Unforseen Hiatus

Rose Dose is taking a break. Sorry, out of my control.

Bastards broke in and stole some things, among which was my computer.

And Bastards, if you're reading this now...you suck!

Kitty Cats in the Highchair

There are two kitty cats in the highchair. They are eating eggs and english muffin. White cat got loose in the leaves this morning...so now we have a black cat with a halloween sweater and a white cat covered in leaves eating the breakfast I slaved over this morning.

Fantastic.

We painted this weekend. The dreaded master bedroom, complete with all of the oil-based trim and fireplace. Adam got up first thing Saturday morning and started working...well, after he watched cartoons with Charlotte. Still...I had to laugh, the first coat of primer didn't go on until 4:00 but the walls were in pristine condition before he started - I mean, they were perfect. When I paint, I do it as quickly as possible = mess and I don't take much pride because it doesn't look that great when I started but Adam had the walls and trim looking so good I didn't want to mess up...and when I splattered a little paint, I cleaned it right up! So, now it's finished and I don't know if I like it or not...don't you hate it when that happens? The color is called 'Cloudy Day' and it feels like I'm in a little boy's room. The real problem, of course, is when you walk from the living room into our bedroom, you almost feel like you're in an entirely different house. I'm hoping once our bedrooom furniture is delivered it will give it the feel we're going for.

I'm proud to report that my tennis score is improving. This, in part, because Adam was too full to play me last night so I got to play against the computer...Adam was stuffing himself with hotdogs because he didn't like my supper I slaved over...something to do wtih my mashed potatoes having the consistency of semi-melted ice cream. I didn't see what the big deal was...use a straw right? Charlotte didn't like my mashed potatoes either. She saw then on her plate and started crying. But she gobbled down her green beans! And then she signed all finished and ran over to her daddy's lap to climb up and eat his beans. I tried to give her mine, but once daddy's home, she doesn't want anything to do with me.

Charlotte holds our hands when we say the blessing at supper! She's been doing it for a couple weeks now and it's so cute.

I am happy to report that Charlotte now has a play room. I have finally organized her closet...yes, it is a big closet especially now that it's picked up and organized and she loves going in there. And I love it because it helps me keep her room a bit neater-looking.

She's really enjoying playing with all her toys! And it's so cute! And I am restraing myself daily from not running out and getting new toys. It's so much fun to see her get excited and she's not old enough to be a brat about it so I don't feel like I'm spoiling her BUT I know that if I do buy her everything I think she would like, she would become spoiled.

Speaking of which, corner is going quite nicely. Adam went from 'nobody puts baby in the corner' to 'if you don't put this bib on, you're going to the corner' because corner works!!! And corner is so empowering! Yes, there are those critics that say I'll cause her to become a claustrophobic adult but, you know, on the off-chance that happens...I'd say a compliant child, understanding boundaries is worth it.

Charlotte has started dragging all Charty-size chairs from all over the house in front of the tv. I mean, even the booster seat. There are 7 chairs watching Little People right now. And kitty cats are on the floor - they were good enough for my breakfast...not good enough for the chairs. Speaking of tv - when was the last time you watched an old Barney episode? HILARIOUS! The $5 dvd's at Target? Barney from 1996? The dance routines and the outfits are a total riot.

Wii Played All Weekend

Charlotte is really starting to push those boundaries ergo she's looking for Adam & me to really set them. So, starting next 'no no' I'm implementing the corner. I'd already gotten the opinion from Noni & Popi and I talked to her pediatrician about it earlier this week and she confirmed...Charlotte Rose Wilson is old enough for the corner. Next time she yanks on Moses' whiskers out of meanness...there will be consequences (if she doesn't straighten up after warning #1 but there will only be 1 warning).

The rest of the appt went well. Charlotte's right on track with everything...she even ran for the doctor - a layman would probably think the run looked a little uncoordinated but luckily there are people that specialize in this. I've been reading to Charlotte all wrong. Lately, I've been letting her pick the story and then we go through it and I "read" it to her in her terms...For instance:

Literal translation of book: The baby duck saw a big, brown, hairy duck and he asked, Are you my mother? And the dog said Bow Wow.

Mommy's translation of book: LOOK Charlotte Rose!!! A duck! Where's the duck? Where's the dog? GOOD! What's dog say? pant, pant, lick...(note to reader: our dogs don't bark, our dogs pant and lick) Look at that silly dog! What do we tell doggies? 'hey dog' and 'no no no' (point and shake head).

It rained last Saturday so we all took a trip to Toys R Us. Charlotte got her first dollhouse and a mommy & baby cat that meow and tickle each other. We picked out the house, she picked out the cat. Adam picked out Nintendo Wii. http://wii.com/ Is it funny to anyone else that Adam and Charlotte go shopping at the same store? We came home and set up the dollhouse and Charlotte started playing with it! Appropriately! Well, until she tried to get her kitten to sit in the doll's chair. But she knew the chair was for sitting! Adam and I are hanging out in her room - 'look! she's doing it! she's playing with the house!' We're nuts.

