Curly Straight

TJ is learning about Hawaii in his school.

Today he told me "Hello-ha."

TJ is asking for more videos on youtube.

His favorite? Beatboxers.

Things I never thought I would say:

TJ, please don't lick the computer.

Mama: TJ, what are you drinking?

TJ: Cold hot chocolate.

Julia has decided not to walk quite yet.

She can hold onto the smallest littlest piece of your smallest finger and will walk around the entire house. As soon as you let go, she - very obviously consciously - sits down on the floor.

She can stand up by herself and will do it, until she realizes it. Then boom! does she goes, sitting on the floor.

She started doing this crazy crawl, where her bum is way up and her legs are straight, kind of like downward dog, but while moving.

I am not going to predict, but I'm hoping she'll be walking soon...

Julia can crawl backwards.

So, 4th of July. We went to a friend's house for typical bbq. Really good burgers, corn on the cob, salads, etc. Julia loves corn on the cob, apparently. Ate some sitting in my lap.

Today is a beautiful day, all day long. If we don't eat outside on the screened-in porch, it's like breaking a law, it's so nice out.

John is finishing grilling and puts the chicken and the corn on the cob on the tray, and places it on the table, inside the screened-in porch, where the kids and I are sitting. Julia to my left, TJ to my right.

Julia spots the tray of food and starts yelling "more! more! more! more! more!" and climbs up from her chair, onto the table and starts to crawl across the table to get to the corn on the cob.

So, to set the scene...

anyone that knows me knows that rodents are one of my least favorite things in all of the world. You also know that it gets me mad when people don't say hi to me, which is one of the reasons I don't like my neighborhood so much. You also know that if I don't like something, it's usually conveyed in some way. Facial expression, appropriate noise, or a comment, perhaps.

Last night, I decide to take my crazy, rotten dogs for a walk, after we arrive home and before it gets dark. After about two minutes of Amadeus doing 360s in the air, and Georgia doing laps around the yard, I get them to sit and get their leashes on.

Walking "around the block," which is not really around the block, but is what I call our walk, typically takes about 15 minutes and I usually take both dogs separately because 100 pounds of fur pulling me, no matter how cute they are, is just too much to handle for me. But for some reason, seems like a good idea to take them both.

On the last leg of the walk, a skinny little man with no shirt on asks me if the dogs are hungry. "Sure, I guess," I say, walking onto his lawn toward his grill, with much apprehension because Amadeus has a tendency to howl at strangers and Georgia loves to lick their nose. Plus, what if he kidnaps me. But hey, he seems friendly and no one ever talks to me in this neighborhood so I have to take advantage of it.

So, he's about to give them some of his grilled food but he tells me it's too hot, leaves me outside and comes back with a plate of cat food, a knife, and his wife.

Feeds the dogs sausages, mixed in with the cat food, straight from the grill. Offers me nothing, too bad, I totally would have eaten one, they looked good.

So, I thank him, we go on our way, about a block closer to home, I'm looking down at my phone, and of course the dogs are stopping and walking and sniffing. They are stopped for a moment too long, I look up and see them sniffing a DEAD RAT. I scream and pull them away and cross the road.

Can't run because I have on new shoes that aren't totally broken in yet and are giving me big angry, red blisters.

Limp home, totally skeebed out about the rat. John is in the driveway, and I tell him what happened. He looks down at my feet and says "Oh my gosh," of course, I somehow irrationally decide that the rat or part of the rat is on my sneaker. Screaming commences, shoes fly off, I'm yelling "what is it, what is it?!"

Turns out he's just commenting on the blister.

Had a rough day today, as TJ puts it.

So the little girl is still not officially walking. Or even really close to it, really. I do believe she is stubborn, because she can walk around fine holding the tiniest little sliver of my finger. Or pushing the plastic shopping cart with her baby finger and nothing else (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration). She's smart, too, talking a ton, saying sentences even!, and knows at least 25 signs. She loves to look at books and play with her toys, but the walking thing, she's just going to do it on her own schedule and once she starts, look out!

She has taken one step that I have seen, so I know she can do it.

But she is really into that boom thing. She stands, she claps, she sits down and says boom. It's turned into a game.

Now she is starting to finally stand on her own. I was watching her tonight, she stands up, claps, goes back down, repeats about 10 times. Stands up for a good amount of time, too, about 10 seconds or so.

On her last go, she stood up, signed the sign for "stand" and then sat back down. I thought that was pretty great.

John and I tried to come up with a list the other night of the signs that Julia does at 16 months. She does most of these signs - I starred the ones she recognizes but doesn't do yet.

Here's what we could remember:

blanket
more
eat
baby
airplane
milk
stand
up
dog
cat
mommy
daddy
thank you*
good*
please*
music*
change
banana*
bath
bed/sleep
book*
all done
fish
friend*
head
hot
hug
shoes (one of her favorites)
socks*
telephone
wait*
water
where*

It's not a secret that Julia loves her food. She takes her eating very seriously, as my mom says. (I love that!)

Every time she takes a bite or a sip of something, she looks up at me with joy in her eyes and says "mmmmmmmmmm."

It's so cute.

I just sucked down a cup of joe and then looked at the clock and it's past my time. 12:59 is the latest I can drink caffeine and still go to sleep easily at night. It's been scientifically proven.

We had a big talk with TJ about sleeping late on Saturdays and how if he wakes up, and we are still asleep, he should continue to rest. It worked! He is still asleep. Julia, however, who has been known to sleep until 8:30 on certain days - usually when we have to be somewhere at 8 - set her wake up call for 6:15 this morning.

This morning...

John and TJ were still sleeping and I was hanging out with Julia, listening to Jason Mraz Radio with my baby snuggled up on my chest. The sun was shining. It was a lovely way to start the day.

I never thought I would be a stay at home mom. I sometimes still don't think I am, really, between drill weekends and property management and Executive Director, it doesn't seem like I have enough time at home to be considered a stay at home mom. But I am, basically, that. Which is fine, more than fine. It's really great. I'm psyched to be able to spend this time with TJ and Julia. Everyone says they miss this age, and yes, I can understand that. It definitely has its moments when the two of them are crying or fighting over something, it's not always so fun. But it ends. And then TJ runs around the highchair with Julia in it, and she laughs with delight, and looks behind her on one side, then the other, and she screams when she sees TJ. And I laugh. And she laughs. And TJ laughs and I think of how lucky I am to have this time with them, to be able to read them and know what they need, because I am with them so much. I know when they are hungry, tired, excited, crabby, loving, playful, happy or bored. And I act accordingly.

I feed them breakfast every day, and get to eat with them, and drink coffee and do the sign language sign for hot and see Julia do it back to me. TJ asks me "what are we doing today, gym, school, church?" and I answer what's on the agenda for the day.Sometimes I surprise them with a trip to the zoo or a road trip to see Ali and Bebe. I'm going to miss that when he goes to school full-time and we have to be there each day, every day, on time.

It's the little things that I think I will remember when I look back at this time. I don't know what I will think of - my memory is not always so great - but I hope I remember playing and loving and laughing with them. Doing a puzzle (or six) with TJ, dancing with Julia.

On certain days I walk to pick TJ up at his "school" - it's not the best walk, or so I thought. A busy road, with trash thrown on it. But now it's even worse, they are doing construction. Once the construction is done, it will make me appreciate it, it will seem quiet, the busy road. The trash could be much worse, although I still want to wear gloves and bring a bag and pick it up as I walk along, why don't people know they are so nasty to throw trash on the road?

I know I will look back and think about the walk and picking him up in the double stroller and being psyched that he will still sit in it - and really love that I was able to do that, to show them the joy of walking and seeing different sights than are normally seen. I hope that they are somehow learning from this time and it is helping them to develop into good communicators and have a good sense of humor and love nature and music. Even though they probably won't remember - I hope that they know that their Mama really tried to encourage the makings to guide them into really cool, appreciative, fun little people.

TJ has Sesame Street Christmas ornaments that never made it back into the Christmas storage box. I think Mimi bought them for him after his broke all the feet off of the original Sesame Street Christmas ornaments.

Today, he took the string off of one and told me "It's not a Christmas ornament anymore. Now it's a toy."

I need some changes in my life.

