Oscar the Grouch likes Sweet Pork

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Grouchy to the max? You bet. I think it had something to do with my blog post last night. I spent hours writing and tweaking a post that I was straight passionate about. The words seamlessly flowed from my brain to the keys on my keyboard and although I was nervous about writing something so near and dear to my heart, I was excited at the same time. I was finally getting to the main point I wanted to make when something in my brain stopped. There were no more words, just a big wall. I attempted to power through and every word I wrote down felt forced, and well, totally lame. I didn't want to give up. 

Aaron could sense my frustration and said "I think you need to take a break from the blog for a little. It's just making you mad."  I told him it wasn't the blog making me mad, or even that I was blogging everyday, but the fact that I couldn't get what was in my head out of my head. Still with me?

So I deleted every passionate word I had written, started from scratch, and didn't say anything. It made me mad and I pouted big time. I guess it carried over into this morning, and even after a good night's rest I still don't have the right words to finish that thought. But, onwards and upwards.

Yesterday as Grace and I were playing and doodling, that song came on my iPod again. The one that made me bust a move. As it blared through the speakers, Grace couldn't help herself. 

Spins, shimmies, twirls. She was all over it. I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that not only do she and I like the same music, but she gets the rhythm, feels the beat, and sways with the tempo.

It's fascinating to see your child display tendencies and characteristics that you know they got from you. Aaron, unfortunately, can't keep a beat and he doesn't like to dance. The only time he stepped foot on the dance floor at our wedding reception was during our  first dance. He peaced-out moments later and made his way around the food table while the rest of us danced.

Right now I'm sipping on DDP from CFA. My cure-all of cure-alls for a bad day. I'm still in an Oscar the Grouch mood, but it will fade. I'll get over my bad self and maybe one day finish the thought that I started last night. For now I'll dwell on the good and the incredible of right here and right now. One of which is that fact that Costa Vida is in Texas. Although not as good as Cafe Rio, it's a million times better than going without. Aaron and I have included it in our Friday Night Eat Out rotation and my sister and I use any excuse we can to go there for lunch. Totally worth the 25 minute drive.

Day 23: Sunflare 

Hands

 Day 22: Hands

Dance as if No One is Watching

I could have gotten up this morning when my alarm went off at six. But I silenced the alarm, grabbed the covers all tight-like around my face and convinced myself that getting up would be a big mistake. Considering the fact that I was having an inner monologue about how waking up would effect the rest of my day should be proof enough that I was more than capable of getting out of bed to go running. But I didn't.

I dragged my feet the rest of the day, coming up with other things to do, or places to be. Everything fell nicely in my way "preventing" me from getting it done.

As Grace napped, and after I had looked at facebook, gmail, and google reader no less than 10,000 times, I dragged my feet into my room and changed into my gym clothes. A little at home strength training was my default. This time it wasn't something Justin Bieber could talk me into. I put my ear-buds in and scrolled through my music. Before I began my lunges, or squats, or whatever it was that I was going to do, a song came on and I got the itch to dance. Not regular dancing, no side steps with occasional snaps and twirls, but real intense I-am-one-with-the-rhythm kind of dancing. And I went with it. I flailed my arms and swung my hips and ran through my apartment like I was in the middle of a Music video airing on MTV. I felt like the Star Wars kid. Passionate, into it, and loving every second of it. I sang into the mirror, I bounced, high-kicked, and showed all of my imaginary fans that I still had it after all these years.

I felt so incredibly free. I owned every move and honestly thought I that I wouldn't be embarrassed even if someone walked in and saw me. It was that fun. And the best part? My heart was racing and the sweat was dripping. I got a workout and didn't even notice.

Day 21: Faceless Self-Portrait

Anyone in for a dance party at my place?

You Can Call Me Betty

I wasn't so down with the whole cooking thing. I'm not bad at cooking, per se, I just didn't enjoy the process. This did not, however, prevent me from being mesmerized with every show on the Food Network. Perhaps it was because my skills started out a little rough. When I first got married I asked my Mom how I went about making a baked potato. I still have the "recipe" written down and stored in my recipe box. Scrambled eggs were a mystery too, poor Aaron. 

There was something about the getting the recipe, buying the groceries, making the food, seeing if it even tasted good, then doing a bizillion dishes that had me thinking it's wasn't even worth getting into. I stuck to recipes that were easy, affordable, and that I liked, and I basically made them every week.

I had a friend tell me, "I was talking to another friend of mine about how you make the same things every week..." I didn't even hear the end of her sentence, because I was too busy focusing on the little piece of me that died after she made that statement. I was beyond embarrassed. Mortified, if you will. I vowed to be better, to make a better effort, to try harder in the kitchen and get over all of the voices that told me it wasn't worth it.

When I was pregnant with Grace I craved a very specific set of foods. Brunch foods. Waffles, pancakes, and most importantly crepes. I could have eaten crepes every day. The problem was, was that I didn't know how to make them and my Mom was 3,000 miles away. So, I taught myself how to make them and proceeded to make them every sunday for 40 weeks straight. What I learned in that process was that the more you make something, the easier it becomes. In fact, if you know what you're doing in the kitchen, cooking can be fun and not stressful. 

I've been refining my skills, slowly but surely, and recently decided that I wanted to make homemade bread to use for sandwiches and toast (etc) rather than buying store bought bread. Shocker, considering I didn't know how to bake a potato 5 years ago. I located a cook book, blew the dust off of it, and found a recipe that struck my fancy. The whole process was thrilling. Whole wheat flour, yeast, the smell as it baked in the oven. Somewhere in the mix of it all I fell in love and I never wanted to look back. I love baking bread. One of these days I'm going to brave cinnamon rolls, and homemade bagels, and french toast with homemade challah bread. Who knew that I would ever find baking bread so thrilling. I can feel the domestic 50s housewife within me grow and smile, and I think I'll name her Betty.

Day 20: Bokeh (I didn't know what it was either, but it is the aesthetic quality of the blur in the photo)

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana?

11:50pm. Oh crap, find something orange. 

Here is my weak sauce attempt. The couch is orangish, right?

Day 19: Something Orange

I love watching Friends at the end of the day.

Shoes

Do you remember me talking about those lame analogies that I had scribbled all over my scriptures? My head is full of them. Ways to understand life by looking at the mundane things right in front of our face. Sometimes I share these analogies with other people. Sometimes they stare blankly at me, probably questioning why they started talking to me in the first place. And sometimes, I regret sharing them.

Today is not one of those times. I'm going to share a life analogy with you. Get excited.

I've decided that life is very much like a series of Rainbow Sandals. Have you ever owned a pair? They start out stiff and flat. The leather is soft but the straps are unforgiving. You shove your feet into them and immediately you are uncomfortable. Everything about the sandal is foreign and different and your feet scream for other shoes, any other shoes. The one kicker is that you know once the shoes are broken in, they are incredible, you just have to get there. So everyday you wear the shoes. Everyday they are stiff, and everyday you wonder "Why do I even bother?" Then one day, out of nowhere the shoes fit, and they feel wonderful. The leather is pliable and has formed around every single groove, dip, and angle that your feet produce. They fit so nicely on your feet that you forget you even have shoes on. Other times you wear them because they are more comfortable than just having bare feet. At least that has been my experience. Unfortunately, shoes don't last forever and eventually you have to get a new pair, and you have to go through the same process.

How does this relate to life, you ask? From the view point in my mind, life is an ever changing untamed beast that throws curve-balls at you when you least expect it. Trials, difficulties, and patches in life that are less than desirable. We all have them, ranging on a scale from minuscule to the seemingly insurmountable. When these times come up, it's like a fresh pair of Rainbows. Like you're chartering new unchartered territory. Everything feels foreign. But everyday you get up and live your life and you dig your darn toes into those stupid sandals and you move forward. You drag your throbbing painful feet through every hour of everyday, and you wonder when the light at the end of the tunnel will come, if your life will ever be the same. Then one day, without you realizing it, you're comfortable again. Where life makes sense, where you can live with those new sandals on and completely forget that they are different. Even if it is different, its still good and comfortable, and you like your new life.

And when you're just comfortable enough, your sandals wear out and it's time for a new pair. But this time you know to dig your toes in hard, because in the end, it will be great.

