Sad

My husband's paternal grandmother passed away this morning. She was really a neat lady and I liked her a lot. She raised four kids completely on her own back in a time when this just wasn't done. She had a great sense of humor and zest for life. We're all going to miss her.

It's been a bad year for the family. My husband's mother passed away last October. I didn't blog about it then because it was too fresh and painful and personal. It's still just so terribly sad to think about. It's been a rough winter and I can't wait for the spring.

Jeff's mom and grandma loved Noah to absolute pieces. Here a picture of both of them putting love all over him. I'm so sad that he won't remember. My mother-in-law was head over heels in love with Noah. She couldn't get enough of him and was the perfect grandma to him. I consider it our duty to tell him when he's older how much he was adored, celebrated, loved, kissed and hugged by both these sweet ladies.

For the birds

I had hoped to put up a my own picture of a pheasant today. I almost hit a batch of them on my way home from my mom's. I pulled over and grabbed the camera, but my batteries were dead. Here is a picture of a Chinese ring-necked pheasant I found online.


This is arguably the dumbest creature on God's green earth. I cannot tell you how many of these idiot birds I have killed with my car. They literally leap in front of moving vehicles. Hunting these things is very popular here in the fall. I'm no hunter, but my heart LEAPS with joy when the hunters show up to kill these dumb things. I may be alienating a few of you save the animal people, but that's ok. These things are too stupid to exist and their complete extinction and annihilation by fire probably wouldn't make me bat an eyelash. Honestly, I can't believe you have to shoot them with a gun. I bet you could just walk up to one with a brick and bash it. Or maybe jog down the road with a net and eventually one will fly right into you. Hey it just dawned on me - a flock of these birds should be: a stupid of pheasants.

Why all this vitriol for a helpless bird? Because I have to DRIVE in this state and these things are a menace. They're fairly big and to smack one with your grill or windshield can cause some expensive damage. It's also really scary to be driving merrily down the road and out of no where one of these things commits suicide right in your face. (Yes, I drive "merrily" - until one of these things hits me, then I drive pissed off, irritable, and discontented.) Furthermore, these dimbulbs aren't even supposed to BE here. They are native to Asia and some sorry jerk brought them here in the mid-1800's. I wish I knew who that idiot was so I could go spit on his grave and curse his descendants. And because they are the stupid breeding rabbits of the bird world we are now overrun with the damn things.

Anyway, despite the possible danger of being shot in the face, I'm even glad when Vice President Cheney makes his annual pilgrimage to this state to shoot pheasant. In my book this is the best thing he does with his entire year.

Weekly Winners 02.17.08

I am so angry with Blogger. It will NOT let me put the Weekly Winners graphic in here (which I have managed to do every other week...grrrrr). I am seriously considering a switch to WordPress. Anyway, WW is the brainchild of Lotus - go to her page to see more participants.

In some places you have to worry about railroad tracks, children playing, falling rocks, etc.

In South Dakota? Please watch for cows:

Uh. That's not a cow. Watch for llama too!

Oh no!!! South Dakota traffic jam!!!

They went that way.

Sculpted by the wind.

I took a ton more pictures, but the combination of a slower computer at my mom's and Blogger being touchy is just not working out. I'll put more up next week. Hope you enjoy these!

Blogging from Mom's

I decided to spend the long weekend up with my parents. I haven't been up here since Christmas and just wanted to come up and hang out. Notice this is *I* not *we* - I left the guys at home!!

My mom and I are just getting ready to work on a picture project. One of my cousins is serving in Afghanistan. He didn't grow up around the rest of the extended family and doesn't have many pictures. We're going to spend the day scanning and labeling pictures of our VERY LARGE extended family as well as older pictures of ancestors - then we'll put it all on a CD to mail to him. I'm really looking forward to working on this. How often do you really go through your old pictures? Sometime next week I might put up some of my ancestor pictures.

