How Many 30 Something Women Does it Take to Mow a Lawn?

So, I just mowed the lawn for the first time without my hubby's assistance. Sounds simple right? Yeah.....it wasn't. A play by play has been narrated for you below. It's long, but I think you'll find it worthwhile.

"Dude, should Mom mow the lawn for Daddy?" "Yes, okayyyy! Wylan help."

Mom gets the mower started, first try and starts jumping up and down in excitement. We've gone this route twice in the past with no success, so this was a step in the right direction! For 2 seconds...I didn't pull the bar down fast enough, so it kills out.

10 minutes later...still can't get the stupid, 20 year old beast re-started and by this time the engine is completely flooded. We sit down and wait for a man to walk by who can help. No one comes. Oh wait, my lovely neighbor Maria exits her house with 2 year old Riley. Together, we try, to no avail. In the background Riley and dude fight quietly over his play lawn mower and Riley covers her ears in anticipation of the real lawn mower firing up.

We're about to give up, convinced that it's not our lack of strength but the fact that the engine is flooded. Low and behold, the 200 pound manly mail carrier pulls up. Maria and I look at each other... "Excuse us. We have a manly job and wondered if you might be able to help us?" He furrows his brow and looks up at us, not knowing what to say at this point. "We can't, for the life of us, get this mower started and figure if you can't do it, we'll call it a day." Relief washes over his face. "Sure, I'm willing to give it a shot!"

Manly mail man gives it a couple pulls and sure enough, the thing fires right up. We all start cheering (Maria and I, not the manly mail man) and he goes on his mail man way. I start the mowing process and Maria says, "It's not actually cutting the grass!" In fear of stopping and it turning off, Maria pushes it around the yard while I call Tim for help. Riley and dude are now screaming at each other over the play lawn mower and another neighbor pulls up to drop something off. "Tim, the mail man started the mower, but it's not cutting. What do I do?" "The mail man did WHAT?" My other neighbor stands there, holding the envelope for me, staring at us like loons and says, "That's why we have an electric mower."

Tim tells me what to do with the black bar and Maria gets it in cutting mode. We start chearing in excitement again and I tell her, "Go! Go! Don't let it stop!" I hang up on Tim and take over. Maria and Riley head home, congratulating me on the way. Then dude starts following me, screaming louder and louder. I just smile and say "Yeah!" since I can't hear him and he starts getting REAL mad. He wants a hug. Really?

I fear that I'm going to have to quit half way through, until my savior Maria sees the commotion and takes a crying dude away from me into the comfort of her home. I finish the lawn 10 minutes later and go to retrieve my dude. Maria says, "Aren't you gonna do the back?" I say, "Yeah, not a chance."

I was gonna be real proud to show off my freshly mowed lawn to Tim when he got home, but he undoubtedly already shook his head in embarrassment over the fact that I not only needed Maria's help, but also the mail man and phone assistance from him just to get the freaking thing started. Hey, I've never claimed self-sufficiency when it comes to stereotypical manly duties, but I give it my all.

Sweet success. Well, not super sweet...semi-sweet.

Words of Wisdom from the Dude

Ok, maybe we're not yet at the stage his speech being "wise," but it's cute none-the-less. The latest (note, sometimes he says his "r's" and other times not so much):

On a walk Saturday night (while Daddy was on his guys weekend in the armpit of the country, I mean, beautiful Indiana)..."Mommy, where's Daddy? Daddy on aiwplane. Daddy kiss Mommy! Mommy kiss Daddy! Mommy, Daddy kissin Wylan."

The morning after he received his first bee sting. We're laying in bed reading books and he starts waving his arms saying, "Bzzzzzzz. Bee bitin Wylan (Rylan) in gwass (grass)! Mia's (Maria) house, ouch on foot! Wylan cwy (cry) wahh wahh wahhh! Bad bee!"

It was 99+ degrees on Saturday, so I filled up his big kid pool in the back yard. Naturally, I chose to sit in the shade reading magazines. For 2 minutes. As he's 2 inches from my face for the 5th time, he says, "Mommy! Clothes off pease! Badin suite on wif Wylan..... pease! Play in pool wight now.... pease!" I caved and sat in the pool with him for 30 minutes.

