We're Suckers. We Can't Help Ourselves.

Well....I think I can safely say that one little side-effect of stemming the flow of diet coke into my system is that I can no longer stay awake past 9:30 p.m. and thus my blogging hour has been taken over.  By sleep.  You'd think I'd be happy but I'm not.  I'm annoyed.  Clearly, Gollum is alive and well.

Sooo.....back to what I started blogging about 10 days ago....

I remember when Stomper was but a wee child and would ask me silly things like, "Mommy, could you please knit me a violyn?" or "Can you make me a t-rex suit right now?"  It was so easy back then to just say no because I really couldn't do those things.  But it seems he's made some advancements in the past few years besides learning multiplication and reading chapter books.  He has figured out how to adjust his request to something that is actually feasible and thus....we do it.  For example a couple of weeks ago, after Stomper went to see The Avengers not once but twice; both of his parents got to see it with him and I can safely speak for both of said parents that they totally enjoyed the movie as well as the date with their son.  Stomper came home from his first viewing absolutely jittering with excitement and spent the next week reenacting most of the movie for me as well as portraying his favorite character, Captain America. (Down, Becky.) Pretty soon Stomper just didn't feel complete in his portrayal due to the fact that he didn't have a sheild and immediately began his campaign. "Mom....could you make me a sheild?"  I tried to deflect his pesterings as long as I could but as in most cases of child-pestering I gave in.  Pretty soon I found myself sawing away at a cardboard box and trying to make it into a shield.  It didn't take long for Troy got involved and as usual took it to a whole new level using fancy silver tape and rock-climbing webbing to improve its appearance and functionality.

Sometimes when we do stuff like this Stomper loses interest in the new object in a depressingly speedy way.  For example, one day he was trying to make a guitar out of a box and it just wasn't working.  Before we knew it, Troy spent approximately three hours in the garage making a guitar out of plywood. It was completely awesome.  And Stomper played with it for about one hour.  Not quite the effort/reward quotient we were looking for.  I am happy to say that the same is not true of the silver shield.  Not only does he continue to play with it almost every day, but whenever his buddies come over they form a little pack of Avengers in the back yard, one of whom is always wielding a somewhat odd-looking but definitely awesome Captain America Shield.

Mommies Day

I didn't do a lot of the usual kinda stuff most moms do for Mother's Day - no brunch at a restaurant, no afternoon naps, but I have to say, it was one of the best Mother's Days ever.

I already had a hint I was going to love it when, on Saturday evening,  I saw Troy and Bitty whispering in the corner just as we were tucking her in. After their energetic and hushed conversation, Bitty tippy-toed over to me and said, with stars sparkling in her eyes, "Mommy, just sleep in in the morning, OKAY?" So I figured I could look forward to a little breakfast in bed to start the day.  Bitty loves doing that.  Of course, I woke up about a hour and a half before she did, but I killed time by reading and working on the lesson I was giving in church later that day.  Finally Troy had to go wake her up so she could help out with breakfast - she would have been heartbroken if she had been left out of it.  He tried to include Stomper as well, but he seems to be making an early entrance into the teenage habit of moaning into his pillow a low and definite, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" when you ask him if he wants to get out of bed on a Sunday morning.  Bundle wanted to take part in the breakfast as well, albeit on the receiving end.  She woke up just as Troy and Bitty were finishing my perfectly poached eggs on toast (yum!) and when she learned what was going on she crawled right into bed next to me, sat up leaning on a pillow, and smiled expectantly at Troy and Bitty as they came up the stairs with my tray.  Troy went back down and quickly made eggs for Bitty and Bundle too so they could join me in our bedroom feast.  A great start to the day.

I don't know if most mothers feel the way I do about the funny little homemade gifts the kids make for me every year.  Their teachers at school and church both seem to help them come up with a cute little craft and I just love the art and creations I'm showered with each year.  This year it was a hand-decorated shopping bag from Stomper and a self-portrait from Bitty as well as some cards and treats.  Treasures, every one.

After a nice church day we came home to get a few things ready for family to come over.  So no, I didn't nap luxuriously all afternoon or read in the bathtub or something like that, I did some cleaning and a lot of cooking.  And I'm so glad I did.  It was the most glorious spring afternoon - the temperature couldn't have been more perfect.  While I cooked and cleaned, Troy came home and played with the kids (read: kept them out of my way.) They had a rollicking good time with the sprinkler and we ended up with lots of funny pictures of Stomper as he sat on the sprinkler as it was going full blast.

