The Big 1,000

Thanks, Katie, for giving me my 1,000th hit! We know you would've gotten there sooner if you didn't have a blog posessed by cyber-demons...

Another Friday, Another Feast...

Appetizer: Name 3 things that you think are strange.
People that willingly eat rutabaga, K-Fed, and Shriners.

Soup: What was the last ceremony you attended?
Not counting Sunday mass, I guess that would be my son's baptism.

Salad: What is one lesson you have learned in the past year?
That no matter how uncomfortable it is, babies really are easier to take care of when they're on the inside.

Main Course: Tell us about one of your childhood memories.
There are waaayyyyyy too many to choose from. How about this one: when Return of the Jedi came out, we went to see it one Sunday afternoon and my brother was trying to psyche me up for it, so he told me about the Emperor shooting lightning out of his fingers. I got so scared that my mom had to take me home. She went back to see it the next day while we were in school, and I never got a chance to see it again until it came on TV years later (no VCR). I totally missed out on the movie of the year, and nobody let me live it down!

Dessert: If you could extend any of the four seasons to be twice as long as normal, which season would you want to lengthen?
Spring. Spring, Spring, SPRING!!!! Unfortunately, where I live spring only lasts a week, so doubling it would not make it all that long...

You Want Children?

Are You Ready for Children?

Mess Test: Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Now rub your hands in the wet flowerbed and rub on the walls. Cover the stains with crayons. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

Toy Test: Obtain a 55-gallon box of Lego's. (If Lego's are not available, you may substitute roofing tacks or broken bottles.) Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream. (This could wake a child at night.)

Grocery Store Test: Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop at the grocery store. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

Dressing Test: Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all arms stay inside.

Feeding Test: Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a stout cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal (such as Fruit Loops or Cheerios) into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

Night Test: Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8 - 12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 8:00 PM begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 PM. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 PM. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00 AM. Set alarm for 5:00 AM. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Physical Test (Women): Obtain a large beanbag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10 of the beans.

Physical Test (Men): Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.

Final Assignment: Find a couple who already has a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training, and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run riot. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

My Two Dogs

This post is for Katie, who has been lobbying for a picture of my dogs for a while now. The black one is Wilson and the yellow one is Savannah. I am not sure why she wants to see them so badly. I do not think she understands the differences between my dogs and her dog. I will elucidate:

• Katie's dog can fit in my pocket. I can fit between my dogs' jaws.
• Katie's dog prefers to hang on to his hair. My dogs want no part of their coat and leave it everywhere. Wilson frequently donates pieces of his fur to our dinner menu.
• Katie's dog can be kept off the furniture, since he is too small to reach anything. My dogs spend so much time on our furniture they should be paying rent to the couches.
• Katie's dog cannot do anything to her yard. Our yard would be an excellent place to hold WWIII, as it is full of holes and trenches in which to hide from enemies.
• Katie's dog could not knock over a caterpillar. My dogs frequently knock over my child, and occasionally send him tumbling down the stairs.
• Katie's dog probably barks, but only in a manner which is annoying to her. My dogs bark in a manner which is annoying to the entire county, but to be fair, they only do it when my children are sleeping.
• Katie's dog probably only barks at real threats, like the doorbell or the cat. My dogs bark at falling leaves, spots of sunlight and also invisible things.
• And finally, I'm sure that Katie's husband loves her more than their dog. The same is not true in our house.

News Flash! Baby sits up! Causes mother to run around like headless chicken!

A little ditty about the highlight of my day yesterday...

As I have said before, the best weeks of a baby's first year is when he can sit up, but not crawl yet. Unfortunately, this does only last a few weeks. Yesterday afternoon, I needed to unload the dishwasher, so I took Ben into the kitchen with me and stuck him in his bouncy seat, not bothering to strap him in (I'll not be taking any grief for that, so don't bother with the lectures). I turned around for maybe three seconds, and in that time, Ben managed to defy both the force of gravity and the laws of child development by doing a heave-ho-sit-up that would have made the folks at Abs of Steel very proud. In mere seconds he was sitting upright in his bouncy all by himself (and unbuckled, let's not forget). So what did I do? I ran for the camera, completely ignoring the fact that he can't really sit up yet and would probably momentarily topple out of his seat and crack his head open on the ceramic tile. Who cares about that? Let's focus on the important thing...capturing the moment for posterity! It was only when I located the camera and realized the card was not in it did my maternal instincts finally kick in, and I dashed back to pull him to safety. I then proceeded to run all over the house pulling out all the things that baby can play with sitting up, as well as various tools which might help him sit up faster, because YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH EASIER MY LIFE WILL BE WHEN THIS CHILD CAN SIT UP!!!!!

Anyway, I have no visual for this story, but hopefully there will be many, many pictures of Ben sitting up in the very near future, so I can saturate the blog with photos at that point. Keep your fingers crossed.

A Conversion Story

No, this is nothing religious (sorry Mom)...I am referring to Mandy's roomate Shannon coverting to Blogger. I had nothing to do with this one--Mandy gets all the credit, as far as I know. Shannon's blog is called "Preparing to Leave..." as she is leaving for Moracco in September. I think she is going to teach there for like two years or something. You can probably read all about it on her blog, to which I have helpfully put a link. Also, be prepared to comment. Shannon likes comments from what I gather. Let's all leave her a bunch of comments and it can be like an early going away gift from a bunch of strangers (well, I am not a stranger, and she knows Brian and Jennifer, too...but I digress).

I have also put a link to Dave Barry's official website. For those of you who may not be familiar with Dave Barry, he is one of the funniest writers on the planet, and actually received a Pulitzer Prize for writing about boogers and dog poop. But he is so hilarious that I believe he deserved it. He is an inspiration for bloggers everywhere. Click here for a sampling of his riotous wares...

Ben finds a new toy...

Typical guy!

Life As I Know It

A peek into my life...past, present and future (should I ever lose my mind and have another child).

The Evolution of Mom

Your Clothes
1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes are your regular clothes.

The Baby's Name
1st baby: You pore over baby-name books and practice pronouncing and writing combinations of all your favorites.
2nd baby: Someone has to name their kid after your great-aunt Mavis, right? It might as well be you.
3rd baby: You open a name book, close your eyes, and see where your finger falls. Bimaldo? Perfect!

Preparing for the Birth
1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don't bother practicing because you remember that last time, breathing didn't do a thing.
3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your 8th month.

The Layette
1st baby: You prewash your newborn's clothes, color-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau.
2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.
3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?

Worries
1st baby: At the first sign of distress - a whimper, a frown - you pick up the baby.
2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.
3rd baby: You teach your 3-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.

Activities
1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, and Baby Story Hour.
2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.
3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaner.

Going Out
1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home 5 times.
2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.
3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.

At Home
1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend a bit of every day watching to be sure your older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children (forget #3, I think I'm already at this point).

Undressed!

Well, since I technically did Friday's Feast on Thursday night, and it was kind of a lame-o one anyway (thanks for pointing that out, Katie), here's something new for today. Undressed! is one of my favorite things to read on MSN Entertainment. The writer, Kat Giantis, is fabulously funny, and she's especially witty this week. Check it out for some laughs. Oh, I should probably point out that only girls will care to look at this, since it's about celeb fashion. Enjoy!

Friday's Feast

Appetizer How would you describe your personal comfort zone?
I'm not sure...anyone that knows me, feel free to comment on that one!

Soup What is your favorite tree?
A Christmas tree!

Salad List 3 foods you'd like to include in your dinner plans for tonight.
Well, since it's Lent, I guess that would have to be a Fillet-O-Fish, french fries and a hot fudge sundae, all from the golden arches.

