At the community music festival we went to the other night, Delaney planted herself mere inches away from the band’s piano player up front on the dance floor. The band was a really fun 50’s quartet called Frim Fram 4 and they wore white tuxedos and sang Frank Sinatra tunes. It was lovely. Have I mentioned before that my husband and I can do a mean Lindy Hop together? I know. We’re adorable.
So, here we are at this incredibly pleasant family-friendly music festival and Delaney is making pals with the piano player guy WHILE he’s playing the piano. He was actually very sweet about it. Sweet until a nice woman went up to his piano to leave him a tip and before he could finish the song and grab it, Delaney’s little fingers did.
The piano guy offered her a pretend smile as if to say “Uh, no no no you shifty little girl” and then the woman (who must have children) nicely and quickly removed it from Delaney’s fingers and placed it back on the piano.
It all happened so fast, in about 3 seconds really, and as the woman walked back to her seat and passed ours on the way, I made eye contact and started to offer an apology but before I could, Mike instead jumped in, as if to offer an explanation, and said “We taught her to do that.”
And you know how those jokes go over well with some people and not others? Well, luckily this woman had a great sense of humor and shot right back at him “Well, she followed your instructions perfectly. But I was faster.”
Two things on my mind lately. First, TV and how I love it so very much and secondly, my kid and instilling manners in her. In order of prioritization, I will discuss TV first.
Mmmmmmm tv…..
I just LOVE this time of year when all my favorite friends (tv characters) come back into my life and new friends (tv characters) move in and capture my heart. My Tivo is on overdrive, I’m workin it to pieces kicking all that Dora and Diego and Little Einstein garbage off of it and quickly replacing them with McDreamy and Nora Walker and Gabrielle Solis. Because, honestly, there is nothing better, NOTHING BETTER than putting the kid to bed, grabbing a chocolate chip granola bar and a big glass of milk and then completely tuning out ANY and ALL stresses in your life while you shamelessly pretend that an ER Resident would perform emergency surgery on a wounded Deer in a hospital parking lot.
Grey’s Anatomy premiered last night, do you not love this show? I love it, and the Premiere, it was o….kay… The unrequited love between George and Izzy, I am not crazy about because I’m a Callie fan. And uh, you know, a MARRIAGE fan. Is it so much to ask? Don’t cheat on your wife George! She rocks and you bore me with your not acknowledging it. So, I say Boo to that but the half-sister thing was great.
Big Shots was after Grey’s. If you didn’t watch it, you didn’t miss out. Which is sad because I really want to see the West Wing dude and the Alias dude succeed in a new series. But it was a big no-go for me. Not funny at all, lots of affairs….. the only guy I liked was the sarcastic married guy who at the end of the show says “I might actually have a shot with my own Wife tonight!”
Private Practice was the other night. Can I just say that I love how Shonda Rhimes doesn’t typecast or stereotype her Black Men? They’re not angry, or over-the-top serious, or ghetto, they’re just Black dudes, normal Black dudes. It’s so incredibly refreshing. This show grows on you. Try it, you’ll like it.
What else? Oh yes, my new favorite show, Dirty Sexy Money! Favorite premiere so far, loved it. This show better stay on because I’m getting really tired of loving new shows and then never seeing them again, which happened with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which I’m convinced was canceled because it was too smart. Gah! Dumb people ruin EVERYTHING!
So, more TV people! That’s what we all need! Brothers and Sisters premieres this Sunday night after Desperate Housewives and I may have to join a Sally Field fan club after watching it. It’s not beyond me to be obsessed to the point of joining a fan club, sometime I’ll have to tell you about my Jonathan Taylor Thomas days.
I’m curious, what is your guilty television pleasure? Besides Project Runway, of course. Because ANYONE who’s ANYONE already loves Project Runway, obviously. And does anyone out there actually watch those obscure weird shows like Bones? and House? and Without a Trace? Besides my friend Kellie?
Now on to my Kid.
Teaching her manners has been really hard and sad for me lately. For instance, the other night we went to a Football party (go BSU!) and Delaney kept asking everyone there to get up off the couch and join her in the next room to play “Hop on over a line” (this sounds like a game I would invent to keep her preoccupied but really, she came up with it all on her own). At first, some people were nice and joined her even though IAN JOHNSON WAS SCORING ANOTHER TOUCHDOWN AND HERE WE ARE IN THE NEXT ROOM HOPPING OVER A LINE! But then after awhile, it became clear that nobody really wanted to play the game anymore.
And for some reason, this made me sad. Not that people didn’t want to play her game, I understand that, and this happens after 30 minutes of hopping. But I had to pull her aside and ask her to stop asking people to get up and play her game, that the grownups were watching football for a minute.