Here are couple I took around the countryside. I'll have more tomorrow for Weekly Winners.

This is a bridge that crosses the Missouri River near my parent's house. The view is to the north.

Driving on to the bridge.

This is down river to the west.

(Yes. I stopped dead in the middle of the bridge, rolled down my window, and took this shot.

It's South Dakota. I'm only lucky a BIRD didn't hit me.)

***Warning*** DIETERS DO NOT READ!!!!

Chocolate dreaming love
Gooey dripping nectar love
Drowning in heaven

Diet? Oh come on!
A life without chocolate?
That's no life for me.

*cheating - the first one is "chock-late" the second is "chock-o-late"*

(Why is it that Blogger.com will sometimes freak out over fonts???? I can't turn off the italics. Yes, I see the little "i" button up there. I even went into the html and it won't go away. Grrrrrrr.)

Yesterday I promised two chocolate recipes. Here they are.

This recipe is from "The New Doubleday Cookbook" by Jean Anderson and Elaine Hanna, copyright 1975, 1985. I hope I'm not sued for putting this up. Look at this way - it's free advertising for a wonderful classic cookbook. And if you don't like the cookbook, it's hefty enough to use for home defense.

Best Chocolate Fudge

4 cups sugar
1 cup milk
3 one ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla

1. Heat sugar, milk, chocolate, salt and corn syrup, uncovered in large, heavy sauce pan over moderate heat until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly.
2. Continue cooking, uncovered, without stirring but occasionally moving a wooden spoon back and forth over bottom of pan until candy thermometer reads 236-238 degrees or mixture forms a soft ball in cold water.
3. Remove from heat, drop in butter, and cool without stirring to 110 degrees. (I cheat here because I cannot keep a candy thermometer in one piece. I put the sauce pan in about an inch or two of cold water in the sink. I considered it ready when I can comfortably touch the bottom of the sauce pan.)
4. Add vanilla and beat until fudge is quite thick and begins to lose its gloss. (This is VERY important - you want the fudge to have a dull matte finish.)
5. Spread into well buttered 8x8 pan. Cool until firm and cut.

Fudge is all about texture. It should be slightly grainy and just melt in your mouth. Some people do not like the texture at all. That's fine. For those people, just melt some chocolate and let it re-solidify in a different shape and tell them it's fudge. Candy is really difficult for me to make. I usually don't make things that I have to *really* measure and pay this much attention to. I suspect that this fudge would be even creamier and more delicious by substituting half & half or even whipping cream for the milk - but I'm too chicken to mess around with this recipe. I don't know if you can directly sub these items without messing it up.

I got the next recipe from some company that was trying to get me to join a recipe club. They sent me this and an AMAZING recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I lost. *sniffle* I don't remember the name of the company or I would give credit.

Chocolate Cheesecake

(Ok - the real recipe said to make one crust with Oreo crumbs and butter in a 9-inch springform pan and to make one cheesecake. I didn't have a springform pan so I improvised and made TWO cheesecakes in prepared crusts - easier and it's TWO!!! People!!!! You can graciously give one to a group of people or for a potluck while secretly hoarding one all for yourself. TWO!!!)

2 prepared Oreo cookie pie crusts
3 eight ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
5 large eggs
8 oz (8 squares) semisweet chocolate, divided
1/2 cup sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees
2. In a large bowl beat together cream cheese, sugar and eggs at medium speed until smooth and fluffy. Spread 1/2 of mixture evenly between 2 pie crusts (so 1/4 of mixture into each).
3. Melt 6 oz of chocolate and stir into remaining cream cheese mixture until well blended. Drizzle batter evenly into each crust to make swirls.
4. Bake cheesecakes for 50 minutes. Transfer to wire rack. Cool completely. After cooling, cover with plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
   
5. Before serving, melt remaining 2 oz of choclate and mix with sour cream. Spread over cheesecake. Chill briefly until frosting is set.

