haiku of the id

underwhelming

2012-01-07T19:24:00.004-06:00

We live in a house of ongoing projects. That's just one of the adventures of living with me. Life is too short not to experiment or create. So when someone twisted my arm and told me I had to join an online community where people share creative ideas I was really not interested. I kept telling them that I didn't have time to devote to one more thing.

And then they started bringing in cool things that they had made, or recipes they had found, and emailing me some of their favorite things -- and I caved.

I found a tutorial on how to make a braided yarn scarf. It was supposed to look like this. Mine is about three times that thick - way too thick to wrap multiple times around your head unless you're just into asphyxiation. (See picture above.)

I have about 12 hours in that scarf, mostly done in bursts at night after Baby goes to bed. I am so gagged with it that I have moved it out of sight into the office where I don't even have to look at it right now.

On the other hand it gave me a great idea to make Baby a long yellow braid so she could have Rapunzel hair. Finished that today and we both love it.

Cue the next project.

Except it's not really a "project", per se. This was something that just looked cool, also found on that site. You quarter a bar of Ivory soap, then put it in the microwave for 3 minutes and it's supposed to look huge and explosive. Here is an example of what it's supposed to look like.

Quartered bar. In sandwich bag behind it is the rest of the bar, chopped up with my mad knife skills for a future project: making my own liquid hand soap out of bar soap.

Before. Anticipation is mounting. Baby had a blast pushing the buttons on the microwave.

After. Very sad and pitiful.

The only thing I can figure is that this is an old bar of soap found in the back recesses of the cabinet. A friend of mine is going to try this soon-ish with a new bar of soap to see if that makes any difference.

Maybe it's a dud bar of soap? I wonder if it even floats...

And I've decided to save the baggy of soap shavings for a while. I don't want to end up with a gallon of liquid dud soap because then I'll feel guilty and have to use it. Maybe I'll save it to regift for Mother's Day! (hehehe)

Not all projects are successes - that's what makes it an adventure.

Comment with your email if you want an invite to the madness (to the site where everybody posts creative things).

not ready

2011-12-19T19:47:00.002-06:00

I feel like this month I've just been working really hard to keep people fed and my head above the water. As usual we've really not over-committed ourselves, but I feel pressed for time to do more. Baby is needing more attention, more help going to sleep (this last set of molars are killing me), and more opportunities to grow into a sweet little person. That's just taken priority lately, which makes me feel behind on other things that need to be done but really don't matter.

If I had more time to the day I would get more sleep. I would exercise every day. I would blog of our exciting adventures. I would do fun educational games with Baby every day, find somewhere she could run every day. There's lots of things I would quickly commit to doing with more time.

But as it is the days are getting shorter and I do well to get in bed by a decent hour. Someday I won't be as needed and I'll be able to exercise every day again. Someday I'll be able to get a good night's sleep most every night. Someday I'll be super-Mommy and rival Mary Poppins.

Some day I'll be able to sit down and dedicate an hour to blogging of exciting adventures again. But that day isn't today.

Today I quickly wish you a very merry Christmas. I hope your holiday is surrounded by those you love and wrapped tightly in God's loving grace. I hope you're able to ignore the hustle-bustle long enough appreciate the things that really matter. And I hope you have far too many complex carbohydrates.

lucky thirteen

2011-12-15T20:09:00.002-06:00

This past weekend The Hater and I decided to throw together another batch of Nana's best cornbread dressing. It ended up being great - we love it every time. And The Hater especially likes it when we don't invite people over to share it with us because it's just about his most favorite thing that I make for him.

Cornbread will always be a very special thing for me to make because my Nana taught me how to make it. That along make it an epitome of my comfort foods.

We had a great need for comfort foods because next week we travel to see family. It's going to be another crazy whirlwind, most likely sans cornbread, but with all kinds of other good things that we don't usually eat. Country ham, home-fried chicken tenders, biscuits and gravy, Rick's BBQ -- it's going to be crazy, but we'll be well fed.

Baby is having a terrible time going to sleep at night. When we get back from the trip we're going to re-train her. There's no point in doing it now because we'll just flip-turn-upside-down everything when we're all sleeping in the same room for a while. But she'll need your prayers when we get back because she's going to think the world is ending. Maybe we should first butter her up with some of Nana's Kleeman's Chicken on Eggbread?

PS: This is my thirteenth post that mentions cornbread. For a good time (and blast from the past) search my blog for cornbread, and you, too, may be whisked back into sweet buttermilk time.

PPS: Two points for you if you caught The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reference.

dainty, yet thuggish

2011-12-02T20:54:00.002-06:00

They say that attention to detail

separates the champions from the near chamions.

Baby is consistently pointing out letters in signs, on labels, and pretty much anywhere she takes the time to look for them. So the next plan is talking about what sounds they make. That's the only update I have on the literacy front.

We've gotten through house guests and gotten back into our routine, which means more projects! We started a special new top-secret project today, but the details of that are classified.

I've had my Christmas shopping finished and wrapped since before Halloween. Once I finish knitting a late-requested hat then I'll get them in the mail. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to not have to go to the mall and deal with the chaos.

More salt dough adventures...

teddy bears and Christmas trees are only the beginning.

j-i-n-jingling-bells

2011-11-19T20:12:00.006-06:00

Tis the season! Earlier this week we posed our Christmas picture. These are some of the goodie-props we used, but it was actually the strawberries that were the biggest hit. You'll notice that we were able to get multiple uses out of the candy canes.

Gobble, Gobble

I found this little guy in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby and knew immediately that he would make an excellent centerpiece on our table. Baby painted it herself. We did one color at a time because that's how you keep everything from looking brown when you paint with a toddler. I varnished it and he has a proud seat on our Lazy Susan.

Okay, it had to come out -- I love Christmas. I love the music and the decorations and the story and everything about it. (Okay, not everything. I hate shopping.) The Hater used to have rules that I wasn't allowed to decorate or listen to music before Thanksgiving was over, but he's mellowed over the years.

I've been listening to Christmas music in my office since mid-September. I've been dreaming up Christmas crafts and projects since mid-October. And this weekend (with The Hater gone out of respect) Baby and I took the holiday season by storm.

Friday I came home from work and put out the tree, nativity and doo-dads. I went shopping for project supplies. I have embraced the season.

Salt Dough Ornaments

I'm not really sure when I got this burr in my saddle, but sometime in the past couple of weeks I decided that we really needed to try to make some salt dough ornaments. I'm not going to completely reinvent the wheel - this was my inspiration, recipe, directions. My friend sent this to me from her Pinterest.

I had no idea how hard it would be to knead the dough for 20 minutes. Holy cow. I thought my wrists were going to fall off. Baby was so excited she was jumping around like a crazy girl the whole time.

Helping Mommy by breaking things up. While I was using the knife I'd just give her a wad of dough to manipulate.

This is all that we made out of one batch.

I have a brilliant cousin (who I'll talk more about later) who did a similar project with her daughter last Christmas. They used air-dry clay (like the kind Crayola makes) and she let her make patterns in them. I stole her idea and we used a paper clip, a key, and a dinosaur to make patterns in the dough.

Most likely these will never actually hang from a tree, but they were lots of fun to make. We've painted some of them already and will paint on more tomorrow. We have family coming in later in the week for Thanksgiving, so I've already called to see if that grandmother will bring cookie cutters so we can do this all over again next weekend.

I'm really proud of this one and completely claim it as my own brief moment of brilliance. I traced Baby's hand on paper, then used the pattern to cut around in the dough to make a turkey. I've not varnished them yet, but she had lots of fun painting them this afternoon.

I went in to this project with low expectations, planning to be content if it ended as a good way to keep us both entertained in the house for a while, and I give it an A+. It wasn't that messy, was super easy, and because of the turkeys I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out. I would recommend doing this again.

Fa-la-la-la-la

These are just some random Christmas projects that we've been working on today.

As I type this I realize I forgot to take a picture of the fridge. On the bottom of the fridge I have a little tree magnet puzzle set (on one door) and a santa head puzzle set (on the other door). I had bought the tree set, not knowing if Baby would care about it or not. Well, she LOVES it. So I went back and bought the Santa set, too.

I also found a felt wreath set at Target for $5. Now for me that's really steep for a do-it-yourself gig, but I think it'll hold up well and be something that I can pull out every year for a while, so I went ahead and bought it. It's actually for kids 6 and up, but with help she was able to put all of the felt sticker-decorations onto the wreath. She laid where she wanted the bling and I glued it on. With leftover punch-out felt I cut some letters and put on it, too. (The reason you're not seeing that picture.) I also "sewed" the yarn through the precut holes on the edges. But she thinks that it was completely her project, so we're going to roll with that.

The wreath messed me up. I thought they were window clings, but turns out they were wall clings instead. I wasn't feeling sticking them up on the wall ($1 store treasure - not trusting it on the walls), so we put it on holiday scrapbooking paper leftover from a project last year. She signed it, too. I'll take this to work for my office door.

Window clings= $1 store treasures that she can stick and restick and stick again a thousand times.

The Nativity

One of my first real purchases for Christmas after The Hater and I were married was my nativity set. My grandmother has a beautiful set - and she gave her kids beautiful sets, too. I wanted one and knew it would be something I could add to over time. But, like theirs, it was not to be played with by little hands. I remember being little and longing to play with the beautiful pieces.

Yes, these are little rubber duckies that make a nativity scene. I mail-ordered them at the beginning of the year when the Christmas things went on sale. It's important to me that Baby has something she can play with - enter the ducks.

We acted out the Christmas story with the ducks about a dozen times today while sitting at the piano. She loved them and I love that she loved them.

The set-up! I am really proud how this side of the room came together. And it makes my heart happy that most of the space is dedicated to the holy part of the holiday.

The Tree

The star is a used toilet paper roll, slit and cut, then painted by Baby with a q-tip. It's just tied on with some extra yarn.

I stole the idea for the ornaments from my brilliant cousin. Her specialty is early childhood education and I steal brilliant ideas from her all the time. She used dead plants in her house to make "Thankful Trees" where she cut out leaves and let her two year old come up with things that she was thankful for to decorate. Turned out super cute.

I used a circle cutter on plain, boring craft paper. Then we came up with things that Baby was thankful for. Except that's a tough concept for a two year old, so we talked about things that made us happy instead, then I explained that when we practice focusing on what makes us happy - that's kindof like being thankful. Went way over her head, but we're still going to talk about it and hopefully by Christmas she'll figure it out.

I wrote the things that she came up with, then she colored each of them. I ran some yarn through the circles and slid over the end of the branches.

I had emailed my brilliant cousin that I was going to steal her idea and do this, then of course in her brilliance she emailed me after I was done to suggest more brilliant ideas. So if you think about doing it- here's a way to make it more fancy: Give your leaves (or whatever you're attaching) stems, put glue on the stem, wrap stem around the branch, then here's the biggie: use mini clothespins to hold the leaves in place until the glue dries a bit. Works like a charm!

It would also be interesting to use scrapbooking paper. I had some of that, but chose to use this instead because I wanted less-opaque paper that would allow the lights to glow behind them.

Can you tell that she's the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of farmers? Or what we prayed for a whole whole lot this summer? Or who her friends are?

The colored candy canes were $1 at the dollar store - the red and white ones are actually stickers for gifts that I forgot to use last year, also bought in a $1 section.

This is her request for supper just about every night. I was completely not surprised that she listed it with the things that make her happy.

It's a $20 tree with homemade paper ornaments, but Baby thinks it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. Forget the Hokey Pokey - that's what it's all about.

We're on our way to being ready to ring in the holidays.

a yarn of a tale

2011-11-12T20:19:00.002-06:00

Earlier this week one of the guys where I work asked me if I could knit or crochet. I told him I knitted on a loom. The next day he brought me about 40 skeins of yarn. They had been at an old person's house in storage for a while, so I brought them home and let them sit outside for about 6 hours.

I've got enough yarn to make baby hats for a long, long time now. If you know if any fun yarn projects just let me know. I've been looking online and have some ideas brewing already.

It was a beautiful day outside and also very windy. The Hater was away. Baby and I worked on Christmas projects for day care workers, painting little wooden crosses. She also helped me paint a little turkey for our table (pink, yellow and purple, of course). After our art projects were over (Aunt Mary would be so proud!) we opened up a $4 plastic kite and had a big time.

We started out in the back yard, but the wind was too shielded to fly. The front yard was much better! We flew it for about 30 minutes before it got caught in the tree... but I was able to get it out. After that we flew it for about 20 more minutes before this happened:

And it's still there. Tomorrow The Hater and I will lug out the ladder and see if we can't get it out. And then if it's still windy we'll try to get it caught again.

We've got lots of good time with string in our future.

11-11-11

2011-11-11T10:28:00.002-06:00

In the perfect world I'd be able to post this at 1111 on 11-11-11, but I don't know what I'll be doing then, so I'm posting now to say I've truly enjoyed writing the date on everything today at work. I'm even writing the date on forms that don't require it. It's good tIke's with nothing real to celebrate, but I don't really care. My inner fourth grader is loving it.

I give directions a lot at work when I'm walking down the hall and people get lost. This morning someone asked me if I could show them how to get to a different building and I broke out into a chorus of "(Yes, I'll) show you the way" in true Styx fashion. It was great, but I'm not sure anybody got it. So the probably think the girl in pink forgot her meds this morning.

I know the rumbles have passed, but I also wanted to note that we've had several earthquakes in the past week. One of which happen during a severe thunderstorm while we were under a tornado watch. All of the ones in the evening have awoken me, but Baby has slept through them. It's been a fun adventure.

The people who are into the metaphysical say that today is a day of high vibrations and that your ability to manifest the things that you want are more likely today. So I'm trying to focus on sending beautiful vibes to the world. Vibes for cancer to die. Vibes for families to grow. Vibes for healing of our land. Vibes for harmony. Vibes for success in school.. Good vibes for all.

"Would you like to play with me at my house?"

2011-11-06T08:56:00.000-06:00

Baby missed the time change memo and sprung forward instead of falling backwards. She was up at 3:30 this morning, ready to play. I kept her contained as long as I could before we snuck out of the bedroom to bake sweet rolls in Mama Lou's pie plate for breakfast. They were yummy.

She did great considering she was up as long as she was. Napped well and went down for bed well, too. Fingers crossed that she sleeps better tonight. She's still cutting molars, so that's a coin toss at this point.

We've had The Dorks here with us this weekend and she has loved having constant play partners, grandparents who are eager to read as many stories as she wants to hear, push her as long as she wants to swing, and follow her into every pretend game she imagines.

Including those involving twin dinosaurs.

Have I mentioned that she's recently fallen in love with little plastic things? We had some little sharks and The Dorks brought her some dinosaurs for the collection.

We're sending lots of outgrown things back with them to store for us: a basketball goal that she's too little for (but that The Hater really wanted them to bring this past spring so he could pretend like he was playing basketball when the Thunder games were on), her high chair (we've moved on to a booster at the kitchen table), some toys that she has outgrown, and board books that she's outgrown, too. We're taking bets on how long it takes her to notice that the things she hardly ever plays with are missing.

The new phrase of the week was, "I don't believe it!" To which my Dad has gotten her to say, "It's unbelievable!" which sounds more like "unbeeleeayuhl".

We've had an unbelievably great visit.

Wonder Woman

2011-10-31T20:55:00.002-05:00

So many things I could say about Halloween, but I'll try to keep things succinct.

This year Baby has really figured out trick-or-treating. She shouted it with glee at every house. She rang the doorbell herself, then scrambled to be picked up before people came to the door. She kept asking for more candy, then before people were done with their niceties she was asking to walk to the next house. The biggest hit was at the convent - the little Sisters loved her!
The Halloween Horror story is that she's cutting her next set of molars, which explains why The Hater and I have been walking around looking like zombies from lack of sleep. After this round of visitors we're going to have to revisit the sleep-training books again.
She loves being a "super hero" and will strike a pose with one fist up in the air and run around declaring her hero status.
The Hater (Batman fan) and I (Superman fan) were going to compromise on a Spider Girl costume, but I had my heart set on Wonder Woman. The Hater looked again and we were both tickled to find it.
We wonder if this is the last year that we'll be able to get away with eating our favorite candy out of her stash.

"Daddy, can I sweep in youh big giwhl bed?"

2011-10-27T18:33:00.002-05:00

She's still my baby as long as she can wear footed pajamas, right?

This is such a fun age that I now get all the jokes about putting a brick on their head so it's harder for them to grow. Every single day is my favorite day, even the really long ones.

so thankful

2011-10-25T21:31:00.002-05:00

There are two things I have really wanted for my home after I win the lottery:

One, an eight octave rosewood marimba.

Two, an old upright piano.

We didn't win the lottery today, but the day has closed with a new addition to our family - a 1940s Janssen console piano. I think we're going to name her Barbara after Bryan's grandmother. She's a beaut! The Hater has now clenched Husband of the Year for making the free piano happen!

It's a nice, dark wood, and I'm not going to have to paint it. After Baby went to sleep I immediately pulled out the oil soap and wiped her down - and now the house smells yummy and Barbra shines in her new corner.

This was a family piano and the lady who was looking for a home for it said that her grandparents purchased it in the 40s. Three generations of their family have learned to play on this piano. I assured her that it will be well loved and well used.

I've been doing the happy dance for several hours straight. I've been secretly hopeful that someday things would work out and we'd get a free piano - and voila, here we are.

I'm know a gal who knows a guy who tunes pianos. I'm going to email her tomorrow to see if he'd be interested in seeing if this is tunable. Apparently the family said they tried to have it tuned twenty years ago and "it couldn't be tuned." Fingers crossed.

Baby was so excited. She kept saying, "My Pee-no! My Pee-no! No, Daddy, I can play. I the teacher." We had to set the timer to give her some time to play before bed tonight.

It's tearing me up because I want to sit and play so bad I can't stand it, but it's more important that Baby get some good sleep tonight. She's been having sleep issues for several days.

And so begins the next exciting, yet slightly out of tune chapter in our lives.

nuttin, honey

2011-10-17T19:47:00.002-05:00

We've been up to armloads of nuthin. And not touching ant hills.

The potty still consumes our day. She's doing great at day care, but fighting us when it's time to sit on the potty at home. At this point she's pretty much staying dry (in the same pull-up) during day care, but then not making it long after we've been home. She's still not telling anybody when she has to pee - and most times doesn't tell us when she has to poo, either.

I'm not worried. Right now we're majorly counting our blessings that the only thing we're really working on is the potty -- and not sleeping problems, aggression/punching other kids, or developmental delays. In the world of toddlerdom we've got it made.

She's such a sweet girl, eager to sing us songs and please us. She requests cheese at every meal. She loves to sing "Jesus Loves Me", "Rocky Top", "Where oh Where are you Tonight?", and "How Much is that Doggy in the Window?" She lowers her voice and tries to talk in a mean tone when she thinks she's not going to get her way. She screams and cries the entire two minutes whenever she's in timeout, and when the timer goes off the tears come off as quickly. She loves Zoloft; and Zoloft is not quite as terrified of her as she used to be. She loves helping to put food and treats in the cat's bowl. She recites the Lord's Prayer at bedtime and God is Great at mealtime. About two minutes into any phone call she asks if it's time to say goodbye yet. She likes to pick letters out of words and to eat Cheese-Its that have letters on them. She wakes up around 6:30 every morning and goes to bed around 7pm with one afternoon nap to recharge.

And tomorrow I plan on rocking her world with a flu shot. But I've called ahead to make sure they're not the same prefilled syringes with the 2-3mm needle like we had at work because those hurt like a booger. Most of us still have welts on our arm four days later. I emailed ahead to make sure they didn't have those at the clinics. I was told that this year they don't, but next year they were going to change to that. Hopefully other clinics won't be making the same change, but we'll cross that bridge next year. Tomorrow we get through the old fashioned flu shot.

Beautiful full moon a week or so ago.

I like it dark in the mornings when I drop Baby off at daycare. Mostly because when it's mostly clear in the skies we can see the moon or stars. And then she sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to them. Super cute if you're into widdle staws. And I love it when she says, "It's not a big moon, Mommy, it's a cwescent."

outside the (juice) box

2011-10-06T17:14:00.002-05:00

me: What is your favorite kind of juice?

Baby: Yogurt. It is yummy.

swim with the fishes

2011-10-05T12:30:00.000-05:00

Be careful what you say you will never do as a parent. Last night in desperation I told Baby a lie I swore I never would say. I am ashamed, but hopeful that it will help the process.

It's time for another potty update. Because I know you're hanging on the edge of your seat, just wondering how this process is going for us.

(Is that enough suspense-building?)

I talked to Baby how in Finding Nemo they learn that all drains lead to the ocean, like the toilet drain where Nemo tried to get flushed to escape from going home with the very scary Darla. And she needed to put her poo poo in the toilet so it could be flushed to the ocean and feed the fish. The fish are hungry, so hungry, and it's our job to feed them our poo poo. Nemo needs bites; Dory needs bites; the starfish need bites; all the sharks and fish and dolphins and whales need our poo poo bites.

Yesterday after we first went over this seeding lie we had one successful poop in the potty. Today we're batting zero.

She's also finding that it can be fun to sit on the potty and just hang out.

Last night it was time for supper, not potty time. She wanted the prize for pooping in the potty, or so we thought. After about 20 minutes of her sitting on the potty by herself I convinced her to come eat supper. After supper I put her in the bathtub. After she was washed I was about to rinse the soap out of her hair it happened. We were all three surprised and The Hater started running around in circles, needing a direct command. Baby was scared. I tried not to laugh. We had both floaters and sinkers among the bubbles and toys. When I let the water out of the tub she said, "Go feed the fishes, poo poo!" So then we got to talk about why it was better to put poo poo in the potty, not the bathtub.

She was cleaner before we tried to give her a bath.

At day care this morning the boss lady told me she thought it was time to start putting Baby in time out when she pooped in her pull-ups and not the potty. I wasn't ready for that - I'm still not completely convinced that she is aware of when it's time to go poop.
. Or at least I wasn't until last night when she straight-up no'd me and said she didn't want to go to the potty because she wasn't done playing with her blocks.Good times.

it's the shoes

2011-09-18T07:34:00.003-05:00

Someone has to learn to walk in big girl heels.

Baby wants to learn, too.

We had lots of fun yesterday.

The hilight had to be making cupcake muffins. She thought they were cupcakes so we ran with it. Please note that she sprinkled pink decorating sugar onto them before we baked them. After supper I put a little bit of pink vanilla frosting on them and we ate one for dessert. Totally worth the ninety-nine cents that the muffin mix cost.

My favorite conversation of the morning-

Baby: Mommy, I wuv you.

me: I love you, too.

Baby: Mommy, I wuv you three days.

me: I love you four days!

Baby: I love you Saturday!

me: I love you Sunday!

Baby: No, I love you chicken.

me: I love you green beans.

Baby: I love you chicken!

me: I love you cupcakes.

Baby: Yes, I like cupcakes, too, but I wuv you, Mommy. I wuv you three days.

remember

2011-09-11T21:06:00.001-05:00

Today is the tenth anniversary of a tragic day.

It's very important to remember what happened; and it's equally important to remember all that we have accomplished since.

rocks

2011-09-05T20:31:00.002-05:00

Someone had more fun playing in the dirt and rocks as she did on the swings today. She's a girl after my own heart. We even had to bring one of them home with us.

And I loved using the playground as an incentive to use the potty. Today we had about 5 or 6 successful hits. Like a trip to the playground, I'm having to get more creative with the incentives. I'm hopeful that it won't be long before she starts telling me when she has to go.

sweet nothings

2011-09-03T12:10:00.001-05:00

Just put Baby down to bed for a nap. The last thing she said to me:

"I love you, Mommy. If I cry you come to the rescue."

Honey, I'll be there with bells on!

Pottypalooza 2.0

2011-09-01T19:59:00.003-05:00

You've met "Tiger" the tiger, "Puppy" the puppy, and "Bear" the bear. Now meet the newest member of the family:

"Baby"

That's right, friends, we are once again taking the potty business by the proverbial horns. This time around stickers don't have the same spark that they once did, so we moved to Bravo plan: toy on the fridge that she can only play with when she has successfully used the potty at home.

This all started a few weeks ago. They were potty training two other kids and I buckled under the pressure to let them all do it at once because I remembered how much she hated being away from her friends the last time we did this. This way her friends would be going with her to the potty, all learning at the same time. It seemed like a great idea at the time.

So we jumped in, and then I got the call that we needed to fly home the next day. The Hater and I decided to persevere and we moved to disposable trainers and flew the friendly skies to Tennessee, where she proceeded to pee in just about everybody's toilet that we know.

She even peed on the airplane between flights. She was very excited to make "blue pee pee" and told everybody about it when we left the tiny stall which was not created with potty training in mind.

I wasn't stalwart about potty training for the week we were home, but we certainly made a valiant effort. I figured she certainly wasn't any worse by the time we got back to OK, and this week at day care she's done remarkably well. The last two days she's had at least 4 pee successes each day and one poop success. She's still not telling them when she needs to go, but we're all hopeful that she'll pick up on that in the next few weeks.

Home training isn't going as well, despite "Baby" on the fridge. At first she just screamed that she wanted "Baby" and it was hard to explain to her that she could only have it as a reward. But now I think she understands. She wants to come home and pee so we can get "Baby" down.

"Baby", of course, has many sundries. She has a little plastic toilet that makes a flushing sound when you push down on the little pink button in the front. She has two outfits (including her own "big girl panties", which are quickly removed. She has a blanket (infant wash cloth with duckies on it), and from the $ store she has the little orange juice bottle that pretends to empty when you tip it and a blue plastic carrying pouch for everything to fit nicely inside. It is quite fun and good for 10-15 minutes of solo play when she gets it.

More on this as we progress. Take a moment to be thankful for the people who helped to train you to use the potty and whatever bribery it took to get you there.

home again

2011-08-26T19:03:00.003-05:00

They say you can never go home again, but we came pretty close this trip...

Hens and Chicks don't mind the arid heat.

Ferns showing out in the shade garden.

Sister's cat, Mr. Anderson, is a prude.

He only drinks water out of the faucet.

Pretty flowers in the flower bed begging for attention.

Tulip Poplars.

I love this tree.

Sister's fun jewelry.

More to come, but for now I'm too tired to tell stories. Must entertain my mother-in-law instead.

The Hater bought me a bottle of my favorite wine. And he did the laundry and cleaned the house so I wouldn't have to worry with it this weekend. He's too good to me.

my (neighbor's) dog has fleas

2011-08-14T18:51:00.003-05:00

And they've come to our yard to play...

Not my toe.

Look what we found in the backyard when playing in the pool today. We're pretty sure we're the only house on our street that doesn't have dogs. And our cat doesn't go outside, ever. So we're blaming the neighbors for the fleas we found outside.

Fortunately, the bug-spraying people are coming tomorrow. We called and they're going to add their flea-formula to the regular formula. But I have to wonder what good it will do as long as the neighbors' dogs have fleas...

And now we're all imagining that we have fleas. Gross.

Besides that, we've had a great visit with The Dorks. Hopefully they won't be taking fleas back with them as a memento from the trip.

like van Gogh, except with intact ears

2011-08-12T20:07:00.003-05:00

I have discovered a relatively new little business in the town adjacent to us that offers walk-through painting classes. It's not quite paint-by-number, but there's a leader who literally tells you what to mix and where to put it on your canvas. And you can bring your own goodies, snacks, beverages, alcohol, etc. Good times.

This is the one I did last Saturday. I painted with a lady who works with me and we ended up seeing another person from our work, too. Super fun.

It looks very okay. Still not really happy with it. I think the big shadow looks like a bad GI bleed.

But it was fun and that's what matters.

Last night Mom and I went to do the boots! We had a fabulous time. Don't they look great?

Baby, not to be outdone, colored/markered/stickered a picture for my cousin who is currently in day three of college football "two-a-days". The inside joke is that he was a 4-H chicken judger in high school. Anyway, he's a good kid and needs good vibes, so if you have it in you send some Andy's way. He's still got more than a week of these practices.

Tomorrow, more artful adventures on the docket. We're going back to the art/play place.

We're enjoying The Dorks' visit. I think they're having a pretty good time, too.

8/8/88

2011-08-09T12:08:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I wrote the date and had an instant memory of writing the date on a paper in school on 8/8/88. I had great intentions to write about it yesterday, but that did not happen. Such is life.

I have distinct memories of this happening when I was in the fourth grade. Except I've done the math several times and I had to have been in the fifth grade. I remember writing it on my paper and the teacher telling us that it would be eleven years before we would be able to write such a fun date again. I was writing with a dull classic yellow #2 pencil, but other than that, I don't remember anything about it.

9/9/99 was noted. I was student teaching (can't remember if it was the third or fifth grade rotation). I tried to impress it's corky neatness to them, but nobody seemed into it.

10/10/10 was fun, too. The Hater and Baby and I celebrated with dessert.

We've not made plans yet for 11/11/11 or 12/12/12, but as my years are numbered to celebrate such silly things, I'm thinking it calls for nothing less than a party. And definitely dessert.

reprive

2011-08-07T09:53:00.002-05:00

We finally saw some rain last night. It was brief, but much appreciated. We're getting another mini-shower right now, or at least we were when we came in from church. I'm so very thankful to see this wet stuff - it's been a long time since we had a good, steady rain.

I don't even care that our humidity went from muggy and uncomfortable to even more sticky and oppressive. The land is so dry; we will be very fortunate if we make it to the fall without major fires.

Baby is pumped. She wanted to come in and put on her jacket and shoes to play in it. If it's still raining in a little while that will be exactly what we do. For now she's pretending to put her stuffed animals and Daddy to sleep; a new and exciting game where she pretends to be in charge. I try to get her to play it with her babies instead of with us because her babies will be content to lay there and sleep and not be tempted to get up like The Hater and I do.

I have been summoned to help check on Daddy, who Baby reports is asleep. She insists that we need to "go check on him". And so we shall...

misery loves company

2011-07-31T20:06:00.004-05:00

Just in case you live under a rock and didn't know today was our 36th consecutive day of highs over 100... I also wanted to let you know that this week promises to be even more miserable.

Don't you want to come visit us?

huff and puff

2011-07-31T08:46:00.002-05:00

This morning I dared to close the bathroom door while I was getting ready because I did not want any assistance from Baby. This was after trying it with the door open and chasing her out once.

It went over about as well as I thought it would. First I heard her protest to The Hater, which was followed by a few fake cries. But I wasn't expecting what happened next.

(knock on the bathroom door)

me: Who is it?
Baby: Little pig, little pig, let me in!
me: Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!
Baby: Then I'll huff and puff and blow the door in!

(Then she all but hyperventilates before I open the door.)

This is such a fun age. She's recently wanting to pretend, too, which is my absolute favorite.

She points out letters on signs when we're out, letters in books when we read, and can spell her first name when she's in the mood. But she has to be in the mood or there's no dice.

Free music

2011-07-28T10:41:00.003-05:00

I've mentioned The Dirty Guv'nahs before because they rock (pun intended), but today I mention them because they want you to have their latest, greatest cd for free. Yep, free. No strings attached.

It's great southern rock, and you'd be a fool not to download this album. And nobody wants to be a fool, so go download it & then tell me which song from this album is your favorite. Mine is "Brown Little Bird".

keeping it cool

2011-07-24T22:55:00.003-05:00

It's hot.

It's been the most miserable summer I can remember in a long, long time.

Daddy's shoes

We can only take Baby outside if we're out there after supper (when it's still 100+ outside, but at least it's that in the shade).... and if the kiddie pool is full. We did go out for a little while tonight and she had so much fun. It was a toss-up between if she had more fun with Daddy's shoes or the bubbles.

She accidentally took a nap for 3h instead of 2h. The Hater went to get her up and ended up putting her back down and going to sleep. So we all had a wonderful nap this afternoon. Hopefully it doesn't throw our tomorrow into a tizzy. Even so, it was a fantastic day.

cake balls

2011-07-16T19:51:00.004-05:00

Two magical words of goodness: Cake Balls

Go ahead. Say it out loud. You know you want to: Cake Balls. Cake Balls. Cake Balls. The only thing more fun than actually saying "cake balls" is eating them.

One of my best friends introduced me to this magical concept on my birthday when she made cake balls for me. I inhaled them because they were just that yummy. Then on the 4th she had us over and she made over-sized cake balls and put them on ice cream cones and iced them to look like ice cream. They were scrum-diddly-umptious.

The Hater's birthday is on Tuesday. He had the option of a birthday cake or birthday cake balls for the celebration. He chose the latter and so began my quest to make cake balls.

I began with an extensive interview with the dessert goddess. She explained in detail and then directed me to this website, one she had found when reading about it. This lady makes completely over-the-top cake balls. In fact, if there could be a cake ball goddess it would probably be this lady.

The first thing you do is decide what kind of cake and icing you want. The Hater and I stood in front of the box mixes and imagined combinations, but he decided on Devil's Food cake and milk chocolate icing. We also bought a package of vanilla almond bark for the candy coating of goodness.

Step one: Make cake per box directions. Let cool completely. (Easy enough, right?) Baby loves to help make cake. She also likes to lick the beaters after the cake is in the oven.

Step two: After completely cool, crumble cake into large bowl. Think in terms of super fine crumbs.

Step three: A dollop at a time, mix an entire container of icing into the crumb mixture. Mix until completely mushy.

Step four: Roll into balls and place on parchment paper. I used a mellon baller and also sprayed a little bit of cooking spray on my hands to keep the chocolate mush from sticking. I did not include Baby on this step, although she would have loved getting chocolate everywhere. It made about 70 balls, which I fit onto one cookie sheet.

