Someday I'll learn to keep my mouth shut

Last night was a nightmare. She stayed asleep until midnight, then woke up puking and screaming. We cleaned her up, she puked again. We cleaned her up, she puked again. We were out of clean sheets for her bed, so we let her sleep in the (only slightly) foul ones, and it's a good thing she did, because she threw up six more times, and she's not very good about hitting the new, improved puke bucket.

I learned last time she was sick that we've got about 15 seconds of warning before stuff starts flying, so at 2am I'd hear a cough on the monitor, shoot out of bed, run into her room, grab the bucket, and (hopefully) catch the worst of it. By 3 I had given up and was just sleeping in there, so when I'd hear the cough I could just roll over and grab the bucket. I don't know that it was any more effective, but at least I didn't have to vault over the cats in the hallway.

Meanwhile, I was having one of those nights when I worry about everything remotely stressful in my life to the point where I make myself sick, and every time I would shut off the running commentary in my head and just about fall asleep, she'd start yakking again. Jason was put on "rinse out the bucket and throw out these wipes" duty, so I think between the three of us we got maybe four hours of sleep last night.

Then the diarrhea started.

And she puked up most of a can of ginger ale when I put her down for her nap at 11:30. That's 11 times in 11 hours, in case you were wondering. Poor thing.

And, of course, today we have a prospective real estate agent coming by to check out the house, so I've been throwing smelly sheets in the washing machine as fast as I can, and checking to make sure nothing smells too bad anywhere else. Yep, gonna be a long couple of weeks until we get out of here.

I think the Sleep Fairy has finally arrived

Yet another afternoon with no nap, only today she was content to stay in her room and play quietly for an hour and a half. She didn't even destroy the (clean) room too much ... so I can't really complain.

Bedtimes, however, have been a bit on the longish side the last couple of weeks. Liza's turned into one of those "one more book, one more drink" kind of kids, especially when she's super tired because, I don't know, SHE HASN'T NAPPED IN A WEEK. Jason's been doing the brunt of the bedtime stuff so that I can keep cleaning and organizing, and it just keeps getting longer and longer. The other night she started saying "potty! potty!" when I told her it was time to go to sleep, so I put her on the potty, and darned if she didn't pee. Treats were handed out, she was shuffled back off to bed, and I was again told "potty!" Now, she's been known to pee twice in five minutes, especially if one of those times involves a wool rug, but since she's done this several nights in a row, I'm pretty sure she's stalling. Potty visit #2 never gets any results, other than she gets to stay up a few minutes later. Which is what she wants, anyway. Sigh.

So far the new tactic for reining in the book reading seems to be working. I suggested to Jason last night that he set a timer for 15 minutes and tell her that when the timer goes off, he's leaving and saying goodnight. Apparently that went off without a hitch, and it worked tonight, too. She spent half of the 15 minutes wanting me to turn the light on and off at her command, which was fine with me ... better than reading the bowlderized board book version of a Winnie-the-Pooh book for the 400th time this week.

Of course, now that I've said the timer thing works, the chances it will ever work again are minimal. But at least we've gotten her to bed around 8 two nights this month.

Gotta go scrub more surfaces in my home. Gonna be a long week ...

They want to know WHAT?

One of the communities we're considering moving to near Cleveland has several all-girls private schools that offer preschool programs, and I've just spent the last half an hour trying to find any hint of how many thousands of dollars a year such a program might cost. I shudder to think ... but thinking is all I'm going to be doing right now, because the web sites have zero information about the actual tuition. It's too gauche to actually publish a pricetag for your daughter's education, I guess, or perhaps it's a case of "if you have to ask, you can't afford it."

At any rate, I was reading through the admissions applications for these schools, and it was an eye-opener, let me tell you, or at least the one for Laurel was. As far as I can tell, they have one application form, no matter which grade you're applying to enter. That's fine as far as it goes, but at what point does it become inappropriate to ask the age at which the child mastered daytime bladder control? Bowel control? Age at which the child spoke her first meaningful word? Sat up? Walked independently?

