Babies in Longjohns

This is Sam on Christmas Eve asleep on the chair for a few minutes. Don't you dig the longjohns?

3-Month-Old Babies

As you can see, Samuel is doing quite well at just over 3 months of age. He has this congestion problem thingie that keeps me up at night a lot sleeping upright and squirting saline nasal spray up his schnoz, but he's growing, sleeping and eating well, so I let it go. In this pic he's on my dad's lap (shirt says The Beatles) with his Chatter Elmo, an excellent toy that can be turned off.

I thank God daily for the NICU care he received and that he was born so quickly.

We love you, Sammy-san, my little bald boyfriend and man of a thousand nicknames.

Below, with my cousin

Cabin Fever with Kids

School was out around these parts for 3 days last week due to tons of snow and ridiculously low temps. Even though I homeschool, it affects my life. For one thing, we get to watch the neighbor girl, which is always fun. They all play together well, so I generally make it a very low-homeschool day so they can just mess around. They get a quasi-snow day at my house. One day I had 7, then 9 kids at my house. YIKES!

So you could tell it was a boring situation when my husband says, "Who wants to flush the new toilet?"

And all the kids excitedly ran up to the bathroom like it was a ride at Disneyland ... or the Hershey Park.

Nintendo DS for Kids? That's a Bunch of D.S.!

Can I just ask you some questions?

Would you give a 6-year-old a $100 bill to take care of for years?

Do you even let your 6-year-old cross the street alone?

Then why do you buy a little hand-held video game system called a DS (I can't figure out what the hell that stands for) and let them take it everywhere they go?

You know they'll drop it on the concrete.

You know they'll leave it at a friend's house.

You know my Eva will get ahold of it and try to eat it or otherwise ruin it somehow.

You know kids don't have a ton of sense til they're like 25.

So why do you do it? I'm genuinely curious. And love to rile you up!

Video Games

Hear me out.

I hate video games and I figured out why. It's because my first husband played them constantly. He once wore out a Nintendo player, bought a new one, then put the old one in the box and RETURNED IT and they actually gave him his money back. He was a real jerk, a great scam artist.

So we don't have the games here. I'm lucky to have a TV with the way my husband is. We don't want our kids going stupid or getting thumb arthritis.

But I have to tell you I have Chuzzle and Diner Dash on my computer and I LOVE THEM. They are my stress relief: matching colored puff balls and playing a waitress. The kids play Chuzzle sometimes, but usually I am mean and make them play with each other or read or something instead.

Got a favorite video game?