For Ben, Age Two

Ben dear. You turn two tomorrow. I'm amazed by you every day.

Over the past year, you have learned to walk better and to run really fast. You've learned to jump and turn somersaults. You've learned how to make squiggles with crayons and how to undress yourself.

All of those things are great, but they aren't what make you so dear to my heart. It's the way you run up to me and wrap your arms around my neck and kiss my cheek when you have an owwie. It's the way you sing with me and dance with me and cuddle with me. It's the way you jump with pleasure after sliding down your "wheeee!" slide. It's the way you say "George" and "Doggie" in the morning as you look forward to watching your favorite programs.


I love how much you love your little sister. I love how you play with her and entertain her and show her love. I was worried about bringing her home because I didn't want you to feel that I loved you less. I hope you will always know that she doesn't take any part of my heart that was yours to begin with. I'm your mama, and I always will be.

This past year, you've had to adjust to not going to daycare anymore. It was just you and me for a while, and I loved having that alone time with you. I loved taking you for walks on your bike around the block, even though I grew too big with your little sister inside me to do it after awhile. I loved reading to you and showing you how to draw and how to play with play-doh. I've loved letting you help me do chores around the house; you sweep very well, and you are good at wiping up messes off of the floor.

I could go on and on about all the little things you did when you were one years old. I won't, though. I'll just tell you now how much I'm looking forward to watching you grow and learn and love during the time that you are two years old. It will be a terrific year, I'm sure.




August 2007. You loved the freedom of running around the yard at Nana and Papa's house in Minocqua. You can't quite tell from this picture, but it was your first sprinkler experience. That's why you were making the funny face.

Late July 2007. There's not much better to do on a hot summer day than splash with your favorite friend in a pool in the backyard. You loved your play dates with your buddy Luke, the son of my dear friend Katie. I wonder who started splashing first... knowing you, it was probably your idea. You were always so great at splashing.

July 2007. We had a nice time at the Schofield Fun Days in a nearby town. Put on by the fire department, we went to listen to the live music, pet the animals at the petting zoo and eat some fair food. You were thrilled to play in your first sandbox, which they had created out of the sand volleyball court on the grounds. We let you get so good and dirty. Such fun!


July 2007. I lost track of how many times we went to Scholfield Park, just a mile from our house. You were so brave to go down the slide on your own. You never needed help climbing up to get there, and when you got to the top, you yelled "Wheee!" all the way down.


July 2007. We loved pushing that swing over and over again. When you'd get close to us, we'd tickle you behind the knees, and you'd shriek with laughter.

February 2007. You loved dragging things around our new house, and you loved the Thomas shoes you are wearing in this picture. When I look at this picture, though, I'm reminded of how absolutely wonderful your hair was before we finally did the buzz cut. Your hair was perpetually sticking straight up. Since it was winter, people assumed it was static, but no, it was naturally like that. A cowlick. I miss that.


February 2007. This picture illustrates your natural enthusiasm for life and your willingness to smile for pictures. I love these chubby cheeks. You can see the handle of your corn popper. We bought that in January, and you played with it constantly for months.

We had so much fun at your first birthday party. By the time we got to the cake, we were all tired, especially you. I remember smiling at the dazed look in your eyes as you tried desperately to enjoy your cake. We had to shove your hand in it to get you started.

The Christmas Wrap-Up

It's been a season of growth and learning and trying new things. I started preparing for the holidays by thinking that I wouldn't be doing much for Christmas. After all, it's not like we were home for the actual holiday.

Then I put up a tree with twinkle lights. Then I made some ornaments. Then I started hanging cards on the wall. It was like a snowball rolling around until it became a snowman (introducing the Mathis Snowman Collection 2007).

I blame it on the Christmas Tour of Homes. I have so many great plans for next year, and I can hardly wait to start shopping the clearance bins for decorations this week.

My mom gave me some beautiful ornaments for Christmas, and they are elegant enough to stay up all winter.

I'm planning on picking up some Christmas-y children's books so I can read them for Ben and Anna next year. It's a shame that we don't own a copy of "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

Ben didn't really understand the season, though he really enjoyed all of his new toys. This brings us to a new conundrum.

My son turns two on January 2nd. He's getting another load of toys. It's insane.

So how do we separate the two events? How do I make his birthday different from Christmas? There'll be less people for his birthday since we're not having a party (though you are all welcome to join us at the Pizza Factory that evening). But really, for Ben, this will just be another toy haul.

He loved all of his matchbox cars. Now he has more than two. :) His new slide? Wow. Such a versatile item. It's a car ramp and a butt slide. It's a "Wheee!" He looks adorable in his new outfit, and he loves it when I push him when he sits in his huge tonka truck.

For his birthday? The theme seems to be Thomas. He's getting a bunch of Thomas items from a couple different people, and he's getting a Bob the Builder dvd from us.

I never wanted a spoiled child. I have this "thing" where I don't think having lots of fancy toys are necessary or even very healthy for children. Until I was a pre-teen, my family wasn't wealthy. You could call it poor. I didn't get a lot of new things every year. My mom made most of my clothes, and my toys were garage sale finds. It was a fundamental aspect for me. Being told "no, we can't afford that," my mom using delay tactics until I moved on to something else, and learning that life being "fair" wasn't dependent on having the newest Barbie.

Now I have children, and my siblings and my parents are generous, loving people who love to see a squeal and sparkle when a kid opens up a gift. How do I try to instill my values on my children? I can't exactly tell people to stop buying things for them. I'm not going to take the new toys away. Or maybe I should just be grateful that my children get to have nice things and try to keep them humble and unspoiled at the same time. It's possible, right?

The Break Is Not A Break-Up

I don't know. I guess if I were to look at me from outside, I might see it more. I know I've been unusually cranky and sad and blah and despondent. I've had a lot of moments in the last couple weeks when I've threatened to run away from home, mentally planned my escape, weighed the pros and cons of taking the children with.

I saw a joke in the Reader's Digest on Monday that said something to the effect that this woman wasn't suffering many ill side effects from weaning off of her anti-depressants, but her husband suddenly became a jerk.

I don't think the children are any more difficult than before, and I'm pretty sure that Chris hasn't actually turned into an apathetic slob. I think it's me who has changed.

So I mentioned wanting to run away when I was talking to my mom. She thinks it would be a great idea if I ran away with the kids up to Minocqua for a few days. She would help me with the children, and I could relax and sleep more and not have any real responsibilities for a couple of days. My mother thinks I might be suffering from post-partum depression. My mother of all people. That's a wake-up call if I ever heard one.

