school looks really nice. The rooms are big and bright and well equipped. The building itself is really nice too. Joseph can't wait to try out the new playground, it looks pretty fun. We got to meet a few of the teachers and the ones that we talked to seemed nice. One of the teachers was a fairly young guy and you could tell just by looking at his room decor that he's really into hunting and fishing. His reading area had a bunch of books about football. Joseph wants him to be his teacher. (It probably says something not so great about me that one of my first thought was "Why would this young guy want to be around kids this young?") He seemed very nice though so we'll see what happens.

Funny stuff

This kills me.

Bye bye

Elle can wave! Sort of! Ok, if you wave to her she moves her little hand around in what seems to be an attempt to wave back. Whatever it is, it's very cute.

Joseph is still sleeping in his toddler bed. It looks like a fire truck and it uses a crib matress. Even though we've been pushing the idea of a big boy bed for a while he's pretty attached to the fire truck bed. Once in a while he says he might like to get a new one but he wants it to be one that's shaped like a spaceship or a car or the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. We've tried telling him that they don't really sell bigboy beds in the shape of things but he's got big plans anyway. Tonight he told Jesse "When I go to heaven and then come back again and I'm this same age I'm going to pick out a boat bed next time."

Crazy kid. For now we'll just keep the toddler bed and keep talking up the big boy bed.

Sunday I did more yard work (voluntarily) than I have probably done in the last 10 years combined. I was happy to do it because it was an early Mother's Day present for my grandma but I have got to tell you this: Yardwork blows. I don't get the appeal of gardens and flower beds spending hour after hour weeding and digging in the dirt. As long as my yard is mowed and relativly free of trash I'm happy. We have some flowers in our yard but they're the kind that require no attention at all. Anything beyond weeding once a year I just can't get into.

Different day, same old....

We need to move. I'm so tired of people in this neighborhood thinking it's ok to let their dogs shit on the sidewalk in front of my house and then just leave it there. Fricken lowlifes.

I got a very nice call from the good folks at Red Lobster today. They wanted to be sure I was ok after the little bout of food poisoning I got there yesterday. Also, they asked me about a million questions to get all the info they could in case I decided to sue them after their shrimp scampi caused my internal organs to liquify and come shooting out of me at a high rate of speed. You know, now that I think about it I bet they didn't even really care how I was feeling after all. Bastards.

Big changes for little Joseph

Big changes are coming Joseph's way. In June we're going to cut his PT back to one half hour session a week. OT is going to go to once a week too but it's going to become an hour long. For 12 weeks he's going to do this new food therapy program during that hour long session. If he does well in that then he might go into group food therapy. Then, since he will have already gone through the 12 week course he'll get to be kind of the "leader" of the group. His OT's told me they picked Joseph out for this new therapy especailly because of how he thrives in the leader role.

Joseph is going to be the first kid they try this new program out on. Well, not the first kid ever, but the first kid they've ever worked with. The program was developed 30 years ago and for the last 15 there has been a clinic devoted to food issues that only uses this program and has had a lot of succes. I'm excited about it. Joseph's food issues have gotten a lot better but there's still a long way to go so I hope this will help. My hope is that by the end of summer he'll be more prepared to go to school and sit in the school cafeteria and actually eat what's being served. (Isn't it funny the goals we set for him sometimes? With God as my witness, he will eat mini corndogs and smilie fries!)