Because if I'm trying to get my kid into private school for, say, 10th grade, how likely am I to remember the exact age at which she learned not to crap in her pants? And do I want that information floating around on a piece of paper at her new school? That's all I'm saying.

Plus, now I'm insecure that Liza's developmental delays last year are going to actually affect her future schooling possibilities. You know how when you're in school and you do something bad, the teacher threatens to put it on your permanent record? Like there's actually a manila folder somewhere with a piece of paper that details how I smarted off to my sixth grade teacher when she asked me to spit out my gum when we were on a field trip to a museum, and I asked her if I should just stick it to the exhibit, since there weren't any trashcans handy. Is Liza's manila folder going to include a sheet of paper that describes her not being able to roll herself over by her first birthday? Will she have a leg up on other applicants because she learned to hop a couple months sooner than average? Will the early cursing be a sign of exceptional language skills, or exceptional delinquency? Where's the space on the form to tell them that she can get all 12 of the little plastic shapes into the annoying Fisher Price shape sorter ball, and she's not even 2? I must have missed the part where I tell them how when we drove past the park today and she got upset, I explained that we had to run an errand and we'd come back in a few minutes, and she stopped crying and waited to go on the swings, and then she was a perfect angel through dinner at a restaurant, and she didn't touch anything at the Cracker Barrel store when I let her browse for a few minutes as a reward for good behavior. I must have overlooked that bubble on the form.

Of course, the application was 16 pages long, so maybe I just overlooked it. Compare that to the admission form for her current program, which was pretty much:
Has your child ever killed anyone? Yes/No If yes, explain:
Do you have $55 a month?
When can you start?

Yep, it's a different world up there, all right.

Start your engines

We're going to be living in temporary housing in Cleveland before March 19th, so the official "get the house ready to sell" clock is ticking, ticking, ticking. Even though we've known for months that we'd probably be moving sometime this year, there's still a lot to do. Especially since every time we pick up something, Liza gets two more things out to play with, all while spilling milk someplace hard to clean. Gonna be a long couple of weeks, folks.

Liza took a nap on Friday (Hurrah!), so I spent three hours cleaning our bedroom. Our bedroom, which has few pieces of furniture, practically no clutter, and has a door we can close to keep the kid out once it's clean. And it still took three hours.

Part of the reason I wanted to get it cleaned up and ready to go was to take some photos of it that could be used as part of the brochure when we sell our house. From past experience, it's inevitable that the house will be a wreck the day that the realtor comes to photograph it, or at least the weather will be bad and make everything look all gloomy. So while it was sunny and I had a few hours, I took the time to photograph it in all its sparkling glory. I present to you ... our bedroom!


Unfortunately, there's just no way to get a shot of the room that doesn't include the posts on our bed, and I wasn't about to raise a ruckus to get the cat out of the room, so the photos aren't perfect. But at least they're a good backup plan.

With the consignment sale next weekend, we're in a mad rush to declutter all of Liza's stuff and get everything tagged and out of her sight. Today we tackled her room, taking the crib apart and rearranging the furniture of her new "big girl" room. And I cleaned everything once, although I know I'm going to be doing nothing but putting away toys and books and wiping up juice stains in here for the next three weeks. At least the windows should stay clean ...

You may notice that her rug is gone ... not for good, just long enough to get it cleaned. Between the cat puke and Liza's occasional attempts to mark her territory, it was about time. Since we needed to clean the living room rug (kid puke), it seemed like a good idea to just send them all at once. I'm thinking I may not put it back down to show the house ... without the rug you can see the (excellent) condition of the floors, and it makes the room a little less girly, so potential buyers could see it as more gender neutral. Plus, it'll come back from the cleaners already wrapped and bagged, ready to ship, and if I leave it that way, I know I won't have to clean pee off of it until it gets to the new house.

I just noticed that the floor looks so good in the second picture that you can actually see the reflection of the books on the bookshelf. Way to go, me!

