I've found a solution!!

Yeah, remember the minivan/SUV/car dilemma below? My dad reminded me of these babies:

Doesn't it look happy? Like it's smiling at us in a friendly kind of way? And check out the interior!

It's like a little 1950's Dinnette! Complete with black and white linoleum and everything! I want to live in the bus with my husband and all of our babies, driving around the country and homeschooling and growing our own beans in little pots in the backseat!! We could knit potholders and sell them for $1 apiece door to door to support ourselves!!* And maybe pass out Tracts, too!

Here's the amazing dashboard:

My favorite part is the Stick of Death Gear Shifter, ready to impale the (unseatbelted??) driver at the first fender bender, as the rest of the vehicle crumples like an aluminum can and those shiny metal dashboard pieces do their worst. And, no, the backseats DON'T have enough seatbelts for all 3 of the child seats we were originally looking for- but I figure we can either have seatbelts installed (as the seller on ebay motors suggested) or just use good old DUCT TAPE.

Next up for consideration, we have this beauty, with custom fractal paint job and everything!

[This one kind of makes me want to drive around Hawaii or Paris or Oklahoma or something, designing and selling Quilts.]

[Did I mention that when we lived in Mississippi when I was little, my parents had a VW bus that was blue with a rainbow painted on the side in all shades of... blue? They bought it used from a local pastor.]

Some models of the so-called "Vanagon" had special features- like this 1987 model with a pop-up top (is there a bed up there...? I think so , but it's hard to tell from the picture...)These guys have some cool camping features like little kitchenettes and beds! So awesome. I want to live in one. And by the way, is it just me, or does it look like the 70's models have "faces" reminiscent of a mellow, bell-bottomed, thick-mustached, banjo-strumming motorcycle mechanic, while the 80's models (like this one) look like a digital-watch-wearing, skinny-tied Asian engineering student...?

Then, there was the pick-up truck:
Good for traveling around town with your pony. Or pet goat. Or platypus.

Have a whole lot of kids, and like to catch the breeze when you drive? Try this "23 Window Samba Deluxe"!


Allright, I could go on and on, but I should go interact with my child...

Love, Neb

*I suppose this is sort of an Evangelical, far-less-lucrative version of "grow pot in pots in the backseat and sell it door to door," although when I first wrote it I wasn't thinking of that...

I apologize for the blurriness...

... but someone finally got a picture of my child laughing!! (This was taken on a cell phone, in the Math Dept. at Lehigh.)

Also, the following conversation took place on our way to school yesterday:

[Background: In PA, kids under age 8/ eighty pounds have to be in a booster seat. We don't like the concepts of SUV's and minivans. SUV's are too trendy, and minivans are too cliched, and they're both way too expensive. (Well, those are my reasons- not sure about Nate's reasons.)]

Neb: "So... what kinds of cars can you get nowadays that actually hold 3 child seats?"
Nate: "None. Well, maybe only some luxury models. They don't make them anymore because people don't buy them."
Neb: "So if we have 3 children under the age of 8 at some point, which is likely to happen if we have more than 2 children... what are we going to drive?"
Nate: "We'll just leave one at home."
Neb: "Ha ha!"
[dramatic pause]
Nate: "You think I'm kidding?"

Cool!

My husband pointed out that I am cited on Wikipedia.

Keyboard takeover!

Hi! This is Madelaine. Mommy just kind of staggered into the kitchen mumbling something about "coffee" and "too early" and "aren't babies supposed to need more sleep...?" She says lots of words like that when we get up every morning, especially that "coffee" word. I think "coffee" is that stuff that smells kind of like my milk, only stronger. She explained to me that she has to drink coffee to make the good milk for me! So it's very important. She drinks a lot.

Do you know what's really funny? Grown-ups are funny. They say the weirdest things. When I was very little, everyone kept saying all the time, "She has so much hair!" But the thing was, most of them had a lot more hair than me! Their hair was a lot longer and everything! I wanted to say, "No, YOU have so much hair!" except I didn't know how to make all those words. The other thing they kept saying was, "She's SO tiny!!" And I wanted to say, "I don't think I'm so tiny; I think you're just huge!" But now that I'm a little bit bigger, they all say, "She's getting so BIG!" But I'm not THAT much bigger than I used to be, and they're all still huge... so what's up with that?

I think Mommy's coming back now... and I don't want her to know I figured out how to type because then she'll find my Facebook page! So bye for now! Oh, here's a picture of me in my ducky dress:

Have a good day!! I'm going to go find something to put in my mouth.

Love,
xoxoxo
Madelaine

We are home from Maryland! And we are out of milk!

And as always when we return from out of town, I am Confused and a bit Discombobulated, thinking possibly and optimistically that More Coffee would improve the situation, but as the title suggests, we are Out of Milk, forcing me to add chocolate cookies-n-cream ice cream (its Title is Cookies-n-Dreamz, by Edy's- or is it Cookies-n-Dreams? Nate is going to check for me, because he's actually feeling energetic- it's Cookies-n-Dreamz) to my coffee, hoping that not too many cookie crumbs will end up in my cup, because there's nothing worse than cookie crumbs in the bottom of your coffee cup.

Yes there is; I take it back. Anchovies in the bottom of your coffee cup would be worse. As would habanero peppers.

The assasination of MLK, Jr. was much, much worse than crumbs.

For lunch, I am having: spinach-and-baby lettuce salad with tomatoes, tuna, mozarella, and caesar garlic dressing. Also, water. No milk. Are you as excited as I am?? Maybe an orange, too. Because yes, I am Just That Healthy.

On today's agenda: a trip to Aldi's and Redner's. And some more coffee.

And for your gratification: a couple of pictures of my child giggling hysterically while playing with Uncle Chris Long:

And here she is, pretty in pink:

Off to... get some more coffee. And attempt to accomplish something.

Love, Neb!

Happy New Year, devoted fans and colleagues!

Did you know that there are folks in this world who check the Nebiverse EVERY SINGLE DAY for updates?? That means there are patient readers out there who have been clicking EVERY DAY for the past 3 1/2 weeks or so, hoping, wondering... nay, PRAYING: did she WRITE?? has she written anything for us today??

Every day, I have let those poor people down, my friends.

What's the problem? There are numerous problems. 1) I'm lazy. 2) It's easier to read other people's blogs and kill time on Facebook than it is to actually write something here. 3) I have Standards. Sometimes. Kind of. Like, a lot of times I think "I'm not going to write because I don't have anything really GOOD to write about." [As my sister-in-law pointed out, "the child has pooped many times since that last entry!" But you know, it's only funny once.] I hate getting on here and writing drivel (like the post you're reading at the moment.) 4) Did you know sometimes it takes me like 3 hours to write a post? Yeah. I have a five-month-old, people, a five-month-old who needs to be Constantly Entertained while awake.

SPEAKING OF WHICH:

Ah ha ha ha ha!!






My baby!! Is adorable, no? With the chubby kissable cheeks! Above are only a handful of the millions(?) of Adorable Pictures we have taken in the last couple of months. [Another reason I don't blog: it's too hard to pick out pictures of the child! There are so many!] [Nate would tell you that a lot of the pictures Aren't That Great. But they are pictures of The Beautiful Child! How can they be bad?]

Also? I'm reading books and working on this quilt for my sister:



Now that I have Appeased you with a shallow photographic sketch of my life, I'm off to eat chocolate ice cream and watch It's A Wonderful Life with Adrienne.

Love,
Neb