Holy Cow

The other day Gavin loudly announced to the room that he needed a diaper change immediately (it's amazing, the little guy has some seriously loud poops). Upon hearing him, Olivia said "holy cow Gavin". And of course, I just cracked up. I don't know where she learned that phrase, but she thought it was hilarious that I thought it was so funny.

So of course, that started a case of the sillies for Miss Olivia. She looked around the room and started putting random things after the word "holy" and then would pause and wait for me to laugh. We went on like this for about 30 minutes.

Olivia: Mommy, holy candle
Me: HAHAHAHA
Olivia: Holy couch
Me: HAHAHAHA
Olivia: Holy TV
Me: HAHAHAHA

You get the picture. It got me thinking, where does "holy cow" come from anyway? To Olivia, it just seemed like a funny phrase...which it is, when you think about it. So here are a few of my "holy" moments over the last few days:

1) "Holy smoke detectors going off at 4AM": You know what I'm talking about. The obnoxiously loud "beep" that comes every 30 seconds or so to let you know the batteries are running low. Why do the batteries ALWAYS start running low in the middle of the night? Sean got up to try to turn it off, and after several failed attempts went down to the basement to get a ladder so he could climb up and take it off the wall. Thinking he was successful, I heard him put the ladder away and come back into our bedroom. And then, a minute or so later, "beep". As I lay in bed, I couldn't help but start laughing. It was only made funnier as I heard Sean say under his breath what he thought should happen to the engineers that designed the battery low warning system. Sean is typically such an "even Steven" that this outburst of anger at 4AM just made me laugh.

2) "Holy sun in my eyes to and from Atlanta": On Friday, I drove to Atlanta for the day to take care of some things for work. The drive there and back made me very grateful that my regular commute is north/south and not east/west. I left home at 5:30AM, and shortly thereafter I was greeted by the sun trying to blind me as I drove east on I-20. You know, it was that kind of sun that your visor can't block, no matter which way you contort it. I tried the "put your visor down and enlongate your neck upward" technique (you know what I'm talking about), but even that didn't work. And so I stared at it for 2 hours there and 2 hours back at the end of the day. Ugh!

3) "Holy showing up for a birthday party on the wrong day": All week long Olivia has been soooo excited to go to a birthday party this weekend. A little boy in her class was having a party at a place full of inflatable jumpies, complete with cake and ice cream (the main reasons Olivia likes going to parties). I got both Olivia and Gavin in the car, stopped at CVS to buy a present, and drove 20 minutes to get to the party place. On the way there, Olivia fell asleep in the car because this party started at 1pm (hmmm...a preschool birthday party squarely in the middle of naptime). Knowing she would not want to miss out on the fun, I woke her up and the 3 of us went in.

The lady at the front asked us which party we were attending, and upon hearing the name, she took our gift to a party room and directed us through an unmarked door. On the other side, there were about twenty 10-year-olds going CAH-RAZY. Okay, here is where I first knew we had a problem. While I did not know the child whose party we were attending, I knew enough to know he wasn't turning 10. Thinking we went through the wrong door, we tried the other one, but that one clearly wasn't right either.

And then it hit me...HOLY COW, what if this party is tomorrow and not today? Sure enough, a check at the front desk confirmed it. We were there at the right time on the wrong day. Oh boy. Have you ever tried to tell a 3 year old who is so happy that the party is finally here that it really isn’t here yet? Yeah, not a pretty picture. The lady at the front desk took pity on me and went to the back room to get Olivia a little green and orange ducky stuffed animal. You know, she was kind of saying “I’m sorry your mom is such a moron. Here, maybe this weird looking duck will make you feel better.” Amazingly, it did. Of course, I still feel like an idiot...