TMI Tuesday #2

Ok, it's late, but I didn't forget. Halloween interfered, but more about that tomorrow. This time may actually be Too Much Information, but hey, that's the name of the game...

I'm covered in moles. They're everywhere. I used to have a mole on my leg. By mole I mean skin tag and by on my leg I mean um... in my crotch. Way up high on the inside of my thigh. It grew a little when I was pregnant with Ally and so I mentioned it to my Dr. He said he's just snip it off when I delivered Ally. Since it ended up being a c-section, he wasn't in that area, and it didn't get done.  When I was pregnant with Anya, I mentioned it again, and he took it off in the office. I've had it all my life, and had kind of gotten used to it. I miss it.

There. That's enough all-about-me today. But it brought up a question. Ally never had any moles and I always wondered if she'd get them. Just a couple months ago once sprouted on her belly. Do your kids have moles? When did they show up?

oh, and by the way
I'm pretty sure I'm getting my chairs this week. THey were able to get special permission from the liquidators to ship them to my store, So I'll have a full set of matching kitchen chairs. Not that they match the table or anything, but first things first. Yay

braaiinns...

I feel like a zombie. A hungry zombie. This weekend involved way too little sleep and many quick, one-handed suppers. You know that (not quite) ear infection from a couple weeks ago? The one where she was taking antibiotics and just got off them on Wednesday right before her 6-month checkup where the doctor said her ears were fine? Eh, he's wrong now. Saturday we had to go back to the dr for more antibiotic. This sucks. why couldn't my kids have inherited my ears? boo (and not in the happy halloween way)

Anya wouldn't let go of me for 5 minutes most of the weekend. The few times that she actually did let go though, she decided to learn to crawl. Yes, she's crawling now. See? She also spent the time pulling up on Ally's little fold-out couch and standing up. Um... and yelling. That part wasn't near as much fun.

Anyway, I'm hungry and sleepy, which poses a question? Should I eat lunch or take a nap? Tough decisions.

This is just cool

more food

I think we're making a breakthrough here. Ally tried Spaghettios Monday and took 4 bites of hot dog last night. She didn't appear to like either one, but she did taste them. We'll try again. Tonight is dance, so it's a McDonalds night. I know she'll eat that.

 

TMI Tuesday #1 - Inaugural Edition (updated)

Lately, I tried to write a profile of myself for the sidebar over there. It was very difficult. I realized that I don't spend much time looking at myself as a person, rather than someone's mom/wife. So, I've decided to devote one post per week to me. Maybe someday I'll figure out just who I am after all. I will warn you that it may be more than you ever wanted to know about me. (especially you, Mom)

hmm... I've started writing about 5 different times but can't settle on a topic. It seems that all the major events in my life were kinda depressing. Or else very complicated requiring a long and boring backstory. Or else um... my Mom doesn't know about it. shhh don't tell on me (What am I 12? Do we ever get over hiding our indiscretions from our parents?). Or else I really don't remember the details. Or else boring.

So for now, I can ease into this slowly and go with my favorite books from childhood. I was a bookworm. I loved to read. I used to hide books from my mom so that when I got sent to my room to clean or something, I could climb up into the top of my closet to hide and read. (Yes, I used to hide in my closet sometimes.)

We had that whole Pizza Hut Book It thing at our school, but we didn't go to Pizza Hut very often, so I didn't usually keep track of what I read. We even went to Six Flags one time as a class trip. You could only go if you read like 5 books a month or something - I don't remember. I read 5 books a week if not more. I got bored with keeping track for it, so I almost didn't get to go. My mom had to talk to my teacher and intercede for me.

In sixth grade, my teacher took a lot of books away from me throughout the year. On the last day of school he gave them back. I was so excited. I had books that I had forgotten I had lost. I think I needed an extra backpack that day to get them all home.

I've blocked out a lot of my childhood, but some books were my best friends. I think I ran out of books in the school library at one point. How could I forget them? So without further ado...

