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.

Mini boy

Ben shrunk for a short time. I'm so glad that we got pictures of it or else probably no one would believe us.

Cause she likes to hug...

Kitty hugger:
Bowl hugger:

I hope I've learned a thing or two since then

I like corn Chex cereal. I even like all the generic brands of it. Once when I was 10 or 11, I was eating a generic brand - let's call them corn squares - and I came across a good sized beetle in my partially eaten bowl. Dead, covered in corn dust. Did I show my parents or send a letter to the company who made them? No. You don't even want to know what I did. But I'll tell you. I dumped the rest of my bowl down the sink and filled myself a new bowl - from the same box -and ate away happily.

Ew.

What we learn from this story: 10 - 11 year olds are not very wise.

Another time, I was probably 10 or 11 again, I was supposed to mow the lawn. I got the mower ready, started it up, and headed onto the grass going over a big pile of hose. As I was on top of the hose, I realized, hmm, I probably shouldn't be on top of the hose. So I backed off and as I did hose went flying everywhere. My step-dad could not understand how I didn't realize that you don't push the mower over hoses.

What we learn from this story: 10 - 11 year olds don't have much common sense. If you need something done that requires common sense - don't ask someone of this age to do it.

Maybe I was just a rare slow-brained child. Maybe others of you would never do the things I did. If there are such thing as smart 10 year olds, then I sure hope my kids have a little more intelligence than I did.

By the way, I still eat corn Chex. But I have to throw out any pieces that I find in my bowl that have any black on them even if it is just a piece that got a little to close to the heat. You just never know.

Randomness

Ben, seen here with his Christmas underwear, (his favorite gift) has started basketball again. At his first practice, he got a bloody nose from getting hit with the ball. We're hoping it's not a sign of what's to come throughout the season.

I heard Addie saying over and over:

I'm a mama. I'm a mama.

Then I saw that she was wearing my shoes. Pretty cute thing for a mama to hear.

I went ice skating with Elli a few nights ago and I almost lost control of my bladder. We were laughing so hard. It was Ellis first time skating and I hadn't been since forever (10 years?). I was laughing so hard with (and a little at) her trying to stay up and me trying to hold her up. It was fun. Everyone should go ice skating.

Addie was looking through the pictures on my camera (how does she know how to do that? I don't know but she can turn it on and search through pictures) and came across these ones of her and Elli eating olives. Then she turned to me and said:

Mom, I want ovlers.

Embarrassing moment in which I wanted to disappear

Brian's friend has a cousin who lives in our neighborhood. I have seen their name on several other blog lists. I have looked at his wife's blog and a few times shown Brian. "This is the cousin of so-and-so." She is a good photographer and her pictures are fun to look at.

Anyway, we were at the park this past summer. This other couple happened to be there with their kids. I pretended not to know who they were since we've never met and she has no idea who I am. I am sitting on a park bench near the other girl who is swinging her child. Brian recognizes the guy and goes over to talk to him. They talk about the person they know in common. Then I hear Brian saying, "Yeah, my wife reads your wife's blog all the time. "

Melt away into the wood chips

The guy says, "Who does?"

Brian: "My wife" and points at me with the finger of death. They both look at me.

Cease to exist

Here I am. Right near someone who doesn't know me and my husband outs me. OUTS ME! (Let's just clear it up right now that I don't read it "ALL THE TIME" either. "Occasionally" is the word.) I sound like an obsessed stalker. I just sit quietly and hope that the other girl didn't hear that too. But I'm pretty sure she hears it. She's not too far from me. I try and think of a way to talk to her and explain myself.

Finally I have my lines worked out and I look over and a neighbor of the girl has just arrived and they are now talking. I can't interrupt a friendly conversation with my crazy confession. After a while of waiting, it's time to leave. Time to slink away like the shadow I wish I was. We leave as fast as my short legs can carry me. Hopefully I will never see them again but, being in the same neighborhood, it's bound to happen. Maybe I can explain myself then.

On the way home I tell Brian, "Please never again tell someone that I read their blog "ALL THE TIME". He just doesn't know. He doesn't read any blogs. He doesn't even read my blog. He doesn't know the rules. "I can tell someone that I read their blog. But you cannot tell them when I am sitting there pretending that I have never seen them before in my life."

Christmas kitten

Meet Bumble - the Abominable Snow Monster. I guess actually he's more likeable than abominable. And he's more of a little angel than a monster. And he doesn't really like snow all that much. So I guess, meet Bumble - the likeable little angel that loves to be warm.
He's our new little Christmas kitten. He was given to me by my nicest-ever sister Sinika.

He's such a sweet little guy. If we leave the room he meows cause he's lonely.

And if we ever can't find him, he's usually taking one of his little cat-naps in the pantry or underneath something or sometimes right in plain sight but we just don't see him cause he looks like a little toy.

My vacuum sucks...

...and I can't believe it. We got it for our wedding 9 years ago and it still sucks things up. It's just a cheap little Eureka. A few years ago the hose didn't work and we tried everything to figure out why it didn't suck but we never could figure it out. ("Everything" meaning we stuck a straightened hanger all the way through the hose and where the hose goes into the main part and found nothing blocking the way.) So we just assumed that we couldn't use the hose anymore. But then one day the hose started working again. And it is still sucking away (along with the main sucking part). I never thought it would last this long. Maybe it doesn't pick up all the microscopic little things that the fancier vacuums do but it picks up every visible thing and leaves those nice little just-vacuumed lines on the carpet. We have been thinking about getting a new vacuum lately but how can you throw away a perfectly good vacuum that still sucks? I thought for sure it would die sooner than this so that we would just have to get a new one.

Christmas time is here

It's finally here. All this snow has finally made it feel like Christmas. I have my favorite Christmas music ready for you (or me) to listen. What? You didn't see my song list? It's right there in front of your eyeballs. It's a short list. (I apologize in advance if you're not a Sarah McLaughlin fan. There's a lot of her in there. I like pretty voices to sing my Christmas songs. Especially the pretty voice of Chris Martin.)
We've got our tree up.

Treats have been made.

Gingerbread house decorated.

And letters to Santa have been written. (Or at least started.) Elli's is just about the cutest thing ever. Uh, I think Santa can manage that request.

Don't let Ben's short list fool you. He just got tired of writing. This is only 3 items on his 50-item list. He still wants to add a D-Rex (which I thought was the same thing as a Wowee Rex but he has told me they are different and he wants them both) and a DSi and many other items that each cost over $100 each. Sorry buddy, I don't think you've been THAT good this past year. Hopefully after getting one memorable gift he'll forget most of the other things he is asking for. Ben doesn't really see the point of writing letters to Santa since last year he didn't and he told me, "I don't need to write letters to Santa cause he still knows everything that I want!"

Let's just get it out in the open that I don't LOVE to clean up messes

The other day Ben was throwing away what was left of his waffle with peaches and powdered sugar on them.

Ben (exuberantly): I put my waffle in the garbage... but it didn't stay in the garbage!

(The garbage was a little full alright! It fills up quickly.)

Me: *groan* Get a napkin and pick up the big things and I'll get the rest.

Ben (after a pause) (also exuberantly): Now the peach went under the door!

Me: *double groan* OKAY! Just LEAVE it! I'll come and clean it!

Yay. What a fun activity for me. You just never know when you're going to get to clean the underside of a door.