Google This

There are some times more than others when it really hits me how much my life has changed since we had kids.  This was one of those times.  We had the whole gang in the car: The Esposo, Peapod, The Edge and me, and we were driving back home from visiting family and friends in Michigan.

The Esposo and I were trying to figure out which Michigan football game we should come back for in the fall, so naturally I Googled "Michigan Football Schedule."

Now, when you go to type something into Google on your iPhone/smartphone, it shows a list of all the things you've recently searched for, right?

Try as I might not to look exactly like the middle-aged mom that I am, my list of recent Google searches exposed me just as clearly as a big, high-waisted pair of Mom Jeans.

Here's the list of recently Googled terms on my iPhone:

• How do peanuts grow 
• Conjunctivitis 
• Tornados
• Beastie Boys (gotta be something in there for me, right?)
• Curly Sexy Mousse reviews (hey, I was in CVS, what can I say?)
• Bethesda Public Pool hours 
• Mars
• Bethesda swimmer 2012 Olympics
• Cheetah

I like to think that when I was young, hip and single, the list would have been much different.

The sad truth is, 1) there were no iPhones back then and, 2) the list would have been exactly the same, minus the conjunctivitis.

No Llamas

This just in:  The Edge does not like llamas.

Actually, to be specific, The Edge does not want any llamas in his room.  Now, I'm no expert on Bethesda Maryland, but I feel fairly certain that we don't have a big llama problem here.

In fact, I have seen no llamas in Bethesda at all.  Or really in the entire DC metro area, now that I think of it. And we have been to the zoo three times.

But the other night, The Edge sat down on the floor with a piece of beige construction paper and a green crayon.  When he finished, he enlisted his sister Peapod's expertise to help him affix the paper to his bedroom door.

(Peapod's expertise is that she knows where we keep the tape.)

Moments later, I walked by The Edge's bedroom door.

Here's what I saw:

Four misshapen circles and a line.

Me:  "What's this on your door, buddy? Did you draw this?"

The Edge (indignantly): "No it's a siiiiiiiiiiign!"

Me:  "Oh.  Ok.  What's it got on it?"

The Edge (yelling now): "NO LLAMAS!"

Me:  "No llamas?  Really?"

Peapod: "Yeah Mom.  No llamas.  The Edge doesn't want any llamas to go into his room."

Me:  "Oh.  I see. Why no llamas, sweetpea?"

The Edge (rolling his eyes and exhaling): "Because llamas are baaaaad!"

Of course.

No further questions, your honor.

Bag Lady

This time it's been an inexcusable 9 months since my last entry.  Whoops.

So what, after 9 months, would be so compelling an event as to draw me back to the blogosphere to write about it? Could it be putting our Pasadena house on the market and selling it 13 days later, while we were on vacation?

Nah.

How about packing up all our stuff into over 100 boxes in preparation for moving from  LA to DC?

Yawn.

Well then how about my emergency abdominal surgery two days before the movers showed up?

BOR-ING!

Hmmm.  I got it!  Visualize this:  a poignant retelling of our family's multi-stage trip across the country, with gorgeous photos of the places we stopped and people we spent time with along the way.

Nope.

Let me cut to the chase:  we moved a bunch and now we are settled in Bethesda, Maryland. There.

Ok, now here is what has motivated me to put fingers to keyboard and write again after a 9 month hiatus:

A NEW BAG!

But not just any bag.  A NON DIAPER BAG.

Let me be crystal clear:  I HAVE PURCHASED A BAG THAT IS NOT DESIGNED TO CARRY DIAPERS, PEOPLE.  Here it is, in all it's glory:

For those keeping score, you might recall that Alex was potty trained way back in November of 2011. I know.  I was there.  But I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea that, after 5+ years with a diaper bag glued to my shoulder, I would not need to carry a bag designed specifically to lug an emergency stash of Huggies and the associated paraphernalia with me at all times.

The Esposo thought I was out of my mind.  But I simply could not get myself to ditch the diaper bag.  "Lookit all the awesome pockets!" I enthusiastically pointed out.  Yes.  And 'lookit the holes in the seams and the grunge on the bottom that I like to refer to as "clean dirt" because I've tried to wash it out so many times.'

