Not So Much

So we just get home from the girls' jazz and tap class from which I have been exactly one half hour late for two weeks in a row.

Such a long story, which ends up with me mortified when the teacher announces that they would practice jazz first next week because SOME people can't make it to class on time.

I apologized to the teacher and explained that I had the times mixed up, but I spent the next couple of hours wallowing in humiliation and self flagellation.

We get home and Brooke is screaming for milk, Emme is singing "Vinnie Valentine" at the top of her lungs and Celeste is desperately trying to do her homework in all of the noise and clatter while I try to make some dinner.

As fish sticks bake in the oven, I am trying to load the dishwasher when Brooke, who has abandoned her cup of freshly poured milk, decides to help me. I want to get this done, but she is insistent on helping. It's nice that she wants to help, but she is 21 months old and I am tired and my brain is fried and Emme is SO LOUD with her singing while Celeste is reciting her memory verse from school.

I can't take it anymore. The hackneyed saying "Calgon Take Me Away!" (really, when am I ever going to take a bath with Calgon no less?) is repeating itself over and over in my head. I snatch a cup away from Brooke who has put it in the dishwasher upside down and I yell at Emme to STOP SINGING! please.

It is silent for a blissful moment. Celeste grabs the opportunity to innocently recite her memory verse,
"Love is patient. Love is kind...."

Some Favorites

When did I start this blog?
I'll have to check, but it was some time over a year ago.

I still haven't figured some things out - especially template wise, but there are some things I have figured out and I think I've come a long way since when I started this blog oh so long ago.

I need to go back and check that first post I ever made. I do know that I was hoping that this could be a photography blog one day. It's come to the point where I have to have someplace to show my work - and this blog is the best place for me so far. I also want to showcase some of the amazing designers that we have modeled for.

Including the faithful people who believed in me, or at least thought I had beautiful children when I was at best a mediocre photographer: Vanessa and Company and Mia Carina Boutique. They have had me photograph their well thought out and exquisitely made children's clothing for nearly a year or more. I wish them continuous success. I believe in them too. Gorgeous, gorgeous clothing that we have the privilege to wear, model and photograph.

So I'll be posting my favorites little by little and new ones as they come along. I'll be sharing links to the boutiques where they come from and maybe I'll share a couple of pictures of photographers whom I admire.

well, at least links to their blogs...

The H Word

After a long day, I give the girls their snacks and figure that I will give Bruce some corn chowder, salad and a jalapeno bagel for dinner. I lie down and relax with a good book for the first time in a hundred years when I hear a small sound.

I take off my reading glasses and look up to see Emme peering at me.

"I am the 'H' word." Emme announces.

"H? Are you happy?" I ask.

"I am H because huh-huh-hungry begins with H."

The Human Bee

Celeste, Emme, and Sabrina are playing mermaids in the pool.

"I'm so tired of being a mermaid! I want to be a human bee!" Emme wails.

Uncle Lorenzo's phone

So Mom tells me that she gets a phone call from the Ontario, CA area code.
"Hello?" she says.

"Hello? Is this Gloria?" a man queries.

"Yes, this is Gloria." answers my mom.

"I have your phone ma'am." the man informs her."I found your number here and speed dialed you from it."

"I'm pretty sure you have my brother's phone. I'll call him and tell him you found it."

Me interrupting the story:

"Mom, how could you call Uncle Lorenzo when that man has his phone?" I am laughing at my silly mom.

Mom: "He has a land line Monica. I called him there. I'm sure. Do you really think I called Lorenzo's cell phone number to tell him his cell phone is lost?"

scenario:

Mom dialing Uncle Lorenzo's cell: "Hello Lorenzo?"

Man with lost phone: "Hello? I'm the one who found his phone. I'm still here!"

I guess Mom had me there.

Brooke's Dishwasher

I just wanted to put this in as a followup to Brooke's printer, because I don't want to forget...

Brooke loves the dishwasher. Her superhuman hearing is as alert to the sound of an opening dishwasher as it is the the printer printing.

She has figured out to open it whether it is locked or not. Most of the time, she leaves it alone, but when I need to load or unload, she is right there.

She likes to stand on the door and bounce. After I pull of her off the door about 5 times, she moves on to her next favorite task: Pulling out the clean silverware and handing it to me. (I have to load dirty dishes when she's asleep). The silverware drawer is right next to the dishwasher. She hands me the forks, spoons and butter knives one at a time. Each time I say "thank you", and each time she says "thank you" in response.

Lately she has moved on to dishes. She's pretty good at it. Lucky me. She'll even get a dishrag and scrub surfaces for me. I think she's a clean freak.

Brooke's Printer

Brooke has a special relationship with our printer. It's just an ordinary printer - pretty much a box with some buttons and trays. Brooke loves it. She likes to stand on a chair that I have next to it and try to take it apart. She loves to pull out the 4x6 photo paper and put it back in or strew it about as her fancy has it.

Her most favorite thing to do however, and I what I think she considers is her job, is to pull out pages as they are being freshly printed out. She is mysterious. I will print something and she will appear out of nowhere and stand while my document is printing, patiently waiting for her prize - to rip it out and hand it to me.

She has keen hearing. I know she is upstairs while I am downstairs planning on printing a document. I know she is there, but sure enough, the whir of the printer guarantees that she will materialize without a sound. She is as quiet as a cat. Standing with grim patience she grabs printout after printout handing them to me efficiently without taking her eyes off my hewlett-packard.

She hands the printouts to me without eye contact. While I watch in irritation - I really don't want her to wrinkle my papers, but arguing with a one y/o is pointless - I am at the same time impressed and tickled. She has a method. She listens and knows that more than one page will come out. She gets the page with her right hand and hands it to me with the fierceness of a bullseye slingshot. Page after page. Wait, shoot, wait, shoot. When the printer sounds like it's finished, she disappears back to where she had come from. Job done.