In pictures

Here are some photos from the past few weeks:

The slices at this place are bigger than Biscuit's head!

I love that Biscuit is still game to do these kinds of photos. It won't be long until these cutesy photos are SO not cool.

And speaking of cool ... Biscuit wanted a leather jacket, but they're so dang expensive! So Jeff found one on eBay. The guy was asking for a specific price or best offer. Jeff made him and offer, and the guy said he was hoping to get more than that. Jeff said, "Here's the deal. My son is 10. He's going to outgrow the thing in no time." So he took about half what he was asking for. The boy paired it with new jeans, favorite tennis shoes and aviator sunglasses. He was quite pleased with his look. 

My brother brought Jeff a late birthday present. And I got one, too.

Out of the mouth of my babe

A couple of things Biscuit has said recently:

Electric wheels: A while back, a company scattered electric scooters around downtown. You use your cellphone to scan a code to pay for riding them. People were zipping around everywhere.

Some people were zipping around places they weren't supposed to be, so a lot of cities are banning them now.

Anyway, Biscuit saw somebody riding one, and said, "Hey, check that out!"

I explained to him how they worked.

He said, "The future is a wonderful place, you know."


Using tools: We were eating at a Mexican restaurant, and Biscuit was using a knife and fork to eat his enchilada. They're made from flour tortillas, so he could've just used his fork.

"That's soft enough that you could just cut it with your fork," I told Biscuit.

"I guess," Biscuit said, "but I just feel the need to be fancy pants tonight."

Winter Concert

Biscuit and his fellow fourth-graders put on a really nice holiday concert this evening.

He decided he wanted to dress up, so he picked some navy pants, a white shirt, a red and blue striped tie and a Santa hat. He looked really nice.

They did some fun songs with choreographed movements. The kids got to play air guitar at one point, and I wish I could've gotten a video of Biscuit. He was getting down!

Here's a little bit of the first song they did.

Biscuit had a small speaking role, and he did a really good job. He was actually the first one to talk.

It reminded me of a conversation I had a few years ago with his kindergarten teacher.

Each grade does a musical show of some kind each year. In the first grade, he had to dress up like a chicken. Remember that?

There were some speaking parts in that show, too. And the music teacher had asked Biscuit to be a speaker. I don't know if you remember, but Biscuit had a stutter that he grew out of by second grade. But in kindergarten, it was pretty bad.

I went in for a parent-teacher conference, and the teacher started laughing. "She had him listed for a speaking part, and all I could think about was him up there on that stage going, "Um, um, um, um, we, we, we are all fr- fr- friends."

And she was right. His stutter would get even worse if he was mad, nervous or upset. Can you imagine?!

So I was really proud of him tonight for being able to speak clearly and being brave enough to do it.

It was about 7:15 as we were leaving the school, so we stopped by a pizza place near the house for dinner.

These are my special boys.

When we got home, Biscuit had to go straight to the shower.

As he was heading upstairs, I said, "I'm proud of you. I think you did a really good job tonight."

Biscuit stopped, looked at me and grinned. "Thank you," he said. "I'll be here all night ... literally." And then he gave himself a rimshot. "Buh-dum-chhhh!"

That boy makes me smile every single day.

Hugs are okay, until ....

Biscuit has always been a lovey-dovey boy. And I've always loved it.

Except ...

Sometimes he picks the most inopportune times to grab me into a hug. Like when we're in the grocery store or getting other shopping done. I like to shop, but when I'm getting groceries and household stuff, I want to get it done as quickly as possible. And it's hard to do that when you've got a kid invading your space.

So last weekend, Biscuit crawled into bed between Jeff and me, and we had some cuddle and talk time. Jeff is usually still asleep, but Biscuit and I have had some pretty good talks on those mornings.

"Mom," he asked, "can I hug you?"

"Of course you can," I told him.

"Anytime I want?" he asked. And I just looked at him and smiled. "Anytime except in the grocery store?"

And we laughed about it.

"I love hugging you anytime you'll hug me, dude," I told him. "Sometimes I get in a hurry trying to get stuff done, but I don't want you to ever think that I don't like hugging you."

"Okay," he said.

"One day, I'm not going to be cool anymore, and you won't want me to hug you as much," I told him.

And then he said something that made me laugh out loud.

"From what I understand ..." he said. From what I understand? Like he's read a book on the subject!

