Bats are Sam's favorite mammal

I listed a lot of our garage sale leftovers on Craigslist.

Last night, while Chris was out and the boys were ostensibly in bed, some people came over to pick up our highchair.


They were nice people (though they were disconcertingly tall) and we were having a nice conversation as we stood outside. Until I heard the boys shrieking inside the house. I waved the couple home and went inside.


"WHAT is going on here?!" I asked


"MOMMOMMOMTHERESABATINYOURROOMABATABATABAT."


"A what, now?"


"ABATABATANDITSALLSWOOPINGAROUND."


I wasn't sure whether or not to believe them, but it seemed like a weird thing to make up out of nowhere. So I peek in our room and, sure enough, a bat goes flapping by.


So I screamed. I don't like animals. I ESPECIALLY don't like small, fast, mammals. Give me a squishable spider any day.


The boys also screamed, but their screaming was more like fun-screaming-followed-by-giggling-induced-by-the-thrill-of-authorized-screaming. Not like my real screaming. They thought this was excellent avoiding-bedtime drama.


I called Chris and told him that he must return immediately to the homestead. I was very calm. I called my Dad and told him Chris might need some help.


"Awe you gonna cwack it?!" asks Owen. Crack? Whack? Trap? I don't know. But he was pretty sure we should cwack it.


"YOUAREGOINGTOHAVETOCATCHITANDKILLITANDLETITFINDITSFOOTPRINTS," says Sam.

I really don't understand how the kid who mumbles "yes" when asked if he wants breakfast at school is the same kid whose normal speaking volume is ALL CAPS at home.


"Be quiet and get down!" I hiss. Not really. I tried to be very calm. But Sam might have caught a whiff of my fear when I asked if. the. bat. had. touched. him.


"Bats can't hurt me!" Sam said.


"They can bite!" I tell him. And then, reconsidering that brilliant parenting, I amend that to, "I mean, bats can be really dirty, so if a bat touches you I need to know so we can wash you off."


But the bat at the center of the controversy has gone into hiding.


Eventually Chris and Dad give up.


"Did you catch it?" Sam wants to know.


"Did you cwack it?" Owen inquires. "Did you take it and cwack it?"


"Yes," my Dad LIES.


"Oh, you'we a good helper!" Owen praises.


As I try to get the boys calmed down for bed, we talk a little about bats.


"Bats eat bugs!" I offer.


"And they hunt fruit!" Sam adds.


"Yeah! FWOOT!" Owen agrees.


"Maybe," Sam hypothesizes, "the bat came in to hunt our cantaloupe and then went upstairs."

Yes, probably after all that fruit-hunting, the bat got tired and went upstairs to take a nap. Then, when commotion ensued, surely the bat high-tailed it out of here. Who wants to hang out (HAHA) with a whole bunch of screaming children? Not me!

So I tell myself that the bat has simply returned from whence it came.


Until we turn the light off to go to sleep.

Then a fluttering black shadow catches my eye.

The fear that takes over my body at that point is PROFOUND, my friends.

From here, in the daylight, in front of a computer, I can be all like, eww, bats.

In bed, in the dark, with a bat flying around, I was mostly paralyzed with fear.

I literally couldn't speak.

"UNH. UNH!" I grunt at Chris.

"What's the matter, dear heart?" Chris inquires, oblivious to THE BAT.

"It. Is. In. The. Room."

"Okay, just get down and get out of here," Chris says, all manly-like.

But I'm trapped.

If I turn on the light, I'll be able to see the bat real good.

If I leave the light off, I'm in the dark with a BAT.

If I try to leave the room, the bat could fly into my head or chase me or something.

But if I stay in the room, I'm in a room with a BAT.

You get the picture.

So I just break down crying and turn on the light and crawl out of the room.

And sure, from here, that seems all wussy. But I was IN a ROOM with a BAT.

I go downstairs and listen to Chris do battle with the bat.

