Wind

Yes, it's a windy day here in central Virginia. I don't think I'm going to be too entertaining today as I'm not feeling very well. I hope I'm not getting another bout of gastritis. boo! hiss! Lily kept her daddy awake for 3 hours this morning, so I know he's going to be a royal crankypants this afternoon. I might be run down from the stress of my car breaking down on Sunday. Or, maybe I haven't been eating that well. Oh cool, I think some stuff I ordered just arrived! Okay, I'm feeling better.

Just kidding. I think I need to make some rice pudding. It's nice and easy on the tummy. I'm not sure how to make this sound less stupid, but I didn't think rice pudding was made at home all that often because my parents always bought me the canned stuff. Which I still love. :) *hint, hint, grantma* ** no, that's not a typo - it's short for Great Aunt, well actually she's my aunt - never mind! **

I wanted to get Lily some building blocks. Developmentally, she should be able to stack them. They're nice blocks. The alphabet is on them, and numbers too. I hope they'll be good learning tools. :) And not chew toys! Did I mention that she knew exactly what to do with them? By she, I mean Lily. I'm feeling feverish.

I'll just post the pictures of Lily demolishing my stack of blocks. I have to try to pull it together enough to make some carrot cake for grandpa. Sorry, Paul. You're not driving my car back to me tomorrow.

Huzzah!

I got "the" call today. My car is ready and it was mostly all covered under warranty. whew The water pump split in half. Pedro is kind of impressed with himself. Sigh.

Friday Facts (Monday version)

*yawn*

1. I've been having really vivid dreams lately. I'll drive a red Ferrari to Finland (big bridges are involved) or spend hours searching for the perfect outfit to wear to a ball. I wake up exhausted.

2. I emptied out my travel bags and put them away last night. I think that was the first time ever. EVER. It may have been a result of being cooped up in vehicles for several hours yesterday or the fact that g-ma keeps such a nice house that I felt like I was coming home to a dump. I did a lot of cleaning up last night. yay me!

3. I bought an avocado last week to try and be healthy. I hated the little bite that I had. I gave a small piece to Lily and couldn't blame her when she plucked if off of her tongue. Sorry, Jennifer.

4. I'm worried about my car. Well, less about my car and more about how much it might cost. Plus, we have a relationship with our dealership. They've seen both Pedro and I often enough, that they know us. My car is with STRANGERS. And mean strangers, at that, who call up and say they don't understand the paragraph Pedro wrote on the drop off form. hmpf!

5. I'm worried that because we used regular antifreeze and not VW coolant that we might not be covered under the warranty! We'll find out later. *biting nails*

6. Lily has almost learned how to say "Don't do it". Pedro said that this morning she said "Oh no" just before she fell over on a baby gate. She's smart and clumsy. :)

7. I've decided to try potty training again. Lily did pee on her potty at 9 months (in it, not ON it), but I discovered that I was still too tired to get up with her in the morning to put her on her potty. I'm usually staggering to the kitchen to get coffee and a sippy cup for Lily. If I can have a good night's sleep (hear that dreams?!) then I can probably have the energy to get the little pooper to sit on the pot. ha!

8. I'm really grateful to have such an awesome extended family. Pedro's sister and parents are great people, and I'm proud of be one of them. And Lily too!

9. *Insert fact here*

10. I've got to give Lily a snack and try to grab a wee nap before the dealership calls me back. I hope they have good news.

Ho-lee Crap!

We've had an interesting last couple of days. I'm not even sure where to begin! Let's see... I was going to go down to visit G-ma and G-pa on Friday but someone, SOMEONE, kept me awake for 3 hours Thursday night. So there I am, all bleary eyed Friday morning when I remind Pedro that the kitchen sink is plugged on one side. He blathered on about sticking a knife in there and blah blah blah. I was like, look, it's good and plugged. He had to take it apart and me, I had to go outside in the freezing temps in my pjs to "blast" almost freezing water through the pipe pieces Pedro handed me. So, fine, I do this.

It's hard to explain. It looked like something had evolved in the pipe and was now living there. I was fairly certain it was going to squeal once the cold water hit it. Fortunately, it did not and I managed to clean everything. So, fabulous, right? Well, Pedro puts everything back together and uh oh, the almost alive pipe blockage had been keeping the cracked u-bend from leaking. So, now we had a leak. Pedro sped over to the local hardware store and that story had a happy ending. (Do you get bad karma from dumping out almost alive pipe blockages??)

Yesterday we drove down to see G-ma and G-pa and all went well. We did some shopping and enjoyed one of my excellent carrot cakes. Fun, fun. Fast forward to today. We leave their house and take the scenic route through Jamestown, up to Williamsburg. It's lovely, we enjoy the ocean view and the sunny, if cold, skies. (not that we were up in the air). We hit the candy shop in Williamsburg and I got a yummy sandwich from the Cheese Shop. Good times! Cue ominous music.

So we're trying to get back on the interstate. Pedro floors it. Bear in mind, we have a packed car with at least 3 pounds of jelly beans. As Pedro continues to drive he notices the temp gauge going up and up. The little flashing temp light comes on. The engine light comes on. C-R-A-P So we're at the side of a very busy interstate, trying to figure out what the heck happened. I wasn't really in the mood to wax philosophical so it didn't take me long to call in the cavalry. In the form of Nicole and g-ma in the FJ. We tried to add antifreeze but nothing helped. Hopefully, I don't have something really wrong with my car. It's at the dealership near g-ma's house. G-pa was kind enough to loan us a car to get home.

You know, it's a pretty frustrating thing but I was really counting my blessings today. 1) no one ran into us on the interstate. 2. We were close enough to get help. 3. My car is still under warranty. 4. I have jelly beans. 5. Pedro finally got a new pair of shoes. 6. We made it home safely. 7. Lily spent hours in her car seat and didn't cry.

I think I'm getting distracted with my list. I was proud of myself today. When bad things like today happen, I tend to freak out first and think later. I skipped the freak out part. Mainly, I realized that I set the tone for Lily. As long as I stayed calm, she stayed calm. I might not always be able to do it but today I did. :)

*Y'all'll have to wait for Friday Facts, Monday version. :)

* You all will

** Lily LOVES noodles

Kisses!

I got four kisses today from Miss Lily. Finally. As many smooches as I've given her! She surprised me though, cuz she was sitting on my lap "talking" and just suddenly leaned over and kissed me! I don't know why that was so important to me. I guess because she can't verbalize yet if she loves me or not so I was really hoping for a non-verbal sign. :) Does that make me pathetic?

Anyway, I guess I need to take some pictures to put up here. I'm going to grandma and grandpa's house for a few days so there should be ample opportunities for pics. :) Oh, and while Lily and I were "talking" I realized that I say ummm a lot because she says it every time she starts one of her "sentences". :)

Cranky

Oh man, where to begin?? Lily woke me up every couple of hours last night. That is, once she finally fell asleep after waking up in the middle of the night. I'm sure it was related to the shots she had. She woke up crying around 11:30 and cried for quite a while. I checked her over a few times to make sure it wasn't something obvious. She finally fell asleep after 1:30 but woke up every couple of hours, crying again. I rubbed her back and cuddled her. Sigh. I know she probably feels awful too. She has big dark circles under her eyes. (too)

I'm also feeling sort of upset about Heath Ledger. I mean, I obviously didn't know the guy personally but talk about coming out of the blue. If Britney Spears was found dead in her home of an overdose, it wouldn't be all that surprising. He seemed to be really talented (except for the Brother's Grimm) and had a young daughter. I've been worried about not working and not making money for so long that something like this reminds me that it doesn't matter how much money you have in the bank. Happiness and security come from somewhere else. Where? I'm not sure, it's probably one of those "inner" things.

I know I'm grumpy about some other things but I can't write about all my dirty laundry. Literally, there are piles of laundry all over the house. Apparently, I'm the only adult who knows how to pick up laundry and where to take it. Sigh. I'm going to try to pull it together today and make a nice vegetarian dinner. Or another carrot cake. Sigh.

Anyway, everyone, try to stay alive and eat your veggies.

Stats!

Lily had a doctor's appointment today. I can't find the sheet with her measurements so I'll try to summarize (and not make up) the visit. Her height, weight and head circumference have all seriously leveled off. She used to be well above the 99th percentile, now she's 94 and 97. I can't remember which is which. For her height and weight combined, she's in the 75th percentile. So she's finally slowing down a bit. She speaks more words than most other kids her age too. Go Lily! The doctor told me that the guesstimate adult height at age two, by doubling whatever that score is. She's roughly 33 inches tall now and he thinks she'll be 36 at age 2. So that would make her 6' tall. Go Lily!

BG was driving me around the bend today. He kept on trying to romance any stuffed animals he found. I caught him sleeping on my bed on top of 3 of them! Tramp. hmpf Anyway, I thought this was a good picture of him. He was trying to butter me up. Uh uh, BG, I know your wicked ways!



Lily also got 3 shots today. She cried, of course, but got over it really quickly. :) It's hard to watch your baby cry. Sigh. The deal with the highchair is that she climbed into it today to watch tv. I caught her laughing at the cartoons (PBS!!). We can put her in it and she'll cry or fuss.

