7 Quick Takes

Joining Jen and her army of takers today. 

1. Have you seen Meg's (the most talented craftess in all of the land) insanely impressive saint dolls? As soon as Julia can get it through her thick skull that Juan Diego (of Guadalupe) and Diego (of Go, Diego, Go) are not the same person ... perhaps I'll reward her tiny step toward common sense with the patron of hopeless cases.

2. Do you have a blog? If so, do you ever look at what people search to land on said blog? I checked and this is what I was running with this morn ...

Lots of solidarity for the Pattons, I guess.

3. If there were a Match.com for families I am fairly to very positive that we would be matched up with these folks (they'd be dating down, of course). I'm loving that Jenna has started posting regularly and that I can feel better about the occasional curse that Julia might let slip. Now if only we could figure out how to move Saint Louis to Omaha or vice versa ...

4. We can all rest easy as the cheating rumors I typed of last week are apparently false (in case you don't read the internet and are not already privy to this heady bit of news). Jacque very kindly sent me this cellie shot from Starbucks in Charlotte of Jemily (Jef to her RIGHT - I believe).

Just keeping things fresh, worth your while, and deep. As always.

5. A few days before Sebastian turned a fat 10 months old he started Frankensteining around the house. This is a full four months earlier than Julia could be bothered to walk and so I should probably cross stitch "Prodigy" to hang over his portacage. What? You've never encountered an obnoxious mom? Welllllllll, welcome to Graceland.

6. Simon assures me I am completely crazy and absolutely wrong but I have self-diagnosed my left forearm with PUPPS - I'll spare you a photo but if it spreads anywhere weird I'll be sure to document and share immediately.

7. Did you enter the Shabby Apple giveaway? I hope so and I hope you win.

And now I'm off to drum my fingers on a hard surface while waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for Simon to get out of a case he didn't know about until it was too late to adjust nap schedules and rearrange our lives to accommodate the selfish patient's surgical needs so that we can flee to Wichita for the weekend. Hopefully we get there before sunrise tomorrow morning but I'm not holding my selfless breath.

If I sound annoyed, I can assure you that I most certainly am.


B-y-e.

(fingertapfingertapfingertapfingertapfingertapfingertap)

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Simon Says

Don't look at the camera, Grandpa. It only encourages her.


In response to a potential boy name a fickle Grace threw his way Simon confidently said, "I think it's early enough in the pregnancy that I don't have to worry about that being a possibility ... but my official answer is no."

While discussing whether or not someone manufactured triple joggers Simon said, "they probably come with endless refills of Xanax."

After watching me go for the 5th time and lay Sebastian back down in his cage during the 'I'll scream and I'll scream and I'll shake this crib down' segment of bedtime Simon said, "you should probably just always wear a shirt that says, 'Enabler.'"

When I returned from my trip with the kids a few weeks ago Simon warned, "in case you should happen to stumble upon my Youtube viewing history just know that I was on a bit of a Hanson kick in your absence."

After listening to my melodramatic recap of discovering Sebastian eating notchocolate Simon said, "I'm just excited for January when over half this family will be both illiterate and still in diapers."

On a recent road trip with 2.5 (million) hours to drive until we reached our destination Simon shouted over Sebastian's inconsolable screams, "I'd say our glass is about a quarter full right now."

After enduring a few hours of a super fun Grace on the same road trip and in response to Grace calling him a party pooper for not wanting to listen to a certain top 40 ditty Simon said, "if I'm a party pooper then you are absolutely party diarrhea."

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Where could he be?!

Lately Sebastian has been randomly and purposefully covering his ears for longish periods of time and I just chalked it up to some sort of misunderstood stupidity or intelligence. Then I finally paid attention long enough to realize that his sole trick performanes correlated with the times Julia forced me to play her favorite mature game: Settlers of Catan - j to the k - you know she'll love a good game of peek-a-boo until she's 16.

