April 21, 2013

Who Is Smarter?

Peabody and I stayed home from church because she felt warm-ish. Since I haven't walked Mama Dog, like, at all this whole week, I decided to throw the Pheebs in the stroller and go for a mosey. As we were getting ready to leave I realized that Eric had driven my car to church ... with my car key ... and my only house key.

"Rats!" I said, "Daddy has my keys!" I wondered what to do: forget about the walk? Leave a door unlocked? But before I got very far in my thoughts the not-quite-three-year-old piped up.

"You can take Daddy's keys," she said matter-of-factly.

Well, duh. So I did. And then I wrote it here so you can know that my kid is smarter than I am.

April 19, 2013

The Mama and the Boogie Get Their Hairs Cut

The Boogie has been asking for a year to have her hair cut short like her cousin EK. I was decidedly against it. I loved her long hair and determined that as long as I was the one washing, combing, brushing, and braiding it, I got to be the one who decided how long it would be. My love for it has faded greatly over the past few months. As pretty as it was, well, the tangles just weren't worth it. And I couldn't ever make it look nice and stay looking nice. Stray wisps fell out of every braid and ponytail and hung into her face. So a little while ago, I told her that she could get it cut for her birthday on one condition: she had to have enough cut off to donate.

She started to have some second thoughts over the last few days but I was determined, and really hyped it up. By the time we got to the salon she was giddy and giggling with excitement! All along it has been my plan to donate my hair as well.

Before:
She doesn't look happy! But she actually was.
 



During:



I love the look on her face
She manned the camera while I had my turn.




She also took a lot of self-portraits, and apparently at one point had someone take a picture of her! I couldn't see her while I was having my hair cut but could hear her giggling and talking. Every now and then I'd catch her reflection in a mirror as she talked to the receptionist.





 

Her donation ponytails are about 11 inches long, and mine are about 8. I think hers could have been longer had they been gathered together a little differently before cutting. But 11 inches is pretty good!

At bedtime after we prayed she asked, "Can I just go get a drink of water and look in the mirror?" One final look before sleep. We're both very happy with our new 'dos.

So

You guys. The status of my house is stressing me out. I'm so over tools in the living room and a Bagster in the driveway. I look at dusty furniture and think that I really, really need to do something about that ... but I can't bring myself to start because one thing will surely lead to another and the next thing I know my bedroom will be all torn apart and I won't have taught school or gone for a walk or cleaned the kitchen.

To Do lists are my friends. I like to break tasks down into small pieces so I don't get overwhelmed, and also so that at the end of the day it looks like I did a LOT. Also if I do something that's not on the list, I write it on the list so that I can cross it off.

I did undust the living room which was the worst room. I took before and after pics of the piano -- since it is directly down the hall from the bathroom it got the worst of the dust.

But the whole living room pretty much looked like that. So yeah. That was fun to clean.

The bathroom is primed and I painted the ceiling last night. The plan was to start getting color on the walls today but my back hurts and I'm skeered to make it worse. I might wait a day and see how I feel. Meanwhile the tub is usable! It's nice to be able to bathe the girls at home. Eric and I still go shower at 52. Once the walls are painted we can put the shower curtain back up which will be fantastic ... hmm, maybe I'll take my chances and paint today after all ... I can always go to the chiropractor, right?

The Boogie's birthday is coming up. Five has been a good age. Last night she got all teary about turning six. She said she doesn't want to turn six because she likes five and also because five is her favorite number. She's getting so big and learning so much and taking on more responsibility, but I forget that really she's still just a little girl. We had lunch with the office last week to celebrate the doctor's 65th birthday. His cake had a six candle and a five candle on it. The Boogie was across the table from him so the numbers were backwards to her. "Hey!" she exclaimed excitedly, "I'm going from five to six too!" Of course he gave her the candles after he blew them out, and then he gave her the 3-foot-tall numeral balloons too.

Both girls had dentist appointments the other day. No cavities, praise the Lord, although Peabody has some spots on two molars that the dentist is going to watch. That's exactly how the Boogie's cavities started. *sigh* The Boogie had a panoramic x-ray to check on some things and it looks like she has one possibly abnormal adult tooth, and no adult teeth in a couple of other places. It won't matter for a few years but it's a bummer.

I took a funny video of Peabody and when I was looking for it on the memory card I found this one:


And this is the other one.


She cracks me up.

April 15, 2013

Allergies

Spring is here, for realz. The air is warmer. The grass is green and growing. Trees, bushes, and flowers are budding and blooming.

People are sneezing. Their noses are dripping. And their eyes are watering.

At least that's what's going on around here, anyway, plus some post-nasal-drip-related coughing.

Still, I'd rather have warmer temperatures and flowers, even if it means dealing with allergies. My Pops will tell me to take bee pollen, so I'll have to find some. I should have started taking it a month ago ... but it was still winter a month ago, so I didn't think about it then.

It's nice to go out without winter coats. It's really nice to wear flip-flops sometimes. It's lovely to open windows and air out the house.

