Happy Halloween to your princesses and fairies, or ghouls and goblins. Whatever you may have lurking around today. Have a great (safe) trick-o-treat!
Happy Halloween!
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Monthly Archives: October 2007
Mmmm…Lollipops! ~ Wordless Wednesday
Crafty Tuesday
There is just a whole lotta baking going on around here.
Two dozen cookies times 3 (2 dance classes, one school pumpkin party) later.
At least I got to use up all of my old Halloween ribbon. And the girls like to decorate cookies – even though after about one dozen they became disinterested, so Mommy had to decorate the rest. They are kind of hard to tell what they are. Most of them are witches and black cats. Or blobs. We have lots of Halloween blobs.
Any Halloween craftiness going on around your haunted house this week?
First Born ~ Best Shot Monday
She is opinionated. She has a fierce independent streak. She has a hugely stubborn attitude. She is a bossy big sister.
She is exactly like me.
I see myself in her expressions. I hear myself in her voice when she speaks.
She inspires me to be a better Mommy, a better, more patient person. I have to be. For she is always watching. Always imitating.
She is my first born.
But every once in awhile, I get to see her as simply a sweet little four-year old. Just a precious little kid running free, with all of that “first born” stuff tucked safely away. It always brings a smile to my face, and makes me so thankful that she is (and always will be) my first baby.
Make sure to stop over to Tracey’s and see what is inspiring everyone else this fine Monday.
Fuzzy Sugar Math
So 3, 4 5 of the little Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (you know the teeny, little, individually-wrapped ones) probably equal just one normal sized one, right? So if I have 10 of the little ones, it is only like 2 normal cups?
And because you have to unwrap all of them, that must burn a ton of calories, right?
Man, I cannot wait until Halloween to unload all of this candy.
Thankfully the tri-training starts tomorrow.
Halloween Photo Contest
Twinkie is having a little photo contest right now. I have entered this photo, which you all have seen –
but if you are so inclined, you might want to go over and vote for it? There are some cuties over there. So if you find one you like better, I will, well…I won’t really understand, because in my mind, there simply is nothing cuter than these two. But please go check it out. Pretty please.
The Week in Review
I have all kinds of things to write about today, so I’ll just do this post “Reader’s Digest-style” and hit the highlights of the week.
Emma Misses Her Daddy
We all do. But E., the clever little monkey, realized that if she says she misses her Daddy and acts very sad, she gets a little more attention and love. And she has been using it to her advantage all week long. When J. got ready to leave on Sunday night, Em had a little meltdown and was sobbing, “But I miss you already, Daddy.” Which, of course, broke J.’s heart and he was trying to console her while the car to take him to the airport was waiting out in the driveway. So after he left, I cuddled with Emma and we talked about some fun things we could do to make the time go faster this week, (and the promise of sleeping in Mommy’s bed) and soon she was happy and sleeping again.
But…every time she has been in trouble or in timeout this week, she has turned on the tears and blurted out, “I miss my Daddy!” For the first few days I gave her a reprieve, but now it is just getting ridiculous. When she has her hands over her eyes, crying, but looks through the fingers to see what kind of reaction she is getting from me…I think I’m being played a little bit.
She did win some brownie points the other night when I was putting her to sleep in my bed. She was all warm and snuggly and she put her hand to my cheek and said, “I like it when it is just us, Mommy. I really like sleeping with you, too.”
I know she doesn’t want it to be “just us” most of the time, but for that little moment it was nice.
Addie is “practically perfect in every way”
A. had her 2-year checkup yesterday and the doctor just kept exclaiming how perfect she was. She exceeds every one of her developmental milestones, she is 50-60th percentile in both height and weight, and our doctor just could not get over her vocabulary and mastery/understanding of our conversations. At one point when I was relaying her typical diet to the doctor, she asked how many fruits and veggies a day A. normally eats. And Addie pipes up, “I like broccoli. Yes!” The doctor just looked at me in complete shock. I don’t know if it was the fact that A. really does like broccoli, or that she happened to contribute so willingly and well to the conversation.
When the doctor was doing the examination, she would tell A. “Okay, now I’m going to check your ears. Is that ok?” And A. would sort of quietly nod and just tilt her ear up towards the doctor. Not a peep. I was so relieved and so proud of her. The doctor said at the end, “Simply extraordinary. I wish all of my patients were this great. She is absolutely perfect.”
