How many times in my lifetime will I hear:

"You're not going to be my best friend!"

or any derivitive of the above sentiment?

I have a feeling it will be more times than I would like.

I would give anything to know what goes through her head

Georgia has the weirdest sleeping "things" of our three girls. By "things", I mean habits, oddities, rituals - not quite sure what the definition of "things" actually is, to be honest...

I check on her every night before I go to bed. I have to. She enjoys undressing in her bed. There have been mornings that we've found her completely naked lying in a puddle because we didn't check to make sure she was clothed before we went to sleep. So I check on her every night and I dress her if necessary.

I found her like this one night:

Not sure why that hat was in her bed. Not sure why she decided to put it on, but I think she looks adorable:)

I went to get her up from her nap the other day (I have to wake her up so we can pick Ryann up from school) and clearly she had fallen asleep mid-undress:

In case you can't tell, her left arm is inside her shirt. One of her sleeping "things" is pulling her arms out of her sleeves. I noticed that she did this when she was just over a year old and we were visiting BFWW in Memphis. I tried to get her back to sleep that first night by cuddling her in bed with me. She kept pulling at her sleeves and I thought she was playing... I soon figured out that this is her falling asleep "thing". She does it every night. I've known babies that pinch their mom's arms. That need their backs rubbed. That need to be rocked to sleep. Our baby needs to pull her arms out of her sleeves. We have also found her completely balled up in her onesie - arms inside the sleeves, legs curled up inside the onesie. Totally weird, I think.

I just wish I knew what thoughts were brewing in that head of hers.

The following photos capture the reason why she has not yet been torn limb from limb by her mother. She absolutely deserves to be... She has an obsession with pouring shampoo on everything, dumping crayons all over, coloring on things she shouldn't be coloring on, and generally doing things she knows she should not be doing. I cannot keep up with her - as I clean up one mess, she is making another one. And she totally knows what she's doing. But then we get these looks and somehow we become completely disarmed:

She is the absolute definition of CHARM. She knows exactly how to give the look and when to give it. She is Big Trouble.

QOTD: What "things" do you or your kids have?

can I be any prouder?

A few weeks ago Nora found out that her school would be participating in something called, Jumprope for Heart - a fundraiser for the American Heart Association. Her PE teacher told her about it and she came home VERY excited about it and would NOT stop bugging me to look at her information. She was going to learn how to jumprope and have a chance to "help people and be nice" by raising money for a good cause on Valentine's Day.

Our families have some serious history with heart related health issues.
* My grandpa had one of the first bypass surgeries in the state of Michigan way back in the '70's (or '60's?). He had at least one more surgery that I can remember. He had a fatal heart attack in 1999.
* My uncle has had a valve replaced. Has he had bypass surgery, too? Not sure.
* My dad had a triple bypass in October 2005.
* I'm pretty certain everyone in my family has high cholesterol - including me.
* Dave's grandpa had a fatal heart attack on Halloween 1997.
* Dave's grandma has a pacemaker.

So the American Heart Association is an organization that is close to our, ahem, hearts;) We have always considered it a worthy place to donate money. So when Nora had an opportunity to raise money for them, we were honored to participate!

I was pleased to find out that they accepted online donations - makes things so much easier for our out of town family. I sent out emails to many of our relatives and close friends and had a fund raising goal of $500. Our family and friends came through and generously sponsored Nora for Jumprope for Heart with $400! Nora was very excited about the prizes that she was going to earn (one of them being an "ipod" - actually an MP3 player) and Cornbread and I were thrilled with the amount of support that our girl received from her loved ones.

We sent in the checks that we received along with the list of online donations and haven't really thought about it since the day she actually jumproped for heart (Valentine's Day). But I just received an email from her PE teacher with the following paragraph:

We haven't announced this yet, but Nora is the student who raised the most for the AHA! She will be receiving a special letter from the AHA and of course all of her thank-you gifts. We will be announcing this tomorrow morning along with our schools grand total.

I am so proud of her and so excited for her that she will receive this recognition. I hope that helping others will be a lifelong passion for her! It thrills me beyond expectation that she has a heart for doing so!

The goodness keeps rolling in

While I was in Memphis visiting BFWW I had the opportunity to share sushi with BFWW & two of her friends, Dr. GI & Dr. Ped (I know, pretty unique names, eh?) First, if I haven't mentioned it, I LOVED my first sushi experience and have been craving it ever since. Second, these people are awesome.

Case Study #1:

Our waitress was one of these girls that spent a lot of time doing her hair and makeup. She was trendy - and she was working in a pretty trendy place. Her hair was bleach blonde and in a really cute style. Her make up was a bit over done (hasn't different color lip liner and lip stick gone out of style in the last couple of years?), but she was still cute. She was dressed in a very tight tshirt. When she left the table the first time I said - judging her appearance - "her stomach is kind of big". To which Dr. GI leaned over to his wife and whispered something about not noticing her stomach... The next time she came to the table I understood why - she had GIGANTIC breasts and she was leaving nothing to the imagination with the shirt she was wearing. But, because of my eye level, all I noticed was that her stomach was not flat enough for the tight shirt she was wearing.

So why are these people awesome? Because they weren't offended at my judgemental, sarcastic comment on our first date, made their own sarcastic comment, and laughed heartily with me when I realized why they didn't notice her stomach.

Case Study #2:
They bought me the largest piece of cheesecake I have ever had in my life. Enough said.

