September 3, 2005

September 2, 2005

September 1, 2005

August 31, 2005

August 30, 2005

August 29, 2005

August 28, 2005

I would prefer to keep the previous post at the top of the blog for a little longer, but something amazing just happened that I have to share.

St. Elmo has been plagued lately by a small crime wave. Some friends of ours had their shed broken into and their lawnmower and small power tools were stolen. Someone else on our neighborhood email list had their home broken into and some computers were taken. Most of this was probably in the name of purchasing drugs, quick cash to score fast. (I also hold to the theory that since it is the beginning of the school year that some of this might be gang initiation type activities.)

Well, just a moment ago a car pulled up in front of my house and a young, African-American woman came through the gate. Well, she kind of had to wade through the high grass and weeds to get through, but she was determined. Even the dogs barking at her didn’t really deter her. I opened the door before she was able to get to the porch (I wanted to call off the dogs).

The girl asked if I needed my grass cut. This happens every once in a while and our answer is always no. I am always weary to give money anway, because of the drug trades happening just a few blocks down our street. And, Damon is particular about his grass and I didn’t have any cash.

Well, the girl went on to say that she was just wondering because she needed some cash to buy her baby some pampers.

Me: “You need diapers?”

Girl: “Yeah.”

Me: “What size?”

Girl: “Um, size 4.”

Me: “Hang on.”

Just last night I had to break down and buy Fuller size 5 diapers because the size 4s were just not doing it for his bulging belly. We were going through several outfits a day because of leaks. The reason we had been holding off on buying size 5s was that we still had 40-50 size 4s left in Fuller’s changing table. We were worried about waste and we have been pinching pennies lately.

Well, suddenly they weren’t a waste. I ran inside and grabbed the extra size 4s (40 of them still compressed in the plastic wrapping) and rushed back outside to give them to my surprised visitor.

I could tell she was relieved to not have to cut any grass.

I was relieved that Damon hasn’t had the time to cut the grass for a week.

In case you aren’t aware, Fuller’s full name is Buckminster Fuller Crumley. To learn more about the original Bucky, go here.

We will wait.

Ok, now one of the things that Bucky was famous for was inventing and building a geodesic dome. You are probably familiar with the concept from places like Epcot or your neighborhood playground. And if you have been following this blog and the adventures of the “If I had a Million Dollars…” series, you would remember this project, a special something for Fuller’s exersaucer. It never really worked on the saucer, but we would hang links and toys from it and it provided Fuller with minutes of entertainment.

Well, all this to say that recently, as Fuller works on his mobility, Damon pulled down Fuller’s dome to see if he would start to interact with it again. (The exersaucer was put away awhile ago.)

See what you think.

Fuller has little, itty, bitty hands with pudgy, wudgy fingers all attached to a meaty wrist that apparently has decided to dedicate its life to finding its way into Fuller’s mouth at all times. It is rare that Fuller doesn’t have a finger or hand or wrist (usually all his own) in his mouth. And another favorite pasttime of his is to vocalize and put his hand (or wrist) over his mouth, covering and uncovering it to make this sound, “WO-oo-OH-wa-OO-oh-BABA-bbbb-MAMAMA-mmmmmm.” It is really fun to listen to. Really.

Yes. Really.

Anyway, the dedication that Fuller has to putting his wrist in his mouth is quite serious. Recently he has decided to add to his hand-mouth love wrist-hand-mouth anger. Grrrr.

In the past few days, when we have told Fuller “No” and removed him from a “No” situation, Fuller’s response has been to whine, open his mouth, insert his wrist (or the pad of his hand) and bite down.

Yes, my son bites himself.

At first it was cute and I laughed. But as he keeps doing it, I realized that it wasn’t that cute and I was getting kind of disturbed by seeing him hurt himself repeatedly.

I’m trying to figure out what, if anything, should be done in this situation. For one thing, Fuller isn’t biting others, just himself. One another hand, biting could be a gateway to cutting (or just a gateway to bitinh kids in the nursery), so it could be a self destructive behavior that I need to break. And then there is the hand that says that this type of behavior is just trying to getting any kind of reaction from me (good or bad) and I should just ignore him. Finally, the fourth hand that I have says to get over it and what kind of harm can eight tiny teeth do? (As oppossed to eight tiny reindeer.) I plan on offering that fourth hand to Fuller to bite down on so that fourth hand knows exactly what kind of harm eight tiny teeth can do.

At this second, Fuller is napping and all his drool is ending up on the sheets and not his wrist. I am inclined to just say that it really doesn’t matter right now. So, he bites himself when he gets upset. I think I’ll really start to worry when he actually does bite another kid. Or if the eight tiny reindeer start to bite him.

Tonight I am sacrificing sleep for a little while to participate in my first ever fantasy game. No, not like that. I am going to be the owner of my very own fantasy football team.

In real life I am D’s puppet in the master plan. I am listed as the owner and I get to actually decide which players I want on my team. I admit I don’t quite get the whole thing, but Damon has really gone out of his way to prepare me. I have a cheat sheet that is color coded and everything. The players that I apparently want on my team are all non-BCS players… meaning that these pro players attended non-BCS schools. No Peyton Manning on my team!

And since these players are all considered outsiders, the team is called Alli’s Outies.

My history with picking games in the office pool is pretty scary. I have only done the Bowl Pick ‘em with D’s office, but I usually do really, really well until the last day. I don’t know much, I just pick SEC all the way and the higher ranking numbers. So far, it isn’t that bad.

And now I am graduating to having my own team. Let’s see if this puppet should cut her strings.

Draft starts at 10:15 sharp.

stelmodad asked how I did with my weekend catch up and let’s just say that playing with Fuller is just so much fun!

Well, I did accomplish the laundry, but not Fuller’s laundry. Sure, I should have put his clothes in with ours but, after 10 months of having his laundry to do, I still forget to go into his room and pick up his laundry basket. So, I guess I didn’t finish the laundry.

Groceries were bought and put away. So, we now have food for the next week.

You can tell from the side that the Daily Fuller Fix was updated and caught up.

But the other two tasks, well, they are not crossed off the list. I seem to be developing a weekend tradition of getting some sort of headache on Saturdays and Sundays. By Saturday evening I was down for the count with pressure building up behind my left eye. I will say this for the headaches, the pressure takes turns building up behind a different eye each week.

The headache that started Saturday kept up through Sunday and developed into a full blown migraine this morning.

But, putting aside the pain in my head, we did have a good Sunday. We spent the afternoon visiting with our Shepherding Elder, also known as Bob. He and his lovely wife invited us and some others from our church, for lunch and we gladly accepted (little known fact: invite us for a free meal and unless we are out of town, we will make sure to be there).

We enjoyed the meal and fellowship. Bob’s house has a pond in the backyard and we watched Bob and a little girl (one of the other church member’s friends) feed the catfish with catfish chow. Fuller like crawling around the grass.

So, I guess that is the catch up on the catch up.

Now, to finish the kitchen.