November Cannot Come Soon Enough

Can we PLEEASE move the voting day up to, say, February 4th? Please??? Because I'm completely positive that if I have to listen to the whole world debate which Republican candidate is a bigger loser (Newt) for 10 more months, I will blow my brains out. Oh wait. You say I only have to listen to them debate about the Republican front runners until the end of August? And then I get to hear them debate about which candidate for president is a bigger dill hole (Romney)? Oh joy.

P.S. On a more important note than the presidency of the United States, my computer just auto corrected "dillhole" to "dill hole." Who knew my iPad was so smart?!

Drill Me

I've been on two cruises now. The first one, on Norwegian in 2004, was my favorite. Great food, fun entertainment, decent cabin, good service. It also contained an emergency escape practice session. It took place a couple of hours after setting sail. We had to get on our life jackets, walk up to the deck with the life boats, and stand in rows at our assigned muster station, where we would go if there was an emergency and we had to abandon ship. We stood there for maybe 10-15 minutes. The crew member assigned to our group of 20 or so went over some safety information, I'm not sure exactly what, and they took roll to make sure we were all there. I found it a bit annoying. We were just settling into our room and getting ready for dinner when the drill took place, and interrupting our cruise for this safety measure cramped my style.

Last year we took our second cruise, aboard the Celebrity Century. A few hours after setting sail we were asked to go to the lounge with about 100 of our fellow passengers. No life vests, just us. We sat and chatted with the people at our cocktail table for a while. Then the single crew member assigned to the lounge went over some safety information, unimpressive enough that I don't even recall what was said. But I know for sure we were never shown our muster station. I had no idea the route to the life boats or which one we were assigned to. And no roll call was done. After a few minutes, we went back to our room. It made me a little uneasy that they had done such a poor job at the emergency drill, but I remember thinking that since we wouldn't likely need that information, I was glad that we hadn't been forced to put on our life jackets and stand out on the deck.

In light of the recent events, where a trained, licensed, experienced captain can run a titanic-sized cruise ship into the ground, a few hundred feet from a rocky shore, despite state of the art navigation equipment, putting the lives of 4000 people in danger, and then fail to sound the alarm for over an hour while people already abandoned ship, and then leave the ship himself, giving no care for the safety of his passengers, I now amend my opinion of safety drills. By all means, I now say, drill me! Put me in my life vest and let me tie it on properly, show me my life-boat up close and personal, let me feel it's smooth hull, check off my name, explain everything in detail. Because even though I will hopefully never need that information in my life, just as I count the rows to the exit on my airplane, every single time, I want to be prepared for the worst.

And thank you, Norwegian, for caring about our lives enough to inconvenience us. Hopefully, from now on, all the other cruise lines will care that much too.

How To Make The Perfect Pillow In Five Steps

Sometimes you need a little pillow surgery to get your pillow just right. Just Right = fluffy, not to high, not too low, fluffable, puffable, moldable.

Step 1: Get an Ikea Goosen Side-sleeper pillow. It has just the right kind of fluffable, puffable stuffing.
Step 2: Get another Ikea Goosen Side-Sleeper pillow, because one doesn't have quite enough of the wonderul stuffing and you will find yourself sometimes, in the middle of the night, with all the lovely fluffable, puffable stuffing at two sides of the pillow and your head in the middle lying on the mattress.
Step 3: Unpick the seams on one of the pillows and cut open the end of the other.
Step 4: Take about 1/2 the stuffing out of the cut pillow and stuff it into the other pillow.
Step 5: Marry someone who is a way better seamstress than you so he can perform the pillow surgery for you.



Voila! The perfect size, shape, and fluffability. Sweet Dreams.

The OTHER Best Thing About Christmas

Yep. There is Jesus. The best thing about Christmas for sure. And then there are Christmas cards in the mail. Really that is a truly awesome part of Christmas. BUT, over the last week I've discovered something that just might trump Christmas cards. Especially now that that Christmas is over and so are the cards: NOT having to drive my kids anywhere. Ever. Or wake them up for school. Or get them dressed in a hurry while shoving toast down their throats. No frantic searches for the other shoe at 7:30 am during which the baby wakes up and is starving and poopy and needs my attention NOW. No hurriedly slapping together a peanut butter and honey sandwich while Daphne has a melt-down about her sock seams and whether or not she gets red Doritos or blue Doritos in her lunch.

I am not a morning person. Never have been, never will be. So getting up in the am with my kids to get them (mainly Daphne) ready for school is a HUGE sacrifice. I would love to tell her to get herself ready so I could keep sleeping. Or to find a school that starts at 10am and keep sleeping. But neither of those is going to happen, so I just have to get up and suffer through that frantic hour before I push her (usually literally) out the door and throw her school bag after her (not literally. She can't catch that well.)

So at this special time of year where we give thanks for Jesus and his birth and life and sacrifice and atonement and Christmas cards in the mail, I also want to give a massive thank you for school vacations and turned off alarm clocks. Haaaa-aa-leluia.

