If Fortune Cookies Had Dr. Seuss Quotes Inside

Thanks to the public school system, my kids know two birthdays: their own and Dr. Seuss's.

With Dr. Seuss's birthday coming up on March 2nd, (I know because my kids have been bringing home DIY Cat in the Hat-style top hats and Lorax word searches for a week and a half,) I thought it was a good time to rediscover some of our old favorites and find a few new ones I'd never read before.

(This is how I came across You're Only Old Once, which was definitely written for us old people to enjoy while our kids just look at the pictures and don't know what's going on.)

I was thinking as I read that some of the lines might make really good fortune cookies. What do you think of these?

Oh, be faithful! Believe in thy butter!
-The Butter Battle Book

It sure smells dreadful, does it not?

-Bartholomew and the Oobleck

Congratulations! Today is your day!
-Oh, The Places You'll Go

There is no one alive who is youer than you.
-Happy Birthday To You

If you're smart, there's a very good chance that you'll meet soon again with your socks, coat, and pants.
-You're Only Old Once

It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.
-The Cat in the Hat

You can think about Schlopp... beautiful Schlopp with a cherry on top.
-Oh, The Thinks You Can Think

There's homework to be done, Bub! So sit your pants down in that chair!
-Hunches in Bunches

There's hope, since you're not quite as deaf as a post.
-You're Only Old Once

Things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.
-Oh, The Places You'll Go

Your escape plans have melted! You haven't a chance.
-You're Only Old Once

"A king," they say, "should never walk on stilts."
-The King's Stilts

You are a stupid schlupp!
-Hunches in Bunches

Go back to your beds! Get under your blankets!
-Bartholomew and the Oobleck

What would you do if you met a Jiboo?
-Oh, The Thinks You Can Think

There might be no fish. But again, well, there might!
-McElligot's Pool

Your heads will quite likely spin right off your shoulders!
-If I Ran the Circus

Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.
-One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Up on top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.
-Yertle the Turtle

Are you by any chance seeking a small boy with no belt?
-The King's Stilts

Even kings can't rule the sky.

-Bartholomew and the Oobleck

What do you know about tweetle beetles?
-Fox in Socks

Funny things are everywhere.
-One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Everybody sometimes does it. Even me. And even you.
-Hunches in Bunches

You hear pretty well. You can hear ninety miles. But how far can you smell?
-The Big Brag

I'll let you know if I decide to open up an Etsy shop selling these things. You know how crafty I like to be.

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7 Quick Takes about Nutritious Cleaning Supplies, Taxpayer-Supported Zumba, and an Open Letter of Apology to El Niño

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

The wait is finally over! Gluten-free Windex is now available at a store near you... mmmmmm.

Can't wait to try it when I get home.

—2—

As their last hurrah before the kids had to go back to school on Monday (except for ours, most parts of the country have figured out that a week of vacation in the middle of February is useless to everyone) we went to the aquarium.

It was packed, and the trip essentially was just my 2-year-old yelling "Fish! Fish!" for 2.5 hours.

Well, imagine that. Another one!

As we passed the penguins, they turned on some sprinklers mounted on the rocks and all the penguins froze and enjoyed standing in the spray. They all looked pretty hilarious, particularly this guy:

Eyes closed, head leaned back... Yes, yes this is the life.

—3—

We also went on a hike, which is considerably more difficult than it sounds when you're hugely pregnant and the trail is hilly and covered in ice.

I think I'll decline to attend the next hike until the snow melts, but the kids had fun.

The preschooler got tired so Phillip became the human equivalent of a charter bus.

The kids' favorite part was stopping at a frozen-over pond (even though it was warm the ice was still solid enough to walk on) and stopping to clear the path of a stream that was clogged up with dead leaves.

I hope we didn't like, ruin the ecosystem by doing that.

—4—

On Tuesday we finally got to get rid of my son's class frog that we'd been watching at our house over the break. I couldn't wait to get that thing back, and I think the feeling was mutual.

