Stolen

I stole this from my friend Mary's blog.  It's supposed to be an award but I guess she didn't think I was bored special enough to fill it out.  (Apparently no one is, though, because she didn't pass it on.  So we can all be insulted together.  Okay?)  Hee hee.

Rules

1. You Can Only Use One Word
2. Pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers
3. Alert them that you have given them this award
4. Have Fun!

The Fun Part:

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk

2. Your hair? Frustrating

3. Your mother? Fun

4. Your father? Wise

5. Your favorite food? Chinese Indian Thai Sushi Asian

6. Your dream last night? Weird

7. Your favorite drink? Pumpkinspicelatte

8. Your dream/goal? Writer

9. What room are you in? Closet Office

10. Your hobby? Writing

11. Your fear? Spiders Roaches bugs

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Home

13. Where were you last night? Sleeping

14. Something that you aren’t? Organized

15. Muffins? Please.

16. Wish list item? Patience

17. Where did you grow up? Paris

18. Last thing you did? Sneezed

19. What are you wearing? Black

20. Your TV? Overused

21. Your pets? hairy

22. Friends? Good

23. Your life? Hectic

24. Your mood? Content

25. Missing someone? Yes

26. Vehicle? Broken

27. Something you’re not wearing? underwear glasses

28. Your favorite store? Kohl's

29. Your favorite color? Purple

30. When was the last time you laughed? Today

31. Last time you cried? Dunno

32. Your best friend? PIC

33. One place that I go to over and over? Bed

34. One person who emails me regularly? Dilbert

35. Favorite place to eat? Out

Tagged:
Incidentally, I am glad Mary didn't tag anyone, because she would have tagged most of the following people, which would have meant I couldn't!

• Craig
• Ashley
• Jill
• Kristi
• Reid
• Jaime

Weekly Weird

During your morning commute, there is nothing worse than that first drop of rain.  Why, you ask?  Well, if you are asking that question, I will assume you either a) are a stay-at-home-parent or b) live and work in a small, interstate-free town.  Or village.

Why?  Because the moment it starts to rain, no, sprinkle, no produce a light mist, all traffic on the interstate comes to an instant, complete standstill.  Instant.  Complete.

So (and here is the "weird" part) when that happens, do you ever imagine one person at the very front of the line of traffic suddenly throwing their hands up in the air, screaming, "OH MY GOSH A DROP OF RAIN WHAT DO I DO NOW?" and slamming on their brakes?

I do.  And somehow, despite the potential comic value of such a vision, I seldom laugh.

Or maybe...no.  Never.

The Mind of a Toddler

You just never know what is going through the mind of a toddler.  Until they open their oh-so-innocent little mouths, that is.

My Birdie was in rare form this past weekend.

I did not personally witness the first event, and I think I may be glad of that.  My mother-in-law recounted it to me over the phone later that evening, Saturday evening.  We went to a restaurant with my mother- and father-in-law as well as some good friends of ours and their daughter (who is, of course, also a good friend of ours, but you get the point).

For whatever reason, my father-in-law got to be the one in charge of leading my daughter out of the restaurant, and as they walked out, they were stopped by a lady sitting at another table.  I saw them in there talking, but was already outside putting the Baby Guy in the car.

As my mother-in-law told the story, at one point, my precious little daughter turned to the lady and asked, so sweetly, I am sure, "Are you a girl?"

As I said, I think I may be glad to have gotten that story later rather than having been in a position to bask in the embarrassment first hand.  My father-in-law had that pleasure.

The very next day, the next evening, to be exact, she did it again, although this time it was not embarrassing, just funny.

The evening started with a fun trip to the Louisville Zoo, where we attended their Halloween party.  It was followed by dinner at a restaurant that was new to us, the "Hall of Fame Cafe," located conveniently close to both the University of Louisville and the KY Fair and Exposition Center.

I'll keep things mysterious and let you guess what their main attraction is.

It turned out to be really good (I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, right?) and we plan to go back sometime.  To that end, we quizzed our waiter on when their busy (and, by extension, less busy) times tend to be.

He surprised us by informing us that basketball/football games are not as great a driver of traffic for them (oops, I guess I just gave away their main attraction) as are conventions at the Fair and Expo Center.  For example, the prior Monday, there had been some sort of carpenters' convention going on. "We were slammed," he told us.  "I could barely find the time to take a break."

At this point, he was interrupted by my crazy daughter, who was looking around the table at the rest of us, excited and shocked and, above all, hyper. "Ohhhh noooooooo!" she exclaimed. "Ohh NO!"

We all stopped listening to focus on our little drama queen. "What? What is it?" I thought it was going to be something traumatic and unrelated like her Minnie Mouse shoes had just fallen off - oh the horror. I had no idea she was following the conversation, but, with a shocked, worried, hyper little gasp, she announced, "He bwoke!"

Everyone stared for a moment, then we all cracked up. She laughed too, and wasn't upset, but she was fairly concerned that our poor waiter had been broken. We reassured her that he had been fixed and he was just fine.

I can't wait to see what she will come up with next.

Weekly Weird

Do you ever see a paper bag in the road, and swerve to miss it because who knows, it just might be full of kittens?

Do you ever see a garbage bag full of something on the side of the road and think, What if there's a body in there?

I didn't think so.

Night Three

He slept all night! Woo hoo!!

Now if we can only figure out how to get my daughter back to sleeping all night, we'll be in business.

Naked, Loaded and Dangerous

My husband wasn't home, so I was bathing the toddlers by myself. I got them undressed, put the Birdie in the tub, and the Baby Guy ran off. Naked. He gets antsy in the tub, so I figured I'd let him run around a little and I'd try to get the Birdie mostly washed before I put him in. I just hoped he wouldn't pee on anything. Knew he might, but...hoped he wouldn't.

Well, he didn't pee on anything.

As I was sitting in the bathroom washing the Bitty Girl, the Baby Guy ran back and forth like a naked little maniac...into the living room...back to the entry of the bathroom...back off into the living room...back to stand at the bathroom door...and I noticed...something...on his legs.

And I thought, surely not. I must be mistaken. I must. Please. Please please PLEASE let me be mistaken.

But I wasn't.

