Bubble Fun

This is too much fun. Make sure you click on "Manic Mode."

On a Clear Night...

You can hear forever.

On Sunday night I was driving home all by myself from 8pm to 11:30pm (construction in Jackson) so first I sang myself hoarse (gotta love Amy Grant's Christmas album) and then I turned to AM radio. It was such a clear night I was pulling in stations from all over the country. I got a few from New Jersey and found out there was a traffic delay at the New Brunswick exit of the Turnpike. That was our exit for the eight years that we lived in New Jersey. It is a good thing we don't live there anymore or I would have been delayed getting home. I heard about making films from Minneapolis. I heard about killing feral pigs from South Carolina. I heard about personal finance and Matt Drudge from Boston. I could have heard about sports and church from any number of places but I could not get off those stations fast enough. It was really an entertaining drive but I was very happy to get home.

4th Meeting

I secretly love these kinds of days. I piss and moan about them, but they are actually fun. All of the meetings have been well prepared for ahead of time and now I just need to sit through them, give my input, and take back the recommendations of the committees. And I don't have to answer the phone all day. I love that kind of day.

The fifth meeting on my calendar is actually a pedicure. I promise we will talk about Elaine's research for a minute or two so it will count as a meeting, but we will do it with our tootsies soaking in a whirlpool bath.

Look at the Muffins on Her

A lot of things converged today and in the end, I baked. First, there were two rapidly browning bananas in the fruit bowl. I had often heard that browning bananas make the best banana bread but I don't own a bread pan. I recently saw some muffin sleeves (12 to be exact) in the cupboard and thought, I wonder if I have muffin pans. Today while getting some laundry out the dryer I saw some muffin pans under the table in the basement. Then to top it all off I had to use my oven today to make my lunch and so while it was already warm (a problem that has apparently doomed all of my past baking attempts--who knew pre-heating was important) I looked up a recipe for banana muffins. I noticed that the recipe called for an egg; I never have eggs in the house. But this morning when Jackson and I were out shopping he asked for eggs so I bought some, how about that for the planets aligning? So only a few days after nearly laughing Adrienne off the planet for even suggesting that I bake something; I baked something. They look great but they smell terrible. Of course, they smell like bananas so that immediately marks them off my list. I hope Jackson likes them.

Take Your Sister to Work Day

I was able to go to Gretchen's office yesterday (after everyone left) and help her out. It sure is nice to be able to say "Do I need to--", have the answer be "no" and know with absolute certainty that the conversation was done.

And it was nice for Gretch to be able to say "This field always stays the same so just hit control c." She did not have to explain that I should hit control v every time I came back to that field. It was understood and she knew it.

If I weren't so afraid of financial insecurity I would make us all go into business together. Since there is no one I trust like my sisters to get things done.

Speed Demon

Well, the law finally caught up with me. I have been driving for 23 years and I have only gotten two tickets. One for an accident 20 years ago (the only accident I have ever had) and one for running a stop sign 19 years ago. I have been stopped for speeding about 5 times (once with both my mother and my mother-in-law in the car) and I was always just given a warning. I thought having the baby in the car would make a cop more sympathetic if I ever got stopped again, but alas that was not the case. Maybe it was that whole endangering a minor thing.

Anyway, today I was zipping along, minding my own and Jackson's business when I noticed a workzone coming up. That's OK, I knew that if I could just get ahead of one last truck then I will be golden. So I zoomed by doing my usual 9 miles over the posted speed limit, except that the speed limit had changed to 45mph because of the impending workzone. Sure enough there was a cop hiding behind one of the construction barricades (coward) and there was plenty of room behind me so he pulled right in. I knew I was doomed, but he waited until there was room to move over to the shoulder to turn on his lights. "Where we going mommy?" This policeman just wants to talk to mommy. Yeah, that was fun. He said he clocked me going 79 in a 45 zone but he cut me a break and only marked it as 75 in a 45 zone. If he had marked it as 79 it would have meant a mandatory court appearance. As it is, it is just a hefty fine with $25 tacked on for the workzone. I was due.

