Babies Occupied

BACK TO KATRINA

Well my thoughts are back to Katrina, I was watching the news this morning and saw that Fay was on it's way again back through Florida, my thoughts immediately came back to our Katrina experiences.

My husband and my sons did go back the next day to the Astrodome in Houston, like I said he promised the people he would and he did.  When he got there several of the men recognized him and told him they could not believe he was back, I guess at that time in their lives and in ours nothing was a promise and nothing certainly was for sure.  Again they stayed the entire day and fed them and helped with lines for taking a bath, some of the men had not had bathes for almost a week.  When my hubby and sons finally came back to the apartment they were exhausted and sad, and exhilarated all at the same time.  I couldn't even begin to feel what they were feeling at that moment. 

We decided we had had enough of Katrina for the time and tried to focus on our family, so before we left Houston we took the kids to as many events around town as we could find.  There was the arts district which was beautiful, and at the same time as we were there, there was some sort of carnival.  We got to enjoy the rides, and spent the entire day there, and met several people we knew from New Orleans.  All of us in the same position, FLOODED! 

We took the kids to the aquarium, and that made my heart sink, The Aquarium of the America's in New Orleans is exquisite, all I could think of were the sharks and all of the beautiful fish we had back home and what was happening to them at the moment.  We did lose I believe most of our sharks, I don't remember what else, but the penguins were saved. 

All of the time spent with the kids was very precious to us, when you think about those people in the Astrodome, most of them didn't even know where their family members were, we had ours right under our wings and felt very blessed for that pleasure.  We knew all of our family members were fine and safe, again blessed.  But we did know the time was coming that we had to move on and find a place closer to home, so we started to try to get in touch with some family members in Lafayette, Louisiana.  Wow what a struggle,  we did end up talking to John's brother and he told us to come to their Uncle's home.  Reality was starting to look us in the face, and we were going to eventually have to pack up and start our long journey back to our great state and home.

Living With Boys

What can I say about this???  Boys, boys, boys.  There is more potty humor in our house than most.  My boys love pooping comedy, they can be in the middle of dinner and all of a sudden someone yells "pull my finger!"  I really do teach them etiquette, but sometimes they are about to explode and etiquette is OUT of the door.  I fuss at them for their outburst of finger pulling, but to no avail.  There is so much laughter how can one mom go against 6 boys.  OK 7 my husband is just as bad!

Just the other day, Hunter, the 4 year old had the fart machine hiding in the cushions of the sofa, every time someone would sit down he would hit the remote and the machine would go off!  I have to admit it really is funny.  Sorry the tomboy in me is sometimes overwhelming.  It fights to show it's ugly head.

The boys found a fish aquarium just the other day and decided to pursue the frogs in the neighborhood to become part of the family.  I looked across the street from my house and Tommy, Louie and a friend were avidly hunting frogs, while Hunter was peeing against the sound wall, what a sight for very sore eyes!  It would have been a picture perfect moment if only I could find the camera.  So etched in my brain forever will be 3 boys searching and one boy peeing!  Comedy at it's finest.

Little boys are so much fun, so are big boys!  If I am mad at the boys and fuss at them they are my best friend in five minutes.  But on the other hand if I fuss at my daughter, I might get a "HI" in five days, if I'm lucky. 

Boys can be such a challenge, but at the same time such a delight.  Just let you hair down moms! and enjoy those moments, because you know you have always wanted to put the fart machine under the sofa cushion.  hehehe

Boredom had set in!

My husband was bored, this is a man that works most of the time.  And when he is not working at his business' then he working on his lawn, or his house or anything that he can get his hands on.  So he woke up the first morning after we moved into the Houston Apartment and got my two older boys up and told them they were going with him to the Astrodome.  That is where they were bringing the New Orleans evacuees. 

They got to the dome and told the Red Cross people that they were there to help, at first the Red Cross was hesitant to let them help since they were from New Orleans too, but my husband can be very convincing and managed to make his way into the dome.  Right away he and the boys got started handing out food and clothing and registering these poor people.  The hurricane victims were dirty, hungry, thirsty, and disoriented, as we were in the first couple of days, but most of these people had been rescued from the waters, they were on rooftops or bridges.  They came complete with blank faces, no clothing, some not even knowing where their family members were.  If you recall the news media, it made it seem as if these were the worst of the worst and the poorest of the poor.  They were not, I can attest to that.  These were family oriented people, like most New Orleanians are.  They were more scared than anything.

My husband and the boys got started right away talking to the men and women and children at the dome, asking them where they were from, you can imagine the first response to that "New Orleans, of course!"  My husbands response was, "I'm from New Orleans, and I am an evacuee, WHERE DO YOU LIVE????"  When they realized they had a comrade amongst them they started talking!  John said it was the happiest moment for some of them.  They were being shuffled around like cattle and finally someone that not only knew what they were going through, but someone that new where they lived.  John and my boys spent the rest of that day sharing Katrina stories, and just New Orleans stories with each other.  Since we own and Electrical business you can imagine that my husband knows our city like the back of his hand, he knows streets, side street stores, people that hang out at some of the area establishments and much more.  They were able to tell him what street they lived on and he was able to tell them he had worked on this house or that building and maybe even a church in that neighborhood. 

Life came back for some of these people!  By the time it was time for my husband to leave, my oldest son said there were about 60 or more people surrounding them talking about good Ole times in New Orleans, and none of us knew if we would ever be back again.  They were very sad to see him go and he was sad to leave, they asked him to come back and he told them he would.  This is a man that never, and I mean never goes back on a promise, and he got up the next morning and went back just to talk, break bread, hand out clothing, and talk some more............ 

I will tell you about tomorrow, tomorrow!

Mom-Brained quote for today

"I am enjoying my insanity so much today, please don't ask me to come back to earth!"

We've Graduated YES!!!

Baby Lucy has finally graduated!!!  We are so very excited, she is no longer taking the door stops off of the walls and using them as teether's, she is now into toilet swishing!  We are so proud, the entire family.  Can you imagine when someone asks,"so how is the baby, what is she doing?"  we can proudly say, "she is into toilet swishing now".  What a wonderful moment for all of us!  When someone goes to the bathroom, and the rest of the family hears a squeal, we know Lucy has been to that bathroom, because there is water all over the seat, and even though we know she swishes we still don't look at the seat before we sit!

This very morning, I have spent 45 minutes re rolling toilet paper back onto the rolls, yes she is into that too now.  We get so excited when any of the babies over the course of years has graduated from one hair raising event to another.  Just a couple of days ago, Lucy climbed all the way to the third floor by herself.  She proceeded to go into my oldest daughter's room and pull all of her dvd's off of the shelf, then went into her closet and pulled out her stuffed animals.  When I got in the room she was sitting amongst the dvd's and the animals just having a grand ole' time!  All of this happened within about 6 minutes.  Yes whenever someone says 5 minutes that usually is an estimate of time, but this was truly 6 minutes, all of that destruction in just a whiff of time.  She is amazing!  We are awestruck at the tenacity of this child!

Well have to go, there are more toilet paper holders to rewind, and more toilets to wash down, and more dvd's to be reorganized, and more stuffed animals to be picked up.  Oh heck, I think I'll leave the stuffed animals and just concentrate on the more important stuff today.  Toilets and paper holders.

Yak with ya soon!  have a great day!

Lisa's Tuesday Quote

"Ok so you don't want to go to gym!!!"  Then good, don't go, but you'll have to wash the garbage can if you don't go!!! 

So he went! :)

I Love my City!!!!!

I wish everyone could experience New Orleans like we New Orleanians do!!!  I just love my city.  We get up on a Sunday morning and take the Street Car to the French Market, we have Coffee and Beinets and then take a stroll along the river and enjoy the morning musicians playing their jazz.  What a great way to start out a day!

We usually continue to walk around the French Quarter finding some great antiques, or some really unusual knick-knack that you can only find in a nostalgia shop.  It truly is fun!

We are teaching our children about the uniqueness that is New Orleans, we are hoping beyond hope that they will love the city and want to stay here and contribute to it's regrowth.  There is so much going on here that you can bearly walk a mile and see something being rebuilt or renovated, it is so exciting. 

We chat with out of town people and find that they have either been here before or will defiantly return.  I have yet to find one person that has said they would never come back.  I am sure there are some but I haven't found them yet!

Our city is one that no matter where you go there is something to do, you can eat your way through New Orleans, shop your way through it, some may drink their way through it, but most just enjoy what is truly unique, we are a European city that has never lost it's flair. 

If you haven't been here you should think about visiting, there is so much to do I couldn't even begin to tell you where to go.  We have little out of the way museums that are fantastic, and big museums that are great too, we have an brand new insectarium, the zoo, the aquarium, the antique shops, the nostalgia shops, the riverboat cruises, jazz, jazz and a lot more jazz! 

I can't wait for this weekend, I'll tell you more later! 

The newest Partridge Family

I dropped my daughter off at her brand new college to take a placement test today, on my way home I decided to really make my kids crazy.  You see we do not allow video games in our house, so mom and dad's idea of an alternative to video games is anything but (video games that is). 

I stopped by a local toy store, a wonderful toy store with very creative style toys for kids of all ages, including mom.  I picked up some musical instruments, like a penny whistle, a slide whistle, a plastic sax and clarinet and some different drum style instruments.  I had the baby with me and as we were walking into the store Elmo was right there and being a typical baby she chimed right in with the fact that we were in a toy store, she reached for the stuffed Elmo and being as cute as she is, mom got it.   When I got to the counter to check out, the clerk asked me if there was anything else I needed, I thought  "yes an explanation as to why mom had musical instruments rather than video games for my kids".  But  instead I said "NO", I am just bringing home my idea of an alternative to video games.

When I got home the kids were all excited because they saw a bag from the toy store, Hunter wanted to know if it was his birthday!!! NO I said!  He was a little disappointed but got over it fast when I pulled out all of the instruments.  They immediately started the Grillot Family Band.  I felt like  Shirley Partridge from the Partridge family.  I was so proud of my little band members, they actually shared the instruments, and tried to teach each other a new song, even though it did not sound like a song.  They thought it was and that's what counts. 

You know today started out with a house full of disoriented kids and ended up with the Grillot 5.  We have truly enjoyed the older kids and their musical talents, but now I am finding out that some of the little ones are truly talented too.  All I have to do is give them the ability to try it.  When kids are given the outlet's to become creative then creativity happens.  It doesn't have to be expensive, the penny whistle was 3 dollars, but it does have to be directed.

As Rosemon's Bill of Rights for Children state: "Children have the right to learn to be grateful for what they receive, therefore, they have the right to receive all of what they truly need and very little of what they simply want."  That's our creed for our kids.