Gone Fishin'

So, it's that time of year when Dave starts thinking about our super fun annual fishing trip again.  He went out to the shed and pulled all the gear out to make sure we have everything we need.  And...then he brought the tackle box into the house...the tackle box that hasn't been opened for about a year and has been sitting in the hot, hot, hot shed.

Me?  I'm very sweetly (of course, as that's my pretty much all the time disposition) painting a picture at the table, minding my own business.

Dave?  He sits down at the table to join me, which I absolutely adore, and then he opens the tackle box.


"Gaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh...."  (That's the sound of the tackle box emitting a most undesirable odor.)


Big guy happened to be walking by.  "Dad, are you trying to kill mom?"

Dave:  "If I was trying to kill mom she'd be dead a long time ago."

Silence...

Dave:  "Just fart, that smell will cover anything."  Yeah, I'm not going to ask Dave if he meant me or the big guy.


Woof...where's the Febreeze?

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Gold Digger

My little guy is channeling his inner "old man on the beach".  He saved up enough money to buy a metal detector and is utterly and completely blissed out.


"Beep.....beep.....beep...beep...beep...beep.beep.beep.beepbeepbeepbeep!"  Commence digging!


Yes!  He's found another nail!!!  I love that he doesn't even really care what "treasure" he's dredged up from our back yard, which, by the way, now looks like a page out of a Louis Sachar novel.  He's proudly shown us a tent stake, a piece of wire, a can tab (like the ones from when I was a kid)..."Wow, mom, that's really old!" (Thanks, kid!), many nails, and two pennies.  Not a bad take!


"Hey, it's already paying for itself!"

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Excuse Me

Got to hang out with my big guy for a number of hours today.  Course it was because he had to...he had an appointment with a dentist type guy today who is going to extract his wisdom teeth in a few weeks.  I still totally loved spending time with him.

Anyway, as we were driving home in rush hour traffic today, we ended up behind a car with personalized plates.

"BURRRP"

Me:  "Here's my phone, you have to take a picture of that for me!"

Big guy:  "Mom, you're so weird!"

Me:  "Just take it."

Big guy:  "You'll have to get closer, I can't see any of the letters on here."


Lucky for me, traffic slowed to a halt...yay!


Big guy:  <click> <click> <click> <click> <click> <click>


The traffic ahead started moving, but the "BURRRP" car remained in place.  The driver waited till my big guy lowered my phone, and then Mr. Burrrp waved to us and drove on.


Big guy:  "Oh, my gawd, mom...he knew we were taking pictures."

Me:  Waving back enthusiastically.  "I know, awesome, right?"

Big guy:  "I hate that you make me do stuff like this."

Me:  "I love you."

Coming out of the Closet

I hear most folks do a "spring cleaning".  Yeah, there's no time for such silliness at my house that time of year.  So...it ends up being "summer cleaning".  I spent much of the day today going through most everything in my closet.  I had the standard questions to ask myself, of course.

- Have I worn it in a year?

- Does it even still fit?

- Is it ugly?

- Is it even too ugly to be reborn as a costume?

- Should I keep the polyester dress that the guys in my house can fit into when they get that urge to cross-dress on Halloween?


So, what I have to show for it at the end of the day is a big garbage bag full of stuff that's too big, too ugly, and never worn.  What's still in my closet?  A bunch of stuff that I hope looks pretty good on me, a well-worn holey pair of overalls that are perfect for my last minute Bubba outfit on Halloween, and one fabulous dress for my guys!  I'm the best mom/wife ever...always thinking of their needs.

Our Date was Tail Waggin' Good

Ya know what makes my day?  I'll tell ya.  Dave and I got to go on one of our Costco dates.  You know going anywhere without our children is a "date".  Unfortunately, it was meat lovers sample delight, to my great disappointment.  I do so love it when our Costco dates turn into a "dinner date"!  Sigh....  As we wandered the aisles searching for enough food to feed two teenaged boys, we passed by the "outdoor" aisle.  There was something in it that was calling to us...we had to go look.  It was an awesome outdoor shower that you could just hook up to your hose and soap up to your heart's delight.  Yes, we totally wanted one!  Fortunately for our neighbors, who are only separated from us by a short chain link fence, an outdoor shower simply wasn't in our budget...yet.  We continued our shopping/sampling through much of the rest of the store and were just about done when Dave decided he had to have one more taste of sausage.  As luck would have it, we had to pass the "outdoor" aisle to get there, and in that aisle was a little gift I swear the Costco gods put there just for me.  You see, there was now a grown man (perhaps in his mid-20s) standing at the shower pretending to bathe, and as he turned away from us a big, amazing, fuzzy striped tail that was attached to the back of his pants swung to and fro, like a windshield wiper clearing residue from his buttocks.  I was in I-LOVE-WEIRD heaven!  I told him just how awesome I thought he was...Dave even chimed in with his admiration.  And, you know what's funny?  I bet anything that guy went home that night and told his friends he had the strangest encounter with a weirdo couple at Costco.  I sure hope so.

A Dawg's Life

My little guy was being his super cute self this afternoon.  Hangin' with his old ma and pa, doting over our dawgs.  And when I say "doting" I mean lying atop a pooch, embracing them tightly, and giving them biggest hug ever.


Me: "You're so incredibly cute!"

Little guy: "How?"

Me:  "Well, duh, 'cause you got lucky enough to have me and dad as your parents."

Little guy:  "That makes me ugly."


Then that ugly little dude plopped his heaver and taller and cuter than me self right on my lap.  Ooph!  Sometimes it's good to be treated like a dawg.

One is the Loneliest Number...But not at my House

Lucky, lucky me, I'm off work till mid-August.   I'm so happy, happy, happy!  The gift of leisure time is huge, and one that I appreciate every moment of every day during this time of year.  In addition to the gift of spare time I'm basquing in, I also find myself being able to...get ready for it...all my teacher buds will understand...go to the bathroom whenever the urge strikes.  Each summer I find myself reflecting on how this activity has changed over the years.  Seriously I can't really remember going to the bathroom before I had children.  I mean, surely I went, of course I went, but it wasn't really a thing.  All that changed about 17 years ago.

Yes, the big guy entered my life and going to the bathroom has never been the same.  Quite suddenly, I had company everywhere I went, and, seemingly, especially in the bathroom.  I remember quietly tip-toeing into the bathroom only to have my moment disrupted by crying, yelling, and later a wee one  just coming right on in...and even crawling up onto my lap!  Then this cycle repeated three-and-a-half years later when little guy came along.  Don't get me wrong, I loved every second of it.  It's just that it was a change.  Now that my kids are 13 and 17 they decidedly do not enter the bathroom if I'm using it, rather they act appalled that I would even have a need for such a thing that has interrupted whatever their current preening needs happen to be.

Lucky for me, though, I've never had a gap in loving interruptions.  When my kids faded their invasions, my pets picked up the slack...a caress on my legs from my cat, an opening nudge on the door and a shaggy black face or a white one full of curls coming on in and giving me a lean-in hug and a request for some scratchin'.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure if I found myself alone in my bathroom at home, I'd have serious abandonment issues.