Multiple Choice! **Revised**

Q1: A small child who is vaguely familiar under layers of dirt and mud enters your front door and is missing which of the following:

1. sanity
2. a set of vocal chords
3. her shoes
4. her diaper

Q2: On the bathroom floor today you would find:

1. a half eaten quesadilla
2. lack of toilet paper
3. a suspiciously hidden black marker
4. all of the above

Q3: Today your boss is proud of you because:

1. You finally washed your car
2. You refrained from setting out a whoopee cushion before the CEO sat down
3. Your use of acronyms in the medical field is outstanding
4. You remember your name and how to spell it today

Q4: The smallest child in the household has musical tendencies leaning towards:

1. classical
2. rap
3. "Free credit report dot com" commercials
4. polka

Q5: Which child insisted on singing "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" to the pastor:

1. not mine
2. oh please not mine
3. oh my goodness oh my goodness
4. Nat

Q5: You've purchased several packets of specific flowers seeds to plant in specific parts of the yard. How do they get planted?

1. slight change in the layout plans, but pretty much the same idea
2. when you are taking a much needed nap your children decide to open all(30) packets, mix them together, the spin themselves in circles as they let handfuls of seeds go
3. hubby decides to plant them for you
4. the Fairy-God-Mother-Gardener tills, fertilizes and plants each seed with a kiss and a blessing of life long beautiful flowers

Q6: When changing the baby's diaper she:

1. stays perfectly still
2. tries to poo as soon as you take her diaper off
3. says "no touch" which makes you feel like a pedophile but you were trying to teach her not to touch her poo and pee, but instead she now says it to you
4. both 2+3

Q7: When your father calls on the phone, he identifies himself by:

1. first and last name
2. he doesn't he just starts talking
3. giving his resume
4. tapping his name in Morse code in a pre-coded language that involves reverse polish notation in case the spies are listening in

Q8: On a blessed day without any kids or hubby in the home, you look forward to:

1. peeing with no interruptions
2. eating ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner
3. sleeping in a bed all to yourself
4. ALL.OF.THE.ABOVE

Q9: Lu is most excited to go to the doctor's because:

1. she has a crush on the doctor
2. she gets out of school for a day
3. she LOVES listening to you sing all the way to the doctor's and back
4. she totally digs getting car sick on the way over and getting shots once she gets there

Q10: As you are rushing like an insane, under-slept, over-caffeinated parent, wife, daughter, manager, pupil on any given morning, trying to find pants that aren't too wrinkly, putting breakfast on the table, packing lunches, washing laundry, signing field trip forms, trying desperately to keep the iron away from the baby, you say to the baby who is attacking you and the iron with a stuffed chicken and a stick, "take your chicken and your stick and go bye bye." What does she do next?

1. continue to climb over you to get to the hot iron
2. has her feelings hurt and starts to cry
3. takes her chicken and her stick and walks away
4. takes her chicken and her stick and walks away, grabbing her shoes and waits by the door and says excitedly "we go bye bye?"

Q11: Your new morning beverage of choice is:

1. hot chocolate
2. tea
3. strong coffee
4. cafe-mocha-vodka-valium-latte

****Final Extra Credit Question Posted 1:30am 5/28****

Q12: While there are many reasons to not be blogging around 730-830... tonight's prevailing reason would be:

1. because all the kids are going to magically go to sleep early tonight and you'd better jump at the chance to snuggle into bed early
2. because you should have already called your kids in tonight instead of letting them continue to play with the neighborhood kids outside
3. because you should be spending quality time reading to your children to strengthen their vocabulary and discernment
4. because Nat will inevitably go flying over the handlebars of the bike and land on her face. You'll need to stop the bleeding, scrape the gravel out of her cheek and nose and inside her lip, get to the ER stat so she can get a cat scan to make sure her nose, forehead and cheekbones are still all attached where they should be.

Old Friends and New Neighbors

When I was little, my life was marked in increments of Christmas break and summer vacation. As I got a little older it seemed that actually high school was going to be my divine destination (though also marked by Christmas break and summer vacation.) Once in high school, it wasn't nearly as glamorous or COOL as I thought it would be. Bummer. Then... there on the horizon was college. OK that didn't really turn out like I thought it would either.

So here I am many seasons later. How have my perceptions changed? What were those things that I kept looking forward to as a child? What have I learned? What have I not learned and kept repeating over and over again? All those answers are far beyond what my brain can hold or justify.

So here's one of the coolest things ever: When I was in kindergarten there was a little boy in my class and he was so nice. We were good pals. We grew up through kindergarten, grade school and middle school together. Come high school, I went this way and he went that way, never crossing paths for many years. I think he ended up at another school. I saw him once after my first semester at college... eating at Denny's of all places.

