Tag Archives: the brother

Sep4

Back in the Day …

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Back in the Day …

A couple of weeks ago, much to my chagrin, Chang and Angel stumbled upon a DVD on our shelf and made us watch it.  I’m not even sure what this particular DVD was doing on our shelf in the first place.  I think it technically belongs to the Parents, but at some point which I do not remember, we must have borrowed it from them. Why, I do not know, as I do not tend to enjoy subjecting myself to the kind of torture that is watching that DVD.

You see, it is a home video from the year of 1995. You know, the year of big hair, leotards, and stirrup pants.  It was also the year I turned thirteen and suffered from all of the above.  That was the year all of us kids got together with our childhood friends, Nicki and Dustin, and produced a play based on Adventures in Odyssey’s episode “The Vow.”  For years, it had been our favorite radio drama, but this was the year we were going to turn it into our very own production.  I, however, was entering the teen years, and it wasn’t necessarily “cool” to listen to radio drama anymore.  My younger siblings hadn’t caught up with the trends yet and were still obsessed, so they spent months writing the scripts (and trying to understand what terms like “fade-away jumper” and “documentaries” were), building the sets, and rehearsing parts.  Nicki and I were roped into playing the parts of Donna and Jesse and grudgingly went along with it.  In the end, we invited our parents, grandparents, and a lonely neighbor down the street to our live performance.

In the moment of putting stuff like that together, you have no idea how humiliating it will be years down the road. The movie is probably not as embarrassing to The Brother, as he rocked in his Lakers Jersey, or to The Kid, who was five and Just. Plain. Adorable in his walk-on role.  But for me, it’s one of those movies that makes me cover my face and watch through my fingertips due to my bad hair and oldschool fashions.

However, it is good for one thing, and that is comic relief.  So, despite the fact that I said I never wanted anyone else to see this again, I gotta admit it is Highly Amusing and may be worth the humiliation I may suffer in order to share it with the rest of you.  It won’t be winning any awards, but it always gives my family a lot of laughs every time we watch and reminisce.

Kids, don’t try this at home. Unless you want to be subject to blackmail at some later point in your life.

Jul6

This Is About The Time I Crushed Up 13 Boxes Of Black Snakes And Lit Them On Fire

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This Is About The Time I Crushed Up 13 Boxes Of Black Snakes And Lit Them On Fire

Did you grow up doing Black Snakes on the Fourth of July?

I totally did.

I think they’re amazing.  Joey thinks they’re super lame.  (Sometimes I think JOEY is super lame.  I told him this in the fireworks store when he was making fun of me for freaking out about the black snakes, so don’t worry.  He knows.  And he’s cool with it.)

Anyway, I happened to be talking to The Brother about a totally different topic on Sunday afternoon, and he suggested that I try something one of his compatriots grew up doing.  Smash up 10 boxes worth of black snakes and put them in a coffee can and light it on fire.

Um, YES PLEASE.

So yesterday, I bought 13 boxes because they were on sale for super cheap.

And we don’t buy coffee that comes in cans so I used a diced tomato can, which is a little smaller and I figured would intensify whatever happened with the crushed snake powder.

I put the 78 Black Snake pellets into a freezer baggie (for extra durability) and took them out to the driveway and crushed them up very good by walking on them.  It’s the one time in my life that I have found it convenient that I weigh over 100 libs.

Then, I went inside and informed Joey how many snakes I had bought.  I didn’t think he would care about my experiment so I’d planned to do it while he was at work because:

a.) he had told me black snakes were stupid

and, b.) he had told me black snakes were stupid.

I didn’t figure he’d want to waste his time on watching something stupid.  HOWEVER.  When I informed him how many snakes I’d bought, he was all, “Wow, that sounds really stupid.  Uhhhhh, you’d better wait until I get home to do it.”

Yeah.  He obviously think it’s really stupid.

(How many times can I use the word “stupid” in a blog post?  LOTS!  and LOTS!)

I also invited Angel to come over, because she had seemed skeptical that I’d really try this and she kept being the voice of caution, suggesting I could blow and arm or eyeball off.  (That’s obviously why we moved so close to a hospital.  Safety first.)  At 6:00 yesterday evening, conditions were right to light my can of smashed up snakes on fire.

It was my favorite.