The sour cream frosting sounds freaky. Do not be afraid. It's to die for. All this cooling completely and chilling briefly is.....optional....hahaha....if you don't mind slightly messy looking cheesecake because you are like me and just can't wait that long to make a complete pig of your face. :)

Enjoy!

Dieting Schmieting

I was going to do a Valentine post on 13 people I love. But you don't know them...and duh - I love my husband, boys, mom & dad, other family, and all my friends. They know that. Instead my 13 is ways you can present chocolate to me any time of year and I will joyously leap of the dieting wagon.

***P.S. There will be two recipes tomorrow when I have more time...come back for them!***

1. Cadbury Cream Eggs - those evil jerks at Cadbury make me wait all year for those delicious concoctions.
2. Tobleron - I discovered this as a young girl at French camp...so good
   
3. Dove Dark Chocolate Squares - oh....my.....
4. Haagen-Dazs Chocolate Chocolate Chip Ice Cream - simply amazing
   
5. Fudge - but it has to be *real* fudge...it's all about the texture (RECIPE TOMORROW!)
6. M&M's - plain - a classic
   
7. Hershey's Kisses - another classic
   
8. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - I'm not a big peanut butter fan, but this is such a perfect combination
   
9. Chocolate Cheesecake - there are no words (RECIPE TOMORROW!)
10. Swiss....something. I once stayed in a hotel in Boston that was owned and operated by Swiss Air. They left amazing little Swiss chocolates on my pillow each morning.
    
11. A grande mocha with a double shot of espresso and extra chocolate! A perfect reason to wake up. My favorite is from a chain called Gloria Jean's.
    
12. Lady Godiva - almost anything from them.
13. Brownies. I'm not picky here. From a box, from scratch, whatever dude. Just do not befoul them with nuts of any kind....WRONG.
    

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Blessings and Tags

Julie dropped a really nice blessing on me the other day. It's funny how someone can do something like this right in the middle of your bad day and just perk you right up. Thank you so much Julie. Here are the rules:

I recently received a Blog Blessing from Claudia, @ On a Limb who started Everyday Kindness as a way to invite and inspire fellow bloggers to be mindful of small ways to encourage and support one another in the real and virtual worlds.

The idea… it’s a game of tag with a difference, rather than looking inwardly, we look outside ourselves and bless, praise and pray for one blog friend. By participating in this endeavour we not only make the recipient of the blessing feel valued and appreciated, but we are having some fun too. We’re going to see how far the bloggin’ blessings can travel around the world and how many people can be blessed! Recipients of a bloggin’ blessing may upload the above image to their sidebar if they choose to. If you receive a bloggin’ blessin’ please leave a comment on this thread here so that we can rejoice in just how many blessings have been sent around the world!

It's so funny - I started this blog as just kind of a way to help someone else out. My aunt wanted to start blogging and asked if I knew anything about it. I found Blogger.com and started a blog mostly to show her how easy it was. At first only my mom read anything I wrote. Then her blog buddy Kat started reading, then some of my other relatives, and then some friends. We're talking like 3 or 4 people at the most on any given day!

On July 23, 2007, I decided to start taking and blogging about Chantix in an effort to quit smoking. Honestly, I was bad about posting and I thought that doing a day-by-day journal of my quit might be interesting and give me something to write about. July 30, 2007 was supposed to be my first day without smoking. It was a disaster. I posted early in the day with a follow up later. Please note the first comment on my follow up post from Maggie. When I read this comment, I literally cried. I had felt so alone in my quit. My husband has never been a smoker so he didn't really understand and I didn't know anyone else going through this. To this day I have no idea how Maggie even found me. All I know is that reading her comment made me feel a little less alone in the world and also made me feel like I could really do this. She said exactly what I needed to hear at that time and opened up a whole other world to me of other people going through the same thing. I don't really think I can ever express to her or the other Chantix bloggers how much their support and encouragement meant to me. I am passing my blessing along to Maggie and the whole Chantix Cabal! I said in one of my Chantix posts that I'm going to miss all the friendly smokers I met standing around ashtrays all over the country. But as it turns out a lot of those honest, funny, strong, amazing people are now blogging and sharing and helping others. Maggie has a big list of links to people trying to quit. Drop in and give them some love if you get a chance. It's such a difficult process and just one word of encouragement...even from a complete stranger...can really make a difference.

