Of all things to impress him, it's my dazzling... sounds?

One night last week, the kids were a little hyper, in that pre-bedtime hyperness that all little kids are prone too.

I set them loose on their father, as well, it was his turn.  And it's funny for me to see him buried under all his children.  That's what he gets for knocking me up in the first place; an avalanche of arms, legs, and wayward feet that remind him of the reason why cups were invented for contact sports.  Usually, "Ooof!" is all I hear coming from the bottom of the dog pile.

Ben, however, was just a little too much to bear. He was so over the top, I feared for everyone's safety.  I stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, and ordered him out.

As he went by me into the hallway, I happened to pass wind.  I'm human, it happens.

Of course, everyone in the room was already looking at me, because they thought I was going to put a hurt on Ben (of the tickling variety).

Instead, they were treated to something louder, and more potent.

I thought my husband was going to fall off the bed, he was laughing so hard.

"Oh, my god!  You didn't even flinch, you just let that one go,"  he said, amazed, impressed.  "That kid never stood a chance.  He never even suspected!!!"  Mr W exclaimed, as he doubled over.

Great.  Now everyone is in on it.

A chorus of voices:  "Mommy, can you teach me how to do that?"

That's the moment I've been waiting for all my life.  That special, bonding moment when I pass on one of the mysteries of life to my children, one they always remember nostalgically, Kleenex in hand.

Leave it to me, that it has less to do with the mysteries of their own hearts, and everything to do with gas.

I thought it was over, once the laughter died down, but Mr W keeps on chuckling about it. 

"There was no adjustment in your posture, no shifting of the hips, no appearance whatsoever you were about to let it go,"  he chortled just last night.  "I wish I'd have had a video camera to tape that,"  he goes on..."I'd send it into one of the funny video shows, and we'd so totally win,"  he adds.

Of all my moments of greatness, of all the times I have managed to love and not send the children packing, of all the other things I am so very talented at, THIS is the one thing he'd choose to immortalize?

Boy am I ever happy that I never remember to actually charge the batteries to the camcorder.

I'll just place this event in the file under "Things I Will Never Live Down."

It's time to get a new one anyway.

Call of the wild

(yawn)

There is nothing worse than getting up before the alarm clock.

Unless you are getting up before the alarm clock because your geriatric cat has decided It Is Time.

Ten beautiful minutes of boy-is-he-yummy dreaming interrupted by "Me--OWWWW"  "MEEEEEEOOOOOWWWWW"  "MEEEOWWW" 

Not since James Brown has there been a more effective use of the sound "owwww".

Surely there are air sirens more pleasant to listen to than my motherf**king cat.

(He channels James Brown, I channel Samuel Jackson.  Too early to drop the f-bomb?  I think not.)

"Kill it,"  I hear Mr W mutter, muffled under his pillow.

"You're the one with the weapons,"  I remind him as I go to see what the cat needs.

Pillow?  Blanket?  Blow up kittykat doll?

Stick of dynamite?

I'd do it, but I don't want to have to clean it up.

Sometimes love is a number

Audrey's response to almost anything, is "10-hundred 58".  You have to say it out loud, to get the effect.

For example:  "Audrey, what happened?"

"I was talking to Ben and I said "Please" 10hundred58 times and he still won't do it!"

More importantly, this number comes into play when we talk about love.

"I love you, my girl."  "How much?"  "So much, it's bigger than the world."  "I love you, Mommy, 10hundred 58."

This morning we were playing, she was climbing in and out of my lap, we were talking about her Littlest Pet Shop.  The insidiously cute Littlest Pet Shop, so cute you can't stand it, so cute that I am addicted too.  I can't even walk down the toy aisle where they live without caving. 

We were visiting the website, then playing a matching came on the computer.  I left her to do something else, so Dad filled in.

Oh, yes, the man who wears a badge and carries a gun to work was playing the Littlest Pet Shop matching game.

Even after she moved on to find out where I went.

