Summertime

Well, as usual, I'm late on these things. I wanted to get this up before the first day of fall, but alas, it was not meant to be.

We had a pretty good summer here. Granted, I was at work, but still. LOML had a good one. She practically lived at the pool. Turned brown as a berry and that's WITH 60 s.p.f. and multiple applications! She has the same kind of skin as I do. Or, the same kind as I used to have. After having LOML, for some reason, my pigment changed. I blame all the changes to my body on the pregnancy! LOL!

Anyway, when I was cleaning out the back porch one day, I stumbled across this tent that we've never put up or used.

LOML has never been camping and I've only been a few times. The thought of putting up a tent terrified me as I always saw in movies and whatnot how hard it was.

While LOML was off somewhere, I decided to pitch the tent in the yard to the side of the house as a surprise. I figured if we could practice camping in our yard, we'd finally be able to get up the nerve to try it out in the actual wilderness.

LOML doesn't quite understand the whole concept of camping as she decided that it was absolutely necessary to bring in photos and floor chairs and books and whatnot into the tent.


Who am I to correct her?

And to let you know the outcome of the evening.....we were back in the house by 1:30 a.m.

But not because we got scared.

But because Max heard a frog or saw a bat fly in the night or felt an invisible cat walk by him or something and WOULD NOT SHUT UP!!!

He has it in his head that if we're anywhere outside, he has to protect us from EVERYTHING!!! Including the wind.

Poor thing, I know he was only wanting to protect us, but still....c'mon, man. Give it a break! LOL!

We did have fun though. We might try it again in a couple of weeks when the nights are a bit cooler.

Also, for the first time, I brought out the Slip N Slide. For some reason, we have two of these. LOML had never been on one before (my bad, I kept forgetting to get it out for her to use).

I know you're supposed to put them on a flat surface, but it was more fun to do it on a hill. With the end being on the down slope of the hill! LOL!

She had invited her friend M over to play and then they got it in their little heads to play on this. Yes, they are outside in nothing but t-shirts and undies. Remember when you could get away with that?

They had a blast. LOML never really got over her nervousness of going down head first. She would never get a proper running start so she'd always stop halfway down the slide! She would then get to the end by doing flips.

At least she's creative.

This is LOML and Mike after that afternoon of hard play.

Well, hard play for her. Not so much for the lazy cat that sleeps 20 hours a day.

What's so remarkable about this cat is that literally, for the first four years of her life, he WOULD NOT BE IN THE SAME ROOM AS HER.

Now? Look at him! He's really asleep, too.

He lets her make him dance and lets her dress him up in doll clothes.

Where is my old curmudgeon Mike?

Here she is on a Sunday morning before church. The night before, she got it her head to put in curlers and sleep in them overnight.

She wanted curly hair for the next day.

Sigh......she's growing up so quickly. To totally embarrass her, she is now wearing a friggin' BRA!!!

GAH!!!!

And I won't even tell you about the other developments that have occurred. No need to have her commit hari kari before she's 10.

How was your summer?

Later,

Mama Dawg

'Tis the Season

Wonder what LOML is up to now that school's out for the summer?

No clue.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Summertime TV

Summertime TV sucks.

Well, it used to. And, it still does...to a degree.

However, this summer isn't as bad.

There is a LOT of reality TV out there. I normally only watch Survivor, Amazing Race and Big Brother (yes, I'm totally embarrassed to admit this...go ahead, laugh and make fun...done? OK, let's continue).

However, we have found a couple of new shows (some new this year, others new to us).

My mom likes game shows and more specifically, she likes old game shows. When we had cable (story for another time), we used to LOVE the Game Show Network. I loved watching Match Game and Password and The Newlywed Game as well as the new shows.

Since then, we've had to settle for whatever comes on network TV. We're still fans of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy (even though I can't watch that since it comes on during the day now).

We've re-discovered The Price is Right and Drew Carey's not doing too bad of a job. Password has come back on and we're loving that right now. We're also watching Deal or No Deal and that's about it, I guess.

As for reality TV, we've recently discovered America's Got Talent. What drew us to this show is the previews talking about the guys from New Orleans that do that break-dancing stuff. See, we've met those guys before. They perform in Jackson Square...technically, they play on the sidewalk in front of the stairs across the street from Jackson Square.

They are AMAZING to watch in real life. The perform all these acrobatic tricks that including doing flips and tumbles over like 8 people and all these jumps and flips and dancing. They really are good. I'm rooting for them to go all the way.