So if you ever pop your drums in for a listen at our abode the odds are sadly high that you'll hear me chirping, "Where's Sebastian?!"

and baby Einstein will do ...

this.

Of course after I forced Simon to watch the charade he immediately hypothesized that, "he's probably just blind."

Yes, probably. 



*in the flesh ... sort of.

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Three Ingredient Chocolate Truffles

To be perfectly honest I don't think there are many chocolate truffle recipes that require more than three ingredients so I don't know why these think they're special. They are very easy and very good and not labor intensive and freeze really well and and and and.

I had a can of condensed milk collecting dust and ants and Sebastian's paw prints in the pantry and decided to put it to work with two other pantry workhorses and so I present to you the not special ...

Ingredients:
2.5 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 14 oz. can of condensed milk (sweetened or not -- made no difference to my mature palate)
1 tsp vanilla

I'll go ahead and coddle you with some appetizing visual aides ... here we have the chips and milk (hold on the vanilla for now)

look at allllllll that healthy.

Stir while heating on low-medium heat on the (what do you think?!) stove, duh.
Don't leave the concoction alone as it will heat and melt very fast (1-2 minutes). 

Almost home.

And now we have something that looks an awful lot like ...

chocolate.

Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Stir.
Stir.
Stir.
Done.

Pop it in the refrigerator for 2 hours.  Any longer and it will be too hard to form (at least in our refrigerator that I think was probably manufactured in 1992) so time your life accordingly.

Once the 120 minutes are up ... remove from refrigerator and just dig right in and form the chocolate into truffles with your bare hands. I went with donut hole size but you might like to run a little smaller or a little larger ... I don't care. At all.

I rolled the truffs in:
Club Cracker crumbs (classy and salty)
and
1 heaping tablespoon of peanut butter thrown in the food processor with 1/4 cup of powdered sugar (Simon's request by default after he was verrrrry silent when I said I was rolling the truffles in Club Crackers)

Fance.

I've just been storing them in the freezer and reinforcing stellar behavior by offering the angels the goods whenever they ask for a ...

"cheat?"

Sure.

I think Sebastian enjoyed an aperitif of straight soil prior to truffle consumption and I don't know if he liked the combo as a whole. He's so hard to read sometimes.


Enjoy.

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24 hours of bored

More of the same monotony around here. Things started getting yawny yesterday when Tweedle Smart and Tweedle Smarter took turns pumping out a healthy amount of the 44 ounce bottle of shampoo all over themselves and the (will it always be that slippery now?) bathroom floor. Fine. Not their finest work and at least the bathroom smelled fresh and weirdly clean. Then I tried and failed to keep my eyes open when Julia stripped down to do one of her signature ninja deposits of that's! not! chocolate!!! behind her bedroom door next to her worthless little bowless potty. While I was busy polishing off my daily tub of straight cream cheese a mere 1.5 rooms away but before I could sniff out the flowery aroma Sebastian found it and guess what he did? He did. He ate the shit (is it less offensive if it's in a smaller font? I think it is). He ate it and he liked it and when I found him he was alllllll kinds of upset when I dragged (touching as little of his shit-covered person as possible) him into the bath - or maybe he was just a little stunned over all the new words I was loudly shouting at him and the ninja pooper who suddenly seemed verrrrrry preoccupied with her innocent naked prance-jig she was pounding out on the kitchen floor.  I don't know but Simon said not to worry -- the shit will just come out in his diaper. Do you hear me laughing? No, no you do not because it was not funny.

Enter today's clean slate.

when was this? oh yes, the calm before the storm.

