laugher fills this house

Hey, I’m still here, kind of.  If you heard a big sigh of relief yesterday, it was me after my sabbatical was approved for this summer.  Holla!  Blogging more often will be among my sabbatical goals because it helps me keep my sanity partially in tact.  But for now, it’s going to be sporadic city around Better Days parts.  I could not, however, not blog about Taylor’s hilarity this morning.

While I was in the shower, she crawled into bed with Russ.  When I came out of the bathroom and the light shown into Russ’ still asleep eyes, he rolled over and put his arm around Taylor and gave her a big hug….to which she replied, “Uh, you’re disgusting!”

I laughed SO hard.  When she realized that she may have hurt his feelings, she clarified, “But you smell good”  – apparently his arm had landed on her mouth during the hug and she was noting that he tasted disgusting…maybe…or maybe she was just trying to spare his half-asleep feelings.

Then, at breakfast, we were all sitting together, which is a rarity in the morning.

Taylor mused, “You know, black is the darkest of the colors.”

Me:  “Yes, that’s right.  Which is the lightest of the colors?”

Taylor: “Yellow”

Me: “Hmm….what about this (pointing to her white napkin)?”

Taylor: “Oh, white”

Russ: “Actually I think she may be right because white isn’t really a color”

Me:  “True, white is the absence of color…Taylor, you may be right”

Taylor:  “That’s because I know everything.”

LAUGHTER ENSUES

Me:  “Taylor, you are funny”

Taylor:  “I know”

I’m glad she’s a confident girl.

Later on in the meal, she declared, “It’s like we’re in a meeting”.  Funny, smart, confident, and also a PK.

________________________________________________________

In other news, Caleb LOVES syrup:

A LOT

He also enjoys climbing:

Bonne Annee

Russ left this morning to go to Orlando for the Capital One Bowl so I resigned myself to a non-celebratory New Year’s Eve with the kids and myself in bed by 7:00 – Bah Humbug.

But then Grammy arrived with other plans since she was determined not to let the boys-only-Orlando-trip ruin her holiday.  Knowing full well that the kiddos would not make it to midnight, she had the clever idea to celebrate the Parisian New Year…which makes good sense in this house since without Paris, life would be incredibly different today.

We began the evening with croissant sandwiches (and silly hats of course)

Then we went outside for sparklers and poppers

Then, the kids got in their pjs for the countdown

5…4…3…2…1…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

CHEERS!

We ended the evening with ecclairs.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also show you Taylor’s New Year’s picture.  I dug out some of my old scrapbooking stickers…notice Mary (yes, the mother of Jesus) next to Taylor dressed as a reindeer…both holding a bottle of champagne.

Happy New Year everyone.  I hope you all have a great night and a great year.  My only resolution for 2012 is for nothing even close to 8 lbs to come out of my body (2010 – 8lb9oz Caleb; 2011 – 8lb cyst).

Fan

A few weeks ago, Taylor declared that one day she would play basketball and wouldn’t be afraid of the buzzer.  We are one step closer to that day.  Russ took her to Columbia today to watch the USC women’s basketball team play.  They are pretty good this season and are coached by an Olympic gold medalist with a pretty impressive rap sheet:

Dawn Michelle Staley (born May 4, 1970) is an American basketball player and coach. Staley is a three-time Olympian and was elected to carry the United States flag at the opening ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics. She was named the University of South Carolina women’s head basketball coach on May 7, 2008. After winning the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics, she went to play professionally in the American Basketball League and the WNBA. In 2011, Staley was voted in by fans as one of the Top 15 players in WNBA history.

Taylor had a lot of fun and even got to meet the players and the coach and shake their hands afterward.  She was pretty excited.  She got a poster, and Pops gave her these little cards of all the players that he got with his season tickets, like baseball cards.  She came home from the game and wanted to put them all on her wall in her room.

She says her favorite players are #0 and #1 and the coach.

It’s good to bring a little diversity to her purple, flowery, princess, girlie room.

 

 

abandon

Hey, remember when I was all “Look at me, I rock at getting things done”?  HA – I have been put in my place, thank you very much Karma.  This afternoon at 4:45, I was feeling a bit like Alexander, feeling sorry for myself and my terrible, no good, very bad day.

Taylor slept until 7:15 am, which was marvelous, except for the facts that her brother woke up at 5:45 and she is the POKIEST person in the mornings.  We had to accomplish in 30 minutes what it typically takes over an hour to do.  Her breakfast was on the table when she came out of her room, but she dillied and dallied and poked, so I had to hurry her along.  Then she took her time getting dressed and brushing her teeth.  I was ready to scream.  Then finally when we were all ready to go, I set my purse, which contained two books, on the table so I could grab something else and it tipped over and fell on my foot, books first.  I did scream then.

