The Agony of Defeat

Sadly, Notre Dame lost in the final seconds of the game. It was a wrenching game, because the clock ran out on one of the plays, which gave us the win. Then the officials ruled that the ball had gone out of bounds and the clock needed to be reset at 7 seconds. The Trojans then won. Emotionally, that was a hard game to watch. But que sera. They played well.

I went back to my current story, which had been plodding along. I dreamed the other night that I needed to go back and add an extra chapter. Sure enough, once I inserted a new chapter, bam! Five pages. I knew there was something wrong. Love it when you not only fix the problem but gain extra pages in the process. Yay! I’m up to page 55 now.

In other news, my son *finally* got the courage to put on his Yoda mask. He had been absolutely terrified of the thing, but once he figured out how to see through the eye holes, he was thrilled to see himself. I’ll have to take a picture of him in his costume at some point soon. His sister kept giggling and trying to tackle him.

Tonight, in theory, my husband is taking me out to dinner to celebrate in advance of my birthday tomorrow. We’re going out to Japan Samarai, a Hibachi grill style restaurant. I love those. They make a big show of tossing the food in the air and providing entertainment while they cook. And the food is phenomenal. I love, love, LOVE it. The reason why I say “in theory” is because the babysitter we scheduled has not gotten back to me on the time of arrival. I *think* she’s coming, but she hasn’t called back yet to confirm. Hope she will. A date night when you have two small children is the Holy Grail.

Anyway, tomorrow is my birthday and I can say in all honesty that I only want one present: a book contract.

Go Irish!

Clearly, I need to find a leprechaun smilie. Must look for that. Anyhoo, the Fighting Irish are playing USC today at 2:30 EST. Here’s hoping they stomp the Trojans into the ground. Yes, I am a football fan.

In other news, I bought some foam pumpkins to carve. I have never attempted this before, and I’m somewhat intimidated of messing it up. Anyone have tips on how to carve template designs?

Gizoogle me

So there’s a blog game going around. You type in your name and the word “needs.” Example: Michelle needs.
You type it into google and see what comes up, just for fun.

Being the rebel that I am, I decided to take a twist on the game. I gizoogled myself. Gizoogle is the ebonics version of google. It’s a scream. You go to www.gizoogle.com and then type your key words. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Michelle needs Free 40 Gig IPod To Store Yo’ Snoop Tunez
(Gosh, I wasn’t aware I was such a Snoop Doggy Dog fan)

2. Michelle needs Gangsta’ Email Greeting Cards
(Can’t you just picture this one? Shoebox greetings will never be the same)

3. Michelle Needs Yo Hizzy
(um, what in the WORLD is a hizzy? Better question–do I really want one?)

4. Michelle needs Ai Research - Creat’n A New Fizzy Of Life
(Sounds like a new form of birth control. Kind of scary)

And here’s my favorite, from ESPN:

5. “What Michelle needs ta do is win,” Bivens says . Bounce wit me.”

Yes, winning is always good. But, let’s rephrase. What Michelle needs is a book contract. Fo shizzle.

Halloween Costumes

My eldest is now getting excited about Halloween. Okay, he was excited at the beginning of September, but now he’s REALLY excited. He wants to be Yoda from Star Wars. :starwars: We ordered a costume and when it arrived at Grandma’s house, we went to visit and she hemmed it for him.

When he first saw the mask, he shrieked and backed into the wall. I don’t know what he was expecting, but he freaked out. When we tried to let him wear it, he started yelling, “No no no no!”

He does love the Jedi robe and pants, so he’ll basically be a young Paduan learner for Halloween. No mask. Although I personally thought it would have been a great costume, seeing as my son is only three feet tall. Last year we gave him a glow stick and he pretended it was a light saber. He adored it and went to sleep with it.

My daughter is another matter. I have no clue how to dress her. She’s not really old enough to go trick-or-treating, though I’ll probably put her in the stroller just for kicks. Maybe drop her back off at the house and let her help Dad hand out candy. My husband swears he’s going to turn off all the lights once we leave and pretend no one’s home. Hey, more candy for him…

What are your kids going to dress as?