Main Course What is the best advice you've ever been given, but didn't heed?
Don't waste my time on a long-distance relationship. I did...and lo and behold, it was a waste of time!

Dessert On a scale of 1-10 (10 being highest), how much attention do you feel comfortable receiving from others?
6 or 7...I'm okay with attention, but it gets embarrassing at a certain point.

Patrick's the Baby!

Why do kids do this? Normally I would classify this kind of behavior as extremely obnoxious, but I must be in a good mood today because instead I found it endearingly cute.

Hammer Time!

I have just been reading the blog of champion blogger Killired and it seems that a celebrity has joined our little blogging world. Click here to visit M.C. Hammer's blog. I am fairly convinced that this is not a joke or a crazy fan, considering a snapshot of him and his kids are posted on it. Whaddya think? Take a look and report back...

Scootin' About

Ben loves to be put in his walker (don't worry Safety Standard Bureaucrats, we only use it downstairs!) and scoot around the kitchen floor. The only problem is that he's so good at scooting that it takes him mere seconds to get from one side of the kitchen to the other (and we have a big kitchen!)...then he runs into the cabinets or the stove or the fridge or whatever and who has to come turn him around so that he can then fly across the kitchen in the other direction? ME! The whole point of a baby toy is to give Mommy ten minutes to herself (the developmental advancements are just an added bonus), but with this one, I really only get ten seconds at a time before I am needed again.

In a related story, I took him to the doctor for his four-month check-up today. Thankfully, his extreme growth has slowed down a good bit. He only weighs a little over 17 pounds, which is still in the 95th percentile. Altogether, he's healthy as a horse, so you can all sleep well tonight.

Trading Spaces (my way)

This weekend my parents came up to transform my bathroom from the most heinously decorated space on earth into a nice-looking room. Here they are with the kiddies once they got the job done. Notice my kickin' new shower curtain in the very fashionable colors of light blue and brown. LOVE IT!

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Friday's Feast

Friday's Feast is a thing that I found on some other people's blogs. I think I will start doing it weekly, at least until I get bored with it.

Appetizer What job would you definitely not want to have?
Mortician. I was once unwittingly alone in a room with a stranger's corpse and it REALLY freaked me out.

Soup Oprah calls and wants you to appear on her show. What would that day's show be about?
Total makeover!!!!!!!

Salad Name 3 vegetables that you eat on a regular basis.
Potato (probably too often), lettuce and corn-on-the-cob (in the summertime mainly)...I eat lots of tomato and cucumber, but those are technically fruits.

Main Course If you were commissioned to rename your hometown, what would you call it?
I really don't know. Our town has pretty good name. I know it would not be something dumb like Beckyville.

Dessert If you had a personal assistant, what kind of tasks would you have them to do?
1. Play with my kids midday so I can nap
2. Laundry
3. Plan my menus and go grocery shopping, but I'd still do the cooking (mostly)
4. Stay home while one kid naps so I can go somewhere with the other one if I need to
5. Clean the house

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Well, while other people eat corned beef and cabbage and drink green Guiness, I chose to celebrate my son's namesake by dressing him in his annual St. Patty's Old Navy T-shirt and attempting to take a picture of him. You would not believe what I had to go through to get this fairly mediocre shot. Let's just say it ended with me pounding my fists on the table and yelling "LOOK AT ME! NOW DO THIS! (grimacing till my cheeks hurt) NOW HOLD STILL! LOOOOK AT MEEEEEEEE!"

Of course, I said all this in the friendliest of manners. Honestly, he is such his father's son!

Funny Boys

Today when we got home from our outing (MOPS), Patrick and Ben were being so silly. Patrick was jumping and running all over the living room (obviously) and Ben was watching him and cracking up! It was so cute to watch them laugh and play together that I of course wanted to take a picture. But wouldn't you know it, as soon as I got the camera, everything changed. Ben all of a sudden could not live unless his fists were halfway down his throat, and Patrick kept putting his head under a pillow (can we say Daddy's boy?). I think I took about ten pictures, and these two were the only salvagable ones. Perhaps next time. Or not.

