Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Our fablous long weekend

Our weekend in Colorado was positively lovely. While the everyday grind at home is once again stressing me out, I must say that this weekend was totally relaxing.

Friday we got in decently early and had a great time just catching up with the fam. I love J's sister...she's the kind of friend I can go months without seeing and feel completely comfortable with the instant we meet again. We had so much fun that she's coming tomorrow for a visit. Yippie!

Saturday it was off to see Thomas. J's sister offered to drop us off downtown to avoid the parking nightmare, but J suggested that we instead park at the mall and take the shuttle bus in like we did last year. Long story short: as much as Cracker loved riding behind Thomas, we could have saved ourselves $60 and just ridden the shuttle bus around all day. Amazingly, the Cracker kept his underpants dry too, even though we were never near a potty. And try as I might, he will not pee anywhere but in a potty. What's the point of a wee if you won't just pee behind any old bush?

A lot of parents have asked me what Thomas looks like in person. Do they throw a printed tarp over a locomotive? No. This stuff is for real.
















And if your child asks why Thomas doesn't respond when spoken to, it's because this really useful engine is BUSY thinking about his upcoming journey. I'd buy that.

The Thomas thing is really a whole event, not just a train ride. They have a petting zoo (sponsered by the FFA) and even temporary tattoos for all. We learned at the tatt station, after 3 failures, that we were the only parents who put sunscreen on their kid. "Oh, wait...did YOU put sunscreen ON HIM?!" Uh, yeah. "Oh, they won't stick if you do that!" So you mean that out of the 50 kids in line in front of us, none of them had on sunscreen?

Saturday night we all settled in to watch Son of Dracula staring Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr, which J's sister A had bought off Ebay for their dad for Father's Day. What did J give his dad? A hug.

The day before we left, I spent an hour showing the Cracker pictures of J's family to help him remember them. He's only seen them twice in the last year and I'd really like him to have a relationship with at least J's dad. It paid off. Soon after arriving he named his grandfather Poppa. I don't know where he got it, no one else calls their grandfather Poppa that we know; he calls my own dad Pappy. But I was so happy that grandpa got at least that for Father's Day.

Saturday night we let the Cracker stay up way too late. I finally shuffled him off to bed just after 11pm because he was talking so much that no one could hear the movie. Problem: he had gotten a second wind. I could hear him having a great time taking to himself, and within the hour I also decided to hit the sack. I couldn't even kind of understand the movie because the sound was less than DVD quality and there was no closed captioning. I gave up on hot tubbing with J (hot tubbing is my favorite!) and headed to bed myself.

I got upstairs and lay down in the bed next to him. And, of course, he keeps right on talking.

"HI MOMMY!!!"
"Hey buddy, it's nite-nite time. Okay? Mommy is so tired!"
(5 seconds of silence)
"Momma? Me no nite-nite now. Me wake up! Me ALL DONE nite-nite. Me go play NOW pease."
"No baby, it's time for bed. I love you. Nite-nite."
"Mommy?"
"Yes?"
"Poppa haf two daddys cars!" (His word for Saab.)
"Yes he does."
"Momma?"
"Yes?"
"Poppa haf baby woof woof!"
"Yes, Poppa has a dog, but it's not a baby, just little." (fat Chihuahua)
"NOOOOO! Poppa woof woof baby!"
"Okay, whatever. It's nite-nite time now."
"Momma?"
"What?"
"Poppa baby woof woof go school in school bus?"
"No, Poppa's dog doesn't ride the school bus. Dogs don't go to school." (Wait...there's that Elmo video about going to school. Everybody goes to school, even dogs. Dogs go to obedience school...duh. Oops.)
"Momma?"
"Whaaat?"
"Me need haf dog my house. Otay?"
"No, we're not getting a dog."
"Peeease?"
"No. You have three cats."
"No, me need dog! Me no need titties. Me haf twee titties. Me need dog pease!"
"No." HELL NO.
"Momma? Poppa house E-I-E-O. Poppa haf moo!"
"No honey, Poppa doesn't live on a farm, he just has a lot of grass." And a bunch of 4 wheelers in the yard and maybe a ride on mower in the shed. "The cow isn't real. It's a stuffed animal."
"I know!"

What seemed like hours later, he finally settled down and we started to go to sleep. Then J came in and hell broke loose. Ugh. More with the all done, me wake up, yada yada yada.

Sunday morning we went to breakfast at a Mexican joint. Yum. The Cracker gave us another new word: salsa. J can not handle anything remotely spicy, but some how just living in the Southwest has made my child a salsa whore, even though we never have it at home. (Except me, at night, once he's in bed.) It's just weird.

In I-am-a-food-nazi-news, Poppa and the gang were absolutely amazed once again by what the Cracker will eat. First, because I was running out the door and didn't want to deal with zippered baggies, I grabbed a big ol' bag of magic apples from the fridge to snack on at Poppa's, and he ate them. Then, at dinner on Friday, I got a full sized Caesar salad as my entree that the Cracker ate a good 3/4 of even though I didn't want to share. Salad...AND at a pizza joint! The horror! Then J's stepmom offered him apple juice, even though I said he didn't drink juice, and he took a sip and was done. I won't name names, but someone (okay, it was Poppa) called me a vegan. Uh...no...not even kinda. It was the first and nicest thing that came to his mind, LOL.

We left Sunday night because J had to go to work Monday AM. Can't wait for J's sister to come in tomorrow! I got the impression that she's never been to an adult store with a girlfriend, so I told her I would, of course, take her. And she just got HBO (I still don't, but I rent) so she's never seen Sex and the City, so we'll be watching that too once the kiddos are in bed. Good times!

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