B to the A to the B to the Y

*drum roll please*




I am going to be an auntie!!!

Yup. My youngest sister, and only sibling, is due in November. The way she informed me and our mother was most cute. Our mom was here visiting me and she had told us that our mother's day cards were coming in the mail and since the both of us were together, she wanted us to open our cards together. I didn't think anything of it, even though mother's day was still a month away at the time.

When I opened my card, it had a picture of a champagne bottle being uncorked... and inside the card read "Congratulations!".

Congratulations?

For what?

...for still being a mom after 10 1/2 years because I have not yet strangled my children?

I read on and saw that the congratulations was for my getting to be an auntie!!! I still didn't get it right away.

Did she get a new puppy or something?

After reading what she wrote in the card, I looked up at our mother to see what she was doing and she looked up from her card and we both just sorta stared at each for a brief moment with curious squints wondering if the other had just been "told" the same thing or maybe Ashton Kutcher would be bouncing around the corner with cameras at any second now.....

Fast forward...

My sister and I were speaking on the phone last night about possible names. Of course, it's still a little too soon to know the sex of the baby so she's toying with boy and girl names and has come to realize that liked girl names are easier to come by. She told me of some names that she likes and understands that these names aren't for everyone, but her child is going to be need a name that is not typical. As if she needs to explain this to someone who named her child something that she cannot find in ANY baby book other than the ONE that she originally discovered it in, which has magically ceased to exist.

As I was tucking in my own children last night, I asked them their thoughts about the chosen names thus far. Here is my email to my sister with the results of my question to them:


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
okay. i have discussed your name choices with the children. here are the responses:

i gave them the names of:
girl choices: daisy, ruby, violet, lily, lena

boy choices: wesley, holden, levi, brutis

my daughter's thoughts::

likes lily best. and likes the middle name of "anna" so it would be lily anna (which kinda sounds like a full first name, but it's not).

had nothing to say about the boy names because [and i quote:] "it had better be a girl"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

my son's thoughts::

kinda likes ruby, lena, and lily

for boys, likes brutis, of course, and has suggested the name "fertilizer" or "sprinkler"

not crazy about violet because "it's a color- not a name" -- i let him know it was a flower, too. he didn't seem to care much about that and was not swayed in the least.


my husband's thoughts:

daisy - ew.
ruby - m'eh.
violet or lily- i like lily, violet is maybe okay
lena - that's pretty
holden - "too catcher-in-the-rye'ish" ['cuz that's horrible, right?]
wesley - ::made squinty eye face with a sound much like "yuck"::
levi - he hates this name... because [my husband] is dumb. Levi is the most awesomenest boy name.
brutis - ::stared at me wondering if i was being serious::

then he says,
"why doesn't she pick out names for when she has a kid."
:: i stare at him for a moment wondering what in the hell he thinks i'm talking about ::

"um, she IS having a kid."
"yeah, i know."
"these are her name choices"
"oh. i thought they were for our kid."
"why would chloe be suggesting names for OUR kid when 1) we're not pregnant and 2) she IS pregnant, which would clearly make more sense as to why she is thinking of names."
*rolls eyes*
:: thinks to self, "boys are dumb" ::

and the moral of the story is that: you better have a girl otherwise it will be twice or even triple the work to raise a boy who will grow up to NOT be dumb. i don't think any mother [even the BEST mothers] have conquered that feat.

~~~~~~~~~

now this little blog entry of mine takes me to three places.

One - please see this post. I now will have an excuse to buy something from this site!


Two and Three - a couple of recent stories about my own children that I told my sister about last night because I really wanted to express that in order to be a successful parent, in my opinion, one must have humour. A lot of freakin' humour.


story one:
this happened yesterday as I was preparing to pot some flowers & herbs outside. I asked my son to join me. He was uninterested. I tried to sweet talk him and asked him to PUH'LEASE come out and spend some time with his mother in the sun and that he didn't even have to help, but rather just keep me company. Still uninterested but took a moment to at least reply with "maybe in a few minutes."

A couple of minutes go by.... and I am walking past him to go back outside and I say "Hey, it's been a couple of minutes... come on!"

He says without blinking or turning away from the video game he was playing , "First of all, I said a FEW minutes. Second of all, I said MAYBE."

I could do nothing more than laugh. A parent who has little humour in their bones might want to backhand their kid for gettin' "sassy", but how could I do that when, really, he was just calling me out on NOT listening to what he had actually said in the first place.


story two:
My daughter comes home from school the other day to tell me about a meanie girl who was playing out on the playground. Apparantly, she called my daughter a "fool" and my daughter's response was, "The only person who is allowed to call me a fool is my mother!"

I confirmed that her response was directed to a child rather than an adult because most grown ups might not find the fact that I call my children "fools" and "foolios" to their faces very endearing.

Heaven forbid they find out that I also call them "ratbags".

Yeah.

It's a good thing my little sister has me to look up to and to admire and to be in constant awe with all the wonderfulness that makes up my fabulous parenting skills.

There's a sweet pea blooming in a distant land

[play me: Strange & Beautiful by Aqualung]
I've been watching your world from afar,
I've been trying to be where you are,
And I've been secretly falling apart,
UNSEEN.
To me, you're strange and you're beautiful,
You'd be so perfect with me but you just can't see,
You turn every head but you don't see me.

I'll put a spell on you,
You'll fall asleep and I'll put a spell on you.
And when I wake you,
I'll be the first thing you see,
And you'll realise that you love me.

Yeah...
Yeah...

Sometimes, the last thing you want comes in first,
Sometimes, the first thing you want never comes,
And I know, the waiting is all you can do,
Sometimes...

I'll put a spell on you,
You'll fall asleep,
I'll put a spell on you,
And when I wake you,
I'll be the first thing you see,
And you'll realise that you love me.

I'll put a spell on you,
You'll fall asleep 'cos I'll put a spell on you,
And when I wake you,
I'll be the first thing you see,
And you'll realise that you love me, yeah...

War in Wonderland

What is on my iTunes right now?

Imogen Heap “Headlock”

please refer to my very first blog post ever in the january archives for an explanation on the fact that i sometimes don’t use my shift key to capitalize letters when i type. this will be one of those times.

this is probably most likely also going to be one of those blog entries that isn’t lighthearted, necessarily, nor is it profound or exceptionally wonderful. it most likely, as a matter of fact, will probably turn into a rant of sorts. or will it turn into nothing.

something in the air is festering…. what a great word…. “festering” – similar words are rotting and decaying, yup. sounds about right. i also doubt that i will go back and edit this particular entry. i’m kinda lazy like that right now. if you are feeling happy and go lucky today, you might just want to look the other way and come back later if you want light asherbelle. it's not that she is dark today…per se….. she’s just in a funny place. and not funny, ha ha. rather, funny weird.

and for sure now that she is writing in third person all of a sudden.

one would think that writing everyday would be therapeutic. assuming, that is, that he or she enjoys writing and releasing their thoughts and is capable of doing so. not to mention, that would be the healthy thing to do. alas…. Time goes by….. life happens…. and before one knows it, it’s the next month already and they have spent all this time sitting and staring at the terracotta colored wall that is in front of them and googling random tid-bits of information that are pretty much irrelevant to their life. for example, what is the difference between sunshine yellow and bright yellow?

or maybe this same person spends a ridiculous amount of time trying to compare the difference between two pairs of black shoes that are basically the same only one has a tiny embellishment on the toe whereas the other does not and will that embellishment make that shoe less practical with her existing wardrobe or does that little embellishment add a little pizzazz to the shoe since she already owns 178392172932 pairs of black shoes, most likely of which 0 have a tiny embellishment. maybe she really does not like little ‘things’ on her shoes… or maybe she doesn’t know .... and maybe she’ll just end up buying both pairs of shoes.

or none.

you know what? i have suddenly lost my desire to write anything. not because i don’t want to…. i just don’t think i know where to start. or what to say.

i'm sorry readers. i guess i'm just not in the mood to try right now. and as someone who is generally pretty good about expressing herself and articulating into words the mushed up emotions that swirl about the insides of all of our heads and much like a bunch of oozing clutter that drips into the already messy streets of obnoxious traffic... i'm pretty much sucking today. plus, i'm sneezing like a mother fucker [i guess mother fuckers sneeze a lot] and can't concentrate.

What's playing on my iTunes now?

Elysian Fields "Stop the Sun"

how about i just post random pictures?

One is the loneliest number

So I pick my son up from school yesterday and ask him how his day was. When I ask my children this question, sometimes I get the usual "good" and sometimes they elaborate a little.

My son excitedly says to me, "Mom, I was the ONLY kid who didn't talk while in line today." I responded with an equally excited "Wow! That's great!" He goes on to say that everyone who was talking didn't get recess and had to sit on the bench and not talk.

A moment passes and I asked, "So... you got to have recess while all the other kids sat on the bench? Cool!"

"Yeah. It wasn't very much fun. I had to play by myself because everyone else was in trouble. So they just sat on the bench and stared at me."

"What did you do?"

"I just stood there and stared back at them."

*pause*

"Sometimes being good doesn't mean much."

"No, I guess sometimes it doesn't", I said as I laughed at the thought of my son having a silent stare down in the playground as his reward for behaving. Good times.


Then I got a wild hair up my butt to let him drive with me once we pulled into our community. He squeezed into the front seat and sat in between my legs and situated himself. There was literally not a soul around, which was perfect.

I kid you not, as soon as he was comfortable and had his hands on the steering wheel and as I shifted from park into drive, it was as if the alien mothership dropped down from the sky right in front of us, because within 2 seconds, there was a little boy walking out of his house and down the driveway, two little girls rode by on their scooters, a woman came around the corner jogging, another young boy was walking his dog and a teenage girl was chatting on her cell phone walking along the side of the road. It really was the weirdest thing!

"Jeez.. what the?" we both said simultaneously as we laughed out loud.

Maybe you had to be there. But it was just one of those quirky moments that I love sharing with my son and since I have not blogged in a bit, I thought I'd share.

~~~~~~~~~

Coming soon.... the shock rocker known as Marilyn Manson towers over the crowd of excited fans, except for this one awkward, tall girl wearing a gold dress who later curses like a trucker and leaves her husband outside while she allows Manson to touch her backside; may I introduce to you Lady Luna Honeybee; exactly how do 13 women with get along for 48 hours while sharing the same space and what happens when they venture out in public; gross things like buttworms, the poop stick, and dipping raw chicken in the flour pot.

Stay tuned :-)