I ran him down as he darted away from me, laughing his naughty little head off. I grabbed him...and sure enough: poop...all down his legs...on his arms...on his belly...fortunately NOT on his hands, toys, or face. But, ew. So I snatched him up - gingerly, of course, taking care not to spread the nastiness. I put him on the changing pad, reached for a baby wipe...a baby...a...wipe? No wipes. No wipes?! I had a naked baby with poop all over him and there were no freaking baby wipes! And by this time he was starting to get all, "What am I doing up here? I don't want to be up here! Get me down!" And then of course, of course, he rolled over and sat up. On his naked bottom. His naked, poopy bottom. YUCK YUCK YUCK!!! So I frantically searched for wipes, hoping all the time he wouldn't touch anything, and by then it was all up his arm and oh yeah, now there's a spot on the wall, too, and is that some on my shirt? And finally I found a new package of wipes in a drawer, opened the package, open, dangit, OPEN YOU STUPID THING!!! - and got him wiped up.

Next, I carried him, kicking and screaming, and put him in the tub, where his sister was playing cheefully and noisily enough that I was able to keep an "ear" on her the whole time even though I couldn't actually see her because did I mention I don't like leaving them in the tub alone? Yeah. But she was fine. Anyway, the Baby Guy stiffened up as usual as I tried to put him in the tub, and wouldn't sit down. So I picked him up and did a little swipe thing, trying to knock his feet out from under him while holding him, of course, so I could get him into a sitting position in the tub, and he's all stagger-stagger-stand. NO DANGIT SIT! SIT!!! I finally got him sitting and immediately soaped him up and got the poop residue washed off. Popped a toy in his hands and he was happy. For the time being.

But then I knew I had baby crap somewhere on my floor and I couldn't go clean it up because I had two babies in the tub and I couldn't leave them alone. So I tried to ignore the little voice in the back of my head whispering, Baby poop on your floor. Baby poop on your floor. The cats might step in it and track it around. Baby poop everywhere. Baby poop everywhere! I got them all washed up (if only it were as easy as that makes it sound, but I won't go into all of the gory bathtime battle details, at least the Birdie didn't act up, but it did include the Baby Guy standing and falling once in the tub, thank goodness he didn't hit his head) and got the Baby Guy out and turned the drain on on the tub while the Birdie was still sitting in it. Got him dried and in a diaper - IN A DIAPER!!! - and went back and got the Birdie out. By now, the Baby Guy was throwing a fit, I guess it was all just too traumatic for him. Yeah. For him. Got the Birdie dried...gave her a pull up to put on herself (she has to put them on herself, now) and went out and finally cleaned up the poop.

No more naked Baby Guys running around for a while. As cute as he is when he does it.

Public Service Announcement

I've just read a couple of instances where people have had their e-mail accounts or Facebook pages hacked and hijacked, with the pirate asking the victim's friends and family for money. The story they send is that the victim, whose e-mail they have hijacked - the friend/family member/acquaintance of the person from whom people are receiving an e-mail - has been stranded in another country (the two examples I've just heard are Scotland and England) and needs money to get home.

So if you receive an e-mailed requests for help in this way, please be sure to verify it before you send any money to anyone! (It is always wise to confirm pretty much anything you receive on the internet!)

Nights One & Two (or Trudge, Trudge, Trudge, Trudge)

Night One went almost better than I could have imagined, with the Baby Guy waking only once, around two-ish. This was pretty consistent with his usual schedule, but - but - he went back to sleep with two playings of the musical soother on his crib. And here is the important part: without a bottle.

I can probably count on one hand the number of times he has not insisted on a bottle (or two) overnight, or at least I could if I could remember them. This was a huge accomplishment. Huge.

And encouraging, of course. Could it be that this truly would be a new beginning, a new era of baby sleeping that didn't include a bottle overnight?

Maybe. But, as you might guess from the fact that I'm writing this post at 2:45 the next night (or next-next morning, in fact), Night Two is not going quite as well. This is not too alarming, because what would be a step forward without a step back? Plus, there were other factors that went into play tonight: he didn't eat quite as much today as he did yesterday (I'm guessing); my parents watched him all day while my husband and I played (the reason I'm guessing about the food); my parents put him to bed at their house before we picked him up around 10:30 p.m., and then we didn't get home until midnight-ish, when I put him back to bed for real; and, because of the craziness surrounding bedtime tonight, he didn't get any ibuprofen before bed.

So, yeah. It wasn't exactly a normal bedtime. So it's not truly alarming that it's been a little bit of a rougher night. He woke up fussing a bit before 2 a.m. I trudged upstairs, hugged him, settled him back in bed (I know, and I wouldn't pick him up, but he had escaped his covers so he needed to be settled anyway), and turned on Winnie-the-Pooh (the bedtime music crib soother thingie).

Then I returned to bed to listen to that on the monitor as it played over and over for about fifteen minutes.

Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh
Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff, He's
Winnie-the-Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh
Willy nilly silly ole bear!

Of course, there aren't any words on the crib soother, it's instrumental, but don't worry, my brain filled those in all on its own.

Oh, and the fussing. Don't forget the fussing. Because of course he didn't settle down. So I sighed, and groaned, and was about to trudge (there really isn't any other word for it) back up to re-settle him and turn Winnie-the-Pooh back on, when my husband got out of bed. "Where are you going?" I inquired. "Up to turn Winnie-the-Pooh back on." All right! Ooh - but - "Make sure you give him some ibuprofen!" Because I forgot the first time, and I'm pretty sure my teething little prince needed it.

Husband came back. Baby still fussing. Sigh. So, a third trudge, up I go, pick up the baby and hug him, and he just melts into my shoulder like that's where he really wants to sleep all night. Very sweet, precious, adorable...but, um, no, but thanks anyway. I settled him back in, to the misery of all involved (or maybe it was just him), turned Winnie-the-Pooh back on for yet another run (let's see how long those four D-batteries last, haha!) took some ibuprofen for myself, and settled down on the couch to write this post.

Because, at least that way, if I had to soothe him again, at least the trudge would be shorter this time. No stairs involved, anyway. Not enjoying the stairs at 2 a.m. At all.

As of now, he's been quiet for most of the time I spent writing this post. He's made a peep every now and then, but I am at least a little hopeful that we might avoid the warm milk again tonight. A little.

A New Beginning?

Tonight is our Baby Guy's first night in his own room. Yes, yes, YES. I know. Fifteen-and-a-half months old. Beyond due. I know.

Now that we're past that...

We have been toying with the idea of putting him in his own room for weeks, now. Months. Years. Oh, wait.

We were all set to do it last weekend, and then he went and got sick, and we decided a major upheaval probably wasn't in anyone's best interest.

