The Hurricane Chronicles Part Two: Preparations

Because my grandmother is more or less always preparing for natural disaster, she rountinely has enough canned goods for several months stored in her teeny tiny pantry. She went out Friday morning and bought even MORE food, two gallons of milk, and six gallons of water. I figured we were pretty covered in the food and drink category.

We could, however, use some more flashlights. I headed out to our local hardware store where I waited on line for fifteen minutes as everyone else bought three and four flashlights apiece and tons of D batteries. The radios in which to put those batteries, however, were already sold out.

Sometime Friday night, Nonnie realized that if we lost power she wouldn’t be able to use her oven or toaster or microwave and this threw her into a new paroxysm f panic. She woke at 4am to start cooking, before the power went. eggplant parmesean, pasta with broccoli, a roast, she food kept piling up. Then she began cleaning, though I’m not sure why. I suspect it is because if something happens to her, she wants her house to be impeccable so she can impress the emergency workers who arrive. Her bathtub and every available pot was filled with clean water by noon. David and I, meanwhile, took the kids on a last foray out before the storm hit – picked up masking tape to X the windows and the last two cannolis in the bakery. We then spent the rest of the day trying to clean the house enough to stand living in it for the next 24 hours and we failed, miserably, mainly because, as anyone knows, you can’t clean a house with CHILDREN in it. As you go around cleaning, the walk behind you re-messing it up. We had dinner at my grandmothers – a real feast – as she prayed and invoked the heavens and told me she’d always watch over us no matter what happened.

After dinner, she came downstairs with us, bearing a bag full of her important documents, and cleaned up our kitchen – the which we had just cleaned but which, of course, looked unthinkably filthy to her. Then she forbade David and I to sleep in our bed, which is directly next to a big window. Before I lost my mind, I had a moment of revelation and sent her in to sleep with the kids in the bunk beds thus occupying both the kids and Nonnie. David and I watched the cinematic failure Failure to Launch followed by The Jersey Shore in Italy. It was just what we needed. Then we slept on the fold out couch, because even though I know my grandmother is insane, it doesn’t mean I doesn’t listen to her.

The Hurricane Chronicles

Part One: Boys weekend, or now I’m the bad guy

Primo and Seconda have been stuck together, without any break, since the first of August. At first there were growing pains and then it was a lovefest and now it is just a matter of time before one of them kills or seriously maims the other. They just need some time apart. Which is how it came to be that one night before bed a few weeks ago, Primo asked David, for the first time ever, if he could spend a whole day just with his father, and only his father.

David and I both thought this was a capital idea, and they planned a hiking trip to Bear Mountain for this past Saturday. Primo, who doesn’t really like hiking or traveling, was so excited for the Boys Weekend, it was a little stupefying. So was David. I don’t know what they had planned but I am sure it involved hamburgers and video games. They were going to make their own trail mix. But at the start of the week, I started hearing reports of an impeding hurricane, slated to hit New York over the weekend.

“There is supposed to be a hurricane this weekend, “ I casually mentioned to David.

“I KNOW that already!” he replied.

“I’m just saying . . . “

“I KNOW what you’re just saying,” he went on, “You want me to move Boys Weekend.”

And with some grumbling and mumbling, he did. He moved it to Friday night and Saturday, rather than Saturday and Sunday. We both figured this would solve the problem because the bad weather was supposed to hit on Sunday.

On Friday morning, I awoke to a bunch of emails in my inbox from friends in other cities, warning me to be careful and asking if we needed to evacuate.

“Evacuate?” I thought, “What the fuck?”

Then I checked the news and fully freaked out. This wasn’t the kind of hurricane I was used to, which sort of vaguely passes in our general direction; for the first time in decades, this hurricane was set to hit New York directly. And it sounded like a motherfucker.

“David,” I started. He knew where I was headed.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, “We’ll be back tomorrow and the storm isn’t supposed to hit til Sunday.”

I told him the MTA was shutting down the subways and buses for the first time in HISTORY. Evacuation centers were being set up throughout the city. This was not a time to take a hiking trip.

David rescheduled the trip for another weekend but he wasn’t happy about it.

Later, we told Primo that Boys Weekend was postponed. He was even LESS happy about it.

“This is all your fault Mommy!” he cried.

