theNest

When Garth states that something is “custom” it can be anything…from a converted RV with a bus on top (we actually have seen this in Santa Barbara) to an obnoxious bumper sticker. In general, there are too many bumper stickers. We refrain from stating our personal beliefs on our vehicles because (a) it is not the general public’s business and (b) we don’t want anyone to pre-judge us by a strip of sticky paper.

The proud owner of this custom truck is a teenager who lives down the street from us. What gets me is not the “Environmentally Unfriendly Test Vehicle”, but the “Privately Funded” part. What the? It intrigued me big time. It also gave us a good laugh when we followed him all the way home from the freeway, where we first discovered him.

I am going to piggyback on yesterday’s blog because I want to share that I have had more of life’s humble pie. Yes, I actually stated the title of the blog out loud before I had Owen. You will never hear me say it again, I promise. Now that I have a boy, I have gained respect for moms of boys like none other. Having raised one from birth, I also acknowledge the acute differences from brain processing to hormones. It has improved my marriage as I am more compassionate and understanding that it is, indeed, the way “they are.” I won’t pretend I do or ever will understand the male gender; however, I will try to be more attentive to and accept the differences.

To prove my point that they are wired differently, I want to show a video of Owen playing with a Barbie. Well, kind of. He’s playing boy-style with a Barbie. Don’t worry…Barbie is still smiling in spite of her accidents. Personally, I am impressed this one still has hair and feet (the cats like to gnaw them off). If you listen closely, Owen tells a story while playing.

Hmmm. Let me just say that every ignorant comment Garth and I made before having children was revoked in the first year of Madeline’s life. And by the time Owen was born, we laughed at ourselves for even thinking it. One of the comments we made was, “We will never fill our house with a bunch of plastic play crap. We want our house to look like a house and not a giant play yard. They may play with toys in their rooms.” Let’s fast-forward to the now and take a look at how we’re eating our words. Case study #1:

This happened yesterday afternoon after homework and before dinner. Garth and I were still finishing up work and said the kids could play (with Maggie and Hannah) in the backyard. I came outside to this masterpiece. If I understand the kids correctly, this is a working ant ranch. The yellow flowers are the gardens, the cups are the houses, and the rocks are also buildings. I want to note the saran wrap, aluminum foil, and the fast-food straw and lid (an umbrella)…very creative kids! At least it was on the side of the house that has seen better days – so have at it.

Case study #2: This is our livingroom and if you were to come over, I wouldn’t move a thing. The kids and I built a Lego village, Madeline added her horse stable, and Owen contributed his Bakugans. They play there for hours…thus giving Garth and I hours to do whatever it is we do. So, in reality, who needs a livingroom?

I set up a Facebook account and got the following message: “Garth said on Facebook that you two are married. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, married to Garth.”

Ha! Should I confirm or cause total confusion?

I have a gmail account and when I logged on about 9 days ago, it was suddenly in French. Huh? Not that I minded at the time but it really is beginning to gnaw at me. First, who switched my preferences? Second, how do I go back to English permanently? Garth said it happened to him as well so we played around with the setting preferences. That was fun because I ended up with the Elmer Fudd option and laughed hysterically for a minute or two…it must be my obsession with English. Just look:

Pwefewences (Preferences)

Diwectory (Directory)

My Wabits (Settings)

I love decoding dialect so I had a great time until Garth – who was definitely less thrilled than I was – brought me back and we moved on to fixing the problem at hand. We fixed it by moving through several languages until English was actually an option. Good, problem solved…until I shut the computer down and rebooted the next day and voila! Francois was back. Oh well. It must be a Google glitch. It does make me wary about who or what is running “the system” and that I have little/no control over it. Hmmm. I have nothing to hide anyway so have at it. In the meantime, I’ll brush up on my knowledge of English/French cognates.