Things I Love

Man oh man.  Matt's parents arrived at our house right about the time my head was about to explode, shortly after I'd had a conversation with Shecky about how Charlie was growing so fast so quickly, and who knew that feeding on "your mother's soul" could provide such nutrition?  The last few days have been wonderful, and we've all been spoiled by the doting grandparents who are more than happy (and if they're not, then they're really good at pretending) to hold the boy who decided that he would like to be held 23 1/2 hours every day (he needs 30 minutes a day to hang out with his zebra).

So I'm much happier and content and un-crazy than I was this time last week, and I just wanted to share some things that I'm loving right now.

1.  Sleep.  I've been spoiled the last few nights by my in-laws who have been helping with the aforementioned needy young man.  I've always loved sleep, but now, oh man.  What I wouldn't give for a coma nap right about now.

2.  Girls on HBO.  Omigod.  Watch it now.  Later, after we've seen a few more episodes, we'll all talk about it like we're in film class with pretentious film students or like we're at a book club where people actually read the books and don't just go for the wine (a.k.a., a stupid book club).

3.  Grandparents.  Lifesavers.  For realz.  I'm happy that Charlie's grandparents are here right now, and I'm happy that my grandparents will be here in a few weeks.

4.  Mad Men.  Can't get enough of this handsome fellow.



5.  Crazy Baby Faces.  I told you he was possessed.

I think he looks like Chloe in this picture.

6.  Oreos.  Why are they so good?  And who buys Oreos that aren't double stuffs?  Crazy people?

7.  The cutest guard dog of all time.  Providing protection against the mailman and kids riding down the street on bicycles.

8.  The greatest sister in all the wide world, who turned 16 today!  16!  How did that happen?  I'm so lucky to have a sister who would send me this picture of an awesome bruise with an explanation that started, "Well, I was playing Hunger Games with my friend. . ."

Things Charlie loves right now.

1.  Boobs.  He's quite taken with them.  Apparently, last night Matt's dad introduced the boy to Christina Aguilera and her assets, and our boy wouldn't peel his eyes from the television.

2.  Justin Bieber. I told you that when the boy was all holed up in my uterus that he would go crazy kicking every time Justin Bieber's "Mistletoe" played, right?  Well, now it seems that whenever that little teen cuteness shows up, Charlie is quiet and happy.

3.  Zebra.  The boy lies down on his little mat and smacks at and loves loves loves his zebra.  Just last night, Charlie said to me, "Mother, when I am one can we please go on a safari so that I may see a zebra in the wild?"  He's very advanced. 

4.  Crap that makes noise.  I was all about avoiding any toy that played music or made a bunch of noise, until my boy screamed for the better part of a week.  And then it became Operation: Find Something That Makes the Boy Stop Screaming.  And what does the trick?  Yep, crap that makes noise.  It's fine, though, because there are different tiers of awful noises, and I can take lullabies and fake heartbeat sounds much better than I can take the sound of my kid screaming.  So there's that.  Sure didn't take long to sell out, huh?

My Sister Is Better Than Your Sister.

My sister is better than your sister, and not just because she posted these two pictures of herself on Saturday. . .

Oh, is my sister a nice girl, or an evil goat rabbit?

. . .but also because she fills me in on all of the things that are hip with the teens these days.

For example, tonight she taught me some new terms (and also claims to have invented pops, but I assured her that Shecky and I were the creators of pops and that she's just desperately trying to be us).  So, if you're needing to save yourself some time and show everyone around you that you are hip and cool, take a cue from Chloe.

Is your mother-in-law crazy?  Not anymore.  Now she's just cray.

Is that baby so ugly? Not anymore.  Now it's just ug.

And does George Clooney look gorgeous in that tuxedo?  Nope.  George is gorge.  

See.  Aren't you feeling more hip already?

Chloe also told me about a couple of other awesome things, like how indirect status updates are all the rage on Facebook.  What is an indirect status, Chloe?  "An indirect status is like when annoying girls post stuff that's obviously directed toward someone, but they don't say it.  Like, if I were having relationship troubles because some girl was talking to my boyfriend, I could post something like, 'relationships are for two, but apparently some bitches can't count.'"  

If you ask me, that's totes cray.

Oh, and she also told me that if you google "do a barrel roll," something awesome happens.  Do it now!

Are you totes jeal that I have a Chloe and you don't, or what?

Oh, and don't forget to go leave a comment for the baby pool!  Winner gets a Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook!  

Notes from Tom

Background information:

1.  I am from Westminster, Maryland, which is about 40 minutes outside Baltimore, and is the town where the Ravens hold their training camp.  People in Westminster are VERY into the Ravens.  Many of these fans go bananas on Facebook griping about Shittsburg and giving the play by play of each game.  It gets pretty annoying.

2.  My brother is one of these fans.

3.  I like to torment my brother.  So does my sister.  We will, on occasion, bomb his Facebook page with tormenting comments, which usually elicit some response from him like, "Well, if it isn't my bitchy sisters."  He especially likes it when we call him Darryl, which is what he was almost named.

4.  I think Tom Brady is handsome.

5.  On Sunday, Jordan's Facebook status read, "Tom Brady's a punk!"  Today, after the Ravens lost to the Patriots, Jordan's Facebook status read, ". . .he's still a punk."

6.  The Super Bowl is on February 5, Jordan's birthday.

This afternoon seemed like the perfect time to bomb ol' Jordan's page again.  We took turns posting some handsome pictures of Mr. Brady to Jordan's page.*

I just love the internet.  Think about how long it would have taken to harass little Jordy-Pooh without the wonders of Google and the book of faces!

*Matt would like me to note that he had no part in this torment.

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was absolutely wonderful around here.  The weather was glorious, the food was fattening, the dogs were cute, the couch was comfortable.  I had the whole week off (!), and enjoyed every single minute of it.  This past weekend, Chloe and I trekked down to Orlando to visit with our family down there where we ate and were spoiled rotten.

The week was happy and full and fun and relaxing and exactly what I needed.  Miss Chloe was an absolute delight, and I was very sad to see her go today.  Our human child will be very luck to have such a fun, cool aunt.

Here's what our holiday looked like, in way, way too many pictures.

 Well, hello there, 75 degrees!

Pumpkin crunch at Back in the Day.  I want to go to there.  For serious.

Torturing Reilly.

 Bought this table at a thrift store for $10.  Definitely thought it was smaller than it was.  The guys at the store didn't have any rope to tie it in my car, so they tied ties together.  So for $10, I got a table and four ties.  Score!

 Mmmmmmm, Vinnie's.  

 Chloe hearts crumbly pie crust ice cream topping.  She tried to take it with us to see Breaking Dawn.  Yes, we went to see Breaking Dawn.  In other news, I hate Bella.  And Edward and Jacob are both gross.

 Thanksgiving morning pumpkin pancakes with cranberries.

Angry Birds break.

 I'm obsessed with this cranberry apple casserole.

 Totes slept in that shirt and wore it all Thanksgiving day.  

 Dog plates.

Chloe became obsessed with making sweater skirts using old sweaters and this tutorial.

 Watching skydivers in Florida.

 Grandma and Darcey.

 "This is how the queen waves."

Chloe also became obsessed with marshmallowing.  After we made a batch of peppermint at Grandma's, I talked her through making another batch of vanilla once we got back home.  You know what I always say: "Give a girl a marshmallow, and you feed her for a day.  Teach a girl to marshmallow and you feed her for a lifetime."

So it's back to real life now.  Fortunately, I really like my real life (even if I do have to be at work at 7:00).  Also, fortunately, Christmas vacation starts on the 16th.  Fourteen school days and counting. . .

Love and Marriage: Grandpa B and Grandma Carol Edition

Well, our Thanksgiving has been absolutely wonderful, and I'm trying to soak up the last couple of hours of sister time (Chloe and Matt are currently discussing zombies and predicting who will bite it on tonight's episode of The Walking Dead).

