ouch

S has become pretty violent. She beat up our friend P today. Of course, it was a busy day as our friend VA also taught her to fly.

it's my party

Amazingly, we didn't get many pictures from S's little party this afternoon. Our friends D and A got a wicked awesome new camera, so I'm hoping to score a few of their photos. Here are a few, though...including one totally gross cake pic.

piece of cake

I'm actually impressed with the kiddo. No cake in her hair, which means I don't have to give her another bath before cake today. That makes me happy.

Thanks for all the lovely birthday wishes. Here are some pictures from last night.

"I will eat you," says the cake whisperer.
I like frosting. A lot.
"Tickle my neck."
Guess who didn't want her birthday to end.

happy birthday, little love

It's official. S is one. One. I can't believe that one year ago today, I was in the hospital, having her. In twelve months, she's done so much that I am completely amazed.

I promise pictures with cake later. She doesn't get cake until her Daddy gets home. Until then, you'll just have to be satisfied with a picture of one year ago.

two days and counting

My daughter is 363 days old today. In two days she's eligible for full-on dairy privileges. I actually gave her a couple of teaspoons of my milk this morning. So far, so good. I don't actually anticipate any problems as the kid has been scarfing yogurt and cheese for ages. Friday means milk, though, and I'm pretty excited about it. I've already (sort of) started the weaning process, and she's not really liking it. She had been nursing when she woke up in the morning and before bed, plus before and after naps...only it was sort of half-hearted for the nap time feedings. I started eliminating the "after the afternoon nap" feeding last week, and S is not happy about it. In hindsight, eliminating the before nap feeding would've been easier. Live and learn. Anyway, we'll keep plugging away at it, and I hope I'm able to cut one feeding a week until we're mama-milk free. So, I guess we're about a month and a half away from that goal.

Of course, I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not to go through this right before we move or to wait. Part of me thinks it would be better to have her used to not nursing before we move...you know, one less thing to change once we're moved. The other part of me thinks the transition of the move would be easier on her if she was still nursing. If every single aspect of her routine was the same and only the geography changed it might be less jarring...

I have no idea what to do here. I guess I could call the pediatrician and ask for his recommendation. Part of me is selfish and doesn't want to wait two more months to start the process. Besides, Scarlet Lily is having a party in late April, and I want S to be completely adjusted to non-nursing before I go. I don't want to be in the middle of weaning her and then "abandon" her for a weekend. That seems like it would be really bad for both of us. I can just imagine me being a real party animal while my milk is drying up. Sorry for the image burned into the brains of the men at M's office. You all know that you're reading a chick blog...you should be prepared for these things.

Happy Wednesday, peeps. I've got to go make some lunch.

abra cadabra

Um, what just happened? Where did the snow come from? And where did it go? I awoke this morning to NPR telling me that schools were closed.

Huh?

Then I looked outside and saw that everything was blanketed in white. I had no idea it was supposed to snow. Apparently no one did because M said none of the roads had been salted or cleared when he went to work and there were several accidents on major roads around town. It really shouldn't have come as a surprise, though, as the temperature hadn't been over twenty degrees for several days. Until today. It's a whopping 38 outside. Heat wave. I thought about wearing shorts, but that would've required shaving. That's a joke.

Anyway, the snow is gone and now everything is just wet and cold and gray. I hate winter. I think I've mentioned that before.

As there is nothing going on around here, I'll just placate you with pictures of S...who is still zero. At least until Friday.

a new obsession

Holy moly. The Ps are hooked. Hooked. On Heroes. You know....the show that rocketed Hayden Panettiere to stardom and spawned the newest and least appropriate version of HaLo. Anyway, I'd had a sneaking suspicion for ages that M and I would love the show if we ever sat down to watch it. The major problem was that we'd have to start at the beginning or we'd be completely lost. So, I added the first disk of the first season to our Netflix queue, and the rest is history. After we got the first disk, the rest of season one got bumped to the top of the list. Friday night, we finished disk three, and I decided I couldn't handle waiting until this week to get a few more episodes...then a few more days for a few more episodes...you get the idea. We went to the video store and rented the rest of the first season and finished it this weekend. Thirteen episodes of Heroes in two days. We were up until 2am Sunday morning, which anyone can tell you is not like us at all. We just couldn't stop. I'm telling you, I love this show. Love it. Love it. Love it. I can't wait to get into the second season, which I think we'll likely start watching online. My hope is that the writer's strike will end soon because once it starts interfering with my Heroes-watching agenda, there's going to be a problem.

