Author: Big Mama

Bits and pieces of this and that

This week has been busier than I planned but also more productive than I planned and so that’s a good thing. Caroline ended up wanting to go to a soccer camp from nine to noon every day and I’ve used that time to go to Starbucks and write.

Or at least try to write.

Unfortunately the Starbucks closest to the soccer camp location is the busiest Starbucks ever and full of people who feel the need to talk very loudly about all manner of things, including one conversation I overheard today about a french maid costume. I will tell you I could have lived forever without knowing some of the details I now know about this woman I never even saw because I didn’t dare turn around.

Normally I wouldn’t have heard anything, but I realized I’d left my earbuds at home and I might as well have tied my hands behind my back for all that I got done without listening to my writing music. The term writing music makes it sound much fancier and organized than it actually is. I usually just hit Shuffle on iTunes and let it go where it may. This is when it pays off that my collection of songs errs largely on the side of “easy listening”.

Eventually I gave up and went to Target to buy a few things we needed along with some things I didn’t know we needed until I saw them. This is where Target is sheer genius. Do I need another swimsuit coverup? No. But do I see one amongst all the Mossimo that looks appealing? Of course.

Later on we went to the pool and hung out with friends and it was just one of those nice summer evenings when you realize how nice it is to not have any real sort of schedule.

And since that’s basically my day, I thought I’d use this time to answer a few questions and/or share some things.

1. Several of you asked about the dress Caroline wore to graduation. We actually bought it last Easter and I was so happy it still fit because she had only worn it that one time. She is currently anti-dress and so I wasn’t wanting to buy something new only for it to languish in her closet. And someone asked if wearing a dress to graduation was a preference thing or a required thing. It wasn’t really either, but the majority of girls all wore dresses.

The brand is Sara Sara and I couldn’t find anything like it online. However, I did see this super cute maxi dress for girls at Nordstrom.

It’s a little pricey but I bet it will eventually go on sale if you hold out.

2. Which brings me to another question. Where do I shop for Caroline?

Honestly, we probably buy more of her clothes at Academy than anywhere because her favorite wardrobe items are running shorts and t-shirts. But the clothing thing is tricky for us right now because she’s average height, but pretty thin and this makes fit a huge issue.

We’ve had some success at Old Navy, Nordstrom, Gap and Nordstrom Rack. I’ve also found some cute things at TJ Maxx. It’s really hit or miss all the way around which is why I’m grateful for running shorts and t-shirts. Makes life easier.

3. Wherever the River Runs by Kelly Minter

My dear friend Kelly Minter has written the most beautiful book that has inspired me in so many ways. It doesn’t come out until August and I’ll be talking about it a lot because it’s just that good. In the meantime, here’s the gorgeous book trailer.

4. Junk Gypsies

I love the Junk Gypsies. And I’m so excited because season 2 of their show Junk Gypsies season 2 premieres tonight at 8:00 CST on GACTV. If you haven’t watched, you will love it.

5. On the podcast yesterday I mentioned I was looking for a couple of good books to read this summer and a few of you left some suggestions. But I’d love to hear from the rest of you if there’s a book you’ve loved recently. I think I’m looking for fiction but I’m open to a good memoir because they’re usually my favorite.

And that’s it for today. Be back tomorrow with Fashion Friday.
Big Boo Cast: Episode we are pioneers

Sophie and I managed to take a break in our busy summer schedules to record a podcast yesterday. And by busy I mean serving as chauffeurs for our respective children.

We realized this week that we have been recording podcasts on and off (with a large emphasis on off) since 2007. I believe this pretty much makes us pioneers. Or even astronauts.

This time we discuss our new puppies, various sunscreens, the search for good books to read this summer and, of course, television.

You can click here to listen. Or here. You can even listen right here.

Or, as always, you can subscribe on iTunes.

