Why, oh why, am I in a slump?

I still very much enjoy reading blogs - keeping up with friends and, admittedly, total strangers. However, it seems I can hardly bring myself to write my own these days. What's the deal? I just don't know. I'm wondering if I am feeling a little tired of only talking about Caleb and Owen. But, what else is there to talk about in my world? It seems that for the next several years, at least, my world is set to revolve around theirs. How much did Owen eat today? Are his teeth ever going to come through? Did Caleb take a nap? Did he really brush his teeth or was he just pretending? And what, dear God, did he just say???

I'm thinking that the best way to get over my posting slump is to forge ahead and post whatever I can - whether it's about the boys or, wonder-of-wonders, if I can come up with something else. I think I'll try for at least one a week. Hopefully that will push me through to the other side.

Even though I haven't been posting regularly, it is by no means an indication that Caleb has not been in fine form. He has, indeed, been up to his usual antics. He announced last weekend that Natalie Portman is his girlfriend.


(I should qualify that. She is ONE of his girlfriends, for apparently he has many.) I was pleased to find that my little guy is quite chivalrous, though. When he told Zach that she was his girlfriend, he also told him (with all sincerity) that he lets her sleep on the bottom bunk, because she's too scared to climb up to the top one.

In his new-found, yet quite innocent interest in girls, he was a little curious about their anatomy. The other day he hugged me and then, pointing at my chest, asked, "What is that?" My policy is to give him as little information and as little terminology to add to his vocabulary as possible. My fear is that I may never know when his new words would come back to bite me or, more accurately, to embarrass the heck out of me. So, I said, "This is mommy's chest." But, I wasn't getting off easy that particular day. "No, no, no." Leaving little room for confusion, he asked again, "What are those?" So, I caved. "They're called breasts, Caleb." It seems that answer satisfied his curiosity, but he wasn't quite finished with the conversation. "Yeah," he replied, in a very casual, all-knowing manner. "I think they're disgusting. Know why?" "No, why?" "Because, they're made out of worms." Aagh! If only he would continue to believe that for about 15 to 20 more years!

As for Owen, he's on the verge of crawling at any moment. He actually may bypass crawling and proceed straight to running. He spends most of his play time up on hands and knees. However, he keeps pushing his little rear up in the air. He looks like a runner at the starting blocks. He just rocks back and forth, smiling and fussing with frustration all at the same time. Any day now, one of his little hands will slip forward a bit, his knees will move forward to catch up and he'll be off. Thus will begin the chase.

And how am I? About the same as ever. I checked out about 10 vegetarian cookbooks from the library this week and I've really enjoyed pouring through them - looking for new ideas and solutions to the age-old question. "What's for dinner?" It's just a harder question to answer, now that we're not eating meat. It's been fun, though, and we're thoroughly enjoying it. This afternoon I've been making a new recipe that we'll try for dinner. It's for sweet potato & black bean salsa. The recipe looked intriguing, so I figured I'd try it. It calls for jalapenos - this is, admittedly, my first time cooking with jalapenos. I have to say that, on the whole, I'm not a big fan. But, my only experience with them thus far is on nachos and I think that's downright yucky. We'll see, though. It called for one, finely-chopped jalapeno and that it should be seeded (if that's your preference). Since we like it hot around here, I seeded half and left the other as-is. It seems to have worked out just fine. The only problem? I washed my hands afterwards, but apparently not well enough. I must have gone after a stray little tickle on my nose, because all I know is that now it's on fire. Absolutely on fire. Oops. I guess it's bound to happen to everyone once.

That's all the time I have for now. It's time to get Caleb down for a nap and, most likely, get Owen up from his. I swear they time it this way on purpose!