Regurgitation

Anna's been sick today. I have cleaned her up after 3 bouts of vomit (with several spews per bout), changed her clothes twice, cleaned floors and furniture each time, and now she's sleeping. Hopefully she will stay that way.

I have washed my hands approximately 50 times, changed MY vomit-covered clothes once, and now I feel like I need to be run through a sanitizer.

But as I was scooping up some vomit off the carpet with a spoon after Bout 2, my mind turned back to the time I threw up on Halloween of 1990. What a memory. I was 8 years old and just putting the finishing touches on my costume before heading out for some trick or treating. I was dressed up as a business man. (We can talk about why that may have been a questionable cross-dressing decision later, but I thought it was ingenious.) I was wearing a suit and tie (I felt like such a rogue), a black hat, and I was carrying a briefcase. So dashing and quite a costume for an 8-year-old girl.

But I needed help with my tie. I had been ignoring rumbles in my stomach all afternoon, but trick or treating was far more important. So this pressing need took me into the kitchen to ask one of my brothers for help tying my tie. Figuring he was the most experienced, I asked my oldest brother for help who was there visiting with his new wife of one month. He started to work on my tie, but then things started to close in on me and I started to get very, very clammy. I woozily moved away from him and said I needed to get out of there.

I threw up three times before I actually made it to the bathroom, with one spew landing on the borrowed black hat I was to wear that night. Rough.

Later, my sister in-law told me that my mom asked her to grab a spoon so she could get in on the clean up, telling her she "better get used to this." And there's no time like the present. My mom is awesome.

I went to bed with a glass of sprite, and my kind older sister went trick or treating for me. Many people thought she was totally full of it and looked skeptically at her extra bag, but I guess she was pretty convincing because I remember getting a LOT of good stuff that year. Though my other sister's black hat has never been the same, I will always remember with fondness that Halloween.

Strawberry sensation

So Anna loves strawberries. Always has. She LOVES to eat them and asks for them at least daily. She requested a strawberry cake for her birthday weeks in advance, without any parental suggestion at all, and it's also her favorite kind of ice cream. It's nearing an obsession.

Here's the pretty cake I made. It was pretty, alright, but I didn't think the taste was fantastic. But Anna didn't mind. (I actually think she only ate her ice cream. Nice.)

My pretty girl with her pretty cake.

For her birthday, my sister Jen sent her a cute old-school strawberry shortcake summer dress (so adorable) and material to make a strawberry pillow, which she purchased off of ebay, I believe. It was such a fun present.

Now, the pillow material was also rather vintage. It was made in 1980, and when I ironed it before I sewed it together, it emitted a smell of pure Old Lady's House. But that only added to the fun.

Making it was really pretty simple. The material came with lines printed on it so you knew where to cut it out.
Anna needed to help.

And then I just sewed around the edges, snipped a few places after I realized it was incredibly misshapen once I turned it inside out, and then we stuffed it and sewed up the bottom. Viola!

Love the tongue.

And trying to eat it. Can't you see the obsession written in her glazed eyes? I told you so.

FINALLY!

I've been waiting for MONTHS to talk about this freely. But now the word is out. Visit my sister's blog to find out what the heck I'm talking about.

Hooray, hooray!

A question of syntax

Would you say muttering is louder than mumbling? Or is it even on the same scale?

Jealous?

Here's my favorite spam email I have gotten recently:

The subject of an email from a Facebook application said, "Barack Obama has added you as a cousin on We're Related."

Awesome.

Annacdotes Part 3

Anna turned 3 on Sunday. So to celebrate, here are some more delightful anecdotes.

1. Anna is definitely in the midst of the why phase. It's funny how, maybe 4 months ago, she just didn't ever ask why. But she's learning the concept now for sure. I wouldn't say she has it completely down yet, as I'll illustrate below, but she's on her way.

I love the nonsensical whys.

"Mom, why is this chocolate?" or "Why is this a bird?"

She may not make much sense, but she's definitely got a handle on how soothing it is to everyone around to say it over and over and over and over.

Anna: Why do we eat food?
Me: To help our bodies grow big and strong.
Anna: But why?
Me. To help our bodies grow big and strong.
Anna: Yeah, but why?
Me: Because it tastes good.
Anna: But why do we eat food?

And this will continue for another 3 minutes until I say, totally exasperated, "Just because!" So she's just getting the hang of it.

I also realized that it's my answers that either restate her question or make the least sense that satisfy her the most — and put an end to the incessant asking. Case in point:

Anna: Why do we both have braids in our hair?
Me: Because we both do.

Done. She never asked about that again. I should write a book about confusing your child into silence.

2. "Open up it." A favorite phrase these days. "Mom, I want this yogurt. Can you open up it?"

3. "Lesterday." I think this has made it onto several Annacdote lists, but I realized something else about it just recently. Lesterday, to Anna, can mean the day before today, but it can also mean anytime in the past, such as in this question: "Do you remember when we played in the snow lesterday?" (For the record, she was referring to when we were in Utah over Christmas.)

4. One night, we were eating sweet potatoes for dinner. I thought Anna might like them, as she's usually game to try most foods. But right from the get-go, she said she didn't want it. I kept telling her they were yummy, like carrots, and sweet. (They had butter and brown sugar on them, for heaven's sake.) But she wouldn't have it. I tried several more tactics, and then she finally agreed to try one bite. When she did, I smiled and said, "See? They're sweet and so good!" (I'm really pouring on the persuasion now.) She nodded and smiled in return, saying in a sing-song voice not too different from mine, "Yeah, I think they're good too . . . but they're a little bit bad!" And all was said with a smile. Classic Anna. Out came the bite of sweet potatoes and I surrendered.

5. Anna spent some time with her two cousins Grace (5) and Emme (3) a couple weeks ago, and they schooled her in the art of knock-knock jokes. They told some classics, but Anna most remembered the one where you say "banana" like 17 times and then end with the line, "orange you glad I didn't say banana?" You know the one I'm talking about. Anna got the repetition down but didn't quite remember the ending line, but I was impressed with the ones she came up with. Here was a favorite version:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Banana Smith!

Good Books, round 2

There were many, many books that didn't make my recent top 10 list, but some of them are still really good ones, so I felt like I should make another list. I couldn't get them off my mind. Here they are, a few more favorites.

The Addendum to My Top 10 List of Favorite Books
Jane Eyre
Cold Sassy Tree
The Time Traveler's Wife (*This is an excellent book, although I had to do a lot of editing the first time through. If you need to borrow my edited copy, riddled with blacked-out words and milder cuss words written in, please feel free. :D I'm also quite excited about the movie adaptation coming out. I hope they didn't mess it up.)
Tisha
To Kill a Mockingbird
A Town Like Alice
To the Lighthouse
The Hiding Place
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Coming Home

Here's another list while I'm at it. These are well-known books that I've seen on the shelves of my home or on lists of suggested reading for years, probably starting with 10th grade Honor's English summer reading. These are books I've always meant to tackle, books that, when I've read them, will make me undoubtedly cultured and well-read and extremely intelligent.

Books I've always been meaning to read:
Catch 22
Crime and Punishment / War and Peace (I'd really be happy with either.)
1984 / Animal Farm
anything by Charles Dickens (I know. How can I even call myself a person if I haven't read any Charles Dickens?)
The Catcher in the Rye
The House of Mirth
A Farewell to Arms
Brideshead Revisited
Atlas Shrugged
The Grapes of Wrath
My Antonia

What's on your To Read list?