Noah's Bird Army

One of the really cool things about living in Florida is all of the birds. My family really likes birds. I may or may not have called my mom the bird lady. I have never seen The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock and I plan to keep it that way, since there are birds everywhere. There are pelicans, ibises, egrets, gallinules, and Muscovy ducks to name a few. You usually find pelicans where there are fishing boats, but you can really find them anywhere near water.  We have seen baby gallinules that are the cutest birds. They look like little black balls of fur.  I was able to take pictures of them and we watched them grow up. It was really neat.  I don’t like Muscovy Ducks, but Noah does, they are really weird looking, they look kind of like turkeys. Maybe I shouldn’t be so judgmental.  One of Noah’s favorite things is to feed the birds at the park. They love to see him, it looks like Noah is leading a parade or has an army because they follow him around.  The other day I noticed a bunch of ibises hanging out, walking back and forth and it was like they knew I was Noah’s mom, because they were following me around too.  They were not afraid and they didn’t fly away. I thought I would snap some pictures of Noah’s bird soldiers.

Playing Radio Station

When I was younger, I used to play radio station with the neighbor kids. It was a full on production. I am talking we used to “broadcast” it on a speaker on a cordless phone, my neighbors mom would listen to the show faithfully. There would be music, talk, even commercials. It was my sister, our old friends Brad and Mike and of course me. There was occasionally another person but we were always the constant staff. We would play radio station all the time. My sister and Brad were the DJ’s I can’t remember what Mike did. What did I do…. I am sure you really wanna know. I was the sectary, because I didn’t have a good radio voice. Yes, poor little me had to pretend to write things. I didn’t even have the cool job. I was not allowed on the radio.

Even though I got the short end of the stick, it was still a lot of fun. Then again we always had fun with Brad and Mike. I have a lot of memories of them. We used to play baseball, Double Dare, and of course, Nintendo to name a few. I remember when this boy was picking on me and riding his little bike with his little friends in front of my house, Brad stepped in and protected me. I used to have a crush on Mike but yeah that was a million years ago. He’s a year younger than me I think.

Playing at the radio station was definitely an experience. I know it was kinda dorky but really we were semi dorky kids. I can’t remember what the radio station was called. I wonder if my sister remembers. Those were really good times although I am still haunted 20 or so years later that my voice isn’t radio worthy. What does that mean? Did I have like a squeaky voice or a man voice? Maybe it was a way for Julie and Brad to be in a spotlight and me chained to the desk pretending to answer phones. Don’t get me started on the Hamburger Dress incident. That is a whole other traumatic event, that needs it’s own post.

Please Paypal me to help pay for my therapy.

Noah and I Are So Alike.

It is so funny to watch Noah. He reminds me so much of me when I was little. If you were in my family you would know about the infamous Here’s Bozo video. I think I even talked about it on my blog before. I said something like Ladies and Gentleman Here’s Bozo and ran in the room over and over and eventually fell down. Recently, Noah was running around the house saying Ladies and Gentleman, Start your engines or something along those lines. Another thing he does is he talks like I did when I was little. On the same video I am sitting in our plastic swimming pool and I ask my mom to get our beach towels and I said We have towels. Noah says we have *insert whatever he is talking about* and he says it the same way I did when I was well his age.

Today, I had a mess to clean up. I am assuming it was payback for the baby powder from when I was little. I dumped a whole bottle of baby powder on myself, my old best friend and all over the room. It was that dreaded Talc kind and I am sure I inhaled a ton of it and I turned out ok. Well, I thought I would be smart and put the baby powder up where Mr. Noah couldn’t reach it. He found some Wilton powdered royal icing that I totally forgot I had bought, it was in a cupcake kit. I guess I should look on the bright side and he only opened one package and not everything. It was a total mess though. Powdered Royal icing all over the counter, the floor, the stove top, and my son who decided it would be fun to make foot prints with it. He also was rolling his trains and fire trucks in it. He also had a whole package of cupcake wrappers strategically placed on the floor. I thought maybe he was trying to make cupcakes or a treat for his mommy. Well needless to say I was not amused. It was kinda funny but it was a pain to clean up. It took forever to sweep it, mop it etc, while not making icing because that would have been a total pain in the butt.