Okay - on a lighter note. Mishelle at Secret Agent Mama tagged me with a book meme. I'm so glad this didn't happen during my trash fest.

Here are the Rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people & post a comment here once you post it to your blog, so I can come see.

My book is "Atonement" by Ian McEwan. The movie (which I haven't seen) is getting rave reviews and all kinds of awards. I figured the book on which it's based must be better. So far, so good.

She was skeptical, because she knew the tricks the mind could play. At the same time, her mind was - in every sense - where she was to spend the evening, and she had to be at ease with herself. She stepped out of the black crepe dress where it fell to the floor, and stood in her heels and underwear, surveying the possibilities on the wardrobe racks, mindful of the passing of minutes.

I really love the first two sentences there.

I'm not going to tag anyone specific. If you have a book handy, join in! Leave me a comment if you do.

Bad Mommy

You know you're in wretched shape when a sick child has more energy than you do. This boy is wearing me out. Apparently pneumonia is the crack cocaine of childhood illness. He's running a fever and coughing his lungs up and has so much junk in his nose that he doesn't even sound like himself....but still wants to play Thomas trains...and watch movies...and play Mario Kart...and have a snack...and do ABC's...and play Spider-Man...and watch Noggin'...and do Valentine's crafts....*THUD* (That's me collapsing in a quivering heap .)

Yeah. Money is the ONLY reason I work. Uh huh. I love this kid to pieces, but he just wears me out. He'd BETTER take a nap this afternoon...or else.

(Or else what? Something ineffectual and whiny and probably involving a bribe is or else what.)

Bad Mommy. Oh well.

Steeeeeeriiiikeeeeeee Threeeeeeee - You're OUT!!!

Guilt. Mom guilt. Nothing worse than feeling guilty about your kids. I thought Noah just had a cold. Turns out the kid has a pretty wicked case of bronchitis and has so much gunk in his right lung that the doctor thinks he's pre-pneumonial. The doctor has given him a somewhat strong antibiotic. I hope it works. But I also hope that it doesn't work so well that his butt explodes. When Noah was 2 or so, he was given some sort of antibiotic that turned his guts to liquid and we had a horror show here. It was so awful for him - really hurt both his tummy and his little behind. Fingers crossed that this does not happen again.

Also, my laptop threw up and died yesterday. I'm heartbroken. I love that old, clunky, gigantic laptop and being able to blog from all over the house. We're going to try re-loading the operating system to see if that will fix whatever killed it. (I suspect a virus - Dylan is forever going to stupid websites like Ebaumsworld and downloading videos and who knows what kind of garbage. Or maybe it's filth and horror porn....I hope not...but he is a 17 year old boy. I don't want to know really.) Now I'm back to the basement dungeon (my room - haha) with my PC. Boo hiss.

Add all of this into the little snowstorm happening outside and it's been kind of a yuck couple of days. But that's my three, right? Things should look up soon I hope!

Hmmmm

Falcor + Sinatra =

FALCORNATRA

Weekly Winners 02.10.08

Idea, organization, and all-around coolness the brainchild of Lotus.

Why why why do we live here??? Brrr!!


A red rage colored her vision when she realized that he had eaten the last bit of candy.


When you look into the cat, the cat also looks into you.


Given the red eyes, crazy outfit, and what appears to be the world's tiniest set of handcuffs in the corner, Noah could only hope that what happens at Storybook Island does, indeed, stay at Storybook Island.


Snow slidin' - neat.


Where does he get this seriousness about art?


Oh yeah.


IN CASE OF VAMPIRE ATTACK: BREAK GLASS!

Scrolling Saturday 02.09.08

S C R O L L I N G S A T U R D A Y

Melissa at Such Simple Pleasures and Coleen at Manners and Moxie have this really cool “meme“. You go back in your archives, dig up an old blog post, repost it, and let it get some new love!

I posted this back in November of 2006. We went down to visit Jeff's family and found this little place. We didn't stop in on that trip, but the last time we went through (Oct. 2007) we did stop. It's kind of a neat little place. There's a big parrot inside too. Just in case the sign was true, we made sure to only buy packaged food!

This pictures was taken October '06 in a little tiny town in western Illinois called Atlas. I hope that the owners of this little shop/cafe were TRYING to be funny and not that A) if you eat there you will, indeed, get worms or B) they didn't notice. They had to have noticed - the second line of the thing reads all the way across.

Burning up

Yet another cool idea stolen from Lotus

Glassy blue green eyes
Fever, cough, and runny nose
Baby boy so brave

We've walked on the moon
Hearts and lungs can be replaced
But still we get colds?

One half year smoke free
I'm still surprised I did it
I'm so proud of me

I hate when little guys are sick. They feel so awful and have no idea why. And now all those news stories say you can't give cold medicine to kids. He's had Tylenol and now we just wait - curled up on the couch watching Spider-Man 2.

Speaking of news - how heartbreaking what happened in Kirkwood, Missouri. When we lived in St. Louis we used to go to Kirkwood all the time. In fact, Dylan's guitar teacher had his business there. A wonderful place called the Magic House is also in Kirkwood. It's really just a nice suburb. VERY expensive place to live - but friendly and kind of funky with it's shops and restaurants. Such a senseless act and waste of lives. Sad.

Nice n' Easy

Thirteen things about my kids that have contributed to my gray hair (with some pictorial evidence):

1. Dylan was hospitalized when he was 2 with a really horrible case of rotovirus. Listening to your kid shriek while a catheter is inserted if incredibly awful.
2. We were told that there was a small chance the Noah could have renal problems. We had to have an ultrasound on his kidneys when he was a week old. They didn't find any problems and he is now completely fine.
3. When Noah was learning to sit up he would sometimes just lose all balance, tip over, and really clobber his head......on hardwood floors. It always gave him such a horrible bruise:
4. Rollerblades:
5. Somewhere around the age of 8 or 9, Dylan removed the Sponge Bob poster from his bedroom door and put up a poster of Britney Spears. (***Disclaimer so that Dylan doesn't kill me: He is now far too cool for the train wreck that is Britney....everyone is foolish at 9.)
6. Both my kids seem to have some sort of INSANE need to leap down the last 3 or 4 or 8 steps on any set of stairs. Sometimes on rollerblades (see #4 above).
7. Skateboards:
8. Not surprisingly - given the pictures, Dylan is prone to the weirdest accidents. He once gave himself a concussion with a seashell. He once had a inch long twig embedded in his thigh for God knows how long - until it festered and exploded and came out...and he had no idea how it got there or anything....he said it didn't even hurt. He once fractured his pelvis while kicking a soccer ball and fractured his toe on the shifter on a 4-wheeler. I guess it's never too late for:
9. Noah has been a nightmare to potty train. He's generally good during the day, but we still have to wake him and make him go to the bathroom at night. It's a pain in the butt. And:
10. Noah has finally discovered the joy of video games. We have to restrict his time or I know he would sit there all night and fry his brain. He gets 1/2 hour. But the other night he didn't want to stop his game so he just sat there and crapped his pants. What. The. Hell????
11. Dylan's first formal with a very hot girl two years older than him. I won't put her picture up since that's not my place, but he looked fantastic:
12. The phrase: "16 year old with a driver's license."
13. Their Dad:

In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I don't have THAT much gray hair. But it is awfully distressing to find the horrible things. I am still at the stage where I can just tear them out, but pretty soon I'll be bald if I stay on that path. I hate girly maintenance stuff so dyeing it is out. Guess I'll just be gray *sigh*.





