Middle Name Meme

(For a great definition of "meme" go here.)

Melanie tagged me today and what Melanie wants, Melanie gets.

You have to post these rules before you give the facts.

Players - You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.

At the end of your post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag.

D -- DREAMING about my next vacation on the beach. With or without kids. If kids are with us, we'd have a full-time nanny with us, too. Heck, we'd have THE nanny, as long as I'm dreaming.

I -- IDENTIFYING the areas of my health that need attention. It didn't take me a lot of time to do this. Maybe someday I'll blog that journey...

A -- ALLOWING myself to make mistakes from time to time. I usually judge myself too harshly. But maybe that's a little harsh.

N -- I try to NEVER lose sight of what's important. One of my best friends likes to say "...but in the big scope of life, does it really matter?" Helps me not shudder when Mickey is running around an indoor play area with no socks on.

E -- ENJOYING my boys. Especially the little moments, like Alex snuggling me when he wakes up. And Mickey squealing on an incredibly big swing at a friend's house today. I want to remember those moments forever.

Now I'm tagging one person for each letter of my middle name.

Brittany at Back for Round II

(hmmm, now here's where it gets interesting. I really don't have a lot of bloggin' friends. I'm a wallflower in blogland, and I suppose here is where it's most obvious. My "tagging one person for each letter" requirement is now shortened to "tagging one person." Thank you. Now go feel sorry for me... Brittany, when you're finished with the meme maybe you can tag EIGHT people to make up for me being the social outcast.)

"I'd like to thank all the little people..."

Alex fell down in the kitchen tonight. He somehow stumbled and I have no idea what he hit, but it was enough to put quite a mark on his eyebrow...not a gash but a lot more than a scratch. A "scrash."

Alex is a strong almost-two-year-old. And when he's mad, the strength doubles. And when he's mad and hurt, the strength triples. Factor in I was by myself at the time and I have very inquisitive Mickey at my side, and I think I deserve the Mom of the Day award for getting a Band-Aid placed right over the wound. Complete with Neosporin. I raised up from him victorious, like a rodeo-er after hog-tying a steer in 12 seconds...

Here are the before-and-after's:

Not bad 'eh? He was very curious about it at first, then I showed it to him in the mirror and that was pretty much it. He didn't try to get it off at all.

So, I'm waiting for my award. (tap, tap, tap) What? Excuse me? There aren't any awards for being a mom? Wow.

Rembrandts in the making

As promised, pics of the boys' foray into fingerpainting. Somehow the deck where the art lesson took place remained clean!

Planning ahead: Happy Fourth of July!

I got my L.L. Bean catalog in the mail today.

IT HAS A CHRISTMAS TREE ON IT.

It's only September 11 and the arrival of this catalog makes me feel inadequate since I haven't even thought about Christmas. Or Thanksgiving. Or Halloween (sorry Mel).

But I suppose I'll be drawn out of summer and into fall anyway, kicking and screaming the whole way. I did send the boys to Mother's Day Out this morning in pants and long-sleeved shirts. But I protested by wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

The good news? It is finally cool enough today for fingerpainting on the deck after MDO. Not fingerpainting the deck, but fingerpainting while sitting at a table on the deck. And...probably...fingerpainting the deck. Check tomorrow for pics...

A hard lesson I didn't have to learn

Saturday we visited some friends to watch football. It was raining hard when we arrived and we shuffled the kids inside to avoid getting wet, without even glancing at their backyard swimming pool (actually we were too busy trying to get a look at the playground-quality outdoor gym they'd just built).

These friends have twins: a boy and girl who are Mickey's age (almost 4). As soon as we hit the door the expected chaos ensued and the toys came out, with Alex trying to keep up as best he could. The four adults settled down to watch the game and yell at the TV.

Pretty soon, I said to Pete "where's Alex?"

"I don't know..."

I calmly got up and went to kitchen area near the back door where we'd entered the house, and panic rushed over me.

The door was unlocked.

Almost instantly I laid my eyes on Alex, who was wandering about in an adjacent room. He hadn't yet been attracted back to the door, the door he could have easily opened and stepped out, putting him about ten feet from the edge of the pool.

The possibilities didn't register with me at that moment. I noticed an open child-lock on the door and engaged it, and bolted the door, too.

The rest of the day was uneventful. The kids played and football continued.

Then the magnitude of what could have happened started building up, and I nearly got upset just sitting there watching football. I thought about all the times I'd heard about pool accidents with toddlers, and thought to myself what a negligent parent that child must have had. Surely they must have been white trash or drunk or abusive. And here Pete and I sat...none of those things, having made the same mistake with our own children that one of those parents might have made. Only we were lucky. We were proceeding along with our day as planned, instead of asking ourselves how we could have been so stupid.

(big sigh). I don't like to get dramatic for drama's sake. It's not my nature. But since I had kids I think about things a whole different way. I cherish every minute I have with these boys, in spite of my sometimes stressful days. If anything, this non-incident on Saturday proved to me that even though I try to do everything right for them, sometimes I fail. And that's a scary thing to think about...

Dear Other-Mart,

Today I ventured out of my comfort zone and went to the other-mart in town. You know, the one that years ago was a huge competitor of Wal-Mart, but now they seemingly eek by with a few locations here and there.

Anyway, in case anyone with any pull at all at Other-Mart may happen upon my blog at any time, here are a few tips for your store if you want to continue eeking in the world of discount stores:

-- CLEAN UP. The diaper section of my local Other-Mart looked like two rabid raccoons had gone to town on the packages. Open, torn, jumbled up...a huge mess. I finally located one apparently intact package and ran for my life.

-- CLEAN UP. Next I was in search of laminating sheets. After scavenging through a big bin of such items, amid Crayons, Post-Its, and Scotch tape, I finally found what I needed. I didn't bother trying to find the price since it was nowhere near its original home on a peg.

-- Can you widen your aisles in the Health and Beauty section just a smidge? My two-year-old's little wingspan was nearly enough to mow over every shampoo and conditioner bottle we passed. I might have spent more time browsing (and buying!) if I wasn't worried about the path of destruction I would leave behind.

-- As soon as I entered the store, one of your "associates" asked me if she could help me find something. "No thanks, I'm just getting started..." I told her. "Okay," she said, and handed me a slip of paper with some number written on it. "Please hand this to the cashier when you check out..." EXCUSE ME? Now Other-Mart wants me to help them evaluate their employees? Evaluate them yourselves please. Not my job. (And while I'm on the subject...I'm getting a little tired of stepping up to a credit card machine and being asked a question like "was your cashier nice to you today?" If my cashier gives me a receipt and bags up my stuff, that's nice enough for me. And those receipts that say "...go to ww w. whatever for a survey about your experience here today and you might win a coupon good for $5 off your next purchase of $1000." It's like they want some big long account of what happened when you bought a friggin' gallon of milk.)

Okay, that's about it for ragging on Other-Mart. But I think I will stick with my overpriced Target and out-of-the-way Wal-Mart for my next trip. ThanK you very much...

Overheard: His job for life.

On the way to Mother's Day Out this morning, the conversation turned to some friends of ours who have a new baby:

Mickey: Mom, I want to get a baby.
Me: Well, when you grow up maybe you'll become a daddy.
Mickey: No, I can't be a daddy because I'll still be taking care of Alex.

Wherefore art thou, substance?

Scraping the bottom of the barrel again in blogland, people. I just haven't devoted a lot of time to writing lately...one would think that means I have nothing to say. Then I think back to my senior English class in high school and oh-my-gosh that teacher of mine had us writing papers every day. So since I'm a tad bit older now, that should mean I have even more to write about, hmmmm?

That said, busy yourselves reading the blogs of people who aren't trying to work a puzzle with their two-year-old and write at the same time...

http://www.antiquemommy.com/ She'll have you laughing and crying.
http://boomama.net/ Quality stuff here...and cool design! What's it like to have that, Boomama?
http://brittanynyc.blogspot.com/ My niece who just graduated college and moved to New York City. Talk about ambition!

And when you're done with that, have a look at one of America's beautiful places, as it performed for us tonight:

(Panama City Beach, FL)

The mother of giveaway sites

Ya'll got to check out my buddy's site: Bloggy Giveaways. Shannon's the Pied Piper of mommy bloggers and surfers and Big Companies know this. They are showering her with stuff to give away for F-R-E-E. I believe she has a new giveaway every weekday!

A lot of items are kid/family oriented, but just recently she had some tickets to a concert out there. Bottomline: you need to check it daily to see what goody she has available. She chooses her winners by random drawing.

Good luck and let me know if you win something!

It's the Little Things

Good stuff in a big way is great: getting a new car, moving to a new home, getting a new kitchen... But sometimes the little things are special, too (and great blog filler).

This week two Little Things brightened my life: graham crackers and a trash can.

