Rodeo 2009

Ah, rodeo. A time of excitement and irritation in my household. Excitement especially for the other 3 members of my family, slight irritation for me, since I end up basically a single mom for the entire month of February, cleaning up messes, literal and otherwise. But this year was not too bad. R and our friends who came up from San Antonio rented an RV to stay in both weekends, so he didn't have to mess with trying to come home at 2 am and leaving again 5 or 6 hours later every day. And amazingly enough, everybody stayed well for rodeo this year, ever Randy, which has never happened. Samm really got into helping out at the rodeo - her daddy put her to work and she took her job very seriously. I was really proud of her. She ended up staying out at the trailer the last weekend too... even rode the mechanical bull! I think she had a lot of fun in spite of herself. :)

Here's Samm's first bull-riding experience - just the tail end. The guy running it went pretty easy on her at first and she was doing great.

A tradition I hope we continue - Tater and Daddy with all the bull-fighters and Lecile Harris, the most famous rodeo clown in the country. We got a pic like this at Tater's first rodeo, but unfortunately didn't last year. He and I were both sick last year and only made it to part of one perf - he was very cranky and very little picture-taking occurred.

At the carnival - Tater wasn't as ready for the rides as I though he was. He was just plain scared. I put him on the motorcycles, and it was great until they started moving. He screamed so much I had to ask the guy to stop the ride so I could take him off. Then we rode the carousel together and he even cried a little there. We went before the Friday night perf, so he may have just been worn out, I don't know. But even when we came back Saturday, he had no interest in getting back on those rides. Samm didn't really either, just the big swings.

Then Saturday night, Sara and I got an actual babysitter (for the first time for both of us!) and had a girl's night out. We had great seats and enjoyed a great performance!

And I'll leave you with a few pictures of my beautiful kids - taken especially for Grandma Mueller. My only regret is that I didn't get a picture of all us together this year. Oh well - I know a great photographer - I'll be calling her really soon. :)

Tater's Alphabet

And I quote:


A B C D, E F G,

H I J K Lemmo Lemmo P.

Q R S, T U V,

Devil-u X, Y and Z.

Now I know my ABC's,

Next time won't you SING WITH ME!!!!!!!!!!!

I. do. not. want. to. work. today.

I have 4 million things to do for today. And tomorrow and next week.
But I don't wanna.

I am a slug today.

Ugh.

'Twere the nights before Christmas

When I put up the Christmas tree this year, I wondered just how much of the whole Christmas concept Tater would understand. Between the Jesus part and the Santa part, would he really get it?

Well, he did. He got it and then some. I think there were times the kid had more Christmas spirit than I did. We worked our way through the Christmas story using our advent calendar and talked a lot about why we celebrate Jesus’ birthday at Christmas. They had a little birthday party for Jesus at Church the week before Christmas, which was too cute. We sang Silent Night and O Holy Night before bed at night. We discussed how the three kings brought Jesus presents, and that’s why we gave each other presents at Christmastime.

And then there was the whole Santa thing. I was worried that, like most kids, he’d be a little leery of that big ole’ hairy guy in the bright red suit. But he was fascinated instead. He learned all the words to Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (which I never got on video, try as I may). He asked every day if Santa was coming tonight. “I want to see him, Mom!” He even started taking my lines, telling ME that if I didn’t stop getting on to him then Santa wouldn’t bring me any presents. And when he was at the mall with Nana and had the chance to go talk to him, he didn’t freak out. He sat in his lap and talked to him; and two days later, when he was at the mall with Mommy, he made a bee line for the Jolly Old Elf. He asked Santa for a sword and some mistletoe. Yeah, I know. Luckily he forgot about the mistletoe when he told me later what he’d asked Santa for, because even though we have plenty of the stuff around, I was not looking forward to having it disintegrate in my house in the days to come.

And then there were the movies. We had to watch every Christmas special ABC Family had to offer. The three Christmas DVDs we own were worn out (although he love to watch The Grinch all year round – go figure). For 3 weeks, it seemed like if the TV was on, it was playing something Christmas.

And the lights! Oh the lights!! Tater was in awe of all the lights, especially the light tour on the river sponsored by the city. Grandma and D-Pop took him for the first time, and he couldn’t stop talking about it for days. We went again with Samm, Dana and Levi, and I think he kind of got annoyed with our constant chatter the whole way through. He was just so entranced by those beautiful colors and designs.

All in all, it was just a fun season. Christmastime is my absolute favorite time of the year, and it seems Tater may join me in really getting into the spirit, even if my other two grinches don’t. J It just touched my heart to see how truly magical Christmas was in his eyes. I pray it stays that way for years to come.

Siblings

My children played tonight. Together. In the same room with the same stuff. For more than ten minutes. This may not sound like such a big deal, but for two kids - one 15 and one 2 1/2 - who have both lived as only children for their entire lives, it's monumental. And the first time it's happened at this length in the two months they've been living under one roof.