So, if you've got the flu or just don't want to go out into the frigid, biting cold, go rent Heroes.

Happy Monday, peeps. I've got to go catch up on the laundry I wasn't doing while I was glued to the television for the past several days.

Oh, and S got her first pair of Crocs today. They're so stinkin' cute on her feet...and in her mouth, which is where they were for the entire car ride home since she was chewing on them.

a little politick'n

I'm not entirely sure I'm going to be able to create a coherent post with all the ramblings in my brain today, but I'll give it a shot. It all started with Newsweek. I was reading last week's edition, and they were following Barack Obama around after the Iowa win. I remember when he got a secret service detail because he was getting race-based threats early in the campaign, but I'd honestly forgotten about it because I can't imagine it being an actual issue (anymore than I see Hillary Clinton's gender as an issue). So, when the article mentioned his wife being unable to talk about personal safety concerns for fear that she'll basically lose it, I was floored. I just can't wrap my brain around that kind of intense hatred. What's the point? Who benefits from that? No one. It makes me sick and sad all at the same time. That was where the politics started for me yesterday.

Then, I actually stayed awake to watch the democratic candidates debate last night. I really like watching debates, and it was nice to watch this one with the three front runners. Not that I wanted to write off early candidates, but no one asked them questions in the debates anyway, and it was almost painful to watch them standing there...waiting. I will admit, however, that I missed Joe Biden's ability to answer a question in a sentence. I think that you could ask Obama, Clinton, and Edwards their favorite ice cream flavors and they'd spout off very PC answers cataloging the virtues of every flavor they could think of. (These days...mine's Chocolate Raspberry Truffle from Brewster's if anyone cares.) Anyway...

I'm a big fan of John Edwards. It's hard not to like a guy with such a great southern accent. But great southern accents don't necessarily make you the best presidential candidate out there. Or do they?? Anyway, I'm a big believer in his message. Big. Huge. However, in Tuesday night's debate (as 24 hours have elapsed since I started this post...damned stomach bug) the whole "son of a mill worker" routine had gotten a little old. He almost seemed desperate. I didn't like it. I thought Hillary came off well, though, and Barack Obama was Barack Obama: cool as a cucumber and sharp as a tack. Either way, it's going to be an interesting couple of months...

I'm out, peeps. I have no real train of thought anymore as these thoughts are too old now. Have a great Thursday.

baby got back

S is not a petite child. Never has been. Of course, her cloth diapers have always made her look rounder than she really is. But now they make her look even bigger. Her size medium cloth diaper covers are a thing of the past. We started realizing several weeks ago that she was constantly getting mild diaper rash every time we used her cloth diapers, but it was never happening when she was in disposables. Then we put two and two together and realized that the diaper covers had become so snug that they were holding wet diapers directly against her buns. As she's never been one to complain about having a wet diaper, it was a problem. So, I headed out to pick up bigger covers. There's a smidge of a problem, though. The large covers are supposed to fit babies from 25-40 pounds. For those of you who aren't parents, that covers kids from about age one to age four. Needless to say, they are enormous on her. Silly enormous. Between her knees and halfway up her back enormous. It's not pretty, and it's barely creating a functional situation. Poopers in these suckers are an issue I really don't want to talk about.

There has to be a better way, right? I have been seriously concerned for about a week now that there wasn't going to be a better way that didn't involve several hundred dollars. I had assumed that the sizing of cloth diaper covers was standard...like the sizing of disposable diapers...meaning that there would be no diaper covers to properly fit the child and we'd be forced to go the disposable route indefinitely or pony up the cash for all-in-ones. Neither of those options sounded at all appealing to me.

