True Love

True love is crawling into bed with someone who says their tummy hurts while wearing cashmere.

Please, oh please make the tummy bug go away. Please. I beg you.

Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

So a question for y'all (and DON'T you DARE Google it!). How many oceans are there and what are their names (Gina, you can totally steal this for your trivia contest, which you have been sorely neglectful of now that I am just questions away from that candy!)

No less than ten moms were completely befuddled by this question while waiting for swimming class to get out this afternoon. And no less than eight of us got on our cell phones and asked our husbands to Google the answer. The only person who got it right without the help of Google? The fifth grader.

Give it a whirl. Perhaps some of you are more up on such things than I...

Overheard in the middle of the night

C: "Mommy, I need to snuggle in your bed. I had a nightmare yesterday."

Chichimama: "Ulngh? A nightmare yesterday doesn't translate into a snuggle in my bed today."

C: "Huh. OK. Night Mom."

About five minutes later....

C: "Mommy? How about a snuggle in my bed? Because it was a scary dream you know."

Chichimama: "Do you want to tell me about it?"

C: "Well....I don't ACTUALLY remember it. But I am SURE it was scary."

Mommy: "C, I am tired. And if I don't go back to sleep I will be tired tomorrow, and if I am tired tomorrow than I may not be very nice, because I get cranky when I am tired. Much like a certain little boy I know."

C: "Oh fine." C stomps off to bed and almost wakes A.

Chichimama: "CRANKY C! I am already CRANKY!"

C: "Then clearly your bedtime is too late and we need to start making sure you go to bed earlier."

A slight edge

I think that, given my druthers, I would take the tummy bug over the multi-day viral something with fever. Even though the tummy bug is gross, at least once your child has thrown up all over themselves, you, and the new rug, she is somewhat happy, at least until she needs to throw up again. And, in general, the tummy bug isn't a long, drawn out affair.

Or, perhaps I am just trying to make myself see the silver lining.

Knit A Long Update

So those of you who are interested can head on over to the knit-a-long blog, where an interesting discussion is already underway, even though there is no pattern yet.

I think we found his calling

My five, almost six year old just seriously trounced me in chess. It was his second full game ever. His first? He put me in check mate in four moves.

I think it is time to dig my old chess books out of the attic and hand them over, after I re-read them of course.

It is so nice to have a heads up

M is currently upstairs, felled by a tummy bug of explosive proportions. It is so nice to know how I will be spending the next several days. I have banned the children from the upstairs, but we all know that it is only a matter of time before the rest of the family succumbs.

We were due for a tummy bug, it's been about two years since we had one. But this was not the weekend I would have chosen. Right about now we were supposed to be in the car, headed off on a grand family adventure to view the dinosaurs at the large museum in the city that never sleeps, followed by dinner at the best pizza dive known to man.

And the real crime? I had JUST washed and remade all the beds.

Failed

C failed his first school test, the eye exam, Yes, the child of two people who can't see squat without their glasses, and whose aunts, and grandparents, and great-grandparents, all wear glasses, is apparently as blind as a bat. Or else he was just in a really uncooperative mood when they did the eye exam at school. Given the genes, however, we're going with blind as a bat.

Now the parental guilt can kick in about not taking him to the eye doctor's earlier....

Decisions Decisions

OK, so I'm going to give you all some felted bag choices. I am all about democracy here. Except I have a favorite, which I'm not telling you, and if it's close we're going with it. Because it's my party and I can choose if I want to :-). Kidding (sort of).

Drum roll please!!!!

First up, Amanda's Squatty Side Kick.

Next up, the Carried-Away Felted Bag. (requires getting your hands on the book).

Finally, the Sophie Bag. As recommended by Stephanie.

Comments close whenever enough of you chime in. Or sometime next week when I get itchy for closure...

And the winner is....

A felted bag! If you are interested in knitting along, I've set up a separate blog and will give anyone who is knitting access to it. So email me if you are interested and I'll figure out how to set that up. I am searching for a pattern tonight, right after I plan the Sunday School lesson for tomorrow.

Winter Blues

I've hit the winter blues, despite the fact that it is supposed to be pushing 60 this week. Don't mind me as I crawl back into bed and pretend I am a hibernating bear for a while...

