My budding astrologer
Chloe has this thing with birthdays. She absolutely loves connecting people with their birth month and everyone else who was ever born in that month. She loves that she shares a birthday with George Washington Carver, inventor of thousands of peanut products. She's researched that Hazel was born in the same month as Abigail Adams. Sammy? Oh yeah, same month as Teddy Roosevelt. But she couldn't find an August birthday for Calvin to connect with.
She pulled out the entire set of Power Tales story books, and started hunting for Calvin's Leo soulmate. She came dancing down half an hour later, jubilant.
"Mama, it's Francis Scott Key!! He was born on August 1!"
I was duly impressed by this fact, and continued loading the dishwasher.
"Mom, can we celebrate his birthday? It should be very important to us."
I agreed, and proposed singing The Star Spangled Banner on the auspicious day. She sighed with happiness, then told me that, "this needs to be our new family tradition for YEARS to come!!"
Now hear this!
So I just spent the last hour reading through my archives. I laughed and I cried as I remembered some of the amazing things that have happened in the past few years. And do you know what else?? I have a dang cute blog! I have things to say, I can occasionally say them well, and it's really quite fun to read. If I can amuse MYSELF for an hour, surely there are people out there who would read a quick story every day or two.
Moral of the story: just because I don't have easy access to pictures doesn't mean I can't blog. Cause I can. And I should. And I will.
My kingdom for 17 cents
I'm not sure if I'm updating this because I have anything to say, or just to shock Stephanie. Actually, I'm sure there's nothing to say, but I'll give it a go, anyhow.
The girls are gone for a sleepover with their cousins, so I had the rare treat of an evening with just the little boys. After the red-letter event of Wii party with dad, we decided to go to Ikea for meatballs and noodles. Always a hit. Actually, Sammy has entered that random phase of toddlerhood where they will go for days and not consume any food at all. I think they live off crumbs on the floor and sippy cups of milk. So Sammy threw meatballs on the floor and squeezed his juice box all over himself, and Calvin and I feasted on Ikea goodness.
I bought storage containers of all shapes and sizes. I just know this is the missing ticket to perfect home organization for ever and evermore. Calvin happily brandished the scanner gun and beeped me through the self checkout. Everything was peachy until I realized my wallet was at home on the counter. Oops.
Fortunately, I had some leftover vacation money in my bag (I never have realio cash on me, so this was a bonus). I sheepishly returned the prettiest and most expensive box, and that brought me tantalizingly close to the total I had in my purse. 17 cents short. I dumped my purse out, praying a spare quarter would jump out at me. It was at that slightly humiliating moment that a girl in the checkstand next to me quietly gave me a dollar. Aren't people sweet?
So I'm home, my boys are tucked in and dreaming, and my brown sugar and lentils have never looked so tidy.