So, last night I hit the trusty internet in hopes of finding something great. Know what I found out? That assuming makes an ass out of me. (Not necessarily "u", but definitely me.) Diaper cover sizes aren't standard at all. Not even close. It's completely different between different brands. I found that Bumkins covers (which we've used before) have a size large that fit 22-28 pound kiddos and Bummis (which we've never used, but have heard great things about) makes a size medium that fits up to a 30 pound baby. I realize now that I really should've done this research before I ran to the local store in hopes of saving the energy related to shipping diaper covers. Anyway, I decided to give the Bummis a shot as they've come out with a new style with leg gussets, which we find critical and none of their old styles had. They have been ordered, and my fingers are crossed that they are as wonderful as I've heard. I'll keep you all posted as I know you're going to lose sleep over it...

In other product news- the Ecover dishwasher detergent I posted about before was pretty awful. We've used the whole box at this point...about a month's worth of dishes. We've been drinking out of crusty, dirty glasses for the entire month. I have, however, decided to give the brand another shot, and I picked up some of their dish cubes today. I'll let you know if they're any better. If they're not, I'm not entirely sure what we'll do. I can't wrap my brain around paying ten bucks for dishwasher detergent, and that's the next step.

so much to say

I'm on one of my green kicks today. I think it's mostly because we got the latest Organic Gardening in the mail yesterday, and I've been poring over its pages. We just started getting it last month, and I'm so happy that M noticed it in the "what magazines are available from this school fundraiser" brochure as I was just about to sign up for Cottage Living, which I love but don't need. Besides, my Aunt Mel gets it, and she's about to live about ten doors down. No need for both if us to subscribe to it, right? Of course, I do harbor a little guilt over subscribing to another magazine at all, but I really love the magazines that we get right now (the too long list includes Southern Living, Cooking Light, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Parents, Parenting, National Geographic, and now Organic Gardening). That's a lot of paper. In our defense, we ordered all of them for school fundraisers, except the two that are gifts every year. At least we recycle all of them, right? Please tell me that makes it okay. Anyway...

I'm really excited about things for the new house. I really wish that we'd gotten into the whole thing before the house was done so we could've gotten a solar-powered water heater, but the one in the house will give out someday, and when that day comes, we'll see what we can do. For now, we'll do what we can. I've been looking into how to landscape around your home to maximize your home's energy efficiency and minimize the need for watering the lawn. I'm really, really, really excited about getting to do some of these things. First and foremost, I'll finally get rain barrels, and I am super, super excited about that. I'd also like to take all the grass out of the tiny front lawn and plant it in a groundcover plant that doesn't have to be mowed. Less energy wasted there. I know that M has been looking at electric lawnmowers, too, as we will still have a lawn that requires mowing out back. Then there's the clothesline that I'll put up, and I'd like to add some solar-powered lights to the exterior of the house. There's just so much to be done, and I can't wait to get started. If anyone has any great ideas, pass them along. Oh, and I'm starting to think about seeds for the garden, if anyone has a no-fail supplier, let me know. (Morton Monkey Mama and MoWask, I'm pretty much talking to you guys.)

Oh, how I wish it was spring. I'm ready to play outside and grow some stuff.

And, since I missed it yesterday:
FIVE SENSES FRIDAY
Sight: a dust-free living room, an empty laundry hamper, the compost pile
Sound: S laughing when Otis licks her tummy
Smell: walking into the house when it smells like food
Touch: S hugs
Taste: fresh blueberry muffins, homemade polenta (it was so good and surprisingly easy)

And...(how many ands are there??)...here are some pictures from last week, as promised.

art vomit

My friend P's blog has a great title. This mosaic. I was just thinking about it and how brilliant it is and how life is a big mosaic of all of your loves and experiences and whatnot. Life is art. What a lovely thought. My life, however, would be quite a disastrous work of art right now. It would look like Picasso and Dali upchucked on canvas and then let Jackson Pollack do his thing with the results. Not a pretty picture.

