Long Time Gone

Well, Readers, I am rather cowed by the fact that no one has bothered me to continue writing. Sad, I know. It is not like I wait until my public is banging at my door, but it is nice to feel wanted once in a while. But enough whining. I have been terribly busy getting garden plans designed for our yards. We are having English Gardens do our landscaping and we took a ton of time to get the home equity loan and the finalized plans submitted to our subdivision committee for approval (remember, we live in a 'neoclassic' village - we run by rules and regulations similar to historic districts when it comes to decorating and landscaping). Today we got the approval for the designs, so that required some more "foot work" today, getting the ball rolling with the surveyor and the actual labor. They are supposed to begin the 8th of November and hopefully finish by Thanksgiving. It will be beautiful!

As for the kids - we have been having quite the time with Emma Angel Grace McSaint. First, she decided that she really likes to be naked. We thought that was funny if not odd. So, every night after she'd fallen asleep, we would come in to find her in the buff at least from the waist down and we would put her diaper and pajamas back on her. Then, it escalated. She started to pee in her crib - sometimes more than once. I caught her doing just that during one nap and that didn't even phase her. Inevitably, she messed herself during one particularly bothersome naptime. After about two weeks and many failed attempts at making it too difficult to remove her diaper, we discover safety pins. But that just made her other behaviors more intense. So Jim decided to remove the side of her crib and make it into a toddler bed. Now, this might sound like the wrong direction to go, but we are dealing with a toddler, after all. She stopped immediately. In fact, she was never in her bed long enough to realize that she was dressed. Yep, we started the struggle of KEEPING in her bed. We are going on one week with that and we think we have made some progress. Now if she would just stop falling out of bed 3 times a night, we might have something we could call a success. Oh, and please don't ask me why she isn't potty trained yet. We did that. She was there - bought the t-shirt and everything. When she got a bladder infection, we sent back to square one. She won't even go into the bathroom without becoming terrified of the imagined pains she will experience if she sits on the toilet. And so it goes.

Our sweet Little Mary Precious Leona O'Lovey likes to pick on her big sister and start fights, so that she can crrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy and run to Momma or Dada to get sympathy. She loves to push her little dolly stroller around everywhere she goes. She says, very precisely, "Yeh-ssss", as though the word had 2 syllables instead of one. It is her favorite word by far. She LOVES Dora and will respond when the show asks the viewers to participate and call for Map or Backpack. We are still trying to get her down to one nap a day so that the weary Momma can get a couple of hours a day when personal hygiene can be attended to in a solitary manner. Or so that I can watch saved episodes of Martha Stewart television shows - I particularly like The Apprentice.

Well that's about the sum of the parts. It is way past my bed time. Tomorrow we have "Spooky Saturday", which is the subdivision Halloween party. The girls will get all dressed up in their costumes and get to go enjoy some fun Halloween type activities. There will be pictures!

Sick and Sundry

Well, for once it isn't me that is sick. Our poor little Mary is suffering from a pernicious cold that causes her brain to continually leak out of her nose. For a while it was so bad that it was also leaking out of her eyes and was a weird, greenish yellow color. But we got some drops to stop that problem and are left with the oozing nose. She is sniffly and snotty and rather miserable and this is going on a week now. Jim also got the cold, as did I, but I managed to recovered rather quickly while Jim is still dripping about. He complains a lot and I just give him 'That Look', which means to communicate "I went through 4 weeks of Sinus infection HELL while you were gone so don't tell me how worn out you are without any extra rest". It must get the message across very clearly, since he isn't complaining quite as much as in the beginning of the week. So I have been trying, for the entire week, to keep Mary's cold contained. Everything she touches or sneezes on gets thrown immediately into a sink of soapy water and is scrubbed down before being returned to the general play area. I must be doing pretty well, since Emma does not seem to have any of the cold symptoms yet. Yesterday, however, I pulled dinner out of the oven and looked up to see Emma and Mary taking turns drinking from Emma's sippy cup.
Oh, hell and bother.

Eggo Waffle Massacre

Have you seen the commercial for Eggos? It is a man dressed as a waffle, with red arms and legs, strolling along, minding his own waffle business when he is startled by a scraping noise. He 'looks' around, sees nothing, keeps walking. Again with the noise. Suddenly, out of NOWHERE comes a PLATE, which scoops under his feet and causes him to fall on his back, flat on the plate. Then a huge, waffle-man size pat of butter falls out of the sky to land expertly on the poor waffle. Then comes the waterfall of Syrup, and a couple of strawberries that knock him unconscious. Then the poor, beaten eggo waffle is served up to a particularly ravenous teenaged boy. Now, imagine the same commercial with Emma watching intently:

Waffle appears.

Emma: Momma, what's that?

Me: Um, a waffle. (Scraping noise)

Emma (now a little upset): Momma, what that noise?!

(more scraping)

E: Momma! THAT noise????

(waffle falls and get walloped with butter)

E: OH NO!!!

(Waterfall of maple syrup)

E: MOMMA!!!! MESS RIGHT THERE! NO RIGHT THERE!!! (pointing frantically)

(Strawberries, a la anvil skit)

E: Oh no! Momma, BOO BOO!!!

At this point I have collapsed in laughter and cannot comfort my distressed daughter for the LIFE of me. Until now, I have never took the side of the waffle and frankly, it nearly made me pee my pants I laughed so hard. Emma was traumatized and this is why I don't usually let her watch commercials.