updates for all

So lazy. Oh well. Lots of stuff to talk about, so I'm going with bullet points.

• Last night Ally wanted some pudding. We made it before dinner and stuck it in the fridge to set. Then we sat down for dinner. We had cheeseburgers which she usually likes. Well, she likes the freezer meal kind. Real ones are a little too big for her I think. She eats some and then says she's full. So last night Rob and I had to coax her through the meal once again. She kept telling us she was full, could she have some pudding? At one point I told her "How can you have any pudding, if you don't eat your meat?" I don't think she got it, but I thought it was pretty funny.
• After bedtime, Rob sat down at the table and had some pudding and Nilla Wafers. (We have rediscovered our love of stale Nilla Wafers. I picked up Anya from daycare one day and she smelled like them. Yummy, so we bought a box. I opened it and 2 days later they were perfect.) We were discussing the pudding/supper dilema Ally had. Rob was talking in between dipping a wafer in pudding, making a sandwich out of them and stuffing them in his mouth. He said "Ally still hasn't learned that you eat because it's healthy, not because it tastes good" We both promptly laughed at the absurdity of that sentence coming from him with his mouth stuffed with cookies and pudding.
• Anya has learned to wave. Well, kind of. She doesn't wave bye-bye. She doesn't wave hello. Mostly she sticks her whole arm up in the air and bends her wrist back and forth while yelling to let me know there is no more food in her hand and she Needs. More. NOW. But occasionally, she does wave in response to you waving at her.
• Everyone but Rob has been sick at some point in the last week. Anya Friday night, Ally Sunday night, and me Tuesday night. Ally hadn't eaten well all day, and we mdae her eat supper, even though she didn't really want to. We've had so many fights over this that we just thought she was being a pain. Besides, we got her Chicken nuggets like she asked for. Maybe next time, we'll pay more attention. Side note: I had gotten some sleep the night before and was waiting for him upstairs while Rob read Ally's bedtime stories. I have no sex drive if I don't sleep. So sleep makes me horny. So I was naked and waiting patiently when I hear Ally throw up and Rob yells, "I could use a little help here" How do the kids always know the worst possible time to do shit like that?
• I've started a policy of not getting Anya out of her crib between the hours of 8 pm and 4 am. When she cries now, I comfort her in her crib and lay her back down. repeatedly. We'll see how thi sworks. Rob is ABSOLUTELY against crying it out. He does not want me to let her get "hysterical", so we'll see how this works instead. Over the last couple of nights, the time that she has woken first has gotten later. I'm taking that as a good sign. Please let it be a sign. At least I'm not feeding her all night anymore.
• Yesterday I stayed home from work to let the virus run its course. I woke up feeling mildly better and since I had the house to myself, i cleaned out Anya's room. Since she doens'tt play in her room, I use it as a general "throw it in Anya's closet and I'll get to it later" room. The closet spilled over into the room long ago. it was bad. I took 5 totes full of stuff out of there. 3 totes of outgrown clothes (hers and Ally's) and 2 totes of garage sale stuff. Come spring I'm de-cluttering. I'm going to send the kids out of the house for the day (or at least Ally - Anya probably won't get in the way too much) and clean out a LOT of old toys. Now, the room is clean I'm so thrilled. I even got all the laundry done and folded (and put in the correct rooms even if it isn't put away in drawers yet) All this while I was sick!
• Rob has been working a couple of evenings lately at the hospital. This is a very good thing. If he doesn't work, he might get fired (part time people still have to work occasionally and it's been a long time). If he gets fired, we're not eligible for our daycare anymore. It's only for hospital employees. In fact, it's not even really for prn employees, but they put that rule in after we were already there, so it doens't apply to us. If he isn't an employee anymore though, he has 30 days to find another day care. I don't want to do that. So he has to work. It reminds me of how much I hated to have him gone all the time at his last job. It's also kind of nice, cince I never get a break from him anymore.
• This one's just for mom. I had 775 people take one of my quizes. Ha
• I can always tell lately when Anya has a dirty diaper. She starts whining and chasing me around the room. It's very odd.
• I quit watching my soap operas last month.  I've been watching Days Of Our Lives for at least 16 years. I started watching Passions when it came on while I was in college. I gave it up. Don't even tape them anymore.  2 kids just take up too much time for tv. I hardly ever turn it on for myself anymore. This is a major step for me. Of course while I was home yesterday I watched, and wasn't even that confused after missing a month.
• Anya hasn't had and ear infection since she got off the last round of antibiotics Dec 11th. YAY! But I think she's teething. BOO! Ally got her first teeth at 10 months. Anya is now a little over 8 months old. We'll see what happens

I'm sure there are fve million other things, but that's it for now. Oh, except that I'm going to update youTube and Flickr soon. Check them out

some advice that no one asked for

I have a few nuggets of wisdon that I thought I'd share. I know, no one asked, but they've helped me, so I'm passing it on. Plus, I've done a lot of stupid things lately (like colliding mirrors with a parked truck) so I wanted to show off my amazing smartness.

