{"id":331,"date":"2011-01-14T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-14T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2011\/01\/7-quick-takes-friday-37\/"},"modified":"2015-01-11T17:48:02","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T22:48:02","slug":"7-quick-takes-friday-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2011\/01\/7-quick-takes-friday-37.html","title":{"rendered":"7 Quick Takes Friday!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Yay! I haven\u2019t joined Jen for quick takes in several weeks, and when I realized this morning that it\u2019s Friday I did an embarrassing little shuffle-dance over to the computer to whip up some quick takes. Of course, that was half an hour ago, because as soon as my rear hit the chair Sienna decided she wanted to paint so I had to get out her paints, find a paintbrush, set up her paper and get her a glass of water to rinse her paintbrush with. Then I had to search for something for Charlotte to do, since painting is not yet in the realm of things Charlotte can do unsupervised. I decided on nesting blocks, which she promptly ignored in favor of pulling all my pots and pans out of the one cabinet she can get into. I figure the mess is worth the fifteen minutes of relative peace (although certainly not with a side of quiet) that it will buy. Here we go!<\/p>\n

#7<\/div>\n
Liam Xavier Bede<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Don\u2019t let that innocent face fool you<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
had a massive diaper blowout on the plane trip back. Two of them, in fact. It was the most awkward plane experience I have ever had, up to and including the time I was nursing Charlotte and accidentally sprayed breast milk all over the man sitting next to me.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
At one point, a very kind flight attendant ventured over to help after the Ogre had begged a few trash bags off him. He began his sentence before he quite reached us, and the sentence went something like this:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cCan I get you some water to help clea\u2026.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I can only assume that he meant to say \u201cclean up,\u201d but those words were lost when his face transformed from a friendly smile into The Horror Face.<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
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\u00a0It took about thirty wipes to deal with each diaper blowout, since he somehow managed to get poop all the way up to the folds of his neck. And believe me, those folds are numerous. Luckily, I had enough wipes. Unluckily, I didn\u2019t have the foresight to pack a change of clothes.<\/div>\n
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#6<\/div>\n
My Sister-in-Law<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
is a fantastic photographer<\/a>. While we were in Texas, she was kind enough to take some family pictures of us and a few of the kids individually. She took that cute picture of Liam in the hat up above, and she took this one of the girls:<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
This picture cracks me up. Sienna has this slightly creepy trying-to-look angelic smile on her face as she hold Charlotte in an iron grip, and Charlotte has the same look she always has on her face (the one she was born with, that was apparently taken straight from her father\u2019s DNA and imprinted all over her own) as she tries to wiggle free of Sienna\u2019s grip. It cracks me up because I know exactly what will happen two seconds after this picture is taken: Charlotte will scream \u201cNo!\u201d, twist free of Sienna\u2019s grip, smack Sienna on the forehead and run away while Sienna yells \u201cMom! Charlotte hit me!\u201d and fake-sniffles while putting on an expression appropriate to a martyr.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Emily also snapped this picture of all of us, the first family picture we\u2019ve had since Liam\u2019s birth:<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
I love this picture for several reasons. First, I\u2019m sitting down and mostly behind Sienna so you can\u2019t really tell that the baby weight from Liam has found a permanent home on my mid-section. Second, the Ogre is actually smiling. It\u2019s practically miraculous to find a picture of the Ogre after the age of about nine in which he\u2019s smiling, so this one thrills me. Third, and really the reason I love it the most, is because you can tell exactly which children take after which parents in this picture. Sienna and I are sitting together with the same cheery smile on our faces, and the Ogre and Charlotte are sitting together with the same pained smile on their faces. And then there\u2019s Liam in the middle, who is a baby and so far acts like a baby, albeit a much more cheerful baby than Charlotte was. I have a feeling he\u2019ll be on Team Happy in the future.<\/div>\n
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#5<\/div>\n
My Vegetarian Friend<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
is in town and coming over for dinner tonight. Much to my surprise, I\u2019ve found that I\u2019m actually looking forward to making a vegetarian meal. The idea of having to cook something company-worthy and substantial without meat in it has forced me to consider making things I\u2019d never have considered if I could have just planned the meal around which type of meat I would be serving. I\u2019ve decided on Smitten Kitchen\u2019s mushroom lasagna with an an apple, endive and butter lettuce salad.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I\u2019m really looking forward to it. The lasagna looks divine. The Ogre, being the carnivore he is, is slightly annoyed and has insisted on picking up a few sausages to go along with dinner. I\u2019ve learned not to fight him on the meat thing. Meat, to him, is like cheese to me: without it, life would be colorless and dull. And less fattening, but we try to ignore that part.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
#4<\/div>\n
I Seriously Love Cheese\n\n\n\n\n
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Doesn\u2019t that look glorious? Yum. While we were in Texas we had an amazing dinner with my aunt and uncle. My aunt put out Brie with fig jam on top for an appetizer and I think I ate 90% of it. It was one of those appetizers where politely waiting one\u2019s turn was not an option.<\/p>\n

She also made this crawfish soup which was way too spicy for me, but that I devoured anyway. Usually when foods are very spicy all I can taste is the spice, but this soup had delicious flavor with the spice. I\u2019m not sure how she did it, but it was fabulous.<\/p>\n

