Taking back the night

There are people who, when they are woken up in the middle of the night by a storm or a wrong number or, say, a 5 month old baby, can go right back to sleep.

I am not one of those people.

In a cruel twist of fate, Aaron (who has incredibly slept through the night since he was less than a month old) began waking up once or twice every night about a month ago. He wasn't hungry, didn't seem to have any particular agenda--he just woke up. So I'd go get him, rock him, and within minutes he would be out again. Lucky duck. I would then go back to bed and lay awake for an hour or more, trying to get back to sleep and taking way too long to succeed. This has resulted in a very exhausting October for me.

This week it seemed to get worse, so we finally decided that perhaps the addition of solid foods to his diet was the source of the problem. We did some experimenting with his feeding schedule and tried a few other tricks, and the past two nights he's been his old, sleep 10 hours straight self. Thank. The. LORD. I am just praying that it's not a trick, and that we are really over this miserable phase. We can't afford to keep buying the amount of Diet Dr. Pepper I was requiring each day to function.

The Whole Story Behind "Mary Had A Little Lamb" as Told By Ethan

One day Mary took her lamb to school. And the kids made fun of her. And they took her hook. And her hat. And so the next day she had a new hook and a new hat. And they took them again. And so the next day she had a new hook and a new hat and she put "X"'s on them so the kids wouldn't take them. But they did.

So the next day Mary took all of the kids' clothes. Except for one boy who tried to help her before but he couldn't because the other kids wouldn't let him. And she put the kids' clothes down the drain. And there was a baby shark that lived under the drain and he liked to eat clothes. So he ate all the kids' clothes. And Mary was happy and had dinner.

iPhone Photo Fun

Okay, so it's technically been longer than a week since my last iPhone Photo Fun post. A smidge longer. A scootch. My bad. Hopefully my superior photography skills and saucy wit will compensate for what I lack in timeliness.

This was taken when I was pregnant (obviously, I hope). My aunt became obsessed with me texting her a picture of my expecting self, and I finally did it to get her off my back. This was the one I didn't send, because A) I was still prepping myself, and B) my husband is a goofball.

Blech. There was a period of some weeks in which Abby's smile resembled that of a hillbilly due to her numerous lost teeth. When I was a kid I had no qualms about pulling my own teeth, but for some reason now it grosses. me. OUT. I could barely even look at her when I took this picture.

This is Ethan and one of his BFFs, Aidan. They play soccer together, and they can be entertained for hours by being sent on "soccer missions" in our yard. For example, I'll tell them to kick their soccer balls to the tree, then pick them up and walk backwards to the bench, then sit on them for 10 seconds, then repeat. This was the sitting for 10 seconds part.

Blech again. We took the kids to Tulsa in August for our Daycation. We went to the Aquarium, and there was an albino turtle there. It both fascinated and repulsed me. Look at its creepy red eyes!

Awww. This one is definitely not blech. No big story here, just me smooching on my (at the time) itty bitty baby. The one that is now over 5 months old and working his way steadily to Butterball status.

Where are your parents?!

Kids' television shows are weird.

I've written before about the annoying need for all kids' shows to teach something. More strange, though, is the bizarre characters and plots out there. For some reason, since they're wrapped up in a shiny package with catchy songs and flashy graphics we don't pay too much attention to this. I started thinking about it, though, and it's pretty disturbing. Let me show you what I mean. Here is a rundown of the basic plots of some of the more popular shows out there for children:

- Dora the Explorer: A young girl spends her days in the company of her best friend, a talking monkey. They use a magical backpack and map to go on adventures with no adult supervision. They encounter snakes, crocodiles, and fierce storms. Their foe is a weasel that steals from little children.

- Go Diego Go: Dora's cousin Diego also has an animal best friend--a jaguar. Super safe. He, his sister and the jaguar traipse around rescuing wild animals from precarious positions, including imminent destruction by predators.

