Three Peeps Two Pups

more storytime

2012-02-13T20:18:00.000-08:00

we went to the rose bowl flea market yesterday. it's the second sunday of every month and it's huge.

huge, i say.

seriously.

it's huge.

anyhoo. we got there before 9am (it's seriously so huge you've gotta get there early). we were successful in obtaining an end table for our new couches (pic to come when pigs fly).

but on the way here's what our storyteller told us:

cashel: mama/dada (his new word for daddy lately). you missed me.

me and jason: we did?

cashel: yeeyah. (he says it like that sometimes). i was in the woods and i was a superhero and i fought off the bears and the wolves with a stick. and i was in the woods and i fought off the bears with the wolves and the wolves with the bears and i had a stick and that's what happened and you missed me.

us: really?

cashel: yeeyah.

us: wow. that's brave.

the best part is the look on his face.

he scrunches up his nose on one side only and raises his eyebrows and is looking out the window when he says all of this.

one day i hope to get a good picture of this face.

but my camera isn't fast enough. and i'm not fast enough.

until then.

just imagine.

storytime

2012-02-13T20:10:00.000-08:00

cashel is quite the story teller. he certainly doesn't get that from me. he's not that into legos or building blocks or puzzles (yet). i know that these things may still come. he's not that into drawing or painting for more than about 30 seconds and most of that is just wanting to watch. what he is into is pretend play. a tone of pretend play. and story telling. mostly listening to other people (i.e. me before bed, telling him a story). i've been able to circumvent this a bit - it's, quite honestly, exhausting for me. let me give you a good example of why it's exhausting:

cashel: (on the way home from school one day, we're almost home, and Jeilani (our neighbor who rides with us - she's in 6th grade) is in the car) mama, tell me a story

me: ok. who's in this story (this makes story telling much easier for me)

cashel: a stoplight

me: ok. "once upon a time there was a stoplight. and in the town where the stoplight lived there was a boy.."

cashel: no mama! there are no people in this story!

me: um...ok cashel. "once upon a time there was a stoplight. and in the town where the stoplight lived there was a bear.."

cashel: no mama! there are no animals in this story!

me: um. yikes. ok. so, i'm not sure what i'm supposed to do in this story (luckily, we're almost home)

jeilani: (laughing)

me: ok. "once upon a time..." yey! we're home!

thank goodness.

family

2012-02-09T20:37:00.000-08:00

a late post is better than never. we had a wonderful christmas. here are some pictures to prove it.

the whole fam

the bryant/barnes clan

the park

the kids' table!

so much fun at the kids' table!

visiting granny

cookie wars 2011

mother and daughter

happy to be home

dance party with madonna

2012-02-07T20:03:00.000-08:00

ever since the super bowl we've had at least one dance party with madonna. the night of the super bowl jason and cashel had a dance party in real time while i was walking the dogs. i came in and we pressed rewind on the dvr and had another dance party! he does not like cee lo's robe. he calls it a dress. boys don't wear dresses. he makes me be one of the cheerleaders. he break dances and does a version of par court on the couch.

on monday night we had a dance party, just me and cashel.

tonight (tuesday) we had a whole family dance party.

if we have another one tomorrow night i'm setting up the video camera and posting.

warning: cashel may be naked.

we heart san francisco

2012-01-25T20:54:00.000-08:00

we heart san francisco

really.

we do.

i've been there three times now and jason and cashel and i have been there together twice. it is quite possibly our annual labor day weekend vacation spot.

this year we decided to drive. we really wanted to drive so that we could get a better lay of this beautiful land of california.

boy was is a long, boring drive. ranch after ranch after ranch. lots of cows stinking it up. windmills, and flatness with hills and mountains in the distance.

we'll fly next year.

cashel is quite the little traveler though. he does really well. he's never been that good in hotels and at restaurants. anytime we're in a hotel, he wants to go home to be with his stuff. he doesn't cry or anything, but it's harder to keep him entertained in a hotel that you would think. he doesn't eat well in restaurants either. his healthy food goes out the window when we travel and he gets a lot of chocolate milk along the way.

Usually the first thing we do when we get to san francisco is to go to this great museum. cashel loves it! there's a great park close to it and after we get done looking at the museum we just walk around.

we had gotten a recommendation for a chinese restaurant in china town. it was quite a wait and food was good but it was just simply entertaining to eat in such a crowded place!

the next day we did do a touristy thing that was awesome - bike the bridge. notice the bottom left picture - potty break!

on the other side of the bridge is a cute little town called sausalito. we had ice cream and rode the ferry back. check out the amazing clouds!

jason and i admitted while we were there that we're city people. there....we've said it.

happy new year!

2012-01-17T20:37:00.000-08:00

i was reading a blog of a friend of mine, heather's, and she has written that she just didn't feel like blogging this year. once i read that i felt a lot better about not having posted in quite a while. and i noticed that for 2011, i posted 45 times versus 56 times for 2010 and 35 times for 2009. quality, not quantity. that's my story and i'm sticking to it.

the fall was simply exhausting. i knew that it would be. i took on a new role last year as vice president of my local mom's club. our cabinet wields lots of power. watch out. don't mess with us.

no, really, we do great charity work but what really got me was that i was in charge of this event called the preschool forum. it's an event held at a local coop nursery school on a sunday, where local families can come and find out about preschool options in our area.

the fall is always busy and quick, but this year was crazy. luckily i realized this back in the summer and was prepared for it as much as possible. get this, mine and jason's anniversary is on november 5th, grades for me ended the 4th, grades and comments were due november 8th, cashel's birthday is november 10th, the preschool forum was november 13th. yikes! so when did we have his party (which i still haven't posted about)? november 5th - on our anniversary! yep! it was great. really. i'll post about it once i really get my posting mojo back - i'm running on fumes here about to fall asleep but am determined to post something tonight.

so, i'm not really trying to complain here, just trying to keep it real. there are not enough hours in the day. so, to make myself feel better - enjoy this random smattering of pictures from the fall. they are in no particular order. i'll get some fresh (albeit posted-very-late) stuff up soon.

look at flash. so stoic and ready for battle with evil.

i did not eat a powdered donut.

just two boys climbing a tree.

the tongue!

do you see what he's touching? the famous freckle.

watching for bears in nana's neighborhood on thanksgiving day.

miss clara - she has convinced cashel that his full name is cashmoney barnes.

hanging out at poly.

with mama at poly.

what a cutie pie!

mars needs moms

2011-12-16T19:20:00.000-08:00

our new favorite book is one called "mars needs moms." it's by a guy (or girl i suppose) named berkeley breathed. i'm not kidding. my kid's name is weird but that one?

moving on.

i have fallen in love with this book so don't be surprised if you're a mom and you find it gifted to you from me. it's about a little boy who thinks his mom is a tyrant who only tells him what to do. he doesn't understand what's so special about moms until one night, he falls asleep and dreams (although he doesn't realize he's dreaming) that his mom is abducted by martians. he doesn't understand why he follows her to mars (why would he when she does nothing but tell him what to do?) but, alas, he does.

he realizes that mars needs moms to take the little martians to soccer games and gymnastics and to cuddle with them.

he finds his mom and his space helmet falls off and he almost dies from not being able to breath (the book is not as traumatic sounding as that - i'm not a good story teller) and she takes his helmet off to save him and almost dies herself (see above note...not as dramatic as i make it sound)...and the aliens help him get his mom back to earth. he dramatically yells, "but she's my mom!" this is the part that gets me. omg. this kid realizes how much he loves his mom.

now, let me be clear. cashel is in love with me already. he already expresses this to me in many ways, but, i suppose i imagine a day when he won't already know this, and i'll have to be abducted by aliens for him to know.

but today, in the car, on the way home from school...

wait...i should mention...he takes this book everywhere these days and makes anyone who can do it read it...

ok....so on the car ride home from school he says:

cashel: mom..we live in california

me: yes, cashel, we do

cashel: martians don't know the way to california

me: i bet they do

cashel: how do they get here

me: they ride in a rocketship

cashel: (looking perplexed) but....i don't want them to come get you....

seriously....can this kid get any greater?

no words...

2011-11-10T20:11:00.000-08:00

he's free!

2011-11-10T19:40:00.000-08:00

not yet cashel!

i can't believe it.

feel's like yesterday you were born....unexpectedly early...

and i was concerned about my hair for our first picture together.

that ER was on while i was giving birth to you.

and your daddy got that great shot of you about 30 seconds after you were born.

and your daddy said, "crap, i have to put a bunch of furniture together now. i thought i had more time."

and we walked down to our second(!) "birthing" class the day after you were born to let everyone know to expect the unexpected.

that margerita's was closed because you were born on a monday and all i wanted was great italian food but we ate chipotle instead and didn't care.

that nana and granddaddy and uncle brian came to the hospital because you were here.

that i called my school and said, "i had my son today and don't have my grades complete."

that i called mimi at 3 in the morning and when she answered in somewhat of a panic i said, "hey, how are you?" then proceeded to tell her i was in labor.

that our nurse, angela, told me that my 8 was a 4.

that i looked at your daddy, told him to go see you (because i still had an iv that had to finish before i could walk) and he got really excited and said, "really? i can go see him?" and i said "duh, you're the dad."

that i walked into that nursery and saw you for the first time and thought, omg, he's so little! and perfect! and sweet! and he has tubes sticking out of him!

and your daddy said, "robin...aren't his arms a little long?" and i said, "i guess he'll be a basketball player."

that true, unconditional love began....

you're three?! i'd better not blink again.

my own personal wipe out...

2011-10-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

i always said i wanted to do walks/runs for charity. i finally signed up for one. the malibu dirt dash. i ran a 5k...partly in the mud, while cashel and jason had some fun of their own before doing a kids fun run...check it out....

yum...

2011-10-29T22:42:00.000-07:00

...good thing i learned to floss...

naked

2011-10-29T22:40:00.000-07:00

naked...the best way to be...how i spend most of my time...

playing catch up

2011-10-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

we had a lot of fun when we returned from kiawah. it was august and school had not started back yet. cashel had another dentist appointment and has enjoyed flossing our teeth ever since - after his of course....

what? no september post?

2011-10-20T21:27:00.001-07:00

omg. no september post. i'm making a promise to my elderly self to post some video or pictures soon.

hang on old lady.

the power?

2011-10-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

"i want mama!"

"i want mama!"

"mama, mama, mama! not daddy!"

i should feel good about this, right? special? no one loves me more?

all of that is true....except i'm a working mother who has to be somewhere by 8am.

it's tough.

two issues here.

1) cashel does not go to sleep by himself. full disclosure here - we lay down with him until he falls asleep. it wasn't always this way. you know who might say i created this situation and i will say otherwise. getting into bed with cashel in the middle of the night to sleep with him (cuddle because it's AWESOME) is one thing but actually creating a situation where he must fall asleep with one of us is another. i did NOT create that situation - it created itself. i won't say anymore for fear of divorce. like many parents who try to convince their children that all children get rid of pacifiers by age ___ we're starting in on "all little boys and girls starting going to sleep by themselves at 3 years old. wish us luck.