We invited my parents and Troy's parents over for dinner, and it turned out that my dad's younger sister Roseanne was in town for the weekend as well and she joined us too.  I made a Cafe Rio type salad bar so that everyone could have plenty of things to pick and choose from.  Everyone got here at about the same time and we just sat on the back porch enjoying good food, good company and good conversation.  We each shared  memories of our mothers which led to a lot of funny stories and tender ones too. I especially enjoyed hearing my mom relate a story about Grandma Cannon that started out quite picturesque but ended with Grandma chopping off a chicken's head.  Troy's dad also had some great tales about digging ditches with dynamite as well as throwing firecrackers down his mother's chimney.  I guess I know more about my husband and his brothers' love of all things explosive.  Inherited trait.  I really enjoyed hearing all those memories and stories.  Later my sister and two of her beautiful girls stopped by as well and we all topped off our dinner with brownie and strawberry sundaes.

I just felt completely FULL.  Not from food, although that too.  I felt FULFILLED.  Happy Mother's Day to all - (a few days late) - and I send that wish out to any friend or family member who has shown me kindness and nurtured me along my wavering little way.  There are many of you and I love you.

Confession Time. I Have Turned Into Gollum.

This has been a challenging week. I don't even know how to say this without possibly bursting in to tears.

I have stopped drinking Diet Coke.

Waaaahhhhh!!!  I don't even WANT to stop drinking it, seeing how it's my favorite thing on the planet pretty much.  It's taken me months and months since the first moment I heard a little voice in my head telling me that I drink too much to actually admit that it's true.  I'm telling you, I love the stuff, and rely on it heavily as my own personal anti-depressant, energy booster, delicious guilt-free treat, tension tamer, mood lifter, ....basically, it's the precious. And I'm Gollum. And now I don't have it any more.  This is how I feel about it:



It's true.  I'm just that awful.  Today I took my toddler to the library to attend Books and Babies, a wonderful outing during which we enjoy songs and stories told by our favorite librarian.  We were sitting there happily, singing and clapping and being generally happy and calm when I saw a mom lean over and pick up a clear plastic cup with a lid and a red straw, bubbles filling the brown liquid like tiny jewels, dew beading up on the cup....I had to fight the urge to wrest it from her grasp and start sucking like a vampire.  Believe me, if she's anything like me she would have fought back.  We would have caused a scene.

Do I sound like I may have had a problem? No...addicted? Not me!

I have to say that I'm pretty proud of myself.  I've been very strong and have even walked into both a Maverick and 7-11 this week and did not lose all control and start drinking directly from the Diet Coke spout.   Funny, I don't feel any physical effects from cutting myself off - no headaches, nothing like that.  I'm just sad.  Diet Coke made me happy.  But it was getting apparent that I had a problem seeing as how I poured myself a tall one by 10 a.m. pretty much every day and just kept it flowing until the late afternoon.  That can't be good, right?

So, there you go. I have confessed.  And if Frodo ever goes walking by with a big gulp in his hand he'd better look out because he's going to lose a lot more than a finger.

A Long Time Coming...I Mean Going.

Bitty just has not been on the same tooth-losing schedule that Stomper was.  I swear that boy spit them out like watermelon seeds one year until he had the most mangled-looking mouth around.  Bitty has chosen an apparently more ladylike schedule of occasionally  losing a tooth and then politely growing the new one in before moving on to the next.  Her two front teeth have been wiggly for more than a year without making much progress but finally finally one of them was on the verge of falling out after she kneed herself in the face and knocked it loose. More loose, that is.  I was a little sad to see it get so wiggly because I knew the days were numbered for her sweet and perfect little baby teeth - not one cavity yet!  (I AM a good mother! Oh no, wait, Stomper had like four, so I guess I take that back.)  Kids' faces just seem to change after those little pearls are gone and these big jagged permanent monsters take their place.  It takes a long time for their cute faces to grow into those big teeth!  I changed my mind about my sorrow however after she wiggled it so hard it started hanging at an angle, slightly protruding from the rest of her teeth.  She looked a little too buck-toothed yokel-ish.  Is that a word?  I don't think so.