1. Coupons. Diapers and wipes coupons are great. I use Pampers. It seems like the wipes coupons are always $1.00 off and Cruisers $1.50. Then the EasyUps are $2.00 off. This makes sense because the cost goes up in that order. However, I have discovered that Walmart is the place to use coupons. Particularly a Super-Walmart. They get so much business that they lose no money by accepting expired coupons. They can still redeem them. The cashiers very rarely even check the dates. Plus, and this is very important, it doesn't matter what coupon you give them, as long as it's for the right brand. It's all checked by the computer. They scan a Pampers coupon, the computer checks the purchases to see if a (any) Pampers product was bought. That means you can use the $2.00 coupons on wipes. It also means that you can use as many coupons as products. If you have a buy one get one free Kandoo (pampers) soap, you can use 2 coupons, becuase you have 2 products. Go collect coupons. Save money. The only people who lose in this deal are Pampers, and I figure they aren't really losing, becuase I'm just using a coupon someone else didn't bother to redeem. Plus, I'm still buying their diapers. Everybody wins.
2. Oven safety. Long ago, Rob and I had a baby. This was a new thing. We had to get used to lots of new things. One of those was being careful while preheating the oven. I used to turn the oven on and go downstairs to pee or something. Rob didn't even always know the oven was on. But that was okay, because he's an adult (sort of).  Babies are stupid, though. They don't know ovens can be hot. So Rob and I adopted a rule. If one of us turns the oven on, the oven light goes on with it. EVERY time the oven is hot, the light is on. It doesn't get turned off until after the oven is cool. That way everybody knows at all times to keep the baby away from the hot oven, even if you didn't turn it on yourself. One pleasant side effect of this practice is that Ally now knows that the light means stay away. This wasn't the intended purpose, but it is great. The other day, a ball rolled toward the oven while it was on, and she started walking toward it, and saw the light on and stopped. It's one of the smartest child-proofing things we've ever done.

grrr
For some reason, I can't embed anything in a post that's not hosted by this server. Um, for those of you who don't know what that means, it won't let me put that photo slideshow in an entry. That's why I had to put it up there in the heading. (It's also why you have to click the links to my YouTube videos instead of just watching them here.) So, I'm only going to leave it up there for a while. We took lots more, but I'm just too lazy to do anything with them at the moment.

slacker

I'm a huge slacker. When things get busiest, I post less, but there's more to talk about, so why is that? It's all backwards. oh well. Things went well with the traveling. The presents are unwrapped. The house is a shambles. We seem to have aquired a coffee table made for trains. Ok, so maybe it's not a coffee table, but it's currently sitting where our coffee table would be if we had one. The food is almost all eaten (except for the half of a ham that we stuck in the freezer, cause my God! we could have never eaten it all. And of course, except for the part of it that Anya scarfed down. That's right. She had chunks of ham for dinner this weekend. She loved it. She actually put down her crackers to get more ham. So weird). The new clothes are all washed. The tree will come down this weekend, I think.

Everyone had the same type of holidays I'm sure. Filled with friends, family and food. Ours wasn't much different. Ally liked her computer. It took her about 15 minutes to notice it was there in the room with her. She's not too observant. She's much better with the mouse than I had expected. Anya looked at all her toys. Played with a few, but always returned to her beloved ernie book. I don't know what it is about that thing, but she loves it. Whatever.

Anyway, I don't have a lot to say, but just wanted to say something anyway. Posting will probably be light for a bit, but I'll be back. See you soon.

Christmas songs MeMe

Okay, Erin tagged me for a Christmas songs MeMe. It's supposed to be my 5 favorite Christmas songs, but I don't really listne to Christmas music much, so I'm going to change it up a bit.

My favorite songs:

1. Carol of the Bells Absolutely love this one. In fact, I have the album Trans-Siberian Orchestra published it on. Love it. The song is beautiful, but the orchestra gives it an added oomph. A slighly less musical, slightly more comical version is here
2. I'm not really religious, but "O Holy Night" really gets to me. It has such feeling. Very moving. This version that Jenny posted is freakin hilarious, though.

