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Friday, September 11, 2009

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!

19 comments:

  1. I've had the same thing happen a couple of times with Blogger -- but now I use Google Reader to keep track of all the blogs I'm following -- have you ever tried it? It's WONDERFUL. You don't have to click on every blog individually and you can add subscriptions of people that aren't on blogger (like people on Wordpress, etc.).

    Oh, and what Justin said about your rhymes? Totally cracked me up -- it sounds exactly like something Dave would say :)

    P.S. On a completely unrelated note, have you started the 2nd book in the Mitford series? I am on the 4th! The first one took me forever to read, but now I'm going through them like wildfire! I think they must have grown on me.

    And...now I'm done :)

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  2. Your cigar/garden "rhyme" almost made me spit out my drink.

    And my year-and-a-half old is VERY fond of drinking the bathwater too. It is absolutely horrifying to me and always induces gagging. For awhile, my oldest was the bathwater police and would launch into bossy mode whenever his brother started gulping the stuff down. THEN I found him carefully tasting it himself and looking rather pleased with what he encountered. Darn.

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  3. Blogger and I sort of have a love/hate relationship and half the time it doesn't show me what blogs I follow. That is why I switched to Google reader. Much easier.

    I also think every kid goes through the "drinking the bathwater" phase. It still makes my skin crawl.

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  4. I always love your Quick Takes. I especially love #1!!

    I hate Blogger. I'm a Wordpress user. I can't even tell you how many times I've tried to comment on a Blogspot post and it's shut down or told be I'm doing somethign illegal. I use GoogleReader to follow my blogs. It's great!

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  5. My one year old loves the bath water, too. I took the cup away that I was using to rinse his hair because he would sit there and drink it and flash me a grateful smile like I had prepared him a tropical drink. Then he started drinking out of his boat. Every once in awhile he'll actually just lower his head to the water and drink directly. Yeah. I'm a little worried, but not enough to do anything about it I guess...

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  6. Well, I guess I'll have to start using my google reader. I've looked at it a few times, but never really USED it. Duly noted :)

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  7. I think your whispering/history rhyme totally works. Just teach your husband the phrase "Yeah honey, it's a slant rhyme" and you'll be all set.

    You should know, I admire you for your Perfectly Poetical Tuesday posts. I even followed the link from here to Stephanie's site one day...but so far I'm too chicken to try a poem myself!

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  8. Thanks for linking to my guardian angel story. Every so often I still get chills. :-)

    And I despise blogger too. It's just not a good interface.

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  9. MY boys are 3 and 5 and still try to sneak the water when i am not looking. Which is why they get a TON of showers. I started it when they were 2 and 4 and it has been the best thing ever. I have a stand-alone shower and they can both be washed and out of there in less than 5 minutes. No toys, no fuss.

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  10. As bad as the bathwater drinking is, I was horrified when my boys, who are old enough to know better, were drinking from fountains in our community fountain park. This is a place where dozens of fountains shoot out of the ground and lots of kids run and play in them (I'm not sure what the true term is for it). For all I know, they ingested the pee of dozens of toddlers.

    I always enjoy your "quick takes."

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  11. Wow, that guardian angel story is amazing...wow

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  12. Emily - Do I need to remind you a few days before the next poetry day? :) I can tell you WANT to join in...

    Philangelus - Anytime! I've been telling everyone I know about it, it was so amazing. So I figured I'd tell everyone I *don't* know, too.

    HappyGeek - Showers...why have I never considered showers?

    Jenn - Um, hopefully that fountain was treated with loads of cootie-killing chlorine :) I'm sure your kids aren't the only ones, though.

    Cortney - I KNOW!

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  13. My kids drink the bathwater too. It grosses me out, but I figure that kids have been doing that since the beginning of time and the human race has somehow survived, so I don't sweat it. :) Plus, it builds up their immune systems. ;)

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  14. the blogger thing where my list is deleted ? yeah that happens to me a lot. I just re-log in and then it appears. must be a glitch in their system idk.

    my oldest dd has told me several times she dislikes me. but its after i tell her something to do that she doesn't want to. i just think it comes with the territory of mom-ness.

    i missed that defining post carnival, it seems interesting. I will have to look.

    i also some time ago wrote a gaurdian angel post. i will have to look it up for you and you can read it.

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  15. http://maryjohnpauljamespatricksofia3.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-gaurdian-angel.html

    does that work as a link?

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  16. I will definitely have to check out this poetry carnival.

    About angels--I do believe in them, though I very much doubt they have feathery wings and serene expressions. Whenever someone in the Bible saw an angel, they fell down on the ground in fear. I'm also not sure I believe in the idea that everyone has their own personal guardian angel following them around all the time. I do believe God is at work all around us in ways we never even know about, though.

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  17. I guess drinking bathwater is just a part of life...what is it that makes it so appealing?! Savannah just dips her mouth right in the tub and no matter how many times we've told her not to drink it, she does...maybe we should try a reverse psychology approach. Grosses me out too!! Oh and as for showers, just not as much fun-well for Savannah at least, she's not really a fan. Surely they will survive the bathwater, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that we probably drank it too ;)

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  18. I just read the guardian angel post and all I can say is: "WOW"

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  19. I love your Quick Takes!
    And your sweet baby girls are so beautiful!!!
    Your handsome husband sounds like quite the funny guy!
    And it sure sounds like your family is enjoying a week of alliteration!!!

    As for the bathwater...perhaps if you just stop them, offer them a drink in a cup from the sink...and stay consistent with that for a time...the thrill will wear off...they will not really be that thirsty and they'll most likely find some other new-found hobby in the tub that grosses you out just as much, ha ha!

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Hmm...And how did that make you FEEL?