Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde...without the Jekyl

Today was one of those days. 

I'm pretty sure that aliens snuck into Camden's room one night and inserted some sort of Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde type implant into his ear. Because for the past two days, Cam will be perfectly happy and smiley one minute, then suddenly, in an instant with no warning, he turns into a snarling, drooling, yelling roaring hairy beast. It's alarming enough that even Calen gives him the shifty eyes. 

Today the Dr Jekyl half must have gone on vacation to the Bahamas, because there was no break, no character change, nothing. Just 12 straight hours of snarling drooling Caminator monster hell. Did someone stick a thumb-tack into his butt cheek or something to piss him off?

Since it was the longest day in the history of ever with the kids I hired Netflix to babysit my kids today while I hid in the kitchen and pretended that I was somewhere tropical without my children. 

I had a mere 4928 tomatoes in my fridge from our garden, so I made some pasta sauce. I found a recipe on Pinterest and tweaked it a little bit in order to use what was already in my fridge. Here's what I put in the slow cooker:

13 tomatoes
1 small squash (don't ask me what kind of squash. I don't know my squashes. It was small and bumpy and kind of looked like a penis. (HEY, it's descriptive, right?))
1 yellow onion
1 green bell pepper
Some random amount of celery salt

Pre-slow cooking and blending

Then I put it on low for 3 hours. Then I blended it... in a blender. Insta-sauce. Just add seasoning and meat (and tomato paste to thicken it up if you freeze it for a while before serving). Voila. Also wins extreme organic medals or trophies or something.

Finis! Homemade pasta sauce

One saving grace we had was a Box of Awesome arrive at our door yesterday from my inlaws - chalked full of goodies for the kids: gummy bears, lollipops, pretzel letters (and a mojito mix for mommy!). And the best part (other than the mojito mix) was two boxes of themed "create a scene" style foam bath toys. Get them wet and stick them to the side of the tub to make fun little scenes and events. One was a construction zone (obviously a big hit with Calen) and the other was a jungle scene. They were super adorable and a lifesaver this evening while trying to keep the kids awake until bedtime without killing each other (or mommy's head exploding).

Bathtime awesomeness

Actually, only Calen took a bath today. Camden went to bed at 6pm. Mommy's sanity expiration date had come and gone and it was time for him to go to bed, whether he was ready or not.

Don't Ask Questions...

Just let it happen.

(apparently, they were having a business meeting)

 

Cornhole and the Half-Time Show

So we had a neighborhood block party/barbecue/get together/whatever today including a raging cornhole competition. You know, cornhole. Throw the beanbags on the board and into the hole. Get your mind out of the gutter.

CORNHOLE. Look at the perfect form and technique. Trinidads vs Swanns

Unfortunately before the actual competition got underway a sudden outrageous torrential hurricane decided to crash our party. And like the babies we are, we ran for our lives and took cover in the hosts' house for 20 minutes while the storm passed through. 

Stupid weather ruining everything.

Calen and I had our own half-time show though. He loves rain (he was, after all, born in Seattle) and especially Cape May's torrential rain on hot summer days. So I let him run outside in the middle of the monsoon and dance in the puddles that were forming within seconds due to the heavy rain. He had fun, I snapped pictures. 

Dancing in the rain

 Once the storm passed and the sun came out again the tournament was underway. Naturally Brad and I had never played before and everyone else were like, cornhole Olympians. We were knocked out first round into the losers bracket. Boo. 

But it's not if you win or lose, it's having fun playing the game right? RIGHT? 

Tell that to my two screaming children who apparently melted down because Mommy and Daddy suck at cornhole. Actually, I'm not sure why they both had side-by-side nuclear meltdowns. But that's a pretty good reason.  

Two Foot Tall Tony Hawk

So the base decided it was a good idea to build a concrete skate park for the neighborhood Coast Guard brats kids. The grand opening was supposed to be last week but was rescheduled to today due to rain. Because around here, rain actually causes delays. People see clouds and a few drops and lose their brains and run indoors as fast as possible! Wussies. 


 Maybe it's because the rain here usually comes with a side of severe lightning. Yeah okay, delays might be warranted in that case.

Obviously my kids are too small to really make any use of a skate park. However, the opening ceremony (if you will) promised free lunch, music and a raffle drawing for several skateboards. And Calen likes basically any extreme sport (especially dirt bikes and skateboards) so he'd get a kick out of watching the big kids ride their skateboards. And it's like, three blocks away. Why wouldn't we show up? At least we get free lunch. 