But then a couple weekends ago, we gave away all our extra diapers to another family.  That's when it finally sunk into my fat head that I no longer have any babies in diapers anymore. And I decided to part with my beloved diaper bag.

I was sad for a bit.  No more drooly little babes wrapped in swaddling blankets, cooing at me from the crib.  Then I hit myself over the head with a bat and came to my freaking senses.

YEEEHHHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

I'm free.

And the new bag is super cute, if I do say so myself.

Bigger, Badder, Soggier

What a difference a year makes!

Peapod was faster. She ran a smarter race.  The Esposo did not have to carry her on his shoulders at any time.  She passed kids.  She passed adults. She made me so proud it was almost embarrassing. She paced herself in the beginning and didn't turn on the turbo boosters till she had the finish line balloons in plain sight.  Yeah.

The Edge made it the whole way without a single Peanut Butter Bumper.

He slumped less in the jogging stroller as you can plainly see by comparing

Fig 1: Santa Barbara State Street Mile June, 2011 

... with Fig 2: Santa Barbara State Street Mile June, 2010.

See what a difference a year makes?

Plus this year, I did not stick myself even one time with the safety pins.

It rained.

The kids got medals.

We had brunch.

And our dog, Sapphira, turned 17 years old. Yes, really.

Happy birthday, you stinky, sweet old girl.

King of the Candles

I had a feeling he was going to be really good.  He'd been practicing all week.

The Edge turned 2 years old yesterday, and when it came time to blow out the candles on his birthday cake, baby boy brought down the house.

Yeeah.

Personally I think his big sister had a fair amount to do with his success, which was all about the preparation.

About ten days before the actual birthday party, we all explained that his birthday was coming up and that there would be a cake with candles on it, we would sing the "Happy Birthday" song and at the end of it, he was expected to blow out the candles.  

But Peapod took the prep to the next level with actual birthday drills.  These drills included the construction of a birthday "cake" with "candles." But more importantly, the drills included an audience, which was made up of every stuffed animal they could reasonably round up, every doll, every choo choo and every plastic Lego guy that still had a head.

Many of these drills also took place in picnic format on various bed comforters or decorative throws dragged in from other rooms of the house.  As the April 24th date drew nearer, the drills moved into the dreaded-but-effective two-a-day schedule familiar to any well-trained athlete.

As you can clearly see, it paid off.

Happy birthday, My Baby Boy.

Artistic Sweet Spot

Peapod has entered that preschool age -- that serendipitous artwork moment -- where most of the drawings and whoozinwhatsitz she creates are just so ridiculously sweet and cute that you want to keep them all.

Of course it has become a problem because I don't even have space for one extra fleece hoodie, let alone the eleventy-six masterpieces she generates at preschool and our kitchen table on a weekly basis.

My unsentimental yet practical solution is typically to photograph my favorites, keep them around for a few weeks, and then introduce them to the recycle bin.  You know, move it on through.

But every now and then something will crash past my practical exterior and into my soft, gushy heart.  It happened just last week with this one particular piece.  I discovered it when I carted The Edge into his room for a diaper change. 

There, propped up next to his little diaper caddy, she had left a beautiful, crayon-drawn picture of The Edge, wearing a striped shirt and shoes.  (Note:  if you look carefully, you will see that Peapod's artwork gives away The Edge's real name, as Peapod wrote it above the drawing of her brother.)

I set The Poopy Edge back down and took the picture to Peapod to ask about it.

"Can you tell me about this picture, Sweet Pea?"

"That's The Edge."  She stated matter-of-factly and with no sentimentality whatsoever.  "I drew it for my brother."

The next day I spent 20 extra minutes in Target, looking for push pins so I could hang the picture in The Edge's room, where I could look at for all eternity.  Or at least until Peapod draws an even better masterpiece of her brother.

Oh, and I changed The Edge's diaper, too, by the way.

