Voyages in Parenthood

It's Halloween. Leda has decided she doesn't want to be the Little Mermaid, she wants to be Cinderella. We don't have a Cinderella costume. Even though for the past 12 hours or so, she has insisted that she bought one and it's in her closet. Oh yes, tonight is gonna be a barrel full of monkeys! Can you say trip to KMart? Does that win me Mother of the Year or Sucker of the Year? Can't decide which one! Oh well, at least the music is pretty darn good this morning: Indian Summer Sky , U2 I'm A Boy , The Who Adia , Sarah McLachlan American Woman , The Guess Who Sweet Girl , Fleetwood Mac Medley: Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In , The 5th Dimension Great Heart , Johnny Clegg & Savuka Running From An Angel , Hootie & The Blowfish Favorite Year , Dixie Chicks Hooked On a Feeling , B.J. Thomas

And FINALLY....Philly has a sports Championship! WOOOO HOOOO! Fireworks all over the area...it sounds like 4th of July here! Parade on Friday...won't be going, but might be watching! ;-) Awesome! And the kid, she slept right through it! Well...after she fell asleep in the 7th inning! And there are people dancin' in the streets in Philly. It's awesome.

Phillies score in the bottom of the 6th (geez, it's like the game JUST started!) and of course, I cheer. Loudly. There was clapping. And WooHooing It was kinda loud. My bad. A few minutes later, child's bedroom door opens and I ask her what she thinks she is doing (as she is supposed to be sleeping) and she announces she needs to use the potty. As she goes into the bathroom, she stops and looks me in the eye and says... "When someone is trying to sleep, you are supposed to be quiet." To which I agree with her and appologize for being too loud and tell her I will do better. I think I was just told off by a three year old. This is the reason I hate evening games, by the way. I have to remember to be quiet. It's in the family genes to be loud. Geez!

Like that is news to anyone who knows me! Really, I am. I am going to attempt to do another NaBloPoMo for this November. That means, a post a day for 30 days. No cheating! That means a significant post (no one liners!) I did it last year , hopefully I can do it again! I'll probably need some topics. So, HELP ME already! One thing I will be posting about is the 30 Day Shred . Brock promised he will do it with me. We'll see how far we both get. I love Jillian Michaels...I have watched the Biggest Loser thinking, if she was my trainer, I'd get my butt back in shape in no time. Because, well, she scares me! Apparently this DVD work out kicks you-know-what. It should arrive in the mail on Saturday! So I'll probably be dragging my butt out of bed early on Monday morning to start my 30 days! So November is gonna be an interesting month. Hopefully I can keep up on both adventures! Stay tuned!

I just watched It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown with Leda for the first time ever. Her first time ever...god only knows how many times I have seen it. However, it would be the first time in a LONG time for me! Anyway, I got to thinking about how similar Philadelphia sports is to Charlie Brown. I mean, what is up with Charlie Brown? He's a good guy. He's even a good sport. He is willing to trust Lucy when she tells him, even signs an affidavit, that she will NOT pull the football out from under him when EVERY.SINGLE.TIME she does pull the football out and Charlie ends up flat on his back again. It's like that with our sports here in this town...every time we think we might actually...well, you know...obtain the unobtainable (I am so not going to jinx our chances by mention the big event that a certain ball team in this city was participating in last night)....the proverbial football is pulled out from underneath of us. Usually this is done by our own team, but this t...

Watch this...I haven't even started the post and I am already going to go on a tangent (hey, it's what I'm known for)... I wanted to use the word "reminiscing" for this post because, well, that's what this post is about! But I needed to look it up to make sure I was spelling it correctly. And that just got me going on a whole other tangent (see – I told you I was known for going on tangents!)...because what should pop up in the Google results...like #2 in the Google results (really, you go try it !) is the video of the song "Reminiscing" by the Little River Band . Well, I just HAD to click the link and oh.my.god I was thrown back 30 years in like 2.5 beats of the music! So now, my iTunes account is $4.95 lighter and I'm rocking out to the Little River Band! Why, you ask, would the song "Reminiscing" cost $4.95? Well, I would answer, because I got reacquainted with "The Lonesome Loser" and "Lady". Oh and do you remem...

One of my high school friends posted an old class picture from (gulp!) 1980 or 1981 (when the heck was I in 7th grade??) on Facebook (what an evil, evil invention, Facebook, that is, not pictures) (well, maybe pictures too!) and I got to searching for old pictures. Haven't a clue where most of them are as I was never really good about putting them in places I could get to them easily, like, say in an album that sits on a shelf? Nope, I used to store them in shoe boxes. Yep, if I ever want to remember what fashionable shoe I was wearing during Jr. High or High School, I just have to find my old pictures! (For that matter, every corsage I had from major dances in highschool are also stuffed into shoe boxes, stored in my hope chest...Do you know how hard it is for me to throw out a shoe box? Oh, therapy is usually involved!) And as I get older, I tend to forget where I put things. Especially now that I have lots of nooks and cranny's of the house to hide things! Well, it turns out...

