The Big DumpTruck

[Editor: Found the list. Whew!]

I was pawing through the old Dump archives just now, because I was looking for my old blogroll list. I know I kept a copy of it before I deleted the code off my website, because sometimes I'm smarter than I look. Except I can't find it so I don't know that I do actually have a copy. In which case I am a huge moron.

Junior was sitting with me, and he wanted to know if I had anything written about him from back when he was born. There isn't a lot in the main dump, and that's likely because a)having a baby sucks up all your energy, man. And b) I had created a web page just for him, but I can't find any trace of it anywhere. So sad to lose your history like that. And I know I've already written here about not being able to find the page, but that's just something we'll all have to live with. My obsessive-compulsive hoarding disorder (not formally diagnosed, but sometimes you can read about something and there is NO WAY you don't have it) means that I will freak about losing web pages FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.

It's so fun to be me.

He had this to say to me after reading a post about his first trip to the playground: "That's why I like water slides. It mixes slides and swimming."

Okay, well, now I have to try to figure out what I did with the list of sites that were on my blogroll. This does chap my hide. And my lips.

Labels: junior, mookie

I know I don't really maintain the podcast any more (mostly because my mac.com site expired) so this would be turned into a podcast if I still had one. Which I don't. That doesn't mean you shouldn't watch this video to make the hit count go up which would make me feel pretty good about myself. I'm just saying.

Here we have Junior and Phantom, doing a bit of a duet.

Labels: junior, phantom, video

Someone pointed out to me this morning that today is the first day of fall. I guess that by now, we've been up to our earballs in fall stuff, so it isn't as much of a shock to the system as it would be to have summer end, say, in August. It's a non-event; we already thought it was fall.

That doesn't make me 100% happy, though. I missed most of summer. Didn't really do anything beach-y or vacation-y, you know, the uber summer vacation stuff. As Junior gets older I do feel a sense of panic that the months are years are passing and by the time I can actually take time off from work to go "do" things with him, he won't want to. You know, he'll be a sullen teenager. Or he'll be out of the house. I'm scared to death of that happening because he's just one of the coolest, funniest people I know, and if I don't have him to hang around with, I'm going to be very very sad. Batman needs Robin, you know? And Mr. Dump won't wear tights.

So ya, the end of summer makes me angry. Damn you, earth, and your tilty nature!

Other than that, things are good, thanks for asking. Only a little over a month until the next NaNoWriMo. I think I'm going to do it again. I'm going to guess Christine and Foo are going to avoid talking to me until December 1st so that I won't harass them to sign up.

Labels: autumn, fall, junior, Vacation

Photo take today at Strawbery Banke, Portsmouth NH, as Mr. Dump made every effort on the planet to give me a typical touristy vacation day. They have some old-fashioned toys available for today's modern child to try out. Junior was VERY taken with rolling a hoop and trying to get the little wooden ball into the cup. (Shades of Stewie Griffin, anyone?)

He was also very taken with the Jacob's Ladder toy. Seriously, we were amused by how much he loved these hundred + year-old toys. I could trade in a bunch of his video games and buy some little wooden toys. I'll bet that would go over really well.

Actually, this is a kid whose most valuable possession is a beat-to-hell blue plastic bat. So wooden toys might be good.

Please note the blinding sunlight in this photo (actually screwed up most of my photos so I have to add fill light in post-processing). After we grabbed a traditional Irish Pub [late] lunch at Molly Malone's (Mr. Dump had bangers and mash, nuff said.) we headed home - into the worst thunderstorm so far this summer. And that's saying something. I'm waiting for the power to go off.

Labels: fun, junior, Vacation

Finally got Junior's Team added to the Jimmy Fund web site (the manager is supposed to do it, but our league didn't, so I took matters into my own hands).

http://www.jimmyfundevents.kintera.org/littleleague/laferriere

I have only a few days before the donation deadline for physical checks, but you can also use a credit or debit card to donate on the official Jimmy Fund website and they'll handle everything for you.

I set up a web page for donations, and if you're interested in seeing the most handsome second baseman on the planet, you can see a photo of him collecting outside of Wyman's last Saturday at the donation website.

