Monday was our 13th wedding anniversary. (Still amazes me that it's been that long, time really goes quickly). I was scheduled to work that day, but a lovely co-worker asked to switch a shift with me, so C and I were able to steal away for a mini-getaway. We dropped the kiddies off at Mama's house on Sunday and drove to St. Augustine to spend the night at a B&B. It was a completely lovely get-away. We spent the afternoon at the beach (when did Vilano Beach get so crowded???), then ate supper at one of our very favorite restaurants, Caps on the Water. The next morning we attempted to sleep in late, but ended up waking up around 7:30am. So we lounged around, ate breakfast, and then strolled downtown for a bit before heading back home. Lovely, lovely couple of days. We picked the kids up (they had a glorious time... what grandkid wouldn't? Mama Dear's house is kid nirvana), and on the drive home both kids talked/whined/begged non-stop- they were both overtired and overstimulated. Welcome back to everyday life- it was as if we'd never left!

Naptime

His warm little body curled against mine,
his head resting on my shoulder,
feathery curls brushing my cheek.
Lullaby playing low,
and the sound of rain and thunder
outside his window.
Dim ambient light.
His sighs contented,
as are mine.
Precious boy.

Last month when Boilin' Oil played at Satchel's, Chris brought Magnolia up on the stage to sing her 'Baby Rides a Car' song. Unfortunately, I had gone into the main part of the restaurant to buy the kids some cake, so I missed the whole thing. Drat! However, a (small) part of it was caught on video and uploaded to youtube, tacked onto the end of another song. So here is a tiny snippet of Magnolia's fabulous debut. Chris said she brought the house down...

Boilin' Oil will be playing again at Satchel's this Friday, 2/12 (so come on out for great bluegrass music, pizza and salad!). Every town should have a place like Satchel's. Gainesville is really blessed. Hopefully if Magnolia is asked to sing again (hint, hint to Chris & Max), I'll be with it enough to capture the whole performance myself...

It's an awfully cute song and I'm absolutely amazed that it doesn't faze my 5 year old in the least to get up in front of bunches of folks and sing her little heart out. Perhaps having her pop right up there with her (and having watched him do it himself her entire little life), makes it seem like no big deal.

8 lives left...

I pull up to the stop sign to cross 10th Ave on the way to drop M off at school this morning. I look to the right- and my heart stops for a second as I notice my beautiful long-haired black & white kitty MagPie dead in the middle of the road half a block up. I gasp, and then the questions come from M and I have to explain that I'm pretty sure our cat has been hit and killed by a car. Not fun. So on the way back home I stop to get MagPie- I can't look at his little face as there's clotted blood coming from his head somewhere. Awful. I take him home and bury him in the backyard, getting a little teary in the process but trying to console myself that he's had a good life since we adopted him as a tiny kitten (he had been dumped in the middle of the campground at a music festival and I couldn't resist taking him home). I'm really wishing C were home so he could do the whole burying thing, but he's in South Florida for a workshop. Today was the first time I've ever buried a pet. Then I go to Lowe's to pick up a couple things and I have the horrible thought that I might have buried the cat alive! B/c he was still limp and I didn't check for a pulse and maybe he was just unconscious! OMGoodness! And then I remember that I did (v. briefly, like for a second) peek at his head and his eyes were open, so I'm not a cat-killer, just a cat-bury-er. And then I run back to the school to pick up M & Z to take them to the Medieval Faire, but before heading there I have to run home to gather snacks, etc as my organizational skills went to pot with the whole discovering-my-little-cat-dead-in-the-road-incident. I leave the kids in the car and run inside, and am on the phone with a friend making plans of where to meet at the Faire and get the absolute fright of my life as I see a little black furry streak running past me in the living room. It's MagPie! I start blabbering to my friend about how MagPie is alive! He's alive! So exciting! ...and then realize that I've buried someone else's dead cat. Another cat that looked amazing like MagPie (at least from the neck down, as I really couldn't bring myself to look at his poor little bloody head for more than a split second). Poor cat, and I have no idea to whom he belonged.

Daddy get the shotgun...

Magnolia regaled Chris yesterday with the story about a man who came to her school to do repair work of some sort on the outside of the building. Apparently he had to stand on a ladder to do it, so the kids got a real good look at him. And Magnolia seemed to like what she saw. "Daddy, he was so handsome!" she told Chris when he picked her up from school. She and her little friend Claire giggled together about how they were going to kiss him when they grew up. Too funny, but good grief, she's only five! Luckily, the thought of kissing him now is not an issue, as she still thinks people kissing eachother is "icky" (or so she told us this morning as C bussed me goodbye).

Magnolia, the Liberated Pre-Schooler

For quite a while Magnolia would profess that when she grew up she was going to marry her daddy (not sure where I was in this scenario- best not to think about that...). Then for few months she said (at least once a day or so), that she would be marrying her brother, David. Once I broached the subject of this not being quite the done thing, but soon gave that up as defining incest to a four-year-old was a bit beyond me that day.
This past weekend she wondered aloud about what her mama & daddy's wedding looked like. So I popped in the video and she, Chris & I sat down to watch it. She kept wanting to know when the "kissing part" was coming. And informed us that she was never going to be married. When asked why, she replied "because it's redikilas". Why is marraige rediculous, you may ask? "Because of the kissing and dancing", she said. "I'm only going to dance by myself".

Why boys develop more slowly- a hypothesis.

I'm now fully convinced that the vast majority of toddler boys must walk around with a permanent mild concussion. D spends a large amount of his waking moments running hither and yon as fast as he can, and then either falling and bumping his head or running into an object harder than himself and bumping his head. He's already had his first laceration last month (wandered right off the dock onto a lower level of dock and bit into his lower lip- I had a good 10 minute conversation with myself (and the unfortunate souls in my direct periphery) about whether it was worth it to stitch it up- in the end I opted for letting it heal on its own to avoid the trauma of local anesthesia, and luckily it's healed quite nicely, can't even tell it happened). First laceration at age one; M hasn't had anything deeper than a scrape and she's almost 5! This traumatic event was a couple weeks after he pushed a toy dump-truck and then himself right off the dock into the water. He hardly seemed phased after I jumped in after him a second after hearing the splash. Just coughed a bit and then let me hold him for a few minutes, then off he toddled to play with the dump-truck again. So apparently he has no fear of heights or water. Which will be a good thing later, I suppose, but for now it means I'll be buying him a lighter life-jacket (as the one we have for him is great, but a bit on the heavy side as he can't wear it and get back up on his own if he happens to fall down on his bottom, so I hadn't been putting it on him while he was out of the water and had opted for the constant-surveillance method, but that obviously isn't working so great for me).

So perhaps this permanent-concussion state explains why boys have a tendency to develop more slowly than girls. It's the constant stress to their noggins that they inflict upon themselves.