The Bridge to Terebithia. This book made me cry. So sad. Oh my god I loved this book. It was so well written. It was such a simple story, but I knew those kids. They were my friends. I could feel the little boy's pain. It felt like MY best friend died. I haven't read it in years. I have re-read a lot of my favorite childhood books, but didn't want to ruin the memory of this one. It's just different when you're older.

The Outsiders. OMG! This book was so beautiful. And again with the crying. Really though, I liked all of S. E. Hinton's stuff. Her characters were so real. I couldn't get enough. I wished she had written more. Still do in fact. And I'm absolutely sure I still have a copy of this one on my shelf.

The Westing Game. We read this one a chapter at a time in my fourth grade (I think) class. I read ahead. I had to sneak an extra book off the shelf and take it home, because the teacher collected the books at the end of class.

The Bobsey Twins. My mom had a bunch of these. When she and Dad divorced, she forgot to take them with her. She was kind of mad that he wouldn't ever let her have them, so I seem to remember something about Mom wanting me to bring them home from Dad's so they could be in our house again. Whatever. They were entertaining.

Encyclopedia Brown. I read all these I could find. The bad thing was that the answers were so easy to find. I'm a lazy person. I thought about the solutions to the mysteries, but was to impatient and lazy to figure them out myself most of the time. I cheated and peeked.

The Dark Is Rising series. This was 5 or 6 books about the fight between good and evil. Loved them all. I gave them to my mom to let my nieces read recently. I hope they like them. I don't want to know if they don't.

The Black Cauldron series. Another good vs evil series. I think I started reading this one on the recommendation of one of my teachers in summer school. (No, I didn't fail my classes. I liked school so much that I went to summer classes too)

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This was one of the few books that my Grandma was able to get for me. See, she had a bookstore. When I was old enough to realize what that meant, I thought "Goldmine" But, it was a Christian bookstore and she couldn't order anything that wasn't Christian materials. This qualified though, so I still ahve a very nice hardback boxed set of this series. (Um... good vs evil? I think there might have been a trend in my books that I hadn't really noticed before.)

How to Eat Fried Worms. Enough said.

Superfudge, Ramona Quimby, basically anything by Judy Blume. Feel good books. I liked them.

The Sweet Valley Twins. Yes, they were fluff books. Yes, I loved them. They were what I believed normal should be. They were sitcoms in print. I had almost the whole collection for the time I was reading them. I can't even imagine how many there eventually ended up being, but I would try to buy them as soon as I knew they came out at the time. I'm still kinda bummed that I didn't quite have the whole collection. I sold it at a garage sale in high school. When you need gas money, nostaglia is over-ruled.

I liked to read series books obviously. I couldn't get enough of the characters for just one book. Like I said, many many books kept me company growing up. These are the ones I can remember off the top of my head - the ones I read over and over again - the ones that might still be on my shelf even through 15 thousand moves. I can't wait until I can read them with my daughter and see how they affect her.

So how about you? What books still hold a place in your heart? What book can you not wait to read to your kid?

Oh, and also... Ask me some questions or give me an idea for next week. This is hard.

**update: Oh my God! How could I have forgotten to add A Wrinkle In Time? I was thinking of it while writing this post, but it seems I never actually wrote it down. Loved the series. They added a couple later in my life that I read when older, just to finish the series. Many Waters just didn't do it for me though. (shrug)

Banned!

Anya has been kicked out of the circle. voted off the island. Excluded. Ok, so maybe it's not as bad as that. The day care has a padded circle on the floor in her room. It can fit a couple-3 infants sitting up and keeps them from getting hurt when they fall over. It is about a foot tall on the sides and padded on the bottom. It works great. That is, until someone decides to try to crawl over the edge and land on her nose. Yep. That's my daughter. She won't be confined. They let it go once, but the next day when she did it again, they banned her from the circle. She has to play on the floor until she can manage to crawl in herself. They figure that way she'll be big enough to not hurt herself (much) when she then decides to crawl back out.

