A New One

I believe today is the first day I've gotten a hit from this Google search: "eating dead ants while pregnant."

Sometimes I really want to find the people who search for this stuff. I'd love to find the guy/chick who was searching way back when for "fox news legs crossed problem." It piqued my interest and I found myself searching for the same thing - surely someone out there knows what the problem is?

I wanted to contact today's searcher and ask if they realized the black specks in their food were dead ants only after they'd eaten about half of it, and that's why they turned to the internet, or if they had a craving for dead ants and were tired of ignoring it. I've heard of pica showing up in pregnant women, but not for dead ants. Why dead? Why not live? They'd die pretty quickly anyway, right?

6 Words

Y'all have heard about the 6-word memoir, right? (Thanks to Sarah for helping me find where it started).

I've thought of a couple, but the one that sums mine up best is:

Sad kid now has happy kids.

Other contenders:

Got married, got Ph.D., got kids.

Afraid I'll never move fast again.

Sucky childhood, great adulthood, all good.

Sometimes when I can't sleep, I try to think of more. It always knocks me out, like a good meme should. G'night.

Ya Gotta Reach for the Stars, or Something Like That

I like goals. They keep me focused.

I used to carry around a list in my planner. It read:

1. Get married.
2. Have children.
3. Own a house with a garden.
4. Finish my dissertation.
5. Have a happy life.
6. Be organized.
7. Have healthy habits.

So, I'm still not so organized, but everything else is checked off. When I started digital scrapping, I wanted to get one of my layouts in a scrapping magazine. Check.

I wanted to win some sort of local recognition for my blog. Check.

I tend to have very specific goals, and once I reach them, I'm good. I didn't get involved in the competitive sport that is scrapbooking, I just met my goal and then stopped. I didn't write a book, like my co-winner in that Parent's Press contest, I just write a blog. I don't pimp for comments, I don't market my blog, I just write and some people read, and that's awesome. But now, I have a new goal.

I want my blog to be listed on Guy Kawasaki's aggregate site, Alltop. One of the cool things about his site is that it has a group of daddy blogs. I'm not sure why I want to be on this list. I just do. So I sent an e-mail, and if you want me on there, you could, too, by shooting an e-mail to info@alltop.com. What the hell. I mean, I gave you three posts in one day, right?

Quick, Send the Commercial Crew Out

The scene right now: We have peaceful solo piano music playing. There's a light sprinkle of rain outside. I am addressing thank you notes in the fading afternoon light whilst I sip a cup of tea. Ben is lying on the floor cuddled under a blanket, quietly coloring in a book. The kitchen is clean and we can smell the minty aroma of the candle burning on the counter.

Dude, my afternoons are NEVER like this. I attribute it all to A., who might be sick and has been passed out on the sofa for the last hour. It's so peaceful when he's passed out.

And I'm Quite Fond of You, Too

"Hey Mama! I wrote you a song! Wanna hear it?"

"Of course!"

"'How do I like you, Mom?
How do I like you, Mom?
Oh, I like you Mom,
Oh, I like you Mom,
Oh, I like you very much.'

Here - you can have the song."

How My Father Got His Name

I just like this story.

So my dad grew up poor. They lived on a farm, his father was disabled and his mother supported the family as a home health nurse. Home health care nurses don't make much money now, so I can't imagine they made much money then.

So Grandma found herself working for a rich guy (the guy who invented roller shades, in fact), and her young son (my father) was about 12 years old. She thought...."Hmmm. This guy doesn't have many heirs, and he's rich and he's going to die." Always a schemer from what I hear, she thought, what better way to tap into the wealth than to name a son after the guy? But she wasn't going to have any more children, so it was going to have to be the son she already had. She changed my dad's name, legally, to this old guy's name. His first and middle name used to be Albert Guest. After that, he began going by Rich Guy's name.

When I heard this story, both I and his wife asked, "But wasn't that weird to suddenly have your name changed when you were already 12?" He answered, "Eh, I didn't care what they called me." My father doesn't have a lot of fancy notions about self-identity.

So my dad's name was legally changed, and when Rich Guy died, he left him $100.

Wazzup?

Wow, has it really been a week?

So I have a question. My new cell phone has a camera! Yes, I realize that everyone's does, but it's still new to me because I am in the dark ages about cellular technology. Is e-mailing a photo to myself the only way to get it off the camera and on to my computer? Because I can't do that. So I have a really cute picture of A. holding hands with his little girlfriend going down the double slide at the park but you'll need to be beside me to see it. With a magnifying glass.

Some Springy Crafts:

Got this one from Family Fun magazine. Can't find it on their website yet. How cute are these guys? You take a nylon stocking, put a tablespoon of grass seed in the toe, a couple of scoops of planting soil on top, tie a knot and put them upside down in decorated yogurt containers about half full of water. About a week later, hair! And a few weeks later, they look like this.


