...but would prefer not to:
(in no particular order)
1. Diet Dr. Pepper, preferably from Sonic
2. My TV shows
3. My pillow
4. My cell phone
5. Paul Mitchell styling glaze
6. Wal Mart
7. Marketplace's chicken berry salad
8. Yellow Box sandals
9. The remote opening doors on my minivan
10. Spider Solitaire on the computer
11. Facebook
12. Houndstooth Razorback t-shirts
13. Cherry Chapstick
14. People Magazine
I'm sure there are more. I'll add as they occur to me. What are yours?
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Countdown to quiet
A week from today Ethan starts pre-K. Three days after that, Abby starts 2nd grade. And thus will begin a phase of my life in which I will be home all day, every day with a tiny baby who can't talk back, throw toys or ask for a snack every 25 minutes. Can you sense the joy in the words I type?
Actually, and I can't believe (I mean REALLY can't believe) I am saying this, but I will kind of miss this summer. Back in April, when I was hugely pregnant and the kids were in school all day, the prospect of week after week of being at home with 3 kids, two of which I knew to be a little high maintenance and one whose maintenance level was yet to be determined (but let's be honest, anyone who requires being fed and having their bottom wiped clean can be classified as high maintenance) was straight up terrifying. And I have surely had my moments when I wanted to hide under the bed and cry.
But there have also been the other times--teaching the kids how to hold Aaron without breaking his neck, playing marathon games of Sorry and Candy Land, successfully convincing Ethan that only very cool and brave 4 year olds can help with laundry--when I found myself quite content and even entertained.
I'm sure that the school year will pass by in a flash. Then I'll be facing next summer, when instead of two kids and a baby, I will have two kids and a toddler. I need to start storing up on Prozac now.
Actually, and I can't believe (I mean REALLY can't believe) I am saying this, but I will kind of miss this summer. Back in April, when I was hugely pregnant and the kids were in school all day, the prospect of week after week of being at home with 3 kids, two of which I knew to be a little high maintenance and one whose maintenance level was yet to be determined (but let's be honest, anyone who requires being fed and having their bottom wiped clean can be classified as high maintenance) was straight up terrifying. And I have surely had my moments when I wanted to hide under the bed and cry.
But there have also been the other times--teaching the kids how to hold Aaron without breaking his neck, playing marathon games of Sorry and Candy Land, successfully convincing Ethan that only very cool and brave 4 year olds can help with laundry--when I found myself quite content and even entertained.
I'm sure that the school year will pass by in a flash. Then I'll be facing next summer, when instead of two kids and a baby, I will have two kids and a toddler. I need to start storing up on Prozac now.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Turns out you DO know a place
Wow. This little blog got a BIG surprise yesterday.
I was at home, feeding Aaron and playing Chutes and Ladders with Ethan (yes, at the same time)(no, it's not easy) when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the area code or number, but I forget my own kids' names these days, so I answered anyway. You know who was on the phone?
A lady named Angela from Cracker Barrel's corporate office.
OH my goodness! She explained that Cracker Barrel is sent an alert when their company name shows up online, and she had read my blog about our church's little incident with a CB manager last weekend and wanted to let me know they regret what happened. I immediately pleaded with her not to let my blog get the guy in trouble--none of us were really mad about what happened, we just thought it was funny. I blogged about it because I thought the 7 people who read my blog would also find it amusing. She promised me he would be spared any wrath.
I also promised her that we understood that what happened was most likely the result of a guy having a bad day, and that we know CB is not an anti-rummage sale company. She was very gracious, sweet, and exactly what you'd expect someone who works for CB to be--the epitome of southern hospitality.
That reminds me--in my original blog post, I said that CB's headquarters are in NYC. I said this because when our church rented the space we use, we had to notify all adjacent property owners (conditional use permit--you don't want an explanation, trust me), and I had to send a letter to CB. The address I had to use was in NYC. However, Angela was calling me from Lebanon, Tennessee, which is the location of the headquarters as listed on their website. So I don't know if they just have an office in NYC, or if I mistakenly sent that letter to some random barrel company in New York, but either way I made a dig there that was unwarranted. They are nothing if not authentic.
