Micah has been on the down low for the past three days. Apparently, for three days straight, he has tried to get down to the Carlsbad flower mart to pick me up a bunch of my favorite flower for Mother’s Day. Each day he intended to go…something brutal came up, and he either didn’t go, or had to turn around. But today was the day. He headed down, and looked solely for one flower…and one flower only…
Butterfly Ranuculas.
He found them in the brightest and most insane yellow…so he bought me a whole box!
When I got them tonight, I was so stinking excited! I opened the box, and to my delight…found five bunches! Can you imagine what these can create?!? As I opened each bunch’s plastic wrap…I noticed that too many petals were of the stems. I have bought enough Carlsbad flowers to know that they should basically be buds…but buds they were not! i almost wanted Micah to leave the room, but he saw them, and was totally deflated. He had bought flowers that were too old. And the worst part….because of Mother’s Day…they were crazy expensive compared to their normal asking price.
Poor Micah!
No worries…that is the beauty of these flowers — even when they lose their petals, the bare bud is beautiful. And since each stem has tons of flowers — they were all camouflaged anyway.
The great news — regardless of their possible two days of life from this point forward — they are MAGNIFICENT!
They will always be at the top of my list as a perfect Mother’s Day centerpiece.
I’m just not so sure that Micah will still be buying these after this averted disaster!
Pippi has infected our home with a love of jumping rope. Nonnie even bought her and Dash new kid jump ropes to keep their jumping alive. Today, I was trying to get a few things done, so I submitted a challenge. If Scout, Navy, Dash or Pippi could jump rope 100, 90, 80 or 15 times in a row at 7:00 on the dot…they won 5 euros for Europe.
Scout conceded an hour before.
Navy got about half way.
Dash did great, but tripped up around 20.
Pippi dominated, and made a first low-ball goal, but didn’t make the competition goal.
Then I tried — and got to around 65.
All of this jumping rope got Scout going. He was laughing at everyone who was choking…and said, “Fine! I want a chance!” We handed over the rope, and the cocky kid started…1…2…3…4..that was it!!! We laughed so hard at him, and he said, “It was my jeans! They tripped me up..I am taking the off!” So right there and then, he disrobed to his boxers. And in his boxers, with new found vigor he started…1…2…TRIP!!!
It was the best!!
Especially when Pippi said, “Move over Scout…I can do more than you!”
Scout was just singing away after he got out of the shower. Bohemian Rhapsody from Queen to be exact. It was so cute, that Micah and I paused the television to listen to him. I grabbed my phone and ran in to record his singing from outside the bathroom door. I was a bit late, and only caught a few words before he walked out of the bathroom with almost nothing covering him - to my running video camera. He was shocked — as was I. He quickly slammed the door shut, and I started laughing so hard. When he came out again…his face said it all.
And his editing on this picture I found the next day said even more.
Pippi and Dash are pretty cute buds. After school, while Navy and Scout are doing homework and piano, these two find each other and hang out.
Today, they made nachos together and had a picnic by the pool. I caught them hanging out, and didn’t want to disrupt them — so I grabbed my telephoto lens to capture the candid day-to-day pictures.
Because the day-to-day memories of my childhood, are the ones that have left the biggest imprint.
Today, I got to go to Pippi’s preschool for their mother & me Mother’s day morning. We painted together, we looked at her work together, and then she presented me with a beautiful necklace and note that was all about me. According to Pippi, I am 19 years old, love to work on my computer and read. We love playing at the playground together, she loves my mashed potatoes and gravy — although my favorite is salad. I am a great driver (totally agree). And I am special because I love Pippi!
That I do!
Every once in a while, I take my kids to the park, and sit in the car and read a good book while they play.
Mostly only when I am into a really good book.
And lately, Barbara Walter’s Audition was totally worth the title of “lazy”.
Even when she gets caught up…
This determined girl tries, tries again.
And recently…it is all day, every day.
Her current record is nine in a row!
While we waited at pickup for Scout, we had 20 minutes left when I received a weird call. Apparently, a heavily-accented Indian man needed to inform me that my social security number had been stolen, and I was currently wanted for drug trafficking. This was so urgent, that they said I would be arrested within 45 minutes if we didn’t get to the bottom of this.
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A few seconds in, I told the kids, “Ok guys…listen up. You know how I always tell you that there are great people in the world…but some bad guys too…here is one of the bad guys.” I proceeded to tell them that he was trying to get all of my secret account information, so that he could then go into mine and dad’s bank accounts to steal everything we had worked so hard for! This got their attention, so they listened up. I told them…”Buckle up….This is real life!”