Soon it will be hot and humid and everyone will be complaining about that. I really try not to, though. I figure if I'm going to gripe about cold and dry, I should enjoy warm and muggy.

There continues to be bathroom progress. Plumbing is completely done, all walls are sheet-rocked, and seams and nail holes have been taped and mudded and sanded and mudded and sanded and mudded. I bought paint! It's so pretty. But I'm not going to tell you what color it is. The suspense is killing you, right? I'll give you a hint: it's similar to a color we've already used somewhere else in the house.

Now that the majority of the sanding is over, I suppose I should finally do some undusting around here. Construction has totally ruined my dust-twice-a-year plan. It's pretty bad around here. Don't tell anyone, okay? Okay.

Here is Peabody in a dress that I brought home from Warshington last fall. My mom had saved all of the dresses she and my Mamaw made for me and Auntie Vee. I'm pretty sure Mamaw made this dress for my sister; Peabody was delighted to wear an "Auntie Vee" dress!

April 12, 2013

You're Going to Jail, Porkchop

Peabody is the Gum Queen. She is a responsible gum chewer, neither chomping on it loudly nor taking it out of her mouth to put it in places it ought not to be. Often I'll forget that she has any, and she'll chew the same piece for hours. She reminds me of Auntie Vee who, when she was a cute little curly-headed blonde preschooler, would make the rounds of everyone at church and ask for gum. (It got to the point where people were buying whole packs of gum to give to her when she asked. No lie.) While Peabody hasn't figured out that she can ask other people for gum, she does ask me for it all.the.time. We go through it so fast that I must limit her intake. No longer will I give her a piece right before church, because I know that as soon as she gets to the nursery she'll spit it out in order to eat animal crackers.

So it happened that just before leaving for church last night she asked for a piece of gum, and I told her no. Her jaw dropped in exaggerated disbelief for a few seconds, then she marched over to me, grabbed the front of my shirt in both hands, scowled up at me and exclaimed fiercely, "You goin' to jail, porkchop!"

I suppose only a Toy Story quote is adequate reprimand for the mother who withholds gum from her (almost) 3-year-old.


April 10, 2013

April

The girls are finishing dinner. Peabody begins to whine, "I no like dis 'tuff," poking at her eggs. "My tummy feel yucky."
The Boogie cleans her plate and asks for more biscuits and gravy.
"I wan' candy," Peabody announces.
"You can't have candy if your tummy hurts," the Boogie informs her.
"Honey, can I have candy?" Peabody asks.
"Does your tummy hurt?" I ask. She says it does. "You can't have candy if your tummy hurts," I tell her.
"Honey, my tummy feel all better!" she exclaims. "It not hurt anymore!"
"Oh, now it doesn't hurt," the Boogie rolls her eyes, "I guess she was just full of it."

The bathroom project is coming along. I will post pictures when it's all done. Eric should finish the plumbing tonight and install the last piece of shower surround. The walls are already 3/4 sheet-rocked, with only one wall to go (side note: I can't get used to calling it sheet rock. I've always called it drywall. Is this a regional thing?) I should be able to paint early next week, and then we can have the floor installed! It's going more slowly than I had hoped, but you know what they say ... double any estimate of time and money. Thankfully the money part hasn't been true ...

The toilet is still installed, so we've been able to stay here. Once again I'm thankful for family living nearby so we don't have to go far to shower. I'm very excited about a brand-new, never-been-used-by-anyone-else tub and shower. I keep telling the Boogie that I'm going to sleep in the new tub. "Honey!" she exclaims, as if she knows I'm not really going to sleep in the tub but she's not entirely sure that I won't. Maybe I will.

Since I'm going to be painting the bathroom and some door and window trim, and need to do some touching up in other places, I'm sort of tempted to do an accent wall or two. I don't know, though. I might do the necessary stuff and be all painted out.

The weather has warmed up beautifully this week with temperatures rising into the eighties. Today was lovely and warm but I can already tell a big difference from this afternoon, and tomorrow we're back to the sixties again. But hey, I'll take sixty-ish degree weather over the snow they're getting in other parts of the country. We're finally seeing some buds and blooms, too. And my daffodils! They are so cheery. I don't seem to have a picture of them. I should take one before they start to die! I should have planted tulips too, maybe I'll do that this fall.

Springtime and warmer weather makes me want to clean and purge. Now I just have to decide whether to have another yard sale or just make some more donations. Decisions, decisions ...

April 2, 2013

The Little White House: Guess Which Room?

I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count:
(Your clue is the roll of toilet paper at the bottom of the picture.)

Good things are happening around here, people. Really good things. I've been taking pictures as we go along, and will post befores and durings and afters when it's all done. And you should know, I say "we" but I mean Eric and his brother. I helped a little during destruction, and I'll do the painting, but I don't know much (okay, anything) about plumbing, electrical, setting tubs, or hanging drywall, so my jobs right now are to keep kids out of the way and to clean up at the end of every day!