Rachel Callahan

A Lady Never Tells…

November 4, 2009 Rachel Callahan Quirky quirky quirkiness, Weird Strange and True

We have a way of having quirky and unique creature invasions no matter where we go. At our old house, it was Satan the Squirrel. Thank goodness he hasn’t found us again (yet). But for the last three years at our new house, we have had a much less damaging, but much more puzzling group of visitors.

HOW…..

Can a swarm of hundreds ladybugs know to come to the SAME room in the SAME house every year, and all show up at once?

Furthermore, how is it that they know to come to a room decorated in Ladybugs (and Butterflies and Dragonflies)?

Furthermore, how can they do all of the above when I know for a fact that this year’s swarm is a totally different group than the previous two year’s swarms, because they all met their demise in the bottom of a water bottle?

Furthermore, and most puzzling, how can ladybugs understand the passage of time well enough to come:

in 2007: on November 13th
in 2008: on November 3rd
in 2009: on November 3rd

They arrived the EXACT SAME DAY that they came last year.

I’m pretty sure that Ladybugs must be the smartest bugs on earth.

Either that, or we live in the Ladybug Twilight Zone.

Chris’ theories?

a) That last year’s invaders laid eggs and these are their babies that miraculously hatched exactly a year later (I disproved because they’re all full-grown, and I’ve seen baby ladybugs – their tiny.)

b) That each year, the ladybugs “mark” our house so that they (and their descendants) know where to come back to for their winter ~~death~~ lodging. This theory actually seems feasible.

Which means that Ali’s room is apparently marked with Ladybug poo.

Ew.

Anyone have any better theories?

Too bad the ladybugs won’t live to explain it to us.

Time to get the water bottle torture chamber back out…

Life Through The Lens of Goldilocks

November 3, 2009 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Toddlers: The Experience

Everything in Ali’s life is currently being related back to The Three Bears.

There were three table decoration pumpkins at the camping lodge. They were immediately named Papa Pumpkin, Mama Pumpkin, and Baby Pumpkin. She informed us that her favorite was baby pumpkin, my favorite was Mama Pumpkin, and Chris’ favorite was Daddy pumpkin.

All soup-like substances, including chili, must be referred to as “porridge” if one is desirous for Ali to partake of it, and every bite must be analyzed to determine whether it is too hot, too cold, or just right.

The song on her bible CD that says “Behold, Behold, I stand at the door and knock, knock, knock…” is, according to Ali (who happens to sing it “Hehold, Hehold…”), apparently about Goldilocks knocking on The Three Bears’ door.

(I don’t remember her knocking…I thought Goldilocks was more of a breaking and entering sort of porridge thief.)

And the grand finale of this association obsession happened on Sunday when she pooped on the potty. She announced to Chris, the parent in charge of that particular potty visit, “I pooped!!!” Then, looking down into the potty and checking out the situation, she informed him: “There’s a big HUUUGE poop, and a medium poop, and an iiiiitty biiiitty baby bear poop.”

Chris looked, and sure enough, that summed up the situation quite well.

Anyway…EVERYTHING in life has to do with these crazy bears. And really, this makes total sense. She can relate to their family unit – There’s a Daddy, a Mommy, and a baby.

Upon deeper thought into this matter, I realized that there’s a children’s story for every family unit –

If you’ve got a single Mom, you can relate to Snow White.
If you’ve got a single Mom and two horrible sisters, then Cinderella is your association of choice.
For those with single Dads, there’s The Little Mermaid.
For the typical one son, one daughter family, you have The Berenstein Bears.
If you grew up in the woods and were raised by animals, you have The Jungle Book.

Anyway, you get my point.

So, obviously, it would be a complete SHAME to mess up this understanding of family that she has, right?

But apparently, she’s adaptable.

After telling me yesterday morning after gymnastics that she wanted a baby sister, she decided that this:

Was her Baby Bear Sister, Abby.

I’m sure that Goldilocks will be thrilled to know that there’s a new bear on the scene, waiting to have her porridge eaten, her chair broken, their bed slept in, and her life wrecked in general.

The Only Blog Post This Weekend Without Halloween Costume Pictures.

