My Real Life

Hide and Seek!

Daily Gratitude, Day 24
Today, I am grateful for family. The one that lives in this house and the rest that don’t.

Daily Gratitude, Day 22

I’m grateful that I have so many things to be thankful for that I have a hard time narrowing it down, each day, for the daily gratitude.

Daily Gratitude, Day 21

I’m grateful that 15 seconds after crying, Tiny can give a smile like the one above.

Okay, it’s not really my new pastime.

In fact, it’s not really even something I do every day.

However, when I get a minute here or there, I find myself thoroughly enjoying Quora.

It’s kind of like Pinterest for words.

People ask questions and people respond.

Sometimes, the answers are funny or snarky:

Question: How did Neil Patrick Harris get the job of Barney Stinson on “How I Met Your Mother” considering he’s gay?

Answer:  It’s called acting.

Sometimes they are serious:

Question:  What are the Obama girls really like?

Answer:  Nobody knows.
That’s by design.
There is a time-honored tradition in the USA that the children of the president are off-limits in any public forum.    No pictures not posed-for-with-the-prez, no speculation, no gossip.
They didn’t run for anything.    By an accident of history they are known world-wide.
It’s hard enough growing up with a team of secret service in tow and a helicopter over-head.
Let our curiosity give way to decency.

It’s also an area for people to create boards and share and store information they find.

Some of those boards are fun:

Famous Barney Stinson quotes (can you tell I was browsing some “HIMYM” boards?)

“Jesus waited three days to come back to life. It was perfect! If he had only waited one day, a lot of people wouldn’t have even heard he died. They’d be all, “Hey Jesus, what up?” and Jesus would probably be like, “What up? I died yesterday!” and they’d be all, “Uh, you look pretty alive to me, dude…” and then Jesus would have to explain how he was resurrected, and how it was a miracle, and the dude’d be like “Uhh okay, whatever you say, bro…” And he’s not gonna come back on a Saturday. Everybody’s busy, doing chores, workin’ the loom, trimmin’ the beard, NO. He waited the perfect number of days, three. Plus it’s Sunday, so everyone’s in church already, and they’re all in there like “Oh no, Jesus is dead”, and then BAM! He bursts in the back door, runnin’ up the aisle, everyone’s totally psyched, and FYI, that’s when he invented the high five. That’s why we wait three days to call a woman, because that’s how long Jesus wants us to wait…. True story.”

Others aren’t funny, and I won’t share them because…well, they can be boring.

You can type in just about anything and find information that is entertaining and relevant.

Granted, it’s written by regular people who aren’t necessarily experts, unless they are quoting research (which they often do) but it’s just a great site to get sucked into.

Teacher friends, so much discussion, insight, and information on teaching and education.

It’s like professional development on your couch.

Anyway, if you find you have a moment or two, head on over.

It’s a blast.

Daily Gratitude, Day 20

Today I am grateful that I have a life where I can engage in some mindless browsing of a site like Quora.  Too many people in this world are working three and four jobs to make ends meet and downtime and free time are words that have no meaning.  How lucky I am to have been given the opportunities that are denied to so many.

I’ll be honest with you, folks.

I got nothin’ today.

I’ve been trying to come up with a topic for today’s blog all weekend, and just keep coming up empty-handed.

Our dryer broke, so we’re washing clothes and then taking wet loads to our parents homes to dry which, logistically, is a bit of a pain, but how fortunate are we to have our parents all living within a five-mile range of us?

Here’s the irony.

Is it irony?

Probably not.

Here’s the thing.

Yeah, that’s better.

So, here’s the thing…

When we got married, my parents bought us our first washer and dryer as a wedding gift.

We took them with us when we moved from house 1 to house 2 and then from house 2 to house 3.

When we moved into house 3, the owners left behind their washer and dryer, but we wanted to keep using ours, so we gave the ones that were already in the house to my father-in-law who had a washer and dryer held together with rubber bands and chewing gum.

