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!

The hurricane is coming

When the most recent hurricane was on its way toward land, we were warned that it was going to be really bad for us. We're a good ways inland, but even so, they were saying that when it ran aground, it was going to hang out and do damage for a pretty good while.

We got really, really lucky. Other than some heavy rain and wind, it spared us.

I feel really bad for those who did get hit. I have some friends at the coast who shared pictures, and it's just awful. I can't imagine what it will be like for the as they recover.

For the original forecast, they warned us that we'd probably lose power. So I went to the store and stocked up on stuff to eat that didn't require cooking. Well, I attempted to, anyway. Everyone else had the same idea, and it was hard to find bread, peanut butter, chips and crackers.

So I figured it couldn't hurt to bake.

We had brownies.

We had snickerdoodles.

There were chocolate chip cookies, too, but those didn't last long enough for me to take a picture.

Luckily, we never lost power.

So we watched a movie that takes place during a hurricane.

It felt like appropriate movie watching.

My parents live a ways south of us, and they had more severe weather than us. My parents never lost power, although Daddy had the generator ready to go. My brother and his family lost power for about a day. But he has a generator, too.

My brother and my nephew rode their four-wheelers around checking things out. My brother took a few pictures and sent them to me.

This is a creek near my parents' house before the storm. Two of my cousins, my Daddy and my nephew are picking out the perfect skipping rocks. 

And this is that creek after the storm.

All the skipping rocks were covered up by a couple feet of water. I hope that mean ol' storm left a few for us to throw the next time we're down there.

But we are fine, and all my people are fine. So skipping rocks or no, it's all good.

Zombie boy

Biscuit had a birthday party to go to this weekend. It was for a girl he met in kindergarten and has stayed close with.

She's cute as a button, smart and sweet. And he says he's going to marry her one day.

Bonus: Jeff and I like her parents!

When they were in second grade, they had reading together. The teacher said she thought she might have to separate them because they talked too much.

She said, "And I don't mean chit-chat. I mean, pencils down, rared back, full conversation."

But the funny thing is, they can't even look at each other. They glance toward each other, then they both blush. When they're playing in a group, it's definitely easier. It's just so dang cute!

Her birthday party was themed after a recent TV movie, and costumes were welcome. So of course we had to get Biscuit fixed up.

He had a good time.

Here are some more photos:

Breaking more stuff

He broke his arm. Of course he's broken some rules. And now, he's broken a tooth!

Over the weekend, Biscuit said his tooth felt weird, and when I shined a light in there to check it out, it looked like it was cracked half in two.

"It hurts when I eat," Biscuit said.

And after looking at it, I definitely believed him.

I called his dentist first thing this morning and made an appointment. They got him in at 10 a.m., so he wasn't at school too long before I went and picked him right back up again.

He was so nervous. 

I tried to explain to him that he might feel him working in his mouth, but he wouldn't feel any pain. I don't think he believed me.

We got there, and it turns out that it wasn't a broken tooth after all. His baby tooth had chipped in half, and the permanent tooth was already pushing through. So what I was actually seeing was half of a baby tooth and half of a permanent tooth.

They swabbed some bubblegum-flavored numbing cream on his gum, and next thing you know, they just reached in and jerked that little tooth out. Well, what was left of it.

They didn't even charge us for the visit.

I was glad that it was as simple as it was. And since Biscuit will have to get some more dental work done fairly soon to straighten up his teeth, I'm glad he had such a good experience today.

Going to the circus

We took Biscuit to see a cool circus in town. I've been to several of their shows during the years and enjoyed them. They don't have animals (which Biscuit fully supports — "Mom, it's just not fair that they make those animals do something they don't want to do. I mean, tigers are wild animals, and those crazy people are trying to train them. That cannot under any circumstances end well."). They also have live music, which of course he loves.

They always have aerial acts, acrobats and all that stuff. But for this show, they decided to make the cast ice skate as well. Most of them didn't know how to ice skate. So imagine someone says to you, "You're really good at your job. But now we want you to learn to do your job on ice skates." They must've worked so hard.

Here are a few pictures of the show:

I always love when the three of us can do something special together.

So as we were leaving, we were all in good spirits. We were laughing and talking and sharing which parts of the show were our favorites.

The parking lot was pretty crowded, so we took our time getting to the car. Even then, we had to sit for a little while.

As we were getting ready to leave, I was trying to get my bearings and figure out which would be the best way to get out of the parking lot.

I was talking to Jeff, but I guess my question was more open than I thought.

"Which way should I go?" I asked out loud.

And from the back seat, I hear this wistful voice say, "Go whichever way your heart leads you."

I don't think that would've gotten us home, but it did give us all a good laugh.

Animals everywhere

My brother and nephew came up for a music festival last weekend, and I was telling Jeff and Biscuit what we needed to do to get ready.

