Doodle

  • This post might be better if you listen to Chariots of Fire while you read

    I’m sitting here on the couch, hoping I can still manage to write an entire post about our weekend now that I just found out that Duran Duran has cancelled their concert tour. The official reason given was something about Simon LeBon needing to rest his vocal cords, but I think all of us who spent the better part of the 80’s listening to “Hungry Like the Wolf” know that’s probably just public relations code for “hip replacement”.

    It’s not easy watching your teen idols become eligible for Medicare.

    Okay, so we had a great weekend. Caroline spent all last week going back and forth to day camp and so most of our mornings looked like some version of this.

    It’s not easy re-training yourself to wake up at 6:45 when you’ve been in full on summer mode but she had a great time and I was able to accomplish at least seven things that I wrote on my Summer To-Do list. None of which are interesting enough to tell you about.

    On Friday afternoon, P and I drove to camp for the closing ceremonies and got caught in horrific traffic that made us run late even though we’d given ourselves what we believed to be PLENTY of time. Naturally, this sent me into some sort of internal panic featuring Caroline standing by the camp gates waiting on us to arrive.

    Fortunately, she didn’t even realize we were late. And so we didn’t volunteer that information because DRAMA. But we made it in plenty of time to meet her counselors and hear them describe their week. Then we went to eat Mexican food with several friends.

    Most of Saturday was spent recovering from camp until it was time for Caroline to go to a friend’s birthday party. And Sunday is a total blur. I think I may have taken a nap. I’m also certain we went to the pool.

    Then came the fourth of July.

    We started the day getting ready for the neighborhood parade.

    And then we headed out for the festivities.

    I adore the neighborhood parade because it feels like you’ve stepped back into a simpler time. The neighbors all gather, they pass out song sheets and everyone drinks lemonade and eats cookies while we sing a few rounds of God Bless America and America the Beautiful. It’s a perfect little slice of a Norman Rockwell painting.

    Except Norman Rockwell never featured a decorated all-terrain vehicle in his work.

    After the parade, we went home to change into our swimsuits and made our way to the pool for all the big fourth of July fun. Caroline was SUPER EXCITED about the belly flop contest which wasn’t being held until 6:00 p.m. so we knew we were in for the long haul.

    However, what we didn’t know about was the Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest being held at 3:00. They announced it shortly after we arrived and it immediately piqued Caroline’s interest. And so she got in line to be part of it. And in case you’re wondering, the Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest or the WSSC for short, is all about accuracy. There is a chalk drawing of a target and it’s all about hitting the bullseye.

    My point is that, CLEARLY, it’s a game of skill. And, as Coach pointed out, THIS IS NOT THE YMCA, ONLY THE WINNERS RECEIVE A MEDAL.

    Here’s Caroline picking out her seed.

    The spitter steps up to the line and spits the seed. (Please read this in a golf commentator voice.)

    I realize I cut off her head, but the seed-spitting tension distracted me.

    The official measurement landed her in first place. But there was still a whole line of kids left to spit. Including several teenage boys.

    Gulley’s husband was the first to point out the tension on Caroline’s face and she watched to see if she would maintain the lead.

    Finally, with only one spitter left, she started to crack.

    But all other spitters failed to measure up and she was announced the winner.

    And what did she win for her efforts? A cruise? A $500 scholarship? A new pair of goggles?

    NO.

    The rest of the watermelon that they’d used for the contest.

    Not to mention a shiny medal and the bragging rights that come with knowing you’ve out-spit every boy at the pool. And you can’t put a price on that because it’s the kind of thing you can put on future Miss Texas pageant applications.

    Later on the kids all participated in the coin toss. Here they are right before the official whistle blew.

    I think they each gathered upwards of $1.27 for their coin-collecting efforts.

    And, FINALLY, it was time for the much-anticipated belly flop contest. I wasn’t nervous about it because I figured Caroline already had a medal for the day, but she had the eye of the tiger. She’d even put on her swim shirt, not because of my repeated warning about skin cancer, but in a strategic measure to lessen the pain of the belly flop.

    She stepped up to the board.

    And executed a perfect flop.

    The crowd went wild. And she got her second first place medal of the day.

    She said the key is to push past the pain. Which I believe is what I told myself seven years ago while I was in labor. Never could I have imagined that baby girl would grow up to be so delicate and dainty.

    Then it was time for the boys’ belly flop competition. Gulley’s youngest, Will, had been practicing for hours. Honestly, I don’t know how his stomach wasn’t raw from all the practice flops, but he wanted a medal more than anything.

    We were so nervous as he walked up to the board. This was his first belly flop competition. What if the nerves got to him? What if he cracked under the pressure?

    He didn’t crack.

    Will got his medal and if it’s possible to strut while you swim that’s exactly what he did as he made his way to the ladder to climb out of the pool.

