Cut mai-baby's hair!!

Have so much to tell about the weekend, but I am looking down the barrel of a week (with new work schedule, and the soccer season starting).  Just wanted to update:  one of Nico's teachers put his hair in a pigtail on top of his head last week.  She was just playing around, but I took the hint: Nico's hair was LONG.  I mentioned it to one of Dave's coworkers who offered to let us borrow their clippers.  The problem, you see, is that its hard to cut baby hair without making him look like his mom cut his hair.    Henceforth, I buzzed Nico's hair today.  WOW. Like, I have cut his hair before and it's changed the way he looks.  Like that first hair cut, when I snipped those red baby curls off.  Just about broke my heart.  

Well, this cut is SHORT.  SHORT. SHORT.
I think it makes him look younger.  He wasnt a fan of me cutting it... mostly because of the sound, I think.  But I think with a little practice I could get a lot better at it.  Maybe Dave would even pay me to cut his hair... do you know how much yarn 12-15 bucks can buy?  For-real!!

Running and Gunning...

Almost there... this week is almost over.  Let me tell you... I feel like I have been running and gunning all week.  But its weird because we canceled practice twice this week... so theoretically, I should have had more time... it's just that I have been prepping for the start of the season, finishing revisions on the dissertation, etc.  Plus, I am helping co-host a baby shower this weekend.  :)

Excited about the Red and Blue game this weekend... wooo to the hoooo!!

Also excited about my two most recent purchases:

A lunch bag, made from Joel Dewberry.  Be jealous!!

Also, behold: A travel mug!!  Isn't that lid clever?  Never have search for the top!!  I haven had a chance to try it, but I wonder if it will get very hot with hot tea or something in it? 

So Dave and I have started talking about Christmas.  I want to get Nico a play-kitchen, since he likes to play in the kitchen so much.  I really like these two:

I actually like the red one better.  The play kitchen that I though I might be able to re-hab?  Yeah, its a no-go.  Its made from plastic, and the doors wont stay closed.  I am not about to have a trashy looking kitchen with doors that dont stay closed.  Let me tell you...

Other than that, not much going on around here. 
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  Hoping I will have some cute halloween pictures to show.

Invalid...

Good morning kiddos!!

Not much going around here.  Things are crazy.  I was in an evaluation workshop MTW of this week.  Usually, it would be snooze fest central, but it was actually kind of cool. 

Feel like I am trying to juggle a million things at once.  Its cool, because it feels like the weeks go by pretty fast.  Just think, a week from today, we open against Chiles.  Yeah... its going to be craxy.  I think we are going to be pretty good this year.  I say this every year.  But this team feels kind of different.  Its hard to explain.  In the past, we'd be playing well in practice, but it always felt like we were a tiny bit out of control- one mistimed tackle away from getting spread too-thinned and too stretched out, that how well we were playing was a result of us pinwheeling out of control.  This team, while they definitely play with a lot of pace, it never feels truly out of control... lots of speed up front.  And my goalkeeper seems to be learning at an exponential pace.  Which is funny because there are times when we are doing something in practice and it feels like she might not be listening... the next day, she will be telling the JV keeper how things are.  I love it.  I am really looking forward to the season. 

I also got Nico's Halloween costume yesterday.  Dont judge me... Yes, I know, Dr. DIY actually bought a store costume for her precious.  I know... its just, I have a hard time coming up with costume ideas for myself and Dave, let alone Nico... and its never simple.  It always involves working with crazy materials, like fake fur.  In any case, I bought Nico the elephant costume from Target. Which is actually pretty great, since a couple of the other moms whose bambinos are about Nico's age got ther animals (Monkey, Giraffe).  So they will be their own little zoo.  I can only hope its 95 degres out, because that would complete the ensemble- cranky, sweaty Super-Beasts!!

I myself, am going as a ninja this year.  This is the first job that I have had where I will dressup. In order to do so, I am donating money to our charitable campaign.  So that its cool... even cooler is getting to wear pajama bottoms and a tshirt to work, with a sword.  Which leads me to the other thing I am going to do: state, "I have a sword.  Your argument is invalid" as I brandish said sword.  SWEET.  Aint nothing like going to see HR when you're dressed as a ninja.