Things just seem so insane right now, but nothing is actually happening. It's a "hurry up and wait" situation. There is so much on the horizon but instead of moving toward the horizon, I feel like we're stuck on a hamster wheel. Cruel, cruel hamster wheel. I think several of you picked up on the fact that the P family is getting ready to make a move. We've bought a house in my hometown, and our house here is on the market. So, we have this fabulously remodeled old bungalow down in Tennessee, waiting for us to fill it up. We have a house here that we need to sell, and M and I are nervous wrecks about it. I'm not sure we could've picked a worse time to try to sell a house...stupid housing bust. M will transfer to Nashville with his current company, so while things will be the same, they'll be really different for him, which adds to the great unknown. (Speaking of unknowns, we have no move date.) Those are the big things.

The devil is in the details, though. Anyone out there have a house on the market recently? Wouldn't be a problem if it were just me and M, but throw Otis and S into the mix, and it's suddenly way harder to keep the house in pristine shape. Plus, I'm constantly on edge about the realtor calling and having to get out of the house with the baby and the pooch at a moment's notice. Of course, that hasn't happened, and that, in and of itself, is worrisome. Where are all the people who should be beating down my door to buy my adorable house in the perfect little neighborhood? Plus, there was a leak in the new house that is being fixed, and we're working on having a garage and storage built, and at some point I have to shop for appliances, and I'm dizzy just thinking about it. Oh, and we're buying a condo for Mr. P, too. I swear I'm about to run out of steam.

I'll quit belly-aching now. I have to go find the second elephant from S's Noah's Ark. I think she left it in the car, and I am way too anal retentive to have something like that missing in action. I'm off to hunt me some elephant. Have a nice Thursday, peeps. Enjoy the new 30 Rock tonight.

what's that?

"What's that?" Over and over and over. That's the question. Posing the question is my daughter. She wanders around pointing at things, asking,"what's that?" It's getting old already. God help me.

Had to get that little bit of info out of the way. Now, my apologies for being out of commission for the past week. I won't bore you with excuses. I'm sorry. That's that.

We spent four days last week in Tennessee with Feathernester and family. It was great. We got to meet L and hang out, which was wonderful. On the way home, I realized that it's the longest stretch of time that I've gotten to spend with them in years. Now that we're grown ups, it seems like there's never more than a day or two to spare. Plus, at least one of us was pregnant for the majority of the past two years. Not anymore. Besides, we're about to be able to forgo plane flights to visit...we'll (hopefully) be able to just pop the kiddos into their strollers and walk to each other's houses. Fingers crossed, people.

Beyond the visit, there isn't much to report. S is walking all over the place now, and she sprouted a new tooth this morning. She's had a cold for a week, and I have been covered in snot because of it. She had a little birthday party while we were in TN, even though her birthday isn't for a couple more weeks. Here's a shot of my little cupcake with a cupcake. I promise to post more pics later, I just don't know where the camera is right now...

what??

Completely gratuitous picture. Just to get you interested in this crazy long post.

It's New Years Eve? What? M pointed out yesterday that New Years Day means it will no longer be the year that our little munchkin was born. That might not seem odd to, say, Feathernester or my friend K, whose children were born in November and December, but mine was born in January. I've had almost a whole year of it being the calendar year in which she was born.

People, January starts tomorrow. A new year. The year when she turns ONE. Are you picking up on the fact that I'm hyperventilating? Just a little? Wow. It's insane how quickly everything is happening. She walks everywhere now. She "talks." She eats anything and everything you put in front of her. She is a real kid. Kind of. What happened to my baby? I can't imagine what this feels like to people who have kindergarteners or high schoolers or babies getting married and having babies of their own. Dang. Bring on the Prozac now. I'm going to need it.

Moving on...to prevent my need to find a paper sack to breathe into.

