Burning Down The House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?

This YouTube video has a pretty clear explanation of how we got in this current mess, AND which party is the most to blame.

Funny Satire Blog

I just found this hilarious blog - it's probably not so funny if you've never lived in Utah, but check it out anyway. It pokes fun at Mormon mommy blogs (in a nice way).

Evil

It's happening everywhere - women being killed without remorse for the supposed honor of their families. Obviously, it happens frequently in the Middle East and the Muslim parts of Africa. After my experiences in Europe, I'm not surprised that it is happening more often there either. And now these evil philosophies of the devil are finding their way to America. I wonder how much play this story is going to get in the major media outlets? Will there be the same coverage that Stacey Petersen got? Or Lacey Peterson? Or that girl vacationing in Aruba (can't remember her name)? I bet not.

Satan sure has many different ways of attacking the family. Encouraging men to treat women like dirt has got to be one of the worst.

Blue Potatoes

Look what I found at the Stuarts Draft farmer's market - new blue potatoes for 99 cents a pound! They're actually purple on the inside. I roasted them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and they were very tasty. I poked around online, and found recipes for red, white, and blue potato salad. They also had new Yukon gold potatoes, which are super good, too.

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary or Testing the Limits

Last night at bedtime:


K: I wanna go to bed.

Mom: Okay, let's go brush your teeth first.

K: Nooo, I don't want to brush my teeth.

Mom: (feeling rather tired) Okay, just go to bed.

K: NOOOO, I don't want to get cavities and have to go to the dentist.

Last Day of School

Every year on the last day of school, the teachers at the elementary school across the street give a very enthusiastic good-bye to the kids. Our neighbors brought out some watermelon, and we all sat under a tree and enjoyed the send-off.

Went to Target this morning. M is turning out to be a bad shopper. Lots of crying, cause she wants to get out of the cart and run away from me. So by the time we got out to the car, and I got everyone loaded in, we were ready to be home. Then I realized that I had left my purchases inside the store. Grrrrr.

Sniff, sniff

I have a great sense of smell. There's not much that escapes me in this department. When I was a kid I would smell the clothes that I opened up on Christmas morning and know which store they came from. I really ought to figure out a way to get paid for this talent of mine. I'm sure if I lived in a big city I could get a job testing perfume or something, except it would probably bother my allergies.


Anyway, about a week ago, I went visiting teaching to the home of an older couple. We went down in their basement, cause I had the girls with me, and they have a cool playhouse down there. So as soon as we get down the stairs I smelled an obvious smell of natural gas. I commented on it, and suggested that they call the gas company, but I could tell they didn't quite believe me. I know that sometimes older people lose their sense of smell, so my next plan was to talk to some of their children and get them to get on their parents to get it taken care of.

Well, last night she calls to tell me that she was thinking about what I said and decided to call the gas company. Sure enough, the gas man found three or four very small leaks. He couldn't smell them either, but his detector picked up on it. He told them that I must have a very good sense of smell.

Motherly Sympathy

It's possible that I don't have enough of it. Yesterday the girls and I were out in the yard, and S was barefoot, as she often is (I am totally in favor of letting kids go barefoot). She comes limping over to me at one point crying about her foot. So I take a look, and see a little thorn, and pull it out. She continues to whine and cry about it for about an hour, and beg for a band-aid. Now S used to be a very tough kid who could shake off most any injury, but lately she has turned very whiney - perhaps it's a five-year-old-thing. Anyway, that's my defense. So I continue to tell her to be brave, that it's no big deal, etc.

Then, I notice that our lawn, which consists mostly of clover, has quite a few bees in it . . . . and I realize that she had stepped on a bee! That explains why the thorn looked so odd - it was really a stinger. Oops!

Food Court Musical

This is so funny!

Our Society and Culture Today

FOXNews.com - 3rd Graders Plotted to Kill Teacher

I'm so glad I'm not in the classroom anymore. There is no pay raise big enough to compensate teachers for the way they are treated.

Garden Time!

