Building a foundation

*double meaning alert*

Today was Andy's third day of kindergarten and today was the third day my eyes leaked a little. This MUST stop. Seriously. I am gritty enough to change a flat tire, tough enough to travel as a lone parent with two children under five to California for two weeks, and brave enough to have an Obama yard sign in a very Red county in a very Red state. Yet, every day for the past three days, the 44-inch 5-year old pictured below has made me cry.

I can't help it, though. I drive into the "drop-off" line, pull up to the curb and out hops my very excited kindergartener. I roll down the window and as he runs to the door of the gym I yell, "I love you, Andy!" He stops, turns and throws me a sweet, dimpled smile and yells back, "I love you too, Mommy! See you after school!"


Gah, I'm leaking again.


Must. Stay. On. Point. Ok, foundations. So I REALLY want, nay, NEED to be Room Mom this year. I need it like Michael Phelps needs water. I need it like Hillary needed delegates. I need it like Paris Hilton needs a Valtrex. You get the point. So what better way to land the title of Room Mom than to lobby for it? Worked for Jack Abramoff, right? Wait, bad example.


I think I might have gotten my foot in the door with these puppies:




They're both filled with Dove Dark Chocolate Nuggets. Look, I love Andy, but after a few hours with him, one does need some dark chocolate. Don't think of them as bribes or kick-backs. No, think of them as my way of laying the foundation on which to build my fabulous reign as Queen Room Mom of the Grade School Universe.

Ok, without the "Queen/Universe" part. Unless his teachers are cool with that.

Anykissass, after I dropped the man-child off at school, I drove over to the House Hole.

WE HAVE A BASEMENT CONCRETE SLAB THINGIE!! LOOK!

The big door-hole is for the sliding glass door, then there are two, large windows and then the door next to that is the door we're going to use to take the dogs in/out of the house. (That part of the basement is being partitioned off and will be unfinished so that we can clean them off before they come in.) The concrete stuff on the second level of the second picture is the garage.


And remember an earlier post where I mentioned the picture-in-the-foundation thing? Well, about a week or so ago, Jeff took a wedding picture out of his wallet (yes, my sweet husband carries a picture of us on our wedding day, in his wallet! Well, used to) and put it under the gravel that the slab was eventually poured on top of.


But then he felt bad because there wasn't a picture of the boys, so he went back a few days later and burried a picture of Andy and Ben because they're a major part of us. Then I felt bad because we're not done growing our family, so I went back a few days after that and burried a small heart shaped button so that our future kids would be represented as well. I draw the line at the dogs, though. I'm sure they'll burry enough in the backyard, on their own.





Well, it's 11:29 and I have to pick Andy up from school by 12:03. Honestly, who makes up these ridiculous schedules for grade school? Starting school in the middle of August, pick-up time at 12:03. What, 12:02 was just a minute too early?



Whatev.

I didn't cry

Ok, I totally cried. But you would have, too, if your first baby was sitting at a desk and turns to you and says, "When are you guys going?" When you have kids, you want them to be independent and brave, but when they are, it stings just a little. One of the many paradoxes of parenting. And just to underscore how bittersweet today was, I'd like to share two pictures:

(Yes, I used the "2006" to cover up a dead plant. Ah, the perks of photo editing software)

The four of us got to Andy's school at about 8:30 and went into the gym. There were easily 100,000 kids and parents present. No, not really, but it sounded like it. When the principal took the mic, she said, "Ok, Mann Elementary School...can I get everyone to go to a Zero?" and held her fingers to her thumb over her head. The teachers all put their "zero" fingers in the air and the room fell silent. This was NOT in the kindergarten handbook (come to think of it, there wasn't even a kindergarten handbook) and it looked like some sort of secret sign language code.

I swear, elementary school is weird.

Andy's teacher is Mrs. Frolo-Baker and I got a good vibe from her. Anyone who can get away with wearing a hot pink top and pants similar to these , is pretty cool in my book.

I'm sure it was just my mommy-eyes playing tricks on me, but when Benny and I went to go pick Andy up from school at noon, he'd grown three feet and looked like a young man. But when he reached out to hold my hand, I knew I had my baby boy for just a little bit longer...

Say 'ello to my leetle fren'

This amazing event first took place on Saturday, but I knew you guys wouldn't believe me unless I had pictures to prove it. (It's ok, I wouldn't have believed any of you, either.) I fed a hummingbird out of my hand!! First, I believe introductions are in order. Friends and family, this is Archilochus colubris, or Archie for short. Archie, this is everyone.
It all started when Jeff was sitting on the deck Friday night. He was drinking Mountain Dew *gag* and a hummingbird buzzed right up to him and darted around Jeff's bottle. After the bird flew away, Jeff poured some of the radioactive liquid into the cap and held it in his hand. The bird came back, buzzed around some more and then drank from the cap. As the poor little bird flew away, he exploded. Feathers and high-fructose corn syrup were scattered all over the yard. I guess the sugar, yellow number 5 and carbonation was just too much for the little guy.

Ok, he didn't really explode. But I have it on good authority that he's developed ADHD and is now an insomniac.

Anybirdy, this gave me an idea. The next day I took the hummingbird feeder off of the kitchen window, sat on the deck and waited. Not more than two minutes later, one of the handful of hummingbirds that we attract came by. I've never been that close to one of them, before, so I was really surprised at how loud their "humming" was. He hovered around, checked me out, even pooped on me. The little guy finally decided that he could trust me enough to actually perch while he fed.

Feeding a hummingbird by hand wasn't on my bucket list before, but you can bet it's there now. It's so awesome to be close to something so beautiful, and to have such a tiny creature trust you enough to land on you.

I tried all weekend to get pictures, but I was always out there too late in the evening. I finally got a bunch of pictures today. Here they are, for your viewing pleasure:

I love the smell of Lysol in the morning

Pardon my French, but this morning was shitty. No, really. Ben woke up, took his diaper off, played in yesterday's meal and THEN decided to let us know he was awake. Nice. From now on, that boy wears pants to bed.

Anypoo, at lunch time today, the four of us went to the house hole to watch them pour concrete. They've done footers and yesterday, put up the forms (brand new forms, by the way. The construction worker-guy who told me was very proud of this). They poured the stuff for the basement walls today, tomorrow the forms come off and then in a few days, they pour the foundation.

I didn't think I'd be as interested in the construction of the house as I would be the decoration of the house, but watching everything today was pretty cool. The concrete truck pulled up and was not able to escape the mommarazzi. Andy was a tad freaked out by all the noise.

Then they loaded it into the pump-truck-thing. Yes, the pump truck has the word "Schwing" on it. No, I was not able to refrain from making a Wayne's World reference.






















Then this guy (complete with Atari-Lederhosen) summoned his mad Tetris skills and moved the crane-hose-pump-thing to where it needed to go.







This next guy is my hero. He stood on the forms, 100 feet in the air WITHOUT A HARNESS. Ok, so maybe it was closer to 10 feet in the air, but still. 1 foot off the ground is too high up, in my book.














While we were out in Union, we stopped by Andy's new school. I registered him yesterday, but forgot his birth certificate. We dropped that off today and even got to see his new classroom. Jeff and I are taking him to school on his first day of kindergarten on Monday, August 18th. I still can't believe that the itty-bitty, 4 1/2 pound baby I held for the first time, 5 years ago, is starting elementary school next week.


Well, I have to get some class packets ready for a scrapbooking class I'm teaching in Indiana this weekend. I have 9 people signed up and they haven't even seen the layouts and cards we're making! I'm flattered!


Nighty-night!

I love the internets

It's Sunday morning. The boys are on the couch in a tv induced coma. Jeff is sleeping in. I have a large mug of coffee in front of me. It's a perfect time to fart around and see what the internets gods have to offer.

This is just cool. I want one at the new house. I'll program it to say things like, "GO CLEAN YOUR ROOM" and "BECAUSE I SAID SO".

http://craziestgadgets.com/2008/08/09/crazy-indoor-waterfall-spells-out-words/

I don't know why these are so cool, but they are.

http://craziestgadgets.com/2008/06/22/rube-goldberg-cadbury-egg-smashing-machine/

Animal cruelty or just plain clever? You decide.
http://craziestgadgets.com/2008/07/31/wearable-dog-poop-catching-gizmo/

I mean, geez...it was the "Depression" and all:
http://swapatorium.blogspot.com/2005/05/forget-your-troubles-cmon-get-happy.html

I wonder if they'd be interested in a picture I took of a cloud over Hebron yesterday?

http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/

I don't care who you are, combining cats and misspelled captions is funny:

And if any of you are looking for a gift for me, you know, just because, anything from this site is perfect: http://www.perpetualkid.com/

That's all for now. Enjoy your Sunday.