I think the bathroom is next on my descunging list. Five windows to wash, most the kind where I'm going to have to pop out the screen to wash the outside of the upper sash. A couple hours of using a razor blade to scrape dried bits of "varnish I stripped off a piece of furniture that went flying off the newspaper tarp and dried on the tile floor" up. Getting all the cat hair off the curtains. Yep, gonna be a funnnnn weekend.

Calling you out - lurkers, unlurk!

According to my site meter, I've actually got a decent audience for this blog, but nobody calls, notbody writes. Well, a couple people write, but there are a couple regular readers who (as far as I know) haven't contributed. They include:

New Auburn, Minnesota
Regina, Canada
Montvale, NJ
Richmond, VA

I SEE you in my little page view reports, and I know you're at least pretending to read because your visits are several minutes long, but you never say anything. That's just not polite :) Step up and introduce yourselves, please! Or at least confirm that you're not some weirdo spam program or a pedophile with a penchant for little girls in pirate sweaters.

And I'll personally eat my words if my mother gets off her tuckus and posts a comment, something that contains something so I know it's her and not an imposter-mom. Heck, K's mom posts more than you do, woman, and I haven't seen her in a couple years!

Up, then down, then unexpectedly up again

Nope, not talking about my daughter's stomach contents (thank goodness).

As many of you already know, Jason and I haven't always lived in the Seventh Largest City In Kentucky. We lived in various suburbs of Cleveland, and a big city in Japan, and several other places before we landed here. Our lives as adults have been one almost solid stream of moving boxes and change-of-address cards ... we lived in Avon for about 4 years, and you wouldn't believe how excited I got when I had the opportunity to actual reorder checks without having to change the address or anything. So rare for us!

Jason's been working down here in Kentucky for three years. I can't say we've LIVED here that long because I stayed in Cleveland to finish out the last semester, so he's lived here three years, I've lived here two and a half, and poor Liza hasn't even made it past the two-year mark yet. We never really figured we'd stay here forever - the town is nice and we made some good friends, but we knew that Jason's job was likely to take us someplace else eventually. Despite the snow, and the fact that our family doesn't live there, and the snow, and the fact that we keep moving away every few years (and the snow), Cleveland is the closest to home we've had since high school.

So Jason's been keeping his eyes open for job opportunitites up north at his company's headquarters, which is conveniently located in - you guessed it - Cleveland. There have been a couple of interesting openings, but none of them seemed just right ... until last month. Challenging job that would make the most of Jason's skills, in a desirable division of the company, in Cleveland. He sent off his application, and thought it would take forever to hear back about it (he was one of two dozen applicants for the position).

When he got a call from the hiring manager before the application period had even ended, we took it as a good sign. When they wanted him to fly up to Cleveland to interview for the job in person, we took it as a better sign. When he found out that he was one of only three people they interviewed, we figured he had at least a 1 in 3 shot of getting the job, probably better, because he's just that awesome.

That was the week before we left on vacation, and the hiring manager wanted to make a decision by that Friday or early the week of our vacation. Jason and I sat around for a couple of days, jumping every time the phone rang, cursing the delay in the decision. I decided that my part in the process involved not mentioning the job possibility to anyone, which was like walking on eggshells every time I ran into someone I knew in town. I was afraid if I talked about it, I would jinx it.

When Jason found out the day before our vacation that he didn't get the job, we were upset, but also a little relieved. Moving jobs and households is, after all, a stressful process, especially with a toddler in tow and a wife who is sort of trying to start a business. We grumped about the guy who got the job, I joked about invoking voodoo curses necessary to get the guy hit by a bus so Jason could have the job, and we all went on vacation. In a way, the timing was great - no time to sit and mourn the missed opportunity, as we were too busy looking at ducks and buses and gravel in California. And we didn't have to waste our vacation worrying about what needed to be done at home to start the move.

Then yesterday Jason calls me on my cell phone, which he never does and can only mean he's in an ambulance or something similarly bad. He'd gotten a call from the hiring manager - does he still want the job? Because they decided the guy they hired would be a better fit in another, more recently available, position, so the one Jason interviewed for was open again. Sloppy seconds, as Jason so eloquently described it, but cool all the same.

The official offer came through Wednesday, and once he nails down a few details with the hiring manager, it looks like we're headed north. I'm simultaneously thrilled to be moving "home," and petrified to be moving at all. I haven't started to make The List yet, the one that includes all the stuff I need to get ready for the move (patch the hole in the ceiling in Liza's room, take boatloads of stuff to Goodwill, cancel our swim lessons and preschool classes, clean the house so it doesn't look like a toddler lives here, etc.) and all the stuff I need to do to get settled up north (decide which suburb we want to live in, find a preschool program for next year, find the libraries with the good toddler storytimes, change the address on all of my business stuff, etc.). There are tons of decisions to be made during any move, and adding the kid to the mix just means I have one more level of worrying to do. It's going to be complicated, it's going to be depressing, and it's all going to need to get done in the next couple of weeks. And my kid is on a nap strike. I see lots of Baby Einstein in her future ...

But I can't wait to get up there and get settled. There's a zoo (which probably has ducks, and I think there's at least a little electric tram thing), and the city is big enough that there's a public transportation system so Liza will get to see buses more than once a month, and the library system is huge. There are tons of quilt stores (aka potential Lazy Mama customers) and other opportunities for an itinerant journalist. Our best friends live there. I can find my way through the city without a map (it may take me a few tries to get where I'm going, but I usually only end up in the slums during ONE of those tries). It will be good to be home.

But I'm going to miss it down here. I've got a network of other moms of toddlers to hang out with, Liza's got a preschool I'm happy with, and our street is much more of a neighborhood than any subdivision will ever be. The library and two parks are within walking distance of our house, as are several restaurants, a grocery store, the post office, and a couple banks. The guy at the Thai restaurant knows Jason by name, and the librarians all know Liza. I've finally gotten the ivy beaten into submission, and this was the year I was going to put in a vegetable garden so I'd have something to talk to my relatives about at next year's reunion. I know where to go when I need to buy shoes, or get the carpet cleaned, or have some plumbing work done ... and if I don't know, I know someone who DOES.

It's going to be hard to leave, on many levels, but I'm convinced this is the right thing to do. My blog posts may be a little less coherent and more sporadic for the next few months as I juggle the work, the move, finding Internet access, and typing with a toddler in tow at the library. Bear with me, and I'll keep you all in the loop. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a sheet of paper the size of a twin mattress that says "The List" at the top ... time to start planning.

Recovery

So Sunday she was fine, Monday she was fine, and Tuesday I stepped out of the shower to find her bolt upright in bed, screaming her head off, with a lap full of Monday night's dinner. Oh, well, I guess I didn't need to go to Lexington with a friend that much anyway. grumble

So we're back on the recovery bandwagon again, having limited her to corn Chex and 7-Up yesterday, the kid's been famished today. She keeps coming up to me with random items out of the pantry and saying, "Icky oo?" which I finally translated as "chicken soup?" I guess she liked the little bit she got yesterday, because the kid's been begging for it all day. I broke down and bought another can when we went to Kroger today, which probably means she'll never want to eat it again.

We're working through an unpleasant phase right now, and if one of our friends with a slightly older child hadn't been through the exact same thing when her daughter was Liza's age, I'd be starting to take it personally. The kid will not nap some days. She's exhausted, to the point where she's literally falling over for no reason, but she bounces out of her bed like she's got springs on her butt. She has spent the last FOUR HOURS puttering around the house with me, playing quietly with her toys and only interacting with me to ask for more food or to help her reach her balloon.

Not so bad today, only I've purposely been doing stuff that's boring and I don't mind interrupting (like cleaning out the floor of the pantry - woo hoo! party!), and I've got a whole list of more interesting stuff I kinda need to be doing. Lazy Mama projects to sew, taxes to work on, serious basement cleaning that needs to be tackled, furniture to refinish.

Life comes to a standstill around here when the kiddo doesn't sleep, and the lack of productivity really grates on my nerves. Combine that with the terrible two's stuff she's starting (Juice! Juice! Juice! NOOOOOO! No juice! No juice! AAHHHH! Juice! Juice!), and I'm hanging by a thread. Luckily, the weather has been warmer the last few days, so I've been able to throw her in the stroller and take a walk. Nothing like fresh air to calm the infanticide (toddlercide?) urges, at least temporarily.