I love this time of year! After anxiously studying the ground for days, today I finally saw some little teeny plants coming up. They're either kale or spinach - I can't remember which I planted where, and they're too small to tell the difference. It's been raining all afternoon, so by tomorrow there should be lots more stuff popping up. I cannot wait to eat some yummy homegrown lettuce (buttercrunch is our favorite), and peas. There is just no comparison when it comes to the taste, especially with peas. No matter how much you are willing to pay, you cannot go to the store and buy fresh peas picked that day from the garden. I've never seen them in a farmer's market either, although I suppose it's possible. So even though peas take a ton of space for what you get, we grow them. They taste like heaven! Last year I had to fight the girls to keep them from eating them all straight out of the garden. Someday, when we have a big yard and big garden, maybe I'll let them!

Digging around in the dirt is therapeutic. It's hard to feel depressed if you're on your knees with your hands in cool, dark soil tending to plants. I think the key to enjoying it is to not have more garden than you can handle, because then it just becomes a chore. We use the square foot method, which is so much easier than the traditional row method. It takes up way less space, no rototiller is needed, and it cuts way back on weeding. Who wants to spend all their time weeding? Uggh.

Here's a pic of our garden last spring. This was probably about a month after I had a c-section, so I was doing NOTHING outside related, and J didn't have much time to spend on it either. But it still looked good! This year, I am so happy to be in good health and able to get outside.

Praying to the Porcelain God

There's nothing like the stomach flu to make mundane household tasks seem positively exciting. It also gives me a reminder not to take good health for granted.

Time Change

I really hate time change. I'm ready to move to Arizona, or wherever they don't do it, except I don't want to move there. I think it is so unnecessary, and even detrimental to be messing around with everyone's internal clocks twice a year. I think they've even done studies on it, but I don't need to read about a study. All I have to do is observe my children. Tonight, K threw one raging tantrum after another. Really, they blended so seamlessly I'll have to call it one giant tantrum. She was so out of control for so little reason that Jeryl and I couldn't help but laugh. I even took some video of her, but she only had her underwear on, so I don't think I'll post it.

Tetris

I just got to level 20 on Tetris, with 169, 799 points! Level 20! Now I feel a sense of pride mixed with a lot of shame.

Sick of Suess

Took the girls to storytime at the library time. I was disappointed to see that the theme was the tiresome Dr. Suess. I should have known, since the newspaper is full of the annual Dr. Suess birthday celebrations throughout the community and schools. I'm tired of it! He's not the only children's author out there! Why does his birthday get so overcelebrated every year? I mean, come on, EVERY YEAR? It's not reasonable. It's boring. Even if I actually liked his books, it would still be too much. It's kind of like if the Relief Society had a birthday party celebrating its founding every year. Oh, wait, we do . . . and now I'm in charge of it.

Sleep

M took two naps today. They both were at an appropriate time, and were of an acceptable length. For both of these naps, I did NOT have to breastfeed her to sleep, and she did NOT cry. I laid her down and she went right to sleep! Bedtime also went perfectly. None of this should be anything to brag about, since she is ELEVEN months old, but sadly, it is a big deal! I think that this is the first time that it has ever happened! Not counting her first few weeks, when she would not wake up, even to eat, (and wasn't gaining enough weight, and I about died of stress), she has been the biggest stinker about napping! I had my other two on such good schedules, and they went down happily to nap, but M has really tested the limits! It's hard to believe that she is the same baby who wouldn't wake up as an infant. But the last few days, I have seen a gradual trend towards more normal sleep behaviour. Of course, time change (a big pet peeve of mine) is coming this weekend, and will probably ruin all of my efforts.

Now if she would just sleep through the night tonight . . . That's the next big battle.

Fire Restaurant Therapy

A few weeks ago we splurged and took the girls out to eat at a local Japanese restaurant, Massaki, where they cook the food in front of you on a large grill. The chef tosses knives, juggles eggs, and even has flames shoot off the grill five feet high. It's an entertaining show. We thought the kids would enjoy it. Well . . . S liked it, Marina was indifferent, and K was terrified. She was fine with everything but the fire. He only did it twice, but that was two times too many for her. She was crying so hard I had to take her out twice to try to calm her down. Fortunately, the place was almost empty. She ate one shrimp, one bite of rice, and spent the last half of the meal cowering under the table sobbing. I felt kind of bad about it, but we weren't about to leave and waste all that money!

Ever since then, she talks about it a lot, as in, "I don't want to go to the fire restaurant anymore." No worries. We won't be doing that again anytime soon.