At one point he comes downstairs and chugs a beer.

I don't judge.

Then, twenty minutes later, he comes downstairs and says the bat has disappeared.

I suggest he turn the light off again and wait for it to come out.

An hour later of Chris alternately lying in wait and actively hunting, it occurs to me that this problem might not get solved tonight. That we might NOT FIND THE BAT.

So I start to help look.

I know, right? I'm so brave.

But we find a whole lot of flying NOTHING.

Eventually, I get too tired to continue and I go to sleep on the chair in Lilly's room.

Lilly finds this EXTREMELY odd when she wakes up. I wish I could imitate the face she made when she saw the Big Milk Lady hanging out in her room BEFORE SHE EVEN CRIED.

And that's where we are now.

I feel that this is somehow the fault of the excessively tall couple who bought our highchair. We never had bats before they came over.

Follow-up

So, as an aside, I'm wondering if anybody knows the answer to a grammatical conundrum I've been struggling with. For about three years.

I work for a research group collectively referred to as the Follow-up Studies. Or is it Follow-Up Studies? And while the internet usually comes to my rescue, I wasn't getting much information applicable to my query, "do you capitalize the 'u' that follows a hyphen if you capitalized the first word, not because it started a sentence, but because it is a title?"

So do you?

Actually, now that I mention it, is "follow up" even hyphenated? "I'm going to follow up with him," looks okay, but "The Follow Up Studies" does not. Or maybe they both make it sound like we are walking around behind some guy named Up.

Let me know.

I'm not being rhetoric.

I need to order stationary.

So, to follow up on the below post where Sam was forlornly wondering why his dad never remembers anything, Sam did come to me the next day with some good news.

He was all excited and said, "MOM! Daddy remembered about when we went to Florida!"

Hooray! Chris remembered taking our annual two-week vacation to another state!

I feel like Sam needs to up his expectations.

Anyhow, I felt bad about that post for a couple of reasons. First, because I wondered if I had been making fun of Chris too much recently.

You should know that Chris does lots of things, and many of them with grace and aptitude.

But those aren't funny, so I don't write about them.

So I counted the percentage of my posts that reference Chris, and I think I'm okay. Also, if he wants to start a blog where he talks about ridiculous things that I do, he is free to do so.

But it would be very short.

The second reason I felt bad about that post is because I looked at it and realized that if someone who didn't know Chris read it, they might think that my husband has a legitimate problem. They might read that and think it was a poignant vignette about dealing with early-onset Alzheimer's or a Traumatic Brain Injury or something.

In that light, my remembering contest comment looks pretty harsh, doesn't it?

How to Take Care of Your Alzheimer Husband and Feel Good About Yourself, Too: Remembering Contests You Will Always Win!

I felt bad because if my husband DID have early-onset Alzheimer's that would be really hard, and there are families out there struggling with it, and here I am, basically MOCKING them.

Cosmos, I appreciate my husband. Despite his forgetfulness and the fact that he feeds the children rotten fruit and the dirty socks he puts on the kitchen counter and under the table and in the desk drawers and behind the couch, I am grateful he is around.

I just wanted to clear that up.

It's hard on me, too, Sam

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Do you remember when we went to the store and they had the blue balloon?"

"I do. You really wanted that balloon, didn't you?"

"Yeah. But how come my daddy doesn't remember anything?"



Well I sure don't know, but at least you know you'll always win the remembering contests.

OMG, Craigslist.

So sometimes at work I get a little bored. And lord help me if my job decides to track my computer usage.

"What? Why was I on Facebook during work hours? Uh, because I was trying to track down some lost participants. Duh."

So I was on Craigslist the other day and I noticed that they have a section called, "Missed connections."

I wondered what it was.

So I clicked on it.

Guess what?

People are CRAZY!

There is this whole section on Craigslist where you can post a description of an encounter you had with someone, but, like, couldn't work up the nerve to ask for their digits. Seriously!