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Sticky fingers

I was forced to sit in the waiting room 20 minutes beyond my appointment time. This gave me the confidence to tear a recipe out of the 5 month old Men's Health magazine I was reading. I was recently chastised for too many recipes on here, but I do not respond well to chastisement....or being made to wait.

Anyway, the appointment was with my orthopedic surgeon. It's all good: knee is very stable, things are healing normally, keep doing the exercises that I have been really bad about doing. (I don't respond well to being told to exercise either...apparently.) I have to wear a brace if I'm going to be doing anything beyond normal walking (not bloody likely) and I still need to be cautious is situations where I could lose my balance (which, for me, appears to be MOST SITUATIONS).

So of course I modified the recipe to my taste and here it is (mostly to irritate the person who said no more recipes - that's you Chica):

Cheesy Meatballs

12 oz lean ground beef
1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 eggs
italian seasoning to taste
3 green onions, chopped fine
3 gloves garlic, minced
Cheese cubes (we found a provelone/feta/parmesan mix)
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 jar artichoke hearts, chopped
salt/pepper to taste

Mix beef, bread crumbs, eggs, seasoning, 1/2 of onions, and 1/2 of garlic into meatballs - slightly larger than golf ball size.
Press thumb into meatball to make an indentation. Place cheese in indentation and fold meat back over to cover.
Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat and sear meatballs until evenly brown. Remove to plate. Add remaining onion and garlic - saute until light brown. Put meatballs back in and add tomatoes and artichoke hearts. cook over low heat for 1/2 hour.
Season with salt and pepper and serve over pasta or rice.

Off to go make this now. Sounds tasty, yeah? Update later.

UPDATE: Indeed it was tasty! Although rather than use crushed tomatoes I think next time I'll just make or buy a marinara sauce. Could have used a splash of wine too. I do think it's a keeper though.

Cursed

I sometimes think I have some sort of weird curse.

Example 1 - A long time ago I had this boyfriend. Nothing serious - at least not on my part. Anyway, I finally just got bored with the guy because he was kind of dull. So I broke up with him in probably a bitchy way. The NEXT DAY he bought a scratch off lottery ticket and won like $20,000.

Example 2 - I have been a lifetime Mt. Dew addict. I could guzzle this stuff from morning to night. With my big diet plans I decided to give up my Dew. It's been VERY hard. I hate all diet sodas. I've been drinking water like madwoman. This has been almost as hard as giving up smokes. At my work we have a break room in the basement. There is a Coke machine in the break room. I went down there today to get some (sugarfree) gum from the other vending machine. The pop machine now has Mt. Dew in it.

Example 3 - Speaking of quitting smoking....I read an article yesterday that over time it costs more money to deal with the health aspects of a skinny non-smoker than it does those of the obese or smokers....mostly because skinny non-smokers live long enough to get the REALLY yucky diseases. Great. Maybe quitting smoking but staying fat allows me to split the difference. Then I can go back to my Dew.

I have a bunch of other examples of stuff like this. I'm completely shocked that I haven't gotten West Nile Virus or Lyme Disease or something equally horrible. Actually I'm surprised that I haven't gotten like testicular cancer or something IMPOSSIBLE for me to get! I'll be the one freak case in the medical literature.

Normally these freak things don't bug me. I just shake my head and think, "Of course it would be ME who does/has/gets X" and then go about my day. Other times I try to deliberately avoid thinking about it or I'll go completely nuts. I think this is why I'm afraid of things like tornadoes. I'll be the one unlucky schmo who gets hit. If I start thinking that way too much I'll be a complete shut in - drooling in a corner wrapped in bubble wrap wearing my tinfoil hat. Because if the evil aliens do come you KNOW where they're gonna land......

