A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words

Junk in the...

So the other day on the way to the racetrack, we were stopped at a gas station. I was looking for something in the back seat amongst the luggage, and I said to L, "We sure do have a lot of junk in the truck."  She immediately replied, "Well, at least we don't have a lot of junk in our trunks!"  I couldn't stop laughing, and then I made her tell her dad when he got back in the truck.  I didn't realize that she knew that expression!
Yesterday she was mentioning it again, and I told her that I hadn't realized she knew what the expression meant.  She said, "Well, I was pretty sure that it means that someone is fat."
I'm just going to go with it.

Noxema

I just had a realization - in the shower, of all places - about one of the obscure tidbits that proves to me that I'm getting older. 
I have a horrible cold, and I have Vicks Vapo-rub on my nose.  I was thinking about what a distinctive scent it is, and about how the special kids' version we have for L smells so much better.  That got me thinking about my grandma N and how she always smelled like Noxema.  In the face soap aisle in Target, that scent immediately makes me think of Grandma.  And my mom always used to smell like Oil of Olay face lotion.  It's funny how those scents are so evocative of those specific people to me.
However, my kiddo will never say, "My mom always smelled like _____".  I was thinking about how I have a bunch of "favorite" body washes and lotions, and I just choose what I feel like for the day - Reliv brand, pumpkin scent from Bath & Body, Amber lotion, etc - it varies from day to day.  And I was thinking about how many more choices we have than WHEN I WAS A KID - argh, I'm making myself sound old!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

All sorts of eventful-ness have been happening around here lately: Yesterday was Buhler Frolic, with all of the accompanying chaos, to compound the typical chaos that already reigns supreme here.  For the first time in many years, we did not ride in a fire truck in the parade - Lauren and her cousin made a float (with lots of help from Stuart) and drove it BY THEMSELVES in the parade. They turned Grandpa and Grandma's golf cart into an enormous hay bale to advertise Grandpa's hay mowing service.  (I'm not sure that Grandpa actually WANTS any more customers, but the kids were so gung-ho about the whole thing that we couldn't bear to rein them in).  They were so responsible about getting it done, spray painting it, making signs, etc.  Lauren and Stuart did all kinds of research to find out how to say "Paint the Town Pink" in Low German.  "Paint the Town Pink" was the theme of the parade, and it had to be featured on your float if you wanted a chance to win the prize for best float.  Lauren decided a couple of days before the parade that she wanted to write it in Low German as a surprise for Grandpa and Grandma.

They were so careful while driving in the parade - I'd been a little concerned that the sheer euphoria of driving without an adult in a PARADE might lead to silliness, but they are both such little type-A kiddos - they did an amazing job.  By the end, Justin was waving with his left hand out the window and driving with his right hand. Lauren said that he told her he would wave out the window, but wouldn't look out because he didn't want to get distracted from his driving. :)

So then after the parade, Lauren and I went back to the Frolic to play on all of the inflatable toys in the afternoon.  Katelyn and Blake went to his rugby game in Wichita in the afternoon, so I got to watch their 4-week old baby for a few hours.  I took her back to the Frolic with us - it's amazing how tiny she seems - 8 pounds seems like nothing.  So I sat on the ground by the fire station with a bunch of other moms and passed around the baby and watched Lauren on the bouncy toys. All of a sudden she same running to me, screaming hysterically that she had been stung.  We've thought for years that she is probably allergic to bee stings, because her grandpa is, and she is terribly sensitive to mosquito bites.  So I asked one of the other moms to watch baby Ella, grabbed L and started running for home, since I hadn't brought her sting kit along with us.  Then I realized that we were beside the fire station and that if she was going to have an allergic reaction, it would probably be safest to have it there, rather than somewhere between there and our house, with no cell phone. So we stopped for a few minutes to see if she began to have a hard time breathing or anything.  She was doing okay, so we ran for home and wiped her finger down, and she was fine.  THANK GOODNESS.  So, now we
know that she probably isn't allergic, which is a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders.