It was hard for me to convey to her that it wasn’t that nobody wanted to play with her, it was that we have to learn manners and asking people repeatedly to do something is considered bad manners. It was a manners thing, not a “nobody wants to play with you” thing. But I don’t know that she understood and I was sad to have to break her little spirit because she was REALLY enjoying playing with the other grownups. How do you say “Stop talking to people honey, it’s rude”?
This whole parent thing is difficult and I’ve never liked manners anyway to begin with.
Here is a sad sad picture of Delaney to pull on your heartstrings. YOU would have played “Hop on over a line” with her, wouldn’t you have?
And YOU should not go any further in life without watching this.
WARNING: Should not be watched in a solemn work environment where loud bursts of laughter would deter from surrounding co-workers daily work productivity. Should not be watched if feeling of urination is ALREADY coming on, release BEFOREHAND. Side effects include a running cycle of said catchy tune in your head throughout the next week.
Since several of you have emailed and asked what the latest is with our adoption, I figured that must mean that pretty much EVERYONE out there is probably curious as well. All twelve of you that read this site. I assume things like that about you guys.
Well, we’re still waiting for our referral. (Referral: moment in which your adoption agency calls and says, “Are you ready to meet your kids?” and you FREAK out and FREAK out some more and continue FREAKING out as you open an email containing pictures, histories and medical reports on these beautiful and sad little children).
But, we have been officially waiting for 3 months exactly now, which means that we should be half way to the freaking out moment. After the freak out, you - you guessed it - wait some more. Usually another 2-3 months and then you’re off on a jet plane to Ethiopia to hold them in your arms.
And, there we are. About half way of the half way mark. So, do the half of the halfway dance.
One of these days, I promise to do a real live post involving my feelings on adoption. I do have those, feelings, you know.
Your Father and I have been trying to save money lately for the upcoming adoption of your siblings (that you know nothing about yet) which is a very difficult thing for us to do considering that the staff at McDonalds, Baja Fresh and Arby’s all know our family by name and drive thru voice. And since we are an all-or-nothing-type family, we took it upon ourselves to go cold turkey and stop eating out ALTOGETHER, all at once, without a natural downward progression or 12 step program. At the time of the baking of this cake, we had been eating at home for a good, solid week and were severely craving some coronary artery blockage after having been SO DARNED GOOD. So, you can imagine the sheer joy and elation we experienced upon finding, tucked back in the pantry, a box of Betty Crocker Yellow Cake Mix.
Your Dad was so cute when he jumped on the internet to find a recipe for chocolate icing. He scoured the recipes to find one that called for ALL ingredients that WE HAD AT HOME! and then labored with love over the stove to prepare it.
We all enjoyed one tasty scrumple of cake and practiced restraint by setting it aside for the next day, since we all know that such things taste EVEN better after a day of practicing restraint. And we did this. WE did this, but YOU. YOU, did
THIS! (see picture)
You did this, Delaney, while your sweet and unexpecting Dad was at class, dreaming and fantasizing about his cake and while I, I was…, while I was, blogging Delaney.
I knew something was amiss when your Father came in the house and panicked, asked if we had left the sliding glass door open because surely, a pack of angry hyenas had unknowingly entered the home and sought out our family cake.
We all three stood there and watched the now-dead and demolished cake, stripped of it’s home-made chocolate icing, lovingly applied at one point of it’s glory days, or day that is.
And after a couple minutes of studying the wreckage, you carefully replied, “What happened here?”
Oh yes, plastering pictures of myself and my family all over the internet. OF COURSE! I know ya’ll have been waiting and waiting with baited breath to see pictures from our Oregon Coast Holiday (I love saying Holiday, it makes me feel British) so without further delay, I present:
Overt and Shameless display of Narcissism in the form of “Family Holiday Photos” (Who loves the camera?!)
In chronological order, first up, the car ride.
Started out great. Lots of snacks, music, cartoons, stories, clarifying of discrepancies from this post (APPARENTLY, there was never tomato sauce, the giant holes were perc holes to test for a septic system, the trees were not Ponderosas, they were Evergreens and my Dad was NOT there for all three near-drowning instances which is completely ironic since he had SWIMMING SCHOLARSHIPS in college. But I still say they’re all just jealous of my super powers), yada yada yada, drive drive drive. We EVEN sang songs together, it was very Disney commercial.
Then casually, slowly…
The mood inevitably went south
and by the end…
And what’s embarrassing is that Audrey (my sister) was in WORSE condition than I was in at the precise moment of this picture. Except, when Audrey gets to this point, this level of stirring claustrophobia and frazzleness, everyone avoids making eye contact, speaking to or around her or making any sudden movements in her presence. I’ll get all up in psychoville but Audrey gets all kinds of NASTEH. Flippage of the Outtage, for real. (one other nice thing about turning comments off for the time being is that Audrey can’t get on and yell at me in the comments anymore. HA HA. Take that, you Shrew! I’m not stuck in the car with you NOW, aren’t I?! HA!)
