I have really, really, REALLY been trying to enjoy this summer with Rob and William–especially with William, because this is the year William starts first grade, and I learned with Rob that first grade is when kids take a giant step away.

But I am NOT enjoying this summer with Rob and William, and do you know why? It is because I don’t like my children anymore, apparently. They are loud and obnoxious, and they have two modes: (1) giddy and (2) bickery. They are either saying, “Imagine if, like, a strawberry crashed into the wall and went [*loud spitting sound*]!!!” and then laughing wildly until they fall over, and then saying it fifty more times, laughing just as much each time, getting higher and higher pitched until I feel like covering my ears and screaming, or else they are saying in teeth-clenched irritation, “Give me that thing.” “WHAT thing?” “THAT thing.” “WHAT thing?” “ROB!!BERT!! GIVE IT TO ME!” “OW!! Mommy, William hit me!!” “It was an ACCIDENT!!” “NO IT WAS NOT!!” Or, worst of all, they are doing this sort of nauseating baby talk, and using it to say nonsense. They are as annoying as a flashing banner ad plus a car alarm plus a shirt that needs to be tugged down every 5 minutes.

We did all three days of Week Two of the running program. We thought we might die, but we did it. We’ve had a little trouble with knowing when we’re supposed to stop doing sessions of jogging. Like, if you alternate jogging and walking for 20 minutes as instructed, you do jogging, walking, jogging, walking, jogging, walking, jogging, walking, jogging, walking–and there are 2.5 minutes left. Should you jog for 1.5 minutes and then only have 1 minute of walking before you’re done? Or should you walk that whole last 2.5 minutes to cool down? We’ve been jogging 1 minute and then walking the last 1.5. I’m sure a real runner would be making air quotes all over the place: “Oh, you want to know how long you should ‘cool down’ after ‘all that running’? [*gigantic eye roll*] Gosh, are you sure this is ‘Couch to 5K’ and not ‘Couch to Iron Man’?”

I don’t know how we’re going to be able to do Week Three, which goes up to 3 minutes of jogging. [Real Runner rolls eyes so hard he/she risks popping them off their tethers entirely.] We’re going to try it, but if necessary we’re going to go up one 30-second increase at a time: a week of 2-minute jogs, a week of 2.5-minute jogs, and then, MAYBE, a week of 3-minute jogs. We’ll see. [Real Runner has to consume sports drink to replenish electrolytes lost from disdain.]

Comment here if you’re interested in getting Swistle’s Angel DVDs, season 1, watched once, mailed to you free of charge so that you will get addicted and I will have more people to talk about it with out of nothing but love. For those who are unfamiliar with the show, it is about a tall handsome broody vampire with vulnerable eyes and a long leather coat. He used to be evil but now uses hair product and works on the side of Good for 42 minutes once a week. I’m looking for (1) names of people who want the DVDs and (2) suggestions on how to decide who gets them, especially if it’s something fun.

I tried the cookies with mint extract and regular chocolate chips, and they are good. If the ones with mint chocolate chips are a 10, the ones with extract and regular chocolate chips are maybe an 8.5, maybe a 9. They lack the “little bursts of mint” effect, but retain the overall chocolate/mint excellence.

I have Angel season one on DVD. I have watched it, and I really liked it a lot, but I don’t plan to watch it again. I’d like to pass along the contagious Joss Whedon virus find a good home for it. It occurs to me that I could infect give it to one of you.

But how to decide who gets it? I suppose you could tell me sob stories of how pitiful and deserving you are, but that would be barfy and boring that would be sad.

A contest? Maybe, if there’s a fun idea for one. A drawing? Meh. Insufficiently fun.

This assumes that more than one person would be interested in having it.

Beth is pregnant! So exciting. I like to know a lot of pregnant people so I can daydream about their pregnancies, waiting excitedly for the baby to be born and thinking about what I would name it if it were up to me. (Any takers for Millicent? Paul won’t let us use it.)