We had planned on this weekend, then. The Bitty Girl would stay with my parents all weekend and we would be free to get the Baby Guy transitioned into his own room, his own bed...all night long...no matter how noisy it got, without fear of him disturbing his sister in the next room. But then our plans changed again, and our daughter stayed home, so I didn't think we were going to do it this weekend.

Then, five minutes before bedtime, my husband starts puttering around in the Baby Guy's room. He comes out with the video monitor and the apparent intent of using it tonight. "What are you doing with that?" I asked.

"I thought we could go ahead and put him in his room tonight anyway."

Despite my misgivings about doing it while the Bitty Girl is here, I didn't argue because I do want my son in his own room. As much as I love the proximity of having him in our bedroom, it just isn't a good long-term solution for us.

As I was sitting in the living room, I heard my husband laughing. My son likes his crib. It's bouncy. He stood at the side, held onto the rail, and jumped, and grinned. It was adorable.

I got my son's sleeping items - his blankets, his Lion, his Glowy Bear, and of course, the ubiquitous green stacking ring - and brought them upstairs. He got a little excited when he noticed me bringing them up the steps, and I think that's when he realized Something Was Up. I dumped them in the crib, brushed his teeth poked at his mouth with his toothbrush while he clamped his lips shut, whipped his head back and forth, and wailed, then dumped him in the crib.

He picked up his toys, showing them to me one by one as if to say, "Look, here are my friends! But what are they doing in here?"

And then he found out.

So far, so good. He went to sleep without a peep. See?

However, while many parents would find that encouraging, for me, that was no more than I had expected. Falling asleep is not a problem with him, regardless of where he is, for the most part. If he's ready to go to sleep (or often if it just seems to be expected of him) he will typically oblige.

No, falling asleep isn't the problem. It's staying asleep. So in another hour or three, we will know the truth. Will he sleep all night? Or will he wake up screaming, as usual, insisting on a bottle of warm rice milk? Will he wake the Birdie, thus causing her to also insist on a serving of warm milk in the middle of the night?

Probably. But maybe not. A parent can hope.

Stay tuned.

Redemption in the Kitchen

After my spectacular cookie failure last week, I knew I had to try again. I wasn't going to let a bunch of baking ingredients get the best of me. My cousin (I think...I'm pretty sure it was my cousin, although there wasn't a link in her comment) suggested I was the victim of bad baking soda, which made a lot of sense to me, given the deflated appearance of my pathetic attempt at cookies. So I ran out to the store, replenished our stock of eggs, and got some brand-new baking soda.

Armed with fresh ingredients, I tried again. This was a fairly important attempt, because the next day was a potluck picnic at work, and I didn't think anyone would eat burned cookies. Maybe it's just me. Of course, in typical "me" fashion (something that drives my husband nuts), I doubled the recipe this time. You know, that recipe that flopped the last time I tried to make it. Yeah, that one.

I got the ingredients ready and started mixing things together, and everything was going smoothly. I plopped in the butter, got ready to mix and realized - I'd only used enough butter for one batch. And that was the last stick. PANIC!

I started scrounging through the fridge to find another half-cup of something, anything, resembling butter. I found some Smart Balance spread. Perfect! Opened the tub...and realized there wasn't enough to make a full half-cup. I scooped it into the measuring cup anyway, smooshed it down, and went back to the fridge. Surely there was more Smart Balance in there. Surely. I could have sworn there was another tub of it. But...no.

And then I saw it. That tiny tub of honey butter that I'd bought on a whim when we were in Florida on vacation because I thought it would be good on...something. Who knows. I'd never used it. But...it was...butter-like...? Right? Never mind the fact that that trip to Florida was in January 2008. It was all I had.

Fingers crossed, I topped off my measuring half-cup of Smart Balance with some of the gooey honey butter, and hoped no one would end up sick (assuming the cookies came out edible). Mixed it all up, scooped the dough onto cookie sheets, and slid them into the oven. Then I switched on the oven light, sat down, and waited. I was not going to be surprised by smoke pouring out of the oven again! Nose almost pressed to the glass (but not quite, because that glass gets hot!) I watched as the cookies puffed up and baked, and didn't deflate. Success! Hooray!

They tasted pretty good, although they weren't spectacular, but I didn't bring any of the three dozen cookies I took to our picnic home, either.

But I realized something that evening when I baked the successful cookies. Cookies are pretty darn easy to make from scratch. I had no clue. So over the weekend I decided to try some variations. Because that's just the way I work. I can't stand to leave a recipe alone. So when I found a recipe for chocolate-chocolate chip cookies, the possibilities seemed endless.

First, I followed the recipe, but instead of chocolate chips, I added Andes Mints baking chips. Yum. Those turned out tasting like Thin Mints. Second, I did the same thing, except I added peanut butter-chocolate swirl chips. Those were tasty, too, but I thought the chips tasted a little weird. I'll probably try something different next time. Third, instead of adding cocoa powder, I added malted milk powder and made malted chocolate chip cookies. Again, very good, but I'll add more chocolate chips next time.

But those mint cookies. Wow. They were good. I've already made another batch of them. They're way too easy to eat!

I found the recipe in a Hershey's chocolate Christmas cookbook. It makes very moist, cakey cookies that are so good.

Hershey's Chocolate Cookies

• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup Hershey's cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 to 1-1/2 cups baking chips of your choice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together in a small bowl and set aside. Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter and vanilla to the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, mix until combined. Add egg and beat well. Turn down speed and mix in flour mixture until combined. Stir in chips. Grease a cookie sheet and, using two spoons, drop small mounds of dough about an inch and a half apart (these cookies won't spread much while baking). Bake on 350 for 8-10 minutes. Do not overbake.

I made 55 smallish cookies with this recipe, so there were approximately 73 calories per cookie.

Enjoy!

I'm not worthy!

On the weekends when we're not doing anything, my husband and I take turns letting each other sleep in. Sometimes that will be in the form of, "You get up now, let me sleep another half hour, then come wake me up and you can sleep a little while longer," but usually it means one of us sleeps in on Saturday and the other sleeps in on Sunday.

Yesterday morning, my husband got to sleep in while I fed the kids, then spent most of the morning watching Veggie Tales and sitting on the couch with my kids. When it came time to wake my husband up, I picked up my cell phone. His answer was groggy. Me: "It's 11:30. Do you want to get up?" And he did.

This morning, I got to sleep in while my husband took care of the kids. I think there were some Veggie Tales involved in this morning, too. But when it was time for him to get me up, he came in the bedroom with a homemade waffle that he had to make because I ate the last frozen waffles yesterday and I'm sure my daughter insisted on waffles for breakfast. He woke me up by bringing me breakfast in bed. And it was yummy.