Angel’s commentary in the background was totally worth the $3.00 I spent on the snakes.  It’s pretty much the 2nd best part of the video (hi Angel!), a close second only to the erupting mound of flaming snake.

And of course we had to destroy the flaming mound of, um, Black Snake after its fire was extinguished.

Jun4

Why can’t we just launch rockets like normal people???

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Why can’t we just launch rockets like normal people???

We’ve been in the Iowa for something like a week now.  Last night and tonight, we launched rockets.

Last night, I wore my bermuda khakis, a shirt from LOFT and some of the barn boots (a pair which was only slightly too big) to haul about a half mile out into the recently planted soybean field (uh, sorry Randy) with The Kid and The Brother on Launch Recovery Team.

They’d have been a lot more efficient if I didn’t go along.  But I insisted.

At the point where we retrieved the rocket, I realized the barn boots had rubbed my ankles and heels raw, and I now had to walk all the way back up to the house with bleeding feet in boots that’s sanitary qualities were more than questionable.

I was even slower going back up to the house.

(Incidentally, I just looked at my heels and noticed they’re oozing and about to drip on the carpet.  That is just a delightful sight, I tell you.  Appetizing, even.  Somebody pass the cupcakes.)

So tonight, I wasn’t going to repeat the same horrible experience.  I dug up Joey’s athletic shorts, a t-shirt with a hole in it, some of Pops’ socks calf-length socks, and Mom’s gardening shoes.

Y’all.  I looked smokin’.

But I was much more comfortable and that’s what counts.

When The Kid saw me, he said something to the effect of “Lady, you look like a complete idiot”.  And he took a picture.

We loaded the rocket with bigger engines today than we used yesterday.  There seemed to be barely any wind, so we thought we were golden; the Launch Recovery Team (LRT) expected an easy recovery in the middle of the soybean field.  Unfortunately, when the rocket went up (WAAAAAAY UP) we realized immediately that we were way off.  The rocket blew south, right into our old neighborhood and a bunch of trees.

The LRT burst forth with shouts of “I THINK I’VE GOT IT!” and “IT’S IN THE TREES!” and suchlike.  The Kid, The Brother, Jess and I took off running down the front yard and across the street (which is further than it sounds to you city people) and were puzzling our next steps when we noticed Pops whizzing up the street in the van, packed with Laura and Joey.  Pops was all, GET IN!  GET IN! and we drove down the street we thought it had landed on, yelling out the windows to people in their yards, asking if they’d seen our rocket.

Everyone just looked at us super weird.

I’ll fast forward to the part where we did find the rocket, about 8 inches from our neighbor’s house.  The same neighbor who made us get rid of our dog growing up.  (Not that it was any skin off our nose, we didn’t like the dog.  But the point is: they don’t like things messing with their house.)  Joey’s hypothesis was that the rocket had hit their roof and bounced off into the grass.

Good thing we were in and out like assassins, our neighbors never saw us (actually it was Joey) coming or going.  Unless if they randomly read this blog.  Then, hi unnamed neighbors: I just ‘fessed.

After our first launch, and its questionable success, we re-aimed the launch pad and tried again.

There was a serious delay between the pushing of the button and the ignition of the engines, because just as Pops was about to go inspect the problem, the rocket went WOOOOOOSH! and took off into the sky.  It scared us all half to death because it had been so long since the launch button was pushed that we all thought this attempt was a scrub.

We were wrong.  The thing went up in the sky and pretty much everyone screamed and/or jumped a mile.  Good thing Pops didn’t get his face blown off.  That’s why it’s important to practice launch safety techniques.

The rocket went up, up, up and was looking PERFECT…until the wind stopped blowing.  Pops, Joey, The Brother and I all ran pell-mell across our side yard down to the barn (which, again, is further away than it sounds to you city folk), across the street, and into Pops’ uncut alfalfa field.  Joey was a few dozen yards ahead of us and suddenly we heard, “I GOT IT!”

Normally we yell I GOT IT if we actually hold the rocket in our hands.  Joey yelled that because he saw the rocket.  In the tree.  ”Four feet” off the ground.

May I just say it was many more than four feet off the ground.

I saw that rocket in the tree and I immediately flashed back to the events of the last month: a tennis ball to Joey’s eye, a volleyball to his left cheek, a water bottle to his mouth.  The rocket in the tree is immediately flashing DANGER! DANGER! in my wife brain.