2) cashel is completely, totally, obsessed with my freckle. i have a freckle on the right side of my face (a mole really) that i've had forever. i never paid it any attention until one day cashel discovered it and has, literally, been obsessed ever since. he rubs it. he caresses it. it's the security blanket he never attached to and it's attached to my body.

when i sleep with cashel (hey! no judgement!) i sleep to his left which means, when we cuddle (which he LOVES by the way...ok...me too) i am laying on my right side with my face facing him. he often has his finger on my freckle and says "mommy, you're hurting me" because my face is squishing his hand. what do i do? i turn my neck to face the ceiling. crazy, right? it's uncomfortable as heck! i've started saying things like, my freckle needs a break cashel. no more touching mommy's freckle OR i turn over so that it's more comfortable for me and he can still touch my freckle.

it's absurd. i'll admit. but it really does bring him comfort. we were at a play date a few weeks ago and i was talking to another mom about this. later on in the playdate cashel was upset about something, crawled into my lap and started rubbing my freckle and the mom noticed! "he goes straight for the freckle, huh?" she says. yep.

this morning cashel was having a particularly bad morning for some unknown reason. he was crying...sobbing...having to catch his breath. jason was explaining to him that i had to get ready for work. here's a sampling of how this generally goes:

cashel: "waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! i want mama!"

jason: "cashel, can you calm down and tell me what's wrong?"

cashel: "waaaaaaaaaahhhhh!"

jason: "hey bud, what's wrong? can you use your words?"

cashel: "i want mama!"

jason: "cashel, mama has to get ready for work."

cashel: "mama won't let me touch her freckle and i need to."

this is how it goes.

it HAS become a source of power.

me: "cashel....if you get in your car seat right NOW i'll let you touch my freckle."

sad really, but i often feel like the bad cop these days and i'll do what i have to to get things done and have him still love me. i've heard age 3 to 4 is harder. our friend greg has reassured us that it doesn't get any easier.

yey.

lost

2011-10-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

i am...

somewhere between telling my students "get your homework out'...and they listen...and "cashel, let's get your pj's on"....and he doesn't listen

somewhere between walking the dogs for my pleasure and walking my dogs for their pleasure

somewhere between being the wife who wants to cook dinner and the wife who wants to order in

somewhere between being able to take a nap on a saturday afternoon and sucking it up and cleaning the house

somewhere between making the time to work out and actually working out

somewhere between knowing i should start christmas shopping, birthday shopping, thanksgiving planning and actually doing it

somewhere between wanting to write this right now and wanting to shut the computer and watch tv

somewhere between cashel saying "mommy, sleep with me" and my papers saying "grade me"

somewhere between feeling like i'm a good mama, wife, daughter, sister, friend, teacher and being all of those things....

compassion

2011-10-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

i have another post i was working on. but something has come up.

yesterday i received a facebook message from a my friend maria that an la mom we both know (she knows her much better than me) has had a loss in her family.

her husband died on saturday of a brain tumor.

i'm gonna call the woman who's husband died tessa to be respectful and protect her privacy.

this was not exactly unexpected. i remembered going to a cook out on a sunday afternoon about a year ago, maybe a little longer, and meeting tessa's husband. it was, maybe, a month later that i found out that they had just found out that he had brain cancer. some type of rare kind. my heart went out to them.

i had only met tessa once or twice before then. i joined a mom's group in la when we first moved here and tessa was also a member. i really only know her through her facebook posts.

the thing is, they have a three year old boy and tessa just gave birth mid-august to a baby girl. i can't imagine what this family has been going through and what they will go through. i can't seem to get it out of my mind. the compassion i have for her is so much. one can't help but look at situations like this with a tinge of looking at it with respect to their own lives. since cashel is almost three i can only imagine what tessa's conversations are like with her son about what has been happening with his dad and what happened on saturday. the conversations yet to come. the same for her daughter, although i would imagine these conversations will be equally tough but different since the baby is so young right now. postpartum hormones. that must compound everything. his mom and dad and the loss of a child.

i just feel so much for this family that i barely know.

we are all in awe

2011-08-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

june 24, 1961.

the day my parents, ted bryant and joan elizabeth "toby" long, wed.

july 19, 2011.

four children, eight grandchildren later.

we celebrated this awesome occasion on kiawah island, south carolina.

wow.

look how beautiful they are.

all they've ever wanted was for their children to be happy.

we are.

they've never given us grief over not living in north carolina.

they believe we should explore the world.

they bask in the fact that we are all responsible, happy kids with families of our own.

we are in awe of them.

i'm sure they would say that they love us more than we know...

well, i know we would say the same.

we had a great night celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

i think we all hope to make it that far.....in tact...

with cake...

thank you for being our inspiration.

for giving us the love and care and space that we needed.

you guys seemed to have the recipe right.

we had a great party...

especially this one...

quite an imagination

2011-08-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

i'm sure i won't do this justice....at all...i told jason today that i needed to bring out the video camera again and record him but i'm pretty sure that once the camera is out he'll retreat and not be his natural cute self - i mean - he'll be cute but not natural.

he has quite the imagination. not new news to us, but when someone else notices it and says something it really starts to become more and more evident (at least to me).

it all really started when we were in kiawah.

cashel: we're in the forest - how we gonna get outta here?

me (or jason): we're gonna follow the road bud

cashel: there's a bear....and a red hole...the bear's in the hole...and there's a rabbit...

this kind of thing would go on almost every time we were in the car on the island.

now we're in la

this is what has been happening lately:

cashel: let's play a game

me or jason: ok, how do we play

cashel: you stand on this and do this (waving his arms in the air or something) and i'll do this and then you'll jump and we'll crash

me or jason: ok (of course, doing a version of what he asks

he often say's "red light!" when he wants me or jason to stop walking

he often twirls his arms in our direction and says, "i tied you up" if he doesn't want us to move

we often "turn" each other into things - most often he's a shark and i'm a baby frog. he then proceeds to chase me around the house and eat me. never the other way around.

he often goes to a door (that he doesn't want us to walk out of) and says, "i locked it, now you can't get out"

...and yesterday takes the cake so far...we're at a park in glendale...

we're on the basketball court and this happens:

cashel: let's play a game

jason: ok, how do we play bud?

cashel: you go in the hoop then climb the tree and fly over there and come over here

robin: ok...(I pretend to do all these things)

robin: ok, cashel, you're turn

cashel: no, i'm too little

ok......

cashel: daddy....dance with mama

jason: dance?

cashel: dance with mama

jason: ok...(he and i hold hands and dance while cashel runs away from us)

we let go

he turns around

cashel: (yelling) dance wif mama!

so we dance

we let go as he runs away

cashel: (yelling) dance wif mama!

so we dance

you get the picture....

....who's in charge here?

kiawah 2011

2011-08-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

on july 11, 2011 cashel and i headed back east in a jet plane. it was a great ride. we landed in raleigh, nc, and were picked up by my high school bestie, lori. she hasn't changed a bit - she's beautiful.

we made our way to kernersville to mimi and papa's and all the ice cream you can eat. oh...cashel had a super fun time with lloyd's boys - jon and sam.

next stop, kiawah island, south carolina, where we stayed in a beautiful home and were hosted by my wonderful uncle gary and aunt lee.

first night there cashel was in molly and emma bliss. we had delicious food.

we played at the pool, the beach, we rode bikes, we made sand castles, we found a starfish, we saw shrek (about a million times)...we had a great time.

fun with aimee and eli

fun with reagan and addison

fun with family

naked on the beach

aunt mary's birthday fun

more fun with molly and emma

i love the pool

aquarium with mimi

more beach fun with aimee and eli

emily and marc's anniversary

spontaneous pool dance

trying to push papa into the pool

beautiful sisters

oh say can you see....

2011-08-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

the fourth of july was a fun filled day this year. we started off by sleeping in! yes! i said sleeping in! well.....if until 7:00 counts then it was sleeping in. jason did bikram yoga, i walked the dogs and enjoyed a new neighborhood in atwater village then we drove to pick cashel up from nana's. they had had a sleep over so that jason and i could attend a wedding the night before. we had a great time at the wedding by the way. while we were at nana's we went to her pool to cool off and have a cook out at her house.

afterwards we went home to hang out before taking cashel to his first fireworks! we went to south pasadena high school to watch a fireworks show. it was a great place to watch and we'll probably go earlier next year...there was a bunch of food and a band before the fireworks. jason had cashel practice saying "oooo.....aaaaa....." for the fireworks and he was ready to go when the fireworks started. he loved it! he wasn't scared at all. it was another great barnes family day!

on memorial day weekend 2011....

2011-07-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

....four girls had a blast in seaside, florida.

coming from georgia, pennsylvania and california we celebrated...

we ate...

we drank...

we had a photo shoot...

we bathed in the sun...

we talked...

we talked...

we talked...

we listened to music...

we played on our phones...

we danced...

we gazed at the stars...

we did headstands on the beach at night...

we hugged...

we cried...

we laughed...

we loved being together to enjoy these moments all for one special girl...wende leigh faulk...

happy birthday wende...

we love you.


sushi and tapas


photo shoot


saturday night dinner


deep in discussion


showing off her prettiness

has anyone seen my schlitz malt liquor shirt?

the dirty guvnah's

girls just wanna have fun

ahhh....seaside

tax day 2011

2011-07-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

pay our taxes?

check

get outta town even though we just paid our taxes?

check check

where?

san diego!

we spent two nights at a great little motel on the ocean. it was a super cute motel, but as we learned, was not very family friendly. scratch that....not very family with a toddler friendly. people were up hanging out until 2am or later but you know what? we were so tired saturday night that we all fell asleep at 8:30pm. funny thing....we had the best seats in the house for a wedding that took place saturday afternoon at 3:30pm. i probably could have touched the pastor outside of our window. i sent cashel into the shower with jason at 3:30...i figured that as funny as i thought i might be for cashel to babble throughout their ceremony, they probably wouldn't appreciate it.

the next day we went to the safari park northeast of san diego. it was like a zoo, it had a zoo but then it has an open, safari-like experience. we loved it!

totally unrelated....except it's the barnes' family

2011-07-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

in two totally different events the barnes' family had a blast. they were both on a sunday.

the first one above is a great place in pasadena called eaton canyon. there we braved getting "wet foot" by crossing over a couple of streams. cashel learned the joy of throwing rocks in water and climbing rocks. we've since hiked in the angeles forest at a place called switzer falls. we'll do more of this. it's just too much fun not to.

the second barnes' family sunday venture was to disneyland! for the second time we went to the happiest place on earth. i'm sure there will be many, many more pictures of this awesome place.

yesterday...

2011-06-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

we were coming home from a fun time at the pirate ship park when the following exchange occurred:

cashel: i'm robin

robin and jason both laugh

robin: i'm jason

jason: i'm cashel

cashel: i'm jason

robin: i'm cashel

jason: i'm molly

robin: i'm uncle kelly

cashel: i'm jason

jason: i'm loki

robin: i'm emma

cashel: i'm saka

jason: i'm nana

robin: i'm cashel

cashel: i'm aunt mary

woah.....this boy is smart.....later on he said:

i'm moxie

i'm telling you mary and kelly - this boy would live with you guys if he could. he mentions someone from your family every single day. he "drives" the car and i ask where he's going and he always says "to molly and emma's house."

can't wait to see you guys and the rest of the family soon! i bet after being with reagan and addison this summer he'll talk about them just as much!

just now....

2011-06-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

jason got home just in time to finish reading to cashel before bed. i got a hug and a kiss from cashel and as i was walking out of the room he said to jason:

i'm gonna call robin when you're done.

i looked back, a little taken aback and jason said:

he says that every night i put him down.

he he...he IS a mama's boy alright.

2.5 year old bff

2011-06-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

cashel has a bff. at least...sometimes he acts like he and brendan are bff's. when they are together. when they are apart. our families have done stuff together. this morning he and brendan had a hair rubbing contest with jason. brendan noticed cashel's haircut - if that's not a bff i don't know what is.

here's some pics:

how cute!

here's two for the blog

2011-06-12T20:21:00.000-07:00

1. at a wedding last night jason said he and cashel spent about 10 minutes looking at the cake. jason tried to get cashel away, but it just didn't work. sometime during this 10 minute period cashel said to jason...."lick it dad."

2. as jason was putting cashel to bed tonight the following exchange occurred:

cashel: dad, i'll get bigger and be man.

jason: yes, cashel, you will.

cashel: then i won't have hair.

jason: you will have hair.

cashel: oh...ok.

cuddle

2011-06-10T21:32:00.000-07:00

after the bedtime ritual i stay in the bed with cashel for 3 lullaby songs. here is what happened tonight:

me: cashel, it's been three songs, mommy is going to go in the other room now.

cashel: two more minutes

me: cashel, it's already been two minutes.

cashel: three minutes. (he looks at me) let's cuddle. (he puts his arms around my neck and smashes his face against mine.

how can i resist?

march 2011

2011-06-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

here are just some random pictures from march 2011. i wish this kid would stop growing. he's pretty darn cute. i promise that jason and i actually have lives outside of cashel...but they're just not as interesting or fun or cute as our life with cashel. that's why i rarely talk about it. maybe one day i'll write about life here in la la land.....that's an idea....let me think on it...

granddad visits!

