Tales of a Fulltime Mom: Can You Hear Me Now? No, I Can't!

The old (left) and the new.

Aghhh! The topic that is on my mind right now is my cell phone issue. I've had my beloved cell phone for four years and it has withstood every beat down you can imagine. It's gotten thrown on the floor more times than I can recount and it's even fallen in the toilet. It has come flying through all that completely unscathed. But now, for some completely unknown reason, it's periodically not receiving calls. It started last week when I had a phone meeting with my boss. My phone never rang but several hours later I noticed I had a voicemail and it was her leaving me a message. She had called at the appointed time but my phone had never rung. I thought it was just a one time thing but it's been happening now for the last week. Not every day (although, how would I know unless someone told me they tried to call) but sometimes several times in one day. The last straw was when Duncan called me like six times last night on his way home from work and my phone never received the calls. We assumed that, sadly, it was my ancient phone (I would say one phone year is like 20 human years, right?). Afterall, I've lived in the same place for five years so it doesn't seem like it should be a coverage problem. So, off we went to Verizon Wireless and an hour and $200 later, I was the un-proud owner of a new "ruggidized" phone called the GZone Rock. Right away, I could see I wouldn't like it as much. It's smaller (supposedly an improvement over the old version but not for me!) and the big thing that I HATE...the clock doesn't stay on on the front cover. When you use your phone as a clock, it's a major pain in the neck.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I'm sitting on the couch and at about 4 pm, my phone makes a sound like I have a voicemail. But alas, my phone never rang. It's Camille and I call her back and she says she's called me several times, the phone rings and rings, and then goes to voicemail. But I never got the calls on my end. I'm actually pretty excited about this development because maybe, just maybe, it's not a phone issue. I put Duncan on the case this evening...he calls Verizon technical support and it turns out that they believe the error was due to a number that Verizon pushes down to my phone - - it's sortof like the SSN of your phone. Apparently it wasn't working correctly. They reset it and now I'm hoping that we're all set. The final step will be tomorrow when I go and return the new phone. I was told there's a $35 restocking fee which I really don't want to pay. I feel like it's half their fault and half mine. Theirs because it was their problem they weren't pushing down the right number but mine because I didn't try to fix my phone before purchasing the new one. We'll have to see how it pans out. Regardless, I'm just so happy that there's hope for my beloved old phone.

I guess that's enough prattling on about a measly cell phone. Other things have been happening. On Sunday morning, we went to another birthday party. This one was in Longwood for Isaac (turning 5) and Wyatt (turning 2) Weigley whom we go to Sabbath School with. Their mother, Crystal, periodically does infomercials for the Home Shopping Network so Calleigh views her as somewhat of a celebrity (I had once taped Crystal selling a fan and Calleigh kept wanting to watch it) . All the more exciting to get to go to her house! The big attraction at the party was a huge blow up water slide. It was like one of the big inflatables that are at Monkey Joe's except this one had water. Calleigh looked at it very apprehensively (there were a bunch of boys already going down it) and decided it wasn't something she wanted to do. She kept walking around it and looking at what was going on but couldn't be convinced. Then a little girl, Marley, went down it and she got her face all wet and I figured that sealed things. But then, low and behold, Braelyn arrived and declared she was going down it and Calleigh decided she would go down with Braelyn. Well, that was the turning point. After that, we couldn't get her to stop. Even as we were about to go home, I found her going down at the same time with three bigger boys. Her face did get wet many times so I think we're making significant progress on the face under water thing. Aubree had a nice time too although on a much more docile level. By the way, I know the second video is crooked but I can't fix it. It's funny so I wanted to include it.

The snow cones were a big hit! Of course, Aubree HAD to have one too and that was fun trying to supervise.

This was the little pool that Calleigh spent most of her time in until she got up the nerve to go on the water slide. On the plus side, she really bonded with her friend Marley in the pink suit ( to whom she later explained in great detail that she had a dog named Marlee. "Marley and Marlee!" says Calleigh).

Going down with friend Lindsey

The last few days have been fairly uneventful. We were supposed to be hooking up with Yolanda and Emma but they are still under the weather. We've actually been on the hunt for some shoes to wear with the flower girl dresses for the upcoming wedding. We got the flower girl dresses themselves on Monday after a little scare. They were supposed to be delivered by UPS on Friday. As I watched the Friday afternoon news, I saw a story about a UPS truck that had caught on fire on I-4. I was a little worried when the dresses weren't delivered on Friday but apparently there was just some other delay. They are the cutest brown dresses and praise be, the both fit! I was a little worried because the sizing chart was bizarre (I was trying to order the dresses using the measurements from the previous flower girl dresses since I knew those ones fit) but it all worked out. Now it was on to the shoes. I think Calleigh is going to wear some brown sandals but just in case, I found some brown closed toe shoes at a consignment store this afternoon. Of course, Calleigh wanted to wear them when we got home so on they went. A little later I hear, "Mommy, I'm having an accident." Sure enough, there's the urine running down her legs right into her "new" shoes. I think I got them cleaned out but if you see Calleigh wearing brown closed toe shoes at the wedding, pretend you didn't read this story.

In other news, Aubree's vocabulary keeps growing every day and sometimes not in the best of ways. She's started yelling "No" over and over and then the newest one is "Mine," "Mine," "Mine." As you guessed, these have come from Calleigh. Calleigh will grab whatever Aubree has in her hand and declare "Mine." The next thing you know, Aubree is shouting "Mine" repeatedly as she tries to get it back. I know I've said it before but I'll say it again. Aubree repeats EVERYTHING that Calleigh does. Recently Calleigh coughed a couple of times (just to clear her throat) and within a half second, there goes Aubree coughing the exact same way. Calleigh is big into showing her muscles and proclaiming how strong she is. Yup, you guessed it. Now Aubree makes muscles every time Calleigh does.

Making Muscles!

On to Calleigh. It's an on-going process to teach her about right and wrong...what things aren't good to do like telling lies, stealing, etc. I know it's sinking in and then every now and then she'll say something and you know for sure she's getting it. There were two such times this week. One of Calleigh's favorite things is for us to tell her stories from when I was a kid or about my dog or whatever. Half the time I can't thing of one on the fly but when she asked this particular time, I thought of the story of my brother Rick getting rid of his binkies. I thought it was a fitting tale since we hope in the near future to have her get rid of hers. I know my mother has told the story before but I decided it was time again. So I talk about how he decided to take his binkies to the dump but then the dump was closed. What would he do? He really wanted to get rid of them so Gigi just stopped the car and they threw them out the window. I thought Calleigh would be aghast about having to throw binkies away but what does she say? She proclaims with condemnation "That's littering!" Like she couldn't believe we would do that! What could I do but agree and then kind of back track the story and say, "Well, maybe he threw them in a section that was kind of part of the dump."

The other anecdote was from yesterday when we went out for our post nap walk. We get outside and Calleigh decides that she wants to retrieve the walking stick that she left by our front door. Duncan had found her a really cute stick but the rule is that we leave it outside. She looks around and it's nowhere to be seen. Devastating! I explained to her that most likely the yard service people who do the lawns probably took it because it was in their way. But no, no. She shouts, "That's stealing. That's NOT nice." This gave me a lovely lead in for trying to explain the difference between stealing and innocently taking something that you don't know belongs to someone else. Good times.