Flamebroiled Donuts

We went to Sunday School today with Hubster's family. His dad teaches the class, and today the lesson was on choosing to please God when it means displeasing men. Specifically, the lesson was applied to a work situation where an employee must go against his boss's wishes in order to please God. The text was taken from the book of Daniel, and it focused on Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who refused to worship the statue of their boss, King Nebuchadnezzar.

Later, after Sunday School, during the offering in the service, I wrote a little note to Hubster. "Where was Daniel when his friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, were all thrown into the furnace?" I scribbled it quickly onto the paper, before passing it over to Hubs. He glanced at the note, pulled out his pen and immediately began writing his answer. Now, I'd puzzled over this question by myself for twenty minutes, so I was a little miffed that he knew the answer so quickly. I chalked it up to his private Christian school education and leaned over to read what he was writing. He shielded his answer with his hand as he continued and cast me a devious grin.

So I waited. Eventually, he finished chicken scratching on my church bulletin and I was allowed to read what he wrote:

"Daniel had to run down to the Krispy Kreme to get breakfast for his Sunday School class. He got back just as the fire was starting to die down."

Two points for Christian school! Does anybody else have an answer?

Boy Trouble

Baby *Bri has three older cousins and we're in the middle of a wild family visit. Tonight, her oldest cousin *Indiana Jones (6 years old) played a little joke on his younger brother, *Percy (2 years old). After all four kiddos had been put to bed, Indy decided it would be funny to make Percy wet his pants. So he stuck a sippy cup down his brother's pajama pants while Percy was standing in the pack n' play. All of the adults were downstairs talking about boring things while this occurred.

Indy's excited squeals of laughter, instantly brought his Daddy running up to the kids' room. He frantically called his wife to come upstairs and survey the damage. Percy's sheets were soaked and his pants were dripping wet. Both boys just thought this was hilarious! Of course, with three play pens in use around this zoo house, there's a shortage of clean sheets immediately available. The adults downstairs exchanged worried glances, as we listened to the scene unfolding.

My sister-in-law sleuthed out that the sippy cup had caused the accident, but could not find it in the play yard. We were relieved to hear her laughter, echoing down the hallway, when she finally discovered the Holy Grail tucked in Percy's PJ's! "How did Percy's cup get down his pants?" she giggled from the doorway. Little Indy just flashed her a sly grin.

It seems that the kiddos are on a constant crusade for fun around here. It's an adventure just to be around them!



PS: * In case you haven't noticed, I don't do real names on this site. My sister-in-law would never let her husband name her child Indiana Jones. Or Hans Solo. Or Darth Vader. Although, my brother-in-law just might have asked her at one point or another. He is a big fan of George Lucas.

the view from the front of the room...

Today my sixth period class had to take a test. It's a class full of upperclassmen and half of them are seniors. We have had lots of cases of senioritis over the past few weeks. As a result, the students in this particular class have been receiving a little bit more slack than I usually give. I know that they are having trouble staying motivated since they have already completed enough of the year to graduate. At this point they are coasting through the last few weeks of the semester.

Anyway, I passed out the test and the class was beautifully quiet (a rare occurrence among high strung teenagers). I could hear the pencils scratching over the paper and I could feel the palpable tension as my students sweated over this chapter, which they probably forgot to study.

Then, with the sudden force of a radio coming on as a car starts, a cellphone rang. The owner of the cellphone looked up at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look of sheer panic. But in a flash she had wiped the panic off of her face and she started coughing loudly to cover the jazzy music coming from her purse. Her classmates, who had all turned to stare, recognized the gesture and like a chorus from a Shakespearean play, they all chimed in with their coughing too.

It was the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. Fifteen students sat coughing with all the strength they could muster. It all happened in the briefest flash of time. They banded together so quickly and so forcefully that I couldn't contain my laughter. I desperately tried to pull together a straight face. Then, as quickly as it had started, it was all over. The girl patted her throat and announced that she must have had one of those "extremely contagious 2 minute bugs."

I was too amused to take the phone away from her. I simply pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.

Update: The next day, during sixth period, my phone rang unexpectedly. I recognized the sound and at the same instant a brilliant idea invaded my brain. I started coughing as loudly as possible and I walked over behind my desk to pull out my ringing phone. The whole class stared at me while I made a fool out of myself, but I continued undaunted with my obnoxious coughing, all while fiddling with my phone. After I had silenced it, I cleared my throat, walked back to the center of the room and looked them seriously in the face before saying, "I must have had that same two minute bug that y'all had yesterday."