2011-06-07T21:50:00.000-07:00

graddad came to visit in march. he and cashel had a "grand" time together!

playing catch up

2011-06-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

well....this school year was a great year, but did have its challenges. i'm a little slow sometimes and it takes me a while to process exactly what's going on. i realized this spring that, although i had taught chemistry for 13 years it had actually been 7 or 8 years that i had taught some of the concepts that i had to teach this year (acids and bases, thermochemistry, equilibrium, etc.), therefore, i needed to work "overtime." but....i can't really work overtime, can i? i mean, i work my patootie off from 8am until 4pm because i don't like picking little man up much past 4:30 if i can help it and after that i can't do any school work until after 8pm and after 8pm my brain just does not function! jason, however, can work overtime if necessary. all he has to do is to call and say, i'll be late. i'm not complaining. i want to be here with cashel to do all that i do and i know that jason wants to be here too. therefore, he and i worked it out for him to take cashel at least twice a week so that i could leave for work early and get there to get more stuff done when i can function better. and...i've gone in on saturdays and sundays at times too. teamwork baby! that's what this parent thing is all about.

there you have it my friends...the reason why my posts have been sporadic at best plus the fact that ,quite honestly, i've literally been sick of looking at my computer screen. so i'm playing catch up. below is a trip to the science museum, or the dinosaur museum, as cashel calls it, over my spring break.

natural science museum in los angeles

at a park beside the museum

he'd rather be chasing birds

see?

my little climber

look at the t-rex mom

who is this kid?

2011-06-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

this was 18 month old cashel!

mama can't shoot hoops

2011-06-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

cashel: daddy, you're bigger? you go to new park with me?

jason: yes, cashel, i'll go.

cashel: you are bigger?

jason: yes, cashel, i'm bigger.

cashel: can you shoot hoops with me?

jason: of course, i can shoot hoops with you cashel.

cashel: mommy cannot shoot hoops.

jason: (laughs)

cashel: mama is not strong. cashel is strong.

one to remember

2011-05-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

i posted this on facebook and got so many comments, i needed to blog it:

cashel: mama...carry me. i'm too busy to walk.

me: cashel, what are you busy doing?

cashel: walking

these were the comments:

aunt emily: hahaha! love that kid!

aunt mary: very logical!

others responded: how cute! write that down! hilarious! love it! that's great!

silly cashel...

christmas: part 7 of 7! finally!

2011-04-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

this is it folks! the last christmas 2010 post....finally! boy it's been a long time since christmas i literally thought i would have a "christmas in july" post!

to end our wonderful christmas break we spent new years eve with emily, marc, eli, aimee and their doggy, lucy.

on our drive down from nc to ga, we left about 8pm the night before new years eve. it was dark and at one point cashel and i had this exchange:

cashel: mommy, i'm scared

me: of what baby?

cashel: uncle marc

me: why?

cashel: because he's so tall

hahahahahahahahahaha!

we all got a good laugh out of that one!

we spent the night at mary and kelly's then emily picked us up the next morning and we headed to loganville.

the kids had a great time playing outside for a while, but once cashel had to start looking out for dog poop in the yard he only cared to play inside. seriously? yes.

aimee really took to cashel this time because he was totally out of the pulling hair phase, although he did have his moments of too much excitement, pushing, shoving, pulling, getting into trouble, etc. his two-ness came into full effect at times. eli enjoyed showing cashel his model train that uncle wayne had given to him, and trying to get cashel to play ball.

later that night, after aunt ellen and uncle wayne had left from a chili dinner together, marc and emily had a few friends over. we ate. boy did we (me) eat some yummy, yummy food. we totally thought cashel would conk out at 10pm-ish but no....this boy saw the new year in!

we had a great time and we also grateful that emily braved a terrible storm to drive us the hour drive to the airport the next day. thanks georgia family! we're so glad you got to see us on your turf this (last) year! (wink)

please tell me this first part is a phase

2011-04-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

things cashel does that drive me a little bit nuts:

1. always, always, always takes his shoes and socks off in the car. no matter how short the distance traveled, the shoes and socks must come off

2. pulls my hair. gets in trouble for pulling my hair. seems to enjoy getting into trouble so continues to pull my hair. the same goes with hitting jason's bald head.

3. getting into his car seat - or, rather, not getting into his car seat. he always wants to "drive" the car. just getting into the car is a process. just getting out of the car is a process.

4. always having to go on a neighborhood walk when we get home.

5. vacation with a two year old is no vacation. he always wants to go home to cashel's house.

things cashel does that makes me love him more:

1. wrap his arms around my neck and push his face against mine when we're sleeping

2. he often goes potty with out me or jason then yells out "i did it"

3. always makes us come to look at his poop

4. tells his "sisters" to hush

5. tells us daily that he needs a set of drums that make noise (the wii drums don't make noise)

6. gave jason one of his boogies the other night, then as jason was leaving jason asked for a hug. cashel looked at jason and said "dad, you have a boogie on your finger" as though to say, why would i hug you when you have a boogie on your finger

7. he's in this mode where he always asks us if we're growing. mama? are you done growing? yes, cashel. are you? no. i'm still growing. i'm growing like michael jordan.

i heart cashel

snakes

2011-04-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

anyone who knows me know that i have a deadly fear of snakes, worms, all things that look shiny in the sun and don't have legs. they are disgusting. they do not belong on earth. i don't consider myself someone who would ever intentionally hurt one of god's creatures, except for these creatures. they can all d - i - e as far as i'm concerned. too harsh? maybe, but that's just how i feel about them.

cashel, on the other hand likes snakes. allow me to re-enact our daily conversation, specifically the one from our drive home yesterday.

mommy, do you like snakes?

no, cashel, mommy does not like snakes.

do you like snails?

no.

do you like spiders?

i'm ok with spiders.

do you like snakes, mommy?

no cashel, i do not like snakes....they're yucky.

mommy, i don't like snakes either.

mommy, do you like snakes?

no cashel, mommy does not like snakes.

me eiver.

a little time goes by in silence, listening to music.

mommy?

yes, cashel.

do you like snakes?

and so it goes again and again and again....you get the picture

i was getting out of the shower last night as cashel was getting out of the bath and he was asking jason the same thing! same conversation, but he was happier because daddy likes snakes.

on sunday morning, as he was waking up i was laying beside him. he opened his eyes, saw me, and asked, mommy, do you like snakes?

this boy has an agenda. he is trying to wear me down i think until i agree that i like snakes. he's also using reverse psychology(?) by telling me he does not like snakes eiver.

he loves rolly pollys. we have lots on our back wall - especially after it rains. his favorite thing to do? roll them into a ball. then, under his breath he mentions, i like to stomp them. as in...

cashel, do you like rolly polly's?

yes. i like to roll them into a ball and (as he's walking away, he says quietly) and stomp them.

my biggest fear of him bringing a worm inside has not yet happened, but i do truly fear that i will pass out when he does.

christmas: part 6 of ?

2011-04-13T06:51:00.000-07:00

see this sweet face? this is emma. she is my beautiful, smart, athletic, funny neice. she loves to play "would you rather" and has a strange obsession with scenarios related to dying. for example, "would you rather be eaten alive by a snake or by a rhinoceros?" she will play this game for hours if you let her. she even has an ipod touch app for the game.

don't let this sweet face fool you. she has a fierce determination to win. to win at bowling that is.

let me set the stage.

we went bowling while in kernersville. on a whim mimi decided to go with us. yea! mimi loves to bowl. she used to be on a bowling team. maybe she'll resume that practice....who knows. it was me, jason, cashel, molly, emma and mimi. we went to the infamous countryside bowling lanes establishment - still reeked of smoke although the indoor smoking ban had started almost a year before.

cashel was, at first really excited about bowling. he kept calling the pins "shakers." why? we have no clue. after about 4 minutes the thrill was gone for him and we just wanted to wander around the bowling ally...so we took turns chasing him.

in the meantime, we were all bowling, knocking down some shakers, having a great time....everyone except emma, that is. she just wasn't having any luck this day. that's how the game goes, but her confidence was shaken and we weren't sure she would ever get it back.

mimi to the rescue! mimi took this opportunity to take emma under her wing and really help her to improve her game.

mimi was patient, loving, caring, sharing, and in the end.....that emma! that emma....

beat

us

all!

are you kidding me?

nope!

that sweet little face. those kind eyes that were empty of a spark. she had us all worried that her rough first half would wreck her for life.

we were all just putty in her hands....

christmas: part 5 of ? - the raleigh edition

2011-04-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

everytime we go back to nc we go to raleigh to see old friends. we tried to convince ourselves that we didn't really need to do that this time. to be more laid back and not feel so rushed but cabin fever set in with the darned snow and all and we were more than ready to get out of the house....besides that, greg and heather had just had their third child, liam, a month earlier....who can resist seeing a new little one :-)

cashel, of course, loved his time with parker and meadow. they were both super sweet to him but by the time we left meadow was ready - as you can see, cashel spent most of his time trying to and actually succeeding at attacking her.

we also got to see another one of our favorite families in the world...the masons! it was the first time in forever that we were all together. good times catching up and having cashel show off!

until next time raleigh!

christmas: part 4 of ?

2011-04-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

and off to kernersville we go!

well...after a trip to hickory, of course, to see jason's childhood bff, kristen. no pictures of that though - next time, i promise!

so by december 23rd we had finally made it to kernersville, k-vegas, the big k. the place i thought encompassed the entire world as a little girl. we made it there around 10pm, cashel still wide awake. california time, remember?

granddad made it there the next day so we spent christmas eve hanging around the house, going to the fourth of july park and eating tons of food.

christmas day it snowed! it was beautiful but jason and i hated it but we were shamed by mimi to take cashel out into the snow. we are spoiled californian's now (just kidding mom, i'm a kernersvillian and jason's a hickoryian - i just made those up....could ya tell?)....anyhoo...we have no cold weather gear anymore! i mean, i did make jason search through about 50 bins under our house for my old nj coat to bring with me, but we had no gloves, etc.

regardless - we took cashel out into the snow. he loved it as all little boys do, but, he was very confused as i was making my snow angel.

here are some other pictures from christmas day!

a few days later the rest of the family (except for randall) got here and we had our traditional family christmas. we read the christmas story and opened presents and ate more food.

and...while we were together we celebrated both grandmother's and jonathan's upcoming janurary 6th birthdays. grandmother was getting ready to turn 99! and jonathan 45! (just kidding jonathan)

i was able to see my bffffffff

and we had a cookie making contest with more than willing judges. team robin/emma, aka, "remma" and team jason/molly, aka "jolly". both teams had lots of help by cashel and remma won by a landslide:

when jason wasn't making cookies or playing wii he truly relaxed:

we left the night before new years eve to drive back to mary and kelly's house and spend new years eve with emily's family (post to come soon!)

we all agree that this was one of the best christmas' in a l o n g time!

christmas: part 3 of ? (btw, i realize it is march right now...late march)

2011-03-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

well. after we got home from our twisty, windy, lovely trip to granny's we crammed cashel in a different car to make the 30 minute ride to aunt ellen's (or as i affectionately call her, aininy - "ai-" as in ain't, "ni-" as in nine, and "-ny" as in knee...ai...ni...ny - it's what i've always called her :-))

we had a wonderful dinner over at her house and the only thing missing was the rest of my family. apparently wende spearheaded the dinner preparations (she's an a-w-e-s-o-m-e cook!) the menu was of the stuff-yourself-with-all-kinds-of-yummy-appetizers-then-keep-eating-because-the-salad-and-pasta-and-dessert-are-too-good-to-pass-up-and-hey-its-christmas-so-who-cares variety.


