Way Back When-esday Works For Me

I don't know the proper protocol for combining two popular Wednesday blog carnivals into one post.

Maybe it's the bloggy equivalent of "crossing the streams" and the entire internet as we know it will collapse. (Quick! Name that movie before you Google it!)

But I'm willing to risk it, because I'm daring like that.

(Not really. Did you see what kind of pie I am?)

I'm actually willing to risk it because I have muchas prep work to do around here, and I may not be back here any time soon. On the bright side, I have many bickering children to punish with menial labor.

I'll start with Way Back When-esday: The Thanksgiving Edition.

Who: Francie, age 2

When: Thanksgiving, 2001

This was taken in the living room of our little Marine Corps base house down in North Carolina. Although Rob could stand in the kitchen, stretch out his arms and touch both walls, we had some great, packed house Thanksgiving celebrations there. Those are the best kind.

Plus, I love the crazy gleam in Francie's eyes. She still has it, and I hope she always will.

Who: Fiver, age 4

When: Thanksgiving, 2006

This is classic Fiver. He was so proud of the Native American head-dress he made in pre-school, so we took his picture. We asked him to stand up and give us a nice smile, and voila!, we got a cross between Mr. Magoo and Shaggy after too many "scooby snacks."

He's a natural-born eye-closer during pictures. There's one in every crowd.

For more Way back When-esday fun, jump over to Twinfatuation and tell Cheryl I sent you.

Switching gears to the other half of today's post, I'm headed over to Shannon's for Works for me Wednesday.

I don't do many WFMW, mostly because I feel like I don't have too many good secret tips to share. Most of my tips would seriously underwhelm you, I'm sure.

But today, I've got a good one, and if you've done this before, maybe you can leave your thoughts about its effectiveness in the comments.

As you may have heard, we've been coughing our heads off around here, so my mom passed this little tip on to me via my aunt:

If you have a cough that is keeping you up at night, take some Vicks VapoRub and apply it liberally to the soles of your feet.

Yes, you read that correctly. The soles of your feet.

After you slather it on your feet, put on some socks and head to bed. You will not cough and you will be able to sleep.

I am so not kidding. I was skeptical, but I did it to myself last night, and IT WORKS. I did not cough for most of the night (The magic VapoRub seemed to wear off close to dawn.)

I'm not sure of the mechanics, but ancient medicine has long promoted the feet as conduits for healing. I ran my plan by Rob, and he said "Oh yeah. A lot of the ladies at the office swear by this. They say it really works." He's just full of little secrets like that.

All I know is that it worked for me, and I'm doing it again tonight. And I'll be giving Fiver's feet a rubdown as well, because he's got a cough that'll wake up the next town.

And now, I'm off violate my strict no-ironing policy by ironing some table linens for tomorrow. My mother will be so proud.

PS: Just wanted to share one more tidbit in the continuing saga of The HomeFront Thanksgiving of Peril. I was working in the kitchen, and Bun was crawling around after me doing his usual happy babbling. He pulled himself up on the dishwasher, played with the buttons, got bored and crawled away -- no big deal, he does it every day.

But when I turned around, all I saw were bloody baby hand prints all over the dishwasher and the kitchen floor! WTH?!?

I scooped Bun up and turned his hands over to find that he has a little slice, sort of like a deep paper cut, at the base of one of his fingers, and it was bleeding all over. I cleaned him up and slapped a bandage on him, and of course he hates it with the intensity of a thousand white-hot suns.

Not a big deal in the course of things, but I'll tell you what, bloody baby hand prints on a white dishwasher are a heart-stopper, my friends.