What's your number?

I don't really consider my blog the appropriate place for political commentary. I personally am somewhat passionate about my political views, but that sort of discussion generally warrants back-and-forth discourse, as opposed to my one-sided opinion.

I consider myself a fiscal conservative and a social moderate, whatever that is. I don't fit into a "party" ideology, and frequently find myself turned off by die-hard party-liners. More and more I find myself identifying with the Libertarian point of view, but there are some things the Libertarians stand for that I just could not support, like total privatization of education and the like.

Today, I was driving into work and my radio was tuned to the Glenn Beck program. I've listened to his show before, but I'm not much of a fan. He seems like an alarmist to me. I don't really begrudge him that -- he's got an enormous fan base, so clearly he is tapping into some sentimentality that people are searching for, or at the very least providing some alternative release for people who are fed up with politics in general. I don't know what his appeal is, and don't much care. Even when I agree with him ideologically, I find myself turned off by his delivery and what I consider over-dramatization.

At any rate, while I was listening, Glenn was doing a commercial for one of his sponsors, Select Comfort. Those are the folks that make the Sleep Number bed. You know, the bed where you have a "sleep number", representing firmness of your mattress.

I'm quite familiar with the Sleep Number. I sleep on a Select Comfort Sleep Number bed every night. My sleep number is 45. Basically, your bed comes with a remote, and you can adjust each side of the bed (separately) to whatever firmness you want, ranging from 0 (sinking into a pile of feathers that is resting on a cloud) to 100 (lying on rock that is reinforced with steel).

So, in this commercial, Glenn is explaining the bed and mentions that his sleep number is 100.

That just did me in. I simply can NOT trust someone whose sleep number is 100. Its like sleeping on a slab of concrete. This has to mean that he is a vampire, or an alien. There is no other explanation.


So there you have it folks. Political commentary wrapped up in a sleep number. End of story.


Sleep tight.

NO I WILL NOT DANCE WITH THOSE CRAZIES

What an exhausting day.



This morning, I loaded up Noah and Sophie to head to the library. The mouse from the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books was making a stop by our local library during story-time. We made mouse puppets, did some songs and dances, and met the mouse.






There is a library festival this weekend that I was so hopeful to make it to because we missed it last year. But we have a wedding this weekend about 3 hrs away and will have barely enough time to stop by. I think we'll have enough time to drop in for a few minutes at the beginning, which is better than nothing. Mouse will be there, as well as some other of my kids' favorite characters, like Curious George, Max of Max & Ruby, Martha the talking dog, and others. I'm really bummed about missing the marionette puppet show of Beauty and the Beast, though. I think they would have loved it.


At any rate, you won't be surprised to learn that Sophie ADORED Mouse.

Noah was a little reluctant. But he gave him a high five.

Then afterwards, we went to Goodwill to pick up some stuff for the kids' Halloween costumes. I'm not telling you what they are, its a secret for now. You'll learn more as we get them put together. But I bought a few things, including hats and shoes for their costumes. I also let each kid pick out a Goodwill toy. Sophie got a musical guitar, and Noah made off with Goodwill Gold by finding a Buzz Lightyear rocket ship.

By this time, it was lunch, so we went home and made mac'n'cheese, and played with the new toys. Sophie had time for a little nap before it was time to pick up Travis from school. We then made a trip to Meijer to find a few more costume-related items, and some necessities like milk, and cheese sticks.

I'd also wanted to pick up a few finishing touches for an especially nice dinner I wanted to make for Ben tonight, as an apology for my uber-stressfulness lately. But, Sophie was tired from a too-short nap, and was a screaming mess. Noah didn't want to ride in the cart but was forced to because every time I put him down to walk, he got "wiggly", meaning he zigs and zags and pretends to fall, and lags behind, and wreaks general havoc as much as possible. So he was grumpy. Sophie was grumpy because she just kept seeing things she wanted "(ooh! a bear! ooh! a fish! OOH! A TOWEL!), so the entire shopping trip was one heartbreak for her after another, as I kept passing her dream items by. Even things she wanted that we did get (ooh! cheese sticks!) (which sounds more like "tease ticks" in her 21-month old tongue) were still heartbreak because mean ol' mom wouldn't open them for her mid-store. She sat in the front of the cart with "tease ticks" gripped in her hands screaming "OPEN! OPEN! O! PEN!" for most of the trip.

So, by the time I'd gotten the essentials, I was ready to get out of there, and didn't pick up what I needed for my nice dinner.

I did finally appease Sophie a tiny bit, however, by allowing her a ride on Sandy, the penny pony at Meijer.

Then we got home, the kids ate dinner and I called Ben and told him what my plan had been and suggested we just order something in instead. He won't be home till later anyway, so once the kids get to bed, hopefully we can unwind with some pizza and a glass of wine or something.

At any rate, after they ate, we worked on some craft projects -- spray painting the kids Halloween costume hats, and then working on Travis's art project homework for school. They gave him a large orange pumpkin cut-out, and it was our job to creatively decorate it however we wanted. The teacher said, "anything with a face" but urged us to try to use things other than just paper.

So, Travis decided on a tiger. We used green & blue food coloring to darken up some macaroni, which we glued on for the stripes. We used skinny wooden craft sticks for whiskers, which Travis decided to paint with sparkly glitter glue. We used molding clay for the nose, and pipe cleaners for the mouth and teeth.

Travis is so proud. He loves it. We'll take it back in to school tomorrow for display in his classroom.

After all that crafting, it was time for bath, another exhausting endeavor. Kids liked their new bubble bath, but Sophie spent a lot of time eating it, and Noah spent a lot of time rubbing it in his eyes and then screeching.

So, I'm down for the count. Bring on the pizza and wine.

Oh - also, I found a few random pictures that I wanted to include:

Noah desperately wants Avery and Canada to be friends.

Movie night. Isn't it fabulous?

And finally, here is a video from today's story time at the library. Sophie kind of tried to get into the dancing. Noah REFUSED. You'll see him mid way through the video, clinging to my leg in a mega-death-grip.

Gamery

The streak has been broken.

Up until about twenty minutes ago, Noah was the undisputed UNO champion of this household. Seriously. I mean, I bought the game on Saturday morning, we've played it probably fifteen times in the two days since, and Noah won fourteen of those. But just now, he lost two games in a row, much to Travis's delight.

Such a winning streak is useful to teaching good sportsmanship --- and to Travis's credit, after he got over his initial frustration at always losing, he then moved to "let's see who wins second place" and was able to keep a positive attitude. But it was starting to get a little freakish, having this three-year old prodigy winning every single game.


As a side note, you should see said three-year-old declaring:

"U-NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

when he gets down to one card remaining. It is delightful.

We also bought the game "Sorry!" this past weekend, which you may recall from my earlier blog, I played at the Boys & Girls Club last week. As I was playing it, I thought it would be the perfect game for Travis and even Noah. Noah is a little young, but he knows how to count, and can move his pieces on his own, and can decide who he wants to switch places with or exact revenge upon when he draws the Sorry! card. So he does good. And I was right about Travis. He LOOOOOOVES Sorry. Loves it. Its all he wants to do anymore.


We did have one issue -- and that was deciding who was going to be what colors. Travis pretty much prefers exclusively blue; and Noah likes to switch colors. So when they both want to be blue, we have a dilemma. At one point on Saturday, I let Travis be blue and Noah be popcorn (since we'd been snacking on a bowl of popcorn, it seemed only natural). Every once in a while, we'd each grab one of Noah's playing pieces and eat it, then replace it with another piece of popcorn. The boys got a big kick out of that. Since then, we don't seem to have any more fights about colors.



In other news, Ben and I are each working half days this week, as my mom is on vacation with her sister in Wisconsin. So I am working mornings and Ben is working afternoons. And of course I have my regular Wednesday off.


