Hurry Up the Cakes!

New Blog

2011-01-07T22:40:00.002-05:00

I have purchased my own domain, and I am starting a new blog with it.
Come see what I'm up to, and all future blog posts will be posted here:

www.danacarlin.com

(You must type the "www"...i'm trying to figure out how to fix it so that it works with or without it. No luck so far.)

2 Videos to Hold You Over...

2010-11-20T22:23:00.003-05:00

I was playing a game with Killian, and we could hear Finn making a lot of noise in the kitchen. I looked in his direction, and was shocked to see that he had climbed on top of the Rubbermaid containers that we had been using to block him from the kitchen. As you can see, he was very proud of himself.

This video was taken tonight. Killian is obsessed with Thomas the Train, thanks to the bountiful selection of streaming Thomas videos on Netflix. One of the videos has a song called Gone Fishing", and Killian was desperate to hear it. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember which video had that particular song in it. (Killian was not very understanding or forgiving about this fact.) Luckily, I found it on YouTube. This is Killian trying to sing along. (Heads up: he only knows the chorus. Be prepared for 3 minutes of boring, and 20 seconds of funny!)

Introducing: Killian Says

2010-10-10T22:23:00.005-04:00

One of the inspirations I had for starting to blog again was this letter that I wrote to my brother, Mark, on behalf of Killian. I wrote it verbatim.

Uncle Mark,
I go through the tunnel and for the flowers, pooping along. Emailed of the button. Press one button and those have the button. The button is very good when you press it. When you read all the email back, ok? You're looking for clues. OK? OK? That button really good to touch but not to touch. You will have to have to....see that button? Press that button very harder, ok? You understand?
I'm gonna be Buzz Lightyear. I went through the tunnel, and i go up the steps and I cried. Then I want to go home. Then I want to want to...pooping along.
Happy birthday to you.
~Killian

As soon as I was finished typing this letter, I had a life-altering epiphany: All of this time I have been living under the same roof with my very own Engrish-producing pot of gold. Seriously- every sentence he utters is a golden nugget of hilarity. (Of course this is my opinion alone, and I realize that I may be the only one to find humor in these posts. I am perfectly fine with that.)

This post is very timely. Last night I had a conversation with friends about blogs. We talked about how some ridiculous people blog on behalf of their kids, and even their pets. Of course I agree that it's ridiculous...but that won't stop me from blogging on behalf of Killian. At least they really are his words. That has to count for something....right?

Stay tuned for more "Killian Says" and tell me if you want me to decipher any of it for you. I haven't figured out if it's funnier when you have an idea of what he's talking about, or if it's better left to your imagination.

PS: I have to give a shout-out to my dear friend, Carrie, who motivated me to blog again.

Look, I'm Dana! Howdy Howdy Howdy.

2010-10-10T21:56:00.005-04:00

Remember me? I'm back! After a 6 month hiatus, I have found some new inspiration and motivation to blog.

Want to know more? Keep reading!

On my computer I have a folder of photos and things I have found that inspire me to blog, but I never have the motivation to actually do it. I think I was feeling jealous or insignificant when I noticed how many comments my friends and family get on their blogs. I know this is *pettifogging, but...well...there is no good excuse. (*I looked up synonyms for "petty" because I couldn't think of the word I was looking for - "shallow" - and one of the words that came up was "pettifogging", which is now my most favorite word ever.) Anyway, I have no good excuse. I was simply being shallow. I suppose you could call me a pettifogger.

So, I'm back.

For now.

Enjoy me while it lasts, bitches!

(Sorry, that wasn't nice, but I just watched Modern Family and I was feeling Mitch-y.)

DO NOT DISTURB: Part 2

2010-04-12T00:07:00.009-04:00

You may remember my first DO NOT DISTURB post. Well, it has been a while since that post, but I have been meticulously collecting and hoarding these gems like a squirrel with nuts. (You may interpret that however you wish.)

ENJOY!

Overdue Engrish

2010-03-14T23:25:00.002-04:00

I wonder what the bird's idea of "a good time" is with a cow?

2.
(A shopping bag from a shop)
Any shop that sells Engrish is a one-stop smile shop!

3.

iBear: "I have dreams and hopesl feel happiness I'm afairty in love"

(This is a mini photo album that I'm afairty in love with.)

4.

"....you know, like dirt."

5.

I'm dying to know more about the "conflicting symbolism" of both yellow and red.

Follow-Up on "Avatar"

2010-03-06T14:25:00.002-05:00

Avatar- I didn't love it. I was really disappointed after hearing so much good about it. Maybe it was too hyped and didn't deliver for me. Or maybe I should have seen it in the theater to appreciate it. I thought it looked cool and impressive and everything, but it wasn't the most unique story. I had been told that it was similar to "Fern Gully", but I wasn't expecting it to be as similar as it was. And frankly, I think I'd prefer to watch "Fern Gully" over "Avatar". Maybe I was supposed to be distracted by all the cool effects enough to ignore the plot, but that was not the case. I don't know. Maybe I'm being harsh. I started out liking it a lot, but I lost interest as it went on. I could have stopped watching it half-way through and would have been fine not going back to finish it. And as cool-looking as the CG is, I have a problem with movies that combine real human actors with CG human-like chracters because it never looks completely real. I would prefer all CG or all real actors with impressive makeup. (This is probably highly offensive to Tim. I apologize. I think District 9 did a much better job with CG characters, if that helps?) I didn't hate "Avatar" as much as I'm probably making this review sound, but I don't think it should win Best Piture.
My rating: C+

82nd Annual Academy Awards

2010-03-01T01:31:00.010-05:00

The Oscars are in less than a week!!! Yay!!! I have often said that the Oscars are my Super Bowl. I could not care less about the actual Super Bowl - whether or not my home team is involved - it just has NO meaning to me. Films, however, are an entirely different ballgame (pun!). I remember Tim and Jean (my brother and his wife) getting really into the Oscars years ago, and I didn't really "get" it. I liked movies back then, but I would only see a few of the films that were nominated in time for the awards, due to their ratings and not yet being uber obsessed with movies. I think I started getting into the Oscars for the same reason most female viewers watch: fashion. I loved seeing the beautiful gowns and fashion faux pas.

A painfully long history: I fell in love with movies while I was at BYU in 2002. I went out to Utah as the owner of about 10 VHS tapes. I came home 2 semesters later with 1.5 large Rubbermaid containers full of videos. I attribute this obsession to the following factors: 1)having very cheap rentals at a location within walking distance, 2)having a TV/VCR combo in my dorm room, 3)being homesick and preferring to eat delicious salad wraps while watching a movie every afternoon in my room rather than spending that time studying, 4)having a $1 movie theater within walking distance and friends who would walk there with me, 5)Big Daddy's Buy/Sell/Trade video/DVD store - a charming little store with a bumper sticker on the door that read: "Who's your Daddy? I am. I spanked your Mother last night", and 6)the declining price of VHS at that time. DVDs were just starting to be really affordable and were taking the place of VHS rapidly. I saw this as my opportunity to buy a TON of movies for very little money. And boy did I seize that opportunity! My obsession/collection grew when I came home from BYU. I bought hundreds of videos. I bought them from local rental stores that couldn't get rid of them fast enough, from my Uncle Burt who was replacing his entire VHS collection with David's, and I bought a lot from Half.com. Of course VHS was a dead format and I eventually had to sell my collection for much less than what I had paid for them, but I eased the pain and disappointment by buying hundreds of DVDs. I now own about 700 DVDs. I haven't bought any in a very long time now that we have another method of watching movies, but I still watch movies from my DVD collection often.

About 3 years ago I started really getting into the Oscars for reasons beyond fashion. I started watching the nominees that were available before the awards show, but not obsessively. Last year is when I started obsessing over seeing every movie nominated for Best Picture, and whatever I could get my hands on for the other categories. I did pretty well last year, and it made watching the awards show SO much more fun! It kind of ruins it if you only see a few of them, because you can't fairly judge what is "best". Not that my opinion means anything to the people who actually get to vote for the winners, but it's still fun. So I did well last year, but I had a bunch that I had to watch in the months following the awards when they were more available.

February 2nd was the day they announced the nominees for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards - aka: my "NFL Draft Pick" day. I was super excited to read the list of nominees, and to see that I had already seen a handful of them. I was surprised to see that they nominated 10 films for Best Picture because they don't usually nominate that many. On February 2nd I had only seen 2 out of 10 of those films. Thanks to a buttload of snow and some leaked screener DVDs for films that have not yet been officially released to the public, I have now seen 9 out of 10, plus many films that were nominated for other awards (Best Actor/Actress/Soundtrack/Animation, etc.). The only Best Picture nominee I have not yet seen is "Avatar" and that's only because I was trying to hold out to see it in the theater. Now that I'm down to 1 week, I realize that I'm going to have to watch it at home instead. So I am positive that by next Sunday I will have seen all of the major films! This probably sounds very stupid to a lot of you, but in that case you're probably the type of person who cares about the Super Bowl, so you can shove it. Let me have my 1 day of the year to be a total movie nerd and be obsessive.

Now I'm going to give my reviews for the 2010 nominated films that I have watched. I assure you that I am not doing this to be self indulgent, but because a few people have actually requested my opinions (a big shout out to Mallory! woot woot!). The rest of you should stop reading and go check the stats for whatever "big game" is on right now. Go ahead.

Best Picture:

Avatar- (I will come back to this one after i watch it this week)

The Blind Side- Pretty much what I expected. Another "inspirational" sports story. The whole sports thing obviously didn't draw me in, but it had good parts. It was a nice family-friendly film. Definitely not the best film of the year, although I fear it has a chance of winning.
My rating: C+

District 9- I really liked this movie! It was unique, kept my interest the entire time, had funny accents, and was just very well made. While I liked it a lot, I don't see it winning best picture simply for the fact that it probably does not appeal to as many people as some of the other nominees.
My rating: A

An Education- I liked this one. It was different. It kept my interest for most of the time, although it started to lose me a little about 3/4 of the way through. Overall, I liked it, but I wouldn't say it was the best picture of 2010.
My rating: B

The Hurt Locker- I had no desire to watch this movie before the nominee list was released, but I realized that I would have to watch it to make my goal. I'm glad I watched it. It was different than what I had expected, in a good way. But I still didn't love it. And I don't think it should win.
My rating: B+

Inglourious Basterds- This is another one that I didn't really want to see. I gave up on Tarantino after I watched Kill Bill I & II. He uses so much graphic violence in his movies, and while he often does it in a comical way, it's just too much for me most of the time. It makes me cringe. But again, because it was nominated I "had to" watch it. I'm actually glad I watched it. I had to look away a lot. It was definitely Tarantino-style violence. But the story was fun to follow, and the acting was really good. I'm not referring to Brad Pitt: in my opinion, his role could have been played by pretty much any decent actor and the movie would have been equally good. I enjoyed the foreign actors way more than him. I'm not hating on Brad - I just think that his character wasn't as central to the plot as I had thought it would be. I don't think this movie is for everyone, especially with the violence, and that might be what keeps it from winning. I knew I liked this movie because I was interrupted from watching it 3 times, and every time I couldn't wait to get back to it and find out what happens.
My rating: A

Precious- Great movie! I remember seeing the preview in the theater months ago and thinking, "Wow, that looks really depressing." And it was. It was very uncomfortable to watch. But it was also an amazing look into this realistic life. I think the acting was amazing, especially Mo'Nique. And while it was heavy, I didn't walk away wanting to kill myself afterwards. (Wow, is that a good review or what? "I didn't walk away wanting to kill myself afterwards." Someone should hire me...) I think this deserves to be in the running for best picture.
My rating: A+

A Serious Man- A seriously boring movie!! (I'm so witty, right?) I'm sure I am not the only person who gave it that review. I cannot for the life of me understand why this movie was nominated. It was quirky, I will give it that. I usually like movies that are quirky. But this one just didn't do anything for me. I didn't like a single character. The plot didn't go anywhere. I hated the ending. I just did not "get" it. Maybe it's because I'm not Jewish. (Before you start accusing me of anti-semitism, you should know that this entire movie involves a very Jewish theme with predominantly Jewish characters. I'm not just "dropping the hard J".) In summation: I kind of hated it. This film has no chance of winning the award. The only reason it kept my interest is because I kept waiting for it to get good.
My rating: D

Disney/Pixar's Up- I love this movie. I have seen it a few times now, and I cry every time within the first 10 minutes. It's a touching story with a lot of beautiful animation and music, it's funny, and I can have it on with the kids around. While I think this movie is absolutely one of the best of the year, I kind of have a problem with it being nominated for Best Picture when it is also nominated for Best Animated Film. I think they should have nominated it for one category or the other; not both.
My rating: A+

Up in the Air- I enjoyed this movie a lot. It was well made. I liked the characters. I liked the cinematography. I liked the realness of it. I like when movies have a plot that could easily be twisted into a terrible chick-flick type movie, but instead is crafted into a tasteful realistic movie that can be enjoyed by both men and women. That is exactly how I would describe this film. I think it deserves to be nominated, and maybe has a slight chance, but I don't think it will win.
My rating: A

My pick to win Best Picture: (I will have to decide after I see "Avatar".)

