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Traveling Bean

23 Jul

Our Georgia-born Bean felt so at home and made so many memories during her two weeks of living where her mommy and daddy were born and raised. Her sweet, happy voice through the phone, (with some more detail given by grandparents) told us all about her West Virginia and Ohio adventures.

She used a shelf that held movies as a “hotel” for her Barbies at Lola and Papa’s.

She spent hours creating new stories with her Barbies in my old Barbie Dream House.

She got a mani/pedi from cousin Michayla while they talked about things they liked and what they would do after their nails dried.

She took a road trip with Honey to see her newly 16-year-old cousin Savannah march with her high school band in a parade. Carnival rides and games with cousin Gabbie, Aunt Sissy and Uncle Brian made for an extra special visit.

Big screen showings of “Zookeeper” with cousin Alexandra and “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” with Papa and Lola. “Gnomeo and Juliet” with Honey at her house. Popcorn for all three.

She watched, entertained, as her papa, uncles Anthony and Matthew, and cousin John Luke lead a stray goat back to its gated area at the Oglebay Zoo. Lola, Aunt Nancy, cousin Michayla and (soon-to-be Aunt) Cara all shared in the leaping goat fun.

She stayed up way past bedtime a few times – once until 1 in the morning watching a movie called “Aliens in the Attic” and another time doing who knows what but she sure was rubbing it in to me that it was 1:04 before she fell asleep.

She played Family Feud and Hang Man on her Grandma’s iPad and chased cats around a tree at Great-Grandma Nancy’s house.

Soaked with a garden hose when a threatening storm prevented a swim in Grandma’s pool. She got that swim the next day with Grandpa and cousin Alexandra.

Best friend necklaces with cousin Alexandra and shopping at Justice with Grandma.

Shopping spree to the extreme with Lola and Sandy – trying on clothes for an hour and loving everything your Lola bought for you.

Board games galore with Honey – along with a side or two of yummy spaghetti dinners.

Hugs and smiles for Great-Grandpa Domenick and Velma and Honey’s neighbors Callie and Jimmy.

Cookout with tons of family and good friends at Lola and Papa’s on your last night in West Virginia.

Squeezes good-bye and see you soon hopes for everyone after many sleepovers, snuggles, love and fun.

Hugs and kisses hello for us. We missed our Beanie Baby.

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What Color Is This?

21 Jul

Why do we keep asking him that? Like he’s suddenly going to know? As if one day Nate is just going to wake up and be able to show us what part of a tree is brown and what part is green? He’s tired of being quizzed. He tries to guess. He often gets it right. In fact, his preschool teachers said he would always win when they played the color map game. But it wasn’t because he saw the colors, it was because he memorized that certain things were supposed to be certain colors. He adapted. That’s amazing to me.

But I still can’t help but feel bad for our little buddy. Each time he said someone’s shirt was brown when it was clearly green to us, we would shrug it off. He’s just being silly. How awful I feel. He saw brown.

“The boy in the brown shirt, mommy.”
“I don’t see a boy in a brown shirt honey. I see a boy in a green shirt. Which one is he again?”
Nate would concede, “Yeah, he’s in the green shirt.”

It wasn’t until I took him to register for Kindergarten that the woman testing his vision called me into the room to show me how he was answering the color blindness test. He knows his shapes but he couldn’t see them in the dots. He guessed. He got frustrated when she asked him to trace the circle he saw where the square was actually camouflaged. “I think he’s having a hard time with his reds and greens, mom,” she softly told me. “He should be ok. It’s not until later in life, when he wants to choose a career, that it will matter. For example, the military and pilots.”

My mind blurred with thoughts of all the color confusion and worries about limitations it could cause him down the line. I came home and googled like crazy. Males more than females. Inherited from the mom. The green in stop lights look blue to them. Horizontal stop lights can cause an issue because a color blind person memorizes the color positions on a vertical one.

