Q: Why don't I spend 15 minutes a day working on cleaning out my laundry room so I have room to store the stuff that is cluttering my house?

A: Because in the 15 very productive minutes that I spent back there one morning Payton was able to :

• empty the laundry basket I had just taken out onto the living room floor
• take the empty basket to my bedroom to use as a step stool
• open my jewelry box and remove the drawer to bring to the living room
• get a carrot from who knows where (I thought they were all in the outside fridge!)

...and who knows what else that I did not find.

Pretty Boy Payton Turned 2

On his 2nd birthday, Payton walked into nursery on his own, without crying for the first time ever.

He now lets us read to him. His favorite books being:

• If You Give a Cat a Cupcake (he asks for "cupcake, cupcake")
• If You Give a Pig a Party (we enjoy finding all her friends)
• Blue Hat Green Hat
• Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar
• A stupid pirate book that has a "(s)cary bug" that we squish with our thumb and a "peencha c(r)ab" that we immitate by pinching each other with our fingers
• 10 Little Ladybugs (another "bug" book, but they are not scary)

He's not nursing anymore. He completely weaned about 2 weeks before his birthday.

He's settling in to a bedtime routine: teethbrushing, stories, and sleep.

When we bless the dinner he folds his arms, lays his head down on the table, and then after we've all said "amen", he will lift his head up, smile and kindly say "amen" as well. (this, instead of declaring in his loudest voice "A-MEN", or telling us "no pray, no pray"... I'm glad those 2 phases are over, although the first was hard not to laugh at)

He still likes "cook-een" in the kitchen with me. He mostly stays away from the oven though.

He has generalized that anything you plug in is either "loud" or "hot". It cracks me up. I was plugging in the hot glue gun and he said, "oh, loud!" On Super Why he always says "oh, HAUT!" when the pig saws out the letters creating a bunch of dust.

He knows the following shapes: cir-coe, tie-an-goe, oh-boe, ec-tan-goe, and kwair.

His favorite color is "lelloe". If you are familiar with the Sandra Boynton book, Blue Hat, Green Hat, he will read, "lelloe hat, lelloe hat, lelloe hat, oots!" This is precious. I need to get it on video.

The only way I can cut his fingernails is to bribe him by painting them as I go. I try to stick to boy blue, but he really likes the green and purple. Bill absolutely LOVES this.

He really likes to try on clothes when Tasha is. He especially insists on trying on the dresses and spinning. When he does this, Tasha and I say in our sweetest voices, "awe PT, you're so pri-tee!" He then gives us his most petite smile ever.

He can walk pretty well in Kyra's slip on high heals, even with his toes poking through the front and hitting the floor. (this may help, actually)

Bill might get concerned about all this pretty boy stuff, except that he has the following disgusting habits that I would like eliminated:

• He calls most brown things "poop", including the dinner I made last night.
• "too-pid, too-pid, too-pid" is a regular word, along with the phrase, "oh, c(r)ap"
• He likes to pretend to hawk loogies (is that how you spell that?), complete with a hand swipe of the mouth.
• He's fallen asleep more than once with his hand in his diaper. I got a picture, but it is very dark.
• He is VERY good at being a little brother. Ask his sisters. Someday we hope all the bullying will be put to good use and he can fend off undesireable male suiters.

40 is the beginning of everything that matters...

"It's when you start to be respected in the world,

make an impact, and get listened to.

It's when you let go of everything fake

and pursue what's important to you for real.

It's when you realize that

knowing what you know,

you wouldn't go back.

40 is when you deserve to celebrate yourself

and take pride in your strengths without apologizing.

So celebrate you today-

where you are right now-

you deserve it.!"

-Hallmark

"I'm going to be 40..."

This is one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally. Sally is all upset because she's not married and doesn't have kids and her ex boyfriend just got engaged and it wasn't to her...blah, blah, blah. Then she declares:

Sally: "And I'm going to be 40" (sob, sob, sob)
Harry: "When?"
Sally: "...SOME DAY!" (SOB, SOB, SOB)
Harry: "Yeah, like in 8 years."