Step five: Chill in fridge overnight.

Step six: If you don't have a double boiler, improvise. Melt almond bark. This takes forever, so keep your cake balls in the fridge until the almond bark is smooth as silk.

Step seven: Coat cake balls in almond bark. This step is trickier than it sounds. I had difficulty getting the almond bark to stick evenly without the cake ball crumbling. It worked best when I dropped the ball and just used a spoon to roll it around to cover it.

Step eight: If you're going to add sprinkles or anything that you want to stick to the almond bark, do so while it's still wet.

We also bought a package of squirt icing that Baby had a complete ball squeezing onto the cake balls. And we had to have a candle for his birthday!

Would I do them again? Yes and no. The double chocolate combo is just about too rich for me, which is a bold statement because usually I'm the one who has no problem eating what everybody else says is too rich. (It was me pushing for the dark chocolate cake mix at the store...)

Let me go back and say some more about the ice cream cone cake balls that my friend made. She made large cake balls (steps 1-5) with yellow cake and buttercream frosting (a divine combination, btw), and then mashed them into waffle cones to look like a scoop of ice cream. Then instead of using almond bark she used more icing to ice it on top to look like vanilla ice cream, then put sprinkles on top. It was super cute. And now that I've made them I like the idea of skipping the almond bark step of annoyance.

On the webpage I mentioned earlier - I saw in one place that the lady made cake balls and then put them into mini cupcake liners, iced and decorated --- also skipping the almond bark step.

The final verdict: The Hater thinks they're great, which means they were a success because they are, after all, for his birthday.

"we totally rock"

2011-07-13T19:23:00.002-05:00

Someone has discovered that her pretend microphone hooks into the keyboard. It's not what normal people would consider a functional microphone - it doesn't get any louder when it's plugged in - but she thinks it's the most fantastic thing. EVER.

She takes turns plugging and unplugging it, over and over, and then plugs and unplugs it again. When that gets old she plugs it in, runs to the front, and plays the piano. Occasionally she'll play and sing at the same time. It's the most entertaining show I think I've ever seen.

Speaking of shows, we're going here this weekend to let her rock out to Spaghetti Eddie. I'm hoping that since she knows their cd, she'll think it's fantastic. Part of me wants to let her take her broken microphone with her, but I'm halfway afraid she'll try to just plug it into their amps if I do, and that's the meltdown I'd prefer to avoid.

Last weekend I found a fantastic indoor air-conditioned play area that was part playground and part art studio for little kids. Fantastic. This is one of her masterpieces that she made while she was there (my favorite). We will definitely go back.

But not this weekend. This weekend will be about rock and roll and songs about kitty cats and spaghetti. But not at the same time because even Baby would know that's ludicrous.

gasp

2011-07-05T16:12:00.003-05:00

It is with bittersweet excitement I announce that Baby has just put on both summer sandals on the correct feet with no help.

Where did my baby go?

And today at the splash park she went around pointing out all of the letters on the signs.

This is what happens when you teach them their ABCs.

And yesterday we're pretty sure she did something just to SPITE us. (The Hater said that's how we can tell that she's part mine! Ha!)

Where did my baby go?

(She just walked over and wiped her nose on my shirt. One of those deep head nod wipes that leaves a fabulous line of snot where she was. I don't mind at all.)

fireworks

2011-07-05T14:48:00.002-05:00

We received a tee-tiny shower yesterday afternoon. And by tee-tiny I mean that on this side of town it mostly only looked like rain and got even more humid. Bleh.

Had supper with friends yesterday. The kids played in the pool and had a good time. We had a good time, too. I could seriously eat cake balls in the shape of ice cream cones every single night.

The Hater and I wondered if all of the neighbor's fireworks would wake a sleeping Baby, but they didn't. Yay! We were also able to run outside and watch our neighbors' fireworks while she slept.

This one was The Hater's favorite.

This one is an honorable mention.

This one was my favorite.

I love what the holiday stands for -- but I hate that fireworks are used in its celebration. They're only pretty briefly, they're terrible for the environment (smog + trash --- nevermind the fire risk), and many people get hurt from them. The risk doesn't outweigh the benefits in my world.... which is why we watched other people's fireworks instead of buying our own.

I hope everybody had a safe, happy 4th!

over-prepared

2011-07-02T20:41:00.003-05:00

I have a tendency to overpack for things. Not completely over the top, mind you, but I want to have certain things with me for all of the "what if" scenarios:

In the diaper bag:

I want to have at least three more diapers than I think I'll need because I've been stuck without diapers before and that's just not pretty.
I want to have at least two small healthy snacks for Baby because you never know when you're going to get stuck somewhere and she's going to be hungry and cranky.
Crayons
Extra change of clothes for Baby

In my purse:

A hidden $20 bill
A small zippy with tampons and maxi pads because I have been stuck places without these before and that's just a terrible thing I don't ever want to repeat.
Deck of cards.
Chapstick. (This is the state where the wind comes sweeping off the plains, after all.)

The Hater bragged on me when we went on our vacation because I really didn't overpack at all. I packed my stuff and Baby's stuff for one week in one bag. The other bag had diapers, snacks, and bathroom stuff.

Occasionally things happen where I look into one of my bags with eager eyes to find exactly the thing that The Hater said I wouldn't need that, voila, we suddenly need. And, ta-da, we move on.

This is a common theme in my house. I'm constantly fighting the over-packing, over-preparedness gene. The Hater is always bemoaning that my bag is too heavy.

Today we stopped for lunch at a fast food place that has a little indoor play area. The highs since we've been back have been 100+ each day with the 10 day forecast looking equally bleak and hot with no rain in sight. It's just too hot to play outside right now. So we ate lunch at this place so that she could play on their playground and be merry prior to her nap.

During lunch she had a huge poop, so as soon as lunch was over I took her to the bathroom to change her before play time. We were in line behind one other lady who had a son who had also pooped. She laid him on the changing table, which was out in the open of the ladies room, talked about how big his poop was, then reached over and used dry paper towels to clean him. I try not to stare and gawk about the time she turns around and asks if she can borrow a diaper.

I tell her she's welcome to them, but that they're size 5. He looked bigger than that to me, but she said that's what size he's wearing now. She takes it and starts to tell me about how he had a huge poop before he left home so she didn't even bring any diapers with her to town.

I try not to drop my jaw and look completely shocked. Then I try not to stare at this poor boy's diaper rash bottom. I decide against offering diaper rash cream.

They leave. I change Baby's diaper with all of my important things in my diaper bag -- like a diaper, wipes, diaper rash cream -- things that I consider to be not over-the-top packing.

Later we're all playing in the little indoor playground area. She tells me this particular son is 20 months old. I continue to try not to be totally shocked that she didn't bring one spare diaper.

Am I really that over-prepared?

gee, it's great to be back home again

2011-06-28T20:13:00.003-05:00

We had a fabulous trip.

Some things were too awesome for words.

Some things were amusing.

And some memories will forever bring joy to my heart.

flowers in our hair

2011-06-19T21:02:00.001-05:00

We're getting excited about our vacation coming up. Super excited.

life is a celebration

2011-06-16T21:34:00.002-05:00

I can't tell exactly the story I want to tell tonight because of confidentiality. However, I think I can skip the details and jump directly to the moral of the story:

Life is short.
Love your kids.
Take lots of pictures.

photographer love

2011-06-14T22:43:00.002-05:00

Are you looking for a fantastic photographer in the OKC area? Well, look no further.

Ely Fair Photography is my personal favorite lifestyle photographer, family photographer, newborn photographer, engagement photographer, wedding photographer, and all-around creative genius behind the lens. Seriously. I like to think that I'm creative, but this gal blows me out of the water. Theirs is one of the regular creative blogs that I like to read and check out the pictures.

One of the recurring themes of the posts are along the lines of things-she-wished-she-knew-when-she-got-hitched. She always finds links to lots of different unconventional, yet classy things that she would consider if she were getting married again. Although I really liked my wedding and the dress I rented for it, it makes me wish I could go back in time and do things differently, too. I'd still marry The Hater, of course, but the bouquets and boutonnieres would definitely be different - more outside the box. The music would stay the same because I think it rocked. Anyway, it's fun to think about because I don't have to stress about planning it again.

One thing I'd definitely do if I had it to do over again would be to get Elyse and Ryan from Ely Fair Photography to do our pictures. Seriously. Go to their blog and check it out if you're in that market. They're hip and cool and genuinely sweet people who also happen to be very competitive at Wii games. I was very fortunate and thankful that my uncle was willing and able to do pictures for us - but what I really wanted in my heart was to have wedding pictures like you see in the magazines. If that's an important investment you want to make on your special day - or for your newborn pictures - or for family pictures - check them out. They're on their A game.

They're giving away a free mini-session and 16x20 canvas print for every 50 additional "likes" they get on FB. (Don't live in the city? That's okay -- just do it and if you win you can give it to us! HA! Or, better yet -- what a great excuse to come visit us!! Hint, hint - wink, wink - nudge, nudge.)

Two Easy Steps:

"Like" Ely Fair Photography on FB.
Go to this web page on their site and tell them you liked them.

Easy Peasy like bacon is greasy.

For the record, if I were to go back in time and replan my wedding I'd still do cupcakes from Sunrise Bakery. In my world all theirs is the standard to which all other cupcakes must aspire. And using cupcakes instead of a traditional wedding cake made me a trend-setter for once in my life.

Honestly, I wasn't crazy about the dress I rented for the wedding. But that's another post for another day.

counting grapes

2011-06-07T05:54:00.002-05:00

Grapes are such a good, healthy food. Everybody should eat them. Dark, red and black grapes have more nutrients than the green grapes. Much to The Hater's chagrin, that's what we buy when they're in season.

Up until now we've waited until Baby was asleep and then washed and pulled grapes, measuring serving size, and sealed them into snack size zippy bags. It's not a fun chore, but it's certainly better than a lot of other things we have to do around the house.

Yesterday I had a brilliant idea. Why not let Baby do it?

So while The Hater worked on supper (more on that later), Baby took the pulled and washed grapes and moved them one-by-one into the measuring cup. She worked diligently for more than a half hour, stopping occasionally to drink some chocolate milk or point out the baby grapes. "Awwwwwh, wook, Mommy, baby gwape! Awwwhhh." (and cradle them in her hand)

She needed some reminding not to squish or squeeze them, but most of them came out unscathed.

She helped measure them, pour them into the zippys, then helped me put the zippys into the fridge. And, surprisingly enough, she didn't sneak but just a couple of the baby ones into her mouth. (She also had some sliced grapes with her supper.)

We've found a new chore-game for her. I'm glad to share this one for a while.

Meanwhile, in sadder news, The Hater's thai supper was a total bust. We have a bad history making thai food... for whatever reason our thai stuff never comes out the way we want. So now we're banned for trying to make it for five years. We ended up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on sandwich rounds instead.

splish, splash

2011-06-04T19:46:00.002-05:00

We had so much fun today!

A friend of mine told us about a secret public water park. We met them there for a picnic and play date. Their girls and Baby had SO MUCH FUN! Their girls had played there before and jumped right in. Baby had to warm up to it, but it wasn't long before she was running through everything, too. The wind didn't bother us too much until it was time to sit down and eat lunch.

There were two shaded picnic tables, and I was glad that we had gotten there early enough to get one of them and have that place to get out of the sun (and eat). The girls ate well, played some more (briefly), and then it was a huge tear-fest when it was time to go. Three little girls in tears, bemoaning the injustice in leaving the magical place.

I expected Baby to be asleep before we got home, but she stayed awake. We read several stories and then she took a great nap.

We did some errand-running after her nap. She was very tolerant, considering it was hot as blue blazes outside. We had seen signs for a store that was having a sale on outside furniture, so we went. Even with the sale everything was obnoxiously overpriced. It didn't take long for us to realize that we weren't going to buy anything there. So we started to try to leave, but we had to stop at every balloon along the way for Baby to pretend to hold it. And then she had to sit at a table. And it was the end of the world when I wouldn't let her eat the plastic food sitting at the table. She didn't understand why she couldn't have the grapes...

The gaggy moment of the day actually has to do with a Christmas present from last year. I told my parents that I wanted a remote for my camera. They told me to order it and they would pay me back and put it under the tree for me. (This gags lots of people, but I love it! Shopping is so easy when you know what people want!!) I ordered it and gave it to them when they were in OKC for a visit - and explained that they would need to get a battery for it. At Christmas I opened it and, alas, no battery. They said that since I didn't get it they didn't know they needed to get it. (When you're old you miss out on details.) So the little box with the remote in it has sat on my kitchen counter for a little over five months. We've had very good intentions to go get it at a specialty store, but it's never actually played out. So today we decided that we would open it up, figure out what size it needed, and get it when we also got the battery for the remote that goes to our bedside lamp. It was a fabulous idea. Except when we opened the remote there was a battery in it already. Gag - we could've been using it since Christmas. We'll remedy that tomorrow and try some family shots with the new fancy remote.

We toodled around some more and ended up eating supper at a local place, Chica's Mexican Cafe. I had some fried tacos and they were excellent with guacamole -- like perfect little fried meat pies of goodness. While there we purchased a "Keep it Local" card where we can get discounts for local businesses. We've been talking about getting one of these but never had done it. So, tada, now our cool factor has doubled.

Came home and threw Baby in the bath to get the chocolate milk and yogurt out of her hair and to get sticky orange off of her belly, arms and legs. She has adopted one of the cat toys, a little pink ball, and loves to play with it in the bathtub. (This is only fair because the cat has claimed several of her little stuffed babies as her own.)

Tomorrow will be full of housework and laundry since we didn't get any of that done today. It's supposed to be another hot day, so I imagine we'll be spending lots of time in the little pool in the back yard, too.

Some day we'll look back on these days with fond memories. I'm thankful for the forethought to recognize that now.

dare I say it...

2011-06-03T20:17:00.002-05:00

I've wanted to post about this all week, but I've been afraid that this act would somehow hex the good mojo that we have going on right now. But the time has come and this Mama is bragging...

Baby has slept in her BIG GIRL BED for five consecutive nights! She basically has been sleeping in her Pack-and-Play since mid-January, after she shimmied out of her crib. If you remember, that day The Hater put up the big girl bed. Shortly after that we put up the PNP in her room, too, because she wanted nothing to do with it. (That was a suggestion from a brilliant friend and busy Mom of three boys.)

Sometimes on the weekends she would nap in the big girl bed, but usually she'd be against it and avoid it. I let her. Sleeping in the PNP can't be comfortable - she's longer than it is, but she was sleeping through the night and I wasn't going to mess with that. We figured that eventually she'd be okay with the big girl bed.

This past weekend she napped in it for me on Saturday. Then Saturday night when we were getting ready for bed I asked her if she wanted to sleep in her big girl bed and she said no. I said, hey, what if you could sleep with two babies instead of one? She ignored me. I let her. But when the time came I took her over to her case (a toy case that Dad made for me when I was a baby) and asked her to pick out a baby to sleep with her in her big girl bed. She did. I put her down and closed the door, expecting to be summoned back into her room.

But she didn't cry. She made it through the night.

And she's done that every night. Really? All it took was offering a second baby to sleep with her?? (and several months...) Bribery is a Mom's best friend.

Every morning we've bragged on her. She gets a sticker that she promptly affixes onto her tummy next to her "beeboo" (belly button). She puts it on and takes it off and sticks it to everything she can reach and within three minutes it's lost all sticky to it, but it's still a precious thing to carry around.

So that's where we are. In an exciting, thankful place. (but there's also a tee-tiny secret pang of, gasp, where did my baby go?) The next big decision will be when we take the PNP out of her room. Do we do this now? Or do we wait until after our vacation, where we'll be taking the PNP with us in hopes that she doesn't end up sleeping with us?

Right now I'm leaning towards the latter... but maybe we should ask her?

back home, safely

2011-05-24T19:23:00.003-05:00

We ended up not in the neighbor's shelter. They lovingly invited three families and when the sirens went off we decided that we were better off going to the hospital, whose lower level is a community storm shelter.

The real reason we left the neighbor's house is because I read The Hater's mind and he was going to be all heroic and insist on everybody else getting into the shelter and then there wouldn't have been room for him. That's simply not acceptable. The storm sirens started, the news said we were in the clear for the moment, and I looked at him and said, "If we're going to go we need to do it RIGHT NOW." The Hater flew. We made a seven minute drive in about three minutes.

It was hot and muggy and smelled like a combo of rotten BO and wet dog at the hospital (because people bring their animals, too). We stayed down there for a while before I decided to try to take us into my office and hang out there where it was cooler and less crowded. It's next to a stairwell and we figured between the tv and our battery operated radio, if the news said to seek shelter we could just go downstairs with everybody else.

It was a good decision. Baby was about done in the basement. In my office she had a little more room to play with way less stimulation. We stayed hidden in a small room because we wanted to stay incognito and avoid being told to go back downstairs.