Have to leave here in about 15 minutes to get to Little Gym. Of course Julia didn't sleep this morning. She's in her crib right now, making cooing noises. Cute noises, they really are, but I wish it were her sleeping noises instead.

10 minutes later. Have to leave now. Of course, now she's asleep.

Eat this, Not that tells me I should eat these foods every day.

spinach
yogurt
tomatoes
carrots
blueberries
black beans
walnuts
oats

They must have accidentally left off beer, chocolate and potato chips.

Had a great weekend with Karen, Sue, Darren, Papelbon and Matt Damon on the Cape.

Breezy, sunny days at the beach. Left the beach and went to a pond. Entertaining people visiting, a dog swimming, clear, cool water, with a floating wooden raft, just begging us to swim to it.

Beautiful weather, yummy food, lots of drinks, beautiful scenery and much laughter.

At Little Gym, watching TJ and nine girls play and run and tumble and walk and jump and have lots of fun.

I was at USAF yesterday, but I heard that Julia took 2 steps on her own yesterday.

TJ: Mama, did you get me my ABC blanket?

Mama: No, KK's friend did.

TJ: What's her name?

Mama: Lisa.

TJ: She bought me that ABC blanket when I was little?

Mama: Yes, when you were first born.

TJ: Because I was sad, because I didn't have any blankets. Then I got sadder and sadder and sadder.

Mama looks in rearview mirror and sees a sad looking little boy.

TJ: But then Lisa bought me that ABC blanket and I slept with it all day long, with a big smile on my face.

I do have to say that I think both of the kids are really smart.

I also have to say that I am glad TJ goes to preschool a couple of days a week, because I'm not sure I would be teaching him the right things.

Example: We were in the car and he was acting up about something so I was trying to distract him with counting. He counts up to 30 now, and I was explaining (as I have in the past) that after the 9 number comes the big number, like 40, 50 etc.

He looks at me and says "10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100!"

I must have missed the paper that said they went over that in school. I was surprised and happy that they taught him to count by tens.

It makes me wonder what else he knows that I don't know he knows.

I had TJ put his ABC blanket in his room yesterday. He has a bad habit of flipping it around and of course it hits people, mostly Julia.

I heard him tell Mimi, "I don't feel right without my ABC blankie."

So I have been watching what I eat this week - getting ready for a sunny vacation soon!

I have been doing ok, except for yesterday, I was hungry throughout the day. I think I didn't eat enough breakfast, which led to eating my lunch for breakfast and then having another lunch, which involved potato chips, and dinner was seconds and then some pie.

Anyway, I woke up this morning and weighed 4 lbs more than yesterday on my scale!!! Ooof.

Oh well. We'll see what it is tomorrow.

Daddy and TJ are playing catch with the golden ball filled with floating glitter. It's the ball that I tell TJ is the Be Nice to Julia ball, he gets to use it when he is good to his sister. It's banging hard on the floor when a throw is missed and we are afraid it's going to conk Julia.

Daddy: This ball is so heavy, let's use another one.

TJ: OK.

Daddy: I wonder why this ball is so heavy.

TJ: It is full of Mommy love.

Leaving the gym today, TJ says "I need to get a drink from the sprinkler."

Leaving the post office today, TJ says "we are missing someone."

"Who?" I asked, looking into the seat to make sure we have Julia with us.

"Dada." he says.

Aw.

Miami to celebrate 40 years. Almost 30 of those as best friends.

The Cape to celebrate another 40 years.

NGARI stuff, as I so lovingly call it, and a conference to go along with it.

Gym, both mine and Little and school.

Finding a full-time gig for TJ.

Air Force and long days and promotions and inspections.

Babysitters and not doing laundry and no walks for the Rottens.

Swimming lessons as a participant in the pool and as a spectator out of the pool.

Leases and 4-year-old birthdays and willing babies to walk and Dominican Republic.

And that is what my summer has been made up of.

Oh, and my dog just got sprayed by a skunk.

17 months, world's fastest crawler.

She stands strongly now, but feels most comfortable when her hands are touching solid matter, a chair, the couch, my leg.

She has started a new way to get around, by walking on her knees. It is a funny sight.

Julia, eating: Nummm, yumm yum yum, yum, yum, numm, yum.