Other films that were nominated in different categories:

Crazy Heart- I liked this one a lot. It had the realistic feel that I like, and it was very well acted. I'm generally not a fan of country music, but I enjoyed the music in the film. It's not the most clever or unique plot, but it was still a good story that kept my interest.
My rating: A-

Julie & Julia- This one was light and fun. It was enjoyable to watch, although I got a little bored 3/4 of the way through. Meryl Streep was wonderful, as usual. However, I don't think she deserved the Oscar for this performance over some of the other nominees.
My rating: B-

Invictus- (I am going to watch it this week)

The Messenger- This was pretty good. It was realistic - the dialogue and plot felt real, and there was no background music. It was pretty mellow, certainly not upbeat, but not really depressing either. Woody Harrelson was really good in his supporting role. It kept my interest the whole time.
My rating: B-

The Lovely Bones- I have to start by saying that I read this book last year and I loved the book - until I got to the end. I hated the last bit of the book. I think the movie did a better job with the ending. Of course the movie missed a lot of the details that were in the book, as all films based on books do. But I think they did a great job of covering all of the main points and most important details. They also did a great job conveying Suzy's alternate existence. The acting was really good - I love Saoirse Ronan (who played Suzy). I was nervous about the movie living up to the book, but I think this one did.
My rating: A

Nine- I was not familiar with this musical at all before watching the movie. From what I know of Broadway musicals, it seems like they did a good job of converting the stage show to a film. But I didn't love it. The music didn't grab me the way a lot of Broadway music does. I enjoyed the musical numbers, and I thought Daniel Day-Lewis was really good, but overall the film didn't pull me in. Penelope Cruz is nominated for best supporting actress, which I don't really understand. Her acting didn't stand out to me as being Oscar-worthy. If anyone deserved the nomination it was Marion Cotillard. Still, I don't think anyone deserves the Oscar more than Mo'Nique for her role in "Precious".
My rating: C

In the Loop- This one was kind of over my head. It's a combination of British and American actors and accents with a political plot, and I found it hard to follow. I did find a lot of the dialogue funny, but overall it was just OK. I was excited to see Anna Chlumsky because I was always curious about what happened to her after the "My Girl" movies. Apparently she is alive and well, and is still acting. I also like the tall, skinny awkward-looking guy who is a new character on this season of "The Office".
My rating: C+

Coraline- I liked this movie...until I completely lost interest towards the end. I liked the look of it. It felt a lot darker than I had imagined going into it. It certainly was not an animated movie for children. I felt kind of uncomfortable with its darkness and I don't know exactly why. Maybe because it is animated and it feels like it should be lighter and happier than it is. I think I will watch it again and give it another chance.
My rating: C+

Fantastic Mr. Fox- I didn't know anything about this movie going into it. When I heard that it was animated, again I assumed that it was a kids movie. About 5 minutes into it I knew that it had to be a Wes Anderson film and that it was not aimed at children. Luckily, all of the would-be profanity was replaced with the word "cuss" - which was both funny and made it possible for me to watch the movie with Killian around. I loved the look of the movie. The characters and the animation were unique and colorful and fun. I liked the story. A lot of the voices were done by Wes Anderson's usual bunch - Jason Schwartzman, Own Wilson, and Bill Murray. It didn't keep my attention from beginning to end, but I can partially blame Killian for that.
My rating: B-

The Princess and the Frog- I was really excited when I found out that Disney was going to make a movie like the old classics. Out of all of the Oscar-nominated animated films, this is the one that was most intended for children, but I still don't think it's really appropriate for young kids. It has a subplot about voodoo and whenever that stuff comes up it's pretty creepy for young kids. I didn't hate the movie, but it definitely was not on par with the Disney classics of my childhood. The music wasn't as good, either.
My rating: C-

Sherlock Holmes- I hated this movie. i found it incredibly boring, especially for an action film. The dialogue was dull. It was more violent than it needed to be. It did not keep my interest. In fact, I only finished watching it so that it would count towards my goal, otherwise I would have abandoned it after 45 minutes. I think it was a waste of Robert Downey Jr.'s talent.
My rating: F

Star Trek- I am not into the Star Trek shows or older movies, but I wanted to see this movie enough to see it in the theater. And I wasn't disappointed. It was what I expected - an OK plot with good action and some cheesy humor.
My rating: B

I can't fairly judge who I think deserves Best Actor/Actress/Director/etc. because I have not seen all of the films that were involved in those nominations.

3 movies of 2009 that I think should have been nominated:

Moon- for Best Actor: Sam Rockwell, or for the Best Screenplay, or something.

Taken- I don't know what it should have been nominated for exactly. Maybe Most Kick-Ass? I guess that's not a category. Liam Neeson certainly didn't deserve an award for Best Accent Hiding.

Brothers- Tobey Maguire for Best Actor or Supporting Actor. I thought he was amazing in that role.

Ok, that's all of my reviews for now.

PS- My acceptance speech:
I would like to thank the Academy for making my obsessive movie watching possible. I want to thank my in-laws for taking Killian for 2 nights during the snow storm - the 2 nights when I watched the majority of these films - I couldn't have made it this far without you. I would also like to thank the man upstairs for the snow. This award goes to my parents for raising me with a TV and VCR and many available movies to watch every day while I ate my lunch. To Tim and Jean for your inspiring love of the Oscars. To Jay for watching some of the films with me and for never complaining about me taking over the good TV to make my goals come true. To my kids for napping and sleeping. And last but not least, to Mallory for caring. God bless.

Poop: Funny for All Ages

2010-02-23T21:30:00.004-05:00

I mentioned in the previous post that Finn laughs at everything Killian does. Here is a sample.

Finn's 1/2 Birthday!

2010-02-23T15:29:00.007-05:00

As soon as Finn was born I could not wait until he turned 6 months old. That might sound terrible, but it's true. I feel like 6 months is when babies are at their prime baby age. They sleep better, start eating solids, have a less offensive cry, and they generally start doing fun things. The only negative thing about this age is teething, but we haven't entered that zone yet. As you can imagine, I was very excited yesterday when Finn was officially 6 months old! It might sound crazy, but I really saw a sudden change in him throughout the day. He feels like an older baby. (Ok, so he has felt like an older baby eversince he was born the size of a Thanksgiving turkey, but still...) His personality is that of a more mature baby.

I want to honor his special 1/2 birthday with a list of 6 things that I love about him!

1. I love how chunky Finn is. It's no secret that I always longed for a chubby baby. What's not to love about plump baby cheeks and squishy thighs? Killian was a very average size as a baby, and while he had some baby chunk, he wasn't a chunky baby. Finn is my solid chunker, and I love squishing him all day. He's so chubby that my lips get lost in his cheeks when I kiss him, each of his thighs takes both of my hands to wrap around, and his chins have chins - to the point where it's difficult to locate his neck. He's close to 20lbs. His clothes are sized 9-12 months, and they're quickly becoming tight. He's almost in size 4 diapers - the size Killian was in at 1 year old.

2. I love how cuddly Finn is. His chunk factor helps him to be good at snuggling in and falling asleep pretty quickly in my arms. He is a super clingy baby, which can be difficult because it makes getting things done very hard. But I'm trying to treasure every day of cuddling before he's too big to do it. In fact, there are many times when I could put him down and get something done, but we're both so comfy with him in my arms that I don't want to put him down. Nothing else is important enough to stop cuddling!

3. I love how Finn loves Killian. He watches him eat. He watches him while he plays with toys. Any time Killian is around, Finn is watching him. At least once a day, Finn gets into this mode where he waits for Killian to do something - anything - and he will crack up with his most sincere belly laugh. No one else can make him laugh like that. You know when he's in the mode because he stares Killian down and his eyes smile in anticipation of the next thing Killian does. When I see Finn getting into the mode, I tell Killian to laugh or say "boo" - and sure enough, Finn cracks up. Then Killian cracks up. This is my favorite part of each day. I love seeing them so happy and in love with each other. I can't wait until Finn is old enough to really play with Killian.

4. I love experiencing everything over again with Finn. I thought it wouldn't be as special with Finn after experiencing it all with Killian already, but I was wrong. It's fun knowing when new milestones are approaching and comparing notes on the boys. It was exciting when Finn rolled over for the first time several weeks ago. It's amusing how physical milestones take a bit longer for Finn because he has so much weight to maneuver.

5. I love how scrappy Finn is. He's generally a sweet-natured boy, but he has a sassy side. He has a self-mutilating problem which is not so fun (I will save that for another post), but it certainly gives him an edge. He likes to swing at me when we're within close proximity. He reminds me of a kitten batting at a ball of yarn. (He also sharpens his claws by scratching the couch, much like a kitten.) Usually he's harmless, but I have to admit that he has bitchslapped me on a couple of occasions. Now, I'm not saying that I want him to be violent, but for now it's kind of endearing.

6. The boy can sleep. I love Finn so very much for allowing me to sleep through the night every night since he was about 6 weeks old. Killian gave me such a rough time with sleep for several months after he was born. (He didn't start sleeping completely through the night until around 18 months.) Life is so much better and easier with adequate sleep. He has a crazy sleep schedule, going to bed anywhere between 11:30pm-2am and waking up between 10am-11:30am, but it works for us! I never take this attribute for granted.

And now some Finn pictures from the past 2 months:

Super Engrish Time! Weeks 2 & 3

2010-02-16T00:22:00.007-05:00

Yay! I'm going to post 2 pieces of Engrish from my personal collection due to missing last week.

First up is one of my personal favorites. This pencil case is very dear to me because it was the first Engrish item that I discovered and bought. It is responsible for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of Engrish. In 2001, my friend, Carrie, and I found this gem in an Asian $1 Store in the Montgomery Mall. We laughed so much at several items that we discovered in that store, and I am still kicking myself for not buying more before they were replaced by another shop.

First look at the drawing. It looks like a constipated wingless angel & an overly happy winged angel who is either hovering over his shadow or a pile of doody, and some stars behind them.

It says:

Mon Thester.

be Don't

of scared me...

Hello?

Next up is a Valentine gift bag that I found in Chinatown in Philly.

This picture conjurs so many questions.

Why does the little girl have a bandage around her head? Does she have a toothache? Did she bust her jaw?
Why is she so pissed off? Is it because her mouth hurts? Is it because of something the dog did to her?
Why is the dog so pissed off?
Why is the dog sitting like a person?
Why is such a young girl wearing high heels?

What the hell is flying out of the envelope? Is it love? This scene does not make me think of love. Perhaps it's the love that the little girl and her dog once shared, flying away?

Tell me what YOU think!

Introducing: Engrish of the Week

2010-01-30T00:50:00.008-05:00

I'm going to (try to) start having "Engrish of the Week" posts once a week where I share something from my personal Engrish collection.

(For those of you new to my blog and/or the term "Engrish" - read this post.)

-----------------------------------------------

This week's item: a small notebook I picked up in a Willow Grove Mall shop.

"PINK IS SWEET

PINK IS COTTON CANDY AND

BUBBLE GUM AND BABIES, ESPECIALLY LITTLE GIRLS"

The Post About My New Scale

2010-01-29T01:10:00.020-05:00

I bought an analog scale for the bathroom today. I'm trying to lose weight and I thought it would be a good idea to have an accurate method of tracking my progress, rather than assuming my bread and butter diet is doing the trick.

There was an instruction sheet included in the box to explain how to set the scale to 0. Below the instructions, it says:

CARE AND MAINTENANCE

An occasional wiping with a soft cloth and mild soap will keep your scale attractive.

Do not use abrasive cleaners. Your scale does not require oiling or lubrication of any kind.

I have decided to leave the shrinkwrap on the scale. Partially so that I never have to wipe it down, but mostly so I will never be tempted to oil or lubricate it.

