Category: Brian

My Little Internet People

Max and Brian dressed up as Pip and Kitteh from the Laugh Out Loud Cats

I’m not sure what to say about the boys’ costumes this year, other than, I think I’ve broken my children. Did they want to be characters from mainstream popular culture? Nope. They wanted to be the main characters from the very funny, but very internet-y Laugh Out Loud Cats. Did anyone in the neighborhood have the slightest clue who they were? Nope. I don’t think that bothered the boys a whole lot, but I do worry that I’ve done irreparable harm to their pop culture repositories by showing them funny stuff on the internet like Homestar Runner instead of more mainstream fare. I don’t know, but they’re so damned cute as niche web comic characters, I kind of don’t care.

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Mom’s Morning Out

A PS to my prior entry- Auntie M’s comment about her never opening the door reminded me how profusely grateful the women were that I did open the door at least. They kept thanking me over and over again. It was sort of weird.\
Today was Brian’s first day at his new preschool. I had so many options of how to spend my time: nap (which was high on the list since I only got 4 hours of sleep last night), clean the house, go to the beach, or exercise. I decided to do it all! (Well, except for cleaning the house, ha. But I did two loads of laundry before school.) First, I took a brisk walk around the neighborhood. There are 4 houses for sale in the immediately area. Hmm. Then I ran into the house, switched from sneakers to flip flops, put on sunscreen and headed to the beach where I snoozed for an hour and a half until it was time to pick up Brian. YAY for the beach. I switched back to my sneakers and purposefully arrived at Brian’s school early to check out the track. I even jogged. True story. There is a beautiful path that the winds through the woods, passing a couple of ponds. It was really nice. I don’t have anything to show for my time. No dinner made, no toys not on the floor. But it was a really nice morning, nonetheless.\
Brian did really well at the school. He played with the other kids and followed directions and just generally acclimated well. This week the class is focusing on the letter F, so they got to try French Toast today. Tomorrow, firefighters and a fire truck are coming to visit. We picked a great week to start, right? The class also has music, Spanish, and ceramics. How cute is that?

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Max’s Birthday at the Oatland Wildlife Center

Max is excited about seeing some alligators!

Today is Max’s 9th birthday. To celebrate, I took the boys to the Oatland Wildlife Center to see some alligators and other wildlife. Little did I realize that it was a two mile hike around the center to see everything. And we did the whole thing. I, of course, took pictures which are up on flickr if you want to go see the rest of them.\
And just because it’s maybe my all-time favorite of Brian, here’s a bonus pic!

Brian wants more food for the fish.

Not What I Planned for This Weekend

Max was sick earlier this week, and now Brian is too. They both have some gastrointestinal explosiveness disorder that means Jen was up and down most of the night with them, we need to do laundry and we’ll be fueling both kids with Pepto©, kaopectate™, Sprite© and dry toast all weekend.\
I just got home from an early-morning grocery store run to stock up on those things, plus caffeine to keep me awake.\
We were going to have so much fun this weekend… Now I’m off to do the dishes and start some laundry.

Tybee Island Photo Safari

a series of brightly painted but rusting dinghies leaning against a wall.

I took the boys to Tybee Island today, nominally, to go a photo safari. I had my lovely Nikon D80. Max was sporting the Powershot and Brian had the backup Samsung. Of course, I knew we wouldn’t be taking pictures for long after they saw the water. I got a bunch of shots in, though, since I wasn’t going to near the water.\
Here are a couple of my other favorites from the set:

Brian running away from a wave

A funky outhouse.\
close up of palm leaves.\
a small thumbnail of Brian running away from a wave data-recalc-dims=\
A guy flying off his skimboard\
Bald guy with an epic head tattoo\
the tybee island pier

Life in Ga

Kevin is working way too much. He’s up everyday before the alarm and is even out of the house before I wake up.\
I am not sure if it is because we are new here, because we are renting, or maybe just due to it being summer, but I feel like I am on vacation with no to do list. Wheeee. The boys and I just goof around all day until it’s time for me to make dinner. And I actually have been cooking, even breakfast! (The boys got used to having a hot breakfast after a week at Babb’s house and a week in a hotel. Boo. No more cold, continental ones for them. Ha.) Last night I made enchiladas and tortilla soup for the first time and they turned out fabulously!! Sadly, Kevin worked really late and missed the first presentation.\
The house is nice, but the kitchen is a bit small. Everything is a mess, but a functioning one. I am not even bothering to unpack everything. There are still boxes everywhere and I don’t really plan to change that, since we don’t have any visitors coming soon :(. The boys are sharing a room, one room is a play room that no one uses- but it’s pretty, one room is full of food storage, and that leaves the master for us and K’s not-yet-set-up office.\
The boys seem to be happy but miss Kevin. Max has been alternating between playing on the computer and reading Harry Potter. Brian flits from toy to toy. He likes to run and scoot around the circle of the house (living room to dining room to kitchen to family room to entry way to living room, etc). We also play in the sprinklers a lot and then he hops in the shower to get his feet clean. We don’t have tv yet, so in the wee morning when I am not ready to be awake and in the afternoon before Brian crashes for a nap, we watch the same 4 videos. The other day I splurged and bought Flushed Away, so make that 5 videos.\
That’s pretty much our life so far!

Status report

Kevin found us a house to rent in Savannah. Yay! Along with the necessities, it has a big backyard for the kids, a 2-car garage to fulfill my storage desires, and a guest room. (Only 15 minutes to the beach, people!)\
I’ve been mourning Wegman’s, our fabulous grocery store. Maybe Savannah will have a great grocery store, but I am not holding my breath. My parents, who live in So Miss, only have two shopping options: a Super Walmart with a bad produce section and a small corner store with a bad produce section. This is why I am not expecting much in Savannah. (Anybody from there and can tell me I’m wrong?)\
Even though we’re moving in a couple of weeks, the kids still want to eat everyday! I had to go to the grocery store for basics like milk and cereal and Popsicles. Apparently canned green beans don’t work well for breakfast or dessert.\
I’ve done the first and second stage of packing- things we don’t use often and things we can do without. I even started on the third stage- stuff that fall under Kevin’s purview and I have no idea what it is, what it does, and whether it is actually worth keeping. I need to move on to the fourth stage now: oddly-shaped, fragile objects. Ugh. But, you know, I am kind of anti-stuff right now, so if it all breaks- oh well.\
Brian has become a little stand-up comedian. “Why did the car drive on the airplane?” Why? “To get to the airport.” There are lots of variations of this- car, boat, airplane, motorcycle. They are all silly, but Brian’s delivery is FAB! I am really sorry Kevin is missing this.\
That’s all folks!

Brian boy

Brian just came downstairs laughing his head off, with his nighttime pull up on his head. Apparently Max did this the other night. Oh, boys. (At least wait until Daddy comes home and can appreciate this wackiness.)

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La la la

Amazing what a good window cleaning does to the view. Yes, the cleaners are here and totally worth every penny for doing the jobs I couldn’t/wouldn’t. Whatever house we decide on in Georgia, we must factor in the “Jen is a bad housekeeper” into the budget. Even just twice a year would be awesome, for stuff like behind the washer and dryer. Being able to afford things like this, even though I don’t work, is why I don’t mind Kevin being gone on the occasional anniversary: cuz I’m treated like a princess everyday. 🙂 (Excuse me while I go puke from my cheesiness.)\
Speaking of which, Brian is sick again. I hope that his leaving the AWESOME AOL school means that he won’t be sick as often. I can hope, right? He got better for awhile, keeping food down and everything, while I got sick. Ugh. Kevin came home early and doctored me right on up. I was much better by the time Brian started bouts number 2, 3, and 4. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that he will be all the way better so he can go to school tomorrow, which is his last day. I want him to say goodbye to everyone, plus they are having a goodbye party for him.\
Call me slow, but I just realized that by renting a house in Savannah, I am going to have to move again, and soon. Waaaah. Maybe I will keep some things boxed up until we get to the “real” house.\
I still love freecycle, but having to choose which person with their “please pick me” story to give the item to is so… icky. I always thought I wanted to run a charity/foundation/scholarship thingy after we made our first several hundred million (ha), but I kind of take that back. Maybe I should just hire someone to do the picking for my future-imaginary charity, yes?

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