We got things going on all trillion cylinders when Julia went up to see Sebastian (like she always does! every single day!) in his portacage and she fell allllllllllll the way down the stairs. And before she could even start the piercing screams her mouth and nose were immediately gushing blood. It became instantly apparent that she had reopened her former mouth wound and liquid seeped out and dribbled down her chin all over again when she turned to the comfort and solace of her addictabottle. I slapped the liquid bandage on without fainting and got her nose to stop bleeding while putting on her beloved Dora and I only called Simon 56 times before he picked up and didn't murder me for breaking the cardinal 'don't call Simon at work unless someone is absolutely DYING' rule. I would probably rate my performance as a whole: A- ... to be perfectly humble and honest. She recovered about 36 hours faster than last time and we still made it to the grocery store with minimal talk of "boobies" and "happened?" and "tynawl?". We made it out relatively unscathed with only four up-down-glares from strangers as Sebastian inhaled and regurgitated the better part of his free M&M cookie (fine, cookies - plural) all over his shirt and the cashier laughing heartily and waving away the ID I offered to prove my maturity when paying for the 4-pack of mini bottles of Moscato.

But there is a sparkly sliver lining in the form of a gleaming white (with minimal door dings) minivan in our driveway. I know. The same-age-as-a-first-grader wagon should and does wipe alllll my woes away. It has all the bells and whistles (two sliding doors! ice cold A/C! an AM/FM radio!) and after driving around in the little pellet of a Jetta all week the monstrosity of a mini feels like a semi-truck or maybe a spaceship. I love it. We offered the owner a significant amount less than he was asking and he quickly countered with a figure 2 hundo lower than our offer. Sold! As long as you throw in a lesson on how to haggle, kind sir. 

And now I'm eying my 4-pack and hoping for some excitement and post-nap dramedy because, like I said, things have been a little monotonous around here lately.

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"En" Visits

Let me give you a little rundown of sweet Ann's (or if you are Julia Enunciate Patton you will call her "En" but only after you get over the fact that Ann was not Simon's sister-looks-nothing-like-Ann Elizabeth "biznes") visit from this weekend in case you are ever in the market to visit a five star nuthouse ... you'll want to know exactly what you are getting yourself into, I'm sure.

Will you be ushered over to see the symbolic Gateway to the West (the less cultured might know it as "the Arch")? Probably not.

But will we let you quietly couch sit with Sebastian-draws-blood-with-his-bites-Fatton for long periods of time while Julia sleeps off her pleasant temperament? Yes, of course.

Will we take you out for mediocre Mexican food and potent Margaritas? We will.

Will we take you out for mediocre Mexican food and potent Margaritas and cut the dinner super short when our normally-not-crying-like-a-baby BABY cries inexplicably all through boxing up dinner, quickly paying the bill, looking like harried stereotypical parents, and speed walking off the premises and into the car where said baby will scream allllll the way home? We absolutely will.

Will I drag you to Costco on a bustling Saturday morning to buy essentials like chicken nuggets and almond milk? Yes.

But will you be rewarded with endless samples and a fancy hot dog and coke combo meal? Yes and yes.

Will I take 90 minutes to make the most elementary pasta dish for dinner while you have the pleasure of stripping Sebastian down to his skivs after he has given himself a dry dirt bath (mouth, scalp, fingernails, toenails, knee cellulite, and ear canals included)? Totally.

baby got (serious) breast.

Will we take you to one of the gorgeous churches in Saint Louis for a nice Sunday Mass followed by a fancy restaurant for a fancy brunch? H no. 

Will we treat you to a 30 minute hospital Mass where you will be shackled to Sebastian and then offer you the finest in cafeteria donuts and machine made latte dining complete with roomy limo service for the ride home? H yes. 

And will we sit on our duffs while you take the heat and judgy looks from fellow park going parents while you watch our refined little angels play in and drink the filtered city water park water? You betcha. 

And finally ... will Simon direct you to pose in the most natural looking manner in the history of natural looking manners ("you should both touch the tree -- I think that would look the nicest") whilst being photographed with your hostess extraordinaire? He will.

Are those the only pants I own? Nope, just the only ones that fit. 

Will she be wanting to coming back for more fun ever again? What is it they say in politics when they know the answer is "no!" but they refuse to state the truth? 

Ah yes, yes, yes,  we are "cautiously optimistic". 