Beyond the Obvious

There are lots of reasons to like Christmas. Baby Jesus, for one. Christmas lit streets, for another. Presents, of course. Especially watching your kids open them. I feel bad for anyone who thinks they will keep themselves younger by not having kids. Ya, you'll lose some sleep if you have kids, but you will regain the joy of Christmas morning, which is worth a few lost z's--even coming from this sleep connoisseur. Eggnog. Yes, I like it. Sue me. Really cute wrapping paper. Ornaments. Carolers, when you're lucky enough to hear them. But honestly, my favorite thing about the Christmas season has got to be the mailbox. For once in the whole year I actually enjoy getting the mail. Normally it's full of junkmail and flyers and the occasional bill. But for 2-3 glorious weeks, it's full of REAL mail, mail from PEOPLE, people who don't want money from me. Well, maybe they do but they are polite enough not to ask for it. Anyway, today, for example, there was no junk mail, not even any shopping ads. Just TWO CHRISTMAS CARDS!!! Sigh (of contentment)...

It's been a kinda sparse year for Christmas cards. Normally our Christmas card holder (i.e. blank kitchen wall) is packed. We have lots of space left this year. You may notice that you haven't gotten one from us either, so I may sound like a hypocrite But we are sending one out. No, really. Just as soon as it gets here from the printers. (I may have put it off just a tad too long this year.) Anyway, thanks to those who sent one. It made this already joyous season a little more fa la la-ier.

Just When You Think You've Seen It All

Today's post will be about poop. Yes, poop. Oh don't get all self-righteous and squirm around like you can't handle it. We ALL have poop! But fortunately this post isn't about our poop. That's not very interesting. No, it's about the amazing world of baby poop! So much more fun. And today's episode is no exception.

Let me set the scene for you. I am at my husband's work, to exchange my phone since his company get on a new plan and they're letting me tag along for the discount. I've had to bring all three kids. The baby is in high spirits, cooing and smiling at everyone. And then I hear a loud sound emanating from her lower half. Even though I know every man in the place is a father, many with small children themselves, I realize it isn't proper etiquette for your baby to fill her diaper at work. So I whisk her off to....hmmm....where can I change a baby at a workplace full of men dressed in khakis and pullovers? I spy an empty cubicle on the way to the bathroom that I already know has no baby changing station. It's covered in some wires and cables and ancient computer monitors the size of helicopters. There is an empty square foot or two on one desk. But no, someone might walk by and not appreciate the view. So I continue on to the bathroom.

As expected, no baby changing station, and the bathroom counter isn't big enough to lay a baby on. The floor (ew) is the only option. So I lay my coat down (the things a mother will do for her child), lay down her diaper changing mat on that, and set to work.

A scream emanates from the bathroom. A shrill, alarmed scream. It is my scream. For there in my baby's diaper is...a half pound of melted lipstick with the title "Cherries Jubilee." Red, no fuscia poop, and slightly creamy like a smoothie, is what greets me. Not even a hit of the usual baby poop colors. This whole thing looks like someone dumped a bowl of melted raspberry sorbet in there! I am shocked. And just a little bit freaked out. The good thing is, it doesn't look like blood. Blood is scarlet. And brownish. This is seriously pinkish red! Plus she's smiling at me while I have this tiny heart attack, so she clearly isn't in pain. So I clean her up, save the diaper just in case the doctor's office thinks I'm making this up, and head to tell my husband and the three guys standing in his office about what I just saw, because I know their Friday afternoon hasn't gotten this exciting in months.

Luckily, one of the other young dads present has experienced this before. It happened to his son. "Is she taking antibiotics?" he asks. Why yes, as a matter of fact she is. "It's the antibiotics. It does that. Turns their poop red." Well you'd think the doctor might have mentioned that when he prescribed her Cefdinir the day before. But why would he do that and rob us of all the excitement!?

So--10 days of Cefdinir, 10 days of raspberry sorbet. Oh joy.

Just thought you'd want to know.

Does This Count As Keeping The Sabbath Day Holy?

At 4pm Sunday afternoon our kitchen looked like this:

But fortunately, by 4:30 it looked like this:

Can you tell which house Big Daddy the boys were in charge of and which house Mom the girls were in charge of?






My favorite features of the boys' house: The poptart door. (Cut with a ban saw, which is pretty much cheating.)



My favorite features of the girls' house: The melted snowman. (The stupid boys stole all the white gumballs. Jerks.)


Daphne decided to be the judge of the houses. She got a piece of paper and pen and held it so officially as she walked around them, writing things down (either critiques or possibly doodles of panda bears) and making mysterious judgement noises. In the end, though, the girl house won. No, I don't think she was at all biased. It was all based on the artisanship displayed. For sure.

Anyway, the best Sunday afternoon I've spent in a long time. Maybe next year we'll actually let the kids participate other than sampling the candy.

Nah.


.


Welcome to the neighborhood.