Happy Halloween (A Little Late) (Okay, A LOT Late, Shut Up)

Here are some pictures of our trip to Hersheypark in the Dark. It was awesome, as you can see.

This costume turned out to be one of Shae's better ideas -- and, yes, it was hers. She wanted to be "Bad Sandy" from Grease. I drew the line at the leather pants because I am decidedly anti-yeast-infection. She really looks like a generic "Pink Lady" but with her particular hair and the faux-pleather jacket it's pretty easy to make the connection. (She's also on record more than once as being dressed as "Lela" from Teen Beach Movie, if you're into that sort of thing.)

Movin' up in the world! Last time I took a "you must be this tall" picture at Hersheypark, Shae was a Hershey's Kiss (36" to 42" tall). Now she'd be a Twizzler (54" to 60" tall) if she'd stand up straight. I am not complaining, because I got to avoid roller coasters for most of the day by claiming height restrictions. We'll see what happens when we go back later this year, around Christmastime.

It's much more funner to be at Hersheypark when you're with other kids -- Shae had a "ride buddy" for most of the day. By the time my niece is finally tall enough to go on the big kid rides and coasters with Shae (in approximately 2025), I'll be able to just hang out in the Food Court, as God intended parents to do.

Yes, we had a costume change in the middle of the day. My niece went to participate in the Hershey Half Marathon Kids' Fun Run and while we were already in the parking lot, we switched over to warmer clothes and more comfortable (read: not school) shoes.

We stayed out until dark, which we've never done at Hersheypark before. Granted, we normally go in the summertime, when it doesn't get dark until 10pm instead of 6pm, but still. Shae was even going to get a chance to go on a coaster with her Daddy, until it started to rain and all the "good" rides shut down. (Her word, not mine.)

A (mostly) good time was had by all. (And of course there was free candy, which never hurts.)

Children of the Candy Corn

Earlier this month, we took a seasonally appropriate trip to the pumpkin patch to go ... pumpkin patching, I guess. Is there a verb for what one does in a pumpkin patch when one is not Courtney Stodden? (Don't run out and Google "Courtney Stodden pumpkin patch," okay? Trust me on this one.)

This is what you wear to the pumpkin patch when you're my kid: a Halloween-themed T-shirt that is maybe but not quite too small, but still big enough to wear in public, generally speaking; pieces of not one, but TWO years' worth of Halloween costumes over capri pants, because hey, why the hell not; an assortment of LiveStrong-style bracelets from only God knows what organizations (I think one of them might say "Got Milk?"); and one leg warmer as an arm cover.

Oh, and let me take this opportunity to point out that it was in the mid-70's that day. So, you know.

The short version of the story is that those tiny little pumpkins were a huge hit. Also the gourds. I am a fan of gourds, and I have to say that the kids all had an excellent eye for nice, nubby, grotty-looking gourds that look positively fantastic in a nice arrangement that my husband made at home in a pretty red bowl. LOOK AT THAT: married almost fifteen years, and I am still learning about his special skills.

Perhaps unexpectedly, my favorite part of this pumpkin patch trip was traipsing "through the corn maze" -- a/k/a looking for Indian corn. The kids found some pretty Indian corn, too, and we let them run around in the cornfields for so long that I'm pretty sure we had them convinced that they were actually in the corn maze that was advertised in great big letters all over the place. (I don't "do" corn mazes, because with my luck I'll get stuck out there forever and they'll need to call out the National Guard to find me and it will be too late because Voldermort will have already ported me away to Little Hangleton and I think it's possible at this point that I might be getting my pop-culture references confused again.)

SPOILER ALERT: There were pony rides. There are ALWAYS pony rides at these things.

Shae did end up finding us a lovely pumpkin that she and G carved up the very next day, and which ended up in the trash already because hey did you know that fresh pumpkins can get all gross and moldy and "smell like the cat's butt"? Trust me on that one, too: we learned that the hard way.

Special thanks to Anthony's mom for letting me us his picture. Thanks, Anthony's mom!

Coast of Carolina

Oh yeah ... vacation. We've been home for more than a month, so it's probably time to put some pictures up, isn't it?

Truth be told, I haven't written about vacation yet because I'm practicing my usual Zennish strategy of better living through denial. It's like, if I pretend that vacation isn't over yet, then it isn't.

