This is STILL not a post about Hawaii

Well, you see.

First we were there and didn't have wifi. And then I got home and realized that it's going to take me more than one day to sort out all these Hawaii pictures and figure out which ones to post.

So instead of rushing it, I'm first going to share something with you that my lovely Twitter followers experienced with me before I went on my trip, but since that's only about 600 of you, I figure there are enough others of you that DIDN'T get to enjoy it with us that I can share it with you today.

And "it," Internet, is a birthday party for a 10-year-old friend of Nathaniel's that neither he nor I realized was a Dance Party.

Which -- if you know me AT ALL -- you realize I was lit-trally forced to Tweet once I found myself ringside for the duration.

Honestly, it was probably the most fun I've ever seen 10-year-olds have at a birthday party. The girls probably more than the boys, because they're just at that age where things start to get a bit awkward between the genders.

When we got home and Grayson asked Nathaniel how it went, Nathaniel said, "Basically it was pretty good until the DJ said he was gonna play One Direction. Then it got crazy. The girls started screaming, the music got louder, the girls started dancing and all the boys ran into the bathroom."

So there you have it, in a nutshell.

Hawaii soon, pinky-swear.

We made it! But I have no wifi!

We made it to Kauai! Melanie and I left Birmingham at 6:15 on Saturday morning, and our flights were great.

We've already had a fun day today, and I wish I could share pictures with you, but we can't get on the Internet at the house yet. So here are a few I took with my phone on Travel Day.

I'll be back with more as soon as I can be!

This strange, strange week

I'm sure many of you feel like I do about this week ... it's been a week full of emotion, largely in reaction to tragedy around the nation.

For me, it's also a week of anticipation, because in two days I leave for my 40th-birthday trip to Hawaii with my sister and our friends Melanie and Caroline. I'm overwhelmed by the list of things to do before I depart, the work that must be done, the fact that Amelia is still fairly sick, and the lingering symptoms I have from my illness last week.

And as excited as I am about my trip, my excitement is tempered by the thought that this is the anniversary of  Kyser's death. Unbelievably, he's been gone for three years now. When I heard about the bombings in Boston this week, my first thought was, "Oh Lord, please let Harry be okay. Please don't let Harry be anywhere near there." Harry is Ky's brother, and he lives and goes to school in Boston now. Thankfully, he is fine.

I know this post is all over the place, and that's totally indicative of where my brain is right now. I can't center my thoughts. Maybe once I get to Hawaii, I'll be able to decompress and write some things that make sense.

There's also the chance that I'll get there and decide not to blog until I get home. Wouldn't that be nice of me?! "I went to Hawaii and all I got my blog readers was this blank screen."

But let me tell you what will make coming here today worth your time: It's this link. The link to the Boston fans singing the national anthem IN BOSTON last night at the Bruins game. Talk about chillbumps. Holy moly. If you haven't seen this yet, you absolutely must.

And if you HAVE seen it, you need to watch it again. Two more times.

Yes, I just linked to the same video five times. God bless America.

Five!

Jakey,

Today you turn FIVE! What a blessing it has been to be able to call you my son for five years … you are such a force of nature, a completely unique, totally scrumptious, 100-percent-boy little boy.

You’ve continued this year to be the best big brother to Amelia that you know how to be. You have to give her a hug and a kiss first thing when she wakes up, right before she takes her nap, and last thing before she goes to bed for the night. If Daddy or I forget your routine, you fuss at us and then give us the silent treatment, complete with a scowl on your face and your arms crossed over your chest. It’s a sin you don’t forgive.

You’re going to start Kindergarten this Fall, and you are beyond ready. You’re reading Level 1 Readers independently, and I think you’re going to blow your Kindergarten teacher away. I can’t wait to see how you do at school when you join Nathaniel and Nick … all three of you at one school. I hope you don’t blow the roof off the joint.