Tuesday night it was so loose she couldn't even sleep.  Finally, as I was drifting off to sleep I heard a very un-sleepy holler from downstairs and instantly knew that the tooth had finally been wiggled free.  Hurrah.  Of course, Bitty was all set to sit down and write a lengthy epistle to the tooth fairy right then, but I talked her out of it, thank heavens.  I probably would have been okay with a quick note except that the tooth fairy always leaves a gold $1 coin in place of the tooth and I happened to know that the tooth fairy was out of them last night and would need to stop by the credit union sometime before bedtime the next day.  So I sent her off to bed after she showed off her gap to her daddy.  It's pretty cute.  She already has a lisp and now with her mithing tooth ith even worthe.

Okay. Cute, but still possibly a little yokely.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Matthew

How it's possible that five whole years have gone by since Matthew is beyond me.  But somehow it's true.  Five years.

It's a little tough when Matthew's birthday falls on a Saturday.  It's not like life slows down or gives us a peaceful quiet day for us to celebrate and remember, so we have to kind of make room for it ourselves, which we did in the beautiful, cool and sunny afternoon. The kids and I made a cake -  so cute - we asked them what kind of cake they thought Matthew would like.  Stomper started out by stating that it had to have whipped cream and strawberries, Bitty quickly followed up with deciding that it had to be chocolate AND vanilla cake, then Bundle topped it off by saying, "with SPRINKLES!"  And so it was.  We made it together and decorated it together.  The kids and I went and picked out balloons like we always do and took them to the back porch to write our notes to Matthew.

Bundle, despite obviously not having an abstract understanding of our spirits and of heaven, didn't stop jabbering about "my other brother Matthew in heaven" for the entire day.  And each of the kids wrote a note of their very own.  Stomper never seems to forget Alex or his brother and wrote a sweet note to both of them, though it was brief. Bitty wrote a lengthy note expressing longing and tenderness.  Bundle drew a picture and continued talking talking talking about Matthew.  Then we let our balloons go and for the first time in five tries every single balloon made it on its heavenly flight.

After an evening out celebrating Cinquo de Mayo with good friends, we came home and tucked some very tired kids in bed.  They were kind of manic all day as they are every year.  They seem to enjoy celebrating and talking about Matthew, but are always beyond energetic as well. I've mentioned other years that Troy and I have a hard time finding time to do our own remembering because so much of the day is spent in the crazy energy of the kids.  So of course Troy and I snuggled up on the couch after the kids were sleeping.  We pulled out our Matthew box and tenderly remembered our May 5, 2007 by reading the letters and notes we received and looking at his one photograph.

Though the day is always a little painful it is also a day to really celebrate our wonderful little family, and we had a great time together.  We bought a few extra balloons in case one got popped before we sent it with a note attached.  We enjoyed doing helium-intake demonstrations for the kids with the extra balloons and making them giggle like crazy.  We thoroughly enjoyed eating more cake than was good for us and licking all the bowls, whisks and spreaders involved.  We just tried to enjoy each other all day long, and we thank Matthew for bringing that extra depth of gratitude to our family.  We love you, sweet boy Matthew, and we want you to know that you are a blessing in our family.

The Salad Days

Raising Arizona. One of my all time favorite movies. I guess I do have to confess that I lean towards thinking about it and quoting it more than actually watching it because some of the stuff in there is just too yucky for me to enjoy watching over and over - mostly those two guys who break out of jail.  Wait, they didn't break out - they released themselves upon their own recognisance, of course.  Anyway, it's a great movie and I truly do love it.  I think it has one of the best opening sequences of all time - partly because it lasts 15 minutes or so before they even show the title of the movie and partly because there's that guy yodeling Beethoven's 9th the whole time.  It is during that wonderful sequence when H.I. McDunnough is happily married to his sweetheart Edwina and they're sitting there enjoying the sunset as they sit in their crappy lawn chairs outside of their crappy trailer, H.I. makes the comment, "Those were the salad days."

The Salad Days. Is that a common phrase?  I think so, but I am not entirely certain.  We sure use it a lot around here -  Troy uses it especially to describe the wonderful college years after his mission when he was spending time with this awesome group of friends including people we know and love to this day, like Rex.  I get a little jealous hearing him talk about those salad days. I wish I had been there.  Of course, I was way too mental in the year 1992 to have been cool enough to hang out with the likes of Troy and his gang.  So I just reap the benefits of being married to a guy who had salad days like those.

