The Pinterest Parade Boo Boo

I enjoy throwing parties and making things pretty. As a result, I've amassed quite a bit of party-ware--from cake stands to bunting to table runners--meaning our garage and basement are packed with "stuff." I try to get as much use out of this "stuff" as possible, meaning it's free range to our friends when they need it. Recently (as we rummaged through boxes of junk to find treasures for a baby shower), a dear friend commented, "Your garage is like a Pinterest parade." Compliment accepted. :)

A few weeks later, another friend asked if I happened to have a wooden high chair in my Mary-Poppins-esque collection. My response? Of COURSE I have a wooden high chair. (Who did she think she was asking? ;) ) I had recently acquired it from Goodwill for Emma Vance's first birthday party (to make for cute smash cake pictures) and had plans to paint it sometime in June. The inquiring friend asked to borrow it for her daughter's birthday a few weeks before E.V.'s party, which made me happy to get more use out of it. The planned paint color matched her theme as well, and the earlier party date meant it'd motivate me to get the project done.

HOWEVER, several weeks later, as June has begun to sneak up on me, there was the high chair, sitting all sad and still an ugly shade of 70s-brown in my garage. It was mocking me, and time was running out. Since today was so beautiful, I figured I'd stick E.V. in her baby pool and take advantage of the sunny skies to get the dang thing painted. I clearly overestimated my multi-tasking skills.

The 45-minute debacle started off well, with the dogs running around like wild animals and with E.V. happily occupied in the pool. I got a half of the chair painted (griping the whole way about how I should've listened to the many people who told me to spray paint the spindly chair instead of brushing the paint on) and was feeling good. The legs were left, so I plopped down with my brush and paint on the ground in between the chair and the pool. Not smart. It took about three seconds for our curious little lady to notice me, crawl over and hurl herself hands-first OUT of the pool and INTO the paint can--and then subsequently proceed to mush her paint-y hands and body all over me as she climbed into my lap. Sigh.

No wait--"defeated sigh" is more like it.

I did the logical thing and threw E.V. back in the pool to rinse off. Despite the unfinished project, I declared that pool time was over. I set her on a towel as I gathered our things to head back inside, but Emma Vance was too excited to sit still. She scrambled off the towel to chase the dogs, managing to crawl directly over the only pinecone in the whole dang yard in the process. Cue tears, scraped knee, hydrogen peroxide, ointment and Band-Aid. It was E.V.'s first real boo boo, and as a tearful baby clung to me, I cursed The Pinterest Parade. (Although the high chair did turn out really cute!)

(Yes, that's peach-colored paint on her thigh!)

New Lows

Yep. Emma Vance has officially gone from playing with the dogs' water to DRINKING it. (I suppose the summer heat is making us all a little crazy here in the South, so I can't blame her.)

And, yes, I opted to take a picture of my precious daughter sipping on dog-slobber-water before stopping her. Hey, the damage was already done... ;)

Storm Door Debate

I suppose most couples have at least one thing they constantly disagree on, like leaving junk mail on the kitchen counter or not turning lights off when leaving a room. For Ryan and I, our new storm door has become a daily source of debate. Ryan likes to leave it open to let the light in (since Amityville is naturally dark), and I prefer it to be closed to save us from wasting air conditioning. Tonight as I grumbled at him, his response was quick:

I like the light pouring in more than I hate the air conditioning bill.

(Says the man who has never paid one of our utility bills.) His quick thinking made me smile, and so for tonight, his desire to bask in the dusky light while on our living room couch won out. I went back to my dinner preparation, and when things got suspiciously quiet, I found Ryan and E.V. playing on the back deck. Sigh. I suppose leaving the storm door open is fine with me--for tonight at least. :)

Oscar Rabbit

This picture doesn't do Oscar Rabbit's size justice...