It was our usual family vacation: a chaotic mess of early rising, child limbs, Crocs, pancakes, ice cream, tantrums, Disney movies, mismatched outfits, and missing pacifiers -- and that was all on the first morning.

The weather wasn't the greatest, too hot the first few days and almost too cold after that, and the ocean was cold even by my standards (in the mid-60s, which -- look, I can tolerate A LOT, but I draw the line at hypothermia on vacation, you know?), but we barely even noticed, to be honest.

All the kids were just phenomenal. My sister's boys get more awesome every day, my niece is just the bee's knees, my kid was fairly well behaved most of the time ...

... there are even a couple of photos with ME in them, for a change, although let's be honest here and admit that I have GOT to learn how to pose so that I don't look like I'm made up of, like, 75% boobs and back fat.

I always hesitate to say that I can't wait to do it again, because that's such a gigantic understatement. I'm ready to go on vacation again pretty much the second we get in the car to come home. If I ruled the world and could do whatever I wanted, I'd arrange it so that we could all be together whenever we wanted, always.

Are we going back there, to the coast of Carolina?

As soon as possible.

PS - If you're interested in seeing ALL my vacation photos (all the good ones, anyway), you can view them here, including the Instagrams. If I can figure out how, I'll add my sisters' pictures, too.

Wordless Wednesday: Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

I Am The Worst #SorryNotSorry

MY GOD. I am terrible at blogging, which is probably why I'm never going to get a gajillion dollar book deal like Lena Dunham or Aziz Ansari. (Also, they're talented, and I'm ... whatever I am.) You could sue me over the lack of updates, but remember that I'm a broke-ass graduate student with basically NOTHING except a 12-year-old Volkswagen with 185,000 miles on it. Good luck with that.

Pretty much everybody else in the entire blogosphere (is that still a thing, even?) is doing back-to-school posts this week, but Shae doesn't start school until the Wednesday after Labor Day -- next week -- so I'll take this chance to let you know what we've been up to since mid-July when I posted last, and then I'll put up first-day-at-her-new-school pictures when they're taken, and then I'll probably forget I even HAVE a blog for, like, eleventeen weeks at a time. Again.

I mean, I went back to school this week -- my last semester of classes before student teaching, I'm scared, hold me -- but Shae is basically off having adventures with assorted relatives until next Tuesday. Yesterday and today she's with my mother-in-law, getting unauthorized haircuts and mani-pedis and stuff like that, while I'm freebasing caffeine because I'd forgotten how INSANE it is to get up at 6:00 in the morning and got to work and then go to class until 9:30 at night and THEN try to drive home without crashing into a cornfield/cow pasture while driving through the dark, quiet Butter Valley. That is a long-ass day, people.

But, you know, honey badger don't care. Tonight we're going to see her for a very short while before we shuffle her off to the next volunteer, who has been threatening for months to take Shae fishing. That ought to be interesting, because my kid has the same attitude about creatures with fewer than two and greater than four legs that I do (i.e., ewwww!). Then tomorrow night she'll be staying with my parents, who have a tent in the backyard and hopefully gallons of DDT, because the mosquitoes love my kid this year.

I miss her desperately, you know. And I'm so very, very jealous.

[ Something Witty Should Appear Here ]

AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH.

It's hot and humid and I have a sinus headache and my kid is watching some trippy "educational" programming on HBO that involves talking dancing shoelaces (!!!) and I have an 8-page Canterbury Tales paper due at 3:00 on Monday and my brain is basically completely fried.

So here: have some random, almost completely decontextualized pictures!

This is from before 4th of July. I may be alone in this, but I think there is basically nothing in the world more adorable than a wet child in neon colors who smells of Coppertone and chlorine screaming for joy. This is pretty much my happy place, right here. The only thing that would making this picture better, IMNSHO, would be if (1) this were my own kid, and (2) neons were not involved. I lived through the original mid-1980s neon fad, and I am not so excited about this day-glo revival, because I have eyeballs, and I'd like to keep them.

I would like to find the bozobrain who taught my kid the word "chillax" and punch them in the neck (unless it's a kid, in which case I'd like to punch his parent in the neck). Otherwise, camp has been a rousing success so far -- even though (1) Shae doesn't quite understand the words "boa" and "constrictor," although she DOES understand the concept of one, and (2) this picture was taken at my grandmother's.

