Not exactly a dead ringer.

Apparently it was Doppelganger, a.k.a celebrity look alike week, on Facebook. To participate, you were supposed to replace your profile picture with a celebrity whom you have been told that you resemble. I noticed that several of my friends had switched their profile pictures to famous actors and actresses at the beginning of the week which seemed pretty strange. Finally, I was clued in to what was going on.

When I looked at my friend list this week, it was brimming with stars from both TV and the movies. I saw Anthony Edwards, Matthew Broderick, Valerie Bertenelli (the early years), Julia Stiles, Patricia Heaton and Traci Gold just to name a few. I have to say that in one case the resemblance to the celebrity was so close, that it took me a second to realize that the photo was Anthony Edwards and not the boy who I attended grade school with for eight years. In most cases, even if the resemblance to the celebrity wasn't striking, there were certain facial features that were similar once you took a good look at the picture (and maybe squinted a bit).

I have never been told that I looked like a celebrity. At all. Ever. I was once mistaken for an Austrian exchange student, but I was to blame for that one. I decided to french braid my hair and wear an apron style jumper to a meet and greet for some Austrian exchange students that were visiting from our sister city. In my oddly chosen outfit, I looked more like an Austrian than many of the actual Austrian high school students who were in attendance. I think everyone was waiting for me to start twirling and burst into song, "The hills are alive, with the sound of music..."

Other than that, the only person I've ever been mistaken for was another girl who happened to attend the same high school that I did. We both had the same hairstyle, we were about the same height and had the same fair skin that Mr. Crackers lovingly refers to as "fish belly white". Since she was a lot more popular than I was, I was often mistaken for her from a distance, and spent a lot of my high school years hearing, "Oh, I thought you were Molly."

Even though I was a little doubtful of the outcome, I figured I'd see if there a was female celebrity out there whom I might resemble. I thought that the easiest way to start would be to plug in some of my defining physical characteristics into Google Images & see what I could come up with. I narrowed my search to the three characteristics that I thought were most distinct about my appearance

I started with what I think is my most obvious physical characteristic, my height...or lack there of. While I like to think of myself as petite, my sister has been know to refer to me as height challenged. So, to get started I typed the phrase "short female actresses" into Google Images and got pictures of these ladies:

Umm, NO!

She's certainly a cutie (and man she's young), but no...no resemblance at all.

I wish...

So, I moved onto to my next item. Big teeth. Yep, I have big, giant teeth. Especially my front teeth. I try not to smile too widely at young children when I first meet them so as not to scare them. I typed "actresses with big teeth" into Google next to see what I came up with and got images of these ladies:

I think we can all agree that this woman is my exact opposite... the tan skin, the beautiful brown eyes (& let's agree not to discuss the difference in chest size OK?)

Just no.

Well, at least her hair is blondish. But other than that, it's a no.

Finally I decided to try my final characteristic - my fair skin (no Mr. Crackers I did not type "fish belly white skin" into Google Images). When I typed "actresses with pale skin" into Google Images this beautiful picture came up:

She is stunning. I bet Keith Urban never refers to her skin as fish belly white!

I also got an image of Tilda Swinton:

not a very flattering picture...can we do better?

Ahh...much better picture (not to mention the hair color is a little more similar to my own color treated hair). But is it a match?

Well, I think match is really too strong a word. I don't think anyone is ever going to stop me on the street and confuse me for Tilda Swinton (especially since she's probably about 6 inches taller than me while still managing to weigh about 15 pounds less), but honestly it's probably the closest match I'll be able to come with. Pale skin? Check! Light colored eyes? Check! Big teeth? Who knows...let's just wrap this up shall we?

Am I going to change my profile picture in Facebook? Nah, it'll just confuse people who will say "Geez I wonder who told her she looks like Tilda Swinton. I don't see the resemblance at all!"

Another Childhood Milestone

Last night Mr. Crackers & C went to his monthly pack meeting for Cub Scouts. Since Mr. Crackers was a boy scout himself (many, many) years ago, he has taken on the parental responsibilities of this activity. I had to attend one of these so-called meetings myself a few months ago & I'll just tell you that if I had to go with C to any more of those chaotic pack events, his career as a Cub Scout would have ended months ago - but that, my friends, is a story for another time.

Anyway, last night was a shower night here at the House of Crackers. Both of my hooligans love to play in the water, so shower night is a happy night. Since C was gone at his pack meeting K got to take an extra long shower in my bathroom. Normally K's showers involve a lot of splashing, loud singing & a copious amount of soap (We seem to go through gallons of kid shampoo around here each month, but since the end result is clean children I'm not about to complain about it).

Since shower taking is such a loud endeavor for her, I feel free to wander about the house doing important activities like playing Bejeweled Blitz and Word Challenge on Facebook like putting away laundry or catching up on emails. Last night however I noticed that after about 5 minutes things had gotten really quiet...too quiet. My Mommy radar was pinging away as I yelled to her to make sure she was OK. After getting nothing but silence in return I started rushing to the bathroom calling for her again. Just before I got there she called out, "I'm OK Momma, but I'm not done yet. Just 5 more minutes OK?" Five more minutes of Bejeweled Blitz and Word Challenge downtime sounded like a good idea to me, so I returned to the office.



About 8 minutes later (I was really on a roll on Word Challenge) I went in to get my now somewhat pruney younger child out of the shower. When I slid open the shower door I noticed she was staring down at her hands. She said, "Where did all this hair come from Momma?" I looked down and noticed she was holding a dark clump of hair in her hands. My first thought was that she must have pulled the hair out of the drain ...Ack! But, then I realized that we don't ever really have hair clumps sitting on the shower drain (and I can't be more thrilled about that fact than I currently am). I further realized that the hair she was holding was dark like Mr. Crackers hair, but that it was also really long -- like 3 or 4 inches long.



I looked at her face & noticed there were two more clumps of dark hair there, kind of framing her nose. Holy Smokes! I then looked down at the floor of the shower & saw several more chunks of long hair. What the what?!



I started panicking a bit. Did our shampoo suddenly & inexplicably turn radioactive? Had K been accidentally exposed to radiation at International Day at school earlier that morning (perhaps someone may have been excited to show off the fruits of their former country's nuclear program...) ? I asked her what happened to her hair & in typical pre-schooler fashion she looked at me blankly and said, "I don't know." I really had no idea what to think except that I needed to get this child out of the shower immediately.


As I reached into the shower to pull her out I noticed something...my razor which is normally stored in the shower caddy out of the children's' reach was now on the lower shelf in the shower stall. I also happened to see that there were several clumps of dark hair now hanging from the blade of the razor. Apparently, K's recent growth spurt has enabled her to reach a whole new world of dangerous objects that were once too high to be of notice.



After doing a quick search to make sure she hadn't cut herself anywhere (thankfully she didn't have as much as the smallest nick on her skin), I asked her, "Did you use Mommy's razor on your hair?"



She looked at me with those innocent eyes and said, "No Momma. I just used your curler."



As I dried her off, large clumps of hair continued to fall out of her head. I calmly (& without laughing, thank you very much) told her that what she used was not a curler, but was in fact a very sharp razor. I tried explain how dangerous razors were & how lucky she was that she didn't get hurt. I think she finally grasped the gravity of the situation when I said, "You may have really done a number on your hairdo kiddo. I'm not sure yet what you are going to look like once we get this mess dried out a bit."

With both of us expecting the worst, we moved over to the vanity so I could use the hairdryer and assess the damage. Honestly, I can say that you really can't tell that anything happened. Sure, she has more bangs today than she had when she woke up yesterday, but other than that she came out of the experience with her hair relatively intact. It probably helped that she's got incredibly thick hair. I think mostly she just managed to thin it a bit.

And with that, another childhood milestone is behind us.

Tough guy

C recently acquired a new look. In a relatively short period of time (around 36 hours) he lost both front teeth and got a black eye. No, he wasn't involved in an auto accident...nor does he play hockey or any other full contact sport.





It all started on a Wednesday afternoon when he came home from school & announced that his front tooth kept bleeding ALL DAY (he was very excited about this fact--apparently the blood was not accompanied by any pain). He then proceeded to open his mouth to show me one of his front teeth which was so loose that he could press it flat against the roof of his mouth or have it point straight out at me... Aaack!



I am not normally a squeamish person, but for some reason that wiggly tooth was a little too much for me to take. It seemed to be literally hanging on by a thread & I'm telling you that I was not going to be the one to pull it out of his head. I encouraged him to keep working on it, just as long as I didn't have to watch him to do it.



Once Mr. Crackers arrived home from work & saw the tooth, he quickly took matters into his own hands. He marched C into the bathroom and within 10 seconds the tooth was out.



The strange thing is that within the hour, his other front tooth became just as loose. When Mr. Crackers made the offer to pull that tooth as well, C resisted quite forcefully declaring loudly "I can't loose 2 teeth in 1 night Dad!" I'm not sure why this was a problem, but there was no changing his mind on the matter.



We put him down for bed that night fully expecting him to wake up the next morning missing yet another tooth. When that didn't happen & C had difficulty trying to eat breakfast the next morning, he allowed his Dad to pull his other front tooth as well. When I looked in his mouth to take a closer gander at the new gap, I realized why the baby teeth had come out so quickly. His permanent teeth were already sticking up above the gums.



