Where's My Alice? -In a Nutshell

Sea-ing the World Around Us

Santa always brings the kids their very own actual bottle of shampoo every year. Shampoo and toothpaste. These are great stocking stuffers if you have more than two kids (two or less are not so nearly impressed by the "having my OWN" concept). If you're going to give that stuff though, you have to start the tradition before they are old enough to realize how lame it is. This year, each child got a different color bottle of shampoo (so as to avoid the inevitable bloodbath that identical bottles would initiate. ("That's MINE!" "NO! IT'S MINE!" "NO IT'S NOT! IT'S HERS!!!" "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?!" "BECAUSE I SAW MONSTER TRUCK(3) POUR YOURS INTO THE TOILET!" Me: "THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP HIM?!" "I don't know"....)) Anyway, this year everyone got their own flavor in a bottle that is their favorite color. Last week the kids were all comparing scents on shower night. ("Mine smells like berries." "Mine smells like bananas." "Well MINE smells like watermelon.") Monster Truck(3), desperate to jump in and not be left out of the conversation, grabbed his bottle, quickly checked the cartoon picture on the outside, and reported, "Mine smells like dolphins! I love the smell of dolphins. It smells like dolphins, that's why it haves a dolphin. It smells good!" (Just to be clear, the shampoo smells like tangerines. Santa was so busy picking out different color shampoo bottles that Santa didn't notice this particular shampoo is for after SWIMMING- hence the dolphin. Oops.)



Mr.Yuke(5) informed me a couple months back (and several times since then as he's carefully tested his theory-) that the sun (and incidentally also the moon) follows him. Because everywhere he goes, the sun goes. I'm sorry for all of you people who apparently dwell in perpetual darkness because you are not where he is. Anyway, the other night we watched the full moon rise as we drove down the freeway. It was beautiful. (The moon was closer to the earth that night than it will be for the next 2 years.) A little while later when the moon was up higher in the sky, ThePinkiest(6) commented that it was now closer to us than it had been before. Try as I might, I could not convince her that the mo0n was the same distance away as it always is. She knew that I was wrong. Mr.Yuke(5) confirmed her suspicion, thus: "Yeah. It is closer. That's because it saw ME."



2008 was icky. Not just for me, but for a lot of people. In general, I try to be a glass-is-half-full type of person. I avoid activities that make me have a more negative outlook, such as watching the news or having any contact with my dad. It seems though that no matter how I look at it- overall, 2008 stunk. Not just for me. It was a pretty cruddy year for a lot of people. Last year I mentioned that I LOVE the new year- fresh start and all that. As I was pondering the approach of 2009 and cleaning out my closet, I discovered my gratitude journal. This is a book I started four years ago when I was trying really hard to "bloom where I was planted" in That Place I Used To Live, a place which I did not like. The concept of the gratitude journal is simple enough. At the end of the day I write a minimum of 3 things I'm grateful for that day. Some days here at Not Quite the Bradys finding THREE things can be quite challenging. On those days I have written things like- "I'm grateful I could make myself write in this stupid journal."- but I always write in it, no matter what and most days I have plenty to write about. Well, I did I should say. It appears that I sort of stopped writing in it when I lost Baby B, and with the loss of Baby A last January, I just forgot all about it. I had not thought of the gratitude journal once the whole year until I stumbled across the book while doing my get-ready-for-a-new-and-improved-year cleanout. As I was trying to remember the last time I wrote in it, I started thinking that although the events of 2008 were irrefutably bad, my experience probably would have been better had I focused on my blessings more. My New Year's Resolution then, is this: I will try to be more focused on the sweet things in life. I will try to remember the things that matter. Things like: even dolphins smell amazing through the nose of a three-year-old; Santa Claus is real even if he DOES bring toothpaste; and God loves me so much He made the sun follow me wherever I go.

It's going to be a good year. : )

Turtlenecks, PLEASE

We sat down to dinner on Sunday night and Husband asked everyone to share with the family one thing they had learned at church, just like we always do. When we got to Mr.Yuke(5), he said, "I don't know."
Me: You don't remember? Well how were your new teachers?
Mr.Yuke(5): I don't remember. BUT! GUESS!WHAT!?"
Husband: What?
Mr.Yuke(5): My teacher wears shirts that show her boobs!
Husband and me trying to frown disapprovingly at this possibility while not saying anything in response so as not to turn "boobs" into a hot dinner topic for the next fortnight.
Me: Hmm.
Mr.Yuke(5): It comes all the way down to here and they just stick right out.
(I will say in the woman's defense that she had a baby two days after I had T.Tiny(1m) and she is nursing so this was probably not her fault. I'm sure she is a very modest woman.)
Me looking at LittleMommy(10): And THAT is why we dress modestly. When you don't, people NOTICE.

