Camping Out

When I was a little girl, this was my bed. (Without the guy. We hadn't met yet.)

Before it was mine it was my mom's, but I don't have a picture of it then. I'm sure it was in better shape. However, it has held up well for 45 years and as I've mentioned before, it now belongs to this little person.

When I was a little girl my mom used to make my bed into a tent. So when the Boogie asked for a tent tonight, of course I had to try to replicate what my mom used to do.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. The Boogie was pretty tickled with it and wanted everyone to come in. I took the side and end sheets off but left the top one on when she went to bed. Someday we'll actually put the canopy on it so she can have a real princess bed!

She still says "rangin" (like "hanging") instead of "angry." Tonight she wanted something and I told her no. She scowled at me and said, "I'm rangin for you," which translates to "I'm angry at you." Hey, at least she used words instead of screaming or hitting, right?

She has a cold and when she woke up from her nap she found her Daddy and said, "Daddy, it's not working." When he asked what she meant she just pointed at her nose which was completely stuffed up. Poor little girl. She's happy, though!

Making It Work

You know, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do in order to sit and eat her fruit loops while she watches Thomas talking.

Even if it means using a wipe warmer as a table.

Too bad there isn't, you know, a TABLE anywhere nearby that she could sit at.

But that's life, I guess. You just make do with what you've got. Or what you notice, anyway.

And sometimes a girl just HAS to pee while she is playing with puzzles. When in that predicament it's always good to have a little potty chair handy.

Please keep these things in mind. Thank you.

Thanks A Lot, Punxsutawney Phil

See what your forecast of six more weeks of winter is bringing us?

6-12 more inches, just when the stuff from the last storm is finally melting away.

Uggggghhhh.

Thought-Provoking

You know that saying, "Out of the mouths of babes?" I've always taken it to mean that children tell it like they see it. So I'm wondering why all of a sudden lately the Boogie is labeling everything as being mine. Not "mine" as in selfish preschooler speak, but referring to everything as belonging to me, her mother. For example:
-Honey's car
-Honey's house
-Honey's room
-Honey's bed
-Honey's gig gil potty
-Honey's tee-bee (for watching "Thomas talking")

I don't think I claim possession to everything in our home. I know for a fact that I don't refer to the toilet as being exclusively mine. My Man takes it good-naturedly; it doesn't seem to bother him when the Boogie tells him, "No, Daddy, you sleep in Honey's bed," when he pretends that he is going to nap on hers. It's just very interesting to me. My guess is that there are plenty of other little ones who do the same thing. Maybe it's because I'm the one who is home with her most of the time, cleaning the apartment and making the bed, etc. Sometimes I wish there were some way into this almost-3-year-old's psyche to figure out why she views things the way she does!

Potty Mouth

The Boogie, when she belches or passes gas, covers her mouth and giggles and says, "I burped! 'Scuse me." I don't correct her because she is at the age of blurting things out and I'd much rather her announce "I burped!" in a store than ... well ... something else.

Of course you know we've been potty-training and she is doing extremely well. She's hardly had any accidents all week, and has stayed dry for most naptimes as well as a couple of nights. When we are at home she wears "gig gil panties" and when we're out she wears a Pull-Up. Last night we had just gotten home and I thought I smelled something. "Did you poop?" I demanded.
"Yes," she answered. I checked her Pull-Up and it was clean.
"No, you didn't. There's no poop in there!" I said.
"No," she said, "I'm just farting."

Today I asked her if she was ready for lunch. "Would you like some noodles?" I asked.
"No, thanks," she replied.
"Well, what would you like, then?"
She leaned close to me and whispered loudly, "Fruit loops."

We are spending a lovely quiet day at home today. I got up with the Boogie and made her breakfast, then dozed on the couch while she ate in the living room and watched what she calls "Thomas talking," which is the computer-animated version of Thomas and Friends. (Does anyone remember Shining Time Station with Ringo Starr and George Carlin as a miniature Mr. Conductor, and the jukebox that had a marionette band inside?  Anyone? Anyone? I think it was on PBS. We used to watch it all the time.) She is in love with Thomas the Tank Engine and all of his pals. It is a sudden obsession. Thankfully she has cousins with a full library of Thomas DVDs that they are happy to share. When I woke up from my morning nap My Man was making us breakfast. Then he went on visitation and the Boogie and I puttered around and now we are watching more Olympics. It is the perfect day to do nothing.