Puppies in the pool, dancing, practice and crabs...

I dont mind saying... this weekend was OFF.THE.HOOK!!

First, about the post office.  I hate it.  Really I do.  Long story short, I need to do something to my passport.  I realize that we dont need one to go to the Bahamas for Thanksgiving (we could get by with the card).  But my name has changed since my first one.  And I am not sure how that works.  Plus, It expires next year... so it made sense. But since I dont want to lose all my cool stamps and visas (from the Brazil trip, Europe twice and Malawi) I would rather just go and get a new passport, which requires going in person.

So I go to the PO on Friday... I get there at about 11:55.  I take a number (85).  They are on 81.  The sign says it should take about 15 minutes per person and rather snarkily suggested that I count the number of people who are in front of me and multiply by 15-20 to get how long I would be waiting.  An hour... not too bad.  My iphone is charged up and so I amuse myself with the interwebz while I wait.  And wait. And wait.  For two hours.  No joke.  At about 150, I go to ask the front desk lady what the process is for people who are walkins with numbers (like me) and how that will work given that the appointment people were starting to show up (the first one was at 2pm).

She condescends to explain to me that she will try to work us one at a time, so one number, one appointment.  I ask if I will be waiting until 230 when the 200 was done, or what.  She looks at her watch and informs me (bristling, a bit mind you) that she still has five minutes until the appt time, and that she could probably start with me.  SCORE!  The first thing at the PO that hasnt sucked, right?  So she stands there shuffling papers for a bit (and not like shuffling papers in the ha-ha, you work in government, you shuffle paperwork all day kind of shuffling) but actual BONAFIDE shuffling papers... from the previous applicants.  FOR FIVE MINUTES. Okay... its cool, I waited for over 2 hours, I can wait another five minutes.  And then, wait for it.  She calls the appointment person ahead of me.  Yeah, I could not believe it.  Could not.  I am still dumbfounded.  I finally left (I didnt want to get fired for taking a 2+ hour lunch).  OUT OF CONTROL.  It made me seriously angry.  Whew- there is nothing that sends me into a rage like people/processes wasting my time.  I will cut someone!!

So Friday night, Dave came home and we headed up to the Greek Festival- which was overrun with Tallahassee people.  OVERRUN!!  At my greek festival!!  Seriously- I dont like having to wade through throngs of people to get anywhere... this is my greek festival... I have been coming here since I moved to Tallahassee.  We came back in the day... 7 years ago.  It gets on facebook and guess what?  Everyone and their mom shows up... So no baclava cheesecake for me.  Apparently, there is a conspiracy that I cant have baclava cheesecake, ever.  Especially on all days, the most special of all days, my birthday (to which my mother would reply, "your birthday was six months ago" <-- props to everyone who gets THAT line).

Nico had a pretty good time.  He likes gyros.  Not surprisingly.  Know what else he likes, dancing on stage!!

Does that look like fun!!??

Saturday morning we had practice at the highschool.  Nico got tired of always not doing what he wants to do... so he started playing:

Isn't that awesome?

Afterwards, we went to the StoneCrab festival in St. Marks.  Guess what is more work than it's worth?  Yeah, eating crabs.  Man, what a production!!  Way to much effort for so little reward.  So we ended up going to the Riverside for some noms...

We hung out at the house on Saturday night.  Invictus was on HBO, and "we watched it", which is to say, that Dave watched the whole thing and I made like Nicole and started watching it to fall asleep and then wake up with about five minutes left.  But it was good, the parts that I saw... hey, at least I didnt browbeat everyone in the house to watch Interview with a Vampire... right Nicole?

Sunday morning, I took Nico to get some breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  As much as I love doing that, it is a HUGE production... usually, Nico makes a huge mess... and its at that moment that he decides he wants to master the fork. While he is eating blueberry pancakes.  What a mess!!  On the way home, we swung by Target for socks.  Yeah, he can't fit into baby socks anymore... is that normal?  Seriously, we went to the kid section for socks... the baby socks are all too small... that is so weird!!  How can this be?  Strange...

