my sentiments exactly

this summer has been fun & exciting, lazy & relaxing, hot & boring, and now i can't believe it's over! school starts for the kids tomorrow, ross wants to start his own business, i am very likely going back to work soon. lots of changes potentially coming our way but hopefully all good.

this time of year always reminds me of my favorite clip. it made me laugh before i had kids in school, but now it really makes me laugh because i so get it!

fly me to the moon

yesterday my neighbor laurisa and i took our kids and a couple of other little neighbor friends to the new 3-d movie fly me to the moon. it received such mediocre reviews online that we were at first afraid to go, but then we decided it only fair to discount the opinions of those uptight movie critics, since they aren't under 8! the kids thought it was great. we had 8 kids lined up between us wearing big glasses stuffing their faces full of buttered popcorn. what's not to love?!

girl, this is TEXAS!

i think connor will be an athletic kid, but he has yet to find his sport. i have encouraged the typical little boy sports: soccer, t-ball, swimming, taekwondo...but all i've ever gotten is major push back. he has said he hates them all, but that's not surprising since he has strong feelings about everything (he either "hates" or "loves" things, he is rarely lukewarm about anything.) but over the last couple of years, he has talked with great enthusiasm about playing football. since i had never heard of anyone playing football before middle school in oregon, i kept miserably pushing soccer.

well, now that we're in texas, i've found that football starts young here! boys can play at four, which is ridiculous. but a couple of weeks ago, i signed connor up for a much anticipated 3-day football camp for 7 & 8 year olds. as i sat at a picnic table with a neighbor and some other moms watching (and melting in the 100+ degree heat), i asked lisa about the regular football season since her son had played last year. nothing out of the ordinary - when did the season start? did her son enjoy it? did she feel he was old enough and tough enough at 7?...

then, i must have asked the silliest question in all of the south. "so do the 7 year olds play tag or flag football?..." suddenly, from behind us, peels of laughter. i turned around and naively asked, "what?...why are you all laughing?..." the reply? "girl, this is texas!" stupid me. apparently it's tackle in full pads by 7.

i am nervous. my son is a lot of wonderful things, but he is also well...honestly, a crybaby. for instance, today ross and i both wanted to strangle him because he wailed so long and hard about how much his front tooth (that was literally about to drop out of his mouth) hurt when he touched it. on and on and on...crying a river. mercifully, it finally came out mid-afternoon so we could all go on with our day. i have a feeling the tooth fairy may come up short because of how truly annoying he was. anyway, my thought is that if he doesn't have the maturity to realize the sky isn't falling when you lose a tooth, can he really deal with being dog piled on without claiming he's the victim of a hate crime?