Sunday, June 17, 2007
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Dellanor Delphinium
Today was Roo's last day of school which marks the end of my days alone with Deli. Sure it's going to be good to have the girls back together again, but I'm going to miss all the attention Delberd demanded from me. Now her constant stream of conversion will most likely be aimed at Tess instead of me. Will she ask to go to Target everyday like she would after we left Tess at school? Or demand that we eat breakfast together and that we eat the exact same thing? What if she doesn't need me anymore? What if Tess is already a better mother than me. Summer is just beginning and I'm full of anxiety. Any way, here are some pictures and a video with a bunch of random moments of Boo Radley.
Deli's first babysitting job was to watch Tess's school teacher's new born baby for two days.
accessorizing
why paint on paper?
Adelle with tea, toast and Delphiniums from the garden
Some of my favorite Dellanorisms:
setting: breakfast in the kitchen
me: "Look Adelle, there's something behind your head!" (I was trying to steal a bite of her cereal)
Deli: "What? What? Wait.......is it my Christmas stocking?" (this is in May)
setting: taking out the trash
me: "Look Adelle a cockroach! What should we name it?"
Deli: "Bush, hello Bushy"
setting: picking up Tess from School
Deli: Tess...I'm sorry but Mom and I went to Target today without you and I got a bagel but we didn't get you one. I'm so sorry Tess. (in a not-really-sorry tone)
setting: TJMaxx, quickly trying to buy socks for Tom when Adelle spots a must-have Dora shirt
Deli: Mom can I get this for my birthday? (This is the standard question for any desirable object in a store)
me: maybe, but your birthday is in March, remember?
Deli: No Maaahhm! My TODAY birthday!
me: nope
Deli: please. please, please, please, please, please Mom please. If you let me have the shirt then I will invite you to "Kids Club" (a magical place without parents and all you can eat brownies that she and Tess have made up and try to threaten to uninvite Tom and I to when we don't respond to their liking) but if you don't let me get the Dora shirt then you will have to have a consequence (at this point we had a small audience)
me: let's put the shirt in the basket for now (This was deceptive of me, I know. When we got to the check out I just handed the clerk her shirt and asked him to put it back for us.)
---later that day, just as Tess gets into the car from school---
Deli: Guess what Tessy....Mom and I went to the store and guess whhhaaat....I got a new Dora shirt but I'm sorry you didn't. I'm sorry Tess.
me: Deli, we didn't get the Dora shirt, you were much too fussy in the store.
Deli: WHAT! Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!
setting: me sitting at the computer
Deli: Mom, I want to sit on your lap because it's squishy
setting: getting the house picked up
Deli: Mom, can I watch Lion King because it is my favorite?
me: no Deli, we have work to do, you need to do your spoon drawer (emptying the silverware) and clean your room
Deli: (after stomping her foot and bouncing her body off every piece of our furniture) but Maaaahhm, it's my very very favorite!
me: sorry babe, not until we finish our work
Deli: But Maaaaaaammmaaaa
me: no Adelle
Deli: FINE! (with a final stomp of her foot) I WILL do my spoon drawer and THEN I'll clean room
me: good idea
setting: at the checkout at Walgreens
Deli: hey Mom, can we get some gum? Gum is my favorite, I will chew it. I know when I was 2 I would swallow it but I'm 3 now and I will chew it pleeeeeeeeeaaaaase.
me: no
Deli: but Mom I mean it. I mean it! I WILL chew it! I will chew like this (munch, munch)......I will NOT swallow it. Look, thus gum is blue and look....this gum is pink and this gum is red and this gum is GREEEEEEN. Ooohhhhh I like green gum, I had green gum one time. Mom can we get this greeeeeeeen gum because I LOVE IT!
checkout lady: WOW! She talks a lot! Does she always talk this much?
me: yup.
Deli's first babysitting job was to watch Tess's school teacher's new born baby for two days.
accessorizing
why paint on paper?
Adelle with tea, toast and Delphiniums from the garden
Some of my favorite Dellanorisms:
setting: breakfast in the kitchen
me: "Look Adelle, there's something behind your head!" (I was trying to steal a bite of her cereal)
Deli: "What? What? Wait.......is it my Christmas stocking?" (this is in May)
setting: taking out the trash
me: "Look Adelle a cockroach! What should we name it?"
Deli: "Bush, hello Bushy"
setting: picking up Tess from School
Deli: Tess...I'm sorry but Mom and I went to Target today without you and I got a bagel but we didn't get you one. I'm so sorry Tess. (in a not-really-sorry tone)
setting: TJMaxx, quickly trying to buy socks for Tom when Adelle spots a must-have Dora shirt
Deli: Mom can I get this for my birthday? (This is the standard question for any desirable object in a store)
me: maybe, but your birthday is in March, remember?
