grand total: eight

So far we've had more spooks than ever and we're up to a whopping eight. Wouldn't you want to come to our house? We've got about twenty of these ghost milk cartons in the flower beds.

I was dressed as a cow walking around the front yard. I had a red glow stick around my neck and was wearing a cow bell (circa 1996 for the LCHS - Giles County "cowbell game"). One guy told me he could hear the cow bell a mile away... and I waved at every car I walked by.

Even then, people just walked past us. Seriously?

The Hater, who is way more into this than I am, was posed and ready on the porch:

He really wanted to scare kids. The first two kids who came up just laughed at him. The little girl dressed as a fairy told him, "You're not really that scary." I told him he was, indeed, scary. But, really, after a little girl laughs at you there's really not much redemption to be had.

Although one little boy was too afraid to take the candy from the bowl.

We're glad to have had eight kids... but we're still disappointed. The HOA acted like we should prepare for waves and waves of kids. We were worried that the one bag of candy wouldn't be enough. (So the two additional bags that I bought were pretty much not needed at all. This is best for the kids who have come because they've all gotten huge handfuls of candy.)

Baby slept through all of this fun. She couldn't help it because we've had a huge day. We started out at the zoo. We were adventurous and did parts of the zoo we've not done before... which yielded in getting up close and personal with a white-tail deer, an ostrich, and bears. She loved it and we captured some FANTASTIC pictures, not to mention found a few more areas where we can let her run without worry. Great trip - the family zoo pass really is one of the smartest things we've done.

Oh, let me mention that Baby wore her skeleton sweatsuit to the zoo. I had on my Ghostbuster shirt. We're embracing the holiday spirit.

We came home after the zoo for a much-needed nap, but woke her up a little bit early so we could put the fairy costume on her and take her to the mall to trick-or-treat. She loved it. It didn't take long at all for her to figure out that people were giving her things to put into her plastic jack-o-lantern. She really liked it when they handed her the candy and she put it in the pail herself. We spooked the entire mall and she walked most of it. There were hundreds of kids in costume; all three of us had fun. We took her to the petri dish to play, but there were too many bigger kids playing rough, so we didn't stay long. We did, however, discover the escalators at Macy's and spent about twenty minutes going up and down, up and down, up and down.

She's been in a fabulous mood, despite our all-day adventures. Tomorrow will be easier because our plans focus on going to church, then spending the rest of the day being low key and doing laundry. Good times.

And now I'd like to report that we're up to 10 spooks! Double digits. This is the big time.

another fun day

Baby's congestion is getting better, and with that she's also been letting us sleep later than 5am. And let me tell you, that wake up call was getting OLD. The last two days she's not gotten up until 6:20-6:30am, which means The Hater has gotten to sleep later. It's amazing how much better you feel when you get a better night's rest.

While he entertained her I finished my shower and getting ready, at least partially. He handed her off and I prepared baby cereal and fruit while he went back to bed to catch fifteen more minutes of shut-eye. He jumped in the shower while we ate our bites (breakfast at 7am). When he finished we handed her off again and I finished my makeup and dressed.

In a whirlwind we changed her, packed the car, and headed out for fall pictures. We had so much fun. We started out in costume, then played on the playground. Baby was bummed when we left the playground, so the great ideas of posing next to the first letter of our last name just didn't work out. However, the chocolate ice cream DID work out. (What one year old is going to turn down their nose to ice cream?) My cousin had some ice cream pictures earlier this summer and we loved the concept. By the time we were done Baby had ice cream and sprinkles just about everywhere. It was a great day with perfect cloud cover -- a little wind, but when isn't it windy in Uglyhoma? Our favorite photographer made it fabulous - and it'll be a tough decision to pick which one will be our Xmas card picture.

After all of that sugar we took Baby to Pet Smart. I'd read that they were having a huge adoption weekend and were hoping to get a ton of animals adopted. They had tents set up in the parking lot and she had a ball running around looking at and petting all of the doggies in the cages. And the kittys in the trailors. She had her leash - doggies had their leashes - it was a great way to run off some extra sugar-induced energy.

From there we went to TGIFridays (lunch at 11am) and the guy who sat us was not very nice. I really like their pecan-crusted chicken salad. The lettuce is shredded, the dried cranberries and pieces of mandarin oranges make me happy, the chicken is yummy - it's great. But it's huge, so I have leftovers in the fridge. The Hater got a sandwich that he said was a disappointment. Baby ate mandarin oranges and a little bit of cheese pizza. By the end of the meal the sugar had worn off and she was tired.

She fell asleep on the way home. It was simple getting her changed and put down. By the time I had her down The Hater had brought in all of the things to put away. Once that was done I laid down to enjoy her nap, too. She slept for about 3 wonderfully magical hours. It was fabulous. The Hater brought her in to see me after she woke up. I pretended to be asleep, and she climbed over my shoulder and started kissing me. It was super sweet.

We played and split a huge apple for a snack. The Hater went out to get a few last minute groceries (milk). Baby and I stayed home and played and read stories.

Supper at 5pm. We played for a little while outside (with bubbles!) while The Hater grilled burgers for us to eat when the work week starts back. Baby and I ran around the yard, then came inside for a bath (with bubbles!). The big decision after that was to wear the horse pajamas or the Dora pajamas. The horse won out this time.

She's not nearly as fussy with the lotion as she used to be. Usually if I hand her a book she's great. I have most of these memorized, so I recited it and she turned the pages while we were lotioning. (Incidentally, The Nose Book won out over The Foot Book tonight.) Her new thing is to pull her feet up and try to put her toes in the book after we've "read" it a few times.

Tooth brushing was easy. I gave her the regular toddler-sized toothbrush and one of her stuffed animals to brush their teeth while I used the silicone tooth-brusher over my finger with baby toothpaste to brush hers while she's still on the changing table. It works for us. I sing the broadway hit toothbrush song (to the tune of For She's a Jolly Good Fellow) while we brush: "We brush our teeth in the evening. We brush our teeth in the evening. We brush our teeth in the evening. We do it every day. // We do it every day. We do it every day. We brush our teeth in the evening. We brush our teeth in the evening. We brush our teeth in the evening. We do it every day!" (Don't you wish someone sang the brushing song when you brushed your teeth?!) (In the mornings we sing the same song, except substitute morning for evening.)

Because we played outside we didn't have much time to play after we had her ready for bed. We sat down and read our usual four night-night stories. After the last one, per her usual routine, she slid off of the couch, said "night night!", and walked to the kitchen where we give her teething tabs and milk. We also give kisses in the kitchen. Then I took her to her room and rocked her while I sang the night-night song. When the song is over I say "night-night", turn on the sound machine, and lay her down in the crib. She said "night-night" as I hand her the baby she sleeps with and cover her back with the buh-buh that Nana made her. I turned on her sound machine to 45 minutes of the ocean and snuck out of her room.

We know that we're fortunate that for now our bedtime routine is easy.

Now we're watching football. We're cheering for our Vols and are excited at how well they've played in the first half. It's halftime now, so we're hopeful that they'll come back out and continue to play well... but historically our 2nd half isn't very good, so I'm nervous. We're also cheering for Mizzou to beat Zero-U.

The cat is cuddled to my left. My arm is warm from her love.

It's been a great day.

stas

Baby really likes that it's dark outside in the mornings because she can see the stars and sometimes the moon, too. Somehow she knows that they're special and not something we can see every day. She points and laughs and says, "Stas! Stas!"

This morning on the way to daycare between singing songs and our usual routine I told her that with the weather change we probably weren't going to see any stars this morning. We talked about clouds and rain and how sometimes the stars are hidden, but they're still there even when we can't see them.

As I pulled into the driveway and got out of the car to get the baby I was totally shocked -- there were more stars in the sky than we've seen since it's been dark in the mornings, and more than I've seen since I've lived in the city. For a dark city sky it was breathtaking. Sure enough, I pulled her out of the car and she squealed with delight. "Stas!!"

The mornings when we can see the moon, too... that is pure joy.

If I could bottle an ounce of that glee we could all retire. It'd be the new anti-drug.

milk matron

The Hater is out of town. It's terrible for everything, but especially when we need to know if the milk has gone bad. I don't drink milk - it all tastes bad to me. So anytime we need to know if it's time to throw away the milk that straw falls to him. Except he wasn't here today to be the judge. I wasn't about to taste it, or give it to Baby- so down the drain it went.

I hate throwing away food.

The Hater will be back tomorrow. I'll come up with something else sour for him to taste so he doesn't feel left out.

Been a busy day! This morning Baby and I went to a 5k/1mi fun run at church. We did the 1 mi - she did about 3/4 of a mile on the leash, but then she ran around and was crazy for another hour. I have no doubt that she did well over a mile before she even climbed into the moon bouncer. She played in there for a long time before we went to the mall and played some more. Needless to say she had a fantastic nap. Soon as she woke up we had a snack and then went grocery shopping to get more milk and some other sundries.

Sushi and sugar snap peas for supper. Played with balloons, read our stories, and she's now konked for the night. She's got a cold that I'm sure has come about due to recent weather changes -- hopefully she sleeps through the night despite her coughing.

10/10/10: World Zombie Day

Today is World Zombie Day, and don't you know that we celebrated! The Hater and I have a vision of a family picture of us decked out in full costume and makeup, but we didn't pull out all of those stops today. We just did a plain jane family zombie picture - all of the facial expressions and posturing with none of the blood. It was fun for us and Baby got a kick out of it, too.

(peppers about to be broiled - Bobby Flay would be proud)

Our crock pot has an adventure waiting for us: pork tomatillo stew. It's got poblano and jalapeno peppers, onions, hominy, lima beans, tomatillos and pork loin. It's been simmering for about nine hours. When we peek under the lid it smells good -- but looks terrible. Fingers crossed that this isn't a big let down.

It's just so green. So very green. Maybe we should call it Frankenstein soup instead.

hoo-ray

Baby's vocabulary is growing every day. Just six months ago I was keeping a list of her words - and when we went to her 12 month appointment I had a list of about 46 words that she regularly used. Now we're beyond a list and I wouldn't even wager a number.

Sometimes out of the blue she'll just say something and The Hater and I will look at each other with wide eyes. A few days ago it was "Hoo-ray" paired with both of her arms up in the air. I asked at day care if they taught her hooray, and she said no... but then remembered that the last verse of "If you're happy and you know it" they shout hooray. However, she never says it there.

One day last week after supper she looked at me and said, "Pee-Pee Potty Pee-Pee". I jerked her up and ran to the bathroom, clumsily pulling off her diaper (wet), and sat her on the potty. "Potty. Paper! Paper!" I handed her a square of toilet paper. That was about it... nothing else exciting happened. I put a clean diaper on her and bragged on her for telling us that she needed to potty.

Mind you we're in no hurry to potty train her, especially not before our trip to TN over Xmas. We won't be making that trip with her in training pants until she's more experienced at going potty.

We're having day care dilemmas. Still love our lady, but may have to move. It's so hard to think about finding someone else to take care of your baby. It just makes me want to throw up.

Baby is becoming both more fussy and more sweet every single day. She is truly a child of routine, and the closer we can stick to it, the more content she is. Just typical stuff.

She likes to climb and run and throw and make her babies kiss. She likes her bedtime stories in the same order every night. She likes to say "no" to every question asked. She knows the difference between "up" and "down", but says "up" every time she wants to be in a different position, even if that means putting her down. She knows the magic words and will say them on cue.

Last night she said her name. Not with the correct enunciation, but it was the most beautiful thing I heard all day.