I'm not worthy.

Woolly Weatherman

One of my favorite memories of fall is playing on my cousins' porch when the woolly worms were out. They always fascinated me. For all intents and purposes, they're bugs, but they're bugs with fur. Pettable bugs. And I remember some years when my cousins' porch was literally littered with them. I'd sit on the porch and watch them crawl around, pick them up, and, of course, pet them. What kid doesn't like to pet things?

Now that I'm all grown up, I've learned that there's more to those little critters than just pretty colors and pettable fur. Did you know that they can predict the weather? The pattern of orange and black stripes on them supposedly gives a hint as to how severe the upcoming winter will be.

Living in The City, I don't see them all that often anymore. Every once in a while I'll catch a glimpse of one on a drive, but it's seldom. However, since April, I've been working in a more rural setting. This given me the benefit of seeing little critters I didn't get to see while I was working downtown: from hawks and buzzards to grasshoppers and wolf spiders. (I didn't say they were all pleasant critters!)

As I left work the other day, I saw the first woolly worm I've seen in several years, little legs rolling it across the pavement. After my initial reaction of, "ooh, neat!" I am sorry to say that my very next thought was, "I wonder what it thinks the weather is going to be like this winter!"

As a little bit of background information, I work for a power company and have become a little bit of a weather geek because it can have a pretty hefty impact on our business. Take, for example, the remnants of hurricane Ike that came through almost a year ago and knocked out power to my whole city for roughly ten days. Take, for a second example, the ridiculously severe ice storm that hit in January and knocked power out for almost the entire central and western part of the state for almost two weeks. Yeah. It wasn't pretty.

So I call up my husband, who is a repository for all sorts of random knowledge about the weather and anything you can find in a Farmer's Almanac, and ask him how the woolly worm forecasts the winter. He responds that the black parts predict bad weather and the orange parts predict mild weather.

Ahhhh. Um. Really?

Then I guess it's a bad thing that this little guy looked like a fuzzy black hole crawling its way across the pavement?

It seems our woolly weather watcher is predicting a wicked winter.

If you live in the Bluegrass, consider yourself warned.

Cookie Catastrophe

There's nothing better than homemade chocolate chip cookies. Can I get an Amen? No matter how accustomed to the store-bought kind I get, there's nothing like a homemade chocolate chip cookie.

However, despite how much I like them, I have never before made them, myself. Not once. Not from scratch. I've done the Pillsbury roll, and I've done break 'n' bake, but never before have I started with just some flour, sugar, eggs, and, of course, chocolate chips.

Every now and then, the idea will flit across my mind. I might even go so far as to look up recipes on the internet or pull out some - you won't believe this - real cookbooks and see what I can find. But I've never actually gone through with it.

Until tonight, that is.

With my raging Fishlet success of last night, I was feeling pretty handy in the kitchen. Like I could do just about anything - certainly bake chocolate chip cookies. So I picked up eggs and chocolate chips on the way home and, after a fabulous dinner of pork ribs that my husband fixed on the grill, decided to give it a try.

Seriously, the ribs were awesome. I never need to go to Tony Roma's again - I'll just have my husband make them from now on. But I digress.

I followed the recipe, mixing things in little bowls here and there before adding them to the big bowl on the stand mixer - in the order specified in the recipe. I even tasted a bit of the raw dough - gasp! - a shocker for me, because I usually avoid eating anything with raw eggs in it. It tasted yummy. I couldn't wait for the cookies to be done.

I placed them on the baking sheets, and popped them in the oven, then took off to try to soothe my two (by now) screaming toddlers. (I don't think either one of them napped today. It has not been a pretty evening in our household.) I finally got both of them to settle down in my lap for a few minutes of peace.

"What does it smell like?" my astute 2.5-year-old daughter asked, all of a sudden.

"Cookies!" I replied blithely and happily, anticipating the warm, chewy, chocolatey goodness that awaited us.

I should have taken the hint.

A few minutes later, the timer on the oven went off. "Yay, cookies are done!" I crowed in excitement.

As I entered the kitchen, I sensed something was amiss. Maybe it was the - was that steam? Yes, surely it was just steam - pouring from the steam vent in the back of the stove. Despite my continuing optimism, I couldn't suppress an image that flitted across my brain of me opening the oven to have smoke come billowing out, National Lampoon-style.

I pulled out the oven mitts, opened the oven door...and sure enough, out poured enough smoke to make me cough and set our smoke detector to screaming in agony. I frantically pulled the cookie sheets out, and without taking a moment to be dismayed by the flat, black, pathetic little excuses for cookies that were splattered all over the sheet, I grabbed a third cookie sheet and began fanning the smoke detector.

Once I got it calmed down, I turned back to the stove and saw this:

Sigh.

The cookies on the second sheet weren't quite as bad - just flat, not burned - so at least I was able to give my daughter something. And truthfully, I don't think she even noticed. My son even ate a few bites.

But I noticed. And I am sad.

But not too sad to go pour a cup of milk and have a couple of deflated cookies before I go to bed.

Fishlets

I've spent most of the evening pretending like the minutes between 6:30 and 6:50 p.m. didn't happen.

I got home from work to an empty house. Ahhhhh. A few minutes of solitude before the Evening Insanity. But a quick phone call to my mother-in-law told me that my solitude wasn't going to be as peaceful as I had first thought. The kids hadn't eaten yet. Horror of horrors.

Let me point out that in our house, this truly is an event to make me groan. It's not that I don't like to cook - I love to eat, and I therefore enjoy creating things to eat. But feeding the kids is entirely different. Especially if I want to give them something that doesn't come out of a can, a bag, or a shrink-wrapped package. Something that they'll actually eat, that is.

As I stared first into the refrigerator, then into the freezer, then back into the fridge, then back into the freezer, my despair mounted. Then, suddenly, an idea began to take shape.

Fish sticks. Except, of course, we didn't have any. But we did have frozen fish fillets, some stuff called, "Andy's Seasoned Seafood Breading," and Canola Oil. So I thought, what the hey? Why don't I make some fish sticks?

I got out the fish, and set it to thawing (by running hot water over it continually for about ten minutes, during which time I think I about half-cooked it and I know I wasted a lot of water). I put some of the seasoning in a bowl and waited for the fish to thaw. I observed that one side of the fish was kind of orangish. Hmm, pretty. Getting bored, I put some frozen corn and frozen peas in the microwave to cook. Then I waited some more. Finally I checked the fish, and it was nice and squishy.

