week(3) 2013

Week 3, January 13 - January 19

I'm going to try something new, which is to keep most other posts isolated to a single topic. I've struggled with that in the past, but I do think it would make it easier to read, for me and other people. To attempt to achieve this, but still maintain my need and desire to blog the mundane (which I do so enjoy going back to read x years later), I'm going to blog that in a weekly post. We'll see how it goes. Who knows if I'll bother to add. This may be the only post since I'm not great at sticking with these things.  Here goes. I tried breaking it down by day first, but by topic seems more readable. I'll be experimenting with various formats, I'm sure. You'll be patient or just not read.

Abbie

Abbie and I, along with Mom, attended a controlled puppy socialization playgroup. It was very interesting and well worth the money I paid. I bought a punch card for at least 4 other groups, so we (Abbie & I) will be going to those. --- Sunday

Abbie and I walked a total of 2.6 miles. In the morning we did a cemetery walk. In the afternoon, while Avery was in her dance classes, we walked around the neighborhood near the studio. Abbie is such a good walker. It's a much different experience to walking challenging, pulling dogs.  --- Wednesday

I was able to attend another session for the controlled puppy socialization playgroup. This time, I went to the <25lb group. The first session was with 25-50lb puppies. Abbie wasn't quite ready for that yet. She's not fearful exactly, but she's underconfident. This playgroup was even more beneficial. I find it amazing that, by the end of the session, all the puppies are in the same room, off leash, and quite calm with each other. Abbie even played with a little black lab puppy who was much more confident than she. While I obviously don't yet know how these playgroups will affect Abbie's personality or interaction with other dogs, I will definitely seek out this type of group with any other puppies I may have in the (distant, distant) future. --- Friday

Avery

Avery did her second violin lesson in order to decide between taking violin lessons or piano lessons. She has been requesting both. Summary: the violin teacher was sick, sent her brother in her place, he didn't have the right size violin for Avery, since he was to be her piano teacher anyway, he did some piano lessons too, Avery chose piano lessons. Weekly piano lessons will start on Friday.  --- Monday

Avery and Henry have both progressed quite far with their swimming. It's rather awesome to watch.  --- Tuesday

Today I watched Nolan after school. First, we all hit Burgerville since I'd not eaten. Next we went to New Seasons. There was no race car shopping cart available, so the kids had to settle for being in the main part of a regular shopping cart. As I pushed them around shopping, they pretended it was a pirate ship and they were hoisting sails, etc. I gotta say, they have the lingo down better than I do. After the grocery store, we all went to Pet Smart with Abbie. And finally, before heading back to the G house, we took a quick walk in a park with Abbie.  --- Thursday

I realized that Avery's shoulders were well above her shoulder straps. It's been this way a while, but I kept forgetting to ask my resident carseat safety expert (RHG) if that meant I should switch her to using the car seat belt versus the built in harness. Anyway, yes, it does. So I disassembled the car seat, removed the straps, put it back in the car, and presented Avery with her new buckling system: the car's seat belt. She was quite excited. And it's nice that she can now fully buckle herself in and out. She was able to do everything except release the bottom buckle on the harness of the seat (it is a really strong button you have to push just right). Another milestone. --- Thursday

Avery's first official piano lesson! After not even wanting to sit next to her teacher, David, during the trial session, she kept saying all day, "I get to see David!" She seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, remembered where middle C was, as well as how to identify all the other C keys on the piano. We'll see how it goes. --- Friday

misc

The Gs did a brunch date. Mimi slept the entire time. I sat by the fire playing on my phone while Avery, Elise, and Nolan played upstairs requiring very little effort on my part. That is an ideal babysitting session, tyvm.  --- Sunday

random

• Having Abbie has made me fall in love with my sweet ride (aka my minivan) all over again. It's so easy to get her in and out of the crate in the back. I can easily take her everywhere without dealing with a mess. I can fit all three kids (Elise, Nolan, and Avery) in the car along with her crate. So nice. I do love functionality. 
• We're in the midst of vacation planning for the year. We already have a long weekend trip to Cabo booked with the leadership team at D's office (sans Avery) in late February. I've never been to Cabo despite its relative proximity to Loreto. Our annual Vegas trip is, as always, on our radar, hopefully for July. We're also going to join Vic & Mike & Bear in the US Virgin Islands in April. I've never been there, so I'm quite excited to see someplace new. I'm also hoping to go to Loreto in May, but that may be pushing it a bit. I doubt D can join us for that trip, unless he works from Loreto part of the time. What to do with Abbie during these trips is the question. Ah well, it'll work out. 
• D is in Colorado for the weekend. I am so bored. I'm trying to think of how things would be different were he here. The answer is not much, but I wouldn't be bored. 
• My friend and neighbor, and mother of Lily, had her third baby girl yesterday. New baby! They named her Sadie Jeanne. She looks like a combination of her sisters. I can rarely see parental resemblance in babies, but siblings stand out. Funnily, I sent her an email that very day asking, among other things, when she was due. I thought for sure it wasn't until end of February. 

satisfied

inner peace
I've been feeling immensely satisfied with my life for the past few months. I've never been unsatisfied necessarily, but I often feel as though I'm searching for my inner peacefulness which is oh-so-close, yet oh-so-far. Lately it's feel as if perhaps I have found my inner peacefulness. Further proof, to me, that I'm closer to that area within myself is that I'm not thinking because I've said this aloud it'll all be yanked away. I could be, but I choose to believe it won't.

Thank goodness for the maturity and wisdom (hopefully) that comes with aging, the support and love of family and friends, the chemical balancing of anti-depressants, and for stability.

allowance
I don't think I ever blogged about this, but back in June we started a cashless allowance system with Avery. I went with cashless for two reasons: 1. the hassle of getting the right cash (namely enough ones) and 2. the movement of our society to a cashless one. This drove me to find a book about a cashless allowance system and then come up with a system for us. I think it's a good system, but it's a good system to implement when she's a bit older. The idea of money in an account is too abstract for her.

We also had a problem of her having too much spending money. Her allowance was $4.75 per week (her age). She would forget about her allowance, or we wouldn't be in stores selling items she wanted, for weeks at a time. Then we'd be out and she'd want to buy something and it seemed she always had money.

Given those two problems, I have switched her to a cash allowance and re-structured it to reduce spending money per week, if not the overall amount. I implemented the save, spend, donate categories that I know a lot of parents use to teach kids about money. I was resistant to telling her how to spend her money because I wanted her to make her own mistakes and learn from there. However, now that I've seen her reactions to having spending money, I realize that she needs the structure initially before being allowed to stray from the structure to learn her own lessons. She now gets $5 per week (a raise you say!), but $2 goes to spending, $2 goes to saving, and $1 goes to donate.

I also adjusted it such that she has to identify what she wants to save up for and stick to that. For example, right now she wants a Doc McStuffins doll that costs $40. I don't want her to get distracted from that goal when she sees some cheap stuff in the checkout line. I want her to feel the process of saving for something, sticking to that, then getting it.

In addition to tangible money, I created some worksheets so she can visually see how much more she has to earn to get whatever her goal is. Those are the green sheets in the picture above.

The goal of having her know how much more she has to save to get her goal item is on-track. Tonight she sat down and counted (correctly) the empty boxes that still need 1's in them to reach her goal.

I just need to get a bunch of one dollar bills and stash them away somewhere so I always have her allowance money ready.

unnecessary gadget I inexplicably want
Deluxe eBook and iPad Holder.

