I had a Bill Pullman moment today

at 03/13/10 5:59PM
You know in While You Were Sleeping when Jack (Bill Pullman) and Lucy (Sandra Bullock) were trying to get the couch into Peter's apartment and it got wedged? Jack says he'll try the old mover's trick of "push it really hard.' Lucy says "Ok, push" and you hear his voice say "I did". Today at the gym Scott, in his typical first-born know-it-all bossiness (can you tell I'm a middle child?) forced me to try bench pressing 5 pounds more than I was planning. He asked me if I was ready to to lift the bar off the rack. I told him I had already tried - it just hadn't gone anywhere! After I got over the giggles, he helped me get it up and I slooooooooowly worked my way through 3 sets of 5. I bet I'm going to want to smack him tomorrow, but I probably won't be able to move my arms fast enough to do it. :)

(Side note: Scott has me sit way down on the bench so the bar is actually beyond my head when it's racked. That way, if you ever mis-rack it like that poor football player did last year, you might get lucky enough that the bar will fall on the bench instead of your head/throat. It makes it kind of awkward to lift when you're at your higher weights, so he helps me get it off and on again. That's why I can bench press a weight that I can't easily lift a couple inches.)

And now for a story from each kid...
(I don't know what they will be yet. It will probably take me an hour to finish typing this.)

Patrick is turning into quite the little PR/spin person. He's started telling us at bedtime that his bed is "already open" on days where he didn't make it.

At the gym they recently posted new rules and I noticed that one required girls to wear shorts under their skirts. I mentioned this to Scott since it seems a little weird for the daytime crowd that is all preschool age (except for us wacky homeschoolers). Shortly afterwards, Scott took the kids to the gym with him. When he got there he realized Samantha was wearing a skirt and he hadn't thought to have her put shorts on. He checked to see if she happened to be wearing shorts and found out she wasn't even wearing underpants. So now we're wondering if we're the reason they came up with that rule...

I keep the snacks in the top corner of the pantry, partly because it is less accessible to any grubby little mitts trying to help themselves to snacks. Recently Jack discovered that I keep extra unopened groceries in the bottom corner of the pantry. He frequently comes waddling over to me carrying a box of goodies (once, a box of baking soda). I have to admit, it usually works.

There, I thought of something to say. Maybe now the pizza has cooled off enough I can enjoy a slice. (I know - I don't like hot pizza - I'm weird...)

A few cards short of a full deck...

at 03/05/10 5:15PM *
Don't you hate it when you're being all industrious and then you realize you've been wasting your time cleaning something the hard way when you could have saved a ton of time doing it another way? The other day I was trying to scrape a bent hanger inside my steam cleaner to remove all the hairy gunk that builds up inside (yes, I vacuum first, but it doesn't get it all). Then I remembered that all you have to do is remove 3 screws and you can take off the top and clean everything out in about 5 seconds. Today I was attacking our slow-draining bathroom sink. I was alternating between sticking a hanger down the drain (yes, I ruin a lot of hangers) and letting Patrick pour baking soda and vinegar down the drain to loosen things up. Then I remembered that I know how to remove the plunger and the trap and clean it out that way. Sooooo much easier! Too bad I hadn't saved all the time from my earlier efforts and put it toward laundry or some other needed task. Oh well, anything that involves baking soda and vinegar isn't a total waste of time.

After I finished cleaning the sink, I grabbed the bucket of grime and dumped it down the toilet without thinking. Then I started wondering if it was maybe not too smart to take all the stuff clogging up one pipe and dump it down another... I flushed a few more times for good measure. So far, so good. As long as it makes it to the city pipes before clogging anything, right? :)

Ugh - I do hate cleaning out drains, though. I know it shouldn't be nearly as gross as dirty diapers, but those black gooey messes rank right up there with moldy food in the fridge. So glad I don't have to do plumbing for a living.

That reminds me, I'm having the hardest time getting pants to fit Samantha. They're tight enough around the middle that she can't usually fasten them herself (it's even hard for me sometimes), but when she squats down it's not just a crack - it's the Grand Canyon. I need to put her on a diet to help her get some extra padding down there. I'm thinking a dozen doughnuts a day. Well, maybe 9 for her, and 1 each for me and the boys...

The other day we had misplaced the comb the kids normally use. I told Patrick the regular comb was missing so he would need to use something else to comb his hair. I meant one of the other combs in the bathroom that are smaller or even (gasp of horror) pink. He said, "You mean like a fork?" I'd like to blame his teacher for not educating him very well, but that doesn't make me feel any better. :)

Jack got his first haircut today. Didn't make as drastic a difference as it did with Patrick (he had long, curly hair by 15 months and was being called a girl by strangers), but it did get rid of the combover look. I now know that those cute photos of kids hanging on to parent's legs aren't because someone thought that would be a cute pose, but because the kid was so clingy that they wouldn't let go of mommy long enough to pose for a picture.

