I think Abe is psychic.  Or at least he knows when change is lurking in the air, that there’s a tremor in the force, that the tide is turning - not in his favor.  Except he can use this uncanny ability for his good, which is usually not for the good of the mama.

Case in point:  Abe loves his pacifier.  JJ enjoyed his, but Abe *loves* the plastic oral fixation stopper upper.  Most of the time he looks like this:

Because otherwise he looks like this:

Yes, that’s an old picture, but we’ve had to refrain from posting such images due to complaints from the peanut gallery (aka. the Gran who says, “it just breaks my heart!” although if the images came with audio like those lovely cards at Hallmark, she might find the amusement behind the yowls).

One time, around his birthday, I thought:  it’s time for the pacifier to go.  He promptly got the stomach flu.  And you can’t take one’s security piece of plastic away from one when one is yarfing, can one?

Another time I thought, “Yes, we’ll swap it out now.”  He popped about four teeth in three days.  And yet again, “May the plastic be gone!”  Spewing stomach virus from hell, followed by an outbreak of hives (apparently one has inherited granddaddy’s love of baths, the outdoors, and tendency towards melon allergies as well).

I can’t imagine it will be much of an issue, the pacifier detox.  The child doesn’t seem to have any documented tendencies towards oral fixations.

Nope, none at all.

Unlike his mama (and his mama’s family:  I’m not being mean, I’m just stating facts.  With my mouth that one of my friends in high school commented, “Dren, I can see all of your teeth!”  Not scarring at all.  :D), Abe has a teeny tiny little button of a mouth.  Isn’t it sweet?

And yet I’m thinking he may be ready for the next season of America’s Got Talent with his freakish ability to shove unusually large or cumbersome objects into small yet quite stretchy places.  For instance, one would think that this large red object would not fit into such a delicate, petite mouth.

One would be wrong.

And it doesn’t encumber from other important work.

Another one on hand for backup (never know when the photog snaps into mama mode and swipes away the goodness).

Wondering:  if one is good, what would two at once be like?

He’s not discriminating:  paper’s just as good as painted wood (and a little more ecofriendly).

[Photo credit:  JJ]

Round things, papery things, long things, it’s all good.  He’s like a connoisseur.

[Photo Credit:  JJ.]

Don’t be distracted by the grin and the dimples, although they are awfully distracting.  He’s already been deemed “Future Trouble Maker” by old people at the store.  And cashiers.  And nursery workers.  And blog readers.

Oh, look!  How sweet!  Abe must be smiling cause he’s feeling the love.

Aw:  wait, for it . . . . wait for it . . . .

[Yes, I know that is a choking hazard.  I, out of all people, am aware of how many choking hazards are in my house, my car, the library, the grocery store, and many, many other places.  If you have a complaint, feel free to file it with "The Department of People who Have Time To Care, ATTN:  Gran"]

So someday soon Operation:  Ridding of the Pacifier will begin.  His brother will be right there to encourage him along in his detox with tools of love and support.

Someday this is what we will look like.  A little cooky, but plastic free.  I mean, his brother’s pacifier free, right?

After that, we’ll work on the closing of the mouth (one thing at a time, eh?).

Although that may take longer than anticipated as well . . .

Note:  I said JJ was pacifier-free; I did not say anything beyond that.

I have great hopes; yes, I do.

Hope springs eternal.

Daily Drivel | 1 Comment »

Thank you for the well wishes and words of affirmation!  I would’ve responded sooner, but, well, we got hit.  “Piper down!  I repeat, a piper is down!”

Right after JJ finally perked up (and his lips turned back to red - it’s scary when they blend in with the face), the Mama and Little A went down.  And oh, did we go down.  Saturday I organized the garage to keep the nausea at bay.  Yes, that’s an odd method, I’m sure, and probably not prescribed by doctors, but if they only knew the peace that weeding through the mountains of small people clothes and camping gear and bulk foods and random (yet incredibly abundant) plastic Home Depot sacks can bring a BO (born organizer), they would probably prescribe less Zanax and rather send us to Old Navy after a weekend sale (shivers down my spine).