Say it with cats

I got up this morning and felt kind of:

I think I stayed up too late:

At lunch time I just:

I was so happy for 5 pm!

And now I"m just kind of:

Weekly Winners 02.03.08

Idea, organization, and all-around coolness the brainchild of Lotus.

Noah wanted to sleep in his brother's room and Dylan said that would be ok. I sneaked in and got this shot of them sleeping in basically the same position.

Why do cats insist on sitting in boxes?


Especially when it gives them muffin body?


See? He bites.


Last week I posted this picture. Lotus requested that I send her my snow.


Ok - here you go.



There are 300 boxes coming your way!!! ;)

Painful Admission

*takes a deep breath*

I hate kids. LOL. No - I don't HATE them....I just don't really LIKE them all that much. I love and like and am crazy about my OWN kids. It's YOUR kids I don't like. One of the hardest things about being a parent for me is having to deal with other kids. I really just wish that my kids could be nasty anti-social little critters like me and just....I dunno....hang out with me all day. But that's probably some kind of abusive treatment. So I slap a big fake smile on my face and welcome the neighborhood rugrats into my home. Ugh.

Dylan made this really hard for me as he has always been really friendly and social. Where did I go wrong with him??? Also, we always had the "cool" stuff at our house - TV's, video games, snacks, a mom who would play video games and cuss from time to time, etc. So the kids wanted to BE at our house. *shudder* Troops of kids in and out of my house. I'd rather have an infestation of army ants. (This all changes when they become teenagers - someone else's mom/house/stuff is always cooler and I never see him - karma got me I guess.)

I had high hopes for Noah. He's always been very timid and shy and only REALLY wanted to be with his Dad, his Mom, and his brother - in that order. Success!!! He'll just live with us alone forever. Sure he'll be a little weird - into D&D, or a big Trekkie freak, or a hacker or something. But at least he could do those activities ALONE - or at least online. I was all ready to get him his own tablet PC and Yahoo account. But he has betrayed me. He's going to insist on being normal and mentally healthy. Dratted kid.

We're having a play date today. I hate that phrase - play date. It sounds.....lame. I'm sure this kid coming over is a sweet little boy. I'm sure Noah will have a great time as he cautiously steps out into the world of friends and social development. (TRAITOR) I'm sure this is only just the beginning of another round of other people's sweaty little monsters eating my food and making messes on my rug. Great.

And I suppose I should be really happy. There are kids with developmental challenges that have a terrible time with social skills and their parents would kill to have something like the occasional play date. I'm not trying to offend anyone. I know this a character defect. Dealing with other people's kids is just something that's not natural or comfortable for me. I admire the HECK out of people who are good with kids. Being something like a Kindergarten teacher is just astounding to me. I have a good friend who worked with developmentally challenged children for a time and my admiration for what she did knows no bounds.

So we will have Noah's friend over today and make him welcome and hope he has a really good time. I'll wave tearfully as my littlest boy and last baby finally starts to take the brave steps out into a bigger world. This is where you begin to lose them. This is where they begin to realize that there is a whole big exciting world beyond the walls of their home and they can't WAIT to get out there and explore every inch of it. Mostly, I'm glad that Noah is following in the steps of his big brother by making friends and pulling away from us. But there will always be a part of me that weeps for my little babies - my little bundles to cuddle and love and who never wanted anything more than to be by my side and in my arms. The time we get to do that is heartbreakingly short.

It's all Maggie's fault

Yet another cool idea stolen from Lotus

Maggie sent a link
to a site about my "Lost"
I am so hooked now

I've been reading the funniest stuff in the world at Cracked.com all freakin' night. "Crack" is a good name for this site. This is the most clever funny stuff I've ever read. My sides hurt, my face hurts from smiling, and I've done absolutely nothing productive with my time this evening. Thanks Miss M.