Hello, Internet.  How are you?

So yeah, I’ve been gone.  For a long time.  But I have a really good reason!  See sometime back in November I got a call from Jon Bon Jovi and he said they had recently lost their tambourine player for the west coast leg of their tour, and they would really love it if I could fill in.  Of course, I had to turn him down because not a day before I accepted a starring role as Sandy in the big screen revival of “Grease,” co-starring Zac Ephron as Danny Zuko.  And even to do that, I had to do some serious schedule juggling… I mean, you can only turn down a lunch invite from Oprah so many times before she gets pissed…

…As Wayne and Garth used to say,

NOT!

Ninety percent of the truth is that I’ve just been really busy.

Where to begin?  Well, first Michael moved into his big boy bed…

Now, if you would have told me 10 years ago that I would someday have an entire room of my home decorated in “eau de John Deere,” fashion, that factoid alone would have been enough to convince me to hightail it to the nearest tubal ligation-performing doctor.  But here I am.  I read somewhere that in order to get a child excited about the transition to a regular bed, you should let them pick out their new bedding themselves.  Who knew they even MADE John Deere bedding!  Lucky us.  Michael has made the transition fairly well.  We put him down at his usual bedtime and after he gets up a time or two for a seemingly endless list of reasons (”I want water!”  “I want another story”  and even, “My butt is itchy!”) he sleeps for 10 or 11 hours.  Unfortunately, moving Michael to a regular bed has more or less been the death knell for naptime (cue screeching violins) which means that I am  involved in some form of childcare, sans break, from 6:30 am until 8 pm (unless of course, I’m working one of my other two jobs).

What else?

There was Christmas, lots and lots of Christmas.  Five Christmases, to be exact.  The holidays were everything one could dream of.  Lots of family time, lots of traveling, lots of decorations, lots of food, lots of presents, lots of joys, and just… well just LOTS.  Wonderful but hectic.  This is the first year Michael has really understood the concept of Santa, an idea we milked for all it’s worth (Santa can SEE you ALL THE TIME and he won’t bring you presents UNLESS YOU’RE GOOD).  Indeed we must have all been very good this year because Santa doted on us especially heavily.

And then, of course, Jenna turned one (!)…

Mmm… chocolate cake.  The verdict?  DELICIOUS.

Since we last chatted Jenna has started walking, taking five or six steps at a time before falling on her duff.  At her one-year doctor’s visit we discovered she is 20 pounds (30th percentile), 30 inches (70th percentile) and is well on her way to her terrible twos.  Yes, the temper tantrums have begun, complete with girly squealing, kicking and rolling around on the floor.  I simply CANNOT WAIT to see what the teen years will bring.

Hmm… what else?  Well, next came the EPIC SICKNESS…

The day after Jenna’s doctor’s visit she quite suddenly vomited all over herself (and her recently turned-around carseat… yep, we were in the car).  The poor thing followed it up with five days of vomiting and horrible, horrible, TERRIBLE diarrhea.  Just when things started to look up, Michael decided to get sick with the same bug.  And then, just when things were looking up once again, I got sick.  All told, we went through an entire case of Costco diapers, got very little sleep, and had a lot of laundry and mess.  I can recall one especially desperate moment changing my 23rd poopy diaper of the day, in which I burst into tears and begged the Muffin to have a vasectomy.

We are all healthy now, though, and are looking forward to Michael’s third (!) birthday in a few weeks.  Can you believe my baby boy is going to be three?

And as for me?  Well, you may remember that at the beginning of this lengthy post I mentioned that our relative busy-ness accounts for 90 percent of my absence.  I chalk the other ten percent up to a kind of existential funk that always seems to plague me at this time of year.  For some reason, every time a new year rolls around I tend to take stock of my life, of the things I have done and things I have failed to do.

Have you seen that movie “Julie and Julia?”  (If you haven’t, you should… it’s fab!)  We watched it the other night, and when I watched the true story of the movie’s heroine, Julie, I couldn’t help but think of how similar we are.  Bright but sort of not using our potential, interested in lots of hobbies and endeavors but  lacking the stick-to-it-ive-ness to see any of them through for very long.  And then, of course, Julie decided to cook every recipe in the Julia Child cookbook and start a blog about it, and the rest, they say, is history.  That was Julie’s “thing,” the thing she had been waiting her whole life to do but didn’t know it, the thing that helped her become, well, herself.

