Cleaning Out the Car

Fi on those proclaim clean cars are necessary! Boo! Hiss!

I was forced to do a moderate amount of clean-out in ye olde minivan today, as my DD managed to lose something in the black hole car today. I had planned to take both urchins straight to the library, to get new library books, but then DD was complaining in the car about her shoes pinching her. Hmmm. Sure enough, those little toesies were wedged tight against the toe of the shoes, so I detoured to Old Navy first for some cheapy canvas sneakers and maybe a pair of sandals for the summer.

DS was not pleased with this turn of events, and alternately fussed and wailed at me from the Ergo as I sought to keep DD still for TWO SECONDS to get another pair of shoes on. Of course, she didn't like any of the first five pairs (naturally), but the minute DS finally gave up and fell asleep, she transformed magically into Angel Child and liked everything then. Hmmmmm.

So, armed with the two pairs of shoes (the canvas ones were on clearance, wahoo!) and some cheapy onesies & sun hats for DS, I whizzed through the non-existent checkout line to discover...hmmm...where is my wallet?? Oh crap. DD, who had pushed the button for the dog about a zillion times, had now discovered the seasonal 4th of July display and was pleading her case for a miniature soccer ball. Um, ok...I know that wallet is in here somewhere...

"I seem to have left my wallet at home--I'll be right back for this, ok?" The cashier said no problem and set our stuff aside with my name on it, while I experienced a mild case of panic as to where my wallet could be. Then I remembered needing my library card to check on whether our stuff was actually overdue (it was), so it was by my computer. A quick call home to DH confirmed this, and I zipped home to leave DS with DH while I returned with DD to complete the purchase.

So we got back to the store, leaving DS asleep at home, DH working away, and all is right with the world. DD had a brand new ball which she is very pleased with, and managed to drop it twice before we reached the car. I put her in with her ball, loaded the stuff, and off we went to the library. What a pleasure that was--no double stroller necessary, just holding DD's hand and enjoying her "reading" to the library dog. Cute!!

On the way home, I hear, "Mommy, get my balllll..." I searched for it when we got home, but couldn't find it under the avalanche of toys. *shrug* I figured I would find it later.

Well, it's later--and we don't have a ball. I found a ridiculous number of clothes hangers in the car (where the heck did those come from, anyway?), snow mittens, gloves, raincoat, hats, and enough stuffed animal toys to equip FAO Schwartz. A miniature soccer ball? ZIP! Completely, utterly gone. The only thing I can figure out, is she must have tossed it out of the car when I was putting in the shopping bag and my purse. Oh well. I don't think we got $5.50 of entertainment out of it.

Weekend Chaos & Laziness

Well our kitchen is still nearly done. I'm afraid we passed on finishing the kitchen punchlist in lieu of doing some outdoor work in the garden/yard. And, frankly, we just hung out with the kiddos around the house, and enjoyed a lovely picnic yesterday at a local park! DD was in heaven, as we got to see lots of birds and flowers, and she got to go down to the beach and make sand castles! That is her idea of heaven since seeing Caillou get to make sand castles, plus reading about Olivia making sand castles.

I caved and bought 8 tomato plants after getting yet another death warning from experienced gardeners here about growing tomatoes from seed so late. Ok, hokay, I GET THE MESSAGE! Well that's fine really--I bought several different types and they are different from the seeds I planted, so if I end up with a bunch of different tomatoes that's just fine by me. I planted 2 heirloom varieties: Legend and Brandywine. Also several "Early Girls", a Roma (ok, I guess that is a duplicate of what I sowed), grape tomato, Husky Gold, and Oregon (presumably another early fruiter). Then our neighbors with a shady yard showed up with 3 more "Early Girls" for us, on the condition that we share some of the bounty with them during the summer. No problem!!

I am such a little child about the garden. I have been running around EVERY DAY when I water it to see if the seeds have sprouted yet. Yes, I am a garden geek. I am even starting to learn the Latin names of my plants. Now I know I have the gardening bug pretty bad if I'm doing that. I shaded my eyes from view of the half-weeded shade bed...enh, I'll get around to it this week.

Oh, and DH put his knee through the seat of one of our dining room chairs. I am still not quite sure why he was kneeling on the chair anyway--they date to the Great Depression so they're not exactly spry young things any more, these chairs... Anyhoo, so that gives me another project, as now I have an excuse a reason to redo the seat covers. I wasted no time in bustling down to Joann's this morning to find some fabric for that little project. Funnily enough I found a fabric I originally bought six years ago to recover the piano bench (on clearance, no less), and so I will have matching fabric on the chairs! Woohoo! I also picked up a yummy faux suede in milk chocolate color to make a Roman blind for the kitchen window...as if I will get to *that* anytime soon, ha.

In any case, if you want to see pics of the kitchen redo, I have some posted at www.dropshots.com/stbridgit . Feel free to peruse at your leisure and scoff at my formerly outdated kitchen. Oh, to be bright and clean again...lalala. Maybe I will mount the handles on the other side today...then again, maybe I will just sit here holding DS in my lap while he sleeps. I have my priorities, you know.

Teething, Weeding, & Mousing

I am pretty sure DS is teething. He is not sleeping well during naps now and he is generally complaining about his lot in life with increasing volume. I know he is at the stage where he wants to do more than he has figured out how to do, but the general crankiness on top of it all seems to tip the scales toward cutting those first teeth. I can't remember when DD cut her first tooth--I am a slacker when it comes to baby books or scrapbooking, all those cutesy things. Sorry, if it's not something that I can finish in one session, I am just not going to be up for it. Witness the half-done cross-stitches abounding in my sewing bag. Curtains, bedspreads, that sort of thing--I can see immediate progress, and I can finish those in a few days. All other sewing, knitting, etc--sorry, not quick enough for me! I lose interest before I finish them.

To get off my tangent, I am wondering at what point I should start giving this kiddo teething tablets or Tylenol or the like. I really don't want to medicate my kiddos unless it's necessary, but I haven't got a good feel yet for when it's "necessary" with DS. This is the disadvantage of having a new little person, only 4 months old--it's not long enough to know him real well yet! Oh I know his cries, I know when he's hungry, etc, but the whole 'in pain' part has not factored in thus far, thank the Lord. So I think it will be a month or so before I finally decide what the threshold is for teething, and it will probably be when the little dude is screaming his head off and I can actually SEE a little red swollen bump on his gums. Until then he will have to tough it out--sorry buddy!

