And the carnation boquet and a year's worth of revelry goes to...

A little reward for sitting through two three-hour recitals for Ladybug's dance school yesterday:



That's a Dancer of the Year award in her little paws and a bona fide satinique sash to match-complete with glitter puffy paint and safety pin clasp. Ooh. La. La, people!

Maybe sometimes I shouldn't roll my eyes at the end of the last show when the emcee says it's time for awards so everybody sit tight and hold the applause. Especially since my little girl is one of ten girls distinguished with this honor in a school of one hundred and sixty. (shut up and let me brag...it's her first award ever)

And this is how she chose to celebrate when we got home:
(coco crispies victory dinner at eleven o'clock)

I thought about all the stuff I could write about how boring the show was during the bajillion numbers my own Ladybug wasn't in. Or how these types of productions are mostly just sequin-studded fodder for all the stage-moms who busted ass getting their kids to every rehearsal and put in over time hours volunteering to carry clip-boards and boss the other moms around during performances. ( You know...the ladies who were never popular in high-school who are now getting their revenge by flashing snarky grins and wagging their fingers your way when you show up with your kid's hair parted too far to the left. )

But then we came home with this fancy sash and a cheaply framed award that my daughter couldn't stop beaming and talking about and I just thought...not this time. This time I'm going to just remember the best parts. Because those parts don't happen all the time and all the other crap does.

Idle Hands, not here!

Sometimes I make tiny shoes and get all proud of myself.



Now I have to make a pair to go with every outfit my son has so when he arrives (eh hem) he will be the coolest kid in the world. Besides whomever dons these sparkly hearty shoes.

If you're interested in making your own, you should click HERE!~

The post in which So-so-Stephanie uses an absurd amount of asterisksks and mentions Star Trek Voyager

In a half-assed attempt to get this baby out of me, JG and I took Ladybug to Memories of India for dinner tonight. While I'm not a big fan of superstitions and following the advice of "old wives", I physically couldn't reach my feet in the shower this morning and some spicy mystery food sounded pretty good. The words "couldn't hurt to try" came to mind.

I ordered something I can't spell or say and slathered four-alarm chutney all over it, JG ordered something with lamb in the description and Ladybug went all crazy adventurous on us and ordered fish sticks with fries. Leave it to the short one to have the brains in the bunch.

This is the rest of the evening in bullet-points, since I am too fat and full to type in complete paragraphs:

* Food arrives in eleventy-gillion small dishes with matching tiny spoons that make me feel twenty times larger than I already am.

* Ladybug turns nose up at perfectly fried sticks of fish mash and fries. Five bite rule applied. Waterworks begin. Fantasize about mixing spicy curry into ketchup on kidplate.

* Pick up spoon just in time to see JG licking his bowl clean. Seriously consider bringing stopwatch to next dinner outing.

* Food into face= very best part of evening.

* Stomach bulges more, wedging me into booth. (not an exaggeration)

* Pay check and shovel 99 cents worth of fish sticks into styrofoam container before dislodging from table and waddling out to parking lot.

* Car ride home filled with painful groans, poop talk, and not-so-fresh memories of India fogging up the windows.

* Five bites of fish in Ladybug belly, in bed.

* JG dorking-out to downloaded episodes of Star Trek Voyager on the couch (again)

* Me, computer, bed... and too many Memories of India spoiling the clean sheets.

If I can only give one curry-riddled nugget of wisdom before closing and heading off to the bathroom for what will surely be the first trip of many...

The last words from your mouth before venturing out for an evening of labor-inducing spicy Indian cuisine should never (ever ever ever), under any circumstances be "couldn't hurt to try".

Because it certainly can.

The Honorary Gresham

Today someone sent me a message asking about the profile photograph I use. Okay, nobody did that, I just wanted a solid intro to today's post and was coming up empty handed. Hey, I never promised honesty anywhere in this blog and if you can't just go with it you should be reading something else right now.

