Me in Place

Poop has taught me a lot about life and what to expect from life and how to deal with the literal and figurative poo life serves up. I’m not talking Pooh bear, I’m talking poo, people. (Forgive me, Grammas).

1. Strangely enough, I rarely smelled my kids’ poopy diapers. I had no problem changing them, didn’t have to leave the room, could ignore it for quite some time, actually. (I can smell other people’s kids, though. Ick.) While everyone else was clearing the room and covering up their noses, I was like, “Hm? What? Dirty diaper?” Lesson: Bad things that happen in life will affect people differently. React to bad things the way you will, don’t let others’ reactions bother you. And be patient with others and their reactions.

2. Poop attracts help. One of the worst poo moments was when my middle child was a baby and her diaper, and all that was in it, exploded at the Omaha Zoo. I had to buy her an outfit from the zoo gift shop, and was changing her and basically giving her a bath in the bathroom sink. By the time I was done, there were three older ladies helping me clean her up, telling me stories of when their kids had messy diapers and giving me pats on the back as encouragement. At first I was embarrassed that they were helping with the poop bomb, but then I told myself to lighten up and I took their help and had a great time in the bathroom of the Omaha Zoo with three grandma helpers. Lesson: Let others help you when poop explodes. Let their life lessons encourage you.

3. I used to try to do my treadmill at home when SuperBoy was little. He was crawling around playing in the basement (on the other side of the room from where the treadmill was). But, no joke, the sound of the treadmill must have triggered something in him to make the diaper fill. So my workouts never got done because I’d stop to change the poop and then never get back on track again. I even blogged about one instance here. SuperBoy’s out of diapers now, but you know what else? I finally joined a gym. This way, when I am working out, I am working out. I am not worried about the poop. Lesson: It’s okay to give yourself a break and relax. The poop will still be there when you’re done. Take a break and breathe.

4. My last lesson today about poop is this: There is never any way to always be prepared for poop. No matter how much of a good, prepared mother I tried to be, there was always a point where I’d be standing there with a naked baby yelling for “Somebody bring me the diaper wipes!” or we’d be out somewhere and the diaper bag wouldn’t have the extra outfit in it. Lesson: You will never be prepared for the poo in life. Bad things are expert at surprising you. There ain’t nothing you can do about it.

Take the good with the bad. Clean up the poop and be strong. It’s worth it.

I’m having this ongoing battle with Mr MIP. He loves microwave popcorn. I hate it. The texture is gross and the smell is awful. I practically gag when I smell it when he makes it “ten seconds past being done.”
We’re at a stand-off right now. He still makes it three or so times a week. I still gag three or so times a week. I tell him the calorie count in a bag of popcorn (close to 500!). He tells me it’s his one snack he enjoys.
He’s so kind, he opens the bag out in the garage or outside to minimize the gagging smell.
I’m so kind, I don’t talk about it every single time he makes it.

But last night, on my way home, I heard a short blurb on the radio about the chemicals released in that steam when you first open the bag. I’m pretty sure the guy called that chemical “poofa.” (Upon looking it up, it seems it would be Perfluorooctanoic Acid, otherwise known as PFOA.)

Ha. New ammunition in the fight against nasty microwave popcorn smells. Should I use it in my warfare? I debated for a while as he munched and we watched TV. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I muted the TV and machine-gun-shot the words, “I’m really sorry. I tried not to say anything, but I was driving home and I heard the guy say that the chemical smoke that comes out of the microwave popcorn contains poofa and is a known human carcinogen. I don’t want you to be eating carcinogens and I DON’T WANT TO DIE FROM SECONDHAND POOFA!!!”

He kept munching. We watched the rest of our show.
“Killing me softly with poofa…”

Merry Christmas from our house to yours.

Sounds of joy have put to flight, all the sorrows of the night.

Long-time readers (otherwise known as “Grandma”) will maybe, possibly remember that I keep track of how many right and wrong answers I get on the annual Jeopardy calendar. Here is last year’s post about how smart I wasn’t. Last year I hit 73% right on the answers.

I kinda thought each year I would get a little smarter. A little wiser.

Nope. Just finished up this year’s, and I only came in at 69% smart for the year. Only being 69% smart is very very scarily close to being…not smart!

I am trying hard not to blame it on the fact that one of the final topics was Greenland. The closest country to Greenland is this one, a mere sixteen miles away. Greenland is an autonomous dependency of this nation. A peninsula in northern Greenland is named for this arctic explorer who had his sights set even further north.

At least I knew Justin Timberlake was one of the members of ‘N Sync. Kept me from being dumb.

Today is Flashback Friday day! And let’s flashback to approximately three hours ago! (Hey, I never set paremeters for how far back the flashback would be.)

Here it is. Five Things I Did Instead of Doing Laundry:

1. Did my treadmill and watched the latest episode of Top Chef. What I’m wondering is: how many seasons are there of Top Chef and why in the name of all that is simmering did you not tell me about this show?

2. I put myself in a Kraft Christmas card. Click here to see me ice skate!

3. I took this test and my personality came out as an ENTJ. They call this the “Fieldmarshall,” and suggest that I am in the same personality category as Hillary Clinton and Napoleon. This is devastating. But also suggests why I am avoiding laundry. Do you really think Napoleon ever washed dirty socks?

4. I answered approximately 365,421,250.3 questions from the three kids. No, I’m not exaggerating. Everything from: how did God really make time? to Why is this string cheese gross? to Why does SHE get to do that and I don’t?

