And finally…our October on Facebook. Check back next month for November. (What is this? All answers are HERE.)
October 2
10:36 a.m.
George is having an 80’s moment.
6:48 p.m.
Assembling Legos at the Knoxville Embassy Suites manager’s reception…
George: Can we stay here EVERY time we come to Tennessee?
#roadtrip #MemphisBaby!
October 3
5:17 p.m.
“Mom – no one is going to care about Dad’s shoes.”
And other things I say to my mother before rehearsal dinners…
8:07 p.m.
Party of 14. Five kids. My end of the table. And I love it. Also – the blue stuff is Flarp – not food.
9:47 p.m.
It’s not a party until Eleanor’s shoe flies of her foot and lands on another table.
October 5
11:18 a.m.
Hey! My brother got married yesterday!
12:57 p.m.
Talking about the big house where we attended a wedding yesterday…
George: Mom! I liked that house. I wish I lived there.
Me: Well I guess you’ll just have to settle for our little house…BUT our house is full of fun. And full of love.
George: Mmmmm….no. That house was more fun.
Eleanor: Yeah – it had a pool.
Oliver: Can we go home now?
I guess we all have our priorities…
4:20 p.m.
Sitting on the shoulder of a highway – cars flying by at 80 MPH on the left – calling for roadside assistance and explaining that no, we don’t need a tow truck…I just got distracted and didn’t notice that we were running out of gas.
From the back…
Eleanor: Mom! Why does the car shake when people pass us?
Oliver: Mom! Tell them that we’re near a bridge!
George: Mom! I just took a picture of my mole!
#teamwork #roadtrip
11:13 p.m.
My view from bed: It’s 10:00 p.m. and we are finally settling into our hotel for the night. So obviously it’s time to pull out the rainbow loom…
October 7
5:39 p.m.
George: What does that say?
Me: That’s my signature.
George: Is it in French?
Me: No – it’s just hard to read.
George: Why don’t you write it in English?
It’s true – I have the worst signature ever. A silver lining to remaining un-famous…
October 7
7:57 a.m.
Anyone have any good pictures of the blood moon? Getting up at 5:00 a.m. to check it out sounded interesting until it was actually 5:00 a.m….
October 8
4:30 p.m.
“If you find something at the playground, do NOT put it in your mouth.”
What would they do without me?
October 9
10:03
#TBT Happy eighth birthday to my George and Eleanor!
8:00 p.m.
Weekday birthdays are the best.
11:04 p.m.
Well that birthday sucked…
October 10
7:37 p.m.
George: Mom – you know why the world is running out of water?
Me: Why?
George: Because each and every second, someone is using a water fountain.
Me: The world is running out of water because each and every second someone is using a water fountain?
George: And toilets.
If he pursues a life of environmental activism, I can’t WAIT to see his protest signs.
October 11
9:05 a.m.
After asking the same question and hearing “no” about a billion times this morning…
Oliver: Mom – can we get doughnuts?
Me: Oliver – I already answered that question.
Oliver: But you didn’t say yes.
#persistence
1:02 p.m.
Only on page 7 and cry-laughing in Starbuck’s (as it should be). “I didn’t tell Jonah I was a virgin, just that I hadn’t done it ‘that much.’ I was sure I had already broken my hymen in high school while crawling over a fence in Brooklyn in pursuit of a cat that didn’t want to be rescued.” Thank god for Oliver’s 1.5 hour social skills group.
October 12
8:09 p.m.
10:29 p.m.
My girl!
October 13
9:21 a.m.
“Mom – tomorrow, when I get home from school, I’m going to make a portal to hell.”
-George Hood, age 8
#minecraft
9:53 a.m.
Eleanor [working on a Lego Friends set]: Mom! I’m missing a piece!
Me [getting up from the computer to go help]: …Which is code for, “I can’t find a piece.”
Chris [to George]: Mom is freakishly good at finding Lego pieces.
George: Yeah – once I saw her do it in less than a second!
Chris: I don’t know how she does it…
Me [returning after finding the Lego piece in less than a second]: Hey – that’s a book.
Chris: That’s the title of a book?
Me: Yeah – but it’s not about a woman who’s good at finding Legos. It’s about a working mom who’s trying to do it all. Fictional…really funny… about the whole balancing act.
George: Balancing act? Can I see the video?
Because if you are eight years old in 2014, you can’t imagine that anything of relevance wouldn’t found in a YouTube video…
October 16
9:15 a.m.
Yesterday, one of the kids started singing at the table and Chris immediately went into stern table manners dad mode, barking, “no singing at the dinner table!” Since this wasn’t a family dinner (we do that on Sundays) and I was just feeding the kids a meal, I considered that dinner to be MINE and therefore subject to MY rules. And as far as I’m concerned, singing is absolutely allowed. In our subsequent discussion about this, Chris asked me to understand that when he was growing up, they would get in trouble for singing at the dinner table since it was considered bad manners. First of all, I have no idea when this scenario could possibly have played out as I have never heard any of them sing a single note – ever. But that observation aside, we agreed that if I’m okay with a little joyous singing during an informal meal at home – then it can be allowed.
The only thing that annoyed me was that he made one of his many comments about how I’m from “a musicals family” (meaning that my family is constantly singing and referring to show tunes which is complete hyperbole on his part). I was about to protest, but then remembered this little conversation during the walk home from the school bus that day:
Eleanor: Mom – you know we had a tornado warning today.
