Bye-bye dining room

We are officially over-run by toys, toys, and more toys. Don't get me wrong...I'm not complaining at all. I love that Baby has stuff to keep her busy...the busier she is, the more I can get done...kinda. If you have kids, you know what I mean! Anyways, I got fed up today with everything being in the living room. She has more than enough space for more stuff in her room, but she hardly ever spends any time in there playing, so 80% of it is downstairs instead. I decided that since we hardly ever sit at the "formal" dining room table, it would be best to just stow it away for a while and create another space for mom and baby stuff. I forgot to take a before pic, but here's an after...just imagine a big dining room table where all the toys are now...


While I'm sharing, here's our living room. It's hard to fit it all in one pic, but as you can see, there are play stations on the far right and far left, but they're contained. That's a good thing!


Raina finally learned the sign for "more" today. I've been trying to teach it to her for months now, off and on. Go figure that daddy re-introduces it to her last night, and she picks it up right away. Today she decided that she loves black and raspberries (I gave them to her a few weeks ago, but she wanted nothing to do with them then). Anyways, here's a video of her intently eating her berries and asking for "more." I'm so proud :)

Quick update on my battle against the bulge (ug...how lame)...I didn't get up before baby this morning to exercise because baby had me up at 4 a.m. and didn't get back to sleep until after 5. I'm afraid I've been munching on things I shouldn't have been, too. Sigh. Tomorrow's another day...hopefully a better one from that perspective. I don't care how messy the house is...I'm going to the gym tomorrow evening. I was supposed to go tonight, but it seriously looked like a bomb went off around here. It still does, but not in the living and dining rooms...I moved it to other rooms, of course!

I can't believe I'm doing this

Look...but don't look.

I'm officially certifiable, right?!? I know. But you know what it comes down to? Accountability. That's what I need. If I could afford Weight Watchers and those weekly meetings and weigh-ins, I'd totally be there, but I can't, so this is what I have decided to do instead: Weigh in every Monday and post the results here to you, my AccountabiliBuddies. I've put on almost 10 pounds this month. Seriously! I'm so freakin' good at putting on the pounds, it's disgusting (yet kind of impressive, too). Normally I'm not one for stepping on the scale frequently, but I need to see those numbers go down in the beginning in order to stay motivated during the first two (and hardest) weeks. So anyways, I started my eating plan today, and I start my exercise plan tomorrow. In fact, I'm going to try to wake up around 5:30 tomorrow morning and hop on the treadmill before baby wakes up. "Try" is definitely the key word there. I am sooooo not good at harnessing that kind of motivation before 11 a.m. However, it looks like I've committed myself to participating in Pittsburgh's relay marathon in May, so I kind of have no choice but to get my butt on the treadmill. Fun fun.

As for our Christmas, it went well. Santa thought we were pretty good this year. It looks like we got enough x-mas money that I'll be able to fly down to Florida and spend the weekend with the hubby while he's there for work...yet another motivating factor to stick to the new eating and exercise plan, that's fershur. Our "biggest" gift was a generator. Ha! I can't wait 'til our power goes out (I doubt we'll have to wait long) and we can fire that baby up and be the only ones on the street with power. Baby got all sorts of cool stuff...we had to leave her sand box behind since it wouldn't fit in the car, but it's not like it's sand box season anyways! One thing I have to brag about...I'm not one for shopping. In fact, I hate to shop, especially for myself...but I had a $50 gift card for Macy's so I was forced to go there a couple days after x-mas. Holy sales! I had no idea! I ended up getting a nice coat marked down from $169 to $42. If you know me well, you know I don't wear coats, and if I do, they're quite disgusting or ratty... but now I got me a nice one. I'm very pleased :)

Don't know why, but we didn't take many pics this x-mas, which I'm kind of regretting now, but oh well. Here's one, though, of me and the little one.


Anyways, hope everyone had a good one. The latest I'll be back is Monday, with yet another pic of my gross feet.

Merry Christmas, blah blah blah

There. That's about as festive as I get this year. I did my duty...and yes, it felt like a duty this time around...of putting up a tree. It's not our usual big fake tree. Instead, my friend Michele was kind enough to downsize me to her little fake tree while she upgraded to a big fake one. It's cute and Baby loves it. She crawls towards it at breakneck speed while signing "light" the whole time. Super cute :) She loves Christmas lights. I also decorated our fireplace mantle and put up some lights in the living room, but that's about it. No fake snow on the windows (which I know Chris is thrilled about...he can't stand that stuff. Actually, he says he can't stand cleaning it off the windows, yet I'm the one who always cleans it off so I have no idea what he's talking about.)...no wreaths (um, I guess that doesn't count 'cause we've never had one)...no garland or tinsel (gasp!)...you get the picture. I figured this might be my last year in a long time that I can get away with not decorating. I dunno...at what age do kids get into Christmas?

