Breaking The Dress Code

Day 5

The top of the cup crawl attracted the undying attention of the cats to the little fellows had to be moved to safer territory. Starting to see the start of the process.

Let's Go Surfing Now

Saturday was the perfect day for the beginning surfer crowd that I hang with so we packed up every item we own and headed for the beach. 

Here they are checking out the conditions. Nice little 1-2 foot swells with an occasional 2.5er rolling in for kicks.

Nothing like a few lessons on the bogey board to work on the balance. Note: This is not the Dr.

 

The Dr. was busy playing Beach Cowboy aka Toddler Wrangler .. 'Cause let's face it if you can't have Malboro Man's Chaps the next best thing is the Beach Dad look right? He wears it with the confidence that only a true Florida native can muster. This is the look he's been working on his entire life.

 

Even the Beast got a the hang of it after awhile

He even tried to give FuzzyHead a few pointers on swimming in the tide pool.

 

But the waves were calling dude!!!

There goes Puddin' out into the great blue. No one was able to resist...

Including me.. at this point I put down the camera and headed out myself. Which is why I have absolutely no pictures of any of us riding in.... damn it. Oh well I'm giving myself brownie points for putting down the camera and being part of the action for a change.

Reasons To Love Her

Upon looking at my computer screen which was a the time displaying a page of Mommy Track'd: Look Mama, it's the same color as my pillow!

Which is to say Polka-Dotted

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I think I'm going to start a new category to document all the little things that I do around the Palace thinking it's going to brighten the Dr.'s day in some way and he just ends up fussing about it because in some way in some fashion I managed not to do it properly.

Exhibit #1: I am always being accused of only bringing home Chick Flicks in the NetFlix queue. (Which wouldn't be a problem if Mr-Anti-Internet would learn to log in and add a few things himself but noooo)  so I see that Cloverfield  is released. He's a big JJ Abrams fan, loved Alias, loves Lost... so I shoot it to top of the queue.

He is admittedly surprised when it comes. Gives me 2 brownie points.

Friday night I send him down the street to watch it while BeerGirl and I introduce the kids to E.T.

He comes home and declares it the worst movie he's ever seen, possibly the worst movie ever made. Thanks dear. Revokes my brownie points.

Grrrrrrr

Catching up on things that have happened this week

Puddin spotted a well placed commercial for Insect Lore's Butterfly Pavilion back in March and begged me to order it. At $30.00, Mama saw this as a prime opportunity to solve one of most aggravating challenges.

We set a criteria. We created a chart for each morning, clothes, hair, teeth, shoes .. and each night PJs, Teeth, Face, Hands, Potty ... each thing she did to get ready without being told earned a shiny quarter into the bank. When she had the thirty she could order it.

Gotta love this kid when she sets a goal for herself. Nothing can stand in her way. Faster than you could blink the money was earned, pavilions were purchased, larvae were ordered. And "they" arrived this week.

Wednesday with blonde hair flying she raced into the house from the mail box MAMA MAMA THEY"RE HERRRRRREEEEEE.

Turns  out they come in little cups where they are sort of sleeping until you take the cups out of the box and let the daylight wake them up. They will then proceed to eat and poop in their cups for a week or so then climb to the top of the cup and do their thing. Once all the caterpillars are all hanging in their chrysalis then you open the cup and put them in the net pavilion to hatch.

So here we are Day 1 - Not to bad. We only saw one move so we weren't sure they were all still alive.

Day 2 - Starting to see activity we think they all are alive and it seems like some might be a little bigger but it's hard to tell

Day 3 - Okay clearly these guys have spent the day eating their weight in food. That's the brown stuff, their poo is green and we won't talk about how gross that is starting to look. This afternoon I found one cup upside down on the counter (thank you kitty cats) so I'm hoping we didn't confuse them.

Day 4 - Thank goodness they are starting to head to the top of the cups. It's getting flat out nasty in there. We have 4 in one cup and 2 in the other that seem ready to starting thinking about attaching to the lid. 

Stay tuned for more updates....

FuzzyHead: One of the Many Reasons We Love You

No matter how many times you watch Go Diego Go you are remain surprised and very worried whenever you hear that there's an animal in trouble.

XOXO

Congratulations FussyPants

In honor of Mrs FussyPants giving birth today and Velveteen Mind's awesome post while waiting on news I am going to post my own how-I-fought-the-frump birthing day pictures...

This notion actually came to me about 3 months before my first child was born. My husband's cousin gave birth to her 3rd little girl one warm July morning and by lunch time I had a beautiful picture sitting in my inbox of the whole family sitting on the bed smiling - mom, totally perfect, in lipstick and pearls. Not an eyelash out of place. Is anyone surprised to hear that like Alli, cousin Cousin Suzanne hails from Nashville? Of course not, those Tennessee girls have it going on! So I spent about an two hours stressing about my first post-baby photo and then started planning.....

Of course it helped that had a planned C-Section. No fuss, no muss, no sweating, no panting. Just an uncomfortable catheter and a nice clean surgery. Pack the make-up bag on top of the suitcase and viola, diamond earrings and lipstick are in place. I didn't count on the messed-up-epidural factor that had my laying flat for 24 hours but I think I pulled all a fairly frump-less photo. Check out the flawless makeup job I managed laying flat on my back  - I remember I was so pale from the surgery that I had to throw on a little bronzer all so I didn't look like I was half dead. Too bad I they wouldn't let me wear my contacts.

 

 

For number two I was better prepared having done it once before, again with the planned C. I had lots of talk with the epidural man ahead of time to ensure that there was no "oops" and therefore no laying flat. The nurses were a bit P.O'd about the whole pajama thing but they had a full house and bigger fish to fry so they ignored me and went on to deal with the first timers. This shot was in everyone's inbox by dinnertime.  Not bad if I do say so myself.

 

 

So here's hoping Alli is out there somewhere holding Fussy #5  and rocking her pearls sans Frump. Congratulations Mrs FussyPants your made of sterner stuff than I am !!!!!

So it isn't exactly wild horses....

In the ongoing quest to create posts as visually exciting as Pioneer Woman today I take a page out of her book and give you photographs on the wild life that inhabits my back yard. Okay well maybe not my backyard today but certainly they were there before they were kicked out pushed away moved to a different address.

Ladies and Gentleman, a herd of Florida Alligators

They aren't quite as beautiful as wild mustangs but it's what I've got to work with people.

If you give them a chance they really are kind of interesting in their own way.

Okay for got measure let's throw a little scenery in here.

Oh and cowboys, we need cowboys... but well what we have isn't exactly a cowboy. First of all she's a girl. And I think you have to agree to pull of this job she brings a little more to the game than maybe the average cowboy might have to. I'm not saying those fellows aren't working hard but let's face it... the cows aren't likely to eat them.

I'm really not sure what it is that she's giving that guy for treats but I think it might be some of Ree's calf nuts. Personally I think this gal is bringing a special kind of crazy to the game.

For those of you who are starting to get the heeby jeebies we'll move to a different form of wildlife for a minute...

Egrets are much more attractive

I have no idea what this fellow is but he looked kind of menacing.

While not exactly native, parrots have been introduced just like boa constrictors by disinchanted pet owners and have found Florida to be an ideal habitat.

Either he has an itchy year or his bluetooth isn't picking up a good signal.

But back to the main attraction... Turtles...

Okay just joking.... ready for something weird?

 

The albino can't take the heat and lives under a porch.

But let's get back to our crazy alligator wrangler.... she has now graduated from suspected calf nuts to small rodents.

Which seems to make the locals very happy

One lick

Two Licks

Three Licks.. to the center of of a tootsie roll tootsie rat....

 

But not as happy as some of these larger ones would have...

If any of you are thinking that you can't believe that we let small children witness the series of shots taken above... keep in mind that it's kind of an important lesson around here in the Sunshine State.... cause you never know when one of these fellows is just going to show up in your kitchen with his own idea of what's for dinner.

Things I am not cut out to do....

Who knew? But evidently one of the things that I'm not cut out for is being a baseball mom. I'm not wired to listen to the passive aggressive nature of alternatively hearing my child yelled at and encouraged in the passing of an inning. I don't get a coach who can't think of one nice thing to say at the end of the game when praising every other child and then being stopped on the way out of the park to be asked if we plan on playing next season because "she's got great skills."

My sport growing up was track. And I guess when your a runner the coach has no other job than to pump you up prior to your race and scream passionately for you as you finish. Insults in between aren't part of the mix. They last thing you do is plant doubt in a runner's mind.

I can't help but think that same rule holds true for six year old girls no matter what they are doing.

I'm not cut out for this.

They may not all come back...

So I survived last night at gymnastics. Thanks Ms Tonya for taking pity on the parents and not letting us do the bars. We did get to jump in the foam pit which was my prime objective thank you very much.

Today I take on that most famous right of passage for any Florida parent. Today I take 20 some odd kindergartners to the Alligator Farm. Pray that all of come back!!!