Deli: No Maaahhm! My TODAY birthday!
me: nope
Deli: please. please, please, please, please, please Mom please. If you let me have the shirt then I will invite you to "Kids Club" (a magical place without parents and all you can eat brownies that she and Tess have made up and try to threaten to uninvite Tom and I to when we don't respond to their liking) but if you don't let me get the Dora shirt then you will have to have a consequence (at this point we had a small audience)
me: let's put the shirt in the basket for now (This was deceptive of me, I know. When we got to the check out I just handed the clerk her shirt and asked him to put it back for us.)
---later that day, just as Tess gets into the car from school---
Deli: Guess what Tessy....Mom and I went to the store and guess whhhaaat....I got a new Dora shirt but I'm sorry you didn't. I'm sorry Tess.
me: Deli, we didn't get the Dora shirt, you were much too fussy in the store.
Deli: WHAT! Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!
setting: me sitting at the computer
Deli: Mom, I want to sit on your lap because it's squishy
setting: getting the house picked up
Deli: Mom, can I watch Lion King because it is my favorite?
me: no Deli, we have work to do, you need to do your spoon drawer (emptying the silverware) and clean your room
Deli: (after stomping her foot and bouncing her body off every piece of our furniture) but Maaaahhm, it's my very very favorite!
me: sorry babe, not until we finish our work
Deli: But Maaaaaaammmaaaa
me: no Adelle
Deli: FINE! (with a final stomp of her foot) I WILL do my spoon drawer and THEN I'll clean room
me: good idea
setting: at the checkout at Walgreens
Deli: hey Mom, can we get some gum? Gum is my favorite, I will chew it. I know when I was 2 I would swallow it but I'm 3 now and I will chew it pleeeeeeeeeaaaaase.
me: no
Deli: but Mom I mean it. I mean it! I WILL chew it! I will chew like this (munch, munch)......I will NOT swallow it. Look, thus gum is blue and look....this gum is pink and this gum is red and this gum is GREEEEEEN. Ooohhhhh I like green gum, I had green gum one time. Mom can we get this greeeeeeeen gum because I LOVE IT!
checkout lady: WOW! She talks a lot! Does she always talk this much?
me: yup.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
randomness...a specialty of mine
So I was talking to my running mentor and friend, who happens to be what I would call a power blogger (a person who equates "put new post on the blog" with "wake-up" on their daily to-do list) about our different blogging styles. Basically she write really interesting, funny things and doesn't necessary rely heavily on photos, especially photos of the kidos to try to sponge some attention--which would essentially describe my style. But most recently my friend has ventured more into utilizing cute baby pics to draw in the online crowds so I thought I’d give it a go at a picture-less kid-less post. Prepare yourself to be rocked by randomness, click away while you still can.
First of all, Tom and I have been in love lately and that feels good, so we decided to celebrate our love by……..
buying some CD’s (something we haven’t done for sooo long). Saturday night we took advantage of some free babysitting and hit the town. Although we had planned to go out to eat together, we skipped dinner to justify our purchases.
purchase #1 Pacha Massive – Hot Spanglish disco techno rap (usually at this point I would put pics of the girls break dancing, but I won’t)
Here’s one of their songs, my favorite is “oye mira” but I couldn’t find it
purchase#2 History Boys Soundtrack-- What a movie! The screenplay is perfect, taken from an even better play I hear. The Soundtrack includes the Cure, the Smiths, the Pretenders, the Clash etc. Normally I would talk about how the girls believe the chorus from the Clash song sings "rockin' the Deathstar," and I'd put a video of them grooving in the backseat and singing the chorus as loud as they can, but I'll stop myself.
Second only to dancing around in Barnes & Noble and embarrassing Tom, I love to spend my weekends reading the New York Times. I try to force myself to read the entire Week in Review section before I rush into the Sunday Styles but I can hardly stop myself from heading straight to the most entertaining section of all--at the very end of the Sunday Style lies the Wedding Announcements or what David Brooks calls the "mergers and acquistions." Here are my top four from the last two Sundays. These select few are chosen based on 3 criteria;
1-- unbelievable perfection (i.e. She's a 25 year old M.D. graduating from Yale with a masters in astrophysics from Harvard and he is a 27 year old J.D. from Columbia with a Ph.d in bio-engineering from Stanford and MFA in french horn performance from Juilliard)
2-- Shameless exploitation of career based lineage (i.e. the bride is the great-great-god-niece of Herbert Boufee, a noble prize nominee in 1874)
3-- unadulterated corniness (this stuff is my favorite, you got to read it to believe it)
So read on and cast your vote for your favorite. Please remember to sit up straight, cross your legs, and turn side to side while you clap soflty and repeat "good match, good match indeed" in your best british accent when you finish reading each announcement.