I appreciate everyone who even visits the site to check out my kid. *proud parent*

Labels: baseball, charity, junior

My son had a sleepover here last night and all he got me was a short video movie he made with his friend. The file is stored over at flickr (they do video now too) and I think MAYBE you can download this one to watch on your iPod. I'm not sure if it will let everyone, or just me because it's in my account. Actually, can someone let me know? If you can't, I can try to upload the M4V version here with a link. Because I know you want to watch this daily on your iPod or iPhone. I know I do.

Labels: flickr, junior, outer space, video

Junior, who was selected to play on one of the Jimmy Fund 10 Year old teams from North Leominster played against one of the Leominster American teams last night. Final score? 28-4. It was a horrible, crushing win. At the top of the 6th the score was 28-0. The parents on both teams were completely subdued - even our kids noticed that their parents were no longer cheering for them. We all just wanted the whole thing to be over. Hey, we've been there at a game where our kids were stepped on like that. What I don't get is why the don't FORCE a mercy rule (if you're up by more than 10 runs after the 4th, the game is considered complete) or an inning run limit (normal season is 4 runs except for the 6th [final] inning). I thought I read on the District tournament site that there was a 5 fun limit. I guess that before the game the managers of the two teams playing get to decide if they want to enforce the limit and the mercy rule, and both managers agreed to play without one.

By the fifth inning, several of us were wondering if we should offer them a second chance to call the game, as their players just seemed so horribly sad and crushed, and as parents, we just didn't want to continue to torture them.

You know it's bad when we all started to applaud them whenever they got an out, just because we were happy for them. Totally involuntary reaction at that point.

So yes, we were very excited for the win, but nobody wants to see that kind of blowout, unless it's the Red Sox against the Yankees.

Labels: baseball, junior

Yes, yes indeed, gas hit a new high today. Thank you CNN. Did you not hear what I said yesterday? Am I just whistling into the wind over here? Sheesh, it's like a girl can't change the world just by writing about it and posting it to her website. I have 60-100 hits a day, are you telling me that one of those is NOT CNN? AP? The Leominster Champion? Sheesh.
Speaking of the Leominster Champion and champions in general, Junior's minor league team, Piper Electric, won the playoffs (North Leominster Little League) on Saturday, so their team will get to go to the cities in August. He's been playing baseball in that league for 5 or 6 years now (I keep losing count) and this is the first time his team has been this good. It was a really great group of kids who were a pleasure to watch. The team we beat, Valliere's, was a worthy opponent and my personal choice for the team to win if we couldn't.
I took a team photo after the game and gave copies to the three coaches. The sister of one of the coaches also took pictures that afternoon, and there's a 50/50 chance that the one I gave them will make the paper. I don't know which paper, but I'll let you know if it does.
p.s. This is kind of a test for people who actually read all the way to the end of one of my posts. I recently signed on with FaceBook. I don't really want to post my info out there for the universe to find, because I do like some level of privacy. If folks who also have a website "advertise" that they are on Facebook, how do you do it? Did you create a separate account for your website readers? Or did you find that people don't necessarily friend you even when you make the info readily available?p.p.s. At least one person from my blogroll sent me a note saying that she's in Facebook, but apparently she's got a hidden profile because I cannot find her to add her.

Labels: baseball, junior, websites

Junior's Little League team finished the regular season in 2nd place. They had a bye the first round, which is cool, so we didn't have any games yesterday. This morning there was a [very very damp] practice, and their first playoff game will be Tuesday. Because of the strict pitching rules in Little League being twice as strict during playoff games, they let Junior practice pitching this morning on the off chance that they run out of the regular pitchers and have to start plucking people out of the lineup to finish the game. He's thrilled, but I'm thinking that it would not be a good thing if he had to pitch, simply because he's never done it before, and having the pressure of trying to pitch well in a playoff game...well, I'd just rather we not have to dip into that pool without more practice.

Happy Father's Day everyone! Enjoy all the dad-activities you have planned, even if the plan is to not have any activities.

