Quality Mother-Daughter Time

My mom is here visiting us this week. At her request, we have kept our schedule light. We have only dragged her to 3 football games, 1 volleyball tournament, an Emmaus event, a couple of trips (or three or four) to the store, and to church so far. We have even fed her occasionally.

She told me while she was here she wanted to take me out to get a pedicure and manicure, so yesterday we were running some errands when she saw a nail salon and seized upon the moment of opportunity. I still had my camera with me since the kids participated in the See You At The Pole event, so I took a few shots.

It wasn't easy getting us both into the viewfinder when we were a couple of feet apart in massage chairs, but we finally got it done. (I am going to insert a PSA here. If your mom takes you to get a pedicure, don't wear a dress and open-toed wedge sandals. One can ruin your freshly painted toes and the other can make things uncomfortable for you and the nail technician. Thank goodness they keep towels in salons.)

Then the technicians got to work. I have never had a pedicure before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I knew the hot water would feel good on my extremely swollen feet. I didn't think of how ticklish my feet are, though, until Jaydon started buffing them. I tried to hold still, I really did, but occasionally he would hit a spot that made me jump and then he would look at me the way the anesthesiologist who was poking my ticklish spine did when I was having Kyle. (Which made me laugh more as I heard, "Mrs. Wellborn, if you really want this epidural you HAVE to sit still!" running through my head.)

Mom is a better customer than I am, given that she isn't ticklish at all.  She also didn't jump when they pulled our feet out of the warm water and suddenly dumped a very cold liquid on them.  I am sorry, Jaydon, I truly didn't mean to splash water all over your face when that happened!

In the end, I had ten very swollen piggies that were cut down and painted pink, and then adorned with flowers that Jaydon painted to match my tattoo. (Please excuse the picture of my ugly feet. I do try to keep it family-friendly around here and refrain from posting gruesome photos, but this one slipped in somehow.)

Thank you, Mom... it was a fun afternoon!

Tonight I have been thinking about what I can do the next time Mom comes to create another quality bonding experience, and I have found the answer. If we are going to let strangers color our body parts, we may as well make it a lasting memory, so I am taking Mom in to get a tattoo. I even designed one for her tonight that we can have wrapped around her ankle.  (Don't tell her, it is a surprise!)

After seeing it all typed out, though, it does look a little long.

I better shorten the "Jennifer" to "Jenn."

The Coconut Experience

A few weeks ago Todd  asked me to buy a coconut for him. Somewhere along the line he had read about drinking coconut milk from the coconut, and decided he wanted to try it. In fact, he even asked me to make sure it had "fresh milk" in it.

How does one ensure a coconut is fresh? I truly don't know, so I offered to go on a tropical vacation and pick him one straight from a tree. To my deep consternation, he didn't want me to do that. It would take too long.

So I went to Walmart and found my monkey a coconut. Then he had to wait three days due to back-to-back football games to try it. When we got home from his Saturday game, he immediately got his coconut out of the fridge and got Jack to drill it open for him.

Then he found a straw, and with every ounce of pent-up anticipation in his little frame, he took a deep drink of his coconut milk.

The verdict?

He wasn't impressed. So Beth tried it...

and wasn't impressed.

So Kyle tried it... and wasn't impressed.

This has me thinking I really should go on a tropical vacation and bring home a coconut with fresh milk to see if we might get better results.  I would make that kind of sacrifice for my children because I am a vacation-starved loving mom that way.

Don't worry about the rest of the coconut going to waste, though. After his initial disappointment, Todd perked right up. "Mom!" he said, "If you can find me some long grass to make a hulu skirt out of, I can turn this into a coconut bra and do the hulu dance for Halloween!"

On second thought, maybe I better stay home and make sure my boy isn't going out in public wearing a coconut bra.

Extortion in Church

As we sat in church yesterday, I noticed Kyle and Beth passing notes. When they went up to the front for the children's sermon, I read the notes and discovered a hot bed of extortion and conspiracy.

I suppose it started out innocently enough. Kyle wanted some more paper to draw on, but he wasn't asking for it very nicely.

Beth responded with a terse "no", wherein Kyle proceeded with his extortion tactics.

This apparently did not sit well with Beth, who threatened to blow the whole thing wide open with an ill-timed screaming match.

She even drew a picture to let Kyle know how this would not be pretty.

Thank goodness the Children's Sermon began when it did. Who knows how far they would have taken this!