There's a baboon on the right

I have this strange little tick. My husband has it too. It may be one of the top five reasons why we are married.

Yes, we love each other, blah, blah, blah, of course all that, but also ... We sing just about everything. All the time. Everything we do, seems to have some sort of singing attached.

We sing along to the radio/Google Play/Pandora, we sing about what we are doing, we make up nonsense songs.

We are Marshall Erickson on How I Met Your Mother.





It's strange and silly, but also COMPLETELY AWESOME. (And the fact that we both do it is even more awesome, because I could see how if you weren't into singing everything, it might get a little grating. But we do, so it doesn't and it's awesome!)

I was trying to think of some examples to illustrate our complete nerdiness, er' I mean, awesomeness, but of course my mind went blank. Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me all the time. You can think of a million and one examples until you are pressed to think of one and then - nothing. Mind blank. Except of course for some annoying TV commercial you saw three days ago that is running on a loop in your mind (I'm looking at you Taco Bell "Afternoon Delight" ear worm).

Then dinnertime came and examples galore! (Thankfully I was nerdy enough to write them down so I wouldn't forget!)

Example #1:
Dinner was just about to begin. We had announced to the kids to wash their hands and get seated at the table while my husband I finished up getting drinking and plating food. My son - the speedy hand washer that he is - was at the table in seconds and drooling over the plate in front of him. In fact he was SO famished he couldn't even wait until we were all seated, and snuck a couple bites from his plate. (Never mind that he didn't have silverware yet, minor inconvenience.) Of course he was caught in the act and mildly reprimanded.

"I just can stop from eating," he whined. Without hesitation my husband began singing "How can I keeeeep from eating?" (For those of you who may not know the song is really "How Can I Keep from Singing" and it's a church song.)

A couple chuckles from me, but since this is our daily life, no explanation, clarification or admiration required. On with dinner we go.

Example #2
Our youngest finally got to the table, climbed up in her seat and asked if she'd have to wear a bib with dinner. I answered yes, because we were having rice with dinner. Again, with our hesitation my husband breaks into "Rice, Rice, Baby" (ding, ding, ding, ditty, ding, ding). Than I break into singing the rest of the song. (Alright stop, collaborate and listen, ice is back with a brand new edition.)

Example #3
Then during dinner, our youngest was talking about something (for the life of me I can't think what) that she was going to do after dinner.

"I can't wait for tomorrow - I mean, today," she said.

My husband and I both lifted our arms into the air and shouted "Today!"

I'll give you a second to figure that one out. I am sure most of you already have it as it is possibly the most awesome Neil Diamond song in his amazing repertoire. If not, it's from his hit song America - and shame on you, go listen to some classic Neil as penance. I assure you, it won't be painful!

And all this is just a taste. Not even our best work, we've got a million of them. In the morning when I see my daughter's bus driving down the rode to pick her up and often sing "Here Comes the Bus" (doo doo dee do).

We stick our kids' name into any random song we hear that might remotely rhyme with it. We keep the tune but completely change the lyrics of songs to fit various situations.  We sing lyrics that are blatantly wrong, but kind of sound like the they are right (As long as I have you here with me, I'd much rather be, reverend blue jean, babe). 

We can't help it.. We don't even have to try, it just happens. I love it.

It won't be long until our kids start doing it too and in small ways they already have. (Although I can't think of any examples because I am trying to think of some examples.) Pretty soon our house is going to be like a musical - we will all just randomly break out in song and no one will think it is strange. (At least no one INSIDE the house.)

I'm no Julie Andrews, however, and sorry to say hun, you are no Bing Crosby (thank goodness, in so many ways). But I don't care. We love to sing and we will keep on doing it until we start to annoy each other.

Then we will do it louder ...

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Time: according to a two-year-old

Had a similar version to "are we there yet?" with my two-year-old the other day. I was drying her hair and she was not very happy about it. Of course she wanted to be free and playing with her siblings. The first minute or two were fine, but then she said "are you done yet?"

"No," I replied. "A couple more minutes."

"Now, are you done?" she asked as soon as my sentence was complete.

"No."

"Now?"

This went on and on. No matter how many times I told her it would be couple more minutes, she would immediately come back with "now?' I finally just pretended I couldn't hear her over the blow dryer and ignored her. (Classy parenting, I know.)

Time is a something that takes kids awhile to grasp. When I was growing up my parents used to tell us how long it would take to get somewhere in relation to TV shows we watched. For instance it took a Sesame Street, a Mr. Rogers and half a Reading Rainbow to get to our family cottage. (I watched A LOT of PBS as a child.)

Now with DVD player in the car kids can actually WATCH a Sesame Street, a Mr. Rogers and half a Reading Rainbow before getting there. Although I don't think too many kids watch the latter two. They are TV classics though ...

When they are not asking again, and again, and again "are we there yet?" or "are you done?" it can be pretty cute to hear them explain time as they see it. For my four-year-old son, everything that happened in the past happened last week. The day after tomorrow is "tomorrow, tomorrow." When you tell my youngest something will happen tomorrow however, she immediately says "now?"

It's pretty adorable (when it's not annoying).