(**P.S.- Good news! I have lost 4lbs since January 6th; bread & butter can stay!**)

More Brotherly Love

2010-01-25T00:00:00.002-05:00

Killian: "Mommy!"

Me: "Yes, Killian?"

Killian: "I share baby Finn"

Me: "Oh yeah?"

Killian: "I share baby Finn cookies!"

(This is when dropped the dish I was washing and ran out to the living room)

And this is what I saw:

Lessons I learned that night:

1) Killian is good at sharing

2) Killian is great at tattling on himself (thank goodness!)

3) I shouldn't leave a 4 month-old in the care of a 2 year-old while washing dishes (who knew?)

4) Finn likes chocolate cookies

Brotherly Love

2009-12-08T00:13:00.004-05:00

Sometimes Killian is sweet with Finn. This is one of those times.

P.S.- I love Killian's little voice. My Mom calls it his "helium voice".

Finn's First Internet Video!

2009-12-06T14:26:00.004-05:00

Jay surprised me this week with a Flip MinoHD digital video camera. We didn't have any video footage of Finn yet, so I was very excited to get the pocket-sized camera (and glad we got it before Christmas).

So what does this mean for you? You get to watch videos of our kids and other things that are probably only interesting to us! Muah-ha-ha.

A List of Things I Didn't Do Today:

2009-11-11T20:54:00.003-05:00

Take a shower

Brush my hair

Brush my teeth

Change out of my pj's

Step 1 foot outside of the house

Drink anything other than 5 cans of Diet Dr. Pepper (now with cherry!)

Not eat a plate of french fries for dinner, right out of our home deep fryer

Stay calm & collected while 2 little feverish boys screamed their heads off

Enjoy the napping strike, by said boys, that occurred

Foresee Killian spitting his dose of Tylenol all over my arm instead of swallowing it

Think it was funny when Finn peed right as I opened his diaper (for the 3rd time in 2 days) It's like getting hit by a prank flower that shoots water...except with pee

However, I DID complete 4 loads of laundry and watched an entire season of Family Guy...so I guess all is not lost.

A Must-See

2009-11-09T15:26:00.002-05:00

Little people
+ ewok costumes
+ alcohol
+ live tv
+ Al Roker's leg
= this hilarious clip. Watch the entire thing!!!

EmoonWOK

The Autumn of '09

2009-11-05T17:25:00.017-05:00

I love the fall in Pennsylvania. I love when the leaves burst into tons of bright shades of orange, yellow, green, and red. I love the smell of burning leaves on the crisp air. And the local farms with all of their fun fall family festivities (alliteration score for me!). One fall thing that we have missed out on for the past few years is a Kelleher family hayride/bonfire. I always loved those hayrides. Maybe next year. One new tradition (thanks to Mom) is visiting "Mum Mountain" at Ott's nursery. The foods of fall that I love are: pumpkin chocolate chip bread (I baked 12 loaves this year - not all for myself), mashed potatoes, anything that involves the combination of sweet potatoes and marshmallows, and Reese's pumpkins (the extra large version of their cups - with a much higher peanut butter ratio to chocolate).

My favorite thing about the fall is Halloween. I always enjoyed it as a kid (what kid doesn't love dressing up and demanding free candy from local strangers?), but I think I like it even more now. I love decorating the house - something my mom has always done a great job of. I love telling myself that I'm going to make awesome costumes for the kids - and almost believing it -and then failing to follow through. Which is why I also love scrounging around for an easy costume at the last second. I don't love carving pumpkins, but I do have a strange love for scooping the guts out of them! (Scraping the inner walls of the pumpkin with a metal spoon until all of the seeds are out, and no strings left behind...) I used to love when my mom cooked "Dinner in a Pumpkin" (which is exactly what it sounds like) before trick-or-treating. I will make it when the kids are older. I love going to the "pumpkin house" in my parents' neighborhood (which is not exactly what it sounds like). They have over a hundred pumpkins carved with amazing designs - faces of celebrities, characters from animated films, typical Halloween icons, and even some religious ones. (Apparently the "last supper" was "Dinner in a Pumpkin".)

We don't do much trick-or-treating with the kids yet, but I love our annual stop at my parents' neighbors' house where we always get VIP boxes of Cracker Jacks. I also enjoy observing my dad as he makes the neighborhood kids squirm before giving them candy. It's shocking how many kids don't say "trick or treat" these days. Instead they just hold out their bags and wait for the candy to be presented to them without a verbal exchange. My dad does not give it up that easy, and why should he? I mean, that's all they have to do/say to get free candy. Still, I can't help but imagine that, years in the future, my dad will be referred to as "old man Anderson" by the neighborhood kids. (I love you, Dad. Please don't be offended - I can't afford to lose any of my readers.)

Lastly, I love the after-Halloween sales. Target has amazing Halloween decor, but I never want to pay full price, so I (impatiently) wait until the day after Halloween when everything is 50% off. Then 75%, and eventually 90%.

And I will now end with a quick summary of my autumnal dislikes: bobbing for apples (ew), spiders (whether alive or in decoration form does not matter), spiderwebs (the real ones), dead leaves, raking leaves, half-bare trees, changing the clocks, corn mazes (who needs 'em? Why do people pay to get lost?), jumping into a nice big pile of leaves only to realize that it's laced with cat poop, and when Brett doesn't let me dress him up as a hooker (I just realized that I have 2 trick-or-treaters/victims of my own now....stay tuned for Halloween 2010!). The foods of fall that I dislike are: candy corn, Mary Jane candies (which only appear at Halloween, and I convinced myself at a young age that they were the poisoned candy we were warned about because they taste so gross), pumpkin pie, and stuffing.

STOP: .... PICTURE TIME!

A tree bursting with autumn goodness

Green leaves

Orange leaves

We went to Merrymead Farm the day before Halloween with Jay's parents.

Killian loved the pumpkins.

This is known as "the Dana face" - named for the face that I made in almost every professional school picture. Notice how the eyebrows are arched in a judgmental way.

He was determined to lift that pumpkin. Sometimes he thinks he's people.

Butt shot!

Finn did a lot of this:

And a little of this:

I thought this was a silly face.

Killian trying to sit on the stem of the pumpkin. Perhaps he's "gifted".

Finn's face was still in reclined car seat mode:

Making bubbles:

Finn being sassy:

I think his face kind of resembles the pumpkin on his shirt

(not the pumpkin's face, but the roundness)

Me-Mom bought Killian a cookie in the Merrymead store...

Killian was very excited to dig in...

He was happy with the results...

But who needs hands when you can eat right off of a bird poop-ridden picnic table?

He decided to try a dried edamame bean...

But quickly went back to the cookie.

Meanwhile, Finn made record-breaking bubbles!

We had a great time.
These are some beautiful mums my Mum bought for me. (Get it?)

They were from Ott's.

On Halloween, Finn was a cheeky monkey!

And a chunky monkey.

And, sadly, this is the only full-body shot we got of him in his costume.

Which is, sadly, better than what we got of Killian.

I laugh every time I see this picture. I can't figure out exactly why, but I think he looks like a serial rapist. I think it's the black sweatsuit and greaseball-looking hair, combined with the weird face anddead eyes he has going, and his stance. (As Jean said: he looks sweaty and determined - lol)

And in case you were wondering what we carved into our pumpkin this year - it turns out that we have a very friendly animal who decided to "carve" it for us:

And some slugs who decided to help finish the design.

(Sooo gross, right?)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Do Not Disturb

2009-10-27T22:34:00.006-04:00

I have decided to collect pictures of the boys sleeping in funny places and positions. Here's what I captured in September and October:

GUESS WHO?

2009-10-22T21:58:00.006-04:00

He is 2 months old today...

He is 13+ lbs and 23 inches...

He has almost grown out of his 0-3 month clothes...

He is almost in size 2 diapers...

He drinks about 5oz every 2 hours...

He is getting very strong leg and arm muscles...

He is gaining awesome neck control...

He has a gorgeous smile...

He still gets a bit cross-eyed when trying to focus...

He is sleeping through the night...

He is a major cuddler...

He doesn't let his mama get anything done while he's awake...

He often pees in his own face during diaper changes...

He uses his tightly clenched hands as lint traps...

He enjoys his baths from Gangy...

He's the chunker I always hoped for...

He's slowly winning over his big brother (keyword being slowly)...

He is...

FINN!

We are so happy to have Finn in our family. It has been a MAJOR adjustment, but it's definitely worth it. It's crazy getting to know a whole new person. He has so many differences from Killian already. I can't wait to learn more about who he is and what he's like. So far he is pretty sweet (as long as we do exactly what he wants). I love our morning couch cuddle time. I love how solid he is - not fragile like most babies his age. I am happy that we made it through the toughest part! (The first month, in my opinion, is kind of hell.) I am usually a bit eager for him to be older (like 6+ months), but sometimes I wish he would slow down.

I love you, Finny Finn Finn!

For my brother who poops in da wash

2009-10-19T00:33:00.014-04:00

Don't you just love inside jokes? Without explaining the pooping-in-da-wash part, for those of you who don't already know the background, I am referring to my brother Brett. Every time I see Brett I can expect to hear, (picture the following asked in a bratty tone),"When are you going to update your blog?" So, Brett, here is a new post. Now get off my tail, you'll make it dirty.

How about a PICTURE LOADED POST!? (yay!) The pics are not in any real order...blogger likes to make that a difficult task, and I don't feel like fighting it.

ENJOY!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We recently enjoyed Freddy Hill Farm's Fall Fest with Me-Mom and Pop-Pop

Killian "driving" the tractor

He loved the pumpkins

Killian and Pop-Pop by the barn

Wrapped up nice and snug against Mama in the Moby wrap

We both love it

What I wake up next to during morning snuggle time

Yawning

S t r e t c h i n g

Floor time

What Finn looks like if he has to wait a minute for food

Pucker up!

ROAR!

Killian being "soft soft sweet"

At this rate, Finn will be holding Killian by Christmas

Killian trying to taste Finn?

Killian likes to mimic the funny faces he sees on Yo Gabba Gabba

Finn smiles! (much sooner than Killian did, I would like to note)

Intense staring contest

Cuddling on Daddy (after winning the contest)

Baby fingers

Baby feet! (Tim - Do you still want to snap off one of those toes for a nibble? I do!)

Baby Cheeks!

Chillin' in the sun

Killian had a nasty mosquito bite that swelled like crazy and make him look like a Star Trek character for a few days

I love this geuine smile (please ignore the dirty face)

Finn in any seated position + Gravity = this face

Nice and calm in the Moby

Finn's first bath! (Thanks, Gangy)

After the bath
Finn's first time meeting Super-Nana

Hanging out in the Carlins' yard

That's all for now, folks!

A Lazy (but good) Post

2009-09-25T00:14:00.004-04:00

If you have not seen "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" yet, go to Hulu.com right now and watch it! (Or wait until you have about 45 minutes to spare...) But for now, watch this clip on YouTube of my favorite song: "On the Rise". (I apologize that I don't know how to embed videos yet...I think it involves having a YouTube membership, which I have not yet done.)

Click Here!

It's sooo pretty, right?? I hope you like it, because it's probably going to be in your head for a bit!

If that one didn't tickle your fancy try this one: "A Man's Gotta Do.."
(Make sure you listen all the way till the end of the song to catch Killian's favorite one-word line in the whole video...)

Click This One - I Dare You!

Introducing...

2009-08-23T21:12:00.002-04:00

Want to Be a Winner?

2009-08-21T21:19:00.003-04:00

There is a chance that I will be induced tomorrow, August 22nd. That could mean that the baby would arrive on the 22nd or the 23rd, depending on how everything goes. Of course there's a chance that I will be sent home without an induction, but we're trying to think positively :)

So now it's time to make your guesses! Just leave a comment with your answers numbered 1-7 to go along with the questions below. Whoever gets the most answers correct will get a prize. (The prize is yet-to-be-determined, but will be very desirable. Everyone will envy you.)

1) When will Carlin boy #2 arrive? (the date)
2) What time will he arrive? (exact time, including am/pm)
3) What will his first name be?
4) What will his middle name be?
5) How much will he weigh?
6) How long will he be? (from head to feet)
7) Will he have visible hair on his head?

We will keep you posted with pictures and information as soon as we can, but you must get your answers in beforehand!! SO HURRY UP THE CAKES!