Since I feel my brain shutting off (I only got 4 hours of sleep, split up) I'll just say that the doctor says she looks really good. :) I'm a good mommy!

Funniversary!

Hah! Beat that! We all had fun tonight. Grandma, grandpa and auntie Nicole drove up to go out for dinner with us. It was a combined anniversary and birthday meal. We went to the Aberdeen Barn. I'd heard of it from a lot of people as being the best place to grab a steak in our neck of the woods. The steak cuts were exceptional. But I think the baked potatoes were the real winners. :)

I was a little naughty. I ordered a fried lobster tail for an appetizer. It's the south and they fry everything, get over it already. It was delicious. It was split in half, dipped in a light batter and fried until crispy! Lily yummed up her pieces. :) I felt kind of guilty ordering lobster but my tummy said, yes please!, so I said yes please too. :) Out of my mouth, I mean.

We dolled up Lily in one of her party dresses. She cried when people first came to the house but she got over it fairly quickly this time and even let grandpa hold her! Shock, awe! The downsides to the restaurant were the food taking a really long time (other people came in after us and ate way before us), not really being cooked to order (I asked for medium and it was closer to rare - a lot closer), we had to ask for rolls (as we waited at least 45 minutes for our food, they should have been throwing rolls at us to keep us happy), and the waiter should have known that the creme brulee would beat the apple crisp hands down! achem

Anyway, Lily was an absolute champ. She sat in that seat from 6 until almost 8 at night. She didn't cry and she didn't complain. A few bread sticks may have been chucked but for the most part it was pretty quiet. I must admit that I did have some steak envy. I ordered a "princess cut". Mostly, cuz I had ordered the lobster thing. Oh, the cool thing about the restaurant was that they put huge servings of condiments on the table. Our sour cream disappeared pretty quickly. :)

I feel kind of bad for g-ma, g-pa and Nicole. I'm sitting here thinking about going to bed and they're still on the road! Pedro went to bed a while ago, snuggling Miss Lily. :) I'm up enjoying the peace and quiet!!!

Nicole, thanks for sharing the creme brulee!!! We'll figure out how to make our own. :)

It says Natural on the bottle...

That's what I used to tell people when they asked me if I dyed my hair. Obviously, if your hair is blond one month, and then red the next, people need to check. Anyway, I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes to keep people guessing. I'm not sure if this is his dog, but you can check Hispanic at the Disco, to find out.

I do have come cute video of Lily eating her breakfast at the dining room table this morning but it's still on my camera so y'all will have to wait. And why is it when I say "y'all will have to wait" it sounds like "y'all'll have to wait". I was writing something the other night and of course, I sounded it out in my head first so I wrote "How'd" instead of "How would". That's not a legitimate contraction, right? I think more people than just southerners use that one.

Anyway, peace!

Friday Facts

Lily had a day full of new experiences. So let the Friday Facts begin:

1. Daddy took Lily out into the snow, while she was in her pjs. She loved it. Me, not so much.

2. I gave Lily some kiwi fruit today, thinking she would probably reject it. The little sneak tried to eat all the rest! What a good baby. :) For eating fruit, I mean, not for eating her mommy's snacks!

3. I finally cut up a whole pineapple. For some reason, I thought that cutting a pineapple was a lot of work. I think my dad may have said something along those lines. It took me 5 minutes. I added some fresh pineapple to the carrot cake that Pedro's taking to work.

4. I made my own cream cheese frosting. We'll see what the jury has to say about it tomorrow. :) That totally just reminded me that there used to be this store in the Vancouver area called Suzy Creamcheese. Yes, the clothes were fairly tacky and the stores were usually in suburban malls. Oh, memories. :)

5. Okay, I did a little research on Suzy Creamcheese and it was a character in a Frank Zappa song. ha! This fact would be about how good I am at research.

6. I've had two editing jobs. I'm so pedantic that I love going through things that other people have created and finding what they did wrong. I clap my hands with glee when people screw up the it's/its, there/they're/their, you're/your, etc. contractions. I'm also pretty good at spotting typos. After all, I have to catch my own. :)

I'm getting kind of tired and I need to go to bed, so these are going to be cheap, not well thought out facts:

7. The other day I missed Thomas, the pukey neurotic cat I gave to my auntie. I don't remember what it was that made me think of him, but it was a fond memory and those aren't all that frequent with respect to him. :)

8. Lily brushes her own teeth (but I still need to do the "real" cleaning).

9. I have never been sure how to use a comma. I'm a little better at it after reading Eat, Shoots and Leaves a dozen times. That is one extremely funny grammar book. Now should it have been "extremely, funny grammar book"? "extremely, funny, grammar book"???? Sigh

10. I make new names up for Lily everyday. I don't know if she notices or not. Right now, I use Stompington and Stinkleton. Did I mention that I like my names to summarize certain behaviors or, umm, odors?

Happy Friday! Wait, that's not Lily! How did that picture of hunky Clive Owens get in here?? Thanks, e-online (I don't have the millions that Perez Hilton does - so don't sue!)

Color me Cozy (color = snow)

Wow, it is snowing like crazy outside! Pedro tried to drive to work, the road was blocked, he slid into a ditch, then brute forced his way out (if you've met him, you know he can do this - in a Jetta no less), then made his way home to a very happy to see him Lily. :) I was happy to see him too, now I don't have to go out to get firewood. ha! As you can see in the picture, Lily has almost filled out her footie. She definitely had a growth spurt. She ate a lot of food again last night. I love watching her eat cauliflower. She loves it! She drops whatever she's holding to eat it. :) I know, this will probably change as she gets older.

I had something to write about Lily... Something developmental. Hmmmmm Well, in this picture she looks like she's surfing on her keyboard. Oh yeah! Lily has been sleeping through the night. As Pedro has more incentive to get up at a set time every morning (ie. work) he's been waking Lily up early and the result has been her sleeping through the night. Also, her molar came in so that's probably not hurting her either. :)

I took this picture when it first started snowing, well over an hour ago. It's been snowing heavy and steady for all that time. I know, that's small potatoes for some of you but for our little neck of the woods, this is SOMETHING. Remember, it was in the 70s a week or so ago. 70s F is like low 20s C. The snow is supposed to turn into freezing rain this afternoon so it's just going to be a really ugly mess. But I have a nice warm fire and a nice happy baby, so all is good in my little world. :) Pedro told me that I can make him a carrot cake to take to work. Thanks! *grumble*

Color me Happy (color = orange)

I'm on a roll today, no? Well, actually I'm on carrot cake. Not literally. I made some carrot cake from scratch and it's really delicious. Lily likes it too. :) You see, I bought a 5 pound bag of baby carrots from Sam's Club. Baby carrots are $3.98 for a 2lb bag at Whole Foods. I think it was $3 something for the bag at Sam's Club. A pretty good deal, no? So I get all the groceries home and then wonder how I'm going to eat a 5lb bag of baby carrots when I already have a 2lb bag at home. Solution = carrot cake. :) I can even make carrot cake muffins that I can freeze. Wooot! I think it's so good though, that I'll bless Pedro's coworkers with one. I'll do a better job of frosting it though. :) (And there won't be a big chunk missing - unless Pedro gets a hold of it)

I know a lot of things have happened today. Let's see, Lily's been putting things inside of other things and seeing how they fit. Awesome. She also put a big pile of books on the floor, then picked them all up and put them back. Double awesome. She likes to eat shredded cheese. Every time I've given her cheese she hasn't like it. Then I read about the shredded option. Another good source of protein and calcium. Yay! Oh there she is putting a star inside of a plastic container. Go Lily!

I got a picture of Lily looking through her new book. The illustrator, Daniel Mahoney, signed it and sent it to her. I'm a little more vigilant about letting her play with it than the others. There are a few books with chewed corners and ripped pages. What a Lilypants she is. :)

Gorgeousness

I just had to put this picture up today. I think she's beautiful. :) And older than my fat old, fart of a cat, Miss Daphne. Anyway, I need to get ready to go out and pick up something I had framed. It's needlepoint (?) that a great-grandmother of mine made. I framed it so Lily can have something that her great-great-grandmother made. :) Ahhh posterity, how it bleeds the pocketbook. :)

Happy Toes!

I do feel better since I had my toes done. Lily keeps on trying to pull the bright color off of toenails. Yes, I'm so white I do glow in the dark. I'm also in a better mood cuz I was talking with my friend who owns the salon and we were brain storming about work I could do for her. I just feel more positive and like I have some options now. :) I was feeling stuck in a rut and with the economy looking so shady, I was worried about our future. And I'm a professional worrier. I wish I could get paid for that. Sigh.

Color me Ewwwww! (color = puce?)

The FDA says it has found no safety risk in meat and milk from cloned cows, pigs and goats to be used for human consumption. I am so grossed out. The cloned food stuff wouldn't show up for 3 to 5 years in the food supply (if it hasn't already).

I try and get healthy food for my family. I always try to get "good" meat and dairy from Whole Foods, so it doesn't contain growth hormones, antibiotics, etc. This just totally gives me the heebie jeebies. UGH

Could you give that cute little baby cloned meat??? I understand that sometimes a farmer wants to clone a cow that was a really good milk producer but I also thought that a clone doesn't always turn out with the attributes you were looking for. So why clone??

In other news, I'm getting ready to go and get my pedicure. hmpf