December Challenge Day 14

So this morning after church* I was starving and we decided to have a family Sunday brunch at our old favorite, Trudy’s. It was a’ight, but honestly…either we’ve been gone too long and the quality has gone downhill, or it was never really fantastic to start with. They had some DELICIOUS carne guisada, but other than that, everything else was just plain ol’ plain ol’.

Next we ran up to Target to pick up a couple of supplies and various knicka knackas we probably didn’t really need. It was either the carne guisada or the fiber tablets that I took before we left the house, but something happened that we ended up cutting our trip short.

Got home and I took a nap with the bug while poppa took Adrian comic book shopping. GOD I LOVE MY SUNDAY AFTERNOON NAPS.

We had a fairly lazy rest of the Sunday afternoon, but this evening we took the boys down to Lady Bird Johnson Lake to see the magnificent trail of lights. Folks, I present to you…photos. DEAL WITH IT.

*Yes, church bitches. Don’t sound so shocked. Get over it.

December Challenge: Day 1

THE CHALLENGE:
Spurred on by my dearest Walt, I am taking the month long challenge of posting a blog a day. Okay, okay. So Walt didn’t exactly challenge me, but he did it for the month of November and I thought I’d follow suit by doing the challenge for December. Because I am a sheep and I like to follow the herd. I also like to push myself when I am completely stressed and add more to my plate to make me bend even further.

TRAUMATIZING THE TODDLER:
Today was Bug’s first day of “school”. I wish I could have posted pictures of this magnanimous occasion, but you’ll see why I don’t have any here in a second. For those who don’t know, our sweet little Bug doesn’t talk. Yes, he’s three, but he doesn’t talk. Many people have said it’s because his brother says everything for him and he doesn’t need to talk. It’s true. Adrian talks enough for an army. But it concerned me for so long that we had him evaluated by speech therapists and the like to find out what’s going on. I didn’t want my little boy to be trapped in his head, I wanted the best of everything for him. While he’s been nattering on a little more and more every day lately, he’s still not where he needs to be. OFFICIALLY, he’s 18 months delayed with his speech. UNOFFICIALLY, he’s “just a three year old and will talk when he’s ready”.

For the last five months he’s been getting speech therapy once a month for 45 minutes and occupational therapy for 45 minutes twice a month. His occupational therapist tells me he wants to be a rodeo clown when he grows up, and this is fine by me. Cuz I love a good rodeo.
His speech therapy benefits through Easter Seals expired on his 3rd birthday on the 22nd of this month. From there, AISD (Austin Independent School District) picked up where Easter Seals left off. They also increased his speech therapy to 3 hours a day/ 5-days a week. So far I’ve not been completely thrilled with the communication with the school district.

For example: When we enrolled him I told them he wouldn’t be able to start until December 1st, because he was going to be out of town for the entire week after his birthday. Imagine my surprise as I was walking around the house in my lacy panties on the 24th of November when I heard the school bus outside. I ran out there (AFTER I threw some pants on, of course) and told the bus driver that he wasn’t supposed to start for another week. She left, angry I’m sure. I made a mental note of the time so I’d know when to have Bug ready for the bus. 0654. This morning I got up and made the kids waffles for breakfast. I wanted his first day to be special. I opened the blinds on the front of the house so I could see the bus when it pulled up; hopped in the shower; got mostly dressed; went into the kitchen to start making Bear’s lunch when I SAW THE BUS PULL UP IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE…AT 0640. Bug was still in his pajamas. I got the kid dressed faster than you’ve ever seen a kid get dressed in his life. What made me sad was I had this whole plan in my head that I’d get him dressed and tell him about his new school and the fun bus ride he was going to get to take. None of this happened. I basically hurried up and got him dressed, picked him up and ran outside and threw him on a bus with a bunch of strangers, strapped him in his seat and ran out the door while I heard him screaming, “DAAAADEEEEEEEEE”. I know he’s traumatized this morning. I feel horrible. I realize he’ll “bounce back”, but this is not how I wanted his first day of school to be. NOW I know that I have to have him ready “between 0630 and 0700” for the bus to pick him up. Thanks for that stellar communication.

DAAADEEEEEEEE School:
The last day of classes for me I think are on the 9th? I have an Algebra class tonight, my final English paper due tomorrow (which I haven’t started yet), an Algebra test on Wednesday, a History test on Thursday, my Algebra final next Monday, and my History final next Thursday. Needless to say, I’m ready for this semester to be over. I’ll get a good 4-weeks off before gearing up for the next semester (which I was SUPPOSED to register for 2 weeks ago). During which time I can do all my Christmas shopping, have a holiday or two, and reconnect with my family that I haven’t gotten to spend any time with for the last 3 months. PERHAPS, even, I can soothe Bug’s feather’s from his new schedule AND register for the next semester before it’s too late.

MADAGASCAR 2 v. BOLT
I took the boys to see both movies this weekend. Bolt was the clear winner. I enjoyed the original Madagascar and have been looking forward to the sequel since I saw the trailer this summer. I realize this next part is going to sound absolutely ridiculous, so I welcome the ridicule. Madagascar 2 just lacked any believability. Like, seriously, I understand its animation and it has talking animals and such. But there is a certain amount of believability with animated movies. Things just work. But there was so much in Madagascar 2 that was just so outside the realm of possibility that it just came off as a hurried sequel. BOLT, on the other hand, was completely believable AND AWESOME! It was so amazingly awesome that I will most definitely be taking the boys to see it again on Saturday.

