Scene 1 - Or - How I Can’t Find Things In My Own Wallet:
Today was a day full of important activities: grocery shopping, getting Hayden’s birthday present, comic book store, and a visit to Sam’s to stock up on various staples and a haircut for Hayden.

I had set out in the middle of the day by myself for comic books and Sam’s.
I realized after I left the comic book store that I didn’t have my Sam’s card with me. I checked all through my wallet but couldn’t find it.

So I called Brie at home to look for it but she wasn’t able to. So I proceeded to Sam’s to get a new card printed out. They gave me a new card with no problem, and it wasn’t until after I had checked out that I realized the new card didn’t have my name on it.

I went back to customer service to get a card for my account instead of some random person’s when I realized the photo holder portion of my wallet was missing.

That in itself was not a big deal, but that meant that my social security card was missing as well. I searched through my wallet just to make sure that my social security card wasn’t in another section but I couldn’t find it. I called around all the places I had recently shopped and had Brie look at home, but no dice.

Finally I went home and started to look around for my card and Brie asked to see my wallet. She was immediately able to turn up both my original Sam’s card and my social security card. This meant the photo holder was no great loss.

Me: “The only thing I’m missing is some pictures of our kids and an old picture of you that you had written a nice note on.”

Brie: “You mean this picture?” she said as she pulled the one I was talking about out of my wallet.

Scene 2 - Or - How The Unexpected Can Stop A Temper Tantrum:
The flurry of activities today meant that naps more of less didn’t happen. Gabe napped between several stores and Hayden napped for 5 minutes on the way to getting his haircut.

By the end of the day tempers were a little bit short. Hayden was throwing a temper tantrum right before bath.

Gabe was already undressed and being held by Brie, poised to get into his bath chair. As we were trying to unsuccessfully talk Hayden down from his temper tantrum the cold air got the best of Gabe’s bladder control and he let loose all over Hayden’s shirt.

Thus ended the temper tantrum

Waking up a 3 a.m. this morning and finding myself cuddling with my alarm clock was not a good sign.

Coffee maker dying. Please send help.

Here are the pics we’ve taken over the past few weeks with our blizzard, our indoor activities while being cooped inside, and Easter.

Hayden has decided that it is a good night to sleep in Gabe’s room.

He is wrapped up in a blanket on Gabe’s floor, with a pillow from the spare bed. As I finished reading The High King’s first chapter, I asked Hayden if he really wanted to stay there tonight.

“Yup. G’night, Mommy. I love you.”

I blew him a kiss and had a door shut in my face.

Here’s to motherhood of two boys.

We decided to have a lazy day at home. We will not go grocery shopping. We will not stress about dinner (pizza dough is rising right now). We will not get out of our jammies (or in Kris’ case, his new robe). We will relax and spoil ourselves.

Brownies have been made. Aladdin has been watched. Lost Boys has been read. Cuddling has happened.

Gabe decided to leave us all in the dust as far as accomplishments go. (No, he didn’t roll over.) He sprouted his first tooth.

It’s 7:07 AM by the computer clock. I’ve had my coffee and my breakfast, some nice quiet time with Kris who happened to get up a bit earlier than normal today, and neither boy is fully awake yet. I’m even getting to write my daily post way before I would have even given any consideration as to what to write for the day on a normal basis.

Eventually, I’ll go wake up Hayden with a glass of juice in hand, attempting to start the day slowly and without any pressure. Then we’ll get him dressed, get Gabe up, let Hayden decide what Gabe will wear for at least 20 minutes (as Gabe tends to spit up at least 15 times a day, drenching whatever he is in). Hayden’s breakfast will include some fresh mango left over from the adult breakfast this morning, and probably a bagel with a honey nut cream cheese that was enjoyed by Kris and myself this morning as well. Gabe’s breakfast will consist of Ent-Draught, as it always does.

