Stepladder

"Is it just me, or does Meg essentially have the stepladder from Munchkin?" Jonathan asked, slicing yellow squash.
I laughed. "I don't exactly remember the stepladder from Munchkin, but it seems likely..."

Meg, meanwhile, set up the alleged implement, got on it, and started turning the kitchen and hall lights on and off so as to make the squash-slicing as inconvenient as possible.

"Usable by Halfling Only. So you see this giant monster and a halfling up on his stepladder."

Yup. That would be Meg. If ever we get a monster, she will certainly climb on her stepladder and shoo it away, probably with her fishing pole with a magnet on the end. (We made magnetic fish to catch with it.)

I at least outwitted the hamburger

My great housekeeping success for the week was buying a ginormo-pack of hamburger and getting it all cooked or frozen by the cook-or-freeze-by date. This is a bigger deal than you might think. Hamburger is sneaky.

Also... I haven't had this baby yet. But I'm going to.

Meg and the wise men

"Do you know who the 'starlit magi' were, Meg?"
"No, who?"
"The three wise men, who followed the star!"
"Oh. What were their names?"
"Well, the Bible doesn't really say, but according to tradition, their names were Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar."

I was vaguely pleased with this passing-down of knowledge that Everyone Should Have. I'm so glad to have seized a teachable moment. Meanwhile, Meg was contemplating.

"I think their names were Pinky, Dinky, and Binky."

The Tex-colored shirt

Some of you may remember Tex, our cat. He passed on years ago, but he lives on in family legend, I assure you, because he was quite the personality. He now also lives on in my closet, because over the weekend I bought a Tex-colored shirt.

Tex was a Turkish water cat with green eyes and a stripe of fur on his face that exactly matched his eyes. We always joked that that must mean he had green fur. Well, my new t-shirt is that same army green that his eyes were, and it also precisely hits the tone of my eyes. And my eyebrows. So apparently I have a Tex-colored shirt that turns my eyebrows green. Hmm...

Surprising maternity moment

When your inner child kicks and knocks the laptop off.

Interpreting the sock omens

I have high hopes that this child will make her arrival soon. We're eleven days from the due date and my mom is praying she'll come quickly. And then last night I organized my socks by color in neat rows five across and counted them. I do that every now and again, organize them I mean, so I wasn't worried until I started counting. That's a sure sign something isn't normal. (There were thirty-three pairs clean; and I think that's most of what I have, because it's still sandal weather and I've been doing a lot of laundry.) So possibly I'm nesting. A friend today told me that a vast burst of nesting might mean you'll go into labor within 24 hours, and we're at 23 and counting. Come on, baby!

Meg likes socks, too. Her new thing is to usurp her parents' socks for her own purposes. Wednesday she very matter-of-factly put on my red ladybug socks under her boots and I didn't discover it until she was fully dressed, at which point I didn't care. I mean, she put on socks and shoes all by herself and looked fine. Jonathan, however, will not let her wear his socks on top of her shoes; that's going too far. She hasn't tried messing with the baby's socks, which is just as well, because I'm a little crabby and might breathe fire if she disarranged the baby's sock drawer... which is not organized by color. Anyway, it's basically all pink. And most of it still needs to be washed. If my subconscious insists on nesting it really needs to start working on more useful things, because there's plenty left to do.

Also, I've decided I need another couple pairs of boot socks for fall. There is nothing unusual about this either - days get shorter, orange clothes come out, I want another plaid shirt, and I want more boot socks. Argyle would be darling. Sadly, though, most of the inexpensive socks are all polyester, and my feet are getting too old for man-made materials. I may have to actually buy quality socks one of these days.

Meg and the stroller

Since the baby is due in, oh, two weeks, it was about time to start rounding up carseats and strollers and whatnot. The living room is currently host to two strollers, actually, and Meg has taken a shine to the nicer one.

"Should we let Meg in the stroller? I'm not sure it's made for that..." Me
"I think it's undergoing rigorous field testing." Jonathan
"No, it's undergoing Meg testing." Meg

"Dad, how are we going to buckle my sister into this stroller?" Meg
"Step 1: remove older sister from stroller.
Step 2: put little sister into stroller.
Step 3: buckle in little sister." Jonathan
"Step 4: STROLL!" Meg

"Lookee over here, Mom. I'm a well-suited child." Meg
"Oh, really. Well-suited to what?" Me
"The stroller. But excuse me, Mom, I need to hop out." Meg

At last count, she had filled it up with one large bed pillow and six stuffed animals, as well as herself, and had pulled the sunshade down like a tent. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

The patience of Meg

This morning I successfully dumped my divider full of beading supplies and the beads went all over. Meg helped me pick them off the floor, and then I showed her how to put them back in their sections, each kind in its own little house.

About half an hour later I wandered back. She had most of the bigger beads in place and was still moving infinitesimal ones around.

"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"I think I like organizing."

I'm not surprised. I like organizing; Jonathan likes organizing; she's one of us!