Not a butterfly

Will thought this picture was hilarious because it looked like 3-D boy had butterfly wings on. He really wanted me to post it! 

Bobbing for apples

Okay, I did have the thought...ewwww, germs. But Will was like the second kid to go, so I didn't flip out...plus, they generally just grabbed them by the stem with their teeth. His face didn't even get wet! 

Success!

The spoils of his victory! 

Candy from a baby

This is so funny -- I was running around crazy this morning working to get the kids ready and get everything ready to take to his preschool party. I went over to pick up the baby, and this was how I found my sleeping baby. YES I have to watch to make sure he doesn't give her anything dangerous, but really he was trying to share his candy with his sister, which is a sweet sentiment...and I have to admit, I laughed. 

Yoda pumpkin

"Try not. Paint, or paint not. There is no try." Obviously, this is Will's pumpkin, designed to his personal specifications. 

Baby Pumpkin

This is the "baby pumpkin" that Will picked out for Adelaide at his preschool pumpkin patch trip. So we decided to really make it a baby pumpkin. Adelaide was sleeping in her seat next to me when I was painting this one, so I got a pretty good rendition of her pacifier. 

My crazy kids

Here is the original superhero "3-D Boy" and his sister, the lovely Baby Ballerina. 

Baby Ballerina

 

He's a "3-D Boy"

 

3-D Boy's Cape

 

"A House Divided"

That's Ben's title for this original pumpkin design, customized to the “broken home” we have on Sundays as he is a Chief and I am a Titan (see previous posts). Anyway, this is one pumpkin, two sides to the story: 

The other side of the story/pumpkin

 

The Mummy

This one is a "Ben English Original Design." I have to say how very impressed I was with his carving skills. I painted it and Will helped me decide on the red spiral eyes. Good fun. 

New Videos online

These may take a minute to load...and I wouldn't recommend it if you're using dial-up (if you are, though, I guess you must be extremely patient anyway if you're looking at my photo-loaded blog...) but you can see a clip I took off our front porch during the last parts of Hurricane Rita as she passed over BR, AND a clip I love taken just moments after Adelaide was born -- pretty much Ben turned the movie on right after they had first wiped her off (read: no blood if that bothers you). They are doing her footprints and such. This clip makes my heart just swell everytime I see it because I remember that wonderful feeling of hearing her beautiful, amazing, miraculous cry!

A clip from Hurricane Rita

Adelaide moments after her birth!

Sick Chil'ins

Ugh. Let me tell you all about my week. Sunday Will told us that his throat hurt and he was, in fact, becoming hoarse. As we have all been having allergy issues, we gave him some allergy meds and didn't think much more about it. When we got up on Monday, I asked him if her felt like going to preschool. He said yes. I checked him over. He was fine -- looked well, no fever...So I took him.

When I went to pick him up, there was green gunk oozing out of his eye. Alarmed, I took him to the doctor. PINKEYE. She checked him over and said that otherwise, it was just some upper respiratory stuff and to give him Robitussin. She gave us some eyedrops and we went home.

Ben and I decided to quarantine Will because there's not a lot of ways to keep a four-year-old from touching itchy, burning eyes. We got the little TV/VCR combo we'd had in college and hooked it up in his room. We gave him some videos. He was happy to lay in bed (he didn't feel good, after all) and watch TV. We just really felt like he needed to stay away from Adelaide. So after awhile (and huge fits over the eyedrops) he went to bed. He was better on Tuesday, and I thought he might be able to go back to school on Wedensday.

In the middle of the night, however, he woke me up. He was howling. He said his ear hurt. We gave him Tylenol. We gave him Triamenic. We set him up with a heating pad on his ear. I sat up with him for about three hours. I turned Toy Story on the TV/VCR. He calmed down, and he eventually went back to sleep. On Wednesday morning, he woke me up. He said it sounded like there was a train in his ear.

So back we were to the doctor. She had looked at his ears on Monday, and they had looked fine. Wednesday, though, he had a pretty good ear infection in his left ear. As Will is allergic to penicillin, we went to the pharmacy to get a pricey brand-name medicine. The good news, however, was that it smelled like something one would buy out of a concession card at the county fair -- VERY sweet. He takes it fine...but I think it makes him act a little crazy. And he has to take it for ten days.

Thursday, however, Will said he wanted to go to school. Pinkeye was under control and no longer contagious, he said his ear was feeling okay...so I took him. After I dropped him off, I decided to run to Target. I got Adelaide out of her seat and put her in the sling like I usually do. When I did that, though, I noticed that her left eye was really really watery. A little bit later, I noticed it was a little gunky.

So I called the doctors office. Dr. Clark is off today! Dr. West had to go to the hospital and we are still waiting to hear from her. I don't know if I'm going to have to take her in or if they're going to call something in. The pharmacist is, I think, becoming concerned that we are harboring some type of sickeness germ in our home -- in the last three weeks, Adelaide is the only one who hasn't (YET) been on antibiotics, Ben and Will BOTH for ear infections.

