Running Girl

This past week Saturday our family went to Harriet Island to take part in an event called Time to Fly, which benefits the Children's Cancer Research Fund. Lindsey had been talking about wanting to do some runs after cheering him on for his half-marathon in May, so he signed her up for the 1K family fun run at Time to Fly.

We barely made it there in time, due to a late departure from our house and a refusal on the 3 year-old's behalf to get dressed. On the way we went through rain, some of it light, some of it a downpour, and Lindsey expressed concern about running in a heavy rain. (Flash back to last year's hail incident.) We re-assured her that if it was too rainy she wouldn't have to do it, but when we parked the car it was just letting up. Eventually we made it there and happily the event was a little late getting started. We had just enough time for Lindsey to get her number, her goodie bag, throw her sweatshirt (and blankie) at me and they were off.

By the way, how many other runners do you know have to hand their blankies to their mom when they go to do a run? Anyways...

1K is about two-thirds of a mile, and she and Wayne ran the entire thing -- she didn't stop once. At the end she got a medal and a prize of a Barbie kite, and she was beaming from ear to ear.

Photos from my Work Photo Shoot

Those of you who are Facebook friends of mine know that a while ago we had a photo shoot at my work. They asked us all to dress up as we would to a client visit, had us sign up for 20-minute time slots, ("20 minutes?" we all thought, "Who needs 20 minutes?") I was thinking simple, boring face shots.

Little did I know.

The goal of the photos is to show the personality of the people at our company. Who are all really fun, by the way, I wouldn't be going on my 14th year there if it wasn't full of fun people. They had people doing some or all of the following: 1) singing 2)playacting 3) pretending to be linebackers 4) jumping 5)rolling up their sleeves Good Fellas style.

This week they gave all of us our own photos to do with as we wish, and I've picked a few select ones here to share with you all.

They took 103 photos of me in approximately a 10 minute photo shoot, or approximately 17 photos per minute. Crazy!

St Louis Park Parktacular

We went to the St Louis Park Parktacular this weekend, that city's festival. The highlight had to be the non-rides, like this activity.

The Now Infamous Green Paint Incident

Proof that my idea of "supervising" and my husband's idea of "supervising" are on different planets.

Note how Marissa's hair sticks straight up from all the paint.

Summer Thunderstorm

We've been promised some significant thunderstorms over the last couple of days, but nothing's really come through, at least to our house. But last night we did get to see quite a storm brewing on the horizon. It was far enough away that you couldn't hear the thunder, it never rained here, but the lightning in the clouds was unbelievable. The lightning was so constant that I took a few pictures with my camera, I was guaranteed to catch some kind of light of some kind, no matter when the shutter flew.

So here are a few pics of that thundercloud, taken at 10:30 pm at night. Normally it's pitch black out.

Family Tales

Video from this past weekend of the Horsman clan telling tales of the care they took of the animals back in their farming days.

The Whole Foods/Lunds Experience

I am usually a Rainbow/Cub Foods kind of gal -- lots of choices, low prices, and I actually prefer bagging my own groceries. At least I'll never put a jar of peanut butter on top of a loaf of bread.

Yesterday I had to run out to get a couple of quick items, and while the Lund's is closest to our house, with the Edina Art Fair closing down all the streets I decided to travel north instead to a Whole Foods on the outskirts of Uptown. I'd never been to a Whole Foods before and it made for an interesting experience. So I thought I'd do a little contrast/comparison, and we'll see who of the two (if either) wins the battle.

Parking
Lund's: My little Civic looks out of place compared to all the BMW's, Lexus' and Mercedes.
Whole Foods: My Civic looks out of place compared to all the Toyota Prius' and Smart Cars, but at least it's closer in size.

Dress Code:
Lund's: NEVER go to Lund's without make up. Ever. Wear real clothes; business suit preferred, heels no less than 2 inches.
Whole Foods: NEVER go to Whole Foods wearing make up. God forbid you have product in your hair too, or wear obviously dyed clothing. Only natural fibers allowed, hemp preferred.

Meat counter:
Lund's: Huh, who knew that you could purchase salmon right out of the sea, already marinated with a timer shoved into the flesh for easy grilling? No charring those babies! And look, aged, dry rubbed tenderloin for $33/lb.
Whole Foods: Organically farmed tenderloin only, also $33/lb. No salmon, they're overfished, don't you know?

Dairy selection:
Lund's: I can't find the regular milk for all of the Lund's branded regular milk for $3.99/gal.
Whole Foods: I can't find the regular milk for all the organic milk selections for $3.99/half gal.
(PS: I buy milk from Costco for $1.65/gal, for those of you who don't know how much milk costs)

Reading material at the check out:
Lund's: Food&Wine, Bon Appetit, and aahhh! People Weekly, eye candy while I wait.
Whole Foods: Cooking Light, Natural Home, Runner's World (Runner's World?? Seriously??)

Checking out:
Lund's: Please let me have purchased so little that they don't want to accompany me out to the car. Please please please...it's so uncomfortable having someone walk behind me rolling my two pathetic grocery bags and two gallons of milk.
Whole Foods: Oops, didn't bring my own bag, shame on me. I'm too embarrassed to tell them I actually need paper or plastic, so I'll just shove this stuff in my huge tote purse and pretend it's not too heavy.

Overall price:
Lund's: Three produce items cost $28.
Whole Foods: Two dairy products cost $28.

Yep, back to Rainbow/Cub for me.

Eating Habits

I often think of my kids as not being the best eaters. They are picky, eat very little at dinner, or want snacks all the time. My extended family has commented on how they have a hard time just sitting at a table to eat and often wander off in the middle of a meal, only to randomly come back and clean their plates in 10-15 minutes. (Thanks for the feedback, by the way, always appreciated!) But in some regards, they are phenomenal eaters, and for that I'm very lucky.

Take yesterday, for instance.

Typically I am in charge of dinner at our house. This makes our dinner hour pretty late, since I don't leave work until 5:30 (or something a little later), arrive home around 6:00 and then get to rush around and make something and try to get it served by 7:00. Last night was no exception.

In the meantime, the little ones are hungry (shocker) and want something to snack on.

"Mommy, can I have some strawberries?" asks Lindsey.

"Me too! Me too!" says Marissa.

Sure, why not. So I clean some fresh strawberries and hand them both a little bowl. Followed by another small bowl. And then...a different request.

"Mommy, can I have some green beans?" asks Lindsey.

"Me too! Me too!" says Marissa.

Sigh...okay, if you must. So I clean up some fresh green beans, trim the ends and hand them both a bowl.

By this time dinner is nearly ready. Lindsey finishes her bowl of green beans and Marissa brings hers to the table.

They look at what I made: chicken taco rice casserole.

Lindsey's eyes grow wide and she says, "Yummmm!" and licks her lips and rubs her tummy in a dramatic fashion.

She proceeds to eat two full servings and Marissa actually ate an entire serving too. I didn't actually expect them to eat dinner after filling up on strawberries and green beans.

Sometimes they don't eat the dinner at all, but they are okay with that because they had healthy snacks. And I would feel like a bad mom if I told them they couldn't have fresh vegetables and fruit because it would ruin their dinner of canned and artificially preserved foods that I threw into a casserole.

So I guess my kids are actually phenomenal eaters, and we're pretty lucky parents for that.

She's a Keeper

We've told our kids various tales about the gypsies. You know, that band of traveling musicians who come to town and steal your kids in the middle of the night. We've heard they especially like to steal the ones who won't brush their teeth, listen to their mommies and daddies or eat their dinner.

Of late we've relegated these tales to simply telling our kids that if the gypsies come and ask us if we have any little kids to give them, that we don't and we plan to keep our kids.

This morning I was saying good-bye to Marissa at KinderCare. I gave her a big hug and said, "I love you, Marissa. I think I'll keep ya."

She looks me very seriously in the eye and says, "Mommy, you have to keep me for a loooong time."