Camden decided to sleep in until 10 freaking 45am so he was basically still eating breakfast when Calen and I left for the park, so he and Daddy stayed home. I forced convinced him to ride his bike there since now he's almost a pro at it. Man, he's really figuring this out. He only needs help here and there to start back up again if he rolls to a stop. And to keep him focused on where he's going, because often he'll fixate on a firetruck driving by (for example) and ride into a ditch/mailbox/little brother/insert inanimate object here. But otherwise, he motors along great (well, great for only really learning how to ride a few days ago). 

It was only 88 degrees today but I'm pretty sure the USCG secretly buried thousands of little space heaters under the skate park to deter tourists from letting their brats kids ride on it because it was HOT and we were all suffering. The Captain did this long-winded Hooray for Skate Parks And Especially Myself speech and then the Chaplain blessed it ("Please God protect every kid's brain from splattering all over the half pipe...."....okay maybe he didn't say THAT) and cutting of the ribbon, etc etc. They had really bad hot dogs incinerated by the Auxiliarists and lots of free drinks and coupons and all that stuff. 

Watching all the skaters at the new park

One of the local skate and surf shops had a bunch of skateboards that kids (or adults) could try out for free. So I hooked Calen up with a helmet and a little rubber skateboard (one that had softer wheels and rubber gribs for his feet). He was immensely wobbly and nervous, but he.loved.it. He loved it so much he didn't want to stop. He asked to go on the half-pipe and one of the ramps and I was like "ummm NO. Not until you are at LEAST 25 and have your own insurance. And even then." Oh, my little two foot tall Tony Hawk.

Thank you Dana for taking this awesome pic of my future Tony Hawk!

He loved it so much that when everyone was called off the park to the event tent where the skate shops were giving out their raffle prizes, he threw a once in a lifetime kicking, screaming, wailing fit. You know one of those everyone else is quiet and staring at YOUR tantrum throwing monster kind of fits. Maybe it was the heat. Or the bad hot dog. Or an alien implant. Whatever it was, worst.tantrum.ever. Apparently he really likes skateboarding. Then I tried to give the skateboard back to the skate shop. You know, because we were only borrowing it. Try explaining that to a hysterical preschooler. Yeah, no. So I let him sit on it until the end of the raffle.

As everyone crowded around the event tent, Calen sits staring longingly at the skate park

AND, Calen won a raffle prize!! His VERY OWN skateboard! An adult size, but who cares? It's HIS! His VERY own! I thought "Victory! Now I can return the borrowed skateboard easy peasy." So I told Calen now that he had his very own skateboard he had to give back the rubber one. 

Except, his new skateboard didn't have wheels. You know, how some don't come with wheels and you have to buy the bearings and the wheels and whatever and install them. Big deal. But Calen didn't get it. This was a huge deal. What the hell good is a skateboard that doesn't have wheels? He wanted to give the skate shop his new skateboard and keep the one with wheels. In theory, I don't blame him. He doesn't understand. So I did what any loving parent does once you realize there is no possibility of getting through to them:


I pried the borrowed skateboard and helmet out of his fingers and lunged them at the event table and whisked Calen away before he could snatch it back. More screaming, tears, wailing, feet stomping. And then we left IMMEDIATELY. 

In actual theory, even if that skateboard came with wheels it would STILL be too big for him to actually use. Plans of buying him a little skateboard for Christmas is in the works. 

"Mommy, this skateboard BROKEN. Wheres the WHEELS?" Poor kid

 

 

 

Happiness Is...

...new books from the library (bonus points for riding bikes there and back)

Of the two of them, this one is my bookworm

 

Loitering On Sesame Street

Today we took our annual trip up to Langhorne Pennsylvania to visit Sesame Street. I mean Sesame Place. Street? Place. Hmmmm.

According to the show, Sesame STREET is in New York City. Maybe that's why they called it PLACE. Sesame PLACE is in Random-Town Pennsylvania. Makes total sense to me. After all, have to protect the privacy of Oscar the Grouch's REAL house...

We've gone every year since we moved here in 2010. Mainly because it's free admission for active duty military. And I'm all about free. 

We do have to pay for parking. FIFTEEN dollars for a slice of pavement that was already there in the first place. I never have understood the theory of paying for parking.

I forgot to take the picture of the boys with the sign until on the way out. Calen face explains how he felt about leaving.

This year was especially fun because Calen is older and more tolerant to theme park rides and can talk much better and was really aware of his surroundings and all the Sesame Street themes. Though I expected, because of his sensitive and cautious nature, that he wouldn't be going on certain bigger kid rides ("bigger kid" in this park's case is for like, age 5) like the little rollercoaster and those tower dropping things (that's like, maybe 20 feet tall. But you know. Still enormous to a 3 year old). 

