Curly Straight

I swear, music makes a big difference.

If I wasn't playing Pandora kids music right now (Ain't It Great to be Crazy station), the kids would be going absolutely nuts.

It distracts them somehow and makes them play much more nicely together.

Thanks Pandora Radio.

First mistake of 2011. Just made.

TJ absolutely HATES me cutting his toenails, otherwise known as The End of the World. It involves screaming and crying and punishment and bribes. Nothing works. But the deal is that I absolutely HATE long toenails and fingernails on guys. I find them disgusting. If they are dirty, even worse.

So I googled "disgusting toenails" to show to him.

Not a good idea. Not a good idea at all.

Although he is going to get me the toenail clippers right now. Allegedly.

Mama: Come here, Julia, my little princess, let me help you.

Julia: I'm NOT a little princess.

Mama: Oh, you're not?

Julia: No! I'm a big princess.

Mama: Really? You are?

Julia: No! I'm a big bulldozer.

Mama: You are? You are a bulldozer?

Julia: Yes. I am a bulldozer.

TJ: Why does the word "shampoo" have the word poo in it?

Mama: I don't know, that's a good question.

TJ: Daddy's a genius so we should ask Daddy.

Julia, yelling from her crib at bedtime: Get me outta herrrreeee!

TJ calls the Angry Birds game Mad Chickens.

TJ: I wonder why Daddy's dreams keep on coming true, like Tinkerbell's.

Mama: What dreams, what do you mean?

TJ: Remember when Daddy had the cold bacon and you said "your dream came true..."?

Mama: Aaaahhh.

Editor's note: It was a bacon bloody mary at Harry's in Providence. Made with bacon-infused vodka and garnished with a piece of bacon.

Something about running on an Air Force base brings me such joy.

It's a lovely, happy feeling I can't really explain and may have something to do with the wide open skies.

Or maybe the general feeling of peacefulness and safeness I feel, because I feel somewhat protected when on a base. It's good. It's really really good. It's a nice memory of my time spent.

I, as many people do, have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.

The latest issue I have is being able to click through everyone's photos.

I just looked at a high school reunion and I felt almost guilty, in a way, as though I was invading privacy. I know they are on the internet, so they are there for people to look at.

But for some reason, it just doesn't seem right. Maybe people don't know that their privacy settings allow people to look at their photos, often times people have everything on lock down, yet their photos are still available for viewing.

I liked it better when people would print out photos and show them to you the next time they see you.

Now it's just on our phones, which is fine, too, although I have to scroll through all my pictures just to find that funny video or that perfect picture of the kids.

Julia loves her some warm chocolate milk.

If you ask her if she wants milk, she says "NO! I want warmchocolatemilk." All one word.

So it needs to be heated. If it's not heated in a glass in the microwave for 2 minutes, she gives it back to you. "It's not warmchocolatemilk."

John and I are pretty sure that the chocolate doesn't even have to be an ingredient in the warmchocolate milk.

I am trying to teach her to enunciate her words. One night she was yelling at the top of her lungs to me: I want WARM. CHOCOLATE. MILK!

If it's milk that she is done with, she catapults the sippy cup into the sink.

If it's milk that she put down, but still has some in it, if you give it back to her, she says "no, that's old milk" and won't drink it.

So cute and such a lovey dove.

Training completed. Crossing my fingers that the plane doesn't break again on the way home.

Texas is not warm in January.