I’m back! Hello, 70-something degrees, I missed you terribly.

Jul 12, 2012

Hello everyone!

Back from my trip to visit Grandma and the Aunts down in North Carolina! We had a great time. Had a lot of new INDOOR experiences. Because in North Carolina, last week was either a) 105 degrees and humid as hell or b) raining like crazy with lightning and thunder. Not a lot of time spent at the park, let’s just say.

The kids were rock stars on the plane, as always. I actually thought we might get through this trip airport-incident free. I am an idiot. We met Daddy at baggage claim, who was looking very, very cute — a week without his family was good to the man — got our suitcases and car seats, and started heading out. BY THE WAY — my suitcase was the FIRST one that came out and our car seats were numbers 4 and 5. I am telling you guys, that is the kind of shit I LIVE for. I almost started the wave but the other passengers were not cooperative. Haters.

So we get our stuff and start heading out of the airport via the Up escalator, when my daughter (I think I need to start using “blog aliases” for my kids. If you have suggestions, let me know) decided she was going to stop walking. Yup. Had enough. All done. No more walking. My son and I were already halfway up the escalator when she made this decision, so she and Mike were stuck at the bottom. My boy freaked the fuck out, turned around, and started trying to run down the Up escalator while screaming “DADDY!!!!! I LOVE YOU, DADDY!!!”  We may have caused a scene as I tried to drag one child off the escalator and Mike tried to push the other on. Good times.

Sometimes my life is like one of those overly dramatic “Not Without My Daughter” type movies. I am played by Ashley Judd (she gives good crazy), Mike is played by Liam Neeson, and our kids are named “Merciless” and “Fucking Nuts” (two first names, like Sarah Jessica Parker).

I was not planning on posting today, but I was working on tomorrow’s post about the national treasure that is Sky Mall magazine and I decided that it deserved its own, separate post. So that one is coming tomorrow.

Good to be home!

Still on trip. Flashback post #2.

Jul 6, 2012

Hello!

Still on my trip! I’ll be back next week! If you are here for the first time and found me through this month’s Parent Map magazine — WELCOME! You can check out my Greatest Hits link on the right to get the flavor of the blog.

I will undoubtedly be Twitaging (I can call it whatever I want!) while I am gone, so feel free to follow along at @pileofbabies (or click the link on the right).

In the meantime, here is the second flashback post. This one is the result of my exploration into my family’s history: Ancestry dot snore. Enjoy.

–Meredith 🙂

Family trip!

Jul 4, 2012

Hello all!!

I am leaving for “vacation” today. Those of you who are up on grammar and punctuation are saying, “wait, ‘vacation’ doesn’t need to be in quotes.” It does when you are traveling by yourself with 4-year-old twins.

I am flying out to North Carolina with the kids to visit their Aunt and Grandma. Mike is staying home and taking the week off work so he can attend to pressing matters like drinking beer and scratching his balls.

I am not too worried about the trip — we did this trip last year and it was awesome until the very last hour. But I will report back when we return. If you have a moment today, pour some out for your homey in the sky with her kids.

So while I am gone, I am going to put up some old posts of mine. If you are here for the first time and found me through this month’s Parent Map magazine — WELCOME! You can check out my Greatest Hits link on the right to get the flavor of the blog.

I will undoubtedly be Twitaging (I can call it whatever I want!) while I am gone, so feel free to follow along at @pileofbabies (or click the link on the right).

I’ll be back on Friday the 13th!!!

–Meredith

Today’s flashback post is about my love affair with Etsy.com: God, do I love Etsy.

Leaving on a jet plane……..to Örnsköldsvik?

Apr 9, 2012

I’m going on a trip, y’all.

And not just A trip, but THE trip. As in the trip to end all trips. As in once in a lifetime kind of trip. As in holy shit I am really doing this trip.

My mom and sisters and I are going to Scandinavia next week. Say WHAT?? Say YES. We are going to Stockholm, Helsinki, and Oslo. And my husband is staying home with the kids. I am going to need to bring home an awesome present.

