Doodely Do

I taught Luke how to Doodely Do this weekend, and it was awesome. I suppose there are different definitions of doodely doing; it's a method of picking up your house. It may mean shoving things into drawers, or throwing things away just to regain some semblance of surface order. (My brother's 6th grade photos may have suffered the fate of the doodely do, never to be seen again. On the other hand, 6th grade is an awkward phase, so maybe it was like with Luke's kindergarten picture, where if they made it into the recycling bin, it would have been accidentally on purpose. I used two of those photos with the summer camp application, and let's just say he better not go missing because I do not want to see those photos on the news. Among other reasons, of course, lest I jinx myself.) I chose to implement the doodely do thusly: Luke and I ran around putting away toys as fast as possible. They needed to be put in the correct location, and you had to run to do it. It was sort of a good workout, and the living room was picked up in record time. Then we doodely did the laundry, and it turns out that Jack's pjs ended up in Luke's drawer, but no other problems have come to light so far.

So maybe Doodely Do is the new method for getting help from the kids. On the other hand, maybe he was just feeling helpful. First thing in the morning, he pretended that I was a king and he was my cook and he made me some muffins. (Delish.) Then later, when Luke was pretending to be a tiger, I convinced him to be a helpful tiger who does my bidding. So there you go, lot's of ideas from my parenting repertoire, help yourself!

Who Needs A Puppy?

Jack keeps getting into the lazy susan, he never met a food scrap he didn't like, he's been known to did through guests purses to sneak snacks, and well, he barks at squirrels. Or gwirls, as he calls them. So we miss Bean, but sometimes we think he may be trying to speak to us through Jack.

Yesterday at breakfast there was a lot of barking (uf, uf) and pointing at the gwirls outside, so I had to get out the camera, even though Jack was covered in food. Too cute.

Then I tried to get him to film some of his other tricks. Jack loves to pretend to talk on the phone, and he loves to imitate sounds. The other day, he was making a weird sound while we were walking into the house and I stopped to listen. I determined he was imitating a train way off in the distance. Here, Dave is dialing the phone and he imitates that, then as soon as it rings, he has to pretend to answer. If you've been pranked by a baby recently from my cell phone, it may have been Jack. In other news, my cell phone no longer works.

Old School

Here is Jack, kicking it old school in his Adidas track suit.

In other news, I need a hair cut.

Books Read: 2009 Edition

This will be a short post. I have read 1001 Arabian Nights. Yup, that's it. One book of short stories in the whole year of 2009 a.d. I am not really sure what the deal is, but I think maybe I have a lot going on. Or else I am watching too much TV. I also don't count non-fiction. One book that is taking away time from my fiction reading is Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. So far the results are mixed. Tastes great, looks weird.

I'll be working on improving the bread every day, for five minutes.

The Pecan Caramel rolls, (from the same dough recipe) on the other hand, both looked at tasted delicious. The other book I am reading is Hello Cupcake. I started with an easy one.

Then I'll work my way up to extremely complicated for Luke's kindergarten class birthday party. What could possibly go wrong?

Coffee, Sweet, Sweet Coffee

Last Saturday, Luke had an 8:00 am basketball game. I had gotten up with Jack at 5am, and when I heard Luke's alarm go off at 5:55, I was able to murkily figure out that his clock had been set an hour ahead. Luke ran upstairs already dressed and there was no way he'd be going back to sleep, so I just went for it. By 8:45, all the laundry had been folded, breakfasts made, eaten, and cleaned up, and Luke and I were 3 quarters into a basketball game. That's when one of the parents said to me, "Meeeeeeegan. I'm outta coooooooooffeeeeee." I said, "Me too. And mine was decaf." And then it occurred to me that I don't need to suffer from caffeine deprivation anymore just because 25 months later I have gotten pregnant, given birth and am nursing a toddler.

Fast forward to Sunday morning at the Southside Walnut Cafe, where I ordered a cappuccino. Fast forward again to 10 minutes later when I was saying to Dave, "Right now, I feel like everything in my life is totally perfect. I am so happy. I am almost worried that later I'll feel just the opposite. This bliss seems so extreme." Dave said, "What you are feeling right now, are the effects of caffeine. And yes, you will crash later."

You may have gotten a combined Christmas-Birthday-thank-you-Valentine-package-of-Luke's-art. That was the first thing that Luke and I did. Then we melted down crayons and made 12 heart shaped crayon necklaces. Then I did about 17 other things, and then I was looking at something on the bottom shelf at the grocery store and when I stood up the shelves got all wonky. It was a loooong bike ride home.

