Irresolutions...

On this day before the New Year starts, otherwise known as New Year's Eve, I am pondering my irresolutions for 2012. No, that's not a typo, nor did spell-check pull one over on me.

My resolution for the New Year is quite simple, basically because it's been the same for the past few years now: I do not want to be pregnant on my birthday. Given that the baby shop is closed in my house, this is a fairly easy resolution to keep.

It's the irresolutions that get me every year: a bunch of things I would like to do, but have no real plan on making them happen, am not sure if they are even all possible, and cannot really be bothered determining whether or not they are wise choices anyway. I suppose one could call them the resolutions I am indecisive about creating and/or maintaining.

I want to simplify my life. Maybe. Some of this involves not being involved in group activities that really are not a good fit for me. (Why waste the energy on things that make me feel worse about myself?) This may or may not involve de-stressing and de-cluttering, too. Given that dropping out of group activities can cause just as much stress as staying in them, at least if you care about the other people involved, you can perhaps see why this is not necessarily a stress-free activity. Perhaps getting rid of extraneous junk would help, too, but we've already purged quite a bit from the house in preparation for selling it, which brings me to my next irresolution...

I want us to sell our house. I also want to have enough money left over to buy the house of our dreams. I also don't want my life torn upside-down by a realtor who calls ten seconds before the family sits down to dinner to tell us he'll be by shortly to show the house to someone who refuses to see it if we're in it. I'm also nervous about offending our previous realtor by finding a new one, and worried about dealing with a new one, too. I can't force the house to be sold, nor will I drop the price low enough to pretty much guarantee a sale, so this is stuck in the irresolution stage of hopes for the New Year.

I wish to feel healthier again. Since this will involve the cessation of cookie-consumption and the reintroduction of exercise, I am a bit ambivalent about its occurrence. I like cookies. Exercise...not so much. I suppose the Wii Fit will be able to help me out, but it has this nasty tendency to make my Mii (avatar) look much fatter than I feel it should. Harrumph.

Finally, my last irresolution of the moment is to be able to make a decision, stick with it, and not doubt myself once the decision is made. Yeah, right. Like that's going to happen...

Happy New Year, everyone!

The Turtleneck of Doom

This morning, when I woke the kidlets up for the day...or rather, finally acknowledged it was morning and allowed them to announce their widely awake selves...I tossed my son the clothing he had picked out last night, and left the room so he could get dressed. He was cheerful, acting well-rested, and seemingly in a good mood.

Two seconds later, about when I was putting away the nasal spray I had just inflicted upon my son, I heard him crying. I returned to his room to hear him sobbing about hurting his neck.

To the best of my knowledge, when Pig Jr. tried to cram a turtleneck over his head, he did not stop to stretch out the neck opening, and it probably shrank a bit in the wash. Sadly, it was the one turtleneck shirt he owned that you had to stretch out to get it to fit over his rather large noggin. I wondered if my son had given himself whiplash trying to pull the darn thing over his head. I rubbed the back of his neck and gave him a cold pack (boo bunnies make a lot of things better), and Pig Jr. claimed it felt better.

Fast-forward until after breakfast and my son's nebulizer treatment. He was holding his head stiffly and off to one side, and kept grabbing at his neck. I put in a call to his pediatrician's office, explained what had happened, and asked if it is possible to sprain one's neck just by getting dressed. The nurse put me on hold, probably to laugh at me, then returned to say a hot pad and some ibuprofen should do the trick. So much for the boo bunny being the way to go.

For the rest of the day, my son has taken over the one microwaveable hot pad that we own. My husband is stopping at the store on the way home from work to pick up some ibuprofen since we have none at home. I can feel how tense the muscles in my son's neck are, and I can completely see why he would say it hurts.

I really hope the ibuprofen does the trick, since Pig Jr. cannot physically lie down without screaming about how badly his head hurts. I've had those kind of headaches before when I've injured my own neck and/or back, so I know how miserable he must be right now. I'm hoping even more that he will be able to sleep tonight and will wake up feeling all better tomorrow. I hate it when my kids are in pain.

The vicious, evil, turtleneck of doom has paid the price for hurting my boy. Because it was so tight around his head and his neck hurt him to try and wriggle the shirt off again, I took scissors to the darn thing and it is currently in pieces in our garbage can.

The Most Magical Room of Our House

One of the rooms in our house has magical capabilities. I'm convinced of it. This may or may not hold up in a court of law, but as far as my family is concerned, it is the truth. What is this magical place? Why, it's the bathroom, of course.

The bathroom may not sound very magical to the uninitiated, but it is. Anyone who has ever potty-trained a kidlet can attest to the wonder, awe, and absolute joy that is involved when diapers and pull-up training pants get taken off the shopping list for good. The bathroom also has the capability to make grown-ups act ludicrously overjoyed when junior uses the "big boy potty" for the first time. Parents and other caregivers clap, cheer, shout for joy, and bribe junior with candy and stickers for such an event. What other room of the house makes parents cough up prizes for using the room correctly? (I will make a possible exception for the laundry room once the kidlets take over the dreaded chore of doing the laundry. I'd be willing to pay through the nose for that also-magical event.)

From a kidlet's perspective, the bathroom is magical for additional reasons. The toilet paper magically reappears when one roll has ended. Towels magically clean, fold, and put themselves away. Toothpaste that had been smeared around the edge of the sink magically disappears. Clothes that were dropped on their way to the hamper magically find themselves stowed away properly. For the very small kidlet, the very fact that the toilet flushes is one of the coolest magical tricks of all, and should be done as often as possible.

Then there are household-specific magics at play in the bathroom.  In my house, I would swear that an adult locking themselves into the bathroom leads to the doorbell chiming, the phones (both landline and cell) ringing, kidlets that were nowhere near one another two seconds before now fighting, and a voice on the other side of the door calling, "But Mommy, I have to go potty NOW!" A parent locking the door on that tiny room is enough to immediately require adult intervention on the other side of the door. On days when the magic is exceptionally strong, closing the bathroom door instantly produces blood, vomit, and/or tears from the kidlets that were healthy and injury-free just moments before that door swung shut. Now if that's not magic, then what is it?

Can't we just be stupid for a change?

I am really struggling to deal with something at the moment. Someone I know has this tendency to try to prove to the world that she is intellectual, and I cannot stand getting caught in the crossfire.

I know I have had times in the past when I was knowledgeable about a subject matter, or at least thought I was, and I am sure I bored the heck out of (or irritated) the people with whom I was conversing. (I shall pause here, and allow those that know me to get through their sarcastic no's, ya thinks, and other karmic retribution commentary before I continue.) However, sometimes it's nice to not have to overthink everything. It's nice to make a comment about something silly a kidlet said without someone arguing that the child is, linguistically speaking, correct, and I should add a caveat to my statement that proves I am not blaming my child's teacher for the comment that I feel is incorrect and the intellectual elite believes has basis in fact.

The truth is, I don't give a rat's patootie about linguistics. I do not care if certain languages share the same origin, similar patterns, or any other commonality. What I do care about is telling my misinformed kidlet that Spanish and Hebrew are not the same language. The kid is six. She does not need to be thinking about languages at a grad school level. Not everything needs that stinkin' level of thought!

I am seriously debating whether I should drop out of a group I am in strictly so I do not have to deal with things being analyzed to this degree by this particular individual. I have no desire to play Whose Brain is Bigger about anything, let alone comments that were made to prove a completely different point. (The point of that conversation was actually that I do not want the public schools to teach my children about religion because my middle child can't get any of her facts straight. She needs quite a bit of repetition, and that is just not provided in the few minutes the school allots to talking about a particular holiday.)

The most annoying part of this is that my child meant to say that "Jewish" and Hebrew were essentially the same (and for my six-year-old, that's about what I would expect her to get from her lessons on Hanukkah at a public school), and she instead said "Spanish." Given that a large percentage of our town's population speaks Spanish, I can see why she would say that by accident. Knowing my luck, this particular individual would try and prove how smart she is by telling me that "Jewish" and Hebrew are nothing alike. Seriously, I just don't want to have to think that much. I'd much rather be stupid.

Put down the cookie...

I have this tendency to walk around the house, doing various chores or activities, and mentally playing the same song over and over. Unfortunately, I almost always am creating new lyrics to the tunes that are stuck in my head. From time to time, I even break out in a rousing rendition of my new song parody. I am convinced that this trait is a direct result of having to use singing to calm down or refocus one or more of my cranky kidlets.

When I had to brush an unwilling toddler's teeth, I would take "I've been working on the railroad, all the live-long day..." and instead sing, "I've been brushing [insert kidlet's name here]'s teeth, for about ten seconds..." When it was raining during our long walk to school, "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream..." became "Row, row, row ourselves, gently off to school..." I think it's safe to assume I am not the only parent on this planet who has made up lyrics to a well-known tune and sang it in such a manner.

This morning, I had the tune for "Put Down the Duckie" stuck in my head. I am blaming all of the hours spent watching various Sesame Street DVDs for having Hoots the Owl's and Ernie's voices mentally singing to me. Why this Sesame Street song was in my head today of all days is a mystery, but there it was.

I then made the mistake of stepping on the scale. The Weight Fairy was far too kind in her gifts this holiday season. Too bad none of those pounds came with gift receipts so I could return them.

Combining my excess weight with "Put Down the Duckie" led to me randomly blurting out "Put down the cookie. Put down the cookie. Put down the cookie. You've got to leave those fats alone!" Only time will tell if these new lyrics will motivate me to stop eating all the junk food and start to exercise more frequently.

Given that I've eaten a couple of snickerdoodles while typing this, I'm thinking it will take at least a few more rounds of "Put Down the Cookie" before it sticks.

