Flirting

...with my husband.

Dear Boy and I have a game going. The objective: To see who can render the other completely speechless. The rules: Making the other speechless with anger doesn't count.

Darn. And that was my specialty. (Just kidding, really. DB doesn't get angry. And no, I'm not kidding about that.)

I was winning, and doing a fine job of it, too. Being of a literary bent, shocking one-liners tend to come to me a little more easily. DB gets some good ones, but only if I shut my mouth long enough for them to come out. And since I usually suffer from diarrhea of the mouth (i.e. I cannot hold my tongue to save my life), this doesn't often happen.

Yesterday, however, he won a great victory. In the midst of our regular banter, I asked him jokingly if he needed to go take a cold shower. He just laughed and didn't have an answer (score for me!), then wandered off.

"Hey, where're you going?" I called after him. He didn't answer. So, being the curious girl I am, I followed him.

Only to find him standing in the shower. Sopping wet. Completely clothed. And freezing.

I think I snorted because he looked at me, his eyes innocently wide, started to step out of the shower, inquiring kindly, "Would you like a nice, cold hug?"

I completely lost it and laughed for 5 minutes without stopping (while running from his nice cold hug, I might add). I'm still giggling now.

He won that round, but he better watch out. The stakes are getting higher and I smell some (harmless) pranks in his future if I can't re-secure my lead. Any suggestions are welcome, bwa ha ha...

...with pregnancy.

No, this isn't an announcement (sorry, Mom!). Just slightly philosophical drivel.

I took a pregnancy test this morning, for myriad reasons. We weren't looking for a positive right at the moment. Frankly, with the two kids, the new house, the missionaries moving in, Devin's school, and my attempts at business, we've got our hands full enough!

So why, then, was I disappointed not to get that positive? Because I thought I would? Because we've had problems getting those positives in the past? Because I'm insane?

Probably in the morning, when I'm weighing myself again, I'll be grateful. At the moment, I just want to curl up and... blog.

...with disaster.

Ladybug has been a real challenge the last ten days. It's like she realized, all at once, that StrawBee really isn't going to go away. Suddenly, she's been hitting, pushing, and generally tormenting her sister as well as screaming, kicking, pouting, and generally tormenting her parents. In desperation, we've instituted The Stamp Book. Ladybug can earn up to three stamps a day through good behavior. If she earns three stamps by the end of dinner, she can have a cupcake.

Since this new system seemed to be going reasonably well, I chose to take her with me to Walmart this morning to buy ice cream, cookies, hot cocoa, and candy for my latest church and family projects (happy wedding cake, David!). Obviously a dangerous plan. Despite all temptations, however, Ladybug did amazingly well at the store and earned herself her first stamp for the day!

It wasn't until we got to Nana's house to drop off a few things that it went downhill.

First of all, I had to use the lady's room (remember the pregnancy test?). I decided to lock her out because, on occasion, I have a sudden urge for privacy. She took serious offense at such a thing and immediately stormed into Nana's room to pull out all the wrapping paper she could find and walk all over it.

You can imagine I wasn't too happy with her when I found out what she'd been up to. I told her (in a fairly reasonable way, I thought) that this was unacceptable and she needed to leave Nana's room. She did, and I re-rolled the wrapping paper.

This completed, I tried to find her. It took me a couple minutes. She had closed herself in my mom's office closet and was trying to scale the shelves to get at the treat jar. When she saw me standing there, she stared at the ground and refused to move. I told her absolutely no more sweets (being slightly less reasonable, I admit) and moved her myself.

She didn't want to come with me to the car (no surprise there, I guess), but did follow me to the living room. So I went out to move the car into the garage, leaving her happily pulling a bunch of toys out.

When I returned, she had closed herself in that closet again.

When she saw me, she bolted. I followed her at a leisurely pace, as I found my patience was wearing thin (have mercy; this all happened in about 5 minutes). When I came out to the garage, it was to find that she had not only beaten me to the car, but had climbed into the driver's seat and was trying to put on the seat belt. We've been telling her for a long time she can't get into the front seat because "everyone needs their own seat and their own seat belt." Apparently she thought this meant that if she put her seat belt on, she was good to drive.

If it hadn't terrified me, I would've laughed.

Instead, I hauled her bodily out of the seat, placed her in her car seat, buckled her in, and got myself in, all while scolding her in one looooooong breath.

The drama continued through lunch, but DB was there to spell me. And, actually, when it was naptime she went down like an angel.

Sigh.

There has got to be a better way to handle these situations. But until I figure out what it is, I'm just going to repeat my mantra: You're going to miss this.

Really. I will.