Corndog!

Yesterday, in the middle of Hurricane Irene, I ran a race. It was the first time for this race, and it was a really good one. Good shirts, good swag, and check this... FREE BEER! Yes, if you brought your bib into the restaurant sponsoring the race, you got a free beer. So of course we went there for dinner!

Now mind you, Sterling had made hot dogs for lunch that day, but when James saw corndogs on the dinner menu, he was on it like a hobo on a ham sandwich... or a 7 year old on a corndog! Sterling tried to convince him that he did not need ANOTHER hot dog, but James continued to lobby hard for the corndog, eventually just saying it over and over to get his point across (not as annoying as it sounds). Sterling told him, "James, every time you say 'corndog', I'm going to kiss you", which naturally led to a round of "corndog! corndog!" followed by less-than-gentle daddy kisses, complete with extra whiskers!

I'd forgotten all about it until I was putting James to bed tonight, and he asked (as always) for me to snuggle for a few. We chatted a little, then he got quiet, giggled a little, then said "corndog" and cracked up. I went, "whaa... OH!" and of course, had to start kissing like crazy. We both laughed for a minute, then he said, "you know, if I said that to Daddy, he'd say 'dude, I don't know what you're talking about'". So, I told James I'd send him in. I went to the other room where he was watching TV and told him what James said, and James had nailed it... at first Sterling said "corndog?". I reminded him about it, and of course he had to go down there and allow James to corndog him (yeah, that doesn't sound good, does it?). And that was that!

Show someone how much you love them with a good "corndog!"

First day of school!!!

Hooray! No, I probably didn't have it as bad over the summer as MY mom (and Sterling's). They didn't get to ship their kids off to camp every day during the summer, their kids were banging around the house for 3 months on end. School, for them, was the blessed regaining of a quiet house.

We never quite lost our quiet daytime house, but we did lose our routine. Why bother to be strict about bedtime when you can get the kid to camp whenever? Why scramble to be at camp at exactly the right time when you don't have to? Take a bath? Why bother, you just went to the pool, that's almost the same... right?

So now I am back in MY comfort zone (Sterling and James might be cringing, but momma is happy!). We get up at a certain time, we are out the door at a certain time, school starts at a fixed time. Bedtime is 8:30 on the nose. Yes, you damn well take a bath at night unless you sat immobile all day. Soccer is starting up, and soon Cub Scouts will, too. Our life is about to get busy in whole different way, but it's a SCHEDULED busy, which I can deal with!

Hooray for structure and sanity!

Oh yeah, and here's the cute little man on his first day of 2nd grade! AND, that doggone tooth FINALLY broke the skin and is starting to come in.

Useless Mommy

The King of the Castle got on my case last night about my lackidaisical approach to posting pics or updating the blog. Ya know, cause I have so much time on my hands! Anyhoo... I did get some pics posted, and I hope you'll take note of the 2, count them: TWO recent blog entries (not counting this one).

We've got beach pics and Summer Camp pics out on the Shutterfly site. Enjoy!

A new school year begins!

Already! I know! And because you have seen the results of when James dresses himself, you won't believe what he picked out himself to wear to Open House tonight! Nobody rocks a tie and Birkenstocks like James Woodruff, and his new teacher was appropriately wowed.. as she should have been!

Last week of camp..

So sad! But, like always, they make it a good one! They also call this Spirit Week, and every day has a theme. One of the days was Halloween Costume day, and another was Fashion Disaster Day. Can you guess which was which?

Some things are best left unsaid

Wow, we went back-to-school shopping today and probably spent about a hundred smackers on notebooks, paper, pencils, blah blah blah. One of the things James selected, that was not on his list, was a new ruler. He just really liked this neat little bendy one, and whatever.. in for a penny, in for a pound! Plus, ya know, maybe he'll measure stuff and do some math 'n' stuff.

So we got home, and I asked James to bring it up to his room. He came back down, hollering for Daddy, and I told him he was outside, what did he need? He said, "that ruler would be really good for spanking.. it hurts!". I asked him, ".. and you wanted to let Daddy know that? You sure about that?". It didn't take him more than a few seconds to pick up what Mommy was laying down, and he replied, "oh. no."

The adventure never ends

So James is home "sick" today. He apparently threw up at camp yesterday, and even though he seemed perfectly fine otherwise, he insisted he was still sick today, and I didn't want to be that mom who makes her kid go to camp the day after he threw up and have him do it again.

Pain in my..... as is his wont, unless he's on Death's door, even if he really is sick he'll bounce off the damned walls. When he's fine, as I suspect he is, he's a friggin' mess. He's not been too terribly bad today, but it's like he WAITS until I'm on a phone call (the only work call of the day!) to lose his mind! I finally finish up, send him to his room to clean it, while I hop on one more quick call...

.. which is interrupted by James running into the room saying "I think I swallowed a Lego!". I excuse myself from the call, and ask him, "are you sure? what kind? how big?". Turns out it was a 2-dot block, and all of a sudden he says "I'm scared" and bursts into tears. I console him a little bit, and explain, "that Lego is going to go on quite an adventure".. and I explain how it's eventually coming out. Then he says in this sad little voice, "I wanted to play with it".

