Happy....Birthday.....Dear!

Yesterday we celebrated Scott's birthday -- in 15 minute increments. 

Tuesdays are the craziest day of the week here, and I accepted a lacrosse game back in February without even realizing it was his birthday (serious wife demerits for me, right?) which just added to the chaos.  Ben enjoyed a trip to the Please Touch Museum with Grandad in the afternoon, I had to get a sitter in the afternoon for about 2 hours since Scott had an afternoon meeting scheduled, and Abby had Religious Ed scheduled for the evening.  

After I got home from the game and made a delicious birthday dinner (no whole fish requests this year, thankfully), I told Abby that last night was the one night of the year I was going to let her skip Religious Ed so we could celebrate Dad's birthday.  The tears started immediately.  And, they weren't tears of joy.  What??!!  I thought she would be practically turning cartwheels, based on the level of resistance I get some weeks about attendance.  Then, she ran to her bag, pulled something out of the bottom of it (since it wasn't in her folder where I look for notes).  It was a hand-made invitation for a special class where parents were invited to make and break bread.  So....after scarfing down a 15-minute super fancy family dinner, Abby and I were off to class and poor Scott had to wait an extra few hours for homemade German chocolate cake.  At least this year I did not serve rancid fish.

Interesting note, did you know that German chocolate cake is not the legacy of German immigrants or German culture? Rather, it is the creation of a man with the last name of German who invented sweet German cooking chocolate. I learned this little nugget from Joy of Cooking yesterday afternoon.

Birthdays here are all about the cake.

On the Treadmill (mostly)

It's that time of year when the gym is super crowded with people exercising trying to keep their New Year's Resolution to eat right and get some exercise.  I know some folks get annoyed with all the extra bodies, but I think it's kind of nice to see everyone trying so hard to take care of themselves.  Keep it up People!! 

With all my positive encouragement in mind, if all you good exercisers wouldn't mind, though, could you please save me a different treadmill next time at the gym?  I don't usually run to music because I don't like all the cords (I do like the music). If' I'm inside and on the treadmill, I usually try to either space out or watch the highlights on ESPN Sports Center.  I thought today would be a good day for football highlights with all the NFL Playoff games over the weekend.

Unfortunately, there was only one treadmill left, the one with a column in front of it-- so no Plays of the Week for me. Bummer.  The column had a nice sign posted saying that it was a No Cell Phone Zone.  But, the sign only had one line of text, so it couldn't really hold my interest for the whole run. 

I thought I'd try to peer around the column, but the only thing to look at was the abductor machine.  In case you're not familiar with that particular piece of apparatus, it is a machine that people use to tone their inner thighs by opening and closing their legs with weights.  So, I can't really stare at people using that machine or I would end up some kind of watch list. 

As part of the peer-around-the-column attempt, I learned that I can't run in one direction and have my head turned slightly in another.  Also, it's good there is a 'STOP' button on treadmills.  And, it's good that people are mostly watching TV or listening to music while they are running, so they tend not to notice what's going on around them.  I'll just leave it at that.

So, where am I going with this story?  I don't really know.  1) I'm successfully procrastinating doing my work and/or any useful housekeeping activities right now.  2) I've learned that I will just have to focus on running the way I'm looking in the future.  Not to be too philosophical, but this is a good metaphor for life too. Pick good paths, and really focus on where you are going.

Knock, Knock

Ben has re-discovered the joy of telling knock knock jokes, and is now forcing me to participate in a seemingly endless array knock knock jokes each and every time we get into the car. Unfortunately, Ben has not yet found a sense of humor, so this knock knock phase is getting a little painful.  Here's just a little sample of the drive to the gym today:

Ben:  "Knock Knock"
Mom:  "Who's there?"
Ben: "Tree"
Mom:  "Tree who?"
Ben (laughing hilariously):  "Tree Flower!"
Mom:  "Ben, that's not funny."

Ben: "Knock Knock"
Mom (sighing deeply): "Who's there?"
Ben: "Door"
Mom: "Door who?"
Ben (laughing more hilariously): "Door window!"
Mom: "Seriously, Ben, that's not funny."

Ben: "Knock Knock"
Mom (weeping on the inside): "Who's there?"
Ben: "Insert random noun"
Mom: "Random noun who?"
Ben (hysterical belly laugh): "Random noun, Random noun!"
Mom: "Ben, can I tell you an actual joke now?"

