Hello Mr. Governor

Just a quick note to add my exciting news. I attended a ribbon cutting for our Chamber of Commerce last night. The Governor attended and spoke. The Mayor of my city introduced me to the Governor personally and he called me the "Assistant Planning Director" which, by the way, is NOT my title. But if there's one thing my mother taught me, it's "never correct your superior in front of someone else", especially the Governor of your state. So I just smiled and shook his hand. While I don't really care much for politics, it was fun to meet and shake the hand of the Governor. Maddie told me her friends wouldn't believe her. The food was good too!

Maddie ended up getting the stomach flu also and was out of school for half of the day on Tuesday. She wanted to go back yesterday and she did great. She did NOT want to go back today. She didn't understand that once you're well enough to go back, you can't stay home again. Poor thing!

16 months

So I am a day early posting, but since I had Blogger on my mind I decided to post now!

Anna is now going through a language explosion. I don't even know if I can write all of the words she says, because there are so many, but here are a few new ones. She says Elmo, Ernie, and mimics everything you say. She says moo if you ask her what a cow says. She is very good at associating the actual word with the item too. If you ask her to point to Elmo, she will and repeat his name. She loves to sing and do the actions for I'm a Little Teapot, Pat-a-Cake and Itsy Bitsy Spider.

We went to Lincoln on Saturday to meet up with our friend Sarah and her two girls; Sofia and Adriana. We met for lunch and went to the play center near the zoo. We saw Brian and Erin's triplets (Will, Xander and Grace) at the play center. Grandma and Grandpa take them out on Saturdays. They're cute! Madeline had a blast with Sofia (who just turned 7). Madeline watched her MixMax on the way home and we enjoyed the peace and quiet.

Anna had a tough weekend. Friday she came home early because the daycare thought she had pinkeye. We started treating that right away on Friday with some drops, Saturday night around midnight Anna puked all over Ryan a few times. He thought she'd gagged on phlem so he let me feed her and then she puked all over me. Right before she puked I said to Ryan "are you sure she doesn't have the stomach flu? Because, you know, it's going around" then as if on cue: PUKE. There's nothing like a complete wardrobe change at midnight! She didn't keep pedialite down at first but by 8am she was ready to have her belly filled with mommymilk, which stayed down nicely. Thank goodness. I was looking at the prospect of driving to work to get my pump. ick!

Sunday afternoon she came down with a low grade fever. She has a runny nose, but it'st not too bad. She's home with Ryan this morning and I will go stay with her after my dentist appointment. Madeline has managed (knock on wood) to stay healthy the entire school year. I hope that continues! Ryan felt ill last night and went to bed early. He was fine this morning so it may have been sympathy pains. That always happens with Ryan! Meanwhile, I managed to keep the ship floating.

New stuff

Annie cut her third molar (bottom left side) a couple of days ago. It's hard to tell if her night crying is due to tooth or gas pain, but she's definitely uncomfortable. She's also added more vocabulary in the last week or so. She now says apple and mine. She mimics down and up occassionally. She's a pro at the point and grunt skill.

It is cute when she calle me "mine". I may pass her off to Ryan for something and she thrusts her arms toward me and calls out "mine, mine". She calls for mama, mamamama too. But it's ubber cute to be called "mine". I am all hers!

Yesterday we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. day (Maddie told me all about him and Rosa Parks) while simultaneously celebrating Lissa's birthday at the local indoor waterpark. It was super fabulous. I stayed and did some swimming and hot-tubbing as well. Maddie loves the lazy river and spent most of her time there. I had planned to just relax in the hot tub, but the rest of the park was too inviting and we enjoyed the lazy riving and waterslides quite a bit. It's not exactly a relaxing venue since it's a compact space filled with hundreds of excited children. But I still loved it! Then Maddie and I went off to a department store and picked out a few pair of new jeans (pink, blue and red), which she is wearing today. Over the weekend she got a few new tops from her new favorite clothing store: Justice. It was a great holiday weekend. Ryan and Anna went to work and daycare so they didn't really reap the benefits of our famous civil rights leader.

Dinnertime

January and frigid cold

Yeah, it's pretty cold here and it's going to get worse, a lot worse. The forecast shows lows predicted at -7 for Sat and -10 and lower for next week. Needless to say I have my heater on at work and have been doing a lot of register-sitting. By the way, Maddie went to the nurse for some lotion on Monday and told the nurse that her mother likes to sit on the register, to which the nurse replied that "it will dry out your skin". Yeah, but who cares I'm WARM and so far I haven't had any ill skin impacts! he he he I saw her yesterday when I went to lunch with Maddie and we had a little laugh about it. She said she would do the same thing when she was a kid. I'm still a kid, apparently. That's okay by me.

