Spiritual Bitamins

So, I've gotten out of the habit of working out since I started working.  (Ironic, no?)  Used to, when I'd take Bradley with me to the Y, on our way out I would let him reach into the plastic fishbowl on the YMCA desk and get a rolled up strip of brightly colored paper upon which a Bible verse is printed.   Bradley was always excited to get his "Spritual Bitamin."  On our way out to the car, we would always read the verse aloud, and then on the way home, Bradley would play with his spiritual vitamin, usually crumpling it to bits.

This past Saturday morning I went to Zumba, and as a surprise, I brought Bradley home a spiritual vitamin.  This was the verse written out, which I thought was sweetly appropriate:

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.  Proverbs 22:6

A Fun (Evans)villed Weekend

We spent last weekend with family in Evansville, and I'm just now getting around to the recap!  (Working full time is exhausting, PS!)

Mom's baby brother, my uncle Michael, lives in Evansville with my aunt Missy (a fellow Delta Zeta), and their three kids, my first cousins, Braedon (age 11), Garrick (age 5), and Addison (age 3).  After our big fourth of July get together, Bradley had been talking about "Indiana" and his cousins (2nd cousins?... 1st cousins once-removed?...) ever since, so we decided another visit was in order.

We drove up on Saturday morning in time to watch Braedon play in his football jamboree.  There he is in orange, #66 about to kick the ball.  Bradley and Addison ate ring pops, and cheered for the game.

Later on back at the house, we colored out front with sidewalk chalk.  See the bottom left picture here- Addison asked me to draw a house, so I did.  I drew "little pink houses for you and me."  The bottom right picture is the aftermath of dad hitting mom in the head with a football, in a non-accidental throw!  There's also some great video footage of the rant as well in the compilation of footage taken from the weekend. 
What happened was that Dad and Braedon and Michael were throwing a football, and mom had a bike helmet on that Bradley had dragged out.  Dad thought it would be funny to hit her in the head with a football since she was "protected."  What ensued was hilarious.  The football hit mom squarely on the head, knocking the helmet to the ground, and it apparently hurt, too, but we were all too busy laughing!

Saturday night we went to an Evansville local pizza place and micro-brewery called Turoni's.  The beer was good, and the pizza was delicious.  Here are pictures from that night with both uncle Michael and aunt Missy.  Bradley and Addison played great together, as B is still too young to care that he was playing with "girl toys."  The two of them snuggled in bed together for a photo op before we split them up to sleep that night.  The picture on the couch is of all the kids on Sunday morning.  It's darn near impossible to get all of them to look at the camera and smile at the same time, so between the two tries I had, this was the best one of all the cousins.

Sunday was spent outdoors in the back yard enjoying the glorious weather.  Michael set up the pools, and the kids had a blast going down their makeshift water slide and jumping on the trampoline.  Bradley started out cautious around the water, and before it was time to go, he was gleefully sliding down from the top of the slide into the pool.  You can see mom got splashed in the top left photo, and the top right is of Garrick landing in the pool.  Their dog Ginger enjoyed laying out in the sun, but she did not enjoy going down the slide (scroll to 6 minutes in the video for that footage).

Thank you Michael & Missy, for a great weekend!  I'm so glad we're only a few hours away, and hope to get together again soon!

Work, Hail!

For anyone keeping up with the blog (and I have talked to several of you Silent Lurkers out there) the 2nd and 3rd days of work were much better than the first!  No more parking garage puking.  So I've decided to list a few of the positives about the current job situation:

• I have a doorman who greets me every morning as I walk into the building!  How swank is that?  I haven't asked him his name yet, but I intend to find out tomorrow.  
• I get to walk a block to work from the parking garage and get a little exercise and enjoy the weather- I'm choosing to view this as a positive for now, but ask me again later when it's pouring rain or sub-zero temperatures.
• Uninterrupted phone time with friends during the commute
• A Starbucks is located right at the foot of my building- again, this could be viewed as a negative temptation down the road, but so far I think I have the will power to use it as a well-deserved treat occasionally.
• We are located on the entire19th floor in our building in downtown Nashville, which means we have a fantastic 360 degree view of the city.  I get to see this view constantly throughout my day- it makes me smile... so much so, that I caught myself grinning today after stealing a glance at the view, then passed another person, and immediately wondered if they thought the new girl was crazy for grinning like a Cheshire cat walking down the hallway.
• The OCD in me loves that I get to complete small tasks throughout my day and check them off as finished.
• MA works close by so I imagine we'll have many more lunches similar to our one on Tuesday.  

