perhaps another one won't be so bad

I'm starting to realize that our life is about to change forever. For the most part, it will be a good thing, but babies are a lot of work! Panic!

Then I found this picture from a year and a half ago. Look at my sweet baby! I guess it will be okay to have another little one around.

I'm not as fun as a 6-year old, clearly

Our friends Scott and Jenny drove down with their kids (Mat, age 6 and Tempe, age 2) for Thanksgiving. Jonah and Mat spent the weekend alternating between loving each other and terrorizing each other. With that back story, here is what took place this morning.

As I clean the room with all of Jonah's toys, he finds a wind up car and takes off to drive it through the dining room.
Jonah: Mom, come here and watch me drive this and it will hit the wall and I'll say "oh!" and then you say "oh!" and then we'll laugh.
[Off I go to watch and laugh.]
Jonah: No, I have to say "oh" first and then you do and then we laugh.
Me: Oh, okay, let's try again.
[Car hits the wall again. I follow his lead and we both say "oh!" and laugh.]
Jonah: You don't do it like Mat does. He got more excited and laughed a lot.

I think he misses his friend.

6 something am

This is what happens when Jonah gets himself up and makes breakfast:

At least he has good taste.

Roll Tide, Roll

It's serious business around here.  Football, that is.

I have this water bottle:

I still get dirty looks at church and around town, even though I'm sure the whole ward knows now that I bought the bottle before I knew those were Auburn colors.

Jonah has two sets of flip flops. One in orange and one is blue. He often wears one flip flop from each. We get dirty looks. Yesterday at the Children's museum, a lady came up to us and asked if he was an Auburn fan. I explained that no, he's a Bama fan, but he has flip flops in the wrong colors apparently.  Not only did she end the conversation with, "well, as long as he's with two Bama fans" (I was wearing a red shirt and Josh had on his Alabama sweatshirt), but she went back to the front desk and relayed the conversation to the other museum worker. Who knew we were causing such a stir?

Today is the big rival game. Roll Tide!

my obsession with stamps

A few years back, my parents started collecting stamps. Not worth-a-million-dollar stamps, but clipping the used stamp off an envelope and hanging it on a poster-sized city map that used to hang in their dining room. (Incidentally, have you noticed how few letters even arrive with stamps anymore?) It was fun to watch the stamp collection grow. While I didn't send them a ton of mail, it got to the point that I would always run to the post office to buy some other stamp (or even better, something that came with multiple designs per sheet) when I had mail to send home. It's habit now, and I just can't bring myself to buy the plain kind (usually, that is. I do have a book of 20 in my wallet right now of the regular flag stamp--keep reading). I bought two different varieties when I was in AZ last and used them to send thank you notes and first bills and things as we moved in. Then, mysteriously, the stamps went missing. I wonder what else is missing with them. I have no idea where they are. I'm irked. I liked my stamps. Fortunately, one of the kinds was a Forever stamp. If I ever find that sheet, I'll be good. The other was a literary stamp and is not a Forever kind. Grrr. I finally had to break down and buy some at the grocery store because I had something that needed to be mailed and I wasn't going to the post office for one little letter.

All this to say: today I found out that you can order stamps online from the Post Office. What? I can choose any kind they have online (which is much more than they have at the P.O. here, trust me.) and have it delivered with my mail? I don't have to wait in line at the Post Office which is my very least favorite place to go with Jonah in tow (something about the combination of the wait time, the staff, and the mess he can make)? Yes, please.

So as I contemplate ordering Christmas cards, I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking at each and every stamp option. And thus, the question of the day arises. Should I get these, or these, or actually get something Christmasy like these? Maybe all three?

an experiment

Thanks, everyone, for the encouragement. Getting them to waive the fee would require actually calling the water company and I get ulcers about that sort of thing. That said, I'm also quite careful with our money, so I'll either get up the courage or make Josh do it. All things considered, though, it's not the fee that irks me. It's the fact that I was late! I hate that sort of thing. I also apparently paid the internet bill twice this month. The good news is that we won't have a bill next month. The bad news is, this baby appears to be sucking out my mental power. At least I hope it's the baby...otherwise the mind blank might be permanent!

So on to the experiment mentioned above. I'm excited to see if this will work: I'm making a whole chicken in a crockpot.

bummed

I've been waiting for the water and gas bills to come so I can finish paying bills for the month (that sounds funny on the 15th, but most of our bills come out before the 10th). Our old water bill has been hanging on the fridge forever as a reminder that our trash collection day has moved from Thursday to Monday.

Not the old bill. The current bill. The one that is now 2 weeks past due! Ugh, I'm never late on bills and now I'm ticked. I paid it online just now but I'm already dreading the grief of a late fee next month. [insert incoherent mumbling] My only consolation is that if Josh paid the bills they'd probably all be late.

proud moments

Jonah and I shared an orange the other day, which I peeled the way my daddy taught me: first, by biting into it to break the skin and second, with my own hands. No sissy orange peelers needed here! I haven't mastered peeling it in one giant peel like he does, but I've been peeling my own oranges for as long as I can remember. "As long as I can remember" includes all of Jonah's life, but maybe this time he really paid attention because he looked so disgusted and said, "we don't eat the skin!" So I explained what I was doing. He looked dubious, but we continued with the snack. Fast forward to yesterday when he climbed on his stool, got a tangerine off the counter, and bit into the skin. "Look, I cut it with my teeth! Now we can eat it!" I was so proud.


Then there was the day I found him like this:

I think I was more proud about the tangerine, but reading books* is a close second.

*We picked books at random at the library. Here's a quick review:
The Cow Loves Cookies (Karma Wilson): We all love this one. It's cute and has nice illustrations and Jonah asks for it every night. It is also the book he's reading in the picture.
The Kiss that Missed (David Melling): Overall a cute book with a few very clever parts. Josh doesn't like it because it starts with a king who is too busy to tuck his son in so he merely blows a kiss. Josh mutters to himself about how all books make dads look too busy to spend time with their kids whenever we read it.
The Alphabet Mystery (Audrey Wood): Poorly written. Unfortunately, Jonah loves it. I hope to avoid bringing it home again. Josh and I despise it for different reasons (me: it gets too preachy in the middle when the little "x" realizes he shouldn't have run away; Josh: the main point is that Charley needs every single letter in his alphabet, but at the end, only used 6 or so. For some reason, these things really bug us. Chalk it up to the large number of picture books we read around here.), but we both loathe reading it. I change the words to eliminate my least favorite parts. It will be a sad day when Jonah learns to read and I won't have that luxury.
Green Eggs and Ham (Dr. Seuss): Josh's mom told Jonah all about this one, so of course he loved it from the get go. Plus, Dr. Seuss is generally fun to read, if a bit long.
The Daddy Mountain (Jules Feiffer): Could have been so much better: funny premise, less-than-stellar execution.

self restraint is...

...not calling Juan Carlos demanding updates on Anna-Lisa's labor (she was scheduled to be induced this morning). I'm sure I'll hear when there's something to hear and all the family have heard, yadda yadda.

...not eating Nutella and crackers for every meal now that they've been replenished.

...and that's all. I can't think of anything I'd rather do than know what's going on up in Nashville today, so I think I'll take a nap.

a paradox

Reading this article on the cost of obesity in the U.S. would be far more interesting if I weren't eating a bowl of chocolate pudding at the same time.

since I didn't get a sobrino for my birthday...

...I got a new car instead.*

 The fold-flat third row from the back:

Jonah calls it our "new bus" and Josh loves it so much that he wanted to sleep in it the first night we brought it home.

*We'd bought it a few days before but since we actually picked it up on my birthday, I'm comfortable calling it a birthday present.

inquiring minds want to know

Tonight, Jonah asked me where the door to my belly is. You know, so the baby can get out...

songs to put me to sleep

One of the hardest aspects of living with the Richards was getting Jonah to sleep. We were all sharing a bed so we had to either let him stay up until we went to bed or wait until he fell asleep to go to sleep ourselves (which doesn't sound like a big deal, but this kid can stay up forever if he thinks there's a chance we'll let him get up). Because he was used to sleeping with music, we finally made a Pandora station to help him sleep. We now prefer this to even the cds we have (for sleeping anyway) because it doesn't skip and we've been introduced to some new favorites. For your listening pleasure, here are three of our favorites:

We sang this song all morning. This version is a bit shorter than the one on Pandora (it's at least missing a verse about owls), but as Laurie Berkner is a favorite for fun songs, too, I'll probably just start buying her cds untested:


This one almost put me to sleep writing this post:


Elizabeth Mitchell is probably my favorite reoccurring artist on the station, but her songs are hard to find online. Either way, Jonah now tells me that I make him happy when skies are gray, which of course melts my heart and inspires me to give him candy and everything he could ever want: