Growth

My cousin B. and her hubby sent a beautiful amaryllis plant for the holidays. They come out of the box just barely 'budding' at the bulb - and within a matter of days, they are feet tall. H. would frequently comment 'I swear, it's grown just since the last time I was in the kitchen'. It bloomed a spectacular red - multiple flowers on 2.5 ft. tall stems. Amazing. And so fun to see that.

H. is like that, it appears. We went out to dinner last night and were standing waiting for our table when we all noticed - H. is now officially taller than B. AND, as if that shock wasn't bad enough, H. is also AS TALL AS his father - at 14.75 years old. His growth spurt the past few months is just incredible. Other than the growth of an amaryllis, I've never seen anything like it. And there's no sign that he's 'done' or even slowing down. He's always been a bit on the 'short' side of most of his classes - but no more. He's definitely caught up. And will soon pass up his dad, which is truly amazing.

We had to make an 'emergency' trip to Kohl's to get H. some new boxers. Apparently, he's been on the verge of 'going commando' for several days - barely having any underwear that fit him. He's a bit picky about his underwear, so I was skeptical - but we've solved the issue having procured him 8 pairs of boxers - to add to the few new 'silky' boxers he got for Christmas. He also wanted a new 'button down' shirt for church - but he was trying my patience looking and looking - (how can a kid be so darn picky- it's a shirt for crying out loud) - so we gave up. Of course, if we'd been at Zumiez, he could have found a shirt in 5 minutes - it just would have cost $30-40. He's worse than a girl, I think. His latest thing is: he's letting his hair grow and keeps complaining about it being curly. Both of the boys' hair has darkened quite a bit and gotten very curly - the longer it is, the curlier. My solution is simple: get a hair cut - a 2 and a 1 clipper trim which is what they've been getting for years - and problem solved. But no, H. wants to let his grow and then, STRAIGHTEN IT every morning with MY FLAT IRON. And as if that's not bad enough...that I'll be sharing my HAIR EQUIPMENT with my not quite 15 year old son, he'll use a ton of 'goop' on his hair, which as any girl knows, just ruins your electric flat iron. Gets it all 'gunky' and it fries onto the metal and you can never get it clean.

I'm lobbying strongly to just get a trim and am hoping the upcoming heat wave (surely, it's arriving soon - though from today's incredibly hard, fierce, fast moving rain storm, who knows?) will convince them to go back to really short 'boy hair'. Instead of going for the 'long hair' approach and then watching them both try to wedge in hair foofing into an already frequently ignored 'morning routine' that has them both running for the car to get to school in time.

I worked both days this weekend - feel like I've barely been home. But it's worth it - this time 4 weeks from now, we'll be on a beach in Hawaii - much to do before then, but I can't wait for a break. I know the weeks/days just before will wear me out completely - but I can relax when we get there. I plan to 'imbibe' a lot - which we don't usually do because the kids are 'impressionable' and we're careful to not make it seem 'ok' to drink...we rarely do. But honestly, I need a few Blue Hawaiians or some other kind of tropical cocktail - so I'm planning to enjoy.

J. is at the mall picking up Chinese food. Cheap, filling and no cooking required. I usually do a 'Sunday dinner' of some kind, but haven't been home...so we're eating out two nights in row. Bad, but we are.

I'm going to head outside for a bit to pull some weeds. There's nothing better than a quick, fast downpour to make stubborn weeds as easy to pull as cutting butter. Could be out there for hours working on the flower beds - our gardner doesn't really pull the weeds, he just whacks them with the weed whacker to the ground - so we spend hours trying to keep up. The price we pay for beauty - because in the Spring, our backyard is glorious. OH, that's another great 'spring' tradition - the Park's Seed Co. catalogs are flooding our mailbox with so many wonderful plants to try. Can't wait to place an order!!! and plant, plant, plant!