"From what I understand," he said, "you can hug me anytime you want until I'm in middle school. Then, you can only hug me at home."

"Oh, okay," I told him. "I'm glad to know the rules. I'll try to get in as many hugs as I can until then."

Out of the mouth of my babe

I love Biscuit's sense of humor. Not necessarily the jokes and riddles he makes up, mind you. Some of them just aren't funny, despite what he says.

But his sense of humor is fun.

One recent example centers on his @#$% snack containers and water bottles!

I pack a snack and a sports bottle of water for Biscuit every day. His backpack has a mesh pocket on each side, which is the perfect size for a container and bottle.

But the problem is that he never, ever, ever, EVER remembers to take the container and bottle out of the mesh pockets and put them in the kitchen. So I go to pack his snack and water, and I have nothing to put them in.

I nag him about it all the time. But it still happens. Now, this isn't a life or death thing. I don't make a huge deal about it. But it is frustrating.

Biscuit was sitting at the dining room table one morning having his breakfast as I was packing his snack and lunch. I went to where I keep his containers, and you guessed it, there weren't any.

Biscuit's backpack was sitting near the front door. I walked over and checked the mesh pockets and found exactly what I was looking for.

So I started play yelling at Biscuit from the front door toward the dining room. 

"So I'm trying to pack a snack, but is there a container to put a snack in? Nooooo," I said with a lot of drama. "There are no clean containers. And WHY are there no clean containers? Wait for it ... THEY'RE STILL IN THIS BACKPACK!!!"

I could hear Biscuit giggling.

"Do you hear what I'm screaming at you?" I hollered. "There's supposed to be a snack, but how can there be a snack when there's nothing to pack a snack in. What do you have to say for yourself?!"

A few seconds went by.

Then I heard, "Griffin is not available right now, but if you leave your name and a number, he'll get back to you."

Even if I had been yelling for real, I don't know if I could've kept a straight face.

Birthday cake and sleepover

The morning of Biscuit's birthday, he was excited to find that he was going to have pop-tarts for breakfast. Those are usually a weekend treat, but he got two chocolate pop-tarts with sprinkles, and a candle, of course.

There was a bit of torture, though. I didn't let him open his presents until that evening!

Biscuit decided he wanted to have a sleepover for his birthday this year. So two of his closest friends came over after school on his birthday, which happened to fall on a Friday this year.

We fed them pizza, and I had made little baskets of goodies for them with glow sticks, snacks, cups, flashlights and some other fun little things.

After the pizza, we lit the candles on his cake, sang to him and finally let him open his presents.

The cake looks huge, and it is tall, but even though it has five layers, they're only five inches in diameter.

I didn't occur to me until the three boys were bouncing off the walls that I gave them chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate M&Ms!

The boys played well together, and I made them go to sleep about midnight. The parents picked them up at 11:30 the next morning, and Biscuit and I chilled that day while Jeff went off to cover a football game.

This boy is just growing up too fast!

Spiffed-up bathroom

I mentioned in the previous post that we had done a little redecorating in Biscuit's bathroom.

I decorated it with a beach theme when we first bought the house. My father-in-law bought me this awful, ugly shower curtain with fish all over it. He bought it for a joke, but I hung it. Mainly because that's the bathroom he used when he was here! I showed him!

I swapped it out for a more sedate curtain after I couldn't handle all the loud colors in the fish one.

But when Biscuit got up to get ready on his birthday, he saw a whole new look in there.

"Star Wars."

Shower curtain with "Star Wars" characters.

I made some pictures to hang of bathroom chores in the voice of some of the characters.

Don't tell Mama that I didn't iron the curtain before I put it up! I painted a dowel rod and stuck it in the handle of a light saber for the curtain rod.

The Darth Vader wash mitt came with the bath towel I got to hang, so I just stood him up on the counter. The soaps are in the shapes of some of the vehicles from the movies. The ball is the Death Star, the place where the bad guy lived.

Don't worry if you don't get some of the references on this sign. But you can bet the boy did.

The good guys said to be on the Light Side and the bad guys are on the Dark Side, so I thought this light switch plate was cute.

Luke was holding a light saber, but I replaced it with a toothbrush.

It might be hard to picture it, but there's a huge mirror that runs across the wall over the sink and counter. So without much wall space, I had Jeff put nails right above the mirror and hung the pictures from them with string.

