I have about five posts swimming around in my head right now: a post about being thankful; a post about my tiny boy being two months old; a post about my love of pie and a post about how I nearly killed a Best Buy employee today. None of which will probably get written. The problem is time. This is Thanksgiving weekend people. I have a houseful of people. My house is full of laughter, games, Wii competitiveness, shrieking little girls and food. Loads of food. We are a bit overstocked on food. We made an extra turkey, because my husband won one. It’s Friday though and I’m already tired of turkey. Next weekend my baby girl is going to be seven years old and I’ve only half planned her party. We won’t even discuss Christmas, because I’m likely to cry if I think of how much I have to do.

Moving on…

I used to have a blog before this blog. A lot of you knew me then, some of you didn’t. Maybe you know that I used to blog and maybe you don’t. For those who had no idea, I blogged for about a year and a half. Then I disappeared for about eighteen months and now I’m at my 100th post. Again. I sort of wish I’d saved that post, but I didn’t keep much. Mostly the things I kept were letters written to my girls.

I know it’s tradition to write 100 things about yourself for your 100th post. Everyone does it, it’s the new black or whatever. But I’m not sure I can come up with 100 choice items about myself. Unless I start talking about my love of sour jelly beans, which I doubt you want to hear about.

Basically I’m going to be a thief. Insta-Mom stole an idea from AnyMommy. The 10 x 10 post; 10 lists of 10 things. Really it’s a great idea. I’m glad I read these lovely women, so I can steal all of their great ideas. So, here I go….10×10, 100 things about me.

10 things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving:
1. My son. I knew I’d love him as much as his sisters, I learned this the second time around. I knew he’d change our family forever in amazing ways. But I didn’t know that I’d adore him as much as I do. That I’d want to stay home with him. For him.
2. My girls. They are amazing and creative and the sweetest little people.
3. My husband.
4. My family being able to come together and have a great time.
5. A drama free Thanksgiving.
6. That we had a table full of tasty ass food.
7. Our new president.
8. That we didn’t have a blizzard this weekend, which would have made it hard for people to get here. (Of course I started writing this about four hours ago. We now have at least 6 inches already.)
9. My warm toasty house and my warm toasty sheets on my bed. (did I mention the snow?)
10. For all of you. For those of you who comment, those of you who don’t and those of you who I consider true friends.

10 things about my children:
1. Harrison is a talker. He talks to us all day long. He also smiles and giggles. I’ve enclosed proof at the bottom of this post.
2. Harrison is in 3-6 month clothes already. There is a poll on how much he weighs. My guess is 14 pounds, 2 ounces. He is only two months and is heavier than either of the girls were at six months. He’s a chunky Buddha baby.
3. Morgan steals my cell phone, goes in the closet and calls family. Just to talk.
4. She too is a talker. If she’d ask, I’d gladly give it to her to do this. But I find it funny that she steals it, calls and then returns it. I hear about it later.
5. Morgan loves complete darkness when she sleeps. Bailey loves three night lights when she sleeps.
6. They share a room.
7. Morgan’s bed has sheets around it, like a tent in the jungle.
8. Bailey is the best Wii bowler in this house. That is sad, considering she is only four.
9. All three of my kids are the loves of my life.
10. Although all three of them seriously could be replaced with those sleeping in kids that you hear about and I’d be thrilled.

10 things you might not have known about me:
1. I have Strabismis, which is lazy eye, in both eyes. The docs are not sure why my eyes focus together at all. Right now, because I am so tired, I am only using the left one. I cannot wear contacts, they make me want to gouge my eyes out with chopsticks or sporks.
2. I hate shoes and socks, but I love to buy both shoes and socks.
3. I am a speed reader. Which is good, considering my attention span these days, is 2.5 posts.
4. I say I am a horrible cook, but I’m really not. I can follow any direction. My thing though, is I want to be able to cook by memory and just throw ingredients in. That too me is a true cook.
5. I am named after two great-grandmas.
6. I have a love of names. I would love to write a book about names. If I cold figure out how to do it, I’d come up with a way to name babies for people. Some people seriously could use help with this.
7. I love to people watch and make up stories about the people I see.
8. I spend hours of my day trying to eat the cheeks of my babies.
9. I am scared to fly, although I will do it. But I’d rather drive two days, with my children, than get on a plane.
10. I cheat at Monopoly, but I’ve never cheated on anything else in my life.

