It's A System & Only I Have The Decoder Ring

Hubby needed to "get out the door" this morning. Meaning, he needed to leave the house before eight o'clock. He's supposed to be at work by eight o'clock so you can see how the daily leaving the house at 8:15 is becoming a problem.

He is also in charge of getting our four year old, Stinkles, to the daycare.

If he leaves at 7:30, he can drop her off and still skate into the office at 8:10-ish. Which is better than the 8:45-ish he's been meandering in at. Seriously, at a little after eight, at least there are still people at the water cooler sipping on a cuppajoe and discussing last night's Olympics.

Anywho, so I thought he was done getting ready this morning, and I knew Stinkles was still in her nightie. I asked him to go bust a move on her while I finished getting ready.

"I'm still getting myself ready. I was out there [pause] parenting."

He had been trying to explain the difference between a reason and an excuse to our six year old who didn't want to get dressed because the shirt options presented both "made her cold." Which I totally don't get - they were both long sleeved cotton shirts. She wears this kind of stuff everyday and we've never heard the "cold" complaint before. She just didn't like the two shirts that happened to be clean so she was making an excuse not to get dressed.

Continuing his thoughts on "parenting", Hubby proceeded to dig himself a hole.

"You know this subject came up at the last guys night.

I was telling the guys how great it was that you were able to get home in time to babysit the kids so I could meet up with them. Ken (best buddy) pointed out that Barbie says, 'It's babysitting when it's other people's kids. When it's your own kids, it's called parenting.'

Then I said, 'That's woman talk. It's guys night so we're using guy talk. It's babysitting.'"

Why he felt the need to tell me all this, is beyond me.

Honestly, point values guys earn have a shorter half life than Uranium.

When guys earn points (flowers just because, emptying the dishwasher, a back rub, offering to get the kids out of the house, etc), they need to redeem them in short order. Otherwise, they disappear. The points they earn today have expired by tomorrow.

So basically, guys are walking around at ground zero for the better part of the day. It doesn't take much to lose points and dig a hole. And those negative points, they have a shelf life determinable only by the woman assigning the points.

And just so all you guys out there reading this know, there is no definitive point scale. It's all determined by the time of month, how egregious the offending action/statement is, and how many times you've dug the same hole.

He should have just stopped at, "I'm still getting myself ready."

Silver Lining:

1. Hubby regularly earns points by taking the kids out shopping with him and helping out around the house (when asked, of course - he is still a guy).


2. In the future, I think Hubby will live by the code, "What happens at guys night, stays at guys night." Lest he end up in the proverbial dog house over and over again because of testostorinic pride.

Simple Solutions

Nursing your baby is a special bonding time between a mother and child.

You should be able to relax and thank the Lord that your baby is hungry; thus, relieving the sometimes unbelievable pressure that has built up.

However, when your six year old is running around, bouncing off walls, and shrieking just for the fun of it, there is no relaxing.

So, what is a nursing mother to do?

Of course, the answer is simple.

You call your six year old over to you, unfasten the other flap of your nursing bra, and squeeze.

A squirt of breast milk right between the eyes has an amazingly quieting effect on the attitude of your older child.

Silver Lining:

1. I never had to do this because, I didn't nurse for very long and my girls are only two years apart.


2. I can't wait for the Island Luau this summer. I think the nursing moms in the neighborhood may have an unfair advantage in the water gun fight - they don't have to stop to reload.

Snow Wonder

How often do you really see a snowflake?

We've seen pictures of snowflakes. Most of us have made paper snowflakes.

As for the real thing, sure, we see blankets of snow. Fluffy "snowflakes" falling that are really clumps of snowflakes.

When they land on your hand, they melt too fast to really study them.

Or we take them for granted and write them off as, "Great, more white sh*t."

But last night was a rare opportunity. I was walking into Target with Cupie when I happened to look down at my red sweater.

There were bright white flakes that had fallen on me and weren't melting. You could see the hole in the center, the spines with the little offshoots, every detail.

I said, "Cupie, look at the snowflakes on my sweater."

As she stood in front of me, just outside the doors of Target, her eyes grew wider and wider while she studied the snowflakes.

"They're so cool!" she whispered.

That's right kiddo, they're so cool.

Silver Lining:

1. Once kids get to a certain age, the chances of you witnessing the "Firsts" seem to diminish greatly. This was the first time Cupie really saw a real snowflake and I was there to share the moment.


2. I realized I would stand out in the cold again and again if that's what it took to see a "First" of any kind. As for Hubby, I'm sure he'll stand outside in the cold to make sure that some "Firsts" don't happen - first car accident while parallel parking, first kiss, etc.

Wardrobe Malfunction

Have you ever put your underwear on backwards?

Now that's just plain uncomfortable. Although, it could be akin to wearing a thong that's just way to large.

Unless you already wear a thong. Would you even notice?

I'm not a thong wearer so I don't know these things. And trust me, I'm not going out to buy a thong, just to find out if it's uncomfortable when put on backwards. And since I have no thong wearing experience, and I have put up a wall on the possibility of becoming one who wears thongs, I'm not sure I would be a good judge. Either way, correct or backward, a thong is going to be uncomfortable for me.

Speaking of clothing and being uncomfortable, I was at the mall this weekend and saw:

• a man, who had to be at least 70, wearing "skinny" jeans and those black sneakers with the really flat bottoms, a la Jonas Brothers. All he needed was a jacket three sizes too big with his sleeves rolled up a cuff or two and the creep-o-meter would have blown into the ultra-red zone.
  
  Who dressed him, his twelve year old grand daughter?



• a woman with shoulder pads in her suit. Not just shoulder pads, I mean SHOULDER PADS!
  
  Eighties style.
  
  Everything else about her seemed normal, except her head. Without the huge hair (to balance out the SHOULDER PADS), her head looked really tiny - almost shrunken.



• a woman with a belt around her waist.
  
  Her "waist" appeared seven or eight months pregnant.
  
  Having been pregnant myself, I know for a fact that as soon as my belly was large enough for maternity clothes, the belts were relegated to the back of the closet. The last thing I wanted to do was restrict my movement anymore than what that baby was already doing.
  
  I don't care what the fashion of the day is, belts on pregnant women is never going to be part of it. So my guess is that this woman was not pregnant and simply in denial as to where her real waist was.
  
  I'm no fashionista and I'm not skinny, but I know belts do not look good going down around the small of my back and up to the top of my belly just under my boobs.



• a woman in the mall wearing a full length fur coat with a black leather vest over the top of it.
  
  Was it a real fur? Probably not.
  
  I wasn't at the type of mall where women wear such things. What kind of mall would that be? I'm not sure women who wear real fur coats are the mall type at all.
  
  Anywho, I was uncomfortable because I couldn't help staring at her.
  
  It was like a train wreck.
  
  It was like someone wearing a thong swim suit without "landscaping" first. Weird!

Silver Lining:

1. I'm not a thong wearing kind of gal. Otherwise, you might be reading a blog by "Flossy" instead of "Pollyanna".


2. No one busted me for snickering at them. No one except for God of course. Yes, I'm doomed, but sometimes I just can't help being a total catty, snob.