"Are we there yet?"

My least favorite part of the holidays is not actually the cost associated with it. It is the travelling. I am very happy to be at home, and every second I spend away from my residence is a wasted second, as far as I am concerned. Holiday travelling taking even longer than normal makes it even worse.

At least when we travel by car, we have our handy-dandy GPS (by the name of Earl) to keep us company. This also makes it easier to answer the endless stream of "Are we there yet?" that starts when we pull out of the driveway and does not end until Mommy pretends to fall asleep in the front passenger seat of the car or we arrive at our destination, whichever comes first. ("Earl says we should be there in thirty-five minutes. Now let's be quiet so Mommy can take a nap.")

Today's holiday-related travelling had us attempting to drive home just before three o'clock in the afternoon. In theory, this should put us home before rush hour hit. ("Are we there yet?" "Earl says we have an hour left. Just relax!") Unfortunately, the Turnpike had other plans for us, and it took us twice as long to get home as it should have. ("Are we there yet? I think Earl is confused. He keeps changing what time we are supposed to get home." "Earl is trying to figure out how long it will take us if we continue to go this slowly.") While we were sitting and stewing, miserable in our traffic-induced misery, the kidlets kept up a steady stream of complaints about not being home ("Are we there yet?"), being hungry ("I want a snack when we get home. Are we there yet?"), being thirsty ("I want water when we get home. Are we there yet?"), and being horribly cranky ("I'm stuck in a car with three kids that have not stopped complaining, my head hurts, I'm exhausted, and now my brother texted me with video of me spilling water on myself that he is threatening to post on Facebook. Are we there yet?"  Okay, so maybe that last one was me.).

We finally made it home, fed the kidlets a snack, and started the laundry that was necessary in order to have towels so we can shower tomorrow. As we collapsed on our respective chairs and/or couches, the kidlets had a question for their parental units. They wanted to know how long it would be until we could go out again.

I'm thinking it will be about the fourth of never.

I'm pretty sure Santa would know if you were THAT naughty...

Every morning, regardless of my desire to sleep late, I need to wake up and take my reflux meds at five o'clock. Today was no exception. However, today was different because it was Christmas and I figured I would log into my social networking site of choice and wish my friends a Merry Christmas while I was drinking the full glass of water that accompanies my morning medicine. Once the kidlets got up, I probably would not have the chance to do that.

Unfortunately for me, I happened to scroll down and read some of the posts my friends made in the wee hours of the morning. Just as I put a rather large sip of water in my mouth, I read one from a friend who I will call Alexandre. (This is in reference to a mispronunciation of Alexandre Dumas' last name in one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption, for those interested in my esoteric train-of-thought here.) He is one of my husband's friends from work. Alexandre has, arguably, the worst issue with spelling that I have ever seen. He was apparently up late wrapping gifts on Christmas Eve, and he posted something to the effect of "Finally done raping. It's much easier when everyone is in bed and asleep." I nearly spewed that mouthful of water all over the keyboard, and I certainly choked for a few moments after reading his statement.

Some of Alexandre's friends had made rather hysterical comments on his post. They ranged  from "I don't care if you are married...it's still unacceptable" to my personal favorite of "And is pillaging on Christmas Day?" I decided to comment that I hoped Santa brought him a dictionary. Spell-check would not help him with this issue because he technically spelled a word correctly. He just had the wrong word. The fact that is actually made sense in that particular sentence made it simultaneously horrific and hysterical.

Later on, once the kidlets were up, breakfast was eaten, and the presents all opened, I sat down to check the social networking site again. Alexandre had made a new post, commenting on how he was angry with Santa for not bringing his sports tickets of choice. No one had commented on that post, so I decided to do so. I wrote (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Well, you were up late 'raping' last night, and I'm guessing that will definitely get you on Santa's naughty list. Be glad he didn't bring you coal!"

Not too long after that, I snuck back to the computer to pull up Alexandre's page so I could show my husband what his friend had written. All of those posts had been deleted, but there was a message from Alexandre to his friends, informing us all that his wife had banned him from the social networking site for a month and he'd catch up with us all in February. She must have either read that particular misspelled post or heard about it from someone who did. I am hoping that by the time he is no longer banned, he will have improved his spelling skills so that the next time he makes a post, he will not be confessing to an offense punishable by years in jail.

Regardless, it was still pretty darn funny...in a sick, twisted, can't-believe-I'm-laughing-about-this kind of way...

Merry Christmas, Damian...

My previous cell phone number owner was some guy by the name of Damian. I've had this number since around Easter, but I still get a number of calls and text messages for him. Whenever possible, I let the callers know the number no longer belongs to that gentleman, but a number of people are still trying to reach him.

The messages for Damian are coming in more frequently now that it's December and the holidays are upon us. The best I can tell his callers is that this number is no longer his, and I hope they manage to get in touch with him.

All of these messages got me thinking. I have no idea who Damian is, let alone what holidays he celebrates, whether he is close with his family and friends, or whether he is another victim of this crummy economy and struggling to put food on the table and hide his financial woes from his loved ones. I know his cell phone plan had lapsed because I have gotten collection phone calls from his former service provider. I find myself worrying about this stranger and hoping he just ran into a short stretch of bad luck that rapidly improved. Alas, since I have his former number, but not a current one (if a current one even exists), I am unable to wish him well.

So this message of Christmas well-wishes goes out to Damian, whoever and wherever he might be. I hope you know how many people are calling for you, and hoping you are well. Whether you know it or not, there are a lot of individuals out there who are taking time out of their busy holiday schedules to want to talk to you. The guy who called today said he felt badly because he had not talked to you in a while, but he was hoping to catch up with you during the holidays. There are a lot of callers like that: people who wish they were still in your life and hope you are okay. I hope you are able to reach out to them because they are obviously unable to reach you through me. And wherever you are, I hope you have a Merry Christmas. Oh, and you have a doctor's appointment next Tuesday.

Drive carefully...Santa's watching...

I am absolutely amazed at the driving skills people are completely neglecting this close to the holidays. They are running red lights and stop signs, blocking the box, tailgating, speeding, and the ever-popular illegal use of cell phones to talk and/or text while breaking all these laws. My personal favorite is when they run the light and block the box at an intersection where cameras are installed. I'd like to think those individuals will eventually pay, via tickets in the mail, for their atrocious driving skills today.

And to think I spent years worrying that Grandma would get run over by a reindeer (thank you for the lyrics, Randy Brooks) when it was really the crazed drivers on the road who are more dangerous.

I mean come on, really, are you that eager to avoid meeting with the relatives that you attempt to either kill yourself by running that completely red light or get arrested for doing the same? For the love of all things sacred, if your car will not clear the intersection before the light changes, you stay put! Uncle Bernie does not want to have to post bail for you when you are arrested for racking up a zillion points on your license.

And what's the rush anyway? Do you really think Aunt Edna is going to be thrilled with that box of scented soaps you are buying her two days before Christmas because you waited too long? I have news for you, buddy...If you are purchasing a boxed set that is being sold for the holidays, you should have picked one out a month or two ago before all the good ones disappeared. Or even better, you should have been actually listening when your grandmother hinted that what she really wants for Christmas this year is Zumba classes.

Please, folks. When you are out rushing around in the chaos that surrounds the holiday, drive safely. No one benefits when you are aggressively erratic and not paying attention while at the wheel of your vehicle. Please drive defensively, and leave the dangerous risk-taking to Santa.

A drum set for Pig Jr.: The gift that keeps on giving...Mommy a headache.

A friend asked me to pick up his daughter after school today. He was stuck out in the store and would not be home in time for the kids to get out from school. When he was finally able to come pick her up, he had gifts with him for my kidlets.

I have, in the past, refused to accept money from him to walk his daughter home from school, mostly because I don't ever want to feel obligated to do so if we have something going on that takes precedence. He had told me he was getting the kidlets little gifts for Christmas as a means of thanking me. He said his daughter was the one to pick out everything. Little did I know that they must secretly hate me.

The girls were ecstatic about their sand art kits and other gifts. Rooster received a Disney Princess stationery set of sorts, which she promptly put to good use by writing a thank-you to her friend. Horse received a Littlest Pet Shop pets set, which was good because Santa refused to buy her any this year. Pig Jr. received a small tow truck, which was right up his alley, and an electric drum set, complete with drumsticks. Normally, a tow truck would be enough to make my son oblivious to the rest of the world. Apparently, throw a noisy instrument at him, and it's enough to make him forget even trucks.

My son was in seventh heaven. He had a blast just tapping each of the four pads that made the drum sounds. When he turned the whole thing over to check out the bottom, he discovered implements of sister-poking...erm...I mean drumsticks, which he immediately put to good use. For the most part, he used them to drum, although he must have missed the memo about ONLY using them on the drum set. Oh, well. At least the ends were a softer rubber.

The good news is that this electronic torture device came with a volume control. The bad news is that the volume could only be set to "loud," "louder," and "sonic boom." More bad news was that this drum set came with demo modes, which would play preprogrammed percussion. The good news was that pressing those demo buttons gives my son the urge to drum, and drumming disables the demo.

I'm already looking forward to this girl's birthday in the New Year. I'm thinking she'll be getting either bagpipes or an accordion.

The Tooth Fairy Cometh...Twice...

Rooster had a busy day at school today. I'm fairly certain she spent the entire day at the nurse's office, completely freaked out about her loose tooth. She had three missing teeth all in a row, and the fourth one was not quite ready to fall out, although it was close.

Quite frankly, I'll be glad when she's done losing baby teeth. I have never met a child more petrified about losing a tooth. She whimpers, screams, cries, grimaces, and tries to talk out of the side of her mouth to avoid wiggling the offending thing.

Anyway, I gave her a snack of dry cereal this afternoon (It's the only way my kidlets will eat Cheerios: dry, and as an afternoon snack. Go figure.) and watched uncomfortably as she chewed bizarrely so as to not accidentally bump her loose tooth. The next thing I knew, she was crying. The good news is that her tooth fell out. The bad news is that this is the second tooth in a row that she swallowed by accident.

Once the hysteria over losing a tooth had ended, she was quite thrilled with her gaping mouth. The absence of four teeth in a row makes her look a bit as if she has vampire fangs now, but she thinks that's cool. She wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy, explaining how she once again swallowed another tooth.

Not to be outdone, Horse spent the afternoon wiggling her one loose tooth. By bedtime, that sucker had been ripped out of her mouth by her father, who handles the evening tooth brushing routine and had been concerned about the jagged edge of that tooth slicing into her gum. It took quite a while for that to stop bleeding, and the blood freaked out Rooster anew. She was also concerned that Horse would take all the Tooth Fairy money and leave her with nothing.

I was more concerned that we had two kidlets vying for use of the Tooth Fairy box. The odds of both girls losing a tooth on the same day had been slim, and I was sorely tempted to spend the evening glaring at my husband for forcing the tooth from it's then-current location in Horse's mouth.

Anyway, the Tooth Fairy has come and gone already. Each girl has an envelope with the desired cash inside, and tiny handwriting on the outside declaring each name. I suppose I should be grateful that the Tooth Fairy did not have to coincide with a visit from Santa. I'll have to tell my husband to keep his hands away from any more loose teeth in the kidlets' mouths on December 24th.

When a Child Disappears for a Moment

The longest moments I have ever experienced during my lifetime have all involved my children. One was when my three-day-old son was being admitted to the ER and a nurse was mangling his tiny hand while trying to insert an IV...and he stopped crying. I panicked, thinking the nurse had killed him. Another time was when my middle child told me she was running up to join some relatives and somehow slipped away from the group. I found her a few minutes later, in the pool to which we were all headed, struggling to keep her head above the water. It's moments like these that strike terror into my heart.

Up until today, I have never had an abject-terror moment with my firstborn. Yes, I have had times when I was scared for her sake, or worried about her. However, she was always the child who held my hand at all times in the store, stayed right by me at playgroups, and was fairly timid when it came to going off on her own. It is difficult to be completely panicked about a child who is, for the most part, healthy, well-behaved, and a Mama's Girl. Quite frankly, if I had known how freaked out my middle child would make me when she tries to bolt, I would never have worried that my eldest was stuck to me like glue.

Anyway, getting back to today... I walk my children to school. Unlike a number of parents, I don't drop them off and run. (To where am I going to run? Back home to vacuum? Get real!) The students line up outside the building and all walk in when it's time to start school. If it's raining or too cold, they go inside, but that was not the case this morning. I hold my son's hand while we walk, since he is one of my two children who bolt. (Trust me when I say you never want to lose a small child on school grounds where there are approximately seven zillion children running amok. The same goes for amusement parks, etc.) He does not have to get dropped off until about fifteen minutes after his sisters go into the building, so we follow the girls to their lines and wait behind the students until the elementary school goes inside and it is time to head to the preschool entrance.

This morning, both girls split to go into their respective lines, and my son and I walked around the group of students to stand behind them. I did my normal head-check count to make sure both girls made it to their proper lines. After all, I lose visual contact with them while I am walking around all of the other kids. My eldest was not in line, nor was she anywhere in sight.

I did not panic initially. I thought perhaps she had ducked down to tie her shoe. Or maybe she had gone to another line to ask if we were walking her friend home from school today. I walked closer to her grade level lines, ducked down to see if she had the shoe issue, peeked between groups of students who were clustered around something, and otherwise verified that she had, indeed, completely disappeared during the ten seconds it took for me to situate myself behind everyone. That was about when I started to panic.

I started scanning the cars that were driving away from the drop-off lane, the groups of children that were walking up the sidewalks, and everywhere I could possibly imagine looking for my daughter. I could not see her or her purple coat anywhere. Right about when I was looking around for the police officer who is stationed at the school every morning, I spied her casually walking up to her line from the sidewalk. Since I had already walked that way with her, and had seen her go off to her line just a few minutes before, I rushed over to her to ask her where on earth she had been, since I was worried sick about her disappearance.

It turns out that my child found out she was supposed to stop at the main office to drop off the goodies she brought for her choir party after school today. Instead of telling me, she just took off as soon as my back was turned. That one poor decision on her part led to one of the longest moments of my life as I worried she had been abducted in the chaos that surrounds getting six hundred or so students into school in the morning.

I never thought I would have to worry about losing my nine-year-old, who still sticks closely to me when we go somewhere. I thank God that she was alright.

No beavers were harmed in this year's holiday baking...

A few weeks back, I had written about how a group of my friends were making each other laugh by discussing what someone coined "essence of beaver bottom." The basic gist was that some natural flavoring was supposedly made from some sort of gland extractions from the posterior of a beaver. The general consensus was that whether this was true or not, none of us ever wanted to consume such a food flavoring. Ever.

Another friend, when hearing this story, claimed she uses "essence of beaver bottom" in all of her cooking. Naturally, this led to my somewhat pathetic attempts at teasing her about every single food being baked or cooked having to have that quite disturbing ingredient in it.

Tonight, I ran into her at our local library. (This was not unexpected, since she works there. And no, a car was not involved. Give me some credit here.) I had planned ahead and had boxed up some of my holiday baking, which involved a few dozen cookies. I placed that box inside a bag, which I handed to her with the words, "essence of beaver bottom."

For the record, and to the best of my knowledge, that particular ingredient was not used in my baking this year, nor has it ever been. I even threw the recipes for the cookies into the bag so that she could see exactly what went into those goodies. Heck, I even specified what brand of shortening and what type of chocolate chips were used. I wanted to make sure anyone consuming the finished product would know exactly what went into their creation.

Still, the look of panic on her face as she asked me if I really did use that particular natural flavoring was priceless. I'm still smirking when I think about it over an hour later.

'Twas the week before Christmas...

(With apologies to Clement C. Moore...)

'Twas the week before Christmas, and unlike a mouse,
All the kidlets were stirring, and destroying the house;

The stockings are hung and if Santa is fair,
They'll be filled up with coal while all three do pout there.

The children were hyper and wired instead,
of sleeping so nicely and calm while in bed;

And Dad in his face mask and I in my robe,
Were warning the kidlets against making lights strobe--

When out in the yard the neighbors made noise,
hushing their own kids who wanted more toys.

Away from the window I wandered today,
Thinking, "At least it's not just mine bad that way."

The lights on the front of the houses out there,
Made our house look pathetic and otherwise bare;

When, what to my frustrated eyes should appear,
But my wonderful husband who is quite a dear,

Who reminded me bluntly these days are so tough,
But that years will flow by and kids growing is rough.

More rapid than eagles the years will fly by,
And the kids will be grownups in the blink of an eye--

"Now, Pig Jr.! Now Rooster! And now, of course, Horse!
Come right to your mother! Come here to the source!

To the living room come, to where I'm on the couch!
Come, I say come! And please do not slouch!"

As one, my three kidlets came over to me,
and I hugged them all, kidlets one, two, and three,

Then off to their bedrooms, the children all flew,
With their hearts full of love--and mine was full, too;

And then in a twinkling, they all were aloof,
All clowning around and all starting to goof.

My head might be pounding from their silly teasing,
But having my children is really quite pleasing.

They were dressed all in pajamas, robes, and slippers,
And should be in bed now, those rascally nippers.

A bunch of their toys they had flung on the floor,
And they were running amok with their playtime galore.

Their eyes then got sleepy! Their yawns were quite funny!
They claimed they were alert now and wasn't it sunny?

For three kids so tired, they were really quite loud,
So we got them to bed and then felt very proud!

They clenched all their jaws and grinded their teeth,
But we lifted their heads and put pillows beneath.

Our kidlets are cranky but we love them all.
We will get through this week (though we'll avoid the mall).

Parenting kidlets--that's not all that easy,
(Especially when their jokes are all way too cheesy.)

A glare of an eye and a scream against bed,
But they're in their rooms now, there is nothing to dread.

Once they're grown and they're gone, then I might realize,
My young children's noises are just right for their size,

That my soon grown up kids will leave things too quiet,
Even though things now sound like they're starting a riot.

They sat up in their beds, and pulled the blankets up tight,
But I turned off the lights so their rooms were not bright.

And I heard them exclaim as I walked out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all but we still hate when it's night!"

Timing is everything, especially at a walk-in clinic...

I have been putting off going to the doctor's office for a number of days now. I strongly suspected having a sinus infection, but had too much to do in order to get ready for the holidays. I don't see a regular doctor (the logic being that if we're going to eventually sell the house and move, I'll just find a regular family doctor at that point in time), so this means I'm pretty much stuck going to a walk-in clinic when I am sick.

Now there are two walk-in clinics within a short distance of my house. One of them is notorious for misdiagnosing pretty much everyone. Last spring, they diagnosed my bronchitis as a sinus infection, even when I asked them why I was wheezing. "You don't wheeze for a sinus infection, doc!" Needless to say, I wound up switching which clinic I now use. The unfortunate thing is that the second clinic has wait time that typically stretches into several hours. I really did not want to waste three or four hours waiting around to be seen when I had tons of things to accomplish, but my sinus headache was getting to be a bit too much to bear and still function to do everything.

