Ending the Summer

The angel boy-O returned to Utah the weekend of August 8th. That Sunday he left, his daddy was off to Vermont two days later for a week-long conference, and he returned just this past Sunday. So for the first full week spent without the boy-O, I was alone with just the girlie, and the resulting quiet in our home, it was excruciating. Yeah, the house is way too quiet without him.

I miss most watching the two cuties wrestling amongst the thrown couch cushions and pillows, with him eating her cheeks whenever he can get a bite, tickling her arms and leggies as she squeals and screams, trying her best to free herself and scramble away from him, and he chases her into a corner of the kitchen where, as she giggles like mad, he devours her ankles... and all this usually happens just as she's supposed to be settling down for bedtime.

Ever since the boy-O left, I've been wanting this summer to come to a sudden end - - please, oh puhleeze! I'm tired to being confined to air conditioned spaces!! I need some cooler weather and pronto, so we can get ourselves out of the house without it being limited to either a swimming pool or nothing more than runs to either Trader Joes or the nearby Target. I exaggerate, of course. We've managed quite well this summer to keep ourselves busy and out of the house, and this past week, without the boy-O and my honey-man, was not much different really. It was just too quiet. But I am tired of figuring out ways to get out of the house and to avoid the Vegas heat as well.

I should mention in greater detail how we have been swimming a lot, indeed, which has been a lot of fun, but until recently, our sweet potato enjoyed running in circles around the perimeter of the pool more than she actually enjoyed swimming in the pool! Last week --and this week as well, which was a surprise to us, but that's a whole 'nuther story-- having no daycare service available because the girlie's preschool is closed for teacher development, I had a friend's teenage daughter watching her last Monday thru Wednesday. This girl is a swimmer --and a very good one- so I'd told her she could take our wee girl swimming in our development's pool if she wanted. I don't know what she did differently, but by last Friday, our lil' sweet potato became brave enough to try entering the pool without assistance, and was so no matter where I was in relation to her! So Saturday morning, off to Target we went to buy her a lil' hot pink Stearns infant life vest... I was hopeful, yet super skeptical seeing its lousy design, as was my honey-man when I'd called and spoken to him about it on the phone (he had no hope at all that it would work right).

The life vest was a total bust... my honey-man was right; I might as well drown her myself than have her wear one of those horrible things!! It situates her face right at water level!?! Hello?! Her first (and only) time wearing the blasted thing, I was reaching her how to float on her back, but as soon as she relaxed and let herself go, she got reeeally excited, and in her effort to get upright, certainly intending to clap a darling baby-hooray, the vest plunged her forward and downward at once, and she swallowed a bunch of water before I could lift her, and she burst into choking and hysterical tears.

Anyhow, I hadn't written here in a while because we've been busy with life, trying to enjoy the boy-O as much as we could before he was to return home to Utah. This post isn't terribly organized... jumping around here and there, leaving out tons of details/background. I threw my back out Sunday night in the same hour I'd laid our girlie down for bed and my honey-man returned home, and I'm on Lortab right now = I hate the stuff! Can't finish my thoughts (or sentences for that matter). The point of this post was to share the following: I miss our angel boy-O, real bad. I have to fight to not call him every morning and every night since he left.

I need to lay back down now.

P.S. I tagged this post with the "Blantant Product Blog" label, but in this case, it would be an ANTI-product plug.

Humpht

There are things going on worth writing about, but I'm too busy with those things to write about them right now. More soon, soon being a relative term!

Got my lil' fam together, all of us on a plane bout 2 take off n' I'm delighted w/ the silliness of it all...the already bored 12 yr old n' a totally slap-happy toddler.

New Signing: Day, Sun, Stars, Clouds

New words: Sparkle and Monkey

'Dubie' is always how I thought a "hey man, pass me that dubie" would be spelled... "Doobie" had never ever occured to me?!?

For the 1st time in my life, I learned the Doobie Brothers are not in any way comprised including a pair of brothers with the last name of 'Doobie' -yup.

She can open doors now!?! Help us!

Honey-man's 1st full wk owning an iPhone is revolutionizing our marriage now that he can txt n' give n' receive needed info w/o having 2 pick up a phone call.

Pee Pee in the Potty! ~ Boo-yah!

For the first time evah our lil' sweet potato went pee pee in the potty - - WOOO-HOOOO! Let it be known: There was no coercion involved = no bribing or begging or cajoling. She used the potty on her own accord!

I was getting her ready for her bath and already had her stripped down to her diaper. She indicated she was about to go potty, so I took her diaper off, and she walked right over and sat her teeny tookas on her potty, and with a serious look on her face, concentrating on the next step, she went pee pee, and then her little face lit up with her eyebrows high and a huge open-mouth smile of amazement and with darling little giggle she began to clap ~ She was soooooo proud of herself! I called her daddy and her big brother to come upstairs to see what she'd done in her potty and we all clapped and praised her for her achievement. I gave her some tissue to wipe, and then she stood up, turned round, still clapping, and she proudly pointed to the potty, admiring the little puddle she'd left inside it.

When I lifted the dump dish to the toilet, she became a bit distraught - - "Mine!" I told her it had to be thrown away and dumped it into the toilet, and told her to say goodbye to her pee pee. With a tilt of her head and a darling pause of recognition crossing her face, she abandoned her protest, smiled happily and said bye-bye with a wave of her hand, peeking down into the toilet, and then she marched over the side of the tub, ready for her bath.

We'll see when this kind of thing will happen again with any kind of regularity - - She lets us know all the time now when she does a number in her diaper, but she hasn't gravitated to her potty really. I'll be trying to keep my hopes low. But today? Today was quite the day for our baby girlie!

Is Calgon Still Around?

I need a long, hot n' steamy bath and a good book to lose myself in.

Was it Just a Week Ago?

We returned from our trip to claim the boy-O last Monday, as in Monday of last week. How is it that an entire week has already come n' gone since our return home?!?

Well, I mean to write about our trip, I do - - but we hit the ground running once back home and we haven't really had much down time. Maybe things will settle down as this week passes, but I doubt it!

Totally Jazzed for Jellystone

Taking at 10am break here -- haven't had my coffee yet, and I can't see straight (although the latter is caused only by a lack of sleep). I'm totally jazzed outta my mind for our Yellowstone trip and to claim the boy-O from his summer camp! I slept like crap last night, tossing and turning, just too excited to settle. This always happens before a big trip.

At least I no longer have that damned tendency to pull an all-nighter the very night before we're to leave someplace.... those n' babies don't mix too well.

Polkarama!

Before getting settled in for a new day at work --my last for the next week-- I was sure to check "Straight Outta Lynwood" made it on the iPod for the car, especially for the angel boy-O's enjoyment come our drive home from Yellowstone. He and I can sing all the words to "White & Nerdy" played on repeat, all that we want, no matter how hard my honey-man shall protest.

What Did She Say?

Our lil' sweet potato's becoming quite a talker ~ The latest additions to her spoken vocabulary, plus some modifications of previous spoken words:

Hi andBye - - and bye just became 'buh-bye' this last week.
Mine (that's a favorite of hers which arrived on the scene 2 weeks ago, along with 'No')
Baubles for bubbles
Ball (sounds like ball, but with the 'L' nearly cut off)
Bwoon for balloon
Bahr for bear
Ho for hose
Fawa for flower
Cah for car
Bow for boat
Woo-woo for a train
Duck - -went from 'dah' to becoming her first word spoken with a hard 'K'
Shwa-wa for shower
BTW, she still refuses any attempt to say the word 'water'...
Cup -spoken as is
Spoo for spoon - - And she says 'bwah' for fork, but I don't get at all how she thinks to call it that, especially now that she's mastering the sound of a hard 'K'
Yeah, so Milk is no longer "mil" - - spoken now with a hard 'K' ending, and Book also has a hard 'K', finally - - Book had been her first word, sans the hard 'K'
Peee for peas
Ba-ba-ba for banana
And her peach is spoken in French - - sounds like 'paysh'
Yo for yogurt and 'bir' for berries of any kind.

She still says 'bi-bi' for her blankie and now a single 'bi' for her binky. Occasionally she'll refer to her bunny as her bi-bi as well.
She doesn't drink bottles anymore, so no more 'ba' for bottles, but she'll say bouteille when referring to her sippy cup, which is French for bottle. And she asks for both her socks (bas) and her shoes (soulier) using French.

Animal noises she'll imitate listed in order from the first to the very latest: Doggie, elephant (complete with a chubby arm flung upward from her own face as an elephant's trunk), lion (this one is ferociously cute), horse (complete with flapping-lip blows), owl (complete with huge open eyes), a sheep (while shaking her head back n' forth - - and I don't know why), monkey (my own monkey imitations are pretty rowdy, but hers are a bit tentative yet, although she giggles every time I join in), cat (finally!!!), birdie, mouse, bear, a snake.

Body parts she can point to when asked to do so: Hair, ears, head, forehead, eyebrows, eyes and eyelashes, nose, cheeks, chin [she sometimes confuses the latter two - - although she really loves to point to her chin, cuz I then eat hers!], neck [I eat her neck too, all the time], elbow, arm, bellybutton [my very favoritest way to distract her is to suddenly ask her where her bellybutton is], tummy, bummy, back, hands, thumb, fingies, knee, leg, foot, heel, and toes.

All the signs she's using now:
More
All done
Drink/cup
Hungry
Milk
Banana
Cracker
Ball
Balloon
Hot
Rain
Cat
Birdie
Fishy
Hat
Nose
Head
Eye
Ear
Blanket
Sleep
Brush Teeth
Singing
Mommy
Daddy
Baby
Wash hands
Blow nose
Wipe face
Please
Draw
Train with a 'wooo-wooo'
Car with accompanying 'beep-beep' sounds
And her airplane is much improved, complete with flying sounds

We're still working on Thank you. And sorry.

And she can point out/identify over 200 images in her 'big books.' I think she's doin' purty dang good.

P.S. I forgot some! She both says the word and signs for 'juice' and she can identify her teeth and her tongue. And she tries to jump to imitate a frog!

Racked Up n' Inventoried - - Um, is that even a word?

We successfully installed our roof rack on the Matrix the other night - - and although the Thule cargo bag meant to contain up to 17 cubic feet of gear lays, oohh, about 15 inches in length past the rear rail bar, it'll work (fingers crossed).

Our camping trips of the past, were, um, well, excessive in terms of readiness. We've been quite, let's say, thorough in terms of our planning; planning for anything that may possibly be needed. For this latest trip, however, off to Yellowstone with two kids in the car who will need room to breathe, it calls for seriously brutal consolidation measures.

I spent a couple hours in the garage last night running an inventory of sorts. This was a feat in itself, rummaging around FOUR different bins of camping/hiking gear, and although they're highly organized, the sheer volume to sort through was daunting all at once. At least each bin is categorized by types of gear... You can -no, you should- skip this next part- - This is another listing inventory exercise of mine meant for my benefit (I love lists, um, because I'm a total dork that way, amongst other ways):

1) Light-producing/propane/fire-related bin: 2 massive citronella candles, one bug-attracting-killing lantern thingy, box of wooden matches, butane lighter, grilling charcoal, 2 packs of fire starter, spare newspapers stash, 2 pivoting handheld flashlights, 2 LED lanterns, one which has a remote control for inside the tent, 1 propane lantern and a duel-fuel lantern. And we'll be taking only the LED lanterns this trip due to our highly curious, highly assertive sweet potato. Oh, and this bin also holds 2 axes (did I spell that plural right?) and a few bungees for hanging up lanterns.

2) Our 2nd largest bin contains all our cooking supplies: 5 gallon collapsible water container, 1 gallon water container with side handle, two 1-qt containers, 3 collapsible food storage containers with lids, our 'french toast dipping' container with lid, butter container with lid, 8 various teeny-tiny spice/condiment containers (creamer, sugar, flour, french toast spices, ketchup, mustard, mayo and our favorite grilling spice mix), 1 medium sized mixing bowl that our sauce pan with lid sits inside, 2 mess kits, 1 dutch oven, 1 cast iron fry pan, 1 massive non-stick frying pan, a non-stick griddle, 1 splatter screen, 6 roasting sticks, an extra-wide roll of heavy duty aluminum foil, large roll of 1/2 sheet paper towels, 2 mesh mess drawstring bags for hanging up wet and/or dirty dishes, a 6"-deep bin for washing dishes, a 9 cup percolator and a large enamel, 16 cup percolator as well, and and we have enough serving gear for 8 people - - plates, bowls, cups, and mugs, plus a red tool box that holds all our cooking utensils; 2 chef's knives, 2 flat n' 2 rubber spatulas, 2 small whisks, 2 stirring spoons of varying lengths, a small grater, 1 can/bottle opener, various tongs (3), enough nylon flatware for 8 people, a set of kabob skewers, other spices, dish soap, extra matches, an extra butane lighter, small plastic grocery bags and small Ziplocs, and a container for herbal teas and cocoa.

3) Our largest bin holds all our sleeping gear: 2 floor pads, a queen-sized air mattress, 2 uber large, multi-heavy-duty Mexican wool blankets, n' 6 different sleeping bags - yes, 6 for a family of 4... Two of them are meant for below freezing temps. And we have two 'truckers' blankets as well. [BACKGROUND INFO: Early 2001, I'd bought an old Honda Civic hatchback from a trucker who lived in my neighborhood at the time. The car had belonged to his wife, who had also been a trucker. In the car I'd later found two matching, very old, navy, gray n' orange plaid, merino wool throw blankets in the back, but he didn't want them - - they had been he and his wife's car-cuddling blankets, he'd told me, and he asked me to please keep them and use them well. They're very soft and cozy, and one of these blankets was the very blanket the angel boy-O had asked me for, after our first trip to the Santa Monica beach together in 2004. The boy-O slept with that blanket for several months after I'd given it to him. A couple years ago, before a camping trip to Zion, he had suggested, all on his own, that we keep the two blankets together for campfire-cuddling, thus the 'truckers' blankets are now our campfire blankets.

4) This bin contains all our containment/shelter-related gear: A roll of large, black trash bags, other various trash bag sizes, gargantuan Ziploc storage bags to keep things dry, a container filled with various bungee cords, 3 different kids of lashings, some plain old rope, 3 tarps (two 6x9, one 9x12), and our 6-person tent. And there's a red, child-sized, folding camp chair kept in this bin as well. It had been the angel boy-O's chair and now his lil' sissy will be using it. Written along the back in casual hand-type font in yellow print, reads "Little Camper."

We also have 3 other folding camp chairs - - but I'm almost sure we won't have room for them this trip (despite my honey-man's insisting) = I don't imagine we'll really need them, with all our running around Yellowstone during the day, coming back to our campsite for dinner, juggling our lil' pee-wee, getting her to bed, etc. Hmmm... maybe after the kids are out, we could sit n' soak in the forest sounds n' campfire crackle... but we could sit on a log, side-by-side n' do that just as well, and with our campfire-cuddling blankets! For sure we'll be taking the girlie's Kelty pack. Oh, and we should bring the 5-gallon shower bag for easier hand rinsing... And now the random rambling has begun. There's more gear I could list, but I've got other things to do... like write about our sweet potato's vocabulary development!

P.S. I told my honey-man that his juggling pins WILL NOT be coming on this trip... especially when every time he's brought them camping, he only brings them out the very morning we're packing up to leave camp! For the sake of principle alone, he winds up juggling for the 5 minutes before we pull out, just so he can say there was reason to bring them. I love my little clown-man, I mean, mah honey-man.

Heading North to Jellystone

For the past week now, the angel boy-O has been at an awesome summer camp up near Dubois, WY, of all places. This camp is, can I say, a totally kick ass summer camp. I'm certain he's having the time of his life!

The camp ends June 30th, so we'll be leaving town the 29th, at the crack of dawn, to head up north. After 10+ hrs of driving [RELATED TANGENT: I soooo hope our sweet potato girlie does okay in the car, as she's been such a fantastic lil' car traveler to date, but she's such an active busy body now, I'm afraid she'll go nuts confined in the car for that long, even if we plan take a break every 2 hours!], we'll overnite it in Bear Lake with my Grams. From there we'll leave EARLY, EARLY, the morning of the 30th, in order to drive up to Jackson, WY and then SE, down to Dubois to claim the boy-O by 11am. I'm certain we're all gunna lose it -the girlie too- when we get our hands on him!

Once we've gone through the whole check-out rigmarole and we've somehow added his pack n' gear to our packed-to-the-gills car, we'll return to Jackson for some minor grocery shopping and then we'll head further north through Grand Teton and into Yellowstone Park. We'd originally planned 5 days of camping, and the boy-O's mommie n' step-dad were to join us, but work schedules are what they are, so it's just us now, and with my new found concerns re: overnight camping in bear territory (and that's a WHOLE 'NUTHER STORY THERE!), and this being the girlie's very first camping trip, we've decided to opt for only 3 nights of camping. We'll be at the Madison campground, my 2nd favorite to Norris. Then we'll spend the boy's birthday back in Bear Lake with my mum's fam, and their valley's 4th of July celebrations, and by noontime on the 4th, we'll be staying in Ogden, UT with the boy-O's mommie's own fam, staying overnight there. We'll spend the 5th driving back home to Vegas... after we've gone to Hires in SLC.

And I'm certain that once we're home and all unpacked, I'll bawl, homesick for our UT and ID families... but let's not get ahead of myself, right?

Going Pink?

If we weren't going to be in Iowa the end of July, visiting my parents, and getting our family portrait taken for the first time since 2007, I think I'd go back to pink highlights = = clearly bored with my hair and this whole 'growing my hair out' phase... My honey-man tells me to be patient and to leave it alone and tells me again to leave it alone, as I reach for the hair-cutting scissors. *sigh* I'm trying hard to leave it alone.

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 55

Because morning or night, he brushes his teeth while laying on our bed. For the first time in 6 years' time, I asked him tonight why he does this. I'd never asked him before because it was always so clear that it's what he always does, and as he lays there brushing his teeth, his eyes are always closed with a peaceful expression on his face, and anything I may say while he's brushing his teeth, he doesn't -or can't- hear me anyhow, and I've never really wanted to interrupt this zen-like state he seems to fall into whenever brushing his teeth.

So yeah, I was already in bed and reading something, and he comes over in his boxers with his toothbrush, and he lays down beside me, and he begins to brushaway. And for some reason, it struck me so funny that he does this... So, laughing -and mind you, he's completely unresponsive to my erruptive giggle fit- I finally, for the first time, ask him why he always brushes his teeth lying on the bed: With his eyes still closed, he paused long enough to tell me it's so he'll be sure to take his time to do a good job of it, and so as to not waste water, to avoid standing at the sink, letting the water run.

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 54

Because he insisted (threatened actually), on all days to do so, that I sleep in this morning -on Father's Day- so he could spend some one on one time with our lil' sweet potato.

"Bye" aka "No Thanks"

For about a months' time, before our lil' sweet potato caught on to the whole "No" thing last week, whenever she didn't want to either take or do something, she would instead tell us "Bye," while waving a chubby lil' hand in the air to indicate her darling version of "No thanks."

Last night when I wanted to change her diaper first, before she was to eat her dinner, she gave me a clever lil' grin and turned away with a wave goodbye, headed for the stairs, squealing "Bye!"

You Ain't Ready for this Jelly- ?!?

I never knew that what they were singing in the song "Bootylicious" was this:

"I don't think you're ready for this jelly."

And now I can't get this out of my head...

Gunna hafta play the chicken song now... I know that's just trading one earworm for another, but I just can't be caught singing "I don't think you're ready for this jelly."

Had I Known...

...that $80 in cash (when I NEVER CARRY CASH!?!) and my digital camera worth $350 would be stolen during the mid-day of a normal blahzaay workday, right outta my bag which was stashed in the lowest left-hand, very closed drawer of my office desk, located the furthest away from the door into my office, I wouldn't have bought (fill in the blank) or (fill in the blank).

Just sayin'.

Life As We Know It Has Forever Changed

My darling baby sweet potato girlie, she said the word "NO" for the first time yesterday morning and she meant it.

And earlier tonight she ramped it up with some repetitive "No-No's"

Yeah, we're done for.

Becoming Her Own Little Person

After work today, as usual, I had to go claim my lil' sweet potato girlie from her preschool. When I arrived, she was in the midst of a diaper change and she didn't yet know I was there for her, but I could see her inside the changing room through it's top-to-bottom glass door.

After she was all clean n' changed, the teacher who had her, she set my lil' babe on her feet facing the door. My lil' toddler then turned round and lunged for the teacher's legs to give her a big thank-you hug, and she looked up at the teacher with a huge, uber darling smile while patting at one of the teacher's knees, and then my lil' chica spun right back around n' took off for the door with a squeal that could be heard from where I stood.

And then she saw me and she squealed again, even louder, "mommie!" and with 100% focus upon my face, she made a bee-line for me, smiling the whole way. As she met me, she threw herself into my legs, arms spread for giant leg-hug, all while looking up at me, "Moma, mahhhmmiee", she cooed. As I knelt down to her height, she offered me a sweet lil' puckered kiss, and she leaned her head into my shoulder, and she hugged me and held me and she gently patted the side of my face with one of her lil' chubby hands, all the while softly cooing "moma, moma, mommie."

And she does this kind of thing nearly every time I pick her up from school, and nearly every time it happens, I about die from overwhelming amazement, wondering how it is I got to be this lucky, to have a little person like her in my life. And I'm so grateful to be her mommie.

Letting My Buttons Be Pushed

Inner Thoughts for Next Time: "Ah, yes... Step back and recognize what's going on here - I know this feeling. Yes, my button is being pushed. Yup, you're pushing my buttons. Okay, now don't engage; just feel your response, but don't act on it. Just feel it and think about it, let it wash over you. Examine the push n' pull at play in this moment and the history involved. See it for what it is and then let it goooo."

Someday I'll get used to this - - I'll stop expecting to be given anything other than a contrary "No" response.

Duplos Jackpot!

So our baby girlie has recently discovered Lego Duplo blocks - - I knew it'd be just a matter of time! So yeah, she's likes them a lot... So this afternoon, while she was napping, I checked both Amazon.com and Target for Duplo sets ... and oh boy! A basic blocks set of 80 pieces is listed for $20 - - and a 'building set' of only 71 Duplo pieces is listed for $39-46!?! And a 95-piece set with a building plate is listed for $85?!?

IMPORTANT FACT: Anyone who knows anything at all about Legos or Duplos knows you need more than 80 pieces to make yourself a Duplos house!

Well, ten minutes ago I scored a Lot of 410 used Duplo blocks for $28.25 on eBay, thank you very much! CORRECTION: FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY DUPLOS!

And when they get here, I'll throw 'em all into a hot bathtub with some ammonia cleanser and I'll soak 'em, and I'll scrub 'em, and I'll rinse 'em, and after they dry, I'll let her at 'em! And her big brother is coming for Memorial Day weekend --he hasn't been here since Easter!?!-- and I can only imagine the Duplo creations he'll make for her! WOO-HOO!

Sleepy Sweet Potato

My baby girlie is nearly dozing off in her high chair... although she won't say so, I think she's "all done."

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 53

Because he has the ability to step back from himself in order to measure the facts -to objectively weigh the value of our options- and he can come to a solid and sound determination, and he can not only accept it, but act on it, even if it's something he wouldn't necessarily want to do at first.

Happens to be one of the most valuable reasons I have to love and adore him (and it's one of the top reasons I married him!).

Our Shining Star

Our lil' sweet potato has moved from the 'transitioning-into-toddlerhood' Tadpoles class to the 'FULL-BLOWN-TODDLING-EVERYWHERE' toddlers group, Stars!

BACKGROUND INFO: A month before the winter/spring school session was to end, May 7th, her Tadpoles head teacher had said that if our girlie wasn't walking by May 1st, they'd keep her in Tadpoles for the new summer session. Well, she was walking independently by April's end, so her head teacher decided she could move up into Stars with the rest of her classmates. But then the program director worried she was too young when compared to her Tadpole peers, as most of them are 5-7 months older than her, although she's the very same size as the oldest babe in the group. Nonetheless, they proposed that she remain in Tadpoles until June 1st, giving her more time to master her new biped skills. At the same time though, her head teacher voiced that our girlie might regress if she found herself surrounded by a bunch of new, non-walking Tadpoles...

MORE BACKGROUND INFO: As of this week, the majority of the kids who make up the current Stars class were Tadpoles just last week. So this past Monday they'd all moved on and up, ahead of our sweet potato, and she was the only one in her Tadpoles class to remain a Tadpole. But indeed, after all the walking kiddies left Tadpoles and the new crawling-only babies moved into Tadpoles, our girlie became SERIOUSLY and IMMEDIATELY bored with her Tadpoles classroom, with her new classmates, and she began monopolizing her teachers' time, whining a lot and demanding a lot of one-on-one reading time. More importantly, this past Monday and since then, remaining in Tadpoles, she almost altogether quit trying to walk as her primary mode of personal transportation - - She began to crawl again (unless she was with us at home) = NOT GOOD.

So her head teacher talked with the program director and they had our girlie visit the Stars classroom for 'free play' by late Tuesday afternoon, and yesterday they brought her to the Stars classroom during their snack time, and she was just fine with all the older kids, so it became official today - - she's now a Star.

Sooo, she was the second babe to arrive to the Stars classroom this morning, and she immediately recognized the first and only kiddo there, who had moved up from Tadpoles into this new classroom, and my lil' sweet potato, she shrieked with glee and she toddled right over and gave her playmate an enthusiastic pat-pat hug, nearly knocking her lil' friend over.

And right then and there, I melted into a big 'oh-my-darling-daughter-adoring' pile of uber vehclempted goo, right in front of her new Stars head teacher, who I had just met for the first time.

And now I'm off of work, about to go claim my lil' shining Star!

We Have a Puppy!

Last weekend, our baby sweet potato girlie began imitating a doggie, saying "woof, woof!" And this morning she added panting to her doggie imitation. I love it!

Our Lil' Book Worm

Our baby sweet potato girl is a book worm! Her head teacher has confirmed she loves books and more so than any of her classmates. She LOVES "Circle Time," always eager to sit beside her classmates in a semi-circle for daily reading time.

Her definite very first favorite book was "Sounds" from Hinkler Books, part of their Baby's Firsts series. It simply features images of all sorts of things with the sound each makes written across the page bottom. She will still bring this book over, climbing into my lap, ready to hear me read the sounds.

Her second favorite book was a solid tie between Piggy Toe's "Ten Little Ladybugs" and Harper Festival's "Cow Moo Mee" - - she still loves them both, although only recently did she rediscover the "Ten Little Ladybugs," eager now to point out and identify all the different bugs and animals.

Her third favorite book is from Cartwheel Books, "It's Spring," by Samantha Berger. Our lil' sweet potato still really loves this book, nightly, and now points at each of the animals featured, trying each time to use the sign for birdies.

Her fourth favorite book is one of my very favorites - the illustrations are so darling - from Chronicle Books, "My Friends," by Taro Gomi.

Her fifth favorite, a well known classic, "Goodnight Moon" from Harper Festival. This book didn't hit her favorites list though until she was about 11 months old.

We have tons of books for her to read, including a number of great Priddy Books, and nearly a dozen from the fantastic Touchy-Feely board books series by Fiona Watts from Usborne Publishing, but all the aforementioned "Top 5 Favorites" have been the ones she wants read to her, over and over, sometimes each read repeatedly in one sitting.

Not until her first birthday, did she really add new titles to her Top 5 Favorites rotation. It should be noted that we haven't yet been able to trust her to handle paper-page books with care, so the majority of the books we read and give her are all board books... but she has, like, 30 or 40 of them now since her first birthday for which I'd encouraged people to give her board books ~ yay me! Lookin' out for my lil' book worm!

Sooo, her latest BIG BIG favorite that she wants read every night now (along with "Goodnight Moon" and "It's Spring") is a Sandra Boynton board book from Little Simon books, "The Going to Bed Book," given to her for her 1st birthday. She loves this book and will point to all the animals, and she will turn round and look up at me, wanting me to identify each of geanimals as she points to each of them, like the moose and the rhinoceros.

A recent new favorite is another Harper Festival pub, "Harry the Dirty Dog." She goes nuts pointing out all the doggies and birdies and trees and flowers and the butterflies and she just gets soooo excited. She doesn't really let me read this book though - - she wants to flips through the pages faster than I can read them.

Another new favorite is "The Paper Bag Princess" from Annick Press. I think it's the voices I use though to read it that she finds the most amusing - - she doesn't yet know/recognize/appreciate this lil' books fantastic message for young girls. I'm really looking forward to the day I can try to teach other similar lessons, especially important for today's growing girls.

Lastly, the book for which I'd written a blatant plug last week, "On the Night You Were Born," from Feiwel and Friends... It isn't yet on her favorites list, but it's getting close (due to repetition) and all the ladybugs on one of its pages near the book's end. Ha!

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 52

Because he continues to argue with me about the merits of the band Rush, the subject up for discussion again due to a recent Tribeca Film Festival winner.

Him: "Ya gotta put a link to their website... (as he smacks me on the arm with his napkin) ..."Quit making fun of your husband. "

He leans over to see what I'm typing and then he tells me, "You can't post that until you add a link to the band. Go get it right now."

Me: "As if I would EVER post a link to anything RUSH-related on my blog!!!?!"

Him: "How dare you! They're gods among mere mortals."

He's now making me watch some trailer for a Rush documentary - - and I do this, why?
Because I love him...

Signing Times n' Other Baby Milestones

Before I forget, I need to write this stuff down:

For her first notable sign, we're actually still trying to determine exactly what it means: She holds a pointed index finger upward, thumb extended out to the side, and then she waves her hand back and forth from the wrist, and does so very deliberately. She does this action most whenever the cats appear, or she sees a plane, and sometimes when she sees the angel boy-O's mommie, Wendy. It seems to mean 'look at that/them/her.'

Her 2nd recognizable sign was for 'more', pointing an index finger into the palm of her opposite hand... This is not what we taught her - - she learned this method at school.

3rd recognizable sign was for 'food/hungry,' inserting a baby index finger into her mouth, closing her lil' lips about her finger and then pulling her finger out of her mouth - - and she usually opens her eyes real big and wide when she does it = TOTALLY ADORABLE! We did not teach her this sign, but did have another approach, which she's never used. She came up with this on her own.

4th recognizable sign = the usual signing for 'milk'

5th/6th sign: She's trying reallllly hard to master her index-to-thumb pincher action, trying to sign 'bird'. She only began this effort a little over a week ago - - or at least that's when we finally caught on.

6th/5th sign: She's also trying reallllly hard to master the sign for airplane - - she LOVES airplanes!! I'd say kitties and airplanes are about tied right now. She always recognizes a plane's roar in the sky as they fly nearby or pass overhead when we're leaving her school, and she'll look around and point to the sky, and she can spot 'em like a lil' pro. For the last two weeks, she's been trying to use the sign for airplane whenever she sees one.

7th sign: This past week, she's been trying to use the sign for 'fish,' but it only looks like a casual one-swipe swap or low-waisted wave so far.

And tonight, for the first time, she put her palms together and opened them to sign 'book'!!! She was quite tickled when I squealed "BOOK" with delight!

She still refuses to use any kind of sign for 'drink - - she will only squawk and point vigorously in the direction of a glass, sippy cup, bottle, etc. Although at one point, we were convinced she was saying 'my bottle' in French and quite recognizably so.

Words she's speaking:

Update for her 1st word: Still no hard 'k' for book, but she says 'buh' all the time

Still 'Ba' most of the time, but now sometimes 'Ba ba' for bottle

'Bi-bi' for blanket or binky (NOTE: She only uses a binky at bedtime now or in the car.)

And exciting new behavior: Around Easter she began saying 'Gubba' - and over the last couple weeks, she seems to be using it to refer to her big brother, our angel boy-O, who she's been enthusiastically identifying in pictures for over 3 weeks, pointing him out with a lil' chubby baby index finger - - She first began pointing at his photos every time we head up the stairs and now, it also happens whenever we walk into her bedroom and turn on the lights - - there are two framed pictures of the two babes hung along the side of tall shelf that stands beside her light switch. And for the last week, if holding her in my arms while standing anywhere near the fridge, she about leaps from my arms in the direction of the fridge, wanting to point out every single picture of her brother posted on the freezer door (and there are 8 pictures of him!).

In the last two weeks or so, she also began to say 'kuh' for cat (no hard 'T'), and something much closer to dog, now a one-syllable 'duhg' with a realllly softly spoken 'g'.

And last week she began to point out images of cats/kitties, dogs, butterflies, ladybugs, birdies and frogs in her books.

She's realllly in love with the wooden creatures I've placed beneath the shelf that hangs above her diaper changing table, which she can look up and see while lying there (listed using my left to right, if facing the wall): butterfly, frog, ladybug and a dragonfly
She favors the ladybug and points to it first every time.

She has a light up ladybug, called the Twilight Ladybug (scroll down, down, down the linked page), and we call it the "starshine ladybug." Whenever she wants it, she'll point to the shelf where it's kept and will then point to the ceiling and back to the shelf. Smart lil' cookie, eh?

For over a month or more now, she'll point to her sweater or a jacket of hers, or full go on n' grab one, and she'll then point to the door that takes her out of the house. BTW, she loves the outdoors and loves to get out of the house! If she gets her hands on a jacket/sweater of hers and we won't/aren't going anywhere at that time, she'll start to squawk and will hold her jacket/sweater up to us as high as she can, sometimes waving it, insisting it's time to leave and now. She gets very excited whenever she gets her hands on her jackets/sweaters --very happy, very eager-- and she now hugs them and will then try to put them on by herself in her efforts to convince us she's ready to go-go!

She still a reallllly impatient eater. No change there. However, she now wants to feed herself ALL THE TIME. Only if she's ravenous, will she let me spoon feed her. Otherwise, she's totally hands on around mealtimes, and just last week, she began eating with a spoon without assistance! - - she's not real good at it yet, of course, but she loaded her spoon several times and the majority of it all made it inside her mouth.

I've been trying for several months to introduce her to the world of haircare. For a couple months now, she's been trying to brush her hair using a baby hairbrush (and with a dish scrubber just last night!), and she will also remove any hairclip I may put in her hair, immediately trying to return the clip to it's original position, but on her own, without my help. She gets VERY frustrated with her inability to make them stay, and again, she DOES NOT want my help for nuthin'! Sooo, no wearing of hairclips or bows yet --and she's never been a fan of those baby headband/bow thingies-- all of which is fine by me.

She grabs her toothbrush on her own, often without my reminding her, and she'll brush at her teeth and gums in the mornings, after bathtime, before bed, and any time she's in the shower.

And she's walking across entire rooms now, back and forth between walls. Over this past weekend, she just went for it... from no more than 5-6 unassisted steps a handful of times over the last two weeks, to 15 unassisted steps! 20 steps! and30! She's still very wobbly once upright and moving, and most of the time she winds up on all fours, crawling still, but she's about to become a full fledged biped! What I love is when she'll get her momentum really going and just before she gets too ahead of herself and loses it, she'll sometimes stop suddenly, standing still, wearing a huge, sheepish lil' grin on her face as she calms and regains full balance, and then she just explode forward, squealing with glee as she tries another go at it, falling sooner than later.

A The Most Wonderful Children's Book by Nancy Tillman

This one had me crying by the second page: "On The Night You Were Born"

If you have children, you should buy this book and stat ~ I read it aloud to my lil' sweet potato tonight and she looked up to stare at me in wonder when my fat tears plopped down upon her yummy lil' chubby baby arm ~ and she gave me a hug.

Thank you again, soooo much, Leslie!
Mmmwah! oxoxo

Loving Kurt's Solo

GLEEEEEEE!

Lovin' Akeelah and the Bee!

This movie is sooo going on our 'kids must watch this' list for the angel boy-O and our lil' sweet potato!

I Need to Write This Stuff Down!

Man, there's so much going on with this baby girl of mine! I can't keep up! - - and haven't been for months now. I'm soooo behind on all the bloggin I've wanted to post. Ahhh, gotta go - - baby's waking and in less than 30 seconds, screaming for attention!

No Napping, Not Today

With all this building excitement over the last few days, with our sweet potato on the cusp of establishing full throttle, self-motorized biped action, today she altogether refused to take any sort of nap, not even a 15 minute snoozer! Yeah. NO NAP! And she's still sick, yet seems to think she should be training for a walking-babies marathon. She was at home with her daddy and it was non-stop all day long, and NO NAP.

She crashed by 5:30pm and she slept until 6am!

Steppin' it Up!

Last Wednesday, our baby sweet potato's head teacher had written on her daily sheet for the day that our girlie had taken FIVE unassisted steps...

Well, my honey-man just called me at work from home and confirmed more of the same: Outside, playing in our back patio area, she walked across her playmat from her crafts table, over to the wicker loveseat! FIVE WHOLE UNASSISTED STEPS!

She's on her way to walkin' and fast! Woo-hoo!

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 51

Between yesterday and today, my wonderful, wonderful, OH-SO freakin' wonderful, and uber generous honey-man allowed me to acquire an extra 9 hours of sleep - - that's like gaining an entire extra night's sleep over two days! I slept in until 9am yesterday, and this morning, slept in again, this time until 9:30am, and this afternoon, I napped from noon until 2:30pm.

Mind you, I still feel dreadful, with this super snotty congested cold I've got, but I'm a well-rested dreadful - - I can't imagine how I'd feel right now if I hadn't of gotten all the extra shut-eye. (shaking my head in disbelief) Kinda scary to imagine, really.

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 50

We had exactly two solid snotty-free weeks for our baby sweet potato until last night. I picked her up from her school yesterday and noticed two of her lil' playmates had lil' greenie rivers flowing from their noseys, so I knew it'd just be a matter of time, but I didn't think it'd be so soon! So I'm at home today, caring for my lil' snot ball.

She had such a hard time breathing last night, around midnight we had to set her up on the floor of her bedroom, sitting upright in one of her old baby swings, and my honey-man --her darling, sweet daddy-- he slept on her bedroom floor, laying right beside her.

He is such a wonderful, wonderful daddy and we're so very lucky to have him.

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 49

Because he was up at 5:15 this morning and he made us fresh coffee before we walked out the door with our girlie babe in tow at 5:40am, just in time for us to be on location at 6am to help with set up for this year's Walk MS event. And he made our lunches last night as well, in preparation for our drive after the MS event to St. George, UT.

And we got home not long ago and it was such a loooong and good day spent together.

Stalling

After work today, after I'd picked up our baby sweet potato girlie from her school, we met my honey-man for dinner somewhere nearby. For the past two months now, this has been our Tuesday night ritual, however, what happened once we got home, not exactly so.

I was home with the girlie by 5:40pm, and although I really should have given her nothing more than a quickie dip in the kitchen sink, we lazed around and took our sweet time in the tub for nearly an hour. And we read 5 books instead of 3 (and I read 2 of the 5 books twice). And instead of laying her down in her crib semi-awake before she'd totally doze off in my arms, I rocked her to sleep and held her for at least a half hour before finally laying her down in her crib come 7:30pm. I just wanted more time.

Spring Break: Can I Pout?

In two hours' time, I've seen only 3 people here = the office is dead and I'm feeling a bit pouty about having to be here. Nevermind that I have loads of work to catch up on - - I just wanna go home and play with my baby sweet potato girlie! *sigh*

"Where's Mah Pie?"

Baby Sweet Potato Girlie Turns a Year Old

Can't believe THIS MOMENT was a year ago...

Makin' Cuppycakes for Mah Sweet Potato Girlie

Today's my furlough day for the month of March - - and it's the day before my daughter's FIRST BIRTHDAY!?!? - - I just cannot believe she's gunna be a year old tomorrow!? Holy Hannah!!! - - how the heck did that happen so freakin' fast, someone please tell me??!?

My honey-man has said this to me several times before, but this past year, it's really taken on greater meaning for me: One's concept of time completely changes once you have children.

Before I had my lil' sweet potato, a single day could drag on and on - - a week could feel like an eternity. I have been able to distinguish how time is, indeed, altered whenever we have the angel boy-O with us, here in Vegas and before, when I'd see him in California - - Here and gone is always how it feels, even during the summers when we have him for a few solid weeks. The time just flies by. And now? It's every day! Every week! Every month! Here and gone! It's just absolutely unbelievable to me that an entire year has flown by since our girlie came out and into the world!

And man, can I say I had NO IDEA how absolutely freakin' fantastic she'd be? - - She totally rocks my world, my baby girl, oh yes, she does!!! She is the coolest lil' thing ~ And the last couple of weeks have been phenomenal! She's just flying past developmental milestones, and each and every day, she does something new, and she's always showing us what a smart lil' cookie she is. And she's a total stinker too! Boy, she sure likes to test things out, particularly mommie's patience! I love it though - - I totally love the gleam in her eye as she watches my growing frown as she chooses which food item she will next hold over the edge of her highchair tray, to release it and let it fall to the floor... she doesn't even watch any of it fall --she watches ME and my face to see how I'll respond! I love bein' her mommie and although it's been kicking mah butt, man, my life is forever changed. I knew this would be the case, intellectually I knew, but wow, boy did I underestimate the transformation.

I'm making cupcakes right now to bring to her classmates and teachers tomorrow. Honestly, I don't think I could possibly be any happier right now in this very moment (unless I were 10 lbs lighter) - - yeah, I'm home on a furlough day, no less, and the economy really sucks, and there's LOADS of uncertainty ahead for all of us, and yeah, there are horrendous things happening this very minute all over the world; there's a gazillion valid complaints worth mentioning as part of this world and the reality that is life, but I'm way, way, waaaay too delighted with the 'cherry chip' cupcakes I'm baking to simply honor my baby's arrival into this world 364 days ago, to celebrate her and her first birthday. I'm all vehclempted.

Maybe Bein' a Mommie Makes the Difference

My mum has been gone now for 23 years, today, but this day doesn't feel the same, like it typically has before... There's no enormous sense of loss, no longing for things that never were, nor any 'hole in my heart' feel to it. I don't feel sad - - I feel only gratitude.

I am soooo thankful I didn't wind up a total mess; that my father and step-mum and my extended families, they all hung in there throughout all my tween and adolescent bull-oney (and then some), and I made it through my undergrad with all the long hours and all the hard work for a double BA, at times working 3 part-time jobs. And don't forget a failed first marriage while enrolled as an undergrad and working all those extra hours, followed by seven years of awkward dating circumstances and various painful relationships, to finally find my oh-so wonderful honey-man and his fantastic son, the angel boy-O (and to earn a Masters degree tah boot), and now, to be the mommie of our most darling sweet potato girlie.

I am so grateful I didn't grow up using my mother's death as an excuse to play the role of a victim; that I never truly fell prey to that attitude. I always knew I was fortunate. It could have been so easy to have gone the other way...this day has always been one of those potential pity-party dates, but my mum taught me to give to others whatever I have to give, and to count my blessings, and to see the other side of the coin, and to put myself in the shoes of others, and not to wallow in one's challenges, but to stand up to the challenge and do so proudly; to be grateful for what I DO have.

I loved my mum, and I still do. I miss her very much, all the time, but I am so grateful for all that I have. I really can't complain.

I love you, mum - - and thank you.

I am Sooo a Mom

I just found a green, crusty baby boogie on my shoulder ~ Ahhh, motherhood.

She Stands Alone

Three notable times yesterday, once in the morning, once at daycare, and in the evening, our lil' sweet potato stood up, all alone, all by herself! A tiny beacon of growing self-confidence! It's soooo awesome to see the look on her darling face as she sets her focus and recognizes that she is, indeed, standing all on her own, unassisted. She just beams with satisfaction and delight! And when we clap our hands and root and cheer for her accomplishment, the radiant smile that spreads even wider across on her teeny chubby-cheeky lil' face is absolutely breathtaking!

Just awesome - - totally awesome!

Blowing on Her Eggs

I zapped a little bit of scrambled eggs in the microwave this morning and when my baby sweet potato girl saw what her mommie was eating for breakfast, she let out a loud shriek while waving her arms, and then she clasped and wrung her tiny hands together as she bounced in her highchair with excitement, all to let me know she wanted some too - - that's her new thing by the way: She wants to eat whatever mommy and daddy are eating.

So the eggs were a bit too hot, so I told her to wait a sec and I blew on a piece before giving her any. Now for a baby who usually screams and squawks until her food is placed right before her --she's soooo impatient at mealtimes-- she instead sat quietly, not moving an inch, watching me closely as I blew upon what she knew would soon be her own bite of scrambled egg. She didn't make a peep, she just watched me -and I stared right back at her as I silently blew on her bit of egg. Once it was cool enough, I smiled and offered it to her, and she took it and she blew on it as well, her little mouth in the shape of a perfect little 'O' as she blew, and then she popped it in her mouth with a huge smile of satisfaction!

Look Who's Talking

It's official: Our baby sweet potato is talking, using real words! Of course, many are almost totally unintelligible to whomever doesn't deal with our wee babe on a regular basis, but yesterday afternoon when I picked her up from her classroom, two of the ladies there confirmed our suspicions --which means we're not just imaging things-- they're certain she's using identifiable words!

Her first clearly identifiable words were 1) 'daddy', 2) 'book', and 3) 'doggy' - - um, no clearly 'mommie' or 'mama' yet, or at least we're not exactly certain. She does say 'moma' and 'moe-mee' all the time, particularly when she's alone in her crib in her bedroom and she wants someone to come get her, but I'll pick her up and she'll keep saying it, while twisting 'round in my arms, away from me while gesturing or reaching toward other things, so again, we're not sure if she's addressing me as mama or not.

Anyhow, here's a list of all the semi-identifiable words/sounds we've discovered she's using thus far, using the following list format: the actual word = and what it sounds like when she says it.

Daddy = dah-dee or da-da
Book = buh (like 'duh' and without much of a hard 'K' sound)
Doggy = doh-dah (no hard 'G' sound)
Kitty = kuh-twah (usually in a shout)
Nursing = neh-neh (in a pained and whiny voice)
Read = reeeed (at the top of her baby lungs)
Drink = dwah (one syllable, without much of a hard 'K' sound)

There are other distinguishably repetitive sounds she'll make, but we haven't yet made out their meaning... She's gunna have to be patient with us.

BTW, the two daycare ladies confirmed the two words she used were 'book' and 'read.'

Monday, Monday

Every Sunday night, whenever I'm getting ready for bed and prepping the things I'll need for the beginning of a another new work week, Mondays are easily my most hated day of the week... And come Monday morning, I feel no different, but every Monday, as the day nears four in the afternoon, and the day has invariably flown by faster than any other day of the week, I kinda like Mondays juhhst fine.

It's Finally Happened: Projectile Baby Vomit

I knew it would happen someday - - it was inevitable - - just a matter of time -- and the wait officially ended 4 hours ago... and I just spent the last two hours cleaning carpet.

BACKGROUND INFO: Our lil' sweet potato girl has been sick for a week now and the last 24 hours have been the very worst ever. She'd had a low grade fever off and on all weekend long, but we were told to let it work itself through, that her body was doing its job to fight an infection, yada, yada, yada. She was a little snotty, but nothing crazy. Not until late this past Sunday and early Monday morning, did she develop a cough (her first real cough ever), and by the end of the day, yesterday, she'd developed a little wheeze with semi-labored breathing, but she still had only a low grade fever of 100.4 degrees. Last night, one o'clock in the morning or so, she'd woken up and was crying for attention and we found her drenched with cold sweat, which means she'd had a high fever at some point unbeknownst to us and it had already broken. And this morning, she woke around six, initially had no fever at all, but within the hour, her breathing had worsened and the wheeze had become more 'snap-crackle-pop' like with a hittin' up there 103.3 fever tah boot. We had already made plans to take her to her pediatrician, but by this morning, we were fearful she had pneumonia.

I had stayed home with her on Monday and Tuesday, sick as well, myself (you should hear my weird scratchy voice right now - - luckily, I sound far worse than I feel). Her daddy had her this morning and took her to her peds office appointment, and later brought her and two new prescriptions to me while at work around noontime. While I tried to comb through some work email (I hadn't looked at my work email since last Friday and a few people were freaking out), I wore my sweet, sicky lil' baby girl in a sling, and she generally just laid on my chest for nearly two hours, happily babbling a bit, here and there, gumming a stress ball for a lil' while, occasionally patting at my face, and for the last hour, her wheezing resumed, she dozed off until we left around 2pm for the home and the drugstore.

Sooo, now we've got a nebulizer to administer Albuterol in order to help open up her lungs, plus an antibiotic we have to give her for the next 7 days while she fights some nondescript virus. She does NOT have pneumonia --thank goodness-- but we need to watch her closely.

