Counting My Blessings

I am thankful...

...that it's really hard to mess up sweet potato casserole and macaroni and cheese (my two responsibilities for family dinner).

...for leftover turkey and mayonnaise sandwiches on white bread (please let there be leftovers this year!).

...for stretchy pants and tunic shirts (maybe just one more bite).

...for a little boy who is making up a song about fish while he plays in the bathtub. "Keep the water in the tub, please!"

...for his now sleeping brothers who have spent the day climbing things then falling off them, playing Peep-Eye by covering their ears, and blowing slobbery kisses my way.

...for my husband who says he loves me by getting up to make milk sippy cups at two in the morning even on week days (cutting jaw teeth is fun for the whole family).

...for our family, our friends and neighbors.

...for all the things great and small that make each day an adventure.

May God bless you with health and happiness this holiday season. Thanks for reading.

Pictures for No Reason

Good for a Giggle

For those of you who should be working, but are instead surfing the internet in search of entertainment -- Look no further!!! O.k., I wish I were talking about me, but click this link instead for Overheard Lines. I made it all the way back through three months of posts before I forced myself to stop reading and proceed with my day. Now I'm sidetracking you! No need to thank me. Ooh, and once you've wasted a ton of time there, check out Ask A Ninja. Bet you don't know what a Minja is. Click the link and prepare for a whole pile of knowledge to be dropped on you.

On Furnishing a Boy's Room

I realize that some people actually visit this blog to find tips on raising a boy...or in my case, raising many boys at once. So today I thought I'd offer some advice on room furnishings.

First, and most essential, is the baby bed. For your first child, I advise spending days on end visiting various high-end furniture dealers searching for the safest, most esthetically pleasing baby bed that exists in the world. Ask your dealer to find out if the entire bed is made of quality hardwood. Check all joinings and fittings. Make sure you can lower the side with one hand -- easily, and quietly so as not to disturb your precious bundle as he sleeps. Find the perfect bed that matches all the criteria you have found through internet research and the 15 baby books you purchased the day you found out you were pregnant. Discover it costs more than your first car. Justify the expense because it converts to a toddler, then twin bed. This bed will last Junior through college! It is, in fact, a bargain. And it comes with the world's hardest crib mattress...the one most recommended by experts for the prevention of SIDS -- primarily because it is so uncomfortable, your child will never actually sleep on it. Purchase coordinating changing table and dresser, as well as matching rocker by refinancing your house.

Next, comes crib linens, window treatments and a rug. Agonize over color choices and fabric textures. Convince yourself that your child's sleep/wake cycle depends on making the correct choice in bumper pads and matching valance. Spend an exorbitant sum on fabric and a sewing machine so you can "feather your nest" yourself. Spend even more money on fabric and labor when you give up and hand the job over to a professional. Choose a rug with a design that speaks to your heart. And look! Coordinating wall prints are available!!

Agonize over your registry. Solid sheets or prints? Wipe warmer or decorative wipe cover? Ooh and aah over every gift, but secretly resent anyone who buys you anything not on your registry. You've spent months researching the safest, most educationally sound items, for heaven's sake!

Purchase a beautiful, wicker toy basket yourself. Artfully arrange baby's new stuffed animals -- as well as some of your most treasured toys from childhood -- within the basket. It's the final touch that gives your child's room a certain je-ne-sais-quoi.

Finally, it's time to bring junior home from the hospital. Bring him lovingly into the cozy sanctuary you've made. All the time, effort and expense was worth it just for this perfect moment. Savor it. Take a picture.

Over the next year, Junior will:

1) Refuse to sleep on the rock you call a mattress. (Before the year is out you will have added a double thick mattress pad, countless toys and *gasp!* maybe even a pillow...all in the vain hope that your beloved will for-the-love-of-all-that-is-holy SLEEP already!!!)

2) Use the bumper pads as a step ladder to climb out of his bed forcing their removal and subsequent exile to the garage.

3) Chew the length of the bed rail until it looks like an old #2 pencil.

4) Come down with stomach flu in the middle of the night and completely defile that beautiful rug (if only you'd known red Gatorade contained a permanent dye).

5) Compel you, through countless disgusting acts that I won't detail here, to place a container of wipes in each and every room of your house -- decorative covers be damned.

6) Escape during a diaper change, pull up to his lovely wicker toy box, and proceed to relieve himself all over its contents -- including that toy monkey you've treasured for as long as you can remember.


When furnishing a room for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th child, my advice is simple. Whatever you can't beg, borrow or steal, you then purchase on clearance at various discount houses -- my favorites are Babies R Us, Wal-Mart and Target. Matching is optional and generally accidental.

Good luck and best wishes!

Banana Fanna Fo Fesus

"'And the Grinch realized that Christmas wasn't about the presents after all. It was about something special that happens in our hearts at Christmas time.' The End." Realizing a good segue to discuss the true meaning of Christmas, I turned to my first-born and asked, "Jack, do you know what happens to your heart at Christmas?"

I was met with a puzzled stare, so I adjusted my tack on the fly, "Jack do you know where Jesus lives?"