These are the little things that I am appreciative of when my head is spinning trying to learn this new job, and I am missing my little boy like crazy during the day.  The next obstacle for us will be day care for Bradley.  I know he will adjust fine, but I'm dreading it all the same.  However, to end this post on a positive note, the other great thing about this job is that I have a reason to wear my many pairs of high heeled shoes that have pretty much been sitting in my closet for the past 2 years.  I am a sucker for a great stiletto.

Work FAIL!

Well dear readers, I have discovered the real reason I have gone back to work:  It's to provide entertaining blog fodder for you.  After day one, here's what I endured:

• Despite waking up an hour and a half before I needed to leave the house this morning, I still managed to leave 15 minutes later than I needed to.  Time sure does fly when you're having fun dreading the first day on the job.
• I had a severe reaction to some medicine, and proceeded to get on the elevator in the parking garage, and then promptly get out of the elevator, and hurried to the nearest abandoned corner and upchucked my smoothie into a drain near some other person's car.  This takes the cake as the worst event of the day, and made for a memorable first morning.
• I pointed out a HUGE roach scampering down the hall in the office, and was nonchalantly told that Terminex comes once a month but that it doesn't help much.  Apparently one girl found a roach in her bag.  Greeeeaaaaat. (Note to self:  bring snacks to keep at work in an airtight tupperware container)
• I got lost IN the office.  It's a circular maze.  Can't a girl just make it to the break room without having to stop and ask directions?  No.  No, she can't.
• I found out by trial and error that one set of elevators takes you to floors 1-11.  And one set takes you to floors 12-21.
• While we're on the theme of elevators, the same is true with the parking garage (you know, the one I puked in...) one set of elevators takes you to the red floors, and one set takes you to the blue floors.  Having been warned about the convoluted parking garage layout, guess which elevator yours truly got on at the end of the day?  That's right... the WRONG one!!!

I hope you have laughed at my misfortunes.  I in turn will hopefully look back on this in the future and be able to join you.

Ate, Prayed, Loved

I just got back from Lexington to visit my college roommate Stephanie.  It was my last hurrah girls' weekend before starting work tomorrow.  (EEK!)    Ashley and Stephanie went to HS together, and Ashley aka "Argo" lives about 45 minutes south of me, so conveniently, she picked me up on Friday, and up to Kentucky we went.  She and I have hung out a few times throughout the years of knowing Stephanie mutually, but after 3 1/2 hours in the car each way with Argo, we never once turned on the radio, and I feel like we both know each other's life stories now!  Stephanie is the friend from college who got me into the most trouble, has the most crazy stories from those times shared in common with me.  We lose touch and then pick up right where we left off.  Argo and I were her first house guests in her new home, so she went all out making the place ready for us.  We felt loved!

We rolled into Lex-Vegas about 11:30pm EST Friday night.  I figured this meant we'd visit for a few minutes and then turn in for the night, but oh no!  We girls sipped frozen daquiris and stayed up till wee hours of the morning talking, catching up, and best of all, reminiscing through old photo albums, laughing at funny stories we'd forgotten, and being shocked at how skinny we looked in college pictures when at the time we all thought we were fat!  Stephanie had purchased a ton of snack food for us, most of which we didn't have time to eat this weekend, the time flew by so fast.  I am still sad about those individual cups of Ben & Jerry's sitting in Steph's fridge right now that we didn't get to enjoy!

Stephanie, the consummate hostess, even had little umbrellas for our drinks!

,  

Saturday morning we ate breakfast, and then set about packing a huge cooler full of food and drinks to take with us to the pool that day.  By the time we got everything, it was about noon, and the rain rolled in around 4pm, giving us a shorter day in the sun than we had planned, but it was still a relaxing afternoon, and cheap entertainment for all of us who are poor!  Another friend/college roomie Ellen met us at the pool after attending a Beth Moore conference at Rupp arena.  Guess what BMo's conference theme was?  You guessed it, "Eat, Pray, Love."  This theme kept coming up this weekend.

