Who's that rapping on my napping?

There are few things in life more delightful than an afternoon nap. I had seriously been looking forward to napping this afternoon for the entire week. We had no showings scheduled for the house and I had no school to interfere. Today, I excitedly laid addison down in her bed, plopped down on the couch, and set HGTV on in low volume. I had about 1 hour and 15 minutes until Rileigh was due off the bus. It was the perfect amount of time for a nice nap, but not too much time that I would spend the rest of the day groggy and out of it.

With Color Splash on in the background, I drifted into a wonderful, blissful sleep. About 30 minutes later, I am awoken by a BAM BAM BAM on the door. I jumped straight in the air, my heart racing. Frick! Was there a showing my realtor forgot to tell me about? With my heart in my throat, I frantically toured the house in my head. The house was clean, but not showable clean. My lunch dishes were still in the sink. This was not good. I peeked out the front curtains to see how many people were outside. No cars. I relaxed a little and opened the door to find our 4-year-old neighbor standing outside. I told him we would not be playing and sent him on his merry way. I laid back down, thrilled that was not a showing and even more thrilled that I still had more napping to get in.

Fifteen minutes later, BAM BAM BAM.

I peeked over the edge of the couch towards the front door. I could see the outline of the neighbor boys head through the frosted glass. Screw him. I was not getting up.

BAM, BAM BAAAM.

Seriously, did I not just tell him we were not playing today? And by "we are not playing today" what I meant was, I am not babysitting you as I have done for the last 2 weeks when you ask to come over an play and suddenly end up at my house for the next 4 hours while your parents are doing who-knows-what and never coming to get you and your 4-year-old self and I finally have to send you home because it is time for my kids to go to bed. No, we are not doing that. He moves from banging on the door to tapping on the glass in the door.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

The boy kept at it for, I kid you not, a half hour. I am surprised his knuckles were not bloody from his incessant rapping and tapping. Or maybe they were....and that is why he continued knocking...so I could get him a band-aid.

The stubborn streak in me prevented me from getting up, opening the door and telling him to go away. I had already done that once. I figured if I just ignored it, he would eventually go away. I was so very wrong. Next he tried opening the door. Thank goodness it was locked. However, this did not prevent him from trying to jiggle the handle for several minutes. The handle jiggling was followed by him throwing his entire body against my door. The human battering ram would growl as he slammed against my door with all the might a 4-year-old can muster. Between growls he is literally yelling "OPEN THE DOOR. OPEN THE DOOR."

He.

Was.

Relentless.

Finally, after 30 minutes, silence. Sigh. I did a silent victory dance on the couch. I had outlasted him. I laid back down to get in the rest of my nap. But then I hear the screech of brakes outside my house.....which means the bus was home. My nap was officially over.

As soon as Rileigh was through the door, he was back on my porch. OMG, serious? Again, I told him we were not playing. And again he trudged back over to his house.

Oh, and what is that I hear now? Nope, folks, I am not kidding. He is back. A rap, rap, rapping at the door.....

more misadventures of miss addie

oh, the joys of motherhood. short story for your delight....or dismay. its undecided at this point.

my child loves to be naked. she knows no modesty. but, i figure that is okay. less clothes wearing means less clothes washing. i am all for that.

tonight, after her bath, addison was tornadoing through the house, naked as usual. she was playing on the floor next to me just doing her own thing. suddenly, she looked up with me completely distressed.

"momma, my potty is broken! it has a hole in it!"

hmmm....do they make band-aids for that?

Adieu to the Lou, Part Deux

Today, I am less angry. The weather is gorgeous, the house is ready and Cardinal fever is everywhere. Sorry St Louis. You didn't deserve that. As an apology, Here is my list of things I will actually miss when we head on back to the Ol' Windy City....the real windy city...not you Chicago.

1. Cardinals Games. Prior to moving here, I couldn't stand professional baseball. I think this is because baseball doesn't really translate on TV. Nine(+) innings of a relatively slow paced game played for hours and hours just did not tickle my fancy. Then I went to Busch stadium. It was fun. It was more than fun. I loved it. There is nothing that brings a huge city together like a great sports team. The comradery that accompanies Cards games is a sight to behold. Arch enemies outside the stadium root side by side during the games, singing "one.....two....three strikes you're out at the old....ball....gaaaaaaaame!" in perfect harmony. Well, I don't really have an evidence of this, but I am sure it happens. Or if it doesn't, it should.