But Calen's dramatic change of character/coming of age/alien cloning the last few weeks exposed itself once again today at the park. We barely even got through the front gate when he begged to go on the big rollercoaster. 

Me: "Calen, that's for big boys. It might be scary. Are you sure?"

Mommy translation: Calen, you are going to scream and whine and cry on that ride and then it's going to RUIN the entire rest of the day so for the love of God don't go on it. 


Calen: "Yes I go on rollercoaster NOW okay?"


Calen translation: Eff you. I'm going to do it just because you recommend NOT to. 


Fine. Go scar yourself for life. Take Daddy and I'll stay here and take pictures of your doom. 


And you know what, that little toddler that once was my little scaredy-puss is now a big brave BEAST. He.loved.it. He loved it enough that throughout the course of the day he went on it four times. This is Calen. MY CALEN! Unheard of. 

Calen. On a rollercoaster. Laughing. Unheard of.

The other thing that's changed with Calen is that he isn't as whiny when he's tired and crabby. He's ornery. 

Calen: "Mommy I want eat breakfast" (every meal is "breakfast" to him)

Me: "Want to go sit down and eat lunch?"

Calen: (curled nose crabby face, glaring at me, stomping his feet as we walk): "NO!! I NOT eat lunch Mommy!"

And then we sit down, and he inhales food. ::Sigh::.   


DEFINITELY proves that there is a personality microchip implanted in his head. DEFINITELY. 

We did the usual bouncy room and creepy Elmo flying fish ride thing and added in a ride on the drop tower (yep, he loved that too). Camden was pissy and overtired so most of the time he sat in the stroller and moped, but he did go on the carousel with Calen once. He enjoyed it but was really too cranky to go on again.

The only time Cam actually went on a ride, but he loved it. After this picture.

Once we got the theme park stuff out of the way it started to get hot, so we ate lunch and then went to the water park side of things. We did the splash pad - Calen really loved it this year and wasn't upset about the water on his head. Camden walked around in it but was a grouch about it. Brad lovingly consoled him by snatching him up and running him through the splash pad a few times. Oh what gentle parents we are. Then Calen and I did a quick lap in the lazy river while Daddy took a break and Cam took a literal seven minute nap. Then we hit another wading pool and spent a good while there.

If it weren't for that water park I'm pretty sure the four of us would be puddles of mush on the pavement of that park. It is SO hot. 

Anti-Melting System

Then came time for the parade. Which equals sitting on our beach towel on the hot pavement in 100 degree weather (we did find a tiny shadow to hover in and escape the sun) and wait for 15 minutes for the parade to start. Brad and I weren't too excited since the parade the last two years was run down and dirty, and laaaaame. 

But this year, Sesame redeemed itself. The parade was awesome (I mean, you know, by preschool standards. ::cough:: ahem...). New floats, new character costumes, More dancing, more interactions with the crowd. 

Camden and Oscar the Grouch had matching personalities today.

Calen loved it but it was hard for him to watch all his favorite characters dance right.in.front of him. "I go see him and say hi?" Which he had been begging me to do all day. You could PAY to go say hi to Elmo or Cookie Monster (his favorites). You know what's better than paying $20 for a quick visit with Elmo? Sitting on the hot pavement for FREE and watching them dance past you. We pacified Calen by giving him a giant lollipop that he had no hope of ever finishing before his 12th birthday. 

A 3 year old's pacifier

And then, dreams came true. There came a point where the dancers came and picked out kids to dance with them and the characters. And one of the dancer peoples chose Calen! And he DANCED. With Telly the monster. And it was probably the cutest thing I had ever seen and everyone was pointing and saying "look at that little boy dancing with Telly! How cute!!". And I was that mom was cheering and laughing and almost crying and yelling "that's my boy!!" like he had just won a gold medal at the Summer Olympics or something. But he didn't. He danced with Telly Monster. Baby steps to the gold medal podium. 

MY boy. Dancing with Telly. A proud parenting moment.

We left shortly after and I bet $10 to Brad that the boys would be sound asleep before we hit the freeway/parkway/whatever-way. We were both dumbfounded that both kids stayed awake forever. Cam fell asleep after maybe 45 minutes. Calen never did fall asleep and even through his exhaustion chatted us to death the entire two hour drive back. Turds. 

But really it was a fun day and we had a BLAST and can't wait to do it again (for free) next year.  

