Earth

It doesn't matter how smart you might be or how educated - your kids will bring you right back to earth (with a bump) in a hurry.

Here's the message our 9 year old left on his Dad's voicemail this morning:

"Dad, this is your son, Ron.  I need to leave you a message.  You will need some paper.  Do you have some paper there?  I hope you have some paper and a pencil.  (long pause - presumably for his slow father to retrieve said articles.)  We need cheese.  Sliced cheese.  For sandwiches.  Eggs, olives, and wait a sec.  I can't read mom's writing. I think it says bananas.  But we don't really need bananas.  We have 2.  You can get more when those are gone.  Tomorrow maybe.  Because Charlie & I might have them for lunch.  Okay Dad?  I hope you got this on paper.  Because that's it.  Hope you're having a good day there with your friends."

Now, I cannot tell you how happy this made my heart.  First and foremost, because it is just simply hilarious.  But secondly, because my husband is one of those incredibly bright, technowhiz people - he majored in physics for goodness sakes - I mean COME ON.  He has also never been pregnant.  This may seem obvious to some of you - but I'm telling you - I used to be smart too.  I could hold my own with this man any day and twice on a weekend.  But then the progesterone poisoned my brain cells and I passed 39 candles on my birthday cake.  Now, I can't remember why I sat down at this desk.

Anybody know?

So, it did my heart a world of good to hear that little pipsqueak leaving that message for the Brain.  I might live on it for a week at least!

And, my baby is a sweet boy who wished his dad a nice day.  Who thinks all his dad does all day is hang out with his friends and play on computers...

I think I'll spend the next week asking dh to do things and then handing him notepads - really short lists of things - if it doesn't fall out of my head first.

Home

I just got back from a trip home.  I call it home.  My kids think of it as grandmaville with a Sonic.  To them, here is home.  Yorkshire.  Funny accents, sheep, green everywhere you look.  Castles, abbeys and stone walls.  Where their beds and dogs and baseball gloves are kept.

Denver is home to me.  I am perpetually lost without the Rockies to the West.  If only it weren't so darn difficult to get there.  A full day traveling - we leave here at o'dark hundred in the morning and arrive there 23 hours later.  Seriously, how many times can you be asked to remove your shoes in one day before it loses some of its charm?

I spent a fabulous week shopping and taking craft classes with my mom and sister while my boys went to computer camp at DU.   Met my girlfriends for lunch and an afternoon craftfest - even had a mini family reunion.   Discovered that my baby sister can access the internet on her cute little phone while I drive her down the Valley Highway in my rental minivan.  Very exciting for me.  Not so much for her.

I bought myself some new perfume.  Having worn the same one for the past 20 years, I decided it was time for a change.  (Real trend follower eh?)  The girl who pushed my chair for me at DIA smelled marvelous so I splurged and bought a bottle of her frangrance - Dolce and Gabbana the One.  Yummy!  This is what it looks like in case you too live in a cave (my sister's words) and have no idea what is going on in the world:

Then, on the flight home I was looking through the SkyMall magazine and noticed that they were selling Dolce & Gabbana the One for MEN!  MEN!!?  We'd just left Atlanta.  I had 8 and a half more hours to stew over whether or not the lovely woman at Macy's had sold me men's cologne.  (My baby sister is dying inside reading this right now!)  Surely not - she was so much fun.  Spraying all those colognes for me and giving me all the yummy samples...

Turns out, I bought the right one.  The woman at Macy's was delightful.  But I didn't even check for 4 days - because when we got off the plane, my darling hubby greeted me with "Mmm, you smell good!"  Which, let's admit it - was all I really cared about in the first place.