Near catastrophe

Laundry day.
Fold clothes in my room.
Little Addie plays in Elli's room.
Go downstairs to get another load of laundry to fold.
Come upstairs.
Smell fingernail polish.
Feel the feeling of dread that only comes when you smell fingernail polish coming from the room that your 2 year old is in.
Open the door.
"Mommy, I paint my nails!"
Look around for the giant spill that is inevitable (or miniature spill -but whatever size: horrible).
Find no spill. YET. It's hard to find much in this room.
Confiscate polish.
Rinse off fingers of any polish that is still wet.
Take pictures.

I guess she did a pretty good job for a 2 year old. Somehow she got the nail polish opened and she painted each nail (and each finger). She was proud of herself. I was just glad that she didn't spill which still makes no sense to me. 2 year olds spill everything.

I don't think that she closed the door to hide from me. She just closes any door of any room that she's in. She would have still painted her nails if the door was open. The only thing that came from the door being closed is that I didn't catch her sooner because I couldn't see in when passing by. Time to hide all nail polish.

Ben has a new hairdo

We are just having too much fun with our web cam. This is a picture of Ben in the glow of the screen. He opened it in paint and accentuated a few of his features.

Multitasking

Snuggling with Addie, catching up on some Modern Family online and letting Addie watch herself on the web cam. 3 things checked off at once.

Come back soon smells!

Currently, because of a sinus problem (a cold), my olfactory system isn't working. I can't smell a thing. And so, I can't taste anything either. Why do you need to be able to smell in order to taste? I do not know, go ask your mother. (That Dr. Seuss line always cracks me up.)

So since I haven't been able to taste anything for the last few days, why have I eaten chocolate on each of those days? Maybe it's out of habit. (Very likely.) Maybe I'm hoping with each piece I will detect a tiny leak of flavor. Maybe I am still getting endorphins from it even without tasting the flavor. (I don't think this is true. I think I need the flavor in order to get the endorphins.) Maybe I'm testing myself to see if I'm getting better. Yeah, I'll stick with that reason.

Oh look. Here I am eating a piece of chocolate right now as I type this. (Make me stop!)

Do you know how fun it is to make dinner when you know you aren't going to be able to taste it? A negative 2 fun. That's why we had cereal for dinner last night. I had plain old Cheerios. I do like the flavor of cheerios normally but when you have to choose a cereal for the least amount of flavor - Cheerios wins every time.

The good thing about not being able to smell is changing a 2 year old's diaper. It's much more pleasant. Imagine cleaning off someones other end but not having to smell it. However pleasant you can imagine doing that - is how pleasant it is. I guess that's one smell I'm not looking forward to.

He calls it his "bandit hat"

Ben asked with lots of pleas if he could wear this hat to school a few mornings ago. I was like, uhh, I don't think the kids or teachers would enjoy seeing you in your hat as much as you think.
And, as a side issue, I'm sure his hair would look lovely by the time he took it off for class.

That's it, I'm washing it tomorrow!

My car is so dirty. And it's not just regular dirt. It's super salty, greasy, gritty, grimy, gross, black dirt. I hate when I have to touch it. I really need to wash it. But it's supposed to snow again several days this week so it will just end up like this again in a few days. A few days ago picking up my kids from school my son said, "I didn't recognize our car, it looks like it's a different color." The white color doesn't help with all this. Yes, the color in this picture should be white. This is not the color of car that I would have chosen first but this is what was available when we purchased this car last summer. Alright, it's a van. But I just can't stop saying car. I've driven only cars for 16 years and it's hard to change the wording in my brain.