Then, when we bought this house, it turned out they had the exact same washer and dryer (forgot to see how old they were) so we decided to leave our wedding gifts at house 3 and go with the ones that were left behind here.

My bet is that the ones we left behind are still going strong.

This one?

Not so much.

Anyway, we spent our Sunday with Real Man up to his elbows in wires and tools and electricity and then researching washers and dryers and ordering and scheduling delivery for my new babies and driving our wet laundry around and drying it at our parents’ homes.

Saturday was spent at school, for Monkey Girl and I.

It was the dance auditions for the musical, and that eats up a Saturday.

However, once again, I have to say that the other directors are people that I enjoy immensely, and that takes the sting out of working all day Saturday.

And…I LOVE being the musical director of the show.

This year, we are doing Annie and it’s one of my favorites.

It was actually the second show we did when I started working at my current school, and I’ve always hoped we could do it again.

Saturday night, the monkeys were playing in the basement and Real Man and I were watching television in the living room.

As we flipped through the channels, Jaws was on and I commented that I had never seen the movie.

I’ve never seen The Godfather, either.

Apparently, I’m missing out.

Anyway, we started watching and Monkey in the Middle came up to ask me a question.

He got sucked in and crawled under the blanket with us.

About five minutes later, Baby Monkey came upstairs to see what the hold-up was and got sucked in, as well, and also snuggled under the blanket with us.

Finally, Monkey Girl, having been abandoned by her brothers joined us, and Real Man and I were no longer sweetly snuggling together on the couch, watching Jaws.

Instead, we were completely smushed into the couch, while three relatively large children were sprawled on top of us, asking a million questions about the movie.

I’d say they watched the last 45 minutes of the movie with us and, surprisingly, weren’t too scared by it.

I swear Baby Monkey has seen the movie before, because every few minutes or so, he’d say “You know what I’d do if I were on that ship?”

And whatever he said, the characters did in the next few minutes.

Love that kid.

Anyway, it turned out to be a really nice ending to a long day.

So, busy weekend that left me with no actual topic.

Hope you didn’t mind the recap.

It’s all I’ve got today.

Daily Gratitude, Day 19

Today I’m grateful that I have a career that I love which take the sting out of Monday mornings.

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Daily Gratitude, Day 16

It may be trite, but this week, in particular, I am so very, very grateful that it is Friday.

So, I didn’t sleep for even one second last night.

I had a migraine before bed, so I’m thinking the migraine pills may have been the culprit, considering they are essentially pain relievers plus caffeine pills, but Monday nights are always rough for me.

Anyway, I have a few observations.

First of all, apparently, if you are going to make a movie about the daughter of the President of the United States, the plot must go like this:

First Daughter goes to college, wants her freedom

POTUS puts a secret Secret ServiceMan who is young and gorgeous in her midst to quietly guard her.

They fall in love.

She finds out he’s a SS agent and is furious and breaks up with him and goes home.

They come back together  (inspired by a talk from Daddy) and live happily ever after.

I saw that movie twice last night.

It had two different names.

“Chasing Liberty” and “First Daughter.”

Mandy Moore and Katie Holmes as adorable/beautiful brunette first daughters.

Marc Blucas and Matthew Goode as gorgeous secret Secret Service agents.

Good flicks, but utterly predictable, even if you hadn’t already seen the other one.

However, watching those led me to another realization.

Matthew Goode,

who I absolutely have loved since I saw him in “Leap Year,”

should play the father to this kid:

Freddie Highmore, who starred opposite Emma Roberts in “The Art of Getting By,” which I also watched.

Another thing to note is that old episodes of “Friends” can still make me laugh out loud with glee.

Also, there are some truly horrifying movies out there.

I wound up getting sucked into a movie called “Mother’s Day” starring Rebecca DeMornay and let me tell you…it was insane.  Very much like “The Strangers” but even a bit more twisted.

And, finally, “Die Hard With a Vengeance” is still my all time favorite action movie.  There is nothing about that film that I don’t like.

Here’s hoping for some zzzz’s tonight!

Daily Gratitude, Day 13

Today I am grateful that the smallest problem I have in my life is one night of insomnia.  Small potatoes compared to what so many are dealing with in this world.

There were trains.

There were computer games.

There were (many) cups of tea and books.

There were (2) hockey games.

There were snacks.

There were catalogs to browse.

There was laundry to be done. (Isn’t there always?)

There were college football and pro football games. (Giants…what have you done?)

There were Russian nesting dolls to play with.

There was pizza, paper plates and candlelight.

It was a good weekend.

Daily Gratitude, Day 12

I’m so grateful for my husband.  I really, really love that guy.

Never forget.

Daily Gratitude, Day 11

Today, I am grateful for the brave women and men who serve and have served in our armed forces.  Thank you.

With all of our children, we have always had a bedtime routine.

It’s worked for us and we’ve never really had bedtime issues and believe me…for that, we are grateful.

The routine is three books (which is negotiable, because depending on which books they pick, there can always be time for an extra book or two), three songs, and to sleep you go.

Monkey in the Middle and Monkey Girl are now reading on their own before bed, but Baby gets to pick his books that we read to him and we pick the books for Tiny.

Everybody, though…everybody loves to be sung to at bedtime.

Starting with Monkey Girl, however, the monkeys started making some…interesting bedtime song requests.

My default songs are Rockabye Baby, Lullabye, and one that my Mom used to sing to me which we just call Sleep My Child.

Oh, there’s also a little song that I sing that they all love and beg for as a 4th song which is just a little ditty that intersperses how much I love them with kisses all over their sweet little faces.

“I love my little Monkey Girl, she is so good to me,” kiss, kiss

“She’s sweet and kind and gentle, la-dee-dee-dee-dee,” kiss kiss

“I love my little Monkey Girl, she is so good to me,” kiss kiss

“She’s sweet and kind and gentle, la-dee-dee-dee-dee,” kiss kiss

However, one night, Monkey Girl (who couldn’t have been more than 3 at the time) said, “Can you please sing this song,” and then she launched into some weird dialogue:

“All aboard!”
“Britney, before you go, there’s something I want you to have.”
“Oh, it’s beautiful! But wait a minute, isn’t this… ?”
“Yeah, yes, it is.”
“But I thought the old lady dropped it into the ocean in the end…”
“Well, baby, I went down and got it for ya.”
“Aw, you shouldn’t have.”

Huh?

But, yep, that’s what she wanted.

Britney Spears.  “Oops, I Did It Again.”

And she was very clear that she wanted me to do the weird, random psuedo-Titanic dialogue in the middle of the song.

Baby Monkey (strangely also a fan of Britney Spears) wanted to hear Womanizer, the Batman Theme Song and the SpiderMan Theme Song.

Monkey in the Middle liked the defaults.

That was nice.

And now, Tiny has started with the requests.

He likes Rockabye Baby.

He requests it by saying, “Mom, mom, mom, mom…treetop.”

He likes Lullabye.

He requests that one by saying “Mom, mom, mom, mom…baby seeping.”

So, the other night, I’m rocking him and he says “Mom, mom, mom, mom…”Weahyoung.”

I said, “Sorry sweetie…I don’t understand what you want.”

So, he tried again.

“Mom, mom, mom, mom…Weahyoung.”

Then he kind of sang it a little.

“Weee aaahhh young.”

Then I realized what he wanted.

“We Are Young” by Fun.

Last years major graduation song.

“Tonight
We are young
So let’s set the world on fire
We can burn brighter
Than the sun”

My kids have it perpetually stuck in their head and go around the house singing it.

I am not a fan.

However, I wasn’t really a huge fan of “Womanizer” either.

But I sang it.

So, I sing this.

It doesn’t hurt anyone, it makes them happy.

I have to assume we aren’t the only family with strange bedtime song requests.

I have to assume it or else I’ll think we’re just weird.

So…any strange bedtime song requests you all would like to share?

Daily Gratitude, Day 8

Today I am grateful for warm beds in which to tuck my little sleepyheads.