Vegas Baby!

As I have mentioned elsewhere I am here at work at 5:20am because I am a control freak. I have work as much under control as I can. Everything is waiting for other people (I hate other people) before I can do anything else and now everything is going to be 10 times harder because I will have to explain to someone else from two thousand miles away.

There are other things I wanted to write about but I can't for the life of me wrap my brain around any of them at this hour.

Did I mention I am going to Vegas? Maybe I will see some of you there.

New Daycare

I may have to find a new daycare provider. I can't have my sweet, innocent little boy exposed to such horrible things.

Yesterday when I dropped him off, the assistant teacher (a woman in her sixties)

showed up wearing (I can hardly type it)

socks with (wait for it)





FLIP FLOPS.

OMG, I think I just threw up a little bit.

Not even just socks, pink fishnetty like socks (she dresses as if she is trying to be the hip grandma), with the fabric squashed between her big toe and her index toe to accommodate the FLIP FLOPS.

I know I have been guilty of putting socks and sandals on Jackson's feet, but it makes me cry every time I do it. He wants to wear the sandals and the daycare requires socks, so at least there is a reason. There can be no reason for sock and FLIP FLOPS! I should check her contract to see if this is a firable offense.

*shudder*

Big Brother -- Football Edition

That was the weirdest Big Brother I have ever taped. It was just one long competition. I think they brought in the Chicago Bears to play them in football for an hour. They did pretty good. I could not tell who got evicted though since the uniforms had different names on them. I think I need to go to CBS and watch the episode again.


9:20am - Wow. That was completely different. Good, but different.

The Lesser of Two Cars

Lyle's car is a 12 year old Tempo with 125,000 miles on it. My car is a 6 year old Saturn with 98,000 miles on it.

My car has always been the better car; until today. Today the transmission has a crack in a something that is making the oil leak. Damn! Now I am stuck in the Tempo with no air conditioning, crank windows (yes, kids we used to have to roll down our windows by hand), and those annoying automatic seat belts that were brought in and discontinued all in the same year (the exact year we bought the Tempo).

The crack was detected during a routine oil change at the dealer. He explained that it would cost $1850 but they could finish it that day and they would put me in a free rental car. I am usually a sucker for convenience, but since the price was so high I called Lyle and woke him up at 9am to talk about it. He said that we should get a second opinion from a local place that he has used for years so we made an appointment with them the next day. Then the comedy of errors really begins. We dropped off the car Wednesday night and they promised to look at it "in the morning." In the morning is a very vague term. I finally broke down and called at around 11am. When they finally came on the phone he said "well, we haven't had a chance to look at the transmission yet but someone vandalized your car last night by breaking the driver's window." Damn! They had discovered it around 8:30am and made a police report, but did not think to call me. Anyway, he said they would call me when they looked at my car. I again broke down and called at around 1pm (we have to have the car back tomorrow, Friday, so that Lyle can go pick up Jackson in Ohio). When he came on he said "yes, we have looked at it." Then why didn't you call me!?! "And there is a crack in a seal on the transmission. It is a $750 but we can't have it done by tomorrow." "Is it safe to drive?" "Yes. And the window will be fixed by the end of the day." So I told him that we would pick it up tonight and bring it back on Tuesday to have it fixed. Lyle asked how much the window is going to cost and I explained that I think they will be eating that cost. Watching Judge Judy does pay off.

So, I am stuck in the Tempo for the next few days and hopefully the transmission will not fall out of the Saturn between here and Ohio.

Free WiFi

Ain't all it is cracked up to be. I am in a Panera Bread using their WiFi for the price of a soda and a cookie. First, it is not all that fast; it's faster than mom's but than what isn't. Second, it blocked the damn YouTube site because it may contain objectionable material. Third, there is a crazy guy here--sucking up free WiFi for the price of a free glass of wate--telling me that my laptop is going to kill me every few minutes. We heard about the battery recall from Dell at the office last week and while I haven't checked to see if mine will catch fire and kill me, the first time I thanked him and kept working he should have shut the hell up. But he keeps feeling the need to say "if you want to die that's your business, I am just trying to help."

Oh well, I am headed back to mom's where the connection is slow but the company is better.

Pitchfork Music Festival

Now that it has been more than a week it is high time I gave you an accounting of the Pitchfork Music Festival that Lyle and I attended in Chicago. If you care at all about the music you need to read Lyle's accounting, because I was there for the heat.

Lyle and I went in on a Sunday. I, very wisely, sent Lyle and Elaine (my scouts) in on Saturday to get the lay of the land and to bring back tips and tricks. Elaine's biggest tip was to bring "wet ones." The concert was in Union Park so the only facilities were many, many port-a-potties, and while they did have little "washing" stations set up outside the they were all out of water most of the day. Unfortunately, we forgot to grab a small thing of wipes as we left the house and we ended up spending $4 on a container of wet ones at a rest area. One of the best $4 I have ever spent. (FYI the best $4 I ever spent was on a hard mylar balloon for Jackson when he was less than a year old. We still have the balloon and he still playes with it.) The other trick they learned was that you could bring small lawn chairs. I debated this choice for about two seconds: carrying a lawn chair around or having to sit on the ground all day. LAWN CHAIR! Having that lawn chair saved our marriage. I would have been beyond miserable (and unable to hide it) if I had had to stand or sit on the ground all day. Back support is a wonderful thing.

So there were three stages for this festival. Two main stages and an auxiliarry stage. The main acts alternated between the two main stages; while one was playing the next one was able to set up. So we moved back and forth between the stages which was actually a good thing since you got to stare at different butts every half hour or so.

Actually butts are not that interesting. What I ended up staring at was shoes. I was heartened to notice that nearly everyone opted for comfort. The big winner in the shoe competition was the flip flop. Flip flops in all shapes and sizes in all price brackets were prominently displayed. I personally don't get the appeal of the flip flop, I haven't been able to stand having anything between my toes since I was six, but I understand that everyone else in the world loves them. Coming in second was your basic gym shoe. Here New Balance was the big winner and I myself had on my New Balance sneakers so I considered myself moderately hip by association. A close third was a basic comfortable sandal without all the flipping and flopping. This was Lyle's shoe of choice so we were both in the top three. Rounding out the competition were four pairs of kitten heels. Those girls were regretting their choice about a half-hour into the concert. If someone had been selling flip flops the four girls who were wearing kitten heels would have been over there in a second. A girl that was in front of me for one of the bands (pretty early in the day) kept taking off one shoe and shaking and rubbing that foot and then taking off the other shoe and shaking and rubbing that foot. I felt sorry for her but there is a price to be paid for stupidity and vanity. There were only two pairs of Crocs (I would have expected more) and one pair of cowboy boots. I did not see any "doc marten" kind of boots which I would have expected at a concert like this, but I guess even "goths" have to dress for the heat.

Did I mention it was hot? Temperatures got up to 96 with a heat index of about 106. It was hot. We lasted about an hour and half in the sun and then we hit the shade for a couple of hours. Everyone took their water very seriously. While they did not let you bring in any food you were allowed to bring in two water bottles a piece. Lyle and I brought in two 1.5 litre bottles (and we consumed it all) but we saw people walking around with gallon jugs of water and I am sure the water sales were through the roof both days. I think I saw three people wearing actual long pants. Shorts (cargo on the men) and t-shirts were the overwhelming uniform on choice.

The music was mostly fun, the people-watching was fun, the heat was tolerable with a chair, the food was OK, and the company was great, so we had a good day.

