Hello, Pizza Hut.

So it's been a while, eh? For those of you who look forward to hearing what's going on, I'm sorry. I've been very busy with school and, quite frankly, I'm exhausted every day when I come home. Being outside all day in 100+ degree heat wearing 30-50 pounds of equipment takes a lot of out me.

That being said, I really haven't wanted to share what's been going on. Everything the kids do is told from my biased perspective and I don't want to cast them in a negative light to those of you who've never met them and a lot of you who rarely see them. But it's been a very difficult couple of weeks. I'll try to stick to a few good things and keep this short.

Miss S loves to go into the store whenever we're running errands. Sometimes it's just easier to leave the kids in the car with Denielle or me but sometimes we take them in with us. This day, I chose to say yes instead of no to Miss S. We were going in to Costco to just pick up a couple things, one of which was a pizza. In the back of the warehouse, they have this phone where you can call directly to the food court to order. That way, by the time you're done shopping, you can just walk right up and pick up your food. So I decided I was going to let her do as much as possible. I gave her my card to show the attendant inside. She got a big kick out of that. Then we walked straight to the phone. I picked it up and then hung up right away. I turned to her and asked if she wanted to order the pizza. She got a big, but nervous, smile on her face and said yes.

I asked her what kind of pizza we were going to order. She didn't know. So I decided to coach her through the whole process. I told her what the lady on the phone would say and all the answers, in order. I asked her if she was ready. She said yes so I asked her to tell me one more time what she was going to say. She got it right so I gave her the phone. I heard someone on the phone, looked at her eyes and saw the sheer panic, and then she gave the phone to me. I ended up ordering it for us but it was still fun for her. Or so I thought. I smiled and laughed a little (more like a giggle) because she got freaked out and she got upset. I had to tell her that it was OK that she was nervous before and during the call and that it was OK for her to feel a little embarrassed.

The next time we did it, a few weeks later, I practiced putting the phone up to her ear and I played the Costco person. She did great. We did it for real and she about knocked my teeth out throwing the phone back at me. Needless to say, she's not quite ready to order pizza by phone. She does, however, like to give the receipt to the food court employee and get the pizza from him :)

That's all for now but I also have a good story about fires later...