I'll fill you in on more later (food galore! shopping! adventure!), but I just couldn't wait to show you the greatest thing that has ever been: Grandpa B on his new three-wheeled bicycle.

I can't wait to retire.

And I needed to share this gem.

[After dinner, with the kitchen full of dishes, Grandpa B walks to the dishwasher and opens it.]

Grandpa B: Um, Grandma, are these dishes clean or dirty?

Grandma Carol: Clean.

Grandpa B: Oh, shit.

[Closes dishwasher and walks away.]

Happy Happy, Joy Joy!

Here's what I love right now.

1.  I love that I will be picking up my baby sister in like eleven hours.  You remember her, right?  Here's what she looks like.

2.  I love that Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and that we have a low-stress-high-gluttony holiday planned.  I also love that I have like 22 pounds of cranberries (oh, Sam's club. . .) and I get to have fun thinking of ways to use them (sorbet? pancakes? so many ideas!).

3.  I love the little lizards who have been hanging out on my screens all day.

4.  I love that my husband will lovingly nudge me in the direction of ellipting without calling me a cow--even when I try to avoid ellipting by pretending to have fainting spells.  I also love that he will bring me mini snickers bars to eat while I am on the elliptical.

5.  I love using the handicapped bathroom.  I especially love it when it means I get my very own sink.

6.  I love these happy dogs.

7.  I love pot roast.

8.  I love that I took my car into the shop this morning, and then got a coupon for $50 from our mechanic in the mail before I went to pick up the car.  I also love our mechanic.

9.  I LOVE having a whole week off of work.

10.  I love that I spent hours cleaning the house today, and that my house is cleaner than it's been in months, and that I had the windows open all day because we had a high of 80 degrees today--and the highs all week are supposed to be in the 70's and 80's.

Fun days ahead!  Don't be mad if you don't hear from us.  There should be lots to share upon our return.  Eat turkey until it hurts and drink a glass of wine (or five) for me!

Less Than Gandhi.

Here's something you might not know: Matt is smart.  He's like sickeningly, ridiculously smart.  He reads like fifty books to my one, and he's rational and insightful and seems to know, well, everything.  And if he doesn't know it, he goes and reads a whole book about it and then knows it.  He can even do math!  I, on the other hand, fall asleep after reading one article in Entertainment Weekly, am occasionally lacking in the rational thinking department, and was told by my college advisor that my "math scores reflect the English major in [me]."  Shoot.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm thrilled to have a smart husband, and I really like it when I can just ask him about something (Arab Spring?) and he can explain it in a way that I can easily understand it (because he's basically Mama to my Forrest Gump).  But sometimes it's annoying to always be the dumb one, or to only be able to contribute to trivia contests if the category is 90210 or cities that have hosted the Olympics.

So Matt knows everything, which is simultaneously fantastic and annoying.  When he was a kid, though, he took an IQ test (which I may have already mentioned here at some point), but he never received a definitive score because while he was off the charts on everything linguistic and rational and whatnot, when it came to anything spatial he scored slightly lower than Mitch would.

Matt doesn't understand shapes.

Anyway, last night we were creepin' on Chloe's Facebook page--oh wait! Time for some awesome pictures lifted from her page--

Hufflepuff.

--and Matt saw an old status of hers that said, "i <3 gandhi."  Matt was confused.

Matt:  I less than three Gandhi?  Chloe is less than three Gandhis?

Idiot.

Hey hey hey.

Sorry about the complete and utter slackassness on the ol' bliggity blog.  Just wanted to stop in and say hey what's up so that you don't think we're dead or something.

Life has been good to us lately.  This weekend Matt's parents came down, and we ate and drank and shopped and went to parks and chillaxed.  Matt and I were spoiled like crazy, and it was a wonderful, peaceful weekend.  And I took nary a picture.  Shoot.