So yeah, this is a trip that is going to be in my top five most amazing lifetime experiences. And the fact that I get to do it with my mom and my sisters? It’s too much, people. Too freaking much.

I’ll be gone from the 17th to the 28th. There’s free wifi at the hotels, so I’ll try to post some photos and updates while I’m gone. In honor of my trip, I thought I’d share with you some interesting facts about the three countries I will be visiting that I discovered while researching them.

Today, we’ll talk about Sweden.

SWEDEN:

1.”Sweden’s pre-history begins in the Allerod warm period c. 12,000 BC with Late Paleolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture.”

On cold, North Pole nights, Dasher and Dancer would reminisce and share stories of the reindeer hunting camps. Making sure that the younger generation of reindeer would never, ever forget.

2. “The population increased during the 18th and 19th centuries, which the writer Esaias Tegner in 1833 attributed to ‘the peace, the (smallpox) vaccine, and the potatoes.'”

This, of course is the root of Sweden’s unofficial tourism motto: “Come for the smallpox vaccine, stay for the potatoes.”

3. “The early Swedish film I am Curious (Yellow) (1967) reflected a liberal view of sexuality, and introduced the concept of the ‘Swedish sin'”.

Ok. This one I had to Google. The description I found of the movie’s plot was very detailed and confusing. All I got from it was that there is a lot of sex and it ends when they both get scabies. And hey, we’ve all been there, right?

As for “Swedish sin”, which I had also never heard of, that is the myth that the Swedes are all a bunch of sluts. Awful. Just awful.

Not a slut. Sorry.

4. “In 1979, Sweden became the first country to forbid beating or spanking children, making it a criminal offense.”

Obviously, they haven’t read “How To Train Up a Child”, which recommends hitting your kids with plastic plumbing supply tubes. As long as you don’t do it in anger, of course. Awesome. Point, Sweden.

5. “All parents get 480 days of paid leave per child, which must be claimed before the child turns eight. Sixty days of leave is allocated specifically to each of the parents, which means these days cannot be transferred to the other. In addition, the father of a newborn baby gets 10 extra days leave in connection with the birth or 20 days if they are twins.”

What the fuckity fuck? America, are you seeing this? But hey, thanks for those 6 weeks we get. No no, really, who wants a year and a half of paid leave that you can take whenever you want to care for your children? Not me! USA! USA! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have hair to rip out of my head.

6. “Because of its high latitude, the length of daylight varies greatly. North of the Arctic Circle, the sun never sets for part of each summer, and it never rises for part of each winter. In the capital, Stockholm, daylight lasts for more than 18 hours in late June but only around 6 hours in late December.”

Oh my lord. It’s like that Al Pacino movie, Insomnia. Except that I am capable of sleeping no matter what the conditions.

7. “Since 1 May 2009, Sweden repealed its registered partnership laws and fully replaced them with gender-neutral marriage laws.”

Okay, America. I’m not saying it’s over between us, but I am saying that we have some issues we need to work out.

8. “Surstromming: Never has rotten fish smelled so bad but tasted so good. Small Baltic herring are caught in the spring, salted and left to ferment at leisure before being stuffed in a tin about a month before it hits the tables and shops. The fermentation process continues in the tin; ‘souring’ as the Swedes refer to it, and results in a bulging tin of fermented herring or surströmming. The aroma is pungent, and the taste is rounded yet piquant with a distinct acidity.”

This quote is from a Swedish tourism site. This proves that even when it is your JOB, you can’t make rotten, fermented fish sound appealing. On the other hand, I do believe I have found my gift to bring home to Mike. “Trust me, honey! It’s piquant!”

9. And here’s a little about the fashion scene. “Acne Studios is part of the creative collective Acne (Ambition to Create Novel Expression) clothiers and jeans.”

“Nothing comes between me and my Acne.”