Retrieval

Rock fetching
One thing that Avery struggled with during her last swimming class was retrieving an object at the bottom of the (shallow) pool. She wasn't scared, but she just couldn't figure out how to get her body down there. Today we worked on that at the pool. I am proud to say that she can now go fairly deep to retrieve a rock. It was slow going with the skill until I explained that what I do is dive down, then put my bottom in the air as high as I can. That was the key she needed to get her body in the right direction. From there she could kick and move her arms to get to the rock. We're played that game a lot.

We all ate lunch at the pool. Service was slow, but the food was decent. There was a family nearby celebrating a BD. They asked if Avery and Henry would like some cake, so those two got cake with their meals. Nice. I, in turn, had to order flan since I couldn't even try the cake. The flan had a raspberry sauce topping - which I've never seen served with flan. Delicious.

After lunch, we all headed out for a swim in the sea. We saw a pretty big crab and found lots of sea snails. The water in the sea is also like a bath tub. Almost hot versus warm. Henry and Christie decided to do more exploring in the sea and on the beach. Avery wanted to go back and fetch that rock at the hotel pool.

And thus ends our activities, other than dinner, for the day. Expect the same report tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.

Vegas 2012

Vegas
We had a great time on our annual trip to Vegas with our friends, Vic and Mike. It was their first weekend away from Bear, who will turn 1 this coming weekend. Mike's dad did call them at 5 am one morning to tell them everything was going great, but other than that, it seemed like a much needed break for them. These weekends away are, for me, no longer about getting away from parenthood as much as they are about reconnecting with good friends and enjoying good food. We ate at several great restaurants: Joël Robuchon, Lotus of Siam, RM Seafood (Rick Moonen's restaurant) . I highly recommend all three restaurants should you find yourself in Vegas hungry and unsure where to go to satisfy this hunger.

Vic and D played poker. I read (Gang Leader for a Day). I toured the shark reef in Mandalay Bay. I played Scramble with Friends and Hanging with Friends obsessively, as I have been for the past month or two - sigh - such a time sucker. I ate a lot of frozen yogurt.

Avery, meanwhile, had a wonderful long weekend with Nain. They went to the zoo, went swimming, went shopping, went to the library, and I'm sure other things I'm forgetting. Each call we got Avery was very happy and didn't seem to miss us at all, yet she was thrilled when we got home. I love coming home to Avery. It was awesome when Mom left last night (she picked us up at the airport). I hugged Mom and Avery saw. Then she yells to D that he should hug Nain. He does so. Then she says we need a group hug! I should note she's commanding all these things from her throne, well, THE throne. After she finished and washed her hands, she came out and we had a big group hug. Avery loves a good group hug.

Chair
Good news! Ethan Allen agreed to make us the chair for our sectional that they've stopped selling. This is by far the easiest and cheapest solution to our first world dilemma.

First Day
And now it's time to pick Avery up from her first day of pre-k! I did take the obligatory first day picture, but I haven't downloaded it to the computer yet. In due time, people.

Close

She's getting close to starting to read!
Avery has been on fire lately with sounding out words and telling me the letters in them. Today she also whizzed through an episode of Mimio (formerly Headsprout) she'd been uninterested in and/or too challenged by a couple of months ago. Tonight this all culminated in her sounding out and writing her first note.

For those not familiar with a 4yo's creative spelling and odd spacing, it says, "Daddy no matter what you can come to my birthday." I think she wanted to say birthday party, but by the time we got to birthday, she was all tuckered out so I showed her how to end a sentence with a period.

Daddy no matr wut u can cum to mi brthda.

Swimming

Walk

I missed my walk yesterday after sleeping in until 10:30. It was worth it. This morning I woke up at 6 and walked. It's the first time I've truly seen the sunrise here. It is beautiful. There's no chill in the air at all. I managed to walk for an entire hour, though my pace was probably lacking a bit. I even stopped to take a few pictures. Thinking about it, the stopping to smell the flowers so to speak was probably more of an achievement than the walk.

Swimming

We went swimming at the hotel pool the other day. Avery is basically swimming. I'm declaring this as the first time Avery swam on her own. When she was swimming around in the kiddie pool, she could propel herself anywhere in the pool, but when she stops to breathe she stands up. Regardless, she's able to hold her breath, get back up when she goes under, and is generally very competent (for her age) in the pool. It's nice that we don't have to be in the pool with her and can just watch her from the side. 

Vic & Mike's parents sent a floaty thing for Avery that's kind of like a kickboard. She loves it and kicked around the pool with it for a good hour or so. 

Sleeping
Vic and Mike are a bit tired having an 8-month-old and all, but they're troopers. They still try to stay up with us to visit and/or watch TV. They don't *always* succeed with the staying up part. This picture was taken the other night as we were watching episode 2 of Damages.

Speaking of sleeping, last night was the first time Avery asked to get into bed with us instead of sleeping on her little bed on the floor. I said OK, but now my back regrets it. I sleep much more stiffly when she's with us in this bed than in our bed at home. Anyway, I moved her back to the floor this morning and that transfer went OK, so I think I can just let her up for a bit and then just put her back on the floor next time.

Books
I read Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey From North Korea to Freedom in the West. I highly recommend it.

On to other books.

Today's Plan
After batting around all sorts of ideas, the big plan for today is walking around the big rock off the beach here (the area we explored with you and Henry, Christie). Oh, and Felipe is cooking for us tonight. Yipee!

Cuddles

Cuddles. She just doesn't get enough. Sigh.
As usual, Avery fell asleep on the floor in her bedroom. This happens almost every night. D always moves her from the floor to her bed before we go to bed. Last night he picks her up and she sees me in the hallway. She says, "Mommy, do you know the reason I come into your bed at night? It's because I don't get enough cuddles before bed so I need to get more cuddles." Talk about a master manipulator! Not enough cuddles my ass! You can make me feel guilty about a lot of things related to my parenting, but amount of cuddles is not one of them! I will cuddle till the cows come home, thank you very much. It just cracked me up.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, she's coming into our bed every night right now. It bugs D more than me because it keeps him awake more. I always wake up throughout the night anyway, so there's no difference to me if it's because she's squirming next to me or not. What was working for a long time was making a morning TV show contingent upon her sleeping in bed. We still don't let her watch TV in the morning, but she doesn't seem to care all that much about it anymore. Yesterday she asked for yet another song for her phone*, so we said we'd buy it for her today if she slept in her bed all night. She was very excited, but once again came in at some point during the night.

* I gave Avery my old iPhone, so she calls it her phone, but it obviously doesn't work as a phone for Avery.

Polish Nail
Bit of a repeat from my FB status last night ...

Avery's been asking if she can polish her nails for a while now. She saw Elise with nail polish (I think because Elise was at a friend's house and they did it there? RHG can enlighten me) and that was it. I don't have anything against painting nails specifically. I just wanted to delay any of the nail polish, make-up, etc as long as possible. So I finally caved yesterday and said she could pick out a couple of colors at the drug store when we were picking up her fluoride prescription. Avery, by the way, cals it "polish nail" rather than "nail polish." I corrected her, but we'll see if it sticks. She still calls her forehead her headfore.

Anyway, she picked pink sparkles and blue. She was so excited about it I thought she was going to explode. Seriously. Avery gets excited about pretty much everything, but this was a level beyond that. I had no idea she wanted it THAT badly.

She and I painted our nails before we went out for dinner. She wanted one of her hands done in pink and the other in blue.