We then took the dogs to Puppies in the Pool... which is pretty much amazing.  Truesdale Pool lets dogs in the last weekend of the season, before they clean and winterize.  If you remember from last year, Drake accosted an old lady at the pool.  This year, there were no such encounters, but a big Chocolate/Chesapeake Bay Retriever did a deuce in the pool (BTW, really glad that wasn't Drake or Gordon, how embarrassing).  I will post some video when I get a chance... its not terribly awesome or good... but you can at least see the teeming mass of dog there was.  There was a great bulldog though, who was shorter than Nico and absolutely in love with Nico... kept coming up to him and bumping him and giving him sugar.  It was awesome.  Speaking of awesome, how great is Drake's face here?

He's like, "Really?  This is what I have been reduced to?  A carnival ride?"  To be far, Nico does this to me too... especially if I am lying on the floor... he thinks its funny to come sit on your back, like a horse or something... its pretty funny.

But a pretty great weekend!!
All for now... gotta do some stuffz before bed!!

Downward facing dog.

Quick post today.  Busy.  But just so we're clear- I.HATE.THE.POST.OFFICE.  More on that later.

Check out Nico:


The girls were doing punishment pushups for jacking up passes.  Nico wanted to do some his own self.  Although, to be fair this looks like the yoga pose (downward facing dog) more than it does pushups. 

Will hopefully have a wonderful blog post to post later about the Greek Food Festival and Puppies in the Pool.

Epiphany

So I had an epiphany about a week ago.  Regarding the next step- the next phase of our life, whatever I choose to do with my life career-wise has to be awesome enough to justify leaving my not spending time with these guys in the morning... especially that one in the orange monkey onesie.  Life is too damn short to spend it doing a job you dont like love.

strange taste

So we had a great weekend here.  In addition to it being Boss's Day, it was also my birthday on Saturday.  Whooo to the hoooo!!  We had practice on Saturday during which one of our captains brough cupcakes.  Nico proceeded to be a BEAST and flip all the cupcakes over in their box.  Saturday night Dave and I went out for a, wait for it, Date Night.  Milka-what?  Yeah.  When I was checking out movie times, he suggested Inception (the one with Leonardo DiCaprio).  Given that our first choice (Conviction) wasnt showing in Tallahassee yet, we settled on Inception (despite the fact that it was playing at the dollar theatre (which is actually the three dollar and fifty cent theatre)).  It was really good.  I am trying not to be anti for the sake of being anti these days... everyone else in the world has been OMG it is the best.movie.ever.  I mean-sometimes the bandwagon doesnt aways know what is best (lest we forget the Lord of the Rings affair).  Afterward we went to Clusters and Hops- a higher end bar/resturant in Tally.  Its beer selection is amazing.  In fact, I had a german pilsener that was spot-on for the Berliner Kindl we had in Germany in 2006.  In fact, the bar dude said they could probably get the Kindl here.  I am very excited about this prospect- however I am not holding my breath.  About once every 6 months I spend 3-4 hours looking across the interwebs looking for a way of ordering it.  I actually had a chance to have some Berliner Hefiewiezen (sp?) in DC a couple of years ago, but that is the closest I have come thus far.  So we will see.

Dave and Nico got me tickets to see David Sedaris and Ira Glass as part of 7 days of opening nights.  David Sedaris is the first author I have ever live- and his shows are hilarious.  Here he is on This American Life. 



I usually end up laughing so much my face hurts.  In any case, it will be awesome!

Sunday morning I played soccer.  It was not pretty.  I got shelled and gave up a bunch of goals.  I am sore :(

When Dave played soccer yesterday afternoon, Nico and I went to get some frozen yogurt and some groceries.  Tallahassee has had this spate of recent frozen yogurt stores opening.  Its self-serve: with all the toppings... Nico and I usually get some vanilla or strawberry topped with white chocolate chips, strawberries, blueberries and rasberries.   Its pretty awesome.   I try to do that with him once a week.  Afterwards, we went to get some groceries.  Groceries have gotten to be a full-on out of control production.  Not so much the groceries part, because that isn't TOO bad.  But putting away?  Out of control. Nico has started to help, but his helping usually isnt very helpful (even though he is adorable).  Yesterday he was tryig to carry this bag down to the kitchen and tripped on it.  He landed on the carton of tomatoes causing the box to open and tomatoes to run amok in the grocery bag.  He found it pretty amusing:



Speaking of food.  He has the most unusal taste in food.  Seriously.  I got some brussel sprouts last night to steam and toss with prosciuotto, butter and garlic.  Guess what little homey likes?  Prosciutto.  Dave doesnt even like prosciuotto.  He also likes sweet plaintains, tamales, black beans and rice, and grapefruit.  Grapefruit.  And tuna (canned).  But he doesnt like tomatoes.  Strange...

Have you seen the pumpkin man?

Some pictures from the pumpkin patch...

What is that on the back of his shirt you ask?  Oh yes, that is the red ink that got on his brand new shirt from Auntie Nic-Nic before he even put it on... Isn't it cute??

My boys...

So I went around and stuck my head through the pumpkin-and Nico thought it was funneh... So he came around and I held him up... I am pretty sure he is thinking, "Well, this is dumb."

Aren't we precious?!

Survival Mode

So, Nico's new thing is putting on clothes.  He sometimes will find clothing and try to "put it on" by holding it on top of his head.  This usually ends with him throwing it on the floor.  He is getting even more helpful- he mostly listens now when I ask him to put something away... like today he helped me pack my bag for the gym by putting my shoes in for me... he really is very adorable. 

Other than that, things are going okay, I guess.  I am definitely getting my ass kicked by life right now.  For some reason this season has just felt much harder than previous seasons.  Like, usually I dont shift into survival mode until much later  (Late November), but I already feel like it.  Survival mode, BTW is basically where I start to loathe any part of my "free" time being taken up by ANYTHING.  For example, we have to go today at lunch to take delivery of our life insurance policy.  With our guy, this means having lunch for an hour and talking about our financial future, etc.  I would rather he just give us a big envelope with instructions that say, "Here is a phone number, if you one of you dies, the other one should call it.  Have your account number on hand."  But, instead, we have to do this thing and I don't get to work out today.  Which, I guess isn't that big of a deal- but I really count on having lunch to do that. 

Speaking of which, I am not sure what it was that Dave bought at the grocery this weekend, but it just seems like we dont have any food in the house.  I am sure we do... it just doesn't seem like we do.  This is actually kind of a big deal because I try to feed Nico and my own self at the soccer field.  Because by the time we get back to the house after practice, he is pretty cranktastic (if he isnt asleep) and really just needs some sleeps.  Maybe we just dont have any food that I want to eat... Who knows?  All I do know is that I bordered dangerously close today to saying, "F- packing snacks, Imma pack 5 bucks in quarters and get my snacks from the vending machine."  Apparently this does not constitute good nutrition.  Who knew? 

Then on top of all this, we named teams this week. This is the first time that we've ever had to cut anyone... which I guess is good... good that we have enough to cut players... bad that this is the first year.  Bad that I made 5 little freshmen cry at practice last night.  I wanted to tell them personally, so they don't go up to the soccer board have their little hearts broken and have to walk away from the board crying acting like everything is okay and that they didnt really want to play soccer anyways.  While I tried to be as gentle and as nice about it, but its never easy.  Frankly, I don't know what its like, to be cut from a team.  I tried to be as gentle with them as possible, but I don't really know if that helps. 

On the upside, we're going to be pretty good this year, I think.  The Harris kids are on the team... for those of you who dont know...the younger Harris kid is the next big thing to come out of the County.  Seriously... she was leading goalscorer in the county at least two years in a row.  When Maclay, JP2 and Florida High have been able to have their best 6th and 7th graders on Varsity, we've lamented how it wasnt fair becuase MH needed to be on with us, as a 6th grader.  She and her older sister are going to set it on fire round here.  Aside from MH, we didnt have a lot of freshmen coming in who overwhelmed us from the get go.  We have a lot of kids who've played soccer before... many spent the summer playing with TOF... so its nice in the sense that we aren't starting from square 1.  I think we might just be okay...

