Do You Hear What I Hear?

Cause I hear a lot of crap that passes for Christmas music these days. The thing is, I love Christmas music. But there are some simple rules to follow when enjoying the sounds of the season.

1. Songs can be either religious or happy (or both) but sad songs at Christmas suck. Like that one about the boy who's mom is dying and he wants to buy her shoes. Boo! I don't want to hear about your dying mother, sing me a song about Santa!
   
2. Love songs don't count as Christmas songs either. Sorry Andrea, I know how you love that Wham! song, but singing about your lover dumping you on Christmas does not bring the Christmas spirit. Especially when your band name has an exclamation point in it. I'm thinking of adding one to my name. From now on you shall all call me Rachel!
   
3. If you have ever appeared in a music video in a bikini or any of your songs have included "licious" on the end of a word, you shouldn't be allowed to make a Christmas album (Jessica Simpson, Mariah Carey, etc. , etc.)
4. Every Christmas song is better when Kermit the Frog is singing it.
   

Now if we can all just follow these simple rules...

The Computer Age

Maura asks a lot of questions. I hear this is common among 5 year olds, but I still feel like she asks more questions than any other child on earth. I have had to somehow limit her question asking for my own sanity so we had this rule that she could ask as many questions as she wants when we are in the car. This sounds mean, but it works. And trust me, she doesn't run out of questions. But with me in bed lately, she doesn't have car question time so I let her loose yesterday. Normally I can answer 50% of her questions and the other half I have to call somebody or look it up on the Internet. Here are some examples of questions lately
"How many moons does Jupiter have?"
"Do stars move in the sky?"
"Do all birds migrate and which ones don't"
"What is Barbie's mom's name?"
"I know how the baby comes out....but how did it get in?" (completely avoided that one)
"I don't want to have a baby, can I just buy one? (Ya, didn't grandma and grandpa buy Emily?That worked out well for the most part :))
"Why don't any of your shirts fit over your belly?"
Tonight one of her questions I didn't know and couldn't find out.
"Mom, can we eat food in heaven and if we can, can we eat tater tots?" I told her I didn't know and she said, "Then look it up on the computer."

Why can't I look up what we eat in heaven? Maybe I would work harder if I knew there would be Chicken Tikamasala from Bombay House. There has to be a way to find this out.

Outnumbered

So...it's a boy! It isn't the most pleasant thing to find out the gender of your baby when you are freaked out in an emergency room, but I am still thrilled to find out. I'm trying to focus on my little boy and not on all the things going wrong, and knowing that what is causing all this trouble is a real life baby boy is helping. (In case you are wondering I have some rare thing that is called a placental abruption. The nurse kept saying "This is so rare!" Somehow, that doesn't make me feel better). I thought Maura would be sad that she didn't get her sister (and won't be getting one, by the way), but the morning after we told her she had an epiphany while eating her Fruity Pebbles. She said to Rand, "Daddy, I get to have two brothers and Collin only gets to have one." At least she inherited Rand's way of looking on the bright side. I am very, very excited and I'm hopeful everything will turn out fine. We don't have a name yet but every time Maura asks I tell her we are naming him Maynard, just because it is the ugliest name I can think of.