I don't know if I'll go yet. We'll see how the next week goes. I might have Ben go up north for a few days or I might have him go to daycare once a week for the next month. It would give me a break. Anna isn't really all that difficult, or, it's harder to remove myself from her because of our breastfeeding tether. Or I could go on the prescribed vacation. I'm just scared I wouldn't want to come home. I'm scared that I'd come home to a huge pile of dirty laundry, empty coke bottles scattered around the house, fetid dirty dishes in the sink and no apple juice or clean spoons. I'm scared of what that would do to my marriage.

Ben and Anna On The Couch

So cute. Had to share.

Oh What Fun It Is To Ride

"Oh what fun it is to ride in a four-door Saturn sleigh"

Driving home from Christmas time in Minocqua was hazardous. The roads were slick to begin with, and a lovely blanket of snow began falling in the afternoon. Due to some miscommunication, we weren't able to leave for home until nearly five in the evening, so it was dark when we were driving. Because we are cautious drivers, we averaged about 40 mph the whole way home. Luckily, many of the vehicles on the road had the same idea, so it's not like we were impeding the flow of traffic.

More memories from Christmas:

Realizing my sister's son is looking more and more like a little boy and less a baby every day. He's growing up! He turned 1 in November.

Speaking of Gage, the entire family was shrieking with laughter when he opened his favorite present: a box of kleenex. The back story is kind of self-explanatory... he loves to pull out tissues from the box. He'll keep doing it until he's buried in fluffy white clouds of kleenex. So he got his own box for Christmas, and he started pulling them out with glee right away.

My oldest nephew realizing the hard truths about Christmas as a teenager. Your gift tally goes down a great deal once you start getting fancy gadgets and other costly items. He pouted a bit and fussed because he only had a couple of boxes to open while all the little kids had at least four. I was reminded of the Christmas when I got my first discman when I was 14 or 15. I was mad because it was my only present until my mom pulled me aside and explained how much it cost and that they couldn't afford to get me anything else. Quality costs money, and that discman is still in operation over a decade later.

Realizing that the little slide that my brother left outside was for Ben. I don't know how I can explain just how much Ben will love that slide. His first daycare had a couple of indoor slides, and he would spend all day going down. We are so excited to have one of our own. We didn't have room in our car to bring it down, so my sister and her family are going to drop it off some time today. I haven't told Ben that it's coming, so it'll be a wonderful surprise.

Going "shopping" in the basement with my mom. I got a few more snowmen figurines/dolls to add to my brand new collection. So cute. I'll post pictures of them later. We went down there for me to pick out a rag rug for me to have by my front door to put wet shoes on. I ended up with an armful of other items as well. I love shopping in her basement.

Visiting with my sisters at the dining room table at dinner time. We gathered around with our kids for dinner and had a nice chat.

Very nice time. I don't think Ben understands the Christmas thing yet. I think he just thinks that we saw our family and got lots of new toys. Next week when we have his birthday, he'll get more toys. Once this "toy season" is over with, he might be disappointed that the festivities end. I can only look forward to next Christmas when he might have a better understanding of the season and what it means and all the hoopla.

Wordless Wednesday: Good Morning Benji Sunshine

"Time to wake up, Ben!"

"Of course you can take your blankie downstairs."

"Put Snoopy back on the bed..."

"Down. Down. Down. Down. Down. Down."

Jingle All The Way

It's Christmas Day 2007, and I'm about ten minutes away from a nice, long, child-free nap.

Memories so far:

Ben playing with a toy guitar while watching YouTube videos with Papa. He's really starting to vocalize and sing with music. He even does a new dance that is very reminiscent of Elvis's hip gyrations. I'll have to make a video of it.

My back getting really sore from holding Anna during church last night. She slept through half of the service, only waking up midway to eat a bit and then fuss from all the noise and bustle. Lots of strangers came up to comment on how precious "the darling little baby" is. She did look pretty darn cute in her red velvet Christmas dress. A few minutes into the second song, Chris took Ben to the fellowship hall to run around and play on the tables. They stayed there until the closing song. I kind of missed having Ben nearby, but he was tired and hungry and would have been very disruptive.

I dragged Chris out of bed this morning at seven so he could make the promised breakfast for everybody. I reminded him the cook is not allowed to sleep in until noon.

The rest of the family, my brothers and sister and respective spouses and nieces and nephews, all start arriving in a few hours. It'll be a wonderfully loud, chaotic four hours until we leave for home around 4. The rest of the clan is spending the night. It was kind of nice to just have a nice quiet Christmas Eve with just my little family and my parents, but I imagine the rest of them tonight will find their own special joy in the wild and crazy, overstuffed festivities tonight.

Merry Christmas everyone. Happy Holidays. I'm sleepy. Na-nigh.

Who Would Have Thought?

So. Christmas. Yeah. That holiday that I would be perfectly willing to ignore for the most part.

There is something so addicting about collecting and displaying decorations and ornaments. I can't believe I'm saying that. But it's true!

I blame it all on BooMama's Christmas Tour of Homes. I posted my meager decorations on my blog, and since Anna was up at two in the morning to nurse, I was able to get my link in the top 50, which means that I got A LOT of blog traffic this week. Over 800 visits. It was incredible. But more to the point, I visited about eighty or so bloggy homes, and I totally got the bug.

You can all chuckle quietly to yourselves smugly saying, "I knew it'd happen eventually."

Since I posted my Tour, I've added some new additions to my house. So, for my regular readers, you get to see a bigger and better Home Tour. Congratulations!

Chris found a few of his ornaments from his childhood (the brown star thing, for example), and my mother and I picked out a flat of penguin ornaments from Target for my husband (he loves Linux, logo is a penguin). The snowflakes were purchased because they were cheap (no kidding), and I think they're a little pretty. For the ornaments that are within Ben's reach, I bent the branch around them so they can't be pulled off.

I made these paper flowers the day of the Christmas tour. I think they are my favorite thing I've done so far. They look so totally festive and happy and perky. They also kind of dress up our house from the outside, which is nice because we live a block away from a big office building, and we get about a dozen or so walkers past our house every lunch hour.


I've had these fake red orchids for a couple of years, but grouped with some flowery picture frames (with no glass and just red construction paper), Anna's Christmas headband around one, and some new niece/nephew pics on display, this seems Christmas-y to me now.