You have a sensitive heart … you’re very attuned to other people’s feelings, and you’re pretty good at verbalizing your own. Just the other day, you nearly broke my heart. You had hit your friend Alex at school, and he was upset with you and told you that he wasn’t your friend anymore: “Alex said I’m not his best friend anymore. But I was NEVER really his best friend; he was MY best friend. He has other good friends, but he was MY best friend. And now he isn’t going to be, anymore.” I remember that feeling. I remember feeling it all the way from your age through a couple of years ago. I’d love to tell you it gets easier, buddy, but it doesn’t.

I love that you still run up to me and give me hugs, all hours of the day and night. Sometimes you just seem to need them. You still sit in my lap a lot, just to watch TV or read a book, and sometimes you rub my arm lightly or rest your hand on my arm. You kiss me on the cheek, or occasionally on the lips, and I just think it’s the cutest thing … you’re so different from your brothers in that way. Mr. Lovey Dovey!

And of course, you always give me compliments when I’m wearing my PJs, have no makeup on and my hair is up in a messy bun. You just LOVE the granola look. Mark my words: you’re going to marry a minimalist woman.

I have no idea what I did to deserve you, but I’m so glad God saw fit to put you in my life. You keep us laughing, you keep us hugging, you keep us loving. You’re the family glue, and I love you to pieces.

Love,

Mommy

My ornery day

I was supposed to spend last Wednesday resting up to go back to work the next day, after being home with bronchitis and double ear infections the previous two days. That plan came to a screeching halt when the van wouldn't start for Grayson to take the kids to their schools that morning -- even after he tried jumping the battery.

He made two runs with his car, and then I had to call a tow truck to come get the van (and me) and take us to Sears to have a new battery installed. I practically had to beat the tow truck driver off with a stick, so sexy was I looking that day. Actually, quite frankly, I'm surprised he didn't invite me to sit on the truck bed with the van instead of inside the cab with him.

So anyway, I'm typically really nice to servicepeople. Like, if I had a superpower, that would be it ... Really Nice to Waitresses and Cashiers. But this lady at the Sears service desk had the unfortunate luck of catching me on this day when I had:

   - been pulled out of bed at home while nursing a fever and aching body
   - waited two hours on a tow truck
   - ridden across town in an un-air-conditioned tow truck with no seatbelt

and was literally sweating bullets right there in front of her. So here's how that went down:

Sears Lady: "Which of our DieHard batteries would you like? We have a six-year and an eight-year."

Me: "So one is guaranteed for six years and one for eight years?"

SL: "No, the six-year is guaranteed for 18 months and the eight-year is guaranteed for three years."

Me:  [blank stare]

SL: "The six-year is $85 and the eight-year is $125."

Me: "Shouldn't they be called the '18-month' and the 'three-year'?"

SL: "No. After that point, they're prorated."

Me: "I don't understand."  [pause to let sweat make its way from the middle of my back down my buttcrack and into my underwear]  "Do you have a pamphlet I can look at?"

SL: "A what?"

Me: "A BROCHURE."

SL: "All this is printed on the back of your receipt."

Me: "Which I Don't Get Until After I Purchase The Battery And Have It Installed, Right?"

SL: "Yes."

Me: "Well since I've put three batteries in this van already and it's only five years old, I guess I'll take the three-year. Because I'll for sure be back before then."

SL: "So you want the eight-year."

Me: "Right. 'The eight-year'."

And Internet, I gave her air quotes. ORNERY, I TELL YOU.

Uncomfortable truths, vol. 47

1. My friend Vanessa and I were shopping during Clinique Bonus Days recently. I questioned the Clinique assistant about the "chubby eye stick," which looked like a giant Crayola crayon of eyeshadow. I'M ALL IN. She lowered her voice and said, "It's great, but um, it's sort of, I mean, well, it's not the best for, um, MATURE EYES. It shows, like, every line and wrinkle."

2. It's bad that this is exactly the marriage I want, right? I mean, the Whitney choice notwithstanding.

3. When I was sick earlier this week, while I was pumping Afrin into my nose, I pinched my upper lip with the applicator. Before you go thinking that is no big deal, imagine surprise-clamping a metal binder clip to your upper lip. INSULT TO INJURY, INTERNET.

