George went to the dollar store today to get a few things I need to do Hayley’s ant costume for tomorrow. While he was there he spotted a small pair of binoculars and bought them for Hayley since we often make pretend ones out of toilet paper rolls and tape. This afternoon she asked him to take her outside.

Hayley: Can I bring my binocliers?
George: Sure.
Hayley: I’m going to use them to look at birds!
George: Okay.
Hayley: (whispering) But we have to be very very quiet or we’ll scare them.
Sherry: Are you sure YOU can be quiet?
Hayley: I think so!
Sherry: I don’t know, you’re pretty loud, I’m not sure you know how to be quiet!
Hayley: Don’t be funny.

Whoever designed this whole stupid time changing crap clearly didn’t have young children. Hayley has been steadily waking up at 7:30 these days, no matter what time she falls asleep, so that meant that when she woke up at her usual time this morning it was actually only 6:30. It’s not the end of the world, and it’s not like she’s old enough to understand, but it’s seriously messing up my day because I keep thinking about how late it must be and then I realize it’s an hour earlier than I think it is.

Can I go back to bed now? Hayley didn’t go to sleep unti 10 last night so she’ll probably be tired tonight; I’m seriously tempted to tape my two Sunday night shows (“Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy”) and just go to sleep when she does, but I’m such a night owl that it’s hard for me to do that, even when I’m yawning steadily.

I wouldn’t have been up so late but I taped a re-run of “CSI: Miami” and watched it last night, not finishing until midnight. It was worth it though, what with being a combination of one of my favorite shows, one of my favorite characters, and it had Tony Hawk guest starring, so it was all okay in the end.

I must be tired if I’m babbling randomly like this. I’ve already folded a load of laundry, washed two more, changed Hayley’s bed, made the other bed, cleaned the rat tank, cleaned the fish tank, and served lunch. I should go do the dishes so that I can fix up Hayley’s Halloween costume. George picked up some of those crayon-style Halloween makeup kits as well so I’m going to decorate my giant belly as either the planet earth or a fish bowl tomorrow.

All right. Enough blabbing. You’d think I was strung out on caffeine, but sadly I am not.

When I was pregnant with Hayley, I desperately wanted a rocking chair. My mother and sister got one for me and I happily envisioned rocking my soon-to-arrive newborn to sleep in it. Little did I know I would give birth to a baby who preferred the motion of being held against a shoulder and walked around over being rocked gently in a chair. Not once did she ever really fall asleep in the chair; once in a blue moon she would doze but as soon as I got up she would wake up again.

Fast forward to 2005. She now loves to sit in the rocking chair, which is still in her room, and either rock for fun or she’ll sit in it and “read” her books to her dolls and stuffed toys.

Today was one of those infamous three-year-old days where she wasn’t keen on listening so when she announced she was going to play in her room I figured a break from each other was a great idea. I heard her talking in there and occasionally the rocking chair would knock against the wall so I knew she was reading again. All of a sudden it got totally silent and silence with a pre-schooler is when you worry about what they’re getting into. I went to inspect and found this:

(click to enlarge)

I honestly thought she was faking it the way she does at the end of a car ride, but no. She was sound asleep. I would have left her there but it was 5:30 and I wanted her to sleep tonight so unfortunately I had to wake her up. But only after taking her picture a few times.

It is exceptionally rare for her to just randomly fall asleep of her own free will like that so I was stunned. I’m glad I have photographic proof that it actually happened!

Is it really asking too much to hope that if I’m going to have a craving that it could be for something I actually have in the pantry or the fridge? Craving a chocolate bar or a piece of cheesecake when I have neither sucks.

And for what it’s worth, eating cheddar cheese does not compensate for a lack of cheesecake.

New picture of my huge basketball-like stomach.

I’m trying to find an entry last year that references something in particular – a walk that the three of us took through the woods. I know it was in the fall season because I have the pictures and all the leaves are in the process of changing, so I figured I should start by looking through the October entries.

The first entry I got to was last year’s Thanksgiving recap and in it are a ton of pictures of my grandmother’s house and I started crying because I know that it’s gone now.

My mother told me that for Christmas what she would like the most is a little photo album with all the pictures that I took of the house the last time I was there. Hopefully by the time I need to print them it won’t be so hard to look at the reminders of what’s gone.

Hayley’s in the bathroom right now (“I like to have some privacy!”) and I always leave the door open so she can call me when she’s finished. Right now I can hear her counting and she just said, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1″.

When the hell did she learn to count backwards?! Maybe it’s from “Toy Story” when Sid is counting down to blow Buzz up.

New entry up in the journal.

A cool thing about being this pregnant (36 weeks, woot)?

I’m here at my desk and I have a bowl of applesauce sitting on my stomach. It’s just sitting there like my stomach is a shelf or a table. It’s really quite handy.

Of course, if the baby starts kicking (ooh, there she goes, speak of the devil!) I may regret this if the bowl goes flying onto the floor.