My tulips are blooming, but it's been so stinkin' rainy that I haven't even been brave enough to run out and pick any.

It's clear for a moment--right now, as I type, I can look out the window and see white clouds scudding across blue sky...but if I crane my head and stand up a little to get a better view, I can see another big mass of gray clouds swooping in right behind them.

You would think, then, that I would take advantage of this moment to throw on some shoes and poke my nose out of doors for the first time today and pick myself a nice bouquet of tulips for my dining room table. I've got some gorgeous red-and-yellow ones out there, and a few creamy white ones, and I seem to recall planting some pink ones that I'm hoping will be opening up their buds any time now.

Except that I can't pick them myself. Beth has been begging to pick tulips for a week, ever since they first started blooming. And last week I told her no, because only a few had opened up and I wanted to leave them there to look pretty outside our house. Now, though, we've got a plethora of them standing tall under the not-yet-blossomed rosebushes, and it would be the perfect time for her to steal a few for a bouquet. She just loves making bouquets.

No, Beth would be broken-hearted if I picked them myself. So why can't I send her out to pick them? Because the poor little thing is curled up on the couch, all feverish and pathetic. She's moved from that spot exactly twice all day, once to go to the bathroom and then later to sit on my lap while I worked at the computer, her hot forehead pushed up against my chest.

I mentioned casually to her that today might be a good day to pick some tulips, thinking maybe she might perk up with the chance for a little fresh air, but she just groaned and ignored me and rolled over again on the couch.

So the tulips will get to live another day. I promised my chief flower-picker that their stems belonged to her, and mama can't go back on her promises, no matter how much she wants to see something pretty on her table.

My kids love their mama. I am certain of that. But they adore their daddy.






Maybe it's just the fact that I'm always here, wiping up the poop and and the snot and the vomit. I don't go away every morning and then reappear triumphantly at the end of the day. Or maybe it's a gender thing; even at their young age, they recognize me as simply an older version of themselves, whereas Daddy represents the fascinating Other.

For whatever reason, the girls pretty much think Daddy is the greatest living being ever to walk the face of the earth.

Case in point: At dinner the other night, Eric tells a really cheesy joke. I don't laugh. "Oh, you're sooo funny," I say. Eric replies, "I *am* funny. I'm hilarious!" And, on cue, with zero prompting from anyone, Beth says, "Daddy is funny!" and Lucy chimes in, "He's hilarious!"

I don't think that starting his own personal fan club was the reason Eric wanted to have children, but it's a side benefit that I don't think bothers him at all.

Remember how I mentioned the "reappearing triumphantly at the end of the day" thing? Well, I wasn't kidding about that. As dinner time approaches, the girls watch the big front window carefully. And when the black pick-up pulls up to the curb, they rush the door like crazed fans at a rock concert. Screaming his name, jumping up and down, grabbing at his legs. They're not begging him to autograph their T-shirts, but that probably just hasn't occurred to them yet.

Whereas mom is more like a favorite blanket: absolutely essential to one's stability and peace of mind, necessary at naptime or when you're bleeding or crying, but not really worthy of hero-worship.

Whatever it is, I think I'm about ready to throw in the towel on this whole being-the-mom business. Can I have a turn being the daddy for awhile?

It's a simple thing, going for a long walk with someone you love. Just strolling along--perhaps with a destination in mind, perhaps not. Perhaps hand in hand, perhaps just walking side by side. This weekend Eric and I had a lovely few days away from the kids, and we walked everywhere. From the vacation house to town. All around town, from coffee shops to bookstores to cute little boutiques. Through the winding pathways of the rural neighborhood where the vacation house was located.

It was just like being on our honeymoon again. Except that we weren't in England and we're nine years older. But other than that, it totally brought back old times. We used to go for walks all the time. When we were dating, Eric lived in a house with a bunch of other guys, and other random friends tended to drop by and crash on the couch, and it was pretty much just a loud, smelly, people-there-all-the-time kind of place. To get away from all that, we used to just go for walks. For hours--in the rain, in the sun, under the stars--we would walk around and around his neighborhood. And we liked it so much that we kept up the tradition even after we got married and had an apartment all to ourselves.

And then we had kids, and going for a walk became less simple.

I well remember the first time we went for a walk with newborn Beth, sauntering around the streets of the small town where we lived at the time, and when we were still half a mile from home she suddenly started screaming bloody murder. The pacifier would not placate her, being held would not stop her, and there was no convenient place to stop and offer her a feeding. So we just pushed the stroller home as fast as we could, trying to ignore the stares that our screaming infant was attracting to us.

Eventually we got the hang of things, and the baby stopped being so fussy, and going for long walks with the stroller got easier. Once we had Lucy, I upgraded to a double stroller, and I walked for miles with my kiddos every day. Hauling the stroller out and getting it all unfolded and strapping the kids in and making sure you have coats and snacks and a diaper in case of emergencies isn't quite as easy as just heading out the door on your own two feet, but it wasn't bad.

And then somewhere around age 3 and a half, Beth started wanting to walk on her own, instead of riding in the stroller. And the world of walks slowed to a 3-year-old's pace. And the size of our walks shrunk down to what 3-year-old legs could cover before getting tired and whiny. No more hours-long walks for us. Just short little ventures here and there.

And now we have Little Miss Evie, who hates being strapped in to anything, anything at all, for long periods of time. Car seats, booster seats, strollers; they're all fine for a little while, but to attempt a good long walk with her...well, do so at your own risk. You'll do just fine if you don't have ear drums and don't mind being screamed at all the way home.

So we just don't go for long walks very much anymore. Short trips to school and back, or to the nearby park, we can manage. But just heading out on a whim and wandering until you don't feel like walking anymore has sadly become a rare pleasure for us.

I have high hopes for the future, though. Beth is getting more capable. Lucy would probably ride in the stroller until she was 15 if no one said anything about it--she just likes to snuggle up. But if we appeal to her emerging "big girl" status, she's willing to walk awhile too.

This leaves us just Miss Ev. Who frankly doesn't like strollers anyway, and pretty much believes that she's just as big and just as tough as her older sisters. She's almost two, and she still occasionally asks to be held when we're out and about, but give her another year and I'll bet she would drop down dead in her tracks before admitting she can't keep up with the rest of the family.

Maybe...before too long...we'll be a family of walkers again.

1. There's nothing like planting seeds to make you feel eager and hopeful, is there? I just planted vegetables two days ago, and already I'm like a nervous parent, resisting the urge to check the garden every time I go outside. Are they growing? I'm glad it's raining, but is it raining too much? Will my poor seeds drown? Will I get sprouts? Will I? Will I?

2. Even though I do very little to my garden--basically A) plant; and B) water--I still feel like such a success when things grow. Like "See! look what I've created!" Even though I really have nothing to do it. The seed itself is the miracle. I just get a chance to hold the miracle in my hand for a moment, and yet somehow that makes me feel as though it's mine.

3. Evie has reached that 2-year-old "do it myself" phase. These days all I hear all day long is, "No, mama! My turn! My turn!" Putting her clothes on, putting her shoes on, climbing into the car, brushing her hair--she wants to do it all herself. And while I certainly want her to eventually learn to do these things herself, she's just not capable yet. And when we're trying to go places in the morning, I don't have the time to sit there for 10 minutes while she attempts to put her shoes on. OK, let's be honest--I don't have the patience to sit there for even three minutes and do nothing. Part of me feels horribly guilty for not encouraging her independence, and the other part of me is just saying, "When it's time to go, it's time to go!" So I end up just dressing her myself, and then she weeps bitter tears of anger. It is fun, fun, fun, I tell you.

4. Speaking of Evie's hair, I have some issues with it. This child has the driest, flakiest scalp I've ever seen in my life. She'll scratch at it until she's scratched raw spots onto her head. I've tried several different types of shampoo, I've tried just rinsing with water and using shampoo only once a week, I've tried spraying it with leave-in conditioners, and nothing really seemed to help. Yesterday I tried something I read about in an online parenting forum: when I put her in the tub, I coated her head with olive oil, really rubbing the stuff into her scalp well. I let it sit on her head the whole time she played in the tub, for 15-20 minutes, and then I rinsed it as well as I could and washed as normal. Today, her scalp does look a lot better. Not nearly so flaky. But her hair...well, it looks like it had been coated in olive oil. Like I'm the kind of mother who had never washed her child's hair ever in her life.

Has anyone else ever had a kid with scalp issues like this? How can I help heal it without making her hair all greasy?

5. Speaking of hair, I dyed my hair the other night. I switched brands of home hair dye this time, and I thought I picked pretty much the same shade I had been using. Umm...not so much. It's pretty dark. But as my husband said, "Hey, at least your hair matches your eyebrows now." Not that comforting, considering my eyebrows have always been black, even though my hair (at one point in my life, anyway) was a light brown. Oh well. It looks fine--just dark. It will probably lighten up with washings and with sun. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

6. Speaking of my husband, last night we made no-bake cookies. As he helped me drop spoonfuls of the oatmeal-peanut-butter-chocolate concoction onto cookie sheets lined with wax paper, he said, "When we had these in Canada when I was growing up, we called them bear sign."

And then I laughed at him heartily. I mean, come on! Bear sign? Bear sign? That is such a Canadian thing to do: name a delicious cookie after animal droppings.

7. But hey, even though Eric does spout off funny Canadian-isms from time to time, I like the guy pretty well. As a matter of fact, starting this afternoon, thanks to my parents' generosity, we get to spend a whole weekend together with NO KIDS. That's right--no kids, no responsibilities, just hanging out with this cute Canadian guy. I think I'll be able to handle it. Just barely, but I think I'll make it.

The Sisters



See how differently they carry and understand

upon themselves the same possibilities,

as if one were to see different eras

pass through two identical rooms.





Each thinks she supports the other one,

all the while resting, tired, upon her;

and they can't make use of each other

for together they place blood upon blood,



when they as in the past gently touch

and try, going down the avenue,

both to lead and feel as if being led:

and yet, they don't have the same gait.



--Rainer Maria Rilke

Last weekend I ran in a race with some girlfriends, then the following day the whole family headed up to my parents' house in Sisters for three days of playing outside and riding bikes and relaxing in the couch and just generally having a grand old time.

This morning we went to the park with grandparents, aunts and cousins. This afternoon friends came to visit and we planted vegetables together.

In other words, it's just been sunshine and merriment everywhere you look, the last few days.

But I didn't get pictures of any of it.

Nope. Either through forgetfulness or busyness or choice, I left my camera behind for all of our springtime fun, and found myself torn between thinking, "Oh, I wish I had a picture of that!" and "Hey, this is kind of nice."

I take a lot of pictures of my kids. And why not? I don't have to buy rolls of film or pay processing fees to view my shots. With digital cameras, you can snap-snap-snap away and end up with literally thousands of computer-archived shots of your family, doing everything from brushing their teeth to climbing a mountain. I think the kids growing up now are likely to be the most-photographed generation to ever exist.

I love documenting all the ever-changing cuteness, commemorating the milestones, looking back through the photos and marveling at how fast the kids have grown. It's like my husband said, watching Evie as she ate a Happy Meal and carefully dipped each and every french fry and chicken nugget in ketchup, then meticulously lined up her pre-ketchuped meal in front of her, "I always want to remember how adorable you are." The more you realize what a precious and fleeting thing a childhood is--how in a span of a dozen years, not an ounce of your baby is going to be left--the more you want to snatch it all up and save it forever.

But it's kind of freeing, sometimes, to forget about capturing an official record of your family life...and instead, just sit back and live it.

1. The reason I had a paring knife in my purse, an oddity that many of you commented on:

One day last summer, the girls and I were heading to the park, and I decided to bring an apple for our snack. But I didn't want to take the time to peel it and slice it and then have it get all brown in a plastic baggie, so I just threw a knife in my purse so I could peel and slice the apple there at the park when we were ready to eat. This worked out very well, and I left the knife in my purse so I could repeat my fruit trick on subsequent occasions. And I even used it at other times, such as last weekend when I bought a bouquet of flowers for a friend, and then used my little paring knife to trim the stems so they fit in the vase. Carrying a knife is handy, it turns out.

When I put stuff in my new purse, however, I did not put the paring knife in. Although I had it in a separate pocket, I was always a little afraid I would accidentally reach in there and stab myself by mistake. Instead, I fished one of my husband's many extraneous folding pocket knives out of the junk drawer and stashed it in my new purse.

Because if carrying around a little knife is good, carrying around a bigger knife will be better, right?

2. Yes, I realize that I would not be allowed to carry a dangerous weapon like this on an airplane. But I never go anywhere, so I think I'm good.

3. No one seemed to find it odd that I also had matches, however. Is that normal? Do you all go around lighting fires all the time too? Those had actually only been in there for a couple weeks--that's like the blink of an eye in purse-time. I brought them along on a friend's birthday picnic so we could light candles on the birthday cake, in case you're interested.

4. See? There is a purpose for everything in my purse. Even if it was a one-time long-ago purpose.

Except the alligator. That one's still a mystery.

5. Race day tomorrow! Lucky Clover 10K, here I come!

6. I actually haven't run hardly at all this week. I went for a short run this morning, and that was the only time I'd been all week long. Between sick kids and the time change, I just haven't had the energy to get out of bed early in the morning. But I was doing really good before that, so I'm counting on reserves of strength that I supposedly built up in weeks past to carry me through. No worries. 6.2 miles = no problem, right?

7. This is the third list post in a row on the old blog here. Don't worry, I do still remember how to use paragraphs.

I'm just choosing not to.

You can read more quick takes here.

I got a new purse yesterday, which required that I actually clean out my old purse. Which then required that I marvel at the sheer amount of crap that I carry around.



My old purse contained, among other things:

1. A bottle of vitamins
2. An undeposited paycheck
3. A paring knife
4. A book of matches
5. Carmex, lipstick, and tinted lip gloss. Heaven forbid that a situation should come up when I do not have the appropriate lip adornment, apparently.
6. A little baggie of children's hair accessories
7. My iPod
8. gum and breathmints
9. three blue ink pens
10. random crumpled up receipts and gum wrappers
11. standard purse stuff: cell phone, keys, wallet
12. A tiny pink plastic alligator.

No woman is truly complete without a purse-size alligator.

1. Make Irish soda bread for dinner.

2. Pull weeds (and enjoy it, because it is so beautiful outside right now).

3. Learn about local organic farms for an article I'm working on.

4. Wash my windows so I can enjoy the sunshine streaming in, and not all the streaks and splotches blocking the view.

5. Celebrate the fact that Beth is on spring break now. Which means I am on spring break now. No need to be anywhere at any particular time of day for the next week and a half!

6. Pray that my kids' antibiotics kick in. Because a week and a half off is not going to be any fun with sick kiddos.

7. Have a nice visit with my friend. (Okay, I already did that one, but it's still going on the list).

8. Enjoy organizing and then carrying around the beautiful new purse my friend made for me.

9. Consider planting some seeds in my garden. Is it warm enough? I think so.

10. Just sit back and be glad that it's spring and it's sunny and I'm happy.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you had a child who wanted to do an extracurricular activity. And let's say that after a class or two, she suddenly decides that she hates said activity and doesn't want to do it ever again.

Do you make her keep doing it to teach her a lesson about sticking with things even when they're hard? Or respect her preferences and not push her to do something she's not interested in (even though she certainly SEEMED to be interested in it before)?

Or let's say you have a child who *loves* going to her weekly activity, but as you watch her you can see that what she really seems to get the biggest kick out of is not the activity itself, but her interaction with the other kids, and she doesn't necessarily even seem to be trying that hard or attempting to improve from week to week. And you wonder if you ought to be encouraging her to work at her skills a little more...or, even forgoing the money for this thing and just arranging a weekly playgroup?

It's sort of the conventional wisdom that your standard middle class childhood involves sports and lessons and music. But it all costs money, folks. Uniforms and equipment and lessons aren't cheap. And what do I do when my kid doesn't seem to be "getting that much" (if such a thing can be accurately gauged) from an activity? Is it all "just for fun" or is there all some kind of inherent value in doing extracurricular activities?

For now, I'm of the opinion that there *is* a point to doing extracurricular activities. And that the purposes would be: 1) to have fun; 2) to learn a skill that I wouldn't be able to just teach them at home; 3) to help them explore their interests and engage different parts of their minds and bodies; 4) to teach them a little bit about teamwork, respecting teachers and coaches, and getting along with all sorts of other people.

But there's only a point...up to a point. For instance, with our child who didn't want to do her activity anymore, we didn't push it. Nobody's happy if a kid is being forced to do something they hate every week (even though part of me really thinks she would have liked it if she'd have given it another shot). And with our kid who is not exactly the most-engaged person in her class? Well, my mom can tell you stories about how I used to stand out in right field on my T-ball team, chewing on my baseball mitt and staring into space. I was TERRIBLE at sports. But I liked to do it anyway--because of friends, because of being part of a team, because it simply feels good to be involved. I think it's okay--especially at this age--if we are spending our money on something that's just for fun.

I'd love to hear from other parents--how do you decide what sports or clubs to enroll your kids in? And what do you do when your kids' attitude about their activity changes and/or leaves something to be desired?

Oregon State University is very close to where we live and has a strong tradition as an ag/veterinary school. The school opens up the lambing barns each spring so kids can wander through. This year Heather and I took our kids (seven between the two of us!) to go see the mama sheep and little baby lambs.

Beth, watching as I took pictures of the trip, wanted to try a turn with the camera. She managed to capture this little guy.



At first, the two 3-year-olds in our group of kiddos were intrigued by the sheep and walked calmly down the aisle, sweetly holding hands with each other.


However, they were soon frightened by the very scary sight of sheep. Baby sheep! Behind fences! Drinking milk!



They eventually chose to cling to their respective mothers' legs rather than be photographed with the older siblings. Oh well. The little ones were there, even though they chose not to allow us to document the event.

See! Cute kiddos in front of sheep. Nothing to be afraid of.

1. I'm ready for the spring weather to come back.

I forced myself out the door for a run this morning, telling myself that if the weather was really bad, I could turn around and come home after one mile. Just one mile, I convinced myself. And I didn't even have to run fast. And, as luck would have it, the weather was fine for the first mile. So I went ahead and kept at it, picked up the pace a little. It started to sprinkle. By mid-way through mile 2 I was damp, but not horribly so.

Then I turned a corner. Suddenly I was running into the wind, and being pelted with big, cold drops of rain driving straight into my face. And I stepped right into a great big ankle-deep puddle and my left foot was instantly so wet that it squooshed and squelched with every step. And by that time, I was at the mid-way point, far enough into my route that turning around to go home wouldn't have made the misery end any faster. There was nothing to do but stick it out. And I came home soggy and cold and got right back into bed.

Because a warm bed is the only appropriate place to be on a morning as nasty as that.

2. I just finished the sequel to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." This one was called "The Girl Who Played with Fire." Still a pretty good read, but didn't match up to the first one, in my opinion. Also, all the Swedish last names really started to blur in my mind after awhile. Bjork and Bjurmann, Berger and Blomkvist--apparently B is the most popular surname letter in Sweden, because I really think half of his characters had B-names.

3. Evie can now say her own name. "Eh-ee." "I Eh-ee." It is the cutest thing ever.

4. I hardly used to shop at CostCo at all. I had a membership so I could buy their gas and their diapers--that was it. And I still agree with Michelle from Scribbit that a lot of their foods are not really a bargain because I rarely buy name-brand foods. Plus, I don't really have the space to store 20-pound bags of flour and 60-packs of toilet paper.

But, as my kids get older (and they're not even very old yet!) they are really starting to go through the food. Bread, milk, fruit and veggies, and other basics--that's pretty much all I load up my cart with. And we go through it all in a flash. It's gotten to the point where I now feel that I really NEED to go to CostCo at least once a month. What am I going to do when they're all teenagers? How much food are we going to eventually go through? I'm a little scared.

Now, if I can just get them all OUT of diapers, maybe that will cancel out the damage their increased food consumption is doing to my budget...

5. Me to Beth today, after noticing that she had just applied a Dora the Explorer sticker to the front window: "Beth! Take that off of there! You know you're not allowed to stick stickers to the floors or the walls or the furniture or the windows."

Beth: "Well, you never said the windows before."

Leave it to her to find the one flat surface in the house that I had not explicitly forbidden her from sticking stickers on...and exploit the loophole.

6. Why are people so gross? There is this little pathway that leads from our house to the school grounds, and it is constantly covered in litter. Why do people think it's OK to just throw their trash on the ground to rot? Candy wrappers and sandwich bags, cigarette butts and coffee cups...and one time an empty 40 of Old English. Gross! And it's right next to the school grounds. What is wrong with people? It makes me mad, in case you couldn't tell. Whenever I remember, (which is maybe once a week or so) I bring a bag with me and the girls and I go on a grand trash pick-up on our way back from the school. Just call me the Litter Patrol.

7. Looking for a way to kill time on a Friday afternoon? Here are some links for your enjoyment:

A great post at Five Minutes for Parenting by Beck, about paying attention to all those little details that make up our day-to-day routines, because all those little moments? These moments are what life is, and we shouldn't miss them. It's worth a read.

A funny comic for fantasy/sci-fi nerds (thanks to my husband, uber-nerd that he is, for passing it on. And I mean that as a compliment, really I do).

And an awesome music video from the band OK Go that features a huge Rube Goldberg machine. Smashing TVs! Flying umbrellas! Paint guns! Really, you have to see it believe it.






Check out more quick takes here.

Well, she did it. It has begun.

I finally gave in to my daughter's persistent potty requests (after being shamed into it by chatting with another mom whose daughter is several months younger than Evie and apparently going in the potty ALL the time.) Nothing like mommy-competition to speed up the potty-training process.

And now, all week, Evie's been peeing in the potty a few times a day. All that sitting and doing nothing finally got old; apparently and she's moved on to occasionally sitting there and accomplishing something.

Unlike when Beth was at this point, I'm not really regarding this as anything too major. No proclamations of triumph here. Inbetween potty visits, she still sometimes does her business in the diaper, so she clearly has not gotten the hang of sensing her need before it happens. I'm regarding this stage not so much as potty-training as potty-experimenting. Potty-demonstrating. Potty-testing-the-waters.

"Is it the dawn of a new day?" Eric asked eagerly when I informed him of the first pee-in-the-potty incident.

"No." I told him. "But...it's maybe the sunset of the day before the new dawn comes."

Someday...someday...the glorious light of being a diaper-free household will shine upon us. We just have to get through the dark night of one more bout of potty-training first.

This month's Perfectly Poetical Tuesday category was haiku. And I just couldn't think of a good haiku topic at all. So I wrote about... not knowing what to write.

Words Fail

My thought-jar topples
Marbles scatter far and wide
I’m uninspired

Check out more poems at The Little Stuff of Life.

1. Make a late-night run to the convenience store for Ben & Jerry's.
My roommate and I did this all the time in college. She stayed skinny. I did not. Other parts of our college food staples--microwaved Easy Mac and the Taco Ball drivethrough--I have pretty much given up, because of the unfortunate things they do to my body. And I do try to limit my ice cream consumption now, but I will never swear off it. Never.

2. Read kids' books.
This is one of my favorite parts of being a parent, honestly. Reading all my old favorites and discovering new ones, too. Although the parent thing is just a cover for my kids'-lit habit, actually. I never really stopped loving kids' books.

3. Totally rock out in my car when a really good song comes on.

4. Eat cereal at any time of the day.
When I got to college I was unreasonably delighted to see the giant cereal dispensers in the dining hall that were there ALL DAY LONG. If I wanted to eat Lucky Charms at 10 p.m., I could do it! How thrilling! And now I still sometimes like to have a bowl of cereal (though not Lucky Charms) for a snack at night.

5. Blow the fluff off dandelions.

6. Run through a sprinkler on a hot, sunny day.

7. Spend hours giggling with my girlfriends.
Unlike the hours of phone conversations, which have gone by the wayside, I never fail to enjoy it when I have the chance to get together with my friends in person and talk and talk and talk until we all look at our watches and say, "Shoot! How did it get to be that time already!" and scurry back to our regular lives.

I could go on and on...this list was actually much easier to come up with than my Murtaugh list. What else can you really never outgrow?

1. Even though I am no longer attending school or working a regular job, and thus my weekends are not terribly different from my weekdays, I still get a thrill when it's Friday.

2. Thanks for all your feedback on my lovely poll. It's nice when people make up my mind about things for me. In case you haven't clicked on the "view results" button at the bottom, the results show that readers of this blog are mostly interested in violent stories, followed by lists of things you are never too old to do. And hardly anyone is interested in sports bras.

3. But I want to talk about sports bras anyway, and it's my blog, so I'm going to go ahead and do it. Really, I'm just looking for recommendations. Anybody out there have a really good brand I should try? All of my sports bras are Nike. And all of my sports bras eventually give me chafing on long runs--like anything more than six miles. Hmmm, think perhaps it's time to try a new brand? My skin kind of scars easily, and I'd rather not have red, raw marks and scars all over my shoulders, back and chest. So...anyone know of any fabulous sports bras? Perhaps something seamless, tagless, and in all other ways not going to rub uncomfortably?

4. Another poll, one which I don't know whether people will actually feel comfortable answering or not, but I'll go ahead and throw it out there anyway: how much do you usually spend on presents for birthday parties your kids are invited to? As my husband said, when I discussed this with him the other night, you don't want your kid to be the one showing up with the crappy present. On the other hand, we've been invited to quite a few in the last couple of months. I love that, and I am in no way feeling resentful about buying presents for other people's kids. I love helping my kids pick things out. I just don't necessarily want to break the budget on it either. If you're bold, leave me a comment and tell me how much you spend, or send me an e-mail if you'd rather be private about it. (my e-mail is visible if you click through to "view my complete profile" on the sidebar.)

5. Like gardening? Check out a new blog by my friend Lynn: Mother.Earth. She's a fellow former Democrat-Herald freelancer whose position got cut a few months ago. But she's also a master gardener with a ton of tips to share, and she's started a blog to spread her knowledge.

6. An update on the local restaurant scene for those of you lucky enough to live in the mid-valley: BamBoo Diner, which I liked so much when it opened last fall, has closed. Sad. But fear not! The owners are undaunted and are converting it to a classy burger joint. Keeping all the staff and everything, or so I read in the newspaper. And with the exception of the Calapooia Brewing Co--which is a bar, after all, and while it's open to minors at some hours it isn't what comes to mind when I think of a place to take the family out to eat--there isn't a really great locally owned sit-down burger place in downtown Albany. So, best of luck to First Burger! I will be sure to try it out and report back.

7. Another local eatery to recommend: Sweet Things bakery in North Albany. It's right next to Tom's Garden Center, where Jacopetti's used to be. Stopped in there on a rainy afternoon with the girls this week and it was divine. They do beautiful wedding cakes and special orders, and I had a chocolate croissant that was mouth-wateringly perfect.

That's all, folks. Have a good weekend, and check out more quick takes here if you are so inclined.

It all went down in the kitchen.

I was doing something. I think I was cooking. Two of my children were also in the kitchen. They were squabbling. We'll call them Child A, and Child B, to protect the identity of the not-so-innocent.

So Child A and Child B were squabbling. I'm not really sure what it was about. Like I said, I was cooking, and the radio was on, and I was trying to pay attention to the recipe, and the squabble started out as merely a sort of low-grade conflict, one which I like to imagine they can resolve on their own. Background noise.

And then the voices were raised. "No! No! No! Noooo!" Child A shouted, and Child B shouted back, and I turned my head just in time to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be Child A giving Child B a hard push in the chest.

"No!" I said, adding my voice to the chaos. "No, no, you may NOT push your sister."

And Child A turned around to face me--teary but defiant, eyebrows knitted together, fist tightly clenched.

"No, mom!" she said. "I didn't push my sister. I PUNCHED my sister!"

...

...

...well, at least she's honest.

So...what do YOU want to talk about?

1. Extra-curricular activities for preschool/kindergarten age kids. Do they have a purpose? And what is that purpose? How do you decide what to participate in? Do you let your kid pick, or do you simply inform them of their impending enrichment? How do you decide when or if to stop an activity?

2. Albany parks: the good, the bad, and the ugly

3. Sports bras: you tell me what the best brand in the world is

4. Facebook: is there a limit at which point you have too many "friends" and begin to give the impression of being kind of a Facebook floozy? What is the magic number?

5. A funny story involving violence, honesty, and one of my children.

6. Oh yeah! I said something about a list of things you're never too old to do.

Perhaps you watch the TV show How I Met Your Mother. In which case, I will simply say: here is my Murtaugh List, and you will know what I mean.

If you do not watch this show, then here's an explanation: there was an episode where the late-20s age Ted decides there are certain things that he is just too old to do anymore. He makes a list of these things, and he names this list after the Danny Glover character from the Lethal Weapon movies, Roger Murtaugh, whose catchphrase is, "I'm gettin' too old for this (stuff)." Except he doesn't say stuff in the movies.

As I was walking through the grocery store today, I went past a rack of magazines, and the magazine "Seventeen" happened to catch my eye. And everything on the cover was about "Getting HIM to like you" and "Spring's Must-Have Fashions" and "Share your most shocking Prom story!" and I had a sudden flashback to sitting on the windowseat in my teenage bedroom, poring over the new issue of "Seventeen" every month (and then cutting out funny phrases and cute pictures to make collages and covers for mix tapes and posters to hang inside my locker). And this was not really a nostalgic flashback. It was more like, "I can't believe I used to spend so much time on that. I am SO glad I am too old for that magazine."

And that train of thought made me think of that episode. And then I thought of my blog. And so, here you go. My own personal list of...stuff...that I am just too old for.

1. Stay up for 24+ hours.
I used to do this every week in college. Every week. For the purpose of putting out our college newspaper, we pulled an all-nighter every single Thursday. I can't believe I did this now. I think it probably took years off of my potential life-span. And I know for a fact that my Thursday all-nighters were the reason I got a C in my college Spanish class (tests were at 9 a.m. every Friday morning).

I will not be doing that again anymore. Sleep is good, people. Sleep is very good.

2. Drive a car that has the potential to break down, overheat, or explode at any given moment.
Been there, did that for far too many years. Cars that overheated, cars that wouldn't start in cold weather, cars that could only be started by shoving a paint scraper into the engine. You may not believe the paint scraper thing is true (my husband is skeptical about this story), or that a sane person would do such a thing, but I swear it is true, and Meg will back me up on it, too.

Eric and I have finally gotten to the place where we own two vehicles that actually run reliably. It has taken us years to get to this point. And now that I have experienced the luxury of being confident that my car will actually reach my intended destination...there's just no going back to the land of crappy cars.

3. Shop in the Juniors section.
I actually bought a pair of knee-length shorts in the juniors section as recently as last year. But I felt kind of like I was trespassing as I traversed the rows of neon-colored shirts, skinny jeans, and dresses covered in spangles and glitter. I need to just stay on my own side of the department store now, I think. The 80s are so back in the Juniors section. And isn't the rule that if you actually wore fashions the first time they were in style, you shouldn't go there when they come back around? There will be no stirrup pants for me, thank you very much.

4. Wear my hair in pigtails.
I wore pigtails as a child, I wore them again in high school and college in an ooh-I'm-so-cute kind of way, but I can't do it anymore. Not when I have children of my own, who ALSO wear their hair in pigtails. This is, of course, a moot point since my hair is too short for pigtails anyway, but if it were long, I would skip pigtails.

5. Talk on the phone for hours and hours without ever saying anything important.
Seriously, I don't know what we talked about. My friend Connie and I would spend every day in school together, and then go home, have dinner with our families, and call each other at night to talk for hours about goodness knows what. And then when I was in college, Eric and I would call each other every night and I'd just be sitting out in the hallway of the dorm, tying up the phone line that I shared with my two roommates, for at least an hour every night. What did we talk about? Why did I not get tired of sitting in the hall with that receiver glued to my ear?

I hardly ever talk on the phone anymore. I am really bad about calling people. When I do, I usually have a purpose, not an aimless conversation. If I never call you, don't be offended; it doesn't mean I don't like you. I just don't like the phone.

6. Get an unusual piercing.
I never wanted to get my nose or eyebrow or anything pierced anyway. And therefore, the only piercings I have are in my earlobes. But now I feel that the time for such a thing (if I had ever wanted it anyway) has passed. At this point in my life, if I were to suddenly go out and come back with a stud through my tongue or my lip or my navel...it would be weird.


How about you? What's on your list?

And...coming soon...Things that I will NEVER be too old to do.