Rachel Callahan

Yay, TenneSSEE!!

May 8, 2009April 29, 2012 Rachel Callahan Free Family Vacations, The Blissfulness of Life

I’m taking a vacation from all of my weekly columns – Early Monday Mornings and Conquer the Caption. They should all be back next week, assuming I can shake the vacation mindset by then.

Since Ali has been learning her map skills, she has been more excited about this trip than any trip ever before. Being able to visualize that we are going to a different state has really solidified in her mind the idea of vacation, which makes it a lot more fun for all of us. She’s been talking for days about

“Going to Tennessee with Grammama and Pop and EVERYBODEEE!!“.

This morning, she grabbed the one bag that she could carry, put on her sunglasses, and announced, “Let’s go to TENNESSEE!!!!”

Of course, there were a whole lot more bags to carry. Being that we’re a very bad overpacking family AND had to stop at the grocery store once we got near the house, this is what our car looked like:
Nice, huh?

(The Tennessee Publix’s are much more kid friendly than our local one. They gave Ali a coloring book AND crayons AND a balloon! . . . because we had SO much room in the car for all of her loot.)

As soon as we crossed the Tennessee line, Ali started cheering – “Yayyyy TenneSSEEEE!!!”, then immediately started begging to take all of her stuff inside Tennessee with her. I’m pretty sure that she thought as soon as we crossed the state line, we had arrived. But she managed to contain her excitement until we ACTUALLY arrived.

After jumping and skipping and squealing around the house, we put her down for her nap, with the promise that when she woke up, EVERYBODEEEE would have arrived.

Sure enough, she woke up and said, “EVERYBODEEEE is here!!!”.

Ali and I headed down to the Lake, and along the way we found one of my favorite childhood pasttimes:
Sticky Grass.

I told Ali we were going to do a trick with the Sticky Grass.

We tricked Gramamma:

And we tricked JC:
Sticky Grass was quite a hit. I’m pretty sure that Ali will follow in my prankster footsteps just fine.

Of course, Sticky Grass is just a gateway prank.

Next trip: Cherry Kool-Aid in the shower heads.

We watched the dogs do their favorite thing in the world – chase tennis balls into the water.

Shadow has the most joyous dog-jump-into-water that you’ve ever seen:
(Layla prefers the ramp.)

Hence, Shadow ALWAYS gets the ball. . .
. . . and Layla just gives up and turns around before she even gets to it.

There was plenty of time for reflection. . .

And teaching Ali the fine art of flower necklace creation.

She was so proud.

And of course, when a Gramamma learns how happy something makes a toddler, she does it again. Adding a flower bracelet and pocket highlights. . .

And even a flower anklet.
As a side note, have you EVER seen a head of hair quite as incandescent as Mammaw’s?

It’s amazing. I am pretty sure that she could illuminate the whole house if the power went out.

Eli was having a blast too:
Everyone’s goal this weekend is to convince him to start walking. Which would be very fitting since it was Mother’s Day weekend last year when my Dad infamously told Ali that she needed to start walking, and she did, albeit angry about having to do it.

Ali also enjoyed splashing in the water, but due to her short-leggedness, she had to be hung to be able to do so:

At dinner, we discussed when we were finally going to go on the Epic Family Vacation: to Greece. We decided that we would need to save up for 10 years, and that way the kiddos wouldn’t be nearly as miserable on a 12+ hour plane ride.

Then, in perfect comedic timing, Mammaw said, “I’ll just smile down at y’all from heaven.”

Oh, Mammaw.

We now have all of the kids in bed, and are sitting around playing a quietly competitive game of Blokus: (Mom strategically sat next to the M&M’s. Every picture had her putting them into her mouth or them bulging out of her mouth. Or both. Now they seem to be all gone. Hm.)
Although it is quite fun, I’ll definitely be lobbying for spoons tomorrow night.

After all, we need some family drama.

Chattanooga Bound!