The love question came into play again.

We went through our bit..."More than the world."  "10hundred58."  I hugged her, and pointed to her father at the computer.

"Go, ask Daddy," I told her.  She climbed up into his lap.

"I love you, Daddy." 

"I love you, too." 

"How much?"  she asked.

"10hundred59,"  he replied.  Why have I never thought of that?

He is sometimes so logical, it's maddening.

Then there are times he's so logical, it's perfect.

How old married people spend Valentine's day

My husband is home from work today.  I had no idea he was gonna take the day off, not until he told me late yesterday afternoon.

So this morning, all the big kids are off to school.  I heard voices, and thought Audrey was talking to him, but she was on the couch.  Curious, I walked into our room only to realize that work had called him, but it was nothing urgent; he'd hung up and was just laying there, awake.

Heelllo, gorgeous. 

Of course, what wife can resist crawling into bed with her hubby, if only to put her cold feet right up against him?

I snuggled right in, into my favorite spot next to him, and we went over what was going on today.  I am meeting and spending the afternoon with a friend later, and he's picking everyone up.

"Get ready to spend the afternoon in the car,"  I joked. 

Mmmm, he's warm.  I couldn't resist a little physical evil, even though I know it can go nowhere (Audrey is at home, and she has to be at a friend's house fairly soon.) I'm about to get really obnoxious about it when he pushes me away, just a bit.

"You've got to move,"  he said, "I have to get up to use the bathroom." 

I didn't move. 

"I'm gonna pee all over the bed, and start my old man routine now, if you don't move."

"I thought that routine started a few years ago."

"Get the f**k out,"  he said, as he started laughing and getting out of bed.

"If I'm the old man, I get the Cadillac today,"  he added as he closed the bathroom door.

I'll take moments like that, over the hearts and flowers gushiness of today anytime.

I think I have a few more minutes before I have to go.

heh heh heh heh heh....

I'm thinking about putting an "i" before my name

Although I've always managed to get mine to work, and always loved it, I've always regarded my iPod with a little suspicion; I recognize this little bit of electronic bliss must come at a price. 

Usually, the price involved gnashing of teeth and a few swear words before I could get things figured out.  I'd trudge along in the support section of the Apple tutorials and try to make sense of all those discussions and comments from the technogeeks who have the time and energy to figure it out, and were good enough to post it for the rest of us to see.

It was fine when I was on my own in the i-world, but as of Christmas and Nolan's birthday, I had two more folks on board the i-train, and they looked to me for all things iPod.

That's a lot of pressure to put on someone who barely manages to get her kids to school on time every morning.

Okay, 3 out of 5 days.

(Which, apparently is a problem for the school, regardless of my child's good grade performance--Ben announced to me just this morning:  "Mommy, the lady in the office wants to know what's going on at home..."  "What?  You mean, do I beat you or something?"  "No, what's going on at home that I'm tardy so much of the time."  Oy.  I bite back a remark about how the late-night prostitution ring I run isn't conducive to waking up at 6:30 am, but I want no more explanations, certainly not long ones, when we are heading out the door.  *A few minutes late.*  For the record, I hate mornings.  They hate mornings.  I am more than gullible when it comes to "just a few more minutes" and I challenge any of the office ladies to come and wake Ryan, whose sweet little seahorse shape, warm under the covers, just begs me to snuggle for just one minute.  Or ten.  I dare them.  Whoops.  I digress.)

So, anyway, I was faced with two very excited people in in my house, Nolan of the birthday Nano and Mr W with his so-small-they-should-implant-it-in-your-head Shuffle; both of them waiting for me to work my magic.

Why  me?

Because I'm a little bit protective of my laptop.  And it'smineit'smineit'smine.  (I'm so mature.)

I figured out the Shuffle pretty easily.  To be honest, I read through Appleland, got frustrated, and plugged the damn thing in, figuring I'd learn along the way, and I could always start over.  No one was as surprised as I was that it was so simple, and whoohoo, it worked.

