Hayley is so incredibly excited about going to school in September. I’m personally trying to keep myself from having to breathe into a paper bag over the fact that my first born child will be registering for SCHOOL in just a few weeks and that she will be heading off to a classroom in September, but Hayley is very excited. And really, anxiety and denial aside, I’m excited for her.

Except now there are two things that really tick her off about school. One is the fact that it’s a nut- and nut product-free zone. The one sandwich she really loves in peanut butter and she can’t take it. She’s being a big girl about it though, and she’s willing to try some other options to see what she likes enough to take to eat with her.

The other thing however, has really offended her terribly. The school doesn’t have uniforms but it does have a dress code. She can wear navy blue pants or a skirt. And she has to wear them with a white blouse or white polo shirt. Hayley is livid over this fact. “But I don’t like white shirts! I really don’t like them, Mommy!”

She will still huff mightily if you bring it up with her. Hopefully she’ll get over it by Fall!

*******

Breanna has developed a sense of humor. She can’t say many words yet but she can say partial words. I always grab her butt when I change her diaper (after cleaning her, that is) and shout, “bum, bum, bum!” to her. She can’t quite get the “m” so she now reaches down and grabs it and says, “buh, buh!” and then she laughs exactly like Woody Woodpecker. The laugh is hysterically funny so I laugh and that encourages her. She keeps on doing it because of the reaction. She also calls her duck “dada” and laughs. Because I laughed, she now likes to grab random toy animals and call them all “dada”, laughing uproariously at her own little joke.

Today she started a new one. She recently (a few days ago?) finally caught on to the sign for milk so she’s been doing that when she wants to nurse, which is a nice change from suddenly crying and jumping up and down. Today she gave me the sign so I lifted her up and got ready to nurse her. Then she reached out, patted my chest and said, “buh, buh!” and then completely cracked up like it was the funniest thing in the world that she had just called my boobs a butt.

Little clown, yes she is.

*******

Sometimes I take pictures that I love for the simple fact of recording our lives. Other times I take pictures that take my breath away and I wonder who these incredibly beautiful kids are. I took this during bath time yesterday.

I don’t know how I gave birth to such beautiful girls.

If you’re looking to furnish your new home or update your current one, you should take a moment to browse through this site for beautiful Dining Room Furniture: Dinette Sets, Tables, Chairs, Home Bars and more Quality Dining Room Furniture Sets. The sets are gorgeous and high quality and would make a wonderful central focus for your dining room.

It’s all incredible but I’m particularly fond of the china hutches and buffets. If you have nice china and special crystal sets, they shouldn’t be stuffed away in your kitchen cabinets; they deserve to be showcased in an equally beautiful hutch. Check out the site get ready to shop for your perfect dining set.

This was a sponsored post

Note to self – send in some submissions here.

Between The View this morning and just about every recap I’ve read, it seems that anyone who watched The Golden Globes is discussing the fact that Angelina Jolie seemed very unhappy and snippy last night. I could hazard two guesses as to why she was perhaps not falling all over herself to be the queen of smiles and to accomodate every red carpet question with an answer:

1. She’s a mother. She’s a mother who gave birth not that long ago. It’s entirely possible that she’s bloody well tired. Maybe Shiloh was up most of the night for the past week. I realize that celebrities have nannies and hired help so they don’t have to do as much as your average mother, but I’m pretty sure that unless the baby is sleeping through the night, neither is Angie. Also, having two kids myself, I can hazard a guess that her other two kids might be acting a little less than angelic as they get used to having a new baby sister in the house.

Also, she gave birth recently enough that – hello? – she may actually be battling a bit of post-partum depression. While I didn’t get to any major blackness in my post-partum months, I did deal with a lot of very weird anxiety. I know that had I been all dressed up in front of cameras a few months after having Breanna, I may very well have been just as “sullen” as she was reported to be. Who knows? Apparently she was unhappy with the dress that she had; if she’s dealing with even a slight hint of PPD, that may have translated to an entire meltdown of “Oh my GOD, I hate this dress and my body IN this dress, and Brad I hate you too for not understanding why I hate this dress, I JUST WANT TO STAY HOME!” Not that I ever freaked out about something like clothing after having a baby. Um, no. Not me.