"Really?" I gasp. "Like...until tomorrow?"

"No," she says, "Until I'm all growed up."

"Okay," I said, "That sounds good to me."

It does. And then some.

Again...why is this guy in the news??

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090602/ap_on_re_us/us_cheney

Why is anyone paying attention to what Dick Cheney has to say right now? He isn't in any kind of office; he's a private citizen in no position to make any lasting changes to US policy...except for his loud mouth.

I don't understand why the media continues to give him a platform to spout his message.

And while I agree with half of what he's saying here (people should be free to enter into any kind of union they wish), I disagree with the other half (it's up to the states to govern that).

Sure would suck to move across state lines and have your marriage annulled because the state you moved to decided not to recognize it.

But back to my first point -- why does anyone care what he has to say on this??

Retail "Recovery" Shifting Focus?

On Saturday Lindsey and I decided to run a few errands. We really needed some new craft supplies in our house, so she helped me make a list and we went to the store. First Wayne asked us to go to a local running store to pick him up some things.

Our first stop was Marathon Sports -- the store is a little tiny space in our neighborhood. The minute you walk in someone asks how they can help you, and there's everything you could possibly need for successful running: athletic shoes, performance gels/bars, socks, water holders, apparel, etc. But all just running, not a huge square food warehouse.

As we were leaving I noticed that on the corner across the street a new little coffee shop had opened called Dragonfly Coffee. We decided to stop by and check it out -- lucky us, today was their grand opening! Spoke to the owner who was working the counter, things were a little disorganized but you could feel the excitement and nervousness from the staff. I hope it does well. He named it Dragonfly Coffee after his grandmother who loved dragonflies and also owned a restaurant with dragonfly somewhere in the name. Pretty cool.

Then off to our next task: craft supplies. For this our next stop was Michael's, a chain of craft and hobby supplies. It's a large store located in what used to be called the Circuit City Plaza. I say "used to" because while the store hasn't moved, the plaza is currently unnamed since Circuit City went out of business and took their name with it. It was surrounded by shuttered stores on all sides: Circuit City, CompUSA and Cost Plus World Market.

There was only one other store of this entire complex that was still operating, and that was OfficeMax. Heard they aren't doing so hot, either.

All of the shuttered stores had for sale or lease signs on them, advertising the square footage available, usually somewhere around 22,000 to 27,000 sq ft.

The two stores that I had come from that were still in business (or at least just starting their business) had to have less than 2,000 sq ft.

Hmmm...is the big box era over, to be replaced by little local retailers? Wouldn't that be an awesome side effect of this economic downturn, if that were indeed the case?

Half-Marathon

About four weeks ago, Wayne was goaded into training for a half-marathon. Actually, he wasn't really goaded, he just got a little tipsy at a birthday party (adults only, no kids, thank you very much), started talking smack with some friends who have run half and full marathons and before I knew it he was signing up Saturday morning online for a half-marathon. Apparently he didn't have enough to drink to forget that he'd agreed to train for one.

But he'd been talking about it anyway so it wasn't that much of a stretch for him to actually sign up. Only thing was...the one he signed up for was only four weeks away.

It was yesterday, actually, and here's how he did:

overall place: 260 out of 2246 (top 11%)
division place: 24 out of 89 (refers to the age bracket, but politely)
gender place: 181 out of 821
time: 1:44:55
pace: 8:01

He wanted to run at an 8:00 pace, and he did. I can't tell you how proud of him I am that he did this, he really worked hard.

The girls and I got up extra early on Sunday to cheer him on. The race began at 7:00 and Lindsey popped out of bed at 6:50, ran into our room and jumped on our bed. She immediately asked, "Where's Daddy?" I told her he had already left and that the race was starting in 10 minutes. She gasped and said, "But I'm not even dressed!" But that was okay, God knows he was going to be running long enough that we'd get to see him.

Our good friends (the ones who talked him into this in the first place) also got their entire family up this early as well to cheer him on from the sidelines.

We're very proud of him!

Amazing babies

Today we walked in to Marissa's day care to a sign that announced that the assistant director of the center had her baby, a little boy.

I said to Marissa, "Ooo! Marissa, Donna had her baby!"

Marissa gasped and said, "The baby came out??" I think she thought it was going to stay in there forever.

I think this was the first time Marissa frequently saw a pregnant woman who finally had the baby and made the connection between her baby bump and an actual baby being in there.

And like many Marissa stories, it isn't what she said that's so amusing, it's in how she says it. If only you could hear the *gasp* and see the look in her eyes, the amazement was incredible.

A Kid-ism

About a month ago my company hosted "Bring Your Child to Work Day." They do a phenomenal job of putting on the event, lots of projects/meetings to help fill their day and give them some perspective on their own life's possibilities.

One of the events is an "executive meeting" that the kids all go to, facilitated by our CEO. He goes around the room, asks each child what they want to be when they grow up, writes it all down on the white board, then asks what the kids need to do to reach those goals. (Practice, study, learn, etc.)

As he was going around the room, one of the kids said she wanted to be a veterinarian. He looked around the room and asked, "Does everybody know what a veterinarian is?"

One of the kids responded, "That's somebody who only eats vegetables."

Classic.

The value of roots

Anyone who knows me knows that I take after my dad in my tendency to look backward and not forward at life. Sentimentality, he would call it. Because of this, I value ROOTS.

Roots: Cherishing relationships with people who knew you way back when, whose very presence in my life at that time helped me (or maybe didn't help) me become who I am as an adult.

Facebook is great for finding your roots. I recently made a connection with someone on Facebook that I am so excited about. It's someone I met at Badger State the summer before my senior year.

Badger State, you ask? Yes, yet another peek at my geeky adolesence, thank you very much.

Badger Girls State is a one-week camp put on by the American Legion. During this week, two girls from select high schools around the state get to experience what American government is like. We create caucuses, make legislation, elect representatives, create a senate, and because we were all young and idealistic created two party platforms that were basically the same party platform. (Because who wanted to be Republican when you're 16?)

I and one of my classmates were chosen by our local American Legion to take part in this camp. I knew no one who was a member of the American Legion, not quite sure how I got selected to be honest, but totally took the opportunity to go. As it was, they made sure that classmates from the same school were always split up so this girl and I didn't see each other the entire week, until we met at her dad's car at the end of the week for the ride home. (Which was fine w/me, because we weren't actually friends.)

What this afforded me was a freedom I haven't known in my life so far. Not from parents but from peer expectations. Here were girls who didn't know me. At all. No pre-conceived notions. I'd known my classmates since the 6th grade. We moved around a lot previous to landing there, so by the time I got there it took me probably 2 years to feel comfortable enough to feel like I had real friends. And once I felt like I had friends, I think I felt like I had to be careful around them to keep them, that they wouldn't really like me if they got to know the real me.

Now I could be and do anyone I wanted to be, and there were no lasting implications. I would know these girls for a week and if they all hated me at the end of the week, it wouldn't make any difference. The person who got exposed to this the most was my roommate, Anita. I killed her our second day together after all, and make a masking tape outline of her on our floor. We then carried her "body" in a sheet and put it in the elevator, then pushed all the buttons so it made a tour of the floors. I then picked a girl from a different floor who wanted to go to law school to represent me because, shockingly, in a week long experiment of American government justice would have to be served. The last full day of the camp I was put on trial for the murder, and I believe I was found guilty but handed a suspended sentence since we were leaving the next day.

We were staying in a dorm that had no air conditioning and it got so hot one night that neither of us could sleep, so we left the door open of our mini fridge to try to cool down the room. It worked if you sat right in front of it. And I think it iced over inside and we had to turn it off because the motor on it started making funny sounds.

We were quirky, crazy, avant garde, energetic and confident in all the things we took on. Yet we didn't actually break any real rules. We did proceed to have a time of our lives, no matter or more like in spite of what others thought.

