The Traveling Daddy

 

The Traveling Daddy

 

 

 

 

Dean doesn't know it yet, but today he went to Fernbank.

Actually, we all did. My friend Joy called this morning and said:"Hey, lets go to Fernbank, I have season passes!"

Since we sat around in our pajammies all day yesterday, it felt like getting out of the house might be a good thing.

So we went, and it was really fun. The boys hadn't seen their friend Noah in forever. Noah was so overcome with excitement that the first thing he did was run up to Eden and Jude and shout "Don't even THINK about it!!!". I am not sure if he was really talking to them, or himself. Hes one of those kids with boundless energy who's voice carries for miles, even indoors. He makes more noise and body movements then all three of my children combined. Needless to say, we didn't spend much time in the "museum portion" of the museum, but instead headed directly to the designated play areas after a quick lunch.

I decided to bring the Daddy Doll with us for this little family outing, for a couple of reasons.

1) Its fun carrying a miniature version of my husband in the diaper bag and

2) I though Dean might get a kick out of seeing photos of himself at Fernbank.

So first we planted Dean in the garden, then I took a picture of him with baby girl by the window, then we stood him near a dinosaur that would make him look giant, and then we took a family photo. Between photo-ops he was gently stuffed back in to the diaper bag, unless Hannah asked for him to come out which she did periodically. I think just to check on him and make sure he wasn't too smooshed. She would give him a hug, a gentle pat on the back, and then hand him back to me with a "Tank too". (Thank you is her newest word.)

The boys spent most of their time being "Bears". Eden of course was the biggest bear, and was in charge and kept the littler bears in line to the best of his ability. Noah doesn't "keep in line" very well, but if anyone can manage to do it, Eden will. They had some small puppet animals which were their prey. They then stockpiled all the dead animals in their cave and growled at other small children who made the mistake of getting too close. Hannah spent a lot of time "feeding" the baby birds sock worms and looking at herself in the mirrors. Fernbank is sooooo cool.

When everyone was done with that we went on to the secondary playplace, and then to the interactive science exhibit. None of these things though seemed to hold the magic of the "dead animals and the cave game", so we didn't stay long. We went back to Joy and Noah's house for some Chick-fil-a and playtime before heading home. The boys were totally bummed we didn't get to spend more time at the house, so we promised to get them together again soon.

Kids with Daddy Doll

 

Just too cute.

Daddy Doll

Warning: Do Not Attempt to Read this Blog Post Without a Box of Tissues


Have you got them?



Ok. Good. You may proceed.

 

See why you needed the tissues?

Hannah received her "Daddy Doll" in the mail today. This has got to be the cutest, sweetest, most precious idea of all time. The military Moms who came up with this seriously deserve a medal of some sort. Or at least like, free chocolate for life or something. This 12" totally soft doll has a picture of Hannah's Daddy printed right on the front and an American flag printed on the back. It also has this nifty pocket for a voice recorder, which the company was kind enough to send weeks ago so that Dean could record a message for Hannah before he deployed. So now Hannah can give her doll a hug any time and hear her Daddy's voice say "I love you, babygirl. Night Night."

If I could put sounds on the blog, I would. But it would probably just make you cry harder so I guess its for the best.

I really wasn't expecting Hannah to ask for her Daddy so much. But she does. Every single day. When she sees my phone she points to it and says "Dada?" (his picture is on the front screen, cause hey, I like to look at him too!). When it rings she calls out "Dada? Dada??" And of course whenever she sees pictures of him around the house she exclaims "Dada!" and points or waves. And sometimes blows kisses.

I think shes trying to break my heart. But at the same time it makes me really happy because it means she KNOWS him. And she knows him well enough to miss him. Which is a good thing. Even if it does mean I go through a lot of tissues.

 

 

 

This is Patches.

This is Patches in Hannah's diaper drawer.

Why?

You would have to ask her, cause I have no clue.