I haven't bought nail polish in maybe nine years? Something like that. Nail polish has really changed in that time! There were all sorts of magnetic colors (not sure what the purpose of that is other than maybe it looks a certain way?) and all sorts of crackly colors. And there are definitely way more colors outside of the traditional pink/purple/neutral colors that used to be the dominate ones.

Timbers Game & Date Night
Tonight is the Timbers game. D is taking Avery because the guy who has the season tickets for the seats next to him is bringing his daughter. They decided to bring the girls to the same game in hopes the girls will like each other and enjoy the games a bit more. Following the game we'll drop Avery at the G's house and head out of our date night. There aren't a lot of movies playing that we want to see, but that will not stop us from going on date night.

Stripes

Tile
After I dropped Avery off at school, I spent the morning looking at tile to go around our fireplace. I wasn't sure what I wanted, but I had a general color palette in mind. Once I started looking at tile, I quickly knew what I didn't want. I showed D the tile that I liked last night and he approved.   It's the 2" x  2" squares. The more I looked at tile, the more I didn't want the typical natural stone or smooth, marbly type tile like we have now.

The 2x2 squares in the center. 

I also really like the one in the center of this picture. However, I don't think it'll work given we have such a small space we're tiling - only 3" on the sides and above the fireplace. 

D doesn't want the hearth in the same tile, but rather a complimenting, solid tile, so I'll need to find that once we determine the color we're going with. I also need to get a sample of this tile so we can look at it in the space and against our furniture fabric swatches.

In trying to envision the tile on our fireplace, I found another use for my Silhouette software. I grabbed a single tile in a screen shot, converted it to a .bmp file, imported it into my software, then used the trace function. From that I was able to create this mockup. I did the mockup originally thinking we'd use larger pieces of the same tile for the hearth. D nixed that idea immediately, rightly so. Too matchy-matchy. I'm also wondering if we should do a line of all vertical tiles on the inner or outer edge. I guess that'll be determined when we see the samples in person. Heck, I might see the samples in the space and hate them.

School Friend Playdate
Today I'm hosting two of Avery's friends from school for a playdate. I'll drive both girls from school to my house. The mother of one will pick her up from my house; the other one I'll drop at home before Avery's swimming lessons. This is a different type of playdate in that it's girls entirely of Avery's choosing with no parental influence from me. Elise, Henry, Josie and even Lily are all friends of Avery's in part because of my friendship with their mothers. It feels like a new step.

People Puppy Chow = Too Much of a Good Thing
I made myself PPC as a treat for our movie going this weekend (we saw two - one and date night, then we took Avery to see Hugo on Sunday). Since I've been struggling to feel well lately, I was very pleased that it didn't make me nauseas or give me a headache to eat it. These days, anything outside of brown rice, chicken, and veggies seems to be a risk for that. Then Monday rolled around. I felt just fine physically, but I was so very down in the dumps. The drop wasn't just an "off" day. It was similar to the extreme drop after I ate the bag of Hershey Kisses.

This brings me one step closer to admitting to myself that I can't binge on sugar and be OK. I'm not there yet on fully banning myself from eating sugar, but I am at the point where I can admit to myself that there is a price to pay in the days following a sugar binge and it's very much related to my mood.

I'm quickly heading towards eating a healthful diet simply because I have no choice. Come to think of it, this is how I landed in the very, very rare drinker category. My body just flat out says no making it a non-choice for me.

Recycling

Recycling

With the introduction of the new food scrap composting program in Portland, I've been reassessing what else can be recycled in our house. Granted, it is always far better to reduce consumption and reuse things. But recycling is better than not recycling, so there we go. 

This morning, I took in my plastic bags and film, as well as rigid plastics not recyclable in the curbside program. The recycling company reorganized and relabeled their bins making it more clear what is recyclable and what is not. Specifically, I've wondered what plastic bags are recyclable and which ones aren't.  After much online research, I've found that the best test is if you can stretch the bag (grocery bag, dry cleaning bag, bubble wrap), it's recyclable. An exception to this rule is that plastic packaging prepackaged food products (including frozen foods) cannot be recycled. This means chip bags and cereal bag liners which I'd been inappropriately lumping into this category. 

So then I tried to find another place that will take chip bags, cereal lines, etc. That seems to be a bust, so the best thing to do with those is to find another use for them before tossing them in the garbage. There are several sites with suggestions, but I know I won't use them for wax paper for food. I'm not a germaphobe by any stretch, but I like to know for sure that anything I'm setting food for consumption on is not contaminated.  The best I've come up with, in terms of what *I* will realistically reuse cereal bags for, is for crafting purposes. It can be used as a liner when you're doing some glueing and want to protect a table or whatever.  I'll give this a whirl, but if I find I just can't get a good system down for reuse, then I'll have to let the cereal bags hit the landfill.  Ironically, they're not even my cereal bags since I very rarely eat boxed cereal. They're from D's morning granola. And, just in case there are any readers who suggest we could make our own granola or buy bulk to avoid this problem, no we can't. D has exactly one brand of granola he likes; within that brand, he has exactly one flavor he likes. We have tried many, many other types and he never finishes a single one. I'm just happy he eats breakfast since he didn't do that before we met. 

I also feel more confident that the rigid plastics container takes all of the items I've been putting in it.  This is where we have a large volume that previously went to trash. Clam shell packaging, the plastic packaging on toys or batteries, lids from tubs or bottles, etc. 

We currently have the smallest garbage can that is provided by the program and we still aren't filling it full every other week.  I'm going to wait a few months to see if I can reduce our trash pickup to once per month. This would only save us $8.90 per month, but for me it's more about achieving once-a-month garbage pick up. 

Avery Updates

Avery is officially able to write her name now. She's been able to do A V E for several months, but now the R and the Y kicked in. 

Also recent is her heightened interest in doing crafty things. At school for the past week, she's been at the craft/writing station every time I've picked her up. Prior to this she's always been over on the rug playing with toys or listening to books. Her teacher also said she has almost predominately been into playing and moving around until recently when she is starting to show more interest in crafty things.  This week she's been making envelopes and invitations for her BD party (note: they look nothing like invitation or envelopes, but that's what she says she's doing). 

The reward/token board I made seems to be having a more definitive impact on her action.  The other charts certainly worked, but the idea that she'd not get a ticket/flower didn't seem to have much impact on her decision to do or not do something.  The newness of the token has an impact such that I can tell her if she continues asking questions after I've put her to bed, then she won't get a token the next morning. This results in her stopping her questions/talking and either go to sleep or entertain herself until she is ready to go to sleep. 

For the past several months, it has become uncommon for us to tell Avery it's time to go to bed. Typically about 7 pm or just before, she'll look at D and I and say, "I"m ready for nighttime now," then we head up to bed. That getting her to go to bed isn't a battle is something I'm eternally grateful for. She only goes to sleep shortly after 7 if she hasn't a nap that day. If she's had a nap, we typically read books, brush her teeth, and kiss her goodnight about 7:30 and she "reads" or plays quietly in her room for 30-45 minutes after that. 

Back

Wonderful trip
Our visit to Mexico this last time was wonderful. Darn close to ideal. Ideal would be if we had a playmate along for the ride. There's a chance that Henry may be Avery's playmate during our trip in Feb/March. That would be awesome.

It's nice to be able to give Avery more freedom when we're down there.  She can play by herself in the courtyard near us (outside our casa) where we can see and hear her through the windows. She tends to check in with us every minute (literally).

In the pool, she can swim anywhere with the noodle.  She has never slipped or gone under, so I feel confident letting her have some distance from me when she's motoring around on her own. I do, however, look forward to her being able to swim on her own so I can let my guard down enough to read a book from the patio chair.