Day 18: Shoes

I Must Be Old

I must be old because I can distinctly remember experiencing a few technological firsts.

I remember getting the internet for the first time. My parents can correct me here, but it was somewhere around 1994. We got AOL. The kind that required some serious time to "dial-up" and you waited for the running yellow guy, to get to the second box with his yellow friends, and as you waited for the third AOL box your ears were tuned to the fax-machine garble that the computer spit out. We payed by the minute and my parents required us to keep a log of the amount of time that we were on it. Being young i didn't spend too much time on the internet, but as I got older and things got more advance I remember spending hours talking to friends through AIM. Constantly judging how "cool" I was by how many people I was talking to at one time.

When I was in middle school, my Dad got a cell phone. I'm sure you remember the first Motorola flip phone with a battery so big it made the whole device look like a turtle. I went to Viva Vienna (All you Vienna-ites know what I'm talkin' about) with friends and my Mom told me to take the phone in case of an emergency. The look on my friends faces when I took that phone out of my bag was priceless. "You have a cell phone?!?!" Every bone in my body wished that the phone was mine, but I felt pretty rad even if it was my Dad's. It wasn't until I was a senior in high school that I got my very own cellular device.

Facebook. I joined in December for 2004 due to Quinn and Allison telling me about this odd new website. When I joined you had a wall with your picture, the ability to send messages to one another, write a message on someone else's wall, and a box that kept track of what schools your friends went to. It was so archaic and simplistic back in the day, but at the time it was so advanced, so different. I can't believe what it has morphed into.

When I stop and think about it, I realize how fast this age of technology is spreading. I hasn't even been twenty years since I sat at our first black and white MacIntosh computer that was pretty much only useful to play a math game that involved shooting a guy out of a cannon. Now I'm sitting on my bed, using my personal computer to "journal" if you will and sharing it with a widespread public. It's mind-blowing.

Day 17: Technology.

Exposure

Day 16: Long Exposure

Life is settling into a steady stream of normal. Days that have short To Do Lists like laundry, and vacuuming and afternoons that allow for hours of play for Grace at the mall play area. When things get hectic I begin to crave normalcy, and when it arrives, it never disappoints. There is something so refreshing about order and structure and having dinner ready every night at 7. Part of me thinks I could totally rock the slow paced rural lifestyle. But rural towns lack Walmart and Target, and I'm not sure I could do without those. For now, I'll enjoy the slow before it gets upset by the hectic.

Fatherhood

Like every Father's Day Sunday, I heard the classic Father's day song that all of the little kids sing at church. "I'm so glad when Daddy comes home, glad as I can be..." And every night I witness the lyrics of the song first hand. Moments that Grace gets to spend with Aaron are few and far between during the weekdays and although she is still very young, I know that Grace looks forward to and cherishes those small moments.

I tell Aaron to call when he gets close to home so that Grace can wait for him on our balcony, like Juliet waiting for Romeo.

And when she sees him she reaches her arms out, as if the distance from the ground to our third level apartment were only an arms length away. As he climbs the stairs we run to the front door and she books it Olympic sprinter like out the doors and into his arms. She says his name repeatedly "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy," as if assuring herself that he is there, that it truly is him, and he is home to stay.

Aaron is an incredible Father. His transition into fatherhood was flawless, as if he read the manual beforehand. He is always there to calm my fears and tell me that everything is alright. He reassures me of my abilities as a mother when I doubt myself. He holds Grace close and wipes the tears out of her eyes and whispers into her ears "I love you Buggie." She is lucky, and she knows it, and there is nothing more that I could ask for.

Day 15: Silhouette

Eyes

I'll be the first to admit that all of my preconceived notions about what Grace would be like were totally wrong. As I held her sonogram pictures in my hands I would daydream about what she would look like, how she would behave. In my mind she was blond with blue eyes, just like her Daddy, and behaviorally she was just like me. I had it all figured out and she wasn't even born yet. Granted, these notions were coming from a person who was dead convinced that she was having a boy and was in shock for a week when the doctor clearly said "Nope, it's definitely a girl." That, however, did not stop me from thinking that I knew exactly what my child was going to be like.