"They'll be sleeping in your bed," I said to Biscuit, "so we need to change the sheets and make up the bed to look real nice."

I changed the sheets while he picked up some toys and left him up there to finish making his bed.

I picked up my phone to reply to a text message and saw a picture I didn't take.

This is every stuffed animal Biscuit owns. He wanted to make a nice display. And he did.

It's funny because he loves all these animals, but he's at that age where he doesn't really want anyone to KNOW he loves these animals.

But when our guests arrived, they made a fuss over his arrangement, and Biscuit was happy.

Don't they know?

The minor league baseball team in our town wasn't very good this year. And as Jeff was wrapping up the stories he was going to write about them, he talked to Biscuit a little bit about the last few games.

"Well, the players just kind of phoned it in for the last few games," Jeff said..

"What does that mean?" Biscuit asked.

"It means that they weren't playing very well, so they just sort of gave up," Jeff explained.

Some time after that, Biscuit was telling me all about it. And he had had enough thinking time to get all up in a huff!

"I mean ... those guys are professional baseball players, Mom!" he said. "First of all, they get paid to play, so they should play well. And also, baseball is fun, and if they weren't going to have fun, they shouldn't be playing."

A few minutes went by.

"It's like, I'm not the best baseball player, but even if I know I'm not going to win, I still play hard and finish as well as I can," Biscuit said.

A few more minutes went by.

"Do they not understand that it is a privilege for them to play baseball as their job? I mean, really. Can you believe that?" Biscuit said.

I love his sense of fairness and justice.

Friendly fun

I've always thought it was important for wives and moms to spend time with their friends without their husbands and kids.

The latest of these times for me was when I met two of my friends (one of whom happens to also be my boss) at a local part for a singalong movie.

If you've never been to one of these, they are a lot of fun.

They show musical movies, and when the songs come on, the words are printed across the bottom of the screen. And you just sing out — whether you can carry a tune or not. Nobody cares what you sound like.

People also dress up in costumes and bring props.

My boss friend and I went to a local theater to the "Sound of Music" singalong. We had assorted props including stems of white flowers to wave around during "Edelweiss" and flashlights to shine around when the bad guys are looking for the family in and around the tombstones. Everybody got the biggest kick out of those flashlights.

So when my boss friend found out they would be showing the "Grease" singalong at a park downtown, she decided we had to go.

She made herself a costume and was ready to go for the July date. But the movie got rained out.

They rescheduled it for early August. But it got rained out.

They rescheduled it for late August, and the weather was great! It was unusually cool with just the slightest breeze.

And the best part was that since she ended up with more time, my boss friend made two more of the costumes so all three of us could be dressed alike.

She used cardboard, plastic water bottles, aluminum foil and silver paint, along with a shiny silver tablecloth and made us into "beauty school dropouts."

Here's the scene from the movie:

And here's us:

The picture above was taken by a photographer friend of ours while we were doing the "Hand Jive" during the costume contest. If you look between us, you can see that there was a pretty good crowd there. And we were really happy to win the contest.

And here's a selfie from the front.

It was a really fun night, and I would encourage everyone to get out with their friends every once in a while.

The big pink net thing is a sculpture. The poles on either side have purple lights that shine on it. It's really pretty, especially at night.

Dirty arm

Yay! The cast is off!

The orthopedic office was jam-packed with people when we went Friday. They said it was because of the Labor Day holiday. It's a regular orthopedic office during the day. Then in the evening, it's an orthopedic urgent care. So a good bit of the crowd was urgent care patients from the long weekend getting re-checks.

So after a terribly long wait, we finally went back.

It wasn't very long until a tech came in with a saw and went to work.

The thing looked like a big vacuum cleaner, except instead of a sucking hose on the end, there was a small circular blade. I don't see how she didn't go all the way through the cast. It made me nervous.

And then, I got a look at his rusty, crusty arm! And Biscuit made a nasty face when he saw it. There wasn't a sink in the room, like you'd find at regular doctors' offices.

 
So that tech left, and a few minutes later, someone from x-ray came in and took our boy away.

Don't buy into this sad face. He was totally putting on!

Another put-on face. I guess he was showing his full range of emotions about the situation.

After the appointment, we took Biscuit to a build-your-own pizza place he had been asking to go to. Biscuit said, "C'mon, Dad," and headed immediately to the bathroom to wash his arm. You could still see his tan line, but no more rusty crusty.

The doctor gave him a brace to wear for about three weeks. He wants him to wear it constantly at school, but when he gets home, he's supposed to take it off and start using it.

I asked the doctor about any restrictions and after talking some to Biscuit during the appointment, he said, "I think he's going to put way more restrictions on himself that I would put on him."

And it's true. Biscuit has been a little afraid to get back to using it.

The other night, he started writing his books down on his reading log for school, and I noticed that he was writing with his left hand.