Ugh. And now my ten-week-old is sick.

Yuck.

Little Titans (is that an oxymoron?)

Here's a nice shot of Will and Adelaide together in their football togs. Unfortunately for Will, he is getting to the age where he can watch and understand what's going on in football games. Thus, one must be strong in her team loyalty when they lose all the time, or one's son might end up (horror of horrors!) a Colts' fan! We actually get a lot of the Titans' games here in BR because DirecTV gives us a Jackson, MS CBS affiliate, which apparently has a "regional interest" in the Titans' games. Well, I figure maybe it's good to introduce a child to football when one's team is losing all the time -- if they don't think that part of the enjoyment of watching football is winning, they are more likely to be a loyal fan through thick and thin. It builds character. (I mean, just look at Cubs and Red Sox fans. They're nutso for their teams. Yeah, BoSox came through last year, but that doesn't negate the example because they couldn't do it for years and years.)

The other unfortunate aspect of Will's learning by example instruction in being a football fan is that I am a "yeller." I yell at the refs. I yell at the coaches. I yell everytime Travis Henry steps on the field (or is that moan, gnash teeth and cry? I get mixed up). I yell "go go go" on every run until the player is tackled, and I respond heartily to the quality of plays. As Will has a tendency toward loudness and melodrama as it is (I have no idea where that comes from) he of course has picked up these habits. We turned on the LSU/Auburn game the other night while Ben fixed dinner and I tended to the baby. I'm in the other room with her and I hear my four-year-old screaming "GO GO GO GO GO -- Aaawwwww!" in the front room. Yeah. He's cheering for LSU. They just broke a run for a first down. The aaawwww? That was when the runner was tackled. Oh, yeah. He's learning fast.

Anyway, Ben hasn't had local feeds of the Chiefs games since we left the Missouri stations that we recieved when we lived in Murray. He is already disadvantaged in any quest to turn the kids into rabid Chiefs fans because:
1.) As I previously mentioned, I yell a lot more at the television than he does.
2.) All of our families have much easier access to Titans stuff, which brings about the third reason...
3.) The kids are going to be geographically inclined to support the team they identify as their "home" team. I mean, this is what happened with Ben -- he hasn't lived in Missouri since he was really little, but he knows that is where he was born and where all his family is. Thus, the Chiefs are his "home" team. And Will? He was born in Tuckasee, that's where all his family is, AND he has a mother that screams at the TV a lot.

Incidentally, I cheer for the Chiefs, too. I cheer for them every game unless they play the Titans. That's only happened once, though, since we've been together, and it was last year. Last year -- well, let's just say that if you can name anyone who was on our roster, they were hurt. It was tough. But I think next year will be better...I mean, I'm a real fan. That's what I have to believe. 

The Littlest Cheerleader

Well, Adelaide wore her Kansas City Chiefs socks on Friday night and they steamrolled the Dolphins, so I hoped a little baby mojo would rub off on the Titans...oh, well. Actually, I would have dressed her in this anyway just because Sunday afternoons are festive football time at our house. (I totally forgot to put her Titans socks on her...maybe that was the problem...) Anyway, Mom got her this adorable outfit and Lindsay gave her the cutie-pie bow, and she just looked so great I had to share. (Nonny and Poppy sent the Chiefs and Titans socks -- totally cute, too!) And look at that smile...well, when it comes to the Titans' game score, ignorance has been bliss lately! 

Learning to Catch

Will has the hitting down (see previous post with video links) but he needs some work on his fielding. Daddy was trying to help with that today, but Will still need practice on catching. He has a fine arm, though, as exhibited here in the photo of him tossing this ball to Daddy after a missed catch. 

"Tuckasee"

Well, today is Murray State's Homecoming, the first one Ben and I have missed since we graduated (which really isn't as impressive as it sounds since we still lived in Murray for a while...but we made it from Wisconsin and we made it down last year.) But I'm bummed out. Not so much because of overwhelming school spirit and dedication to my alma mater, but more because October is a great month in Kentucky. The weather is gorgeous, the air is crisp, the leaves are changing...it's just wonderful. In October, it is my niece's birthday and Ben's dad's birthday, and it's when Ben's "family" (they're not really related -- they were the family of Ben's late grandfathers sisters...yeah, I said sisters -- See, Ben's grandad's oldest sister married the Bradford guy who was the patriarch of the "non-family." Then she died and his grandad's younger sister married him! Very Old Testament. Anyway, they are lovely people who treat us all like we're their family...and if you go back to before the parentheses and skip this long explanation, I'll continue), the Bradfords, all get together at Kentucky Lake. It's good times. If you look at my photoblog, pretty much all the photos that say they're taken at Kentucky Lake were shot during the "Bradford Picnic," as we call it. Anyway, we try to make it down for those convergent events each year, and well...we're not there.

Of course, I would also like to be able to take the baby to meet her family. Somehow I hate it that she's never been to Kentucky. Will knows it's where he's from, and I think he always will. But I want Adelaide to feel like her roots are in "Tuckasee" (what we lovingly call that mottled Kentucky/Tennessee area that we and our families call home). Mostly the reason we couldn't go is because Ben had to use a lot of his time off when I was pregnant and of course after the baby came, and he doesn't have much left. I don't want to go without him, so here I am, blogging on Homecoming day.

Anyway, the sun shines bright on my Old Kentucky Home, and while I do love the bayou, the tumult here lately has left me longing for my home. Like the child who runs to his mother when he has been wounded, I want to run home to Kentucky. Louisiana is wounded. She is aching, growing, shedding a tight skin to become something new. I want the familiarity of long rolling hills filled with soybeans and tobacco. I want to eat fried catfish and hushpuppies. I want to take my baby and show her off. I want her to feel the Kentucky wind on her skin, to squint at the sun as it shimmers off the lake.

Thomas Wolfe said "You can never go home again." And he was right. Once you have really left "home," it is never home again. But the truth in that statement doesn't preclude joy in the journey back to where one is from. "Home" is not the same place it was when I was 16. But it wasn't the same place when I was 23. It was still home, though. Acceptance of the temporal nature of what we call home allows the comfort of home to be savored. If you don't expect it to give you something it can't, going home again is wonderful. When you realize that there will not be a "you"-sized hole waiting to be filled there, but that you are merely a familiar tourist temporarily touching what you love, it is like warm chicken soup on a cold, sniffly day. It can just be the elixer that you need. And I am sniffly here, in Louisiana, sick with the ache of feeling like I'm somewhere new all over again. Familiar Baton Rouge, where there is a "me" sized hole, is no longer familiar. Baton Rouge is learning to function again -- like someone healing after a broken leg, who will always have a limp, but can live happily once all is accepted and assimilated into reality.

But now the leg is healing. It is itching, and I need my chicken soup.

Video: Will doing his baseball thing!

Here's Will taking a smack at the ball on the tee:
View this clip on Vimeo
Here's Will switch hitting:
View this clip on Vimeo
And, finally, here he is hitting a real "fast" pitch!
View this clip on Vimeo

Will and Adelaide at the Pumpkin Patch

Will is doing his best to hold a cranky Adelaide for our Pumpkin Patch photo. (I really, really do think there's some teething involved.) One of the other moms came over to try to get her to smile, but alas, she was in a bad mood. Will is just so sweet with her, though. I have several other photos of them in this pose (this is the best of the two of them) but in a couple, he's looking down, talking to her, kissing her head. It is so sweet. Unfortunately, she just wasn't in the mood for this photo...But don't they still look cute?

Preschool at the Pumpkin Patch

This is (some of) the class from Will's new preschool. I absolutely love it for several reasons. One is that it is very inexpensive because it is run by BREC, the recreation and park administration here. Second, it is very close to our house. Third, and most importantly, however, I finally got what I wanted: a teacher that includes Will but also individualizes her instruction for him. For example, when the other kids are coloring, she lets him pick a letter activity out of a higher-level workbook so he can work on his handwriting. She also let him read a book to the class. He loved it. But he also does most of the stuff with the other kids, like working on scissors skills and doing games and stuff. Anyway, there are some kids missing from the picture (I know of at least one for sure), but they all had a nice time at the Pumpkin Patch today. 

At the Pumpkin Patch

Here's Will chillin' at the Pumpkin Patch. Wow, was it HOT for mid-October (will I ever get used to it?) but he had a great time.  

Magnetix

Will loves his Magnetix, and he's really been doing some cool geometric stuff. He made this cube and then put a Lego guy inside of it and said it was, of course, his ship. 

Artsy Adelaide

Okay, yeah, I got a little creative with the photo effects on this one, but I just thought this looked cool with the focal black and white on her "Snuggly." I just think this is a cool shot. 

Serious face

I just think she looks very pretty here. (I mean, she always looks very pretty, but you know what I mean.) 

BIG smile!

This is our happy baby! This is (finally) a shot of her smiling that actually looks like her.  

Adelaide's face

I just think this is a nice close-up of her beautiful face. 

A Cautionary Tale...HILARIOUS!!!

Okay, kids, our lesson for today is Don't put classrom chairs over your head. Otherwise the teacher, the janitor, the school nurse, and a guy with a hacksaw will have to hold you down, take pictures, and allow them to be posted on the internet for people all over the world to laugh and point at you. Now students, take out your papers and write ten times, "My head shouldn't go through the schoolroom chairs. It may not come out." Turn them in at my desk when you are done, and HEY! I see you contemplating if your head will fit or not! Stop! I swear I'll put this on Google Images!