When they laid her tiny pink body on my chest after she was born I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that she didn't look like Aaron, but she, in fact, looked just like me. After they whisked her away to clean, test, and check her I kept stealing glances here and there so I could memorize her face. The face that I created in my mind was nothing like the tiny face that looked back. 

When she was awake these deep blue eyes stared back at me. Dark like the deepest parts of the ocean. And, being me, I jumped on the I-was-totally-right-her-eyes-are-going-to-be-blue bandwagon. I had to be right somehow, I had to salvage some form of Mother's intuition, right?

As time wore on, even within the month, a small tan ring formed in her deep ocean blue eyes. I even made a post about which way her eye color was going to go.

It was only a few short months until her eyes were completely brown. I was wrong again. They are now a dark brown color, like chocolate ganache poured over a fudge brown cake. She melts me with those chocolate eyes, and I'd much rather get lost in chocolate eyes than deep ocean eyes. Who wants to get lost in the ocean when you can get lost in chocolate, am I right?

Her brown eyes are darker than mine, but are close in color to her beautiful Hatch girl cousins. But it's those brown eyes that I stare into when I hold Grace in my arms, those brown eyes that sometimes get me to cave to her demands, those brown eyes that squint ever so slightly when she smiles, and it's those brown eyes that make me forget that I ever wanted them to be blue.

Day 14: Eyes

Lucky Number 13

Day 13: Yourself with 13 Things

First off, I'm totally sitting on our porch in this picture, on a blanket. Just so you know.

Here I am, sitting with 13 things. 13 things that I brainstormed with Aaron, and my Mom. 13 things that you may or may not know about me. And, honestly, 13 reasons why I'm totally awesome. (Insert double wink blink here)

1. Dora DVD- I have it memorized. I know the exact path that Dora and Boots take to get to the super silly fiesta. I never panic when the Big Red Chicken loses his cake, because I know that it's on the top of his head. And, by golly, all those spanish words are leaking into my vocabulary. "Gracie do you want to get up? Arriba?" I'm waiting for the day that the spanish slips out in public. Then I'll have to play it off like I totally don't watch Dora with my 21 month old daughter, when in fact I totally do.

2. Scriptures- These are my new set, the set that has my married name inscribed on the front in cursive-y font. My last set was a turquoise number that I used while attending early morning seminary in high school. They are marked, high-lighted, and written on everywhere. And sometimes the things I noted are embarrassing to read. Let's just say that I made some lame analogies. My new set has yet to be marked. I like that they look clean and uncluttered. But, those pages are begging for me to learn new things and see the verses and meanings in a whole new light. And I love that.

3. Pillow- It's underneath the scriptures and Dora. I love my pillow. When I travel, I take it with me. I swear I sleep better with it. Nothing cradles my head quite like that pillow.

4. Keys- These dang keys. No matter what I do I can never remember where I put them. Aaron got a lanyard at work which I adopted and it has drastically cut down in the amount of search time required to find my stupid keys. It has not, unfortunately, helped me to have a better memory.

5. To Do Lists- A new practice for me. Now a new obsession. It's amazing the amount of gratification that can come from crossing something off of my To Do list. Sometimes after I do something that isn't on the list, I write it on the list, just to cross it out.

6. Camera Cap- My camera was obviously in use so the cap represents it. I love my camera. Sometimes I wish it wasn't older, so it had new and nifty capabilities. But, it is still an incredible device and figuring out how to make the most of what it can do has been exciting.

7. Laptop- My outlet. And I picked out the desktop picture, not Aaron.

8. Photo Album- I absolutely love looking at pictures. I look at them over and over and over. There are some that I have looked at so many times, I swear the images are tattooed onto my frontal lobe. Pictures capture who you are at any given moment, and when looking at them you get to take your memory back to that place, back to how you felt in that moment. I love trips down memory lane and pictures are the best form of travel for me.

9. Chocolate Chips- I love Chocolate chip cookies, there is no mystery in that.

10. Kindle- Small portable device. Books instantly. Heaven.

11. Diaper Bag- Aaron picked it out for me. The backpack, shoulder bag combo fills me with joy. I live out of this bag.

12. FRIENDS DVD- Aaron and I like to watch a show before we go to bed. Without DVR/Tivo or cable we've turned to our collection of DVDs to get us through. We've already been through Seinfeld and we've moved onto Friends. Despite the fact that I have seen each episode more than I care to admit, that show still makes me laugh.

