Fold My Laundry Please

Dear Andrew,

On the day Ethan was born, you instantly turned into his biggest advocate.  You held his tiny hand while the nurses cleaned him up and stood by his side as they put that oxygen mask over his little face.  As he grew up, you played with him and protected him.  You taught him about all the important things like church and Star Wars.  Then Gideon came along and suddenly you had two little boys looking up to you.  You taught Gideon how to run and jump and about what it means to be a good man.

When I was pregnant the third time, we found out that it was going to be a girl.  You thought of the perfect name for her and enthusiastically helped me pick out pink frilly outfits for her.  As Aurora got older, you spoiled her mercilessly!  You taught her that she was beautiful and smart and completely capable of doing whatever she wants to do.  Now we have Aubrey, too.  She takes such joy in cuddling up with you.  Whenever you walk in the door, she crawls over to you as fast as her little knees will take her.   

You are such a wonderful father and our children are lucky to have you!

I love you, Andrew!  Happy Father’s Day!

And Happy Father’s Day to all the dads over at Humor-Blogs.com, too! 

Mother’s Day:  A Poem

by Lady Laundry

*ahem*

M, is for the many things you gave me.

O, is for the other things you gave me.

T, is for the terrific things you gave me.

H, is for the hundreds of things you gave me.

E, is for everything you gave me.

R, is for the rotten things you gave me.

Put them all together and they spell MOTHER!

Thank you!  Thank you!  Poetry is something that just comes very naturally to me.  It’s a gift that I simply must share with the world. 

This Mother’s Day I did something I love to do.  I stuffed my face with pancakes that someone else made, served, and cleaned up after!  We decided to break the Sabbath (I know! Didn’t I learn anything the last time I did that and was smited with food poisoning?) and try out a pancake house here in town that has been calling my name everytime I drive past it.

The kids were very well behaved the entire time.  They played quietly as we waited for our table.  They sat and drew lovely works of art on those magnetic drawing thingys while we waited for our food.  And they demolished their meals nearly the instant they were set down in front of them.  It was great!  

See?  Look at how happy I am that I get to have delicious blueberry pancakes!  With freshly made blueberry syrup!  

They were every bit as yummy as I had imagined they would be!

Seeing as how she has no teeth yet (And honestly, where are those teeth anyway?  She’s eight months old now.  I’m kind of tired of the flash fevers and cranky attitude!), Aubrey sat in the high chair and happily played with a spoon the entire time.

She also did what she does best, which is flash those non-existent pearly whites and charm the pants off of strangers.  All the children were exceptionally, charming that day.  So charming that I came off as the perfect mother, and really, isn’t that the best Mother’s Day gift? 

How charming were they, you ask? 

One woman eating there at the restaurant was so impressed with my children that she walked up to our table as she was leaving, patted me on the back, and said, "Are ALL THESE CHILDREN yours?  I only have one and I can barely manage with that!  I would like to buy your drink for you.  Happy Mother’s Day!"  Then she slipped me a five dollar bill and walked out of the building. 

I sat there, stunned, staring at the money for a minute.  "Was I just tipped?  Did she…  Did she just tip me for being a mom?"  Andrew was just as baffled by it as I was.  I suddenly felt like I should give the money back.  Five dollars was much too much to accept from some stranger, but she was long gone by the time I got over my shock enough to do anything.  

And so, I’m now five dollars richer than I was before Mother’s Day rolled around.  Jealous much?  I’m thinking that maybe I’ll start carrying around a tip jar wherever I go.  Perhaps I’ll put one of those "Donate" buttons up on my blog.  I wouldn’t want to alienate those of you intent on throwing money at me, but sadly unable to get to my tip jar. 

Motherhood.  It’s just one of the many services I perform for my adoring public. 

If you don’t want to tip cash, you could at least click on Humor-Blogs.com to help my ratings out a bit!  Jeez! 

What are my plans for this extra day off, you ask?  Well, I thought I’d head off to the gym with my husband for a relaxing workout.

Then maybe the family and I will have dinner out at a nice restaurant.

Or maybe we’ll just eat at home. 

What did you guys do with your weekend?

I noticed that so many of us here on the internets had a difficult time really feeling the Christmas spirit this year.  Most likely it had something to do with the fact that almost every single friend of mine, myself included, ended up spending the holidays sick as dogs!  Nothing fills you with holiday cheer like that week or two where the germs are settling in before the sickness rears up and slaps you silly!

