Weekend Update.

I have been feeling swamped and overextended lately, and my back is paying the price. I have a pain that shoots from my lower spine into my hips and thighs. Not sure what this is about, but it needs to go away soon.

This weekend our friends Isaac and Emily, and the fetus within Em's belly, came to visit. We had so much fun seeing them. No matter how long we go between visits, it's like they never left. And then, you know, they DO leave and it's sadness. Em is 18 weeks pregnant and looks amazingly good. I can't wait for her to find out if she's having a boy sprout or a girl sprout. In fact, I find that I am typically more eager to find out what the sex of my friends' babies are than I was to discover if Luca was really a Schnitz (she was not...or shall I say she didn't have the little schnitz we originally suspected she had). I'm sad that they left for St Louis despite our best efforts to convince them to move back to AZ, but I can't wait to go visit them in the MO and meet little Goff.

We also had a girls' night out this weekend, in honor of Brandi, who's moving to the motherland (aka Oregon) in less than 2 weeks. Mill Ave gets a little dull once school's out for the semester, so we girls (I think at our height of fun there were over 20 of us there) pretty much had Fat Tuesday's to ourselves. It was great, until The Douche came to visit. Brandi and I were talking outside when this dude comes over and decides to pull up a(n uninvited) chair. He tells us he's from Boston and quickly reveals himself to be...well...a douche. First, he tells us he's older than he looks. Mind you, no one asked, as B and I are both happily married with child. Nonetheless, he asked us to guess his age, so we offered up a courtesy guess, and he told us we were wrong and he was 38. This rousing game of no one gives a shit please leave us alone went on, and soon Douche was informing us that he was, indeed, not really 38 (sure fooled us, buddy! way to go!), but was rather 'practically a newborn'. I assured him we were smart cookies, and even with a Superman and a Orangesicle under my belt, I was still not fooled. "No, really, I'm a newborn!" he exclaimed. To which I replied, "If I passed something that looked like you from my vagina I would be scared." Oddly, The Douche found this comment to be 'HIGH 5!!!' worthy. Go figure. My favorite part was when he informed B (who looks not a day over 28) that she looked like his best friend's mother...and then quickly reassured her this was a compliment, as he apparently has some sort of 'Stacy's Mom' complex. Ewww. Oh, scratch that. My favorite part was when he attempted to impress with his tale of 'bagging' a midget while serving as wingman for a friend once. Riiiiight.

I Edited This Title.

*Note: This post used to be titled differently, until I got sick of all the random blog hits I got from questions about women and whether or not they are able to whistle.*

I had a funny experience today. I'm widely recognized in my office (ok, as widely as you can be in an office of 5) as 'The Human iPod' because, essentially, I annoy the crap out of co-workers by humming and singing everything from oldies to lullabies to current Top 40s to my favorites (Dylan, Grateful Dead, etc.). ALL DAY LONG. So, it should come as no surprise that I bust out the ocassional whistle as well.

Or, should it?

I was in my office today, amusing myself with a little bit of 'If You're Happy and You Know It', whistled as I worked. My office is at one end of the hall, and at the other end is one of my fabulous co-workers, who moved to the U.S. in the 90s from Jordan. English is his 2nd (perhaps 3rd?) language, so things like our other co-worker's catchphrases ("Goad a sleeping bear", "Bird-dog it.") sometimes have to be explained in layman's terms. One day, he even came into my office with a peach yogurt, and told me it was "Peach for the peachy." Upon further exploration of this statement, I realized he was complimenting my typically sunny demeanor (here is where my husband laughs his ass off).

So you can see why, when I walked by his office whistling merrily, his comment may have taken me off guard. For, when I heard him say to me, "You whistle like a man, Katie.", my first thought was "Well, clearly he didn't mean that."

I stopped abruptly, pivoted on one foot, and said, "I whistle like a what?". He repeated his statement, and I stood there, still and unsure what to say next. Did I ask for clarification? Smile and keep walking? Pretend to understand?

Just then, my other co-worker, another girl, piped in, "I can't whistle at all. You're really quite good."

"Yes," assured Mr. Jordan, "that is what I meant. Everytime you start to whistle I think it is insert name of other male co-worker, but then I realize it is you. Most women do not whistle so well. You whistle like a man."