This is the perfect place for the guy who was standing in line at the post office and struck up a conversation with the woman in front of him, a lengthy, lengthy, conversation, but then it was eventually her turn. He ends up thinking about the woman for the whole rest of the day and wondered if there might have been something there. So he posts a message about, "we were both at the post office. You were a funny brunette mailing a package to Idaho, I'm a dorky red-head who just needed stamps. I'd love to talk more, so message me!" and then she reads it and is like, "That's me! That's me! I was totally into that guy, thus rendering this not creepy at all!" And then Happily Ever After. What a story for the grand kids!

Except, apparently, it's also for the guy who is looking for the girl who was on the stairs and flashed him and then he showed her his bits and he thought that the girl was this one girl he knew, but then later that night when he walked up to the girl he knew and grabbed her boobs, she freaked, and then later when PURELY BY HAPPENSTANCE, he was walking down her street, she looked out the window and saw him and now he's being prosecuted, so he needs to find the original flasher-girl so she can testify for him in court.

It's also for the guy who saw a beautiful blond leave her house on Shaker road at 8:07 a. m., three days in a row, and drive off in a red car. He's looked in her windows and thinks she has really great taste in furniture, so message him!

I don't know guys. I think if you don't talk to the girl then she probably won't know she has "missed" your "connection" thus she is probably not going to be checking the Missed Connection section. I'm not sure, and every situation is different, but if you are watching a girl, from afar, and not talking to her, it might not be so much of a "missed connection" as "stalking."

And your post is now "evidence."

Also, even in a world devoid of crazy people, what are the chances that this would EVER WORK? It just seems like a really unlikely scenario. So much so as to be unworthy of expending actual time. So much so as to be unworthy of ACTUALLY HAVING THE CATEGORY.

Note to Chris, Re: Fruit

A while back we were all gathered at my parents house for brunch. There was a fruit salad. Yay! I love fruit salad!

So I heaped some on my plate and stabbed my fork into what I assumed was a piece of watermelon.

But . . . ew . . . I don't think that's watermelon.

What is that?

Maybe grapefruit? I don't eat grapefruit very often, so maybe that is why it is not immediately recognizable.

Or . . . GROSS! Is this MEAT? Did my family make some kind of raw meat ceviche?! I don't even know what that word means, but they say it a lot on Top Chef in reference to food that looks like this!

"Guys? What is this?"

"That? The fruit salad?"

"No, this," I say as I indicate the floppy object dangling from my fork tines.

"Watermelon?"

"Really?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think this watermelon is okay anymore. I would definitely advise not eating it. Or, actually, yeah, you should all take a bite of this!"

Turns out that, helpful guy that he is, Chris cut up the watermelon. Even gave a bowl FULL of the meat watermelon to the boys. Clearly he did not taste it first, right? WRONG. He TOTALLY tasted it first.

But . . . how, Chris?

Anyway, fast forward to Tuesday night. The children are eating dinner, including some cantaloupe that Chris has cut up.

"Hahaha," Sam giggles, "Mom! My melon is sparkly!"

Uh-oh.

"Chris? Did you taste the melon?"

"Yes."

Why did I even ask that?

Seriously. Why did I even bother? He gave the children MEAT WATERMELON.

So I grab a piece of Owen's melon and it is, indeed, sparkly. Or fermented. Whatever.

To be fair, the boys thought it was fine. And they seem okay so far.

Chris. He has discriminating tastes. That's how he ended up with me.

My new work bathroom

I may have mentioned that we moved offices recently. We are now in a much larger space and I have a sliver of window.

I like our new office space, but it is not all an upgrade. Our old office had TWO bathrooms to choose from, which was handy for avoiding the crazy broads in my office who still go to the bathroom together. Are we TWELVE? And at a SCHOOL DANCE?

