Ready or not

BoBo: Mom, you should keep my first tooth.  I know you are really sad about me growing up and all.

Me: But what about the tooth fairy?  Do you want to write her a note and ask if you can keep the tooth?

BoBo: No, cause what if she takes it.  I don't care about the money mama.  I want you to keep my tooth forever.



That really happened.

Pretty Please

Please may I have chocolate milk?

Please can Piper sleep with me tonight?

Please can you get the star wars Legos out?

Please can I stay up just a little bit longer?

Oh, I've seen that look a hundred times, and now all the Disneyland employees get it too. 

I wondered why every time someone scanned Bob's card they started laughing.  

This is his annual pass picture. 

 It's a keeper I'd say!

The Lost Disneyland Posts - Part 1

Just before I had knee surgery we spent the week in Disneyland, soaking up the small crowds and Halloween decorations.

Bob running ahead for splash mountain

The girlchild and I on Grizzly River Run

That dog from Up

Vanna White and the Mad Hatter...no big deal

57 pictures on the carousel, every one blurry.  This one turned out kind of cool I think.

Hey mom, take my picture with these strangers....



And this one is my baby

A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out...

But the last one:

the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--

oh, that's love by a different name. 

She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. 

If you put her down in the crib,

she might wake up changed and fly away. 

So instead you rock by the window,

drinking the light from her skin,

breathing her exhaled dreams. 

Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of those closed lashes on her cheeks. 

She's the one you can't put down.

~The Poisonwood Bible

Little Fish in a Big Sea

The Girlchild started first grade Monday.  We are planning on taking a picture together for every first day.  It will be fun to see how she grows and changes.  Assuming I don't forget the tradition by grade 4.  Let us not even talk about the baby book's completion status.  Also keeping with tradition, there were first day of school gifts.  I'm fairly sure that my mother was so ridiculously excited to be sending her 5 children off to school after a torturously long summer of having us underfoot, that first day of school presents were really party favors for herself.

Well played mother.  Well played.

I don't have the luxury of being driven crazy by summer vacation but still.

Folders and candy and new travel neck pillows for everyone!

Except Burrito. 

He doesn't start school for 2 weeks....so his prize is still hidden in my closet.

This is the girlchild's first experience at a school with more that a handful of kids.

I was a bit worried.

Kind of like this mama.

But, there have been reports of touring the library and meeting the music teacher and making new friends on the playground.

It's easy to see that there is plenty of room to grow for my tiny fish.

This boy

Mom, don't roll my sleeves up that much.  I don't want Auntie to see my cowboy shirt.  Then she'll think I'm half cowboy, half knight.

Let's see, are there any freshly washed wranglers in here? 

Sorry dude, I promise, tonight I'll do laundry.

Oh, Levis.  These will do.