Today's Status

Me: Tired, as usual, getting less sleep lately because the girls are still sick, but functioning and feeling pretty much over the bit of cold that I did get

Slipshod: Feeling mostly better as well, didn't miss any work due to the cold (now jury duty, that's a different story)

Sweet Pea: Still running rivers of snot out her nose, mixed with blood the past few days. Been running the humidifier in the bedroom at night and that seems to help until she's out of the house each day. Still has a somewhat productive cough. Last night she told us that one of her ears hurt, and she willingly took Motrin before bed and even said that it tasted good! Whose child is this - or just how sick is she? Taking her to the doctor today after school to get her ears checked, even though the one that hurt last night doesn't hurt today. Same situation occurred last February and the doctor said she had had a blood blister on her eardrum that had burst, which was why her ear didn't hurt in the morning - but she did have an ear infection. So definitely want to get her ears checked today to be sure of what's going on in there

The Bug: Has not been acting like herself for days. She's been whiny, clingy, having trouble getting to sleep, etc. Her nose is still snotty but she has not had a cough. She slept miserably last night, waking every 2 hours and nursing like it was going out of style. I had been wondering about the possibility of ear infection but she had not been touching her ears at all until this morning. After waking today she poked both of her ears with her fingers and said, "Ow! Ow ow ow!" I figured that was a pretty clear sign. I called to make appointments with the pediatrician's office for today and we took The Bug before taking Sweet Pea to school. Her left ear is slightly pink inside but the right is raging red and the doctor, when telling me that her antibiotic would not affect her pain for a couple days, said, "PLEASE give her some pain killer until then; she is in a lot of pain."

So - the girls and I went directly from the doctor's office to the pharmacy and handed in the prescription. Then we walked across the shopping area and had smoothies and bready treats, then went back to the pharmacy to pick up the medicine, then took Sweet Pea to school. When The Bug and I got home I of course had to force her medicine into her, which is never fun. However, she did take it all without spitting any out. I let her have some juice and grapes and then took her upstairs for her nap. I wanted to give her some Motrin or Tylenol before getting her to sleep but she was like, "HELL NO LADY, ARE YOU INSANE?!" so I just nursed her a bit - well, I tried - she fell asleep almost as soon as I laid her on her side on the Boppy pillow. So now she's snoozing. Whew. What a morning! I really hope that she feels better soon, poor thing. Now we just need to get Sweet Pea's ears checked after school and things will be more under control around here, I think. Whee...

** Updated to add: Sweet Pea's ears are slightly infected but not really in bad shape. They are still not hurting her but since it's right before the weekend the doctor gave us a prescription in case things change and she needs the medicine. The Bug is a mess, but hopefully she'll start feeling better on Saturday because we're planning to go downtown for the "Home For The Holidays" festivities - they're even going to have SNOW! Then on Sunday it's out to a tree farm to get a Christmas tree. Yippee! :o) **

Hi

It seems as if all I have time for these days is a quick update every two weeks or so! Oh well, here goes another one:

Here are Sweet Pea and The Bug during one of their good playing-together moments. Sweet Pea is teaching The Bug about kitties (what else?)

Grandma S. and Boopa brought Sweet Pea one of those funny little Klutz books and this one had a plastic envelope attached containing googly eyes. The pictures in the book show how you can make anything look alive and silly with googly eyes. We now have googly eyes on our back fence to complete a Scooby Doo face that Grandma S. has been seeing in the wood grain. Sweet Pea also decided that the dining room table and two of the chairs needed to have eyes, and for four days or so she asked me to be the voice of the dining room table at meal time... hee hee! The pink baby hat on one of the chairs was my idea. One morning Sweet Pea put two googly eyes on the dishwasher and had me making that talk, but when The Bug saw the eyes on the dishwasher she backed away and started crying! The table and chairs didn't bother her, though... hmm.

The Bug thinks that her big sis is the greatest thing in the whole wide world and is always trying to emulate her. This is why we have a 17-month-old who draws on paper with pens, sticks tiny suction cups (which are from another Klutz book - thanks, grandparents, for all the many, many choking hazards that are impossible to keep away from the baby) to the bathroom sink and door handle, and is getting to be a real whiz on the stairs!

The other night our whole family made dinner together. Slipshod was behind the camera when the shot above was taken, but another reason he wasn't in the picture was that, regrettably, he doesn't have a kitchen apron. He has been having a really fun time trying out cooking this year, though (I love you, Alton Brown!) so maybe Santa Clause needs to be alerted to Slipshod's need for an apron of his own!

As for Thanksgiving - well, we had a nice one. Two, actually. The weekend before we went to my parents' house and celebrated the holiday with my parents, sister and brother-in-law. On Thanksgiving itself we had intended to have one family over who has a little boy some months older than The Bug. We were going to have our first ever small, quiet holiday with friends (not family).

Well, Slipshod's mom's & her hubby's plans with hubby's family got canceled so they pretty much told us, "you're having 18 people at your house for Thanksgiving!" We did more cleaning than we might have otherwise but of course that is paying off now - we're able to enjoy a much cleaner house than we had before the holiday. And did I mention, Slipshod's mom and sister did nearly all the cooking? Yeah, that pretty much rocked. Hey, if you're going to crash my party, offer to do the cooking and I'll happily change my plans. ha ha! The day with family and friends was lots of fun, but unfortunately both our girls had fevers that day, and ever since then they've had big ropes of snot coming out of their noses all day long. I think that they must be mostly recovered by now, but Sweet Pea is still coughy and snotty enough that I am not taking her to school today.

And speaking of school, when Slipshod, The Bug and I went to pick up Sweet Pea after class last Tuesday one of her teachers came out to us to say, "I know you have cats, but would you be willing and able to take the classroom parakeets for the holiday?" I guess the teachers had forgotten to set up holiday homes for all the pets and they were pretty actively trying to get most families to take pets home, because that classroom is FULL of pets. We agreed, since we figured we could lock the birds, in their cage, away from our cats pretty easily. The birds have been doing just fine and the girls are enjoying visiting them a few times per day. Last night we kicked the cats outside, brought the bird cage downstairs, and gave it a good cleaning job. We scrubbed their food and water cups and vacuumed and wiped out under the tray at the bottom, and replaced the paper towels in the tray (the birds' "potty"). Sweet Pea was having so much fun that she wet a wash rag and wiped down the bars of the cage, which benefitted from her attention since there were little parakeet down feathers stuck to them in places. We also took all the little mirror toys out of the cage and washed those to get the birdy nose schmutz off so they could see their little faces in the mirrors again. The birds themselves are pretty chill. You'd have to imagine that in a preschool classroom they have gotten quite used to sudden and loud attention. They're pretty unflappable. ha ha!

That is all for now. I am trying to decide whether or not to take Sweet Pea to see the doctor. I think that she is just at the end of her cold where you have to wait for the cough and snot to go away, but her left nostril has been bleeding today, and last night she WILLINGLY took Motrin before bed because she felt generally yucky and achy. Her fever has been gone for days, though. I guess I will just call the pediatrician's office and ask for advice. I don't want to schlep the girls over there and pay co-pays for nothing, y'know?

Quickie Update

There are so many other things I should be doing right now, like chopping vegetables for dinner just to name one, but I wanted to write a little update first:

This morning I took the girls BY MYSELF to the dentist. Insane? Why, yes I am. However, it went even better than I had hoped, and I had high hopes to begin with, so it was good all over.

I had tried to take Sweet Pea to see the dentist before The Bug was born, but she was having none of that. The dentist was only trying to get her into the chair to count her teeth, but she FREAKED and we went home. I had a good feeling going into today's visit, though.

First, we were going to a family-oriented dentist's office this time, full of friendly, young, predominantly female staff, and toys and crayons and even a fish tank in the waiting room, cruelly imprisoning not only Nemo, but Marlin and Dory as well. But that was the kicker for Sweet Pea - she wanted to go there because they had those fish.

Second, not only is Sweet Pea older and more able to deal with things now, she has also been in school since August and has had plenty of time to realize that there are lots of cool people in the world who are not me. Thus, she now goes into unfamiliar situations involving people she's never met with a bit more of an open mind and more independent inquisitiveness than she ever had before.

When we go to the office today she was still skeptical and a bit afraid. She had wanted me to go first so she could watch me get my cleaning and x-rays, but that's not what the office had planned, so she was thrown into the deep end, as it were. The first thing they wanted to do was take two x-rays of her mouth but she was not up for that at all, so the hygienist took her to the chair where she would be getting her cleaning and let her pick out a new toothbrush. The Bug insisted that she needed one too, and I was telling her "no," but the hygienist was happy to let her pick out one as well. SO - with that out of the way we got Sweet Pea into the chair and she got to see and hear and touch the instruments that would be used on her and pick out what flavor of toothpaste she wanted for her polishing, etc.

At this point, when she was starting to relax and I realized that she was going to go through with the appointment, another hygienist came in and asked me to come with her.

I said, "uh, I can't really leave right now."

She looked a little annoyed and said, "I don't know if this is going to work."

I explained to her that this was Sweet Pea's first appointment EVER and I didn't really feel as if I could just leave when she was still getting used to the idea. The receptionist who made our appointments yesterday had known that this would be Sweet Pea's first ever dental exam so I figured our appointments would have been made so that I could be with Sweet Pea while she was having her cleaning. The hygienist who had come to get me seemed not to know what to do with herself at that point so she went to the reception desk to wait. I sat back down and figured that if they had to cancel my appointment so I could stay with Sweet Pea, so be it.

However... soon enough I noticed that Sweet Pea was completely taken up with her hygienist and what she was saying and doing and was not even looking in my direction at all. I asked her, "do you want me to stay with you through your appointment, or would you be comfortable with me leaving to have my own x-rays taken and my teeth cleaned in a different room?" She said she was fine with me leaving, which surprised but pleased me, and I went off to get my teeth taken care of.

The Bug, who was rather spooked by the dental office, had to be held by someone she didn't know while I had my x-rays taken. She could see me the whole time but she was red-faced and sobbing until I could hold her again. Then I was shown into a room for my cleaning and even though she was sitting on my lap she was saying, "no, no, no!" and was not enjoying this new place one bit. However, when she realized that nobody was going to take her from me again she relaxed, and she played happily on my lap the entire time I had my cleaning and polishing and talked with the dentist. I told myself that this was really good experience for her because she watched me be completely calm and matter-of-fact while having a cleaning, and once she's old enough to have her first appointment, she will have seen more of my appointments and probably Sweet Pea's, so hopefully we'll be able to get her in younger than we got Sweet Pea in for her first cleaning.

The good news: My teeth are in good shape and I have no cavities.

The bad news: Sweet Pea appears to have inherited my family's dental genes, which are horrible. We brush and floss and all that jazz regularly, but get lots of cavities. Slipshod has magic teeth with no cavities to date that I am aware of. Can you believe that? It's amazing if you ask me.

So anyway, Sweet Pea has three cavities. Bummer. We knew of two of them, and they are unfortunately in her upper front teeth. We had been seeing the decay for a while and I was sort of freaking out about getting her to a dentist to get those taken care of! She also has a cavity in one of her lower molars, on the chewing surface. So, now we need to figure out when we can get those filled. I'm going to make an appointment on a day when Slipshod can stay home with The Bug and I can go with Sweet Pea by myself and sit there and hold her hand or whatever she needs, with no distractions. The dentist said we could try at their office and if it didn't work he could refer us to a place where they could fill her teeth under anesthesia, but I really don't want to do that and I really don't think it will be necessary. I remember having cavities filled as a kid, and you know, this is something we have to deal with in life. Awake. Having her under anesthesia for any reason worries me a lot, so I certainly don't want to do it just willy nilly for dental procedures! It may be a little difficult but I think she will be fine. I will be there with her the whole time and she's getting good, apparently, at just powering through things that scare her.

It is unfortunate that we have not done a better job of taking care of Sweet Pea's baby teeth, but at least we're under a dentist's care now and we know what the damage is and can get it fixed.

I started brushing The Bug's teeth as soon as they came up - actually, she was interested in Sweet Pea having her teeth brushed so I think a few times I may have even brushed her gums before the teeth came up. So hopefully we'll fare better with her little teeth. Time shall tell.

More From the Mind of a Four-Year-Old

This on the evening of a particularly difficult day of clashing wills:

Sweet Pea: "Mommy, I love you, but I wish I didn't have to live with a mommy and a daddy."

Me: "Oh, really? Why do you wish that?"

Sweet Pea: "Because when you get grumpy, I get grumpy."

Me: "Well, that happens sometimes when you live with people. Families live together and grumpiness happens. It's very normal. Besides, it would be pretty hard for you to live on your own at age four without a mommy and a daddy."

Sweet Pea: "Why?"

Me: "Well, it would be hard for you to take care of yourself. How would you get food to eat? How would you know when it was time to go to bed? Or time to go to school? Where would you sleep? Who would wash your hair? I mean, sure, when you're in your twenties you can live by yourself, but at age four, nobody is going to give you a job to support yourself; you're too young and too small to do most work that pays money."

Sweet Pea: "Mommy, I ALWAYS want to live with you and Daddy. ALWAYS. I like it when you take care of me."

That appears to have nipped that idea in the bud, but all the same, the neighbors we play with all the time are on alert to call us in the event that Sweet Pea shows up on their doorsteps carrying a suitcase...

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In other news, Sweet Pea was beyond thrilled to return to school today. She even nearly forgot to give me a goodbye hug and kiss in her haste to get to her favorite teacher to say hello, and then into the classroom! It was a bummer that she had to miss three days of school last week, and I was even more bummed when I learned that one of the moms was in the classroom last Friday doing Mendhi tattoos on the kids' and teachers' hands. I saw some of her artwork today on one of the teachers' and one of the students' (her son's) hands, and it was amazing! Her freestyle drawing is fantastic. I'm really, really bummed that Sweet Pea missed out on that, and super duper bummed for me and Sweet Pea that we also had to miss Mom's Night in the classroom on Wednesday. Whine! But, it's good to have Sweet Pea feeling all better, and back in school.

Friday's Update on Sweet Pea

HOORAY! Sweet Pea's fever finally broke last night, within an hour after she fell asleep for the night. Whew! This morning she feels so much better - her headache is gone, her throat doesn't hurt anymore, her tummy feels all better, and she's got enough energy to jump and run. And talk and talk and talk and talk and taaaaaaaaaaalk... She ate a good breakfast this morning and is drinking plenty. Hooray!

Soon after she woke up Sweet Pea announced to me that she wanted me to trim her hair today. This is a big thing because until quite recently, no matter what anyone told her, Sweet Pea did not want her hair even trimmed, because she was sure that all her curls would go away if anyone came near her head with scissors. I guess that by now she has heard enough people, including her beloved favorite teacher, say that it's important to trim your hair to keep it healthy. She held up a curl and said, "I want you to cut this much off." I eyeballed it to be about two inches, so after this morning's shower, breakfast & getting The Bug to sleep for her nap, I went to work on Sweet Pea's hair. The first thing I noticed was that her hair wasn't straight in the back - it came down to a point from so many toddler & kid years of no trimming. SO, I chose a place on the side to call my starting point, cut two inches off, and then made a straight (ha ha - it's good that she has curly hair or it'd be painfully obvious how false that claim probably is) cut across the rest of the back. It looks great - you can't really tell that she lost some length, but it looks healthier over all. AND, she's very excited about having her first hair cut. ha ha!

The Bug had a difficult night last night - I'm watching her to see if she shows signs of having what Sweet Pea just got rid of. So far she doesn't seem to be actually sick. Here's hoping it passes her by! Slipshod's tummy hurt last night and this morning, and my throat doesn't feel right. Joy. I guess it's a good thing tomorrow is Saturday...

Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut. I'm really looking forward to it because the cut I got back in May has just been growing and growing, so for a couple months now I've been wearing it up in a headband to keep the hair out of my eyes.

Oh - when I woke up this morning I noticed that my nose is no longer pierced... At first I was all confused and then I really foggily remembered waking up in the night, thinking that my nose felt weird, reaching to push the stud back through the hole, and finding that it was all the way out. My first attempt to put the stud back throught the hole didn't work, and apparently I fell asleep after that. I can't find the stud in the bed anywhere. I'm sure the hole has grown shut by now. Whoops! I'm not sure if I'm just going to leave it, or get it pierced again. I was never happy with the stud that I had in there and wanted to get a teeny, tiny sparkly one. We'll see. It's not a major priority.

Has Anyone Got Any Fava Beans?

This from my daughter who professes to like meat, yet (like me) will only eat fish...

Sweet Pea: Mommy, are cats made of meat?

Me: Um... yes, yes they are.

Sweet Pea: Why?

Me: Well, uh... they have lots of muscles, and when you eat meat, that's what you're eating; the muscles of chickens or cows or whatever.

Sweet Pea: What does people meat taste like?


Apparently recoil and horror at the mere suggestion of cannibalism is a learned behavior... or maybe she's just not old enough to really think it through. Needless to say, after a surprised and horrified burst of disbelieving laughter, we had a discussion about cannibalism and how that's wrong and we wouldn't eat cats either. Shudder.

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And now for what's going on... yesterday Sweet Pea woke up, used the potty, and promptly announced that her tummy really really hurt. When I looked at her, her face was green. I mean, GREEN. She didn't throw up but obviously felt really yucky, even though her temperature was only 99.1. She didn't want anything to drink or eat.

An hour later, after The Bug and I had finished our breakfast, Sweet Pea, all pink now and fever-free, announced that she was hungry. So I fed her most of an apple and a bowl of oatmeal. She really wanted to go to school so I took her temperature again, to confirm her miracle recovery. Unfortunately, at that point she had a fever of 99.6. That number held for a while so I sat with her and we watched a show on TV. Maybe an hour after the first temperature reading of 99.6, I felt her forehead and my hand nearly burst into flames. I took her temperature again, and now it was 102! It got there really fast. So, there was looooots of TV watching yesterday, since all she wanted to do was lie listlessly on the couch. It was difficult to get her to take some Tylenol for the fever - eventually she agreed to take the Motrin instead, because she said it smelled less bad than the Tylenol. After that her fever did abate and she started to sit up and laugh and act almost like herself again.

We gave her meds to keep the temp down until 9:30 last night, and then let her (and us) sleep through. She woke up at 3 something and went potty and said her tummy hurt again - I thought she might throw up but she didn't. Slipshod got her back to sleep in her bed after giving her some more Tylenol. This morning she was hot again - temp 102.1 by breakfast time, but she ate and took her Motrin (not without complaining) and is feeling better enough to chase the loudly meowing cat upstairs and come very loudly into the bedroom where I was getting The Bug to sleep for her nap. Now I've got both girls running amok downstairs. I really hope The Bug will give in to the need for sleep soon, but once Sweet Pea woke her up there was no point in trying to make it happen then. Of course, now they're fighting... AUGH!

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Last week we got Sweet Pea's first preschool evaluation in the mail from her teachers and then the kids didn't have school on Thursday & Friday so the teachers could do parent-teacher conferences those two days. Sweet Pea checks out age-appropriate in everything except working in groups. The teachers said that she is a very calm presence in the classroom, and they really appreciate that. While there are not a lot of out-of-control energetic kids in her class, they said that Sweet Pea is a good example to her classmates with her calm demeanor. She is really good at following the classroom rules and respecting her classmates' and teachers' rights, etc. and can apparently even resolve conflicts with classmates easily by herself! I'm very interested in that; she can sometimes see her way clear to work things out with The Bug when they both want the same toy or whatever, but usually she's not interested in doing that. I suppose it's always different with siblings, though.

Her teachers did note that there is one particular classmate who seems to be taking a special interest in Sweet Pea, who may be able to teach her to come out of herself a little more. I was interested, though not particularly surprised, to hear that she's not working a lot with other kids, though, because I hear her talking about certain other kids all the time - kids who she really likes and plays with. But I guess she's playing with them on the playground. Her teachers said that when it's work time in the classroom, Sweet Pea prefers work alone. She is working in all disciplines on her own, which I was happy to hear because I wasn't sure about that.

In Montessori classrooms there are tons of shelves around the whole classroom with lots of projects on them and the kids can choose whatever activity they want to do. There is an area with big sandpaper letters glued to paper that the kids can feel to figure out how to shape the letters when they're writing, and that area in Sweet Pea's classroom also has other materials to teach kids to practice and learn how to read and write (including the BOB books I told you about a while back when Sweet Pea was first interested in learning to read). There is another area with puzzles, an area with messy things, an area with beads that's geared toward math, sets of weights, etc. etc. etc. Not to mention the gazillion pets they have in sweet pea's classroom - and books, and dolls, etc. etc. etc. They even have things like a whisk broom and dust pan for them to play with, and a spray bottle of water and a squeegee that they can use to wash the windows. I think I could spend a day in that classroom and never run out of things to do! ha ha!

Anyway, all is well with Sweet Pea at school. Her teachers say that she is noticeably happy every day, so they can tell she really wants to be there. Slipshod and I said, "Oh yes, she really does. She loves school!" Despite the not working in groups thing, her social skills have improved dramatically since she started school. She now goes so far as to introduce herself to random people in the pet store or wherever - she'll even introduce me to them by my first name, and tell them her age. Sometimes it freaks me out, and I have to tell her that while it's good to talk to people and be sociable, she has to be careful what she tells strangers. BUT, it is really amazing to see the leaps and bounds she has made socially since starting school. Yay! She even plays better with Speed Racer now, because she knows how to say, "okay, we've played your game for a while, not let's do something else" and she's learning how to deal with other people who aren't having a great day, etc. It's pretty darn cool to watch.

American Cutie

Enjoying Autumn

Halloween 2007

The Bug, Speed Racer, and Sweet Pea

Sweet Pea, Speed Racer, Moose (Speed Racer's little brother), and The Bug

There's Something in the Air

Tonight after dinner we got lazy and allowed the girls to stay up a little too late. Once I was finally rounding up the children to herd (can you call two a herd? Probably not. Hmm) them upstairs, Slipshod jumped off the couch saying, "Earthquake." I said, "I don't feel it." I could tell that it was happening - the house was clearly moving, based on the creaks coming from the walls. It kept going and Slipshod couldn't believe that I couldn't feel it. He watched me during the rest of it - the quake lasted for a while - and I never felt a thing. It registered 5.6 on the Richter scale. Not huge, but we got calls from lots of family members asking if we felt it, because they did.

It's been this way with almost every earthquake I have ever experienced. When I was growing up in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia, one summer Saturday I left the rest of the family in the back yard (we were all out there doing yard maintenance - seriously - one of our more Norman Rockwell moments, perhaps) and went inside to get myself a drink. The kitchen table was empty save for the glass I set upon it, into which I poured some lemonade. As I turned to replace the pitcher in the refrigerator, I heard a sound and when I looked back at the table, my glass of lemonade was jumping and dancing around. I went back outside and asked my mom if our house could be possessed. Turned out we'd had a 3.4 earthquake. I hadn't felt a thing, despite the house clearly moving.

I didn't even feel the 1989 quake, and I was in San Rafael at the time. I knew something was happening because everyone I was with (we were outside, walking to the dining hall on our college campus) reacted - one friend even said she felt like she almost fell over. Oh, and I also had an inkling what was happening because somebody across campus yelled, "EARTHQUAKE!"

When we got to the dining hall friends who had already been inside told me that everyone had dived under their tables when the quake hit. But I didn't feel it. I'm serious. What I noticed was the shivering sound in the air as all the tall, old eucalyptus trees we were walking under shook. And of course the ensuing shower of debris (leaves, shredded bark & fruit) from the trees confirmed that something was not quite right. But I didn't feel the earthquake.

I think I did feel some of the aftershocks, but probably only because I was sitting on furniture that moved when they hit.

There was another earthquake I remember happening when I worked at the college. My boss came running out of her office asking if I had felt it and I said, "oh, is that what that was? I didn't feel anything, but it sounded like they were moving very large furniture in the office above ours." Nobody else had heard the noises I had heard; but they had all felt the quake. Again, I felt nothing.

There was one a number of years back that I did feel. It happened at 7:30am on a Saturday and we didn't have kids yet, so of course Slipshod and I were in bed. I woke up because the bed was shaking. I couldn't figure out what was going on, then decided that Slipshod must be getting out of bed despite the fact that pre-kids he would never have gotten out of bed that early on a Saturday. Or on a weekday, for that matter. I turned to look, but he was snoozing, unmoving, next to me. I looked into the open closet and some hangers were swinging gaily back and forth and since I was not very awake I started to freak out a little because I couldn't figure out what was going on. I poked Slipshod, whimpering, and told him that the hangers were swinging. In his characteristic high-functioning half-awake state, which ensures that he will not remember a thing once he truly wakes up, he said, "oh, it's just an earthquake. Go back to sleep," which he rolled over and did himself. Ha ha ha!

This seems so weird to me. I should be able to feel the earth move under my feet, right? But I only feel quakes when I'm sitting or lying on furniture that's moving. If I'm actually in contact with the ground or the ground floor of a building, I don't feel a thing.

Once years ago, in an effort to explain this phenomenon to myself, I remembered the Medieval Theory of the Humors which I had learned about in Shakespeare class during college. I think I did this after that quake I felt a work. I knew that my element according to the Medieval Theory of the Humors was Air, and it turned out that my boss' element was Earth. I extrapolated that she could feel earthquakes because her element was Earth, and that it made sense that I heard rather than felt them, since my element was Air. Never mind that my extrapolation does absolutely nothing to explain why given that I think most people do feel earthquakes, people whose elements are Fire and Water should also feel earthquakes, though their elements wouldn't necessarily give reasons why they should feel them.

Well, that's it, really: My inability to feel earthquakes is such a curiosity to me that I had to tell you all about it, and my pet theory. Hee. Oh - the epicenter of tonight's earthquake was about 5 miles from our house in the South Bay so I talked with one of our renters (a longtime friend) and he said the place is fine. The earthquake woke him up and spilled a can of Sprite on the floor; that's about it for that house. But it must have felt quite a lot stronger there than it did here.

Let me leave you with something silly for Halloween: A picture of a friend and I the last year Slipshod and I really dressed for a Halloween party (I even made the dresses - we used to be so into that sort of thing). I'll even tell you a secret: This picture was taken mere hours before Sweet Pea was conceived. We're pretty sure it was the green wig that helped us finally conceive after 21 months of trying.

Vanity

I love my Sweet Pea. Sure, she thinks it's funny to pat my stretched out belly to make it jiggle and then she asks why it's jiggly, but today she came home from school and told me that I have a small bum. What's not to love?

United Nations Day

PLEASE click to see this picture bigger. She's got the cutest little look on her face. Ha ha!

Sweet Pea's school doesn't celebrate your everyday, run-of-the-mill holidays; they substitute a set of their own. Their first big event of the year is the music program on United Nations Day, and their answer to kids dressing up for Halloween at school is instead to have the kids dress on United Nations Day in something traditional from their culture. That is how it came to be that today was the day on which Sweet Pea donned my childhood dirndl, sent to me by my godfather from Germany I don't know how many years ago. We've both been bursting with giggles waiting for her to get to wear this dress. I couldn't believe how perfectly it fit her when she tried it on recently, especially because I, who was a small child until age 12, wore this dress when I was a full year or two older than Sweet Pea is now. I keep thinking I wore it when I was 6, but it doesn't seem possible that she could be that much bigger than I was at age 4.

ANYWAY - it was a really fun day and we even got to penetrate the "inner sanctum" that is Sweet Pea's classroom (parents always drop off and pick up the kids at the door and are generally not invited into the classroom) for a potluck after the music program. The show was really really cute too. There were at least two classes of the little kids, though I think it might have been more like four, and then there were some older classes too. They sang about six songs, I think, and signed most of them as well. I videotaped the whole concert except for about 10 seconds when I turned off the camera in a panic because I didn't know where The Bug was. Turned out she was just on the other side of the lady next to me, but it was scary there for a second. At one point I looked down to check on The Bug and saw that she had taken the bigger kids' signing as an indication that she should pull out every sign she could think of, so while they sang and signed the words to their songs, The Bug signed "baby," "truck," "apple," "cat," and every other word she could think of for which she knows a sign. That totally cracked me up.

We had a great time in the classroom afterward during the potluck (we took potato pancakes and applesauce - Slipshod and I were up until 1:30 this morning cooking the pancakes), and then were invited to leave early because there were too many cars in the parking lot and the administrator wanted to be sure that the parents of the older kids would have somewhere to park when it was time to pick up their children. Ha ha!

I quipped a few times to fellow parents during the potluck that what with our broad cultural background, Sweet Pea might be able to wear outfits and bring food from a different culture every year without repeating. I think next year we'll go with Irish and make soda bread. But what is a traditional Irish outfit? I'm not buying her one of those dresses unless she actually takes up the dancing. You know what I'm talking about.

Guten tag!

Haiku Friday

Blue Potato Bush

Little tomato-like fruit
This plant's a Nightshade

Naughty baby holds
bitten orange fruit in hand
Feigns another bite

Mama looks it up
Page online says "poisonous"
Big sister freaks out

"Will she be okay?
I don't want baby to die!"
"Calm down, sweetie pie."

Call Poison Control
Fruit is only poisonous
if lots is eaten

Worst case for baby
is a bad taste in her mouth
She nurses it out

Baby acting fine
This one is far more trouble
than her big sister

Just A Few Pictures

(As always, click on any picture to see a bigger version - helps especially in cases like when you want to actually see what The Bug is holding in the last picture - ha ha)

They're just so cute. There's no denying it. Sweet Pea is starting be a little more playful with The Bug again. After she started school her interest in her sister faded and it was kinda sad and there was much yelling and screaming when The Bug would try to play with Sweet Pea. But Sweet Pea has taught The Bug to sit in her lap, and The Bug loves to do that, and sometimes they're both happy with the arrangement. Cute snuggliness follows!

Since she started school, Sweet Pea is no longer drawing ONLY kitties. She will draw just about anything you ask her to, and also does drawings of whatever comes to mind. Above you'll see a picture she drew in a card for her grandparents. The picture shows me changing The Bug's diaper! I was astounded when she showed this to me, because you can tell that The Bug is lying down, and even on a changing table! The drawer on our changing table has two knobs, which are the two circles you see below where the baby is lying. Plus, suddenly out of nowhere she's drawing clothes, hands, feet, etc. It's wild! I have seen her draw hands like she drew my feet above, and you'll notice that my feet look like toes but The Bug's look like little circles. I love to see the evolution of Sweet Pea's drawing style.

Of course, she does still draw mostly kitties, and now she is also writing on every picture. She can write forward and backward but these days she is choosing to write backward and thinks it's funny. I don't know if she's doing that because she's left-handed and it feels better that way, or if this is just a phase, or what. I don't know if I should try to encourage her to write forward or not. My teacher-sister told me a while back that writing backward is normal until age 9, but she is also making the letters in mirror image, which you can't tell from the "Mommy" written above simply because those letters can look right either direction (cat, as you see, is written forward, which is nice - but she writes it both ways). My teacher-Mom tells me that sometimes if kids learn to write letters backward it is really hard to get them to fix that later. For now I think I will just wait and see what happens, though. I do every so often tell Sweet Pea that in our language we read and write from the left to the right, and since she writes on everything she puts on paper (that is to say, she doesn't just draw pictures anymore), I know her teachers are seeing this too - so I'll wait and see if they say anything, or I'll ask about it at her parent-teacher conference next month.

Grapes, kitty?

Continue reading below for last night's post.

Mmf

Dear Bloggety Blog:

I just want you to know that I think of you often, and nearly every day compose a thing or three to post - but my musings almost never leave my head and gets typed in here.

Daily I am left exhausted (that's only the best word I can come up with right now - but the feeling is much more intense than that) and absolutely confounded at the thought that some people actually have clean, clutter-free houses and children who have regular bedtimes and have a bath and read books every single night.

Some days I really don't know if I can make it through The Bug's teething to those seemingly far off days of glory when I shall sleep more than three hours at a time. Yes, I did make it through Sweet Pea's equally difficult teething, but she was my only child then. Raising two through this is enough to grind me into sand. Every day.

However, despite the extreme difficulty and frustration of last night (The Bug woke up VERY often and at one point when she was actually sleeping, her big sister inexplicably woke me up and kept me awake for a fracking hour and a half), somehow today I made it through with no yelling at all, and only a few stern noises at the girls. You've still got to use your Mom Voice when the 16-month-old climbs up onto the dining room table and then smiles at you, rather than moving her little butt backward and onto the chair, when you tell her to get off the table.

Today was Picture Day for Sweet Pea's class, and omigod she looked adorable. We went clothes shopping for her, uh... last week? Well, recently, anyway, and the outfit she wore was just super duper cute and it spoke to me and said, "I am the one she must wear for picture day." And she agreed, and I can't wait to see the pictures. When we got home today we were on our way to ring our friends' doorbell across the street when Sweet Pea tripped in their driveway and started crying really hard, and blood started leaking through the knees of her tights. So we went home through the sudden downpour which I swear started the second Sweet Pea fell, and stayed at home instead, doctoring Sweet Pea's knees (they're really not that bad off but she hasn't had many injuries so to her it was a big thing) and doing laundry until dinnertime. And playing, of course. Always playing.

If there's anything else I'm too pooped to think of it right now.

Oh, wait, no I'm not: Last night Slipshod and I finished the final Harry Potter book. I didn't mention anything about reading it before because while everyone else was devouring book 7, we still hadn't even begun book 6, so we read them both straight through and just kept our heads down so nobody would blurt to us about either of those books! We started reading the Harry Potter books out loud together with book 3, and it has been nice to have that as one of "our things" to do together. I think that reading book 7 immediately on the heels of book 6 made the last book far more intense for us, and there were several points during the story in book 7 when we were both actually crying and having trouble reading. Slipshod has been reading HP to me almost every night while I do the dishes (every so often he washed and I read, but mostly it was the other way around - at least we were spending time together) but over the past week we've been moving to the couch with the book and forsaking our TV shows to keep reading the book. Last night we stayed up later than we normally would so that we could finish it. We enjoyed the book, and indeed the whole series immensely, but it had to end and we were not disappointed. But NOW - I'm rather bereaved tonight and haven't even started washing the dishes at 10pm because, there's no more Harry Potter left to read! Whatever will we do? I suppose there are other books out there, or we could just talk instead, der, but... it was so much fun having that story to look forward to every night! Oh well. I saw something on Amazon.com about how "There IS Life After Harry Potter." I guess I'll have to figure out where to go from here. Not ready to move on yet.

That is all and I hope that at least some of it made sense. I'll be back at some point, and maybe I'll even have something interesting to say. But right now, I am the servant of the teeth. I was all pissed off last night/this morning about how much The Bug woke up last night, even though I knew it was teething related, but later this morning I got a look at what we're dealing with, and then I felt rightfully sorry for her and held my grumpiness in check. At one point she was nursing and I removed her from one breast simply to move her to the other side. She started crying a lot, which was strange because usually she knows I'll just move her over to the other side, but I took advantage of her open mouth to get a look, and saw that her two upper one-year molars are cutting in tandem. She must be in a whole helluva lot of pain, poor thing. But part of me is rejoicing that the bottom two molars have (I think) finished cutting and these two are coming in at the same time. I am REALLY hoping that we'll have a week of good sleep before she starts cutting the eye teeth. And then, hopefully we'll be in better shape for a number of months until she cuts the two-year molars. Here's praying... 'cause Mama needs SLEEP!!!!!

If Only We Had a Picture

Yesterday The Bug and I caused a laugh riot amongst the teachers and parents, complete with lots of pointing, when we went to pick up Sweet Pea from school.

First you have to understand a couple things. 1) The Bug has turned into one of those kids who will struggle like a little tornado to get down if she's being carried but wants to walk. Once she gets down, she runs away from me, laughing, and never looks back. This has become a problem in the school parking lot, as you might imagine. She's really hard to hold onto once she starts struggling, especially if I'm holding Sweet Pea's hand with my other hand - so - 2) this week I started carrying The Bug in the Baby Bjorn during drop-off and pick-up at school. Luckily she still LOVES her Bjorn and actually still asks for a "whee!" (ride) in it every day if it's inside the house where she can see it. She grabs it and brings it to me and says, "I wanna whee? Mommy whee!"

So - yesterday on the way to school The Bug took a book full of pictures of babies, and "read" it quietly in her car seat. When we got to school I opened her door and donned the Baby Bjorn, and she still sat there, reading her book, only looking up to show me the babies in her book. When I picked her up to put her in the Bjorn I suggested that we leave the book in the car. She shook her head adamantly, refusing to let go. "Okay," I said, "but you'll have to hold on to it!" So I popped her into the Baby Bjorn, facing out, book and all. She just kept holding it in front of her with both hands, looking at it, seemingly oblivious to everything around her, completely engrossed in the book, as I locked the car and walked through the parking lot and into the school. One of the teachers on one of the play grounds pointed our way as we neared the front of the school and she leaned to another teacher and said something. Then she walked over to the side of the fence where we were walking and said something to me about The Bug being ready for school. Ha ha! As we continued in the front door, parents pointed and laughed and said, "look at that!" I really wish we could have had someone take a picture; we must have looked really comical. Oh well - there will probably be other opportunities. We'll have to try for a picture next time.

Happy weekend, everyone!

The Great Breast Fest Montage

This was the first thing I saw online today when I checked the Queen of Spain's blog - and it made me cry. AND - The Bug is in it. You'll see her toward the endish, wearing a rainbow striped shirt, looking right at the camera. I'd post links but just don't have the steam. Maybe later. In the mean time, credit is given (er, taken) at the end of the video. Enjoy.

Catching Up... Yet again

That time thing - it just keeps going, so without access to the Tardis, I just have to try to keep up.

Last Saturday Sweet Pea's school had an all-school picnic in the park. We walked over, partly beause we can - the school is only a 17 minute walk away, and the park is right behind the school - and partly because last Friday my brakes nearly failed completely when The Bug and I were on our way home from dropping Sweet Pea off at school. We walked to pick her up that day.

Saturday was a beautiful day for a walk and a picnic, and The Bug was beside herself with giggles when we showed her that she could ride the Bjorn on Daddy too! She's far more used to being strapped to the front of me.

BAD MOMMMY. BAD DADDY. In our usual style we were late getting out the door, so we went as fast as we could and I didn't remember until we got to the park that I had meant to bring our wide-brimmed sun hats. Sweet Pea fared just fine, porcelain skin and all, but The Bug's poor little face got completely fried sometime during the afternoon. By bedtime it was that awful, painful blue-red of a deep sunburn. Boy did Slipshod and I feel awful. Sigh.

Slipshod has been in Portugal this week - he is currently on a plane on his way home and we will see him tomorrow morning when we wake up. I may see him or at least talk to him when he gets home late late tonight (or early tomorrow morning), but the girls will have to wait until they wake up. I know he'll be loopy from the time change, but I hope he doesn't have any delusions of sleeping in, because both girls have missed him something fierce and will be all over him as soon as they wake up and see him. The picture above is a drawing Sweet Pea did at school on Wednesday, depicting Slipshod on the airplane, wearing earphones. ha ha! (Click on the picture to see more detail)

For most of the week The Bug seemed to be convinced that Slipshod was actually here somewhere and he was hiding from her. She repeatedly asked, "Where Dada?" and kept looking in his office, or in the bedroom when we were in the bathroom, or thinking that when she was sitting in her chair at the table in the dining room, surely Daddy was in the living room... but yesterday when she woke up she had had enough of the game. After waking up and saying, "Hi, Mama! Hiiiiiiiiii, Mommy!" to me for a while, she sat up with her back to me and said, "Want see Dada." Poor thing. Both girls have missed him so much. Yesterday we managed to be home when Slipshod called on the computer, so we got to talk to him before dinner. He was up packing in the middle of the night (1am) in Portugal. I hope he gets some nappage in on the planes today. Sweet Pea was so excited to talk to Slipshod that she kept opening her mouth at me in a big excited face, and shaking her arms to show how excited she was. It will be so nice to have Slipshod home!

The Bug had a really rough evening yesterday. Part of the problem was definitely that she was tired - she did a little more running around yesterday than she has done for a while - and part of it probably also had to do with teething - the second lower molar is partway through the gums and this morning at breakfast it was bleeding and she kept sticking her fingers in her mouth, crying - but I have to wonder if her grumpiness yesterday evening might also have had to do with Slipshod's absence. She definitely had a different attitude about the situation yesterday. She didn't ask more than once or twice where Dada was. And she is absolutely missing him.

Oh well - we just have to make it through today and then we'll get to see him in the morning. Yay!

As far as surviving around the house without Slipshod, we've done just fine this week. I was really good about actually cooking (when he's home I far too often ask him to pick up dinner on the way home), keeping up with the dishes and laundry - even the litter box. Of course we've got our usual clutter, but I did attack one or two little clutter spots, and keeping up with the laundry is a huge deal to me because we had a ton of extra sheets to wash last week. I never got my grocery list written last weekend and Slipshod had been going to do a shopping trip for us before we left since he usually does most of the grocery shopping, so I was a bit worried about attempting a big trip with both girls, but we did it on Monday and everything went really well. So I'm feeling pretty darn good. We had a good week despite Slipshod being out of town.

Okay, now I feel like I'm babbling, so I'll stop now. Last night I completely forgot to cut the veggies for tonight's dinner, so I'm going to do that now, as well as get Sweet Pea dressed for school and all that good stuff. Wish me luck! Eep!

I can't think of a title right now

The Scene:

Last night.
I'm in the master bathroom doing my best to get the kids ready for bed. Sweet Pea, who is wearing her usual uniform of only a pair of Hello Kitty underwear, has just been playing peek-a-boo around the door frame with either her daddy or her sister, both of whom are in the bedroom. Sweet Pea jerks her head back too quickly in the excitement of the game and bonks the side of her head; I hear her glasses make a noise when her head hits the door frame.

Sweet Pea is crying really hard and I'm on my knees holding her, trying to soothe her, but laughing my ass off.

Why am I laughing?

Because the Bug has walked into the bathroom and, oblivious to her sister's pain and suffering, has noticed the most fun thing at eye level: The kitty undies on her sister's bum. She pats enthusiastically at the kitties & thus her sister's bum with both hands.

"Kitty!" she screeches in glee.

She then proceeds to sign "cat" on her sister's bum, rather than on her own face, where one would usually sign "cat" by pulling the hands in opposite directions to show the imagined whiskers of a cat.

THEN - oh yes, it gets even better - The Bug leans toward the cute kitties - remember, on Sweet Pea's undies - and makes kissing noises with her mouth.

I nearly dropped the sobbing Sweet Pea in my giggle fit.

**For the record, Sweet Pea is fine and was only crying so hard because she was tired. I mean, I'm sure it hurt, too, but things affect her more intensely when she's tired, y'know what I mean? And - I was laughing silently, so Sweet Pea's feelings were not hurt in last night's incident.**

Blogger? I Don't Even Know Her!

Some pictures to grab your interest. Sweet Pea wrote "Mommy" and "Daddy" all by herself, without anyone telling her how to spell them! She has of course had help before and since then, but that time she did it by herself, and was absolutely thrilled with herself about it, as were Slipshod and I.

Sweet Pea & Speed Racer often draw together with chalk on Speed Racer's driveway or front walk. Well, actually, they draw separately, because Sweet Pea has a hissy fit if Speed Racer draws or walks on anything she draws. So I guess Speed Racer was admiring Sweet Pea's drawing in the picture above...

I was trying to take a picture of Sweet Pea's drawing. She said it was "a cat making machine." Yes, I have read her the book about "Where Babies Come From," and it includes where kittens come from, but... well, she has a very silly uncle who draws funny things for her and puts silly ideas into her head. I'm pretty sure that's where this came from - a discussion with him. And her own imagination, of course, because that discussion with him occurred practically a year ago.

The Bug likes to draw, too. She'll scribble around and then declare to me, while pointing at her drawing, "Kitty!" ha ha ha! Some of our friends thought it was amazing that we could tell by age 2 that Sweet Pea was left-handed. Well, we've been able to tell since she was 6 months old that The Bug is undeniably, overpoweringly right-handed. There is just no question.

And now on to other things...

Okay, yes, again, we're still here. Just enduring life coming at us like a charging buffalo.

My throat has hurt for about five days now but I think it's safe to say that I did not get Strep - just some kind of thing. The sore throat is my only symptom and it's better in the morning and worse at night. But doesn't really get in the way too-too much.

Slipshod, however, started having a sore ear last Thursday night and was convinced that he had a zit in his year. But then it got worse and worse over the weekend, to the point where he could barely function. Yesterday the girls and I took him all the way down to see our old doctor because Slipshod and I still haven't found ourselves a doctor up here - and it turns out that he has a rather advanced case of swimmer's ear. He's treating it now not just with antibiotic ear drops, but also with an oral antibiotic, since it had gotten so bad that his jaw hurt too. He is still in bad shape today and the pain kept him awake most of last night.

Sweet Pea missed school yesterday since we were out driving so far to the doctor, etc. This morning she has a sore throat. GAH.

The Bug had been sleeping really well for a few nights, but the last two have been miserable - rolling around, waking up again and again, and last night she was pretty much awake and crying if there was no nipple in her mouth. I guess we're on to cutting the next molar. I'll have to poke around today, at the risk of getting bitten, to determine which molar is on its way through her gums now.

I finally found time over the weekend to send a catch-up e-mail and some family pictures to an old friend who has been in Iraq for 3 months, with 12 more to go. Hadn't talked with him in, oh, 10 years or so... so there was a lot to tell. This is his second tour over of duty over there.

Okay, I guess duty calls... one of the hungry cats just attacked my foot, and I need to see how bad Sweet Pea's throat is. I hope she can still go to school today...

Post Script: Sweet Pea has a bit of a fever. It's not bad, but it's there, so her school will thank me to keep her home another day, I'm sure. Sigh. I hope it's gone tomorrow - I hate that she's missing school already, and yesterday wasn't even because she was sick! Grumble.

Post Post Script: We were hoping to avoid this, but there's no getting around it - Slipshod's company is sending him to Portugal next week. Joy. Only for a week, but still - I can often barely make it through a day until he gets home and keep my sanity. I hope that everyone will be recovered from our various illnesses and infections before he flies out.

Rambling Update

I'm glad I have girls. Because I just can't stand the halfway hairstyle the boys are wearing right now. I mean, actual long hair is one thing, and I know you have to go through a halfway stage to get there. But keeping it cut so that it's perpetually in that halfway state with the bangs in the eyes drives me nuts.

My parents were here on Wednesday-Thursday this week for a visit. It was great to see them but their assessment of The Bug always sort of wigs me out. I remember after she turned a year old and started walking, my dad said something like, "now you're really in trouble." I couldn't figure out why, but one of the books I have that talks about the different ages and developments said that after 1 is a stormy time for some kids because they're exploring independence, etc. Anyway, The Bug has been described as a "spitfire," a "live wire," and one of my mother-in-law's friends says that it looks as if she's embracing her hair color.

I dunno... for us it's just day-to-day living. The Bug is definitely louder and more climby and runny and apt to do dangerous things than her big sister was at the age of 15 months. But she's also rather attached to both me and her daddy, loves to sit in our laps and hug and kiss us, etc.

There are days, however... Like yesterday, for example. The Bug started running amok and screaming, etc. right after breakfast, and didn't really stop for the rest of the day. She's having fun most of the time, but I'm having to run like the wind to keep up with her. She even wrenched away from me a couple times in the parking lot when we were walking back to the car after picking up Sweet Pea from school. Yikes! Now I am actually beginning to see why some parents put their kids in harnesses on leashes... no kidding.

Sweet Pea's school had us make earthquake kits for our kids, which I thought was pretty cool. In case of emergency the school has water, blankets, etc., but they asked us to put a bottle of water and two days' worth of food into a gallon-sized ziploc bag with our child's name on it and take those to school for them to have on hand in case of an emergency. It took us a while to get ours figured out and put together since the school is a nut-free zone (due to deadly allergies that some of the students have) and Sweet Pea doesn't eat meat for the most part. Even if she did eat meat I couldn't see her consenting to eat jerky, even if she were hungry. We eventually decided that just those "cheese" and cracker things with the red plastic spread sticks - I know you know what I'm talking about - would have to do for protein, and the rest is freeze-dried and dried fruit. I also, at the school's very good suggestion, included a note to Sweet Pea from us so that if she actually is ever stuck at school during an emergency, she will know that we know of the situation and will be there to get her as quickly as we can, etc. She already has pictures of us in her cubby at school, so I think she's got the best we can give her in an emergency there.

Of course, even though the school called these "Earthquake Kits," this assignment made me actually think about and face the fact that in an emergency, which might not necessarily be an earthquake, my children and I could actually be separated. It's a hard thought to consider and I had truly never thought about it before. I think that's something you have to think about long enough to prepare for the eventuality, and then you have to put it away so you don't go crazy with worry.

This assignment for Sweet Pea's school also made me think about how unprepared we are at home for emergencies. There was a time when things were uncertain in 2001 when I did keep extra water, canned food, etc. on hand. I never had a true emergency kit, but now I'm thinking about that again - thinking that I really should put something together for our family so we're not SOL if something should happen. And honestly, I'm more worried about something awful actually happening nowadays than I used to be. Our president is clueless enough to think that Nelson Mandela is dead and that he can just trash talk nuclear nations as a matter of course. I need to stock up our emergency supplies.

In other news, Sweet Pea is so excited about writing that she has started making books! She'll staple a bunch of paper together, draw pictures, and then write little stories about the pictures. Of course, she does not know how to spell just anything and everything; she will sit down with a book and me, or Slipshod, or my mom, and ask how to write the sentences she has thought of. Still, it's pretty cool and she is JAZZED about knowing how to write the letters that make up words and sentences. She does know how to write some words by herself now: Cat (of course, ha ha), her name, and Mommy and Daddy. She also sat down the other day and wrote her numbers up to 11 and her 1s didn't look the way I taught her, so she is obviously learning numbers at school! It's really exciting to watch her learn and to hear the new songs she's learning, paintings she does, etc. She is just so excited about school, even though she misses me while she's there. It has become part of the school dropoff ritual now for her to say, after giving me a hug and a kiss, "It's time for me to go in now, Mama. I'm going to go." I love that she's learning how to set boundaries so well at such a young age.

Well, I could write more but I'd rather eat lunch and watch some TV while The Bug is sleeping (and Sweet Pea is at school). Then, lucky me, I have to go scrub two of the bathrooms, because we just found out that my mom, who was not feeling well while she and Dad were here, has a rather frightening and contagious GI infection. Joy.

Yup

We had a great Saturday - attended the baptism of our good friends' sweet little baby girl, got to see said friends and baby's big sister and even a bunch more good friends! It was a wonderful day, and getting to spend the day catching up with good friends finally made me get off my bootie and start setting dates to see more friends we haven't seen in way too long. Got things set up for the next two months. Hooray!

Other than that - they say that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. So I'm done. Way too tired and grumpy in general to be able to write a good post.

Oh, Hi!

Yes, I'm still here. Just can't seem to find the time to sit and write anymore. I'm lucky if I get to read my e-mail and peer quickly at two other people's blogs per day.

Things are going well. Sweet Pea settled right into school after our little hiccup (the forgotten hug & kiss) on the first day. She has not cried since, and thoroughly enjoys her time at school every day. She went so far as to describe her third day as "brilliant," which had me giggling. Every day she gives me a drawing, a painting or a piece of macaroni jewelry that she has made. I don't know what to do with it all, but am heartwarmed every time she comes running out of the classroom yelling, "MOMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!", throws her arms around me in a big hug, and says loudly, "I made this for YOU!" Happy mommy sigh.

This past week we reached a funny point with our goodbyes. Since that first day Sweet Pea has been very concerned about remembering our hug and kiss every day, and even goes so far as to give me at least ten kisses and a long hug. However, she seems very keen to get into the classroom as quickly as possible after the teacher unlocks the door and welcomes the children in, so we station ourselves near the door once the teacher arrives, give lots of hugs and kisses, and then she's all business and says, "Okay Mom, I'm going to go in there now." She stays to hear me say, "okay, have a wonderful afternoon, I'll pick you up in 2 1/2 hours," and then she's off like a flash to the door. It's so cute! Tee hee

At her school there are two teachers per class and one of them is always stationed by the door to welcome the children with a handshake, eye contact, and a warm verbal welcome. I really like that - it must make the children feel very noticed and cared about. Although watching Sweet Pea go in, it looks like she views the welcome as a necessary toll she has to pay to get into that fun, fun classroom. ha ha!

Many people have told me that The Bug will miss her big sister while she is at school, but she really does not show any sign of such a feeling. While she adores Sweet Pea and wants to be with her and doing what she's doing when Sweet Pea is home, Sweet Pea is pushing her away more often than not these days and not being very nice, so I venture to theorize that The Bug may actually be relieved to have some time without her sister. She (The Bug) and I have fun running errands just the two of us, or just playing at home. On days when The Bug does not take her nap right after breakfast, she naps the entire time Sweet Pea is at school, beginning as soon as possible after we get home from dropping off Sweet Pea, and ending either when The Bug wakes up, or when I wake her up to go pick up Sweet Pea. Those afternoons are super nice for me, since before this I almost never got a quiet portion of any day for myself. You'd think I could post on my blog during that time, but I usually "waste" most of that time instead, doing things like washing dishes, folding laundry, prepping for dinner, talking on the phone, reading other people's blogs, occasionally writing an e-mail, and finally sitting in front of the TV by myself, catching up on "my" shows, Monk and Psych. It's very difficult for me to get through those shows each week, since I figure it's not a good policy to watch murder mysteries while the girls are in the room, and Slipshod and I have different shows that we both enjoy that we watch together at night. This week if The Bug has a morning nap on any of the three middle days of the week, I'm planning to take her to some friends' house while Sweet Pea is at school, to visit said friend mommy and her twins. Yay!

In other news - you'll probably be reading this on Slipshod's & my 12th anniversary, which is Monday. We had his mom & her hubs come up on Saturday and spend the night. They watched the kids while we walked to a nearby sit-down restaurant and had a nice dinner. The plan had been for us to go back home after dinner, get the girls to bed, and then go out to a movie. However... during dinner I had second thoughts about going back. The two of us and the kids had gone to a birthday party in the pre-and after-noon part of the day and as a result The Bug had totally missed out her nap, with the result that she napped instead in the car on the way home and then again from 3:39pm-5:30pm. I was pretty sure that I would not be able to get her to sleep a mere 2 hours later, and couldn't bear the thought of leaving her again. When we left for dinner she was absolutely heartbroken and screamed and reached for us, etc. Since she had settled down while we were gone, I didn't want to shake everything up again, and due to her late nap and the fact that Sweet Pea had also slept in the car & would therefore not be tired at the usual time either, we decided to just head on out to the movie.

Well, Stardust was sold out at the first and closest-to-home theater where it was showing, so we had to drive back toward home and farther in the opposite direction (from the first theater) and go to a later show. Neither Slipshod nor I realized how crazy long that movie was going to be. It was sort of difficult to enjoy the movie with Slipshod, who recently read the book, almost constantly saying, "oh my god, why did they - what the f-," looking down, putting his hands over his eyes, and shaking his head. However, I did like most of it, though there were some REALLY obvious problems, like how did Tristan suddenly and without us seeing any introduction know Septimus near the end? I'm guessing that the scene where they met must be on the cutting room floor and the continuity people missed that inconsistency... I did enjoy getting out and having a date with Slipshod but not even halfway into the movie I felt incredibly tired and I felt a nearly uncontrollable need to be snuggling my baby and nursing and rocking her to sleep. I never worried about Sweet Pea - she's completely fine being left alone with her grandparents now, even at bedtime. But the baby? Not so much. And *I* missed *her* probably just as much as she missed me. But only after I'd been out of the house for the first 3 hours. hee hee. When we got out of the movie it was 10:30 and I pretty much ran to the car. And when we got home I ran to the front door, but it was locked and I didn't have my keys! Slipshod took his deliberate, sweet time getting his keys out of his pocket and opening the door - he's such a meanie sometimes.

When we got home we found all the lights on, but everyone but Grandma sleeping. Sweet Pea and her grandpa apparently took forever to get her ready for and into bed, and left all the lights on in the process, but The Bug fell asleep on Grandma, without any crying, before Sweet Pea even got her teeth brushed! Grandma was afraid of waking The Bug by setting her in the crib because she figured if The Bug woke up during the transition, she would start screaming for me and it would just be allllllll over. So Grandma stayed in the rocking chair and let the baby sleep on her until we got home. I got into my jammies as quickly as I could, took The Bug from Grandma, got into bed with the baby still sleeping on my chest, and just laid there, cuddling her. Half an hour later Slipshod came up for bed and didn't see The Bug when he peered in the dark into the crib. "Where's the Baby" he asked, and I said, "I'm still hugging her..." I did eventually roll her off my chest, onto the bed next to me and go to sleep. :o)

Changing the subject again - Sweet Pea's interest in spelling and writing words has been piqued, so every day she asks me how to spell whatever words she can think of, and I tell her, and she writes them. Often instead of just giving her the letters I ask her, "what makes the (whatever) sound?" and she answers, always correctly so far, and then goes and writes it. She gets so excited when she guesses the letters correctly, and she can spot her name and her sister's name on things because they each have a puzzle with their names, so she has seen them spelled out on a regular basis. She can also write her own name now without any help. Her words sometimes come out as a mirror image of how you and I would write them, but she's only 4 and just learning. My teacher sister tells me that that is normal until about the age of 9 and I should not give her a hard time about it - which I was never doing anyway - because correcting her too much might spoil her interest and make her stop wanting to learn. Someone else also suggested to me that the mirror image thing might happen with her because she is left handed. At any rate, she's writing and enjoying it very much.

There must be more I haven't written about, but I can only think of one more thing to tell right now: Today The Bug started calling me "Mommy" instead of "Mama." I remember being kind of sad when Sweet Pea made the switch, but it doesn't bother me this time. It's just so adorably cute how she says it that it makes me all melty - especially since she often says it while she's giving me big hugs and wanting me to hold her. Awwwww. :o)

Our Art Escapade

The Saturday before school began I took Sweet Pea to our local paint-your-own pottery studio, where she painted cat figurines for me and Slipshod, and I painted a butterfly-shaped trinket box for her. It took a full week for the place to finish with the firing and all, but we finally picked them up yesterday. Here they are, in their finished glory:

Sweet Pea is so into cats that she has books (given by her grandparents and others) that tell her more than she could sit still to learn right now, even about different breeds and how to show a cat at a cat show. Therefore, she has breed names running around in her head. She calls the big kitty figurine (above) on the left a "Russian Blue" - with polka dots, of course. ha ha! She painted that one for me. The other big one is a "Russian Green," and will be going to work with Slipshod to adorn his desk. She told me that she painted the teeny tiny kitty for The Bug, but I told her that The Bug can't play with it because it's small enough for The Bug to choke on. So that's what she's keeping in her butterfly trinket box. hee!

While we were at the studio painting the pottery Sweet Pea made lots of cute little comments about how it was nice that just she and I could get out, that she loves me (several times), and that she really likes doing fun things together, etc. It was nice just to be able to hang out with her alone. She also told me that she was adding "artist" to the list of things she wants to be when she grows up. The rest of the list (I feel like I have already posted this once or twice) is as follows: A cat sitter, a mom, and a basketball player. ha ha!