Travis is home sick from school today because he developed a fever last night and woke me up at 4:30 this morning to tell me he needed to throw up. I think its just a mild bug, as he is for the most part okay today, and ate breakfast and lunch without a problem. Sophie seems fully recovered, save for the explosive diarrhea this morning (but see my previous paragraph; I was at work and Ben was home at the time, so he had to deal with the radioactive fallout, so to speak.) Right now, she is a ball of energy and seems to have no more issues. So far Noah has avoided any symptoms, knock on wood.


It has been quite the weekend of games for this family -- Friday, went to a friends house where the adults played "Would You Rather" and Catchphrase, Saturday was UNO and Sorry!-filled, Sunday Erin came over and we and the kids played some more UNO, Toy Story Kerplunk, and Cars Bingo; then after the kids went to bed, Davidsons and future Seifers played Outburst and Tri-Bond. Girls against guys. The girls ruled.

Naturally.

Davidson Sandwich

You know what this blog needs? More pictures.






Okay. Just kidding. I get a little picture-happy sometimes. I figure it might be a tad bit boring for you, faithful reader, but we get enjoyment out of going back through these old pictures.


Went tailgating today, chilly day but had fun. I've been thinking Sophie might be teething because she's had a fever the last couple days. But, after tailgating, we went back to a friend's house to watch the game, and Sophie kind of threw up -- so I think something else is going on. At any rate, we packed up and went home early and poor baby is upstairs conked out. She's not super-super sick, just not feeling so hot. She's been uber-clingy these last few days.


Perhaps I shouldn't have taken her out tailgating today with her being under the weather. But if I hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten this super-adorable picture of her sharing a stroller with Megan's daughter, Erin.





They were sickeningly adorable. And Erin was so cute... she put her little arm around Sophie for the entire walk home.

And here's the boys added in there:
Too cute.

After we got home and got Sophie to bed, and watched some of the game, I went out shopping with a friend at Kohl's. I paid using the Visa gift card that I won at the United Way drawing at work. (I am the UW coordinator for my office; but I promise there was no funny business in my winning -- I am completely removed from the actual raffle drawing process, thats the CFO.) Anyway, the cashier asks what I'm planning on paying with and I say, "I have this Visa Gift Card" and show it to her. So she starts punching all these buttons and then swipes my card, and its not working. Error error error. She cannot figure out what to do. She tries punching in the number. Doesn't work. Tries punching in another number. Nothing. Swipes it again. Nothing. Finally after 5 minutes of messing with it and getting nowhere, she closes out the sale and tries again. She says, "Maybe I'll try Debit Card this time" and looks at the card. She says, in a somewhat accusatory tone "OH! See? It says "Debit Card" right here. You told me it was a gift card, so I pushed the Gift Card button. Its a debit card!"

Naturally, I bristled a little bit at this and reacted somewhat defensively. I mean, did she really just blame this on me because I called it a gift card instead of a debit card? To me, its a flipping gift card. I was annoyed.

And, for the record, it also says "Gift Card" on the blasted card.

When I got home from shopping, Ben was feeding the boys. He told me that in order to come up with something they would both eat, they made a list of the foods they like. Then they went through the list and picked out a few things to put together into the world's greatest Davidson sandwich.

This is what they came up with (closeup, courtesy of Noah. Half-eaten, I would note):

It is toast, covered with peanut butter, and popcorn and M&Ms on top.

They loved it. Way to go, dad!

And finally, I leave you with these photos of the boys dancing on the "Irish Green":

And this is the printer, it prints things

Tonight was my first night of volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club. When I got there, the "Power Hour" for homework was pretty much over, and they had enough assistance in that area, so instead I helped out in the K-2nd grade area doing numerous activities.

The facility handles between 150 to 200 kids daily, all between the hours of 2:30 to 6:30. They divide them up pretty well in K-2nd, 3rd-5th, 6th-8th, and 9th-12th. And, the kids have name badges that are color coded into groups; the groups transition to a new area about every 45-50 minutes. They have homework time, computers, gym, art, games, and reading.