I also added these links at the end of my post:

And in case you’re interested:

– Sophie found the answer to Caroline’s question about British and American accents: Mental Floss article

– The underye brightener Sophie mentions: Mally Perfect Prep Undereye Brightener

– The sunscreen for faces I talk about: Coppertone Oil Free Sunscreen for Faces (this one doesn’t have zinc)

– The summer skirt that I love: Gap striped fold over skirt.
Nothing comes between me and my weekend

Well.

Caroline is officially a fifth grade graduate. We are understandably excited because it’s about time she go out into the world to look for gainful employment and quits mooching off us. Which is why we gave her a briefcase to celebrate.

Not really. Although I will tell you that’s what my dad gave me for college graduation. It sent a clear message that I was expected to get a job. Frankly, I felt like a red convertible BMW could have conveyed a similar message.

On Thursday morning she was ready to go albeit a little put out that she had to wear a dress. However, it didn’t curb her excitement for long.

The ceremony was sweet and I honestly didn’t cry at all until the very end when they did a little slideshow of the year. But I’m a huge sucker for pictures set to music. You could show me your vacation photos from Williamsburg where you purchased a “Got History?” t-shirt as a souvenir and it would make me cry if it was accompanied by some heartfelt songs.

The school had sent a note home earlier in the week with all the graduation details and informed parents that we should plan to take our children home right after the ceremony so we could “celebrate as a family”. I think we all know that’s code for “The fifth grade teachers are exhausted, don’t let the door hit you on the way out”. So there was a quick reception in every classroom afterwards and then we collected any remaining belongings and walked out of the doors of the elementary school for the last time. I think I would have been more emotional if all the end of the year activities hadn’t left me in the near fetal position.

We’d told Caroline we would take her to eat lunch anywhere she wanted and she chose IHOP. Because we raise ’em classy around here. But then she decided her stomach didn’t feel great and wasn’t sure she wanted to go eat anywhere so we just went home and she opened a couple of little graduation presents. Then later on when she was hungry I took her to an Italian place she loves for a cheese pizza.

Those helium balloons were from her Gigi and provided several minutes of entertainment the next day when Caroline enjoyed what helium does to your voice.

Finally, we ended the day at the pool with friends. It’s always our favorite way to celebrate the end of the school year and we are always the last ones there at the end of the evening. This year was no exception.

And then I’d love to tell you how we slept late on Friday morning, but that would be a lie. The truth is I woke up to the puppies going crazy. P lets them outside when he wakes up in the morning and they were whining and barking. I threw on my robe and stumbled outside to see what was going on only to discover that Mabel had managed to get her head stuck in the iron scrolls of one of our patio chairs. This presented quite the dilemma. It felt very reminiscent of that episode of Designing Women when Julia Sugarbaker gets her head stuck in the banister at the Governor’s Mansion.

I couldn’t figure out where P was and had never wanted his help more, but I didn’t feel like I could leave Mabel to go find him. So instead I gently pulled one ear back through and then managed to get the rest of her head out right as P walked outside. He explained he’d been busy cleaning up the mess in the guest bathroom where an undetermined perpetrator had not only pooped in the bathtub but had also annihilated a roll of Charmin that we’d forgotten to put out of their reach.

The short story is the puppies are now officially sleeping in their crates outside. At some point Caroline wants them to sleep in her room with her but we tried it last night and I have the bags under my eyes to prove it today. It all feels very reminiscent of Caroline’s newborn days when I’d bargain with God if he would just please let my baby go to sleep. It’s a good thing they’re so cute because otherwise I might have put them on Craig’s List.

The rest of the weekend wasn’t nearly that eventful. Caroline and I went shopping on Saturday and she bought her first pair of sunglasses that immediately transformed her into a teenager and then we went over to Gulley’s house because they had to put their dog, Annie, to sleep on Saturday morning and we wanted to check on them. It’s been a rough season for dogs around here. So many of us have these dogs that we bought before we had kids and they’re all past their prime at this point because our kids are doing things like graduating from fifth grade.

