humor, parenting

The Subtle Hint

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We are all in our truck happy to be reunited as we travel along. Full Speed wants to play a game. He is thinking of a car and wants Mad Dog to guess what it is.

Mad Dog: “Corvette?”

Full Speed: “No!”

MD: “Dodge Viper?”

Full Speed: “No!”

MD: “Ferrari?”

Full Speed: “No!”

Mad Dog proceeds to list several of the usual suspects of Full Speed’s favorite kinds of cars. Full Speed is starting to get impatient but he closely guards the car’s identity.

This keeps going for quite some time with no end in sight. Little T.Puzzle joins in but honestly, he’s not very helpful. He keeps shouting “Thomas! (the Tank Engine) repeatedly at random intervals. This isn’t right of course, but it is kind of funny.

I feel bad for Mad Dog and sense Full Speed’s rising frustration so I join in and start adding to the ever-growing list of possible cars.

Still, no luck. It’s getting to the point of ridiculous.

Finally, Full Speed announces a clue.

Full Speed: “It has police lights on it.”

So much for subtlety.

gratitude, happiness, humor

Vacation Lessons

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8 Things I Learned on Vacation:

1. Champagne mojitos are the smoothest (and most dangerous) of all the champagne cocktails offered by the Royal Carribean cruise line. Drink them at your own risk because odds are, you will drink a lot of them.

2. If you happen to be on a voyage that is extra rocky, this can work in your favor (remember those champagne mojitos I mentioned?). Whenever anyone asks you why you look so green during your cruise (or after), simply substitute the P.C. word ‘seasickness’ for ‘hungover’ or ‘can’t hold my liquor worth a darn’. Works like a charm.

4. Wine bars in Key West offer the best deals on wine tastings. I learned that a ‘flight’ of wine (which was thought to be three glasses of TINY tastes of wine) will get you shnookered in about ten minutes flat. Note this pic of our table after me, Mad Dog and my in-laws finished our ‘flight’. Best vacation ever!!

5. I am officially a Floridian. I could barely tolerate the chilly winds we experienced on our trip and was only warm after sitting in the Solarium for three straight hours wearing a sweater. Or does that have more to do with just being really old and labeling it as ‘Floridian’. Either way, I was cold!!

6. Open seating for dining is a mixed bag. It forces you to mingle with your fellow passengers. Some are kind and interesting. Some are boorish and borderline obnoxious. And yet there are some that fashion their linen napkins into x-rated objects (true story and thankfully, I have no photographic evidence to back this up).

7. It’s entirely possible to be more in love with your husband than you realize. Having kid-free time with him helps you to understand this. Flights of wine can help this process. I’m just sayin’.

8. I also realized that while my ‘real’ life is action packed and sometimes in unfortunate ways, that I missed it. I missed my boys and thankfully, they missed me (& Mad Dog), too.

It’s good to be home.

gratitude, happiness

Vacation (All I Ever Wanted)

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Vacation, have to get away! Hello dear readers. Mad Dog and I are leaving on a kid-free (yes, you read that right, kid-free) vacation. Writesforallmommies is going to give the blog a break while I am away. We are going on our now annual cruise (third year running) and I can’t wait. We are leaving the boys in very capable hands.

Mad Dog and me on our cruise in \’09

Please feel free to read (and re-read) any of my posts. I would love to hear if there have been any that have resonated with you and why? One of my favorites is Full Hands, Full Heart. Plug it in my blog search engine and it should pop-up. It pretty much is the mantra of my life.

Be well, keep reading and tell your friends to read, too. I will be returning to daily posts on March 2nd. See you then!

kids, parenting

Unbreakable (Kind of)

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Full Speed comes down the stairs and informs everyone that he will not be wearing his glasses to give his eyes a ‘break’. Mad Dog asks the obvious question (neither of my boys can go without glasses), “Full Speed, did you break your glasses?”

“Well, maybe a little,” he replies.

Mad Dog goes upstairs to investigate and finds the glasses in the corner of Full Speed’s bed. He places them on Full Speed’s face. The sides of his frames are jutting up at about a 45 degree angle. Saying they are a ‘little broke’ is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

Fortunately, Mad Dog was able to gently reconfigure the frames into a workable order. If only mischievous behavior could be that easily corrected. I’d be all set.

humor, mommyhood

What’s Mine is Yours (or Vice Versa)

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Eating goldfish crackers is like breathing for little T.Puzzle. All day long he tells me he’s hungry and inevitably shouts ‘Goldfish!’ when asked what he would like for a snack. Of course I have many parameters around how much of these crackers he can actually consume. Usually it’s a once a day situation and if I’m feeling generous, I’ll let him have a second helping. After that, kid’s out of luck.

Our friend, Miss Cutie, was visiting. She was staying for dinner. Since the little ones were close to melting down as we waited for Mad Dog to return with our pizza order, I busted out the goldfish. Miss Cutie and T.Puzzle sat at the same table and I gave them a smattering of the crackers in their own, separate bowls. T.Puzzle inhales his in about two seconds flat.

“More goldfish, please!” he says.

I politely decline his request knowing the pizza will be arriving shortly. I turn to continue my conversation with Miss Cutie’s Mom.

“I did it all by myself, Mommy!” he shouts through a mouthful of goldfish.

He had taken Miss Cutie’s bowl and emptied the contents into his and was happily chomping away.

My Mom always used to say ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’. Therefore, I’ll give little T.Puzzle an A+ for resourcefulness and I’ll leave it at that.