1.15.2014

splat!

i love a good potpourri post. let's do one, shall we?

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layla's  only correct J-sound is for judah. everything else gets a G. so when she comes in my bad to attack me it's a "MEGA GUMP!" kind of amazing. i like to picture Forrest Gump on a rampage. 

if she wants to play the game where you hide and she finds you, it's "hide n peek"

we watched "beauty and the beast" for the first time ever (the kids and i...jesse has seen in before and loves it). at the beginning when gaston is stalking belle judah insisted, "he's tryin' to kill her, mommy!" because he's holding that hunting gun the whole time. yikes. a little dark there, buddy. maybe i have a future secret service officer on my hands.

one of our friends with two kids recently had a baby so my kids were talking about what if we had another baby. they were making up names ("tickles", "banana", and "flames" were some suggestions) and such. layla said, "yeah, and i will be duh mommy!" i quickly wanted to head that off at the pass and said, "no, i would be the mommy and you would be the big sister. but one day when youre older you can have babies and then you will be the mommy." layla looked at me with this lethally sweet smile and said, "yeah, and then you will be at heaven." *insert creeped out shivers*.

we were in the book store recently and i was in the history aisle along with a few other customers (senior citizen men). layla came up to me with a stuffed animal (when did book stores become toys stores, btw?! gripe!). she said the baby fox was sad. i asked what was wrong. then she decided to crank the volume and scream, "HIS PENIS IS SICK!" ladies and gentlemen of Books-a-Million: Layla Dukes! goodnight!

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my former GTVB teammate and one of my all-time favorite people on earth (to know bird is to love her) is a volleyball coach at Kansas (her other life roles are: lover of the color grey, world champion at falling asleep in weird places, hater of meat with bones in it, reformed hangnail addict, best friend to dozens, despiser of cartoons) and was caught just being her amazing self; giving her one off day per week to hang out with some special olympians. classic bird.


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my two most recent pregnant friends to give birth (i guess anyone who give birth was recently pregnant, so that might be a little redundant) have had ACCIDENTAL natural deliveries. as in: they had NO intention of doing anything besides having an epidural the entire time, but when they got the the hospital they were already both at 10cm and were told it was way too late for pain meds. they both, after having laughed like i was an insane person to have chosen unmedicated, got check-mated into the very same thing and both rocked their natural births, getting their babes out 30 minutes after arriving. 

besides being slightly amused (ok, VERY amused) by this i started to wonder if the ambush natural birth might be preferable to the planned one. i had months to fret and worry about the pain and if i could do it, etc. they had zero time to think and only had 30 minutes to think about it (not that you do a lot of pondering while trying to squeeze the death star out of your special place). also: you would be so very pissed and shocked by this news that maybe the rage would propel you through some contractions? 

what would you prefer?

*speaking of women warriors! i have ANOTHER mommy-of-a-newborn friend who just delivered her 3rd baby, and it was her first ever vaginal birth. her first two were C-sections. that's right, a VBA2C! did i mention her recent baby was over 10 and a half pounds? and she was in labor for over 48 hours? STUD ALERT! and the baby's name is "juniper joy" which is slightly adorable extremely.

women be warriors.

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after living with them for a few weeks, i have decided what my favorite christmas gift was. not the gift given to me...just my favorite gift in the house. a lot of the stuff we gave the kids turned out to be annoying or to have a million pieces (jesse's bane) or went unused (drat!) or whatever. but this gift was RIGHT ON and i kind of knew when we bought it that it was a gift to us.


the complete series of Charlie & Lola on DVD. (minus #6 which i had already scored at goodwill and which made me know these would be winners). the series is all about a little english girl and her big brother and real life situations. it's witty and charming and adorable and hilarious.

here's why i love them:

-it's a british series. listening to british people (and children in particular) is AMAZING. it does not annoy me in the car to have to listen to these all the time (NOT SO with Bolt UGH miley cyrus's voice kills me) in the car (where we do 90% of our TV watching).

-hearing my kids try to do the accent (judah is awesome at it) and speaking the Queen's English: even better! judah now asks for "biscuits and crisps" instead of  cookies and chips.

-each disc costs $4 or $5 NEW and has an hour and a half of shows. tons of variety so i am not listening to the same episode over and over. and even when we just had the one disc that i had from goodwill: i didnt even mind hearing it over and over. but now that we have all the discs in circulation so it's always fresh and fun. 

-this show is no longer on netflix. so i couldnt get it that way. 

-my #1 reason: when my kids imitate some of the typical american shows "for their age", they tend to act like punks. sarcasm, rudeness, selfishness started creeping in bigtime. when we'd ask where they learned a certain phrase, it would usually be from these "age appropriate" shows. but when they are playing like charlie and lola they are SO KIND to each other. charlie is a super considerate and kind older brother. i have noticed an incredibly marked difference in how judah relates to layla since we've been watching these more than some other shows. lola is weird and hilarious and creative just like layla, so hopefully that will reinforce that too in her.

so there's my pitch. all time favorite kids show at dirt cheap. 

