1. When I was born, the doctor told my parents that I would be severely mentally retarded because I had been deprived of oxygen for so long during the delivery (my heart had stopped) and my first birth certificate had the still birth boxed checked rather than the live birth box. Luckily my dad refused to sign the first birth certificate so they re-wrote it.
2. I am very sensitive and get my feelings hurt very easily when I am left out of things, even if I know it happened unintentionally. Not sure whether that's a legacy of being a nerd growing up or just a personality flaw.
3. I don't remember the first time I met my husband. Actually, given his version of events, I secretly think he has me mixed up with someone else because it doesn't sound like me at all.
4. I have an almost photgraphic memory and waste a lot of brain space with useless trivia.
5. I had a 16 inch head at birth (which might have contributed to the delivery problems) but I never appreciated just what a Charlie Brown noggin this made me until I had a child or three of my own and their sweet heads were only 14 inches.
6. I am on my 4th go-round with Weight Watchers. I figure one of these times it'll stick! Actually, I was at my all time low weight as an adult this summer but moving caused me to fall back on my stress eating and I fell off the wagon.
7. I have never lived anywhere longer than 5 years in my life and I've moved 15 times altogether.
8. I don't help my kids with homeowrk unless they ask (I do nag them about getting it finished though) because this is their school experience and if they are content to turn in something sloppy that makes me clench my fists, so be it. And for the most part this is starting to work and they are turning in fewer and fewer sloppy, incorrect, or incomplete assignments. Whether my sanity will last until the final child comes to the revelation that he cares about his education or not remains to be seen.
9. I am a snob about words and it makes me itchy when someone uses a made-up word or uses a word incorrectly.
10. I am occasionally passive-aggressive.
11. I have saved and printed copies of everything I've ever written about my children so they can have it later in life. I don't know if they will continue speaking to me once they read it all, but I think it's important to be honest about the struggles of raising children. I hope they appreciate what I have to give them and that whatever is in there they can also read of my great love for them.
12. I dread the teenage years in our house. I suspect a sarcastic mother and moody teens will not be an easy combination.
13. I have a personal library of around 8000 books, including the book on which I learned to read (The B Book), although it is not my original copy, and the very first book I bought with my own money (Jane Eyre), which is my original copy.
14. I never liked reading aloud to my children and it was a good day for me when each one learned to read on his or her own.
15. I don't like to shop except for three things: books, purses, and stationary. I have enough of all three to sink the Titanic.
16. When I was in high school in Minnesota, I went to the doctor because I had mono but I walked out with the number for the suicide prevention hotline (the mono diagnosis came on the return trip). This has left me with a deeply abiding distrust of socialized medicine. Needless to say, I never called the number.
17. I think my oldest son's disgnosis of "adjustment disorder" is hogswallop since it describes every person I've ever met who has ever moved and had trouble with the move. And it describes me at least as much as it describes him. I am leery of catch-all diagnoses.
18. I am a homebody and do not enjoy the effort that must be made to go out to events.
19. I am a bad corporate wife because I am a fan of honesty rather than coy dissimulation. D. actually asks me if I can behave before he takes me over to his boss to say hello at corporate events.
20. I never wear make-up or high heels.
21. I can touch my tongue to my nose and also bend it to make it look like a clover (not at the same time). Two of my kids can do the latter but no one can do the former (and they have their own odd stable of party tricks).
22. Although I rarely drink now, I was a fabulous chugger and shot-gunner in college.
23. Despite having high falutin' degrees in literature, my guilty pleasure in books is romance novels. I'm a sucker for a happy ending.
24. I always wanted to have a tutu when I was small. Perhaps this is why I signed my daughter up for dance lessons. She's fulfilled my tutu dream many times over now.
25. I talk to myself, a lot. Perhaps this is why I don't mind being alone. ;-)