This isn't technically a Christmas decoration, but I just got these decadent, lovely, shimmery throw pillows from TJ Maxx, and they completely dress up my living room. They are reddish, which seems to fit the holiday season. And I wanted to show them off.


And most importantly (and deliciously), I finally made the cheesecake cups yesterday. It was a lot of fun. These are actually my "mistake" ones. I am such a klutz in the kitchen, and I was making a royal mess when I was putting the cheesecake filling in those little muffin cups. I got smart and spooned the filling into a sandwich bag and clipped the tip of the bag. I squeezed the filling into the cups like icing a cake, and they now look too beautiful to eat (but I think we'll manage). I chilled them overnight, and they popped right out of the paper cups. Some light cherry pie filling, and voila, absolutely delicious. You guys should come over and have a cup of french vanilla coffee with me and help me eat these.

PS. I knew it would happen. In April I blogged about a friend from my college years who I had lost touch with and had no idea how to contact again. Since I wrote that post, my sitemeter has logged about ten to twenty google searches for this guy's name, but still no comments or emails leading me to him. He emailed me himself last night. :) There was much joy in my living room this morning when I found it waiting for me in my inbox. Woo-hoo!

For My Anna, at two months plus

Anna dear, you turned two months old last Friday, and I'm very sorry you had to spend the day getting your shots. But at least you got to get lots of Daddy hugs in the afternoon since he couldn't do much else because of his owwies. Let me take a moment to tell you all the things I love about you right now.

- Your eyes are startling to me. Such a beautiful deep, dark blue. I never appreciated your father's eyes until I saw them on you. Even when they are red-rimmed from crying, I still can't help but to swoon a little. I love them most when you are smiling at me.

- Your smile is so precious. Like your brother, you were slow to start smiling, and you aren't exactly like a goofy monkey yet. You aren't easily amused, but you love a sudden burst of attention after a nap or when it's time to nurse. It's then that you smile up at me. You look so pleased to see me and to be alive. Thank you for smiling when Daddy tickles your cheek; it makes him feel special.

- We have a very loud house since your big brother Ben lives here. Sometimes you get upset by the noise, especially when you are very tired and having problems sleeping, but mostly, you are starting to be entertained by the flurry. In just the last week, you've started to seek out the noise in the room (most often from Ben), and you are drawn most to singing, though you seem to get upset when I sing. Thanks a lot.

- When you are lying on my chest, and you are awake and alert, you lift up and crane your head to see me and what's going on around you. Sure, you bob and weave and sometimes headbutt my chin, but it's lovely to see you like this. Sometimes, I catch glimpses of the little girl you'll grow into... curious, nosy and lovely.

- I also enjoy the way you find a way to snake your little hand under the neckline of my shirt. You love to tuck your hand under my shirt, against my skin. If you can't get it there, you grab a hold of the fabric and hold on tightly, like you are claiming ownership of your cuddle spot.

- And Anna, I still find myself breathless with love for you when we settle down to nurse. There's something so sweet and so endearing about the way you flail around while I'm drawing you near me, and so adorable about the way you munch down on me like I'm a decadent dessert that you are savoring. I love watching the expression on your face, and I'm often brought to tears with tenderness.

I'm really looking forward to all of the new and exciting things you'll be doing in the next two months... smiling more and laughing, reaching for things. Maybe you'll sleep more during the night, but I'll love you even if you don't.

Wordless Wednesday: Family Laughter

The family that laughs together, stays together. Notice Daddy's fingers firmly placed in Ben's armpit. I love Anna's I-think-you-are-crazy look at Ben. This was an outtake from our Christmas photo shoot.

Mommy Taught Ben To Be Gross

I saw something gross on TV, and I went "Blegh" really loud, like I was vomiting.

Oh, the things you forget about when you are tired. Ben was sitting right next to me, and of course he started imitating me.

It turned into a family game. Chris, Ben and I were going "Bleeagghhhh" for about three minutes. My throat is a little sore now from all the guttural noises.

I can hardly wait for Ben to do that when we're at my parents' church on Christmas Eve.

In other news, my mom and I went shopping today, and I now have lots of cute penguin ornaments for the tree, many many glittery snowflakes, another snowman and a few more toys for Ben so we'll have stuff from Santa (an el-cheapo train set from the dollar bins at Target).

Yesterday, I was totally inspired after all the homes on the Christmas tour (I think I hit about sixty), and I made some fun paper flowers to put up in our front window. I have multi-paned windows, so it was fun to put a big flower in each pane. It looks very festive both outdoors and indoors.

We also bought a snow globe today (with the nativity), but that didn't last more than a couple of hours. Now we have damp hardwood floors with lots of sticky glitter between the cracks.

Christmas With A Bah-humbuger!

As part of the Christmas Tour of Homes, I present my humble abode's Christmas spirit.

Disclaimer: I didn't do much, but since this is the first time I've done anything for the holiday in years, I get extra credit for any effort. If it were just me and my husband in the house, I'd skip decorating, but the special Christmas decorations seem to put a certain joy in my son's heart. I'm an old softy like that.

The cowboy hat probably needs an explanation. Since I haven't decorated for Christmas in *years*, I owned only one Christmas decoration, the wooden snowman you see in the left of the picture. My mom provided the 4.5-foot tree and the twinkly lights, but I didn't have anything suitable to top the tree. I had an old teal ribbon for a while, but that was hideous, so in a fit of silliness, I put the straw cowboy hat from my son's toy box on the top. I think it looks kind of dandy, an odd homage to my husband's desert upbringing in Tucson.

Ben and I made "to" cards to put on all of our presents. I used a quarter of a piece of construction paper, and cut different shapes from other colors of paper to glue on the big piece. I made pine trees, shooting stars, and snowmen. They added a nice touch to our wrapped presents (which are almost all up at my mom's house already since that's where we'll be for Christmas). Ben really enjoyed rubbing glue on his cheeks.

My son is not quite two, and his favorite toys are balls and trucks. I am not going to set him up for failure and naughtiness by putting shiny balls on the tree. I have no desire to spend all my day putting him in a time out for playing with ornaments. We would also put on beaded garland, but he loves wearing mardi gras beads around his neck, and I know he would try pulling off the garland to drape around himself. Another naughty possibility. I got flat cards full of these little red bows on twisty ties, sixty for three bucks. Ben helped me put them on the tree by picking out where I should put them. Also, I never thought I would put multi-colored twinkle lights on the tree because I find them garish, but in the same train of thought of "Christmas is for Ben", I figured he'd like looking at the different colors. I got one strand of white and one strand of colored. He loves them, and I had to teach him how NOT to put them in his mouth because they are not candy, even if they look like magical yumminess.

