Dear Target Customer

Dear Target Customer,

Thank you so much for parking your blue minivan exactly one foot away from my car. As you know it was pouring down rain, so the closeness of your car really added a lot of fun and challenge to getting three children into their car seats.  But you couldn't have known that I would need to put lots of children into the car except for the three large car seats and the stroller, wagon, and diaper bag in the far back.  You also, I'm sure, had no idea that I am rather large due to something called pregnancy and that I rarely have the opportunity to squeeze myself into such small spaces.  How thoughtful of you to afford me that opportunity.  

Thanks again!

Rachel

Socks

In case you were wondering, each of Lila's baby dolls has at least one pair of socks on...

in a variety of colors and combinations.

They also often wear bows.  Clothes aren't as necessary.

 

Christmas Photo Shopping

I'm excited about our Christmas photos this year because even though you are not allowed to post pictures of your foster kids on the internet, you are allowed to include them in the Christmas pictures that you send out in the mail.

So with that in mind, I took Lila and Little Guy shopping for our Christmas photos.  The entire time we shopped Lila was either standing quietly inside the rack of jeans, collecting packets of socks, or trying to try on white fuzzy boots.

She was also very good at carrying escorting our purchases.

Why I Haven't Been Blogging

**This entry is not for the faint of heart.  You have been warned.**

October seems to be a difficult month for blogging.  I haven't been blogging for two reasons: 1. The girls are moving into twin beds in Lila's old room, so all of my free time has been spent making new duvets for the twin beds along with three Halloween costumes and the beginnings of Christmas presents.  2. My days are ridiculously ridiculous.

Here is an example of how our morning went.

Today was picture day at Little Sister's preschool.  So right after I get the girls up, I get them dressed in the last two acceptable outfits that are in their closet.  Little Sister has been fighting a cold and likes to cough excessively, and I mean excessively, when she has a cold, so she's hacking and hacking all throughout breakfast.  Now Little Sister also has an extremely strong gag reflex, so I'm keeping an eye on her all throughout breakfast, just waiting for the coughing to engage the gag reflex and her breakfast to appear all over the floor.

Because I am always right, about two minutes after Little Sister is done with breakfast, she coughs one last cough and proceeds to throw up breakfast all over her picture day outfit.  Johnny takes charge of standing next to her and asking, "Are you done?" to which she always responds, "Yes," and then proceeds to barf more.  And like the loving daddy Johnny is, he waits until she's done and cleans up the mess.  I, meanwhile, am deciding whether I should take off Lila's clothes and give them to Little Sister or just go put something together from the leftovers in their room.  I decide to go with leftovers.

After I redress Little Sister, I notice that Little Guy (who's been jumping in his JumpeRoo this entire time) probably needs a diaper change.  I pick him up, and sure enough he is soaking wet.  I lie him down, take off his pants, and go to remove his onesie when I somehow stick my hand into a huge pile of poop that is not in his diaper but is all over his legs.  I yell for Johnny that I'm about to vomit, and my wonderful husband comes and cleans up his second disgusting mess of the morning.  I might add that it's not 8:30 yet.

So far Lila seems to be the only one not causing any problems, but as I am pretty much shoving everyone down the stairs to get to preschool because it is over my dead body that we are missing picture day after all of that, I realize that Lila is eating a clementine...



...that I have not peeled for her.  My plan for tomorrow is to just not get out of bed in the morning and see what happens.

Overprotective Husband

Upon leaving to walk to book club at Melody's house.

Rachel: I'm going to go.

Johnny: Do you have your phone?

Rachel: Yup.

Johnny: Call me if you fall over and can't get up.

Good Morning!

We had a very full weekend.  With actuarial exam number four and my friend Sarah's fabulous wedding, the absolute first thing we wanted to do on Sunday morning was wake up at 5:00 am to one of our seven fire alarms chirping.

I am sure you can imagine what happened.  Johnny would get out of bed, take one off the ceiling, take out the batteries, listen for a minute and then get back in bed only to hear another chirp 10 seconds later.  This continued for, I kid you not, thirty minutes.  Our bedroom quickly became a graveyard of fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.



Johnny finally narrowed the chirping down to the fire alarm in the girls' room.  He managed to get in and out without causing too much of a disturbance.  As I was drifting between sleep and giving much wanted advice on what Johnny should do, I had distinct memories of my own father storming into my room in the middle of the night, cursing under his breath, trying to make my fire alarm shut up.

When I told my dad about this on Sunday night, he informed me that the reason fire alarms always run out of batteries at night (aka worst time ever) is because heat keeps batteries going longer, thus they are more likely to die in the cold air of the night.  Who knew?

Being Glamorous

As you all know, I lead a very glamorous life.  And as all glamorous housewives are wont to do, I decided yesterday to figure out why my vacuum was not sucking as it should.



This lead to an hour of sticking a wire coat hanger into the tubey thing and pulling all this junk out that was clogging the vacuum.

The best part was that when I was done, the reward was that I got to vacuum.