Hair She Is

Do you ever feel like your child looks like a cross between Drew Barrymore in Firestarter and Harry Dunne in Dumb and Dumber?  

Yeah, neither do I.   

Notice we have some confusion as to the proper location for our underwear.

(P.S. Before you get mad at me for torturing her and making her sit on the toilet, understand that this is the attitude I was met with when I told her to get off the pot and come eat some dinner.) 

** See if you can find which picture is NOT Marina

Stalling for Time

When I find myself suddenly, overwhelmingly busy, I inevitably have an irritating mental shift.  I become physically unable to make simple decisions without complicating them with a long string of "Lily-ish" thoughts.

Here is a sampling of some recent strings of useless thoughts that have run like a ticker tape through my head for the last week and a half:

Scene: The bathroom at work - a location I visit literally dozens of times a day, due to a high measures of liquid intake.  Enter Lily, stage right.

There are about 12 stalls from which to choose.  Which one should I go in?  As a creature of habit, I'm tempted to consistently visit the same stall.  The following is a transcript from my brain waves, captured by superior technology using advanced scientific techniques:  [Wednesday, August 25.  14:24 hours]

"I'm inclined to visit one of the first stalls but experience tells me that those are subject to high traffic and are therefore covered in more pee and poop germs.  Then there are the back stalls, which should be considered the 'business' stalls, that have only one purpose.  Furthermore, I don't want to go in that stall because I can see from the strained position of the feet that there is a battle waging.  So I will choose a middle stall, Far From the Maddening Crowd, different from the one I picked on my previous visit to Toilet Town."

It shouldn't take this long to choose a bathroom stall.  But since I am already busy, my mind has sabotaged me with an overabundance of thoughts, adding an overly busy mind to a packed schedule.

Today when I was in there, I decided to give into an odd impulse and fold the toilet paper into a little triangle - like they do in the hotels.  That might be my calling card from now on.  When I next visit, I will know if someone has been in that stall since me.

I might be one of the most brilliant people who regularly visits the bathroom.  Let me know if you need some help choosing the stall that's right for you.

Tales from the Crib

Do you ever wonder if your kids might be a bit weird?  I wouldn't call it a fear of mine, because I myself am weird; look how well that's turning out for me...  But let's just say I have an awareness of it.

Typically, Eli says the most random and awesome things.  He has been the source of much amusement over the years.  Then lately, seemingly out of no where, Marina has swept in and showed that she, too, is a strange duck.

I may have already mentioned the day she freaked me out by casually walking over to the refrigerator and correctly naming most of the magnetic letters stuck there.  Neither Mark nor I have had any letter-learning sessions with her.  She must have picked it up from all the PBS educational programing (for viewers like me) she has been watching.  She's not even two yet.... it's just weird.

I'd also like to share a bedtime ritual of hers.  Here it is in picture form:

Every night before bed, she feels the need to line up all her babies and friends between the wall and the crib.  It acts as a sort of prison for them.  Notice the second little one from the left, she must have been particularly bad today.  It might be like a modern day version of putting her friends "in the stocks".  Now everyone who walks through her room will seem them publicly humiliated.  She does ease their discomfort by going down the row and giving them kisses, though.

I hope I never cross this little one.  Her verbal skills rival Mark Twain's...  But on a brighter note, she gives the best hugs in the northern hemisphere.

Nature Vs Nurture

Nature vs. Nurture:

I think some things are written into your DNA.  You can't fight nature, baby.  The Clinton's don't like to waste precious toilet time.  That's where some of our brightest ideas start.  Where do you think Mark came up with the plan to eliminate national debt?

You're invited to come use our toilet/gaming room.

P.S. These pictures are not staged.  

2008

2011

A Day in the Life...

Ever wish you could spend the day with the Clintons?  I am giving you that chance with a pictorial history of yesterday.  Sorry about the odd black borders on a few of the pictures, there were taken on my phone and I had some technical difficulties.

It went something like this:

Hooray!  Coffee time in the morning with Mommy's new giant coffee cup!  Quick explanation of the importance of this cup:  I like to drink my coffee out of the same cup every day.  It must be considerable in size as I am a glutton for huge portions.  I had the perfect one but it suffered an unfortunate accident recently when I forgot about it in the microwave.  Mark didn't look inside when he was heating up his dinner and smashed right into the beloved cup, exploding it all over the kitchen.

This beauty is the large replacement (Thanks, Mark!).  Notice it is a 20 ouncer - so big, Marina can sit inside, as seen here.

Marina sat politely waiting for her breakfast.  Some delicious Kix cereal Mommy slaved away on.  She is a pleasant-looking child with a new trick; she keeps sneaking into the kitchen and stealing food from the cabinet.  Yesterday, Mark found her sitting in front of the TV eating happily from a bag of Taco flavored Doritos.  

Eli took a little time after breakfast for some creative drawing time.  He would identify his drawings for me.  I asked him about this particular one, he told me it was "tapeworms".  Oh yes, of course.

Marina's new baby doll.  She is very serious about taking care of her.  She was placing her in the booster chair for feeding time.  If you look closely, you can see the baby's legs are curiously shiny - almost like the talk show hosts on TV.  Why?  Apparently the baby had a diaper rash that required large amounts of Vaseline to be placed all over her legs and in her removable diaper.   

10:04 AM:  Pause our day to receive some disappointing news.  The offer we put on a superb house was outbid by another butthead.  This was extremely unfortunate, as we were already mentally placing our cat-scratched furniture all over the house.  

After the bad news we regrouped and were looking for our new perfect house online.  For whatever reason, at that moment, it was like both of our kids caught fire.  They were jumping and rolling all over us and screaming at each other.  All four of us sat on the couch in a line and every once in awhile an arm or leg would dart out and hit someone else.  

Somehow in all the jostling a most astonishing thing happened.  Someone knocked into me, which launched my NEW kick-a smart phone off of my lap.  It soared through the air and landed inside my giant [full] 20-ounce coffee mug.  I sat stunned for a few seconds before I screamed a word for dung (possibly an expletive - sorry kids).  I grabbed the coffee soaked phone and ran to triage (the kitchen) where I bandaged it quickly in paper towels and assessed the situation.  There was coffee gushing out of its orifices.  I quickly pulled off the cover and removed the battery (more coffee!), which already revealed the telling red water damaged indicator.  I buried it in rice and started to wring my hands and pulling at my clothes (good thing they were elastic).  

Lucky for me, I added insurance on the phone 10 days ago... It was DOA (dead on arrival, for you non-medical drama TV show watchers).  

Notice the guilty-looking giant coffee cup.

Believe it or not, the day did actually go on (just like Celine Dion sang it would).  We were forced to employ a non-family member babysitter for once since everyone is traveling these days.  We spent the majority of the day cleaning up so we could invite a member of the outside world into our house. 

As I opened my purse to pay her, I was made aware once again of the nonsense that often makes up my purse. After she left, I paused to take stock of what was inside.  

Here we go for another segment of What's In Lily's Purse!  

Not an exhaustive list. 

A bottle of home-brewed beer that someone gave me just before I left work.  

A box of Gas-X (I'm old).

A list of school supplies I've been carrying around for 2 months.

A Nook. (always!)

An empty pantyliner wrapper (what!?) - which it turns out I had in my zippered "secret compartment".  At some point, it escaped into the middle section and shed it's wrapper (scandalous).  

A computer cord (under the Nook).

Some mints that make both Mark and me nauseated but he keeps going back for more.

2 Empty gum boxes

and no fewer than 13 lip glosses

Dinner time.  Same meal.  Two different responses to it.  

Welcome to our world!