She Has In Fact, Lost Her Mind...

So yes, Meredith did have a birthday, get the hair cut and said goodbye to all of her mental faculties. Such is life I guess. Good thing Auntie Alison and newest tribe member Simon came for a visit to soothe the savage beast. Mmmm, baby. Auntie Julie was also on hand to simultaneously entertain and terrify the children. Turns out, Aunties can be quite handy when they're not trying to eat the children. It was our last weekend up north, and while there was no skiing to be had, we did take advantage of the mild weather with some outdoor fun. Aunties sure picked a good weekend to be East.

One Small Piece of Pasta for Luce, One Large Step For Fran Kind...

She looks so sweet and innocent doesn't she? So I feel this blog wouldn't be complete without inclusion of the now infamous "Ditalini story." What is Ditalini you may ask? Well, it is a small cylindrical shaped pasta approximately the circumference of a 5 year old's nostril. Yeeeahhhh.

The afternoon started innocently enough, with the girls playing out on the sidewalk, drawing with chalk enjoying a picnic on the front lawn (which included some cooked pasta leftovers). When all of a sudden Luce said, "Mama... oh no... MAMA!" I looked up at her sniffing little face and she just pointed to her nose. 

Me: "What happened?!?!"

Luce: "I was just trying to be silly!"

Me: "DON'T MOVE!" 

I ran inside to retrieve the tweezers, but by the time I got back outside the pasta had traveled from the edges of the nostril, to half way on up the schnoz. Great. Lucia was starting to panic a bit (and ok, I'll admit so was I) but then I remembered reading something from our local online mom's group about this very situation. So I ask you dear reader -- do you know what to do if you need to get an object out of a nose that can't be reached with tweezers? The solution is remarkably easy, if not slightly nauseating. You simply cover the other nostril (the clear one) and blow into the person's mouth (as though you were administering CPR). Once I got a good seal, the pasta shot out like a bullet. A gross, snot covered bullet... but it was out, and we returned to playing without missing a beat. The whole thing was over in like 7 minutes, but it is a day that will live on IN INFAMY.

Ok, enough drama. Go look at some pictures of my kids.

Wait, one more piece of drama... so Mer turned schmirtysomething this month and had a mid-life crisis. How do I know? I received a text from her with the following message, "Would you kill me if I got this haircut?" So did she get the cut? Am I writing this from jail? Stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion...