If you ever watched "Titanic," watch this. Now.

Thanks, Everyday Mommy. It could happen, right?! Maybe? Could be a chance? Even a small one? Teensy weensy?

Drat.

But have fun with the possibility.

(eensy-weensy, itty-bitty chance?)

My boy the swinger

I'll try not to make a big deal out of this. I'll try not to get all mushy and dramatic. I won't pretend this milestone is as big as a graduation, or a homerun in the final inning of a state championship, or your daughter's wedding.

But.

Last week Mickey swung himself on a park swing. HIMSELF. For years I've heard non-stop: "Push me Mamma, higher!! To the trees! I want to touch that cloud! Push me! Push me higher!"

But last week I only pushed him one time and 15 minutes he was still going strong. Poor woman with her child next to me must have thought I was getting ready to throw him a party. Or cry.

Guess it's a little too late on that making a big deal thing...

What's in my car?

Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer confessed to this inventory of items her husband recently found when cleaning out their car. She's asking the rest of us to chime in with our lists, I think to find extra things to add to hers (really, Shannon, I believe you have enough stuff!)

So here's my list. No need for soft music or a pillow:

sticker saying "I helped Firefighters help Jerry's Kids"

15 CDs

slippers (never know when I might need to run into Safeway)

bath towel

paper sack full of giveaway shoes

stroller

OSU blanket

3 flash cards

picture of father-in-law taken in 1955

2 yogurt bars, some pretzels, animal crackers in a baggie

diaper bag

sippy cup

box of Kleenexes

carseat manual

dashboard card from Edgewater Beach Resort where we vacationed in 2004

small basketball

4 pairs of sunglasses

dinosaur craft made with toothpicks, popcorn kernels, and popsicle sticks

sucker stick

3 cupholders for carseats (never been attached, also peculiar since I only have two carseats)

2 Happy Meal toys

Hey!! Wake-up!! Your boss can see your sleeping reflection in your computer!!

That's why they call it a snapshot, huh.

I took this picture of Alex and his butterfly puzzle the other day (thank you Aunt M!). At first glance I thought the picture wasn't really that special.

Then I think of how little Alex pays attention to me when I'm asking him to be still for a picture. He just looks at me like I'm speaking Chinese and goes about his business.

I guess that's why pictures like this mean a lot to me, if no one else, because I can remember how fleeting the image was. I thought...wow, I can't believe I got that shot in spite of Alex's squirminess and the (frustrating-to-the-point-of-wanting-to-hurl-it-into-the-street) delay on my point-and-shoot camera. And I didn't even ask him to put that puzzle up to his face and make sure he could see me so I could see his eyes.

Now I'd love to have some swirly ending to tie this post up, but it's escaping me right now. So settle for this please:

Jekyll and Mom

Lately I feel like I am torn. Seems like one minute a thought pops into my head and the next day the complete opposite thought takes its place. Sometimes the very next minute:

Alex, when are you going to get potty-trained?!
Ooooh, I'm going to miss hearing that swish-swish sound of your diaper!

Boys!! No jumping on the bed/sofa/chair/brick wall outside!!
Oh, my...I'm so thankful I have healthy boys.

Pete, seriously, pots and pans go on the BOTTOM RACK of the dishwasher.
How lucky am I to have a husband who loads the dishwasher?

I'm so glad I don't have to dress for an office job anymore.
Why did all my clothes sneak out of my closet and run away on the day I quit?

Ugh, it is so friggin' hot outside and it's only May.

Yay! Early summer!

This blog is a waste of time. Why, anyway?

I am, therefore I write. (Ewwwww!)

If I had an office job I wouldn't be in the kitchen so much and I wouldn't eat so much.

I'm so glad I work at home and don't have to eat out so much.

I really wish I could eat out.

I'm so glad I don't have to eat out so much anymore.
Dang, I wish I could get someone to serve me a meal.

Maybe I really need to get a little clarity on that last one.

The next big thing: you heard it here first

Today I took the boys to the library, only Alex has an interesting way of pronouncing it. The more I hear him say it the more I think I'm getting ready to open a business:

THE LIBREWERY
Come cry in your beer AND a good book.

or

Home of the well-read bartender.

or

Borrow a book, keep the beer.

or

The place to drink alone with others.

What's your idea for a slogan? (No prizes. Puh-leeze!)

Birthday in the country

We celebrated my niece's ninth birthday last weekend. The niece that wasn't even four years old when she was in my wedding. I think that's five years ago but I couldn't possibly be right because it was just yesterday.

Anyway, I loaded up City Mickey and City Alex and took them to her house in Small Country Town for her birthday party. On the way Mickey asked if they have any toys. Um, yes, you could say that. Good, he says. Do they have a play area? Well, I don't know, honey...if you call 87,000 acres and vehicles (or animals) to scale it a "play area," then, yes, they have that, too.

(And if any of the parents of these kids freak out over my seven readers seeing these adorable pictures of their kids, please let me know and I will take them off. But then they'd just be depriving the Seven of their kids' adorableness. Aside: If you haven't noticed, I'm seriously relaxing my self-imposed rule about not putting my boys' pics out here. I guess I'm all comfy out here or something.)

Not your ordinary farm/ranch.

Small but mighty transportation.

And why can't a pond have a pier? That little yellow spot getting ready to walk the plank on the far left is Alex. Nice knowin' ya, sweetie.

Birthday girl catching her dinner.

Ten kids, two inches from water's edge, and I still managed to snap pictures.

That's the hand of big sister L who made that masterpiece of a cake.

The birthday party.

Saturday morning imposter

Splenda packets and a fork can only do so much

Last night we decided to go to dinner at a popular barbecue restaurant down the street. We were seated quickly and served our drink order, but it went downhill from there.