As I said, Angela was wonderful to talk with and didn't even seem mad at me for the jokes I made about CB. Hopefully she realized that they were said in jest (does anyone even say "in jest" any more?) and that I am a big CB fan. Their hash brown casserole is the stuff dreams are made of. To even further show the value CB places on community relations, Angela told me that our church pre-school program is to recieve a CB rocking chair as a donation. Now THAT is a cool thing. If you have never experienced a CB rocking chair, you don't know what you're missing. We'll all be fighting over it. In fact, I bet anything Chad will want to start preaching from it.
I have said many times before that a company that messes up but works hard to fix it has a more loyal fan in me than one that never messes up at all. In this situation, CB didn't really even mess up--they just had an employee that had an off day. But Angela's phone call and the rocking chair proved to me that CB is a first class company. This is a huge relief, for two reasons: 1) You like to know that there are people and companies still like that out there, and 2) I can go eat some pot roast tonight.
I was at home, feeding Aaron and playing Chutes and Ladders with Ethan (yes, at the same time)(no, it's not easy) when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the area code or number, but I forget my own kids' names these days, so I answered anyway. You know who was on the phone?
A lady named Angela from Cracker Barrel's corporate office.
OH my goodness! She explained that Cracker Barrel is sent an alert when their company name shows up online, and she had read my blog about our church's little incident with a CB manager last weekend and wanted to let me know they regret what happened. I immediately pleaded with her not to let my blog get the guy in trouble--none of us were really mad about what happened, we just thought it was funny. I blogged about it because I thought the 7 people who read my blog would also find it amusing. She promised me he would be spared any wrath.
I also promised her that we understood that what happened was most likely the result of a guy having a bad day, and that we know CB is not an anti-rummage sale company. She was very gracious, sweet, and exactly what you'd expect someone who works for CB to be--the epitome of southern hospitality.
That reminds me--in my original blog post, I said that CB's headquarters are in NYC. I said this because when our church rented the space we use, we had to notify all adjacent property owners (conditional use permit--you don't want an explanation, trust me), and I had to send a letter to CB. The address I had to use was in NYC. However, Angela was calling me from Lebanon, Tennessee, which is the location of the headquarters as listed on their website. So I don't know if they just have an office in NYC, or if I mistakenly sent that letter to some random barrel company in New York, but either way I made a dig there that was unwarranted. They are nothing if not authentic.
As I said, Angela was wonderful to talk with and didn't even seem mad at me for the jokes I made about CB. Hopefully she realized that they were said in jest (does anyone even say "in jest" any more?) and that I am a big CB fan. Their hash brown casserole is the stuff dreams are made of. To even further show the value CB places on community relations, Angela told me that our church pre-school program is to recieve a CB rocking chair as a donation. Now THAT is a cool thing. If you have never experienced a CB rocking chair, you don't know what you're missing. We'll all be fighting over it. In fact, I bet anything Chad will want to start preaching from it.
I have said many times before that a company that messes up but works hard to fix it has a more loyal fan in me than one that never messes up at all. In this situation, CB didn't really even mess up--they just had an employee that had an off day. But Angela's phone call and the rocking chair proved to me that CB is a first class company. This is a huge relief, for two reasons: 1) You like to know that there are people and companies still like that out there, and 2) I can go eat some pot roast tonight.
Friday, July 30, 2010
You think you know a place
Last Saturday our church, The Harbor, held a rummage sale to raise money for our pre-school program. It went really well. We had a crazy amount of stuff given to us to sell, and we were busy with shoppers all day. One good reason for the crowd is that we are in a great location. We're right off of the freeway, and everyone going to either Cracker Barrel or Hobby Lobby go right through our parking lot.
To make sure people knew we were doing a sale, we put some signs up--not billboards or anything, just those little signs that stake into the ground. We put several up, including one that went right where you turned off of the road into the parking lot between us and Cracker Barrel.
Well.
