My normal kids.

Don't worry. If you come over for dinner I promise to wipe the kids and their mess off the table first. Want to guess what my biggest gripe is when poor Mr. Maricucu slogs his tired self through the door in the evenings? Why can't these children play like normal children? Yeah he can tell it's going to be a doozie from that alone.

From the adventures with our outdoor hose (don't ever open a window to tell a kid to put the hose down. 'Nuff said), to the one where they redecorated the whole back lawn with 20lbs of dog food my children have this penchant for sidestepping their toys and just coming up with other things to do. Sigh. I really do appreciate their creativity, honestly I do. But when my 120" measuring tape no longer retracts and is missing the neck strap because my kids played spider web with it? Well creativity seems over rated right about then.

If you were to walk in the boys 'room right about now you'd see all the typical plastic toy bins on the shelf but you'd also see a mishmash of cardboard boxes that they love to jealously guard as if they were worth thousands of dollars. Never mind that the booty inside is mostly cash register receipts (don't ask, it's something to do with Fireman Sam), pennies, rocks and toothpicks. Fair warning, don't let the two year old playfully knock you with her tote bag. Much like my sister at age 8 (denim purse filled with 20lbs of rocks anyone?) my daughter carries the metal tubing I never used to attach the latest-gate-she-doesn't-know-how-to-open-yet. Brass knuckles indeed.

These children gleefully jump over toy cars and play food to be the first to get the empty paper towel tubes. Bonus points if it's the tube from the foodsaver bag refills. Those are harder. Heaven help the poor soul that wants to break down boxes because the pleading for a "good box" would lead you to think you were holding a firetruck instead. And this picture? Apparently the top of our dining room table is a much better fort than the bottom. Our couch pillows do not belong on the couch. If Mr. Maricucu and I had a penny for every time we pick those up he would have retired yesterday. But, at least they're playing together, at least they're playing. And despite my healthy dose of griping in this post it's good to remember the message in videos like this. Just downloaded her book on audible. I hope it's good.

The Gift Of An Ordinary Day from Katrina Kenison on Vimeo.

My smart phone thinks I'm an idiot.

Back in April my husband started pestering me about us getting some smart phone called a Droid. I had owned PDAs and even PC phones before, before the iPhone pretty much revolutionized things. I remembered the little stylus, the clumsy interface with setting it up like a PC and the lackluster speed compared to a traditional computer. I mehed, I hemmed, I hawed. I pretty much rained on his parade and said, "me? What do I need a smart phone for? I'm fine with mine. You can get yours, I'll stick with my regular cell phone." Poor guy. But he kept working on me, and finally I said I'd give it a try. It wouldn't hurt to put a calendar in easy access of my hands but I said it would be a waste, that I didn't text and that it would in no way replace the ease of working on my laptop. Man have I been on a diet of crow ever since. I kind of like crow and I really love this little phone.

The same person who said she wouldn't text? Now she interrupts *cough* entertains her husband at work with random pictures from her day. The person who whined that it wouldn't replace her laptop? Well the poor laptop has gotten lonely. She's writing me these annoying stalkerish emails and I'm kind of avoiding the topic with her. Wouldn't want her to get jealous or anything. I now check the weather while nursing the babe in bed, scan books at the local store with the UPC scanner app, record videos of the kids while rocking away in my living room and have even been *gasp* known to post to the blog from the phone (though Google sure doesn't make it easy, hear that Google?!!).

But there's one little thing wrong in this relationship between the droid and I. It thinks I'm an idiot. See, I communicate via email and forums quite a bit. I pride myself on a decent mastery of the English language and even more so on my wonderful knack for using spellcheck. All hail to firefox for that wonderful spellcheck. Still, an error would escape my fingers now and then. A little typo here, an incorrect tense typed up in a rush there. Nothing the reader on the other end couldn't fill in almost automatically with this wonderful human mind we have. If I typed, "I'll scroumge that up for you", the reader could understand that I meant scrounge. All well and good.

However, my smart phone thinks it knows better than me. I find it kind of creepy in HAL sort of way. It has this annoying little feature called autocorrect that when I'm thumbing away on the onscreen keyboard takes a best guess at what my intended word is. Instead of scrounge it thinks I means "scourge" and then I come across online like I'm Balki from Perfect Strangers wishing a pox upon my reader. Mr. Maricucu says I can turn it off but the feature does come in handy sometimes. Unless I'm texting in Spanish with my mom and then it has a field day. In another year or so of adding Spanish words to the autocorrect roster I'll have the thing thoroughly confused and my poor friends are going to be getting the funkiest Spanglish emails evah. Good times, good times. So if you get a message from me and it sounds like I was hitting the sauce, rest assured that I'm not. It was just my droid.