2. Maybe she’s fed up of all these inane questions, like Ryan Seacrest asking her if she cooks eggs and bacon for the kids every day like she’s some sort of June Cleaver. She finally answered with “I give them cereal” after he pretty much shoved the microphone down her throat, but you know, maybe she just doesn’t want to be the one to answer all the questions since she was there to support Brad’s movie.

I don’t know. I’ve always been a huge fan of hers and I guess I just think maybe the press could cut her a little slack for not having the million dollar megawatt smile on 100% of the time. Besides, every time the camera flashed their way, both she and Brad were smiling while watching the awards. It’s not like she was skulking around tripping people and pouring martinis on everyone.

All that aside, I enjoyed the Golden Globes last night. I love award shows and the Golden Globes are among the best because I like the casual nature of it with all the big tables and drinks, like it’s just a big party. I was surprised by a few of the award winners (am I the only person in the world who has neither seen Borat nor felt any desire to do so? What IS the point of that movie anyway? Though his speech made me laugh until I snorted.) but a lot of the acceptance speeches were really good.

Now I just have to wait until February to catch the Oscars!

Well, apparently it wasn’t a hacked server or a crazy IP ban gone wrong, Trainwrekcs was pulled by its owners. I’ll miss the site. Yes, sometimes they got mean, and the commenters were even moreso. But you know what? Ironically, instead of finding bad sites to make fun of (because frankly, I just don’t have the time), I actually found a lot of great sites. They were particularly fond of making fun of mommybloggers, and one glance at my blogroll can tell you that’s one of my favorite blogs to read, so I actually got to know about a lot of sites that I might not have found otherwise.

I think the biggest shame of all is that the people who are allegedly responsible for the closing of Trainwrecks is really not any better. Posting personal contact information for *possible* site owners so that people with nothing better to do can harass them? Calling the *possible* site owners vile names and then tromping all over bloggers in general? Pot and kettle.

I wonder how long it will be before a new Trainwrecks spawns from the ashes. I could use some more new blogs to read in the evenings.

Just a quick snapshot of life right now:

Breanna was so tired that she refused to open her eyes even while Hayley asked her repeatedly to go play. Finally she did open them long enough to look up at me and cry which translated to “please take me to my crib where I can get some sleep!” She is now curled up like a little frog on her stomach, with one hand over her little Cookie Monster doll. She is also snoring like a little old man. I can not believe the noise coming out of her body.

I came out to discover Hayley was standing on her step stool in search of a spoon. Since I had already given her a requested bowl of Cheerios with a spoon I was confused as to why she was rooting (loudly) through the cutlery. Then I discovered she had finished her cereal and was apparently now about to eat the leftover tomato paste out of the can that I had put in the fridge after making supper last night. I explained that generally speaking, people don’t actually eat tomato paste on its own and convinced her that perhaps it would be a better idea to have some sort of lunch.

In non-kid news, it is currently snowing like a mo-fo out there. While this normally wouldn’t excite me very much, I am so relieved to see some semblance of normal January weather going on. It means that maybe the planet isn’t going to completely shatter before the end of the month.

First of all, I just wanted to say DUH, apparently this week was National De-Lurking Week and I didn’t realize it until now. Whoops. What that means is that this week, you were supposed to comment. If you are someone who reads my blog – whether it’s regularly or you popped on over here via some link, or whatever – leave me a comment. Say hi, tell me what’s new in your life, share your favorite joke, tell me what food you can’t resist, share a shameful celebrity crush, anything you want. Just leave me a comment. Basically, the point of it all is that a lot of us may say “oh I don’t care about the numbers” but the truth is we don’t like the idea of writing in a void. If we didn’t care whether someone is reading, we would keep our little tales locked up in a notebook or a file on our hard drives and call it a day. I most certainly care if you’re reading, and if you don’t normally comment, please take a moment to do so – I guarantee it’s appreciated. And if you have a url of your own, I’ll come by your blog too!