May 7, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, The Blissfulness of Life

Thank you all so much for your advice and prayers yesterday. So far, Ali seems fine still, but I will be keeping a close eye on her over the next few days.

And, actually, I will be keeping that eye on her with a lot of help, and in Chattanooga! We leave today for our annual vacation with my family – Gramamma, Pop, Nick, JC, Lindsay, Eli, and Mammaw. Oh – and the canine members – Layla, Shadow, and Sophie.

(Oreo feels SO left out – there’s nothing our quiet, set-in-her-ways indoor cat would love more than to go on a long car ride to a different house in a different state with seven more people and three dogs.)

Instead of exchanging birthday, Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts, we all put money into a savings account, and then use it once a year to go on this trip. And, we rotate which couple’s year it is to pick the location, pick the vacation rental, and in general organize the trip.

This year it’s Mom and Dad’s turn, so we’re staying on a Lake outside of Chattanooga.

(Next year it’s our turn again, so feel free to give me any tips on great vacation spots in the Southeast.)

Maybe we’ll play a nice rousing family game of spoons – I’m hoping since it isn’t his dining room table in jeopardy, Dad will lift the spoons ban.

Whatever we do, I’m sure that we will have many laughs (about things such as monkeys and leopard skin panties) and I will have a fun story or two and just maybe a picture or two coming your way soon!

But for now, I leave you with corn pictures.

I think this is the third time (at least) that I’ve had corn pictures on my blog.

But for some reason, nothing entertains me more than watching a toddler eat corn.
. . .and a chicken finger.

Adventures in Being Scared out of My Wits

May 6, 2009 Rachel Callahan On a more serious note. . ., Toddlers: The Experience

It’s amazing how quickly things can turn on a dime with a toddler. One day, they can seem completely and perfectly fine, and then the next day, a nurse is saying a word over the phone to you that you never, ever want to hear in reference to your child.

Ali woke up whimpering, which is odd. Usually she wakes up talking to herself quite happily.

I went to get her, and she was VERY not herself. She wanted to go lay in Mommy and Daddy’s bed. So we went in there and she laid down on me and didn’t move a muscle for several minutes.

She finally said, “Want to go downstairs and eat breakfast” in a slurred, whimpery voice. I said “okay, let’s do that”, and she still didn’t move a muscle. I waited a minute to see if she asked again, and then I rolled her over onto the bed so I could see what was going on.

And, in very un-Ali (and un-any-toddler)-like fashion, she laid on her side in our bed for about 15 minutes falling asleep, waking up and asking for food, then falling asleep, waking up and asking for food, and so on. I would try to sit her up and she would just collapse back onto the bed. I took her temperature and it was low, not high.

After trying to figure out what in the world was going on for a while, I finally decided that she was certainly not just unusually tired, so I forced her to get up and took her downstairs. When I got her into the a lit room, I could see that she was shaking quite a bit – mainly her arms and hands.

I fixed her some breakfast and got her some juice. She was now just staring off into space and not talking, but she was eating and drinking. I called Lydia, our resident-former-nurse-friend, and she thought she was probably getting sick and about to violently puke on me.

She’s always the optimist.

Then I called the doctor and asked for a nurse to call me.

Then while I was waiting on the nurse, I called Chris. I was telling him what was going on, while Ali just sat and stared listlessly.

Then, in an instant, right as she finished all of her breakfast and her juice, she completely snapped out of it. She got bright eyed, immediately started pointing out the states on her placemat and telling me what they were, and jabbering up a storm. It was as if someone had flipped a switch – it was crazy quick.

I got off the phone with Chris and talked to her, and she seemed completely normal. Then the nurse called back, and I rather relievedly (I know that’s not a word) told her that she seemed all better, but described everything that had happened. The nurse sounded serious about it anyway and said she’d call me back after she talked to the doctor in the office.

I at this point just assumed that Ali had a sugar crash (although it’s certainly never happened before) and was now fine.

Then the nurse called back.