We did a mammoth work in the garden last weekend, DS's booger-ish behavior during naptime excepted. DH mowed every corner of our lot and also weed-whacked all the areas that needed it, including some particularly fine specimens of thistle that really ought not to have been allowed to get that big. I did some weed whacking myself, but I have never gotten the hang of the "bump" feeding of the string and so I was quite often stopping to manually unthread some more line and keep going. It was very annoying, so after blasting away around most of the playset and fire pit I happily handed it over to DH and focused on weeding. I managed to remove a good deal of weeds from the shade bed, happily rediscovering all the plants I actually planted in there last fall. They are all thriving, and I even have some lily of the valley in bloom! *swoon* I LOVE lily of the valley, so to have my own little flower stalk of them nodding away under the shade of my cedars just makes my heart happy. I also discovered that one of the weeds is unexpectedly spiny and it likes to stick to my gardening gloves. I would not be happy weeding without gloves, I think, especially since I was pulling up thorny salmonberry sprouts left right and center.

Lastly, we had our pest control person back out again today to treat a recurring mouse problem. Hmmm. DH saw TWO running around the house last night while I was at Bible study. Needless to say, everything on the floor has been through the washing machine today, and I was insistent that the guy actually get down into the crawlspace and try to find where they are coming in. He couldn't find any obvious places, but we now have traps in the house, some of which I have to keep DD away from. Oh goody. No snapping sounds thus far, but hopefully as it gets darker we will trap a few of the buggers. I'm all for protecting wildlife but I draw the line at uninvited guests in my house, especially of the disease-carrying variety. At least they are not glue traps and so they should be dispatched quickly. I strongly suspect we have some holes in the subfloor under the kitchen cabinets, and that is where they are getting in. It's also possible they were crawling through the wide-as-the-Nile cracks around our old doors, which were replaced on Wednesday with much fanfare & trumpeting! Yippee, our doors actually close and we can't see daylight around them! Plus they are fiberglass so much better insulating value--and we have some lovely glass in the front door now so that hallway is no longer as dark as pitch all day.

HAHAHA! DD has discovered the sprinkler outside and is insisting on running through it "with Daddy, Mommy, I want to do it with Daddy." Sure thing sweetie, as soon as he gets home! Hehe. Of course I will have to vacuum & mop the floors when she is not underfoot...drat. Maybe I can have a strawberry margarita while mopping. I'd love to say it will be alcoholic but I think we're out of tequila. Oh well...a frozen margarita will still hit the spot!

Why the Leviticus Study is Worth It

I am down to the penultimate week in my Leviticus study, and I'm glad I've stuck with it. I have not been viewing the videos, which is probably a good thing for me. It has helped me to retain perspective here, it's not just about how the person is teaching!

This week's study has focused on the Feasts of Israel--the mandatory holidays that God handed down to Moses for the Jewish people. What an amazing set of prophecies God handed down in these holidays! I just cannot get over how perfectly Jesus' life corresponds with all of the Jewish holy days!

Ok, the Jews were slaves in Egypt, but God sent a deliverer (Moses) and freed them from their slavery, and delivered them to the Promised Land. We are slaves to sin (John 8:34), but Christ came to sacrifice himself for us (the Passover Lamb, 1 Cor. 5:7), the punishment for our sin--thus freeing us from the slavery of sin! The First Fruits offering is a perfect foreshadow of Christ, who is the first fruit, raised from the dead (1 Cor. 15:20-23). The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost follows next, where the Jewish people gave an offering of leavened bread . At exactly the same time in Jesus' life, He ascended to heaven and the Holy Spirit was given to his church, which now included Gentiles who were grafted into the Chosen People...the leavening (unclean, Gentile) was added to the Chosen People (the unleavened bread). See Acts 2:1-47; 1 Cor. 12:13, Eph. 2:11-22. WOW!

But there is so much more--the Feast of Trumpets, a holy convocation of Israel before God (Jer. 32:37-41, Eze. 36:24). This is to come, when Israel is regathered in preparation for the final Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur; Eze. 36:25-27, Heb. 9-10, Rom. 11:25-29). This final day of atonement will see the return of Christ and the preparation of the world for final judgement, and the formal separation of those who have been atoned for (the church) and those who are not. Lastly, the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles--when the church will celebrate a new heaven & new earth, and God tabernacles with men (Eze. 36:28, Rev. 21:1-3).

There is more--it is a pretty well accepted fact that Jesus was conceived during the Festival of Lights--the Light of the World! Pretty appropriate! And Hwas born during the Feast of Tabernacles--God had indeed come down to tabernacle with man. It is probable that Joseph & Mary were actually sheltering in a sukkoth, a temporary structure built by tradition during the Feast of Tabernacles, to remind the Jewish people how they wandered in the wilderness with no permanent home, waiting for God to reveal the Promised Land. We know He was killed during Passover...the final Passover Lamb.

I wish I could tell you how exciting this is to me. God has a plan, and it is so perfect. How could the Jewish people not see? How could they miss this perfect fulfillment of every prophecy concerning the Messiah? Jesus fit every description, to a tee--and even the timing of His birth, immaculate conception, and death and resurrection fit with the holy days God Himself had ordained. It is all there, you just have to see it. But as my friend pointed out recently, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day." (Romans 11:8). I am so sad for those who cannot see the Truth! I pray that someday God will open their eyes and they will see how perfectly He has ordained His church.

Random Thoughts from Today

1. Gassy baby during the night means Poopfest the next day. DS has had WAAAAAAY too many poopy diapers today, and he doesn't have diarrhea. The kid was just storing it all up, causing the gas pain last night, and today it's like his body hit the "evacuate" button. Can I just say this is NOT my favorite part of babyhood?

2. DH & I watched a Nightline program we recorded a week ago, something like that, which had Kirk Cameron (you know, Mike Seaver from Growing Pains) on debating the existence of God with 2 atheists. First of all, it was a major cop-out by Nightline to not show the whole debate. Second, calling someone's argument stupid and not worth responding to and other names does not make you a good debater, it just makes your argument appear weak. The atheists' tendency to use cuss words or equally offensive names for the rationale put forward by Kirk and his fellow evangelist just made them seem ill-prepared and emotional. Grow up people--just because you disagree with someone does not make their beliefs or statements "stoo-pid". It was like watching two third graders try to debate. Third, come on Kirk, couldn't you do better than some crappy Photo-shopped pictures of "transitional" animals that belong in a kid's book about mixing up animals? There are plenty of good arguments about the limitations of evolution--witness biochemist Michael Behe's book, "Darwin's Black Box". There are molecular microbiologists with well respected careers who have put forward a standing challenge for someone to show evolution between 2 different bacterial species. That challenge remains open, 17 plus years later. You don't have to go to cartoon level to make a few solid points on that score. All in all it was an irritating waste of time.

