Flubber!

This is what greeted me in Harry's cubby when I came to pick him up at school the other day:

A sweater covered in flubber. Apparently, he leaned into it or something-- I didn't listen too closely to the teacher's explanation because I was amazed that she thought I cared about the state of his clothes. I mean, it's a last season Children's Place sweater-- last SEASON. As if I mind a little flubber! I am just happy that it still sort of covers his wrists.

And then I got all paranoid wondering if I am that pain-in-the-ass uptight mom. And I might be. I mean I don't have him wear his Uggs to school because I think the fur would feel yucky with sand in it. Sometimes he arrives with a bit of product in his hair. He wears skinny jeans.

The director of the school even made sure she found me on the playground to give me printed instructions about how to remove the flubber with a wincing, "I see you found THE SWEATER."

Flubber is dissolvable in vinegar, which also made my washer smell fresh, and the removable instructions had arecipe for more! flubber! which we are definitely going to make because Harry LOVED it, and it's right up Jack's messy little alley, too.

Many Faces

Thank you Ben for finding these Batman jammies (on clearance!) in the big boys' section of Target because if we left without Batman jammies, Harry's little super-hero-loving heart would have shattered into a million loud, tantrummy pieces.

The Batman mask was just randomly in his dress up box, but he wore it from the minute his bath ended until his head hit the pillow. It's a very abrupt mask, and I always startle a little when I enter a room and see him like this

As you can see, the big boys' extra small is still quite large, which is good because have you ventured outside the little kids' section at Target recently? The underwear selection is more varied but the clothes? UG. LEE. I guess it's Gap Kids or bust in a couple of sizes.

Jack could totally play "Weekend at Bernie's" in these glasses.

But he didn't wear them for long because they clearly belong to tiny Top Gun Harry

Who kicks some tiny ass in his tiny flight suit.

And here I thought that having boys, I'd miss out on playing dress up.

Little Gym ad infinitum

Duuuuuuude, you guys. We just signed up for our 7th consecutive semester of Little Gym, and I have to tell you, I am not as excited about it as I used to be. But don't tell this guy

because he stares in wonderment at the bubbles every week and pretty much has the best 45 minutes he can imagine

And seriously! Could he look any more like Ben? Cuh-razy. And pointing it out never gets old for me because I am so amazed at the complete inability of my genetic material to assert itself in any way during Jack's creation. WTF dominant traits? Where are you now? He doesn't even have my creepy, finger-sized second toe.

I really hope that santa brings me a new camera for Chrismukkah because ever since I dropped mine last week (really ever since I drove away with it on the trunk of my car) my camera has been taking blurry pictures and its purchase was, of course, the one time I didn't buy the freaking protection plan from Best Buy. Grrr.

But still. I don't need nothin fancy like focus or some crap to show you how much this guy likes the big! red! mat! and how intently he listens to Mr. Bob.

Look at those scarf trailin little zombies

His hair? On the top? It feels rough-- he's like a dog with an undercoat.

Kid-free!! For the first time since we had kids!!

THANK YOU a billion times to Ben's parents, who agreed to watch our special snowflakes overnight so Ben and I could attend the National Communication Association conference in Chicago last week.

Scheduling is always a random crapshoot at the conference-- which is really big-- and in years past, I have been stuck with a presentation on, like, Wednesday morning and anther one on Sunday afternoon or something terrible, making my attendance dodgy at best. This year, though, the scheduling gods smiled upon me, and my panels were only like 22 hours apart, making NCA an ideal kid-free getaway.

We stayed in my favorite hotel in the world, the Palmer House, and when we checked in, they offered us a suite instead of a regular room. We were like, eh, whatever, and we expected a typical hotel room with maybe an extra sink and a sitting area, but when we opened the door to our room, we found an 1100-square-foot, 2-bathroom sweet suite.

It was pretty cool.

We died laughing and took a million pictures of ourselves






The conference was spread between the Palmer House and the the Hilton on Michigan Avenue, so we did a lot of waling back and forth and still had time to hit State Street to look at the cute little Macy's windows.

Okay, seriously. WTF is up with my hair? Perfectly brown one minute and ridiculously red the next?

We got all dressed up and went to an adult dinner at a very civilized time of night (even though I wanted to curl up in a cozy hotel bathrobe -- probably FULL OF SCABIES-- and order pizza and a pitcher of martinis and watch a not-quite-out-on-DVD movie)

and then we invited some wonderful old friends back to our room and had a delightful time.

The next morning (and this sucks-- even though we had no kids and didn't go to bed until after 1, we still jerked awake at 6:40 on the head), we discovered the one and only downside to our hotel room-- NO COFFEE POT. And even though price was not a consideration the previous night when we were ordering up champagne (insert eye roll here), the $4 banana on the breakfast menu put us off room service entirely. SO we had to GO ALL THE WAY DOWNSTAIRS TO THE LOBBY STARBUCKS. It is sooooooo hard to be us.

Oh and the snowflakes? Had a fantastic time, too.

Finally a use for all those damn Build a Bears and how we spent a 50 degree WI November day

My morning got a rather abrasive start, or, as Harry said when he surveyed the pile of stuffed animals heaped upon me, "Wow! This is intents." He meant intense. And it was-- every time I thought I could almost be comfortable enough to drift back off to sleep, he'd clamber on top of me and smack another animal over my face

There's my face poking out to say helllllpppp meeeeee.

Ben took advantage of the rest of our lovely and creepily warm Saturday by hanging up our outdoor Chrismukkah decorations. Last year, it got too cold too quick, and Ben was unable to brandish his staple gun before the first snow. Harry has been complaining for a solid year about our lack of lights last December, and yesterday when he asked Ben, "Dada, are you going to climb on a ladder and string lights by the chimney with care?" Ben went straight to Wal-Mart to purchase strand after strand after box after box of outside lights. He even replaced the burned-out light bulb in the Harry-sized lawn Santa who has been dim for like 2 years. (and Harry immediately gave yard Santa a hug and a kiss and started rattling off his Christmas wish list. He looked up halfway through and said, "I don't think Santa understands me."

Ben brandishing his staple gun (for which he had to buy more staples mid decorating binge). This picture was taken BEFORE he fell off the ladder that he set up in the rocks next to the house and cut the hell out of his wrist.

The scare crow is a really nice touch. It really brings out our 4th of July flag, rotten pumpkins, and upside-down tomato growing thing.

Just think how flipping awesome everything's going to look come Easter.

Sloven

You may have noticed that I spend less and less time talking about what we're eating. That's because we have been enjoying such culinary delights as grilled cheese and tomato soup, frozen pizza, take out. Because the semester is finally starting to get the better of us.

Ya think it's time to take throw the pumpkins away?

We've been gone 2 weekends in a row; the kids have been sick. Ben has been sick; Jamie has been sick. I have not cleaned the slats of the blinds in 10 days and it's making me twitch.

This? This is what happens when we don't do laundry for a weekend.


This week, though. I have high hopes for this week. Scrubbing the bathroom grout with a toothbrush hopes. Fresh gingerbread baking in the oven hopes. Crockpot and Pledge duster hopes, people.

Randoms

Oh look! It's Ben and teeny Ben!


Sometimes when Harry and Jack are napping like they were in these pictures from last weekend, I want to eat them up. Every night before go to bed, I open their door and stand in their room and watch them for as long as I can until it gets creepy. Harry sweats in his sleep and like to cocoon himself in his blankets. Jack kicks his covers right off (not in this picture, but you get the idea) and sticks his fat little feet through the slats of his crib. When they were babies, they both slept fragrantly, but lately? Their room smells like farts.


Harry is the Statue of Liberty. Duh.

Jack is a rock star. Also duh.




If we hadn't gotten Jack a hair cut, we would have never discovered those awesome eyebrows.

Harry really wanted green eggs and ham, and he scrambled eagerly into his chair to eat them.

But then he thought they were gross, and he was also pissed that the ham was still... the color of ham.