I can't believe that eight years ago I was giving birth to one of the biggest blessings of my life!! Mike and I have a great kid - and today - turning 8.

In honor of the great eight, I put together a little video of year seven. You can watch the video by clicking HERE.    Or, it could work for you by watching here:

Abby is in the children's choir at church...their performance this year involved different "eras".   Abby got to be in the 80's era....and after alot of hairspray and a gigantic Christmas bow, here's the result.   Abby is on the left side of the stage as you are looking at the video - she is one of the red shirts (wearing long white sleeves).
Enjoy!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing


If you receive "The Adventures" through email, you will need to visit the website directly to view the video.


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Just wanted to let you know that tonight at the dinner table, Abby announced that we are going open a family business.   It will be a restaurant called, "The Amaro House of Food".    Will will be open 6 days a week and on Saturday morning we will serve breakfast.

We will be closed on holidays, but we will be open on Election day.   Because people will probably be hungry after they elect.

If you have any questions, please contact Club Amaro.

A conversation that just occurred:

"My allergies are really bothering me because Grandaddy and I went out to the field to fly our kite and it really threw me off a cliff"

My response, "it threw you off a what?"

" It's a figure of speech."

---

Note: the publishing of this conversation has been approved by all involved parties.

We found out that Abby's teacher is a huge Florida State fan.   A homework assignment that Abby received this week was to find a picture of someone performing an action, write a sentence and highlight the verb.

Playing a little Laura + Amanda this morning with Abby....today we are doing some "paperwork" and Laura interrupts me with the following:

"I got a phone call from a man that was wondering if we had wi-fi.   I told him that we do have wi-fi but that we would have to charge him $5.00"

I'm glad we got that all worked out....

A little later on, Laura had a little gasp and looked at me to say:

"Can you believe that I came to work all fancy and I didn't put my make up on"

This followed by a quick grab of her lip gloss and mirror from her purse and subsequent gloss application.

Frankly, I'm a little worried about her actually hitting the work force....please pray for her.   And me.

This past weekend we took a trip to Cheekwood and spent some time roaming around.   I couldn't stop taking pictures of the Chihuly sculptures - they were absolutely amazing!   I did manage to shoot just a few pictures of flowers...but my favorite flower of all goes by the name of Abby.   I could name so many great attributes about her, but this particular day the one that stood out most was "self-posing".    No longer do I have to prompt Abby to pose, she just says, "Mom.  Take one of me like this"  

Yeah....she rocks it.






Please check out the Cheekwood posts at AFH - there's lotsa, lotsa pics to see!!  

Tonight Abby prayed for me because I'm not feeling well. I was so touched by her sweet prayer until the part where she said, "and when she wakes up tomorrow may she be refreshed and nude".

I'm hoping God will spare the house and just allow me to feel renewed instead.

"Mom. Can you please not give me the white jelly beans? They taste like machines."

I must write quickly...my mind is like a sieve.

10 minutes ago I had the most fascinating convo with Abby. It's one that will probably not translate that well into a blog post, but why not try.

The background: It was the tucking event...that's where the covers are placed over the child in a very specific way. You know, just enough so as to cover the neck....but not to be too much over the stuffed lamb and certainly not over the buddy pillow. The tucking event is the last frontier before the turning off of the light and the parental unit room departure. The tucking event comes after the situating event which is where all 283 of the stuffed animals, babies and pillows are arranged such that each will have a proper night of sleep. No telling where all this fussing comes from.

During this whole process, there are what I like to call breakpoints (do I have any programmers in the crowd??). These are places where the entire thing is brought to a halt due to some action of the child. This action (could be any number of things) is one that has been refined and perfected over the last 4 years or so. It could be something like her water not being "fresh" or one of the 283 stuffed something or others has been left in the living room. Lately, the thing that really is working for her is the, "I forgot to tell you what I learned in school today". Yeah....what am I going to say to that? "Um...I'm not interested, go to sleep". That'll win me Mom of the year for sure. Of course, I love to hear about things that she's learned and want to be eager to encourage her that learning is fun...yadda, yadda.