The Nano was a bigger challenge.   It has enough memory to support the songs I already had in iTunes--but while we have similar taste in music, Nolan wasn't that keen on the idea of my girlie songs in his pod--even if hot girls were singing them.  It posed a problem, because I didn't want him to have his own acct on my computer (did  I mention, it'smineit'smineit'smine?), with his own iTunes acct full of stuff I'd already loaded.   The waste of space along with the redundancy of this solution really annoyed me.  

However, he kept at me with those big brown eyes...

I'm such a sucker.

I fixed it so we could get him started, certain I'd find a solution that would make me happy.

It only took me two months and a fortuitous trip to the library, where I found a book that touted itself as "iPod and iTunes, the Missing Manual."

So what if it was on the same shelf with all the other "____ for Dummies" books?  I usually do better when I read.  I'm a good student that way.  (I'd give a shoutout to certain other instructional things I've read, but this is a family show, and that journal is now private anyway.)

As of today, Nolan and I are in iPod heaven.  It's fantastic.  I'm trying to get everyone I know to cross on over to the dark side with me and feel the power of the iForce.

I feel like I might actually know what I'm doing.

Which of course means I probably don't know a thing.

As the egg cracks

I decided room temperature eggs would probably be easier to handle.  I took out two in the late morning and let them hang out all day.

Once Ben and Ryan were home from school (and thus could distract their sister) I started.

I used a straight pin to make the holes, and just widened them accordingly. 

I got a little too zealous with the first egg, the hole cracked a little big so I wasn't sure if he could use it.  I went on ahead anyway, gently blowing into the end as I leaned over a bowl with it. 

And nothing happened.

I tried again, and voila! Momma's got skills.  I thought, this isn't so hard afterall, I'll take care of the other one and be done with this in no time.

Once again, I overdid it.  This time, the hole was giant, so I tossed it.

The third egg was cold.  I was irritated that I had wrecked the second one, and went for it.

It was a little more difficult--cold whites and yolk didn't want to go anywhere.  So I was patient, and finally, I could feel the egg emptying out, but it still felt like there was a lot of yolk left in it.  Gently, slowly, gently, I reminded myself, as I wondered if somewhere inside me vessels were bursting ("Mom bursts aneurism over Home Ec assignment--live at 5, the hidden dangers of helping your kids with their homework!") 

I was almost there when inadvertently, my hand holding the egg turned out to be holding it a little tooo tight.  Inside pressure + outside pressure = Eggsplosion.  All down the front of my shirt.

Um.  Yeah.  I let loose a string of expletives so forcefully that Ben came running into the room to see what was wrong. 

(I had a dirty thought at that moment, too, it was unavoidable, as light-headed as I was at that point.  Go ahead, pervies.  I'm sure you can come up with one too.  At least it made me laugh as I cleaned up the mess.)

I took out 3 more eggs.  I left them sitting on the counter for a while, and as I was making dinner, I tried again.

This time, I succeeded.  On the first try.

As Nolan was coloring his shell, I read the assignment page.  Something he hadn't provided me with earlier in the day.

"Do NOT try to blow contents of egg out more than once."

Great--mmmm, salmonella kiss, anyone?  Yummy!

Guess what I had for breakfast today?

Toast.

With all that girly light, some boyish dark

Mood: giggly.  my mood is giggly.  more on that later.

This morning, I was talking to Nolan about breakfast.  He suddenly said, "Do you have any leftover eggs?"

"No.  I have eggs, but not leftover ones."  I got all excited, thinking maybe he might actually eat one, and what a breakfast breakthrough that would be, when he said he needed it for school.  For Home Ec.

"Oh, it's the baby thing, isn't it?"

"Yup.  I'm going to name mine Hannibal Lecter, and give it a hockey mask and straitjacket too."

I burst out laughing.  "You are so dark sometimes.  I dig that."

(That is, when it's not driving me crazy, in a sulky funk because I'm the meanest Mom in the world for uttering the words, "That's not appropriate.")

Before he left for school, he asked me if I could "blow the guts out of the egg."

"What?"

"Make a hole in the egg..."

"Oh, and blow the egg white and yolk out.  Like those Russian Easter eggs?"

"My teacher says you can use a tack.."

"I think I can figure it out."

I wonder how many I'll wreck before I get it right.

I've heard about shaping the lives of your grandchildren, but this is a little above-and-beyond.  However, I'm up for the challenge.

I wonder how many I'll break before I succeed.

My money is on six.  I'm sure it'll be a mess.

Or maybe breakfast.

----------------------

The giggly thing.  Apparently, giggling is a crime.  I read an article about Rachael Ray in our newspaper a couple of weeks ago.  Now, I am a little tired of seeing her everywhere, but I will not begrudge her success.  Bully for her, she's got the Oprah boost, ride the wave, sister.  Of all things to complain about (and people were quite mean about it) I think giggling is the most minor.  The most benign.  Maybe I'm just high.

From all my giggling.

Sign right here

Audrey and I were coloring together in my room on Monday.  I was feeling a little under the weather and just wanted to nap--but Ryan was home sick too.  I figured quiet time would have to do. 

We were writing her name.  "A" she'd say, and make an A.  "Happy face"  she'd say for the U.  Then she'd stop and ask for my help with the rest.

(She had me at "happy face."  I will never look at a U the same way again.)

Imagine my surprise when her preschool teacher came to the door today and said to me "She's getting good at writing her own name."

It took a second to register.  He's a good looking kid, in that I'm-still-in-college-this-is-my-"job" kind of way, so I was a little distracted.   Between him and the beautiful girl that also teaches the class, it's all I can do to not reach for a syringe of Botox every morning after I drop her off.

"Really?  At home she only gets to the "U" before asking for help." 

"Yeah, look."  He holds out her papers from today.  Awwwww!  She did it!

She talked about it all the way to the van.  I still didn't quite believe it, not until we got home later and she started writing it over and over and over on every available sheet of paper.

She is very excited about it.

I am excited for her too.

Much more excited than when Ryan whipped a bright yellow paper out of his backpack, one that says, "Kindergarten Registration for 2007-2008 will begin on Feb 26th."

Oh.  That.

It has the date we will start school in July, too, and even though it's a ways off, suddenly, the summer seems....so abbreviated. 

That's okay.

For now, I have my "happy face."

So this is how it turned out

The new 'do turned out just fine.   It's just like she used to wear it, and I love it like this.   It's all good.

She is wearing the ubiquitious gray cami in one of the photos.  I haven't found her another that cute, but I did wind up getting her something similar enough--so I could wash this one.  

You may notice she's helping wash a car.  She was helping Daddy wash her Tata's Cadillac, which he had loaned us to use as our second car.   It's a pretty sweet ride, and the kids prefer to be squired around in it as opposed to my van.   Leather seat, cushy smoothness....I can't blame them.  

I was driving to pick up Ben and Ryan on Friday, and I went to lower the window.  I hit the wrong button; lowered a back window...and CRACK!  the window wouldn't go up.  Or down.  As this has happened to Dad before, I knew it was broken.

I couldn't even call to tell Mr W, I was so frustrated.  I texted him a message instead, along the lines of "I can't believe this s**t."

Seriously have been considering that perhaps I would be better off in a horse-and-buggy.   But even an offer to re-enact that scene from 'Witness' --the one with Kelly McGillis, the washbasin, a mirror, and Harrison Ford-- wasn't enough to convince my husband that that was a good idea. 

The Cadillac is fine, it spent a day or two in the shop getting fixed and it back in it's rightful driveway.   The children have been plotting to get back over to my Mom's house to spirit it away. 

In the meantime, I'm in the van. 

It's a little hard to drive when you don't want to touch anything......