Spreading Holiday Cheer...

...for all to slip on and break their backs.
I'd never wondered what my kitchen floor would look like covered in brazillions* of tiny rainbow sprinkles, but I found out, nonetheless. My OCD and I just had to tear that last bit of plastic safety seal off the container, causing the lid to pop off, the container to tip, and sprinkles to scatter. Everywhere.
I swept some of it out the back door onto the snow-covered deck. The dog really enjoyed that. Mmm! Sugar and snow! This would be delectable on a hot summer's day. Someone should market this!
My floor looked quite festive for about two minutes. But I got all the sprinkles swept up; filled the dustpan three times (there might also have been some dog hair in there and part of the boys' lunch that Vito didn't snarf up the second they dropped it--it's a wasteful phase they're going through, testing gravity and all).
And luckily no one fell and broke anything.

* One of President Bush's advisors told him one day, "President, there have been horrible riots in Brazil. Four Brazilian soldiers have been killed, many more injured." Bush was sorry to hear this horrible news: "This is terrible. [pause.] How many is a brazilian?"

Ham Biscuit McCanfield

I made breakfast today. I know, I've totally outdone myself this time. I just don't make breakfast very often because our kitchen is usually a mess from dinner the night before; that whole clean-as-you-go thing is apparently too difficult a concept for me to grasp, and I always think, "I'll clean up after the boys go to bed." But by then all I want to do is veg in front of the TV with some unhealthy snacks and watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. It is important to keep up on current events; that's my rationale and I'm sticking to it. So I wake up in the morning (or sometimes around noon, depending on what time I watch the "News") and give the boys some banana slices and some cold cereal and I clean while they eat.

Today was different, though, because I actually did my cleaning after dinner last night while the boys played. And even though I stayed up late to watch White Chicks (that movie never gets old to me; I've seen it dozens of times and it still cracks me up), I still got up early (9:30) and decided to treat the boys and David to a hot meal. We had ham-egg-cheese sandwiches on flaky biscuits. Delicious! I should stay on top of things more often.

In an unrelated note, we finally got a good family photo taken. Here it is, along with one that's not so great but that I find hilarious in that it captures the boys' personalities quite well (Drew has a fit, Owen is stoic and pensive):

Meow! & Doot-De-Doo!

Sometimes Owen just sneaks off. Last Saturday, we were all downstairs watching ESPN and suddenly Owen wasn't with us. So I went upstairs and there he was: happily eating out of the cat's dish and splashing in the water bowl. Yesterday, I saw him crawling around the living room with something hanging out of his mouth. It was a cat toy. He carried it over to the cat dish and dropped it.

Drew is rarely hard to find; he makes a lot more noise when he plays. His favorite place to play is in the kitchen cupboards and drawers. So we had to move everything breakable or dangerous out of there and replace it all with sippy cups and paper towel rolls. Safe things. It turns out paper towel rolls make a fantastic noise when you yell into them, and they can sound a bit like trumpets.

At Risk of Sounding Ungrateful

Sometimes I wonder if the in-laws just invite us to lunch with them so they can watch Drew and Owen eat. They've actually given the boys a new nickname: "The Eaters." Creative, I know.

I guess I shouldn't care, since they usually pay (and by usually, I guess I mean always), but sometimes I get a little tired of it. It's always loud, everyone making a big deal whenever one of The Eaters eats something. "My gosh, he ate a pea. Oh! He's eating a piece of bread! Look at him chow that french fry!" (In case this isn't coming across at all like I'm imagining it in my mind, think sarcasm and bitterness.)

And it seems like we always see someone the in-laws know, and have to be introduced, and they all have to ogle over the boys and stand there and watch us eat, and someone almost always says, "My, you have your hands full. I'm glad it's you and not me!"

Is that supposed to be clever or witty? It makes me want to pimp-smack them and say, "Thanks for stating the obvious. I'm glad it's not you, too. With that attitude, you'd be a horrible parent." (Bitterness, once again)

But because I'm so nice, I always just flash my best cheerleader smile (I've got one, even though I was never a cheerleader), say, "Yes, thanks. It was nice to meet you, too." And I act like one of the boys needs my rapt attention so I no longer have to make eye contact.

At the end of the whole experience I feel like saying, "If you're gonna make me earn my meal, why don't I just pay next time? Grr."

Bitter, bitter, bitter. Sorry, everyone. Here: this video at the end of ACE's post will make you feel better. Maybe I should watch it again, too.

I'm All For Zoos

I was just browsing some pictures online and there were lots of animal pictures, most of which (if not all) were taken at a zoo. And I got to thinking about zoos and how, almost every time I've gone to one, someone in or near my party says, "Zoos are inhumane. I hate them." As a general rule, I'm against extremism on either end of the spectrum, but those bleeding-heart PETA activists especially drive me crazy.

Don't get me wrong; I don't endorse cruelty to animals (though I do eat meat, and people may argue that the cow I ate was cruelly murdered before it was cut up and cooked for my enjoyment), and I do actually like a lot of what I've seen on PETA's website. I do, however believe in moderation. And open-mindedness.

Consider all the facts before you go on a rant about the atrocities of zoos. This snippet came from a Wikipedia article:

"Most animal rights activists disapprove of zoos because they interpret zoos as human domination over equal creatures and criticize their educational value as being superficial and useless."

Are you people [animal rights activists] kidding me? Where else would an inner city kid (or a country bumpkin like myself) get to see a giraffe? A cheetah? A rhinoceros? I've never been to Africa, but I've seen a live rhino. It was magnificent. Even the lack of 'natural environment' at a zoo is a lot more stimulating to young minds than just reading about these animals out of a book.

Granted, there are some zoos in existence that mistreat animals, but I believe those are few. The problem most zoos have is funding. So next time you go to the zoo, don't just pity the animals; drop some moolah in the donation box and think about how you just helped purchase some food or medicine for that animal.

And if it weren't for zoos, would this picture exist?

(AP Photo/Paul Miller/FILE)