I don't even really know what a "meme" is, but I do know that this nice lady did it, and then she told this nice lady to do it, and then she said anyone who reads her blog (that's me!) should do it, so here you go. The topic is Six Unremarkable Things About Me:
1. I wear two pairs of shoes the whole year: black, Reef flip flops all summer and black snow boots all winter. Very gross (same shoes all the time) and very boooooring. Also? Very cheap. My shoe size changed so much after two babies that none of my old shoes fit and I'm too cheap to buy new ones. Hence, two shoes all year. Nice.
2. I cannot be trusted around cookie dough. (Does that really need any more explanation?)
3. I cry easily. Especially watching movies and movie previews.
4. I have a hard time asking for help. Even when I clearly need it. Yesterday, I fell down and twisted my ankle trying to carry Savannah's stroller (with her in it) down a flight of stairs in a store. The owner came over saying, "Just give a shout, I can help you." Yeah, I know.
5. I don't like Starbucks coffee at Starbucks but I like it fine at my mother-in-law's house. Really. She buys their beans and brews it at home and it's fine. But when they brew it... ew.
6. I have a theory about Soap Opera Time. (It is either super-fast [someone's child goes from baby to teenager in a couple of years] or super slow [the same conversation lasts a week].) (Should number 6 have been: "I use too many parentheses?")
Totally unremarkable, yes?
---
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Jane of All Trades
One of the women whose blogs I read regularly recently wrote about her frequent, bizarre obsessions and asked readers to comment. It turns out that she is not alone. At all.
I currently have a mountain of knitting needles and half-used skeins of yarn mocking me from my bedroom closet, tackle boxes full of beads and beading supplies piling up in our storage area, and a broken sewing machine surrounded by scraps of fabric collecting dust in the hall closet.
I did (finally) manage to donate all of my unused scrapbooking supplies, stuff I'd bought for a hobby I never even began.
I think my problem goes a tad farther than crafting. I am also a serial foreign language student. In school, I studied Spanish, German, French, and Italian. "Wow!" you're thinking, "she's so poly-lingual!" But I'm not. I studied each of them just far enough so that I'm not fluent in any of them. Muy, sehr, tres, and molto USELESS.
I've also noticed about myself that lately every book I read becomes my new obsession, my new crusade. I read E.D. Hirsch's The Schools We Need and promptly set about trying to find a Core Knowledge school to target for my next teaching job. Then, I read Alfie Kohn's response to Hirsch's book and quickly flung myself from the Core Knowledge bandwagon.
When I read Quantum Wellness, I decided I needed to become vegan. I swung from doing a low-carb diet to an almost entirely vegan diet nearly overnight. Now I'm back to my previous omnivore diet (which also has a little bit of Special K diet thrown in for good measure).
I've always felt that I was a very self-assured person, strong in my opinions. One way to view all this obsessiveness is that I'm choosing books based on my strong interest, so it's not surprising that something already intriguing to me would become even more so after reading an expert's take.
But I am a worrier. So my way of looking at it is: what is wrong with me that I am so easily swayed by the views of others? That I jump from one obsession to the next, and the next? It also makes me question my commitment to my current obsessions since (judging by past experience) they could go the way of the dodo any minute now.
Some would say this is the curse of the modern housewife/mother: she's too educated to simply sit around, cook, clean, and tend babies. She needs something intellectual, something challenging, something beyond her daily domestic duties in order to feel like a success. Is that what's going on with me? I really don't know. I'll let you know after I find a book about it. (Or maybe I should just go read Twlight. Again.)
---
I currently have a mountain of knitting needles and half-used skeins of yarn mocking me from my bedroom closet, tackle boxes full of beads and beading supplies piling up in our storage area, and a broken sewing machine surrounded by scraps of fabric collecting dust in the hall closet.
I did (finally) manage to donate all of my unused scrapbooking supplies, stuff I'd bought for a hobby I never even began.
I think my problem goes a tad farther than crafting. I am also a serial foreign language student. In school, I studied Spanish, German, French, and Italian. "Wow!" you're thinking, "she's so poly-lingual!" But I'm not. I studied each of them just far enough so that I'm not fluent in any of them. Muy, sehr, tres, and molto USELESS.
I've also noticed about myself that lately every book I read becomes my new obsession, my new crusade. I read E.D. Hirsch's The Schools We Need and promptly set about trying to find a Core Knowledge school to target for my next teaching job. Then, I read Alfie Kohn's response to Hirsch's book and quickly flung myself from the Core Knowledge bandwagon.