November 1, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Just My Luck, Toddlers: The Experience

My family, along with a very large group of other families, has gone on an annual camping trip the weekend of Halloween since I was about six or seven years old (last year’s trip can be found here). This being said, my child has yet to own a Halloween costume in her short life.

So, while everyone else is showing their kid’s Halloween costumes (And they’re all ADOOOORABLE, by the way!), I shall write about camping-ish’*.

* Camping-Ish: Going on a trip that is CALLED a camping trip, but staying in the lodge on the campgrounds, because you’re too much of a wuss to tent-camp – not for fear of the outdoors, but for fear of your child waking up a daybreak because she’s used to having blacked out windows. This fear is doubled on the weekend of the time-change, because sleeping in a tent with said toddler would guarantee that you would not, in fact, get your deserved extra hour of sleep.

On our way to camping-ish, we had to stop at our favorite treat in the world, Wing Stop (which is sadly no longer in Birmingham, so we look for any excuse we can to stop there “on the way” to anywhere else.)

Our family’s pig-out portion:

Just so you know, in case you have a Wing Stop near you and should be appreciating these delicacies regularly since we can’t, not only do they have amazing wings, but their FRIES are what really put them over the top. They have sugar AND salt on them – and wow is it amazing. And their ranch dressing – again, perfection.

And Chris and I aren’t the only ones who think so:

Ali was a very happy Wing Stop customer.

(Wing Stop did not give me a single free Wing to say how great they are, but I wouldn’t mind it a bit if they did.)

We were camping at Maranatha Camp and Conference Center, on the lake in small-town Guntersville Alabama, where such high-brow shopping such as “Bubba II: Fine Gentlemen’s Clothiers” can be found.

(I especially love that it had the “II” on it, as if to say “We’re so fiiiine that we have TWO shops! Now hand me thar my spitoon!!”)

We got to the campground about 4pm, in time for a VERY late nap for a VERY excited, yet tired toddler. She ran into our lodge hotel room, all while screaming, “YAY!!! CAMPING!!!”

My Mom laughed at us. “She has no idea what camping really is, does she?”

Why spoil the magic?

After she woke up, we headed out to see the fire that Chris had been building “for our enjoyment” (aka: He’s a raging pyromaniac).

I’m afraid that Chris might pass on his obsession to Ali:

Ali and Pop had a fireside chat (maybe he was trying to counteract Chris’ pyromania with his fire-safety talks that I got as a child):
And Pop showed her how to use her “camping surprise” from Daddy, a lantern:

Another girl on the camping trip gave Ali a glow-stick. This, of course, gave her the esteemed award of Favorite Person of the Weekend. Ali immediately dubbed her “The Girl in the Pink Shirt”, and insisted that was her name, despite our efforts to explain that her name was ACTUALLY Avery.

(In fact, this morning, Avery dared to wear a green shirt. But no worries – Ali quickly adjusted and referred to her as “The Pink Girl in the Green Shirt.”)

I taught Ali how to wave her glow stick around to make pretty lights in the sky:

Although for the most part, she enjoyed the fire, every time she would get cold or bored, she would whine, “I wanna go back CAMPING!”

“We ARE camping, baby!”

“No – I want to go back to our camping room!”

Yeah…she’s definitely an outdoorswoman.

After a long, late night by the fire despite her random outbursts of desire for the indoors, it was time for bed. Wanna see how much we like to sleep in? THIS is really “roughing it”:
Ahh…blacked out windows = sleeping until 9am = TOTALLY worth it.

Now I must say, without boring you all yet again with my medical woes, that I was rather zoned and quite a bit anti-social (sorry, fellow campers), due to discovering that apparently, my Prilosec (that I quit taking on Thursday) was covering up the fact that I have a stomach ulcer or something similarly painful. I had constant stomach pain from Friday night on through today that fluctuated from mild to don’t-talk-to-me-or-I-might-scream severe.

I did go to the doctor today when we got home and am on new medicine, but will need to go to a specialist if it continues. But thanks to my stomach pains combined with a very graceful camera-to-face crash which busted my lip and swelled my nose, I was a sight to behold.

I swear my body is dyslexic and thinks that I’m 82 instead of 28.