Well, right now she's got her toy food and dishes out, and is playing restaurant. She says she is a cooker-man, and is pretending to make fire. I pretended to be a crying child, much to my daughters' amusement.

The Biggest Criers

Just watched The Biggest Loser. I've never seen so much crying from a bunch of men. These guys were sobbing like babies. Pretty impressive, really, especially considering that it's all in front of cameras. I wonder how much flak these guys are going to get when they're back home with their buddies.

Wild Monkey

I took S to the doctor this afternoon. As visits go, it was average. I've had much worse. Had to wait half an hour - most of it in the examining room (the worst place to wait). S and K's behavior was decent. But M is at the worst age! She was dying to get down and crawl around, and so the whole trip was a wrestling match between her and me. It was like holding a wild monkey. I'm not that paranoid about dirt and germs - I don't mind kids crawling outside if they're in old clothes. But I'm not too keen on examining room floors at 4:30 in the afternoon. Who knows how many gross things have been spilt, leaked, or dropped on them in the course of the day? Plus, I didn't have her in old clothes, because I always feel like I have to make an impression of motherly competence on the doctor.

I know when I take her back for her one year check up I'll have to give and let her explore; today was about all I could take. She kept head butting me in the chest. Hard. In case you don't know how that works: baby leans forward, bending at the waist, and then quickly slams her head back on you.

I've seen parents holding babies and toddlers older than M is, who are content to just sit on their parents' laps. It just amazes me. Once I saw my friend Missy hold her little boy, who was over one year at the time, on her lap for over an hour. He hardly even tried to get down. I could hardly believe it. None of mine have been that way.

Starting Young

As the missionaries were leaving our house this evening, K opens her arms wide, and says, "Hugs and kisses!"

Stinky Gas

No, not that kind. I'm talking about gasoline. I've heard some people actually like the smell, and I know some "headed-for-a-life-of-underachievement" adolescents like to sniff it, but I detest the smell of the stuff.
Last night, I went to get gas (in the aforementioned snow "storm") and stepped in a puddle of gasoline someone had spilled. Then without thinking, I grabbed the pump handle, which was also covered. I had to throw my glove away, and suffered with smelly shoes the rest of the evening. Next month, I wouldn't be surprised if the people we visit teach won't let me come back! I'm sad about the gloves; they only cost $1, but I really liked them.

Southern Drivers

Why are people so darn afraid to drive in a little bit of snow? This evening I went out visiting teaching, and my dear friend (who shall remain nameless) was very uneasy because it had begun snowing/sleeting. Just a little dusting. It wasn't sticking to the roads. And if snow does start to stick to the roads, it usually takes at least a few hours before it becomes impassable, and you're stuck and forced to eat the crumbs in the carseats to survive. At least that's the way it is in Virginia. I'm well aware that there are parts of the country where conditions can become bad quickly. But this is Virginia. It's been years since we've even had a decent 12 inch snow. But an awful lot of people around here, who are old enough to have had some snow driving experience, are convinced that they will slide right off the road as soon as snow sticks.

I was born and raised in Virginia, and in a part of the state that gets less snow than here, but my parents are Northerners. I guess they imparted their "don't let a little snow stop life" attitude to me. So people, listen up: If there is some snow on the roads, don't panic. Just drive a more slowly and allow plenty of braking room. (Ice is a different story, however, so learn to tell the difference between the two.) Think of the millions of people who live farther north, and still go on with work and school even when it snows! If they can do it, so can we!

Not again

Apparently, we may get yet another ice storm tomorrow. For some reason this winter weather has been happening on Fridays a lot, which means S misses her dance class. She's missed two already, and she gets so disappointed. Hubby and I aren't thrilled, partly because we don't like to see her sad, but partly because we paid an arm and a leg for these classes! We want our money's worth!

Sisterly Love

My two oldest daughters are only 3 and 5, and they have already had their first fight over clothing! It was partly my fault. Back before Christmas, their grandmother gave me some clothes to give the girls for Christmas. One of the items was a fancy looking skirt. I thought it would fit K, so I wrapped it up for her. I was wrong; too large. She wore it once, and it kept falling down. So yesterday before church, S needs something to wear, and I pulled out K's skirt and asked her if S could wear it. That was my mistake - I should have never had such a crazy idea involving love and sharing. K had a fit, shrieking that it was hers. S, wanting to wear it, starts wailing because K doesn't want her to. In the end, I got K to give in, and everyone was mostly happy.