Happy Days Are Here Again

Finally something nice to say!

Our sweet baby was born about two weeks ago, give or take, and she's beautiful! 6 lbs, 6 oz, 19 inches long, and a teeny tiny head, bless her. : )

Thank you all for your kind love/prayers/comments/thoughts. They have all been so appreciated. If I didn't publish your comments it's because you used my real actual name.

I am hoping to get back to blogging after the first of the year. Mr. Yuke(5) is still keeping us supplied with lots of good material. : )

In Loving Memory

My Father-in-law passed away Thursday morning, about 12:15 am. His funeral will be held next Thursday in that place where he lived. Thank you all for your prayers and kind words of support through these trying times. I'm really beginning to look forward to this baby (4 more weeks and counting!), if only to have some GOOD news to share for a change.

UPDATE

Grandad passed away night before last. He seems to have gone as peacefully as could be expected.

Father-in-law is in the ICU in critical but stable condition. He was supposed to see a specialist tomorrow about getting his gallbladder removed but I guess that will have to wait now. The procedure is high-risk because he has NASH syndrome and the possibility of knicking the liver during the surgery is highly dangerous.

He has severe dehydration, a urinary tract infection which has spread so that his blood is septic, liver failure, kidney failure, low blood pressure which is being medicinally raised, and he has been intebated due to a build-up of fluid in his lungs. Any prayers on behalf of our family would be appreciated.

One Nation Under GOD

Since the Pledge of Allegiance and The Lord's Prayer are not allowed in most public schools anymore because the word 'God' is mentioned....

Supposedly a 15 year old kid in Arizona wrote the following:

NEW School prayer :

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's 'inappropriate' to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such 'judgments' do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!
Amen

Cake Wrecks

TOO FUNNY! It's really short and worth the extra clicks.

http://eliandkara.blogspot.com/2008/09/were-infectious-but-laughing.html

MAYHEM

I said I wouldn't blog about negative stuff but I'm not very good at finding the silver linings I guess so I have dropped off the face of the earth. Here is the laundry list. I keep thinking when I get a little distance/perspective I'm going to see so clearly how it was all for the best.

• FLOOD (AND OTHER VARIOUS LANDLORD PROBLEMS. I QUOTE, "Well how much water is there?" ME: About three inches right now but it's still coming in really fast. "Oh, so it's not SIX inches. You don't need to call a plumber." NOT JOKING.)
• FIRE (the vacuum)
• STOLEN IDENTITY (when they say, "Illegal immigrants just want a better life.", ask them whose.) THE GUY BOUGHT A HOUSE WITH HUSBAND'S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER IN NOVEMBER
• GRANDAD HAS PANCREATIC AND PROSTATE CANCER
• DAD IS GETTING DIVORCED (NOT SURPRISING TO SOME OF YOU I KNOW BUT WHEN EVERYONE SAID HE'D CHANGED AND I SAID YEAH RIGHT, I REALLY WANTED TO BE WRONG.)
• I HAVE BRONCHITIS
• KIDS GOT FLU WHILE I WAS VISITING GRANDAD BEFORE MY OB PUTS THE BAN ON TRAVELING NEXT WEEK.

I'm hoping that things are going to settle down for a little while now and y'all will hear from me again.

To Save A Few Pennies

You get what you pay for.

I've always said it and I've always believed it. I think if you don't want to spend twelve dollars every single year on a toaster you should probably just spring for the fifty dollar one to begin with and have it last a decade. (That is of course unless you have a two-year-old.) Don't get me wrong. I shop the sales. I use coupons. I seek to be thrifty. But when it comes down to it, I still believe- you get what you pay for.

Monday my three older children headed off for their first day of school. (Wow. Listen to that angelic choir sing. ) Anyway, as soon as they were dropped off I headed to the city to go to what us country bumpkins like to refer to as "the mall". I had a coupon for Gymboree. Their clothes are really sturdy but also very expensive so I go there when they put everything on clearance and I have a coupon. Then the prices are almost but not quite as good as Target's. AND, the clothes there are not exclusively made in China which is a plus. The mall is a good 30-40 minute drive away and I wanted to get there early. I did. By early I mean that the stores didn't open until 40 minutes after I arrived. This presented a problem. See, I don't have the LUXURY of a double-stroller at the moment; something I have clearly taken for granted the last six years. (The stroller was a casualty in what we are calling The Despereaux Incident.) So I had Krptonite(1), MonsterTruck(3), Mr.Yuke(4), and a whole bunch of senior citizen mall walkers whom I had to keep from hurting each other for the better part of an hour without anything for the kids to do.