Ski School, Now in Session

Well, the one year I leave The Esposo, Peapod and The Edge unsupervised for the annual trek to Lake Tahoe, this happens:

Her first time on skis!  GO PEAPOD GO!!!!

Needless to say, I was devastated that I was not there to witness it myself, but bursting with pride when I heard all about how well she did and how much she loved it.  In fact, the instructors said she was the first 4-year-old they could recall who did not complain once the entire time!  (I had the Esposo check to make sure he was taking home the right kid afterward.)  I can't wait to crush her out of the chutes ski with her next year!

And here's a still shot just for fun, and because I'm so bleepin' proud.
My baby's gettin' all growe'd up.

If you can't say anything nice...

I'm not sure where this quote falls out.

We had just picked up Chinese food from Egg Roll Express.  Now before you roll your eyes, let me tell you, this place is solid, and they nail all the Chinese-food basics that every American family needs.  Chow mein, cashew chicken, egg drop soup, bing, bing bing.  All solid.

So when we asked Peapod and The Edge, who had had Egg Roll Express many times before and gobbled it up like frat boys, "Who wants noodles?" (which was the vegetable chow mein), we expected an enthusiastic response.

We got it from Peapod, who jumped out of her chair and thrust her hand in the air.

From The Edge, however, we got something much more rude, yet somehow more priceless and indelible.

We got a catch-phrase.

"Blah.  No way!  Mee!"

Blah.

No way.

Me.

What that could possibly mean, coming from a 22 month old human being is mind boggling.  It's almost deep, I think.

All I know, is that we will be quoting those three words, in that order for years to come.

Then someday, when he decides he wants to marry some lucky fool, and asks if he can bring them home so we can meet this person, I will look up from my book, peer over my reading glasses and calmly reply:

"Blah.  No way.  Me!"

Jet Packs: Now at Target

I was futzing with the radio when an interesting question floated up from the backseat.

Peapod:  "Mom, do they sell jet packs at Target?"

Me: "What?"

Peapod: "Do they sell jet packs?  At Target?"

I have turned off the radio, as this demands my full attention.

Me:  "No, I don't think so, Sweet Pea."

Peapod:  "How do you know?"

Me:  "Well, uh... Jet packs are for, um, scientists.  NASA people.  Astronauts! You really can't just buy a jet pack."

Peapod:  "But Daddy saw one at the Rose Parade.  Where did that guy get one?"

Me:  "Um.  Not at Target, that's for sure." I have begun to lose composure at this point.

The Edge: "JePaaak!  JePaaak!"

Peapod: "Well if you see a jet pack at Target and it's a good price, will you get it for me?"

Me:  "You got it, Boo."

Fake Cats Re-Arranged My Tupperware Drawer

People who write books about raising kids:

1. No longer have toddlers or babies and therefore have time to write actual books.
2. Are smug.

Anyway, I listened to these people and put all my tupperware-like plastic food storage containers into one low drawer that I let Peapod and The Edge have access to. The idea, according to these books, is that you arrange a few drawers in your kitchen to have only "safe" items in them, and then let your kids do as they please. The theory is that these fussy small people won't go caveman on you, because you've put the rest of your far more interesting kitchen stuff behind toddler locks and electrified cow fence.

What these book authors don't talk about is how this little arrangement will drive you slowly insane.

Let me explain.

The Edge loves cats. Not only does he know every cat in the neighborhood, he can point out where every cat has been in the neighborhood, for roughly the past 6 days. He also likes to imitate cats, which has inspired his sister to do the same.

So now I have two fake cats, meowing and re-arranging my tupperware drawer. Let me assure you, it sounds much cuter than it actually is, especially when you are trying to unload the dishwasher.

Well THAT Was Easy.

There are "Bottle Fairies."

These are apparently fairies who come in the night and take bottles away from toddlers who are otherwise occupied.

There are also parents who snip the nipples of bottles lower and lower until there is no more nipple to be had.

There are chapters in parenting books about how to wean your toddler off the bottle. There are pages and pages on the internet on this subject.

