Ten!

Tenth wedding anniversary
D and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary yesterday. We had a nice dinner at Nostrana - an ironic choice given D is allergic to tomatoes and I can't eat gluten - then hit a movie after that. Avery had a sleepover at the G's house, so we didn't have to pick her up after date night making that 9:30 movie possible - thanks RHG!

At dinner, D and I tried to remember where we had spent each anniversary and what we got each other. Turns out, he and I both suck at remembering such things. Then I thought to check my blog. Turns out that I suck at documenting these things, too. So this year, I'll document our gifts. It was the aluminum/tin year. I found an arty coat rack made of aluminum that I loved, but there's only one place in our house where it would make sense to hang it and it is too big for that space. So I decided to make him something out of aluminum. Poor D. He must bear the burden that is my current (and not yet waning) Silhouette obsession. I decided to etch one of D's favorite pictures of Avery in aluminum, then I had it framed. The bad part is that it's kind of difficult to see in certain lights. I also made him a card including the top ten moments of our marriage which I thought was rather clever, tyvm.

My photography skills leave a bit to be desired, I know.

D looked in about six different arty/crafty stores to find something made of aluminum for me. When that failed (it's a surprisingly difficult metal to find in artwork), he decided that there must be some aluminum or tin inside of a serger. So I got a serger! I dropped many, many subtle and not-so-subtle hints that I wanted a serger. Now I just need to figure out what a serger does and how to use it.

The movie we ended up seeing was Searching for Sugarman. To save you the trouble of clicking through to read the description of the movie, here it is:

Searching for Sugar Man tells the incredible true story of Rodriguez, the greatest '70s rock icon who never was. Discovered in a Detroit bar in the late '60s by two celebrated producers struck by his soulful melodies and prophetic lyrics, they recorded an album which they believed would secure his reputation as the greatest recording artist of his generation. In fact, the album bombed and the singer disappeared into obscurity amid rumors of a gruesome on-stage suicide. But a bootleg recording found its way into apartheid South Africa and, over the next two decades, he became a phenomenon. The film follows the story of two South African fans who set out to find out what really happened to their hero. Their investigation leads them to a story more extraordinary than any of the existing myths about the artist known as Rodriguez. -- (C) Sony Pictures Classics

It was excellent. I smiled through almost all of it. I cried during bits of it, but only out of joy. I'm always shocked when a documentary or movie about music moves me because I simply am not one to be moved by music. And I wasn't moved by his music (though even I could tell his music is amazing) so much as I was by the entire story. I highly recommend anyone who likes documentaries or music or stranger-than-fiction movies see this one.

To top off our celebration of making it to double-digits, we went to brunch at Tasty N Sons this morning. Delicious. [I neglected to mention in my original posting of this that going to Tasty N Sons was made possible by the babysitting efforts of Nain - thanks Mom!]

Oh, and when the flowers from D arrived yesterday morning, Avery saw them, put her hands on her cheek and exclaimed, "Roses! They're gorgeous!"

Barge

Launch
We went to a barge launch this morning. Not normally an activity we'd go to, but we got an invitation and figured why not? So we went and I'm glad we did. It was a short ceremony before the launch, bag pipes played, then put that barge in the water after christening it. It's pretty cool to watch something that big hit the water so quickly, and for the first time.

Cycle (free, share, and bi)
After the barge launch and another errand (picking up a donated sewing machine I got off of Freecycle for Sharecycle), we decided to go bicycle shopping for Avery. The first store, a real bike store, had one for $180. A tad pricey for a bike she won't use that much. The next store, Target, had only two choices for her size: Disney princesses or Barbie brands. Nope. So then we went to a used bike shop on Alberta St. They didn't have any bikes in her size. When we got home, I got on craigslist and found her to be what looks like a nice one for $50. Much more reasonable. There are bikes on there for less than that, but this one meets D's criteria of it not being completely pink and girly and frilly, yet Avery will like it.

Spoiled
After reading this article, Why Are American Kids Spoiled, I got all fired up this morning. It contains nothing I find shocking or new necessarily, but it made me realize that I need to have higher expectations for what Avery is capable of doing.

Anyway, I read the article before getting ready for our outing. I called Avery and told her she was going to go upstairs, get dressed completely dressed with shoes and I wasn't going to say it again. She marched upstairs and got dressed. Then I told her to tidy up her room and that I wasn't going to tell her how since she knew what to do. She did that. There was no whining and no nagging. That last part is probably a coincidence and I don't expect it to be so easy next time, but I'm going to do my damnedest to stop doing things for her when she's capable of doing them herself.

Tin Shed
While over on Alberta for bicycle shopping, we stopped for lunch at Tin Shed. It was so worth the wait. I had the Dr. Dreay - a sandwich with Canadian bacon, two eggs over medium, with jam on bread (I subbed gluten free for sourdough, of course). With a side of cheesy grits. DE-licious.

Date Night & Movies
Tonight is date night. We're going to watch the first half of the Timbers game at The Thirsty Lion, which is the official viewing party location for this game. Then we'll see the French movie The Intouchables. It only has a 77% critics' rating (which isn't bad, but not amazing), but more importantly the user score is 91%. In our experience, a foreign and/or indie flick with a fairly good critic rating and a much better audience rating tends to be right up our alley. Mom will be joining us since this is a movie she'll probably like.

Last night D and I rented Battle Royale through Amazon Instant Videos. This is the original idea for The Hunger Games. I'm not sure how Suzanne Collins didn't get sued by the guy/gal who wrote Battle Royale (it was a book before a movie). Maybe you can't sue if someone uses their own words but steals your idea? Anyway, this movie was MUCH more violent than The Hunger Games and it was very Japanese in its style of acting and directing, but it did hold my attention.

Supermodel

Dentist
I went to the dentist today. For me, going to the dentist is like what supermodels must feel like during a photoshoot. It's non-stop praise about my gums, my homecare, the state of my teeth, etc. It happens every time. Both the dentist and the cleaner made separate jokes about scheduling me all day everyday so I can just be their one patient. They mean it, of this I'm sure. I've decided that I should just schedule an appointment with the dentist whenever I'm feeling down. It's awesome.

Mom's (most likely) townhome
Tomorrow is the inspection for the townhome on which my mom has put an offer. It'll be interesting to see the space without stuff in it. The previous owners* have moved out, so all of their stuff will be gone. Other than the inspection, we'll also measure all of the rooms to get an idea of what Mom will put where. All fun stuff, of course,

The walls are all white right now, so we're planning to paint all the rooms after she closes, but before she moves in. Anyone here in PDX want to help out with picking colors or painting? :)

* Technically, they were renters, not owners. The townhome is held in a trust. Not sure of the correct wording to describe this. Basically, family friends of the deceased owner were living in it.

Avery and friends
Avery's been spending more time with Lily. It's nice to have a friend for casual playdates in the neighborhood. I also think the two of them, who are very alike and therefore can butt heads a bit, are learning to solve their differences on their own. Last time Lily came over for a playdate, I didn't see them the whole time. It looked like a hurricane had hit the upstairs, but I'll take a hurricane over bickering any day.

I babysat the G kids (with Mom's help - because she offered and I say don't offer if you don't want to help because I will take you up on it!) on Sunday morning while the G's went to brunch. The plan was that I'd then leave Avery there for the afternoon and evening since D and I had our date night on Sunday night. However, Avery was In A Mood when the G's got back. She snatched something from Nolan and wouldn't apologize. I said apologize or we go home. She chose to go home, which in turn upset Elise who was looking forward to a playdate with Avery. So that is how Elise came to spend the afternoon at our house playing with Avery and Nain. All kids who come to the house immediately ask where Nain is and if they can visit her. Man am I going to miss her when she moves out.

We haven't seen much of Henry or Josie lately, but this Thursday will rectify that. Yipee!

Movies
D and I saw both Magic Mike and Ted this weekend (one date night courtesy of Mom, the other of the Gs). Both movies are very funny. I enjoyed both thoroughly. Ted is raunchy and oh-so-wrong in spots, but that's what makes it hilarious. Magic Mike had slightly more of a plot than I was expecting, however, not so much that it takes itself more seriously than a male stripper movie ever should.

Spanish speaker
After RHG's comment regarding hosting a student to get a native speaker around us (versus an au pair we don't need), I did some investigation. I found a program that looks like it'll work, however, there are no students from Latin America or South America, so the student would come from Spain. I did research on Castilian Spanish versus Latin American Spanish. Basically, it's like the difference between American English and British English - same language, but different nuances.

I emailed the program, but haven't heard back from them yet. I'll call them in a week or so if there's still no response.

Pee

Pee emergency!
The other day Mom's Realtor was showing us some houses. Before we left the house to meet him, I noticed that Avery's tummy was huge. This happens when she drinks a ton of liquids and hasn't yet gone potty. Yes, she can hold so much urine in her that you can physically see that she needs to pee. My daughter truly amazes me in this way. Anyway, she replied no, which I clearly knew to be false. Nonetheless, since she's always been self-managed with regards to when she goes, I let it go.

We got in the car and drove the first house. We were a bit early, so the Realtor wasn't there yet. Avery suddenly, yet not surprisingly, says she has to go pee "really bad." When I can physically see that she needs to go AND she says so, then it's urgent. She's never had an accident, but I don't really want an accident to happen with that amount of urine. I put my thinking cap on and decided our best course of action was to have her pee in something in the car. I looked around and decided the best thing would be one of the plastic cereal containers I use for holding composting, recycling, and garbage. (BTW, lesson one when having your child pee in a container is to remove the contents of said container BEFORE allowing him/her to pee - yeah, I didn't do that.) Avery filled that thing half full. Mom's face was a sight to behold when she saw the volume. I then had to deal with the contents. I decided to dump it onto some ground across the street. Of course, I had to keep the solid contents (the trash) in the container while dumping the pee. It was less than pleasant, but very amusing.

Townhome
Mom has put a townhome under contract!  The quality of the home itself and the community is, we believe, very good value for the money. It's a leisurely 10 minute drive from our place. That's with traffic. If there's no traffic it's probably more like 8.

What else? The community has a pool, so I know someone who will be wanting to visit Nain a lot during the warm summer months. It has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, so plenty big enough for Mom to have guests stay at her house. It's got a small outdoor space out back for Barkley.

Assuming everything goes well with the inspection, etc, she should close on July 13th.

Movie Saturday
Saturday was a movie day for us. Mom, Damian, Avery and I went to see Brave in the afternoon. I really enjoyed it, despite the princess theme. Why must all girl stuff be related to princesses?

Since it was our date night, we also got to see a movie that night. Mom, Damian and I went to see Safety Not Guaranteed, which I loved. It was the perfect length. This type of movie usually results in me waiting and waiting for the end. Not once was I anxious for the end, but when it came it was perfectly done.

Hour

Health and Fitness

Today was day 6 of walking an hour each day. It's going well. Today I did a route that was exactly 4 miles in 57 minutes. The app on my phone (Walkmeter) tells me my (average) speed is between 4.5 and 5.0. I love having the an app to track exactly how far, how long I walk, and tell me precisely how many calories I've burned. That it takes into account elevation changes is also cool because I want credit for the hills! 

I've set my goal in my calorie tracking app (Lose It!) as losing 2lb per week, which is the most aggressive weight loss goal the app will allow. The app tells me I have to eat just 899 calories per day to achieve this goal. I have adjusted it to add 200 calories more because 1. I can't hit 899 per day and 2. I do think that with all my errand running, school drop-offs, fidgeting, etc, I probably do burn at least 200 calories more. At least I really hope so. Anyway, this puts me at just 1,099 calories per day. That is HARD to hit. So if I want to come even close to hitting my calories, I have to burn at least 300 calories walking. I've been hitting about 390-400 the last few walks, so that gives me about 1,400 calories (give or take) per day that I can consume and still be on track. I was over quite a bit yesterday since we had a potluck dinner to attend (and I still very much struggle with eating reasonably when at a social event or at a fine dining dinner), but I've been doing well the other days. 

I've also given myself a goal of losing 20 lbs by the end of July. I'm giving myself some leeway from hitting exactly 2lb per week since we'll be on vacation in Mexico for 10 days. While I'm going to do my absolute best to walk everyday when we're down there, my track record of maintaining any sort of healthy regimen when I'm on vacation sucks.  Anyway, if I hit that goal (and it has to be the entire 20 lb), I'm rewarding myself with a gift. I'm not going to blog what it is because I'm a bit embarrassed to admit such a reward seems to be motivating me. If you want to ask in person, go ahead. I don't mind sharing in that situation, I just don't want to put it on the blog. 

Movies

We saw movies galore this weekend! On our date night on Friday, Mom joined D and me to see Marley, a documentary about Bob Marley. I knew close to nothing about Bob Marley prior to seeing the movie. He was quite an impressive man. I've decided that if they make a movie about his life, James Franco should play Bob Marley. Sounds odd, right, but see the documentary. It's like Bob Marley is what a love child between Barack Obama and James Franco would look like. 

On Saturday, we had just Elise and Nolan for the G's date night, so Mom, Elise, Nolan, D, Avery, and me headed to a movie, The Pirates! Band of Misfits. It was all right. I wouldn't rush out to see it, but it was enjoyable.

The potluck dinner last night was at RHG's house. She offered to have Avery spend the night since we'd be over there anyway. This meant we got a free night to see a movie, and that I got to have Monday morning off from taking the kids to school! D and I drove to a theater out in Hillsboro to catch a reasonably timed showing of Safe after we left the potluck dinner at the G's. It's not a good movie, of course, but it was exactly what we wanted: an action flick heavier on action than plot. Plus, it starred Jason Statham. If had a laminated freebie list, à la Friends episode #53, Jason would most definitely be on that list.

Crafty Stuff
I finished up Elise's BD invitations. I had to make a few adjustments from my original grand plans, but I was still pleased with the overall result. I didn't take pictures, but maybe when Elise gives Avery her invitation I'll take a picture of that.

I have about 30 more wedding invitations to do for Carlotta. I'll have to hold off on finishing her RSVP cards and addressing the envelopes until she and her fiance determine their new address.

I bought more fabric for sewing some things for Avery, Elise, and Nolan, but with the incorporation of my getting fit goal into my routine, sewing has been put on the back burner. Balance: I've yet to master it. I fear that by the time I do master it, I'll be too old to actually balance anything other than eating and sleeping.

TV
I'm so disappointed with this season's Mad Men. It's just plain boring. On the upside, summer is coming so that means there will soon be a new season of Suits!  And I think a new seasons of Project Runway is slated for this summer, too. 

Skater

Ice Skating

Avery and I went ice skating on Monday afternoon.  Upon entering the mall, where the indoor ice rink is located, Avery was thoroughly excited.  She was still excited when she saw the rink and the kids on the rink.  She was still excited as we laced up the skates.  She was still excited when she walked on the skates to the rink.  This is where she lost her enthusiasm.  She put one foot on the ice, felt it was slippery and spent the next 15-20 minutes clinging to the railing while standing just off the edge of the ice.  There was about an hour left of open skate time, so I decided mentally that I wasn't going to force her to do it, but I was going to spend that entire time attempting to convince her to at least try it.