Fola Popoola and Alvin May II catagory 1
Julia Taft & Christof Putzel catagory 2
Catherine Bennett & Sophien Bennaceur catagory 3
Jennifer Openshaw and Randy Schwimmer catagory 3--I love the pic with this one, ya kinda gotta feel bad for the chauffeur in a monkey suit
First of all, Tom and I have been in love lately and that feels good, so we decided to celebrate our love by……..
buying some CD’s (something we haven’t done for sooo long). Saturday night we took advantage of some free babysitting and hit the town. Although we had planned to go out to eat together, we skipped dinner to justify our purchases.
purchase #1 Pacha Massive – Hot Spanglish disco techno rap (usually at this point I would put pics of the girls break dancing, but I won’t)
Here’s one of their songs, my favorite is “oye mira” but I couldn’t find it
purchase#2 History Boys Soundtrack-- What a movie! The screenplay is perfect, taken from an even better play I hear. The Soundtrack includes the Cure, the Smiths, the Pretenders, the Clash etc. Normally I would talk about how the girls believe the chorus from the Clash song sings "rockin' the Deathstar," and I'd put a video of them grooving in the backseat and singing the chorus as loud as they can, but I'll stop myself.
purchase#3 Tracy Thorn, out of the woods
Second only to dancing around in Barnes & Noble and embarrassing Tom, I love to spend my weekends reading the New York Times. I try to force myself to read the entire Week in Review section before I rush into the Sunday Styles but I can hardly stop myself from heading straight to the most entertaining section of all--at the very end of the Sunday Style lies the Wedding Announcements or what David Brooks calls the "mergers and acquistions." Here are my top four from the last two Sundays. These select few are chosen based on 3 criteria;
1-- unbelievable perfection (i.e. She's a 25 year old M.D. graduating from Yale with a masters in astrophysics from Harvard and he is a 27 year old J.D. from Columbia with a Ph.d in bio-engineering from Stanford and MFA in french horn performance from Juilliard)
2-- Shameless exploitation of career based lineage (i.e. the bride is the great-great-god-niece of Herbert Boufee, a noble prize nominee in 1874)
3-- unadulterated corniness (this stuff is my favorite, you got to read it to believe it)
So read on and cast your vote for your favorite. Please remember to sit up straight, cross your legs, and turn side to side while you clap soflty and repeat "good match, good match indeed" in your best british accent when you finish reading each announcement.
Fola Popoola and Alvin May II catagory 1
Julia Taft & Christof Putzel catagory 2
Catherine Bennett & Sophien Bennaceur catagory 3
Jennifer Openshaw and Randy Schwimmer catagory 3--I love the pic with this one, ya kinda gotta feel bad for the chauffeur in a monkey suit
Monday, May 28, 2007
2,753 feet above mean sea level
YES! We did it! We broke free, whole famn damily style! We made it out of Dallas on a Memorial weekend quest for higher elevation.
J Lo hiking with my girls
Finally... some elevation! Mount Magazine is Arkansas's highest point at 2,753 feet and coming from Dallas, we enjoyed every foot of it.
Trip Stats:
First stop... Hot Springs Arkansas (4 hour drive from the Big D)
We stayed there Saturday night and hiked around in Hot Springs National Park on Sunday morning.
The girls loved hiking and collecting rocks and pinecones
J Lo hiking with my girls
Downtown Hot Springs is beautiful and the national park is the heart of it. Tom and I loved this old Art Deco hotel (above) and the old bath houses on main street (below).
For all the national park junkies, did you know....
Hot Springs Reservation, the first designation of Hot Springs National Park, was set aside by Congress in 1832. This makes Hot Springs National Park the oldest unit in the national park system, 40 years older than Yellowstone National Park.
Next stop... Mount Magazine state park
Finally... some elevation! Mount Magazine is Arkansas's highest point at 2,753 feet and coming from Dallas, we enjoyed every foot of it.
"I'm sailing I'm sailing!"
That's a ring pop on Tess's finger, excellent ammo for road trips!
We hiked the North Rim Trail, 2.2 miles, and other than the massive rain storm that started at about mile 1.5, the girls did great.