Tonight I helped out with art, computers, and games for the young'uns.

In art, they were drawing, cutting and pasting something to do with their favorite part of Halloween. One little girl made me a picture with a pumpkin and a Christmas tree. (I'm not sure why the Christmas tree?? Would be interested to see what trick-or-treating is like at her house...?)

At game time, I played Connect Four with a little 8 yr old boy, and then Sorry with a couple 6 yr olds. I haven't played Sorry in FOR-EV-ER. The 6 yr olds pretty much made up their own rules but we had fun. As for the Connect Four, I may have let that little boy win a few times -- but not every time. He said, "When I play with my brother, I always beat him. Dang, you're good!" I didn't tell him I used to be addicted to the iPhone online Connect Four game.

Then at computers, they were typing a thank you note to a staff member. One little boy typed "This is my first day but I really like it. Thank you for being nice. Thank you for vallanteering." Another little girl wrote (names have been changed to protect the innocent, as per my orientation guidelines), "Dear Miss Stephanie. Thanks for your help. At school I keep calling my teacher Miss Stephanie. Love, Anna." I thought that was cute. (The gal that worked there told me one of the earlier kids had written a note to one of the staff members that said, "Sorry I almost got you fired." Now that's a good one.)

Today, they were giving tours of the facility because they just opened their new "Literacy Lab". The kids were the tour guides. When I first came in, a little 9-yr-old came up to me and said, "Can I show you around?" I later saw that little boy giving a very in-depth tour to a guest, "and these are our chairs, where we sit at the computer; and this is where we put the trash; and here is a keyboard, see, its hooked up to this computer..."

So, I enjoyed it. I will probably do more of the activities kind of volunteer work than the tutoring just because it seems like that is more what they need at the time that I will be there. But I definitely think it will be a gratifying experience.

Depression and chocolate syrup

The term "post-partum depression" really drives me nuts. Its not as if the symptoms are any different than your normal, run-of-the-mill, street corner depression. Post-partum just describes the time that the depression materializes; and supposedly, pinpoints a distinct cause. Namely, the hormones that God apparently thinks is useful to send running haywire through your body after delivering a baby....after already having gone through the better part of a year in discomfort, misery, and all-around yuckiness . Okay, maybe that's just me. Its possible I'm a little bitter.

At any rate, its not as if other maladies are named differently due to their cause. Like if you got lung cancer because of smoking for 25 years versus from working in a plastics factory, its not like they diagnose you with post-cigarette lung cancer. It is what it is.

Are you supposed to wear that 'post-partum' tag like a badge of honor? "Oh, I got my depression from having a baby, where did you get yours from? Going through a divorce? Lost your job? I see -- well, mine is all natural, baby!"

And how long does that "post-partum" thing last? Google sources tell me it can be as long as two years. If you're not cured after that, does it just switch to good ol' regular depression? Or do you still consider yourself post-partum after your kids have grown up and moved out and are posting their own partums?

Sophie is 21 months old now. So feasibly, I guess I could still be considered post-partum. I'm currently not pregnant, thus by default am post partum. Post multiple partums, actually. My body has gone through so many partums it seems to have forgotten what pre-partum life was like.

I'm quite frustrated by my inability to handle depression (PPD or regular D or whatever D you want to call it) without medication. I mean, it seems to be working, but is this what God intended? What did people do pre-medication? Like cro-magnon times? Or Biblical times? If those women were expected to just deal with it, why do I feel like I deserve some quick fix? And, I don't much like adding some concoction that a chemist put together in a lab to my daily dietary intake.

But, better that than driving my poor husband and family crazy by weeping at the drop of a hat (literally... like, oh my god, Sophie dropped her hat. What do I do now? sob sob). I'll get there someday.

I am considering changing my treatment. From now on, when I get sad, I'll just give Sophie some ice cream. Nobody can stay depressed around this.

Travis the Terrific and the Mystery Snack

The other day, I Googled some book ideas for Travis as he becomes more independent and advanced in his reading. I want to keep him engaged and excited about books.

