Quick tip No. 12

If you don't immediately rinse out oatmeal from your bowl at breakfast, it will become so rock hard, you may believe it could rival cement. If you want any tiny rolled oats to be removed from the bowl after they've been allowed to dry, it will take AT LEAST two tries in the dish washer, or an hour soaking in the sink.

Toddler Brain

This may only be funny if you have a toddler... Since my kid is just starting to toddle, it's kinda funny. Maybe less so to Hayley, who has to deal with the worst parts of the tantrums, whining, "no," and all the rest much more than I do.

Image from graphjam.com

Below I have given a few updates to this graph for the Mikey brain:

• He has yet to develop the play-doh center of the Worthwhile-Food Cortex
• His Muppet-Appreciation lobe is not at all developed
• Instead of "Daddy's shoes" in the Toy-Recognition Cortex, he has developed a section for measuring cups and large serving utensils, especially spoons
• His Cartoon Addition Lobe is not fully developed 
• His Endless-Repetition Stem does not contain "The Wheels on the Bus," and "Goodnight Moon" is only part of his nighttime brain function. "No!" is definitely the dominate section of this area
• Surprisingly, his Acceptable-Medicine Center is completely normal. No aversion to actual medicines, except shots, of course

Do you see any changes you'd make? OR additional brain centers in the kids with whom you interact?

We'll get 'em next year!

Remember when I said I would try to write a novel in a month? Remember how it didn't go so well? Well, the honest truth is I quit. It was hard! I couldn't figure out what to make my characters do before they got to the big stuff I had planned for them. I would get behind and then freak out at how many extra words I'd have to write the next day to catch up. Then, I decided to bag what I had started, and do something else entirely. That didn't pan out as well as I hoped would.

image from toothpastefordinner.com

On top of the book writing stress, there were a few other things requiring my attention and they were also stressing me out. When I decided I wasn't going to write my book anymore, It was a big relief. But I do want to write that book. So as part of my resolutions for the new year, I am going to attempt NaNoWriMo again in 2012.

So there. That's my update on the writing.

In unrelated news, I figured out that I'm still logged into Hayley's YouTube account on my phone, so I posted a BUNCH of videos of Mikey there. Click the button over there on the right to see 'em.