3. Waterproof crib liners are *so* worth it. DD went down for her nap as usual, but insisted on no shirt. Fine, whatever. I go check on her two plus hours later because she hasn't asked to get up and I was worried--there she sits, naked as a jay bird, in a wet puddle! All her stuffed animals that she sleeps with were likewise enveloped in the pee puddle, as well as her blanket. Hmmm. One cleaned up DD later, and all of it was thrown into the washing machine. I meant to do laundry today anyway...

4. Note to self: planting vegetable seeds takes longer than you think it does, and it also causes the occasional back twinge two hours later. But on the bright side, we have tomatoes, corn, peppers, strawberries, onions, chives, potatoes, carrots, squash, watermelon, and pumpkins sown. Oh and peas too. Hopefully this will result in a bounty of fresh veggies in 3 months or so! And I'm sure that back twinge will benefit from the application of a few Cosmopolitans later this evening...yes indeedy I do...

5. DD is getting pretty good at drawing! Her faces have eyes, nose, mouth, all in the right place, and she is doing a very passable Larry and Bob from Veggie Tales, complete with stems! Not bad for 2 years, 4 months old!! She is now plonking away on the piano...when do you start music lessons anyway? Hmmmmm. Yet another thing to check on, along with preschool. I am such a slacker mom. Hehe.

Silent in the Corner

I've just realized that I have not sat down and actually played my harp, really played, for over a year. Um, where did the time go? How sad is that?? In point of fact, I actually have a broken harp string, 3rd octave B, and I have yet to change it (even though I did order the replacement string from Vanderbilt and it has been sitting there on the corner shelf for about two months).



At least my music stand is there. Most of my music is still disorganized and packed away in a box somewhere in our cottage (not part of the house). I have plenty of exercises that I could be doing to get my fingers back in shape...I'm pretty sure my Fruh book is sitting over there. I actually even ordered some Christmas sheet music, because I really do want to play this year at church for Christmas. However, I am being realistic and giving myself seven months to learn it and practice!



I miss my harp teacher. She was a bit acerbic but she knew darn well when I hadn't been playing and would rap my knuckles (figuratively speaking) when she knew I was flubbing along and just making my best effort, having not practiced my pieces for a week. She even had a gold pair of nail clippers and if my fingernails were too long and hitting the strings as I played she would say, 'Ahem' and hand them to me, and wait patiently while I clipped the offending nails, the remnants disappearing into her carpet. (As an aside, she was a very tidy person so I don't know how she stood having students clipping their fingernails over her carpet all the time but I guess she must have vacuumed a lot!)



I do miss playing. I feel somewhat disconnected from it now, and I look at my harp, which is really quite beautiful, and it seems almost surreal that I can actually, you know, play it. Sort of like something I did in a fairy land and now that I'm a grown up and SAHM I couldn't possibly have time for THAT. Well, I want to have time for that.



Part of the difficulty of course is that my darling daughter is intrigued by it, so whenever I have the cover off she is right there, twanging the strings and wanting to stand on the pillar and 'play'. If I start playing, she rushes over and starts twanging along with me, which frankly I can't have while I am trying to remember to hold my hands properly on the strings and also sight read music (which I still suck at) and figure out the tempo and oh yeah remember there is a pedal change there oops...yeah. I can't have anyone distracting me, or it just gets incredibly frustrating and fruitless really quickly.

I wish I could figure out a solution here. My life right now does not lend itself to regular practice at the same time every day, and even with naptimes the problem is that I might well wake up the kiddos if I were to start playing. It doesn't sound exactly melodious when I'm learning a piece! I don't even know where my tuner is, and I'm using my back-up tuner with a metal clip that I have to clip to the tuning pins. Hmmmmm. I bought this great book of Selah music, and it has this awesome song, "Rose of Bethlehem", that I would love to play for Christmas. But it's arranged for piano (yeah, good luck finding stuff arranged for the harp...don't even get me started on that, even with Sylvia Woods' catalog it's like a needle in a haystack) so I will probably have to do some changes to make it work for the harp. And that is work, and time, and well, I'm sort of short on those two things nowadays. Suggestions, anyone?

Being Good Hosts & Good Guests

DH & I have commented on how few of our friends actually host parties these days. It seems that it is too much work to have a bunch of people over to your house at the same time, so no one does it. In the five plus years that we lived in Arizona, we attended exactly *five* parties hosted at someone else's house. One was a Halloween party, one was a birthday party, one was a work party, and two were housewarming parties. I'm not talking about kiddo birthday parties, I'm talking about for adults, general conversation and chatting and wine & cheese, grown up parties.

What is so intimidating about hosting a party? You clean your house (which hopefully isn't that much of a disaster area to start with), you arrange chairs, buy some party platters or make your own, ask your friends to bring something to share (our favorite way to keep costs down), and throw on some tunes when people start showing up. Is that so difficult to organize? Oh, I suppose you should send an email or actual invitation to the party, too, but thanks to websites like evite, etc, that is easier than ever. Phone calls work too for informal invitations.

Perhaps it's not the mechanical aspects of hosting (clean house, organized food/drink, etc), but rather the gross inability of people to organize their own schedules and commit to a specific date. We've mused to some friends about this oddity, and they say, "Oh, but a party is so much work...who has time for that?" Um, it's not that much work, folks.

Do people just not entertain any more? Even getting invited to someone's house for dinner is pretty rare nowadays, in our experience. I don't think it's just us--maybe it is, maybe we are just unpopular! *LOL* Nope, seriously, I don't think so--we had over 50 people in our house for our St. Patrick's Day party, so we aren't *that* disliked. We invite people over all the time, and they are always shocked that we actually cook for them, you know, from scratch! It's like the response is, "I have heard of this thing you do, this 'cooking from scratch'...how do you find time to do it?" Em, we would have asked you over anyway if we were having take-out, it's just not a big deal to us to have some extra folks at the dinner table. We do make an effort to pick up, unless it's our best friends, in which case, well, they've seen our house at its worst so it doesn't matter what state it's in! Heck, during grad school we even had friends over for take-out pizza & a rented movie, and we were all in our PJs because it had been one of those weeks, and damn, we were tired! As I recall 2 spouses dozed off during the movie and when #3 fell, the movie was declared done with 20 odd minutes to go and they toodled off home.

I guess I am just puzzled because people seem to be lacking in the training or desire to host others at their homes. The best friends we've made here since moving a year ago are those people who have actually offered the hospitality of their table to us and we have reciprocated in kind. There is something very satisfying about breaking bread with others, and it's a very nice gesture of respect and friendship.

People also seem to not know how to be good guests. Right now we have a standing invitation to 2 couples for dinner & a board game night--we are putting our eldest kiddo to bed early, babies are welcome, and we are just going to enjoy some good food and chill out over a game of Scattergories or the like. First, one of the couples was unsure about the date we suggested. We told them we are very flexible, no problem, just let us know. It took almost 2 weeks to get a date, and even then, there was some uncertainty because the wife had some commitments earlier in the day and wouldn't be home until late. Hokay...you can just say it's a bad day, you know...that's ok! Hemming and hawing, "no, no, that's fine, it will work"; and we trudged along with that date in mind. Then, the Sunday before that date, couple #2 tells us at church, "I'm so sorry, DH forgot to tell me about this appointment he made months ago for that night, can we possibly move it to next weekend?" I said, "Sure, no problem--that's Memorial Day weekend, though. I will have to check with Couple #1 to see if they are going to be in town. Are you guys going to be in town?" "Oh yes, we are going to be here--that would be great. Thank you so much!"

So I go and talk to Couple #1, and they say, "Yeah, sure, no problem, we are going to be here." I feel horrid changing it at relatively late notice but Couple #1 is very nice about it.

Now, today, guess what? I have heard nothing from Couple #2, in fact we haven't even seen them at church and as they are busy and we are busy we just assume (as you do) that all is well and we are heading toward dinner & games this coming Saturday--and now I get an email. "I'm sorry, DH forgot to tell me about this arrangement he made to see some friends of ours, we are going to be out of town this weekend! We haven't seen them for a year, so we really have to go--is there any way we can move it again? We can't make it the weekend of June 2nd, how about June 9th? Would that be okay?"

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! No, it's not okay!! We are going to be going on vacation! And how is it that you didn't talk to your husband last week when I specifically asked you if you were going to be in town this coming weekend??? And we have another commitment on June 2nd! Arrgghh! I am not cancelling or moving on Couple #1 again, we are just going to go ahead and have them over without Couple #2. Maybe we will try to get another couple too, or we will just go ahead with just Couple #1. We have had several nice dinners/lunches with them and I think it will be another nice night regardless.

Another recent example of being bad guests. We invited our neighbors over to dinner while my ILs were here, because we knew they would have a good time chatting and we had been to their house several times and we wanted to reciprocate. So I called and arranged for them to come over on a Sunday night for dinner (a holiday weekend) and our neighbor said, "Ok, just let me know what I can bring," to which I replied, "Well I don't know what we are making yet, and we will probably have everything covered--but if I think of something I will let you know." So we went ahead with our lives and I bought a pot roast, all the trimmings, lovely bread, and baked a great cake, everything. My brother and his family happened to decide, spur of the moment, to come down that weekend to visit with my ILs (they love them, it's a long story but suffice it to say they wish they were directly related!) and spent Saturday night. I had told them we were having company for dinner, so they cleared out at about 4 pm to go back to their hometown and we (me, DH, FIL, & MIL) set about frantic house cleaning and dinner preparations for the neighbors, who were due at 6 pm. The appointed time came and went, and I called our neighbors at 6:15 to find out if I had misspoken and said 6:30 or 7 instead. Our conversation:

"Hi X, it's Y from next door. Listen, I was just wondering if I told you 6:30 tonight instead of 6?"

"Oh, hi Y. Oh...oh--oh I'm so sorry. We'll be right over. Let me talk to (DH)."

"Ok, great, we'll see you in a few minutes!"

I hung up, and the phone rang again about 30 seconds later.

"Hi Y, it's X. Listen, I'm so sorry, but DH is tired and to be honest we already ate our dinner, so we're not going to come over."

(a brief moment of stunned silence from me) "You ate dinner? Oh. Did you forget about dinner tonight here?"

"No, I saw you had company and you never called me back to let me know what I could bring, so I just assumed you changed your mind."

"Uh, no. Obviously there has been a miscommunication. I'm sorry, I should have called you to confirm. I just thought it was all squared away. We'll try again another time." (I really fumbled around because I was just stunned that someone would assume that because I hadn't told them to bring something and saw a strange car in the driveway that it was cancelled!!)

"Yes, really sorry about that Y. Enjoy your dinner."

Um, words cannot express the irritation and anger that we all experienced over that one. My ILs thought we should never invite them over again! A bit melodramatic, and certainly how we felt at the time, but fortuitously we have smoothed over that little incident and have a perfectly friendly relationship with them still. However, I still am amazed that someone would just assume that dinner plans were cancelled without at least picking up the phone to ask, "What can I bring for dinner on Sunday?" or "Hey, I saw you have company--are we still on for dinner tonight?"

I admit that I have my faux pas when entertaining, too. I have forgotten to offer guests drinks or something to snack on when they are visiting us, and I have forgotten to ensure that enough toilet paper was available in the bathroom. But really, is it *that* difficult to be a host, or a guest these days? Come on, people, let's learn how to do hospitality again!

Hey Little Booger

A general memo to DS, aged 4 months:

Ok little booger, you have succeeded in bringing your mommy inside when it's a beautiful day out--sunny, not too hot, just a little breezy. And you successfully lulled me & your daddy into thinking you were all snuggled up for your nap, at the appointed time, exactly when your big sister went down for her nap.

We know that you don't understand this, but it is the FIRST TIME in, oh, MONTHS that the weather has cooperated, our schedules have cooperated, and we are both *committed* to getting the yard work DONE, including all weeding, weed whacking, weed spraying, weed blasting, weed removal and general nuisance plant removal. Grass mowing is even now commencing with your father at the helm of the trusty lawn mower, and yet, you sit pouting in your swing and fussing at me as if to say, "Hold me Mommy, hold meeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Kiddo, you are very young, but you have to understand--we do not live in sunny Arizona any more, where it is always sunny and the weather is pretty gosh darn predictable, if at times a little too hot. No, we now live in the Pacific Northwest, where it will try to rain on you even when it is sunny, as if it has lured you outside and now must attempt to spit on you by its very nature. And in fact, it is even now attempting to do this and ruin the chance to get copious amounts of yardwork done.

We have weeds trying to grow on top of weeds. We have a huuuuuuge vegetable bed just waiting for seeds & water so we can grow lots of tasty veggies for you to eat later this summer. Just imagine, your very first fruits and veggies could come from OUR yard! Mommy can almost see the plants that are supposed to be there in her shade bed, which she created when you were growing in her tummy. It's all there kiddo, all this potential, and in order to realize our dream (ok I admit this may be a bit of hyperbole, but it's certainly a fond hope) of having a tidy yard, you HAVE to go to sleep now! Your sister is very cute but when it comes to helping in the garden she is of the "Let's go visit Miss X (neighbor) Mommy!" and "I want to dig Mommy, let ME do it" and frankly we just can't get a lot done with her help. So son, I'm afraid I am insisting that you go back to sleep and let me get back outside and back to work! Please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?

