A Bit Of Catching Up

Hello? Anyone home?

Well, as all 3 of you may have noticed, I've not been around bloggyville much of late.

Things had gotten craaaazy for a while there after the Holidaze, something had to give and unfortunately blogging took the hit.

It's good to be back into the swing of things again, though...and I have a lot of stuff to catch up on.

Last year at this time, I was babysitting full-time and just wasn't able to pick up and go do things at the last minute. Now, with just Judah and I at home we have that freedom. Which I love.

I'm really enjoying this stage that he's at right now...very literal and observant, trying to make sense of the world around him...and some of the stuff that comes out of his mouth just cracks me up.

Yesterday morning began with an impromptu ladies tea at a friends home, held in honor of a mutual friend who was back in the area for a visit. Because Grandma (my usual daytime babysitter) was also attending, Judah came along as well.

Judah noticed that Grandma had left the tea early, and came up to whisper, "Mama? Can we go to grandma's house after dis?"

In the middle of a discussion, I just pulled him close and said quietly, "Grandma went to run errands...but your friend is over there wanting you to play basketball with him out back." And so he ran off to play.

However, as we were heading home a little later, recognizing the neighborhood and knowing we were very close to grandma's house, he asked again, "Mama? Can we pwease go to grandmas house?"

"No, honey...remember? She's out running errands."

A few moments later he asked, "I know...can we go watch?"

He wasn't sure what these 'errands' I referred to were, but the prospect of seeing his grandma running them sounded pretty entertaining, lol!

:: :: :: ::

Later, once again on the road, Judah was chatting away at me from the back seat when some dude on a Harley went roaring past us on the main thoroughfare across town.

"Where is dat man on da motopsycho goeen?" he asked.

"Hmmmm...I'm not sure. Maybe to his house?" I offered.

"Nope, I fink he's goin' to da grocery store."

"But where would he put all his groceries?" I mused aloud.

Seeing no obvious place for bags of groceries, he thought about that for a minute and said the only logical thing a tag-along little brother could come up with, "On da handlebars!"

:: :: :: ::

In early December, we finally (months after installing our flooring) had new trim installed in the house. The living and dining areas are finally all done project-wise. It was a long time in coming, and I was as excited about that as our boys were about Christmas coming.

While we were at it, we put up a quickie pre-made mantle, as I was itching to have it all look 'finished' for the long lineup of Holiday entertaining.

Just prior to decorating for Christmas, however, I rearranged some of the living room furniture and noticed that the wall with the mantle seemed unusually bare. It was going to need a little something extra. So, while at a pre-Christmas sale, I picked up a blank canvas. It has been sitting in my craft room beckoning to me for weeks with all the possibilities.

This past Saturday ended up being a blissfully free day for me. Jeff took off with the boys for most of the day and I had nothing pressing on the agenda, so I dug out my brushes and paints and got to work.

Voila! Zee finished masterpiece.



Kinda loud, kinda funky, and way out of my comfort zone where home decor is concerned...but I think it's just what that space needed.

I joked with Jeff that it should be entitled, "Pile of Laundry", both because it kinda resembles that, and because that was what accumulated on my sofa during the couple of days that I was busy working on it, lol.

Naturally, when Judah caught on to what I was doing, he thought it looked like great fun and hinted broadly that he'd love to paint.

Remembering I still had some watercolor paint sets from when big brother and his cousins were little, I dug those out and let him go to town.

As you can see, young grasshopper was very pleased when I gushed over and prominently hung his works of art on the fridge in the family gallery.



He even thought to sign the one there on the left. He doesn't know how to write cursive just yet, so he did the best he could, lol.

Frump Family Randoms

"Judah?! What is THIS?!" I asked with my angry eyes.

He came running over and looked to the spot on the sofa cushion to which I pointed.



"A spiedow" he said, shrugging all matter-of-factly, as though it were no big deal.

And looking at the threadbare in places sofa cushions that are 15 years old and have been through numerous other toddler 'incidents' (including the Molly McButter leopard-spots incident and later the scented marker incident by both Jericho and his cousin K, and lets not forget the countless spills and wiped noses of barely-learning-to-walk toddlers)...well, I could hardly blame him for thinking that was just another canvas for his artistic endeavors.

Apparently somewhere after the 13 year mark, Scotch let down it's guard.

:: :: :: ::

After Jericho's recent birthday party, he had a couple of his cousins stay the night.

The next day turned out to be very hot, and so as a treat I took the kids to Baskin Robbins for ice cream.

Jericho, 13 year old that he is, was goofing around trying his best to get his cousins and anyone else around him to laugh, and on the way out of the ice cream shop, he was talking in muted tones to his cousins as though saying, "Watch this".

Suddenly, very loudly in front of a group of people exiting the nearby grocery store, he said in true Jim Carrey-esque, dimwitted fashion, "Mom, how are babies made?"

Punk kid knows full good and well how babies are made...but he did succeed in getting us and about a half-dozen people to laugh at that one.

:: :: :: ::

While driving in the car last night, Jericho said, "Hey, dad...does this sound like Yoda?" and does a dead-on perfect impression.

This morning, I went into Jericho's room to scold him for not doing the job I'd sent him there to do, and he looks at me with the most innocent face he could muster and says in perfect Yoda-voice, "Angry are you?"

How is a mother to discipline a kid that can so disarm her with his comical one-liners?

:: :: :: ::

We were at Wal*mart a week or so ago, and I was picking up a few things in the cosmetics section.

Our store provides these little gray baskets to put items in so they don't drop out of the cart throughout the store like Hansel and Gretel's crumb trail, and so I made my selections and moved along through the store.

When I got to the cash register, I simply lifted that very convenient basket out and placed it on the belt along with the rest of my items, and the unloading process was done.

My total, however, seemed to be quite a bit off from my mental tally, but having already tucked the receipt into the black hole my purse, it would have to wait until I was home and the party-popper effect of opening my purse wouldn't be quite so embarassing.

Upon arriving home, I put everything away, and sent the sack of cosmetics items via Jericho to my bathroom counter.

Later, I walked into the bathroom and was putting away those items when I came across a few things I didn't remember buying. A lipstick I'd looked at but put back and a powder compact. The biggest thing, however, was a bottle of pretty pricey liquid makeup.

I set it aside on the counter assuming that somehow there had been a mixup and we'd ended up with the stuff from the lady in front of me in line.

Just then, Judah comes meandering in and seeing the makeup on the counter his eyes light up and he says, "Did you wike yeow pweasant, mama? I buyed dat fo you!"

Sooooo....there was no taking that one back.

:: :: :: ::

A couple of nights after Jericho's birthday, while up late blogging, I heard some strange sounds coming from the living room.

"Ooomph!"

"Ugh!"

"Oh!"

"Ahhh"

"Heoughhhh!"

I glanced out into the living room to find Jericho ducking and weaving from a fixed position, his eyes on on the wall across the room.

It was close to Midnight and he was supposed to be asleep.

"What are you doing?", I inquired, tapping my foot.

He ducked suddenly, and grunted, narrowly missing some perceived blow. "Boxing! Man, this is a real workout!"

We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we agreed to the Wii.