Around noon, some people came in to shop the sale and told us that they had seen a Cracker Barrel employee walk out to our sign, pull it up, and take it back into the Cracker Barrel with them. What?! Cracker Barrel stole our sign?? So our pastor, Chad, went over. He asked for the manager, introduced himself, and politely asked for our sign back. The manager was likely embarrassed that he had been caught. He gave Chad the sign, but justified taking it by saying "I'm trying to sell stuff too." I don't even want to take the time to talk about how ridiculous it is that he would think our rummage sale goods would be competing with Cracker Barrel. Whatever.
After Chad returned and relayed the story, most of us got pretty worked up about it. The main things we couldn't get over were: If he didn't want the sign there, why didn't he just tell us so? Does he even have a right to ask us to remove the sign? Who steals a rummage sale sign? Put up by a church?
Next we moved on to what action we should take next. We came up with several options: painting the words "Cracker Barrel steals from churches" on our windows, making a giant rummage sale sign, putting it in the back of a truck, and parking it right in front of Cracker Barrel, moving the bake sale that Abby and her friends were conducting outside to more directly compete with Cracker Barrel's cobbler sales. Chad reminded us, though, that churches shouldn't really partake in revenge, and we reluctantly agreed that he was probably right.
I debated whether or not to blog about it but I finally decided that the public has a right to know about what happened. We have no way of knowing whether the manager was acting out of independent outrage or following orders from the top of the Cracker Barrel chain (incidentally, do you know where the headquarters for the Cracker Barrel corporation are located? Tennessee? Alabama? Nope. New York City. Yeah, super authentic.) Regardless, I think I would want to know about this before I ordered my next stack of pancakes or slab of hamburger steak.
So there you go. The story of the church that was victimized by Cracker Barrel. Now that I've shared, I feel much better. Perhaps I'll even send a note to the manager, telling him there are no hard feelings and that I sincerely hope we didn't permanently destroy the market for country goods in Northwest Arkansas.
To make sure people knew we were doing a sale, we put some signs up--not billboards or anything, just those little signs that stake into the ground. We put several up, including one that went right where you turned off of the road into the parking lot between us and Cracker Barrel.
Well.
Around noon, some people came in to shop the sale and told us that they had seen a Cracker Barrel employee walk out to our sign, pull it up, and take it back into the Cracker Barrel with them. What?! Cracker Barrel stole our sign?? So our pastor, Chad, went over. He asked for the manager, introduced himself, and politely asked for our sign back. The manager was likely embarrassed that he had been caught. He gave Chad the sign, but justified taking it by saying "I'm trying to sell stuff too." I don't even want to take the time to talk about how ridiculous it is that he would think our rummage sale goods would be competing with Cracker Barrel. Whatever.
After Chad returned and relayed the story, most of us got pretty worked up about it. The main things we couldn't get over were: If he didn't want the sign there, why didn't he just tell us so? Does he even have a right to ask us to remove the sign? Who steals a rummage sale sign? Put up by a church?
Next we moved on to what action we should take next. We came up with several options: painting the words "Cracker Barrel steals from churches" on our windows, making a giant rummage sale sign, putting it in the back of a truck, and parking it right in front of Cracker Barrel, moving the bake sale that Abby and her friends were conducting outside to more directly compete with Cracker Barrel's cobbler sales. Chad reminded us, though, that churches shouldn't really partake in revenge, and we reluctantly agreed that he was probably right.
I debated whether or not to blog about it but I finally decided that the public has a right to know about what happened. We have no way of knowing whether the manager was acting out of independent outrage or following orders from the top of the Cracker Barrel chain (incidentally, do you know where the headquarters for the Cracker Barrel corporation are located? Tennessee? Alabama? Nope. New York City. Yeah, super authentic.) Regardless, I think I would want to know about this before I ordered my next stack of pancakes or slab of hamburger steak.
