I like to consider myself a good wife for Mike. {I say this because I don’t think there are many women, if any, that would/could stand his many quirks. I used to think it was a joke when people who knew Mike for a long time would congratulate me for taking on Mike’s eccentricities. After a few years of being married to Mike I realized they were dead serious.} Our relationship includes a lot of humor and inside jokes. Mike sometimes forgets this and assumes he can play the same jokes on strangers that he plays on me. For instance, the time he asked the cashier at K-Mart (this particular store was going out of business and offering 75% OFF EVERYTHING in the store) if cigarettes were included in the discount. The lady promptly replied that they were not on sale due to laws, taxes, etc. Mike takes it a bit further to demand that they should also be discounted because the sign on the entrance of the store said “STORE CLOSING: EVERYTHING 75% OFF”. The lady starts to get flustered and defensive, saying it’s out of her hands and that’s what she was told, etc. I could see she was getting upset, so I elbowed Mike and told him to knock it off. After exiting the store I had to remind him that not everyone understands his humor or knows that he isn’t even a smoker. I occasionally have to revisit the same conversation with him, and he geniunely acts like he forgot.

Well, Mike’s new obsession is with moustaches. I don’t know that it’s actually “new” since he did grow one in Iraq and will grow one whenever given the opportunity to do so (on hunting/fising trips, when a group of guys from school all decide to grow moustaches together, etc.). Mike has recently decided that he wants me to design a logo with a picture of a man with a moustache that will also include some cryptic title that nobody gets. This logo will then be embroidered onto jackets that our whole family will wear out in public. Can you imagine my reluctance? Fortunately, I’ve been able to avoid the discussion of said logo until recently I have been accused of not being a loyal wife because I’ve “chosen” to work on other projects such as proofing photo shoots or making requested Simpson family photos for friends and relatives. As a way to make amends I decided to find a couple of songs to throw onto a mix disc for Mike that had to do with moustaches. One sung really struck a cord with Michael, and it’s become his newest favorite. Even the girls sing along when we play it in the car. So I thought I would share with y’all. It’s titled “Man with a Moustache” by the Guys. Enjoy!

Mimi and I are enjoying our alone time. She’s making progress on learning letters. I can confidently say she knows M, S, O, R, B, H, E, and A (in no particular order). I was starting to worry because she was really fixated on E, and every letter I asked her to name would elicit the response, “E”. No headway yet on the potty front, but I’m not going to stress about it. It’ll happen when it happens (despite Mike’s rush to get her trained). I constantly give her the opportunity to try the big potty, but she’s usually keen on going in her diaper. What can I say, if she finds a method she likes, she sticks with it;) As mentioned before, Mimi is quite smitten with Dora and Diego. One of the Diego cartoons that we have on video has him rescuing a baby bear. Mimi takes one of stuffed bears and will rescue it as it’s hanging off the edge of something (countertops, couches, radiators). The kicker is that she comes to me first and says, “Oh no, Baby Bear is in trouble!” I then must say, “Go rescue him, Mimi!” Mimi will then go “rescue” the stuffed bear from its current life-threatening situation. However, if I don’t give my rehearsed response, then I’m asking for trouble. The problem is that Mimi would love to play this game all day and everyday. Why do children not tire of doing the same thing over and over and over…? Just so I can say I mentioned Annie (I get reprimanded for not mentioning both daughters), Annie is still loving school and going daily. She brings home the cutest projects and worksheets and seems to be learning a lot of stuff that I would have not thought to teach her. She has show-and-tell every Friday and took in some butternuts that fell off Hartmut’s tree (she showed some that were still in their and shells and some that were de-shelled). It was cute to see her excitement.