This weekend, I spent my time outside.
I walked, explored, played, chased, laughed.
I did not, however, write or even have the computer on for an extended period of time.
So, today, I’m taking a “No Post Day,” in honor of one of the nicest weekends I’ve spent in a very, very long time.
The following events took place between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm on Saturday, May 19, 2012.
Lots of baby crawling and acting like he was going to take a step, but didn’t.
Lots of rolling down the slight incline of the backyard.
Lots of kickball with the 5 bigger people in the family, while watching out for said baby.
Lots of footraces.
Lots of dancing on the deck to music.
Lots of laughing. Lots of loving. Lots of fun.
I have this picture on my desk, at home.
I love looking at it.
It was taken the summer after we graduated from college.
Real Man and I went to Great Adventure with Kim and our friend, Joe.
Real Man is wearing his ripped off jeans shorts.
I loved those shorts.
He also used to wear a hat every waking minute of the day.
That was my intramural sports t-shirt from college.
I played rugby in college.
I loved it.
Can’t say I was very good at it, but I loved it.
I loved that t-shirt, too, because I had no athletic ability and it was the only sports shirt I was ever going to have.
I wore it until it began to shred.
There’s just something about that picture.
Maybe it’s because it’s the four of us, and it was the four of us at lunch, when Real Man and I met and started dating in high school.
Maybe it’s because we look so young and unencumbered and carefree.
Maybe it’s because I still don’t get Joe’s shirt.
I don’t know…I just really love this picture.
We have so many pictures from our early days, and this is the one that I have framed.
Don’t know why.
Don’t care.
Just really love it.
1. What’s the last thing you bought for yourself?
I bought myself a bathing suit last Thursday.
Last summer, I had to get a new suit because I still was carrying around the extra poundage from Tiny’s pregnancy (gained 60 pounds with that little monkey), and I was still nursing. So, I needed a larger suit.
This summer, I’m generally back to normal, but I’ve lost some confidence in my old suits, (read, ‘I’ve lost some confidence in myself’) so I needed to get something new.
I got one. I don’t love it. But I got it.
2. What is your favorite meal on a hot summer day?
I love cold tuna noodle salad.
Tuna from a can is the only seafood I can eat without a terrible allergic reaction, and so I try to make the most of it.
Tuna, elbow macaroni, mayo, chopped up celery, pepper.
So. Good.
3. Have you started looking at swimsuits for this year, and do you buy a new one every year?
Ha.
See Question 1.
4. What kind of candy are you like?
Um, that’s a weird one.
I guess I’d liken myself to a Tootsie Pop.
I’m surrounded by a layer that can break your teeth to get through, but once you do, you are rewarded with sweet goodness.
Hard to get to know, but (I think) once you do, I’m a good friend.
5. What are you most passionate about?
My family.
My friends.
I’m loyal.
Say whatever you want about me, but don’t mess with my people.
So, I don’t really sleep anymore because my neck hurts so much as it continues to re-tighten after my amazing Cancun massage.
I need to get a new pillow.
Anyway, I’m a light sleeper, to begin with, and add the tossing and turning and I can just forget about sleeping.
So, last night, I’m pretending to sleep and I hear footsteps.
I immediately reason that it’s Baby Monkey, because he’s our resident sleepwalker.
I hear him go down the stairs, and then back up again.
Then, I hear him go into Julia’s room, I see the light turn on, then off, then the footsteps leave her room.
The next thing I know, Baby Monkey opens my door, walks into my room, closes the door behind him, looks around, turns around, opens the door again and walks back out.
I hop out of bed and follow him.
“Baby?” I ask.
“Yeah, Mom?” he replies.
“Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
“Yes. But I can’t find it!”
So, I escort him to the bathroom, he goes, walks back to his room, climbs in bed and is instantly asleep.
Such is a typical night in my house.
Today’s questions come from Heather and Jen. Heather and Jen were nice enough to create a list of questions for me to answer today, so thanks ladies, and on with the show!
1. The most important lesson I’d like to teach my children is___________.
To be kind.
I really just want them to be good people.
How we treat others is so very important, and I just want my children to be kind.
There is so much thoughtlessness in the world, I want them to be mindfully kind.
I don’t think people always are meaning to be unkind…I think they just don’t think hard enough to realize that kindness is a choice.
Makes me sad.
If everyone were more kind, the world would be so much different.
2. Which would be harder for you to hear…..the honest but difficult truth, or a nice but obvious bold faced lie?
Harder to hear?
The lie.
I’m pretty good at sniffing out lies, and I find lies to be the ultimate in disrespect.
