Summer Fun (and a poo story)

Down by the meadow in da itty bitty pool....That is the children's song playing over in my head like a broken record. I use to listen and dance to hip hop. But, Emme LOVES it when we sing her silly songs, so I will continue to do so. She is now a whopping 4 months old, and I cannot believe how the time is flying. I keep saying that in my blogs, but it is so true!

The picture to the left was taken about 20 minutes before what will now be known as the "Target Incident". I never really thought I would blog about baby poo, but the Target Incident is worthy of a mention. Luckily, my mom was in town all week for a Nan-cation (get it? a vacation for Nan)... So clever. Anyway, we were on our daily Target run when low and behold, someone needed a diaper change. I am not a big fan of changing diapers in public bathrooms. I know this is something I need to get over, but they ran one of those dang 20/20s on how dirty public bathrooms are and I have been scarred. That and motel bedspreads. Seriously, just toss those on the ground when you arrive and then sanitize your hands. Back to the poo. Sometimes there are no alternatives to public restrooms, so in we went. I had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. As soon as I took Emme out of the car seat I knew it was going to be bad. The smell alone could tell a story. To get the visual, picture me holding a yellow and green poo smeared naked child, from her toes all the way up her back, with one hand as my mom and I are furiously wiping and wiping and smearing and wiping to attempt to clean the poor girl. Emme was a trooper, a pooper trooper (I crack myself up) and tolerated the humiliating stance as we cleaned. Once we hosed her down and got her dressed my mom and I let out a big sign. I was actually sweating from the workout. What would I have done if my mom hadn't been around for this 2 person job? These kids... Luckily, this has been the only major blowout by Miss Em. I just jinxed myself didn't I?



Summer, thus far, has been a lot of fun. It is wonderful to have long evenings, and we are trying to take advantage of my reduced work schedule. Emme loves going to the pool, and we plan to do that all summer at Ridglea. Ruben is embarrassed we are members of a country club, so I won't mention it much, but it is great having access to a nice pool and tennis courts for the summer. Rube has convinced himself that if he starts playing tennis this summer he will be able to beat me on my birthday. Why my birthday, you ask? I honestly don't know, but that is his goal. I told him that I was hoping my 9 years of private instruction on top of 3 years of highly competitive 5A Varsity tennis would sustain me during this challenge, but we'll see. I am pretty confident, however.

This is my little Strawberry Shortcake. I just want to eat her up! Her Tia T found this suit for her, and we love it. She is living up to her Pisces sign and seems to really enjoy the water. We learn more and more about her personality every day. She is a laid back, very happy baby 99.9% of the time. The other 1% of the time, such as when you take her bottle away to burp her, watch out! She tells us in no uncertain terms what she does and does not like, and she does NOT like to be interrupted when eating. Definitely her mother's daughter!

We have a few vacations planned that are coming up soon. The first trip will be with the Pigg and Akins families to O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, OKLAHOOOO-MA! Apparently Oklahoma is Oklacool, according to the commercials. Not exactly the No. 1 vacation spot in the nation, but it was centrally located for us and the Tennessians, so we have rented a very nice cabin at Broken Bow lake. There will be some hiking, biking, golfing, fishing, boating, eating, etc. It will be Emme's first true vacation, so we will have it well documented with photos. The second vacation will be in Port Aransas with Ruben's parents and the Brightman's. This will be Emme's first trip to the beach, so I anticipate many Kodak moments to come.

Check back soon, and I promise, no more poo stories. Unless it is a really good one, and then I will have to share.