2. The Zoo. I adore the zoo. What I really adore about the zoo is that it is free. It is huge and awesome and keeps my family entertained for hours upon hours. Unlike the concrete jungle that is the Dodge City zoo, the animals are housed in actual habitats. Once when I took the girls to the zoo, we joined a crowd outside the orangatang habitat. Addison was pretty young at the time. There was a newborn among the crowd. Her parents held her down by the glass so that they could get a picture with the orangatangs in the background. Ooohs and awwws spread over the crowd as the momma orangatang held out her arms and tried to hold the baby through the glass. I wanted to get the girls pictures too. I held addison close to the glass, expecting the same reaction. Instead the crazy thing pulled back its fist and punched the glass, right behind Addison's head. Awww, the memories.

3. Chipotle.....or Noodle Company.....or Dewey's Pizza.....or Ruby Tuesdays....or just the variety of restaurants in general. There are so many restaurants extremely close our house. And even more within driving distance. Although I have complained about this before when trying to narrow down a place to go eat, I don't really mean it. I love food. I love variety in food. If you do too, this is enough of an explanation. If you don't, you are weird.

4. The variety of culture. Last time my inlaws were in town, we went down to the Soulard farmer's market. On the way home, she commented that she thought it was so neat to be surrounded by so many accents and so many different languages. It was so true. While living here I have met people from Russia, Bosnia, Egypt, Brazil, Iraq, Ethiopia, Kenya......and many, many more. I have been able to expose my children to the food and the celebrations of many of these groups. I feel like it is such an important part of raising well-rounded, open-minded children. And the cultural aspects they have been exposed to are not just limited to ethnicities. Every year since we have lived here, Rileigh and my mom have gone to a musical at the Fox during the Thanksgiving break. She has adored this tradition. I suppose the Depot will have to suffice, but somehow I just don't think it will compare to the Lion King or Cats.

So I left this list for a while to try and think of some more things......and I didn't. Shoot. Is that really it? Sorry St Louis.....

Adieu to the Lou

Yes, I know I have used that line before, but I think its pretty clever and I am going to get as much use out of it as I can before the actual adieu.

Due to various contributing factors, I am not feeling the love for St Louis this week. I have the "we-have-a-plan-so-lets-get-the-f-out" itch, so my non-likes about St Louis have become particularly irritating. I have decided to let go of my frustrations in list form, entitled "Things I will not miss about St Louis." So here goes:

Things I will not miss about St Louis:

1. (and although these are in no particular order, this is truly #1) The traffic. For someone who is habitually late, it is a cruel trick that traffic makes going somewhere less than 15 miles away necessitate leaving an hour in advance. Also, I am a non-morning person. Morning traffic is horrific. I have to get up and leave an extra hour to hour and a half early to get where I need to be. And most of the time I am still late. On top of that, I despise most of the morning radio shows so I spend the hour pushing my radio presets trying to determine which station I despise the least. Audiobooks used to make commuting tolerable, but I can only buy so many audiobooks before the hubs starts noticing the cost. Twilight got me through some of my most horrindous traffic moments.

2. Stepford wives. I adore my daughters school, but I have always feel like a troll. To be involved with the school, you must carry your calendar with you at all times, be able to know your schedule 6 months in advance, master being incredibly perky and yet incredibly icy all at the same time, and always carry a set of jumper cables incase your internal wiring goes on the fritz. Seriously. The latest source of my frustration--during spring conferences, the latest available conference time was at 4:30. Four thirty?!? Of course I would have known to pencil that in in between viola lessons and horseback riding if I would have brought my calendar with me last year like a good little Stepford.

3. My driveway. It is steep. I am not sure this would have made the list had I not just spent the weekend walking up and down it repeatedly while holding heavy objects. But I did. And so I won't miss it.

4. Waiting. I think it is clear by now that I was not graced with patience. I think I have improved in this area....begrudgingly. However there are so many people here that waiting is something I have to do a lot of. Want to go to Olive Garden at 7pm on a weekday...there is a wait. Want to go to the grocery store in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday...there is a wait. Really anything you think that you may want to do immediately, think again. Think while you wait.

5. Lack of freedom for my kiddos. Perhaps that is a severe categorization but let me explain. Last summer Rileigh stayed a week with my sister-in-law in jetmore. She got to walk to the pool, go to the store, get snow-cones, ride bikes....whatever....independently. It gave her such a sense of maturity and responsibility. When she gets back to St Louis, she is really only allowed in the backyard by herself. That means lots of QT with mom, great for a while, but I think she gets tired of me.

Relief in the form of list-making. I feel better already.

Utter and Complete Randomness....try to keep up.

