My Brother's Big Day & Lobster Fest

Yesterday my baby brother...the kid who I still, to this day, feel very protective of even though he's like, 4 inches taller than me (which is quite impressive since I'm not short by any standard)...the little guy who was born as an itty bitty preemie at 12 weeks early & proved many doctors wrong by still being with us...the adorable little toddler that I learned sign language at a very young age for...the very loved brother of mine that I owe my love for psychology & my compassion for my psych patients to...turned 31.

That's so weird to say. In my head, he's still my little brother that depends on me when he's scared & looks to me to interpret when he doesn't know what people are saying...I guess time doesn't stand still, not even for baby brothers.

One of my favorite pictures. No matter where I've lived, this has always been the first picture I've put out & it's always in a prominent spot.

Eddi, 7...Eddi's Brother, 5.

After giving him the same present that I "surprise" him with every year...various candy, beef jerky, popcorn, Gatorade, his favorite things & he always acts surprised for me...Ginger Girl took all of us out to Grandma's barn to show us her chickens. These chickens are all she wanted for her Golden Birthday this year & she thinks they're the best thing ever. Every time we are at Grandma's, she has to show us her birds.

It's no secret I'm terrified of birds. And I do have someone patiently waiting for me to finish this semester so that I have time to work on this phobia of mine, so it's not something I enjoy being paralyzed by fear with. The love I have for my children is evident when I actually go out to the barn with her.

Not Ginger Girl's hens...just random ones like hers.source

The hubs was looking at the chickens & said, "Oh, you have a rooster! Oh!! You have all roosters!"

My Mom & I looked at each other & said, "No roosters. All hens."

Hubby, the ever-loving city boy that he is, "But they all have mohawks."

My poor, sweet, not-farm-boy husband. He thought:
#1: combs are "mohawks"
#2: only roosters had them

It's adorable to watch him get so excited over things I grew up with. Chasing chickens, picking weeds in the garden, staring at fields of hay/corn/soybeans. It's kinda cool to see these not new to me things as new when he gets excited.

After the Birthday fun, the hubs & I took our Other Daughter to Lobster Fest so that we could gorge ourselves on Maine lobsters, butter, and crappy music. Well, the music itself wasn't so crappy...the band just couldn't sing. But the lobster...yum. Hubby doesn't like lobster so at first he was just our cute chauffeur. Then we discovered his talent.

Not only did he drive us there, he also stood in line for an hour while we waited at our table, allowing us to have the much-needed girly talk. But that still wasn't his new found talent.

When the lobsters were brought to us, Other Daughter & I pretty much looked at them like this:

"Dude, I'm not cracking the shell with my teeth."

There were no mallets, no crackers, just butter knives & forks.

And then we found out the other reason the hubby man was along with us...his true talent...he cracked our lobsters open with his bare hands. Other Daughter asked him if he learned how to do that in the military.

Nom nom nom

I haven't had lobster in a long time & it was so good! The pound of butter I ate with my 1 1/2 lb. lobster was pretty tasty too. I'm not sure if it's because I'm a bottomless pit & all my children know this, or if it's just a Mom thing, but Other Daughter couldn't eat all of her gigormous amount of food they gave us, so she put it on my plate. I love my metabolism.

After all the fun & girly/hubby bonding, we came home to our Original Children. Or half of them anyway. 2 are at Grandma's, 1 is camping with a friend. When you tell someone that 3 children are gone & that means half of your children are home, dang, it sounds like a lot of kids.

Being a Saturday night, full of lobster, steak, corn on the cob, and potatoes, and with one of the children babysitting the other children, the natural reaction is to be all, "Yahoo, let's party, man!" And we totally did. We partied, alright.

We got in our pj's, laid under the fan, and watched Veggie Tales sing-a-long songs on YouTube. That's right, we know how to party around here.