It goes like this.

Madeline throws gramhn cracker off high chair.

Claire picks it up and puts it back on the tray.

Madeline giggles hysterically, throws another piece off.

Claire giggles hysterically…takes a bite of the cracker on the floor, puts the remainder on Madeline’s tray. 

REPEAT.

This has been about 20 minutes of amusement here today.

Aaaah snow days!

This morning Claire informed me that she was now an adult and could decide which shoes she wanted to wear today.  I asked her if she was going to go get a job since she’s an adult now and she said “WHAT?”

Aaah to be 3.

Then in the car she told me that my name was no longer mommy, for today anyway.  Today I will be called Mimi.  And Claire will be called Kiki.  “Mommy, today you are are Mimi, but only for today. But you’re still Mommy, but I will call you Mimi.”.  When I called her Claire she repeated “Mommy, today I am Kiki.  Only for today, but I’m still Claire”.  Then, out of nowhere, she told me that Cookie is her Godfather and “Kitty, well, I am Kitty’s Godfather”.  I told her that you had to be a boy to be a godfather and she replied with “No her don’t”.

Allrighty then!

My friend Ann used to say that her life was lived out of the little slips of paper she found in her back pocket. As I was pulling back into my office after lunch, I realized that my pockets were full — coat and pants pockets. I just pulled everything out and put it on my desk. I know this is not exciting to anyone but me, but the contents of my two coat pockets and my jeans pockets is just ridiculous:

• 2 Day Care Sheets for Madeline…one from this week, one from last week.
• The Day Care Scholastic Book Fair order form
• 2 Kashi Granola bar wrappers
• 3 Diet Coke Caps (Points…ya know)
• 4 Pampers.com label codes (in my pants pocket)
• 1 ATM receipt
• 1 McDonalds Receipt (cheeseburger happy meal NO PICKLES with milk and a sweet tea for mommy)
• 2 tubes of lip gloss
• 1 Used Notre Dame Basketball Ticket (ND vs Villanova…women)
• A very cryptic grocery list
• 2 stitch markers (the plastic cheap kind)
• Directions to the Yarn Store in Niles
• One baby mitten.

I’m not going to even attempt cleaning out my purse.

Good news.  Madeline slept all night — from about 6:45 to 5:30.  WOOT!

Bad news.  We woke up to the air temperature being -5 this morning with a wind chill of -25.  February is here early I think.

Anyway, Madeline ripped the zipper out of her nice warm winter coat about 3 weeks ago.  My mom was attempting to fix it, but all efforts have been futile.   The coat she has been wearing just isn’t warm enough for a day like today, so we pulled the old snow suit out of the closet this morning.  This was my niece Molly’s snowsuit…and it was passed down from them.  Claire never wore it because it was too big for her one winter and too small the next.  However the stay-puffed marshmellow baby fit just well into it.

She’s so the little brother from A Christmas Story…..

…my heart rate monitor watch thingie. I was at the gym last night and did this Hip Hop Aerobics Class (don’t laugh…yes I know I can’t dance). I would have thought it was worthless, but then I looked down at my handy Polar F6 Heart Rate Monitor Watch and realized that in 53 minutes, I burned 738 calories.  Are you freaking kidding me?  I was sweating, but didn’t feel winded or tired, but apparently my body was like hey thank you!!!     I got it for Christmas from Keith and really just got the chance to work out with it this week — so awesome.    I have to figure out how to upload my workouts online so I can track them easier…which is another feature of this puppy.

Let others know a little bit more about yourself; repost this with your name and “ology” at the end. No tagging, but let me know if you’re going to do it, I’d like to read!!

MOUTHOLOGY

Q. What is your salad dressing of choice?
A. Honey Mustard

Q. What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A. Burger King

Q. What is your favorite sit down restaurant?
A. L’Auberge Chez Francois

Q. On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
A. At least 20% unless the server is REALLY awful. More like 25% if they’re really good.