When Ally was in the infant room, there was a little boy who did the same thing. JJ was fearless. I was in awe. Now that's my kid. 6 months old (tomorrow) and already trying to run around.

Friday she got banned. Yesterday, when I picked her up, her teacher told me she was not giving in so easily. it seems that she leaned and scootched her way over to the outside of the circle, grabbed hold of the side and stood herself up. My baby pulled up to standing! The teachers were amazed. They said Anya was amazed too and did it again about 12 times. Jamie (a new teacher that I really like. What's up with calling them teachers anyway. It seems convenient to me, but is that okay? I mean should I be calling them care-givers or something?) said she stood over Anya half the time waiting to catch her but she didn't fall except on her (very padded) bottom, so all was good.

Last night, we had to get the graden out of storage and clean it up after bedtime. It's this big plastic thing that has a door and some plastic veggies to chew on and a mailbox with plastic letters. Ally loved it. I think Anya will too. Have I mentioned I love this stage?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times (but not in that order)

Ok, this weekend simultaneously sucked and rocked. Friday after work, we had to stop at the evil Walmart for a couple things, and we picked up pumpkins (4 of them in sizes relative to our family members) and carving kits. Darra came up on Friday night after the kids had gone to bed. I tried to wait up for her. Really I did. But I was on the newly cleaned off laundry couch and just couldn't keep my eyes open. I'm so pathetic that I couldn't stay awake until... like 10:30. Instead, I just about shit myself when Rob threw the remote on my legs to wake me up when she got there. I was in the middle of some DEEP sleep. Then we stayed up talking until around 12:30... 12:30 AM. What the hell was I thinking? Of course, I had to get up and feed Anya about an hour after going to bed, which made me very tired on Saturday.

My original plan was to go to the pumpkin patch on Saturday and meet my Mom. It was supposed to be a fun and games type place that we would spend some time in and let Ally run. Then, Saturday morning, I called Mom and she was sick. I asked her for directions to the place, but she really didn't know where she was going either. Plus, the weather channel said it was going to rain. So we decided to just go to a place a lot closer to us called the Apple Barn. It's a little orchard type place with pumpkins and apples and local vendor stuff like apple butter and salsa etc. Very quaint. it didn't rain and Ally had a lot of fun looking around and helping Grandma Darra pick out a pumpkin for herself. I'm very glad we got our pumpkins at the evil Walmart the night bfore though, because Darra's was $7. Mine was $2.98.

Then I wanted to go look at chairs. You see, our kitchen chairs are very nasty. They are this ugly old green color that is stained with various different things over the years. They have crossbars across the back that aren't very comfortable and are quite difficult to clean peanut butter off of. And that's also why those bars are all raggety and scratchy. The dog or should I say puppy (Yay, I won), chewed them all to hell. Plus, we only have 3. Now that Anya is eating some solids, it would be nice to be able to have another chair. I hate our highchair and would like to use a booster seat, but don't have enough chairs for everybody in the house, much less anyone who visits us.

So anyway...chairs. We looked a couple places and saw people (insane people. or very very poor to need money enough to be out in the cold like that) standing out in the very cold wind holding up signs saying that K's Merchandise was going out of business. I love K's. It's the only place that we've been able to find cheap furniture that wasn't actually cheaply made over the years. Our couches, entertainment center, curio cabinet, cd shelves, and car seats came from K's. I've looked for chairs there before but couldn't find what I was looking for. I want a padded seat on a wooden chair that isn't uncomfortable. They actually had some I liked! :) But only 2. :( So they checked the computer and said there weren't any near by at other stores, but I was free to call stores farther away. So I called one and they told me they had 3. Dilema... Do I buy the 2 and go drive an hour and a half to get more? Do I drive and then come back and get these 2 just in case they someone else buys the 3 before I get there? Do I give up and look for something else? What if I drive over and get the 3 and come back and the 2 are gone?

