MY BIG BROTHER, McGYVER

You have to understand about my older brother. He's very smart. I mean very smart. Well into the genius IQ smart. As a result of his extreme brilliance, he is very logical. Let me give you an example:

Big Bro is sitting in a chair in the living room, watching television. He begins to feel thirsty. Now, at this point, most of us get up and get something to drink. Big Bro weighs his options, logically. Is his thirst so great that it mandates him getting up to get a drink with all that entails, or is his thirst tolerable enough to continue relaxing in front of the television? He ponders this for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, before ultimately reaching his extremely logical conclusion and making his extremely logical decision.

This genius and logic also makes Big Bro very calm. It's very hard to ruffle his feathers. And, believe me, I really put him through the wringer sometimes when we were kids. He's pretty unflappable. Rarely flapped.

Big Bro's wife just recently gave birth to their first child. We all know how those first babies are supposed to be. Labor is supposed to start slow, build to a crescendo followed by blissful painkillers, and twelve hours later a baby is brought into the world. Things started out that way. We got a phone call at 10:00 p.m. saying Big Bro and his wife were on their way to the hospital with contractions. We figured it would probably be about twelve hours before we heard anything, so we went to bed. And woke to the following story, that would only happen to my calm, genius brother:

Big Bro and his wife arrived at the hospital and spent the following five hours walking around, trying to progress labor. His wife was having regular contractions, but they weren't doing anything. The doctor finally decided to give her a muscle relaxer to take the edge off, and sent her home with instructions to return once her labor had progressed a little further.

So, home went the frustrated couple, with his wife still having quite painful and very regular contractions. Apparently, the muscle relaxer didn't do much for the pain. It did, however, relax the muscle that was holding the baby in her uterus. She went from 0 cm to 10 cm in three hours. Ouch!

Somewhere between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m., her water suddenly broke. Big Bro heard her calling, "I can't hold him in!"

"Well," said Big Bro, matter-of-factly, "let him out."

Within one minute of his wife's water breaking, Big Bro had delivered his own child! When I asked him about it later, he said, "Well, I caught the baby, cleared his mouth out so he could breathe, tied off his cord with a shoelace, and called 911."

Wow!

His wife's hospital charts now say, "Watch for fast delivery."

THINGS THAT AMUSE MY CHERUBS

Like any mom, I love giving toys to my girls for Christmas and their birthday. I love going through the stores, thinking about their unique personalities, and picking out toys that I think will suit them best. I love getting educational toys, and books, and stuff that is just plain fun. And, my girls like playing with their toys. But, those toys aren't necessary for a good time. The cherubs also enjoy:



I knitted a toy elephant for my niece for Christmas. It turned out very well, I think.


My kids didn't care too much for the finished product, however. They were more interested in it when it looked like this:

See?

SINCERELY 'FRO ME TO YOU - CAN YOU TELL WHICH EYE GOT POKED?

After about a week, my eye recovered from the poking. A day after the incident, I decided to document it for posterity (but not for any photo albums or scrapbooks). See if you can guess which eye got poked?

I must say, I especially love the glassy-eyed effect caused by the antibiotic ointment.

For more fun photos, check out We Are THAT Family.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY - BEST BUDDIES

For more Wordless Wednesday, check out 5 Minutes for Mom.

ARE THOSE ... ARE THOSE TURKEYS?

Big Daddy and I were taking the girls to story time at the local Barnes and Noble on Saturday morning. It's sort of become a tradition with the kids. We go get coffee and cookies at Starbucks, and then head off to the children's section to listen to a story (this week's story was My Little Girl, Tim McGraw's first book, which was perfect for my girly cherubs). After the story and craft, we take the girls over to the Thomas the Train table so train-obsessed Cakes can have her fill of train time.

Anyway, we were on our way to story time, driving on one of our one-lane, country, back roads, when we saw these:

Big Daddy whipped out the camera phone, saying, "Look at the size of those turkeys! We have to send Grampy a picture of those!"

I replied, "Um, I don't think they're turkeys ..."

We got a little closer. They paused to curiously observe us as we took pictures. I think they were emus. Or baby ostriches. The point is, what the hey are emus/ostriches doing on the side of our one-lane road?

I mean, I expect turkeys, skunks, horses, goats, possums ... But emus?!

NO NEED TO PANIC, EVERYONE!

I grew up in the Northeast. So, we endured regular blizzards and Nor'easters as I was growing up. Of course, since these blizzards and Nor'easters were regular, the Department of Transportation was very efficient at getting the roads cleared within 24-48 hours of the storm hitting. And anyone who lived in the area knew that.

The funny thing is, every time the weatherperson said there was a winter storm coming, these same people would head out to the grocery stores in droves, buying out all of the bread, eggs, milk, and (inexplicably) ice cream in the store. It seemed a little ridiculous to me. I mean, it wasn't like we were living in North Dakota in the 1800's. I'm sure that these people were not going to starve to death in the 24-48 hours it took the Department of Transportation to clear and salt the roads. And, I think I would buy something tastier than bread, eggs, and milk if I were going to be housebound for a significant period of time. Tastykakes, anyone? The ingredients for Pioneer Woman's enchiladas and chocolate cake?

You know what else the populace at large bought in mass quantities? Snow shovels. What happened to all the snow shovels that were bought during the last panic before the storm hit? I mean, Big Daddy and I had the same snow shovel for five years.

Anyway, I'm sure you've heard on the news that Hurricane Ike has made gas a little scarce here in the South. But, really, people are taking it a little to the extreme, if you ask me. It's not like we're never going to have gasoline in the South again. But, just like in the Northeast during the snowstorm, people flocked out to gas stations with their largest vehicles packed full of gas cans, trying to horde as much gasoline as possible. There were two-hour lines, fistfights, and extra security at all the gas stations in the area.

Big Daddy happened to be trying to get into Home Depot when he witnessed the Great Southern Gas Scare of 2008.

So, poor Big Daddy amused himself with his camera phone while he waited a ridiculous amount of time to pull into the driveway of Home Depot to get some plywood.

THINGS I WASN'T GOING TO DO AS A MOTHER

I think everyone is a wonderful parent before they have any kids. I was no exception.

I wasn't going to allow any screaming in grocery stores.

I wasn't going to let TV be a babysitter.

My kids would always look presentable ...

... and well-dressed.

And, they would never, ever wear matching sailor dresses!

Yeah, that's how life goes sometimes.