The New Year, as always, brings its demand for resolutions. I batted .500 with my 2007 resolutions. I did lose the baby weight...and my boobs, but that's another issue entirely. (Sorry for the nausea tsunami that just hit the GIS Department at FMSM/Stantec.) Otis, however, got the short end of the deal. He's pretty lucky to get walked twice a week. Lucky. I can't walk him on my own when I take S out as he pulls too badly despite training and a gentle leader, so he can only be walked when M is home. As M leaves for work at 6:30 in the morning and S still wakes for a morning feeding between 5:30 and 6, I'd have to get up at 5 to walk him. Not happening. I am selfish. Then...M's dad comes over for dinner when M gets home from work between 6 and 6:30...then the kitchen has to be cleaned and S goes to bed at 7:30. The other option is that I could walk him after S is asleep, which means walking him around 8. Again, I'm selfish. I'm pooped by that point, plus it's winter, meaning it's cold and very dark at 8pm. That means that Otis gets walks on the weekends. I feel horrible having typed out that explanation for my poor dog-parenting. I'm basically admitting that I'm too lazy to wake up early or go out late to walk my sweet pup. I'll try harder in '08.

All that brings me to the upcoming year. Like everyone (I think) abstract goals are easy to come by. Be a good wife and mother. Be healthier. Continue the green crusade. Concrete is hard, though. We started one resolution already...cutting out soda. I wanted to eliminate it from the house entirely, but Mr. P drinks it with dinner, and M said I shouldn't penalize his dad with my resolutions. While I still believe M's padre would be better off drinking water with his dinner, too, I've kept soda in the fridge for him. For now. I'd rather not have it in the house as S gets older. So, for now, I'll stick to no sodas in the house for me. I've got 365 days to go. I've also decided that (abstract goal) we are going to start treating our health as an investment. M and I have no problems saving money and foregoing things that we may want when we are working towards financial goals like buying cars or houses or paying for vacations. We're downright good at it. We tend to neglect ourselves, though. To make it easier on us, I've decided that we should start looking at taking care of ourselves as another investment...the time and money that we put into it now will save us money and resources later. Plus, I can think of it as an environmentally friendly investment. The more medical problems we can head off now...the less energy and packaging for medicines and medical treatments later. To try and be more concrete about that goal I want to make sure that we are each eating at least three superfoods a day. I also want to try the walking the dog thing again. Plus, I'd like to practice yoga at least twice a week. Yoga is easy enough to fit in during S's naps. I just have to remember that my health is as important as the dishes in the dishwasher. M has to remember that his health is more important than Sportsline.com. (I know, I totally just called you out.)

I have to get in the shower. I've got things to do today, peeps. Have a happy and safe New Year. I'll see you on the flip side.

happy christmas

What a perfectly perfect day. S woke up a little early, but that's okay. We had lots of fun checking out the loot from Santa and from friends. Then we decided to start a new P family Christmas tradition, and we took a walk just after we finished opening gifts and eating some Blueberry Cranberry Muffins, which were very yummy. The walk was great, and it was nice to be outside on such a quiet and peaceful morning. We only saw two people...a dad warming up the car and Max (a friend's son) trying out his new skateboard. For the record, he wiped out immediately. M and I had a relaxing middle of the day, slowly getting Christmas dinner ready. We pigged out at 3, and now we're chilling out with Mr. P while S takes a nap. It's been an absolutely wonderful day. I hope yours have been great, too. Here are some pics...

Santa only comes to see little girls with good oral hygiene.

The loot.

Playing the ladybug xylophone.

Wondering where it all went wrong.

Zoom.

Bundled up for a Christmas stroll.

i go out walking...

You have my sincerest apologies for not posting recently. I know your holidays have been incomplete without your daily dose of all-things Ouiser. It's been busy around here. You know how it is.

Despite our having been running all over this week, we haven't had much going on. Last Sunday night, S hosted her first dinner party for her friends AJG and ALB (and their parents). It was lots and lots of fun. We hadn't had a chance to get the babies together since they all three became mobile, so it was great to watch them all together. ALB was especially interested in Otis as she doesn't have a dog. You'll notice in the picture that he was at the center of everything.The big news...if you can imagine bigger news than the infant dinner party...S is WALKING!! That's right, I said walking. Upright. On her feet. On her own. She only goes a few steps, but she's doing it, and it's so funny to watch. Hopefully, I'll have some video to post soon. That, of course, implies that I'll figure out how to do it. We'll see. Maybe you should just imagine S walking and then be pleasantly surprised if I post video. Yeah, try that.