Sitting Pretty

I always said the best months of a baby's first year are when he can sit up by himself, but not crawl yet. Ben is trying so hard. When I put him in his Kick 'n Play, he does crunches trying to sit upright instead of reclined. So today I wedged him in his Boppy and he sat pretty well for about ten minutes! Maybe it won't be long now!

Welcome, Katie!

Well, I got Katie to start her blog, and let me tell you, I've created a monster! After a few hiccups with her template settings, she is a bloggin' fool! Just look at her site...she started yesterday and already she's got like ten posts! Here is what she wrote to me today in a somewhat maniacal e-mail:

"i am on hour 41 of non-stop blogger mania........i fear i will have to seek psychiatric help to come down from what is known in Cyberspace as BLOGGER overdose..........i am tired, very very tired..getting sleepy, eyes heavy..but must blog, must blog.................................................................................blogger don't fail me now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

But seriously, go Katie! We like your stamina. Everybody look at her blog because it's going to be funny and her son Joe is ADORABLE.

In other news, the weather this weekend was downright summery. We spent as much time as possible outside. Here are some pictures of Patrick enjoying the shorts weather:

Welcome, Mandy

Yay! Mandy has joined Blogger! She has decided to leave the ranks of adolescents at Xanga and come chat with the grown-ups. No, just kidding....I don't even know how she found out about the pre-teen crowd that is so prevalent on Xanga; it's not something that I would have been clever enough to investigate, but anyway, I'm glad she's here. Especially since, due to my two needy children, this will now be my primary form of communication with her. That will really ring true if she moves to ACAPULCO in September. At first I was against this idea since I would really miss her, but now I am kind of in support of a move to a city nestled on the Pacific coastline, since it will be a great vacation spot. Go ahead Mandy, move...just make sure there's room for me to sleep when I come.

Anyway, welcome to Blogger. Now if I could just get Katie to start a blog...

Happy Birthday Patrick

Saturday was Patrick's third birthday...in lieu of a party, we decided to have a fun day instead. We took him up to Chattanooga to see Rock City. Luke's parents and Rebeckah went with us, and we met up with Adam (Luke's brother), since he lives there.

Here's Adam helping Patrick scale the rock wall. Obviously, Patrick wanted to get in a harness and climb to the top, but he did not weigh enough. You have to weigh at least forty pounds for gravity to be able to help you get down, and Patrick is nowhere near that heavy. Rebeckah made the cut, however, and she climbed all the way to the top! I have no doubt that, given the chance, Patrick would've flashed it as well.

Rebeckah and Patrick had a great time playing in the rock formations. It is a great place for kids because there are a lot of places to explore, but very few dangerous spots. However, there are some places, like the Eagles Nest and Lover's Leap, where you have to keep a very close eye on the kiddies. Otherwise, it's like a giant playground.

Ben was such a good boy. Strollers aren't allowed (or even possible), so I strapped him to me in the Snugli and he had a great time looking around. After a while, I switched him so he was facing towards me and he took a snooze on my shoulder. All in all, he stayed happy in there for about three hours, and I got a great workout!!!

Internet Fun for Everyone!

While sitting and waiting for Luke to call me tonight, I discovered a great site which enables you to waste countless hours playing on the internet. It is called bored.com. While navigating it, here are some of the entertaining things I came across:

If I were to start digging underneath my house and dig in a straight line all the way through to the other side of the earth, I would emerge a couple hundred miles off the coast of Australia.

Luke and I have an Overall Love Index of 62%. Not bad, I guess.

I had my mind read numerous times by the Cave of Magic and the Mystical Ball.

I learned that the letters in my name rearrange to spell "Stocky by me", "Stock my bee", "Beck my toes", and "Sock my beet", among many other things.