Little A, however, did not have such a happy place as the non-functional garage to retreat to.  He took a three hour nap on Saturday morning and then did not slumber again.  Until 10pm.  10 hours.  Awake.  FAR too long.  Especially when he made an “ENH ENH ENH!!!” noise.  For.all.of.it.  Except when he would come close to a water source, where he would increase the level and frequency of the “ENH!!!”s to indicate that he would like water.  Rather, he demanded water like he was a street junkie.  So we’d give it to him (actually, it was a homemade Pedialyte solution) which he would toss back with the cup straight in the air, and then promptly projectile vomit.  Over.  And over.  And over.  It was a delightful weekend.

Sunday morning I could no longer organize.  I couldn’t do laundry (oh, the laundry).  I couldn’t even gather things to put in recycling or even shower.  I can hear the audio tape my folks gave me as a tyke of “Alice in Wonderland”:  “Down, down, down she fell.  Would the fall ever come to an end?”  After little to no sleep, with a Hubby getting ready for a major major major project happening at work the next day and then a business trip later in the week, and Little A still acting like a crack baby, I decided to call in the troops:  “Mama? . . . ”

Fortunately, the Gran already had plans to be in the ‘berg this week seeing as how the Granddaddy is off in the woods with his best childhood bud getting all stinky and unshaven-y and Deet-y.  She figured she could call me every day, or she could come to town and hang out with us.  And, wonderful Gran that she is, she of course agreed to coming down a day early and relieving the Hubby of us fluid-challenged folks so he could gain some semblance of normality so as to reenter the land of the Able-to-Digest.  Blessed, I am so very blessed with help (and comments on my Facebook statuses, my one connection outside of the quarentine zone).

Hubby, of course, got sick on Tuesday.  But we’re not certain it was the Stomach Virus from the Pit or just some expired milk.  And the Gran felt ill, but that could’ve been some overly ripe cantelope.  You just never know . . . Of course, I jumped the gun with food for the Little Man and I too quickly, so it’s only been 24+ hours since the last yarfing, but hey:  that’s a step in the right direction.

It’s so easy to take a simple thing like digestion and retention for granted.  I can get so frustrated when my kids are so active, but seeing JJ wiped out on the couch or Little A like a possessed person makes me so thankful for when they’re not borderline Urgent Care visit.  There are many improvements I think God can make in humans 2.0 (removable body parts - seriously, how much would I *love* to take my ears off between 4 and 5pm every day?  Stinkin’ arsenic hour), but the ability for the brain not to recognize just how much stuff sucks until getting through the other side (i.e. hindsight), that I really dig.  And belly buttons:  they’re just so much fun to poke.

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So my sweet friend, probably the only person who checks here minus grandparents who are contractually obligated, mentioned that she missed reading my blog.  What?  Someone misses new posts on this site?!!  Say no more!  Like a puppy who hears the words “go byebye”, that’s all I need to get me writing again.

Though I know a ton of witty stories have happened in the past few days . . . weeks . . months (quickly wiping the dust off with my shirt sleeve, hoping no one noticed), I can’t really think of any right now.  Because my bebe is sick.  JJ has been out with the stomach flu since Monday.   Today is Thursday.  That’s a looong time to be sipping water, and hurling, and licking a popsicle, and hurling, and biting a banana, and hurling.  So long that I didn’t even realize it was Thursday and that he’s been sick almost all week:  the gloriousness of the days just run together.

Hubby asked if I was going to call the doctor this morning, and mentally I thought, “Why?  So I can haul him down to a doctor’s office for all of us to get infected and have them tell me there’s nothing they can do, and by the by, the new germies we picked up in the waiting room are free”, but I said, “Uh, no, I don’t know what they could do.”  But then when the offer to have a popsicle for breakfast was refused, I picked up the cell right then and there.

“May I speak to a nurse?”

“Is this in regards to you?”

“Nope:  my son’s been throwing up since Monday.”

“Monday?!!”

“Well, Monday night.”

“We’d better get you an appointment!”

“Uh, I’d rather just talk to a nurse if that’s okay.”

“Oh . . . well, I guess I can send a note back.”

“It’s just that I’m not sure if I should bring him in or not and figured a nurse could tell me.”

“Yeah . . . ”

Just then and there, I was bequeathed the “La Crappola Madre of the Year” award.  No, I haven’t posted it up in my house yet:  I’m just revelling in its beauty.

Right now JJ’s hanging out in bed.  Awake.  My son.  Awake.  Lying there.  Not tied down.  Not threatened that if his toes so much as touch the ground that he will never get to play LegoTableStarWarsGames again.  My son has *never* done that willingly.  Yep, things are not looking so great.  The nurse, who talked to the not-Beloved-Dr.-Tami-doctor, who almost delivered JJ, since our Beloved Dr. Tami takes Thursdays off to polish her Rockin’ Mama of the Year award, said that I’m supposed to give him Pedialyte (which he won’t drink because he doesn’t like juice.  That’s my low-carb kid!) and then go on the B.R.A.T. diet (tasty) and then slowly reintroduce dairy.  So much for his request for “yogret” this morning (thank you Springfield Dairy which sponsors Sesame Street).

I just want my baby to keep some liquids down.  It’s a simple request, one that I often take for granted.  That, and to magically uninherit my & my father’s hurling genes - we’re olympic-worthy hurlers.  It’s just horrible seeing veins pop out of your baby’s neck as he grips on the toilet so his feet don’t come off the floor, cause I know what he’s feeling (and so does Granddaddy - ugh - the bulging eyeballs).

So, Michelle, that’s probably not what you wanted to read during your lunch hour.  But at least you’re getting a lunch hour!  And hopefully we’ll have some non-fluid-oriented stories to share soon.  Won’t that be lovely.

Daily Drivel, JJ Jawings | 4 Comments »

Yes, this blog is still functioning.  No, I have not forgotten about it.  I’ve created many a witty post in my noggin - things regarding:

• my bebe turning one and then turning thirteen months
• going camping/rafting with friends and managing to come home *not* having had to go to the hospital
• sharing what a travesty it is that Will was voted off of SYTYCD (America, for shame, for shame)
• in-laws coming to visit and going to the zoo
• in-ground sprinklers being installed
• water pipes breaking while out of town creating an unknown scary water bill and existing in the biggest tent ever (aka my waterless house)
• being up at the ‘rents for a week plus and having my every need catered to (including getting to work out every day on a machine, not working out by pushing 70+ pounds of bebes and double stroller up the Wine Country hills)
• having my bubba come visit with presents for everyone (including ds games for the mama which I can’t put down - ask the children:  they’re hungry)
• being married for five years (which we’ll celebrate . . . one of these days .. . maybe at around seven years, at the rate we deal with things)
• Etc., etc., etc.

But no:  what has motivated me to dust off the ol’ blogging keyborad (dusty like the rest of my house) is two-fold:

1)  The bucket’o'fuss (aka Abe) is sitting quietly playing with books at my feet and I dare not move lest the happy trance be broken and he remembers that the world is a cruel, harsh place (see above regarding SYTYCD - seriously, America:  that never would’ve happened in Canada).

2)  As I IMed my husband this morning:  BAKERY’S OPEN!!!  BAKERY’S OPEN!!! BAKERY’S OPEN!!!

We live in a little town, a blip on the way from one suburb to another.  But in this teeny town, there are a few good things:  BBQ, Chinese food, and a bakery.  Except the bakery closed.  Which was a cruel, cruel thing to have happen to a post-partum mama who enjoyed supporting local business and local carbs.  And her bebes enjoyed supporting local carbs (they’ll get on the local business part someday soon).

One day it was just not open:  the open sign was gone.  I kept looking.  Another day the hours sign was taken down, and I think perhaps a “closed indefiniately” sign was in its place.  That was a bad, bad day.