Labels: baseball, junior, kids

I suppose someone has already come up with the idea of mom badges. They would work like girl scout badges - if you do something worthy, you get a badge to wear on your mom-sash. Or perhaps your mom-vest if you've earned a lot of them.

I get to wear the "Dying in the Heat Watching Little League Games badge."

Junior played on Sunday (he had to be at the field at 1:30pm for a batting practice before the game) and on Monday night. Even though it started later, so you'd maybe assume it would be cooler, Monday was definitely the worst of the two games, because at least on Sunday there was a breeze. Man, what a difference a breeze makes! I was seriously starting to feel a bit panicky last night about how overheated I was getting. I was pulling the ice packs out of the little cooler I had and was applying it to my neck and wrists, just to keep things cool.

So I grant myself a mom badge today (it's lovely, it's got bleachers with those wavy heat lines coming off of them with a background picture of a baseball.) Anyone else earn one the past few days?

Labels: baseball, junior, kids, mommy

Just in time for Big Papi to go on the DL for a month or two, Junior decided to name the little boys Manny and Papi. Or Manny and David, which sounds funnier to me. To keep the "Z" thing going (Izzy, Suzy) I may call the little guys by their last names. I think it's nice to have a theme.

Speaking of Junior, yesterday he told me that at school he read my blog about the pudding skin. Do you know what this means? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? I've been writing this darned thing for so long that my kid is now a reader? Holy cow, that freaked me out. Now I have to make sure I remember that my 10 year old might decide to pull up my site at school and share with his teacher and friends (*waves to his teacher and friends*)

Now I'll get in trouble if I talk about him. Well, I've always tried to be nice, I'll just have to be nicer now.

As if that's even possible.

Yours truly,
Miss Mary Sunshine

Labels: blogs, gerbils, holy_crap, junior

I like Junior - he's a funny kid. I don't know what I'd do if I was stuck with a kid who didn't have a good sense of humor. And by good, I mean one that amuses me, personally.

This may not translate as well as I'd like, because it was part of a larger conversation, and you have to know about the kinds of snacks that parents buy for their kids these days. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of Fruit Roll-ups or Froot-by-the-Foot this is going to whoosh past you, granny.

I admitted publicly that I like pudding skin. Mr. Dump started to propose a method of exposing as many sides of the pudding as possible so that you could get a LOT of pudding skin out of one cup of pudding. And then Junior suggested Pudding Skin by the Foot. Well, that did it for me. The concept of a long strip of pudding skin that you unfold to eat brought me to tears.

But looking back, I don't think I'd buy it. Because part of the beauty of the whole fruit roll-up product is that it doesn't require refrigeration. If you leave pudding skin out, you'll really have pudding jerky, and I don't know if I'm ready for that.

Labels: food, junior, snacks

Junior [okay, really, me] is responsible for selling a box of candy bars for Little League. So I brought the box into work, because really, how many candy bars have I bought over the years?

Every day I put a new sign on the box, showing off my mad sales skillz. For two days I touted them has "health bars" [mental health, silly!] and Jon Lester's Secret Weapon. Today, I posted the following sign. I'll let you know which was the most effective.

Labels: gnomes, humor, junior

The thing about living in New England is that you're never really that far from the ocean. And if you've had to run an errand to the Apple Store in Salem NH, you're REALLY not that far from the ocean. So we took a detour out to Hampton Beach. It was fairly bustling, considering it's still the middle of May. There were plenty of people sitting on the beach, some in bathing suits, even though it wasn't all that warm. Perhaps they were visiting from Antarctica and considered it to be blistering hot?

We intended to park at the Hampton State Park and walk on the rocks, but apparently there was some kind of mega tow truck show or something. These are the tow trucks that you see pulling fire engines and dumptrucks, the kind that make you really wonder what kind of gas mileage they get. Anyhoo, they filled the ENTIRE parking lot, so we had to go down to the lots near the bathrooms and stuff.

At North beach there were a TON of people surfing. Not that there was anything too special about the waves, but it's been kind of crappy so I think people where just happy to get the heck out of the house.

I know I was!