I bring this up because I think we might be in the middle of a salad-days time of our lives at this very moment.  Our youngest child is very nearly potty trained and very nearly sleeps through the night very nearly every night.  She has friends and play dates and is definitely no longer a baby.  Don't get me wrong - babies are great and many are the days that I wish I could have just one more day with each of my babies.  But let's not kid ourselves that the baby years are some very physically demanding and completely exhausting years!  And I've made it!  At the same time, our oldest child is no where near his teens yet.  He's still young enough to be a little kid - he still plays pretend and builds forts and needs hugs and a few weeks ago even asked me to sing him to sleep.  These are just some very good years. Here are a couple of things I've enjoyed since my last post:

We bought some dry ice. (Troy did his own wart removal; it was fascinating and alarmingly effective).  We had quite a lot of left over ice and had a few fun ingredients in the fridge so we whipped up some dry ice-ice cream.  The kids had fun stirring the smoking pot of cream and sugar and the result was so yummy.  I mean, it's hard to go wrong with that stuff anyway, but the dry ice made it sort of carbonated as well. You had to eat it up quickly before it melted, but that's never been a big problem around here.  Troy and I topped ours with berries and almonds, but the kids went heavy on the sprinkles and light on the fruit instead.  It was a great spur-of-the-moment family treat.

The other thing we seem to not get enough of is riding our bikes at the park.  Bundle has recently learned how to pedal around on our tiny little bike with training wheels.  We head up the street and around the corner at least once or twice a week let the kids zoom around (or wobble around as the case may be.)  Bitty especially loves her bike time and gets a look of absolute glee whenever she rides, as noted by her photos.

I'm hoping the summer ahead will be one full of many salad days.

Not Quite The Weepies...but still sharing

Every once in a while I come across a band or a song that seems to cast a spell over me and my very impressionable brain. I'm hooked, I succumb and I can't stop listening. My brainwaves change from frenzied hysterics to ahhhhhhh......and I'm addicted forever.  I can hardly seem to create a playlist without including it, whether it's a falling asleep medley, collection of brisk walking tunes or a clean-the-house rock out.

For example, The Weepies.  I think pretty much every person I know has been told to LISTEN TO THE WEEPIES RIGHT NOW and most have ended up with some Weepies tunes on their playlists here and there.  (Though not all. Becky.) The Weepies are still my faves and I don't see that changing.  But I've come across another band.  I confess, not every single song they sing is going into my itunes - they have a lot of stuff I don't really care for. But the stuff I love I love a lot.  And I wanted to share.  So here you go. I give you.....The Bombay Bicycle Club. My brainwaves thank them.






Sometimes aren't you surprised when you find out what members of a band look like?  I can't even describe what I thought these guys looked like when I first heard a song.  But I was not expecting four British guys who look like they are might graduate high school one of these days.  And I have to say, that second video is kinda....meh. Lame.  I just love the song. So despite everything, Them Bicycle Bombay Clubbers have a new fan.

Happy Birthday to my Sweet Momma

My sister and I tried to pull together a big ole party for my mother, seeing as how it was her 70th birthday this past Sunday.  I guess we didn't try that hard - it was pretty obvious from the first mention of a party that my mom and dad just wanted to hang out with their kids.  So that's what we did.  Margaret and I did spend a week stressing out about what to get her for a birthday gift.  From my dad my mom had asked for Muppets DVDs.  Funny - she's got a thing for The Muppets at the moment.  I can't really blame her.  Anyone who saw the latest Muppet movie had to be as charmed as I was, right?  Anyway, Dad bought her movies.  Margaret and I weren't sure what to do and both of us did a lot of browsing.  I ended up buying her a bracelet. It took me pretty much until I got out of the store and into the car to realize that she wasn't going to really like it, so I returned it a few days later.  Margaret did better with some really yummy natural soaps and lotions and stuff.  But better than that, Margaret hit it out of the ball park.  She had me and both of my brothers email a bunch of photos of our families to be printed up, put in a box and given to mom.  Such a simple gift.  I had a pretty little cigar-box type thing covered in flowers that was just the right size for photographs.  Dad's really good at keeping all the family photos neatly organized on their computer but that's hard for mom to access without help so we thought just a stack of pictures that she could sort through and hold anytime she wanted would be great.  And it was.