Of course, now that I'm typing, she's hanging off of my arm and trying to bang on the keyboard, so I suppose I'll have to finish this later.

Catching up

It's been a computer-intensive day, partly because I wasn't motivated to sew, and partly because Liza's preschool is canceled tomorrow so I had to get some Lazy Mama work done in advance so I don't end up losing the whole day. Anyway, lots of new posts here and at Lazymamadesigns.blogspot.com, so check them out.

One of the things I caught up on was about a month worth of The Show from Ze Frank. If you haven't heard of it, you've been living in the Internet equivalent of a hole for the last almost year, and you're running out of time to grab a ladder. His last episode will be in the middle of March, and I will be SO sad to see him go.

Some of the recent episodes were only mildly funny, but there were parts of a couple that I thought were worth mentioning. First, check out the show on 2/14/07, and watch the part about 1/2 of the way through where he demonstrates the snow removal technique he had to use as a child. "We were a poor family, and we couldn't afford shovels." My god, I thought I was going to pass out.

Second, check out the show from 2/16/07, with the pictures of the giant German bunnies about 1/4 of the way into the show. Oh, my. Liza would be sooooo thrilled to find one of those in her Easter basket, let me tell you.

And, although you may not get everything if you've never watched the show, check out the show from 1/29/07, which details the signs of the impending apocalypse, including an iguana with a 7-day erection and a giant baby. No, really.

Finally, not really a show, but check out the remix they did for "Ray," who wrote a song to cheer up his much-harassed daughter, and it's become an Internet phenomenon. Ze's readers teamed up to film and edit the video, and while it's not great, the section in the middle with all of the fighting is pretty funny. And I'm going to make "I'm about to kick somebody's ass" my personal theme song. Maybe I'll add a link on the sidebar here.

I'm not proud of the fact ...

... that two of my daughter's most understandable phrases are "busy" and "Easy Mac." I'm turning into one of those kind of parents (shudder). Of course, she also says "thank you" most of the time without having to be asked, so there's still hope for her to lead a civilized life.

Liza's score so far today (as of 12:30 pm)

2 pairs of Mama's jeans
2 of Mama's shirts
2 pairs of Mama's socks
2 pairs of Liza's PJs
1 of Liza's outfits
1 pair of Liza's slippers
a 2' square section of hardwood floor near my desk
the couch in the doctor's waiting room
the rug by the front door (the only one she missed on Thursday)
Daddy's hands and arms

Not bad for only 3 pukes. Looks like yesterday's puke respite was just that - a respite, not a recovery. Doctor says there's nothing we can do besides mop up behind her and keep handing her sugary beverages. Liza's got the term "special juice" down cold ... let's hope the 12-pack of ginger ale is enough to last through the weekend. And the half-bottle of floor cleaner, and the two rolls of paper towels.

And let's hope that Jason's suspected sinus infection gets better, rather than worse, since his doctor doesn't have weekend hours. Maybe the bleeding is just a temporary thing ...

Sigh.

ooohhh this is cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59ZX5qdIEB0

Nothing cooler than a guy who can riff on the "Inspector Gadget" theme on a flute while beatboxing.

Liza at the zoo - video

I hope you all appreciate the amount of sleep I miss out on in order to get these things edited and posted. Sheesh, if she weren't so cute, it would hardly be worth the effort. Anyway, here she is, showing her fearlessness among wild animals, her knowledge of the names of domesticated animals, and her fixation with public transportation. Enjoy!

Her mother's daughter

Me, that is, not Liza. After decades of giving my mother a hard time because she always manages to cut the heads off of people in photographs, this is what I did today:
And it's a digital camera, so I have no excuse other than "she was coming right at me!" and I didn't have time to back up to get her in the frame again. Shame my mother never thought of that one ...

Oh, and yes, the sweater is one of my projects. Finished in less than two weeks of not-very-dedicated work ... crochet rocks! And yes, Liza is the most precious pumpkin on the planet, thank you for asking.