Perhaps it’s just optimistic romance, but I’ve always thought that I have a “thing” waiting for me too, something brilliant and new and original I’m going to do that will suddenly define me.  I am determined that this is the year I discover what that “thing” is and make “it” happen.

What is “it?”  I don’t know.  Maybe if I promise to be a better blogger, you can help me find out what it is?

Between the kids and the cat, it’s nothing but madness and myrth here at Karnofski central this week.  Here’s what’s been going on:

Today after changing a diaper so disgusting that I barfed a little in my own mouth, I took Michael’s Thomas The Tank Engine underwear out of the drawer, waved them in front of him enticingly and said, “Gee, Michael.  Wouldn’t you like to wear some big boy underwear today… LIKE DADDY?”  Now, I have offered Michael the Thomas undies on several occasions at no avail, but for whatever reason, today his eyes lit up and he proclaimed, “O-TAY!”  So far today he has used the potty chair exclusively with no accidents, and he was even upset when I told him he had to wear a diaper for his nap.  Could it be?  Could potty training finally be working?  Sidebar: Muffin does not actually have Thomas underwear.  His underwear have Spider Man, of course.

On the big-boy front, Michael will also soon be the proud owner of a twin-size bed (thanks Bree, for the FREE hand-me-down!).  Michael will be three years old in just three more months, so it seemed like it was time for the switch (plus, I promised his current nursery furniture to my increasingly expectant sister-in-law).  I have no idea how it is going to go, but upon advice from my Sleep Easy Solution books I’ve allowed Michael to pick out his own bedding to get him excited about the prospect of moving into a new bed.  Now could my son have chosen, I dunno, sports?  Trains?  Boats?  No.  Michael picked out JOHN DEERE bedding.  Green, yellow, and blue bedding with a giant tractor on it.  In my wildest dreams I never imagined I would be raising a hick.  I mean, I’m like the ANTI hick.  I don’t care much for the outdoors and don’t even like country music.  Next thing you know he’s going to want a wee pair of Carhartts and some Romeos (Georgia Boots, for those of you who aren’t in the know).  I’ll post some pics of the new big boy bed once we’re operational.

Jenna will be 11 months old in a few weeks (!) and is becoming more mobile and independent every day.  She is now an expert on standing and cruising along the furniture and can walk behind push toys.  Though she has said “mama” and “dada” indescriminately for a while, she can now also say a bona-fide word: “bath.”  (Or as she says, “baff.”)  Our little Jenna is quite the fish and LOVES to take a bath, and at the mere suggestion of the word will crawl at mach speed to the bathroom.  Then she pulls herself up to standing and tries to hoist herself into the tub… no joke!  When bathtime is over she wriggles and bucks furiously like… well, a fish out of water.  In other news, Jenna has decided she wants nothing more to do with baby food in a jar and will now only eat “real” food.  I am thrilled by this economical development and am also thrilled to be a mere eight weeks away from her first birthday (better known in this house as National “We Don’t Have To Buy Formula Anymore” Day).

For Halloween this year, we toyed with several different costume ideas.  We wanted Michael and Jenna to be a “pair” of some kind, and ultimately we decided that Jenna would be Snow White and Michael would be one of the Seven Dwarves (which one he would be changed from moment to moment… grumpy, happy, sleepy…).  Jenna’s costume was no trouble at all to come up with but I’m here to tell you that there is not a “seven dwarf” costume available on the market.  What’s up with that?  So I scoured the Internet and found a “garden gnome” costume, which seemed close enough.  Michael seemed fine with it, although he did NOT like wearing the beard.  We took both kids trick-or-treating, something Michael has been talking about doing for WEEKS, and he was an adorable little gentleman, knocking politely on doors, then saying “trick or treat!” and then saying “thank you for the TANDY.”  (Candy.)  Back at home we let Michael eat as much candy as he wanted (it is just once a year, after all) and Jenna had her first (second, and third) taste of M&Ms.  Michael and Muffin and I answered the door for trick-or-treaters and Michael would exclaim, “Oh!  Batman!” or “Oh!  A Transformer!”  Or, “Oooh, a princess!”  What a little ham.

