My 3 y/o is planning her wedding

It all started very innocently. Last night at dinner, N asked me how I got married. I answered simply that a really cute guy, that I loved, asked me to marry him and I did. Apparently, that didn't completely answer his question, so N turned to Tommy and asked how he got married. Tommy answered that we got married, and reminded N that he has seen the pictures. N was still waiting for a better answer, so I told him the fairytale story of our wedding-

"After Daddy asked me, I put on a pretty white dress and Daddy got dressed up" (here is wear E and C chimed in that Daddy wore a tie.) "All our best friends and family came, and they were all dressed up too. Pastor Rocky asked Daddy if he would love me forever, and Daddy said yes. Then Pastor Rocky asked if I would love Daddy forever, and I said yes. Then we kissed " (Paused here, to demonstrate our kiss.) "After that, we had a big party, with lots of food, dancing, and music."

By this point, N was satisfied with the description, while K was absolutely enthralled. She had sat quietly while I spoke, in absolute awe. Breathlessly she said "Mama, I wanna do that." To which I answered "Well, when you meet someone nice and wonderful, and Daddy says he can have your heart, you will get married too." That was all she needed. I could see the wheels spinning in her sweet little head, and she was excitedly talking about dresses and parties. Yes, at 3 years old, my daughter is planning her wedding.

Ps. While K was dreaming, the older boys were on to the *important* things. C asked "did you get presents at your party?" To which Tommy answered, "Yes, we got the plates you are eating on, some pans, and a lot of other stuff. Then we went on vacation to the beach, and I got a new TV. That's the kind of stuff that happens when you get married." Yes, we girls get lost in fairytale of romance, love, and pretty dresses, while boys are excited about the honeymoon and presents.

Fashion Sense

I wish I was more of a fashionista than I am. Every once in a while, I get ahold of some dresses, pairs of cute shoes, or jewelry and make a small statement for a while. As far as boys' clothes, well, my style is different from Cassie's. As we pass our sons' clothes to each other, she keeps the rompers, sweaters with characters on them, and sweater vests in the bag until I need them for the next boy, and I keep the flannels in the bag til I hand them back to her.

We both agree on some basics, though. For example, I know if I send one of my boys to her house, I can trust her to dress them and take them in public. I do not have the same confidence in my husband. When B was a baby, Josh dressed him every morning, using the outfits lovingly hung up on the pegboard above his changing table.

If I forgot to hang up outfits, B would sport interesting combinations: pants a size up or down, tops of one shade that didn't match the shade of the bottoms, or windpants and a button down shirt. Josh is the first to admit he doesn't care that much. I recall one Valentine's Day when I shouted to Josh to please put the child in red. B toddled out in a red flannel and green corduroys: the perfect Christmas Lumberjack.

In fact, the pegboard thing fell through often enough that Babysitter and I had a code. If he was dressed funny and I mentioned that B had a doctor's appointment or some other public appearance in the afternoon, she'd make sure he pee through his clothes and require the backup.

This morning I woke up to a dressed G. Really, I had to wonder if Josh had searched for the combo above. Stripted top, plaid overalls (which happen to say "Old Navy Gal" on a tag on the front), and Camo socks. I think I may have solved the mystery, though. Instead of looking through the actual dresser drawers, he's grabbing hanging clothes (the shirt) and clothes I've thrown aside in the closet next to the dresser (the girl pants--and the 6 month sweatpants G sported as capris all day at home yesterday).

Now to stock the sides of the closet with acceptable clothes--like the rompers Cassie and Babysitter love so much.

Bird Brain

Cassie and I have the privilege of dropping our kids off at the same sitter. Because she's wonderful, she lets us drop things off for each other there--like the flats I'm letting Cassie borrow tomorrow. We also sometimes get the treat of seeing each other in the morning. One of the things Cassie teases me about is how I leave my driver's side door open when I drop the boys off. She's threatened to take off in the car, but the joke is on her. I take the keys inside with me. Hey, I'm not an idiot.

This morning after kissing two sons and two nephews goodbye, and waving to my sweet niece, I ran out to the car and slammed the door. It was then that I heared that scratching. I froze. For those of you who read my "Wardrobe Malfunction" post, you know how I feel about rodents. I turned around slowly and saw a bird. Seriously: a bird in the back window above G's carseat. Thanks to my superior ability to keep my head in situations that involve wild critters, I responded quickly and appropriately. I ran back into the house and asked my baby sister to help me get a bird out of my car.