On Sunday we went to church and then I took Caroline and a friend to see Maleficent. My expectations weren’t high, but I have to say that I loved it. Like the kind of loved it that I would see it again. It was ultimately a sweet story and Angelina Jolie is stunning. And I guess this shows the kind of minutiae I value because I noticed that virtually all of the character’s eyebrows were a triumph. If I hadn’t already been on a year-long quest to grow the perfect eyebrow for my face shape, this would have sealed it for me. I will tell you that based on this movie, it appears to be true that a fuller eyebrow is the eyebrow of youth. Just like we learned from Brooke Shields all those years ago.

Of course she also encouraged us to wear Calvin Kleins and I’m not sure we necessarily want to go back there.
Fashion Friday: Edition it’s finally summer

I’m sure I’ll be back on Monday to write all about fifth grade graduation but right now I am sitting on my couch for the first time since last night at this time and I’m a little bit tired. In fact, I may be about to fall asleep at this very moment. And I can already tell it’s going to take me a few days to adjust to the reality that it’s really summer.

Here are a few things I’ve found this week:

1. park house pleated blouse

Love the color of this. Perfect with white shorts or jeans.

2. chuck taylor shoreline linen sneaker

These are great. This is the oyster gray color but they also come in a great pink color.

3. sleeveless dot print blouse

This is a great top and can be worn all year round under a jacket or sweater. It comes in several great colors.

4. embroidered smock dress

I don’t know if the length of this is too short, but I love it so much. It would even look good over skinny jeans with boots.

5. old navy kimono sleeve coverup

This coverup also comes in black and a blue and white stripe. It’s really soft and easy to throw on. I know this because I bought it for myself last week. Even better, it’s 25% off with code ONSAVENOW at checkout.

6. minnetonka sandals

I bought a wedge heel version of these but then a friend of mine showed up in these flat ones and now I have sandal envy. They come in several great colors and look so cute with shorts.

7. overlay tunic dress

This is kind of the same thing as the first dress. Obviously too short for many of us, but I think it has real potential to be worn over jeans or leggings with boots.

8. daniel rainn embroidered detail top

Love a good white top for the summer.

9. tortie aviator sunglasses

I have been on the sunglass hunt of 2014. And I really like these. They’re on sale, they’re tortoise and they’re aviators. I’m not sure what else you could want.

10. finn tank

I’ve been waiting for this tank to go on sale. Love the fit and the colors.

That’s it for today.

Have a great Friday.
The last day of elementary school

It’s the night before fifth grade graduation and I’ll just warn you that I’m awash in sentiment. It hit me when I went to pick up Caroline from school that this was my last day to wait in the elementary school carpool line. And I think more than anything I just can’t believe how fast the years have gone. It really just feels like a few days ago that she was this little girl in a pink monogrammed dress heading off to Kindergarten.

And then first grade.

Second grade.

Third grade.

Fourth grade.

And then the beginning of this year.

Someone warned me when she started Kindergarten that the years would fly by when put on the pages of a school calendar and I’ve found that to be so true. But the truth is I love where we are right now. I like having a big kid.

She’s excited about what’s ahead and so am I. At the end of last year I couldn’t even imagine sending her to junior high, but she’s grown up so much this year in so many ways and I know she’s ready. It really dawned on me as I watched the talent show last week. She and her friends planned their routine, found their costumes, scheduled practices on their own, and they did it well. It was a new level of responsibility.

Last night she woke me up about 3 a.m. because her stomach hurt and she felt like she might be sick. I got up with her and we curled up on the couch for a while before we eventually ended up in the kitchen waiting to see if the nausea would go away. And she began to talk to me, really talk to me. About life and friendships and what’s important to her right now. I listened as she covered everything from going to summer camp to her thoughts on God. And after about thirty minutes she said, “Mama? I think I’m feeling better but can I talk to you some more? I like talking to you about all this stuff.”

