fashion statement

while i was sick this weekend
i was grateful for my sweet husband who ran the household
while i slept
and coughed
and slept
and puked

and slept some more.

at one point i emerged from my bedroom to look for the heaven-sent ibuprophen

and on my way to the kitchen, i came upon this bold fashion statement:

the top half of his ensemble says, "ride like the wind bullseye!"

the bottom half says, "i like monkeys"

and the footwear says, "my mother is sick and i have no supervision today".

in other words,

one more reason i hope i don't die prematurely.

or at least until ethan knows how to put together a decent outfit.

or at least until he knows how to match his socks.

perfection or nothing

this girl...

is lovely

caring

delightful

bubbly

beautiful

friendly

talented

curious

hard working

SMART

did i mention lovely?

and i adore her

but she is also

a perfectionist

which can be kind of rough

because she has a very full schedule

there's just not enough TIME during the week

to devote to cleaning her room the way she wants it to be clean

on saturdays when she does clean it, it can take HOURS - for real.

because every little thing has to be organized and reorganized to death

during the week, there's no time for such details

which means she doesn't clean it at all

so usually looks something like this...

sort of a "perfection or nothing" approach

saturdays are perfection,

weekdays are nothing

and when i said being a perfectionist can be kind of rough -

i meant rough on ME

because in this house, her room is what i see across the hall

every time i leave my room

and it makes me completely insane to see this mess

all

the

time.

but really, i've mostly tried to make peace with it

because if that's the worst thing, i'll take it

so i try not to nag her too much about the room

i said try

because i know it's just not that important in the grand scheme of things

and she's so lovely, i'll take her perfectionist or nothing room

especially over, you know, piercings and drugs and worse.

with that said,

a few weeks ago, i learned something new about my girl...

this girl

this darling, beautiful, lovely, talented, perfectionist with a messy room....

will do

ANYTHING

including cleaning her room in the middle of the week

WITHOUT BEING ASKED

for a chance...

to drive

and if you think i'm not taking advantage of this, you're wrong.

three things

lately ethan says, "mom, three things", holding up three fingers and then proceeds to tell me four to five random things. it usually goes something like: "one. why do we have green bananas?" "two. can i play playhouse disney on the computer?" " three. where are my mittens?" "and four. can i have gum?"

there is never the same amount of questions or tidbits as he originally tells me there's going to be, they are listed one right after the other without letting me answer them one at a time, and there is always a varried sampling of information.

his lists of random things always makes me giggle. i usually answer him back the same way.

so today i'm posting "three" random things, ethan style.

one. saturday ethan took the best bubble bath in the history of bubble baths. we poured the normal amount of bubbles in but this time we turned on the jets which made the bubbles go crazy. he was pretty excited when the level of bubbles kept rising and rising. when taylor and spencer saw what he was up to, they were super jealous and vowed to take a bubble bath like this one soon.

two. i don't know what came over me during the hair styling routine this morning. but today, i curled a throw back to the late seventies with a little bit of feathering and everything. i loved it and felt a little connection with farrah all day long. just kidding, but i did like it.

three. i think taylor is super handsome. i'm always surprised when i see him walk in the door from school. he is so grown up! tall and handsome and kind. i love this guy.

four. teenagers like texting. our phone bill is pages and pages long. luckily our fee is just a flat rate for our whole family (that the teenagers help pay each month). at first i wasn't sure how i felt about texting, especially since the number of texts per month are in like the 4,000 range (for real) PER KID,  but now i've decided that it's no different than all the hours i spent tying up my family's phone line when i was a teenager. plus, i LOVE being able to get ahold of them during the day. scenes like this make me laugh. what i should've done was zoom out to show that they're in the middle of people talking all around them, but also in their own little world.