Hiking with Deli
Stop #3... Devil's Den State Park
We stay in one of the state park's one bedroom cabins
makin' smores
smores for dinner
trying to recover from suger overload
Trip Stats:
number of Spinach Capitals of the World visited = 1 (Alma Arkansas)
number of Magnolia Capitals visited = 1 (Durant, Oklahoma)
number of times Deli fell and bloodied herself while hiking = 5
number of times Tess fell and bloodied herself while hiking = 2
number of times Deli asked to go home during the rain
number of times Tess fell and bloodied herself while hiking = 2
number of times Deli asked to go home during the rain
storm on the hike = 57
number of Sonic shakes consumed (primarily chocolate oreo
number of Sonic shakes consumed (primarily chocolate oreo
with extra oreo) = 8
number of DQ blizzards consumed (primarily chocolate oreo
number of DQ blizzards consumed (primarily chocolate oreo
with extra oreo) = 3
number of Sonics visited total = 5
number of Sonics visited total = 5
number of Sonic car hops with braces and blonde ponytails that
said "OOOhhh, y'ALL have like the cUUUtest little fAAAmily"= 1
number of mosquito bites = 437
number of times watching Star Wars episode 4 = 1
number of times watching Star Wars episode 4 = 1
number of times asking to watch Star Wars episode 4 = 32
number of happy, unbeaten children = 2
number of happy, marriages remaining = 1
Thursday, May 24, 2007
tess babe
Okay this post is aimed primarily at the Grandmas, I am going to be guilty of a lot of annoying parental "gushing"--be forewarned. Tess is really enjoying the whole piano thing. She freaks out if we skip a practice. In addition to practicing she climbs up to the piano on her own three or four times a day and teaches herself songs from her book or, most recently, makes up her own songs. When I got back from Utah she brought me the above drawing and told me she had written a song, a "scary" song for me while I was gone. I videoed her playing it because I love anything she makes up on her own and obviously I think she is fantastic. Below there are two versions, I need to post both b/c the first is mostly a showcase of Deli's feet as she entertains herself by moving them around in the lower left corner and the second version has a better illustration of the dramatic tone Tess adds to her piano playing as well as almost every aspect of her life.
1
2
Thank you for enduring my gush.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
last week
Last week was a busy week
tuesday
we played in the rain
wednesday
free art class at the Dallas Museum of Art
check out the concentration
thursday
The girls ran in the Katy Trail .5K kids dash. It was a struggle. Adelle turfed it in her first two steps and took out an innocent 4 year old bystander. Tess got discouraged when all the 2nd graders passed her up. But they did finish and the event included an incredible spread of food (chocolate ice cream, cookies and pizza) that helped make the whole thing a positive experience....I hope.
the weekend
Tess had her piano awards ceremony and recital.
Tess did such a great job! It's hard to explain what I was feeling as I watched her play and thought of all the nights practicing together. She wasn't nervous at all to play. She just seemed so comfortable, calm and independent of me it was one of those moments when time catches up with you and you realize how quickly life moves.
Tess and her wonderful teacher Ms. Eva (pronounced Ava) she is Polish and has a beautiful accent
After the recital we were all feeling pretty good and off to celebrate with dinner and chocolate cake.
Tess with her "trophy" a head of the composer Bartok
my big news
I ran a 1/2 marathon kinda last minute, out of peer pressure from my excellent running friend Amy. Anyway I could only keep up with her for the first 4 miles and then I was on my own slow pace the rest of the time. Somehow, even though she finished 20 whole minutes before me, we were able to place 1st and 2nd in the Clydesdale division (for those that don't know, the Clydesdale division is a distinguish rank for those that weigh 150 lbs or more) . I honestly can't tell you how shocked and excited I was when we both got our medals--I'm pretty sure I embarrassed Amy with my hoots and shrieks. In hindsight I guess it is kinda like winning the miss congeniality or most improved player award but I swear if I never win anything else in my life I will feel complete.
tuesday
we played in the rain
wednesday
free art class at the Dallas Museum of Art
check out the concentration
thursday
The girls ran in the Katy Trail .5K kids dash. It was a struggle. Adelle turfed it in her first two steps and took out an innocent 4 year old bystander. Tess got discouraged when all the 2nd graders passed her up. But they did finish and the event included an incredible spread of food (chocolate ice cream, cookies and pizza) that helped make the whole thing a positive experience....I hope.
the weekend
Tess had her piano awards ceremony and recital.
Tess did such a great job! It's hard to explain what I was feeling as I watched her play and thought of all the nights practicing together. She wasn't nervous at all to play. She just seemed so comfortable, calm and independent of me it was one of those moments when time catches up with you and you realize how quickly life moves.
Tess and her wonderful teacher Ms. Eva (pronounced Ava) she is Polish and has a beautiful accent
After the recital we were all feeling pretty good and off to celebrate with dinner and chocolate cake.
Tess with her "trophy" a head of the composer Bartok
my big news
I ran a 1/2 marathon kinda last minute, out of peer pressure from my excellent running friend Amy. Anyway I could only keep up with her for the first 4 miles and then I was on my own slow pace the rest of the time. Somehow, even though she finished 20 whole minutes before me, we were able to place 1st and 2nd in the Clydesdale division (for those that don't know, the Clydesdale division is a distinguish rank for those that weigh 150 lbs or more) . I honestly can't tell you how shocked and excited I was when we both got our medals--I'm pretty sure I embarrassed Amy with my hoots and shrieks. In hindsight I guess it is kinda like winning the miss congeniality or most improved player award but I swear if I never win anything else in my life I will feel complete.
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