We're surrounded by woods here at Amityville, and for the first few months living here, we'd hear rustlings in the bushes at night as curious animals were scared away by Olive and Oscar running outside to go potty. These rustling became familiar and distinct over time, with one very loud, boisterous animal in particular becoming part of our nighttime routine. As the weather has gotten warmer, these little creatures have become more bold, showing themselves in the daylight hours to soak in some sun. About a month ago, in the wee hours of the morning, I discovered the identity of our nighttime visitor--a HUGE brown rabbit that we aptly named "Oscar Rabbit" because, well, he's a rabbit that's as big as our dog Oscar. :)

The name stuck instantly, and to make it even more perfect, we've discovered he has a girlfriend, which we then named "Olive Rabbit," because she's shorter and rounder than Oscar Rabbit, just like our little schnauzers. Olive and Oscar Rabbit live in the woods on the side of our house, which is rich with underbrush for them to doze under and scurry about. They peak their little rabbit ears out of the woods every morning and evening to venture into our yard for some breakfast and dinner (eating our pretty red tulips and over-grown grass), and one of E.V.'s favorite things is to peer out of the windows to watch our rabbits enjoy their meal. They're slowly but surely becoming less and less scared of our voyeurism, and in return we've grown very fond of them. I believe I may have found the one thing that I'll miss about Amityville one day...

Occasionally...

If you know us, you know that Ryan is a night owl and that I'm an early bird. It's perhaps the single biggest source of frustration in our marriage, meaning that most mornings start with me badgering Ryan to get up and at 'em and most nights end with him hanging out with the dogs as I tuck myself into bed. :)

Every once in a while, though, there are days where Ryan's call time means he's showering at the crack of dawn while I slumber away. This past Friday we had one of those mornings. Since Emma Vance awoke from Ryan's rustlings, I pulled her into bed to lull her back to sleep, adjusting myself to lay across the bed in Ryan's warm, empty spot. Apparently Ryan thought we looked ridiculous, and so this is the image I awoke to on my phone... Hey, at least we ALL look comfortable, don't we? :)

Food Truck Alley

Oh, how I love these two crazy kids.

While living in Amityville comes with its daily disappointments and struggles, one of the upsides is that it's relatively close to downtown Alpharetta. In fact, although we hadn't yet tried it, it's within realistic walking distance from Amityville. For the past few months Ryan and I have seen the signs for Food Truck Alley, a weekly event held every Thursday night in the heart of Alpharetta, and since we had a rare night where Ryan was home AND the weather was good AND it was a Thursday, yesterday we decided to take an evening stroll to check it out. It was awesome!

The weather was warm and summery, the sound of live music reverberated off the old brick buldings, and the smell of barbecue and french fries danced through the evening air. I can't believe we've missed out on this all spring! Shame on us for not taking advantage of the community (and delicious food!) right in our own backyard. We visited The Fry Guy, W.O.W. and (of course) King of Pops, purposely leaving the other trucks for another visit. We listened to a live band (young kids testing out their courage and talent). We ran into folks from various aspects of our lives. It felt like a small town, which we loved. And, of course, E.V. had an amazing time people-watching (and then subsequently performing for those people once she'd gotten their attention). She even enjoyed her first King of Pops, and I'm pretty sure she was ob-sessed with the chocolate sea salt pop we bought to "share." :)

As we pushed the stroller home, Ryan and I both agreed that our impending home search will DEFINITELY start in Alpharetta. I mean, who could resist living near Food Truck Alley??? Not the Shoves...

Mount Everest

(that diaper must give her baby super strength)

Okay, okay. So we still haven't installed baby gates, despite E.V. being able to crawl for over three months now. I'd blame Ryan's traveling, my indecisiveness and our busy schedules, but, in reality, the fact is that we simply just haven't gotten around to it. We haven't had any issues, especially since upstairs the bathroom (read: bathTUB) is directly across from the staircase, meaning that Emma Vance's beelines for the stairs inevitably take a detour into the bathroom to visit her toys. And as for the bottom of the stairs, well, E.V. hadn't ever really taken an interest in them--until last week.