I didn't think Kermit enjoyed staying with us, but now I have proof: I talked to another parent who had him over Christmas vacation, and she claims he kept them up all night with his loud croaking. Well, we had him for 10 days and he didn't make a single sound.

Actually, he did very little that led us to believe he wasn't dead. I knew he didn't like us.

—5—

Lately, we've been on an informal quest to show movies we remember fondly from our childhoods to our children. One of my favorites was Sister Act, which we watched together this week and it was even better than I remembered.

The kids loved that Professor McGonagall was in it.

As I went looking for an except from the movie on YouTube to put into this post, I came across what's most likely the strangest thing on the Internet.

Apparently there's a prison in the Philippines that teaches choreographed dance routines to the inmates as part of their rehabilitation, including one of the songs from Sister Act. I was literally unable to look away.


I can't quite explain how much I love watching the guy in the front because he is so into it. If you watch the video, even though there are 400 people all dressed in orange you'll know exactly who I mean. At 2:23 he makes you laugh until you cry, and then at 2:44 you die.

—6—

In sad news, Phillip went on a business trip and forgot his workout clothes and shoes. For most people that wouldn't be a big deal, and might possibly even be a cause for celebration, but for Phillip that's like forgetting to bring air to breathe. 

He was so bummed about it, but it's probably for the best since he's been having troubles with one of his knees. 

Maybe he can raise his spirits by going out for a company-paid-for dinner at absolutely any restaurant he wants and then going back to his hotel room that was cleaned by a maid while he was out and sleeping for an uninterrupted 8 hours. I've heard that's nice.

—7—

There have been a few really frigid days here this winter, but overall we've mostly been having the warmest weather ever. I went to an OB appointment in a T-shirt yesterday, if that's any indication of what I'm talking about.

All thanks to El Niño.


El Niño, I'm really sorry I got so impatient with you when you made us have such a brown, un-Christmasey Christmas. I love you. Usually by the end of February I'm twitching and talking to myself while wrapped in a huge blanket and crying because I have to go outside and buy food at some point.

This is beautiful.

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Reasons Never To Take The Class Pet Home on Vacation

Months ago, my son's 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. P, sent around a sign-up sheet for volunteers to take the class frog, Kermit, home over vacation breaks.

Clearly delirious, I thought, "This definitely sounds like something a good, involved mom would do!" and promptly signed my name in blood on the dotted line.

Before I'd really had a chance to think about what I'd done, we were trundling out of my son's classroom to our car with a huge heat lamp, a shoebox of extra bulbs and other amphibian accessories, and a big, heavy tank filled with a terrified American green tree frog and 13 nasty crickets hiding in the leaves.

If you're ever thinking about taking the class pet home, just know that it will be a terrible idea. Because...

1. You'll constantly be worrying about whether you killed it or not. 

I was bent over Kermit's tank 30-plus times a day checking to see if he was still breathing. I don't even do that with my newborn babies, you guys.

Nonstop I interrogated Phillip, as if he knew anything more than I did about frogs: "It's not moving. It hasn't moved today. Is it not supposed to move all day? Are their eyes supposed to be half-open when they're sleeping? The teacher said we'd need to feed him again on Tuesday but there are still lots of crickets in there. How much is he supposed to eat? Is he sick? How do you know if a frog is sick? Why isn't he eating?!?"

Neurotic? Yes. But what else was I supposed to do? What if I, in my zeal to be supermom, ended up murdering my son's pet?

2. Its food will totally gross you out. 

I didn't even think about the fact that it would be eating live crickets until I was in Mrs. P's classroom picking Kermit up, when it was already too late to run screaming from the room.

I could barely stand to grab the water dishes to refill them with fresh water because there were crickets near them, or on them. And it gets better — I had to drive to Petco to buy more midway through the week and then DRIVE HOME WITH THEM IN MY CAR.

Live bugs: The thing I least wanted to buy, ever.

I'm only mildly exaggerating when I say I needed to shower after I got home and then fight the urge to douse the car with gasoline and burn it.

I never even knew bugs creeped me out so much until this experience.