As you can imagine he was very excited to go to school and show off his missing teeth. He got dressed and ready for school in record time!

After we finished eating dinner later that evening, C and his sister started their nightly game of "let's run around the house wildly chasing each other while screaming." It was a shower night, so they took the game upstairs while I started pulling things together for the second part of the game which is called "let's get in the shower and splash each other wildly while screaming".


As I crossed from C's bedroom into the hallway, I noticed that their game had moved perilously close to the stairs. I also noticed that if K backed up any farther she was going to tumble down the steps & our evening would quickly take a downturn. As I started running toward her to prevent her fall, I began barking out a steady stream of orders... "Stop it guys! K move away from the stairs! C I need to to back off now before she falls!" I then began to drop to my knees to get behind K in case she started to fall (I'd like to remind you at this point that K inherited my lack of grace and amazing capacity for clumsiness. By her 3rd birthday she had already been in a cast on 3 separate occasions. So while my reaction might have been a tad extreme it was not without reason).


Unfortunately C actually listened to me (I know, I was in shock too) and he began rising from his knees to get out of the way just as I was nearing the floor to get to K. Even more unfortunately, as we were both in motion we tried to occupy the exact same space at the exact same time. I felt my knee hit something hard & I went down. Less than a second later, I heard C scream. I knew my knee had made impact somewhere on his person, but I wasn't sure where (except that it was someplace very hard). When I went over to him I realized that the point of impact was on his head -- right over his eye. A lot of worry and many Guilty Mom feelings ensued.



We iced the spot to keep the swelling down & after a lot of frantic internet research we determined that we probably didn't need to make a trip to urgent care that evening. We did, however, visit the doctor the next morning to get it all checked out. Thankfully there was no permanent damage done. And after the initial pain wore off, C bounced right back to his normal goofy self.

It took a little while longer for my Mom Guilt to subside, but knowing that no permanent damage was done helped speed that process along. Of course, even though we all recovered from the incident doesn't mean it has been forgotten.

K tripped over my feet the next day on her way to the family room & fell to her hands and knees (I told you she was a bit klutzy right?). She wasn't hurt, but C looked over at me and said, "Mama, why do you keep hurting us?"

Oh Geez...something tells me that this incident will not be forgotten for years to come. "Remember that time when Mom gave me a black eye? "

You can never have too many Legos

I guess it's time I finally recapped C's seventh birthday party shenanigans. We pushed the birthday party back about 5 days from his actual birthday in order to give me time to mentally recover from all of the Christmas festivities. I think next year I will look at pushing it back even farther, although next year I have already vowed that the party will not take place here at the House of Crackers (Of course I also said that after his sixth birthday...)

Overall, I have to say the party went really well. We had 6 kids who were able to make it & from what I could tell all 6 seemed to have a pretty good time. Thankfully there were no costumes to make this year (see blog post on last year's Jedi ponchos). Most of my pre-party preparation (try to say that 3 times fast) involved the sorting of 6 pounds (yes, 6 pounds) of Legos. I had a couple party activities planned & I thought the Legos would work well for the games & also provide me with a nice parting gift for all the kids who came to wish C a happy birthday.

We had a pizza lunch followed by a few exciting games of Lego Bingo. Don't you love how excited 6 and 7 year olds get participating in any activity where there is a potential to earn candy? After we got them properly sugared up, we went down to the playroom & passed out a bag of about 70 Legos to each kid. We then had a couple of rounds where the kids built something on their own & tried to see if the other party-goers could guess what they created. What was really nice about this for Mr. Crackers & myself was that while the kids were busy building the room was actually pretty quiet. Wahoo!

Since all of the kids appeared to have come down from their earlier sugar high, we decided it was time to give them their next fix so we all trooped back upstairs for ice cream sandwiches (C doesn't like cake). This had to be the lowest maintenance party I've ever pulled off. We didn't even need to pass out spoons for heavens sakes. Mr. Crackers just gave each kid an ice cream sandwich and a plate & we were done. Voila!

After a C opened his presents, we all headed downstairs for about 30 minutes of unplanned fun time. And that was then things began to unravel a bit... The two girls who came to the party were great! They went downstairs, found the art supplies & immediately started coloring & making pretty pictures to give to their Moms. The 5 boys (including my own child) decided to get into a game of dodge ball...in the basement...with real basketballs. Yikes! Mr. Crackers & I tried to re-direct them into other activities, but spontaneous wrestling matches kept breaking out all over the basement. Meanwhile, the girls were still peacefully coloring...