She had called Ali’s doctor (who wasn’t in the office that day) because she thought it was very serious and thought it might have been a seizure (the word alone sent chills down my back), but that Doctor Amy didn’t think so, but had given her a list of questions to ask me just in case.

She asked if I thought she possibly could have been sleepwalking.

No, I’m more familiar than I want to be with sleepwalking, and I was sure that she was not. I answered a few more questions, and the nurse told me to just keep an eye on her, and if anything weird happened, to bring her in immediately.

Five minutes later, the nurse calls me again. After relaying my information to Doctor Amy, she decided that Ali needed to be seen today. Just to make sure. So she scheduled me an appointment with the doctor in the office for an hour later.

Then I started to get nervous. Because the thing is, as annoying as it is when a nurse or doctor doesn’t take you as seriously as you take yourself, it’s a hundred times worse and completely frightening when a nurse or doctor takes you MORE seriously than you take yourself.

Ali still seemed perfectly fine, though. As if nothing had ever happened. She seemed to have no recollection of the morning whatsoever.

So I took her in, driving seemingly straight into tornadoes – the rain was torrential and the tornado sirens were blaring (there’s nothing to heighten nervousness like a good storm), and the doctor confirmed my gut suspicion: he really thought it had been a hypoglycemic incident – that she had just had a sugar crash. He thought she had been much too responsive for it to have been a seizure, and tested her blood for an infection, of which there was none. So he told me to feed her more protein and sent us on our way.

We stopped by work on our way back home, and she was as happy as ever, splashing in puddles:
and showing everyone her “brave girl sticker”:
Bonnie thought it looked like a fun finger to show people, so she joined her (since she had a band-aid on the same finger and was therefore “justified”):

Yes, this middle-finger-band-aid thing is definitely not going to help Ali’s already existing pointing issue at all.
At any rate, she seems fine now. I’m not sure what that means – if she’s likely to have more hypoglycemia attacks or if it was just a one-time thing, but I will definitely be keeping and eye on her.

Wedding Extra: The Photographer’s Shots

May 6, 2009 Rachel Callahan Wordless Wednesday - as IF I could be wordless.

Johnof McDavid Photos photographed Gina’s wedding, and he puts all his photos online for public perusal. Thanks to him, here are more shots of the wedding.

For the entire story including all of Ali’s comedic reliefs during the wedding, click here.

Rehearsal, workin’ those fake flowers.

In awe of the tall dark handsome ring bearer. . .

Wedding day, getting ready to put the “hat” BACK on for the countless time.

Gina’s flowers were fascinating. . .

. . .so why not steal them??
The dark handsome stranger on the scene. . .

The beautiful bride.

Me and the bride. . .and the wandering flower girl.

Run away!! Run away!!

“are those real?”

Bossing the bride around.

The bride is great for fixing straying bangs. . .

Hiding behind the flowers. . . too bashful to talk to the tall, dark, handsome stranger.

Telling secrets about him.

GINA was brave enough to kiss him. . .

My fave shot of the three of us, and Ali’s fave thing to do with two people.

A quick fix after the wedding. . .

Resisting standing up for pictures with all her might.

…but she finally had to give up.

Sippy cups and white dresses. For Rachel G.

For my other Wordless Wednesday post, go to my B-Sides.
For everyone else’s, go to 5 Minutes for Mom!

The Study of Styling the Curly Haired Toddler by a Straight Haired Mom.

May 5, 2009May 14, 2013 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, Toddlers: The Experience, Utter Silliness

It has taken me 28 months to conquer this art.

Okay, maybe not that long. After all, she didn’t enough hair to curl up or spazz out until about 12 months.

So it has taken me 16 months.

But I believe that I have FINALLY discovered how to “fix” Ali’s hair.

No longer will she have stringy haired days!

No longer will her hair look like a staticy mess!

No longer will the decency of her curls depend on how much she sweated during the night!

No longer will I cross my fingers for a humid day to tame her hair from a mega-fro to a Shirley Temple!

AND there will be no more Easter Pictures that look like she stuck her finger in an electrical outlet!