Even though I have five sisters, I never had to share clothing, since we were so rich my parents bought us more clothes than we could wear. Oh wait, that was just my fantasy. Really, my next youngest sister is six years younger than me, so I was out of the house before she caught up to me in size.

Baby Blue Jean Blues

Grumble! Once again, I have a child who is changing sizes mid-winter. And of course, the stores have all switched to spring clothing. In February. She needs long sleeves and pants! And the size that I need is 12 months, and apparently that is more scarce than say, 3T or 3 months. Like at Target, they have infant clothing that goes from 0-9 mths, and then they have toddler clothing that goes from 24 mths - 5T. There's not much in that mystery land of 12-18 months. Why not?! So I am having great difficulty finding anything for her to wear. At Target last week, I literally saw a father put two pairs of 12 m pants in his cart. The last two in the store! Wal-mart has two tables of boys winter clothes marked down to $1, but nothing for girls in 12 months. If only I had had the foresight last month to get her some stuff when I caught the fabulous Jan. clearance sale at Old Navy. But she's a slow grower, and I didn't think ahead . . .

So last night, after a hospital visit, J and I rushed in to Old Navy in Charlottesville before they closed. They did have a few winter things left, and even a few spring things in long sleeve. The prices weren't quite what I would have liked, but beggars can't be choosers. And now back to the title of this post - they mostly had just shirts. I found one pair of sweats that don't match that well with the shirts, and there were racks and racks of adorable baby blue jeans. WARNING to new parents: blue jeans might look fetching on the rack, but they are usually a poor choice for babies. Fat, chubby babies need soft, elastic waist, easy-on, leggings or stretchy pants. Jeans end up looking funny, are hard to get on, and are stiff and uncomfortable. But I bought a pair anyway, out of desperation. Tried them on this morning, and I could barely get them over her fat roly-poly thighs. Then I could hardly get them snapped. The length was just right, so going a size up wouldn't work. Back to the store they go.

Maybe we'll have an early spring.

Valentine Cake

No need for a heart pan. Instead of baking two round layers, bake one round and square cake. Cut the round in half, and place the halves on the sides of the square, and you have a heart shape. I had to trim it up a bit, but that meant there were scraps for snacking.

The pink sugar kind of hides the lettering, but it gave my little helper K something to do.

Matching Food

Here's what I fixed the girls for lunch today:
leftover pork loin roast
buttered whole wheat bread (homemade)
apple slices
fresh blueberries

Not a bad spread in my opinion, even if it is a little different. It covers the food groups. And I rarely buy blueberries, so that was a treat. But S informed me that "it doesn't match" and would only eat the fruit!

Valentines and Lollipops

At story time today, the libarian asked the children what Valentine's Day was all about. "Lollipops!" shouts out my three year old. Ah, the simple life of a child.

During all of my single years, I think that I was dating someone only once on Valentine's Day, and by that point I was dying to break up with him. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until I was getting ready to go out with him for the evening, and I noticed that I was dreading seeing him! I didn't have the heart (haha) to dump him on V-day - how cruel would that be. So I suffered through the date. We went to a lovely, expensive, little French restaurant in Georgetown. It would have been so wonderful if I had just been with someone else! How terrible of me to say that, I know. I really don't miss those single years of disappointment much.

I'm so special.

I must be a very important person. Cindy McCain called me twice last night (different topics each time), and John McCain called me today. Of course, I had already cast my vote for him by the time he called, but still it was kind of him to think of me.

Voting for a Boat

Today was Virginia's Primary, and so I bundled up the girls and we walked to our polling station (local church) to do our civic duty. Just like last time, after I'm done, and we're leaving, K wants to know where the boat is. "Next week, let's go to see a boat on water," she says in such a sweet, polite voice. I had explained before we even left the house that there would be no boat, but I guess she didn't believe me. S had the same disappointment when she was three years old too. But now she's old enough to start to understand what it's all about - not boats, but picking the person you think will do the best job. It's cool to see her start to see things outside of her own little world.

