A Few More Apologies

Apology #1: Today was Spring Picture Day for the first graders at Kendrie’s school. And since I never buy the spring pictures, I didn’t much care when Kendrie said she wanted to wear her Georgia Bulldogs t-shirt to school. I mean, sure, it’s a little frayed around the edges because she wears it at least once a week, or more if I’ve got the laundry caught up, and there’s that small stain on the sleeve, but again, who cares? I don’t buy the spring pictures.

I also don’t fight with my kids over clothes. At this stage in the game, I still pay for their clothes, which gives me the inalienable right to *choose* their clothing. So I can pretty much guarantee that everything in their closet is appropriate, and can allow them to pick each morning. Even if they do choose the same shirt, day after day after day. True, it might make me a little crazy, but in the long run, it just doesn’t matter.

So I didn’t care, once again, when she pulled on a pair of cargo pants with a hole in the knee. A small hole, but a hole nonetheless. Because really, even if I *were* going to buy the pictures, which I’m not, you couldn’t see the pants anyway. Pictures are always from the waist up. Same reason I didn’t say anything when she put on her new Lightning McQueen flip-flops. So she looked like a hobo, who loves the movie "Cars" …. Who cares?

It wasn’t until we got to school this morning and I saw the photographer’s set up in the commons area that I remembered: Spring Picture Day is also Class Picture Day. And my vertically-challenged youngest daughter is ALWAYS in the front row.

So to the parents of Kendrie’s classmates: I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it looks like a hobo-orphan was in school with your child this year. No, that’s not a homeless urchin who wandered in off the street and got in the picture. That is *my* grubby child in hole-y pants and pool shoes. I swear, I got her hair cut this afternoon, and threw the hole-y pants in the play-clothes drawer. I know, I know, too little too late. But I promise to try harder next year.

Apology #2: If you’ve been kind enough to write me this past week or so, I want you to know how much I appreciate each and every e-mail. And normally I try very hard to answer every one (I mean, not like there are HUNDREDS or anything, but you know what I mean) but this past week has been crazy-busy and I just haven’t been online like normal. Today, I spent four hours taking 426 photos (No, my fingers did not slip on the keypad and insert an extra digit. That’s four HUNDRED and twenty six photos) of a girlfriend of mine to give her husband as a birthday present in a few weeks. We were going for a 1940’s Pin-Up look, and if I do say so myself, I think they’re going to turn out great. Very Betty Grable-ish. She looked fabulous, and I’m sure he’ll love them when he sees them. Which made me think about the fact for Blaine’s birthday last month, I bought him a book and had cruise control put in his truck. Hmmmm, let’s balance one against the other, shall we? …. Sexy pin-up photos, or the ability to travel long distances at a steady speed? Obviously, we’ve been married a lot longer than they have, and we are also BORING AS HELL. But, apology #2 for being so busy leads to …..

Apology #3: There will be no new updates on this site until next week. I am leaving first thing tomorrow morning for Virginia to spend five days with some of my dearest girlfriends on the planet, and will be way too busy getting drunk eating chocolate gossiping scrapbooking sleeping laughing coming up with ways to save the rain forest to blog. We rented a condo that is advertised as “fully furnished” but since I am too much of a cheapskate frugal to purchase a laptop, unless “fully furnished” includes a wireless laptop with high speed internet connection, I won’t be online until next Tuesday. Just so you people won’t be hitting refresh and driving up my hit counter for no reason, although I’m extremely flattered anyone EVER uses the refresh button on my site.

But as I was thinking about the journal update I would do upon my return, it occurred to me that I’m getting pretty darn near the end of “The Saga of How Those Escoe Freaks Finally Got Their Shit Together and Became Parents” and that while some of you have requested that I go on into the story of my decision to become a surrogate, there is a good chance that more of you have gone into a COMA from the boringness and never-ending-ness of it all. So here’s my request: You tell me; I’ll leave it up to you. Hop online in the next day or two while I’m gone and let me know if I should continue, or if you’d prefer that I drop the topic and go back to our normal lives where I blog about my children’s obnoxious behavior and my obsession with Diet Dr Pepper and my ongoing quest to find a pair of jeans that successfully camouflage my muffin top. Or, if you’d prefer that in addition to dropping the baby topic, I also drop dead. Although really, if that’s the case, why are you here reading, you negative Nelly? Regular readers and lurkers alike, I’d love to hear from you and get your opinion ….. popular vote wins!