Questions flood in: what if he wants to be like his daddy and try to go to West Point? What if he can’t now because of this? Andrew mentioned some classmates had doctor approval. Then he hit me with more worry, “He’ll just have to be careful when working on electricity and stuff.” I started to cry. “You mean he won’t be able to safely do handy man work like you do for your family?” Andrew comforted me with, “I’m sure his wife will help point out the colors to him.” My humor came back. “Unless she’s mad at him.”

Apparently, color-blindness is fairly common. Our eye doctor reassured me about it during Nate’s first visit today. She didn’t make it seem like it was a big deal at all. She said his green is just different from our green and that they now have a contact he can wear for construction/electrical work that helps distinguish the color differences.

When I think about where life may take him, it seems a white baseball may suit him better than we thought. Especially since the doctor said his depth perception is excellent.

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In Between Seasons

19 Jul

Nate may not have a tee-ball practice or game to play in during these summer months but that doesn’t mean he’s not playing every chance he gets/invents. It’s been too hot outside to really quench his baseball thirst so he’s improvised. Some of has hold-him-over pastimes consist of:

  • Wii baseball. He will play that for as long as he can with us watching him like fans. Andrew doesn’t like him to play it too much though because Nate is changing his swing a bit because of it. Priorities, people. Priorities.
  • Toy baseball men that he has a field for and cards that tell you if the player singled, doubled, grounded out or crushed it for a home run. He even has a really cool, small, marble/skee-ball type baseball game that he continually wins.
  • Baseball books. Forget about reading anything other than a book with baseball as the subject matter. One in particular basically involves cartoon characters singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” which means you are signing it. Over and over again.
  • Trips to the stadium to see the pros play. We had some great times and I think we are all now hooked on our minor league team, the Gwinnett Braves.
  • Baseball on tv. He will watch it intensely but only for a few innings. After that, he feels the need to act it out and practice the plays the MLB players just did. After seeing some awesome dive and catch plays, he’s been requesting that we throw the ball to him out of his reach so he must dive to catch it. I was told I wasn’t doing it right because he never had to dive for mine. Fine. But if I can’t throw, I’ll capture it on video.

When are fall tee-ball sign ups? Not soon enough.

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Fish from the “Festibal”

17 Jul

Winning a bag-o-fish from a festival (or “festibal” like Nate will continue to pronounce it until someone other than me corrects him because I think it’s pure sweetness) is not really a rite of passage or milestone but it’s certainly a memory that sticks with a kid for many reasons.

There’s:

  • The fun of the game: Getting that ping-pong ball in a bowl filled with bright (toxic, toilet cleaner) blue water? Yeah, that’s awesome!
  • The reward: Having the game person (a really cool character with skull and cross-bones rings and tattoos who tells you every day above ground is a good day) scoop out some tiny fish from a dirty cooler and plop them into a clear bag just for you? Double awesome!

  • Three Fish and a Football

    The new stuff: Getting to go out and buy a new fish bowl/tank or at least special fish food? Triple awesome!
  • The thinking time: Naming each one after much thought and then trying to remember which one you named Goldie again. The one with the damaged fin? Still pretty awesome!
  • The discovery: Finding them floating lifeless in their new home days after they moved in and holding a flush funeral for them? Minus awesome times three.

Nia still remembers when she experienced that. Andrew told her he was going to swim with his other fish friends. Flush. Nate doesn’t have that same censoring though. He already knows what’s going to happen. Partly because Nia told him (because that’s what older siblings do) and partly because he discovered a dead fish on the ground near the festibal game. He now thinks his fish are going to get out of their tank. I had to assure him (better not happen) that they love their new tank home so they won’t want to leave.

That is, until we are forced to remove them. And I think Nate will be ok with that. He’s already asked if he can get new ones after his game fish die. Although, no fish will be able to replace the memory of the festibal fish.

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“Back Before You Know It”

11 Jul

Those were Nia’s words of wisdom and comfort during her phone call with Nate tonight. She also created a big smile on his face and an immediate thank you from his mouth when she told him she got lollipops for him on the trip to WV. Sweet Bean also picked out special souvenirs for mommy and daddy. I have a cross statue coming my way and Andrew will get to take a baseball guy statue to work with him. (Thanks to Lola and Papa for funding the souvenir purchase.)

