Bite me.

So Mimi decided to come up and take Sis and I out to eat yesterday for our birthday.

The food was delicious and Jeff appreciated that Sis and Mimi handed over their left over meals for him to consume. But it was noted that the desserts we brought home were not included on his menu.

The little ones joined us and Alaina was very excited to pick her own dessert . . .but Kayla was glad when we headed home because she was tired. So after her bath and book, I sat down to nurse Kayla before laying her down to sleep. Alaina came into the room and startled Kayla, who whipped her head around to see what was happening.

Not a big deal except she got four pretty teeth in the front of her mouth with which she's been practicing a great deal. So while she was nursing she put said teeth to use before turning to see what big sis was doing.

I yelled quite a bit.

Which amused Kayla, so she leaned in and bit me again.

I ordered Alaina out of the room in my not-so-very-nice mommy voice, settled Kayla down for the night, and grabbed an ice pack out of the freezer to shove down my bra.

This would be the proverbial straw that broke the nursing-cow's back.

If I can get Kayla to go for formula bottles from me when she gets home from daycare, I'm debating going cold turkey. I'm trying not to bemoan the fact that I made it just shy of 11 months nursing which is truthfully about what I did last time. But I can't wait to say goodbye to the chaffing of having to wear nursing bras to bed, nursing pads that make me feel like my chest is sweating all day, and praying that my breast pump lasts until Kayla's b-day.

The only thing I miss is how great I look in a push up bra, even though they are almost painful to wear while nursing.

Wisdom for my daughter

I was looking at pictures the other day and I came across my favorite one of my sister and I just before our high school graduation ceremony. I thought about what I had learned since then and any regrets/wisdom I wanted to pass along to my daughter.

1. Alway study hard. As much as it sucks, you will be judged by that stupid little letter/number on that report card by nearly EVERYONE!

2. If you are going to go out for sports, give it your all. Then, win or lose, you will know that you did your best.

3. Always think before you act. SERIOUSLY! This applies to even the little idiotic things like calling and hanging up on that cute boy from the neighboring town because 10 years later you will realize that he knew it was you and you will still be embarrassed about it.

4. Boys are for later. Don't waste your time on them before you are settled into college. How many relationships survive the high school to college transition anyway? (Don't say Mimi and Papa or their neighbors . . .that's cheating and they don't count.)

5. Don't ever take someone from a different school to a school dance. You feel like you are babysitting the entire night, or they accuse you of ignoring them to hang out with friends.

6. Be nice to EVERYONE. Not just the so called 'cool kids' but to everyone! That shy boy that sits next to you might be the next president, your boss, or a Husker quarterback and won't you feel good when you can say you know him.

7. Be adventurous. Try new foods, meet new people, learn a foreign language.

8. Think about the future. What do you want to be? Its never to early to think about those kinds of things.

9. Don't give up on something just because its tough. Things I regret giving up or not making more time for . . .Piano, dance, yearbook, speech, drama. I loved them all but didn't try to excel at any.

10. Manage your money! Have a dollar? Save it! I'm terrible with money and your father is great with it. Learn from him please.

11. Don't be in a hurry to grow up. Once you leave a stage behind there's no going back. For everything that you gain as you move on, something else will get left behind.

Any other recommendations?
I think I'll keep a running tally of things to tell my daughters as they grow up and then every year on their birthdays I'll read it too them after they turn 7.

Once they turn 12, I'll read it every month. : )

My Sister, the finder of cool things

MBG just has the knack for finding the perfect gifts. I don't know how she does it . . . but she does.



But I'm still in awe of this one.



I've been struggling with the whole MSPI and still trying to nurse thing, so when this card arrived in the mail, I couldn't stop laughing.

Talk about summing up my life in a Hallmark greeting card! I can't believe you found this sis!

"There's no crying in the supermarket!"

First, a two part question.

Do you take the kids with you grocery shopping?
Does the hubs come along?

Ponder that while I tell my weekend tale.

One of Jeff's friends (AKA Stupid boys) was coming to town Friday. Jeff has said we were going to have supper together with his a his fiance, but it turns out he just wanted Jeff to meet them for drinks.

Frankly, I was upset because:
1) I've yet to meet this woman, who has birthed his baby . .
2) Jeff didn't call to clarify his plans with his friend until 20 minutes after I should have started supper.

