Let's See What's in the Junk Drawer?

Welcome to another edition of Random Things...

1. I found yet another reason to love Target. I've been looking for some replacement spoons, since all but three of ours had mysteriously gone missing. After checking home stores, department stores, etc., I found them, by accident, at Target. They sell forks, knives, spoons, all in nice little sets of six. Target rules.

2. We were at a wedding a couple weeks back, and at the reception, before dinner, the minister asked everyone to join him in prayer. People bowed their heads and folded their hands, including Owen and Nora. And then, mid-prayer, Nora burst into a rendition of "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee," and none too quietly I might add. To her, I 'spose what else would we all be doing with our hands clasped but waiting for SOMEONE to please start this song?

3. Speaking of Nora singing...she has turned into quite the little vocalist. ABCs, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Old MacDonald, the SpongeBob theme...she'll sing in the car, in her crib, at the dinner table. It's so frickin' cute.

4. One more quick Nora thing. Lately, we've started to give her timeouts when she is getting out of control -- hitting or crying and the like. I'll say, "Nora, do you need to go sit on the stairs?" to which she replies "ya" and then goes over to sit on the stairs. Soooo, it's not really having the desired effect of a punishment, but it does stop the cycle of whatever she's doing wrong, and I guess that's good enough for now.

5. My job has been crazy busy lately, yet some days, I leave work and think "Hey, I have this all under control." I wish I could bottle that feeling so I could take a swig of such hopefulness on the other kind of days...the ones where I think "There's no way I have this under control."

6. Did you know that a 50-pound 5-year-old could drink a whole bottle of children's ibuprofen and it wouldn't be a toxic amount? Neither did I until the friendly people at Poison Control informed me of this fact. Because yes, Owen discovered a bottle of said medicine and downed about half of it last Sunday morning. Sheesh.

7. I went on my first business trip this week, to our corporate office outside of New York. I was surprised how quickly New York City fades away when driving north of town. Hills and trees are all around and it's actually quite pretty. Our corporate office has this huge oak out front that's well over 200 years old. The trip went well, even the 4-hour delay getting out of Milwaukee due to storms on the East Coast was bearable. Once it gets to be that long, it's almost comical, and it helped that I was traveling with four others from my office, so at least we could chat. It did result in me getting less than 4 hours of sleep before having to make a presentation the next morning at 8 a.m. That part sucked.

8. We're raising butterflies on our porch right now. Tiger swallowtails from eggs the neighbor gave us since she found so many on her dill. It's really pretty cool. They grow amazingly fast. Two weeks ago they were eggs the size of a pen tip, and now a couple of the caterpillars are an inch long. I keep checking my milkweed for monarch eggs, but have yet to find any.

9. Owen finished his first year of kindergarten last Friday. I can't believe he has a whole year of school under his belt. He started "summer camp" at his daycare this week. Lots of field trips and such. Kids are so live-in-the-moment. A few people have asked him how he liked his first year of school, to which he has replied, "School is done, I'm at daycare now." Like school is so last week, why even ask about it?

10. Fiona Apple...surprisingly nice walking music.