Of course it is. It always is. Clearly, I planned the hurricane for this weekend. Clearly, I am well connected and have no sense of self preservation. And also, I love to be cooped up in my tiny apartment with a cranky, disappointed husband, and two children that are on the verge of killing each other. Oh wait, did I neglect to mebtion the fifth member of the hurricane cabin fever party, my eighty year old grandmother, heretofore referred to as Apocalypse Jane?

In her defense, my grandmother has good reason to panic at moments like these. She lived through WW II in Italy. She hid from the Nazis for months in a cabin in the woods eating only cornmeal and tree bark. This is a woman who is always ready for crisis. So much so that she seemed relieved when it strikes, because it affirms her general opinion that it is always looming. Also, she watches the news approximately 20 hours a day. The combination is the creation of a panic system at least as powerful as the hurricane, probably more so.

“I don’t worry for me,” Nonnie was saying every fifteen minutes, “I already lived my whole life. I worry for you people! You have a whole life to life!”

“I don’t think it’s come to that yet Nonnie.”

“All we can do is pray now,” she continued.

Then we informed me that she would spend the hurricane at our house. Apocalypse Jane joins the team!

For the exciting continuation of the Hurricane Chronicles, tune in tomorrow . . .

Tornadoes and earthquakes and hurricanes, oh my!

I know I’m not saying anything new here but what the hell is going on with New York City this year?

The tornado last fall was a freaky thing. Thirty some-odd years (see how I did that?) living in this city and I’d NEVER heard of a tornado but, OK, hey, anything’s possible, sure. Now tornadoes are on the table.

But an earthquake? What. The. Fuck. Its not that I need extra reasons to like New York but I’ve always considered the lack of earthquakes to be one of the things we have over California. Those suckers decide to live on a fault line. Go figure. We don’t have to deal with that drama. Which is good because we have pleeeeenty of other drama to contend with.

I should’ve learned my lesson from the tornado, when I assured Primo (who was tornado-phobic before the event), that it would NEVER happen in NY because well, we just don’t get tornadoes. I had to listen to, “Mommy you LIED!” for six months after that. But now the earthquake’s making me a liar too. Because the day it happened, we were in Barnes and Nobles and Primo told me he’d overheard some ladies talking about how we’d had an earthquake and I said to him, patronizingly, “Honey, when you overhear people’s conversations out of context, you get confused and you get misinformation. We don’t have earthquakes here in New York.”

Then my best friend calls five minutes later and says, “So, did you feel it? The walls shaking?”

Nicely done.

And now, a few days later, a hurricane? Those, we have and I know about them, so its not outside of the realm of possibility but state of emergency? Evacuating Lower Manhattan and low-lying areas? Subways closed? Pack your emergency bag?

Come on.

Let’s just hope Irene is gentle and doesn’t knock the power out or anything: I’m tired enough of entertaining these kids and I don’t want to have to do it in the dark, with no television.

The Little Things

Yesterday it was as if my daughter was on Ecstasy. She kept pointing out the very obvious with extreme wonder and joy. Of course, it could be that she's just a kid.

"This water is too hot!" Sec shrieked while washing her hands in the morning. One advantage of our house being so small is that I can basically reach anything in it from where I'm sitting, particularly in the bathroom, in which the toilet, sink and bathtub are all touching. So I leaned over from inside the shower and turned the faucet towards cold.

"Oh that's MUCH better!" she gushed, "How did you DO that?"

"Well," I explained, I just turned it in the direction of cold."

"You mean, if you turn it in one direction, the water gets hot and if you turn it in the other direction the water gets cold?" she re-iterated.

"Yes."

"That is SO COOL!"

"I agree," I told her.

Then I heard her run into the living room and reveal this new discovery to her brother.

"Primo, did you know that if you turn the knob in the sink one way, the water gets hot and if you turn it the other way, the water gets cold?"

"YES I KNEW THAT!" Primo yelled with extreme exasperation.

"How did you know? Was it because you did it before?"

"Yes, I did it before!" he exclaimed.

That satisfied her.

Since I serve that kid breakfast, I know no one's slipping anything in her Cheerios. Though I may try having some of those CHeerios for breakfast tomorrow, just as an experiment.

Snow White Goes to Med School

I have the best babysitter on earth. A lot of people say that, but I think it’s true in this case. I’m sure not everyone would consider her the best, particularly if you are the kind of parent who wants your house clean when you come home to it. Forget doing dishes or laundry. The girl doesn’t so much as pick up an overturned basket of Barbie brushes. But what she lacks in tidiness, she makes up for in kick-ass-ness.

