Things, Three of Them

• Caedmon has discovered the fun to be had in a word search.  He is very intense about them, as evidenced by The Dimple.

• Unfortunately for Target, I don't actually buy anything from their book section, but I do take pictures of newer titles to request from the library, because I love the way Target merchandises their books.  Don't take it personally, Target; I don't buy new books from anyone, really.  I'm more of a used books kind of girl.

Anyone read this one?  Is it good?  I hear Target has it for 20% off.

• Caedmon pulled a book off one of our shelves yesterday, opened it up, and asked me what it was.  "Oh- that's your baby book," I told him.  "What's a baby book?"  "It's a book you fill out about your baby:  Stories about them, pictures of them, how much they've grown, things like that."  "When are you supposed to fill it out?"  "Well... I guess when you have a baby."  *momentary silence*  "Then why is mine blank?"

"Because Mommy sucks, that's why."  "Because you're a third child."  "Because my priority that year was keeping you alive."  I didn't say any of those things, although they all applied.  I gave him a mixed-up, watered-down version of those excuses, and he seemed fine with it, especially when he found the sandwich bag of his hair stuffed in between a couple pages from his first haircut.  I have no memory of that haircut, of putting hair clippings in a bag, or of getting my act together long enough to put it in his baby book for safe keeping.  However!  As we went through the (mostly blank) book, I realized that I could answer most of the prompts within because I'd written about them here, on the blog!  I wrote about how dang happy he was.  I wrong about how dang cranky he was.  It's all on here, buried somewhere in 700 posts, one of which included this picture:

I'm a sucker for angry baby photos.  I feel like I need to print this and put it in a locket, just to watch people flinch when I snap it open after asking, "Do you want to see a picture of my beautiful baby boy?"  That sounds like a better idea than hiding it away in a baby book, anyway.  I'm just sure he would agree, especially now that he's reached the age where he knows enough to be embarrassed by me.  I have the best ideas sometimes.

I May Owe Some of You an Apology

Today is Sunday.

Just to let you know.

Sunday mornings generally find us in church.  We love our church.

Over the past year or so, though, I've been approached by a few people in our church I don't know.  Through friends, they have discovered our little blog.  Fortunately for me, they generally have nice things to say about it.

Therein lies the problem.

Not that I mind the nice things they're saying.  I love those!  Really, I do.

But you see, I... I struggle with something.

(Now you're thinking this is going to be a serious post.  The word "struggle" usually evokes thoughts of hardship and perhaps melancholy.  Not to worry.  While I do struggle with this certain something, it's not like a prayer-request-type struggle.  More of a personality quirk.  Anyway.)

Here's the thing:  I have trouble accepting compliments.

It's an interesting paradox, actually.  While I like the warm, squishy feelings they bring about, I also get an uncomfortable, squirmy feeling when someone says something nice to me.

See, if church is the primary location in which we interact, you're already not really seeing me at my best.  If you catch me walking into or out of church, I'm likely trying to keep our kids from getting creamed by cars.  If I'm dropping off or picking them up from their classrooms, I'm trying to make it look like we're a nice, normal family.  You have about a four minute window to catch me in the sanctuary (alright, alright, the auditorium- I have trouble giving up certain churchy things from my youth) when we can actually interact.  Plus, we go to a really big church, and really big churches generally have lots of people there, and lots of people make me twitchy and anxious and sometimes irrationally cranky.

I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to me at church.  But hey:  forewarned is forearmed, right?

So Sunday mornings, I'm already doing my level best to seem as not-strange as possible.  Add a compliment?  Yes, I'll be grateful and smile, but please realize that you should pretty much disregard anything that comes out of my mouth.

You saying, "I love your blog!" causes my brain to short-circuit, you see.  All those nice feelings are washing over me, but they also distract me from my "Keep it together, Kristy, there are other humans here!"  Add in the niggling discomfort compliments give me, and the result is rarely good.

My reply may be as relatively innocuous but semi-insulting as "I often forget people might actually read that thing.  They just let anyone on the internet, don't they?"

Or it could be as random as "Mexican food's my favorite!" or "These shoes make me look really tall."

More likely it's something like, "Have you seen my kid?  I'm pretty sure I'm missing one."



All that to say:  I'm sorry, person at church I probably insulted this morning.  I'm really glad you're reading, and I think it was so nice (not to mention semi-gutsy) of you to approach a perfect stranger and compliment her.  I mean me.  Her is me.

Do you see what I mean?  All I do is think about a compliment and I'm writing "Her is me."

So sorry.


See you next Sunday!

Good Intentions

You know what's funny?

About three weeks ago I said to myself, "I'm going to try and start blogging every day."

Then I got super busy, and I've been lucky to post once a week.  Whoops.  Blogging tends to come in dead last on my priority list when I've got a lot to do.

So I'm going to try this again, but this time I'm telling all six of you that blogging once a day is my new goal.

Not forever.  Unless I really really love it, I just don't have enough material to blog about every day for the next who-knows-how-long.  Well, unless you want to hear about the strange conversations I have with our children (trust me, you don't), or about the quick-draw contests Derek and I have in the evenings when we've both had too much Halloween candy.

Oh, calm down.  We don't use actual guns, people.  He draws the multi-tool he keeps on his belt and I draw the inhaler that's always in my pocket.  Duh.

Anyway, starting... today, I guess (this whole thing is suddenly terrifying), I'm going to try blogging every day for... let's say two weeks.  That seems like a reasonable goal (or internet suicide, depending how you look at it).


In other news, today is November 1st!  You know what that means?

I get to start playing Christmas music non-stop until, oh, around mid-January.

I know, I know, poor Derek, blah blah blah.


To kick off the season, I started with the musician whose Christmas album is, I'm convinced, the best ever produced, and whose voice never fails to make me think of winter.

That's right:  we spent the morning listening to Neil Diamond.


TOTALLY KIDDING.  It was Nat King Cole.

Please don't ever try to argue with me on the whole Nat-King-Cole-has-the-greatest-Christmas-album-of-all-time.  Unless you want to see a gross overreaction on my part and the possible destruction of our relationship.  Then, sure, go ahead.



See?  The next two weeks are going to be fun!