Took the kids to see Horton Hears a Who today.  Ok, so the title of the blog is a bit misleading…  it wasn’t really boring.  I am just so tired that I’m 2 for 2 in the falling asleep in the movie theater tally this week.  I actually liked what I saw of the movie.  With the exception of my 3-year-old running up and down the aisle, I enjoyed the experience.  It wasn’t totally her fault though; we went to an Easter egg hunt this morning, so she had LOTS of sugar coursing through her veins, which is why she was extra-hyper and running around the movie theater.  Once we flushed the sugar with plenty of non-sugary fluids, I was able to relax and enjoy the show – after a trip to the bathroom, of course.  It should actually be called a candy clean-up since they pick candy up off the floor; it has nothing to do with Easter eggs or hunting.  Still fun though, I’m just saying.

Before the movie started, I found myself wishing I had read the book, just to see how close the movie is to the book because now I have no idea.  But as far as Dr. Suess movies go, this is the best one I’ve seen.  Then again, I HATED The Cat in the Hat, and never saw the live-action version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, so there’s not much to compare it to in that respect.

The movie is about an elephant named Horton who lives in a jungle in what must be a fictional place because to my knowledge, there aren’t any jungles that have both kangaroos and elephants as indigenous species.  I know, it’s just a Dr. Suess movie and I’m probably reading too far into it, but I can’t help but think of that sort of thing.  And judging by Horton’s ears, he is an African elephant, not an Asian elephant…  ok, I’ll stop.  So anyway, Horton hears a Who.  A Who is actually a type of teeny-tiny person that lives in Whoville, all of which is located on a speck on a clover.  The rest of the story is about how Horton tries to save Whoville from a conniving kangaroo (played by the brilliant Carol Burnett) intent on destroying it.  I don’t usually like when I know the big-name actors voicing roles in an animated movie – it kind of distracts me, which is what happened when I heard Jim Carrey as the voice of Horton.  His voice also made the Horton character seem less cute to me, but I did like Carol Burnett as that scheming kangaroo.  And, hearing Steve Carell as the mayor of Whoville was not distracting at all – he is even good at voice-over acting – is there ever a role he’ll butcher?  Watching the opening credits, I noticed a plethora of recognizable actors lending voicework for this movie; among them:  Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Carol Burnett, Will Arnett (from Arrested Development), Seth Rogan, Isla Fisher (from Wedding Crashers – she was surprisingly good as a cartoon voice), Jonah Hill, and Amy Poehler.

It’s a cute movie that’s perfect for the whole family, even though my 3-year-old asked about where the princesses were until the last 10 minutes of the movie.  When it was over, she did say she liked it, sans princesses and all.  There are some jokes for the parents that will go over the kids’ heads, and that’s always enjoyable in a kids’ movie – although I could have done without the kangaroo saying, “This is the jungle; we can’t behave like wild animals.” – just WAY too cheesy, think I’ve even heard that joke before somewhere else!  I loved how the Mayor of Whoville has 96 daughters and 1 son – someday I might know what that is like!  Is that in the book I wonder?  It seems almost too clever to be an add-in for the movie…  Either way, I will have to go borrow the book from the library to see how close the movie followed it, but I have heard that the book is pretty closely followed.  I’ve always liked Dr. Suess, and it’s a shame he’s not still around to gift us with any more of his work or to see his creations come to life on the big screen.

No one likes to lose an hour of sleep.  Usually I take it as it comes, however, because I do enjoy the extra hour of daylight.  This year is another story.  The kids have NOT adjusted well to the time change AT ALL!  My oldest, an 8-year-old, comes into our bedroom EVERY morning and whispers, “Dad…  Dad…  DAD…  Is there a delay?”  This is partially the school districts fault.  For awhile, we were having 2-hour school delays due to weather at least weekly.  So now, she can’t get used to the fact that the weather is finally nice enough to start school on time.  Either that, or the district is sick of the heat of all the missed school and won’t delay anymore…  But much of it is because of the time change; my daughter just wants there to be a delay so she can go back to sleep for an hour or two.

My 3-year-old is back to staying up later than us.  She has always been a toughie to get on a proper sleep schedule, and wouldn’t you know it, we had her in an awesome sleeping groove until this darned time change happened.  She is back to refusing to go to bed, and she is a crabby zombie in the mornings.  The other night, she was sneaking peeks as we tried to watch Poltergeist in the living room – THAT’LL get her right to sleep!  That movie scared me awake for years – that clown part is STILL scary!