Have you seen these little gems? They're just plain ol' graham crackers by Honey Maid. What makes them a really wonderful Little Thing is that they are exactly square and packaged like saltine crackers: in a long stack. Now I can seal them up with a twist-tie! No more fumbling with a half-consumed rectangular package with torn up cellophane, trying to stuff it back into the box. I looked on the Nabisco web site and saw "limited edition" in the description. I should go buy a case. (Another bonus: they cost the same as the cello-mess ones.)

The second Little Thing is our new trash can. It's a city-supplied outdoor behemoth with wheels and, brace yourself, an ATTACHED LID. Our neighborhood is changing to once-weekly trash pick-up and our city has supplied us these large cans in place of our own. It is brand-spankin' new. It's so cool I thought about putting Mickey and Alex in it for a ride before I contaminated it with our trash. I love it because it takes up less space in our garage and I can lift the lid with one finger...and did I tell you it is brand-spankin' new? Oh, and it has a thingy on the front that will be lifted by the truck. No grubby trashman hands will be touching it. Little did they realize how much this can would appeal to we germophobes in the city.

So there ya go. What Little Things have graced your life this week?

P.S. Lest you are thinking "wow, doesn't she have anything better to do..." take note of the fact that I did not take time to photograph these Little Things. I do have time to be lazy, thankyouverymuch.

The facts of fall

And so it begins...

Today Pete got the email below from his buddy, a die-hard college football fan. The friend's comment about the article, which was not written by him, was something like "this sums it all up for me..."

And Pete wholeheartedly agreed.

For all you soon-to-be football widows out there, it's time to face the inevitable. This week our husbands suddenly become glassy-eyed TV remote hogs who yell and whoop during televised games, thinking the players will somehow here their pleas and play better. Pete has had his poor-man's picture-in-picture set up for a week (that's two TV's downstairs: one solely for football, the other still for Barney. I think I will be in a corner somewhere rocking back and forth...).

Anyway, on to the very well-written synopsis of what this week must be like for my husband and millions of other American men:

I love this week.

The last few days leading up to the first game of a college football season are the closest I've found as an adult to those exciting, anxious days of my youth right before Christmas.

Now, as then, hope springs eternal. Optimism is the norm.

Would I get the ThunderCats action figures? I asked Santa and he seemed pretty positive. Will my beloved Buckeyes erase the sting of the final game of last season? I read the papers and everybody says they're using the doubts as motivation. It looks good.

Then again, it always looks good this week, doesn't it? Just as those unopened packages underneath the tree on December 22nd always contained the requested gift.

This week, the season is still perfect. This week, The Big Dream is possible. This week, none of those packages contain underwear and socks. Of course, for all but two teams, that dream eventually dies. For some it was unrealistic from the get go. They never really had a shot except for this week. They were fooling themselves. (Did I really think Santa was going to bring me the cute girl from Facts of Life that one year?)

For other teams, legitimate visions of BCS glory bubbling forth between now and Friday are erased before the leaves have fallen from the trees. Others will stumble in the midst of the yet-to-be determined "Showdown Saturday." A select few will be allowed to hold onto August's anticipation until fall's final games are played.

Yet still it will end. By a flat effort against an inferior opponent. A lucky bounce. A trick play. A missed call.

But not today.

Today we all sit on the right knee of the mall College Football Santa, reading off our wish list for 2007. And I'll be damned if he doesn't listen. And give "that smile" that makes you believe it's all going to come your way. Which is good enough. Because right now, this week, it doesn't get any better.

Okay, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I always say. Have fun, Pete and all your friends, and the guy who wrote this article. May the season bring your teams lots of W's, no injuries to the first-string quarterback, and, heck, maybe even a visit from Lisa Welchel.

WFMW: $10 Keepsake

Use free online photo editors to make simple changes to pictures. Use your craft store's 40% off coupon to buy an inexpensive frame and voila! Instant, custom keepsake for under $10.

Today's Works for Me Wednesday tip is simple! I photographed the boys one hot summer day in just their matching jean shorts:

Then I cropped the photo, uploaded it to Kodak Gallery, and applied the black-and-white and "soft-glow" effects. Took about 30 seconds. Cost: About $2.50 for a 5x7; includes shipping. Then off to Michael's I flew with coupon in hand, where I chose a frame with a rustic feel for around $7 with discount. Here's the result:

The artistic quality may be a bit lacking, but it is a true illustration of Alex and Mickey right now. Mickey's the protective big brother who attempts to hold Alex's hand, but must settle for his wrist since Alex is so reluctant most of the time. Someday, I suppose, Alex will realize the security of big brother's hand...

Inexpensive, meaningful keepsakes Work for Me!

For more great tips, visit the home of WFMW here.

