You know how you’re like, “Tell us your real name!! Show us a picture!!” and I’m like, “No, I’m all ANONYMOUS and you may not hear my name or look upon my countenance!”

Well.

Something is coming up that is forcing me to show my hand: I’m going to be writing at a new place, and they need (1) a photo and (2) an actual name.

So I thought that since I have to do this anyway, we ought to have some CONTESTS first.

For the name, I think what we should do is this: I’ll give you some hints, like the year I was born and the approximate popularity of my name. You’ll each have up to three guesses, or maybe five guesses. Depending on how many people guess right, there will be a prize or prizes. The higher the correct name is in your list, the more Right you are. Good, yeah?

A few of you already know my first name, and you guys can’t play, which is sad but I can’t think of a way around it. You could make a list of your favorite names from that year, or a list of names you think would also fit me, or a list of names you want to call me for excluding you from the contest, or whatevs. Maybe there can be a Pity Prize.

Don’t do it now! Wait! This is just the heads-up about the contest, not the contest itself!

About the picture. We already did the quiz, and that was SO FUN but we’ve already done the answer key, so now there could be rampant cheating. It’s too bad, because that would have been PERFECT. Well, every life, rain, fall etc.

OH WAIT!! I do have an idea! I’ll post my photo along with photos of other people. You will try to pick me out of the line-up. GENIUS?? YES I THINK SO! If you have a photo you’d be willing to let me use as a decoy in the line-up, or if you have friends/relatives who wouldn’t mind having their photos used, let me know (swistle at gmail dot com). (It increases your odds of winning, because you’d be able to eliminate an option right off the bat.) It has to be my approximate coloring: I’ve got dark blond (OKAY FINE IT’S LIGHT BROWN) hair and green-brown eyes. Also, I wear glasses.

Now I need to spend some time mulling about the prizes. Fudge? Brownies? A copy of my favorite baby name book? Clean out my hair products drawer into a box?

• piece of chalk
• plastic bead
• penny
• jellybean
• pulverized crayon half
• Lego
• peanut
• bark mulch
• scrap of paper
• ladybug

Stick to high chair food, Henry

I was telling my mom about what I’d learned from all the comments on the little girl undershirt question, and I got this WAVE of love for all of you. Here we all are, in our own homes scattered literally ACROSS THE WORLD, and we can pool our knowledge about little girl undershirts so that one morning I am adrift on a sea of camibafflement and the next morning I know the whole scoop! Isn’t that NEAT?

Okay, fine, I know it’s only undershirts. But it’s what is UNDERNEATH the undershirts. …No, not little girls! SHARING and LOVE.

The subject of undershirts came up because I, um. Placed another order at The Children’s Place. I know, I know! But now it’s take an additional FIFTY percent off! (Plus the coupon code S1A48 for ANOTHER 15% off.) And that’s when I go back and buy more stuff! And I bought Elizabeth some underwear in case she ever deigns to potty-train. And that’s when I noticed the matching undershirts and got nervous.

Anyway, I bought that tiered chiffon skirt I liked so much last time. I was agitating and agitating about it not being available in Elizabeth’s size, and about how I was Never Going To Be Able To Buy It, and sad sad sad, and This Really Matters and so forth, and then I was like, “Why not buy it anyway?” So I did. They only had it in size 6-9 months, so I bought it in size 6-9 months along with a size 6-9 months matching eyelet-trimmed bodysuit and size 6-12 months matching maryjane tights, the whole outfit for less than $10.

(image from childrensplace.com)

(image from childrensplace.com)

(image from childrensplace.com)

Great gift, yes? Especially if SOMEBODY gives me a NIECE. Or if SOMEBODY ELSE says yes to a sixth baby and it’s a girl! Or if I ever find anyone else I love enough to give the outfit to. And if not, I will keep it in a box and take it out and look at it lovingly and play games where I choose my favorite stripe in the skirt, and my second favorite, and so on.

And I bought another outfit for Elizabeth. The outfit is not as wonderful as the tiered skirt outfit, but it has the advantage of being for a child who currently exists. I got her the green polo dress for $4.24 and the coordinating tights for $1.27.

(image from childrensplace.com)

(image from childrensplace.com)

And then I bought some dreadfully dull boy clothes: jeans and brown-striped shirts and some socks and YAAWWWWWNNNNN.

