We're home! I miss my family already, but I must admit that it is nice to be home and know that we are here for a while. Henry must be happy to be back in his own bed, too, since he let me sleep until 8:45 (!!!) this morning. He woke me up by yelling through the bedroom door that he would like to play with "Mr. Tatohead pleeeeeaaaaase". He was none too happy when I announced the end of the diaper wearing and insisted that he didn't "liiiike" peeing in the potty, but he did hop down from the couch whilst mid Blue's Clues and go pee in the potty already this morning. He refused to give me our customary pee-in-the-potty-high-five, but I can live with that. Ms. Adella and Liz are going to come over to play in a bit and I am going to see if I can coerce the little man into a pair of his most adorable new boxer briefs to run around outside.

I got up this morning and went outside to check the garden. Suprizingly, it looks like someone watered it at least once in my absence. It still isn't looking super hot, but it isn't as bad as I expected. The pepper plant is dead as a doornail and the cucs look like they are on the way down, but most of the tomato plants are doing great and the squash and pumpkins are out of control. I picked a HUGE zucchini, a cuc and a tomato and added it to the 800 lbs. of produce that we got from the CSA this week. I think we had agreed that this was going to be our week to keep the whole thing since I was out of town and Kyle didn't really want to deal with it, but I am going to see if Liz will take some squash and cucs off our hands. We'll never be able to eat it all.

I am super excited to see Griff and Libs tomorrow afternoon. We still haven't decided where they are going to sleep. I refused to let Kyle give away Henry's bedroom since he has been sleeping in weird beds all month and I think he really needs to get back into a routine in his own space. They'll probably just sleep in the living room on the air mattress or something. I can't wait to see them. I have to say, they are two of my most favorite people ever. Speaking of my most favorite people ever:

BAMBI! Where's my list, woman? I'm getting nervous!

*ahem* Sorry.

Kyle's folks asked him to do a bunch of work on the Brevardish house next week so Kyle decided to take some of that money and go get tattooed tonight. I'm not thrilled about the spending of money, but he isn't taking a single penny (over my dead body) out of the bank and he has been wanting this tattoo since Henry was born, so I only gave him a hard time and sulked around for a couple of hours last night. I am glad that Henry gets some tattoo love like Quillan did. Eventually I will loosen my kung fu grip on our finances (if I ever feel comfortable with what we have in the bank-maybe after I've been working for a while) and get my Henry tattoo as well. We shall see.

Okay, I need to clean the toilet before Liz and Adella get here. I don't mind if the house is a mess, but I am always horrified when people come over to a less than clean toilet. Go figure.

Oh, and mama, if you are reading this, gimme a call. My email is malfunctioning and I can't get to your work # in there. No emergency or anything.

He should be at Fashion Week in Paris! 

The jaunty fireman blows a dandylion. 

I think we might be ready for a nap... 

Phew! Thanksfully Henry woke up feeling much better yesterday morning so we decided to go ahead with the festivities.

I was a bad party mama and got next to no pictures of Henry's the party. I am relying on the kindness of more responsible parents who documented the affair better than I and hope to get some more pictures in the next week or so. What I do have is down there somewhere.

It was a lot of fun. I was super worried about the weather but it miraculously stopped raining and got sunny about 15 minutes before people showed up and stayed sunny until about 15 minutes after people left, when it started raining again. Thanks GrandMemere! The kids had a blast bouncing around in the house with balloons and jumping all over each other. It is another miracle that there were no major injuries with the amount of toddler energy expended in such a smll space. Henry made out like a bandit, present wise. Over the next few days I am going to ahve to sneak some of his old toys into the Wee Trade box to make room for all of the cool new stuff. Or maybe I should think about actually using the drawers in the bed I was so excited about when we bought it for toy storage.

Potty training continues to go fairly well. We tried undies today and he's just not there yet, but he's still doing great nekkid. I am going to try to give him a few more days of success before we move to the undies stage. One step at a time, baby. I'll just put him in Pull Ups when we go out and about. Knitting is over here tomorrow, so he can be a bare butted boy all day again.

Speaking of which, Mr. Barebutt is in desperate need of a bath. Off I go...

The present opening begins!  

Henry shows off the painting Ava made him while Elijah helps him blow a party favor. 

Ooooh, Harley. Pepere is going to LOVE that. Maybe I should bring it to CT with us so HE can hear it say "Eat my dust!" all day. Heh. 

This might very well be the last picture taken of Rachel as an only child. Beth finally had Lucas at 8ish this morning! Yay! In this picture she is 41 weeks pregnant and still smiling-amazing. 

There is no amount of cropping I can do here to hide the horrid state of the house, lol. But the picture was too cute not to post. Henry rocking out on his flying V in his Dora undies. 

