The happy train has been boarded and we're stopping here and there.

There have been a few things recently that have made Wubbles and I very happy; here goes.

What makes Wubbles happy:

• 1 Mommy and Daddy's Bed Lane.  Seriously, the kid has all but taken over our bed.  For a little guy (he's only in the 40th percentiles for everything) he takes up so much space.  He's a restless sleeper and often times he will sit up in his sleep; eyes tightly closed and then fall back over as hard as he can.  Another of his favorite things to do, lay with his back pressed against Jim's face/head/shoulder and prop his little feet up on my upper back.   Ahhhhhh, the life.
• Macaroni and Cheeseville.  So, it's no secret that Wub is a picky eater.  He really takes after my Dad's side of the family, he has the nutritional will power of some high performance animal; he eats to live.  Which is so odd, because I live to eat.  I gave him 1 mini cookie last night and he played with it for a half an hour.  Played with it?  He didn't shove it in his mouth and then beg for more like I would totally do.  He didn't nibble at it for ten minutes, savoring every infinitesimal chocolate chip, as I have done.  No, he just looked at it and licked it and took a few bites. It turns out, what he really wanted was the empty cookie bag so he could put the cookie in, look bewildered as to where it had gone and then dump the bag back out, "Oh look, my slobbery piece of cookie!"  So when Wub finds something he likes, he lets you know; hence his love affair with Bob Evan's mac and cheese right now.  His eyes light up with excitement when Jim puts the black plastic container down in front of him; if I'm not cooling and piling (meaning, blowing on the mac and cheese to cool it and down and putting spoonfuls on his highchair tray) fast enough he isn't a happy camper.  Last night, as we were eating, I heard Jim laugh.  I looked over at Wubbles and he was a total mac and cheese mess!  So cute though.

He loves it so much, he literally rubs it in his hair.

 What (among thousands of things) makes me happy right now:

• Target's bargain bin aisles.  It's like the tiniest edited, dollar store on earth.  I say edited because, I love, love, love me a good dollar store, but you can't just go in there and buy every "slightly smells like vanilla" candle.  Or every scratchy set of dish towels.  No, you need to determine what appears to be dollar store quality (and will get you looks come Christmas gift exchange time) and what is passable as "generic stuff from a store" quality.  The beauty of Target's bargain aisles?  This has already been done for you.  Legitimately, most of the items there are pretty decent quality.  This weekend we bought Wub two new toys: a foam sword and a new dust pan.  Both of which he loves for entirely different reasons.  Jim and Wubbles spent a better part of their play time today deciding which toys "needed to get the sword."  I'm sad to report that the bath time pig, stuffed puppy and clap your hands Elmo puppet appear to have sustained some wounds.  I hope they make it.  As far as the new dustpan; well it's awesome because one of Wub's favorite things to do is take his swim diapers (which have never been used and are way too small) and "clean" the floors with them.  He also loves to spot something half way across the room, run over and inspect it and add it to the contents of his cooking pot.  So, when I showed him how he could efficiently sweep his tomato, cheese, peas, super Grover, Elmo and corn into the pan with the brush and then dump them into his cooking pot, he was in awe.  So thanks, Target; $2.00 very well spent. 



On guard!



A future in Stomp may be a possibility.

• Jim's spinach dip.  I know the apostrophe makes it so that Jim owns the spinach dip recipe, which he doesn't; but seriously, the stuff is delicious.  He usually only makes it for big parties and special occasions, but today, he made it just because we had the necessary ingredients.  We are taking some over to my Mom's house for dinner.  Notice I said some.  We ration it out.  Some for the party/dinner we're attending, some for us.  The funny thing is, Jim makes sure to go back and resmooth the larger bowl, to hide the evidence of removing our own stash.
• Having off tomorrow.  Jim and I are going to do some fun errands, go to some of my favorite stores, shout out to Michaels and do some cleaning.  Not the most exciting of days; but a perfect catch up on everything day.
• The ice has mostly melted.  I love snow; it's beautiful.  But the ice that comes in the days that follow is awful.  I am so paranoid about black ice that sometimes it looks like I'm doing some type of dance routine through parking lots!  And shuffle, toe sweep, shuffle, toe sweep...

These lists literally could go on and on, I mean as I'm looking around our table right now, I want to write about two or three other things, but I will hold myself back and edit myself like I'm at a dollar store; it's about quality not quantity.  Right?