Random, Random, Random

Just some miscellaneous flotsam from my life:

• M was so disturbed by a scene from a Mario game on her cousin's Nintendo DS that she couldn't get to sleep. She wanted to sleep with me, but I put my foot down. The only thing that worked was to let her play "relaxing" music using my ipod to help her sleep. This insanity lasted three days and then she finally got over the scariness of Mario and I got my ipod back.

• J has decided he wants to learn how to play the piano. I wasn't all that enthusiastic about teaching him, but he insisted. And guess what? The boy has practiced nearly every day without me even having to ask. Maybe I have a budding passionate pianist in the family.

• B got in a fight with M last Sunday and called her a "lying tramp." I'm not sure where she heard that phrase. I may have my faults as a mother, but on this count I'm positive she did not learn it from me. Do they call people tramps in Barbie cartoons? Where in the world did she pick that up?

• K is in the biting phase. Fortunately, he is only biting one person. Unfortunately, that person is me. Another stage of childhood that I hope passes at light speed.

• Terence was watching me as I got ready for a bike ride the other day and exclaimed, "Heidi, look at your legs!" I stared down in horror, wondering what was wrong with my legs. "You have a teardrop," he clarified. Not much help. Finally, he clued me in. Apparently, I have these defined muscles on my legs. I don't know that I like it, but my husband thinks it's attractive. Men are strange.

• I've been running on the treadmill at the gym this week, since I've been unable to drag myself out of bed before 5:30. (If I'm going to run outside, I need to be up by 4:30am.) Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that running two miles on the treadmill is far more tortuous than 5 miles outside. What do you look at? The other morning it dawned on me that President Obama has really funny-looking ears, since I got to stare at them for a full ten minutes while jogging along. (I had no sound to hear what he was saying, and no way to change the channel, so noticing the ears was my entertainment.)

• Arizona is still a foreign place. Even after living here for something like seven years now, I still catch myself staring at the "mountains" (rock piles) ringing our valley and think about how unlike San Diego this is. When will the desert begin to feel like home? Did my Swiss ancestors ever feel comfortable in Littlefield? (Littlefield is a tiny town in northern Arizona.) The desert must have been even more of a shock for them.

Well, those are some of the things on my mind lately. Just a snippet into our current life. Happy Friday, everyone!