Then, it will be time to take Hayden to preschool, and Gabe and I will make our way to the gym. I have been very good about going most days. (I missed Monday, as Hayden was home with Pink Eye.) I think I’m starting to get addicted to it. What will happen in 4 weeks when I return to work, I have no idea. Perhaps I’ll try to make myself get up very early and go at 5 AM to be home to get ready for the work day. Perhaps I’ll try to make myself go during my lunch break. Perhaps I’ll attempt evening visits to the gym again. No matter what, I have to be in the mind set that exercising is something I can’t live without by the time this change needs to happen.

After the gym, Gabe and I have two things to accomplish today. I need to take my car to the mechanic to see what all needs to be done on it (so that I can take it in on a Saturday to get the work completed while Kris is home with us). We also need to drive to Hamilton to pick up our copies of Gabe’s birth certificate (and possibly a second copy of Hayden’s, too).

Dinner tonight will be an easy meal of Empanadas made with left overs from last night’s post roast and a spinach salad.

Through the Looking Glass is almost complete, as is Red Prophet. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have the third in the Alvin Miller series yet, so I’ll have to find something else to bide my time until I get my hands on it… and Christmas is so soon and yet so far. I can’t justify buying books right now. Maybe I can get Kris to contact the two prime shoppers for me and make sure Prentice Alvin isn’t already purchased…

7:29 AM, November 30, 2007 and I’ve completed NaBloPoMo. A good start to my day.

Last night Brie and I attended our very first fancy charity dinner.

It was for the Rape Crisis and Abuse Center, which is an undeniably awesome cause.

Background:
The owner of Brie’s company is a very animated woman who does a very good job supporting various women’s issues and does not believe in doing things halfway.

So yesterday morning Brie and I both got dressed up all fancy-like before work since we’d need to head straight to the event afterwards. I wore a full suit all day and not a single person asked me if I was going to an interview for another job! I don’t know if that means that people hold my loyalty or my standards of dress to be that high, or if I’m just not that approachable, but I was sorely disappointed.

Anyway, after work I went to pickup Brie and we drove to the event at the Contemporary Arts Center in downtown Cinci.

We congregated with Brie’s coworkers and enjoyed the open bar for about 30 minutes before being sent downstairs to the main event. Well, I enjoyed the open bar and Brie enjoyed the free bottled water.

The main area consisted of several tables filled with silent auction items (ranging in value from $75 to $750), and a dining area consisting of several tables of high-end hors d’oeuvres and a very nice jazz band.

We went around the silent auction tables and put a bid on just about everything we thought was interesting, casting a fairly wide net and figuring we’d be outbid on the majority of the items, especially if Brie’s boss had already bid on it as she is A) competitive and B) well-off.

This was my first silent auction and it was interesting. Each auction item is accompanied by a sheet of paper with a line for each bid. You put your name down for whatever you want to bid, as long as it’s higher than any previous bids, or you can bid the maximum (150% of the value) and steal it outright.

Tables of items closed every 15 minutes, so we had to frequently run back to see if we needed to rebid on anything important.

About halfway through the evening they started the live auction, also a first for me. The live auction consisted mainly of vacation packages (minus travel), though there was a painting and an alpaca fur coat as well. I thought that we might be able to bid semi-successfully on something in the live auction, but boy was I wrong! The average live auction item price must have been at least $1500.

It didn’t help that Brie’s boss was working hard to drive up the bidding on all the items, and winning about half of them.

Anything tempting escalated WAY too fast out of our price-range. Luckily the silent auction items went for significantly more modest prices, so we were able to make some sort of contribution.

We walked away with three things from the silent auction:

• A basket full of toddler toys that Brie bid the max on outright. I think we’ll be holding onto half of these for birthday or Christmas presents.
• A very nice grill set that I needed because I left my crappy set out in the rain. It was also packaged with a nice first-aid kit from Mercy Hospital that I also needed because I am me.
• A football autographed by various Bengals who I don’t recognize. This is going to Scotty if he’s interested.

All in all it was a good experience. I had fun and got to give money to a great cause.