We waited until this part of town was clear and came back home. All of the houses in our neighborhood (and on this side of town) are okay. Some surrounding communities were not as fortunate. It'll probably be morning before they know how bad the damage is in the state.

The Hater was very good and didn't complain at all about the bag I packed to take with us. I had medicine, diapers, wipes, PJs for Baby, two changes of clothes for Baby, her baby and banket, a few books, cell phone charger, my wallet, three bottles of water, a box of protein bars, and a small box of baby treats. Tonight he's Husband of the Year.

tornado season

2011-05-24T16:09:00.001-05:00

We've got a bag packed and we're ready to go to our neighbor's storm shelter in the garage. If you don't hear from us, send someone to look over there (my fear is that something will fall on it and we'll all be stuck like sardines in there).

More later...

Thunder Up

2011-05-23T19:38:00.002-05:00

The phrase "Thunder Up" has become a rally cry in OKC. You say it when you're getting ready for a game, during the game when it's time to get serious and send good vibes to the team, and pretty much any other time that a Thunder fan wants to show their Thunder love.

(I liken it to the similar cry in the 1994 movie "8 Seconds" with Luke Perry where the big catch-phrase was "Cowboy Up". I've not heard any commentary on this, but it's what I think of every time I hear "Thunder Up", at least after I think about the horrible Chemistry teacher I had who let us watch this movie in class instead of actually teaching us Chemistry.)

Anyway... I'm excited about the game tonight.

But I'm also frustrated with some Oklahoma fans. I overheard several people say things like: "If they play like they did last time I'm going to turn it off.", "They better win or I won't watch them next year.", or "They better 'Thunder Up' or I'm going to 'Thunder Out' and cheer for Dallas." This attitude supremely gags me.*

I think it's very important to claim a team and support your team. You don't have to like all of the players or the coaches or the owners. You don't have to like their logo. You don't have to like how they play all of the time. But if you're going to claim them as your team, you should support them or keep your mouth shut. Stand behind them and especially support them when they're struggling. It's easy to support winners, but true fans are there to cheer and be supportive when the cards are down.

If you had told me at the beginning of this season that we'd be this far into the playoffs I would've been shocked. We're a young team that has already over-achieved this season -- they need supportive fans, people who are willing to Thunder Up.

* I'll only mention as an aside that the fans I overheard with the worst attitudes were also OU football fans. Coincidence?

as I hang my head in shame

2011-05-22T19:46:00.002-05:00

Well, it's done. I've officially joined FB. I figured that since the world didn't end, I might as well.

Or, as my aunt said, maybe this is a sign that the world really did end?

The only other news in my life is that I found my first gray hair last night! How exciting! I'm seriously tickled pink about it - it's a great sign that I'm still kicking. This is the first of many that I will dedicate to nursing school.

battle of the burger

2011-05-21T20:07:00.003-05:00

The Hater, Baby and I adventured to Norman for the Battle of the Burger. We'd heard about it and decided that it would be a fun, different thing to do since it wasn't raining. We learned quickly that I need to sit in the back seat with Baby if the car ride is going to take more than 10-15 minutes.

I love driving through town and seeing signs to support our team. As Baby would say, "Go Boys!" I've never really lived in a town that totally embraced a team like OKC has embraced the Thunder. We're watching game #3 now. The Hater is frustrated that they've not played better in the first quarter, but points out that they never play well at the beginning of a game. I say Thunder Up.

So we went to the burger battle which was actually held at a huge car lot. They had between 20-30 people out grilling burgers, live music, blow-up jumping things, a playground, and yummy burgers. It was all for a Toby Keith charity that raises money to help families who have children with cancer, so we didn't feel bad at all participating in the festivities.

The best burger I had was seriously THE BEST burger I've ever had. They mixed frozen hash browns and cheese and bacon with the meat to make a "baked potato" burger. It seriously tasted like a loaded baked potato made sweet love to a hamburger to produce the most divine concoction I've ever had. We may have to try to recreate it this summer. I asked for more specifics and the lady (cooking for the On Point construction team) said she used frozen has browns, cooked them like regular hash browns, but not completely through, then added it to the burger mix. Mmmm. Just thinking about it makes this Pavlov salivate.

The only thing better than the burger was the music! We'd heard about Spaghetti Eddie and had very good intentions to get a cd and add it to the other music we play for Baby, but until today we've not been able to do that. We bought a cd AND saw them play. They were a lot of fun. I look forward to playing their cd until we all know the words and can sing along with it (then we'll go find another live performance and sing along like real rock star fans!). They were apparently on Good Morning America not too long ago. It's fun music for kids, too. If you have kids you should seriously look into it. (Yes, that was a shameless plug for a local band, and I admit it. But it's great music, so you'll be glad you took this bait.)

Aside: Baby is really into "rock and roll" and likes to pretend like she's singing into a microphone. Usually it's just la-la-la or itsy-bitsy-spider. My favorite is when she wants to sing into the bathtub faucet.

We ate just right and played very hard. The actual car lot was fancier than any car lot I've ever seen. They had the huge playground outside. Inside they had huge waterfall and fish tank that wasn't quite as big as the one at Bass Pro Shop, but very close. They had an indoor play room for little ones (Baby had to check it out), another room with video games for older kids, and yet another connected outdoor playground. These people seriously knew how to make their family consumers happy while shopping.

Needless to say Baby fell asleep about 5 minutes from the house. Then proceeded to sleep for a wonderful nap.

After she woke up we continued to play hard. The Hater made an excellent rosemary chicken with cherry tomato sauce for supper (a Weight Watcher's recipe that was a total and complete home run). Baby and I read about 30 stories between nap time and bed time. This girl seriously loves to read and I couldn't be happier with that.

It's been a great week, and to top it off....

LLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRR

(drumroll)

I've never actually been to this restaurant, but I've begged The Hater to stop so I could take a picture of it just about every time we've passed it for the last almost eight years that we've lived here. And today we thought of it enough ahead of time to get off the interstate and get this great shot.

Do you think they serve turnip greens and cornbread?

How about lemon ice box pie?

How about poke salet?

How about sweet tea?

Do you think they have to wiggle the dish washer around to hook up to the sink to run?

Do they have homemade grape juice canned under the sink?

Even if they do, they can't be nearly as fancy as my Mama Lou's kitchen!

oh me

2011-05-15T19:51:00.003-05:00

It all started with Puppy.

Puppy was a tee-tiny little plastic dog that Baby thought was the greatest thing ever. It was a fun little thing that she played with while in her car seat. Then one day she threw it somewhere in the back seat and it's so small I've not been able to find it.

So we decided that it would be a good idea to get another, larger animal that would be easier to spot in the back seat. (And that wouldn't give me a pang of panic that she could choke on it.) It was a tough decision, but she picked an animal we both liked. Enter: Tiger.

This is Tiger.

Baby loves Tiger. Tiger doesn't have any other name yet. But it's the favorite toy in the car (for now because let's be honest - she's fickle).

One of the things that Baby will do from time to time is tell me (while I'm driving) that her blanket went poo-poo or that the bear went poo-poo or now that the tiger went poo-poo. Then I say, "Uh-oh! What should we do?" And she says, "I clean it up, Mommy." And then she sings a clean-up song that they sing at day care when they put away toys. This doesn't happen all the time, but it does from time to time. Even blankets have accidents.

Well, since we've gotten Tiger, "Tiger go poo-poo, Mommy" is said much more often than anything went poo-poo before. I didn't know if it was a sign that we're moving closer to trying potty training again, like if she was becoming more self-aware, or if they had been talking more about the potty at day care... but it was strange because she didn't talk about poo-poo all the time -- just when she was in the car. And it peaked within a day of getting Tiger.

Then this weekend I happened to pick up Tiger and noticed this...

It's not poo-poo.

On one hand I'm very excited that Baby is this observant.

On the other, I'm not ready to have this conversation yet! Not with my two year old!!

I plan on letting her think it's poo-poo for at least five more years.

Shoo -- dirty, dirty poo-poo!!

among the wildflowers

2011-05-13T19:54:00.003-05:00

I've been eyeballing a field of wildflowers for about a week. It was the Queen Anne's Lace that caught my eye. I had a vision of making a wreath for Baby's head out of it. I thought it would make some cute pictures. Long story short - it was too twiggy and not malleable enough for my wishes. I think I could've messed with it and maybe soaked it in water overnight, but decided that was far too much work for what I wanted to do.

(Yes, I know this is not Queen Anne's lace - other flowers in the field)

Enter Plan B: Just take Baby to the field, cut some flowers, and get her to hold them and pose. (Have I mentioned that she doesn't pose?) We did this today and I did manage to get a few cute pictures, despite her refusal to look at the camera or me.

We weren't there for very long - not even five minutes. We didn't get deep into the field. But it didn't matter, I scooped her up and left as soon as she started the snotty nose fountain. I was being naive and hopeful that the pollen wouldn't bother her, but I was wrong. We came home and immediately washed hands and face and I gave her some Zyrtec.

We won't be able to go back to the flower fields again.

(At least not until the later summer wildflowers bloom...)

She loved the flowers and was in such a great mood this afternoon. Remind me of that tomorrow afternoon when she's hit her Zyrtec-makes-her-crazy-evening-slump-where-everything-is-the-end-of-the-world-and-causes-much-consternation-and-many-tears...

quick update

2011-05-11T20:47:00.000-05:00

Had a wonderful Mother's Day. The highlight of the weekend was family bowling. One really fun game followed by fried chicken and sweet potato fries. And then we all took great naps.

This sweet girl is currently curled up next to me, purring. It's a good life.

I've had several consecutive late nights for work - and now I hope to crash and sleep until morning.

dig

2011-05-01T20:49:00.004-05:00

My grandfather's class motto was "Dig." I've always thought that was great.

We had a terrible trip to the zoo yesterday, but the highlight was looking down on the ground and seeing this little guy stamped into the concrete of the Children's Zoo.

It makes me think of home, of family - and I smile.

I smile despite how incredibly congested the zoo is at 9am. I smile even though I had to scoot and pull Baby from the car seat from the opposite side of the car. I smile even though she pitched a fit and we bypassed actually seeing any animals at the zoo. I smile even though there are so many people that I can't push the stroller faster than a a sloth moves.

New rule: When you get to the zoo before it opens and STILL have to park in the Science Museum lot next door, just turn around and go back home. It's not going to be worth it.

I would like some kind of credit for my awesome parking job. Does this officially make me a city girl? (But maybe not completely - another reason we left after being at the zoo for a record 20 minutes -- because there was no way that guy was going to be able to get into the van, much less get out of the parking lot.)

almost

2011-04-29T21:19:00.002-05:00

Nope, not old people age spots...

I had a burr up my saddle to be extra productive this weekend and decided to restain the fence in the back yard. We've not done it since we moved and it's time for the wood to be resealed. (Plus it took a pounding during the hail storm last year and although the insurance company gave us money to redo it, we'd just not done it yet.)

I stopped and bought all of the goodies that I'd need. And last night I pretended like I was the Karate Kid and painted the entire fence on the south side of our lot (including what's visible from the street). I used one full bucket of stain and a little bit of a 2nd. About that time the sun went down and I had to come in, although I was on a roll and really would have painted until it was done had I been able to see.

Today I wasn't as sore as I thought I'd be. But as the afternoon wore on my hamstrings and thighs were angry with all of yesterday's squatting. I took some ibuprofen with supper and decided that achy legs weren't a big enough deterrent to keep me from painting.

It's crazy windy outside, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. Oh nosireebob. It's always windy here, but this wind had the just right kind of whip to it to make little specks of stain get in your mouth and eyes. But I persevered because I have visions of a beautifully stained fence.

And then I ran out of stain.

These dozen or so boards are ALL that I lack. Sometime this weekend I'll have to go back and get the supplies I need to finish, but I am utterly gagged. I won't be able to finish it this weekend because we've got a chance of rain on Sunday. It'll have to be another project for another weekend.

I'm also highly gagged that the Terminix people did not show up today between 3-5pm like my appointment said they would. Oh, yes, I called and expressed my disgust since I took off work early to be here to let them inside, but couldn't be as honest as I wanted because it wasn't the call center lady's fault. She gave me "the number to the local office" so I could express my disappointment in their poor service, but when I called it the number was disconnected. At that point I called back to the call center, but their computers were down and I can't even make an appointment for them to come back and spray the perimeter of the house for spiders. GAG.

Okay, I've thought about it. I'm way more gagged that Terminix stood me up. Moreso than running out of stain on the fence.

Off to the shower to remove the stain spots, again.

homophone haha

2011-04-24T09:33:00.003-05:00

(during the benediction)

Preacher: Lord, we ask that Your loving presence-

Baby: (yells out with much excitement) PRESENTS!!

Happy Easter!

ideal

2011-04-23T13:08:00.001-05:00

Come on now, be honest... If you were turning four and you fancied yourself a princess, wouldn't you think this was the greatest birthday-gift-wrapping ever?

time flies

2011-04-20T19:50:00.002-05:00

The Hater graduated from high school two years before I did. He went to a high school in East TN and I went to a high school in Middle TN. We met in college on the debate team. Isn't it funny how two years seems like a long time when you're in high school?

This spring The Hater will have been out of high school for 17 years. HOLY COW! I'm married to an old man!! To refer to something that doesn't seem that far into the distant past as 17 years ago feels completely insane. More insane than two years difference seemed in high school.

He says Baby is what makes us old, not having been out of high school for almost 20 years (gasp). I completely disagree. I contend that she is what makes us young again.

The Hater clarifies, "Let me rephrase. She makes me feel old."

I rest my case and smile smugly at another trivial argument victory. It may be semantics, but we both agree that he's old.

promises

2011-04-16T20:17:00.004-05:00

My double knock-out roses are blooming.

This makes me happy.

Hopefully we'll get some rain this week.

So far all we've gotten this spring is wind.

And hopefully hail won't accompany the much needed rain.

Last year after my roses first bloomed we ended up with the hail storm of the century. My roses bloomed again, but they never came out as showy as they were the first bloom.

Or maybe that's when they were the most anticipated.

Other things coming out include the ash tree in the front yard.

It's pitiful.

At it's best it looks similar to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Yet it perseveres.

We have much to learn.

say cheese

2011-04-14T20:51:00.002-05:00

My friend got a new fancy camera for her birthday. We went to play after we left work. If she thought I was just taking pretend shots of the store she's crazy.

According to the 10-day forecast maybe one day next week we'll get rain. Looks like we have a 30% chance a week from today. We're really hurting for rain. I wish it wouldn't come by the pounding bucket when we finally get some, but I suppose that beggars can't be choosers.

I'm so excited that tomorrow is Friday I can hardly stand it. Bring on the weekend!

amoxicillin rash

2011-04-10T20:59:00.003-05:00

First, a sleep update! The last two nights we've had zero crying when going down and zero crying in the night. We're back to an easy transition and The Hater and I couldn't be more relieved.

Next, an update on the ear infection. She's been on antibiotics for one week. We have a pleasant child again and it's wonderful! But life is always an adventure...

Yesterday we noticed some little red bumps on Baby's arms and torso. This morning we woke up to lots of small and medium sized red bumps on her torso, arms, legs, bottom, face and neck. If you remember the adventure with last year's hives, these were nothing like those. They weren't raised, didn't itch her, and this time she's not acting like it's the end of the world.

The differential is measles.

But she's not been running a fever, so that's highly unlikely.

It's perfect timing because today at church The Hater and I were going to volunteer for a church-wide mission project with Stop Hunger Now. We packaged meals to feed three meals a day to feed an entire orphanage in Haiti for a year.

But we weren't sure if we were going to be able to even go because she looked terribly pitiful. I called the "Nurse on Call" 24-hour line that our insurance has now. This would be the second call in a week. Anyway, according to the algorithm it's a side effect of her amoxicillin. Not an allergy, but a side effect. She said that it would last 1-3 days, but if it lasted more than six that we needed to see the doctor. And continue to give the antibiotics. And even though it's beautiful outside, don't let her go out and don't let her get hot.

I didn't believe her so I read about it after I hung up the phone and, sure enough, for kids who have gotten amoxicillin the first time about 3-10% of them will develop this rash. It doesn't mean she'll always get the rash, but she has it this time.

We went to church. She did great in the nursery. We packaged meals. She took her antibiotics the rest of the day, and when I put her down tonight the red bumps looked more like pink bumps, mucho better than it did this morning.

Is a rash after her birthday going to be a repeating theme? Only time will tell.

dry run

2011-04-09T19:10:00.004-05:00

This is marshmallow creme. It was supposed to be the magic secret ingredient in a semi-homeade frosting.... the lighting is weird because her two kids were going to bed and we had to work by the light of the stovetop.

This is my friend playing in the marshmallow creme. A month or so ago she asked me if I'd help her make homemade cupcakes for her daughter's birthday at the end of the month. We decided it'd be a good idea to practice once before because even though we're two college educated women, neither of us are bakers.

