Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Kendra got this outfit for her birthday (along with many other cute ones that I will probably need to post pictures of eventually. Consider yourself warned;) so I’ve been putting her in it as much as possible before March 17th…! Gotta love a chance to celebrate my Irish heritage!



Doesn't she just look like she should be saying something like, "Here's looking at you, kid."???

And I couldn't resist-- Bottom's up!

Uh-Oh!

Kendra finally has a first word! And if you read the title of this post, you probably already figured it out, but yes, the word is, “Uh oh.” (As my Dad pointed out, that’s two words!) The funny thing is that now that she’s mastered this word, she keeps trying to find ways to use it. I guess if I only had one word in my vocabulary I’d do the same thing (what is that story about how if you give a little boy a hammer, you’ll be amazed at how many things there are out there that need hammering?). Anyway, her favorite is just knocking anything over and yelling “Uh oh, UH OH!” But she also drops things off her high chair tray, and then at church on Sunday she slid slowly off my lap proclaiming “Uh oh” the entire way down. So she’s having fun with it!

Finishing Touches

Are you completely bored from hearing about my living room yet? I thought I was done telling you about it, but then we put up curtains and I was so surprised at what a difference it made in the room! Having never once bought curtains in our entire lives, neither Craig nor I was prepared for how much we would love them. So I have to show you just one more picture of our living room. The funny thing was that I bought a set of red curtains and a set of beige, just so I could see how they both looked. Wow, nothing says “boring” like curtains that blend in perfectly with the wall! So red was the very obvious choice—and I sure love Target’s easy return policy!

Bentley-Talk

The first thing about Bentley’s speaking these days, is that he suddenly is asking “Why” about everything. I’m not sure if he even understands what he’s asking or if it’s just fun to say because it keeps Mommy talking to him instead of doing other things. My favorite is when he asks why about something I’ve just said that he likes to do. Then I get to respond, “I don’t know. Why do you like doing that???” That usually stumps him!

The other day we were singing songs from nursery together. He likes all the usual ones—“Do as I’m Doing,” “The Wise Man Built His House upon the Rock,” etc. But my favorite that he sings is, “Icky Fidah! Icky Fidah!” (For those of you not sure, that’s “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Obviously.)

Recently when Bentley got hurt, I asked him if I should sing “Baby Mine” from Disney’s Dumbo to him. He said, “No. Baby song.” I explained to him that it was actually his song before it was ever the baby’s song, that I used to sing it to him when he was a tiny baby and couldn’t sleep (not that that ever seemed to help, but I tried). And now he suddenly loves it! He’ll ask me to sing it and then say, “Tiny Baby. No sleep!” I guess it's better to be appreciated late than not at all!

And last but not least, the other day we were eating pizza for dinner when Craig decided to casually lean back in his chair. Bentley frantically began to speak, realized he couldn’t with the big bite of pizza in his mouth, spit out the pizza and then hurriedly warned Craig, “Daddy! No fall down!” He looks out for his Daddy!

Kendra and Chocolate

For those of you who were sad that you couldn’t be here to watch Kendra eat her first cupcake(s), here are a couple pictures to help you visualize it better… She actually had two parties, one with Grandma and Grandpa Smith, and one with our neighbors and friends from church, so that’s why the two messes are so different, and why she’s wearing different clothes.

Bentley benefits from his sister's birthday. Is it just me or does this look like a really bad goatee???




Just for comparison’s sake, I’m tossing in one of Bentley on his first birthday—I guess they look a little alike!

Ah, nothing like chocolate smeared into one's eyes to really soothe the soul...!

New Experiences

Just now as I was driving to the library, a rather startling thing happened! The library is maybe a half a mile from my home, but Manassas has managed to pack a whopping seven traffic lights into that half mile, so it can be frustrating and slow trying to drive that short distance. The busiest intersection is crossing Sudley Road, the main road through Manassas (as anyone who has ever been here can tell you). So I'm waiting to cross Sudley and suddenly an ambulance pulls up behind me with its sirens blaring and proceeds to honk at me! I was sandwiched between two other cars and the light was very red, so I wasn't really sure what to do about this. So I turned on my blinker and began nosing my way to the right, mostly as a token effort to show the ambulance that I was fully aware that I was in their way and as soon as the light changed I would do everything in my power to remedy the situation. As it turned out, the car next to me gradually pulled forward and to the right, effectively stopping the on-coming traffic (who also gradually noticed the ambulance) so I was able to follow that car and the ambulance finally got around me. Which left me in the middle of the intersection! So I did the only logical thing, which is to just drive through it before the oncoming traffic could start moving again.

Who slowly runs a red light crossing Sudley?!?!?!?!?!

The only thing that can compete with that for weirdness is the time I was coming home from the grocery store and Kendra started crying because she was hungry. I promised her that the second we hit a red light I'd give her some Goldfish crackers (still a staple in my home), so-- you guessed it!-- we hit all green lights the entire way home. It must have been at least ten of them, all of which are usually red.

Traffic lights are weird. I miss Bainbridge Island.

Just In Case...

Alright, so if you missed it, I was on the air! For, yeah, maybe five seconds. I said one sentence. But if you want to check it out, here's the link:


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/

And click on "Some Find Silver Lining in Dark Economic Cloud."

I should mention, also-- I was embarrassed to discover that I wasn't interviewed by Jim Lehrer at all, but rather by one of his correspondence reporters, Paul Solman. Oops! Can it still be cool, anyway?

Abandoned

A few weeks ago, I was doing my grocery shopping at SuperTarget with the kids. Now, I hate to admit it, but usually I try to get my grocery shopping done in the morning, which means I usually have not yet taken a shower. (Showering doesn’t happen until children, or at least one child, is napping, later in the morning.) So we'll set the stage by explaining that I’m not usually looking my best at Target.

So we’re strolling along and I’m grabbing food and tossing it into the cart while simultaneously trying to read my shopping list and keep the kids from grabbing food, poking each other, dropping anything important such as binkies and teddies, etc., etc. It’s a bit chaotic, to say the least. And Bentley and I usually keep a dialogue running throughout. So this time, he suddenly announces (with a hint of wonder in his voice), “Daddy... run away.” I look around in embarrassment wondering who has overheard this statement and quickly try to correct him, “No, no, Daddy didn’t run away! Daddy just had to go to work! Daddies do that sometimes.” But he must have caught onto the panic in my voice, because after that he continued to insist that Daddy had Run Away. And all I could do was stand there wondering how many people were looking at me and secretly not blaming Craig a bit for running away from this poor unhygienic woman! Maybe it’s time I started showering before the kids woke up…

Spring

At the beginning of February we had some unexpectedly good weather. While Craig seized the opportunity to wander around our yard dreaming about how he’ll landscape it some day, he noticed that we had some tiny purple crocuses beginning to bloom! He showed them to me and I was absolutely delighted. I guess that’s one of the fun things about owning a new home—- happy little surprises along the way! (For all you Arrested Development fans out there, YES, that reference was on purpose.)

So now this week the weather warmed up again, and the crocuses have managed to surprise me once again by taking over the yard! They’re all over the front yard and sprinkled pretty liberally around the back yard, too! There are even some struggling to poke their heads above all the leaves we raked out into the woods past our fence! I still really like them because they’re so delicate and pretty, and I love any sign of spring. But I have to admit, they’re starting to look more like weeds than flowers, now that they’re in the lawn and everywhere. Craig thinks they make our yard look more like a country meadow and is threatening to mow them. And he has a point—- especially before they open up, they do look a bit like mushrooms. But I just can’t bear to let him cut them all down. They’re so fun!

Yesterday we did some more exploring (and Bentley got to find sticks that he could wave around, an endeavor in which Craig soon joined him) and there are some other flowers coming up, too. I think they might be tulips or daffodils, but I’m not really sure yet (all you gardeners out there can shudder at my lack of knowledge). I’m very excited for my flowers, though!

Adventures with a Crock Pot, Part II

Okay, so I know you’re all just dying to know what other feats of gourmet cooking I managed to pull off while I had that crock pot! So I’ll give you the rest of the story…

Day 3

This time I decided to make pork chops. I’ve had pork chops sitting in the freezer for months while I tried to figure out what to do with them. (I HAVE already explained that I’m about the least adventuresome cook in the world, right?) Most of the recipes for pork chops involved cans of Cream of Mushroom soup, which sounded just fine to me, but I was curious about one that used a bottle of Italian dressing. Craig thought that one sounded interesting, too, so I went with that instead. The recipe claimed that you could throw in carrots and potatoes as well, so in an attempt to be slightly healthier I went ahead and did so.