So I bought 2 chairs and off we went. The other store didn't have any. None! They didn't sell them Saturday or anything: the computer was just wrong. I specifically asked on the phone twice for them to look for me and they told me they had them. They didn't look, just trusted the computer. Bastards. So now it looks as if they don't exist. And I have 2 chairs that I can't match. And I'm out $86. GRR!

So I talked to a couple managers and stuff. I finally found out that it's possible that there are a bunch in a warehouse in Fort Wayne, In. I'm not driving to Fort Wayne. No way. So I got the number for the corporate office and they are going to see if I can get special permission to have them shipped to the local store. I need special permission because of the whole store going out of business thing. Giant pain in the ass. And a giant waste of the ertire afternoon/evening. Ally napped in the car and not long enough, so she wasn't the paragon of obedience, and Anya was cranky because she didn't get a lot of time down on the floor. I was upset because I actually liked the chair and spent all day on it and still do not have chairs for my kitchen.

To make a long story short (Too late!) Saturday morning = good. Saturday afternoon/evening = bad

I was determined not to think about it Sunday at all lest I get pissed off again. So after we all got breakfast, we cleared out the kitchen and plastic-ed the floor. We figured it was easier to sit on the floor to carve pumpkins than to try and clean up the table and floor afterward, so with the plastic, all we had to do was roll it up and throw it away. We made a huge mess and had much fun. Ally wouldn't even consider touching the insides. No sir. Wouldn't want to get all slimy or anything. She had a great time watching all of us and coloring "faces" on her and Anya's pumpkins though. She wandered about carrying tools back and forth between all of us. The best part of that was I didn't even have to clean her up when we were done.

Anya, however was a completely different story. She sat up on her knees holding onto a pumpkin for the longest time. She was having a ball with all the pumpkins. She played with a little bitty one that we got Ally for a long time too. She was all over the floor. Then we let her play in the goo. And oh how she played. She had a great time. She leaned over and smacked it and squished it between her fingers and picked up handfuls and accidentally flung them around when she flailed her arms around. She kept picking up big handfuls and sucking her thumb trying to taste them. She barely got any of it in her mouth - mostly she just ended up with a handful of goo running out of her hand and down her chin. It was so much fun.  She went straight to the bath (in the kitchen sink) where she proceeded to splash everything within 3 feet of us. Her first Halloween has been a raging success, even before Halloween gets here.

Then when it got dark, we lit them all up and they were just gorgeous. So much fun! And Ally loved that part.

Of course we took a lot of pictures, and I'm working on getting them organized. Check the little updates below the kids' age tickers up there at the top to see when I've got new pictures uploaded. I've got some videos already on youTube, but haven't finished renaming and downloading everything, but should have more soon.

Flicker
I'm running out of disk space to store my pictures using tripod again. I'm probably going to delete the candid shots album soon. I signed up at Flicker and can put them there instead. Besides, I don't use that album as often as I should anyway. So, check it out over there on the right. I put some new pictures out. Cause a girl can't have too many places to store pictures of her kids...

She gets around
Anya has discovered that she doesn't really need to crawl. She sits herself up so well now that she has found a new method of getting around. She sits. She spies something that she must have. She leans toward it, falls to her hands and knees, swings her butt around closer, and sits up again. lather. rinse. repeat. until she is close enough to get her toy/book/shoe/sister/dirty laundry or falls over. Is very entertaining (note: your opinion may vary).

OY!

a couple days ago...

Ally: a b c d e f g h i g k elminino p q
Me: Ally it's "l m n o"
Ally: Oh. is O a word too?
Me: Yes.
Ally: Oh, it's a letter and a word?
Me: Yes.
Ally: oh.   a b c d e f g h i g k elminino p q r s t ....

Wednesday afternoon in the car...