Can you say addicted?

I currently have six Scrabble games going on Facebook. I'm just a wee bit addicted. But if you're on Facebook and want to play...

It still cracks me up a decade later

My all time favorite email correspondence...

The setting:

I am in grad school, buried in a windowless room in the middle of summer. Everyone else in the world has managed to wrangle a vacation day, but yet there I sit, running query after query on my not terribly well constructed database that I know needs to be rebuilt but would require way too much effort for this particular day. Rebecca is, I believe, at the dot-com startup in a similarly windowless environment.

Chichimama: "Yawn."

Two seconds later...

Rebecca: "Burp."

I have no idea why this cracks me up so, but it does. So there.

Burp.

Resolutions

Last year my resolution was to whine less, or at least balance out the whining with happy thoughts. Yeah. That worked out for me.

This year I am going to stick to the one resolution thing, but I think my resolution for the year is actually doable.

I hereby resolve to be a list person.

"A LIST person?" you ask. Yes! A list person. You know, one of those people that keeps a running tab of things that need to get done on an ACTUAL piece of paper. And then they CROSS the things off that running tab once things are DONE. A novel concept, for me.

I have no illusions that I will become quite the list person that Organized Friend is, as she actually types up her list every night and assigns precise times to each activity (9-9:30, grocery shop. 9:30 to 9:40, put away groceries) just to make sure she can fit everything into a day. I admire that, but I'm also a realist. Not. going. to. happen. But a simple "Put away Christmas decorations, organize hall closet, donate outgrown coats" might improve life a bit.

So there you go. If you need something from me, tell me to put it on the list...

New Years Roundup

• We had WAY too much food. And not enough dessert.
• Apparently, this year my friends felt like cooking appetizers, even those who had signed up for dessert.
• Next year I quite honestly think I will be better off doing things myself than trying to coordinate a potluck. The only stress I had all evening was the "Oh my God, is that another appetizer walking in the door, where will I put it" and then the guilt about the fact that no one ate most of what people worked so hard to make.
• On the upside, I have more than enough ham left over to do my all-time favorite meal, ham and squash casserole. By the time I got the main meal on the table, only the kids were hungry.
  
• Note to myself for next year, skip the baked beans, only get a half ham, and skip the pasta salad. The baked ziti was a huge hit. As were the pigs in blankets and the feta and caramelized onion quiches from Trader Joe's. And Lovely Friend's crab cakes were the only appetizer to "sell out." Must get recipe.
  
• I have decided that there is no telling what people want to drink. This year there was a run on ginger ale and beer, and almost no takers in the wine and seltzer department. Last year I had to dip into my private wine collection, this year I won't have to buy everyday wine for a very long time. If we get snowed in, I have no worries.
• Next year Mike needs to be reminded to check the coolers that hold things other than beer and restocking as needed.
• I think I need a clone of myself. Or Rebecca needs to come home. Because I know she will use the bathrooms and alert me if something is amiss in them...
  
• I haven't been able to face my basement yet. I have a feeling that several Christmas acquisitions will need to be replaced, including a old-school Hess Truck that is going for a small fortune on Ebay. Most of the children were very well behaved, but there were a few who got a bit hyped up on the frosted brownies and were spotted dragging things up and down the stairs like Winnie-the-Pooh. Thankfully they were children I knew well enough to be able to step in and remove said toys with a minimum of hysteria.
• I am always amazed at how dress-up clothes are really all that kids need to entertain themselves. Well, that and Hess trucks.
• I feel like I was a horrible hostess, I spoke to almost no one for more than 30 seconds. And the couple of folks who didn't know anyone were pretty much left to their own devices to find someone to talk to...I tried to make a few introductions, but then the food started burning, and the carbon monoxide alarm went off, and 14 kids started chasing Lazy Cat, and things just got away from me.
• 32 kids was an awful lot of kids. I am looking forward to the day when they head down into the basement and watch movies instead of chasing each other around with brooms while in Snow White wigs. Or at least to the day when I don't have to worry so much about someone getting hurt while they chase each other around with brooms while in Snow White wigs...
• Happy New Year! Would you like some leftovers? May I interest you in some vegetarian baked beans....