At the time, I had a stack of clothes waiting at the bottom of the stairs to be run up to the master bedroom, and I suppose they caught her eye. She crawled herself over to them, dismantled them as I watched from afar, and then started climbing up the stairs, calling out, "Dada! Dada!" as she went. Curious to see how far she could get, I followed her closely behind, but her excitement gave her so much momentum that I didn't even have to reach out to catch or steady her even once. In one fail swoop our little lady had scaled the baby version of Mount Everest! I couldn't believe it; I had always assumed that we'd have to teach her how to climb the stairs, but she was a natural. The down side? Now she wants to do it. All. The. Time.

I don't mind to much because it definitely uses up some of her seemingly endless energy, and it is endearing to hear her yelling out to warn Ryan that she's coming for him (and, yes, when she reaches the top of the stairs she almost always heads straight for his office to find him). However, I do worry about her attempting to scale Amityville Everest on her own (which apparently she tried to do while Ryan's mom watched her today), so consider our procrastination over. Baby gates coming soon!

Santa v. A Giant Wizard

While wandering around the mall the other day, a small boy passed by Ryan, staring him down as he walked. The boy looked up at his mother and asked her (very loudly), "Mom, is that man Santa Claus or a giant wizard?"

Um, Dear, it may be time to trim that beard because although being compared to "Santa" and "a giant wizard" are both considered to be compliments by small children, they're not so much compliments to us adults as much as they are warning signs... :)

A Worm in My Belly

the culprit

Ugh. Yesterday was a bad day in general, and so to shake off all the yucky mojo, I asked Ryan to take a quick trip the mall with me yesterday evening. We were just going to visit a couple stores and head home for a quiet evening together. Moral of the story? Plans change.

Earlier in the day, I had noticed a little water bottle in the back of my car, which was odd because I had just cleaned out my car and don't usually have bottled water in the house. I figured that Ryan must've stuck it there because he's more of a bottled water person, and we'd been sharing my car for the past few days.  I didn't give it a second thought until later that night.

As we were walking around the mall, Ryan, Emma Vance and I, we were keeping E.V. entertained and happy by feeding her rice cakes. She started to get a little fussy as I was checking out at our last stop, so I told Ryan that she might need a sip of water. When I was done, I turned around to see Ryan with an odd look on his face and the aforementioned water bottle in his hands. As we left, he asked where this particular water bottle came from, and I told him that I had thought it was his. Wrong. (The mystery water bottle's origin is still up for debate.) He held the bottle up to the light, and I could see little brown somethings floating around in it. Upon closer examination, they looked like little parasites. OH. MY. GOSH.

Yes, E.V. had already had a sip before we realized that this water bottle was contaminated with something very, very yucky, and I flipped out. Ryan was more reasonable, but I begged him to take E.V. and I straight to the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Urgent Care nearby. He obliged, probably figuring it was worth the co-pay to not have a worrisome, hysterical wife on his hands all night. So we left the mall and headed to the doctor.

Emma Vance was as happy as a lark the whole time, excited to have new places to explore, new chairs to scratch and new people (nurses and doctors) to socialize with. I, on the other hand, had cried off all my makeup and was embarrassed at the perplexed look the receptionist gave me when she read aloud the "reason" I listed when I signed in: "baby ate a worm (?)". I'm pretty sure that might have been the weirdest case they've had perhaps ever. As for Ryan? Well, let's just say I have an amazing husband who indulges all my crazy-mom-ness with grace and love.

After taking the toxic water back to the lab, the result was that they "don't think the water has parasites in it," but they weren't able to tell us what the floating, worm-like things were. We were left with a list of signs to watch out for and sent home with the water in a bag marked "HAZARD" just in case.

Once we were told she's okay, I breathed a much-needed sigh of relief and began to be able to laugh at the situation. "Mom! I ate a worm! There's a worm in my belly!" Seriously? Who do these things happen to? Me, only me. This is my life! :)

"Um, hello, doctor? I think I ate a worm..."

"What's this weird necklace, Miss Nurse Lady?"

CHOA had a baby-sized, baby-height window to keep E.V. entertained.

Frazzled mom, curious baby, nice doctor...

Keeping her entertained while we waited...

...and then Ryan took it a step further...

...which Emma Vance found quite exciting. ;)