So as The Edge approached his second birthday, which is in April, I figured maybe I ought to pay attention to all this noise.  We did not go through any of this with Peapod because at the age when she was to be weaned from the bottle, she was in the hospital, recovering from her boo boo finger injury where she was strapped down and plugged into feeding tubes.  When we returned home a month later, she had completely forgotten about her bottle.

We hoped to avoid a similar bottle weaning plan for The Edge.

One day, about three weeks ago, Super Nanny burst into the kitchen with the following apology "So sorry -- I dropped The Edge's botella!"  She genuinely felt bad because we only had two left -- I was too cheap to buy any more, and it was clear that these were on their last legs.  It had slipped from Super Nanny's fingers in the driveway -- probably while she was hoisting The Edge, his diaper bag, the Plasma Car, his jacket, nine of his toys, and a bucket of sidewalk chalk, which I have seen her do.  She is Strong Like Bull, this woman.

"Don't worry about it."  I waved her off. "I think it's a sign."

It was time to wean The Edge off the bottle.  So I went to Target and bought him two of those sippy cups with the flimsy nipple-like tops and let Super Nanny know we'd start using those at bedtime to see how it goes.  We figured he's so tired by then maybe he wouldn't care.

He didn't care.

We did this for a few nights, just to be sure.

He didn't care.

So we ushered it in during nap time.

He didn't care.

Mind you, this is a kid who makes every diaper change difficult.  85% of the time I put him in a car seat, he screams, kicks his feet and arches his back.  For 7 weeks straight, right around the time he was 18 months old, he refused to nap in his crib. He is not the Happiest Baby on the Block. He is The Edge.

But man, that was easy.

FinancialRx "Soft Launch"

With the new year comes some new news:  the "soft launch" of my website, FinancialRx.com.

As some of you may know, I am the founder and Editor-in-Chief of a new business venture with The Esposo and his business partner, who will heretofore be known in this blog as, simply, "Money."

Turns out that building a business, and designing a website from scratch is, like, hard!  The Esposo, Money, a talented German code writer who lives in Dallas (who I will name Das Boot because they're the only German words I know.  Sort of.) and I have been working on FinancialRx since the summer, designing the font end, building the back end, and writing and uploading the content.

So why is this a "soft launch?"  Because if you look at the site, you'll see that even though it has a fair amount of content and live ads, the subscription function is not live.  And this will be a key part of our revenue model and our public relations push. Also, the front page is not yet where we need it to be for the hard launch.  It's a bit messy right now, but we have plans in the works to change it.

So why are we even bothering with any type of launch now? Because we need to start building up some juice with Google, which you've heard me yammer on about before with The Esposo's website for finding health insurance, Medicoverage.com. To do so, I need to execute a link strategy by creating external locations around the internet that have links back into various urls in the FinancialRx site, like the ones I'll gratuitously insert below.

When we execute our hard launch in a few months, I'll really be tapping into the talents of my network (that's you) to help get this thing off the ground. But in the mean time, there are actually two things you can do to help, if you have a minute or two to spare. You can visit the various pages on the site, read a few articles, and leave a comment or two and click the little "recommend" button with the thumbs up icon below the articles you like. Comments and recommendations also help to elevate the site in the eyes of Google.  This will help more than you may realize.

Now with that in mind, here are some suggestions of pages where you can start looking:

This is an article I wrote about buying a first house

And here's one that answers the question "what is a living trust?"

There are also a bunch of articles on much lighter financial topics. For example, here's one about saving money on kid's birthday parties.

And an idea for having free fun with toddlers at the train station.


We're creating FinancialRx.com to be a finance website for women, who are becoming the Chief Financial Officers of many American households. These women are busy and pressed for time, but they perceive themselves to lack competence in the area of finance, whether this perception reflects reality or not. At FinancialRx.com, we skip the tickers and and speak in plain English, not finance gobbely gook. We provide the information these women need, quickly and painlessly, so they can make a good decision and get back to their bustling households. Sometimes we even have a little fun.

We hope you'll join us on our journey toward a happy, healthy financial life.

Toddler for Sale: Cute.

Male.  Blue eyes, curly light brown hair, square feet.

