1.What is something mom always says to you?
Maya-Shut the door

Liberty-I love you

Lena-I love you

(Poor Maya)

2. What makes mom happy?
Maya-Playing Mario Kart with me.

Liberty-Cuddling with her kids, like me.

Lena-When I make stuff for her.

3. What makes mom sad?
Maya-Boo boos

Liberty-When her kids are sleeping over at a friends house for a while and she doesn’t get to hug them or something. (Projecting, much?)

Lena-When I don’t want to do stuff with her.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Maya-Tickling my foot and my armpit.

Liberty-When she sings bad.

Lena-When she’s playing video games and says weird stuff like, “I beat you, Liberty!”

5. What was your mom like as a child?
Maya-Laughing

Liberty-Friendly

Lena-Funny

6. How old is your mom?
Maya-14

Liberty-33

Lena-I think you’re 33

7. How tall is your mom?
Maya-Kind of tall

Liberty-Taller than me

Lena-Hmm…I don’t know.

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Maya-Play on her laptop

Liberty-Drink coffee

Lena-Um, hmm…go out to a restaurant with her friends?

9. What does your mom do when you’re not around?
Maya-Put presents under the Christmas tree and put Easter stuff in the Easter basket and you put Easter eggs in spots.

Liberty-Plays on her laptop and drinks coffee.

Lena-Go grocery shopping

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Maya-Dancing

Liberty-Being a really good Wii tennis player

Lena-Loving her kids so much

11. What is your mom really good at?
Maya-Playing Mario Kart and Wii tennis and regular tennis.

Liberty-Playing tennis on the Wii.

Lena-Wii tennis

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Maya-Super Smash Brothers Melee. For Wii and for GameCube.

Liberty-Playing bowling on the Wii.

Lena-Not loving her kids.

13. What does your mom do for a job?
Maya-Feeds us.

Liberty-Feeds us.

Lena-Stays home with us.

14.What is your mom’s favorite food?
Maya-Green beans.

Liberty-Cheesecake.

Lena-Taco soup.

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
Maya-Playing tennis.

Liberty-Lots of stuff. Being such a good mommy and cuddling us so well and kissing us a lot and giving us toys that we really like.

Lena-She became a pro on Wii tennis.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Maya-Princess Peach for Wii.

Liberty-Kakashi from Naruto.

Lena-I don’t know.

17. What do you and your mom do together?
Maya-Play bowling and we go get some treats.

Liberty-Go to the library and watch movies together and play the Wii and read.

Lena-Go to the thrift store sometimes.

18. How are you and your mom the same?
Maya-Same blood.

Liberty-Our eyes are the same.

Lena-We both like nachos.

19. How are you and your mom different?
Maya-We have different noses because mine’s small and yours is big.

Liberty-She doesn’t like spaghetti, but I do.

Lena-She’s a Wii tennis pro and I’m not. That’s all I can think of.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Maya-Because I was in your uterus. (That answer triggered my fake adoption issues, so insert long conversation about adopted children being loved by their parents even though they didn’t grow in their uterus.) Take 2:
Because I’m your child, because you play the Wii with me.

Liberty-Because she gives me lots of kisses and cuddles and she plays the Wii with me and she wants to love me forever.

Lena-She always says it.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
Maya-He tickles you.

Liberty-Um, that he’s a good daddy and he’s handsome and he likes her food.

Lena-That he’s funny.

22. Where is your mom’s favorite place to go?
Maya-The mall. (I hate the mall, and I couldn’t bear for you people to think I love to go to the mall, so I said, “I never go to the mall unless Lena and Liberty make me so they can spend their money at FYE. Where do I like to go just by myself?” Then she got excited and shouted, “Go to a coffee place!”)

Liberty-Chipotle. No, Starbucks!

Lena-Coffee shop

Ok, so another meme. sort of. The Firsts meme that’s going around made me think of the first time I was in a wedding and the first time my daughters were in a wedding and the fact that each of us was 4 years old for our first trip down the aisle.

I was in my Aunt Becky and Uncle Hal’s wedding with my 2nd cousin, Jarod, as the adorable ring bearer. You’d be hard-pressed to find a cuter flower girl/ring bearer combo:

Later, I tried to strangle him:

I think his doe eyes made me feel all huntressy. And that’s my big brother on the left. Nice haircut.

Here’s another adorable combo. It’s Maya and her cousin, Hudson when they were in my brother’s wedding. We don’t actually have a pic of them together, but these two pictures really capture their personality:

Those 4 kids were cute, but if you really want to add some cute factor to your wedding, put some twins in it like Bryan’s cousin Tonya did. That shit is cute and I swear the whole congregation will gasp:

*gasp* Awwww!

Oh, you want to hear about my first alcoholic beverage? How about I show you instead:

Kidding! The back of the picture says “pop in the beer can.” The back of the picture gives no clues as to the reason for the hat on a stick, however.

You might have missed it, but I chose a different, actually more appropriate, pic for the new blog header. It was a pretty sidewalk type thing with a gas line thing that said “Gas” right on it. Definitely fitting since I hardly ever blog about running and I am full to the brim with all kinds of gas, literal and figurative. (Don’t pretend like you don’t have gas, too. You do and you know it. Do you think you’re better than me? You might be, but you still have gas.)

The Sundays with Stretchy Pants title does have to do with running, though, so Liberty’s drawing goes with the title. My long-run day is Sunday and I always, always put on stretchy pants after a long run because they feel so good on my sore legs. But I started a new training program today! And my long-run day will be Saturday. Which means Saturday will be my stretchy pants day. And you have no idea how it pains me that my blog title won’t actually fit my life anymore. I’m not usually particular about things, but it just feels wrong. Anyway.

Here’s something fun: My pretend friend, Kathi D,  has a new meme up that she stole from somebody and I’m stealing it from her. Google your name, preceded by “unfortunately” and see what you get. Fun.

Unfortunately Abby causes quite a stir when she arrives there. “And you know we don’t serve Negroes in here. Have you forgotten your place?
I do love race issues and I would totally cause a stir if somebody, after mistaking me for a black woman, refused to serve me. I would Twitter that shit all over the place and they’d have one hell of a clusterf*ck up in there.

Unfortunately Abby is my real name. Actually, it’s Abigail, but I’m no hair-splitter. It’s unfortunate either way.

Abby’s up against her rival Belinda Fishcake in a talent contest …unfortunately Abby has a voice that can peel paint, and the brace doesn’t help either!  True and true. Well, I don’t wear a brace, but I do have a mild case of scoliosis. That Belinda Fishcake was always a bitch.

Unfortunately, Abby had some trouble delivering this litter and three of the six puppies were stillborn. That was a very painful time in my life and I’d rather not talk about it. Actually, the painful part of this one is that it reminds me of the fact that my own aunt had a dog named Abby. It’s a popular dog name.

Unfortunately, Abby missed out on seeing Hi5 because she was so sick. I was faking. I don’t know what hi5 is, but it sounds lame.

Unfortunately Abby is crying in her sleep while I am writing this. I haz a sad.

Unfortunately, Abby Littleton had decided that visibility at those same functions was good for her career. I never took my clothes off at those so-called “functions,” and those pictures on your cell phone are fake!

Unfortunately Abby made a big mistake and said that the picture was inappropriate. Again, fake.

Unfortunately, Abby has inherited my eyes. Thanks Dad.

Abby tells a rather upset Gibbs that Rowens is telling the truth, she didn’t write the emails. Unfortunately, Abby doesn’t know who did. I’m lying; I do know who wrote them, but it was my evil twin and I want to protect her. Even though she’s a bitch.

You probably guessed I would choose Eddie Vedder, right? I would have, except I don’t think the song of my life should be a love song and Eddie would have a really hard time writing anything other than a love song if I were the subject. Because he loves me. He already wrote that great line in Black for me “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a sun in somebody else’s sky, but why, why, whyyyyyyyy can’t it be, why can’t it beeeee miiiiine?” Any more than that would just be embarrassing.

Happy Saturday.

1. I quit drinking when I was 19 because I believed I was an alcoholic.

2. I started drinking again when I was 26 because I believed I was an adult who could refrain from drinking to excess.

3. When Lena and Liberty were little, they taught themselves to read mostly by playing video games. Neopets.com, specifically.

4. I homeschool purely because I think today’s schools can kill a child’s love of reading and I think reading is the key to life. (My reasons for homeschooling have changed since the beginning, but this is the one I always come back to). I have no such concern for the love of math.

5. I read to Lena and Liberty constantly from the time they were born and I still read to them because they still like it. My 5 year old just started to enjoy being read to within the last year, but she can still read as well as Lena and Liberty could when they were her age. Examples like this show me that there is no magic bullet to these things and that takes a lot of pressure off of me.

6. I think homeschooling is awesome once you get over the part where you pressure yourself so much that you go insane, but I usually don’t recommend it to anyone. And I don’t think my reasons for homeschooling are good reasons to homeschool.

7. I used to be an evangelical Christian and I look back at that time of my life with shame.

8. I still believe in Jesus, but I might be a universalist and I’m not sure universalists can believe in Jesus. I’m for sure positive that Christians aren’t supposed to be universalists.

9. All of the “supposed to” and “not supposed to” with regard to religion and religious labels and homeschooling and homeschooling labels makes me sick.

10. I was an award-winning catcher on my high school softball team and I’m pretty sure I could still throw you out if you tried to steal 2nd base. It would hurt, but I could do it.

11. As of a couple of years ago, I still held the record for doubles on my high school softball team (maybe I still do, I don’t know).

12. My name is spelled wrong on the big MVP board that lists all of the past softball MVPs ever in the history of my high school’s softball program. It should say “Abby Clement,” but they put an “s” on the end. I’m glad it doesn’t say “Abigail Clements,” though.