Anyways, we'll be traveling to Erie tomorrow to visit Chris' family for several days. I'm hoping for a nice relaxing trip...maybe a nap while relatives babysit...mmmm, that'd be nice...even to just have someone else entertain the baby while I sit back and do nothing would be FANTASTIC!

Enough with the holiday cheer. I'm just not feeling it. It doesn't help that I can't fit into anything. Even my sweats are tight. Seriously, that's just sad. I can't wait until the holidays are over and I can stop using that as an excuse. It looks like I may have a new motivation...Chris is being sent to Florida for a week in March for work and we're discussing dropping baby off somewhere so I can come down for a couple days, too. Florida...sun...beach...bathing suit...insert scream of terror here. Blah blah blah.

I feel like I'm a downer, so I'm gonna cut this short. I'm sure I'll be in a better mood once I return from our holiday travels (and away from Aunt Flo). On that TMI note, have a good one, everyone!

Playing catch-up

It's been too long. I need to get back into the swing of this blogging thing. It'd probably be best for me to promise to do so AFTER the holidays, though! I can't believe there's less than 3 weeks before Christmas. Ug. Don't even ask me what we're doing. We don't know yet. Double ug.

Anyways, the past couple weeks have been relatively uneventful. I would have to say that we have our baby back. She's still on soy, and I think we're just going to keep her on it. She's only supposed to get at most 20-some ounces of milk a day anyways. The only downside to the soy milk, though, is the poop. We had gotten used to the baby version of solid adult poop...but with soy, we're dealing once again with super soft (and extra spreadable) soy poop. Triple ug! Some good news, though...we're making headway on sippy cup training! In case you didn't know, Baby had no interest in holding her own bottle or cup, but check this out...

For some reason, she enjoys holding the milk in her mouth and showing it to us, resulting in most of it spilling out of her mouth. Here she is with the bottle (seriously, she didn't do this before today!):

Also, she's going through this tongue phase...it's always out. The girls at the gym daycare call her "The Tongue Baby."

Other happenings...we had the power go out last week. I cannot deal with power outages. I need my electricity, even when I'm not using it. Baby ended up waking up 'cause her white noise machine stopped, so the whole family played on the bed with Dad's blackberry while we waited for the power to come back. The outage only lasted a little more than an hour. A very long hour. Here's a pic of that:

On Saturday, we traveled to West Virginia to visit some friends from our old sangha. They cooked us a fantastic lunch and I got a knitting lesson. Yes, I'm trying my hand at knitting. I can't seriously commit to it just yet...I really have to buckle down on my coursework once Chris is done with his class this week...but once I'm done with that, I really want to work on knitting. I haven't been able to afford x-mas gifts for anyone these past couple years, and if I know how to knit, at least I'll be able to make everyone something that they'll probably never use. :) These past couple nights, I've been trying to get proficient with just the knit stitch, but I keep messing up. Once I can go several rows without messing up, then I'll move on to purl. Here's a sample of my educational mistakes:

So I think that makes you caught up. I don't have much going on this week either. Maybe a play date...some grocery shopping...hopefully x-mas decorating...

I'm seriously craving chocolate....

A quickie

I originally had grand plans of a grand blog post this evening, but the power went out. If you know me well, you know that when the power shuts down, I shut down.

Anyways, real quick...Raina was an absolute joy today! I sincerely enjoyed her company. It's been quite a while since I've been able to say that and really mean it. Chris and I still aren't sure what was wrong with her, but we think the switch to soy may have something to do with her improvement. Even if it doesn't, we won't be switching back just in case!

Here's a short clip of her this evening romping on the couch before going to bed...bad lighting, I know...sorry!

Where the hell have I been?!? (Warning: Girly post)

Um, why has no one told me about Jared Leto?

Seriously.

Don't know who I'm talking about? Feast your eyes:

Ooops. Sorry. Got caught up in an unintentional yahoo image search of Jake Gyllenhaal.

