A Little of This and a Little of That

Honestly, how much can be packed into three days of our lives? It's crazy here, I tell ya!

On Monday, we took Jack to the Newport Aquarium for his birthday, as we do every year. When I asked him what his favorite part was, he said, "The Nemo fish." So here are the Nemo fish:


And here is the happy birthday boy:


Jack's birthday was all about Thomas the Tank Engine. Literally. The cake, the decorations, the presents were ALL Thomas. What a happy kid he was!


Jack won't build Thomas tracks for himself, so Nick took over our library (which we have blocked off from Daisy, who would no doubt enjoy chewing the wooden tracks to pieces) and built a huge Island of Sodor for Jack that included his new Tidmouth Sheds and Coal Hopper. What a good big brother!


Tuesday, Jack's official birthday, was also the first day of school. Jack was very excited and happy to climb on the bus.


Today, however, he woke up late, lost part of his morning routine as a result, and pitched a fit about going to school. As we stood on the front porch waiting for the bus, he said, "I'm very frustrated with you, Mommy." As the bus pulled up, he stomped away, glanced back at me, and made an ugly face. "Jack, that's not nice," I said. In a lightning-quick change of mood, he stopped, turned, and said, "Mommy, I'm sorry I made an angry face at you. I love you." All smiles, he headed down the drive to the bus.

Nick is a rather jaded fifth grader who would rather pick up dog poo than admit that school is the least little bit fun. This makes getting the annual first-day-of-school picture rather challenging:


Daisy is now big enough to stand on her back legs and put her whole head on the kitchen table. I snapped this picture Monday night when she was sniffing at the Greek lasagne George made. Her new height served her well last night when she sneaked two pieces of bacon off George's BLT and started to swallow them whole before I pulled them out of her mouth. We've started buying bacon by the slice so we can limit how indulgent we are with it, so there were no extra slices to replace those two puppy-contaminated ones. George, who once shared a Tootsie Pop with Hoover, said he'd eat them anyway.

And he did. Bacon is bacon, folks.


My plan to celebrate the first day of school with a morning spent at Barnes & Noble cafe was derailed by Jack's plan. On Monday night, he told me, "Mommy, I have a plan. Listen. Tomorrow after school, I will go to my room and you will decorate the table with Thomas and put out my cake. Then, you will call me down and yell, 'Surprise!' Okay, does that sound like a plan?"

Unfortunately, I didn't have stuff to decorate the table for his birthday. In all the craziness of the last week, I forgot all about it. Plus, he made it clear that his life would be incomplete without "Spencer, the fastest engine on the Island of Sodor." So I spent my day making Jack's plan come true.

Wednesday, I made my plan come true...sort of.


I made it to Barnes & Noble by 9:30, and prepared my table for a celebratory breakfast and some uninterrupted blogging. Breakfast was tasty, and I was filled with a good feeling of sugary, caffeinated satisfaction. The computer, however, started acting up after about ten minutes, moving slowly. Suddenly, the screen went totally blank, then came back after about ten seconds totally distorted, with everything enlarged and pixellated. Then, the screen went black again and came back normal.

Good feeling gone. AIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!!! Was I being hacked? Had I been infected with a virus? WHAT WAS WRONG!!!!

I clicked to shut down the computer and up pops the screen that says something like DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER...configuring Windows udates 1 of 16.

Good lord. Sixteen Windows updates. I sat there staring at the screen for about ten minutes, waiting. Just waiting. It was a relief to know that the shenanigans were the result of an overabundance of windows updates, but OH MY GOSH! I closed the system, packed up, and headed to Michael's, where I consoled myself with a few supplies for upcoming Halloween craft projects.

Maybe I'll get to blog at the bookstore NEXT week.

Yesterday afternoon, I had to take Daisy to the vet for shots and a check up. She checked out healthy, and the vet, who doctored Hoover, told her she had some big paws to fill. Daisy enjoyed her visit to the vet, made friends with everyone and every dog there, and we went home. Later, when George returned from his post-work run, he noticed that Daisy's face was swollen. She looked like a sharpei and was scratching at her head. Poor little pup!

I called the vet, who asked me to bring her immediately. Apparently, she had a reaction to part of the vaccine. The vet gave her a shot and me some prednisone to give her at home. George took this picture when we got back home. Her whole face looked so distorted and puffy.


By bedtime, she looked one hundred percent better. This morning, she and Jack sat on the steps looking so cute I had to snap a picture.



Finally, last night, George made the decision to do Ironman Wisconsin on September 12. With the troubles he had in training earlier this summer gone, he decided to go for it. Mom's coming to watch the boys and Miss Daisy. If you live near Madison and want to meet for coffee at the Starbuck's near the Capitol Building, shoot me an email.

Hopefully nothing crazy will happen to get in the way of THAT plan.