"I need a WHAT, Mom?"

Poor Thing Two. He's seven years old, and practically man-sized. (We're tall, so our kids are tall)

Okay, he's not man-sized, but he's not a baby anymore, either. So when I broke the news to him that he'd have to be riding in a booster seat in the car for a while, you can imagine his reaction.

Wisconsin has passed new safety laws for vehicles--all children under the age of 8 must be in car seats or booster car seats. Unless they're 5 feet tall, or weigh 80 pounds. Since my nearly eight-year old son is not a monster child who is over 80 pounds or five feet, he gets the booster.

He freaked out at first. "I am NOT going to ride in a baby car seat again!" he declared.

"You'll do what I say," I shot back, and that was that. (I almost added: "They are enforcing the laws, and I don't want to fork over $200 just for your dignity.")

I did get him a nice booster seat, with arm rests and TWO cupholders. He wrinkled his forehead at me. We drove to Target yesterday, and I put the booster inside (his six year old brother was FINE with being back in a car seat) and he looked at it somewhat apprehensively, and I told him with gritted teeth to GET IN.

And then he decided he LOVED it. He was much higher up and could see much more out the window. In fact, when we drove by the rock quarry he squealed with delight because he could almost see the bottom.

So, all that fuss for nothing. Although I was originally glad to be rid of the car seats--they're a hassle. And now we have TWO back in the car. And we'll have a third car seat in April, when I have this baby. It will be a juggling act when all that happens. But Thing Two turns 8 in May, and so we'll be back down to two car seats again.

Aaaahhhh.

Our bigscreen TV blew up during Christmas break. It's seven years old, and a piece of crap, but in our house we use things until they break, and SOMETIMES we just get them fixed. But this TV is a dinosaur. I turned it on, and heard a few clicks, and smoke started rolling out of the back. Naturally I turned it off immediately, and thanked my lucky stars the alarms didnt' go off.

And that was the end of the Dinosaur TV. We're getting a new one installed this Friday, and it's going to be even BIGGER. Woo hoo! I told Hubby we weren't going nutsos on it, 56-inches was fine, because we're getting a 110-inch screen put into the movie theater room in our basement. Which, by the way, I'm very excited about. I even bought movie posters online for the walls (one of them being Rebel Without a Cause because I lurve James Dean) and all we need now is an old-fashioned popcorn maker on wheels, and we're good.

Man, I LOVE being unpacked! Woo!!!

Okay, I'm rambling now, but we're in a new house so I'm going to ramble a little. Have a good day everyone! And I have to say, I'm pretty glad right about now that we're NOT in Denver anymore...it's going to be 50 degrees here today and SUNNY! Our poor realtor had to shovel a path at our old house (which we STILL HAVEN'T SOLD) just so people could get into it. Poor Denver.

:-)