Earlier today, after she'd woken up at 5pm from a late afternoon, two-hour long nap, she had a little coughing fit, gagged and she spit up some, but nothing spectacular, although she did totally nail my shirt. By 6pm, she had a 103.8 fever and was wheezing heavily again. We'd nursed when she'd woken from her nap, so with something in her tummy already, I'd given her some ibuprofen right away. Thereafter, she took her antibiotic okay, but our first go at the nebulizer was pitiful... When I'd removed the nebulizer box from the pediatrician's bag, I hadn't seen the child's mask that was also stashed inside the bag, so I had first tried the mouth piece that came included in the box along with the nebulizer. She was surprisingly amiable about the whole thing, too listless to fight me much, but I could tell the mouthpiece couldn't be right and I could also tell she wasn't getting much out of it.

Then I tried to give her something to eat - - emphasizing the word "tried." She really hasn't been eating much the last couple days, so although she drank a lot of water, most of the food I'd given her for her dinner, she had either mashed it and spread it around her highchair tray or flung it to the floor. We then headed upstairs for a warm bath, by which time, her fever had dropped to normal and her mood was rising up and up, although I still couldn't coax her to eat anything more. After she was all clean and lotioned like a greased piglet, all cozy in her jammies, we went back downstairs to grab her silky white blankie, and it was then I found the nebulizer mask.

So I did a more thorough read of the Albuterol prescription info and determined we could try at it again. She was such a good little trooper, sticking her tongue out to try to lick the inside of the mask, making little short 'ha' sounds and trying to watch Otis and Owen, only struggling near the very end, which was remarkable. Trying to hold a mask to any baby's nose and mouth for any length of time is a challenge, and it takes nearly 15 minutes for the whole nebulizer process to run its course from start to finish. Anyhow, once we were done with our first successful nebulizer treatment, she was definitely more like herself, animated and peppy and a bit sassy.
But then it went all wrong: I stood from the couch and she immediately began a HUGE coughing fit --can you see it coming? She gagged a couple times and then it happened: With my right forearm wrapped about her, I could feel her diaphragm and her tummy muscles clenching and she gagged so hard that she threw up and I mean she really threw up! Projectile baby vomit!!! Most of it just shot out and away from us both, getting nothing but a nice 5 x 6 foot area of carpeting where we stood. She began to sadly cry and continued to cough as I carried her into the kitchen and set her on the counter beside the sink so we could clean up her little mouth, but the gagging continued and her little body went rigid with muscle tension and she threw up again, this time all over me and all over herself and, of course, the counter. As I began the effort to calm her while stripping her down to her diapey at the same time, I could hear that the cats had decided to volunteer for the carpet clean-up crew <--- I will not spell out what exactly that means cuz it's GROSS! As I peeked over the counter bar to confirm my suspicions, my poor girl kept coughing and gagging and threw up again.

It was all over, and you know what I mean by "it." I had to bathe her all over again and she wouldn't nurse or drink anything before putting her down for bed, so she hasn't really had anything to eat since 2pm. Oh, and she threw up her antibiotic and wouldn't take it at all when I tried to give her a 1/2 dose. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Fra-fra-fra-Frustration

How best to use my time?!? AKK!

Wake Up Already!

On the weekends, my honey-man and I, we each take a morning to sleep in until about 9am. This morning was my turn, and mah honey-man let me sleep in as long as I would on my own... I slept in until 10:50!?! And when I got up, I found out our baby sweet potato had just gone down for her morning nap at 10:45am. It's now 12:30pm and she hasn't woken up yet!?!

I'm happy to have gotten some extra sleep, you betcha, and I'm glad my lil' wee one is taking a long nap, getting in some extra z's as well, but come on, wake up already my lil' girlie! Mommie wants to play!

Testing Things Out, Mastering Her World

I wrote this post on January 27th, late at night, and I simply neglected/forgot to post it:

My baby sweet potato girlie is TEN MONTHS OLD already!?! How did this happen?!? *sigh* She's growing up soooo quickly. Almost each and every day, something new happens. I love watching her as she discovers the world around her:

She has a miniature rubber duckie that somehow, months ago, made its way from her bathtub to her diaper changing table. Well, over a month ago, possibly back in late November or early December, she'd been kinda whining about whatever it is babies whine about while getting their diapers changed, and she'd been turning the rubber duckie over and over in her hands. At some point I'd bent over her and taken the duckie by its head into my mouth between my teeth - - and she LOVED it! Ever since then, whenever she sees this little rubber duckie, she'll grab it and offer it up to me for me to take it from her between my teeth. The other night she was offering it up to me again for the umpteenth millionth time, and I wasn't taking the duckie from her right away because I was honestly trying to focus upon getting her changed and dressed for bed before the window of opportunity would pass and I'd have an overtired baby on my hands. With my ignoring her, she opened her eyes as wide as she could, little eyebrows raised as well, and she shrieked as loud as she could while thrusting the duckie upward at my face. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at her behavior, and when I did so, she immediately frowned and began to cry, bottom lip out, still holding the duckie upward, arm outstretched as far and as long as she could stretch it, waving it slightly back and forth for it to be taken. As I bent over slooowly and took the duckie between my teeth, she stopped her crying short and released the most giggly-gut baby laugh I've ever heard from her, and with such a huge smile upon her face, her little eyes disappeared into a familiar squint, and the tiny tears from her short-lived outburst rolled down her cheeks, and I couldn't have adored her more in that moment.

When I'm dressing her, she offers each arm and hand to me as I bring her tops down over her head, and when it's time for her socks and shoes, she'll offer each of her lil' footsies to me, one at a time.

She loves to enthusiastically pull off her socks whenever she's sitting in her highchair. And about any other time she's shoeless, she generally loves to pull her socks off.

She LOVES shoes and will squeal with pure delight when she successfully nabs one without our having preemptively told her to please leave the shoe(s) alone. Furthermore, if she gets the chance to grab a shoe, she will invariably lick the shoe's sole: I DO NOT KNOW WHY SHE DOES THIS, but she loves it! If she gets a hold of a shoe and I catch her before she's stuck it into her mouth, right as I'm telling her shoes are icky-dirty and she shouldn't play with shoes and she cannot put shoes in her mouth, she'll get this serious look on her face, very wide-eyed, chin tucked down toward her chest, and she'll watch me closely as she twists and turns the captured shoe between her tiny hands, waiting to see how far she can push it before I'll make my move to take the shoe from her. Sometimes when she sees me coming to take her prize away, she'll release a short, particularly high-pitched squeal and jam the thing in her mouth, and then she'll quickly tossing it aside as she turns around to flee, crawling away from me as quickly as she can. I do find this to be particularly amusing and quite cute, for now. Yeah, fun times ahead.

For Christmas, we gave her a LeapFrog drum that plays through ABCs as it's hit and it sings and plays music along with drumbeats. And what would she rather play with? An empty, clear plastic cookie bucket that her daddy threw some dry beans into and then taped the lid shut.

She knows how to climb all the way up and down the stairs, thanks to Owen, but we can't yet trust her to handle the 'on the way down' without one of us right there. Although we've taught her to slide down the stairs, backwards on her tummy-tum, feet first, she sometimes tries to turn around to face downward, and that approach just doesn't work yet for her, considering she doesn't yet know how to walk without holding on to something or someone.

She's a very happy, very smiley baby, but still not much of a laugher, hardly ever. She really likes to be chased though, and if done right, she will giggle like mad when she's about to be 'caught.'

For months now -since she was 4 months old actually- I've been making a concerted effort to point out any bird we see and all airplanes visible whenever we're outside. She's not yet pointing with her index finger, however she'll now lift a teeny hand into the air when she sees a plane or a birdie, and she makes an excited little expression, eyebrows lifted, all wide-eyed and with her mouth in a perfect little "ooooh!" shape. Whenever she does this, I feel like there's nothing better in this world than that very moment with my little babe.

At the end of the day on our way home in the car, my baby sweet potato is eager to get home, both tired and hungry. We've developed a little routine of sorts, part of which often involves my reaching back behind me, offering to pop 2 to 3 toddler puffs or goldfish crackers directly into her mouth. I have one of those infant mirror-thingies strapped, clipped and corded [yes, it's very secure -oh my gosh- it sure is, lemme' tell ya!] to the backseat head rest which she faces while sitting in her own carseat, so that I can see her in my own rear view mirror. Every time I reach back to pop a puff in her mouth, I get a real kick out of watching her turn her head ever so slightly, just enough, and she'll lift her little face upward in order for her mouth to meet my hand and her timing is impeccable every time.

More often than not when I first offer her some food, it could be something she's never had, it could be the very first morsel presented once a meal has begun, or whatever, she'll fully accept whatever it is into her mouth straight away, and thereafter, she'll pull it right out of her mouth, look at whatever it is, and pop it back into her mouth.

She's learning how to be defiant... she knows she's to set her sippy cup back on her highchair tray when she's done drinking, but she will instead hold it out over the floor, stare me down, and drop it.

They have a little collapsible open-ended tunnel they use in her classroom during play times and SHE ABSOLUTELY LOVES IT! The first time I saw her inside it, she'd just entered one end and she hadn't seen me [SIDE NOTE: She almost always sees me through the window before I enter her room.] I ran over to where she'd been and peeked in after her, and I gave a little 'spss-spss' noise she knows well. Her little head whipped around so quickly, she nearly fell over when she saw me and began waving her arms with excitement, all while turning to lunge forward in order to scramble my way as fast as she could. I actually had my camera at the ready and captured the very moment she turned round and recognized me. It's a fabulous picture!

Some nights when we lay our baby sweet potato girlie down for beddy-bye, she falls asleep before her head hits her crib sheets. Other times, for 10-20 minutes after we've said our goodnight, we can hear her repeatedly turn on and off the music-maker aquarium hung on her back crib rail, against the wall, all while she babbles to herself, complete with little "ba-ba-ba"s, "da-da-da"s, "ma-ma-ma"s, and intermittently raspberry blowing. Occasionally she'll let out a short squawk or a squeal without warning to almost immediately resume her quiet babbling. She kills me when she does the latter - - I wanna run upstairs, scoop her up from her crib and play!

Comin' up Roseola

Okay, so we know what the heck's been going on with our baby girl now, finally ~ Last night, very late, I discovered a spotty red rash spread across and around her tummy, back and arms, and it came out of nowhere! From what I could tell, it didn't seem to be itchy, nor was it hot, so still, not until this morning, did she go with her daddy to the peds office = diagnosis of "roseola"

The incubation period is 5-15 days and typically lasts no longer than a week, so we're almost off the hook already, even though we only found out today what's been wrong. Friday this week, it will have been a full week since she first was hit with all the crazy fever spikes. I'm really happy to know now she'll ultimately be just fine and to have a name for what's been going on, but I gotta say one thing: The symptoms sections I've read, written about roseola, the mention of 'irritability' is far too understated, at least in our case! I'm looking forward to my baby girlie feeling more like herself and soon, poor babe.

This is Gunna Sound Awful (and possibly stupid)

Right now, my primary and really my only interest as to why I want my baby sweet potato girl to learn how to walk is so that she can wear darling baby girl dresses! - - She can't now because they get in the way, stuck beneath her knees while she's crawling.

Lovin' the Olympic Winter Games n' Old Spice

...but they're totally messing with my 2010 goal to get to bed at a more reasonable time --aiming for 10pm every night, to be more specific.

Oh, and we just saw an Old Spice commercial I've never seen [mind you, we aren't big TV watchers, so we haven't seen most commercials, honestly], and my honey-man and I, we're now dying from laughter.



And just a moment ago we both realized the time and said aloud, in perfect unison, "oh shit."

P.S. We love watching the snowboarders (Go Shaun White, Go Shaun White!), even if they do ruin the snow for us downhill dopes.

Shhhh Baby, Shhhh

Oh me, oh my - - sumthin's wrong with our wee one, and no one knows for sure what it is. Wait a sec, I just read what I wrote and I should clarify immediately, there's nothing seriously wrong to report here, just a telling of how the holiday weekend went as to how poorly my lil' sweet potato's been feeling the last few days. BTW, I'll need to write about our weekend with the angel boy-O here as well!

Sooo, Friday afternoon, her preschool called me at 2:30pm, telling me she had a 101.6 fever and I needed to come pick her up. Thinking 101.6 is no fun, but basically a low grade, productive fever, I temporarily closed up my office, expecting to return. I thought I'd let a friend who's just a few doors down from my office, who also happens to be an enthusiastic fan of my baby daughter, watch her so I could truly wrap up the work week for just 30-45 minutes before we'd head home.

I was to the school's infirmary by 2:50-ish and in less than 30 minutes' time, her fever had gone up to 103.3 and we were all scared!?! I called her peds office to bring her in and they instructed me to take her to an urgent care pediatric center near our home - - and they gave me the wrong address and 411 was no help in locating the center either!?! So I ran home to get the info, less than 5 minutes away from the area I'd been driving around for nearly 10 minutes without luck. By the time we were home, her fever had broken, already down to 100.7, so I called the peds office again and they told me to give her a mild bath, get her to bed, and watch her temperature for 24-48 hours.

All weekend long, we had several fever spikes up to 103.3 and then they'd go down to 100 degrees in less than 15-20 minutes. Her temperature was alllll over the place, yet no other sicky symptoms - - no swelling, no rash, no sniffles nor sneezing or wheezing or anything. And her gums, suspecting some teething action? Her gums seem perfectly fine and her drooling has been next to nothing, strangely so. One thing notably different compared to previous times she's been sick is this: She isn't happy... She's been sick many, many times in her 10 months of age, and more often than not, she's been in good spirits, regardless. Well, she has NOT been a happy girl; very clingy, very whimpering, very short-fused, very tired and not too enthusiastic at mealtimes, and she LOVES to eat.

Sunday afternoon, she went down for a nap at 2pm and slept until 6:30pm, at which time, I simply gave her a diaper change, dressed her in her jammers, fed her a bottle and laid her back down for bed, and she passed right out, poor baby. And she slept until 6:45am.

And today, although no more fever spikes, nor any low grade fever reported, her teacher told me how sad everyone was feeling for her throughout the day. They're all used to her being such a smiley, happy girl, and she was not her usual self, very subdued, almost sad, and she napped twice for the day (remember, she's a bad napper), and she was often wanting to lay her head on the floor while clutching her blankey instead of playing or interacting with anyone.

If she isn't doing better by morning, I'll be taking her to her pediatrician.

"She Slept ALLL Night Long!" or "Full 8 Hours"

Oh yes, she did! She went to bed at 6:30pm last night [although she really didn't conk out until 7pm - - she was up playing with her music aquarium in her crib], and then she never woke up until 6:10 this morning! Maybe this will be our new routine?

P.S. Last night, I actually went to bed at 10pm and fell asleep almost immediately, so, for the first time in 10 months, I got 8 hours of solid sleep, sans any darling baby's middle-of-the-night or crack-of-dawn interruptions! *sigh* I, I, this feeling, I, I think I feel... rested!?!

First Birthday - Party Ideas, Anyone?

Our baby sweet potato girlie is gunna be a year old in less than 2 months' time and I wanna throw a little (or big) birthday party, more so for our parental benefit than hers, of course, primarily to give us and our friends and family a chance to celebrate our little one having lived a whole year in this world. I have no idea what to do though... well, that's not entirely true: I'm 100% certain that I want to strip her down to her diaper and present her some kind of creamy (aka messy) chocolate creation just for her to attack and consume.

Anyone have any party ideas for a child's first birthday? What did you do for your baby's 1st?

Sleep Baby, Sleep

For the baby record, Recent & Current Sleep Habits (Sorry, this post will NOT get any more interesting after this): I'm happy to report our sweet potato girl is technically sleeping through the night [HALLELUJAH!], which began sometime in early to mid-January. In November and December, her bedtime was 6-6:30pm, and she was generally waking 2-4 times a night; sometimes as early as 9pm, and again around 11pm to midnight, and almost always between 2-4am. She'd wake for her day to begin anytime between 5 and 7am. With her sleeping in her own bedroom, no longer easily accessible beside our bed in a bassinet, it was a living hell, worse than when she was a newborn; the months of chronic fatigue was driving me out of my mind. With the arrival of 2010, I declared to mah honey-man that he and I had to develop a new tag-team approach for her mid-night wakings or else I was gunna go insane, but it was such a short-lived effort, no longer necessary after barely 2 weeks' time, I won't bother to detail the arrangement we had. So now? Now she goes to bed between 6-6:30pm, waking only once, usually around 4am, but it can be anywhere between 2-5am, at which point my honey-man will go get her from her crib and bring her to me for 10-15 minutes of side-lying nursing time, whether she falls asleep there in bed with us or not, and then he'll return her to her crib, where she continues to sleep, and later wakes up for her day by 6am on the dot.

DAYCARE, TO NAP OR NOT TO NAP: On weekdays, when our wee one's at daycare, she'll usually nap twice a day, but each nap will average no more than 20-30 minutes, and everyone in her classroom who cares for her knows that any amount of nap time past 30 minutes is remarkable for her... she just doesn't want to miss out on anything. Although she's had a couple record-long naps as of only recently, as long as an hour and 20 minutes last week due to a crazy growth spurt, for this week thus far, she's had no more than one 30 minute nap each day and she's been falling asleep on the car ride home -- We've only recently realized, officially, as a new rule, that any day she's only had one shorty nap at daycare, she'll be ready for bed that night by 6pm, and no later.

THE FAILED SLEEP EXPERIMENT: The last week or so of January, she began waking at 5am, but she'd wake up and want to stay up! More often than not, we could get her to either go back to sleep on her own for another hour after just 10 minutes of nursing, or she could be left alone, happy to babble away in her crib for as long as 20-45 minutes before she'd let out a squawk for someone to come claim her. That weekend of January 29th though, thru to February 2nd, she was up every morning at 5am and she refused to settle back to sleep or to quietly play in her crib, and was the one who got to get up and take care of her each time. By February 3rd, I was utterly exhausted - - and mind you, this was all going on during my stressful technology nightmare. For the past week and into the last weekend, we tried a later bedtime, 6:45-7pm, but quickly determined it doesn't seem to provide enough sleep for her. Over the past weekend, she slept in on her own until 7:30am or later, and for the past 3 mornings and last Friday, we've had to wake the poor girl up, never letting her sleep in any later than 7am, when we really need her up during the week by 6:30am in order for us to get to work on time. Although she wakes with a smile each time we've had to get her up, and she's no longer waking at 5am and wanting to stay up (which was our goal), this later bedtime experiment isn't working.... I noticed this morning she has dark little circle beneath her eyes. She needs more sleep.

WEEKEND NAPS: Ever since she began full-time daycare once she was 6 months old, she's spent her weekends catching up on sleep, napping twice a day for an hour at a time, and up to two n' a 1/2 hours. This is still the case and it can make our weekend plans a bit tricky, as we really must accommodate her sleeping needs and set our weekend plans accordingly, otherwise she's a noodle by Monday morning. And invariably, she'll get run down and catch a case of sniffles by Wednesday in the week after a crazy, nap-poor weekend. For her weekend nap times, she's usually nap-ready by 9-10am, and again around 2-3pm. If we miss the 10am window of opportunity, she's too hungry by 11:30am to take a morning nap at all. And if you don't get her down for an afternoon nap by 3pm, an afternoon nap won't happen either.

EVENING PLANS: If we have evening plans at someone's home and she's coming along, we'll bring the Pack n' Play with a baby monitor, and she'll typically sleep in the Pack n' Play wherever it goes, no problem. Such a night can happen no more than once during a work week though, as it's unlikely she'll get the chance (or ever take one) to recover from the sleep interruptions, from us having to wake her to go home, and wake her again after the ride home, to put her back to sleep in her own crib; if this happens more than once in the week, it will ruin the week, as we'll have an overtired baby on our hands, and she'll be susceptible to a cold bug. On the weekends, it's much easier on her to take her to someone's home, as long as she gets her two good, long naps in per weekend day, and we get her to sleep in her Pack n' Play by 6pm. As for late evening plans with the baby girlie in tow, wide awake, without the Pack n' Play, we really can't keep her up past 8pm without week-long consequences for everyone.

THE SHORT OF IT: So anyhow, beginning tonight, we'll return to a 6-6:30pm bedtime and hope that the 5 o'clock in the morning wake-up call doesn't resume.

Toothie Numba Three

Our baby sweet potato girl finally has another tooth coming in! Yes everyone, please welcome baby toothie numba three into the world! Top n' center, to the left (her right)! Discovered the growing lil' nubbin, barely visible, a moment ago while getting her dressed for the day... She'd offered something to me for me to take with my teeth, and then I offered it back to her with my own fingers - - she took the item and a finger of mine with her own mouth and so, I got a little bite in return and it was then I felt the new tooth emerging in her gums.

In retrospect, considering all the teething drama we've endured over the last several months since her first bottom, two front teeth made their arrival, you'd think she'd have a mouthful of toothies by now!?

Back Online

Got me a laptop now, my old one with a new hard drive (Happy Valentine's Day to me!), and my office computer, rebuilt, was returned to me today, finally. Soooo, I'm back online - - but no Christmas 2009 or New Years 2010 pics, nor any January pics still... The scan on my 1TB drive has been running for over 6 days now?!? Soooo, yeah, back online = YAY! We'll see what I can get done now.

P.S. I'll say it again: If you haven't done so already, back everything you have to CDs/DVDs ASAP!

Living in Technological Hell for the Last 2 Weeks

1) After a week of scans and diagnostics, my personal laptop's hard disk was officially declared fried last Friday, and while I knew it was beginning to fail weeks ago, I had begun to frantically try moving everything I had on it to a very new, very large, supposedly very stable 1TB external drive kept in my office at work. There were only 350 picture files remaining on my laptop, all from November and December, all of which refused to move or copy from the laptop due to cyclic redundancy errors. In the end, after several data recovery scans run by IT and a certain saint-like, professional computer guru friend of mine, only 1/2 of them were successfully recovered; so far, it seems I've lost everything since December 20th, which includes our baby girl's first Christmas and our New Years pics.

2) Meanwhile, my office computer, which was purchased December 15 of last year, brand spakin' new, Windows 7, not even two months old, it began to do strange things as well, beginning nearly 2 weeks ago... but until last week, I couldn't say exactly what was wrong, if anything really.

3) And the 1TB external drive I had used to back everything up? Well, on January 27th, I had moved all our original January pictures directly from my digicam's memory card to the drive, plus back up duplicates of our Christmas and New Years taken from a 16GB jump drive I generally use for jpg back ups. Wednesday morning, January 27th, all those picture files and then some, they were all there, entirely intact. The following morning, they weren't to be found, and I have NO IDEA what the freak happened!!! And the 'data recovery back up' feature for the drive? The program files are corrupt. IT has been running scans on the drive since Friday the 29th, and the last scan took 4 full days to run. As of this past Friday, none of my pictures have been recovered yet, not a single jpg file.

4) The same day my 1TB drive went all wacky and all my pictures had disappeared, along with, might I add, 270 GB of additional office and personal data, , my office computer refused to recognize my login profile. I called IT for help that day, but they were short-staffed. After twiddling my thumbs for 2 days, struggling on an old loaner laptop, IT came to my office last Tuesday, ran some tests, deemed my office computer profile corrupt, said they could fix it, tried to fix it, rebooted the thing twice, and then they too were locked out of my computer. Everything else they tried, failed. IT took it away that day and I haven't heard a thing since.

I'm happy we have all our November pics and we have all that we'd taken up until December 20th, which includes Thanksgiving, when we had the angel boy-O here for 4 days and 5 nights. That's great, yes! BUHHT, I'm still super sad about our Christmas, New Years and January pics. [SIDE NOTE: On January the 29th, when I'd discovered the pictures had disappeared, just as I was about to burn them all to DVDs, I bawled and bawled, as if someone had died.] Those pictures included images of our baby girlie beginning to walk along our furniture, and her first trip up the stairs and her first trip down the stairs, her first moments of unmistakable dancing and singing, and the first time we found her standing against her crib rail in the morning, and her receiving her very first dolly, giving it a hug, and her first experience with snow and riding in a sled, and her first experience deliberately singing/making noise into microphone... We also had pictures of the angel boy-O singing and watching Signing Times along with his baby sissy, held on his lap. We had pictures of him kissing her goodnight, and pictures of him bouncing in a bouncy house with his baby sis sliding down the bouncy slide in his lap. And pictures of him trying to feed her while she sat in her high chair. We have theses memories still, but I want the pictures too.

For Valentine's Day this year, my honey-man bought me a replacement hard disk for my laptop. We'll see how the installation goes this week. And if it works, I'll have a lot of pictures posting to catch up on over at our family blog. And some kitty pics to share here. *sigh*

MY RECOMMENDATION: Back up ALL your photo files to DVD immediately if you haven't already done so!

"Please Don't Feed Andre Bauer" or, simply, "Andre Bauer, the A** Hole"

This is a bit old news I guess, but when I finally read last night about the latest from South Carolina's Lieutenant Governor, Andre Bauer, I about hit the roof.

The following commentary from Bauer was offered in regards to free lunch programs provided for school children: "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that."

And he says he wished he'd used a different metaphor and hadn't intended to offend anyone?!? If you ask me, his choice of 'metaphor' makes his feelings about America's poor all too clear. Breaking the cycle of welfare dependency is an extremely valid social issue, but what Bauer said, it doesn't address that issue at all, but an entirely different attitude.

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 48

We ate Nutty Bars for dinner...

I'm a Sap...

I love the movie Family Man.

A Real Rainy Week!?!

Constant drizzly, rainy days, one day after another day, they're not something that really happens in Las Vegas - - any rainfall is either insignificant, or it brings on a short-lived flash flood due to our crusty desert conditions, but for the last 4 days, we've had dark and cloudy, wet and rainy days and without much flood drama. I'm sooo LOVING the unusual weather!

I do realize that not everyone is exactly 'loving' the wet weather spread across the U.S. right now, and I'm seriously hoping those hard hits areas will experience some relief and fast! I was listening to NPR on the way home the other night, and heard how many eastern and midwestern states and cities have surpassed their snow removal budgets for the year in less than two months' time!?! Having learned how to drive as a teen in Iowa, knowing what their icy and slushy winter roads can be like, I remember how snow removal is a real safety issue. And don't get me started on California and the flooding they're experiencing, as if that state hasn't got enough challenges to deal with.

Makes me worry - - The U.S. has been struggling for decades to take care of its own. Sure, many of us have our needs met and then some (like me), but there are THOUSANDS - or rather MILLIONS - who don't have their basic needs met for whatever reason, and in today's day, in our modern society, I don't know how or why this is possible. Improper resources management?

In the meantime though, I'll be grateful for the much needed rain we're experiencing here. And I'll enjoy it as well.

Rainy Day

It rained today. No downpour, but a nearly constant drizzle throughout the day, and although it ruined our plans for a hike at Red Rock this morning, I enjoyed our having some weather here. Rain is rare thing in Las Vegas.

The sun went down almost two hours ago, and the house feels cold right now. I'm feeling thankful that I had the idea to bring out our flannel bedsheets from the linen closet this past Saturday night. The boy-O flew home today, late afternoon, so there's a severely subdued mood about our home tonight, as usual the day he leaves us, but our baby sweet potato girl went down for bed without a peep nearly an hour ago, and once I post this lil' post of blather, I'm looking forward to heading upstairs to take a nice, hot bath while I read my latest Brazelton childcare book on discipline. I plan to hop into bed, into those flannel sheets, by 9pm.

I'm so grateful for our home and our good health and our good fortune, and for all our friends and family. I'm grateful for our life together and all that we have and enjoy. I wish we had more time to enjoy it all.

I don't feel psychologically ready for this week to begin. I don't even want to think about tomorrow. The weekends always fly by way too quickly, especially the ones during which we have the angel boy-O. I miss him already.

For Eleven Hours Straight

Our baby sweet potato girl slept from 6pm last night until 5:15am, and 30 minutes from the time she'd woken up, she was asleep again and didn't wake until 7am. She has never slept that much, for that long without interruption, not ever.

We Should Be in Bed...

...but instead, I'm dinking around with my blogroll for the first time in a couple months (I have over 35 posts to read from dooce.com), and my honey-man is standing with his guitar in front of his laptop which is placed on a kitchen counter, and he's playing along with Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" while it plays from his iTunes.

And now he's begun to happily strum and pick ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky"...

Did I mention already that we should both be in bed? I think we're both a little wired tonight, excited for the boy-O's arrival tomorrow.

Busy Weekend Planned with the Boy-O

The angel boy-O flies in tomorrow around 5:30pm, and we've got a fully packed weekend - - nothing super major, but it's gunna be non-stop.

As soon as he walks in the door tomorrow night, we'll have dinner on the couch with a dvd - - one of his favorite things to do... always involves lots of microwave popcorn too! Saturday, after what will be a big breakfast at home, we have plans from 10:30am until 4pm. We'll then be home for dinner, and thereafter, the boy-O and his dad will be spending some father-and-son time together at a 7pm UNLV basketball game. I could be wrong, but I think it may the be the boy-O's first college arena basketball game ever. Sunday morning, we have a brunch date with friends, followed by a mid-day movie matinee. And my sister will be joining us for dinner around 5pm that Sunday night. And Monday morning, we'll be meeting friends at Red Rock for a morning hike followed by a picnic lunch together. We'll then have to get the boy-O to the airport by no later than 1:00pm in order for him to fly out on time around 3pm, headed back to Utah.

This weekend is going to fly by, I know it. Always happens, but it always goes too fast when the angel boy-O is here.

"Hey There, Mr. Blue!"

I think our baby sweet potato girl has a favorite song - - and of course, her ELO-lovin' father is thrilled!

Happy Birthday to Moi!

I'm 35 years old today - - when am I gunna feel like I'm an adult?