Christmas songs that makes me ish the holidays were over:

All the songs from Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys. "Why am I such a Misfit?" Dude - it's because you want to be a dentist!

Christmas song that I hope I never have to sing again, but probably will in just about an hour and half, just because I love my daughter:

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer

Christmas song that gets stuck in my head the instant I so much as think about it:

Frosty the Snowman (Thumpty-thump-thump Thumpety-thump-thump...)

Christmas song that I just can't ever sing the right words to:

Joy to the World! (my sister's dead, we barbequed her head!)

It's almost Christmas, so I won't tag anyone else, but feel free to share your favorites if you want. Or just your thoughts on Christmas music in general.

TMI Tuesday #8 - Christmas Craziness

Beth's Mom asked a question over on Beth's blog that I wanted to answer. I started typing it all up in the comment box over there, and then I looked at it and thought "Oh my God, This is way too long for a comment. And anyway, it would make a good post for myself since I have nothing else to say, what with the overwhelming tiredness." So here it is.

How do other people divvy up the holiday celebrations between the two sets of relatives? Is it usually a big fight, or do your readers alternate amicably?

Do the grandparents care what is fair, or do they insist on seeing their little  dears for every occasion regardless of what anyone else wants?

And how about your readers?  Can they stand up to their respective families and do what they darn please?

I have 4 sets of parents. Rob's mom and Dad are divorced and remarried and ditto for mine. My dad has been married to Leann for a good 20 years or so, so she's family and so are her kids. No offense to Mom here, but her husband is a relative new-comer (at 10 years). I just didn't grow up with him. I was out of the house before they got married, so it's kind of hard to settle in real well, you know? Rob's parents have both been re-married forever too, so everyone pretty much gets along okay. They could deal with being in the same room together - and have - pretty easily. The problem is that there's just not a big enough room. Every year I host a BBQ and all sides of the family are invited and usually 30-40 people show up. It would get crazy to try to have that at the holidays indoors. So I rush around to see everyone, or I don't. This year it's a little of both.

I try to take everyone's plans into account and work them in somehow.

Dad and Leann always make it easy by picking a weekend day before Christmas to have their celebration. That was last Sunday. All the kids get to play togther while the guys watch football, mostly. Leann always has a great dinner set up and we hang out. She also usually has Christmas day dinner available to anyone who is free. I have never been free for it, though. (driving time = 55 minutes one way)

My mom always has a Christmas buffet. (mom's driving time = 40 minutes) Early in the morning, she sets up appetizers and grazing foods and people are invited to stop by at any time and visit. That's usually a pain in the ass for me, because it's not an actual gathering, so I'm not going to see the rest of the family at any certain time, so it's just me visiting Mom. And I'd rather do that while there aren't other various people randomly stopping by. We usually do a meet-up sometime or another around the holidays whenever convenient. This year, though, my grandma decided to have a Christmas party this Friday. She usually - hmm, I don't really know what she usually does. I think she goes to my uncle's then goes to my aunts the next day? Whatever. This year I can go there and have a party with my mom's side of the family and it doesn't clash with anyone else's plans. Ally loves going there and playing with all the cousins and so we're happy. Plus, they're having Casey's pizza. I love Casey's pizza. (grandma's driving time = 1.3 hours)

The bad thing is that we're going to Rob's mom's the next day. So we might end up driving after Grandma's Friday night. Yuck. It's a 2.5 hour trip form our house. It'll be much longer from there. But. It will be night and the kids will likely fall asleep and we won't have to load and unload the vehicle twice. Hell, maybe Anya will even sleep better in the car. Ha! We always try to spend Christams with his mom. She's got less family around and Rob always wants to let her know we love her by showing up. (Hi Darra, we love you) For many reasons, the holidays are a little hard for her, and she always makes the most effort to come see us and help out, so it only seems natural. This year, her husband has a new schedule and will have to work a little on Christmas eve, so we will be there on Saturday instead. If Rob's sister shows up (which is not certain right now. Circumstances are iffy) We'll just come home and spend Christmas Eve trying to get things cleaned up and put away from our travels, and spend Christmas at home. Otherwise, Darra might come back with us to be part of our holiday at home and Bill can meet us after work Christmas Eve or somehting. We don't really know. (driving time = 2.5 hours + 1.3 hours if we leave from grandma's)

Oh and Rob's grandparents actually live in the same town as Darra, so we'll see them if they are there. They might be in California (at Rob's aunt's house) though, so I'm not really sure. They usually go out there, but they are usually gone before now, and I haven't heard anything about it, so I'm not sure. (no driving. Yay)