In my research, I found near unanimous support and consistent positive reviews about the "Nate the Great" series. Nate the Great is a little boy who loves pancakes and solves mysteries. The books are well-written, cute and funny, and a nice next-step for Travis in his reading endeavors. They are a slight bit advanced for his current reading level, but something good to grow into.


So, two weeks ago at our last trip to the library, we picked out our first Nate the Great book, Nate the Great and the Monster Mess. The first time, I read the book to him. The second time, we switched back and forth taking turns reading, and thereafter Travis was content to look at the book by himself -- not always reading it all the way through cover-to-cover, but still perusing it, giggling at the silly parts, and overall getting into the story.

Needless to say, Travis loved the book and I did too. They will definitely be a staple of our future library adventures.



A few days ago, after Travis had been flipping through the book, he told me he wanted to pretend to be a detective. He asked if we had any detective costumes. So, we looked through the Nate the Great book and found out that detectives wear a) long jackets/trench coats with a collar and a waist-belt, and b) hats with flaps.


Well, I really don't have any true detective wear lying around. So we decided to improvise. For the jacket, the best I could do was the sport coat I had picked up for Ben at Goodwill for the 80s party we went to last fall (he went Miami Vice-style). It didn't have a belt, so we added one.


As for the hat, well, no detective-style hats in the house either. The closest we had was Ben's camo hunting hat, which includes flaps (albeit in the wrong place). But, it worked for our purposes.


Behold.... Travis the Terrific:





Next was to come up with some mysteries to solve. It turns out that I had not seen my stuffed moose (Travis has designated a stuffed moose for each person in the family) in quite some time. 6 days to be exact. The last place I remember seeing him was upstairs in my bedroom. Voila, a mystery. Travis the Terrific got his trusty notebook, wrote down some clues, and we went in search of the missing moose.

After solving the moose mystery (turns out he was NOT upstairs, we believe Sophie the Sorceress transported him downstairs at some point, and he was buried in the stuffed animal pile in the toy room), Travis was itching to expand upon his newfound detective abilities.


Luckily, Noah got into it as well. He was eating his snack, and loudly announced, "Oh no! There's a prob-yem!" Travis the Terrific and I went in to investigate, turns out the problem was that Noah couldn't figure out what his snack was. Another mystery.


So, Travis the Terrific analyzed the clues.... it looks like applesauce, it smells like applesauce, it tastes like applesauce... and deduced that the mystery snack must, indeed, be applesauce. Mystery #2: Solved.







Finally, after all that sleuthing, Travis the Terrific decided that he needed to partake of his own snack. Detectiving is exhausting work, after all.

Fire Alarm

Tonight I had a business dinner at an upscale restaurant downtown. It was me, a company representative from a wholesale insurance broker, and four guys from my office.

One of my coworkers that attended this dinner is a volunteer firefighter for his community, and has been for many years. Fire safety is his passion. Now, you have to understand, when you get a bunch of property & casualty insurance professionals together, safety and risk are topics that come up quite a bit. Add to that mix a fire safety fanatic and you can guarantee that fire codes and similar discussions are pretty prevalent in the discussion. We joked about how my co-worker (the fire guy) had checked all the exits of the restaurant for blockages within minutes of entering.

So, we are enjoying dinner, telling stories, etc. Fire and fire-related topics just keep coming up, like the time one of my colleagues and the president of our company were visiting a client, and a nearby fireworks shop started ablaze, with fireworks shooting off inside. Or the time one of them was visiting some establishment and told the owner they might want to call the fire department; the owner questioned why, and he responded, "because your employees are wheeling all your equipment out of that building that's on fire."

At some point, my firefighting colleague is mentioning to us that he's found several makeshift meth labs in the woods when he's hunting, and how often people will use their vehicles for meth labs, and what a fire hazard disaster that often turns into. And as he's talking, I happen to glance out the window that is directly behind him and see pillars of smoke billowing outside. I squint a little, try to see what's going on, and see flames licking up. I crane my neck around a little, and what do you know, there is a car on fire right outside the restaurant.