 

 

Wordless Wednesday...With Words

Brothers really are the best. (what I didn't get was a picture of them beating the crap out of each other with these cars minutes later. So in reality, brothers are usually the best)

 

Motor Skill Torture Devices

We had another failed Pinterest activity today. 

Pinterest usually treats me with gentle loving hands. But every once in a while it lashes out at me. Typical relationship.

The idea was simple. Take a Gatorade bottle (or similar bottle). Cut off the bottom. Rubber band a wash cloth to the open bottom. Dip it in soapy water. Blow. And this humongously long soapy snake comes out. I tested it and it worked great

Pretty awesome. 

This was the blowing. Before he breathed in.

However one thing that Pinterest failed to mention that your kid needs to have the proper motor skills to know NOT to breathe into the bottle AFTER they blow out. Don't they know that my kid is only 3 and hasn't figured that out yet?

They don't? Shame on them. 

So he blew out. And it worked a little bit. But then, he sucked in a deep breath with his mouth still on the bottle. And into his mouth went all that soap. 

"Blaaaaaaaaaargh ack YUCKY Mommy my mouth AHHHHHHH WAAAAAAH" *cough* *sputter* *cry*

Then he ran to the pool and had a long drink out of the hose. 

Me: *smirk* 

This is when I sat and watched and laughed. I'm a bad mom.

I tried to have Calen try it one more time and to not breathe into it. But he wouldn't He backed up and shook his head. Clearly this was not a fun game. It was a torture device. A dirty trick where it looks like it should be fun because it has bubbles and what bubbles aren't fun? But then you get all excited and go to do it and it shoots suds down your throat. Evil.

It took him over half an hour and several drinks out of the hose to stop complaining about the soap in his mouth. I now know what to threaten mention when EVER he's being naughty. I guess Grandma knew what she was doing when she shoved bars of soap in kid's mouths.

Loving A Losing Team

Let's talk baseball. 

Yankee fans rejoice, Ichiro is now wearing pinstripes. 

Mariners fans, start digging your own personal six foot grave, because our last good offensive player is now traded to the evil empire. 

I am sad to say that I am a bigtime Mariners fan. 

Right now I wish I wasn't.

So long Ichiro (taken by me at the game Sept 2011)

Yeah I know, growing up an M's fan is setting yourself up for failure. We've never had a World Series appearance let alone a ring. We haven't even had a winning season in what, five years now? I can't even keep track. And any good player we ever get we trade away. Usually to the Yankees. Which is probably why all Mariners fans legitimately HATE the Yankees almost as much as we hate our own front office. 

However, I still grew up loving the M's. And there were some good times. I was a pre-teen in the glory days of Ken Griffey Jr, Edgar Martinez, Jay Buhner and Randy Johnson and the incredible 1995 post-season. I was a high school junior during the record setting 2001 season where we won 116 wins - the most in major league history (p.s. - Ichiro was Rookie of the Year in 2001). 

Jake and I grew up worshiping the Mariners. Even in our adulthood we consider ourselves hardcore fans

And.....that pretty much sums it up. A few more postseason appearances but not by much. Safeco Field doesn't really fill up anymore, and the only real crowd pleaser is when King Felix pitches. And Ichiro.

HOWEVER, a lot of us are still big time Mariners fans. We've committed too many years and too much hope into our home team. So I swear by the M's still and my entire upstairs hallway is covered in memorabilia and I'm raising my poor kids into little M's fans (a new age form of child abuse). (I also proudly had a giant Mariners sticker on my truck window until certain husbands scraped them off with an ice scraper during a winter storm). 

Raising them right (or wrong?) Sept 2011

But, the news of Ichiro leaving us for the evil empire after over ten years is pouring a lot of salt in the open wound of yet another losing season. How much more can us Mariners fan put up with before completely abandoning them?

Especially since all we got for a future hall of famer is two double-A MINOR league pitchers and a wad of cash. Really? Why didn't we just wrap him up with festive paper and a big bow and say "here you go for FREE!" 

I'm a pretty sore angry baseball fan tonight. 

Boo. 

(Maybe I should start rooting for the Rangers on a regular basis. At least Nolan Ryan (one of my childhood heroes) is the president and they can't trade him) 

There's a What In Our Yard?

First of all we spent another day at the beach blah blah blah our life is so unfortunate blah blah blah. 

Actually it was a pretty funny day at the beach because for the first time I actually had to yell at Calen for being too far out in the water and to come closer to shore, as opposed to the usual me trying to coax him to wade up to his ankles. Now he's throwing himself in the ocean head first and laughing as the waves carry him back to shore. Completely different kid from like two weeks ago I swear. Maybe someone came into his bedroom and swapped kids in the middle of the night, I'm not sure. But I'll keep this one. No exchanges or returns. 