L to R:  Yours truly, Steph, Ellen, & Argo

The rain came down, so home we went.  Our original plan when discussing this upcoming weekend was for all of us to go see Sex & The City 2 at the dollar theater in Lexington.  Well horror of all horrors, the day before we got there, they stopped playing it.  We exhausted every resource, calling theaters, the cable company, Netflix, and even discussed driving an hour and a half to Cincinnati to see it since it was still showing there... but logically that didn't make sense to drive so far for a dollar movie when all of us were broke!  So we checked other movies, and found a cheap showing of Eat, Pray, Love that we decided on.  Ashley & I had both read the book, so we agreed this was a good chick flick weekend substitute. 

Again, in keeping with the theme of having low budgets and way too much food at the house, we decided to make dinner in lieu of spending money out to eat.  Plan A was to grill out.  But the monsoon hitting just at the right time forced us to pick Plan B.  Plan B was taking all of the fresh produce Argo had brought from her family's produce market, and combining that with food on hand, and creating a delicious dinner.  Somehow I became in charge of this, and Steph helped me put together a fresh salad, and a pasta primavera that I made up the recipe to as I went!  It turned out quite nicely, and encouraged me that maybe I do possess that cooking gene somewhere that Mom & Laura seem to obviously have!

Before we ate, I prayed over our meal, thanking God for good food, and good friendships.

After dinner, we had just enough time to shower and get ready to hit the movies.  The best part of seeing a chick flick we agreed was seeing all the great previews for all the other chick flicks coming to a theater near you soon!  In regards to Eat, Pray, Love, I read the book and (ate, prayed,) Loved it.  It's a quick read, and a true story.  Of course plot lines were squashed in order to fit into a film format, and a few changes to the story were made, but I liked them.  I think the differences from the book and the movie allowed it to flow and made a neater package of the storyline.  Bonuses are that the scenery is gorgeous, and Julia Roberts is one of my favorite actresses.

In case you don't know, Eat Pray Love is about a woman who goes off to find herself after a traumatic break-up and divorce. It was very fitting for me to see in my current season of life. Some parts of the movie were hard to watch as the resemblances to my own experiences were a little too close. Other parts were very encouraging though. Like I said, this theme just kept hitting me in the face all weekend!
One nit picky observation I will point out about the film is this: there is a fantastic scene during the Italy portion of the movie where Julia Roberts' character devours a plate of spaghetti . As she dives into her plate of pasta, immediately the sounds of Mozart's famous "Queen of the Night aria" from the Magic Flute begins. It's fast and furious, and the perfect background to a woman voraciously eating spaghetti, with one problem; The aria's in German. The scenery is Italian. I know I'm probably the only person in the theater who picked up on this fact, but in all the amazing Italian opera repertoire out there, the musical directors couldn't find a single piece of Italian opera music to use in this scene? At least they could have used a version of the Queen of the Night sung in Italian to keep the same ferocity of the music. Anyways, it's a picky observation, but as one who has sung opera and studied Italian, it annoyed me!!

By the time the movie was over, it was 12:30, and we were yawning and stretching walking out of the theater, agreeing on dashing any plans we might have had to go out. In front of us leaving the theater was a group of middle aged woman, who were also complaining about it being so late, and their being so tired. Steph, Argo, and I looked at each other and laughed, realizing we weren't too far from them!

After several bad takes, this cutsie pose with our hands clasped was one we could all agree on!

We stayed up until 2am, eating more, and looking at Argo's wedding pictures on dvd... this would be the LOVE portion of the weekend... as in, checking out the photos of the newlyweds in love, and the fact that I Love looking at other people's wedding pictures!  Sunday morning came too soon, but it was time for us working women to get on the road.  It was a quick trip, and a low key weekend, but just what the doctor ordered for me.  I ate.  I prayed.  I was loved.  Thanks Steph, Ashley, & Ellen for a great visit!

Time Out!