After that crazy fun week we exchanged addresses and phone numbers (because we didn't have IM ID's, cell phone #'s or email addresses back then) and probably wrote each other for a while, but eventually lost touch.

Until last week.

I can't believe that Anita remembered my name and looked me up. I honestly had forgotten her last name, but she remembered mine. And it was incredible to hear how much that week impacted her life, how she values fearlessness, art, and is probably the silliest and coolest mom to her three girls.

It really wasn't until she reached out to me that I remembered how different I was that week, and how when I returned to school for my senior year I was more confident in who I was, more myself and less concerned about other people's impressions.

While I don't remember much more about American government than the average American (okay, maybe a little more), I have to say I learned a lot about myself that week, and about deep, lasting friendships.

I'm so glad Anita looked me up. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other within the year, even though we're in different states.

A Travel Encounter

Yesterday I was on a plane from JFK airport in NYC returning home to Minneapolis. The flight was only partially full and a teenager who was traveling alone was assigned to the seat next to me. There are three seats in the row, she's assigned to the middle seat, and she sat in that seat until the end of the flight, when she finally realized she could take any seat she wanted and didn't really need to sit 3 inches away from me when there was an open seat next to the aisle.

She was the last one on the plane; I assume she was a stand-by passenger who was able to make the flight. So she got up to find a storage bin to put her luggage in, then came back to her seat and was organizing her things. She seemed a bit flustered and was looking all around the seat for something.

Finally she turns to me and asks, "Do you have a cell phone?"

Uh...yes??

"Can you do me a favor?" she asks. I assume she's going to ask if she can use my phone. Instead she asks, "Can you call my phone so I can find it? I seem to have lost it."

Sure, no problem.

So she gives me her phone number, and sure enough, after a little while we hear a little song come from the depths of her guitar-shaped Elvis blinged out leather purse.

"Thanks," she says, and digs out her phone.

So husband of mine, if you're wondering why I have some odd 507 phone number in my call log on my phone, now you know the reason.

Just so you know, she called her mom to tell her she made the earlier flight and that she'd see her at the airport. Then she proceeded to pop open her Apple laptop, plug in her iPod and take a nap all at the same time (once we had reached cruising altitude, of course).

Can't wait for those teenager years!

Happy Mother's Day

On this beautiful spring day I thought I'd share some photos of the plants around our house that are finally in bloom. We've got a Canada red cherry tree that was planted the year Lindsey was born, Lindsey knows that it's "her" tree. We've also got a crab apple tree planted for Marissa, which is also known as Marissa's tree. Both are in bloom right now and gorgeous.

One evening this past week I was holding Lindsey up to smell the blossoms (the cherry tree smells unbelievable). When we got to the crab apple tree, she was afraid to put her nose in the blossoms because she thought there were crabs on the tree.

I love how literal kids are -- I would've never connected the word "crab apple" with actual crabs with pinchers.

Arkansas Continued

This photo is compliments of Lindsey -- she did a pretty good job, eh? And there's that sweatshirt that I wore all weekend.



And here's one I took of Lindsey and her Grandpa. She really got to know him well on this trip, and I think the one-on-one time was great. She also spent a lot of time sitting on his lap, looking at photographs on the computer. He showed her pictures of the various dogs that had lived there, of the ice storm that came through in February, and she would ask questions about things, especially about the storm. (Of course about the storm.)


Speaking of storms...


The first night we were there we were treated to a good Midwestern thunder storm. We had gone to bed Thursday night only to be woken by the sound of heavy rain on the metal roof of the trailer. The wind was quite strong and I got up and watched the trees swaying in the wind. The lightning was so constant it was nearly daylight outside, followed by booming thunder. After a while I heard the rain change over to hail, probably small as it was relatively quiet...for hail. With Lindsey's phobia of storms, I was concerned about her waking up, being in a strange place with a loud, booming storm going on around her. Luckily, she never awoke, much to my surprise.

The next morning we told her that there had been a pretty big storm through, she couldn't believe it because she hadn't heard a single bit of it. I also awoke to news of a fatal tornado somewhere in Arkansas. I didn't know enough about neighboring towns but found out it was quite a ways from us. Still, it made me wonder what would've happened had there been a tornado coming through our area, with us staying in the guest house, i.e. trailer.


The entire visit Lindsey wasn't getting to bed on time, yet was awakening at around her same time. By Easter Sunday this cumulative lack of sleep came out by way of behavior. So she refused to come to the table for Easter dinner, and when she did finally come she squirmed in her seat and refused to eat. I think I finally got her to eat a little pasta or something, then a little before 7:00 we headed over to the trailer to get her to go to sleep. She clearly was sleep deprived based on her behavior.


We wrestled about going to bed for a while, then she finally settled in for some reading. So I invited dad over and we finally got a chance to visit. I love talking with my dad, even though we are clearly on opposite sides of the fence. (Just read his blog on his challenges as the -- ahem -- Republican party re-invents itself.) We had a great visit, talking long after I should've gone to bed to take advantage of Lindsey finally sleeping.


The next day was our last, and we packed up and left for the drive to Memphis. All in all, it was a great visit, and we clearly need to get there more frequently...maybe next time when it's a little warmer and less wet.

Return to Arkansas

I mean by way of subject matter, not that we're hopping a plane today or anything...

I did a pretty good job of packing for Arkansas for Lindsey and I, though I did expect the weather to be a little warmer. So the shorts/capri pants that I had packed stayed packed, and my sweatshirt got worn three days in a row, but at least it made for consistency in pictures over the weekend, right?

Speaking of pictures, that was the one thing I didn't pack -- well, I mean, I packed the camera, but the battery was left in the charger on the kitchen countertop. So I was left with mobile pics from my Blackberry until I got to my dad's, when I immediately confiscated his camera for the weekend. Because after all, if he'd had the camera, we would have pictures of the trees, the cabin, the flowers, but not the people. He did sneak one of those in during the weekend, so let's just get that one out of the way right away, shall we?

This is the view from the Jonesboro nature center. It's sponsored and staffed by the Arkansas Fish & Game Commission, so the subject matter had more to do with hunting than nature, but I think Lindsey missed that little twist on the subject matter.

The nature center was one of the highlights of the weekend, especially since it was the one day that was sunny, though the breeze was still brisk. We had a good time checking out the displays; Lindsey played in the little theatre (per previous post) and ultimately we had a very good time. Though it was funny driving over there -- Lindsey is clearly used to being in a dense metropolitan center, because we had to stop during the 25 minute drive there for "snacks" because the drive felt really long to her, apparently. And since I had forgotten my wallet back at the house, "snacks" were compliments of my dad. (I know I know, my husband tells me I would forget my head if it weren't attached to my neck.)

Speaking of forgetting things...

On Friday night I offered to make chicken enchiladas, a recipe I'd gotten off the internet that Wayne and I had been enjoying of late. So Friday afternoon we headed to the grocery store for the ingredients, one of which is 2 C of cottage cheese. So we picked up a 16 oz container of cottage cheese.

When it came time to use the cottage cheese in the recipe, I began measuring out the 16 oz into 1C measuring cups...because apparently in my mind 16 oz and 2 cups are not related. Sure enough, 16 oz is indeed 2 cups, so I feel better for having confirmed that, and my dad feels better for having something else to tease me about. (Hey, at least I didn't make flubber out of eggs on my visit, Kristi!)

Let's see...other pictures...This was another highlight of the weekend that Lindsey loved, the "chore" of filling the various birdfeeders. My dad would hold her up while she filled the feeders. One evening we set out corn and a few hours later were rewarded with the site of two deer coming out to munch on the corn. (No pics of that since it was near twilight.)

We also dyed Easter eggs on Saturday, which took all of like 10 minutes. Seems like so much prep time and/or big deal is made of dying Easter eggs, when ultimately it took longer to set up than to dye 10 eggs. Terry was able to use some of the eggs in a potato salad that we ate on Easter, which was divine, by the way, yum!!!