Also, our new bathroom is so far away from my office I need to pack a lunch for the journey. Around here you don't "run" to the bathroom. Because that would be called a MARATHON. I've been thinking of investing in a Segway. That wouldn't be weird, would it?

On the other hand, our new bathroom isn't kept locked to keep out the homeless people who kept using it. To sleep in.

Which you think would be a handy change except that, everyday, for the past four years, I've had to remember to bring my keys with me when I went to the bathroom. And I got USED to that. Now, every time I head to the bathroom, I spend a few seconds looking forlornly around my office for my bathroom key before remembering, again, that I no longer have one. The whole walk there I feel vaguely uncomfortable. Naked. Key-less.

Also, I feel like our new bathroom is a little . . . odd.

My first day back at work in the new office, I headed off on my own to find the bathroom. I walk in and there is a little table and chair there, creating a little bathroom sitting room, I guess. I noticed that because I wondered if that was the supposed "pumping area" I had heard about in our fancy new building.

I'm using my office as a "pumping area" instead.

Anyway, the next day, I walk into the bathroom and see a couch. So I turn around and walk back out to check to make sure I've entered the ladies room and not the men's. Yup. I'm in the right place. Have I somehow sunk down to a different floor? Ah, well, never mind. Clearly they just switched furniture. The weird bathroom furniture. Because we need bathroom furniture in our office building restroom?

Then, the next day I walk in and . . .

THE CHAIR AND TABLE ARE BACK.

No fooling.

Who is DOING this? And WHY? It is FREAKING ME OUT. I'm already a little unsettled because of all the changes that happened when I was on maternity leave. Now I have to deal with this weird Matrix bathroom.

Also, I noticed that there is a coat rack, with, like, hangers and stuff as well as TWO umbrella stands in the bathroom.

Guys, we're not at the ORCHESTRA. This is our OFFICE restroom. We took our coats off in our OFFICE. Also, despite the long walk, I did not CARRY MY UMBRELLA.

Pros and cons

Breastfeeding is very controversial.

People get mad at "breastfeeding Nazi's." Other people are vocally outraged about nursing in public. Some people won't even TRY breastfeeding because it grosses them out.

I think breastfeeding has pros and cons.

Pro: I'm at a party that sucks and I have to leave to feed the baby.
Con: I'm at a party that rocks and I have to leave to feed the baby.

Pro: I can forget to pack diapers on a trip, but I can't forget to pack Lilly's food.
Con: If I leave on a trip I've packed Lilly's food with me.

Pro: If Lilly wakes up a lot during the night, I don't have to keep going downstairs to make bottles.
Con: If Lilly doesn't wake up a lot during the night, I get woken up anyway.

Breast: "I haz problem."
Me: "Baby is still asleep."
Breast: "Hokay."
Me: (Squeezing eyes shut trying to sleep)
Breast: "But I still haz problem."
Me: "Be quiet. I'm trying to sleep."
Breast: "NO. I said I HAZ PROBLEM. Oh, now I iz so sad I iz weeping on U."

TWO

So I was writing something today and I wanted to emphasize a number. Normally when I want to emphasize something I just CAPITALIZE it. Because in typing etiquette, capitalizing something is the equivalent of shouting it.

Which it is why it is so uncomfortable to read stuff where the author has written in all caps. Because your brain is reading it as if the person were shouting, "COME . . . TO . . . MY . . . GARAGE . . . SALE . . . WE . . . HAVE . . . A . . . BOOKSHELF" with a bullhorn pressed to your ear. Why do they not understand this? Seriously. Why are their still people out there who don't get that this is an inappropriate and ineffective communication style?

I mean, I get why this happened 15 or 20 years ago, way back when it was still popular to write by hand-carving letters out on the page. When the internet was still somewhat new, we hadn't yet figured out how to converse in emoticons and fonts. In fact, there wasn't ANY SUCH THING as emoticons. I'm not kidding, whippersnappers. In the past, we did not use a semicolon followed by a close parentheses to indicate saucy tomfoolery. We just, you know, drew an UPRIGHT smiley face or something.