Swimming in the waves by himself. Definitely not the same Calen as last week

It was also ONLY like 78 degrees and Brad and I were complaining that it was too cold to be swimming in the water today. Someone terrible has happened and we are officially accustomed to East Coast summers and if it drops below 80 degrees we get whiny. Oh the horror. How will we ever survive a chilly 78 degree day at the beach. 

We totally left early too because we were too cold. Pussies. 

Camden says sand is delicious.

So then Brad and I are inside cleaning the house and getting ready for dinner with some friends and I look out our kitchen window and I'm like "Ummm, so there's a horse in our front yard?"

"WHAT did you just say?"

"There's a HORSE in our front yard. I swear to God!"

And there totally was. A horse. In our front yard. On purpose, because there was a person holding the reins and all the neighbors were out front checking it out. But it was still a horse. In my front yard. 

So I run to the back yard and yank Calen out of the sandbox exclaiming "Calen! A horse! In our front yard! Come see it!" I was pretty excited I'll admit it. It isn't every day a horse is in your front yard. And I was smart enough to snatch the camera before running out the door. 

Calen got to pet it and feed it a strawberry and then he got to ride it around the block (with owner's help, of course). Super awesome and totally made his afternoon. 

I however was completely unaware that there was an enormous SMUDGE on my camera lens so the picture didn't turn out too well. Oh well. It proves it happens, right?

Calen randomly gets to ride a horse in the front yard.

     

Watermelon Cupcakes

So I'm super tired and super pissed at my computer monitor for it's malfunctioning outrageousness (seriously, every person in a picture looks like they have Michael Jackson disease) so I can't edit photos or really spend much time on it  but, I will do an abridged version of tonight's blog. 

Calen's friend had her 4th birthday party today and it was watermelon themed. 

Really, is there anything cuter for a little girl's birthday party them than watermelons? I don't think so.

The birthday girl and her watermelon cake!

There was a watermelon cake and watermelon cupcakes and watermelon decorations and it was pretty much the cutest thing ever. I especially liked the cupcakes, which were covered in green frosting, but then you bit into them and they were red with black little dots (supposed to be seeds). Umm, adorable!

Watermelon cupcakes! (the only photo I actually had the patience to edit today)

And that's as far as I'm going to go because the flickering of my screen is driving me BANANA SANDWICH and after the sub-nuclear meltdowns from both the boys after the party, I need to nurse a beer and a romantic comedy. 

Cam is totally partied out. This is the middle of the sidewalk, by the way.

 

Home Invasion

I was really excited about tonight. For the first time in several days, the kids were going to bed early, I had nothing that needed to get done, so I had the entire evening to do absolutely nothing. I plop on the couch and prepare for a riveting evening of Pinterest and Netflix (my two drugs of choice). 

Until I glance over my laptop and notice Chance sitting staring at me scratching incessantly. Then I shift my eyes over to Juno. She's scratching. Then I look over at Jersey sitting above me on the top of the couch. She's munching on her fur (you know, like how cats do). And there I see it on her white fur. A FLEA. 

We had a major flea problem in our outside garden so I thought maybe just maybe one happened to hop in and land itself on Jersey. But then I ran my fingers through Juno's thin fur. More fleas. Not a ton, but enough.

We are under attack.

The worst part about this b.s. is that the animals are totally on monthly flea and tick prevention. It's been 3 weeks since their last flea treatment so it should still be working. But we tried a new cheaper brand this time around and apparently cheaper isn't better in this case. 

I thought well, I'll have my nice evening tonight and then bathe them and wash all the dog bedding tomorrow. But then every time they scratched, I twitched. And every time a single fiber from my shirt moved half a centimeter I lost my mind and felt like I was totally crawling with parasites. 

Fine. Screw my lazy evening. There's FLEAS involved. 

So I threw all the dog bedding in the washing machine and then prepared to give ALL the animals a flea bath. Did I mention that NONE of my animals appreciate water, even my dogs? They don't. They hate it. 

Jersey was first and gave me a run for my money. She scaled the bathtub and knocked down all the shampoo bottles and then to pay me back for the terrible things I was doing to her she completely hooked her enormous sharp claw all the way to the quik into my finger. Which was really hard to pull out. Which caused a lot of blood and pain and all those fun things. And at that point I said this bath is over and threw her out (once I somehow got her claw out of my hand). 

