As told to me by Jerry

Apparently during Sunday School, Tom was wandering around as he is apt to do. He was climbing up and down the stairs to the stand and he was trying to climb them like a real person, walking up and down. He tries to walk down from the top but ends up doing a flip down the stairs and a face plant. So he is on the floor on his stomach. Jerry is fully expecting him to cry. Tom lifts his head and realizes that a smartie must have detangled itself from somewhere in his clothes and is now lying within arm's reach.

Naturally his chubby hand shoots out to grab the smartie which he promptly consumes. He was much too preoccupied with the smartie to waste time crying.

Halloween Revisited

Here are some past costumes from past Halloween. I love dressing up.

1. For the longest time, I always wore some kind of 60's-70's getup with blue eyeshadow and fake eyelashes. It was my standard costume. No idea were these costumes have gone but when I look nowadays in thrift store, I find a preponderance of 80's clothes. I did score an awesome dress with a psychedic pattern and macarme dress but that's for next year I think. My friend Evan here is awesome as King Arthur, King of the Britons. I didn't vote for him.

2. Again, High School with the 60's outfit. It actually made quite a hit with High school teachers and various male jocks who didn't know. I got lots of compliments from this outfit. As I walked into class, one teacher chuckled as he said, " I look like my High school girlfriend."

3. Halloween in Japan. I went to a dance club with my roomie Lisa ( see center left picture) in Tokyo. My brilliant idea this year was to be dressed as a Kogyaru as I borrowed one of my students' uniform and made the neccesary changes. Missing, the gucci bag and fake tan. It was also a hit. While taking the subway into Tokyo, many various and sundry salarymen made comments and I quote "Ah! Kogyaru! Segoi!" Which translates into, "Ah! Kogyaru...Great, cool, amazing, awesome."

Sheesh!

I can't believe I forgot to blog this. After this internet declaration, I went and did it in August. A 5k. And I ran the WHOLE TIME!!!! (well except for that one section that was completely vertical, I had to scramble over rocks vertically!....did I mention vertically?)

My friend Gaby, who has been running longer than me, came along for moral support and when I mean moral support I mean she ran at my pace even though I told her she could go ahead because I am reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllly slow. But that Gaby decided to stay with me which was good because she made me start running again after that vertical climb.

We were one of ones towards the end and we ran it 36 minutes which amazed me. Then we find out that most people that were ahead of us only did 2 and a half miles instead of the full 3.2 because they took a wrong turn. It was easy to take the wrong turn because we almost did and had to back track a little to get on the 3.2 mile course.

I know it was only a 5K but I was pretty proud for myself, coming from someone who couldn't even run for a minute. I probably will try to run faster or go for a 10k. I don't want to think half marathon at all. That intimidates me.

"Look, he thinks he's people!"

Muh-ma: Mother

Muh-ma Muh-ma!: I'm hungry, Mother Feed me.

Maaaaam!: Give me a sip of that smoothie now!

Maaaaam! Maaaaaam! Give me more!!!

Nana: Banana (or food in general)

Muh-ma Muh-ma Muh-ma Muh-ma: Oh Mother, how humorous you are.

Muuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh-ma: I'm tired and therefore cranky.

Muhma: Dad

Hopefully you can tell the Muhma is for Mama, the pronounciation though is more like
Muh-ma....like in the sound uh as in "Uh....I don't know."

And when he is not using various pronounciations of his multi-purpose word, he babbles complete sentences and is convinced that he is using the English language. Like thusly. It's towards the end. And it one of his shorter sentences. He was talking a lot more until I whipped out the camera. Of course.

Adventures in Halloween costume making

Ever since we saw Wall-e at the theaters ( dollar movies, of course) , Rachel has wanted to be EVE for Halloween. I thought that was a brilliant and unique idea for a costume....until I had to think about the logistics of finding and/or creating the costume.

I started out by thinking about making a cloth costume. So I go out and buy a body pillowcase (white). I bring it home, put Rachel in it and cut out the face and round out the top and bottom. It did not look good. It did not look like an hard, plasticy, metaly, egg-shaped robot. Rachel was not pleased AT ALL. Mostly whines like "OH Mom, that doesn't look right!"

So I wondered if taping an egg shaped foam board to the body pillowcase would work. No.

Then I thought about a tomato cage covered in batting. Then I remembered that she would be wearing this to school and to trick or treating. It might not be comfortable/safe.

So, desperation. Where do I turn to? The disney store of course! But do they have EVE? Oh no! They have all manner of princesses and fairies but not sassy, tough female robots on a mission. Grrrr!

So rack my brain again and come up with using a garbage can, those white, rubbermaid ones. with the oval top and then I figured I could paper mache a head that Rachel could wear. The garbage can could have the arm holes drilled and the bottom could be cut off. And then I could make a green plant picture to stick on the front. Perfect!

Except when we went to Wal-Mart to show Rachel our idea. She did not looked convinced. Actually, she looked mighty a. disgusted and b. disappointed.

Sigh. So she got a black and purple witch costume that she says is a "witch princess" costume.

I really would have liked to see the EVE costume on her though.

And soon she will be one of us

Anytime Rachel injures herself (and when I mean injure I mean a scratch or bumping into something, you know the kind that doesn't produce tears and screaming but the kind that produces much whining) Jerry and I always say something to the effect of "Oh I'm sorry..Should we cut your arm (leg, etc) off? " to which Rachel starts whining more, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"!!!!

Well, yesterday she complains of having a sticker in her foot (which wouldn't happen if she would wear shoes when playing outside in our Central New Mexico weed and sticker infested property) and starts whining. I check and nothing is there. The conversation went a little like this:

Me: Oh oh! Daddy! Rachel's got a sticker on her foot. What should we do? Cut off her foot.

Jerry: Yeah, we got to take the whole thing off.

Me: Rachel get on the couch and lay down so we can cut off your foot.

Rachel (unconcerned but a mischievious smile lurking): Okay

Jerry and I started laughing which made Rachel laugh. It was fun seeing her play our little game.

A question.

So any opinions of whether one should write in 1st person or 3rd person? Give me your opinions, the pros and cons, etc. Thanks.