When I read Quantum Wellness, I decided I needed to become vegan. I swung from doing a low-carb diet to an almost entirely vegan diet nearly overnight. Now I'm back to my previous omnivore diet (which also has a little bit of Special K diet thrown in for good measure).
I've always felt that I was a very self-assured person, strong in my opinions. One way to view all this obsessiveness is that I'm choosing books based on my strong interest, so it's not surprising that something already intriguing to me would become even more so after reading an expert's take.
But I am a worrier. So my way of looking at it is: what is wrong with me that I am so easily swayed by the views of others? That I jump from one obsession to the next, and the next? It also makes me question my commitment to my current obsessions since (judging by past experience) they could go the way of the dodo any minute now.
Some would say this is the curse of the modern housewife/mother: she's too educated to simply sit around, cook, clean, and tend babies. She needs something intellectual, something challenging, something beyond her daily domestic duties in order to feel like a success. Is that what's going on with me? I really don't know. I'll let you know after I find a book about it. (Or maybe I should just go read Twlight. Again.)
---
Friday, September 19, 2008
Her Thieving Ways
We have eleventy kajillion toys in our tiny apartment. Despite the fact that we actively refrain from buying toys and we have vastly fewer than some of our friends with larger living spaces, we still have far more than any child could need.
And all but about five of them are Chelsea's.
Savannah's few playthings are the gifts she was given as a newborn and the very few toys that are for such small babies that Chelsea forgot they were once hers. Like a teether.
So last Saturday while I was at the Swap Shed (a give and take section of our town dump), I picked up one little book for Savannah: Raffi's Baby Beluga. (It is her song, after all.)
Chelsea had appropriated it and memorized it by Tuesday.
Later in the week, we were out for an evening stroll. Savannah was just chilling and Chelsea was talking to herself nonstop (as usual). Jeremy and I took the opportunity to (gasp!) have an adult conversation. In which one of us talks and the other one listens. Without interruption!
Then, (although I was very dutifully listening to my husband) I couldn't help but notice what Chelsea was singing:
"Baby Percy
In the deep brown tracks,
Drive so wild and you drive so free,
Sky above and the tracks below,
You're just a little green train on the go.
Percy Wuh-Wercy,
Oh, Percy Wuh-Wercy
Is your tracks warm?
Is your Thomas home?
With you, so happy."
That's right. Not only did she steal her sister's only book, she commandeered the song AND TURNED IT INTO A TRAIN SONG. As if we didn't have enough Thomas in our lives.
---
And all but about five of them are Chelsea's.
Savannah's few playthings are the gifts she was given as a newborn and the very few toys that are for such small babies that Chelsea forgot they were once hers. Like a teether.
So last Saturday while I was at the Swap Shed (a give and take section of our town dump), I picked up one little book for Savannah: Raffi's Baby Beluga. (It is her song, after all.)
Chelsea had appropriated it and memorized it by Tuesday.
Later in the week, we were out for an evening stroll. Savannah was just chilling and Chelsea was talking to herself nonstop (as usual). Jeremy and I took the opportunity to (gasp!) have an adult conversation. In which one of us talks and the other one listens. Without interruption!
Then, (although I was very dutifully listening to my husband) I couldn't help but notice what Chelsea was singing:
"Baby Percy
In the deep brown tracks,
Drive so wild and you drive so free,
Sky above and the tracks below,
You're just a little green train on the go.
Percy Wuh-Wercy,
Oh, Percy Wuh-Wercy
Is your tracks warm?
Is your Thomas home?
With you, so happy."
That's right. Not only did she steal her sister's only book, she commandeered the song AND TURNED IT INTO A TRAIN SONG. As if we didn't have enough Thomas in our lives.
---
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Toddler Morning Workout
Before 9am, Chelsea has:
-heard a story,
-played with baby bottles,
-climbed into baby sister's exersaucer,
-gotten stuck in baby sister's exersaucer,
-"helped" me blow-dry my hair,
-played with make-up,
-"read" three books,
-tripped and fallen,
-played with baby ABC toy,
-traveled around the house on play car,
-rubbed lotion on her arms,
-played with her jack-in-the-box,
-tried on shoes,
-tried on hats,
-tried on mittens,
-discarded shoes, hats, and mittens,
-played with bubble wrap,
-"read" a magazine, and
-pulled all the cushions off the couch.