We have 2 of the pups left at our house - a black and a brown. They are going to their new house this week, I think, or maybe next week.  In an unusual twist, all of them have gone in pairs, except for 1.  We are super attached to these two, since we have had them by themselves for a couple of weeks and gotten to spend more time playing with them.  It's going to be hard to see them go.  We call them Brown and Black, since we told Lauren that she can't name them.  :)

We are making the semi-annual "closet switch-over" this weekend, which throws us into all kinds of craziness.  We only have 2 closets in our house and Lauren & I share one of them.  That doesn't give us much room for clothing storage, so spring and fall are always a challenge, to decide which clothing to pack up and which we'll use.  I've been running, and a bunch of my clothes don't fit anymore, which is good news, but it adds an additional section of Rubbermaid tubs as I try to figure out what to keep and what still fits. 
I'm really excited that Stuart thinks he might get his car running pretty soon, so we might get to do a little racing yet this season. This is my favorite time of the year to go to the track - no worries about bad weather like in the spring, and no scorching heat like in the summer.  I'm hoping that we might go to Kansas City and maybe to Oklahoma or Texas yet this fall.  Having that travel time with my family is one of my favorite things in life - no other distractions, lots of conversation time, new experiences together.  And we're pretty familiar with the track in KC, so it's nice to go there and know where everything is. 
Well, I have my menu for the week planned out and my accompanying grocery list made -time to head for town and gather food for the week.  I'm trying to motivate myself with the idea that if I get it done early, maybe we can head to Grandpa & Grandma's for s'mores by a bonfire this evening.  :)

Pups - One Month Old

Our pups are one month old now.  It is amazing how quickly they grow and change - so different from humans.  They romp around now and chomp on each other's tails and noses.  They whine when they can see their mom outside of the pen, but can't reach her.  They explore anywhere we'll let them go -all over the yard, the basement, everywhere - and then suddenly plop down and fall asleep, right under a bush. 
I'm linking to a video of the pups this afternoon, having their meal and playing.

Fight vs. Flight...aka Panic vs. "Reasonable-ness"

This past Friday, I did not have recess duty.  One of the joys that I discovered last year was getting to see L at recess and see her interacting/playing without watching over her shoulder.  At any rate, I didn't have duty on Friday.  There was a storm front that was supposed to move in at some point during the day and it hadn't hit us yet - not anything big, just some wind, maybe some rain.  The kids had been outside about 5 minutes when I could hear a STAMPEDE in the hallway and they all came rushing in the doors and into the classroom with much commotion. A couple of them were crying, L included, because they thought it was a tornado.  Apparently the storm front had a very defined line, and they watched it approach while they were outside, and it was VERY windy when it hit.  It was carrying quite a bit of dirt from the nearby fields and so it made the storm front very visible, plus they all got dirt in their eyes.  So I calmed everyone down, explained that it was just strong wind, no rotating.  The recess teacher came in and explained that the kids were like lemmings - as soon as one of them freaked out about the wind, they ALL freaked out and stampeded into the building as if their lives were on the line, with much screaming of "tornado!" and waving of arms in the air.

So...L and I are taking a walk last night.  As we walk, she decides to tell me about the whole recess/storm incident.  She is a verbal processor, and often has to tell about an event a couple of times in excruciating detail before she's really done getting it out of her system.  So, she's explaining how she was beside the rock climbing wall and she & her friends could see the brown wall of wind approaching.  She said that it was like living during the Dust Storms, watching it get closer and closer.  "And then Mrs. J blew her whistle early and told us to hustle and line up.  And it was like my reasonable-ness got shoved into the back little space in the back of my head (demonstrating head divided into about 1/3s here, and pointing at back third) and the panic just took over the rest of my head.  And when the panic takes over the rest of my head, I can only think about the panic.  And so even though I KNEW that it was probably only a shelf cloud, not a wall cloud (Thanks, Dad, for being a storm watcher and teaching some identification skills!) and that it wasn't rotating, my panic took over!"
Yep, that about sums it up!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

On Friday afternoon, as the students were all pouring out of their classrooms and heading to buses, I stood in the hallway, attempting to wrangle my class into a line.  As the older students walked past, one of them stopped and gave me a hug.  This student, a special-needs kiddo, was in my class last year, and I hadn't really seen him yet during this school year.
He hugged me and then said, in a shining example of a double-edged compliment:  "Mrs. Goertzen!  You've...you've been taking a diet!  You're belly isn't as fat as it was last year!" 
Um...thanks?   :)