SO. That's where we were tonight. It was the "I forgot to tell you" breakpoint at the tucking event procedure.

Now that I got all that out of the way, I forgot half of the conversation. I will try my best to reconstruct. I will start off by saying, this was mostly a monologue, in true Amaro fashion. There were so many hand gestures going I thought I was going to have to take a pill. Throughout the entire thing, I was wishing I had my video cam setup because it would have been the perfect content for a Sunday Convo video. I wish, wish, wish I could somehow convey her voice inflections and facial movements.

"MOM. I forgot to tell you what I learned in school today. "

"Ok, why don't you tell me quick about it since it's getting past your bedtime."

[sitting up, placing her hand on her hip] "Do you know what MATTER is?"

"Well, isn't it stuff that takes up space?" [note to readers: I did graduate from high school...just so you know]

"[picking up her buddy pillow] THIS IS MATTER. [picking up her doll] THIS IS MATTER. [picking up her book] THIS IS MATTER. [picking up a glass bowl and knocking on it] Matter is everywhere. There are 3 types of matter. Solid, liquid and gas. [continuing to knock on the bowl] THIS is solid....do you see? It's not moving around like all crazy. [picking up her water bottle] THIS is liquid....THIS is a whole nuther story. See how the water is just moving around? The air. The air is a gas...you can't see it. Well, sometimes you can see it. Like when water is boiling...the bubbles. But it's all matter. Matter is everywhere."

At this point, she proceeds to pick out everything she can in her room to tell me it's matter.

"This book? MATTER. The dresser? MATTER. The fan? MATTER. My clothes? MATTER." And so on, and on, and on. And on.

I'm thinking to myself, at what point can I interrupt her without seeming insensitive to what she's saying? Is she going to move on to the matter in the hall bathroom? How do I win here?

"Hey." I interrupted. She looks at me...that precious face so excited about her new knowledge with only the slightest hint of irritation that I butt into her list of matter.

"Yes?" she says.

"I can tell you something that is NOT matter".

She looks at me - in utter amazement as if I had the keys to unlock the universe.

"REALLY? What?"

"My love for you!" I say.

It took her a moment....it was like she was putting that data through that little processor of hers. But once it computed she SQUEALED...at which point I tickled her and gave her a kiss and said, "Sleep tight!"

Breakpoints cleared.
Program execution continue.
Parental Unit OUT.

Signal the conductor...the train needs slowin' down! Was it not yesterday that I was giving birth to my precious child and now she's going to 1st grade?

I always wanted to sucker punch those people who would sigh and say, "enjoy each moment because it goes by so fast". Ugh! "Get over the cliche's already" I would scoff to myself. Ahhh, it's so refreshing to look back and see how mature I've become since those days. Now instead of scoffing, I'm just trying to enjoy each moment...you know, it goes by so fast!



I realize that I just did this comparison less than 2 months ago (read that here). You may find comfort in knowing that next year I may be over the taking-of-the-pictures-with-the-backpack phase. I'm not sure I can give you that assurance just yet, but the thought may help you endure another round of Care Bear backpack pictures.

Actually, this was Abby's idea...she thought it would be a good "joke" to take another picture of her this year with the infamous CB backpack. I agreed that it might be a good tool to measure her growth. Won't it be fabulous to see her wearing the Care Bear's backpack on her first day of work?

Let's review:








Take special note of the shoes here in the last picture. Yes, those are shoelaces. Although Abby has known how to tie a bow for awhile, I've hesitated to buy lace up shoes because I knew that it would add an additional 16 minutes to the morning routine. As it is, the production that she does with her socks takes 3 minutes per foot. Not because she can't navigate the sock - it's the cuffing. Ohhhh the cuffing....it must be just so. Will never know where she gets that from.

It was a great first day at school...Abby's very excited to have her same teacher this year as she did for Kindergarten. She has all the same classmates (with the exception of one who moved out of state and one new boy). We are looking forward to all that 1st grade will bring.

I'm especially looking forward to my daughter officially being smarter than me.

Big hugs from
Care Bear Backpack Central,
k

I could have called this post, "my baby's done growed up" but I thought it would be wise to display my edumacational aptitude so you all will think I'm smart.