Fair Weather

First I'd like to start off by apologizing for the spam from "A girl and three boys" that you all received. I'm not naming names, but some of you thought it might be porn and tried to open the link. You know who you are. *cough*jeff*cough*

Anyhow, we went to the Boone County Fair today and I must say that the weather this evening was a gazillion times nicer than it was last year. It was warm, but there wasn't any humidity and there was even a nice breeze. This was the first, official fair for Ben (he went last year, but wasn't big enough to ride anything) and he loved it! We had dinner first and let me just say, Ben doesn't mess around when it comes to corn dogs. He devoured the whole thing. And lemonade. And a sno cone. And a donut. Now that I think about it, I'm really quite surprised he didn't blow chunks when he rode the spinny-boat things with Andy.

Speaking of spinny-boat-thingy rides, the boys loved them! Well, for the first few minutes. Then they were just sort of bored. Observe:

Although I know Jeff is going to be proud of his sons, no matter what they decide to do when they grow up, I think he secretly hopes they'll work with him in the industry. When he's at a fair or an amusement park, he's in his element and I can see that same excitement in the boys.

That's one of the reasons why I love watching my guys at amusement parks. The kids have this pure, raw excitement and Jeff lights up when he sees them like that. Despite the fact that I don't usually go on the rides, I think I have more fun than they do. I get to watch them run around and spin and go upside down. I get to listen to their squeals of joy and bursts of laughter. I pretty much get the perks of amusement parks without having that queezy feeling in my stomach at the end of the day.

Oh, and I didn't enter anything in the fair this year. I just didn't get around to it and I like being able to say that my scrapbook has won 1st place in 100% of the fairs I've entered it in!

Earlier today, we drove by the House Hole. There's lots going on! I'm not exactly sure what it is they've done to it (I'm sure Jeff would be able to tell you) but there was one of those elevation-machine-thingies, something that sort of looked like a maze and more dirt had been moved around. I think they pour concrete into the maze-looking thing tomorrow and then next week, they pour the foundation. Here's what it looked like as of noon, today:

Well, it's 11:09pm and Jeff and Andy just got back from the fair. (Ben and I came home at about 8:00, as he was all corndogged-out.) I'm going to go help Jeff de-funkify Andy and get him in bed.

Goodnight, everyone!

The House Hole

This is what Andy lovingly refers to our house-site as. The "House Hole". It sort of conjures up images of Tom Hanks and Shelley Long in The Money Pit, but hopefully, that won't be us.

We started the process back in April and by June, Jeff and I were trying to figure out which shade of beige (of which we were offered not two, not three, but four choices) our walls would be slathered in. (Sourdough, in case you were wondering.)

They broke ground this Monday and should be pouring concrete next week sometime. I want to be there for that, so I can put an old picture of Jeff and I in the foundation. Mushy, I know, but I like that it's sort of a literal take on "building a home on a foundation of love". Yeah, yeah...Hallmark called, they want to offer me a job in their "sappy" department.

I still can't believe all of this is happening. I had a very, very modest childhood and to go from a rented 2 bedroom duplex in East L.A. to a 3600sq ft home that has my name on the deed, well, let's just say I pinch myself every morning, hoping it wasn't all a dream.

Anyhow, here are two of the shorter Pike men, just before the House Hole was made. How stinkin' cute are they?! In other news, we got the "ok" from the Boone County Board of Education to start Andy at the elementary school near our House Hole. He starts Kindergarten on the 18th (Kentucky didn't get the memo that "back to school" starts in September, but whatever). We're going to register him on Friday after his doctor appointment.

Yes, that would be his 5-year-old check up. Yes, he turned 5 in May. Yes, I am on top of things. Ben is also getting his 18 month check up (he turned 18 months in May), so at least I'm consistent.

I still can't believe he's starting kindergarten. KINDERGARTEN! My first baby! When did that happen?

Ok, I'm going to go pore over infant-Andy pictures and then go re-tuck in the man-child.

And we're live!

Welcome to the Pike Family blog; the guys and I are officially members of the 21st Century! I've been so far behind with email and posting updates and pictures, so I wanted to have one place to go to update everyone. I had a hard time naming the blog. I wanted to call it something that really captured our life, so I went with the "cupcake" thing. Sometimes things are just a tad on the insane side and sometimes there's nothing more fun and easier to do than serve cupcakes for dinner.

So, this is it! Our first post!