Noahott andZoello

While preparing some Thanksgiving items on Wednesday evening, I inadvertently found myself in the middle of an Abbott and Costello routine. I was happily mixing up homemade cornbread for the dressing and my kids were in the kitchen "helping" a.k.a. watching/fighting/getting in my way. I had my iPod playing on shuffle and Zoë was interrogating me about each song as it played.

A new song began and she asked, "Mommy, what's the name of this song?"

ME: Your Song

ZOË: MY song!?

ME: No, the NAME of the song is Your Song.

ZOË: It has Zoë in it?

ME: Noooooo.... it isn't Zoë's song. The song is CALLED Your Song.

NOAH: Wait, what's the name of the song again?

ME: YOUR SONG!!!!!

ZOË: NO!! It's MY song!!!!!!

Thanks a lot, Elton John. Next time, use the name of the person you are singing about and it will save me a lot of trouble.

November Blows (Mostly)

I apologize. My posts have been very sporadic and I am weeks behind on reading blogs. I have hardly been on the computer during the month of November. You see, every year, I forget how much November blows. I mean that literally and figuratively.

As beautiful as the end of October is with all the vibrant fall foliage, November blows through with wind and cold fronts and strips the trees of their browned leaves. We spend a lot of time outside trying to stay on top of raking and bagging the leaves before the freezing weather sets in and we have no motivation to go outside. It is the last ditch effort at yard cleanup before the ground becomes frozen, the vegetation turns to brown and the snow comes and covers it all until spring.

November figuratively blows because it flies by so quickly- and the kids are out of school a majority of the month. Let me break it down for you with a visual, because just explaining it doesn't get the point across:

(this is just the school schedule and does not include soccer, two teacher conferences, thanksgiving feast at Zoe's school, volunteering for the book fair at Noah's school, a visitation day at Noah's school, meetings, doctors appointments etc)

And, then, November is gone and I have accomplished nothing.

But there is one good thing about November- my wedding anniversary. On November 21, 1998, I walked down the aisle of a small church to the altar where DJ was waiting for me. We said a few things, we giggled a bit because we were nervous with everyone watching us, we kissed and then we walked back up that same aisle as husband and wife. I don't remember a lot about the actual ceremony- but that is because it really wasn't that important. It's not about the wedding, it's about the marriage and in the past twelve years, we have built a marriage. We've been through living in a foreign country, lengthy separations due to deployments, the loss of a pregnancy (WHILE DJ was deployed), the loss of DJ's mother, the birth and very difficult first eighteen months of a very cranky baby that never slept and the birth and rough start to life of our second child who was eventually transported to a children's hospital before being released to come home with us. All of these things could have torn us apart or made us stronger. I won't lie. None of them were easy. But, we leaned on each other and it has only strengthened our bond.

After all, it is us against them ("them" being these crazy kids) and we have to stick together or they might take over the house. And I've already been locked out of my house twice- it wasn't pleasant.

Happy twelfth anniversary, DJ, here's to many more. I love you.

CSI- El Baño

CSI
New York

My Bathroom

Saturday, November 13, 2o1o
2:30pm:

Our dispatch received a distress call from the north end of the house- the transcript of the call is as follows:

Caller: Mommy!? Can you help me? I DIDN'T pee-pee on the floor!"

The Mom Squad was immediately dispatched at high-speed to investigate the report.

Upon arrival, a three-year-old was found naked from the waist down and a rather large puddle of liquid was observed on the bathroom floor.

Interrogation followed.

Suspect: I didn't pee-pee.
Officer: If you didn't pee, then what is that on the floor?
Suspect: Water?
Officer: Okay, then where did the water come from?
Suspect: My vagina.

The suspect was showered, issued new undergarments and light community service (helping with clean-up of the crime scene) and was then sent on her way to hopefully become a productive, contributing, peeing-in-the-toilet member of society.

Case closed.

The Major Veteran's Day Faux Pas

Noah came home from school yesterday and informed me that they had their Veteran's Day assembly. He was all in a huff over it. Apparently a major faux pas had been committed and no one he complained to seemed to take notice.

A year ago, the military bases in our area which are all located within a close proximity of each other, all merged to form one large joint superbase. And although the majority of the population is comprised of Army and Air Force, we are now seeing an influx of quite a few families associated with Marines, Navy and Coast Guard. They are all represented here.

During the school assembly, a medley of all the armed forces songs was played in a sing-along-style with accompanying video. Noah's first complaint? The Coast Guard was left out. He thought that extremely unfair. His second complaint? When they played the Air Force Song (we are an Air Force family) the accompanying video was of NAVY jets. And this infuriated Noah. He ranted, "How could they NOT notice it? They CLEARLY had "Navy" painted on them!!" I suggested perhaps they were trying to show how all the branches work together for one purpose. He wasn't having it.

So, on the off-chance that someone in film is reading my blog ( yeah, right!), can you please make a video including all the services, including Coast Guard? And for the love of all that his holy, PLEASE don't show a Navy jet when the Air Force song is playing.

Or you will have to answer to Noah.

Here ya go, little man- this one's for you: **singing**

Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun;
Here they come zooming to meet our thunder,
At 'em boys, Give 'er the gun! (Give 'er the gun now!)
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under,
Off with one helluva roar!
We live in fame or go down in flame. Hey!
Nothing'll stop the U.S. Air Force!

**cue fly-by**

(photo credit- US Air Force)

Politics As Usual

With all the election hype wrapping up, I was remembering my favorite election/Noah story. I went searching through my blog archives and was shocked to see that I never blogged about it. It is one of my all-time favorite Noah stories and definitely something I wanted to record, so if you can stomach a little more politics, I promise it is worth it.