The trash can looks like R2-D2, a droid from the movie.

Most people will probably think this is gross, but Jeff and I think it's pretty funny. There's a long-standing joke about how the Stormtroopers (the soldiers on the bad side) never hit anything they shoot at, but the Jedi take out anything they aim for.

Biscuit loves the new look in his bathroom. And everything I did is temporary, so when his tastes move on, we can update again.

Happy birthday, Biscuit!

Jeff and I just finished redecorating Biscuit's bathroom for his birthday. When he gets up in the morning, he'll see a few cool changes in there (pictures and post to come).

Biscuit decided to have a sleepover for his birthday this year. I told him he could invite as many as he wanted for a party, but for a sleepover, three kids was the limit. So tomorrow night, we'll have a handful of boys here. Cross your fingers for us!

Biscuit loves a Mexican restaurant near us, mainly for the food, but also because of what they do for birthdays. The servers all march from the kitchen banging trays and containers together, making all kinds of noise. Then they sing and give you a free sopapilla (fried tortilla with honey, chocolate drizzle, whipped cream and sprinkles).

So of course we had to go there tonight.

Anybody who knows Biscuit knows how he loves to talk to people. We're regulars at the restaurant, so he's made friends with the servers and the owner. So tonight after they cleared our dinner dishes, the banging started and the singing group marched to our table.

Biscuit has always hated loud noises, so he has his fingers stuck in his ears.

The guy who runs the place is the one who put the whipped cream on Biscuit's nose.

"You knew I couldn't just hand you a dessert without doing something, didn't you?" he said.

So Biscuit got his loud noises, his birthday song, TWO desserts and a T-shirt. That kid is a charmer!

Childhood memory

We always had a big garden growing up. 

Mama and Daddy would plant corn, okra, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, green beans, several kinds of peas and more.

But they always left one row on the end for my brother and me. We would get to go to the feed and seed and pick something for our row.

We planted watermelons one year, pumpkins another year. But our favorite was Indian corn (aka flint corn or ornamental corn). We loved the bright colors of the kernels, and it was always a big reveal when it was ready to pick and we pulled back the husks. We never knew what the color combination would be.

I went to the farmers market with friends a couple of weeks ago. And I walked through a booth that had Indian corn. It was three ears for $5, and I decided that $5 wasn't a bad price to bring back a little of my childhood. And I wanted to show it to Biscuit and tell him about us growing it when we were his age.

I originally thought about doing some fancy arrangement with a big ribbon or something, but when I put them together, I realized that I just wanted to see if hanging on the porch, all by itself.

Isn't it pretty?

Sweet treats

Biscuit and I made our annual Halloween candy again this year. The child loves sprinkles.

And just like the candy he gets from trick-or-treating, he doesn't eat a lot of the candy we make, either. The chocolate-covered pretzel rods are his favorite. I think they're lots of people's favorite.

Chocolate-covered Oreos.

Nutter Butter ghosts and pretzel knot mummies. Biscuit made three ghosts that were supposed to represent us. Two of them had mini M&M eyes in blue with a red mouth for Biscuit and me and one with green eyes and a red mouth for Jeff.

Chocolate bark with pretzels, Oreos, candy corn and sprinkles.

White chocolate bark with pretzels, Oreos, candy corn and sprinkles.

Jeff liked everything. But when he ate the bark, he picked around the candy corn.

"What is your problem with candy corn?" I asked him.

He made a face and said, "It tastes like sadness."

That didn't deserve a response, so I just rolled my eyes at him.

Happy Halloween

I miss the days of firefighters, superheroes and other simple Halloween costumes. At least ones that I know and understand.

This year, Biscuit was a Pokemon character. It's a dragon-kind of thing that can breathe fire and throw fire with his tail.

His closest friends go to fall festivals instead of trick-or-treating, so I offered to take him to one of those. But he said he's rather go trick-or-treating.

Early Wednesday morning, his friend's Mom texted me to ask if Biscuit might like to go trick-or-treating with her daughter. I knew he would enjoy the company, so I told them to come on over.

I hadn't done a good job of preparing coordinating costumes for Jeff and me. I came up with the idea of costumes to match Biscuit's, but I just hadn't followed through.

So when I found out his friend and her mom were coming, I said, "I don't think her Mom is going to be dressed up, and Dad and I wouldn't want her to feel left out, so I think we'll skip wearing costumes for trick-or-treating."