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my child, the white girl. channelling Elaine Benes. i think she can only do move with her body after he tongue has pointed the way. 


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there you have it. my potpourri for today. sniff it good. 

11 comments:

  1. Ahhh!!! The "crappy t.v. shows" problem annoys me so! I am struggling with finding quality t.v. for my boys (unless I want them to be lazy, sarcastic, stupid, entitled idiots), and my oldest son LOVES television. While I do limit how much they watch, it is hard to find something even for that hour that is quality. My tween girls also can't find much to watch that is age appropriate, unless we want them chasing boys and beauty and finding their identity in those two things.

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  2. Thanks for the love! (I guess I should go finish changing my 2-year-old sidebar pictures now right? In case someone actually clicks on my link... :D)

    As the friend in question who gave birth to the 10.5 lb VBA2C baby, I want to say two things. ONE, the constant texting and encouragement from you throughout the whole process was awesome and empowering. Thanks for that. It helped keep me going. I still think it's kind of hilarious/amazing/providential that you randomly texted me that {first} day and asked if I was in labor, and I actually was. And, that you warned me things might not speed up just because my water broke. Little did I know, I still had 40 hours to go! Also, those ten-fingered emojo jazz should have been invented to celebrate 10 cm dilation. Perfect. #textmessagedoula

    And two, I still think it's ridiculously ironic that your other two friends definitely wanted an epidural, but things went so fast that they couldn't get one, while I definitely did not want an epidural, but things went so slow that I HAD to get one. Life is funny (cruel?).

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  3. My kids like Trotro (it's on Netflix, also has a British accent) and my son will talk with the British inflection. It is SO FUNNY. Like "can I have that one mommy?" said without the accent but with the correct inflection. And you're right about crappy cartoons. They all whine and whine until they get their way, and that is NOT how I want my children to act.

    On the vbac note, my second child (girl) was born 11.5 months after my first child (boy) and she was 10 weeks early. My son was a csection after pushing for 3 hours to no avail, and I was in labor with my daughter for 9 hours while they tried to stop my contractions (which I thought were Braxton Hicks for the most part, but occasionally got worse, then subsided, then got worse, etc.) and I went by ambulance to a hospital an hour away. I was 0 cm when I left hospital #1 (little did I know my cervix was thinning - the dr knew but he didn't tell me) and by the time I got hospital #2, I was 9 cm and pushed for about 20 minutes and out she came, perfectly healthy. I highly recommend "accidental" non-epidural births. 20 minutes after they stitched me up, I walked across the room and ate dinner. Much much easier than a csection recovery. If I had to do it again, I would choose a vbac with no epidural.

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  4. "when my kids imitate some of the typical american shows "for their age", they tend to act like punks. sarcasm, rudeness, selfishness started creeping in bigtime. when we'd ask where they learned a certain phrase, it would usually be from these "age appropriate" shows."

    UGH I hate this!!! I don't even HAVE kids, but any time I am around other peoples' kids and their kid TV, or am just for some reason exposed to kid TV in some form, I am totally disgusted and annoyed and find myself wondering what happened to the feel-good, well-behaved PBS shows I watched as a kid. (you know, like a total old person despite being 25... "kids these days! sheesh!") how delightful that you have found something great to watch!

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  5. The Elaine dance was definitely my favorite part of this whole post.

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  6. I think natural birth by surprise would qualify as traumatic... and I would have a hard time recovering. I chose and prepared and succeeded in natural birth and was traumatized, but for other reasons, not the natural birth part! btw I'm so freaking happy about baby Juniper Joy... I want to hear the birth story, Debra Joy!!!

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  7. I think a natural birth by surprise would be traumatic.... I chose, planned for, and succeeded in a natural birth and was still traumatized, but not bc of the natural birth part!!! Btw so happy for Juniper Joy's arrival!!! We want to hear the birth story, Debra Joy!!!

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  8. Congratulations to your friends! And rock on VBA2C momma!

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  9. I love Charlie and Lola so much I could throw up. Another show I think you'll need to check out is Rastamouse, which you can find on Netflix. The first time I saw it, I wondered if I had just dreamed it up or if I was in fact high; but my kids have straight mastered Jamaican accents, so it's worth the ten minute episode here and there.

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  10. Now you have me wanting to find Charlie and Lola. My son would only watch Chuggington for about six months straight from 18 months and up. He used to say certain words with a British accent. LOVED IT. "I con't!"

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  11. Keight I was already smitten with your blog and by default you and your family...but to throw Charlie and Lola into the mix? wow... I shouldnt be amazed that i find kindred spirits on the interwebs :) We've loved Charlie and Lola since my oldest (9) was a toddler. She would do the voices and have us in stitches. And all my kids insist that we read the books in a British accent too...which I am happy to oblige :) Anyway, keep up the real life... :) Your blog brings a smile to my face each week

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