Ever since I wrote about Taylor being a moody pre-pubescent, he has been back to his wonderful, normal self. I think he must have read my blog post. This morning he set his Lego alarm clock for an hour earlier than usual so that he could get up and do his chores before school “just like a farmer does, Mom.”
He is definitely still growing up way too fast, though. Yesterday was a crazy day full of things like ballet, book fairs, hair cuts, and Andrew sticking a metal object in his ear at school and it going in too far. Yeah. I also spent a good part of the day online and on the phone getting our summer road trip plans finalized (more about that later). Add to that the fact that the chicken for dinner still hadn’t thawed out enough for me to pound it into thin cutlets (and I hate thawing meat in the microwave; I think it makes it rubbery) and that we had to go straight from Cameron’s baseball practice to Taylor’s school play which didn’t get over till 8:15pm, so we decided to pick up some kids’ meals from Wendy’s. Taylor eats his burger in all of 2 bites and says to me, “Mom, can you stop getting me a kid’s meal and start getting me an adult meal? That burger was tiny.”
Then last night after his shower, he asks me if we have any deodorant he can have. He said, “I think it’s time I started wearing it.” He does spend a good 3 hours outside after school getting sweaty riding his bike or scooter and playing with his friends. With summer and hot weather approaching, deodorant is probably not a bad idea.
He also is obsessed lately with the area between his upper lip and the bottom of his nose. ”Mom, do you see the hair there?” ”Yes, Taylor, it’s called peach fuzz. Very blond, very scant peach fuzz.” I will admit, though, that the area of skin there is darkening a bit.
I’m sure as Taylor goes through all the changes that come with puberty, Cameron will be right behind. I was talking to Andrew’s teacher after school yesterday and Cameron said something about first graders. She looked at him and said to me, “He’s really tall for a first grader.” Cameron said, “Yep, I’m taller than even some third graders.” And he is. Poor Andrew said, “I know, I know. He’s a lot taller than me.”
Changing subjects: we had a kink thrown in our vacation/road trip plans because we had originally been planning on staying in Orange Beach on the Gulf coast for a couple of days but seeing as how dead animals and big balls of oil are now coming ashore, those plans had to change. So we were trying to figure out yesterday what to do about that. It took several hours to get it all worked out, cancel 2 hotel reservations, make 3 more hotel reservations, map out a different route, etc. We decided after New Orleans/Slidell to head north to Corinth, Mississippi to see my brother Sean and his family. Andrew read The Miracle Worker a few weeks ago and really enjoyed learning about Helen Keller. ”Can you believe she lived until she was 99, Mom?” Corinth is an hour away from her home in Tuscumbia, Alabama, so Andrew wants to try to go see her home. There is also a park there with a train, carousel, roller coaster, etc., that sounds fun. Since we are now going to head further north, we decided instead of going the southern route again to come home, we’ll go the northern route. Nauvoo, Illinois is only an hour northeast of where that route takes us, so we are going to deter there and see some Church history sites. The whole trip is going to be 66 hours/4200 miles. Thank goodness that yesterday’s book fair was BOGO. We will all need plenty of books and movies to help us keep a modicum of our sanity.
