Tickles

Holding Cortland today he sneaked his hand in my sleeve and tickled me, which made me laugh, which got him excited and made him wiggle his fingers, which tickled even more and made me laugh harder in turn entertained C making him wiggle even more. Vicious cycle. What fun!

I was in the kitchen doing dishes when I heard C's toy start singing. He made it make noise on purpose for the very 1st time!

Not a Badge of Honor

Conversation with my hairdresser in September:

ME: Angel, do you see any gray in there? Because I swear I found a gray hair last week.

ANGEL: Nope, no grays. Not a single one. You probably found a really blonde hair.


Fast-forward to the conversation last week at the hairdresser:

ME: It's such a pretty day. It's so nice to get out of the house. How have you been? How's your daughter? Grace did the cutest thing yesterday... We need to remember to make an appointment for Alan... Angel? Angel? Are you listening?

ANGEL: (while picking up hair and looking at sections all over my head) Have you been painting your ceilings?

More IA Pictures

More pictures of IA courtesy of
THIS LADY!


The mad scientist and his loyal minions.

Mwhhhhhh, haahaaaaa

Two of my favorite crazy people.

Simon and Cortland


Thank you Corie for everything!

Video

Trip to IA

We went to Cedar Rapids, IA this weekend to visit my family. Thank you for all of the wonderful hospitality. (And by hospitality I totally mean Lemon Bars. I could have eaten the whole pan.) We had such a good time and it was so nice to see everyone. We appreciate everyone adjusting their schedules so we could see you.

I was sad that the snow was almost gone because I wanted to see Alan with blue lips after he got back from sledding. Some strange lady in line at Michael's overheard me say that and was not shy to voice her opinion. In fact her exact words were, "We're not going to keep this damn snow around any longer than we have to just so some southerner can go sledding." She sounded like she needed a little nappie-nap.

At least there was enough snow for a little snowball fight right after we got there. I won by the way. My opponent was shaking snow out of his/her clothes forever after the fight, and it still melted down the back of his/her pants. I'm not going to point fingers or name names, but you know who you are. Totally owned. I'm the winner winner chicken dinner. (Heeeheeeee. I've been waiting for a chance to say that!)

Cortland held up very well. Every day was just a little louder than the one before. The last day consisted of a cheerleading and dance competition in Iowa City. I heard Alan tell Cortland that after the noise of the 2,000+ cheerleaders and spectators in the coliseum that he's now prepared for a visit to an active volcano. Maybe a field trip for next month?

We're home now and I miss walking around on the hotel carpet that felt like rows of little sponges.

We look forward to going back for another visit soon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zachary, Simon and Olivia excavating a brick looking for valuable stones. What you don't see is Alan sitting on the other side of the table. He took his turn just like the rest of them, wearing the goggles and all.


Below is Olivia who is the one who was competing in the cheerleading competition. She was very good and I'm glad we got to see her perform. I just regret that we didn't bring our camera in.

Taylor

And now for all of the holding baby photos. Corie has a few more that I hope she will email me.



Zachary thought that the sleeping Cortland needed a doggie on his shoulder for moral support.

In the hotel in St. Louis.

The Theys

Sometimes The Theys get it right. And sometimes they get it wrong.

Here is one of my experiences.

1. The Theys say if it hurts during breastfeeding then you're doing it wrong.

I thought The Theys were C-R-A-Z-Y when they told me this. C would do okay for a few days and then it was like his tongue was made out of sandpaper! It's much better now. I'm not sure what changed. Maybe his mouth grew. Or maybe my boobs have lost all feeling and are permanently damaged. No, that one can't be it, because every once in a while C will roll my nipple around on the roof of his mouth like a Skittle. That hurts.

I have to mostly agree with The Theys on this one. Breastfeeding does get better after awhile. Of course I hold the right to revisit this topic the next time C cracks my girls.

Smiling

Turn down the sound before playing this. The baw, baw, baw's are loud and annoying. (Actually, anything in my voice is a little grating to my ears.)

My Pretty Husband

I still think Alan is so beautiful that it makes my heart skip a beat when I look at him. Especially now when I see what a wonderful daddy he is.

Cortland Pics

Marla sent Cortland this little outfit that used to be Alan's. Put's me in the mind of Shaft...



Here is C on the blankets Kiwi made for him. Aren't they pretty?


And here is just an all around happy baby!

Hope everyone has a great day! Love, Cortland

The Eyes Have It

I found the neatest site to figure out what color Cortland's eyes will be.
He has a 37.5% chance for blue eyes
12.5% chance for green eyes
50% chance of having brown eyes.

Maybe C will get to keep these pretty blues.


Try it and tell me if any of your kids beat the odds for brown eyed dominance.

Petco, Where the Pets Go - To Die

Tonight at dinner I was reminded of an email I sent to the CEO of Petco.

Gotta love PMS. Every once in awhile I see something from my past that just screams "I need to be on meds! Now!"