Next up, of course, as soon as we got there, was the beach
I was excited to be there. I was excited to not be in the car, really.
We were all a bit giddy and excited to be there. Elation was back. Euphoria set in. We loved each other again.
My brother Burke and the cute backside of my husband Mike.
Fralalala. Making memories. So lovely.
Burke being “Emo”. The whole trip, if Burke was ever being quiet, walking by himself or trying to distance himself from us in public in any way, we usually asked him if he was having an “Emo” moment, the question was typically accompanied by an exaggerated sad and serious face. This sarcastic tactic works really well, for those of you who have teenagers. The teen will be shocked that you are using such a modern and recent slang term (short for Emotional, by the way, typically used to describe the all black, skinny jean and bandanna wearing posse these-a-days) they’ll try to fight back a smile while at the same time shaking their head and saying something to the effect of “Why am I in this family”. This picture was posed and we were all laughing while it was taken, but it should be the poster worldwide for “Emo Kids” what with the beautiful and fun surroundings and then them, skulking within their confines of treacherous emotions. Ha ha. Teenagers. What a joke. Emo. Use it in a sentence today, it’ll be fun!
We toured the sites and visited Cape Meares Lighthouse which was breathtakingly beautiful. Just like us. Other tourists there were confused, they were like “Which is the site here? This Lighthouse or this breathtakingly beautiful family? I’m not sure.” It happens all the time.
Can you see my wee wee little child in this picture? Running through the trees, so small? Like a little cockroach, so small.
The next day was a bit more chilly and we went to tour another lookout spot.
This is the picture we show everyone.
But this:
This is more like it. And this:
This is completely genuine. See how my kid is mid-strike? She is absolutely about to whack her cousin in the head, totally un-provoked. Mialee is going to use this picture as evidence for YEARS, I’m sure. “See? See how Delaney always starts it?!”
Here’s a nice educational moment. Educational, my arse! Ha!
No, really, here’s the real educational moment. Leave it to Mike to make sure the girls LEARN something while on vacation. Here, he’s teaching the girls how to tell how old the tree was before some redneck yuppy conservatives chopped it all up. Kidding! We ONLY use the term Bush-lover with the girls, we don’t want to burden them with REALLY ugly words at such a young age. (Man, I’m on a ROLL!)
Next, we decided to go check out the much-hyped and highly-anticipated SEASIDE BEACH. OOOOoooohhhh Seaside Beach. Must be nice since it’s so expensive and crowded and hyped up, right?! Surely, it’s WAY better than our humble little beach down in Rockaway, the SLUMS of the Oregon Coast. We are going to SO regret not staying in Seaside once we see it —- blah blah. Ya, well THIS is what we thought of Seaside Beach:
“WHAT? WHAT WAS THAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU BECAUSE IT’S SO WINDY! I CAN’T SEE YOU EITHER BECAUSE IF I OPEN MY EYES, SAND WILL FLY UNDER MY CONTACTS AND CAUSE MASS AMOUNTS OF DISCOMFORT AND PAIN!”
“CAN I MAKE A SUGGESTION? LET’S GO.”
Seaside sucked. Sorry all you Seaside stand-byers, all you uppity Seaside Loyalists, you SUCK! You’re beach sucks. And you pay more to stay there. Maybe you should venture South a bit, into the slums where you can talk to each other without eating a tablespoon of sand.
That’s right, there are MERMAIDS down in the slums of OUR BEACH.
Burke is CONVINCED that he is God after seeing this picture since there is some obscure light reflection in the middle of the photo next to him. He talked about it for hours, obsessing over the “presence” in the picture and reconsidering a lot of unexplained phenomenons in his short life thus far. Like how he KNEW he’d hate that job at the golf course over the summer.
The girls at sunset. I love this shot.
The girls unknowingly about to embark on a 7 hour journey back home.
All in all, it was a VERY successful Holiday to the Coast. We can’t wait to go back. If anyone is planning a trip and wants advice on where to stay, email me.
Oh and I am leaving comments on for now. Mostly because you guys asked me to. I’ve decided to turn comments off on the posts that I feel are crap. Or not. I’m moody like that. Thanks for loving me anyway.
I mean seriously, the last post was in AUGUST. That’s just plain unacceptable. Ridiculous. And you know why? Because this is me:
“I could write about this, but what if it’s not funny enough”
“I really should do a blog post but I don’t feel witty enough right now”
“I could write about this but they probably wouldn’t think it was interesting”
“I feel like writing a blog post but now that it’s been THREE WEEKS, I KNOW they are expecting something GREAT and I’m not feeling great coming on at the moment.”
You see?
So, I think the comments must come down for now so I’ll start writing again. The pressure, you know?
I love you guys and I hope you’ll still email me, after all, that’s when we best get to know each other anyway.