Nazis and Bad Parenting

Last Friday I totally listened in on someone's conversation and then felt the need to add my two cents. The librarian was checking out books for the person in front of me in line and she told him that her husband was getting fitted for his nazi uniform. I hope this would perk up your ears as it did mine. She explained that it was for a play and that he kept getting bumped up in rank. She added a caveat (for no apparent reason) of "not that I have anything against nazis" and my mouth hit the floor. I immediately said "I do! I have a lot against the nazis." She looked surprised and then just went about her business. Luckily another librarian came up to help me.

A great line by a comedian on the radio program that I listened to this morning: "We aren't great parents, we aren't even good parents. When someone asks us if he is sleeping through the night we say 'as far as we know.'" I would love to use that line.

Happiness

I like this post. Happiness should be a by-product not a goal.

It Is Not About the Butter

I understand that not everyone thinks like me; but quite frankly maybe they should.

We do not have a lot of rules in regards to Jackson's eating habits. We are trying to limit things like sweets and fats in general, but not in particular. I am not so hypocritical that I deny him all sweets, but I don't introduce them unnecessarily either. He discovered pie at a party where everyone else was eating pie and the host insisted that the kids be given pie. So I grabbed him and "shared" my pie with him; a little bite for you and a big bite for me (this was completely altruistic because I don't like pie). We since have had the pie incident, and the boy talks about pie with a kind of dream like quality.

When Jackson asked for noodles yesterday, like he does most days, I brought him a bowl of cold noodles ("no mitroave mommy") and a container with a little bit a parmasan cheese (he likes to add it himself so I keep a container perpetually just about empty). Well, Lyle's mother asked if she could offer him butter or mayo to make them more palatable. When I said "no" she was confused, "you gave him butter on his bread this morning." Well, your right, I did, but he asked for butter on his bread this morning. He is very happy with his noodles the way they are and he eats them. Why would I offer or introduce something he doesn't really need when he is happy with it the way it is? Does this make sense? Sure everything would taste better with sugar on it, but you shouldn't eat everything with sugar on it.

Now I would never in a million years criticize something that Lyle's mom did unless it was actually hurting Jackson. If she put butter (or god forbid mayo) on his noodles at her house, I would just accept it and understand why he was asking me for butter (which I have in the house) or mayo (which I don't) the next time he had noodles. But she asked me and I answered her and I think I hurt her feelings a little bit because my philosophy differed so greatly from hers; she just wanted to make it taste better for him knowing that it would make him happy. I am all about making Jackson happy, but I don't necessarily need to make him happier when he is already happy.

Luckily Rebecca and I are on the same page here although she is much more organic than I am. I was visibly shocked to hear Sammy ask for some candy after a dinner out. She rolled her eyes and explained that a cousin had given Sammy a mint while leaving a restaurant and called it candy. Jackson still does not know what "candy" is and I will withhold that information as long as I possibly can. Sure, he will eventually find out what "candy" is but we will cross that bridge when we get there. We are all just flying by the seat of our pants and making it up as we go along. Who knows, maybe I am scarring him for life with my butter and sugar withholding, but so far, so good and, being a late in life parent, I will be dead before he needs any serious therapy.

Look at the Jack on Her

There were supposed to be pictures accompanying this text--sort of as proof--but alas the camera choose this morning to have its chip malfunction (don't worry I have more).

Anyway, the morning started off good. I got up early and did not wake up Jackson until 8am, so I had some nice peaceful time to myself. I got Jackson ready quickly and we were out the door by 8:25. By 8:30 we had made it all the way to the end of the alley and back again. I had a flat tire. I had heard Lyle's alarm go off earlier so I knew he would be up. He had a 9:00 meeting so he hustled to get ready and he took Jackson off to daycare. So by 8:45 I was outside figuring out how to change my tire. Luckily they put a cheat sheet on the wheel cover in the trunk and it was not hard to follow. I did have a moment of panic when I had trouble with the lugnuts, but I repositioned the wrench thing, put all my weight into it (who knew that was going to come in handy), and they came off just fine. I was done by 9:15 and by 9:30 I was sitting in the dealer waiting room with a donut and a Diet Pepsi. Hear me roar!

By 11:30 I was out of the dealer waiting room with $600 less to my name. I knew I was due for an oil change and some other routine maintenance so I plan to get it all done while I was there. Well, they came back and explained how something called a TAM was going to fall off the bottom of my car and kill me and that my brake fluid needed to be flushed and since I don't know any better I said "fix it" and charge me $600. I am such a girl.

I Ported

I spent two hours in a RadioShack yesterday to do something I should have been able to do in ten minutes.

A few months ago Lyle struck out on his own and got a cell phone. This made me happy in a now-I-can-always-reach-you kind of way; but upset in a why-didn't-you-check-with-me-so-we-could-get-a-family-plan and maybe-I-could-get-a-cool-new-cell-phone-too kind of way. But none of this concerned him in the least, he got a cool new phone (which he never answers BTW) so he was happy. Yesterday I called RadioShack (where Lyle signed up for his Cingular plan) and asked about getting my number moved over to his plan. Sure, no problem was the answer. What do I need to bring with me? Nothing at all, we can take care of everything. So I left the house at 3:30 (yes, I took the afternoon off) and went to RadioShack. No problem, turned out to be a huge problem. The guy I spoke to on the phone was aparently not the expert, but a trainee. He did it wrong the first time and started over (one half hour gone). Then he asked me for the last four digits of Lyle's SS#. Luckily my phone was still working and Lyle was reachable. (BTW they never did ask if I was his current wife or for any proof that I was his wife. I could see a Judge Judy episode in the making.) Then they asked me for my Verizon account number. I don't have that number memorized. Well, it should be on your statement. I don't have my statement with me, since you told me I did not need to bring anything. Luckily, a guy who does know what he's doing steps in at this point and has me call Verizon and sure enough with the last four digits of my SS# they give me my account number. We should be home free now. Nope, the system is slow and they keep screwing it up. At 5pm I called Lyle to ask if he could pick up Jackson. At 5:30pm we were finally as done as they could get; they did not port my phone number but the best they could do was to give me a new number on Lyle's plan and ask me to call the Port Authorization # myself to get it done.

I finally did that this morning and the person at Cingular could not have been more helpful. She knew exactly what she was doing and got it done in about 10 minutes. Woo hoo! She also explained that as soon as my number was ported they would contact Verizon to close my account. Double woo hoo! I am terrible at things like that, I always feel bad about cancelling things; taking the very bread and butter from their table.

Anyway, while I did not pick out the fanciest phone in the store, like some people I know, I picked the most expensive phone that I could get for free with my two-year plan and it is great. It is a camera phone and it seems to have lots of features I will never, ever use. Lyle's phone is a camera phone too and he seems to think that we can email pictures to ourselves, but we haven't figured that part out yet.

Not Inside

OK, here is my favorite quote of the day:

"So I've been making a concentrated effort to take Noah for a walk outside every day. I don't really enjoy it as much as you'd think, mostly because it is 1) outside, 2) not inside, and 3) full of nature." Amalah.com

I am not very good at outside stuff, I like my nature behind a fence and neatly labeled. The one and only time Lyle and I went camping on our own it was a complete disaster. Bill had given us a lesson in putting up the tent, but apparently we did not pay close enough attention. We probably thought at the time that we were two young, strong, intelligent people, how hard could it be? When we got to the campground (on the way to Chicago) we could not get that tent up to save our lives. We were sure that we were missing a pole or something, but when we got home and told Bill, he put the tent up (with just the poles that we had) in about 10 minutes, by himself.

I have been tolerating all of the outdoor stuff, the heat, the bugs only for Jackson. He is lucky I love him so much.