Anyways. Jared:

Um, yah, totally yummy, right??? What brought this on, you ask? Well, first and foremost, probably the sleeping pill I took an hour ago. I've been chillin' in bed for a couple hours now. It's my night to get the bed to myself while hubby sleeps in the nursery so that I can have an uninterruped night of sleep...no baby crying, no video monitor...and I can sleep in as long as I want tomorrow morning. I look forward to my Fridays so much! Anyways, I plugged myself into my laptop with headphones so I could listen to my iTunes...caught a song by 30 Seconds to Mars...and then started to think about their video for the song I was listening to. It's the only song by them that I know (A Beautiful Lie). I'll admit that the only reason I downloaded it was because the lead singer caught my eye while I was in the basement one night on the treadmill with the TV on Fuse but muted 'cause it's way too loud to have the TV on over the treadmill. Turns out I like the song, so that's good! Anyways, I decided to do a little yahoo image search on the band...anything to put off going to sleep 'cause the sooner I go to sleep, the sooner my sleeping in will be over!!!...and all of a sudden I'm bombarded with images of this total hotness. Then I did some research into this Jared guy, and it turns out that he's been all over the small and big screens. Why I did not know of this man is absolutely beyond me.

Everyone needs celebrity lust objects. My hubby's latest one is Sarah Silverman, which makes me laugh 'cause that's so totally like him. I'm all over the place...I can't really find a pattern...whereas with hubby, there is definitely a common thread amongst all his celebrity lusts.

Of all my lusts, though, Jared has the best hair. How lame is it that he has the hair I want? How even lamer it would be if I were to take his pic to the salon and say "This is what I want."

It's time to hand myself over to the sleeping pill...and sweet dreams of Jared :)

Oh, sorry...I almost forgot...

You're welcome :)

My Turkey Day...unhealthy recipes included :)

Happy Turkey Day, everyone! Our holiday was a small and modest event. It was just me, hubby, Baby, and my sister-in-law, all gathered here at our home. On our menu today was turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy from a jar, green bean casserole, butternut squash soup, rolls, store-bought pumpkin pie, and banana sour cream bread. I had never made the soup or banana bread before, but I thought they turned out pretty good. Good enough that I'm gonna share the recipes here. I know that, personally, I like to get recipe recommendations from people I know (versus allrecipes.com or the such), so just in case any of y'all are the same way, here ya go:

Butternut Squash Soup

(Don't you just love my special holiday plateware?)

• 3 butternut squashes, olive oil, crushed garlic, salt

Cut each squash into 2-4 pieces and place cut side down on foiled pan drizzled with oil, garlic, and salt. Roast for 1 hour at 350 degrees. When done, scoop out seeds (or you can do that before roasting) and then scoop out the squash and set aside.

• 6 T chopped onion
• 4 T butter
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 tsp dried marjoram
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 pkg cream cheese (original recipe called for 2 pkgs...I thought it was plenty rich with 1)

In large saucepan, saute onion in butter until tender. Add squash, broth, marjoram, and peppers and mix well. Puree squash mixture in blender with cream cheese. Return to pan to heat through. Do not boil. Add more broth if you like your soup soupier.

Banana Sour Cream Bread

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup butter
• 3 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 6 very ripe bananas (mine were somewhat green so I added banana extract)
• 16 oz sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tsp baking soda
• 4-1/2 cups flour
  
• Topping: 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 3 T softened butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/3 cup crushed walnuts

Preheat oven to 300. Grease four 7x3 loaf pans (I had different sized pans...no biggie). In small bowl, stir 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Dust pans with mixture. In large bowl, cream butter and 3 cups sugar. Mix in eggs, mashed bananas, sour cream, vanilla, and cinnamon. Mix in salt, baking soda, and flour. Pour into pans. Mix together topping ingredients and sprinkle on top of bread. Bake for 1 hour. (After an hour, mine were still gooey in the center, so I increased temp to 325 and baked for another 10 minutes, and they came out perfect.) Recipe says to let cool, but there's nothing better than very warm banana bread with a little butter. Mmmmmmmm!

Baby update: She's been on soy milk for about a day-and-a-half, and today Chris and I finally felt a glimmer of hope. We had many moments today with our old baby, our happy baby. She's still irritable and cries more than usual, but nothing like the past few days. She even managed to play by herself for what has been the longest time ever for her. It was probably around 30 minutes. That's just insane for her! Here she is just sitting happily by herself with her books while Daddy and Aunt Emily talked nearby.

I had to laugh at her 'cause she totally reminded me of the day I took her in to get professional photos done at Sears. She was around 6 months old. The photographer got her all set up on this real fancy looking rug made of fake flowers. She turned Raina around so that her back was to us, the concept of the pic being that Raina would look over her shoulder at us. Well, the flower rug was just way too cool to look away from, so she never did look over her shoulder. Of all the pics that were taken, the pic of her playing with the rug with her back to us was the one I took home. It's hanging on the wall in our living room. Here's a pic of her playing today, back to us, totally in her own world, with the flower rug pic hanging in the background.


Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. We plan to relax as much as Baby will let us :)

I WANT MY BABY BACK!!!

This used to be my baby. Always smiling. Always laughing. Always super friendly.

This is my baby now.

Day and night.

If you'd like sound to go with these images, try this out:

Her new name is Miss Pissy Pants Fussy Face. And sorry...just being brutally honest here...but that's an understatement...a compliment even. She spends more time crying than anything else. Diaper changes are a struggle (once again, a total understatement...you'd think I was stabbing her with knives). Normally a smile monster in stores, today she was approached by a handful of old ladies and never once did she even crack a grin. We're seriously exploring the possibility of a milk intolerance.

Who knows.

All I know is that I miss my baby.

Have you seen this doggie???

So Baby Raina has a blankie. It's a doggie that Mom-mom (my mom) gave her when she was born, so she's had it all her life. She's devoted to this blankie. It calms her when she's upset, it makes her smile when she's grumpy, and rubbing its ears along her cheeks makes her willing to succumb to sleep. Doggie is magic. Doggie is also like that saying, "Don't put all your apples in one basket." Is that how it goes? Chris will tell you that I am the worst when it comes to quoting sayings right. Anyways, my point is we have only one doggie. If something were to happen to this doggie, Baby's world would come crashing down. I've been thinking about this more lately because doggie has had a bath almost every day since last Saturday because of all the vomiting Baby has been doing (and yes, she did it again this morning). I'm worried about how he'll hold up with future baths. "Well, just get another one," you say...and my goodness, I couldn't agree more...EXCEPT that we can't find him anywhere! Mom-mom got him from one of those companies that comes to your place of employment to sell stuff, like Books Are Fun, but I've checked their websites and haven't seen him. So, I have a plea to make to all of my devoted readers (ha!) out there...should you ever comes across doggie, PLEASE let me know!!! Here are some pics:

This is Doggie. At the top of the blankie is his head and front paws...at the bottom are his hind legs.
For some sort of idea of how big Doggie is, here's Doggie beside kitty Chloe and my slipper (I wear a size 11...yah, I know :(

This pic has the potential to be a little confusing, so let me clear it up. This is the rear view of Doggie, so you see the back of his head and front paws, the back of his hind paws, and in the middle there is his tail. His tail. And then, of course, my slipper and kitty Fozzie Bear.

Okay now...Go find him!!!

The end of a dirty closet era (for about a week or so)

I think I deserve a big cookie. Even with all that's been happening with Baby this week, I still managed the monumentally adult task of cleaning my closet. Here it is, the view of my big-girl closet from my bed:

The only thing missing was a glass of wine. And some dark chocolate. Mmmmmm...

Not only did I clean my closet this week, but I also cleaned out Baby's, which was almost just as bad as mine. I finally removed all those baby items that she no longer uses...like the too-small papasan, the no-longer-entertaining mobile, the OMG-I-dread-having-to-unpack-this-again-someday breast pump, etc., etc. I'm in serious need of some storage containers 'cause I have nowhere to put all this stuff. Sooooo, for the moment, it is sitting precariously in our upstairs hallway:

Dealing with all that is on tomorrow's to-do list...as well as this:

Does my mess make you feel better about yours? :)

Quick baby update: No puke this a.m., but she was out of sorts today. It didn't help that she didn't take her a.m. nap. I'm watching her in the video monitor now, and she's been crying in her sleep, which just completely breaks my heart, ya know? I hope she feels better tomorrow.

As for this weekend, tonight is my turn to get a good night's sleep and sleep in tomorrow morning while hubby snoozes in the nursery and tends to Baby until I get up. I have sleep issues. It's rare for me to sleep for more than a couple hours at a time, and that's on a good night. Sooo, I am recruiting the help of an OTC sleeping pill this evening. I'm excited. We pretty much plan to stay in this weekend. I'll be cleaning...who knows what Chris will be doing. Not cleaning, I'll bet. I look forward to a weekend when I don't have to clean. That would be a fantastic weekend!

Anyways, that's that. You know where to send that big cookie.

