What a Charmer

Why yes that is Bunny with a juvenile Burmese Python. Why do you ask?

We were at Snake Day at the museum and of course Bunny was in heaven. For me it was infinitely better than bug day, snakes are not nearly as creepy as bugs.

Now on to the BFL picks (winners in bold and red):

Houston @ Indianapolis
Washington @ Atlanta
Arizona @ Chicago
Baltimore @ Cincinnati
Miami @ New England
Green Bay @ Tampa Bay
Kansas City @ Jacksonville
Detroit @ Seattle
Carolina @ New Orleans
San Diego @ NY Giants
Tennessee @ San Francisco
Dallas @ Philadelphia

Monday Night: Pittsburgh @ Denver
Combined MNF Score = 45

Check out the rest of the action here.

Stuck

I've had this song stuck in my head for days.

I am sure you can all sympathize. It happens to everyone. And its always an annoying or slightly annoying song. If it were a cool song you wouldn't mind one bit, you'd just sing along. A cool song would be like having your own personal soundtrack.

An annoying song is different. You don't want it in your head. Its there and its threatening to stay. Forever. And it just might drive you crazy in the mean time.

Now the annoying song can be anything. It could be a catchy pop song from an artist you hate or from an artist you are not willing to admit to liking to anyone (not even your diary). It could be a jingle for a local bank, restaurant or the like. It could be a theme song for a television show you hate or are not willing to admit to liking to anyone (not even your diary).

In my case, it is a song from a children's cartoon. These songs are the worst to have stuck in your head. They are designed to be catchy. They are designed to be easy to remember. They are designed to be annoying because they are aimed at toddlers and pre-schoolers.

You can't fight that. The writers of these songs have research on how to make them memorable to children (and adults). Think about it, I'm sure you can remember the words to songs from shows you watched as a child that aren't even on the air anymore. These songs stick like glue.

The worst offender, in my book is Word World. Now I love Word World. Its helping Bunny learn her letters, the sounds they make and it is helping her to learn to read. So its a great show. A great show with annoying music, starting with the theme song and moving on to so many other annoying songs.

We've all heard the advice, to get a song out of your head you just sing it out loud. In theory this releases the song to the universe (or to the person sitting next to you) and frees your head. I follow this advice diligently. You can often find me breaking out in:

"You can never have too many OOs. Doodlely oo, doodlely oo, doodlely oo."

It should work. It should free my mind from this song. It should but it doesn't because Bunny thinks its hilarious that I am singing this song.

"Sing it again momma! Sing it again."
No, I will not sing that infernal song again.
"Please, momma."
Oh all right. "You can never have too many OOs. Doodlely oo, doodlely oo, doodlely oo."

And now its stuck again. It also doesn't help that Bunny requests to watch this episode over and over again, thereby insuring permanent residence in my brain.

Thanks, sweetie.

Picks

Just in under the wire. Winners in red and bold.

Houston @ Buffalo
Cleveland @ Chicago
Seattle @ Dallas
St. Louis @ Detroit
San Francisco @ Indianapolis
Miami @ NY Jets
Denver @ Baltimore
NY Giants @ Philadelphia
Minnesota @ Green Bay - This is huge. This is my Super Bowl.
Oakland @ San Diego
Jacksonville @ Tennessee
Carolina @ Arizona

Monday Night
Atlanta @ New Orleans
Combined MNF Score = 54

Three Years Ago

Three years ago. It seems like it was only yesterday. I can remember the sights, the smells, the sounds of that moment. I can even remember what it felt like to touch you.

Three years ago. It seems like forever. I cannot remember what it was like before. It is as if things have always been this way.

Three years ago, everything changed.

Three years ago, I became the person I was meant to be. The person that nineteen years of education and thirty seven years of living had not prepared me for.

Three years ago, I became a mother.

Three years ago, we became a family.

Three years ago, we traveled half way around the world to meet you.

Three years ago, one journey ended and another one began.

Three years ago, there was you.



Three years ago, there was us.



Three years ago, there was forever.

Illogical

Last night as I was brushing my teeth, I looked in the mirror and did an inspection of what I saw.

I noticed the winter paleness was already setting in, perhaps a result of having 3 sunny days in the entire month of October. I made a mental note to use a little blush so I could look human again. I noticed a pimple on my chin and sighed. 40 years old and I'm still getting pimples.

I moved on to my hair. As I said before, I'm a bit vain about my hair. I like it to look good. For a while now, I've been getting red highlights in my hair. I love them. They make me feel like a rebellious teenager at 40. But they don't last. I had them done 3 weeks ago and as I looked in the mirror I saw a blondish, pinkish, orangey mess. Not good. So I don't think I'll be getting them the next time I go in.

Then I looked at my roots. My hair has been colored various shades over the past 20 years and I don't know my real color anymore. I didn't get my roots done last time I went in, so its been over two months and you couldn't tell. So apparently I'm paying money to dye my hair its natural color (well with a little more red but its basically the same).

My inspection was almost over and I was ready to go to bed when I saw it. At first I wasn't sure what I saw. I thought it might be, but no it couldn't really be. Could it? No it definitely was. A grey hair. My first grey hair.

I felt a strange sensation. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't regret at getting older. I am older, its a fact.

It was something much weirder. I was excited. I felt this strange thrill at having my first grey hair.

Why? Well I still feel like this stupid little kid most of the time. I feel like I have no idea what is going on. And maybe, just maybe grey hair will impart some sort of wisdom on me.

Illogical I know. Give me a week and I'm sure I'll hate it.

Tonight I Wore Red Lipstick

Tonight I wore red lipstick.

Tonight I was a different, more mysterious version of myself.

I always wanted to be the kind of girl who wore red lipstick, the girl who stood out in the crowd. Instead I was the girl who stood in the back wearing lip balm. If I was feeling particularly daring, I would wear a tinted lip balm or lip gloss. For business purposes I would wear my tried and true MAC Twig, a shade described as a soft, muted brownish-pink. It really fit me to a T, I am soft, muted and brownish-pink.

Sometimes I would experiment. I would try bolder, more adventurous colors. Trying to make myself more bold, more adventurous. Sometimes I succeeded. Sometimes I failed. In fact, I have a drawer full of my failures.

Red scared me. Red was too vivacious, too daring. Red was too red.

But one day, I crossed that imaginary line in the sand. I bought a red lipstick. I don't know if it was the right shade for me but I bought it. Carrying it home in my bag, it felt like I was carrying an ancient treasure. I was carrying something that would connect me with famous femme fatales throughout history.

I got home. I ran in the bathroom. I closed the door. I tried on the lipstick. And I hated it. I thought it looked good but I didn't look like me. I looked like someone else, someone who was trying too hard. So I hid it away in the medicine cabinet. Occasionally, I would try it on before I went out. But I would always chicken out, I would cover it with a gloss or another color. I would change it.

But not tonight. Tonight I wore red lipstick.

I was different.

I was the same.

I wore the same shirt and jeans I had run errands in earlier in the day. I traded out my converse for some high heeled boots (because a 5'10" woman can always stand to have an extra 2 inches). I wore perfume. I wore red lipstick.

I was me and I was confident.

For those of you who made it to the end, here are the football picks:

Minnesota @ Pittsburgh

San Francisco @ Houston

San Diego @ Kansas City

Green Bay @ Cleveland

Indianapolis @ St. Louis

New England @ Tampa Bay

Buffalo @ Carolina

NY Jets @ Oakland

Atlanta @ Dallas

Chicago @ Cincinnati

New Orleans @ Miami

Arizona @ NY Giants

Monday Night

Philadelphia @ Washington

Combined Score 35

Sharing is Caring

Now that Bunny is in school she is learning to share. Aside from her weekly play date and time spent with her cousins, she has never really had to share anything. The joys of being an only child. School is changing this. She has to share toys and books with the other kids in class. She also has to share her teachers' attention. And so far so good.

Wednesday was Bunny's turn with the sharing bag, her school's version of show and tell. When its their turn, each child gets the bag so they can bring a special object to school and share with the class. Now Bunny has already brought all of her special "guys" to school for comfort objects, so we had to come up with something the kids hadn't seen. Finally we decided on her new "favorite" toy, a rubber, stretchy green iguana named Liz.

The bag was supposed to have instructions for the parents on it. But Bunny's bag did not. So I didn't really know what we were supposed to do. I vaguely remember we were supposed to write out clues the kids could give their friends to guess what was in the bag, but how many? One? Two? Three? No idea. So I did the only thing I could, I asked Bunny.

"Bunny, how many clues do the kids give?"

"Two."

"Okay, what clues should we give?"

"No, three. One. I don't want to give clues."

"But that's how the sharing bag goes."

"Two."

"So we give two clues?"

"I don't want to share."

"But its your turn to share."

"Okay. Two. No, three. No, two."

"Okay we are doing two. What should they be?"

"Um, she has spines on her back."

"How about lets start off with its green."

"Okay. Then I'm gonna draw some spines on the paper."

"Sure. Let's go with that.

"Can I draw Liz?"

"Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the guessing game?"

"So I can't draw Liz?"

"No."

"I don't want to share."

"But it will be fun."

"Fine."

Sharing crisis averted. (Apparently it went fine and she actually shared.) Its good to share.

Bunny has also been kind enough to share things from school with Mommy. Specifically, her cold. In Bunny, it was a mildly irritating cold that turned her into a mini-Darth Vader. But when she gave it to me, it morphed into a nasty, yucky thing that actually gave me vertigo. The everything is spinning, your brain is going crazy kind of vertigo, not the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo. The movie version would have been much preferred, I like Jimmy Stewart. I did not like the head spinny version.

Maybe its not good to share everything.