Killian's 2nd Birthday

2009-07-27T21:37:00.009-04:00

Killian turned 2 on July 17th. I can't believe that he has been in our lives for 2 whole years, but I am very grateful for him. He has certainly made life more interesting! We spend literally hours every day just watching him and marvelling at each new thing he does and says. I know all parents think they have the smartest/cutest kid in the world - but we really do! He drives me crazy - especially now that the terrible 2's have officially started (and how!) - but it's worth it for all the joy he brings to my life on a daily basis. I know I'm being one of "those" moms who goes on and on raving about her kid, but I don't often do this on my blog - so deal with it (or double stuff yourself).

As we're gearing up for baby boy #2, we've been watching old videos of Killian and looking at pictures of him from his infant days. It kind of makes me nervous for the new baby, for a couple of very different reasons. First, I'm nervous because I remember how scary it was bringing home a new baby and having NO clue about what to do with it. I'm nervous about the lack of sleep. I'm nervous about my abilities as a mom with 2 little boys. The second category to my nervousness is that I fear the next baby won't be as cool as Killian. I have posed the question to Jay and our families - "What if the next one is a dud??" Seriously, what if he's spacey? What if he waits until after he's 9 months-old to walk? What if he doesn't talk/cuss until he's 2? Or, god forbid, what if he's ugly? (I know that makes me sound like a terrible person, but again, I invite you to double stuff yourself.)

But I'm not only nervous - I am very excited for this next chapter in our lives. Killian is a very cool kid, and if the next one is half as cool as him, we'll have no problems. I have to say that this past year of Killian's life has felt more rewarding, for lack of a better word. It's so nice to talk to him and have him respond. It's nice to get a "thank you" every now and then, and super nice to hear, "I yuv you, mama!" And his new thing this week - he'll come up to me wherever I am and ask, "What doin'? What doin', Mama?"

This next year of his life is going to be a crazy one, I'm sure. Terrible 2's. Adjusting to a baby brother. Potty-training. Getting kicked out of our bed. Getting the teeth that he is still missing. It will surely be trying on my nerves, but I am positive that I love him enough to get through the tough stuff! (If not, he can tell me to double stuff myself.)

And now a buttload of pictures from his birthday for you all to enjoy!

In his Superman pj's. Be prepared to see a lot of this face in his pics!

A rare picture of a genuine smile, rather than his cheesy picture smile.

He requested a hamburger for his birthday dinner. We were surprised because we never saw him eat a hamburger, but we thought he should have what he wanted for his birthday. It took a ton of french fries and 20 minutes of me telling him that hamburgers taste like meatloaf for him to eat half of the burger. (Which is kind of funny because it takes my mom 20 minutes of telling Brett that meatloaf tastes like hamburgers to get him to eat it!)

One of Killian's gifts: temporary tattoos! He gets really excited at the idea of wearing them, then freaks out as if I'm pouring acid on his arm while applying them, and then shows the end result to every person he sees.

Unwrapping what looks like a ghost of some sort? I don't know what the camera was doing there.

His favorite gift from us - a set of Fisher Price Little People with an amusement park - a gift that cost me only $5 at Salvation Army and came with tons of toys. SCORE! (I wish birthdays would always be this easy.)

(He hasn't gotten over the excitement of these toys yet!)

I love this picture of Killian with Jay.

The star birthday cake I made for Killian.

Killian had a very hard time blowing out the candles. He kept making an "f" sound, so there was more saliva escaping his mouth than air. At one point Jay said, "Get it!" and Killian translated that to mean that he should grab the flames. Luckily Jay has cat-like reflexes and there was no burn incident. In this picture it looks like Killian's about to bite the flame.

Jay went to get a knife to cut the cake, and Killian almost didn't wait for him to get back before eating!

SURPRISE!! It's a rainbow cake inside!!

(That cake took me over an hour to make...you WILL look at more pictures of it befor I move on to the next topic.)

Success! Killian loved the cake!

After eating his cake, getting cleaned up and playing with his Little People for a while longer, Killian literally passed out on the floor behind me.

The tuckered-out 2 year-old.

And now the next day, when we had his birthday bash with our families:

His lips are fluorescent orange from the 2 sippy cups of orange soda that he ingested. I can't describe the effect of the soda - maybe similar to crack? He was NUTS on orange soda. Every time he was asked a question he shrieked the response. Why did I allow him to have 2 sippy cups of orange soda? It was his GD birthday, back off! (Oh, and the present that he is so excited about in this picture is a keyboard & microphone from my parents. He LOVES putting the microphone into his mouth and making loud sounds - never actual words.)

This juicy caterpillar decided to make an appearance at the party. He was kind of a big deal. Luckily, no one ate or harmed the critter.

An unexpected reaction to receiving cash as a gift.

What happened when I tried to take the cash away from him to move onto the next gift.

Eating a slice of his 2nd birthday cake.

He had a very full and happy day. Unlike the night before, he stayed up much later than we anticipated. I blame the orange soda/crack.

And this one has nothing to do with his birthday, but I just thought it was cute. I love you, 2 year-old!

My "Jean" Post

2009-07-25T10:20:00.017-04:00

I love reading Tim and Jean's blog because they're always doing fun things that usually involve eating yummy food, and then they blog about it. I don't feel like we have as many opportunities for fairs and events like the ones they attend, but I probably just don't seek them out enough.

For example, I wouldn't have known about the Greek Festival at Saint Sophia's in May if Jay's mom had not brought it to our attention. Jay and I had our wedding reception at Saint Sophia's in June of 2006, so we love any opportunity to go back to that location. This was our second time attending their Greek festival. Rose had offered to watch Killian that night, which is an offer we never refuse! We felt kind of bad once we got to the fair, though, because we knew he would have loved being there. There were tons of rides, bright lights, lots of food, and live music. We made ourselves feel less guilty by promising to bring him (and the new baby) to St. Sophia's next big event in September.

The two of us enjoyed walking around the grounds of the Greek Orthodox church where, 3 years earlier, we had been introduced as husband & wife, where we had our "first dance", and so on. The main hall where our reception was held looks very different during their Greek festivals, but both events required about the same amount of chairs and tables to accommodate their/our guests!

We didn't waste much time before we started eating yummy Greek food - we knew exactly which foods to get from our past festival experience. Next we walked around and looked at the rides (with absolutely NO intention of riding any!) and we watched Killian-sized kids have tons of fun (which, of course, added to our guilt). We ended the evening with soft-serve ice cream cones and the long walk back to our car.

It was a lovely evening, and I made sure to take pictures of everything so that I could create a "Jean" post :)

When I was little, during a family vacation in Wildwood, I fell in love with the idea of winning one of these life-sized stuffed tigers. I had visions of myself sitting on it and pretty much treating it like my best friend. Sadly, these visions never came to pass. This was my first time seeing the head-only version of my childhood dream...which just seems like a creepy idea. What kid wants to have a tiger head mounted to his/her bedroom wall? Not this kid!

(Self-explanatory picture...the kind of ride that makes you want to vomit just watching it)

This attraction brought flashbacks from a June Fete that I attended when I was very young. I am positive that Tim and I went on this during our Indiana Jones obsession period (him more so than me, but I loved me some Indiana!)

(Notice that the attraction only says "Raiders" and nothing about Indiana Jones specifically)

Probably what I was most anticipating from the Greek festival: Rice Pudding!!

Super yummy and filling Gyros! (This was the second time I ever had one - but certainly not the last!)

Perhaps not Greek, but certainly delicious french fries! (Which amazed me because they were made in this little temporary tent set-up, not a place where I would expect to find exceptional fries!)

And finally, a shot of St. Sophia's at dusk. (It's nicer-looking without all the tents out front, but you get the idea.)

The Trader Joes Incident

2009-06-03T09:52:00.006-04:00

I love big-beaded necklaces. I own about a million and a half of them. But each one is different and goes with different outfits, so they are each important to me.

On this specific occasion, a Saturday morning, I chose to wear a brand new red/orange various-size beaded necklace. Killian and I made our first errand stop of the day at Trader Joes. He was sitting in the front of the shopping cart. I was pushing said shopping cart. After exploring every aisle and successfully picking up everything on my list, we ventured back to the produce section to pick up my current favorite food - seedless watermelon. As I was staring at the mound of delicious melons, picturing how juicy they were inside, Killian took ahold of my necklace. I wasn't alarmed by this; he was in a great mood and wasn't pulling hard. I knew he had no mal intentions. A split second later, I felt the string snap, and everything went into slow-motion. I watched what seemed like hundreds of beads fall to the hard cement floor. Each bead bounced in a diferent direction. Some went under the chip aisle shelving, some under the produce bins. Many headed for people's shopping carts. I had visions of people slipping on my beads and falling all over Trader Joes. While that image now makes me laugh, at the time it was very stressful. Everyone was looking at the source of the scattered beads: me. I turned red, as I so easily do, and frantically began grabbing every bead I could find. I also tried to warn all people entering "THE BEAD ZONE" in an attempt to keep my visions from coming to pass. A couple of lovely bystanders handed me small handfuls of beads that they had recovered. I shoved each one into my tiny change purse and scanned the floor for more. I forgot to mention that some of the beads were the exact shape, size and color as cherry tomatoes - so I ended up grabbing a few squishy fugitive tomatoes that had found a hideout under the produce bins.

All of this took place in less than 1 minute. When I realized that I had gotten ahold of all the beads that I possibly could, and knew I had to leave the rest for dead, I snapped my bulging coin purse closed, took a deep breath, and looked to Killian. I gave him a flustered smile hoping that he would "get" me. I also thought that he might be feeling kind of bad for having a) broken my adored necklace, and b) causing such a stir.

Instead, he looked at me and said, with a very sincere face, "That's too bad!" ("Bad" was pronounced "bayyadd".) I have NO idea where he picked up this phrase or how he knew when to use it, but it certainly took me by surprise! Not "oops" or "sorry". An almost sarcasticcally-toned and unapologetic way of avoiding any responsibility for the incident.

10 Things You Should NEVER Say to a Pregnant Woman

2009-05-16T14:25:00.006-04:00

(In no specific order:)

1. "Are you sure it's not twins?"

I can't tell you how many times I was asked this question during my first pregnancy. I think it's the most offensive, even though people always asked in a joking way. Listen, I don't care if you are joking - it is not funny to ask this question to any pregnant woman! Chances are that you would already be aware of the fact if I was indeed pregnant with twins. My response to these jokers: Are you sure you're not a douchebag?

2. "Are you sure they got your due date correct?"

Again, always asked in a joking manner, but extremely unfunny. I get it; I'm incredibly fat.

3. "WOW!" , "WHOAH!" Or any other similar exclamation.

Completely unnecessary. We pregos are WAY more aware of our excess weight than you are. Keep the comments/alarming looks to yourself.

4. "You're SO big!"

No sh**!

5. "You look like you're ready to go any second..."

How awkward do you have to make me feel when I explain that, no, I still have 2 whole months left? This is a VERY common one in the final months.

6."You look terrible!" or "You look miserable!" (which translate into the same statement)

Yes, people actually say these things to pregnant women. I may be thinking that I'm having a pretty good day, and then someone will tell me that I look "miserable".

7. "Was your pregnancy planned?"

Umm....awkward! In what way does that information apply to you? If your name does not have "Doctor" in front of it, you should probably not be asking this question.

8. "Are you going to have a natural birth?"

I would consider anything that finds its way out of my body to be pretty natural. Am I going to make things slightly easier for myself by accepting pain managing drugs? Absolutely! Does that make it less natural? Not in my opinion! Now I'm not knocking water births, but how is that any more natural? You're not a freaking dolphin!

9. Stories about people who have lost their babies.

People - mostly women and often strangers - will tell you the most horrifying tales of baby deaths while you're pregnant. Why do they feel so inclined? Do they not remember how scary every step of pregnancy and parenthood is? Which brings us to 10:

10. Labor horror stories.

Every woman who has given birth has a story. Most of them feel inclined to share their stories. Personally, I have never really had a problem with listening to experiences. But labor horror stories are in a different category. These are tales that scare the crap out of first-timers who have no idea what to expect. It's not very comforting being told how one woman suffered hours of agonizing labor only to be given a c-section in the end. Or hearing about how horribly some women tear. Or finding out how much blood is involved. Or learning that most women poop at some point during labor. It's probably better to keep these stories to yourself.

A-hoy-hoy!

2009-05-16T13:59:00.003-04:00

I have the opposite problem to "writer's block" (or "blogger's block", which is more fun to say out loud). I have sooo many ideas for posts, but I know each one will take a lot of time to type out, and then I feel overwhelmed, so I just don't do it. I have started a ton of entries and just never finished them (Mark's mullet, for example). I won't promise to blog more often, because we all know where that leads: nowhere. But I will try to blog more often. That way you can all be privy to the delightful anecdotes I have to relay.