Our day at Children's Hospital

So once again, Baby woke up this morning and vomited...or vomited and woke up...who knows. Chris and I had decided yesterday that we (um, I) would call the doc today if it happened again. For whatever reasons, it just doesn't seem like a stomach virus....and while discovering that a.m. vomiting is a symptom of brain tumors freaked Chris out a bit at first, neither of us really believed that was an issue either...BUT, to be on the safe side (I mean, this is our first time dealing with baby stuff, ya know?!?) I called the doc and left a message on their medical advice line explaining the morning vomiting...and to make sure they were dealing with all the info, I also mentioned my past medical history with my little brain buddy. They finally called about 3 hours later, while Raina was taking her a.m. nap. The nurse said she talked to a couple doctors there, and the recommendation was to take Raina to Children's Hospital ER, tell them what was going on, and see whether they wanted to do anymore tests, whether it be blood or CT scan. Armed with that info, I called Chris and we talked about what we were going to do. Basically it came down to this...we both kinda feel like all this is related to teething...but what if...WHAT IF...what if we were to discover sometime down the road that there's something wrong with her? We didn't want to put ourselves in a position where we would think "Oh, if we had just done something about it sooner..." So, we decided to take her in. She woke up shortly thereafter, we picked Chris up from work, and off we went to Oakland. If you haven't been to Children's Hospital in Oakland, be warned...the parking situation is CRAZY! It was valet. Valet parking freaks me out. Don't ask me why...it just does. To make a long story short, our total time there was about 2 hours...not too bad for an Emergency Room visit, if you ask me. Raina was totally unhappy...she totally dislikes anything having to do with doctors. It's really gotten worse since her last Well Child visit (5 pricks). Here she is in our room while we waited for the doctor...the poor thing :(

The doc we got was great...very attentive, very thorough. She said that they could administer a CT scan no problem, but explained that radiation exposure is cumulative. We all agreed that it was too soon to turn to a CT scan. We all decided to give it until Monday. If the a.m. vomiting doesn't stop by then, we're supposed to take her back to the pediatrician for an MRI referral. That way they can rule out any brain issues and we can be done with that. I'm all for that. While I still don't think there's an issue there, I don't think having a baseline brain MRI is a bad thing. I certainly wish I had one! So anyways, we got home in time for her afternoon nap around 1:30ish. She was cranky and tired, but overall well. This is her about 5 minutes after we got home. All smiles :)

So that was our day. Chris worked from home the rest of the day. We spent money we don't have on pizza for dinner. I had grand plans of working on my closet some more this evening, seeing as tomorrow midnight is my deadline, but I guess I'll be cramming to get it done tomorrow 'cause I'm certainly not doing it tonight! I remembered to put plastic underneath her sheets tonight...I had forgotten the past few days. That should cut back on some laundry tomorrow morning if it should happen again...which we soooo hope it doesn't.

Thanks for all your well-wishes and good vibes!!!

Totally off subject, but guess what? Tomorrow is Friday...I get to sleep in Saturday morning and sleep without the monitor Friday night. Can you say "YAY!!!!!"?!? ;)

Oh my

Taken only a few minutes ago, this pic represents the best part of my day today.
Talk about a crappy day. Crappier for Baby probably. Maybe. I doubt it! We're having baby issues. To recap, she was sick Saturday with lots of vomiting. Sunday and Monday, perfectly fine. I awoke Tuesday morning to a nursery that smelled like puke...she was swimming in it...but relatively fine the rest of the day. I decided to take her to the doctor just to be on the safe side, and they said it was just your run-of-the-mill stomach virus and that it should clear up in 3-5 days. Okay. Well, I woke up this morning a little before 5:45, looked in the monitor and saw she was still sleeping...I went to the bathroom and then went back to bed...looked in the monitor again, this time seeing baby sitting up. I watched her for a couple minutes. She didn't cry...just touched her ears and head a lot...then finally she started to whimper. So I got up, and before I even walked into her room, I could smell the vomit. She was covered. She had to have just done it in the short time I was in the bathroom. So once again, we started the day with a bath and a load of laundry. I ran into Chris as he was getting up and told him what happened, and we both agreed that this just wasn't sounding like a stomach virus anymore. As I prepared her breakfast (which she wasn't too interested in, of course), Chris got on the computer and did what he does best: Research...and this is where the Internet becomes a bad thing. He comes downstairs to tell me that vomiting in the morning is a symptom of a brain tumor. Now, I know this sounds like a complete over-reaction. However, when you take into account the fact that I underwent brain MRIs a few years ago (I was having visual hallucinations) which revealed a 5x7mm mass/cyst in my brain, then it becomes a little scarier. But then again, even though most doctors dismiss it, many moms say that teething can also cause vomiting...and the doc did note yesterday that her molars are coming in. Soooo....we decided to see what happens tomorrow morning. If she vomits again, I think the doc will be getting a call. I have a hard time believing that stomach viruses are so punctually particular. Meanwhile, today...she was horrible...grumpy, fussy, crying (at one point, she cried for over 2 hours). There were only a few moments when things were good, and it was those moments that kept me from going completely insane. I'm very thankful that my time with Baby is done for today.