4. Until about five years ago, I'd never heard the word "biopic" spoken aloud; I'd only read it. And in my head, I pronounced it bi-YAH-pik. So imagine my surprise when I finally heard an interviewer pronounce it on TV as BI-oh-pik. 

5. Some of my Amazon boxes arrive having been sealed with this nifty Amazon Prime packing tape. But other Amazon boxes arrive adorned with plain packing tape.

I want ALL my packages to ship from the distribution center with the Very Pretty Prime Tape. Never noticed what kind of packing tape is used to seal boxes shipped to you by any store, anywhere? No worries. I'LL JUST BE OVER HERE DOING THE THINKING FOR ALL OF US.

Sickly

I'm probably out of commission for this week ... as you all might have assumed from my absence.

I've been in bed since Saturday night, and I'm trying to post this from my phone for the first time. So if you're reading it, yea me! I figured it out.

Tweets from yesterday, to get you up to speed:

Easter Sunday

Hopefully by now you've forgotten all the other thousands of Easter pictures you saw at the beginning of the week. So starting over fresh with me should be like a veritable GIFT today.

Right?

We started our morning with the filling and opening of Easter baskets. Or gaudy plastic buckets. Whatevs.

I kept their baskets around $8 to $10 each ... they each got a rubber ball (Spider-Man for the big boys, Jake and the Neverland Pirates for Jake, and Disney princess for Amelia), and the boys each got Jelly Belly bubbles, some nasty kind of modeling goop, M&Ms, Starburst jellybeans and two Butterfinger eggs.

Amelia just got the ball, M&Ms and a new sippy cup. I reasoned that she's still too young enough to realize that her brothers got more stuff.

The expression on her face told me that I might have been mistaken.

Nathaniel tried to show her what a Great! Ball! she got.

And she was sort of like, "Uh, PRINCESSES? Gimme Jake's Jake and the Neverland Pirates ball. I like that one better."

After they opened their baskets, we headed over to my Uncle Dick's house for lunch and our second Egg Hunt of the weekend. My cousin Allison's kids, Chris and Anna, joined our kids at the Kids' Table for lunch.

Did you sit at the Kids' Table when you were little? I did. It was The Place To Be. This year poor Anna was yet again far outnumbered ... I'm sure conversation was dominated by references to bodily functions.

This year Amelia sat at the Adults' Table ... but next year, I bet she'll join Anna at the Kids' Table.

But it was after lunch that the REAL fun began, at least for the kids.

[Please enjoy how even though Uncle Dick and Grayson are standing approximately two inches behind the kids in these pictures, they seem unaware that they are actually IN the pictures.]

They were ready to go, including Amelia, who knew EXACTLY what to do, given her experience from the day before.

This time, she didn't have a pizza crust that she needed to hold onto while she hunted.

That meant that she was able to hold her own basket! Girlfriend was already a pro.

LOOK AT THAT TECHNIQUE, INTERNET.

For someone who wasn't walking a month ago, she sure got the hang of walking-while-carrying-a-basket-and-bending-over-picking-things-up-and-putting-them-in-said-basket pretty quickly, didn't she?

"It ain't no big thang, Mommy."

 

 

I kid you not ...

MY balance isn't even this good NOW.

She was all over the place. Picked eggs up left and right.

She even got really adventurous and dug in the ivy for them.

Next year she'll probably be climbing trees.

Jake was all in the shrubbery, which everyone knows is where the best eggs are hidden.

He even got my dad involved. "POP! COME IN THE BUSHES!"

According to Jake, it was worth every scratch.

[GRATUITOUS CUTE DOG PICTURE ALERT]

Chris and Anna's dog Katie is so cute, I had to include a picture of her. Too much!

We had some VERY happy campers on our hands.

Some were happy because they got to break into their chocolate eggs immediately.

Others were happy because they found breakable eggs that contained confetti!

And confetti is MORE fun if you share it, right?

Both granddads got a healthy helping ... and were great sports about it.

Already looking forward to next year!