"Why are you using your left hand?" I asked him.

"What?" he said and looked down like he didn't even realize he was using it. "Oh, um, habit, I guess."

But we'll get him straightened out soon enough.

The cast

So hopefully, this is the last post featuring Biscuit's cast.

The appointment is set to get the cast off — well, if everything looks okay. The next step will be a brace and some physical therapy-type exercises.

This is one of his friends signing it right after he got it. See how pretty and white it is at the top and around his fingers?

It doesn't look like that anymore. Dirty, dirty, dirty.

Some people said it would start to stink, but luckily, that hasn't happened. Since Biscuit couldn't get his cast wet, we've used hand sanitizer to clean his fingers really well. But the alcohol in the sanitizer makes his skin dry, so then we have to put lotion on it. It'll be nice when he can just wash it in the shower again.

And speaking of showers, it'll be nice when he can be in the shower all by himself. With his cast, he has to stand half under the water with his arm stuck up in the air while Jeff does most of the cleaning and washing and drying.

I'm not sure how long it will be before he can start practicing guitar and piano again. They both require a lot of finger and wrist movement. And I wonder what it will be like for him to write with his right hand again. His handwriting is pretty bad, so it won't look too much better than his left-handed writing!

He's had a bunch of people sign his cast, so we took some pictures of it this evening to help him remember it.

Manners recognized

Since Biscuit had to spend so much time with me at work, I thought I would get him a treat on the way home one evening.

We went by a bakery that we like a lot, and Biscuit got a big grin on his face.

I told him he could choose two things, and he was excited. But then, he started looking at all the choices. Cupcakes, cake slices, several kinds of brownies, cookies, cake pops, pastries, etc. 

He saw some cookies he didn't recognize, so he asked me what kind they were.

"I don't know, baby," I said to him. "You'll have to ask."

"Excuse me," Biscuit said, and waited until a young woman behind the counter came down to where he was. He asked her what kind they were and then told her he hadn't made a decision yet.

He had another question, and again, he said, "Excuse me," and waited for the woman to come over and answer his question.

An older lady was sitting at a table near the display case with her back toward us. She was enjoying a slice of cake and a cup of coffee.
Without turning all the way around, she said, "I am hearing some wonderful manners back there. And it's so, so nice."

We've worked really hard on Biscuit's manners. Mine and Jeff's parents stressed good manners, so naturally, we wanted to pass along those lessons. I don't think enough people teach manners anymore. It's important.

Anyway, usually when Biscuit gets compliments on his manners, people say it to me or Jeff. But what I liked about the lady at the bakery was that she told Biscuit directly how much she enjoyed hearing him say "Excuse me," "Please" and "Thank you."

I think she really reinforced with him how much manners can mean to someone. And of course, that just encourages him to use them even more.

Photo rejects

Biscuit used to love to have his picture taken. And he was really good at it, too. He would smile so big and would look straight at the camera.

Nowadays, I have to give constant photo directions.

"Stand up straight." "Look at the camera." "Quit making that face!" "Stand still!"

And I have proof.

Here are some photo rejects from the first day of school.

---

"What do you mean this doesn't look like a real smile?"

"Oh. You wanted my eyes open?"

"Look how big I can make my eyes. Isn't this creepy looking?"

"I can make a really weird face, too. Does this make you want to laugh?"

"I know you said to stand still, but my leg itches, so I'm just going to use this foot to scratch this other leg."

Old habits

When school is over for the day, Biscuit stays put for ACES (After-School Care Enrichment Services). It's a countywide program that is really affordable, plus I love that he stays right there at the school.

He and his closest friends were put in the same group this year, so they'll get to spend a lot of time together. So he was excited about seeing all of them.

At the end of the first day of school, I drove to the school to pick him up as usual.

The doors are all locked. They can get out, but we can't get in without being let in. You have to hit something that looks like a doorbell button. It has a camera built in to the panel, and whoever is in the ACES office, can see who's there and buzz you in.

So I got all that done and walked into the multi-purpose room (gym, auditorium, cafeteria). There are white boards on the wall with a schedule for each group. That will tell you where your kid is. I checked the time and realized that Biscuit's group was in Room 109. So off I went.

Except for some reason, Room 109 didn't quite click.

Next thing I know, I'm standing in the doorway with his group leader from last year looking at me with a big smile.

"This is not where I'm supposed to be!" I said to him and started laughing.

"Old habits die hard," he said. He was laughing at me, too.

I turned around to go to Room 109 and ran smack into the principal.

"I went to the wrong room," I told him. "This was Griffin's group from last year."

I thought it was pretty funny, but I guess the principal didn't know whether he should laugh or not. So he just smiled and said, "Have a nice evening."

I eventually found Biscuit and told him what happened. Like me, he got a good laugh out of it.