At the time this picture was taken it was probably 10 or 11 at night. We're having to keep everything at or below a whisper and still working by the light of the stove.

She's still smiling because we're still hopeful.

It's midnight or so and there's no caffeine in her house. We've followed the directions to the letter, but the frosting isn't light and fluffy like in the picture. We've tried putting it in the fridge. And now she's convinced that it'd be better if she stirred it by hand, but note her smile has faded.

We ended up consulting Chef Google and figured that we might as well add more powdered sugar because it couldn't hurt anything. Between the butter and the marshmallow creme we couldn't imagine that 1/2 cup of powdered sugar would be enough - so we threw in the rest of the two pound bag.

It's about 1 am. This was her first run using a piping bag. Please note the dribble down the side. It was so hard laughing quietly and trying not to pee on myself while keeping it down so the kids wouldn't wake up.

To make the story complete these are strawberry cupcakes made over reverse oreos (vanilla cookie with chocolate frosting). We started this process about 8pm. Note that her smile has turned upside down with complete disappointment after about five hours of work has yielded frumpy cupcakes.

They were really pitiful. The icing never set up. It was tasty, but it didn't look anything like the picture. These are not cupcakes worthy of a princess.

About 1:30am Saturday morning. As we put the cupcakes into the fridge we saw the instant-whipped cream can and started laughing again because we knew we could've saved four hours if we'd just gone with that instead. We discussed another practice run.

And then we started talking about the logistics of five dozen cupcakes from carrying them across town without cupcake holders, keeping them cool, when we'd actually bake/ice/prepare for said party... and then we decided there's a reason that people just buy cupcakes when you're having a princess themed venue birthday party for a four year old.

The end.

sleep training

2011-04-07T19:56:00.002-05:00

Have I mentioned that we've had a terrible time with sleeping lately? Duh, you say, that's what happens when your kid has an ear infection, you say.

Except it was more than that. First it was the time change. Then the cold that turned into the first ear infection we didn't know about. Then Baby started calling for "Daddy" when she'd cry at night (which she'd not done before and The Hater couldn't stand it). Then we've had company just about every weekend since the time change. (So why bother starting training when you know that you can't let her scream over the weekend?) Then the second ear infection that made her have fevers for about 5 consecutive nights. It's just been a mess.

I'm feeling chronic tiredness. But it's almost to a giddy point, so it's pleasant.

When she's in bed with us The Hater and I are both on our edges of the bed. She takes up about 60% of my pillow and sleeps perpendicular to me with her feet in The Hater's face. She scoots me off my pillow and kicks him all night long. Then she'd wake up and cry, or reach over and touch my face to make sure I'm still there, or kick the covers off of everybody, or lean over and smash her lips to my face and whisper, "Wuhd You, Mommy". I took what I consider to be really good pictures of her sleeping in our bed. She looks so sweet that you almost forget you haven't rested in weeks because of her.

Our last set of visitors (The Dorks) left early Monday morning. She was still fevering Monday night, so we decided that we would wait to go cold turkey to get her sleeping by herself again. I consulted the greatest book ever (see below) and The Hater and I formatted our own cold-turkey plan to get her sleeping in her room again.

Here's how it's played out since then:

Okay, so Tuesday night she screamed/cried for 1h 40m when we first put her down. Then around midnight she woke up, we changed her silently and left the room, and she screamed for 1h 40m+. It was a long night.

Last night she screamed for 22 minutes when I put her down. Around midnight she woke up, we changed her silently and left the room, and she screamed for about 25 minutes. Much better.

Tonight I put her down and she didn't scream. I walked out and The Hater and I looked at each other blankly. Then she screamed... for three minutes. Total.

Moving in the right direction. Thank goodness for my most excellent Mommy friend who told me this would be the most important parenting book I would need when I was pregnant:

Dad keeps suggesting that we move her from the toddler bed (or PNP, where she's sleeping now) into the queen size bed in the other room so we can lay down with her every time she needs to go to sleep, every time she wakes up in the middle of the night. He's convinced that's what we should do because that's what they did with me. I'm very nicely telling him that's a terrible idea, but they think we're heartless.

Everybody just tries to do the best for their kids, but short of flagrant safety issues, nobody really knows what the "right" thing is to do 100% of the time.

earache

2011-04-05T21:39:00.003-05:00

I've had good intentions to post several times this past week, but life got in the way.

My parents, aka The Dorks, came to visit last week. We had a great time. Baby loved having people dote over her. She's going to be very sad when it sinks in that this was the last of her birthday celebrations.

Her two favorite things were being read to and rocked by Nana AND playing the ukulele with BigSid.

Saturday night she finally spiked a fever and I took her to the urgent care clinic. Ear infection in the other ear = antibiotics. She continued to fever until yesterday afternoon. She's acted like she felt better today, thank goodness.

She's learning a hard lesson of sleeping in her own bed again tonight. Fingers crossed that we don't have a scream fest in the wee small hours. I can't lie - I'm expecting one.

Someone call Pat Summit and let her know that it's time to start scouting OKC for the Senior class of 2027. Hopefully she'll be more graceful than I was.

top chef mommy

2011-03-28T19:36:00.003-05:00

It all began watching Nana in her kitchen. I learned many important techniques from her and her confidence helped me to develop my own. It's the lessons she taught me that I'm most eager to teach Baby in the kitchen. (And Baby doesn't even know that she can hardly wait to gift Jimbo with some of her first frozen cornbread!)

On top of all of those early Nana lessons in following recipes and setting timers I haven't really branched off from following a recipe. For me, mixing it up was adding my own spices to a recipe - maybe adding celery or onion to something that didn't call for it. I wasn't very adventurous.

We haven't been able to cook as much since Baby was born. Supper now has to be something that one of us mostly does while the other person plays/reads/entertains. However, supper is always a meal we enjoy as a family at the table (with the tv off). For us that's important - more important than how long we may have spent trying to get it to the table.

Some day we know we'll get back to more complicated suppers, but for now we do what works for us. Frozen veggies, canned beans - we make them work. I think even the most artsy-fartsy chefs would appreciate the effort, even if our knife skills aren't up to par.

We're not huge fans of reality tv, but we like reality cooking shows set in this country. We're especially big fans of Top Chef and have looked up several recipes of things made on that show and recreated for ourselves (the best by far being bacon-wrapped shrimp with cheese grits). I'm always amazed at their palates and their ability to just pull recipes out of thin air. They taste something, run to the pantry and grab three ingredients, and then don't even measure with spoons or cups and it comes out great. I've learned a lot from these shows, but have always been scared of just walking over to the pantry and throwing something together on my own.

And then came the butternut squash.

Last fall I made a soup that called for some butternut squash. I wrestled and cut it and ended up freezing what wasn't used in the soup. I figured that at some point we'd make some kind of soup and I'd just dice it with onion as secret ingredients to see how it would fly. Except we never made any soup from scratch, so it's just been looking at me in the freezer, calling me ugly names like "food waster" and "scaredy cat".

Our plan for tonight was some leftover almond-crusted chicken breasts and some kind of veggie. Yesterday I moved the frozen butternut squash into the fridge and decided that I would do something with it for supper, and if it didn't turn out I'd nuke something else.

I wasn't ready for the texture when I pulled it out of the fridge. It was like over-ripe cantaloupe, bendy and mushy; nothing like the stiff butternut squash that I'd put into the freezer. So I immediately summoned my inner Nana and everything I've learned from watching cooking shows on tv -- I was going to wing it. I couldn't count on the texture, but I knew I could turn it into something like mashed potatoes.

I boiled water and threw them into the steamer with a doubtful prayer. As it was steaming I reached over for our masher, except I couldn't find it. We don't have a huge kitchen, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I pulled a fork out of the drawer and immediately doubted my fork-mashing abilities. Glancing at the clock and imagining my quick-fire challenge, I reached for the food processor. I wanted the texture to be more mashed than baby-food-applesauce, but I was going to make it work.

Steamy in the food processor - with a little milk and a little butter and a little salt

I tasted it and thought it needed something else, but what? My instinct was brown sugar and cinnamon, but I made The Hater taste it to see. He's gotten on to me in the past for adding cinnamon to things... and sure enough.... he suggested cinnamon.

Incidentally, Baby was excited to stand in line and taste it, too.

I thought it was good, but the real test would be how it fared on the table.

Halfway through supper - Baby loves it!

The Hater gobbled his down and declared that we would have it again, and that he hoped I would remember exactly how I did it so we could recreate it. I, too, was pleased and excited that my sans-recipe side dish wasn't a complete disaster.

Baby took a hesitant bite, scowled, followed by an, "Mmmm", and ate the whole thing. My child who doesn't eat vegetables asked for more squash and cleaned her plate.

Today, butternut squash - tomorrow, the world...

two years

2011-03-27T19:24:00.003-05:00

Friday morning I took Baby to her 2 year well-child appointment. I was expecting it to be easy because we were told last fall that she was finished with her routine shots for a while. As far as she was concerned I think it was easy, but for me it was incredibly hard.

They always weigh her and get all of her measurements first. This was the first time they offered her the electric stand-on scale instead of the baby scale. She was jumping on and off of it and I was trying to wrangle her when the MA said she got it. I questioned her because my eyes were on Baby and she certainly didn't stand still long enough for it to register, but I defaulted to the person who weighs more kids than I do.

So then the doctor came in and looked things over. He starts talking about "long and lean kids" and picky eaters. I told him that she liked meat and beans and cheese and fruit, but won't touch veggies (except beans and corn) or pasta. Then he showed me her growth chart and said that she was underweight at 24 pounds. 24 pounds? She weighs more than 24 pounds! But no - the scale doesn't lie. I explained that she was jumping on and off of the scale, but what do I know... so I have to take her back in a few months for a weight check and we have to move her back to whole milk in the meantime.

(Incidentally, her height is fine and her head circumference are fine. I argue that her weight is fine, too. I've weighed her no less than six times in the past two days and she's been well over 24 pounds each time I've weighed her.)

The exam continued and she showed off many of her tricks. And I was excited that she didn't scream bloody murder when he pulled out the stethoscope. She's played with mine several times this week to try to make it less scary, so that was a win.

What was not a win was when he looked in her ears and asked me how long she'd had an ear infection. Ear infection? She had an ear infection? Well, that would explain why she's not been a big eater the last couple of weeks and why she's not been sleeping as well. Now for my birthday I'm wanting an otoscope so I can look at them myself and not get bad looks from the doctor.

No antibiotics, but I'm to take her back if she spikes a fever. And then I explained to him that she hasn't run a fever and she's not been picking/pulling/digging at her ears. I had no way of knowing she had an ear infection (no otoscope), especially if she didn't run a fever or give me any indication that there was reason for concern. He said she was almost over it - so this past weekend we've gone from happy, cheery, pleasant Baby to pitiful, I-only-want-Mommy (even-though-I'm-"underweight"-and-have-an-ear-infection-that-she-ignored-because-she's-not-psychic). We have hem-hawed several times this weekend about taking her back to the doctor or letting it ride, and it's tough because who knows what the right thing is to do. We've let it ride.

I'm going to be smarter next time. Well, hopefully I'll have an otoscope so I won't have to get those ugly looks next time... Next time I'll know she has an ear infection before we go. But if it happens to play out again when we're almost at an ear infection I'm going to ask for a script but promise not to fill it unless she spikes a fever. Save a second copay.

We've learned a lot of lessons over the past two years.

we love lady bugs

Last week we were at a friend's house when their oldest daughter saw a bug! Apparently she doesn't do well with bugs. She started screaming, and when I got there I saw that it was a lady bug. Before Baby could mirror the anxiety I asked her if she wanted to hold it and put it on her hand so she could help me take it outside. She was excited about it.

We have a book about bugs with pictures of lots of different kinds of bugs. The last two pages are of a praying mantis and a lady bug. This week she pulled out that book, turned it to the lady bug, and brought it to me, screaming, "Hand! Hand! Hand, Mommy!" Once I figured out what she was telling me - yes, that was the kind of bug that she held in her hand! She was very excited to make the connection, and I was excited for her.

I gave her a little jewelry set for her birthday, complete with a necklace, bracelet and ring. She would've probably liked them just as much if they didn't have lady bugs all over them, but she was elated to see the bugs on them. (And then went to get her bug book to show me that they were like the one she held in her hand.)

Reach for the sun, little girl!

Parenthood has been a marvelous ride. We have cherished every moment and look forward to Baby's future and our family's future. We are most richly blessed.

last night

2011-03-24T20:49:00.002-05:00

And where was The Hater last night while I was slaving over oreo delight and cleaning up poop explosions?...

He was sitting three rows behind the Jazz bench watching Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook drop 60 points in a Thunder win.

Dude. Those were awesome seats! I'd rather have been there, too.

birthday eve prep

2011-03-23T20:55:00.002-05:00

If you look closely you can see the pink sprinkles I added before the layer of cookies on top!

A certain Baby will turn two tomorrow. After I put her down to sleep for the night I threw myself into third gear and made a long-time friend's Oreo Delight recipe to take to day care tomorrow so that they can have a mini party during their snack time after everybody naps. I've already cleared this with day care, and I stole another idea from a different friend and plan on sending our older camera with them so they can snap some pics for me. It's not a great camera, so I'm really hoping for one good shot.

I've cleaned the kitchen and can honestly say I'm about 70% ready for our company that will be here tomorrow afternoon.

More tomorrow on the big 2. (Speaking of big 2, I can't find the special candle I bought to put on her cupcake tomorrow night. I should go find that or else we'll end up with something not nearly as age appropriate.)

I'd like a big bravo for only eating one oreo with a little bit of the delight on it. I could've eaten way more, but I didn't. And now I'm going to celebrate by eating my prunes, drinking my metamucil, and hitting the hay. I need my beauty sleep before the par-tay tomorrow.

Mountains of chocolate just calling for the tectonic plates to rumble

so they can spill onto my plate and settle into the badlands known as my hips...

cancerversary celebration

2011-03-22T18:51:00.003-05:00

Five years ago today our lives were forever changed by the c-bomb.

Since then I've had two surgeries, swallowed three large doses of radiation, had a hundred or so labs drawn, had a dozen nuclear scans, paid about $2000 in copays for the synthetic thyroid hormone medication I take every day to survive, and said many, many (at least several trillion) prayers. I've told my story and helped others to articulate theirs. I've been jealous of those whose path is easier than mine, and been thankful that my path is easier than others. I've been thankful for some friends for their support and disappointed in others for not offering any when I needed it the most. I've received hundreds of cards and emails of support. I've learned to live with a chronic disease, although not with as much grace as I wish.

Being an oncology nurse is tricky when you have cancer. Being well educated makes the bliss of ignorance out of reach. At their most basic level cancer cells do not follow rules - which is precisely what makes them wreak havock inside the body. There's a societal belief that if you make a five year mark after a cancer diagnosis then you're through the woods, but cancer doesn't follow rules and knows no timeline. There's nothing magical about five years; the nature of cancer is to grow and divide and move and take over another site where they can grow and divide and continue the process. Some days I wonder if I'd preferred to have been ignorant.

Still, I'm excited to have five more years behind me. I'm thankful to be alive. For me it's a big day, even though I know that as far as cancer goes there's nothing special about it. We celebrated anyway by going out for supper and I had some special ice cream when I came back home.

The highlight of this extraordinary day was that my aunt in Maryland mailed me a card to acknowledge it. Nobody else remembered.

On one hand I'm hesitant to celebrate because we know that my tumor marker has never been zero. Thankfully it's slow growing cancer that doesn't need special attention at this time, and may never need special attention or further treatment. That's the realistic oncology nurse who is slightly anxious and will probably need counseling this fall when it's time to go through the diagnostic rigamarole again. The naive part of me who dances in ignorant bliss, although usually silenced by the know-it-all nurse, is totally doing the happy dance today. She is, in fact, rallying hard for a second dessert and a drink with caffeine.

She's also convinced that in five more years when we get to celebrate our 10th cancerversary I will be able to do so with complete grace and a full box of cookies.

Oh what a beautiful, beautiful day.

ho-hum

2011-03-20T13:00:00.002-05:00

I've been talking to The Hater about the Super Moon all week. In my mind it was going to be most awesome, most super, most amazing. I read about it and was genuinely excited and super-nerdy giddy. I had plans to set up the camera on the tripod (or "piepod" as Baby calls it) to get some huge moon pictures. All the pictures I've seen of a "super moon" looked massive - like the moon took up most of the sky on the horizon.

We put baby down and waited. We waited and waited and waited, until finally it was dark enough to recon the super moon. This is what I found:

(Super Moon peek-a-boo...)

It's always windy here, so it didn't take long for the clouds to clear:

(In all it's glory, complete with a moon flare!)

We were underwhelmed with the Super Moon. It was a bright full moon, but it did not live up to its name. It didn't appear any larger than any other full moon we usually see.