Mr. Myers never did respond nor did any of the other 12 Petco people I cc'ed on the letter. Not even a standard "thank you for contacting us and now we're going to put you on the spam email list!" email. Dead fish everywhere. Sad. :(

September 16, 2006

Dear Mr. Myers:

I was in Petco store #1628 in Cordova, TN on Germantown Pkwy this afternoon to purchase fish. I was appalled at the horrible condition of the tanks. Literally half of the fish for sale were dead. Many of the remaining fish were gasping at the top of the tanks. Most of the remaining live fish were obviously not healthy.

Two freshwater Puffer Fish were dead in the bottom of their tank while the other fish were eating the fins off of their carcasses. I watch a mother scrambling to explain to her two small children why these fish were eating each other. The children were, for obvious reasons, very upset, as was the mother.

I advised the person at the register that the fish tanks were in terrible need of attention. He apologetically told me he was the person in charge of the fish department and he was aware of the tanks condition, but that the store was short staffed and he had to work as a cashier. I imagine that he didn’t ring up any fish, as there isn’t a huge market for the dead variety. Short staffing on a Saturday is not an efficient way to manage a store.

Obviously, I walked out of your store without purchasing fish, or any other merchandise for that matter. A store and company that has such an obvious disregard for living animals, regardless of the species, is not where I choose to spend my time or money.

Dead fish may be an unimportant issue for some, but, for me, it is an indication that Petco does not care about the quality or integrity of its products and services. Therefore, the store does not care about the customers or their pets.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I hope that this store is simply an oversight in management at store #1628, and that a solution will be implemented to rectify this inexcusable situation.


Sincerely,

Skye C.

I should have sent a heads up to the RESCUE Aid Society instead. They would have gotten results.

On a different subject loosely related - Back in the olden days, before VCR's, I had the LP record of the Rescuers and followed the story along in a picture book. I still know all of the words. And I still cry at this part-

And this part-

Driving in Memphis

It took every bit of control I had not to grab the pizza box blowing through the red light intersection I was stopped at and write "THE SPEED LIMIT IS 50!" and poke it in the drivers side window of all the nimrods in front of me who were going 35mph.

No amount of medication can keep me from wanting to run over some Memphis drivers. Germantown Pkwy is my own personal hell.

Snow Day!

It's snowing big, fat flakes this morning!

Alanisims

Alan just told Cortland, "winner, winner chicken dinner." instead of neener neener neener.

He makes me smile.

Cortland Smiling

I sound like a crazy person on these videos just so everyone can see the baby smile. The things I do for you.

Courtland, MS

I got to play this new game today called Elefun when Cortland and I visited Dian and Elaina in Courtland, MS. This elephant sits on the ground with its trunk in the air spitting out butterflies that you have to catch with a butterfly net. Of course Elaina totally won because every time the butterflies came out I would get so excited I'd forget to catch them. Someday we are going to have that game and I'm going to make Cortland play it with me for hours. Mwhhhh-haaaaa.

Elaina just turned four and is the cutest little girl. She fell in love with Cortland and always wanted to hold him by herself.

Cortland was crying a little after he ate and she must have listened to everything I said because about three hours later when Dian was holding him and he was fussing, Elaina promptly told her that "she just has to make a bubble."


Elaina never did get that Cortland is a him and not a her. When left alone with him for a few minutes Elaina managed to sneak a pink bracelet on his arm. After that she and I went off to see if we could find a tiara and some princess shoes small enough to fit the baby, but sadly we were unsuccessful or we would have a picture of him with more than just the jewelry. Dian just kept shaking her head saying Alan was going to have our heads on a platter.


And a random picture of Grace and me taken by Kiwi a few weeks ago.

By Special Request...

Grandpa didn't know I was videotaping. Isn't he cute?!


Alan was trying to record a smile. We'll keep trying.

The rare picture of Cortland with his Mommy


And finally a picture of Cortland with his friend Elise who we went to visit today.

Random

Cortland smells like a potato chip when he needs a bath.

Not as Mad as Before re: CPSIA

Today I spoke to Paul, the very friendly owner of the Once Upon a Child franchise in Cordova, TN and asked him if the new law was going to affect his business. He said that he had a panic attack back in August when the Act was 1st passed, but the Attorney General of FL just recently clarified that resell shops will not have to retest the merchandise they are selling. They will just have to be confident that the products are in complience as they are still held to the same standards and the manufactures.

Armed with this new knowledge I came straight home and did a little research and here's what I found out:

10connects.com out of Tampa Bay, FL reported late yesterday that, per Julie Julie Vallese, Director of Public Affairs for the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission), "Used resale items are different than retail products, under the law. The new law does not require resale stores to test products."

Vallese goes on to say that resale stores "do not have to carry certification from a third party testing lab." However," she says, "Those retailers [resale store owners] cannot sell products that do not meet new lead requirements."

This is very good news for the resale and consignment shops and for the consumer who thinks it's ridiculous to pay for new clothes when resold clothing is still in excellent condition.