The torch has been passed

I was feeling nostalgic today, and since it was a raining, didn't have anything better to do this afternoon than veg out in front of the tv. Earlier today Milo picked out two Batman action figures at a treasure hunt. I asked him if he would like to watch the Batman show. He said "Oh yes!!" with much enthusiasm, so I dug around in our piles of vcr tapes and came up with one called Yvonne's Batman Tape. I remember asking my sister to tape episodes of Batman off TV Land for me years ago, but couldn't remember which ones were on it.

So we popped it in and watched half of it. All these years later and my heart still skips a beat when Adam West shows up on screen. I tried to explain to Milo that Batman is my first true love and that he's the greatest superhero ever. Milo was just like "Whatever Mommy, be quiet so I can watch this." He was fascinated by Robin, and the fact that Robin wears his underpants, but Batman wears underpants and pants. The Joker has green hair, and Milo found that to be quite amusing, but Milo didn't like that the Joker is mean sometimes. We watched a couple of King Tut episodes too, and they were kinda goofy (even I thought so, and I'm a diehard fan). All I could think about the whole time is that King Tut's beard looked pretty much like my grandfather's did. I remember thinking about that when I was little girl too, and it's stuck with me all this time. Milo has yet to see any Catwoman episodes, at which point I will be shushing him because I think Julie Newmar is just da bomb!!

The point of the whole story is that here it is 30 years later, since I first saw Batman, and I still love it. It seems that Milo has caught the batbug also!

hubba hubba!

Another superhero that we have in common is Spiderman. Milo watches the new adventures of Spidey on Saturday mornings. Man, that takes me right back to being six years old again also. The show he watches isn't quite the same as what I watched, but the basic idea is the same. Milo loves Spidey even more than I do; he has quite a collection of Spidey stuff. Milo thinks the fact that Spidey shoots webs is absolutely awesome, and spends lots of time pretending to do it himself.

Random Spidey cover

Apple Picking!!

Now that I'm working less hours, Wednesday has become "Discovery Day" at our house. On Wednesdays, Milo and I go on a learning adventure of some sort. He doesn't realize he's learning anything, but afterward, when I quiz him about stuff, Milo comes out with all sorts of new answers.




Anyway, today's adventure was apple picking at Russo's farm in Chesterfield. Aunt Heather went with us too. Milo was very excited about going apple picking because several of the shows he watches have had episodes about doing just that. He had a blast, being in charge of the apple bucket and choosing the "perfect apples" as opposed to the yucky ones. Milo kept picking apples, examining them, and then pronouncing them either perfect or yucky. The yucky ones went on the ground, and the perfect ones went in the basket. I had to stop him when the basket was about half full. Otherwise we would have been eating apple-everything for the next three years.


After we were done with the apples, we stopped by the punkin patch and picked out some pumpkins. Of course Milo had to get one of the most ginormous ones. To be fair, he also got two other smaller ones, so we each have one to turn into a jack o lantern later.


When all that was done, then Milo spent some time fooling around on the giant sand mountain out in front of the farm stand. The woman that runs the shop says that people just drop toys off at the sand pit, and the collection grows every day. That's pretty neat! Milo sure took advantage of all of them. There were a couple of other kids there too, for a little bit, so Milo got to show them how to do some of the toys, also.

When we were all done, and back in the truck, Milo turned around and waved goodbye to the trees. "Goodbye, apple orchard!! Goodbye!! You say it too, guys!" So us guys, me and Heather, said goodbye to the trees until next year.

Pulling the wagon and bucket on the way into the orchard.

The apples are so high up, guys.

This one has been pronounced perfect.

Dang, this bucket of apples is heavy.

Milo and Aunt Heather looking at apples.

Riding the hay bale horsies.

Playing on the sand mountain with Aunt Heather.

Fun With Words

It's not my great, it's your great!!

Milo is learning about the seasons, especially autumn, and tonight we read a book about animals and how they do different things depending on the seasons. We read a sentence about how birds migrate for the winter. Milo cracked up laughing and said "Those birds aren't your great, they're my great. I like them the best, you don't."

I did my dang best to explain to him what migrate really means, but he kept insisting that I was wrong. Maybe tomorrow night we'll try again....

In the meantime, every time I think about my great, it makes me giggle.

A Sweet, Sweet Score

We went treasure hunting yesterday, as usual. We hadn't found much of anything good at all lately, until we stumbled upon this. It's from some Fisher Price cult called Rescue Heroes. We got the aircraft carrier, 18 rescue heroes and all their nifty accessories, a boat, one big jet and some smaller vehicles, all in one box of stuff.