And that's when it hit me. That thing I had been waiting for had finally arrived. For those of you who live in places that have a sales tax, you know what always happens to the change section of your wallet after not too long. It becomes completely filled with pennies. Even if you try to spend them any chance you get, eventually the pennies will make it impossible to close your wallet anymore and you will hope that it is December so that you can give them all to the Salvation Army guy in exchange for three minutes of no-bell-ringing. My wallet has been in such a state for almost a month. Several times I started to empty it into my piggy bank (yes, I have a piggy bank- a real piggy-) but every time something stopped me. Somehow I knew there was something I was going to need those pennies for. And here it was. I could take the kids down to the mall pond by Macy's department store and we could throw in pennies until the store opened for business. Genius! (Yes, I actually had 40 minutes-worth of pennies in my wallet. Ah, the joy of sales tax.)

So we're throwing pennies. The boys are having a great time. They can't believe how fortune has smiled on them and they are getting to throw SO MANY PENNIES for SO LONG into the fountain pond thing. Even Kryptonite(1) who was sitting on my lap was getting into it. She hasn't really mastered throwing yet so most of her pennies ended up on the floor in front of me where the boys would scramble to be the first one to scavenger them. Occasionally hers would bounce into the water though, and this made her extremely happy.

Aim notwithstanding, she had good form. Her windup would have rivaled Paul Byrd. She meant business. On one of her bigger throws, she whipped that penny back all the way to my face, and then- she accidentally hooked my glasses and hurled them with her penny onto the floor. Unfortunately, this was one of those throws that had enough force behind it to bounce into the pond after hitting the tile.

Fortunately, the glasses landed where I could reach them if I got on my hands and knees and pulled up my sleeve and reached really far and hoped that while my face was turned away from her for 1.3 seconds she would not fall into the pond and drown. Remember those mall-walkers I mentioned? Yeah. I got several disapproving looks from them as they passed by, clearly not impressed with the hugely pregnant woman taking money (I WAS NOT!!!) out of the fountain. They tutted and averted their eyes and shot me second glances and crusty looks. I fished my glasses out and thank goodness did not have to catch any children in the process. I smiled at my children and was explaining how we NEVER put our arms into the pond except to reach our glasses and we don't touch the water and get back from the water please stop that right now- when I put on my glasses only to discover-

Remember when I said that my glasses BOUNCED into the pond right after they hit the tile? Well apparently, that collision caused the right lens to pop out, cuz- it just wasn't there. I looked all around the ground near the bench and the offending tile and everywhere within twenty feet. It wasn't anywhere. I KNEW it had to have landed in the water. GREAT.

The lens was completely invisible. I got back on my hands and knees, felt all around and searched with one eye/hand, while the other eye/hand tried to play lifeguard to a by-now extremely curious set of toddler/preschoolers. MonsterTruck(3) of course wanted to be extremely helpful and within 2.1 seconds he was laying on his belly with both arms in the water. That's when he noticed it. "Hey! There's money in here!" Um, yeah?

I palpated the bottom of the fountain every place I could reach for fifteen minutes and then realized I was going to have to resort to more extreme (and embarrassing) measures. I walked over to the Hallmark store and called to the employee through the gate. She looked at me with an insipid expression that seemed to say, "Um, are you like- stupid or something? Cause see that gate thingy? Yeah, that means like- WE'RE CLOSED." I said, "Hi. : ) I know you're not open yet, but could you please call mall security for me? My baby accidentally threw my glasses into the fountain and the lens popped out. I can't find it and I was wondering if they could turn the lights on in there?" She glared at me but she did call the maintenance guys who deal with this sort of thing.

We sat down on the bench again and waited for Mr.FountainPondRepairandMaintenanceMan for ten minutes. When he finally came he looked extremely harrassed, as if he was thinking, "Every day it's the same thing. You come to work and next thing you know you're fishing in the mall pond. If I had a dollar for every right lens I fished out of this stupid fountain, I could quit this glamorous line of work and follow my real dream of becoming a world-class figure skater...." He looked me up and down once, sighed and said, "Where did they fall in?" I pointed out the spot very specifically and then Mr.F. proceeded to use his pool skimmer ("shovel", according to MonsterTruck(3)) to scrape the bottom of the entire pond. Every single inch of it. Except for the 2 foot space I had pointed out. I actually paused to wonder if he was doing it on purpose just to make me wait longer because he was put out about having to leave the clogged toilet situation he was previously dealing with. I pointed out the area for a second, and then a third time but it was sort of like he had a blind spot. It didn't matter how many times I pointed out the area, he was not going to actually scrape the bottom of the pond there where I couldn't reach and my lens most likely was. He sat down on another bench across from me for a moment, heaved a big sigh, and said, "Wellp. There's only one other way." His gaze turned to a scowl as he began removing his work boots and socks and rolling up his pants. Okay, so maybe he wasn't ignoring me on purpose. Maybe he is just really dense.