Good one today! For You , Bruce Springsteen Lorenzo , Phil Collins Only Human (From the Casa Nova Sessions) , Jason Mraz Stompin' At The Savoy , Harry Connick, Jr. Reason To Believe , Bruce Springsteen I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) , The Four Tops Radio , Smash Mouth Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo , Rick Derringer Sara , Fleetwood Mac Kiss From A Rose , Seal

Can.Not.Wait... Season 5 of Top Chef starts November 12th. Now you know where I will be every Wed night at 10PM. This time around, they are in NYC! Awesome! Can.Not.Wait!

Apparently, I'm not the only one around here who isn't getting enough sleep! I was sitting at my desk yesterday when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I looked out the window and I saw this squirrel stretching out on this branch. I wasn't quite sure what he was doing. I thought he was stretching to reach something, when all of a sudden, he went slack, closed his eyes and seemingly fell asleep. For about three or four minutes before he sat up again, scratched a few times and bounded down the tree and off toward the creek. It was so darn cute, I had to take a picture. Apparently 3-4 minutes is all a little squirrel needs. Me, I could use a whole darn afternoon! A closer look...

We had a really busy weekend! On Saturday, we finished cleaning the house and headed on out to meet the Durhams and Karen and Sydney for a trip to Linvilla for a hayride and maybe a pumpkin or two! The day was beautiful, albeit a little chilly! So we dressed accordingly. We got to Linvilla and headed first for the lunch lines...luckily this year, we got there a little earlier than last and it didn't take too long to get some lunch. A good thing when you have 3 hungry pre-schoolers. So we had a little lunch and headed over for a hayride. It was a nice little hayride though the woods and through the orchards. We saw pears and peaches (well, peach trees!) and pumpkin patches and squash and tomatoes and peppers and of course, apple trees (and TONS of apples!). The girls enjoyed the hayride, even sitting at the front, right behind the tractor where the dust flew up in our faces! Oh joy! After the hayride, we headed over to the playground and the girls ran around and tried every piece of...

After this, I'm going 70s - a little Simon & Garfunkel, Mott the Hoople...I might even have to download a little Bowie...I'm feeling like some Glam Rock today! (okay, so S&G don't fit that bill, but whatever!) I Can't Stand It , The Velvet Underground Drive In Drive Out , Dave Matthews Band Sweet Jane , Mott The Hopple Minimum Wage , They Might Be Giants Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) , US 3 Featuring Rahsaan & Gerard Presencer Highway In The Wind , Arlo Guthrie My Sweet Girl , John Hiatt The Devil Went Down To Gerorgia , The Charlie Daniels Band Good Times Bad Times , Led Zeppelin Deadbeat Club , The B-52's Wonder what got me in the Glam Rock mood? Watched Life on Mars again last night...loving that show! Favorite line from last night..."If ignorance was a drug, you'd be high all the time." Love it!

It's bedtime at the Yates household and it's Daddy's turn to read books. And all I hear is Leda screaming the names of body parts at the top of her lungs. Ah, I think to myself, I know exactly which book Brock is reading... Ain't Gonna Paint No More ! Ain't Gonna Paint No More is our favorite book. Leda got it for her birthday. She loves it. We love reading it. It's a very cute and fun book! It's got a rhythmic chant to it, and I think it might end up being the first book reads on her own! And it's so exciting to hear her scream with glee the body part that is mentioned at the end of each phrase! Oh, and the giggling! For example... "So I take some red and I paint my...(and on the next page is the body part, but Leda yells it out before we turn the page) HEAD!" (giggle!!) Seriously, try not to laugh out loud when you read this book with Leda! Just one of those things I look forward to once or twice a week when the book gets put into rotation!

Tonight, while Leda takes a bath and I clean the rest of the bathroom (multi-tasking!): Leda: Why do we have belly buttons? Me: Because that's where you were attached to Mommy when you lived in my belly. Leda: That was when I was really, really little and couldn't talk. Me: That's right. And then you were born. That's why your birthday is so special. Leda: And then I had a birthday party! A BIG birthday party! Me: That's right! Leda: Then I got bigger. That was the basic gist of the conversation. It was probably one of the cutest conversations I've had with her lately! Thank god she didn't ask how she got into Mommy's belly in the first place. SO not ready for that conversation!

We spent the past weekend at the seashore. It was a beautiful weekend! We totally lucked out. The weekend had been planned for a couple of months now, we offered to close up the beach house for the Durhams way back in July. We just hadn't picked the weekend until the beginning of September. You never know what you are gonna get! Well, we got shorts weather. Shorts and sweatshirts that could be removed when the sun got you all warmed up. The mornings and evenings were cool but the days were just plain nice! We headed down right after work on Friday night and stopped for dinner on the way. We got to the shore house around 9 pm and hung out for awhile, aired out the place and got Leda into bed by 10 or 11! Figured we'd all sleep in on Saturday! Me, sleep in at the beach? Yeah, not often heard of, but I was tired so I was looking forward to sleeping until 8, MAYBE even 9 am. Apparently, the kid, she takes after me...up at 6:30 AM down at the beach! We spent a leisurely morning, got...