Case Study #3:
They have southern accents. So does BFWW, by the way.

Case Study #4:
Dr. GI read my blog and didn't know what BFWW stood for. So he did what anyone else might do - he googled it. And found the only known definition on the internet: Big Fat Wonder Woman. Thank you - I have been laughing about that all afternoon. You are. Awesome.

Lessons Learned

One of the greatest things that came from my trip to Memphis last week was that Cornbread took on my job for three full days and now understands me just a little bit better.

I have to give him credit - not only did he put the trip together, but he wanted to put himself in my shoes for a time. He wanted to experience what I experience and be able to relate a little better. I love him for it. I respect him for it. I am thankful for it.

And I especially love the following:

* He finally understands why I adore Georgia and want to get rid of her all at one time. The first day I was gone, he came downstairs after leaving her unattended for a brief time (that is a BIG mistake). She was plucking the keys off of our computer. She got the enter & shift keys off before he came down and caught her. One look and she was off in another direction. He sat down to try to fix it, heard something and looked up to see her in the kitchen going after his coffee mug to pour it out on the table.

Classic Georgia. Naughty. Adorable. Destructive. Results in parent being angry. Defeated. Amazed at how cute she can be while you can't stand her.

* The next day he left her unattended again. (Hellooo? Does he not learn from his mistakes? I have to admit it took me a while to learn this lesson too.) He was working on putting our towel bar back up after Nora decided to hang on it like a monkey bar and ripped it off of the wall (a week previous to this). He came downstairs and found a trail of marker on the wall from one end of the room to the other, leading into the hallway and into the bathroom.

Again, classic Georgia. If you're not paying attention she will figure out how to burn down the house even though she can't light a match.

* Every night while I was gone Ryann vomitted at 1:30am. Because he didn't have help it was a 45 minute process to calm her down, clean her up (bath), and change her sheets. By the time he was done he was too wired to fall back to sleep.

I have to admit, I didn't feel any sympathy for him;)

* When I spoke to him on Thursday night (the first night) he told me that he had planned to do some work after the girls went to bed, but by the time he finally got finished putting them to bed he was so worn out that all he wanted to do was sit on the couch and watch tv.

HA! This is so my life!

* Before I left we dropped his car off at the mechanic - he had broken the handle off of his door. It was ready to be picked up when I got home. After Nora's puking in the car on the way home from the airport, we decided to get the car on Sunday. We called a friend to ask if he would drive one of us to the mechanic... Cornbread volunteered to go pick up the car and ended up chatting at our friend's house for 2 hours - because he needed a break.

Ahem, I never do this;)

* On Sunday we were walking up the steps and he grabbed a package of diapers that I had put on the steps to bring upstairs next time I went. He turned to me and told me that he now understands why I'm ALWAYS doing SOMEthing. It finally all makes sense. He said it always drove him crazy that I wouldn't just sit down and do nothing - now he understands that if you do things as you go (like grab the diapers on the way upstairs), its not as big of a mess and as long of a clean up period later in the day.

Thank you very much.

My trip was beneficial in so many ways!

BTW - today is his 32nd birthday. Happy Birthday Cornbread! Thank you again for the amazing trip!

I know I'm not the only one LOST

Okay, lets brainstorm some memories from the last three seasons... I will try to post some of what I remember and you other addicts please add more in the comments (Cara, this might mean that you actually have to leave a comment;)

Jack - was a doctor, dad was a drunk, wife left him because of his job (right?), was in Australia to get his father's body.

Sawyer - conman, parents were conned by Locke's dad, went to Australia to kill the man he thought conned his parents, met Jack's dad in the bar

Jack's dad = also equals Claire's father (per my sister.... I don't remember that)

Kate - thief, fugitive because she blew up her house with her stepdad in it, mother is frightened of her, previously wanted to leave the island on the raft so she could go back to running from the law instead of waiting to be rescued - now wants to be rescued - what????

Locke - conned by his father into donating his kidney, then dad left him, eventually ended up in a wheelchair because dad threw him out the window when he was confronted, couldn't kill his father on the island, found out dad conned Sawyer's parents and told Sawyer so that Sawyer would kill him. Did Sawyer kill Locke's dad? I don't remember? And how did dad end up on the island. Locke has healing powers on the island - he keeps getting killed and never dies.

Hurley - was in the mental institution before the island - WHY? One of the patients recited the numbers from the hatch over and over, also were the numbers he played in the lottery, won the lottery and life went to crap. Why was he in Australia?

Charlie - heroine addict, in a band. Was playing guitar on the street when Desmond ran out of a building after Penny

Desmond - I don't remember his backstory and why Penny is searching for him

Claire - got pregnant was going to give her baby to a couple in LA. Who else crossed into her story?

Ben - brought to the island as a boy, father worked as a janitor for the Dharma initiative, eventually gassed a bunch of people including this father, but I don't remember WHY

Juliet - fertility doctor/researcher and lured to the island by creepy guys after they had her ex husband hit by a bus, needed for her expertise because women who get pregnant on the island die

Sun - pregnant, found out that her baby was Jin's and she got pregnant on the island

Desmond - has visions of the future, sees Claire getting into a helicopter to leave the island

Okay, add to this whatever you can think of!

AND - Who do you think the Oceanic 6 are? Obviously we know Jack, Kate, Hurley (and probably Claire) - WHO ELSE?????