I felt guilty now because it was obvious that he was very displeased at the turn of events from the looks he kept shooting at me and my children. The boys' eyes grew wide as they watched Mr.F. STEP DOWN INTO THE FOUNTAIN. You could see the wheels turning and I knew that from that moment on, for the rest of the years those boys live with me, I am going to be having to repeat to them each and every time we pass a fountain, "STAY OUT OF THE FOUNTAIN!!!! YES, I KNOW THE MAN DID IT ONCE BUT HE WAS A WORKER AND HE WAS HELPING ME AND YOU MAY NOT GET IN THERE!!!!!". It is going to be a long 16 years. : ) ("I just cleaned this fountain YESTERDAY." Um, sorry? Is my lens dirtying up the water that much?)

Well, Mr.F. walked the entire pond, feeling around with his foot. I cringed when he got to the area that I thought my lens could actually be in because, what was he thinking? That stepping on my lens was a better solution than not having one at all? But I did appreciate that he was actually in the correct vicinity for the first time in half an hour and had some little hope that he would find it.

He didn't. He emerged from the fountain at about the same time that MonsterTruck(3) realized how to remove the money from the fountain so that he could throw it back in. (Hey, at least he was occupied.) Mr.F. had me write down my name and number and said they would call me if they found it. I did so, telling him I was mostly worried because I live WAY OUT in the country and that's a long way to drive without being able to see.

Right about that time Mr.MaintenanceMan#2 came on the scene to join Mr.F. They conferred for a minute and then decided that if the lens was plastic maybe it floated away under the bridge to a different part of the fountain. They decided to try turning the fountain on to see if that would float the lens over to one side. They opened up some panel in the floor and fiddled with a lot of different controls, raising the water pressure in first one place, then another. Mr.F. was by this time CONVINCED that my lens was not actually in the pond at all and that it had somehow just evaporated. Mr.M#2 began scanning the floor around me and Mr.F. took the skimmer thing and scraped the bottom of the pond right in front of me one more time (actually, right there it was the FIRST time). As he did this Mr.M#2, with his hands held out as if he were about to stop a major car accident, shouted, "WAIT!!! I SEE IT!!!" (The mall stores had actually been open for quite some time by this point and his hollering attracted the stares of many unsuspecting shoppers.) Sure enough, right where I had pointed those three times that Mr.F. had either ignored me or did not understand what I was conveying about the pretty water, was my lens. Mr.F.: Well I SURE didn't feel that when I STEPPED there.

(And you thought God doesn't answer prayers. ( : )

Mr.F. handed me my lens and said with not a little malice in his voice, "If you go down to the optical shop we have here in the the mall they can TIGHTEN THAT UP for you." Me: Ha ha! Okay, thanks! REALLY, thank you so much for helping me. : ) He was annoyed enough that a "You're welcome" was quite out of the question. I have some nerve.

So, we gathered up our stuff and headed (FINALLY!) to Gymboree. So much for getting there early. Luckily, they weren't busy and they had just moved everything to clearance the day before when they got their new inventory in so there was tons of good stuff 20 and 40% off. I picked through the racks and racks of clothes and finally had my choices narrowed down to a couple shirts each for the boys and a few outfits for Kryptonite(1). I got up to the checkout counter pleased that I was going to be able to get the things I wanted to get last week, only now instead of paying full price, I would be getting 40% off AND I had that additional 20% off coupon I'd been saving. I pulled the mailer from my bag to tear out the coupon and my face fell. THAT STUPID THING EXPIRED AT THE END OF JULY. I am so glad I drove all the way to THE MALL in the CITY so that I could waste 400 pennies and an hour of my time apparently trying to scoop lunch money out of the fountain, so that I could save an extra 20% off the clearance price JUST TO FIND OUT MY COUPON IS EXPIRED!!!!! I needed a moment. The salesgirl asked me if I had any coupons today and I said, well yes, I thought I did but I JUST discovered it has expired. She smiled at me and said in a professional voice that if I came in on Thursday, everything in the store would be an additional 30% off. My head was about to explode. Um, okay. Can you hold these for me until then? She did and we went home to wait with anticipation (and dread) for our return trip to the mall.

So to save a few pennies, I threw away hundreds more and half a tank of gas and very nearly my glasses, but- you get what you pay for.

I'm expecting great things from these clothes.