I should note, too, that she’s my cousin. So I’m biased. But she is pretty amazing.

First, she introduced my 5 year-old to Gothic literature and inspired him to read Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein by the end of first grade.

Then, last week, she took the kids to Barnes and Nobles. When Sec goes to Barnes and Nobles, she heads right for the Disney princess section. This is not hard to do as basically, the entire children’s section is one large Disney Princess section. They’ve sprinkled a few of those aggravating Ariel books that play music and those magnetic Cinderella dress-up dolls into every display, just so you never have to walk two feet without being bathed in the glow of commercialism.

I loathe reading the Disney princess books to her. I don’t so much mind playing with the Disney princess Barbies or watching the Disney princess movies but something about having to pretend the crap I’m reading is literature makes my stomach churn. Still, reading about Belle and her new pony is better than not reading at all. So, I suck down my dignity and read “A dream wedding for Cinderella!” and other noxious titles. Lately, Sec’s been into the Easy Reader Princess books which is a double whammy of horror, being both easy readers (need I remind you of my distaste for Mittens?) and about princesses. Mind you, she doesn’t want to read them herself, in which case, I’d turn a blind eye. She wants me to read them.

“Belle has sweet ballet dreams. Will she wear a tutu or a gown?”

“Aurora loves to spin and twirl. Prance, princess, prance!”

I feel dirty afterwards.

But last week, my cousin was watching the kids and took them to Barnes and Nobles and Primo had a GLOWING report afterwards, boasting about how my cousin had made the awful princess stories funny and unexpected.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She didn’t read what was on the page, but made it BETTER,” he clarified, “So they aren’t such bad influences on Seconda.”

Who knows WHERE he comes up with this stuff? It’s not like I brainwash the kid.

“Like, she was reading this Snow White book and said, ‘Snow White was in medical school and so she taught the dwarves the value of proper hygiene.’”

“What else?” I asked him.

“Tiana knew she had a bond with the prince but she still didn’t want it to mess up her MBA.”

“Cinderella was very beautiful but she knew that science was more important.”

“Beauty was polite but she was also independent and thought for herself.”

“Sleeping Beauty enjoyed fashion but her true love was politics.”

Genius, I think. And it had the double virtue of not only giving princess-crazed Sec what she wanted as well as what she needed but entertaining Primo to no end.

Now THAT’S a dream babysitter right there.

Beware the Babydoll Stroller Trap: "borrowing" toys at the playground

Big debate on the old parkslopeparents listserv this week about kids "borrowing" other kids' toys at the playground. I feel like the use of quotation marks in this instance is kind of aggravating, a way of not saying what the poster wants to say outright which is, "stealing." So let's dispense with them altogether and make the question on the table: what the hell do you do when you take your kid to the playground with some toys and other kids you don't know grab them away and play with them, without involving your kid?

a lot of people posted saying, "You are not alone. This happens to me all the time and hordes of toy-crazed children spring upon my kids' precious possessions, tearing pages in books, spilling all the bubbles out of the bottle, slurping juice boxes dry and scattering Goldfish to the wind. I am at my wit's end! I just want to enjoy a peaceful afternoon with my children!"

If you think you're going to enjoy a peaceful afternoon at the playground, well, that's already your first mistake.

A lot of other people wrote, saying, "I'm the bumbling mom who never remembers to bring toys or snacks and so its usually my kids who are doing the borrowing and though I do try to make sure they ask permission first, it is a public space and we are happy to offer up our own booty for the common good."

Easy for you to say, bumbling mom, you've already said you never bring jack.

I am neither the bumbling mom type or the I-just-want-to-enjoy-this-precious-time-with-my-kids type (I have more than enough precious time to go around). I do usually bring something in our bag, some Avatar figure from McDonald Happy Meals, a pail, maybe a soccer ball if I eel super motivated, but thankfully, because our stuff is so sub-par and boring, no one ever seems to want to play with it. I tell my kids that if they leave the stuff out, someone is totally going to snatch it away and since I have enough to do taking care of them, I can't serve as a Bounty Hunter to boot. This is particularly an important lesson for Sec, who thinks there is an invisible coterie of butlers following her around to pick up whatever food and toys and clothing items she drops to the ground as she goes through the world with nary a care.