It was spring of 2008 and Noah was wrapping up his year in pre-school 4. His pre-school teacher was awesome in giving them just enough information about the world without overwhelming them. They had talked about how the president runs the country and the current president was George Bush, but that it was a very important year because our country would have to pick a new president and there were lots of people that wanted to be our next president. She also told them that there were two sides- one was blue and one was red and their mascots were a donkey and an elephant.

I was surprised Noah absorbed this much information, but he did and he began to watch the political ads on television and ask questions. Every ad he would ask me, "Mommy? Does he/she want to be president?" And then he would ask me which side they were on, blue or red, and what their name was. Eventually, it was decided that John McCain would run on the Republican ticket, but Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were still battling it out for the Democratic ticket. We were careful not to talk about what our particular affiliation was so as not to confuse or corrupt his little mind. Politics are not for children. Or so we thought.

One afternoon after a particular grueling question and answer session from Noah regarding the candidates, I pulled up the internet and we went to the campaign sites of all three candidates. Noah studied their pictures, learned their names and their party affiliations and finally announced to me, "Well, I want Barack (he pronounced it MA-RACK at the time) Obama to win!" I was shocked that he was even this interested, let alone was choosing a candidate to support.

ME: "Wow, Noah. Can you tell me why you think Barack Obama should win?"

NOAH: "Because he is on the blue side and blue is my favorite color."

ME: "Fair enough, but Hillary Clinton is also blue, why shouldn't she win?"

NOAH: "Because Barack Obama is a boy and I'm a boy! So he should win."

I have to admit I was slightly offended at this sexist statement, but I let it go. After all, I told myself, he is FOUR!

I relayed this story to all my friends and family who, depending on their own affiliations, were either amused or horrified. It was a joke for awhile and Noah began to proudly trumpet his support of Barack Obama for president.

In April, I took both the kids and drove home to visit family, stopping in North Carolina at my best friend's house to stay a few days. She, of course, had heard the story and couldn't wait to get at Noah to question him all about his political opinions. We were getting ready for bed and she said, "So, Noah, why do you think Barack Obama is going to win the presidency?"

And without skipping a beat, Noah answered, "Because he approves the message!" (based on all the ads he had been watching where they say, "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message.") We laughed hysterically for a bit and then went to bed.

The following November, Noah could not be convinced that he was not voting for president. I've told y'all before what a little old man he is. I think he sometimes thinks he is really an adult. He could not be consoled, so while he was at school on election day, I printed out a sheet of paper with a picture of John McCain and a picture of Barack Obama with their names printed in red and blue respectively next to their pictures and instructions to "circle your choice".

When Noah got home from school that day, he happily took his pen and circled Barack Obama as his choice for president.

To this day, he thinks he voted in that election. I'm not going to be the one to tell him otherwise.

The NUMBER ONE Reason Why I Change the Face Towel at Least Twice a Day

We live in a small house. It only has one bathroom.

Let me repeat that. We only have ONE bathroom.

Since everyone uses the same bathroom all the time, I generally changed the face/hand towel every few days. And up until a few weeks ago, that has been sufficient.

For the first time in the twelve years my husband and I have been married, we've run out of towels. They are all in the wash. "What has contributed to this great towel shortage?", you might ask.

Several weeks ago, I was drying my face after washing it and noticed the towel smelled... off. I thought maybe I had left it a little long and forgotten to change it out, so I changed it and went about my day.

The next day, the towel smelled bad again. I can't describe the smell.. it isn't anything specific, just used. I thought perhaps there had been an increase in dirty-child-hand/face-washing activity, so I changed the towel and put it behind me.

The next day, same thing. The towel needed changing and I could not figure out what was going on... until two weeks later.

I walked into the bathroom one evening to assist in the nightly toothbrushing routine just in time to catch Zoe as she finished peeing on her little potty. I watched as she got up, took the bowl out of her little potty, dumped it in the big potty, rinsed the bowl out in the bathroom sink and then WIPED IT DRY WITH THE FACE TOWEL!

Mystery solved.

Just to be safe, if I miss supervising Zoe's potty time, I change the towel.

And THAT is why we are out of towels.

And bleach.

The Agony of Defeat

We lost.

Every year one of our kids wins a costume contest and this year, we lost. I was certain one of them would win because their costumes were awesome and yet we came up short. It's humbling. And I think it might have cured my competitive addiction.

You see, every year, when one of the kids wins, I come home already thinking about what they might be the next year. This year, I came home thinking, "Next year, I'm buying their costumes at the store."

And just like that, the Chaos Family reign has come to an end.

Here were Zoë and Noah in their costumes this year: (the lighting was awful inside and I couldn't get the settings on the camera right to save my life, so I caved and used the automatic function which of course used the flash, washing them out)

Lego Boba Fett from the Lego Star Wars game and Strawberry Shortcake to go with my daughter's red hair.

There were four categories for the costume contest- Most Original Boy, Most Original Girl, Most Original Family and Most Original Homemade.

Most Original Boy went to a little boy dressed as The Joker. I didn't get a picture because when they awarded the prizes, they could not find him.

Most Original Girl went to a little girl dressed as an old lady:


Most Original Family went to a brother and sister dressed as the regular, yellow Lego people- which were really cute:


And Most Original Homemade went to two boys dressed as a pair of dice:

But, at least one really cute moment happened. While some of the smaller children appeared a little scared of Noah since he looked like a robot, one adorable little bumblebee could not leave his side. She walked right up to him and held his hand the entire time they were on the dance floor.


This post is being linked with SITS day 3 of the Halloween link-up where one lucky blogger will win a Canon DSLR.