However, I did manage to clue in and have some fun:

On Saturday, Mom put us in charge of coming up with treasure hunt clues for one of the groups of kids. So we set off, looking for great clues.

Since our clues were for 4-6 year olds, we couldn’t use this, but were very puzzled by this plank, with “Romans 8:28″ carved on it:
To save you the trouble of looking it up, it is: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,who have been called according to his purpose. “

I’m not quite sure what that has to do with walking the plank, but I guess the idea is that if someone makes you walk the plank – no worries! God will use it for good.

So, Ali and Chris put it to good use and walked the plank:

We finished our treasure hunt duties and headed to play some ball. Ali was shy about her mad skills:
But she finally let loose…
And beat everyone at horse.… or not.

Poor thing worked the whole time on being able to actually LET GO of the ball when attempting to throw it.

We furthered our camping experience by going on a canoe ride together:
(Luckily right before my busted lip and nose)

We didn’t know how Ali would like it, given our history with boats, but it turns out that, unsurprisingly, Ali prefers slow, quiet boats to fast, loud ones, and didn’t want to come off the lake, even when it began to rain on us.

This morning, after fooling her into having NO IDEA that she had a justifiable reason to wake up an hour earlier due to the time change, Ali helped Pop make breakfast, again showing her outdoorsy side by insisting on wearing a crown and being referred to as PRINCESS Ali:

…and then, it was time to head home. She sat, dazed, holding for dear life onto her sucker, all the way home.

Camping. It wears a toddler out.

My Prima Princessa…and a Giveaway!

October 31, 2009 Rachel Callahan Giveaways and Contests, Toddlers: The Experience

We are enjoying ourselves on an annual camping trip with some hopefully-miraculously-better-than-forecasted weather this weekend (keep your fingers crossed for us), so I decided to leave you with a giveaway post while I’m gone!

Ali is becoming more of a prima donna every day.

Maybe it has to do with getting closer and closer to the age of three, which is basically a tween these days.

She’s starting to think less of her old best friend, Thomas the Tank Engine, and dream more about princesses and fairies…her world of playing with trains and cars is quickly revolutionizing into playing with makeup and dress-up clothes.

In fact, just the other night before bedtime, she looked at me with an intrigued look, started rubbing my eyebrows, and said, “Who does your eyebrows?”

Shocked, I said, “What??”

“WHO does your EYEBROWS?”

“Umm, I do?”

“Oh. Where do you get your makeup for your eyebrows?”

I don’t put any makeup on my eyebrows, but I saw this was not going to end without an explanation, so I said “From MAC and Sephora.”

“Yes, Sephora. They’re pretty, Mommy!”

Wow. And my Mom thought I was growing up too fast when I argued with her for weeks that I was old enough to wear pantyhose…at the age of 6.

Anyway, I received another movie from Prima Princessa that I knew she’d love due to this new phase of hers, and I was right.

Prima Princessa makes awesome ballet movies for little girls, combining video of real ballet performances, lessons on ballet moves, and videos of little girls dancing.

This one is on The Nutcracker, which I saw live several times as a child and LOVED it, even though I didn’t understand at all what was going on (WHY can’t they have WORDS in ballets?!?)

Anyway, what is so great about this DVD is that there is a narrator, explaining what is going on with Clara, the nut cracking men and the life-sized mice. It makes it MUCH easier to follow.

Ali absolutely loved it, and has been going around all week saying that her NEW favorite movie is The Nutcracker, and can we PLEASE watch it again?!?

(Maybe Clara gets her eyebrows done in the play and I just never picked up on it since I didn’t have a narrator. That would explain where THAT came from.)

Anyway, they sent me an extra copy to give away to one of you! To enter, simply comment on the post.

You can earn up to three extra entries if you:

Subscribe to OR Follow my blog
Follow me on Twitter OR Facebook
Tweet, blog, OR Facebook about the giveaway

This giveaway will be open until Monday, November 9th. The winner will be randomly selected and announced on Tuesday, November 10th.

Good luck!!

A Stinky Reason is Better than No Reason…

October 30, 2009 Rachel Callahan Just My Luck, Mystery Solved, Newsflash

(I bet you think I’m going to talk about poo again with “Stinky” in the title. Well, you’re wrong. I CAN blog about other things, you know.)

