i grabbed this q & a photo meme from domestic chicky. i figured it’d give me a chance to eat up some time at work. so here goes:

age i will be on my next birthday:

place i would love to visit:

madrid, spain

favorite place i’ve been:

cabo, san lucas

favorite objects:

woohoo!! seven jeans!!

favorite food:

i luv, luv, luv shrimp scampi

favorite color:

i don’t really have a favorite color, but i did recently get a new red celly.

place i was born:

p.g. county, maryland

favorite animal:

who doesn’t love a chimp?

at the risk of sounding like one of those commercials you’ve seen hundreds of times about children in third world countries who need your sponsorship, hey, there are millions of children out there who could really use your sponsorship.

i have sponsored a child through compassion, Christian child advocacy ministry, for a few years now and there are many other children in the program who still need sponsors.

the compassion mission statement:

releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. in response to the great commission, compassion international exists as an advocate for children, to release them from their spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enable them to become responsible and fulfilled Christian adults.

so if you’ve got a little time and you’re interested, click on the compassion link above for more information.

wow, i never knew that defending animals against cruelty could turn so…well, petty. i recently stumbled across peta2’s site dedicated to the olsen twins because the girls have recently created a new line of clothing and they’re including fur. but oh, the site is soooooooooo mean.

anyway, this is from the “meet the trollsen twins” site where they refer to the ridiculously rich twin sisters as “hairy-kate” and “trashley”:

Tell the Trollsen Twins to Go Fur-Free!
Not only is killing animals in the name of fashion cruel, it’s uuugly. Some say that Hairy-Kate and Trashley are guilty of offending their fans with some major fashion boo-boos, but here at peta2, we think that’s the understatement of the year! The twins’ heartless decision to wear fur and include it in their new fashion line, The Row (more like “Death Row”), is worse than a fashion no-no—it’s cruelty to animals. The Trollsens have ignored our pleas to stop wearing fur—and have since added horribly ugly fur items to their new clothing line. It’s obvious that we need your help to convince them that wearing fur is wrong and hideous!

geesh, peta.

and check this out, the site even allows you to “dress up the trollsens.”

wow.

peta has created these horrible looking characters with boils on their bodies, hideous faces with green eyes and plain ol’ awful hair. i can just imagine the illustrator sitting at his/her computer drawing up these girls and thinking “yes!!! that’s it!!” and everyone in the office coming over laughing away at the evilness of it all.

i’m not for animal cruelty. don’t get me wrong. i don’t own one lick of fur and it’s not a look i’ve ever been into. (even though i did recently see a picture of beyonce in paris and girlfriend was rockin’ the most bangin’ fur i think i’ve ever seen!) but anyway, i think peta took this thing with the olsen twins a bit too far.

it amazes me how toddlers process information…or don’t. and it also amazes me how they assume that when they want something, no matter what it is, that it will just magically appear. perhaps that’s because that’s the way it’s been their entire little lives so far.

i cry. i get a bottle.

i’m wet. i get changed.

i cry more. i get food.

but there comes a time when you simply can’t fulfill every request because well, in the real world (you know, the one outside of the toddler world), things just don’t work like that. for instance, this morning dutch wanted eggs. well, the eggs in our fridge had expired so i told him we didn’t have any and that he’d have to eat something else. naturally, my response to his request didn’t go over so well and back and forth we went…

dutch: i want eggs!

mama: we don’t have any, dutch.

dutch: i want eggs!!

mama: we don’t have any…

dutch: [progressively getting whinier and whinier by the minute] i want eggggggggggggggggggggs!!

then i thought of a solution! we’ll stop at mc’donald’s (i know, i know…) and pick up one of their egg platter doo-hickey’s on the way to daycare! yayyyyyyyyyyy! for mama!

only to dutch mcdonald’s = french fries. not eggs.

so after we pulled away from the drive-thru window the crazy requests started all over again:

dutch: i want my french fries!

mama: they don’t serve french fries in the morning, dutch. only hash browns. and i got you some eggs!! remember you said you wanted eggs before we left the house?

so i handed him the hash brown.

dutch: what’s this, mama?

mama: it’s a hash brown. you know, it’s sorta like one big french fry! taste it, i’m sure you’ll love it.

he took a bite and there for a while it seemed like we would have a peaceful ride. then i noticed that he was getting down to the paper packaging of the hash brown so i grabbed it, took a bite, and then pulled it out of the paper. you know, for easier access. i handed it back to him and he said…

dutch: why you bite it, mama?

mama: what? i can’t have any?

dutch: i don’t want it. i want my french fry!!

in the spirit of wanting to save a buck or two this Christmas, we opted not to buy a real Christmas tree as we usually do. sure, it’s a little sad, but we’re over it. we get over things pretty quickly in our household.

anyway, in the past, some of our trees have looked quite lovely, others (particularly the one from last year) could have given charlie brown’s little, skimpy Christmas tree a run for its money. last year’s tree wasn’t skinny like charlie’s tree, but its bulbous shape with nearly no point at the top, not to mention the huge hole on its side, left a lot to be desired in the way of a tree… as a matter of fact, this tree was really kinda awful.

i think my husband edell chose this tree because he felt sorry for it. you know like, “come home with me little tree and we’ll make you pretty…” only there wasn’t much we could do to make it pretty. i decorated it multicolored bulbs (no color scheme going on here, honey) and threw some lights on that sucka and called it a day. it kinda looked like the Christmas decorating section at target had thrown up on our poor tree. the ornaments were all strewn kinda haphazardly and well, it looked a hot daggone mess.

i’m not afraid to admit it.

oh, and can i just add that most of the decorations at the bottom of the tree seemed to have vanished because our then 1-year-old was having a great time de-decorating the tree and hiding the ornaments behind the couch? i thought it was bad having a Christmas tree with a cat in the house, but oh, kitties have nothing on 1-year-old’s. but then again my cat kizo used to climb the Christmas tree and knock it over and well, dutch hasn’t tried that yet thank goodness.

but i digress.

thank goodness i remembered that i had sent an old artificial tree to my father’s place for him to store in his garage years ago and well, this year our tree is more…well, it’s symmetrical at least. actually, that sucka still looks pretty good for a tree that i probably paid about $19.95 for at rite aid. of course it’s not all full like a real tree and no, it doesn’t have that wonderful pine smell, but that’s okay. i figured we could just buy some pine-scented candles. that’ll work, right?

even my psychedelic, multi-colored decorations look pretty good on this more Christmas tree-shaped Christmas tree. i actually think i love it! i still have that little pesky problem of keeping my son away from it though. but at least he’s graduated from hiding the ornaments behind the couch to stashing them in his big wheel’s seat.

here’s a little artificial Christmas tree factoid for you:

did you know that the first fake Christmas trees were sold in the sears, roebuck & company catalog waaaaaaaaaay back around the early 1900s? yes, indeedy. you could order a tree with 25 branches and candle attachments for a whooping 23 cents!! i don’t even think you can get anything out of the gumball machine these days for 23 cents.

saturday morning, 7:30 am-ish and i woke up to one dreary morning.

it’s not that i wanted to wake up that early, but i had plans for an ultra-exciting day…work. of course i’m being facetious. there’s nothing exciting about going to work on a freakin’ saturday, people.

nothing.

and it’s not like i volunteered to come in because i’m trying to win employee-of-the-month either. i took two days off during the week and since i’m a contractor with absolutely no leave, well, i have to make up time the best way i can. on a rainy saturday when i’d rather be home snuggled under the blanket with edell and dutch watching cartoons.

but nooooooooooooo, it’s time to pay the piper.

luvly.

so i did the usual morning routine and got myself up and on out of the house. in the rain.

then i jumped in the car and realized that i was pretty much on “e” so i had to make a run to the gas station first.

and there’s nothing like a little fuel for you to get your morning going just right, right? burger king just happened to be my fuel of choice this morning.

and yes, the birdies seem to really dig bk in the morning too.

then it was time to head to the office.

hey, gotta make the donuts!

go ahead and make a soldier’s day by going to the let’s say thanks website.

this site was created by xerox and it’s as easy as pie to get your message to a soldier during the Christmas season!

all you do is choose a postcard (and there are a bunch of choices), personalize it by entering your own message and then hit send!

xerox will then print the postcard and send them out to in care packages by military support to deployed u.s. troops around the world.

how freakin’ cool is that?

i mentioned recently that i didn’t think i’d win a prize for nablopomo, and i was right. i didn’t win a darn thing for blogging every day during the month of november. and trust me, you would’ve known by now if i’d won something because i’d be blabbing about it. but it’s all good because i just won a miffy!! that’s right.