Liz MADE this cute little tote for Henry and filled it up with all sorts of little animals for his to play with. Beyond cute, and he's been lugging it around all day. 

Henry in his rainbow flame bellbottoms with his kick booty Harley Davidson.  

Henry is sick. He had the sniffles this morning, but now he just woke up coughing and crying froma 15 minute (pth) nap and he's a mess. I am going to give it until the morning, but it looks like we are going to have to postpone the Rock Star Party until after we get back from CT. I just finished his rainbow flame bellbottoms, too!

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

Well, we are officially "potty training". We are on day 3 of no dipes except at night and during naps, when Henry wears "night night undies" (aka Buzz Lightyear PullUps). So far he has peed on the kitchen floor once (thanks, little man, for avoiding the carpet) and he pooped in the grass outside last night. Other than that it has been all in the potty! He even managed to poop on the potty a little bit yesterday while we read books and sat for about a half hour. We have been completely bare assed, no dipes or undies or pants, so we'll see what happens when we try undies. Last time we tried he just peed right through them like he thought they were a diaper. Can I just tell you that Henry in the bathroom standing in front of the toilet on tippytoes peeing into it is pretty much the cutest thing ever in life? And hell, he already has better aim than his Daddy.

Today Kyle is participating in a focus group for some local group that is trying to push some ordinance through local government. I know nothing about it except that they want his opinion, they are buying him breakfast and lunch and paying him $150 for the day. I know he is going to try to sneak that money into a "new digital camera fund". Yeah, right. Anyway, his participation means that henry and I are stranded here all day. It is icky outside, too, so walking down to the bakery is out. BO-ring. I have a "to do" list about 10 miles long, but a lot of it requires the use of a vehicle. There seems to be so much to do before Henry's party tomorrow. I ahve to finish sewing his bellbottoms, put finishing touches on his vest, make some beaded necklaces, clean the house (for real), go grocery shopping for all of the food, make goody bags, wrap presents, make Dora undies, get paper products, etc., etc., ad nauseum. There is a 40% chance of thunderstorms tomorrow so cross your fingers that it holds off until nighttime or passes us right by.

We have a new addiction. Kyle somehow decided to start watchign The Wire, then talked me into watching it, and now we are both hopelessly addicted. I went out in my pjs at 10 last night to go get the next few episodes so we could take advantage of Henry sleeping time. It is so. good. And Jimmy McNulty is the hottest cop since Zach Morris decided to join NYPD Blue. We are about 3 episodes into the second season and I am already dreading when we catch up-the end of Season 3-and have to wait for Season 4 to start in real time. And now I am home all by my lonesome with a DVD of the next 2 episodes and 2 hours of naptime (it is definitely not something we can watch while Henry is awake). Kyle wouldn't mind if I jumped ahead, right?

Well. It looks like we are going to be buying a house!!! We got a call from the bank yesterday saying that the woman who was in charge of our file pushed us though! There are a few minor stipulations, but I don't think that any of them will be a problem. I drove past the property the other day and they still haven't broken ground, so it will be a while, but it looks like it is going to happen. IKEA here we come!

Henry's birthday passed with little ado. We didn't really make a big deal out of it at all since his party isn't until Saturday. Once he sees presents and cake, he'll be ALL about turning 3. He got some presents in the mail today and I dutifully set them aside for him to open Saturday. I think we are going to go for a Roger Daltry/Jim Morrison rock star look. I bought some brown felt and tonight after he goest o bed I am going to set about the task of making a wee little fringe vest that he can wear with no shirt. Then I have to find a pair of cords suitable for making into bellbottoms.

The little man had his 3 year well baby chackup today. It seems like he is quite the lean, mean, fighting machine. He is in about the 75% for height (37") and 10% for weight (27lbs.13oz.). No new news, really, Dr. Rob just gave him the once over and declared him prefectly healthy. Oh, and he said that the damage to his toe from dropping that drum on it should ahve warranted a doctor visit. He said that since we didn't bring him in, the damage was enough that he might have trouble if the nail falls off because of damage to the cuticle. If we had brought him in they would have drilled a hole in his toenail to let some of the blood leak out and that would have saved the nail. Now, if it falls off, it might either not grow back at all or grow back all funky looking. Poor little toe, but I am glad I didn't have to hold him down while someone drilled a hole through his toenail. Holy crap, I thought shots were bad.

Okay, tiny man needs some attention...

Okay, there are some pictures below for all interested parties. Suzy has some, too, but I have to wait for them to come into my inbox before posting them.

After I published that last entry I remembered that I had forgotten something and now here I am, forgetting it anew.