Eats: everything but tomatoes and peas.

Likes: slides, the laundry bin, cats, a small brown dinosaur named Shmitty (replaceable for about $3.50), throwing legos and used cell phones down the stairs, the hose, Kidspace Children's Museum, his sister, dirt.

Dislikes: car seats, strollers, Raggedy Ann.

Knows approximately 3 dozen words; uses them to demand fish crackers, lit candles and video chats with grandparents.

Warning:  does not nap.

Rant: The Target Cafe

Why are the people who eat at the Pasadena Target cafe so unbelievably tweaky?

I mean really.

The people who shop at the Pasadena Target are not tweaky.  They appear to have regular jobs and regular families and regular lives and things to do.  I see them buy shampoo and Advil and diapers and Tostitos and apple juice, just like regular people.  Then they flip their sunglasses back down, steer their carts through the parking lot and stack their regular bags into their regular cars, just like the regular rest of us, and drive away.

But God Forbid you step past the cash registers and into the Target Cafe because I promise you, all the regular people will disappear and you will be surrounded by total creepiness.

This happened to me today.  I had to run into Target over lunch time and I was starving, so I slipped into the cafe for a quick sandwich.

Oh my God.

There were masses of unshaven men.  There were ladies with obvious wigs and darker-than-their-skin-color stockings that ended above their shins but below their dress hems.  There was a man (also unshaven) rocking back and forth and spinning something metal and shiny.  There was a man talking on an invisible cell phone (no ear bud) who would not stop bouncing his knee.  There was another man with very few teeth who was leaning over his lunch and eating with such fervor that it appeared as if he was afraid that one of us might steal if from him any minute. There was a woman walking around asking for change.  There was another woman who would not take her angry daughter out of the back of the shopping cart.  Amid all this, there was a pair of normal people trying to conduct an interview for a job at Target.  And me, snarfing down my sandwich and becoming nauseated.

When I had finished, I flipped down my sunglasses, slipped into the parking lot and back into the sunshine with my regular cart full of regular Target goodies.  And I smiled at the rest of the regular Target shoppers.  Until somebody gave me the stink eye because she wanted my parking spot.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Because we believe in sleep, our lives revolve around nap times and bedtime rituals. One of my rituals is to walk around the block with both kids before The Edge's first nap. A reasonable person might assume it would take, oh 10, maybe 15 minutes to walk around one city block, tops. But this activity can kill anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes because The Edge must inspect every sprinkler head, must observe every ant moving a leaf and must point and giggle at every small yapping dog.

Peapod mostly delights in her brother's pokey pace, unless they are tantalizingly close to The Rock Section, which is both kids' favorite part of the block loop. If they are close, she will tug his chubby little hand impatiently and implore him to hurry up until they have arrived at this most magical of destinations.  The Rock Section is just the area on somebody's front yard between the sidewalk and the street where they have planted some cactus-type succulent plants and filled the rest of the space in with small rocks. These people have probably done this to save on their water bill. And maybe to get dogs to stop pooping on on their property. Who knows.

But my kids think it is the best thing ever. They stop there every time to pick up little rocks and put them on bigger rocks. Sometimes they put the little rocks on the leaf of what appears to be a yukka plant and pull the leaf down so the rocks can roll off.  Whee!

Not unlike the rhythm of my nap-driven days, my years also have a rhythm to them. Every August I rack my brain for unique and fun birthday ideas in preparation for September. You see, September is a double birthday month for Team Mihm:  both The Esposo and Peapod celebrate their birthdays in September. And when you have a spouse who gives you the trapeze for your own birthday, and a little girl who has been talking about her birthday for 7 months, you can't just phone it in.

So I think I've got The Esposo's locked down. But I was still working out the details for Peapod's celebration in my head the other day when she solved the whole thing for me. We were on our morning city block loop when Peapod got really excited.  "I know, Mommy!"  she said,  "We can have my birthday party at the Rock Section!"

We cannot do that, as the Rock Section is technically the bottom edge of somebody else's front lawn.