i just won a mif-fy!! i just won a mif-fy!!

my girl who pens all adither ran a contest recently on her blog where you had to pick an item from ty’s toy box and comment about it and i did and i won!! isn’t that just grand?

okay, you might not think so, but i’m excited.

so thank you! and thank you to mir over at woulda coulda shoulda.

now, what’s a miffy you ask?

why it’s a bunny you silly billy! and not just any ol’ bunny. this baby is 28 inches tall! that’s almost the same height as dutch! how cool is that? i have no clue what i’m going to do with this big ol’ bunny yet, but i can’t wait to meet him or her or whatever.

did i just say “meet”? i guess i’m really sounding kinda kooky at this point.

last weekend my sis-in-law went out of town to celebrate her big 23rd birthday and instead of living la vida loca and joining the party train, we were penciled in to babysit our nephew kody. i think this whole plan was my husband’s suggestion and for some odd reason he really, really seemed excited about the whole thing.

i wasn’t feeling the same type of sunshiney anticipation.

it’s not that i don’t think the nephew is cute and all, he is. he really is, but i knew that there would be lots of drama in my household between the nephew and dutch. lots. for starters, dutch is so bossy and since kody is so much smaller than him, he makes good material for dutch. and my son is relentless. whenever those two are in a room together it never fails, dutch is fussing and fussing at him and poor kody is just trying to get in where he can fit in. dutch yells for him to go to time out and poor kody just keeps coming back for more. and dutch has been known to swing on kody a time or two too. i know, i know, but what can i say? dutch is working out some kind of toddler aggression on poor kody. with all this in mind, i braced myself for a wild weekend and expected the worse.

friday my husband reminded dutch that kody would be over that evening and dutch was way excited about kody’s impending visit. all he talked about on the way to daycare was kody, kody, kody… i started to feel like i was the sour puss of the bunch and raining on the “we’re having kody over for the weekend” parade, but by this point dutch was already hacking like an 84-year-old guy because of his cold and i just knew the mix of kody, dutch’s cold and having my stepson over for the weekend would make for a very interesting mix. for one, we’re not working with much space here, but that’s another story.

see, kody’s only a few months old. don’t ask how many months old ’cause i’m not sure, but he’s definitely not a year yet. and anyway, you know how the youngin’s get. they have all kinds of energy, they just go and go and go, and they rarely wanna stick to any kind of real schedule. and just like i thought that daggone kody drove me nuts as soon as he got to our place. he was just so freakin’ needy!! i mean, really, who knew he could be soooooo needy?! and every time i turned around he was right under my feet. i didn’t step on him (thank goodness!), but geez louise, he almost caused me trip over him more than once. and not only that, dutch would not leave him alone. he was in kody’s face the whole time (just like i knew he’d be), filling kody’s space with germy essences, and then to make matters worse kody would not go to sleep. at all.

i got up several times during the night to get medicine and juice for dutch and could not help but notice that kody was like some kind of energizer bunny on crack. it was like, c’mon!! give me a break!! go to sleep!! around 3 a.m. he was still hyper and acting like it was noon! it was then that edellizille said, “if i would’ve known it would be like this, i would’ve left his little butt at home and just came by to check on him.”

my thoughts exactly.

the next morning kody was still up, wanting to play. i thought, are you kidding me?? i don’t think he slept a wink at all and i just knew he had to be dead tired by now, but he sure wasn’t acting like it. my mother told me to just leave him alone in a quiet room and maybe then he’d just drift off to sleep. she said, “you’ve gotta make sure he gets some sleep because if not he’ll have a heart attack just from being so hyper.”

amazingly by sunday we had all fallen into a routine with kody. he was finally getting proper rest and dutch wasn’t fussing at him as much. what can i say? the kid was growing on me. i even had the wonderful idea of getting some pictures of him before my husband left to take him home. we tried several times to get him to sit in dutch’s small leather chair for a picture, but kody just wasn’t having that. then just when we had stopped paying attention, i noticed that he had gone over to the chair and got up in the seat all by himself.

ain’t he just the cutest little thing ever??

you just gotta love him!

i can’t wait till it’s my sis-in-law’s turn to babysit ’cause you know what they say…pay back’s a mutha!! haha!