Curly Straight

Sick.

My hair hurts.

So does the rest of me.

Julia tells me "I need another haircut. My last one is almost gone."

Julia uses the word "actually" often and perfectly.

TJ is 6!

On his birthday, he and John met me for lunch. It was very sweet. They saw a movie first, then stopped at the store and TJ picked out a stuffed Eeyore that's he's been carrying around ever since.

John pointed out the window to a cement (concrete?) truck, and TJ was fascinated by it, so we went out while John paid the bill.

We crossed the street to watch the cement come down the tunnel and go onto the sidewalk.

One of the guys came over and told TJ "it's pretty cool, right, but you don't want to do this for a living. Look at my knees," pointing to the holes in his jeans. "Stay in school. Be a doctor."

"Or own the company!" I chirp in. "Yeah, or an engineer, be an engineer. Or a doctor. Stay in school. Years from now, you remember a wise man told you to stay in school so you don't have to do this job."

TJ didn't really respond, nodded a little and we headed on our way.

John caught up with us.

TJ's first words to him "Daddy! We met a wise man!"

And he repeated the entire conversation.

When Julia likes something she's eating, she rubs her belly and says "yum yum yum."

really good presents for a 6 year old boy are

1. a magic kit

2. a nerf gun

Those are his two favorites by far, so far.

Maybe I need to buy a big bag for stuff. Or maybe I just need to realize that I can't juggle 8 items in my hands at once.

TWICE today, I dropped things. Twice.

Once in the store and once in the garage.

I picked up the kids today and God forbid, you don't bring a snack.

So I stop at the grocery store and grab snacks. Peanut butter crackers, strategically placed for the Impulse Buyer (aka Me), but I'm not sure if they like those, so I grab goldfish too. And they need to have drinks, or else I will hear "I'm thirsty, Mama, I'm thirsty!" (and it's in really cute - albeit whiny - little voices, but I don't want them to be thirsty) so I grab a vanilla milk and a chocolate milk. As I'm walking to the milk, I see the 80 calorie snack individual wrapped up cheddar cheese. Oooo, I bet they would eat those. Plus good for lunches! Score! Grab, balance. Oh! Look! Babybel cheese! So cute in it's little wax holder. And on sale, too. Mine.

OK, I have no more room on top of my hands, which are delicately gripping the peanut butter crackers, goldfish, two types of cheeses and two milks. Oh, and my Hobo clutch is somehow involved. Which at least fits my cell phone in it and my keys too, although it's quite possible that those were in my hand as well. (It's kind of a habit. A bad habit, but a habit. I'm surprised I don't lose them more.)

I get to the register and BOOM! lose the vanilla milk. The girl is so awesome, wipes it up from the floor while I run to get another one, apologizing away when she's still in earshot. Where was she later when I needed a cleanup in my garage?

Toby Cat is meowing at me and the cat food is in the garage. I go out there (scary in itself) and find it balanced on top of two cases of seltzer. Mmm. That seltzer looks good.

I grab a 6-pack of the lime, along with 3 cat food cans and a 12-pack of toilet paper. BOOM! A can slips out of the seltzer holder and smashes onto the floor.

pssssshhhhhhhhhhhh, I hear it start to spray out of the side of the can. So yes, there may have been some shotgunning of a seltzer going on in my garage tonight.

I am so not a competitive person. I'm really not. I won't argue unless I'm 99.9 percent I'm right. I know I'm never going to win a road race and I'm ok with that. I don't need to be first, although some people who walk with me may argue with that.

The one place I do strive for excellence at the dentist. All I ever want is for them to say "no plaque. You win!" And it never happens.

I floss. I brush. I go to the dentist and the dental hygienist teaches me how to do it again. Every time. And I go in with high hopes that they will be so impressed with my glistening, plaque-less teeth, and every time I go in and lay down and I get the scrape, scrape, scrape, euw, disgusting. Why oh why can't I figure out how to be the best flosser?

So, yesterday after almost falling asleep while she was brushing my teeth because she had me rinse and I laid back down on the chair and shut my eyes and got so comfortable and forgot to open my mouth, because I was so relaxed, which is sad, but I think it has to do with being a mom and I kind of zoned out until she said "are you ready?" which could have been 5 minutes, could have been an hour. And after my FMX (that's dental talk for full mouth x-ray), I'm getting my bi-annual mouth cleaning lesson from the dental hygienist, who incidentally, I love because she remembers where I work and who my husband is and my kid's names and I only see her every six months. That's hard core, right there.

She gave me a new toothbrush that she thinks is going to be good for me. Colgate. The Wave. It's skinnier than most toothbrushes.

And she had me show her my technique. I think once I read that you are supposed to brush in circles so that's been my thing for years. She put the kibosh on that and taught me a new brushing technique. No circles, straight back and forth lines, and higher up on the tooth.

Then she asks me if I need any floss. "No, I'm good. I only like Glide." She literally gasps and tells me not to use that anymore. "There's a reason it's called Glide, it glides right over the plaque."

She also told me I need to wear the nightguard they made especially for me a few years ago. Which would mean I need to find the nightguard first. No real incentive there. I think it's going to hurt.

Anyway, I can't wait until my next appointment, because I'm pretty sure between the new brushing technique and the new floss she gave me, the next time is going to be THE time.

Is this a good answer to a 6-year-old boy's question of "why?":

"Because that's how we roll."

I just dropped it on him and it seemed to work.

On hold forever today for financial stuff.*

The opening greeting says "If you have a touch tone phone, press one. If you have a rotary phone, please stay on the line."

Seriously?

Rotary phone?

Do those even exist anymore?

*I called 16 times in the last 2 days and got through once. They told me to go to the website. I don't make this shit up.

So we didn't have cable for a long time. We have it now, because John missed watching the Sox. I support that decision. However, I am not in the habit of watching normal tv, so I still use netflix and the channel's website to watch shows. I stumbled across this show that I got hooked on, the Hard Times of RJ Berger. An awkward, high school thing about a nerdy kid who gets bullied by the school jock.

It's got some interesting characters and some good lines in it. Kind of like Glee but no singing involved. The 2nd season ended on a cliffhanger and I was googling how to find season 3. I had no idea if this was a recent show or not.

And it's canceled! So I'm never going to find out the next part of the storyline.
Moving onto the show entitled Awkward to get my fix.