5 posts tagged “oona”
Ok. I need to post the final installment of "what I did last weekend" since the next weekend is right around the corner now.
Sunday was a crazy day. We left the house at 9am and didn't return until after 10pm.
Sunday was my niece's 4th birthday party. My sister and her husband held a brunch birthday party starting at 11am, so we had to get out the door by 9am in order to make the drive. Ug. That makes a full weekend of waking up to an alarm clock, which makes for a cranky Jen and Craig. Oona is worth it though. She's an awesome kid.
My sister told me a cute story I want to put down here for my own memories. She said Oo was out shopping with her dad somewhere, and this dance troupe comes in to do a dance recital at the shopping center. My sister said Oo plopped right down on the floor and told her dad, "We're watching this." It was not a question. :) She loves a production; just another thing she has in common with her Aunt Meanie.
The party was difficult for this introvert. I was already exhausted from the earlier weekend activities, and even though there were only five kids there and only three were running around making a ton of noise, there were also at least three different conversations going on within earshot at all times and the stereo was on. All the racket and chaos made me extremely uncomfortable and shell-shocked. At one point I was fighting back tears and considering shutting myself in the bathroom for five to ten minutes, but just then someone put a piece of cake in my hands, so I found something to focus my eyes on and I tried my hardest to completely zone out while I ate cake. Eventually people went home. The fewer people there, the more I felt like I could think and breathe again, and towards the end, when just my parents and siblings remained, I actually was having a fabulous time visiting with my family.
It was Oona's party, but I have to share this pic of my nephew/godson. Truman has a big round head (big brains!) and he likes to put stuff on his head. While eating breakfast, he reached over his tray and pulled off his socks. One sock was tossed on the floor, and the other he tried to pull over his head. When he realized he wasn't going to get the sock on like a hat, he just laid it on top of his head and went back to eating his bagel. I guess his head was colder than his feet. :) GAH! He's soooooo cute!
Truman is really into the alphabet right now, and he was reading the birthday banner hanging in the diningroom the night before the party. "H, A, P, P, P, ..." "No, that's a..." my sister started to correct him, but then she looked at the banner. "Oh. Nevermind. You're right." :D
While we were all that way east, we wanted to visit with our friends John and Grace and their kids who live pretty close to my sister, so after we left my sister's, we picked up some pizzas and headed to John and Grace's house. It was cute kid overload. People who know me know that I don't relate to kids well at all, and that busy, energetic, talkative little people are often way too high energy for me to handle, but John and Grace's kids are every bit as cute and smart and sweet as my niece and nephew are, and very close in age. They are painfully adorable! John and Grace are awesome people too. ;) I wish I'd gotten some pictures of their kids, but I was *completely* wiped out at that point, and my brain had definitely shut down to basic life-support only.
We had a very nice visit with our friends, then took the two hour drive home and collapsed. It would've been nice to have another weekend to recover from that weekend, but it was a hell of a lot of fun all the same!
I definitely got up too early today. I hate it when you wake up because your brain fires up in a busy panic over all you have to do in a day, yet said brain hasn't had enough rest to process thoughts properly. I'm up, but now that I'm needing to get some thinking work done, my thinker is still only half conscious. ...Am I making sense? I can't tell. argh.
We had a busy weekend full of family. Saturday was Craig's aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary party. It was just like going to a wedding reception. Even though they'd been married 50 years, the bride and groom were giddy and playful and still looking as happy as newly-weds together, which was really sweet to see.
We got there and walked in to a reception hall full of extended family(-in-law), and I was overwhelmed into stupidity for a while. I now remember that the happy couple was standing right by the door to greet people coming in, but I was dumbfounded and walked right by them without even making eye-contact. Just one more example of why people tend to think I'm a rude bitch even though I'm mostly just dense and horribly introverted.
It was a nice reception, good food, great people, pretty decorations, cake, the whole shebang. The DJ tried so hard to get people dancing, but it wasn't until he played the chicken dance that people started moving. We were discussing this on the way home, noting how Polish people love the chicken dance. "How come you didn't dance the chicken dance?" I teased. He replied, aghast, "You don't dance to your national anthem!" :D That boy does make me laugh!
Sunday was a surprise birthday party for my dad's 60th. I had a lot of anxiety about this one, not only from being socially exhausted from Saturday night still, but for fear that we'd wind up talking politics and I would have to leave. To my surprise and immense relief though, I never heard one single political or religious comment the whole day.
It was nice visiting with my family, and I was especially thrilled to visit with my niece and nephew. I'm so mad I forgot to bring my camera!!! Those kids are cute, and I'm not someone who usually likes children. Oona wants to be a T-rex for Halloween. :) At one point my youngest cousin (she's also my god-daughter) went out to the car and came back in with Halloween masks. They were rubbery, full-head masks, including a toothy reptile and an alien of some sort, and you'd think most three year old girls would be scared, but not my girl. She was giggling like crazy. Toward the end of the day, she actually put the reptile mask on, which was hysterical. At one point my god-daughter put the alien mask on, and my sister set Oona and Truman with her for photos. It was FAR better than getting your kids picture with Santa or the Easter Bunny! I was so mad I forgot my camera!
Also, Craig has nicknamed Truman "T-bone", and I think it might stick. I overheard Oona calling him T-bone. *giggle* Those kids are so damn cute! I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO BRING MY CAMERA!!! ARGH!!!
My aunt, who loves planning social gatherings, had brought a bunch of board games, but the only thing we wound up playing was Guitar Hero on my cousins' PS3! :D
Both parties were a good time, but this weekend wore me *out*! We have no plans for next weekend, and we both agree we need to keep it that way. Craig needs the weekend because he gets antsy if he doesn't have time to do projects on the weekends. I, however, just need the quiet time.
My coffee cup is empty. Time to refill it and try braining again. I have so much braining I need to do today. argh.
Craig took me out for breakfast today. The plan after that was to do some shopping for project supplies, then pick up my mom and check out a local fine arts show.
The art show was fun but HOT! (I hate summer.) I chatted up every flameworker there, and there were quite a few. I talked to them all about their studio setup and equipment. They were *all* extremely friendly and happy to talk shop with me. There were also a bunch of glass-blowers, but I know nothing of glass blowing so I didn't pester them. Still, glass work in all it's various forms seems to be the in thing right now. Craig talked with all the woodworkers, the turners at least. My mom just had a great time wandering around looking at all the pretties. :)
After the art fair, we made a quick stop for a few groceries and then headed back to Mom's for an early dinner and a few hours in the pool. Ah, the pool! I love my mom's pool. Soooo nice. Ant stress or tension you're harboring just dissolves when you're floating in a pool. I didn't want to get out, but my mom had baked brownies for us.
And it never seems to fail. Whenever I'm feeling most ready to just be rid of everything I own, someone will give me some stuff. My brother gave me two of my dad's paintings today. *SQUEE!!!* They aren't very good examples of his work, but they hung in the house I grew up in for as long as I can remember. I was never sure what happened to them, but Marc had them apparently, and he passed them on to me. I am so completely sentimentally attached to these paintings, I can't even tell you. I'm *thrilled* to have them and I can't wait to hang them. I just hope my dad won't see them and try to steal them back. MINE!
I'm pooped out, and tomorrow there's work to be done again. Bed time now. Only a four day week though! Craig has Friday off, as well as next Monday and Tuesday! That's right. My Big Birthday Weekend is going to be a 5-day celebration!!! I have to cram a lot of work into the next four days and work hard in preparation for playing hard, because I am going to enjoy every single minute of next weekend. Good times.
OH! Real quick, Mom told me an Oona (my 3 yr old niece) story tonight. I guess her dad took her to the mall to buy her first bike helmet. She got to pick it out herself. She was so excited and proud of her helmet. Adrian put it on her to check the fit, and Oona did NOT want to take it off! The cashier had to scan her head to ring up the sale. *snort* :) She wore it through the mall, back to the car and all the way home. :) That's *my* chinstrap girl! She's so much like her Aunt Meanie! :D
According to my 3 yr old niece:
"A baby contest is when you put all the babies in a big pile and they become one big baby and you stick them together with glue."
Don't say you've never learned anything reading my blog.
I'm dying here! I have happy tears rolling down my cheeks and I'm choking from laughing so hard!
When my niece first came into this world, my sister specifically asked me to refrain from getting her gothy little toys. I would've loved to get her a cute stuffed spider or a copy of Stellaluna or a baby doll in stripey tights or some non-traditional baby clothes, but Julie asked me not to. It hurt a little because it not only felt like disapproval for my personality, but like she didn't trust me to not go overboard with a sweet but impressionable young mind. But, what can you do? I love my sister and my niece, so I played by their rules.
Well!... I just got off the phone with my sister. She was telling me how Oona has been saying things about how she loves to be sad. (My first poem was a little four liner about how nice it is to be sad, and no, I will not share!) Julie says that if Oona has no immediate reason for drama, she will go back into her brief past and recall an old ouchie to wax all melodramatic over. Julie told me she was recently reading an article on emo kids and read that "emos are born, not created." I laughed and laughed and laughed. I told her, "See! This is what you get! You wouldn't let me get her a stripey dolly, and she's gonna be goth anyhow! So there!" We both laughed quite a bit.
Oona always wants to talk on the phone when Julie is on it, so Julie held the phone out and asked her, "Do you want to talk to Aunt Meanie?" Oona said, "No, I don't like people." ROTFLOL!!! I'm dying!!!! Julie gets back on the phone and says, "Wow, I've never heard her say that before," but I'm laughing so hard that she starts laughing too. I have a mini-me!!! :D
My sister was saying that she's been thinking about taking Oona to a photographer to get some Mommy-and-me photos taken, but now she's thinking I ought to be in the photos with Oona. *L*
My niece ROCKS! \m/ :D