Anyway, there's a little square with the heads of myself and my adoring, adorable husband in it right up there on the right and I had to crop the crap out of it to get it to fit. I cropped two giant plates of spaghetti out of the photo that we were holding up and posing with because we love spaghetti and JG's parents are kind of parenty about taking photos at family gatherings and on this day Mama J's spaghetti was on the table and everything was right in the world. (go with it)

Every time I look at the photo I smile. Maybe it's the goofy look on my face or the dorky grin my husband wears in all his photos because he's uncomfortable being frozen in time doing stuff like holding up plates of spaghetti. Or maybe it's the memory of sitting around a family table crowded with the warm and kind people I am still crossing my fingers won't suddenly realize who they've recently let into their pack and revoke my membership. How devastating would it be if in-laws just passed out pink-slips with the parmasean?

I adore them. All of them individually, of course, and together as this one beating mass of heart in which I have become a sinewy member of the team. Under the wings of the matriarch whom I am perpetually in awe of, I furiously take notes in my head about how to keep a family together and safe and happy through brutal devastation and times of emotional nakedness. If Mama's heart is missing pieces for her own lost family, she has surely done well stuffing the cracks with her own children and their children and the memories she has been so kind and candid about sharing with me over the last few years.

Across the tops of salad bowls and clinking glasses is the dad I secretly wished for my entire childhood. Snapshots of him standing beside Top Gun worthy crafts, dashing in his pilot's uniform and smiling eyes behind classic aviator sunglasses, are proudly displayed at my own home and only subtly deviate from the man passing the bread and listening quietly as his children chatter on. "Remember the time when" and "should I have seconds?" and the occasional poo-humor we all agree is appropriate at the table after everyone is sufficiently stuffed. It's Pop who will give you the last piece of bread and then clear the table so the rest of us can laugh and talk and enjoy each other as much as he enjoys observing and remembering.

The couches and chairs are always warm and soft at my in-law's home. There's a place to put up your feet and pillows for under your head when you're stretched on the floor digesting the feast of the day. The cousins giggle in a nearby bedroom, playing with the familiar treasures that Mama J's house promises on each visit and sometimes something new and special. Toys the uncles played with when they were babies, books in which my sister-in-law first found her love for reading tucked in baskets of a comfortable corner.

Their faces and voices warm me and pull me in. Their thoughtful kindness is as rich as the dishes spread on the table. I can't wait to bring another little person into such a wonderful family. I sure hope he loves spaghetti.

Big Bird and Barf Buckets

My pirate turned down pancakes for breakfast this morning and asked for just a piece of toast. And then she barfed the toast in the parking lot of That Deli in Lake Mary.

So we're in bed watching Big Bird star in one of his best films: Follow That Bird. (Chevy Chase is in it... so it has to be good, right?) The cat is trying to get in the garbage can I put next to the bed for barf and the little dog is barking furiously at Telly on the tele(vision).

A few other rad things about Follow that Bird I am discovering along the way:
Oscar drives a car named "The Sloppy Jalopy"
Big Bird's name is changed to Big Dodo when he is adopted by a family of really stupid birds.
Chevy Chase is a a news anchor and Waylon Jennings is a singing truck-driver.






Being sick right after school is out for the summer is kind of bad timing, but when you have an awesome collection of muppet DVDs...who gives a Sloppy Jalopy?

Tid bits.

If you haven't noticed my little floating baby widget down there in a while, go look. It says 17 days remain until my due date. (insert your own emotion here, I already peed my pants)

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In other news, Cadence just came out of her bathroom with one eye squinty and her finger all crooked. "Look, I'm a pirate," she squeaked and then ran to her room.

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Grocery shopping today. I'm going to keep my list down to just what fits in two re-usable bags at the store. Maybe one. Depends on how cooperative my back and pirate are.

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Also, this is how cute my husband is when we eat Chik-fil-a at the mall and go see Drag Me to Hell on a Saturday afternoon...



If you liked the Evil Dead movies, you'll enjoy some Drag Me to Hell. Talking goats and anvils...eyeballs popping out...the works. I laughed and screamed and hid my face in JG's shoulder.

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Newsflash: It's June. Get out your bay-bin-suits and slop on the sunblock. It's time to be hot and sticky.