popperahtsee

W has a new hobby and he's amazingly good at it. It started out with him pretending to take our pictures with a disposable underwater camera that never worked. He liked to look through the viewfinder and to tell us to smile, so I wondered what he would do with a real camera. In a moment of pure bravery I entrusted him with a real big boy camera, our Cannon Power Shot A95, and showed him how to press the button to take the picture. That was 3 days ago and he hasn't stopped since. He calls himself the popperahtsee (paparazzi, for those of you who don't speak W). This is not surprising considering he's been hounded by the momarazzi and grandmarazzi since birth. I know I have at least 5000 pictures of his first year on my computer alone and there is really no telling what that number is on his grandparent's computer.

Every mom thinks their kid is the greatest, but I really do think he's the best 2.5 year old photographer I've ever seen. Now I'm just trying to figure out how I can exploit this to my benefit.

Here's a small sampling of my favorites:
Our Beagle, Bobo, playing in the yard.


He told me he was going to take a picture of the dirt and ended up getting a killer picture of his shadow too.


The baby's shoe. Let me explain this one. The girl insists on wearing shoes at all times, even when she's wearing her pajamas. On this particular day, we went outside before I could get her dressed and she really wanted her black shoes on but I could only find one. So she went outside in her PJs and one black shoe. Then she insisted on riding the bisicklesickle (tricycle, for those of you who don't speak W) so she was rollin with one black shoe and her pjs. Yep, she's bringing sexy back.


His old favorite hobby, sudoku.


And this is his portfolio so far. Well, minus the pictures of everyone else's faces and the few that he took when the camera was on P, instead of auto. Those make me nauseous. The blurry pictures, not the pictures of our faces.

PS. All captions were transcribed by me, using W's exact words.



Edited to add: for those of you who have called to ask, No, he will NOT be using our Cannon Rebel anytime soon. He's good, but not that good ;) I still have to figure that darn thing out!

shout out!

I recently found out that my husband has been able to sneak on here and read what I write. My secrets are out. Oh well! Guess it's less to explain once he comes home, right? So since he is able to read this trashy novel of mine, I figured we should give him a shout out, as he's off in the middle of nowhere and doesn't get much interaction with the outside world. (No, seriously, post a comment and give him a shout out! He would love it, I think... If not, too bad!)

I realize that not many of my readers know my husband. I don't talk about him often even though there is a lot to talk about. We have a long history, starting when we were in elementary school, even though we don't really remember that.

We officially met the summer after I graduated high school. It was pretty much instant attraction, compounded by the fact that we were going to colleges 2 States away from each other. We dated long distance for almost a year and then we broke up for some unknown reason. 3 years later he called me and asked if we could give it a second chance. I told him I'd give him 5 hours and 13 hours later, we were still on our date. 3 months after that, we decided we should get married.

Most women have a beautiful and romantic story about their proposal. Mine, not so much. It happened over the phone, because once again, we were dating long distance, and went something like this:

him: "Well, I guess we should get married before I go to OBC."
me: "Yeah, that's probably a good idea"
him: "Ok, do you think you can plan the wedding in 5 weeks?"
me: "Who needs 5? I can do it in 4."
him: "Sounds good. Lets plan on that then."
me: "Ok."

And 5 weeks later, we were married. I'm sure there was much speculation about the quick nature of our wedding. I love me some good gossip, but there was none here. The truth was, he married me for my money and I married him for his health insurance. And what glorious health insurance it is! It's the gift that keeps on giving. My money ran out a long time ago, but that insurance keeps going.

I would have married him even if he didn't have killer health insurance. He's a great husband. He eats my cooking and doesn't complain. He puts up with me never making the bed and he lets me hog the covers. He even folds the towels how I like them folded and he supports my stroller habit. Most importantly, more often than not he gives me the TV remote and control of the car radio. These qualities make for a great spouse. He has many more good qualities that overshadow the fact that he's made it a habit to knock me up and flee the country. He's 2 for 2 on that one. I'm not really liking that track record but he thinks it's great because he doesn't have to deal with mean JoAnna that way. Lucky kid. He really does work hard for us though, which I really appreciate because his money buys me pretty things. KIDDING!