Look forward to the following topics:

Mark's Mullet
Ultrasound Pics/Junk-Grabbing
The Big Move
Killian's Swearing Problem
10 Things You Should NEVER Say to a Pregnant Woman
General Pregnancy Stuff
Great Movies in 2009
New Adventures with Ryan
The Trader Joe's Incident
New House Makeover
Killian the Ringbearer
Baby Naming Issues
(And many more...)

So vote on what you would like to hear about most, and I will devote my time to those topics!

How's Your Intuition?

2009-03-30T18:26:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is the big day: we find out the gender of baby number 2! (Also known as Nugget, Little Bit, and Itty Bitty.)
For fun, I wanted to make a poll to see what you THINK the baby will be. (Not what you prefer; although you may specify both if you wish.) There are a lot of people who seem to think that they know the gender, so put your money where your mouth is! Because I do not know how to set up an official looking poll, just include it in a "comment" at the bottom of the post!

WARNING: I will not release the results until I get at least 5 votes.

A Teaser....

2009-03-21T09:27:00.002-04:00

The highlight of my haircutiing career occurred yesterday:

I...gave...Mark...a...MULLET!

More details (and pictures) to follow soon.

It's Just Baby Fat

2009-03-14T10:38:00.016-04:00

Surprise, surprise - 1 month into my New Year's resolution I slacked off. Well, I suppose that's what New Year's resolutions are for, eh?

I decided that this post should be about the major thing going on in my life right now: I am 17 weeks pregnant with baby number 2! ............(a moment of silence for your jubilant reaction).......... I found out on December 8th and tried very hard to keep it on the hush until the end of the 1st trimester, as recommended in most books. I had to tell our families because of our timely trip to Disney World, where I was unable to ride all of the major (and best) rides in the park. I still had an amazing time; it is DISNEY WORLD, afterall, but I severely missed going on "The Tower of Terror", which is my favorite ride.
I feel like I'm showing a whole lot sooner with this pregnancy - which is standard for 2nd time pregnancies - but it still makes me feel self-conscious. Oh well, it's just baby fat, and I'm only going to get bigger from here!

We have tried to explain the new baby to Killian, but he has NO clue what we're talking about. We decided this week that it would be a good idea to buy him a baby doll so that he can practice his gentility on it. Off to Toys 'R Us we went - Kim (my cousin), Killian, and I. We perused the 2 double-sided aisles of baby doll glory for close to 20 minutes. My method was to look at the prices under the dolls before looking at the actual doll - the cheaper the better. Here is a sample of my thoughts during this process:

"$9.99....good price, but that one has cloth hands. Don't really like dolls with cloth hands."
"12.99....ok price, but that face is WAY too creepy. My goal is not to give Killian nightmares about the new baby."
"Oooh, that one is so cute and lifelike.....but it's $24.99, and I am not willing to spend that much on a doll that a boy will not appreciate. And Jay would think I'm retarded."
"CLEARANCE!! My favorite word to see in any store! Ok...$7.99...good price...and these dolls are..." (pause to look up at the dolls)..."not white.....hmm....would that be confusing to Killian? Maybe I should continue looking."

This continued for a few more minutes before I decided to take another look at the CLEARANCE babies. Kim and I searched through them trying to find a...more accurate....baby for our situation. Meanwhile, I gave Killian one to look at. He took to it immediately; cooing at it and petting it like a cat. The one I handed him had a picture of a white girl in the picture on the front of the box, while all the other ones had African American children. This baby was also slightly different looking than the African American ones, so I decided that it must be bi-racial. For some reason, that seemed like it would be less confusing for Killian. And more importantly, I decided that it would be an excellent opportunity to teach him not only how to be gentle with a baby, but also how to be racially tolerant and open-minded. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone. (And as I told Jay later - at least one of us won't be shocked when my baby comes out half-black.....Jay didn't seem to find that as humorous as I did.)

The real selling point for me, however, was the writing on the package. This particular doll is from the collection of dolls called "Lots to Love Babies" - as in they are so fat that there is more to love. That made me giggle. I have heard people say that they are attracted to heavier-set women or men because there is "more to love", but I would never think of that phrase being used with an infant. And then I saw the slogan underneath the name, which is "It's Just Baby Fat!" - which makes me laugh out loud every time I read it! (I don't know if I can explain why I find that so funny, but hopefully I'm not the only one.) I think it's the idea that a newborn baby has to justify its chubbiness by explaining that "it's just baby fat".
Since coming home with us, the nameless chubby baby has received lots of kisses from Killian, and I overheard him sweetly pointing out the baby's facial features (nose, mouth, cheeks, etc). Once in a while he also decides to "punish" the baby by smacking it. I don't know why he feels the need to do that - we NEVER smack him around. I am 100% sure that he would do this no matter what the color of the baby's skin, but I am concerned that he will beat the doll in public and it will come off as a hate crime.

I LOVE this picture because it looks like Killian is making the same exact face as the doll!!!

He's Just Not That Into You

2009-02-07T10:26:00.003-05:00

Last night I saw my first film of 2009 in the theater- "He's Just Not That Into You". Rottentomatoes.com rated it 45%. Yahoo Movies gave it a C+. IMDB.com has not displayed its official star rating yet. I generally agree with these 3 sites on most movies. I realize that this is not a very unique film plot, and it is somewhat predictable and has its cheesy factor. BUT, I genuinely enjoyed watching it. Sure, I spent an entire day with a sick baby and simply getting away from a constant flow of snot was quite a treat- but I don't think that's the only reason I liked the movie. I liked the cast a lot; with the exception of one actress- Drew Barrymore. I feel kind of bad saying that, because I usually like her a lot. But I just felt that her acting was kind of overdone or something. Luckily she's not in the film enough to affect my overall opinion. My 2 favorite actors were Ginnifer Goodwin (from "Big Love") and Justin Long- who is extremely funny in a very natural and unforced way. Jennifer Aniston was ok. I enjoyed Ben Affleck. Kevin Connoly (from "Entourage") was very natural and delivered his character well. I find Jennifer Connoly (no relation to Kevin) to be very plain. I think she conveyed her character well, but nothing really stood out about her to me. Bradley Cooper (who is hosting SNL tonight) is very funny and charming, even if his character is kind of slimy. I really liked Scarlett Johansson- mostly because she has more curves than any other female in the cast. There is something Marilyn Monroe about her to me, which I enjoy. I also think she is a great actress. I have never really been in the dating world to be able to relate to their stories, but I still felt a connection with the characters. A lot of the situations were definitely realistic. I also like the "exception" vs. "rule" concept used throughout the movie (I can't really explain that - just go see it.)

So while this is not going to win best picture of 2009, I already know that I will buy it (previously viewed from Blockbuster, of course) and I recommend it for any chicks who are looking for a good (but not amazing) movie.

Have you seen it? Tell me what you think!

My Favorite Phone Pictures from 2008

2009-02-07T09:34:00.034-05:00

I purchased a Sony Ericsson w580i Walkman cell phone last August. It had 2 features that were selling points for me: an mp3 player feature and a high resolution camera (high for a phone). These features only work if you buy a seperate memory card- which I did. Unfortunately, my phone is currently messed up and won't recognize the memory card, so I can't use either of these features. Annoying! I can easily live without the mp3 player, but the camera is something that I severely miss. I used my phone camera for SO many things: to take pictures of things that I wanted to remember to buy at some point (or things that I wished I could buy at some point), to take pictures of things that I thought were funny and weird, and to take pictures of Ryan and Killian doing weird and funny things- things that I would hope to blog about someday. So, techinically, you all are missing out because of my non-functional camera. Due to the phone malfunction, I decided to upload all of my phone pics to my computer. I am going to share my favorites with you.

Today I'll start with cute pictures of Killian and Ryan:

More to come...

Jesus is Everywhere

2009-02-02T09:18:00.005-05:00

When I was in Primary (sunday school for children from age 3-11) I was introduced to the concept of "Would you do that if Jesus was here?". It was more of a threat used by teachers to make us behave during Primary Program rehearsals in the chapel. It worked for a while because no one wanted to misbehave in front of Jesus. (I also recall being told that Jesus was in the building with us at all times- that he lived there- so it made it very likely to me that he might drop by to check up on us in our classes.)

As I got older and left Primary, I continued to hear people ask/threaten "Would you do that if Jesus was here?" and it started to bother me. I began to think of things that I would certainly not do if Jesus was in the room, but these things weren't evil or sinful. For example: going to the bathroom. I would not go to the bathroom with Jesus in the room because it would be rude. I would not shower with Jesus in the room because I prefer my privacy. I would not pick my nose in front of Jesus. I would not pick a wedgie. I would not get dressed or undressed. The list goes on.

While I understand the basis of why people use this question- the same way WWJD is used- I just don't think it's a very good question. I remember it being used when leaders would talk about questionable movies. They would say, "Would you watch that movie if Jesus was in the room?" My answer to that question, no matter what the movie, is an easy "no"! I mean, come on: if Jesus was in the room, I would much rather have a meaningful conversation with him than watch any stupid movie. Or, if he really wanted to watch a movie, I would let him choose because he's the guest!

Anyway, I went for a while without hearing anyone ask one of these questions. While attending Enrichment last week, I walked into the bathroom and this is what I saw:

My immediate thought was, "Can I go to the bathroom if Jesus is in the stall?"

My Nominations for Best (and worst) Films of 2008

2009-01-23T09:15:00.011-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE movies. My DVD collection has reached a whopping 685. I have watched about 85% of the movies I own - the rest are sitting patiently on the shelves, waiting for the day that I decide I am in the mood to watch them. Why would I buy movies I've never seen, you ask? Because they call to me. I have discovered many of my favorite films by taking risks in Blockbuster's "previously viewed" section. Of course, this method has also led to purchases that I strongly regret, but it's worthwhile for the good ones. One of my methods for choosing the "risky" dvd's (not to be confused with risque!) is to look at the cast. Generally, if the cast includes actors such as Glenn Close or Paul Rudd, I know I'm going to love it. These are 2 actors who (again, generally) choose good independent films to be a part of. I stay away from films that star Heather Graham or have titles that begin with "National Lampoon's".

So why buy rather than rent, you ask? Simple: it costs approximately $10 to see a movie in the theater. It costs approximately $5 to rent a dvd from Blockbuster. I never pay more than $10 for a "previously viewed" dvd (I usually spend $3-$7 per dvd), and I very rarely buy a dvd brand new. So I figure that it makes more sense to buy the dvd rather than pay a movie theater to see it there 1 time or rent it and watch it once. If I like a film, I'm going to want to watch it again some day.

However, in 2008 I discovered "Red Box", which is a dvd rental vending machine found in many grocery stores. It costs $1 per night, and it carries most new releases. I have done a lot more renting than buying in 2008 because of this new discovery. (I realized that I could rent 7 movies instead of buying 1!) I've been happy (when it's a crappy movie) to know that I rented rather than bought. And if I love the film, I wait for it to be super cheap at Blockbuster and then buy it. It's been a pretty good system for me, and it has allowed me to see tons of films.

So here are my reviews on the titles that I can remember watching in 2008. (I realize that these are only based on my personal opinions and may be completely uninteresting to everyone else, but who said you have to keep reading?) I would love to get your feedback on any of these films or any from 2008 that I have not included.

27 Dresses- Typical (obnoxious) formula for a chick flick. Ok to have on while sewing or multi-tasking, but I would never buy it or need to see it ever again. The dresses were fun!

Baby Mama- I love this movie. I have watched it 4 times. It is very funny and well-written, not obnoxiously predictable, and has a great cast.

Be Kind Rewind- This movie was very odd. I laughed a lot and there are parts that I remember enjoying, but it wasn't consistent. (Ex: Jack Black's character was sometimes plain stupid, other times he was just quirky.) I liked that it was very unique and unlike anything I've seen.

Birds of America- This movie tried too hard to be quirky and missed the mark.

Charlie Bartlett- I enjoyed this film. I would watch it again...eventually.

Choke- VERY different. I liked it a lot, but most people would probably not feel the same way.

The Dark Knight- Did anyone not like this movie? My only complaint is that it was hard to follow the first time I watched it. (And it was a bit long.)

Definitely, Maybe- This movie was a lot better than the way it looked in previews. It had more depth than I expected and was not the typical chick flick formula. I liked it.