We pull into the garage Sunday night and there's mysterious Mexican music blaring across the street (still don't know from where). I opened dude's door and he is bobbing his little head back and forth, grinning ear to ear. The next morning he points across the street and says, "Very loud song in the twees (trees)! Acwoss da street! Song in the twees! Wylan dance."

Sunday afternoon, on the way home from Home Depot. "Dude, what would you like for lunch today?" "Ahhhhhh......Fruit snacks." "What else?" "Ahhhhh......crackers." "Ok, what else?" "Ahhhhh.....Mms." (M&Ms) "And what else?" "Ahhhhh...white milky."

I think that's enough dudeisms for today. I'm sure there will be plenty more wisdom to come.

My "Beauty?" Mark

Growing up, I was told by the adult figures in my life that the predominant mole between my left nostril and upper lip was a sign of beauty. Something to be proud of. It linked me with Cindy Crawford and put my mole in the category of super model status. SO...I wore that mole with pride and never thought a thing of it.

Until kids entered my life. It started with our niece Anne. When she was about 3.5 years old, she was sitting on my lap, staring at my face. Very intently. I asked her what she saw and she quickly pointed and said, "Spider! It's a spider! Mommy has spiders too, but hers don't have hairs coming out of them." I soon realized that she was referring to my beauty mark. The eruption of laughter from all the adults in the room at that moment put the first ding in my mole's self esteem.

The second ding came from my dear pseudo niece Payton. She was standing in front of me at the tender age of 1.5, staring at my face. I immediately clammed up and asked her what she was looking at. Surely she would see the mole as something to be revered. She got very nervous, started pointing and said, "Spider! Spider!"

The third ding came yesterday. This was was a stinger. My darling child was sitting on the patio with me. We were discussing the trees, birds, flowers and all things lovely, when he stood up and looked at my face like it was the first time ever seeing me. I chose NOT to ask him what he was looking at, but he insisted on telling me. It went a little something like this.....Head cocked, eyes squinty, the finger appears, touches the beauty mark and his squeaky little voice says, "Mommy! Big booger on face! Big booger!"

Thus ends any thoughts that my Cindy Crawford feature is one to be fond of. Kids tell it like it is- there's no way around that. Now I just wonder how many adults in my lifetime have thought there was a big hairy spider or nasty booger on face. Not as hot as I thought.

A Family Packed Weekend

Momma (Nanna K) came for a heavenly 4 day visit this past weekend. We took full advantage of having her here and played hard. She romped around in the fountain park with the dude, we took a "hike" along the Platte River, swam at the pool, hung at the park, dined with Oma and Opa, read a lot of books, and on and on. She's the bestest Nanna and Momma and we missed her the minute she was gone.

Grandpa V & Uncle Brendan also came in this weekend. We got to host them for dinner Saturday night and Grandpa treated us to a lovely brunch on Sunday morning. Dude was pumped about the attention from Brendan. A+ for Brendan! It was awesome to see you guys too.

Next we get to go to Alabama to see our super fun Grandma V & Grandpa Marc. Counting down the days! How blessed are we? Blessed.

Party Like it's 1980-somethin'

I know....hot stuff. It's not often that you can get away with dolling up in paint splashed leggings, jelly shoes, a mini skirt and layered pink scrunchies. Oh...and a DARE shirt and hideous french rolled jeans. Oh...and combed over hair and a high side pony. Why did my love and I venture into 80's territory? We had an 80's neighborhood party to go to of course!

My momma was in town and stayed home with the sleeping dude while we got our party on. Granted, we weren't old enough to truly party in the 80's, but who's counting? We have this rad group of neighborhood buds that we're blessed to hang out with and we had a pretty rockin' time at Leslie and Keith's house. They have a wooden dance floor and sunken trampoline in their yard...what else could you ask for?