Finally, when I saw she was wearing down a little bit, I offered some ice cream as a treat for trying it and that broke her.  We got on the ice and skated an entire lap.  I held both of her hands the whole time.  She would have fallen several times had I not been holding on, but she also faked a few of those falls once she realized that I would catch her.

I was so very proud that she made her way onto the ice despite her obvious fear.  I was also proud that I hung in there in convincing her to try it because after we left the rink, all she could talk about was how brave she was to try it and how proud she was that she did it "all by myself!"  I corrected her and said it wasn't all by herself since she was holding my hands, but I did tell her she was very brave indeed.

She says she wants to go again, but I suspect that enthusiasm is much the same as her initial enthusiasm and would once again wane the moment we got near the ice.  I think I'll give it 3-4 months, or until she specifically brings up the activity.

Movie recap

• Crazy, Stupid, Love = loved it
• Project Nim = an excellent documentary even though I sobbed, like openly sobbed, for about a minute in the middle of it.  After the movie ended, I had to wipe off the mascara that ran down my face.  Fuckin' humans. 
• The Perfect Host = strange, but kept my attention.  Until Christie and I saw the trailer for this movie at the beginning of another movie, I'd never heard of it, made in 2010 and starring David Hyde Pierce of Frasier fame. For whatever reason, I decided I wanted to actually rent it.  We were able to get it via Video on Demand from Amazon.  Very strange.  There's not much else to say about it. 
• Conan O'Brien Can't Stop = pretty funny and pretty good.  More so than the comedy or the story, I liked that Conan was willing to let all sides of his personality be shown, including parts that might be seen as less than likable.
• Winnie the Pooh = it was a good movie for kids.  Probably a great one.  Avery seemed to really like it.  However, it was oh-so-age-appropriate for a 3yo.  I was bored stiff.  Not only did D fall asleep and I spent ½ the movie reading news on my phone, so did one of the dads behind me.  I know because I wanted to make sure my phone reading wouldn't bother anyone behind me, but turned around only to discover many sleeping parents.

Memories

When I was a kid, I used to help my mom prepare her room each year for school.  I'd help put up bulletin boards, or cut out borders, or arrange desks, or collate writing-practice sheets, laminate things, etc.  I loved to do all that stuff.  Yet, I do not remember it ever crossing my mind that I might become a teacher.  Because the only thing I wanted to do was help to prepare the room, not to actually teach or do any actual work involved in teaching.

I'd kind of forgotten about this part of my life - and it was a pretty significant chunk of my summers from 5th grade through my HS years - until someone at the company party we hosted the other day saying to me, "You must be a teacher."  This was the comment after observing all the little labels and signs I have around the house.  Avery's sleeping chart, reward tickets & certificates, the recycling labeling, etc.  Man, if I'd had a Silhouette when Mom was teaching, it would have been a whole different ball game. 

Leather

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Strawberry picking

Avery and I joined Christie and Henry for some strawberry picking this morning.  It was a lovely morning and we easily filled up a large box with red strawberries.  Most of them even hulled themselves since they were at the perfect moment of ripeness.  My only plan for these strawberries is to make fruit leather.  I've never made fruit leather, but I got it in my mind a while ago that I should (I like from a post or a share done by Lori).  So off I went to pick a box of berries.  I got home, took a nap with Avery, then went about washing and sorting the berries.  By the time that process was done, I realized I would only be able to do part of the fruit leather process (date night tonight).  I learned a few things during this process.  Shall I share?  Yes?  OK.

1. I don't like making fruit leather.  It's much easier to buy a box and unwrap the nicely packaged and perfectly prepared rolls. 
2. When a pot of strawberries and water is put on the stove to simmer, covered, and left unattended, it will boil over and make the range look like a bloody crime was committed above it.
3. When strawberry puree is put into a blender, holding the lid down tightly is key if you want to avoid strawberries all over the wall and cabinets and your shirt. 
4. Walls and cabinets clean up fairly easily; shirts, not so much. 
5. 12 cups of strawberries yields three cookie sheets of fruit leather. 
6. I picked about 36-48 cups of strawberries.  
7. This fruit leather better be light years better than the boxed kind or I'm gonna be pissed.

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Movies and Books

I'm still reading the Ender's Game series of books.  I'm on book three now, Xenocide: Volume Three of the Ender Quartet. If you'd told me even a few months ago that I'd be working my way through a sci-fi series, or that D and I would be reading them at the same time, I'd have thought you were crazy.

I wanted a way to rate the movies I see, then post them to FB the same way the Goodreads site does for books. That is how I stumbled upon criticker.com.  It's a cool site that creates a PSI - probability score indicator - for a movie based on your previous ratings.  Basically, after you've rated x movies, it compares those ratings to other users who also rated those movies.  Using aggregated data from all users, it can then create a PSI for each movie you have not rated, which tells you what you will likely rate that movie.  After I entered about 100 movies, I started to pay attention to the PSI it predicted for me before I ranked a movie.  It was surprisingly accurate, I must say.  Especially because it's on a scale of 0 to 100.  They seem to have gotten around the obvious problem of comparing one user to another user (that being what one user considers to be a score of 90 might be another user's 80) by essentially comparing movies based on a curve.  It categorizes the movies you've rated into tiers, then compares tiers to tiers.  Clever.

It was that obsessive rating that resulted in my 1:30 am bedtime last night this morning. I regretted it in the morning, but I do feel like I accomplished yet another meaningless data task and those are my favorite types of meaningless tasks. 

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Weekend plans

Saturday morning we're planning to go miniature golfing.  Sort of an early father's day celebration.  Saturday afternoon we're heading to a neighbor's house for a BBQ/play date with the families of two neighborhood kids Avery currently goes to school with.

Sunday I'm quite sure I'll spend packing for my flight later in the day.  Since they changed the time of the Timbers game, D will be able to drop Avery and me at the airport.  Avery and I are quite excited to see our CO/WY/CA relatives who will be at Dylan's (my nephew) 3rd birthday celebration.

Smell

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"Can I smell your breath?"

D and I were talking about another of Avery's quirks last night.  I don't recall documenting it on my blog, so that would be what this is.  Avery, for the last 3-6 months (time eludes me) has been asking to smell our breath.  Or she'll ask us to smell her breath.  It's usually to see what we've been eating.  She'll know that I just ate some chocolate and ask to smell my breath.  Making it more odd is that she needs to have you blow your breath right into her nose, so she's really, really close. 

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Movies

We saw Source Code and Win Win last night.  Win Win was definitely the better quality movie, but I also liked Source Code as an action adventure sort of movie. I'd recommend Win Win to almost anyone - it's funny, touching, and entertaining. As for Source Code, I think it's a good movie for folks who see a lot of movies and who enjoy action flicks.  You have to really suspend reality and be willing to overlook a few illogical plot points to enjoy Source Code.

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Motorcycles

Avery and I went to look at motorcycles with D yesterday.  I realized it's pointless for me to participate in this purchase.  I know nothing about motorcycles.  My entire opinion on bikes comes from what color they are.  I like the apple green ones.

Anyway, the toy motorcycle purchase is moving forward.  D bought his helmet, jacket, and gloves yesterday.  I think he also still needs rain pants and something else.  Can't remember.  Then he's waiting for a new bike from Triumph to arrive in the dealership so he can test drive it.  I think he has it narrowed down to a decision between the Triumph and the BMW.

Stationery

Adventures in embossing

When I mentioned at dinner with girlfriends that I love embossing, yet have little use for it since I don't scrapbook, Stacey mentioned that her daughter would love personalized stationery.  Well, it took me three months, but I finally got around to actually doing it.  I thought about just making a bunch with the same design, but different colors, but instead went with a smattering of random.  I also made envelopes to match each one.  As per my usual, pictures are taken with my cell phone and in crappy light.   Considering I'm a one trick pony*, I'm fairly happy with the results.  Though, I can tell you that perhaps this isn't the hobby for me since I can point out flaws on every.single.one that drive me batty. I finally just had to say, "They're for a 4yo who will likely just scribble on it and toss it aside.  Get over it.  A few extra bits of embossing powder is not the end of the world."

* My one trick is embossing. I don't do any other embellishments (hey! I know a scrapbooking term!), though I guess use of punches might be considered an embellishment. Regardless, I am a one trick pony at the moment. I might look to add a few more tricks, but as I'm simple at heart, there won't be too many of them.

Inside it says, "From the desk of Maddie ____" (where ___ = her last name)

The first time I made this card, I thought I'd be clever and put the lion on the inside then punch a hole in the front so you could see him through it.  Yeah, that doesn't work if you actually want to have space to write on the card.

Too formal for a kid and the border on the side is a bit messed up, but hey, butterflies are cute.

Drives me crazy that the red balloon is so imperfect.  However, I love the envelope.

Simple card, envelope too big and is not lined on the inside.  Not my favorite one.

I don't like the color of her name, but I do like that's it's small and simple.

Way too formal, but I still like it.

I edited the picture to remove her last name, but this is an example of the personalization on the inside of most of the cards. 

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Unexpected night alone

Tonight was our date night.  We went to see Cedar Rapids (very funny).  While out, RHG texted and pointed out that we have brunch at their house in the morning anyway, so why don't we just leave Avery there overnight.  I quickly replied, "OK!" but then noted we needed Avery's approval because I do have the daughter who WILL remember that I specifically said we'd come get her in the few hours.  Apparently, Avery was just dandy with the idea of an impromtu sleepover, so D and I have the luxury of a night at home sans kid.  Of course, I'm blogging and he's researching motorcycle classes...

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Pounce

...which leads to my next topic.  I have always forbid D to get a motorcycle.  Tonight as we're walking along in the Pearl District, I said off hand that I guess it would be fine as long as he always wore a helmet (duh) and didn't drive crazy.  That was the extent of our conversation.  D is signed up to take a class to get his license already.  I have never seen him move so quickly in planning something in my life.  One moment of weakness on my part and poof! he's signed up for a class and scoping out bikes.  Lesson learned.

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Energy and diet and all that jazz

After that awful few days last week, my mood is back to good and my energy is, well, I guess it's good (relative to me).  The best way I can think to describe it is that I'm more awake during my awake hours, but my need/desire for a lot of sleep has not yet diminished.  For example, after brunch today, we got home and I took a, wait for it, 3 hour nap.  Yes, three.  And I slept 7 hours last night, so it's not as if I was sleep deprived.  However, this is the key difference the diet seems to be making: after I woke up, I was almost immediately refreshed and had energy to get Turtle walked, do some laundry and dishes, and take care of other things before we headed out for date night.  Were this pre-diet, I would have still taken the 3 hour nap, but I would have been worthless after the nap, too.  So there you go.  Now that I'm tracking almost everything, I do find it difficult to accept that I sleep on average, 9.7 hours per day.  That's a lot.  I knew I slept a lot, but seeing the actual number makes me sad.

After my call with Andrea last week, I am now thinking that this is going to be a longer process than I thought/hoped.  My theory right now is that I'm not sensitive to any category of foods, but that I have had such poor kidney and liver functions for so long that I'm going to have to keep eating this way until things get back into whack.  And when I say this way, I don't mean staying on the diet, but rather sticking to Andrea's general guidelines as much as possible at home, then allowing myself indulgences when I go out.  I don't know if I'm strong enough to resist once I taste the Good Stuff again (butter, white flour, sugar, etc).  While I have very little craving for any of it, I know once I taste it again, that could go out the window.  We'll see how strict I have to be with myself to keep myself from sliding back to how I was.

I asked Andrea if she ate out at fine dining restaurants (I care about fine dining - I don't care if I never can eat at McDonald's or Red Robin or places like that again), or if she ate "normal person food" ever.  She said absolutely.  She just eats a vast majority of her food at home, then doesn't sweat it when she goes out or eats non-macrobiotic food.  She basically promotes a macrobiotic diet, though she never actually used this term during our discussions.  Also, reading about the macrobiotic diet, I don't see much about red meat.  Andrea isn't against red meat or a little dairy.  She seems more to promote the listening to your body philosophy of that way of eating. And that is where I connect with what she believes.  Obviously, what I've been doing isn't working and I need to change it.  That's as far as my personal eating belief has progressed.

Hoppers

Friday routine

Fridays are turning into my favorite day!  For the past couple of weeks, we've met up with Amber & Josie and Christie & Henry at Playdate PDX for a couple of hours. I'm thinking I should sign up for the discount package.  I'm not sure if Avery would love it quite as much if Josie and Henry weren't there with her, so that is my hesitation in purchasing a package of passes.

Following that, we all head over to the Tiny Hip Hoppers class the kids are signed up for this session.  It's with the oh-so-famous Teacher Erica.  Watching the tiny ones attempt hip hop moves is so freakin' cute it makes my head about explode.

House next door

We've been speculating on the state of the house next door to us for years.  It's never had a real owner.  The only people who have lived it were renters (for 2 months) and the builder's family (for about a year).  It was built before our house and has been vacant the rest of the time.

D kept insisting they were going to have to tear it down since part of it has been left open to the elements for a year or more.  I disagreed that would be the only option until I wandered around the back a month or so ago.  This is what it looked like:

At one point, they installed an elevator, then ripped it out and just left it like this.

After I saw the pictures, and knowing how long it was left open to the elements in that state, I thought for sure they'd have to demolish it. I asked a couple of guys who showed up the other day if the house was going to be demolished. They said no, that bank funding had finally come through, and they plan to have it on the market by April (though if I know anyone who wants to buy it in its current state, it's available). 

Company Holiday Party

Last night was the holiday party for D's work. I much prefer doing it in January when things have calmed down a bit.  The white elephant gift exchange was a lot of fun.  We ended up with ... wait for it ... a label maker!  To be clear, it's a better label maker than the one I currently have.  Yes, it's a bit unnecessary, but other than a teapot, I didn't want any of the other gifts. 

Entertainment at CdT

On Friday, we had a rare night off with neither us nor the G's having a date night.  I figured we'd do a family movie night.  It sort of morphed into allowing Avery to watch a movie while I tidied up the kitchen, but a movie was watched and it was night and we are a family so there you go.  Anyway, in order to get the movie, I signed up for Netflix for the free month trial.  I truly thought I'd just cancel it in 30 days and be done with it.  Nope.  I love the instant watching of movies.  Not all movies available through Netflix are available for instant watching, but you also get to have 1 DVD at a time with the instant watching membership. 

Video on demand is certainly nothing new.  We've used pay per view a few times in the past years, but for the most part it was a pain in the ass because of our TiVo and the configuration of our TVs.  The other thing about Pay Per View is the cost.  It seems excessively expensive to me.  Whereas Netflix is $10 per month and you can watch as much or as little as you want. 

We've also had a Netflix membership in the past, maybe 7 or 8 years ago.  It was when we were in Denver, I know that.  It wasn't worth it for us because we saw so many movies in the theater.  I think there's also a mental block for me about actually putting a DVD in the machine and sitting down to watch it.  It's like a task that I feel obligated to do versus an enjoying activity of watching a movie.  The DVD makes it feel like an obligation to me.  I don't like unnecessary obligations.  And this is why the instant watching feels so awesome.  

