Too Much Perfection?

One of the things we did while we were at Disney in November was visit all of the deluxe resorts that we'd never seen before. We rode the boat to the Wilderness Lodge, we took the monorail to the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian. Loved the meal at the Polynesian, as I've already blogged...

Anyways, here are more photos from the trip...

We took the water taxi to Downtown Disney. I did love the view from the boat as we traveled through Port Orleans - Riverside.

Alright, I admit that I've been a lot little slack with this whole blogging thing. Which means, dear reader, that we shall have to travel back in time to do a little catching up.

I think I shall start the boredom with a few pictures from our Disney trip. We traveled there in November, as is becoming a wonderful tradition. We stayed at Port Orleans - Riverside and we enjoyed every moment of it.

Even the wutz picked out his favorite sleeping spot in our hotel room:



It was a great step up from the Pop Century that we stayed at last year. That was nice, but I liked Riverside much better! Couple that with the fact that we made a point to do LESS this year, we were able to enjoy a relaxing vacation with no rushing from park to park. We just did what we could and didn't push ourselves beyond an enjoyable limit.

This trip was a lot of fun because adding an extra year to the wutz seemed to make a huge difference. He was able to grasp the rides better and enjoy them to their fullest. I can't believe what a little adventurer he is! He'll try anything once, and usually loves it enough to try again. I can't wait till next year to do it all over again.

Anyways, here are a few pictures from the trip...

Last month, while on vacation, I made my way to the mainland to Apalachicola. I love the little town, with its quaint clothing shoppes, amazing restaurants, and neat little stores that stock some of the craziest things you've ever seen. If you've never been, then I highly recommend you pay the town a visit.


But I digress. While there, I meandered into a little bookshop that carried next-to-nothing. I was in search of an easy beach read because I'd already sped through all five of the currently available House of Night novels. In five days.


Instead of finding a read for myself, a children's book caught my eye. It was the cover (as is always the case with children's books) that caught my eye. On the cover was the spitting image of Harley, the newest addition to our family.






Even though the wutz was eyeballing a book with a cool dump truck emblazoned on the cover, I managed in my oh-so-persuasive manner to convince him that he absolutely had to have the book I clutched excitedly in my hand.



And so we both brought home our first introduction to SkippyJon Jones, the Siamese cat that thinks he is a Chihuahua.




The next few evenings at our beach house ended with repeated readings of SkippyJon Jones and I confess I loved every word. But I didn't realize how much until our exhausted drive home as I clutched my phone and occupied myself with Twitter, as I'm oft to do.

For whatever reason I went to tickity-type in the exclamation "Holy Fuck" over something I'd seen, but instead it came out, "Holy Fuckitos" and since that day the phrase has seemed to spread like wildfire. Okay, okay, a small brush fire. Very small.

But still.

It is a phrase that has slowly creeped into my real life vocabulary. Much to the chagrin of those in my company. I just can't help but smile and laugh every time the phrase chirps across my twitter feed, as I imagine a masked Siamese cat exclaming, "Holy Frijoles" and I realize that "Holy Fuckitos" is so much more amusing and satisfying, even if I can't read it to my three year old.

Here are a few photos of the wutz from the beach trip last week. Once I recover I'll post more and go into further detail, but I'm going to be a lazy ass until I feel I'm back to normal, which could be... uhhhh... never.

The wutz has been taking swim lessons for the past two months. We've really enjoyed watching him as he has begun learning to swim. Last year he wasn't very confident in the water and it was a bit overwhelming to him. Since the end of summer approaches, I'll soon be posting pictures of his swim lessons and also of our vacations, but for now I wanted to take today to look back on last year's swimming experience...

This was originally written in June of 2008:

I hate drunk people and I hate sober people and I hate all the people today. And I hate short people and I hate tall people and I hate all the people today.

‘Cuz I’m havin a bad day.havin a bad day. Get out of my way. cuz im havin a bad day.

Blue Flannel hit the nail on the head when they wrote that song. It totally described my mood right as I stood in my kitchen and begged God to give me one small break today. Then I sat down to eat rerun pizza and the piping hot cheese promptly slid off the slice and dropped gracelessly onto my bare lap.

It has been a rotten day.

What’s worse, Thursday pretty much tanked, too. I won’t even go into that, though.

I did learn a great lesson today. Never wear a string bikini to a public pool while accompanying a rambunctious toddler. Seriously. Just. Don’t. Do. It.

The wutz was a wild man today. A total and complete hellion. He’s always a bit hyper but today was a whole new level for my little dude. I thought taking him to the public pool this evening would be a wonderful experience. For sure, he’d be so grateful for my kindness and generosity at letting him enjoy the amazing kiddie pools and play with all those children, that certainly he’d be a grateful little angel. Wrong. Oh so wrong.

We arrived and mosied into the locker room to change clothes. He was wiggling with excitement as I tugged up his Winnie the Pooh swim trunks. That was my first mistake. I never should have dressed him before I dressed myself. He was full throttle to the pool, and there I was as naked as the day I was born, trying to catch him and simultaneously keep my dignity intact. Yeah. Right.

Once he was wrangled, I had to forcibly pin him to the bench with my knee, while I teetered on the other foot and attempted to tug on my string bikini. Here you’ll find mistake number two, which I’ve already touched on.

Finally dressed we barreled toward the pool. He was wide-eyed and amazed. Until I tried to guide him into the shallow pool. Apparently I wasn’t notified that it wasn’t water in the pool. It was acid. Or at least that’s how he acted. Full out, shame-your-parent, tugging and clinging to anything and everything you can grab meltdown right there. So, being the loving mother that I am, I cradled him in my arms and proceeded on a straight path into the water until we were both submerged to our shoulders. I can tell you, he appreciated that. Eventually he realized that he could touch the bottom. That gave the oh-so-amused pool patrons about ten minutes sans temper tantrums. But only ten minutes. Because then he saw the slide. Oooooh. A slide! A very very big slide. It really was a pity that he had to be four feet ride that ride. Now that, he most certainly did NOT appreciate. Nosirree. Not one bit.