Sometimes he works too hard, but it's not his fault. He's good at what he does. At least I'm assuming he is because they keep promoting him and stuff. I don't really know what he does. I don't ask because I am easily confused. I know that he can learn any language he wants to with ease and that he's one tough dude. I'm pretty sure he could do some serious damage to your face with his bare hands if he had to. I'm also pretty sure you would never want to find that out first hand. I know that he knows a lot about things with lots of numbers and velocity and trajectory and some other stuff that I will never be smart enough to understand. He can tell you all about everything I know nothing about and that is why we are a good balance.

He's also a fantastic father. One of the best. He truly knows that time is precious and that you have to make every second count. When he's home, he spends 98% of his spare time with the kids, which is amazing to me. W loves his daddy unlike he loves anyone else. I know it kills both of them to be so far apart, but it makes their time together that much sweeter. I love watching him with our babies. It makes me happy to know that our kids will always be loved and cared for.

Someday, who knows when, we will get to be a family again and I am looking forward to it, mostly for his sake. I can't imagine what it must be like to have to be away from your family so much. Even though we aren't a complete family, at least I have my kids with me at all times. I don't know what I would do if I had to be away from our kids as much as he has to. He says I'm strong, but I'm pretty sure he's stronger. I know he is. And that is a good thing because we would be a pretty wussy family if I was the one who wore the pants.

poop

My week can be summed up in one word: poop. It all culminated Wednesday when I got stuck behind a port-a-potty truck for 10 miles. Not one of the trucks that hauls the clean port-a-potties to a new location. No, I wouldn't be that lucky. I got stuck behind the port-a-potty truck with the over-sized tank on it that gets filled with the port-a-potty contents when they are full. Dis. Gus. Ting. I was gagging. Dry heaving. My eyes were watering.

It stunk so bad that I got to the point where I was wishing I was driving in a field that had just been fertilized with chicken manure. If you have never experienced chicken manure, you have no idea what you have been missing out on. That stuff is toxic and should be considered as such. Haz-mat masks and suits should be provided to people who have to be near the stuff. It's so bad it makes you feel like the mucous membranes in your sinuses are frying every time you breathe in. All of you farm girls can holla back at me because I know you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Normally there are places where I could have passed the toilet truck but on Wednesday, everyone and their half brother's cousin's dog's groomer decided to go in the opposite direction I was going, so there was no place to pass. I could have pulled over and waited it out, but the lavatory truck was going so slow that I would have caught up to it eventually so it wasn't worth it.

My entire week has been like that. Me in a confined space, surrounded by crap. If you were to add a lot of snot to the tank o' poo, then you would get a really accurate look into my week. We are a walking cesspool around here. Between the 3 of us, we have 4 ear infections (W and I both have 2), a sinus infection (me), 3 disgustingly goopy eyes (W and CB), 1 super sexy raspy voice (me), 4 lungs that are rattling (W and CB) and gallons of snot production. It's so gross. Thankfully, none of us are contagious because all of this has been brought on by allergies, but we are extremely attractive.

life can go on

Mr. Costco must have taken me very seriously because they are stocking Hot Tamales again. My sugar addiction and dentist thank you.

a small update

No, I haven't disappeared, much to the dismay of some. I'm still here, chugging along. Me and my big caboose of a behind. That thing that I said I was brewing got ripped up, stomped on and composted, so we had to change our plans and do something else. Doing that something else is taking up all of my time and energy and is turning me into a bad mother because I end up ignoring my kids. But who really cares if W has started memorizing jingles for commercials on TV because he's watched so much? At least he's learning. What he's actually learning is besides the point.

If this something else works out like it should in order to work at all, the next 6 weeks are going to be out of control. Like, even more than normal. Exciting, but insane would be the best way to describe it. If it doesn't work out, then I have no idea what I'm going to do because this is plan F, and there aren't any other plans in the works. That's living life on the edge.

Perhaps one day soon I'll be back to true blogging form. But that will only be after the baby has cut these 4 teeth she's trying to cut and is sleeping again. Anything more than a 20 minute nap would be awesome. Speak of the little devil ... she's up from her nap, again.