We all gathered at Margaret's house on a perfectly gorgeous spring evening.  We had homemade tostadas for dinner and this amazing flourless chocolate cake for dessert.  The kids jumped on the tramp and Margaret's cute girls played Apples to Apples with dad and Stomper and me.  A lovely evening.  Then we gave mom her gifts - the soaps and lotion, some pretty silver earrings.  It was all very nice.  But then she sat down by dad on the porch swing and they opened up the box of photos and promptly burst out crying in delight and happiness.  It couldn't have been a simpler or more perfect gift.  Good job, Margaret, and happy birthday mom.

Egg Tales

Spring Break has come and gone and I'm very proud to say that the Preslar Family survived. I'm such a wimp.  Any time a long break with no school shows up on the calendar I start shaking in my boots, sure that the empty days will drag on forever filled with absolutely nothing but the kids tearing each other to shreds and making messes on top of messes.  Do NOT mention the word "Su_ _ _ r" to me please.  And yes, there was a good healthy dose of fighting and messiness, but guess what, Spring Break was really fun this year.  We went nowhere, we just filled up the days with friends and fabulous outings like our first Real Soccer Game and Bundle's first dance class.  We had a little BBQ on a freezing cold night over here and an equally chilly trip to the zoo with friends.  We walked to Einsteins and got bagels and ate them at the park with other friends.  We rented red box movies and ate lots of popcorn.  It was great.  No, the house never really did get clean for the duration of the week (how do you people DO it with a house over 1000 square feet?) but we really did have a great week.

Eggs played a prominent role in our adventures.  Of course we had the egg-dying session that must always happen in the days leading up to Easter.  Yes, as is usually the case with us, it was late the evening before, but it was fun.  It's another one of those times when I have to suppress my inner...okay, OUTER control-freak craft-monger who was aching to make a gorgeous array of perfectly dyed, brightly colored eggs.  I just have to let the kids go for it.  Bundle spent the entire dying-session on just one or two eggs, systematically dunking them in every single color but only after delightedly exclaiming, "Ohh!  Purple!" or whatever color came next.  She produced two very interesting grayish eggs.  And the big kids weren't much different, actually.  They are the funkiest eggs.  And I managed to just leave them to it, and they loved it.

We spent our Saturday morning at a friend's neighborhood egg and candy hunt.  My children successfully restocked our house with colorful little blobs of sugar and chocolate that I am now fighting with myself about all day long.  I'm losing that argument, just so you know. On Sunday morning the kids awoke to more candy and small tokens of adoration such as art projects, a bike helmet for Stomper and new dresses for the girls. I've never done the Easter Dress thing before but I couldn't resist those purple ruffly things at Costco.  I'm glad I didn't - they were adorable. After a lovely church day we spent the afternoon with my parents and my sister eating a completely non-traditional Easter feast of Vietnamese rice noodle and tofu salads.  Hey, when you have to go both vegan and gluten free in a family dinner you have to let the ham and rolls go.  And it was delicious.  Plus, you know...we got more candy.

I have to say that of all the eggs we encountered over spring break what with Easter and all, I had one specific favorite egg of the weekend.  Not everyone in the family loved this egg like I did but Troy and I laughed so hard about this incident that we had to hide while laughing ourselves sick while the victim of the egg was crying in the bathtub.

So, on Sunday morning I was making my favorite thing which is poached eggs.  Bitty decided she didn't want one and instead went with a hard-boiled member of the colored collection made the day before.  I cracked and peeled it for her and placed it on her plate.  She watched it slide around there for a second before picking it up and asking if we could heat it up.  We've had this encounter before and I have told her that putting an already-boiled egg in the microwave is a bad idea but as happens a lot in our mother-daughter relationship she didn't believe me.  She insisted that only 30 seconds wouldn't hurt anything, so I let her put her theory to the test figuring that she was probably right.  She microwaved the egg all by herself and even pulled the plate out and set it down in front of herself.  I had my back turned for a few minutes when I suddenly heard this surprisingly loud "THOOOMPH" sound, followed by a moment of silence before there was an eruption of tears. I turned around to see my sweet daughter absolutely covered head-to-toe in tiny little bits of exploded egg.  In her hair, her eyelashes, down her neck...I'm only laughing because she wasn't burned or hurt at all.  Just heartbroken and probably a little shell-shocked after the explosion of her breakfast.  Troy calmly led her to the bathtub before joining me in the bedroom to laugh silently until tears were running down our cheeks.  Best egg ever.