5. Posted a comment on this blog.

6. Ordered two prints, one of which was this one: (Have you ordered yours yet? Go here. )

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Here’s my brother, Jeff, and I at the finish line of the Turkey Trot 5K we did this morning. (No, that’s not our time in the background. Ha.) We’re trying to make it an annual tradition.  It is very fun to run in 25 degree weather with literally thousands of people. Everyone’s happy and excited to be there and you just feel all warm and cozy all over. Oh my word, I’m totally LYING about the warm part and mile 2.3 to 3.0 is totally not what I would describe as fun. But then you get bragging rights for the rest of the day, so it’s worth it.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours and may all your turkey dreams come true.

Ha – get it? I named the post Friday, because that’s how fast and packed this week is… it is going to be Friday before we know it! The turkey is bought and dethawing. (I totally learned my lesson about that one year when I didn’t start defrosting it early enough and it was still frozen on Thanksgiving morning. My dad had to run out and buy a fresh one to save my disaster. Oops.)

This weekend we were able to go downtown (Chicago) with friends and enjoy dinner and walking a million miles a while in the freezing brisk night air. It’s always hard to be a girl and have to decide whether you’re going to dress for fashion v. function. I chose half functionable/half fashion on the boots and yeah… Just be careful, girls. Stay safe, but cute. Anyway, we had dinner and then went to see Selah and Avalon at Moody Church. It’s always fun to see groups in person, so we enjoyed it. They are involved with helping with World Vision and were encouraging people to sign up to sponsor a child. Go here for more information on how you can do that.

(Selah)

(Avalon)

Now, we know these friends. We’re not strangers. But at what point in the friendship is it okay to demand that they stop for drinks before you die of thirst and coldness? I decided we were at that point, and if they wanted to complain about it and never call us again, so be it. Selah.

Yes, I got my drink.

Yes, they even talked to us the next day, so I think we’re still cool.

Now I want to know: Do you choose Fashion over Function or Function over Fashion? I also want to know, if we were all out on a cold walk, would you be honest and tell me if you needed a warm drink?

Speaking of lame cheers:

Yes, that’s right… my cheerleading picture from my senior year at Baptist Prison Camp. I’m sorry… Baptist High School. I liked that we got to sit for our pictures, because it hid how long those skirts were. Seriously, we’re talking right above the knee.

And cheering for a Baptist Prison Camp? Let us count the ways it was lame:
There were about 45 people in the high school – so it was like one long youth group event all day, every day. And out of 45 people about 44 of us were on the basketball team or cheerleaders.You didn’t have to have talent.

The outfits? Wool sweaters and extra long skirts kept us holy. And really terribly sweaty. Ever tried working out in a wool sweater? Ick!!

And then there were the cheers. I remember being told our cheers had to be kind and not rub it in when we were winning. You’re in a competition where you can’t glory in the fact that you’re winning??

“Go Cougars, Go Cougars,
Play real tough,
But not real rough,
Let them score a few!”

“We’re the Cougars, the mighty mighty Cougars.
And we just want to make sure that if you died tonight you know where you’d spend eternity?”

But back to that no talent thing? Yeah, the winnings were few and far between. It’s good practice for being a Cubs fan.

Good times, good times. Prison Camp makes you thankful for your freedom (a.k.a. “Grace.”) And develops you into one good Lame Cheer Buddy.

When we sit down to dinner, sometimes I’ll say, why don’t you tell Grandma something you learned today? And they tell her some fact. To which she responds, did you learn that in school? “No! We learned it from Fetch!” they say. Fetch is a show they watch on PBS. So, I always say, “Girls, I can’t wait until you spout off a fact your awesome history teacher told you instead of something you heard on TV.”(Their awesome history teacher being me, of course.)

Yesterday…Victory!

We’re doing a chronological history of the world, and yesterday we were talking about the Thirty Year’s War. At its most basic roots, the problem was that Ferdinand II got all greedy and powerful and became the Holy Roman Emperor. He decided he wanted to get rid of the Protestants and make everyone be Catholic, but there were some rebellious Protestants Princes in Germany (At that time, Germany was split up into smaller “states,” and each area had its own prince to rule them) who fought back. Ferdinand got hisself all skeered and ran away and left two of his advisors in charge of an area in Bohemia where the Rebel Protestant Peoples were getting riled up. Well, when the Rebellious German Protestant Princes got themselves a big angry mob together, they all chased the two advisors. The two advisors then were like, hey, whaddup Ferdinand? This ain’t right! They ran to a castle and hid upstairs. But those angry Protestants stormed that castle (“Have fun storming the castle, boys!”) and they found those two scaredy cat advisors and they threw them out the window! They dropped fifty feet to the courtyard and landed in a pile of manure, hopped up and ran away. This led to the start of the Thirty Year’s War (which actually lasted 41 years, FYI). And now that event is known as the Defenestration of Prague. (Defenestration being the act of throwing someone out the window, for all my Congressional readers.)

Ooh… it was good. “So, what did you learn in school today, Girls?”

“There were these mad people and they chased the two men that the guy left in charge and they went into a castle and they threw the guys out the window into a pile of cow poo! And THEY SURVIVED! And then there was a war called Thirty Year’s War, which was actually 41 years, because someone threw someone in poo!!!”  (Giggling ensues.)

And the history teacher just smiled.

(by the way, the interesting guitar song playing is called Defenestrator. Had to use it!)

Quick catch-up:

This weekend we crammed a ton of fun into a few short hours. This fun included a family dinner at Mr MIP’s favorite pig-out restaurant (or, as my friend PH calls it “Meat With a Side of Meat”): Famous Dave’s (sign up on their site for a free birthday gift – it usually is a free dessert). No photos of this.

We also had dinner at Maggiano’s with Janet and Mr J. No photos. This turned into a couple late games at a bowling alley while they were having Cosmic Bowling… so it looked like this:

Which maybe hopefully explains why I was so awful at it this time. ?

So, we had all this fun, and the photo I came away with that actually came out is this one:

And this: