The only picture my stingy, sleep-deprived brother-in-law deigned to send to me. He is cute, but one picture does not do justice to the majesty* of my new nephew. This will have to suffice for the time being.
*All newborns look like alien worm beings.
This is one of my ultimate favorite pics of the boy. I think this was probably around Memorial Day or 4th of July at the Lake. (Note old boathouse – Outta there!) I guess he was about 10 months or so.
Damn, he had some serious rubber banding (rubber banding is the term used to describe fat rolls so deep that it looks like you put a tight rubber band on the kids arm) going on. Here’s to his new cousin Dash carrying on the fatness tradition. Nothing worse than a skinny ass baby. I like’em fat!
He’s sitting with Aunt Lisa. I love how he has a little hawk going on, and the Idol sneer. Lisa looks like she is just trying not to get sunburned and crack under the weight of him sitting in her lap.
That shirt she is wearing was hers in high school and then I stole it, because it was soft and awesome and I worked out in it. Then, I was wearing it coming back from Brant’s wedding two weeks after my own wedding, and Todd and I were hit by a drunk driver and my face got all broken and there was blood all over the shirt and everything else. And then we just washed it and I still wore it, even with blood stains, which, let’s face it, is completely tough.
Not sure why Lisa is wearing it, though, as she does nothing but ridicule me for my inability to throw out any piece of clothing, no matter how completely and totally fucked it is.
Walter, Jr. here. Or Lena Mae, if you prefer.
Love me some fat Rollie.
Might have to go find a pic of my face after aforementioned car wreck. Talk about tough-looking.
For those of you who haven’t heard yet, Dashiell Rey is here, as of 3 am this morning. He’s pretty much already a pain in our ass, just like we knew he would be. Lisa was having back pain all day Tuesday, didn’t sleep Tuesday night, and then saw the OB Wed. a.m., where they told her to head to the hospital to be induced. She went into labor before they could give her anything, but the little #$@# took FOREVER. He is fine, though, and Mama and Daddy are as fine as you can be after squeezing a bowling ball out of your vagina or watching someone you love squeeze a bowling ball out of her vagina.
Did I mention he is really freakin’ cute? I love him.
Pictures when my husband returns from Florida with a camera and/or my BIL gets his ass home and emails some to me. Don’t they know I have a blog to support? Come on, people!
Still no baby, but Leelee is on the way to the hospital. Will have my cel on, or you can text me. I will give updates when possible. Wish me luck!
Love,
Ultra-excited Aunt
Rush to get work done. Kiss chilluns and husband goodbye. Finish more work. Decide against shower. Make up for no shower with makeup. Rush to pick up Ness. Speed demon over to Thinking Man’s. Miss first trivia questions. Suck at first round. Do better at second, while stuffing face and trying to watch UGA baseball game a mile away. Come in . . . Not last.
Make other girls move over closer to television so can view UGA get their asses handed to them by Fresno St. Drink more beer. Be left by two members of party. Third member of party agrees to sit at bar if I will have another drink. (Twist arm here.) Third member of party reads Tennessee Williams while I watch UGA suck ass. UGA loses 2nd game. Nessie goes outside to discuss Eminent domain with dork. I remain at bar, order last beer, and get quarters for pinball. Nessie still sitting outside debating politics. Nessie’s friend tries to get a rise out of me re: eminent domain. I say i have a pinball game to play. Run out of quarters. Find a crumpled five in purse. Ask bartender if he will be annoyed if i play five dollars worth of jukebox songs. Spend ten minutes admiring awesome randomness of Thinking Man jukebox. Return to bar to talk to random guy and bartender. Nessie comes in and we leave. Nessie requests Taco Bell drive through (high point of evening!). Crank up The Hold Steady and open sunroof. Admire Half Moon. Taco Bell not open. Turn Hold Steady up higher and debate doing donuts in Lavista Rd. parking lot. Return Nessie to home and then clock land speed record to home from her house. (six minutes!)
Come inside, kiss dog, let him out, and blog. Sleep. Late. No kids. Call me if you want to go to the pool tomorrow. No kids allowed.
Ahhhhhhhh. . . summer.
Did i mention no kids? Who wants to go watch UGA with me at 7 pm?
Since Mike felt comfortable enough with himself to post this photo on his blog, I feel confident that he will still be friends with me after I post another of him.
Mike, not sure how I ended up with this, as I don’t remember knowing you in middle school, and I am pretty sure this was taken in Savannah. Anyway, love the jams.
This is where I am going to apologize to any and everyone who had the misfortune of being photographed during my middle and high school years. I am up to that album in my scanning project. I have performed a preliminary appraisal of the photos contained therein, and IT IS NOT PRETTY. For any of us. Things are going to be pretty bad for a while. I’m talking Esprit outfits, big hair, bad haircuts, gawkiness, zits, my famous sausage rolls hairstyle, and the worst homecoming and prom dresses in history. (No, Matt and I were never married, but it looked like it in our prom photos.)
Dear God, this will be fun and painful, all at once. Kinda like life in general.
Basically, you hit 36 and sometimes you start feeling old, and other times, you can’t believe you are 36, because, like yesterday? You were 16.
And then you get prank calls from your childhood friends, who have been prank-calling you since about. . . 1984 or so? (Yeah, that sounds about right Cue Van Halen.) And then you feel pretty young again. I mean, damn! I still got boys* calling me up at 11 o’clock at night, and no Cecil here to answer the phone and chew their asses out.
Life is good.
*30-something balding men.
Happy anniversary to my parents, who have been married 39 years. The longer I am married, the more I realize how impressive my parents’ marriage is and how much they have put into their life together.
I love you both very much!
Lately, we’ve been reading The Little Engine That Could. Not the short dumb versions, but an old complete edition that was mine as a little girl, with brilliant illustrations and lots of repetition of the phrase, “I think I can.”
So, the other day, a neighbor brought by two small girls’ bikes that her daughters had grown out of, to see if Tiller might be interested in them. Um, yeah, she’s interested!
I planned to go back in and finish some work, but the kids saw the new bikes and any idea of working was out the window on two wheels. “NEW BIKES!!! BIKES FOR ME? MOM, NEW BIKES!! MAMA, DID YOU SEE THE NEW BIKES!? WHY DID THAT LADY LEAVE TWO NEW BIKES? WHY SHE NOT WANT BIKES?”
Indeed, why would someone not want a bike? Certainly not because of the complete chaos-inducing nature of bikes upon those under five.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon in the driveway, Tiller practicing a loop that involved arcing through the back of the garage, down the slight incline of the drive and into the sharp right turn of the sidewalk leading to the front door. (I am not sure what they do once they are at the front steps, but it usually is imagined as Grandma’s house, or the bakery, or the MACDonald’s drive-through. Frighteningly, Rollie can do an exact impersonation of me at the drive-thru, down to all of our exact orders.) Then Tiller would come whipping back around the corner, with a big grin under her Hello Kitty helmet, ready to fly back into the garage for another loop.
Except that when she came off that sidewalk onto the drive, she would slow down, her little legs struggling to crank up the incline into the garage, and, i realized after a few loops, whispering to herself, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . . ” and “I did it!” (Dora the Explorer-style, of course) when she made it to the peak and into the garage.
Tiller: My Little Engine The Could
We started reading “The Giving Tree” to Rollie when he was around two. It was a staple in our evening story time for over a year, was the book that he most loved (so far) and is probably in the top three books that I will forever associate with reading to him as a baby.
There were nights when I was exhausted, and I would think, “Please, God, anything but the Giving Damn Tree.” Sure enough, he would toddle over with it in his hands, would always ask for it, the book that he called “Apple book.” For months on end, we read it every single night. Todd and I could both recite whole sections in our sleep.
And then one day, just like The Boy in the story stopped visiting the Giving Tree, Rollie started to pick The Giving Tree less and less; His tastes changed, and he wanted to read about trains or cars or Curious George.
Tonight, I asked him to pick out a book to read, and that is the book he picked out. I was pleasantly surprised – I no longer think of it as a monotonous chore, as I once did – and told him I would be in when I finished tucking Tiller in. When I went into his room, he was sitting up, reading aloud the page he was on.
I asked if he was ready to read the book. He said yes, and I laid down next to him and went to take them book from him.
“No, Mama. I’m gonna read it to you.”
And he did. And it was pretty damn special.