Add caption

after dinner we had a lot of fun.

we played the wii - well the kids did - aimee did - she shook her booty on the dance game but let me tell you something.....that girl cheats. she knows how to just shake the controller to get points. then we all yell at her and tell her to stop cheating because she's so cute when she actually dances and that's what we all want to see. just to give you a little insight as to aimee's cuteness/boldness, here she is. she apparently stole my camera.

we opened presents. well, cashel attacked his presents with the help of the older kids, specifically his idols, molly and emma. cashel also had a great time with aimee and eli. cashel enjoyed watching eli put his lego helicopter together.

here is a cute montage of emily getting kisses from cashel and her playing with his cute little toes.

and finally. whenever we're at aininy's i always marvel at the table. THE table. THE table that emily, wende and dana and i have spent HOURS under. this table will have to be bronzed one day and hung in a museum.

we don't fit like we used to....

but, other grandkids do! hope you guys have as much fun under that table as we did!

things i never want to forget

2011-03-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

1. cashel calls carrots and hummus "carrots and thomas"

2. he calls baboons "airbone"

that took me forever to figure out

3. at school they've learned about a character in a book called "abiyoyo." jason and i just thought he had made up this word because it's not a character either of us are familiar with until one day his teacher said it to me. the best part is that neither jason nor myself have bothered to look this book up so we still don't know the story so everything we know about abiyoyo is from cashel. it's like we've made up our own character. he, according to cashel, is a giant who eats children and is scary. we've created this game at home where cashel and i have to run and hide from abiyoyo, who is jason walking around with a big blanket over his head saying "i'm abiyoyo!"

4. back when grandmother was in the hospital i was putting cashel to bed, cuddling with him in the bed, and i started to cry a little bit - tears running down my face. cashel saw me and did the following:

stuck out his lip

yep...sweet boy tried to make me laugh

then he

wiped away my tears and asked if i was afraid of gorillas and monkeys

i said "no baby, i'm just sad"

and he, while wiping away my tears

said, "it's ok mommy, don't cry"

and gave me hugs and put his little hands on both sides of my face and gave me lots of kisses all over my face

2.22.2011

2011-03-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

“i am standing upon the seashore. a ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. she is an object of beauty and strength. i stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

then someone at my side says: “there, she is gone!”

“gone where?”

gone from my sight. that is all. she is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

her diminished size is in me, not in her. and just at the moment when someone at my side says: “there, she is gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “here she comes!”

on february 22, 2011, my birthday, 9:45pm est, my dad called me to tell me that my grandmother had passed away. it was expected but i still wasn't prepared to hear this. below are pictures that, while they may not be pictures one would expect...are pictures that, to me, embody the cheerful, silly spirit that was my second mom - my grandmother....georgia thelma reneau long.

the passage above gives me comfort. she literally died of old age. she was 99. she was beautiful and graceful until the end. it gives me comfort to know that there were others on the other side...cheerleaders, if you will, ushering her through the pearly gates.

my mom said that, in those last few days especially, they were able to "see" that she had "connected" to the otherside. mama and aunt ellen and even emily were able to witness her connection. grandmother had a day, about 5 days before she passed, where she waved her arms and seemed to be talking to someone. they thought she said "daddy" at one time. they don't really know what was going on but the best part to me was that mama said that she asked grandmother, "mama, are you happy?" and the biggest grin came across grandmother's face and she shook her head, yes. maybe i shouldn't be divulging these things, but they are special and i don't want to forget these things and years from now, when i'm old and gray i want to remember this and, hey, that's what this blog is for anyways....a kind of diary to myself...for the super important things like this and for the funny (albiet much less important) things (like the fact that cashel saw a billboard today of a a black man and called him michael jordan....again). that would have made her smile...

grandmother...you are always with me. i love you.

before i forget...

2011-02-24T13:39:00.000-08:00

...cashel has said a few funny things lately that don't want to forget to mention...

when we had a family day last monday in venice beach we decided to go watch the basketball players. cashel loves that. we're watching people play and cashel says...

"where's michael jordan?"

he looks around...

sees a black man....

and says....

"oh, there he is. he took his shirt off."

____________________________

last night when we were driving home from our day cashel says....

"i'm hungry. i want carrots."

me: "carrots?"

cashel: "and celery."

me: "carrots and celery."

cashel: "and salad"

me: "cashel...are you a rabbit?"

cashel: (with a big smile) "nooooooo....i'm cashmoney!"

:-)

guess what i found!

2011-02-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

cashel walking into one of the rooms in my parents' house over christmas:

i found the vaseline!

aunt mary (on the phone with her sister, kathy):

why, yes, you did! kathy...i have to call you back.....oh robin....

guess what cashel found...

funny how she made me clean him up

lately

2011-02-01T15:37:00.000-08:00

cashel has been supremely funny and he's definitely been acting like a two year old -

here's some of what i can remember as of late:

1. when jason and i are talking he yells, "mommy! daddy! stop talking!" he keeps doing this until we stop. we ask if we can talk to him and he says yes, so we often continue our conversation while looking at him.

2. he is obsessed with washing his hands and insists on having his "ladder" so he can reach the sink and wash his hands. by wash his hands i mean, put a ton of soap on his hands. he must do this himself. we waste so much hand soap right now...and water...he likes to keep it running. we're starting to try to teach him not to be wasteful with soap, water, etc.

3. he is also obsessed with lotion in the same way as the soap and throws an absolute fit when we take it away. we've had to start saying that he can only have two pumps of lotion. he's also only allowed three toothpaste "refills." oh yeah, i made the mistake of having him brush his teeth with his finger because i couldn't find his toothbrush so now that's the only way he wants to brush his teeth.

4. he is very particular on his pj's. he usually wants to wear his "doggies" and we've had to teach them that they're dirty, not clean, like his dinosaurs or monkeys. getting him to change clothes is often a challenge these days too.

5. this boy has quite the memory. he'll bring up things from last week that i've forgotten about. it's amazing. he went to a play date with a friend of jason's. the kid's name was ansel and the next thursday cashel said, cashel want to go to ansel's house.

6. for a full month after coming home from the east coast our car conversations went like this:
"wanna go see molly. go see emma. go see aunt mary. go see uncle kelly. go see moxie.
go see aimee. go see eli. get kisses from lucy. see uncle marc. see aunt emily. see reagan. see addison. go to molly house. emma house", etc (you get the picture)

the conversations at the end of the month turned into this.
"where molly house?" (me: in georgia) we would go through this with everyone.

and then one day cashel said. "cashel wanna get on airplane and go to georgia. we live in california. molly come to california. emma come to california."

he would often cry about it. he loves his cousins so much.

one day he said "aimee's in georgia." i said "yes, cashel." he said "where uncle marc?" i said "he lives with aimee." he thought about that for a while then said "uncle marc in georgia."

7. At night, after reading about 8 books, we turn off the light and turn on his turtle that he got from aunt emily, uncle marc and eli and aimee for his 2nd birthday. this turtle lights up the ceiling with blue or green stars. after debating which color he wants we sit there and give away stars. he gives them to everyone, molly, emma (of course), uncle kelly, aunt mary, nana, uncle brian, granddad, mimi, papa, mommy, daddy, reagan, addison, brenden (his friend from school), charlie karr (another friend), monkeys, gorillas, loki, saka (this is what he calls laska), and great grandmother.

for the last couple of nights i've been telling him that great grandmother doesn't feel good and is in the hospital.

he's been giving great grandmother two stars.

smart, amazing, beautiful boy....if i don't say so myself

childhood bff

2011-01-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

sometimes things work out perfectly. in early december i learned that my childhood best friend would be at her parents' house in georgia over christmas. we-he-he-he-hell....we just happened to be spending some time in the north atlanta area so we were able to see each other! part of the reason why this is so amazing is because, as you know, we live a 6ish hour plane ride away from the east coast and her family lives a 6ish hour plane ride in the other direction...in london! the stars aligned for robin and susan.

here we are with the gang. susan has four, that's right, four beautiful children. sam, lucy, lauren and ben. funny thing, the baby was actually named dan by susan and her husband john, but apparently the kids rebelled and named him ben. i guess susan and john knew they were outnumbered - literally- and named him ben.

here is cashel and the mobile kids. on the left he's attempting to kiss lauren, she's only two months younger than him. in the top right he's and lauren (on the right) are playing piano while lucy (on the left - she's three) is bossing them around. and the bottom right is cashel mesmerized by sam and his game.

i asked susan to describe each of her kids in one word and this is what i got: sam - he's unstoppable, lucy - she's in charge, lauren - she's sweet (ok, i actually don't remember what she said about lucy - sorry susan - but lauren is sweet so i'll go with that), and ben - he's easy. he's an easy baby and smiles a lot and loves the attention he gets since he doesn't get as much as the others when they were babies. understandably, no? there is nothing cuter that a three year old girl being bossy with a british accent. adorable miss lucy.

jason and i were able to spend about four hours with susan and her family. i was able to see her parents, who were my summer vacation parents and her older sister, joy. it was so, so great to see them. jason and john really got along well and i think we all realized that if we lived close together we would see each other all the time.

susan helped me grow up in lots of ways. we spent at least two weeks together each summer from the age of 5 until about 17. even when my family stopped going to the beach (holla! cherry grove and the harford motor c) i was invited to go to the beach with them until my parents arrived. susan was like a sister i never had (along with my cousins, wende, emily and dana). i love her wittiness and still remember silly ways that she would make me mad. we once got in a fight because, you know the shampoo by st. ives? well, i realized there was a long accent mark over the i so i called it st. ives while susan kept arguing that it was st. eeeves. we got in a big fight over that and i think the whole time susan knew what she was doing - that she was wrong - but just enjoyed seeing me get mad. we used to write in each others year books which is hilarious because she grew up in new jersey. one other time she did all she could to convince me that she could feel the earth rotating....while we were in a moving car. oh susan, thank you for helping me learn how to put in a tampon. i remember you not letting me out of the bathroom until it was in. you yelled at me and i thank you.

i have such fond memories of susan. we met when we were five running around the motel - literally - we ran into each other and realized we had the same gown on! we were inseparable from that moment on while at the beach. here is a picture of little versions of us:

we also had two other fun friends at the beach - megan and kelly. here's a picture of teenage versions of all of us (yes i am wearing my brothers' frat shirt):

while we all have gone our separate ways, we've all reconnected to come extent thanks to facebook. maybe some day we can all have a big reunion!

in the meantime, i'll just enjoy the time we got to spend together this christmas. we chatted and chatted and chatted and could have gone on forever. we joked about ditching the kids with her parents and the four of us going out for margaritas. maybe one day down the road.

lylas susan.

christmas: part 2 of ?

2011-01-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

this year we decided to fly in and out of atlanta. we wanted to visit family there and close to there, and it was a (come to find out) super easy direct flight. we attempted to drug our boy with benadryl (come on people, he really did have a cold), but because of a 1 hour delay he ended up dozing and waking before the wheels left the ground. he still did great. in fact, he was a daddy's boy all day, so i got a break and read and played games on the flight!

kelly and molly picked us up from atl and cashel took right to both of them. he warmed up once i asked him how high he could jump and to show molly. from that moment on, cashel was in love with molly and was soon in love with emma. this boy really, really, loves his cousins. to this day he still brings them up daily.

cashel: want to go to molly house, want to go to emma house. see moxie.

i caught him, last week, drawing a picture and talking to himself. he was saying, "uncle kelly, aunt mary, molly, emma, moxie."

we were there for 3 day and 4 nights and had such a wonderful time.

us at the lake lanier christmas light spectacular. mary is the photog. you'll see her in other pics.

during this part of our trip we took a day trip to visit jason's grandmother, granny, in hiawassee, georgia. it was a pretty drive, but all the twists and turns going around the mountain made me a little car sick. ugh. we spent about 3 hours with her at her home and this lovely lady took us all out to eat for lunch before we had to head back for another family gathering that night. it was great to see granny and special to see cashel with her.

we love you granny

christmas: part 1 of ?