3. Let's talk more about its food — loose in your house. 

When I discovered a random cricket had gotten free from the tank somehow, a noise escaped my mouth that I don't think I've even made in labor. (It was only then that my son chose to tell me, "Yeah, that happens all the time in my class.")

WHAAAAAT?!?

I was jumping around screaming "Kill it! Kill it!" and Phillip smashed it with a decorative wooden block on our desk that said "Family." As in, if you start hopping around my house with your creepy roving antennae and your beady bug eyes, our family will destroy you. And we will like it.

4. Your other kids will terrorize it. 

Aside from my worries about our very curious 2-year-old figuring out how to open the cage, I had to remind the other kids constantly not to tap on the glass.

I was convinced that the stress of this combined with the noise would definitely cause the poor frog to die (see #1.)

5. You will remember why you don't own a pet, or even any live plants, for that matter. 

I never wanted to take Kermit home. I only did it because I wanted to create lasting warm fuzzy childhood memories for my son. For him one day to remember that his mom did fun things like let the class frog stay at their house for the week.

Call me heartless, but I'm just not a pet person. And even if I were, we would definitely not be getting a frog. There's the gross factor, which I've already covered. They're expensive (six crickets, a week's worth of food, cost $1.22 which means I'd be shelling out over $60 a year to feed the thing.) And most of all, they're boring. It was like Mardi Gras for my kids every time Kermit moved an inch and a half, because he typically just sat there all day appearing to be dead.

So I was basically cleaning out his stinky water dishes and getting the heebie-jeebies from all the crickets staring at me all week for my own enjoyment.


In short, I was relieved to get Kermit back to Mrs. P at the end of the week. I think he may have even been more anxious to get out of here:

If a frog can look distressed, this is probably it.

Incidentally, on the way back to school to drop Kermit off, I asked my son, "So did you like having Kermit at our house over the break?"

He shrugged at me and said, "I didn't really care."

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"In Me Ye Shall Have Peace" and Other Scriptures I'm Bad At

One thing about being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — and this can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you ask — is that we don't have a pastor who gives a sermon every Sunday. All the talks are given by different members of the congregation, who are assigned and given a topic in advance.

Last week it was my turn.

Unfortunately, I'm never asked to speak on a topic I'm particularly good at, which makes it considerably more difficult to prepare a talk.

I was asked to structure a talk around John 16:33, which says, "...in me ye might have peace..."

I've been feeling overwhelmed and worried about a lot of things lately and to be honest, haven't felt an especially deep or abiding sense of peace. In fact, when I was asked to give this talk, I may or may not have accepted and then went to my room and cried.

Over the next week, I had a chance to reflect on why that is.

If I had to give you a mental picture of what the inside of my head looks like, it would be a hamster on a wheel. But the hamster is crazy. He's just inhaled a dozen Pixy Stix and he doesn't know when to quit.

I've learned by experience that when I get obsessed with other things, life happenings, goals, and ambitions that I'm by nature less focused on Christ and that little things then steal my peace.

When that happens, my feeling of peace is pretty dependent on things going well. I can cruise along pretty happily but then someone gets sick or there's trouble at school or I forget to do an important task or Phillip has a crappy week at work, and all the wheels fall off. I get upset about it and probably know deep down that I need to just slow down, but that crazy hamster starts up again before long and I forget about it.

As I've thought about it, I've come to feel that the key to peace is being still.

And I'm terrible at that.

I like to fill up every spare moment with something. I don't like to be early for appointments because just sitting there doing nothing is the worst thing I could imagine. I'd rather be late (and usually, I am.) Ironically, I'm actually typing this in the bathroom because heaven forbid I'd be idle for a few minutes.

In preparation for my talk, I read a story related by D. Todd Christofferson, an apostle of my church, about a man who at first approached prayer as a checklist of items to say, ask, thank, or talk with God about. But over time he came to see it as an opportunity to just stil still and feel the peace of the Lord like the warmth of a fire. Elder Christofferson says:

"I think that is a lovely metaphor - just sit with the Lord and let Him warm you like a fire in winter. You don't have to be perfect or the greatest person who ever graced the earth or the best of anything to be with Him."