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I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with this joker. He asked for my name…to which I answered “Violet” the color in front of me at that moment. Then he asked for my last name. “Tree” for obvious reasons. He asked for the last four of my SSN, and I said 8679. (I wanted to add 305) He said it would take a minute, but that he needed to look it all up. AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW!!! HOLY COW!!! He had the file right in front of him…and YEP…I was a money launderer and drug trafficker. (I told the kids “can you believe this guy! I gave him fake information, and he is lying and saying that he has my file!”)
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He told me I was being watched at that very moment. I asked him what I was wearing. He told me that it was another agency..but that he just knew that they were watching. (I covered the phone and said, “not true” to the kids.)
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He told me that if I didn’t work with my local police department — which is really difficult and he will handle it if I would like — that I would be sleeping in jail that night. I told him, “Our local authorities can’t even handle our homeless crisis around town…so I bet I’m okay.”
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He told me that he needed to know how many bank accounts I had — and the names of the banks, and approximately what cash I had in the accounts. He assured me he didn’t need the account numbers! (”Yeah right” I told the kids.) I said, “Bank of Nonsense has about 300K, and B.S. Bank has another 75K.”
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He then told me another agency was adding up what I “owed” — which came to be about 250K. (Watch kids — he is now going to say that he can help me more if I provided the account numbers.) He then said that if I would like him to take over the situation he could — and all I had to do was give him the digits of the account number — but I didn’t need to provide the routing number so I was still secure. (HAH!!! I told the kids that he must think we are total morons!)
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There were many other things…and Navy and Dash were glued to their seats. It all came to a head, when I asked where he was located. He said, “Of course Washington D.C. ma’am”. I told him I used to live there — and where exactly is the office. (I told the kids that he is really in another country, and won’t know where to say the office is, in Wasington D.C.) He said…”I can only say Washington D.C. for security reasons.” (Uh huh!)
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I finally said — “Oh I get it…we need to stay safe, but I am a real foodie. What is your favorite restaurant in D.C.?” (Kids — he won’t know this either, so he will probably say McDonalds or something) He for sure had caught on by now…and surprised even me at his answer. He turned from a man in a call center with a lot of noise in the background…to a demonic voice that had gotten closer to the phone with all background noise cut out from a covering hand…and said what kind of sounded like something inappropriate. (I told the kids…I don’t have a clue what he just said.) I then took it off speaker and said…”what…I didn’t hear you.” He then repeated what I kind of thought he might have said…and it was vile.
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I hung up immediately.
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I then explained that people all over the world get caught in these things called scams or cons…and it is awful! People lose all of their money, and they have their lives ruined…and that was a real life example of someone in the world who was trying to do that to us! I then told them how it would obliterate our family…and this was a terrible reality in our world today. I was grateful for the real life example. I was also grateful that Dash and Navy kind of caught on to what was happening…and were appalled. As Scout would soon be with us, Dash and Navy were dying to tell him everything about it!
We had about a minute left before Scout would be at the car when Pippi quietly said, “Mama?” I was wondering if this was a little much for her. I was fine until the crazy end…but her tone was sweet and innocent…so was it all a bit too much?
With a paper and pen in hand, she said, “Could you please tell me all of your bank account numbers, and how much you have in them?”
WHAT!!!!
Real life experience GONE WRONG!!!
Bedtime is my least favorite time of the day. How many times can a mom ask kindly for the kids to get in bed…before she gets unkind. Tonight, Pippi was batting a thousand! About 6 times after calling out that it was time for her to get in bed and lights out…I finally stopped what I was doing and went in to tuck her in. (Making the sheets really tight so she couldn’t get out again!) While I was walking into the room, I was saying, “What on earth are you doing that is taking sooooo long!”
And then I saw this:
There is no time like bedtime to organize your underwear drawer.
I let her finish up…but demanded that she didn’t start another drawer.
Dash got busted tonight! Who knows what was so bad that Navy did, that required him to kick out and tag her in the stomach! I almost didn’t even need to send him…he walked directly to his room for the night.
He knew.
I knew.
So when I saw him 15 minutes later…I pointed and sternly told him to get back in bed.
As he was walking away, he held up a paper heart…so I told him if it was any sort of apology, he had permission to approach Navy.
It reads:
“Dear Navy, I am sorry for kicking you in the stomach. [If] you are ok with it…I am going to sleep with you. Just kidding. I will give you a dollar tomorrow. First thing after school, I will give you a dollar.”
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I can appreciate the apology.
Navvy appreciated the apology.
She even invited him to sleep in her bed so they could read a book together.
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