Labels: beach, junior, photos

This is the poem I got for Mother's day this year. I did not expect a poem, but I was very happy to get it. It was written on a piece of foamy stuff with a magnet on the back so I can keep it on the fridge.

I started to write my mom a poem but it was not as good as this one so I just gave up altogether. I can honestly say that nobody has ever, ever, written me a better poem than this one, and I doubt they ever will.

My Mother's Day Poem, by Junior

My mom appreciates Mike Lowell
But I hope I make her complete
Without me there could be a hole
My mom appreciates Mike Lowell

We work together like some moles
But she also makes my heart beat
My mom appreciates Mike Lowell
But I hope I make her complete.

Labels: junior, love, Mike Lowell, poetry, Red_Sox

I'm more than a little bummed the past couple of days. (What day is this? Saturday? Okay, that's good.) Thursday night at Junior's Little League game he hit a GRAND SLAM, the first in his life (hell, he hasn't even hit a home run before now) and I did not capture the moment on film. Or on computer chip. For the first time, I'm REALLY mad that my good video camera is broken and that I haven't been able to replace it. I mean, what if he never hits another grand slam? My parents weren't able to make the game and I won't be able to share the moment with them. And trust me, they've been to enough games where we've all had to say "good try" to him because prior to this year his mad baseball skillz were, well, lacking. He had none. He had a lot of heart and loved to play, but well, never quite pulled it off. He couldn't hit and he couldn't catch. But now, he hits everything and his glove is a baseball magnet. (In addition to the grand slam he also hit a double, for 5 RBIs on the night) I think you should all put him on your fantasy baseball watch list cause he's gonna rock the big leagues.
But I can't show it to you because I don't have a video camera. Grrrrr.

Labels: baseball, junior

Okay, not me, Junior. Although he seems to be doing better today than yesterday. But he can't go back to school tomorrow because he had a fever today. He's actually upset that he can't go to school, not because of his burning love of school work and math lessons, but because he misses his friends. And apparently at aftercare he was supposed to join a club somehow related to Tech Decks (those little tiny skateboards). I don't have all the details on that one, but I'm sure I'll hear all about it eventually.

I am about done with the children's programming. He had no interest in doing anything but crashing on the couch. I made him watch the Food Network for a while thinking that it might help him take a nap but he actually got more animated and chatty about Rachel Ray's cooking show than he did about any cartoon. (We came to an agreement that no way no how would we want to eat the "hot dog salad" she made today. Gah.)

So wish us luck. I have to have my mom watch him tomorrow and I didn't want to do that but maybe he's getting past the contagious stage. Mr. Dump and I are convinced we won't be able to avoid getting what he has, based on the past three days. Yay.

Labels: cooking, illness, junior, Rachel Ray

You know, I was all excited about dipping in to the archives to pull out some quotes from 10 years ago, but 10 years ago the Dump was sort of in transition and half the content was hand-edited and some but not all was on blogger, and the end result is that a lot of my content was lost when I moved from my ISP and they deleted a bunch of my files on me before I could copy them. Which is the long, round-about way of saying "Happy 10th Birthday" to Junior, who made his first appearance on "Mookie's Driver Training Page" way back in the day. (Those pages are, sadly, part of history.)

If any of you are obsessed fans who laboriously saved every word I wrote to your hard drive, I'd be more than happy to have a copy of the archives. You know, as long as it wouldn't involve me having to have personal contact with anyone who would have laboriously saved every word I wrote to their hard drive.

Junior and Step-Junior went for a morning of skiing with Mr. Dump, who will just be watching. I am as sick as a dog today, and am hoping to feel good enough to continue the birthday celebrations after they get home near lunchtime. Wish me luck!

Labels: birthdays, blogs, family, junior

Last night I passed the 25k mark. Now I only have to hit 50k before the clock strikes midnight and November turns into December. I think maybe I can do it. I had a really good rush of pointless prose last night, so that's nice.