With Christmas fast approaching, there are toy commercials all over TV, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.  The brilliant marketing minds of the US have targeted my son as their ideal audience, and as such, with every commercial comes a whine of “Michael wants THAT toy, Mommy!”  After a few days of that, I gave Michael the whole “Santa brings presents to the good boys and girls” trip.  But not wanting to convey the wrong message about the true meaning of Christmas, I also explained that a long time ago the Baby Jesus was born on Christmas Day, and, in a nutshell, what that meant for humankind.  I’m afraid Michael is now a bit mixed up, because this morning when a commercial for the toy he wants most of all came on (it’s Rocky the Robot Truck, by the way), Michael told me, “Santa and Baby Jesus will bring me Rocky The Robot Truck if I’m a good boy.”

To close, I’d like to proudly introduce the newest Karnofski bundle, our kitty cat, Lola Belle Karnofski.  If she lives to see her first birthday with these children as siblings, I’ll throw her a party.

…I’m gonna live forever… light up the sky like a flame…

FAME!

Come on, you know you were singing along. 

Internet, I’ve gotta level with you.  The last few weeks I’ve been feeling a little bit beaten down by life.  Do you ever have the feeling that life is like a colossal game of Monopoly, and that too often you’re drawing the card that says, “Go directly to jail.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200?”  Well I sometimes feel that way.  Like a sister just can’t CATCH A BREAK, you know what I mean?

When I was growing up, I always thought I was going to be famous.  And it wasn’t even a little kid pipe dream; I’m pretty sure I thought this well into my teens.  I had no idea what I would be famous FOR, but it was like I always just assumed I would be.  My senior class even voted me “most likely to be famous.”  And while I am happy with the way my life has turned out, what with a wonderful husband and beautiful kids and all, about once a year I slip into an existential funk during which time I bemoan the fact that the odds of my becoming famous are slipping away as the years pass.

And then I got a phone call.

Let me back-track a bit.  A few months ago on a whim I signed up with a Portland-based casting company that hires actors, dancers, models, and such for various gigs like being movie extras, doing print ads and the like.  What did I have to lose?  Since then they’ve contacted me a few times for a few projects, but life has always intervened.  Kids to watch, work to do, no time.

But the other day I got a call to audition for a commercial in which I need to dress in circa 1962 fashion (hair and all!) and do the twist.  Um, hello?!  I CAN DO THAT!  As you all may remember, I’m a total retro culture nut, love all things 50’s/60’s, and can twist my butt off!

I know it’s a far-fetched dream, and that even if I was in a commercial that 45 seconds of screen time is nowhere close to being famous.  And I know that I’m almost 30, that I have other, bigger priorities in life, and that it’s probably a stupid idea.  But I can’t help but feel that a dream, no matter how out of reach it seems, is always something you should try to make a reality, even if you’re old, a mom, whatever.  I’m going to be famous, dammit.  FOR AT LEAST 45 SECONDS.  Hey, this could just be the start of something bigger.  By this time next year, Hollywood will probably have hired me as Angelina Jolie’s replacement in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith  II.”

My wonderfully supportive family is totally behind me on this, which makes it even better.  Muffin thinks it would be cool to see his wife on TV, and my mom gave me a twist lesson and helped me put together a good 60’s outfit.  She then proclaimed herself my agent, charged me 10 percent, and told me to lay off the sweets.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes.  Keep your cyber fingers crossed for me, okay?

I have been a straight-up terrible blogger lately.  I know it and you know it.  There’s no point trying to hide it, so let’s just get it out there in the open.

The thing is, whenever I abandon my blog for any length of time I imagine that the ten or so people who read this thing probably think I am doing something awesome and fabulous instead of blogging, but it’s actually quite the opposite.  When I quit blogging, it’s actually because nothing is happening.  So let me attempt to fill you in on all the nothing-ness, you know, in an entertaining way.

First, there’s been sickness.  And really, in my house, isn’t there ALWAYS sickness?  Could the four of us EVER be healthy, simultaneously?  The universe has answered with an unequivocal HELL NO.  A few days ago Jenna started teething again, and as I’ve mentioned before, Jenna insists that when she is suffering, the entire world suffer along with her.  There’s been drooling and pain and fevers and ire.  And Jenna is also miserable (ha).

On Saturday night Jenna never went to sleep; she woke up from her nap around 1 pm and stayed awake until the following day at 5 pm.  I don’t know how good you are with numbers, but that is like, I dunno, more than 24 hours.  Awake.  And mostly spent screaming.  She screamed so loudly and inconsolably that I insisted Muffin take her to the ER, where he would most certainly discover she had some horrible illness, but instead he just received the compelling diagnosis of TEETHING.  Thank you, that will be $300.

But this morning when she awoke with a bright red mouth and suspicious patches of white gunk on her tongue, I knew right away she had thrush and took her to the doctor.  The doctor confirmed the thrush diagnosis but seemed unconvinced that a simple case of thrush could make a child so miserable, to which I would say YOU DON’T KNOW MY DAUGHTER VERY WELL.  So she tested her for what they apparently test all baby girls for who are sick and fevery with no obvious symptoms, a urinary tract infection.  All I have to say is that seeing your infant child being catheterized is the worst, and she doesn’t even have a UTI, after all.  Anyway, she has started her anti-thrush meds this evening and I’m hoping that she is on the mend.  Sick babies are no fun at all!

If my own kids weren’t enough, have also been busy with teaching dance and my new gig as the local high school cheerleading coach.  I must admit that I am actually loving coaching.  Who would have thought that my true life calling would involve instructing others in the proper use of pom poms?  They are a great group of kids and have also helped cement my plan to return to college for my master’s degree so that I can be a teacher.

In general I guess things have just  been a little hectic lately with work and kids and what seem like never-ending appointments and commitments here and there… what I would give for a weekend with no plans.  Do you ever sometimes get the feeling that the universe is conspiring against you?  Or is that just me?

Michael, holding Jenna’s toy phone up to his ear, and pretending to talk to “Bamma” (Grandma)…

“Hello, Bamma!  What are you doing?”

(thoughtful pause)

“Can’t come over right now, Bamma.  Michaels fixin’ some tractors.  Then Michael’s gotta drive Daddy’s Mustang car.”

(another pause)

“O-tay, let’s have some corn.  And straw-dobbies*?  O-TAY!”

(pause)

“Bamma, Michael doesn’t wanna take a nap.  Michael wants to watch home movies.  Michael take a nap tomorrow.”

“Bamma, when Mommy says no Mommy means no.  O-TAY! Bye, Bamma.”

*-Straw-dobbies = strawberries

No, not the Dan Brown book.  Though I will say it was my favorite Dan Brown novel, and the movie was quite good as well, much better than the overly lauded “DaVinci Code.”

What I mean is that Jenna has mostly been an angel and Michael?  Well, this week Michael seems to have been possessed by some kind of horrible, awful, terrible twos demon.  Here is where most other “mommy blogs” (shudder) will shut their cyber traps, choosing instead to only write about the smart, adorable, sweet things their children are doing.

But I, Carolicious, believe I would be doing a disservice to mothers and potential mothers everywhere if I didn’t give you the straight dope.  Two-year olds are wonderful creatures but God Almighty, can they be monsters.  That’s not even a strong enough word.  Saying that Michael has been a monster lately would do a strong disservice to monsters.  Monsters could come and take some monster lessons from this kid.

A month or two after Jenna was born Michael went through about a month long phase where he would constantly hit, kick, throw things, scream, yell, and just be otherwise contrary.  I chalked it up to jealousy over all the attention his new little sister was receiving.  Somehow or another it blew over, and for a few months he was hit/kick/throw free.

But lately he has been unruly in general and particularly mean to his sister, poking, pinching, pushing, and punching.  Some days it seems like he’s in “time out” more than he’s in “time in.”  I’ve read a million different things about disciplining children and tried just about every tactic; time-out, ignoring the behavior altogether, and taking away toys/priveleges.  Nothing seems to work.  We are not proponents of spanking, since it seems totally illogical that I would punish Michael for hitting by… well, hitting.  I also think that spanking sets a “might makes right” precedent, which is simply not how things are done in the real world.

The only time I’ve ever managed to successfully get Michael to stop his actions and show remorse was when, completely at my wit’s end, I absolutely burst into giant crocodile tears.  Michael took one look at my tears, quivered his lower lip, and cried inconsolably for about a half hour, curled up on my chest.  Maybe that’s the key to discipline right there.  Make your child think they’ve pushed you THIS CLOSE to completely losing your shit.

I visited one of my favorite blogs the other day and she wrote, far better and funnier than I, a post about this very subject (except that her son is 4… lord help me).  It’s nice to know I’m not the only one, I suppose.  Internet, if you’ve got any pearls of wisdom, pass ‘em on.

On the other hand, Michael is doing some pretty cute and amazing things, too, such as counting to ten with gusto, singing the ABC song, and just singing songs in general.  The other day Michael saw a photo of Muffin and I on our wedding day, and when he asked what it was I explained to him that Mommy and Daddy are married.  He said, “Daddy married Mommy.  Michael gonna marry Mommy, too!”  Everybody now… AAAAWWWW.

This week Jenna has been as charming and lovely as can be.  Of course, I could just be saying this because she slept through the night last night, a feat she has accomplished only a handful of times in her eight months of life.  Her latest trick is waving AND SAYING “Hi!”  Only when she says it, it comes out like, “HiiiEEEEEEEEE,” confirming that “valley girls” really must just be born that way.  Further confirmation has been garnered by her other new trick, putting the phone up to her ear and  babbling into it.  I don’t know what she’s saying, but I imagine it goes something like this:

“Ohmigod, are you serious?  SHUT. UP.  That is like, so awesome.”

She is also the proud owner of two new sparkly teeth and has taken to self feeding with gusto, particularly foods of the Cheerio variety.

A few weeks ago we had some photos taken by a local photographer, James Olson of Alderbrook Imaging.  He did an amazing job and I highly recommend his services to anyone who lives in our area.  I’m posting a few photos below that I particularly love; the rest, if you’re interested, are posted here.

Up until a few days ago, the Karnofski household had been cruising along healthily no illnesses at all in at least three months.  Then Michael got a cold, then Jenna was teething.

And then, there were chicken pox.  Or at least what we thought were chicken pox.

About a week ago I noticed that Jenna had a little rash on her tummy.  Since she had no fever and seemed fine otherwise, I chalked it up to a fluke thing and decided to keep a watchful eye on it.  By Monday the rash had spread to her back and on Tuesday it looked downright suspicious.  Her regular doctor was naturally too busy to see her (one of the reasons  I am switching her to a different doc), so we took her to the urgent care.  After waiting a while I left Jenna in Muffin’s capable hands because I needed to get to cheerleading practice (!), but promised to keep my phone handy so he could contact me with the verdict.  Sidebar: Muffin could not figure out how to get Jenna’s dress off her for her examination, so he used scissors and CUT IT OFF.  Men.

Anyway, it’s too bad my phone is not enabled with screeching violin sounds, because that’s exactly what I heard in my head when I read the text Muffin sent me: CHICKEN POX.

Now, these days children are vaccinated against the unsightly pox, but they don’t receive the vaccination until one year, and Jenna is only eight months.  I believe, believe, BELIEVE in this vaccination because I had chicken pox at the ripe old age of 15, an age most girls are very conscious of their appearance, and let me tell you, it was God-awful.

I had the disgusting, festering pox absolutely everwhere, including up my nose, in my eyes, under my fingernails, and in every orifice (and do believe me when I say EVERY).  Besides that, I was incredibly sick on top of it.  Fever, chills, aches, nausea, crushing headache.  At one point during the evil pox I actually prayed for death to come and take me.

It was for this reason, then, that I hightailed it to the pharmacy and bought every pox-calming medical solution I could find, went home, and hoped for the best but expected the worst.  And we waited.  And nothing happened.

Jenna seemed absolutely fine, and apart from the rash seemed happy as could be, crawling around, pulling up, babbling, clapping, and playing peek-a-boo.  She didn’t seem at all ill, or itchy for that matter.  Hmm.

When we actually saw her regular doctor he deduced that she did not have chicken pox at all, but instead perhaps some kind of dermatitis or maybe just a heat rash from the feverish few days she had during teething.

Not to worry, though.  Now that I’m coaching teenagers and going back to teaching dance at the studio that is absolutely teeming with biological terrorists children, I’m sure I’ll bring home a good ol’ fashioned illness that we can really sink our teeth into.

While some people are born under the sign of Capricorn or Virgo, my dad has always joked that his family was born under the sign of the turd.  What he means is that we Chases seem to have the worst luck.  I had hoped that when I changed my last name my luck might improve.  And maybe it has, a bit.  Therefore, I hoped that after Buddy’s disappearance that my bad luck was over.

Ha ha!  That was until Friday afternoon when I was checking my e-mail and the screen on my laptop went all colorful and wavy for a moment before going completely black.  I tried to restart and was comforted by a moment by the usual Apple startup page, until the wavy lines and black screen returned.  Frantic, I hit the power button again.  No friendly Apple screen, no wavy lines, nothing but a loud whir from the internal fan.  Dead.  Toast.   I suspect that earlier, when a rambunctious Michael knocked the laptop off the desk and sent it crashing to floor, that some sort of internal damage occurred.  The cost of a new computer is totally coming out of his college fund.  Don’t worry, son.  I’m sure there’s a good trade school somewhere you can attend. 

So I called up Apple technical support.  I could tell that the dude was trying to hide a snicker when he asked what sort of computer I had and I told him an iBook G4.  This computer was top-o-the-line about five years ago, which, I’m told, is like a million years in computer years.  He tried a few “hold down this button, blink three times, and cluck like a chicken” tactics with me over the phone, but to no avail.  He politely informed me that my computer was WAY not under warranty anymore, and that just for a tech to LOOK at it would cost a flat fee of $400.  Then, if they could even find any parts to repair this dinosaur of a computer, the repair would run somewhere in the neighborhood of $700-$1,00o.  Ouch. 

Luckily, Muffin and I have an external hard drive to which we recently backed up everything on our computer, so not much was lost.  But the surprising thing is just how sad the loss of my computer makes me.  I never thought I would form an emotional attachment to a computer, but there you have it.  I am totally mourning the loss of my little 12-inch iBook.

I am also totally mourning the loss of cash that a new computer is going to run me.  I know I could buy some random HP or something for five hundy or less, but I want another Mac, dammit!  And Mac don’t come cheap.

While I was pondering this dilemma, the phone rang.  It was the athletic director of our local high school, who explained that their current cheerleading coach had turned in her resignation and that they were in desperate need of a replacement, pronto.  He had heard through the grapevine that I know a little something something about cheerin’ and dancin,’ and would I be interested in helping them out and making some sweet, sweet cashola in the meantime?

Brand new Mac, here I come!

I am actually quite looking forward to this new venture in employment, as it is similar to what I already do at the dance studio and the hours are very doable.  I also have a theory that being the only adult in the midst of teenagers keeps a person young.  Plus, I figure I will learn about all kinds of new fads and slang and whatnot, so then I can up my coolness factor.  I suspect that when I am mediating my first cheerleader argument over who is going to Homecoming with Johnny or who stole whose lip gloss, I may waver in my enthusiasm.  We’ll see.

At any rate, that’s what’s been going on with me.  Posts may be a bit few and far between for the next few weeks until the whole computer situado is solved. 

In my absence, how about a fun diversion?  Come up with a fun cheer!  It can be about any subject (PG-13 and under, of course).  The winner may get to see their work on display at a local football game.

An alert reader emailed me recently concerned that I don’t blog very much about my children.  Where are the children?  Are they okay?  Did you trade them to some gypsies in exchange for shiny buttons?

Be appeased, dear reader.  The children are fine.  In fact, they’re out waxing my car right now!  No, not really.  Babies don’t wax cars!

Anyway, I was thinking about the fact that a reader noticed my lack of “mommy” blogging (and that the term “mommy blogging” is SO odious).  It’s not that I don’t like talking about my kids, or that they don’t do a million hilarious, adorable, noteworthy things every day.  Rather, it’s that if I devoted my entire blog to my kids, I would not like the blogger I had become.  In fact, I am not particularly a huge fan of blogs that consist entirely of happy clappy “My kid did this today, isn’t she the smartest, cutest, most FANTASGREAT thing you’ve ever seen?  Isn’t motherhood magical?  My kids never do anything wrong!  My life is perfect!” posts.  It’s just not for me.  So while I will occasionally post stories about how smart/adorable/wonderful my kids are, I also post about how frustrating parenting can sometimes be.  I also post about random crap like cat-nabbing capers and CHEEZ FRICKIN’ BALLS.  I am a mom, but that’s not all.  I am a mom AND MORE.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I have decided that my kids deserve a weekly post all to themselves.

So what are the kids doing this week?  Well, in the “adorable” category…

I recently purchased Jenna her first purse.  I figured that since they are a bevy of boy toys around and nary a pink one in the bunch, something girly might be in order.  It’s a cute little pink plaid number with a black Scottie dog that can sit inside.  Jenna had been playing with the purse the entire afternoon and at the end of the day when I was putting toys away I discovered that she had already learned a valuable lesson about the necessities a woman always needs to carry, for when I looked inside the purse I found a Matchbox car, a pink binkie, and a plastic dinosaur from Michael’s “Go, Diego, Go!” toy set.  Who needs a wallet, change for a phone call, or their favorite lipstick?  PACK THE DINOSAUR.

Michael, on the other hand, has developed a recent fascination with John Deere products.  I think this is because his Opa (Muffin’s dad) has a John Deere “Gator” that Michael takes rides in frequently.  Now whenever he sees the trademark green and yellow or the deer logo, Michael shouts excitedly, “That’s a JOHN DEERE right there!”  I consider this total hick behavior and the Muffin and I had a lengthy discussion about whether to encourage his John Deere fetish, but how can you argue with something that brings so much happiness?  So now Michael has a John Deere pillow and blankie, a little John Deere tractor, and a book about John Deere tractors.  The other day my parents took him to the local John Deere store and let him sit on all the tractors.  Disneyland?  Who needs it?  WE’VE GOT A JOHN DEERE STORE.  Michael also likes to watch John Deere videos on YouTube (of which there are a frightful number).  I was okay with that until he wandered up to me yesterday afternoon and said, “Mommy, guess what?  She thinks my tractor’s SEXY.”  It turns out there’s a country song called that.  And it plays on YouTube.  Looks like I’ve lost this battle.  Advantage: HICK.

But I guess it is kind of adorable…

In the frustrating category:

Jenna has been teething.  Her first pearly white poked its way through the skin just this morning.  Now, I am a total novice when it comes to this teething thing.  Michael didn’t get any chompers until the ripe old age of 13 months, and even then I had no idea he was teething.  There was absolutely no deviance from his happy, charming self.  So you can imagine my surprise when one day I stuck my finger in his mouth and discovered he had gotten four teeth overnight.

Jenna, though, she likes EVERYBODY to know she’s teething, and BY GOD you’re all going to suffer with her.  She has been cranky and drooly and snotty and fevery for the last few days, up at all hours of the night and just generally a mess.  I think the tooth’s twin is about to present itself as well, and I hope for my sanity it does it soon.

On the upside, Jenna is a very good baby otherwise.   She eats everything not nailed down with reckless abandon (a far cry from her brother) and falls asleep moments after being put down awake in her crib.   She is crawling all over and starting to pull up on the furniture (!).

Michael is in the throes of the terrible twos and every day with him has the potential to be wildly wonderful, wickedly awful, or some combination of the two.  He is in the middle of a big DIY phase and doesn’t want anyone to help him do ANYTHING, even tasks he cannot complete himself, such as tying his shoelaces.  You would think that this newfound independence would lead him to want to potty on the potty chair “all by himself,” but no such luck.

At any rate, adorable or frustrating, my kids are doing great.  And okay, they’re more adorable than frustrating…

Gotcha!

Nope, I’m not pregnant.  Ha ha!  Wait.  That’s not even funny to JOKE about.  I apologize.  However, we do have another baby who just joined the Karnofski family.  Say hello to our little friend:

The Muffin and I both enjoy a good car show, and for several years we’ve been saying how fun it would be to buy an old car and fix it up.  And when I say, “fix it up,” I mean that Muffin and Michael can tinker with it and just generally do all the work, and then I can drive it when it’s all fixed up and shiny.

Muffin and I had pretty much relegated this dream to the “maybe someday but probably not” file, right next to “take a year long world cruise” and “convince Prince to play a concert in my living room.”

But when we saw the little beauty parked outside a house in Long Beach with a “For Sale” sign in the window, we knew she had to be ours.  Meet the newest member of the Karnofski automotive fleet, a 1968 Mustang THAT RUNS that we got for a smokin’ deal.

I’ve got Goldie Honda, and of course Muffin has Delores, but we must now find a name for our third baby.  Here’s what we’ve got so far:

1.  “Blue Streak.”  I thought this would be a clever name, since it’s blue, but Muffin pointed out that someday it might get painted a different color.

2.  “Kimberly.”  We consulted the Social Security Administration’s Name Directory, where you can find the top 200 boy and girl names from any given year, searching 1968 for the sluttiest sounding chick name, and we came up with Kimberly.  My apologies to any of my blog readers who are named Kimberly.  I’m sure you’re not that slutty.

3. “Sally.”  My father thought of this one, a la “Mustang Sally.”  I like it.

So now I open the contest to you, readers.  What should we name our car?  If you come up with the winning name, we’ll give you a free ride.

What say you?