Me: Ally don't take your shoes off
Ally: But I need to
Me: wait til we get home
Ally: I HAVE to take them off.
Me: Why?
Ally: Did you say why?
Me: Yes.
Ally: Is Y a letter and a word?
Me: Yes
Ally: Oh.
Me: Ally why did you take your shoes off?
Ally: Hey, there's abc's on my socks! (That's what she calls all writing. The shoes had no skid words on the bottom)

 

Dinner conversation
We cooked spaghetti for supper tonight. I fed Anya some carrots while the noodles were cooking, and Ally tasted them. She said she wanted some, so we added carrots to the menu. We always have garlic cheese bread with spaghetti, but we told her she couldn't have any until she had 2 bites of carrots and 2 bites of spaghetti. This child would live on carbs if we let her. Dinnertime went something like this (I should have given the kids different initials. When Anya starts talking, there will be a lot more typing for me):

A: I need a fork.
Me: You have a fork.
A: I need a green fork
M: Honey, we don't have any green forks. You the one on your plate
A: (whiney voice) I need a GREEN fork.
Rob: Ally. Stop whining
A: But I need a clean fork.
M: Oh, a clean fork? just lick that one off. It's just spaghetti sauce (I cut up her spaghetti with it)
A; ehhh. wahhh... but I want a clean fork.
M: (picks fork up and licks it) There.
A: Thank you.
A: Are these carrots?
R: Yes. You should taste one.
A: Can I cut it?
M: with your fork
A: this one?
M: I don't care which one
A: into 4 triangles?
R: Ally just put a bite in your mouth
A: this one?
R & M: Ally! put a bite in your mouth
A: I cut it!
A: (cuts a tiny little 1/4 of a carrot)
A: can I have another one?
R: yes.
A: Are you eating your carrots?
R: No, Ally I already ate mine. Because I'm eating instead of talking.
A: oh. (puts her fork in her toes) And I'm talking?
R: Get your fork up here where we can see it
K: Yes. take another bite
A: this one?
M: We don't care which one you eat. Just put one in your mouth.
(Ally proceeds to eat a couple more. Anya falls over in the living room. Ally turns around to see what's going on, and once again forgets that she's supposed to be eating. This goes on for some time)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~later~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A: I ate all my carrots. Now I can have cheesy bread!
R: No, you need to eat some spaghetti.
A: Oh. Is yours all gone?
R: Yes.
A: but Mommy's isn't
M: But I'm eating it. Take a bite
(Ally tries to get one piece of spaghetti on her fork and fails.)
R: Ally, you have to scoop it.
M: Let me show you how. (I get her 2 little pieces on her fork. She eats them)
A: I got another one (1 little piece)
R: That wasn't a bite. That was just one piece. You need to take 2 bigger bites.
A: Oh. That wasn't a big one? Is this a big one?
K: Yes. If you eat that one, you only have to take 1 bite. But I think it might be too big.
A: Oh (dumps it off her fork)
R: Get another bite.
A: Is this one too big?
R: No, that one is great. Put it in your mouth.
R: Ally put it in your mouth.
R: Less talking and more eating
A: (working on her second bite) After I eat this I can have Cheesy bread
R: (to me) I'm going to choke her
A: It will choke me? (lets the bite slide off the fork)
K: I'll get you a good bite.

Finally, Ally ate a full serving of carrots. 2 bites of spaghetti and a piece of garlic cheese bread. It only took an hour

There might be cake

There is this comedian, Greg Behrendt,  I saw on Comedy Central. Part of his routine is a bit about how much he likes cake. He says you can get him to go anywhere if you say 4 little words - There MIGHT be cake. It doesn't even have to be a sure thing. Just the possibility of cake.  Yeah. That's me. I love cake.

We had a early retirement thing go on at work one year, and people were retiring left and right. I was in heaven. They kept having parties with cake everywhere. I would ask around until I found someone that I knew who knew the person that was retiring and then I'd go with him/her to the retiree's party to get some cake. Shameless. Then people got tired of all the cake and switched to cookies. Cookies are my second favorite. Someone I know is retiring next week. I hope he has cake.