I guess that is why preschool, kindergarten and first grade teachers frequently make "cookbooks" from recipes recited by their students. I use the term cookbook loosely here because no one would actually make any of the recipes out of it.

Most of them read something like this:
Chocolate chip cookies
2 tabs of butter
6 eggs
5 cups of sugar
sprinkle of flour
15 chocolate chips

Mix together and bake at 10 degrees for 4 hours

(Come on kid, the oven doesn't even cook that low, how I supposed to make these cookies? They sound delicious though. Five cups of sugar, yum! But why so stingy on the chocolate?)

On a side note, it's March 12 and we just got about six inches of snow dumped on us. I am just sad. We actually had grass showing for a couple days and now ... sigh ... now I get to get the stupid snow blower out and clear the stupid driveway of all this stupid snow. (Actually the snow blower isn't stupid. It's saving me from a lot of bad breaking shoveling. So, snow blower, you are wonderful, I just wish I didn't have to use you on March bleepity bleepin' 12!)

I need chocolate ... and more then 15 chocolate chips.

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Breakfast on the brain

So it must be the male gender in general that doesn't hear well? Cause I feel like a broken record sometimes with my son.

Every morning I get out clothes for him. Then I tell him what to do with the clothes he has on. Our kids wear their pajama two nights before putting them in the dirty laundry (no judgement here on whether that is gross or wasteful, that's just how we do it). So I tell them to either hang up his pjs or put them in his laundry bin. I don't shout it down the hall or whisper it quietly, I say it in a loud clear voice right in front of him exactly what he needs to do.

I walk out of the room so he can change and two seconds later,without fail, I get this:






EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

How does he not hear me? I am talking right to him. He doesn't have the TV for distraction. He is standing in front of me. What is he possibly thinking about that the words coming out of my mouth do not register?

There is nothing wrong with his ears either - he can hear, he just chooses not to ...

I could blame myself. I don't have him repeat it back to me, I'm not "down on his level" looking him in the eye, and all that, but COME ON! I'm busy. He's the kid, I'm the parent - he is supposed to listen to me. (Ha, ha, he's supposed to listen to me, good one Sarah!)

Its not just this little morning routine either. It's all the time. It's meal times and story times, bath times and especially clean up times (no surprise there).

I don't seem to have this kind of trouble with my girls. Even the two-year-old hears things better then my four-year-old son.

I guess it just reinforces a little theory I have about the male and female brain. My analogy is the male brain is like a waffle and the female brain is like a pancake. The male brain only thinks about one thing at a time - like the syrup goes into one pocket at a time in a waffle. The female brain - which thinks about everything at once - is like a pancake, where the syrup goes all over the place. (Is analogy the right word there? I know I should know it, but I fear I am using it wrong.)

What do ya think? Fair comparison? A little mean? Maybe, but I do think it's pretty accurate.

So with my son I am just destined to repeat myself forever, and ever and ever. His little waffle pocket must be full thinking about Hotwheels or ninjas or nothing at all. Men can actually do that - think about nothing at all. Amazing ...

In the end, we may be different, but we're all breakfast food, so I guess we all win.

Shoot, now I want some waffles ... And a pancake or two ... And some bacon ... Mmm bacon ...

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Return of the sweatercoat

How do you like the wonderful logo my husband and daughter made for me?

Isn't it awesome! I love it! Thank you guys!

So now it's March and it still feels like January. And I am sick of it.

I have always been one of those people who is perpetually cold. I'm cold when it's 70 degrees out. It's weird, I know, but that is just how I am - goose-bump prone. But all this stupid cold weather is making it ten times worse. I am always cold. I come home, take off scarf, mittens, coat and boats and put on a sweater coat or sweatshirt jacket and slippers.

It doesn't matter what I wearing either. I could already be wearing a sweater and the sweater coat is still going on. I look ridiculous, but it is that bleepity bleepin' cold where I live and that's how bleepity bleepin' cold I am. ALL. THE. TIME.

When you have to wear a long-sleeved t-shirt under your hooded sweatshirt and you still cover up with a blanket when you sit on your duff and watch home improvement shows, you know it's cold.

I do love living in Michigan. I do. It's just this year has been so horrible, so cold, so full of snow that I have reached the end of my sweater thread. Get warmer already! I want to see grass on the ground again. I want to to drive with the window down. I want to not have to bundle up to walk down the driveway to get the mail ...

I saw this on my drive home this weekend and it about sums up how I (and the majority of my state) feels:

I know it's gotten bad because I am looking forward to spring and I don't really love it all that much.. Sure the trees are budding and it's getting warmer and all, but with it also comes a whole lot of sogginess. Sogginess and large piles of black snow. Yuck.

Geesh Sarah, nothing seems to make you happy. You complain about winter and then you complain about spring. Will anything make you happy?

Yes, as a matter of fact. A trip to a warm beach will do the trick quite nicely. I am so sick of the snow I would even get over my uneasiness about planes and hop on one to get away from this white stuff.

Just need to win the lottery to do it. Guess that means I should start PLAYING the lottery ...

I see it's supposed to be close to 30 by the end of the week. Sounds like a heat wave ...

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