Tuesday, February 26, 2008

iLove iPhone

I'm sitting here blogging, while watching Jay Leno's "headlines" and an iPhone commercial came on. 

I don't care how often I've seen the commercial, everytime an iPhone commercial comes on, I have to watch it from beginning to end. Its just a fascinating piece of technology.

I turned to Jason when the commercial was over and said, "I wonder how hard it is for people with fat fingers to use an iPhone. Wouldn't it get frustrating trying to push the little buttons if your fingers are fat? You know you would probably consistently push the wrong buttons by mistake."

Jason simply smiles and says, "Guess you won't be getting an iPhone."


Pee-ling the Paint

The time: 9:15 a.m. The place: our house. 

Harrison and I were packing up his backpack getting ready to leave for Harrison's speech class. Socks? Check. Shoes? Check. Keys? Check. Class folder and backpack? Check, check. Harrison go potty? Nope. 

"Harrison, you need to go potty before we leave."
"Ok." He walks into the bathroom. I go in after him to help him pull his pants down and subsequently pull his shirt up so it doesn't get in the way of his steady stream. He relaxed and released a stream that could have won a water shooting carnival game contest. Went nowhere near the toilet, in the toilet or even around the toilet. No, it hit the wall. By the time he redirected his hips down toward the toilet, he was virtually done. 

Super. So, my focus to save time and not have to change his peed on shirt, became an even bigger situation when I suddenly had to grab the paper towels and bleach cleaner, all the while I'm praying the cleaner won't discolor the green paint on the walls.

The time: 12:10 pm. The place: home again.

Lunch is over. I'm cleaning up the dishes and Harrison suddenly runs toward the bathroom, explaining, "I go potty real quick."

"Ok, Harrison, point your penis DOWN so you don't pee on the wall."

I believe Harrison only heard, "...pee on the wall." When I went in to check on him, he was pulling up his pants and grinning at the new yellow paint he added to the wall to the right of the toilet. He might as well have had his hands on his hips and his hips thrust out while he wrote his name - first and last - on the wall.

The clean up supplies and ritual played out earlier in the day was duplicated, with the same result - a newly cleaned bathroom........

........and bleach cleaner does NOT affect the color of latex wall paint. The silver lining to my Tuesday cloud.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

A Bold Move

Just want to give a shout out to Brian, the owner of Asado's Mexican Grill for agreeing to sponsor Harrison's blastball team, Orange Crush.

Brian introduced himself to Jason and me while we were having dinner there one night. He seemed like a really cool dude and when I found out our team needed a sponsor, he's the first person I thought of. So I called him Friday and he couldn't have been nicer. He said he sponsors six or seven other teams and would be happy to sponsor Harrison's team. 

If you haven't eaten at Asado's yet, I highly recommend it. The food is great and we really need to support Brian - we would hate to see a great local business disappear.




A Memory Recorded

Bedtime for the boys.

Jason and I are telling them good-night. Each taking turns with the boys. 

Jason's turn with Harrison. He lingers a bit while Harrison scratches Jason's face and immediately follows by wiping his own face (cheeks). Jason calls it "stealing his rough". Harrison likes to "steal Daddy's rough".


To Translate Literally

Jason and I took the boys to Dallas to meet Charlie and Kim for dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant, Alfredo's. (Alfredo's is closing and we're in the fetal position sucking our thumbs wondering where we're going to get great Italian food from now on, so if anyone has any suggestions, we're taking them. Please let me spare anyone from mentioning Olive Garden - that is NOT great Italian food - so let me just preface this request with REAL Italian food.)

Anyway, on to the point of this post.....

We were sitting at a round table which held all six of us comfortably. We were enjoying our bread, stuffed mushrooms, mussels, adult beverages and salad, visiting occasionally with Mario, the owner or someone else Charlie knew. Harrison was eating everything offered to him, with numerous extra helpings of bread. Jake wouldn't eat anything except the bread. I teased Jake a bit about Harrison eating all of his food and that he was going to get bigger than Jake. 

Jake never can quite wrap his brain around that concept - that his brother could potentially (and probably will) be bigger than he will - because he knows he is older and always will be older.

I continued to tease him a bit by saying, "Aw, come on, Jake, you're not going to let your brother eat you under the table, are you?" Jake had no clue what that really meant, but just shook his head in an effort to respond.

Meanwhile, Harrison had grabbed his bread, pushed his chair back and was sitting literally "under the table" eating his bread. I had no idea he was even listening to me.

I forgot 3 year olds are still just learning the English language. The literal parts are hard enough, but to throw in the slang phrases, its just too much. He didn't quite understand why Kim and I were laughing and pulling him out from under the table.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

St. Valentine Called The Tooth Fairy

Valentine's Day morning I slithered out of bed to the boys' bedroom to make sure they were awake. I was greeted by a newly snaggle toothed Jake who had lost a bottom front tooth that suddenly appeared loose just two days earlier. He showed the tooth to me, protected in a small toy treasure chest. Phew, according to Jake, he can now start 1st grade in the fall with his other snaggle toothed friends.

Meanwhile Harrison was parading around in the background in his pajama shirt and pull up, announcing his success at peeing in the toilet that morning.

A great day so far.......

......that ended with Jason installing my Valentine's present on my car - a flowmaster exhaust. He knows me so well - its actually what I wanted. 