Little known fact: Cassie hit three flying critters inside of a year. I think two may have been birds, but one was definitely a bat. It's like they were attracted to the grill of her minivan. She has never been able to actually extract these critters from said grill. This would probably explain her "helping" by stopping on the porch--she thought "helping" involved removing a dead or dying bird from the exterior of my little car. Once she realized it was a live critter and not in the grill, she "helped" by dancing around on the porch and chanting "It IS a bird! It really IS a bird!"

Luckily for me, one son and two nephews had followed us outside. Even more luckily for me, we'd leave after the ordeal. I'm sure the sitter was not happy I'd riled the older boys all up. Anyways, the bird was flitting and fluttering all over the car, but not quite close enough to the open driver's side door to make its escape. I opened the passenger side door, and that sucker came close to touching me. I'm pretty sure. I looked back at my dancing sister. In that moment one of the boys opened the driver's side back door, and just like that: FREEDOM!

We sent the wild boys back in (thanks again, Best Sitter Ever!) and Cass and I surveyed the situation. There were no remnants of the bird including no droppings! We could hear one really ticked off bird tweeting in the trees. We're pretty sure he was telling all his birdie friends about the rough morning he'd had and the stupid humans who'd scared him half to death.

Musical Cheerios

This morning, I poured myself exactly one cup of Dulce de Leche Cheerios in a yellow Hope*Well Wishes cup. As each boy saw it, he asked for a cup of Cheerios for himself. I poured some for B in a purple cup and some for G in a mug.

As we loaded up to head out the door, I noticed the yellow cup in B's hand...and several of its contents in his mouth. I guessed that the purple cup had about an cup of Cheerios, and just went with it. We headed out to the car. Super frosted. It must have been cold last night. Weren't we just wearing short sleeves last week?

Which was dead. I'd left the headlights on since Friday night.

I ran in to ask Josh to jumpstart the car, but we have no jumper cables. We'd have to take his car. I tore outside with the key, started his car up to defrost, and begged B to transport our stuff to Josh's car as I took a card to the window.

B's first load: their toy basket. I had to rephrase my request.

After scraping the window, buckling the boys, and throwing the car in reverse, I noticed my yellow cup of Cheerios, nestled in a basket between my water bottle and Cookie Monster. Full circle.

And the boys' Cheerios? Well, they were in my car--in the toy basket I'd made B leave behind.

My Fitness Pals

In an effort to drop some "baby" weight and to win The Biggest Loser at work, I've joined the free site www.myfitnesspal.com. You can debit your calories and credit your workouts. I keep up with my intake all day long, via apps and internet.

The calorie debit is amazing--search by brand name and someone has likely already entered its nutritional information. However, the workout part lists all types of stuff I wouldn't do--jog, run, dance, strength train. I do walk, and that combined with limited portion has led to me tying for lead with another coworker in the contest. This week may be different, though, as I have packed in a LOT of extra calories.

That is, of course, if the calories I burn from extreme parenting truly burn what I think they do.

Today, I picked B up from school and took him and Bronchitis-ridden G grocery shopping. G has been his normal self most of the day, with the occasional need for an extra snuggle. As soon as I strapped him into the double seat cart next to his big bro, he announced, "I don't want cart." Uh oh.

"G, you have to ride, baby. I can't hold you and push the cart."

"I want Binky." If his godparents are reading this, they are guffawing. They have not seen a binky in his mouth for a year and a half, and they see him five days a week. Even when he stays overnight at their house, he's binky-free. At home, different story. He gets it at night...and when he finds one.

"I'll get you a binky right now if you ride in the cart." Usually I do not bargain. I have shopped for thirty minutes with a screaming 2 year old strapped into a Food Lion cart. The kid is sick, though, and he needed some type of comfort.

Full blown meltdown. "Mama, hold me! Mama, I want you! Please, Mama!" Tears, tears, tears.

We live 30 minutes from town. I was not going back. Desperate times.

I switched the double cart for a regular, and had the 7 year old push. We hightailed it to the baby section where I snatched the $1.97 set of pacifiers, opened it right then and popped one in G's mouth while reassuring B that it was OK to do this instead of waiting until we paid. One day, I'll show him the people of Walmart site, and he'll forget all about my irresponsible consumer habits. After burning calories from that run and arguemnt, I moved to more cardiovascular: catching the cart before B rammed a fellow customer, carrying a 26 pound child while tossing groceries in the cart, backtracking to retrieve items forgotten, and sweating from the stress of it all. I'm sure I burnt a serious amount of calories.

My friend Whit posted that a warm bath burns 130 calories and watching tv burns 92 calories an hour. I think I might work in a second workout tonight.

Take that, Fitness Pal.