Sewing Class

My first sewing class starts tomorrow.  I have all my supplies except for the material. That seems rather important.  I'm looking forward to learning how to do basic things.  My first task after (hopefully) becoming somewhat competent is making new drapes for Avery's room.  The navy blue ones are too heavy for her personality, so I'd like to put up something more Avery-like in her room.

Adventure

An Adventure and a Half

We went to see the Hood to Coast movie last night.  It was better than I expected; it was funny, touching, and inspiring, all at the same time.  We left downtown about 9 PM and arrived at Rachele's to pick up Avery about 9:30.  That was when the fun started.

Prior to going inside to get Avery, I asked D if he thought we should just spend the night at Rachele's.  Before I could even finish the question, he replied, "Noooooo!" in a tone that said, "You're being a ridiculous worry wort, Megan."  I didn't push it.  Truth be told, I didn't feel the need to stay overnight there, either.  We should have.

The drive to the entrance to our neighborhood wasn't bad.  We slid a few times, but nothing scary that could be classified as a near miss or anything close to it.  We'd decided to take the lower entrance to the neighborhood. Driving down an icy hill as steep as the upper entrance hill would be an even worse idea that attempting to ascend an equally steep hill.  We barely made it into the neighborhood before the car started to slide.  We slid into a curb on the right side of the street, bounced off the curb and slid into the other curb before the car finally settled as if we had parked it purposefully facing the wrong direction, but at least against the curb.  That was the fun part of the journey.

The less fun part began when we realized we would need to walk home.  It's only a half mile walk, but ...

• The street and sidewalks were covered in a continuous sheet of ice
• We didn't have a coat for Avery (parents of the year, right here)
• Neither of us had on appropriate shoes with any sort of traction
• The temperature was about 29 degrees with a very cold wind blowing
• It's now 10:00 at night and Avery's asleep in the car seat in jammies

I managed to get out of the car and stand up.  Yes, that was a feat in itself.  I put my coat and hat on, put my purse over my shoulder, then proceed to get Avery out of the car seat and drape her blanket over her and cover that with Damian's sport coat.  I put my gloves and hat on Avery.  I started up the hill carrying Avery while D locked the car and got his coat on.  I walked on a lawn for the length of most of the first house, then had to move to the sidewalk to get by their driveway.  It was terrifying because I was holding Avery and all I could think about was falling and hitting her head.

I managed to make it to the second house, but that house had no lawn or verge in front of it - at least not in a location that would help us proceed up the hill.  So it was just sheer ice with absolutely nothing to grip.  I decide to wait until D made his way to us. Avery announces she's cold, so I realize I should take off my coat and give it to her.  I do this and put on D's sport coat.  We at least had a hat for Avery in the car, so D put that on Avery and gave me my hat that I'd put on Avery earlier.  The three of us start to attempt to walk further, but get no where.  We are discussing what we can do, but coming up with nothing.   Desperate, I decide to take off my shoes to see if I can get more traction that way.  I can.  I hand my shoes to D and take Avery from him and start walking in an attempt to get to the next lot, which is empty (no sidewalk, therefore, it's navigable).  I start to walk while holding Avery and make it five or six steps.  Then my socks lost traction and I started to slide backwards. Eventually I fell and said, "Shit!"  I hit my left knee hard and caught myself with my right wrist.  Avery was not hurt, but was obviously freaked out.  D and I started bickering, which did not help the situation. 

At this point, I transfer Avery to D somehow and he hands me his iPad.  You know, because we wouldn't want to leave the iPad in the car when attempting to navigate a steep hill covered in a sheet of ice.  As we're discussing another movement attempt, I slip and fall again, this time in a very cartoon-like manner backwards.  My feet just went out from under me.  I landed hard on my butt and the iPad went flying.  This is when I yelled, "Fuck!"

All of this is occurring in front of a single house.  Now I'm sitting there with no shoes on and no coat on a sheet of ice and I'm unable to even crawl. I cannot move an inch.  D and I are fighting over what to do.  Finally, the owners of the house notice us and open their garage.  We explain we're stuck, which the woman clearly couldn't grasp until she stepped onto her driveway and realized one simply cannot walk.  D managed to pass Avery to her, then grab my hand to pull me to him. He was standing on a very small piece of non-sidewalk in front of their house.  We get into the garage and I calm down quickly.

After we go inside, we discuss what we can do.  Who can we call?  There aren't a lot of answers at that point, so at 10:30, I call our neighbor, Maggie, in sort of a Hail Mary to see if their car is any better on ice.  It wasn't so we hung up.  D and Mark, our new neighbor friend, decide to head out and see if they can find a route by hiking up the empty lot next to the house.  Meanwhile, Maggie calls back and says she has an idea.  They have two pairs of ice grips, designed to go over regular shoes and allow traction on ice.  She says she would try to hike down the hill and then one of us can hike back up with her carrying Avery, then leave Avery with her and head back down the hill to get the other person, back up, get Avery from her, etc.   After determining that D's route is a no go, I call Maggie back and tell her, yes, please risk life and limb to hike down a steep, icy hill so we can come back from our most important movie viewing.  She says she's on her way.

Now we proceed to have awkward conversation with Mark and Sara.  They both have somewhat thick accents, I think Chinese.  Regardless, English is not their first language so we have a number of moments where a question is asked with a blank stare as the response.  At one point, we're sitting at the table and Avery interrupts a fascinating discussion on the weather to announce, "I farted."  Yeah, that was super awkward.  I replied, "Then what do you say?"  She replies with a grin, "Excuse me!"  I then quickly explain she doesn't need to announce each time "that happens."

Maggie knocks on the door a while later.  I jump up from the table and dash to the door to unlock it and let her in ... at someone else's house.  I was just so desperate to get moving and get home that I wasn't thinking.  Anyway, we get the grips on D's shoes, get Avery all bundled up in my coat, a pair of pants over her jammies, her hat, my gloves, etc.  I brace myself for another 30 minutes of awkward conversation, but then Maggie suggests that D take both grips since he's carrying Avery, but she and I could each take one grip.  I leap at that suggestion.

First, we have to get down the 12 or so steps from Mark and Sara's front door to the sidewalk.  12 icy steps.  I can't grip the wall because one hand is linked with Maggie and the other is holding the freakin' iPad.  So I shove the iPad down the back of my pants and that works beautifully.

From here on out, the story is non-eventful.  We all slipped and almost fell a few times, but no one actually fell.  We chatted as we hiked up the hill.  Despite the fact that I was wearing just D's sport coat, I was fine temperature-wise.  My legs were cold because my pants were still soaking wet, but that is to be expected.

Safe and sound!

When we arrived home, it was midnight. We walked in the door in great spirits and so very grateful to have made it home safely.  At this point, I ask Avery if she wants hot chocolate because if you're going to have such an adventure, it's important to throw all rules out the window and just go with it.  We have hot chocolate and take the family picture (using D's iPhone because, of course, the camera's battery is not charged).  Then we head up to bed and suggest Avery sleep with us and forget about earning a sleeping star.

I woke up about 4 AM starving and in pain.  I managed to get back to sleep around 5 AM.  When I woke for the day at 8:30, I realized I can almost not bend my right wrist at all.  At first I couldn't even type, but as I type this, I can at least do that with minimal pain.  I can't pick anything up with that hand or do much else other than type.  My knee is bruised, but feels fine.  The rest of my body is as sore as one would expect with two sudden, hard falls on ice. My right wrist is slightly swollen, but only slightly.  I figure it must be a sprain since surely I would have felt it last night if I'd broken something.