The Savior is willing to grant us peace and He doesn't require anything of us but our time.

Oh, but that's a two-edged sword for me, because that is NOT my strength. My strength is checklists and multitasking and getting things productively accomplished, not being still and just spending time with the Lord with absolutely no agenda, just letting the Spirit warm me.

That's the price of peace, though: being willing to give the Lord our focus and just let our minds be still.

If someone previously were to say the above sentence to me, my eyes would have rolled out of my head and onto the floor. Have you seen my life? Do you know what I do all day? When am I supposed to be still: when I'm up at 2 A.M. changing wet sheets, or while I'm trying to cook dinner and help three kids with their homework with a crying baby on my hip? What does that even mean, anyway?

Even though I've got a crazy life (as does everyone reading this, I know) I've found that some of the following are times I can let my mind be still:

• For a few minutes after I wake up in the morning (a good time to pray)
• When I'm driving the car and no one is fighting in the back (do I mentally go over my to-do list, or just chill and self-reflect until we get there?)
• When I'm deciding what to do right now (does that to-do item really need to be done right now, or should I just sit down for a minute?)
• Those pockets of time when I jump online and check my email because I've got 3 minutes to kill
• For a few minutes before I go to bed at night (unfortunately this requires going to bed at a relatively decent hour which I'm also really bad at)

When we're willing to let our minds be still sometimes, I'm beginning to find that we can have peace even when things aren't going well around us. 

The scripture I was given as my topic (John 16: 33) was said by Jesus just before He was about to be betrayed and arrested in Gethsemane. He was warning the apostles about what was going to happen. He told them,

"These things have I spoken unto you, that in my yet might have peace. In the world, ye shall ave tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

Peace in the middle of turmoil is kind of an elusive concept to me (it's one of those things where I go, "Oh, I get it" as I'm reading but then later forget exactly how that's supposed to work and I have to go back and read it again), but it all goes back to just being willing to be still and let the Spirit warm you.

In college, I had a roommate named Melinda who was struggling with a big life decision. I knew it was something she'd been thinking a lot about and praying about for quite a while, and quite frankly I was deadly curious about what in the world she was going to do.

One day Melinda told me, "Well, I got my answer."

"What was it?" I asked.

She took a deep breath and then quoted, "'Be still, and know that I am God.'" (Psalms 46: 10, Doctrine & Covenants 101: 16.)

And that was it. She wasn't told to do A or B or even given an entirely new option she hadn't thought of before. A message about peace jumped out of the scriptures at her, and that was her answer.

It turned out that later down the road, the right solution just became really obvious, but for the time being she was just given the gift of peace on the matter. I suppose that was what she needed most at that moment, even if it's not exactly what she was looking for.

Real peace comes not from everything going right, but from knowing that Christ knows who we are.

It doesn't come from doing everything right, but trusting that God will make everything right in the end.

It's less about ticking items off a list and more about being willing to be still and focus on the Savior and His purpose for our life. If we can do that, I'm confident that in Him, we can find peace.

Even me.

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7 Quick Takes about Cow Riding, Smoothies of Sadness, and Becoming the Crazy Lady Who Follows People in Parking Lots

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday!

—1—

I seriously recommend buying this {affiliate link} ride-on bouncy cow even if you don't have children, just because having it in your house will make you smile.

Really, it is so stinking cute, and I think its presence makes us all feel good. As evidence, I overheard my 4-year-old singing, "If you're happy and you know it, kick a cow!" and booting it across the living room.

—2—

One thing I love about having a preschooler is the questions. Oh, the questions.

My daughter pointed out a graveyard on our way to a picture appointment for my son and asked "What's a graveyard for?"

"When people die, we bury their bodies in graveyards," I answered.

"How do the dead bodies get to the graveyards?"

Good question, I thought. "We put the bodies in a big box called a coffin, put the coffin in a car, and drive it to the graveyard."

"Oh." After a long pause, she said, "I don't know much about dead bodies. I've never been dead before."

—3—

While school is out for a week of February vacation, we're the temporary stewards of Kermit, my son's class frog.

I'm spending this entire week terrified that he's going to die on my watch, and it turns out that pet frogs aren't even that interesting. At least this one isn't. I've seen him move like three times.

The crickets he eats also really creep me out. One cricket buckled under the stress the first night and committed suicide by drowning himself in Kermit's water bowl. The kids were very sad but I drew the line at burying him (see take #5 at this post if you want to know how I feel about that.)

—4—

I drank this.

Ingredients: kale, chard, and crushed dreams.

Phillip has been listening to this podcast on his way home from work by some guy who ends every episode with "Peace. Plants." And I think that's all you need to know about the content of it.

Anyway, he decided to whip up these green smoothies and make invite everyone in the family to have some.

Three kids said they weren't interested, one loved it, the other started dry heaving, and I just thought it tasted weird.

—5—

Because I'm next in line to become Martha freaking Stewart, I made little heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast on Valentine's Day.

Please note the mud smoothie on the side.

After taking this picture, I realized the knife and fork weren't placed correctly, so scratch that Martha Stewart stuff I was saying before. Actually, you should just be grateful it wasn't a paper plate.

My mom was also here for a visit and brought the kids the cutest little heart-shaped chocolate boxes I've ever seen.

The downside of a box this small is that I couldn't figure out how to eat half of the chocolates without my kids noticing.

—6—

There was a 50% off President's Day Sale at Savers, my new favorite store for the kids' clothes, so I thought I'd go in and see if I could find some good deals.

The parking lot was so full I had to stalk a lady leaving the store in order to find a spot, and it turns out the lady herself had parked at the lot of the store next door... making for an awkward 5 minutes as I trailed her all the way over there at .02 miles per hour trying to look casual about it.

Found 4 winter coats for $4 each and a bunch of shirts and PJ pants for $1, though, so I'd do it all again if I had to.

—7—

While my mom was here we went on a walk and came across this sign posted in a neighborhood:

I guess "Alert Children" is the more PC version of the "Slow Children" signs, which I always thought came across as more of an insult to the neighborhood kids than anything else:

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5 Common Sayings I Don't Get

In general, I have to say that I have a deep love and respect for the English language because it's what I spent thousands of dollars on majored in when I was in college.

And I do, really. But there are many parts of the English language that I just don't understand. Such as when people say the following phrases to me:

1. "It's always in the last place you look."

Uh, yeah it is. Literally every time I'm looking for something, I stop after looking in the place where I find it. So weird.

I just can't trust a phrase that poses as a witty truism when really, it's nothing more than a benign observation.

2. "Better is the enemy of good enough."

Phillip says this to me all the time when I'm tweaking a project. I think he says it just to bug me.

Because the obvious answer to that is, "No silly, it's the other way around: Good enough is the enemy of better. Every perfectionist knows that."

3. "Don't worry about the dishes and the laundry, they'll still be there tomorrow."

Dear person saying this to me: I believe you're confused about the reason behind my anxiety.

On the surface I may appear to be distressed about the very real possibility that my housework will evaporate overnight, but that isn't actually so.

I'm afraid that my family is in serious danger of being buried underneath piles of filthy plates and/or clothes so high they collapsed beneath their own weight, and that no survivors will ever be found.

But thank you for trying to comfort me, anyway. I appreciate the sentiment.

4. "Bob's your uncle." 

What the heck does this even mean? I've never heard a real person say it out loud before, under any circumstances, probably because nobody else knows what it means, either.

Phillip has started using it as you might use a curse word, just for fun, and the best part is that nobody can correct him.

5. "There's more than one way to skin a cat." 

Who skins cats? And why? What kind of a weirdo does this, and especially why would he invent more than one method?

Also, just practically speaking, isn't there only one way, which is removing the skin? Clearly I've thought about this one way too much. I need a shower.

And those are the five English language phrases that make my face go like this:

What common sayings don't you get?

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It's Official... I'm an M.O.M.

As a mom of 5, almost 6, I'm used to shocked stares and not-so-subtle attempts to count heads when I take my kids out in public.