Annalise, Madeline and I spent the evening bowling (with our indoor foam play bowling set) Anna really enjoyed throwing the ball, which she clearly calls "BALL!" and knocking down the pins with either the ball or her hands. She throws the ball both over and underhand. It looks pretty cute to watch her throw underhanded. One of her favorite positions is to tuck her arms behind her back, elbows flared, with her little fingers pointed out. It looks a little like the chicken dance. She walks around this way, stands and/or bends over this way. She just loves to do it. I have been trying to catch it in a picture but she's elusive. It is very adorable. They said at the daycare she's one of the more talkative kids in her class, which surprised me. At home she doesn't talk as much, presumably because her big sister won't put a lid on it. No offense to Madeline but she is a little (prepare yourself for a real shocker here) egocentric. I'm pretty sure that under the definition of a 5-6 year old it says "world revolves around".

We received Madeline's report card last week. She's ranked as "Mastery" in most of the areas. A couple things she needed to work on included recognizing her coin-money. So we treked out to World Market the other evening with a bag full of mixed coins. Madeline picked out two treats and had to, correctly on the FIRST try (or else she wouldn't be allowed to buy the treat), identify all the required coins. I would tell her how many of each type of coin to pick and she would find it and place it in a pile. We did it when she picked out the treat and again when we paid the cashier (who was very patient with us). Madeline did perfectly. She did have a moment when she was confused about the nickel and the quarter but she was able to work through it without making a fatal mistake. It was definitely the right incentive for her. She practiced the coins at home to make sure she wouldn't make a mistake at the store. Other than that, the only areas she needs to work are the social areas. In that she needs to listen, follow directions, follow school rules, etc. This, of course, was no big surprise to either of us since she's pretty much a carbon copy at home. But she is improving and we'll give her a break, since she's 5. Nobody's perfect. I think sometimes people need to be reminded that NOBODY is perfect and we should certainly not expect anything near perfection from a 5 year old. Anyone who does is setting themselves up for disappointment.

Is it wrong to love a heater?

As John Arbuckle pondered this question last Sunday with Garfield, I was drawn back to memories of cold winter days on Bison Court. Our family room furniture was arranged such that when you walked into the room from the eat-in kitchen you could see the T.V. in the righthand corner of the wall, next to the wood-burning fireplace. Along the left hand wall perpendicular to the fireplace were two swivel rocking chairs and directly across from the swivel rockers, on the right-hand wall perpendicular to the fireplace and T.V. was the 1970's dark-gold and burnt umber couch. Next to the couch, nearest the eat-in kitchen was the grand-daddy of Laz-E-Boy rockers where my dad used to plant his rear and watch, well, anything that was on T.V. but preferably baseball. If that gives you a bit of a mental picture, I am going to ask you to imagine the end of the couch, closest to the T.V. There was about four feet of space between the edge of the couch and the T.V. where I used to curl up with our jumbo-sized 3x3 fringed floor pillow. Almost as if it had been purposely placed, a HVAC register was located right at the place I would sit, underneath the window on that wall. I enjoyed almost nothing more than sitting next to the register with my nightgown ballooning out to capture the freshly generated heat while I roasted like a Thanksgiving Turkey. Even though that memory is about 20 years old, I still love to sit near a register on a cold day. It may even be said that just last week I turned the thermostat up just to trigger the furnace. I have to admit that I am passing down this John Arbuckle quirkiness since Madeline now fights me for the vent. Maybe, just maybe, 20 years from now Madeline will remember sitting on the vent at Betsy Avenue, while her hot-air nightgown balloons around her.

Over the shoulder flat as a pancake holder

I think I was in 6th or 7th grade when my mother took me out bra shopping. It was exciting, but I was very embarassed. Every time she talked to a sales attendant I was mortified that they were talking about my boobs, or lack thereof. Even once I had the bra I was very embarassed to wear it to school. I was afraid someone would notice and make fun of me. I certainly did not embrace my inner desire to have a bra. That would be the polar opposite of my eldest daughter.

Maddie and I trecked over to Kohl's last week to get her some new whitey tighties. While there she asked me to buy her a bra. I think she likes saying the word "bra". I was surprised that she wanted a bra and looked over their selection. Feeling uneducated about sizing I decided to research it a little. We returned to Kohl's yesterday to pick up a couple additional packages of undies and Madeline selected her first bra! She's been wearing it nonstop since yesterday. The package came with two bras so she wore one through the night and switched this morning. She told me to wash the first one while she wears the second! She loves her bra SO MUCH that she doesn't like to wear a shirt, because it would cover her wonderful bra of course! She is very proud and would enjoy having a conversation about her new undergarments with anyone interested. As an aside, her 10 year old neighbor buddy got her first bra this year too. Sigh, they have so much in common; two girls flat as pancakes loving their new braziers!