Anyway, happy Saturday, peeps. If you're traveling for Christmas, be safe...

ready, set, go...

Is the weekend really almost here? What happened to all the days like Wednesday this week? It seems like yesterday that I was lamenting to my FIL that, "this has been a long weekend." The P family has quite a bit to accomplish this weekend. Lots of cleaning up to do around the house because Santa doesn't visit messy houses, and I'd hate to miss Santa. We're also having a little dinner party Sunday night, so I've got some grocery shopping and some cooking to do. And Mr. P needs a haircut in a bad, bad way. Pretty soon he could go the Flock of Seagulls route. Not really an appropriate look for an older man. Or a man not living in 1985. Oh, in other news...S sort of walked yesterday. She's been taking one little step for awhile now. By "one step," I mean she moves one foot forward then plops down. Yesterday, though, there were two steps. She was after the cookie I was eating. How hysterical is that? I laughed and laughed and laughed. Then I gave her well-deserved bite of my cookie, which she thought was great.

She's also officially got a first actual word (not just syllables that coincide with words like bye bye and dada and mama), though it's not at all what she's trying to say. It's OTIS! Really, it's O-din, but she's trying so hard. She makes the right motions with her face, but her vocal cords aren't really cooperating. She says it, though, and it's adorable.

santa claus is in town...

We took S to see Santa Claus yesterday afternoon. It was great. I apologize for the poor photo quality...it's scanned.

recover with ecover?

Am I on the way to recovering from yesterday's green depression? Maybe. My travels this morning took me to the immediate vicinity of Wild Oats, so I picked up some Ecover dish powder. I know, I know. I said no powder, and I would prefer liquid or cubes. Ecover makes cubes, but they were sold out, and since I am almost out of detergent and I don't know how often I'll be near Wild Oats, I went ahead and bought what they had. While there were several other brands that I'd never heard of and several that were just crazy pricey, I chose this one. One of the detergents was so expensive, you could just continuously replace your dishes instead of washing them and still come out ahead (monetarily speaking, I realize it defeats the green point). So, I'll keep you all posted on the pros and cons. It'll be a few days, though. I know you're on pins and needles with anticipation.

Beyond that, there isn't much going on around here. M and I both had dentist appointments this morning. We really like our dentist's office. All the girls there (and it is all girls, not a man in sight) are very nice, and they are good at what they do. Our usual hygienist, Sarabeth, is so good you'd never even know she was working on your teeth. You never feel anything. I love her. I was not fortunate enough to get her today, though. Instead I got Brenda. I'd never had the pleasure before, and I'm using the word pleasure very loosely. Very. The woman is a sadist. She must absolutely abhor teeth and gums. I am not a bleeder. This lady made the gums around my front teeth bleed. I didn't even know that was possible. Then she had the audacity to tell me that my gums were bleeding, so I probably wasn't flossing enough. Maybe she was just trying to murderize the inside of my mouth. I floss at least every other day. I don't think my flossing habits had anything to do with my current need for a blood transfusion. My mouth feels like someone took a jackhammer to the insides of my teeth. I'm going to have to request that I never have her again. It's not worth it. She is the kind of dental employee that makes people afraid of the dentist. Apparently, M has drawn the short straw and gotten stuck with her before. She tried to kill him, too.

I'm out, peeps. Enjoy your afternoon with (hopefully) perfectly normal mouths.

guilty as charged

I think my ongoing battle with green guilt has been pretty well documented. For the most part, all of the green guilt in our little family falls on my shoulders. Not that M is at all environmentally irresponsible, but his role in most endeavors is to keep me sane and grounded. He puts things into perspective. So you can imagine my surprise when he fell into a funk Saturday after watching the video posted on Feathernester's site. Based on what it did to him, I'm not watching it. (Sorry, Feathernester, I just can't do it to myself.)