Recently, Christina over at Hands Full and Loving It asked if she could interview me for her blog's "Meet a M.O.M." (mother of many) series. And while I'm used to fielding that scandalized "How do you do it?!?" question in line at the bank (which is often just a more polite way to tell a complete stranger you think she's lost her mind,) Christina's questions were much more fun to answer.

I first stumbled upon Christina's blog when I was looking for encouragement after getting some not-so-nice comments about my family size. Didn't anybody have something good to say about big families? Google directed me (love you, Google) to a lovely article called Our Collective Memory Loss, and since then Hands Full and Loving It has been a favorite of mine.

No matter how many kids you've got, join me at Hands Full and Loving It today where I'll be talking about marriage, parenting, juggling a houseful of people, and recommending some books by people who probably have it together more than I do.

Click through to read my Meet a M.O.M. interview!

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7 Quick Takes about Being Really Annoying to Play Board Games With, Losing Your Son in a Snowdrift, and Robots You Do Not Want To Mess With

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday!

—1—

Over the weekend we had some friends over for pizza and a game night. And by "game night" I mean we mostly yelled at our kids to keep it down while they were running around with each other upstairs like lunatics.

We were able to ignore them stampeding around like wild horses long enough to play one game, and I realized that after years of having to remind my kids "It's your turn" every single time play gets to them, I realized that other adults now have to do that to me.

Irony is a cruel master sometimes.

—2—

I didn't watch any of the Superbowl and actually, as I'm writing this, it occurs to me that I'm not entirely sure who even won, but I've seen a few of the commercials that aired during the Superbowl and they were... super weird.

Strange:



Do you think any of the 2008 babies had a clue what they were singing about?

Stranger and strangest:



The only sense I could make out of this commercial is that maybe the world is running out of hashtags so they just had to smash some random nouns together and run with it.

—3—

I actually enjoyed the mega-long weekend we had due to some snow days earlier in the week (despite what this post might have to say about that.)

The first snow we got was 9¾" of wet, sticky snow that coated every branch of the trees and looked so pretty I almost crashed my car gawking.

The snow was so heavy it was bending down some of the skinnier trees in our back yard. (See those fat shiny flakes falling in the picture?)

The view from our backyard looking up.

—4—

The second snow was an entirely different kind: the powdery, dry stuff that parents like because it's easier to shovel but isn't quite as fun for kids.

A few years ago we got several feet of similar stuff in a blizzard and I convinced my son it would be fun if he let me pick him up and throw him in... however I didn't think through that it was so powdery it would end up exactly like this, but with crying:


It's now become his earliest childhood memory, one with which he'll be regaling his therapist as an adult for years, I'm sure.

—5—

Once school resumed again, one of our kids decided to amuse themselves while waiting for the bus.

I guess they're glad I'm not the kind of parent who waits at the bus stop with them... I wonder what other kinds of things they're doing out there that I don't know about?

—6—

Kids are weird. They're great, but they're also weird.

As I was doing the homework/dinner prep/crabby post-toddler-nap tango we do every afternoon, this exchange happened:

Son: Mom, there's something orange on my shirt and I don't know what it is.
Me: [looks up to see him licking his sleeve]

And then not 5 minutes later:

Daughter: This floor is REALLY dirty! (Said while lying on the dining room floor as if about to make a snow angel out of crumbs.)

And that concludes this week's installment of "Kids are Weird."

—7—

And lastly, this picture of a robot holding a light saber:

Just look at those eyebrows without laughing, I dare you.

Just because.

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An Ode to the Friend Who Lent Me Some Stylish Maternity Clothes (For A Change)

I don't like to spend money on anything, generally speaking, and so it stands to reason that I'd continue on my cheapskate ways when it comes to maternity clothes.

I'd always thought, "I don't want to spend a lot on maternity clothes because you only wear them for such a short time." But had I realized that wearing them for 6 months or so of pregnancy, plus 6-12 months afterward, times 6 for all 6 of my full-term pregnancies... and actually, I've probably worn my maternity clothes more than I've worn my regular clothes over the last decade.