Oh, and another thing- the beautiful but scary jack-o-lattern I carved this weekend? TOTAL.ROTTEN.MESS.  Already.  Yeah... like, rotten pumpking juice leaking on the floor.  So we had to throw it away... doesnt that suck?  On the upside, I will be stealing Nicoles idea by getting a new pumpkin and letting Nico paint it, then draw a face on.  Oh, and Guess what?  Dave isnt the boss of me this time at the pumpkin patch!!  We're going to get two pumpkins... one for Nico and one for Mama.  How do you like me now? 

And I never learned to read!! (WAH-WAH!)

A long drive and some pumpkins...

So- we had a brilliant weekend around here.

My conference in Tennessee went well.  Its the regional demography conference... and reminded me how awesome research and being an academic is.  One of my academic idols was there- came to the session I was in.  If you dont consider me, it was largely a gathering of authors from IE's mortality reading list.  I still get nervous as hell in front of a crowd.  I turned into Klutzo McKlutzerson when I stood up for my presentation.  They had set up the laptop and projector on a table about five feet away from the podium.  Which forced me to stand in front of the screen sort of... so I get up there and am like, "Let me just set this up the way it should be"- thinking I would move the laptop and stand by the podium... turns out the cord wasnt long enough and I stepped on the power cord and practically tripped myself onto the table.  And it pretty much went downhill from there.  It's weird because I definitely felt more comfortable last year... this year I was definitely rocking that "I'm nervous and my mouth is dry" voice- which I totally hate. 

In any case, I got some good feedback, which was the point. 

On the way back, I stopped off in Athens for lunch with RLSM who I was roommates with in college.  She has a boy who is about 2 and a new baby.  We got the chance to catch up and it was a lot of fun.  After I left Athens, I took the back way down to Cleveland, which I have never done.  Despite living in Cleveland for almost 4 years, I had no idea that there was so much farm land in the surrounding area.  With windows down and good music on the ipod, it was a nice drive. 

I caught some of the Lee women's soccer game.  They are a completely different team from hte one I played on all those years ago.  Its amazing... they play with such purpose, such speed and pace.  And they all seemed to be those tough girls you can't take the ball from.  You know, in reality, there is one of those on any team... a girl who can hang onto the ball despite the fact that you're hacking her... well, this team had 10 girls on the pitch like that.  Deadly on fast breaks and set pieces.  They were fun to watch. 

I got home early on Sunday and Nico was glad to see me.  He's into actual hugging now.  Like before, he'd just sort of put is hands on your shoulders and his head on your neck... now its actual hugging.  And he was very smiley.  It was awesome!!  I also had some great mail when I came home, including a pumpkin shirt for Nico from Nicody and EmmeMax.  Turns out Dave put it on my desk not realizing there was a pen without a cap on it (who leaves an uncapped pen laying about?)  So Nico had red ink on the neck of his shirt before he even had a chance to wear it. Not to be swayed, we put the shirt on him anyways and went out for some fun.  Some of the ink came off on his neck and now it looks like he burned the hell out of himself with a curling iron or something.  Hopefully his school wont call DCF. 

We had a great lunch at Rays (love that place) and hit up the pumpkin patch.  I was hoping to get some good pictures of us as a family (since I have so few).  Nico wasn't so much a fan... sure he thought the pumpkins were cool... for about 5 minutes.  After that, he spent most of his time tearing everything up and trying to get away.  We got some little pumpkins to decorate with stickers and a big guy to carve.  Which we did last night and by we, I mean me... because Nico wasn't pulling his weight (per usual) and the smell of pumpkins is not on Dave's list of great smells.  Nico is a little scared of the jack o lattern's face- which is weird because I purposely tried not to make a scary face. 

Will try to post video and pics later... or not.  Tryouts start today and I see me getting my a$$ kicked for the next week :(

All for now.

Headed to the BIG 4-2-3!!

Seriously, can't you just eat this guy up?  He is pretty much adorable.

So my birthday is next week... I know, you're pretty excited too!!  It is, afterall, a national holiday.  NiCody and MaxEmme sent me an early gift earlier this week:

It's a canvas with one of the pictures from the Jake Moore photoshoot.  I love it because Nico looks mischevious.  He looks like he knows he has to be good this very second, but is thinking, "Ma, as soon as you put me down I am tearing everything up!  It. Is. On!"  It is a very cool gift and I am very happy with it!!