Whew. I'm exhausted just looking at that list.
---
-heard a story,
-played with baby bottles,
-climbed into baby sister's exersaucer,
-gotten stuck in baby sister's exersaucer,
-"helped" me blow-dry my hair,
-played with make-up,
-"read" three books,
-tripped and fallen,
-played with baby ABC toy,
-traveled around the house on play car,
-rubbed lotion on her arms,
-played with her jack-in-the-box,
-tried on shoes,
-tried on hats,
-tried on mittens,
-discarded shoes, hats, and mittens,
-played with bubble wrap,
-"read" a magazine, and
-pulled all the cushions off the couch.
Whew. I'm exhausted just looking at that list.
---
Thursday, September 4, 2008
California Girls
Just another typical day in sunny Southern California...
Yeah, I'm in the swing, but I'm not going to be happy about it.
I'm in the swing, too, and I don't think I like it either.
Oh wait! I do like it! Look at me! I like it!
Just kidding... I LOVE IT!!!
Aaaand, I'll just go climb this tree.
Why Jeremy Needs a Blog
We went to a local fair recently and there was a moonbounce. Two bucks to wear your child out. So worth it!
I was sitting in the shade with Savannah, so Jeremy walked over with Chelsea and watched her jump. At first, she was the bruiser: a big kid jumping super high among a bevy of littler toddlers. But after a little bit, some older kids came in and the attendant started to give Jeremy the stink eye, letting him know he should get her out of there already. Two dollars will only buy you so much jumping time, mister!
So Jeremy says, "Chelsea! You can do 5 more jumps, and then it's time to go." (She requires this kind of transition and will lose her mind entirely without it.)
So Chelsea does the first of her last five jumps... way up high into the stratosphere of the moonbounce and lands squarely on her head, twisting her neck in a way that makes all the other parents watching gasp.
Jeremy is running to the entrance to get her out. She's in a heap, crying.
She gets up, still crying, takes another jump and says, "Two."
And another, "Three."
Jeremy: "Chelsea! You don't HAVE TO do five more jumps!"
---
I was sitting in the shade with Savannah, so Jeremy walked over with Chelsea and watched her jump. At first, she was the bruiser: a big kid jumping super high among a bevy of littler toddlers. But after a little bit, some older kids came in and the attendant started to give Jeremy the stink eye, letting him know he should get her out of there already. Two dollars will only buy you so much jumping time, mister!
So Jeremy says, "Chelsea! You can do 5 more jumps, and then it's time to go." (She requires this kind of transition and will lose her mind entirely without it.)
So Chelsea does the first of her last five jumps... way up high into the stratosphere of the moonbounce and lands squarely on her head, twisting her neck in a way that makes all the other parents watching gasp.
Jeremy is running to the entrance to get her out. She's in a heap, crying.
She gets up, still crying, takes another jump and says, "Two."
And another, "Three."
Jeremy: "Chelsea! You don't HAVE TO do five more jumps!"
---
Blogging vs. Napping
Napping wins. (Are you really that surprised?)
My super-amazing, sleeping-through-the-night infant has morphed into a normal (gasp!) waking-up-in-the-night baby. Which means I've morphed into a grumbly, cranky, sleep-deprived mommy monster. Grrrr.
Sadly, I'm also slow to fall asleep in general (what? the sound of my husband snoring is supposed to lull me off to dreamland?) and lately, when I do wake up in the night, I have trouble turning my brain back off again.
So instead of blogging during naptime, I've been napping.
There is really no point to this post other than to say I'm sorry to my poor neglected little blog. Hopefully I'll get some cute pics from our California trip soon and then I'll at least have something cute to post (Mom: I'm looking at you!).
Edited to add: Thanks for the pics, Mom!
My super-amazing, sleeping-through-the-night infant has morphed into a normal (gasp!) waking-up-in-the-night baby. Which means I've morphed into a grumbly, cranky, sleep-deprived mommy monster. Grrrr.
Sadly, I'm also slow to fall asleep in general (what? the sound of my husband snoring is supposed to lull me off to dreamland?) and lately, when I do wake up in the night, I have trouble turning my brain back off again.
So instead of blogging during naptime, I've been napping.
There is really no point to this post other than to say I'm sorry to my poor neglected little blog. Hopefully I'll get some cute pics from our California trip soon and then I'll at least have something cute to post (Mom: I'm looking at you!).
Edited to add: Thanks for the pics, Mom!
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