Did you ever have those people whose simple friendships, no matter how long ago, and looking back you've just lost touch? Where did they go? Where are they now? Do they remember you? How have their lives turned out?

A few weeks ago I'm driving up the road to our neighborhood and notice the first house on the block which just sold (and that Hubby and I were looking at prior to the purchase of this house) and see a cute little family piling out of the car. How sweet I think. They are going to fit right in: families and little kids we just can't get enough of! The guy turns around as he's swinging a baby on to his hip and gives a little wave. How nice. As I'm pulling down my driveway I suddenly realize that I knew that face. It's been about 10 years since Denny's, but the smile and the eyes are the same as kindergarten!

I didn't want to totally creep him out or his wife by galloping up to the front door and hooting and hollering and doing a little happy dance. So the bebes and I cooked up a batch of 7 layer cookies with a "welcome to the neighborhood" note and signed our names... and a little happy face. How COOL is this!?!?!

All those times when I was little and thought ahead in life... I never once imagined that a good friend of mine would move in 5 houses down from me (in a 15 house neighborhood) and we would raise our little kids in backyards that are open to each other (remember the post about Bitty escaping through the backyards...yep it was his that she ended up in...) WOW. I could have never dreamed something this fun! It wasn't even in my realm of possibilities! You mean those fun little kids I grew up with, are all grown up like me now? This is soooo neat.

Nat and Lu prance around our backyard and his too. They pull weeds and stack wood, pick flowers and find butterflies. He came over tonight with his baby son, and had a proposition for Nat. She had previously offered to pull weeds for him too, but seeing as she's ALL COVERED in poison oak--maybe that's not her calling. BUT he and his family are going to be away this weekend and he would love to hire Nat to feed his cats for 3 days. She'd get paid, get a key and everything! Holy smokes!!! She was beaming! She went over and did a practice round tonight. Ooohhh my goodness. This is so much cuter than I ever could have imagined!

Parental Experiment

Let us pretend for a moment or two that I simply sat back and let my little lovely kids do whatever they really wanted to do (for the most part) and I snapped pictures. For example here we have a delightful real life art piece inscribed on my very own kitchen cupboard (in a bold use of black sharpie), and following the little hand I suspect to be the culprit....hmmmmm

Here is Bitty (I believe on the dining table- you'll see that this is a favorite hang out for this 1-1/2 year old.) The 2nd pic her little lips are trying to explain to me WHY she is on

the dining table and playing with a glass full of water:

When mom shuts her mouth and doesn't nag, a video (Hannah Montana) is immediately put on. Bitty then ventures up Nat's bed...

Bitty displays a fantastic skill of leaning just far enough over the edge to give me a heart attack, but not far enough to fall off (yet)


And indeed, despite the poor jumping room, she will simply make due and just jump anyways... all the way up there on the top of the bunk bed


Here you'd almost think that this precious little face was sincere and genuine. You'd be wrong.

Dinner time and mom's not saying a word. Lu feeds Bitty. Bitty feeds Lu. Bitty feeds Nat

Dinner was not nearly as destructive as I thought it would be. My kids like food. That is good. Bitty still thinks that her place during all this is to be ON the dining table. I don't think I have any chance of breaking her of that habit- as I submit and just sit back and take pictures

Here is Bitty's game of poker or something. Note the smirk in pic#1, the poker face in pic #2, oh and the joy of stacking the poker chips in the pic#3

Then there'd be Lu. She tries for a sweet pic, but can't hold that too long. She's then sporting fishie kissie lips and then "swimming" with her fishie kissie lips... but where oh where has Bitty gone? She's not in the picture. Bitty.... Bitty!..... Bitty?.....

Bitty: In the bathroom applying deodorant. What a blessing that she already concerned about personal hygiene

What's that Bitty?

You need to go pee?

Let's go!


<-- LOVE the look on her face right here. "Mom! Help me! How do I do this again?"

She is so proud of herself. Then I couldn't help it so I started singing the "Pee pee in the Potty" song and she's dancing. And yes she really does dance. All of a sudden tho she's terribly concerned that we've left the poop out of the song =( She'd like to sing about the poop too. Fabulous..... and then...easily distractable but also showing off her multi-tasking skills: she applies deodorant to BOTH little armpits WHILE sitting on the potty. Go Bitty! Go Bitty!


No potty experience is every complete without a little hand washing right? She is on a mission to get to that soap ...sans diaper. Well heck, and while she's all the way up there and she's really already IN the sink, she decides to wash her feet too...

Good night dear friends. May your tushies be just as cute as Bitty's.