Mike Lowell is staying in Boston, so you'll have to excuse me if I'm giddy for a few. He's my favorite player (Papi has a special place in my heart forever, but Mike Lowell is my boyfriend). In fact, that's how I refer to him. It's always "My boyfriend Mike Lowell." I saw a photo of my boyfriend Mike Lowell down at Disney the other day. I was pretty sad that he didn't do that the day after they won the World Series, but I would never question my boyfriend Mike Lowell's decisions.

Let's see, what else is going on? Oh, I was going to ask if anyone here owned one of those digital photo frames, and if you do, do you like it and would you recommend it? I am trying to write a Christmas list for Santa, you see, and I want one of those but I don't want Santa to spend a lot of money on it. It's not like I can't just pull photos up on my computer if I really need to see them. I just like the idea of having a photo frame on my desk so that I can just swap out the pictures with the weather.

Speaking of which, we're on snow alert. We may get [breathlessly] a snowflake or two. Junior is doing the happy 4th Grade dance. I tried to explain that the snow isn't going to stick, and that we don't have to track down his boots just yet. But damn, I had better track down his boots. I wonder if they still fit? Doubt it.

(Christine and Nicholle, you pay attention, okay? Nothing you buy will ever fit a whole year later, and you can't buy stuff on sale at the end of the season because you don't know what size they will be when it's time to wear it. This is the most ANNOYING thing about kids. They just outgrow stuff constantly. Sometimes, within days of you buying it, I kid you not. Always make sure you have at least ONE pair of shorts or one sweater that's a size larger than your kid currently wears because it's a sad day when you wake up and it's 90 degrees and they suddenly don't have any shorts to wear to camp. Ahem.)

Labels: clothing, junior, kids, Mike Lowell, nanowrimo, Red_Sox

Junior has to write an essay over the weekend. His first big-boy homework! The subject is "My First ____". They had to brainstorm ideas for a topic, then they had to fill in a sheet that basically was a way of drafting the essay. He was actually pretty far along with it already, so I have no doubt this one is in the bag.

His essay is "My First Red Sox Game" which happened to occur a month or so ago. That's right, my son, the nine year old, had never been to a game, mostly because it's impossible to get tickets. These were the crappy seats you get for free (one game) when you join Red Sox Nation.

Anyhoo, he and I got to talking about First Person Narratives that you just don't want to read. He and I started a list, and I will continue it for you.

My First Diaper Rash
The First Time I Ate Peas
My First Poo
The First Time I Watched Blue's Clues
My First Big Boy Underwear

Labels: essay, humor, junior, school

Way to go, Buchholz. We'll try to give you a little room, and not be too harsh if you falter a bit in your next start, but we are looking forward to VERY GOOD THINGS from you. Okay?

I'll even forgive you for being called up so that there was no chance I would see you start at my first Pawsox game yesterday. (Holy crap, what a great place to see a game. Even though we got creamed by the Scranton Yankees. Even though our seats were in the middle of the row and the people on the ends didn't have a firm grasp on the art of letting people by.) Next year we will definitely grab more tickets earlier in the season. And I can't say that the fun of the day didn't have anything to do with the family we went with - thanks P, L, A and C for a lovely day!

Junior (and the other two boys) got the Pawsox team baseball cards, so we have the Buchholz card front and center today.

Labels: baseball, junior, Red_Sox

Senator Craig says he has a wide stance, and that's why when he sits on the toilet in a men's room, his foot goes all the way under the door and touches the foot of the person sitting next to him.

I have to tell you, I tried to do this at work (the other stall was empty) and I almost fell off the toilet.

I am starting to think that maybe, just maybe, Senator [as of this minute] Craig may just be creating what we at the Dump House like to call "a story." Every once in a while Junior tries to pass off a story to cover up whatever he is doing/has done and my standard response is "do I look stupid to you?" That's the point where he comes clean.

I'm thinking that I should start writing outright lies about my life. You know, to spice things up. And if anyone calls me on it, I'll explain it's because I have a wide stance.

Labels: bathroom, junior, News, politics

(You young people might not catch this reference. So I think maybe I could call this post "Am I Being Punked?")