I set my phone alarm and woke up after midnight to see if it would appear larger when it was higher in the sky, but no. It still looked like a regular moon.

This morning I set my alarm early and tried one more time to see if it would look larger in the Western sky, but no. Still just a regular moon, albeit somewhat brighter.

In the scheme of full moons, this one wasn't as super as I'd hoped it would be. Maybe if we have another one in 20 years it'll be more impressive.

in our humble big orange opinion

2011-03-19T10:29:00.002-05:00

Well, that was a bummer. We're not talking just about the Michigan game - the whole season was a bummer. We don't know how you can beat two top five ranked teams and then the next week lose to two unranked teams, but that was our UT men's basketball this year: Jekyll and Hyde.

Unlike the rest of Vol Nation, we're willing to give Bruce Pearl one more chance. Before he came to TN we would jump up and down if we even made the NCAA tournament -- now we expect it. He's had better results than past UT men's basketball coaches. While he did mess up big time violating NCAA rules, he has and will pay the price (and so will the school in loss of scholarships, most likely).

Mike Hamilton is the bigger problem with the University. He needs to go. His tenure as Athletic Director has been a disaster with the exception of hiring Pearl (which doesn't look as good as it once did). The Kiffin disaster, various other issues, no oversight of his coaches with NCAA compliance, and just the general used-car-salesman approach he has to press conferences really makes us want him gone. More so than we want Pearl gone at this point.

The jury is still out on the Dooley hire. They did get better as the year went on, and he has a good recruiting class -- but it's too soon for a final say. We're a little bit leary of giving the Dooley hire credit to Hamilton as there were very little choices of coaches who wanted to come clean up after Kiffin.

The perfect person to replace Hamilton would be former coach Phil Fulmer. While we were ready for him to move away from coaching our football team, we think he'd be great in the role of Athletic Director. He loves the university, would be able to connect with alumni support, is well-respected by other ADs, good with the media, and would try to hire coaches whose actions won't embarrass the Vol Nation.

crusty vomit

2011-03-16T14:31:00.002-05:00

Baby gets her non-stellar sleeping skills from me. She’s already a light sleeper, but when she’s sick I swear she can hear EVERYTHING. The same goes for when we have company over. So her having a fever part of the weekend and having company made for several long nights. (We can’t very well let her scream in her bed/PNP when we have company over, so she ended up in bed with us.)

I’ve already mentioned what joy we had on Sunday night. It was terrible. She woke up every 2 hours. I decided to let her cry herself back to sleep and she cried for 50 straight minutes one time, another time 15, another time 20. Monday morning she woke up a little snotty.

I dropped her off at day care explaining that this was a new snotty nose from letting her scream and that she’d been afebrile since Sunday afternoon. When I picked her up I noticed that ALL of the kids at day care had snotty noses and coughs. Hmm. So is this a virus that she was due to get from day care OR is it my fault for letting her cry and scream?

Unfortunately, the differential doesn’t matter. Monday night was a repeat of Sunday. She had several crying bouts and the longest lasted about 30 minutes or so. The more she cried the more she coughed. Several times it sounded like she was dry heaving between screams. Tuesday morning she sounded like a baritone baby from all the coughing, crying, snotting, and screaming.

Last night before I put her down I had to do a double-take next to her PNP. Sure enough there was dried throw-up on the floor. She cried so hard she made herself vomit. I felt terrible. I gave her Benadryl and she was eager to go down for the night.

She coughed most of the night. Several times she cried and we took turns going to her, but around midnight she was so congested I couldn’t stand the thought of putting her down by herself again. I didn’t want her to cry herself into a vomiting-drained-mucous fit. At this point her regular coughs were making her dry heave. I gave her more Benadryl and Tylenol (coughing makes you sore!) and brought her to bed with me.

I hated to do it, but there’s no clear cut answer. She was awake for an hour before she finally coughed herself to sleep. Then she continued to cough and toss and turn and cry in her sleep until morning.

This morning she was in an okay mood. We used the bulb syringe to try to get some snot from her nose, but very little clear snot actually came out.

Up until this point the only thing I’ve had to give her for any kind of congestion is Benadryl. I have some baby Zyrtec, but I’m not convinced this is allergy-related, so I’ve not used it since last year when she broke out into hives and we thought she was allergic to milk. But she tested negative for everything, so it’s been in the back of the cabinet since then. At least the Benadryl dries her out some, but not very much. I’d asked around to the mom-squad at work and one suggested I call the Walgreens DPh to ask if they could look up to see if you could give anything else to a younger person. (Most labels say you can’t give anything under the age of 6.)

So this morning right as we were going out the door I called. They told me something I could give her for the congestion. I had an adult pill version in the cabinet that met the dosage requirement and he said I could give that to her if I thought she could swallow a pill, but they had a liquid version I could get, too.

I handed the little red pill to her and told her it was medicine to help her nose feel better, and I showed her 2 mini M&Ms and told her if she was able to take her medicine I’d give her the candy, too. She took it in her small hands, bit it in half, and swallowed. I was so excited I jumped up and down. The Hater kept trying to push her sippy cup at her, tried to get her to drink because he knew how yucky it tasted. She went for the second half and chewed and chewed and made a terrible face, but it went down! Hooray! She took her chocolate and her water and was ready to leave.

Day care refused to take the other pill to give to her at lunch because it was “adult medicine” and not “kid medicine”. I tried to explain it was actually the same medicine, and a smaller dose than what was recommended for her by almost a third. But, no, which is okay with me. They’ve not called, so I assume everything is just peachy and less snotty than it was this morning.

Our PCP doc has this awesome program where you can go online and look at your test results, make appointments, and email them questions. So I logged on as Baby and asked if there was any kind of cough suppressant that she can have. In less than 2 hours he emailed back something that I can get this afternoon (liquid cough suppressant) when I also get the other liquid version of the decongestant.

I’m hopeful for a better night tonight. I do expect her to wake up halfway through and need another dose of everything, but hopefully she’ll be able to go back to sleep in her room after it’s over. I’ve not decided yet if I’m going to try to get her to stay in her own room – it’ll totally depend on how congested and miserable she sounds at the time and how exhausted I am. And how guilty I feel about the crusty vomit on the floor.

Unrelated to the previous story (other than this is something you can experience at night), please note that this coming Saturday we’re supposed to be witness to a Super Moon & largest full moon we’ve had in 20 years. Here’s a link for more info: http://www.farmersalmanac.com/astronomy/2011/03/14/supermoon/?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d80c084f81d46a8%2C0 Hopefully we'll have a clear sky to appreciate it.

denied

2011-03-14T16:05:00.003-05:00

The Hater does not have permission to be gone the first four nights of a time change without reading this post and getting written permission from myself for the next eight years.

It was the longest night we've had in over a year. I'm exhausted.

π

2011-03-13T19:00:00.004-05:00

My cell phone died this morning. I have until April 1st until I qualify for a free phone. I blame DST.

We have a couple of "spare" phones, and while we were getting ready this morning we were bemoaning that I'd have to input everybody's numbers again for two weeks. But then when I got my new phone I would have to go back and do it all over again because the phone I want to get doesn't talk to the phone I currently have. It's all very complicated.

To further complicate things, Baby is adjusting to the time change about as well as we thought she would. She was up at her regular time this morning, which was par for the course. Meals have not been a problem. It took her about 30 minutes to go to sleep for her nap - she would settle, then cry for awhile, then I'd go in, she'd settle and repeat. We woke her up at what is the new regular time and we both could've used another hour.

During the nap The Hater drove across town to take the phone to the powers that be to see if they could either fix it or since we were long-time users of this particular company if they'd grace me the last two weeks of the contract so I'd qualify for the full upgrade (instead of just a half). Apparently he handed it to them and it magically turned on again, so I'll be limping it for the next two weeks. Hopefully it'll last that long.

Now it's time to go to bed and she's having a hard time again. The first time we let her cry for about 20 minutes before The Hater caved and went to her. Then when he left she woke up and all hell broke loose again. I went in and she's tired, but having a hard time settling. So we're trying something new. She's laying down next to me on the couch, under her bubbuh, listening to me type. I'll let her sit here for a while before I insist on taking her back to her room. It probably won't go over well, but that's the plan for now. I'd rather her lay quietly and rest than be up playing. (Although in the back of my head I keep thinking that if she goes to her room and screams it'd do a great job wearing her out and helping her to sleep.)

The current arrangement is going to make it hard for me to hit the elliptical tonight. I'm hoping she embraces DST by the end of the week because I know I'll be hurting for that nap on Saturday!

She's had a low-grade fever the last couple of days, but yesterday was worse than today. I've not given her anything since this morning. Part of me wants to give her something now because I know it'll help her sleep better (as I hang my head in shame), but the other part of me wants to see if she'll spike the fever again without it. For now the latter is winning, but only hesitantly because I know that if she spikes and I give her medicine it'll take about an hour for it to come back down. A long hour of a miserable, fussy baby.

She's sitting next to me whispering "Jingle Bells". It's really cute, but I must not let on that it's cute because this is quiet, resting time.

Hopefully she won't spike tonight or tomorrow. The Hater is off next week and I'd hate for him to have to spend his time with a sick girl. (That and his plan for tomorrow is to take one of the cars for its oil change.) Incidentally I do not have a significant honey-do list for him, but I have time to remedy that.

Meanwhile, today's Groupon cracks me up. It's $10 for $90 worth of fun at Glamour Shots. I have emailed my local friends and insisted that we buy it and go. I want the 1980s look with big hair, leather jacket, and popped collar. But, alas, nobody has replied. At the same time I forwarded the same email to some of my college friends and Sister, suggesting if they lived closer I'd insist that they do it, too. (We could even get the one of us who was a theater major to do zombie makeup for the shoot -- how excellent would that be?!) They have, of course, replied that they would do it if they were here. The good news (and probably much to the chagrin of my local friends): we still have two days before it expires; plenty of time to talk it up at work tomorrow. And, oh yes, it will be mentioned.

For all my band nerd and science nerd friends, this link is for you. My coolest aunt in the universe sent it to me today. This guy has taken the mathematical constant π and converted it to music. In April when I get a new fancy phone I may need this song as a ringtone because it's really that awesome. I'm just not sure yet who will be the lucky person (i.e. the nerdiest of the nerds) who gets this ring.

shock

2011-03-12T20:29:00.003-06:00

It's important to me that Baby learn regular scholarly things - at least enough so that she can grow up and be a rock star member of society who can support herself and make a difference in the world. But it's also important to me that she learns some cultural, non-scholarly things, too. Tactful things. Real life things. Things that will get her farther in life than a fancy degree or letters after her name.

We have a special guest this weekend. They has no idea how offensive they can be or how ignorant they sound. I would really like to write specific stories about the weekend, but there's no way that I can frame them in a way that's positive. So we'll just apply one of those non-scholarly lessons: if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all (and learn from other people's mistakes).

The weekend has really brought to light to me that it's very important for us to take our jobs as parents seriously, to teach Baby tolerance, respect, tact, and other non-scholarly lessons.

random thoughts

2011-03-06T19:59:00.002-06:00

Just some random thoughts for the weekend.

The Hater and I watched "The Last Airbender" last night. I had a friend who had told me about it a month or so ago and he was so excited about the story. He said if you could suspend reality and enjoy a sci-fi movie for that, then we'd probably like it. So we watched it -- and thought it was a lot of fun! (you know, because we can suspend reality and look past bad acting) We think it was wrongfully given the Razzie for worst picture. It wasn't that terrible - we've seen much worse. (and if you remember, we're not big Shamma-Lamma-Ding-Dong fans) We may have to go back and watch the tv series since we highly doubt they'll be able to make the rest of the series on the big screen. We also liked that the people had to do fancy martial-art-type-moves to activate their fancy powers. So The Hater and I have been doing fancy faux-martial-art-type-moves the rest of the weekend. And when The Hater farted I asked him if he was trying to be the next air bender.
Speaking of flatus, Baby has figured out that fart sounds mean that someone has pooped. Sometimes when I move Baby to our bedroom in the mornings while The Hater and I are waking up he will serenade us with fart sounds. Recently Baby will hear that and say, "Daddy poo poo!" Followed by, "I check", where she tries to check to see if he's still clean. This always makes us laugh, and then we talk about farts and how they're different from poo poo. I'm just waiting for us to be in public where she announces that someone else has made poo poo in their pants. Also, when she says 'fart' it sounds more like 'faw-ahrt'. Too cute, as long as we're inside our own home and not announcing things in church.
Speaking of announcing things... At Target this week I'd taken milk with me to pick Baby up from daycare. We went from there to go pick up a few things at the store - where I was ready with milk and a snack. With the snack she was content to be pushed around and wait in line without protest. On our way out there was a lady ahead of us. She stopped in the little portico area between the two sets of automatic doors. I pulled behind her and waited. And waited. And a lady pulled behind me while we were waiting. I think the lady was putting her wallet back in her purse, but she was in no hurry. Baby was counting for me and we were really in no hurry, either. Another lady came up behind me holding a basket of groceries. Baby started looking around, turned around and eyed the lady who was parked, then screamed, "GOOOOOOO!" The lady turned around and looked at me, apologizing. I went white and apologized, too. The ladies behind us laughed. The lady in front of me just looked at Baby and I. I looked at Baby and corrected, "No, honey, we say, Go PLEASE." So of course then she yelled, "Go please!" The first of what will probably be many harrowing moments of apologizing for what she says in public.
I'll keep you updated on when she announces that someone else has poop'd or farted. For whatever reason I expect this to happen at the grocery store, too.
We were really excited to have The Hater home with us this weekend! So glad the gaggiest part of his season is behind us.
Every day I get more excited about our vacation this summer.

absolved: abdominals

2011-03-02T18:35:00.002-06:00

My cousin Kelly and I have made a pact, and it's not pretty: we're going to get our abs back.

For now we've committed to each other that we're going to do three minutes every day of ab exercises. Initially we said five minutes a day, but then decided that was too much to start with - no sense in going crazy.

I was sore today at work and sore tonight as I did my three minutes. But someday we'll have our abs back, and that's exciting.

verbage

2011-03-01T20:15:00.002-06:00

This time last year Baby could say about 50 words. I had a list where I wrote them down when she'd say new ones. We were so excited.

The list stopped after a while because it got to be too hard to keep up with all of the words that she knew. She picks up a dozen a day and she's stringing more and more together at a time. She averages 3-4 word sentences, but can put together 5 or 6 word sentences/statements sometimes, too.

Life is so much easier now that she can do a better job just telling us what she wants. It's really taken a lot of tears and tension away from communication.

She adores the cat. Zoloft, the cat, has a kitty heart attack every time Baby comes anywhere near her. If Baby squeals from the living room we can hear the cat's bell jumping from on top of our bed to hiding below it. Baby likes to talk about the "sounds" that the cat makes. Unfortunately, the cat usually doesn't make sweet meow sounds. Usually the only sounds that Baby hears her make are hisses. Zoloft hisses at Baby, then baby squeals and looks back at her and says "hhhaaaaa" back like a whisper. She gets so excited to "talk" with the kitty and has no idea that the hisses are warnings or need for concern.

jonesing for another 3-day weekend

2011-02-27T20:59:00.003-06:00

We're not excited about going to work tomorrow. It's been a great weekend.

This morning we took advantage of the aftermath of the storm and took Baby outside to play in the puddles. She had a great time and we did, too. Took lots of pictures. Borrowed a lesson from my cousin and managed to get her hair into pigtails with the help of certain candies that start with the letter M... (and can't lie, there is some pain in my heart that I used chocolate as a bribing award, but it worked!).

The Hater went to see the Thunder play this afternoon. He was bummed that they lost.

After Baby's nap I took advantage of him being gone and made a lovely mess. Started working on Mother's Day presents. Learned a lot after Christmas crafts - mostly that I need to give us far more time than I think we need.

bleary-eyed

2011-02-21T05:47:00.002-06:00

The faultless plan was a bust. At 4:38 this morning Baby decided that it was five o'clock somewhere and that it was time to get up.

Thank goodness for redness reducing eye drops.

I may be driven back to drinking caffeine if she continues the early morning reveille.

decadent

2011-02-20T21:04:00.002-06:00

We had another fabulous day today that started about 4:55 am. Baby's alarm clock has been going off earlier since we moved her to the big girl bed. Bless her heart. I tried keeping her up a little later tonight, but that just didn't fly at all. She kept saying, "Mommy, (insert her name) tired." I kept trying to change the subject and talk about more exciting things and she'd raise her voice and say, "Mommy, I sleepy!" "Bed!" I ended up keeping her up about 20 minutes later tonight and she was pitiful by the time I put her down - she cried, which she rarely does, off and on for about 30 minutes until she finally went to sleep. I'd almost rather just let her get up early because it just seems tacky to make her stay up when she's ready to go to bed. We'll see in the morning if this torture made any difference, but I'm not holding my breath.

The last month or so I've changed her nighttime routine to include saying the Lord's Prayer. For about the last week she's been saying the last couple of words of every phrase with me. Today in church she said just about the whole thing when we prayed it as a congregation. I was so excited I wanted to jump up and down and run the aisles, but seeing as how that's not a tradition in my church, I just quietly beamed from my pew.

At the end of about 97% of the services we end with the same song. It's upbeat and I'd never heard of it before we started going to this church (which really is saying a lot - I know a lot of hymns!). Anyway, out of the blue today she started singing with us... and sometimes matching pitch! I can hardly wait for her to sing with me. She sings with me some now ("Sing" is her favorite - circa Carpenters), but she's getting better at matching pitch if it's a whole note.

After church we hit the grocery store for some staples and then we went out for lunch. I took a gift card that we'd received for VD. I'm back on the Weight Watchers wagon, so I knew ahead of time what I could get -- and it was really good. At first I didn't think that Baby was going to eat, but she scarfed most of it down. This girl could eat her weight in oranges if you'd let her. Anyway, when it came time to pay I put the gift card down and the lady came back later to say that it was empty. I laughed and told her it had been a gift from my mother-in-law. She thought it was funny, too. Baby laughed, but that's only because she likes to laugh when everybody else does.

So our adventure after nap was baking a practice batch of oreo chocolate cake. I like to cook, but I'm not a baker. I don't do sweets. This is a recipe that Sister sent me - it's complete chocolate goodness. And the icing , oh the icing, homemade icing, had crunched up chocolate in it, too. This is the first time I've ever used confectioner's sugar in my life, and I liked it. I've got a half dozen cupcakes iced in the fridge to take to work tomorrow to see if they're worthy for a birthday #2 celebration. The rest of it has been frozen. If it's approved by my distinguished panel of coworker judges then I'll have one of the four birthday party celebrations done.

I took the obligatory pictures of Baby licking the beater, placing cookies in the baking cups, and using the wooden rolling pin. She really wasn't as into the whole cookie/chocolate/icing/sweet thing as I thought she would be. After supper tonight I tried to ask her if she wanted to try some of her cake and she was certain that she didn't. She wanted a popsicle, specifically a green one. She settled for red and I'm thinking that I should have more of those when we have our parties because she's more likely to want those. At about 30 calories a pop compared to all of the chocolatey goodness in the cupcakes, I'd much rather let her have a green one.

crabs and duct tape

2011-02-19T20:21:00.002-06:00

Gross.

Baby and I took advantage of our new diapering situation and played at the mall today. She ran, I ran, we had a great time. She played in the petri dish for nearly and hour and I took some fun pictures. The best part about being the early bird at the mall is that usually that means we get the petri dish to ourselves and we can be extra silly. Sometimes big kids who are really entirely too big to be playing there will run in and be far too rough (coincidently, these are usually the kids whose parents just sit there and say nothing about their rough play around the little ones or their inability to share).

We ate lunch at the food court and on our way out I found a new skirt that I just had to have. Actually, I found it yesterday when I got out of work early, but I thought about it all night and decided to go back and get it. Baby didn't mind humoring me because this particular store also has a large section of hermit crabs. They kindof give me the heebie-jeebies.

She konked out before we left the parking lot. Actually, it was before we even got to the end of the row where I was parked and before I could turn to the road behind the mall.

Before we left for the mall we killed a little bit of time by getting out the duct tape dress, et voila, it still fits! (Actually, it's still a little big -- so we'll have more opportunities to dress it up later this summer.)

an amusing aside

2011-02-18T19:49:00.001-06:00

So guess who looked at me shortly into supper tonight

and declared that she needed to poo poo?

The universe cracks me up sometimes.

Pottypalooza Round One: Things Learned

2011-02-16T18:51:00.003-06:00

The Hater and I had a very long heart-to-heart last night. When we kickstarted potty boot camp Baby had several definite signs that she was ready to potty train. Unfortunately, most of these disappeared in our second week of training. Here we are a month later and we're not convinced that she's physiologically or developmentally ready for this step.

Nobody failed. No disappointments.

Really it's not that big of a deal. Just like the fooler, we'll try again in a few months.

I was anxious to tell day care since they've been so insistent that we persevere, but she agreed quickly without me having to go through my well-rehearsed story. Baby wore diapers today and did fantastic, really enjoyed being able to participate in all of the group activities. I went to work very much relieved.

The best news of all is that we can spend more time playing now! It was 77 and windy this afternoon and we played hard at the swingset. Mostly she crawled around under the picnic table looking for clumps of dirt to label as "rocks", but we also attacked the slide and gave lots of love to the neighbor's dog. We came back and The Hater had burgers on the grill. I could get used to this!

I've not yet decided what our exciting weekend adventures will be. We've not really been out of the house in the month that we've been doing this, other than to go to church or day care. As of now we have call for rain both days, but we'll see how that pans out this weekend. It's all up in the air for now, but I can promise you that we won't be home all weekend. Nosireebob. We're going to celebrate being 100 weeks old.

That's right. Guess who turned 100 weeks old this week! What Nana said was true, "The days are long but the weeks are short." And what a wonderfully blessed 100 weeks we've had.

big girl bed success

2011-02-13T19:18:00.002-06:00

I don't want to jinx myself and actually use the word "success", but I'm going to because I'm excited. Baby chose to sleep in her big girl bed for her nap and stayed there for her whole nap. Then tonight after our prayer I asked her where she wanted to sleep and she pointed to her bed! I was so excited. No cries, no screams. Hopefully she'll stay there all night!

We needed a success today.

The Hater has been gone all weekend and I'm sure I've lost at least 40 IQ points. Don't get me wrong - I have loved every minute of playing and reading and watching Elmo. I'm hurting for real two-way conversation. I don't just miss The Hater because he's helpful and he can carry on a conversation, but I really miss him today. Good news is that he'll be back tonight!

Pottypalooza update: This morning in church Baby announced "Pee Pee!". I questioned her and she assured me that she needed to go. I halfway wondered if she was just trying to get out of sitting in church, but jerked her up and grabbed the bag with the wipes and potty seat, and ran to the potty. Sure enough, she was dry when we got there and peed in the potty!! I was so excited, such real progress! It was the first time she told me that she needed to pee.

And then the rest of the day was a bust. Maybe not a total bust, we did have several accidental successes. But we also had about a half dozen accidents, too. She's just not getting it. More on this later in the week after we consult with day care again. Do we persevere or go back to diapers? Time will tell.

Happy early VD.... I hope yours doesn't itch or scab over! For a blast from the past, here's the VD post from five years ago.

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2011-02-12T20:33:00.003-06:00

Baby climbed out of her crib Wednesday night.

Had a long night that night. Baby was up about 10:30, screaming for me. This hasn't happened for MONTHS - I bet it was last summer the last time she cried or called out for us in the night. I went to her room, rocked her for a few minutes, and put her back down. I went back to bed, settled, and was one sigh away from going back to sleep when she started again. I sent The Hater. He didn’t make it back to the bedroom before she started screaming for me again. I waited a few minutes, then went back and checked her diaper. (just pee – no poop) Rocked for a while, but she flipped out when I tried to put her back in the crib. (She was so upset that I thought in the back of my head that I shouldn’t leave her.) I ended up with her in the living room cradling her in the recliner for about 30-40 minutes. She was quiet but awake the whole time.

At one point she told me she heard sounds. When I asked her what sounds she said “doggy – woof woof” (then pause like she was listening) “woof woof” and pointed towards her bedroom. I told her there were no dogs in her bedroom.

Finally I took her back to the crib which went over like condoms at a Catholic school. I walked out of the room and back to our bedroom, told The Hater that we’d let her scream for a bit, and went to potty. While I was away from the monitor he said her screams escalated, then he heard a thud followed by bigger screams. He thought OH NO on his way to the bedroom to check on her, but when he rounded the corner her bedroom door knob was wiggling.

Sure enough, he opened the door to her at his feet wanting to be picked up. About that time I was done on the potty and just knew that she was still screaming and The Hater wasn’t in the bedroom. As I walked out of the bathroom he brought her to me, screaming. He told me she climbed out of bed and he heard a thud and he was worried that she was hurt.

She came to me, put her head on my chest, and immediately stopped screaming. I assured him that she was fine.

He turned off the tv and the three of us went to bed. She started out on my chest, but I moved her between us. It took her 30-45 minutes to go to sleep, but after she was asleep she was out for the night. She’d wake up and change positions (get on my pillow with me), but not pat us or try to talk to us.

Thursday morning I asked her if she remembered crying last night, and she said yes. I asked her if she could tell me why and she said “sad”. Granted, she only knows how to label two emotions right now – happy and sad – so I’m wondering if maybe she had a nightmare? Who knows. The neighbor on that side of the house has a dog, but we've never heard it when we were inside our house.

I reported this to day care Thursday morning and they were convinced that she should be in a toddler bed that night. I was hesitant to make that change right now because I’ve read about people who freak out after one fall and move their kid too early out of the crib and it takes them forever to transition, but on the other hand I don’t want her to fall out and get hurt (climbing out and not getting hurt doesn’t bother me so much). I've also read lots of stories about babies with broken bones and concussions from climbing out of the bed, and who wants to do that?

So after much hem-haw'ing and emailing just about everybody I know with children (and those I know without children who have a good head on their shoulders) - I had The Hater at home on his snow day Thursday taking apart the crib and putting together the toddler bed. He called me at one point to tell me he was in "allen wrench hell".

We weren't eager to make this move, but here we are.

Thursday we picked up Baby at day care and told her about her awaiting "big girl bed". We came home and she went nuts over it. She was so excited. She climbed in and out, pretended to sleep, covered up baby, had big fun. And she was big into the new bed - that is - until it was time for bed. Then she screamed. Bloody murder. Like the world was ending.

I let her go on for about 15 minutes before going in, but I had to scoot her back because she was up at the door trying to get out. She was scared to death. She clung to me like a koala bear. I couldn't stand it, so she slept with me Thursday night (The Hater was out of town).

Friday morning I updated day care at our strike out through bleary eyes. They told me I needed to put her in bed, shut the door, and not go back until the next morning. I just didn't think I could do that with The Hater gone. It just seemed cruel. But about that time I received a wonderful email from a brilliant friend and Mom to three boys. She suggested we set up the pack and play in her room and give her the choice every night of where she wanted to sleep. They did that with her oldest son and (although it took months), he eventually moved on his own. She's my most brilliant friend EVER.

So Friday afternoon I set up the PNP and told Baby she could either choose to sleep in her big girl bed or the pack and play. I left it at that. She continued to play in her bed. ... Fast-forward to bedtime, when she refused to choose either. I put her in the PNP and closed the door. She screamed for 24 minutes before going to sleep. She slept the whole night. I slept the whole night without being kicked or nudged or patted. It was wonderful.

At naptime today I gave her the choice again. And again tonight at bedtime. Let's just say that the screaming is getting shorter in duration and intensity, but she's still sleeping in the PNP for now.

And we're okay with that. And thankful for all of our friends and family who answered our frantic email of what to do next.

It should probably be noted that she gets all of this honestly. Somehow my eggs must have been affected by the adrenaline rush I had when I went sky diving three months before Baby was conceived. She's already showing signs of being almost as stubborn as I can be. And I was a terrible sleeper, a light sleeper.

seven more inches

2011-02-09T19:52:00.002-06:00

This is Cortez, our Spanish Sabre.

He's cold and slightly confused as to our crazy weather.

We've gotten seven more inches of snow today. We're fortunate because people in the NE side of the state have gotten 42 inches between the last snow and this snow. The Hater shoveled the driveway before lunch and this afternoon the sun took care of what was left (on the driveway). Hopefully the sun over the next few days will take care of everything else.

Baby had a big time today playing inside and outside. She was really pleasant and every kind of busy fun that a 22 month old should be. Today she was especially brave and took off walking through the snow on her own, without insisting that we hold her hand.

Tomorrow the plan is to go back to the grindstone, albeit slightly frozen. The Hater will play the role of Jeeves and tote Baby and I to daycare, and then me to work. He'll then return home to nap and work on things that need to be done here.

I'm not tired of the snow yet. For the record.

baby, it's cold outside

2011-02-05T19:35:00.004-06:00

It was another beautiful day. We ended up with about 0.5-0.75" of more snow yesterday. It really didn't make things worse in town or the roads. Today the high was in the 40s, so we bundled each other and went outside to enjoy what will be the last of the big snow. (Of course we're due to get 2-4" more in a couple of days, but it won't be as crunchy as nearly knee-deep snow.)

There's just a dusting over yesterday's clear sidewalk.

Baby likes to walk in the snow, but she insists on holding our hand when she does it.

These boots were the greatest buy for me for 2010. They're technically rain boots, but served me well in the snow, too. Paired with sweats that are two sizes too big, they're even more fabulous.

The Hater hopes the roads will be good enough to get the car out on Monday. He's not crazy about getting up earlier and playing Jeeves. Personally, I love being toted around town.

Pottypalooza: Baby finally showed day care on Friday what she's been doing for us - which is not using the potty. I think they thought we were just making it up, but I swear that sometimes I think she holds it until we're NOT sitting on the potty. I was just glad that it wasn't just us... but Friday evening she was a superstar for me and peed on the potty twice - no accidents. Today she only had two accidents, which in my world is fantastic. We plan on persevering and day care swears that we'll be able to tell a huge difference by next month... so for now we stay the course. Potty training is not for the faint of heart.

snow cream heaven

2011-02-03T18:43:00.006-06:00

My aunt rocks. Not only is she one of my five dedicated blog readers, but she is an all around awesome lady. She suggested as a comment in an earlier post that I make some snow cream for Baby. Except I've never had snow cream, much less made it.

I emailed her today about it to see if she had a favorite recipe or I should just google for one. She had some suggestions for ingredients, but also told me to google it to find an actual recipe. My grandfather made it for them when she was little and how fun it would be to rekindle that tradition!

There were several recipes, but I opted for a Paula Deen "Snow Ice Cream" recipe on foodnetwork.com . The Hater (AKA Jeeves) picked me up from work and I insisted that we stop at a grocery store so we could pick up the needed milk. He thought I was crazy, but humored me because he's a good man.

It was fantastic. All three of us had our own spoons, huddled over the bowl, feeding our faces with cold, smooth goodness. Oh, yes, this will be a tradition we continue. Thank you Marian!

Snow taken from the middle of a drift in the front yard.

What else do you do with a ton of snow that's too powdery to stick to itself to make a respectable snowman?

We opted for the Fat Free condensed milk. Sorry Paula.

Everything tastes better when mixed with a wooden spoon that belonged to your grandmother.

Technically yellow snow, but we're going to eat it anyway.

"Yummy Mommy!"

"I turn. I spoon."

The family tradition continues.

Dear Paula Deen,

I have made a lot of fun of your recipes in the past since most of them call for either an entire stick of butter or a Snickers bar. I'm sorry for that. Thank you for sharing this recipe - it will resurrect a forgotten tradition in my family.

Love, genderist

this snow blows

2011-02-01T19:33:00.004-06:00

(Top to bottom in chronological order.)

This is the window in one of our bathrooms. It cracked me up to look earlier and see that the wind had blown so hard that it had pushed the snow through the screen and up against the actual window. I've not seen it do this before.

It kindof reminds me of those old movable sand sculptures that people would have on their desks, circa 1988. You remember the ones?

snow date update

2011-02-01T18:34:00.002-06:00

We've gotten a total of 12" of snow. The wind chill is -16 or so. Tomorrow's high is 10.

There are parts of our yard where you can see the top of the grass, but also drifts thigh deep. The thing about snow in Oklahoma is that it comes down sideways because of the wind. Then it blows all around.

We've lived here for 7 1/2 years and have NEVER had a snow that's suitable for making a snowman. It's always too powdery to stick together.

We did go outside briefly after supper. The three of us bundled up, sported duct-taped grocery bags over our hands and feet, and braved the cold. Baby LOVED it. She was so excited to play. The Hater and I took turns jumping face first into drifts. It wasn't long before it was time to come back in. Baby was so upset to leave the snow. She cried for about 20 minutes after we got back into the house. It was very sad... apparently snow is like baby heroin and she was seriously jonesing for another hit.

We're going to heed the warnings of the local news stations and stay home again tomorrow. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow they'll have the roads cleared and other idiots in our neighborhood will have plowed through the drifts in the road. We're hoping to be back to our grind by Thursday, but only time will tell how long we'll be inside. It's not supposed to get over freezing until the weekend.

I've got some stuff to do for work tonight. The Hater is watching a movie about some Republican political operative who got Reagan and the Bushes elected. Blah. Lee Atwater. Normally I'd groan about having to do work at home, but with this on tv I'd much rather do work than watch this.

Everybody stay warm!

batten down the hatches

2011-01-31T19:14:00.002-06:00

There's snow a'blowin this way. At lunch today they were saying we should get at least a foot here tomorrow. For now the city is shut down for tomorrow. We'll see if we're able to get out before the weekend, when it'll finally get over freezing.

We vacuumed the house tonight just in case we get stuck without electricity in a dirty house. So that's done.

Pottypalooza continues. She's doing okay and we're still celebrating every success. Today we went through three pairs of panties - not shabby.

My plans tomorrow include playing hard. Hopefully it'll quit blowing long enough for us to get some good pictures.

templatation

2011-01-28T19:23:00.003-06:00

I'm tempted to change my template, so I made up a new word for this particular conundrum.

On one hand it's no big deal. Whatever. It's just a template and it's just a blog.

But on the other hand as long as this haiku has been in existence (5 1/2 years - can you believe it?), it's always been green. Of course that was before there were cool options, but even after there were cool options I persevered with plain boring green because it's always been that way and something has to be said for that.

For what? Being stubborn? For a blog that five people read?

(And I truly do appreciate you!)

Back to my templatation... There are options here. There are a whole word of options. I could fiddle with it myself and choose one of the more creative canned templates. This would be a different color and possibly have a different layout (but not much different). This option is free.

Another option is to pay someone to make something genuine-one-of-a-kind-hoity-toity-template. This can get expensive, but I think I could get it for $50-75. I've thought about this option in the past (back in the day when this was a wee little blog), but I've always dismissed this idea quickly because, well, I'm cheap.

However, now the free options (more my budget) are cooler than they were when they changed blogger over to the new system.

Indeed, this is a conundrum that bothers nobody but me. I'm fortunate that this is my biggest concern of the moment. I will continue to templatate (it just doesn't work in that tense) over the weekend.

Only slightly related - I read something this week about how all of the e-books will drastically change the publishing industry. And how in several years they don't think they'll be needing cover art for books anymore. (This makes me more than a little sad.) The thing I read said that an author's logo will be what they are known by, not the cover art. Maybe if I change this whole thing I should come up with a logo, too.

You know, for branding. So that my five readers will know how to find me without my lively green background.

it's been a good run

2011-01-27T18:57:00.003-06:00

Dear Jeff Fisher,

Thank you for your time as Titans head coach. We'll never forget you bringing the team from the dingy depths to playoff contenders to Super Bowl participants and being four yards away from a championship. And the Music City Miracle - one of the greatest NFL plays ever - that was all you.

We wish you well. We're sorry things didn't work out the last few years. We were always fans of you and the team. Just so you know - none of this was part of our Titans plan.

We hope the Titans will get better, and we hope that you and your family have good fortune in the future.

Much Love,

The Hater, genderist and Baby

Pottypalooza Update!

2011-01-27T05:54:00.002-06:00

Fantastic news! Guess who had zero accidents yesterday?

Guess who wore the same pair of big girl panties the whole day?

Guess who made more than one poo poo in the potty?

Guess who announced that she needed to pee pee?

(for the first time ever)

LLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRR...

(drumroll)

Baby! The routine is starting to stick. I think she's at least learning to "hold it" until she's sitting on the potty. It shouldn't be long before she always announces that it's time to potty.

Incidentally, I didn't have any accidents and wore my same big girl panties the whole day, too.

And when I say "it shouldn't be long" before she announces to us that it's time to potty I mean that will naturally be the next step in potty training, and hopefully it'll happen sooner instead of later. But in the scheme of things it really won't be that long...

big fat bummer

2011-01-23T19:04:00.002-06:00

It's been a good weekend. Here are some highlights:

Pottypalooza continues. Today was better than yesterday. We wised up and started pairing her big girl panties with the rubber/plastic bloomers for much easier clean-ups.
Finished another baby hat this weekend. I heard that one of the nurses I know at work has a grandbaby who was born early - weighing in at 1# 5 oz. I knew I had some blue/green verigated yarn, so I thought I'd make them a hat. It was the same kind of yarn as the last one that's not the same width the whole time. I did exactly the same thing on my loom and it ended up bigger than the others. Not too big to send to the Caps for Good campaign, but too big for this particular baby:
Baby is getting a cold. She's been snotty and run a low-grade temp, coughing in her sleep (with the humidifier running). I thought we'd be good parents and used the bulb syringe in her nose about an hour and a half after a snack, which should've been plenty of time for the food to move from her stomach. I sucked so efficiently that she started gagging and threw up not only the snack from an hour and a half previously (banana and watered down juice) but also some breakfast (grapes and mixed grain cereal). We were both covered in vomit, which is a really bad bummer because it made us lose an extra pair of plastic bloomers and not to pee! I stripped us both and we jumped in the shower which was fast and traumatic. We didn't suck her nose again today.
The dryer died. We're hoping it's the heating element in it. So when Baby went down for her nap I took two washed loads to a wishy washy to dry. The Hater is currently out taking two more loads to dry (including Baby's many accident panties and our throw-up wardrobes). Call in to the powers that be about the dryer - we're hoping it'll be fixed very soon and that it is something as easy (and inexpensive) as the heating thing. If it's too much more complicated (or expensive) than that we'll opt for a new dryer and say goodbye to our plans for a real vacation this summer. (That would be my first real vacation since the c-bomb hit. Or really my first real vacation since our honeymoon. So please keep your fingers crossed that it'll be a cheap and easy fix because if it's not I'll end up grumpy.)
Baby is learning to play hide and go seek. She's starting to get the concept and loves to play, so long as someone is hiding with her and looking for the other person with her. She gets so excited to play.
The theme song for the weekend has been "C is for Cookie". She has loved singing it over and over and over. I've watched all of the related videos at the Sesame Street page and after looking at them several dozen times I'm sure that I like the remake better than the original (gasp). The Candice Bergen skit was a nice attempt, but I'm sadly disappointed that the comedienne didn't ham it up better than that.
I made a new carrot soup recipe and spiced it with Indian spices. It was good, but was so hot it made my nose run. The Hater liked it, too. It made a huge pot, so we've frozen some back to share when we have guests again. The Hater made salmon croquettes for supper and I baked sweet potatoes with them. Baby ate some leftover tuna and went goo-goo-ga-ga over the sweet potatoes. Yay! A vegetable! She's not eaten much lately, but she ate well for me all weekend (which really surprised me since we could tell she's feeling cruddy).
We read lots of stories and spent lots and lots of time on the potty.
Tomorrow we send her to day care in pull-ups. I hate it, but I hate the idea of taking a load of laundry to the wishy washy to dry every night this week even more.

I'm sure there were other exciting things that happened, but they're not coming to me right now. Probably because I missed my afternoon nap. I'll have to make up for that next weekend.

with pom-poms, no less

2011-01-20T19:48:00.003-06:00

I finished baby hat #2 yesterday and the pink baby doll was eager to model again. I made it the same way as the first one on the circle loom, but this time I used a different yarn and it ended up a little bit bigger. I thought it'd be too big, but then it fit pink baby just fine, so I'm thinking it'll be okay. I also made two little pom-poms to dangle from the top. Super cute.

Even The Hater thought the pom-poms were adorable.

Pottypalooza update: The Hater stayed home today with Baby because his work was cancelled because of the ice storm. They had several potty successes. The day's total is 4 pee pees in the potty and one poo poo in the potty, plus 3 accidents. The Hater was Super Daddy today!

One of yesterday's pee pee accidents on the mat.

Please notice how the pee pools between the cushions - so fun to clean!

baby model

2011-01-18T19:33:00.002-06:00

I finished the hat! Since it's so little it really didn't take me very long. I couldn't figure out how to pose it and then I remembered that Baby had one small doll that would work. Then Elmo got his feelings hurt, so she posed with him, too.

Elmo is such a camera hog.

Caps for a Cause

2011-01-17T18:34:00.003-06:00

This past Saturday night I read the latest Parents magazine. This was a huge deal because I've not read one of those within the week that I received it in the mail since I was on maternity leave. So that in itself was exciting, but it had several sections that were timely for us, too.

This is one section that really caught my eye. I tried to go to the Parents website to just cut and paste it, but they didn't have it posted there. So any typos here are all mine:

From the February 2011 Parents magazine (p26)

Caps for a Cause

Donating money isn’t the only way to make a difference. Save the Children is asking people to knit a cap from now through February 28. The organization, a nonprofit that advocates for kids around the world, is sponsoring a charity drive to collect headwear for babies in an effort to reduce the number of newborn deaths in impoverished countries (4 million per year). If you’re interested in participating, you can get easy, free patterns at GoodGoes.org/caps or your local Michaels store.

Look at that sweet preemie. Who wouldn't want to make her a hat?

So I started a hat Saturday afternoon. Been working on it from time to time and expect to be done with it soon. I'll post a picture when I do. I'm using the smallest circle loom that I have, but I'm a little worried that it may be too big. I may end up taking it to the hospital and asking the NICU nurses if it's too big for a preemie. If they say it is, then I'll have to decide between sending it to them anyway and just giving it to the newborns at our hospital. But I'm going to try! I'll post an update and picture when I have more to tell about it.

So at work today I was looking into the program. I started thinking I could easily crank out several caps between now and the end of next month. Turns out they don't really want your hats - they want you to make one hat and then tell other people to make a hat, too. Also, this program goes away on Feb 28th, so if you have any itch to help, carpe diem and get purling.

From the Save the Children website:

The Caps for Good grassroots initiative will be running from September 2010 through February, 2011 encouraging citizens of all ages to participate by making a cap and advocating and fundraising to provide newborn care in developing countries.

At the end of the program, caps will be distributed to pregnant women and new moms and their babies in Save the Children's programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

This is a link to a PDF file that will tell you all about this campaign.

The PDF packet has info and FAQs. It has a tag you can print and attach to the hat as a note to the mother. There's also a letter they want you to print and send with the hat that's a letter to the President saying to please support children and mothers. And the address to send the hat.

So if you're waiting for an invitation to help, this is it! If you fall in love with the idea and want to make lots of hats for preemies, contact your local hospital with a NICU -- they're always looking for hats. (And blankets that can be laid over the incubator to simulate the dark womb. Call and ask what their needs are - there are always needs for people with big hearts for little babies.)

Pottypalooza update: When I picked up Baby at daycare she was only on her 2nd pair of panties!!! Isn't that fantastic? She had an accident in the car on the way home, but none after we were here. She pee'd in the potty twice for me while she was home this evening. We're still taking her to sit on the potty every 15 minutes; she's not notified us of having to pee yet. She really loved the day care people making over her - so the training continues!

Pottypalooza Day Three: Wrap-Up

2011-01-16T19:11:00.003-06:00

It's been a long day and a really long weekend.

I'm starting to think that the people who go on and on about the 3-day plan are full of poo poo. We've not lost hope and we know that eventually she's going to "get it", but for us it wasn't in the three days. She didn't figure it out the pee cues.

However, we did use less panties today than we did either

of the previous two days. I think the full count was up to 5 for the day. So is that a success? Compared to 18 on Day 1, I'd say so... or maybe it's just a success that Mommy was trained better? Is it just semantics?

The only thing Baby really learned this weekend was that if she said "poo poo", then we'd run to the bathroom and she'd get one-on-one total attention. That's not entirely true - she learned that if she was sitting on the potty at the right time she'd also get stickers.

Yay! First poo poo success!

Tomorrow we're sending her to daycare with several extra pairs of clothes, 8 extra pairs of panties and 6 of the huge plastic panties to go over them. We've spoken to our daycare lady and they're game-on to continue the madness.

The Hater's closing thoughts: "Hell hath no fury like 3-day potty training."

He's just excited that Baby is going to daycare tomorrow when he gets to stay home and enjoy MLK day. I asked him if he wouldn't rather continue our forward momentum and keep her by himself for an unplanned Pottypalooza Day Four! He didn't think that was nearly as funny as I did.

Pottypalooza Day Three: Naptime Update

2011-01-16T12:15:00.002-06:00

Baby is down for her nap in panty #4 for the morning. Hopefully she'll be dry after her nap.

We've had four incidental pee successes and one incidental poo success (or maybe she was holding it until we sat on the potty?). She has asked to sit on the potty twice.

My bottom is seriously sore from sitting on the little stool. I could read stories for three more weeks, but my bottom wouldn't take it.

This morning she was dry for a little over two hours straight. We kept going to sit on the potty, but with no success. I'd been thinking it for a while, but I finally said out loud to The Hater, "Wow. She's not gone this long before." Then within five minutes she showed us and I ran her to the bathroom while The Hater cleaned up the puddles.

She's not catching on to the pee-signals yet, but we continue to persevere, even though it's not the word of the day.

Pottypalooza Day Three: Pre-Game Show

2011-01-16T06:31:00.002-06:00

She stayed dry during her nap yesterday! Yay! Unfortunately she wakes up grumpy (like her Daddy), so there were tears when I swooped her up and sat her on the potty as she was waking up... but they soon went away when we heard the magic tinkle sounds followed by Mommy and Daddy cheering.

I think yesterday we went through a total of seven pairs of panties, but the seventh pair stayed dry before it was time to bathe and put her to bed.

We think it's starting to click for her when she's about to pee because she gets a look on her face about eight milliseconds before pee runs down her leg. Now if we could just jump the hurdle for her to figure it out a little earlier.

I'm not sure if we're actually potty training her or if she's Mommy training me to know when to go set her on the potty. Yesterday we had a half dozen or so incidental pee-pee successes. Who knows if she's actually learning that she pees on the potty or if they're all just flukes. But, like I said, we celebrate every success.

Day Two was much easier with The Hater here to help, even though we didn't have nearly as many accidents. The adult conversation really helped my sanity.

Here we are at Day Three. I'm ready. The Hater isn't, but that's only because he's balked my requests for him to get out of bed. When he gets up I'm sure he'll be ready, too.

We've already pulled out all three of the new books. But we haven't pulled out the Elmo potty video yet. That may be our saving grace today.

My bottom is sore from sitting on the little step stool next to the potty to read books. She ran around yesterday with a red bottom from sitting on the potty. At least her seat is padded. I know our back-ends will be grateful when this stage is behind us.

We've made several calls to grandparents who appropriately ooh and aah and brag at the right times. Sometimes she'll ask to call Aunt Sister. Sometimes she's really into getting stickers and putting them on the sheet, and sometimes she wants nothing to do with them and would rather play than stand still and mess with stickers.

We're playing it by ear. The word of the day is momentum.

Pottypalooza Day Two: Naptime Update

2011-01-15T12:27:00.002-06:00

I just put Baby down for her nap in panty #5 for the day.

We started off with a big bang with a request to go poo poo. We sat for a while with no results, so we came back to the kitchen to work on breakfast. But she said "poo poo" again, so we ran back to the bathroom. She was a little scared, but we ended up with a successful poo deposit, followed by pee pee. We made over her and sang and danced.

We've had three pee pee accidents. She's not figured out that cue yet.

We've had a few more incidental pee successes. We celebrate big every time.

Fingers crossed that she stays dry during her nap today. Yesterday she didn't, but today I was a little nicer and I've not been pushing fluids as much. It just seems mean to push juice and chocolate milk, and then put her down with what will end up being a completely full bladder.

The Hater isn't convinced that she will figure anything out by the end of the weekend, but we continue to persevere. That is the word of the day, after all.

Pottypalooza Day Two: Pre-Game Show

2011-01-15T06:43:00.002-06:00

The Hater has just returned from his sleep study. No results were shared with him. He's in the shower washing off goo. He has no idea what he's in for today's potty boot camp, but I think he'll figure out that it's way easier than he thought it'd be.

I took a shower last night because I felt like I had been marinated in pee.

I slept well and am physically, emotionally and spiritually prepared to do this all over again. I'm hopeful that Baby will be as eager and excited to comply.

My game plan really hasn't changed. Everything I've read says that if this works it should click for her between day two and day three. The magic word of the morning is persevere.

Pottypalooza Day One: Wrap-Up

2011-01-14T18:36:00.002-06:00

We've pee'd and poop'd through a total of 19 or 20 pairs of panties today. I don't remember exactly how many and am not in the mood to go through them and count.

We had four incidental successes!! All while reading stories.

We read lots of stories. Actually, we only read 5 books, but we read them over and over for hours.

The Hater came home after work. He was here less than an hour when he declared that he couldn't have sat with her in the bathroom all day. He gets his chance to do time reading stories tomorrow.

I can't lie. There have been many moments today where I've wondered if this is really a step towards her independence or just another test to train me to be more patient.

The worst was a tie...

When she went through three pairs of panties in about fifteen minutes. I was really ready to cry.
When she had a huge soft, mushy poop complete with pieces of not totally digested food and I had to wipe it with toilet paper and put it in the potty. But in the process the poo got all over me, all over her, and all over the panties. Good times.

But the best, by far, is her look of shock and excitement when we hear the tinkle of pee pee in the toilet water. Then we both squeal with delight and she claps her hands while I sing and dance the pee pee dance.

I've got good vibes about tomorrow, but I'm really glad for an evening respite from reading "Mickey and the Beanstalk" and "Once Upon a Potty".