The Dinner Habits of Toddlers

I know I’ve blogged about this topic before, but I swear, at every meal I’m convinced my children are from another planet. What is UP with their bizarre mealtime habits? When my son was an infant, he ate anything. He would accept any meal in large quantities. Now, he eats less than my 17-month old. Last night I made fajitas, and he whined the entire time I was cooking. “I don’t want that! I don’t like fajitas. I want peanut butter and jelly.”

My response was, of course, “You’ll get what I cook and like it.”

My daughter was peeved that dinner was served later than 5:00 p.m. She wanted food, and she wanted it NOW, darn it. I believe she was sitting on the kitchen floor with her arms wrapped around my knees, whacking her head against the kitchen cabinets while screaming, “Eat, eat!”

My response was, “Don’t give yourself a concussion, darling.”

When all was said and done, my daughter inhaled the food and dumped a glass of milk all over herself. She was surprised that gravity actually DOES apply to her. :confused2: She cried, her dress was changed, and then all was right with the universe.

My son, after complaining for half an hour that he didn’t like fajitas, said, “Oooh, chicken! I like this.” He ignored the tortillas, called the green peppers and onions “sticks and worms” and ate approximately one chicken piece. I think it may be time to break out the children’s vitamins. Yikes.

In other news, I made a little bit of forward progress on the new book. I realized that the book had no middle and this could be a problem (you think?) and spent a bit of time brainstorming secondary plots. I have some ideas but as always, I have to write it all the wrong ways first until I figure out the right way. Only 2 pages of progress, but I tend to write in spurts. When a scene is cooking, I can often get much more, but you never know. My hero was whining (which reminded me of my son) and I had to give him the slapdown.

Today the goal is to finalize one of the secondary threads and get a few more pages.

Out of the mouths of babes

My daughter has a new habit. She’s learned to crawl on top of tables. Whenever I’m avoiding housework by blogging, writing, or checking e-mail, she’ll crawl onto a side chair and then seat herself in the middle of the desk. I usually notice her when she grabs a handful of notecards and flings them into the air. Today she found a pair of earrings on my desk and proceeded to try and eat them. Ever tried to pry an unfortunate object from the mouth of a defiant toddler?

Her: What are you thinking? That’s my earring. I intend to eat it!

Note to self. Do not procreate for another five years. And speaking of which, my new Dot Moms column is up. Go leave a comment if you like!

Grandmas Love Us Best

My two children passed out in the car on the way home from Grandma’s. I spent the weekend at my mom’s, and some of my favorite moments included not changing diapers for 48 hours (woo hoo!) and not cooking. Ahhh…a true vacation.

But the children are now sleeping. I think all the excitement just wore them out. :starwars: But they had a fabulous time and my husband and I abandoned them on Saturday to drive around and drool at houses we can’t afford. Seems like a sick sort of pasttime, doesn’t it? But it’s fun to imagine driving up a winding driveway to the top of a hill where a mansion overlooks a forest. Someday I’ll have that. (Okay, I may have to win the lottery or rob a bank, but I digress.)

Tonight I decided I’m ready to move on to my next book. It’s wonderful to imagine the possibilities and see where the blank pages take you. I’ve already finished the first three chapters of this one, but I think it’s a great candidate for a second book (Yes, still dreaming. Send good vibes to England, please). It has a hunky hero, lots of gripping angst, and a heroine who is a master healer. I love reading about homeopathic medicines and I do think there are some herbs that work exceptionally well. Case in point–when I was nursing my daughter, every once in a while, I’d drink an herbal tea called “Mother’s Milk” that had all sorts of good roots, vines, and whatever. (Yes, I use medical terminology). :loser: Anyway, I would drink a few cups of this stuff any time my daughter hit a growth spurt and lemme tell you, the stuff worked. I was mooing after a time, but it did the trick.