Can you stand this picture? Inspect the cheeks...take them in. Commit them to memory. Nevermind the hack job on the bangs - c'mon, I can only do so many things and now you want me to have a cosmetology degree too? Look past the bangs. The cheeks...THE CHEEKS. I love those cheeks.



Ahhh...Jr. Kindergarten (otherwise known as glorified second year of preschool). Of course Mom has made her wear the SAME Care Bears backpack that she wore for preschool. How embarrassing that must have been for her. You know how cruel those junior kindergartners can be about that sort of thing.

On a completely unrelated note...I'm having a moment looking at my flowers from our house back in CA. Maybe soon I will have some flowers in my TN flowerbed. ~~sigh~~



NO! NO! Not the Care Bears backpack.... Fortunately for Abby, after the first day of Kindergarten, her teacher dropped a subtle hint that perhaps the Care Bears backpack might be "a little small".





Is this a new trend? Since when do I need two school pictures? Does that much change in 8 months? Do I not take enough pictures at home that I need the staged Olan Mills shot? Where is the wagon wheel? Or has the metal rail replaced the wagon wheel as the prop of choice?

Hey, I'm a sucker just like the next Mom. The picture peeps got 2 checks from me, don-cha-know.



Today was Abby's last day of Kindergarten. No more Kindergarten escapades to write about. More importantly, my spell checker will finally get a break from the word Kindergarten. I always spell that word wrong! Now I can move onto numbers. I'm very excited.

People, my girl is growing up...I can hardly stand it...it's happening right before my eyes. She's a beautiful, smart, funny, tender-hearted little person who can't talk without moving her hands. I love her so much!

Thanks for letting me have my Mommy moment.

love,
k

Part of me is reluctant to document this episode...mainly because I'm embarrassed that my child actually did this. But the other part of me is thinking...there have GOT to be other kids in the world that do stuff like this.

I was making dinner. Abby was talking on the phone to Grandaddy. All of the sudden, Abby comes in the kitchen - still holding the phone in her hand. She's slightly on the verge of losing it (Dad...you can testify to this, right?). I put my kitchen utensil down and sit on the kitchen chair to see what's wrong. She's got this crazy look in her eye. It was makin' me nervous.

"What is the matter, sweet, loving, daughter?" (Ok, I added that last part in because I want you to believe that I'm a sweet, loving, mother).

"Something happened in my nose!!"

"What?"

"Ummm....something is in my nose!!"

"What?"

"I was holding this thing and now it's in my nose!!"

I love how she didn't come right out and say, "I stuck something in my nose". It was as if she was holding something, and some random nostril vortex sucked it in.

So...I recalled the page in the Mother's Handbook that talks about foreign objects in the nose. I placed my pointer finger on opposite nostril and instructed the child to blow.

From her opposite nostril jettisoned a small, orange, foamie square - a remnant from a fun mosaic project that Grandma sent her. It hit me in the chest (fortunately, I did not sustain any injuries - although there may be some damage that has not shown up yet) and then bounced onto the table.

I then calmly told Grandaddy that we would call him back, because I was about to have a "talk" with the child.

Mike came in right as I was asking, "Why did you think it was a good idea to stick this up your nose?". The look on Mike's face cannot be documented at this time.

While I calmly, and lovingly continued to explain the problem with inserting things into your nostril, a little blood started to pool around her precious little nose hole.

Knowing how my daughter would react to this new development, I asked Mike to quickly retrieve a Kleenex. I dabbed the blood and did a magic trick to hide the evidence.

Abby was very upset and kept asking me, "Did I damage my body??"

I reassured her that her body was not damaged and that there was something really, really cool that happened as a result of what she did. "Huh?" A glimmer of hope sparkled in her eye. I explained to her that she learned a valuable lesson and it didn't cost her but a few tears (and some blood that she doesn't know about).

"So, from now on, the only thing that goes in your nose is your finger...and, even that should be done sparingly!!"

Pick a winner,
k

PS - please...please...please...somebody tell me that their kid has stuck stuff up their nose. I need some love here.