Drillbit Taylor- Pretty awful.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall- I love every movie and tv show that the Judd Apatow crew has a part in (basically the entire cast of "Freaks and Geeks"), so I really enojoyed this movie. (With the exception of the unneccessary full-frontal scene featuring writer/actor Jason Segel). The original Dracula songs are SO good and funny.

The Happening- I didn't hate it. It got a lot of crap from everyone, but I always find something to enjoy in M. Night Shyamalan's films. Still, it could have been a lot better.

Iron Man- I'm not usually into action stuff, but this held my interest and I think ROBERT Downey Jr. is excellent.

Kung Fu Panda- I didn't give it my full attention, but it was cute and funny.

Leatherheads- This movie was very different from what I expected, and very different from most films. It didn't hold my interest after the first hour, and it just kept going.

The Little Mermaid 3- The first movie is my favorite all-time Disney movie, so I decided to give the 3rd (straight-to-dvd) movie a chance. I wasn't disappointed! It featured Ariel and all of her beautiful sisters (which I always wished there was more of in the 1st film) and it had some cute songs and all of the same voices as the first film. Oh, and it takes place before the 1st one and explained how their mom died (too graphically) and why Tritan is the way he is.

Made of Honor- Horrid. An unwatchable chick flick. The only reason I left it on was because I was sewing and didn't have to concentrate on the movie.

Meet Bill- Different. Okay. Kind of weird, but not terrible.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist- This was the first movie I saw in the theater by myself. I liked it, but it's definitely not for everyone. It's probably more for he highschool crowd.

Over Her Dead Body- Eva Longoria. Need I say more? (As in: it was pretty crappy!) The only reason I gave it a shot was because I love Paul Rudd. His parts weren't as poorly written or delivered. I wouldn't watch it again.

Pineapple Express- Hands down: my favorite film of 2008. It has everything - action, drama, SO funny, and bromance.

Role Models- This was another film that was poorly advertised (the previews made it look like a lame "Daddy Daycare" type of movie). I was pleasantly surprised that it was extremely funny and I enjoyed all the actors.

Run, Fat Boy, Run- I was really disappointed as I quickly realized that Simon Pegg did not have anything to do with the writing of this film. He was still funny, but it wasn't the usual Simon Pegg kind of movie. It was a more predictable chick flick.

Sex and the City- I loved the way they continued the series in this movie. My favorite part was all the dresses.

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2- Ok to have on while sewing/multi-tasking.

Smart People- I liked it.

Step Brothers- SO stupid, but I laughed a lot.

Then She Found Me- I really liked this dramatic film a lot. I had never heard anything about it, but I thought the cast looked good, so I rented it. I was very pleasantly surprised. Helent Hunt wrote it years ago and had to work for years to get it made.

Tropic Thunder- Extremely funny and surprisingly unpredictable. Each actor was very strong in his role. I will definitely own this movie at some point.

The Visitor- This film was very unique. I liked it a lot, but it went on a bit longer than I think it needed to.

WALL-E- I enjoyed it a lot! The animation was amazing, as usual. And for a movie that didn't have much conversation in many parts, it was still captivating. It was definitely my favorite animation of 2008.

You Don't Mess With Zohan- A completel waste of my life. I was sewing and multi-tasking as much as I could during it, but it was still just completely afwul. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I feel like I am missing some, but for now this is what I have come up with. For 2009, I think I will just write about them as I see them because that would be a lot easier.

Again, I would love to hear your opinions on any of these films or any I didn't mention that came out in 2008. Thanks!

A True Procrastinator's New Year's Resolution

2009-01-23T09:06:00.003-05:00

I am a master of procrastination. That is why it has taken me almost an entire month to come up with my resolutions for 2009. My first order of business: I resolve to improve my blogging skills- so be prepared for my ambitious goal of (at least) one post per week!! Coming soon...Consider yourself warned.

Huzzah!

2008-11-05T14:50:00.002-05:00

This is the "pumpkin" that I voted for in the "contest". And it won!

My Halloween Victims

2008-11-03T14:56:00.011-05:00

I love Halloween. It has become my favorite "holiday", besides Christmas. I think I get into it more every year. Why? I just love the decorations and the fun childlike emotions that go along with Halloween. I can't wait until Killian is old enough to get into the Halloween spirit and to start new traditions with him.
This year I was able to come up with 3 costumes for other people. I decided that Killian would be a bear as soon as I spotted a bear winter hat, mittens, and slippers at H&M. I also bought brown sweatpants and a brown long-sleeved shirt for him there. All of these items are re-usable for fall/winter - so it was a practical costume. I thought he might fight me on wearing the mittens, but he loved them! He looked SO darn cute - I only wish I had taken more pictures. (I thought I had taken a ton, but apparently I did not.) Jay and I quizzed Killian on what a bear "says" for a month before Halloween- which Killian responded to with a small "woawr". Here is a picture that I have, but I will try to find a better one so you can see the mittens and slippers.
Ryan was my next victim. His parents have dressed him in his brother's old Tigger costume for the past 2 years, and were planning on this year being round 3 - but I asked them if I could make him a costume instead. They did not object to me request. I have been trying for about a year and a half to get Ryan interested in the Nick Jr. show "Wonder Pets" - which is, in my opinion, the best kids' show on TV aside from Sesame Street. (For those of you who have not had the pleasure of viewing this cute and funny show, I suggest you go to this link ASAP!) Ryan has finally replaced his "Elmo's Potty Time" dvd with episodes of "Wonder Pets" on the DVR - and his favorite pet is Ming-Ming duckling. So I made him a green cape with the "W" logo and searched frantically for yellow sweatpants - which I finally found at a thrift store. I tried very hard to come up with a duck bill, but every attempt failed. He still looked very cute :) (Ryan is showing his cheesy "picture smile" in this photo.)
My last victim, Brett, brought it on himself. What is "it"? Here is the conversation that led to the following pictures.
Brett: My friend is going to be a pimp for Halloween. He's got the clothes and a cane...
Me: You should be a hooker.
Brett (without any hesitance): OK, I'LL DO IT!!

I always wanted a younger, skanky sister...

Can I Keep Him?

2008-10-23T14:48:00.004-04:00

(This happened a few weeks ago, but I'm still entertained by it so I thought I woud share)

Ryan is on a kick right now of listing things that he has or is going to "eat". (Guess what the #1 most listed item is? If you guessed poop, of course you are correct and I congratulate you on knowing Ryan well enough to have guessed that.)
On this particular morning, we were getting ready to go to school. As I dressed Ryan, this is the list he came up with:
"I eat diaper."
"I eat poop."
"I eat pants."
"I eat socks."
"I eat shirt."
"I eat goldfish." (Which is, sadly, the truth; Ryan eats Golsfish crackers for breakfast every morning. But that deserves a seperate post altogether.)
"I eat Dana."
"I eat plate."
"I eat cup."
"I eat door."
"I eat baby."

I stopped him there. I said, "Ryan, don't eat the baby! I'd be sooo sad" and I pretended to be sad. His dry reply:

"I eat your sad....I eat your tears."

This kid has a very dark sense of humor....which I love about him. And I can't take credit for it - I don't think that's something that can be taught...but I will surely continue to cultivate that part of him!

Mmmm...Sacrelicious

2008-10-09T21:27:00.011-04:00

WARNING: This post has the potential to offend people. That is not my intention; I simply want to share some of my findings with you. Having had a religious upbringing, I have come across a large supply of religious artwork. Some pieces have elicited spiritual emotions. The following examples have had the opposite effect:

The only 30-some year-old man who can get away with inviting/luring children to his party with treats...

(This piece came from Ryan's preschool lesson book)

"When he went for a layup he was denied three times..."

(Jay spotted this gem at a Catholic school where he was taking school pics while working for Lifetouch)

The following are miniature statues found on a Catholic supply website that are sold to be used as inspirational awards and inspirational decor. I find them to portray Jesus as a mean-spirited child-hater.

Jesus playing "monkey in the middle":

"Jesus- you're trippin!"

Jesus using his height advantage to taunt children with a ball:

Jesus crashing a ballerina photo shoot:

Golf meets the Heimlich Maneuver:

The only way of cheating in baseball that is worse than using steroids...)

And I saw this last one at church in the Young Women's room, where I teach. I realized pretty quickly that it's supposed to portray Jesus with young women as a way of saying that he loves them and is there for them . But my very first thought when I saw it was "Jesus is a pimp!"

Ryan Boy

2008-08-27T16:34:00.008-04:00

My family is very fond of the movie "Tommy Boy" (who isn't??) We introduced this amazing film to my two youngest brothers this past week while Tim, Jean, and Weston were visiting. One of my favorite scenes is when Tommy (the unfortunately late Chris Farley) and Richard (David Spade - really, why couldn't it have been him) are preparing for an important sales call. It goes like this:

Richard: All right, now it's sale time, so remember, we don't take no...?
Tommy: No sh** from anyone.
Richard: No.
Tommy: Um, we don't take no prisoners.
Richard: We don't take no for answer.
Tommy: Oh yeah... We don't take no for an answer! We don't take no for an answer...

Why am I sharing this with you, you wonder? Because I had a similar conversation with Ryan today. We were strolling through a store and Killian had my keys as entertainment. I have a few key covers that are rubbery monsters. Anyway, our conversation went like this:

Me: Ew, Killian! Why are you chewing on my keychain? You're going to bite off the hand!
Ryan: Baby eating monster.
Me: That's right. Why is he doing that? We do not eat . . .
Ryan: POOP!
Me: No.
Ryan: TOOT!
Me: No.
Ryan: . . . Monster poop?
Me: (sigh) Keychains, Ryan . . . We do not eat keychains.
Ryan: . . . I eat poop.

Our conversations often end and begin with that statement.

PS- You'll notice in the picture that 2 of the monsters are each missing a hand. Apparently "we" do eat keychains.

MacGyver: Eat Your Heart Out!

2008-08-05T15:56:00.007-04:00

My blog is turning into "The Nanny Diaries" because a lot of these posts are about Ryan, but that's probably because the majority of my time this summer has been spent working.

Anyway, one of our latest adventures involved Ryan and a wardrobe malfunction. Ryan has to take medicine every day which I sprinkle into pudding or baby food (he loves eating Killian's baby food). On this particular day, we were away from Ryan's home and were between camp and his occupational therapy session. I decided to give him his lunch at a central location (which happened to be Janae's house- where I am currently housesitting). Ryan begged to have baby food with his medicine, so I gave him a tiny plastic tub of pureed peaches. He was doing well feeding himself for a few minutes....and then I heard "uh-ohh". This is NEVER a good utterance. It always implies that I am going to be a) annoyed, b) on my knees scrubbing something out of the carpet, c) swearing to myself to never let this happen again. I braced myself to face the reason for the "uh-oh" and found a pureed peach-covered Ryan. It was all over his shirt. I was grateful that it wasn't all over anything else, but I quickly realized that I had nothing to change Ryan into. If you don't have the pleasure of being in contact with peach baby food, let me tell you - the stuff STINKS! I don't know why. Regular peaches smell yummy. Peach-scented things smell delightful. Peach baby food - awful. I knew I didn't have time to wash his shirt, and I knew he couldn't walk around smelling like that. I had to come up with something fast. I had a few shirts at the house, so I tried about 4 of them on Ryan hoping that one would be ok enough to last him through his OT session. No luck- my shirts were v-necks and always left at least one of his bare shoulders exposed. I knew Killian's clothes were all way too small for Ryan (Ryan is a very big 4 year-old). My eyes fixated on my last hope: one of Jay's wifebeaters was draped on he arm of the chouch. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term- a wifebeater is a white tanktop undershirt made by manufacturers such as Hanes and Fruit of the Loom. Wifebeaters serve as the main ingredient in white trash wardrobe and are worn as an outershirt, often paired with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels). I quickly MacGyvered the large-sized wifebeater into a presentable 4 year-old tank top using 2 hair clips to pull the "sleeves" onto Ryan's shoulders, and tucked the 2 feet of excess fabric into his shorts. I'm not going to lie- I was pretty pleased with myself after viewing the resulting look. Ryan looked kind of old-fashioned, like he was going to take a dip in the ol' swimmin' hole. Ryan was also pleased with his fashion statement. He strutted around with his belly sticking out and played with the straps of the top for the entire 2 hours in which he adorned it. I was a little embarassed when we arrived for the OT session, but his therapist got a good laugh out of it.
I had to practically beg Ryan to change his shirt when we got home, but not until after this little photo shoot:

"____ the Shell" - A Passtime for All Ages

2008-07-22T15:57:00.015-04:00

Each week, Ryan's camp has a different theme. The first week was "Circus Arts & Crafts!", the second was "Dinosaurs!", the third was "Fun with Science!", the fourth was "Puppets!", and the fifth was "Fun with Books!". (I'll let you in on a secret: the exclamation points, although enticing, are incredibly misleading...)