The snow is melting, too! I can see bare patches of grass here and there. It will be spring in ONE MONTH and I can't wait!

It's Here! It's Here!

And ... it's really BIG.

It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be. Here, for comparison:

I truly didn't think it would be quite so tall or ... large. It didn't look that big in the furniture store! Of course, that could have been because it was in a huge showroom surrounded by other, larger, beds. That could maybe possibly have skewed my perception just a little bit. It is taking some getting used to and I've run into the footboard several times (because I'm clumsy like that) and I almost need a stool to climb up on it and I might need to do a little more rearranging of furniture in our room, but it is very pretty and a major plus is that at night the sound of our downstairs neighbor's tv does not travel up through the mattresses anymore. (Apparently mattresses are good sound conductors. Who knew?) AND there is lots of fabulous space underneath! Storage bin section in Target, here I come!

We have been watching quite a bit of Olympics this week. We all like the snowboarding and skiing competitions. The Boogie and I like the figure skating. She gets excited and tries to slide down the hallway in her socks as if she's skating. This is how she watches skiing:

It snowed again on Tuesday for a good part of the day, but thankfully it didn't stick. That's the way I like snow -- it looks pretty but causes minimal interruption to my life.

I'm so happy it's Friday! I am planning on having a great weekend, and I hope you do too!

Procrastination

It's what I do. I won't say I'm proud of it, but I must admit to being fairly accomplished at it.

Currently I am successfully avoiding the checkbook. Again. You know, in my bank teller days I updated my checkbook several times a week. It was always balanced to the penny. Always. But I was only keeping track of one income and one person's few bills and I had quite a bit of downtime at the bank. (Shhhh, don't tell anyone ... but I balanced my checkbook while I was supposed to be working.) Anyway, I've told myself many many times that if I would take five minutes every night to enter any receipts from that day into the register my life would be much less complicated.

But less complicated is not always what I do. Procrastination is what I'm good at. So I'm doing that again. Unfortunately being good at it does not make me feel accomplished for some reason ...

We got several inches of snow in that storm. It snowed for several hours on Tuesday night and My Man woke up early Wednesday morning, looked out at the unplowed driveway, and came back to bed. It stopped snowing for several hours and the roads and our parking lot got plowed and he really could have gone to work. Instead he helped me with a project. Then it started snowing again. And it snowed for several hours again. And I was glad he didn't go to work and that I didn't have to, either!

Here is what we accomplished Wednesday morning:

Tore our room apart, cleaned it, and completely rearranged. Now it's ready for Baby Sister -- all I have to do is set up the little crib in the corner. I really like our room this way. It feels so good to have that finished.

I am very pleased to report that potty training has been a huge success! The Boogie has hardly had any accidents at all. On Thursday night at church she even told the nursery worker that she needed to go. Yesterday we were out and about for hours cleaning the church, running errands, and doing some shopping, and she stayed dry all day. She had no problem using whatever restroom we were near. I'm delighted that she has caught on so quickly and I'm so glad I waited until I thought she was ready. It hasn't been a battle at all.

One of our errands yesterday was to look for a bed. Our mattresses have been on the floor since we moved into this apartment (we had a bed but gave it away.) We found one for the exact amount we had budgeted for! Here it is:

Hahaha just kidding! Could you imagine this in our apartment? It would take up the whole bedroom! In fact it probably wouldn't even fit with our eight-foot ceilings.

Okay, this is really the one we got:

It's very simple and not too big. We've been shopping around for several weeks and this was the first one that we both immediately liked. My Man will go pick it up on Tuesday. I'm excited to get the mattresses off the floor and our pillows away from the window -- it's cold! Plus I'm looking forward to that extra storage space under the bed.

Today is Valentine's Day. The Boogie was very excited and repeated "Happy Holidays" many times this morning -- she is a little confused. She gave candy hearts to her Sunday school classmates and cousins. She received as much candy back as she gave! We gave her a Backyardigan's toy that we found at a rest stop on the turnpike last week. My Man got a new game for his DS and some Jelly Belly's, and gave me some shower gel that I wanted.

No more excuses. Time to buckle down and get busy. Happy Valentine's Day to you -- now go hug the ones you love!

More Snow

Will you look at this?

And this?

And this?

And this?

And this is on top of the snow that is left from last weekend's big storm! I think I have unknowingly been transported to North Dakota.

Oh, it looks pretty, but don't be deceived. It is flaky white inconvenience.

My Man is not going to work tomorrow. I am not going to work tomorrow. The Boogie is not going anywhere tomorrow. We will stay home and work on potty training and watch Food Network and HGTV and PBS.

This morning I had a check-up. Baby Sister is doing well, I am doing well, we go back in two weeks. Wow, appointments every two weeks already. A few of those and then it's every week -- the home stretch!

It was laundry day at 52. I loaded my car with bags of laundry, then buckled the Boogie in. She asked me a question (I don't remember what it was) and apparently didn't like my answer. "Are you kidding me?" she demanded. I assured her I was not kidding. I waited to laugh until she couldn't see me. She's such a funny kid.

Tonight before the snow started several families from church descended on our local Chick-fil-a and took advantage of their free-kids-meal-with-purchase-of-regular-meal. We ate yummy food and talked and let the kids play in the play area until a little girl (not one of ours) threw up in there and we paranoid moms yanked our own kids out of there so fast it would make your head spin. Then several of us headed across the parking lot to Target where I stocked up on Chapstick.

Here's the Boogie as she is going to bed. I think she's practicing her parade wave.

And look at this:

 

"Care Bear Under House Arrest"

Potty Time

I have been dreading potty training with the Boogie. Really, truly dreading it. She has shown a little more interest lately and been using her little potty chair more often. I finally bought her some underwear and we've been talking a lot about how she's such a big girl and soon she won't wear diapers anymore, etc. Since Saturday was going to be a day at home for us girls I decided to give the underwear and potty a try for the day and see how she did. However, Monster Jam changed our plans for Saturday, so this morning I pulled out the underwear again. She had two accidents, which I expected, and after the second one I let her be naked just to see what would happen. Imagine my surprise when she proceeded to pee in her potty time after time with NO accidents at all! I never had to prompt or remind her even once -- she just went on her own. I'm so pleased since this is the indication I've been waiting for that she understands the feeling of needing to go, and can wait until she gets to her potty. Tonight she even told her daddy that she needed to go while she was wearing a diaper, which stayed dry! I know it's only the first step in a long process but I'm very very happy with how it is going.

After all that snow we got on the weekend it looks like we are going to be hit with another winter storm tomorrow. I'm so tired of winter and snow and cold and dry skin and chapped lips.

Tomorrow is my next prenatal appointment. I was supposed to go three weeks ago, but the Boogie got sick and I had to reschedule. Then I got sick and I had to reschedule again. Then last week the doctor's office called me because they needed to reschedule! So I am three weeks overdue for a four-week check-up. I can't believe I am almost 29 weeks along -- time is certainly flying by.

Speaking of babies, my BFF Mrs. Cowboy had hers two weeks ago! I was convinced that baby was a boy. CONVINCED. Ninety-nine percent sure. And guess what? I was wrong! I should have known better since everyone is having girls this year. This little girl is sweet and adorable and cute as a button. I drool over pictures of her and wish I could snuggle her, just a little bit. I will have to come up with a nickname for her. What should it be? Baby Cowboy? No, that sounds like she's a boy. Baby Cowgirl? Little Cowgirl? Mrs. Cowboy's Baby? Nah, too long. Hmm, gonna have to think about this one ...

No, She Isn't Vain

Tonight in church the Boogie was sitting on my lap during singing and announcements. She took my face in both of her hands and pulled it down to her. "Honey, look at me," she whispered, "I'm beautiful." Well, I have to agree with that!

Monster Jam!

