I've decided to move my blog. I'm going over to Blogger for 2 main reasons. First, in order to comment on my blogs here in Vox, you have to sign up for an account (which many of you have been so gracious to do and I appreciate it, thanks!) Secondly, we use Picasa to organize our pictures on our computer and Picasa can upload to Blogger directly, so hopefully it will make posting pictures less of a hassle. Also, it automatically saves drafts, so I can avoid the anguish of a suddenly locked up computer. (So I guess that makes 3 reasons)
I've tried it out with a few posts and I have liked it better so far, so I've decided to make the move. (I also tried it out a long time ago, so there are some older posts there too) So here's my new address, make sure you bookmark it!
Hope to see you there ;-)
And Casey says: don't forget, if you use a feed reader, update your feeds. (I think I know what that means, but I woudn't have been able to say it myself.)
Coulson's Nanna and Grandpa Bud invited him to visit them for the weekend. Just him, without Charlie. So Coulson was excited to have his very own special weekend with his grandparents. All morning long yesterday he kept asking, "when is Nanna going to get here?" and I kept telling him she would arrive sometime during Charlie's nap. Sure enough, she arrived and picked up Coulson during Charlie's nap. Well, Charlie had been hearing all the talk about Nanna coming throughout the morning and the first thing he said when we woke up, "Is Nanna here?" When I told him that she and Coulson had already left, he burst into tears. It took a while to settle him down and I had the insight to explain the situation as "Charlie's special weekend with Mommy and Daddy." I hadn't thought about it that way before the outburst, but once I did, I thought it was a pretty good idea.
(He finally calmed down after I let him watch some of the NCAA tournament because he loves any and all sports. Speaking of, I started out pretty well in my fantasy bracket for the first day and a half, but last night was pretty ugly for me!)
Since Coulson is older and can express himself better, Charlie usually just has to go with the flow. But yesterday afternoon, Charlie was able to call the shots. He got to enjoy the playground at his own pace and just be his natural, funny, goofy little self without any fighting or fussing with his brother to get in the way. And he is a pretty goofy little kid. I'm looking forward to a fun weekend.
North Carolina isn't one of those super important states like New York, or California, or Texas. We kinda get lost in the jumble of all those other states. Except in March. March Madness is the time for NC to shine. Let's face it, when it comes to college basketball, North Carolina pretty much kicks ass! (pardon the expression, it just feels good to say it that way.) So once a year I emerge from the sports-free cocoon that is my life (except for sports played by athletes in the 3-7 year old age range) and embrace the world of ESPN and all the stuff that goes with the NCAA Championship.
Tonight we filled out our brackets for a friendly online competition. Knowing nothing whatsoever about college basketball and being from NC, it's no surprise that 3 of the teams in my final four are from NC! The rest of the teams I chose randomly, relying mostly on rank, with a few upsets here and there to make it exciting. I used a coin toss once to decide.
Coulson had 2 criteria for his picks. First, most importantly, and following in his mother's footsteps, he supports the NC tradition. His secondary criteria was the name of the school – he went for whatever school had a funnier name. And those aren't easy criteria to work with – he was stumped when Carolina came up against Gonzaga, but ultimately he chose to honor his roots. He also thought Mississippi was a very funny name and laughed every time I said it, so Mississippi makes it pretty far in the brackets. Although he said he chose based on the funny names, I noticed that when I gave him the choice of two teams, he generally chose the team that I mentioned last, so no. 15 seeds Rob Morris, Cal St. and Morgan St. do pretty well until they meet up with a team from NC.
Casey also filled out a bracket, but he looked up commentaries on the internet, analyzed probablities and consulted with his father on his choices, so his approach was kinda boring.
Good luck on your own brackets!
When Coulson was about 6 months old, I read a quip in a parenting magazine that went something like this: "With your first child, you sanitize anything that the baby drops on the floor; with the second child, you follow the 5-second rule; by the time the third child comes along, if he can get to it before the dog does, he can have it." As I looked over at my firstborn child and my dog sharing some Cheerios under the kitchen table, I realized I was way ahead of my time. My personal parenting philosphy on germs is mostly based on exposure to build up immunities. I have followed this exposure philosophy, not out of science, but simply because cleaning is not my default setting in life and if you've ever lived with me or even just been to my house on a normal day, you know that very well. (I've always claimed that I'm an excellent mother, but terrible housekeeper, so I use "stay-at-home-mom" as my profession instead of "homemaker".) But now I can claim that my housekeeping habits are in the best interest in my children and here's the science to back it up: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html?_r=4
I like reading the fine print on packages. Like the chicken I bought yesterday - In large print, the package proudly declared that no hormones or steroids were added to the chicken (or something to that effect, I didn't write it down), followed by a tiny astrisk. I followed the astrisk to the tiny print at the bottom and learned that "federal regulations prohibit adding hormones or steroids to the chicken." Wow, their chicken complies with the minimal standards of the law! They deserve a medal!
But the one that really has my head spinning is on the package of flushable wet wipes that the kids use to wipe their bums. I bought it because it can be easier for the kids to wipe their own bums when they are learning (ok, so I'm not really entrusting that task to Charlie yet). I figured that it would be easier just based on logic that a wet wipe would work better than dry toilet paper. But Pampers took it one step further: "Cleans up to 30% better than toilet paper" the package tells me. 30% A specific percentage makes me think they did some scientific, measurable, quantitative research to determine this. But I ask myself - How does one measure this type of cleanliness? And who wants to do this type of research?