I pulled out the first fillet and started to cut it up. And then I realized - that pretty orangish side? Skin. Oh yeah. Nassss-teeeeee. And before I could make something fry-able for my children, I had to get it off.

Thus began the aforementioned twenty minutes I've been trying to forget. Peeling the skin off of raw, cold, slightly rubbery raw fish. Oh, don't get me wrong. I'll eat raw fish any day of the week. I love me some sushi. But Oh.My.Gosh, don't make me touch it. Ewwwww.

And not only was it necessary to touch it, but to get the skin off, I had to peel it. Squeeze it. Squish it. Mush it all around. After a few short minutes, there was nasty raw fish juice running down my arm. Augh. Augh. Aaaauuuuugggghhhh!

And there were three more fillets to go.

Please just kill me.

This brings me to another aside, by the way. When a package of fish says "Boneless" on the front, what do you expect? You expect it to be, well, free of bones. Am I right? So as I was mushing up those icky pieces of raw fish, you can imagine my surprise when I felt little sharp objects. Surely not bones. Not in my boneless fillets. The boneless fillets that I planned on feeding to my fifteen-month-old baby. Surely not.

Surely, yes. Yes, indeed. I find it amazing that the Kroger company has survived without a lawsuit over that one.

With all of the mutilation being caused by the mushing and, now, extra cutting to get the bones out, I realized fish sticks would be fairly difficult. I decided on fish nuggets, instead. Fishlets. This was perfect, really, because allowed me to make little bite-size pieces that would be just the right size for my son.

So I got them all cut up and fried an itty bitty piece to see if I had the oil right. Amazingly, it tasted pretty good, so I cooked up the rest (not that I wouldn't have cooked the rest, at that point, if it hadn't been). I was fairly shocked, because truthfully, frying and I don't tend to get along. I'm really not very good at it. I usually end up with 3/4 of my food burned onto the bottom of the pan, and the 1/4 that's left isn't edible. (So why did I think frying fish would be a good idea?) But somehow, it worked. Maybe it was because it was small pieces.

With my little fishlets done, I was ready for the real test: would the toddlers actually eat them? Particularly my son, who doesn't eat well, anyway. (Who am I kidding? Neither of my kids eats well unless it comes from McDonald's.)

The verdict: Yes. Fishlets apparently are agreeable to the one- and two-and-a-half-year-old palate. (Peas, on the other hand, are not. All my son did was smush them. Squish. Squish. Squish.) We will be making this again.

But I'll make sure that the fillets are boneless and skinless, next time.

Fishlets

12 oz boneless, skinless white fish (a little more than 12 oz if there are bones & skin)

Cornmeal type seafood breading

Enough oil to cover the bottom of a frying pan about 1/2 cm

Cut fish into small pieces. Pour about 1/4 cup breading into a bowl. Coat about 10 pieces at a time, then, when oil is hot, put those 10 pieces in one at a time. Cook a minute or two, turning halfway through, until the fishlets are golden brown. Transfer to a paper-towel-covered plate to cool and drain.

Makes 3-4 servings (if two of the people being served are toddlers).

"Not Me" Monday

It's time for the fun blog party, typically sponosored by MckMama, although she says she's not doing one this week - "Not Me Monday," in which we get to talk about all of the ways we didn't fall short during the past week.

Because, of course, we didn't make any mistakes this week. Not at all.

We finished our weight-loss competition at work this week, with our final weigh-in on Friday morning. I am pleased to announce that I did not gain four pounds during the competition. Oh no. I have much more willpower than that, and if I made a commitment to lose weight - even being on a team with someone else - then I certainly wouldn't have gained weight, instead.

Friday night, my sister- and brother-in-law were kind enough to give my husband and me a few baby-free hours. At dinner, I did not indulge in two beers. I would never be so irresponsible as to have more than one at a time. I was not tipsy when we picked my kiddos up. No, not at all. (But all joking aside, I have to add that my husband most certainly was driving.)

Speaking of indulging, at the other end of the spectrum, I did not, today, have two lattes while sitting at La Vida Java finishing the book I've been reading. Too much espresso makes me sick, so I wouldn't have four shots in the span of about two hours.


After having coffee, I didn't go to the bookstore looking for a computer reference book for something I'm working on at work. I mean, why would I do something for work on my own time? And then spend my own money on it? I'm not that dedicated. Really. I did not sit, cross-legged, on the ground in front of the books looking for what I needed, and I most certainly did not grin and say, "Heh heh, that's perfect!" out loud when I found what I was looking for. Seriously. I am not that much of a geek.


I have not been letting my children watch TV for most of the time since I got home. TV rots your brain. No, really - I actually do think that TV is not that great for kids their age. So I definitely have not had the TV on for them for about three hours straight. Shudder.


When my son came walking into the living room this evening sucking on a kleenex or cloth or something, I did not just let him keep doing it without checking to see what he had. I did not, a few minutes later, hear my daughter making a mess in her room and check on her to discover that she had gotten into the baby wipes and strewn them all around the room. I did not then realize my son wasn't sucking on a kleenex or a cloth - he was sucking on a baby wipe. Ew. At least it was clean.


Oh. And when I asked my daughter if she had gotten the wipes out and thrown them all over the room, my 2.5-year-old did not reply, "Baby Guy pulled one out, too." As if that made it all better.

I also, after having not gained weight during the recent weight-loss competition, have a chocolate milkshake from Sonic after the kids were in bed. Seriously. What the heck is wrong with me??? (By the way, have you had a Sonic chocolate milkshake? Wow. Best fast-food milkshake ever. Yum.)

And you'd better believe I haven't forgotten everything that happened before Friday that I was going to put in this post. My memory is not that bad. And if it is, I make notes. Of course.

So, what did you not do this week? Tell me all about it!

Since MckMama decided not to do one this week, I'm putting a MckLinky on my post so at least my friends can pop around to each others' blogs and see what other people didn't do this week. To put the list on your page, enclose the following code in "pointy brackets" and paste it at the end of your "Not Me Monday" post:

(open pointy bracket)script src="http://www.mcklinky.com/linky_include_basic.asp?id=4602" type="text/javascript"(close pointy bracket) (open pointy bracket)/script(close pointy bracket)

I hope that made sense. If not, leave me a comment on this post and I'll try to clarify.