It was really funny too, because I saw the tower of the aircraft carrier sticking up in the person's yard when we were still a good block away from it. (We were at a community wide yard sale somewhere in Florence.) I thought, "Oh man, Milo's going to be drawn to that like a moth to a flame." Yep. He spotted it, and it was like he had found the holy grail. All Milo wanted out of the whole shebang was the blue jet, because he thought it was a spaceship like Caillou plays with. The woman would not break up the set, so I figured oh well, too bad, and started to leave. Then she hollered after me "Take the whole thing for $10. PLEASE." Sold!! I had no idea how much stuff was in the box until we got it home and started cleaning it up. I thought for sure that there were some missing pieces, after we put everything together, so I went online last night and looked up the Rescue Heroes. I couldn't believe that almost everything is complete, except for one or two small items. I also couldn't believe how much the stuff originally cost. They're even expensive on ebay, so woo hoo! This turned out to be a sweet, sweet score!

Yes, Milo is one of the most spoiled kids on the planet. He played with this stuff all day yesterday, and didn't even want to go outside. By the way the big orange robot guy standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier has been christened as Ranish. I asked "Are you saying Danish?" and Milo said, "No, Ranish," like I was a total stooge. He is too much, sometimes!

It's All A Conspiracy

Some people think the government is a web of conspiracy. ha! They should come live in my house. I seriously think that our animals, and occasionally Milo, sit around and plot ways to drive me insane. Today was a classic example!

After the events of today, I think that somewhere, there is a hidden camera in the house, and that I am the star victim of a reality show called Who Can Be More Disgusting and / or Annoying? Is it Lily, the crap-eating dog? Quinn the incessant foot licker? Monet the barfer? Milo the pee machine? Tune in to find out!

It started last night when Milo and I came home to discover that Lily had snatched Milo's wonderful train picture and destroyed it. He (and Grandmom) had worked really hard to make that picture, too. He was upset and I was irritated, even more so because Lily also ate a note that I had left for Corey. The note didn't say anything really important, but what if it had? Lily took one look at my face when she saw me come in the door and went outside to give herself time out. If there's one thing Lily has learned, it's time out. She goes outside and sits on her time out mat on the deck until we call her back in, every time she's been bad.

We got over that hurdle, and off to bed for a good night's sleep. First thing this morning, when I went into Milo's room, I could smell that he had wet the bed. He did have more to drink last night than usual, so it was no big whoop to me. I cleaned him up, changed his clothes and the sheets, and threw everything in the wash. Milo doesn't even care if he's soaking wet with pee. I reminded him to wake us up in the night if he has to go to the bathroom, so we can help him, and Milo said "Oh, I forgot to do that." When I asked him if he was uncomfortable, he said "not really." Oooookay.

I had my two cups of coffee and toodled into our bedroom to make the bed and get ready for the day. That is when I discovered that Monet had barfed on our bed. Not only did she do it on the good bedspread, that witch had the presence of mind to cover up the evidence with the crud blanket that we keep on the bed for controlling animal hairs. If she had barfed on the crud blanket, that would have been easy to clean up. Just throw it in the wash. Oh no! She had to vom on the big puffy bedspread that has to go to the laundrymat to be washed in the commercial machine. As if I had time for that today. It's not like I didn't have a million other things to do. At any rate, to find the silver lining, Milo had a blast watching the bedspread get washed in the giant washing machine. And we went to the dollar store and got some more playdough. There is a new house rule, also: NO animals allowed in my bedroom unless a person is in there with them.

Later in the day, Milo and I went for a bike ride. I swear, we were only gone about 45 minutes, and in that time, Lily managed to find something to destroy. It's like she craves attention so badly, she'll be rotten just to get looked at. This time she ate one of Milo's cardboard pieces. Milo collects cardboard and uses the pieces for building stuff and for surfboards or whatever. Now he has one less to work with. Lily didn't have a chance to get outside for time out before I started yelling, because I have just had it up to my eardrums with her nonsense. Milo joined in with "What did you do, Lily? You're a BAD GIRL." which made her skulk around with her ears down even worse. I had to laugh at that.

Quinnie spent much of the day fooling around and being his usual playful self. I think I only had to yell at him to stop eating his feet two or three times. The poor thing has awful allergies in the spring and fall, and even though I dose him up with Benadryl, once he gets in the habit of licking and chewing at his feet, he can't seem to stop. Of all the kids, he was the least of my worries today.

I exacted revenge upon Monet by giving her a dose of her hairball goop. Man, does she ever hate that stuff, but it's good for her, and it will help her with the tummy upsets. Then I realized that maybe the bed barf was revenge for what I did to her the other day. Monet has been having terrible mats in her fur, and she's always all gross from rolling around outside, so when Milo was napping on Thursday afternoon, I took the clippers to the cat and shaved her back half as close as I could to the skin. She looks awful, but she'll be healthier for it. We've shaved her in the past, so it's nothing new, but it's the first time I ever did it without express permission from Corey.

I love our animals, but there are days (like today) that I wouldn't mind if they all ran away. It seems like whenever Corey is gone for a long time (yesterday and today he had to work double shifts) they go wacko!