This too, shall pass... (haha.. get it?)

Young love

James has a crush. Her name is Maggie, she's a little bit older than him, and she lives down the street. She's cute as a button, and she holds her own with the boys (probably part of the appeal).

This boy cannot WAIT to get home and see if Maggie wants to play! And of course, she always does, because James seems to be alot of fun, too! They are awfully cute! Yesterday they were taking a milk break, and James told her, "you look like the Mona Lisa... the Mona Lisa With Milk!". Have you ever heard anything that smooth?

James told me last week that Maggie was his girlfriend. I asked him if he'd told her that, and after thinking about it for a minute, he confirmed that he had not. My suggestion to him was that he do so, since she might want a say in the matter!

Last night he informed me, "I told Maggie that I loved her". He seemed a little unsure about having done that. I asked him, "what did she say?". "Nothing. She didn't say anything". I let him know that his daddy pretty much did the same thing when I first professed MY love, so it's not that unusual! I said, "you might have surprised her when you told her that, and maybe she just needs to think about it.". He seemed ok with that, but you could tell that this was a big deal for him, it's like he knew what a big step it was to tell a girl that you love her. Wow.

Cub Scout Camp

Summer just gets better and better for the J-Dog. First 4H camp, then a week of Y camp, then Cub Scout Camp! A whole week of armpit farts, burps, shooting BB guns, archery, and no girls! What more can you ask for when you are a 7 year old boy?!

So pretty much every day they shot BB guns, bones and arrows (James' term), and fished. They rounded out the rest of the time with crafts, nature, and stuff like that. The only way you can actually earn your BB gun and archery belt loops is to do so at scout camp, so that's just the icing on the cake.

James was already a pretty good shot and very safe around guns, but now he also knows to ask "permission to enter the range", and he can rattle off every part of his gun. As I'm sure you can guess, that made Sterling tear up a little.

In order to sign your kid up for camp, you have to be willing to volunteer at least one day. Sterling did 2, and next year is doing the whole week. I'm sure it won't be long before he's running the place!

We finished off the week with Family Day, where we came out at lunchtime to hang out and see the camp, and then see the kids perform their skits. They are just as corny as you probably remember from your own scouting days, some things apparently never change! James was totally bummed when it was over, and is counting the days until next year!

Belated posts...

Ok, I am woefully behind on updates, so here's a twofer!

First, BEFORE SCHOOL LET OUT (yes, I'm that far behind), James' awesome teacher, Mrs. Mac, had a Pirate Day.. they were studying pirates anyway, so they totally rolled with it and had a whole themed day. Here's the pic of James on the way home (they made the earrings and got their tats in class!).

This also illustrates the other news, which is that James is currently missing about half of his teeth! He's got a real checkerboard going on there.. the top front two are missing, with one about halfway back, and the two bottom ones directly beside the very front ones are missing. He looks like a cute pumpkin! Poor thing, we had hot dogs and corn on the cob last night, and they were both a major struggle! But ya know, pirates aren't known for perfect denture.

Camp!

Holy cats, we're on week 3 of summer / camp, and we are ready for a vacation! It keeps us crazy busy, but fortunately... we have a superhero to help us through it.

.. or maybe we'll just try to be as mellow as we can, man...

(YMCA camp consisted of 1 superhero day, and 1 day that include tie-dying headbands.. which turned his forehead red after he sweated)

Missing you...

So two weekends ago (gosh, I cannot BELEIVE it's already been that long), the Lamancusas made a trip down for the weekend. We had an awesome time, and James and Elanie had soo much fun together. He was super-excited about seeing her, and totally bummed when they left.

On Monday, when Daddy brought him home from camp, he asked, "is Elanie here yet". Sterling broke the news to him that they'd left that day to go back home, and James' little face just fell. He said, "oooh. She's so doggone cute and has the funniest laugh! I miss her!".

Not to shabby criteria to look for in a lady.. nice laugh and she's a cutie!

Sweet as... ??

We've been putting the finishing touches on our end-of-year gift for James' teacher, Mrs. Mac. Our signature gift has become one of those collapsible fabric picnic baskets, filled with school supplies for the next year. I thought it would be nice to have James write a thank you note, too, since his writing has improved so much this year!

I finally corralled the little bugger tonight and we sat down to do some writing. We've been talking about it for about a week and a half now, to make sure he knew what he wanted to say, and once he put pencil to paper, the words just flowed! Here's what he wrote:

"Dear Mrs. Mac, I like you. You are sweet like butter. Thank you, Mrs. Mac, I had a GREAT year! Love, James"

He said he wanted to write "you are sweet", and then he started to write "like.." and I said, "aw, like what?", and then I saw the letters spelling 'b-u-t-t-e-r" and said, "WHAT? James... is butter sweet?", to which he replied "it is if you put brown sugar on it... mmmm!". Hopefully he'll explain that part to her when he gives her the note.

Timing Official

I finally just got sick of trying to get James to come home at a certain time, or to remember to take breaks to do certain things, so I broke down and got him a decent watch. We took a trip to REI yesterday (mommy's favorite store) and bought him a decent Timex. It not only tells the time, but has a stopwatch, timer, and 3 alarms you can set. AND, the coolest part of all is that it's got this little Indiglo button you push to light up the background... obviously his favorite feature!

You would think he'd never seen a watch in his life. He is so tickled with this thing! At least once an hour, he randomly walks into a room to announce the time. If you ask him to do something, he wants to know when, and how long he has to do it. So the good news is, it's working! It's just a little annoying.

Last night I was putting him to bed (he wanted to wear the thing, I nixed that), he had to find the perfect spot for his watch, and he noticed that was ONE MINUTE OFF from his alarm clock! He reported this to me with obvious concern, and didn't seem very convinced when I told him it could wait until the morning. I tucked him in, walked away, and about 10 minutes later, this little voice reminded me, yet again, that it was wrong and needed to be corrected (he used the word "corrected"). I corrected HIM, and told him that it would darn sure wait until the morning, and if it bothered him that much, I could hang onto the watch for him. It stopped bothering him.

Aren't we a little young for that...?

James keeps his money in an old milk bottle. After I'd given him his allowance last night, he put it in the bottle, then put the bottle on the floor and asked me, "want to play a game? you spin the bottle!". Wha-a-a-a?? I kept my cool, and asked, ".. and then what?", and he said, "then whoever it points to, it's THEIR turn to spin the bottle! Isn't that a great game?!"

It's alot better than I thought it would be!

Race time!

I must be crazy. Even though I just ran a 1/2 marathon last month, and am kicking myself for signing up for another THIS month, for some reason I threw in a 10K this past weekend, too! They actually had a kid's dash, followed by.. get this.. RACE CAMP for kids! So James got to run, then there was essentially babysitting thrown in while grown-ups ran THEIR race! How much does THAT rock!?

James had a good time, although he admitted that he was a little bummed about not runningwith me. So, we'll be doing the Komen 5K together in June. BTW, feel free to make a donation by clicking clicking here and searching for my name.

Also, here's a pic of the happy racers!

And another tooth!

Poor little guy looks like a pumpkin! One of the top two has just started to grow out, the other is still just a big gap, and now he's got another little space on the bottom!

Runnin' an' bloggin'

Ok, so I know some of you are kinda sick of hearing about the whole running thing. It's cool. You may have to deal with the fact that I will continue to post major running goings on here, like when I rock the 1/2 marathon next month (I wish), but I'll keep the daily grind and toenail updates to a minimum (wow, for some reason it was really hard to type the word "minimum".. try it sometime).

For those of you who do want to know when my toenail falls off, or where I'm using Body Glide, I've started a blog on SparkPeople that's all about my running woes (link on the right). I've been following another blogger, who goes by SUAR (short for Shut Up and Run), and I love it! I thought it might be fun to try it myself.

SparkPeople is like Facebook for people trying to connect about healthy habits.. eating, exercising, all that good stuff. I've found that blogging there about running is great for extra motivation, a good way to connect with other running nuts, and just plain therapeutic when you know you have 6 months of crazy hard training in front of you.

So no more toenails here, but if you need your fix, you can hop over to the new blog. Happy trails.

Hunker down, ya'll!

Holy cats we had some bad weather here today! There was a terrible storm that moved through just about the whole state, spawning thunder and lightning and TORNADOS, oh my! We spent about 30 mins in the downstairs hallway, on high alert, until it got REAL and a tornado touched down a few miles south of here, then we all crammed into the downstairs bathroom. HALF bath. One adult, one 7-year old, 2 dogs, 1 cat, 3 stuffed animals*, and a beanbag. Seriously.

That was one looooong 30 minute Tornado Warning. *James wanted his animals because they made him feel better... he totally knew what was going on and was a bit nervous. They went in the sink (because where else?!), we had a pillow with us on top of them, and that was all topped off with Cat. Beanbag wedged in beside the toilet, and the dogs AND their water bowl took up what little space was left. I sat on the toilet and couldn't even lean against the wall because of the damn chair railing.

Mind you, our dogs are gassy, and it was not long after lunch. Even with the fan on, it was hot and not fun. When that a/c kicked on, I was THRILLED... but not as thrilled as when Sterling texted me to tell me it was past us and we could come out. Whew.

Ironic, no?

Here's what I found when I pulled back the covers after waking up little Mr. Man this morning...

At some point during the night, he'd taken it upon himself to cover his toes with bandaids (the "Vrooom" one on the right foot is actually legit.. none of the others are). The irony is, he said he did it to help him remember to be good today. In doing so, he a) wasted about a dozen bandaids, b) used his scissors to cut the little pouch I keep bandaids in because he couldn't get it open, c) made kind of a mess of bandaid trash that the dogs could have gotten into, and d) wrapped his toes so thoroughly that he had trouble walking down the stairs to breakfast this morning.

Hope he remembers to be good!

(p.s.: please ignore the dog hair on that rug in the picture)