13. Family Portrait- This picture was drawn by my niece. I want to frame it. I love that she lives close enough that I get to receive her artwork on a weekly basis. I love that she added muscles when Aaron requested them, and I love that its a totally accurate portrait of my little family. It doesn't hurt that I love my niece too.

I Missed It

Today was supposed to be the sunset. Deep robust oranges melting against buttery yellow and small whisps of red. Something worth oohing and ahhing over. Something that I completely and totally missed.

Instead I got this

 And this

 And this

 And then some of this

And I witnessed it all. There was no time to check my list, see the assignment, and follow through. So, therefore, there are no oranges, no yellows, and definitely no whisps of red. I missed the sunset because we were too busy basking in it. I missed it because I was grabbing life by the horns and riding it PBR style. And to be honest, I'm kind of glad I missed it, because today was ever so glorious.

Day 12: Sunset (Or the Lack thereof)

Something Borrowed...

Remember how the Mavs won the NBA Championship?

Well, they were going to have a parade in Downtown Dallas. I was bound and determined to go, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. To see a parade of very tall men, one of whom is German? Yes, please. How often does your favorite sports team have a parade just down the road? Not too often. The parade was Thursday and a fellow Mom and Mavs fan and I decided it was totally worth the hassle.

Reports started rolling in about the astronomical amount of people that were going to attend, and the heat being so close to the hundreds it could kiss them. Somehow 2 moms with, 2 strollers, 3 small children, and hoards of crazy basketball fans didn't seem to add up to a fun time. Instead we donned our Mavs gear and watched the parade from the comfort of Jodie's home.

Yes, that is the official Mavs Championship shirt. And yes, when Aaron found out that we were having girl his first purchase for that little fetus was pink Mavs gear. All of the small infant stuff was sold out so Aaron bought her outfits in 2T size. Who knew that said outfits would fit perfectly when it mattered the most.

To be honest the parade was kind of lame, but it was a fun excuse to hang out on a Thursday morning. Things got pretty exciting toward the end of the parade when the star of the Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowitzski, led all the fans in a baritone-German-accent version of "We Are the Champions." It was epic, to say the least. We are definitely true blue Mavs fans.

Day 11: Something Blue

Memory is a Funny Thing

Have you ever noticed that a smell or an object can somehow transport you back in time and have you drifting in Memory la la land? That happens to me from time to time. Although la la land is where I spend most of my mental time. 

When my Grandmother passed away I asked my Mom for one favor, to set aside my Grandmother's copy of the book "Are You My Mother?"

I would beg her to read this book to me when we were at her house. I remember the way the binding cracked when she opened it, the way her voiced sounded when she said the line "You are not my mother, you are a snort!"And that her voice always took a higher tone when she said the little bird's lines.

My cousin and I would have sleepovers at my grandmother's house. One time in particular we noticed that our Grandparents were always doing nice things for us and we devised and plan to do something nice for them. After we were tucked in bed and kissed goodnight we put our plans in motion to make them brunch and drafted up a "menu." I fell asleep and shortly thereafter was awoken by Shannon's (my cousin) excited face. "I think its time to get everything ready." We really wanted to wake up before my Grandparents so breakfast would be awaiting them downstairs. Shannon was all over wake up duty, and I'm pretty sure she never fell asleep.

We tip toed around the kitchen, set the table in the sunroom, and debated whether the peanut butter should go on the toast before or after you put it in the toaster oven. We chose before, the toast was extremely strange. At some point during our breakfast assembly, I think while we were making the fruit salad which I'm pretty sure was just grapes, my Grandparents came downstairs.

Their voices were calm and soft, "What are you girls doing?" "Uhhhhh...we wanted to surprise you with breakfast." "Oh," Short pause "Do you know what time it is?" "No" "It's 4 in the morning."

Our preparation was a tad early, and I'm sure my Grandparents were so confused when the toaster oven went off at 3:50am. They never got mad at us. They walked us into the living room and my Grandmother offered to read us a book before we went to bed. "Are You My Mother?" was that book. It wasn't too long after the bird found her mother that we were back in our beds fast asleep.