(Of course, if you aren’t a lurker, you should say hi anyway. Otherwise I might fear you’re dead.)

The fact that I’m on the second to last day of the de-lurk week is irrelevant. Mostly. So comment! Go! Now! Thanks.

*******

So. Ways you might be able to tell that at least three out of four members of this household have a cold even if I didn’t outright tell you.

1. The constant sniffing. Not from me, mind you. I can’t stand sniffing. The only time you’ll hear me doing it for very long is if I’m somewhere outside without any tissue. I don’t know how people can stand around sniffing endlessly without driving themselves insane. Apparently it doesn’t bother Hayley though, and she will keep doing it until I snap a little inside and beg her to “pleasefortheloveofGODblowyournose!” Of course this leads to sign 1A – the piles of tissue, some used some not, left on the floor. Sigh.

2. The screaming and the hysteria. No, I’m not beating my baby, no need to call CPS. That screaming you hear is just the result of having to pin Breanna down on the bed so I can use the bulb aspirator to suction her nose.

3. The constant desire for soup. Hayley asked for chicken noodle soup the other day and was very disappointed when she had to settle for something else for lunch because we had none in the pantry. I made potato soup. She asked for it at 9:30 this morning. We occasionally eat pea soup just because we like it; when we’re sick, we actually WANT soup and lots of it.

4. There is tea on my desk in the middle of the day. I love tea but I’m generally an evening tea drinker. I like it around 10 pm while watching television or reading blogs. If there’s tea in my cup during daylight hours either we’re out of coffee or I’m self-medicating the only way I can by soothing a sore throat with hot liquids.

5. Three of us are sitting on the bathroom floor while George takes a shower. Again with the self-medicating, this time with steam for congestion.

6. The crib mattress is crooked. There are currently four hardcover books propping Breanna’s mattress up, two at each upper corner. The ski slope of her crib is the only way she can sleep for more than five minutes*.

7. I have a serious crick in my neck. Mostly due to two straight nights of sleeping 75% of the night in a really awkward propped-up position so that Breanna can sleep on top of me, helping her breathe better. It helps me too, I guess but it’s not particularly comfortable.

8. I stare longingly at cold remedy commercials. I love breastfeeding. I am a huge advocate and I am happy to do it. But oh the day that I am not nursing anyone and I can drown out all symptoms of a cold by drugging myself into a NyQuil coma! I can’t wait! The day Breanna weans, I may go out and lick the walls of a doctor’s waiting room just to purposely make myself sick just so I can take NyQuil again.

Yeah, you’d probably guess we’re under the weather. Really though, this cold is a bit annoying but not bad at all. It’s certainly nothing like the one in December.

*Of course the side effect of having the mattress propped up is that when Breanna woke up from her nap today, she sat up, then stood up, staggered a bit, reached over to pick up her Care Bear, and then lost her balance on the sloping surface and bashed her face directly into the bars of her crib. Lots of unhappiness ensued and there’s a small red cut above her lip. Hopefully she’ll realize she isn’t completely flat next time, sheesh.

My sister always called chicken noodle soup “Magic Soup” when she was little. I still call it that now when I make it for Hayley when she has a cold.

However, if you’re feeling a little crappy, not completely Plague miserable, but just mildly under the weather, my dad’s potato soup is pretty comforting stuff. I didn’t think I felt like making it yesterday but then George decided on pizza for supper so instead of making Koshary like I had planned, I made a batch of soup. Hayley and I both had some with our pizza, Breanna enjoyed a tiny bowl of it, and I’m really looking forward to having it for lunch.

-4 C chicken broth
-1/2 tsp salt
-4 medium potatoes cut in eight pieces each
-4 yellow onions chopped, or 4 leeks chopped
-1/2 tsp marjoram or chevril
-2 tbsp chopped parsley
-1/2 C of heavy cream or half and half (coffee cream)
-1 tbsp margarine or butter

Simmer broth. Add salt, potatoes, and onions. Cover and simmer 20 minutes. Mash. Add seasonings and cream/milk (use less or more depending on how thick you want it). Add margarine.