It seems like caffeine and I do better meeting occasionally. On Sundays. Let's just say I organized a lot of closets today, and leave it at that.


Photo Credit

If You Feel Yourself Starting to Blow Away, Grab Onto One of Your Friends

"If You Feel Yourself Starting to Blow Away, Grab Onto One of Your Friends." Those were the wise words in the announcement that was made at Luke's school before lunch recess. I think lunch recess may have been around the time of the peak gust recorded by NREL for the last 24 hours. That would be 77.9 mph at 11:08 am.

I was holding onto a Target shopping cart around that time and hoping not to careen into a parked car. Dave's building had a power outage and was running on the generator. I'm not a big fan of wind, so I was pretty glad I didn't ride my bike to work today.

Charts and graphs courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Labs Wind Technology Center.

Slowly, Slowly, Figuring Things Out

Yesterday was Wednesday, and I had to pry Jack off the bookshelf. From there he moved on to Luke's duffle bag.

(My thought process: Totally safe! He can drag it around, he can try on Luke's basketball shoes, he can look at the bottle of water! Minutes of entertainment.)

Minutes later, he was staggering across the living room with a nalgene bottle that was 2/3 full. Very heavy, the kind of thing that would really hurt when you drop it on your foot.

(Thought process: Intervene.)

Jack indicated that he wanted to drink some of the water. I unscrewed the cap. He pretended to drink. Then he screwed the cap back on. Then he unscrewed the cap. Wash, rinse, repeat.

(Thought process: Wow, I am just sitting on the floor with Baby Jack, playing and having a good time. What a sweetheart. I just love him. He could do this for hours. I should probably check my email. If he could do this for hours, could I just get some work done? No, he'll spill the water eventually. Could I get enough work done to make cleaning up 20 ounces of water and changing all his clothes worth it? He is so cute. Oh, let me hold it Jack. Be careful. Aww, adorable. Seriously, could I work for 5 minutes, or just throw some dishes in the dishwasher while he plays with this water bottle? Could I swoop in and catch it before the bottle spills? LIGHTBULB!!! I could pour the water out!)

I chance it and leave him with the bottle while I grab an empty one, change them out, pour out the water and give him the original bottle back.

(Thought process: Why. Did. It. Take. Me. So. Long. tofigurethisout?)

I used the remaining "Jack is busy playing with a nalgene bottle time" to put two dishes in the dishwasher. If only I had acted sooner, I could have maybe cleared off half the counter!

2 Random Things

1.) If you ever thought, "Wow, MetaMegan really has her act together. How does she do it?" Well, if yesterday's post did not dispel that myth then I have one more thing to share:
I noticed a pair of pants were missing from my closet a few weeks ago and I finally went to the dry cleaner to pick them up this weekend. They had been dropped off on June 18, 2008.

2.) Luke asked if he could put grapes in his taco today. I said, "As long as it's nutritious, I don't care what you put in your taco." He said, "Well, it's my taco and you should care what is in it. And I think grapes would be delicious." And I said, "Go for it." And he did. And then he said, "Eeeeewwww." And then he ate the whole thing.

Photo Credit

See You in Hell, January

As a January birthday girl, I have always felt a begrudging sense of loyalty to that sometimes miserable month. But let's see, what have I accomplished this month?

1.) 4 snowboarding days - OK - that's pretty good
2.) Biked to work once - was passed going up hill by a recumbent tricyclist
3.) Worked out 4 times - I may be rounding up
4.) Wrote 12 blog posts - lame
5.) Finished 0 books - really lame
6.) Watched many hours of TV
7.) Whined about month long sinus infection

But it's February! I have been outside every day this month. And aside from the gale force winds that I had to pedal into on my way home from work, I would say things are looking up!

Don't let Punxsutawney Phil get you down, according to one of Luke's teachers, "groundhog day is just silly."

The Best Thing Ever

I don't want to get into some sort of silly gender stereotyping, where I imply that men can never find anything, because I only know my own experiences. My own experience, is that Dave and Luke can never find anything. Sometimes they just ask me where something is without even looking. And I'll say, "It's on the end table next to the red chair in the basement" or "On the middle shelf of the refrigerator, half way back." And then sometimes that isn't enough and I have to actually use my finger and point directly to the lost item.

SO! Imagine my surprise the other day, when Jack and I were in the living room and I said, "Jack. Where are your shoes?" And then I walked to Jack's room, looked for the shoes, didn't find them, and then walked back to the living room. And what did I see? I am not even sure the world is ready for this. Ready? Jack was holding up his shoes.

I know. It was the best thing ever.