Today was a beautiful spring day...I would call it 68 degrees and blue skies. This afternoon I took it upon myself to start tackling the front flower bed clean up. Ok, well technically it's not a flower bed yet....but it's gonna be. Right now, it's over run with monkey grass and very lame shrubs. I hate shrubs. But I sure like playing in the dirt.


Exhibit A: This is a picture of me with my great grandpa in his garden, circa 1975, Monroe, Louisiana. Nice pants, huh? Stop laughing...you know you had pants like that.

In addition to a great veggie garden, great grandpa had a worm farm. When we would visit, I would spend time there helping him harvest the little wormies. Fun, fun, fun. What kid doesn't like playing in the dirt, digging up worms?

Fast forward 34 years (save your brain cells - I'm 37). My 6 year old is digging for worms in our patch of dirt. Another "coming full circle" for me...



It seems as though the dirt in our patch is full of wormies...and every one of Abby's worm discoveries was followed by a gasp and a "Coooooooooool". I explained to her that the worms prefer to stay IN the dirt, but she insisted on building a "worm jungle". On the concrete stair.

In case you're wondering about the elbow/knee pads - she dug these up in the garage and decided to put them on. When digging, one must be well-protected.



I guess it's better than being on the end of the hook, eh?

Tonight, I'm pulling something out of the archives for your viewing pleasure. Since my has been Mom here, she's been talking about this video that she took of Abby back in August of 2006. She finally showed it to me and I was amazed at how much Abby has grown in the almost 3 years since it was taken. The best part is listening to her word pronunciation. At this point in time, her speech was mostly developed, but she was still working on those interlabial skills. At any rate, it's a precious video.

Yes, I'm biased...but it's still precious.


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Forezer yours,
k

Do you like games? I got one for ya...

Try and guess what could possibly be going on with this hair.



Perhaps the concentration level inside this brain is so intense, so fervid, that it's causing the hair to take on a new shape. Perhaps scientists would want to study this phenomenon.



Maybe I found a feature on The Reb that creates wild and crazy hair. Maybe I used my CVS bucks to get some free hairspray and styled it this way.



Maybe there's some Bill Bixby/Incredible Hulk kind of thing going on where the hair can't control itself and starts wigging out.





Or maybe...





Perhaps...





She's doing this:



Did you guess right?? I used the "continuous shoot" mode on The Reb to capture 143 shots of Abby jumping (in the span of a few minutes) while Gmama & Mike turned the rope.

And, FYI...they did not sing, "Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack...all dressed in black, black, black"

Can I tell you that I did NOT enjoy looking at them so much. Do you know what jumping does to your face when the force of your body hits the ground? As my friend Kathryn would say, "it ain't pretty, kitty". I mean, c'mon...Abby is a cute kid...I can't imagine what some of US would look like jumping rope.

YIKES.

Let us get that scary thought out of our mind by looking at this:



Ahhhh....much better.

I have added something new to my job description. Tooth-puller.
I submit to you, Exhibit A.



After quite a number of weeks being loose, Mr. Tooth decided he'd had enough. He could no longer stand the incessant wiggling and touching by Mr. Pointer Finger. So this morning, when Mr. Tooth was almost perpindicular to the gum line, I just stuck my pinchers in and took care of biz. Abby didn't even know what hit her. She was suspended in this confused state...not sure whether to be mad at me for pulling her tooth without asking, or excited at the fact that she's just crossed over into a new season of dental glory. As she stood there with blood trickling out of the newly created hole in her gum line, I yelled at her, "GO LOOK IN THE MIRROR". She snapped out of it and giggled all the way down the hall.



I'm having flashbacks of my orthodontist yelling at me for not wearing my retainer.

Whad up, peeps...

I got a sweet love note today...actually, I get sweet love notes everyday. Lots of them. Trees have sacrificed their life for the sake of the notes I get. But this one ranked extra high in sweetness.



I love that she loves me to the moon & bake. How cute is that.

One last thing:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GRANDPAPA!! See you in a few days, we'll have the green cupcakes waitin for ya...

k