I can now say with confidence that we are in the throws of the Terrible Twos. (Please, Lord, let this be just a phase!)
Everything is a battle these days. The simplest request turns into a twenty minute challenge. We've been implementing time outs more stringently to try and curb the blatant disregard for following directions. Yesterday we caught Bradley putting his toys in time out, as is evident by the Fisher Price man who Bradley sat in a chair, and faced against the wall. Let's hope this role play means he's getting the message!!

The Fairest of Them All

Yesterday we took advantage of the fair weather, and spent the late afternoon & evening at the Williamson County Fair.  Unfortunately, upon walking in, we realized that our free tickets were for NEXT Saturday, and thus we would have to pay the $6 fare to enter.  We asked the ticket people if they would honor the free tickets, but they weren't being fairy nice (work with me here on the puns) and said "no."

Here's our crew walking into the fairgrounds

I was so excited for Bradley to ride the kiddie rides.  I started off riding the carousel with him, and should have realized by my fair-skinned son's trepidation on this tame ride that the others were not going to be welcomed with grins.

One of the greatest aspects of the Williamson County Fair was that there were a fair amount of activities for the kids.  They had a really cute hands-on activity where the kids put on smocks and were given a basket to go through the different stations and 'pick' produce, 'feed' the animals, and 'sell' their stock in the market. 

Here, B is watering his corn that he just planted

posing with the fake cow

 

"milking" the cow

At the end, after "selling" their produce at the market, kids were given a fake dollar to "buy" something at the general store.  They were given the choice of an apple (pick the apple, Bradley!), animal crackers, a carton of milk (mmm, that apple sure does look tasty doesn't it?), or an ice cream sandwich.  Knowing me, and knowing my son, which one do you think Bradley chose???  He earned that ice cream sandwich fair & square.  We shuffled him through that exhibit and I know he didn't really know what was going on, but it sure made for some great photo ops!
Relaxing in the rocking chair with his "purchase"

Another great photo op:  my mother, the cow; my son, my little piggie; and my dad, the sunflower

Speaking of little piggies, Laura in particular, who has always had a fondness for pigs, was tickled pink at the sight of these petite porkers

Although I think B enjoyed petting this fair mare, I think he was more intrigued with the little girl holding the reigns!

THIS is what happened on Bradley's first (and only) venture on a carnival ride solo:

Sharp shooters:  George, Laura, & Dad try their hand at a game

Unless someone had a fairy godmother, they weren't going to win this game, with guns that shot erratically on purpose.  None of our three won a prize, as you can see their sheets here:

Of course we sampled the fried fare, but I was too thirsty to remember to take any pictures.  Laura & George each paid $9 for their unfairly-overpriced sandwiches.  I slurped down a fresh squeezed lemonade, and some fries, and mom shared her corndog with B.  I believe a combination of the sugar, fried food, and heat left us all feeling less than fair afterwards. 

Away to the Tilt-A-Whirl we went anyways.  The guys stood by & watched as we three ladies took a turn.  Literally.  We got our car spinning so fast the first go-around that we all thought we would be sick, much like the kids in our favorite movie The Sandbox, as mom said.  (She mixes up names of stuff a fair amount).

Later mom & I used up our last tickets and rode the fair favorite once again.

Laura & I rode another favorite, the Scrambler.  Lucky me, I got to be on the inside of the cart, getting squeezed and jolted with every turn.

Bradley tried his hand at fishing.  This is where I spotted the greatest That-Ain't-Right moment ever, but failed to catch the offense on film.  The lady working this game was on her cell phone, smoking a cigarette while my child and others fished for prizes.  She seemed neither convicted nor concerned about her atrocious actions, and we and other parents stood patiently with our children while she finished her smoke break and phone call so we could legitimately retrieve the prizes our kids had won.

B proudly displays the blue dog he picked out

We listened to some good bluegrass music, and apparently were treated to the national clogging champion, who improvised a little dance on stage.  I looked everywhere for TAR moments, but aside from these rednecks leaving the fairgrounds at the same time we were (please pay close attention to the shirt on the middle woman), there really was not that much fair fodder for the TAR blog; definitely not the abundance of gems that the Wilson County Fair offered.

