Playing in the leaves

I am pushing 38 years old. Pushing very hard. But I still act like a 5-year-old sometimes. Lots of times. More often than I care to admit.
Today, when I got home from school, I found this pile of beautifully colored leaves. And I couldn't resist tossing them up in the air and watching them swirl down. Which, of course, led to me getting out the camera and attempting to photograph them as they fell. You would have done the same thing, right?
This is difficult for several reasons. First, they fall a heck of a lot faster than you'd think. The camera can't focus on them.
Second, in order to actually catch them as they fell, I had to switch to manual focus, pick a focal point and hope that as they fell, *some* of the leaves would actually end up in the focal plane.
Third, it's hard to balance the bright sky against the leaves. I opted for exposing for the leaves, which meant the sky was blown out, but whatever. Your mind is wandering now. :)
Fourth, how in the world do you explain to your neighbors why you are in your backyard, tossing handfuls of leaves into the air (repeatedly) and taking pictures of them. And giggling. Not that I looked up to see someone in their driveway. That would have been embarrassing.
So, here are the pictures. They aren't perfect, but they are fun.

Life Lessons

Here is my son, on his 9th birthday, putting on his Oakland Raiders Darren McFadden jersey.  He loves that jersey with all of his heart. 
Some may think it's silly to allow a child to invest that much time and energy into an NFL team (or any professional sports team for that matter) with their bad attitudes, insane salaries and giant egos, but the way I see it, you are only little once.  And I kind of think that a life without passion gets pretty boring.  I'll take the sports obsession over girls any day. 
Fast forward to tonight.  He'll be turning 12 this week.  I think that this jersey has easily been worn over 100 times in the last three years.  McFadden is the leading rusher in the NFL as of this week.  The Raiders are competitive this year.  KJ is so proud to wear it.
We had a softball game and he was playing football with his buddies while his dad and I played.  He took the jersey off because he didn't want it to get dirty.  He folded it up and put it in the dugout.  When it was time to go home, the jersey had disappeared.  Yes, out of our own dugout.  He is crushed.
My gut reaction was the be really upset with KJ for not taking better care of his stuff.  He had been waving it over his head and celebrating/bragging about McFadden's rushing yards.  I am a HUGE believer in personal responsibility, and all of this could have easily been avoided if he had just kept the stupid jersey on.  Or put it in the car.  He could have prevented this from happening.
But then I started thinking that I am placing all of the blame in him, the victim.  Sure, he could have kept the jersey on and he'd still have it.  But how sad is it that he couldn't trust that the darn thing wouldn't have disappeared right out of our dugout?
I hope hope hope that there was some misunderstanding and that it's going to show up in someone's bag.  But if it doesn't, you had better believe that he'll never be so naive and trusting again.
And that kind of breaks my heart.

The end of an era

Sigh. My laptop is beginning the death rattle. It makes weird beeps and whistles. Sometimes it just shuts down because it feels like it. Sometimes it turns itself on in the middle of the night (Perhaps I should start calling it "Christine.") I fear we are nearing the end of our time together.
It's been a good laptop. It has edited hundreds of photos and stores thousands more. It has created many a digital scrapbook and written several honked off letters that were never mailed. It has played for hours on Webkinz, Build-a-Bear, Topps Town. It has researched fantasy football stats and how big the biggest snake in the world is, and how to make duct tape purses. It has been witness to more time on Facebook than I would care to admit, being a part of smart-aleck comments and copious over-sharing on my part.
I hope that my husband, fixer of all things technology-related, can squeeze some more life out of it.
But just in case he can't, I'm backing it up right now. I don't want to take any chances.
And the point of all of this is to test out the free Blogger app that I just downloaded to my iPad. It works, I think. :)
And now back to the Laptop. I can't have it getting jealous, you know.

My deep, dark depression

For the love of God, where has the time gone?


Let me admit something to you:  I am not a baby person.  I loved my kids when they were babies, I did.  I loved to hold them and smell them and just be with them. I loved their sweet little voices and chubby little hands and their fine hair.  I loved reading them stories and knowing that I was the one who could comfort them.  I loved the way they looked at me.

But, honest to God,  I love these years more.  They can catch a ball and help me make dinner and talk about Harry Potter.  We can go on vacation and I don't have to stake out the diaper-changing stations, or fill my purse full of graham crackers to prevent temper tantrums.  They actually go to sleep in hotel rooms.

I can converse with them.  And they converse back, using real words and ideas.  You are thinking, "Shannon, they talk back now."  Sure, they do, on the rare occasion.  But I can actually use the voice of reason with them (assuming I haven't gone all psycho-mommy.)  