It looked ...

... so much less fecal when served in a martini glass at the restaurant.

photo credit: Jason Woods

Remember this next time the puking starts ....

By the time Liza was done with her pukefest yesterday, I finally had it figured out. Just before she'd get sick, she'd get agitated and start trying to crawl up the front of me, and she'd start drooling and swallowing a lot. I even managed to keep the last, um, emission from hitting anything other than the inside of an old plastic cookie dough container. Bulls-eye!

Liza wasn't thrilled by the whole "puking in a bucket" thing, though, and she kept trying to push it away from her face. She was pleased by the result, though, and when she was done she kept looking down at the front of her pajamas, obviously thinking, "Wait, aren't I supposed to be wet and smelly right now? What's up with this?"

I think next time I'll put a sticker on the bottom of the bucket and tell her to look at it when she's getting sick. Hey, it worked at the photographers to get her to look at the fake flowers she was holding - maybe it will work here, too. If nothing else, it will be amusing to see Elmo all covered in half-digested Pedialyte. When you're cleaning up that much puke, you've got to get your jollies wherever you can :)

Poison control, v. 1.0

I'm not overly careful about child-proofing my house, but I do try to put things that could require a call to the poison control center out of harm's way. The problem is, some of them need to be used frequently (like dishwasher detergent and laundry detergent), and there isn't always a place to store them where we can get to them but not-quite-two-year-old Liza can't. Dishwasher detergent was especially difficult, as we run a load at least every day or two, and there was always the chance that Liza would find some of the spilled detergent on the floor or in the machine after a cycle.

Enter Cascade 2-in-1 Action Packs. These little packets completely dissolve in the dishwasher, dispensing a squirt of Dawn and a premeasured dose of Cascade dishwasher detergent. They're neater than trying to pour liquid or powder detergent, so there's nothing spilled on the floor or on the sides of the machine. And because the detergent is in a packet, I figure that even if Liza manages to make it into the "childproof" cabinet, I've got at least a few extra seconds to catch her before she gets to the stuff that will make me have to call poison control.

We've been using these packets for a couple of weeks, and so far I haven't noticed that they do any worse (or better) job of cleaning the dishes, compared to regular powdered Cascade. They're definitely more expensive than buying the powder, so unless you've got small kids or are a total neat freak, I don't know if I would bother. But we'll be using them, at least until Liza's selective deafness to the word "No" goes away ... that'll be what, 20 years or so?

Eeeeeeeewwwwww

Liza's got the pukies (don't worry, no pictures today). So far today the laundry total includes : carseat, carseat cover, straps, and buckles; Liza's jacket, mittens, expensive pants, expensive sweater, socks, and necklace; Jason's sweatshirt, my jeans, my socks; my fleece jacket, my fleece pants; four pairs of Liza's pajamas; my watch; the wool rug in the family room; the washable rug by the back door; about 14 different places on the wood floor (including one where there's a 1/8" gap between the boards, and I had to try to fish out the worst of the chunks with a table knife); the kitchen sink; the bathtub (because I gave Liza a bath after the first episode, stupid me); and probably a few more places I've either forgotten or haven't found yet. And it's only lunchtime.

Some observations:

• We have hardwood floors in every room. There are two rugs on the first floor, and the kid has managed to cover both of them. The cats do the same thing. Is there some sort of puke magnet built into the rugs that I wasn't warned about when I bought them?
• What was the thought process that made it seem like a good idea to include hideously stain-inducing red food coloring in a rehydration solution? Someone without a carpet puker did this ... or maybe it's a conspiracy led by the carpet industry.
• Why is it that the kid can be happily sipping Pedialyte for an hour, watching videos and asking to be tickled, but as soon as she gets down and makes it to a virgin piece of carpeting, the fountain starts again? Why, why, why?
• Why, when called for emergency backup at lunchtime, would my husband choose to bring home food from Taco Bell, the place I've only been able to eat at once in the past two years because a particularly bad bout of stomach flu had me puking up the same burrito for a day and a half? Why, why, why? Dude, the smells of vomit and Taco Bell are now so firmly linked in my brain that the restaurant is dead to me. Dead, I tell you.
• Essential supplies for toddler pukefest: large sheet of vinyl-coated fabric that used to be the stain-catcher under the high chair (used to protect sofa or floor from puke); plastic bucket to fruitlessly try to catch puke (even if you get there in time, she'll be so pissed that she's puking that she'll slap it away, so you'd better have a good hold on it); as many rolls of paper towels as you can find in the house; as many pairs of easy-to-change clothes as you can find (for both of you - zip-fronts work best, as they keep the puke out of your hair when you're changing); as many DVDs as you own or can beg, borrow, or steal. We've watched two hours of Baby Einstein and Curious Buddies today; this afternoon I'm going to indoctrinate Liza with the finer points of the Muppet Show.
• Oh, and did I mention that my stomach doesn't feel so great, either? Hopefully I'll wait until she's done before I start ... I'm having a tough time keeping up with the level of cleaning now, I can't imagine trying to keep up while being sick myself.
• On the positive side, Liza has learned new words today, including "puke" and "sick," and has gotten plenty of practice saying "YUCK YUCK YUCK" at the top of her lungs. Nothing like a little stomach flu to improve a kid's vocabulary.

This would be so sweet ....

... if we didn't have to leave for the babysitter's house in 10 minutes. Waking her up is going to suck, because she's OUT. I mean, you can't sleep lightly when you're folded in half like this.
On a more positive note, she's now voluntarily taken two naps and one bedtime in her bed (as opposed to her crib) since we've gotten home. We may have hit the turning point. If she's still sleeping in her bed by this weekend, that crib is GONE. G-O-N-E. Next up - changing table. I'm coming for you, ugly laminate thing that would be insanely handy to have in my sewing room.

Flikr link

http://www.flickr.com/gp/58932732@N00/HZ1733

This should take you to my (enormous) photo set. Let me know if it doesn't work for you.

Back from San Diego

We returned last night from a week in San Diego, where it was sunny and warm and smelled like the ocean ... in other words, pretty much the opposite of Kentucky right now. I won't bother to post all 250 of our photos here, although there will be a link to the Flikr group later on. For now, here are my favorites:

Liza is stylin' in the back of our Sonata

She's wearing those shades to help cover up the shiner she gave herself by falling off a stool in our hotel room less than two hours after we arrived in San Diego. She was looking pretty gruesome by the end of the trip.

Sure, you know it's a grass skirt, and I know it's a grass skirt, but she apparently believes it is headgear.

Why it's not a good idea to take a gravel-obsessed toddler on a desert hike. Yes, Mom, we put sunscreen on her little plumber's butt.

My favorite photo from the trip.

What happens when you take a tired toddler to an aquarium?

This is the mom (in back) and 18-mo-old daughter, just after she stopped nursing. Awww...

If it weren't for the fence, this would be a great shot.

"Note to self: When apes take over the planet, do not annoy this guy."

Why I'm glad to be back in a place where Liza's bedroom door has a lock.

Latest sweater finished

Much to the chagrin of pretty much everyone who saw it in progress, I decided to make Liza the pirate skull-and-crossbones sweater from one of the knitting books I have. It's not a great job of knitting with multiple skeins of yarn at once, but it's not too lumpy for my first attempt at it.

Ahoy, Cap'n Liza!
Why it's a shame we won't be going to that Mardi Gras party: Whacked out on cold medicine, Liza demonstrates that she actually was paying attention during the yoga portion of the "Let's Move!" DVD we watched, oh, four times today.

Oh, and here's something from yesterday, when Liza demonstrated that she does, indeed, look cute in pigtails, and she does, indeed, know how to match the colored socks on the screen during the "Helping Around the House" DVD:

Daddy's little helper

In an effort to help her pay her way in the household, I've been training Liza how to help out around the house. So far, it's working:


Between that, throwing things out for me so I can keep my lazy butt on the couch, and her fascination with the Swiffer, the kid is actually pretty useful. How long before she's tall enough to do windows?