town celebration

I like where I live. The winters are brutal, but the summers are FUN. Our town throws a great week-long party the first week in August every year. Preslie got to attend a dance clinic with the local drill team and perform at the park one night. There are shows, pageants, competitions, performances, sports tournaments, food, venders and activities. It ends Saturday with a fun parade in the morning and a free concert in the park followed by fireworks.

My boys came home with 10 pounds of loot from the parade. Preslie got to be in the parade. We enjoyed the musical talents of T Minus 5 and Chuck Wicks. Small town people know how to have fun!

unwanted guests

guest #1: baby in my bed. I have never been able or even wanted to sleep with my kids. When Preslie was a baby, another mother told me just to pull her in bed to nurse in the middle of the night. I could never pull it off. I didn't like the feeling of half-sleeping in an uncomfortable position and wake up with parts hanging out, cold, wet, and a kinked neck/back/arm, etc. I much prefer to get up and take care of the child's needs then return to bed. Alone. This held true for Mack last week when he would scream every night for up to an hour at a time and would wake up the second I put him back in his crib. So I got desperate. Half-sleep at that point was better than no sleep. But there is just no room in the bed for another person. Especially when the baby sleeps like this:

guest #2: WIND

No one would believe the WIND we've been having in town. Happens every Spring. SO annoying. I called and invited a girl in my neighborhood to come eat lunch at the park with us one day. It was breezy for the first 5 minutes and then all of a sudden I looked to the South and saw a HUGE wall of wind/dust/debris coming in our direction and shouted, "Cover your eyes!" Luckily I was holding Mack so I could protect him from blowing away. My bike and bike trailer didn't fare so well and got blown across the grass. My friend's kids got blasted and ended up crying. We finally made it home, she in her car and I on my bike SLOWLY pedaling INTO the wind...and uphill I might add. Anyway, the tumbleweeds are back.

*Mack has been to the doctor and received an antibiotic for his ear infection. Life is suddenly so much better. I don't mind the tumbleweeds so much because my husband and I can sleep in our own bed!

Just Roosey

Small town life strikes again...

My daughter and I made a deal yesterday that we were never going to fight about doing her hair again. It is one of those things that HAS to be done everyday. Yes it hurts, and takes time, but she said she'd try to be brave and I agreed to comb gently and not get grouchy. Well, that deal lasted until this morning when it was time to do her hair again. That is IT. I put the comb down, put her in the car and drove to main street where there are 5 salons within a block of each other. Not ONE of them was able to take a walk-in. Not even "Nedra's Curl Up and Dye". Surely a salon with a name like that wouldn't be so busy that they couldn't cut a little girl's hair. In my mind I was yelling "Get some more hair dressers!" to our town. But I guess I should be yelling for it to get a bigger population so that the hair dressers would have a financial motivation to actually go to work...on Valentine's Day morning...right after a huge snow storm. Ok, so our timing was a little off. But still. I am not a hair appointment person. I am an impulse haircut person. I want my hair cut when I want it cut, THAT moment when I feel the urge AND have an open window of time. I guess I will have to adjust. And I guess the "before" picture I took is also the "after" picture.

In an effort to be positive (it IS the day for love), I am going to name a few nice things about my town.
1. It has nice people--good down to earth people.
2. I live right behind the post office. When I say I'm going to run to the post office, I really mean it.
3. This town has a drive-in movie theater! We gotta check it out this spring.
4. Traffic is a breeze.
5. It is named after a really cool guy. Not only did the "Teddy Bear" get named after him, but his face is carved into a giant mountain, and he was a Nobel Prize winner among other cool things.
6. In contrast to "Nedra's Curl Up And Dye", there's "Alive and Kickin'", which is NOT a salon, but a karate school. I also find it amusing that the tumbling school and the prosthetic limb store share a building.