Funny Friday

Just a funny picture for you, just because it's Friday.

On My Face - And My Baby's Butt??

I just learned about this website. You can go there, type in the full name of whatever skin care product you normally use, and find out how dangerous it is. Well, it turns out the moisturizer I use on my face every day has not one, but four ingredients that are known to cause cancer. Yes, cancer. The baby lotion I prefer to use for my kids has the same cancer-causing ingredients. Now its one thing for me to use these products, but I really feel weird using them on my kids.

How am I supposed to balance all the bad things I hear about with all the promises God makes to protect me and my family? I know we've all heard these verses - all about picking up serpents and drinking poison. Does this include knowingly putting cancerous products on your face and your kid's entire bodies??

It's always been Daniel's stand that everything causes cancer. It appears to be true, but is it wise to just ignore every warning you hear? I mean, who in their right mind would ignore the warning that cigarettes cause cancer and let their kids smoke? Who would ignore that the sun causes cancer and let their kids go out in the middle of summer without sunblock? I don't even let my kids sit close to the TV for fear they will go blind!

But really, do we completely understand every single cancer risk that we encounter daily? If we were told that fruits and vegetables cause cancer, would we stop eating them? Would this one bit of knowledge outweigh all their positive aspects? What if we were told that deodorant causes cancer (which it no doubt does, according to the website)? What if toothpaste were dangerous? What if kissing a baby caused cancer?

Speaking of what we eat... (umm, or babies...) Is it really better to eat only organic foods? All my life I've been eating non-organic, and now I'm told that I'll be healthy if i just switch right now to nothing but organic. Can organic-only really reverse the 28 years that I ate otherwise? Think about the cost - organic foods cost at least double what "regular" foods cost. They usually cost about 3-4 times as much. This makes me think that organic food people are behind all the hype - after all, look how much money they make by using fewer products!

This reminds me of another "controversy" going on in my house right now. I leave my razor in the shower, because I use it every single day in the shower. Lately Abby has been trying to use that razor as she showers, cutting her toes or fingers almost every day. Daniel says I should just move the razor to save our poor baby from certain shaving doom. I say I should be able to have a razor in the shower, and she should just learn to not touch it. Should I be inconvenienced for her safety? It sounds very much like my dilemma with the skin care products we use, doesn't it?

I Hate Ikea.

For years I've loved Ikea. I loved looking through the catalog, looking at the rooms on their website, and watching people on TV design shows use Ikea stuff. I always wished there was an Ikea in Ohio. Well, last week an Ikea finally opened up within 30 minutes of my house. Exciting, right? I just couldn't wait to go there!

Yesterday I went to Ikea for the first time. It was the most horrible experience I've ever, ever had. First, we're told that we are not allowed to use actual shopping carts upstairs. We have to use this stupid one-seater cart with no basket for all three kids and for 5 coats and 2 purses. Then the lady that told us this actually follows me to the elevator to make sure I don't sneak a real cart upstairs. As soon as we get upstairs, we see about 300 people with real carts, so we search until we find an empty one & snag it. Then we walk around aimlessly, following the signs and never really getting anywhere for an hour. There is no quick trip to Ikea. Those Swedish people are marketing geniuses - they force you to walk past every single item they have for sale just to check-out.

Finally, I've had enough beds and couches and cabinets, so I take the boys to get a hotdog in the cafeteria. I wait in line for 20 minutes because the people in front of us just can't get over those Swedish meatballs!!! - and then I'm told that hotdogs are only served downstairs in the stupid Bistro. Great.

Another hour back to my mom and Abby, then another 2 hours to actually get to the Bistro. The elevator you take to go up cannot take you back down, by the way. The down elevator is all the way on the other side of the store. Another genius marketing ploy. Also, you're not allowed to visit the Bistro without paying for your stuff first. AND it seems you can't leave the store without actually buying something, unless an employee physically lets you out. Marketing geniuses. I can just see those rich old Swedish guys laughing at us dumb Americans. "Ya! Das Amerikans stuck in de store all day!"

Anyway, I'm heading back to Ikea this weekend. I walked past a few hundred plants I might be interested in buying.

Doot Doo Doo Doo!

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Ethan is an Air 1 Baby!

The proof is on the web site - he's in the middle.

(Thanks Coppelia!)

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Baby Disc Jockies

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The kids and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon trying to take a picture of Ethan for the "Air 1 Baby" page on air1.com. I only had to send a regular picture of him and they would post it on their website. However, I thought it would be extra cute to send in a picture of him holding a microphone and wearing headphones. Has anyone else ever tried to get their baby to wear headphones? Now I know why earbuds were invented - so babies could listen to their Ipods without the hassle of keeping headphones on their ears. Of course! Besides, their little ears aren't exactly in the same location as adult ears.


