A to Z

Lots of thoughts I've had but not blogged in the last month or so.

*Finally saw the last Harry Potter movie and waxed nostalgic about growing up with Harry.
*Also waxed nostalgic on September 11.
*Took the Little Guy to the zoo, Thanksgiving Point gardens, the aviary, and the State Fair (not all at once), and a great time was had by all.
*Watched the Little Guy grow up more every day until . . .
* . . . He had his first birthday this weekend. (WOW.)
*Made donuts for the first time ever yesterday.
*Working on starting up a small business. Yeah. I'm going to have a preneur.

But today isn't about writing those blog posts. It's about being lazy but wanting to post something, so . . . meme time! (Thanks to megcellent for this cop-out.)

A. Age? 28.
B. Bed Size? Given the choice, king. But our room is only big enough for queen.
C. Chore that you hate? Lots of them, but especially cleaning the bathtub.
D. Donuts? Yes, please. (Hey, I made some yesterday!) Love Banbury Cross donuts in Salt Lake.
E. Essential start to your day? Brush my teeth.
F. Favorite color(s)? Varies, but I do love most shades of blue.
G. Gold or silver? Silver.
H. Height? 5'5" ish.
I. Instruments you play? Piano, kazoo. I'd love to learn how to play guitar.
J. Job title? Work-at-home mom. Best description would probably be Freelancer, Independent Contractor, or, now, Entrepreneur. I guess. Also Writer.
K. Kids? One, the best Little Guy EVER.
L. Live? For theatre, yes. For TV, usually DVR.
M. Mother’s name? Ellen.
N. Netflix? Oh, yeah.
O. Overnight hospital stay(s)? I think just two. Obviously when I was born (does that really count?) and when I gave birth to the Little Guy (for five nights because of the c-section—does that count as more?).
P. Pet peeves? Improper spelling, punctuation and grammar. (I saw someone the other day write "Can you blaim them?" No, but I can and will blame them severely.) Just recently I've also picked up a new one: Bicyclists who do not follow traffic laws. I would love to share the road with you, folks. But it's a lot easier when you don't run red lights or SWERVE RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY CAR WHEN I'M DRIVING 40 MPH. Thank you.
Q. Quote from a movie? Almost always. Today let's go with "I swear she ain't using real words." -Chicken Run.
R. Right or left-handed? Right.
S. Siblings? One older brother and three younger sisters.
T. Time to wake up? About 20 minutes later than I end up actually waking up.
U. Unusual quirks/phobias/factoids? Praying mantises freak me the heck out. Also snakes and really big spiders. And calling people on the phone. My main quirk is that I have a freakishly good memory for useless facts and trivia (see Quote from a movie above).
V. Vegetable you hate? Beets and nalcas.
W. What makes you run late? *sigh* What doesn't? I'm going to say that it's because, unlike George-Michael Bluth, I don't have a really good natural sense of rhythm.
X. X-rays you’ve had? Dental and once on my ankle when it got caught in a bike spoke when I was three or so.
Y. Yummy food that you make? I make a mean enchilada. And those donuts I made yesterday were pretty tasty. And the Geek Out Crew tends to like my Brie Bread and Cherry White Chocolate Twist.
Z. Zoo animal: Gotta love the monkeys and the penguins.


It's not much, but it's something. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

The problem with blog-stalking.

I stalk blogs.

Like, all the time.

I love reading blogs and stalking them. Doesn't matter whose blog. Friend, family, acquaintance, celebrity of some type, complete stranger.

I'm usually pretty comfortable with this status. I don't really feel guilty for stalking blogs.

But every now and then it causes problems.

No, not with people who stalk my blog. I don't put anything on here that I'm not willing to let other people read. Stalk away (and leave a comment, you know, if that's what your heart tells you to do. Because contrary to what you may have heard, I don't hate comments).

No, the problem is that sometimes I find a blog that I love. That I enjoy reading. That brings me amusement and fun. And so I will continue to stalk that blog. I'll add it to my list. I'll get in the habit of checking it. I'll fret when a long time goes by without an update. It becomes part of my internet routine.

And then. Yes, then.

The blog author decides to make their blog private.

Sometimes this isn't really a problem, because it'll be someone I know and they'll know I've been reading the blog and I'll get an invite and everything will be fine.

But more often it turns out to be the blog of someone who I vaguely know but they have no idea I've been reading their blog for, oh, a couple of years, and at this point it's just too awkward to ask for an invite.

Because, you know, you don't want them to THINK you're some weird blog stalking-type person. There's a certain window of time where it's okay to let them know you're reading and enjoying their blog, and if you miss it, you can't really tell them without it being awkward. ("So yeah, I was wondering if you could let me continue looking in on the part of your life you post online even though we don't really talk that much in real life and the reason you made your blog private is probably to prevent exactly this sort of situation where someone is reading about you without your knowing them very well? Because losing access to your blog is kind of messing up my standard blog-reading routine.")