2011-01-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

wow! christmas was much, much different this year than last year. first of all, jason was around for the prelude (yahoo!). this made life so much easier. second, cashel wasn't sick - well, i take that back - he was sick and out of school the last two days of school, but there was no ear infection so no doctor visit, our favorite sitter was in town, he went to school with me the last day, but all in all, it was much better than his illness of last year with me also getting sick and me having to fly solo with him! whew! the night before we left we had christmas with nana and uncle brian. cashel loved "ripping" the paper. both nana and uncle brian gave cashel some great gifts - books, legos, an easel, puzzles, stickers, etc. we also exchanged gifts but who cares about us? we're not as cute.

thank you nana and uncle brian for making cashel's christmas so special!

nana and cashel before we left for the airport

hiney

2011-01-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

maybe...just maybe i shouldn't tell this...

but it's too darn funny not to!

we've always called our and cashel's back ends (butt, ass, whatever you call it) a hiney. not a northern accent hiney with a short i but a southern accenty hiney with a long i. it's rather cute to hear cashel say it.

not that he's not in charge around here but lately he's really been in charge.

we've always played the "grab mama/daddy/cashel's hiney" game when one of us is getting ready for a shower or bath.

lately even when we're not, in cashel's own way, he instructs jason to touch my hiney. not just over my pants, but by pulling down my pants.

really, if you can get past an awkward feeling you may have at this point, it's quite hilarious.

i think it's his way of getting back at us for always pulling down his pants in the back to check to see if he has poop.

thanksgiving weekend

2010-12-30T13:19:00.000-08:00

whew! we made it. not only to thanksgiving but through jason working weekends since september! we are so glad to have daddy/husband back at home on the weekends. it feels more normal. thanksgiving this year was much different from last year. last year we didn't have family over...didn't have family to visit. cashel was sick...again. it was warm. it was just weird. this year we hosted our first thanksgiving! we had a modest crowd of us, nana, uncle brian, and our friends nick, danielle and bill.


here is my first turkey! it's brined and was delicious!

cashel and daddy rocking out

cashel and uncle brian playing wii

i put cashel to bed around 9 pm and fell asleep with him. jason comes in around 9:45 to wake me and get my help with the kitchen. it looked like an explosion had occurred after we had cooked.

santa barbara zoo

the next day we took a day trip to santa barbara. we ate lunch at an italian restaurant that was awesomely family friendly with unexpectedly huge portions then headed to the santa barbara zoo. we all had a great time!

do you see that? where else can you see a giraffe with the ocean in the background? lucky giraffe.

cutie pie

after the zoo we headed to the pier before our drive home.

one of my favorite shots from this wonderful family day

the happiest place on earth

2010-12-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

we did it. we took cashel to disney...land....not world...that's too far away for us...but, fortunately, disneyland is only about 45 minutes away! yahoo! i was a little concerned about how a 2 year old would react to the eye candy that is disney. i thought it would be too overwhelming, creating more of a little monster who would be to stimulated, to overtired after it all to console...leaving exhausted parents more exhausted...but...it was great! jason was really the advocate of the trip (as usual). he's thinking it would be a great tradition that would someday lead to cashel inviting a friend or two along the way to celebrate his birthday. in hindsight we treated this like a business trip. what's the parking situation like, how overwhelming will it be, the food, etc. although jason and i had both been there once each, separately, him - before i rocked his world and me - 4 years ago for a science teacher conference (cue the dork comments here). we were there for only about 4 hours (expensive, yes, but we got a deal - call me for details).

bottom line - cashel l - o - v - e - d it! i mean, he didn't run up to the characters or anything...as you can see....he was still a bit nervous about them, but he loved the eye candy that is disney. we rode only one ride (the casey train) while we were there for a couple of reasons. 1. i was told which ones to avoid for his age which really limited us and 2. the lines were ridiculously long and we weren't about to wait in a line for even 20 minutes with a 2 year old! next time we'll be more prepared. it was a ton of fun for all of us. there's nothing like seeing disney through your child's eyes.

warning: $7.00 balloons pop just as easily as much, much, much cheaper ones...

one last note...part of the reason we left after only about 4 hours is because it was cashel's nap and anyone who knows me knows how nutso i am about his nap. so...it was his nap time...we succeeded in getting him to stay in his stroller and strolled around and after a chat decided to head home. cashel wakes up as we are putting him in the car and proceeds to scream "more! more! more!" he is obviously upset we have taken him from his new bff, disney, and proceeds to scream this for about 30 minutes.

in the background you see the $7.00 balloon that cashel popped as soon as we got home.

all in all, a great day...

stuff my mom says

2010-12-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

i love my mom with all my heart but can't resist making fun of her. lately she has sent me some texts that are just hilarious.

"hope your thanksgiving's going well. just wanted u to know that i just found a used diaper of cashel's under your bed. love u."

"dad and i were in walmart last evening and a fight broke out in the vegetable area."

keep 'em coming mama - they make me smile!

we just can't believe it

2010-12-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

everyone says it. everyone says, robin, this time is going to go by so fast you'd better enjoy it. and they're right. we cannot believe that our boy turned 2 almost a month ago! it makes me happy...it makes me sad. he's 27 pounds. i don't think i'll be able to carry him around when he's 3 and i'm going to miss that. the baby that he was. but i'm excited for the awesome boy he is and will be. the one comfort is that i hear so many people say, every stage was my favorite. it gets harder but better all at the same time. i don't see how it could be any other way. yea for us! and yea for him!

so...ON cashel's birthday he had a party at school. The best part was that all of the kids were super excited about getting to go to a "party" and eat cupcakes, but no one was sure who's birthday it was. i kept asking cashel, "who's birthday is it?" and he would say, "claire" or "ethan." anyone of his school friends' names but never his own!

jason was home for dinner that night and we had cashel's favorite - salmon! afterwards we had his second favorite - cupcake!

the saturday after his birthday we had a playdate with two of his friends from school - brendan and charlie. before the party nana came over and gave cashel one of his favorite toys - a lego farm - he loves it and plays with it everyday.

and i made a basketball cake!

they all had such a great time.

and...this would be one of our favorite pictures. it says so much about how happy cashel was to have brendan at his house.

we tried to get a picture with charlie but charlie wasn't up to it. so a couple of weeks later i snapped this shot at school.

happy 2nd birthday baby boy!

monkeys

2010-11-27T20:53:00.000-08:00

we don't know what it is but cashel has this thing with monkeys

he either loves this or hates them depending on his mood

when he loves them he says "monkeys!"

when he hates them he clamps on to me or jason and says "no monkey's in trees?"
he's super afraid!

it's arbitrary.

it's funny.

it's cute.

as usual.

drawring

2010-11-27T20:50:00.000-08:00

so...a little out of order here but lately, cashel has been insisting that i draw. if you know me, you know me not to be a person who can draw. with my conceptual physics class the kids have been conditioned not to laugh at my drawings unless they want their grade to go down...just kidding...(not really)...

anyhoo....cashel is hilarious with his requests. it started out like this:

cashel: draw a man...draw an hoop...draw a ball

lately, it has become this:

cashel: mama...draw a tree...draw a man...a ladder...a ball...a hoop

cashel: mama...draw a baby...crying...two babies...crying...a tree...a hoop...a koala..

me: a koala?

cashel: no, a koala

me: a koala?

cashel: no, a koala?

me: a koala?

cashel: no! a koala?

me: oh! you want a gorilla!

cashel: yea! a gorilla!

so i draw a gorilla in a tree, then it has to open the door and knock on the door and walk

he thinks i'm a cartoonist....

obviousely, i'm not...

no mom, i'm not eating dirt

2010-11-27T20:38:00.000-08:00

seriously, i'm not eating dirt...i promise...

halloween

2010-11-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

halloween. i don't really know the history. i suppose i could pretend by saying something about back in the day people trying to ward off spirits by dressing up like spirits themselves or something like that but i don't really know and i'm too busy to wiki it. so, anyways, cashel was the flash. he (i) don't really know who the flash is. i probably saw it when i was little, i know jason did, but the bottom line is this...he thought he was spiderman. he kept saying, i'm spiderman. ok, actually before that happened, he wanted nothing to do with his costume really. jason got it on him once and he was super excited but then wanted it off. i would get it on him for about a minute before he would say "off! off!" we thought that with his daycare he would be more amenable, and he was...for a while...here are the pictures to prove it:


cashel knows his stories at "circle time" so well, he gets very excited and runs up, front and center, to help tell the story

then...on the day of halloween we were at nana's. she really wanted to see him in his outfit. here we go:

then...on the way home from nana's, here i am thinking, oh, we'll just go home, but at 4:30, cashel starts saying, "trick or treat?" well, i have his costume in the car and explain to him that he'll have to wear his outfit and he totally goes for it:

proud and ready...of course he has to have a ball...

he got a blue blow pop at the first house that would open the door (it was 5:15..a little early i suppose)

his latest? looking at himself in the mirror...a prius will do

happy halloween!

get ready y'all

2010-11-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

i'm 'bout to post lots of stuff that's been backed up in my brain and on my iphoto. it's been a busy time since i last posted with jason working weekends (not anymore - yea!) and with grades and comments being due at school followed by cashel's birthday and thanksgiving. oh yea, it's also that jason loves me enough to give me night to myself! i'm so excited i can't stand it. don't get me wrong, i love my boys, but a night to myself is just what i ordered. thank you sweetie - i love you too!

i'll start with this juicy bit that jason called and told me about tonight. he called and said:

robin, we were at lowe's with my mom and we talked to a black man (i don't know who talked to who really, maybe he worked there? i don't know but the part that he's black is important)...anyhoo...robin, we were at lowe's with my mom and we talked to a black man and cashel looked up at him and said, "michael jordan." jason says he doesn't know if the man heard him or not but that's funny!

also...as they were leaving, cashel was batting his eyes at a high school girl. literally batting his eyes. just like his dad - this is trouble.

punkim festival

2010-11-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

that scratch on cashel's eye? he fell out of the bed a couple of nights before. good thing he heals like a super hero. cashel was loved little campbell and was giving out hugs, as usual

one rainy sunday in october cashel and i headed out to one of his favorite spots, underwood family farm. each year they have a harvest festival during the month of october, each weekend with a different theme - this weekend? tractors!

we went with cashel's bff, brenden and his family, jane (the mom), rob (the dad) and campbell (the cutie patootie baby girl). jason was still working weekends (boooooo) so he couldn't go.

first of all, cashel was just so excited about being with brendan outside of kids klub. after brendan woke up (we was awake, just not awake, you know - he was grumpy for a while) they/we had a blast. it wasn't the same without jason, but it was still super fun.

they had a huge punkim patch! the second picture down in the middle and the top right is cashel and brendan's 30 minute hollering salute to the tractors as they passed by

san fantastic

2010-10-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

doing a little catching up here. we went to san francisco over labor day this year. it was our first trip and we loved it! we flew into san jose and drove up. the flight was amazing. short, 45 minutes, but that wasn't the amazing part. the amazing part was that we were flying over the clouds and it looked like we were flying over pillows. when we were driving the clouds looked like they were hovering half way down the surrounding mountains - like the mountains were wearing a cloud hoola hoop! it was beautiful. the first place we went was an amazing science museum. cashel had a blast. we spent about half an hour after the museum picking out a great painting for cashel's room and eating yummy waffles. we stayed at the hyatt in the heart of san francisco. after cashel's nap (and mine!) we rode a trolley (san francisco treat!) to fisherman's warf where it was super chilly but we saw alcatraz - it was super creepy. we rode a bus back to the hotel. cashel loved the trolley and bus. jason went out to grab some food from a place called nan king that a friend recommended. cashel had room service - grilled cheese and mac and cheese. he barely touched it. eating away from home is not his strong suit.

the next day we drove out to a Redwood forest - Muir Woods. i have always, always, always wanted to see Redwood Trees. it was a great little park with a beautiful drive up. the forest was quite manicured - wooden planks from the info cabin into the woods. from there the path was quite clear and wide. I'm not complaining - it was great. the trees were huge and amazing. i felt like I had to whisper the whole time - out of respect for the old trees. after we had gone on about an hour walk (with cashel in the ergo sleeping for most of it) we drove down the pch for a while. cashel wasn't so jazzed about this drive - probably super boring to him but it was
b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!
i do have to admit that on the way back up the pch i got a little car sick. after making our way back to civilization we ate at......wait for it....outback! yes! outback steakhouse!
it was delicious. i don't know the last time we ate at a chain restaurant like that (besides in-n-out) but it was delicious and kid friendly and empty! afterwards we had our daily nap in the hotel. for the life of me i can't remember what we did after this. i think we just walked around for a while? this night we ate at a diner right around the corner from the hotel. it was decorated 1950's and was delicious, kid friendly, not empty, but not crowded either. cashel still didn't eat much so he ended up eating a whole apple before bed. we have video of it. i'll have to post that.

on sunday we were a little lost about what to do. we had until 5pm for our flight. we ended up doing another trolley ride which cashel loved then got in the car and headed out of town. we went to see stanford university. there were horse stables and horses there so cashel was in heaven. before going to the airport we went to a children's museum that was actually pretty great in san jose.

we almost missed our flight.

lessons of this trip:
1. san francisco is awesome
2. getting cashel to eat out is tough - he gets very distracted - so have lots of yogurt and fruit in the hotel
3. early flights home are still the best

he sings now

2010-10-13T21:45:00.001-07:00

tonight you...

2010-10-01T20:15:00.001-07:00

said goodnight to michael jordan

gave me so many kisses someone might call the cops

funny and amazing cashel

2010-09-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

1. he is so into books these days. he's been into books for quite a while now but wakes up wanting to read. "mama read it?" "daddy read it?" "game?" (book about basketball)

2. monday night the power went out. the next morning cashel woke earlier than normal (a little after 6am) and it was still dark. he said "lights on" and jason and i explained that the power was out. that afternoon when i picked him from daycare the first thing he said to me once we got in the car was "power on?" dang that kid is smart.

3. lately when we read books he points to pictures and says "whas that?" then he proceeds to say what it is. when i point to something and ask "what's that cashel?" the very first thing he says is "i don't know..." then "ball" (or whatever it is)...but its pretty cute - the very first thing he says is "i don know" and shrugs! love it!

4. nana has this one book that has a cow on one page then a chicken on the next, etc. cashel can tell you what animal is coming next.

5. he thinks squirrels eat pancakes

6. one silly sunday cashel decided he wanted me to put 4 shirts on him and 5 pairs of pajama pants. he wouldn't let me take them off until after his nap when i had to change his diaper. the pictures are below. silly cashel.

things i've learned

2010-09-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

1. don't put off til tomorrow what you can do today
*really - close to the end of last school year i kept saying, "oh, i'll do that during summer break (doctors appointments, cleaning out this or that cabinet, etc). it made me feel like i spend my whole summer break completing a to do list rather than getting any relaxing done. i know there's not a whole lot of relaxing to be had with a toddler, but i could've tried!

2. a mother deserves a slow drive through malibu - jason! really, i know it's the pch and all but driving slower to take in the scenery, especially for someone's first time is important

3. being a second year teacher (even for the 5th time) is so much better than being a first year teacher! i can't even explain this. it's just awesome.

i know i've learned a lot more but these were the things itching in my brain lately. i'll write more when i remember them.

just some random thoughts...

2010-09-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

well...school has started and the leaves are falling on the ground. scratch that....do over....school has started and the weather was 113 degrees on monday, 98 Tuesday, 92 Wednesday and 92 today. what?! well...this is southern california. these, my friends, are not complaints. i love the heat. i choose heat over cold any day. granted, i don't really choose 110 degree weather but if forced to choose i choose heat. this week i've been playing polytechnic school lower school librarian. while it's been really fun reading to kindergarteners through fifth graders i would never want to be a lower school teacher! it's just way too much for me. i would rather teach the electron configuration and newton's laws that i'll be teaching to my chemistry and physics kids next week any day. any day! a couple of funny things from this week though:

kindergartner: what's your name?
me: mrs. barnes
same kindergartner: is ms. callero (the librarian i'm subbing in for) on a date?

4th grader: where are you from?
me: guess
4th graders (guess in this order): texas! england!

england? really? i take that as a compliment - i work on my british accent all the time.

why we don't go out to dinner with him

2010-09-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

this video says it all. this is why we don't go out to dinner with cashel. but beyond all that take a listen, especially cashel's cousins. listen up.

papa's birthday

2010-09-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

papa was here during his birthday this year! so, of course we had to celebrate. cashel, however, probably had more fun than anyone else and we let him. he didn't enjoy his first birthday cake, but as you'll see, he really enjoyed papa's!

the birthday boy. he makes 29 look good...again...

we (mama and i) refuse to actually make him fried chicken but that didh't stop us from buying it for him. everyone else ate mexican.

the cake...don't make fun...i worked hard to make it look just like that.

cashel is either surprised that papa can blow out the candles or he thinks the blowing caused the cake to fall.

yes...i'll have some of that. the pictures above show just how much!

oreos

2010-09-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

when mimi was here she bought cashel some oreos and vowed to have his first oreo with milk with him.

whatcha doin' mimi?

oh...i see...

mmmmm....

thank you mimi. i love you!

mimi and papa part 3

2010-09-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

are you tired of the collages yet? last but not least.....almost....


these are pictures from the music class cashel and i take together. the pictures are compliments of mimi. we're looking forward to our new class that starts this week!

these are some miscellaneous pictures. some are self explanatory, others are not, allow me to explain. the wells fargo picture is there because both mama and daddy were curious about whether or not wachovia was wachovia out here or wells fargo. mystery solved. mama says she has heard lots of things about hollywood like sunset and vine...so we took a picture. the picture below the wells fargo sign is one that mama took during our drive in malibu. jason was driving fast. the picture below that is one of about 20 houses we took pictures of during our drive through beverly hills and bel air. i can't believe i don't have a picture of the traffic...i'm sure we took a few of those.

this is pinks. a famous hot dog place. we went by thinking there was no chance we could get in - the line is normally sooooooo long (as in the bottom left picture)...but when we went by it was only a 10 minutes wait! holla! it was awesome.

mimi and papa part 2

2010-09-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

it's official. one month ago, yesterday, i, sadly, drove my beautiful mom and awesome dad to the burbank airport, gave them both tearful hugs and kisses and wished them safe travels back to north carolina. we had such a great time with them on their first trip out to california. we stayed super busy but did manage a couple of days of relaxation...if that's possible with an almost 2 year old. here are a few more pictures from their trip.

we live in southern california. los angeles to be exact. home of movie studios! we had to do the super touristy studio tour. while i generally don't enjoy touristy things, this was really, really fun. the reason i have the picture on the bottom right is because this is tommy. he was a radio dj in raleigh when we lived there! i couldn't believe it. jason and i remember him being the side kick for a g105 in raleigh. they made him do all sorts of crazy things. when jason and i were in miami a few years ago we heard him on the radio there! now he lives in socal and is a studio tour guide? nice guy though. back to the tour...this is/was where true blood is filmed, shows like the gilmore girls, ghost whisperer, dukes of hazzard. it's pretty amazing. it's amazing how the camera can make a place look a lot bigger than in person.


griffith observatory. what an awesome place. it's also super close to where we live...about a 5 minute drive. i could take the time right now to google griffith observatory and tell you about the history of this great place but i'll leave that to you. i don't have time. what it is to me is a great place to get a great view of the city. i was so excited that we had a clear evening. you've probably heard there's a lot of smog in la so lots of times when the skies ain't so clear...but this was not one of those nights as you can see.

the last day they were in town we headed to santa monica. we almost didn't go because we were all pretty tired from being so busy but we were so glad we went. the pictures say it all.

mimi and papa part 1

2010-09-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

we had such a great time when mama and daddy (a.k.a. mimi and papa/toby and ted) were here. here is part 1 of their visit. by part 1 i don't mean these are in order. seriously, who has time to be that organized? not me.

malibu. malibu is beautiful and rugged. it does have fancy pants houses but you can't see much of them as you drive by. east coast beaches and west coast beaches are totally different and this is proof. no one would believe that california can be as cold as it was on this day. i'm wondering how malibu barbie got her tan since it really is kind of a chilly place!

here we are at the la zoo. i finally succeeded in getting cashel to pet a goat! look at the bottom left picture. as we were headed out cashel spotted a "truck" that he just had to sit in. he's a heavy boy and insists on being carried a lot. thank god for mimi and papa!

this is the getty. it's a museum. we only experienced the outside part of the museum. the botanical gardens were beautiful.

granddad

2010-08-30T16:03:00.000-07:00

the summer has come and gone and i am back at work. this summer was filled with lots of visitors. granddad, april and my parents. it was a wonderfully busy summer with lots of great memories, many that i am still in the process of "processing" for the blog. long story short...more to come...somehow...someway...although i am back at work. i think the biggest lesson i learned from this summer is this...never put off til tomorrow what you can do today. otherwise i feel like i get nothing done! one thing i have finally done is organize and put together another (hope you're not sick of them) collage. this one of granddad's trip out from back in june.

he came out the first week of summer vacation and we had a blast. it was filled with train rides, horses, the zoo, goats and more horses. this was when we first discovered that cashel only liked (past tense) animals in books. once he sees them move in real life he totally freaked out and wanted nothing to do with them. in fact, when we went to a place close to the house to look at horses he would clamp on, turn away, and say "bye bye" to the horses! he's much better now and i've even succeeded in getting him to pet a goat at the zoo.

but these pictures don't reflect that. this was back in the day when he was totally scared. granddad was very patient with him and inched his way closer and closer to the horses one day. granddad will be back out again pretty soon and we'll have to go to the zoo again and see the horses again!

hello to hollywood

2010-08-19T21:49:00.001-07:00

mama and daddy finally made it to california and we're out on the town. first stop...hollywood...right down the street from where we live. grauman's chinese theater, hollywood walk of fame and the kodak theater!

while we were there we decided to see some of the stars up front so we went to madame tussaude's.

mama got up front and personal with some of the men.

while daddy got up close (a little too close) and personal with the lady folk.

thank goodness these women aren't real or else i think daddy would've had a black eye.

it was a great way to spend our first monday together in los angeles

kissing

2010-08-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

we have this thing we do where jason and i will kiss and cashel will get jealous and want to either join in or only be the one kissing me (heart melt) but at the beach he started something super cute. so this is a picture of him after joining in with the kissing that jason and i did that was not caught on film. so this is pretty normal, just leaning in for a hug with mama...

...and then a...

...kiss...

...a long kiss...

...so proud and happy...

...here it comes...

...we have a fast camera so i chose to zip through to the next one...

...maybe you can't tell but cashel actually has his left hand on jason's neck and his right hand on my neck and is pushing our heads together to make us kiss...

...gives us a breather...

...then back again...

...again, you can't tell but he's actually joined in on the kissing and we're all doing the "mmmmm" sound...

...all done...

...he loves a long family kiss and so do we!

cashel and cousins and friends

2010-08-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

if it's one thing we've learned from our travels back east, it's that cashel loves to hang out with his cousins and meet other friends close to his age

this is addison. what a sweet girl. she loved playing with cashel and being his "big sister" except for the time he was really, really pulling her hair

this is reagan and addison. reagan also enjoyed playing with cashel and being his "big brother" but enjoyed my iphone more

this is cashel and my friend connie's house. connie has two boys, noah who is 4 and mason who is 9 months old. i totally forgot to get their pictures but did snap this shot of cashel on their playground - next time connie!

oh. these are the cutie pie boys of my college friend bika. that's shan on the left and devon on the right. this is the first day i noticed cashel enjoyed smiling for the camera and saying cheese. he only does that about 25% of the time now. he enjoyed playing with them, but i don't think devon enjoyed playing with cashel so much. i think cashel was a little rough with all the jumping on top of him. that's how we roll in the bryant-barnes family but it doesn't always go over so well with others

two of my favorites. this is parker and meadow. i knew if i waited there long enough they would get into costume. parker in a star wars get up (sorry parker..don't know exactly what you are but i know it's one of the good guys) and meadow as a princess which is not so much a costume as much as her personality. if you look closely you'll notice cashel looking down. he is looking at meadow's hand because she is holding his. i think he's in love

and this is the money shot. cashel is dressed as a Hawaiian basketball player

morgan and mason hickey. these two cutie pies are the kids of my high school best friend, lori. this was the last stop of a long day in raleigh. morgan is a baby sitter in training and mason is a future gap model. cashel enjoyed them but he terrorized a little boy about his age that they had over by jumping on him. lori, kevin and i were in the kitchen and we heard squealing. i went to check and as i did lori said, miles (i think that was his name) is a little squealer. my reply was, yes, i would squeal too if cashel was standing in front of me jumping up and down

last but not least is aimee and eli. cashel loves aimee and eli. he loves aimee because she has beautiful hair he likes to pull and she is just so easy to jump on. he love eli because eli loves to play with him. especially with balls and loves to carry him around on his back. notice again that cashel is looking down....at aimee's hand because she's holding hands with him. don't worry meadow, aimee's his cousin and we're not that type of family

one more

2010-08-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

robin (to jason while contemplating going clothes shopping): sweetie? do you like my style? i'm not sure i know my style anymore

jason: i don't really think of you as having a style. i just think of you as wearing clothes.

robin: great - that's helpful

how was i supposed to know?