My Man and Someone Else (names have been changed) bought tickets a few weeks ago to go to Monster Jam in north Jersey today. Last night it started to snow. And snow. And snow. And continue to snow. By this morning there were several inches and it was still coming down. Someone Else (who will remain unnamed, though you know who you are) bailed. My Man didn't want to go by himself, so we left the Boogie at 52 and I went with him. If you know me, you know I am not a Monster Jam kind of girl. I am a sit-at-home-on-a-snowy-Saturday-afternoon-and-watch-old-movies-while-my-husband-goes-to-Monster-Jam-with-Someone-Else kind of girl. But he'd been looking forward to it so much and I wanted him to go and everyone knows it's much more fun to go with someone than by yourself. So I went! The first thirty minutes of driving was a little nerve-wracking but once we got on the turnpike it was smooth sailing. There wasn't any snow at all up in north Jersey. And Monster Jam was actually kind of fun. It was very noisy and Baby Sister kicked and squirmed when engines got all revved up. Afterward we drove up to Hackensack to White Manna for sliders. We'd been wanting to try them since we saw the tiny diner featured on -- where else? -- Food Network. The diner was tiny and crowded and smelled so good. There was one cook working at a small flattop grill and we were amazed at how she could remember who ordered what. We got some cheeseburgers with onions and shared some fries and it was dee-licious! Meanwhile it stopped snowing here at home so by the time we got close the roads were pretty clear. The Boogie had fun with her grandparents.

Speaking of your favorite Boogie, here she is with HE in their matching monkey jammies that they got from Mom3 and Pop3 for Christmas. How cute are matchy-matchy cousins?

Later that morning I started cleaning floors which led to cleaning other things (like pulling the refrigerator out and vacuuming behind and under it because I just read about a fridge fire caused by dust) and moving everything I could out of the dining room and kitchen, and while I was occupied elsewhere the Boogie climbed on a conveniently-located chair and found my camera.

 

This one is my favorite. I don't know why, but the pictures she takes of her own feet crack me up.

Since this is my journal as well as your source of entertainment, I must record that the Boogie bit her sweet cousin yesterday. Normally the two of them get along fabulously -- they will play happily together for hours. I have no idea what brought this on and I honestly am mortified that she did it. She has, you know, bitten other children in the past, but it's been a while since the last time and I really didn't expect it. If she had bitten DR I would kind of understand -- not that I ever will justify biting or let her get away with it, but he loves to antagonize her and there have been times when I've caught her going after him in retribution. But HE? I do not understand. I am so embarrassed that my almost-3-year-old still bites. The worst part is that both she and HE are old enough to remember it happening and when the subject comes up the Boogie looks a little bit smug like, "Mm-hmm, yep, I can bite people with my teeth." Ugh. Parenthood. There is no knowing what your offspring will do next ... However, I did learn tonight that My Man was also a biter, so maybe it's genetic! At least now I can say it's his fault. Ha!

To Someone Special

Happy birthday, Pops! We love you lots and lots!

February: What There Is To Love

It's short. It means January is over. There are candy conversation hearts. And it's that much closer to spring.

I had great goals of blogging much more last month. I think I did pretty well for the first two-thirds of the month. Then it all went downhill ... Eh, oh well. Let's start a new month, shall we?

I couldn't escape that stomach bug. The Sunday after the Boogie had it I woke up feeling fine, went to church and taught my Sunday school class, and then about half-way through the morning service started to feel weird. The minute church was over we went home and I spend the rest of Sunday and most of Monday in bed and on the couch. I felt so badly about having gone to church, but I really had no idea that The Bug was coming to get me -- it came on very suddenly. On Tuesday I felt much better and by Wednesday I was totally fine. Somehow My Man avoided it, though. Praise the Lord!

This past Saturday My Man and I took the train into Philly to the auto show. We go every year -- this was our fifth auto show expedition. It wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it would be on the first day of the show, and we checked out lots of vehicles for family- and wallet-friendliness. We also did a lot of people-watching. I think by the time we were finishing up we were looking at the people more than the cars. My favorite this time was the lady in the black-and-white large-check sweater dress. She looked like a walking checkerboard. I really should have taken a picture but I was too chicken.

I don't have any new Boogie pictures or videos. I do have this one, though.

Baby Sister is growing! I am starting to feel more uncomfortable by the end of some days. I had to postpone my last doctor's appointment a couple of times due to The Bug, so I go back in a couple of days and will see how we're doing.

Time to watch out, Monday, here I come ...