    Eventually we loaded up all our medal hardware and came back to our house to grill hot dogs and let the kids celebrate with some forbidden sparklers because we are just that rebellious and out of control.

    The city is in the midst of a major fireworks ban thanks to the drought, but we figured a few sparklers couldn’t hurt. P really wanted to set off a few other things he had in the back house but I reminded him it’s all fun and games until the police issue you a $500 ticket.

    I called Gulley yesterday morning to recap the day. She told me that Will had slept late and eventually come staggering out his bedroom still half asleep and asking for his medal. At that moment he was laying on the couch in his underwear, wearing his medal and watching Phineas and Ferb.

    I like to believe the Founding Fathers celebrated similarly the day after the original 4th of July.

    Or that maybe it’s what Simon LeBon is doing right now while his “vocal chords” heal.

  • Fifth of July and five years

    I guarantee that none of you know this.

    Or if you do then I am very impressed with your ability to withstand years of meaningless drivel.

    Today is the five year anniversary of this blog.

    I didn’t even remember that until I was at the pool yesterday and one of Caroline’s friend’s mothers (did you follow that?) said, “I heard you started a blog”.

    And, after I wiped the deer in the headlights look from my face that I get whenever someone from my real life reveals that they know about my blog life, I said, “Yes. I did. I actually started it back when Caroline was about to turn three”.

    Then I remembered I’d actually started it on July 5, 2006. Five years ago.

    Five years ago today I sat down at our antiquated, enormous desktop computer and opened up a blogspot account. And then I wrote a totally lame post. But I didn’t care because I figured I’d delete the whole thing before I told anyone about it anyway.

    Yet here I am.

    In so many ways I couldn’t have imagined how much life could change in five years, but at the same time I can’t imagine it being a whole lot better than it is right now. Sure, there have been highs and lows, but that’s what life is all about. And I hate to get all schmaltzy, but I cannot thank y’all enough for showing up here every day with your sweet comments and emails and advice on everything from books to hair care products.

    Seriously, you are the wind beneath my wings.

    Where else would I be able to share the video of Caroline’s prize winning belly flop at the pool yesterday?

    Belly Flop from Big Mama on Vimeo.

    She sounds like a sack of wet cement hitting that water.

    There’s so much more to tell you. But we can talk about that tomorrow.

    Hope y’all had a happy 4th of July.

  • A girl and her fish

    Summertime

    And the fishing is easy

    At least it was for Caroline.

    My sources tell me that her daddy didn’t catch anything.

  • Now if I can teach him to make balloon animals

    I know y’all probably get tired of me talking about the heat, but look at this.

    And that was after we’d been in the car for a few minutes. It originally read 126.

    I’m not kidding.

    Also, the yellow hazard light is lit because the stay wag was having brake light issues that have since been remedied. I know you’re so relieved.

    Anyway, we have even been under heat advisories. That kind of thing doesn’t generally happen in Texas because, well, it’s Texas. It’s supposed to be hot. And as P likes to remind me (multiple times!) every summer, when you live in San Antonio you’re practically living on the edge of a desert.

    But yet I continue to complain about the heat.

    Needless to say, we’ve been spending a lot of time inside this week for two reasons.

    1. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but it’s hot.

    2. I still haven’t recovered from our pool grill experience on Friday night and so we haven’t been back.

    3. Plus, we’ve been busy doing other things like going to Target and my niece, Sarah’s, birthday party. Oh, and going to see Mr. Popper’s Penguins.

    (Two thumbs up on Mr. Popper’s Penguins, by the way. Normally I have a hard time watching Jim Carrey because his face moves about in an unnatural way that I find disturbing.)

    (Yes, I realize I listed three things but I didn’t realize there would be three things and now I don’t want to go back and change it.)

    And so, in the midst of this heat wave, P and Caroline have discovered a new hobby.

    Face painting.

    It all began one afternoon when Caroline decided to give me a makeover, which turned into my face being caked with enough makeup to make Tammy Faye Baker weep. Then she asked P if she could paint his face. And, ultimately, he ended up painting her face.

    That’s when we discovered that P has a hidden talent.

    A cheetah.

    A warthog.

    A dying warthog.

    A bass.

    I know.

    You’re most likely speechless from the display of talent. I’ve been married to P for almost fourteen years and had no idea.

    But I think I may start hiring him out for birthday parties.

  • This only adds to my issues with chicken

    I feel like I’ve hardly even talked about what we’ve been up to around here lately. I mean other than making habitats out of Cool Whip containers for doodlebugs and then leaving them there to die like some type of roly poly genocide.

    (Speaking of, y’all were a wealth of bug information yesterday. And, yes, doodlebugs and roly polys are all the same to us, but I was struggling with the proper spelling of roly poly and so I went with doodlebug.)

