Brave New World

Judging from the results of my extremely unscientific survey, it just may be that the sound of the newspaper hitting the front porch in the morning will soon go the way of the clinking of milk bottles being delivered in the early AM. Soon people who read the print edition of the paper will be considered rather quaint, like those people who smoke pipes or sew their own clothes. It is quite possible that you do have to be a bit old-fashioned, as Bia put it so nicely, to want to sit around the kitchen table drinking coffee and looking at the newspaper with your spouse. In fact, Larry and I attempted to do that very thing this morning - but our conversation was soon interrupted by 2 little girls who, not understanding that we were trying to save a dying tradition, deluged us with requests for food and crayons and general attention. Maybe when we are old (and the kids are grown), we'll be able to sit around on a Sunday morning with the papers spread out before us and coffee and bagels on the table - that is, if there are still papers to spread out. If not, I guess we could sit there side by side, each with our own laptops, e-mailing each other articles that we enjoy. But I can't imagine that scenario feeling quite as cozy.

Enough! It's a brave new world out there; adapt or perish. And in my ceaseless effort to adapt, I have wasted countless hours trying to figure out the cheapest way to have reliable phone service in the 21st century. Currently we use a combination of voip and cellphones with prepaid minutes; but driven mad with envy by my friends sporting nifty cellphones with free shared minutes and cameras and maybe even the ability to launch a nuclear war by pressing the right button, I once again plunged into researching all the different cellphone plans, looking for the best deal. Which turns out to be...(surprise!)...voip and prepaid minutes. Damn. I really wanted my entire life to be on that cellphone. Maybe next year.

Oh, and all of you on those cellphone family plans? Plus a house phone? You're spending a heck of a lot of money.

Half the kids are sick, but no one is vomiting or keeping me up all night; so I'm good. And I managed to score some Children's Sudafed the other day - almost impossible in these crazy days of hyper-regulation and FDA scare tactics. I think I could have gotten my hands on marijuana more easily. As it was, I thought they were going to fingerprint me before I walked away from the pharmacy counter.

This winter has been a bust for us. I'm packing up all the snowpants and sleds tomorrow; we won't be needing them until at least December. I hate snowless February's. I think I'll move to Canada.

Everyone Else Has One (Tag Cloud, That Is)

I'm trying to figure out that neat Technorati tag cloud thing that all the other kids are getting on their blogs, but it isn't working...yet. Ignore any weirdness in the left-hand column until I figure it out. Except the humor-blogs.com weirdness, of course. That's permanent.

I'm sure all 10 of my faithful readers remember my crowing with triumph over ordering my Christmas photo cards way back in November. As soon as the cards arrived, I efficiently addressed the envelopes and then put them aside (readers, please note - don't try this at home) until I could get around to buying Christmas-y stamps. I'll be lucky if those darn cards ever turn up again. But the stamps I got are nice. I guess I could just use them next year, if the postal rates don't rise again.

Larry and I attempted to sneak away for a date this evening, but Susie woke up and screamed until we agreed to come back. I hate cellphones.

And is any evening complete without a child coming up to me (after bedtime) and saying his stomach hurts? It was Brian's turn tonight, so I gave him a dishpan and sent him back to bed. At least he's in the bottom bunk this week.

They just do this to me to keep me on edge, I know it.

How do you know when blogging is taking over your life? That's easy - it's when you start calling the kids by their blog pseudonyms instead of their true names. Not that I've ever done that....

Caught Napping

Got my nap. Anna tried to ruin it by coming in at the beginning and demanding to know why she wasn't being allowed to go somewhere just because she was 3 weeks behind in schoolwork; so I explained to her how, if you want someone to grant you a favor, it's a bad idea to ask for the favor during that person's much-coveted nap time. She wasn't up to grasping this level of subtlety, so I had to resort to saying, "Get out of my room right now. " And she did. And my nap was great.

It's pathetic, but that was the highlight of my day yesterday. And today's highlight was my trip to IKEA. I meet a friend there a couple of times a year and we catch up on things and walk around and look at and discuss just about every single item in the store. Spending 4 hours like that is my husband's idea of a nightmare. Which is why I go with my friend instead.

I finally found a prepaid cellphone company that isn't going to make me buy a zillion minutes to get the cheap rate. Meaning we can keep our cellphone bills down to 400 dollars a year. That's less than 35 dollars a month for 4 cellphones, for the math-impaired out there. And there's no way a teenager can run the bill higher - when those minutes are gone, they're gone! We just have to keep the phones out of Rachel's grasp. There is always the chance she'll have a relapse and start flushing them again.

I've spent the last 10 days or so wondering why the boys' room still smells like barf. Today I finally got around to checking under the bed in there and...well, I guess Swiffering vomit isn't as effective as I thought. So I spritzed the whole area with Windex (only cleaning agent I could find) and wiped it all down (by hand this time) and then I went over the entire area with Lysol wipes. And it still smells in there.

Theo is sitting in the living room giggling (if a teenage boy can giggle, that is) over the ballpoint pen that Anna snapped in half in a fit of pique this evening. Girls are so cute, aren't they? Theo is planning to bring it in to chess club as exhibit A of "Why you may not want to date my sister..."