I have finally discovered how to take this first-thing-in-the-morning look:

And turn it into this:
in 5 easy steps!

AND it is with no “product”, no bath, and finished in under three minutes (which is the highly recognized standard toddler grooming patience threshold, or STGPT).

(and YES, those pictures WERE taken on the same day!!)

So I know you’re on the edge of your seats now. Without further ado, the 5 miraculous steps:

Step 1: Wait until toddler is awake enough to be minimally jovial about being groomed. This may take a substantial amount of “Read books in Mommy and Daddy’s bed” time:
Sometime during this mood-waiting-period, go ahead and change her out of jammies for minimum hair-messing-uppage.

Step 2: Brush toddler’s hair,

Until it resembles a mangy stray dog (or their stuffed friend DoggieBear. Same difference.):(that step took me a while to figure out. I was afraid that I would only worsen it to brush it, but in reality it helps with the eventual softness of the curls)

Step 3: Using a spray bottle on the finest mist setting, spritz toddler’s whole head:

Despite the appearance, pictured toddler DOES typically enjoy this activity.

Step 4: Using fingers, quickly yet gently twist toddler’s hair in a spiral motion. (Scrunching doesn’t work, since there isn’t enough length to scrunch.)

Step 5: Be sure to let toddler play with water bottle, therefore soaking the rest of herself, during the above twisting step. Distraction is key in order to attain maximum stillness from said toddler.
(Maximum stillness, of course, equals the approximate stillness that a baby monkey has when hopped up on caffeine.)

(Be sure and remember that you let said toddler play with water bottle, so you don’t have a wet-toddler-mystery to solve later in the morning.)

After the steps are done and before hair is dry, it will resemble this:

And then it dries into these nice, soft, demure curls:

And voila!! The untamest of toddler hair is tamed!!

Move over, Nick Arrojo!! Here I come!!!

Reuniting With an Old Friend

May 4, 2009 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Utter Silliness

Dear Sudafed and your generic friends,

I didn’t realize until this weekend how much I have missed you. I haven’t used you since you became so difficult to ascertain, thanks to your horrific aiding of illicit drug makers. That, coupled with the fact that I haven’t had sinus problems since I gave birth.

However, something in my body has changed over the last few months, and I can no longer take my new friend, Alka-Seltzer Liqui-Gels, without feeling extraordinarily drugged, hyper, and sleepy all at once.

Oh – and without my eyeballs having the sensation that they are spinning ’round and ’round like the do on cartoon characters who have just been hit on the head with a sledgehammer.

So when I got a sinus attack or cold or what-have-you this weekend and very much needing to be of right mind for the wedding festivities, I decided that it was worth the trouble and the being entered onto a Federal Watchlist to reconnect with my old friends.

You were always so little. So innocent. So side-effect-less.

So I went to CVS and approached the pharmacy counter, trying to look as unobtrusive and un-meth-lab-operator as possible.

I requested the generic Sudafed.

She went and got a box of 24.

I remembered how wonderful it used to be when you could buy the Sam’s bottle of 500, and how comforting it was to know that I could have a sinus infection for the next 284 days and be covered, so I asked said Pharmacist if she had any bigger packages.

She looked me up and down suspiciously for anything that screamed “I’m a Crystal Meth Maker!!”, then told me that she could get me a box of 96, but that was it.

I nervously told her that I’d been having sinus problems, while making sure she saw me interacting with my toddler.

You know, to alleviate her suspicions.

She took my driver’s license and officially scanned me into the Federal Government’s List of Evil Sudafed Purchasers (also known as the FGLESP).

I all of a sudden felt watched, tracked, and talked about in dark, cavernous boardrooms all over the country.

I’m pretty sure that Jack Bauer now has me on his black list.

She handed me my receipt, and I noticed at the bottom:

Phew. Under the limit. I can’t be arrested today.

And it was worth it. The wonderful relief of nose running without the side effects, the ease of swallowing those little red pills instead of the stick-to-your-throat rubber horse pills that I had been taking, and the reuniting with an old friend.

I love you, Sudafed. I will never again forget about you because you’re a high-maintenance friend.

Oops – I gotta go. There seems to be a Drug Enforcement Agency Task Force knocking at my door.

Your old friend,

Rachel

In Which The Bride (Almost) Had to Step Over the Flower Girl.

May 2, 2009 Rachel Callahan The Blissfulness of Life, Toddlers: The Experience

Ali was thrilled that the long awaited day to wear her pretty pretty princess dress was finally here.

She was also happy that Gina was getting married, but that was a side issue.

On the way there, I tried explaining to Ali about marriage. I asked her who she wanted to marry, and she quickly responded, “I don’t want to marry!! I want to run away!!”.

To which her Daddy pumped his fist and said, “Yeah, baby!!”

We got to the Church and found a Sunday School room that we could camp out in. Then we began the princess transformation:

with the help of DoggieBear, of course:

Daddy helped put on all of her jewelry:

Before putting on her tiara, we decided to check on everyone else’s progress in the sanctuary. Ali was thrilled that there was “A Rainbow, Mommy!!!! A RAINBOW!!!” on the stage.

No one else was nearly ready for pictures (or even anywhere to be found), so we took the opportunity for a few family pictures:

Then we went ahead and carefully placed her “hat” on her head.
Which, of course, she took off painfully (I had it clipped on with five little clippies) FOUR TIMES before the wedding started. Once RIGHT before it started, to which I hurriedly got it back on.

After a while, we decided that we better go find the Bride and check on things.

Who knew that the Bride was in the two year old Sunday School and had so many toys to play with??

Finally picture time.

Dreaming about having a bouquet of her own. . .

And then her basket was magically filled with flower petals!! She had to show Mandy, the bridesmaid, right away!

Sometime during all of this, my camera battery decided that it had had enough and started flashing at us. Of course, this sent me into a panic. I mean – I promised pictures!! I asked around to see if anyone had a compatible charger. No luck. We debated whether there was enough time for Chris to run to Wal-Mart, assuming that Wal-Mart would have the right battery.

I finally calmed down enough to realize that it would last long enough, and, after all, I wasn’t going to be taking pictures DURING the wedding. It’s just hard for a blogger to live without a working camera by her side!!

It was almost time for the wedding, so we grabbed someone to take a family picture really quickly before my battery died (which it miraculously never actually did, thank goodness!):
And then it was time.

As we practiced in rehearsal, I sat on the second row and Chris went in the back with Ali. The plan was that she would walk down, hopefully drop a petal or five, and then sit in my lap, hopefully quietly, until the end of the ceremony, at which time she would walk out holding the ring bearer’s hand.

The grandparents came. . .the parents came. . .the ring bearer came. . .the bridesmaid came. . .I was getting nervous and excited all at once.

Then Ali walked out. She took her time starting down the aisle, but didn’t seem scared.

No flowers were dropped, of course, but this didn’t surprise me too much.

She got to where she was even with me, and I motioned for her to come sit in my lap. She promptly sat down, right in the middle of the aisle, poofy dress and all, and stated loudly, “I sit!”.

It looked quite akin to this:
With that same look, too, actually.

I motioned and whispered, but to no avail.

There was quite the murmur of chuckles throughout the Church.

Just in time for the bridal march, I finally leaned out into the aisle and picked her up, to which she thankfully didn’t protest.

Of course, during the wedding, she gave me commentary from time to time, despite my whispers that we had to be quiet.

“There’s fire up there!!”

“There’s Alex, Mommy!!”

“They’re lighting the candles, Mommy!!”

“I have to be quiet, Mommy.”

“There’s Alex, Mommy!!”

But her chatter didn’t seem to disturb the moment:

When the ceremony was getting close to the end, I started prepping her to walk back down the aisle with Lucas. Lucas was older and quite tall, dark and handsome. She had been in awe of him the whole time, so she was very excited about this turn of events.