I really don't know where to go from here. I'm trying to phase plastics out of the house, but I'm not getting rid of things until they need to be gotten rid of. That just seems wasteful, right? I will, however, be replacing all of our re-usable plastic Glad containers with glass containers as they inevitably migrate away from our house (where do they go?). I'll also be slowly replacing our plastic hangers with wooden hangers, which I honestly prefer anyway. To get rid of other chemicals, I'll be purchasing some dryer balls when the current supply of fabric softener sheets run out. We already use Method cleaners throughout the house, though I use Cascade dishwasher cubes and All Free and Clear as I can buy them in bulk. Therein lies a dilemma. I'm great with the laundry detergent. No chemicals there, and I feel good about there being less packaging involved because I buy the container that I can barely lift. The dishwasher cubes are an issue, though. I know that Cascade is not the best option out there. I used to use the Method dish cubes, but they come in pretty small containers, so I felt like I was constantly headed to Target for more. With the Cascade cubes, I can buy them three times a year. I know that Seventh Generation has some options, but I really don't like to use powder as I tend to get it everywhere, and I think their liquid only comes in Lemon. I don't use lemon products on my dishes. It's too harsh. I guess I need to prioritize. Or do some research, eh?

Once again, green tips are appreciated as the P family is once again headed down our green shame spiral.

Oh, I have vowed that this will be the last year that I buy wrapping paper for gifts. I had already bought our Christmas paper when it went on sale last year, so now I'm waiting for our supplies to run out. From now on, we'll be reusing whatever paper I can find for Christmas, birthdays, baby gifts, you name it. I'm not sure that I can give up ribbon, though.

I'm out, people. I have to feed a baby.

you call this a meal?

I am amazed. Amazed at the random crap I can put onto a plate and call a meal for my child. I'm trying to recall her last few meals. Here's a sample of the kind of "meals" I've been feeding her. Breakfast is the same everyday: handful of Cheerios, one banana, and either a cinnamon nutri-grain waffle or a piece of whole wheat toast. Some of this week's lunches: whole wheat cheese quesadilla and grapes; diced cheese, diced chicken, and Cheerios; grated pear, toast, and green beans.

I usually try to incorporate at least part of our dinner into hers, so sometimes her dinners seem normal. Like last night's dinner. She and I ate the exact same meal. Baked chicken, whole wheat mac and cheese, and green peas. She's also been eating butternut squash this week. She loves squash. Almost as much as she loves eggplant. I feel like I've gotten into a rut with her meals, relying on the staples: steamed carrots, green beans, apples, pears, sweet potatoes, eggplant, squash, English peas. To try and bust out of the rut, I attempted lentil burgers for her this week, and she did not like them. (Not to mention the intestinal issues they caused the poor child.) Like Jayne's Ave, I have trouble with proteins for little bit. We don't eat a lot of meat, so I have to make sure that I'm feeding her enough protein. It would be easier if M ate beans and I could just throw those to her, but he doesn't. I've given her cooked lentils before, but they were hard to eat as they are so small. She likes smooshed chickpeas, but I'm trying to get her to like more things, so this week, I'm making her red beans. I hope she likes them.

I've also made a new list of things to try her on: blueberries, which I've been avoiding based on Toddler Tamer's warning about blueberry poopers, grape tomatoes, tofu, cantaloupe, asparagus, broccoli, and corn. I have another list of things that I'll have to wait until next summer for: mango, apricots, kiwi, and peaches (attempt #2). So, I'll keep trying to round out her diet...

Wish me luck.

Oh, and she has a new trick. (I say that like, "Watch how my dog can play dead.") If you start saying the first lines of one of her books, she'll go get that book and bring it back to you. It's really cute. It's especially cute when the book you're talking about isn't in plain sight and she has too actually look for it. I, of course, take this as another sign of her brilliance and future as a Rhodes Scholar. I mean, they'll go ahead and bestow that honor upon her based on her ability to recognize the cover of But Not the Hippopotamus, right? Good.

Have a great weekend, peeps.

FIVE SENSES FRIDAY
Sight: S giving Otis a hug, S wearing tights for the first time
Sound: Barenaked for the Holidays
Smell: cookies baking, melted chocolate
Taste: holiday goodies
Touch: flannel sheets, fluffy towels out of the dryer