Thoughts, and Two Very Useful Emoticons

Is everyone back now?  Are we all settled into our pre-holiday routines and reading and writing again?  I feel like last week was a bit of a wash.  I wasn't yet into my routine, either, and, after numerous days off work with plenty to catch up on, couldn't even contemplate crafting a new blog post in my head, let alone writing (typing) one down.  Although I have been coming up with posts, topics for posts, and photos for my new blog, Fashion and Frugality (for Kids).  It's not up yet, but I've decided to keep it on Blogger and am just trying how best to roll it out so it gets a fair amount of traffic from the get-go so my posts don't get wasted.  I hope you'll all be interested in joining me there when the time comes!  I'll probably be talking it up a lot over the next few weeks until I'm ready to go with it, so please bear with me.  :-) 

Totally off-topic here, but I learned something very useful on Facebook the other day.  I'm sure you'll all be completely wowed by it, and will rush out to defile your wall and the walls of countless others with such amazing stuff...but here goes...  Try the following two emoticons.  I won't say more:

                     :poop:
                     (^^^)

Intrigued?  You should be.

Okay, back to (random) relevant items of business again.

I had a topic I wanted to write about, a topic that has come to me several times over the last few days as something I wanted to bring up, but for the life of me, I totally can't remember what it was!  Figures.  It'll probably come back to me while I'm in the shower or driving to work.  Those are my big think times.

Samantha and I took the Christmas tree and interior decor down on Saturday.  I think we were all ready.  Christmas was fun, the decorated house was warm and inviting, but there does come a time when enough's enough, and we were ready for it to be over.  I was a little worried she'd be upset by the breaking-down of everything, but Samantha was really into it, now with little Miss Bossy-Pants scolding anyone with any kind of decorations that "Christmas is over!"  For the most part she's been really great over the last few weeks, and settled back into school smoothly, but I've been noticing that she's been having a lot of difficulty listening.  Not "listening" as in hearing, or even paying attention, but "listening" as in heeding what we are saying or asking her to do.  Like, "don't touch" translates into touch everything for her.  And "stay with me" translates into run ahead, or "let's go, we're late!" translates into stop and pet the cat, play with the hula hoop, play piano, re-arrange the bookshelf, smell the roses...  I'm sure this is, in part, her age.  Maybe.  But sheesh, it's frustrating!  Saturday we went to Walmart to look for under-bed storage for her out-of-season clothes (which I couldn't find - not even at Home Depot!).  I promised her we'd get to have hot chocolate at McDonald's (there's one in the store) afterwards.  She was good as gold in the store, and we stood in line at Micky D's only to find out that the hot chocolate/latte machine was on the freaking fritz.  Seriously???  Let's just say the meltdown was epic.  I felt soooooo bad.  So I promised her we'd go to Dunkin' Donuts instead.  No problem (although she cried the whole way there), but after we had our treats there, just before we left, she pushed open the Employees Only gate to the back-counter area, and ran behind the counter.  Omg, I was mortified.  The employees were nice about it, and, thankfully, there weren't any other customers in the store, but I was pretty ticked off.  What on earth posessed her to do that??  She said later that she'd wanted to say goodbye.  Uh, there are certainly other ways to say goodbye.  That's not one of them.  Another example was yesterday.  I had run the dishwasher before we left the house to run to the grocery store.  When we returned, as we were putting our purchases away, she reached out and pressed the still-running machine's on/off button, halting the wash in whatever cycle it may have been in.  I've told her time and again not to touch that button, but it's like it's a compulsion to do it.  I then had to run the wash again, since I had no idea how clean everything may have been, and it didn't get a chance to go through the drying cycle.  She can go ahead and cry when I yell at her for doing those non-sensical things that she fully knows not to do, but I just am always in awe at how it just. does. not. sink. in.  *sigh*

Oh, and while we were in the grocery store, Sammi, being chipper and pushing her little mini, kid's shopping cart happily, was dancing around the aisles, greeting some of the people who walked past us and jumping in front of them to yell, "delicious!", something I'd just said to her, which she thought was funny.  For the first time ever, I was truly dismayed at the lack of reaction from some of the people.  She was practically in their faces, and being unbearably cute, but the stone-faced reactions were staggering.  As we left one of the aisles, I said, slightly loudly, "Some people just aren't very friendly, baby."  Thankfully we ran into one of her teachers right after that, and she was beyond thrilled to see her, so any disappointment she may have felt (or I may have felt) was washed away. 

Okay, still can't think of what I was originally going to post about, but there's always tomorrow...