But the business never changed.  The tables stayed in place; the businesss sign was still up.  So everytime I went to the next suburb, I looked, I grieved, and I drove on.  Today was no different:  looking, grieving, driving.  After hitting all my typical Friday-shopping-cheap stores, I thought, “Hmm, we need some treats.  Oooh, Great Harvest Bread Co. hands out free bread:  mmmm.”  So we went.  We ate.  And we purchased;  Honey Whole Wheat (right out of the oven) and Wheat Cinnamon Chip (for breakfast parade munchies:  it’s good to know folks who live on a parade route).

Driving home.  Happy all is well.  One boy eating still, one boy sleeping.  Looking.  Getting ready to grieve.  But wait:  there’s an open sign.  Flipping head quickly:  new signage with hours!  And another open sign!

I kid you not:  I giggled all the way home.  Yes, pathetic.  But I *love* having a local bakery, one that I can walk to with the bebes, one that I can say, “Hey, yes, I can bring bread to your function:  bread from *my* bakery.”  Could I learn to bake bread?  Sure:  but it’s so much more fun to go get bread and have the bakers say, “Can we give you kiddos cookies?” and pass out a peanut butter cookie the size of your head.  Peanut butter - because it has protein. 

Well, the clicking of the keys alerted the yowler that I had something I desired to do more than revel in his “Now that I’m one and your return policy has expired, I can throw tantrums because you can’t send me back.  Nee-ner-nee-ner”, I’d best publish.

I may be back.  If I can find something *someone* enjoys more than being Irish.  Or if I keep the loaf of whole wheat bread next to my desk and shove a little larger than bite sized pieces into *someone’s* mouth.

Yay, my bakery. 

Daily Drivel, Random Remarks | 2 Comments »

I don’t craft.

This is a statement I make often in my mama-circles.  See, I hang out with this insanely creative people:  people who herb garden and texturize walls and bake  whole-grain fresh-sprouted bread and have houses that have matching walls & furniture and sew teeny tiny doll dresses and make caterpillar blankets - and that’s just my own Mama.  I remember as a child loving Vacation Bible School but getting a knot in my stomach when the dreaded Craft Time approached.  True, we were only working with glue and popsicle sticks, but still:  oh the pressure of having the idealistic picture in my head and then looking at the realistic glob of soggy wood.

I can be crafty in my own way.  I’ve been known to make a mean mix tape (oh tapes, how I miss thee).  As a barista I had a nice system of helping folks discern what drink they *neeeeeeeded*.  And I worked on the yearbook and newspaper staff.  I was even the editor and designed a majority of layouts - pictures, words, titles, all sorts of good stuff.  One of the best parts about Yearbook was the camera - the Canon Rebel that I got to abscound with on the merest whim and the free film I could swipe and then drop off for “free” development at the Photo Company.

Alas, I have no more “free” development, so pictures stay on the Hubby’s harddrive.  And the closest I get to the Rebel is flipping through the Target ads, sighing, and then moving on to see the diaper deals of the week (score!).  We have a nice little digital camera, but again with the idealistic/realistic frustration.  I line up pictures that are gorgeous on the screen, but then the flash makes everything washed out, or if it doesn’t flash, then it’s all a big blur.  Or the best, when the button doesn’t depress or the focus won’t latch on, and then the great shot’s gone in a blink of an eye (or lack of click of the camera).

At least I’m not my mom who had to watch my father with his manual camera - no auto focus - lots of clicks and rotations and more adjustments, and then I was off in a flash.

The other day it was going to be hot.  Which meant that the boys would need to be in the house for the majority of the day.  Which meant that we’d all be climbing the walls.  So, first thing in the morning, I took them out in the backyard to work out some energy.  And you know what?  The lighting’s pretty decent out there that early!  So I finally have a few shots that the color seems bright, the lines are crisp, and the moment seems well captured.  And I have a little more desire that I might be able to craft on, unless someone has a boom box and some audio tapes they want to send my way. . .

Crafty Comments, Daily Drivel | 1 Comment »

My friends often say that I speak in jingles, that my language is riddled with one liners.  So every once in a while I wonder if I missed my true calling in life.  Perhaps I should be working at Hallmark or writing for fortune cookie companies.  These places would be able to do something with my bits of wits and stuff that are lost on my current employers who prefer the verbal meanderings of “Boos Coos” and “Wachael Way”.

Then my internal critic pipes up:  “You don’t have any real wisdom to share.  Look at your life!  You speak of organization:  what if people saw the piles of stuff inside your closets?  What if they knew that your husband almost lost a toe this evening trying to extract a frying pan from the kitchen cupboard but had to try and pull it out over a grater, a ginormous pot, and four dining bowls that have *no* right being in a cupboard with the pots and pans?  Hmmm?”

To which I say, “Well, in my head, my closet is organized, and my kitchen is larger and doesn’t have massive amounts of unusable cupboard space.  Also, if you were a munchkin, you could dive into the cupboards to get out the frying pan:  for them, it’s a very practical layout.”

Then internal critic chimes in again:  “And all those blogs you read, you know, the ones about finance/crafts/cooking/playingwithkids/listeningotgoodmusic/emergingchurch/livinggreen/livingsimply/beingcreative/existingholistically/homeschooling/beingacoolandinterestingperson, do you do any of that stuff?”

To which I don’t respond, because I’m pretending I’m a munchkin and diving into my gargantuan and disorganized kitchen cupboards.

This weekend my mother, Wise Woman Extraordinaire who has learned to kick Internal Critics in the Tush, shared with me some words she heard from a friend many many years ago.  See, I was griping about how Daily Chores wear down my will to live.  Waking up each morning and knowing that there’s another load of laundry to do, another load of dishes to unload, another bout of scrubbing off little boy pee stains off the bathroom floor, well, it doesn’t make me look forward to my day (although it does make me look forward to watching Martha where things are pretty and clean and organized by her army of anal perfectionists and making a mental note to add Army of Anal Perfectionists to my Amazon wishlist - they carry them, right?).

And yet, having been raised in the church, I feel incredibly guilty about these feelings.  Internal Critic lectures on how blessed I am to have a closet full of stuff, and have pots and pans with which to systematically remove my husbands toes, and have small boys with functional schplinkies that miss the ginormous target known at the toilet bowl.  “People in third world countries don’t have this “problem”, you know.”  I know, oh, I know.  And deeper into the cupboard I climb where ooh!  I the popcorn popper I borrowed from my folks to make popcorn Christmas chains, you know, four years ago.

Mom said her friend told her:  “You have to do one thing each day that you won’t have to do the next day.  Otherwise you’ll lose it.”

Profound!  And it made so much sense!  The day before when I was feeling bogged down the with daily, I brushed the dog.  Before brushing him, I was all “blah.”  Afterwards I felt this strange sense of catharsis (it could also be a strange sense of my allergies shutting down all sinus function):  the dog was clean, I had gotten a bit of a workout - it was like a small mountain had been climbed.  And the momentum of “ooh, pretty dog and yay me!” kept me cleaning and organizing and coloring and explaining that yes, tomorrow we will go visit grandmomgranddaddyuncamatt “up at Wose Vahwee” for the umpteenth time until lunchtime.

“You have to do one thing each day that you won’t have to do the next day.  Otherwise you’ll lose it.”  See, that’s true wisdom:  a quality one liner.  Now if only those quality one liners only did stairs . . .

Daily Drivel | 1 Comment »

When I was a small tyke, I remember enjoying going to church.  My parents may tell you differently:  I’m not sure how easy it was wrangling me into frilly dresses and tights that I seemed to manage to bust on a frequent basis (ugh:  I hated tights.  And yet I wear long johns 10 months out of the year . . . ).  Part of me like playing with friends, another enjoyed hearing Bible stories, and yet another singing songs (or rather screaming “hallelu” and “praiseyethelord” at the top of my petite, ladylike lungs).  But a big reason methinks that I enjoyed congregating to be in the presence of God revolved around communion.

But Dren, what kind of wacky Friends church did you go to?  Quakers don’t practice the bodily act of communion at their worship gatherings!

Well, my communion was more put on by the kitchen crew.  And it wasn’t so much the body and blood of Christ being remembered as much as the praise of the processed food industry of America.  Instead of bread and wine, we had:

• Sandwich cookies
• Red Koolaid

Ah, sweet crack to a sugar “sensitive” kid.  My own private Babylon.