There was more, much more, but I have to save that for another post, or risk taking a lunch afternoon instead of a lunch hour.

A Missing Guest

We had one no-show at Lindsey's party yesterday, a little girl who Lindsey used to go to KinderCare with. They are almost a full year apart in age, but always played together incredibly well, even when Lindsey was 3 and this girl was 2. (Name not mentioned here to protect the innocent.)

This morning I spoke to this little girl's mom, and she was telling me how disappointed she was that her daughter missed the party. She is in a shared custody situation and this past weekend was the dad's turn to have her. This girl's mom had told him about the party, when and where it was, and her daughter was super excited to go. On Sunday night, when the little girl was returned to her mom, she seemed sad and told her mom that she missed Lindsey's party. Bottom line, the dad said he just "couldn't fit it in" to the weekend, so he intentionally missed it. Since his daughter is 5 and can't tell time, she didn't find out until she asked about when the party was going to start that she had already missed it. I'm sure her heart sank whe she found out she'd missed the entire party.

I don't know this man, never met him, but would like to smack him upside the head if I ever do. I don't know of anyone who intentionally disappoints his/her children like that.

Marissa's new haircut

By the way, in case you missed it, Marissa cut her own hair last week. Some clumps of it were quite short, short enough that we had to go and get a "real" haircut for her, to try to disguise the sections that wanted to stick straight up.

Her new haircut is so adorable on her -- I can actually see her face, her eyes aren't covered by shaggy long hair on both sides any longer. And the stylist did a great job of blending her Marissa's own jagged layers with other layers. It looks similar to what was called a "pixie cut" when I was a kid, and I think it's adorable on her.

I know this video is unrelated, (Marissa sleeping per prior post), but it's cute and you can kind of see her new cut in it.

Lindsey's Birthday

I now have a little smidgeon of understanding when people whose children are in their 20's say to me, "It seems like just yesterday that they were babies."

Just today my eldest turned six. Six, I say! How did this happen? I ran across some photos of her today on the computer as a baby, such a little peanut and a string bean. How is it possible that this event occurred a full six years ago??

But it did, and so she is a near 1st grader, with just six weeks left to her kindergarten school year. She is getting tall, her pants in the wash aren't the little toddler/pre-schooler pants that Marissa's are. (Though the two of them are getting closer in height than one would think.)

She had a wonderful birthday today -- she doesn't realize how fortunate she is. First we took her and 16 of her closest friends to an indoor park for some jumping/climbing/sliding fun. Then...pizza, cake, and 16 presents. Sixteen -- she is damn lucky. And she stayed relatively gracious and kind throughout.

Lastly, since it is her birthday, in family tradition she got to pick the dinner meal, and she chose steak. What six-year-old do you know picks steak, I say? Ours, apparently. So Wayne pulled out some tenderloin this morning which was appropriately marinated and thawed by 5:30 or so. Even sweeter, our 3-year-old, who we could tell needed some down time this afternoon, fell asleep in front of the TV, still sitting upright with her legs crossed. So the three of us enjoyed a meal while Marissa slept, then Marissa came up and snuggled on my lap for half an hour before finally decided to eat her own meal. (Is there anything more wonderful in the world than a snuggling, sleepy child whose arms are around your neck and her body totally relaxed against yours?)

All in all, a wonderful birthday that all four of us were able to enjoy.

Lindsey in Arkansas

It's been a few weeks since Lindsey and I went to Arkansas to visit my dad and stepmom, and I need to circle back to tell a few stories about the trip. It was a good visit, always too short, and the weather totally didn't cooperate, the gray clouds, cold and rain followed us down from Minnesota. As we left Terry asked us to take it back with us, which it did.

My dad must think we are strange folk: you never met a pickier eater, a more city-oriented kid than Lindsey. She wrinkled her nose at the very words catfish, ribs, and anything outside of her norm of pasta, rice, meatballs and steak. When we got to my dad's he took us on a little tour of the grounds -- the minute we began walking down a path away from buildings she freaked out and refused to go any further, pulling strenuously on my arm to return to the safety of a building.

My dad loves the outdoors and is very comfortable in nature. He has the most incredible appreciation of all things natural, yet can kill wasps/hornets by flicking them with his fingers. (We got to see this in action during our visit.) Lindsey's favorite part of nature is...being able to go back inside and take shelter from it. Lindsey's favorite part of her grandpa's property was going over to the fence to visit with the neighbor's three dogs.

I had bought a couple of new little toys for Lindsey for the trip, one of which was Pixos. If you haven't seen it, they are small little round plastic balls that you can place on a tray in various patterns. Spray them with water, and they melt slightly and stick to each other for a permanent little piece of artwork. I knew that she loved Pixos, she has incredible patience with them, and was hoping they would keep her entertained for hours.

Yes and no.

Yes, they kept her occupied, but they also kept us occupied picking up and chasing after ridiculous little balls all over the hardwood floor. She insisted on certain colors being together/not together, over here, over there, re-organized, then messed up, then re-organized again. (You've met this child, right?)

By day two I finally banned the damn Pixos and pulled out the coloring book and crayons that Terry had bought for her. She immediately fixated on this coloring book and wanted to color for what seemed like hours on end...but only if I colored with her.

Bottom line, I did not get the free time to visit with my dad and Terry as I had hoped. And it was difficult being with Lindsey literally 24 hours -- we slept together in the same bed even, and she invariably woke me up once a night kicking me in her sleep.

Overall she was a really good kid, well behaved, but I forget how quirky her quirks are to others who don't know her as well. She has an orderly way about her, and because of that change is difficult and she really needed me by her for her own comfort. Definitely a different visit than what I was expecting.

Okay, enough about Lindsey's behavior on the trip, next post I'll share some pics of some of the fun things we did while we were there. Because despite my less than positive start to this story, we truly did have a really good time.

Trouble at Bedtime

As typical, Marissa continues to surprise us with her independence and unique ways of getting in trouble.

For instance...

One evening last week, we were winding up the bedtime routine: bath had been given, teeth brushed, final potty stop, and I was about to sit down with her to read books. Before crawling onto my lap she looks at me and says, "I want a drink of water."

I say, "Well go get one from the bathroom."

She says, "No, I want to get one from downstairs."

Whatever go for it kid, as long as I don't have to get up. So after waiting for her return for what is now clearly too long of a timeframe, I hustle downstairs to find her painting her nails with nail polish that earlier in the evening I had told her she couldn't use. She has painted the top 1/3 of each finger, skin and all, got the nail polish on the countertop and dripped some on the floor. Thus the reason why I told her she couldn't do it earlier.

Amazing that she used the opportunity to "get a drink of water" to go do a forbidden activity. I'll have to watch out for this one in her teen years.

Then...there's last night's activity, not discovered until this morning.

This morning she and I discovered a chunk of hair on the floor of our bedroom. Hmmm....I wondered, where did this come from?

"Oh!" Marissa said. "That's from where I cut my hair."

Huh?? When did you cut her hair??

AFTER we had put her to bed last night, she got up, went to the bathroom and got the small scissors that we store in the bathroom, went back to her room and clipped off a couple of sections of hair. Then, she decided to put the hair in the garbage and picked the garbage in our room for some unknown reason...but missed the garbage, thus leaving the evidence on the floor.

Then she went back to bed and hid the scissors under a blanket in her bed and slept with the scissors near her head all night. That actually had me more concerned than the cutting of her hair.

I can't quite see where she cut it, so she obviously cut so little off that it didn't make a difference.
Again, I find it amazing that she leaves her bed to go do these forbidden things. Like I said, we'll be locking the doors and windows at night when she's a teenager. And she's never getting the keys to the car.

Thinking of the Bartlett Family

I am thinking of my husband's family today, as they lay Wayne's uncle George Bartlett to rest today. He was 82 years old and had suffered from Parkinson's for many years. While his death was not entirely unexpected, it is never easy for a family to say the final good-bye.