But her excited proclamation was a great reminder not to buy into the over-blown-kidz-birthday-party-bandwagon and realize that if I can deliver on as much fun as a pile of rocks, I should be good to go.

But we should probably have some bubbles, just in case.

July in Review - A Derivative Entry

The MVP's July In Review was such a compelling work that I felt peer-pressured by an infant into reviewing the very same month -- but from the perspective of Team Mihm. So here, in a nutshell, is our July In Review!

Ahem.

First, we traveled to Cape Cod, where we enjoyed the beaches, sand, sea air, saltwater taffy, dune grass, and our first taste of Four Seas Ice Cream, thanks to our good friends and Cape Cod regulars, The A Team.  Peapod experimented with her first official set of arm-band-swim-floaties, while The Edge took to heaping shovels full of sand onto his own beach chair, as you can see if you look carefully at the photo below.

A mere 24 hours after our arrival, I turned 24, oops, I mean 42.  Ever the clever one, The Esposo surprised me with a Price-Is-Right-Style gift presentation.  He put three envelopes in front of me, named "Thrill Seeker," "Part-Time Daredevil," and "Calculated Risk-Taker."  I chose the first one.  He made me open the other two first, to see what I did not win.  I did not win tennis lessons.  Boooo!  I also did not win trampoline lessons.  Lesser boo, but boo nonetheless.

But I did win.... flying trapeze lessons!  Yes, really!  Huge yaaayyy!!!  Hooray for The Esposo!

Ok, more on that later.

After a few days on The Cape, we went to Boston.  There we visited the Public Gardens, where the classic children's story "Make Way for Ducklings" takes place. One of us was very excited about this portion of the trip.

Later, we took a road trip out to Tufts University, The Esposo's gorgeous and green alma matter.  On the way, we may or may not have engaged in an animated debate about whether an entire university can actually be closed.  I suppose he was trying to manage our expectations since it was the weekend and it was July.  Plus after lunch it had started to rain.  Hard.  Like the kind of rain that attracts CNN reporters wearing North Face jackets with hoods.

Anyway, as a graduate of the large public university known as Go Blue U, I was certain that closing a college campus was impossible.  I was also wrong.  When we got to the Tufts campus, not a human was to be seen and not a building was to be open.  Apparently, students attend this peculiar institution to learn things and study, and when this is not happening, they go elsewhere.  I, myself, am not familiar with this phenomenon, having spent summers at Go Blue U trying to rappel down the side of Angel Hall at 1:45am, with the thrum of rap music and the smell of stale beer constantly permeating the warm summer air.  Anyway, the bookstore was closed, so we were reduced to ordering Tufts souvenirs online.  Totally not as fun.

On the last day of our trip, we took a ride on the fabled Swan Boats of Boston with some friends who had recently moved to the area from San Francisco.  This started off what seemed like an idyllic end to an idyllic vacation.  We bid our friends and the Public Garden farewell, packed up the rental van, and headed to the airport.

Then somehow our iPhones let us down.  The GPS was infuriatingly about 35 seconds behind our actual location, which does not sound like a lot, but is actually quite significant when you're traveling on the freeway and pointing at your exit that just went by.  This happened so many times that it went through the Circle of Funny. You know where it's really funny, then it's not funny at all, then it's really funny again? That. There was one point where we seemed to have entered some kind of festival, and were sitting in traffic next to a bunch of food tents and people dressed up. I was afraid that someone might decorate our van if we sat still there much longer.

At last, we reached the airport and we thought we were home free. Our plan was to get checked in, go through security and then hang out with Nana, who had been traveling with us, to say our last goodbyes. But when we got to the other side of security, it became clear that it would be difficult or impossible for her to get to us. We had just traveled with her for 6 days, and not said a proper goodbye!

We boarded the plain, exchanging phone messages with Nana, hoping she was not as sad as we were. Then we sat. And sat. And sat. We sat for over an hour before we even pulled away from the gate. This is not a big deal unless you are four humans sitting in three seats, and one of these humans insists on standing on your thighs and using your head as a lever to see over the seat behind you.