My life is a jumbled mess most days. These last few weeks have been no exception. As a tribute to my mixed up world, here is a slew of unrelated thoughts:

First, a bit of humor brought to you by my 2-year-old. This weekend I braved it alone with the girls while dad took a much deserved vacay to Wichita to hang with his friends and do man things. At the end of night one, I was putting Addison in her jammies so that we could all pile into my bed and watch the movies we had just picked up from the Red Box (1st time doing so....it is an amazing contraption...but I digress). I get her pants on and as she is standing there shirtless, she points to one of her miniature mosquito bites and says "I have one boobie" then points to the other and declares "And I have anudder boobie." She then looks up at my quizzically and asks, "You have boobies momma?" to which I answer in the affirmative. My darling daughter then stares at me for a moment before retorting, "No momma, you have coconuts." Ummm, excuse me? I sat there with my mouth agape momentarily before deciding I could not argue her logic.....but perhaps a grapefruit might be a better descriptor....

Second bit on my mind. Last night I dreamt of saving a goose. Yep, you heard me correctly. I could have dreamt of marrying Brad Pitt (had to edit this. as proof of my current state of craziness, I originally wrote Tom Cruise. I HATE Tom Cruise) or losing 50 lbs and becoming a supermodel or winning the super-duper jackpot. But no, I spent a good portion of the night dreaming about my plan to save a goose that had laid an egg underneath my house. I forgot to mention that in this dream I lived in a house raised up on cinderblocks. C-laas-E. My life really needs to get more interesting. At this point, even my dreams are lame.

Speaking of houses, my time as of late has been consumed in attempting to get our house in market shape. My dad's best friend just happens to be our realtor. His general opinion is that my life is a chaotic mess. Generally he would be correct. However, when he bet my dad $1 that we would not have the house ready for market by next Monday, I was determined to get that dollar in my dad's pocket. Saturday and Sunday I spent the majority of the day cleaning all the unnecessary furniture, clothes, toys and junk out of my children's rooms. From Rileigh's room alone, I took out 2 garbage bags of items to donate, 1 bag of clothes to get rid of, 2 bags of trash and filled 2 Rubbermaids with items to move to the new house. If anyone, I repeat, anyone sends a toy in my child's direction between now and the end of May, you will get it. And be very scared of the yet to be determined "it." Sunday night I had the grand plan to attack all of the cobwebs hanging from the rafters in our basement. There were several things wrong with this. I am allergic to feathers. My plan involved using a feather duster. My assumption that because the duster was on a long stick it wouldn't bother me was totally wrong. Also, the copious amounts of dust flying in my face as I stood straight under the rafters I was attacking served only to exacerbate the situation. Eventually I learned to move to the side (....and only how many years of school did it take me to get this smart....). The biggest problem of them all? I had no idea that cobwebs were actually abandoned spiderwebs. Serious. I thought they were just things that happened in unused spaces when dust collected in a corner. EWWWW. I hate spiders almost as much as I hate sleeping bags. I have a completely irrational fear that makes me run out of rooms shrieking and stomping all around when I see a spider, no matter the size. For the duration of the night, I swear there were tiny spiders crawling all over me that had jumped on my when I went to rid my basement of what I thought were innocent dust collections. Never again. Never, ever again. If someone wants to buy my house, they can buy it cobwebs and all.

In other more exciting news, I have a grand total of 14 days of school left to attend. Don't kid yourself, that spreads over 3 1/2 weeks, but no one actually counts the days they don't have to be at school. Yahoo!

The tale of why any of my future televisions will be LCDs...

Sometimes my husband has brilliant ideas. Most days he doesn't. I am undecided on the latest.

Earlier in the week, Justin came home and told me that someone at his work had a large (and by large, I mean larger than our dink) television that they were no longer using. No longer using because it sat in front of a treadmill, which was the real thing they were no longer using. Anyway, he told Justin that he could have the TV if Justin could come and pick it up. The opportunity for a large(r) television in the midst of March Madness almost made Justin's head spin. That night after work, he set off to pick up the TV under the guise that I would help him unload it from his car and bring it inside.

Problem #1 arose prior to the television even being brought in from the car. The thing was large. And by large, I mean, baby got back. Its rear stuck out so far, it was too long to fit in our armoire. Justin measured the depth of the tv, then the depth of the armoire, then the depth of the tv, then the depth of the armoire....then, as if it would magically make either the tv shorter or the armoire longer, he measured them both again. We decide to move the armoire in the corner and bring up an old coffee table from the basement to set the TV on. I pouted a bit because I am not a fan of televisions sitting out loud and proud in the middle of a room. But I gave in when it looked as though it would be our only option.

Problem #2 arose in getting the television out of the car. Holy. Moly. Heaviest thing I have ever had to lift in my life. I made it from the back of the car to the door of the garage before I demanded it set it down. This was a major mistake. Setting it down meant I had to pick it back up. Justin grabbed his side and told me to let him know when I was ready to lift my side. Little did he know that I was lifting. In fact, I was lifting so hard that I thought my insides were going to become outsides. It was not coming even an inch off the ground. Eventually, by some miracle, we got the television off the ground, through the garage door and about a foot into the house before I needed a beak again. Justin told me to rest it on my hip. His brilliant advice lead to a 7 x 2 inch dark purple bruise on my leg. That is not an estimate. I measured it.

Problem #3 arose when we finally got the TV to its resting place on top of the coffee table. Um, how do I put this delicately. It looked about as attractive as a couch on a front porch. Whiskey Tango at its finest. Justin then devised a plan to cut a hole in the back of the armoire...which would not be visible because the armoire was now in the corner. This was an example of when my husband has a great idea. (I am serious too, no sarcasm this time). Although this created a solution for the television, we were now faced with a large blank wall were the armoire used to be housed.

Enter Problem #4. This was my favorite problem. Solving this problem meant that I had to shop for solutions:

I am loving my problem-solving skills! We already had the chairs and the "H" but I found the remainder of it yesterday. Rileigh and I were bargain shoppers. We hit the sales at Hobby Lobby and Home Goods, even bringing in coupons. I think this is my new favorite part of the house....and right before we put it on the market....

Home Sweet Home.

Guess who has news? Hmmmm? Give up? That’s right ITS ME! Oops...don’t tell Justin I said me...I meant WE!

In a three-day whirlwind, we bought a house. In Dodge City. We are officially becoming Kansans again. Did I mention I have never actually seen the house? Minor details, right?

A few weeks ago, Addison and I traveled the long hike back to Dodge City to look at potential future houses. We looked at a lot of houses. We looked at a lot of houses I really loved. I would have had to love them a lot, because if we bought one of those houses, the house would be all we had. No furniture, no lights allowed on, no air conditioner, no food. Just the house. So needless to say, we didn’t put in offers on the many we saw...though it took some restraint on my part. That and my dad said "no way" and yes, like a good little girl, I still listen to everything my dad says.
About a week and a half ago, my realtor sent me a listing for a house that had just come on the market that day. It was actually in our price range and it was in a neighborhood in which we would be delighted to live. I arranged for my dad to see it the next afternoon. That was helpful. My dad has absolutely zero opinions on things. And if I could pick a number below zero, that would probably be more accurate. I am on the phone with my dad as he is walking through it. "Well, I am in a kitchen now. And now I am walking into a living room. Oh, and here is the master bedroom" Thanks for the descriptors, Dad. He did say he really liked the neighborhood and any positive descriptor from my dad necessitates action. So, I called my mom and my sister-in-law and sent them to view the house that evening. My sister-in-law is creative genius. She can take a house and make it a home in cheap, creative and beautiful ways. So when she called me after going through the house and said "You had better buy this." I was completely sold (figuratively and literally I suppose). We called the realtor that night and she worked overtime getting our contract together. We submitted our offer on a Saturday, just 2 days after I had gotten the initial email.

Saturday night I was at Rileigh’s variety show. I could hear my phone buzzing in my purse, but we had just gotten a lecture from the principal at the beginning of the show about getting out of our seats during the middle of an act. I have been out of grade school for a while now, but I still fear the wrath of principals, so I was not about to get out of my seat to answer the call. During intermission, I snuck out to check with my realtor, who confirmed that our offer had been accepted. I yelled out in celebration and did a little dance in the hallway. I was then given the stink-eye from the Stepford Wives, but I didn’t care. I wouldn’t have to see them next year. Did another little dance just to spite them.
So here is the house, have a look-see:

If you want to see the inside in all its 60's glory, follow the link: http://DODGECITY.fnismls.com/publink/default.aspx?GUID=dd882ae0-02af-43f9-ab61-3669d4de8306&Report=Yes

We will have some renovations to do, but that is okay. Part of making a house a home is making it your own. I think remodeling to fit the needs and taste of our family will do just that. I have spent the last couple of weeks dreaming up inspiration for the house. That has been really fun, especially knowing that my inlaws can make it all happen. Really anything I can dream up, they can make happen. "Babe, I don’t really like that wall there, could we move it over there?" BOOM! It happens. "I could really use an outlet on this wall" Another BOOM, and we have an outlet. Its like magic. I have never met such fantastic, handy people.

Here is the current kitchen/eat in area inspiration photos. I have been DYING for a banquette. It will happen:

Love the colors too....I have been really digging colored cabinetry and how CUTE is that little red table?!?

First we have to figure out what to do with the stove:

yep, that is no joke...that is our stove.

And just because it is so adorable, here is the inspiration for Addison's bedroom. Big steps for Addison when we move, she will have a big girl bed!

I cannot wait to get my hands on the house. Someone asked me yesterday when I might be able to actually see our new house. I suppose that just may be when I bring my boxes through the front door! Oh man.....