Nose Hairs

I know my Grandma Mann loved me, but she still had a real knack for embarrassing me. I know she didn't mean to. For her, it just happened naturally.

During a back to school shopping event at Younkers she came into the women's bathroom and loudly checked on my well being. "Amy, are you ok? You've been in here a while." Yes grandma, I'm fine. It's hard to poop quickly in a public restroom!

She always insisted on giving me underwear for Christmas. Since she knew unwrapping a package of underpants in front of my whole family would embarrass me, she'd take me to the back bedroom after dinner and let me open my package of drawers privately. Because I guess not buying me underwear for Christmas wasn't an option?

The most cringeworthy moment was in the US Savings Bank drive thru lane. Right there, in broad daylight, she reached into her purse and pulled out the tiniest pair of scissors I have ever seen. She proceeded to trim her nose hairs in the rearview mirror. She even said, "I'm sorry, but the lighting is just perfect." I wanted to slide down the front seat of that Buick and ride home on the floor. 

It's a pocket mirror with a light. Perfect!

Deviled Eggs

My mom's pretty much famous for her deviled eggs. And since I learned from the best, I've got a bit of a deviled egg reputation myself. One of Josh's co-workers brought deviled eggs to my house for a get together and my friend Ashlee took one look at his deviled eggs and said, "Who brought deviled eggs to Amy's house?"

On June 20, 2013 I spent the afternoon at the hospital. I was pregnant with Silas and I hadn't felt him move all day. I went to get checked out and they reassured me that everything was fine and since I wasn't due until July 9, they sent me home.

Josh had a command picnic the next day so I stayed up late making four dozen deviled eggs, per their request. As I stood over the sink, like a T-Rex peeling eggs, I said to Josh, "So help me, if I have this baby and these deviled eggs don't make it to the picnic, I'm going to be so mad!"

And what do you know? The next morning my water broke before I even got out of bed. Josh rushed home from work and we packed up. We dropped the two most important things off at Marissa's house, Jackson and the deviled eggs. I got my baby and everybody else got their deviled eggs. Win, win!

You'd probably like to have the recipe for these famous deviled eggs:

Boil eggs, slice in half, separate yolks from whites.
Use a mixer to break up the yolks.
Mix in a few big blobs of Miracle Whip and a couple little squirts of mustard.
Shake in some salt and a tiny bit of pepper (I think pepper is kind of yucky).
Here's the most important part!! They have to look pretty. A spoon is unacceptable. Use a pastry bag or even a ziplock bag with the corner cut off to fill the whites. No ugly deviled eggs allowed.
Shake a little paprika on top for an extra pretty.

He Gone!

I took the boys to get their flu shots today. They're normal kids so, of course, they freak out when they hear 'shot.' I promised cake and ice cream if the didn't cry BEFORE the shot. I understand that it hurts and crying is acceptable during the shot. But I'm not ok with crying for 15 minutes on the drive there.

I thought that if I got my flu shot first, they would see that it was no big deal. So, I rolled up my sleeve and took it like a champ. The look of horror on their faces! There was a flaw in my plan. Now they knew exactly what they were in for.

Since Jackson was practically hyperventilating, I had him go next. I figured it'd be best to get the difficult one over with. And difficult it was. Keep in mind, we go to a military medical clinic. Big guys in military uniform are handing out these shots. I held Jackson's arms and bear hugged him into submission while Joe Navy gave him the shot.

By the time Jackson was done, I was sweating and my ears were ringing. While the Navy nurse man was getting ready for Silas' turn, he looks at me and say's "Where is he?" He starts looking under the chairs and behind the storage cabinet for my other kid.

Silas had escaped. He was so afraid of getting a flu shot that he ran away. The corpsman went down the hall one way and I went the other. At the end of the hall there were three guys in uniform looking at each other like 'What do we do?' while Silas hugged the wall, crying and repeating, "I don't want a shot. I don't want a shot."

I felt terrible. They almost called a Code Pink. He was shaking like a leaf. But I also couldn't stop laughing. He's usually my brave one. I never expected him to bolt! He gone!

I Saved You Some

On the 100th day of school Jackson made a 100 piece snack. It was a trail mix of many delights. When he got into the car after school that day, I'd guess he still had 75 pieces left in a bag.

Like every other day, he was excited to share his remaining snack with Silas. On the way to pick-up his brother, Jackson told me all about his wonderful snack, while eating it.

There's Fruit Loops, crunch, crunch. And Marshmallows. And pretzels, crunch, crunch. He was just as excited about how they made it as he was about eating it. I looked back and saw that he was down to about 50 pieces. So I said, "Hey, I thought you were saving some of that for Silas?" And he said, "I am!"

Jackson continued to tell me about his day and munch on his snack all the way to daycare to pick-up Silas. It's not a super long drive, but I was starting to wonder if any of the snack would be left when we got there. Crunch, crunch...

Jackson starts telling Silas all about the 100th day snack the second we walk into the classroom. And he told Silas that he saved him some. Such a nice brother!

By the time I get the boys in their car seats, Jackson opens up the bag of the remaining snack and there was only one piece of Chex cereal left. One square. Jackson spared him a square! And too my disbelief, Jackson says, "Here Silas," and he bites the single piece of Chex cereal in half and gives him the rest. HALF A PIECE OF CEREAL!! Out of exactly 100 pieces of trail mix! And Silas says, "Mmm, thanks Jackson!"

Walk of Shame

I try not to eat fast food. Like, ever (except when traveling). It's unhealthy. It's expensive. And there's some debate as to whether or not it's actually food at all. But sometimes you're in a hurry and you start to think about eating your own arm.

So, today, against my better judgment, I went through the drive thru at Taco Bell. As I approached the menu I realized I was driving Olive (2005 Suzuki Forenza that's holding on for dear life) and things were about to get tricky. The driver window doesn't roll down anymore. So I opened the door and placed my order. This is first wave of shame.

Nothing tops off a fast food order like a giant diet soda! A wee bit more shame.

I pull up to the pick-up window and I realize paying and receiving my brown bag of shame will be even more tricky than ordering. So, I open my door to pay and I scraped the bottom of my door on a freakishly high curb. I scared the poor woman inside and she looked at me like, "Don't try to act like you've never been through a Taco Bell drive thru before..." I smiled and waved like a big dummy and reached out with my money as my car started to roll away. I'm rolling because I can't put Olive in park anymore. Instead, you have to put the car in neutral and use the emergency brake; and I forgot to do so. So now I'm rolling away with money and my arm hanging out the door. I can feel the shame for sure.

On my way to my appointment I spent a solid 10 minutes at a stand still in traffic when I came across an urban high school that had just let out and there were no sidewalks. Teenagers everywhere! Between cars, down the middle of the road. Down both sides of the road. One poor guy was trying to direct traffic and pedestrians. So since I couldn't go anywhere, I decided to eat my burrito. And that's when I ended up wearing my shame.

Sleeping on the Couch

We weren't fighting. We were just having an enthusiastic discussion about money from different points of view. We're both squirrels when it comes to money. We even have an app called Acorns to help us save, you should check it out. But anyway...

We might both be squirrels, but we're still very different. Josh is the kind of squirrel who saves some nuts and eats them all winter. When Spring comes all his nuts are gone and he's a happy little critter. I'm the kind of squirrel who hides piles of nuts all over the place, spends the winter admiring the nut collection and then starves to death leaving the nuts for other squirrels to find.

The point is, these two squirrels are trying to find some happy medium here. Neither squirrel wants to starve. 

The enthusiastic discussion left me with lots on my mind. And I couldn't sleep. I wasn't mad at spendy squirrel. But nothing is more infuriating than watching someone hibernate when your brain is going 100 miles per hour. I tried sleeping on the couch, then with Silas and finally on the futon in the toy room. I think the amount of sleep I got that night could be measured in minutes rather than hours.

Here's what I'm really getting at...
Why can men saw logs through any circumstances? How do their brains just turn off? Do their thoughts just stop? I think they have a hidden switch somewhere, and I wish I had one too.

Toilet Troubles

With three boys in this house, there's bound to be toilet troubles. This particular event involved all three boys.

Silas came running out of the bathroom yelling, "Quick! Get the plubber! It's going to displode!" He drug me into the bathroom where he continued to explain.  "It's just going up and up! The water won't go swirly!"

Josh came to the rescue but he had some questions first. He asked Jackson how much toilet paper he used. And Jackson said, "I don't know. Like, 50?"

So Josh gets out the 'plubber' and Silas says, "Hey, that's Ms. Emma's toy!" That's when we really lost it. Ms. Emma was one of the caregivers at CDC in Fallon. And it sounds like she was often stuck with the unfortunate task of plunging the toddler turds.

This wasn't our first clogged toilet and it won't be the last. But it sure was funny. And we still call it 'The Plubber.'