The next thing I know, Joey has climbed up into the tree as Pops, The Brother and I look on.  The tree looked like a mulberry tree, so it has spindly, thin branches that sprawl out over a large area.  The rocket was at the edge of the tree’s plumage, so Joey had quite a ways to go before he could actually reach it.  Within no time at all he was as high as the rocket, and inching out on the tiny little tree branch.

“PLEASE think carefully about what you are going to do!” I yelled.  What I meant was: please, please don’t do anything stupid.

The tree branches rustled.  Dollar signs flashed before my eyes.  They rustled some more.

“Uhhhhhh, I think this branch isn’t sturdy enough to support my weight,” Joey said.  ”So I’m going to try the Lemur Approach.”

I wasn’t sure what the Lemur Approach was, but I was positive I wouldn’t like it.  Suddenly, Joey swung down from the branch and hung from it by his hands.  The leaves rustled and bent toward the ground, Pops and The Brother scrambled to get the rocket as Joey bounced gently on the branch.

Then, I heard wood splitting.

“HONEY!” I screamed.  The dollar signs in front of my eyes grew much, much larger.

“I’m OK,” he yelled.  ”Another tree branch caught me.”

As if that was reassuring.

Fortunately I couldn’t see what was going on, but I did hear a few more smaller branches break and then Joey emerged from the woods, sticks stuck to his hair and leaves on his shirt.  But he was alive, intact, and it didn’t even look like he’d torn or stained any clothes.

The dollar signs I had been seeing disappeared.

All’s well that ends well, because as soon as we got to the house Pops and The Brother started stuffing toilet paper in the rocket again so they could relaunch it.  (What.  Don’t you stuff toilet paper in your rockets before you launch them?)

And now I realize I should go work on my feet.  They’re still oozing.

 

Mar30

Tummy time!

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Tummy time!

 

Finally, finally, finally Analie is getting happier about tummy time.  I was starting to dread the upcoming pediatrician’s appointment on Monday because I was certain I’d hear I was a bad mama for not forcing her to be on her tummy a lot.  We do other tummyish activities, but she so hates the floor that it’s hard to want to make her do it.

Oh – and she finally rolled over.  She’d done it once before last week but it seemed accidental so we didn’t count it.  This one seemed (marginally) more intentional.

Also, her shark fin has turned into a wild wad of frizz lately.  The Brother has recently said it looks like her head is smoking and unfortunately, I believe he is correct.  I’m not sure the hairs around her frizz fin have actually grown any since she was born, but the fin has gotten at least an inch longer, if not and inch and a half.  It appears that all her hair growing powers have gone straight into the fin and the rest of her head is getting nothing.

The end.

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Mar21

The World Beyond Our Door

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The World Beyond Our Door

We’ve had a big day today.  Analie woke up REALLY EARLY so we’ve been prowling around the house since about 6am, so by 7:30 she was really awake and screaming her happy scream.  Ever since discovering that she had lungs and they do something a week or so ago, she has been getting progressively louder.  Currently she’s laying on her playmat screeching at her giraffe and trying to pull its head off while stuffing some rings and half of her fist in her mouth.

This child can’t decide what she wants.

She’s about one wobble of Earth’s orbit away from rolling over, too.  She’s poised and ready on her right side, all she’s waiting for is that extra push.

Anyway, at 7:30 when she was being especially loud we decided to call her evil Uncle Andrew and scream into his voicemail at work.  I mean, that’s just the kind of positivity everybody is looking for on a Monday morning, right?  We knew he wouldn’t be there since it was 6:30 in Iowa.  So I whipped out my cell phone and dialed up his work number, but as soon as she saw that my cell phone has a GLOWING SCREEN, she immediately put a cork in it.

Because it is better to stare at a glowing screen.  Duh.

I finally got her to screech by the end of the voicemail, but nowhere near as much as before I let her see that my phone glows.  Ugh.

Well, once the sun came out at a more reasonable time of day it turned out to be cloudy and 70, perfect weather for taking a baby outside without being shrouded in blankets or a BundleMe.  So that’s exactly what we did.

Look at us, Dr. Pediatrician!  We’re getting our Vitamin D just like you told us too!  And we’re not even using those awful tasting drops!