The pool that will be built near us in the next year or so will be a lap pool, though it has two small wings off to the side of it. Apparently, the shape and type of pool, as well as the type of shade available at the pool, has been a battle down there for the homeowners who get involved. We just pay our HOA fees and hope for the best.

Avery continually asked to go to the hotel pool, which was drained after our first few days there for maintenance. I'm not sure why she liked that pool the best.  Maybe because the shallow "end" of that pool is actually in the middle of the pool.  It must feel more grown up to her or something.

Headsprout
Avery's starting to show signs that she's ready to start to learn how to read. Stacey told me about Headsprout a while ago when we were talking about teaching kids to read. I decided to give it a whirl while we were in Mexico. Avery whizzed through the first two episodes getting every answer correct. Truth be told though, I was actually more impressed with her mousing coordination than with her reading comprehension. In any case, the trial episodes convinced me that this was a good thing for her, so I sucked it up and paid the money for a membership.

As a result of all this, I've now set up Avery with her own profile on my computer. I eliminated most applications from the dock, set the mouse to not have the right-click option on (that one sometimes snags her, particularly because she's left-handed).

Avery can spell a few words (other than her name), but I suspect those are more memorized words than knowing how to sound things out to spell them. If I sound out the word for her, then she can almost always spell it, but this isn't a new skill. It's been there for a year or so. I find it interesting that the connection between knowing the the "ssss" sound is made by the s doesn't immediately translate to seeing "sun" and knowing it starts with the "ssss" sound.  My adult brain doesn't understand why that leap is not immediately intuitive for kids. Maybe it is immediate for some kids, but my point is that, from what I've observed, they are two very separate and distinct skills.

Healthier
Inspired by my high school best friend's fabulously lean body, I seem to be making positive changes in habits over the last couple of weeks. I'm aiming for small, but consistent changes. I'm also concentrating on baby steps and not biting off more than I can chew. So far so good.  Why are good habits so hard and bad habits so easy?

Hair
So I chopped off all of my hair before Mexico.  I didn't like the cut initially and had it highlighted blond immediately. It needed to be highlighted or dyed in someway since this type of cut really needs to have textures created by the various colors.  However, I hate the color I got. It's horrible. Again however, I also hate getting my hair done, so I guess I am just going to live with the color until I need another cut and get it changed then.  The true color of my hair isn't reflected in the pictures below.  The color looks decent in these pictures.

I don't hate the cut as much as I did at first, but I don't think hair this short is my ideal look.  My conundrum is that I love, love, love the way it feels. I'm not always pushing it out of my face or off my neck.  It's like the only time I'm fussing with it is when I look at myself. That I don't particularly like what I see when I look at myself seems to be losing out to the fact that I just like the feel of it so much better.  I think I may end up with slightly longer hair than this and a much, much better color.  I don't know. It's just hair, right?

Paramedic

---

Paramedic to the Prince

I just finished reading Paramedic to the Prince: An American Paramedic's Account of Life Inside the Mysterious World of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  I found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable read.  I didn't know a whole lot about Saudi Arabia before reading the book.  I knew that the Saudi royal family was rich, but just how rich I had no idea.  Had the author just given me monetary figures, I think I still wouldn't have a clue.  Since he was the paramedic to Crown Prince Abdullah, he saw things and knew of things the average person doesn't see.  For example, the prince has three palaces in Saudi Arabia.  He has more other places, but three in Saudi.  However, each palace is actually a compound.  Within each of those are five palaces, one for each of his four wives and her children, and one for him.  There are other buildings, too, as well as grounds with ample greenery, etc.  This in and of itself didn't surprise me much.  However, when he said that each of those many palaces are updated yearly - all new furnishing, new everything - the cost of it was staggering.  The same goes for palaces outside Saudi.  Some of those palaces have never been used, or only used for a few days or weeks, yet they are immaculately maintained.  He told one story of a palace in Spain that was built, never used, but maintained for 5 or 10 years.  Then they decided they needed it for some reason (I think because some VIP was having surgery in Spain and was going to recover there).  So the entire immaculate and well kept palace was stripped and redone.  Furthermore, the fleet of about 50 Mercedes with zero miles on them, but that were 5-10 years old, were discarded and replaced by a new fleet of 50.  This sort of thing is totally common place.  At first, I was absolutely floored by the wastefulness.  And it is so very wasteful.  However, after reading about the culture and how things work, I'm quite sure none of the furnishing were thrown into a land fill.  They were just sold by those fortunate enough to be in positions where these things trickle down. 

I was talking to D about this story and he told me one of his own.  He had a friend in London whose roommate worked in a shoe store.  One day a Saudi prince came into the store with his wives.  The retailer helped the prince and his wives and apparently provided good service.  The next day he shows up to work and the keys to a brand new Porsche are handed to him; that was his tip.

Another fun fact: the Guiness Book of World Records is a book banned there (at least at one time) because the record for the most money lost in one day gambling in Vegas goes (went?) to a Saudi prince who lost $40 million in one day in Vegas.  The money is absolutely staggering.

I think the thing I enjoyed most about this book was its lack of pretentiousness and it's lack of social commentary.  The author doesn't shy away from his frustrations with the Saudi culture, but in his complaining about it, it's the same tone one would use when talking about a less-than-stellar former company.  He flatly says he has a love-hate relationship with the country and both aspects are easily evident in the writing.  The hate relationship, though, comes not from looking down on a culture or saying Western ways are better, but rather simply from logic, so absent from the writing is any sort of malice even if the author and almost all Western readers find some cultural norms of Saudi abhorrent.

Of course, now that Greg Mortenson's book has been shown to be less than truthful, and James Frey's before that, I'm always suspicious of non-fiction accounts.  However, I'm more inclined to believe the accounts in this book to be true simply for their lack of portraying the author in any sort of heroic or extraordinary light.  Yes, he was in a position to meet world leaders, but it's clear he was just doing it for the adventure and the salary. 

Anyway, I highly recommend this book if anyone is looking for a quick read about another culture.  There are a few rough things about the culture - their treatment of animals, their treatment of women - but it's limited to several sentences at most and is not difficult to read simply due to the lack of detail and lack of emotional connection. 

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IVs may be working

I'm feeling really good today.  Last week was really rough.  I was emotionally down and not feeling great physically.  I started to feel better on Friday, had a good weekend with the three kids, a good amount of patience, and no overwhelming need to nap (i.e. I could nap, but wasn't dying to take a nap).  Today I went in for my third IV.  He asked how my mood was and I realized it had been up and fairly even for several days.  He said that's good and that's typical.  I wasn't aware that the vitamins and minerals would/could have an impact on my mood, so it was an interesting connection.

The difference in me is subtle, so I cannot say for sure that this process has done anything.  Maybe I was due for an upswing anyway.  Who knows.  Regardless, I'm happy to be in an upswing.

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Head Fore

Avery has been calling her forehead her headfore for the past several weeks.  It's cute, but it's also weird because I am pretty sure that prior to that she knew it was a forehead.

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Goggles

The swim goggles worked to get Avery a bit more into swimming class.  She still needs to be able to do it without them.  She's not at all scared of the water or hesitant to get in, but she doesn't particularly like having her head underwater.  At least not during swim lessons.  In Mexico she never seems to have any problem whatsoever with it.  I can't wait for Mexico in October, which is when we next plan to go, so I can how her swimming has progressed. 