Once, in the spring, she had this BRAND-NEW rubber dragon she'd earned as a reward for some activity normal children do without the aid of bribes, like sleeping or walking or eating dinner, and she brought it to the playground where she promptly dropped it and it was, of course, immediately re-possessed by some other dragon-loving child. She was so terrifically distraught that Primo and I both helped her scour the playground for a good 15 minutes but it was long gone. She still talks about losing the dragon, about once a week. She'll wax rhapsodic: "Remember that red rubber dragon I loved so very much? And how I brought it to the playground and it was lost FOREVER???" Maybe next time, she won't make the same mistake. I mean, probably she will, but we can only hope. I don't really fault the kid who grabbed it. Its New York City and there are lots of instances of treasure trash left abandoned in public places.

If the item is something large and kind of expensive, like a scooter or a bike, I stash it way in a corner and keep an eye on it and woe betide the kid that tries to take that shit without asking. I don't have the disposable income to replae a scooter or a bike, even the second-hand variety, so unless I've got your mom's phone number, you won't be borrowing that stuff anytime soon.

But, I'd like to point out, what's good for the goose is good for the gander and I never let my kids play with other people's toys without asking. We call that getting all Grabby Grabberson in our house and I can't stand it. What are we, a bunch of animals here? Sharing is an important skill but so is impulse control and learning not to act like Conan the Barbarian. Unless Sec or Primo can get a verbal OK from the owner, they leave the tempting stuff where it is. That's private property, people.

In general though, I find my kids have outgrown this problem and its really only an issue for the 1-3 year old set. I remember those days pretty clearly and I will say this:

BEWARE THE BABYDOLL STROLLER TRAP

Unless you are willing to sustain a public nervous breakdown, never, ever, EVER bring a babydoll stroller to a toddler playground. Do not do it. I don't care HOW much your 2 year-old wants to push that stroller in the great outdoors. I don't care how much she cries or begs or pleads. Trying to keep the peace around a babydoll stroller in a Tot Lot is a job much too big for most of us mortals. Those toddlers are DERANGED for baby doll strollers: doesn't matter if they are girls or boys, doesn't matter what condition the stroller is it. Could have a wheel missing and the seat ripped out, if that thing will move when you push it, they will go bananas and will stop at nothing to get their chubby little fists around the handlebars. Even if your child keeps a tight hold of it, it will not matter. Throngs of covetous toddlers, probably with much better strollers of their own at home or possibly even in their real stroller baskets, will lay hands on the stroller, will wrestle your child's fingers off, will cry and scream and carry on until either they get a turn or their caregiver carts them away for a nap. If you do force your tot to give them a turn, you can believe her temper tantrum will match the one they were heating up to have. There is no solution which doesn't involve drinking a box of wine when you get home. Just don't do it. Ever. If no one brought babydoll strollers, imagine how peaceful the toddler playgrounds would be.

That's what I've got to say on the subject. Feel free to spread the word about the No BabyDoll Stroller Iniative. Circulate a petition. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world can live as one.

Petite Feet

Last fall, I signed Sec up for ballet class. I thought because she likes wearing tutus and the color pink and because she's a prima donna, she would enjoy it. It is probably not terribly surprising that she only lasted one class. My kids, in general, are allergic to extra curriculars, a fact which has been good to my bank account but may not be so good in ten years when it's time to apply to college. In any event, Sec wasn't a huge fan of the structure, discipline and rigor which is typically a part of ballet study. She's an exuberant free spirit and I couldn't blame her. Ballet's not for everyone.

Enter Petite Feet.

Liz Vacco, a fantastic dancer-actor- dance teacher who happens to be amazing with kids, has made a dance DVD for little ballerinas ages 2-5, called Petite Feet and since we got it a few weeks ago, Sec has been thoroughly engrossed. I knew the DVD would be great because Primo worked with Liz when he helped workshop that super-cool avant-guard Pinocchio production last year (she transformed to a captivating Blue Fairy via a blue tutu on her head). It's a totally relaxed approach to ballet with heavy emphasis on storytelling and imagination and less focus on perfect form and technique -- making it a great introduction for little ones. You've still got your leotards and ballet skirts and you hear the proper ballet terms and count in French (among other languages) but what Liz brings to the mix is her unique ability as a performer to engage kids with storytelling. All the exercises are conducted in the context of an interactive story (Quick! Fly through the air to escape! Now crawl through the mud!) or a kid-friendly song. It helps that the piano accompaniment is provided by a man in a full-body walrus suit.