Then The Edge's fussiness started, followed by turbulence. Fortunately Peapod and The Edge have not taken physics yet and so they are unaware of the consequences of plumetting 33,000 feet straight to earth. I have taken it twice. I cannot explain The Esposo's relative calm except that he had a beer and I didn't.

About seven hours later, we landed at LAX. Home free, right? Wrong.

All our luggage showed up except... The Edge's car seat. This meant waiting another 90 minutes in the airport with two over-tired kids (it was 10:30pm -- 1:30am by our body clocks) and two Leaning Towers of Smart Carts full of luggage. The low point was when Peapod dropped her plastic hotel key (she likes to keep hotel keys as souvenirs) behind a sofa and started bawling "Moooommmmmyyyyyy!!!!! Get it baaaaaaccck!!!!!!" at the exact same moment that The Edge decided it was super funny to smack me on the face and laugh like The Joker. Fortunately I had a zen moment and was able to put it all in perspective:  nobody was injured. We were not in a hospital in a foreign country. Nobody had died. It was all ok. I put The Edge down, hoisted the couch (it was one of those weird superhuman-strength-moments), picked up Peapod's hotel key (and a magnet shaped like a dog -- bonus!), handed it to her, and smiled.

Within 5 minutes, the Virgin American attendant had gotten me a loaner car seat and The Esposo had appeared with the car. Home again, home again, fiddle dee dee!

So that was the trip.

A couple of weeks later, Team Mihm headed out to the Santa Monica Pier for me to redeem my birthday present.  See films below.

If this flying trapeze stuff seems scary to anyone, let me put it into context. While I was doing this, The Esposo wrangled two kids under the age of four on the Santa Monica Pier for two hours straight. Now that's scary.

Let's hear it for July! (And my fabulous Esposo!)

Thank You, Johnny Cash

I try really hard not to make this blog nauseating.

As in "look at this adorable picture of my baby playing with a puppy and carrying a flower!" or other such drivel that might make a reasonable person barf. But the events of the past few days made it really hard to avoid gag-worthy subject matter -- until Johnny Cash entered the picture and saved us all.

The first super-cute thing that happened was that Peapod got her first two wheeled bike. Well, actually four wheels if you count the training wheels in back. Which of course dictates that I insert at least one gratuitous cute picture of subject riding said bike. See below.



Please accept my deepest apologies for the fact that her outfit matches the bike. She picked out her clothes that morning and at that time, I had only seen the colors of the bike on the Craigslist photo online, so I did not realize the full potential for visual assault until we arrived at the seller's home. And as anyone knows who has driven across town to "look at" something on Craigslist -- it was too late by then. We had already fallen in love with the bike -- and the little girl it used to belong to.

Then, before we recovered from the bike purchase, 24 hours had passed and The Edge was sitting on a rocket ship at Little Kutz, getting his very first haircut. Insert second gratuitous cute photo.



Ridiculous, right?

Just when I was thinking I had a normal family, Peapod reminded me otherwise and saved the day. We were driving to her swim lesson this morning when Johnny Cash came on the radio singing "Ring of Fire."

Peapod: Who is this singing?

Me: It's Johnny Cash.

Peapod: It's just like that blue guy!

Me: What?

Johnny Cash: Love's a burnin' thing and it makes a firey ring...

Peapod: See? It's like that blue guy from China!

Now, by way of some background, the Esposo's parents had just returned from the World Expo in Shanghai, China and they brought the kids some souvenirs. One of them was a little stuffed version of the Expo's mascot, named Haibao. Earlier that morning Peapod had inexplicably named him Johnny Cash instead. Not just Johnny. Johnny Cash. This is him.



Me: I think his name is Haibao. He's the mascot from the...

Peapod: What?

Me: Never mind.

And He's Off!

First, A Song (to the tune of Row Row Row Your Boat)

Walk, Walk, Walk About,
The Edge is on the move...
Wiggly wobbly, giggly bobbly
Life is but a groove!

Yeah!