Me: I know – but it was lifted.
Eleanor: I was afraid there would be a twister.
Me: We’ve talked about this. While we get all of the wind from tornadoes, we don’t have flat enough land for those big twisters you saw on TV. Twisters happen in states with “plains” they can sweep through…places like Kansas…
George: And Oklahoma.
Me: YES, “where the wind comes sweeping down the plains!”
George: Yeah – and then the planes crash.
Me: Not planes like “airplanes” – plains like, “the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.”
Then I decided to let Chris’ comment go…
October 18
1:54 p.m.
Oliver just informed me that we really need to go to Party City for costume supplies since, “nobody has more Halloween for less.”
#IfItWasOnTVItMustBeTrue
October 19
9:28 a.m.
Today, I’m taking the kids somewhere called The Land of Little Horses. And if that doesn’t make your inner eight year old girl swoon, then you didn’t hear what I just said because it’s THE LAND OF LITTLE HORSES. More on this later…
12:28 p.m.
The LITTLEST horses in the land.
October 21
8:10 p.m.
George: Mom – you know what our montray is at school?
Me: Your montray?
George: Yeah.
Me: What is a montray?
George: The montray is, “it’s not about me, it’s about us.”
Me: OH! Your mantra…
George: Yeah. Hey! Do you want to know what’s going on in the world?
Me: In the world?!
George: In minecraft.
Me: Of course I do.
#conversationswithGeorge
October 22
4:45 p.m.
“It will have to be small. I’m not investing in expensive weaponry.”
“No you can’t have a fog machine.”
“I’m going to put that grave back if you don’t stop bashing it RIGHT NOW.”
And other things I just said to my children in the Halloween section of Target…
October 23
10:00 a.m.
#TBD This swing was in the backyard of the ONLY house I’ve ever lived in that HAD a backyard. 1974-1980…The golden years of almost but not quite braining myself on a huge tree trunk… I MEAN. I’m four years old in that picture and I clearly remember Dad pulling the swing back as faaaaar as it could go then WHEEEEE! #survivorofa70schildhood
(cool picture though when you consider that it was taken on film – no filters or fancy lens settings…)
6:15 p.m.
Another day that I wore exercise clothes with the intention of exercising…aaaand my heart rate never exceeded that of a napping snail…
October 26
7:58 a.m.
Oliver just dragged me all over the house in an impromptu dramatization of A Christmas Carol with a Halloween theme. I played a reluctant Scrooge while he did voice overs for three ghosts played by a small pumpkin, a sneaker and one of his fingers.
Hopefully – there will not be a sequel…
7:33 p.m.
Eleanor: George – what is you favorite part of your body?
Me: [holds breath]
George: My brain.
Me: [exhales]
Eleanor: What’s your SECOND favorite part of your body?
George: [big smile]
Me: [cringes]
George: [long considering pause]…My heart!
You KNOW what I thought he was going to say. Also? I love his brain. And his heart.
October 29
9:14 a.m.
George just made up my new favorite term for that moment you realize you’re in big trouble.
He and a couple of friends were playing outside, and when I went to call him in for dinner, they were gone. After wandering around the usual spots calling, “George! Dinner!” this evolved onto 3 sets of parents (including Chris who had just arrived home from work) frantically searching the neighborhood.
Approximately 20 minutes after my first. “George! Dinner!” Chris found the three boys several blocks away at a house where they “thought” their friend Charlie lived to “invite him to a show.” Apparently, they were walking around, handing out red carnival ride tickets for “Minecraft World.”
Later when George was tearfully telling me the whole story, he described the moment Chris discovered them as “and then bad words happened!”
I’m sure they did. And I’m sure “then bad words happened,” will be featured again in future stories like this one…
Epilogue: George is convinced that his friend’s “Minecraft World” tickets were real and has made it his mission to “apologize to everyone who got a ticket” about the show being cancelled.
October 30
7:40 a.m.
Then in a moment of severe Stockholm Syndrome I thought, “you know – Sponge Bob is actually pretty funny sometimes…”
October 31
8:24 a.m.
And if there was ever any question that Eleanor is MY daughter… This morning, she explained to me that she’s not afraid of volcanoes anymore, because even if there WAS one near us, she thinks we could easily outrun it: “Lava moves really slowly, and we can just jump in the car and drive away.”
Of course, MY childhood disaster plans always involved strategies for how to bring all of my stuff with me… They still do. Reason #673 why I wouldn’t survive the zombie apocalypse.
Happy Halloween!
9:05 p.m.
Every year I take fewer and fewer Halloween pictures (which means I’m ALLOWED to take fewer and fewer Halloween pictures…) Tonight I took FIVE. Here are two. George is not wearing shoes yet, you can’t even see Eleanor’s face and Oliver looks CRAZY with those teeth (love that he and Eleanor hammed it up a bit…if I had to give George’s image a title it would be “reluctant ninja”). Good haul. As soon as everyone goes to bed, I will collect my parental Halloween candy tithe…
Have you watched Parks and Rec yet? You can safely skip the first season. It gets better after the first season. Then when you get to the episodes about Lil’ Sebastian you have to holler at me. You will get why a few of us were so excited about the little horses.
Ben’s world revolves around Minecraft. If he’s not playing it, he’s watching a video about it. There are discussions about it at dinner. I don’t even try to understand it anymore.
As always, love catching up with you here. By the way, I’m with Eleanor. I think I could outrun/outdrive an erupting volcano.
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