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

[ 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.

Adventure Time

Shae has a bunch of stuff coming up this week that is probably a much bigger deal to me than it is to her: first flat-ironings, dance recitals, graduation, stuff like that. Milestones are kind of meaningless when you're six and your whole life is literally ahead of you. Of course, I'll be a total cracked-out mess, as usual, with all the pictures to prove it. In the meantime: a story.

= = = = =

We don't watch a lot of superhero shows in our house. We're not really opposed to them, in theory, but Shae is highly suggestible and we're just trying to be proactive about any potential behavioral changes that might result from exposure to stuff she's not ready for. Others probably call this a symptom of the "pussification" of our children; they're probably correct to a large degree. But at the same time, these Others don't have to live with a kid who thinks that all adopted children -- e.g., Superman, Hercules, the Power Puff Girls -- have either super powers or Daddy Warbuckses.

But like every kid ever born in America ever, my kid is at least aware of your major superheroes. Batman, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, etc. It might be a while before she understands why funny sideburns and yellow Spandex sometimes makes Mommy weak in the knees (by the old gods and the new, I hope this remains the case), but she knows who the X-Men are. And she already knows that when she grows up, she's going to be the superhero who saves everybody, "not just some silly boy who only saves the pretty girls with down hair."

So why is this blog post all pictures of my niece running around my uncle's back yard wearing a scarf around her neck, superhero-style?

Because more than once, when someone asked her who she was pretending to be, while she was doing this very thing ...

... my niece said, "Super-Shae!" And Shae would reply, "Makayla is my hero." And they were both right.

Nuttin' For Christmas

Merry Christmas, Internet.


See you in a few days.

Forward

First things first: obviously, I'm not doing NaBloPoMo this year. Or NaNoWriMo, either, for that matter. Just in case you were wondering.

Second things second: I'm sorry it's been forever and a day since I last posted. Would it help if I told you that in the meantime I've been driving through a hurricane and somehow landing myself in an honor society? No?

Third things third: because I know my audience (hi, Mom!) here are some pictures. I'm putting up the Halloween ones first because there is less than a week left until Thanksgiving and the pictures of the kids rolling around in the leaves will still be appropriate then.

 

It is COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE to get a photo of these guys where they're all looking in the same direction at the same time. But they ARE totes adorbs (hi, babe!) so WHATEVER.

  

Joey and Jacob may not, technically, have been aware that I was taking their picture here, but they're sure cute. And also total clones of my sisters, so obviously we know who their mother is.

  

I hope I never get tired of how Makayla follows Shae around everywhere, and how Shae does her best to be a good big sister, even though these two are cousins.

  

Of course, it is hard not to love this face, or this kid, who lets me pretend to eat her face and loves to play along with my favorite game, "Don't Drop The Baby!" When I say, "Don't drop the baby!" now, she says it right along with me. I miss this age, kind of, sometimes. And then I remember how often you have to say "No" to a two-year-old and I get over it.

  

If you think about it too long and too hard (or if, for example, you are a future literature teacher who's actually read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and not just seen the Disney version of the movie), there is probably something inappropriate about letting my kid dress up as Esmeralda for Halloween.

  

But you know what? I've been accused of far worse than indulging my kid and her desire to redefine what makes a "princess," you know?

Wish You Were Here

On Monday -- just three days from now -- Shae starts kindergarten. I KNOW. Didn't we just have her first birthday party like a week ago? They weren't messing around when they said time flies. Like, it was JUST Memorial Day, wasn't it? And now here we are, face to face, a couple of Silver Spoons ... WAIT. Wrong song.

ANYWAY. Shae and my sister and my niece and my parents and I played hooky on Wednesday and went to the beach, to soak up some sun and splash in the surf while we still can. (Also, we knew someone who was down there for the week, so we could stay overnight.) And you know what?

It was kind of a last-minute, game-time decision, but it was exactly the right one. It's funny how sometimes you don't realize how much you just need a mental-health, stress-relief, photosynthesizin' kind of day until you're in the middle of one and you're already 90+ pages into a book and you're sort of half sunk into the sand and you find yourself thinking, "Where has this place been all my life?"

And it was pretty much the perfect day off, too. Temps in the low 80's, low humidity, bright sunshine but not too hot, hardly anybody on the beach really, nice warm water, waves a little rough but nothing we couldn't handle. If you open the dictionary to "perfection," there is probably a picture of a day just like that.

I'm not the sort of person who normally just takes off on a Wednesday, just because, but you know what? I can be convinced.