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I’m sick and sickly, yo. My throat hurts in a way that makes my ears itch WAY down on the inside, WAY down where my ear canal connects to my gland canal connects to my hipbone. So I drank some tea and cleaned my house today, because if I’m gonna die, I want all Widower Dan’s casserole-bringing visitors to know what a good homemaker I was.

Tonight I coughed so hard that I sent myself into a spasm of “musculoskeletal discomfort” on the left side of my chest. I refrained from running to the ER… this time.

I sneeze, shiver and pull the drawstrings tighter on my hoodie. Ahhhh, the hoodie. How I love this hoodie. This hoodie has more special features than the Matrix DVD.

1. It’s extra-long to cover 2/3 of my personal person with snug ribbing at the bottom to prevent drafts but no bunching at the band to give me an upside down muffin top. It doesn’t give me any streusel topping either.

2. It’s fitted to show off my girlish figger.

3. The hood has an uber-plush rim to cushion my eyebrows comfortably.

4. It comes equipped with a fuzzy woodland creature to subtly suggest my Canadian heritage without knocking people over with my blatant patriotism.

5. It has holes in the cuffs.

They’re on purpose. They’re for thumbs to live in.

6. It has an electronics grommet in the pocket. If I ever go back to Junior High, I’ll be all set to studiously avoid my parents, teachers and fellow classmates inexplicably with this super awesome iPod portal. My tiny ear buds will work their way secretly up the inside of my hoodie. With no visible cord and my hood pulled tightly around my face, I’ll be able to listen to my favorite K-Fed tunes on high volume, simultaneously damaging my hearing, zapping my brain of vital nerve endings, and alienating everyone around me because they have no idea why I won’t respond to anything they say.

For now I’m not responding to anything anyone says because I’m sick, yo. And not in a good way. Peace out and pass the Kleenex. I just need to leave a hood opening big enough for my nose to fit out and a bendy straw to fit in.

I went to the mailbox today and found a super fun package from Kim and Jason’s lemonade stand, a gift in honor of my fabulous award. The box was full of fun prizes, my favorite being these super cute ABC (already been chewed) cookie cutters from Kim and Jason’s online shop. Dan and I couldn’t stop laughing at the idea of making cookies that look like they’ve already had a bite taken out of them.

The very best thing about the package is that they’ve offered to send an identical gift to one of my readers. If you could use a little adultitis antidote in your life, leave a comment on this post listing one suggestion to help us all return to a more childlike state.

I’ll randomly pick someone 24 hours from now. Eeny. Meeny. Miney. Moe.

The answer to the question — “Where do you keep the scissors?” — should always be — “Higher.”

Today Laylee gave Stephanie’s 3-year-old a serious mullet. She shaved groovy designs in Magoo’s tender scalp, and was just taking her turn in the butcher’s chair when I walked in to see what the kids were up to. Half of her pony tail was on the floor. Luckily it was the top half.

I’m just glad she’s not old enough to notice how uneven it is after I “fixed” it for about half an hour, around and around in circles with the scissors, shorter and shorter and always the little crazy feathers and tails hung down mocking me.

So it’s sort of bobish and Magoo’s is baldish. I had to shave it shorter than his eyebrows in order to get to the point that he didn’t look like he was losing his hair in chunks due to some hideous mange. I hope his friends can still tell that he’s a mammal. I wouldn’t want him to be mocked on the playground.

I got an email from Wendy the other day with a subject line that said “Poo.” She wasn’t going to be able to make it to our Seattle Mom Blogs party and she was expressing her disappointment excrementally. As is often the case with Wendy, she made me laugh. Her email reminded me of a conversation I’d had with Laylee a couple of days earlier.

Me: OH POO!

Laylee: Did you just say “poo”?

Me: Umm… Yes I did.

Laylee: Did you mean “poo” like “Pooh” the bear?

Me: Umm… Yes I did. Oh POOH-bear I’m annoyed right now!

Laylee: Cause that’s what I thought.

Me: Yep.

I know he’s a bear of very little brain, but is that really any reason for so many people to take his name in vain so callously?

Do you have ADULTITIS?!

I certainly hope not. According to Kim and Jason, the experts of silliness at Kim and Jason, I have the cure. So go and get diagnosed and if you find yourself afflicted, come back over here and read through my archives. You’ll either be healed, or you’ll slip into a narcoleptic coma. Either way, you’ll be happy, right?

Dudes. This was really hard. I want to give you all a stroller. Okay, that’s not true. But I want to give at least 5 of you a stroller and the rest of you all big hugs.

In the end, the stroller goes to Carrie. The stroller goes to Carrie mostly because she called me an amazing mom but also because she needs it and she used visual-aids in her post.

Congrats and I’ll try to give you all more free stuff soon!

Chicco is giving away strollers like they’re going out of style. I’m all for giving things away and for helping make strollers go out of style so I’m pleased to promote the contest going on at Chicco where one stroller will be given away each day in September (4 more chances to win!). I’m also excited to announce that one Daring Young Mom reader will win a stroller as well (that makes 5 chances to win!).

To win at the Chicco site, you have to answer a couple of easy questions. To win at Daring Young Mom, you need to do a bit more work but the winner will be chosen from a much smaller group. It’s a really cool stroller that retails for about $150.

Here’s what you need to do:

Convince me that you NEED this stroller more than my other readers. You can do this through photos of your current nasty dirty stroller, poetry, song or interpretive dance. Dan and I will judge all entries in a completely biased and unfair way, choosing whichever one we happen to like the best. I will be accepting entries through this Sunday, September 30th at noon PST. Send me an email with your plea and someone will be getting a free primo stroller. I’ll announce the winner Sunday night!

(Oh, and if you like The Office and you like free stuff, go check out Eve’s giveaway. You have to hurry. The contest ends in a few hours when the season premiere airs.)

The Contest is Closed. I’ll let you know as soon as we have a winner!

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

Lately I’ve noticed that Laylee is very restless in her sleep. She grinds her teeth, tosses and turns. Often when we go at night to check on her, I’ll notice her mumbling and grimacing and I try to sooth her and calm her down. Sometimes it works a little.

She also sleeps with her arms raised up above her head, just the way I do. I brought this up to Dan.

“Did you ever notice that Laylee sleeps just like me?”

“Yes. She’s disturbed.”

“Thank you.”

“No, I mean her sleeping is disturbed. She seems troubled.”

Ah yes. So Laylee gets her disturb-ed-ness from me. Magoo gets his sweet cherubic sleeping position from Dan, with his chubby arms folded under his little round head (Dan’s is more oblong). I’ve always called Dan a sweet sleeper and so is Magoo.

Now Magoo and I do have one thing in common in our sleep. When we wake up, we strongly dislike all people. We pull the blankets over our heads, grunt, squinch up our faces and sometimes growl. We need our space.

So Laylee’s disturbed and Magoo’s curmudgeonly. It’s nice to know I’m leaving a legacy.

For the past week or so, Magoo has been on some sort of weird food strike. He will eat cheddar cheese, anything that tastes similar to a fistful of sugar, and of course chicken nuggets.

He likes his nuggets dino-shaped and white meat only and he enjoys them with a subtle hint of ketchup glob.

Dan and our health conscious organic-loving neighbor were watching the kids play in the sandbox the other day. They were making pretend food out of sand and our neighbor wanted to get the kids involved.

They planted sticks in the ground to grow imaginary fruit.

Neighbor: What’s growing on your tree?
Layee: Cherries, bananas, peaches and strawberries.
Magoo: NUGGETS!!!!

They dished up bowls of sand for each kid.

Neighbor: What flavor of ice cream do you want?
Laylee: Strawberry banana chocolate
Neighbor Boy: Hazelnut Latte
Magoo: NUGGETS!!!!

And that was the answer to pretty much every question they asked Magoo. Who loves you? NUGGETS!!!! What do you want to do? I WANT NUGGETS!!!! Yes. We’re all about variety and nutrition at our house.

I will say that this weekend he discovered his great love of plums, or at least the first bite of plums, picked fresh from the tree. We were at a family wedding on a farm in Eastern Washington and we let Laylee and Magoo help us pick some fruit to take home. Laylee and I carefully laid our peaches into the box while Magoo ran from tree to tree taking one bite out of each plum he found, seeing the pit inside and exclaiming, “EW. YUCKY!” and throwing it back to swim away to freedom.

At one point I found a rotten peach in our carefully gathered box of fruit and so I picked it up and threw it behind the tree with all its good-for-nothing friends. Magoo’s face lit up. “OH FUN!” he exclaimed and began unloading the peaches and throwing them as hard as he could at the trees. I guess if you can’t spend your whole life eating nuggets, watching perfectly ripe fresh peaches explode is the next best thing.

Yesterday we drove past the Post Office and Laylee had the chance to witness more mail trucks than she had EVER SEEN IN HER LIFE! Glory be! It was a lovely sight.

Laylee: Mom! Look at all those mail trucks!

Me: Wow! That is awesome.

Laylee: Where do all the mail truck people sleep at night?

Me: Well, they go home and sleep in regular beds just like regular people. Delivering mail is just their job like daddy has a job at Megacorp but then they go home and sleep.

Laylee: [sounding like the mail truck people had gone down a notch in her opinion, now that I’d outed them as mere mortals] Oh. [rallying her support] They are SO nice because they put packages in everybody’s mailbocks. I wonder if they put a package in our mailbock today?!

Me: Let’s go check our BOCK AND SEE!!

(more fun with plurals)

the reasons: red leaves, paper bags with handles, people who drive with their dog’s head sticking out the window so Magoo can lose his very mind