Jack perked up. I could tell he was ready to knock this one out of the park. "Up in da sky and in my heart (pressing his hand to the general vicinity of his heart)." God bless those Baptists. What they can do in only three mornings a week is amazing. "An' Jesus lives in your heart?"

"Yes," I said, smugly patting myself on the back for not raising a heathen despite not being far from one myself. "He's in my heart."

"An' he's in daddy's heart upstairs?" Jack asked. "I think he up in da kitchen but I can't see him."

"Wherever he is," I replied, "I'm sure Jesus is with him, too,." Silently, I added ..."unless he's watching Cinemax, then I hope Jesus is otherwise occupied."

"Where your heart?" queried Jack.

"Right here," I said, pointing to my chest, "and there's your heart." I pointed in the general vicinity of Jack's left side.

Horrified, Jack exploded, "Jesus is in my belly?!?"

"Well...no," I sputtered. "Not exac...."

"I not wanna eat Jesus!!" Jack shouted.

"No you don't eat Je...," I broke off as another thought hit me. Surely I don't have to try to explain communion, too!

Jack continued his diatribe, "Cause dat would be yucky to eat Jesus!"

Realizing I had no exit strategy, I reached for the only weapon in my dwindling arsenal. "Let's sing!" I chirped loudly. "How about the name song? Jack, Jack, Bo Back, Banana Fanna...."

Someone up there took pity on me as we sang through every name I knew, and there was no return to the topic of eating our Lord and Savior. Maybe it's better that I leave religion up to the Baptists at Mother's Day Out. Should they accidentally stumble onto the topic of cannibalism, I bet they know how to get out gracefully.

If Only the Girl Scouts Will Agree

I've been victimized once again. My good friend, B., has a sweetheart of a daughter in Girl Scouts. And I've just come to accept that in the spring, I will be eating 2 to three boxes of thin mints -- whether I meant to or not. I just can't resist their crunchy minty goodness. I've tried freezing them to make them last longer. But, sadly, they taste even better that way, and something about the temperature makes it much easier to eat the entire box at a sitting. Go figure. But that's o.k. I've come to terms with it and can live with myself afterward. But here's the kicker. They've started selling stuff in the fall, too. Not cookies...so don't get too excited. But chocolate-y, horribly-bad-for-you temptations nonetheless.

I think this is unfair to those of us with little or no self-control. But I also realize that the Girl Scouts need income year-round; so, here's my plan. The Girl Scouts need to start selling insurance...protection if you will. I give the Girl Scout of my choice $10 each quarter and she guarantees that she will NOT be bringing any candy, cookies, nuts, popcorn or any other diet-busting paraphernalia into my home during that time. Genius, is it not? I don't get any fatter, the girl scouts make out like bandits -- everybody's happy, right?

Sure, sure. There are those unpleasant mob comparisons. But seriously, they already run in gangs (they call them troops). They all wear the same colors. Don't they even have special hand signs? I can't be the first person to think they should just take the next logical step. Who's with me?

A Special Shout Out to Anne and Harry

Here's a pic of everyone in their Halloween socks! Jack wore his to the church Fall Festival on Sunday, so they didn't make it into the official documentation. He was especially impressed that his had a pirate Jack-o-Lantern on them. Thanks for always thinking of us! We love you guys!

Writer's Block

8:00 p.m. -- Play Doh put away. Pedialyte in sippy cup. Chicken Little movie off. Jack is ready to start bedtime.
8:01 -- Refuses to brush teeth or use potty. Initally refuses jammies, but I win that won. We settle in to "read" Curious George Rides a Bike. Reading consists of an endless series of questions about all or part of the pictures on a page.

Q: Who's that?
A: That's the paper boy.
Q: What the paper boy doin'?
A: He's giving George the papers to deliver.
Q: What George doin'?
A: He's delivering the papers like a good little monkey.
Q: What that boy doin'?
A: He's running to take the paper from George.
Q: What he do with it?
A: He's going to take it back to his Mommy.
Q: What that man doin'?
A: He's picking up his paper off the stoop.
Q: He not fall down?
A: He's being very careful not to.
...Ad Infinitum.

Some interminable time later...George is done. Lights are out. Music is on. Fish lamp is on. Thomas vaporizer is on. Jack is lying down. Things are looking good.

Jack: You not leave yet.
Me: I have to. I'm very tired and want to go to sleep (o.k. blog, but I don't believe in full disclosure).
Jack: You tell me a song.
Me: We already sang Froggy Went a Courtin', Rock-a-bye Baby and Jingle Jack.
Jack: You sing the soccer player song.
Me: I don't know the soccer player song.
Jack: You say, 'Soccer Player, soccer player, soccer player.'
Me: Soccer player, soccer player, soccer player, soccer player, soccer player.
Jack: Faster.
Me: Soccerplayersoccerplayersoccerplayersoccerplayersoccerplayersoccerplayer
Jack: Again.
Me: Go to sleep.

9:15 p.m. After 5 trips up and down the stairs because 1) "I DO want to bwush my teef!" 2) "My bwanket! I need my bwanket on!!" 3) "I just pwayin' wif deez cars!" 4) "My bwanket!" 5) "My music went off!"

And you wonder why I don't write more often?!?!