Sec has watched the video half a dozen times, even dusting off her old Danskin pink leotard and flouncy skirt. She got enthused enough about the whole thing that she exclaimed. "I want to try ballet class again Mommy!"

Of course, a minute later she added' "Maybe. I don't know. I'll think about it."

Still, that's progress.

Don't Dirty the Drop Cloth

In front of this store by my house, there's a bin with lovely rolls of oil cloth material sticking out. It basically looks like the plastic tablecloths my grandmother buys from the 99 cent store except the floral print is more retro. My mommy friend who has great taste pointed out that it would make a nice drop cloth to spread over the living room floor for when the kids do art projects -- you know, to protect the floor. This appealed to me because as it is, I just tell the kids, "Forget it! Put away the paints! That's too messy!"and basically squelch their creative instincts in favor of not ruining my ten year-old lime green sofa from the Bloomingdales warehouse. So a few days ago, I popped into the store and asked how much the oil cloth was.

"$9.99," she said.

"Hmmmn, " I mused, "that's more than I thought but maybe worth it to give the kids the gift of art."

"$9.99?" I repeated, "For like, a good-sized piece?"

"Per yard," she clarified.

I tried not to choke on my gall. It was difficult but I made a valiant attempt because sputtering out loud at the exorbitant price of drop cloths is the fastest way to become your 80 year-old Italian grandmother.

I'm no expert but I figured I'd need at least 3 yards or so to make a decent-sized drop cloth. That would put my drop cloth cost at an outrageous $30. I don't spend that much on real tablecloths. I don't spend that much on my kids' shoes. I - not exaggerating -- did not spend that much on my coffee table. I spent $19.99 on it, thanks very much Ikea, you rock. Why then, would I spend nearly double the amount on a plastic sheet to cover the piece of junk coffee table?

I realized that if I did, indeed, buy the pricey drop cloth, I'd feel compelled to protect it. So I'd have to get another drop cloth to protect the fancy drop cloth. I could just see myself yelling at the kids, " DAMNIT! I TOLD YOU NOT TO DROP PAINT ON THE DROP CLOTH! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT COST?"

It seemed a recipe for disaster.

"So do you want it?" the saleslady asked me.

"No thanks," I said.

I've decided the most cost-effective thing I can do is just tell the kids to paint right on the coffee table and when it gets ruined, we'll buy a new one. And maybe when I go to Ikea to get my replacement coffee table, I'll buy an extra one of those giganto blue bags that cost like $.50. Slit that baby up the sides and you know what you've got, don't you?

Sound the alarm! She's napping!

When my kids nap, I panic. And for good reason, I might add. My kids don't nap, they don't even go to sleep at night without a fight to the death. The last time Primo went to bed without a long, drawn-out ordeal, he had appendicitis. The fact that he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow was, in fact, the deciding factor for us to cancel out trip to Iceland and bring him to the ER. The lower-left abdominal pain didn’t really convince me but the narcolepsy did. I knew something was seriously amiss.

Yesterday, we were tooling about in our apartment in the afternoon and while Primo read How to Train Your Dragon on the couch, and I checked my email, Sec grew suspiciously quiet. After a few minutes, I glanced over and saw her face down on the couch, arms dangling off the side like a drunk. I gasped. Then I strode over quickly and yelled, “SEC!”

She grumbled and turned her face to the other side. This was the real deal, not a Sleeping Beauty game. I dialed David.

“She’s asleep.”

“Who?”

“Your daughter.”

I commonly refer to the kids as belonging only to David when they are either terrifically bad, terrifically good or entering some kind of distress.

“Shit,” David groaned, “Wake her up, quick!”

Ever since our kids dropped their nap, in Sec’s case as the ripe old age of 2.5, our rule has been to ALWAYS let sleeping children lie, unless they are sleeping in the daytime in which case, NEVER let them lie. Wake them, immediately, and forcefully, or else we will pay for the brief afternoon reprieve dearly, so dearly, at nightfall. But, there is a caveat: should the children be sick, they are allowed to nap.

“I don’t know,” I said to David, “I think she might be sick.”

I’d touched her forehead and felt that not-quite-a-fever-but-a-bit-more-than-flushed temperature. She had no other symptoms but the nap was compelling enough to make me clear our schedule for last night. (Yes, David and I DO stuff sometimes, don’t act surprised that we have a life.)

