Saturday, October 24, 2009

Pink Kitty Returns!

Not the same pink kitty, but we do have a pink kitty in the house.  When Roxy was 1 and 2, she carried around a pink cat that she loved the pink off of, and the fur off of, and the whiskers off of.  The poor thing looked terrible.  And, because Roxy could not say the "K" sound (she changed all K sounds to a T sound), it sounded like she was referring to a body part, not a precious stuffed animal.  I rather like the pink kitty in the picture.  And thankfully, Roxy can now saw the K sound.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Roxy's Ten Commandments

Roxy created a list of Ten Commandments and posted them in her room.  She plays hostess to multiple children with our small group, and she is determined to control the behavior.  In case you were wondering, the answer is yes, there is a good reason for Roxy to make this list.  And she did it without any encouragement and acknowledgement from me.  It's a good list.  I'm making a copy for the parents.


Rules:
1.  No hurting anyone.


2.  No crying.

3.  Anticipate.  (Roxy did mean anticipate - she learned this word recently.  She wants everyone to be prepared to act when necessary.)

4.  No jumping on my bed.


5.  No screaming when the lights go out.





6.  No screaming.

7.  No locking the door.



8.  No acting wild.



9.  No breaking anything.


10.  No slamming doors.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Powder Puff Recap: Darby's Story

Hello, eworld! I am back,with better weapons and a stronger army to CONQUER ALL!!! Just kidding. But I am here to make a new post on a subject I knew little about until this afternoon-football.

A few weeks before this whole she-bang came about, Mrs. Woosley came into 56X with a sign-up sheet for the annual Powder Puff football game. We were all sort of like, "Meh, I'm not that good at football." I definently knew I did NOT want to kill myself and the spirit of my teammates dropping the ball left and right, breaking my back getting tackled, and throwing the ball approximately 3 yards. Some girls signed up right away after Mrs. Woosley mentioned that Zach Durden would be there as a coach. "ZACH DURDEN!? I'M IN!!" Instantly 3 girls scribbled their names on the sheet. I wasn't giving in.

A week before the game, I looked at the sign-up sheet posted outside the Teen Center. Some strange voice in my mind told me to sign up, you won't regret it, do it. And I listened. Later I asked myself, "Why did you just do that, completely out of the blue?! You are one crazy chick."

This morning, everyone was buzzing over the game. Inwardly, I slapped my wrist. Today is the day of the game and you forgot to bring a change of clothes! Bad Darby! My lovely mother, however, rushed home at 12:00 to get my clothes so I would not have to wear a miniskirt and leggings running down the front lawn of the church. I changed as soon as I got my clothes and found out I would play on the blue team with Rachel Woosley. After a lunch of turkey and cheese sandwitches, we went outside to warm up with a co-ed game of 2-hand touch. Zach was captain and sometimes quarterback of our team. Mostly, I was just hoping I wouldn't have to go to the ER by 4:00.

I turned out to be better than I expected. I made our first touchdown, but I didn't know it until people were congratulating me after, amazingly, I caught the ball at the end zone. I had to get over the shock that I actually caught a football for the first time in my life with no previous training in the first half of the game, and then over the fact that I made a touchdown when I did. I floated on that score for quite a while, until I started getting random rushes of blood to the head and had to sit down during water break before the real game started at 2:00. Then it would get serious.

When everyone arrived, and we managed to get all the guys off the feild, the pink and blue teams huddled to find out their positions. I had an important position-center linewoman. For a minute I practiced snappind the ball to Breezy, our quarterback. It's a nice position because you have defenders on either side of you, and you just have to spread your legs apart and toss the ball through them. You just have to be kind of quick at tossing it after they say, "Hike!"

We did have some injuries, though. Allie DuBell (is that how you spell it?) was the first to go. She landed hard on her knee making a score and had to leave.We continued the game, but we had to cancel due to severe injury. I'm not sure quite what happened, but I'm guessing that she was makins a run for the goal, got tackled really hard and landed on the ground in a way that she damaged her head badly. She tried to sit up, but just got really dizzy and I think they had to call 911. So glad I didn't see the ambulance. (shudder)

All in all, though, it was a really fun day. I know I'll do it next year-but maybe with pads.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Georgia is Zombieland

My family has been entertained by zombies.  We have a game called Plants Vs. Zombies and all of us play it.  It is fun and humorous and pretty darn clever.  When you win all the game levels, the zombies do a music video dance for you.  Scott is the only one of us to complete the game as of yet - he worked on the stupid game for two-three days, six hours at a time, in order to find out how it ends.  I guess you could say he has a fixation with obsessiveness...

So I was surprised to hear about the city-wide Zombie walk that took place here in Atlanta.  It was a planned public mass-flooding of zombies onto all of the public transportation venues and public areas.  Lots of people, looking like zombies, walking slow and painfully like zombies walk.  I really wish I could have hung out on the train that day, spying on the zombies, but alas, I have a life.

I then discover that there is a haunted mansion organization that trains people in make-up, artistry, and physicality of zombies.  And it is here in Atlanta.  They trained the makers of the recent Zombieland movie and the latest Halloween movie.  Both those movies were filmed her in Atlanta plus other Georgia locations.

It makes you wonder about all the people that are out and about in the world.  Are they really that slow, or have they had zombie training?  I skipped the county fair, so I cannot test my theory yet.  Guess I'll just check out The People of Wal-Mart website again, looking for Georgia Zombies.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Mash with the Franks

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Book People

The Franks' fam is full of book people.  This affliction causes problems for us.

How do you not collect certain books, especially when you have a child that craves books by a particular author?  Where do you set limits?  We use the library (frequently), but with voracious readers, you need to own the good ones.

We have a large collections of Calvin and Hobbes, but thankfully, Darby no longer feels compelled to read them to us ALL the time.  We have an even larger collection of Amelia books, a personal narrative/journal/graphic novel hybrid.  We have a large collection of Robert Sabuda pop-up books.  We have more Klutz books than you can imagine.  And then, Darby has about 200 novels in her bedroom alone.

One of the best developments as of late has been Roxy's attachment to books.  She is not rabid about it (like her older lookalike), but she has inherited everything Darby has outgrown - a complete collection of Arthur, a complete collection of Tacky the Penguin, almost everything by Mo Willems, and about 15 Junie B. Jones books.  Plus everything else that no longer fits in Darby's library.

So now, Roxy has discovered Shel Silverstein poetry.  She loves him.  The vocabulary is a little lofty in places, but the spirit of his poetry books suits her so well.  As she was reading to me from Where the Sidewalk Ends,  she discovered a poem she loves so much she wanted to share it with her second grade teacher.  No, it is not a poem about a kitty or a puppy, but a poem called Hug O' War.

If you need a smile or a sweet thought today, read Shel's Hug O' War.  It is highly recommended by the Rock Star.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Stuck in the Middle of School

Darby's depiction of middle school