So there you go. The story of the church that was victimized by Cracker Barrel. Now that I've shared, I feel much better. Perhaps I'll even send a note to the manager, telling him there are no hard feelings and that I sincerely hope we didn't permanently destroy the market for country goods in Northwest Arkansas.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Always blame the laundry
Geez, it's been almost an entire month since I last blogged. That's terrible! When people call me out on it, I tell them, "I think about doing it every day, but something always comes up and I never get around to it." I can tell they think it's a cop out. Usually beacuse they something to the effect of, "That's a cop out!" But it's true! My days seem to be passing at warp speed. I don't expect you to take my word for it, though, so I am going to give you a rundown of what a typical day is like around here for me. I know better than to hope for any sympathy (and really, I'm not exactly worthy of any) but at least you'll know that I'm not just neglecting the blog to, you know, paint my nails or something.
7:00 Wake up to feed and change Aaron.
7:30 Put Aaron down to get Ethan breakfast (Abby's still asleep).
7:35 Sit down at computer.
7:36 Aaron starts fussing; pick him up.
7:45 Put Aaron down to get Abby breakfast .
7:50 Pick Aaron up again and get him to sleep.
8:15 Lay Aaron down; load dishwasher.
8:30 Sit down at computer.
8:31 Separate Ethan and Abby, who are wrestling in the living room floor for control of the remote.
8:35 Remember the laundry in the washer and dryer that I never finished the day before. Re-run both machines.
8:45 Get ready to take a shower.
8:47 Aaron starts crying; abandon shower.
9:00 Put Aaron in swing. Fold laundry from dryer.
9:05 Interrupt folding to get Ethan the first of the 12 snacks he will request.
9:15 Clean up milk that Ethan has spilled on the carpet.
9:20 Play a game of Uno with Abby.
9:30 Play a game of Candy Land with Ethan and Abby; referee argument over whether Abby cheated to get the Princess Frostine ice cream card.
9:45 Remember that there are no clean bottles; rush to clean them before Aaron wakes up.
10:00 Feed and change Aaron.
10:30 Prepare to lay Aaron down; abandon plan when Abby's friend from down the street rings the doorbell, sending the dog into a barking frenzy and scaring Aaron half to death.
10:50 Lay Aaron down; sit down at the computer.
10:52 Tell Abby and her friend that they can have a snack when they ask.
10:53 Listen to Ethan explain why Mario could beat Bowser at bowling.
10:55 Remember that I never switched the laundry in the washer to the dryer. Do so.
11:00 Sit down at the computer.
11:01 Tell Abby and her friend that they cannot play with makeup as they are requesting, becuase the last time they did they used 3 of our bath towels to get it off. Ponder how children with 2 million toys each can justify claiming boredom.
11:02 Let Ethan lead me to his room "without peeking" to show me the block tower he has built.
11:05 Sit down at the computer.
11:07 Surrender the computer to Ethan after he hangs on my arm whining about wanting to play games on Nick Jr.'s website.
11:30 Make sandwiches for lunch.
11:40 Spend 10 minutes getting Ethan, Abby and Abby's friend to all agree on a movie to watch while they eat lunch.
11:50 Sit down to eat lunch.
11:52 Aaron starts crying; pick him up and finish lunch with one hand.
12:15 Lay Aaron down; clean up from lunch; remind Abby that her friend has a house that can be played in, too.
12:30 Take world's fastest shower; put on the only clothes that aren't dirty or still in the dryer.
1:00 Tuck Ethan in for nap; threaten his life if he gets up.
1:10 Feed and change Aaron.
1:30 Jump out of my skin when Ethan materializes beside me claiming to have finished his nap. March him back to bed.
1:50 Lay Aaron down; sit at the computer.
1:55 Abby and her friend come back from the other house and--surprise surprise--ask for a snack.
2:00 Remember that there is laundry to be folded; start the dryer again to get the wrinkles out.
2:05 Pour myself a glass of Diet Dr. Pepper. It's not the first of the day, and it will likely not be the last.
2:06 Answer the knock at the door while kicking the dog to keep her from barking. Tell Abby's friend her brother is here to fetch her.
2:10 Play 4 games of Skipbo with Abby to keep her from dying of boredom, poor thing.
2:45 Abby's friend is back. Skipbo is abandoned.
2;46 Remember to return 2 phone calls from the morning--my friends and family are fortunately used to me calling them "right back" about 4 hours after they call.
3:05 Ethan wakes up and requests a snack 47 times in 30 seconds.
