Wordsmith

Noah has invented a new contraction: amn't. Contracting, naturally, the words "am" and "not".

Tonight, Travis hollered in typical tolerant-older-brother fashion, "Noah's being mean!" Noah's response: "NO I AMN'T!!!"

And why not? You can contract practically every other 'helper' or similar verb with "not"... did, could, have, should, would, will (kind of), can, has, do, are, is. But not am, Noah. Not am.

(Incidentally, a quick Wikipedia search of the word amn't reveals that it is commonly used in the Scottish-English dialect. Who knew? I could see Noah fitting in well with the Scots. Maybe I should get him a kilt.)

Moving on.

In a testament to how pathetically distracted I have been of late, tonight as I was switching the laundry over, I realized that a package of light bulbs had apparently fallen into the washer and had gone through the laundry cycle. A package of light bulbs.

A package. Of. Light. Bulbs.

Now, I am no stranger to random crap making its way into my laundry. I've washed many a pen, crayon, and battery in my day. I had a cell phone make it through the wash. (It did not survive, by the way.) The worst was the stray diaper (I'm fairly certain it was unused). If you're not familiar with what happens to a diaper when it gets water-logged and explodes, consider yourself lucky. I still shudder just thinking about that awful mess.

But a package of light bulbs? This wasn't an unusually small package or anything. It wasn't even small light bulbs, like the kind you put in chandeliers or foyers that look like little candles. In fact, this package was larger than your run-of-the-mill light bulb pack-- it was those large, round globes that go above the bathroom mirror.

One would assume that, had I been paying even the slightest bit of attention to what I had been doing when loading up that laundry, I would have noticed a package of light bulbs in there. How it got past me is beyond me. Perhaps I was on automatic pilot mode, just going through the motions without paying much mind to the task at hand. Perhaps there was just too much other stuff going on, and I was grabbing a toilet paper roll away from Sophie while simultaneously shaking the dog off from chewing on my sock and hollering at Noah to stop beating his brother over the head with a Lincoln Log. Who knows.

I just seem to be slightly less "together" these days. I already shared my lost purse story with you. A few weeks ago I just forgot to pay Ben's boat guy for the work he'd done on the boat, after numerous reminders to myself. I just now sent out Thank You cards for Noah's birthday party, that I completed and addressed a month ago, the day after the actual party. This morning I forgot Noah's shoes, so he spent a barefoot day at Ya-ya's house.

Ah, well. School starts tomorrow, and there will be a whole host of other opportunities for me to screw things up with my forgetfulness.

Speaking of school, Kindergarten Meet & Greet was last night. Travis has been a wee-bit reluctant about starting Kindergarten..... not any more. He played with his buddy Evan in the gym, running back and forth for 20 minutes, toured his classroom, saw several kids from last year's Pre-K class, met his teacher who he already knows and likes from before-school care last year. Now he can't wait to start. Should be a good year.