Yesterday was one of those days. Mr. Dump had an appointment for a small surgical procedure, and I had an appointment with my doctor. I also had Junior (I have him again today...last two days before school starts so no more camp). I used up a tank of gas just driving around from appointment to appointment yesterday. Junior got an invite to his friend's house, but she lives in Gardner, so that was 20+ minutes each way. What was great, though, is that it meant someone was watching him while I was in my appointment.

After Mr. Dump was out of recovery and I settled him back in at home, I went back to Gardner to get Junior. We decided to stop at the Hannaford at Twin City Mall on the way home to get something for dinner. While standing with my cart trying to think of the other things I wanted to buy (iced tea and potato rolls) a guy was standing about 6 feet to my right. I catch some activity out of the corner of my eye and see...a copy handcuffing him. Nothing was being said, it was all very quiet. I quickly made sure Junior was still standing behind me (and wasn't planning to scoot around the cart over to where this was happening. I could feel my blood pressure go up 20 points. I made eye contact with a couple of people standing in the 12 items or less line (which is what we were standing near) and we all had this "Are you kidding me?" look on our faces.

I can honestly say I have never stood that close to someone being arrested. I mean, to the point that I felt like I was assisting the cop...that's how close they were to me. Junior kind of took the whole thing in stride, like this stuff happens all the time. Maybe I should ask more questions about what goes on a summer camp!

Labels: errands, junior, odd, shopping

Sorry for the lack of posting. Did you notice? I was giving myself a little break from the computer, and when you do that, well, all hell breaks loose.

I could blame it on the Red Sox sweeping the White Sox in grand style. I mean really, if we can't win 30-3 in one game, we could have four 10+ games in a row. I'm okay with that, really I am. If you're looking for more in-depth analysis, of course, I defer to my resident expert over at Red Sox Soul. I'm just a back seat driver when it comes to this stuff.

School starts this week, and I think we're more nervous and excited about it than Junior is. He's moving to the LEAP program at the newly re-designed Southeast Math and Science Elementary school. We're bummed about leaving JA and all his best friends there, but I think this is going to be an amazing year for him. One way or another.

Labels: junior, Red_Sox, school

There are two Ninjas in my bathroom. They are both sort of orange and clear and they are sitting on the counter. If I didn't have a 9-year-old son, I would worry. "How did I get ninjas in my bathroom? Are they here to harm me? Why are they on the counter? Did I already brush my teeth?"

Labels: junior

I'm scared. Really scared. Today, Junior takes his first trumpet lesson. Are you listening? Trumpet. Meaning he has to practice. In my house.

Flash back a billion years ago to the year 1976. Little Jody B went to a presentation by the music teacher about all the different band instruments available to the kids at Priest Street School. And Little Jody B chose....the trumpet. Well, I wanted to play the coronet, but the school rental instruments didn't have one, only a slightly dinged-up trumpet. So for two years, I took trumpet lessons at school, the highlight of which was my solo performance at the annual talent show of the Carpenter's song "Close to You." My mom still speaks in awed tones of the brilliance of my performance, and her disappointment that we didn't continue on with the trumpet when I moved up to junior high, because I wanted to take chorus and you couldn't do both.

I'm still scared that a 10 year old boy will be practicing trumpet in my house. I remember what my first weeks were like 31 or so years ago. (Good Lord! 31?) It wasn't pretty.

Labels: junior, kids, music

As you can see, Junior is attempting to milk the big fiberglass cow at Sturbridge Village. You can see it in the cow's eyes...she's not happy. Not happy at all. The boys, on the other hand, thought this was great. In fact, we made three trips to Ye Olde Milking Station. Bossy was full of water, and on a hot day, if you aim it juuuuust right, you can spray each other. Now that is a great way to make sure the bus loads of 9 year old boys will tell everyone they had a great time on the field trip.

I have to say, they have made a lot of improvements at Old Sturbridge Village since the last time I was there, and although I'm greatly saddened by the fact that they have apparently closed the restaurant, they are making improvements to other buildings. Do me a favor, and schedule a trip down some time this summer. I know they've had financial issues and I'd hate to see such a great place close. Plus you can milk a fiberglass cow.