I was changing Hannah's diaper, as I frequently do, and Patches jumped up on to the changing pad. Hannah was laughing and smacking her, and then I thought she jumped down to get away from said smacking. Apparently though instead she decided to climb IN to the diaper drawer and see if there was anything exciting going on. At this point I must have shut the drawer.

About 5 minutes later I hear "meow! meeooow!" I'm going all over the house, opening doors and cupboards (she tends to go in those too when I open them, and then gets shut inside). I can't find her anywhere! Finally, I go into Hannah's room. And there is a teeeeeeeny tiny paw, just peeking out of the drawer. "Meow1 meeeeeeeooow!" and the little paw waves back and forth. I rushed over and opened the drawer in a panic, worried maybe I had crushed her or something. But she popped her little head right out, shook it off and jumped down. I did not have the foresight the first time to catch this on film. However, this cat is not exactly the "intelligent" furball in the family, and the next day she did it again.

This time I grabbed the camera.

Eden gets his Bobcat

 

 

 

Eden Got his Bobcat. YAY! Its the very first thing you have to do in Cubscouts to start earning other patches. Its been slow going towards this first goal for a variety of reasons, but tonight he got a bit of recognition, a handshake from the NEW (THANK YOU!) Scout Pack Leader, and a Marshmellow Blaster. Thats the prize he chose for the amount of popcorn he sold. I'm reeeeeeeeeally excited about it. Really. Ok. No, I'm not.

Cubscouts has been a bit of a mess. But Eden REALLY wanted to do it, so we are trying our darnd-est to get involved and be good scouts or whatever. This is difficult when our "den" hasn't met all year, and now we are in some other "den" supposedly, but no one has ever called....blah blah blah. Don't even get me started on the whole Popcorn Sales thing. Its a nightmare.

The good news is we have a new Pack Leader who seems to be both organized AND interested in more then just decorating his own kids with so many patches and belt loops they can hardly walk upright. This is a major step up from the previous pack leader, who was one of those people who laughed at her own jokes. I hate people who do that. I am hoping this means things will start moving, and we can have, you know, activities to do. Which is why Eden is involved in the first place.

Yay for Bobcat Badge!

 

 

 

These are our cats. Zillah, otherwise known as "Kitty", is the big one. Patches, otherwise known as "pain in the a**" is the small one. I find them all over the house, sleeping in a variety of strange positions as demonstrated above. Patches for some reason does not sleep curled up like a "cat" She sleeps all stretched out, flopped over, twisted and folded and usually on top of some portion of poor Kitty. Lucky for her, Kitty is the most tolerant animal on earth. When we got her about 3 years ago, Jude was 2. Jude was not, and is not to this day what you might call gentle. Or careful. Or capable of slow movement. He used to also lay on top of Kitty as Patches does now, and when I would tell him not to his response was "But I hug kitty! She like it!" Kitty was not smart enough to protest, and would just lay there, with the air slowly being pressed from her body, not even attempting to escape. Not one hiss or arched-back or scratch or bite ever came. That is my kind of cat.

Patches, on the other hand, will bite anything that moves and frequently things that don't move at all. She is convinced they may move at some point in the future and so they should be pounced on and shredded NOW, before they have the chance. Pre-emptive kitten strikes. This applies to shadows, windows,and walls with absolutely nothing on them. And also the broom, because she has seen it move and she knows at any moment it could spring back to life and become a threat. Being constantly on guard means she is constantly on the move, darting from one end of the house to the other until she is so exaughsted she has to find Kitty to pass out on. Kitty who, by the way, has been sleeping peacefully for hours.

This morning though there was a strange scene. By our tv we have a little cat perch by the window. The cats usually jump on top of it to get behind the tv stand. They can also lay inside of it as it has two small cubbies. This morning though. Kitty was on top of the perch. Sitting completely upright. Behind the tv was Patches. She was trying to get out by jumping over the cat perch, but was getting repeated "smack-downs" by Kitty. Patches would jump, Kitty would smack, and Patches would hit the floor with a thud. After about 5 minutes of repeated attempts, Patches crawled through the tv stand instead and ran away. Kitty looked awfully proud of herself as she curled up for a nap, all by herself, on her well defended perch.