Speaking of pregnancy and babies, I heard from Semi-Desperate Housewife‘s mother. I’ve been a little worried about SDHW and hoping her baby boy stays put a little longer. (And also: waiting excitedly for the baby to be born and thinking about what I would name him if it were up to me.) Here’s what her mom says:

I happened to click on your names from my daughter SDHW’s post and saw that I could email you. There were only a couple of you who I could find the emails for. Just wanted to update you on her situation. She woke up Sunday morning so incredibly dizzy that she couldn’t move without vomiting. She ended up in the hospital on IV fluids by Sunday afternoon. They did a CAT scan Monday morning because she wasn’t getting better, but that turned out all clear. Baby is just fine, too. The diagnosis is that she has some weird viral inner ear infection that is affecting her equilibrium. Basically, she can’t move without vomiting and hasn’t been able to keep hardly any food down since Saturday. She came home Monday evening, but is totally confined to bed and is so dizzy that she just can’t move and needs a lot of help walking to the bathroom, etc. We even have to keep Addy away from her because the jostling about of a toddler makes her so sick. This is apparently viral and will run its course in anywhere from days to weeks. PLEASE pray that it is only for a couple more days and that baby boy stays put until she is feeling more normal. Labor at this point would be torture!!! I know you check her post frequently, so thought I’d give you an update.
HER MOM :)

UG! And YIKES. Like it’s not hard enough to be late-third-trimester pregnant, without also barfing from the smallest movement and worrying about pre-term labor. SDHW’s husband is going to be posting an update soon, too, on SDHW’s blog.

I keep waiting for it to be okay to write about Harry Potter without worrying about spoilers, but it occurs to me that day will never come. I’m thinking of how I’m only watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel NOW, so I’m STILL not happy if I stumble upon spoilers (though I can hardly blame people at THIS late date).

So how about this, instead. If you would like me to tell you which HP7 death I don’t accept, you can email me and I’ll tell you. There is one I in fact DENY. It DID NOT happen, that is my feeling about it.

Really good sandwich: a “hearty” bread (quotes to indicate that it should be the kind that looks nutritious by being full of lots of little bits, rather than the kind that is actually nutritious and doesn’t taste good), deli turkey, Caesar dressing, lettuce, and white corn tortilla chips to add salt and crunch. Mmmmmmmmmm.

I’m thinking of ordering a couple Old Navy perfect tees. I’ve never bought Old Navy for myself before. If you’ve purchased Old Navy women’s clothing, did you find that it fit large? small? or true to size? I wear two different shirt sizes depending on the brand, and I’m not sure if I should order the larger size or the smaller one.

A second question: How’s the shirt length? I’m tall, and it’s common for shirts to be too short.

I had such a good online shopping trip this morning! Old Navy is having one of their stuff-and-save sales, which are my favorite: 20% off everything, even clearance. You have to have an Old Navy card to get the deal, but I highly recommend having one anyway, because if you do you can also get free shipping (use coupon code SPECIAL–they don’t go out of their way to remind you) on $50+.

When I shop at The Children’s Place I tend to buy mostly girl stuff, but when I shop Old Navy I buy almost all boy stuff. I bought Rob and William some pigment-dyed polo shirts (all three colors) and dark-tint jeans. I also bought a whole pile of long-sleeved bodysuit three-packs for Henry: I had those for the twins and they’re so soft and so nice under overalls or for extra warmth under a long-sleeved outfit. What I don’t understand is why I only bought them in size 6-12 and size 12-18. What was I thinking? I should have gotten 3-6 for this fall. And when he’s in 12-18 months, it’ll probably be summertime. Well, I lost my mind, that’s all. But I lost it in cute colors! I got the gray combo (brown, gray, white) and the blue haze combo (dark blue, light blue, white), and also plain white. They have cute girl colors, too. Damn it, why didn’t I get them in size 3-6? I think I forgot how old my baby was, I think that’s what happened. Oh come on, like I can be expected to remember EVERYTHING.

I did buy one shirt for Elizabeth, a green floral one. I don’t even know if I like it; I just couldn’t resist $1.99 plus another 20% off.