So I understand that there was a time when the need to communicate through the keyboard was all new and unregulated. Back then, it was actually pretty common to receive an email written in all caps, as if the sender was a little unsure about this new technology and thought perhaps shouting might help amplify her message. But this is not new anymore, people. Why, it's like some people are coming to the internet, but they don't know or understand the language and they just expect us to interact with them anyway. And I for one say, if you are not going to learn the language of the internet, then GET OFF. Or I would if I were a republican.

Anyhow, that's not actually my point today.

My point is that it is difficult to emphasize numbers in type.

Which made me think of this one time - I must have been eight or nine - lying on the bottom bunk at bedtime, talking to my sister in the top bunk.

"How do you write an uppercase 2?" I asked.

"You DON'T," Kim replied.

"No, but HOW?"

"You really just don't."

"But you know how you write and some letters are capital and some are not?"

"Yes."

"So how do you do that to a number?"

"THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN UPPERCASE TWO."

Although I'm just now realizing, that shows what she knows. Because I just wrote it.

TWO.

Business lunching

I'm not sure if it's true, but it feels like I work for a very large university place with lots of departments. Confusing most of the time. But there are some benefits. Today, for example, I was not real interested in sitting around my office, so I went with a colleague to an informational meeting about applying to an Enhancing and Developing Women in Leadership program. Working in a place this large means there are a lot of informational meetings you can legitimately attend.

I mostly only went to keep my friend company, and also to get out of the office. You see, I am pretty sure that I am not a leaderly type of woman, and even if I were, this particular period in my life is not defined as much by my tenacious focus on climbing the career ladder as my unwavering pursuit of a decent night's sleep. Right now, truly, I don't really care how many underlings I have as long as I can take my kids to their abundance of doctors appointments.

So I went, not really expecting much. But do you know what?

THEY SERVED LUNCH.

Seriously, I was thrilled about the choice of wraps, variety of chips, selection of cookies and assortment of sodas. If you had just wandered in to my head, you would have thought it was Christmas.

And, faced with all that unexpected free food, my staunch commitment to my diet (it turns out that the mirrors in the pilates room at the rec center are NOT kind) flitted away so thoroughly as to never have been there at all.

I was so excited about the free food that I actually spent most of the introduction thinking about how, with all the informational meetings around campus, I could probably not pack a lunch at all. I could just register to attend all kinds of random meetings and eat the food there. I would learn a lot and save money!

Then I was eating my cookie and remembered my diet.

Chris and I have often remarked that you can eat cheaply, or you can diet, but it is nigh on impossible to do both.

Anyway, back at the meeting, they are talking about this program and it's all "blah, blah, blah, career counseling, blah, blah, intentionality, blah, blah, all day sessions at the School of Management, blah, where, oh by the way, they supply a delicious breakfast, lunch, and snack."

Screeeeeeetch. That's the traditional "record scratching" sound of one's attention being snagged.

A lot of free delicious food? And all I have to do is apply and be accepted in to a year-long leadership program?! Where do I sign up?!

OMG my brain is so screwy about food.

Another post where I reference the Wonder Pets

The children enjoy a show called the Wonder Pets. Every episode, what happens is the little chick, turtle, and guinea pig get a distress call from a baby animal, who they then save.

When they get the call, they sing about it. It goes like this:

"The phone. The phone is ringing. The phone. We'll be right there."

But I realized that when Sam sings it he sings:

"The phone. The phone is ringing. The phone. Will be repaired."

And I thought that was kind of funny.

Then tonight, I heard Chris singing:

"The phone. The phone is ringing. The phone. We'll be prepared."

As least I don't have to sit around and think, "With so many possibilities, how will I ever know if Chris is Sam's real father?"

Owen

I'm lying in bed nursing Lilly while Owen sits next to me watching Fireman Sam.