I have come to the conclusion that I can’t take any medications.

No, I’m not a hippy. I’m actually a big fan of medicine – I don’t like waiting around for things to fix themselves, so at the first sign of a headache or a sneezing fit, you will find me running for the ibuprofen bottle or sudafed tablets.

But apparently, my BODY wants me to be a hippy.

I have felt irritable and somewhat depressed for the last two weeks, and I haven’t known why (which makes writing upbeat blog posts a VERY difficult challenge – please forgive any sub-par posts recently).

I assumed that it was stress-related, and waited for it to go away. But it’s only gotten worse, and my irritability would pop up at the most unexplainable times. Like today when I was in the grocery store and having to remind myself to breathe in, breathe out, so I didn’t snap, for no reason whatsoever.

And then it hit me: this was a very familiar feeling. I have felt this exact way many times before, and it has always been caused by a medication. I thought about it…I have been taking Prilosec for my phlegm issue for about a month, and it has really been helping.

But, just like when I was taking the allergy medicine for the same issue and had to give a class-action apology, apparently acid reducers have a very negative impact on my emotional state of balance.

I looked it up – yup, irritability, depression – they’re possible side effects. And if there’s a possible side effect for medication, I’m a guaranteed target.

The good news is that I should feel great!! and happy!! and joyful!! in a few days, just like last time. (And really, I already DO feel much better, just knowing that I’m not losing my mind.)

The bad news – I am apparently stuck with phlegm (and any other illness that requires medication) for the rest of my life.

But hey – I’d MUCH rather be phlegmy than the Wicked Witch of the East (and Chris and Ali would agree with that sentiment I’m sure).

So, next time I go to the doctor and they ask me what medications I’m allergic to, I’m just going to have to say “All of them.”

Which, in that case, I might as well save my $30 co-pay and not bother going.

Yeesh.

However, Ali chipped in today and helped cheer me up with a rousing Medley to Mitigate Mommy’s Melancholy Mood, which she obligingly let me record to share with you:

And who couldn’t feel better after that, medicated or not?

…And yes…she apparently had quite the burping issue this afternoon.

An Eerily Spot-On Impression…

October 29, 2009 Rachel Callahan Toddlers: The Experience, Utter Silliness

…for someone not old enough to watch Saturday Night Live.

I am afraid that my daughter is going to be a one-upper.

She is starting to sound JUST LIKE Kristin Wiig’s unbelievably obnoxious, discomfort-inducing Penelope character on Saturday Night Live.

Here’s a sampler, for those not familiar (although it’s much better if watched):

Gina: Yeah, I have a card for everyone to sign. Some of you might not know this, but Mrs. Jacob’s 15 year old cat Whiskers McGee passed away last week.

Penelope: My cat passed away tooo sooo…his name was Whiskers McGee the First sooo… He was 17 years old, so just a little bit older than her cat soo… It died a few minutes ago too sooo… just effects me more soo…

Lisa (annoyed): That cat was like a child to her.

Penelope: My cat was my child. I was pregnant with my cat… I gave birth to it sooo… I had my cat baby in the hospital, and I had my cat baby shower soo… a lot of people there soo…

Kristen Wiig is a geniusly hilarious actress.

So…Ali, the miniature one-upper.

She’s been obsessed with learning about car names lately. Every car we pass, we must talk about it’s name. Her favorites seem to be Jeeps, Chevy Suburbans, Honda Accords, and Mercedes Benzes (She likes variety).

But she has started having this constant conversation under her breath every time we “play cars”…and every time, it gets bigger.

“I used to have a PINK Jeep when I was a little girl. No, I used to have FIVE pink Jeeps. I used to have five pink Jeeps and five Mercedes Benzes. I could only drive one at a time. No, I drove LOTS at a time…I had ALL the pink cars. I had lots of pink big rigs too…I had ALL the cars when I was a little girl.”

I have a toddler who is a one-upper, soo….she can one-up your toddler anyday, soo….she thinks she could drive when she was a baby, soo…she’s going to be more annoying than your toddler sooo…..