So off I went, just in time to get out of cooking dinner for the family. I only hoped I would be home before ten o'clock at night.

It took me approximately two minutes to check in at the front desk. Then there was about thirty seconds of waiting around before a room was located. Once situated in the room and being tortured by football on the wall television (Trust me, this is torture for me. After dating a football fanatic in college, I never want to see another football game again.) for a whole whopping two minutes, a nurse came in to check my vital signs. The good news was that I was alive. Huzzah! About three minutes after that, the doctor arrived, checked me out, verified that I was indeed as mucous-filled as I was claiming (Do people really try to fake congestion?) then prescribed an antibiotic and nasal spray. About fifteen minutes after I arrived at the walk-in clinic, I was back out in my car and heading to a pharmacy.

I think I just used up all of my good timing for the next year or two.

Playtime at the Park in December

The weather this year has been wacky. I think that's putting it mildly. We had snow accumulation before Halloween, then have been dealing with temperatures in the sixties and seventies (degrees Fahrenheit) in both November and December. No wonder everyone is sick with these nasty upper respiratory illnesses!

Anyway, this unseasonably warm weather has been the reason I have been able to take Pig Jr. to the park every day after school this week. Well, "the days he went to school" is probably a better description, given that he was home sick on Monday and Tuesday. Normally, I pick him up from preschool and then have to kill forty-five minutes before picking his sisters up from the same dang building. There is a small park adjacent to the school lot, so it's wonderful when we can go there. (We do have a friend who has opened up her house to let us hang out there, but with Pig Jr. still hacking up a lung from his most recent bout with sickness, I'm trying to avoid doing that so we don't infect another family right before Christmas.)

Pig Jr. loves having Mommy to himself at the park. In recent history, he has discovered the joys of climbing, and enlists my help in figuring out how to climb on the playground equipment. He has low muscle tone, so this is a great activity for him, but it also means he does not feel very confident in his ability to make it all the way up the various ladders. This makes for a pretty thorough workout for me, too, since I am the one trying to support a forty-pound kidlet when he panics and thinks he is about to fall.

The most amusing parts for me are when Pig Jr. wants to attempt the monkey bars. He needs me to hold his legs so he does not fall down, direct him when to move his hands from one rung to the next, and support him when climbing back down the ladder. Then the second he jumps to the ground he shouts, "I did it all by myself!" Clearly, my boy and I have a different definition of doing something by oneself.

Regardless of my son's inability to use every bit of the playground equipment all by himself, this is the one time of the day when he and I have each other all to ourselves. There are no siblings to interfere, argue, or take over whatever activity we are doing. With it being slightly chilly out on some days, or perhaps because half of his class is also hacking up their lungs, we also have the park to ourselves. No one else wants to share the monkey bars, the climbing wall, the swings, the slides, or any other part of the park. It's just my son doing what he loves while I have the opportunity to participate in his playtime.

I am going to miss this when he enters kindergarten next year and all three kidlets have the same pick-up time.

Mock Gingerbread House, a la Rooster

The first grade classes in our elementary school had a mock gingerbread house project they completed today. It was "mock" because no gingerbread was harmed in the formation of those houses. Technically, adult volunteers used graham crackers and canned frosting to form a house shape that the kidlets decorated with candy and more frosting once the house was no longer in danger of collapsing.

This sort of project is actually fraught with hazards for a food-allergy kidlet like Rooster. Thankfully, she has to eat the food in order to have an allergic reaction. Sadly, she sticks her fingers in her mouth just about every other second of the day, so giving a class full of kidlets a type of sticky, messy, gloppy frosting that Rooster cannot consume is a recipe for disaster. I cannot even imagine how bad it could be for a child who cannot inhale or touch an allergen.

Thankfully for Rooster, she has both an understanding teacher and a pain-in-the-rear-end mother. After both talking with and emailing Rooster's teacher on this subject, it was determined that I could make up Rooster's mock gingerbread house at home using Rooster-safe materials, send it to school today, and Rooster would sit at a separate table with the classroom aide helping her to apply Rooster-safe candies using Rooster-safe frosting, all of which I would supply. This did not eliminate the threat of Rooster getting unsafe frosting on her fingers and then putting her fingers in her mouth, but it greatly reduced that possibility. This time around, I was not required to send in materials for the class to share when I also had to send in items for Rooster to use, which was really nice. I don't mind sending in supplies for my child to use, but it irks me to have to also send in things my kidlet can't touch with a ten-foot pole. Like I stated, Rooster has a very understanding teacher.

Rooster is very proud of her gingerbread house. Today went as planned, and as far as I know there was no accidental ingestion of allergen-laden materials. The kidlets got to bring home their newly decorated creations, so we now have a centerpiece for our kitchen table.

The only thing I am wondering right now is why, in this day and age of awareness of food allergies, is this project still working this way? Another parent suggested they cut up cardboard, glue the pieces together to form a different type of mock gingerbread house, and let the kidlets decorate it with beads, Styrofoam, glitter, or just about anything that could be glued onto the projects. No one would have to sit at a table by themselves, or worry about touching frosting, graham crackers, or candy that could potentially make them sick. No one would have to feel excluded, need to wear gloves, or even skip school that day. Parents can send in supplies to make the projects the same way they do now. The only difference would be that allergies would not be an issue. It makes me wonder why no one took that other parent seriously when she made her suggestion.

Down for the count...

The biggest load of hooey our pediatrician ever fed to us was that when the kidlets are little, they get sick a lot because they are "building their immune systems." I have news for you, Doc...If this was the case, then my well-built immune system would be able to keep me healthy when my little ones are sick. The way it works now is that they get sick, cough and hack all over me, then I get sick just as they are getting their energy back. I guess I'm still "building my immune system" even as an adult.

Pig Jr. was the one to infect me this time. He was home from school Monday and Tuesday of this week with what I presumed was a really nasty cold. He had no fever and was running around as if everything was perfectly normal, but his nose was running a marathon and I am fairly certain he coughed up a lung during that time. His doctor diagnosed a sinus infection layered on top of allergies, with possibly a cold thrown in for good measure. She told me to increase his nebulizer treatments (he has reactive airways and his oxygen levels needed a bit of improvement) and prescribed an antibiotic for the sinus infection. Then she told me to send him back to school on Wednesday. Well, alrighty then.

It turns out that almost half of Pig Jr.'s preschool class is out with pretty much the same thing. After talking to the school nurse, it sounds as if about half the school is suffering from a similar upper respiratory illness at the moment. I suppose one out of three kidlets at my house makes us slightly better than average then.

Well, despite washing my hands often enough that the skin is cracking and bleeding, I came down with Pig Jr.'s illness (presumably the cold part, since I can't catch his sinus infection or reactive airways) yesterday. I laugh when people tell me that washing hands is the best way to prevent getting sick. Yeah, that doesn't really help much when you have a kidlet coughing and sneezing in your face. I'm still trying to figure out why he had his energy during the worst of his cold days, but I feel ready to crawl back into bed for another four years. At least there's no fever and I can ship the kidlets off to school before taking a nap. It's harder to be sick as a parent when you have to watch the kidlets while feeling miserable.

Now go wash your hands. I'll try not to cough or sneeze on you through the Internet.

If a first grader's stubbornness could kill, I'd be dead by now...

I am fairly certain that if you looked up the dictionary definition of "stubborn," you would see a picture of my first grader. The girl was born as obstinate as a mule. I sometimes wonder why a girl as stubborn as my Rooster is was given to someone as easily frustrated as I am.

From the moment she was born, Rooster was dedicated to wearing me down to a quivering mass of sobbing bewilderment. She always marched to her own drummer, and it appeared that her favorite percussion instrument was my head. She was the child who tried to set the house on fire at age two, threw temper tantrums that would last for hours, thought towel bar rods and monkey bars were interchangeable, had health issues that I had never even heard of until she was diagnosed with them, and was extremely good at requiring immediate adult intervention for whatever stunt she tried to pull at any given time. I have never, ever understood what makes her tick, although I'm fairly certain a bomb of some kind is involved. That would at least explain why her half of her bedroom looks the way it does.

Anyway, I'm the lucky soul who gets to help her with her homework every day. Do you see me twitching? If you sat with us at the kitchen table, you would understand why.

Today's spelling homework required Rooster to write tongue twisters. Specifically, she had to write ten sentences, one for each of her spelling words, and attempt to use alliteration. The homework sheet even gave two examples of sentences that had most of their words start with the same letter. Rooster either could not or would not grasp this concept.

     Rooster: "Okay, so number three is 'night.'"
     Me: "So you need to come up with a sentence that has a lot of words that start with the same letter as 'night.'"
     Rooster: "There is a noise, noise, noise, noise, and a noise."
     Me: "That sentence does not even have the word 'night' in it!"
     Rooster: "It is night."
     Me: "That sentence needs more words that start with 'n' like 'night' does."
     Rooster: "There was once a night, night, night, and night."
     Me: "Pick different words that start with 'n.' Don't just use the same word over and over."
     Rooster: "Someone had a knight kill a dragon."
     Me: "That knight is different than the night that comes after day. And you still need more words that start with 'n.' Here's an example: No one needs noise at night."
     Rooster: *writing* "No one wants any noise ever."
     Me: "No, no. No one needs noise at night."
     Rooster: *writing* "No one ever wants noise."
     Me: *stares up at the ceiling and wonders how many cookies it will take for me to recover from this homework assignment*

I swear that I cannot honestly tell whether she truly does not get it, or if she is playing me like a piano. I feel frustrated because she insists she does not know how to read her homework directions, cannot spell to save her life, adds when she should subtract and vice versa, and declares she does not know how to draw a square, yet she has the advanced spelling lists because she easily passes her pretests for the easier words, and her teacher was recently raving at how she helps out the other students because she is on top of everything she is supposed to be doing. However, if I tell her she is doing something incorrectly, she informs me that I am the one who is wrong. "But Mom, three plus four DOES equal nine!"