The best kind of cake is the classic. White cake with buttercreme icing. I don't know what is up with the whole whipped icing thing! It's not cake without real icing. (Although I will still eat it. ummm... cake) Walmart (evil bastards) makes good cakes. I bought one to bring with me the day I returned to work after maternity leave. I had them decorate it with the words "Because Katie likes cake". I hadn't had cake in 2 months because I hadn't been at work. You can't just eat cake at home all the time. Your kids will want some too, and you can't allow that. It's not good for them.

We have a sign-in sheet at work now. I've worked in this area for 2 years, and we never had to sign in and out. I forget all the time. My boss comes by and reminds me when I forget. The other day he said "Maybe I should leave some cake by the sign-in sheet. Then you won't forget" He knows me too well. (Maybe I can keep "forgetting" and he'll try it. Oohh. That's a good idea)

I went to a wedding shower the other week. I can't remember the last wedding shower I went to. I know baby showers always have cake, so I was hoping wedding showers would too. I was disappointed. But it was a brunch with lots of good food and the wedding was the next week, so I got over it and just stuffed myself on the other food. The next week, we went to the wedding. The cake was made by a donut place. It even tasted a little like donuts. My husband doesn't think so. But we agreed that it kinda tasted like Dunkin Sticks (which he doesn't believe qualify as donuts and I'm willing to take his word on it, because he really likes donuts) My step-MIL was having trouble getting hold of the people to make the cake when she was planning the wedding, so she asked us for the number of the lady that made our wedding cake. (ummm... our wedding cake... the best part of getting married... *wipes drool from the keyboard*) I got all excited, but it wasn't to be.

Our wedding cake was the best cake I've ever tasted. We picked out a pretty design which make oodles more cake than we actually needed, but was really pretty, so we didn't care. Then we tasted it. I was so glad we got extra. We cut it up and froze it in ziplocs. If you took it out of the freezer when you started cooking supper, it was nice and soft for dessert. We had cake for a long time after the wedding. I even had the same lady make Rob a cake for his A.S. graduation party. 

To sum up: I went to a wedding where I thought I was going to get cake from the lady that made my wedding cake. Different cake was had. Was good, but not the same. Someone is retiring. I may get cake.

Also, weirdgirl went to a baby shower last week and talked about the food there. Got me thinking about cake.  Last Friday was my anti-versary. Bad things happen to Rob and I on Friday October 13th. I know that we've broken up on at least 2 Fri the 13th's (although not October). Got me thinking about being married - thus, cake. The universe is conspiring to make me hungry.  In honor of all the cake talk and our anti-versary, I thought I'd post some pictures of my wedding. beautiful cake, no?

curious

I have a question for you internet people. When you go to someone's house do you knock or ring the bell first?

I've always been under the impression that people don't especially like to hear the doorbell ('cause I don't and I consider myself normal. Stop laughing.) so I always knock. Then I knock again. I wait and only ring the doorbell as a last resort if I don't think anyone heard the knocks. So are any of you people abnormal (with me as the standard, of course) and ring the doorbell first? If you are, stop it. Especially at naptime on a Sunday afternoon, because that would just be annoying. Hypothetically, of course.

food UPDATED

Ally ate tacos last night!!! Well, not real tacos, but they were close to tacos, and they are new food that she's never eaten before. And she at eat least 2 of them (It's hard to tell exactly how many, because she took various bites out of many and only ate one whole one, and only that because we told her she couldn't have any more grapes until she ate a whole one. Otherwise, she would have been happy randomly picking a taco to chew on. And, you know, we're anal like that.)  I love mini-tacos!

UPDATE: I can't believe I forgot the hambuger she ate Saturday. Rob and I were having various leftovers frmo the fridge for lunch and Ally said she didn't want any of them. She asked Rob to open the fridge so she could find something and she pulled out one of those kid's freezer meals with a hamburger and fries. We bought about 6 different kinds that she picked out, and she never ate a single one. This was the last one. Rob told her that since she picked it out if she didn't eat it, we weren't going to buy her any more. Then he cooked it and she tried to eat the fries. We both enforced 1 bite of hamburger = 1 french fry. She ate the whole thing! Granted, it was kid-sized, but the whole thing!! A couple times she even took 2 bites in a row, and eventually we didn't have to police her, she just did it on her own. I think that's the most meat, that wasn't in chicken nugget form, she's ever eaten in a single sitting. Yay Ally.