I tell you what, they DIED laughing. It was fabulous. Then the questions started chiming in. "But Mrs. Citystreams, I thought you didn't realize it!" "Did you know who's phone it was?"

I walked over to the guilty girl's desk and said, "of course I knew that it was your phone!" They were so shocked. It seems that they think me either really stupid or really deaf.

Conversations with the Hubster

This afternoon, we had a few errands to run as a family. As a result, we spent a little longer than usual in the car, and had some interesting conversations.
This first one took place as we were driving out of the McDonald's parking lot. We'd swooped through the drive through to get beverages, since we were parched.

Hubs: I think McDonald's Coke tastes better than regular Coke. But I wonder if that's just because I associate it with their fries, which really are better than everybody else's fries.
Me: You really think that you can taste the difference between McDonald's Coke and Coke from somewhere else?
Hubs: Oh yeah! I mean, it's easy to tell the difference between canned Coke, 2 liter Coke and fountain drinks.
Me: Right, but could you tell the difference between, mmm... say ... a gas station's fountain drink and a McDonald's fountain drink?
Hubs: As long as it was Coke. Yeah. I think so.
Me: Hmm! We should do an experiment. We could drive around and get Cokes from three different gas stations and then go get Cokes from three different McDonald's and then we could test you to see if you could consistently tell the difference, while you were blindfolded or something.
Hubs:Yeah that would be fun.

(Short pause. Then we both looked at each other and started howling with laughter.)

Hubs: When would we ever have that much free time? We'd have to be bored out of our minds!
Me:I know, right?
Hubs:But if we'd thought of that back when we were kids, we probably would have done it. It would have been fun too!
Me: Well, at least we don't see any boring times up ahead in our future.

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Later on, after we'd run our errands, we headed over to have a nice dinner at one of the local chain restaurants with our recently engaged friends. As we pulled in the parking lot, we both noticed an unusual quietness coming from the back seat.

Me: I think the baby fell asleep.
Hubs: Oh no! She's going to cry when we wake her up!
Me: I know.
Hubs: Can we just eat out here? Please?
Me: In the parking lot?
Hubs: Yeah, why not? Hey, we can get take out!

Sleeping Beauties

This morning, I startled awake at 6:22 am because my alarm clock did not turn the radio on. I rushed into the nursery where Hubster had already whisked the Brimeister out of her crib to change her diaper. Glancing around, I realized that I could still make it to school on time since he was helping. When I explained all of this to him, as I headed backwards towards the bathroom, he started chuckling.
"You do realize that it's Saturday, right?" he said with wonder. Cheesy! I thought to myself. So it is.
We enjoyed watching the sun come up as a family and everyone had breakfast. Then we plopped down in the living room. Bridoodle is on a blanket on the floor. She's almost ready to start scooting around. She's fascinated by the Cheeto's bag. She likes to crumple it. So I put it close to her but just out of her reach. She was adorable, trying to swim towards the bag. I can tell that she's been watching the older babies crawl around at daycare, because she moves her arms and legs in a flurry of excitement and then gets frustrated when she doesn't actually move.
Hubby laid down on the couch to watch, and slowly his breathing became rhythmic. Then the dog curled up by my side and dozed off. Now Bri, has fallen asleep as well on her blanket. Such a sweet peaceful Saturday morning. I'm so thankful that it's not a school day!

Furniture Love

When I was a little girl, our living room sofas were a dark chocolate brown with velour stripes. Even then, when such things were fashionable, I knew they were ugly, but I didn't care. I loved those sofas like they were living breathing creatures. When I was sick, I wanted to sleep on the sofa. When I broke my arm, after chasing my sister around the trampoline as a mischievous nine year old, I slept on the long sofa for weeks. And in my mind, cuddling up against it was like getting a big hug.

When my parents sold the sofas (eight years after I broke my arm) at a family yard sale, I was devastated. I had always planned on taking them to college with me. I may have actually cried.

Time passed. I forgot about my sofas. The fancy couch in my parents' living room never had the same warmth. I didn't get attached to it. When I moved out, I found a free couch and gave it a nice home. Then Mr. Citystreams proposed to me, and we started planning our lives together.

The first piece of furniture that we bought, was a $50 yard-sale chair and ottoman (pictured here). We call it the big chair. I'm not sure how I've grown to love this chair so much. Perhaps it was the hours of shampooing and febreezing that I invested in order to get the yard-sale dog's smell out of it.

Or perhaps it was the joyful chore of moving all of our things into that tiny apartment and starting our married life together. Maybe it was a patient bonding that developed as we watched Lilly grow from a tiny whiny puppy to a fully house (and chair) trained dog. Or it could have been the long hours I spent nursing our newborn, while hogging the big chair as Hubster and I watched marathon upon marathon of Friends episodes.