Finally Mr. Crackers & I broke out the parachute and got all the kids (even the peaceful girls) to join into a less physically violent energy release. It seemed to work for awhile, but then K (who had missed her nap due to the ongoing shenanigans) picked that moment to have a breakdown about some perceived slight.

In the end we stuck Toy Story into the DVD player & got the kids calmed down a little bit just in time for all the Moms to come & get their offspring.

I have to say I think we all had a pretty good time. When I asked C if he finally had enough Legos between everything he got for Christmas & now his birthday he shot me a pitying look and said " Mom, you can never have too many Legos".

We'll see about that. I'll agree until I start stepping on them around the house. So far he's been really good about that though. Hopefully that will continue.

I know one thing for certain though...next year's party will definitely NOT be here at the House of Crackers.

And then there was that time that I overcooked the Legos...

I was busy getting ready for C's big Lego birthday extravaganza last week. C had requested another birthday party at home and even though last year I swore I would never do it again, I found myself preparing to host another birthday party for C's friends in my house. The theme for this year's party should be no surprise to you if you've ever met C (or have done any reading of my past blog entries)...he wanted a Lego party.

I had ordered 6 pounds (that's right, 6 pounds) of Legos on ebay & had been sorting through them in order to divide the pieces somewhat equitably among all of our party guests. We were going to use the Lego bricks in a couple of different games & I thought they'd also make mighty fine parting gifts for all the kids. As I sorted through them though, I realized that what I had was 6 pounds (that's right, 6 pounds) of specialty Lego pieces. In other words, there were really no basic Lego bricks to be found in the entire bunch. It turns out that most of my Lego purchase were parts from Star Wars or Power Miner Lego kits. This came as exciting news to C who was thrilled to see so many cool parts in one place, but it presented a bit of a problem for what I had planned.

As I mulled over what my next step would be, I realized that if I could get my hands on some regular Lego bricks, I could add them to what I already had & we could really go to town. I also recalled that a friend of mine offered up the Lego bricks that she used to have in her first grade classroom (she was and still is a teacher).

My friend was kind enough to tell me I could take whatever bricks I needed, so I spent the better part of an hour sorting through the big bin of Legos she offered and I took what I thought would work. After getting a decent-sized pile (about 1/6 of what she had) I decided they could use a good cleaning. Since these bricks had been in a first grade classroom for years, they had some of the typical grime commonly seen on well loved toys.

I filled up the sink with some soapy warm water & starting scrubbing the bricks...by hand...one at a time. It was a bit tedious, but I figured the bricks were free, so a little work on my part wasn't the end of the world. Mr. Crackers (probably rightly so) thought I had gone completely insane. " Why are you washing those bricks?" he asked me. When I explained about the grime & potential germs he shot me a look (you know the look...the one that says, how did I come to be married to this nut job?"), but wisely kept quiet & quickly left the room.

As he passed passed through he kitchen a few minutes later, he suggested that I just dump the Legos into the dishwasher. While this seemed like a good idea to me, I couldn't figure out a way to do that without losing all the the bricks to the bottom & ruining one of our only new kitchen appliances, so I continued washing them one...at...a...time in the sink.

On a second pass through the kitchen, Mr. Crackers said, "Why don't you just put them in some hot water on the stove? You know, kind of disinfect them like we did the kids' bottles when they were babies (that one time...)."

This, to me, sounded like a brilliant idea, so I filled up my big stock pot with water & dumped my pile of Legos right in. I stood next to the oven & occasionally stirred the pot to make sure everything was OK.

And it was OK for about 4 minutes or so, until I started noticing that the Legos began to look a little funny. I scooped a couple out of the pot & saw (to my horror) that I they had begun to melt.

I frantically ran the pot to sink & dumped out all the water & Legos to see what I could salvage. Mr. Crackers came into the kitchen to offer his assistance and after much searching, we discovered that there was nothing to salvage. I had managed to melt an entire pot of Legos....

Want to see my handiwork?





Yep, they are curved and dimpled...

Nary a straight line or 90 degree angle left in sight after I got done poaching them.

To make me feel a bit better, Mr. Crackers tried to build something with the partially melted Legos only to discover that the only thing worse than no Lego bricks are melted Lego bricks. You see, once they melt,even a little bit, they absolutely won't fit together anymore (Duh!).

Since it seemed really mean to give the kids a bunch of warped Legos, and since I didn't have the heart or will to search through the bin of Legos my kind friend offered me again, I ended up ordering a brand new bin of plain Lego bricks from Amazon.com. Thankfully they arrived in plenty of time for me to add them to the bags.

Since they were new, I figured it was safe to serve them to the kids raw.