A couple of years ago, Chris received the wooden snowman in a gift exchange. I liked it a lot, so I put it in my cubicle at work and left it there, all year round. In those two years, NO ONE commented on how inappropriate it was to have a "Let It Snow" sign up during summertime. I guess that's a side effect of living in Wisconsin. No one is ever surprised by snow. The small snowman lights up, and delights Ben to no end.

Now we'll leave the dining room and move into the living room.

This is our little entry way. Our charming little house has arched doorways throughout the first floor, and I thought it would be a nice touch to decorate the arches to showcase that architectural feature. I found the idea for these ornaments on Parent Dish several weeks ago, and I thought it would be fun to put them together with Ben. That was poorly thought out, since I won't let him play with either the stapler or the scissors. I let him handle the finished ornaments before I hung them up, but he ended up jumping on them, and it took a while to reshape them and smooth out the creases he created. I like the end result, though; I find them whimsical.

And now for my final decorating effort... I pinned up some twine on the wall with thumbtacks and used clothes pins to hold up every Christmas card we received so far. I also displayed the photos of our various nieces and nephews included in the cards. On the bottom row, in the middle, you may recognize our little Anna's birth announcement. Technically, it came in the mail since I had the wrong address on the envelope and it came back, so I put it up with the rest.

There it is! My addition to BooMama's Christmas Tour of Homes. Check out her site for many, many links to other homes around the blogosphere. It's been wonderful having you over for a visit. I'd offer you a sugar cookie, but I ate them all over the weekend.

I'm supposed to offer you refreshments. I have Walmart-brand orange soda in the fridge and a copious supply of apple juice. I'm making cheesecake cups for Chris to bring to work this week. I'm making a graham cracker crust using some stale graham crackers in the cupboard, using a Jello no-bake cheesecake box (following the directions), and topping them with cherry pie filling. They'll be in little muffin cups, which make for terrific portion sizes, as long as you only have one. What are the chances of that, you ask? Yeah. I know. Slim. The only thing that's "slim" around here.

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Since I took pictures for the tour, I've gotten more into the spirit of things, and I've added a few more vignettes to my home. You can check them out at this post.

The Promised Couch Post

Almost every evening, we watch Still Standing on the CW. It's not the greatest show, but we get kind of bored with the news. Anyway. Last night I heard the best line that I had to share:

Kid: Mom, you got the wrong kind of peanut butter.
Mom: Oh... you mean the kind that causes ungrateful whining?

I laughed out loud.

-----
I remember when I bought my first grown-up, non-twin bed a few years ago. I felt so adult, so grown. The next piece of furniture that I picked out was our entertainment console. I kind of don't feel that counts since it was the kind that comes in a box and you have to put together.

Everything else in my house is something that other people had or purchased for us. Until one day, when my mom and I poked our heads into a used furniture store, I found a couch set I loved. I wasn't there for couches, but a new couch had been in the back of my mind since we bought our house.

Then over the next 48 hours, I kept thinking about those couches. I finally mentioned it to Chris, who was surprised that I had been thinking about couches for two days straight. He reminded me that it's how I decided that we should buy a house... just something that kept digging at me for weeks even though it wasn't supposed to be on our radar.

So we went together a couple weeks later to the store and he decided he didn't like the couches I had picked out. Instead, he found another set that I ended up liking better. And the store offered layaway, so we made a two hundred dollar deposit, and we knew that by Christmas, we would be couch owners.

We made the final payment last week, and a friend of our helped transport them. I'm in love with my couches. It's so wonderful to be sitting on the couch nursing Anna, and Ben comes up and sits next to me and nestles in next to me to watch TV. Is it wrong that I feel more complete by buying couches?

This is the couch where Chris did most of his recuperating over the weekend. He's feeling terrific, by the way. A little sore if he's been on his feet for a while, but he actually went into work yesterday. He's doing much better than I expected, since he has a tendency towards moaning and groaning. :)

The spot with the green bed pillow is my home base. I blog there, I nurse there, I drink coffee there. It's Cheryl's zone.

Having the couches has meant that I will no longer allow us to eat in front of the TV. "Don't you dare spill that on my new couch; go sit at the dining room table." So really, our investment has improved our lives in many ways.

Today, besides folding four loads of laundry, I will be making a batch of mini sugar cookies and possibly get started on those cheesecake cups I promised Chris. Or maybe I'll be stuck on the couch with Anna who seems to be teething at the ripe old age of two months. (Inconsolable crying and she screams when I rubbed her gums "just to check"). The only way I was able to pick up this morning and take these pictures was to wear her in the Bjorn.

Snippy-Snippy Day

It's Snippy-Snippy Day here in the Mathis household. We leave in fifteen minutes.

I had to sign a consent form as a spouse since as a spouse, I have a reasonable right to my husband's spermies. Yeah. I don't want them anymore.

While Chris is basking in the glow of valium and a local anesthetic, I'll be upstairs with Anna at her two-month checkup. It's hard to believe she's two months old already. It feels like she's always been a part of our family, but it also seems like I was just giving birth to her a few days ago.

It's been a busy week. Lots of gift wrapping and ornament making. Lots and lots of cleaning and moving furniture around. We finally got our new couches here on Wednesday, and I'm totally infatuated with my living room furniture now. You can look forward to an entire couch post this weekend extolling the virtues of my sofas with pictures.

We've got to start packing up the kids now. Ben's off to daycare for the day so I can work on Christmas cards when we get back. I'll be providing a constant supply of ice packs to my dear husband all weekend long. I figure the least I can do is coddle him a little since someone's slicing into his testicles today. Happy V-Snip Day!

Our Nifty Christmas Photo Card

Like Anna's birth announcement, I designed our holiday card. Initially, I was going for something more elegant, but I ended up with this cutesy layout and font and realized that it perfectly suited the pictures.

Ta-da! They are being printed tonight, and I hope to get a bunch of them out in the mail by Saturday. The envelopes are all addressed and stamped, but I need to go back to the copy place and use their paper cutter to cut out the cards, or I'll be stuck using a ruler and an exacto knife like last time. That was a nightmare, and I cut myself twice.