Mom:  "Knock, Knock"
Ben:  "Who's there?"
Mom:  "Who."
Ben:  "Who Who"
Mom:  "Hey, there's an owl in here now."
Ben (side-splitting laughter):  "Mom, that's a FUNNY joke."
(Ben then tells another 20 or so of his version of the knock knock joke)

Please pray that this phase ends before our 3 hour drive to the beach....

Heard at the house today:
Caroline:  "Mom, can you get me a paper towel, I made some milk drips."
Mom:  "Just use a cloth towel, dear."
Caroline (ecstatically):  "Oh, wait!  Here's a paper towel right here on the floor!  Oh boy!  This is going to be a GREAT DAY!"  (This was the happiest I've heard Caroline in two days?!  I guess I should not pick up paper products off the floor more often???)

I seriously do not get what makes these kids tick sometimes...

Definition - Irony

Irony (ˈī-rə-nē), noun, ironies; a) the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning; b) a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by ironic expression or utterance; c) incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.  Example:  Young child (aka Ben) running into mother's room in order to tell the mom that other older child (aka Caroline) called him a tattletale.

Old Lady

I had been feeling pretty good about my birthday this week until I got my AARP membership card in the mail this afternoon....

No, I'm not kidding.

Weirdest Afternoon of Exercise Ever

Yesterday afternoon I was was coerced into trying a new exercise class at the gym (called 'Drums Alive!') as part of a kickoff event at the local gym for a cancer awareness program. The kickoff event featured four 25-minute classes on a rotation. While the other classes in the rotation were pretty typical (e.g., cycling, body pump), the drumming was definitely way way outside my comfort zone.

Try to imagine what it would look like to have 30 full grown adults hitting large rubber exercise balls with wooden drumsticks while doing aerobic movements -- in a small room.  Now, superimpose some heavy drum music and an overly enthusiastic instructor and it make for a really...um...interesting experience.  Keep in mind we're all in our workout clothes, so I was doing this in spandex pants.  Have you ever seen the Saturday Night Live skit with Will Farrell hitting the cowbell?  THAT was the instructor with the drumsticks over her head.  MORE DRUMSTICKS!!  It was completely surreal.  I really can't put how bizarre it was into words.  I'm typing this about 20 hours after the class ended and I'm still shaking my head. 

I have to draw the line at a group of people doing jumping jacks with drumsticks.  Does that seem like a good idea to you??  Fortunately no one got impaled.  Although one of the other paricipants sassily noted, "This class would be a lot better if we were allowed to run people through with the drumsticks. Now that would be a class." 

A couple of people really, really got into it though.  I was happy for them and also for the instructor, or otherwise I would have felt bad for her.  I honestly attended with an open mind but the unsatisfactory fwap-fwap noises on the rubber ball were very undrum-like. 

Maybe another time I'll describe the hip-hop dancing warm-up that preceeded the drumming...

Clean House

Ben completely cracked me up today.  We had been reading books in his room for a while after lunch.  I was hoping that he would start getting sleepy and take a nap.  Unfortuantely, I was the one only getting sleepy.  So, I thought maybe if I sat with my eyes shut for a few minutes, Ben would shut his eyes too and we could nap together on the rocking chair.

Instead Ben blurted out in his best Niecy Nash impression, "Mom, take off your blindfold and open your eyes!"   I laughed out loud.  (Then we repeated the joke 17 more times.)

Of course, this is only funny if you watch the show Clean House on Style channel.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that our Friday evening family tradition is to sit down as a family and watch a pre-recorded episode of Clean House.  On this show, they take a family with a hopelessly cluttered home, sell most of the junk at a yard sale, and then use the yard sale proceeds to fix up the house.  Along the way, the designer gifts some furniture, the host has a little therapy session with the home occupants, and there is some campy humor by the Go-To Guy Carpenter and Yard Sale Diva. 

I don't know why but all three kids love watching this show with us.  I didn't realize that Ben was actually paying attention until his comment today.  (I have been secretly hoping that watching the cleaning show on TV will motivate the kids to clean up their toys.  No luck with that yet.)

**Please note that the photo of Niecy Nash was copied from the mystyle.com website's bio page for the show.