Seahorse Cabaret

So what do two 40-somethings do when they have no baby for a night. They head to the gay bar of course. That's right after a lovely dinner and a movie back at home (why is there nothing but miIII and DaVinci out while I have nothing but time?) we decided to go and listen to some local bands at the Seahorse Cabaret. We got there after 10pm and none of the four bands had even started yet. The diet coke was unpalatable so I drank ice water all night. The first "band" was terrible. It was a guy with a guitar and an effects pedal that did not know when to quit. The second band was good, but the third band sucked (again they just don't know when to quit). The fourth band was Lyle's favorite but since it was 2am, even he decided it was time to go. It was a nice club, there were lots of ceiling fans going so it was not too hot, there was not much of a crowd, so it was an enjoyable evening. I do have to do another load of laundry and wash my hair six times to get the smoke out before I see Jackson, but it was a fun evening.

We will likely see a movie later today (Elaine really wants to see M.I.III) and then we are going to a dance party at a friend's house tonight. We are just two wild and crazy kids. I can't wait to get my handy excuse to get to bed early back home.

Last Days

Lyle and I watched the DVD Last Days last night. It is a movie about the last days of Kurt Cobain. Well, in the movie they call him Blake, but even the director admits at the end that while the movie is fictional he had Cobain in mind while making it. It is not an extraordinary movie but it was worth seeing if only to remind me how glad I am that I don't do drugs. OMG I felt jittery and jumpy for a good half hour after just watching this film, I would not make a good druggy.

Is That So Wrong?

Someone asked me the other day, as part of some polite chit chat at one of our forced socializing events here on campus, whether I could imagine my life if I had not had Jackson. Without hesitation I said "yes." She was apalled and did not hide it very well. I quickly tried to cover my tracks, but in thinking about it I can indeed imagine my life if I had not had Jackson, simply because I had a long adult life before I had Jackson. I had a really good life before Jackson and I have a really good life now.

Is it completely different? Yes.

Could I have lived a happy and fulfulling life without having Jackson? Yes.

Am I happy that I have Jackson? Absolutely.

It seems I am very unPC about my devotion to motherhood. I should have said "absolutely, not; I can't even remember my life without him." What a weird world.

Saving the Daylight

We just got this message from our IT people "For the first time since 1970,most Indiana counties will observe Daylight Saving Time (DST) this spring." Apparently, this is going to screw with the calendars of everyone at IU since they were set up not to spring forward like the rest of the country.

I have decided that I want to have a daylight checking account, instead of daylight savings. I understand that I will have to keep a minimum balance, but I can cover that with the daylight between 6am and 7am that I won't be needing. I would love to be able to just pull out some daylight when I really want it.

This is a huge change for Indiana and it took a long time to come to an agreement about who would be going with central time and who would be going with eastern. There were plenty of school/industry/safety arguments for both sides. My press for central time was strictly based on the John Stewart argument. Whenever the rest of the country would spring forward in April, we would hang back and enjoy central time and all of the perks that come with that. The main (and possibly only) perk was that primetime TV started an hour earlier. I could watch Grey's Anatomy without falling asleep half-way through and I had a shot at watching The Daily Show with John Stewart on a regular basis. I loved that part. As soon as the rest of the country fell back into line, John went back to 11pm and out of my reach. Now, alas, we will be springing with the best (and worst) of you and John and I will never see each other again. I hope your happy.

p.s. Yes, Michigan people this means we will forever be on the same time and you never have to wonder what time it is at my house anymore.

Jackson Related

OK, OK I have no life beyond the boy. This is a Jackson story that just did not seem right for the Jackson page. On Friday of last week we decided to go out to eat (I know, you are shocked). So I picked Jackson up at daycare and came home to pick up Lyle. Normally, when I say we are going out to dinner, Jackson is very happy, but on that day he cried and said "I don wan go dinner" over and over and over. He was fine while we ate, but the whole drive to the restaurant was a sea of tears.

Cut to the next Sunday. Jackson sees Lyle's copy of The Economist (see right) sitting on the table and here is our conversation:
J: Who's dat?
E: That is an Iraqi man.
J: Why he cryin?
E: I guess he is sad.
Jackson thinks for a little while and then says
J: He not wan go dinner.
E: That's right, Jackson, I am sure that it what is making him sad.

Four Things

OK, I got this from a friend and I now challenge each of you to do this on your own blogs. And no fair listing all of our blogs as the four websites that you read everyday.

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Research Administrator
2. Receptionist for Architects
3. Office Everything for Labor
4. McDonalds

Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. Groundhog Day
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
3. White Christmas
4. Oh, Brother Where Art Thou

Four places you have lived:
1. Detroit, Michigan
2. Princeton, NJ
3. Pasadena, CA
4. Mishawaka, IN

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Survivor
3. Amazing Race
4. Judge Judy

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Greece
2. Italy
3. Caribbean
4. New York

Four websites I visit daily:
1. Trixie Update
2. Mimismartypants
3. Slate
4. Daily Mumps

Four Favorite foods:
1. French fries
2. Prime Rib
3. Bettermade Barbeque Potato Chips
4. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Any beach
2. Las Vegas
3. Paris
4. Any movie

Quaker Wedding

The Quaker wedding was actually quite nice, even though it started at 10:30 in the morning. Everyone was warned ahead of time that it was mostly and hour and a half of silence, but since we all love our friend Monica very much we went. There were 170 people there. It is run just as a regular Quaker meeting with very short, to the point, vows exchanged by the couple. The first fifteen minutes are complete silence. Then after the vows the silence was broken only by people wanting to "minister" to the couple. What that meant was anyone who wanted to share their good wishes or a poem or reading. Many of our friends had prepared short speeches to share at the ceremony. Later Monica said that it was what they referred to as a "popcorn" service with people popping up one right after another. So it wasn't as boring as we had feared. Actually, it was quite nice. I told Jonathan (who missed most of it) that if I had a choice of an hour of silence and an hour of someone going on about how god was blessing this union, I would pick silence every time. They did mention in their vows that they would stay faithful with "divine assistance." I think that is just a clever way of saying that if they cheat it is god's fault.

We left Jackson home with Lyle's mom, but Sam and Rowan were both there. The Quakers had a kids room set up in the basement of the hall with two babysitters, but some adult from our party was down there the whole time; Jonathan was not sorry to be missing the festivities above. After the service they had a lovely buffet lunch where all of the items were brought from various homes. Then it was on to music and dancing. It was 2pm! We decided to skip the dancing and head home. Lyle to grading a me to a movie. Woo hoo!

Shamelessly Stealing

The funniest thing I read today:

For some reason she has been drawing the sexual organs on her drawings of people, which is probably going to get us another sideline "talk" from the preschool teachers before long. When I asked her why she always draws the penis on her figures of Daddy or her little male friends, she got exasperated and said, "That's how you know they are BOYS." She has a point there, but still. Anyway, my Valentine card has me holding a flower, and I have oversized knockers, which is not very true to life at all. LT's Valentine card has him with (visible) food in his belly, and his penis is there and labeled as such, and it is not oversized. Or rather it is a realistic, proportionate size. Not to say that LT's penis is not not-huge or anything. It is the size it needs to be. I think I am going to stop typing now.
from Mimismartypants

I had to wipe tears away from my eyes I was laughing so hard. I would love to get away from the stupid symbol of a dress on the girls or the flipped up hair. I think drawing a penis on the international boy symbol and breasts on the girl symbol is a reasonable alternative.

Superbowl Numbers

I got numbers and I could win some cash this Sunday. I will have the game on (TV not radio so I won't need the yellow tape that daddy sent me), but it is all very complicated and am not at all confident that I will see the necessary bits of information that I need to know if I won or not. Sure, I trust them to tell me at work, but I would like to be able to go in with the knowledge that they owe me money and perhaps do a little "you owe me money dance" on Monday morning. So if I win, let me know in the comments on Sunday night (especially you LA people since I likely won't see the end of the game).

If at the end of any given quarter the last digits of the score line up like this:

Pittsburgh 4 and Seattle 5 - I win $175
Pittsburgh 5 and Seattle 2 - I win $175
Pittsburgh 5 and Seattle 4 - I win $25
Pittsburgh 2 and Seattle 5 - I win $25
Pittsburgh 9 and Seattle 7 - I win $10
Pittsburgh 0 and Seattle 7 - I win $10
Pittsburgh 9 and Seattle 1 - I win $10
Pittsburgh 0 and Seattle 1 - I win $10
Pittsburgh 1 and Seattle 8 - I win $10
Pittsburgh 2 and Seattle 8 - I win $10
Pittsburgh 1 and Seattle 3 - I win $10
Pittsburgh 2 and Seattle 3 - I win $10

Traumatize Me

You all read about when I drove home with Jackson on Monday, well this is the rest of the story. When we got home Lyle was just getting up and making his coffee. I started to feed Jackson some breakfast and Lyle started loading dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Suddenly Lyle starts yelling and I run into the kitchen to see what he is yelling about. There is a mouse in the dishwasher. That's right, a mouse in the dishwasher. Lyle said it was running across the counter and fell into the open dishwasher. I am choosing not to believe this since it would mean that a mouse can get up on my counter. I am also choosing not to believe that it could crawl up into the dishwasher through the pipes since that means that I could find a mouse any time I open the dishwasher. While we are at it I am going to choose not to believe that there was a mouse in my dishwasher. Except that I saw it, damn! So Lyle closed the dishwasher and tried to figure out what to do. I chose to scoop up the Jackson and head upstairs to play. Yay, upstairs. Where mice fear to tread (so far). Lyle tried to set the trap in the dishwasher but the damn thing jumped out and was gone. He set the trap under the shelf where he ran and he was caught about an hour later. Jackson and I played upstairs for the whole morning.

But wait, that was not traumatizing enough for one day; there is more.

I, as you know, was exhausted after getting up at 4am and not sleeping in the car on the way home like some little boys I know. So I put Jackson down for his nap (still in him jammies) at noon and I went into my room to lay down. He was playing and singing and generally not sleeping, but I was able to doze a little bit. At 1pm I heard him scream so I went to see why he was screaming (you would think that I would have learned not to do this after this morning). The first thing I see is that he has unzipped his jammies, gotten his feet out, and his diaper off. So he is a little half-naked baby standing in the crib screaming. The next thing I notice is that he is saying "dirty, mommy, dirty" in his screaming. That is when I saw it. The item of my next trauma. Jackson is standing, half-naked in his crib holding a giant piece of poop. Luckily, he is not happy about this as I have heard other children can be thinking it is a toy. He is pissed and he wants it gone. I think I got in there just before he was ready to chuck it overboard onto the carpet. I grabbed a diaper and got the offending item away from him, pulled him out of the crib, and started to clean him off on the changing table. I decided it was worth a bath and threw him in the tub. He had quieted down and he was the most cooperative child you can imagine. After I got him cleaned up and I shut the water off he said "I wan water." But when I said "no" he did not get upset he just played with the water he had. I quickly got his original diaper (without any poop on it by the way) out of the crib, changed his poopy sheet, examined his stuffed animals, and pulled the poopy crib guard down from the side of the crib that he was holding while screaming. When I went to get him out of the tub he did not protest. When I put him into a clean diaper he did not protest (clean, mommy, clean). I put him into some sweat pants and a t-shirt and put him back in the crib where he fell asleep within five minutes. I was a little too traumatized to go right back to sleep, so I did more laundry and called Lyle to relay this lovely little trauma. I was able to finally to sleep and we both napped for a couple of hours, like nothing had ever happened.

I would like to order a few trauma free days (weeks, months) please.

Oh, John

Remember the Pocahantas book that one of the kids had. When you hit the Pocahantas button we swore she sighed heavy "Oh, John."

Well, if you look at the video clip attached to this story I think someone did this one on purpose. http://www.local6.com/news/5784303/detail.html

My Mom

Check out my pretty mommy. We found this while moving and mom made me bring it home. She said a boyfriend of hers had it done for her when she was 19.