Santa Daddy

Rob has been taking Ally to the store occasionally and they browse the toy aisles for Christmas/birthday ideas. The last 5 or 6 times she has always gone straight to a certain kind of princess Barbie doll. Last night at the store, I went to pick something up and came back to find them perusing the hot wheels sets. He wanted a track so she could drive her cars. He couldn't wait 1 month when we have to buy her presents for her birthday anyway. Nope. He bought it last night. Then he took me down the Barbie asisle to show me what one she liked. She picked it out and Rob looked at me and said "Why don't we just get it for her now? Then we'll see if she likes to play with it and maybe get her another one for Christmas" Ally threw it in the cart and climbed on. The decision was made.

What am I going to get this kid for Christmas?

again with the sickness

Okay, I'm sick of this sickliness running through our house. The kids have been running snot everywhere for the past couple weeks. Ally isn't too bad, but Anya is really feeling miserable most of the time. She hates getting her nose wiped, and don't even think about letting her see you with the nose sucker (aka bulb syringe). I left her for 40 minutes the other day to go to Walgreens and get a vaporizer for her room. When I got home I could here her screaming her freakin head off. Rob says she did it the whole time I was gone. Ear infection? We've dealt with enough of them that we have our own otoscope. Rob thought maybe one ear was infected, so I loaded her up and we went to PromptCare. Anya spend much of the day wimpering laying against my chest (or atatched to it).

I was hoping she hadn't inherited Rob's ears. Crap!

Ally got her first infection at almost the exact same age. Turns out Anya doesn't have one... yet. One ear has fluid built up but isn't infected. It probably would have been by tomorrow, but the doc went ahead and gave me an antibiotic. Anya's cold has lasted long enough already, and hopefully we can kill whatever germs have taken up residence. Anya actually likes the taste of the antibiotics, oddly. Ally hated them (to start with. She now loves medicine. I got some out for Anya and Ally said "Is that Anya's Tylen? I want some"). The bad thing is that it's amoxicillin. Everytime Ally was on it, she got a yeast infection.  We'll see.

The one thing that distracted her from her wimpering was very strange. Someone left an Avon book on our doorstep. Rob was thumbing through it and Anya lurched up and stole it from him. The pages were crinkly, so she wadded them up and slobbered on them and just generally had fun. It was about the time her Tylenol had kicked in. Plus, we went to Wlamart and she had an entire hour or more with no screaming. It was a nice break.

playing around with design
I'm playing with a couple things in the design of this place. I'm tired of posting entries about new scrapbook pages, so I put a handy little note up there by the tickers at the top. I'm working on my profile, since I actually have some people reading that are new friends rather than family (Hello, new friends. I'm happy to see you) It's a lot harder than it seems. Who am I? I haven't a clue.

best commercial EVER

Okay, I like commercials. There are some good ones out there, but I just found the video on YouTube of my favorite commercial of all time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTRg4ovd2-c

sausage stars

Gosh, I'm turning into Martha Stewart around here.** Here's some more yummy food I made. Rob's step-mom's sister had these at the wedding shower she hosted a couple weeks ago and I loved them.

Sausage stars

1 package wonton wrappers (found in the produce section)
1 pound browned sausage
3 cups shredded co-jack cheese
1 cup Ranch dressing

Preheat oven to 350. Shape wonton wrappers in mini-muffin pans, making sure the edges are open so you can fill them later. Heat for 5 minutes. Mix sausage, cheese and dresssing. Spoon into wontons. Heat additional 5 minutes or until wontons are light brown.

*wontons can be cooked the night before, filled and refrigerated, so prep time is short the next morning.

**only without the pristine house, fame, and money, and you know, talent for design and stuff. Okay, maybe I'm more like a cheap slob, but at least I'm eating well lately