Woodpecker

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Woody the woodpecker

We have a woodpecker issue.  Let's call him Woody.  Woody has decided that our roof is a great place to make his home.  He seems to particularly enjoy pecking the gutter/side of the house/roof starting around 5:30 am.  The only way to get Woody away from our house is to go into one of the guest rooms and pull up the blinds quickly, thereby scaring him away for a while.  Woodpeckers pecking on a gutter are loud, in case you're wondering.

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Bangs

D and I took Avery to get her haircut yesterday.  We decided to try bangs to minimize hair battles in the morning.  While it doesn't look awful, bangs are definitely not the ideal look for Avery. 

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Date night

D and I originally planned to see two movies last night for our date night.  However, then D remembered that last night was the Survivor finale.  We couldn't very well miss that, so we skipped the second movie and came home to watch.  I don't think anyone else watches Survivor, but I'll just say I'm happy with the outcome.  Very happy.

Oh, and we saw Bridesmaids, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. Christie was able to join us, so that was a nice change of pace.  Next, D and I would like to see two documentaries: Bill Cunningham New York and Cave of Forgotten Dreams. I know I'll elicit much sympathy when I say that D and I won't have a date night for two whole weeks!  The horror! 

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Self-Compassion

I read this article on self-compassion this morning.  I found it to be very thought provoking.  It made a lot of sense to me.

S-M-I-L-E

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Busy, busy, busy

I'm getting so much done with my new energy!  Yes, I'm still needing daily naps, but that I have energy right up until the nap, and then immediately upon waking, is a huge change that I am not taking for granted.  Yesterday and today I have:

• cleaned and reorganized 10 drawers and cabinets in the kitchen
• cleaned and reorganized 4 drawers and cabinets in master bathroom
• completely cleaned the kitchen
• taken care of recycling bins
• done 4 loads of laundry
• taken Turtle and Eddie on a walk with Avery and her tricycle (all at the same time!)
• spent much time organizing and coordinating logistics for upcoming DC trip
• set up group for craft night and scheduled first event
• scheduled 4 different upcoming appointments
• eliminated Avery's floor potty from existence - woohoo! only the real toilet now (this really didn't take any time other than me saying, "no more floor potty," but I still took care of it). 
• set up notification process for monitoring the White House website for changes to the Easter Egg roll site (hoping to get tickets via the lottery system for the Easter Egg roll since we'll be in DC on Easter)
• ordered phone for my mom
• various other activities
• ---- above written during first half of yesterday; below covers yesterday afternoon and today ----
• walked Turtle on a full trail walk
• grocery shopping, picked up Avery, then cooked a full dinner, cleaned up kitchen entirely, put Avery to bed, and still had energy!  Woohoo!
• Despite being sick (and feeling horrible for the first couple of hours of today), today I have cleaned and vacuumed the entire upstairs, completed a few loads of laundry, and installed a toilet seat.

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Toilet Seat

I ordered a new toilet seat because ours on the main level was missing a foot and I know I can probably replace such a thing, but I wanted this one that has a built in insert for kids!  Avery doesn't "need" it since she can just sit on it on her own and hold herself up, but this makes it easier and eliminates the need to have the Bjorn insert sitting in our bathroom.  It's going to take Avery a few tries before she's comfortable pulling down the kid seat by herself, but the magnet holding it up is weak enough to allow her to do it, yet not strong enough to pinch fingers.  The only real problem is that the shade of the toilet seat cover is ever so slightly brighter than the toilet itself.  It looks worse in the pictures than in person, but screw that, I'll take function over form any day.

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Smile

The three of us were at Michael's on Sunday.  D was walking around with Avery; I was away from them.  D pointed to a sign and asked Avery what it said.  She replied, "Smile!"  It did say that.  When D told me, I asked the obvious question, "Was there a picture of a smile?"  He said, "Yes, but when I asked her why it said smile she said, 'S-M-I-L-E.'"

Monday I decided to see if she actually read the word or if she knew because of the smiley face. I wrote the word smile and asked her if she knew what it was.  She didn't.  Then I asked her to spell it.  She said S-M-I-L-E.  I gave the hint of the sound made by 'sm' and she immediately said smile.

So, I don't think this counts as reading the word smile, but, she is definitely starting to put together the fact that words are made from letters.  I read this sight word book (where the words of the book match the pictures exactly) and then I would ask her to identify each instance of the word 'red.'  She could do that.  I was pretty impressed.  However, if you ask outside that context what R-E-D spells, I don't think she's put it together and in her memory banks just yet.  Nonetheless, it's cool to watch her figure this stuff out. 

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Yelling

Avery has started to complain when she thinks we're "yelling" at her.  What's odd is that when I actually *am* yelling at her, she never says anything.  She only complains of it when I speak sternly or briskly, but rarely is it actually yelling.  It's infrequent when D or I truly yell at Avery.  When it has happened, I've apologized to Avery, explained what frustrated or made me mad, apologized, and then we talk about her part in the situation. I'm never proud to yell, but damn it, sometimes you just have yell, "What do you want?!" when she won't stop and talk.

Anyway, when I picked Avery up from school on Friday afternoon (a make-up day), Teacher Shab was the only teacher there with three kids remaining in Avery's classroom.  Shab is from the Middle East somewhere, at least I assume this based on her accent.  My best guess would be that she's Persian. She is very brisk with the kids.  Not a coddler to put it mildly.  I know she's Avery least favorite of the three teachers that rotate through the classroom.  However, after I observed Shab several times, I determined she's just not an overly warm person with the kids.  Or she's a bit unhappy.  Either way, she's not the person I'd want to nanny for my kid, but I have no problem with her being a teacher/caregiving in Avery's current school situation.

In the classroom, I overhead Shab yelling at one of the boys to wash his hands (both he and Avery had marker all over their hands).  She didn't say anything inappropriate or insulting, but it was direct order, was not a patient tone, and was loud and shrill.  I cringed a bit, but then remembered my tone of voice with Avery earlier that day.  That popped me back to the reality that me yelling at Avery has a far more detrimental effect than does a teacher who yells at Avery (assuming insults or blatantly inappropriate comments are absent). When we got to the car, Avery said, "Shab yelled at me," in a very sad voice.  I kept my tone normal and asked Avery why.  Avery replied something about her needing to wash her hands.  I asked a few more questions and determined that Shab didn't say anything inappropriate and assumed she just spoke to Avery the same way she did the boy.  Avery wouldn't drop it.  I thought for a moment, then told Avery that she should tell Shab the next time she saw her that Avery didn't like that Shab yelled at her and that it hurt her feelings.  I also said that if she felt more comfortable, she could also talk to Shab when Teacher Carlya was around.

I forgot about the incident all together until yesterday when I picked Avery up from school. As I was getting Avery's coat, Teacher Carlya told me that Avery came up to her at some point during the day and said, "Teacher Carlya, I need to talk to you and Teacher Shab."  Shab had already left for the day, so Avery told Caryla about the yelling. Carlya said she told Avery that Shab has a shrill and loud tone to her voice, then she told me that she'd talk to Shab about it because there have been comments from the other kids.

So, last night, I relayed this story to D.  At the time, I was very proud of Avery for going to Carlya and Shab (except she was already gone) to deal with the situation head-on. I hadn't thought much about whether *I* did the right thing in instructing Avery to do this.  D thought it was fine for Shab to yell (again, as long as it's absent insults) and order the kids to wash their hands.  He felt that Avery shouldn't be challenging authority so early.  At first, I disagreed and said I felt it was appropriate because I didn't tell Avery that she shouldn't wash her hands (obviously the requested task was acceptable), but rather that she should communicate that her feelings were hurt.

However, the more I think about this, the more I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing.  I know I'm very proud of Avery for handling it in a mature manner and for following through on something I instructed her to do. I truly didn't think she'd do it.  When I told her to do it, it was an off the cuff remark and, frankly, it was an attempt to bring an end to the discussion.  I am still waffling back and forth on this one.   I think this is a dose of why parenting keeps getting harder, yet easier, at the same time.  Easier because Avery can communicate better and take care of things for herself; harder because I have to respond quickly to situations in which I don't always know my own position, let alone how to explain to a 3yo how to handle it. 

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Stationary vs. Stationery and Typo vs. Error

As many (most) of you noticed on my last post, I spelled stationery wrong. Stationary means immobile; stationery refers to paper. In telling a few people that, yes, I realized it was incorrect and I intended to fix it, I felt the need to explain that it wasn't a typo, but rather an error. Amber said, "How can it not be a typo?" Which lead into a discussion about my definition of type and error.  In my thinking, a typo is something that is mistyped or misspelled, but that the writer knows how to spell correctly.  For example, if I ever switch its and it's, that's a typo.  I know the difference between those two.  If I posted a misuse of it, it's because I was going too fast or didn't reread or whatever.  However, in the stationary v stationery situation, it was an error, not a typo.  That is to say, in that instance I didn't even debate, "Which stationary is it?" I would have known taking a quiz that there were two words (stationery and stationary) and I very well might have gotten their meanings correct, however, before RHG pointed out the error to me, I would have said I spelled it correctly.  Does everyone else view typo and error the same way?  I'm just curious. 

Embossing

Awake

I woke up from Turtle shaking her head* at 3:30 and couldn't get back to sleep.  Since I was also so very hungry, I decided to just get up.  And that is why I'm blogging at 4:32 in the A M.

*Turtle get yeast infections in her ear.  When it flares up, the shakes her head from side to side, presumably in an attempt to make the itch go away.  I cleaned her ear thoroughly.  I also cleaned a poop present Eddie left for us.

Crafting

I don't know what has come over me, but I seem to have this intense urge to create something.  I don't know what it is I want to create, nor do I recall having any such urges at any other time in my life.  I want to sew, I want to emboss, I want to make things.  It's the weirdest thing.

As such, I made all the thank you notes I sent this year. Embarrassingly, I don't think I even sent thank you notes in the past few years.  This year, I sent so many, that I started to lose track of what notes I'd already sent.  Suffices to say, if you happen to be one whom I should have thanked and I didn't, sorry.  If you happen to be one whom I over thanked ... sorry?  I don't know the protocol.

I took pictures of some of the thank you notes to show y'all the embossing that I'm so gaga over.  Some of them are not the most attractive things, but I didn't let that stop me from sending them!

This was my favorite.  That right there is an embossed ladybug.  Oh yeah.

This was to showcase Avery's art work. 

Doing the border was surprisingly difficult. The flowers are there because the corners were not well planned.

Another embossed ladybug

Embossing up close.

There were several other variations, but I didn't take pictures of all of them. The general theme is that I did most as a narrow, single piece of card stock, like the top one. Anyone who remembers our wedding invitations will know that I'm drawn to this layout. Our invitations were really, really simple.

Sewing

Christie and Henry came for a play date on Monday.  It was after Avery's first real swimming lesson (sans parent-in-the-pool).  I chose this time to try out my fancy new sewing machine with a fancy stitch.  Yeah, that didn't go so well.  I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I had to unclog the thread from the machine.  Christie ended up having to play with Avery and Henry while I sat there trying to figure out how to fix things.

Swimming

Avery's swimming lessons - the two she's had so far - have gone great.  She is one of four girls and one boy (that boy being Henry) in the class.  I'm not sure what I expected, but I know I left the first class very happy with the instructor and very happy with the pace of the class.  Avery had a great time.  Not shockingly, she needed no coaxing to participate in class.  Maybe next time I'll take my flip and get some video.

Helping

Avery has been helping me to cook dinner at night.  She does really well at following directions and not spilling things.  However, what she really loves is to wash dishes.  Yep, you heard me.  The only snag is that she likes to wash even the clean dishes.  She'll stand there washing dishes for a solid 15 - 30 minutes (which for Avery is a long time to do any one, independent activity).  She always ends up without clothes since she doesn't like when her sleeves get wet, even if it's just a drop of water.  Then she wants to put her apron back on, which results in the scene below.

This reminds me of that scene from Uncle Buck where Macaulay Culkin is washing the dishes.

Maturity

D has observed that Avery seems to have had a leap in maturity over the past week or two.  I have to say I agree.  For example, I decided we needed to do something about her excessive milk consumption.  I've tried many things before, and have ultimately failed because I find it very hard to say no when she's asking for something relatively healthy.  Also, it's just not a battle I was willing to fight.  What has ended up working wonderfully, and cut back drastically on milk consumption, is telling her she can have as much milk as she wants, but unless it Quiet Time Milk or Night Time Milk, it will be served in a glass rather than a sippy cup.  I expected some sort of backlash to this new rule, but she found it sufficient that she's still allowed sippy cup for QT and NT.  The other times, she'll say, "Please can I have milk please ... in a glass!" Yes, she says please at the beginning and the end of requests when she's concentrating on getting a "yes" from us.  I believe this is because I tried to get her to say, "May I have some milk, please?" and she wasn't used to saying "may" and it ended up replaced with "please."  I am not going to nitpick that point for sure!

Another area of progress is bed time.  She's more willing to go back to bed/floor (she falls asleep on the floor at the top of the stairs about 75% of the time) when we ask her to.  She is also sporadically sleeping the whole night in just her bed.  The other day, I woke up to find Eddie in the bedroom.  I figured D let Eddie in; D thought I let Eddie in.  Turns out that Avery was awake and playing with her toys outside of our closed door, but when Eddie asked to go in, opened it to let him in, then closed it again to continue playing.  She also asked to make another sleeping chart.  We lapsed on that method a while ago - even though it was fairly successful.   This time, I didn't even say what the prize would be.  It seems earning the star is motivation enough.

Another area where her willingness to cooperate has me thrilled: shampooing and conditioning of her hair.  Despite her love of water in the pool, laying down in a tub or getting water dumped over her head resulted in so.much.drama.  Over the last month, though, she's been willing to lay down in the tub and swish her hair around to get her hair washed.  The other night, I put the shampoo on her head and asked her to rub it in.  She did and then rinsed it on her own.  Same thing with the conditioner.  Before that, while she had the motor skills to shampoo/rinse, the desire to do so was simply not there.

Three

Three-years-old

I cannot believe I just put a three-year-old to bed!  So cool.  Avery had a blast today, so much so that she cut short her reading time before bed.  She's fast asleep.

I didn't take a single picture, though I took lost of video.  I left the picture taking up to Amber & Christie & Sara (I didn't see RHG with her camera).

My favorite moment had to be when Avery, after she'd eaten 1/3 of her cake, starts back in on her broccoli.  Best.moment.ever.  She's certainly not the best eater in her peer group, but I'll take it!

Watching Avery as she ran around the gym was wonderful.  I don't think I stopped smiling a single moment.  The activities ran smoothly, though I should have specified 45 minutes for playing and 45 minutes for eating, but it worked out.  The cake was ... um, what's the word? ... odd.  It tasted delicious, but the mixture of flowers and ornaments requested by Avery left for a very interesting design.  I went with the expensive cake from Piece of Cake rather than a more reasonably priced one or a home-baked one.  I just wanted really good cake so I did it this once.  Truth be told, I did it partially because I wanted to enjoy some good cake for my BD, too.  By the time my BD rolls around, I'm so sick of sweets, so I figured I'd enjoy Avery's BD cake as my own (in my own mind). 

The Great Kiva Discussion

I've thought a lot about my Kiva-loan-in-lieu-of-party-favors decision. I've also talked with lots of people about it.  Before RHG's comment, it never crossed my mind, or D's, that other parents might feel bad about themselves as a result of my decision.  However, even if that thought had crossed my mind, I would have still done it. My logic: it's worth bruising a few egos and perhaps coming off as holier than thou to help some less fortunate people.

For the record, I spoke to another parent who provided a party favor in the same bag.  She thought it was a great idea and wished she'd thought of it (not to be charitable so much as to avoid shopping for a party favor during a very busy time of year).  Another parent from Avery's class brought his daughter to Avery's BD party yesterday.  Neither D nor I had met the father before yesterday.  As he was leaving, he said how wonderful he thought the Kiva donation was and asked if he could contribute $10 to the cause.  Normally I would have said no to accepting someone else's cash.  However, I gladly accepted it and will put it towards another Kiva loan.

All that said, I don't doubt that other parents may have had some sort of issue with it, either feeling badly about themselves or feeling as if I'm attempting to be holier than thou. I'm OK with that, at least with Avery at her current age, when she's oblivious to it.  I can't say I'd make the same decision if it meant Avery might be made fun of as a result of my decision. 

Waste Land

Mom and I went on a date night on Saturday night.  D was at the Trailblazers game with a client.  We ended up eating at Living Room Theater and seeing Waste Land.

Nutcracker

Tonight, we're off to see The Nutcracker.  Avery is very, very excited.  As a result, so am I!  This is a first for all of us since none of us has seen a ballet, let alone The Nutcracker. 

Angelic

New Phase?  Please, oh please!

The past three days, Avery has been so amazingly well behaved.  She's been polite, hasn't thrown any tantrums (not even small ones), and moments of pouting are done and over within a matter of minutes.  Yesterday, when we got home after a great morning out running errands, I sat down on the chair to read and D sat down on the couch.  I then turned to Avery and said it was time for quiet time and she needed to head up to her room.  She said, "OK," and headed up to her room.  Then she asked D to put the blanket on her ... and went to sleep!  Until now, quiet time has been minimally successful.  It usually results in her constantly yelling for me to come play with her in her room, or just doesn't happen at all.  This time, she went upstairs happily and on her own, then decided to make use of quiet time by taking a nap.  I tried it again today ... same result!  She's now napping in her room upstairs. More than the nap time / quiet time, I'm loving how sweet she is in this phase.  And I do so hope it's a new phase and not a fluke of a few days.  Because two was definitely challenging here at CdT.  I'm hoping three is going to be sweet.

I'm not sure how to handle the return of napping, if this is indeed a return versus a blip.  On the one hand, yea, napping!  On the other, that means a pushed back bedtime.  I suppose we could tell her that, after our bedtime routine, she can play quietly in her room for an hour or so, then go to sleep.   That might work.  Trying to work it out now is jumping the gun a bit since it's only been two days of napping.

Complete answers

Avery's been talking in complete sentences long enough that I can't tell you how long it's been.  I'm also starting to notice that she is more thorough in her answers lately.  For example, this afternoon she asked for water.  I was on the couch and I didn't want to get up I wanted to encourage independence, so I told her she could pause WordGirl and go get the water herself, both things she knows how to do.  She thought about it for a second, then replied, "First I will finish WordGirl, then I will go get some water.  OK, Mom?"   

Flossing

I bought floss sticks for Avery about a year ago.  It seems she now understands the purpose of floss sticks.  Example one: she was eating her piece of candy for the day* in the car.  It was a Milk Dud.  When she finished, she told me she had chocolate in her teeth and that she needed a floss stick to get it out.  Example two: after eating her piece of candy today, a Tootsie Roll, she trotted over to the drawer and got herself a floss stick.  She used it, then threw it in the trash.

I often read pieces (blogs, articles, status updates, etc) mothers' write about how they start to feel wistful and/or sad when they see their child(ren) growing up so fast and becoming more independent.  As of now, I've not yet felt that.  I just feel like I'm about to burst with pride and love.  I absolutely love to watch her gain independence and do things on her own.

* We decided to let Avery have a couple pieces of candy on Halloween night, then put the rest away and told her she could have one piece a day.  I assumed she'd forget in a few days.  She has remembered to ask each and every day. 

Family Day

We had a most excellent family morning yesterday.  I would have thought I'd type that sentence after a planned family outing of some sort, but no, I'm typing it after we took D's car in to get tires, went carpet shopping, and had lunch. That's it. We took D's car to the Les Schwab (greatest customer service ever!) near the Pearl District to get snow tires put on it.  They told us it would take a few hours, so they gave us streetcar passes and said they'd call when it was done.  First we walked to a nearby carpet store to examine flooring options for D's office.  Avery walked so nicely, then played so nicely in the store while we talked to the guy for quite some time.  She would pull out square samples and then set them up on the floor, then wait for the music, then bust a move for all to watch.

After we were done there, we caught the street car to NW 23rd and decided to walk to Kornblatt's for lunch.  On the way, we stopped in a hat store and bought hats for Avery and me; D had no luck finding something he liked.  Kornblatt's was delicious and Avery was very well behaved.  We then went window shopping, with our final destination a toy store and a bakery.

I think what made it such a good morning, at least for me, was the lack of a schedule.  The lack of planning.  The lack of tantrums.  I also think, oddly, the lack of the car helped.  It's like the journey from and back to the Les Schwab became our activity, rather than driving ourselves to each activity. 

When we got home, we played several board games that I bought at the toy store.  Avery grasped almost all the rules, though needed to be reminded of them occasionally.  I'm hoping she takes to doing puzzles soon because that's something I would definitely enjoy doing with her.  As of now, it doesn't hold her attention.

Following board games, it turned into family nap time!  The G's arrived for their date night around 5:15.  Elise and Nolan were perfectly behaved and not a single kid cried or protested when it came time for bedtime.  Awesome.  Simply awesome. 

Our Date Night

Tonight is our date night since I had book club on Friday night.  Assuming D finishes working in time - he's been working all day today - we'll be seeing two movies tonight.  There are 5:00 showings, then 7:50 showings, so we should be able to squeeze in two without having to do a really late movie.  Perfect!

Azithromycin

Doctor Update

The doctor did a chest x-ray and said all seems OK, but that she suspects it's a lingering case of bronchitis.  She prescribed another course of antibiotics, this time a type that is better with dealing with infections in the lungs.  The antibiotic the doctor a couple of weeks ago prescribed is better at treating sinus infections. 

Sounding Letters

I keep forgetting to record this in the blog for time line purposes.  For the past couple of months, Avery has been saying, "G starts with glass!" or, "C starts with cough and (kitty) cat!"  Clearly, she has the sentence structure reversed, but it's pretty darn cool that she is starting to know what the first letters of various words are based on the sounds.  She's particularly good with words that start with A, B, C, D, G, and P.  For the record, I've corrected her and said that "kitty" starts with K, but "cat" starts with C.  I think it's more a problem that she refers to all cats as "kitty cats," but probably also that kitty and cat make the same sound, so why wouldn't they both start with C? 

