Billy Joe McGuffrey

Here's Luke with his very enthusiastic and super-cool teachers on the first day of second grade. Tomorrow he'll have his oral surgery, and we'll be singing this song: 

Now Billy Joe McGuffrey was a pretty crazy kid/
On the second day of second grade I'll tell you what he did/
Got some sugar in his tooth, turned into a hole.../
Dentist saw the big infection, said, "We have to pull!"/
On the second day, of the second grade/
On the second day, of the second grade/
On the second day, of the second grade/
You could buy a house with all the doctor's bills we've paid!

Whale of a Tale

Can you name these two heads of hair? Hint: They are related, but they're not brother and sister, despite what everyone who sees them thinks.

The kids and I are in Seattle right now. When I fly alone with them, I feel sort of like a superhero. Look at me - Power Mom! - I can travel with two kids and remain unflappable. So just to continue the theme of the summer (i.e. taking me down a few notches), here's what happened after we got on the plane. 1) Luke said, "Hey Mom, look at this thing in my mouth!" Right above the tooth that he's been complaining about for a few weeks was an enormous abscess. Uh...do you think we could have seen this and dealt with this before flying out of state? 2) Zach complained of being cold, then fell asleep. This was followed by him burning with fever by the time we got to Julie and Eric's house.

So this morning I spent on the phone with the dentist's office, getting them to fax an Rx for antibiotics up here for Luke until the dentist could see him on Monday; then consoling Zach who was a total basket of limp whimpering. What makes me sad is how much Zach would have loved this day if he felt better: lakeside beach romp, playground, children's garden...Of course we still did all of those things, we just did them with me carrying around an extremely hot 40-pound lump. Ah, memories.

Anyway, here's Luke and Antonia and Helena enjoying themselves on the whale's tale at the children's garden. (We had mercy and spared Zach from picture-taking.) Zach is determined to get better by Saturday because that's the day we're going to look for creatures at the rocky beach. Oh, and Luke seems totally fine, regardless of what's going on in his mouth. Go, antibodies, go! Fight! Win!

High/Low

We are all still trying to get adjusted to life with just the four of us the house, and I'm still wiping away my tears after reading Joe's post. And I'm enjoying our slow mornings so much, it's killing me to think about the school year starting again. What we need is just one more vacation...somewhere cool, like...Seattle. Yeah.

Zach is good. I don't want to say too much because he sees the infectious disease doc tomorrow, and who knows what he will find. But he seems happy, which is just a nice adjustment. I can't imagine what it must have been like for him over the past year or so with who-knows-what in his ears. I've been suffering with an ear infection for the past two weeks and that's put me in a bad mood, so who knows what a year would have been like.

Small Zach interlude: He was playing with a little girl at the playground the other day, and when she fell off some climbing bars, he ran over to her to ask, "Are you OK? Are you OK?" After he got close to her, he turned his head back toward me and shouted, "Hey, Mom - She smells a little bit like Brensan!"

(Brensan being his best friend from school, for anyone who doesn't get this.)

Luke and I started a conversation at the beginning of the summer about diseases, and now he's obsessed. We've covered everything from dengue fever to bubonic plague, and his current fascination is leprosy. Oh, and we also looked at pictures of the lady who had a successful face transplant. Don't ask how we get started on these topics. Anyway, I thought we needed to lighten things up a bit, so he and I sat up late last night looking at Awkward Family Photos. He thought it was moderately giggle-worthy until he got to this picture - and then it was full-on LukeLaughing (TM) for the next 20 minutes. The neighbors (rightfully so) probably think we're insane.

Yesterday my mom asked me a good question: "Why are you starting another blog?" to which I didn't really have an articulate answer at the time. I pondered it for most of the day and now the best I can say is that I think it's just the kind of busy I want to be. I know having kids can keep anyone occupied for most of the day, but at a certain point there just has to be something else with which you fill your time and your brain space. I don't know if this blog or this endeavor will be a life-long commitment, but I do know that I had a squee-licious time this weekend doing my little mall-sponsored shopping spree and getting the photo shoot all set up for the blog piece I'm doing about it (these pics are some of the outtakes). Hey - if you can get people to pay you for doing something that you love to do, where's the crime?

Moving pictures

Head....spinning...too much...going on...

It was an amazing two weeks with Mom and Dad, followed immediately by an incredible four days with Joe, Sara, Sam, and Lily. The Jolly Tomato has been lively as I struggle to keep up with all of my post-BlogHer connections. And no one will believe this, but I decided to add on to my workload by starting another new blog (more on that in a moment).

Can you believe it's been five years since Joe & company visited? To put that into perspective, it was before I was even pregnant with Zach. But of course from the moment they got here it was just like old times. We went straight to the beach, and then to Wahoo's. We had an amazing day on Thursday at the rocky beach, where the kids were mesmerized by the creatures in the tide pools. We got a babysitter on Friday night and Joe and Sara and Dave and I had our first adult night out together in more than eight years. And on Saturday we hosted a fiesta along with Suzi and Bill, Vir (Andrew) and Ehren. Highlights included a massive pinata and a glow stick dance party in the garage.

I suppose I could spend hours detailing every minute of this visit, but I'm sure it's boring to read "First we did this. Then we did that." So I'll try to sum it up in just six words: Beach. Happy kids. Great food. Joy.

Here at our home beach (a.k.a. "the sandy beach," as opposed to "the rocky beach") the kids had a great time splashing in the water and collecting little sand crabs.

Zach didn't want to get too close to the waves, but when the older cousins started bringing crabs for him, he was just as excited as anyone.

Our new house seems to have held up pretty well with a house full of people. We solved the sleeping dilemma by having Luke and Sam sleep out in the garage and they were thrilled to be out there (and they actually got sleep, so no one was complaining). And of course the garage is still the #1 destination for kids' glow stick dance parties.

Even with all of the activity going on, Lily and Sara and I found an hour for "girl time" and we walked downtown and got pedicures. There aren't many other people in my house who want pedicures on a regular basis, so this was as much a treat for me as anyone.

And of course the kids got along like old friends. This picture is on the way home from the rocky beach when Sam actually fell asleep on Luke's shoulder, so Luke put a tissue box on his shoulder to make a "pillow" for Sam's head.

A more poignant activity for me this weekend was making a chocolate peanut butter pie as part of the Pie for Mikey project. (Short version: The husband of a popular food blogger died suddenly; she asked people to honor him by making his favorite pie; soon hundreds of people around the country were making chocolate peanut butter pies and blogging about it; it even made CNN). I realized that I was just so happy - and lucky - to have so many loved ones around that I wanted to make a pie to reflect how grateful I was for everyone who was there. Before I knew it, it had turned into a family project with everyone contributing (here are the kids crushing the graham crackers for the crust). So that meant a lot to me - and I hope it added to some small feeling of comfort for those grieving Mikey's death this week. Oh, and the pie was spectacular.

So, last but not least - I've been getting offers from various companies or local businesses to review products or restaurants, and it's not really what I had hoped to do with the Jolly Tomato. However, there are some really cool opportunities out there and I had been looking for a way to take advantage of some of them. So I started a new blog called South Bay Sparkle ("Finding the jewels of the South Bay") about food, attractions, and activities in the South Bay. I have no idea when I'm going to find time to write it, but I think it will be fun and it should take me down some interesting paths. What more could you want?

Swag Diego

I knew San Diego was going to be good, but I didn't know it was going to be THIS good. From the moment I stepped off the train, it was a squee-inducing weekend. Old friends, new friends, flash mob euphoria, parties, pool, a movie premiere, and a blissful weekend in a hotel that gave me just the break that I needed.

I don't want to gloss over the flash mob - it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience - but it happened so fast, in the context of so many other things, that it was just one part of a great, busy weekend. However, it did give me a chance to say something to my lunch companions that I've never said before: "If you'll excuse me, I need to get up because I'm actually part of this flash mob." Video to come.

Another highlight? Coming back to my hotel room on Friday night, exhausted but exhilarated from a full day and three parties...and hearing a thump-thump-thump coming from what seemed like inside my room. Turned out I had gotten in just in time for a big fireworks show on the water that I could enjoy right from my balcony.

Then there was the swag. I brought home at least 10 shopping bags, 5 t-shirts, 5 pairs of sunglasses, 4 pairs of flip-flops, 2 necklaces, and an insane amount of food including granola bars, candy bars, cookies, chips, popcorn, yogurt, tuna, bread, and 2 pounds of flax meal (cue Dave cheering in the background).

When it was time to check out, all six of us packed every single bag to the breaking point and we dragged our heavy load down to the lobby. There we ran into the head of a wine company who had hosted one of the parties on Friday, and he gave me a bottle of wine to take home. I mean, what's an extra bottle of wine when you're already overloaded? And more importantly, what would I have done without the extra five people to help me carry stuff? Somehow we made it to the top level of the train without tearing open Dave's hernia again.

Now that I've unpacked (I am fanatical about unpacking as soon as I get home), I have to take the time for BlogHer due diligence: follow-up with the people and the brands who made it all possible. So there's lots of work ahead but it was sure fun to get there!

Aside from the conference itself, the very best part of the San Diego weekend was the fact that Dave and the kids and my parents were there too. On Saturday night, the hotel was showing Toy Story 3 down at the pool so we suited up after dinner and went down for movie/pool time. And at 9:30, just as they did on Friday night, there was a cool fireworks show over the harbor that you could see from the pool. (This is just a phone shot that I took looking down at the pool from our hotel room. The three micro-spots in the far pool are Dave, Luke, and Zach watching the movie.)

On Sunday morning we took a train out to Old Town and even though we had only a short time to walk around, the sights made a big impression on the boys. They're standing outside the jail, which was pretty cool but I thought they would enjoy it more than they did. Luke was distracted by the  general store selling tall glass bottles of soda. And Zach's favorite part was the old-timey-looking wooden barrels everywhere - they were actually trash cans -- that had him fascinated.

All in all, it was an unbelievably great weekend. I had hesitated about going to BlogHer because my parents would be here and I didn't want to miss time with them, but in a way their being here made it possible for me to go. It was exhausting but definitely one for the memory books. I think Zach pretty much summed it up on the train trip home when he looked around at all of us with glazed over eyes, curled up on Dave's lap, and fell sound asleep.

Horizon