Serve and try not to eat all of it.

I didn’t have yellow onions or leeks so I chopped up a bit of regular old white onion really fine and used that. Also, I skipped the marjoram and chevril since I had neither and used a bit of garlic powder instead. And I didn’t have cream of any sort so I used milk and it still came out fine.

I mashed it but I wanted it to be really creamy so I used the immersion blender my dad gave me for Christmas and it was perfect.

I love potato soup. So does my itchy throat.

Because either someone at Trainwrecks got slap-happy with IP banning, someone hacked their server(s), or they pulled the plug.

Anyone know?

Welcome to the home of germs. If visiting, please don hazard wear or suffer the consequences. Hayley started on Monday with a vague reference to a minor sore throat which seemed better after she drank something. By Monday night she could hardly breathe without the aid of Triaminic fast dissolve squares.

Breanna randomly sneezed a few times until yesterday when Hayley informed me that her younger sister was “blowing bubbles out of her nose” and it all went downhill from there: One thirty minute nap, general crankiness, inability to sleep beyond the first hour that I put her down last night. I had just made a nice, hot cup of tea so when I realized at 9:15 that she wasn’t going to go back to sleep, I just brought her out and let her watch “The O.C.” with me while I drank it. She played fairly quietly (though I did have to put the baby gate up to block off the hallway to discourage her from wandering off to wake Hayley up, thanks anyway) for about two hours, snacking on rice cakes and hamming it up for George by playing with her gigantic Cookie Monster.

Then I spent the next several hours pacing with her crying body flung over my shoulder, suctioning snot out of her nose while she screamed hysterically, and then dozing sporadically while she sort of quasi-slept draped over my upright body in between her fits of crying miserably and tossing and turning. I probably slept about two hours last night. In spurts. Fun!

We won’t discuss the slight tickle I feel in the back of my own throat because I am currently busy ignoring it and if I don’t make myself a third cup of coffee to keep myself upright I may at least make a cup of tea to soothe the scratchiness.

George has already declared that he has no time to be sick. If that works, I’m trying that next time I hear the first hint of a sniffle from anyone in a five-foot radius.

*******

I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” yesterday. Good lord. First of all, Al Gore is amazing. I always said that if I was American I would have voted for him because I really like him. In the meantime, he’s certainly making good use of his non-Presidential free time and his well-known name by campaigning so hard to save the environment.

Secondly, I fully admit that it scared the holy living hell right out of me, far more than any horror movie ever did. The facts and the numbers and the graphs and the PHOTOS, Jesus Christ. How anyone can look at all that data and still shrug like Global Warming is just a myth is beyond me.

To be honest, as far as I’m concerned, if you can watch that movie and still insist that Global Warming is not real and all this ridiculously abnormal weather is part of a natural cycle of the planet and that we haven’t totally fucked ourselves and the earth up in a major way… Well if that’s what you believe, then you are a complete fucking idiot and part of the problem to begin with.

Later in the day I walked to the store and was actually relieved that it was cold for a change, even though there was still so little snow on the ground that I could have worn shoes and never mind that -13C still isn’t exactly COLD for January in this area. And never mind the fact that today it’s two above freezing and raining.

Terrifyingly good film.

*******

Hayley and Breanna are sitting in the ball tent right now. I keep hearing Hayley whisper, “Peepee. Poop. Pee and poop!” and each time, Breanna breaks into hysterical laughter.

Kids crack me up.

*******

I don’t know why I always get the urge to do things when I have no physical energy to do them. Right now I would really like to put the books on the shelf out here into the other room to create more space for storing the kids’ toys, I want to clean the bathtub, and I would really like to make my dad’s potato soup. I have no actual desire to DO these things, but I would really love to be able to have them done. Perhaps magically.

I think I can at least muster the strength to go boil the water in the kettle. Maybe.