3:15 Watch the dance routine that Abby and her friend have created.
3:30 Sit down at the computer.
3:34 Tackle Ethan to keep him from climbing the entertainment center.
3:40 Hear my cell phone ring. Spend 10 minutes hunting for it.
3:50 Feed and change Aaron.
4:30 Dang-the laundry! Start the dryer. Again.
4:40 Closely supervise the kids playing with Aaron to ensure his survival.
5:00 Sit down at the computer.
5:05 Realize I should be figuring out something for dinner.
5:06 Figure out McDonald's.
5:07 Tell Ethan that I enjoy listening to him play Mary Had a LIttle Lamb on the piano, but it loses a bit of its magic after the 23rd time.
5:10 Sit down on the couch to play with Aaron myself.
5:30 Matt comes home. He sees me lounging with a smiling baby, Ethan watching Phineas and Ferb on tv, and Abby channeling Hannah Montana with her pal. He knows better than to be fooled by the tranquility.
Evenings are a wild mix of soccer practice, church, dinner, 7 more snacks, more feeding and changing Aaron, reading books and tucking kids in. Then it's time to collapse myself and prepare to do it all over again.
Hopefully you can see how this is an environment that is not always condusive to blogging. For example, I have been writing this blog post 2 minutes at a time for the last 7 hours. Soon, though, the older two return to school and Aaron's schedule will be more predictable. I figure by September, I'll be settled into the school year groove and be able to blog all the time.
Let's be honest, though. That laundry will probably still be in the dryer.
7:00 Wake up to feed and change Aaron.
7:30 Put Aaron down to get Ethan breakfast (Abby's still asleep).
7:35 Sit down at computer.
7:36 Aaron starts fussing; pick him up.
7:45 Put Aaron down to get Abby breakfast .
7:50 Pick Aaron up again and get him to sleep.
8:15 Lay Aaron down; load dishwasher.
8:30 Sit down at computer.
8:31 Separate Ethan and Abby, who are wrestling in the living room floor for control of the remote.
8:35 Remember the laundry in the washer and dryer that I never finished the day before. Re-run both machines.
8:45 Get ready to take a shower.
8:47 Aaron starts crying; abandon shower.
9:00 Put Aaron in swing. Fold laundry from dryer.
9:05 Interrupt folding to get Ethan the first of the 12 snacks he will request.
9:15 Clean up milk that Ethan has spilled on the carpet.
9:20 Play a game of Uno with Abby.
9:30 Play a game of Candy Land with Ethan and Abby; referee argument over whether Abby cheated to get the Princess Frostine ice cream card.
9:45 Remember that there are no clean bottles; rush to clean them before Aaron wakes up.
10:00 Feed and change Aaron.
10:30 Prepare to lay Aaron down; abandon plan when Abby's friend from down the street rings the doorbell, sending the dog into a barking frenzy and scaring Aaron half to death.
10:50 Lay Aaron down; sit down at the computer.
10:52 Tell Abby and her friend that they can have a snack when they ask.
10:53 Listen to Ethan explain why Mario could beat Bowser at bowling.
10:55 Remember that I never switched the laundry in the washer to the dryer. Do so.
11:00 Sit down at the computer.
11:01 Tell Abby and her friend that they cannot play with makeup as they are requesting, becuase the last time they did they used 3 of our bath towels to get it off. Ponder how children with 2 million toys each can justify claiming boredom.
11:02 Let Ethan lead me to his room "without peeking" to show me the block tower he has built.
11:05 Sit down at the computer.
11:07 Surrender the computer to Ethan after he hangs on my arm whining about wanting to play games on Nick Jr.'s website.
11:30 Make sandwiches for lunch.
11:40 Spend 10 minutes getting Ethan, Abby and Abby's friend to all agree on a movie to watch while they eat lunch.
11:50 Sit down to eat lunch.
11:52 Aaron starts crying; pick him up and finish lunch with one hand.
12:15 Lay Aaron down; clean up from lunch; remind Abby that her friend has a house that can be played in, too.
12:30 Take world's fastest shower; put on the only clothes that aren't dirty or still in the dryer.