Here's Ben with the Easter Bonnet he made himself from a paper bowl. I painted the whole thing with glue, gave him stickers and tissue paper and let him have at it:


And here are the cupcakes we made for A.'s school spring party. I felt like Ms.-Awesome-Stay-At-Home-Part-Time-Mom showing up with these homemade decorated things. Probably would have been a better picture if I'd taken them out of the tins, but sheesh. I'm not a perfectionist.



And finally, another how-cute-is-this? picture. This is Ben upon blowing out the candles on his cupcake on his "real" birthday. He was so excited.

The Photographer as a Young Man

A friend gave Ben a Fisher Price digital camera for his birthday. He was thrilled. Taking pictures is OK, but the best part is the review buttons. Every time I take his picture with my camera, he yells, "Lemme see! Lemme see!" and sometimes he's not fast enough and I'm too impatient to flip back to it ("I'll show you later! Get back there and smile!"). So now he takes pictures just so he can push the arrows and see them again and again and again.

We did get lots of feet pictures, lots of floor pictures and one of me providing a nice large pillow for A. to snuggle.

Catholic Logic

There's been a push for a while to replace masculine language with non-gender-specific language in the Catholic Mass. It throws me off sometimes because I say the prayers in mass by rote, as I learned them in Catholic School, and when they've gone and changed the words it makes my sporadic attendance obvious.

Anyway, one recent change in North America was for the priest to say at baptisms, "I baptize you in the name of the Creator, Liberator and Sustainer," instead of "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." They were trying to get away from masculine language.

Oh no no no. Pope says you can't say that. The new phrase doesn't emphasize the trinity enough, and after all, the whole trinity thing is what separates us from other Christians.

Fine. Words matter. BUT....not only do we have to change the words back to the original....every baptism that was performed using the renegade phrase is INVALID and needs to be re-performed. And, of course, if you have an invalid baptism, any other sacraments that came afterward, like, say, marriage, would be invalid too.

Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Give me a break. It's like the Pope is stomping his feet, yelling, "You wanna go and do your own thing? Well, ha ha, none of those baptisms count! You have to do 'em all over! :P~~~~!"

This is what makes me crazy about the Vatican. Do they really think that God is keeping a list of what phrase was used? Are they going to withhold Holy Communion because someone may have an invalid baptismal sacrament? Am I going to organize a re-baptism for my sons because I don't remember which phrase was used? We had a ceremony, the babies were anointed and welcomed into the church, that's what happened and that was the point.

This is all about a church being authoritarian and concerned with earthly power. They're afraid that if they say, "Naw, you don't have to re-baptize everyone," that could subvert the idea that they are all powerful and always right about everything. Arrrgh. C'mon guys, this is why people think Catholics are crazy.

Chocolate-covered holy wafers to anyone who reads this rant. But only if you've been baptized correctly.

ETA: Oh, and by the way, those who get re-baptized are dammed anyway because they get water sprinkled on them instead of a full bath. Bummer.

Oh, BTW, no leprechauns were caught yesterday. But Larry Leprechaun took A.'s money and left a note saying, "Better luck next time, lads."

Mama's All-Green Buffet

So we had the All-Green Buffet last night.


The menu included: tilapia with chermoula, spinach fettucine with pesto, green salad, Chinese Broccoli salad, and lime jello. I pride myself on not just adding food coloring to mashed potatoes. In fact, although I admit the green of the lime jello was probably artificial (you think?), our own little bottle of food coloring never left the cabinet. For appetizers we served guacamole, green grapes, olives and celery. All green, all evening.

Ben beamed like a little star when everyone sang happy birthday to him. At the end of the night he said, "I had a good birthday and now I'm going to sleep."

I was glad we didn't have to cancel.

Tonight A. set his leprechaun trap and has high hopes. He baited it with his own money. "We can be the first people ever to catch a leprechaun and we'll get our wishes granted and we'll be famous!"

Now if he'd just go to sleep so I can turn the milk green. Gotta get out the food coloring for that, I guess.

And, to finish off, I gave away CDs of Irish Music, which ended with Denis Leary's Traditional Irish Folk Song. Here's an interpretation from YouTube:

Thought of Something

Today I dragged myself over to A's school for our second parent-teacher conference. G. met me from work.


Teacher: You know, I just love the "Feeling Days" you have at home that he tells me about! He talks about them all the time!

Us: ????

Teacher: You do have "Feeling Days" at home, like he says? Where you all get to talk about your feelings?

Us: Um, no. We have no idea what he's talking about.


We finally realized he was probably referring to the times when G or I get home from work, Ben is asleep and A. can tell us all about his day without interruption from his little brother. Don't know how he came up with "feeling days" for that, but whatever.