Flashback to crazy sprinkler fun

Our dude typically loves all things water, but last weekend's sprinkler experience at PR and Brady's house posed a new challenge. The water hoses went every which direction and he wasn't quite sure how to tackle those sporadic hoses. So he stood on the outskirts and laughed at Brady, who had no qualms about attacking each hose. At one point the dude got in the pool and Bradster took that opportunity to take a hose and point it directly in dude's face (see photo below). That did NOT go over well and when he was done torturing dude, he put it in his sissy's face, causing the same reaction. Pretty funny stuff when the screaming finally came to an end. Summer - can't beat it.

Hiking - a Real Trip

Phrases heard (over and over) on our Saturday morning hike at Roxborough Park.

"Whylan hike wif purple backpack, okayyyyeeee?" (We recently boyified his backpack selection with a black cars backpack, but the purple Dora pack is still in his heart).

"Whylan see birdies. Mo birdiess again okayyyeeee?"

"Whylan see yellow flowers. More yellow flowers again okayyyeee?"

"Whylan see big bugs. More big bugs again okayyyyeee?"

You get the idea on that round of conversational elements.

Crying very loudly, followed by...."Bad big wocks! Wylan fall down - go boom! Bad big wocks!" The remainder of the hike was filled with, "Mommy help you Wylan. Holdin Wylan Mommy."

The hike ended promptly as Mommy's arms can't hold his 2.5 year old frame much longer than 10 minutes. Other than 2 very scraped up legs, the dude thoroughly enjoyed his hiking experience. As did Mom and Dad - especially after the 4 hour nap that followed.

Life. It doesn't get much sweeter than this.

Dad ends up carrying the empty backpack most of the way.

Kazoomhite dude. We'll start working on covering our mouth for these occasions.

Fantastic Friday Fun

So much weekend fun to cover, I don't even know where to start. Chronologically makes the most sense I suppose. Friday morning the dude and I were looking for some aquatic fun and were magically invited to the coolest place ever. Our neighbor friend Kristin's parents live in a neighborhood by a big lake about 20 minutes from our house. It has a beach, slides, trampolines, a park, tennis, fishing....aquatic heaven for little kids and adult kids alike. We had a great time exploring and playing with our bud Avery. Thanks for the invite friends!

Chuga Chuga...

Can't think of a better way to spend a beautiful Colorado morning than climbing on and admiring an entire outdoor museum's worth of trains. Well, I actually can, but the dude thought it was G-R-E-A-T. And so did our buddy Emma. We met Mike and Stacy and their clan in Golden (near the foothills) and got our train fix for the year. Ringing the bell on the black train was definitely the highlight - we could have left the two of them there the entire time and found them in the exact same spot. But I suppose that wouldn't have been good parenting.

Mike got some great shots for us - thanks guys! Let's train again soon.

CA Girls Weekend Hooplah

The view from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Having an ultra talented photographer in your closest circle of friends is starting to have some major benefits. A couple months ago, my bud Amy called me with major glee to let me know that we were going to Cabo for a wedding she was hired to shoot. I was totally on board...until we looked at our schedule of craziness and the swine flu reared its ugly head. Mexico being its home base. I bailed with much regret. Luckily, she didn't give up on me and invited me to San Jose, CA this past weekend for another glam wedding. I accepted and we had a marvelous time.

Quick summary of highlights...Photo shoot for the bride's sister's fam Friday morning...San Fran Friday afternoon....H&M shopping Saturday morning...assisting with the wedding of Matt and Netta Saturday afternoon (super fun to help out and watch Amy in action)...massage and hot bath Saturday night -pure heaven...day trip to Monteray Bay Sunday...up at 5:00am for 6:30am flight Monday morning...sitting in my office by 10:30am Monday morning.

Summary of lo-lights...our rental car was a PT Cruiser (Ptttttt) for short...food poisoning in San Fran Friday afternoon (will never dine on clam chowder again)...driving in bumper to bumper traffic back to San Jose for 68 long miles Sunday afternoon. Can't have perfection I guess!

That wraps it up. Tim and the dude had a fabulous male bonding weekend. My hubby is a rock star. Thanks Ame! Can't wait for the next wedding weekend extravaganza.