* Editor’s note: since you have commented on her outfit and especially her tights, you’ll be interested to know that picture was taken directly before the poo events that transpired in the Sol Azteca Ladies’ Room…those tights, although now clean, recleaned, and sanitized, have been through a lot since that photograph was made.

Stale, Decayed, Nasty Nostalgia

October 28, 2009 Rachel Callahan Anal Retentivity to a Fault, I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Utter Silliness

Chris and I are both very sentimental people. We love to keep things to remind us of days gone by.

Granted, most of these things sit in boxes in our basement, like my cast from when I broke my arm in the 7th grade and his “super-cool” favorite Junior High item of clothing – his denim and plaid vest. So it’s not like we actually look at this stuff – but just the fact that WE know that they’re there…it feels nice – as if we’re in touch with our past. Without letting it clutter up our house.

Thankfully, I don’t think that our nostalgitis is to a point to qualify us for the TV show Hoarders – wow, that show makes us twitch with claustrophobia. And it makes us throw out a few things, just to ensure that we NEVER end up eating family meals on our bed because that’s the only available surface.

(shiver)

Anyway, that being said, we, like most couples, saved the top layer of our wedding cake for our first anniversary. It’s tradition, after all. We forgot about it that first year, but were determined to follow tradition for our second anniversary. However, we bought a house before that happened, so we actually MOVED the cake along with our other frozen goods to our new house.

But, it paid off – we actually remembered the next March. We got it out, thawed it, and cut us a big slice of nostalgia.

And it was NASTY. Not just in a “Oh – that’s not very tasty” way, but more like a “Where is the nearest garbage can because this is coming out of my mouth RIGHT NOW” kind of way.

It was stale, as hard as eating a piece of siding, and as tasty as eating one of those cardboard boxes that is holding the rest of our ~~crap~~ memories in the basement.

In fact, we suspected that it might have been styrofoam all along – just icinged up to look like cake.

So of course we threw it out right then.

Umm, or not.

Yeah. We Ziplocked it back up and stuck it back in our freezer. For some reason, it just seemed like an injustice to throw it out just because it happened to have issues with edibility.

It has been 6 and a half years since that second anniversary, and we have moved yet again. Guess what we still have in our downstairs freezer, right next to the frozen vegetables?

Yeah.

At least it’s in the basement with the rest of our memories.

It’s kind of a joke now, which makes it even harder to get rid of. It’s been around this long – how could we just throw it out, as if it meant nothing to us? As if it hasn’t given us many a chuckle at the absurdity of its continued existence?

I pulled it out of it’s hallowed shrine to photograph it just for you. It was nasty and sticky and I felt the need to sanitize after it’s photography session, but here is our masterpiece:

Wanna come over for dessert some time?

I’m pretty sure that some of that icing used to be a nice sage green color. And it certainly didn’t originally look like it was iced by a cement truck.

Please don’t turn this post in to Hoarders. My formerly broken arm would be very upset if they made me throw away my cast.

Men Are Crazy Too.

October 27, 2009 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Mystery Solved, Utter Silliness

There are many great mysteries in the world.

What happened to Atlantis?

How were the Pyramids constructed?

Where is Osama Bin Laden Hiding?

Why do they still make Mom Jeans?

Does Dolly Parton have a boob job or does she not?

We can all agree that these are mysteries that may or may not ever be solved. But there’s another Great Mystery that puzzles me to no end.

As much as men say that women are the illogical sex and don’t make any sense, there are a group of men out there that totally befuddle me.

Let’s call this group of men the Drive-By-Pickup-Men.

You know – those guys who, while driving by you, cat call, whistle, yell, wave way too vigorously, all while smiling as big as they can and, again, driving, speedily, right by you.

What is their purpose?

What is their goal?

Do they think that we will write down their tag number, con a policeman into looking up who they are, and call them to ask them out?

And anyway, that would never work because they’re ALWAYS in a company car.