Quiet Evening

Before I left Avery in her room, I tidied up the whole room and made sure that two night lights were on.  I then explained that her sleeping at the top of the stairs isn't working anymore and that she'd need to stay in her bed when I left the room.  I also said we're not going to leave the lights on in the hall anymore since her night lights provide plenty of light.  For whatever reason, my laying down of the law took tonight and I haven't heard a peep out of her.  Awesome.  Not to worry, though, I'm not fool enough to think that this is the start of a trend.  I am, however, thankful it happened tonight. 

D is at the Trailblazers game with a client tonight.  I am going to resume reading my book, I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.  I'm not overly taken with the book, but it's good enough to finish. 

Sinus

(Likely) sinus infection

I went to the doctor yesterday.  I'm so sick of being sick.  He thinks I have a sinus infection that is causing all the issues.  The sinus infection causes post nasal drip, which causes the excessive coughing.  The excessive coughing is causing the acid reflux.  Acid reflux often affects your voice.   He prescribed some antibiotics and then asked if I'd like something to help with my cough (which is annoying and frequent, but doesn't sound bad).  Normally, I am, for whatever reason, hesitant to take medication for something (other than depression which I'm more than willing to pop some pills for!).  However, this time, after initially starting to ask if it was necessary, I stopped myself and then replied, "Yes!"

Through all this, I've been so grateful that I never started smoking.  If I ever had a smoker's cough, I would surely be driven insane.

Alpha dog

In other news, Turtle has seemingly replaced Eddie as the alpha dog in the house.  It's been trending this way for a while with Turtle often pushing her way to be first out the door and minor things like that.  Last night, I was giving the dogs some left over food.  I put some in Eddie's dish and Turtle pushed her way to his dish and ate it.  She never would have dared do such a thing a couple of years ago. 

Eddie had a total of two poop accidents while staying at the G's house while we were in Mexico.  Since he's been back home with us, we've had at least three, maybe four.  Rachele said he spent a lot of time outside.  Please note that they didn't force him to be outside - Eddie loves to be outside.  Turtle is more an indoor gal.

School pictures

Avery had pictures taken at school recently.  Her first school pictures!  They're the standard school pictures you'd expect to see.  In all of them, she's genuinely smiling and looks cute, but since they're standard school pictures, they are nothing special in terms of photography skill or capturing a moment.  Regardless, I ended up buying the entire package figuring it was cheaper to buy these pictures to send to people rather than pictures done by a professional photographer (should I ever get around to setting up a session).  I get the digital images as part of the package, but I haven't received them yet.  I'll post a few of them when they arrive. 

Scary pumpkins

If the point of Halloween is to have the scariest pumpkins, we might just win!  Before we left for Mexico, we went to a Halloween carving party hosted at the house of one of D's colleagues.  It was the first time D had ever carved a pumpkin.  We stuck them on the front porch and forgot about them.  Here's what they look like now.

Usual

The Reentry Usual

As usual, reentry into normal life was a bit bumpy after our return home from Mexico.  Today is the first day I'm not exhausted and craving a nap.  I've also had trouble finding time and energy to blog.  Also as usual, since I haven't blogged in a while, it seems that nothing is worth blogging about.  Bah.  Whatever.  Bullet points it is. 

• We arrived home about 1 AM on Wednesday morning to find that we had no heat and a smoke alarm was beeping.  After fixing those two problems, the three of us all feel into a deep slumber. 
• Avery was thrilled to go to school on Wednesday.  I think she really missed her friends and her routine even though she didn't once ask when we were going home. 
• Wednesday afternoon, I napped for five hours straight.  Even for me, that is a lot of napping.  And it was out-cold napping, not fitful.  Yesterday, I napped for an hour or so.  That was fitful napping since Avery wasn't thrilled with the idea of quiet time for her while I napped.  Today, I hope for no naps. 
• Avery is at school today.  She wore her Halloween shirt from last year, which very much looks like a boys shirt.  I think it probably is a boys shirt.  However, instead of the tan cargo pants that I'm sure I paired with it last year, she chose to pair it with a fun pink and orange skirts, tights, and sparkly black shoes.  My little fashionista. 
• Avery threw up several times yesterday, didn't eat much of anything all day, and around 5 pm fell asleep on the chair in the living room, then moved to Turtle's bed and fell asleep there.  She is not the type to fall asleep unless it's bedtime, so she must have been feeling quite poorly.  However, she didn't have a fever and was happy as a clam this morning, so I kept our plan to have her go to school today.
• We managed to forget Avery's travel car seat at the airport.  I picked it up on Wednesday.  It would have been a piece of cake except that I made a wrong turn and ended up in long term parking rather than short term.  In the end, I learned it's just as easy to park in long term, though it's a longer walk. However, that walk is in the tunnel, so it's an easy walk. I also learned that the walkways in the tunnel don't move if no one is one them.  At first, I figured it was broken, so I didn't get on it.  The next time, I just kept going anyway and it started moving as I walked.  I haven't seen moving sidewalks do this before.

Watch that tone

Avery started her "why?" phase several months ago.  When she started asking why this and why that, she would do so with a curious, sweet tone.  In the past few days, that tone has shifted from sweet to whiny.  Me: "Avery, we're going to eat dinner now."  Avery: "Whhhhhhyyyyy?" as if I'm asking her to clean the entire house or some other such chore. 

Chilling

I took a few pictures in Mexico, but I don't feel like sorting through them to post.  I will, however, post my favorite.  I like it because I love how happy she is on the floatie.

Drawing

Milestones

Every once in a while, I actually read the "your child at [insert age]" article sent to me by babycenter.com. Today's linked to skills mastered by the average 31 - 36 month old. Avery's in the advanced category for all ages listed for most skills. The skills she's not quite there on are related to drawing. She can sort of draw a circle, but most of the time she keeps going around and around and it's just a hot mess really. She is no where near a stick figure. I am not shocked by this at all because she has so little interest in drawing or coloring. She can hold the crayon or marker quite well, it's just the activity itself holds no interest for her. Don't get me wrong. I'm not worried about this at all. Different kids like different things. I just find it interesting.

I also don't think she's doing every other foot when going up and downstairs.

I have commented to friends several times that I don't get why it takes kids so long to master their colors. Given one of the milestones is knows ONE color, clearly it's a universally challenging thing for kids. Avery, by the way, is not blue-yellow colorblind. The day after I did the post stating how sure I was that she was blue-yellow colorblind, she identified yellow for the first time ever. That was the only color she was, for whatever reason, struggling to remember. She's got it down pat now.

Neighbors

After dinner last night, Avery wanted to play ball. The three of us went into the exterior courtyard next to our house and sat down to toss the ball to each other. A neighbor's gate was open and eventually the temptation of the ball was too much for their 5-month-old puppy who ran out to greet us when no one was looking. That resulted in us meeting three sets of neighbors. We're not good at meeting people who are not introduced to us. Hell, we're not good at maintaining relationships when people are introduced to us. Now if I can only hang on to their names and commit them to memory.

TV

D and I brought down the DVD's for the first season of several TV shows. We finished the first season of Breaking Bad, then dutifully ordered the next two seasons so they'll be at our house when we get home. We started Sons of Anarchy last night. I'm enjoying that one, too.

Friends

Vic and Mike arrive this afternoon! It'll be fun to have them here for the rest of our visit. We've already book a boat trip out to Coronado Island for later this week. We're planning to dinner out tonight, so that should be fun.