Rob and William and I did our third day of running. We might repeat Week One next week, because we were still struggling. When I say “struggling,” I mean “begging the gods to spare our lives.” It definitely helped, though, to take your advice about running heel-first, running slower, lacing our shoes less tightly (I was thinking they were supposed to be MORE tight for running), and stretching more afterward. Also helpful: drinking a leeeeeetle too much coffee beforehand; and, once we were at the halfway point and heading back home, reminding myself that there was a pan of brownies waiting for us. (I’m running for my health!)

Maybe I should just place another order with Old Navy. It’s really bothering me that I didn’t get the bodysuits in 3-6 months. And maybe I should have gotten the uni combo (yellow, light green, white) too. I wonder if the stuff-and-save code can be used more than once? I wonder if I can find a full $50 worth so I can get the free shipping? Well, it’s only $5 flat-rate if I can’t. I hate this kind of thing! I’m going to be agitating about this all day, and then I’ll finally decide to just DO it–and they’ll be out of stock.

Grr. Well, if any of you buy anything, tell me what you bought and maybe I’ll love it and want it and be happier about placing another order.

Stacie over at The Twinkies had a clever idea: First write a nauseatingly perky paragraph about your life, the type of paragraph you see in alumni newsletters. Then write a franker, funnier one. Here are her paragraphs. And here are mine:

Swistle and Paul welcomed their fifth bundle of joy this May: baby Henry joins older siblings Robert, 8; William, 6; and twins Elizabeth and Edward, 2. Swistle is a stay-at-home mom and loving every precious minute of it! What a privilege to see the miracle of childhood close up, and in so many versions, and for so many hours a day! Paul can barely stand to leave for work in the morning, knowing that his happy family is farther behind him with every mile he drives.

If you people hold our old college friendships in any regard at all, you will get your asses on a plane and come HELP US. For the love of god, we are dying here. There are children on every surface, like those news stories you see about old ladies who have so many cats the entire house is disgusting. The squalor, it is unthinkable! The diapers alone will bury us! Bring food! Bring cleaning supplies! And bring a car, so you can drive away with one or more of our excess children! Toddler twins AND a newborn, do you understand what I am saying here??

Stacie is making this a new meme–and with new memes, the way to get them going is to threaten everyone with bad luck and/or ancient curses if they don’t participate ask everyone to consider themselves tagged.

To The Boys:

We totally notice it when you haul out “I love you” and “You’re beautiful” only when you are also panting and groping. We totally notice. Furthermore, we hate it. Get a clue, morons.

Love, The Girls

Huge Fisher-Price / Mattel recall due to lead paint:

http://www.service.mattel.com/us/recall/39054_IVR.asp?prod=

It took me a few tries to get to the site because it’s so busy right now.

I did this week’s second day of running yesterday, and what I would like to know is, where is my parade? There is nothing–NOTHING–quite like the smug and self-congratulatory feeling you can get from doing some truly revolting exercise. It feels GREAT! Today I am strutting around thinking, “I exercised yesterday! Yes indeed! That was me, out there exercising!” Even through this fog of righteousness, one thing remains painfully clear: it still feels better NOT to exercise. The after-exercise is great, but so is the after-going-to-the-dentist: if it feels so good to be DONE, we are not talking about an enjoyable experience.

The second day was worse than the first. My shins hurt from the first time, which tells me I’m probably doing something wrong, and they did not feel better when I ran on them. The weather was miserable. The boys were less enthusiastic. And in the back of my mind I was hearing all the people who said they ENJOYED it! And that it got EASY! But we did it, and I’m glad.

While I was counting out how many more minutes of hell remained to me, I had a thought. In the comments section, there was a discussion of how FAST you need to be running/walking. And what I think is that your speed doesn’t matter. I think all that matters is how trampled you’re getting. If you’re running along at 15 miles an hour but you feel all free and breezy (test: are you using words such as “enjoy” and “easy”?), you need to pick up your pace. If molasses is gliding past you but you’re seeing a tunnel of light and hearing beloved ancestors calling your name, you need to slow down. We will not be passing out medals for speed, only for misery.