In retrospect, I think that buying the cheapest bottle of Italian dressing that they sell at Super Target was probably a mistake. Because that dressing seemed mostly like a load of oil with a few spices thrown in. (Craig says that that’s really all Italian dressing is, and he didn’t have a problem with it, but I’m convinced that there are better dressings out there somewhere…) Anyway, the pork chops themselves were really good—- tender and flavorful. I guess they picked up all the flavor those few spices had to offer. But the carrots and potatoes mostly just tastes oily and a little too crisp still for my liking. So I’d rate this meal as fifty-fifty.

Day 4

Chicken cooked in butter, Cream of Chicken soup (is that redundant?), and cream cheese! What more could you ask for in a recipe? And then put it all on buttered egg noodles to eat. This is my kind of cooking! Anything that involves cream cheese is sure to win me over, and this recipe was no exception. Easy and yummy. And Craig loved it, too, so that made me happy.

Conclusion

It’s kind of funny with all this crock pot stuff, because for being the “easiest thing in the world,” I sure managed to screw it up a lot! But, even though the meals didn’t always turn out perfectly, I have to admit that I loved the mindset of using a crock pot. There was something very liberating about doing all the work for dinner in the morning, when we’ve just eaten breakfast and no one is hungry or tired yet, and then being able to clean up the kitchen and relax for the rest of the day and still have a good (and fairly nutritious) dinner whenever we were ready for it. I always get so stressed out trying to get dinner ready—everyone’s hungry and/or cranky, and then trying to enjoy my meal but knowing that the kitchen is a big mess that I’ll have to tackles as soon as I’m done eating… (Not that this is always the case; one of the things I like about casseroles is that I can clean the kitchen while they’re baking. I guess the real question here is, Why does a dirty kitchen stress me out so much?) Anyways, I felt like using the crock pot made everything WAY less chaotic.

So, yeah, I’m a fan. And I’m sure that, given enough time, I can even master using it so my meals consistently turn out good, too! So now I just have to talk Craig into buying me one. They’ve got nice ones at Costco. And I did buy all the ingredients for one last dish, only to realize that there was no way it would fit into the crock pot I’d borrowed… So I guess I’m just going to need to buy a bigger one!

Postscript Bought the one at Costco yesterday. AND it came with a little tiny crock pot for dips! Woo hoo!

Happy Birthday, Kendra!

I thought that Bentley’s first year went fast, but he’s got nothing on Kendra! How did she get to be a year old already??? Anyway, I can still remember her very exciting birth and how happy I was to get to hold my beautiful baby girl as we rode in the ambulance to the hospital together! What a day! And so far, Kendra has stuck by her “I do things the way I want to” attitude. I can hardly wait to see what she’ll manage to accomplish with her life! I love you, Kendra!

Nearly There

We have continued to paint like crazy. Well, Craig has. I occasionally help out, but mostly I do dishes and other housework while he paints. And it’s paid off because the living room, if I may say so myself, looks fabulous. On Monday we picked up the furniture that the Smiths donated to our cause, and this is now what our living room looks like! It’s not completely done yet—there are still some edges to touch up (and, actually, in this picture Craig hadn’t finished scraping paint off the windows yet, so those actually look better than what you’re seeing), we need to get curtains and hang pictures… But you’ll still get the idea. I’ll include some “before” pictures, also, just so you can be impressed by what a difference a lot of paint can make! (And some crown moulding and some furniture and a rug…)

Before




After




This last one shows our two red walls. We haven’t quite figured out what to put in this beautiful corner yet, but I do love having the accent wall! (Hopefully this also explains our choice of red pillows for the couch.) For the picture (which we took on Valentine’s Day), we just included my flowers because they matched so nicely, and then some of the stuff we bought with gift cards from Christmas—an ice cream maker at Williams Sonoma (thanks, Jan!) and from Nordstrom, socks for Craig and pearls for me (thanks, Grandma!). It’s been a fun week!

Rare

Look! They’re playing happily together and neither one is shoving the other OR taking the other’s toy away! And I even managed to snap a picture of it!