So get this awesomeness! I'm a facebook addict, if you don't already know. I'm a sucker for that status line. I lost count of how many times I updated that thing today. At one point, I wrote that I would pay for someone to deliver me ice cream. Wednesdays are Chris' school days, so I don't have a car. I came downstairs around 7:30 this evening after putting Baby to bed and found a message on our machine from my sister-in-law telling me that there was something by my front door. Would you believe it was ice cream?!? I'll admit that I had tears. Such a good moment :)

I've gotten inquiries about my closet. Needless to say, all this baby stuff has slowed me down, but I'm still sticking to my Friday completion date (and by Friday I mean midnight Friday :). I got everything unloaded from my closet and put into containers. This is our king-sized bed loaded with about 80% of what was in my closet.

I have more I could write about, but I'm going to have more ice cream and watch my trash TV instead. I'll end this with a video I took of Baby today. It was one of those rare moments when she wasn't crying (though she does cry in the end...of course).

National Clean Your Closet Week

And by "National," I mean those of you who actually read this thing.

You've seen the state of my closet (scroll down if you haven't). I hereby resolve to have it cleaned by Friday. And by "cleaned," I mean all clothes washed and put away. Not a single garbage bag of mixed-state clothes will remain. I love putting clothes in garbage bags. It's such an easy way to forget the mess exists. It's a little after 10 a.m., and Baby is napping. I'm going to start by emptying my entire closet and putting everything in bags (yay!). After that, it's a matter of sorting. I went through the house and gathered a bunch of toys and items unfamiliar to Baby so as to hopefully keep her entertained until at least lunch time. Ya know, things like batteries, bottle caps, containers of coins. Ha! Give me a little more credit...try instead spatulas, magazines, pots, etc. Ever since she's become more mobile, she's gotten much better at independent play (THANK GOODNESS!). The bedroom is vacuumed and baby friendly, so I'm ready to go.

Perhaps you have a closet in need of help, too? JUST DO IT! :)

My immune system of steel

As you may have heard, both my hubby and baby have been sick with a very nasty stomach bug. It started first with Chris. I had to rescue him from work Friday morning, and he was pretty much in bed (or the bathroom) that entire day. I had plans to be out of town Saturday in order to dress shop for bridesmaids dresses, so luckily Chris was feeling a little better by the time I left. However, about 3 hours after leaving, I received a phone call from Chris informing me that Sugar Bear had vomited all over the place. Poor Chris. It stinks bad enough to be sick yourself, but then to have to take care of a sick baby all by yourself...I know it's tough, especially considering he didn't have a car, so he had no way to go out and get Pedialyte or Tylenol (we know now to always have these things on hand...ya gotta learn the hard way, I guess). Thankfully we have an absolutely amazing friend who was kind enough to go to the drugstore and deliver the goods to our doorstep. To hear Chris talk about that day is funny. I told him today that it sounds like he has post-traumatic stress disorder from the experience. All he can talk about is how he got puked on not once...not twice...but SIX times. Suck it up! :) I think I could handle puke a whole lot better than boogers. I hate boogers! However, I must admit that the smell of vomit is pretty bad. I've cleaned the livingroom rug who knows how many times, but the smell still lingers. I'm contemplating just getting a new rug. Anyways, Raina's bug seemed to only last Saturday. She was fine today, thank goodness. Chris feels a lot better, too, though his appetite still hasn't come all the way back. I wonder how much time has to pass before I can wipe my brow and give a Whew! of relief that I managed to not catch this thing.

I'm keeping this short. I need to get myself to bed. I'll share some pics of my recovered baby today, though. Here she is peeking at herself in her old car seat mirror. This entertained her for quite a long time.

Here she is having a grand time feeding Fozzie Bear her yogurt.

