I don't care what all those other parents say -
I think Chuck E. Cheese is a fantastic establishment! We just returned from there and I ask you, what other restaurant is designed so that your children can run around and make that kind of noise? I frequently hear parents say they can't stand the noise and chaos there. I can understand where they're coming from, but it doesn't bother me. I got really good years ago at blocking my own kids out, I have no problem blocking out other people's. 100 points to Todd for suggesting it. I was going to drag the family to Moe's, which, while offering delicious food, offers less opportunity to shoot hoops in between bites.
Jesse's current pursuit is reading the dictionary. For reasons all his own he's started on the Z's. He just told Todd, "I bet you don't know if this is a compliment or an insult - Dad, you have no zeal for your work!"
Todd said, "I know what that means buddy. It means enthusiasm."
"No, it means devotion."
Because all the cool kids are doing it (I don't know) I've update my profile to include my 100 things about me list. Gosh, blogging just encourages self-centeredness doesn't it? Except on my profile page I can't make it so that I can put spaces between the lines. Anyone? Anyone?
So, here's the list here too.
1. I was named after my great-great-great grandmother, and also Hannah from the Bible.
2. My middle name, Liesje, is Dutch.
3. All my siblings have middle names that are nice and normal - John, Ellen, Julia, and Joshua. Growing up I cursed my parents for giving me Liesje.
4.I have two sisters and two brothers. All of them read this blog, so that's all I can safely say about them without getting into trouble!
5. I am the middle child.
6. I am also a twin.
7. My twin sister, Esther, is my best friend.
8. I am 29 years old.
9. I have been married for 11 years, since I was 18.
10. I am English. My husband is American.
11. I have lived in the US since 1995, with the exception of one year back in England when Todd did his Masters degree at the University of Liverpool.
12. I am a brunette, and am glad about that. It suits me more than any other hair colour would.
13. I am 5'1". I have always wanted to be (much) taller.
14. In the US, I have lived in Utah, Idaho, Hawaii, Illinois, and Indiana.
15. I was born in Reading and moved to Norwich when I was seven.
16. We are (unintentionally) moving alphabetically through the states - Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana. Next up? Iowa.
17. I have two children, a nine year son and a seven year old daughter.
18. Being a mother is something that I have absolutely always known I've wanted.
19. I am a stay-at-home mum/housewife.
20. I had Jesse when I was 19 and Libby when I was 21. 98% of the time I've loved being a young mother.
21. I have visited France, Holland, Italy, Spain and Canada. And I feel like I must be missing something.
22. I love lists and always have one on the go. I think this comes from growing up in a house where both parents kept lots of lists. If my mum didn't want you to understand her list she wrote it in Dutch. When my dad was finished with an item on his list he scribbled it out so hard it became completely illegible.
23. I want to improve my cooking skills. I just bought Nigella Lawson's Nigella Bites and plan to make every recipe in the book.
24. As a teenager listening to music was really important to me. Then I went through years of not caring, and now it seems to be becoming increasingly important to me again.
25. My favourite movie is About a Boy. I could watch it about once a week and not get tired of it.
26. My favourite foods are Goody's marionberry creams, Outback's Caesar salad, steak, and pretty much anything my brother-in-law Damian whips up.
27. My favourite music (currently) is anything by BNL, Panic! At The Disco, Hello Goodbye, and (always) Paul Simon.
28. The best television shows ever are: Arrested Development, The Amazing Race, Freaks and Geeks, Veronica Mars.
29. Since the first few months of marriage we've never had any television in our home. I resort to watching my favourite shows on DVD or downloading them.
30. I am addicted to celebrity gossip. I don't really care about the celebrities as individuals but, as I recently told Todd, I just hate the idea that someone might be getting divorced or having a baby and I not know about it.
31. I love to read. I grew up in a house with an abundance of good literature but didn't develop the passion I have for books until I was pregnant with Jesse.
32. My favourite books are: The Time Traveler's Wife, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, English Passengers, and Gone With The Wind.
33. My favourite authors are John Irving, Alexander McCall Smith, Charles Dickens, and P.G. Wodehouse.
34. I will "get into" almost any book I am reading. Even if I think it's a load of rubbish, I will struggle through it to find out what happens in the end.
35. Perhaps this is because I am extremely inquisitive.
36. I'm almost always reading more than one book at a time. Currently, I have five books on the go.
37. Names. All my life my parents have called me Banns. Todd calls me Hann. Esther calls me mate. My kids call me Mum.
38. Growing up, I always wanted a dog but was never allowed one. Now that I'm a parent all of my parent's objections to keeping a dog seem perfectly reasonable.
39. I suffer from koumpounophobia. I've just gotten to the point in my life where I can admit that.
40. For a good portion of my childhood I thought I wanted to be a vet. I even took Latin in high school for that reason. When I met Todd he wanted to be a vet too, and was in the first year of his bio-veterinary science degree. Obviously we both changed our minds.
41. I was the wife of a student for ten (poor) years.
42. I have three tattoos (and not one of them is on my lower back!)
43. I got my first tattoo 12 years ago when I was 17 by convincing the tattoo artist that I was 18. I'm certain you couldn't get away with that now.
44. I like my baths to be so scalding hot that I practically get second degree burns. Sometimes I get dizzy and nauseous from the heat, but it still doesn't stop me.
45. When I check my e-mail, I delete everything from the bulk folder before checking my Inbox. I love the anticipation of not knowing who's e-mailed me.
46. Plus, I love decluttering and organizing in all areas of my life, and my e-mail is no exception.
47. I have an unhealthy and irrational fear of sharks, beyond the normal fear of sharks that most people have. It seems to stem from reading a book called Top Ten Killers when I was about ten.