What set the WCF apart for me was the air-conditioned arena where several displays were set up, including a live music stage (I do not include the live music as part of my accolades.... it sounded like bad kareoke), but also had plenty of picnic tables where patrons were able to enjoy their fair fare in the cool AC and, this is key, use indoor bathrooms!  THIS is what makes the Williamson County Fair in my mind, the fairest of them all!

Funny ha ha

I am finding lots of things to laugh about these days, and want to document them so I can remember, not that this will be the most inspired post anyone else would want to read, but oh well.

• Bradley hit Stockwell the other night, then announced, "I go time out."  We all had to fight to keep straight faces.
• After a family game night, I followed Laura & Mom into the kitchen, and left dad at the dining room table talking to himself.  As I heard him talking, I looked at mom and said, "who's he talking to?"  Immediately she peered in at him from the other room, and saw him looking around, talking to no one, and caught him in the act, of him realizing he was talking to himself.
• Upon telling Bradley that I could not crawl through the tunnel, I was too big, his response was a very Steele Magnolias, "Of course you can."  I have no idea where he picked up that wording!
• Yep, still a Mary Poppins lover, Bradley is now attempting to say "Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious."  Priceless.
• B made me LOL one day last week with his idea of having "the chills"- he clenched his fists, and made a scared face that had me in stitches
• This morning while reading the paper, Bradley looked at the Kohl's ad and announced they were having a sale.  We have a running joke in our family that Kohl's is Always running a sale.  I suppose Bradley has picked up on that.  Anyways, I asked him to repeat himself, and sure enough, Kohl's was having a sale!

Brother Dennis-isms

Y'all have to know how much I loved my pastor at Midway Baptist Church in Florida.  He was a big teddy bear of a man, a great storyteller, had the best sense of humor, was ultra-conservative, and was an unapologetic preacher of the Word of God.  He simply tells it like it is... and then embellishes a little bit to make a great story!

I have a journal where I keep track of quotes I like, and I went through my journal last night where I keep all my sermon notes and found these jewels that I then transferred to my quotes journal.  They are so funny and simple and profound that I thought I'd share some of them with y'all.

• All sunshine and no rain makes a desert.
• You have to do away with stinkin' thinkin'.
• Stop worrying, or worrying will stop you.
• There's no U-haul pulled behind a hearse.
• Stop being in a hurry when God's not.
• If you want a king, be a queen.
• You can't have all jelly beans and no green beans.
• Sometimes it's the bland leading the bland.
• Don't give to get... unless you're giving to get to give!
• You can't be a leader without being a follower first.
• Never confuse your net worth with your self worth.
• I always sing that prison music.  You know, where you're always behind a few bars huntin' for a key!
• Money talks.  It says "Bye!"
• You can't unscramble an egg.
• Anything with no head is dead, and 2 heads is a freak show (referring to wives submitting to their husbands)! 
• There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.

An event-full July

Since it's nearing the end of the month, I figured it was time to post something about how our life here in Tennessee is going. I'll say this, we're adjusting slowly. I've joined an all women's class at church and am being fed spiritually.  I joined the Y and am doing yoga and spin classes twice a week each, and that satisfies me physically.  Bradley gets to go the nursery at the Y and play with other kids, and he goes to the nursery at church, so he's being nurtured socially.  Mom and Laura cook often which feeds my belly, and we have ice cream often and laugh a lot which feeds my soul.

Here's B showing off his Stinky Feet!

A new favorite game- riding the horsey

And this one's right after a small glass of buttermilk, which he and dad enjoy from time to time.  I love his buttermilk mustasche!

Trying to beat the extreme heat & humidity, I decided to bust out the slip and slide that he got for his birthday.  Notice the progression of pictures.  I tried demonstrating how much fun this was.  Bradley wasn't buying it.

One of the reasons I love Nashville:  great music anywhere, any time.  This is Laura & I down at Musician's Corner in Centennial park downtown.  They have free music with great local artists every Saturday from 3-6pm.  We heard MPJ play a short set this day.

 For some reason the mosquitos LOVE Bradley.  Earlier this month we had to pay a visit to the pediarician to get some extra strength medicine to combat his bug bites.  We have now learned to douse him with bug spray before playing outside, no matter what time of day it is, and to avoid being outside during the dusk hours since that's when the bugs are the worst.  Unfortuntely, that means we have to get creative with how often we play outside, so we play baseball inside the house with a soft squishy ball.

