Mother Hoodwink

Hi, remember me?

I am a horrible blogger. [Note: I am such a bad blogger that this window has been opened with that first sentence for at least two hours while I procrastinated writing this post.] A lot has been happening since my last post in which I talked about meeting Jakob Dylan. For one thing, I got to meet him again. We went to the DC show this past September. Josh is an amazing man who will not only drive me four hours to see the only man in the world I would leave him for, but wait outside the venue for two hours to ensure we get a good spot during the concert. Which we did. Jakob Dylan flirted with me a bit when he signed my two CDs. I was able to keep it together and make lots of eye contact because, how could I not? The starstruckness wore off since I had met him before and I was able to say real words to him and remember the things he said to me. I even had the courage to go back and get another picture with him. I lied to him and said that the first picture didn't come out. The truth though, I just wanted to have him put his arm around me again. (Shut up!) He smelled of beer and spearmint gum. It was glorious.

Other things:

• Today marks eights years of marriage for Josh and me. We had our traditional Mexican dinner. If you don't know the story, then here's a quick recap. We were 19 and poor when we eloped. We took our wedding party, which consisted of three friends, to Taco Bell for our reception. My brother happened to bring by Taco Bell for us on our one year anniversary and so, the tradition was born. We hope to go to Mexico for our ten year anniversary.
• Gavin and Maggie are growing up faster than I would like. The saying about the days being long but the years are short is really ringing true to me.
• We'll be moving again this February. Only across town. We're getting into brand new base housing that has two car garages and hardwood floors. I'm pretty excited about this. Mostly because we'll be saving about $400 a month by moving to base housing. We won't have to pay utilities and since our rent now is $50 more than our housing allowance, it will be nice to have the extra money.
• Josh has a new love. An orange '72 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia named Gertrude. I have a love/hate relationship with her.
• I know if I thought longer about this, I could have more bullets. Instead I'm going to make a really huge effort to blog more often because I want to persevere memories for my kids and myself. But mostly to get Kerry off my back for my lazy blogging ways.

Going on a trip.

We're leaving this morning to visit with my dad and step-mom for the weekend. They live in Florida so we're meeting halfway in Alabama. Only four hours away but it's going to be the first semi-long car ride Maggie has been on and the first one Gavin has had in a long time. Hopefully I brought enough snacks and toys to keep Gavin quiet and Maggie will sleep the entire time. If not, maybe on the way out I can stop by my doctor's office and get a prescription for Valium for myself.

We're back.

We're finally back from our "vacation." I love my family so very much but am so happy to be back home where I don't have to spend so much time with them. My family is very unique in the fact that we are all very close but can yell and scream at each other in a drop of a hat then be over it an hour later. Or is that not unique at all? Is that the norm?

I'm the youngest of four children. My two sisters and one brother are 13-19 years older than me. Technically, my sisters and brother are my half siblings. They are from my mom's first marriage and I'm from my mom's second. We have never called each other half anything. We're family through and through. Even with that, there is a big separation between us. They grew up together and are understandably closer with each other. I have a different relationship with each of my siblings. I adore my brother and would do anything he asked me to. He's one of the funniest people I know and the sweetest. My younger older sister is probably who I'm closest with. Growing up she was always the one stuck babysitting me so I was always her little shadow. My oldest sister and I have the most strained relationship. She never was one who enjoyed children. So we weren't that close when I was young. Now she has her own daughter that is only a couple of months older than Boomba. I thought us becoming mothers at the same time would allow us to become closer, but it hasn't happened.

Since I've become an adult, they always tell stories about funny and embarrassing things I did when I was a kid. While I know they tell these stories out of love for me, they don't realize that it kind of hurts that they can't tell a story that has happened in the last few years. They still think of me as a little kid. Sometimes they talk down to me as if I were still that little kid. They don't even realize that I have done more in my first 25 years than they ever did in theirs. I get lots of unsolicited advice from them. I'm guessing this is just the product of being the youngest. Oh well.

Either way, we have finally come to the conclusion that these trips back home are so draining that when we get back, we feel as though we need to another vacation to recover from the vacation we just had. I'm just so happy to be home and jump back into our normal routine. Dim and I have decided that next summer we're staying home for our vacation. If we do go anywhere, it will be somewhere close. Maybe it will be my chance to go to Dollywood.

Bullets are still cool.

Every time we go back home, I have a list of goals that I have to get done because they can only be done in Virginia Beach. I'm lucky if I get one of them done. We just get so caught up in hanging out with friends and family. I was going to number these but my hosting site has a sucky numbering system. So, it's bullets again. Sorry. This summer's list:

• Go out with Dim, ALONE, and see a movie together. Back home we have a crapload (I just added "crapload" to my Apple spell check dictionary. I'm surprised it took this long.) of babysitters. Lots of family and friends that I trust my child with without giving them a laundry list of things to do in case one of Boomba's appendages fall off. Dim and I haven't seen a movie in a real theater since we saw some movie with Shia Labeof playing golf. That was back in October of 2005. I know. Sad and pathetic. It was the beginning of my pregnancy with Boomba. We wanted to squeeze in as many movies as we could while I was pregnant, but no movies worth watching came out in that time. We did see the the second pirates movie in July of 2006. But that was at a drive-in and I spent most of the time sitting in the car breastfeeding a two month old for most of the movie. The second we get into town, I'm handing Boomba over to my mom and Dim and I are going to see the new Harry Potter.

• Here in Memphis we get a lot of Dunkin' Donuts commercials. They keep showcasing all of their yummy iced coffee drinks. I love coffee drinks. I will be your bitch for life if you give me a coffee drink. I'm cheap like that. So I went to their website to check out all of the flavors so I would know which one I wanted to order. I then checked to see where our closest DD was. Want to know where it is? Well not within 50 miles, that's where. Whatthefuckever. So one of my goals is stopping at all the DDs on our 16 hour drive so I can get a yummy iced coffee. By the time this voyage is over, I will have tried all nine flavors at least thrice. Dude, they have raspberry, cinnamon, blueberry and coconut flavors. I MUST conquer these.

• I will get a tan. (I know about cancer. Shut up. I'm part Asian and have a lot of melanin so chill.) My mom lives on a lake so I usually get a tan. But the two week stay doesn't give me a year lasting tan unless I'm out there everyday. Also, I want to swim as much as I can because I never get to around here.

• Make sure I take Boomba to the beach and get some awesome naked sandy butt pictures of him. I love the beach when it's not tourist season. During the summer, however, I freaking hate it there. I always forget about the beach on the Navy base down the street from my mom's house. I didn't grow up military and had only gone there a few times with friends. All the adults loved it there because they sell alcohol slushies. Alcohol and lots of sun always go together, I say. Hopefully the Navy beach won't be too busy so I can get some nice photos.

• Make sure that Dim goes surfing already! Our good friend back home started and has talked it up so much that Dim will not SHUT UP about it. Dim is easily swayed by this friend. Remember the skateboarding? Dim is still doing it by the way and is really good at it.

• Now that we don't talk to my in-laws anymore (dreadful people), we should have more time to spend with our lifelong friends who we seem to always neglect when we're in town. I also have a fellow Navy wife friend who I promised to visit last summer but didn't have time due to said dreadful people making our vacation a living hell.

• Make sure to visit all the stores we don't have here. One of my sisters was telling me about the new H&M and since we are basically the same person when it comes to clothes shopping, she told me I would flove it and it totally got me excited.

• This doesn't need to be on the list because it happens anyway but I'll put it on in case anyone from my family stumbles onto this site. I gotta make myself look good. I have to spend so much time with my family that I start talking like them again and repeating the inside jokes for weeks until I'm back home and reference one to someone who has no idea what I'm talking about.