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Mission: Minivan

I try to keep the good readership informed about virtually everything that goes on here at el Camp so you should probably know that we are (still - since Thursday - so, you know, an eternity) on the hunt for a family friendly vehicle. Simon is working one of his super fun interminable shifts this weekend (I contributed by selflessly waking and dropping him off at the cervix station way before the cock even thought to crow this morn -- so you're aware of my saintly status today: above average to excellent according to my martyr meter reader) so I can only search from the safety of my computer screen and I have a few dumb questions.

1. When did it not become standard for cars manufactured after the year 2002 to come 'complete with AM/FM radio!' ?? Because that seems to be a very popular boasting point for many sellers.

2. How much do whole new transmissions costs? I've found a few pearls that claim to be in 'pristine condition' and 'run beautifully' but just 'need a new transmission!' ... because those sound like they might be a really great investment for about the first 12 minutes post purchase.

3. What exactly does "fully loaded" mean? Lots of vehicles seem to come full loaded with the exception of leather seats, DVD player, navigation system, CD player, remote entry, and A/C ... so I'm wondering if I can even count on a rear view mirror, seat belts, a steering wheel, and a trunk door when it comes, you know, "fully loaded with everything!!!"

4. And what are your unbiased thoughts on this one? 

Because I'm thinking it looks pretty bleeping promising. 

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7 Quick Takes

Joining Jen and the masses for some quickies today.

1. We sold a car on Craigslist. Should that be an exclamatory statement? We sold a car on Craigslist! I don't know. Anyway, I feel very accomplished and American. I need some new feelings.

2. On the way home from meeting the new owners to give them the car and then to test drive a minivan (holler) our lone little VW had a little trub. So now we are a temporarily no-car family while our carriage guzzles 561 heads of lettuce at the somewhat shady shop. Simon navigated the Saint Louis bus system at an ungodly hour this morning to get to work and shall be sainted upon his arrival home tonight.

3. The super-stylish-and-hip-and-all-things-I am-never college compadre, Ann, is coming to visit this weekend (holler all over again). But because we are temporarily 100% carless she has to take a cab to our house from the 'port and I already feel like the worst hostess in the history of hospitality. Hopefully I can make up for it with copious Moscato and White Macadamia Creamer (not together -- unless she begs).

4. I just checked the weather like the coolia that I am on most mornings and it is forecasted to be 97 hotties today. What the bleep? Gross. I'm going to be forced to go visit my favorite ongoing internet love affair: Pinterest + Pumpkins = eternal love and undying devotion at some point today.

5. Did you see my that my favorite comedian dropped another post? Prepare thyself for hilarity. Love her. She's going to get some crazy writing gig somewhere soon. Just wait.

6. And um ... did you see that Emily may have cheated on Jef? I'll never forgive her if it's true. Ever.

7. Cari is getting crazy on us and changing all the Snapshots rules this month. Go tell her you're confused. But really - I better see you there.

8. I know this photo is a repeat ... booooooooooring but only a little bit sorry.

I really need to stage an intervention with Julia and her Nicotine. Soon.

8.5. Thank you again for all of your insanely kind comments and emails and everything. I promise this won't turn into BabyCenter: The Preg Edish. Maybe (baby).

Go see Jen for all the better takes. Bye. 

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thank you + bebe #3 deets

Thank you, bigger, thank you, caps lock and emotion please, THANK YOU!!!

You are all the absolute best and I don't know how it happened because my mom always told me a spoonful of sugar will attract more flies than a barrel full of vinegar (let that speak volumes about my former teenage disposition) but it seems that my blog full of vinegar has attracted some of the nicest folks in all of the world wide webbage. Why is this paragraph quadruple spacing like a desperate for another page high school essay? Stop it.