1:00 Tuck Ethan in for nap; threaten his life if he gets up.
1:10 Feed and change Aaron.
1:30 Jump out of my skin when Ethan materializes beside me claiming to have finished his nap. March him back to bed.
1:50 Lay Aaron down; sit at the computer.
1:55 Abby and her friend come back from the other house and--surprise surprise--ask for a snack.
2:00 Remember that there is laundry to be folded; start the dryer again to get the wrinkles out.
2:05 Pour myself a glass of Diet Dr. Pepper. It's not the first of the day, and it will likely not be the last.
2:06 Answer the knock at the door while kicking the dog to keep her from barking. Tell Abby's friend her brother is here to fetch her.
2:10 Play 4 games of Skipbo with Abby to keep her from dying of boredom, poor thing.
2:45 Abby's friend is back. Skipbo is abandoned.
2;46 Remember to return 2 phone calls from the morning--my friends and family are fortunately used to me calling them "right back" about 4 hours after they call.
3:05 Ethan wakes up and requests a snack 47 times in 30 seconds.
3:15 Watch the dance routine that Abby and her friend have created.
3:30 Sit down at the computer.
3:34 Tackle Ethan to keep him from climbing the entertainment center.
3:40 Hear my cell phone ring. Spend 10 minutes hunting for it.
3:50 Feed and change Aaron.
4:30 Dang-the laundry! Start the dryer. Again.
4:40 Closely supervise the kids playing with Aaron to ensure his survival.
5:00 Sit down at the computer.
5:05 Realize I should be figuring out something for dinner.
5:06 Figure out McDonald's.
5:07 Tell Ethan that I enjoy listening to him play Mary Had a LIttle Lamb on the piano, but it loses a bit of its magic after the 23rd time.
5:10 Sit down on the couch to play with Aaron myself.
5:30 Matt comes home. He sees me lounging with a smiling baby, Ethan watching Phineas and Ferb on tv, and Abby channeling Hannah Montana with her pal. He knows better than to be fooled by the tranquility.
Evenings are a wild mix of soccer practice, church, dinner, 7 more snacks, more feeding and changing Aaron, reading books and tucking kids in. Then it's time to collapse myself and prepare to do it all over again.
Hopefully you can see how this is an environment that is not always condusive to blogging. For example, I have been writing this blog post 2 minutes at a time for the last 7 hours. Soon, though, the older two return to school and Aaron's schedule will be more predictable. I figure by September, I'll be settled into the school year groove and be able to blog all the time.
Let's be honest, though. That laundry will probably still be in the dryer.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
This much fun AND I got a free t-shirt!
Saturday I spent a little over 6 hours at the Tyson Track Center helping package meals to send to Haiti. The event was sponsored by a nonprofit called Numana. I was a little apprehensive, because if there's one thing I can't stand it's inefficiency, and there was great possibility for inefficiency in such a large operation. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. These folks have turned meal packaging into an art. Each assembly line has the potential to be a finely tuned machine, churning out hundreds of meals in minutes. In 24 hours, over 1.4 million meals were packaged. Not too shabby.
I had a great time, and there was no shortage of bloggable moments. I'm feeling a little ADD today, so I'll give them to you in to-the-point bullet form:
- The first table I worked with (I was a coordinator,and my job was to manage a line and train people as they came to it) consisted of a couple of cheerful families of 4. We got along famously. Then a lady joined us who was a little, well, more senior than the rest of us and pretty crabby. She kept pointing out to me people at other lines who weren't wearing the required hairnet or gloves. I was not about to start playing health inspector, so I just kind of nodded and moved on. After about half an hour, though, I caught her shaking her booty to a Madonna song that was playing over the loudspeakers while she worked. I liked her a lot more after that.
- Midway through my shift, the crew from The Harbor (our church) showed up. My parents brought Abby so she could help out, and her buddy CG was there too. I set the team up at a table and got them started. We had a great time. I especially enjoyed that as a coordinator, I was the only one not required to wear an apron and hairnet.
- Somehow the lady from my first table ended up working with The Harbor crew for a while. When I saw her join the table, I snickered to myself, knowing that she would not hold back. Sure enough, she apparently called out Sarah for being too slow right off the bat. I have no idea what the team did to scare her off, but it worked and she was gone after a few minutes.
- At one point my dad thought it would be fun to, instead of handing the bag he had just sealed to Abby for boxing, toss it to her. This would have been a great idea if she had been looking. Instead, it smacked her in the head. Way to assault your granddaughter with relief rations!
- There was a guy with a microphone walking around, cheering on volunteers, updating everyone on how many meals were completed and spurring on competition between tables. At one point he started taking requests for music to be played over the loudspeaker. Someone requested "something by Usher." He said, "Is that a singer?" WHAT? The guy was my age, maybe a little older. Who doesn't know who Usher is? He was completely discredited in my books after that.
- After The Harbor team left, I worked with a group of high school students from a church youth group. They were 1) Really fun 2) Really fast and 3)SO young. How do teenagers keep getting younger?
- For the last hour I was pouring ingredients into the bags with two of the guys from the youth group. One of the ingredients is vitamin powder. It smells vaguely like ramen noodles, and if you don't pour it in the funnel just right it poofs out in a cloud and coats everyone nearby. I came home completely covered in a yellow film. On the bright side, I won't be vitamin deficient for some time.
- Abby brought home her disposable plastic apron and hairnet. She wore them all day yesterday.
- While I was there the music played constantly, so I must have heard easily over 100 songs. So why, why, WHY is MmmBop the one that is still going through my head?
That's just wrong.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Hold up there, Romeo
When Matt and I found out back in 2002 that our first baby would be a daughter, we joked about having to fight off the boys and keep a baseball bat by the front door. We now have a boy-crazy 7 year old, and rapidly multiplying gray hairs to show for it. We've slowly grown accustomed to Abby talking about her boyfriend or why Troy on High School Musical is soooooo cute.
However.
I was not prepared for this.
I was finally going through the pile of papers she brought home from the last day of school (don't judge me, I have a newborn). In the spring her school does a post office project. The third graders serve as the postmasters, and everyone writes letters and "mails" them to the other classrooms. Abby sent and received dozens of such letters. I found one in the pile from a boy in her class who I know to be sweet and kind of quiet. I opened it. Here, with the spelling errors corrected, is what I read:
Dear Abby,
You are cute and charming. You are awesome. I think you are the awesomest kid in the whole world. I love seeing your face. It is so beautiful and you are my favoritest friend in the whole wide world. I love the way your eyes sparkle and I love the color of your skin.
Love,
(Boys' name withheld to protect the apparently-not-so-innocent)
WHOAH THERE. This is written by a SEVEN YEAR OLD! To MY DAUGHTER!
She never told me about this letter when she got it, despite my having asked every day if she sent or received any good mail. She still doesn't know I've seen it and I don't intend to tell her as I'm fairly sure I don't want to hear the rest of the story, if there is more.
If you need me, I'll be online researching all-girl boarding schools.
However.
I was not prepared for this.
I was finally going through the pile of papers she brought home from the last day of school (don't judge me, I have a newborn). In the spring her school does a post office project. The third graders serve as the postmasters, and everyone writes letters and "mails" them to the other classrooms. Abby sent and received dozens of such letters. I found one in the pile from a boy in her class who I know to be sweet and kind of quiet. I opened it. Here, with the spelling errors corrected, is what I read:
Dear Abby,
You are cute and charming. You are awesome. I think you are the awesomest kid in the whole world. I love seeing your face. It is so beautiful and you are my favoritest friend in the whole wide world. I love the way your eyes sparkle and I love the color of your skin.
Love,
(Boys' name withheld to protect the apparently-not-so-innocent)
WHOAH THERE. This is written by a SEVEN YEAR OLD! To MY DAUGHTER!
She never told me about this letter when she got it, despite my having asked every day if she sent or received any good mail. She still doesn't know I've seen it and I don't intend to tell her as I'm fairly sure I don't want to hear the rest of the story, if there is more.
If you need me, I'll be online researching all-girl boarding schools.
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