Strike One

Then we have the grocery store incidents. . . I really don't like grocery shopping alone with Alaina, its a challenge to keep her in line and successfully get all the items on my list.

Saturday, I was going to run a few errands. Return movies, hit a great sale at Penney's and buy $2 shoes that I had been watching for 2 months to go dirt cheap (several styles were in Alaina's size) , and buy groceries for the steak supper I wanted to cook for Jeff and I that night.

Problems that arose:
-Alaina wanted to watch a movie in the car, a privilege she only gets on trips 40 min or longer
-After getting her a dvd at the movie store, now she REALLY wanted to watch her movie
-Once we were in the grocery store and Alaina has a little cart to push around, she decided she's rather be in one of the big plastic seat carts designed for more that one kid and drives other shoppers insane as you try to manuever down aisles with it
-She HAD to have a cookie (She knows now that she can get a free one at the bakery)
-After her cookie, she HAD to have a drink of milk which we didn't bring along
-And worse of all, they didn't give me my discount at the registers for bringing in my lovely green bags

Strike Two and the decision was made to skip Penney's.

Then on Sunday . . . .

I took Alaina to the mall and when I got to Penney's they had sold all the shoes in Alaina's size. (Dang it!) She was desperate for a "hammy-burger" (AKA a runza sandwhich) which it took her 45 minutes to eat.

Then later that day it was trip 2 to the grocery store to catch a health market sale and get groceries for the week.

The high/low lights are:
- Alaina cried for a balloon the entire time
-I went to the check stand by the alcohol cellar and they didn't know how to ring up the sale for the health market items so I had to reload my cart and go back to the front.
-Alaina was devastated that we had to go back to the front since she could see our van and cried about not getting to go outside yet.
-While I was in line at the second register, I realized I had forgotten to buy pull-ups and a few other items. But I was so upset by then I decided just to head home.
-A nice (evil) cashier heard Alaina's pleas for a balloon and gave her one.

Strike Three.

I started to cry on the way out to the van. Then I dropped Alaina off at home and took ten minutes to go back and get the things that I had forgotten.

Where was Jeff you ask?

One the couch.

Both times.

Movies and tears

Yesterday was a rather fretful day at work . . . vendor demos, and they had all these little gadgets they wanted to plug in and show us . . .

but their gadgets don't work with our network security.

So frustrations galore led me to the decision that I was going to take a free movie pass I had from work to go see "Inkheart" by myself.

I was the ONLY one in the thearter. As a matter of fact I was about 2 minutes late and they had to start the movie for me.

The movie was good. Good in the way that movies are when you know they came from excellent books, so hundreds of pages of delicious dialogue have been crammed into 100+ onscreen minutes.

But the real treat for seeing the movie is that now I can read the book and have wonderful pictures of each character in my head as they do their daring deeds.

But that was last night . . . this morning was a different tale.

I made my daughter cry this morning. I mean all our wailing and screaming for mommy.

You see Alaina has decided to test out the lengths of her toddler power and the strength of the word "no." this morning she refused to get dressed because she didn't want to go to daycare.

I told her she had to go because mommy and daddy would be at work all day and she couldn't be home alone. She stuck to her guns with the word "no" as the answer for everything, and refused to let me help her get dressed.

So I left.

No, I didn't actually leave . . .I had to go downstairs and get my clothes out of the dryer.

But Alaina thought I had left her home. (Apparently she thinks mommy likes to drive to work in her bra and underwear.)

As I came back up the stairs, I could hear her wailing for mommy.(Don't ask where Jeff was at this time) So we had to have a sit down talk that mommy was sorry she scared her . . .but she needed to go to daycare on the days that mommy and daddy worked.

Hopefully there isn't any lasting trauma since she was laughing by the time we got into the van to leave.

It's not easy being Green . . .

I'm pretty gun-shy about the fact that my in-laws have raw milk to drink and that Alaina partakes of this habit. I don't know enough about any problems that can arise from this habit to protest, so I decided to ask some experts.

Enter Grist

I love this website, it keeps me a bit more in the environmental loop, and has a lot of humour to entertain while they educate. Anyway . . ..

They answered a question on their comments column yesterday that sounded a lot like my concerns.

Actually it sounded so much like my concerns, I could have written the question.

Actually . . .

I did.

SHHHH! Don't tell!

See what Grist had to say about my Raw milk concerns.

http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2009/01/14/index.html

The best use for a bar of soap . . .

I was upset last night walking the mall.

As I rounded the Sear's corridor, there were three teenager boys being a bit rowdy on the little kids ride on toys . . .not that I'm bothered by kids being a bit silly, I was there once.

But as I walked past, one of them said the "N" word.

Yep.

The biggest baddest racist slur ever in my book.

I thought I might have heard wrong, but no more that 30 seconds later he said w-h-o-r-e and used the "N" word again. Again!

He wasn't singing a dirty rap song, he wasn't angry about something, and based on the color of his skin and german nose . . . he didn't have some misguided notion that the "N" word is a slang term of endearment for his "bros."

Nope.

He was just being a punk saying racist and sexist comments in a public mall at 6 p.m.

So I walked up and told him to watch his mouth in public places.

I got a half hearted "sorry" and some rude statements muttered under their breath to my back.

What is going on? I can only hope they are just being fools, because the other option is ignorance they learned at home, from the media, or peers.

Pre-pubescent cretins.

If my daughter would have been with me I would have made them apologize.

Big Blog for a Big Weekend . .

I had a pretty good weekend. . .

It started off wonderful beyond belief when I got a call at work from a friend saying she was in town from California and wondered if I would meet her and another friend for lunch. First I cried because I was so happy to hear from her. Second, I giggled because there nothing I love more than getting together with good friends over lunch and third, well, I cried some more because hormones took over my body this weekend.

For the rest of the weekend I finished getting all of our Christmas presents and wrapping all of them, I have a few left that I got boxed, but they are Alaina's Santa, presents, so I wanted to surprise her with the Disney Princess wrapping paper I bought to wrap them in. (They are actually in decorative boxes, but what's the fun of opening presents if you don't get to rip the wrapping paper at her age?
And I should note that our presents from Santa this year are from a real live "Santa." One of Jeff's coworkers offered to drop off some of her daughter's old toys and dress up clothes which I never get my hopes up about because did we grow up with dad's leisure suit as a dress up item sis? Anyway, I was almost in tears when I saw six store purchased Barbie dresses, most with matching slippers and one of which is either a wedding dress or snow princess gown. I was stunned . . . so I cried some more. She'll get some for x-mas this year and some for her birthday, just to share the wealth.

But the biggest success and "oops" was potty training. On Sunday I asked Alaina if she wanted to wear training pants or a pull up and she chose the training pants. I then persuaded her with little more than a small promise of a treat to use the toilet . . .with success! I was so excited, the treat became a small cone from Runza at the Mall. We had a small accident at the mall because mommy lost track of time, but hey, two steps forward, one step back is fine with me!

Of course then there was the incident when we got home. I had daddy take Alaina in to try to use the potty, and soon heard some crying and daddy calling "Mommy! Come here!" Alaina had 'fallen in' for the first time.
Poor thing.
She was mostly scared, but we changed into comfy footed pjs with a pull up and gave lots of hugs and kisses to help. This little incident did nothing to help Alaina's desire to use the big toilet, because now there was the threat of falling in.

Enter the Chocolate Pomander!

Last weekend with the Christmas baking extravaganza, Mom and I made chocolate pomanders, which were mostly consumed by my coworkers on company food day, but I had about 7 left. Alaina came into the living room carrying the small container of Pomanders after her nap on Sunday asking if she could have one. I told her we were saving them for when she went to the bathroom on the toilet to which I got this reply.

"But I did go to the bathroom!"

"I know you did, Alaina," I replied, "and you got ice cream for that time. These are for the next time you go to the bathroom on the toilet."

"Oh . . . Mommy I want to go potty!"

And she did.

Wow. So much excitement for a standard bodily function has never been witnessed in our house before. Alaina and I were dancing in the living room, and of course Alaina's mouth was full of her celebration Pomander.

It was a great end to a successful weekend.

Final Countdown . . .

10 days until Christmas!!!

And how is your shopping going?

This was a big weekend for our house to catch up on a lot of things and some big lessons learned:
1) After three hours of unpleasantries betwixt my spouse and I . . . the christmas cards are in the passenger seat of the new van waiting to be dropped off over lunch.

Lesson Learned: Actual pictures are WAY to expensive to get for Christmas cards. Next year I'll pick out 4 -5 shots of kids and family to make color copiers on the copy machine like Mom and Dad do. . . although the letter will be no where near the level of dad.

2) Mom and I did Christmas baking on Saturday and made a good dent in the pre-holiday baking. During the entire session, she kept saying, "Why didn't we start doing this years ago?" Which my mind translated into "This is much better than trying to do this the day before Christmas Eve at 3 in the morning!"

Lesson Learned: Next year, we need to make a weekend out of it and get the shopping done friday night before. The shopping/softening/plan of attack process should get refined by about year three I hope.

Oh, and we won't plan on cooking indoors all day on the nicest day of December either because . . .

3) I completed MOST of the family christmas shopping on Sunday. this is a tough year for us, with just having bought a new vehicle and shelling out a lot of cash for the other one to be up and running, so I tried to stick to a very strict budget this year . . . which led to a few discussions (not quite heated . . .but a bit intense for us) with the spouse about why spending ten extra dollars on one person was a mortal sin. Oh and by the way, I was the winner and the ten dollars was NOT spent.

Lesson Learned: When we sit down to look at finances for next year . . which we most definitely will with a baby on the way, we are budgeting for gifts for birthdays and Christmas next year.

But the weekend was a pretty good time overall. Alaina had a lot of fun singing along with the Chrsitmas station on the radio yesterday, bursting into song with and occasional "SNOW!" "GLOW," or "CHRISTMAS!" sung at the top of her lungs. She usually joined in with any word at the end of the line that was sung for more that four seconds. It was so darn cute I wish I had it on tape, but she clammed up whenever we got near.

However, we did try going with training pants all weekend, with a few painful parts. I probably didn't approach this right, but after the third time she walked up to inform me that she was poopy and I needed to change her diaper, I informed her that she was wearing panties, and you don't change panties because you don't poop in them.

Alaina stared at me as if I had gone mad.

I said underwear isn't for changing. So you have to go to the bathroom in the toilet. She said, "No! Change my diaper!" So I said again that she wasn't wearing a diaper she was wearing underwear and underwear isn't for pooping and peeing in.

She started to pout quite prettily at this point, so I said I was sad that she didn't want to go to the bathroom in the toilet like big girls because I just know that she is a big girl and can do it. Which I got a resounding "Yes I can!" for so we hugged and went to take off her underwear and take a bath.

I told her next weekend is a no diaper weekend again, which she seemed pretty open too, so we'll see what happens.

I suppose I did that kind of backwards, but I know that she does well with the toilet at daycare so I'm a little frustrated that she refuses to try at home. Its just flat out time to encourage the switch to big girl undies.

Does anyone have a tip on a sticker chart or candy reward system?

Buzzing Brain

I've got a brain full of bees I think. I can't seem to catch and hold onto a thought today because there are just too many buzzing around seeking attention.

- I want to do menu plan Monday today . . . but I don't think I have enough time.

- Jeff is home sick today, and was sick this entire weekend. In fact he felt so bad, he actually went to the doctor, a sign that this wasn't just a run of the mill cold for him! And since he's sucd a great patient I'd rather not have to be home much today.

- I have an IAAP meeting after work today, and since I missed the last one, I'd better go!

- I need to get back to Wal-Mart and return the envelopes I got that aren't the right ones.

- I want to work on my OrgJunkie Round up this week

- I need to buy a zipper to repair a coat for Jeff's cousin in Minnesota that his parents will take back this weekend.

- I need to start working on Alaina's Halloween costume, since she decided to be Belle. (yes I konw you offered to get one from Disney MBG, but since she's not of the age to brag about where it came from, I'll save the shipping charge and just make it for $13. However, if they have wigs for little girls, I'd be all about Alaina trying to wear a brown Belle wig!)

- Laundry and the vacuum are screaming my name again.

Is that enough rambling for now? I think so!

Ick

Coming back to work after a break is the pits.

It appears that everything is broken, when in reality its nothing more that usual.

Jeff said last night he would sacrifice his dignity for our daughter and we should dress up as the Incredibles. Now we just have to figure out who Alaina will be . . I vote for Dash and then she can wear the mask for a little bit.

I keep rediscovering how wonderful it is to have a stylist who knows your hair, after the laughter about how uneven my previous haircut was. I ended up with a cute little bob cut with bangs.

I like it!

But that's about it for the morning.

Back to the pile on the desk. . .
Maybe I'll win that big ol' lottery tomorrow and won't have to worry about this anymore

Mommy's Day!

I'm taking the day off from work. At least from the full time job.

I needed a quiet day at home to catch up on laundry and vacuuming. As of now the laundry is done except for the guest sheets, and the vacuuming, well, we'll see what happens.

I've decided to splurge and take myself up to Omaha for a one on one with my favorite stylist Shannon. She listens well and isn't afraid to shoot down any poor ideas I have for my hair. Hopefully it will comeout perfect this time. At any rate, it has to be better. This cut is getting pretty shaggy.

I can feel the pressure for the holiday season beginning. The first pressure is for Alaina's Halloween costume. I've got a couple of fun ideas, and a few from friends. I was hoping to let Alaina pick what she wants to be, which will probably entail taking her to the sewing store and showing her pattern pictures.

My top picks right now are:
-Cinderella and I could be the fairy godmother.
-Stitch or Lilo because we have a stuffed Stitch that she could carry. But I wouldn't really have a costume to wear for this.
- Frog because she likes to hop
- Pony because she likes to gallop

I really like the idea of Cinderella, but I figure maybe the grop or pony because She'll want to be a princess for the next 16 years, so why not go for something different now?

Wait did you hear that? The vacuum just screamed my name. I'd better get moving.

Gah!!!



I'm so excited! We are going to Disney on Ice tonight! I'm so excited for Alaina to see the Incredibles in person! This is going to be the best!



Yesterday was also the super shoe and purse sale day at Younkrs. I finally realized that I bought mom shoes and a purse last time she was here! So I went last night and returned and then rebought the shoes to save about $12 and then I bought the same purse again with the intention of returning it with the old receipt that mimi has . . .which saves $18 on the purse.

I bought myself three pairs of shoes for $50 and a liz claiborne purse for $6. Cool!

But the big buy today is a camera. Yep I finally gave up looking. I'm so devastated . . .

I bought a sony cybershot . . which gets good reviews and isn't too costly.

Which means time to start posting pics again!!

Yay!

I know, I'm silly.



But what's the point of having the discount if you don't use it?



Tonight I'm headed out with Tiff to see "The women" I'm so excited, I'm sure this won't be quite as good as I want it to be, but I loved the original movie, and there was a version that they showed

The moment that made the day

For me's there's usually one moment that set the tone for the day . .
or at least one moment that I wish I could have patterned the day around.

Yesterday ended a little rough with the part time job being a little hectic. It's not often that a manager calls her employees lazy just because we figured out that we can move our mouths and chat as well as fold piles of shirts at the same time.

Oh yes she did say that. But the kicker was she started the statement with a canned phrase that was the equivalent of "please don't take this the wrong way, but . . ."

Right

As if we could take that as anything but insulting.

So me (being the person that I am pointed) out to her that not a single one of the three of us standing their folding had paused in our folding duties during the entire conversation.

I should have started thie statement with "Please don't mistake this for the insubordinate comment that it is intended to be, but . . ."

Hee hee


But ANYWAY

The best moment of the day was when I came downstairs before I went to the part time job.

Does anyone here use L'Oreal's mineral makeup? If you do you know that they have a concealer powder (which I love) that looks like this. =>

Apparently Alaina will be a great beautician someday because when I came downstairs I found Jeff laying down on his back while Alaina was using the brush to apply makeup to him.

Actually she wasn't really applying make-up, she was just using the brush on him.

But she wasn't putting it on his face . . .

My wonderfully imaginative daughter had gotten it into her head that this brush which is flat on the sides was for nail polish. So she was pretending to apply it on Jeff.

More precisely on his toe nails.

Ewwwww!

As I type this I can't stop laughing, because the best part was the fact that my husband was grinning ear to ear as she did this because he thought it was one of her "play makeup" pieces.

I guess after I empty the powder out I know how to recycle the container.


p.s. Alaina used the potty chair at home this morning for Jeff! I guess the factor that needed to change for potty training to be a success was the subtraction of me from the equation!

Go Alaina!

Big walk talk

Yesterday for lunch, I had a meeting with the volunteer committee that assist with the wellness committee.

And if you know me . . .committee/volunteer work is my favorite thing to do at the office.