Huh. I was still not sure how to take this piece of...news?...so I just started to laugh. I suppose maybe that sort of behavior earned me the peachy moniker. Mr. J then assured me that it was a compiment, a good thing indeed that a woman should whistle like a man, for most women, it seems, cannot whistle much at all.

Later, insert name of other male co-worker here came into my office and handed me a sticky note. "Google this man." he said. And google I did. It seems I was now being compared to Ron McCroby, a famous jazz whistler. Observe, and then nod your head and smile, pretenging all along that I could possibly be anywhere NEAR as happening as this cool cat ::snap, snap::



:::jazz hands:::

Go Go Gadget Arms are hereditary.

Observe the optical illusion below:



The first time I saw this picture while thumbing through my memory card, I did a double take. I actually thought, "Holy HELL, is her hand THAT big???" I mean, Luca's always had bigger hands, but this was a bit out of control.

Of course, the answer to the above question is no. Look closer and you'll see it's MY Go Go Gadget Arm creating the illusion.

Disturbingly Funny.

Luca has discovered Miss Piggy's nipples.

Miss Piggy is a dog - our dog. She has been in love with Luca almost from the start, and the older Luca gets the more Piggy loves her. I think she's always felt sort of motherly toward Luca, and when Lu was very little, Piggy would sneak up next to her and give her tiny kisses on her hands and, if we weren't diligent enough about preventing it, her little nose. She seemed to know instinctively to be gentle to her, and has never even seemed to consider being annoyed by Luca's crying or grabbing or poking or pinching.

And pinch she does! You see...Luca has recently discovered that Piggy has nipples. EIGHT of them! On her BELLY! And she can PINCH them! Now, you would think that this would be cause for alarm. Perhaps it would change Piggy's mind about Luca and how much she loves her? Maybe it would annoy Piggy just the teensiest bit? Uh, no. Not at all. In fact, the thing about The Pig is that she is desperate for attention and love. We call her Slut Dog for a reason...she loves anyone and everyone, and will practically BEG people to love her back. So you can see why Pig might be more accepting than some other dogs of the nipple tweaking that's been going on of late. But, more than just being accepting, Pig seems to encourage it. She'll spot Luca on the floor, walk over, gently lie on her side with her belly exposed, and lie there patiently while Luca tweaks away.







The even funnier side to this is that Luca has made the 'belly' connection. So she has now started searching for the nipples on all our bellies as well. She'll tweak a few of the Pig nips, then crawl over and lift the shirt of whoever is nearby. Seeing no belly nips, she gives that person's belly a little happy smack, turns around, and continues to tweak Piggy. And on and on, so on and so forth, until we either make Piggy get up and leave (because, really, at SOME point Piggy's acceptance of this ritual goes from funny to moderately disturbing) or Luca loses interest.

Annnnd....I have a feeling this is one of those stories she will NOT be amused by us sharing when she gets older.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

This is a day to celebrate our mothers, and those moms in our lives who we love. I hope you Moms out there were shown some extra love and attention today!!!



Love you, Mom!

Boy jammies.

In the warmer months (please note, non-Zonies, that 8 months of the year qaulify as 'warmer' in Arizona), we turn our AC down pretty low at night. I have to sleep with a blanket, so as a result I have to make the house cold to sleep. In addition, I've read several times that cold temperatures help prevent SIDS in babies. Now, Luca is outside of the SIDS 'danger zone', but kids can die of SIDS over the age of 1, and you KNOW my ass isn't taking any chances.

So, this leads me to jammies. Luca's room gets colder than any other in the house when the AC is on, so we like her in footed jammies, since a blanket is still not recommended at her age. The problem is, Luca is pretty tall and thin for her age. So, while her 6 month jammies still fit, they aren't long enough and her little legs get all crunched up in them.

We set out a few weeks ago to find some new footed jammies. Would you believe that finding any in 12-18 month size is damn near impossible?!?! The ones I DID find were $25 a piece. *I* don't own $25 jammie, so you can bet my baby won't be owning any either. So we decided to get creative and start looking at the 9 month ones, in hopes of finding some long ones that would work.

We did. Or, rather, Darrick did. And, you know, he asked me first if I cared that they are 'probably for boys', and I said 'Nah, she's just sleeping in them. It doesn't matter what they look like!'

Please note, they are not only red and blue, but they have a dog on the front, and say 'Big Dogs Football'. Yeah.