The Wilson 6 Chronicles

As with any self respecting woman who was 12 years old back in 1989 or thereabouts, I had an intense love of the New Kids on the Block. Personally, I found Jordan to be the hottest (with Joey as a close second but he seemed so young at the time) and backed this deep affection up with a small collection of oversized buttons, jumbo puzzle, a couple of dolls (or action figures), and a set of NKOTB sheets on my bed. And now, like any good mother, I am passing my traditions on to the my daughters by brainwashing Eleanor into loving then new incarnation of the New Kids. Whenever their song "Summertime" comes on VH1, Eleanor squeals (who am I kidding, I squeal a little too) and starts to dance. By watching the video, you quickly figure out a few things: 1. Donnie Wahlberg needs to button his shirt and perhaps tone down the precision haircut 2. Danny and Jon (Jonathan?) are easily the least popular Kids as they have almost no face time in the video (and rightly so as Danny looks slightly like he might hurt someone as any minute) and 3. age and time cannot tarnish the utter hotness of Jordan Knight. Even Eleanor has to agree with my on the Jordan thing, she will say that "Jorjan" is hew New Kid on the Block. At least I am able to rest easy knowing that I am teaching my kids the important things in life.

Well, apparently great minds think alike because we also went to see The Dark Knight on Sunday. I am a bit of a superhero fan so I was stoked about it and that is saying alot because I do not enjoy going to a movie theatre. I honestly have a hard time just sitting still for that amount of time and doing nothing but watching a movie. I like movies at home where I can read or surf the net or do something other than just sit there. We mistakenly thought that Harper would stay content during the movie since she basically nurses and naps 24 hours a day but we were wrong wrong wrong. That's not entirely true- she did let me watch all of the previews (OMG- how awesome does Twilight look?) and about 5 minutes of the movie. So I grabbed her up and left the theatre. I took her to the family bathroom, tosed her up on the changing table and swaddled her which is generally the surefire way to get her to calm down. And she did. But I didn't want to take the chance on having her freak again (I think the loud sound was scaring her) so I stood up and rocked her the entire time. The entire 2.5 hours. It worked out well though because I could just kind of wander around in the little corridor and still hear the movie and see the parts that I wanted to see (some of the Joker's parts were a little intense). Heath Leadger's performance totally lived up to the hype- he was unrecognizable as the Joker- everything from his appearance to his mannerisms were so creepy and twisted. And I liked how they handled the Harvey Dent story and the haters who say his story was rushed or whatnot need to watch the movie again. And thank god they replaced Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhall- I'm not saying I hate KH or anything but I do hate the way she seems to speak out of the side of her mouth- it's just to Joey Potter for me. And the Bat-Pod, I was totally geeking out over it and the way it separates from the Batmobile/Tumbler. Very cool. Poor Zachary is dying to see it but for once, I am pulling the mom card in regards to movies (we pretty much let him watch anything- I know, we're horrible parents) and not letting him see it until it's out of DVD. I just think it's too intense for him- hell, I thought I might have nightmares after seeing some of the close ups of the Joker. But if you're one of the 8 people in the US who have not seen the movie, you need to head out asap and see it.

Justin and I spent a huge chunk of Friday afternoon and Saturday morning painting and decorating Eleanor's new room/playroom. I hesitate to call it straight up Eleanor's room since there are still some toys in there that are communal but let's not kid ourselves- this room is pure girly fun. And I love it- I'm tempted to throw down a sleeping bag and sleep in there myself.