Multi-tasking, schmulti-tasking

What a day. Poor Chris. He's horribly sick. It looks like some sort of stomach bug. OMG, I just hope really, really hard that I don't catch it. I told him tonight that if I do, he better be prepared to take time off work to care for Sugar Bear. He's been in bed all day (except for when he's been in the bathroom). Meanwhile, Baby is not herself, either. If it continues tomorrow, I'll probably be taking her in to see the doc. Meanwhile, I had all these grand plans for today. Oh wait...first, my night last night. Baby woke up around midnight and didn't go back to bed until after 2 a.m. This is the second time this week this has happened. Last night I just brought her down to the living room, plopped her in front of her toys, and watched her play while I caught up on my ANTM. I'm totally dragging, so totally tired. I kind of had a feeling her naps wouldn't be good today (and they totally weren't), so I decided to do some spring cleaning. I started early this morning, after dropping Chris off at work, making over Baby's room...folded up the futon, making a little more room for toys and crawling. Baby played on the floor while I dragged everything out into the hallway, creating a huge mess out there. When she started to look tired, I began our naptime routine, but she was having none of it...crying, screaming, she went crazy. At that point, Chris called from work, asking me to come pick him up and bring him back home. Anyways, my point was that I had these plans to actually do some major cleaning today, but instead, because Chris wasn't able to take over baby duty at all today, I'm left with an even bigger mess than I started with, which just brings me down a little bit...especially because I'm going to be out of town all day Saturday.

Dinner was just me and Baby tonight. I was all excited about roasting some carrots. I love roasted carrots! I had them all seasoned and snug in the oven with Baby keeping me company in the kitchen...but she was very unhappy, on the verge of completely losing it, so I was trying to hurry with preparing her dinner and the rest of my dinner, in addition to playing with her so she wouldn't start screaming, and then I got a phone call. I guess that was just a little too much for me to handle, 'cause this is what my precious carrots ended up as:

Luckily I like the flavor of burnt food.

Baby's day at the zoo & Mom's night at the salon

Isn't it just the most deflating feeling when you work really long and hard on something...say, oh, a blog entry...and then it just disappears into that computer nowhere land? Well, that just happened to me, and it's now 10 p.m. and my butt is screaming to go to bed. Therefore, this will be short.

Baby and I went to the zoo today. It was a fantastic trip. There were less than 20 cars in the parking lots...just the way I like it! It wasn't even all that bad out today...maybe a little chilly but no precip. I made the most of our time by packing Baby's lunch to go. You can't see the hippo in this pic (one-handed pictures aren't the easiest to take, ya know!), but you can see Baby's buffet of hot dogs, cheese, and cheerios. Yum.


The P'burgh Zoo has 2 baby elephants. Normally Baby finds them quite exciting. Today, though, she was more interested in the hay strewn about.

Next came the monkeys, her favorite animal at the moment. She even knows the sign. Too cute :) Anyways, as we made our way into the indoor primate rainforest, we were greeted by this dead bird. :(

Most of the monkeys were sleeping...not much fun to look at (at least for Baby), but we did get a few displays of primatedness (yes, that's a word).

After the zoo, Baby had a nap, we picked Chris up from work, had chicken fajitas for dinner, I gave Baby a bath, and then I handed her off to Chris so he could put her to bed while I went to the salon. For those of you who don't know, I've been trying to grow my hair out for over a year-and-a-half now. It's been really hard, and I finally lost my resolve last week (thanks again, Carrie ;). Anyways, the outing ended up taking 2 hours, even though the salon is within walking distance of my house. To make a long story short, I had to wait 90 minutes for the only stylist there who cut with a straight razor. I'm adamant about that. I'm happy with the results. The back is super short...I feel like a boy when I touch it. The front is long enough that I can style it if I want. I tried to take pics, but none of them showed the cut well. I had Chris take a pic of me, too, but good lord do I look frumpy in it, so there's no way I'm posting that one. You'll just have to do with the bad one that I took. I'm sure a better pic will turn up soon.

Will I ever grow up?

The thirties are a hard age. They just don't fit in anywhere. You got the cool, hip, successful, and fresh-faced twenty-somethings and the cool, hip, even more successful, and still young-looking forty-somethings, and then in between are the thirty-somethings. I'm certainly not cool, hip, or successful; nor do I seem to be aging well. Then throw in the delusion I have that I should still be carded at liquor stores and movie theaters...crazy, I know. But ya know what? I'm okay with being a lame wrinkled luddite who's totally behind the times and with no grand achievements to brag of (although I did teach my dog to sneeze on command...c'mon, that's pretty impressive). What bothers me is that here I am in my thirties, but yet I can't handle simple adult tasks/responsibilities.

Case in point: This is my closet.


Not only is this my closet, this has been my closet for months now. Perhaps you're saying to yourself, "Well, surely her closet is this way because she just had a baby and not enough time to devote to taking care of her stuff." I wish I could jump on that excuse, but I can't. My closets have been like this since I was a kid...but when you're a kid, it's okay; it's expected...but from a thirty-something?!? Seriously, when will I grow out of this?!?