Headed to Knoxville today for the Southern Demographic Conference.  We had originally talked about the whole Bishop-Royse fam going... but when you factor in the fact that there is practice tonight (and Saturday), dealing with the dogs, etc.  its easier if I just run up to Knoxville and come home.  Speaking of which, yeah!!  Knoxville!  The Big 4-2-3!!  My old stompin' grounds!!  I am going to slide by Clevegas on the way back to check out a Lee womens soccer game.  BTW- for those of you who don't get the Lee Magazine- did you know that my alma matter is the repeat NAIA Championship team?  Yeah, totally.  They won the NAIA title in 2008 and 2009.  For those of you who dont know what NAIA is, its basically another athletic association.  There is a lot of variability in the teams... some amazing and crazy awesome teams (like Birmingham Southern and Berry) some middle of the road teams (like US) and some terrible teams (like Trevecca Nazarene).  In any case, the rules about eligibility are a little different in NAIA, so we tended to have a LOT of foreign players (including the year we played against Milligan, whose Mercy Akide and Flo ____________ were on a break from their National Team duty with Nigeria followng the world cup to single handedly beat us 12-0.  Thankfully, only 5 of those were on me...).  In any case, two years after I left, our coach switched to the boys side and they got a great coach for the women... who put the time, the effort, the recruiting into making Lee a top notch program.  6 years later, National Champs!!

So I am going to miss the boys.  Knowing my luck, Dave and Nico are going to be doing lots of funs this weekend!  They always wait till I am either out of town or working to do fun stuff...

All for now!

Rotten

So- I passed my doctoral defense on Friday.  It is a strange feeling indeed.  No, I didn't run amok tearing up the town.  Dave and I had talked about doing something on Saturday afternoon/evening, but the tentative plans I made with the sitter fell through.  So we just hung out with Nico this weekend.  Friday night involved partaking in the seemingly endless supply of german beer that is in our fridge (HoffBrau) and pizza.  Mmmmm.  I think we were in bed by 1000 pm  :( sadface.   

I think I am still in shock over the whole thing... so I will wait to describe it more eloquently until I have some perspective... maybe when I walk.  Or not.  :)

We went to Savi's birthday party on Saturday.  She just turned one and is a total ham.  Their place has an open floor plan, where one, could if one were so inclined run a big circle around the kitchen, living room and foyer.  Know what is awesomeness?  A whole line of little kids doing this... which one dorky adult (me).  After we left the party, Nico and I did a couple of errands and headed home.  I stayed up late sewing and watching bad movies on Netflix.  Sunday was pretty low key with Dave and Nico going to IHOP for morning noms.  Seriously, the boy cant get enough of pancakes.  For real.  After eating 3 blueberry pancakes at IHOP he was trying to get some of my regular pancakes for second breakfast.  I know!!  Just like Uncle Billy!!

When we were at Target on Friday getting birthday gifts for Savi- I could not resist a toy piano for Nico.  See, there is this company that makes toys that I love... they are Made in America  and are great colors.  Made out of recycled materials.  We have set of cars and a play cell phone for Nico.  I have ben eyeing this piano for a couple of months now... and finally broke down and got it... its one of those toys that Dave and I will probably get more use out of than Nico will... it even has a microphone... its pretty much amazing.  And like most toys we get, Nico is a lot more interested in the box than the actual toy.  So we spent some time playing music on Sunday.  Nico is basically the next J.S. Bach.  For real.  Dont be jealous. 



Late yesterday afternoon, Dave went to play soccer.  After a brief stop at the yogurt place, we went to watch.  While Daddy did get shelled, Nico tore everything up.  He was trying to get onto the field and basically get into EVERYTHING.  Here is is pretending to be good for a minute:

Those are the shorts I made him (blue and red crabs).  They are still weird in the waist band... which is okay, since they are kind of play shorts at this point.  So I wasnt terribly annoyed when he decided to sit in a puddle by the water fountain.  What a hot mess!!