In a nutshell, our food never came. After one hour of waiting (and being strung along), Pete finally said "Two minutes, ma'am, and then we're leaving." The waitress left the table. Two minutes came and went. Then I asked the boys "do you want to go to McDonald's?"

YES! They couldn't have been more thrilled. So there is a time to love that high-fat, low nutritional-value place.

So Alex put down his fork (or flung it) and his sweetener packets (or flung them) and we bustled them out the door. And apparently the waitstaff was glad to see us go because no one came after us.

Here's a few things we were told during our one hour of sipping water and Diet Pepsi:

"It's the corndogs that take so long."
"Would you like a free dessert or something?"
"Is there anything else we can get you?"

Maybe that hour of my life back...

The "I got nothin" post

Not much in the creative department, I can tell you that. Right now I'm listening to some clothes tossing around in the dryer and wondering when they will jump out and hang themselves up. It's the last hour before I have to get the boys from MDO and I usually try to cram a lot of to-do's in there. Such as blather on my blog.

Blog blathering. Bloggering?

You may have read about seven people dying in a ginormous tornado last Saturday in Picher, Oklahoma. Way in the northeast part of the state. This has made the weather forecasters on TV and radio skittish about this afternoon's upcoming storms in our area. They're already planning for some "big ol' tornados" as one meterologist put it, so we Okies could understand, I guess. So if you're planning on watching Kristi Yamaguchi jump up and down because she's blown away another (why-am-I-even-here) competitor on DWTS...don't.

Oh, those dang clothes. I really gotta teach them a thing or two.

Let's hope you're getting paid for your photos

If you own one of these, you are probably a photographer who is also buying private islands in the Caribbean. Just...wow.It's a Hasselblad.

It's also $43,995.

Danica Patrick sends crewman to the hospital...

...and all he gets is "...it's unfortunate what happened today..."

Yeah, it's unfortunate the car with the wheels connected to the steering wheel being gripped by YOU could not make the decision not to hit that guy.

Really more unfortunate, Danica, is that you could not muster even an "I feel bad for what I did..."

Or a meeting with your publicist before the interview?! Yikes...that guy's gonna have some clean-up to do.

My Target is BloggedIn!

BloggedIn Network is having a contest that I NEED to win. It's easy-peasy to enter: just go here and check it out. The randomly-drawn winner gets a ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR TARGET GIFT CARD.

If I win, yes, it'll be quite difficult to decide what to buy. Clothes for the boys? Socks and underwear for Pete? Actually, how nice would it be to have a year's supply of Tide? Or diapers to get Cooper through to The Other Side of potty-training? Ahhhh, off to daydream some more...

You, on the other hand, need to get over there and enter yourself!

What's next? Walking across broken glass?

Today at Mother's Day Out was basically Mother's Day. Mickey's classroom was recreated to become the "Mom Spa."

Mom Spa was a lahhht of fun. Our perfect kids served us punch and cookies. They combed and styled our hair ("yyyess, honey, that feels, er, ow, good...") with little barrettes and clips. Then we went to a table where we got back massages with those three-legged thingies you get at Bath and Body Works.

Then, to my horror, there was the manicure table. I had to let Mickey paint my nails?!

You have to understand: I drive 20 minutes to my manicurist whose middle name is Meticulous (okay, USED to drive).

And now I get to let a four-year-old MALE do the job.

All the other mothers were happily sitting down and offering up their hands. I wondered if I could get away with telling Mickey I already had polish on them. No, shoot, they had a bottle of polish remover right there on the table. And then I thought how snooty and inconsiderate and just plain mean it would be if I told him no thanks.

And I thought about it some more.

And then I grabbed the remover, took off my old polish, and spread out my fingers on the table for Mickey to attack with the tiny brushes.

He absolutely loved it.

(By the way, I tried to photograph his handiwork but it's too difficult to see since the polish was too sheer. But it sparkles. All the way up to my first knuckles.)

So after I'd sacrificed my fingertips I figured I'd come home and take it off...and I guess I mentioned this to Mickey. His response?

"Why?"

Uhhhh, well, maybe I'll leave it on until Daddy gets home. Or until I go to bed tonight.

Or until your highschool graduation...

It gets that way late in the day

Is it just me or do most moms look at their kids sometimes and wonder why they do what they do?

Right now they are playing catch with twelve of these in an unopened package (up and down the stairs).

I really wonder how long it'll be before my downstairs looks like a car full of teenagers attacked it.

Who needs poetry when you have my husband?

So last night Pete and I went to dinner at our favorite restaurant to celebrate our anniversary. Dim lights, great atmosphere, wine, and each other. I really thought I had everything I needed right then and there...until he showered these very memorable words on me:

"Five years. Wow."

(a full second of silence as he gazes lovingly into my almost-teary eyes. Then...)

"You want some asparagus?"

I'm so looking forward to the 10-year green beans...

Look out, world!

The gold carpet and the Goodyear hat may be long gone, but today this little girl is getting a college degree that will never go out of style. Congratulations, L!

So five years of marriage makes you speechless?

There's a fine line between writing a blog post about your five-year wedding anniversary, boring your readers to death, and revealing too much information about your personal life. There's a lot of lines, I suppose.

The bottomline, however, is that tomorrow Pete and I will celebrate five years of marriage. In a lot of ways I feel like we are just getting started: we have a young marriage and young kids, compared to all my old and shriveled friends whose kids have one foot out the door.

Right this minute I'm listening to Alex sing the Barney song out loud. Right this minute Mickey is sleepy-eyed in bed next to him. Right this minute Pete is visiting a very sick friend in the hospital.

And right this minute I wouldn't change any of that. I have two beautiful boys and a compassionate, loving husband.

(How's that for speechless?)