"MOM!"

"What?"

"MAH FIREMAN SAM IS OVAH!"

"It sure is, buddy."

"I meed anudder one!"

"Then I need the remote."

"Den where is it?"

"I don't know, you'll have to look"

"Den where did mah Dad put it?"

"I don't know."

"I fink it is gone! And dis IS seewious!"

HELP!

I think we'd all agree that I'm generally not a very loud person.

Unless you are Sam.

Assuming you are not a short person in my charge, you probably haven't heard me yell much.

But sometimes, when I'm in a store and can't find something, I have the strongest urge to just start screaming, "DOES ANYONE SEE DRIED APPLES?"

I'm not just hoping for a store employee. I want us all, as humans, to band together to help me find the dried apples.

I would take a deep breath and bellow, "EVERYBODY LOOK AROUND YOU. DO YOU SEE DRIED APPLES?"

And then somebody would shout, "HERE! THEY'RE HERE! FOLLOW MY VOICE! OVER NEXT TO THE CUCUMBERS!"

And then we would all go about our day as usual.

I think that would be great. I mean, here I am, searching vainly and at length for the dried apples in the nut and raisin section, in the snack aisle, and next to actual apples, when, surely, there is somebody over there, picking out a cucumber thinking, "That's weird. Why would they put dried fruit here? I would have expected dried apples to be in the nuts and raisins section."

I guess we would have to have some rules. Otherwise we'd have jag-offs screaming about, "WHERE'S THE MILK?" when, duh, take a minute to check the dairy aisle. And, generally speaking, you wouldn't be allowed to shout about produce, because the produce section is the low-lying grasslands of the grocery store. That's why our ancestors learned how to walk up-right. So someday we'd be able to see that lettuce is yonder that way. The only exception would be for weird produce, like a parsnip or something.

"WHERE ARE THE PARSNIPS? I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT A PARSNIP LOOKS LIKE."

And some gardener lady would be like, "THEY ARE NEXT TO THE RADISHES AND LOOK LIKE YELLOW CARROTS."

And then the first person would be like, "THANK-YOU. I'M TRYING TO IMPRESS MY MOTHER-IN-LAW WITH A NEW RECIPE."

And then the gardener lady would say, "OOOO, IS IT A CURRY?"

And then I would say, "DUDES. SHUSH IT. YOU ARE ABUSING THE FOOD-LOCATING SYSTEM."

Running and jumping to conclusions

Yesterday I picked the boys up from daycare and headed to my parents house. I told the boys, "We're going to Hoppa and Homma's house tonight. Lilly is there and Dad is going to meet us for dinner."

Now, this plan is not exactly unusual, so I was a little surprised when Sam got upset and refused to go inside. "Whatever, Sam. If you don't want to go inside than just play outside." So he stayed outside while Owen and I went in.

While we are inside I'm watching Sam from the window and it doesn't look like he is having a ton of fun. I mean, who can tell with kids, though. What looks to me like noodling aimlessly around the backyard is actually the dreamy outdoor exploring that makes a boy's childhood a rich and satisfying time. Or at least I think that's what someone said.

Anyway, I see him come up to the back door, but don't hear him come inside, so eventually I go check. He's just standing there, concernedly clutching his penis (as he is wont to do).

"What's up, Sam?"

"Are they gone yet?"

"Who?"

"The strangers."

I'm puzzled. There are no strangers here, currently, and, as far as I can recall, Sam has not recently been forced to encounter strangers here.

"Dude. There are no strangers here. I don't even know what you're talking about."

"The STRANGERS. Are they GONE?"

"Sam. Really. There are no strangers here. It's just Homma and Emily. That's all. No strangers."

"So Dad's meeting is over?"

?????

"Mom, you said Dad was having a meeting with strangers."

"No, I don't think I did."

At this point I getting the possible glimmer of illumination that comes after winding my way down a convoluted thought process with my good friend Sam.