Anyway…I’ve recently discovered a way to keep up the warmth you feel during the Season of Giving all year long.  And no, I’m not referring to the recent bout of fevers.  Elfin magic led me to find Santa’s blog.  Yes indeedy!  A daily posting from The Man In Red himself!  We’ve only been reading it for a week or so, but our family is totally hooked!  It has quickly become a nightly read for our household. 

So if you’re worried about having a cheerless repeat of this past holiday next December, hop on over and give Santa a read.  And remember…warm, fuzzy, holiday feelings keep germs at bay!  So read Santa’s blog and never get sick again!

Last night was rough.  Aubrey was really not feeling well and therefore couldn’t sleep well which meant I couldn’t sleep well.  Also, I would like to give my blog a makeover for 2008 (Shhh!  Don’t tell it!  It’s a surprise!), but I’m terribly clueless about coding pages.  After spending many hours playing with html color codes, I finally managed to change the font color of the links in the right hand column (over there —> for the directionally challenged) and the color of the post titles and time and date stamps.  The categories and comments kept their mysteries hidden from me, so now my blog looks like I finally got it ready for Christmas.  And just in time, too!  Wait.  What?  Crap.  So now I’m thinking of trying to find someone who is good at this stuff to do it for me.  I know what I want, just not how to do it.

Wow.  That was a long and round-a-bout way to say I was up late last night, wasn’t it?

Anyway, I went to bed late last night and woke up early this morning.  I would’ve tried to sleep in, but I had forgotten to put out the garbage can last night and with all of the Christmas trash to go out, it was vital I get that can out there.  (On a rather unimportant side note, our new neighbors loaded up their overflowing moving-in trash into their Yard Waste can and set it out hoping to get all of their garbage out in one week.  The Sanitation Engineers practically thumbed their noses at their attempt.  Now the neighbors have to put some of what’s in the Yard Waste bin into the regular garbage bin each week making cleaning up last at least a month.  Welcome to the neighborhood!)

I also had a phone call to make:

Them:  Aubrey’s Pediatrician’s Office.  How can I help you?

Me:  My 3 month old daughter is one of your patients and she’s had a cold for about two weeks and now it’s suddenly gotten a whole lot worse.

Them:  We’ll have to see you right away.  Can you be here in 45 minutes?

Me:  45 minutes?  *looks down at unshowered, barely awake self*  Absolutely!  See you then!

So the first half of my day was spent rushing around trying to get cleaned up so that I wouldn’t look like a complete derelict, hopping in the car, and spending an hour listening to the doctor tell me about how he didn’t find out he was an asthmatic until he was 28 years old and that Aubrey was the healthiest baby he’d seen all day.  As my brain finally began to click into place, I started to feel silly for coming in at all.  Isn’t that the way, though?  Your child is sick.  She’s miserable.  She’s visibly wilting.  You get to the doctor’s office, oozing worry from every pore.  The doctor walks in.  Suddenly, Baby is smiling and cooing and showing off her new, mad, Rolling-Over-At-Will skillz…yo.  But on the plus side, it was my first trip out of the house since the Friday before Christmas.  So there is that. 

So now, we are sitting down to watch a movies together before the ball drops (or whatever it is) at the Space Needle in Seattle.  We have to watch online because we have yet to get a television set (9 months and counting) and we don’t really seem to miss it much.  I hope everyone accomplished much in 2007 and that you will accomplish much more in 2008!  Leave me a little note and let me know what your New Year’s resolutions are.  I need some ideas for myself!

Happy New Year!!!  I got you some glasses!!!

You have to get through this…

…and this…

…and this…

…and this *sigh*…

…to get to this!

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Ethan got a little digital camera over the summer.  It doesn’t take great pictures, but he buzzes around with it all over the place, snapping away.  The excitement of Christmas has gotten to him and he has spent the day documenting our decorations.  His favorite thing to do has been to get up close and personal with our Christmas ornaments on the tree.  He says things like, "I’m trying to take a picture of my reflection in this ornament," and, "You can use these pictures on your blog if you want." 

Since I have his permission…

We seem to have a lot of red on the tree this year!

• Today, I finally got the last of the Christmas decorations put up.  They will probably stay up until sometime in mid-February.
• I still have not started making my Christmas cookies.  I better get it done soon, because if Santa doesn’t get his Black & Whites, chocolate chip cookies, and merengue cookies, I might get coal in my stocking!
• I actually like this song:

• And this one:

• To date I have wrapped exactly 4 presents.  I fully anticipate a very long Christmas Eve night.
• Christmas dinner is going to be a pre-made meal bought at Super Suppers. 

What are some of your Christmas confessions?