Rob's dad doesn't have any set plans yet. He usually goes to his in-laws for Chirstmas and catches us whenever it's easiest for both of us. This year, Glinda is under-going chemo, so all bets are off. I hope she feels well enough to enjoy the holidays. (driving time = 1 hour if we go there. Usually they come to our house)

Most everyone is flexible and let us decide where we are going. Thank God, because it's hard to coordinate with everyone. I want to see everyone and all, but it really messes with the kids schedule to be travleing that much that often. Ally starts missing naps and it's hard to continue our food training (which is going great. Last night she tasted a bite of lasagne. Said she didn't like it. Chewed it up instead of spitting it out. So she didn't have to eat it and got a PB&J instead. Those are our rules - one bite and you can get something else if you don't like it. No arguments last night Finally) and accident-free (potty-related) days. Anya doesn't sleep as well during the day, which makes the night even worse and in someone else's house to boot. Just stressful. Worth it, but stressful anyway.

We do occasionally set our foot down and not see people when we need to. We don't always see Mom on Christmas Day when she celebrates, because we want to be home for the kids to play with their toys. I remember growing up and going to my dad's house after Christmas and being annoyed that I couldn't play with all the neat stuff I had just gotten. I want the day to be relaxing. Especially since the rest of the holiday isn't.

oh yeah, Merry Christmas

I turned on the pictures in the Chirstmas album. They are now available for your viewing pleasure. I've got most of my Christmas cards out by now. Although most of the sisters and brother sin the family aren't really settled anywhere permanently, so I have to ask various mothers/fathers for their current addresses, because it's just too much work to keep up with it myself. Those people don't have cards yet, but all the non-nomadic people in my life should by now.

BTW Roger, I'm about to check my email for your address, but if you read this before I find it, it would make it a lot easier if you just email it to me again, and I'm all about finding the easy way out. Except for bringing it to Grandma's, because I just believe that cards should be mailed for some reason.

Random thought form this morning
I bet the trash people garbage men waste removal professionals hate Christmas. Sure it's mostly light paper trash, but it's got to be the biggest trash holiday there is.

blah

I haven't really felt a lot like writing lately. Mostly, I write here to have a record of the general everyday things in my life that are special/worth remembering. Lately though it feels like everything is all running together and not worth remembering. Sure, Anya's standing by herself a little bit more often, and she hasn't had an ear infection for over a week now, but really it just feels like everything is blah. I'm ALWAYS tired. She won't sleep even though she feels better, and she's starting to come down with another sniffly nose already. Will I ever sleep again? Plus, Ally is still giving us fits over eating. She eats new things MUCH more often (she gave absolutely no objection to Stove Top stuffing  the other night), but every meal is still an argument. Mostly just to get her to Shut. Up. for a minute - just long enough to have a single moment of quiet to regroup. I'm finding it hard to summon enough energy to even manage the daily functions. Ally hasn't had a bath since Friday night. I'm a horrible mother (But her father has also been home those same nights and has not ever noticed that it hasn't been done. I wonder how long it would be if I just waited until he noticed?). But it's just so hard to do. We don't get home until 5 and supper is at 5:45-6 or so and she never stops talking, so it takes an hour for her to finish eating and Anya's bedtmie is 7 and she needs to be nursed to sleep and Ally wakes her up if I put her in the bath after Anya's in bed, and it is all just too much work. I just need a break. The holidays are too hard to deal with. It just makes everything so much more effort. We have to deal with 4 sets of parents and 2 sets of grandparents. It's great getting together and all and I always look forward to seeing everybody, but I also kind of dread it, you know? All the packing and meals on the go and taking Ally to other people's bathrooms and finding a out-of-the-way place to change Anya and throwing away her toxic waste of a diaper in someone else's trash can and worrying about whether it's going to stink up their house and having to wear non-pajama bottoms all weekend and the wrapping and assembling and freeing of the toys from their plastic prisons. exhausting. And it hasn't really even started. I'm just tired. We went to Christy's son's 3rd birthday party Saturday and my Dad's Christmas party Sunday and Friday is my Grandma's Christmas. Saturday is Christmas at Darra's. Sunday we'll come home and have to get all the usual weekend laundry/housekeeping done plus get ready for the presents the ext day. Allt the computer parts need set-up and I'm sure that Ally will be hyped up on sugar, becuase that's what the holidays are about isn't it? sugar? I used to love that part, but now? not so much. It's really to hard to tell your kid that she can't have a cookie because she already had one when there are 20 people around eating every different kind of cookie there is over an over again. Then? The sugar rush. Yuck. Plus, the missed naps. I believe I touched on the missed naps when I recounted the Thanksgiving/Birthday party rush, but I didn't even begin to relay the problem it causes. The little subtle disobediences are a lot more of a pain in the ass than the overt stand-offs. Like, how do you decide the severity of punishment for taking the Velcro out of the holes on her shoes when she's been told not to 500 thousand times? It's disobedience, sure, but does it warrant acction? Especially when you're tired of dealing with the total breakdown that will come if you try to enforce anything when she's tired and cranky already. It would be much easier if she'd just kick me or something. Then I could tell her she needs to lay down and she'd probably fall asleep. But things like wiping a buger on her sister's back? Not really punishable by early bedtime. By the way, she missed her nap both days this weekend. As if that neded said.

Anyway... That's just my way of saying that I feel like carp (edited: I don't really feel like a fish) crap. All this business is running around in my head and I never get to sleep and I always have to be incharge of coordinating the schedule and what goes where with whom and I'm just tired of it. Anyone want to come over and babysit for me? You'll have to be willing to take my car and go somewhere else, because I'm staying home and sleeping. See you at 5?

Happy Birthday to me!

No, it's not my birthday. But I did get a Birthday present yesterday. Yesterday I got my day care bill. I had forgotten that her tuition went down when she turned 3. Hooray! Well, it's only dropped $8 a week, but that's still money right? It's like when you get out your winter coat for the first time of the season. Sometimes you stick your hand in the pocket and WOW, there's $5. It makes your day even though it's only $5. That's how I feel right now. My huband made fun of me, but $8 a week is $416 a year. (That drops me down to under $15K a year) 

Now, I can't wait until Anya has her birthday..

TMI Tuesday #7 - All About Underwear

Do you know how hard it is to find new underwear? I have been looking for years. Most of the underwear I have was purchased 6-7 years ago. Some of it is rather hole-y by now. The problem I have is that I like a certain kind. And only that kind. Out of necesity, I have bought a different kind recently, but I'm still on a search for better underwear. I like bikini's with cotton over the elastic. All bikini's have an elastic waist. You can buy them in grandma style, but not in a bikini. I'm short. If I wore the other style, they would hang out over top of my pants. While it may be stylish for teenage boys to wear them this way (and my daughter with her lovely training pants), I don't think it looks so hot on me.

I lucked into a new discovery though. Victoria's Secret has wonderful underwear! I normally don't shop there, because $12 for a single (One!!) pair of underwear is crazy. Oh, but I'm now tempted. I got 2 coupons in the mail for a free pair of Body by Victoria seamless panties. They were free, so I went and picked them up. So comfortable! Love them! But $12!. So sad.

Anyway, today and tomorrow, I'm wearing new underwear that have no holes and fit well. If only every day could be as good.

PS. When my mom owned a restaurant (I have a hard time spelling that. For some reason I just can't remember it. Everytime I write/type it, I have to stop and tell myself "There's an ant in the restaurant!" That's how I remember where the u goes.) we had a waitress named Sherry working there. Mom occasionally tells me she's run into her here or there, and every time she does, I have to stop and ask her who she's talking about. She says "You know, Sherry Blank" And I stop and say "Oh, you mean What color is your underwear Sherry?" She was one of those people who liked to show off her underwear. Often. Apparantly, it made her friends, because she was very popular with the guys. So in the interest of full disclosure, I'll let you all know: I got mine in pink.

Proof television rots your brain

If the clouds... if the clouds... clouds come down on the road we will have to watch out. We might run into them if we don't... if we don't... if we don't be careful... We should... if the clouds are in the road... we should go over them!... If the clouds are in the road, we should not run into them. We should... we should... we should fly our car over them...
Honey, our car can't fly.
Maybe we need a Mouse-ka-tool to help us fly over them... Maybe if we go... I see birds...Maybe if a bird... Maybe if a big bird comes up...Maybe if a big bird ... Maybe if a big bird came on it and it would let us fly... on it's back...  How do we...We need a boat... and some... and some... and some boat pawwles... and some... and some life jackets...to help us be safe from crocodiles.... Then we have to go to Crocodile lake...We have to go to crocodile lake to find the chocolate boat... we need a chocolate boat to get across aligator... chocolate lake. We have to go a chocolate lake aligator... a brown chocolate aligator lake! 

For those of you without children - that's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Dora the Explorer.

The best offense is a good defense?
Rob steals covers (in central Illinois, that's what we call blankets). He holds them tight and rolls over. I generally don't have a lot unless I also hold them tight. The problem with that is that I get out of bed at least 50 times in the night to tend to one child or another.  So last night when I put the sheets back on the bed after washing them, I intentionally left more on my side. I thought maybe if I started with more, I would end up with my fair share. It didn't work. He just started the night out noticing that he didn't have the usual amount and pulled them over. I'm thinking that maybe I need to weight them down somehow when I get out of bed in the night. Any suggestions?

good deeds

OK, it's Christmas season. So everyone is coming out of the woodwork with charity pleas. But, it's not just about Chirstmas season. I've had a link under my pictures over there for a long time. Every day you can click on it to help generate money for free mamograms. Every day of the year. Please do it. It only takes a minute. And today, because Jenny posted about it, I saw that there were more causes at the same site. I've decided to add them to my links and make them a little more prominent. So check them out and click. Go back and click some more tomorrow. and the next day...

 

 

 

Oh, and if you click, please, please, please go over to Jenny's site and comment that you did. She swore she wouldn't get 200 commenters on a single post and I really want to help prove her wrong.

snow flakes

Hey, I found a site you can carve pumpkins at Halloween, so I went looking for snowflakes. I suck at it. but it's still neat and a good cause.

news flash

Anya stood up today! She let go of the couch she pulled up on and just stood there for a good 3 seconds. She was very excited. Especially when I cheered and clapped forever. She did it 2 or 3 more times too. I'm so thrilled. I can't wait until she can run around. The longest she went tonight was 4 seconds. Rob got to see that one. He was cooking dinner (Sometimes he is useful) and turned around to see it.

They say that she learned how to crawl out of the circle at day care too. She doesn't fall on her nose anymore. Oh yeah, did I tell you she's not banned anymore? She figured out how to crawl back in too. So they figured they couldn't keep her out anymore.

Plus, tonight she was happy! Really really happy. This is the first itme I've been able to get her to laugh hard enough to hiccup. I was really worried. She was always such a serious baby. I wonder how long her ears have been hurting her and I didn't know about it. I tickled her, and threw her up and caught her, and we leaned in to each other and bonked heads (She really loves that one!). Plus, the diaper rash is getting better. Cross your fingers for a good night.

life, the universe, and everything birthday related

OK, here it is. The massive update I've been putting off, because there's so much freakin stuff that's happened:

Thanksgiving
We went to my maternal grandma's house. They live out in the middle of the country with fields all around. Grandpa was a farmer until just recently, but not the fields around his house? or something. I don't really know. I think someone else used them for cattle?? Anyway. They were all empty. All the way back to the pond. The kids all wanted to go out to the pond for some reason, so Ally went with. It was absolutely gorgeous weather, and she wasn't even wearing a coat. Beautiful. She ran! This is the girl who never walks along faster than she has too. She runs with her arms all crooked and her elbows sticking out, but she ran. She had a great time chasing her cousins. Then we got to the pond and played a bit. We threw small rocks in the water for a while. I wished I had a good camera lens, because from the opposite bank, I couldn't get any good pictures. Very sad. We ate. We played. Anya cruised between people, fell down roughly 38 times, and took a short nap.

Then there was cake. I got the cake out and set it on the table. Ally promptly stuck her finger in it and asked if it was real. That's what I get for giving her a fake cake to pose for pictures with, I guess. So we pulled her chair away from the table while I got the candles in and lit. As soon as we scooted her up to the table she blew out all the candles with one breath. Only problem was that no one was ready for pictures and we hadn't even sung yet. So I re-lit them and we tried again. She didn't get them all out with one breath the second time though. She ate cake. She got presents. She was happy. She also got to go back outside with my uncle and some other people for quite a while. She was outside as much of the day as was possible. She did not get a nap. She did not get to bed on time.

On a sad note, my grandparents are getting old. My grandma is getting signs of early Alzheimer's. My grandpa broke his ankle recently. They are both starting to, well, be old. I don't know quite what to say about it, except that it makes me very sad.

Ally's Birthday
We woke up and let Ally play a bit Friday while we were getting ready to hit the road. Just before we left, we let her open the rest of our presents. The trip of the day was planned for just before lunch so that she could eat in the car (and hopefully Stop Talking for a few minutes to give our ears a break. The kid never stops talking, so this was a necesary precaution). We were headed for Rob's mom's 2.5 hours away. Anya spent most of the trip playing or at least mostly happy. Her nap ended right before we left, so it worked out well that she was in a good mood. Ally, however would not take a nap (Day 2). And she made us stop to pee twice. Other than that the trip wasn't terrible.

We played outside when we got to Darra's. Rob's sister and kids were down visiting too, and had raked up a large leaf pile that Ally was perfectly happy to thrash around in. I gave Anya to Darra and Rob who were at the porch swing in the back yard and jumped in the leaves with her for a bit. Very liberating to play like that. Must do it more often. When I went back to get Anya and talk, she was trying to gag and spit out a little bit of the leaf that Rob had let her eat. What is it with fathers? You ask them to watch the kids and they do just that. Why don't they understand that "watching" them isn't a passive thing? You should not "watch" them eat leaves. Do somethng about it! Oh hey, I think that was a rant that snuck it's way into my story. Sorry about that. Anyway. We went for supper that night at the restaurant that I used to work at. Yummy. I love their pizza. Miss that place. Ally slept all night. Anya didn't. Grr.

Second Thanksgiving (Saturday)
Darra brought in one of those push/ride-on toys for babies to learn to walk. It was a train with a horn that Anya loved to push. The batteries soon mysteriously disappeared. (Oh my aching head). She pulled up on it and had a good old time with it. I sat her on it a couple times and let Ally push her around. Oh, they loved it. I think Anya is about ready to have one of her own. Ally never really liked to play with hers at that age. She just liked to pull up the seat and put things in the little storage area under it. Surprise! That's still her favorite thing and she is still doing it. Anya seriously liked riding though. Darra had all of her in-laws over for dinner. One little boy there was 4 and he and Ally went out to play in the leaves again. They played together pretty well. Rob's nephew got stuck in a tree. A neighbor's cat came to visit and wouldn't go away, even when Ally picked it up by the back legs and threw it in the leaf pile. She wanted it to play with her. It is actually a very even-tempered cat and let Ally pet it and hold it quite a bit. Nap time came and Ally laid in a bed upstairs, but with so much excitement going on, I let her get up and play after an hour of laying there staring at the ceiling. No nap Day 3. OMG!!!! Can you say crankiness (but only in the evening hours. The daytime was just fine)?

After everyone's stomach had time to adjust, we dragged out yet another birthday cake and sang and opened presents. Ally was very interested in her dress-up princess set and immediately had to have her ponies opened so she could put the babies in her "purse". Oh, and of course she had some more cake. She also loved her Rudolph stuffed toy. Conveniently, I had bought her Rudolph and the Misfit toys and she hadn't seen it yet, so she watched it while holding her Rudolph on the way home.

Sunday we rested. Oh and cleaned. Yuck.

Monday she took cupcakes to day care. Kid had lots of cake this year. No wonder she wants cake for Christmas.

Shew... That was long. Last weekend's update is much easier:

Thursday = rain + sleet. All. Day.
Friday = snow. over ice. yuck. Ally played in her new snowsuit.
Saturday = Santa at the mall. oh yes, pictures were taken. Check out Flickr.
Sunday = sledding. We found a really, very, large, humongous hill for sledding. Anya was supposed to be sleeping and Rob would stay with her. It didn't work out that way. I took Ally anyway. They stayed in the car. We went halfway up the small side of the hill and sledded down together. Then I got the wonderful idea of just sledding down the embankment on the far side instead. Much less scary heights. Plus it had the added bonus of being sloped enough that I could just leave Ally on the sled and pull her up then turn her around. She had a good time. Then Rob and I switched kids and she kinda got bratty. I think she was cold and he took her higher than I had, so she was scared. For some reason, he thought she'd enjoy going down the humongous hill. Duh. This kid has suddenly become afraid of the slide in the backyard. oh well. I think I would've had a blast without the kids. THe hill was slick and fast. I love sledding. Or at least I think I did. I haven't done it forever, and had a good time going with Ally.

Is that everything? God I hope so. I have to go see if there's anything I haven't eaten yet out there. Going to gain 10 pounds today.

Red Day
Today is red day at work. This means that the whole Information Services department brings in food for Christmas to share. Oh. my. God. There is so much good stuff out there. I have to pee very badly, but don't want to get up because I'll have to walk past the food again and I know I'll find something that I haven't yet seen and have to have. I currently have at my desk - 4.5 cookies, a little spicy roll-up thing, a piece of pineapple upsidedown cake, some almond bark covered snack mix, a cupcake, a lemon bar, dip with Hawain bread, and some little mints. Oh, I need to pee! I wonder what I'll come back with this time...

IRS refund

Hey, I got an email about a refund from the IRS. When yuou file your taxes this year, make sure you don't miss it. Here's the scoop: (Oh, and snopes.com verified it.

http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/excise.asp

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Tax refund on your phone bill

When it comes time to prepare and file your 2006 tax return, make sure
you don't overlook the federal excise tax refund credit.  You claim the
credit on line 71 of your form 1040.  A similar line will be available
if you file the short form 1040A.   If you have family or friends who
no longer file a tax return AND they have their own land phone in their
home and have been paying a phone bill for years, make sure they know
about this form 1040EZ-T.

What is this all about?  Well the federal excise tax has been charge to
you on your phone bill for years. It is an old tax that was assessed on
your toll calls based on how far the call was being made and how much
time you talked on that call.  When phone companies began to offer flat
fee phone service, challenges to the excise tax ended up in federal
courts in several districts of the country. 

The challenges pointed out that flat fee/rate phone service had nothing
to do with the distance and the length of the phone call.   Therefore,
the excise tax should/could not be assessed.

The IRS has now conceded this argument.  Phone companies have been
given notice to stop assessing the federal excise tax as of Aug 30, 2006. 
You will most likely see the tax on your September cutoff statement,
but it should NOT be on your October bill.

But the challengers of the old law also demanded restitution.  So the
IRS has announced that a one time credit will be available when you and
I file our 2006 tax return as I explained above.  However, the IRS also
established limits on how BIG a credit you can get.  Here's how it
works.

  If you file your return as a single person with just you as a
dependent, you get to claim a $30 credit on line 71 of your 1040.

  If you file with a child or a parent as your dependent, you claim
$40.

  If you file your return as a married couple with no children, you
claim $40.

  If you file as married with children, you claim $50 if one child, 
$60 if two children.

  In all cases, the most you get to claim is $60 - UNLESS you have all
your phone bills starting AFTER Feb 28, 2003 through July 31, 2006 (do
not use any bills starting Aug 1, 2006.), then you can add up the
ACTUAL TAX AS IT APPEARS ON YOUR BILLS AND CLAIM THAT FOR A CREDIT.

Now if you have your actual phone bills and come up with an ACTUAL TAX
AMOUNT, you cannot use line 71 on your tax return.  You have to
complete a special form number 8913 and attach it to your tax return.

Individuals using the special from 1040EZ-T will have to attach this
form 8913 also.

One final point - this credit is a refundable credit.  That means you
get this money, no matter how your tax return works out.  If you would
end up owing the IRS a balance, the refund will reduce that balance you
owe. 

If you end up getting a refund, the credit will be added and you get a
bigger refund by that $30 to $60, depending on how many dependents are
on your return.

Feel free to pass this on or make copies for family and friends who
don't have computers.

3 year checkup

I took Ally for her 3 year checkup on Monday. 36.5 inches tall. 34 pounds. No shots! Then I decided that wasn't good enough and asked them for a flu shot. I'm terrible. I had discussed with her ahead of time that she was gong to get a shot and it would hurt a little, but when she was done she'd get a sucker and sticker. Everytime she saw someone new (the receptionist, the nurse, the doctor, the doctor again after interupting the exam to go potty, the nurse again when she came back to give her a shot) she made sure to tell them she didn't want a shot. We told her it wasn't time yet and she went on about her business. But when she got the shot? She screamed! You would have thought I was pulling out her fingernails. She sobbed. "I didn't want a shot! You gave me a shot and I didn't want a shot! It hurts! I didn't want a shot!" She got a sucker and it helped a little. She didn't really stop crying though until I showed her all the stickers and she got to pick one out. When she went to bed that night, she was laying in bed and I had gone back upstairs. I heard her yelling. Rob checked on her and told me that she was yelling because there was a sticker on her arm. It was the band-aid over the shot.

The rest of the checkup went pretty good. The Dr asked Ally a bunch of questions, some of which she actually deigned to answer. He asked if she could count to 5 and said 1. Ally stared at him blankly. So I wispered in her ear "3?" So she disagreed with me and told me I was wrong, cause she can't pass up an opportunity to do that. She then counted the rest of the way to 5. He asked her what color his shirt was (red). What color my shirt was (blue). What color his shoes were (I don't know). They were black. She knows that. She just thought she was being funny. So I asked her what color mine were. She said "the same as his". He accepted that answer as good enough. He asked how old she was (I'm 3 (fwee) years old!) Then he asked if she is a boy or a girl. (No, I'm 3 (fwee) years old!) So I asked "is Mommy a boy?" and she said "No, you're a girl". It was here that the dr decided he had asked enough questions. And he commented on her stubbornness. All in all it went well. It took forever, because she had to pee twice, but oh well. She hasn't had an "accident" for over a week now. Hooray.