Hats

Recently, Bentley actually understands that when it’s cold outside, he has to wear a hat. It’s really nice, because I can be confident that he’s fairly warm. Kendra, on the other hand, takes it as a personal affront when I put a hat on her, and will scream bloody murder and pull and pull until that hat comes off. It’s an interesting contrast, to say the least. I think, in Bentley’s case, the real kicker was when I convinced him that he looked good in a hat. So shortly after that, he actually put his new hat from Aunt Leah on his head OF HIS OWN ACCORD. So I had to take pictures. Then, he decided that if he looked good with a hat on, then he probably would look even better with a hat AND a teddy on his head. So I captured that on film, too. Enjoy!

Adventures with a Crock Pot

My friend Mary keeps telling me that she can’t believe that I claim to not be able to cook and yet do not own a crock pot. She says a crock pot is the ultimate non-chef’s tool. (Plus, apparently you can’t have a testimony or probably even have pioneer heritage without one. I’m pretty sure I heard that in church or enrichment once!) So I am now borrowing a crock pot from another friend, Jacqui. Jacqui likes crock pots so much she has four of them in all different sizes, so she was willing to lend me one for a week, along with Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook, so now I, too, can experience the joy.

Okay, sarcasm aside, I’m actually really excited. I planned out three meals for this week that all use it, and even managed to choose ones that were fairly different recipes. So, for example, hopefully I won’t end up making chicken with potatoes and carrots one day, only to turn around and make beef with potatoes and carrots the next day. That would be pretty boring. So yes, I’m living on the edge and trying all these crazy new things this week. This is busting outside of my normal, very boring cooking in a way that if you ate with us every night would be impressive. I usually only try out a new recipe only after I’ve gotten completely sick of the—- what? thirty?-— recipes that I make over and over again. (It’s a lucky thing that Craig is very NOT critical of my cooking!) So this time I’m trying out all sorts of new stuff all in just a week! The downside, of course, is that Craig is nervous that I’ll suddenly want to buy a crockpot if this goes well. I think there are worse things that I could covet, though.


Meal One

(I’ll just do this all as one post so it will be cohesive. I doubt anyone bothers to read blogs in the actual order that they’ve been posted, and it would make no sense at all if you read this all backwards.)

So today I made minestrone soup with the crock pot! It was a mess. For being the easiest thing in the world, I sure managed to screw it up. A lot! If I had to guess (and apparently I do!), I’d say my problem was that the meal I was making was too big for this poor little crock pot. That’s probably something I should have taken into consideration since all the ingredients barely even fit into the pot at all. But I’m new to all this. All I know is that I put everything in it like it said to do, I let it cook on “Low” for 7 hours, then added a few more ingredients and cooked it on “High” for another half-hour. No sweat, right? But the fact that after seven hours had passed the meat was still comPLETely pink did alarm me. But not enough for me to do anything different than what the recipe said to do. I just hoped that maybe switching it to “High” would make all the difference with the meat. But I can’t say that I was very surprised when it was still woefully undercooked after that last half-hour was over. I let it simmer for another half hour, and then finally gave up and scooped out enough for dinner into a pot and boiled it on the stove until the meat looked edible to me. (My mother, the Queen of Extremely Well Done Meat, would probably still have had a problem with it.) By this time the noodles had boiled down to little blobs rather than being the cute little shells they started out as, so it wasn’t the prettiest soup you’ve ever seen.

But. It tasted wonderful. It was definitely better than the Olive Garden’s minestrone soup, and possibly as good as the minestrone they give you at Thatsa Some Italian Ristorante. So as far as I’m concerned it was definitely worth all the stress. But I can’t say that I’m sold on crock pots just yet…

As a corollary to the day’s events, I left the rest of the soup cooking away on high while we ate and continued painting the living room (the only thing Craig is allowed to do these days). As of five minutes ago, that meat is STILL pink. And we’re about to go to bed. What in the world do I do with it now???

Meal Two

This time I did a roast with the obligatory carrots and potatoes and onion soup mix. It was pretty funny reading through the cookbook and realizing that about half the recipes for cooking a roast involved onion soup mix! Fortunately I had one on hand which I think was left here by my mother-in-law (Thanks, Donna!) And not to toot my own horn, but I was sort of proud of myself because it occurred to me before I even started cooking it that using a frozen roast was probably NOT going to work. So I thawed it out in the microwave first. (Is it just me or is a microwave sort of the antithesis of a crock pot?) We haven't actually eaten it yet, but it smells good and when we cut into it, it looked very well done. Happy days!

I guess you'll just have to wait until the next time I do internet to find out how meal #3 goes. I think that one was a chicken and gravy thing. Or maybe it was pork chops? Now I can't remember. I have both on hand. Maybe I've got two meals still left to do with the crockpot...? Dang, this takes a lot of planning ahead, doesn't it?

Anyway, happy eating tonight, I hope!

Wiki-Fi

Sounds like some new exciting thing, doesn’t it? Some sort of widget that involves wi-fi, wikis, (maybe wikipedia,) a wii and perhaps something else that is wicked cool and all of which is apparently on-line.

Well, it’s not. It’s something Bentley said the other week as we were watching squirrels way up high in the trees. He pointed at the squirrels and said, “Wiki-fi.” Now I know that that’s not his word for “squirrel,” (which sounds something like “serl”) so I have to admit that I was bewildered. It wasn’t until much later in the day when the movie Peter Pan came up in our conversation that I realized that “wiki-fi” was “We can fly!” Suddenly it made all kinds of sense. As far as Bentley was concerned, those squirrels could fly.

He also recently stuck one of the smaller vacuum attachments on his hand and said he was Captain Hook. To be perfectly honest, that one worried me a lot less than the time he started imitating Tinkerbell when she’s measuring how big her hips are. But mostly I find it all pretty amusing. I hope J.M. Barrie and Walt Disney are paying attention and are proud of their influence!

We can fly! We can fly! We can flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

I actually hated snow. Ever since I learned how to drive, snow has been the bane of my existence. It’s cold, it’s slippery, it’s dangerous, and I just hate it. Being at BYU didn’t help, either. Utah may brag that they have “the best snow on earth,” but when you’re trudging through it in your tennis shoes to get to an 8:00am class, and trying your best to hurry without slipping and falling down, it pretty much sucks.

But I have to say, moving out to Virginia has completely changed my attitude towards snow. You know what the big difference is? In Virginia, they CANCEL SCHOOL WHEN IT SNOWS. BYU should try that—- I bet everyone would be a lot happier!

So when it snowed all Tuesday morning, I was delighted when Craig called to say that he had a half-day and would be coming home after lunch. It turned out that he also got Wednesday off, and a two-hour delay on Thursday, so it was a good week as far as I was concerned. As soon as Craig arrived home, he and Bentley headed outside to make a snowman, something which Bentley was very excited for. Eventually Kendra and I joined them, but only for a little bit. My newfound love of snow doesn’t extend to actually spending much time in it—- I mostly like to enjoy it from inside, wrapped up in blankets, drinking hot chocolate and enjoying having my husband home with me. Who could ask for anything more?

Confession

I can hardly ever crack an egg open without getting some shell in the mix. Fortunately I’m well aware of this fact, so I always break the eggs into a separate bowl first, or else start out with them so it’s easy to dig the shell back out again. Then I go through this complicated process as I swish the yolk and whites back and forth looking for any other pieces of shell that may have escaped my notice. (Isn’t that just the worst feeling, when you’re eating something really good, like egg salad, and suddenly you feel that sickening crunch between your teeth? Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh, I HATE that!)

Anyway, isn’t that just pathetic? It really shouldn’t be that hard!

Finally

Craig is painting the ceiling! This very second, as I am typing, he is rolling paint across what used to be our hideously pink living room ceiling! O joy, o rapture!

He actually started painting last week, I think on Friday. He went around with a brush painting the edges right up to the crown moulding, and finished that Monday. (He would have been done way sooner but we had a lot going on on Saturday and couldn’t quite justify painting on the Sabbath… Somehow the Superbowl was totally okay, though…!) Now that the edging is done, the rolling part goes pretty quickly. In fact, he’s done nearly the entire room in an hour, so that gives you a pretty good idea. I’m refraining from watching the entire time because I want to walk in and be surprised when it’s done and I can get the full effect all at once. But the little bit I’ve seen has been spectacular. Who would have thought such a dumb thing could make such a huge difference?


Update: He's finished now, I finally got to see it, and it looks beautiful. Compared to pink, a soft white is just so restful! Who would have guessed how irritating pink is???

My 15 Seconds of Fame

Yeah, it’s true, I’m totally famous now. Look for me on National Television chatting it up with News Hour’s Jim Lehrer.