13. My favorite song is “Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen. JUST KIDDING! My lifetime favorite is “Porch” by Pearl Jam. My right-now favorite is anything by Kings of Leon.

14. My husband and I have known each other since 2nd grade and we’ve grown more in the last 2 years than we have ever in our lives. And we love each other more now than we have ever in our lives.

15. Arts and crafts make me anxious, but I’ll play dollhouse people or Polly Pockets with the kids without batting an eye.

16. I set the timer for 7 minutes when I begin playing dollhouse or Polly Pockets with Maya. Because more than that is just too much.

17. I listen to audio books on my iPod when I’m cleaning.

18. I think parents who are overly-invested in their child’s achievements in sports or academics are a special kind of crazy and they should know that it doesn’t feel good to be that child whose parents are those parents. There’s no difference between a stage mom and a sports mom who acts the same way.

19. I believe in therapy.

20. I believe it’s just as damaging to call a child skinny as it is to call her fat.

21. Giving a child a nickname that has to do with being skinny is also just as damaging as a nickname that has to do with being fat.

23. I frequently ponder religion and inclusion vs. exclusion and I struggle to be inclusive to those who are exclusive.

24. Both of my parents have been divorced twice.

25. I’m uncomfortable with praise.

1. Why did you start a blog?
I believe it was my undying love for my Nike + iPod that inspired me to start blogging this time around, back when I only had a myspace page. If you want to go waaaay back to when Lena and Liberty were babies, I started that because I had been active on the iParenting message boards and one of the moderators asked me if I wanted to start a “web diary” about breastfeeding twins. I’d always kept a journal, and they promised me a bound copy of it when I was finished, so I agreed. That was in September of ’99 when I had dial-up and didn’t know about the glories of Trolls. In fact, at the first sign of a Troll who wanted to criticize me for breastfeeding toddlers, I pretended the girls weaned and high-tailed it out of there. I never did receive my bound copy that I was promised. That was also before I had read Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott and The Big Rumpus by Ayun Halliday, and realized that there was this whole other way of writing about our precious, precious babies so we wouldn’t come off as vapid lobotomy patients. I realized I could keep my horrible personality intact while writing about my life and it wouldn’t mean I hated my children. That knowledge would have come in handy back in 1999.

2. Why do you continue to blog? I continue to blog in an effort to keep my navel-gazing narcissism from spilling out all over my children. Hopefully. Also, ads would be nice, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. So now I have to pretend I don’t want to sell out by having ads on my site.

3. Do you have a blogmother/blogfather? That would be Dawn, of course. She shamed me into encouraged me to start a real blog over here instead of at myspace. And she set this whole thing up and fixes every little thing that goes wrong with it. For free! Just because she can. She’s awesome. You should hire her to do stuff for you.

4. Any downside to blogging?

Blogger’s block.

5. Do your ‘real world’ friends know that you blog?

My Columbus real world friends read my blog. But I think there are just a few readers from my pre-Columbus days. If I know you in the real world and you haven’t commented before, let me know you’re there. It’s fun! Otherwise, it’s just creepy that you know me and I know you, and you read my blog but I don’t know it. Stalker!

Me: I’m supposed to blog about 7 weird things about me. Any ideas?

Him: Yeah, you always blah, blah, blah

Me: I don’t do that!

Him: Yes, you do. How about blah, blah, blah

Me: That’s not weird!

Him: Yes, it is. How about this one: Blah, blah, blah

Me: I do not always do that. And if I did, it wouldn’t be considered weird. You don’t know what weird is! Go to bed and leave me to my blog.

So, here’s what I came up with on my own:
1. I eat Reese’s peanut butter eggs by eating the chocolate off the sides and top first, then eating the egg-shaped peanut butter. I have no such compulsion with the regular peanut butter cups.

2. I used to see ghosts when I was little. One time, one of them threw a Hungry, Hungry Hippos marble at me when I was singing and dancing to a John Lennon song in my room. They came in through my brother’s demon rock posters in his room, I’m sure of it. And as a teenager I would hear breathing like somebody was right next to me in my bed. I would hold my breath and still hear it. It was super freaky.

3. Every night, I fall asleep lying on my back reading a book. I wake up when my grip relaxes on the book and it tips forward and hits me in the face. Then, I quick turn the light off and go back to sleep in order to avoid things like I mentioned in #2. If I don’t fall asleep fast enough, I read some more. And sometimes I still wake up to my bed shaking just the tiniest bit.

4. I’m afraid of the dark. (surprise)

5. I talk in my sleep. Bryan used to try to wake me up to tell me I’m asleep, but I would get really mad and wake myself up shouting, “I. AM. NOT. SLEEPING!” and then I would go, “nevermind,” like Gilda Radner’s Emily Litella.

6. I do not like animals.

7. On a normal day, I get up early, run, and get my day going, but when I have an appointment or something out of the ordinary that I really have to do, I procrastinate. I get up later, run later, sit in front of the computer longer, and just generally dilly-dally. I don’t know why.