This is not to say I’d advocate making my own medicines from the purple cone flowers I have growing in my backyard, but I think a lot of the professionally-prepared medicines do work. And you? What are your thoughts on herbal medicine?

And the winners are…

Brian and Danica are the winners of the Animal Caption contest! Email me your address and I’ll send you a list of books to choose from. Congratulations!

My kids are currently in heaven at the moment. I’m visiting my mom and they are in Grandparent Utopia. My husband and I plan to run away and leave them for the day (at least, that’s what we’re telling them…bwahahahaaaa…). It’s strongly tempting to go catch a flight to, I dunno, Indonesia or some tropical place. :crazyjumping:

Last night I was grading papers, an act which can often put me in a foul mood. While I love twelve-year-olds, they have selective hearing. As soon as I passed out this quiz, I told them to put their full name, date, and class period on the paper. About half of them didn’t put anything more than their name. The others put their first name only. I deduct five points for this because I get sick and tired of looking up which class period “Bob” is in. Maybe I’m neurotic. But I want to screech and tear my hair out and yell, “What are you thinking? I just told you to put your name, date and period! Gaaahhh! Five points off!” And remember that scene in “A Christmas Story” where the teacher is glowing and saying, “You get an A plus, plus, plus, plus!”

Yeah, I’m the teacher who wants to yell, “You get an F minus, minus, minus!!”

I also had a nasty gram from a parent who chewed me out for assigning her daughter homework detention, claiming that I didn’t give her daughter any of the make-up work, yadda yadda. Um, her daughter was absent September 8-12. The work I was referring to was from YESTERDAY and the previous two assignments. Sheesh. Quit shooting the messenger, people.

Perhaps I need a career change. Like…I dunno…maybe bestselling author? Yeah, that has a nice ring to it.

Animal Captions Redux

Just for fun, let’s do some more animal captions! Winners get a free book of your choice. You don’t have to do all three, but feel free to give it your best shot. Write a one-sentence caption to go with one or more of the following. Please list the picture # in your entry.
Example: Picture #2: “Oh, man, I really gotta pee.”

Picture #1

Picture #2

Picture #3

Pass the Silver Bucket

Okay, you can pass the silver bucket now (for those of you who don’t know, once you start the waiting game again, you chain yourself to a bucket because it’s so nerve-wracking you want to hurl). I e-mailed the book to England. Normally I kiss my submissions goodbye before I send them off, but I was slightly afraid of electrocuting myself. Don’t worry, I blew it a kiss instead. Now everyone has to send good karma thoughts across the water.

Last night was one of those nights when I wanted to resign motherhood. Those of you without children, this is one of those times when you can be thankful. Let’s just say that it involved cloth training pants (because my daughter’s diaper rash looked UGLY), digestive issues, and a huge wonkin’ bottle of Spot Shot. I actually did something I’ve never done before. I hauled her Royal Stinkiness into the bathroom and hosed her down under the bathtub faucet. She howled. For the record, she deserved it after destroying her room. I believe my words were akin to @#$% gross! $@#$% yuck! @#$@#% NASTY! I did not rinse off the training pants and later throw them in the laundry. I tossed them in the trash because honey, it AIN’T worth it. Ick! It was tempting to set them on fire to disinfect, but I decided that might be a bit drastic.

She, of course, stared at me with confusion. I could read her thoughts. “But Mommy, isn’t this your lot in life?”

Not if I can help it.

This is the downside of toilet training. It’s messy business and it takes time and patience. It’s very hard to have patience when you’re sitting next to the carpet with a can of Spot Shot and a roll of paper towels. THIS is the part they don’t tell you about when you’re cuddling that wrinkly widdle fuzzy baby with the big eyes and the soft curving smile that melts your heart into a thousand pieces. If they weren’t cute, I swear, they wouldn’t be alive.

However, if anyone is interested in a seventeen-month-old baby girl up for auction on Ebay, I’ll sell her to you. Best offer? Buy it now?