I am hoping those of you with daughters older than mine can help me out on this. What is the deal with the “cami” tops sold in the little girls’ underwear department? They’re like tank tops and they match the underwear. They’re undershirts, yes? And here is my main question: Do most little girls wear them? Or just SOME? Elizabeth still wears onesies now, but she’s in the largest size and I’ve been wondering what’s next, if anything. My older boys don’t wear undershirts, but do older GIRLS wear them?

I wrote an email to my in-laws, telling them about the latest things the kids have done and said. I mentioned how Elizabeth has three plastic dinosaurs she likes to take with her everywhere in her pink purse.

My mother-in-law wrote back that she’d tell me one thing: she’d rather have a granddaughter who liked dinosaurs than a grandson that liked pink purses. She added “Not that I wouldn’t love him anyway. I’m just saying.”

Let’s bypass the feelings that can form in such situations, where you start with “Are you saying that there is anything but Total Awesomeness involved in her love of dinosaurs?” and move rapidly from there to “And WHAT exactly would be SO WRONG with liking pink purses that you’d need to CLARIFY that you’d still love him?” and go straight from there to cartoon steam billowing from ears because of course you can’t SAY anything, since the person you’d be saying these things to would claim she was just kidding! Just making a light remark! My stars, she certainly didn’t mean to OFFEND you! Goodness!

Let’s instead focus on this question: am I now RELIEVED I chose not to include this photo of Edward in the most recent batch? Or am I wishing fervently I HAD?

He wanted to wear the genie dress-up outfit with his bunny ears, jeans, and baseball shirt. I wasn’t going to take a picture, but he insisted.

What I’m angry at:

• politics
• religion
• all of humankind

What set me off:

• a single letter to the editor in our local paper

I have a little task for you this weekend, if it’s something you feel like doing. I mean, it’s not like it’s HOMEWORK. You can be all, “Nah” if you want. But our AndreAnna and our Cass are starting a new cooking/recipes site called Chop. Stir. Mix., and they’re collecting recipes for it. EASY recipes, okay? Nobody wants to sit around clarifying and reducing all day. Or if they do, they are looking for information on some other site.

Elizabeth has been such a total CRAB PUFF recently. She’s always had an imperious streak, and that’s been amusing, but recently we are talking more about THIS action:

It starts with something relatively small. Perhaps she falls, or perhaps I criticize her tone of voice, or perhaps we’re out of applesauce. For whatever reason, she goes into a NUCLEAR CRAB. Nothing can stop it! Nothing! You can’t jolly her out of it. You can’t have her cry herself out of it. She wants to do one of two things:

1) Sit on your lap and be cuddled while she continues to sulk (and also drool, because when she’s in a Crab Fit she won’t swallow—WHY??).

2) Follow you from room to room, standing near you with her lip out so you know she’s still pissed off.

And do either of these things fix it? NO! All they do is reduce the volume of the attack.

She’s also giving us new sleep issues, getting out of her bed and banging on her door. What the heck? None of our other kids have done that. Rob, William, and Edward all acted as if the bed was a crib they couldn’t get out of without help. Elizabeth, though, has seen through the ruse. SHE is not physically bound by our words! Every night she falls asleep on the floor just inside her door.

Meanwhile, Edward is in a particular cute and pleasant stage, so Elizabeth suffers even more by comparison.

He came out of his room with a giraffe puppet on his hand, almost collapsing from laughter as he made the giraffe roar. Then he turned solicitous and said, worriedly, “That keer you, Mommy?” He’s been scared by loud sounds recently, so he is concerned I might have been overly startled by the roaring giraffe. And he’s saying “why” instead of “what,” so if I call him and he doesn’t hear me, he’ll say, “Why? Why, Mommy? You talk for me, Mommy?”

And on the other side of me: The Lip.

Is anyone else developing a little crush on Eric Case, whose picture is currently on the Blogger home page? Whooooo. Cute stuff. Hm, maybe people without Blogger don’t see it? I’d better steal his picture and put it here:

(image from blogger.com)

Speaking of adorable, your comments on yesterday’s Engaged to be Parentsed post have been SO GOOD! Elizabeth‘s “Oh! If I had known it was going to be YOU, I wouldn’t have worried” made me have to dab away tears on three separate occasions. Keep the comments coming: Erik and Anna haven’t cried uncle yet. Or rather AUNT! You get it? AUNT?

