Just Keeping It Real

I just thought you should know that my brilliant, sensitive, and obviously very advanced seven-year-old son has been licking the window on the front door now for the past five minutes.

This is what happens when summer break lingers on and you get bored and start behaving in a way that makes your mom lock you out of the house*. But you can totally get back at her by making stupid noises and licking the door window. That'll show her.

Lick away, Cubby. As long as you stay outside.

P.S. I did not take a picture, because honestly, it was kind of gross. I don't think anyone needs a permanent record of a tongue pressed on glass. Ew.

* Yes, I do indeed literally lock them out with some regularity. The last time I did it, I locked myself out with them (with the key in my pocket, of course) to keep a stubborn Charlie outside while I weeded the garden. They didn't know I had the key, though. They were convinced we were going to have to live outside--and were not at all upset by this notion--so they spent the next couple of hours making wooden toys for their fort and gathering supplies for survival. They didn't even notice when I went back inside. And that's why I lock them out. They want to be outside, they just don't always know it.

We'll Skip the Elephant, Thanks

Today A. and I will celebrate our fourteenth wedding anniversary. And by "celebrate," I mean we will be driving six hours in a car with three small children and a very large dog on our way back to the north country from Blackrock.

Better than fishing dead rodents out of a cistern. Good thing we set the bar so low on that anniversary, right?

According to the silly list of themed gifts, from which I have always derived great amusement, the fourteenth anniversary calls for "ivory/elephant" as the traditional gift--I can see why that was nixed--and gold jewelry as the modern gift.

I'm just happy that our couch is coming up to our new house in the trailer we're pulling behind the car so I no longer have to cram my pregnant self* on a love seat to read books to the children. I would much rather have the couch than a bracelet. And it's appropriate, considering the couch was our wedding gift from the MiL.

I think I can best sum up marriage to A. by saying that when I hear this song, I always think, "Thank God I got one of the better men." Even after fourteen years. Or maybe especially after fourteen years.

Happy anniversary to A., one of the best men I know.

* Speaking of pregnant, I did indeed fail my glucose test. Three months of blood sugar testing and glycemic index analysis ahoy. Bah.

An Excess of Glowing

Here we are at Blackrock for a week of family fun and revelry, and I cannot stop sweating.

I know. It's charming.

But seriously. After a year in the often frozen and almost always dry north country I had forgotten how damn humid it can get here. That's what does it. It's not the heat--yesterday the high was only 82 degrees--it's the fact that the sweat never evaporates.

It's really too bad that I'm not one of those people who glows or gently perspires, either. Nope. It's just sweating. And it's not helped any by my somewhat advanced state of pregnancy*, I'm sure.

I realized yesterday that while I may get hot at our new house (mostly because the sun tends to be quite strong), I didn't remember the last time I actually had beads of sweat on my face. And everywhere else, which means you're left feeling constantly damp and uncomfortable.

I suppose this means a return to my ancestral city of New Orleans is out of the question.

It's supposed to cool down somewhat after today, but the humidity isn't going anywhere and there's a chance of thunderstorms every day. More sweat.

I'll almost certainly be singing a very different and unhappy tune come April when there's still snow on the ground, but for now . . . go north, young woman. If only to dry out.

* I don't have the results from the gestational diabetes test yet. I'm not holding out on you, I just left town and don't know myself yet.