2010-08-16T12:30:00.001-07:00

jason may kill me but i just have to tell this story.

cashel is certainly not ready for potty training yet but there are times when he's interested in "peeing" on the potty, so we strip him down (usually before a bath) and let him sit on the potty. nothing ever happens. well, i've been doing this for a while now and one night jason was helping cashel. allow me to re-enact:

jason: alright cashel, hold it (penis) down

robin: oh, that's what you do? i was having him tap it

jason just looked at me and shook his head

robin: how was i supposed to know?

lately...

2010-08-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

cashel has been cracking us up! and has been extra super sweet...but that's not unusual...he's always sweet. here's a little list:

the other day i was on the phone and what was cashel doing? he was spinning around in the living room, stopping just enough to catch his balance, then doing it all over again and again for about 5 minutes. the best part, he didn't seem to notice that i was watching.

when we were in kiawah and kernersville he would proclaim, everytime he saw me after i had walked back into a room, "found mama" as though i had been hiding. this super sweetness was mutliplied when i would have to let him cry it out for a few minutes. after a few minutes of letting him cry it out i would go back to console and help him get to sleep. each time he would smile and wrap his little arms around my neck and say, "found mama."

we've begun the game of hiding so that jason can find him when he gets home. i finally have him staying in place and not trying to rush out to see jason but he still squeals and makes lots of noises as jason is "looking" for him.

he's a southern boy (or at least his parents are). he says "in air" for "in there."

when jason or i are helping him get to sleep and he sees us getting up to leave the room he puts in a headlock and says "mama sit here" or "daddy sit here."

he now says loki and laska's names instead of "sisters." they are "yoki" and "saka."

i swear he talks in his sleep. he was in the bed with us/me the whole time we were away. this boy talks in his sleep and its normally something from that day. for example, the night after he played all day with addison and reagan he would say "addison", "reagan" in his sleep. here's what we've heard so far:
addison, reagan, eli, aimee, gary, train, dinner and our favorite....sandwich (which sounds like samwich)

he has an absolute fascination with trucks and helicopters and airplanes. the best part is his excitement when he sees or hears one of these. on every car ride we hear "truck"....but it comes out "truCK". reeeaaaallllyyyy enunciated. this boy treasures every syllable...especially the last one! we live in LA, land of traffic/police/emergency helicopters. we hear lots of helicopters and cashel stops what he's doing to let us know. our favorite day of the week is thursday - trash day. we get to see three trucks go by twice each. every time cashel stops what he's doing and runs....seriously...runs to the couch to watch.

i know there's more that he does that i can't remember right now and the best part is that there's more to come!

kiawah

2010-08-13T20:05:00.000-07:00

we ventured east...this family of five...well, the dogs stayed behind, so it was a family of three traveling on an airplane...three airplanes going east. it went well. no, really...it really went well. it's so much easier traveling with two parents and a toddler than one...which i've done and rally for if necessary but don't especially enjoy. we ended up in beautiful charleston, sc. first visiting with one of my brothers and his family in mt. pleasant then with lots of other family in kiawah island, sc. what a beautiful place this is. although we live in california we don't live that close to the beach...not far...but not down the road either...so this was our first real time with cashel at the beach and boy did he love it! we learned that he lasts for about an hour on the beach before getting to tired, hot, and/or hungry. so most days it was tennis for jason and uncle gary in the morning, beach time before noon and again after cashel's nap, often followed by a bike ride then a scrumptious dinner with the family. cashel had tons of fun playing with his cousins, reagan and addison (more about them in another post). in fact, most mornings he would wake up saying, "reagan?" "addison?" another of cashel's new loves from this week was uncle gary. cashel walked around the house just saying, "gary?" "gary?" and looking for him! while the week didn't go exactly as planned because grandmother needed some tlc which required mama, daddy and aunt ellen to leave early, we still had a wonderful time.

farm

2010-07-23T12:50:00.001-07:00

cashel loves farms. well, he loves animals. especially horses, oh, and alpacas, and donkeys, and llamas, and oxen....the list goes on and on. he is too much fun. all i have to do to entertain the boy is go to the library and get books with pictures of animals. he doesn't get much screen time but there are times when i've googled "horses" and entertained him with pictures of horses then we get to slide shows of farm animals. he often wakes up in the morning and says "animal" or "horse." not too long ago we went to a farm about 45 minutes away from us called underwood family farms. it's a divine place for kids and adults alike. they have it set up with a petting farm, an animal show, and animals (cows, alpacas, donkeys, sheep,etc.) behind fences with pvc pipes stationed so you can feed the animals carrots. cashel loves it...although once the animals move he doesn't love it so much. it's one thing to look at them in books an another to see one actually move 10 feet from you! he's getting better though. for the adults, besides all this $5.00 entertainment for your kids there is a farmers market in the front or you can grab a little wagon and pick your own from their farm! we were there when strawberries were in season and, as you can see below, cashel loved fresh strawberries! we loved the farm so much we went two saturdays in a row and i'm sure we'll be back soon!

oh...almost forgot. after cashel's visit to the farm, asking him "cashel, where are we going?" turned into him automatically responding "farm" to wherever we were going. "cashel, where are we going?" "farm" (we were going to daycare). "cashel, where are we going?" "farm" (we were going to target). "cashel, where are we going?" "farm" (we were going to nana's), etc. it took a week to get him to say "beach" (we were headed to kiawah, sc, that next weekend) only after saying farm....he would say "farm...beach." even here at the beach we walk down the beach and he says "horse, cow, etc" and he's totally into old mcdonald or, as he calls it, "eieio"

being a boy

2010-07-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

it's been remarked to me (is that grammatically correct?), lately, that boys are so much more challenging than girls. i guess that depends on how you define "challenging." if challenging means ready to go from sun up to sun down, running, jumping, climbing with no fear, chattering up a storm, getting as dirty as possible, going through at least two outfits a day, picking up all rocks in your path, getting mad when we won't let you watch basketball, yelling "no" at other kids trying to share the huge stairs of the jungle gym, sitting for half a minute for a story but for at least twenty to look at picture books of animals, attempting to escape from my arms full of kid and groceries, not realizing that streets are dangerous but being lucky to have a mama and daddy who prevent you from actually making it that far, getting super excited with eyes as big as saucers every time you see or hear a truck or a bus, running right into the room at daycare that has the snake forcing your mama who hates, hates, hates (and that word is not strong enough) snakes to run after you while keeping her back to the snake so she doesn't have to see it...

...all while stopping from time to time to give unsolicited hugs and kisses, to make faces at each other at dinner or any ole' time, to sit together having a quite moment while sharing an apple, to sit on the patio or on the couch together looking for birds, to sing "three little monkeys" or "the bear went over the mountain" together, to play steam roller on the bed, to give zerberts on each others bellies, to say "please" and "thank you" and "i love you"....

...then bring on little boys....especially this little boy...

i hope you...

2010-07-02T21:05:00.001-07:00

...have a best friend like me...

let me introduce April.

she's awesome. we met almost 6 years ago. i know, right? it's only been 6 years!? i had been teaching at teaneck high school in northern new jersey (yes, there is a difference between northern and southern and central new jersey) and a teacher, at the end of my first year said to me, Robin - there is another teacher from the south joining us next school year. so i did what any respectable, lonely for southern comfort woman would do, stalked her my first year, heck, my first day, at teaneck. i found her at the opening day breakfast and said, hey...i heard you're from the south- she said, yes...from gastonia (and something about also having lived half of her life in south carolina also, which i ignorned) i said, my mom's from gastonia! she said, really? have you heard of tony's ice cream? I said, heard of it? my mom used to work for tony!

and....

a friendship was born!

i gotta tell ya...it's hard making friends as you get older! i mean, like april, i don't have many friends from high school. we just kind of went our separate ways.

somehow april and i 'get' each other. it's great. i love having a friend who i've only known for 6 years who i feel like i've known a life-time. we love each other through the good and the bad. last year she and jason were in cahoots (like that, do ya?) and totally surprised me with a visit from april in july! it was great. this year wasn't a surprise but she came out to visit for a whole week. it was great. i talk to her many times a week and miss her daily.

i wish we lived in the same town.

except...

as much as i love you april....

here....

is why...

you won't be babysitting anytime soon....

love you with all my heart!

only in cali

2010-06-30T20:42:00.000-07:00

so i've done little with this blog about me or jason or life in general here in cali. we experienced a true california past-time a couple of weeks ago. i'm sure when jason reads this he'll think i'm a dork for saying it but it's true. just like on 90210 or any of those other shows that are true to california life-style (unbeknown to me) we went to a beach bonfire for our friend, matt's birthday!

granddad was in town and hung out with you-know-who.

The birthday boy and his lovely wife, Traci...

jason and matt...

see! those lifeguard stands like on bay watch really DO exist!

as night falls...

it's easy to see...

that it's true what they say...

smog really does make for a beautiful sunset...

proof that i was there...

really...we had a great time with great friends...we even had smores!

oh to be 19 months old

2010-06-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

cashel just turned 19 months old! i can't believe it! so here's the latest:

1. new words/phrases: i'll fix it, where'd it go? (with hands palms up, shrugging - this game can go on an on and on and on.....), bath (baf), he really likes to enunciate such words, like dog and truck, so much that they sound like dock!, blankie, animals (sounds like elmos), paca (for alpaca), ostrich, ho-as (horse), off, mama (for llama), boid (bird)

2. he runs like phoebe on friends (but without the crazy arms)

3. he likes to make the sssssssssssss sound....oh....an he has a super cute little lisp!

4. he likes to chase me and/or jason when we are getting in the shower or changing clothes and point to our hiney and say "hihey" (maybe you didn't need to know that?)

5. he sounds like bruno when he says "nice"

6. he is animal o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d! he knows them all and knows all of their sounds...my favorite is when he sees a skunk he says "shew" and waves his hand in front of his nose

7. he's been making us let him fall asleep in the daybed instead of his crib - but we always move him once he's totally out

8. he gives jason "round the world kisses" - forehead, cheek, cheek, mouth - i have yet to get one of these

9. he really likes our friend matt. in fact, he often looks for him around our house...."matt?...matt?"

10. he likes to remind me that i'm his mommy - when i'm helping out another kid at the playground he stops what he's doing, looks right at me and yells "no!"

this is just a glimpse of life with a 19 month old - what a fun life it is!

we're just not as interesting...

2010-06-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

....as cashel to write about but i'll give it a shot. a short shot. well, here we are at the beginning of june which is the end of my school year! yahoo! at teaneck we never got out until the end of june so this is awesome! one more week to go but really, it's already over. here i am, proctoring an exam for a math class. i have nothing tomorrow except to be available to answer questions for my students after 12pm tomorrow because their exam, the last exam of the year, is on friday. so, i'm here friday and will be under a pile of papers, furiously grading to get grades in by 9am on monday morning. i see my kids for 10 minutes per class monday, have a 1 hour meeting on tuesday then graduation on thursday and i'm out! summer here we come! i think i'll appreciate this summer more than past summers. i'm looking forward to cash being in daycare m/w/f so i'll have a little "me time" then he and i get the whole day together t/th. of course, i can pick him up on daycare days or not take him. jason continues to work on the same movie he's been on since december. a surprisingly long stretch for an independent film but he enjoys it enough. we look forward to traveling to kiawah on july 17th for a week then cashel and i stay in nc for 1 week beyond before papa and mimi travel back with us for their first california trip! yahoo! otherwise, i'm taking swim lessons to learn to swim for exercise since my bike was stolen and i have a bum knee and foot and jason enjoys riding his bike. that's our summer i guess. i'll post pics of our adventures!

chatter box

2010-05-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

here's our boy chatting away!