However, when Lucas came down the aisle and I pushed her towards him, she couldn’t get over her shyness to take his hand. He tried and tried, but with no luck.

She trailed behind him for a few rows, then turned around and called out to me, “Mommy hold your hand!!”.

So, naturally, I got up and walked her out, to another murmur of chuckles.

So all in all, her interruptions were actually quite cute and funny, not bone-chilling and nervousness-inducing, such as if she had refused to walk the aisle or had started screaming and crying or something.

And anyway, Gina even said on my last post that she wanted Ali to provide some entertainment.

And that she did.

Here are a few more of my favorite pictures:

Congratulations, Gina! We love you!

Practice Makes Perfect!! . . . unless you’re two.

May 1, 2009 Rachel Callahan The Blissfulness of Life, Toddlers: The Experience

If you’ve been around for a while, you remember the fairy-tale-like trying on of Flower girl dresses. Well, the wedding has finally arrived. Gina is getting married tomorrow!!!

Last night was rehearsal. Ali was quite excited about her flower girl role.

The TWO YEAR OLD flower girl.

The fact that I am willing to attempt this shows you ~~that I am willing to do anything for a good blog post~~ how much I truly love Gina.

We’ve of course been talking this up like crazy. We even practiced dropping petals with AJ at Aldridge Gardens on Monday.

(Before the Garden police come and get me, they were ALREADY FALLEN OFF THE BUSH flowers, thankyouverymuch.)

So. We got to rehearsal, and the first thing Ali received was her basket, or, in toddler speak, her “pretty pretty purse”:

Then I put her wreath on too, and she couldn’t have been more thrilled:

We spent a good bit of time before rehearsal trying to get adjusted to the church, and Ali was sure to have a heart to heart with the bride:

Our concern #1 (out of about 965) is that Ali will refuse to walk down the aisle out of fear. So our strategy was that I would sit on the second row (possibly with candy, if necessary) and Chris would be in the back with Ali. Because Ali will ALWAYS come to Mommy, especially if she’s scared.

The downside to this strategy, however, is that it put Chris in charge of all last minute flower girl instructions:

. . . and when she wasn’t dropping her petals, HE was the one who had to give her a demonstration.
Isn’t that the best trail of pieces of torn-up paper that you’ve ever seen??

It worked. The next time she dropped one petal.
Of course she had to stand and stare at it until it fluttered to the ground.

With a bit more coaching, it appeared that she was ready for practice.
Of course, during the actual practice, she practically ran down the left-completely-petalless aisle.

Now. I must cover an important point. In all of our discussions of the wedding, I never thought to ask Gina if she wanted Ali to stand on stage during the wedding.

Or, more likely how I would have phrased it would have been, “You’re not insane enough to want a TWO YEAR OLD running, jumping, talking, possibly crying, fidgeting, pulling up her dress, sitting down, playing games, and NEVER STANDING STILL FOR A SINGLE SECOND to be on your stage on the most important day of your life, are you?”

Um, well, she did.

I of course told her that she was stark mad, but because I loved her, we could give it a try during rehearsal to ~~let her see how completely insane she was~~ see if it would work.

Strategy #1: Hold hands with the maid of honor.
Or more realistically: play “rosies” around and around the Maid of Honor.

And that was all before the bride walked in.

Okay. So far, so good.
A half a second later, she was in the choir loft.

Then Gina, in an effort to make this two-year-old-on-the-stage thing work, told Ali, “If you ever get scared, you can come hold my hand.”

Of course, another half a second passed, and:
But she didn’t stay long. She got back to wandering around, checking out the choir loft, talking loudly, and in general doing what two year olds do.

By this point, she was losing all semblance of paying attention.
But then again, even the maid of honor was texting from stage. So she wasn’t the only one.