AND FOR YOU COMIC BOOK NERDS:
You know who you are. My dear sweet boo kat (is going to kill me for this) is participating in his OWN December Challenge. I don’t know if any of you follow CBR (Comic Book Resources DOT COM!), but he is participating in the December D-List challenge where he and 3 other comic book nerds will be profiling their favorite D-List characters (one a day for the month of December). So if you’re “reality challenged” and are interested in seeing how Jed spends his waking hours, check out the CBR December D-List Challenge. Boo Kat writes under the name Jack Flash. I noticed quite a few nerds already checked in on the thread!

Comic Con 2008

We, the fam, just came off the best family vacation in the history of family vacations. I’ll try to keep it short, but I wanted to share my fabulocity with you. Rather than make a long(ish) blog even longer, I’ve uploaded pictures of the trip at my Flickr account…feel free to check ‘em out.

We left Austin for San Diego last Tuesday. I did a fabulous job chosing flights this time, as we were able to take a direct flight and cut our travel time down to only 2.5 hours. A perfect time limit for traveling with toddlers. Now if we could just figure out our packing! Getting through security with 4.5 carry-ons, 2 toddlers, 2 strollers, and 2 carseats is NOT FUN. YES, I realize we can rent car seats when we arrive, but kids travel on planes MUCH better if they’re actually IN their car seat. So we arrived in San Diego around 1030 in the morning; got our car; and navigated ourselves to the house we had rented…which just so happened to be next door to my ex, Steve, and his awesome new husband, Danny. As an added bonus, my good buddy, Shawn (Steve’s sister), drove down from L.A. to surprise us. We stopped to pick up provisions for a picnic later that evening and we all headed out to the most fabulous San Diego Zoo.

The zoo was fantastic. Adrian had set a goal to see all of the animals from “Kung Fu Panda”, and I think we might have accomplished that. There was a creepy guy working in the panda exhibit that was sitting in a chair talking in “sexy voice” about the panda exhibit. When we approached him, we noticed he was sitting with a blanket in his lap with a hand under the blanket. It was 90 degrees folks…it wasn’t like we were in Antartica. It was just plain creepy.

Wednesday morning Jed, the boys, and I drove a little bit north of San Diego to go to Lego Land. It was the most fun ever. Unlike Six Flags, the minimum height requirement for most of the rides was 36-40 inches…so even Nathan got to ride most of the stuff in the park. We ate lots of nasty park food and Adrian got to pick out some new Lego toys for himself.

Thursday morning we left early to head out to Comic Con International. I have never seen so many people in my life! We attended a couple of panel discussions on a variety of topics. A major disappointment for me was the panel on the “re-imaging” of the 70’s classic(s) Escape to Witch Mountain. We got to see the trailer for the movie and it, in a word, SUCKED. The film is going to be a TRAIN WRECK. It was a bit hectic navigating the convention center with the boys in their strollers. The size and scope of the convention was just overwhelming. One of the highlights of my day, however, was getting to meet Steve, one of my GuySpace pals. He was more obsessed with the convention than Jed was, and had already attended Preview Night, as well as getting there hours before we did…so he was able to offer us tons of tips and suggestions of where to start and fun things to do with the kids.

Thursday night Shawn came back down from L.A. and we all had dinner together. After the kids went to bed we drank every last beer in San Diego proper and played some poker. Now there’s a disagreement of who ultimately won it all, but Jed and I ended up taking the pot…the whole pot…all $25 of it! Not bad for my first time playing poker…and I must thank both Steve AND Shawn for replenishing my chips every time I lost ‘em!

Friday Steve and Danny took the day off of work and kept the boys for us so Jed and I could have a full da y of Comic Con without lugging the kids around. We met up with some of Jed’s comic nerd herd and hung out with Comic Steve some more. It was a completely different experience not having to fight the crowds with the strollers. We had a blast. Friday evening Danny’s parents came over to babysit the kids so the four of us could go out and have adult night. We started off with dinner and some “kick ass Margaritas”. And yes, they were…both of them. We strolled around the Gayborhood afterwards and played pool at one bar (more drinks) and went to another bar (more drinks) where I got to meet one of my podcasting friends, Wes Stone, from Live It Up!

Saturday morning, following breakfast with Steve n’ Danny, Jed and I headed out to the beach with the boys. We went to Hodad’s, a place I had heard about on the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” for burgers and to meet Wes Stone and Nessa from “We’re Mean Because You’re Stupid”, another one of my favie podcasts. If you’re not listening to either of these shows, you should be! Nessa and Wes were just as charming as could be. Afterwards we all went down to the beach and drooled over hot lifeguard boys and chatted for a bit. We said our farewells and headed back to the house for a quick nap before hoping on the trolly and going back downtown to meet up again with Steve and his super adorable husbear, Dennis. They’re the kind of couple that make you wish lived in your city so you can hang out with them EVERY day. After dinner we headed back to the casa, put the kids to bed, then spent the rest of the evening packing for the return trip home.

Sunday was another flawless travel day. Made it through airport security in no time flat. Kids were in a decent mood the entire time we waited to get on the plane. The SECOND the plane took off, Nathan fell asleep in his carseat and slept for the entire trip…while Adrian watched movies on my computra. It was another direct flight, so only 2.5 hours of travel time. It couldn’t have been a more perfect ending for a more perfect trip.

I can’t thank Steve and Danny enough for all they did in helping put this trip together. They really went above and beyond. I also can’t say how much I enjoyed hanging out with all the new people we met on this trip. You each made this a trip I’ll never forget. I’m truly blessed to know so many wonderful people, and look forward to meeting more of you in the future. FYI: Jed and I will be in NYC coming up at the end of August…sanz kids…so if any of you want to meet up…or meet up again TRALFIE…let me know!