Quick Takes

1. I am typically a very heavy sleeper and my husband is sadly lucky to get a grunt out of me when he kisses me goodbye to leave for work. This morning, however, he had a buddy! Our 3-year-old was chipper and ready to take on the day at 5-something while Hubby got his things together and took the trash can to the curb. At first, I woke irritably and wondered what all the ruckus was. After a few minutes, I couldn't help but lie there in the dark bedroom with a big smile on my face as I listened to the one-sided conversation going on downstairs: "Dada, what are you doing?" "Miiiiiilk! Fank you, Dada!" "Dada, BASEBALL!" (Husband usually has SportsCenter going in the background as he gets ready.)

2. Yesterday evening we went to a Mexican restaurant to celebrate our anniversary. We both dropped the ball on arranging for a babysitter, so the dinner was a family affair. The food was yummy and Gabriel was well-behaved, but poor Eli.... Our 4th anniversary will forever be associated with a very moody, teething 1-year-old. He mashed up tortilla chips, transferred most of his rice from the plate to the floor (and somehow got a ton of it stuck to the butt of his shorts, of all places), and entertained himself in the van with different variations of yelling. It was like.... really ugly singing.

3. ...On the plus side, however, we had family dance time about 15 minutes away from home while we idled in a traffic jam. I started whipping out all of Eli's "tricks" to keep us occupied: We did peekaboo for awhile. I tickled his feet. He loves to dance, so I turned on the radio. And somehow, we all ended up doing some goofy thing in our seats (even Gabriel, who's been anti-dancing for the longest time!) Can I just say, little E is probably the best dancer of us all. He has a hilarious move that I have named the "Pigeon Bob." I'll include a video clip someday.

4. I had a dream two nights ago that some good friends of ours had a daughter and named her Donut. Definitely the most random dream I've had in awhile.

5. The two-headed dragon on Dragon Tales causes me the same mental hang-ups that CatDog did when I was a kid. I become completely preoccupied with questions like, "How do they go to the bathroom?" I've thought about asking Gabriel, but I don't want to ruin the dragony goodness for him.

6. I've whined before in Quick Takes about our stubborn flower bed. That all changed about two weeks ago while we were on vacation. We had a little row of blooms when we left, and when we returned, the whole thing had transformed into a jungle of marigolds! No, really. Some of the flowers are almost 2 feet tall. I have no idea if that's normal, but Ben and I are as happy as can be with the flowers that we grew from seeds. We did it! And we didn't kill them! I've decided we will retire in a marigold field, with sleeping bags. And s'mores.

7. You didn't think after mentioning it was my anniversary yesterday that I wouldn't slip something mushy in here about my better half, did you? I love love love love him- "You're the L and the V, I'm the O and E..."

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