Disappointing

Photo and Video Backup Process

I've been working to get all my photos and movies backed up and organized since my hard drive crashed oh so many months ago.  For the most part, I seem to have not lost too many pictures.  I'm certainly unaware of any important pictures that may have been lost, so that's good.

Video, ironically, I was very confident I had not lost since I backed those up on a thumb drive well before the crash.  Unfortunately, it appears I lost a batch of them.  It's only about four months worth, and some of those months are documented in the various movie clips I've assembled, but it's disappointing nonetheless. 

Surprise!

After an afternoon of not much, we headed over to the Gs to pick up Elise and Nolan for Jay's surprise 40th BD party. On the way there, the girls had a discussion about anatomy.  Avery said something about Nolan having a "peanut."  I corrected her and said Nolan has a penis.  Avery said, "Yes, Nolan has a penis and I have a vagina."  Then Elise started talking about her vagina.  Nolan stayed curiously quiet about his genitalia.

Back to the party ... Jay was definitely surprised!  We stayed for dinner, cake, and presents, then left for our house with the three kids.  Fortunately, all three were cake to get to sleep tonight (perhaps because of the cake? see what I did there cake and cake?  I'm funny.  I know).  I say fortunately due to ... 

Pizza Migraine

About 75% of the time I eat traditional pizza, I get a migraine.  My migraines aren't as bad as I've read others describe them.  I only call them a migraine because that is what the doctor has said I'm experiencing.  I'm quite sure that there is some spice that causes it for me.  I can feel it coming on, then I get queasy, then I have to throw up, then I feel much better.  If I don't throw up, it takes hours for it to subside. 

This has happened since I was a kid. I can't recall if it's always been triggered by pizza, but the pattern has always been the same: headache, queasy feeling, throw up, then be better.  I remember it happened once at a French restaurant in Manchester, England when I was a junior in HS (which makes me sounds like I was a world traveler as a teenager - I was not - it was one trip).  I was so sick that time. For the longest time, I wouldn't eat French food because of it. 

I wish I could pinpoint the offending spice.  It's got to be a spice because (gross stuff coming your way) when it's coming back up, it's always the same sort of bile/spice flavor.  The problem is I don't get a migraine 100% of the time.  I'll eat pizza a few times and be fine, so I forget or figure it is done with.  It rarely happens when I eat pizza from New Seasons or Pizzacato where they do more gourmet things with the pizza.  And it's happened with Italian foods, too.  It's one of the reasons I don't like Italian food nearly as much as other foods. 

Avery

I'm trying to get Avery to make a transition to using the toilet rather than her little floor potties.  It's going well.  Last night, I told her she needed to use the toilet before bed and she asked why.  I said, "Because you're getting bigger."  She responded with, "Yes, I'm getting older and older so I can buy a car."  Damn, she is going to be one expensive child.

Avery talks about her birthday party all.the.time.  I have no idea where she got this obsession from, but it certainly wasn't Damian or me.  When we told her that Uncle Jay's BD party was tonight, she was so excited.  She then said, "It's Uncle Jay's birthday tonight and he's going to open presents and have cake!  But it's not my birthday because my birthday is in December." It's the first time she's gotten the month right out of the blue.  Then she said, "And Nain is going to be at my birthday party! And I'm going to have cake and blow out the candles like this!"  Then she showed us how one blows out birthday candles. 

The actual questions toddlers ask, well at least that Avery asks, surprises me a bit.  I expected questions like, "Why is the sky blue?" and, "Where do babies come from?"  Instead, I get questions like, "How do we get up there?" which is asked every time we drive under a bridge over a highway.   The other day, as we were driving, she said that she saw a lot of cars and that they were hers.  I said, no, the car we were driving in is mine, the car Daddy drives is his, and the cars around us were owned by the other people.  She then asked, "Why are they not our cars?" which then became, "Why do they buy cars?"  I think I eventually responded something like grownups often buy cars so they can drive to and from work.  Which is why I think she now associates buying a car with getting older.

On the way to pick up Elise and Nolan tonight, Avery recounted to us her time out earlier in the day.  She was not happy because she was tired (this nap dropping thing is brutal from a crankiness perspective).  She was being really difficult and demanding all sorts of things, then still wasn't happy if we said yes. Eventually, I told her I was going to take the dogs for a walk and that if she wanted to come with me, she'd need to put on some clothes.  She said she wanted to go, but then refused to make a move to put on clothes.  Finally, I explained I was leaving and that she was staying home with Daddy because she was dawdling.  So, back to the conversation in the car, she says, "Daddy put me in time out.  You took the dogs for a walk and I didn't go."  I say, "Yes.  Why did you get a time out?" and she thought about it and then said, "Because I was dawdling and crying."  So that's a long way of saying that "dawdle" is a new vocabulary word for Avery.