So I interrupt and say, "Um.... guys? That car is on fire...." In a split second, fire-fighter guy has pushed out his chair, stood up and taken a sweeping glance around the room (he later told us he was looking for any visible fire extinguishers), and made a beeline towards the kitchen where he emerged seconds later with the kitchen fire extinguisher (pretty heavy duty, since it often deals with grease fires). He's out the door and saves the day, putting the car fire out in minutes. About seven minutes later the fire truck shows up; by this time, our trusty firefighter has already re-entered the restaurant, returned the fire extinguisher to its rightful place in the kitchen, washed himself up in the bathroom, and is back in his seat enjoying his halibut.

He was practically glowing from every pore after this incident. That guy loves fighting fires.

(As a side note, the company rep we were eating dinner with has a side job of maintaining a blog about management liability, executive protection issues, and the like. He and Firefighter Dude were discussing their various "passions", to which Firefighter responded, "Yours is way more dangerous than mine. Sure, I might go into a burning building, but if I had to write about directors and officers liability on a regular basis, I'd probably end up on a killing spree.")

Clearly, the restaurant ordeal was not a life-threatening or terribly serious situation. But thanks to all those firefighters out there for doing a job that not many people have the guts to take on. The same goes for D&O bloggers.

A few of my favorite things

Yesterday, there was a "Family Fun Fair" at a local park. We packed the kids up and headed out. Shortly before leaving, we got a call from Ben's family. His parents, brother, and our two nephews were on their way over to South Bend to get some new tires and asked if they could stop by. Instead, they met us out at the fair (all except for pa-pa, but that's a long story). Then afterwards we all come back home and grilled out for lunch, the kids dressed up like knights and Spiderman and Ironman and pirates, and a good time was had by all.

The kids, posing

Decorating pumpkins

Busily affixing stickers

Noah picking his nose. I mean, his pumpkin's nose.

Travis and his pumpkin, "Super One-Tooth"

Noah and "Wiggly Nose"

Sophie's pumpkin "Goophie". She decided the eyebrows looked better on the side of his face. She's exercising her one-year-old artistic license.

The finished product!

The Culver ice cream guy was there. He looks a little creepy to me.

But Sophie liked him.

So did Travis.

Noah and the ice-cream cone had a stand-off.

Sophie may have liked him too much. She followed him everywhere.

Bag decorating

Here's Sophie, post-Krispy Kreme

Sucker

Sucker # 2

Waiting in line for the horse-drawn wagon ride. Such anticipation!

Here it comes!

This is Sophie when she first caught sight of the horses. Hooray, horses!

Oops. This is Sophie when she realized we couldn't make it on the first wagon. Devastation.

Travis rode in the front of the wagon!

Look who's here!!

Trevor finishing up the obstacle course

And here's Travis. Trevor is overseeing.

Noah made it through the obstacle course too!

Sophie, happily trapped in the playground

Peek-a-boo!

When I took this picture, I thought I had gotten all four boys on the balance beam. In reality, it is three boys on the balance beam and Noah scoffing at them. Moments later, he turned tail and ran the other way.

Trevor, Travis, and Nate. They had a great time at the playground.

Grandma, the boys, Ben, Sophie. Walking back after a fun-filled morning.

And, I had to include this video of Sophie on the bridge at the playground. She's a goofball.







On our way out of the park, Travis said that he had a new favorite place to go, because he loved the playground so much. I asked what his favorite part was and he said it was playing on that playground. I said,

"What about the inflatable obstacle course?"
"Oh, that was my favorite part too"
"What about decorating your pumpkin?"
"Oh, right, that was another of my favorite parts."
"What about the wagon ride?"
"Oh yeah, that was my favorite too."
"What about eating popcorn?"
"Yes, that was my favorite part too."
"What about the giant ice-cream cone guy?"
"Oh yeah, he was my favorite."




I think it was a successful venture.