agua

Yesterday at school my son asked for agua, and knew what he meant! One of his teachers spent time in Argentina, and so speaks some simpler words in Spanish around the kids, which apparently is working. Maybe by the time we go to Mexico in January he'll be better at Spanish than his dad.

Curse words aren't the only versatile ones.

One of Aidan's favorite words, I'm sure for its versatility, is "uh-oh." Something drops, "uh-oh." Stuck? "Uh-oh." Not getting your way? "Uh-oh" works just great.

This morning I was washing my face with a cream cleanser, while Aidan stood on the toilet seat next to me, brushing his teeth and helping me. Of course, I use the term helping loosely, but I digress. I looked up after I lathered up and before rinsing my face to ensure that he was doing okay. When he saw me, all white-sudsy-faced, his eyes got big like saucers, and out came "uh-oh." I laughed so hard I got soap in my mouth.

Alright, I'll tell you where i've been -

my beautiful baby sister's wedding!

It was this weekend, and it was truly lovely. It was love-filled (love-ful?). She was gorgeous and radiant, and she deserves every second of it. She's in St. Lucia now, hopefully frolicking in the sand without a care.

Her gown - oh, the gown. A friend made it, and it's stunning. My sis is a girl who loves Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, who can sing along to any big band song and tell you whose band it is and who's singing, and who can pull off vintage. Vintage it is - a 1957 pattern and vintage fabric, even vintage fasteners. She was gorgeous like a cross between Audrey Hepburn and Cinderella. See?

We got to spend lots of time together getting ready for the wedding and over the weekend itself, too, which was wonderful. She and I are both busy - she's got a full-time job and is a military reservist (gorgeous and could also kick your butt), and I'm about choc full myself. The time was very special for me and my girl, and I've been treasuring it. We picked out the cake and flowers, we made the favors (glue guns are a new fave for both of us), we ran around and took care of details. She stayed with us the night before the wedding, and we took her to breakfast (on her wedding day, she must eat, must breathe, must drink water, must not lock knees), and I did everything in my power to make sure that she loved every minute. I believe she did - complete success!

Oh, and if anyone ever asks you for some wedding advice, tell them this: rent a photo booth for the evening. You can set it to make two copies of each strip of pictures. She set out a guest book and asked that everyone take photos and leave one copy in the guest book with a note. It's priceless!

and speaking of adorable

When Nora's mom (Nora and Aidan are still pretty inseparable) picked her up the other day, Aidan came over, said "gentle," and handed her the elephant he'd been playing with. It must be true love.


He's getting all sorts of new words. I think I read somewhere that kids "should" have about 6 words by 18 months. Aidan's got way more than six, some of which might be recognizable to people who aren't his mother. "Mine" is the recent addition I may or may not be excited about. In fact, the other day he was trying to use keys on the back door. I reached down to help him, and he grabbed the keys back and yelled "I!" I believe this is code for "Thanks, Mom, but I'd like to try that myself." Other new additions recently are bubbles, cracker, Grandpa, yeah, and shoe.

Over the weekend, I picked up one of his favorite books, and I swear to you (I have a witness even if she is Aidan's grandma) he said, "Where that duck?" Three words in a row, and the name of that book to boot! We're in a stage right now where he'll say things once and then not again, so I'd love to have him say it for you, but I'm guessing he won't do it. He really did, though, honest.

Disaster averted

Yesterday was my first birthday party in decades - really, and it almost wasn't (the party, that is).

Brilliant as I am, I've been seeing signs around my city about a block party on August 31st at a local park. Each time I saw the signs, I'd think to myself, "Good thing that's not Sunday, when we've planned my birthday party for the same place - lucky thing." I'm sure you can see where this is headed. The park seems like the perfect place, because I wanted something low-maintenance, so people could toss their kids in the car and go. Playground equipment, shelter (with electricity), restrooms, lovely setting - it's got it all. Except that Sunday was the 31st. Ugh.

Didn't realize it until yesterday morning, as I was ordering the pulled pork and such online - the checkout kept saying they'd have it ready the 31st, and I kept thinking, "No, I want it today, not tomorrow!" I'd try again and again, and then I saw that it said Sunday the 31st. At that moment (yesterday morning), I realized that I had 50 or so people coming to a park at 4:00 that afternoon that would be overrun with hundreds, likely thousands of people. Maybe not the greatest idea ever.

Called Mom and Dad first to let them know we had to cancel, and they insisted that we'd just have it at their house. 50 people. After much consideration (most of it about people who'd turned down other fun plans to be there and done at least some amount of planning for it), we agreed to have it there. There were a few factors in our favor - first, we were able to call everyone and let them know about the change in venue; second, my folks' house is perfect for this sort of thing, with a couple of acres of yard to play with - in fact, my sister's bridal shower was held there on Saturday. We told my brother yesterday that it was up to him and his wife to have something there today, or the trilogy would not be complete. Anyway, third, despite the fact that my folks live in a very nice area of town, due to circumstances that could only be true in a story involving my family, there was a drug raid/shootout next door that has left that house abandoned since last fall; this meant that we could park all of the cars in their backyard with no complaint. Perfect!

We called some friends who have every sort of equipment possible for entertaining little people (bouncy house, bean bag toss, small picnic table, etc.), stopped by and picked up everything that would fit in our Jeep, ran to pick up some food and some extras, and then up to help my folks arrange it. Bless them, the place was set up perfectly - more chairs sitting out than I thought they had, four tables to hold food (which was lucky, given that people must've recognized my penchant for sweets and brought more than two tables' worth of dessert alone), games, a swing and a hammock in place, and big smiles to boot.

It was lots of fun - got to see so many friends, catch up and watch all the kids playing together (if you ever want to make a party a hit, get a bouncy house for the kids!). I think it ended up better there than it would've been at the park after all. Happy day certainly!