While going through boxes in the attic, mom stumbled across some old college shirts.  Of course I made them try them on for posterity!

A great new place opened in Cool Springs called Peek-A-Boo Playtown, so I met a friend of mine from high school over there.  Rachel's son Mason is about a month younger than Bradley, and though we've kept in touch via Facebook and Blogs, our sons had never met.  The boys mostly ran around and played with different things, but we caught a few precious moments of the two of them together playing in the ball pit.

Outside is the little blue chair dubbed as Bradley's Peanut Chair. 

He sits out there on the back deck and eats peanuts with Grandpa B. 

A self portrait of Bradley and me.  I tried really hard to get him to sit in his peanut chair for this picture, but being a two year old, he didn't want to cooperate.  Most things are a battle these days, but I know we'll get through it.  I am full of a lot of things right now.  Food, ice cream, and the other things mentioned above, but I am also full of hope, and full of the Holy Spirit, so I can sit back and enjoy the meal I've tasted, and be pleasantly full.

 

Take B out to the ballgame

Last Saturday we took Bradley to his first baseball game: the Nashville Sounds vs. the Omaha Royals.  It was really hot & humid, but we braved the heat throughout the game so we could stay for the fireworks after the game.  Amazingly, Bradley made it through the whole event.  It helped that we constantly had food & drink to distract B.  Anyone who knows my family knows we love to eat.  Here's a list of all we ate between the 6 of us to occupy Bradley throughout the game:  hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries, pizza, coke, beer, pretzels, ice cream, icee, slushee, peanuts... am I forgetting anything??

Here's Bradley cheering for the Sounds!

Bradley went from lap to lap as he got restless- here's B with uncle George

...and enjoying a slushee with Grandma B

Bradley & I after the game- the Sounds won!

Mr. & Mrs. Murdoch- this captures them perfectly I think!

Mama & Daddy B

The final scoreboard- Sounds win!

mom & dad with Bradley- after the game and waiting for the fireworks

 

For the fireworks I sat Bradley in my lap and wasn't sure what to expect.  He slept through fireworks this year so it had been a while since he had seen any.  I warned him that they would be loud but pretty, and to look up in the sky.  My little man sat perfectly still on my lap, covered his own ears and kept his hands there the entire time while he watched the fireworks pensively.  It was not one of 2 reactions I thought we'd get- animatedly-excited or scared.  He seemed fine when they were over, and has been talking about them for days. 

On one of Bradley's walks through the stadium, Dad bought Bradley a soft Sounds baseball, and so far B has slept with it every night.  he was so excited to have it the first night, that the next night I was shocked when I put Bradley to bed and upon walking out of his room, he started crying "My baseball!  My baseball!"  Down I went to locate the ball and delivered it to my wailing son.  After that he was fine.  Some kids are attatched to stuffed animals, my child is attatched to a ball.  Go figure.

He doesn't like to potty.

Call me a naive first time parent, but I thought that once my son decided to use his potty that from now on he'd be eager to try, and motivated by his sticker reward chart.  How silly of me.  I guess that's why it's referred to as potty training... as in to take a long time to teach and correct and rebuke after many many tries, and other words pertaining to training.

As it stands now, Bradley went on his potty twice- once on Sunday night, once on Monday, and ever since you'd think I was offering to torture him when I ask him if he'd like to try and go on his big boy potty!  This I was not expecting.  Sure, I figured we'd try and have many false attempts, but this disdain, nay, rather this hatred for the potty, I do not understand.  Guess we're in for the long haul as far as potty training goes, as it's very difficult to sucessfully go on the potty when one will not even sit on the potty to begin with.

One amusing thing that Bradley has suddenly picked up is referring to himself as "he."  When once it was "Bradley wants fruit snacks," now we're hearing "He wants pancakes."  To which I usually respond, "oh he does, does he?"  It's funny to listen to him exploring with pronouns.

We like to potty

I get annoyed at people's Facebook status updates that record the every move of their children.  I try so hard not to be that person, so instead of posting this on FB it can go here:  Bradley went peepee on the potty for the first time tonight!  (See, isn't that just obnoxious to read?  I'm writing this more for me than you, so sorry if that's TMI.)