Analie and I stepped out the back door and onto the lawn in search of Daddy.  Today is “Saturday”, so we’re starting the process of finishing up the projects we started but didn’t quite get polished off before Analie was born.  I’m painting the front door and some trim touch ups today, and Joey is working in the kitchen fixing drawers and installing a few pieces of moulding and sanding down nail patches in the trim we installed.

WAAAHOO!

I can’t tell you how these projects have been hanging over my head for the last five months.  I will be so thankful to get them off our list and on to bigger and better things.  Like planting my herb garden and maybe a few tomato and onion plants.

Anyway, outside we went and the moment we stepped out the back door, Analie fell silent.  It was cloudy enough that she wasn’t squinting, warm enough she wasn’t cold, and still enough that she didn’t have wind blowing in her face. So she stared, wide-eyed, at the yard with a where did all this awesome stuff come from?!? look on her face.

We finally found Joey (he was running rampant in the front yard, not the back or garage like we were expecting) and even HE couldn’t get Analie to smile.  She was far too busy looking at the trees, the grass, the sky and listening to the fountain, the birds, the kids screaming, the cars driving past.  After a few moments of trying, he did finally get her to crack a grin, but she was immediately back to the business at hand of observing her new and improved surroundings.

I took her to the backyard and held her up in the air a few times, but just as she was starting to have fun we got swarmed by some creepy flying ant-like bugs I’ve never seen before.  They  may be native to our new surroundings and, if so, that doesn’t make me any more inclined to like them. Sorry, Indiana.  I don’t like your bugs.

Once we got bug-swarmed, we went inside.

Speaking of going inside, I think that someone is ready for a nap.  Her happy screeching is sounding dangerously close to angry screaming.

It takes a trained ear to tell the difference, and I have that ear.

Feb19

Resemblance Much?

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Resemblance Much?

Analie and I arrived in The Iowa yesterday afternoon about 3;00.  It was a long, arduous journey that began way too early en la mañana for my preference.  But since I was the one who chose to leave at that time of day, I had no one but myself to blame as I whizzed across eastern Illinois before the sun was even up.

Then when I arrived, my evil Brother giggled his sinister giggle and said, ” I have to show you something.”

First of all, The Kid is getting married.  I guess he’s old enough.  Anyway, after his marriage to his Lady (also known as Jess) in Ohio in May, they will be moving to Iowa.  My parents are having a reception for them here, complete with more cake so I am totally on board.  Well, as long as it’s good cake.

Actually, I just realized that I never confirmed there would be cake.

MOM. WILL THERE BE CAKE??  THIS IS IMPORTANT.  PLEASE ADVISE.

I feel better now that that’s off my chest.  Anyway, The Brother showed up with a large stack of old family pictures and said, while grinning his Cheshier Cat grin and gigling his sinister giggle, “I have to find it, hold on.”

flip, flip, flip, flip

mumble, mumble, mumble…no this one’s not it, it should be right after this one…mumble, mumble, mumble

AHA!

“Look, who does this remind you of?” He said, shoving the photo in my face.

And I just burst out laughing.

It’s The Kid as a rather obnoxious looking baby sitting in his high chair probably begging for more food….but his expression looks just like Analie, and it cracks me up every single time.

Nov30

Cousins

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Cousins

On December 22 last year, my sister had a cute little baby boy named Jeshuah Paul Willcox.  And I never posted anything about him on this blog.  Jeshuah and our first little baby Samuel were due on January 2 and January 1, respectively, and after we lost Samuel and Sister had Jeshuah…I just could not bring myself to post any pictures or any little stories about Jeshuah.

Joey and I both wish we had been emotionally stronger when Jeshuah was born, because now that we have Analie we are disappointed that we missed out on Jeshuah’s early weeks, and pictures, and stories. We shut ourselves up in a little coccoon and we stayed there until the middle of January when we felt it might be kind of safe to think about starting to come out.

A year later, I can say that I am thankful that Analie has a cousin who is close in age with.  I always loved playing with cousins growing up, and Ana will definitely have fun learning the ropes from Jeshuah when we all get together.

Yesterday, I had Sister send me a few pictures of Jeshuah so I could compare them with Analie’s first pictures.  You know, to see if they resemble each other.  Jeshuah looked a lot like The Brother’s baby pictures when he was first born (still kind of does).  We think Analie looks like me.