Then I found out today that one of Wayne's cousins died unexpectedly yesterday -- he was playing basketball with his father, collapsed and died. (I don't quite have the relationship right, it was Wayne's cousin's son.) Two different losses, two different lives, one family. A difficult time for everyone.

Flower Girl Dress Shopping

This past weekend Elizabeth and I took the girls flower girl dress shopping. We went to a bridal boutique that was crazy busy, which was a good thing because then Elizabeth didn't get attacked by hungry salespeople.

The girls loved trying everything on, of course, and we finally decided on a style that made them both look most like princesses, because that's clearly most important. I can only hope for three things on the day of Travis and Elizabeth's wedding: 1) that they don't trip or stain their dresses 2) that they don't have a meltdown and 3) that they don't chicken out and not want to be in role of flower girl the day of the wedding.

That's a lot of pressure. On me, that is, I'm a little nervous that they behave well, they've been known not to.

The first dress Lindsey tried on was the one she decided upon, of course, and Marissa was more than happy to wear that one, too. When Lindsey first came out of the dressing room there was a collective "aawwww" from all the ladies there, which promptly made her return (backwards) into the dressing room. This was immediately followed by Marissa who exited said dressing room, got the same reaction, and smiled in all the attention. Can two girls be any more different?

Image Search: Unflappable

A few weeks ago some of us were discussing the traits needed to execute certain positions within our company. Words like organized, forward thinking, leadership were being thrown around. One of the other traits we discussed was the element of people being able to handle high-pressure situations. The word I came up with was unflappable. I like it: it's not just about handling the high pressure situations, it's about handling the situations with grace and calmness that can keep your team from jumping off a ledge every time a client says jump.

While people liked my word "unflappable," we determined it was too lofty of a standard, and instead settled on "calm under pressure."

One of my friends had done an image search on Google for unflappable and came up with the following image, which is when we decided it was too high of a standard:

Thankfully she had the tact to bypass image #2, which, of course, I didn't, and had to send back to her so she could see the "other" definition of the word "unflappable:"

By the way, that is Sean Connery, in case you were wondering.

Inside Scoop on those Facebook Apps

So how many "apps" do you have on your Facebook page? One? Lucky. A hundred? More likely. There is an application for every possible interest and even non-interests.

I was in a meeting this past week with a nonprofit client of mine and we were talking about social networking media as a place to raise money. Well, it's definitely not a great place to raise money, but it is a great place to raise awareness.

So in case you were wondering how this whole "click here and we donate $ to save rainforests" thing work with FB apps, I got a little inside scoop this past week that I didn't know.

By the way, this ONLY applies to Facebook apps. Guess what, NO ONE donates ANYTHING by your passing on an email that you received from somebody else. There is no big brother looking over your shoulder at your inbox, ensuring that you forward something to five friends within five minutes, ready to strike you down with bad luck if you don't. Anyway, back to these FB apps...

Our nonprofit client has been approached by multiple corporations who want to "fund" a Facebook app for them. This means that the corporation will donate the money and/or pay for the resources needed to create said application. The application would state that by using the app, playing the game, whatever action the application requires, that $ will be donated to said cause. Now, this is indeed true: money is in fact generated for the nonprofit as people use the application. So yes, by using the "Lil Green Patch" application you are indeed making some corporation donate money to the environmental organization of choice, and ultimately "saving" the environment, one green patch at a time.

There are some catches, though.

For example, one of the more popular applications on Facebook has generated approximately $5,000 in donations for their chosen charity. While $5,000 is great, it is a penny in the bucket to the millions of dollars that the organization raises every year to meet their mission.

Also, if the application is too popular, there is typically a cap on the total donations that the corporation will make to the charity. So for our client, they've been told that the donations will be capped at $50,000. In the meantime, the application is out there, generating good will for the corporation who appears philanthropic because it seems that they are continuing to support said charity, even if they cut off the funding 200 users ago.

Maybe I'm a marketing geek, but I found this little inside business model of Facebook applications fascinating.

A Play: By Lindsey Horsman

Parenting while traveling

I am looking forward to traveling with Lindsey tomorrow to Arkansas to see my dad. She and I will have some time on a plane to perhaps watch some DVDs on my computer, play some games, hopefully have a good time.

My co-worker I just traveled with related a different story, however, when she traveled the previous week to New York.

Sitting behind her were two children and a man who she assumed was the children's dad. The plane pulled away from the gate then sat on the tarmac for an hour prior to finally taking off. In the interim, the boys, who she says were quite young, the oldest probably no older than 5, began crying for their mom. It soon became apparent that these children did not know the guy sitting next to them, and he seemed to not be familiar with little kids.

Passengers had to stay in their seats as they were close to their turn to take off, so once they were airborne the man called a flight attendant over and informed her that the children were apparently flying with no parents and needed help. (Their crying could be heard this whole time and for many rows in both directions.) They got the children's names, looked up the passenger log, and then went TWO ROWS AHEAD of Britt, where the parents were sitting together, listening to their iPods and generally having a good time.

The flight attendant apparently came up to them and said quite sternly, "Your children need you. You need to parent them."

I cannot imagine.

So one parent went back and sat by one child and they moved another child up front to the other one, and in Britt's opinion the children were more ill-behaved with their parents around, so they clearly weren't accustomed to structure or instruction.

Pathetic. I want to smack them.

Good Art by Lindsey

The other day Lindsey came home from school with a picture she had drawn for Wayne and wanted him to take to work. She drew it at her before/after school activities, and it's a portrait of Wayne. Here it is:

I was admiring how far she's come in drawing people: people have full torsos, legs, feet, even glasses! Then I noticed a little detail she'd put into the other things on the page.

Yes, that is Dax, smiling as he takes a dump. She even put a little pink on his butt for his butthole, which she's commented on a few times while we're walking him. She colored his ears pink because the inside of his ears are indeed pink. What a good drawer Lindsey is!

Think my kids are hard on their shoes?

This is one of Marissa's "noisy shoes," as she calls them. They were supposed to look like patent leather, but of course they are from Target, so they are really plastic and polyurethane. The toe of it got stubbed, she took hold and over the course of this week pulled the rest of it off.

Here's something you can learn from a kindergartener

Did you know that the number googol (yes, that's the correct spelling), is a 1 with 100 zeros behind it? Lindsey taught me was a googol was. I had to Google it to confirm, and she is correct.

And then she wrote one. it took about 20 minutes. She agonized over every zero and erased and re-wrote a few. But at least along the way she counted her way to 100 a couple of times!

Signs of Spring

It's actually snowing today, but previously to today, spring was definitely in the air.

Some of the signs of spring that we've noticed around our house:

1. In the morning we hear a host of birds chattering away -- hello, birdies!! So good to hear that you guys are back!
2. As I look out my office window, I see a wide swath of trees that have a greenish tinge to them. Hope that soon buds will be growing on those trees.
3. I can see the landscaping that was buried under our snow all winter, since the snow is now melted away.
4. Oh yeah...the dog poop has now been uncovered and sufficiently rained on to make a mushy mess.

The best part of the dog poop is that during the winter our dog poops along the edge of the patio, since he's a wimp and won't walk over the snow to get out to the yard to do his business. Throughout the winter, when Wayne snowblows the patio, the snowblower will accidentally pick up the dog poop and fling it out into the middle of the yard. So last weekend as I was picking it up, I had to pick up a line of poop in the middle of the yard, even though Dax hadn't been in our yard since November. It was all in the same area too, so now I know the approximate trajectory of the snowblower.

Last note, last weekend I went for a walk around Lake Harriet -- took me about an hour from our house and back. It was rather windy that day, and I started out with the wind in my face, warm and strong. As I came around the other side of the lake, the wind was coming OFF the lake, which was still covered in ice. It's amazing the difference that made in the temperature of the air! Now the wind (which was now at my back) was probably 10 degrees colder than it had been on the other side of the lake. It was amusing coming across many of the same people I'd seen on the path on the warm side when I crossed paths again on the colder side, with their jackets zipped and hoods up the second time I saw them.