My husband as a tyke took a different angle and tried to prove Christ wrong:  that it is possible to live on bread alone.

Unfortunately, it’s true that the sins of the fathers (and mothers) get passed down to the sons.  As seen by one’s excitement for pancakes:

Which, technically, they’re pletter (insert some funky symbol over an “e” that I don’t know how to do on an American (a.k.a. Colbert-approved) keyboard).  And they’re being eaten in honor of the Swedish nature of JJ’s Nana - it was her birthday, so Swedishness should be appreciated on that day.

Then there’s this one:

Who got a hold of his brother’s bagel.  The brother was none to happy about that, but Little A certainly was.

If you think that looks faintly familiar, it could be because of this:

Our blessed carbo-loading family.

Daily Drivel | 7 Comments »

So a while ago there was this great band called “Blame It on John”, and they had a lovely ditty that probably was requested too many times by bawdy BIOJ junkies, but it was just so darn catchy.  It was called “The Stalker Song” and had a chorus that went something along these lines:

“Called to say hi.

No answer.

Time passes by.

No answer.

Called you again.

No answer.

Called all your friends.

No answer.”

I often find it running through my head when the options I’m weighing, or rather the options that are having an epic Star Wars “light saver” (thank you, JJ) rip-roaring battle-to-the-death extravaganza in my head, don’t seem to have a clear winner (ala current Democratic presidential ticket):  No Answer.

My current “no answer” situation is in regards to food.  Ah, food:  that thing that we kinda sorta need to live, but according to current reports is making us sick or moody or fat or something other than svelte and healthy and functional.

For instance, when I look at a bunch of bananas, do I see a bunch of yellow, potentially ripe yummy sweet food?  Nope:  I see a scale weighing the cost of regular versus organic - can we afford the organic?  But if we don’t eat the organic, am I willingly poisoning my children?  And now not only is there organic, but there’s also Fair Trade.  So, I can either be cheap and support both poisoning my children as well as corporations that are supporting oppressive totalitarian regimes, or I can buy Fair Trade Organic Bananas.  Which I have to get into my SUV and drive a considerable distance to find, thereby increasing the cost *and* my carbon footprint.

No Answer.  Unless the answer is we don’t eat bananas.

Which would be fine, if I didn’t live with a picky preschoolers.  The poor monkey comes from a genetic pool of picky eaters - it’s not his fault that he’s a SuperTaster (Hubby tried to prove history wrong - that man *can* live on bread alone, and my brother used to order pepperoni pizza and pick the pepperonis off).  But I have a hard enough time feeding him as it is.

Breakfast:  peanut butter and jam sandwich.  Although the bread is whole white wheat, it has preservatives.  Peanut butter:  all natural, but not organic, Adams.  Jam:  sugar-free, but not organic.

Lunch:  Bread (see above) and cheddar cheese which apparently not only needs to be organic, but also needs to come from grass-fed cows because grain-fed cows have all sorts of bad things in their system from eating grain.  Which apparently humans aren’t supposed to be eating either.  Followed up with fruit (see above above).

Dinner:  Chicken Nugget Dinosaurs from Foster Farms which say that their whole grain, but we all know it’s just to ease the consciences of mamas like me.  And then there’s the stigma from all the moms who are marching to the “Don’t Feed Your Children Chicken Nuggets You’re A Horrible Parent For Not Getting Them To Like Eating Vegan Pad Thai” drum.  I hate hearing that drum:  I want to kick it.  Fruit (again, look up).  Crackers - oh, the transfats!  Oh, the wheat!

Snack:  Yogurt - a mixture of plain and fruit-sweetened-with-Splenda.  Again, grain-fed cows; artificial sweeteners.

And then there’s the packaging that’s leaching contaminants into our food and cluttering our landfills.  NO ANSWER.  Sigh.

I would like to turn in my badge of being the Manager of Consumption in this household until the world is perfect and safe and we can all live in Bubbleland - because there’s never ever any trouble here in Bubbleland.