Q. What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of?
A. Barnaby’s Sausage and Mushroom Pizza

Q. What are your pizza toppings of choice?
A. See above

Q. What do you like to put on your toast?
A. Butter and Blueberry Jelly

TECHNOLOGY

Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A. One of the plain windows backgrounds

Q. How many televisions are in your house?
A. Two
BIOLOGY

Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A. Right

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A. I had a cyst on my lip removed when I was in high school

Q. When was the last time you had a cavity?
A. About 3 years ago — right after Claire was born. The dentist called me a chicken because I needed novicane for a teeny tiny procedure (which really did take 2 minutes) after I’d just given birth.

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
A. Madeline

Q. Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A. No.

BULLCRAPOLOGY

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A. No

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A. Sydney was my “bar name” in and after college (you know the fake name I gave to creepy guys)…and I always liked it. (you know Sydney Ellen Wade of Virginia….)

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
A. Teal

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A. A Quarter

Q. Have you ever saved someone’s life?
A. I made my older brother wear a seatbelt the day we got into a horrible accident, so I like to think so

Q. Has someone ever saved yours?
A. Not that I know of.

DAREOLOGY

Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A. Yes.

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
A. No.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A. Yes

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A. No.

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
A. Tabasco, yes. Dave’s Insanity Sauce? No.

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A. No way.

DUMBOLOGY

Q. What is in your left pocket?
A. 25 cents and a coupon for pullups

Q. Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A. I haven’t seen it

Q. Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A. Carpet & Ceramic Tile

Q. Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A. Stand

Q. Would you live with roommates?
A. Sure.

Q. How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A. 2, 3 if you count my Crocs

Q. Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A. I was pulled over about 2 weeks ago (and got another warning….11 for 11 baby!)

Q. Who is number 1 on your Top 8?
A. Hrm…..I don’t know if I can publicly share that

LASTOLOGY

Q: Last Friend you talked to?
A: Keith

Q: Last person who called you?
A: Jonathan

Q: Last person you hugged?
A: Claire

Q: Last person to stick their foot in your face?
A: Madeline, when I was trying to put her shoe on this morning

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number?
A: 41

Q: Season?
A: Fall

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone?
A:  Of Course!
Q: Mood?
A: Tired and annoyed

Q: Listening to?
A: The people who work around me

Q: Watching?
A: Nothing

Q: Worrying about?
A: When I’m going to get to take a nap, and how the heck I’m going to get this stupid spreadsheet done.

ANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning?
A: Define morning…if you mean morning after 12am, the first place I went was into Claire’s room to clean up her bed from yet another nighttime accident (see tired & annoyed above). If you count after I woke up, the first place I went was Claire’s preschool.

Q: What can you not wait to do?
A: The Hip Hop Class at the Y again. That was so wicked fun….738 calories baby!!!

Q: What’s the last movie you saw in theater?
A: Flags of Our Fathers

Q: Do you smile often?
A: Constantly

Q: Are you a friendly person?
A: Yes!

That WAS fun!!! Thanks Emily for the idea!!

Now back to the spreadsheet from hell……

Well its back to work for me after a wonderful week off, and an awesome visit by Keith! We all had a really wonderful week - many many fun nights in front of the fireplace, just hanging out and having a wonderful time. The girls miss their Cookie already, and our house seemed empty this morning without our good friend. I had to remind Claire this morning that Cookie took the airplane home — even though she was there at the airport when we dropped him off.

Madeline continues to make an amazing recovery from her eye “surgery” last week. (she had a plugged tear duct from birth that constantly caused her eye to be goopy and her to be totally grouchy). She seems to be doing wonderfully — no more eye goop! and her demeanor has improved so much. Just look at this cutie — these pictures were taken the afternoon after her surgery when I was at the grocery store and Keith was playing Nanny. No swelling at all and look how clear her eye is!! Of course it hasn’t helped her sleep at all….she’s still nocturnally challenged I think that has more to do with the large molar coming in, instead of her eye bugging her. The only *side effect* we’ve seen from the surgery is that she is being very fussy about taking any medicine, which is just annoying. I’m tired of being covered in Orange flavored Motrin, thank you very much.

Off to the gym! (workout 1 of the week). And yes Kelly, I will update our Biggest Loser Million Pound Challenge page as soon as I can!! (hopefully tonight!!)

 K:  Claire, who am I?

C:  my Cookie!

K:  Yes Claire, but who am I?

C: uh uh uh Cookie.

K:  Yes Claire, but did you know that I am your Godfather?

C:  Yes.

K:  Claire, who am I?

C:  um um um, my Grandfather

K: no no Claire, say Godfather.

C:  Cookie is my Grandfather.

After about 3 days we’ve finally gotten her to say Godfather instead of Grandfather, but she still occassionally slips up.  It is so totally adorable.

….are sitting around the fire, drink in hand, with our good friend Keith.

However, the boys are talking about theological things and I’m selling yarn on Ravelry and buying more on yarn.com (Em, it doesn’t count as breaking my resolution…I sold enough to pay for it )

Just over heard…”do you know what ontological change means? hey nice fire! Thank you.“

Here they are, the first ever, annual, never to be repeated, Watson’s Predictions for 2008.

(The male, father-version of the Watsons, that is…)

1. Hillary will be nominated for President. She’ll win…but nobody will be able to remember voting for her.

2. I will move to India and become a goatherder. Although India will be equally repressive of freedom, their repression can be bribed away and their food is better.

3. America will enter a new age of tyranny, as the President seeks to override her constitutional limitations on power in an attempt to make good on massive campaign promises (or “his” if my first prediction is wrong) (see our last 5 presidents) by making laws as well as executing them. Congress will continue to pass useless laws and let the President do whatever he / she wants in the form of executive orders and military intervention

4. The tyranny will be unrecognized for the most part, as people will be getting the benefits of massive wealth transfers from rich to the rest of society, and young to old, especially in the form of socialized medicine. Any urge left to be gainfully employed and live an otherwise moral life will be massively undercut as people realize that the government really will compensate for massive moral laxity in the form of free medicine and health care.

5. Eventually, we will end up like Rome, where the Caesar ran everything, the Senate was a useless body under the indirect control of the caesars, the populace was incredibly degenerate (see here and here) and expected bread, health, and entertainment from the government.

Am I too pessimistic…or not pessimistic enough….?

1.  Mouth wounds bleed a lot.  And when your 13 month old falls over and bites the inside of her cheek, even though the amount of blood is alarming, they don’t really do anything when you take them to the emergency room.

2.  Don’t give the baby a red popsicle.  It looked like someone or something was murdered in my kitchen.

Madeline has recovered fully from her little spill, and her eye surgery was this morning.  She did great — they fixed her all up and we’re already home.

Um, it’s 60 degrees outside.

It’s January.

HELLO…..

We’re supposed to be having snow and cold and ice.  How am I supposed to enjoy my fireplace when I don’t even need a coat to go out and get the wood.

I LOVE WINTER. Why did all my snow melt?

(Yes, my other half hates winter….and I’m sure he will comment.)

On another note, we’re having Christmas again tonight because Keith is coming into town. Claire is beside herself in excitement…its very very cute.  I think she’s going to cry when we take the tree down.

Oh and update on my New Years Resolution…here is the FINISHED hat for the Bare Sheep Yarn Company February project.  Hey I got Second Place in January…woo hoo!  Jonathan said this looks “rake-ish” on me.  I think that’s good.  Both girls like the hat a lot — Madeline loves hats so she was tickled to see me in one…then promptly stole it for her head.  THis picture she is in the middle of saying “hat” when I snapped it.

This is just amusing…

http://www.gamershood.com/game.php?id=1497

My best: 1244.6m.

Today, I am 31.

It is common for birthdays to bring reflections on years past, the future, yadda yadda.

I got nothing.

Have a nice day!

We love you!!!