It's even worse than when someone just stops posting on their blog for good. Because in that case at least I know that everyone else is missing out, too.

But here, I KNOW they're still posting things and I just can't read them (and asking them to let me read would just be WEIRD)!

It's maddening. MADDENING, I TELL YOU!

Yeah. The Blog-Stalker's Dilemma.

It's rough.




"Seriously, you won't even know I'm there! I know, because you didn't notice me doing it before."

How can you not love it?; or, The ruler of the waves.

So today we took the newborn divider out of the baby tub so there was more room for the Little Guy to splash around. Seriously, I don't know why it took us so long to do it, because a funnier sight than the Little Guy reveling in the expanded size of his new watery kingdom I have rarely seen.

His first item of business was to turn around so he was facing the reclining wall of the tub, which gave him maximum splashage space. The next priority was to grab the little crab-shaped sprinkler cup that came with the tub.

And then, oh, then, he splashed.

He splashed with glee and reckless abandon and giggled and squealed and splashed and wriggled and shrieked.

And eventually he would splash enough to fill up the little cup. And then the next time he raised his hand to begin another splash, he would inadvertently hurl the contents of said cup directly into his face.

Then he would gasp and cough and splutter and blink.

Pause.

Grin.

Resume splashing/squealing/giggling/refilling the cup.

Rinse and repeat.

Poseidon had best watch himself; there's a new ruler of the waves in town.



Yeah, I love that Little Guy. And at least now I know that his nose has definitely been rinsed clean both inside and out.

Yeah, this isn't a real post.

Sorry to get your hopes up (assuming anyone is still reading this these days), but this is not a real post. It is a last-minute attempt to win a trip to Paris for me.

Yeah. I've neglected you all for this long just to make you read a post that includes me saying "If you don't enter, I have a better chance of winning." But c'est la vie.

See, I'm already ready to go! I should totally win!

I plan to do some real posts soon, but these last few weeks have been a bit crazy what with packing and moving to SLC and the slow process of trying to unpack and oh yeah I still am spending a lot of time taking care of the cutest baby EVAH.

So I apologize again, but you'll have to wait a little longer for a real post, because this one, well, isn't.

A few items of note.

In no particular order:

The Little Guy has his first ever real cold. I blame Shallow Man's freaky immune system. Usually the way sickness works in this house is that instead of everyone catching a bug in turn, I catch it twice and Shallow Man maybe coughs a couple times and is over it. However, this last week Shallow Man actually had to take two—count 'em, TWO—sick days. This same bug is the first thing that's actually gotten to the Little Guy. I haven't been sick at all. (Being hungover from lack of sleep after taking care of the Little Guy most of the night doesn't count.) It's not fun for LG or for me, but it is comforting to know that I won't necessarily have to catch everything three times going forward. (Have my menfolk met their own personal Cold of the Century? Only time will tell.)

The only thing LG hates more than vaccinations is having his nose wiped. Kleenexes are bad enough but heaven help you if you bring a nasal aspirator within twenty feet of him. At times like these, I think of the medical staff who debated so long whether he and his lungs needed to go to the NICU or not, and imagine how proud they'd be if they could see him now. Actually, scratch that. I'm pretty sure they could hear him from where they were. I'm pretty sure FRANCE could hear him.

When he's not about to collapse under the weight of just how mean Mommy and her evil Kleenex-weilding ways are, LG's new favorite thing is to bury his face in my neck and blow raspberries. Each time he does this, he then leans back to see if I noticed JUST HOW AWESOME HE IS, and gets the cutest smug little smirk on his face. Like, "Yeah, I just did that." (LOVE THAT LITTLE GUY.)

He's also tried to raspberry my chin, with less than satisfactory (to his way of thinking) results.

He's not quite crawling yet, although he's definitely thinking about it. With the way the cats keep taunting him by waving their tails tantalizingly close to his grasp, I give it another couple weeks at most. Heaven help us all once he's mobile.

I had another surreal I-swear-I'm-not-old-enough-for-that moment today when the pediatrician's office called today to do a survey on customer satisfaction and they asked for "the parent or guardian of Little Guy" and I answered "Yes, that's me."



Well folks, the sad little snoring and whimpering from the nursery are telling me that it's probably going to be another long night, so I'll sign off now. I've got a sad little boy to snuggle.

Yes, I may or may not be seven years old.

In my heart of hearts, I still want to be a princess when I grow up.

So this website pretty much made my day.

So if I'm supposed to dress for the job I want, this is what I'll be wearing from here on out:

Admit it. Your inner seven-year-old is thrilled.

Don't you evah . . .

Yeah.

This is an important message, kids. Pay attention.



Please note the appearance of one of my favorites around the 1:10 mark.