I like this one.   Jeshuah looks very sleepy and bored.

And this is Analie…obviously.  I actually do think they resemble each other.

These days, Jeshuah is much bigger and into pretty much everything.  When he came here to visit a few weeks ago, I wanted to put a Swiffer on his tummy and let him clean my floor while he squiggled around after his toys.  I didn’t, though.  Child labor laws, and all that.  I didn’t want a lawsuit on my hands.

 

He looks like the kind of guy who would sue for full compensation, don’t you think?

She, on the other hand?  Yeah, she’ll take us to the cleaners.  We already don’t have any money, so if Jeshuah DID want to sue us…I guess he’d be out of luck.

Nov16

Another Baby Name Poll

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Another Baby Name Poll

This week, we decided to reveal The Middle Name.  Actually, The Middle Name has never been a secret, which was part of our master plan to annoy the heck out of my brother, whom we refer to as The Brother.  I believe it has been working.

Well.

Our daughter’s middle name will be…..

Alexa!!!

I’m going to get in about 3 different kinds of trouble with The Kid, because explaining the baby’s middle name involves revealing HIS name, which is Alex.

Alex…Alexa…very similar names, yes?

Well, she’s middle-named after The Kid.  (And we didn’t think The Kid made a very nice middle name.)  Whycomes she is named after The Kid?  Uh, because…I was super mean to him for most of his formative years.  Yep, true confessions right here.

I don’t even know why I was so mean to him.  I just was.  He was kind of an easy target because he was young and small and I was old and larger than him.  Also meaner.  I remember really being nasty to him on two separate Boundary Waters trips (the first much more so than the second) and feeling super guilty the whole time because he wasn’t doing anything wrong, just being younger and smaller.

I do maintain that I do not feel guilty for referring to The Kid as “Pukeface”, “Puker”, “Barfbucket” and a bunch of other vomit-related nicknames on the BW trip where he got dehydrated and threw up all the time for a couple of days straight.  (Sorry, man.  I just can’t feel bad about that.  You were throwing up everywhere.)

Poor Dad kept getting real mad at me for calling him all that stuff, too.

Now that The Kid is all grown up and engaged (YOU HEARD IT HERE!) and almost graduated from college, it’s uncanny how similar we are in personality and brains. (Although, not in anything having to do with computers, math, or science.)(  Maybe that’s why I picked on him growing up.  I knew he was going to grow up and take over the family with his coolness.

Anyway, we’ve buried the hatchet and now I’m much nicer to him.  But I still feel real bad about it if I think about it for too long.  Poor little The Kid.  He probably would have had a better childhood if not for me.

Therefore, this week’s poll involves which name(s) that are left on the list that you think go best with Alexa!  Vote well.

Sep27

One Of My Favorite Pictures of Joey

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One Of My Favorite Pictures of Joey

This Sunday, Joey performed his first baptism.  It went off quite well, too.  (He’d practiced on The Kid when we were all in in the hot tub the night before, which I think helped a lot.)

Unfortunately, we forgot Joey’s nice, conservative brown swim trunks at my grandparent’s house after we went swimming.  So Sunday morning, Joey realized he was going to have to wear his wild Hawaiian flower ones with the cargo pockets that always fill up with tons of water and then go ooshing everywhere when he gets out of the pool.

Because everyone was in town helping us get settled in and helping the grandparents pack up for their move (which will take place later this week), pretty much my entire family excepting The Kid was at our church on Sunday morning.

Gramps managed to snap this quality picture on his iPhone of Joey and The Brother.

Many things should be noted about this picture:

  1. Joey’s outfit is amazing.  Red shirt, white striped button down, khaki blazer, wild swim trunks…and Simple slip ons.  A true class act.
  2. Joey looks extremely nervous and stressed.
  3. The Brother is drinking a LOT of coffee.
  4. He also looks kind of stressed too (probably from drinking all the coffee?), but likely not for the same reasons that Joey would be nervous and/or stressed.
  5. The sign directly above their heads reads MEN, which is appropriate considering only men are in this picture.

And now I should do what I came to get on the interwebs to do, and that is figure out what kind of interwebs service we will have at our house.  It’s super hard to do research on a service provider when, like, you don’t have internet at your house yet.