The baby – actually, she is now an almost 17-month-old toddler – is the most affected.  She cannot fall asleep before 10 at night, and she actually sleeps in a little bit in the mornings, kind of.  She’ll wake up at 5 or 6, then fall back asleep when Dad lays on the floor with her – poor Dad!  Have you noticed a trend?  They go to Dad when it comes to sleep issues – they KNOW better than to mess around with me – I get kinda grumpy when I don’t sleep well.  Unfortunately, the pregnancy has made me a light sleeper so I get woken up anyway.

Something tells me we’ll get it all worked out, but then we will just have to change the clocks back an hour the very weekend the kids finally adjust, starting all over again!

Bet you think this is going to be about one of my kids, don’t ya?  Well, the truth is, they’re all good.  Unless you count yesterday, when #2 and #3 were acting up…  but it was another snow day, so I think they had cabin fever.  And luckily for me, my friend and neighbor called out of nowhere and asked if she could take the older 2 sledding with the kids she watches.  I was having a bad day, especially since the dogs were being needy about going outside constantly (with a new one, it’s not really a fun gamble to see if she’s “lying” about having to go potty!), and as I said, the kids were acting up, so I was very agreeable to the sledding plan!  It was like a miracle – I SOOO needed that break, and the kids needed to get out of the house, so in the words of my friend Morat – EVERYONE WINS!!!  THANK YOU SHELLEY!

Now, for what the post is really about:  The Jennifer Aniston movie, The Good Girl.  We watched it last night.  You’re probably thinking, wow, they watch lots of movies, and you’re right!  We have a lovely library system where you can search almost every Ohio library online for almost any movie you can think of, and they will ship it to our home library for free – you just have to wait a few days, sometimes longer if it’s a popular movie with a waiting list.  So, almost every night, hubby and I like to sit down with a movie during our “parent time”, providing the kids willingly go to bed, which of course is not always foolproof…  But most of the time, it works, so last night the movie was The Good Girl.  The movie started out kinda slow, but it did get better.  I would classify it as a dark comedy.  Jennifer Aniston plays a bored, depressed housewife who decides to have an affair with a co-worker, played by Jake Gyllenhaal.   Her morals (if she had any to begin with that is) and behavior spiral out of control from then on, and the movie is an entertaining look at modern day suburban life gone awry.  It is a good dark comedy, like I said, it takes some getting used to, but we liked it overall.  Jake Gyllenhaal probably stands out as the best actor in the movie (along with Mike White – more on him later); his character was just this crazy 22-year-old man-child.   Jennifer Aniston was ok, but it took me about 20 minutes to get past her just acting like Rachel from Friends with a southern accent.  Maybe an actress playing the same character for 10 yrs. in a hit sitcom clouds a viewer’s perception, I don’t know…  I did really like that show and have seen every episode at least once, some MANY times.  Once I got used to her in this movie, she did a good job of bringing her character to life, although none of the main characters in this movie were really all that likable.  That probably has to do with it being a dark comedy – more on those later.  You have to really feel sorry for her husband in the movie who is a real dip (not to mention a pothead), but comes nowhere close to deserving all the crap she makes him put up with, not that I know who would…  Zooey Deschanel is great in this movie; she doesn’t play a likable character as far as being a nice person, but she is hilarious and provides much of the movie’s comic relief.

I really only like to compare movies in the same genre, so it’d be difficult for me to rate this one compared to other movies I’ve watched lately, like Vantage Point, The Hitcher, or As Good as It Gets.  I can’t really remember the other dark comedies I’ve seen, but I know I liked them; Heathers and Drowning Mona come to mind, but I’ll have to watch them again cuz it’s been awhile.  Overall, I would say that if you like dark comedies, I recommend this one, but I don’t think dark comedies are for everyone.  The script is interesting, and some of the acting is pretty good.  Mike White wrote the movie, and I have to say, I like his work.  He is best known (to me anyway) as Ned Schneebly from The School of Rock, which he also wrote.  Maybe it’s because he writes the characters he plays that he is fun to watch, and this film is no exception – his character (a religiously religious security guard who moonlights as a minister) is actually quite likable, especially compared to all the other characters!  Also to Mike White’s writing credit is Nacho Libre, but I don’t think I was a big fan of that one.  Since we try to cram in so many movies, some are watched while we’re ultra-sleepy or being interrupted by kids, and Nacho Libre just might be one of those because I don’t really remember it.  Either that, or it was just bad.  Again, if you like dark comedies, go rent The Good Girl, it’s certainly “different” as far as comedies go…

We went roller skating tonight for the first time in…  well, ever, for most of us.  My husband and I have never been roller skating together, and we go back 11 years, so needless to say, none of the kids have tried it before tonight.  The kids had a great time, and I was surprised to see how well our 3-year-old picked it up!  It doesn’t surprise me too much though – she’s always been the “physical” one.  Our 8-year-old is more creative and into arts and crafts than physical stuff, but she did well too…  I was surprised that when she kept falling, she didn’t get frustrated or upset or cry (for the first hour anyway) because she is a perfectionist with a VERY low pain tolerance.  Sure enough, by the end of the night, Taylor (the 8-year-old) was “hurt” and crying.  It was still lots of fun though.  And, living in an area with a small population is where the title The Mayor and the Macerena comes in – The mayor is the owner of the skating rink, and was spinning the tunes tonight.  When he played Macarena, hilarity ensued – I think he has the skating rink so he has a place to blast his ’80’s and 90’s music. 

Today when I was putting away laundry, it occurred to me that it’s almost that time of year when I need to pack away winter clothes and see if I have enough spring / summer clothes for the kids in the right sizes.  And, since I’m going to have another little bundle of joy, I started thinking about what I already have in the way of baby clothes…  Since this is my 4th girl, I have plenty of pinks and purples.  However, I really do need to check if any of these clothes are fitting for a July baby – I’ve never had a summer baby before!  Come to think of it, my girls were born in December (winter), May (spring), October (fall), and now, July (summer) – giving me miracles for every season!  We are so blessed!

Since #3 arrived not even 2 years ago, I still have ALL of her baby clothes, and my friends at the time were so nice to throw me a baby shower, even though she was #3…  I think it had something to do with my friend Sue insisting baby #3 (Disney) was going to be a boy, but it was very thoughtful of her at any rate.  This next part is weird, I’m warning you…  The problem is, all of my baby clothes are in the basement, and I have put myself on strike from going in the basement for awhile…  It’s a long story, but I probably won’t be ready to go down there until the end of summer or fall – it’s just not something I want to deal with these days…  maybe I’ll go into it in another post.  So, I guess I’m going to have to bribe my husband to dig around in the basement to find all of our newborn baby clothes in time for me to wash them and see if there’s any shopping to do before our new arrival.  The good news is, since it will be July, I shouldn’t need too many clothes off the bat…  some onesies and blankets will do it until fall, and maybe by then I will be basement-ready!

How ’bout them Cubs?  Ok, it’s only been one game of spring training, but they are undefeated!  Whoo-hoo!  I am so ready for baseball season; especially with all this snow – had ANOTHER snow day today, by the way.  Which means we have 2 make-up days now in the summer, and counting, probably since I’m sure with the way the snow has been falling out of the sky that it’s not done yet…  but that’s ok, because come June, when the kids have their extra days of school, I will be at home, sitting on my very pregnant behind, watching the Chicago Cubs WIN some baseball!  GO CUBBIES!

Yet another snow day is upon us…  that makes #6 for us this year, and it’s now officially time to start making them up in the summer.  Which I guess is good news for me, because the kids now have at least 1 extra day to attend school in the summer, near the time when the baby is due and I wouldn’t know how I’m going to handle all 3 of them alone anyway!  But for today, we are stuck here, buried under about 6 inches of snow which is still falling.  My gem of a husband had already shoveled twice – it’s our “date night”, and he says he wants nothing to stop the car from taking the kids to the babysitters later.  But I feel badly for him cuz it just keeps snowing and burying our sidewalks yet again.  And speaking of being buried, our garbage is no where to be seen – oops!  Once a month where I live, we have big garbage day, when you can put all your garbage out for free, no special bags or stickers needed.  So today was ours, and even though none of the neighbors had theirs out, we put ours out, like idiots…  my idea.  So now it’s buried, and I don’t know how they’re going to pick it up.  Don’t think the neighbors would be too happy if we leave it there until next month!