While I was fixing dinner and therefore unavailable to play, Tater resorted to Samm as back-up. And amazingly enough, she obliged. They were having so much fun I let the food sit out a little longer than I needed to just to give them more time to play. They read a Dr. Seuss book three times. They dumped out all the play food, enjoyed a few root beers together, picked it all up (wow!), and played "football" which consisted of Samm bouncing the huge 18" bouncy ball to Tater sitting in his bed who promptly smacked it back to her using a pirate sword.

I hated to make them stop to eat, but after dinner and Samm's shower, they were right back at it. This time it was animal doctor and batman walkie-talkies. In fact, I had to drag him out of her room to got to bed. Actually, she did - he insisted on her carrying him to his room, which she did without a moments' hesitation. I told her it looked like Tater had a new best friend, and she smiled that smile... you know, the one you rarely get from teenagers;the real light-up-the-face genuine smile... it was pretty much priceless. I think they may actually end up liking each other after all! Makes this heart all warm and fuzzy...

Note: this was not the original "Siblings" post I had in mind. It is much better.

Twilight saga indeed...

OK, so it's established that I am a certified Twilight nerd. My friend E has been going on and on about it for a year, and when I saw the movie was coming out, I went ahead and read the book. I cannot watch a book-movie without having read the book first. So I read it. And I, along with every other female who has read it, fell hopelessly in love with Edward, the main character. For those of you non-nerds who don't know, the book is about a family of good vampires who don't eat people; they only hunt animals. But Edward is the knight-in-shining-armor kind of hero that every girl dreams of. But yeah, after that one book, I was hooked. Samm and I both eventually read all four books in a two-week period. They are hard to put down! But going to see the movie... that was an experience...

We went on a Friday night, the day after it came out. Samm with two of her friends and me with my dear E. We of course had to get there early. Like an hour early, and they had the little line roped off for us and everything. We were a full hour early and there were already at least 20 people in front of us! I guess I didn't realize what a following the book had. But that line filled up fast, and when they opened the ropes, I kid you not, people RAN to the door of the theater. Samm, the girl who kept saying it was going to be a theater full of dorks, was one of them. :)

We sat down behind an entire row of Glenn girls (of course), the average age in the theater was probably 14 (E and I felt so old!) and I swear there were not more than 10 guys in that sold-out theater. The buzz before the movie was incredible. It was all Twilight. Which book you were reading; whether you like Edward or Jacob better; who hasn't read that far yet, so don't give anything away!!

Finally, the previews ended, and I've never heard so much shushing in my life. I just cannot fully explain the atmosphere in that theater that night. All those girls were so into the movie, so caught up in the story. It was obvious over 90% of them had read the book. They all sighed and giggled at Bella's first glimpse of Edward; they laughed at things you wouldn't get not having read it; they actually erupted in applause when Bella and Edward kissed. It was just... an experience. One that I'm so glad I got to be a part of. It was just so awesome to be in a room full of teen and pre-teen girls who were excited over a book, especially after spending the last seven years trying to get kids excited to read. It gave me faith again.

And I am so ready for that next movie to come out.

Tater Talk

I just love the way my little man talks. He is finally saying his R's, even if they come out as W's. So instead of saying he was "cying", he has moved on to "cwying." He tries so hard to emphasize the W, I mean, R too. He still rarely says the S at the beginning of words, unless it's Samm's name. The problem is if the S is followed by another consonant. My favorite example - one day he got chill bumps and told me, "Look Mommy! I have pinkles! That means I'm cold!" Took me forever to figure out what he was talking about, and when it finally hit me, I died laughing. Pinkles = Sprinkles. The little bumps all over his arms looked like sprinkles to him. Silly boy!


He picks up anything and everything he hears, and he somehow manages to even got the context of most of his new comments right. He is such a little adult too. Here's a little sampling of his articulation:


He walks up, plops himself on the couch by me and says, "So mom, how you been doing? Doing good?"


Since we've been potty training, we've used candy as rewards. So after his potty trips, we have to "go get a piece of candy about going potty." Not "for" or "because," but "about."

He always talks about what he wants to do when he grows up, saying things like, "I'm going to be a bull rider when I get bigger and bigger." Or "I can do that when I get bigger and bigger. "

Last night we were sitting outside after playing and he said, "Hmmm, let's talk a while." "Ok, baby. Talk about what?" "Let's talk about your wishing well. So how about your wishing well?" And thus launched an interesting conversation about the origins and uses of the well.


Sometimes when I ask him if he wants to do something, his thoughtful response is, "Hmm, well... yeah. I guess that will be a good plan."

Funny. Just plain funny, that little boy.

Update: I thought more.

His daddy has introduced him to the joys of ReddiWhip. They gleefully squirt it into their mouths, much to Mommy's chagrin. Tater calls it "Whoop Cream."