In other news, I never knew that you would have to hit a laptop (like a washing machine) to get it working again. But I do. Apparently, Mac laptops are made with a magnet that, when the lid is closed, moves and activates a switch that shuts off the power. My magnet keeps moving on its own and getting stuck, and my laptop goes to sleep at random times. Wow, is it annoying. My dear husband will be opening up my darling laptop this weekend to fix it. Until then... Bam. There it goes again.

Wordless Wednesday: Anna's Eyes

Check out other "Wordless Wednesdays" at 5 Minutes For Mom.

Ben's D'oh

Ben imitating Homer Simpson. A must-see for Ben lovers everywhere.

Video Post: Ben Swings Anna

Ben started tickling Anna's feet when she was swinging, and I thought it was so cute, I grabbed the camera and started recording. If you listen, you can hear him gurgle "tickle tickle" every once and a while. Near the end, he starts hugging and kissing her.

Snippets

I barely celebrate the holidays, but I find myself scrambling all day long now. I only had five people to get presents for, but it took me four days of scouring the internet to pick out gifts. What is up with that?

I'm still not done. I still have to buy two more items. A Veggie Tales video and a toddler toy. My life would be easier if I wasn't so darn set on getting the best deal on shipping and refusing to pay full price.

One thing I love about Christmas, though, is wrapping the presents. Mind you, I really don't like the commercializing of the holiday, and the "need" to buy presents, but I've always loved neatly wrapping gifts and decorating them. As soon as I was capable, my mom let me be the official gift wrapper in the family, and I've loved it ever since.

There's something so satisfying about crisply wrapped boxes. It's even better than folding the perfect tower of towels.

Here are some quick snippets of stuff going on:

When Anna is lying on my chest, she can do push-ups now and launch herself upwards and head-butt my chin. Hard. Her neck is still a little wobbly, but it's thrilling to watch her get better each day.

Ben is being treated for an ear infection and conjunctivitis now, in addition to the asthma flare-up. This cold has really done a number on him. He HATES eye drops. But his eyes got really gross. Totally gummed up with strings of gunk between the eyelashes when he'd finally get his eyes open. At least there's hope now that there will be an end in sight soon. At least my angelic son enjoys the taste of amoxicillin.

Speaking of angels, Ben is being a pretty good boy around the Christmas tree. Of course I'm making it easy for him by not having any ornaments on it.

He also has started wiping his mouth after he takes a drink. No, it's not that great. He wipes his mouth with the front of his shirt. After every sip. I don't remember teaching him that.

We gave away our couch yesterday. My brother sent out an alert that a friend of his just lost everything in a fire. We were going to bring the couch to the charity warehouse place this week, and it was nice to actually know the person who would get it. My mom brought down an extra bed, and I gave him a comforter and a big bag of men's socks that I had for some reason. Our living room feels empty without the couch, but we're getting our new ones in a few days.

Our dining room bed is also going back up to Ben's room so he won't have to sleep on an air mattress anymore. That means that Chris and I are actually sharing a bed again, which is weird. At least he's relented and doesn't mind co-sleeping anymore. She starts out in her bassinet, but comes into bed with me around midnight.

I'm getting a Mirena IUD this Wednesday, and I'm nervous. Chris is getting his V-Snip on Friday, and I bet he's more nervous.

That's all folks.

Photo Essay: O Christmas Tree

I don't know what sentimental nonsense prompted me to let a Christmas tree into my house yesterday. I think I had this sappy vision in my head of Ben lying under the lit tree, staring up through the branches like I always did when I was a little kid.

After Ben woke up from a three-hour nap this morning (his cold is terrible), we had lunch, and then I tackled the tree. The shaping of the branches took an hour, and I suffered numerous scratches all over my hands and arms (note to self: wear long sleeves next year).

The lights were annoying and difficult. It seemed much easier when I was a youth, but maybe my standards were just lower.

I plugged in the lights before I put them on the tree so I could see where I was putting them. Ben was in love with them, especially the colored ones. He kept putting them in his mouth, thinking they were candy and would taste as yummy as they look.

I think I'll be spending the next two weeks yelling at Ben to keep away from the tree and putting him in time out when he doesn't listen. But I hope he loves the tree anyway and will love me even more because I let him have this experience. We'll be buying some construction paper so we can create some ornaments.

Christmas Tree, Mathis style. The bow is temporary until I find something more suitable. There's a skirt under the tree now. Maybe Ben wouldn't think it was a toy if I didn't put it right next to his toys.

That's a toy hammer in Ben's hand. He was banging on the branches during the whole process. Now we can say he "built" our tree.

Anna "helped" too. She slept through a lot of the tree-putting-up activity, but woke up for the lights. She screamed and wailed like someone was torturing her. And instead of picking her up and comforting her, I took this picture.

Nothing says "Time to relax" like a boy watching VeggieTales. I am not full of the Christmas spirit, so I will now take my grumpy self into the kitchen to bake a batch of fudge brownies. Happy Freakin' Holidays, everyone!

Peekaboo Benji

Song Cue: I Got Fever

"I Got Fever"

It's amazing how much my pediatrician's office freaks out over a newborn with a fever. If Anna were really ill, I'm sure I'd be very grateful with how diligent they are. They went into a big ol' flurry of activity yesterday morning when I called them once they opened to tell them that Anna has been running a temperature since Monday morning.

But after three hours of tests this morning, including a blood culture and urine catheterization, the official diagnosis is she's probably coming down with a cold, the same cold that Ben has.

They stopped short of a spinal tap, but that would have been on the schedule for the day if I hadn't told them about Ben's cold. That, and she smiled at Dr. Sarah during the exam, so she's probably not on her deathbed.

"Fever when you kiss me"

I thought about restricting Ben's proximity to Anna, but I figured I'd probably transfer any germs even if I didn't let him kiss her goodnight every night. Did I mention he can now say "Nigh-nigh"? Besides, his insisting on kissing her at every opportunity is one of the cutest things in my life right now, second only to Anna's unbelievably chubby thighs (did you know she's ten and a half pounds already?)

"Fever when you hold me tight"

Okay, this probably didn't get her sick, but it does make her temperature rise a bit more. It took me a whole six hours yesterday to realize the reason her temperature was higher after she woke up was because she had been sleeping in a blanket bundle next to me. Her lowest temp, 100.4, was still enough to have to go to the doc, though.

PS. Is it weird that the cute-guy medical student wouldn't look me in the eye after he walked in on me nursing Anna? Poor guy. Figured he wouldn't have to deal with boobies if he chose pediatrics as a specialty. Well, ha! Showed him.