But back to cheese. What\u2019s your favorite type of cheese? Mine is goat cheese eaten in combination with other things but either Stilton or aged raw cheddar if I\u2019m eating it alone. Tell me what your favorite is! I love trying new cheeses. (But please don\u2019t tell me if you either can\u2019t eat or don\u2019t like to eat cheese. Then I will just cry for you.)<\/p>\n

#3
\nSpeaking of Terribly Sad Things<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The following story is almost as sad as the time we signed Sienna up for ballet, and the first day of class (actually, the five minutes before class even started) resulted in a split lip, bloody tights, and a traumatized Mommy who may or may not have overreacted just a little<\/i> and called the ambulance.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

My husband bought me Connie Willis\u2019s Blackout <\/i>and All Clear <\/i>for Christmas. I finished Blackout<\/i> on the plane and packed All Clear<\/i> in an easily accessible place in one of the suitcases so I could pull it out as soon as we got home.<\/p>\n

Which I fully intended to do. Not twenty minutes after we arrived back at our wonderful little apartment, I opened up said suitcase and began digging for the book. It took about thirty seconds for me to realize that I actually shouldn\u2019t be digging for it, since I placed it right on top. Then, to my horror, I remembered the Ogre and my father re-packing the suitcases to make weight, and setting aside a few things for my parents to ship to us\u2026a few things like books<\/i>. So now I have to wait for my parents to ship the boxes of books that we left there, which is horrible, because the two are actually one book published in two parts and Blackout <\/i>ends in a totally unsatisfactory and painful cliffhanger.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m in pain. Not since Harry Potte<\/i>r and the Half-Blood Prince<\/i> ended have I longed for a book so desperately.<\/p>\n

#2
\nThese Books<\/p>\n

are set during the London Blitz. I\u2019ve begun to realize how woefully incomplete my knowledge of history really is while reading these books. I sort of knew about the Blitz, but it was an abstract thing. I had no idea how long it went on or how incredibly brave the people of London were during the bombings. I\u2019m also beginning to be a little ashamed of my understanding of World War II. I always knew that the British people had stood up to Hitler but I also always assumed that it was a paltry effort that would have been for naught if it weren\u2019t for America. Now I\u2019m realizing that England\u2019s effort was absolutely heroic, and that our country really should have been ashamed of itself for waiting until we were dragged into the war before we helped our age-old allies.<\/div>\n

I\u2019m really interested, now, in learning more about history, but I\u2019d rather not just sit down and read a textbook. Any suggestions? I\u2019ll read historical fiction, but only if it\u2019s well-researched, and I\u2019ll read historical non-fiction, but only if it\u2019s not in a school textbook. I\u2019d love to hear from you guys on this, since I\u2019ve never really delved into history before and have no idea what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n

#1<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
With That Being Said\n\n\n\n\n
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history that\u2019s being made right now is starting to annoy me. Lebanon, it seems, is on the verge of collapse. Again. <\/i>I\u2019m not really sure why this is earth-shattering news since the Lebanese government seems like a scratched CD that keeps repeating the phrase \u201cabout to collapse\u201d, but apparently it is.<\/p>\n

I know that it\u2019s earth-shattering news because my stats have gone through the roof. I was absolutely baffled the day before yesterday when I had nearly 700 visitors. I\u2019m big time now! <\/i>I thought to myself. They like me! They really like me!<\/i><\/p>\n

Then I figured that I should probably do a little digging to figure out where all these visitors had come from. Previous experience<\/a> has proven that a huge leap in numbers is usually a result of a notable blogger posting a link to my page, so I assumed that the same sort of thing had occurred. I dug around in my stat counter until I reached the \u201cCame From\u201d page, where I found that all these people had come from a Google search for\u2026Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Lebanon?<\/i><\/p>\n

So I searched for Lebanon myself, and there in the images, right in the first three search results, is a picture from my blog of Miss Lebanon 2010. It\u2019s from this entry <\/a>in which I relate my grandmother\u2019s wisdom, and is only tangentially related to anything Lebanese. Why Google decided that my blog is an appropriate search result for Lebanon is beyond me, but I hope that this non-situation dies out quickly in the public interest because I would like my stats to come back down to a more reasonable number, a number that represents my wonderful readers who actually read my blog and not random searches for Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Does anyone else read their keyword analyses? Among the many Lebanon entries were two that really freaked me out. The first was \u201chot mature ladies walking with there husband she barefoot\u201d and the second was \u201chow to poop when pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who are these people? What kind of search is that? Google, it seems, has a seedy underbelly in which weirdos search for things like \u201cspy on sleeping pregnant wife\u201d (another real search that landed the unsuspecting creepo squarely on my non-creepy site).<\/p>\n

I hope that Simcha <\/a>does another issue of her search terms poetry<\/a>, because although mine would be almost entirely composed of the word \u201clebanon\u201d (which apparently no one capitalizes), I now have some other good things to throw in. Please, Simcha?<\/p>\n

Go see Jen <\/a>for more quick takes, and Happy Friday!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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