"helping"

2010-05-20T11:46:00.001-07:00

cashel...ok...i have started a new daily ritual. he helps me "wash" dishes. every afternoon when we get home it normally goes like this...

1. he "talks" to a picture of mimi while still in his car seat so i can run stuff upstairs
2. he locks the car by pushing the lock button on the passenger side door then he runs down the drive way
3. i quickly close the car door and chase him down the drive way
4. we walk down to our neighbors yard so he can attempt to pick unripened lemons off of her tree - he gets mad at me for not letting him pick the lemons
5. we make it to the "loop" and he goes down some stairs into this little patio area that is adjacent to several people's apartments
6. he gets mad at me because i won't let him walk up and down people's stairs because we don't know these people but then i give in and he walks up each set of stairs once and then we can go back up the stairs to the loop
7. i go one way, saying, "come on cashel" and he goes the other way so i turn around and go the way he's going and he turns and runs the other way
8. i pick him up, he screams and cries, but we finally make it back to our drive way where, if i'm lucky, he goes up the stairs without a fuss
9. i strip him down to his diaper so that he can he play in (literally) his sand/water table, slide, with push toys, etc while i wrangle the puppies into the den and organize all the stuff i carried in in preparation for getting dinner going
10. he makes his way inside and says "agua, agua, aqua" and once i'm ready for it this is what he does while i get dinner ready:

protein shakes

2010-05-11T15:36:00.001-07:00

jason loves protein shakes and is getting cash addicted as well.
i love how cash opens his mouth up super wide when he's ready for another sip.
jason and i have resorted to making him shakes when he doesn't eat a good dinner.
we've also resorted to making a shake in the kitchen and staying in there (if cash is in the other room) so we don't have to share!
but...when cash hears the blender he comes running...so we don't always get away with not sharing...

a few more

2010-04-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

here's a few more. click on the picture to enlarge.

family photos

2010-04-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

about a week ago we went and (finally) had some family photos taken. here's a sample - enjoy!

uh oh spahgettio and other fun stuff

2010-04-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

here is a quick little video of cashel talking. i plan to record more of him entertaining us with his chatter. he is the chatter box. the only time he's quite is around new people but it doesn't take long for him to warm up. favorite new(ish) words these day are:

sisters (we call loki and laska his sisters)
basketball
gogurt (yogurt)
please
night night
no? (he always says no - a lot - like it's a question)

enjoy the flick

message to parents

2010-04-20T20:59:00.001-07:00

daycare...

i'll write more about the ups and downs another time but this post is about the messages we receive on cashel's daily care sheet. i don't keep them all but here are the ones i've kept since he began.

9/17: cashel had a great day. he enjoyed circle time. he started dancing while we were singing.

9/18: cash had a wonderful day. he enjoyed playing outside with water and ice. it was fun.

10/4: cash enjoyed dancing to the best toddlers tunes. it was really fun watching him. he is so cute!

10/6: cash enjoyed playing peek-a-boo. it was fun.

10/12: cash had a really good day. he enjoyed crawling through tunnels outside. it was fun.

10/21: cashel really enjoyed playing hide and seek. he had fun playing with his friends.

10/23: cash had a really good day! he enjoyed playing outside. he was looking at some birds.

11/05: cashel had a really good day. he enjoyed playing outside with a truck.

12/09: ouch report: while playing with another child the other child approached him and scratched him on the right side of the bottom of his eye. he has a red mark. i washed the injured area applied ice and gave cashel hugs and kisses.

12/11: cash had a really good day. he enjoyed playing with baby dolls. he also liked going for a wagon ride.

1/04: cash had a great day. he came really active!! i'm so glad he came back. i missed him.

1/05: ouch report: while preparing for breakfast cash climbed the table and lost his balance and bumped the left side of his forehead. he has a light red mark. i washed the injured area, applied ice and gave cash lots of hugs.

3/8: cashel enjoyed painting shamrocks. he attempted to bite twice today. :(

3/10: cashel enjoyed hugging his friends and being gentle.

3/11: cashel had a so so day. he was after his friends trying to push them down.

3/17: cashel had a good day. he enjoyed eating green food today!!

3/18: cashel had a great day. he enjoyed playing with winnie the pooh and pushing cars.

3/22: cashel had a great day. he enjoyed making an olympic ring collage.

3/24: cashel had a great time sticking his foot on the contact paper. i noticed that he was biting his own hand and arm.

3/30: cashel had fun pasting rabbits and eggs to decorate his easter bag. he also had fun when i was taking pictures of him. he is so funny.

4/14: cash had a great day. he enjoyed jumping up and down with friends.

oh boy

2010-04-07T08:03:00.000-07:00

so, if you haven't noticed, there's been a lot of basketball on tv lately. we normally don't have the tv on while cash is awake but did have it on for march madness. i would be remiss and get made fun of by my husband if i didn't go ahead and admit right now that i don't care about basketball or football or any sports really other than having it on for noise. ok...back to the purpose of this post.

cash l-o-v-e-s basketball. any time we go to the park where there is a rec center for kid basketball and an adult court outside all he wants to do is watch the people playing basketball. he doesn't care about the swing or slide too much. he wants to watch basketball and play with a basketball.
his favorite word is "ball."

he has his own basketball hoop - three in fact - one in the tub, a smallish one hanging on a cabinet and a big plastic one that will grow with him that we can keep indoors or out.

he has ball decals on his wall and the first thing he says in the morning is "ball" while pointing to them.

when he was just a day old in this picture:

jason was concerned that his arms were too long for his body but then we thought, wow, i guess he'll just make a great basketball player!

i think you get the picture but again, back to the point of this post.

last night cash brought me the tv remote (not the one we lost although we did find that one!) and kept saying "ball, ball." i thought he just wanted to play ball so i put down the remote and "dribbled" one of his many balls to his hoop like normal, slammed it into the hoop and celebrated like we always do. he went straight for the remote and again said "ball ball." after about a minute i realized he wanted me find basketball on the tv for him to watch! so i did and luckily the ncaa women's final game was on. he was happy.

this morning jason is home with him because he had a fever yesterday and he called me while i was driving to work and said that cash has been crying and pointing at the tv saying "ball, ball" for the last 15 minutes. so he found a basketball documentary on for him to watch. we plan to record some basketball to have on the dvr.

oh boy.

the best $5.00 i've ever spent

2010-04-05T21:13:00.001-07:00

last summer when cashel and i were at mimi and papa's house in kernersville i forked over 5 bucks to target for a baby swimming pool. you've seen it before on a previous post. i call it "the best $5.00 i've ever spent." seriously, the best $5.00 i've e-v-e-r spent. 10 months after its purchase cashel still plays with it. it mostly stays in front of a stone wall that jason and i are afraid he will impale himself on for two reasons, 1) he's only 17 months old and he although he is a professional walker he is still quite wobbly at times and falls down and, 2) jason impaled himself on said stones (i wrote a post about that too some time ago).

here is a video taken of cash that's about 2 or 3 weeks old. he was having one of those days where his emotions were getting the best of him in split seconds. just watch and you'll see what i mean. but while it's still uploading i'll go ahead and mention a couple of things. cashel loves to be covered up and walk around. he loves to have a blanket tossed on top of him and walk around. yes, i'm a little afraid he'll run into corners of things so i watch for that. he loves the parachute they occasionally play with at day care. he loves to wiggle underneath a blanket with me or jason while we kick up the blanket with our legs. he loves his tunnel and his tent and i found him earlier today crawling into a paper grocery bag. i'm considering having him be a ghost for halloween this year - i think he'll like it.

my favorite things

2010-03-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

as you might imagine these are all cashel related...

1. play ring around the rosy with me and/or jason and 'dropping' whenever he pleases

2. for some reason we can't figure out any time...and i mean anytime...we can be indoors or out...if a helicopter or airplane flies overhead cash stops whatever he is doing, puts one of his arms up to 'wave' and says 'bye byes'

3. his favorite word these days is 'up'...even when jason or i put him to bed...if he's not quite ready to be left alone he'll say 'up' and we have to pick him up to cuddle a bit more

4. cuddling a bit more before putting him to bed

5. he's had an explosion of words lately...he says his own name and the names of his friends at school including his teacher's name...in his own 'speak' of course: 'augie'(for his friend august who everyone calls auggie), 'tricia' (for his teacher miss patricia), 'annie' (self explanitory)...we're working on charlie, charlotte, brenden and henry. he says 'jason'...miss patricia tells me that when she changes his diaper she always talks to him about our names and it's so funny because i'll say, 'cashel, say jason and he says jason but when i ask him to say robin he says mama!'

6. since the ncaa tournament is on these days he has managed to establish a position of watching the games while standing on one of our footstool cubes

7. more of his favorite words: no, shoes, bird, sit (while pointing at the puppies), and any noise he can make with his mouth

8. he loves, i repeat, loves to dance...he'll turn up the music on the stereo and go at it and often begins to shake his head and clap in the car when music comes on

speaking of shreveport

2010-03-18T12:31:00.001-07:00

starbucks in shreveport:

jason orders a tall americano and pays with a credit card

some random man in line behind jason:
you must be a lawyer or somethin', huh?

jason:
uh....no

my weekend

2010-03-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

it's true what they say...parenthood changes you. i almost can't remember what it is like to sleep in, spend time in the bathroom alone, read a book, go to a movie, catch up on dvr shows (i've actually deleted many programs lately), exercise, sleep through the night (i still get up at least once a night just to make sure cash is covered up), just sit...you get the picture. jason was working hard on a job that happened to take him to shreveport, louisana, for part of december and january. being a full time working single mom for that time made me, ok, i'll say it, crazy. i did my best but it was hard. cash had two double ear infections during the time jason was away and i was also sick. oh, how i love my husband and how cash loves his daddy so boy oh boy, was it hard! we did it as an experiment - we won't do it again.

an-y-hoo.....that is really just the background for this post. this post is about my wonderful valentine's day/birthday present that jason set up for me. he got me a hotel room for one night in.....pasadena! ok - so pasadena is where i work and is only 20 minutes from where i live but it was perfect! it was the first night i had spent away from cash since he was born. yes....i missed him and i missed jason but i loved the me time!

i stayed at the hyatt hotel close to shops and restaurants. i parked at my school and rode over one of my school's orange bikes (my school provides bikes for our use - we're only supposed to ride them between schools and the parking deck so if someone from my school is reading this i am totally busted!). i saw avatar, walked around the shops, ordered a pizza to my hotel room, worked on cash's baby book, watched tv, took a loooooonnnnggggg shower, slept in (until 6:45 - ha!), saw another movie, then came home refreshed!

it was wonderful. i would totally do it again. here's some pictures of my adventure.

thanks sweetie - i love you!

nana's moving to california!

2010-03-17T14:52:00.001-07:00

nana visited a couple of weeks ago and....dun duh duh duh....GOT A JOB AND IS MOVING TO CALIFORNIA! here is a picture of nana trying not to force a hug from cashel - he's a hard sell with the hugging of anyone besides his mom or dad...

but look....it worked!

we are so excited that she is moving close (about 1/2 an hour away) because when california was just a dream for us she would always tell us "if you move to california, i'll move to arizona, because i love the southwest" and jason and i said "what for lady? to still be a plane ride away? that's crazy? you may as well stay on the east coast if your not gonna go all the way!" i guess she heard us - oh, and being close to her grandson is probably more motivation to live close than anything else....

here's cashel giving her an unsolicited kiss....i don't think jason's too happy about this (the unsolicited kiss i mean)...we're super happy she's moving... :-)