And then Adam went and played with his new toy. While I, very maturely, sat on the sofa and read. I was completely uninterested in his juvenille game until he pulled up tennis. Holy cow! It is so much fun! Like you're really playing tennis! I mean overhanded serves, volley's, forehands, backhands, spin! SO MUCH FUN! I'm embarrassed to admit this but I was sore on Monday! Can you believe that? Charlotte came running in from her room - thought it was hilarious - she's in there giving the winners high fives, jumping around like she was playing too. Great 21st century family fun. Game night just took on a whole new meaning.

I guess you could say we had an over-indulgent weekend. Charlotte got a sandbox on Sunday. I was tired of her playing in the dirt and in the birdseed in the backyard. Bless her heart, she needs tactile exploration.

Where is the cool weather? It's September and I have to set up a fan outside for Charlotte when she plays. I was so excited, I thought it was coming...I've started 10 projects in the backyard thinking it's about to be cooling off. Wrong. So I had to dig like 10 big holes all by myself in the heat with the gnats. Disgusting. We went to do the river Sunday morning. I actually put a jacket on Charlotte, for heavens sakes...what was I thinking?! And I put on a heavy t-shirt. Which Adam made me pull off halfway through the ride so he wouldn't have to hear me WHINE! Oh the whining...at least Charlotte comes by it honestly.

Charlotte is having a very fun time outside picking all of the flowers off my mums. Luckily, mums are cheap. $5 will buy you about 500 blooms = 20 minutes of Charlotte fully-focused play.

Last night Adam was outside playing with Charlotte and he asked her what a dog says. She panted (just like Eloise, EXACTLY what Eloise says), then a cat, she meowed. A cow, she mooed, a bear, she roared and a lion was a slightly different roar. He asked her what a turtle said, she was silent...EXACTLY! Turtles don't say anything. I didn't even know she knew all that. But we have been reading 'Polar Bear, Polar Bear, what do you see?' She picked it up in the library from the spanish section. So, I can't read the book. I have to make the words up and we make alot of animal sounds while we read. So much for teaching my toddler spanish.

Moses' hair is falling out and I think it's stress. He likes to snuggle up in Charty's blanket basket in her room. She use to just pelt him with stuffed animals but lately she's been running over and squeezing in beside him (really more on top of him) and bless his sweet heart, I have to save him. So there's that. But also, she's found the pot lids. She's started banging them. I'll think she's playing quietly with her crayons on her table, Moses is sleeping sweetly on the kitchen rug when we hear CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG! I scream a little and then I find a clump of Moses hair. Poor boy. I don't know what we'll do when Charty develops the dexterity to dress him up in clothes.

Indigo Photographers

Go here:

http://www.indigophotographers.com/

My brother & sister-in-law have a photography business. The above is the link. The website is great! AND Bob posted the carrot cake recipe I was blogging about earlier. That is here:
http://indigophotographers.wordpress.com/

It's a fun website, though, lots of really good eye candy.

McCain - Palin

I'm going to really blog later - we're about to head out on a run before it gets any hotter. I just had to say:

Well done Sarah!

Labor Day

We had a manual-labor filled Labor Day. Sounds awful right? Literal labor on Labor Day weekend? It actually wasn't so bad. Adam was suppose to have last Friday off. It didn't happen. We were suppose to drive up to his mom's house Friday morning. We didn't get there until 10:00pm. 'Gigi' needed help repairing a fence and gate. We don't get to see Gigi too often, and Charty was so excited to see her.

Everybody got together on Saturday night for dinner: Noni, Popi & the Riggle Family. The initial meet-n-greet didn't run too smoothly. I forgot to put Eloise away in another room before Violet arrived. Violet came running into the house, all excited and spotted Eloise and started screaming, which scared the bejesus out of Eloise (gave that dog a taste of her own medicine) and then Eloise started barking and nipping at Violet's toes, kind of a I'm-gonna-get-you-before-you-get-me thing but I managed to wrangle her away from Violet's toes, no harm done. The confrontation and screaming-barking scared Charlotte, who ran to Popi, arms up, looking for someone to save her.

Dinner was so fun and delicious! We all really enjoyed it. My super-sweet inlaws prepared an impromptu early-birthday party for me and Bob (whom Adam has dubbed 'U.B.' (Uncle Bob)) made the most delicious carrot cake I have ever had in my life. I don't know how many pieces I devoured that night but I ate some for breakfast and lunch the next day too. Poor Violet really wanted Charlotte to play hide-n-seek or dolls or, you know, something with her. Sorry girl, Charty is still completely and totally all-about-Charlotte, "me" centered. Gigi said she can't wait for Charlotte to grow up so that they can play together. Whew. I'm not ready. I'm going to enjoy this moment! Oh, she'll never be this age again!

The next day, I met Noni & Popi and they took Charlotte for the day so that I could help Adam & Gigi tackle that fence. It was actually fun (not nearly as intense as caring for a 20 month old all day, it was a nice break. Yep.)

