I know, it sounds really urgent doesn’t it? The cookies aren’t for me, though. They’re for a big shindig we’re having at church tomorrow to celebrate the completion of our new building, which we moved into just before Easter. (One of our former pre-church building meeting places was a rented space in a shopping center. It is now a lingerie store. Just thought you should know.) The community has been invited to have a peek and entertain their kids with fun kid stuff.

Anyway, I am among those bringing cookies. All good and well, except that after making a tried-and-true batch of Chocolate Chip cookies this morning, I went and broke my own rule. The one that goes Do Not Try New Recipes When Baking for a Deadline, and as a result had two different kinds of cookie failures. Oops.

I’m sure this Grand Opening thing will be a success despite my misadventures in the kitchen. There will be refreshments (duh), a miniature petting zoo with yer friendly farm animals, a puppet show, and a moon-bounce-whatever thing — you know, those dangerous inflatable rooms in which several children are deposited simultaneously and told to JUMP! and HAVE FUN! but without knocking heads or getting any injuries which result in a trip to the ER. OH YES, I am going to be stuffing my purse full of extra “Be careful!” tomorrow.

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(With apologies to Twitter and all who love it.)

Today, I was continually catching my 18-month-old daughter at the computer, her little fingers flying along the keyboard that was barely within reach, tap tap tappity tappity tappity. I thought she was just hitting random keys during a few stolen moments of play on a Forbidden. So I’d simply reiterate the Do Not Touch The Computer policy that is in place especially for her, remove her from the scene, and we’d go about our day. No harm done.

Or so I thought.

It turns out she was placing orders online (board books from Amazon, hair bows from various boutiques, etc.) and sending emails to little friends from church to arrange a playdate. She even set up a Twitter account. I’m not into Twitter myself, but thought I would share her short lived Twittering with you since I have nothing worth posting today. Being busy, as I am, canceling orders and checking credit card statements.

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Long ago and far away, in a distant land called Three Years Old, my son loved to wash his hands. Back then, he joyfully sang the A-B-C song because it was an excellent way for both of us to be sure that he was washing them for the proper germ-killing amount of time and, more importantly, singing while washing your hands was fun!

These days, I often have to send him back to wash his hands again, reaching into my vast store of motherly wisdom for that nugget called “clean hands do not result from .064 seconds’ exposure to soap and water.” This is usually met with as much enthusiastic cooperation as if I had informed him that I was going to strap him down to a medieval torture device for a couple of hours AND deprive him of Playstation privileges.

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Just a quick test. Feed seems wonky. Carry on!

ETA: Okay, it’s official. I hate feeds. And Feedburner, apparently, hates me. (I thought we were friends, but  when it’s not cooperating AT ALL, hmm, not so much. Not friends. Bad Feedburner. BAD. What? ‘User error’? Never heard of it.)

Welcome to “Ohbecareful!” Or maybe, “Oh be careful!” (Or should it be, “Oh, be careful!”?) I dunno which. I feel a poll coming on.

My original plan was to wait until everything down to the last detail was exactly right before “moving in”. But then I got thoroughly fed up with futzing with plugins and widgets and templates and was ready to get back to the business of writing, which is half the reason one keeps a blog in the first place, no?

So despite the fact that I am still on a quest for this very specific clip-art or graphic with which to adorn my banner (which is proving to be as elusive as Big Foot or Nessie or Mr. Nobody) and that I’m sure I have some details to work out and things to tweak, I am moving in.

You’ll just have to pretend that the banner isn’t a sequel to the first monstrosity and that everything else looks great, too. And imagine that I have already written a witty, charming, funny post about why I chose ohbecareful.com, because that post is still only alive in my head.

If you run into any trouble or notice anything that is particularly glitchy–comment section, posts, feeds, whatever — please oh please drop me a line to let me know:

ohbecareful //at// gmail //dot// com.

You know, so that I can be aware of the problem and stare blankly at my WordPress administration panel, wondering how to fix it.

And I hope to have a real, genuine Grand Opening in another week or three, when the dust settles and I magically find my imaginary clip-art image for the banner.

I’m not sure where the past five or six days have gone. They were all there, ahead of me, yet to be lived out. Then I blinked, or sneezed, or had a fit of the hiccups and then it was suddenly Today. Wednesday.

/sarcasm/
I’m sure this doesn’t ever happen to anybody else.
/end sarcasm/

I’ve also been spending too much time trying to decide on the right design, the right layout, the right look for my new weblog. It’s fun! And I love it when I get zombie eyes from looking at the screen for too long! And how everything around me reminds me of templates! (”I better fix lunch for the kids. Hey, and speaking of food, I wonder if such and such a header would look good with that template,” or “Oh, I need to throw that load of laundry in, like, ten minutes ago. Which reminds me, I should download another template.”)

And in other news, we exercised our right to be cruel and unfeeling parents last night. With hand-rubbing and wicked laughter, we denied our youngest one of the most basic human needs: the midnight snack.

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The other morning, as my son was finishing some school work, my husband paused to give me a kiss as he passed by. I turned around to see my 6-year-old sinking as far into his chair as he could go without sliding onto the floor, shielding his eyes with his arm, and uttering a low groan.

“Oh no. I don’t like to see that,” he mumbled to himself, eyebrows knitted, wearing an expression of deepest disgust.

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That was a sentence from my son’s phonics workbook today, and it has nothing to do with this post. Other than that I keep picturing a fat, green frog wearing the most ridiculous dopey grin, the cause of which I haven’t been able to determine, so I decided to use it as the post title.

I almost forgot about the meme from last week, and figured I ought to post an update. So here it is. Hold on to your desk chairs, this is sure to be the most compelling thing you read today.

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Hi. This is me sleep blogging. What is sleep blogging and why are you doing it?, you may ask. Well, sleep blogging is the act of writing words on your weblog that make very little sense because you are in a foggy haze of So Stinking Tired, and then hitting “publish”. And I’m doing it because I can.

And also because this morning my daughter broke the 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Wake Mommy Before 7am. (Just kidding! Sort of.) After waking twice during the night, she decided that 5:30am was a good time to officially greet the day. She chattered quietly to herself for another half-an-hour before announcing to the world in a voice that was all rainbows and sunshine that the dark of night was over, because Her Majesty has blessed the new day with her awake…ness. Rise and shine, all of creation! It’s a beautiful day, because I’m in it! Mommy, it’s time to up and tend to my every whim!

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As hubby and I were preparing lunch today, our daughter sensed that food was being readied and magically appeared in the kitchen. After picking her up, I began singing “Little Green Frog” for her amusement and also to distract her from the occupation of being a Princess and pointing to a variety of food stuff on the counter and demanding to be fed Right Now. She was entertained by my vocal performance for 4.5 seconds, then abruptly wriggled out of my arms and exited the room. (Tragically sans food.) So I inflicted the rest of my serenade on my husband instead, as he was the only person left in the kitchen.

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