Me and a small wet bag of Anger. Pre-Claw-Assault

The dogs were next. Juno hates water but it loyal enough that if I tell her to jump in the tub, she will. Now when Chance is in the tub, she lovingly sticks her nose in the tub and licks her brother as if to soothe him. But while Juno is in the tub, Chance is curled up in a teeny tiny little ball in the corner of the bathroom trying to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible. You're on your own Juno. 

Luckily, the dogs don't bite and scratch and panic like the damn cat does. 

Meanwhile, a new round of treatment has been applied and all the bedding/towels/everything is being washed on hot stain cycle. Die you miserable little buggers. 

War wounds. Pic doesn't do justice. For one little puncture wound, there is a LOT of blood. All down my hand too.

 

Calen's Room

Well since I spent a million years and blood, sweat and tears over Camden's monkey room, I figured I better not leave Calen with a boring plain jane military white room.

But, I wasn't ready for another month long extravaganza. 

If you don't know Calen, you don't know how much he loves and obsesses over cars and trucks. And trains. And monster trucks. And airplanes. And motorcycles. And pretty much anything with a motor and a pair of wheels. I'm talking obsessed. It's all he ever plays with and we can't even go outside without him showing me every.single.car that drives by. 

So, I decided he needed a car/truck/transportation/whatever room. And I wanted to make it super cool without getting too involved with it. Especially since his room is technically the biggest room in the house (it's LONG). 

Ready for a tour? Of course you do.  

Walking into Calen's new cars room.

So I left the walls white but took one of Calen's large monster trucks and dipped it in some leftover brown paint that I used for Cam's room, then "drove" all over his walls with the truck. On one wall I splattered brown paint all over the walls too but decided it I didn't like it enough to do it to the entire room. 

More room (at window facing door/closet)

Then I ordered some vintage style vehicle wall stickers (race cars, tractors, construction vehicles, semi trucks, scooters, taxis, train engines, airplanes etc etc etc) and plastered them all over on the "tracks'.

Closeup of tracks and canvases

I still wasn't that impressed with how it turned out so I bought the most awesome thing ever that I found on Amazon: an 18 inch by six foot chalkboard wall sticker. Ummm can you say awesome? So I bought it and slapped it under his window, then framed it with uber cheap wood screen door trim. Add a 65 cent box of colored chalk and you have an enormous art center!

New chalkboard art center under his window

Still wasn't totally satisfied (I'm a hard case) so I printed out and framed three photos of Calen's closest friends (with plenty of room to grow of course) so he can remember them even though they all live far away. 

Calen's friend wall. One on the left is him with Mason and Saoirse, middle is him and his bff Cameron, and right is him with Matty and Aiden.

Then on another wall I created a Gravedigger wall, with three framed pictures of his favorite monster truck (one with him and Mason in front of Sonuva Digger, one of Gravedigger autographed by the owner/driver and another just ordinary picture of Digger). 

Gravedigger wall

More room. Bookcase and his friends wall

More room.

To put the finishing touches on his room I bought a second bedspread for the second bunk. And as luck would have it I found a used vehicles comforter and pillowcase for uber cheap from a neighbor. We constantly rotate the top and bottom bunk bedspreads since Calen can't seem to decide if he wants to sleep under vehicles or dinosaurs (after all, that's like, the toughest decision on the face of the planet). And of course he has his city/road rug on his floor and his wooden vehicles all over his shelves. 

Calen's dinosaur/vehicle bunk bed. He sleeps on the bottom and we read books at night on the top

Done. 

When Calen first saw his room he announced "This is a GOOD room." I guess that means I succeeded. 

Calen wearing his new Gravedigger hat giving me the thumbs up on his new room.

Saving Iron Man

It hit 100 freaking degrees today so I took the opportunity by pulling out one of my "busy activities" I had been saving for a super hot day. 

Maybe a week ago I kidnapped Calen's small Iron Man action figure. I tossed him (him? it?) in a large tupperware full of water and threw it in the freezer and forgot about it. Now we have Iron Man trapped in a giant block of ice. 

How will we EVER save him?

I took Calen outside, emptied the ice cube onto the deck, and gave him a hammer. Yeah. I gave a three year old a hammer and told him to have at it. I don't who was more shocked. Calen for what I had just told him or me for just saying it. 

He hammered away at it for a good while (and I helped some to speed up the process) and slowly Iron Man was freed from his icy prison. Calen thought it was pretty exciting. The dogs thought it was awesome because we were chiseling away a constant supply of snacks for them. 