Don't worry, they made up later. That last photo was taken this afternoon a couple hours later.

How I feel

 

This is how I feel today.

Its not pretty.

I have a cough that sounds like a barking seal and feels like my lungs are going to vacate my body in protest. I am so congested I think my head might actually explode. Or maybe implode. Either way, it would feel much better then it does now. I have fever and chills, and general total body ache reminiscient of this one time I was run over by a college student on a bicycle...I think I was like 6 or 7 years old. But its a feeling you don't quickly forget.

Major props to Daniel though, who came down yesterday to pick up the boys for the weekend when I told him how sick I was. Its a long drive and I know he didn't want to, but he didn't complain about it and he even gave me some advice for how to make some soup which may make me feel better. OF course, that requires a trip to the store which I am not sure I am up for just yet.

So today its just me and Hannah and the Barking Cough. It totally sucks.

Spaghetti-O Madness!

Hannah likes Spaghetti-O's. As you can plainly see.

She is thrilled to be covered in orange, sticky, slimy goo. Contrary to what these pictures might indicate, she was not in fact using that spoon she is holding. She cleverly held the spoon in one hand, and shoveled gobs of ghetti goodness in to her mouth with the other. Occasionally she would shift the spoon to the alternate hand, to make sure that each hand got a chance to be completely immersed in the wonderfullness that was her dinner.

She liked them so much in fact, she didn't even share any with the dog! And that is really saying something because Hannah and Mac are like best friends. Its practically a rule that he gets half of whatever she is eating. Not so in the case of spaghetti-O's. The emptier her bowl became the more frantic he got, realizing there would be none flung to the floor for him. He whined, and circled her chair, but she just laughed and continued cramming.

I think he is still pouting on the couch.

Anyways, a dinner like this clearly required a bath afterwards. This may have been Hannah's master plan all along since every time we pass the bathroom during the day she says "Bath! Bath! BATH!" She had a bath this morning. She had another one tonight. She is very, very clean.

My Sister

This is probably the most recent picture of my sister and myself together. The sad thing about that is, this was Christmas 2004. And since this is simple math, I can do it. Thats 3 years ago.

How can it have been that long?

I miss my sister.

The thing about Shannon is....well, shes awesome. Shes smart and pretty, and fun to be around. She has lots of friends, and a really cool boyfriend, and I am sure she has a totally rad apartment, but I've never seen it. She always had fun games to play with the boys when she came to visit. We didn't talk on the phone all the time or anything, but she called me pretty frequently for advice, to share a story, or just to say hi. And I did the same.

Then three years ago, it all stopped. Rather suddenly. I made a decision she didn't agree with, I hurt her feelings by not telling her about it ahead of time, and she got so mad she said she never wanted to speak to me again.

I guess I didn't think she really meant it.

I guess I thought that old "Time heals everything" or whatever, would be true. That eventually she would forgive me. Because, hey, we're sisters. Right? Isn't that what sisters are for? Hadn't we been through worse? Wouldn't she be able to see, once everything calmed down, that nothing had to change between us? That I was still the same? The same sister who defended her as a little kid, who shared a room with her till we were practically teenagers, who never fought with her or called her names, who was always glad to help her out, share my things, and have her around. Who she could call crying from New Zealand and be comforted. Who she could ask for advice about boys. Who was always, ALWAYS proud of her.

I still am.

I hear about things going on with her through my parents, and I wish that I was hearing it from her. I hope that someday she will call me. That she will remember the good things, instead of focusing on this one thing that upset her. Big sisters aren't perfect, but I was a pretty darn good one. And I still could be, if she would let me.

I love ya, Shannon.