Equilibrium

I have a co-worker who is in the enviable position of purchasing her first home. I say enviable because she does not have a house she is currently looking to sell, and most sellers are taking a bath on the value of their homes and their debt load, and interest rates are at a historic low. (30 year mortage rate is currently 4.625%).

She's looking in South Minneapolis and has come across a couple of foreclosed homes, selling well below market value. Other non-foreclosed homes that they've looked at are thousands higher than the foreclosed ones, and on the high end of their price range.

This past week she put a bid in on a foreclosed home -- it's within their price range and they offered the asking price. Today she found out that there are six bids in on the home, so now begins the bidding war.

So perhaps, through all of this, equilibrium will be reached. Some of the foreclosed homes may sell for a more reasonable price, thus not de-valuing neighboring properties as much as homeowners fear. And in the meantime, other homes which are exorbitantly overpriced will have to lower their prices to compete.

Hang tight, it'll be an interesting ride!

A new talent for Marissa

Yesterday morning while dropping Marissa off at daycare she tried to show me how she had zipped up her fleece jacket. She wasn't able to complete it, but then the teacher told me how the day before she'd been getting the kids ready to go outside, and she didn't have to zip Marissa's jacket because she'd done it all by herself.

Marissa looks up at her as she tells this story, smiles and says, "I'm growing up."

All too fast, yes she is.

Just last week she began saying "Lindsey" instead of "Dinzee." Another milestone gone.

Lindsey's Reading Material

Lindsey is getting more proficient at reading, and now we're pulling out many of Marissa's old baby books for Lindsey to read through at night.

Recently we came across a book I had gotten from a neighbor of mine. It's a reading primer from the 1950's -- yes, the old Dick and Jane reading primer, back when Dick was actually a boy's name and not just a body part.

The book is made of several different stories and for those of you who aren't familiar with these, there is a family with three children: Dick (oldest brother) Jane (middle sister) and Sally (the baby). They have a dog named Spot and a cat named Puff. The primer is perfect for Lindsey right now, a small number of works repeated frequently throughout each little story, and the next story builds upon words learned in the last story. So as a reading primer it's perfect, as a story line, it leaves something to be desired.

Lindsey loves to lie on her bed with me and read me her little stories, so last night she is reading to me and we get to a story called "Big and Little." I kid you not, these are the words verbatim from the story, accompanied by pictures of the various family members standing back-to-back to each other, to measure how tall they are:

Oh, oh, oh.
Look Dick look.

Big, big Father.
Little, little Mother.

Look Sally, look.
Big, big Dick.
Little, little Jane.

This was immediately followed by Lindsey stopping and asking, "Mommy, why are you laughing?" To which I had no reply.

Sleep Reading

Once in college I freaked out a roommate of mine. I was lying in bed with a book propped up on my chest and my light still on. She came in from a study session, chattered at me for a little while, went and washed up in the bathroom, then came back and kept chattering away. When I didn't respond, she finally looked around the book to find my eyes closed; I was clearly in a deep sleep. She thought I looked creepy, looking like I was reading when I had actually fallen asleep and hadn't let go of the book.

Good to know Lindsey will some day be able to play the same trick on a college roommate of hers. Though she'll have to work on her book-propping skills.

How to Raise a Hearty Minnesotan

This morning our family was running absurdly late for school/work. About an hour late, the exact amount of minutes we set our clocks back yesterday. Imagine that, what a coincidence.

Because of this, I was dropping Marissa off at daycare a little before 9:00, well after the kids had eaten breakfast and as the class was starting their morning calendar routine. This is where they work on what day of the week it is, what day yesterday was, what day tomorrow is, the month, season, weather, etc.

They were getting to the weather spinner, where they set the arrow to whatever the weather is for the day. The teacher asked the class, "So everybody, was it cold this morning?"

The answer, without exception, was an emphatic, "No!"

The teacher's answer, "You're right, it was a little warmer today, wasn't it?"

Mind you, it was 23 degrees when I left my house. So clearly "cold" is a relative concept.

Industry Training

I don't usually talk about work on my blog, but this one made me laugh so I had to share.

I had the honor of being tapped to co-present a one-day workshop that nonprofits would attend called "45 Must-Have Techniques to Survive and Thrive in Today's Economy." The workshop was sponsored by the DMA (Direct Marketing Association), and was to be held in mid-town NYC next week Friday.

I found out yesterday that it was postponed by the DMA, as were all "non-essential" training and meetings, in respect for the challenges that nonprofits face and the fact that many of their travel and training budgets have been slashed.

Which is true -- as it was, we were on the fence about postponing it anyway because we only had two people sign up for it with two weeks to go. We needed at least 30 to make it worth having.

In the past few months that I have been prepping for this, I had become keenly aware of other training opportunities for our industry and for businesses in general. Kind of like how you become aware of every new car on the road after having purchased one, to make sure you made the right purchase decision.

I could not believe the number of seminars/webinars/audio workshops on "surviving and thriving" in the economy. I get at least one email blast a day promoting somebody's special training on surviving and thriving. Padgett Thompson, CareerTrack, National Seminars Group, as well as all the industry trades: Target Marketing, Fundraising Success, Nonprofit Times, National Catholic Development Council, etc. all having various sessions/trainings on surviving turbulent economic times.

The seminar that I was to be co-presenting was going to be priced at $249 for a full-day seminar -- 9 am to 5 pm. In person, with break out sessions, workbook, etc. If you asked for the "special guest" discount that I or one of the co-presenters could give to you, you could get the whole day for $149, a pretty good deal for a lot of knowledge.

I just got an email for a one-hour audio workshop (audio, mind you, meaning you're just on a conference call, you don't even have materials available via your PC to keep your mind from wandering) that was charging $199 on "surviving and thriving" in today's economy.

Really? $199 for an hour?? Of hearing someone TALK?

I am pretty sure that the first piece of advice that person should be giving is "Don't spend $199 for a one-hour audio seminar." Duh.

I imagine Dogbert standing in the background, tail wagging, with Evil HR Catbert standing beside him, purring wildly, as the speakers drones on for only one hour and collects his $199 per person listening.

Like Mother Like Daughter

Hey family, remember when I was a little kid and mom would serve us chili? And I hated the beans that were in chili and refused to eat them? (They were kidney beans, mind you, the biggest, ugliest, mealiest beans around.) And remember when I used to ring my bowl with the kidney beans that I would fish out of the chili, and then eat the beef and tomato mixture that was leftover? Kind of like this?

Yeah, heh, heh, like that.

Well....guess who this bowl belongs to?

Scroll down....

Scroll down...

Keeep scrolling...

Yep, that one! Some things never change, eh?

Marissa's Wish

Here's a little "wish" that Marissa learned at KinderCare. Guess calling it a wish is how they get around calling it a prayer. A boy named Colton added the ending part.

The Accidental Chiropractor

Every once in a while Marissa will finish out her night's sleep in our bed. Some time between 5 and 5:30 am we'll sense a presence and suddenly plop, there's a wiggly 3-year-old between us in the bed.

This morning she was settling in, trying to get snuggled down to go back to sleep. She stretched out and her feet pushed against my middle back. I felt a very satisfying "pop" of a couple of vertebrae that my chiropractor had worked on the last couple of times I was there but couldn't get to move. Here in the middle of the night the 3-year-old applies the right amount of pressure and aahhh! relief. (I think it had more to do with the fact that I was completely relaxed and not expecting it, to be honest.)

She also managed to crack my neck about 5 seconds later, which also felt pretty good.

Perhaps she's got her career cut out for her already.

People wonder if our kids talk sometimes

Hard to believe that that's a concern, isn't it?

New Hobby for Lindsey

Lindsey has picked up a new "hobby," inspired by her Aunt Kristi.

