Various & Sundry

At 3:12 a.m., when Lexi woke up and needed attention, my brain clicked on and now I can't sleep. Perhaps a little rambling will cure the insomnia.

• Betsy, Lexi's lovey, was missing for most of the day. I finally found her at 9:00 p.m. in the refrigerator. Since the yogurt was on the family room carpet, I'm assuming they just decided to switch places for the day.
• Gavin's latest hobby is clogging toilets. He does his business and uses an entire roll of toilet paper to clean up after himself. Then he plunges (unsuccessfully) when the toilet floods.
• Balmex, the diaper cream, when generously applied to platinum-blond hair, gives a child of fair complexion a rather ghostly hue. It is also quite repellent to removal efforts. After employing a few shampoos, Dawn, and vinegar to remove it, Lexi is tired of the tub, but her hair is slightly less greasy. A few more vinegar rinses ought to do the trick.
• Plastic toy bins, when used as weapons, can punch holes in bedroom doors.
• Thirty-two degree weather is, in fact, too cold for playing basketball in the driveway (even for the nine-year-old who insists on wearing shorts).
• So many Cub Scouts are scrambling to earn Centennial ribbons that they are no longer in stock at the regional office.
• Comcast has sold our phone number to every solicitor on the planet. I may not answer your phone call for fear that you will try to sell me something. (Feel free to comment, Fictitious Marc Casem.)
• Getting letters in the mail from my 80-something-year-old pen pal is one of my very favorite things.
  
• Hiring a mid-afternoon babysitter so I could complete Christmas shopping all alone yesterday was probably my best investment in recent history. The new church outfit I bought might come in a close second (haha).
• Speaking of the new outfit, I told Garry he could wrap it up and give it to me for Christmas. He looked at me strangely...and then said he had just purchased new shoes for himself that I could wrap for Christmas morning!
  
• Taking four kids to get second doses of flu shots is infinitely easier when the nine-year-old isn't having a tantrum. Walking into the pediatrician's office with the three-year-old screaming and flailing in my arms is a good way to announce the family's arrival.
• I locked Lexi out of my bathroom today while I took a shower. She screamed, and then laid down on the floor outside the bathroom and kicked the door with her feet for a few minutes. I assumed she gave up and decided to play with the toys I got out for her. Nope. She fell asleep.
  
• Garry is my hero for taking four kids to Pack Meeting so I could go visiting teaching.
• A root beer float (especially with Blue Bunny Homemade Vanilla ice cream and A&W root beer) is the perfect night cap.
• There are only three days left for me to add a blanket stitch to fleece baby doll blankets for Lexi. Will I make it?
• I feel a yawn coming on. Is that because this is boring or because I am tired?