I let her write the rest of her spelling sentences all by herself. Rooster's teacher can address her lack of alliteration in whatever way she sees fit. Mommy must make her massively monstrous migraine go away now at night, night, night, night, and night. (Alliteration, it ain't, but it would at least make sense to my first grader! Oy...)

Hey, I know someone with that name!

I love hearing about when other women are pregnant. I can be thrilled for them while not worrying about being a watermelon smuggler myself. (Yes, I did have a "watermelon smuggler" shirt that I used to wear while pregnant. Yes, it did get some rather odd looks from people who didn't quite get the joke.) What is a bit difficult for me to handle is biting my tongue every time I hear the names being bandied about for the wee ones.

Today, a friend of mine told me the potential names for her future grandchild. In and of themselves, the names were quite nice. They were common enough that most people would have heard of them, yet rare enough that not every kid on the block will respond to them. However, my initial thought on the girl's name was that my psycho roommate from college had the same name. (No, I am not exaggerating her level of craziness. She did things like drink vanilla extract to get drunk, slept in the closet or under her desk, slept over twenty hours a day, and one day took a knife to a number of items and just started stabbing. I got out of that living arrangement as quickly as possible.) My initial thought on the boy's name was that it was the same name as the misbehaving little hooligan who is in my eldest's class. Let me repeat: the names themselves are quite nice. Until meeting those two individuals, I would not have batted an eye about such names.

This led me on a rather wild train of thought, wondering how on earth people manage to find baby names that don't drive them batty. I remember really struggling to come up with a name for my first child, mostly because I ruled out a number of names because of students I had. Even the well-behaved students still had names that would ultimately remind me of them. Not only did we have to deal with my narrowing down the collection of possible names, but my husband also wanted to have a say in the matter. (I know...the nerve!) I might have liked the name "Viper," but he thought it reminded him of a kid who picked on him in middle school. We both initially liked "Radish," but then realized a friend's dog had the same name. Eventually, we settled on "Horse" for our firstborn, but that was influenced by not really knowing anyone else with the same name, except for a student I knew of, but did not have, by the name of "Horse-a-reeno." We figured the shortened version would work just fine.

Our other two kidlets were easier. "Rooster" was actually a gender-neutral nickname my husband had as a child, and that became our second daughter's name. "Pig Jr." was an abbreviation from a family name. (And please keep in mind this sounds sillier than it really is simply because of the Chinese zodiac animals I use to represent my offspring in this blog.)

A lot of names these days serve to remind me of others. Given that I had eighty or more students that I would interact with every year when I taught, that makes sense. Then there are the oodles of people in my own graduating class in school, those I knew from clubs and other activities, people from my various jobs before teaching, and then the zillions of people I have met since becoming a mother. So no matter what name someone suggests using for their own soon-to-be-born baby, I probably know someone with the same name.

What I really need to learn to do is just appreciate the names and not blather about the spoiled brat child, homicidal lunatic roommate, or otherwise delusional individuals who happen to have been named something that clearly is better suited for the adorable newborn-to-be. It's a good thing that babies have the chance to wipe the slate clean when it comes to certain names.

Twue Wuv...

True love (known to Princess Bride fans as "twue wuv," in case this post's title confused you) is not what most people think. If we listened to the jewelry ads on television, we would think true love requires expensive rings, necklaces, pendants, or earrings. If we listened to the florists, true love would require huge bouquets for every major holiday, anniversary, celebration, and random surprises. Heck, true love should consist of oodles of gifts of just about every type of object known to humankind, no?

Get real, folks. Love has nothing to do with presents. Sure, when we love someone, we often feel the urge to give them something special. And while I doubt I would ever say no to chocolate or flowers, that's not what lets me know my husband loves me.

True love is plunging the toilet so your loved one does not have to deal with it themselves. It is cleaning up the kitchen and taking care of the usual nightly chores so your spouse can get to bed early when you see they are tired. It is not complaining when your honey spends a little too much money on something for themselves, especially when they've just splurged and bought the good gloves to use when washing the dishes. True love involves taking the kidlets out to the mall two weeks before Christmas so your dear heart can have some time to themselves at home. It is making mashed potatoes for dinner even though peeling potatoes makes you sneeze, just because your sweetheart is getting sick of the pasta the kids want all the time. It's when you handle the ironing for the week so your partner can bake Christmas cookies without worrying about the mundane tasks that need to be done.

True love is the day-to-day realization that you cannot fathom life without your partner even if they make you want to scream sometimes. It is sharing silly esoteric banter that makes the kids stare at you blankly. It involves going to the doctor's office for routine physicals and getting anything suspicious checked out so you can enjoy as much time as possible in this life with the one you love. It might involve stopping what you are doing to play a game with your schmoopsy-poo when he asks you, even without him resorting to making puppy-dog eyes in your direction.

True love is telling your spouse the expensive appliance you just had to replace can count as your birthday gift. It also means ignoring your spouse when she says that and getting her something else, too.

Most of all though, true love means being able to say "thank you" for all your honey has done, and apologizing when you have said or done something less than admirable. True love is also not abusive, even if an apology was forthcoming following the abuse. Just because Buttercup pushed Westley down a hill before she realized he was her twue wuv does not make it acceptable in real life. (Yep, another Princess Bride reference.)

May you all find twue wuv, or hold on to the wuv you already have. May that also not require the Cliffs of Insanity. (Final Princess Bride reference. I promise.)

Christmas Music Failure, Mommy Style

Approximately once or twice a year, the urge will strike for me to sit down at the piano and attempt to play music that my fingers have not attempted in months, years, or even decades, depending on the music. Most of the time this happens during the month of December, so I wind up digging out the big ole book of Christmas music and hoping I can fake my way through a few tunes. My "lucky" family was home today, and thus able to witness this fiasco of an attempt.

First of all, Pig Jr. does not like loud music. Or quiet music. Or music that in any way, shape, or form resembles a song. I have no idea how his preschool teacher gets him to sing along with his class for anything, because he typically runs from the room if anyone at home attempts to sing. Since the kidlets know some, if not all, of the songs I attempt to play in December, at least one of the two girls will attempt to sing along. Pig also gets caught up in the random caroling feeling and might croon a tune or two. For the vast majority of the songs I attempted to play today, my four-year-old was hiding in his room while calling out how much "I do not wike dat song!"

Rooster likes to sing along. She does not always, or even most of the time, know the lyrics she is supposed to sing. Needless to say, Christmas carols almost never have the appropriate words whenever my little girl decides it is time to sing along to Mommy's piano playing. Mommy is not dumb enough to attempt to both play music and sing at the same time.

I used to be relatively decent at playing the piano back when I was a teenager. Those years are long gone, and my fingers no longer do what my brain tells them to do when I read music notes. It is quite painful for me as a perfectionist to try and muddle my way through music that bears little resemblance to the tune I recall. When the kidlets try to request songs that I never attempted before, even back in the good ole days when I was somewhat proficient at sight reading, I wind up torturing everyone's eardrums with wrong notes, a horrific tempo, and volume control issues. I would make a really good "before" example for a music teacher's lessons.

What baffles me the most about such failures in the piano playing department is that the kidlets are absolutely thrilled when I sit down at the piano bench. Even Pig Jr. will come out of his self-imposed exile to dance around a bit if he hears a song he likes. Rooster and Horse will dance around a lot, too, and will do so even if they don't like the songs. I am grateful that the kidlets have such low standards for being entertained.

My Ten Commandments of Holiday Cookie Baking

10. Thou shalt not throw flour at a spouse who implies you've eaten more cookies than you baked. It's tempting, I know. Flour will get everywhere though, and you'll probably be the poor sap having to sweep it up after your chortling spouse makes a clean getaway.

9. Thou shalt not take store-bought cookies and pass them off as if they are your own. By all means, purchase them if you'd like to serve them. Just don't claim you were the one who spent hours in the kitchen creating such a culinary masterpiece. No one will be fooled by such statements. We all know it is exceedingly difficult to produce cookies that are exactly the same size and shape, let alone be decorated to perfection.

8. Thou shalt not lick the batter of cookies that have raw unpasteurized egg in them, lest you become overly familiar with salmonella poisoning. Testing chocolate chips before mixing them into the batter, however, is perfectly fine and should be encouraged whenever possible.

7. Thou shalt not be tempted to deep-fry cookies. I don't care what some people think about how delicious everything is when cooked in oodles of fats. Leave the deep-fried goodies for state fairs and the summertime.

6. Thou shalt plan ahead and not try to bake ten dozen cookies in the same space of time usually reserved for making a quick sandwich for lunch. Seriously, holiday baking takes time which is already in low supply during the month of December. I like to bake cookies ahead of time and just freeze them in as close to freezerburn-proof wrapping as I can possibly manage. Not all cookie types freeze as well as others, so if you try to freeze your cookies, make sure you try them out once they have solidified. The down side to this advice is that you might discover you really, really like the taste of frozen cookies. That jaw breaking crunch just makes them taste that much yummier. Mmmm...

5. Thou shalt not serve cookies that were made by a chef or chef helper who was coughing and sneezing all over the goodies. Actually, this should be extended to any food that has been exposed to such actions. I know little Jimmy wants to help bake the cookies, but if he is going to just contaminate everything, you have to draw the line over who eventually eats his sneezed-upon creations.

4. Thou shalt appropriately store your cooled freshly baked cookies. This includes making sure they are in an airtight container, labelled appropriately so that your family is not tempted to eat your entire stash of Christmas cookies (I suggest covering the container in foil and writing on it the name of a type of leftovers your family cannot stand, along with a fictional date from three or so years past.), frozen if possible, and making sure the storage container is not in danger of replicating Humpty Dumpty's great fall should someone bump into its shelf.

3. Thou shalt bake the cookies you and your loved ones enjoy eating. There is no stinkin' point in baking cookies nobody wants to eat unless your sole goal in doing so is to encourage everyone on their diets.

2. Thou shalt remember that thou is not Martha Stewart or any other television chef. I know they make everything look easy, but it isn't. While it is great to try and expand your horizons, try to do so realistically. You don't have their staff or their budgets, so why expect yourself to produce everything the same way they do? Cookies do not have to be fancy-shmancy creations to be enjoyed.

1. Thou shalt not fool food-allergic individuals so they eat something that you know has something in it to which they are allergic. Just because you think food allergies are all in their head does not make it true. In fact, I would suggest keeping the recipe and/or brand names handy in case anyone with food allergies or sensitivities might potentially ingest your baking. Also keep in mind that some people can only eat from a kitchen that does not have the offending foods at all. So if Uncle Earl is allergic to peanuts, please don't give him a cookie with peanut butter in it, don't touch him after you handle one yourself, and certainly don't give him a big ole kiss if you've eaten anything involving peanuts that day. Let him know if a recipe without peanuts in it was made in your peanut-loving kitchen, and let him be the one to decide whether or not that is safe with his allergies. Killing your uncle via peanut butter cookies is not the way to go about trying to get an inheritance from him.

Talk of babies, babies, and more babies...

It seems like all I am hearing about these days are babies, babies, and more babies. There are the pregnancies, the infants that cause our cute-o-meters to explode, and the random baby-related questions from kidlets.

Let me state first that I am absolutely thrilled to have my three kidlets. I cannot imagine life without them at all. That being said, I am also happy that the baby shop is closed in our house. That ship, and all of its late-night feedings, zillions of diaper changes, postpartum depression, and lack of sleep, has sailed. The maternity clothes, crib, baby clothes, and infant toys have all been gleefully given away to others who are currently blessed in the infant department. Needless to say, to hear that there is a mother in town who is pregnant despite a surgical procedure to supposedly prevent such an occurrence causes more than a slight amount of panic in those of us who are grateful the baby stage is behind us. This is especially true for any of us who are used to being considered statistical anomalies, like yours truly. This better be one statistic that I go with the group instead of the minute percentage that strays from the expected result.

Then there are all of those absolutely adorable babies that make me think it might not be the end of the world should another Brawn baby ever appear. (Quick! Someone lock me in a room with a screaming newborn until the feeling passes!) Last night at the elementary school choir concert, I sat behind a child that I would have guessed was about nine or ten months old, and let me just tell you how adorable that baby boy was. He had a grin that lit up a room, and clearly had just mastered the concept of waving a greeting to others, which was adorable despite my having to wave back to him approximately three trillion times (that might be a conservative estimate, too).

Of course, no talk of babies would be complete without random questions from kidlets. Generally speaking, kidlets will only ask baby-related questions when you are a) out in public, b) not discussing anything to do with babies, pregnancy, childbirth, etc., and c) really not in the mood to have to dance around the subject matter but also not willing to answer them directly.

Today's random, kidlet-asked question pertaining to babies was actually not from my kidlet, but from a girl we walk home from school. This nine-year-old's question from out of the blue was, "So when you have a baby, do they give you a shot to make it so you don't feel anything, and then they cut you open and take out the baby, or do they cut you open without giving you a shot so you feel the knife and everything?" She asked this as we walked past a grocery store.

Naturally, my nine-year-old, who thinks she knows everything there is to know about the delivery of a child, tried to answer her friend's question. My daughter started describing how they don't have to cut you open to take out the baby, so I headed her off by saying, "Well, every birth is different. But if you have to have surgery, there are medicines they can give you so you don't feel it. When my youngest had surgery when he was around a year old, they gave him medicine to make him sleep and he did not wake up until after his surgery was over." In case you did not already know this, misleading yet truthful answers are a mother's best friend. At least we were off the subject of childbirth and onto the topic of umbilical hernias.

I am thinking that I should probably hide until all this talk of babies has run its course. The only problem in doing so is that this is all cyclical and we eventually will go from talking about babies to discussing grandbabies.

Choir Holiday Concert 2011

It's not really an auspicious start to your kidlet's first-ever choir concert when you slam your fingers in the car door on the way to take her there. The fact that it was also pouring rain while my fingers were getting mangled just added to the overall feel. At least things could only improve from there.

And improve they did! It's really easy to find a seat when you are the only audience representative for your family. I even managed to get a seat pretty close to the front, which means I could actually see my daughter for most of the concert. This is a huge improvement over my seat location for her recorder concert last year, where I spent most of the time watching the backs of the clueless parents who insisted on standing up to record their talented little darlings without worrying about us poor fools who might be trying to actually sit and watch behind them. A friend wound up sitting in the same row as I did, so I also had someone to chat with during the half hour downtime between dropping off my daughter and the start of the concert. The fact that the crazy clown lady from our town sat a few seats down from me was almost irrelevant since I could turn my back on her. Then again, turning my back on her might not have been wise, given the whole "crazy" part of that equation, but it worked for the evening.

My daughter was incredibly excited to be singing tonight. She oozed glee out of every possible orifice. She shone. She beamed. She glowed. The fact that they had really good lighting might have contributed to this, but I'll just presume it was her natural happiness causing her to just bubble over with joy.

The songs were actually kind of cute, too. I was expecting the usual mixture of songs I've heard a zillion times and counting, but even the ones I knew had little twists that made them new-to-me. Having a teacher's choir join the kidlets was funny, too. The three men (my daughter's teacher, principal, and an aide who I refer to as "Mr. Megaphone," for obvious reasons) who somehow found themselves signed up to sing with a multitude of female teachers looked less than amused to be up there, but at least they lip-synced well. They might have actually sung, but it's hard to hear three men in a vast sea of women. The kidlets all seemed thrilled to sing a song, in Latin no less, with their educators. All three of my kidlets' teachers were in the teacher's choir, so I'm sure my younger two will be disappointed to learn they were stuck staying at home and going to bed at a normal time rather than listening to their teachers sing.

And did I mention my daughter was thrilled to be there? She sung her lovely little heart right out of her body. She was, in my extremely biased opinion, absolutely adorable. She sought me out in the audience (after having given me explicit instructions on where to attempt to sit so she could find me) after every song so that she could see me clap and give her a thumbs up. When another student blocked her view of me, I would see her jumping up and down to get a peek over the other singer's head.

All in all, I had a wonderful evening out at the school listening to my nine-year-old sing. Happy Holidays indeed.

Ix-nay on the Elf on the Shelf

This morning, my girls were doing what sisters do best: fighting. Thankfully, it was only verbally arguing instead of hauling off and trying to kill each other. Physical confrontations get them in big trouble around here, so they typically reserve smacking each other around for when they think they won't get caught. Anyway, today was simply a very loud "discussion" that was going back and forth like an obscenely long tennis match that just happened to involve shouting.

When my eardrums felt about ready to burst, I went in to the girls' room to tell them to keep it down to a dull roar. When they both ignored me, I said, to no one in particular, "That's it! I think we have to get an Elf on the Shelf!"

Immediately, my six-year-old started sobbing. "No! Don't get an Elf on the Shelf, Mommy! Then Santa will know when I'm being bad!" Clearly, she grasps the concept of an inanimate object reporting back to the Jolly Old Elf about her misbehaviors, despite this being my first time ever mentioning such a thing to my kidlets. Although I was not about to shell out the thirty bucks for the stupid Elf on the Shelf as sold in our local department store, I was intrigued by my daughter's immediate reaction.

A little while later, I looked over at our piano and realized we already had an elf of sorts. Technically, it's a penguin dressed up in elf garb. I asked the kidlets if it was okay to ask Santa if we could have a Penguin on the Piano instead of an Elf on the Shelf. Even my six-year-old readily agreed. So now we have to wait for Santa's approval of the substitution, although I am presuming St. Nick will comply.

So far, I have not had to threaten the kidlets with the Penguin on the Piano ratting them out to the North Pole. I am hoping this bodes well for their behavior the rest of this month.

Monday Blahs

This morning was yet another dreary Monday morning. The fog was quite intense when I first woke up, and although visibility improved a bit, the overcast gray day was starting to wear me down. Naturally, I decided to try the two things proven to cheer me up, at least temporarily, on icky days: shopping and baking.

My shopping trip went okay. I purchased the few necessary items at the local store (seriously...you don't want to discover that you've run out of toilet paper after the kidlets decide to use it all up without telling you...) but then dragged my weary self home without extending any monetary splurge. We really don't have the money for splurges right now anyway, although window shopping can certainly be fun, too.

When the shopping excursion failed to wake me up out of my dreary-day stupor, I decided to battle the Monday blahs by baking some chocolate chip cookies. If any food can make life seem better, chocolate has to be involved! And so I baked five dozen chocolate chip cookies. (That's my story, and I'm sticking with it. There's nothing else left over to witness for any other cookies that may or may not have been baked alongside those five dozen cookies. Just don't ask to smell my chocolate-laced breath.)

At the very end of my baking, at the same exact time I was removing the last batch of cookies from the oven, I saw the sun peek through the clouds. I set the cookie sheet down on the stovetop so I could get a better look out the window. Sure enough, the sun was shining, and what was left of the dreary gray clouds now looked fluffy and white. I know intellectually that baking chocolate chip cookies had nothing to do with the weather improving, but darned if I'm not going to give them the credit anyway!