As far as the judges are concerned, I love Piers Morgan and Sharon Osborne. The Hoff, well, I think he's this shows answer to Paula on American Idol. Flaky....

So far, we're enjoying it. I loved the illusionist from this week as well as the girl that was doing flips on that board thingie. That was pretty cool.

We are also watching Celebrity Circus. I love Christopher Knight and am really impressed with Stacey Dash and Antonio Sabato Jr. Wee Man is hilarious. He's so cute. He's so cute, light of my life wanted to call in a vote for him! So, we did.

I've always wanted to join a circus, but I'm not nearly talented enough in any arena so I have to live vicariously through D-list celebrities and Ringling Bros. Barnum and Baily.

The last show we're watching debuted last night. It's called Baby Borrowers. Anybody else watch that?

Oh, man...I'm loving this show. The look of pure abject terror on these kids faces are HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!

I laughed my way through the whole show. I love the girl that said she wants babies because she's good with kids.

Yeah, that's a GOOD reason to have kids. You know what, if you're that good with kids, be a teacher...or a daycare worker...or something. Don't just have a kid because you THINK you're good with kids.

I also like the guy that kept referring to a 6 month old baby girl as "it".

(When I say like, you guys get that I don't really mean "like", right? OK, just checking!)

I can tell that this show is going to really irritate the hell out of me or make me laugh all summer long.

So far, they've only had to deal with infants. I can't wait til they get toddlers to take care of.

Talk about birth control!

What are you guys watching this summer?

Later,

Mama Dawg

Summertime

Light of my life is not the greatest swimmer of all but I believe she's probably the most enthusiastic. She LOVES to swim. She talks about going to the pool every day and pretty much does.

That said, she has always been wary of the deep end. She won't even go in it with me.

To be fair, she has not grown up with a pool or even a place where she could really take lessons. Mostly due to lack of money but also because we would have had to drive all over the place just to gain access to a decent pool.

After Katrina, when we were evacuated and living in an apartment, we had access to a pool 24/7. We moved into the apartment complex at the end of September and it was still warm enough to hit the pool for a couple of weeks. As soon as winter was over (and yes, we were still not living in our home in New Orleans) and it became spring, all she wanted to do was go to the pool. As soon as I picked her up from after-care, we would go back to the apartment, put on our suits and hit the pool. She turned into quite the little fish once she had constant access. She would finally get in the deep end (albeit with a ring around her waist and full on goggles...sorry Tracey) and started jumping off the sides in the shallow end.

Then, we moved back to New Orleans and there went the pool access.

When we moved up here, we discovered that a bunch of citizens started a private club and took over the care of the city pool which had been shut down. You have to be voted in and pay dues, but so far, it's been worth it. She's been pretty much every day since we got our key.

They have a diving board at the pool. She has never jumped off of a diving board before. When I was young, I used to belong to a country club that had a pool with a diving board. I used to love jumping, diving, running and cannon balling (heh, heh, I said balling) off of both the low and high board.

Well, I decided to jump off this board and she watched with great interest. I did a few tricks including diving (which I will NEVER do again...why didn't someone tell me that diving hurts when you have big ta-tas?). She watched all this but would refuse to jump off the side of the pool in the deep end let alone the diving board.

I told her that I wanted her to be able to jump off the diving board at least once by the end of the summer. She tentatively agreed and I left it at that.

Well, yesterday, after mom dropped her off at the pool (there is a life guard and people there that know her so she's well taken care of), mom got a phone call a couple of hours later and light of my life asked her to bring her camera with her when she came to pick her up.

My mom went and got her at about 5 or so and the below pictures tells quite a story:




Here she is in the deep end pushing off the side.

Here she is on the diving board...

...crouching down...

...and jumping in!!!!!!!

She loved it! She said once she did it the first time, it was like a flood gate opened and that's pretty much all she did the rest of the afternoon.

I'm so proud of her for doing this...especially for doing this on her own without anyone convincing her or talking her into it or pressuring her. She faced a fear and conquered it...with STYLE.

This is a picture (on a different day) of light of my life and her "boyfriend" S making funny faces.

They're so cute together. He pretty much claimed his stake on her on the first day of school and will tell anybody and everybody that she's his girlfriend.

Ahhhh...summer love.

Have a good weekend. I'm off tomorrow! I may check in...or not.

Later,

Mama Dawg