She was also treated to her favorite Chinese food – Sweet and Sour Chicken and Wonton Soup. (Lucky!) Tomorrow, the plans call for a day at the Oglebay Zoo or a trip to a museum. It all sounds awesome to me. I can’t wait to hear about her next adventure during our nightly Nia report.

Little Brother Love

11 Jul

He got out if bed and didn’t walk, blankey in hand, to the living room to turn on baseball highlights like he usually does. Instead, he walked, blankey in hand, to his window. I know this because the blind was tilted, giving him a view of the driveway and Papa and Lola’s car.

Spying the car, he emerged sleepy-eyed from his room and headed straight to Nia’s room, asking with a sad voice, “Nia leaves for West Virginia today?” A just-awake Nia consoled him, “Don’t cry Na-Nate.” He leaned against her bed to hug her, her arms wrapped around his neck for a sweet minute. “I’ll be home soon. You’ll have fun with mommy and daddy, ok? I’ll call you before bed each night.” He rubbed his eyes and told her, all better, “Ok.”

They hugged a few more times before she left and even had one of their usual sibling squabbles (over a video game Nia is taking with her). I think Nate will miss the game almost as much as he’ll miss his big sis. Mostly because he now can’t lie next to her and watch her play it, giggling and cheering her on with each awesome move she makes on the screen. I suppose it will give them something to talk about on the phone. “What world are you on now? Did you beat such and such?”

We’ll soon see. That first phone call is only hours away.

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A House Divided

3 Jul

Daddy vs. Son

Andrew has loved the Baltimore Orioles since he was a little boy. Rooting for them through the thick and thin. Cheering and respecting his favorite player, Cal Ripken, Jr. – all without even stepping foot into Camden Yards to see the team play and barely getting to watch them on tv due to distance and programming.

Finally, after more than two decades of true fan support from a distance, Andrew got to see the Orioles play the Atlanta Braves live at Turner Field. But, it didn’t come without a little drama. You see, Nate loves the Braves. He probably loves the Braves like that young Andrew loved the Orioles. He knows the players. He knows how they’ve been playing. Which ones hit the home runs, which ones can “crush” the ball, which ones are hurt – he wants them to win every time and he wanted his daddy to want them to win too.

Andrew sweetly told him that he would really like to see the Orioles win (even though he knew they wouldn’t after seeing who was starting as pitcher that night) but that he would be fine if the Braves won because it would mean Nate was happy. That seemed to satisfy Nate. Until we got ready to go that night.

He saw his daddy all ready in his Ripken shirt and his O’s hat that he’s had for years and our little fan started to cry. You see, Nia was rooting for daddy’s team and I was being my wishy-washy self and said I’d like to see either team win. Well, to Nate, that was, “Nobody wants the Braves to win with me.” Through teary eyes he told me he didn’t want to wear his Braves jersey anymore, he wanted his Orioles gear. I gave him the choice and told him that I would cheer with him. I asked him if he could name any of the Orioles’ players. He told me no. He made his choice and came out ready for his team to win.

Yes, they won that night, but Nate then cheered for the Orioles with his daddy from the couch until Andrew got to see an O’s win on tv and hear his son tell him, “Oh yeah!” Something he’ll take any day of the week.

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Excited for the Game

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Ecstatic for his Favorite Players

Batter Up!

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Fantastic Fireworks


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Booster Seat Bean

1 Jul

She’s called Bean and she’s a booster seat demo queen. Well, maybe not a queen but she did get featured in two Atlanta television news stories about the new booster seat law in Georgia. Our Public Relations team at work needed a child her age to help the news stations spread the word about the new law and we were glad to help. It also meant that Nia would get to spend some time with me in my cube that morning. It was fun for her to meet my work buds and draw a beautiful window scene on my dry erase board. (I can’t wait to see it again when I’m back at work.) She also got to watch a movie on my phone (thanks, Netflix!) while I worked in the chair next to her. She loved sitting in my swivel chair and eating the crackers I have stashed in my drawer.

