Frequent Diners Card

As most people know - we live in Bumble and so when we want good food we pretty much have to drive into Nashville which is a minimum of 25 minutes or so driving time. When we want "I really dont' want to cook tonight and my children are hungry" food we have to settle for the fare in Smyrna which is limited to several not very good chains, a scary pizza joint, and even scarier Mexican restaurant and a Japanese steak house. We usually end up at the Japanese Steak House.

Yesterday I came to the conclusion that we might eat there a little too often. Quinn, Greyson and I were upstairs playing and I asked if they wanted to play restaurant. Yes they cried so Quinn and I became the diners and Greyson was going to be the chef. He brought us menus but then informed us what we were going to have - steak. Then he said that we would be right back and went into Quinn's room to put on his imaginary big white hat. Then he went over to their little play stove/oven. I assumed that he was going to 'cook' our dinner there and bring it to us but no. He started pushing it to the table and informed me that it was his cart and then proceeded to get out his pots and pans and bang them together and throw all the food up in the air and try to catch it on his spatula. Thankfully we still have all of our eyes and no one was seriously injured. Then he had to go and turn all the lights out so he could make 'fire.' After he was done he proceeded to wipe our table down and push his cart away.

Perhaps we need to find some new restaurants around here....

The Erim Hilton

The guest room was filled again this past weekend. This time our crazy friend Keith decided that it would be a good idea to get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning and run a half marathon. While I think that this is completely nuts it did make Keith and Susanna drive up to Nashville from Atlanta and stay for the weekend so Keith could run the Music City Marathon so I can't really complain. We enjoyed a very relaxing weekend of catching up and enjoying the first really warm weekend of the season. Greyson impressed Kinley with his driving ability by driving her all around the neighborhood in his red Mustang. It was hysterical to see him drive up to the curve where she was waiting and have her hop in and watch the two of them take off. It was sort of reminiscent of a 50's movie - bad boy, cool car, young girl running away together. Then Quinn got to have her first 'sleep over' with Kinley which I think they both thoroughly enjoyed though perhaps not as much as Keith and Susanna getting the guest room to themselves.
Now if this isn't an ad for a Power Wheels I don't know what is

Future best friends...

Stem Cell Advances and Other Toddler Topics

We are having a bit of trouble around here with going potty. Now Quinn is doing great with her potty training and I think is almost there. Our problem is how we go potty. You see Quinn and Greyson always have to do what the other is doing. So when one decides to go to the bathroom the other feels the need as well. (Try fitting yourself and two little ones in a stall - not fun). So inevitably Quinn sees Greyson going to the bathroom and now has started to make a speical request - "Mommy I want to pee standing up." Trying to explain the physics of why this would be a total disaster didn't seem to work as well as I had hoped. So I streamlined things a little. "You can only pee standing up if you have a willy. Boys have willys and girls don't." This lead to the following conversation last night while on the potty.

"Mommy, if I grow a willy can I pee standing up?"
"Yes, I suppose if you grow a willy you can then pee standing up."
"OK, then I am going to grow one." (thoughtful pause) "Mommy, how do you grow a willy?"

Hmmm - that was a good question. I thought about telling her about DNA and stem cells and beginning her fascinating journey into micro-biology and anatomy but it was almost bedtime so I opted for this:

"I don't know because I never grew one for myself."
"Oh.....Greyson how did you grow your willy?"
"I don't know."
"Greyson, will you share your willy with me?"
"No"
(Crying and screaming) - "Mommy, Greyson won't share!!!"

There are many topics I figured I was going to have to discuss with my children - sharing private areas was never among them. Who knew peeing standing up was so much fun - I guess we ladies are really missing out.