Although it is just cardboard, paper, and words that have been published and republished for years, this book with its worn cover, it's thick yellowing pages, and its story houses so many memories for me. It is by far one of the most precious things that I own. And one day, when I'm feeling brave and when Grace is over her goat-like book eating habits, we'll read it together over and over and over. We'll add our own wear and tear and add onto the memories that this book has already collected.

Day 10: Childhood Memory

Hey Momma

I've always felt like my Mom and I had a special connection. I'm sure all of my siblings could say the same. When I was young I thought we were united somehow because our names were so similar. When people would call we would have to say "Do you want to talk to KarEN or KarA?"Overly emphasizing the endings of our names in a way that I'm sure totally annoyed the people on the other end. I know for a fact that I was named purely because my mom liked it and not because she wanted to pass on her name. But, being the selfish self-involved person that I am, sometimes I pretend it's the other way around.

She is an incredible woman, truly. She was made and built to be a Mother and Grandmother. She listens when you talk, hugs you when you need it the most, and tells you that you can do anything. She wiped tears, motivated me to practice the piano (or, unfortunately for her, the oboe), and spent late nights helping me glue, tape, and draw for a project due the next morning.

She was always there for me. Always. She attended every game, every miserable 6th grade band concert, every play. She believed in me when others didn't. She let me make my own decisions and then talked things through with me when those choices didn't pan out.

She didn't laugh when I told her that I wanted to be in a Josh Groban music video. She watched FRIENDS with me, kept the fridge stocked with sodas, and occasionally gave in when I begged to go to McDonald's after school.

As I've gotten older I have learned to truly respect and look up to my Mother for the person that she is. She was and is so good for me. We've stretched and grown together. And there is no better feeling in the world than seeing her love Grace just like she loves her own kids. And, for the record, I'm keeping my fingers tightly crossed that I can look just like her when I'm her age. Seriously, the woman has aged well.

It doesn't seem like a coincidence that she flew in to Texas on that same day of this picture assignment.

Day 9: Someone You Love

I love you Momma.

Poison of Choice

I can vividly remember making the transition from regular sugar filled soda to diet soda. It was part of my initiation into adulthood, or my initiation into I-can-sacrifice-taste-for calories-hood. I hated it. The taste was vile and false. I stuck with water for awhile. I don't know why I took the plunge again, but I did. I got to the point where I could drink diet soda if I was eating something with it, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered.

Now, unfortunately, it's my jam, my nectar, my "you've survived today" reward. And my poison of choice is obvious, as mentioned hundreds of times on this blog, Diet Dr. Pepper. If it was possible to have a love affair with a soda, then I would totally be having one right now. Think prancing through fields together kind of affair. Moving to Texas made this habit worse. You can get DDP on tap almost everywhere. Evil. When I've had a particularly rough day, or am in desperate need, I go for the good stuff and get one on tap. In my experience Chick-Fil-A has the best (Sonic's always taste like tater tots), which is convenient seeing as I'm always at Chick Fil A.

After a day like yesterday I was bound and determined to make the most of today. At 9:30am when things were starting to turn all "banana like" again, I tore out car chase style, screeching tires and all, to CFA for my first DDP. There is no shock value when I say "DDP is my bad habit."

Day 8: A Bad Habit

No One Likes Bananas on an Off Day

I should have taken it as a sign that today was going to be off. You can't go to bed at 2:15am, wake up at 6:15am to run, and be juiced to take on the world one "To Do" at a time. I should have thrown in the towel at 7:30am when my egg yolk broke and produced a rubbery-goodyear-tire like egg that I forced myself to eat.

Instead, however, I set lofty goals and scribbled a "To Do" list 8 miles long. "I can totally do all of this today, no biggie."

After a series of Epic fails and an entire water bottle emptied in my back seat, I gave up. I shut my sleepy eyes on the floor of Grace's room as she played, only to be awoken by the tearing of Grace's diaper and her pointing to inform me that she had made a deposit and she wanted me to be aware of the occurrence.

The last thing I wanted to do was take a picture of fruit. Especially since one of my failed To Do's was to buy blueberries for the picture so I could tell all about what blueberries mean for me and Grace.