So, yesterday I had the bright idea to turn the cesspool that we were calling a playroom into a Eleanor room/playroom. It all started when I spied this shelving unit on sale in the Target weekly ad and thought it would be a good idea to combine all those 39585698 baskets of various toys into a cohesive area. I like organization- I want dinosaurs in the dinosaur basket, cars in the cars basket, instruments in the instrument buckets- but somehow it all ends up in a heap in the floor and when it does get cleaned up, the dinosaurs are mingling with the cars to the tune of a harmonica and tamborine. So, early yesterday morning, the kids and I were off and bought the shelf and 4 box/cube/baskets thingies. And it all started innocently enough. But somehow in the 15 minute drive from Target back home, I decided that I should get the toddler bed out of storage and move the changing table out of the boys room and make Eleanor her own little space. Then I talked my self out of it. But I managed to get myself worked up as I assembled the shelf (have I mentioned that I love to put stuff together? absolutely love it.) and went into the playroom to shift stuff around and saw the devastation of toys. So out to the storage building to find the toddler bed- half was there. So up to the attic to look for the rest- found it along with the mattress and bedding for it. Yes, I know, I shouldn't be climbing into the attic to get stuff but it HAD to be done. So my trusted sidekick, Zachary, and I moved the old bookshelf and play kitchen out of the playroom and moved the changing table in. We cleared space in the middle of the floor and, along with my other 2 sidekicks, assembled the toddler bed. So, then it was just a matter of sorting toys and putting stuff where it needed to go which sounds easy until you realize at this point, it looks like the cesspool has exploded all over the house- there are baby dolls in the bathroom, play oven in the living room, play sink and fridge in the hallway, doll strollers and shopping carts in my bedroom. But finally, around 6:00 last night, it was done. And now we have a bunch of stuff to donate to Goodwill and I am so freaking tired, I can barely walk. But the nesting must go on so now we are off to find bedding for Eleanor's new bed and hopefully Harper will stay put at least until Justin makes it back home tomorrow.

So we went for a doctors appointment today and found out that I am 3 cm dilated which is great because it means that those painful contractions I've been having every night are doing their job. Unfortunately, baby is still pretty high up so it could still be a while. As a matter of fact, she was so high, that the doctor was concerned she might be breech so we got to have a quick ultrasound and see a sneak peak of baby girl- I am happy to report that she does have some hair and it was very visible on the ultrasound. Apparently, that "thing" the dr thought might be her head was just her bottom- gives new meaning to "hard ass," right? So now the waiting game kicks in- we've got 3 cm out of the way, how long will it take to get the rest of them knocked out?

In case you are not the paragon of trivia that I am, you might not know that the sewing machine was first patented by Elias Howe. Well, there is some controversy over it but he was the first to patent the mechanism to perform a lockstitch- Isaac Singer (recognize *that* name?) invented the foot treadle machine but since it used the lockstitch mechanism like Howe's, he had to pay patent royalties to Howe after it was challenged in court. Why am I talking about all this broohaha? Because I like to sew and I just spent 3 days and took 5 years off my life trying to figure out why my blasted, not that old sewing machine couldn't get its act together long enough to stitch through freakin' 4 layers of canvas. I mean,seriously- it was working this past weekend, then nothing. I couldn't sew a straight line of stitches if my life depended on it. I cursed and cleaned the machine. I thread, rethreaded, threaded a new bobbin, and changed needles. I adjusted enough tension that the UN should send me to the Middle East to solve that crisis. Nothing worked, nothing. All that I wanted (needed) to do was finished the 2 blasted bags that I had started. I'm not sure why it was so important but seeing as how I am due to have a baby in 4 weeks, I am pretty sure that hormones had something to do with it. I started to doubt my ability to sew. I mean, in Home Ec in 7th grade, my hot air balloon pillow *did* come out looking more pumpkin shaped, maybe I was just not a good seamstress. How does this simple machine first patented in the 1800s manage to make me question my very intelligence? So I packed it up- last night, I said screw it (well, my actual language was much more colorful). My hips hurt, my back hurt, and I was pretty sure if I didn't stop that I was going to have a baby sitting in my kitchen. So, this morning, I decided to start fresh with my nemesis. I rethreaded the machine and took a deep breath.....and it worked. Perfectly. I pinned and stitched, pressed and topstitched. And one of the bags turned out pretty darn cute- the other one is forever ruined by the struggle I had to make it so it will be going to a new home. So now it is time to retire the machine for a few weeks, time to focus on anew adventure about the start, but in a few months, it'll be back out from storage- back to taunt me with it's promise of ease of use and creativity.