Lessons learned:

• Always toss a coat and warm clothes for all in the car, even if we're not planning to need it
• Buy many pairs of ice grips for shoes, to be store in each car, as well as at home
• When ice is present, never attempt to ascend or descend (reason 1, reason 2) the hills into our neighborhood.  Snow tires will not help. 

Bad Words

Above, I noted the bad words I said loudly and clearly in front of Avery. When she turned three, it struck me that Avery hasn't yet said a "bad" word. I never, ever thought that D and I would manage to clean up our language around Avery enough to be able to have a shot at this. Hopefully last night's slip up doesn't result in an end to our streak.

Fidget

Weird & Fidgety & Off

If I'm being honest with myself, I'm in a rather weird state right now.  Something is off.  I don't know what it is, but I feel like I'm trying to find my balance.  I'm not feeling down.  I'm not feeling overwhelmed.  I'm not feeling anxious, though my body is telling me otherwise (see next paragraph).  However, since Christmas ended, I've been not quite myself.  I'm not worried so much as I am confused.  I'm waiting to figure it out.  Because I've had points in the past where I've essentially crashed, I'm always kind of on the lookout for signs that I need to make an adjustment to avoid another crash: am I sleeping excessively? am I losing interest in things I normally love?  am I feeling the urge to hide from people?  am I moodier than usual? am I crying more?  is my energy non-existent? etc.

One clear sign that I must be feeling some sort of anxiety, even if I don't know why, is a huge increase in my urge to fidget.  I've always been prone to fidgeting.  But my urge to fidget goes down when I'm on the anti-depressants.  I hadn't put that piece of the puzzle together until recently.  As I type this, both my legs are bouncing up and down furiously.  I find myself bouncing my legs or shaking my foot.

I suppose I have a few other signs of things going somewhat awry: I haven't been blogging nearly as much.  The increase in things I'm getting stuck on (e.g. email organization).  But normally I see those things reflected in mood, as well.  I don't feel unhappy at all.  Quite the contrary.  I'm very happy with things at the moment.  I'm happy with one child (oh so very, very happy about that decision!), I'm happy with my choice to stay home with Avery, I'm happy I get so many breaks (deserved or undeserved) from being a SAHM, I'm generally happy and content.  So WTF is going on?!

I do plan to talk to my drug dealer PMHNP about it during our next appointment, but for now I just find it perplexing, if not life disrupting.  A thought did just occur to me, but it doesn't make logical sense: I haven't been to acupuncture since December 21st.  If one subscribes to the belief that acupuncture does indeed have the power to direct energy flow in the body, then maybe stopping it has resulted in pent up energy coming out through fidgeting and offness?  I don't know.  That sounds crazy.  I still have a hard time writing about this stuff because a big ol' portion of me feels like I am obviously making all this stuff up in my head and it's not real and I'm just a big baby.  OK, that statement almost made me cry, so maybe there's something there.  Especially since I hardly ever cry when I'm on anti-depressants (seriously, it takes A LOT to cry and even then it's like a 30 second moment and it passes; Megan off anti-depressants is often a weeping mess). 

Continuing Obsessions

When I realized I should send an email to coordinate details for our trip to The Mexico!, I knew I had to seize the opportunity to create a Google Site for the effort.  So I did.  It's way overkill.  It's so not necessary.  Yet I'm so happy I did it.  Except for the fact that I stayed up until 1 AM doing it and messed up my sleeping schedule for a 24 hour period.

FSA rules

I spent several hours today trying to sort out a few things for our FSA for 2010.  I hate the FSA.  It makes me mad that you lose the money and that you have to set it aside to start with.  It's just a stupid process.  But I digress.

Here is what I learned today: if you have an FSA account with a company, then you quit or get fired or lose your job somehow, you are entitled to claim the full amount you designated for your FSA regardless of how much you've actually contributed to the FSA.  Confused?  Let me explain further.  Let's say you quit your job at the beginning of January, therefore you've made one contribution (from January's paycheck) to your FSA account.  Let's also say you had elected, before quitting, to contribute $2000 to your FSA for that calendar year.  For the time that you're still covered under the insurance for that plan, you can claim the entire $2,000 (assuming you have legitimate medical expenses in that amount in January) despite the fact you've only contributed $83.  And this, people, is how I discovered that we really, really should have incurred a hell of a lot of medical expenses in January of 2010. 

Eddie The Pooper

Eddie's inability to control his poop has returned after a lovely month-long hiatus of accidents being somewhat under control.  I'm grateful for the hiatus. 

Sleeping Beauty

Avery has consistently slept in her bed (all night) for the past week.  She has earned her first $2 and says she wants to save it to buy a "tiara and a leotard and brown shoes and a yellow dress and red shoes."  She's going to be a bit surprised when she learns how much things cost.  I've explained she won't be able to buy all that with $2 and that she'll have to save up, to which she responds, "OK, Mom, I will save my money and then I will buy a tiara and then I will wear it."  I'm not convinced she gets it yet, but we'll see. 

Also very odd to me is that she wants another tiara.  She has several and she hardly ever wears any of them.  It's odd. 

Growth Spurt?  

Avery has been eating constantly for the past several days.  She ate an entire package of grapes in a day (among other things).  She'll eat a whole pint of blueberries and then ask for some bagel.  Either she's going through some sort of growth spurt or the milk-in-a-glass thing is a bigger difference than I thought it would be.

Her desire to drink a large amount of milk out of the glass (without a straw) is increasing.  At first, she'd drink it like I see most kids do it: a little bit at a time and sometimes even leaving milk left in the glass.  The past few days, I've seen her down the whole glass in maybe 5x the amount of time it would take her to do the same amount in a sippy cup.  Keep in mind that she can drain 8 oz out of a sippy cup in probably 2-3 minutes if she wants to.  I am hoping this desire to drink large amounts out of a glass doesn't put us back to where we were with the milk consumption.

Counting

Last night I was reading Ten Little Ladybugs to Avery.  She's been solidly able to count (1-1 counting) for months and months now.  Last night, with each page, she consistently was unable to remember the number before the last number she was counting.  For example, if we were on seven, she count the ladybugs: 1-2-3-4-5--7!  On six, she'd do: 1-2-3-4--6!  She always got the number right, but couldn't seem to come up with the second to last number.  Very weird indeed. 

Movie

D and I are seeing the Hood to Coast movie tonight at the Keller Auditorium.  I best be getting ready.

51

Movies & Books

The final count for 2010 is in: I saw 51 movies in the theater in 2010.  D didn't see quite so many because a few of those I saw with friends.  I do love me some movies!

I think I'll start keeping track of book stats the same way I do with movies, but I don't feel like setting that up just yet.  I already keep track of the books I read in GoodReads, which I'll continue, but I like to know percentages and numbers of things. 

I'm also going to start a movie tracker for Avery.  So far, she's really enjoyed movies in the theater (not exactly surprising), so that will undoubtedly continue to be a family activity. 

Avery's Sleeping

As if by some sort of divine miracle, Avery is now regularly sleeping in her bed all the way through the night.  Not only that, but she's also going to sleep at a more reasonable time with less prodding from us.  We're not in a land of perfection, or anything close to it, but I'll take it. 

In terms of going to sleep, we allow her to sleep on the floor at the top of the stairs if she so chooses.  We also only chide her to go to sleep a minimal number of times, so what time she actually goes to sleep is really more of her choice.  Typically, she sits up there and reads a few books to her babies, changes her jammies 2 or 3 times, etc.  Eventually, she decides to go to sleep.  The time she falls asleep, though, has shifted into what I deem an acceptable range versus some of the ridiculous times that were happening a month or two ago (8-8:30). 

She's also resumed her napping, though we refer to that time as Quiet Time.   It's her choice if she wants to nap, but 9 times out of 10, she decides to nap.  Since she so loves jammies, she almost always chooses to change into jammies for nap time.  Since I so love to nap, often we'll nap together in my bed.  It's a nice routine.

Thankfully, she can still skip naps if our schedule requires it. The cranky amps up a bit, but it's fairly minimal at this point, so it's not much of an issue.

Her sleeping prize is now received after seven nights where she sleeps in her own bed/floor for the entire night.   At seven, she gets $2.  We've explained that she can spend it right away on anything she wants, or she can save it to buy a bigger toy or something.  Right now, she's saying she wants to save it to buy a toy.  She doesn't know what toy, but the word "bigger" caught her fancy.  We'll see what she actually decides to do when she gets the $2.  I have no idea if others will consider $2 to be way too much for such a reward, but it feels about right to me, so we're going with it. 

Why seven you ask?  Because that's how many columns fit across the chart we made.  It is a random determination, but now that I think about it, it's also one week.  So $2 per week does not seem an insane amount of money for a sleeping reward/prize.  Or does it?  We're not changing it since we've already told her it's $2, but feel free to comment if you think it's too much so I can ponder other points of view for monetary rewards in the future. 

Whining

Avery's whining is out of control.  The problem isn't so much that she whines to get what she wants, but rather that she gets into a mood where everything she says comes out in a whiny voice.  I asked Christie and Amber (jokingly) if it would be wrong to flick her every time she whines.  The joke did, however, get me thinking that I needed to do something about this.  Plus, Amber said she knows a girl who had a normal speaking voice in preschool, but somewhere along the line, her normal voice was replaced with a constant whiny voice no matter what she is talking about.  That scared the crapola out of me.

So, yesterday I implemented a new rule: every time she asks or says something in a whiny voice, she's losing a toy for a period of time (not sure how much time yet).  I was rather pleased to see an immediate effort on her part to limit her use of the whiny voice.

To further emphasize the point, I told her a story of a girl named Avery.  In the story, Avery loses her Rapunzel dress due to excessive whining.  She has to earn that dress back by not whining for an entire day.  This morning, Avery recounted it to me and didn't whine once this morning.  Here's to this method continuing to work.

Published

My friend from HS recently had her first novel published!  I find it very cool to think that I am friends (albeit friends that correspond with each other much) with a published author.  I dutifully purchased a copy of the book.  As someone who reads almost all non-fiction, I don't think it's my cup of tea in terms of content, but I'll read it nonetheless.

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. 

Turkey

Turkey Day

For Thanksgiving yesterday, I decided to make my first pie ... ever.  I've never made a pie before.  When you have a mom who makes the most excellent pies ever, there's really no reason to do it yourself.  However, she wasn't here this year and I wanted to have some buttermilk pie, so I baked my first pie.  And I put whiskey in it!  And I put vodka in the crust!  And I had TWO beers at Thanksgiving dinner, which made me very, very tipsy indeed.  Then, being the classy guest I am, immediately after dinner, I headed up to the Gs' guest room and took a nap.  Yep, I'm so very classy like that.

I must elaborate on the beers.  I found the only beer that I like at New Seasons: Frambozen.  They only make it around the holidays and they typically run out of it by mid-December.  I haven't been able to find it in years.  I was so happy that I bought two six packs.  Yes, two! 

We spent most of the afternoon and early evening at the Gs' house enjoying dinner and chatting.  Dinner was delicious.  I ate way too much.  Way, way too much.  But Thanksgiving dinner is my absolute favorite, so it had to be done. 

Three kids

The Gs had their date night tonight.  D went to the Trailblazer's game, so I was on solo duty with the three kids.  Thankfully, it was a piece o' cake.  Everyone ate very well and followed instructions.  When it was time to put Nolan down, I told him to say goodnight to Elise and Avery, so he turned waved night-night to both of them, then grabbed my hand and happily led me to "his" room.  After he drank a couple of bottles of milk, I put him in the crib fully awake, he rolled right over and then went to sleep.  The girls also went to sleep very, very easily tonight.  In fact, all kids were asleep by 7:30.  I run a tight ship here at CdT. 

Holiday spirit

Dare I say I've got some holiday spirit?  We put the tree up this morning.  I even put on Christmas music at Avery's request - not too loud, of course.  Tonight, after the kids were asleep, I made gift tags.  Finally! A use for scrapbooking tools.  I am not a scrapbooker at all, but I love the tools and supplies, so I'm always searching for a use for them.  Turns out, I like make gift tags.  Who knew?  They're pretty rudimentary, but I can see them getting a bit fancier the more I do them.  Or not.  I'm crazy like that.

Nook

Avery's BD nook is coming along.  I have the paint and carpet.  I first tried Target for the carpet, but the carpets were $160 and up for the size I need.  I found one at Ross for $25 - much more reasonable. I also remembered that I bought a couple of strings of lights shaped like bumblebees a year or so ago thinking I'd find some way to use them for Avery.  The nook will be the perfect place for them!

Both D and my mom expressed minor concern of what happens if Avery gets stuck in the nook, so I'm going to buy a wireless intercom system as a precaution.  Plus, I'm quite sure Avery will have hours and hours of fun playing with the intercom. 

Tangled

We saw Tangled this afternoon.  Avery enjoyed it, as did D and I.  I particularly liked that Rapunzel was so very capable even though she thought she wasn't.

The trailer for a new Yogi bear movie played before Tangled.  In the car on the way home, Avery repeated a few lines from the trailer, so I think it's a good bet we'll end up seeing that movie, too. 

Dates

Saturday date night

We had dinner at Paley's Place last night.  It was very good, but not as good as it has been in the past.  In fact, the past few times I've been, there has been something not quite stellar about at least one dish I've ordered.  As such, we've decided to demote Paley's from our favorite Portland restaurant to a number further down the list (5 or 6?).  It was very cool, though, to go in and enjoy a good meal and then just get up and walk out without so much as seeing the bill.  D's dad bought us dinner as a BD gift to D.  It was a stroke of genius on his part as that is pretty much the ideal gift for us!

I made our reservation for 6 PM in hopes that we'd still be able to squeeze in a movie after dinner.  We were able to see 127 Hours, which was good, but not as good as I was expecting.  D and I found it interesting that I had no trouble watching the scene where he amputates his own arm, yet I couldn't watch the scene where Jesus is being beat in Passion of the Christ.  D, on the other hand, couldn't watch the arm amputation scene, but had no issue with the Passion of the Christ.  For me, it's not difficult to watch someone inflict pain on themselves, but it's difficult to watch pain being inflicted on someone who is unable to fight back.  I think the key for me is whether the person is able to fight back, whether he has control over the situation. 

Sunday dinner date

Tonight we're having dinner at the house of some fellow Loreto Bay homeowners.  They just recently completed their home and stayed in our home for a few days while furniture was being delivered to their casa.  They are parenting their grandchildren, so Avery will have someone to play with while we're there. 

Fever

Avery's Fever

Avery came into bed with us at some point during the night.  Early this morning, she says, very quietly and politely, "Water, please."  So I go get her some water and think nothing of it.  An unknown amount of time later, I feel her moving around to take off her jammies.  This time she turned to Daddy and said, again as sweetly as ever, "Please put my jammies on the floor because I want them on the floor."  He does.  I reach over to make sure she's OK and she's roasting.  Anyway, she's otherwise fine, but has a fever of 103.  Due to a scheduling oversight on my part, I was wondering whether I should reschedule her school day or have her just go part time.  This answers that question!

This is the first time she's had a fever over 101, I think.  I can't recall another time at least.  Hopefully the Tylenol kicks in soon and she gets some good rest.  It's now 5:30 AM and I'm wide awake. 

Movies

We saw Unstoppable (great movie!) and Jackass 3D (funny if you like the Jackass movies, which we embarrisingly do) last night for our date night.  We were able to do a 5:15 showing, then a 7:50 showing, so it wasn't even a late date night.  And we had the latest episode of Dexter waiting for us at home.  Sweet!

Cure

Race for the Cure

In our case, it was more like Stand, Shuffle, Stand, Shuffle for the Cure.  D left the house before us because Avery and I were so tired this morning.  He signed up for the 5k run; Avery and I signed up for the 1k walk.  Of course, as can be expected, Avery and I missed our walk, so we joined in with the 5k walkers for a bit, but eventually tired of the huge crowd, bypassed the start line, then left the shuffle early to eat some breakfast.  Sleeping in for the Cure is more my speed.  

Date night: Pasta and The Town

Following a dinner of pasta, we saw The Town last night.  It's directed by Ben Affleck, who also directed Gone Baby Gone.  Whatever you may think of his acting skills, the guy can definitely direct.  Both movies were great.  Gone Baby Gone was better, but The Town was still a very good movie. 

House

I completed my masterpiece of manual labor!  Okay, it's a bit higgledy piggledy and not the most attractive thing in the world, but the point is that I did it all by myself (except for some digging by D, but I didn't ask him to help, he just jumped in for a few minutes).  I did lug all the 50 lb bags of paving stone from the store to the car, out of the car into the garage, then out of the garage and to the pathway. You may ask, "Why did you do this, Megan?"  To which I can only answer, "I have no idea."  I guess I wanted to prove to myself that I can actually do these types of things if I decide to do it.  And I did.  And I also proved that I prefer to dial the phone and have someone else do these things for me.  It wasn't so much the physicality of it, but the general cluelessness I have about how to go about doing these types of things.  What I need is a DIY mentor.

I now need to buy a bunch of cheapo bark dust from Home Depot to cover the dirt in the dog run area. We have a section with bark dust on it (that you can't see in the pictures) and the dogs far prefer to poop on that to the dirt.  Plus, the bark dust cuts down on the dirt the dogs track into the house. Also, buying cheapo bark dust means replenishing it as it gets thrown out with the poop won't be painful.  

Before

After

I had this amazing idea for a slide for Avery.  I even went so far as to call a guy who builds custom play equipment for backyards to get it priced out.  Unfortunately, the cost would be around $2500 and that is a wee bit steep for a slide.  What I wanted to do was install a covered slide in the shape of spiral that starts on our deck and then lands on the concrete slab below the deck.  Of course, we'd have to put the rubber stuff used on playgrounds on the concrete.  But wouldn't it be so awesome!  Avery and her friends could go down the slide from the deck and then run back up the yard to go back down - fun and exercise!  And it's making use of our sloped backyard.  Ah well, it's good to dream big.  Maybe we'll win $2500 and decide that this is the ideal use for it.

Wings

Fairy Wings and Boots

Today was the annual picnic held by our adoption agency.  Avery had a great time running around with the other kids and watching the clown make balloon animals.  The clown made Avery fairy wings out of balloons which Avery has only just taken off.  Avery was quite the little girl running around with a too-small baby doll dress, capris, pigtails, rain boots, and balloon fairy wings. 

It was also nice to gather with other adoptive families, though I rarely stray outside the 3-4 families with whom we've already established relationships. 

When I filled out my name tag, I wrote my name and put underneath it, "I have laryngitis."  That said, I noticed a slight improvement in my voice at the picnic and now.  Maybe I'm on the mend!

Flip Out

After I posted one of my many posts yesterday, I took all three dogs and Avery for a walk.  Talk about frustrating.  Not being able to talk to either Avery or the dogs; not being able to hold Avery's hand; not having a free hand to carry a poop bag.  Today I made D come with us on the walk. 

Date Night

Tonight was our first date night while the Gs are out of town, which is to say that Melanie babysat Avery.  It's so convenient, though I definitely struggle with what the heck to say to her other than Avery instructions.  Chit chat with teenagers is not my strong suit. I actually said, out of nervousness, that high school was "such a fun time."  Huh?  I don't think that!  The crap I'll say when I'm feeling socially awkward. 

We saw The American.  It was very weird.  It was like a mid-life crisis story of an assassin, but also tried to be a bit of a love story, and finally tried to be an action flick for the geriatric set.  It wasn't horrible, but definitely not one of Clooney's better movies.  Weird is the best word to describe it. 

Candy

Candy Run

Yesterday was so challenging that when D finally got home (he had to work later than usual - I'm not complaining), I handed over the reins and headed out on a candy run.  Sitting at the G's was, for the most part, easy.  Elise and Nolan were cake.  In fact, Nolan slept most of the time I was there.  The problem comes with Avery.  She was a total madwoman.  At our house, with E & N, she's fine.  A little more hyper than usual, but fine.  But when it's just me at their house, I think she gets jealous of the time I'm spending with Elise and Nolan.  That's the only thing I can think of.  She also will not nap or sit for quiet time at their house when I'm there.

Since there was no nap, Avery fell asleep on the way home. I let her sleep for 30-45 minutes, then woke her up.  Bad idea.  She was in one of her uncontrollable tantrum modes.  Those actually don't make me mad (anymore) because I've come to understand that it's not like a usual whining/mini-two-minute-tantrum where she doesn't get what she wants.  It's just her losing her shit and not being able to help it.  At one point, I sat down on the floor next to her.  She's screaming and crying and has her arms out as if she wants me to hold her, but every time I make a move to do so, she cries even louder and moves away.  So I just sat there.  She slowly turned towards me bit by bit.  After about five minutes she leaned towards me and let me hold her and that broke the spell.  Thank goodness these moments are relatively rare now.

Tonight I'm going to dinner and movie (The Switch) with friends, so that should be a nice stress reliever after a day of no napping (neither me nor Avery).

Nap drop?

I think Avery is getting close to dropping her nap.  She's still napping at school, but naps outside of her car seat are becoming more rare.  The only reason I'm not freaking out is because, at home, she will do an hour or so of quiet time in her room where she reads books or plays with her dolls. 

Dog Walks

I've learned that Avery is easy to take on the shorter dog walks that I take with Eddie.  I take Turtle on those now, too.  The shorter walks are only a mile, so she is able to stay focused on walking the whole time.  She runs about half the time, so that works quite well because she stays ahead of me and the dogs.

Babysitting Summary

Today went better overall.  I learned a few lessons from yesterday.  First, have a very set routine when taking the girls up for quiet time (carry your milk, but don't drink it; pick out three books each; go potty; you each stay in your rooms; goodnight & I love you).  It turned out better, though still not a stellar success. Next, don't let Avery fall asleep in the car on the way home.  Finally, have no expectations of doing anything other than watching the kids and cleaning up after them.

We spent the majority of post-quiet time playing letter and color games I made up.  First, I got the big foam letters and lined them up on the floor so the girls could see them.  I positioned the girls across the room, then had them take turns coming forward and grabbing the letter I told them to.   The next game was grabbing a letter I told them to grab, then placing them on place markers on the floor to form simple words (CAB, BOX, etc).  Next, I had them come up and identify the color of the letter I was holding, then place it in the appropriate color pile on the floor.  Finally, Avery made up her own game jumping on the letters.  That was not so successful because Elise wanted to help set up and Avery wouldn't let her.  So, of course, then when it came time to play Avery's game, Elise didn't want to play.  After the games, Nolan, Avery, and I danced for a while; Elise watched.  When Elise heard her grandpa coming in to relieve me of my duties, then she decided that she would start dancing.