The Haps

Our heater is on the fritz this weekend. It's not too bad, but it's chilly. The *emergency* electrician can't make it out until Monday. Good thing we live in a near-sea-level area of California - yeesh!

The Bug is rocking on hands & knees, getting up on her hands & toes, and can really get around on her tummy. Can push backward, but that's not what she's trying to do, so it's frustrating for her. Yesterday my mom taught her "so big," and her enjoyment of the game and response whenever Mom asked her, "how big are you?" had me in hysterics. She didn't do it today, though.

Familial (mine) disapproval of Sweet Pea having her own computer. It's not like we bought her a new one or hooked it up to the internet. It's a very old computer of mine, and until someone at work gave Slipshod some hand-me-down CD ROM kid games, all she did was type letters in Word and play with the paint program. Now, thanks to the kind person at Slipshod's work, she can also play preschool games (mostly matching and memory games). She is scary good at figuring out how to get around on the CD ROM menus by herself, can turn on the computer herself and get into the programs, and even switch out the CD ROMs. Dude. But, as I said to my parents yesterday, "what do you expect from a child of Alpha Geek?"

Obviously, a visit from my parents occurred Friday/Saturday. Here's what I'm doing wrong with The Bug now: while Mom has to concede that The Bug is eating solids now, apparently I am not getting enough food into her. No further mention (by which I mean pushing) of Cheerios or teething biscuits, but by golly, she's behind developmentally because she is not waving "bye bye." Whatever. I imagine that if we ever DID that with her, she might learn it. ha ha!

Mom spent time reading aloud to me from one of my parenting reference books. Things like, "don't do anything to reward your child for waking up at night. You can speak reassuringly to her, but don't pick her up, don't feed her, and whatever you do, DON'T bring her into your bed!" I had a good laugh. I know that my parenting choices make mothering harder on me than if I could follow the advice in some of these books, but thank you very much, authors, I will do what feels right, not what you, who do not know me or my family, tell me to do. I love having my children sleep with me, and I will not make them cry through 21 months of teething alone in a dark room.

Despite the chilly winds and cloudy skies, the girls and I have been getting out for more walks recently. We're WAY close (once out of our small neighborhood, just about 2 blocks & across the street) from the grocery store, so even though Slipshod has been driving my car to work most days (the steering in my van is less painful on his arms than his own car's steering), we can still get out to restock on baby food and ice cream. There is also a grassy park (no swings, but pretty - trees and grass and grape vines) on our side of the main street, across from the shopping center, so we can - and do - fart around over there as well. Unfortunately, speaking of things that come out the backside, every time we do go to that park I end up stepping in dog poop. But it's still worth it to get out for a walk.

My sister found a breadmaker for me on the local Freecycle group. She went so far as to respond to the lady and go pick it up for me, isn't that totally sweet? I had always thought it would be fun to try one but never wanted to actually buy one, especially because we already have many many appliances and not that much counter space. BUT - it was free, so now I can play with it and see what all the hype was about 10 years ago. ha ha! Amusingly, the model of this thing appears to be Australian, so the recipes in the user manual/cookbook are written in milliliters and grams and call for things like treacle. But, somewhere along the line I read that any 1 pound recipe will work well with it (I think it was the lady who gave it away who said that), so I've looked up some recipes online and can't wait to try it. I just need to find some time to read all about how to use the thing before I throw in any ingredients.

That's about it. Nothing very new or exciting. But thought I'd post while I have a quiet moment. That's actually pretty exciting, that I have one of those. ha ha! But that's about it.