And by “company car”, I don’t mean a nice black sedan. I mean the Little Debbie Delivery man…The Beer Delivery man, the Uniform Laundry Services man…the group of 5 Mexican men in the back of a Landscaping Truck…

And furthermore, their actions don’t seem to be at all related to beauty or availability. They might be cat-calling the 80-year old lady crossing the street at the pace of a centipede with 99 broken legs, the harried Mom with the five kids all crowded around her..the gender-neutral-from-a-distance “person”, the lady with THE THIGHS…

I just don’t get it. I can understand (though not appreciate) the male species trying to pick up a woman when both are on solid ground, going zero miles per hour, in a conversable range. But if you are driving by at 35 miles per hour – what are you getting out of this exchange? What positive benefit are you adding to your life by these making-a-fool-of-yourself efforts?

Even if one of us DID want to give you more than a glare and a quick avoidance of eye contact, how would you go about further contact? If we waved back, would you do a U-Turn in the middle of the highway, risking the lives of you, the other motorists, and the thousand packages of snack cakes or cases of beer in the back of your delivery truck to come back and talk to us?

Please, SOMEONE, give me some insight on these inexplicably illogical Drive-By-Pickup-Men.

Snow White and Mosaic Winners!

October 27, 2009 Rachel Callahan Giveaways and Contests

Two contests ended last night, and I used my BFF, Excel, and it’s awesome formula RANDBETWEEN skillz to pick our random winners!!

First of all, for the Snow White Gift Set:

It is the Diamond Edition DVD, coupled with the Seven Dwarf Plush Set, for a value of $79.99:

And the winner is…. #16, Marie!

The second winner is for the super fun Sticky Mosaic Six Kit Prize Pack from The Orb Factory worth $107:

And the Winner is: #40, Lindsay!

Congrats, Marie and Lindsay!! I will get in touch with you and arrange for your prizes to be mailed to you!

And a special thanks to Disney and The Orb Factory for providing these awesome prizes!

For everyone else, I have one more giveaway going on – this one’s at over at Alabama Bloggers – for some really fun CD’s by The Mad Tea Party! Be sure to click on over there and enter!

And keep your eyes out around here – I will have some more giveaways coming up soon!

A Lifetime Ago

October 26, 2009 Rachel Callahan On a more serious note. . ., Storytime, Thoughts about Faith

I don’t feel that old very often, until I start thinking about how long ago things happened.

Nearly eleven years ago, I met Chris. I was 17, and he was 22.

We met through music – he was this awesome and passionate singer/guitar player/pianist/keyboard player/songwriter. I was still a teenager and a good-guitar-player-but-only-in-my-classical-picking-style-so-please-don’t-ask-me-to-strum-niche and a passable-but-nothing-special singer. I was attracted to his personality, his passion for God, AND his musical abilities.

We became friends, then best friends, then started dating (during which he wrote romantic and not-at-all-cheesy songs for me), then got engaged, then got married…all the way through, music was our most common thread – what our relationship always went back to. From playing in a band together, to leading music for our Church’s Junior High Group for many years (which included many date-night practices),
to playing on the Church praise team, to playing around a campfire on camping trips….
It all centered around music.

A few years into our marriage, we went to a very small recording studio and made a rough recording of a few of his original songs. We both played guitar and sang on the recording, so it took quite a while to get it all down. It was a really fun experience – one that neither of us will ever forget.

Then, life got busy, we had a baby, jobs got busy, parenting got busy, our lives started centering around new things, and music faded into the background. We shamefully went over a year without even opening our guitar cases.

Now, music is taking on a different role in our lives, as we pass it on to Ali. Sure – we’re doing a lot more of “Jesus Loves Me” and “If You’re Happy and You Know It” than original compositions, but at least once every couple of weeks, we get out our guitars or sit around the piano with her and teach her to love music as much as we do.

However, I got a bit reminiscent the other day and dug out our sample CD. I played it in the car for Ali to hear, and as much as she is insistent on listening to her music and ONLY her music continuously and without a single stinkin’ break for breathing, she was mesmerized. She kept repeating over and over, “That’s Mommy and Daddy singing. That’s MY Mommy and Daddy singing…I wanna listen to it again!”

For once, we agreed on music. I wanted to listen to it again too.

If you’d like to listen to Chris’ songs also, here are a couple of songs from the CD, roughly recorded (and you might need to max out your volume to hear them), circa 2004: