No Room for Ethan

For reasons that I won't get into tonight, Ethan has temporarily moved into our room. At first we were making a pallet at the foot of the bed, but when we figured out it was going to be for a little bit longer, we moved his mattress in. I've shown you all of his "babies" in previous posts, but now I would like to introduced you to the way that he sleeps.

He sleeps with every one of his babies on the bed with him. Every. Single. One. Often, that means that there is no room for him. He will be sleeping on the very edge of the bed, with his legs hanging off. Even though he is very close to the ground, it gives me heart palpitations just thinking of him rolling off.

But some nights, he has his babies arranged just right, so that they are surrounding him and he's all set for the night. You will notice though that he also fits other things on his bed. Like his build-A-Bear "house"...er...box. Oh, and if you look to the far right, you will see his Batman house.


Do you see Donkey at the bottom of the picture? He talks. Endlessly. Oh, don't get me wrong...when we first got him, he was soooo cute. We would take him around and show him to everyone. We quickly outgrew that. Now he's my albatross. If I trip over him in the middle of the night, he'll start chattering as I frantically try and shut him up so he won't wake the whole house.

Notice that Ethan is on Spider Man sheets and a Wiggles comforter. That's how we roll. We have matching sets, but for reasons that are beyond me, we never seem to get them on the bed at the same time. Doesn't he look so comfy? For two nights in a row {in the dark} I snuck over and took these pictures.

Because, seriously...How cute is he!? And while I may be partial to him because I carried him for 9 months, I don't know many people that could resist this sweet face.

And as long as I have my camera, I'll capture these moments. Because I always want to remember how precious he looks sleeping with his babies....and because I'll need something to hold over his head when he's 16, bigger than me, and ornery.

Sincerely,

She Who Plots for the Future

Texans Have Thin Skin. Seriously. Well Mostly.

I determined a few years ago that Texans have thin skin. Well, I have thin skin. I guess it's OK to admit (to my five readers here) that although I don't represent everyone in Texas, in my world here on the blog, I do. Err.. and I will also admit (but don't tell anyone else I said so) that in my mind, my outlook on this is very significant. What do you mean? you ask. Well I'll share. It can be 70 degrees outside and I have the heater on in my car. I have a heater on my desk at work. I have an extra heater in my bedroom. I love heating pads because they make me warm. Blow dryers make my heart sing when I'm blow drying my hair.

This is also a bone of contention between me and Jerry. You see, he's not Texan, therefore he doesn't have thin skin. We recently drove up to Austin (which is about a 3 hour drive). During the course of said 3 hours, we engaged in a temperature war. Every. Three. Minutes. I would continually try and get sneaky....creeping the temperature gauge to "hot" every time I thought Jerry wasn't looking. Obviously, I'm not as stealth as I tell myself I am. So he would then turn it back to cool and we would start all over. Luckily, we both have a sense of humor so instead of this turning ugly, it gave us a good laugh.

Lets take a moment though to step back in time, shall we? I was a senior in high school and was dating a boy with a convertible. One night we were going somewhere (and I have no idea where "somewhere" was) but it was an unusually cold winter night. Well, to me it was an unusually cold winter night. I admit it was probably in the 50's. Apparently, he didn't have thin skin either because that night I do believe I might have singed his eyebrows a little. He was a good sport about it for a while but then he went and got all unreasonable on me! Unreasonable I tell ya! He pulled the car off of the road and in a huff, yanked the roof off of the car!! I tried to sit there with as much dignity as I could muster, driving down the road in the dead of winter with the top down on the car. I do think I even muttered something to the effect of Ughhh what's wrong with you!?

We don't have a convertible now but I wouldn't put it past Jerry to do something similar. I admit, I get a little OCD when it comes to heat. Hmmmm, thinking about this a little more, maybe I am the anomaly in this equation. Although, since this is my blog, I get to set the stage....

So....Everyone in Texas has thin skin.

Well...except for Jerry. And my high school boyfriend. Any my sister-in-law. And my bother. Oh, and Ethan...he doesn't have thin skin either. Or my dad.

But everyone else in Texas does. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Please excuse me while I go crank on the heat...

Sincerely,


She Who Would Not Survive in Alaska



Tonight, I'd like to give a special thanks to Jen. Thanks Jen, for being you. And for letting me harass you endlessly a few moments ago.

Neighbors

I was sitting in my living room today watching Ethan play in the back yard when he came into the house very upset. It seems that he had kicked his new ball over the fence. That happens a lot. We buy a lot of balls. Personally, I think the manufactures of the balls secretly love our family. Well, they love Ethan.

So, that got me thinking about what it is like being our fence neighbors. We have three yards that we share a fence with. Ethan does not discriminate when it comes to kicking balls over the fence. Behind us lives an elderly couple that must automatically scan their back yard for balls whenever they go outside. It never fails, within a few hours of the ball gliding over the fence, it's back in our yard sitting quietly until Ethan decides to kick it over the fence again. On the left of us is our most sociable neighbors. They are the ones that we quiet often harass. It also seems to be the yard that he kicks his favorite balls into. I guess that's a good thing because whenever that happens, you can bet we are knocking on their door begging for them to retrieve it. They are good sports. Ethan has no qualms about what we should do when he knows his ball is sitting in their yard.

Then there are our neighbors on the right. For one, if I didn't see them in the flesh once every three or four months, I would swear no one lived there. They must live on a very different schedule than the other people in the state of Texas. Ethan gets giddy when he does see them because it's such a rare occasion. Sometimes I blink and wonder if it was an illusion. I also wonder what they do all of the time. They are the reason we spend so much money on balls. Because when one of the balls flies over that fence, we kiss it goodbye. Goodbye ball. Well, unless a hurricane is blowing in. Then we get about 20 balls nicely bagged up and thrown back over the fence. All at once....and Ethan is in ball heaven....as we sit in awe at the amount of balls we own. I wonder if they are vampires. Vampires don't go outside, right? I bet they certainly don't go into the back yard.

I have neighbors with a good sense of humor. None of them seem to mind the onslaught of balls littering their back yards. I think it's become part of their every day lives. Just like breathing is.

So what does all of this mean my friends? It means that you too could live on the edge...wondering when the next ball would fly in your yard...if you lived next to a four year old with a mild obsession with balls.