But, here is the killer.  As much as I love these years, (and I do,  I honestly do) I am fighting off the deep depression that goes hand in hand with the realization of "Holy hell, my kids are in 6th and 4th grades this year."  And then I start to miss the snuggles, the baby-bath smell and the sweet little voices. 

I kind of miss the 517 times a day that KJ asked me "But, why?"  I am sad that Keebles is actually capable of sleeping without Yellowie, her security blanket.

So, please, can I freeze time?  I know that's not really possible, but can I at least put on the brakes?  I want to savor these years between complete neediness and total independence.  

Pretty please?  I want to slow life down and experience these last 6-8 years that I have with my babies.  Even if they aren't really babies anymore. 

For The Love of Ketchup

We took the kids to Riviera Maya last week.  It was our first big family vacation.  We were so excited for a week of relaxation in the sun. There were a couple of things that we chose not to tell our kids about beforehand, to keep the anxiety and whining to a minimum.
Number One:  Saltwater tastes awful and will likely make you want to puke if you swallow too much.  It's funny to me that we can swallow gallons of chemically-treated pool water, but gettting a mouthful of natural saltwater is sheer torture. Especially when you end up with it up your nose.  Yikes, that burns like H-E-double-hockey sticks.
Number two:  They will have chicken nuggets and french fries and all of those foods you love, but they won't taste quite the same.  We let the kids discover this one for themselves.  And we acted all suprised when they said, "This doesn't taste right."  They finally figured out what foods they could live with:  bacon, bacon and more bacon.  The fries tasted ok, but weren't crisp.  The chicken nuggets were fine.  The ice cream was a staple of their diets. 
But, the worst, most devastating part of the "The food tastes weird here" debacle?  The ketchup.  It wasn't thick, red, delicious, Heinz Tomato Ketchup.  It was catsup, thin and runny and orange-ish.  It was a travesty.
Side note:  A little research tells me that there is very little difference between ketchup and catsup; and that people in Latin American countries tend to eat catsup.  But don't tell my kids that.  They are sure there is a major difference and catsup is the equivalent of skunk pee and was invented to torture kids.
When we got to the Cancun airport to head back home, tired and sunburned, but relaxed, we had lunch at that totally American establishment, TGI Fridays.  We had big juicy burgers, crisp, seasoned fries and REAL HEINZ TOMATO KETCHUP. 


It was heaven.

I Heart Faces: Props

How many people can blow bubbles with their own hands? My daughter can! In fact, she's quite good at it. My special, home-made bubble solution helps!

This photo was entered into the I Heart Faces photo challenge. This week's theme: props.

Oh, the humanity!

Those of you with weak constitutions may want to look away.
The carnage is massive. 
As my father would say, "Six dead, nobody hurt."

Yes, that is the headless torso of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  Look closely and you'll see a light saber.  Perhaps that's how the turtle became a headless torso.

My children rediscovered their Legos this week.  It's a million degrees out, with 150% humidity and we are all whiny and short-tempered.  So we started watching the Star Wars Trilogy (-ies).  Logically, we began with Return of the Jedi (Episode VI.)  That led to Attack of the Clones (Episode II, obviously ) which led to "Hey do you remember our Star Wars toys?"  Which in turn led to, "Let's get out the Lego bin."

Mind you, the Lego Bin is more like a small bathtub.  It holds 8-gallons of Legos and probably weighs at least 25 pounds.  Now, imagine with me the sound of 8 gallons of Legos being poured out onto the floor.  See Spongebob's legs, parts of Jango Fett's ship, Luke's Speeder, Indiana Jones' motorcycle, the Knight Bus from Harry Potter.  Remember the HOURS upon HOURS that you put into building these things that will NEVER again be the same. 

And then get over it, because really, what's more awesome than Lego people?

We spent more time than I care to admit sorting through the 8 gallons of Legos looking for body parts.  There was such joy when we found things like Luke's hair and Darth Vader's cape and the Emperor's head (who knew that the two K's would remember which specific head belonged to the Emporer?)  We nearly had a tragedy when we couldn't find Obi-Wan's hair.  Imagine that being lost in an 8-gallon tub of tiny little plastic pieces.
They have spent the last two days just playing with Lego guys, setting up elaborate scenes and taking pictures.    I am having one of those triumphant moments where I am grateful for my pack-rat tendencies.

And just in case you were worried that Indy's hat there might not have found the rest of his body, Keebles just came up the stairs, quite pleased with herself.  I am happy to report that Lego Indiana Jones is once again whole.