And it just felt like a gift. A reminder that for the little years we’re leaving behind that we have sweet years ahead. I know we won’t always see eye to eye, I realize it won’t always be easy, but I am so proud of who she is becoming and can’t wait to see what’s next.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t be wiping away some tears at fifth grade graduation later this morning.
And for their first trick…

You want to know what’s been going on around here this week?

Let’s start with this.

The puppies locked themselves in the bathroom on Sunday night. It was every bit as peaceful of an experience as you might imagine.

Since the first day we brought them home, we’ve put them in Caroline’s bathroom to sleep at night. This is the benefit of having a room you’re about to completely redo. You can use it to contain two small animals who find new and unique ways to destroy everything they touch. So we put their kennel in there with the door open, a few chew toys, food and water and then shut the bathroom door.

And most nights they whine for a few minutes and then they’re out like a light. As well they should be considering they spend most of the day expending enough energy to run a nuclear power plant. But on Sunday night I put them in there and they were quiet at first but then proceeded to lose their minds.

There was barking and whining and door-scratching and enough canine theatrics to make Cujo say “That’s enough”. (Assuming Cujo could actually speak and not just growl.) And I became concerned that something was wrong. Specifically, I kind of worried maybe I’d forgotten to close the toilet seat and maybe one of them had gone for a swim. So I went to open the bathroom door to give myself the peace of mind that neither puppy was in the toilet (there’s a sentence you don’t really think you’ll ever write) because I knew I’d never sleep for worrying about it all night. And that’s when I discovered that in all their jumping up and down at the door that they’d managed to lock it.

Here’s where I found myself in a quandary.

Do you wake your husband up at midnight to inform him that the puppies have locked themselves in the bathroom and you’re worried that one of them might be in the toilet?

I decided yes.

So P stumbled out of bed in his boxer shorts to come to the rescue like a real live superhero. I think it goes without saying that his excitement over the entire situation was palpable.

Then Caroline heard the commotion and came rushing out to see what was going on and when I explained the puppies had locked themselves in the bathroom she wailed, “OH NO! What will we do? Are we going to get them out?”

No. We’re just going to seal up the bathroom like it’s the Titanic.

The problem is this is an old house and the bathroom lock requires a skeleton key. Which we do not have. In fact, we had this same problem when Caroline was three and she locked herself in the bathroom, which led P to glue the lock shut so you couldn’t lock the bathroom door anymore. However, the puppies managed it just fine.

(When Caroline did this when she was little, I coached her through the door on how to unlock it. Our puppies did not seem to understand what I was saying in spite of my very specific instructions.)

Ultimately, P had to unscrew the door plate and use pliers to unlock the door. Piper and Mabel rushed out, neither having been in the toilet which was indeed closed. In other words, it all could have waited until the morning except that I wouldn’t have slept all night. Of course after all that excitement, it wasn’t like I slept that great anyway.

As for the rest of the week, it’s just been busy doing all the things that come with the last week of school. P and I went to eat lunch with Caroline on Monday because we wanted to have one last lunch with her at elementary school even though my mind can’t really take in that she’s moving on to junior high. I’ve been trying to get 1,046 things done that have been on my to-do list since the beginning of the year yet haven’t gotten finished. And we still have a pool party and 5th grade graduation to go.

In totally unrelated news, a reader named Heidi sent me a shirt a while back from her store called The Ikat Elephant. Here’s the link to the store on Facebook. Every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. CST she puts several really cute things up for sale and this week she’s offering my readers 15% off your entire purchase when you use the code BIGMAMA15 at checkout. Quantities are limited and the sale only lasts for 24 hours.

Here are two things she has this week that I adore:

This comes in several different colors.

And I love this with white jeans and turquoise jewelry.

Plus there are some great long camis and a few other cute tops. So don’t forget to go check it out.

I also have a post up on Pioneer Woman about my thoughts on Mad Men this season. You can find it here.

Now I’m going to go put my puppies to bed and hope they don’t lock themselves in. You can guarantee I’m double-checking the toilet seat is down so I can have peace of mind.