My 10, all time favorite movies: (These are not in order. I’d be hard pressed to do that.)
1. Mary Poppins
2. While You Were Sleeping
3. The Grinch (Not the Jim Carey one.)
4. Willy Wonka
5. Beetle Juice
6. Michael
7. Indian Summer
8. Ocean’s Eleven
9. 13 Going on 30
10. Empire Records

10 things that occupy my time, besides my chillins and my man:
1. Um hai, blogging
2. Twitter
3. Checking my email
4. Chatting with Kim
5. Reading
6. Photographing my children
7. Sudoku
8. Watching NCIS
9. Going through, sorting, scanning old photos
10. Trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life

10 things that made me fall for said man:
1. His smile
2. His ass (he made me say that)
3. His love and sweetness with his baby sister
4. The way he could crack the whole room up with a well timed joke
5. The fact that he thought before he spoke, so he was generally very thoughtful
6. His kindness and giving nature
7. The care and time he spent on his mother, grandmother and family
8. The fact that I could beat him at air hockey
9. That he was better than me at everything except air hockey and surfing
10. That he never cared that I was better than him at air hockey and surfing

10 places I want to see/do before I die:
1. Sydney, Australia
2. Walk the Golden Gate Bridge
3. Spend two weeks on a house boat in Lake Mead
4. Spend a month in a Tuscan Villa
5. Go to Greece with my mom
6. Spend a month on an island with just my husband
7. Go to the Summer Olympics
8. China
9. Ski in Switzerland
10. Find out where my dad’s family was from in Poland and travel there.

The 10 songs that I am currently playing over and over again:
1. Days Like This by Van Morrison
2. Have a Little Faith in Me by John Hiatt
3. Where I’m From by John Michael Carroll
4. Lost by Michael Buble
5. Already Gone by Sugarland
6. It Won’t be Like This For Long by Darius Rucker
7. Roll With Me by Montgomery Gentry
8. Piano Man by Billy Joel
9. Stay Down by Mary J. Blige
10. Here by Derek Sholl

My 10 favorite books off all time:
1. A Wrinkle in Time
2. All Harry Potter books
3. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
4. Fried Green Tomatoes
5. In the Time of the Butterflies
6. Their Eyes Were Watching God
7. Twelfth Night
8. To Kill a Mockingbird
9. The Lorax
10. The Giver

10 ways that I am probably a parenting oxymoron:
1. All three of my children were (are) only bottle fed. But I find breastfeeding to be a beautiful thing.
2. I swore no child of mine would ever sleep in my bed. Neither of the girls ever did. Harrison has since day one.
3. In LA I was prepared (and was) to spend a butt load of money on a fabulous private school. I thought it was so important. Here, my girls go to the “Hippie” public choice school. The programs? Not so different really.
4. I buy organic meat, dairy and veggies. But we have Oreo’s, Cheetos and Fruit Roll-Ups in the panrty and my kids know the menu at way too many restaurants.
5. I want the kids to understand the meaning behind Christmas. We donate time, money and food. We pick kids off the Target tree and shop for them; we give to homeless people and we give our old clothes. However, there will be a ton of gifts for the kids.
6. I encourage them believing in the tooth fairy, magic and Santa Clause; but Santa only brings one or two small gifts. Mostly because I don’t want that fat man too take away my glory.
7. I think education is a key. I am saving for college for each of my kids. But I went to college and I know the skills I’ve used in my career did not come from my education. They came from the college of life. If my kids choose not to go to college, I will support them in this choice. They will have to support themselves…but I’ll be okay with their choice.
8. We use homeopathy, relaxation techniques and therapy with Morgan for her ADHD. I will medicate her, when and if it seems like the right thing too do, without a second thought.
9. I won’t buy toys very often. In a bookstore, all bets are off. We have bookshelves throughout this house. They know I’m a sucker when it comes to books.
10. We limit sugar, TV, Wii time and encourage playing outside and sports. When they are being pains though, I hand them some candy and send them to watch some TV.

But hey, I think they’ll be okay anyway.

See, my baby smiles: Harrison Thomas, two months and a couple of days old.

I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving.

You don’t mind, do you? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

1. I adore the holidays. Some people tolerate them, some just like them, some people despise them. Me I adore them. Thanksgiving, Christmas and everything in between. The music, the food, the baking, buying gifts. Hell, I even love to wrap gifts. I love to decorate the house and I love having a house full of people, which I will in a few days. The details, the small things that drive people crazy about having a house full of people? I thrive on that type of chaos. Basically, I’m certifiably insane.

2. I’m thinking about staying home this time around. You know, with Harrison. By this time with both of the girls, they were in daycare. I was getting up every morning, getting dressed in real clothes, without spit-up or coffee stains on them and going to my big office in the sky. I dropped them off at 9am and Logan picked them up at 4pm. I loved that life. I loved the free-ness it gave me; the money I made and the security I felt. But when I look at this tiny boy of mine, I can’t imagine putting him in daycare. Now too be fair, if I make this decision (which I don’t technically have to make until the end of January), he won’t go too daycare. He’ll go to my best friends house and chill with her all day. Still, I don’t think I want to do that. I think I want to stay home with him; be home with my girls; never have to scramble to find someone to take them on days off school, nor put them in summer camp when school is over. Don’t tell anyone though, okay?

3. Logan and I have already started talking about having another baby next year. We’re not quite to that point yet. But we have pretty much decided that in about six months or so, we’re going to try again. We don’t want there too be four years between Harrison and a baby. I am not getting any younger and if we want any more, we need to get on that sooner than later. Plus, we kinda like little babies. We’d forgotten how much we like little babies.

So, that’s all I’ve got. This week will be short around here, because of the craziness that will start at my house Wednesday morning. There is still time left to enter the name the photo contest below. If you haven’t looked at the comments, you really should, they are all freaking funny. You have until tonight to enter; I’ll announce the winner tomorrow.

1. I have been working on a photo video thing for Morgan’s birthday. She saw it last night and sat in awe of her own freaking pictures. When it was over, she said, Mommy, I really am cute. I have no words. Self-esteem, my kid has it.

2. This morning the kids were arguing about what frozen grass is called. This winning answer is grassicles, in case you ever wondered. Patten and trademark are pending.

3. I received an email from Hallmark, stating that they can send out my Christmas cards. I’m so tempted to take them up on it, seeing how I have yet to even send out birth announcements of my son, who is almost two month old now. But then I saw that I’d have to type my addresses into it and that seems like as much work as writing out the cards myself. Which means, I now feel like I need to go out and buy Christmas cards, order birth announcements and mail them out. I have what? 6 weeks until Christmas, right? I’ve got loads of time.

4. I have purchased exactly one Christmas gift. One. Just one. It’s for the baby; a wooden rocking horse. You know, one he can ride? Which is very helpful considering he won’t be old enough to ride it for at least a year and a half. But hey, one gift is one gift. Looks like black Friday shopping is calling my name.

5. Harrison is nine weeks old. I am working on a two month post for him. I have never been that into the week thing. Saying he’s nine weeks old, just seems weird to me. I just tell people, he’ll be two months old next week. When he turns a year *sob* he will be one years old, I’ll stop saying months. Am I the only person who does this? Do any of you find it weird when someone is like, oh he’s 22 weeks old, or 37 months? Who can keep track of that kind of shit? I feel lucky if I get my kids names right half the time.

I should have known better. We should have known better. How many times does one couple need to learn this lesson? Wasn’t once enough?

We’ll file this post under: Full Disclosure.

Last night…I can’t believe I’m doing this again. Last night we got caught doing the nasty knocking boots getting a bit frisky by Bailey. Some of you may remember the “wrestling” post, back when Morgan was about four and a half? Either way. We got caught again.

We were um…playing on the couch, when we heard this little voice.