"I said Dad was going to meet US here. Now come inside, and experience how stranger-free this house is."

What I said was, "Dad is going to meet us here," but Sam heard "Dad is having a meeting here. A meeting with a ton of STRANGERS."

Oh, Sam. I don't even know where to start.

But he's been doing this a lot recently. Where he slightly misunderstands something we say, but never in a good way, and always a lot more extreme.

The other night we were getting the kids to bed when I realized I had run out of books and the library had some waiting for me. Seeing as how the library was about to close, I asked Chris if I could just run out and pick the books up. He agreed so I ran out and got my books (also free basil! Did you know the Lee road library has a garden table where people donate extra stuff from their garden? I debated for a minute about whether this was intended for poor people but then decided that I am poor in terms of fresh basil).

Anyway, I get back in, like, eleven minutes, but all hell has broken loose. The boys are crying and Chris is yelling and the baby is screaming. And I thought, "See! This is why mom's shouldn't weave!" But then I realized that there is always yelling and crying in our house, it's just a little weird to walk into. Like being a lobster thrust into already boiling water, instead of taking an increasingly hotter bath until you pass out.

So I wade through the chaos and eventually make my way into Sam and Owen's room. Sam is weeping softly into his hands.

"Oh, buddy, what's the matter?"

"Daddy's going to put me in a diaper." Sob, sob.

"Really? He said that?" Which seems really weird because I have never heard Chris threaten anything even remotely like that and I cannot even imagine what in the hell could have happened here in eleven minutes to precipitate such a threat.

"Well, don't worry about it, Sam. Nobody is going to put you in a diaper. Let's just go to sleep."

When I run into Chris in the kitchen a few minutes later, I ask, eyebrows raised, "You told Sam you were going to put him in a diaper?"

Chris looks at me, confused. "Um. No."

We're still not sure where Sam got this idea. Our best guess is that when Sam and Owen were having their nightly fight about who gets to turn off the TV, and Chris said something along the lines of, "Sam! You're not a baby, so stop acting like one!," Sam heard, "I will put you in a diaper like a baby!"

I understand that life is confusing to four-year-olds. These little people are right on the cusp of grasping that there are subtleties and subtexts that exist in the language of grown-ups. Sam hears, "meeting" and can make the logical leap that meetings are for strangers. He hears that he is "acting like a baby" and, knowing what happens with babies, assumes he will be put in a diaper.

I just wish that his logical deductions weren't always negative.

Although, maybe that's a good thing. Because this way, life is always more pleasant than he expects.

If he heard, "We're going on a ride!" and thought, "Super! I'm getting a pony!" he would be pretty disappointed. Instead, he thinks, "That horse is going to eat me!" And when we just get in the regular old car, life is a great relief.

I probably couldn't even win the Mediocre Olympics

I am quite happy with my life these days. Lovely children, including a GIRL! BABY!, a decent job, a pretty good house, a relatively reliable husband.

There are things I would change, of course. Like if GIRL! BABY! would sleep in longer stretches, and if Owen would stop pooping himself, and if The Crazy Lady would leave my workplace, and if I could stop eating chocolate, and please-to-whatever-gods-may-be-in-heaven if my husband would stop leaving his socks in random places, well, that would all be great.

But all in all, I'm pretty content.

It's just funny, though, how watching the Million-dollar homes series of House Hunters can make my house seem a little . . . dumpy.

I was pleased with my blog. I like to write. It's a good way to tell funny stories (Sam calls "Parmesan" cheese "Barb-and-John" cheese! HAHA!). And honestly? It makes me feel like I have a talent. It makes me feel like I am funny, and a good writer. A good, funny, writer. Who uses made-up words and has an elusive grasp of the purpose of the semi-colon.

And then I go and read someone else, and they, man, THEY, are really funny.

Like go read this (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/03/awkward-situation-survival-guide.html).

It's so funny it'll make me look quite dull in comparison.