7 Quick Takes about a Not-So-Elaborate Announcement, How to Be a Hillbilly, and the Real Reason I'm Always Late

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! Summing up the last 7 days in 7 quick takes. How was your week?

—1—

Big news, guys. Here's the email I sent Phillip at work to tell him about it:

World's smallest pregnancy test, bought at Dollar Tree.
Readers on my blog's Facebook page assured me they were accurate. Thanks, guys!

We're expecting #6! 

(Phillip did email me back to say that "it was upside-down," which actually isn't true. I'm not sure why the control stripe on top is fainter than the test stripe below it. I guess I am just SUPER pregnant.)

—2—

As I typed Phillip's email, all the elaborate "pregnancy reveal" ideas floating around Pinterest and the Internet in general went through my head.

It made me laugh because Phillip is so chill about everything that putting effort into any type of reveal for him would be a hilarious waste of time.

I could take him out for dinner and secretly hire the waitstaff to perform a musical number I'd written and choreographed months beforehand that ended with an explosion of confetti and the words "WE'RE PREGNANT!" spelled out in flatware from the kitchen, and he'd be like, "That's great! I think I'll have the grilled salmon."

Engineers are stable folk, and that's one reason I love Phillip. He keeps me grounded.

—3—

My 6th grader has always been artistically-minded, and lately in school they've been talking about something called "foreshortening." It makes a flat drawing look 3-D from a certain perspective.

Here are some cool examples:


Inspired, she went outside with some sidewalk chalk and made this cool "splash" in the driveway.

I think she's on her way.

—4—

Phillip is always experimenting in the kitchen and going on food jags of one kind or another. Lately he's been mixing up some kind of lemonade-like drink every night after the kids go to bed and sipping it as he works overtime on engineer-y stuff.

I give him a hard time about it because he shakes it all up in a quart-sized mason jar and drinks it right out of the jar. I call it his hillbilly juice.

Yeee-hawww!

—5—

What would you say if your preschooler came to you with this and asked, "Do you know what this picture is?"

Preschool pictionary: the game where nobody ever wins.

Usually I sidestep the question with a Mr. Rogers-like statement: "It looks like you worked hard on this. Can you tell me about it?"

But no, she wanted me to guess what it was.

"Okay..." I said, exhaling for a long time. "A caterpillar? A laser gun? A block of charming San Francisco row houses with a big satellite dish at the end?"

All wrong.

"What is it, then?"

"I don't know," she replied, and skipped away.

She set me up!

—6—

I'm always late, and it's partly a conscious decision. I actually dread getting somewhere early and then having time to kill, especially when I've got little kids in tow.

Except every now and then when I decide, "Let's go early so we're not rushed." Like Thursday at the doctor. My toddler, preschooler, and I arrived nearly 25 minutes early!

I sauntered up to the receptionist's desk, feeling excessively proud of myself, and was notified that the doctor was running a half-hour behind.

The universe is reinforcing my bad behavior.

Over the next 50 minutes, my toddler and preschooler and I took walks in the hallway. We read books, made commentary on what was outside the window, and ate snacks out of my purse.

All the time I was desperately hoping that no one in the waiting room would say THE WORST THING anyone can possibly say in that situation.

And then some well-meaning soul went ahead and did it: "Your kids are being so good!"

Practically before she could finish her sentence, my son threw himself on the floor like he was at a Pentecostal revival, kicked and screamed his way under a chair, and had a convulsive fit over a water bottle.

This is why I'm never, ever early.

—7—

As I write this, the kids are repeatedly asking Siri, "What does the fox say?" and laughing at her answers.

What did my children do before they could badger an inanimate being with the same nonsense question over and over?

Oh that's right, they badgered me. Well, maybe technology isn't so bad after all.

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