As the subject states, this is Ryan’s first real drawing. I’m still in awe that he went from creating illegible scribbles to full blown artwork, complete with details such as stems for the apples and orange rays for the yellow sun!

Ryan is currently on his eagerly awaited sleepover. Of course, it’s going on midnight, and my mom left with him shortly after 8:30pm, and I had already given him his nightly dose of liquid Melatonin, so I’d like to think that he is long asleep by now. My mom said she’ll just have him sleep with her, since she has a queen-sized bed and the last time he spent any amount of time sleeping in either of my brothers’ bedrooms is when he was two days old, and he slept with me. Besides, that was a long time ago, back in the days when I was still unwrapping baby gifts for him.

He was SO excited to go tonight. He danced and flitted around impatiently while I packed his bags, gave me only the most cursory of hugs and kisses goodbye, and pulled my mom’s car door shut himself, instead of waiting for me to do it.

I can only hope that all goes well, and as he gets older and improves on certain behaviors my mom will be more willing to take him overnight. As it stands, she had him overnight exactly once, and that was back in March. Meanwhile, Alyssa has gone on sleepovers at my mom’s house for days or a week or more at a time! It’s time to close the gap between them, you know? Besides, nothing is worse than Ryan crying and expressing upset over not being able to go on sleepovers, while Alyssa skips off merrily on hers.

Thursday 13 – Thirteen things Alyssa and Ryan love to do:

• Splash water out of the bathtub (grr)
• Go swimming (I’m with them on this one!)
• Color.
• Get packages in the mail. Is it bad that they recognize the FedEx and UPS trucks?
• Help me cook or bake.
• Paint.
• Go to Chuck E. Cheese (this place is EVIL).
• Go to the playground.
• Have picnics in the park.
• Splatter my kitchen with Play-doh.
• Have pillow fights.
• And tickle fights, for that matter.
• Argue over stupid things, such as who sits where in the car, who gets what work, who is the “leader”, etc.

Later at night, after the kids are asleep and the house is quiet, I usually turn to the internet for a bit of relaxation before I curl up with a good book or go to bed. And more often than not, I find myself randomly surfing from site to site. Dating sites aren’t something that are relevant to my life, since I’m happily married, but I get why they exist, and I think they’re a great tool for people who are looking to make connections with potential partners. I recently came across qmpeople, and I thought it decent enough to worth sharing.

qmpeople.com is a free online dating service that offers users the ability to create free custom profiles, participate in group and private chats, play games, and browse for other users. qmpeople.com is a budding social network as well. Check out this page, where a user paid a guy named Peter to repair his motorcycle, and then sent Peter a “Thank you qmpeople!” picture as a way of thanking Peter and acknowledging how helpful qmpeople.com was in bringing the two users together. Pretty cool, huh?

qmpeople.com is a dating community/social network that is still in the making, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re single and are interested in dating!

Last week my mother promised she would take Ryan for a sleepover on Friday night. Well, Friday morning, afternoon and evening came and went, and she never called, emailed, or texted, and she didn’t return the two messages I left on her machine. Fortunately, Ryan forgot all about the sleepover, and I shushed Alyssa when she brought it up, so he wasn’t reminded of it either. Well, guess who woke up this morning asking for a sleepover at Grandmom’s house? So while I was out running errands this morning, I called my mom and asked her to please follow through on her promise of a sleepover, as her three year old grandson is very upset about not being able to go on sleepovers, while his five year old sister does fairly often.

Her response? Ooh, this still has my blood boiling… “I’ll take him on Sunday night.” Sunday night as in NEXT Sunday night. WTF? She has nothing to do all day and all day to do it in, yet she can’t make time to take her grandson overnight. I told her flat out that I hope she feels really shitty for doing this to Ryan, and I hope she can sleep well at night knowing she’s letting him down over and over and over again.

What pisses me off the most is that when my brothers were younger — younger than they are now, of course, but a few years older than Alyssa and Ryan — my mom would give me such hell if Dan and I made plans to do things with them, but then had to cancel due to work or something else coming up. Funny that when the tables are turned, only she has no valid excuse, she has not only no excuse of any kind, but she doesn’t even show a lick of remorse for it!

I hope she comes through on her promise to take him on Sunday night. I could really use the quiet time on Monday morning to catch up on my writing about wedding favors!