In the past two weeks or so, I am thrilled to report that The Edge has officially become a toddler! He's been teasing us with walking for about two months, but we can say it's official now because he uses walking as his primary form of locomotion. And because yesterday he hauled a package of toilet paper halfway across the house, which I thought was pretty good. Before he would walk as many as 27 steps and then get back down on his knees and crawl for the rest of the day, just to bug me.

Anyway, it's a big deal because now I no longer will go through 1.5 bottles of stain remover a week trying to get the knees of his pants clean. Unless he takes up cupcake smearing. See figure 1.

Fig. 1

Father's Day Gift Ideas

This is the part in the blog where I take up space (and potentially your time) to promote my own bad self. How could I be such a jerk? Let me explain...

I've been working with The Esposo to try to juice up his online health insurance website in the eyes of the Google-bots. To do that, we have to generate lots of content outside of Medicoverage that links back to it. (Hence the two gratuitous links above). To add further confusion and to potentially also cross your eyes, one must additionally try to ensure that those outside links that link to Medicoverage, are also, um, linked to.

Anyway, one of my pen names is Katie Banks and I have written an article as Katie about Father's Day gift ideas. Check it out and, if you like it, vote it up (use the little green button on the bottom). In my own defense, the article might actually help you to plan a fun Father's Day for the Super Dad in your life. If not, um, ... I'll.. uh.... buy you a fudgesicle..?

12-Minute Mile

Peapod entered her first official race last weekend and it was ridiculously fun. I suppose it was technically The Edge's first race as well, since he was an official entrant, but it's hard to give the guy credit since he spent the entire race slumping in a jogging stroller, eating Peanut Butter Bumpers out of a snack trap.

(I'm breaking my "no pictures" rule because I like this one so much)


It was The Esposo's idea. Sometimes he has bad ideas. Like the potato that is currently growing as a science experiment in what used to be a really nice water carafe. But when he has good ideas, he really hits them out of the park. He got it in his head that he wanted to celebrate our dog's 16th birthday by taking her to an off-leash dog beach on Saturday and then running the "Dog Mile" in Santa Barbara's annual "State Street Mile" race on Sunday. So he built a weekend around it and sooner than you can jam a dog bed, a step stool, two kids, some sunscreen, an old dog, and two strollers into a Highlander, we were off.

The beach was fun, but the race was just about perfect. I got to pin a number on my daughter's shirt for the very first time, which was surreal and magical for this washed-up, aging former athlete. Then we got in line with a bunch of other Dads and Moms and kids and dogs. There were dogs everywhere. Fat ones and shaggy ones, hot dogs and costume-wearing dogs. Most were barking or howling except ours, because she is mostly deaf. Did I mention that she is 16?

Then the whistle blew and everyone took off like bats out of hell. Including Peapod, which took me by complete surprise and left me lurching behind the Baby Jogger to catch up. The Esposo is a former track athlete who ran this same race a few years back in 4:56. Yes sports fans, that's a sub-five-minute mile. I, myself, am not quite as fast (stop laughing, Big Brother). Fortunately for me, Peapod could not keep up the pace of insanity for long and ended up riding another two-tenths-of-a mile on The Esposo's shoulders while she caught her breath.

Around the half mile mark, our aging dog became an anvil on a leash. My pace in comparison became quite perky. But then at about 6-tenths-of-a-mile, when we had dropped to exactly dead last, something truly magical happened. People on the sidelines had begun to clap and cheer for Peapod as if she had just set a new land speed record. Back on her feet by then, she had picked up the pace and was proudly waving back to her new fans and yelling "Hello!" and "Hi guys!"

When I was about 10, I won the Class III (that's old gymnastics-speak for "mediocre level") State Beam Championships. I was not a fraction as proud then as I was watching my 3-and-a-half-year-old daughter soak in the applause of complete strangers as she ran a mile in 12:05 to finish in last place.

After the finish line, there were the requisite race sponsors handing out their freebie samples and giveaways. The Esposo explained to Peapod that the water bottle she got there was her prize for not giving up and for finishing the whole race. She fell asleep holding onto it in her car seat during the drive home, and an athlete was born. Well, at least, two aging, washed up former athlete parents can hope so.