The theme for this week, the 6th and final week, is "Down by the Shore!". The teacher, Mrs. Hunsberger (who can't possibly be older than 21 years, is married, and has a legitimate teaching degree), asked the group of 4-7 year-olds, "Where does sand come from?" I fondly reminisced, in my mind, that I had asked myself the very same question a week ago when I was standing on the Atlantic Ocean shoreline. My fondness quickly transformed into embarrassment when I realized that she was actually expecting, like, a real answer. My eyes darted around the circle as I tried to figure out if anyone else knew. Was I going to be outsmarted by a bunch of 4-7 year-olds?? Luckily, I was not. The teacher asked a few more times, with a look on her face and a tone in her voice that seemed to say, "Come on, dummies, you should know this!" (I must point out that she never offered a real answer.)

We watched 15 minutes worth of internet educational videos about fish and sand. I learned something that kind of blew my mind- did you know that a lot of sand is the result of digestion from the parrot fish? "Ingested during feeding, coral rock is ground up by the pharyngeal teeth. After they digest this it is excreted as sand thus at times creating small islands and the idyllic sandy beaches of the Bahamas and Caribbean." Small islands?! From parrot fish?! Pretty cool, huh? But that only explains some of the sand. Now, I'm not stupid- I know that sand is bits of ground up coral and rocks. But I still don't understand where it all comes from. There's just sooo much of it, unaccounted for (according to me).

Mrs. Hunsberger whipped out the next activity, which consisted of a plastic grocery bag full of large shells chunks of coral. We'll call this activity "Pass the Shell". Each item was passed around the large circle, starting with Ryan. He didn't seem too enthused, but I made sure he let me see each item before passing them along. (I revert back to my childhood at the sight of crayons and passing games.) A couple of shells were making their way around when a little girl named Ashley decided to turn the activity into "Listen to the Shell". Each child followed her lead. (As did I.) Another girl, Gracie, ruined this new version of the activity by obnoxiously voicing, "My brother told me it's just the blood in your ear that you're hearing! It's not really the ocean!" (Brat. It is the ocean. Your brother doesn't know sh**.)

Back to "Pass the Shell".

Mrs. Hunsberger and her assistant decided that the next object to go around was a sponge, but it was obviously a piece of coral. (Score 1 for me! Who's stupid now...) Another large shell came out of the bag. Ryan's buddy, Cory, creatively changed the activity to "Smell the Shell". Each child followed his lead. This time, I did not. I am extremely sensitive to smells, so I don't tend to intentionally smell anything that might be questionable, such as shells. I was very amused by the comments that came from this new version of the game. These are direct quotes that I documented:

Sam: It smells like COW MANURE!

boys: (giggling) Yeah!

girls: EWWW!

Cory: This one smells like bart!

Me: Like what?

Cory: Bart. That's barf and a fart.

(Of course it is. what was I thinking?)

Reagan: It smells like a STINKY OCEAN!

girls: EW!

Sam: Actually, it smells like PIG MANURE!

boys: (giggling) Yeah!

girls: EWW!

Cory: (to Sam) Do you have scissors at your house? Like, real scissors?

Sam: Yeah...

Cory: Can you invite me over so you can cut my nose off? It smells so stinky!

boys: (giggling)

Ashley: It tastes like a mountain!

This is where I stopped listening and busted out laughing with Mrs. Hunsberger.

Apparently the game had evolved suddenly and unexpectedly into "Taste the Shell".

Lazy Post

2008-07-21T16:13:00.002-04:00

I don't have a whole lot of time to write a new post right now (most of my free time is being devoted to my new sewing hobby), but I thought I would post this link that Carrie emailed me because I love it. (She said it made her think of me...I don't know why...)
Enjoy!

http://www.cracked.com/article_16475_20-baby-products-great-traumatizing-infants.html

What's your favorite? I love #19! I want one.

No, not ME!

2008-07-01T15:06:00.013-04:00

July has started out splendidly.

I was sitting next to Ryan during "circle time" at his camp today, when I noticed that he was fidgeting with his ear. I had already given him a long lecture on why it's not ok to pick his nose at camp, so I was annoyed at the thought of having to come up with a convincing ear-picking lecture. Before I could open my mouth to say anything, I noticed a tiny white object resting at the entrance of Ryan's ear. My immediate reaction was to try to get it out, but my hand was intercepted by Ryan's. His chubby little finger shoved the object further into his ear so that it was barely visible. I had to think of something before the object disappeared and ended up in his brain....or wherever the ear canal actually leads to.

I went to the camp director, whose solution was to hand me a pair of pointy tweezers and grant me access to an actual nurse's office (the nurse is off for the summer, but her room was unlocked). I felt very official when I asked Ryan to lie down on the typical nurse's office patient bed (sans the sanitary paper sheet) and then I lit the spotlight next to him. I directed the light towards the ear and tried to devise a plan on how to maneuver the tiny tweezers into the tiny, dark hole and capture the rogue nugget. I was barely in there when I had a flashback of this story: There was a family that used to be in my congregation at church. One day, the mom was cleaning out the youngest daughter's ears with a q-tip. She went too far into one ear, and the girl passed out.

I froze, tweezers in hand, and realized that I had no idea how far I could go into Ryan's ear without making him pass out. I handed back the tweezers, and Ryan and I were on our way. His mom couldn't get ahold of their family doctor, so I was instructed to take him to the ER at Grandview Hospital.

I'll spare you the boring details of the ER visit; anyone who's ever been there with a minor issue knows how boring and annoying it is. Not that I would prefer to be there with a major issue, but I think you know what I mean. But the highlights of the trip were:

Ryan telling me how hungry he was every 2 minutes. (To which I responded each time, "Well, when you stick things in your ear that don't belong there, you don't get to eat lunch when you're hungry."

Overhearing (eavesdropping on) a conversation between a girl I would estimate to be about 14 and what sounded like her father, over her cell phone. The conversation went like this: Girl- (mumbling incoherently), Father- (something insensitive about her reason for being in the ER), Girl- (mumbling...gradually getting louder) "But it hurts realllly baaad!!" (followed by over-the-top crying that you would expect out of a toddler). The most entertaining part was that her mother was sitting there with her and never comforted her or tried to stop her from raising her voice. No wait, the best part was Ryan staring directly at her the entire time. I didn't stop him because it was taking all of my strength to not whip my head around and stare at her myself.

The number of times Ryan repeated the phrase "No, not me!" in situations where it completely did not make sense. He picks up phrases like this from his brother and TV shows, and often uses them correctly- for example: when anyone says that they forgot something, or if someone does something dumb, Ryan says "a-duhh!" and everyone laughs because it fits and he looks clever. But this new one is just not getting the laughs he so desires, so he keeps on trying. The kid is a walking catch-phrase. (My personal favorite is another newer one; "What are YOU talking about??" I'm trying to get him to add "Willis" on the end...)

The list of objects that Ryan claimed to have put in his ear when asked by various nurses and doctors on staff; including, but not limited to: hot peppers, pickles, pizza, pita, hummus, ranch dip, carrots, and cucumbers. Oh, and poop, of course- because simply saying the word "poop" always gets a laugh. (Boys!) I had to make it clear to each staff member that he hadn't actually put any of those things in his ear (with emphasis on the poop...) and that as far as I could tell he didn't actually know what he had put in his ear.

Once we finally got in to see the doctor, the visit went rather quickly. Three of us held Ryan down (just as a precaution- he was actually very good about staying still) while the doctor tried a handful of random medical tools/utensils until one did the trick. Ryan was rewarded with two latex gloves and a "boo-boo bear". (I have mixed feeling on him being "rewarded" for sticking something in his ear... but at least he was well-behaved for getting it out.)

So what was that thing in his ear? Throughout all of this, I described it like this: "You know the backs of earrings- those little white rubbery ones that come on some of them? It looked similar to that. I mean, I don't think that's what it is, but it was about that size." Well... I was right; that's exactly what it was! What that was doing on the floor of a preschool classroom I can't figure out, but stranger things have happened. (Hey, I'm just grateful it wasn't poop.)

As we walked out of the ER and towards my car, I lectured him again on why he shouldn't put things in his ears. To reiterate my point, I asked him, "So are you going to put things in your ears anymore?"

To which he replied, "No, not me!"

More Engrish!

2008-06-27T13:40:00.006-04:00

I don't care if I am the only person who finds this funny; I am posting more Engrish pics.
I should mention that a major part of the humor, for me, is what the creators of Engrish.com write as captions under these pics. I will include some in quotations.
Enjoy! (Or don't.....I don't care either way!)

"America's finger-lickin' good!"

"Breathe out....now shiver me timbers"

"The steaks here are like rubber..."

"...or maybe two."

Why does such a toy exist???

When "Baby on Board" is a warning for the safety of everyone but the baby.

ew.

My family can appreciate this one.

Mmmm....sooo meaty!

"If you grow it, they will come"

Hell never sounded so good.

Don't tempt me! Pise myself laughing.

British-Engrish?

Especially if you're allergic...

Hey, I just wanted to brush my teeth.

Rabbit?

(I added this one just because it says "dana")

They're always so clean!

i heart sweatshits

...in case you didn't catch that.

Can't I get the "White and Wealthy" version instead?

not mine!

Can I get one for AB positive?

Don't worry, I alerted PETA.

"When She Was 3, Her Barbies Always Did It On the First Date..."

2008-06-23T15:15:00.010-04:00

I was the typical girly girl who loved to play with Barbie dolls, makeup and dress-ups.
When I was alone, Barbies were my life. I would spend hours by myself playing with a large collection, including every single doll in my Barbie Soap Operas because I didn't want to "hurt their feelings" by leaving any out of the drama. And when I say drama, I mean drama. My mom has told me that she would hear me yelling, "Oh mercy! Mercy!" and would rush up the steps to my room, only to discover that I was enthralled in a situation of Barbie running over Ken in her hot pink Corvette. This was a common occurrence. I can't recall if Barbie was a terrible driver, or if Ken just really deserved it.

What my mom didn't hear was the sensual side of Barbie and Ken- they were always "doing it". Now granted, I had no clue what "it" was until I was done playing with Barbies. But I remember making them hug (with their arms straight out) and smacking them into eachother a whole lot. Sometimes they were naked, sometimes fully clothed. For a very long time I had only one Ken doll and about 12 Barbie dolls; so Ken got around. A lot. (That was probably the cause for most of his car "accidents" with Barbie.) Sometimes he would kidnap one of the girls and take her to a far away cave, where they would fall in love and get it on. Sometimes he had a large wedding with one lucky girl, and then he'd cheat on her with her bridesmaid(s). Sometimes he had split personalities, which was made his cheating more excusable. Some days he was into the typical blonde Barbie, but other days he wanted the spicy Mexican pageant winner. Most situations ended with either pregnancy or death. I don't how I thought of these things, but I'm sure a lot of it had to do with me watching the soap opera "Another World" with my mom whenever I could. Things improved in Barbie World as soon as I added another Ken doll to the mix, plus a Skipper doll to look after all the bastard children. I probably don't have to tell you that Ken had some statutory issues...

I also owned a massive collection of dresses, uniforms, pantsuits, dance outfits, and anything I could find made with sequins- most of which I still have in a Rubbermaid container up in my attic. It's pretty impressive, considering that I never took a single dance class and we rarely ever bought anything for my collection. I must have had a reputation amongst my mom's friends, who would happily donate their "trash" to become my treasure. I am eternally grateful. I will have to dedicate an entirely seperate post to my shoe collection/obsession...

My most prized dress-up piece was a delightful concoction of royal purple spandex, gold sequins, and white fringe. (My heart skips a beat just thinking about it.) It was a dance outfit that had belonged to my mom's friend's daughter. She must have had a ton of outfits because she took dance for several years, but I still can't believe that she was able to part with this amazing leotard. She must be a saint. I should add that the outfit was completed by 2 purple spandex arm things. I don't know their official name, but they were basically leg warmers for arms. Sometimes I wore them together, but I often went without the arms. The arms became usefuk=l as "casts" for when we pretended to break and arm or leg. Anyway, I called this particular leotard my "shimmy-shimmy" dress. My favorite thing was to get all decked out in bright blue eyeshadow, hot pink cream blush, and red lipstick, and head down to the dining room. Once in the dining room, I would figure out where the sun was able to hit the sequins just right so that there were hundreds of reflections on the walls and ceiling.