Anyway, Northern Michigan. It was kind of chilly, so we didn't have the opportunity to get Henry up on waterskis (oh, darn!). We played a lot of cards and I read a trashy novel while trying to avoid getting any work done. It worked. Now that I am home I am going to be scrambling to get caught up. OH! I remember what it was that I forgot. Very very exciting. I started making the lacy window covering from Mason Dixon Knitting. I am doing a Fall/Winter version of the one in the book, in a varigated dark green sport weight wool. I'll take pictures someday. I got about halfway through when I realized just how much I should be doing work knitting and not futzing about with fun stuff. I'll pick it back up when I'm caught up again. Okay...back to Northern Michigan...Henry got to drive a boat AND a Porshe '57 Speedster convertable. You really do have to squeeze all of that in before the 3rd birthday, you know. I wish we could have gotten some pictures of Henry watching the fireworks but...it was dark, you know. He loved them, and the parade on the 4th.

We saw a movie that my Papa absolutely HAS to see called The Fastest Indian about speedy motorcycles. The next movie on MY must see list is Brick. Bam saw it and described it as "Veronica Mars meets Double Indemnity". Does it get any better than that? I think not.

Henry is turning 3 on Monday. I can't frelling believe it. His big party is a week from today and I have no idea what we're going to do. I can't decide if Henry should be Robert Plant or Sid Vicious. I have to do lots of shopping. Hell, I still have invites to deliver.

Okay, now I reeeaaally should go work. Pth.

A Kett and Bambi "smanwich" (as Henry likes to say). 

Henry and Uncle Jim survery the scene. Don't ask what happened to the deck. 

Two wild and crazy guys! 

Just chillin'. 

Poppa go FAST! 

Helping Daddy drive the boat. 

Here they come! 

Henry tries to cover his ears without getting lollipop tangled in his hair. Those fire trucks are LOUD! 

Coolest. Golf cart. Ever. 

The Grand Marshall. 

Oh, wouldn't the neo-cons love to use this picture in their ads? A young adorable boy praying for the good of our nation as the 4th of July parade goes by. I promise you, he is just trying to keep his balloon from floating away. 

Well, after 16 hours in the car yesterday (8am to 12 midnight) we are home from Michigan. Oh, how I've missed you, my beloved high speed internet connection!

We had a great time. The drive to Ann Arbor was blissfully uneventful adn we were greeted warmly with a sack full of Zingerman's reubens and black cherry Dr. Brown's soda. After eating dinner, the meeting folks went to a meeting and Libby and I walked around downtown with Henry to look at everything that might have changed since our departure. It kinda seemed like everything had changed, but stayed the same. It was more apparent how much I had changed. I kept feeling like I had to grab Henry's hand on the sidewalk to pull him out of the way of bustling foot traffic. That rarely happens in Asheville. I kept trying to make eye contact and give that "Sorry he's in the way, but what can you do-he's 3. And did you notice how cute he was?" look to people, but no one looked me in the eye or said anything. It was clear that the part of me that was annoyed upon arriving in Asheville to find that it took 20 minutes to get a cup of coffee because people actually insisted on talking to each other was now long gone. I missed making connectins with strangers, even just a quick hello. It didn't feel like a warm community to me and I immediately missed that. I'm glad that we've chosen this community to raise the little man. As long as he doesn't start saying "y'uns", we're good.

I got to reconnect with my old best friend and go to girl, Carrie, and it was amazing to sit and chat with her in a comfortable way. I am hoping that lasts. Bam threw a bbq and we got to see a lot of the people we had been missing the past year. We got ahold of our old friends Charlie and Laurie, who had a son Louie right after Henry was born, and they stopped by. The boys took to each other immediately and were sad to say goodbye when the time came. I think they must remember somewhere deep down that when they were just tiny little things they shared space. It was nice. Saturday night I planned a night out to get a few drinks and see if Ann Arbor at night was the same as always. Nope. My favorite bar had moved and it just wasn't the same. We had a good time, though, especially when, after 5 beers, we decided it would be a good idea to visit Aaron at work. Aaron works at detox. I'm lucky that he knows me or he might have tried to have me admitted to the detox program, my tolerance not being what it once was. Sunday we had lunch with Aaron and Tanya and then they were off to the brand spankin' new IKEA in Canton. He then left for a wedding in Portland, whene he thought he might see Brad. I guess Brad has decided to go by Bradley and Aaron referred to him as "the king of the Portland hipsters". Figures.

That brings us to our departure to Northern Michigan, which I'll save for another day. Henry and Kyle went to the car wash and they'll be home soon. I need to get something to eat before the beastie known as "the 3 year old who spent 16 hours in the car yesterday and now must run around like a crazy person" returns.