Labels: Cow, fun, junior, summer

I sent Junior and Mr. Dump out to get some tulips for me on Saturday, to kill time while I was getting my eyes checked. (Some kind of infection, causing sight in my right eye to be blurry, making reading anything a horrific experience.) So when they came back to pick me up they had... a coconut. Oh. Okay. So no tulips, then?

On Easter Sunday, Mr. Dump and The Amazing Bob (shout out to long-time readers there, eh? That's dump material circa 1997!) worked with my dad to get the coconut open. Then The Amazing Bob and I got all the meat out of it. (We later grated it up, put it in the oven with some powdered sugar, mixed it with melted chocolate we got by double-boiling some Hebert's candy bars, making the worst-tasting coconut chocolate treats ever created on the face of the earth. My candy-making aspirations went down the drain, friends).

All of that hard work was so Junior could duplicate the horse galloping noises from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. God, I love that kid.

p.s. Oh, right, you saw tulips in Saturday's actual blog entry, right? I had to go back out with them and buy them myself. For some reason, they never saw the big container of cut tulips.

Labels: comedy, flowers, junior, movies

Not my pants. I have those. My ants. Well, Junior's ants, really. We sent a check to the ant company so that we can let them loose in the Ant farm he got for Christmas. He's dying to get the ants "up and running" but with the pesky lack of ants, it's really much less fun and exciting than the box would lead you to believe.

I know other people have ant farm web cams, but I'm really tempted to do the same. Because I'll just best most of you regulars aren't out watching other people's ant farms on webcams, are you?

Labels: ants, junior

Storm's a 'comin! Did you run out and get milk-eggs-bread yet? Cause you know it's a law that you have to. We need to go grocery shopping for realsies, and now I dread it. You crazy french toast making people...you'd better leave some bread and milk behind for those of us who actually have none left. I will not be buying in anticipation of 6 inches of snow (the current prediction). I've been living in New England for 42 years. Funny thing about snow storms. Outside of the beast like New York State had last week, snow ends, the roads get plowed and sanded, and voila, you can leave your house.

I actually have four or five whole cans of soup at my house, that in an emergency, I could probably survive off of those. Or a boxes of Near East Rice Pilaf, or the massive pasta stores we are required to keep on hand thanks to Junior's pasta addiction. I think I have a way to go before I start eyeballing the dog food.

By the way, I know in the distant past I covered Mr. Fussy's eating habits. Updating you on those, did you know that he now actually orders steak, shrimp or grilled chicken instead of pasta? Did you know that? He has eaten pot roast (Oh, hey, you know, maybe that's what we need to get for the snow day...) and roast chicken and ham and bacon. For any of you with fussy eaters (and I mean, he ate pasta with red sauce for lunch and dinner every day for a couple of years) there is hope. They do add items to the menu! There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Labels: food, junior, snow, weather

Aw, man, I went to the BDT archives to see what I was writing about at this time 9 years ago. The thing is, 9 years ago it wasn't a daily update, because everything had to be coded by hand and then uploaded via FTP, so I used to kind of do everything in an "issue" type setup. And there wasn't anything posted between Dec 26 of 97 and Jan 26th 98. Big bummer. I had another "site" I was running simultaneously, Mookie's Driver Training Page, or something like that. That's where all the Mookie news went. Mookie being Junior, by the way. Mookie was his in-vitro name, which we actually stopped calling him as soon as he was born, but it stuck on the website for a while. See, he was born 9 years ago tomorrow. I went into the hospital at about 6pm 9 years ago today to have my water broken. As I said to him this morning, "Hey, it's Applebees night! We have to go to Applebees and stare up at Leominster Hospital and think "Oh my God, I'm going in there and I'm going to leave with an extra person" because that's what Mr. Dump and I did that afternoon after my doctor said I'd gone long enough with my blood pressure slowly rising. My due date was the 7th, so there was no problem inducing. Well, you know, that and the fact that he was 8 pounds 12 ounces(!!) a fact I was blissfully unaware of until the maternity nurse said "Wow, you're all baby." "What?" "You've got a big baby in there."

How did I get to that point with nobody telling me he was big?

He's still big, and getting bigger, for the record. Still my baby, but still up at the top of the charts. Happy birthday, Mookie!



I did skip forward a couple of issues and present you this "best of" entry from Feb 1998:

User Name Suggestions

I was signing up for a site on the web that required a user name (so that I could post messages and it could keep track of me) the other day. I know that the odds of me being the only "Jody" on this service were slim to none, but I entered it anyway. I got the following Java Alert message:"Username Jody not available, here are some suggestions. KILLER SCHAEFERD HUMAYUN KENNICUTTA ANDREASEK KUTCHERA"

I'm not sure what those have to do with "Jody", and I especially like the option "Killer" but I didn't take any of their obviously well thought out suggestions. I went with "Jodyl"

Labels: birthdays, junior, mommy, mookie

Among the other things Santa showered on Junior was a small handheld Deal or No Deal game.

There is something wrong with the game though, and I couldn't get it to turn on yesterday. Mr. Dump was able to somehow get it running, and played a single game, winning $750,000 bucks. (I resisted the urge to give my notice at work this morning.)

I just got the following email from the homefront:

Junior: Dad, my Deal or No Deal won't turn on.
Dad: I know. I think it's broken.
Junior: How did you turn it on the last time?
Dad: (hitting it against the counter) I hit it.
::: Music plays - game starts :::
Junior: Thanks... I think.

Labels: humor, junior

Yesterday I watched A Muppet Christmas Carol. Just the best movie. You have watched it this year, right? No? Okay, go watch it. I'll wait.

Okay, so then, what happened is, I watched it again. Except I watched it with the director commentary turned on. And I didn't just watch it twice in one day...I watched it back to back. So I saw about 4 hours of the movie. I think I have it memorized, which is nice.

Junior had much more energy than I did yesterday (he had to stay home too) and wanted to do fun things. So I set up my Christmas train under the tree and let him play with it. Leave it to my kid...he pulled the musical ice cream truck ornament off the tree and had a whole scenario where the evil ice cream truck driver was after the people on the train. I don't think I've seen that one on ABC Family's 25 days of Christmas specials.

Labels: christmas, junior, trains, Xmas

Okay, I cleaned up some of the code in the right-hand column. I need to do more, but I'm tired. I just love being sick! Junior, who will be 9 in 3 weeks, is watching Toddler Television. So far he's watched Elmo's World, Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine. I'm not complaining, because other than Elmo, the voices and music are not jarring. I can completely tune it out, which I can't do if he's watching something more frantic like Pokemon.

I went onto Amazon to browse through some stuff - it's just as much fun as going to the mall, and for some reason, I'm less likely to spend money. I put stuff in my cart and on my wishlist, and that makes me happy.

I have decided that I want to start collecting the North Pole Series of the Department 56 Christmas houses. I am really mad at myself for not starting that series a couple of years ago, when there were a couple of houses that I'm still obsessing about the Lego factory and the Play-doh factory are two of them. I just added a bunch of houses to my "If you loved me" wishlist, which I link to over on the right. You don't have to buy me anything, but feel free to go look at how cute these houses are! The two I liked the most are out of stock anyway. One I couldn't even add if I wanted to. The other was already on my list before it ran out, which is why it's still there.

You guys need to promise me that if you have any of these houses and you decide to liquidate your collection, you will give me first shot at them, okay? Thank you, you are good people.

Labels: junior, shopping

My phone rang. I half recognized the phone number - enough that I knew it was probably not going to be good. "Hi, this is the school nurse..."

Junior wasn't feeling good, said his throat hurt, and she looked and said it was red, and that she might have spotted some white. Ugh Ugh Ugh...not strep!

So I have to leave to get him right away because you cannot leave a kid with strep in a school building. He's like a time bomb. The doctor was able to see us, and checked him all out, and gave him a rapid strep test. While we waited I noticed his face was a little flushed, his eyes glassy. The doctor said he had swollen glands.

The results? Junior does not have strep. Yet. (It's a given, with his other symptoms and the fact that his throat is already red and painful.)

However, I do.

So wait, that nagging sore throat wasn't from post nasal drip?

Labels: doctor, junior