7 Quick Takes Friday, #31

1. For a few months now, I've been participating in a monthly blog carnival called Perfectly Poetical Tuesdays, hosted by Stephanie at The Little Stuff of Life. Although there's never a very big turn out, I'm having a gay old time composing my first ever poems. (THIS MAY OR MAY NOT BE A SHAMELESS PLUG TO GET YOU ALL TO JOIN ME AT PERPOTUES. IT'S FUN!)

Case in point: the other night as I was writing this month's entry (it was an Ode to Bedtime), I had trouble coming up with a few important rhymes. Justin was sitting across from me, looking all handsome and helpful, so I asked him for advice.

"Hey babe, do you think whispering rhymes with history?" I asked. His expression was not very encouraging so I repeated the words a few times, helpfully accentuating the matching syllables and sounds. "HIS-turry. WIS-purring. Do you hear it? Do you think they're similar enough words to count as a rhyming pair?"

Justin stared at me with a look of deep concentration and said, "Well...I mean...they're both...words."

At least he still looked handsome, even if he wasn't entirely helpful.



2. Mia tried her hand at the rhyming game, too. Yesterday on the way home from running errands, she was telling me what she wanted for lunch when a wayward 'rhyme' snuck in.

"I think for lunch I will want to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That's what I want, OK? HEY! That rhymes with WICHITA!"

"Uhhhm...I don't think...Wichita?" I stumbled over my response. I tried to see what in the heck she was talking about, so I went back over her words. Lunch, Peanut Butter, Jelly, Sandwich, Wichita....waaaitaminute. She was connecting sandWICH with WICHita.

Close (and a similarity, indeed), but no cigar. (HEY! That rhymes with garden!)



3. After being so caught up in the difficulties of putting Lauren in Kid's Day Out, I feel like I kind of missed out on some of the excitement around Mia starting Preschool. She's settled into her new class quite easily - getting along well with the teacher and her new friends. But still, I feel like I've gypped her from my attention. (I guess this is one more instance of the ever-present GUILT OF MOTHERHOOD.)

On school days, I've been dropping Mia at her room first, so I can stay a bit longer in Lauren's room to help her get settled. I don't regret this; Lauren needed more help, and the squeaky wheel gets the oil, nomesayin? But now that Lauren has gotten better about the moment of separation (even though it still rips my heart bare...), I've decided to change up my routine. I think I'll take Lauren to her class first every-other-day, so I can then spend a few minutes in Mia's room getting her settled in and making sure she feels like I'm there for her. As much as a 3 year old can feel those things. It'll be hard to tell if she cares whether or not I take extra time, because she's just pumped in general on school days. She loves it there.

But at least it'll make ME feel better, right?



4. If you're on Blogger, do you ever log in only to find that your 'Following' list has disappeared? Every so often, I'll go to check my feed reader, and it'll say "You are not currently following any blogs" or some such nonsense. And then I panic every. stinkin. time. I think, "How on EARTH will I ever remember all the blogs I follow to re-do my list?!" Just about the time I start gnashing my teeth and rending my garments, I remember, "Oh, yeah. This has happened before. It will right itself. Have patience." Only, I'm always wondering if this is the time Blogger is serious, and that they actually have lost my blog list.

Does this ever happen to you? I mean, not all the crazy reaction parts, but the Blogger technical difficulty part. Is it just my account that's jacked up?



5. Last night marked a first: Mia said "I don't LIKE you," to me. I've been expecting this day for quite some time, thinking I'd be saddened and flustered - but it wasn't too bad. I fancy myself more sensitive than I really am, I suppose. Thankfully, she was being none too likeable herself at the moment, so it wasn't too hard to disregard her statement.



6. My daughters are both going through a phase right now where they LOOOVE to drink the bathwater. This grosses me right out. Feet and bottoms and hair are soaked in that water; it's very likely that the toddler pees in that water. We repeatedly discourage bathwater drinking, but it's really hard to enforce it when they're surrounded by water and the bath-giver is distracted by piddly things like washing and rinsing and refereeing. Should we just let it go as not really that big of a deal? Should we be trying harder to stop it? Any words of wisdom?



7. When Jen hosted her Defining Post carnival last week, I had a great time clicking on as many of the links as I had time for. I happened to end up visiting Philangelus' blog and read a really fascinating story about her guardian angel. It gave me chills and wondering thoughts and all kinds of good stuff. Which leads me to this: Do you believe in angels?



Thanks for stopping by today! Be sure to visit Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes and have a beautiful weekend!