Instead, I changed Grace's diaper and headed out to the patio with our fruit bowl. There is no interesting story, no reason why bananas sat on the other side of my lens, but a simple meaning that life is crazy sometimes and when you expect lemons and you have a totally perfect recipe for lemonade, sometimes you get bananas and you just have to make do. 

Today was definitely a banana kind of day.


Day 7: Fruit

By Association

You know how when you get married the things that you love and the things that your spouse loves start to intermingle and you find yourselves loving the same things. It's the whole "coming together and becoming one" thing. In my head the Spice Girls song "Two Become One" is totally playing. Aaron loves the Dallas Mavericks. Always has. He loved them when their skills probably didn't really deserve that love. Through thick and thin this boy's fandom has not wavered. That love has spilled over and now I, too, love the Dallas Mavericks. I actually care when they lose. I cheer when they win and get anxious and nervous when the score is close.

But, my love still pales in comparison. Tonight the Dallas Mavericks won, for the first time in franchise history, the NBA Championship. Aaron was on cloud nine, happy as can be. Soaking up all the post game interviews, discussing the "awesomeness of Dirk" and feeling justified in his stalwart faith. Tonight, one of his boyhood dreams came true.

He watched the game with intensity. Eyes on the screen, pure focus. Don't let the somber look fool you. He was engaged with every play.

Day 6: From a Low Angle

Way to go Mavs!

Heaven's Chariot

I wish I had taken a good picture tonight, one full of meaning, artistry and thought. I did not. At the end of the day, at 9:00pm, with bad lighting, I grabbed my camera and snapped away.

We went on heaven's chariot tonight. Heaven's Chariot being the boat, of course. Aaron was getting ready to wakeboard and his porcelain white skin was in need of a copious amount of sunscreen. When we got home tonight we patted ourselves on the backs for our awesome sunscreen applying skills. It wasn't until later that Aaron realized his feet hurt and we had missed some spots. Our applying skills are in need of work.

However, our wakeboard skills are now top notch as we both got up on the wakeboard for the first time. Heaven's chariot, never disappoints.

Day 5: From a High Angle

It's Party Time

Did I say party? I meant potty. It's potty time.

Recently Grace has shown a serious interest in all things toilet related. She is very inquisitive about it all and privacy, apparently, has become a lost concept for her. I'm not quite ready to dive into potty training Grace. There is a vacation on the horizon and in my mind vacays and potty training don't mix (at least for now). But with all of the shirt tugging and diaper removing and "Up! Up!" from my child who desperately wants to sit diaper-less on the toilet, I can't deny that its right around the corner.

The mere discussion of the topic in a public forum makes me cringe a little. Before I had kids I SWORE up and down, left and right, near and far, that I would never say "You want to go pee pee in the potty" to my children. The phrase rubbed me so wrong when parents would say it to their kids. I thought "There are much better ways to say that." Potty related talk and I weren't really on the same page. But, as with most things with parenting, how you think you're going to do something and how you actually end up doing it tends to be completely different. Case and point, in the last couple of weeks I have said "Let's go pee pee in the potty" so many times that I've lost count. "You want to sit on the potty," "Look Mommy is on the potty." You get the point. I am no longer a "Potty Talk" virgin, thats for dang sure.

We ventured over to the store to pick out a potty. I read somewhere that you should include your child in the Potty Picking Out Process as it will make them feel more involved. "Okay Gracie, here are all the potties." (Blank stare). I located the cheapest potties. and narrowed it down to one that looked like a frog and one that looked like a step stool that would totally leak. "Gracie which one do you want?" (Even Blanker Stare). She obviously could have cared less and I felt stupid trying to make her choose one or the other, so I threw the frog one in the cart, grabbed the Dora cup that Grace really wanted, and headed home.

It hangs out around the house and is more of an accessory that Grace likes to sit on (sans diaper) every now and then. She's never done anything on it, although she checks enough times that it makes you think she knows what she is doing (she does not). I've posed the question to my sister and a few Mom friends, just to see how they did it (I love that everyone has a different method, but all have been successful). When I get enough guts to take on the challenge, I'll go for it. For now, I'm content to house our green little friend until the time is right.

Day 4: Something Green.