Not Pretty

Wow. That was majorly not pretty. We just made a big change in the bedtime routine. Ever since my son was born, he has been my responsibility to put to bed and my daughter has been my husband's responsibility. This has gone over well, because my Baby Guy is a Mommy's Boy and my Bitty Girl is a Daddy's Girl. This is the case about 99% of the time. If my husband is around, the Birdie wants him, and if I'm around, Baby Guy wants Mommy. They will settle for the "other" parent if their preference isn't available, but otherwise, this is The Way It Has To Be.

However, this creates the fairly unfair situation of my husband always having to put the "difficult" baby to bed and me having to deal with the "difficult" baby overnight. My daughter is tough to get in bed (as only a 2.5-year-old can be), but she typically sleeps all night. My son is amazingly easy to put to bed (and so precious, he will tell you "ite-ite" repeatedly as you leave the room), but he wakes at least twice overnight, sometimes for a long time (last night I was dealing with him for about two hours, although there was some dozing going on during that time).

So we decided that now that I'm not nursing the Baby Guy anymore, it's time for the situation to change. Tonight, I put the Girl to bed and Daddy put the Boy to bed. Not unexpectedly, my daughter threw a royal tantrum that started before we got off of the couch.

The first step of the bedtime routine is the Warm Milk. However, the past two nights, my daughter has requested orange juice instead. Last night, she had her orange juice, and then as Daddy started putting her to bed, asked for warm milk also. And threw a fit when he refused. She probably screamed for a good fifteen minutes, only stopping after my husband went in and calmed her down (although he did not give her the milk).

Tonight, I tried to make it abundantly clear to my daughter that if she chose the orange juice, she would not get the warm milk. She agreed to this stipulation and insisted on orange juice anyway. Fine.

So, fast forward to the point when she finished her orange juice. The moment the sippy was empty, it started. "I want some warm milk."

Me: "No, sweetie, you got orange juice instead."

Her: (starts bawling)

Me: "Honey, I told you, you could have one or the other, not both. You chose orange juice."

Her: "Iiiiii waaaaahhhhnnntttt wahhhhhrrrmm miiiiihhhhllllkkkk!" (bawling)

Me: (in the calmest voice I can muster) "Didn't I tell you you could have either warm milk or orange juice?"

Her: (silence. then, resentfully:) "Yes."

Me: "And what did you choose?"

Her: (silence)

Me: "Did you choose orange juice?"

Her: (silence, then nods once.)

Me: "Okay. Tomorrow night, then, if you want warm milk, you may have it."

Her: "I want to have it now!"

Me: "No, you may have it tomorrow."

More crying ensues. This whole time, my son has been lying peacefully on my lap beside her, having finished his bottle of rice milk. But at this point, I have turned the TV off (yes, yes, more TV). He starts saying, "Hairbrush? Hairbrush?" This is his code for, "TV? TV?" As completely random as that seems, it actually makes sense. A forthcoming post will explain it.

Me: "Okay, time to get up." I stand up with both children, put my son in his chair, and start carrying my daughter to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

Her: "I don't want you to brush my teeth!"

Him: "Waaaaaahhhhhhhh!" ("How dare you put me down!")

I stop by her bedroom, toss her blankie on the bed (to the tune of "I WANT MY BLANKIE!") and squeeze the two of us into our under construction bathroom. Before I can get the door shut, my sobbing son toddles in after us.

A side note: my son can not be allowed in the bathroom on his own (and "on his own" means even if you are in there, if you are doing anything other than watching him with hawk-like alertness). If you lose track of him for even a second, he makes a beeline for the toilet paper roll. (Spin. Oooh. Spin, spin. Wheeee! Spin spin spin-spin-spin-spin-spinspinspinspinspin until the bathroom looks like the front yard of the local high school's least-favorite teacher after a couple of teenage boys realize they have extra time and a few extra rolls of Cottonelle on their hands.)

Eek.

Back in the bathroom with two unhappy toddlers. My son looks up me, wailing, and says, "Bup! Bup!" (I have no idea where the preceeding "B" came from, but I'm sure you can tell that this means he wants me to pick him up.) So, while still holding my daughter, I lean over and pick him up. By now, I have learned the art of picking up a second child while already holding one of them. Absolutely necessary for survival, but my lower back may never forgive me, no matter how many times I try to appease it with visits to the chiropractor.

Oh well. No pain, no gain.

I deposit my son back in my daughter's room, in front of the toys (hoping to distract him, even if it means I have a mess to clean up before bed) and cross back to the bathroom as quickly as I can. He immediately catches on to the ploy, but I can move pretty fast when I need to, and I get the bathroom door shut before he can get there. His anguished cries haunt me as he staggers, heartbroken, back into the living room.

I ignore him as only a put-upon parent can, prop my knee on the toilet lid, and sit my daughter on my thigh. "NO! I don't want you to brush my teeth! I WANT MY DADDY!" I ignore her (remember, put-upon parent), grab her toothbrush and squeeze toothpaste onto it.

Her: "No, not that one!"

Me: Blink. Blink. Ohhhh. "That's your brother's toothpaste, isn't it? I'm sorry! You're right!" I wash the toothpaste off of the toothbrush and grab one from the cabinet. "Do you want this one?"

Her: "No."

Me: (getting her strawberry kids toothpaste) "How about this one?"

Her: "No. I want that one." (pointing to - you guessed it - the baby toothpaste I had already rinsed off the toothbrush, once.)

Me: Shrug. I start to put toothpaste on the toothbrush again.

Her: "No, not that one!"

Me: Eyeroll.

Her: "I want my toothbrush!"

Ah. Riiiiiiiight. Did I mention that I usually put my son to bed? So by default, I grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste. Whoops! My bad. So I get her toothbrush and his toothpaste, and the rest of the tooth-brushing goes fairly smoothly. At least something did.

Then we finish and leave the bathroom, only to hear my husband (who had just gotten home) soothing my distressed Baby Guy. This starts another round of, "I WANT MY DADDY!" We go in and say goodnight to Daddy, who is holding the Baby Guy. My daughter grabs her daddy and tries to get him to take her. He hugs her and says goodnight, and I finally pry her free. And there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I get her in bed ("I don't want you to put me in bed!"), sing to her, and start her music. She is wailing. I turn the light out and close the door. Screaming continues. I sit down and start to write this post. Still screaming. My husband comes upstairs after sharing some "ite-ite's" with Baby Guy. Bitty Girl still screaming. I get about a third of the way through this post. Screaming starts to die down. About halfway through this, it finally stops.