What'd the doctor say...erroneously?

Someone I know recently requested and received a copy of his or her medical chart for a particular doctor. This person was fuming mad (and understandably so) that the doctor had not only ignored pretty much everything he or she was told, but that the doctor had also written down out-right lies.

Now, I completely understand this frustration and anger. When a doctor fails to listen, ignores what is being said, and/or just completely makes up information, it can be difficult to get them to change what was written, and any doctors that see that medical history tend to accept it as is, since hey...it was written by another doctor. This must be absolutely infuriating.

I have only limited firsthand knowledge of how frustrating this must be. My recent experience with my gastroenterologist showed me that they made me one year younger, which I must admit I am more than willing to accept, but two pounds heavier than the scale showed. That latter one annoyed me, but it was not worth arguing to get them to change. I'll just eat more cookies to make the weight work. These were minor errors, but they were irritating enough. I cannot even fathom how angry someone would be over blatant lies.

On the other hand, I have never been more curious in my life about what a doctor has written about someone else. What was written that upset my friend as much as it did? Was it truly a bunch of lies, or was there enough truth in there to make it hurt even more? Or worse, was it completely truthful and that knowledge was enough to make this person furious because he or she is trying to deny everything that was written? Knowing this person, I strongly suspect it was indeed erroneous on the doctor's part. That does not mean I am not incredibly curious about what was written.

In the past, I have received an official doctor diagnosis of having a nervous stomach. This was back in the days before it was commonly known that food allergies could manifest through one's digestive tract. Once that was determined, my food allergies diagnosed, the offending foods avoided, my supposedly nervous stomach miraculously improved. Does this mean that those first doctors were wrong? Not necessarily. They had ruled out everything they could think of, and what was left became their diagnosis. Was it wrong judging by later standards? Yes. I almost shudder to wonder whether I have a slew of doctors who wrote down that I was a hypochondriac because I kept insisting something was not right and they kept insisting there was nothing they could find. I wonder if I would be just as upset as my friend should I ever get my hands on those old medical charts.

I feel far too nosy over this whole situation. I will accept what this person said that his or her doctor wrote down a web of lies, and hope this person finds a doctor who will listen, pay attention, and keep accurate charts. Here's hoping.

One Moment in Time...

This afternoon, I experienced one of those moments in time where everything seems to stand still and you are unable to react until it is too late. Normally, these instances involve me spilling something all over the newly mopped kitchen floor, so other than getting frustrated with myself, it's not the end of the world as I know it. Today was a bit different in that I'm sure it took a few years off of my life. Good thing I plan to live at least a hundred more years, eh?

I was with the kidlets at a birthday party for a friend's child. The kidlets varied from being thrilled to be there and curled up on my lap crying. In other words, it was a typical kid's birthday party. Towards the end of the time there, the giant pinata was deemed ready to be attacked by a baseball bat. The parents in charge of the party did a really good job of making sure the kidlets were in a line safely out of range of whoever was swinging the bat at any given time. Then it was time for Pig Jr. to have a turn.

My son put down his decorative box which was given to him to collect candy once the star-shaped cardboard creation exploded. He took a few light swings at the pinata, and ran off to let someone else have a turn. Before the next kidlet, coincidentally his sister Rooster, got up to take her turn, I called out to ask him where he put his box.

The next thirty seconds are simultaneously a blur and crystal clear, if that makes any sense at all. I saw him run back over near the pinata as his sister started swinging. I saw Rooster wind up and swing as hard as possible as her energetic six-year-old self could manage. I saw Pig Jr. right next to her as she swung that bat. Then, miraculously, Pig Jr. scampered away unscathed while I tried to calm my panicking self down. I thought for sure she was going to kill her brother with that bat. I have no idea how she managed to miss him, because from my perspective the bat should have made direct contact with his cranium.

It took a while for that pinata to crack open, so all of the kidlets present had multiple attempts at hitting it with the bat. I felt like I was watching my kidlets like a hawk to make sure they did not have the opportunity to split open their siblings' heads. It was actually Rooster who gave the final thwack that dumped candy into the room, and I was incredibly relieved to realize that meant the baseball bat's role in life for the day had been fulfilled.

Muppet Memories

Tonight was family movie night in the Brawn household. We decided to show the kidlets The Muppet Movie, mostly because I happened to buy it on DVD this week and we had not watched it with them yet. The kidlets like the Muppets in general, although they do have preferences about which Muppets they like and which ones creep them out. Our eldest is old enough to start getting embarrassed by some of the stunts the Muppets pull, such as Miss Piggy constantly trying to kiss Kermit the Frog. The other two just think it's silly for a frog and pig to try and lock lips. It makes for oddball conversations while we view one of the movies.

I was surprised at how little I actually followed the kidlets' comments during tonight's movie. I felt rather lost in my own reflections about The Muppet Movie. You see, this was the very first movie that I have memories of being allowed to stay up late, well, late for me,  to watch as a child. Granted, I am not entirely sure how accurate those memories are, mostly because I was pretty young, but the things I do remember stuck with me all these years.

I remember watching the movie on television, not in the theater. My brother, who is not quite two years my junior, was still in a crib, although not an infant. I remember a parent (I'm a little hazy on which one) carrying me into his room to check on him during either a commercial or a moment when I was too scared to watch the movie. The Muppet Movie definitely scared me at the time. I remember being absolutely freaked out by Sweetums, the biggest, hairiest monster dude in the movie. He was running down a street chasing after the beloved characters, and that gave me nightmares for ages afterwards.

I remember being happy that Big Bird put in an appearance in the movie. I knew who that was! Later, Big Bird also put an appearance in those nightmares, except this time he was chasing me much like Sweetums chased the other Muppets.

I remember very little about the plot of the movie at the time, probably because most of the jokes and cameo appearances would have been over my head. To this day, I am surprised at how many Muppet jokes are really for the adults in the audience. As the current adult, this amuses me, and I find myself telling my blankly-staring kidlets, "Oh, they're just being silly in the movie. It's a joke for the Moms and Dads." Finally, it's my turn to get the jokes! Sadly, I'm sure I am still missing plenty of them, simply because so many years have passed and the references and actors are not all ones that I recognize. Even asking my husband to explain does not always work. He was not much older than I was when this movie came out, although he was old enough to have seen it in the theater instead of on a television showing later.

Listening to the original Kermit the Frog singing "Rainbow Connection" still gets me every time. The kidlets, however, are unimpressed. They think Kermit sounded "nasal" in this movie. I didn't have the heart to tell them that is how Kermit sounded for years until Jim Henson died. Perhaps it's best to just let them assume Kermit had a head cold and have their own memories of childhood Muppet movies involve the voice talents of Steve Whitmire. Hopefully, their own Muppet memories won't lead to nightmares either.

Kidlets doing what they do best, and darned if I know what that is.

I remember being a kidlet myself and thinking that other kidlets made no sense whatsoever. This was when I was around nine or ten years old. If I was not able to comprehend a childhood mind even when a child, I suspect I have no chance at all in understanding it now. This lack of comprehension can lead to my simply staring blankly at my children in the hopes that I will somehow understand what on earth possessed them to do whatever they did. My offspring seem to intuitively grasp this fact, and they exploit it whenever possible. "Mommy doesn't understand what we are thinking at the moment. Quick! Put your muddy shoes on your hands and walk them up the freshly painted walls!"

This afternoon, Pig Jr. and I wrapped up his Christmas gifts to the other members of the family. I had him walk both of his sisters' gifts out to the tree and carefully put them underneath its lit branches. He managed this task wonderfully, so I erroneously assumed he could carry his father's gift out next. Note: his father's gift was the only one of the three that was breakable. Which gift did my son drop? Naturally, it was the breakable one. Sorry, Pig. If you're reading this, well, I tried to let our son do things like a big kid.

Rooster was not nearly as damaging to physical objects as her younger brother was. However, she did not stop talking in the entire time she was awake. She followed me around like a little lost puppy dog, and whined at me until I was ready to pull my hair out in clumps. There was a running commentary for everything. "Someone from my class that I've never mentioned before looks just like his father and I know this because his father was reading to us out in the hallway at school, and he and his father look almost exactly alike except that he had a mustache and the other he didn't, and that would be silly if it was the other way around because boys my age don't have mustaches, at least not yet, and I don't know why not if they don't shave yet because I think they should be able to grow a mustache if they want to, but not a beard because those look funny,  and why are you looking like your head is hurting you right now Mommy?" While I was trying to help Pig Jr. with wrapping paper and tape, Rooster was talking through the closed door at me until I hollered for her to just go away or we could not get her present under the tree. She resumed the nonstop chatter right about the same time Pig's Christmas present was shattering in the hallway.

And then there's Horse. She spent a lot of time dilly-dallying on the walk home from school. She skipped, kicked at leaves, spun herself around to make her lunchbox fly up in the air, and walked backwards. She acted as if she never wanted to reach our front door. Once we entered the house and a younger sibling needed to go to the bathroom, she shrieked and hollered at him through the closed door. "Hurry up! I really have to go potty! Why are you making me wait?" The kid who took two minutes to walk up the four front steps because she was looking for lost pennies on our front yard threw a conniption because she had to wait ten seconds to go to the bathroom.

Horse and her homework also made me twitch. She spent almost three hours working on homework today. This was after over two hours to finish it yesterday, too. She's nine. There is no way homework should take so long to complete. Yesterday, she had told me she had to finish her schoolwork that had mysteriously not been finished during school, and then she had homework on top of that. Today, she told me she had four spelling assignments that were all due tomorrow. When I asked, shocked, why so much homework was piled onto them for spelling, she confessed that all four assignments were given out on Monday, and she did not feel like doing them any other day this week, including the one day she had no homework. Horse took advantage of my uncomprehending, jaw-dropped stare to hurry and finish up to avoid the procrastination spiel that was stuck on the tip of my tongue. Too bad my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth at the time.

I do love my kidlets, but I do not understand them at all, and these are the people who are going to be choosing my nursing home someday. Heaven help me.

Thanks, Friends

I owe what's left of my sanity to my friends. (The losing of said sanity is being blamed on the kidlets, but that kind of goes without saying.) Friends lift you up when you are feeling down. They make you laugh when you least expect it. They help you to take conversations down the oddest paths sometimes, but it always makes sense at the time. They understand you are not serious when you threaten to run away and join the circus.

I have a group of friends that waits together while we look for our kidlets to exit the school building at the end of the school day. We tease each other for running late ("Naptime ran long today, eh?"), poke each other when we see someone's child looking for them, and joke about things that we probably should take seriously.

Today's random jokes were pertaining to some sort of natural flavorings ("essence of beaver bottom"--a friend's description, not whatever it was actually called) that were found in some oddball food. At least it was not a type of food I would ingest. One of our group had found out that something was supposedly harvested somehow from the rear ends of beavers. Combine this conversation with one on "no poo," ("Quick! Add some Miralax!") which is, according to one of my friends, a type of shampoo for people with curly hair, and it makes for some fairly odd juxtapositions. Throw in random mentions of rat scrapple, what hot dogs are made of, and meat packing plants in general, and one might never want to eat or clean their hair again. But we were laughing so hard that it completely took the disgusting factor out of the equation.

It's days like today, when I am tired, cranky, overwhelmed, and seriously not in the mood to deal with anything that I can most appreciate my friends for their ability to shake me out of my funk. The next time I eat something unidentifiable in origin, I shall recall our beaver rump conversation and probably laugh my fool head right off my shoulders. Thank you, my friends.

Santa is going to skip our house for years...

Today started out innocently enough. The girls had completed whatever fighting they had spent yesterday accomplishing, and our walk to school was peaceful. Everyone was quiet, relaxed, and respectful of one another. I should have known this was the calm before the storm.

Our school district had early dismissal in order to accommodate parent/teacher conferences, so I picked Pig Jr. and Rooster up around noon. Horse had choir practice after school, so I fed the younger two kidlets lunch before heading back to school to pick up their big sister. The first thing Horse did was to open the car door on her sister's head. Given that this was the sliding door on the side of our minivan, this took a fair bit of talent to accomplish. Things went downhill from there.

If there was a fight possible, they found a way to make it happen. If there was an insult that could be thrown at one another, they made sure to hurl it. If there was a screeching, irritating noise they could make to drive one another batty, they made it as loudly as humanly possible. They even found ways to make breathing irritating to one another. Then again, since each other's very existence was abhorrent to them, I suppose the fact that they were breathing at all would annoy the heck out of their siblings.

I am seriously contemplating sending myself to my room for a time-out. That won't stop the misbehavior, but at least with a closed door between us, their hollering won't seem nearly as loud. We'll see if I can hold out until Pig comes home from work.

It's too bad we do not have the proper type of heating unit to use all the coal these kidlets are earning from Santa this year.

Lollygagging

Today was Grocery Shopping Day. This is typically followed by More Grocery Shopping Day, then Still More Grocery Shopping Day, and finally Remember the List Day. I'm a slow learner sometimes. Today, however, I can blame my shopping inadequacies on running into a friend in the cereal aisle and spending far too much time chatting. This is not a complaint. I enjoyed myself immensely, and would do it again should the opportunity arise.

Eventually, the two of us stopped gabbing long enough to go our separate ways and attempt to finish grocery shopping. As I meandered down one of the aisles, I waited for all of half a second for a couple to move to one side of the aisle as they debated whatever it was that made them pause for reflection. They apologized profusely, which led me to believe they did not see my friend and I taking up plenty of aisle space while we blathered on endlessly. I said, "No worries. I'm just lollygagging my way through the store here."

As I walked away, I heard the woman excitedly giggle to the man, "Did you hear that? She said 'lollygagging!'"

Thinking she was acting silly because lollygagging is not a word many people use these days, I called back, "Well, it is a real word!"

The lady looked over at me and said, with tears in her eyes, "I know. My mother used to say that a lot. Thank you." She sounded a bit as if she was choking, but also grateful.

I have no idea what the back story is with her mother. Regardless of the story I will never hear, I will not look at "lollygagging" quite the same way again. I'm glad I could remind that woman about her mother even as I feel badly about making a stranger cry.

After pondering this for a few hours, I asked my kidlets if there was anything they thought I said a lot that would remind them of their mother. I was expecting some inanity, such as calling someone a "goober" or making a reference to being a "gamer geek." Instead, my eldest piped up with, "Um...I want a nap?" I guess I can't argue with that one.

Fat and Festive

I started out this morning with a huge list of things that I wanted to accomplish and three kidlets who were going to do everything in their power to make sure that would not happen. Needless to say, it took all of ten minutes for me to feel like going back to bed and calling it a day.

First, we started with the zillion questions. Pig Jr. had his nebulizer treatment while all three watched Planet Earth on DVD. I planned to use this time to fold the three loads of laundry that had been sitting in laundry baskets overnight, and having to stop to answer Rooster's questions just left me frazzled. "Is that the Mommy?" "Why are they trying to eat the babies?" "Can someone tell them to go eat the big animal and leave the babies alone?" "Wait! Why are they trying to eat the Mommy now?" "Is that the North Pole where Santa lives?" "Are they trying to swim now?" "Why are they swimming instead of eating?" "Why are they eating the other animal? Why can't they just go eat some meat instead?" I think that the CIA should hire my daughter to wear down suspects so they will confess to anything just to make the endless questions cease.

Next we moved onto the game called "Do the Opposite." If I said something, they would immediately do the exact opposite. It was kind of like a weird version of Simon Says. If Mommy says to stay out of the living room because she is trying to vacuum, they must enter the living room. If Mommy asks them to pick up the tiny pieces of paper all over their bedroom floor, they must not only leave the paper there, but also find ways to increase their numbers. If Mommy says to stay away from the fake tree because it is dusty and she doesn't wish to have to nebulize the reactive airways kidlets, those kidlets must do everything in their power to try and hang out near the fake tree, preferably while playing with the dusty branches and hacking up a lung.

By noon, I was ready to put the fake tree back in its storage container, pack up all of the items I had been laboriously using to clean and decorate, and cancel Christmas this year. I got their lunches ready, forced Pig to deal with feeding them, and went outside to burn off some angry energy raking leaves.

Eventually, I re-entered the house. I stomped my still-huffy self down to the basement where Pig was working, and gave him a choice: fat and festive or cranky. He chose the former. I stomped myself back upstairs and baked some cupcakes. I plunked myself down and stuffed my face with them. Then I went off to decorate for Christmas with the help of the bribed-with-cupcakes kidlets.

I am happy to report the afternoon went much more smoothly than the morning. Even if it hadn't, there were still more cupcakes with which to drown my sorrows. The best part of this whole deal is that my loving husband was the one to okay me getting fat today, so I feel no guilt whatsoever about chowing down on junk food.

The house looks pretty, too.

A Horse is a Horse...

My girls got to meet horses today. We had gone to visit my family to celebrate Thanksgiving, and my mother had arranged for this special treat courtesy of their neighbor who works with said horses. The ironic part of the deal was that this was arranged so that Rooster could have a chance to see the horses since she had been unable to do so at one point where she had longed to do so in the past, and Rooster put up a bit of a stink about having to go. I finally convinced her to take the ride in the car and told her she could just hang out in the car once we arrived at the stable. She needed no persuasion to leap from the vehicle once we got there. I'm impressed she even let me park the car first before diving out the door.

Naturally, my sensory kidlet's first comment was about how badly the place stunk. Welcome to the farm, kiddo. She immediately lost interest in the smell as she discovered the joys of horse poop. Sadly, this enthralled her.

Rooster and Horse (my daughter, not the large animals) proceeded to meet and greet as many horses as possible at this location. The neighbor who was giving them the tour said there were either twenty-nine or thirty horses there, so this meant a lot of patting equine noses and almost getting bowled over by swinging horsey heads. Rooster, in particular, seemed to excel at standing immediately beneath any given horse's head and getting herself trapped by the much-larger animal. The one free-wandering horse was of particular interest to her, as she managed to try and put herself directly in his path a number of times. I had this image of my daughter getting trampled by a slow-moving beast. I wondered how I would explain to the ER that pulling my child backwards to get out of the way of hooves did not work when she so actively attempted to put herself under them. Thankfully, we remained untrampled during our excursion.

My baby niece was also able to meet the horses with us today. I am able to report that she seemed unfazed by the giant creatures who tried to taste her tiny hand. We presume this means the horses could smell whatever pureed foods she had ingested and thought they were yummy. My niece did excitedly kick her legs when held up closer to one of the horses, which was cute. We made sure she did not hurt the horse with her excited foot pumping. I'm not entirely sure how a horse would react to getting kicked in the head by a infant size three shoe, but I am glad we did not have to find out!

All three female kidlets seemed to enjoy themselves. After hanging out and watching the horses for a few minutes without sneezing, I risked petting those beautiful creatures myself. I might be allergic to cats and dogs, but I think I might be safe with horses. Think my long-suffering husband would agree to one of those as a pet? (He just twitched as I read him this. I'll take that as a 'no.')