Also, I took down the post on what to do about the treat I signed up to bring to Rob’s class. I realized that using the name of my mother-in-law’s signature recipe on my secret blog was perhaps not my best idea ever. But I’m so, so glad I did, because you guys reminded me that there are no nuts allowed at school anyway! So I’m out of it! And now I just need to find those windmill cookies. And make Paul return the expensive ingredient to the store.

I had such a productive morning! I made three (3) batches of baby food (“carrot bean corn pea,” “broccoli plus half a bag of corn we’re never going to finish,” and “raspberry blackberry prune applesauce”), and I wiped Elizabeth’s nose one (1) zillion times. …Hm. Well, it FELT like a productive morning.

I’d like to devote today’s post to NAGGING.

My brother and my sister-in-law….. Wait. Let me give you their names so I don’t have to keep referring to them that way, and so you’re not thinking “Well, is this the woman married to her brother, or is this a sister of Paul’s?” but without me having to clarify by saying “my brother’s wife,” which, I don’t know, sounds a little funny. It reminds me of when my mother-in-law addresses my mail Mrs. Paul Thistle, like it’s to ANYONE married to Paul, it doesn’t really matter who it is.

AS I WAS SAYING, Erik and Anna are…”engaged to have a baby.” That is, they have decided to have one, but have not yet…”planted the tulip bulb,” if you follow me. There is still time to back away and actually plant actual tulips instead, and there are days I would fully support that decision and even chip in for the bulbs.

But here is what I am hoping we can discuss, since Erik and Anna read my blog, and since Erik has stopped answering my pleading, nagging, whining emails. Can we discuss how you felt before having children, and how you feel about those feelings now? Like, if you were scared before, but now think, “OH! If I’d known it was like this, I wouldn’t have been so nervous!” Or if you thought you didn’t really like children, but now you think “OMG I AM SO IN LUV W/THIS BABY!!1!”

(If you were confident before, but now think, “Actually, I should have gone with the tulips,” keep your pie-hole CLOSED. We are looking for NAGGING, not for UNBIASED SCIENTIFIC DATA COLLECTION.)

And can we also tell them to HURRY THE HECK UP and make Swistle an aunt? What are they WAITING for? Spring is HERE!

One thing I found impossible to imagine when I had a toddler and a newborn and was melting with despair because I wanted more children but didn’t see how I could POSSIBLY manage more when I was ALREADY at MAX CAPACITY for this crap—-one thing I found impossible to imagine, as I say, was that the toddler and newborn would be OLDER than the new siblings. I was imagining adding MORE OF THE SAME, daycare-style.

This morning I was already up to HERE with Henry’s angry fussing and it was only 7:45 in the morning. I was mashing him a banana and I wasn’t even engaging with him anymore because I was discouraged and also kind of crabby with him for being crabby so much recently.

And then Rob came in and said to Henry, “Oh! Are you SAD? Oh, no! Why?” Then he said to me, “Have you seen an ORANGE BALL around here?” I said I didn’t think so. He elaborated, showing me the ball’s approximate size and describing more accurately the shade of orange (“bright”). I again said I didn’t think so, and asked (a little impatiently, if truth must be told, but I don’t see why we need the WHOLE truth) why we were looking for this ball. He said, “It’s Henry’s FAVORITE.” I suggested it might be in the playroom and he went rocketing off, coming back with the ball. “HERE you go, Henry! Here’s your BALL! Your FAVORITE ball!”

Then Elizabeth came in, and because we once told her to go sing the ABC song to a crying Henry, she thinks that’s what she should do EVERY time, so she launched into a vigorous rendition, really DELIVERING that song, ballpark-style.

Then Rob said, “Oh, no WONDER! Your NOSE is running!” and went rocketing off again to get a kleenex, which he used to wipe Henry’s nose.

Then William came bouncing in to tell me that Edward was getting into trouble in the living room, and on his way out he offered Henry a bite of his cereal.

Hm. Reading this over, I see a story of CHAOS, not of happy and helpful sibling relationships. You will have to trust me: this is a reassuring story about happy and helpful sibling relationships.