Another fun day at IKEA

Here are ten things I learned yesterday:

1. When the fire alarm goes off at 7:00 am in a downpour, you know that it will probably be an interesting day.
2. If you turn the radio on while you nurse our baby and you have an old battery, you’ll probably get a dead battery.
3. If you ask someone you don’t know to jump your car, and you let them rearrange the cables, your car might start to smoke and your jumper cables might melt into two pieces.  Then you’ll have to worry about what to do with the hot jumper cables because you don’t want to put them in the garbage can and set IKEA on fire.
4. Aside from being useful in case of a potty accident, the spare pair of underwear can function as an entertaining hat for three-year-olds waiting for the IKEA man to have a go at jumping the car.
5. There are cases when cell phones are tremendously useful, but thankfully pay phones are not yet obsolete (and since everyone else has cell phones are seldom being used by anyone else).
6. Tow trucks have a hard time finding people who need their cars towed at IKEA.
7. If your husband borrows a car to pick you and your children up, and the car owner needs their car back by a certain time, he might have to go back home without you if the tow truck is late (see number 6).  Luckily he can at least take the active three-year-old off your hands.
8. Spending the day with a delightful eight-month-old can be loads of fun even in the lobby of IKEA, especially when your three-year-old is in the playroom or with her dad and not tearing around the store watching you for a reaction instead of watching wear she is going.
9. The veggie wraps at IKEA aren’t bad, and they are only $1.99, but three in one day is too many (I should have sprung for the Swedish meatballs for dinner).
10. If you wait until 9:00 pm to feed your family dinner, your three-year-old will start begging to go to bed when you try to brush her teeth, and then she’ll sleep in until 9:00 am the next morning.

Thanks to all the people who got us all safely home, and our car safely to Walker Subaru.  We’re going to take it easy today.

Spring is here

 

and I am ready.

Haircuts

Yesterday the Hale kids got haircuts.  It was Andrew’s first haircut, and it may have been a bit premature (after all, he hardly had any hair before the haircut).  Susanna called him “baldy-saurus rex” all day.  Susanna just got a trim.  It took about an hour, but I think it turned out okay.  Here they are, modeling their haircuts for you.  If you look closely at the second picture of Andrew you’ll probably see at least one of his new teeth. 

Susanna just told me a story that I want to record here.  Maybe you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

Once upon a time there was a lady who was fly-fishing.  She couldn’t catch any fish!  Then she saw Jesus, and he was not too far off.  “Cast over there” Jesus said [did Susanna really say cast? Probably not] so that lady cast on the other side and there were one hundred fish!  They were sitting on a stool.  It was a loooong stool.  One hundred fish sitting on a long and big stool.  There was a wee little fish [this was said in a wee little voice], a medium-sized fish, and a big daddy fish [this was said in a big daddy voice].  They all had places to sit, sticks to play with, and a bed to sleep in.  The wee little fish had a wee little chair, the medium-sized fish had a medium sized chair … [I think you know what’s coming so I’ll skip ahead to save us both some time].  Then Goldilocks came!  She put on her bathing suit and swam over to the fish.  Then she picked up the medium-sized fish and the wee little fish and went home.  And the lady—the lady who was fishing—she caught thirty fish.  It was so many fish that her ship sank down down down down.  And the lady sank down down down down.  And she never came up up up up.

I guess it’s the original Hans Christian Anderson ending (not the Disney version).

Happy Days at the Hales’

Happy Squash Day!Okay, so there’s no such thing as squash day (not that I know of anyway) but Andrew has such a cute grin, and such a decided preference for butternut squash, that I just had to include it.  Watch out though; he needs a bath after every feeding!  Or maybe we’ll just settle for a wipe down (you just have to watch out for squash eye goobers all day long).

Happy Pi (3.14) day!To celebrate the arrival of Pi on the calendar we had some friends over for Chicken Pot Pi and Blueberry Peach Pi.  While making the Peach Pi I got sidetracked and helped Susanna make two cupcake sized blueberry pies while I was supposed to be making a salad and setting the  table.  It was so fun though!  Susanna did most of it herself, and my friend brought the beautiful (and oh so tasty chicken pot pie) so everything worked out fine.

 

 

And Happy St. Patrick’s Day!I realize St. Patrick’s Day hasn’t arrived yet, but since we’re here I’ll show you Susanna’s door sign.  In the upper-left corner it says “Welcome Leprechauns!”  She doesn’t draw representationally very often (she get’s too frustrated—”my lines wiggle too much,” she says) so I love looking at this picture.

UPDATE: Andrew cut two teeth today!