    (I had no idea it wasn’t a universal term.)

    But given the fact that I wrote an entire post about finding doodlebugs, it’s probably safe to assume that not much has been going on here these days.

    Last Friday was Field Day at Caroline’s school. Otherwise known as another way to fill the time during these last meaningless days of school that the legislature forces on everyone. So I went up to the school to watch all the Field Day activities and sweat my body weight in 142% humidity.

    Fortunately, there were plenty of water-based activities to keep the kids cool.

    Even though there were some geniuses who advised the kids they shouldn’t get too wet.

    Yes. Because it’s perfectly reasonable to hand seven year olds buckets of water and water guns and ask them not to get wet.

    But since I know my seven year old well enough to know that asking her not to get wet in the vicinity of water is like asking Justin Timberlake to not be awesome, I sent her with a dry change of clothes. And a towel.

    There were all kinds of different games, races, and that type of thing, but my particular favorite was the Rubber Chicken throw. This involves a net and a variety of rubber chickens being hurled back and forth over it.

    This is Caroline demonstrating perfect rubber chicken throwing technique.

    That picture was taken right before I was hit in the head by a flying rubber chicken. The combination of the rubber material combined with the velocity of said chicken packed quite a punch. So I spent the rest of the day explaining that I had a headache because I got hit in the head by a chicken.

    And, no, I didn’t explain that it was a rubber chicken because I wanted the whole thing to have an air of mystery.

    After it was all said and done, Caroline was wiped out.

    Or maybe she just had the eye of the tiger. I don’t know.

    Then Friday night we picked up Chris Madrid’s tostada burgers (Chris Madrid’s is the best burger place in San Antonio. He’s not like our neighbor or something. Just wanted to clarify.) and watched Prince Caspian in our effort to embrace all things Narnia.

    And then Saturday night we grilled fajitas and watched Voyage of The Dawn Treader.

    C.S. Lewis would be so proud.

    Then Sunday we all read aloud from Mere Christianity.

    Not really. On Sunday I was busy having one of my worst parenting days ever. I can’t talk about it right now because it’s still not funny, but let’s just say we had our own d-list version of a four part Greek tragedy. Honestly it was more about me getting my feelings hurt than anything else. We got the whole thing resolved and issued tearful apologies all around and went to go see the movie Rio. Because nothing makes you feel better after a bad day of parenting than to go see some lame movie about two almost extinct blue macaws in Brazil.

    Then we went to Gap to take back a pair of jeans I’d bought for Caroline.

    (This is riveting. We ate fajitas! We ate hamburgers! We watched movies and returned a pair of jeans!)

    Monday we rolled of bed and geared up for the last full week of school. And by geared up I mean that we screeched out of the driveway on two wheels to make it there on time. Barely.

    I’ve spent the last few days running all the errands and doing all the things I planned to do all year long while Caroline was in school. But since I felt there was no challenge in spreading those things out over 180 days, I decided to try to get them all done in one week while running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

    Or is a rubber chicken with my head cut off?

    I’ll never tell.

    I like to keep the air of mystery.

  • A doodle with the doodles

    Before I say anything else, I just want to say that my heart breaks for the people of Joplin, Missouri. After seeing the pictures of all the devastation, I just have no words. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you.

    Yesterday after Caroline got home from school (only seven days left, hallelujah and amen) she decided that she needed to find some doodlebugs. She’d spent most of the weekend making various bug habitats for all manner of ladybugs, junebugs and snails so that she could hold them captive until she loved them to death. But for some reason the doodlebugs had been spared.

    Until yesterday.

    She grabbed her super-classy container/very scientific bug habitat and began the search for the doodlebugs.

    Our bugs live large around here.

    Please notice that her hair is soaking wet. And so is the rest of her. I forgot to add “don’t get yourself wet” after she offered to water my flowers for me.

    Also, we are struggling with the whole growing out the bangs process. And by struggling I mean that she is totally content to walk around like a sheepdog and give me an annoyed look any time I brush her bangs out of her eyes.

    She was working diligently to teach her new “pets” how to speak English. Apparently she taught a few junebugs how to speak English over the weekend and believes that doodlebugs should be equally able to master the human language.

    I questioned her about this but she maintains that one of her junebugs was able to answer yes or no questions by nodding its head.

    This may explain its early demise because, last I checked, I don’t think insects can actually nod their head for fear of their heads becoming detached from their thorax.

    Yes, I just used the term “thorax”. I cannot guarantee that I used it correctly.

    Before I knew what happened, she conned me into finding the doodlebugs for her while maintained her existing “herd”. Yes, she told me she had a herd of doodlebugs.

    And that explains how I ended up digging through the grass yesterday afternoon while she sat on the porch holding a Cool Whip container and naming her doodlebug minions.