I should stop rambling and go fix dinner. We're hoping to hear Don Truex speak on marriage/family some more at N Beach tonight. Samantha didn't have a nap today, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully we'll get the back pew again tonight. :)
  • beckyd
    Amy, you are hilarious!

    "not just a crack- it's the Grand Canyon"
    "You mean like a fork?"

    I'll take a dirty diaper any day over drains. Our bathroom sink was clogged a couple of weeks ago and it made the whole bathroom REEK! When Kyle detached the pea-trap he found a mega gob of long hair in it....I tried to blame him but, well, it just didn't work.
    by beckyd at 03/06/10 8:42AM
  • matthew_and_brooke
    Drains are definitely Matthew's department. Wish I could make moldy food his too, but, unless you count the compost, it's my turf. The compost, while I support the idea, I find the practice rather repugnant. So I provided the container (ice cream bucket--but we had to eat the ice cream first, what a shame), and he does the rest.
    by matthew_and_brooke at 03/06/10 11:03PM
  • sheshe
    Really classic stuff!! Gave me a smile!!
    by sheshe at 03/09/10 2:01PM

Walk much?

at 01/28/10 11:23AM *
The other night Scott went to bed before me while I showered. I headed for bed through the darkish house (as dark as our house gets with night lights left on to help kids find their way to us) and stopped short of our bedroom doorway in amazement. I couldn't see a thing. Usually there's a low wattage light on in the bathroom to give us a little light at night. I see better at night than Scott, so I couldn't fathom why he would want the room so dark. I was kind of grumpy about it. (I've been having shin splint problems that have now led to a knee problem, so poor Scott has to put up with grumpy me being discouraged at doing nothing but the boring old elliptical and still having significant pain every day.)

I decided to walk in the bedroom and turn on the bathroom light so everything was the way it was supposed to be - and I walked right into the closed door. It never occurred to me that the reason I couldn't see the bathroom light, our clocks, the 5 gazillion lights on the various computer equipment, or the nearly-full moonlight shining through the window was because I was staring at a closed door instead of my bedroom. So much for thinking I see well in the dark. Serves me right for being grumpy. :)

(Scott slept through the whole thing somehow - I really banged into the door hard so I don't know how he managed that.)
  • aikenape
    Sorry, Amy, but I can't help but laugh! Hope you're ok though. HAHAHAHA!
    by aikenape at 01/28/10 11:29AM
  • txwhittlec
    oh no! that is terrible! poor amy!
    by txwhittlec at 01/28/10 11:38AM
  • polaramy
    Thanks, April. :P It was my "bad" leg, but it doesn't seem any worse for the wear. Yet another incident in my ego taking a worse beating than my body. ;)
    by polaramy at 01/28/10 12:44PM
  • lyndie
    You know... every time I read your blog, I have the same thought... sounds like something I would do. I really feel for you. Maybe you need glow-in-the-dark stars on your door. :P
    by lyndie at 01/28/10 1:46PM
  • littlebit
    Ouch! Sounds like something I would do!
    by littlebit at 01/28/10 3:00PM
  • matthew_and_brooke
    Sounds like something I *did* do.
    by matthew_and_brooke at 01/28/10 4:37PM
  • sharon
    I walked to our room the other night and smashed right into the door because for some reason it was shut. J never got up.
    by sharon at 01/28/10 5:00PM
  • beckyd
    Uh oh! Do know that I hope you're ok (ego and all!) but this did make me chuckle. :)
    by beckyd at 01/28/10 5:03PM
  • txmom
    Bless your heart! Sounds like something I would do!! :)
    by txmom at 01/29/10 8:37AM
  • markroberts
    this may affect your application the Ninja Assassins Force...
    by markroberts at 01/29/10 9:18AM
  • laughing_eyes
    Poor thing! :(
    by laughing_eyes at 02/01/10 9:55PM
  • genan
    Funny! David can't see in the dark either - must be a guy thing - sure sounds funny when he bumps "runs" into things when the lights are off - I like slap-stick humor (sorry) just think that certain things are funny.
    by genan at 02/04/10 10:31AM
  • rebekah1
    that's when you want to walk over and punch them for sleeping through your agony. hello?!!! i'm hurt here.
    by rebekah1 at 02/16/10 11:17AM
  • laughing_eyes
    Sorry I missed seeing you and your family last night. Off to work again in a few. Please tell the kids "hi" for me :)
    by laughing_eyes at 03/05/10 8:13AM

Give them an inch...

at 01/18/10 2:51PM *
Last Wednesday we had asparagus for dinner. We cleared the food and our plates, but I didn't have time to finish cleaning off the table until the next morning. When I picked up Samantha's napkin, I discovered that her asparagus had just happened to fall off her plate and out of sight. I had only given her half a spear, and there was ... oh, about 46% of a spear left.

Last night at Gene and Todie's I noticed her hand, with a piece of broccoli in it, heading toward the fold in the cloth napkin next to her. I made the mistake of speaking up right away before she actually had the chance to hide the food. I told her I hoped she wasn't trying to hide her vegetables because that was lying about eating them. (If I was smart I would have waited and then been able to bust her for it later.) She acted like she understood.

A little later I went to clean up after them and noticed a massive amount of mixed veggies the just happened to fall to the floor under her seat. We called her in and told her that if we saw her do that on purpose she would be "disciplined" for it. If it was an accident, she should let us know so we could get her more vegetables to eat. Since she didn't eat her vegetables, she had to tell Miss Cindy at Bible Drill and Mr Darren (who always has lifesavers in his jacket) that she wasn't allowed to have any candy last night.

We'll see if that makes a dent...

Meanwhile, she gets to have more asparagus tonight. It's the leftovers from the batch we bought last week. She should have eaten it when it was fresh.

At least she hasn't figured out that she should have thrown the veggies under Patrick's chair instead. I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

In other news, I was finally brave enough to squat at the gym without Scott there to spot me today. I missed squatting the last 2 Saturdays - the first time because Jack's nose was too yucky to take to the child care room and the second time because Anthony got there right before me. Anthony's this guy who warms up at 135 pounds and keeps piling it on. He was at 585 when we left. That's full squats where your thigh is parallel to the floor, set of 5. Wow.

(Oh, and I didn't fall on my kaboose at all this time.) :)
  • matthew_and_brooke
    You mean your child isn't crazy about vegetables? Where would she get that?
    by matthew_and_brooke at 01/18/10 4:28PM
  • markroberts
    making a child eat veggies is, in my opinion, nothing short of child abuse....
    by markroberts at 01/18/10 9:50PM
  • sharon
    I wish baby O was easy like the others where all I had to do was put ketchup on them.
    by sharon at 01/19/10 7:20AM
  • lyndie
    Oooh, I used to stuff my mouth full, mumble that I had to go to the bathroom... and then it ended up getting flushed. *snicker* That worked until my brothers all started doing the same and my parents caught on. :P

    Go you with the squats! And that's crazy... 585?! Whew!
    by lyndie at 01/19/10 11:30AM
  • sharon
    Yessssssssss!
    by sharon at 01/19/10 4:45PM
  • tracey
    I ALMOST found you another blanket. This one was exactly the same: same blue fabric with winnie the pooh. The only difference was that pooh's ears were sewn flat to the blanket : (
    by tracey at 01/20/10 9:07AM

blushing vs flushing

at 01/05/10 6:25PM *
I'm tired of the old post, so I'll bore you with something Scott and I discussed recently.

Scott blushes easily. I rarely blush. (Please don't feel the need to test this. Taking 3 kids out in public provides plenty of opportunities to embarrass me into blushing. The things kids say and their timing!) :) Scott, in his finite wisdom, claims this is because I cannot feel shame. But we know not to listen to him.

Anway, my face has always flushed red when I exercise, no matter how good of shape I'm in. Scott's face never flushes.

I would have thought blushing and flushing would be related. Weird, huh?

Told you I'd bore you. ;)

Anyone local who wants kiddie toys check out my picture on facebook and see if you want some. Otherwise I'm dumping them with charity tomorrow.
  • beckyd
    I'm not bored- I think that's interesting!
    by beckyd at 01/05/10 7:39PM
  • sharon
    i wanted to come up with a witty response to this entry, but alas, i could not.
    by sharon at 01/05/10 8:22PM
  • matthew_and_brooke
    I do both. I used to blush really easily. I'm not sure if I do anymore, I certainly embarrass myself enough, but maybe I'm used to that by now.
    by matthew_and_brooke at 01/05/10 8:51PM
  • texasdad
    I'm not sure I should respond or not... but I am a flusher not a blusher.
    by texasdad at 01/06/10 6:40PM
  • laughing_eyes
    I blush easily
    by laughing_eyes at 01/09/10 10:23AM
  • sharon
    Remind me where you live. I may just have to drive myself up there if Alicia is too busy. :)
    by sharon at 01/11/10 8:26AM
  • abigail_1s25
    what do you mean?
    by abigail_1s25 at 01/14/10 3:11PM