Whatever the reason, I love curling up in the big chair. It feels like a warm hug. When Hubbsy was away at police academy, I often found myself snuggled up in the chair while we talked on the phone. Everything seems better when I sit in the big chair. Life feels warm and cozy. It's better than an anti-depressant!

Poop Explosion

Poor little Bri has been so fussy today. I could tell she was really constipated. This morning I made sure that I mentioned that to the ladies at the daycare. They told me that they would feed her prunes for lunch.

Wow! The prunes sure did work. She was fussy for most of the evening. I fed her and gave her a bath. Then she jumped in her doorway jumper while I read my book and her Daddy watched TV. Eventually, Hubbsy turned around and sniffed the air.

"Do you smell that?" he asked hesitantly. I looked up from my book. Then we both looked down at our very happy child. Sure enough there was brown mush running down the side of her legs.

Unfortunately, I had just put her in a very cute pair of footie pajamas. Only these are not the kind that zip up or button down the front. They're the kind that you pull over the baby's head and button around the bottom.

Yum! So we got the scissors out and literally cut the PJ's off of her. It was so disgusting. We had to take turns to keep from gagging. We got the munchkin cleaned up and she was happy as a lark.

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my Hubby? It's so good to have him home!!!

the PityParty incident

Last night we went out to dinner to celebrate the fact that I didn't feel like cooking. We went to Logan's and the parking lot was jam packed. I guess a lot of other people were celebrating too! Anyway, as we waited in the peanut-shell strewn lobby we bumped into a guy that a friend of mine dated when we were in medical school. Of course, I was thrilled to show off my baby girl in all her cuteness. He was very polite. We made small talk about his MD/PhD program and my new job as teacher. All the while, I had the distinct feeling that I was being pitied.

On a side note, I think that if the tables were turned I would probably pity someone in my shoes too. But that's neither here nor there. I really LOVE my job and I don't care if people pity me. It's a waste of your time and energy though, just FYI.

Anyway, back to the story. So, the waitress called out our name and we followed her with our sleeping beauty in tow. And, of course, she sat us one table over from Mr. PityParty. Wonderful.

We ordered in half-whispers, hoping against hope that there would be no teary sobs accompanying our dinner. For some reason I'm self-conscious about her crying around aquaintances. I'm fine in front of strangers and close friends. But not the middle people.

Bri slept fabulously. And then our food came. It seemed like she opened one eye as the plate was hovering in the air above the table and opened the other as soon as it touched down. No sooner had I picked up my fork, than she started wailing.

So I did what any good young Mommy does. I fumbled over her carseat buckles, sweating like a pig. And then I yanked gently pulled her to me and patted her back. She calmed down and I nervously glanced over my shoulder to see if Mr. PityParty was gaping at us open mouthed.

I shifted her from one arm to the other and as I did I watched in horrifying slow motion as her tiny little hand went kerplunk into my side tub of ranch dressing. And then the tub toppled off the table covering both of us in white ranch dressing.

Apparently I was the only one who saw this occur. And, to everyone else's credit, I must admit that when you see a young mom covered in white goop and holding a baby you just don't automatically think, 'Oh the klutzy baby must have spilled ranch dressing everywhere.'

A waitress appeared out of nowhere with a wet rag but she stood there hesitating to clean up what I can only imagine she perceived as spit-up. I was dripping and staring at her. She held the rag, inches above the table staring at Bri. And Hubbsy didn't know what to do so he dove into the mess with his napkin, all the while apologizing profusely as he wiped the table. It took forever for people to actually start cleaning up the baby and me.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that when the cold slimy dressing landed on Bri she immediately resumed her wailing. And kept it up as we dashed for the door and changed her diaper and clothes in the parking lot.

So in the midst of all this chaos, as we were ducking and running towards the door, my Hubby leaned in towards me and said, "I feel so bad leaving all the mess on the floor." Yes, he did say that out loud (He has no clue what's coming in a few months, I know...) and yes, we were crunching the peanut shells beneath our shoes the whole time while sprinting away from the scene of the crime.

"Don't worry, honey," I called over my shoulder as I burst through the door, "this will make great fodder for my blog!"

And I have a feeling that there will probably be lots more where that came from.

Lactic acid

Funny story...

Today one of my students tried to explain to me what lactating means. I had so many witty but highly inappropriate responses filling my head that I had to just nod along. Inside, though, I REALLY wanted to say, "And what do you think I've been doing for the last ten weeks? Huh?"