"Way to go, Mickey!"

I wish I had a poignant story to tell about our first day of Mother's Day Out today, and have you laughing and crying and awwwww-ing. Truth is, I got nothin'. Totally uneventful.

The boys did fine on their first day back (we took the summer off). Alex's class takes a nap, which was my biggest worry. He's one of the youngest in the class and still likes his crib at home very much. I wasn't sure how he'd do if he were faced with a napmat and a blanket and a roomful of other very experienced napmat-sleepers. His teacher said he was the last to fall asleep (big surprise) but there were no tears and he did sleep an hour.

Mickey didn't have much to say about his new teacher or room. ("Yes, I ate my lunch. Tatum had orange juice.") He seemed happy to see me go and happy to see me pick him up. In my book, a successful first day for him. I expect the stories to flow freely once he gets a little more acclimated to his new teachers.

I did have to peek inside Mickey's room from last year: Ms. M. She was hunched over one of her students, showing concern as she always had to my son, and had to smile to myself a bit. She was getting a whole new group of "recruits," some of whom she'd have the honor of helping to potty train. I thought of Mayo in Officer and a Gentleman, as he was riding off on his motorcycle to get Debra Winger (and scoop her up in possibly the best movie ending in the world) and seeing Lou Gossett badger the latest crop of wanna-be's:

"...there's only two things that come out of Midtown, Bobby. Babies and little boys. Well, which one are you!?"

(But she wasn't barking at this child at all...I'm sure she was using some perfect phrase to make that child feel at ease.)

So I continued past her room and out of the building to begin my five hours of free time. In case you're interested, I spent it lunching with Pete, shopping, and joining a gym. Three things I've needed to do for a long time...

Even scarier than the jam-packed wave pool...

Oh, my. Is this what they mean by "fell through the cracks" in school?

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1772684

Personal: To my mom on her 75th birthday

Happy Birthday to my mom, who is 75 today. She's an amazing woman, I guess a lot of people think that about their moms. But mine really is the definition. And she's not shy about her age...she's proud of it. If she weren't 75, she'd have fewer family members and fewer memories. And she cherishes all of them.

We celebrated over the weekend with a family reunion of sorts. Lots of fun and visiting and oh, my...the places my boys can find to wander in a hotel are endless. But we got home safely with both exhausted boys.

So mom, live it up today. Or take a nap like me...

Taking another break...

Taking a bit of a break from bloggin' over the next few days. See you on Monday! (or maybe it'll be Tuesday. Hoping for Wednesday.)

Shut. UP. I had a "favorite find"?

I posted earlier about my tip for consigning kids' items in the Just Between Friends sale. The franchise owners where I take my stuff (in Tulsa) have put up a blog and asked shoppers to send a note and pics about their favorite finds at the sale.

Yep. Guess whose diaper bag was in the first submission!

Just so you know what an honor this woman has unknowingly bestowed upon me, there are thousands and thousands of items sold at this sale. I submitted 98 of them. The chances that my diaper bag would turn up on this blog are almost as slim as winning the lottery (which is currently up to $300 mil. Methinks I need to run an errand to Quik Trip tomorrow).

Anyway, I will make about $4 on that "favorite find." Which may not seem like a lot, except when you consider it was given to me by a friend. Who I hope does not read my blog.

Things I fear

Updated: Budget Travel's blog gets updated a bazillion times a day, so the video I wanted you to see is somewhere not on the blog. I devoted an adequate amount of time searching for it (15 seconds) and came up empty-handed. Sorry.

To describe the scene, which isn't nearly as much fun as seeing the video, it was a jam-packed wave pool at a water park in Japan. So many people were in the pool as its artificial waves began that you could not even see the water. Looked almost like those horrible tsunami videos. Only these people weren't screaming for their lives and clinging to debris.


Going off a bridge in my car.

An airplane crash.

Suffocation of any kind.

And this. Scroll down to the video of the wave pool.

Thanks, Budget Travel. I most assuredly will not sleep tonight.

Got my Babeebrite!

The other day I posted about winning a Babeebrite light through a drawing on www.5minutesformom.com. I got this little dude in the mail the other day and I've already used it several times to put Alex's diaper back together after he falls asleep. It's great! To him, I think it's like one of those gigantic search lights, but I found I could aim it in the appropriate place pretty easily so it didn't disturb him too much.

So thanks, once again, to 5MFM for my loot!

Note: someone suggested putting Alex's diaper on backward at night to keep him from getting hold of the tabs. We tried it. Let's just say I'm up for any other suggestions if you've got 'em...