Fine. New one. I was permagrinning all day long and basking in the sweet glow of your kindness and excitement and was even pleasantly surprised to see Julia quietly go down to the basement without begging to watch a video on the 'teebee'. I continued to be overwhelmed by the number of comments and emails that came my way that I could hardly pitch that big of a tantrum when I walked down to check on my little angel to find her stripped down to nothing but her socks and shoes and tracking the contents of a ripped off, cast aside, and especially pungent diaper allllll over the carpet. Fastest route to a fit of gags? This.

I made sure no fewer than five people knew the suffering I was about to endure before I went to work cleaning up the basement turned zoo cage and then in a moment of mental instability I decided I hadn't seen enough of Jillian Crazy Michaels lately and went to town on the insanity that is level three (but not before Julia gave Jillian lots of french kisses on the screen -- a new bad habit that I need to figure out how to cut immediately). Julia soon grew bored of watching my slow-death-by-sweat-in-the-eyes and scaled both sets of stairs to "bake up!!" her sleeping beauty brother. Fastest route to conflict of 'that was almost endearing' vs. 'shut up no it was not' emotion? That.

Is this post painfully boring yet? Let's make it worse. I'll shoot some completely unsolicited pregnancy factoids your way:

I'll be 19 weeks on Saturday (no, I cannot simply say that I am 18 weeks along but thanks for thinking I should) and am due on January 19th.

All I want to do is eat Thanksgiving food 24/7 but I settle for eggs and pumpkin butter in a tortilla instead. Sometimes with kidney beans. Even Fatbastian doesn't ask me to share.

Upon her first viewing of an ultrasound picture Julia declared that the baby was an elephant. Praise all things good and holy that is not the case for a whole myriad of reasons that I don't need to explain to you smarties.

Exactly one person asked the name of the song on yesterday's sappibration ... ask and ye shall reap an answer ...  Stubborn Love by The Lumineers.

And for those of you that hate weekly bump pictures I won't be scorching your eyes with those this time around. Nope, I'm thinking more along the lines of daily until I hit the third trimester then I'll amp it up to hourly.

I'll try to include a handsy and topless Sebastian as often as his busy eat-sleep-eat-eat-eat-smile-eat-smile schedule allows. De nada.

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three years old

and already acting like we're 40 years in with commemorative videos, Velveeta and all.


*not sure why Vimeo titled this the very specific and sentimental "Movies" but I also seriously questioned how to spell Sebastian's middle name at 1:32 in the morning during production so the odds of it being a user error are pretty dang good.

**if the clip won't play for you try clicking here instead!

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Same song, different verse

as yesterday. We stay at home Pattons just can't get our ship together and sailing this week.

Baby.

Julia seriously sliced the bottom of her foot somehow (I'm not ruling out Sebastian's 4.2 vicious teeth) and needs me to "hode you" which is Julia for "carry me to my next desired location because my injury is far too great for me to do it myself" at all times, Sebastian's always reliable cheery disposition peaced the freak out, and I have no excuse for my day's nonexistent productivity. Maybe just a severe case of la-la-la-lazy.

So I'm relying on my go-to crutch post of links ...

I was sort of to a lot wary of the resurrected denim jacket trend until I saw this post. Sold.

Julia just sent Suri a BFF+E necklace ... I hope she accepts.

How can you not love this post by Tricia?

Do you read Emily's blog? You should - if only for Anna's priceless expressions.

Ashley is hosting another support swap ... get in on it now.

If there were one blogger that I wish would magically start blogging again ... it would absolutely be my sister-in-law not-busy-at-all blushing-bride-to-be Mary. A SAHM can dream.

And this is about as far as Sebastian is getting in the walking department. Slow poke.

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trip blips

Are you sick of cellie vaca photos yet? You'll live.

The "teething gel" Simon packed. I don't have to tell you how thrilled I was to make this discovery two hours down the road whilst listening to what sounded like a narration of Sebastian cutting his wisdom teeth.

If personalities could scream.

 Oh, just a mailbox disguised as a (patriotic!) bear. Fooled me.

After Mass pleasantries.

Julia doing her odd little prance that has become standard practice and showing off her last semblance of a smile for the day before we got in the car for the long drive home.


I would punish you with more but this morning was spent in a complete frenzy tearing the house and car apart looking for my vanished wallet and ancient ipod (with so much badly awesome music) only to find several hours later that they had been left in Illinois, amputating a slice of my thigh and losing lots of vats of blood while shaving in the shower while Julia watched very closely and narrated in great detail and asked a lot of questions about various body parts, and coming to the always exciting realization that poor starving Sebastian only has 1/2 a scoop of formula left and Simon took the car with the car seats to work. So I just have a lot of sulking and self pitying to do right now. Sorry I'm not really very sorry.

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7 Quick Takes

1. I have to make these rapido extro because Simon is going to come home soonish and I should have everyone packed and ready to hit the road back to see the grands in Illinois for the weekend. If your short term memory serves you correctly we were just there but this time I'm dragging Simon along so that I can complain in English in the car when the kids are smiling extra large and I'll know he understands both my tone and my words. He's so excited.

Here is a nice pic from last weekend ...

Julia, her great grandma, and her omnipresent bottle on their way to feed the fearless hissing geese on the Mississippi.

And here is a nice pic of Sebastian admiring said fowl ...

... he loved them.

2. I can't thank you skin care consultants and disc jockeys enough for all of your wonderful recommendations on Wednesday. I ran a whole 2.2 minutes longer with the help of my new tunes yesterday and today and I will definitely keep you posted when my face potion gets here and erases all my wrinkles and turns me into a spry teenager.

3. Photo filler from last weekend . . .

Sister Emily, Mother Bettina, Me Grace, Clinger Julia, and Sebastian who is probably clapping for himself for clapping.

4. Pass.

5. Honest (albeit polite!) opines on blog Facebook pages? yay or go away?

6. Digging deep ... I found the perfect (better than Essie, OPI etc) nail polish. Cue excitement. Simon would argue that it looks clear but it is the perfect hue of nude and only requires one coat and dries quickly for when your kids insist you paint their nails but what they really want to do is eat the paint off their nails .3 seconds after your patient and loving application. A true winner ... Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Café Au Lait. Get it. 

7. We'll end things on a high note with Simon's afternoon snack report from yesterday ...

 

That's all. 

I hope you have a mediocre rest of your day.  

Go see the lovely Jen at Conversion Diary for more. 

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food truckers

The perfect weather fairies finally descended upon Saint Swamp Louis this week and graciously combined forces with the food truck gods to set up fun camp at the park near our house on Tuesday night. So we grabbed our biggest and greasiest appetites and walked down to rub shoulders with/gawk at all the cool cats from our hood.

There were easily over a thousand felines roaming the premises and after deciding against waiting in looooong lines for super fancy grilled cheese or giant sushi rolls ... we went with boring but (so) delicious pretzel burgers (mine with pineapple ... Simon's sworn enemy).

While Simon was waiting in the itsy bitsy 20 minute burger line I watched the shorts play on the playground with the other dozens of kids and felt like a negligent parent for not accompanying and following 8 inches behind Julia on the play structures. When did this horrible not enjoyable epidemic begin and when will it end? I really hope it's just a trendy phase and that we can all forget about tomorrow because I've got bigger fish to juggle (like the tattle tail mom telling me about Sebastian crawling under the bridge and eating a big bad leaf while I silently yell at my eyes to not fly into their favorite rolled position).

After we inhaled our healthy fare we took a long 6 minute walk around the rugged terrain to burn 3-5 cals . . .

. . . which was fun and not dumb at all.

It was a great 65 minutes of something new and different and my favorite moment occured when a pleasant gentleman came and sat one inch away from us on the park bleachers directly facing the monstrosity of a playground and grumbled, "there are two many damn kids here."

I know. They're the worst.

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the variety show

Simon said I should "add some variety" to my posts.
Luckily tweedledum delivered . . .

and the answer to your question regarding how high we set the standard bar in this abode?

Very, VERY, very.



(I hope you can forgive me double dipping into my grams. Bad habit.)

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Two Questions

 

I'm soliciting some serious advice from you kind readers today. Your thoughts on these grave matters are greatly appreciated. 

(deep breath)

1. Do you have any really great face (facial?) cream (lotion?) recommendations? Now that I am a mere breath away from 30 I've decided to graduate from the 4-year-old bottle of generic SPF 15 sunblock I use every other night and take my face semi-seriously. My mom gave me this cream and I really loved it but apparently it has been discontinued and a few minutes of Googling tells me that the replacement is an overpriced flop. I'd love to commit to some sort of 14 step routine including toners and serums and scrubs but I am very important and very busy and know that after I wash my face with a glorified baby wipe at night I'll only take the time to slather one potion on before I sprint to bed and pray my way into a sleep deep enough to not hear the cattle lowing for their hourly coddling.

2. And almost more importantly: what is your current favorite song? I am in dire need of some new walk/run/walking beats and I'm stooping to ugly levels so anything you can throw my way will be put to good use and my drums will be forever indebted to your undoubtedly superior taste.

*To make this a fair trade I can offer advice on how to always be awkward on the phone, consistently ruin boxed brownies, accidentally glare at every single stranger in your line of vision, or show you a mopping technique that yields unbelievably poor results. 

I have a black belt in all of the above so just let me know.


(OR ... even better ... the Downton season three trailer (!!!!!) ... many MANY thanks to Caitlin for this pearl.)

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clickables

look like you're having less fun, kids!

Passing the buck to productive members of e-society today to provide you with a little entertainment while the three of us attend a mother-child mediation meeting to try to recover from the hell that was yesterday's trip home. The million mile voyage included too many side of the road stops to throw teething gel, Chamomile, and pleas of desperation at a very unhappy Sebastian, conjuring my nastiest glare to shoot at a van full of teenage coolio hooligans bumping their craprap right next to a FINALLY SLEEPING Sebastian's window at the gas station, and a quickly broken vow that I would not eat any food from any drive-thru window all the way home. I can't wait to do that never again.

Do you exercise? Good. Now go tell Cari allllllllll about it.

And then go read Ashley's HYSTERICAL post about her recent encounter with sweat.

I love when Christine blogs and I especially love love loved Zelie Marie's birth story.

You won't believe the awful unkindness of strangers that Adrienne encountered on an airplane while recently traveling with small children.

I really hope Julia grows up to be just like Piper.

Merrick and Janssen are quite possibly the cutest pregnant sisters in the history of pregnant sisters.

And an intelligent conversation with Julia while Sebastian treated us to his recently acquired practice: a morning nap.

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Major (minor) Injury

Are you in the mood for some dramatic reading?

Perfect. I'll deliver.

We'll call this photo "B.C." (before catastrophe). A not clingy and mostly happy Julia. I miss her.

Saturday afternoon after I insisted numerous times that Julia could totally navigate stairs and that no one needed to worry about Julia on the stairs and that Julia climbs up and down our two sets of stairs at home all the time and that she was totally fine ON STAIRS .. Julia fell down the stairs at my aunt's house. She only fell down a few stairs and seemed stunned and cried like a normal toddler and her mouth started bleeding a little bit which didn't alarm me until she had a blood beard that wouldn't quit even after repeated face washing and pressure putting on the yet-to-be-seen war wound.

I'll skip the gore because it pains me and makes me physically cringe to even think about it because I am a squeamish bebe but after a thorough exam by my aunt's husband (a dentist sent from the heavens above) she was diagnosed with: front tooth hole puncture under her lip. Prognosis: very good. Julia may have been the victim but I started sweating and getting dizzy because, again, I epitomize squeamish infant at the sight/thought of blood.  It was terrible and for once in Julia's melodramatic little life I think her hysterics were probably justified because even when I tried to pretend to know what in the hell I was doing in the mothering/nursing/comforting department and forced her usual bff+e bottle of watered down almond milk down her throat -- the milk would just seep out through the hole down her chin. Did I mention it was terrible?

Steve (angel dentist) advised against taking her in for a stitch or stitches for numerous reasons and Simon agreed and to be perfectly honest the thought of waiting in an ER waiting room (worst) and then pinning her down unnecessarily for a not insignificant amount of time sent me into a cowardly tizzy of "thanks but never. ever." So we went the liquid bandage route (disguised as lip gloss -- toddlers are so gullible) which sealed the hole shut and she was able to resume her liquid (laced with toddler safe pain reliever) guzzling which quelled her cries (g for gargantuan victorious relief) enough to give us both 5-10 minute breaks (which my made my heart sing the happiest song) from the sad.

I'll admit she has gotten to watch A LOT of Dora these past 36 hours but I can't even birth a human without demanding pain meds stat stat stat so I'm sure I would be dealing with a hole in my face much worse than our little patient has been doing. Or I'm just a pushover practicing poor parenting. Whatev.

Anyway, in case you were worried: she is going to live! I think my life expectancy plummeted a significant amount yesterday and probably last night when she woke up seven (I counted because I'm selfish) times complaining about her 'boobie' (advanced vocab training incarnate) and wanting to 'hold you' and I think I spotted a few greys at my temples today but we're physically and emotionally on the mend.

Clara Barton out in the field.

Please pray that my children never actually get hurt or sick because if this post (and the few frantic SOS emails/texts/smoke signals I shipped regarding the injury) is any indicator you know that I would be starting a whole new dedicated blog and penning a no-selling novel in the face of genuine and justifiable worry.

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Leave it to Peter

(warning: this post contains partial and appropriate nudity)

Last night we had my grandma's delicious lasagna for dinner and Sebastian ate enough to satisfy his future 17-year-old self which left a little bit of a mess on his nine-month-old person. I heard someone laugh and say that Sebastian was, "getting the food washed off very thoroughly" so I squinted my eyes and put on my momtective cap and went on a search mission to find him.

And find him I did. In his birthday suit and in the pool with Uncle Peter ...

... loving life.

And when his chin started quivering because the pool was cold and it wasn't exactly hot outside and we took him out and toweled him off ...

... we had a little hypothermia addict on our hands.

So he conned a different cousin, an uncle, and another birthday suiter into joining him for another toasty dip ...

... looks fun but never would I ever. Thanks though.


(Clothed baths enjoyed from the comfort of the indoors are more my speed).

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Last Night

I present to you a photo dump of last night's family reunion revelry complete with wordy and mundane captions. Have fun!

My mom's rental car. She asked for the 'smallest compact car available' not knowing 'compact' really meant 'toy' and she swears the photo online looked a lot bigger. She and my five younger siblings in attendance have been enjoying the ample leg room. Her pictured beverages of choice? Mike's Hard Lemonade, mini bottle of red wine, and Target generic formula ... party's all here!

Sturgis badbottoms.

the younger and funner cousins

just being young and fun

The drinkers and spectators: aunts, Gram, granddaughters, great grandkids, and my mom's attention grabbing snaps not fooling Sebastian one single bit.

my siblings (here we have Auntie Em) were hellbent on getting Sebastian to take a step (he was not compliant)

Julia rocked her loose fit denim

stillllll not budging

statues.

Julia's new favorite and oh so imaginative game: "I'm gonna get you"

My mom reacting to my dad surprising us because he couldn't make the trip due to unforeseen work obligations. Little did my mom realize that she had completely forgotten to cancel his flight reservation and thanks to the airline's text message notification 24 hours before the scheduled flight ...

... voila. Magic, sort of.

Sebastian was super stoked.


And if you're up for it ... a little minute clip of the fam trying to get Sebastian to walk (again!) complete with cheerleading moves, my cackle, and cracker bribes. Rated G. 

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