I was reminded of my grandma Rose as I was cleaning it up. We used to make paste for crafts with flour and water all the time. I also remembered doing Paper Maché with my cousin Susie, I think it was Susie. It was a long time ago, if it wasn’t Susie, it was Rory. I can’t count how many crafts we did with my grandma and assorted cousins.

After I cleaned it all up, I sat him down for a talk. He was in trouble. I wanted to know what he was doing exactly. He told me he was making it snow inside. I explained that it doesn’t snow in our house and to not get in to things he knows not to get in to. He doesn’t like to talk about it, because he knew he was in big trouble. He also learned that even mommy got in trouble when she was little. I always follow up time outs and punishments with hugs and kisses and I love yous.

Noah is definitely a character, like I was. I wonder where he comes up with this stuff.
Do you see your children doing the same silly things you did when you were a child? I would love to hear your stories.

Thar She Blows.....Chunks.......

Everyone has an embarrassing story. Embarrassing things happen to everyone. I thought I would tell you about my most embarrassing story that ever happened to me. In high school, in English class we went on a field trip to see The Miracle Worker. I went to a huge high school so there were a lot of people that went on the field trip with my class. I am pretty sure it was half of the English classes. I was fine when the play started; I am semi claustrophobic when I am around a bunch of people in a small space. Around intermission, I started feeling sick. I thought maybe it was because I was hungry so I bought a drink and a candy bar and ate it while we were waiting for the play to start again. All the sudden my head and stomach really started to hurt. I told my teacher and he told me to go talk to the nurse that came on the field trip with us. They brought a nurse in occasions like this one.

She knew me quite well out of the 4,000 or so students at my high school. I did have a habit of “being sick” during school. I liked school just not the classes. She didn’t believe me; she refused to call my mom. Seriously, if I was going to pretend to be sick I wouldn’t do it on a field trip. After all I was already out of classes for most the day. I kept telling her, I don’t feel good. I am sick. She had me lay down on a bench. I managed to make it through the play without getting sick. We had to ride the bus for 45 minutes to get back to school. As soon as the bus started moving for a while, I started vomiting. I vomited and vomited and then vomited some more all over the bus. I vomited on the nurse and another teacher. I vomited on people’s book bags that were on the ground. The bus stopped at the gas station so I could get a Kiwi Strawberry Snapple to drink to try and settle my stomach. I was also able to clean up a little bit. I am sure the bus garage hated me that day.

When we got back to the school, I went to the nurse and she called my mom. Everyone in my grade knew about the bus disaster by the end of the day. I was so embarrassed. People would ask me about it. I had it come up a couple times even after high school. I think it is funny now. You bet when the nurse saw me in her office and I said I don’t feel good she believed me.

What is your embarrassing story? Please share it with me.

The Pregnant Turkey

My fabulous friend Brandon sent me this joke in an email today. I thought I would share it with you all. I have no clue who wrote it and I am not saying I or Brandon did. I thought it was so funny. There is my disclaimer! Enjoy!

The Pregnant Turkey!

One year at Thanksgiving, my mom went to my sister's house for the traditional feast. Knowing how gullible my sister is, my mom decided to play a trick. She told my sister that she needed something from the store. When my sister left, my mom took the turkey out of the oven. She removed the stuffing, stuffed a Cornish hen, inserted it into the turkey, and re-stuffed the turkey. She then placed the bird(s) back in the oven. When it was time for dinner, my sister pulled the turkey out of the oven and proceeded to remove the stuffing. When her serving spoon hit something, she reached in and pulled out the little bird. With a look of total shock on her face, my mother exclaimed, 'Patricia, you've cooked a pregnant bird!' At the reality of this horrifying news, my sister started to cry. It took the family two hours to convince her that turkeys lay eggs!
Yep..................SHE'S BLONDE!