Give me a long filled john and nobody gets hurt

SB loves doughnuts. What kid doesn't? What adult doesn't, for that matter? I heart doughnuts almost as much as I heart NY; even though I've never actually been there (yet), I'm sure I will heart it. Anyway, Jack takes SB to get doughnuts most Saturday mornings. Last time they came home with a cream filled chocolate covered long john for me. It was unbelievable. I had to share most of it with SB who was certain that it was supposed to be hers. Never mind the bag full of doughnut holes and the sprinkle covered doughnut that she had licked clean. But since Jack had to work this past weekend , she missed her weekly fix.

Last night as I was tucking SB into bed, she apologized to me.

SB: Mom, I'm really sorry.
Me: Why are you sorry?
SB: Remember when you took me to the beach and you wanted to take me to get doughnuts and I didn't want to go?

How could I forget the one time she turned down a chance to get a doughnut? There was never an explanation offered. She just said 'no thanks.' I don't know why SB was suddenly remembering this from 3 months ago, but I just went with it.

Me: Yes, I remember. That's okay though. I wasn't mad.
SB: Well, that really hurt my feelings.
Me: It hurt your feelings that you didn't want to get doughnuts?
SB: Yes. And I'm really sorry.

At this point, she was sniffling like she might cry. I don't know why she was so upset, but she seemed genuinely distraught.

Me: It's okay, Sarah Beth. You don't have to apologize.
SB: Well, *sniff* can we go get doughnuts tomorrow? You and me and Annie?.....But not Annie.
Me: Okay, maybe we can, but Annie will have to go with us.
SB: YAYAYAYAYAYYYYYY!

I forgot that to SB, the words "maybe" or "we'll see" or pretty much anything other than "no" means "yes."

Me: I said MAYBE we can go get doughnuts tomorrow. If we have time.
SB: Okay, Annie can go with us. I want a long filled john and doughnut holes. BOTH. Okay, mom?
Me: I guess we're getting doughnuts tomorrow. I could go for a long filled john too.

Dear cell phone companies

Dear Motorola,
Why must you make such delicious cell phones? Not to mention the charging cords (YUM!) which are especially interesting and mysterious. I don't understand why my mommy yells such a loud word every time I try to taste one of the chargers. She's been yelling that word a lot lately - every time I get into the trash can or try to eat something out of my diaper.

She never seems to want me to do anything fun. And chewing on your cell phone charging devices is one of my absolute favorite activities. But every time I try to sneak a little sample, Mom gets all hysterical with me. So could you please do me a favor and stop making them in such mouthwatering flavors? Also, mom wants to know if it would kill you to make the cords a little longer so she can actually use her phone while it is charging.

Thanks for your prompt attention to these matters.

Sincerely,
Annie R.

Where are you Christmas?

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas; we certainly did! We spent lots of time with family, more than usual this year, I think. And I got some great photos of the girls, as you can see.



SB had a grand time playing with all of her cousins. My nephew Jacob, who just turned 13 yesterday (Happy Birthday, Jake!!), is such a sweet guy. He is the second oldest of all his cousins, but he doesn't mind playing punching bag for the little ones. They had a fabulous time punching and jumping on him, wrestling him down to the ground as he feigned defeat. SB either didn't appreciate or just didn't understand that Jacob was just playing along for their amusement. So in the middle of a 5-on-1 wrestling match, she grabbed him by the arm and marched him to the couch. She sat him down and told him he was in jail. When he asked why, she said, "You look like a ballerina out there! Sit down; I'm doing you a favor!!" Where does she come up with this stuff?

Poor Jacob.

Christmas morning was so exciting. Annie woke up grinning as though she knew it was a special day. Every time I took a picture, which was a LOT of times, I would say "cheese" and she would give me the biggest, gummiest grin you've ever seen. It really was so adorable.

Waking up daddy on Christmas morning.

SB got tons of toys plus a stocking full of goodies. Annie got a few small things in her stocking too, which SB was happy to open for her. Among the things in Annie's stocking was a tiny plastic cell phone toy. SB has two REAL cell phones, as Jack and I recently got new ones and gave her our old ones with games, music and movies galore. But when SB pulled out that $3 Wal Mart check- out-line toy from Annie's stocking, she insisted that Santa had made a huge mistake. Surely that worthless toy was meant for her.



