"foxywoxypoopoohead"

babysitting. my awesome husband texted me yesterday while i was hanging out with my dear giselle and told me that a manager at his work needed a babysitter. i jumped at the opportunity, of course. "you get paid to sit on babies? ummmm...count me in!" obviously, that's not how it goes in real life...it's more like they sit on you. or pee on you. or beat you up. fortunately, in my case, the two oldest kids had just gotten off of a video game grounding, so they really wanted to play video games and eat pizza. i got them to go outside and play football with me and the others - did i mention that there were five of them? - for a little while. i was learning how to throw a football for the first time in my life. my instructor? an eight year old boy. it was great...until one of the older boys decided to push the two year old girl in the stroller as fast as he could and the darling two year old fell flat on her face, with the stroller still seat-belted onto her. the boy's eyes get wide and he says, "you're safe! look, cami! you're still buckled in, you're safe!!" *insert face-palm*. telling him to apologize, and cleaning up many tears and grass stains and mini "boo boo's", i managed to gather the kiddos back inside.
the neighbor boy came over and rang the doorbell, offering the kids skittles in return for their friendship. they inhaled the skittles and then all bounced off the walls until two of them complained about being hungry. their mom gave me money to order pizza before she left, so i went about awkwardly calling papa johns and repeating the address i was at about a hundred times while the kids talked loudly in the background. the pizza arrived, and the youngest boy lunged at the pizza man and snatched the pizza box from his hand. i apologized and gave the man the money and the tip that the kid's mother told me to give him. he happily walked away. would you believe that the two year old girl ate the most pizza? their little neighbor friend went back home after the garlic sauce and bread sticks vanished.
the dog kept going into the bathroom and drinking out of the toilet. in the end, i decided to close the bathroom door to keep him from accessing his "personal water bowl". i asked the two year old, cami, what the dog's name is. she mumbled something along the lines of "foxyasdfnlweflkanskdfklaksdfnheeeeeeeeaaaaaad" - which is how she talks: in gibberish with a few understandable words - and the five year old girl translated, "his name is foxywoxypoopoohead". the name of their dog should give everything away about this family. i like them. i asked their mom (when she got home) if that was really their dog's name, and she said the kid's uncle named it and they liked it so much it stuck. since it's such a long name, they just call him "fox" or "foxy".
i was in the middle of hooking up the youngest's "kindle" with "yo gabba gabba" (i even know the name now. she said it sooooo much until i could understand her. i'm a pro.) when i hear the oldest yell, "MISS RACHELLLLLLL!!" and i dart into the other room. i find him, standing there, pointing at a humongous leaf-bug on the wall near the ceiling. i felt a tingle up my spine when i realized he wants me to kill this thing. i looked around for something long so i wouldn't have to get near it or let it fall on my head. "are you scared?" i asked the oldest. he nodded and backed up. i realized that i had an audience. all the kids crowded into the room while "super rachel" flung at it with a fly swatter and smacked it on the second hit. it came fluttering down the wall and onto the ground. i proudly waved my swatter and put it back on the wall. the show was over, and the kids slowly went back to doing their own thing.
at the end of the night, i hooked two of the younger kids on UNO. i matched up with the five year old girl, and the eight year old boy was his own team. he stinking beat us: four to two. that little...little...champion. haha. it was a comforting scene, when their mother got home, we were all in the middle of the UNO "final championship" with the two year old scribbling on paper, the twelve year old playing his DS on the couch, and the ten year old somewhere upstairs on his DS playing pokemon.
i could so do that again. i wonder how she manages every day. the boys are so feisty, i can't imagine how she keeps them from tearing the house apart. in all, i'm really thankful for kids and i have a higher appreciation for mothers.

to save my own skin.