I suddenly have a new appreciation for my mom and all other parents, now that I’m dealing with what feels like the slowest summer ever. On one hand, I can’t believe that we’re almost halfway through July. On the other hand, holy crap the individual days, the afternoons in particular, seem to drag. I’d like to say that we’re running out of things to do, but it’s more like not having the time and/or money to do things. But we have done plenty this year, including swimming, barbecues, festivals, a few trips to the movies, and most recently, mini-golfing.

I got Alyssa’s kindergarten registration paperwork last week, so it has been confirmed that she will be starting at the end of August, right around the 31st. I can’t wait!

That’s My Answer: Do you prefer your books to be in hardcover or paperback? Or do you read your books electronically?

Paperback. Hardback is certainly nicer to look at, just as high quality baby shower favors are nicer to look at than cheap ones; and hardback books are generally more durable and just look better on a bookshelf, but paperback books are cheaper! Plus they’re a lot lighter, so they’re easier to handle and drag around.

As far as reading books electronically goes, I would need a book reader in order to read books electronically, and that’s one thing I don’t have. It’s an electronic that I really don’t care to have, either. Believe it or not, I like reading the old-fashioned way.

Ryan was supposed to go to my mother’s house for a sleepover last night. My mother promised him last weekend, when she was here getting Alyssa for what would turn into a four night sleepover. Well, Friday came and went, and my mother never came for Ryan, never called, and didn’t return the two messages I left on her machine. That is such a shitty thing to do, you know? Ryan hardly gets to go anywhere in terms of sleepovers or even parties because he’s autistic and my mom doesn’t know how to “handle” him, despite my brothers being autistic. I’m just glad he forgot and didn’t mention it…

Yesterday evening the kids and I picked Dan up from work (my car is non-functional at the moment, so on the days I have errands to run I take Dan to work so I have a set of wheels to use for the day), and then went over to Red Lobster for dinner. I still remember the first time we went there with Ryan. It was back in 2008, and it was a bit of a disaster. He kept getting up, couldn’t sit still, would shriek and carry on at the drop of a hat, etc. We rushed through our meal and escaped as soon as we could. This time, however, Ryan was well-behaved. He did get up a few times, but he mainly stayed around our table. He listened to directions, at his dinner and dessert well, and in some ways was better behaved than Alyssa.

After dinner we planned on going home, but then the subject of mini-golfing came up, so guess where we went? Mini-golfing, of course. Mini-golfing is fun, especially in the evening. People who do that in the daytime are crazy. Who wants to sweat and deal with bright sunshine (can we say need-for-best wrinkle cream?) and sunscreen and sunglasses? So, evening it is! I haven’t gone mini-golfing since 2008, and I don’t think the kids have ever gone. Although I could swear we took Alyssa mini-golfing before… I do know this was Ryan’s first time, since he kept calling the golf balls soccer balls. And can you believe he got a hole-in-one? Of course it happened by him ramping his golf ball off of Alyssa’s foot and sending it into the hole of another course, but hey, it still counts in my book.

Then we came home, Dan and I got the kids settled and in bed, and we relaxed with our computers, and then with House. ♥

The other night Dan and I went out for dinner, and my mom babysat Alyssa and Ryan. When we got home, we asked how the night went, if the kids had a good time, went to bed without a fuss, etc. My mom said everything went fine, nothing out of the ordinary took place, and she went home. And we went to bed.

The next morning we were woken up by a distraught Alyssa, who was upset (understandably) that the Tooth Fairy never came overnight. As it turns out, her other loose tooth, which was next to the tooth that came out last week, had come out while Dan and I were out. I found out later that Alyssa told my mom, who apparently found it unimportant enough to let us know. So on the fly, I told Alyssa that the Tooth Fairy must have gotten very busy that night, but she would surely be here tonight (which was last night).

So last night rolled around, and right as Dan and I were getting ready to fall asleep, we suddenly remembered about Alyssa’s tooth (and I remembered to go take my one a day vitamin)! Man, that would have sucked SO bad if the Tooth Fairy missed her stop two nights in a row. So we scurried into her room, maneuvered the loose tooth out from under her pillow, and put a dollar bill in its place. And this morning? She was happy as a clam.

Ah, I can’t believe the days of the Tooth Fairy are here. But it’s great! The little plush fairy we’re using for Alyssa’s loose teeth is from Gifts Defined, and I’d definitely recommend it as a potential baby shower gift.