And so it was done

This Saturday, this:



Becomes this:



Our dishes can't wait.

Oh, and because at least one faithful blog reader felt it could be misconstrued, I feel I should point out that the challenge issued in my previous dishwasher-related post was meant to illustrate that the dishwasher was doing a lousy job of washing the dishes, not that Mike is incapable of discerning between clean and dirty glasses!

L-M-N-O...Q?

We had French toast for dinner tonight, and one of the accompaniments was chocolate Cool Whip, which spurred the following dialogue:

Matthew: Ooooh, I love whiffed cream.
Mommy: It's whipped, Matthew, with Ps, not Fs.
Matthew: Oh, I hate peas.

He was relieved to find there were no peas in his whipped cream.

It's time.

I emptied the dishwasher yesterday and put two identical glasses that had just come out of it on the counter. I then grabbed a third glass that matched the other two from the pile of dirty dishes in the sink (it had been used for chocolate instant breakfast in the morning) and set it next to its mates. Then I challenged Mike to determine which glass had just come out of the sink.

He guessed wrong.

As seen on TV

Did you ever buy your kids stuff at their request, knowing full well it was money down the drain? This was the case with the Bendaroos. Jonathan asked for them for Christmas, and because it was an honest answer to the question "What do you want for Christmas?" and not a spur of the moment "Buy me that!" statement while viewing the TV commercial, I acquiesced. Of course, I knew what I was in for, but that didn't stop me.

See the problem with these things that are advertised on TV, like Bendaroos, Moon Sand, Pixos, etc., etc., is that kids have no concept of their own limitations. To whit, here's an example of what you can do with Bendaroos, according to the commercial:



Do you think my child produced a fantastical Wizards and Toadstools chess set with his Bendaroos? Of course not. He produced this:



Which has lived on my dining room wall for 3 months now, because I have an amazing ability to ignore such things until the absurdity overwhelms me. I must point out that this objet d'art used to be somewhat more detailed, but every so often one of the Bendaroos falls off and I find it in my bedroom, where it has been dragged by the cat.

The kicker is, said child has not touched the Bendaroos since the Christmas tree came down.

But that hasn't stopped him from asking me to buy him Moon Sand.

Enough already!

We've just come off over a week of pestilence in our house. Well okay,
just two-fifths of us were sick, but since they were the youngest two,
it was no fun. Grace started off the fun with the sniffles and the goop
back on February 21st. Matt joined the party 2 nights later with a
wonderful bout of the "barky cough" in the middle of the night. He was
fine by morning though, so we sent him off to school. By the next day,
though, he had a fever and was in no mood to go anywhere. Then came the
throwing up. The fever would go away and come back, go away and come
back. And the goop put out by both him and Grace...ick. By Friday, we
thought everyone was on the mend, but then Matt spiked another fever,
and it was off to the doctor with him. Ear infection. We got him good
and drugged with amoxicillan, wiped our brows, and looked forward to the
end of the illness. And then Grace's eyes turned red. And goopy. So
back to the doctor with her on Tuesday. Pinkeye. Antibiotic drops in
her eyes. Three times a day. Oh joy.

So both sickos are now medicated and seem to be back on the road to good
health. Fortunately, Jonathan seems to have fought off the plague
surrounding him, as did Mike. Me? I'm not so sure. I can't pinpoint
it, but I don't think I'm 100% well. But hey, the power of positive
thinking, right?

Of big brothers and babies

One of Jonathan's favorite things right now is to torment Matthew by calling him a baby. (He's a big brother...this is fully expected.) Friday morning in the car on the way to the sitter, the conversation in the back seat went something like this:

Jonathan: Matt's a baby.
Matthew: I'M. NOT. A BABY!!

Rinse, lather, and repeat a couple dozen times. Finally, a brief silence (taking a breath for air, perhaps), and then, from the middle seat, a small voice:

Graceanne: I a beebee.

1 score years

What were you doing February 3rd, 1989? Me? I had my first date with the man who would become my eternal companion and the father of my children. How is it possible that we've been together for 20 years? I'm not that old!! Heck, I wasn't even that old when I met him! (It was a week before my 19th birthday.) Anyway, I can't think of anyone I'd rather be on this journey through life with, and I'm looking forward to the next 2 or 3 score years ahead of us.

So okay, we have to go back to 1989 for just a minute (I do love me some YouTube). Here's a song I distinctly remember dancing with Mike to at one of the few "dances" that were held in the old Pub at IC. Apparently, this song is notable for being in the Guiness Book for the LONGEST note held by a Power Ballad/Pop song. I haven't actually verified that, but it's not too hard to believe.


(Love love LOVE the stylin' '80s looks on these guys!)

I have to admit it was a tossup between the Sheriff song and "Angel Eyes" by the Jeff Healy Band, which is a song I've heard Mike singing around the house on more than one occasion. But hey, it's my blog, and since the Jeff Healy song is sung from a guy's point of view, I went with Sheriff. If you're interested, here's a link to the other one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYz_LHKrgDY

Oh, and for the record, 3 years later, on this same day, we got engaged. I'll save the songs from 1992 for another time.