(Note - On Monday evening, I walked into a local grocery store to find a man, possibly in his 60s, waiting for me. He said, "Miss, not only does your car look good, but it sounds good too. Really, it sounds great." After thanking him, he continued on, to do his shopping.)

Monday, February 11, 2008

The Humble Approach

I come to you, humbly, head bowed and silently apologizing, begging forgiveness for my neglect of this site. Hard to believe its been nearly two months since I've visited here and left my mark, but the holidays beat me down, sat on me and locked me in a closet to the point where I willingly wanted to hibernate until all things red and green were safely in hiding, boxed in the attic until Mix 102.9 starts playing Bing Crosby's White Christmas again.

So, what's new? Guess I'll break it down by person (for simplicity).

Jake
Jake liked the first week of his first Christmas break from school. As soon as Christmas was over he was begging to go back to school and see his friends. His New Year's resolution was to stay on green in 2008, which means good behavior. He's five weeks into the year and he's stayed on green every day. I told him it looks like a forest in his folder, so every day he comes home with a new green, we say he's added a new tree to the forest. Jason wants to do something special for him if he stays on green the whole six weeks......something kid focused, like Chuck E Cheese, mini golf, bowling or a movie. Luckily I usually decide and my pick is to taxi Jake to Target and let him buy a toy with his Christmas gift cards he hasn't spent yet. Quick, easy and Mama doesn't have to dodge 500 other people's kids, their germs, sticky hands and pizza sauce faces. Gross.

Side note - Jake also learned how to ride his two wheeler and its been fun to go on family bike rides while he rides along side of us. Hard to believe he'll be 7 this year. 

Harrison 
Harrison has started his speech classes through the Wylie School District to help get him caught up from spending his first two years hearing like he was under water. Its definitely my kind of therapy for him - small classes, close to home, preschool environment, free time for me while's he's there two days a week and free. He is the only boy among 7 other girls and seems to love going to the big school like Jake does. Jason and I have already seen tremendous improvement in him - so much we're ready to play the "let's see who can be quiet the longest" game. 

Side note - Harrison will be playing blastball (t-ball for 3-4 year olds) if I can convince Jason to step up and volunteer as a head coach. His league is short 4 volunteers.

Jason
Jason just turned 31. No huge celebrations this year though. He spends his nights in the driveway drinking beer with Kenny almost every night, so I've started calling them boyfriends. Bothers Jason, but when he's running to his cell phone every night when the routine text message from Kenny comes through asking him to come out and play, its a little bit odd. Jason is making bi monthly trips to NY for work and I jokingly accused him of having another family up there until New Year's came when he needed to go up and invited me to come along.

Cori
Jason took me with him on a business trip to NYC for New Year's. We stayed at a hotel in Times Square, but decided that on such a short trip, I'd rather do a little sight seeing than spend most of my time shoulder to shoulder with dirty strangers in Times Square for six hours waiting for the ball to drop. So, instead we saw Ground Zero, Rockefeller Center, Fifth Avenue and the Statue of Liberty. We ate a great dinner and turned the tv on during the countdown, muted it and opened the window to our room to listen to the noise live. It was different to be there and I would say I'd like to go back, but not with the kids for a long time. Too dirty, noisy and fast paced for small children. The cabbies are scary enough.

I finished up my stay at home mom career on January 20th. January 21st I began working for Vialuna Group (www.vialunagroup.com) in downtown Plano as an Account Manager. This is probably my dream job, next to working for BMW, and here's why:
>Office is 15 minutes from home
>I have been given the flexibility to get Harrison to his speech classes, so I am able to work from home two days a week
>I can wear ratty jeans and a baseball hat to work - even on Mondays - my boss gives me shit if I wear a suit to work - makes him nervous, like I have an interview or something
>Everyone is young, oldest person is like 36
>I get the week off between Christmas and New Year's and it doesn't count toward my annual vacation, Fridays off in July and August and office closes at 12 on Fridays in December
>My coworkers are friendly and helpful
>Office hours are 8:30"ish" to 5:30"ish", so there's no one taking mental notes of our whereabouts if someone is 20 minutes late
>My job itself is cool - my office is full of toys and cool objects from campaigns we've done in the past and are working on now
>I work with 4 aggies

Can't say enough great things about my job. Its quite a bit different than what I was doing before, but its fun and I'm lovin' it.

The only drawback is my gym schedule has dwindled.

Other News
My brother, JJ, is moving to Dallas!!!! We are all very excited about that. He'll be staying with us until he finds a job and then decide where he wants to live. Part of my master plan to get my parents down here too.

Got a new dryer. Its a fancy looking front loader, with the glass door and everything, but my old kenmore washer looks like an underdressed party crasher at a black tie affair. Jason is suspicious. If the washer turns up dead in the next 3 months, he's going to suspect sabotage. Anyone know of a dryer hit man for hire who knows how to keep his mouth shut and dispose of the evidence carefully?

I know these "catch up" emails are boring and I'll try to be better about blogging about the day to day stuff that I find humor in. A little late to the table, but perhaps that's my NY's resolution - at least weekly blog posts. We'll see if I can have the discipline my 6 year old has about his 2008 promise.

Will I get to go to Chuck E Cheese if I'm good?