Once you're a parent ...

... nothing gets you up out of bed in the middle of the night faster than the sound of someone throwing up.

Even if it's your dog.



Unfortunately, it was our dog, Keats, at 3:45 this morning.
Fortunately, he threw up on Tony's pants and a removable couch cover and nothing dry-cleanable or upholstered.

For Kerri and Christopher and Me

In my heart, I dream of being a lyricist. Nothing fancy, I just enjoy the game of putting different words to the melodies of familiar songs.
I have been working on "She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes," which I sing to Christopher every time I put him to sleep (about 4-6 times a day). It takes about 7 minutes to go from full-out crying to full-on sleeping, so I needed some more verses.
I have been making up a bunch of new ones to lengthen the song, and now I have a sort of story... Here they are, along with the real ones...


She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes
She'll be drivin' six white horses
The dogs'll start to barkin'
The old rooster will start crowing
The cows will start their mooing
We will all go out to meet her
She will hug and kiss our babies
She will pinch the chillen's cheeks
She will put her red dress on
The neighbors will come callin'
We'll have a big ol' party
We'll all have chicken and dumplins'
We will sing and dance all night
Cousin Bo will play the fiddle
She will dance a jig with Granpa
She will gossip with Aunt Docia
She'll tell jokes with Uncle Henry
Uncle Joe will share his moonshine
We won't go to bed till morning

I always think of Kerri when I sing it, because we have sung it with the kids on play dates. And I miss her these days since it's so hard to get together when one of the kids is a baby and I have to work all the time that Tony is home...

Special Guest Blog

Check out these posts from Grandpaparazzi's Neighborhood.

These are from when Mimi and Pa stayed with the "Boyz" while Tony and I went to Hilton Head Island a couple weeks ago.

Boyz Camp - Leaves

Boyz Camp - The Great Power Outage

Boyz Camp - (Christopher's Belly)

Boyz Camp - John Michael

Boyz Camp - Christopher

John brought home something extra special from school yesterday

About 1/2 cup of sand in one shoe... we didn't discover it until about 2 hours after he got home. I'm amazed it didn't end up inside on the carpet somewhere. And how could you not notice that much sand in ONE of your shoes...

Getting there

It was an exciting morning here. My overarching goal is to teach the kids to be independent, and John started reaching new stages this morning.
He helped me fold laundry, doing it with some degree of skill and not just throwing it all over the place as previously.
He buttered his own bagel.
He also helped me cut the tags for my consignment sale.


I felt a lot of joy about these things this morning.

Christopher

Here's Christopher enjoying a ride on the dryer...



And just being generally adorable. I'm lucky to have such a great number two son!

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Tony and I had a mini working vacation in Hilton Head Island this weekend. He had a show at South Carolina Repertory, and I went along. Mimi and Pa came to stay with the boys. (Wow, "the boys." I'm a mom of two boys.)
Anyway, it was very nice. I got two full nights sleep, an extra nap, my regular work done, dyed my hair (not very well, it looks the same), a manicure, a pedicure, and entered information for my consignment sale stuff. Not to mention having several kid-free meals with Tony. It was really nice. John and Christopher did a great job wearing out Mimi and Pa!
Back to "normal" life tomorrow!