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.