PPS. Wednesday morning, and her temp is down to 99.0, but she has a pretty and lacy all-over body rash. We have another appointment this morning.

The Little Lady

Anna is seven weeks old now, and she's a blessing and a dear.

I scolded her yesterday for being so self-centered. A total "duh" moment. She's a newborn.

If you're not in the mood for a "poop" post, just skip the following text and scroll down to the cute Anna pictures I have at the bottom.

When Ben was a baby, he retained his poops. He'd only defecate once every week or so (the record was 12 days). When he'd finally "release", he'd explode. It got everywhere. We tried to look on the bright side... we weren't having to change poopy diapers every day.

I didn't know it was an inherited trait. Anna has developed the same bowel habits.

For the first four weeks of her life, she was pooping almost constantly. Every thirty minutes, it seemed. It made it very difficult for her diaper sores to heal. Now that her bowels have matured, she's spaced them out a bit. She's going every three days now.

Yesterday she finally released after a weekend drought full of gas and fussiness. She gave me a diaper full during the day... but the whole point of this post?

My dear little girl gave an A-plus effort last night for Chris while I was sleeping. While he was changing her wet diaper, she started pooping. And she didn't stop until she had filled two diapers that he had hurriedly shoved under her.

She truly is Mama's Little Girl. My darling little blessing saved all that wonderfulness for her daddy. I'm so proud.

Let It Snow

No matter where you are, you probably know about the snow storm that hit the Midwest this weekend. We got smacked with the more gentle aspects of the snow. We received eight inches of snow and almost half an inch of freezing rain. Luckily, we skipped the whole "ice storm" scenario and were instead given a winter wonderland.

Our economy here in Wausau, Wisconsin is not dependent on the snow, though we do have a ski hill (they can make their own snow). My parents live in a "tourist town" that is reliant on getting snow before Christmas, however. The past few years, they haven't, and it's made a difference. I'm hoping this foot of snow will open up the snowmobile trails soon.

That's just one reason I'm not that upset about the snow. Another is I think it's pretty. And pretty things make me happy.

I was also looking forward to getting some exercise, and what could be better than shoveling eight inches of heavy, rain-soaked snow? Not much. I huffed and I puffed and I shoveled that darn sidewalk.

I wasn't with Ben and Chris went they went outside this afternoon. Chris had a cute tale to tell, though. On his own, without any instruction, our son gathered some snow into a ball and threw it. That's something I had to teach my Tucson-native husband how to do when he moved here. Ben knew instinctively what all that fluffy cold stuff was for. Snowball fights.

Isn't it lovely?

*******

On a more solemn note, our family joins my sister as we all grieve the loss of her pregnancy. It's not my story, so I'm not going to tell it. I'll just say that I'm very sad, and my heart is with my sister and her husband. I've been counting my blessings all weekend long.

NaBloPoMo-NoMo-TGIO

Today is the last day of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). Thank God It's Over.

I managed to successfully finish the month without a lot of junk posts. I tried to come up with something substantive every day, even if I did cheat slightly by working ahead a bit on the weekends sometimes.

Journaling my life every day is an interesting idea. Doing so publicly is kind of crazy, but it's a journey of honesty and self reflection. For me, it's also a test of my morality and my character. I try to live my life without subterfuge and deceit. I try to do things I could be proud of, and I try not to keep areas in my life that I would deem unbloggable.

Since quitting my job and staying home, I thought those character tests would dissipate. Not interacting with so many people every day would make it easier to be a good person because I'd be less likely to be catty, less likely to gossip, less likely to stress out over stupid things.

That's not really true, though I am less likely to do those things.

Staying home has opened up different areas to fail or fall short. Instead of judging my co-workers, I find myself more critical of my husband and myself. Instead of stressing out over stupid work stuff, I find myself stressing out over stupid kid stuff.

Blogging keeps me sane and keeps me honest. Reading other people's blogs demonstrates to me that other people are going through the same things, and I'm doing okay. I don't have to be a perfect stay-at-home mom to be a success in life, to be a good person.

I find grace especially in times when I disappoint myself. In the process of identifying where I could have reacted differently or where I could have shown more kindness, I'm learning to accept the roller coasters of life and the fallacy of perfection.

Though it would be nice to be the sort of mom who never snaps at her toddler or who never begrudges her infant another marathon turn at the breast, I know that I'm not alone in those so-called failures. I'm human, and blogging helps keep those instances in perspective.

One could say I'm blogging right now to avoid changing a monster poo diaper my son just produced. That someone could be right. Or one could say that I'm blogging right now to claim a bit of time during the day just for me... as a mother, but more importantly, as yet another person on this crazy ride called life. That someone would be right as well.

The Other Side of Bliss

Today I feel like my talents as a SAHM are being taxed for the first time. Having two children. Sure, it's been difficult in the last six weeks, but today is different. Today, my son is sick.

Ben went to daycare Tuesday afternoon so I could clean the basement. He woke up Wednesday morning with a raging cough. By evening, he was wheezing. It was a rough night.

In between his breathing treatments for his asthma, he's being a trooper. I can tell, though, that having Anna around bothers him now that he has to share Mommy when he needs me most.

It's the little things. He came over to cuddle when Anna began to cry, needing her diaper changed. Later, he tried climbing in her bassinet (but asked my permission first. He didn't get it.)

When my back was turned, he sat in her swing and actually got it to swing back and forth. When he saw that I had Anna lying on a blanket on the floor next to me while I was washing dishes, he came over and laid down next to her, staring up at me like she was.

If Anna weren't here, I'd be able to sit with him and cuddle all day. Instead, I only get to give hugs, wipe noses, offer oranges, water and teddy grahams, and say "I love you honey" over and over again. I feel ripped in two, my heart trying to be big enough to cover all the hurts and misery.

My brave little boy, content to be tucked into bed for a nap, knowing that I needed to get back downstairs to tend to crying Anna. I love him so much, and I'm so grateful he is so brave and so generous.

The Conditional Basement

I have a definitely love/hate relationship with our basement. Looking back on old posts, I remember that the basement of this house was one of its prime selling features. I described it as clean and dry.

Ha. Ha, I say.

When spring came, the walls leaked. The floor became very wet. And all the boxes that we had left on the floor in one half of the basement were ruined. Like the ubiquitous wire hangers, I say, "NO CARDBOARD BOXES!"

Months ago, we sorted through most of the boxes down there. We quit after the first sort, and we never quite made it back down there again. So we left chaos and garbage everywhere.

I never had to see it because I was pregnant, and Chris wouldn't let me carry laundry up the stairs. No other reason to go down there.

Well, last week, Chris's employer had a turkey handout. Like the year before, we donated our turkey to a friend since we had no freezer space for a whole turkey. Chris said that by next year, we'd have a small chest freezer so we won't have to turn down free food again.

The "fool" mentioned it to my mom. Now she's taking us shopping and is helping us pay for it.

I told him I'd let him get a chest freezer under one condition: we get the basement looking halfway decent before we bring it home.

So how the heck did I get stuck with the cleaning job? Oh yeah. That's right. I'm not employed. Ben went to Amber's house for the afternoon, and Anna and I tackled the basement.

Before:


After:


It's still not really good, but at least there's some clean floor. I filled over ten bags of garbage (Sorry Landfill). Mind you, this is only 25 percent of the basement. But it's good enough for me for now. The true test is that I'd let my mom go down there without dying of shame (though her basement is a disaster area, but that's one of her quaint eccentricities... I just don't want to admit I inherited that trait from her).

The One We Kept

Once Anna decided to rush into the world, Chris and I finalized our decision to go ahead with the cat plan. We didn't talk about it much before hand. I think we had two conversations about it. I kept getting very emotional, so I just wouldn't talk.

The plan was to surrender my cat while I was in the hospital with Anna. Chris would take care of the details, and I wouldn't have to be involved.

There were some issues. Since our local humane society is no longer the de facto drop-off site for strays in our county, they will not always accept surrendered animals. They tried scheduling an appointment for surrender two weeks out. Our nice, neat little plan was collapsing.

Chris called them back to explain the situation to them, how we wanted the cat surrendered before the baby came home. They relented. Chris made arrangements for Adira's medical file to be forwarded to the shelter. He got everything ready for her to go.

Maybe it was a bad idea then for me to go home to have dinner with Ben while Anna was still in the hospital. I was already a hormonal wreck, and I was missing Ben, and Adira missed me. While I sat in the living room eating, Adira was sitting on the back of my chair, licking my face and arms, nuzzling me and being the sweetest cat ever.

I just sat there and cried (kind of like I'm doing now).

Anna was released the next day, so Chris brought Adira to the shelter in the morning. Nothing short of a miracle, my mom answered the hospital phone while I was packing all of our hospital things to go home. It was Chris calling. He was having second thoughts as he drove Adira. I'm sure she was crying and meowing (she hates car rides). I don't know if I would have been strong enough to tell him to go through with it.

He did. And we haven't talked about it. We quickly learned to say "the cat" instead of "the cats." I'm learning to try to appreciate the one we kept, Maisie.

She's just so annoying sometimes... and she's so NOT Adira. But, she loves children and babies and she always uses the litter box, even if it's way past the time it should have been cleaned.

And she's kind of cute, once in a while. Pure white, she has one blue eye and one yellow eye. I just wish she was Adira. I just wish I could have kept Adira. I miss her lots. I hate thinking about what her life is like at the shelter.

Don't Look, I'm Naked!

There's a funny tradition in my family that started years ago with my sister. When we are making the toweled run from the bathroom to our bedroom, we yell, "Don't look!" Of course, if you hear that, you automatically look.

I've blogged for over a year now. It's not like I was purposely keeping it a secret, it just didn't seem like anybody would be interested. Chris has never peeked, though I told him he could. He just doesn't care, so I didn't think others would.

When I was in the hospital with Anna in my belly while they were shooting me up with lots of drugs to keep her there, my mom was there for a bit to keep me company. I started blabbing, and I told her I had a blog. I didn't tell her what it was called or how to find it, but I told her.

When I was hungover from the drugs, I realized what I had done. Over the next few weeks, I started feeling a little more like telling others in my family about my blog. It certainly would be an easy way to show them pictures of the kids and to keep them up to date on what's going on in our lives.

And on Thanksgiving Day, I showed my sister my post about cleaning up the toy box to show her how few toys we left out for Ben. When I looked away, she started skimming through the rest of the page. I felt very self-conscious about it.

But not nearly as self-conscious as I've felt this weekend when I checked my site meter and realized that she's read over two dozen pages of my blog over the last two days. (Hi Jolene! I see you!)

I guess I don't have anything to hide. It's not like I have a secret life that my family doesn't know about (anymore). I don't "talk crap" about my family either. It'll just take a little while for me to feel less naked, less exposed. It's just like she's reading my diary.

Really, that's what blogging is for me. Instead of writing down my most secret thoughts in a book, I'm typing it onto a web page for the world to see. There are some things I keep to myself, but not much. But "the world" doesn't have preconceived notions of who I am, my family does. While I don't really care what "the world" thinks of me, I care what my family thinks.

Maybe by Christmas I'll have enough nerve to show my mom how to find my blog. Maybe I'll even tell Chris's family about it. For now, I'll just quietly shudder and try to get used to being emotionally naked in front of people who really matter.

Meant To Be Together Right Now

I had an awful dream yesterday morning. The premise was silly and very unlikely, but the emotions evoked from the scenario shook me. Basically, someone thought it would be a good idea to take Anna away from me for an overnight without my permission.

I remember at one point in the dream, I was shouting and yelling and wailing at these people, trying to get them to understand that Anna and I are meant to be together right now. "It's just not natural for our bodies to be far apart!"

Oh how true. In the dream, I was engorged and in pain by morning, but my heart hurt even more.

When Chris woke me from the nap, he was holding Anna in his arms. I reached for her and nestled her next to me as she slept peacefully. My whole body seemed to sigh with relief.

I remember I felt the same way when I got back from the hospital with Anna. Not having Ben near me was painful. It wasn't the physical pain that it would be without Anna, but it was an intense psychic pain.

Anna is six weeks old today. Yesterday, it dawned on me that if I were still working, my maternity leave would be over and Anna would have to go to daycare tomorrow. Now that I know she doesn't have to go, I hate the idea of having other people take care of her. I just can't imagine them doing as good of a job as I can. She belongs with Mommy and Daddy and Ben.

In retrospect, it's sad how much I had to harden my heart to let Ben go to daycare when my maternity leave with him was over. My heart still broke, but I was resigned to the reality.

Music In His Soul

Our son loves music. This doesn't really make him unique from other toddlers, but it still delights us.

Whether it's banging with all his might on the lid of a trash can or spinning and clapping when the radio is on in the kitchen, he's letting the beat take over.