When Kristi was visiting in January the girls had lots of fun checking out her online game, World of Warcraft. Kristi was sure to keep it clean, no killing, no blood with the girls around, though she did show how her character danced (ahem).

A week or so ago Lindsey and I were roaming the Disney site, looking for princess or fairy games. We came across http://www.pixiehollow.com/, a child's version of fantasy online gaming. So Lindsey and I created a fairy for her and figured out how the game works.

We've now got one logon with three fairies, one of which is mine and two of which are hers. She hasn't taken on any quests, but she's an expert sunflower and rose petal picker and has earned more badges than I for friendship, adventure and exploration.

I think we have a future WoW player...in about 15 years.

So here's a picture of how Marissa spends her Saturday morning...the same way I did as a kid, in front of the tv with a bowl of cereal (she's even using the same desk I had when I was a child).

And here's Lindsey's same Saturday morning.
Never fear, screen time is screen time; she knows she has to give up cartoons to play computer games and we limit her time. If anything, it's more interactive than watching tv.

Fun with Pronunciation

Today our family went to an educational toy store, where Lindsey and Marissa could pick out a gift with some money they'd gotten as valentine's gifts. Marissa was looking at one toy which has to do with color identification. She pointed to each of the colors and named them correctly: I imagine you can guess what the colors are by the following: "Wed, boo, lellow, orange, purple, geen!"

Her pronuniciation is not the clearest, so I decided to help her with the last word she'd said. I said, "Marissa, can you say grrrrreen with an 'r'?" I asked, emphasizing the "r" in green.

She says to me, "Geen wif a r."

And she didn't even know she was being a smart-ass.

Traveling Woman

There is nothing more frustrating than getting up extra EXTRA early to catch a flight…only to have it get delayed so much that you could’ve gotten a full night’s sleep. That’s what happened to me and my traveling compadres this past week.

My alarm went off at 3:30 am this morning – that’s not morning, people, that’s the middle of the eff-ing night – to catch a 5:45 flight to Milwaukee with a connection to Washington DC.

Due to fog in Milwaukee our flight got delayed and delayed to the point that the airline we were supposed to take booked us a direct flight on a different airline to at least get us to our final destination sometime today, though we will be arriving 3 hours later than scheduled.

You can imagine the series of changes/announcements/communication that occurred throughout the day, and I won’t bore you with all the idiosyncrasies. But I have to share one particular part of the day that I found humorous.

When, for the second time, we de-planed to re-book a flight, the gate agent was attempting to service as many people as he could from the gate so that we didn’t have to exit the secure area to go to the ticketing area and re-enter security. The line was long and there was only one agent there working the computer. We decided to divide and conquer, so my co-worker went down to the ticket counter to see if he could get help faster; if so he would call us and we’d all traipse down to get re-booked.

While I’m waiting in the obnoxiously long line at the gate, I hear the gate agent get on the phone and practically beg a co-worker to come up to help him re-book all the passengers. He finally got a confirmation that help was on the way, at which point he says, “Oh thanks man, I really appreciate it. I owe you a cup of coffee or something.”

In the meantime, I get the call from my co-worker who is now at the ticket counter, getting help from an agent right now, so I leave the long line to go to the ticket counter to get re-booked right away. The person at this particular counter was in a foul mood (did he get up at 3:30 am too??) and being a bit of a jerk to work with. He stood with one arm bracing his whole body on the counter while tapping away with one finger at the keyboard. It took an interminably long time for him to get just our tickets re-booked.

While we’re waiting for him to re-book us, his phone rings and he picks it up. He listens for a bit and then says, “Naahh man, I can’t make it there now, I got a line down here too. Sorry, wish I could help you.” He listens for a bit more, then says, “Sorry, man,” and hangs up.

So now I’ve heard both sides of the conversation – I can only imagine that the call was from the poor gate agent stuck at gate 8 with a long line of frustrated passengers, growing even more impatient. I look at the “long line” of people behind us that this guy has to still process.

There are two more people behind us.

Wow, that is quite a long line. Then again, since he’s pecking away at the keyboard with one finger, I can imagine that it will take him just as long to process these passengers as it would the agent at the gate to process the 10 he had waiting in line.

Lindsey's Dance Class

Lindsey is taking dance classes now on Saturday mornings. She is loving them, but mostly because her good friend Emma is in them as well.

Here's a picture of her in the class:

Note how the teacher is up on her toes, with arms in first position. The girls next to her are on their toes, arms also in first position. Lindsey? Well, Lindsey was in the process of falling off of her toes, thus the awkward stance.

She's the only girl I know who falls down just standing up.

But the cool thing is that when they are on their tippy toes she is actually right on the point of her toe, thus the reason why she falls down when she does it. And even better, she's having a great time.

Cult of Personality?

I was in Washington DC last week for the twice-annual nonprofit conference, my first time there since the election heated up and since Obama took office.

It was interesting being in the city at this time. Obama had been in office for about a week and a half when I arrived. The airport had huge banners saying "Welcome President Obama." I found that ironic, because I can guarantee you that Obama did not walk through Reagan National Airport on his way to the Oval Office; so I'm pretty sure these banners were not meant for him to see.

Later on, we had dinner with our client at a restaurant that was in a mall. The center of the mall was open for three floors with a large banner that went all the way from the top of the third floor to the 1st floor that had an image of Barak Obama walking with the message "Congratulations President Obama" on it.

I am pretty sure that signs like these did not welcome President Bush when he took office. Actually I should know, I'm usually in DC this time of year, I don't remember seeing this at all in January of 2001 or 2005. And while I'm a big fan of Barack Obama, I have to say this was a bit unsettling to me.

It immediately reminded me of some of the photos we've seen of leaders of other countries...leaders like Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian president (I don't feel like googling his name right now) and others who led in a much less than democratic way. Granted, those outpourings of "love" came from fear from the constituency, but it made me wonder:

If Obama recommended as part of his economic recovery that all Americans turn over 100% of their earnings and belongings to the government for re-distribution to the general population, how many would follow unquestioningly? Even when he admitted he "screwed up" by endorsing Tom Daschle, it was a minor splash, no big deal. Can this man do no wrong? If that had been George W Bush the media would've jumped on him, chalking it up on a long list of mistakes and errors.

Some media actually ARE criticizing him and his proposed policies, which I'll be honest I find welcoming. He does not walk on water, people, he's just a man with a remarkable story and great charisma.

Mommy's Hats

I have to put a plug in here for a friend's sister, who will be publishing her first ever book shortly!

Check out her website by clicking here.

Rhonda is a truly amazing woman who has taken a difficult life experience with cancer and turned it into something positive. If we could all learn from her without having to experience what she did to get there, we would all be the better for it.

A Look Backwards

Yesterday I got a chance to give a pregnant co-worker a good belly rub. It was fun feeling where the baby was, feeling movement, wondering what parts are where. She joked that people who hadn't been pregnant would touch her belly very gently, while those of us who had been through the experience would have a firmer touch.

I told her the story of when I was pregnancy with Lindsey and went in for my 24-week appointment. The doctor told me that the baby was sunny side up about then (meaning head up/butt down) and that she'd check at my next appointment to make sure the baby had turned. If she hadn't turned by 30 weeks she could possibly be too big to turn, and I would be looking at a possible breach baby and/or C-section, which I wanted to avoid.

For the next four weeks I nervously rubbed my belly, feeling a large hard area at the top, which I took to be the baby's head. I worried that the baby wasn't turning, as that hard spot wasn't going away.

Four weeks later, I go in for my 28-week appointment, and am told that all is good, the baby's head is definitely down. So I had to ask.

"So what's this part up here on the top that's so hard? I thought for sure the baby hadn't turned yet."

She feels my belly and laughs. "I'm pretty sure that the baby's sit bones on her bottom."

"Whew!" I said, "Well, hopefully it'll be the only time in my child's life that I mistake her ass for her head."

Ba-dump bump.

