Thursday, July 22, 2010

Why yes! I WOULD like a refill!

Have you ever noticed how your tolerance level for little kid shenanigans is greatly increased after the waiter delivers your schooner sized margarita? No? Liar. Well let me enlighten you. My patience tank always occasionally reads -492 by the time we reach dinner in the evenings. This generally means I become a total Nazi when we finally sit down to eat..."STOP kicking the table! Don't thump crumbs at your brother! You are NOT a dog, you are a little BOY. Now use your FORK!" So, here's the scene at dinner the other night:

Me: STOP kicking the table! Don't thump crumbs at your brother!

Matt: (staring off in the distance, lost in his own little happy place)

Me: You are NOT a dog, you are a little BOY. Now use your FORK!

Waiter: And here's your margarita!

Me: *glug glug glug* Oh Jaden! What are you building over there? Is that food art?

Jaden: No, Mom. It's a catapult! (visualize a french fry base, tortilla chip launcher, and edamame projectile) I'm trying to fling this bean into that cup of ranch over there. Watch!!

Me: *glug glug* Sweet!! Scoot the chip a little this way and it'll go farther...try it!


And the moral of the story is??

--Sometimes you just need a little splash of tequila to help you appreciate the sweet things in life.


Here's another sweet thing: Swim lessons at the Seahorse...









He graduated!! I love these diving board/diploma pics. I've got the same pic of J when he graduated about 4 years ago, and my mom has the same pic of ME when I graduated thirty, er, a few years back.





Quick family vacays are also pretty sweet things...

Here are the chickens, acting like flamingos, at the Ft. Worth Zoo



Check out my bookworm...


I was having one of those Gestapo kind of days from about the moment I woke up that morning...

Me: NO! You do NOT need to bring that book into the zoo! We're here to have FUN, not study!

I'm sure you're not having any trouble identifying which part of that rant was my lightbulb moment for the day. Jeez. It's hard to tell from the pic, but the book is just full of quick facts and info about animals, most of which we actually saw at the zoo. I think I may have some control issues. But that's babble for another post & another day.






All G really wanted to do was "smile at a crocodile." Here he's waiting patiently. We did finally find one. Only it was an alligator. Apparently when you're 5 though, the distinction is irrelevant. He was pleased as punch for the rest of the day that he managed to "smile at a crocodile" without getting eaten.






Somewhere in the last few months, something has happened to my big kid. On this day he was simultaneously too young to resist riding the carousel and too old/cool to climb onto one of the horses and let anyone know he was having fun. Seriously? He's only eight.


You can see here that J is back to himself...climbing on the fake termite mounds, sucking on jelly beans. But really, it's the bag of jelly beans that are important in this story. Shortly after snapping this picture, a fat, fuzzy bumble bee flew into the candy bag for a little snack of his own. Now, Jaden is terrified of stinging insects after an incident involving an aggressive wasp a few years back. So he freezes statue still, tells me what's happened, and, being the excellent mom I sometimes am (who, incidentally is also terrified of said insects), calmly took the bag from his statue hand and headed for the trash can. WHAT possessed me to want to peek into the bag and see the bee trying to eat jelly beans is beyond me, but of course I did. As you can imagine, the bee seized this opportunity to escape and came zinging out at full throttle. Straight at my FACE. Thus causing me to shriek like a banshee whilst wildly flapping my arms and hopping about, because this is clearly the most intelligent way to rid oneself of a pesky bee. I must've looked like the idiot I clearly was on this day as the nearby mothers herded their children away from the crazy shrieking lady. I regained my composure, the children stopped cackling with laughter, Matt rolled his eyes, and we moved on the the giraffes.


Just another day in the life of the Potts fam.







Friday, July 2, 2010

Call him George...

My boys have long complained that they are the ONLY kids on the WHOLE planet that didn't have any pets. Whatever. Well, we finally bit the bullet and adopted two 4 month old kitties last week. I have SO missed the feel of a purring little furball curled up in my lap. It also turns out that I have NOT missed the fragrance a litter box adds to my home.

Meet Pax....



and Picasso...


The boys are thrilled beyond reason to finally have pets, even if they are as mundane as cats...on our way to Petsmart the other day:

J: Mom, let's get our pets from Walter's World of Pets!
Me: What kind of pets would we get there?
J: Scorpions!
Me: No.
J: Tarantulas!
Me: No!
G: Capuchin monkeys!!
Me: Oh Lord...


It turns out that Jaden is a natural with small animals. He's kind and sweet and lets them run and hide when they've had enough.


Grant? Well, watch the first minute of this video and you'll get a sense of how Grant interacts with the kitties...




He was holding Picasso in the kitchen yesterday. Now, by "holding" I mostly mean "clutching the cat in a death grip while vigorously hopping up and down". But of course he's not paying any attention to the poor cat while he hops and is therefore bonking Picasso's head on the bar stool with every bounce.

G: hop bonk hop bonk hop bonk
Me: Grant! Stop! You're hurting him!
G: No I'm not. See, look at him. He's fine!
Picasso: **bushed out tail and eyes wide with terror**
Me: Grant, if you break the kitty's body, he could die.
G: Well, what if I just broke his leg?

I have required more than one bottle of wine to survive this week.

But nonetheless, we are enjoying them and our summer AND the rain.



Here's one of our home-run sluggers...



Go Astros!


I'll post pics of the other home-run slugger as soon as it quits raining and he gets to play another game :(

Here's a random pic of some pretty flowers growing in the flower beds at our new house. The beds are ridiculously overgrown but with some creative cropping, you don't even notice the chaos going on underneath. I am trying to tame the chaos, really. Well, actually, I'm trying to pay someone else to come tame the chaos, but you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get the landscaper/yard people of this city to call you back! If you are one of these people, call me! I want to pay you money! Sheesh.



I can only imagine what the beds are going to look like after all this rain. Oh my. At least the rain is, for once, not accompanied by thunder, lightning, and gale force winds. That makes for some good playing in the backyard...






Happy Independence Day!