This bubble is approximately 8,000 years old. Shae used to wear it. Of course, I can't find pictures of Shae wearing it because I never tagged any photos or blog posts with "bubble."

These pictures are actually from July 4th. And, it's a good thing my sister is teaching my niece to play pinochle now, at a very young age, because I am 39 years old and I still don't know how to bid. I am basically the world's least competent card shark. (I'm great at spades, though.)

This what July 4th looked like -- an ENTIRE DAY of my crazy kid being crazy. It was pretty awesome, actually, although it was too damned hot.

I included this picture for no particular reason except that I love these two.

The Life Aquatic with Boo Zissou

I make no secret of the fact that summer is my favorite season of the year: long days, grilled food, iced tea, fresh lemonade, freeze pops watching fireworks, catching fireflies.

I am not really the sort of person who loves strenuous activity -- I'm a Taurus, after all, and we are better known for our love of sensuous things like basking in the sun with a good book and an icy cold beverage -- but even I can appreciate the well-earned kind of exhaustion that comes from a day spent playing cards, chasing the kids through the yard, getting sticky from eating juicy watermelon in the grass.

And, of course, the pool. We all already know that summer is Shae's favorite time of the year because she has pretty much unfettered access to an assortment of swimming pools.

Summer is our happy place. There is a specific set of smells that makes me unbelievably, almost intoxicatingly happy. I catch a whiff of it sometimes when I hold my niece these days. I smell it on Shae every day when she comes home from camp. It is a combination of things that signifies summer and instantly transports me to a time when I was a kid myself.

Chlorine and Coppertone. Add in some bug spray and nail polish remover, and it's like a drug for me. It's a high that's can't be matched by legal or illicit pharmaceuticals of any stripe. It just ...

... it's what summer IS.

Graduation / Recital Weekend

Shae graduated from kindergarten on June 14th. I've been trying to write about it since then, but I haven't really been able to, because this happened ...

... and it promptly (and repeatedly) made me lose my ever-loving shit.

"Tomorrow" is totally my jam, you guys. It is dorky and irrational and whatever, but this song has gotten me through SO MUCH in the last 39 years. I saw "Annie" on Broadway way back when I was somewhere around Shae's age, and it's stuck with me all that time. Formative years, and whatnot. "Tomorrow" is not just adorable when sung by a bunch of adorable little moppets -- it's practically anthemic.

No, seriously. I know my soul has become blackened and singed and poisoned with snark over the years (SPOILER ALERT: this is what happens to optimistic idealists who forcibly become cynical realists over time) but when stuff is bad, I mean REALLY bad, I still stick out my chin and grin and say, "The sun'll come out tomorrow." It doesn't make everything better, not right away, but it keeps me from self-medicating, a lot of the time.

Related: had I known that the class's performance was going to be SO MOVING (shut up I'm a sap we all know this already don't you judge me), then I would have left her hair in its natural state, because COME ON. Her curls are PERFECT for singing songs from "Annie."

They are not quite as perfect for fitting under a graduation cap, however. (I just realized I never posted any pictures from last year's preschool graduation, probably because we had that tragic, tragic haircut and then we left pretty much right away for Chicago, but here's a link for reference. We have about 33% fewer teeth this year, not that you can tell, but we're offsetting that by about 500% more hair, so I'd call that pretty much a wash.)

As if graduation wasn't enough of an emotional wringer, Shae's first official dance recital was they very next day. She's already been in a Christmas pageant of sorts, but this was the first Big One: costumes, lighting, tickets, flowers, etc. Her class danced to "I Feel Pretty," which was another emotional rollercoaster for me, because one of the greatest times of my life was being in West Side Story in college, so of course the entire thing was fraught with DRAMEMORIES!

Everybody came to see her -- mother-in-law, parents, my sister and niece and even my brother-in-law -- so my kid was pretty much over the moon about all of the attention. She's already talking about next year. We ordered official pictures and the performance DVD and whatnot, and I'll figure out how to include that stuff later without violating copyrights (no lie, I am SCARED of the lady who runs the dance school and I DO NOT want her to come after me), but here is a little behind-the-scenes footage in the meantime:

(By the way, ALL the girls in her class did that, for 45 MINUTES, while they were waiting to go on in the second half of the show. I got dizzy just watching them.)