He said that was fine. Whew!

So Biscuit and his friend started down the street, trailed by me, Jeff and his friend's mom. We had a nice chat.

Then we noticed how much the kids were talking. Other kids were moving right along from house to house, but our kids were like an old married couple, just strolling along talking like they had nowhere to be!

The 4-year-old from next door moved faster, and he was a giant slice of pepperoni pizza that partially hindered his little legs.

They finally got tired and said they were ready to go home. They ended up with more candy than I thought they got. It didn't seem like they went to that many houses.

Of course, our neighbors always give Biscuit WAY too much. All their kids are grown, so they enjoy getting to see Biscuit.

Here are some pictures of Biscuit:

Biscuit strikes a pose with his friend. She had her face painted like a zombie under the big cat head. That way, if she got hot or tired, she could take off the head and still be dressed up.

Here are a couple of houses they visited in our neighborhood:

There's a creepy thing standing on the porch that starts talking when you get close. His eyes light up red. Very creepy.

This giant pumpkin was definitely not a happy jack-o-lantern.

And here's Biscuit's haul:

The funny thing is that he won't eat half of this. He's not much of a candy guy. He eats at meal times, but a piece of chocolate every once in a while, and he's good to go.

Out of the mouth of my babe

A few things Biscuit has said recently:

Children vs. parent: Sometimes Jeff and I look at each other and realize that our boy is sometimes more mature than both of us.

Jeff and I get tickled over stupid things, and our boy will say, "Come on, guys," and it sounds like he's the parent scolding us.

The three of us were in the car recently, and Jeff and I saw a personalized license plate on the car in front of us. I don't remember what the plate said, but it was pretty clear what it was supposed to be.

But because of the letters they used, it was very easy to find other words and phrases in it.

Without any introduction or explanation, Jeff and I just started spouting out anything we could think of.

When Biscuit was small enough for a car seat or booster seat, he could see around him. But now, when he sits on the regular seat, he can't see. So he had no idea what we were talking about.

"Excuse me," he said. "What kind of gibberish are you people speaking?!" And he sounded so outdone and so ... teacherly.

Maybe if that inventor career doesn't work out, he can find a job calling down troublemakers!

Don't cry over spilled ...

A post from The Daddy Man:

Kimmy and a friend went to see a movie tonight, so the boy and I were on our own.

Bedtime rolls around, and he got the hiccups. So he asked if he could go downstairs for a spoonful of sugar to swallow.

Some say it helps the medicine go down, but it makes my hiccups go away. And the boy says it works for him, too. You have to swallow it dry without letting it dissolve. I don't know the exact science behind it, but it's something about changing your breathing pattern.

I was sitting quietly, waiting for him to come back upstairs. Suddenly, I hear "BOOM!" And I realized, it was plastic hitting the floor. You know, like a canister of sugar.

So I walked downstairs and rounded the corner and there he was, standing in a big pile of sugar. 

He looked at me in a panic and said, "How'd you know?"

"Dude! It sounded like a bomb went off down here," I said to him. There was probably a pound of sugar on the floor.

He said, "Um, what do we do?"

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "Well, do we get a bunch of water and try to mop it up with paper towels?"

I said, "Don't do that. It'll make an even bigger mess. Just get the broom and dustpan out of the closet."

I swept up most of it, and he got a smaller whisk broom and dustpan and tried to get the little bits that were left.

He had just gotten out of the shower before he came downstairs. But when he knocked the sugar down, sugar stuck to his bare feet. He was rubbing the bottom of his feet on his shins trying to get it off.

We got as much off as we could, and I sent him up to the shower again to rinse off the rest.

Before he walked back upstairs, he looked at me pitifully and asked, "Are you gonna tell Mom?"

"Don't you think she'll notice that most of her sugar is gone?" I asked him.

"Oh, yeah," he said.

"I'm gonna tell her, but don't worry about it," I told him. "It was an accident. You didn't do it on purpose. And we got it cleaned up."

I'm just glad I got down there when I did because I think he was trying to figure out a way to get it off the floor and back into the canister.

It was a sweet evening.

Funny business

Biscuit's school has movie nights several Friday nights during the school year. It costs $8, and the kids get two slices of pizza, a drink and the movie. They also have popcorn, candy and other snacks for sale for $1 each. 

All the money goes toward the fifth grade trip to Washington, so we never mind paying. And also, Biscuit loves it.