Just Have to Remind Myself...

....WHY I love my daughter.

That sounded awful.  It was awful.

But before I explain myself I just have to share a quick mommy moment I had yesterday.  And by the way, why does it feel like I'm the only one who has these?  Like I'm the only one who manages perfectly to have every catastrophe erupt simultaneously as if I had planned it that way?  Okay - here's how it went.

The first hour after school is always nuts, but it can escalate to new hights when you have three extra friends plus a mommy over to chat for a bit before soccer practice, which all the kids went to after much scrambling for gear.  Soccer practice was great - sitting in the sun and soaking in the Vitamin D while the boys played soccer and the girls twirled and asked to go potty again and again.  I was feeling pretty good getting my kids out in the sun and knowing that I had dinner chugging along in the crock pot which would be perfect and ready just as we came home from soccer.  It was all going to go just as I had planned.  Then Bitty had the kind of accident where you just remove the undies and wrap them in a paper towel and shove them down in the garbage can under more paper towels and just have her go commando until you get home.  Then Bundle refused to put on shoes as she walked to the car and walked straight through a prickle plant of some kind.  Also, dinner was pork tacos (I'd share the recipe but it wasn't that good) and I didn't realize that somehow the pork "juice" had leaked in the fridge while the pork thawed all day yesterday.  So I get home with a screaming 2-year-old and a tear-stained 6-year-old and the most disgusting mess in the fridge ever.  And as I sat there on the couch plucking 100 minuscule splinters the size of hairs out my daughter's feet and thinking about how to contain pork juice, the other two kids start having little emergencies of their own.  I don't even remember what they were.  My brain couldn't keep up with that information. It was full already.  I just wonder why sometimes the forces of the universe see fit to leap into action all at once.

Okay, enough already.  Back to my daughter.  Lately, it's been the younger one causing me to question my suitability to be a mother.  But I think that might be mostly because she is nearing her 3rd birthday, day by day getting closer.  You know, I absolutely love the terrible twos.  Might be my favorite age ever.  The really rough infant-not-sleeping-and-often-screaming days are gone with just enough of the darling baby-ness left over to be delightful.

And then three happens.

What is happening to my darling baby girl?  She has gone from being sweet and playful, all blond ringlets and squinchy little smiles to spending her days furrowing her brow, shushing me and insisting on doing every last thing herself, despite the fact that she can't actually do any of those things.  And she's mad about it.  All the time.  She even tells me.  "I'm still very mad about you right now."  And she likes to just get ON me, in my lap, across my legs, over my arms, and then roll around and groan.  And kick.  And look miserable.  And moan.  And...and...you know, I just can't even describe the transformation she's made and you can only understand it if you've had your very own 2-year-old angel transform before your very eyes as he or she neared that dreaded third birthday.

Moving on.  I am going to remind myself about her most precious qualities and habits that I adore about her.  I just need a little refresher as to her finer points.

This gal adores the zoo and we spend a lot of time there, much to her delight.  I love putting her hair in little ponies.

We were lucky enough to get some tickets to the Disney On Ice Show with the Toy Story guys.  I was nervous that she'd be scared of the dark and noise, but Bundle spent almost the whole show on her feet shouting and cheering for her favorite characters.  The guests in front of us graciously appreciated her enthusiasm.

After only three short years my baby has just started sleeping through the night almost every night, partly thanks to her big sister who has decided that she likes sleeping with her.  Hooray!!

Bundle is an artiste - she paints her heart out almost every single day.

When she's not painting she dressing up in fabulous costumes.

But it really is painting that she turns to as her outlet - and it often leads to a little self-decoration followed closely by trip to the bathtub.

Need I say more?

Loved this - on our way to the Real game the other night she  zonked out momentarily and apparently quite suddenly, as noted by the straw in mid-suck position.  Luckily she does not take after her big sister and let cat naps ruin her bedtime.

So you can see, there is much to adore about my sweet little gal.  And seeing as how she has spent the day today keeping her undies dry, I'm feeling pretty good about it all now.