7 Quick Takes Vol 9

--1--

Like many, many people, you might be wondering if Sebastian is being a good big brother so far?  I witnessed this gem yesterday, which I believe captures the dynamic sentiments crossing his little mind about his new baby brother...

--2--

Ok, ok, in his defense, he had a cold last week and probably just wanted to be held without dividing half of his lap real estate.   At least I'm really long.  I've been impressed with how many kids can fit on my lap... Is there a Guinness World record for that??

--3-- 

I realized I have a fear of napping.  I have been expertly trained to know as soon as I hit deep sleep I will be violently jolted awake by a loud noise from one child or another.  I don't even attempt to overcome this fear unless I have another adult responsible for attending to the pending loud noises in our house AND I have at least 2 solid hours.  That's just my reality.  Soooo not sleeping at night means I have no choice but to be exhausted.   But hey, on the bright side, exhausted does mean getting to bed nice and early!

--4--

I'm really not that exhausted. (Or else I'd probably get over my fear of napping).  Impatient, hormonal and slightly rounder than I remember being at this point during my other post partum rendezvous, but actually probably just about the same degree of tired.  Exhausted is an exaggeration I should probably save for 3 more weeks from now when Sam stops being a brand new baby who does nothing but lay there, sleep, eat and soil himself.  He has been up every hour on the half hour for the last two nights, but we'll chalk that up to his growth spurt.  The little Hulk gained 1 1/2 lbs in 7 days.   Ok, I lied, I am kinda exhausted.

--5--

I love sleeping on my stomach.  Since I've started a sleep talk theme I might as well tell you my favorite thing about sleeping lately.  Sleeping in any position I please and my ability to change it up many times throughout the night [Enter singing angels and trumpets].  If I can only have a few hours of sleep at least they will be in the most comfortable dreamable position I can imagine.


Enough with the sleeping talking... it's like taking a recovering alcoholic to a bar...

--6--

I do do other things besides grow children, chase after them and think about sleeping.  Lately, I have been frantically looking for a solution to quickly regain our backyard privacy after being robbed of it by Frosty and his recent ficus killing winter temperatures.  The neighbors behind us had this wonderful 15 feet tall screen of ficus trees blocking all views into our backyard and subsequently our pool, which we um, like to have hidden from neighborly view for no mentionable reason.... anyway.... the frost totally killed all of his fici? and he had to strip 'em bare.  As his landscapers cleared off the huge mass of brown, dead limbs and leaves even Bash stood on our patio screaming :

"Uh oh tee. Oh no!  Mom-Me, yook. Oh no!"   He's such a mini Daddy in all the right ways :)

So we decided to take matters into our own backyard and put up a few sky scrappers that could hold their own under any foreseable Arizona weather condition.    My "involved" husband rarely trusts me  asks me to take charge of important household decisions like this all by myself, but he's too busy hardly sleeping and still going to work to care to his normal level.  So of course I took my hard earned defaulted authority a bit too seriously and might have researched a hole in the internet reading about the best desert trees and shrubs.  After a few sleepless nights (not due to my tree hunt, but it makes it sound more important) I settled on the Bottlebrush Trees.  They are actually really pretty, don't require too much water, have a minimally invasive root system, are insanely tall and minimal leave dropping.   SOLD!  

--7--

Sold... until I got to the nursery and saw the price tag on aforementioned trees and realized how many we'd need to span our entire back wall.  So I rolled up my sleeves, thought back on my Mexico street market visits and got my negotiating on!  Luckily, this was all in English without dollar to peso conversions.   Did you know you could do that with tree nurseries??  In the US??  I totally didn't!!    But evidently you can.  They have quite the margin if you're buying large orders and are willing to shamelessly insist and argue.  I've been working with two skilled shameless negotiators for the last 5 and 3 years, so I had a few tips... And thankfully, no, I did get the job done without having to throw myself on the floor to kick my legs frantically while screaming I loved the other sales guy more.  

So mission accomplished under budget!!  Woohoo!  I told the Mr. he could LEAF this up to me anytime!   He was so happy with the turn out that he even gave my pun a real chuckle.


Thank you to Jen for hosting 7QTF!