I talked with an online robot and got in a few fights with it.

I almost found out what day I will die, but then I got scared that it might be soon, and if that's the case, I'd rather not know.

More fun to come soon! Now, bedtime for me. You have fun trying all this stuff...you know you're gonna!

Need a Laugh?

Okay, everybody, both Jennifer and Mandy called me yesterday and informed me of how to correct my little blogging handicap. Hooray! I shall perform my new trick again as I encourage you to visit the website mentioned in the previous post for lots and lots of laughs. I went back to learn about more consumer scams and nearly wet my pants (had it been three months ago when I was newly post-partum, I'm sure I would have...not that I would've had to time to surf the web back then). Anyway, visit this site and bookmark it, because you'll want to return, I guarantee it. Take special note of the posts on toilet paper , cereal diets, and presliced apples. And Mandy, there's a post on Campbell's Soup with your name written all over it! *wink!*

I've Been Had!

In an effort to be like Jennifer, I will post about a product that I recently purchased. However, I am not like Jennifer in that she knows how to do those cool little links where all you do is click on the word and it takes you to whatever you're referencing and I DO NOT. I have tried to learn, I have read the directions, I cannot do it yet. I will keep trying. Today, however, you will have to learn about Jennifer's post by clicking on her full web address, which I am about to type out like a neanderthal (www.thestarrfamily.blogspot.com), and then looking around until you locate the post about her new $800 Dyson vacuum cleaner. She did not say it cost that much, but I have looked at them in the stores. I don't really remember how much they cost, but I know it was enough to make me faint.

Anyway, my post is about the new Clorox Anywhere Spray. You've seen the commercials...supermom goes around spraying her counters, her head of romaine lettuce, down her baby's throat...it is gentle enough to use on all of these things, yet kills 99.9% of all bacteria!!! Sounds great! I bought it for around three bucks. I used it this morning and I was immediately suspicious because it was so unbelievably mild. I didn't even get the airy, spring-like scent that I was sure it would have. So I looked at the back. Ingredients: Sodium Hypochlorite (0.0095%) and Other (99.9905%). I was betting that "Other" was actually "Water", and from what I remember from high school chemistry, "Sodium Hypochlorite" sounded a lot like "salt, water, and chlorine", but I got online to find out. The first thing I saw was on Wikipedia, which did in fact confirm my suspicion that Sodium Hypochlorite was "salt from hypochloric acid (not hydrochloric acid, so don't freak out)...in other words, chlorinated water, otherwise known as household bleach. AHA! However, the scientific jargon was confusing me, so I found another website (www.iniardwatch.com/?p=80 --seriously, somebody teach Cave Woman Becky how to do the link thing), which appears to be the Smoking Gun of consumer household products. This smart lady has done far more research than me (saving me lots of minutes) and has discovered that this miracle spray that Clorox sold me for three big ones is five cents worth of household bleach (about a half teaspoon), lots and lots of water, and a little bit of vinegar thrown in to lower the ph-balance, thus making it safe to spray in your kids' faces. It's basically watered-down pool water. Besides that, you have to saturate your surface and leave it for two whole minutes before the wipedown...now I've wasted my time and my money! She also noted that while it does kill bacteria, it does not kill viruses and fungi. To kill those, you need disinfectants and sterilants. So I guess it's back to the old Lysol spray for me (Wal-mart brand, of course.)

I suppose the whole point of this combined rant-fest and chemistry lesson is to tell you not to buy it, but really what I want to say is that even though Jennifer spent $800 on a vacuum cleaner and will consequently have to wear contacts for five more years, she still got a better deal than me.

Ben's Baptism

We had Ben baptized on Sunday. It was very nice and all of our nearby family came to the mass and to eat brunch at out house afterwards. Also, nobody got violently ill like they did last time they ate at our house, so that was a plus.

However, five days and three baths later, his head still smells like patchouli.