DS's response: "Gah! Ah? Blurp." Wide eyed and still complaining at the end of this post. *sigh*

Irish Imports

One of the mixed blessing/curse aspects of being married to a "ferenner", as my mom says with her Southern twang, is that I have been spoiled to some of the lovely treats & habits of my Irish in-laws. While I am normally one to fully appreciate home-baked goodies and their intrinsic value of being notches higher than anything you can buy in a store, I confess I have fallen in love with some garden variety off-the-shelf treats found at your local Dunnes, Tesco, Superquinn or their loftier, snobbier cousins, the Marks & Spencers brands of same.

Oh, the Jaffa Cake! What a delectable treat, which I believe I have rhapsodized about before. Soft vanilla spongecake topped with orange marmalade and then coated in a delectable dark chocolate that cracks perfectly (as all good tempered chocolate should) when you bite into it. Mmmmmmm. And Cherry Bakewells are a particular weakness of mine...I absolutely adore this crumbly pie. It has yummy almond filling topped with raspberry jam and then a thick layer of vanilla fondant icing, topped with a half cherry. YUM-MY!! My DH's particular favorite is Viennese Whirls--vanilla buttercream cakes with whipped cream and raspberry jam fillings.

So when I got an email from Goodwood's British Market (curse the world wide web, anyway...these are all treats I should not be able to get since I am about 5500 miles away from the nearest Tesco or Superquinn!) saying that all Mr. Kiplings cakes were on sale, I crumbled like the super-short crust on their tasty treats. I have ordered seven assorted varieties, yes I said seven and yes I know I am dieting and Lord the Weight Watchers POINTS but they are SO GOOD and I only eat one at a time, I am not going to devour them all! I will be good. They will last several months in our pantry, just like the Trader Joes goodies we bought Wednesday. See, I haven't even cracked open any of the TJs chips or crackers, I am being good...I know better than to eat it all up within the first few weeks.

I wasn't even going to open the Goodwoods email. But DH ran out of his Irish sausages from Tommy Moloneys, so I had to order some more for him. They are the best Irish sausages you can buy state-side, and are a nice little treat when we have the occasional breakfast for dinner or Irish-style fry-up for lunch on the weekend. I don't like sausages, though, you see, so after buying 6 lbs for DH I was feeling a bit deprived of special treats myself. Of course at the time I did not think about all the goodness from Trader Joes that is in our pantry--no, I just thought DH is getting 6 lbs of sausages and it's such a nice treat for him, but woe is me there is nothing special here for MEEEE and I should get some special treats TOOOOO because I am being a good girl Mommy and... Oh wait. That is what my DAUGHTER says to me. Hmm...I am beginning to see where she gets it. Oh dear.

Well, at least it's in the budget, and I have a balanced checkbook again (miracle of miracles, praise God for letting me get through balancing our checkbook and paying bills today!). And I still have some money left over to go toward our vacation next month. We are borrowing our neighbor's RV and hitting the open road with the kiddos to visit a national park. Yippee! Hey, now I know what special treats are coming along in the pantry!

Oh yes, and I've figured out the cost of our shower tiling, just in case you were wondering. Far less than $1000--and probably more like $500, if we design the tile layout properly. Woohoo! Still haven't gotten the "yes" from DH, but he knows it's coming...HA! God is good, all the time.

The Temptations of Trader Joes and Chipotle

Last night DH & I decided to make the 50 mile haul to Trader Joes to stock up on essentials. With gas prices as high as they are here ($3.33/gallon...*sob*) it may seem strange to drive that far for what is just a grocery store to a lot of people.

Oh, but it is so much MORE than a grocery store! Ok, maybe not, but they do have a lot of high quality foods that you can't find for such a low price anywhere else. They also have the best selection of organic staples I have found anywhere outside of our overpriced local specialty grocer. So since we use so many of their things, it's worth it for us to make that drive every four months to stock up.

And stock up we did. I had a 20 item list of staples that are used routinely in cooking around here, and for each item we were buying between 4-6 duplicates. That's a lot of Trader Joes purchasing! It works out to about $50 per month. I have to remember to take that money OUT of the grocery budget!!

Anyway, we did not fall into the typical "we're hungry and it's dinnertime and we're grocery shopping" trap because we ate dinner first at Chipotle Mexican Grill. *swoon* Ok, Chipotle Mexican Grill is my absolute favorite best-est Mexican 'fast' food joint ever ever EV-ER! We love Chipotle so much we are even stockholders. I just cannot resist the lure of their chicken fajita burrito...come to me my lovely. It just turns me into the Cookie Monster, I gobble it up as fast as I can. I was soooo hungry in the car all the way there, my taste buds were just primed for that burrito creation. I snaffled it up in about seven minutes flat, and I was all set to go through the line and get ANOTHER one when my DH reminded me of the whole Weight Watchers thing and how I said I was really serious about wanting to lose these baby lbs. and regain my slim size 12 college self. Well, poo! I really could have eaten that second burrito without a hesitation, but I said no. I did get myself a burrito bol (everything sans tortilla) so I could bring it home and recreate that Chipotle goodness using my own tortilla today. MMMMMmmmmmmmm......Chipotle....*ogoglloglglggllgg* (my shorthand for the Homer drool noise)

In any case, we did not buy a ton of Trader Joes cookies (we bought only 3 packages which were on our list, TYVM), nor did we buy a ton of stuff because it looked good. We stuck to our list! At Trader Joes! The most tempting shopping "I feel good because it's mostly healthy stuff" destination! Woohoo! I didn't get a second burrito to devour minutes after the first at Chipotle! Willpower won the day. Now I just need to put away all the TJs dry goods and forget they are in my pantry. Ha!

Saving Money to Spend Money

So I am in a trial of the Grocery Game and I am enjoying saving money on our groceries. Coupons and such are not the most exciting, but they do save you money! Yesterday I saved more than I spent, and that is a great feeling. I think the checker was somewhat grumpy since I was using several competitor's coupons and he had to enter each one manually, but hey, I wasn't going to drag the urchins to several stores for no good reason.

The problem I'm finding with saving money is that I always have something else I want to spend it on. Yes, now I am looking at our fiberglass shower in the master bedroom with distaste. It is the only thing in there that is not new, and it's completely non-functional for our shampoo storage & shaving my legs. I need a bench or ledge or SOMETHING to prop my legs on while I shave! Let me tell you, Yeti legs are so not pretty in summer shorts. And I never seem to get all the spots so I end up with these weird patches of leg hair that look like someone has glued dark fuzz to my legs (especially at the knees--gad, don't look at my knees!).

