Mundania 23

* Daphne insisted on playing Charades the way we'd all played it one rainy day -- complete with "you spraying on my hair." To my relief, Mom realized that she wanted me to whisper in her ear.

* While I was in the hospital, Darren took the kids to Home Depot to get some A/C filters. Ha, that was ironic. Anyway, while they were there, the kids spotted some of those energy-saving spiral lights... in different colors. And Darren bought them. So Stuart has a sickly orange light in his (purple, remember) room, and Addie has an all-pervading green light in her pink room. We held out for a week, but finally Darren put in white lights along with the colored ones. It was the only way we could stand to go in the rooms.

* Why is it ironic that Darren bought filters for our air conditioner? Because it stopped working the day Phillip was born. It was out all that week. The A/C man came on Monday of the next week and said that it was iced over and he'd have to come back the next morning to do a leak test. Four days later he finally showed up, put coolant in the unit, and said he'd have to do a test later.

* Here's a good time to mention that the weather this past week was rainy and cool, simply perfect for, say, a family without an air conditioner.

* Other fun electronic upsets include: the phones going out one afternoon (turns out the jack in our room simply stopped working); and our computer finally and definitively dying. But the air conditioner is cooling again.

* My older sister sent up a baby monitor for us. We've never used a monitor before because we always put as much space between us and the new baby as possible. But since Phillip's bassinet is out in our living room and we can't be sure we'll hear him crying, we set it up last night. Once we'd turned it on and settled down to sleep, I heard an odd noise. "What is he doing?" I asked.

"I think that's his breathing," Darren answered.

It was. The monitor was picking up his BREATHING. I went out and moved it. I want to hear the child's crying, not his every breath.

* My friend Deidre threw a lovely baby shower for me this weekend. I've had a baby shower for all four of my children, but this one was the first one that I haven't shared with someone else. There's nothing quite like the feeling of knowing that everybody in the room -- not to mention the person who headed up the whole shebang -- was there because she liked me and wanted to welcome my new son.

* Addie was asking Mom questions from a set of "conversation cards." She found one that said, "Would you rather be an artist or an athlete?"

My mom replied that she'd rather be an artist.

Addie said encouragingly, "Good choice for someone your age, Mam!"

-- SJ