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Big Stepping Underpants
setting: in our bedroom, in the late afternoon, FF and K came to get me up from a nap. I’d been burning the 4am oil most of the week finishing assorted homework projects.
FF and I were chatting about random things like dinner, groceries, etc while K ran around playing and giggling and bouncing, as she usually does. All of a sudden, she grabbed my hand and pulled it to her leg and said:
“Mom, my big stepping underpants are broken. You have to fix them! here is the switch.” (as she pointed to a spot on her hip)
Apparently that was my cue to take out my imaginary tools and fix her big-stepping underpants. Once I successfully “fixed” them, she proceeded to start big-stepping her way across me on the bed, and then onto the floor and out of the room. It was something like a straight-legged band march, equal parts cute and absurd.
The next trip into the bedroom, I had to fix her underpants again (I was expert by that time) but apparently when she was in the other room, she requisitioned a pair for me too and I had to “put them on and go big-stepping with her”. At that point, I only felt it appropriate to myself magically produce a pair of big stepping underpants for FF and share the love. He grumbled.
But we all big-stepped our way into the living room with great gravity. Nap over.
Catnip for kids
My little bro (henceforth referred to as “Uncle Bubba”) is like catnip for kids. No exaggeration–if he is visiting and there are any little kids around, they magnetically gravitate towards him and start besieging him. They think he is just about the funnest person to play with in the whole world. They climb on him, poke him, chase him, use his air mattress as a trampoline (while he is still trying to sleep), play elaborate pretend games, coerce him into tea parties, get piggy back rides, and much much more.
Not to imply that he is immature by any means, as he is almost 21 and a very responsible person, but (after contemplating the matter for some time) I think the kids groove so well with him because he plays with them on their level, without trying to mold them to adult preconceptions of play. Uncle Bubba never tells them it makes no sense to build an elaborate (yet shakey) slide out of couch cushions, even though it is plainly obvious that cushions + pants = not so much sliding but more like falling down and wrecking. Uncle Bubba is always up for a game of “hunt the monsters with flashlights” even after the thousandth time. Furthermore, he is a Play-Doh artist.
He plays games like ‘hungry hungry hippos’ with preschoolers, which is pretty much my version of torture. I’m rigidly linear and I want them to follow the ‘rules’ and the ‘right way’ of playing. But Uncle Bubba knows it is just good fun to toss marbles all over the place, whether that means using the hippos or not, or making a mess, or whatever. All I can think about is the marbles getting lost.
Anyway, no matter how absurd the game, or how repetitive, or how potentially annoying, Uncle Bubba is always up for giving it a try. He’s never impatient with them, or displays boredom with their games, or tries to put them off. Or agrees to have a tea party in the living room and then strategically faces the TV with food network on in the background (cough like me cough). Thus they swarm to him whenever he is in proximity.
And he cooks darn fine mac ‘n cheese.
DVR Love Affair
I LOVE my DVR. If I could find a way to elope and marry it, I probably would (sorry honey). The addition of DVR into our lives approximately 3.75 years ago was literally and truly a life-changing experience. I’d heard people rave about Tivo and such but little did I know that cable DVR service was going to SAVE MY LIFE.
We had just gotten DVR a couple months before K was born and as with most new shiny toys, I was relatively nonplussed at first. (also not being a parent yet–watching TV when it was actually ON, didn’t seem like such an exotic thing.)
Within a few weeks of K’s birth, the reality of being up all night, and having to try and stay at least minutely alert (so as to not drop/lose/misplace/mangle said infant) was taking its toll. By some serendipitous chance, I caught a rerun of Law & Order SVU late one night, and thought hey–that’s a pretty cool show, I should queue it up on DVR and watch the old episodes. So hubby set it up for me (remember, I had a mewling, half-starved, miniature suckerfish attached to some part of my body for approximately 22 hours out of each day at that point).
Miracle of miracles…hours and hours of glorious entertainment began filling my DVR to meet our every middle-of-the-night whim. It was quite literally the one thing that got us through many a tough night. And the best part? Not falling asleep during commercials!! Holy praise the lord for that fast-forward button! If I had a clip of that sound effect where something is revealed and you get the epic/reverent “aaaahhhhhhh”, that would totally fit here. Nor was this amazing revelation limited to us–bro and sis in law also had the DVR life-saving, middle-night realization too as they were on their own sleep deprivation path with K2. We’ve never looked back since.
So I sometimes don’t get to catch up on these shows until weeks/months after they are on live, but hey, at least I GET to watch TV every now and then, which would be impossible without the joys of DVR.
So in no particular order, here are my regularly DVR-ed, favorite shows: [feel free to mock as necessary!]
- CSI (the one, the only, the original)
- Law & Order SVU (yep still a fan to this day!)
- Medium (FF got me hooked on this one and then later decided it wasn’t his cup of tea, something about mushy girl storylines)
- Ghost Whisperer (I have NO idea why I like this show. But I do, and this is another one FF actually got me started on and then later abandoned)
- Eleventh Hour (1st season newbie here, but I like the main actor dude–he was in A Knight’s Tale)
- Bones (Love David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel–great chemistry)
- Sanctuary (New Sci-fi series, love Amanda Tapping as a British middle-age hottie supernatural superintellectual)
- Ghost Hunters (woohoo!)
- Legend of the Seeker (new series, book adaptation. Satisfies the urge for fantasy, wizards, and witches, oh my)
- Mystery Diagnosis (Discovery health channel series to FREAK PEOPLE OUT OVER WEIRD DISEASES YOU’LL NEVER GET!)
- In the food network corner:
- Ace of Cakes (Duff rulez)
- Dinner Impossible (Robert Irvine, yum)
- Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives (I’ve seen Guy Fieri in person!)
- Iron Chef America (woohoo food network cheeseball show!)
- Good Eats (FF got me obsessed with Alton Brown long ago)
PS: Even a few of K’s favorite shows (ahem, Little Einsteins, Wiggles) get queued up every now and then. I heart my DVR so, so, so much.
New Best Friend
My daughter's new best friend
Meet K’s new best friend: Mum.
I received this plant as a thoughtful appreciation gift at work. After a few days languishing in that dry, sunless, environment, I brought it home to give it a little TLC. The minute K saw it, she freaked out with sheer joy and has been lovingly attached to it ever since. She talks to it. She tickles it. She kisses it. She carries it around. She waters it. I put it on the window sill for a little sunshine one day and she stood there watching it, guarding it. In the evenings, she keeps it safe on her kid-play-table, right next to other critical toys/snacks (her beloved piggy bank, a few scattered pretzel pieces and a couple leftover fruit snacks).
I guess I should get her out more. Or something.