48. Our house contains thousands of books - probably the majority are children's books.
49. I have a goal to read every book in the house that I haven't yet read.
50. Most days I think that I'm good mother.
51. Most days I think my kids would be describe me as a good mother too.
52. I've never learned to play a musical instrument.
53. If I could chose an instrument to play it would be the double bass. Not only does it sound cool, but it looks awesome.
54. Christmas is my favourite holiday.
55. On my birthday I still don't understand why the rest of the world doesn't realize what an important day it is.
56. I'm quite a control freak, and usually think that only I can do something the way that it needs to be done.
57. When shopping for clothes, I tend to gravitate towards green items.
58. But I rarely shop for clothes, because I hate shopping. There's only one place I like to shop and that place uses pounds and pence instead of dollars and cents, and it's called England.
59. I would say that I'm slightly more competitive than the average person.
60. People who know me would say that I'm much more competitive than the average person.
61. I still feel competitive with my twin sister about certain things, but I always tell her if I feel jealous of her.
62. I didn't dare get my ear lobes pierced until I was about 27. After I watched Libby get her ears pierced and thought, If she can do it, I certainly can! I was always afraid they'd get infected.
63. I'm not afraid of cartilage piercings though. I had my nose pierced (yuck!) for the first time when I was 16. Now I just have a tragus piercing.
64. I've changed my mind about what I want to be "when I grow up" so many times I've lost count.
65. I've only completed two semesters of college, so whatever I settle on, I've got a while until I actually do it.
66. I prefer to write in pen, rather than pencil. What does this actually tell anyone about me?
67. I only have one bottle of perfume at a time. I wear it until it runs out, and then buy a new kind. Right now I'm using Clinique's Happy Heart.
68. I used to have practically flawless skin. Now I don't and it depresses me beyond reason.
69. When I was 14 I thought Julian Lennon's song Saltwater was just about the most profound thing ever written. I don't anymore.
70. I am so bad at maths that when I check my nine year old son's homework I use a calculator.
71. I've never had to call 911/999.
72. I do have a recurring nightmare that I'm in an emergency situation and when I call 911 nobody answers. The phone just rings and rings and rings while I'm frantically needing help. When Todd had to call 911 recently I asked, "How quickly did they pick up????" and was relieved when he answered, "Immediately."
73. You either love it or hate it. I love it. Marmite, that is.
74. I have no problem with leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight.
75. I do, however, have a problem with eating alone in a restaurant. I'm working to overcome it - starting with fast food joints, working my way up to real restaurants.
76. Growing up with my Dad let me experience how if feels to be the last kid to be picked up from the birthday party. Every time.
77. I homeschooled my children for about five years. I absolutely agree with the principles of homeschooling, but it wasn't working for us anymore so I've packed my kids off to school.
78. I don't smoke.
79. I don't drink.
80. I don't have any allergies either.
81. I've come to the realization that I will probably do laundry every day for the rest if my life.
82. I hate celery, olives, and peppers.
83. We have moved house 10 times in eleven years, and that doesn't include the summers we spent at my in-laws while Todd fought wild fires. The longest we've spent in the same house was in Hawaii while Todd was doing his PhD.
84. I don't want to move house again for at least another ten years.
85. I'm a Libra, but I believe in horoscopes not a bit.
86. If I had to pick a favourite flower I'd say tulips, but I don't really care about flowers.
87. When I was a kid I used to imagine how great it would be to be the last person alive on earth, because you could go and explore everyones house. (see #35 inquisitive, aka very nosy.)
88. I quit Brownies because our troop met at the same time that Neighbours was on.
89. The first car Todd and I bought when we were married was a Ford LTD which was a big piece of hud. We kept it for about six months.
90. Todd taught me how to drive when I was 17. In retrospect, I don't think couples should do that.
91. I can never remember my blood type.
92. I so badly wanted underwear that had the names of the days of the week on them. I was about seven at the time. I am living vicariously through my daughter - she has the underwear I always wanted.
93. It bugs me when people say, "pacifically" instead of "specifically".
94. Sometimes my road rage can get a little out of hand. When the kids were small they were known to say, "How do know that guy's name is [insert word from your imagination here] Mum?" When Libby was three she said, "I didn't know a cow could drive a car!"
95. I took French in school for about five or six years. When I went to France I did not understand anything.
96. I insisted that I hated Oreos until I tried them. Then I thought they were really good. Especially the Halloween ones.
97. I think the ideal number of children for me is four. That's not going to happen because Todd got a vasectomy when he was 27.
98. I really want to attend the annual Twins Day Festival in Twinsburg, OH but there's no way I'm going without my twin.
99. Patience is a virtue - and I'm trying to develop more of it.
100. Writing this list was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.
Comments
by the way whats "koumpounophobia"?????????
I had to look it up, but I did guess (correctly) before doing so what it might be! I found the koumpounophobia support website. Did you submit an experience to that site?
I enjoyed reading your list by the way.
My Grandparents always told the story of how Grandpa taught Grandma how to drive a stick when they were teenagers. He took her to the top of a hill and as the car started rolling backwards she yelled out "shiiiiiiiiiiit" - which was very uncharacteristic of my Grandma. I think the worst I ever heard out of her was "damn" so she must have been pretty scared. They were married 65 years, so you and Todd might be ok. :-D
Ok - I had a blast reading this! I especially laughed at #93. I'm compiling a list of words that people say incorrectly....it just drives me crazy! I can be in the middle of a serious conversation with someone pouring their life story out and I'm the guy saying "it's 'frustrating', not 'fustrating', 'flustrating' or 'frusterating'....frustrating, for crying out loud!"
The again...I am from the southern US...and we have all kinds of wacky phrases that shouldn't (and probably don't officially) exist. I guess you could say I'm "fixin'" to finish this comment.... :)