Anyway, I think we can tile it ourselves and save some money. When I mentioned this idea to DH, he said (after doubling over with laughter), "No." Hmmmmmm. I pointed out the inadequacies of what we have, and he still is saying no. However, he concedes that I am like a dog with a bone and he has a nasty feeling that he is going to be learning to use a tile saw and we are going to be ripping out our shower and tiling it.

So I save $100 on groceries and look to spend $1000 on a refurbished shower. Hmmm. Something is off there! *LOL* Well, at least a refurbed shower would prevent us needing to do a gut remodel of the bathroom as it would fix the last issue I have with the space. Yes, it's small, but that would make it perfect for our needs. So we would really be saving $20,000... ;)

Gah!!

Just when you think you are busy, you get busier! This is going to be quick because DS doth loudly protest his confinement in the swing, but I'm trying to be better about blogging regularly.

So, I have the cabinet doors & drawers to finish for the kitchen. We need to paint one tiny wall near the bird cage to have that done, and I have to talk DH into fixing the pantry door so I can prime & paint it, too. Then I will get to put on the handles and reorganize the chaos of our kitchen, and FINALLY post pretty pictures! I can't wait!

We also rented a sodcutter and cut out a huge veggie garden...and I mean huge. It's about 30' x 12', and another part (it's sort of a wacky L-shape) that is 8' x 10'. I've already got a gazillion strawberry plants in (most free), and onions, and chives, and some potatoes. Still waiting for the potatoes to sprout but hope springs eternal. Now we just have to finish removing the sod we forgot to cut (oops) and then I have 3 kinds of sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, squash, pumpkin, & watermelon to plant! Woohoo!

Did I mention that we cut out a new flowerbed lining the sidewalk, and also sowed that with flower seeds? And I have a ton of weeding to do that I've put off in lieu of these other "fun" projects. I mowed through about 9 loads of laundry yesterday, so that's at least 1 thing that is caught up!

Hmmm, he is really getting upset now. I think my plans to do some sanding and priming during naptime are being flushed down the drain by this little guy. Probably gassy again. Bummer. Enforced relaxation, that's what it is! Oh, and I still have to do today's homework for Precepts. At least I am doing it--I am caught up for this week, just have to get today's lesson done. Phew!

Someone tell me how I got all this done when I was working full-time??

"But I don't want to!"

So, I am in a women's Bible study. We do "Precept Upon Precept" studies, which are in-depth studies of the books of the Bible, requiring homework for 5 days each week and discussions every week at our meetings. Tonight is my Bible study night, and I have done none of my homework for the week. Yep, I've been really bad.

I am having trouble with this particular study. It is on the book of Leviticus. Now, if you're not familiar with it, let me just say that you could call it God's Book of Rules for Israel (well we know the whole Bible is that, but I'm making a point here). It's full of "You shouldn't eat animals if their hooves aren't split, nor if they don't eat grass" and how the priests will diagnose someone with leprosy (not just leprosy the disease, but the Hebrew word used also means any skin disease) and what they have to do to be clean again, etc. Put blankly, it can be a pretty dry read.

I am actually learning a lot from this study, even though I have a bad attitude. It's pretty amazing how these rules actually protected Israel from disease at a time when there was zero knowledge about bacterial contamination and the spread of communicable illness. God is good! I do enjoy our class discussions, too. I just have a hard time getting excited about doing the homework.

Really though, I think my main problem here is with the video accompaniment to the study. We watch them every week, and for a start, this series' video lecture is twice as long as it is normally. It's a Thursday evening, I'm tired--I do not want to be in a darkened room watching a video for an hour. A half hour is about all I can take.

Secondly, the lady who is teaching it this time, while a very educated & astute person (she actually founded Precepts), has a teaching style which drives me absolutely insane. She does not have any clear organization to her lecture--no start point, no end point. She jumps around the Bible (not a bad thing by itself, but annoying when there doesn't seem to be a point or clear line of thought tying it all together) and has this habit of addressing her audience as "Precious one". Ok, this was probably filmed before the LOTR trilogy came out, but every single time she says it I just picture Golem saying, "My preeeeecioooouusssssssss..." I just can't stand it! And it's so cheesy televangelist! Hate it!

It is bad enough that it is souring me on the whole study. I like learning about Leviticus, but I'm driven absolutely batty by these videos. Absolutely. And I feel bad because I know so many other people get so much out of them, but I just don't like them.

So now I am debating what to do. I know it's my bad attitude that is influencing how I feel about the whole study, and I really feel like I need to finish the study. But if I am just being dragged into really negative territory every week by these videos, what good is that? I'm thinking about calling the leader and telling her honestly how I feel about the videos, and saying I am just not going to stay for the video portion. But is that a cop-out? I know she has a lot of good things to say, I am just not hearing them over the annoyances.

I know what I need to do. I need to pray for God to let me hear the teaching without the annoyances. I need to pray that He will give me the diligence to finish this study & make time for it. I know I need to do that. But I don't want to. I will do it anyway, to be obedient. I hope God blesses that obedience. And I am SOOO looking forward to my summer study, which I'm doing by myself. It's Beth Moore's book about David. I LOVE Beth Moore's studies, so I'm really looking forward to saying "adieu" to Leviticus and digging in about David. Only three more weeks....three more weeks...

DIY Budgeting

Well, I am all set to start my trial of the Grocery Game, ready to save big on our grocery bill. I even printed up some online coupons to augment the ones from the Sunday paper that I have been assiduously stopping and buying at our local gas station. I was READY to save!

Then I sat down and balanced our checkbook. Oh. Dear. *sigh* Hmmmm...mortgage payment...ACS dues which are overdue and they are threatening to wipe out my "years of service" so I'd better pay up...HELOC...student loan payment...hmmmmmm. Well, that left us with the princely sum of $61.25. Woohoo! Em, not exactly. That is not the stuff which grocery lists with about twenty bazillion items are made of, or more accurately, paid from. Which sucks.

Don't get me wrong, we aren't starving. In fact we have a pretty well stocked pantry and fridge/freezer, so we will be just fine. I have a grocery list of "nice to haves", you see. I used up all our chocolate chips & cocoa powder baking for church last week, so it would be nice to have some more in case I want to bake something chocolate-y. Not this week. Likewise, DS's bouncer is almost out of batteries and I would like to get some more at Costco. I'm out of birdseed--sorry birdies. You'll have to wait a week.

It is just a week. I will lament the lack of powdered sugar and of course now that I know I *can't* bake anything with chocolate I am wanting to bake something with chocolate! I do have to go and buy some Mother's Day cards for my mom & grandmother & great-aunt. Hmmm, I think I might make some with DD's crayons! *LOL* Hey, use what you have, right? Maybe I will let her do the family cards and they can enjoy her artwork. Even better. Needs must, and I must resist the temptation to spend money on the credit cards. We're learning that lesson for the second time, yep, and will be paying for it for 2 years, by my calculations. No more!! I have taken control of the family budget & pocketbook, and we CAN resist the "I wants" when we're down to the dregs. Thank God we have enough coffee to get us through the week, otherwise I'd be getting real cranky. *sigh* I do wish money would magically grow in our garden, but I don't think it will. Oh well. At least I know how much we actually have.

Almost...done...maybe...

Ugh. What a pain in the rear. That is all I have to say about painting, painting, and more painting! I am tired of it now, but unfortunately, I still have 2 coats to go on the countertops, and then the polyurethane seal. Yuck. Oh, and the cabinet & drawer faces. Oh, goody.

Yesterday was very productive from a painting point of view. Saturday as well, actually. After I did my blogging DH did come & help finish clearing the countertop, and we tag-teamed to remove cabinet doors and drawers, then sand and prime the cabinet frames, countertop, & walls. DH, by brute force and sheer willpower, moved the colossal fridge out of an opening that was surely a 1/4" too small for it, so that I could get to the top and back of the wall there to paint with an extending handle attachment for the roller. Yesterday we both started painting the cabinet frames, but of course the kids woke up and DH manfully stepped up to keep them entertained while I cracked on with painting.

Did I mention that this half of our kitchen is the more inaccessible half? I had the joy of crawling on my hands and knees under our breakfast bar, which is not used as such. No, we have a desk shoved up against that normally, for DH to work at on days he works from home, and an end table for the couch. So, after DH maneuvered those things out slightly, I was left with about 24" of space, of which 16" or so was covered by the countertop. So I got to wedge my still large-ish self (give me 9 months to get rid of the baby weight, if you please...I've got 6 months to go, and the pounds are slowly dropping). Needless to say, I was hot (did I mention we have no air conditioning, and the only available lighting was a halogen lamp?), and cranky, when I crawled back out after the first coat. I grimly perservered, however, and finished all of the cabinet frame.

Then, you know what happened, don't you? We looked at it, and it needed a second coat. S#$%! A few expletives said mentally later, I was once again crawling into my hidey-hole to apply a second coat of paint. See, a silver lining to the halogen lamp--the first coat had already dried down there. Yippee. "Mommy, where arrrrrrrrrrre youuuuuuuu?"

"Here I am sweetie...No, stay out of here. DON'T TOUCH!!...Oh bugger."

Yep, paint. On her shirt. *sigh* I had DH strip it off lightening fast and soak it in water, and lo, the paint was gone. Phew. DD was perfectly happy to run around shirtless, and after peeling off the latex paint, she looked passably cute. Having finished the hidden part of the cabinetry (so glad I spent almost two hours on that with 2 coats, yes sir...), I sent DH off to the Olive Garden for some take-out for dinner with both kiddos, and vowed to finish the cabinetry THAT DAY. Yes, I got a little sloppy as I finished, but I FINISHED the cabinetry frames that day, by golly.

Today has been a bit more low-key, although I was limited to the precious naptime only. It sucked giving up my "me" time in the day. However, I took DD next door to play with the neighbor's kiddos and some other kiddos, so she was really tired and ready for a nap. Not one peep of protest when I said it was time to go home. I also wisely fed her BEFORE we went, thus precluding "I am too interested in the other kids to eat my lunch". She went down for her nap with no problem, and DS was equally tuckered out from all the other interesting babies at this little playdate. Both were miraculously asleep at the same time, so I got almost three uninterrupted hours of painting time. I wrestled with the extender pole again and got what looks like good coverage to me on all the walls...even the tiny strip of wall between the cabinet frames and soffits. I plead guilty to stealing one of DD's Crayola paintbrushes to do so. (As an aside, who ever thought soffits were a good idea? "I know what we do here Earl--let's put in some drywall boxes and mount cabinets to that, and waste that whole space!" "Sounds good to me!" Yes, yes, I know in older houses standard cabinets were smaller, yada yada yada, but tell that to all my good china that's still packed away because I have zilch in the way of cabinet space...but I digress...)

It was clearly meant to be. DS slept until I was literally 30 seconds away from finishing in the corner. I zipped in with the Crayola brush, got it done, and rescued him from the incarceration of the swing ("How dare you put me in this THING and not hold me during my nap??") before he woke up his sister. Of course he was gassy and smiley in alternate episodes, so my only hope for painting the countertops is for DH to take both kids again. He has offered to do so, but now he's home and on a work call. I said, "Take them to Lowes for the ceiling painting thingy with the wheels so I can get the last bit above the fridge." We'll see if that happens before dinnertime strikes.

Hey, at least I had Olive Garden for dinner for my anniversary, and a yummy cocktail and nice wine...even if I was attired in my painting togs (an oh-so-unattractive nursing top purposed for painting when I realized I looked singularly unattractive in it even when I was eight months' pregnant with DD). Hey, some anniversaries you take whatever life hands you. The meal was good, and I got a hand-drawn card (with crayons, of course) from DH, and he got one from me. Awwwwwwwwwww. Now THOSE are the kinds of traditions I could go for starting. Next year I'm thinking we move up to DD's watercolours. ;)

DIY Inertia

So, today we are supposed to be cracking on with the kitchen reinvigoration. The second counter & cabinets are larger in area than the first counter & cabinets that we did 2 weeks ago. I was allowed to sleep in by my DH (a saintly act on his part, since DS woke up at 6:15), and I woke up from one of those crazy college dreams where you forgot to show up for a major test and then grovel to the professor to try to make it up. In this particular case the professor chose to put a letter of reply to my fervent request on a transparency and showed it to the whole class for his personal amusement, which had my friends & myself quite upset and I woke up vowing to go to the university administration over this violation of my rights to privacy! HA! That was a good one.

Anyway, why am I here at my computer instead of beavering away in the kitchen? Well, my DH seems to have succumbed to a common malady in our house for DIY...DIY Inertia. You start something, and then you don't want to finish it. This inevitably happens to us with every single DIY project we have ever undertaken. I don't know why it happens, I just know it does. Hence our shed which was re-roofed & re-walled last summer still sits unpainted and with a large-ish piece of wall MISSING. This concerns me as I have seen a bee hovering around and I certainly do NOT want a beehive in our shed wall!!

But I digress. How can I get my DH to stop watching "Barney" (this is how I know he's got it bad) and come and get started on our project? I don't want to clear the countertops by myself, because frankly that is the worst part of the task. Running the orbital sander? Sure, count me in! Priming? Painting? No problem! But please, don't ask me to clean!!

Hmmm, he's dozing now, DS asleep in his arms. Awwwwwww, so cute. Too bad! I'm going to get stuck finishing this over the course of the week, I know, so he's going to have to suck it up and put that baby down. It's work time! Wish me luck.

Household Cleaning, or Lack Thereof

I know it must be bad if it's bothering me. My house is never in a state of perfect cleanliness to start with, but if I'm shaking my head at the bits of paper from the birdcage that are sticking to my bare feet, and abhorring the general level of untidyness, I know it must be bad.

I have plenty of other things to do today. Those dratted thank you cards, for one. I also have two packages which have yet to be mailed, one for a birthday on March 27th (yes, appalling how late it is...in our defense, the person in question already received their cards on time & did not explicitly state a gift preference, so this is just something I saw that I knew she would like after the fact). The other is a "hospital preparedness" package for my sister, who is expecting her first child in July. At this point I'm thinking, if I get it to her before July, I'm doing well.

And of course I love my computer time. My DD came up to me this morning begging me to play with her and telling me I was done on the computer. Hmmmmmm...granted we were up later than usual, but I don't recollect spending more time checking email than usual. Ah, the real problem manifested itself when I went to go play--"Mommy I want to watch Veggie Tales." Sprout's offerings summarily rejected, I set about the important (to me) business of catching up with my moms group online & postings on the Fool.

Still, the dirty pots in the sink were nagging me. I got some fresh coffee, and darn it, I couldn't stand it any more. I scrubbed them all (a hated and detested above ALL things chore) and even scrubbed our sinks. I wiped down the counters, and unloaded and re-loaded the dishwasher. Then I saw the pile of stuff on the dining room table (Oh my God, how do we...*gulp*, I, have so much craft crap on the table??). And I could not fail to notice the stained tablecloth which has been silently grating on me for a week. Eeek! Now I have LAUNDRY to do, too! Oh Lord, will it NEVER END??

Yes, the floors need to be vacuumed and scrubbed. Trash & recycling must be taken out. And, lo, there *is* a floor in the den, after necessary Pull Up and cake carrier purchases are put away. I am not looking at DD's room, no I'm not, I am just going to look at the wonderfully decorated walls as I put her down for her nap. Ah, she has discovered the mac & cheese (homemade, at least that's one point in my favor today) which I nuked for her and has cooled sufficiently to be put on the table. At least one child is old enough to feed herself with minimal fuss. Naptime looms, hooray!

Did I mention I am putting on my "Master Baker" hat today as well? Yes, it seems I signed up for bringing the snack to church on Sunday. So I have to bake 2 cakes and something else finger-foody. Today. Because, if you will recall, we are redoing the other half of our kitchen this weekend. Including on Sunday, our anniversary. Lovely. Glad we have something romantic planned. Oh well, at least it will hopefully ensure no more January babies. HA!

Yes, I am rambling in my frenetic insanity of today. It has to all be done. I wonder how many Weight Watchers points I get for serious housecleaning...

The Correspondence Burden

I am just sick of thank you cards. I know they are for a good thing, and serve a useful purpose. I am just sick of writing them.

My husband doesn't like to write thank you cards. Well, uh, I don't think anyone likes to write them, the last time I checked... I usually don't mind writing them, but I have written so many lately, I am suffering from thank-you card burn-out. Ha! No, really, I am. I had to write a zillion cards for a baby shower the kind folks at church threw for DS, and that kind of burned me out on them for a while. All right, maybe not a zillion, only a thousand or so...it sure felt that way at the time, so that has to count.

Now we have a bunch of thank you cards that need to be written to DH's extended family. The Irish hospitality gene is strong--we have gotten baby gifts from DH's many cousins, who have all been kind and thoughtful with their gift selections. I have one lingering thank you card to write on behalf of DD for an Easter gift. And if I don't write a thank you card to FIL's best friend and his wife for their baby gift, that will be strike 2 on the baby gift front, as I don't recall writing them a thank you card for their gift for DD.

Hmmmmm. I also feel waves of guilt occasionally about the lack of emails I have written to friends that I want to keep in touch with. DH just updated our website with new photos, so now we are getting a new wave of correspondence seeking to reconnect & update. *sigh* I don't know when I'll get to those, either!! Jeez, I thought this SAHM gig was supposed to involve plenty of leisure time for eating bon-bons and composing chatty cards & emails to all and sundry. I think I've been gypped!

Potty Trainers R Us

My DD has expressed some interest in potty training in recent days. By "expressed some interest", I mean she has stated a few times that she doesn't want to wear a diaper any more, and then expressed a preference for real panties as opposed to Pull Ups. I had never realized how time consuming potty training is. She went through ten pairs of panties the other day! My policy is as long as she tries to make it to the potty, she deserves to keep wearing her "big girl" panties, as long as she wants to. Obviously she wanted to, and I have the laundry pile to prove it, haha. I wonder how long this process will take. It is proceeding in fits and starts, and we are not pushing things with her. Today she has shown zero interest in panties and is quite content to wear a diaper and have it changed. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? We are encouraging interest but we aren't being negative about not using the potty. I know when she is ready, she will train. Of course, her spates of readiness seem to occur at precisely the most inopportune times, such as when I am feeding her brother or dealing with him, or cleaning, etc. So I wonder if it's an opportunity for attention that she's grabbing, not the potty training. I guess she wouldn't be as enthusiastic about it, though, if that were the case; and I don't really see that kind of behavior from her so much now that her brother has been here for 3 months and has sort of become a fixture to her. At the same time I am dealing with DS's continued gassiness and fussiness. He is a more emotional baby than she was. He just seems to take it so personally when I have to put him down and get something else done. It's like I've personally affronted him in his time of need if I have to put him down to handle a crisis with DD or eat some lunch. I think this kid is going to be difficult to sleep train. He is just not a self-soother like his sister was. She would fuss for a few minutes, figure out, "Hey, I'm on my own here for a bit, best make the best of it" and just get on with entertaining herself. He will scream bloody murder and escalate the decibels until he's hiccuping. He even spit up on himself in the swing yesterday when we were dealing with something else. I just don't know when that will get better. Do you outgrow being "needy" for Mom & Dad? I just picture this clingy kindergartner refusing to go inside for big school. Hmmmm. I think I need to reign in my overactive imagination! :) Anyway, it just goes to show how different our two kids are. My DH says, "And you want to add ANOTHER one to this?" Yes, yes I do. Just not right now. *LOL*