Another good Pinterest find. I'm so in love with that website. I feel like I'm having an Internet affair with it. Except my husband knows about it. Hmmm. Awkward. 

hard at work. The determination on his face is priceless. (also note the flying ice in the air)

 

Halloween in July

So last fall I bought a dinosaur costume for baby Camden on Ebay for Halloween. It was sized 6-9 months but it was enormous and I didn't like it as much as a different dinosaur costume I found. So I stuffed it in a Hefty bag with a bunch of other clothes he was outgrowing and forgot it's existence. 

"Cute Little Baby Brother Dinosaur" - as Calen called him

I was digging through his outgrown clothes the other day and found the costume. Even though it's sized 6-9 months I was like hmmm I wonder if by some miracle he could fit in it. So I stuffed him in it, and he fit! Even though the hood pissed him off and the toes were a little tight he wore it for the rest of the day. Calen kept calling him "cute little baby brother dinosaur". He'll never wear it again, but at least I can justify buying it now by saying he wore it once.

...in July. 

 

Psuedo-Crunchy

Okay I'll be the first to admit it. I quietly giggle when listening to crunchy moms. You know who I'm talking about. Cloth diapering, breastfeeding Nazis.


Oh my LORD I just opened up a can of worms didn't I. DISCLAIMER: I don't HATE crunchy moms. I actually really admire those that have the patience/money/energy to do everything el-naturale. But what I DON'T appreciate are holier than thou ones that think that I'm an asshole and a detriment to society because I use Huggies and don't feel like having my boobs chewed off. There. Hope that clears it up. 

I entertained the idea of cloth diapering Camden for about half a second and then laughed it off. I'm a born and bred 21st century American! I'm too lazy to clean cloth diapers and I don't think twice about polluting the crap out of the planet (literally). I thoroughly enjoy throwing away nasty explosive diarrhea diapers and never seeing them again. No amount of planet saving medals could change my mind about scrubbing one of those bad boys out. Yikes. 


But then, certain little things started happening. Specifically in regards to disposable swim diapers. 


Camden poops. A LOT. The kid I swear poops 250 times a day. And he waits for fresh diapers in which to poop in. After all, kid needs a fresh canvas to paint his masterpiece on. And, we live on the beach. Which means we go through a lot of swim diapers. Swim diapers are super expensive - I might as well just wrap his ass up in dollar bills each time. So a friend and I got to talking about cloth swim diapers. I kind of chuckled about it but was secretly a little excited about the idea of not having to buy Little Swimmers anymore. 


So I did some research on Amazon. Still kind of playing it of as just being morbidly curious. Until I saw the cute little prints and colors they come in. 


Oh my God, it's the most adorable thing I've ever seen! It's like, baby butt art. That doubles as a waterproof poop catcher. I need this. Now. 

Butt art

So I bought one. ONE. ONE reusable swim diaper costs the same as an entire pack of disposable ones. And how is this supposed to save me money? I suppose the idea is that in the long run I won't have to buy any more packs of disposable ones and it will save me money at some point blah blah blah. Right now all I care about is that my baby's butt is super stylish and adorable.

The idea is that they go under their swimsuit. But I TOTALLY pulled a crunchy mom move today and had Cam roam around on the sidewalk in front of our house today wearing nothing but his fab diaper to show it off how stylish my kid is. 

Then I revisited the idea of reusable regular diapers for about five minutes on Amazon and then laughed it off again. Forget that nonsense. This is where it ends. One reusable swim diaper. That.is.it. That's as crunchy as I get.


God I need to like, not recycle for a week to make up for that one. 

 



 

 

A Tarheel Weekend

So I promised yesterday I'd talk all about our weekend getaway to North Carolina. And even though I'm so tired I'm pretty sure I'm going to disintegrate into a puddle of mush on the floor, but I promised so I'll deliver. Prepare for the longest post in the history of ever.

Calen's best Coast Guard buddy Mason moved away to North Carolina in April. Or March. Or sometime around there I can't remember. They are only there for a few more months and then will transfer to who-knows-where so we figured hey we better go visit them while they live a "short" 8 hours away. 

I also needed an excuse to visit the Tarheel state since it is my roots and in a tricky way my home state. As in, my grandpa was born and raised there and the only reason that he ever moved to Washington is because in the early 40's my great grandpa (his dad) beat the crap out of some guy and the law told him to either go to jail or move out of state as far away as possible. So he did - and moved as far away as possible to Washington. How is that for some down home tarheel justice? He also made his own moonshine. What can I say. My great grandpa was a badass.

We did not get to see Waynesville (my grandpa's hometown) because it was a further 8 hour drive PAST where we were headed and I'm pretty sure if we were in the car one more minute with our kids we were going to throw them on the highway with a "FREE" sign so we saved it for another time). 

Okay, moving on.