Whew. I just hope she sleeps all night.

Next obstacle: middle-of-the-night when Baby Guy wakes up and realizes Daddy is the one taking care of him. Hopefully without any more weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Breaking News

This just happened. While I blog, I'm (gasp!) letting my son watch TV. Specifically, the Veggie Tales Silly Song Countdown. It's on The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, in this silly song, Larry the Cucumber is "The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps," an unconventional vet who, instead of giving medicines, yodels to people's sick pets to make them feel better. Doesn't sound effective, you think? It isn't. After each verse, the vet's nurse, played by Pa Grape, gives each owner some practical advice that is really what cures the pet, although the yodeling vet gets all the credit.

Aha. Here it is on YouTube.

Anyway, the second verse is, "This is a song...for your pregnant kitty..." As it started, before Larry started singing, my 15-month-old son announced, "Kitty!"

I guess you had to be there.

Edited to add: Something else just happened. More Toddler Terrorism. I just happened to catch out of the corner of my eye - my daughter just took her socks off and stuffed them in between the couch and the ottoman. I often find her socks down there, so she must do this a lot. I thought they just happened to end up there, somehow. Now I know otherwise.

An Unintentional Break

I haven't posted lately, mostly because I've been too busy reading in the evenings to turn on my computer and write. I apologize. Not that I feel anyone is expecting an apology, but I have intended to post several times this week, I just never got around to it. I tend to get fairly caught up in books, and have trouble putting them down, because, my goodness, what if I stop reading and miss something important? It might ruin the whole story.

I usually don't blog while my kids are awake, but I decided on the way home that I'd get something new out there, even if it meant neglecting not playing with my children. Right now, they are chasing each other around the house. My son is dragging around my daughter's nightgown as if it were a blankie.

I have no idea.

Every once in a while, my son stops by and commands, "Bup! Bup!" At that time, I am expected to stop what I'm doing, put my computer aside, and pick him up so he can hug me, wallow all over, and try his darnedest to get his pudgy little fingers on my computer keys.

My daughter is wearing panties instead of pull-ups for the first time tonight. Not long ago, I witnessed my husband chasing her around the living room, waving purple panties, as she threw a fit because she didn't want to put them back on after sitting on the potty (she wanted to change to her princess panties). He finally held her down and got them on her. Surprisingly, she's kept them on.

Now they're playing in my daughter's bedroom, where the sound of toys being strewn about would make the writers of Stomp jealous. If only they could clean up with the same amount of enthusiasm and creativity.

A mom can wish.

The Biggest Loser Gainer

A few times, I've alluded to a weight loss competition we're doing here at work. Well, today was the big day - final weigh-in.

My result? I'm sure this will utterly shock you. Four pounds. Yup, four stinking pounds.

Gained.

Sigh.

Just...say...NO!!!

Why is it so hard? Why? When the office triathlete - excuse me, Iron Man competitor - comes by with a box of doughnuts that I know he wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole - why is it that just as the words, "That's really nice, but no, thanks anyway," start to pass my lips, my traitorous arm is reaching out and I find myself saying, instead, "Oooh, I really shouldn't, but..."

But.

Of course, I did.

And now I'm 500 calories fuller than I was before the chocolate-covered cream-filled goodies came by. (Why did it have to be my favorite kind?)

Sigh.

A Fun-Filled Day

My family and I recently spent the day at my parents' house, celebrating my mom's...well, let's just say a milestone birthday. It was very low-key (probably a little bit too low-key, sorry, Mom) and we basically just took the kids up to hang out with Mom and Dad for the day.

We did a lot of different things while we were there, though:

Picked tomatoes with Granddaddy...

...ate the tomatoes right off the vine...

...wore crowns made from foam floor pads...

...got haircuts (before)....

...(after)...

...(before)...

...(after)...

...made funny faces...

...ate some birthday cake...

...ate some more birthday cake...

...and played in the kitty-tree.

All-in-all, it was a fabulous, fun-filled day!

Laryngitis

I have something that's been bothering me for the past couple of days. I think I might be losing my voice. No, I'm not referring to the cold my daughter passed on to me this weekend or the barking cough you can hear from two states away. (Hear it? Wait - there it was again. Yes, that's me.) I mean my writing voice.

See, I'm one of those people who you could call...impressionable. I tend to pick up on the mannerisms of people around me and unconsciously mimic them. I was reminded of this recently, when my daughter's daycare provider remarked that my daughter is well-behaved, but tends to pick up bad behaviors from other people - she tends to copy them. I thought about that and realized something: she comes by that honestly. I do the same thing.

It's like when you've been in a foreign country for a while (is New England a foreign country?) and when you get home, people around you comment on your accent. (Where are you from? Oh, I'm from London. Aha...I thought so. You have a really cool accent. Uh, no...London, Kentucky.)

But who knows. Maybe you have a cool accent if you're from London, KY, too. Or, some kind of accent, that someone, somewhere, thinks is cool.

My point is, when I read and then turn around and write something, I think I tend to pick up the writing voice of whatever author I've been reading. And since I've been reading blogs lately...and now I'm writing a blog...I suspect I've let myself "sound" like other bloggers. Especially since I think there are quite a few out there with pretty funny writing styles.

I like funny. I like to be funny. I have a pretty decent sense of humor, but I can not tell a joke. For the life of me. If you tied a rope around my ankle and dangled me off a bridge and told me I'd be hanging there until I told you a funny joke...well, I'd probably scream something like, "I'm hanging from a bridge by my ankle! MY ANKLE!!! AND YOU WANT ME TO BE FUNNY???" But I can guarantee that I wouldn't make you laugh. Unless you were mean like that, and then that's just not cool. Not cool.

But I'm not sure how naturally I come by "funny," even in writing. Maybe I've learned to write funny (funnily? - haha, that must be correct, Blogger didn't put a red squiggly line under it). Maybe I'm just copying others' styles. Probably it's a bit of both. I'm going to work on sounding a bit more like me, though...and try to still be funny while I'm at it.

So if all of you stop following me in the next week or so, I guess I'll know why.

"Not Me" Monday

It's time again for "Not Me" Monday, a blog carnival sponsored by MckMama-


What? I should take a look at the link I just posted? (Really, Blue? Do you think there'll be another clue? Oh - sorry. Got carried away.)


Well, look at that. It's actually not a blog carnival, according to Wikipedia. Apparently in a blog carnival, the "host" of the carnival collects entries and publishes them on his or her own blog. When a group of bloggers all post about the same topic on their own blogs, it's apparently called a synchroblog, or synchronized blogging.