I was so excited and so sad at the same time.  As each day passes my little boy is growing up.  Soon he'll be out of diapers, then starting kindergarten, and then dating girls- I shudder at these thoughts!  I didn't even think Bradley was ready to start trying yet.  We've had his potty since Christmas, and every now and then he would sit on it, but lately, right after he hit two (the age, not the corresponding bathroom duty (or doody)), he seemed more ready and interested.  I bought the Elmo Pottytime video (Thanks Rachel- I didn't even know it existed until I read about Mason watching it).  And after watching that a few times, Bradley seemed more vocal about wanting to try.

We were upstairs playing tonight, and he said he needed to go, so off to the bathroom we went, like so many times before.  You can imagine my shock when something actually came out this time! (Again, TMI for Facebook, I don't need hundreds of people reading about my son's number one habits, just you!)  We put a sticker on his new potty chart, so I guess tomorrow and from here on out I'll have to be diligent about sitting him on the potty seat first thing in the morning, after nap time and so on.  Now that he's done it once, we have to be consistent.

2 in June

Our good friend Joe just did a photo shoot with us for Bradley's 2 year pictures on Tuesday.  He worked super-fast and got me a slideshow on Wednesday, and now I've put together a short sampling for you...okay, and me, because I can never look at too many pictures of Bradley!  :) 

Some 2 year old stats:

• weight is 30 pounds, 74th percentile
• length is 33 3/4 inches, 30th percentile
• His response when you ask most any question is a resigned, "Okayyyy"
• Sleeping in a big boy bed for several weeks now
• Can throw and catch a ball well, & has hit the ball with a bat a few times, kicks a soccer ball well
• jumps with both feet
• walks up and down stairs
• People who know these things tell me he talks a lot for a kid his age.  I have no clue about that, I'm just glad we can have conversations now!
• Sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, the ABC's, You Are My Sunshine, & various Mary Poppins tunes
• Likes Sesame Street, Elmo, & Mary Poppins
• Does NOT like having his diaper changed
• And no, we're far from being potty trained.  He has zero interest in the big boy potty.
• When asked how old he is, his response is "2 in June."  (Thanks, Grandma Ann for teaching him that!)

Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious

Recently Bradley has become enamoured of Mary Poppins.  He's watched the movie several times now (stopping and starting again when he gets antsy, of course), and he often sings one-liners from the movie's many songs.  No, in reference to the title of this blog, my genius son is Not singing Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious, but upon watching the movie with him one day, I stopped and thought about the practically-perfect-in-every-way person's description of this nonsense word. 
"It's something to say when you don't know what to say."

And that's how I've been feeling about blogging lately.  So much has overwhelmed me in my personal life these days, and most people who read this blog I assume already know what's going on, but besides chronicling Bradley's every cute move, I use this blog to vent my feelings, and write as a creative outlet.  But with everything going on... Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious... I haven't quite known what to say.  There is a fine line between transparency and airing one's dirty laundry.  It's also freeing however to just say something out loud and stop hiding behind evasiveness.  So here it goes: 

Brian and I are getting a divorce.

Other than that, I'm dealing with things the way Mary Poppins has taught me to- with a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down- and consuming mass quantities of sweets!

CD in DC

This blog is a long-overdue recap of my extended weekend in Ellicott City, MD (a suburb of Washington DC) to visit my best friend Heather  her husband Jacob.  With everything going on in my life right now, it was decided that a few days away might just do the trick, and Jacob had some extra frequent flier miles, so off I went. Heather & I have known each other since the 7th grade when we were both cheerleaders at MLK. We have been through a lot in life and though our friendship has ebbed & flowed over the years, when we get together we never skip a beat.

It had been about 10 years since I'd flown on an airplane by myself, and I tend to have travel anxiety that gets worse as I get older, but aside from a few minor hiccups, I arrived in DC on Thursday morning to greet a smiling Heather.  As she weaved in & out of traffic expertly, I clung to my door handle, and realized it had been a while since I'd ridden with her.  This would come into play later on.

