File Under: What Was I Thinking?

Possible answers: Maybe with a puppy, I didn't feel like I had enough pee-soaked laundry to fill a whole load? What am I talking about? Oh, I bought some cute underwear for Jack, and after I changed the world's nastiest diaper, I thought, "Hey! Why not put him in underwear?"

Jack was on a great streak with going to the potty a lot. I'm not sure what happened, but at some point between when we ran out of incentives (chocolate chips) and when we got a puppy, Jack lost interest. But there is nothing like dinner at a nice restaurant to get that boy to want to sit on a potty. And there is nothing like dog patterned, day's of the week underwear to make me loose my sanity and put Jack into the St. Bernard/Wednesday pattern.

Spoiler alert: This doesn't "end" well.

But it's not as bad as it could have been. I had the asparagus in the microwave, and the salmon in the oven, and the boys were playing at the breakfast bar out of nipping puppy range, and Lucy was nipping, and Dave was walking through the room and he said, "What did you say Jack?"

Jack was saying, "I poopin'! I poopin! I poopin!" Fortunately, it was just pee, and now I have laundry to do, and you can thank me for not making a pun involving "load".

Star Wars with Thesaurus Boy

Jack has spent the last two days asking me to open the puppy gate, going downstairs, getting one Star Wars action figure out of Luke's room, coming back upstairs, asking me to open the gate, and running over to play with the action figure at the dining room table. I think the Star Wars figures have seen more action in 2 days than in the 2 years they have been under Luke's care. And the whole process has been keeping Jack very busy.

Plus, it is so cute when he rests his hand on my knee and says, "Mom. I need go downstairs get Star Wars. Open gate pease?"

Also cute? When he calls Chewbacca by the similar sounding name of Baracka.

In other Jack news, he woke up a little on the crabby side from his nap again today and I offered him a cookie and milk. I said, "How about this cookie? It's the biggest one."

He had a few bites and said, "Dis cookie huge? Dis cookie huge!" (pronounced hooj)
A few more bites and, "Dis cookie giant."

So now we are working on enormous, titanic, and jumbo.

Happy Valentine's Day. Duh.

Exciting! I just used the new search feature here on MetaMegan to see if I had written about the Valentine Tragedy of 2007. (Or whenever if was.) And I did write about it! Twice!

So you can imagine I had a lot to think about this year when it came to Valentines. I decided to do a paper airplane from Family Fun, but what if kids started making the planes immediately and throwing them and it was pandemonium and his teacher got really angry and blamed Luke? Ok, that probably wasn't going to happen.

On to my next problem. Do I print out one copy, bring it home, have him write "Happy Valentine's Day, Love Luke" on it and then take it back to work and make 25 copies? The advantage to that is that it would be less work for Luke, and the chances for something to go wrong and induce a meltdown were really low. Disadvantage - I don't have access to a color copier at work so they would all be in black and white and gray, and that is lame. The other option is that I could print off 25 color copies, but then he'd have to write "Happy Valentine's Day! Love, Luke." 25 times. That sounded like a recipe for disaster, but the Valentine's would be a lot cuter. Maybe I could go to Michael's and get a stamp that just says, "Happy Valentine's Day!" Hmm. Trip to Michaels: Unlikely. (Missing van key.) Dave suggested printing it in color, having Luke write his message and then taking the paper to Kinko's to have it scanned and then make 25 color copies there. Trip to Kinkos: Not just no, but hell no. When do I have time for this?! I barely have time to obsess about it all week long, much less do anything about it.

Well, time ran out and I printed the color copies. I told Luke I would write Happy Valentine's Day if he wrote, Love (or From) Luke. He said sure. And when he made mistakes, he just said, "If you see any more mistakes like that, can you just correct them for me?" Yeah, sure. I suppose that is better than a meltdown. Then he rolled them up with the instructions and I tied a bow around them. The whole thing took about 45 minutes. Am I insane? Why yes, I am.