Let's Have Some More Meetings!

I got to go to a Relief Society Board meeting after church today! Yes, that's right, I was excited to go. I've been looking forward to it ever since I received notice of it a few weeks ago. Why? Well, by staying at church, I got to miss that whole take three tired, cranky, hungry children home from church thing. I hate that hour after church. Everyone's shrieking for food (myself included) and usually I don't have the foresight to have anything decent prepared ahead. Coats, shoes, and tights are strewn everywhere. The kitchen is still a mess from breakfast. The baby is always desperate to be nursed. It's all a real joy. For the past few years, Jeryl has had monthly after-church meetings, and sometimes been in the choir, and so I have had to do it all by myself.

But not today! My husband had to take the kids home by himself this time, while I got to stay and have a lunch meeting. I must say that I ate better than my family did, for there really was nothing much to eat (other than our food storage, of course). But Jeryl did really well. When I got home, everyone had been fed, and he had even done all of the dishes, which I usually don't get done so quickly.

How come I keep losing my links and stuff on the side? Very annoying.

On Time

Ever since sandal weather ended and coat and socks and shoes weather began, we have been late to S's Friday morning dance class. It starts at 10:00. I don't know what I'm going to do when she has to be at school by 8:00 next year, but I'll worry about that later. It's harder to get there by 10:00 than it is to get to church by 9:00. It's not like we sleep late either. And I'm normally a punctual person. Maybe it's because that extra hour gives me a false sense of security, and I start doing other things I don't do on Sunday mornings, like check my email . . . . The cold weather gear really does slow things down, too. That's what I hate most about winter.

Anyway, I hate rushing in late, and S even said recently that she didn't want to be the last one there anymore! Ouch. So this morning, I told myself that we had to leave the house at 9:30 (it's about 3 miles away). So we left at 9:45, and arrived early. S was confused! She could see the 9:30 class in progress on the waiting room tvs, and kept trying to go in with them. She had totally forgotten what it was like to not be late.

I'm melting . . .

At the park today, it looked like it was about to rain, and since we walked, I told the girls we were leaving so as not to be caught in a downpour. K became very alarmed that it might rain on her, and walked the entire way home trying to protect her head with her hand.

It didn't rain after all. I wonder what she would have done when she found out that one hand won't keep you dry.

West Virginia McCain Supporters

Today, WV delegates at the Republican convention saw that Romney was poised to win. Huckabee was second and McCain was third. So McCain supporters struck a backroom deal and all voted for Huckabee, and thus propelled him into first place, costing Romney a win.

I am disgusted!! To vote for someone you don't support just to keep someone else from winning shows a complete lack of integrity. How can people be so low? If Romney loses the nomination over these delegates, I'm just gonna be sick. I can hardly imagine how he would feel about it.

I'm frustrated that I don't get to vote today! Why doesn't Virginia get with the rest of the pack? The race outcomes will likely be decided by this evening, without many Americans having had a say. I would like to have more than two candidates to choose from on Election Day.

Did you really mean to say that?

Question: Is it ever a good idea to say to your eight-months-pregnant wife, "You know, your butt has gotten bigger."

Is it unreasonable to expect your wife to understand that you were paying her a compliment, because you like what pregnancy has done to her?

Well, gentle readers, it has been over five years since that ill-considered remark was made, and the matter is still under discussion. The husband now says he understands that it was a mistake to have said it, but still tries to defend himself. The wife should have known that her behind was so small before, and that there was no way that it could get too big. The wife thinks that her husband was insane to say something like that, and thinks that she showed remarkable restraint in only shedding a few tears about it.

This is Serious!

Oreo quality has been compromised! They have taken out the transfats!!!



First, let me just say that I am actually quite opposed to transfats, and have been for years, even before it was the trendy. I haven't bought Crisco or margarine in years.

******power outage that lasted all afternoon**********

Secondly, I am a dessert snob. If I'm gonna eat high calorie food, it had better be good, and I don't think that 98 percent of what's sold in the store is good. Homemade-from-scratch is so much better! Not that I won't eat store stuff if it's around - I'm weak. But I try to save my calories for the good stuff.

But, Oreos, they're the other 2 percent! How delicious! How scrumptious! What melt-in-your-mouth goodness! There's some indefinable tastiness that makes me say every time I eat them, "WHAT makes these so good?!" I know it's the hydrogenated fat, but who cares? It's worth it! Definitely the best sweet you can buy at the grocery store (not counting ice cream - I am only counting desserts that you chew). I can eat a whole package in . . . a very short period of time. I pretty much have had to stop buying them very often, because I have no self-control.

But yesterday my husband bought a package on his way home from work. It's probably been months since we've had any. After supper (can't believe I waited that long), I bit in, and disappointment followed. That special something was gone. I mean, they were good, but nothing special. I grabbed the package, read the label, and sure enough, the hydrogenated oils are gone! Not even the trace kind that most manufacturers put in, and still round down to "zero transfats" on the label. And they're just not the same.

Is it wrong of me to say to the girls, "Daddy's home!" when I know that really he's not? In the time that it took them to run to the living room window to look, I was able to get the laundry from the washing machine to the dryer, without so many people underfoot (M stayed - she's too little to run). And he did come home just a few minutes later.

Funny Cartoon

The other day, the Waynesboro News Virginian ran a hilarious editorial cartoon. Unfortunately, I can't find a link to it online, so I'll have to try to describe it.

It showed an evening news anchor saying, "Good evening. In his State of the Union address, President Bush didn't mention our next president, Barack Obama, once. And that ends our coverage of his speech."

I actually laughed out loud when I saw that! So true! If anyone thinks that the media doesn't care who is elected, and doesn't try to put one candidate above another, well . . . .

Ice

The forecast is calling for ice tonight and tomorrow morning, to be followed by high wind gusts. Aacckk! I hate ice storms, although they are beautiful. Why can't we just have regular old snow? I hate losing power, having trees come down, and being stuck at home. This will probably make S miss her Friday morning dance class for the third week in a row.

Ten Months Old

Marina thinks that she is too old to take a morning nap, but I think this picture proves otherwise.

President Hinckley's Passing

Nothing profound to say, except that I am happy for him! He gets to be with his wife again. Ninety-seven years is a long time to be on this earth, and being the prophet is a heavy burden to bear. I think it's safe to say that he is in a good place. The rest of us will be just fine!

Homeschooling

If I had a popular blog, this post might get some people riled up, but I don't, so I don't think this will offend anyone. And that is not my intention anyway.


Sometimes for kicks, I check out the Homeschooling Blogs Carnival. I find it interesting, amusing, and even a little sad to read what the various homeschoolers out there are up to. As a former teacher, homeschooling is something that I have thought a lot about. I had already made up mind that I probably wouldn't homeschool, but if I were still on the fence, these other bloggers would have pushed me off the fence into the public school camp. Why?
1. Holier-than-thou attitudes
2. Paranoia regarding the "government monopoly" schools
3. Poor writing skills
4. It seems like many homeschoolers are just flying by the seat of their pants.
5. A lot of them take great pride in reinventing the educational wheel (waste of time).

Additionally, I've known a few homeschooling families myself. Their homes were in utter chaos, and nerves were frazzled. The kids often are just set down with worksheets - not a quality, demanding education. The mother/teachers did not have college degrees. Basically, teaching is a full-time demanding job. You can't do it all. If you have an only child, maybe. But how can you care for a baby, toddler, home, AND teach the older ones all they need to know? Someone will be shortchanged.

That said, I do sometimes feel the lure of it. I am well aware of the shortcomings of the school systems, and I know I could do so many more interesting things with my kids at home than a teacher can with them in a class of 30. Whenever I'm in the library, I look at all of the books and imagine myself reading them all with my kids. How fun! But really, I would go crazy. There's not enough time in the day to do it all properly.

However, I would homeschool under a few conditions:
1. my child needed special ed services
2. my child was miserable in school and wanted to be homeschooled
3. the school was very low-performing, dangerous, etc. (but we would try to move first)

Hopefully, I won't have to. I'm not opposed to others doing it. Just don't act self-righteous about it!

A Blankie by Any Other Color

Ever seen a baby blanket that color? Probably not. This is K's precious green blankie, that I washed with a bright orange skirt I bought at one of those Indian stalls at an outdoor mall. Thank goodness I didn't wash it with anything else.

It's one of those thermal receiving blankets that you can buy most anywhere. When she was an infant, I could tell that she was wanting to get attached to something, so I encouraged her to adopt a thermal blanket, since I had several already, and they're so easy to replace. For the first two years she would take anyone of them, which was really handy. Can't find the green one at bedtime? No need to search the house over; just pull out a pink one. Left the pink one at Grandma's house three hours away? No problem - spares await at home. But by the time she was two, she foiled us by emphatically preferring the green one. A few times in the dark at night I was able to pull a switcheroo, but that's all.

So when I pulled her green blankie (or "blan-blan" as she often calls it) out of the washing machine, I was horrified. But it turned out better than I thought. At first she didn't believe me, thinking it was just another second-rate substitute. Then when I explained what happened she cried just a little. For a day, she tried to take a pink one instead. But now, she has gone back to her trusty green/orange favorite, and isn't even mad about it.

Sleep interrupted

So I have sick kids, and had a bad night last night.

The first sleep interruption was at 12:45.

Then 1:45.

Then 2:45.

So when I was just dozing off AGAIN, and heard M cry, I knew without looking that it was 3:45. But I looked anyway, and I was correct to the minute! Kind of cool, but not really. The last one was at 4:30, so that blew the pattern. But still, it's weird.

Coughing

S woke everyone up this morning, coughing. Then K started. Then my husband started hacking. What is going on? No one acts sick. It's just random, nasty, early morning hacking, that has already stopped.

The worst part is that I can't stand it. Usuallly I am the cougher. I get coughs frequently, and they last for weeks sometimes. Once in college, I apparently was driving my roommate crazy, because I came home from class one day to find five different kinds of cough medicine and cough drops on my pillow. So I am a big offender in this area, yet when my family coughs for 20 minutes, I about go crazy. I felt like Mrs. Bennett in the A&E Pride and Prejudice movie when she fusses at her daughter for coughing too much.

Klondike Derby Sympathy Pains

My husband, in his new role as scoutmaster, is going to the Klondike Derby this weekend. I don't know much about it, except that for some insane reason it involves camping in the dead of winter. J has been avidly following the weather forecast, and it is supposed to get down to 17 degrees on Friday night (with snow on the ground). He's not too happy about that, and I don't blame him. But the other day it occurred to me that I will be suffering too! Why? Well, I have a hard time staying warm at night in the winter, or I did when I was single. But now with a warm body next to me, I'm usually fine. So I told him that I will be also suffering from the cold the night that he is gone. The look on his face was priceless! He couldn't even get any words out! I said, "Oh, is that a little insensitive of me to say that?"

Then I pointed out that that's how we women feel when men complain that they, too, suffer during pregnancy and childbirth!

But seriously, I do feel sorry for my poor husband this weekend, and am glad that I don't have to do it!

Christmas

I'm a little late writing about this, obviously. We had a Christmas miracle, which some would say was not worthy of being called a miracle, but I say that the Lord does care about a three-year-old’s desires. Before Christmas I guided K into choosing a gift for S, and she picked a Disney princess toy cell phone with a little pink plastic case. Cheap and flashy. When S opened it, K had second thoughts, and some tears were shed as she tried to reclaim the gift.
That afternoon we traveled to my parents’ home and opened more gifts that evening. Lo and behold, my mother had bought the identical toy phone to give to K!! It is exactly the same, except that it features a different princess on it. You have never seen such happy amazement on a little girl’s face. It was definitely the highlight of her Christmas (and perhaps mine too).

Tagged - Six facts about myself

Emily tagged me, so here goes:

1. I really don't like popcorn. Why do people like it so much?

2. I sometimes get a rash on the inside of my elbows. Apparently, it's an allergic reaction to something, but I can't figure out what.

3. I am the oldest of ten children.

4. One of my best talents is reading quickly. It was helpful in college, but I haven't yet figured out a way to make money doing it.

5. I've had three c-sections. Not fun.

6. I'm one quarter French.

7. My mission covered three countries.

8. I've never broken a bone.

9. When I was a kid, 4th gradish, I wanted braces really badly. Everyone else was getting them, and I wanted to be cool, too.

10. I can't stand clutter. I get invigorated just by finding things in my house to get rid of.