Daring Young Mom

Today I take a break and do a meme from the very talented and lovely, I imagine, Lauren.

Meme Directions:
Write five things about yourself with only ONE of them being true. The other four are fiction, and everyone else gets to guess which one is not fiction.

1. I made it to the 3rd round of auditions for the second season of The Apprentice. Not enough experience, my Aunt Fanny! No, seriously, I think I didn’t get chosen because my butt was too big and my hair was too small.

2. I once had a warrant out for my arrest in the State of Texas. Luckily, I was too smart, fast and tricky for Chuck Norris, the ultimate Texas Ranger, to track me down.

3. I can play 10 instruments (not including the spoons, washboard and my belly button).

4. When I lose weight, the first place I notice it is in my feet. When I gain weight, the tops of them puff up like little hams.

5. I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for 3 years and have never used an umbrella here. It’s a good thing too, because mine’s broken.

Leave your guesses in my comments section and in 24 hours, I’ll post the answer.

I don’t love tagging people because a lot of people HATE the memes. If you hate the memes, no prob. If you like em, please play along. Here are a few of my newer blogging friends I’d love to hear from:

Chris
Susan
TigerSue
Krista
Jessica
Jessica
Goslyn
EmLouisa
Nancy

Anyone else who wants to play, consider yourself tagged. Please let me know and I’ll come and guess on your site. This was really fun for me. Me like games…..and cookies….me like cookies too.

Valentine’s Day isn’t just about smooching and eating loads of extra calories. Sometimes it’s just about generally sharing the love.

Heather, the Blogger formerly known as Pieces of Cheese, has launched a beautiful new site, One Woman’s World, and is having a sort of inaugural awards competition.

She is looking for nominations of female bloggers in the following categories:

1. Best Humor
2. Makes Me Want To Have Kids – This one is baffling people. I guess I mean the most Optimistic Mother. The kind that encourages other people to feel great about being moms!
3. Happiest Blog
4. Best Writing
5. Best Site Design
6. Most Inspiring
7. Most Meetable, In Real Life
8. Most Thought-Provoking
9. Best Discussion
10.Learn Something New Every Day
11. Best Commenter

They’re called “Share the Love” Awards and I think nominating a special blogger in your life is a great way to show you care and to let the rest of us know about cool new blogs. Take a minute and send some nomination love Heather’s way. The nominations are open until Valentine’s Day. Have fun!

In the Past Three Days, this is the person:

Who read herself to sleep.

Who breastfed her ducky…with a blanket…because they’re her “private breasts.”

Who got married, moved into a castle and went house hunting because she and her prince needed a “home” to live in.

Who reported that the washcloth was dead because it was dried out and crusty. She then told me that if she put it in the water, it would take all the dead off because Jesus gave us the water AND the bathtub.

Who jumped up into her car seat and proudly told me that she is the “fastest person in the world.”

Who just ate a tablespoon of butter before I had a chance to stop her, grinned and said, “Now it’s stuck in my body and you can’t get it.”

Who told me Jesus wants me to let her wear big-girl underwear all night long (she knew I’d never go along with it if SHE asked me).

Who asked if “Bob Marley is a little girl.”

Who says she’s “pretty nervous about the moon.”

Who struck up a conversation with our be-pierced Target cashier today and as we left told me, “I think she pretty loves me.”

In the Past Three Years, this is the person:

Who made me cry like a baby the first time I saw her.

Who makes me giggle with glee and delight every hour she’s awake.

Who makes fun of the way I dress.

Who, when asked what she’s doing, answers, “Just Chillin'”

Who started “giving rock” when other people’s kids were giving “five.”

Who knew over a hundred words at her 18-month check-up.

Who says “okayluvyoububye” and hangs up on you when she doesn’t feel like talking anymore.

Who is a princess.

Who went pee in the potty for the first time in July of 2004 and became potty trained…mostly…last week.

Who has her moments.

Who won the hearts of everyone in London to the extent that a proctor in Westminster Abbey (where no photography is allowed) took us behind a roped-in area and let us take a quick picture on Queen Elizabeth’s chair because Laylee was such a “gorgeous baby” (insert British accent here).

Who asks me if I’m “saturated” when I finish eating a big meal.

Who has the best imagination around.

Who spontaneously tells people she loves them.

Who scares me.

Who loves and cares for her brother.

Who makes me work harder, play harder and care more than I ever knew I could.

This is a terribly incomplete list of all the things that make Laylee who she is. Since we don’t use our kids’ real names or exact birth dates on this blog and she “turned 3” January 1st, this is her “birthday” post. We love her. She is darling, hilarious, sweet and wonderful. We couldn’t have picked a better one.

Yes, today was better.

I am a closet (well not anymore, I guess) Josh Groban fan. This evening while running errands, I was listening to that song “Remember When it Rained” on repeat. I LOVE that song. What I love most about it is how passionate it sounds. It always makes me think of smooching in the rain.

I know that’s not what that song’s about but that’s what I think of every time. While listening, I always write book chapters in my head where two people come to each other in the rain and admit their feelings for the first time without saying a word……ahhhh…

This is the little slice of dreamland that caused me to miss my exit as I was driving to the church bookstore tonight to have my new scriptures engraved with my name.

You probably think that since Dan and I live in Seattle, all we ever do is kiss and schmoozle out in the rain. Not so, my friends, not so. In fact, I have never been kissed in the rain. The idea of it seems strangely appealing but in practice, I’m not so sure.

I once saw an interview with Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire where they said that the upside-down-kissing-in-the-rain scene from Spiderman was the least romantic, most awful kissing scene in the history of film. They say he nearly drowned, hanging upside down like that with rain running up his nose.

Aaanny-who. I like the thought.

The post I had been working on for today was a tender tribute to the first three years of Laylee’s life. It is cute and sweet but I feel uncomfortable posting it after she spent today as a screaming ball of chaos (to steal a phrase from Stephanie), was sent to bed an hour early for kicking me and then peed on the floor purposefully as I was helping put on her pajamas. She has been so unbelievably sweet the past few weeks.

A fickle hood is toddler-hood. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

A little while ago, one of my new blogging friends left a comment where she said “woot!” to express her excitement about something. I thought it sounded really cute and I had never seen or heard it before.

When I asked Dan how I would use that in a sentence, like “Woot! That’s awesome news,” he laughed and said it was a commonly used hacker term…….but that he’d never actually heard someone say it out loud before.

Definition from UrbanDictionary.com:

Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a computer. However, with the term as coincides with the gamer term, “w00t”.”w00t” was originally an trunicated expression common among players of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for “Wow, loot!” Thus the term passed into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities and lost its original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement.
“I defeated the dark sorcerer! Woot!”

This got me to thinking about all the acronyms I’ve learned since I first ventured into a chat room my freshman year of college. (My chat room days came to a quick end when a couple of my roommates started icky chat romances with supposedly married men and I realized I’d rather hang out with real friends than make fake friends on the internet. No offense. I really like you guys.)

I remember the first time someone typed “LOL” and I could just picture them with their tongue lolling out of there mouth. Lol? What’s lol and why are you telling me about it? Sicko! I was only trying to make a joke.

Somehow I figured that one out and started using it myself.

Now that I find myself wanting to say “WOOT!” when I’m excited, I wonder which will be the next internet acronym to make it into my already lazy spoken English.

BRB / Be Right Back – [berb]
“Hold on a sec Dan. Berb.”

BTW / By The Way – [bee-tee-dub-ya]
“Oh, bee-tee-dub-ya, I really like your smurf pajamas.”

CU / See You – [koo]
“Koo in two hours.”

MIL / Mother In Law – [mill]
“My mill makes the best prize salad. Yumm-ers!”

LOL / Laughing Out Loud – [el-o-el]
“Eloel. That is funny.” (said with a completely straight face)

Think of how much time and energy I could save if I didn’t have to actually laugh anymore.

Update – since posting this, Dan has asked me approx 100 times if I have brought the milk in from the milk box. I finally replied, “IITFF!”

Ha HA, computer hacker man. Bet you don’t know THAT one!

And he didn’t. It’s In The Flippin’ Fridge. (sidenote – he only actually asked me twice and the milk was delivered….um….Friday…..morning…..)