Why I LOVE Greyson's School

OK - so I am no preschool expert, seeing as how with the exception of the preschool I went to when I was 3, I have only been exposed to Greyson's school. Despite that fact I think I can tell when a school rocks and I am pretty sure that Greyson's school rocks. This week is National "Week of the Young Child" and Greyson's school has a special event every day. Yesterday's event was the best. The school brought in the Vanderbilt marching band including the flag girls. The kids all made their own instruments - paper plate tamborines, paper towel kazoos etc. and kids and marching band all went outside on a beautiful spring day and marched through the Peabody campus (Vanderbilt's education school). Many of the teachers and students at Peabody came out of their classes and cheered the kids along. I was invited to come along for the event and bring Quinn and had a great time. It was hysterical to watch and listen to a marching band backed up by sixty some preschoolers banging away on their instruments completely out of tune. Greyson, of course, as he has to relate everything to sports kept telling everyone that that was the band from the football games. I just can't imagine many other preschools that have the ability to do things like this. We love Susan Gray!!

Friends, Dogs and Lots of Loud Cars....

Raif is considering a 'side project' with a Classic Mustang car shop in St. Louis. The owners of the company were down in Birmingham for the 45th anniversary celebration of the Mustang so we decided to go on a family road trip so Raif could meet them and talk a little business. I was THRILLED because as everyone knows there is nothing that I love more than a muscle car show :). The bonus of the trip was that we got to see our friends Ashley and John who live in Birmingham and were generous enough to put up the whole entire Erim clan (dogs included) for the weekend. I frankly don't know what part of the trip my kids loved more - Ashley and John's dogs or the actual car show itself. From the time they got up in the morning all the kids wanted to know was "Where are Duncan and Arthur (pronounced Ar-fur)?" They chased them around the house and loved on them and petted them and drove them insane. The day at the car show provided hours of entertainment crawling in and out of cars and 'driving' them all over the place. They even got to see a several Mustangs race around Birmingham's new IRL track. All in all it was a great weekend even though I was at a car show. Thanks to John and Ashley for their tremendous hospitality.

Hmmmm....

I saw this sign on a restroom stall door in a gas station in the middle of nowhere Alabama. Do they really need this sign - I thought this was sort of understood.....

The Project

Last year I had my first foray into vegetable/herb gardening. I got a couple of terra cotta pots and planted a few herbs and some tomatoes. I actually enjoyed it and we saved so much money (one package of basil cost as much as my basil plant which gave me more basil than I could ever have imagined) and the herbs tasted so much better right off the plant. Because of this I decided to go big and bold this year. With A LOT of supervision and a little (OK maybe slightly more than a little) help from my husband I made a vegetable garden in the backyard. We rented a tiller from Home Depot and I tilled the dirt, made a border for the garden including sawing it into place and pounding in the ribar. Here it is....

Next week the kids and I are going to start planting our vegetables. They seem really excited though that may be more that they get to play in dirt than anything else. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Sleeping Beauty

The Nashville Ballet has been going around to libraries in the area and doing a story time of Sleeping Beauty complete with a ballerina. Of course they didn't come out here to Bumble so Quinn and I schlepped into Green Hills today. Quinn was mesmerized. She couldn't take her eyes off the ballerina in her glistening gold tutu and pretty pink ballet shoes. Stephanie taught all the kids a little dance from Sleeping Beauty. It was hysterical to see all these little kids at various stages of coordination trying to keep up. Quinn would run up and do a little of the dance and then laugh and come back and hug me and run out again. At the end, Stephanie was so sweet and let all the children touch her tutu and take pictures with her. Of course I was pretty much the only Mom who forgot her camera. Quinn was quite dismayed to learn that the ballerina was not only not coming home with us but we were not going to see her tomorrow. I have a feeling we will be going to see The Nutcracker this Christmas.

Child Abuse....

Last night we went out to dinner with my parents (who were in town for Easter) at the local Japanese Steakhouse. Quinn was having one of her 'terrible two' days and was in a mood. She refused to eat dinner and only wanted to chew on the rubber band on her chop sticks. After several warnings of taking her chop sticks away if she didn't stop they went into her mouth one too many times. They got taken away and the high pierced screaming started. I didn't want to be 'that parent' who ruins dinner for everyone in the restaurant by ignoring the screaming child. I was pretty much done with my dinner and so I told her that if she didn't stop screaming we were going to spend the rest of dinner outside. The screaming continued and so I picked her up and started walking outside. Right in the middle of the restaurant at the top of her lungs my darling, precious daughter screamed "Mommy, please don't leave me in the car!!!" The whole restaurant turned and stared and there were a couple of laughs but I am pretty sure there were a couple of people about ready to call DFACS on me.

Easter Pics

An Evening Among Adults and The Best Drink EVER

With the grandparents in town, Raif and I were able to enjoy an adult evening out on Saturday. Our friends Jon and Andrea came up from Atlanta to join us at the Cirque show Saltimbanco which was at the Sommet Center. As always the Cirque show was awesome and we had an amazing time.

The highlight of the evening for me though was dinner before. We went to our favorite restaurant in Nashville - Watermark where I had the best cocktail in the history of alcohol. Seriously. They had what they called a 'Rose Petal Martini'. It was 'rose petal infused vodka, pomegranate juice and a splash of Cava. Oh my God was it good. It smelled like a rose and it tasted like what you would think a rose would taste like and it was liquor to boot. I asked where one got rose petal infused vodka and apparently they make it themselves. So now I am going to have to learn how to infuse my own vodka because damn....that is all I have to say - damn....

Soccer - Part II

Saturday was the second soccer game and frankly I was looking forward to it as much as a root canal but surprisingly it was more like a simple cavity!

Greyson participated a lot more this time. Instead of just standing there he ran with the kids and did some of the activities. One time they were suppose to run from one end of the field to another (small field fyi) and stop at the white line. Off the kids went, including Greyson, and they all stopped more or less at the line except for my little Forrest Gump. He just kept running and running - off the field, over the sidewalk almost to the parking lot. He may have run all the way home if I hadn't stopped him. The other little activity that he loved was kicking the cones over with his ball. He loved it so much that when he finished knocking all the cones over on his field he promptly went over to the field next to him to kick down their cones. Unfortunately they were actually using their cones for an actual game. Oh well.

The oddest thing about all of this is the boy who idolized his father and wants to do everything with him wants to have nothing to do with him on the soccer field. Luckily, I get to run down the field with Greyson and do jumping jacks along side of him. Halfway through when I was a bit tired I asked if he wanted Daddy to play with him - "NO MOMMY - I want you!" Clearly he knows who the athletic parent is.

Getting Ready for the Bunny

We spent the afternoon dyeing Easter eggs. The kids had fun though it is awfully hard to wait for the eggs to dye before taking them out.

I learned several fun facts about the Easter Bunny that I never knew, courtesy of Greyson and thought you might enjoy to learn them too.

#1 The Easter Bunny is a girl.
#2 The Easter Bunny lives in North Carolina.
And the most interesting -
#3 On Easter morning we all have to fly to North Carolina and help the Easter Bunny find her hockey jersey because she can't find it.

Happy Easter to all.

Hide and Go Seek (sort of....)

This morning Quinn and I were talking about the imminent arrival of the Easter Bunny and discussing the fact that he was going to leave eggs around the house and outside for her and Greyson to find. Fascinated by this she decided that she wanted to be the Easter Bunny and hide some eggs. Great I thought - I could let her hide some eggs around the house while I did a couple of small chores and then have her find them - more time to get things done. I went down to the basement and got some old plastic Easter eggs and gave them to her. She ran all around the house laughing and reporting back to me every time she hid an egg and constantly announcing that she was the Easter Bunny. I had about 15 solid minutes of uninterrupted time to clean the breakfast dishes. I have to admit I was also a bit worried about where she had put them since I hadn't been watching her at all. When she completed hiding all the eggs she proudly came and announced that she was all done. "Come See!!" She said very proudly. Apparently my worries were a bit unfounded.....
Yes, after 15 minutes of running everywhere in the house she ended up hiding them all (color sorted no less) right in front of our door. The task of finding them went much quicker than anticipated!

A Rare Find

For a variety of reasons - Quinn and I's trips to the library don't usually yield a vast quantity of really good books. First of all the LaVergne Public Library's children's section is far from being one of the top in the state - or the city for that matter. It pretty much is the size of a large postage stamp. Secondly, I don't think the staff at the library has a firm grasp of the alphabet or more precisely the difficult notion of alphabetical order so trying to find particular books is not the easiest thing in the world. Couple this with a child who LOVES books and loves to take them off the shelves and our trips to the library are mad dashes in and out before complete destruction of what attempts to be a children's section occurs. So I was really surprised and delighted last week when we came home with a really good book: "Duck" by Randy Cecil. It is a cute little story of selflessness and love and it is now on my list to buy with my next shipment from Barnes and Noble. So next time y'all are in the library or are looking for a good book to buy try this one.

Hockey Players...

Greyson and Quinn woke up this morning and before breakfast decided that they wanted to play hockey. "We need our helmets!!" Greyson informed Quinn and so they rushed off to get them. These are what they came back with....



Yes my children have their underwear (thankfully clean) on their heads. I suppose I should be impressed with the creativity and ingenuity it took to think that these would be good helmets. Honestly, I would have thought of a hundred things to use before my underwear but hey that is just me. As to why my daughter needed the sunglasses too - well I can't answer that. All I know is that I am going to love showing these pictures to their high school boyfriends/girlfriends.

Hoodwinked

Raif and I have been very lucky to have had two really good sleepers/nappers. (They must have inherited my lazy gene). They have, for the most part, always gone down well, slept well and woken up happy. Quinn's usual routine is to eat lunch at 11, get to nap at 11:30 and will usually sleep either right up to 2 or I will have to wake her up to go get Greyson from school. And generally when she wakes up she happily announces to the world "Mommy I am awake now!!" So you can imagine my surprise and bit of dismay when at one o'clock yesterday she woke up crying.

I walked in and found her crying in her bed. I asked her what was wrong but she didn't answer she kept crying and calling my name. I again asked her what was wrong and she did the same thing. Finally I asked if she was OK. She informed me that she didn't feel good. I took her temperature and it was normal. I asked her if anything hurt. After complaining that her bottom hurt from the thermometer she informed me that she had a sore throat. Sweet I thought - a sick kid. I got her some Tylenol and she whimpered and sniffled all the way through the dispensing process complaining the whole time how much her throat hurt. As soon as the medicine was down her throat she jumped out of bed and informed me that she felt all better now and wanted to play. Hmmm, that was some fast acting Tylenol. I told her that if she was feeling better that she really needed to finish her nap. That was when the tears came back and she informed me once again that her throat hurt and she didn't feel good. She is one big giant FAKER!!

At this point it was no use to put her back in bed so she got to play an extra hour. If she is faking being sick at two what in the world is she going to be doing at 16????

The BIG Weekend

Greyson had a big weekend this past Saturday. The first event was his very first soccer game. We signed him up for this group called the Ripples. It is basically a little group of 12 under 4 kids who spend the first 50 minutes of the 'game' doing drills and such and then the last 10 minutes doing a scrimmage. It is pretty laid back and the groups are lead by some teenage soccer players from the league. We had been gearing him up for this all week. He was sooo excited to go play soccer. We got there and.....he HATED it. While all the other kids were kicking balls and running down the field my child was standing in the corner of the field sucking his thumb. Even when Raif and I tried to help him (ie we would run down the field with the other kids) he would just stand there and wanted NOTHING to do with the whole experience. On the flip side my lovely daughter stood on the sidelines screaming for an hour "Mommy I want to play soccer!!!" Oy vey what a morning. Thankfully we have 7 more of these left. Yipeee. Ironically Greyson was very upset when his soccer game was over. Go figure.
The other big event for the weekend was Greyson's first sleepover with his friend Yohannes. Considering how well soccer went I assumed that we would be picking Greyson up about 20 minutes after we dropped him off. Suprisingly, though that wasn't the case. He did fine with Raif leaving him and had a great time with Yohannes. They went to the zoo, watched Ms. Patricia put a lawn mower together and ate pizza and Greyson slept in his first sleeping bag.

Perhaps what we need is to put Yohannes on Greyson's soccer team......

One Tasty Sounding Treat...

In order to facilitate potty training we have been 'inducing' Quinn to poop in the potty by offering pink M&M's as a reward. After a slow start she seems to have gotten the idea and for the last several days has done very well and has been accident free all day. Up until today after she went potty she would say "Mommy, I pooped in the potty can I have my candy now?"

This morning however she must have decided that she needed to get to the point a little quicker. After our first bathroom trip of the day she told me "Mommy I want my poop candy."