Pumpkin carving

"Son, first you need to listen to the pumpkin. Discover what it longs to be."


"Who needs a store-bought set of plastic pumpkin carving tools? Not us!"


This is as close as Kevin would get to the pumpkin guts.


Andy: "What we need is..."
Kevin: "What we need is more pouf," as he sticks the feathers in Andy's face.


Kevin's creation; he drew the design on the pumpkin all by himself.


What a team.

Happy Halloween from Officer Kevin

 

Don't tell him I posted this

Kevin told me not to send this picture to anyone. I said, "Not even Grandma and Grandpa? Or Mrs. Labanz?" He decided that would be ok as long as I told them not to laugh at it. So maybe it's ok that the rest of you are seeing it, too, as long as you don't laugh.

You can't help but smile though, can you?

 

School Picture

I pledge that next year I will, before the morning of the day school pictures will be taken, make sure Kevin has a suitable shirt that is a good color for him to wear in his portrait.

 

The photographer made Kevin say, "I love girls" to get that grin and a hint of neck scrunch.

The bird kind

Kevin and I played Rush Hour, Jr. before dinner and we are missing one of the cars so I substituted a different one of the same size in its place. Kevin said, "Yeah, you just need another 'two-bee' to use instead. Haha, 'two-bee,' 'blue-bee,' 'boo-bee.' You need boobies!" I wasn't sure if he's heard that word used at school before so I just kept my mouth shut to see how he reacted. After my pause he said, "You know, boobies!" I said, "Like Blue-footed Boobies?" He said, "Yeah, like those." Nary a giggle from the kid. Still safe, for now.

Conversation

This conversation took place on Friday evening during another of Kevin's playdates at our house. This one, however, was not with a giggling girl telling Kevin she's in love with him.

Note: No weapons mentioned in this conversation were used against one another.

Kevin: I want to use the sword.
Z: No, I want to use the sword. You use the gun.
Kevin: No, I want the sword. YOU use the gun.
Me: Why don't you take turns?
Kevin: Good idea.
Z: Let's do "rock, paper, scissors" to see who gets the sword first.
Kevin: Ok!

I think we adults should consider using "rock, paper, scissors" more often.

A bird in the hand

 

Today we visited the bird banding project at Eden Mill in Harford County. Kevin helped let go a couple of the birds including this White-throated Sparrow. These sparrows are only in our area when they're not breeding, so they've just returned from up north to stay here for the winter.

Conversation

Kevin has a (girl) friend over for a playdate today. I just overheard this conversation.

J: Kevin, guess what?
Kevin: What?
J: I'm in love with... *giggle*...
Kevin: What?
J: *giggle* I'm in love with... *giggle*... can you guess?
Kevin: *laughing* With what?
J: You! *giggle*
Kevin: Don't say that!
J: But I LOVE YOU, Kevin! *giggle*
Kevin: Don't tell anyone.
J: *giggle* Ok, you either. Especially not your dad.
Kevin: Don't tell your mom.
J: She already knows.

 

I had a dream last night that I was a nerd

Last night I dreamt that everyone on Earth was going to die and there was nothing we could do about it. Everyone handled the situation differently - a number of senior citizens where I was got all dressed up and had an extravagant dinner at the fanciest, most expensive restaurant around. Some people just couldn't admit there was no way around our demise and tried to convince everyone that they had a plan to save us. I found myself walking around, observing the different reactions. I was scared and sad and I slit one of my wrists in an effort to speed up the process - I certainly didn't want to be the last one to keel over and die, watching everyone else do the same first.

After some time, those of us still alive noticed that as the sun was rising over the horizon, nobody had died recently. We began to wonder if we actually weren't going to die after all - 99.9% of the world died, but we were the chosen few who didn't. I checked my wrist and instead of the group of bloody slashes I'd seen previously, there were a few faint scars where I'd quickly healed.

Looking around at the others that were left and who had conveniently gathered together in some sort of town square, I didn't think about why we were saved and the others weren't or what to do with all of the dead bodies or how were we going to choose a group of leaders. No, what I yelled out to the group was...

"This gene pool is way too small for effective repopulation!"

Call it what it is

A few weeks ago, Kevin received a birthday party invitation in the mail. He asked me to read it to him, so I did.

 

He was excited for the party and had a great time with the moon bounce, play house and swingset in his friend's backyard. The only Hannah Montana items were some paper goods.

When we got home, I commented on how nice it was that his friend invited him to her party and that I was glad he had fun and that he better make sure not to leave that favor bag on the living room floor.

His response was, "It was fun but it wasn't a rockin' party. The invitation said, 'You're invited to a rockin' party' but it wasn't rockin'."
 

"I'm picking up your sarcasm." "Well, I should hope so, because I'm laying it on pretty thick."*

After breaking the exciting news to one of my closest, dearest, truest friends, she replied with this comment.

you were THAT close to greatness?

i think that lance armstrong sat behind you in homeroom, too.

Snarky is as snarky does, Elesa.

*Do you know what movie the title is from?

Do you recognize this woman?

Below is a photo I took of my 8th grade yearbook. The woman in the picture was my home economics teacher in 6th and 8th grades. She was really fun, which you probably have to be to teach a bunch of middle schoolers how to cook, sew and wash their faces properly. When I was in 7th grade, in 1985, I had a different teacher for home ec but I remember this teacher being pregnant as she walked around the halls of school.

Her note says, "I'll never forget making those blue & white shorts. That was a riot. Take care & have a fun summer. Much happiness..."

 

Can you read that signature?

 

I change, you change

Yesterday I helped with the kids during second service at church and as we approached the building Kevin said, "I've never been to second service - I wonder what it's like!" We always go to first service but there have been a few times we've gone to second, I guess we just haven't done that since having Kevin. I told a friend about it and said, "So it's been over..." (pause while I consider how long ago October 2004 was, when Kevin came home) "... 4 years - oh my gosh! Last week was our anniversary of meeting Kevin!"

I've been saying, "He's been home for 3 1/2 years" for awhile and hadn't considered that we'd already passed the 4 year mark. Oops. I'm not that far overdue, at least. Today is the anniversary of us flying home from Guatemala, Kevin's first time setting foot in the United States. It wasn't until Oct 7th that he stepped foot into his new house as we had to spend our first night at the Sitnick's house because ours smelled too strongly from having our wood floors refinished while we were away.

Here are links to my posts regarding previous anniversaries. Seems that I missed it last year, too.

2005 - 1-yr anniversary
2006 - 2-yr anniversary
2007 - 3-yr anniversary

How has Kevin changed? Mostly, he's changed like any other 2 1/2-year old changes by the time he's 6 1/2 years old. But he's also grown from a scared, quiet, clingy, eating machine into a social, expressive, hanger-on-for-basic-safety-but-not-out-of-fear, eating machine.

Perhaps the bigger change has been in me. I've changed from a beaten down, life-hating, tired, angry, selfish person who had a kid in the way of her life to a sometimes sparkling, sometimes life-loving, only sometimes tired, and sometimes unselfish person who can say to Kevin, "It's ok that you woke me up with your coughing - I only want to help you feel better and that is more important than me being grumpy in the morning."