Name Change Alert

So I wanted to let you know that I'm changing the names I use for my children on this blog. I still plan to keep their real names private for security reasons, but I'm giving them new blog names (as it were).

I've been calling them Thing 1 and Thing 2 since the inception of this blog. It's working fine, but it can be a tad bit confusing when dealing with two children of the opposite sex. Who is who, really?

So as of tonight at 12:25am Central Time, I am officially changing their names. Here's the skinny:

• Thing 1 (female) = Sister
• Thing 2 (male) = Dude

I'm doing this to clarify any confusion over their gender, but mainly because that's what I really call them when I'm not using their given names. Don't ask - it just seems to fit.

So there you go. From now on it's Sister and Dude.

Life Is Uncertain. Eat Dessert First. Or Upside Down.

Okay, so day 1 of Spring Break didn't exactly go according to plan. We left home with the best intentions. But wound up not doing the activities we'd planned for the first day, canceling our hotel reservations in Glen Rose, and getting a room in Burnet.

The first day was a bust. Thing 2 wasn't feeling well when we left, but we thought he'd snap out of it once we got to the cave. As my husband was in line for tickets, Thing 2 promptly threw up ... on the floor in the lobby of the cave. We waited for a while to see if he would feel better, but no dice. Rather than subject him to a 2 1/2 hour car ride up to Glen Rose, or a 1 hour car ride back home, we just got a hotel in Burnet.

So after a bit of a rest, it was time to get some dinner. Thing 2 seemed to have rebounded and was starving. It hit him again at the restaurant and he didn't even touch his dinner. My husband took him out to the car while Thing 1 and I finished up.

The buffet included dessert, and not being the type to pass up a free dessert, Thing 1 and I decided to take part. Thing 1 is a keen observer. She can spot the smallest speck from great distances. It's amazing what she sees and finds.

Her powers of observation are not limited to what she can see, however. She is also pretty insightful. So tonight while we were eating our chocolate cake, she turned her piece of cake over so that the icing was on the bottom. When I asked her why she did that, this was her reply. "This way", she said, "the best part of the cake goes into my mouth first."

So I'm amending the old saying (that my mother loves) to read: Life Is Uncertain. Eat Dessert First. Or Upside Down.

Photo courtesy of Sifu Renka.

Spring Break - Time To Hit the Road

With strains of "Holiday Road" from the movie Vacation running through my head, I am eagerly anticipating our family Spring Break trip next week. Nothing too far flung, but enough of a trip to satisfy our need for "Go, See, Do".

Texas has some great places to visit, and by no means have we seen them all. So with keeping close to home in mind, here's a brief run-down of our week away from school and work. Yay!

Monday we're heading out. We plan to visit Sweet Berry Farm in Marble Falls to pick our own strawberries. Yum! From there, we'll head up the road to Burnet where we'll visit Longhorn Caverns. Then it's up north to Glen Rose where we'll end the day.

Tuesday in Glen Rose looks like this. A visit to Dinosaur Valley State Park where there are actual dinosaur tracks in a rock stream bed. Very cool. Of course, there are also the life-size dinosaur statues that make great photo opps too. Next on our Tuesday itinerary is a trip to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. Fossil Rim is a drive-through exotic wildlife park that is an awesome experience. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are really going to love it!

On Wednesday, we'll be in Waco. There we'll visit the Mayborn Museum, which has some terrific hands-on exhibits for kids. Also in Waco is Cameron Park Zoo - a surprisingly great zoo for a town the size of Waco. My nieces, who are students at Baylor, will be taking us for a brief campus tour which will include the famous Baylor Bears. The kids are going to love that too.

From Waco, we plan to take it easy with a visit to my parents' house. We'll spend a couple of days there just relaxing and getting in some good grandparent face time. Then it's home for the weekend to get ourselves ready to get back to the grind.

If you're interested in how La Quinta has already made our trip better, check out another blog I write for the tourism industry - Tourism Tech.

I'm sure our Spring Break trip will give me lots of fodder for this blog (and hopefully Tourism Tech too). I'll get back to you as soon as I can with all the fun you can handle.

Minivan photo courtesy of kaydee did.

Indiana Jones Is Living With Me

And he has been for the last 3 days. Don't worry, my husband knows all about it. Our (now) 5-year-old son, Thing 2, had his birthday last Thursday. Because he's been on an Indiana Jones kick lately, we got him presents with an Indy theme. His birthday party will follow suit.

My husband and I got him the Lego Indiana Jones game for Play Station 2, along with the Lego Star Wars game. Thing 1 got him Bendaroos - but only because she wanted to play with them. I don't think he's even gotten to touch them since they were opened Thursday night.

Since we aren't having his party for another couple of weeks, we had a small family celebration on the big day. Thing 2 chose Luby's for our dining pleasure, and we invited our friends Andrea (Andy) and Michael to come along. Andy made him a cake, which we brought in to Luby's with us.

So after dinner we lit the candles, sang happy birthday, and ate some cake. Our waitress was so nice and helpful, we gave her a piece too! Following the cake, it was present time. He was respectably appreciative of our gifts and the Bendaroos from Thing 1. But it was the gift from Andy and Micheal that has now become the gift to beat ... forever more, I fear.

Under the newspaper comic wrapping paper was a box. A box that was chock full on Indiana Jones garb and regalia. This set had it all: the shirt and leather-like jacket, the signature Indy hat, a satchel, a holster, and ...... the WHIP!

There was no waiting. Thing 2 immediately put on everything right there in Luby's. He wore it on the drive home, and dang near wore it to bed. He took it to daycare the next day, where he wore it the entire time. He's worn it all day, both days this weekend, and even wore it out to dinner last night. He's informed us - in a matter-of-fact way- that when he is wearing his new outfit, we are to refer to him as either Indy or Indian Jones ... and NOT by his name.

So now you see what I mean when I say that Indiana Jones is living with me. He may even be coming with us on Spring Break too!

Some Errands, My Son, and a Pair of Walkie-Talkies

Yesterday afternoon I needed to go run some errands. Nothing fun really, just dropping some stuff off at Goodwill, getting the oil changed in my Soccer Mom mobile (a.k.a. our van), and going to the grocery store. Despite the lack of any prospect of fun on these errands, Thing 2 wanted to come with me to "help". So the boy and I pile into the van and head out for our afternoon of errand-running.

Now, I've mentioned before that Thing 2 has a thing for superheroes. His current favorite among the superhero set is Iron Man. For Christmas, Santa brought Thing 2 a pair of Iron Man walkie-talkies. This gift was hours of fun for Thing 2 and his older sister, Thing 1. They had long conversations with them from the far reaches of my parents' house while we were there for Christmas. Very cute.

But since Christmas, the walkie-talkies have played a fairly minor role. We've really not seen much of them at all ... until yesterday afternoon. Apparently, they were gone but not forgotten.

As Thing 2 and I were about to leave, he handed me a walkie-talkie. I was instructed to put it in my purse because that's how he intended to speak to me while we were out. I'm sure anyone who happened to look into our van at a red light would've had a little chuckle at what they saw - Mom and son (sitting a scant 2 1/2 feet behind me) talking away on his Iron Man walkie-talkies.

We were gone for 3 hours and that's pretty much how we spoke to each other the whole time. He even wore it clipped onto his pants every time we went in a store or got out of the car. I'd hear things like this:

(static) "Uh, Mom. When are we going to get ice cream?" (static)
(static) "Sounds good. Over and out." (static)
(static) "Can we stop at Old McDonald's for lunch?" (static)
(static) "But I don't want to go to the grocery store!" (static)

So that's pretty much how our afternoon went - a new twist on running errands. It was kinda fun.

Gimme Cap

There's almost nothing in this world that is cuter than a little boy with a cap on. My internal "awwww" goes off every time I see it. I've been trying for going on 5 years now to get Thing 2 to wear a cap, but he's never been that interested. Oh sure, he'd put them on for a few minutes. But it would never last very long.

A couple of weeks ago, it finally happened. We were heading out the door on our way to somewhere when he asked us to wait because he needed something from his room. Thinking it was one of his "guys", I was about to tell him that the guys weren't invited on this trip.

The next thing I know, Thing 2 is bounding down the stairs WEARING a red gimme cap from our local baseball team! He said he didn't want the sun to be in his eyes. I agreed and told him it was a good idea.

He hasn't stopped wearing that hat since. It's a regular part of his daily wardrobe now. I plan to remind him of the other caps I've purchased for him over the years. Like his John Deere tractor hat, the cute denim one from The Gap, and a few others that he threw into the back of his closet never to be seen again.

This past weekend, we visited some cousins who live on a ranch in the Texas Hill Country. The cap came along because, you know, "a guy needs a cap on the ranch". So cute. We had a great weekend! But, poor Thing 2 was so tired by Saturday night that he couldn't even stay awake for dessert.

He climbed up onto the couch, covered himself up, tipped his cap, and fell fast asleep. I think little boys might even look cuter wearing caps when they're asleep ... don't you?