OK Sally. I've got you beat. I'm going to be 40... SOON! Like in 5 days!

AAAAAHHHHH!!!!

So, I'm making a list of 40 things I'm going to do while I'm 40. I'm up for suggestions, although if they cost too much money I'll be calling you to flip the bill.

Q: What do you say when your vacuum is not working properly?

A: You can't say, "this vacuum sucks", because it doesn't.

Hmm, I really only told you what the answer insn't. I guess this post should only be a "Q". Oh well, maybe you have the answer.

PT is 2 Today

Odd Things

There has been a guy playing the bagpipes at the park every morning this week at 8 am. It's the best music I've ever heard coming through my bedroom window.

All my kids were up at 6:30 this morning. I went back to bed as they snuggled on the couch to watch "(In)credibos" together. The 2 girls weren't feeling well and ended up staying home.

I was trying to make a rocket cake for PT's birthday and was quite disappointed in how it was coming out. As I voiced my opinion and was about to give up, my oldest daughter pipes in with, "M0-om, he's 2. He's just going to see Buzz sitting on top and be happy." When did we switch roles?

I've done more cooking and baking this last week than I did all last month. It concluded with 2 new yummy recipes this evening at 1am (I guess that's actually tomorrow morning).

There's been a fly on this computer screen the whole time I've been typing and it hasn't budged a bit. Not even to move a little leg or flap a wing. Whoops, there he goes... he must know I'm talking about him.

Speaking of him and her, It's odd that we give gender identification to certain things. Yesterday I told a friend that the compost cake we made was looking good. I said, "I think he's done" as we threw on a few more crushed oreos and some sour worms. She giggled and said, "oh, it's a him is it?" Funny how gross things like stinky compost and annoying flies are boys.

I've been reading this person's blog for a while now and I'm pretty sure he's posted about a keyboard he likes more than once. It reminds me of Greg Kinear's character in You've Got Mail and how he has 3 or 4 typewriters at his various places of writing. Even though I want to mock these people in their specific preferences, I have recently become annoyed at our keyboard and (not so secretly anymore) covet this guy's obsession because it lights up and has a cool kind of glow to it. I think I'd be happy if I just didn't confuse the backspace key with the \\\\\ key. That's annoying.

There are 3 movies that keep replaying on our movie channel that I will stop and watch at any time of day: Easy A, Dear John, and Burlesque. Dear John is playing right now.

We have some pillows on our couch that have feathers in them. Sometimes they will poke out the fabic of the pillow and poke at you. When this happens, Bill pulls them out and then searches for more. It annoys the crud out of me, but also makes me laugh because he makes a funny face when he's found one and trying to get a grip on it. Now, of course, I sort of look for those boogies to pull out as well.

The Cardinals won the World Series! Woo Hoo! This isn't the odd thing, we have to go to last night's game for that. (If you don't follow baseball you can skip over the rest of this paragraph.) Last night the Cardinals were down by 2 runs. There was one out, runners on 1st and 2nd, and the guy at bat struck out. The next guy up hit a long fly ball to center field that scored 2 runs and sent them into extra innings. If they had not won last night they would have lost the series. Now, if you've stuck with me this far, here's the odd thing: if that guy had not struck out and given them 2 outs, the runners would have had to stay on their bases in case the ball to center field was caught. But, because there were 2 outs, they started running as soon as it was hit and both scored.

We've been talking about getting a land line again for a long time and finally did it. We haven't given out the phone number though because then we'd have to answer it. So far it's just a bunch of telemarketers, which reminds us of why we got rid of the line in the first place. We mostly use it to call our cell phones to find them. It's quite convenient for that since it's attached to the wall and isn't going anywhere.

That dumb fly is still there and is now inching (or maybe millimetering) his way down the screen to interfere with my ability to see what I'm typing. I guess it's time to go. Goodnight!