It was an effort to distract him, but a shiny pink ball that a little girl had was enough to do the trick. “Ball Momma! Momma ball!” Cue next meltdown.

That wrapped it up for me. We were done. I was done. We proceeded, quickly, to the locker room, to repeat the previous changing room experience, only in reverse this time.

I cannot tell you how glad I was to get out of there. And every single person there agreed wholeheartedly.

So yeah… I’m havin’ a bad day.

The wutz flew is first kite this evening. The sun was beginning to set and there was a little breeze, therefore he decided that he must fly his new kite. Because there was so little breeze, getting the kite off the ground required effort and lots of running. So I ran and he jogged after me holding the plastic spool with yards and yards of white string wound around it. As the kite flew higher and higher he struggled to get it unwound but he managed after a little practice. He ran and ran and ran to keep that kite afloat. Finally he looked at me mid-stride and said, "I'm tired." Which was enough to make me put the brakes on (gratefully, I might add) and reel in the rainbow colored kite.

It was exhausting. And awesome.

I decided I wanted a new look to celebrate an upcoming beach trip* that I've been looking forward to for quite some time.

I realized I hadn't changed the look of my blog since like the first of the year, so why the hell not now?

It's a little fun and a bit more goofy than I usually go for, but I figured since I'd planned to fully enjoy the last little bit of summer, why the hell shouldn't my blog?

So, there ya have it.







*For those lowlifes that just troll my blog waiting to know when I'm going out of town so you can come over and steal all my cool stuff, including my collection of Statler Brothers 8-track tapes, just know that I have a live-in house-sitter and some really fucking HUGE dogs. That are hungry. Very hungry.

I guess I still haven't fully recovered from our vacay. I am still exhausted. To top it off, I woke up this morning with a swollen upper eyelid. Then the swelling continued until the corner of my eye and side of my nose was also swollen. The benadryl makes me sleepy. Being sleepy and unable to sleep makes me grumpy. Not to mention the arrival of AF. Nice.


Needless to say, I'm just a ray of freaking sunshine today.


Therefore, I am going to throw up a couple of bad pictures of our trip taken from my cell phone. Why don't I post quality pictures taken from my $800 camera? Well, I'll tell you why. I'm too freaking lazy to download them. So there. Take that!

I will. Someday. I promise. And you all know I never break promises.

*snort*

I have spent the entire day doing... nothing. Well, not nothing, I have tried to catch up on the television shows I missed during my vacation. And I've done a lot of putzing on the computer and attempting to catch up on all of the blogs I failed to read while I was away. Oh, and there was the hour long shower that I took, all the while ignoring the wutz battering away at the door in attempt to gain entrance, to which he failed miserably. And I do not feel one ounce of guilt about that, either. Not one.

After my shower, I did manage to make it all the way into the living room and onto the sofa. I caught up with a few more episodes before returning to the internet to do a whole lot of nothing. It has been exactly what I needed today, too. Especially since tomorrow means life will resume as normal. *sigh*

All good things must come to an end, I suppose.

We finally made it home. We arrived at La Guardia far too early, but were able to catch an earlier flight to Atlanta. But then our flight from Atlanta to Tally was delayed, so the layover was wicked long. Fortunately, the wutz held up until we got on the plane, then he fell asleep and slept the entire flight. Yay for that.

I am glad to be home. Will post more later. Pix, too.

We spent the afternoon at the Zoo and I'm exhausted. I have some cute pix but they'll have to wait.

Sorry.

We enjoyed a rather relaxing day here in the great state of Conneticut. We slept in (by in, I mean 7am) and then we got up, had some breakfast and hung out while the wutz went to be the object of my niece's show and tell for the day. Once they returned, we did lunch at a mediocre restaurant.

Afterward we drive to Westport to do a little shopping. I bought the wutz some clothes from a cute little store there. I can't wait to put him in the little monkey shirt and shorts. He'll be a-dorable.

I also found a great pair of sunglasses at Coach, but I didn't cave and buy them. I may go back later, though.

And I found two charms from Tiffany & Co. that are calling my name. I can't decide which I like better, though.

Here they are:
Naughty and Nice charm

Crown Key Pendant

This afternoon was spent at a matinee of The Wiz, in which my nephew played the Scarecrow. He did a fabulous job. I got to see a side of him that I had never seen before. I am very proud of him. I had no clue he had such a lovely voice, too! Wow!

Afterward was a Q&A with William F. Brown, the playwright of The Wiz. It was interesting!

Here are some terrible pics snapped from my phone:

We survived the flight into NYC. We are now at my brother's house in Conneticut and I am looking forward to a week-long vacay.

I'm tired and I'll hopefully post more tomorrow!

We got home around 7pm last night. I was exhausted, but I managed to get everything unpacked and even a load of clothes washed before I went to bed.

My bed.

It was soooo nice to be under crisp clean sheets in my own bed. It's always my favorite thing to come home to.

But I canNOT believe how cold it was here last night. It dropped to 25 degrees. That's insane. Brrrrr. And insane.

Anyways, I have tons of pictures to post, but I have to download them, sort them, resize them, blah blah blah... you know the drill. So it will be awhile. Hell, I still have Halloween pics to post! *sheepish grin*

We had a lot of fun last night at Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. It was cold (mid-40's) but we survived it. We're troopers.


As always, more pix later.