And it really makes having some Ritz crackers topped with summer sausage and squeeze cheese with a side of fully-sugared grape koolaid sound REALLY good (a staple on the backpacking trips of my childhood when all I had to think about was what doll I could take with me in my backpack and which tree I got to pee behind).  Yum.

Daily Drivel, Mama Musings | 9 Comments »

For two days in a row:  “Mama, naptime?”

Note the placement of the comma:  that means it’s not “Mama naptime” meaning Mama needs to take a nap (which, oh how she does, but oh how it’s not going to happen).  No, that would be JJ asking to take a nap.  Asking me to take him upstairs and have him lay in bed:  not get up repeatedly, not throw his toys all over his room, not push his Lego container over to the window to yell at the kids getting off the bus that a sleep-deprived woman has trapped him in his room and to call child protective services.

Nope:   JJ wanted to take a nap.

I’m very confused.

He did have a fever two nights ago:  his first - 101.7.  All he did was lay around and moan - very pathetic (something he learned from my side of the family:  my dad is known for walking around the house and asking someone to “take mah temp-a-tooure”).  He did perk up when taking a bath with his baby brother, especially when his baby brother decided simultaneously to lean back, poop, and belly laugh - so disgusting and hilarious, all at once.

Today he’s eaten six club crackers.  Six.  That’s all.  I asked him this morning if he wanted to stay home and watch TV, but he wanted to go to schooo (that must come from his father’s side).  His teachers said he was quiet but good:  came home with “Dinosaur Bob” (a dinosaur he painted.  Since we’ve read the book, all dinosaurs must be named Bob).

And now he wants to nap.  Now, either I could be dreaming (which would be nice because that would mean I’m sleeping and that last night’s adventures of JJ’s alarm clock going off at 1am, me throwing his door open only to have it slam into him while he’s yelling “Too Loud!!!  Too Loud!!!” and then waking up his brother, and then JJ telling me it was time to get up at 2:34am, and then his brother waking up with a leaky diaper and a yowly temperament an hour later - it might not have happened), or he could be a pod person, or . . . . ?

Have you noticed any disturbances in the Force?

Daily Drivel | 4 Comments »

So I was tagged in a meme.   And in poor form, I have not acknowledged it until now.  Which, honestly, the reason I’m even blogging right now is an attempt to stay awake until I can give Little A his dream feed in hopes that he’ll sleep longer.  I know:  hope springs eternal.

**6 Non-Important Things/Habits/Quirks about Myself**

1.  My closet is organized.  No, really.  In color coded order.  And within the colors, by shade.  And within the shades, by style.  So is my sock drawer.  And my underwear drawer.  And my shirts.  And tank tops.  And sweaters.

And so are the boys’.  [I used to work in a library where I was *paid* to organize;  you don't get past that easily].  Which means . . .

2.  My bookshelves are organized by subject and then alphabetical.  It’s an illness, I tell you!  Send for help!  [which, funny enough, the speaker at MOPS on Monday was talking about organization, which folks who know me said they thought I must be enjoying, to which I responded that I had to hang out in the kitchen in the back because she was giving me panic attacks:  she was telling people to organize *not* *right*.  It hurt me inside.]

3.  I can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards.

4.   I have never been thrown a surprise birthday party.  But then again, I often don’t acknowledge when I begin another trip around the sun.  That could have something to do with it …

5.  I tried to read Moby Dick when I was in fourth grade, only because it was the biggest book in the school library.

6.   My favorite episode of Mr. Rodgers is his trip to the pretzel making factory.  I watched a show on the Discovery Channel the other day when they visited as well, but it paled in comparison.

Thwack!  I tag:  Steph (who I’m sure has already done this, but needs to get blogging again:  hello, I’m missing my Henry updates!  How else is Little A going to learn that food is his friend?) and Meredith (because I think she has a fondness for organization like me - or at least maybe she won’t think I’m quite as crazy as the rest of y’all) - although you should ask Jason about his thoughts regarding amounts and patterns of eggs in egg cartons:  fascinating.

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