We also got feedback on how's he's performing a certain bodily function that I won't go into here to save him future embarrassment, but let's just say I never realized they evaluated kindergartners on that, too.

Still Alive, Barely

Yes, I'm still alive. Barely. I'm upright, clothed, sort-of showered, even. I even went grocery shopping today for the party, so I'm actually much, much better. But I'm so overwhelmed with how sick I was, that I'm not going to post anything else today because I'll I can think of to talk about is how FREAKIN' SICK I was.

I was really, really sick. Like, I was afraid I was going to end up in the hospital sick.

So I'll post again when I have something else to say. Like "Happy 3rd Birthday, Ben!"

Woah

Dudes. I haven't been this sick since before A. was born. My fever is hovering between 102 and 103 and I can't sleep even with the nice Robitussen with codeine the doc gave me. Doc says I probably got 2-3 viruses back to back, which is why I got a little better and then a whole lot worse. I'm actually thinking of calling an emergency nanny service in the morning because if I'm not better, I ain't going to be taking care of the boys.

Oh, and, not to be left out I guess, G. has a double ear infection. Woo hoo team Lunasea!

We have been visited with the plague upon our house. No one escaped, although G. and A. got hit less severely than Ben and I.

I'm at that stage of the flu where I don't think I'm ever going to feel better. Ben seems to be less of a moaning lump today, so that gives me hope. I've made all kinds of deals with God - "I promise to eat a macrobiotic diet and take my fish oil capsules and exercise daily if you'll please just make this go away."

We have a party in 5 days - I have to be upright in order to disinfect the house.

BTW, TheraFlu doesn't do a damn thing.

From the House of Sick

Lunasea was first down the runway with an unexpected and dramatic Stomach Flu de Diablo, and she apparently is slated to follow that up with a moderate head cold, but now we hear she is trying to exit the show altogether! We have exclusive video of Lunasea screaming that she has fulfilled her sickness contract for the week with her first appearance and is flat-out refusing to do any more sick time. We'll keep you updated with the latest on the divalicious fight.

G. made his appearance with a moderate, but just-this-side-of-staying-home, head cold. He's showing his trademark body aches and coughing. Nothing out of the ordinary here, but still a solid showing.

A. slid into the show at the last minute, getting sent home with a headache on Monday, but couldn't compete with Lunasea's dramatic, gut-wrenching spotlight. He followed up with the head cold we're seeing so much of this season, but is still working on getting to the head of the pack, illness-wise. Consistency over drama is what we see with this young man.

With a late start, Benjamin has come from behind and taken the lead with a full-blown flu. His semi-high fever blew the rest of the contenders out of the sick bay. Being a relative newcomer, he gets the opportunity to use his youth to his advantage, not only getting up at 4:30am, but forcing the rest of the team up as well. You can bet the team, especially our desperately-trying-to-be-flu-resistant diva, Lunasea, is not happy with this turn of events.

From the Sick Bay

Me: I am so sick.

G: You've got the flu.

Me: No, I don't think so. I'm just throwing up, etc*. And that's gotten better. I think this is like a stomach flu.

G: Well, that's the flu, isn't it?

Me: No, if you have the flu you have a fever, and it lasts a week. I already feel better than I did this morning.

G: Mmmm. OK.

Me: I do have body aches, though. My hip is killing me.

Both of us: TOXIC SYNOVITIS!

Me: Naw, I can walk on it. I took some Aleve and that helped.

G: Throwing up, body aches? I think you have the flu.

Me: Naw, I don't have a fever. I bet I'm better by tomorrow.

A few hours later, I sit here, more or less upright, not throwing up (or otherwise purging my body of every possible ounce of liquid, if you know what I mean). But now I have a fever. I hate it when he's right.

*If you know what I mean.

New Look

So I was thinking it might be easier to read this blog if it only had two columns. So I switched to a two-column template by SuckMyLolly. I chose it because I could keep my own header.

Not sure I like it. I mean, the template itself is cute. I'm just not sure it's me. But then, I tend to be against change of any sort, so I would appreciate your thoughts. I did save my old one so I can always go back to it. I think.

Woke Up, Fell Out of Bed, Dragged a Comb Across My Head

Somewhere I saw a photo challenge suggesting taking "A Day in the Life" pictures on Leap Day 08. Now I can't find where the challenge was - thought it was a group on Flickr but all I see are people leaping on Leap Day. Ah well - I did it anyway and now you can share the joy of my February 29th as I take A. to school, run errands and eat dinner. Woo Hoo. I guess that's kind of the point of "Day in the Life" photo collections, although it made me feel pretty boring.

I'm also at that point where I know my photos aren't "good," but I don't have the skill to make them better yet. It's an annoying place.