So, if you are lying to my face, in my mind, you don’t respect me.
Always tell me the truth, even if you think it will hurt me.
I will appreciate that more than you could ever know.
3. At the end of your life what would you like people to remember you most for?
This goes hand-in-hand with Question #3.
I’d want people to remember me as a good person.
That would be enough for me.
4. Peas or spinach?
Peas.
I love peas, but I hate spinach.
I know how good it is for you, but ick.
5. Fat and funny or skinny and no sense of humor?
Oh, fat and funny, as long as it was true humor and not self-deprecating funny.
I so appreciate a good sense of humor, and people who can make me laugh are always good with me.
Although, with my diabetes, it’s kind of important that I not be fat, so healthy-weighted and funny would be optimal for me. 🙂
6. What’s one place you really want to go, but need to use your kids as an excuse?
I really, really want to go to Harry Potter world at Universal Studios in Florida.
And, I don’t even bother using the kids as an excuse.
I just want to go.
However, it’s entirely helpful that the kids want to go, too.
7. Milk out your nose or sand in the bathing suit?
Milk out my nose.
It happens once, it burns, it usually happens because I’m laughing, and then I’m done.
Sand in the bathing suit is a tragedy that never really ends.
You find those grains of sand for DAYS afterward.
So, milk out my nose.
8. Truth or dare?
I’d take either.
Not afraid of dares and always willing to tell the truth.
And that’s the truth!
I spent the majority of my day sitting here:
Looking out here:
And watched a lot of this:
Then we went to dinner with this lady:
Because, you know, she kinda gave birth to me and all that.
It was a great day…a great weekend, actually.
I hope all the other Mom’s and Mom’s-to-be who visit me, each day, had a wonderful Mother’s Day, as well!
My mind has been a jumble of randomness, lately, and I’ve (clearly) taken to jotting down some of these random thoughts as they occur to me.
1. Anyone else sing along to the instrumental end of “Hotel California” with a lot of “wa-wa-wa-waaaaaaa” and “digidoo-digidoo-digidoooooooo?”
It came on in the car the other day and Monkey Girl looked at me and said, “Is that it? Aren’t there any more words? Why are you making those sounds? Stop, already!”
Can’t help it. Must listen until the end and “sing” along with the guitar.
Awesome.
2. Monkey Girl and I have decided that this will be us when she leaves for college:
That being said, in trying to find this commercial online, I found that there are many, many people who think this is completely asinine commercial, and possibly the worst they’ve ever seen. They say it degrades women and is insulting to the consumer public.
Whatever.
It just reminds me that my girl is leaving home, someday, and even if she is 4.2 miles across town, I’ll miss her.
A lot.
3. Can’t stop thinking about the season finale of Vampire Diaries.
She picked Stephan.
Ick.
Now she’s a freaking vampire?
Whatever.
Disappointing.
4. When I was a kid, I wanted to be in the Go-Go’s.
I didn’t want to be Belinda Carlisle, though.
I wanted to be Jane Wiedlen.
Guitarist and vocals.
She was badass, and I wanted to be badass, too.
I totally wasn’t.
But I wanted to be.
She rocked the short hair and I had to keep mine long.
See her? Second from the left? Wearing white when everyone else is wearing black?
Rebel.
Now?
Green hair!
So wanted to be her.
5. Monkey in the Middle bought himself an iTouch.
He is now texting me all the time.
Which is fine, however…
Sound familiar, anyone?
And with that, I bid you a Happy Mother’s Day!
Okay, first of all, how have I NOT seen this movie until now?
Rachel McAdam is one of my two favorite actresses (Jennifer Garner being the other).
Channing Tatum.
Well, seriously…Channing Tatum.
But, actors aside, what a movie!
I realize it may not be for everyone, but for me…it was heartwrenching.
I absolutely cannot imagine being in that situation, where the person to whom you are married, suddenly can’t remember you.
I had to Google it, of course, as soon as I saw it was based on a true story.
That surprised me, because, honestly, it sounded like a really creative plot for a movie, but to think that it actually happened to someone?
Ugh.
Gets ya right here…ya know?
Things have to happen exactly in the way they do in order for you to get to where you are.
To get them to happen twice?
Sounds impossible.
Or, as Real Man said, “I’m not sure how I got you to fall in love with me the first time around, and I definitely don’t think I could repeat it to make you do it again!”
Cutie.
Anyway, if you are looking for a movie about love, starring lovely people, that will make you cry (at least, it made me cry), then I recommend “The Vow.”
Good stuff.
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