Our little baller

A Nice Little Work Video

This video was shown as part of Hallmark's recent Word Week, an annual week full of speakers and events and...stuff. I was excited to be included, and glad you can't see how red my ears were from nerves.

The Boy With Big Dreams

"I'm going to be a boxer when I grow up. Wait—are there any boxers that tackle?"

—Ty

This made me so happy.

If you like dogs, you must go to this web site. So cute. Now, if I can just figure out how to get Rip to pose like that...

My Lunch Date

I was invited by my handsome little son to join him for lunch someday, so I picked today. And even though I was mildly terrified at what "Italian Sticks" could be (on the school's menu), I was so excited to see Mr. Social in action.

He was thrilled when he saw me waiting for him outside his classroom, and even held my hand (!) the entire way to the cafeteria. Apparently the rule is that they get to pick one friend to sit with them and their lunch visitor. So of course, Ty picked one of the cutest girls in class, Hannah. Hannah walks the same sidewalk we do at pick-up time every day, so I've gotten to know her a little bit. She's that one little girl in the class who always looks head-to-toe fashionable—she herself told me she has "at LEAST 100 shoes." My kinda girl.

So Hannah was pleased to be picked (a few others, not so pleased to be left out, but I promised them all they could sit with us another time) and waited with her lunchbag ever-so-patiently while Ty very proudly took me through the line, and showed me how to get a napkin, and how to unwrap a straw. He was pretty much struttin' his stuff at that point.

There were so many cute little moments—little Hannah asked me so politely if I could please read the note her daddy wrote to her in her lunch box, which was on her napkin...and I got all the way to "I love you honey" before I had to stop and take a deep breath for fear of bawling.

I was also so tickled (geez, do I sound like I'm 80?) at how many kids said hi to Ty or vice-versa. I've already come to figure out how much of a social butterfly he is, but geez...when four kids from the ESL Kindergarten class said hi, that really floored me!

The kids barely got 15 minutes to eat—probably more like 10, which bothers me a little bit. Mostly because Ty chatters away the whole time, and eats maybe 1/3 of what's in front of him. Oh, well. He's not in danger of starving, and I'm sure the school has the best system in place possible.

I wasn't the only parent there—I'd say there were about 6 or so others. Get this—there was a dad there with his 3rd-ish grade daughter, and he'd carted in a big takeout bag from Capitol Grille! (If you don't know Capitol Grille, imagine the most expensive steakhouse you've ever been to...you know, the one you would never take a kid to.) Of course, the dad had on a pink polo shirt and looked the part, but it was all I could do not to laugh at their feast while digging into my own serving of fruit cocktail.

What a great lunch. Those kids just steal my heart—I'm in love with about half of his class, and only because I don't know the other half yet. I can't wait to watch them all grow up together.

Test

Trying something new out. Writing from my Facebook page, having it zapped over to Blogger. May or may not accidentally end up time-traveling to 1987.

Lazy Weekend

Our plans this weekend were to have a few fellow Jayhawk fans over to walk to the nearby Pep Rally at Corinth Square...but thanks to a late-afternoon call from the Briarwood Elementary nurse Friday, we stayed home instead and celebrated strep throat.

Strep! During the first week of school! Isn't the August sun supposed to zap stuff like this? I can hardly wait until winter.

So we've been lazy and homebound and have done barely anything besides visit the doctor's office. Thankfully, Ty might be the happiest sick kid in the world, so it's been easy. I can't really recall one time he's been sick and grumpy, or acted like anything less than his usual, talkative self. To encourage healing (and not moving), we've let him have at the TV/Gameboy/computer as much as he wants. Otherwise, he'd be out climbing a tree, convincing us his throat only hurts a LITTLE when the kid has purple circles under his eyes that quickly tell you otherwise.

Paul has been productive, making yet another trip to Home Depot (I swear we've been there once a week since we moved three months ago). Our master list of "Things We'd Like to Do to the House" gets steadily smaller, although the stuff left on are the big-ticket items (i.e., "paint exterior" and "install brick patio"). But hey, "change out fugly brass knob in kitchen" counts too.

I finished a book, watched some mindless TV and played several rounds of a fun new game with the boys. Not a bad little weekend so far.

Now I'm going to walk around the house and take pictures. Why not?

First Loose Tooth!