But since you love to look at pictures, I did find this beaut on Chloe's Facebook page.

I promise you she's smart.

Today was back to real life, which included working, ellipting, eating gigantic meatball subs (ellipting makes you so hungry!), chatting on the phone, doing laundry.  Not terribly exciting, but kind of nice.  When I am less tired, I'll come back with all manner of treasures and stories. Until then, I've got some Teen Mom to watch and a date with the big bed.

How was your Labor Day weekend?  

A Face for Radio

Here's something you might not have known about me, something that will convince you that I am, in fact, the coolest person on earth.

I did the morning announcements in high school.  

Oh yes, along with a few friends, I had the opportunity to really irritate 2,400+ of my peers at 7:45 a.m. every single day.  I took that responsibility--to piss off thousands of people with obnoxious perkiness--really seriously.  So seriously, in fact, that I actually got to school on time every day during my senior year (which was quite different from my junior year, when I decided on forty different days that school just wasn't reason enough to pry myself out of bed early in the morning).  

I did the pledge of allegiance, and my friends and I would read whatever other announcements had been submitted from the various clubs and sports teams and whatnot.  The best part was when a meeting was mandatory, because I would call it mandytory*.  While I thought that this was just hilarious (and still do), many of my classmates weren't so charmed by my wit.  So, basically, what we can say is that I was not appreciated in my time.  Like Van Gogh or something.

Imagine my delight, then, when I found out that my tiny little baby sister (who starts tenth grade tomorrow!) will be doing the morning announcements at school this year.  

She's certainly got the face for it.**

She comes from France.

Wish her luck!  And feel free to offer her advice about sophomore year, morning announcing, and privacy controls on Facebook.

*When I first shared this story with Matt, I thought he was going to break up with me.

**It is my sisterly duty to torment Chloe.  Lately I am choosing to do this with awful pictures lifted from her Facebook page.

My Ghost Sister & Me: The Best-Kept Secret on the Internet

You haven't heard much about my kid sister Chloe lately, have you?  Well, you'll be happy to know that she's still a twisted, weird kid.  And we're really starting to resemble one another.

Chloe's recent Facebook profile picture.  Apparently one of her friends used some "make yourself fat" app and told her he'd buy her a Slurpee if she kept it as her profile picture for like a week or something.

Chloe enjoying her Slurpee prize.

What a beauty!

And such a zest for life!

Well, now that I've sufficiently embarrassed her (not that embarrassing--I snatched all of these pictures from her Facebook, pictures she's shared with all 755 of her "friends".  Chloe, what'd I tell you about friending any old lunatic on Facebook?), I need to tell you about our latest favorite thing.

So, the other night I was talking to Chloe, and our conversation took a strange turn when somehow I imitated her sounding like a ghost, which later evolved into our idea that we should write a sitcom called Ghost Sister.  I gave Chloe the assignment of writing a theme song for the show (she's the musical one), and we laughed about all of the storylines we could come up with for the show.

You can imagine my annoyance, then, when I googled "Ghost Sister," only to discover that someone had our great idea first.  (My feelings were akin to what my friend Ross felt like when he saw the trailers for Jurassic Park and Die Hard.)

But it didn't take long for me to realize that not only had someone, a British fellow by the name of Jason, already come up with Ghost Sister, but he had executed it way better than Chloe and I could have.

It's basically the best-kept secret on the internet, and after I texted Chloe (because I'm hip like that) to tell her that if she didn't start watching Ghost Sister she was going to be my ghost sister, we both became obsessed.

Here's something to whet your Ghost Sister appetite.  Even Matt has said that it's the greatest thing he's ever seen in all his life.*

So watch this one, and enjoy it.  Then check out the My Ghost Sister & Me YouTube channel to see more episodes.  You can thank me later.



So, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to clean the house and do lesson plans.  Or maybe watch all of Ghost Sister again and then order takeout.  Either or.



*Matt didn't say that in those exact words.  It was more like, "You're still watching Ghost Sister?"