Random Bits

Caroline: "In the video, Pooh sang a song about his appetite."

Cecilia: "But he doesn't wear tights!"

Cecilia found a dead fly the other day. She picked it up and said tenderly, "It's my baby. I love it." She then proceeded to carry it around the house, tuck it in with a blanket, blow it out of her hand (to simulate flying, perhaps?), share her snack with it (which I didn't actually let her do, by the way!)...

Cecilia, running into the kitchen, excitedly announces to me, "Santa Claus is going to come and sleep in my bunkbed when I go across the hall!!!" We have mentioned that one day she will sleep in Caroline's room and we might get bunkbeds... not sure where the Santa Claus part came from, though!

We were reciting the nursery rhyme Diddle Diddle Dumpling today, which says, "Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John..." Caroline thought it was "Diddle diddle dumpling, mice on John." Poor John, ha ha!

Chris is installing a new toilet in our hall bathroom as I type this. Apparently, I will no longer be able to keep a dish of decorative seashells on the back of the toilet... Did you know that a medium-sized seashell is basically impossible to plunge out of the toilet? I still can't figure out which one it was because all my "favorites" are still in the dish. Well, we never liked that toilet anyway... too tall and had an "elongated bowl," which was just weird. As I looked in at his progress, I told Chris that he deserved some homemade doughnuts. He answered that he deserved more than that. Well, I am going to make the doughnuts anyway as a start!

Caroline (in a voice of total awe and amazement): "Mommy, Cecilia just said, 'The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary,' and that's right!!" Turning to Cecilia she asked, "Cecilia, how do you knowthese things?!?"

Caroline and Cecilia were "playing school." Caroline was the teacher and was asking Cecilia questions out of a book (how do all kids seem to play school the same way, even if it looks nothing like their own experience of school??). Caroline asked, "What does a camel eat?" Cecilia immediately and enthusiastically replied, "Seaweed!!" A brief pause... then she added, just as enthusiastically, "Grasshoppers!" So random...

Wonderings of the Week:

1. I walk through the workout room on my way to the indoor pool where I swim laps a few evenings a week. Usually there is upbeat, fast-paced music playing. One day recently as I passed through, they were playing Hotel California. How does one work out to Hotel California???

2. The other day, the local ice cream truck (er, that is an exaggeration... it is really an old mail truck that sells slushies out of the back!) was playing Braham's Lullaby. Do they want to put the children to sleep before they can manage to run up and buy slushies? Seems like a poor marketing strategy to me...

3. Why do most college students of today drive cars that are newer than both of my cars? Shouldn't they be cruising around in 1996 Ford Tauruses (Tauri?) and such? It used to be that, on this particular college campus, anyone entering after dark would turn off their headlights as a courtesy to the person in the gatehouse (who has to look at the windshield to see the parking permit before opening the gate to allow the car in)... now the cars are all so new that none of them have headlights which can manually be turned off after dark while driving. I was feeling like a weirdo every time I turned off my headlights at the gatehouse, until I saw somebody else do it tonight - hooray for somebody's parents who didn't think they needed to drive a 2009 model car to college! Or maybe it was the car of a poor professor or something...

I saw the weirdest toy last week when I was at Tuesday morning (can you tell I love that store?)... it was battery-powered "racing grannies," something like this. Pretty disturbing, and almost tops the talking Dr. Laura doll that I saw there last year...

So, what are the signs for you that it's going to be one of "those days," hmm? This morning, Caroline came into our room before 7:00 (which is the time we tell her she can get out of bed - if she wakes up before then, she is supposed to read in her room awhile) and was clearly grumpy when we told her it wasn't 7:00 yet. She was mad because I didn't have her clothes laid out for the day, and she wanted to wear a dress... I think. It was somewhat incoherent... Once we did get up, there was grumpiness from both children, and I knew it was one of "those days" when I entered the kitchen and immediately thought, "Boy, I need coffee..." because you see, I don't even drink coffee regularly. So I instantly went for my regular form of caffeine. And then I turned on my "happy place" CD before breakfast, the one that makes it harder for me to lose my patience while it is playing. So, I know it is going to be one of those days when I get up looking for coffee and turning on my CD as a distraction before even getting breakfast ready! But you know, it actually wasn't too rough of a day overall... could have been better, but certainly could have been worse. And I did get to go grocery shopping in the afternoon, which I love. Go ahead and laugh at me. ;)

Okay, Weirdness of the Day today: while I was grocery shopping, I had the opportunity to go to several stores (the bank, Big Lots, the library, Payless, Wal-Mart, and Kroger, in case you were curious). Each time I parked my car and turned off the engine and removed the keys, my radio kept playing (CD player, rather). At first, I thought I hadn't gotten the car turned off past the accessory position or something, and my key was coming loose from the ignition prematurely (which wouldn't make sense 'cause it is a brand new ignition). So I just stood there outside my car with the door open, dumbfounded as the music continued to play even though the engine was not running and the keys were in my hand. I was unsure what to do - should I just close the door and walk away? What if it kept playing until I came back and the battery was dead? But then, it suddenly stopped. Phew. Well, then it did it again, and again, every time I stopped. I was beginning to think that the CD must have a mind of its own all of a sudden. Every time, it did stop after about 20 or so seconds. I just felt a bit odd standing outside my car in various parking lots, waiting for the music to stop before I locked the doors and went into the store! And as I pulled into my driveway, I ejected the CD, and after turning off the engine and removing the keys, the radio continued to play for 20 seconds. So, it is not just the CD player... maybe the speakers are possessed? It's really strange...

Of final note: my husband makes awesome eggplant parmesan! Soooooo good!!

And a few photos from our La Leche League conference at Calloway a couple weekends ago:

"I'm making a sugar lake!!!"