And then I would shimmy.

Oh, how I shimmied. White fringe would fly, sequins would sparkle, and I was a beautiful, tarted-up disco ball.
My mom used to babysit in our home to earn extra money. When I was in 3rd grade, one of her charges was Rachel, who was about 3-4 years younger/more impressionable than me. I took full advantage. One day I decided to tart her up and make her wear one of my less-appealing dress-ups. In my defense, she was mostly covered up in a winter coat. I whipped out the 110mm camera I had been given for Christmas. I had only 2 pictures left. I snapped one of her and handed her the camera. This is the photo that resulted:

We used to send our film away to some company called York. It was cheaper than taking it to a store, but it took what seemed like forever to get back. By the time we sent that roll of film, we had accumulated several rolls to send with it. A few of the rolls belonged to me. When a huge package of freshly developed photos was delievered, I began to get nervous. A lot of tme had gone by since the picture was taken, but I always kept its incriminating existence in the back of my mind. Somehow, I was able to get ahold of the picture before my mom saw it. To this day I don't think she has ever seen it. I don't know what I was afraid of exactly; I just knew my parents wouldn't be happy about it. (Afterall, they had no clue of the promiscuity of my Barbie dolls.)
When I rediscovered this photo recently, it caused me to wonder: is skankiness a learned behavior, or is it inherent? It's not like anyone taught me how to pose like that! (I would like to add in my defense that I never magnified my skankiness; it only went as far as my bedroom at age 9 with that picture and my Barbie playdates.)
The title I used "When she was 3, her Barbie's always did it on the first date..." is a line from a Barenaked Ladies song that inspired me to write this post, and I feel it was written specifically for me. I would love feedback on your playing habits with Barbies- am I alone here?

Blah.

2008-06-21T00:25:00.004-04:00

How do you blog if you can't even come up with a decent name??

Intro to Engrish

2008-06-19T00:01:00.003-04:00

It was 2001. I was standing in a new $1 Store at the local mall when I discovered the world of Engrish. The first item that inspired a W*T*C moment was a tin pencil case that had a picture of two crazy looking cartoon faces and some stars, and it said: Mon thester, be don't of scared me... Hello!? (I will try to include a photo of this later.)

For those of you who are not yet familiar with "Engrish", it is a term for items with phrases written in the English language, but translated (usually very roughly) from another language- most commonly Japanese. The results are phenomenal.

Often, the phrases have words like "happy", "love", "friends" and "joy" in them - almost always very upbeat and intoxicatingly optimistic. There's another category of Engrish items that are obviously made by actual English-speaking people who must think they're so funny because they put "Bastard" or "Retard" on a shirt and some unsuspecting Asian is out there wearing it. This is not AS appealing or funny to me, although there are a few funny examples that I have found.
So why do they put English on their advertisements/apparel if they don't know how to translate it correctly? I have been told that it is very popular/modern/fashionable to wear clothes with English phrases in Asian countries- even when they don't know what it says. (I suppose we can equate that to all the Americans who get Chinese character tattoos- many of them not entirely sure what the real translation is.)

Anyway, all I can say is that after I stepped into the $1 Store that day, my life was changed forever. I love to collect Engrish items wherever I find them. Unfortunately, not too many people shared my love for Engrish, and that $1 Store was removed from the mall in less than a year. That has forced me to venture to Philly's and NYC's Chinatowns in search of these gems. We also have a local ASSI grocery store where I can find something exciting if I look hard enough. I will share more of my personal collection later, but today I want to share my favorite Engrish t-shirts, found on the amazing site Engrish.com (check it out- it will blow your mind!)

^My personal favorite! That extra "smell" there at the end is a nice touch.

Well, most people probably find this kind of humor pretty dumb. But we can't really be friends if that's the case. This is more about me, anyway. But I do hope I touched someone's life today.

Caution: New Crap Ahead

2008-06-16T23:35:00.000-04:00

I officially suck at blogging. Here's why:

1) I never blog.
2) I never tell anyone about this blog. The only people who have come across it are people who saw me post on other blogs and clicked my link. (Thanks for your curiosity.)
3) I take forever to create one post. (3 days for one post, on average.)
4) I take pictures with the intention of adding them to my posts, but never follow through. (Too much work! Uploading pics from the camera, editing them, uploading them onto here...I'm annoyed just thinking about it.)

I would love to improve my blogging skills...and I figure I can only really go up from here- but I have to make some drastic changes. That is why I am going to start a "W-T-C" page. (Similar to the urban computer slang "WTF", but less offensive to my Mormon friends.) Anyway, this will be a collection of things that I find that make me think "What the crap is that?" I have come to realize that I find these kinds of things all the time. (And keep them because I can't let them go.)They can be articles in newspapers, candy wrappers, magazine ads, Engrish (my personal favorite- I'll explain later), YouTube videos- just weird things that make me laugh. I might be the only one who finds them funny/interesting, but at least I can post something that I am proud of. So watch out, "W-T-C" is coming soon!

Snakes on My Face

2008-04-06T16:33:00.000-04:00

As soon as we reached the top of the subway steps and emerged onto Canal St, we were aggressively approached by countless Asians whispering "Gucci, Gucci". They had no sense of personal space and didn't hesitate to lightly grab at my elbow in order to get my attention.
Canal Street, located in the Chinatown area of New York City, has a stretch of vendors who are selling all of the same things- wonderfully tacky ghetto jewelry, hideous belt buckles, Pashmina scarves, knock-off handbags, and what we were there for: knock-off sunglasses.
The need for 20+ vendors with an identical inventory is beyond me, and how they all manage to stay in business is even more astonishing. But they do somehow. And they were each desperate for our business, so they did their best to impress us with their "competitive" and "fair" prices.

Here is a sample conversation: (keep in mind that I am not trying to sound racist; I am simply quoting the Asian)

Caitlyn: How much are these?
Asian: Those 10 dollar (pointing to a wall of sunglasses with "D&G" and "Dior" tags)
Caitlyn: I'll give you 5 dollars
Asian: No, those 10. These 7. (pointing to a pile of reject glasses below the wall)
Caitlyn: I don't have 10. I'll give you 8?
Asian: No, no. Those 10. Those DIOR.

Me: uh, no...they're not.

Asian: ....9 dollar...
Caitlyn: Deal!

A similar conversation followed this one, which resulted in my purchase of the amazing snake sunglasses. The Asian made it clear that they were "JUICE!" which I am pretty sure meant "Juicy Couture". I didn't care about what brand they were knocking off; they had snakes on them! I also ignored how completely ridiculous they looked on me. I never like how sunglasses look on me anyway- why be picky now? I did, however, take my mom's genuine advice and I purchased the darker pair. In fact, without the financial assistance of my mother (who insisted that I buy them for an outrageous $9), I would not own this new treasure.

Thanks, Ma.

I'm Addicted to Elastic Waistbands

2008-03-31T11:53:00.000-04:00

I have a habit that needs breaking. It seems I have become accustomed to wearing pants with an elastic waist.

It started when I was about 4.5 months pregnant and none of my pants were fitting. I felt fat, but wasn't obviously pregnant yet. I also wasn't ready to succomb to the maternity pants with the pelvis-to-chest panel. That's when I went to Old Navy and discovered maternity jeans that were tight-legged and had a very small elastic band around the waist. They looked like real jeans. They were cute. They fit snuggly, but not too snuggly, and were low-rise. They had a convincing fly zone that was zipper and button-free. I was in love. No more discomfort and no time-consuming zipping/buttoning process. I could just pull them on and off. Life as a pregnant girl was good again.

I wore these jeans for most of my pregnancy, although my huge growing belly made it more difficult to keep the pants up, so I had to make sure my shirts were extra long to hide my plumber's crack which was almost permanently on display.
After Killian was born, I was not one of those lucky bitches who are able to fit back into their pre-pregnancy clothes right away. Biotches. So I was restricted to 2 pairs of black sweatpants (with holes in the crotch, I might add), 2 pairs of Old Navy maternity corduroys (which were baggy, but they had been on clearance and didn't come in my size, so I went for the available bigger size), and my magic jeans. You're probably wondering why I didn't just go out and buy pants that would fit me. There are 3 great reasons:

1) We were incredibly broke right after Killian was born. We hadn't saved as much as we should have, and I was out of work for almost 2 months (unpaid). So buying pants was not an option.

2) When it sort of became an option (meaning that I could buy pants if I could find a pair for $5) I was unwilling to buy pants in a larger size. It was just too depressing. I felt fat, I knew I looked fat, and I didn't need to experience the agony of figuring out just how fat I had gotten with the help of a numeric sizing tag. Elastic was my best friend.

3) Those black crotchless sweatpants were impossible to replace.
The holes in both pairs were so intense that it became very challenging to hide the fact that they were indeed crotchless. I had to be very aware of how I sat, I couldn't spread my legs too wide in any standing positions, and I even had to walk differently to avoid giving a peep show.
Walmart had always carried several options of ladies sweatpants; such as with or without a drawstring, with or without pockets, and with or without the elastic bunching around the ankles. (My preference happens to be the ones with the drawstring and the elastic ankle bunching, because they're the only kind of pants that aren't too long for me.)
I visited the popular Slob department of Walmart, which consists of countless varieties of super extra "casual" (sloppy) clothes- including but not limited to: jogging suits, sweatpants, sweatshirts, yoga tops and bottoms, running shorts, sports bras and tanks, and the always classy (and more upscale) velour tracksuits. I'm not completely busting on velour tracksuits- so don't be offended (I know you have one hanging in your closet right now, waiting to be worn tomorrow) I wish I could have afforded to look that good. But I knew I had to stick with the simplistic, shapeless Hanes style. You can imagine how upset I became when I learned that they didn't have any pairs in black. I was set on black because...well, it went with everything in my limited wardrobe at that time. They had lavendar, heather gray, mauve, light blue, even peach. I may have settled with navy blue, but they didn't even have that. If I had gone with any of these colors, my worst nightmare would have come true- people would realize that I was wearing sweatpants. See, the black ones give the illusion (in my head) that I'm simply wearing pants. Peoples' eyes would be more drawn to my colorful shirt. Besides that, black is slimming- even baggy black. Black is basically invisible. Off the radar. You can't pull that crap off with heather gray. People would see them and know immediately that I was wearing sweatpants. The shirt wouldn't even matter at that point, no matter what color. People would be too busy judging me for my audacity to slum so low in my appearance in public.
Then I tried Target. They were no better than Walmart. Both stores had black exercise pants, which were far nicer looking than the Hanes. In fact, they were the business suit pants of the sweatpant world. But that stature brings a price tag of about $16, which was way more than my budget would allow. It was a very annoying thing. Both stores' mens and boys departments carried Hanes in black and navy blue, but none of them would have fit me well enough.

I never did replace those sweatpants, nor have I discarded them to this day.
I did, however, manage to lose some of the weight, and the maternity pants started to look as ridiculous as I felt wearing them 6 months postpardum. We came into some money (thanks to taxes) and I was allowed to buy a pair of black exercise pants ($15) and a pair of Old Navy jeans ($30: I don't think I have ever spent that much on a pair of pants in my life!).

That brings us to the present.
I should be delighted that I can now walk around with my dignity a few times a week (even if I am wearing the same pair of jeans- hey, I could only afford one pair!) Instead, I feel inconvenienced. So many months of easily pulling my pants on and off formed a habit very much like crack. Every time I go to use the bathroom (which most of you know is VERY often) I automatically try to drop my pants in 1 second flat. But now there's a belt in my way. And a button. And a zipper. Followed by an audible annoyed sigh from my mouth. And when it's time to pull them up- again with the zipper, the button, and the belt. Sometimes I force the jeans down over my child-bearing hips, but the waistband is just not forgiving or versatile like elastic- and this practice has resulted in stretched-out jeans and the need for a tighter belt. I long for the ease of elastic and drawstrings. Eff fashion.

I can't wait to be pregnant again, solely for the excuse of wearing maternity pants.

First Post!

2008-03-30T01:18:00.000-04:00

I don't know where to start. I have been thinking about creating a blog for a long time. I thought I had a lot to say. And now... I got nothing.
Maybe I will find inspiration after my first post...