Okay, so what actually happened is that my friend Anna called me up and asked if I wanted to come do an interview with her. She said that their realtor had a friend who was doing a story on people who had bought homes since the housing market crashed and that they were trying to show that this has benefited some people. Since we bought our home right before Anna and her husband bought theirs, we were good candidates. So are a bunch of others in our ward, and Anna invited them, too, although the only other one who was able to make it was Shalane.

The funny thing in all this is that Anna never said and I never asked who or what the interview was for. I assumed it was for TV, but then when Craig assumed it was for a newspaper I realized that I had no idea which it actually was. Which posed a little bit of a dilemma that morning, as I wasn’t sure how dressed up to get—- should I wear black because it will make me look thinner? Should I get up early and shower? What about make-up? Should I go all out and wear foundation and powder and all that stuff? As it was, I finally settled for in-between. I did shower—- that just seemed more polite to whoever I was talking to. And I did my hair although I didn’t bother curling it (both because I was running out of time and also because it’s getting to that stage where curling it only looks good about half the time anyway). I put on eye makeup, but nothing else, which was a mistake. If I look greasy and shiny in the interview, I’m sorry for being gross. And no lipstick! What was I thinking?

Actually, what I was thinking is that I needed to get the house cleaned up before my mother-in-law came to watch the kids for me! It’s silly, because Donna has never once said a word to me about the state of my home and Craig has repeatedly assured me that she doesn’t care if the house is a mess, but I still can’t bring myself to NOT try to make it look cleaner/tidier/better. So I did dishes, wiped crumbs off the table, vacuumed up the worst of the cereal that always ends up on the floor, and even put some of the drop cloths that Craig scatters around the living room in the closet. Normally I get the house to a fairly presentable state before I go to bed, but Sunday night we’d stayed up late watching the Superbowl at some friends’ house, so our place got neglected. (Craig was sweet and stayed up that night helping me put the worst of the toys away, so he gets good hubby points for that. There was an Onion headline recently that said something about a husband who has almost earned something cool with all the points he’s earned “just for trying;” it was hilarious.) So, anyways, I was torn between making myself presentable and making my house presentable. I didn’t worry too much about the kids, at least, ‘cuz I like how they look in their pajamas. Does that make me a negligent mother?

Anyway, Donna arrived and I flitted out to my interview. When Jim Lehrer introduced himself to me I can honestly say that I had no idea who he was or that he was even the person who would be doing the interviews. I had never heard of him. I was a bit chagrined later, as every single person I have spoken to about this knows who he is. How come I’m the only one in the dark here? How embarrassing! I guess I need to start watching more TV...

I spent the first little while holding Anna’s baby so she could put on her make-up (smart girl!), and then hanging out with Anna and Shalane as the camera men tried to figure out the best set-up and put up lights and stuff. Finally we were all seated and ready to go, and it was a riot to watch as both Anna's and Shalane’s babies watched the boom mike waving over our heads. Jim asked each of us our story of how we moved here, rented, and then bought when things got so cheap. He asked us if we felt bad for those who had lost their homes, and I was the only one mean enough to say No. I told him that I didn’t think they should have bought what they couldn’t afford. What I didn’t say, but I wish I had, was that the people I do feel sorry for are the ones who bought while the market was so high and now are stuck with their homes until the market comes back up again. They’re the ones who are financially responsible and who aren’t getting any breaks for being such good people.

Anyway, the interview lasted about fifteen minutes. I suspect that the clip they’ll actually show will probably be about thirty seconds, and if I’m even in it I’ll be surprised. But you can bet I’ll be watching just in case!

The fascinating thing was what they did next, which was to move the camera around so it was facing Jim Lehrer and then have him repeat all the same questions to each of us (a girl was taking notes so he could ask the same things in the same order and to the same person), so then they can edit it all together and make it look cohesive. I didn’t know that’s what they did when they only had one camera! (I will point out that the entire time this was going on I was just killing myself that I hadn’t known that this was for National television or else maybe Craig could have taken the morning off to be there and see it all—what a thing for a TV Productions teacher to miss!)

After the interview was all over, we let the babies play on the floor and we hung out chatting while the cameraman got some footage of us being "natural." A bit weird, but I’m good at talking a lot, so it didn’t bother me too much. I did wonder if Shalane, who is a shy person, was just dying during the whole thing…

So that’s my story. I’ll be signing autographs after it airs. If you can’t pick me out, I’m the mean one who isn’t holding a baby.