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

Anyway, that's how I ended up with a pitifully small maternity wardrobe. I store it all (summer and winter stuff) in one of those enormous diaper boxes from Costco, if it gives you any idea.

The day I brought that box up from the basement, my heart sank. I pulled the tired old clothes out and hung them up in my closet and thought sadly, "That's it, Self. That's all you're going to be wearing for the next year."

Not only is it small, it's painfully outdated. Most of my maternity clothes date back to my first pregnancy in 2004. They weren't as bad as the shapeless maternity tents that my mother and her friends had to wear, but... close.

This was before the invention of that wonderful stretchy lycra material that pulls up nice and snug over your belly, so I still have (some) maternity pants with the ugliest, bunchiest drawstring waist you will ever see.

Wearing these, I feel as attractive as Danny DeVito when he played the Penguin in Batman Returns. Which is not very.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when my friend Katy graciously allowed me to rifle through her stash of maternity clothes and borrow whatever fit.

Not only did she double the size of my maternity wardrobe, she has the most wonderfully stylish stuff. So goodbye, bunchy waistbands! It's the back of the closet for you.

Just take a look at some of these:

I wore this to church the other week. The cardigan and shoes are mine (and believe me, becoming the owner of a pair of stylish ballet flats was a shocking development in itself,) but the skirt and shirt are Katy's.

Bonus: my toddler sat still on my lap during the entire service saying "Ball!" and pointing out all the little beads on the front of the shirt.

I'm still not entirely sure horizontal stripes are the right decision for someone the size and shape of a small planet, but I think this sweater is awesome:

Favorite feature: Does not scream "I was purchased over a decade ago!"

I've always been scared to purchase one of these baggy-sleeved garments in what I call "a flying squirrel cut" (which I just Googled and it's actually called a Dolman sleeve.) But I know they're all over the place right now and guess what? I love this sweater.

Flying squirrels, unite!

Those are just a few of the wonderful things in the magical box Katy lent to me. I haven't even worn my old stuff because I'm loving hers so much.

I realize I'm sort of starting to sound like the plot of Single White Female, so I think I'll just end it here by saying: thanks, Katy. From the bottom of my rapidly expanding belly.

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20 Things To Do When You're Trapped Indoors with Tiny Humans

Whether it's because of snow days, finding yourself without a car, being quarantined, or that ridiculous February break my kids have from school, a houseful of stir-crazy kids is a disaster waiting to happen.

Here are 20 things you can do indoors on days when you're all cooped up and ready to go nuts.

1. Suggest 50+ things to do while your kids shoot all of them down.
2. Let them play games on your phone until even they're sick of it.
3. Explain 150 times why you can't go to the park today.
4. Ask them to help you clean the bathroom, ensuring that you get 15 minutes of uninterrupted time to yourself.
5. Politely decline their requests to watch a show on the iPad every 7 minutes. All day long.
6. Search the fridge for some cheese to go with that whine.
7. Look at the clock and calculate how many hours, minutes, and seconds until bedtime.
8. Start narrating your kids' fights in your best WWE announcer voice instead of trying to break them up.
9. Cry.
10. Surf the Internet for ideas of fun things to do while your kids wail and rend their garments in boredom.
11. Play "Hobbits" and have four snacks between each meal.
12. Clean up a ridiculously messy activity you found on Pinterest that your kids lost interest in after 6 minutes.
13. Repeatedly warn your son that it's not a good idea to practice parkour on the sofa.
14. Console him after bouncing off the sofa and doing a face plant on the coffee table.
15. Discover all the things the kids have destroyed around the house and not told you about.
16. Lead the children in a choral reading of Lord of the Flies.
17. Text your spouse every 5-10 minutes to see when they're coming home.
18. Settle sibling disputes by yelling from inside the bathroom.
19. Ask rhetorical questions like "How did this get broken?" "Who didn't flush the toilet?" and "Why doesn't anyone around here listen to me anymore?"
20. Throw the last cookie on the table and pretend you're an ancient Roman watching the gladiator games at the Colosseum.

My apologies if you came here from Pinterest seeking helpful ideas. Good luck to you, you're going to need it.

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