True story.

Mall of America

With all the rides at the Mall of America, this one captured the girls' imagination the most. (Probably because Lindsey stuffy "Mousie" could ride, too.)

The 44th President

Today Lindsey came home from school and told me they got to watch TV today.

"We got to see the new prisoner," she said.

"You mean the new president?" I asked.

"Yes, the new president of the new knighted states," she replies.

I said, "That's great! Do you remember his name?"

She says, with perfect pronunciation, "Barak Obama."

That's my girl...

When did my oldest become a teenager?

Yesterday Lindsey came upstairs and asked to do something for which the answer was "no." I can't even remember what she asked for, but I remember her reaction when I told her no a few times for the same request.

She got mad, shut my door on me, went into her room, shut HER door, then turned her radio on. LOUD. It was the Beatles playing.

Since when did my 5-year-old turn 15??

Winter Driving

I had the dubious experience of spinning out on the way to work today. This with a Civic with two new tires on a road that appeared to be completely dry and clear of ice and snow.

The problem with the weather is that at -20 degrees (air temp, NOT wind chill), salt doesn't work. The road was practically white, it had so much salt dumped on it, and it appeared to be completely dry as well. Little did I know that it was a disguise for glare ice.

The road curved, my car curved more. I steered the wheels the way I wanted the car to go (as I remember reading/hearing), but on glare ice that doesn't really make a difference.

So off I went into the wonderful world of....wheee!! Lookit all the stuff going by! Wonder when I'm going to stop or what I'm going to hit that will eventually stop me. Hmmm....well, it appears that a snowbank is coming up on my left. THUMP!

My back bumper thumped into a snowbank, I hung out for a little bit, checking the scene, then drove away.

While cars were on the road, thankfully none of them were near me, and they obviously slowed down after seeing me do a couple of doughnuts in the middle of the road.

The best part was seeing how my new GPS had to re-calculate my route based on the new direction my car was facing.

Show and Tell

While I was dropping Lindsey off at the Mpls KIDS site, I overheard a teacher exclaim, "Oh! You have a dead bird!"

Yes, one of the kids had brought a dead pheasant in to school for her show-and-tell that would be going on later that day. As I was leaving the teachers were standing around, wondering what to do about it. Do you take it away and hold it for the child until the actual show-and-tell? Do you tell them not to take it out of the bag? I would assume that there is some concern about bacteria, depending on how long the bird had been dead.

Only teachers have to deal with a situation like dead birds in the workplace, I thought it was pretty funny.

Lindsey's Money Lesson

In the past year or so, Lindsey has become obsessed with money. She loves coins in particular, especially the large ones. You know, the ones that are worth the most. (US coin sizing does NOT make sense, by the way: the largest common coin, the quarter, is worth the most, followed by the SMALLEST US coin, the dime, which is worth the next largest amount. Huh??)

In the past six months she has been extremely adverse to getting herself dressed in the morning, even though she is 5 and perfectly capable of doing it. So a month or so ago I began paying her a quarter a day when she gets herself dressed with no complaints, and an extra dime if she makes her bed. This has clearly been the incentive she needed, because she dresses herself perfectly every day, and most days she forgets to ask for a quarter for doing it actually, which works out well for me.

Over the last 6 weeks or so she's gained quite a little pot of money and kept bugging me to go to Walgreen's so she could spend it. She didn't have enough for much for a while, but she finally got together $3.20 cents, so I told her we could go this past weekend.

We got to Walgreen's (one of her favorite stores) and she was literally atwitter with excitement. She traipsed and giggled down the aisles until she got to the one she wanted, the one with TOYS on one side and OFFICE PRODUCTS on the other. Oh heaven!

I showed her how to read the signs so she could figure out what she had enough money to buy: anything that started with something under $3 (gotta figure in tax, you know).

She began scanning the aisle and realized quickly the small percentage of items in the store that were affordable to her. She started by looking at a toy that was $4.99 and asking if I could chip in for the rest of it with MY money. Nope, not the point, she's got to be able to afford it herself. So she went back to scanning the prices, scanning and scanning, then when she found something she could afford she'd look at what it was and determine if she wanted it.

Keep in mind this is the reverse of how most of us shop: first we look for what we want, then we look to see how much it costs. Lindsey's shopping style opened up the universe to a plethora of things she could afford but would never want: paper clips, envelopes, pens, action figures, balls, etc. The variety of choices was overwhelming to her, and I could see that she might make the decision to not buy anything at all she was getting so overwhelmed. (Which is also an okay decision, in and of itself.)

Long story short, she finally settled on one of two items: a lip gloss tube for $2.49 or a small box of Oreos for $1.99. She finally decided on the Oreos because it cost less and she'd have more money left over to buy something big later. I was impressed by her frugality and logic; she came to that conclusion herself. I told her she didn't have to share the Oreos with the family if she didn't have to since she bought them with her own money. But once we got home and she saw how many cookies there were, she proceeded to hand some out to Wayne, Marissa and myself, and saved some for her lunch box the next day.

I was very proud of her for figuring out what she could afford and going through the exercise of spending and saving her money.

I remember being a teenager (not old enough to work yet) and my mom telling me how much I could spend on back-to-school clothes. I think the budget was $100. So I could spend $100 however I wanted, but that was all I was getting, no more. What did I do? I bought the cheapest jeans I could, I bought non-name brand clothing but I got more of it. I started shopping at thrift stores, getting as much as I could out of my money as I could.

I wasn't the most popular kid in the school, but I don't think I wanted to be, either. I wanted to wear my old man plaid sports coats that I bought at the thrift store -- I wore a worn army jacket in the fall and spring, and used a backpack I'd gotten at an army surplus store in Arkansas for $5.00. (I used that incredibly sturdy little backpack 3 of my 4 high school years. It never wore out, I just got tired of it.)

My folks never bent on the rules: I could ask for more money, but I knew the answer would be no, so I don't know if I ever asked. I hope to instill a lot of the same money sense in my kids. I think 5 is a good age to start.

Cut out Cookies...Reprise

We awoke to -2 air temps today -- there goes plans for sledding. So cookies it was, and Lindsey wanted to make cut out cookies. We did this during Marissa's nap once again, to keep the squabbling to a minimum.

We made up the dough, rolled it out and the cookies turned out much better than our first attempt. We let them cool, and took turns frosting them while Lindsey sprinkled sprinkles on all of them. We set them on the little white table in the kitchen, to give us room to decorate the rest on the countertop. After a while we took a few downstairs to Wayne and settled in to watch the Vikings game.

After a couple of minutes I heard a sound like something hitting the floor. Nothing breakable, mind you, just a little "thump." I peaked up the stairs to see, no, no Marissa feet yet, she must still be sleeping.

After a couple more minutes I heard another little "thump," and this time when I looked up the stairs I saw Dax at the top of the stairs, sniffing around. Huh, well, whatever he's up to, we'll go back to our game.

Then I heard another "thump." Okay, VERY suspicious...

I go upstairs to find that there are only SEVEN sugar cookies left on the little white table. Dax had been getting his front feet onto the paper towel that was on the table, pulled it over to the edge until a cookie dropped off and then eating the cookie. Once gone, the task was repeated until he gained another cookie.

We're not sure how many were on the paper towel to begin with -- so he either got a hold of 3 or 5 cookies. We found evidence of pink frosting on the kitchen rug, so we know where the crime of eating them occurred.

Dax sat by us very lethargic the rest of the afternoon. I think he was in a sugar low.

Coffee Cake Envy

I spoke to my sister last night, she informed me that she attempted mom's coffee cake recipe. While the filling came out of the bottom a little, it's not nearly as tragic as when it comes out the top as mine did. Her coffee cake remained intact when she flipped it and was quite a sight to see in all it's beauty. So much so, in fact, that she had to take a picture of it to show me.

The woman can cook and bake, she just chooses not to.

Bitch.

And I mean that in the most loving way!