I agree with her, I would only add “practically” in front of that perfect.
She was sitting on the potty today and did her “business” in the appropriate place and I told her “Great job, I’m very proud of you, Addie!” And she looks at me very seriously and says, “No poopy in my pants! No poopy in a cup or a plate, either.”
Um, did she just hear me retelling that story too many times? I had assumed that the cup was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but did she in fact mean to do it? In a cup?
Yeah, “practically perfect” is much more fitting for her, I think.
Mommy Is Now Most Certainly Certifiably Insane
No, it is not all entirely just from this long week sans Daddy.
I have been looking for a little inspiration in the workout arena for awhile now. I’m kinda stuck in a rut. I keep thinking that I will try to run another marathon. But honestly, my knees are really, really creaky, they probably would be sorely unhappy with 25+ mile weeks again. And the amount of time and effort it requires to train for a marathon – it was hard when I was doing it without kids, I just don’t think I have it in me.
So instead? I registered for the inaugural Pasadena Triathlon. Shouldn’t require as much training, right?
Ha.HA.HA!
I told you I was quite possibly on the slippery slope to becoming insane. I figure with all of the spin classes I do, and the occasional running, I just need to step it up a bit and add some swimming. I think I can do it. And I have until March. So send me some encouraging stories about friends and family who have completed a sprint triathlon. I am particularly interested in how you transition from the pool to the bike to the run. Should be an interesting ride, that’s for sure.
But I feel like now that you all know, I can’t back out. Right?
Glow ~ Theme Thursday
Every night the girls wait anxiously at the kitchen window. Finally, the next door neighbor will reward their impatience by flipping a switch and inflating her entire yard.
I have been using the promise to “visit” the Halloween Holy Land in order to get the girls to eat their dinner. (Hmmm…do you think she’ll leave them up until Christmas?) They will eat as quickly as they can, race to put their shoes on and then stand at the door, “Can we go now, can we go now? Mommy, can we go visit the Halloweens now?”
So off we go. The glow of the pumpkins beckons us.
Check out other spooky glows over at Tracey’s.
Don’t drink the tea.
I told you people to not let me get too cocky. I dedicated my BSM to Addie and her potty-training achievements and have been running around patting myself on the back as if I was the one who did a spectacular job with the training.
And now I shall pay for all of the arrogance.
While sitting on the steps in a timeout this morning, Addie was screaming and carrying on and looked at me and said most defiantly, “I am going pee!” And she did. Right there on the step through her Cinderella skirt.
No sooner had I cleaned the puddle up and put her back in timeout (for the original offense, not for having an accident), when she started screaming about having more pee-pee. And so we had been running to the bathroom every 10 minutes up until lunchtime because I have been all about the “pee patrol” again.
Then we got home this afternoon after dropping Em off at school and Addie said, “I have to go poopy.” As we were walking back to the bathroom, I realized that she had in fact already “gone.” In her pants. So I cleaned her up and was taking her dirty clothes to the laundry room when I was sidetracked by the cat pee on the floor. (As a side-note, I scoop that stupid box every single day and they sit and WAIT until it is scooped and then will saunter over and either dirty the box within 2 minutes of it being clean, or even worse pee as close to the box as you can get without getting any of it IN the box.)
So I’m fuming, cleaning up the cat pee, and vowing to not let Smokey back in the house the next time she escapes. Addie is “airing out” until I can corral her to get her upstairs, clothed, and down for a nap, when she comes in and says, “Uh, oh. Poopy, Mommy! There is some poopy.”
At this point I’m not sure if it is human or cat poop, I can barely bring myself to follow her into the playroom. But I do, and there in the middle of the play kitchen area, all by itself, is a teacup. Filled with poop.
The girl pooped in one of her teacups.
POOPED. IN A TEACUP.
This qualifies as the most disgusting mommy clean-up to date.
As I was telling J. about my poopy day, I said, “See how much fun you are missing out on?”
He sarcastically says, “I can’t lie. It sounds like a blast.”
Not entirely the sympathy I was looking for. But I don’t expect any from you either, frankly I’d be amazed if you made it through this whole poopy post.
I must go sterilize…something. Everything.
Quiet Contemplation ~ Wordless Wednesday