He started going to movie nights in kindergarten. The first one he went to, he didn't even know anyone who was there.

"Are you going to be okay staying without anyone you know?" I asked him.

"Sure," he said casually, "I'll just make some new friends."

And that's been the case every year since then.

Movie nights go from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Biscuit's after-school program is at the school. So we basically go to the school about 5:15, sign him out of after-school care then walk him down to the area where they watch the movies.

Our town is definitely a restaurant town, so Jeff and I don't really have time to go out to dinner during movie night. But we do try to do something. Like maybe, get some takeout and watch a movie at home.

Then about 7:45, we get in the car and drive back over to the school.

The pickup works just like regular school pickup. Cars line up in the long, winding driveway of the school, then about halfway down, you stop at a person with a walkie-talkie. You tell him or her the name of your kid, and they'll give you a number 1 through 4. When you get down to the doors, you drive up to the number the person told you, and your kid will be waiting there.

And they've been doing it so long, they have it down to a science.

We drove up to No. 3. The teacher standing there asked which kid we were there for, and we told her his name.

She called Biscuit's name, and he walked toward our car. He had an odd look on his face.

He looked at the teacher and said, "I've never seen those people before in my life!"

The teacher looked at us, and I said, "Get yourself in this car, boy!"

He started laughing, then climbed into the back seat.

While we waited on Biscuit to get his seatbelt buckled, the teacher said, "Hey, what grade are you in?"

"Fourth," Biscuit said.

"I like your sense of humor," she said. "I'm gonna make sure you're in MY class next year."

She's asking for trouble!

Kitchen gadget

I have a lot of gadgets in my kitchen. I love them. But when it comes to small appliances, I'm not one for one-trick ponies. I like them to accomplish several tasks.

But I recently made an exception. I bought a quesadilla maker.

That's all it does — make quesadillas.

Quesadillas are one of Biscuit's favorite foods. And he doesn't care what's in them.

If we're at a Mexican restaurant, he'll get a quesadilla with black beans. But he doesn't want the beans as a side. He wants them inside the quesadilla. For some reason, that doesn't translate well. I guess since they don't have a black bean quesadilla on the menu, they just assume that the beans are the side. So most of the time, I end up prying his quesadilla apart and putting the beans in myself.

Mama got a quesadilla last Black Friday and said she's enjoyed hers. When we were down there last, she sent it home with me to try it out. And I love it. 

There are no knobs or buttons. You plug the thing in and wait for the green light to come one. At that point, it's ready to go.

You don't have to use any oil or butter. Just put one tortilla down, add your filling, put the other tortilla on top, close the lid and wait a few minutes.

When you take it out, the tortillas are crispy, and the cheese is stringy and gooey.

I've done Mexican cheese and black beans, Italian cheese and pepperonis and American cheese and ham. I've even made sweet ones with peanut butter and chocolate chips, cinnamon and sugar, and Nutella. Oooo! Now that I think about it, the Nutella would be good with either bananas or strawberries.

And don't tell Biscuit, but I've recently made the switch from regular pepperoni to turkey pepperoni. And he hasn't noticed.

It has little triangle wells, so when I add the filling, I try to get it in the triangle so they'll seal. 

Then you just cut on the lines. I use my pizza cutter.

When I make them for Biscuit's school lunch, I wrap them in tin foil and put them in a container. He says they're still warm at lunchtime.

His cheese and pepperoni quesadilla, a homemade chocolate chip cookie and some cinnamon applesauce.

It's nice to find something a little different for him to take for school lunches. I know he gets tired of sandwiches. Maybe I'll come up with some more good combinations.

I picked him

I hope when Biscuit grows up and finds his soulmate, he can find someone who makes him laugh. I was lucky enough to find that in Jeff.

I mean, look at this.

This is in public. At a restaurant. And he sat like that until he buttered that piece of bread.

And look at this one.

In another restaurant. He kept fogging up his glasses until that mug was empty! He doesn't care who's around. He acts silly. I laugh. Mission accomplished.

And then you have this ...

The three of us were in the middle of a nerf gun battle, and I turned around to find this. 

Trust me when I say that I could offer tons more photographic proof.

I love this man. And I love how I feel when I'm around him. And if it sounds like I'm bragging, it's because I am. I kissed a lot of frogs before I found this guy! And I'm not letting him go anywhere!