- Wonder Pets: A baby duck, a turtle and a guinea pig escape from their cages in a classroom to fly around the world in a homemade boat/airplane in order to save animals and occasionally plants. These rescues are usually from more benign emergencies than Diego's--a dog that can't get outside to relieve himself, a plant that can't get water. About three quarters of the dialog is sung instead of spoken, though to no particular tune and certainly not following any rhyme or song pattern.

- Toot and Puddle: Let's take a minute and just examine the freakiness of the name alone on this one. Yeah. Toot and Puddle are two pigs of an undetermined age who enjoy traveling the world and absorbing the culture. And their names are Toot and Puddle.

- Blues Clues: A man in his 20s lives with a dog and a talking salt and pepper shaker, nightstand, mailbox, and various other talking household items. They don't really do much besides talk.

- Special Agent Oso: Oso is a panda bear that goes on missions to help children figure out how to do basic tasks. So, for example, a little girl will be in her back yard to water her flowers, and the bear will drop out of the sky and help her figure out how the watering can works. I'm a grown woman and that would freak me out, but apparently a 5 year old would think nothing of it.

There are plenty of others, but you get the picture. What in the world are these writers thinking? Well, I guess they're thinking that these plots are gold mines, because that's exactly what they are. Kids eat this stuff up like candy. It's fine with me, I guess, as long as Ethan doesn't start asking for a jaguar or talking to the salt shaker.

iPhone Photo Fun

Matt's in the middle of a camping trip with some of his buddies, so things are a little crazy around here, but I knew if I didn't get this post squeezed in my hoardes of fans would never forgive me. And without you 3, I'd be so sad!


This is the World's Largest Chocolate Fountain, found at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. It's behind glass, which is pretty smart, because if it wasn't I'm sure people would stick their heads right under there and drink. Not me, of course. I'd bring a cup. It's hard to tell the scope in this picture, but it's over 15 feet tall. It's running out of the ceiling. Three different kinds of chocolate. Hoo boy.

We went to see the Blue Man Group when they were at the Walton Arts Center in September. It was my 3rd time to see them, and I love them every single time. This is a picture I took during the show--we had pretty darn good seats. There was a brief moment of terror when they picked someone 5 seats down from us to go up on stage, but I breathed easy once it wasn't me.

This was the scene at The Harbor in July at our rummage sale. We had SO. MUCH. STUFF. It was great. I am one of those freaks that likes putting on one of these sales. Something about making money off of things you don't want any more is just so satisfying.

My eldest on the occasion of her 7th birthday. We checked her out of school long enough to take her to lunch. We told her we'd go anywhere she wanted. Of course, we went to McDonald's. As you can tell I had to coax her to pose for the camera.

The first remarkable thing about this photo is that it's the first one I ever took with my iPhone. The second remarkable thing about this photo is that it's of Ethan and he isn't doing anything destructive.

Silver Linings: The Gulf Oil Spill

I had the best of intentions to make this a weekly feature, but I think I'm going to have to reclassify it as a "regular" feature. The problem is that I'm having trouble coming up with very bad things to talk about lightly that won't upset or offend people. Hopefully this one does neither, but we'll see.

5 SILVER LININGS TO THE GULF OIL SPILL

5. The ocean is so much more shiny now.

4. Free gas for everyone! (Well, everyone who has an apparatus to extract and purify oil from ocean water, and another apparatus to turn oil into gas.)

3. Exxon finally gets to hand off the "Oil Company Most Hated By Environmentalists" title to someone else. Congrats, BP!

2. Thousands of overworked fisherman finally have time to take a vacation.

1. We can rant about the irresponsibility of the oil spill when we hear the updates on news radio as we drive the half mile from our house to drop our children off at school in our SUV, right behind our next door neighbor who is dropping her children off at the same school.

Biker baby

Mom, it's my first Bikes, Blues and BBQ. Let's ROLL!

I mean, um, I love you Mommy! Can we please go to Bikes, Blues and BBQ?

No, you say? You might want to reconsider. It's unwise to mess with a biker baby.