So the trip to Elizabeth City, NC involves a 1.5 hour ferry ride from Cape May to Lewes, Delaware. Followed by a six(ish) hour drive through Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and then North Carolina. 


I think I got the order of those states right. I'll admit it I'm really bad when it comes to East Coast geography. I'm pretty sure some colonial jerk in the 1700's wanted to see how many states he could cram onto one side of the country. And half of them have the same name. 

Dolphin family right by the ferry

Camden slept through the entire ferry ride (praise Jesus) and Calen really enjoyed standing out on the deck and looking at all the boats and the crapton of dolphins that we saw. And for the most part the boys were really good on the forever car ride, especially considering I forgot the portable dvd player. Mom FAIL. 

I think one of the funniest things we saw on the drive was the chicken trucks. We drove past three major chicken factories (Purdue, Mountaineer and Tyson) so there were five billion chicken trucks. Chicken trucks are semi trucks. Full of chickens. And you can see all the chickens and there's tons of clucking and feathers flying all over the place. Sadly I thought these trucks were morbidly hysterical. Mainly because when I looked at that truck I instantly thought of the frozen chicken breasts in my freezer. And Chick-Fil-A. And McChicken sandwiches. I showed Calen a chicken truck and he goes "awww so cute" and I said "yeah, those chickens are going to be made into chicken nuggets!" because I'm such a nice sweet parent and wanted to give him images of "cute" chickens turning into his favorite lunch. But instead of him being mortified he just chuckled and said "Nooo Mommy. Not chicken nuggets. Just cute chickens. That's silly." Hmmmmmmm.

Hey Mom, What's for dinner? CHICKEN.

Also on this trip I got to check off a few states I haven't been to yet. Like Virginia. It's pretty. And obviously North Carolina. Which is pretty too. And very farmlike. Which I think is pretty. 

As soon as we made it over the North Carolina border we went on a mad hunt for a barbecue joint. Because there are some places in this nation where it is imperative to eat barbecue at, and North Carolina is one of those places. We found a place that all the locals said was "darn good eatin'!" so we stopped in and had dinner. Importantly dinner outside in a field so that the boys could stretch their legs and run all over kingdom come. Brad's ribs and hush puppies were astounding and I had a pulled pork and coleslaw sandwich with baked beans which was pretty damn good too. And I got bit by angry ants which everyone claims weren't rabid fire ants but I'm pretty convinced that they were because they were snarling and angry and they bit me and it burned. 

Camden says: WHY are you making me sit on a pig with my brother? At Currituck BBQ, NC

Elizabeth City is pretty much a dump but we still had a blast with our friends. The first night we just let the kids play since they had been in the car for 150 years. They showed us their family of wild box turtles that live in their front yard and have babies and there's nothing cuter on this planet than baby box turtles the size of your big toe. Camden stayed awake until 11 FREAKING 30pm for some reason, probably because he had been in the car so long. And then proceeded to wake up every 15 minutes or so the rest of the night. Did I mention all four of us were in one bedroom? We were. None of us got any sleep. 

Calen, Mason and a baby turtle. Calen kept asking if he could take it home.

Saturday we took the boys to see the monster truck Gravedigger which I talked about in yesterday's post and I don't feel like repeating myself. But if you're too lazy to read yesterday, here's the abridged version. Kids.Love.Gravedigger.Super.Awesome.Fun.

One more Gravedigger pic. Hey boys, you don't really have to duck.

We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant since Cape May has a terrible famine of culture involving food especially when it comes to anything Mexican. Then we went back to their house and let the boys swim in the pool in their massive back yard since it was 900 degrees out and about ten thousand percent humidity. Calen and Mason played so.damn.hard. throwing themselves down the slide into the water for over three hours. We expected them to just collapse and sleep right on the spot. We barbecued burgers and corn and the boys had a slumber party on the living room floor watching a movie. Shockingly they didn't fall asleep. Then we planned on letting Calen and Mason sleep by themselves on an air mattress in the play room, but Mason got a little nervous so Calen ended up sleeping in their alone. Which he was so tired he didn't even care. And we were elated that it was one less monster sharing our room.  

Fun tidbit. The boys were laying down in the living room watching Yogi Bear and NEARLY falling asleep and Calen closed his eyes for a moment, then sat up quickly, whipped around to look at me and announced "I am NOT sleepy!" Just in case I thought he might be. Right buddy. RIGHT. 

Slumber party!

Today we left right after breakfast. It was a short visit (and a LONG couple days of driving) but it was way too much fun. We plan on going back for Thanksgiving, which should be super awesome fun.