On our way to the shore on Friday evening, we didn't get too far before we were stuck in traffic. We were stuck behind a small delivery truck, so it was hard to see what was going on up ahead. We were pretty sure we were sitting in construction/rush hour traffic. At one point, the guy in front of us started to move but slammed on the brakes pretty hard, hard enough that Brock might have hit him if he wasn't paying attention. I sorta gave him what for because he almost did hit him. Next thing we hear, out of the backseat, in reference to the guy in front of us... "You idiot, you don't know how to drive!" She gets that from her father! (And, we heard it at least once more over the weekend!)

Back from the beach. Exhausted but happy. Crammed a ton into two days! Will update later. Lots of pictures. My favorite by far!

Sleep All Day , Jason Mraz No Woman No Cry (Live) , Bob Marley & The Wailers Get Closer , Seals & Crofts Space Cowboy , Steve Miller Band Jolly Mon Sing , Jimmy Buffett Sour Suite , The Guess Who Landslide , Dixie Chicks Video Killed The Radio Star , The Buggles Hey Good Lookin' , Jimmy Buffett If He Should Break Your Heart , Journey Some how Jimmy made it in the random 10 twice this week...my iPod must know I am heading to the Beach this weekend! ;-) ____________________________________________________________ So, I decided to take a gander at the new show on at 10pm on Thursdays last night. I was hesitant only because I really wanted to try and stick with ER for the last season, but it really looked good, this Life on Mars . I'm hooked. The idea is really interesting, cop guy from 2008 NYC ends up getting hit by a car and somehow ends up being a cop guy in 1973 NYC and the question is, how is he there? It all in his head? Is he dead? Is he alive? Coma? And in the mean...

I've bloggers block! That's what it has to be. Or, it could just be that I am spending too much time on Facebook and coming up with a one sentence status! I also think current events (stock market going south, politics, etc) are just draining my brain! So, small spurts of thoughts here, sorry! __________________________________________________ I long ago made the decision never to discuss politics here. Too many friends and family who come here and I NEVER mix politics with friends and/or family! But let me just say this one thing: CAN WE VOTE ALREADY??? My goodness, this has gone on for far too long! That's it! __________________________________________________ So Phillies Phever is in full force (or, should I say, phull phorce? - it's a Philly thing!) and we are all hoping that the Dodgers go down in flames! Wouldn't it be awesome to make it into the World Series again! It might take our minds off the Eagles and the fact that it looks like Reggie Brown and Westbro...

This past weekend, Brock and Leda indulged me and we spent a few hours back at my old stomping grounds, my alma mater, York College . It was the annual alumni weekend...reunions for specific years (not my year this year) and the Radio Station reunion...thus the reason we went, the Radio Station. My first year of college, I was a nursing student. Well, actually, I was an undeclared with an interest in Nursing. I was housed in the Nursing dorm, which happened to be over at the local hospital, not on campus. Granted, I was only a 20 minute walk from the campus, but I was a whole 20 minute walk from the campus! That first semester was tough. It was my first time really on my own. There was no one to tell me what to do or how to do it. I had fun. But I also realized that semester that Nursing was not what I wanted to do (thank goodness I realized that quickly!!) The second semester, I did something that was a bit out of character for me, I walked my butt down to campus and up to the college...

No Stopping Us , Jason Mraz Let It Roll , The Charlie Daniels Band Expressway To Your Heart , The Blues Brothers* Headturner , Joss Stone No Good For Me , The Corrs Peanuts , The Police Circle , Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians Lady Jane , Queensrÿche Pinch Me , Barenaked Ladies Robin (The Hooded Man) , Clannad Looking forward to the weekend!! *makes me miss SNL from the old days!

I saw this on another site and had to post it. This video is just so funny... The other dogs at the end are hysterical...Dude, let us out! ______________________________________________________ Yesterday afternoon/evening was very trying. The kid, she was just in rare form, being a little brat. Brock had asked her to go let the dog out while he was cooking and she told him "No, I don't want to." He asked her again and she replied that she was learning to read (I got her a 'learn to read' activity book that we work with her on) and she couldn't do it. Well, obviously this didn't go over well and there was yelling and crying and time outs and oh, it was just horrible. She was just so stubborn - I tried to discuss with her the reason she was in trouble but she wasn't having any of it so she had to sit in time out until she apologized to her father and discussed the problem with me. So there was much yelling and screaming and crying (from the kid, I tried ...

On the evening news tonight, I heard about this website where women can sign up to find out about studies to help find a cure for breast cancer being conducted in and around their areas. You sign up and if any studies are happening in your area, you get an email telling you where, what they are looking for, etc., and you can decided if you want to volunteer to participate in the study. What an easy thing to do to help find a cure for breast cancer. So, I went to the website and signed up. All it took was my name, my email address and my zip code. Simple. If you are a woman, click on the link below and sign up. It can't hurt, it can only help. Army of Women