Believe the Hype

I'm not usually one for kids' clothing with phrases, but I couldn't resist this one in the Gap outlet yesterday:

BELIEVE THE HYPE

It's exactly how I feel about my little boy!  I just can't get enough of him.  Those big blue eyes, just like his Dad.  That light hair, the giggle, the way he signs "more" and "milk."  The way he pats the sofa and pulls out books and invites me to read to him.  The way he chases Ellie around the house.  How he wants to wear his aviator sunglasses and sit on Ellie's little potty.  How he climbs up the climbing wall and slides down the slide on our backyard swingset.  The way he swings his blow-up plastic baseball bat at the blow-up plastic baseball and claps his hands when he hits it.  How he looks up at me intently at bedtime when I talk about all we've done that day and all we're going to do tomorrow, nodding his head and saying "Yep" at each thing I say.  Yes, indeed, believe the hype.

I put him in his new shirt first thing this morning.  He spilled his lunchtime apple juice all over it and we had to change clothes before naptime.  Oh well.  Rob is worried that the shirt is in University of Michigan colors and, combined with its enthusiastic statement, implies that we're rooting for the Wolverines.  I assured him Matt wouldn't wear it on any game day.

Believe the hype, everyone.

Our Matthew Bryant is something incredible.

My Loofah Attacked Me, and Other Tales

Once, several years ago, I went to three different stores with my father to find the exact brand of shower loofah he preferred.  I was amazed that my low-maintenance Dad was particular on this matter, while his high-maintenance daughter bought her shower loofahs for a dollar at the grocery store.


My current loofah is large and pink and round (nothing like Dad's), pretty basic Target variety.  The pink loofah generally does its job adequately.  But one morning last week I felt something uncomfortable while loofah-ing.  Something sharp.  Loofah?  Later, in the mirror, I noticed a very long pink scratch all the way down my arm.  Loofah!  A few hours later it started hurting.  A day or so after that, during the healing process, it started itching.  Yes, my loofah has betrayed me.  It's still sitting in my shower, but I usually just give it an angry stare before moving on to the bar soap.  I'm looking for a loofah that won't betray me.  Any ideas?


A few other things that have been going on lately:

• This morning for breakfast I ate half of a Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie.  My friend Monica can recreate them perfectly.  Baking is a two day process.  Eating can take as long as a minute.
• Rob and I set a goal to watch every episode of Chuck before it comes back from a three week hiatus.  We finished season 2 last night.  Just 13 episodes of season 3 to go before Monday night at 8:00.
• I finished reading Mark Kurlansky's wonderful book about the world history of Salt this week.  I insist that I am not obsessed with salt, but Rob counters that during the several weeks it's taken me to read this book, I've purchased numerous jars of "gourmet" salts as well as a salt cellar. We now have 4 varieties of salt in the house, including a pink-ish Himalayan salt that you have to hand grate.  But that's not enough to count as an obsession, is it?
• Rob and I took an Operation Strengthen Marriage/Recover from Winter vacation last month. We spent three days on a cruise ship through the Bahamas.  We highly recommend it.  Maybe I'll blog about it sometime.
• Ellie is potty-trained.  She's three and a half, so it was beyond time.  I also realize that it's not exactly the sort of glamorous news one shouts from the rooftops, but it feels like a major accomplishment in my life (and hers, obviously), and I just can't stop talking about it.
• Sleeping in and leaving Ellie in charge of Matt is seldom worth it, because it takes longer to clean up the mess they made while unsupervised than the time I lingered in bed.
• Leaving Ellie and Matt in the bath for 45 minutes while I do laundry and vacuuming is almost always a good idea.

I'll sign off with a few confessions:

• I take an afternoon nap almost every day.  Recently, a guest blogger on Apron Stage wrote about the joys of naps.  My favorite comment came from a woman wrote that all the women in her neighborhood take naps.  I want to move there.
• After 6 and a half years of folding Rob's dress socks, I still can't tell the navy from the black
• Sometimes, like today, I don't get dressed until noon.
• Ellie watches Project Runway with us and can pick the designers that are going to be In or Out.  I justify it as a lesson in what qualifies as modest clothing and what does not.
• I can't remember the last time I bought a new pair of shoes.  That's a major accomplishment in my life.  Perhaps some obsessions can be overcome?