Annie was happy to share; all she really cared about was the fruit flavored puffs. So it all worked out in the end.


SB said to me yesterday, "Mom! It's Christmas again!" So Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Happy New Year.

Tis the season for matching pajamas.

Lately

Lately we've been busy:

Watching Annie crawl. She's become quite proficient at moving around and takes every opportunity to try to eat the computer cords or dump out the trash can.

Watching Annie pull up on things. She began crawling on all fours the day before Thanksgiving, and she was standing up in her bed the next Saturday morning. I nearly had a heart attack.

Lowering the crib mattress. Well, watching Uncle Phil lower the crib mattress. Thanks brother!

Cleaning up spit up. It's constant. It's disgusting. Why is Annie all of a sudden a fountain of puke?

Teaching SB that it's not appropriate to play "fetch" with her baby sister. Fetch is for dogs. Still she insists on throwing Annie's toys and yelling, "Go get it!" since I told her not to say "fetch."

Preparing for Christmas!! It's the most wonderful time of the year! SB and Jack got a tree this week, and SB and I decorated it. Due to SB's height, most of the ornaments are clustered around the bottom of the tree, but we think it looks fabulous.

Sweeping the floors. Annie prefers to eat off of the floor, and she can usually be found hiding underneath the table scrounging for leftovers. She seriously ate a clump of mud that I suppose came off of Jack's shoes one day. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I did manage to scrape out some leaf particles and a small rock from her mouth, but most of the mud went right down the hatch. So gross.

Not sleeping. Annie had her first DTaP this week, and she has been a stage three clinger ever since. I can't put that kid down for a minute or else she wails in distress (until she spots some mud / food particles nearby). She has cried right through nap time every day since her shot, and she has started waking up at night as well. Hopefully this stage will pass soon!!

Showing off Annie's new tricks. Last week she learned how to wave bye bye and started clapping when you say "yay". Now if I could just get her to say "mama." But who has the time?

Wii for sale - brand new in box!

I know I posted this before, but I still have it. And you can buy it, just in time for Christmas! I bought a Wii for Jack for his birthday in May, but we decided to return it and get something else instead. Unfortunately, I waited too long to return it, and the 15 day return window had expired. So it is still sitting on our living room floor in the box, collecting dust and making me irritated that I wasted $200.

It's the black console that comes with one controller and I think one nunchuk. I also bought an additional controller and nunchuk. It's all unopened, still in original packaging. Perfect for a Christmas gift. I'd like to sell the whole lot together for $150. That's the console, 2 controllers, 2 nunchuks, and I think it comes with wii sports or something in the package with the console. If you're interested, I can open the box to see for sure.

Don't you want to buy a wii? Leave me a comment if you're interested.

I've made a huge mistake

Every problem has a solution. Right, math majors? Maybe not. Basic trigonometry was enough to confuse me. Anyway, Jack and I have been having a small problem because our laptop is upstairs while our desktop and printer are downstairs. The laptop is all we really use these days, so anytime we wanted to print something we had to run downstairs to do it. Some of you may call that laziness, but we prefer to call it non feng shui-ness.

All of the running up and down the stairs was throwing off my positive energy and making me tired. Not to mention the fact that in order to print anything, we would first have to send the desired document from the laptop to the desktop. Sometimes the desktop (which is very old and can be a little cranky) did not like the format of the document that the laptop sent, so I would have to trek back upstairs and reformat the document and send again, then do the stairs again. Enough is enough, right?

Well, Christmas came early at Redwood Roofing this year. Santa brought us a new printer. But not just a printer. It's a fancy shmancy, bells and whistles, multifunction printer that faxes, scans and copies as well. Best of all, it's wireless. Which means that I can hit print on the laptop no matter where I am and our printer will get the job done. No more transferring files to the dinosaur downstairs.

I was sold on a printer as soon as I found out that we could download a (free) app that would allow us to print stuff from our phones! Thanks to Sullivans Office Supply for the best bang for our buck. And to one handsome pen salesman who sealed the deal, we'll just call him Mr. PP. He even offered to come help us set it up after hours at that! What service! (Visit them here. Or you can reach them at 662-323-5222. For all your office needs, from furniture to office equipment / supplies and more pens that your hands could desire! Ask for Philip and tell him Mrs. Featherbottom sent you.)


But no help necessary. We declined his kind offer because I'm smart enough to handle these kinds of things. And it is just a printer after all. Tonight seemed the perfect night, since Annie was tucked safely in bed, and Jack fell asleep with SB at 7:30. I was left to myself, and myself decided to set up our new printer. The instruction booklet was very detailed. Step One was "remove product from the box". I felt confident that I could complete the installation. And I did. Then I decided to go ahead and set up the wireless connection, which was only logical since that was the reason we had purchased this thing in the first place.

The instruction manual warned me that I would need our network name and password. I was pretty sure I knew that information. Then it warned me again that I would need the name, password and WEP key. In the event that we had multiple WEP keys, the printer company only needed the first WEP key.

Come again? WEP key? Is that some kind of code used by computer programmers to make normal people feel like idiots? If so, it worked. I turned to my best friend Google, who never makes me feel stupid when I have a question. It turns out there are some basic hacking skills you can learn and use to retrieve your WEP key. After a few online tutorials and several failed attempts, I managed to log in as an administrator to our wireless service's online system and retrieve a default WEP key, which, ironically, was "WEP key 1". Ugh.

Anyway, armed with my necessary information, I started the wireless set up process. It prompted me for my network name and password. I was ready with my WEP key. It never asked for it. WHAT????? I was pretty upset. Most of my evening has been spent honing my (nonexistent) hacking skills in order to retrieve some useless information that I didn't even need. What a waste. BUT at least the set up process seemed to be finished. I was ready for a test run.

I opened up Microsoft Word and the first document was "Jack's Messages." Perfect. I would print his message list and tape it to the front door. That way he would have his to-do list ready when he left in the morning, and I could make a note on there that I had printed it from our brand new printer that I had installed while he was sleeping. And please don't wake me up since I was up all night working on it.

I hit "print."

Then the realization suddenly set in.

It might have worked perfectly. I couldn't tell. There was no way of knowing.... Not without going back down the stairs.

All that time, all that money, all that EFFORT put into buying and installing a new printer with wireless capabilities so that I wouldn't have to run up and down the stairs anymore...and I had set it up downstairs.

So I went back down the stairs. There it was, shimmering like a most precious jade, Jack's message list, sitting primly on the output tray. It worked.

Now I just have to move it upstairs.

#what a waste

Annie Bananie

Little Annie is growing like a weed. I cannot believe how fast the time goes. She's 8.5 months old and scooting around like a pro. Thankfully, she doesn't have any teeth yet, but that hasn't stopped her from eating everything she can get her hands on.


Like broccoli



and crackers. I'm running the vacuum every other day, but she can usually find something on the floor that her sister has (intentionally or not) left for her to taste.

Annie is still a sweet, happy little girl. Unfortunately, if I am in the room, she wants me to hold her, but I'm just trying to enjoy being needed because I know it won't last forever. She is learning how to exercise her vocal cords and loves to do so at every opportunity. We are working on waving bye bye, but she isn't ready yet to do that on command.

She is completely enthralled by the computer cords in the living room, so we are also working on saying "no" and redirecting to a safer chew toy, like Jack's work shoes.

While most kids are watching The Wiggles...

SB is enthralled by Pink Floyd. Our four-year-old has a much more refined musical palate than most children her age. Her favorites include Adele, Michael Jackson, Tom Petty and The Beatles. She also cares for Pink Floyd a great deal.

Last night Jack was watching a David Gilmour (lead guitar and vocalist for Pink Floyd) concert, and he played a few songs from SB's favorite album, Dark Side of the Moon. She calls it the Dorothy album. When it was bedtime, SB instructed her father to be sure and NOT delete the Dorothy concert so she could watch it later. She didn't forget about it and all morning has been bugging me to "watch Dorothy." She even cleaned up her room AND the living room without whining in order to watch it. She is currently entranced in front of the television while singing, "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day..."

I couldn't even get her to smile for a picture. She is definitely her father's child.