However, after Ali repeating from the stage at least 50 times, “Mommy can I come down to hold you?” and finally getting a quivering chin, we ended up like this for the rest of the rehearsal:

And even THAT didn’t come without her clapping and saying “YAAAAAY” every couple of minutes, fidgeting, and finally getting in her own chair:

I think that Gina saw the light. It might have been the point at which I told her, “If you want her on stage, she WILL be a COMPLETE distraction the ENTIRE wedding. But if that’s what you want, that’s fine with me.”

So the plan at this point is for her to walk down the aisle, sit in my lap on the second row (hopefully somewhat quietly), and then walk back down the aisle holding the ring bearer’s hand during the processional.

Oh – and did I mention that the wedding is during naptime?

It won’t be anything if it’s not interesting.

Conquer The Caption: Special "What-The-Heck-Is-THIS" Edition.

May 1, 2009 Rachel Callahan Conquer The Caption

First things first.

Last week’s winner is. . . . Giann!!! She took the winning storyline from the week before and continued it into this picture, which was very fun!! And Giann, I know you submitted a second caption, but I liked the first one best!

So here it is:

Ali-Qaeda thought she had escaped. He had caught her and little did she know he was going to make Ali-Qaeda-bet soup.

Very nice, Giann!!

Now this week’s Conquer is a special edition. It can be a caption, or an explanation – either serious or not.

You see, Chris and I were out at the mailbox yesterday, and there was this weird item on the ground. I said, “What in the world is that?!?!?!”.

Chris looked and said, “A snail?”

I said, “Then that is the biggest snail I’ve ever seen!!”.

We rolled it over – no opening. Not a snail.

I finally got brave enough to pick it up, and it was heavy. It was completely solid.

Of which I made sure of by throwing it all the way down the driveway (hence the white scuff marks on it).

We have no idea what it is.

I’m hoping it’s not something disgusting, although I have washed my hands every time I’ve touched it.

Hopefully it’s not an alien egg that’s about to hatch a bunch of gremlins in our house.

So. . . .what the heck is this?

And for size comparison:
So, Caption/Explain away!!!! What the heck is this???? Be as creative or as factual as you want!

I will have two winners: The most creative answer, and the most plausible answer.

Here’s how to play:

Write a caption for the above picture(s) and post it in the comments of THIS POST.
AND/OR:
Put up your OWN photo (not mine) on your own blog and link it here (using a permalink – let me know if you don’t know how) with the mister linky below. Then other people (like me) can come to your blog and write captions for YOUR photo, too!

Correction in the Name of Science

April 30, 2009 Rachel Callahan Newsflash, Toddlers: The Experience

Thank you all SO MUCH for your overwhelming support yesterday that I am, in fact, a normal human being.

Oh.

Wait.

I mean thank NO ONE but Alice and Kitty!!

That’s okay. I can take it. I am happy to be an oddity if I can entertain the masses. (sniff)

But one thing can be for sure: if someone didn’t understand my blog title’s meaning, they certainly should after yesterday’s post.

In other fun post news, I put up a video of Ali on B-Sides yesterday that is still cracking me up. Of course that could be because I’m her mother. But if you want to see if it’s actually funny or if I’m just overly amused by my child, click here.

Okay. Now time for the actual post:

I must make a accuracy correction to my first “Mom Jeans and Long Butt” scientific experiment.

You know how in the experiment overview I gave our Mommy statuses?

Well, Lydia’s was inaccurate.

She DOES have three kids, but she had one more on the way, unbeknownst to us at the time!

So, she was not only a hot Momma of three kids in those jeans, but she was a hot PREGNANT Momma of three kids in those jeans!!
Just thought you should know.

However, apparently Ali had it figured out all along.

I was careful to not tell Ali that Lydia was pregnant because I was afraid she would tell someone, but the very night after Lydia told me, when we were getting ready for bed, I asked Ali who she wanted to pray for.

She immediately responded: “Lydia, and Radford (Lydia’s son), and Lydia’s Tummy.”

Which, since we pray for a LOT of pregnant bellies right now, is code for “The baby in Lydia’s tummy.”

FREAKY.

At any rate, she is due in November, so be sure to leave Lydia some congratulations here!!!