still winding down from a long day at lake lanier yesterday. whew. you'd think rest and relaxation time would mean just that. in fact, it was relaxing, however, skip the "resting" part of it. i went with a group of my good friends: giselle, steven, rachel, kayla, andrew, ashley, wesley, kirsten, and tolu (and my brother, peter...unfortunately my dear caleb had work, so he was not able to go...) to the lake and we jet-skiid, tubed, and boated all day long. i came home with a majourly unattractive sunburn that covered every exposed inch of my body and turned it into a lovely lobster-red.  i decided that i would "pinterest" some natural ways to make the burn not...well...burn so much.
the ideas that sounded the most reasonable to me were the ones that shocked my husband perhaps the most. haha. poor guy.
i bathed in water that had been steeped with eleven black-tea bags. he made jokes about drinking the bath water after i finished. (what a guy). we also stopped by the H-Mart on the way home from picking up our climbing shoes - which were ten dollars on an uber good sale at stone summit - and bought some fresh aloe vera leaves. he helped me cut them open and de-juice them so i could smear the freezing cold liquid on my skin. there's nothing like a cold bath and cold juice all over your body. i have work in a few hours, so i sure hope that my skin is at least relieved from the pain. i guess i'll see if peter's sunburn is as horrid as mine is when i go to work...i think he works the same shift as me? *siblings unite*!

my shoes and the story behind them.

vibrams were on sale this past week, so caleb let me choose some and buy them online! i had been checking pretty much every day to see if they had come in, but sadly they hadn't. we finally got them in the mail yesterday, in the middle of a melt-down for me. why the melt-down? because for work, i had to put in a clear nose stud...but the ones i bought were the wrong size, and the ones i had were too small...so i used the ones that were too small...and my hole was too small to fit my normal nose rings in...so i took out my nose ring and let it close up all the way. he let me cry for about 20 minutes before he told me to stop crying and handed me my shoes. it took a while, but i stopped crying [and only was inwardly sulking...which he told me to stop doing too;] and got to enjoy my new shoes. i love my husband...and that he tells me to "snap out of it" when i need to. sometimes, i just need somebody to tell me about all the starving people in africa to get myself to calm down ( not really, but  that sounds like what my mom did when i was younger, when she tried to get me to eat asparagus, "rachel...eat your asparagus...there are starving people in africa who would love your asparagus!!!" me: gag. ). haha. he just told me it wasn't the end of the world and hugged me and said "now...stop crying."
i got to parade them around when we went grocery shopping yesterday after my melt-down and buy groceries for our little housie. he ended up making a delicious dinner, and we enjoyed the rest of the evening.
disclaimer: i don't ever have emotional break-downs [ ... and i don't ever lie ;) ]

one of my friends works at the university. she asked me to help with one of her music classes while i was off during lunch. i was delighted to, considering how much i have been dreaming of doing music again. anyhow, i got to sing with some of her students for something they were working on. what a blast! that was the highlight of my day at school for sure.
i am sitting here, hoping that my brother skypes me...but it appears that our time difference is-well-quite different. hopefully his travels back to the States were alright. our communication since i moved out almost a year ago have been scarce since we aren't usually in the same place at the same time. it's been at least six months since i last saw the guy. not like i don't think about him frequently. i'm actually not a skilled communicator yet in the first place. i get awkward on in-person contact, and over phone i sit and listen more than talk-whether you were planning on doing all the talking or not, and over skype, i smile too big and nervously touch my hair. oh well. *shrugs*. you're probably thinking i'm an extremely awkward person by the sound of things, perhaps i am. i just don't always feel the need to talk, and i quite enjoy listening.
oh boy, do i have homework. it looks like i'll be spending the majourity of my evening doing so...but before i do, i wanted to tell a quick story.

imagine me...sitting in class, minding my own business. get the picture in your head? perfect. this guy who sits next to me every week is korean. you see-for this class, they check us in by if we are sitting in our assigned seating, which is done alphabetically. he's the loudest talking guy you'll probably ever meet, by the way, and perfectly outgoing. either way. i'm sitting in class, minding my own business, and all of a sudden, a bubble lands on the floor next to my feet. i look over to my right, and this kid is sitting there, looking semi-guilty. i lean over and whisper to him, "hey, jimmy? did you see that bubble?" he shakes his head no, and i shake off the feeling that i was just seeing things. yikes! there was another one. this time, i noticed that it was coming from by jimmy's head. right before another one flies through the air and onto my leg, i see how it was produced: asian spit. why...thank you. i don't know how he does it, but he somehow forms spit-bubbles in his mouth, and sends them soaring. trying not to laugh, because other students were noticing and pointing, i motion for him to stop. when he finally stops, class gets let out, and i'm stuck pondering how he does it.


haha. okay...so it doesn't make for much of a story, but i thought it was silly enough to blog about.