We grabbed lunch at Subway and brought it home to eat.  Home for Heather & Jacob is their new condo Chateau DePriest that I was getting to visit for the first time.  The home is classy & modern, decorated in muted shades, with pictures hanging up all over of the places she & Jacob have travelled.  Heather would describe her style as plain.  I would disagree.  Being a week day, Heather had some work she had to get done that afternoon, least of all was an hour long conversation with a client of hers who, no joke, believes Heather's an angel.  I would agree, though in a much more figurative sense of the word.

We hung out at the house that night- just the four of us- me, Heather, Jacob, & Betsy, Jacob's sister who's living with them this summer while working in DC for her internship.  Heather's house backs up to some woods, and she decidedly does not like the "creature" aspect of this locale.  They see deer all the time, have found a snake in the front yard, and just last week Heather called me in a panic about a massive spider downstairs, which we all made fun of her for her claims of how big it was, yet I no doubt looked for spider relatives every time I was down there too.  Keeping in the creature-friendly abode theme, I helped re-locate a small frog not once but twice from her deck, and am pretty sure I saw a badger run by in broad daylight.  We capped off the evening with some heaven in a cup from Coldstone Creamery.  Do you know the best part about Maryland this time of year?  No humidity!  That in itself was heaven as well, as we spent a lot of time this weekend sitting outside enjoying the pleasantly warm temps.

Friday was insanely busy for Heather and I.  She's a slave driver, really.  But then again I did volunteer my services.  To-do list in hand, we left the house at 9:30 Friday morning, and returned around 4, going to no less than 9 places.  Included in these stops was a trip to IKEA (oh, how I love this store), a walk with Heather's friend Laura, but more importantly, Laura's infamous dog Boomer, and the best part, lunch with Ari!

I was so blessed to have lunch with 2 of my favorite people on earth  (Conley, we certainly missed you). Ari was on her way through town to meet up with Bart, so an hour or two was all we got, but it was totally worth it.  We ate at this little sandwich shop where a man got up to sing & play guitar to provide lunchtime patrons with entertainment.  Looks like we're not in Nashville anymore, Toto I said to the girls.  The musician was not great to say the least, so we opted to move to an outdoor table to finish our conversation and drinks.  I was sad to have such a short visit with Ari, but she had places to be, and we had more errands to run.

Saturday night was the unofficial housewarming party to break in the new Chateau DePriest.  We spent all day cleaning and getting ready for the shindig that ended up being about 35 people.  I was excited to finally meet work and church friends that she's been talking about for several years now.  No one ever looks how you picture them to look!  I bonded with several people over lamenting Heather's poor driving skills.  Heather defended herself saying she's just an efficient driver.  Yes, her friend Ken said, if by efficient you mean driving in such a way that your life is shorter.  The party was a success, with plenty of food and drinks to go around for the 35 or so guests.

I got too busy eating and mingling, so this is the only picture I have from the party- a sampling of the yummy food.

Sunday we went to their church- a very modern approach to what most would call non-denominational.  I mean, their church building looks like a barn, and it sits on several acres of land, and the church members take turns working the farm on their land!  Heather mentioned one of the things that they do with the fruits and vegetables that they grow is to give it away to the homeless.  It's a very Shane Claiborne kind of concept, and I like it!  Here's our one group photo of the 4 of us, taken after church:

I tried my hand at Rockband that afternoon while Heather took Jacob to the airport for his business trip, and then we three enjoyed some girl time that afternoon and a yummy dinner at Chipoltle.  I was leaving that evening, or so I thought.  It wasn't that I was anxious to leave Heather, since our visits are so few and far between, but I was ready to get home and see Bradley.  Unfortunately, due to some heinous lines at security at the airport, and a few miscalculations on our part, plus a quick detour so I could snap this picture (BHS alums in particular will realize why this was so funny):

And voila!  I was spending an extra night in DC!  By the time Heather came to pick me up from the airport (again) it was around 10 pm, and after taking a wrong turn on the way home and laughing hysterically, we were in bed by midnight, only to be up Monday morning at 5:30am.  We were both so stinking tired that everything was funny that night.  Thank you to Heather, Jacob, and Betsy for allowing me to come and visit you all at Chateau DePriest.  I love you tremendously and can't wait for the next visit.