I checked in with Popi mid-day and they were in no hurry for us to come. Alright. Freedom! They took a field trip to get Charty an armchair like her Popi's so they could sit next to each other and watch cartoons.

Adam & I went to dinner that night too! So, I'd say in all it was a super weekend.

Charlotte has started saying "no" to everything. I'll ask her if she wants to take a bath. 'mmmm no'. Do you want to give Moses a big hug? 'mmmmm no'. Do you want a piece of delicious chocolate candy? 'mmmmm no'. Real sweet and quiet. We'll ask her a yes question, like do you want candy and then we'll say 'yes!' and nod our heads. She'll look at us and try to nod, then gets kind of swirly, gets kind of confused halfway through and shakes her head. I also think she's starting to test boundaries. Uh-oh. Yesterday she kept knocked over the bicycles twice. She also drug Moses around by his whiskers. A couple of little for-instances like that. Right now my mean voice and my mad face work to get her attention but it's coming. Don't think I won't put her in the corner! Yesterday at Dick's Sporting Goods she was a little monster! Cute, but into everything. She would hide in the running shorts and pop out at people and say 'RAR!', claws out, like a bear. Like she was fixin' to get 'em!

I'll admit...it's not uncommon for people to refer to me as a whiner. I don't know - it's just part of my natural temperment I suppose. It has also been explained to me how annoying of a habit it is. Awe shoot...whatever, I know it's actually kind of cute - or so I believed until I spent an entire day with a whining toddler. Furniture shopping was not how Charlotte Rose wanted to spend her Monday. It was high time Adam and I picked out our new bedroom furniture. Adam & I differ on styling and he is much more particular about quality? Not that I want something rickety but he's a stickler for it. I'm talking he doesn't want furniture that's been nailed and glued. He wants english & french dove-tail and wooden tracks and no veneer or soft wood. Which is super (insert sarcasm here). My husband has champagne taste on a beer budget (stealing my MIL's phrase). Is it tacky to mention budget? If so, I apologize. So,we're having a hard time finding anything locally so we decide to drive 90 miles to Thomaston, GA to go to Bostwick's (in-laws recommended).

It's already been a long day, right and we drove an hour and a half and something terrible happened on the way there. It had been raining and we passed a turtle trying to cross the road and we couldn't find a place to turn around and help it cross safely. So, we vowed that with the next turtle, we would. We spotted the turtle, swerved to avoid hitting it ourselves and turned around. We pulled over a little, right in front of the turtle, flashers on. Up over the hill behind us races a sedan. HE HIT THE TURTLE! Right there in front of us, trying to do our good deed, the turtle exploded! That would only happen to Adam & me. Noni has saved probably 1,000 turtles in her life and surely known have ever exploded via impact of passing car as she's making her galant effort.

We were in shock for like 5 minutes and then we were really depressed. Obviously questioning whether we chose the right day to drive to Thomaston. We finally arrived and strapped Charty into her stroller ONLY to find out that the store has 6 floors of furniture and no elevator. So, out of her stroller she comes- zipping around, climbing this, up and down the stairs, slamming doors to china cabinets and everytime we stop her, she throws her head back and whines and whines and on and on we go. I'm about to pull out my hair. Meanwhile, Adam's browsing the furniture, don't like that, or that, or that...

Why Adam?

I don't know, I just don't.

Okay, good, so you are going to make this easy. Super.

And then finally we find it. Miraculously, Adam & I both love the styling and the quality is top-notch. Only the entire suite is covered in red "SOLD" tags and we don't know the price. My patience is gone. I find a salesman and ask him for the price of the suite. He leaves, Adam & Charlotte climb onto the bed, Charlotte starts jumping and Adam starts tickling her (it's either this or listen to the whine, the I-want-to-go-go-go-now-now-now! He comes back. The price is a good 40% higher than we budgeted. I tell him, well this is the furniture we like and you're going to have to make it work for THIS price, make this happens and I'll write you a check. And he says okay! And nothing like this has ever happened to me before! And I'm still so proud of myself. And Adam was proud of me too.

But I have a confession: it was the day of constant whining that drove me to that brazen act of bravado! If I had been my normal, relaxed, sweet self I never would have made that deal...so see, whining does sometimes pay. Whining and assertion...my new mantra.

Adam wrote the check, I took Charlotte out for a stroll in downtown Thomaston and who should appear but her Popi! Appeared right out of nowhere! He had Jakob and was headed to the Flint river and saw us so he pulled over. Oh, Charlotte got so excited and so tickled. She ran to her Popi, big hug and then got to see Jakob. It was all fun until it was time for the boys to go. Then, she was heartbroken. Started crying huge alligator tears. Popi was heartbroken too...so he bought her a boat. You think I'm kidding? You don't know my dad. He saw a boat for sale, figured it to be a sign from above; he hasn't had a boat in a couple of years and with his girls he instills a love of the water. So, next summer, Charlotte can go tubing.

I guess it will be up to Adam & me to get the lake house. Oh, dear.