Mama, my heart hurts.**

Logan, my very lovely husband, is a quick thinker. He says, honey go in the bathroom and find your inhaler and Mama will be in there in one second.

So I get up, put some clothes back on and go in the bathroom to help my child breath better. She uses her inhaler as she leans against me. We wait for a few minutes and she does it again. Then she says, Mommy, what were you and Daddy doing?

I think to myself for a second and say the first thing that comes to mind, oh we were playing doctor. Oh she says, ok then. Who was the doctor? Oh, um, well, my um….Daddy was. Ok, mama, my heart is better, goodnight. My heart at this point; about to explode. She patters down the hall, up the stairs and goes back to bed.

Needless to say, we moved our game of doctor upstairs. Behind locked doors.

I was not looking forward to this morning. I was hoping she’d not remember. It would be better that way. Maybe we should tell her she was sleepwalking, Logan had said. Took awhile before she brought it up. I was driving up to the school and she said to Morgan, Mommy and Daddy play doctor after we go to bed. Morgan, god love her, just laughed and laughed, but didn’t say a word. We walked Bailey to preschool and as we walked to her class room, she leans into me and whispers, Mommy, you were having S.E.X., (she spelled it, all loud and crap, like I couldn’t hear her) right?

I said the only thing I could, baby, do you really want to know? Ew, no she says. I never want to know that. Then don’t ask. But please, keep it to yourself okay? Sure, but ewwwww mommy. Then she runs off, laughing to herself.

My cheeks are red just typing this. But you know, this is a full disclosure blog. Aren’t you glad you stopped by this morning?

Once for each kid, that’s not horrible right? We can try better for the boy, to not scar him for life or send him to therapy before he’s five. But you know, sometimes you temporarily forget there are children in the house. At least until you hear that little voice say, mama or daddy. Kill joy.

We can’t be the only ones, can we?

**Bailey is an asthmatic. When her asthma is acting up, she says her heart hurts. It’s just how she explains it.

Today, mostly to get the post below down a bit (also possibly to not tell you about the food poisoning I have; trust me you’ll thank me), I’ve decided to tell you about the un-talked about member of my household. Namely, our dog. Oh hi, we have a dog. Did you know that? Possibly she’s been mentioned, I’m not really sure. She’s a good dog (mostly) but I’m just not one of those people who talks about her animals. Because frankly, she’s a dog, not a person and I’m just not one of those people.

You know, this isn’t starting off so well. Let me start over… This is Liltih our pup. She also goes by puppsie, pup-head, Lil, Stinky and knock it off. It just depends on the day.

She’s a purebred Australian Shepard, which is the nice wording for, Issa should have gotten a mutt. No, she’s a great dog; truly she is. But Aussies are puppies until they are like five years old. Lucky for us, she made it to five. She is five and half now. She was a gift to us, for helping a friend put together their wedding. They had a litter of pups and we choose the most mellow one. She just didn’t stay mellow for more than a week. She still jumps on people when they first come in and barks at falling leaves, but besides that she’s a pretty trained dog. We always laugh when people say she’s our attack dog. The bark might make people think that, but mostly an intruder would see her butt and cropped tail moving a mile a minute and she’d just lick them to death.

Lil is a Frisbee pup. Logan started teaching her to catch one, about the same week we got her, when she was an eight week old fluff-ball. I should scan in a picture of her back then, but I’d have to find one and scan it. Two things that are not going to happen today. The only reason I’m even posting, is because of the lovely invention of wi-fi, meaning, I can lay in my bed and contemplate my demise by stomach bug, while still being entertained by all of you lovely people. He loved the dogs in Santa Monica, who could jump in the air and catch the frisbee, so he trained her to do it. She’s a pretty great frisbee dog actually. But she spends most of her days (when not licking my freaking floor or trying to clean the baby) either laying on a giant pillow in the living room or walking around with the Frisbee in her mouth, just hoping someone will take pitty on her and throw the dam thing.

So there you have it, one dog for sale. Free even, to semi-good home. Kidding, just kidding. We love her, she’s our pup-head and she’s a keeper.

PS. It’s snowing!!