Puttin' On The Spritz!

It was date night last night. Now if you're picturing me all gussied up with my hair styled and a spritz of perfume rubbed here-n-there, well just scratch it (the image, that is). You may recall I'm in my 40's with four kids ages 7 to 3 months. "Stylin'" for me means "I'm gonna wash that gray right outa my hair!" And I say, I do love a nice perfume as much as the next woman (Design by Paul Sebastian comes to mind). However, unless Eau De Baby Barf is all the rage, I'm not sure anyone would want to borrow my spritz.
So now that I have adjusted your vision (don't hate me because I'm beautiful), it will come as no surprise to you that our "date night" consisted of a movie rental, some homemade popcorn and a bed to slug out on while watching.
Go'head. Covet if you must. You know a good date when you see one.

Okay, so Carl set off to find us a few movies. He figured Blockbuster was the obvious choice, what with one on every flippin' corner. He called me a short time later and I expected he was going to give me a list of fabulous options to choose from. Um, Blockbuster gave us the option to jump into the 21st century. And that's because we had no idea, no flippin' clue at all that ya can't rent a VHS tape anymore. Gasp! You too? Seriously, we don't own a DVD player and apparently our VHS time warp is the equivalent of those who still had 8-track when cassettes were "high tech" (Ah, sweet memories; Carl had 8-track in his Olds 442 when I met him; we were sooo excited when he added a cassette adapter).

So, Blockbuster was a bust, alright. Carl asked what he should do so I came up with a brilliant idea. I told him to bust a move right on over to our local library. "They'll have VHS there." Off he went and was gone for quite some time. I just knew this was a good sign. I was finally going to get to see Narnia. Oh! Oh! Or maybe One Night With the King. Maybe even End Of The Spear. Things were looking up.

He finally made it home with videos in hand. I was presented with my options; Ray, 1962's To Kill A Mockingbird, or The Out-Of-Towners (that last one held some irony). Okay, not the hot list I had imagined, but not so bad either. We decided on To Kill A Mockingbird as both of us had recently read the book (not having read it in highschool like many others have). Can I just say WOW! We both loved the book and the film. It's a wonderful old classic and I'm amazed that Harper Lee did not continue her literary career after that first huge success (Pulitzer prize winner if you don't know). If you have read the book but not seen the film, I'll have to insist (and you'll get to see Robert Duvall as Boo Radley; perfect actor to portray him). All in all, it was a good date night.

In keeping with our "stuck in the 90's" theme, today we videotaped Olivia's homeschool cheerleading performance using Dino-Cam. "Dino-Cam" is our very large video camera from the 90's that can double as a billy club. We just refuse to step into the modern technological era (and besides, Dino-cam continues to serve us well). We also held out on cell phones, computers, DSL and more. I have no interest in an i-pod and blackberries are only for eatin' in my book.
So there we were, watching our little girl dish out another dose of "I'm growing up" with lots of love in our hearts and Dino-Cam on our shoulders.

You'd expect to see a monster satellite dish in our backyard too, eh? Naw! Though we do still have the manual cable box sitting on top of our television (Gotcha! Just twistin' your knickers).

I had to laugh when we tucked our kids in for bed tonight. Five year old Reece often bangs his head on the pillow while kicking both feet in sync as he sings a little church song he knows. We call this his "banga banga" and it helps him to fall asleep. As I walked by his room tonight, I heard the familiar "bang bang, bang bang" that told me he was on his way to dreamland. But the words were... different. I heard him singing a new song. It was strangely familiar so I pressed closer to his door with a listening ear.
"We've got spirit, yes we do. We've got spirit, how 'bout you?" Little "big man" was cheering himself to sleep after obviously paying attention during his big sissy's two practices and performance this week.
Seriously.
I'm not making this stuff up.
This is life in the "H" home as we "H's" know it.

All in all, It was a day filled with such sweet and fleeting moments. I would have liked to stand there and listen longer too, but there just wasn't time. Because tonight was another hot date night for two 40-something parents of four kids ages 7 and under. And you know what that means. Yep, I needed to "get my spritz on" and gussy it up.