Need more examples? I got 'em.

• Flossing. I can probably count on two hands the number of times I floss in a year's time (and that's usually after eating corn, pineapple, or popcorn). Not only sad, but gross, I know.
• Returning rented movies on time. Apparently that's just too hard for me. Let's say I take 10 trips to the video store...9 of them would result in late fees. In fact, I've video store jumped...ya know, when you have high late fees at one so you just join another until you rack up fees there and then you join another.
• Watering plants. It's amazing Baby is still alive.

I have more, but I'll stop there. Am I being too hard on myself? Are my expectations of adulthood unrealistic? Is it like when I got married the first time and thought that, as a wife, my main responsibility was to darn socks? Seriously. I did. I blame Little House on the Prairie for that one.

ANYWAYS...moving on...

So, I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow. Yay! Chris doesn't have class, so I'll have the car. I'll leave him to tend to baby's nighttime routine while I face the razor and scissors. I'm only a teeny bit nervous. This will be the shortest I've ever gone, I think.

I'll end with a video of baby. She's still not fantastic at this crawling thing, but I think it's gonna click any day now...then it's bye-bye freedom for mom.

Yet another reason to love Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh...determined to be the best place in Pennsylvania to raise your kids.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/11/1110_best_places_for_kids/index.htm?campaign_id=yahoo

Sweet!

Countdown to the end of "freedom"...2 hours...

I take my mom back to the airport in less than 2 hours. (Frowny face.) We didn't do anything too exciting today...just went to the consignment shop. I only spent $7 on two shirts. Mom-mom bought her a cute outfit and a baby doll. Out of all the relatives and friends who have spent time around Raina, my mom has been the luckiest as far as witnessing the exciting stuff. She was there the first time I heard the little parasite's heartbeat...she got to see Baby drink from a sippy cup for the first time (sigh...let's not go there)...and then this visit she got to see Raina crawl (yes, Raina is crawling now...only a few feet but she's crawling) and talk. She mastered "up" and "Daddy" these past couple days and definitely tries to say "balloon" and "banana"...they sound the same -- "buh!" --- but still! Right now everyone is taking a nap. Baby is in her pack-n-play in my room right now. I'm sitting on the bed, under the covers with my laptop so she won't see me. It's fun...makes me want to get out every sheet we own and make sheet forts like I did when I was a kid.

A big development in our evolution as parents...we're talking about buying a van. Gasp, I know! As you may or may not know, we've only had one car for a couple months now. The Tercel has been an awesome car, but it now needs a new starter and we think a whole lot more, too. It's paid off, though, which is such a wonderful thing! We're going to see what Chris' new paycheck is going to be like starting next month and then see if we can't swing a cheapo car payment for a used van. Unfortunately, we like stuff and like to cart around too much of it. If kid #2 is coming someday, we'll need more room than what a car or small SUV can offer.

Doesn't this one just scream me?

My Brand-Spankin' New Blog

What better way to start this off than with some TMI, eh? I picked up a razor today for the first time in, oh, I'd say about two months. Actually, no. That's not true. I picked up a razor before then, but this was the first time I held it for more than 30 seconds. My legs were past the point of doubling as sand paper. They were full-fledged rugs. Fairies could braid the hairs. I could teach Baby Raina how to pet nice with them. You get the picture. However, now I can brush up against my hubby and not apologize for being such a hippy. Although I do buy organic milk now...which makes me wonder, how many boxes of the Hippy Checklist do you have to check off before you can call yourself one? Hmmmmm...

My mom is still in town visiting. It's been great. I love Baby to death, but it's nice to get a break from the diapers, playing, feeding, and all that other good stuff. Chris and I were able to go on a movie date Friday night...Zack & Miri Make a Porno. Good movie...definitely got some good laughs...even tears at one point for me...but the coolest thing about it for me was that it was filmed right here in Pittsburgh. It's neat to see places you go to on a regular basis up on the big screen. I also recruited my mom's help with organizing Baby's old clothes. We managed to sort through about 5 garbage bags of clothes...organized according to size and genre. Now all we need is another baby girl. HA. Don't worry. Not yet.

I'm still planning on chopping off my mop but not until probably next week sometime. It's not cold feet...just priorities. I'd rather use the time while my mom is here to clean the basement. It's a scary place, and I keep telling myself that if it weren't so scary, I'd go down there more often to exercise and do laundry (now it's your turn to say 'Ha').

Tomorrow is my last day with my live-in babysitter. Our big plans are a nap and a visit to the local baby consignment shop. I have $10 to spend. Look out!