Sure enough, an hour later, the kid was running a 101 fever, and that was based on those shitty temporal lobe thermometers which are about as accurate as reading a temperature as I am telling time by the position of the sun. Baby was burning up. I let her sleep over an hour before she got hot enough that I woke her for some Tylenol. And I’ve been watching Snow White on repeat play ever since. Later we’ll talk about the fascinating shit I discovered from repeat watching this 1930s gem. It’s a little like watching the movie high on shrooms: you start to see crazy shit embedded in it. That’s for another day.

Let me end this post with a public service announcement in the vein of all those terrifying commercials about vaccinating your kids against the whooping cough (which you should totally do, by the way, seriously, they are right, though awful):

"Sometimes your child’s afternoon nap isn’t just a sweet little snooze but a cause for panic and alarm. Be on guard. Treat the nap with the suspicion it deserves. Brought to you by A Mom Amok."

Ease my troubles, that's what you do

It is my first week - post vacation -- with the kids on my hands full time. Wait, let me amend that -- it is my first day having the kids and already, I need a heavy dose of Calgon. One kid or the other might be ok but put them both together and I'm desperate for R and R, the which, incidentally, I supposedly just concluded.

There is only one thing that can soothe my frazzled nerves. OK, one thing besides a box of wine. I need to be worked over. My muscles, I mean. Massage - my modest nirvana. My mother-in-law, the kind, generous woman that she is, usually sends me a gift certificate for Christmas for Bliss spa and I save the thing all year, treasuring the joy that is yet to be mine, til I can stand it no longer and breathlessly book the appointment for an hour-long rub-down. But this year, extenuating circumstances that involve trading my Iceland getaway in for an emergency appendectomy, prompted me to use my massage up early, and I don't think I can wait til 2012 for another taste of happiness. But, instead of heading back to the super-fancy, uptown-priced, high-design Bliss, I'm going to all-about-you-and those-aching-Mommy-muscles Full Breath Massage.

Doesn't hurt that my friend David Lobenstine is the brains (and brawn) behind the operation. And that he has magic hands. And offers a sliding scale. Where, I ask you, can you get a delicious, hour-long, restorative massage for $100?

He is beloved by the mamas and does a ton of pre-natal massage. Because, really, is there any time a gal deserves to be lavished with the gift of human touch more than when she's carrying a basketball inside her gut? If there are two things I could've changed about my pregnancies, it would be
1. Buy the goddamned maternity pillow for crying our loud.
2. Get monthly pre-natal massage.

I think I would've still won the martyr award, even with those luxuries.

Its such a little thing but it goes so far.

Whether you're aching from your pregnancy, or aching from carrying your baby/ toddler/ preschooler around, or just aching from the crushing weight of being man, park your aching ass on that massage table and let David work his magic. You may encounter my aching ass there, who knows?

Hunter

In North Carolina, my daughter learned how to catch animals and eat them. Sea creatures, primarily. She had an absolute LARK of a time fishing for blue crabs, watching us shake them into our coooler of doom, where they would freeze to death, and then asking when she could slurp them up. The next day, we did, indeed, steam the suckers and she cracked off their legs and sucked them into her gullet. Eating crabs has never seemed so violent. Then it was all about the oysters.

"I'm going to crack open their shells and slurp them up!" She could hardly wait.

While playing on the beach, she found a ton f teeny tiny crbas, each the size of a quarter, which she promptly captured for a later meal. When we told her they were too small to eat, she decided the next best thing would be to keep them as a pet. And how she loved those dwarf crabs, for a whole fifteen to twenty minutes.

I am a little concerned that her hunting zeal with continue now that we're back in the Big Apple. I half expect her to come to me with a dead rat or cockroach that she'd like to broil for supper. Its tough to acclimate to city living again after the great outdoors.

We're outta here

Sorry for the radio silence in this tiny corner of the blogosphere folks but I've been ON VACATION! Lounging around on the beach and drinking my body weight in sweet tea -the kind of life I have always been destined for. We're enjoying all that the Outer Banks has to offer with David's family and it's been a rollicking good time. We caught crabs (the kind you eat, not the kind you call your past sexual partners about). We slurped oysters on the half shell and about ten tons of pulled pork on white rolls. And we chillaxed at the pool, as much as one can chilllax while caring for two children who only half know how to swim. Frankly, who has the time to blog when there's so much vacationing on the agenda?
But all good things come to an end and I'll be back shortly. Until then, Happy August!