BUT! I had a good time working on the Valentine's with Luke. It was fun and we chatted. I said, "I heard Max kissed Alex(andra)." Luke said, "Yeah. He's been in a kissing mood lately." I said, "Are you ever in a kissing mood?" He said "No. Well sometimes." (Shocked breath in!) "When I am kissing you goodnight. DUH!"

Aww, my sweet, sweet boy. I ignored the duh.

It's A Good Thing Jack Can Talk

Monday, it snowed and I worked from home, because... why not? The Honda had been in need of new tires for a while, and the van was covered in snow. Tuesday I took the van so that Dave could get new tires on the Fit. That means I was the last person to use the van key. That's singular folks: as in key. We have one key.

So when Dave called me at work on Thursday because he wanted to drive somewhere and did I know where the van key was? I had to just heave a huge sigh because no. I didn't. I looked in my purse and pockets and then started lamely suggesting places to look, all obvious, all places Dave had already looked. But wait! What was I wearing on Tuesday? Check in those pants. Never mind, those were the pants I was wearing that day too. It's OK - he didn't really need to run that errand, but I was going to need to find the key because I was the last one that had it.

When Dave mentioned it Friday, I started to look in "the drawer" (you know the one) and Dave said, "It's insulting that you would even look there. I said, "What? I'm looking for chapstick. I can't look for the van key with chapped lips. Oh good! Here it is. Now I can apply some chapstick and then look for the van key." But really, I had to start there. I have a system when I am looking for something. Drawer, tray, desk, nightstand, bathroom, dresser, drawer, tray desk, nightstand, bathroom, dresser. I just have to keep repeating that pattern and praying to St. Anthony until I get an inspiration and find what I am looking for. Like when I found the ibuprofen in cabinet with the wine glasses. Nothing Friday, but I started to have a memory of Jack playing with the van key. Maybe I left it on the counter... etc.

Saturday, Dave said, "Where's the van key?" And I said, "Jack had it last. 5 days ago." And Dave said, "Where's the van key, Jack?" And Jack said, "I put it in the bench."

Dave and I raced to the bench and started rummaging through hats and coats and mittens and there it was.

No Room for the Laptop

I think I'll turn this blog into a list of excuses for why I never have time to post anything. Here's one...

Watching the latest series on Netflix (Rome) while perusing InStyle Magazine would normally be prime blogging time because I like to multitask. But there was no room for the laptop with Lucy napping on my lap. She was pretty relaxed, so I could hardly wake her.

From Drop Box

Superbowl Costume Change

I thought I had the boys' Superbowl outfits planned perfectly:
But then I realized we needed a costume change for the halftime show:

Jack was mesmerized.

The Times They Are a Changin'

Possibly inappropriate to misappropriate Senior Dylan's music to discuss changes to my blog. But that song is in my head, so there is no other title forthcoming.

So! I backed up MetaMegan, removed the Jack Stats (not updated in the past year) removed the Longest Stretch of Sleep for Mommy section (it was that or start updating it with how long Lucy is sleeping, and that is just depressing.)

I also changed the background, and added a Followers section on the bottom right. Lastly, I am now not allowing anonymous comments any more (sorry Dad and Ellie) because I started getting spam in the comments. Boo! I hate that word verification, it makes me feel like I don't know my letters because I pretty much always get it wrong the first time. But what else can I do? Allow spammers? Nooooo!

OH! And I added a search button, for all those times when you think, what was that bon mot/recipe/anecdote that was so wonderful that I sort of forgot it? No? OK, well I will use it, I am sure. For when I finally get around to writing up my Thanksgiving dressing recipe. Next Thanksgiving, I won't have to search and search through November and December 2009 wondering where it is and how I cooked the chestnuts. I'll just use the search and find it right here in February! (Ok... probably March.)

And now for the super bowl menu:
Honey Barbecue Wings
Hot Wings
Spaghetti Sauce with Whole Wheat noodles
Homemade Bread
Guacamole and Chips
Brie and Crackers
Chex Mix (Dave's recipe)
Veggie tray.

Happy Superbowl!