So which picture is your favorite?

Pretty Princess Smile

Abby asked me today, "Do you want to see my pretty princess smile? It will make you not mad at me for anything. It will remind you of things you love - like pretty smiles, girls, and love."

Makes sense to me.

More About Resemblances

This is what all kids seem to do when you think you're taking a nice family photo.

Today I had someone actually suggest that my kids look alike! If you've read my earlier post about Avery's blonde hair, then you know how often I have people ask about it. But today I took the kids with me to recycle our newspapers, and the man operating the scale asked me if they (not sure which 2) were twins! I told him they were actually 1, 2, and 4, and he was amazed. "How do you handle them??" He asked. They weren't even acting crazy - they just sat in their car seats being little angels. He didn't understand how I could keep track of 3 kids so close in age at once.

The truth is, neither do I. I've gotten braver lately, but there are still so many things I won't even attempt to do with all 3 kids. Today the kids and I went to Best Buy for the first time - I mean the kids have never been there before. I was afraid they would grab all the DVDs off the shelves and roll around in them or something, but they didn't. Sure, they told me what DVDs they wanted (pretty much all of them), and they were mesmerized by the 30 or so TVs they saw - but they were well behaved.

Finally, I'm seeing a good reason not to have more kids. They get easier as they age. How's that for letting go?

I offer the following evidence in The Case of the Missing Puzzle Pieces:

Exhibit A:
When asked what the suspect was doing, he answered "Ahh-Ohh!"

A witness was called to the stand:

His testimony follows:

"I was riding my tractor and I bonked my self really hard!"

Apparently he then saw this:





So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury - what is the verdict?

A Bottomless Pit

I'm wondering if this is normal. Abby comes to me about every 10 minutes, all day long, and says she is "really just sort of very hungry." I feed her lunch, I feed her breakfast, I feed her dinner, and I feed her several snacks throughout the day. Now this little girl used to refuse to eat practically anything but fruit. We called it her fruit and bread diet. In the past few months, she'll eat just about anything we give her - and ask for more.
I wonder if that belly of hers really has some sort of tube that connects it to the center of the earth, where all the food I feed her is going, leaving her belly completely empty.
Normally I wouldn't worry about this so much, but it's snowing here today - a lot. I can't go to the store - what if this hungry little girl eats all the food we have??
If you read anything in the paper about a family in Ohio starving to death during a snowstorm while their 4 year-old daughter sits and complains of hunger, chewing on the last piece of bread - well, let's just say you'll know exactly what went down.

Stop Calling Me!

I can't even count on 2 hands the number of times that Hillary Clinton has called me today and in the past week. I'm not even a registered Democrat - why is she calling me? Did she look up every person in Ohio, just to call them? Or is she calling all the women of Ohio, since that's where her votes are "supposedly" coming from? Maybe she just really needs a friend, and she's really only calling me because she's read my blog and likes how I think??

Now I'm wondering why political people are exempt from the Do-Not-Call List... Technically, they're trying to sell me something (themselves). Right?

If these candidates can answer some questions I have about real life, then maybe I'll vote for them. Some questions I'd like to see addressed:

1. Why is it bad for a baby not to poop, yet it's also bad for a baby to poop too much?
2. Why would kids prefer sleeping on the floor or on the couch with their necks bent in half to sleeping in their nice, cozy beds that I spent a lot of money buying?
3. Why are fruit snacks bad for you, but fruit is good for you?
4. Why aren't potatoes nutritionally valuable at all? Shouldn't french fries, potato chips and potato candy count for something?
5. How can Ethan poop 5 times today, even though he's been fed the same things he's always fed? (I obviously have some poop issues today)
6. How come every time I buy something it goes on sale the next week?
7. Why is Spanish so hard to learn, especially when I need to learn it to graduate???
8. How does having kids make you simultaneously the busiest you've ever been, and the laziest you've ever been? (Admit it - you have let the housework slide more since you've had kids than before you had kids)
9. How can McDonald's and Burger King come up with so many little pieces of junk to place in their kid's meals that my kids think are all different, yet they're the same?
10. Why is it so fun to play in a room, as long as Mommy is in there too... but that room stinks if Mommy leaves and tries to create a post on her blog?
11. Why isn't corn ever digested the same way other foods are? (maybe I should have called this "A Post About Poop!)