So I guess "Not Me" Monday is not a blog carnival (do you think maybe that was intentional?) hosted by MckMama in which we get to post about all of the things we shouldn't have done did not do during the past week.


I did not sit up way too late pretty much every night this week, writing blog posts and reading blogs and message boards. My rest is much too important for me to do something like that, especially with a baby who wakes up wanting his mommy multiple times in the night.


Speaking of that baby, I did not let my son suck bathwater out of the washcloth in the tub to keep him happy while I washed his hair. Yuck. Bathwater is gross, and I wouldn't let my baby guy drink even a very small amount of it!


I also did not get "scolded" earlier this week by some of my co-workers for picking up lunch for one of them but not offering to get something for everyone else. I wouldn't be that thoughtless. I mean, those poor guys can't leave their desks for more than a few minutes at a time, so if I were bringing back something for one of them, I would never forget to ask and see if the other guys wanted something.


I definitely did not let my son play with a full, unopened can of ginger ale to distract him while he got his hair cut.


(Notice the color of the can. Yeah. He's that predictable.)

I did not laugh and take pictures as he pretended to drink from the can.



He did not drop the can many, many times.

I did not let him continue to walk around with the can after we were finished with his hair. My husband didn't see him and say, "Don't let him put that in his mouth! It's dirty!"


I certainly didn't respond with, "Do you wash them before you drink out of them?" and let my son keep playing with it.


I did not, as I was strapping my daughter into the high chair for a little Time Out, hear a suspicious SSSSSSsssssssss noise from the kitchen. Oh, no, definitely not. Because that would mean -


My son was not sitting in a puddle of ginger ale, gleefully watching golden stickiness spray out of a pin-sized hole in the top of the can all over my parents' kitchen floor. No, that certainly didn't happen, because I never let him play with the can in the first place.


I also didn't wipe the ginger ale up with a dry paper towel without washing the golden stickiness off the floor. Oh, no, not me...I'm a much better daughter than that. I wouldn't leave that type of a mess for my poor mom, whose milestone birthday we were there celebrating, to clean up. Cough cough. (Sorry, Mom.)


Speaking of my mom's birthday, I didn't help myself to a second piece of cake and ice cream when no one else was in the dining room. Because, remember? I'm not in a competition at work to lose weight. (Sounds like I'm going to lose something, doesn't it?)


Whew. I think that's enough for this week!


Oh, wait. How about one more: I did not stay up too late tonight writing my "Not Me" Monday post! I do not still have to shower, which means it will not be pretty close to midnight by the time I get to bed. That would be awfully irresponsible of me, wouldn't it?


Wouldn't...it...?


(Edited 8/18 to add: I also did not spend all that time writing my "Not Me" Monday post just to completely forget to add it to MckMama's Mr. Linky list. Nooooo...I would never be that scatterbrained. Not me!)

Fun Post With a Contest

My husband just started his blog, Can I Get That In Writing? two days ago, and tonight he put up a funny post with an amusing contest attached to it. (Please note that this is not a giveaway contest, just something so that everyone can have a little bit of fun.) So if you have a couple of minutes, head over there, check out his blog, and play his game. You'll probably get a laugh or two out of the comments (at least out of mine, I hope!)

He's a great writer (as you probably saw from my post the other day), so I'm sure you'll enjoy what he has to say!

Movin' On Up

Have I mentioned that my Baby Guy is a tiny thing? He was a whopping 6 lbs 9 oz and 18.5 inches when he was born, and he's stayed on the small side ever since. He's consistently in the "less than 3rd" percentile in both weight and length/height when we go to his well-baby checkups. So, although he has a low weight, it's consistent with how short he is. He's healthy, just small.

(Although since he has switched from primarily nursing and being fed from jars to drinking rice milk and self-feeding, his weight has dropped a bit, but we're working on that.)

We went to church tonight (we typically go on Saturday evenings, which is so much easier with parents who like to sleep in two young children). We were running a bit late, so my husband dropped the three of us off near the door and went and parked while I dragged hurried my children in, while praying there would be room in child care for both of them.

As I got to check-in, my heart sank temporarily. We go to a somewhat larger church, and I was dismayed to find a surprisingly long line (although why I was surprised, I don't know - it's not like we're the only family with small children that tends to run late sometimes). My turn came up, and I checked my children in - my son into "Suite C" and my daughter into "Suite E."

Suite E? I thought. That sounded weird, but figured I was just confused. That happens frequently from time to time.

This whole time, my daughter had been whining. "I want my Daddy! I want my Daddy!" Sigh. Then it became, "I want my Kitty!" and I realized we had potentially made a grave mistake - we had left her Kitty at home. My daughter and Kitty are inseparable, and there was a good chance we were in for a rough ride since we had left it behind.

As she was sniffling, red-nosed, beside me and I was trying to figure out where she was supposed to go, a volunteer walked up. She gave my daughter a sticker, cajoled a little smile out of her (which disappeared the moment she walked away) and smiled at my son, whom I was holding.

"It's Promotion Weekend," she informed me.

Huh? My cluelessness must have shown on my face, because she continued, "Your daughter will be moving up to the next class today. Your son won't be moving, though."

Ahhh. That's right - two weeks ago we were told that our children would be moving up in two weeks. That would make it today. That would also explain the reason "Suite E" sounded odd. Since my children are only a year apart (from a school perspective), my daughter has been in Suite C for a year, while my son has been in Suite A. So "Suite C" still sounded familiar because that's where she has been, while Suite E sounded weird because neither of them has been in it before.

Promotion Weekend. What a funny thing to call it. And then I realized something else hadn't sounded right.

"Why won't my son be moving up today?"

She smiled. "Oh, he'd have to turn 1 by October 1st to move up today! How old is he?"

Uhhhhh...."Fourteen months."

Blink. "Oh! Well, you're a little guy, aren't you?"

Yup. My little bitty guy.

But...wow. October 1 is still a month-and-a-half away, and she thought he still wouldn't be a year old yet. I know he's little, but does he really look that much smaller than he "should?" Wow.

Anyway both of my children "moved up" today. I actually thought it was strange that my daughter was moving up so soon...until we got to the room and I realized she was moving into the two-year-old class. She'll be 3 in December.

When I picked up my son after the service, I had to laugh. Clutched in his left hand was - you guessed it - the green ring from their stacking toy.

And - bonus - it was star-shaped.