Yearly Archives: 2010

Screen time

He immediately rejected ‘The Nice Marmots’

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Have I ever told you about my sister-in-law’s bowling skillz? Well let me tell you: She has ’em. She bowled for Michigan State’s bowling team. I believe she’s bowled very, very close to a 300. Her dad has ten 300s and is Bowling Ballin their local bowling hall of fame. Her family gave my brother a bowling ball and bowling shoes for Christmas one of the first years he and Carrie were together.

So it’s not terribly surprising that my brother and sister-in-law are in a bowling league. What is surprising is that they don’t already have a totally awesome name for their team. A quick Googling tells us that the world of bowling team names is rife with puns. Which means, of course, that I was thrilled when my brother asked me to help him come up with a new team name and a T-shirt design for his bowling team.

Sadly, he didn’t know what I was talking about when I suggested “The Nice Marmots,” and there are already a few great T-shirts with the “Little Lebowski Urban Achievers” theme. But here’s what I came up with:

Bowling shirts

A. The Bowlers.
Simple, elegant and would require the wearing of a hat to every match.

B. Catan: Anchors and Crankers.
These kids loved “Settlers of Catan.” The game has a bunch of “Catan: This and That” variations, so I looked up some bowling terms and added them. So that’s what that’s all about.

C. Strike-o-saurus! This one makes me laugh. It’s currently my desktop.

My brother can’t decide which one he likes best, so I’m bringing it to you, Internet. Please find the poll over in the sidebar and vote!

Flotsam / Jetsam

It’s been that kind of day

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Our futon had a run-in with a vomiting toddler* last night, so this morning I had to put the freshly laundered cover back on it. This isn’t the easiest thing to do solo, but it isn’t insurmountable. I’d finished wrestling it about, and I was about 2 inches away from having it fully zipped. And the zipper pull? Rather than stopping at the end of the zipper mechanism? It shot straight off. And I couldn’t figure out how to put it back on, so I guess we’ll just have to leave the cover on forever.

This means that, toddlers? The futon is now a no-puking zone. Thank you.

Also this morning: I told Poppy she’d need to wear long sleeves, because it’s kind of chilly this morning.

“I’m through with this!” she said.

“Through with what?” I asked.

“Through with you telling me what to wear.”

Apparently she turned 14 last night.

*Not Pete! It was the little girl who stays with us during the day. She stayed home for two days, trying to avoid the sick, but apparently it didn’t work.

Family matters

Does it count as a ‘date’ if it’s unplanned?

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5/52
Project 52: Date Nights logo

  • The person whose turn it was to plan the date forgetting to do so.
  • A sickish toddler.

    • We can look at this weekend’s “date” one of two ways. The first would be: It didn’t happen, because we were supposed to go out of town, Petey was having a volatile stomach, we changed our plans and I forgot to make a new plan. Or you could say: Things didn’t go as scheduled, but we had a nice weekend despite that.

    I’m going to go with the second of the two options.

    So, as I said, we were supposed to make a family trip out of town. About an hour before we were going to leave, though, Pete started throwing up. No fever or anything, but he definitely wasn’t feeling great. We nixed our plans, and he spent most of the day lounging in bed watching cartoons. (Two-year-olds who will do this are rare and most likely ill.) That evening, some friends came over and we played some board games after the kids were asleep.

    The rest of the weekend was more of the same: No fever, cheerful disposition, little appetite and a hard time keeping things down for the littlest fella.* So we spent a lot of time at home and, on Saturday evening, watched “Dan in Real Life.” It’s been on our Netflix queue for years, I think, and I wish we’d left it there. It was awful. After that, we watched “Dune,” because Rockford said he needed to wash “Dan in Real Life” away.

    I’m not sure we really had a “date night” this week, but we had a nice weekend despite that and the evening upchuckeries.

    * But only, weirdly, in the evenings. Any insight into this would be appreciated. He was looking a little puny on Saturday at dinner, and I asked him if everything was OK. He said, “Mommy, I don’t want to throw.” But he did. He was still having his whatever-this-is last night. We’re going to take him to the doctor tomorrow morning if he “throws” again today.