Before her busy tv/work morning started though, I joked that I hoped she wouldn’t make silly faces or spontaneously scream during the live interview. I mean, you just never know with kids (or many adults for that matter). Of course, she didn’t. She did exactly as they asked her to do and even planned out an answer to the anchor’s question. (The question was supposed to be, “How does riding in a booster seat make you feel?” She told me she was going to answer, “I feel comfortable in it.” If you watch the live interview below though, it didn’t go as planned. I think she still rocked it with that head nod though!)

You can see her in the stories by clicking the links below:

  • FOX 5 Atlanta – She was used as the demo child for the morning live shot and did fabulous, darling.
  • WSB-TV – She was used as b-roll for the story and buckles up beautifully.

I was able to capture a few pictures from her experience. The last one melts my heart. She woke up so early that day and was such a good sport during all the running around and buckling and unbuckling. My sleepy super star.

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Getting a Peek of the Newscast on the Air

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Posing for the News Tease

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The Anchor Arrives

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Sleepy Super Star

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Summer Camp – Green Week

26 Jun

The fifth week of Summer Camp was a milestone maker and a green one. Nate is now officially swimming without any floaties! He and Nia finished swimming lessons and he is now a floatie-free fish while Nia is our little Back Stroke Bean.

The green part of the week featured crafts with recycled materials and a lesson that I don’t think translated well with Nia. She told me the woman told them, “Don’t wash your car in your driveway because it can kill the fish and hurt things.” Yay, green!

Out of all their crafts for the week, Nia is most proud of her recycled bottle bird feeder. She can’t wait for us to hang it outside for birds to visit. I couldn’t wait for her to use her bookmark. We placed it at the start of Chapter 2 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I’m technically being green with that book too – being that I’ve read the series several times and am now recycling them with Nia.

Cardboard Bookmark

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Bottle Bird Feeder

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Sunshine Plate and Egg Carton Flower Planter

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Swim Lesson Success!

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Fast Forward List: Squeaky Clean and Kept

23 Jun

This may sound like I’m wishing my kids’ lives away but that’s not the way I intend it. It’s more of a what I hope for them list but not in an inspirational, mannerly and beautiful kind of way – in a functional, tidy, your-momma-raised-you-right kind of way.

  • You pick up the clothes that fall off the hangers in your closet (or that other people run over with their shopping carts at a store) and re-hang them. As it is now, shirts have gone missing for weeks because they were buried under stuffed animals in the closet. Maybe that penguin wanted that leopard print top? Don’t think so.
  • You will eventually rinse the bright blue gobs of toothpaste from the sink and the counter. Currently, you leave the gobs, creating a mine-field of stickiness on the sink that I just un-gobbed only hours before.
  • You recognize that product packaging (from things like toys, CDs or pencils), crumbled up paper and/or candy wrappers are, in fact, GARBAGE and should be treated as such. Not left on the floor scattered about, kicked under a dresser or piled on a piece of furniture camouflaged among other trash-destined items and non-trash items like jewelry, pictures and books.
  • That you learn to tie your shoes better than I tie your shoes. Poor Nate and his untied sneaks he struggles with each day.
  • You will not want to waste half-full cups of milk, juice or any other beverage of choice. Instead of leaving it behind at the table and forgetting about it, you will drink it and then drop your empty cup at the sink or dishwasher.
  • You will not have to be convinced to blow your nose, clean your ears or cut your nails. You will understand the importance of these actions and come to appreciate them, like you have with washing your hands. (One success!)
  • Leaving the toilet bowl occupied for the next occupant is not acceptable and putting the seat down should be second nature like zipping up your fly.

Again, this is really my sanitary, tidy and hygienic list. There are others for manners, kind words and functioning in society. You know, just a few of my “hopes and dreams” for them.

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