The "I's" Have It

***Text in this color authored by Shena***

Work & Play
Jim finally made it back from his travels of the last 6 weeks. Although, we wouldn't know it. He had appointments and phone calls all day, so I barely talked to him. It may be a couple of days before things get back to normal around here.

After work went to dinner with the family to Stamey's BBQ. The same stuff that Bart & Cherie ate when they were out here and wanted to try southern barbeque. I can eat it every now and then...I just don't crave it. Cade and Kelson enjoyed it, though...they had a hot dog and chicken strips, respectively. Mac and cheese, chicken nuggets and hot dogs...either one makes Cade happy, no matter where we eat. We got lucky because we accidentally sat in the smoking section, but nobody smoked the whole time we were there. I could hardly believe. No smokers in a NC restaurant. Hardly ever happens.

After dinner, nothing exciting happened. Mom and Marcos hung out for a little bit, and I spent the rest of the night in the office paying bills, picking tournament brackets. I say "pick" but there was no logic involved at all. I decided for fun to do my picks this year randomly. In one bracket I counted the number of vowels in the name of the team on the sheet, and whoever had less vowels I picked as the winner. If they had the same number of vowels, I went with the team who had a vowel come earliest in the name. Long story short, UAB (Alabama-Birmingham) is going all the way! In the second bracket I flipped a coin for each game. Heads, the higher seed was my pick, tails, the lower seed. Only once did the game have the same seed, and I just assigned a heads and tails to each team. In that bracket Wake Forest is the winner, playing NC State in the finals. It was pretty interesting to see how the heads/tails worked out. It looks like a more logically picked bracket than the vowel bracket. We'll have to wait and see which one does better...and if either one can beat anybody else in our group.

I've realized that there is a Catch 22 in writing this blog. On days that I don't have much to report, I have plenty of time to write...when there is a lot of news to report, I run out of time during the day, and the blog gets neglected. Today is one of those days. I could go into more detail and share more stories, but I'm running out of time...my eyes won't stay open.

Llano Update (Cheeto's Brood)
Shena had a better day today. She has beed doing some reading and researching on the internet to try to make herself feel better about everything that has happened. It's worked. She found several sites that made her feel like she was normal and that there was nothing to worry about. I'm glad. I think it is one of those situations where I could have done the research for her (and I considered it), but it wouldn't have been as effective as her having the desire to find out herself. It would be like me forcing it on her when she isn't going to listen with an open mind. I think she will be back to her old self in another week or two.

Shena made Cade a deal that if he would go all day without wetting his pants, she would make cookies with him. He did it for 1/2 a day. For some reason he just doesn't want to quit what he is doing (usually playing) to go to the bathroom when he needs to. It is pretty frustrating. He knows he needs to go, he just doesn't do it. What made it bad today was that he was sneaky about it. Shena said he suddenly appeared out of his room dressed in shorts and a soccer shirt. He SAID it was because he wanted to be like "Dora the Explorer," and she didn't think much of it at first, but then she noticed that he had put wet underwear in the clothes basket. When she asked him, he denied it. Not a good sign at all. Four years old and already knows how to be deceitful. And how in the world do they learn that? Do they really pick it up when we are teasing or being playful with them and pretend we can't see something? When we do that we always say "I'm just teasing." It would seem if that were the case he would say the same thing when he knows he is lying to us. I guess he must be picking it up from us, somehow. Certainly makes me feel like a bad parent.

Kelson is trying to new words every day. Cade even likes to get in on the fun and tell him to say things. He has a cute little "s" lisp and so Shena tries to get him to say words that have "s'" in them.

Arellano Update
Just wanted to wish Adam & Melissa a happy anniversary. They've been married 3 years today. Congratulations guys. Although I'm sorry to tell you that as cute as you think Ethan is, he just doesn't quite compare to Cade and Kelson! :)

Marcos took exception to my comments about his bashing my principles. He claims he didn't do it...I specifically remember him saying it. For some reason, the two of us have different memories of things, and this is just one instance. For example, several years ago Marcos, Cade and I went to a Greensboro Prowlers arena football game (before they folded). We were about 3 or 4 rows up from the field, and during a timeout some of the Prolwers staff were throwing t-shirts into the the crowd. I don't remember why, but for some reason Cade was on my lap. Marcos was standing to the left of me with his hands up trying to get them to throw him a shirt. I was just kind of sitting there. Here is where the story is in debate. I remember having a t-shirt come towards me and catching it with my right hand. I look at it for a second, then give it to Marcos and we then start to argue over who gets it. I pulled out the "it's for Cade card" even though it would never fit him. Long story short, I wound up with the shirt. If you ask Marcos, he will tell you that HE caught the shirt and he gave it to me. I will go to my grave remembering that I caught the shirt. He will probably go to his claiming he did. It doesn't really matter, but it is frustrating to think we have such different recollections. Only one of us can be right. I will admit, I don't have the best memory in the world (remember the chainsaw accident? I said that it was the guys left arm that got hurt? it wasn't...it was his right), but for some reason I am POSITIVE that I caught the shirt. Bad thing is, now that I've admitted it, Marcos will probably mess with my head from now on...or pull this quote out 20 years from now "You said you have a bad memory. You can't be right."

Christensen Update
None to report, that I know of.

Daily Report
LAST NIGHT:
Sleep: 11:30 - 5:45 - woke up with my back hurting...I could have tried to go back to sleep, but I knew it would be pointless, so I got up and paid some bills...what a way to start the day, huh?

TODAY:
Breakfast: 1 bowl of frosted mini-wheats, 1 bowl of frosted flakes...plenty of sugar to get me going

Lunch: peanut butter and raspberry jam on wheat (2), milk - mmmm...more sugar

Dinner: Stamey's - combo platter...chopped pork barbeque and white chicken meat with barbeque sauce, two "rolls" (they are actually hamburger buns...this is NC after all), baked beans, water. We also brought home some cobbler...I had strawberry a-la-mode (mom asked the waitress for hers a-la-mode...the waitress said "Ok. Do you want ice cream on that?")