We managed to get to school only a few minutes late, but then I realized that we forgot Taylor’s folder.  We avoided a melt down because I was able to distract Taylor by saying “Oooo….it’s Christmas Party day…and you have on a pretty Christmas dress”  Then she bounded off to show her dress to her friends, and I thought (naively) that maybe today wouldn’t be a total disaster afterall.

I had a long list of things to get done today because I didn’t get to go to work yesterday as I was home with sick Taylor…and tomorrow we are going to be gone all day for Christmas celebrations.   I went into work first because I needed to print off some things and our home printer is out of ink.  Apparently, my office printer is also out of ink.  But I can also print to the copier, which was broken.  So I screamed a little in my office, too.  So I went over to the fellowship hall to move some tables around for Sunday.  One of the tables wasn’t quite as sturdy as I thought and drop on my foot.  I screamed again…perhaps this second near broken toe incident should indicate that perhaps flip flops in December are not wise.

I decided work was just not meant to happen, so I went to the grocery store.  For some reason, I could not remember ANYTHING and had to keep backtracking to different aisles in the store to get the things I had forgotten on the first pass.  I was in the grocery store for at least 90 minutes – it was maddening.  Also, I needed an unsliced Pumpernickel loaf, which proved to be quite elusive.  The  first grocery store didn’t have it, neither did the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th store I tried.

I picked the kids up midway through my hunt for the elusive pumpernickel, which was a bad idea.  Taylor was all hyped up on Christmas party goodies and was a disaster to have in public.  She needed a large field to run in for an hour rather than the car, two grocery stores, and the bank.

So at 4:45 when I was over the day and the five stores without pumpernickel, three non-usable printers, two almost broken toes, and one wild and crazy preschooler, Russ came to my rescue.  He took over kid duty.  I called my mom who was able to find the pumpernickel like a bread ninja.  Then we went to eat Mexican for dinner (because even though I did plan something to cook for dinner, I was out of time to cook it because I was obsessed with pumpernickel)…and I had a Margarita.  So my terrible, no good, very bad day became much less bad.

After dinner, I went to Walmart to get printer ink.  On my way out of the store, there was a car full of guys blaring Cher and dancing and  singing at the top of their lungs with complete reckless abandon.  I couldn’t help but smile as I watched them and remembered high school and college days of doing the same with my friends. So I got in my car and decided I needed a little reckless abandon to counteract my day of frustration of not getting my grown-up to do list done.  I turned the car on, and Christmas music came on the radio.  No, that wouldn’t do.

I channel surfed until I found the perfect old school soundtrack for my ride and turned up the volume.  I sang and danced my way home to Eminem, Red Hot Chili Peppers, No Doubt, and Prince.  It was splendid.  And I did feel much better when I got home.

It’s funny how such little things can make your day go sour.  But at least little things can make your day better, too.  So today, I’m thankful for moms and husbands who come to the rescue, margaritas, old school music blaring on my minivan speakers, and a brief 15 minutes alone to abandon my list and stress and responsibilities…and jam.

Russ’ gut punch

Back in February of this year, Taylor got engaged on the bus.

She and “T” have been growing in their fondness for each other since then.  Taylor talks about him all the time.

During football season, Taylor declared that she like Carolina AND Clemson because T liked Clemson.  We definitely need to work on this!

Last week, she said that she was going to marry T and another little boy whom we’ll call “C”.  Even though we try to tell her that she can’t marry two people, she keeps insisting.  But I think T is still her favorite of her future husbands.

Later last week, she was talking about how “E” was wrestling with her, and T pulled him off and told him to leave her alone.  Her own little knight in shining armor.

It’s funny that whenever I pick her up she is running around playing rough with the boys much more often than she is playing with the quiet girls putting together puzzles or playing with the dollhouse.  At first, Russ thought this was great – preferring a rough and tumble girl to a prissy girl – until he realized that this extra time spent with boys meant she was spending more time with boys, and T in particular.

She missed that last 2.5 days of school because of a mystery fever, and has been asking to see her friends each day.  Today, I finally let her go visit when we picked Caleb up.  She walked into the room, and “T” was the first one to run over to her to say hello.  I could tell that they were both really excited to see see each other.  He told her all about the day they had been having.

Then they had a little spat.  Taylor said that she got the plates for their class Christmas party (we got Christmas plates today for another party and she got it confused).  He corrected her and said, “No, I’m bringing the plates for the party.  You must be bringing something else.”  It was hilarious because it totally could have been a married couple arguing over a miscommunication about who was supposed to buy the plates.

But after the brief preschool spat, I told Taylor that it was time to go.  T gave her a big hug, even picking her up off the ground.  As we were leaving, he yelled out, “Your dress is really cute”

When we got into the hallway, Taylor smiled slyly, giggled, and recapped, “T said my dress was cute.”

And with every story about T, Russ’ heart breaks just a little.