So the kids are already fighting, and Dr. Phil isn’t even over.  I still have to make lunch, get my load of laundry in, finish this post, and make sure the kids pick up the mess they made all morning.  If I get all that done and I can bundle the kids before it gets too cold and windy outside like they are forcasting, we might go sledding.  I’m not a big fan of the snow days; it throws our whole schedule off, but at least they’ll be going one more day in the summer – disappointing for them = freedom for me!

She finally did it!  Tonight was Disney’s first serious attempt at walking!  Well, she has tried before, but tonight she was doing it over and over, 5 steps or more at a time!  I tried to get it on video, but as soon as I took out the camera, she got all distracted and started crawling toward the camera saying “cheese, cheese” – it was really cute, but I had to put the camera away and get back to walking!  It’s like she knew the deadline was nearing, because we have a Dr. appointment on Monday just because the Dr. wants to make sure she’s walking – she was really surprised she wasn’t walking at her 15 month appointment so she asked to see her again in a month to make sure…  Now she has until Monday to practice, and her sisters are a big help with that!  Since tomorrow is her 16 month birthday, I was wondering, how late is she?  Beyond average, I know, but I’m curious about how late kids start walking…  let me know if you know of any lazy late walkers – it’s kind of like a poll, let’s see the latest we can find, hope it’s not Disney though 😉

Ok, with a baby on the way, I’ve got baby names on the brain.  With 3 girls already, we’ve exhausted our supply of favorite girls’ names.  Since we just found out this one is also most likely a girl, we have been pondering ways to name the baby.  Our first 3 all have middle names that start with “A”s, so we’d like to keep that pattern.  The problem is, since we’ve used up all of our top choices by now, I would like to name this baby after a relative.  My relatives don’t have the best sounding names…  I don’t want to offend anyone here, so no offense, but Dolores (my grandmother), Phyllis (my mother), or even Lisa (my name = my husband’s idea to use it) just don’t appeal to me, to say the least.  I was very close to my deceased grandmother whom my husband never met, but her name was, GULP, Frances.  Now, I do not regret using the middle-names-start-with-A pattern at all, I think it’s cool and all of our girls have pretty names; so far anyway, but if we didn’t have to stick to the pattern, we could name her something we like with Frances as a middle name to use as the namesake.  But, with our lovely pattern at stake, if we’re going to use the name Frances, it has to be a first name.  After being blessed with 3 beautiful girls and getting to give them 2 names each of our choosing, I think it’d be nice to use a namesake this time.  But my husband HATES the name Frances.  I can’t say I blame him, he never met my grandmother, and I’m not a big fan of the name either, but I think it would grow on us and we could also call her by her middle name or a nickname.  And, let’s face it, we can’t get more flak than we’ve already gotten for naming our third child Disney!  That’s a long story, best to be saved for another post…  but let’s just say little Disney is our happiest baby yet, so who has any right to say what’s in a name?

Did you catch Barney today?  Probably not…  but I did so I’ll fill you in.  Baby Bop lost her blankie, prompting much song and dance.  Which got me to thinking…  how old is too old for a blankie?  Actually, this blog was inspired by my oldest daughter who is 8 and still has a blankie.  I suppose it doesn’t sound like a big deal if I just put it that way, I mean, it’s not like she carries it everywhere with her anymore…  it was actually pretty easy to get her to stop bringing it places with us, thank goodness.  But when we’re at home, it’s a different story.  It IS carried everywhere around the house.  And if, help us all, we should have misplaced the blankie somewhere during the day and she doesn’t have it to sleep with at night – let’s just say the ENTIRE family suffers until it is found…  So…  how old is too old for a blankie?  Worse yet, our 3 1/2 year old is now figuring out what a wonderful power trip she can take if she holds blankie hostage, causing ever-growing conflict.  Soon the 1 1/2 year old will be in on it too, probably just because she’ll decide there has to be something awfully special about that blankie based on the way her sisters are acting, but still, we don’t need any more conflict!  I think I will surf the net and get some feedback about this subject…  Dr. Phil once had a college-age guest on his show who still had her blankie.  It was nothing but a tattered piece of material, and I remember him joking, “Does it keep you warm?”  Hehe.  I remember in the movie Mr. Mom, the dad decides the kid is too old to have a “whoopie”.  I think they burn it or something cruel like that…  I would never do that, but I do worry that some day if I get frustrated enough, the blankie might meet some sort of tragic demise…  So, is 8 too old for a blankie?  She still sucks her thumb too, but that will be another blog all together!