Ben's just starting to sing along with the radio or our own sloppy renditions. He doesn't sing words yet, but he's vocalizing. And, like a trained monkey, he will dance on command, even without music.

We don't have cable TV, so he doesn't really get to see a lot of music performers. The Next Great American Band is his chance to see some people rock out. I can practically see his brain memorizing the moves as he stands so close to the TV.

Resistance to Potty Training

Ben will be turning two in January. His friend Luke is potty trained, so I've been talking to Ben about how neat it would be to go pee-pee and poopies on the potty.

Sometimes he'll play with the accessories: the stool, the kiddy-sized potty ring. He'll climb up, sit for a second, give Mom a high five, and then climb back down. Repeat. Over and over again.

Then of course sometimes, he's just not interested.

The other day when I was changing his diaper, he jumped off the bed mid change. With Ben running around the house with no pants and no diaper on, I suggested he sit on the potty for a little bit. I went into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub, waiting.

Ben came running in, looked at me, and shouted, "NO!" He grabbed the potty ring forcefully off of the toilet and put in on the floor. He picked up the stool and put it as far away from the toilet as he could. Then he came back and slammed the toilet seat lid down, looked at me again, and said "No!" with as much authority as he could muster.

I guess he's not ready.

Turkey Day Gobble Gone

Well, it's over. This part of the family survived anyway. It's not over for the rest of them. Those suckers have to move a piano up some stairs tomorrow.

Ben pretty much slept through the night. Anna did pretty good as well. Both of them woke up at five, much earlier than anybody else in the house. I managed to keep Ben in the bedroom until 5:15, but that was a struggle. Once we were out of the room, others slowly started waking up by necessity. At least there was coffee. There's always coffee on in the homes of Finnish people.

Ben had a blast playing with his cousins. Anna wasn't put down for a second. There was always someone to hold her.

Things did get tense, though. A member of our family is on an anti-vaccination crusade, and since I don't buy into that line of thinking, it was difficult for me to keep my mouth shut. So I walked away and washed dishes. She feels as strongly about not vaccinating children as my mother does about her faith.

Once the Packer game started, Chris, who really hates sports on TV, escaped to the kitchen to help prepare dinner. My mom kept privately gushing to me about how wonderful he is.

We celebrated my nephew Gage's first birthday. He turned one on Monday. It was a very nice moment, all of us people who love him so much, gathered around his high chair to sing to him and watch him eat his first cupcake.

Dinner went off without a hitch. The game was still on, so the die-hard fans ate on TV trays in the living room, while a few of the other adults sat around the table with the children to supervise the feasting. It was the first Thanksgiving in memory that we didn't try to all sit around tables to eat. I know it's terrible, but it was kind of nicer this way. Less of a fight. More leisurely of a dinner since half of the group wasn't chowing down quickly to finish and go back in the living room.

Tensions grew high again when we all sat down to figure out how to move a piano. Since we've been dragging that thing around the state for twenty years now, we know it requires four strong movers. We only have two, since we're not going to let my dad help. They were ready to just give up and say they'll just shove the thing in the barn up north and call it good. I suggested we ask the next door neighbors if we could borrow their twin sons who are probably home for the holidays. They were and were quite happy to help for the loading.

I told my mom to get on the phone to some of her old friends up north. Their friends may be old, but those friends have kids. She lined up two more people to help with the unloading up north. Disaster averted. The piano will be in the relative safety of a scantly heated farmhouse for the winter.

I'm kind of sad about it. We got that piano when I was seven. I started taking lessons. I took lessons until my junior year of high school. I loved playing piano. I wasn't half bad. But the piano has always belonged to my aunt, and it was time to let my mom get rid of it. Oh well. I'm sure a piano will enter my life at some point down the road again.

Did I mention we drove home in a snowstorm? Very heavy flurries. Had to drive slowly. Scary to drive in, but it was lovely to look at.

Oh yeah. And I took home most of the leftovers from the dinner. :) Shhh. Don't tell.

Friday morning: Three other things happened that I want to remember, so I'm adding them now.

1. Walking into the kitchen with Anna after I finished feeding her in the bedroom. My mom was at the stove with Gage toddling around her ankles. After she told me where all the other kids were (basement playing playstation), I asked her if I could help. She said no, and calmly explained that there's a fire in the oven that she needs to take care of first. She grabbed a jar of baking soda and after two tries, had the nerve to open up the oven door and start shaking the powder over the dancing flames. Apparently the apple pie that baked the night before had leaked more than she thought. When she was preheating the oven for the traditional Finnish pancake, the spillage started on fire. I started teasing her about how badly things could have gone, and she just said I didn't need to tell my siblings about it. "This is between me and God." Still makes me smile. We still were able to use the oven to cook dinner.

2. My brothers' family has two dogs, Snickers and Mitzy. Ben thought they were nifty. When he was jogging around the house blowing off steam, with every thud on the floor, he was yelling, "Goggies, Goggies, Goggies, Goggies."

3. At one point during the Packer game, my brother-in-law shouted, "Go, go, go, go!" at the running back scurrying down the field with the ball tucked under his arm. This was the first football game that Ben experienced. After that moment, whenever Ben looked at the TV he started yelling, "Go, Go, Go, Go!" at the top of his lungs, whether there was someone running or just giving commentary on the most recent play. I found it unbelievably precious.

Liveblogging Turkey Eve

I don't know why I do this to myself. Away from Casa Del Nana, I'm full of sweet reminiscing of the glory of family time. Once I'm here, all I can think about is how nice it would be to go back home.

The chaos is increasing a little here at my mom's house. My sister and her family will be arriving after people go to bed. They'll get the other bedroom. My nephews will be sleeping on the couches. We'll be stuck in our bedroom over night with Anna because we'll be disturbing my nephews if we come out to the living room.

It'll be interesting to see how we survive the night. I wonder if Ben will sleep at all. He's been having a blast with his cousins.

Ugh. Chris and I talked about how we could easily block youtube from my father's computer. Or how I'd be willing to give up internet access for the next 24 hours if it meant I wouldn't have to hear another child star/singer blasting out another cheesy song in a flat slightly off-key voice. It's my dad's latest passion: to find the videos on youtube and play them for everybody over and over again. Seriously. I'm going nuts here.

We can't disrupt it, though. Chris, the family computer expert is here, and he'd be called upon to fix the problem. Grrr.

This is why God invented alcohol. It's just too bad my mom's a teetotaler. I know I'll look back on these moments and smile. Right?