I love the brainstorming and the excitement that thinking of new ideas seems to bring to a group. We were pumped by the time we left that room!

We talked about the corporate wellness program and we got pretty excited about next year. We have plans for a "Walk the Lewis and Clark trail" challenge and a "Biggest Loser" challenge, someone has planted the idea of having a smoke free campus (BIG Deal for us!) and we are using the Biggest Loser challenge to promote lifestyle changes by exercise and healthy eating. (which we are trying to emphasize doesn't mean you have to go on a no carb, no dairy, no sugars, or NO FUN diet)

And I was excited until when it came time to get this ready to present to the managers that support this team . . . .

it came to me to put it into a presentation and type it up.

sigh.

I really wish this team was a paid position because I'd love to do it full time but . . . Nope.


Oh well, its for the good of the company. Hurrah and all that jazz.

However, for the second day in a row, Alaina came home with a 'certificate' for using the potty again.

YES!!!!

Not quite a failure

So . . . the potty training didn't go as expected.

I had thought that Alaina wasn't using the potty simply because diapers were convenient. .

But I was wrong.

The first day we had wet pants by 11:30 am. No big deal, but when I laid her down for a nap I put a diaper on so that she wouldn't wake up because she was wet.

the day came and went with no potty in the potty chair (and yes mimi, I did try pouring a little warm water on her to jump start the process with no luck.)

The next day, she had a BM in training pants and was so distressed by it that I ended up putting a pull up on her for the rest of the day . . .

I was ready to declare this weekend unsuccessful, but this morning she woke up with a dry diaper and asked to sit on the potty.

She didn't potty in the chair, but the fact that she asked makes me think we are making some good progress!

Put to the test . . .

So before my big mommy story I do have to say I have an interview with "the card store" and BandBWorks tomorrow. We'll see if they look better than Younk*rs.

Yesterday if you have a Younk*rs card you received 20% off of your purchase. So Right after daycare I took Alaina shopping.

Oops, big mistake.

Alaina was bent on doing everything her way yesterday, which meant not staying close to me and ramming the stroller into things.

We had a little talk and decided that we would go home. She decided not to get back in the stroller as suggested by me, so I carried her out the store while I pushed the stroller.

The End. . . .

You mean you don't believe the Idyllic version?

Fair enough.

If someone else would have told the story they might have said it this way.

The little girl stood in the middle of the store and yelled Uh-Uh! at her mother every time the Mother told her she needed to get in the stroller or they would leave, except instead of leaving she gave her about 16 other choices, before she hauled the child up, who by now was wailing and screaming and kicking and carried her back the the elevator.

She wailed all the way out to the car . .
Through the one block drive home . . .
And for the next 45 minutes at least until she finally ran out of steam and decided she needed a drink of milk and to blow her nose.

The moral of the story is

Well there isn't one, but I'm proud of myself for not giving in and letting her win the battle of wits.

Just call me the Sicilian . . . .

AlainaB Training Pants!

They finally posted the schedule for next week for Younkers and guess who got the entire weekend off? That's right me! And without asking!!!

Yaay!

However, this also brings the perfect opportunity for potty training . . .the training pants way!
Alaina just doesn't seem to get the point that having a wet/poopy diaper is an undesirable thing. So I'm going to go all out and put her in training pants this weekend to reinforce the joys of potty training.

I may sound brave, but inside, I'm trembling. I'm hoping she learns a bit this weekend, because the mess that I envision isn't very appealing. Thinking about the nice new carpet in the bedrooms and hall and the white carpet everywhere else gives me quite the deathly pallor.

But it must be done. The praise and encouragement to sit on the potty chair just isn't sinking in.

But enough about the weekend. I have two other things to bog about today.

Thing One.

How hard can it possibly be to find the wallet I want? They need to have a mix and match line that you can add and subtract pieces from. I have some very specific needs that I would like fulfilled.

1) windowed holder for DL - removable if possible
2) 6-10 credit card holders - and why does everything have to have a punch card or rewards card these days?
3) REMOVABLE checkbook (this is kind of optional because I don't carry it often, but I would if it fit nicely into my current wallet.
4) zippered coin holder INSIDE the wallet
5) I would prefer a zip close wallet over all but I really just want a wallet that closes securely
6) I want it long and skinny because I HATE folding dollar bills.
7) Multiple large side pockets for floating media . . .

I mean how hard should that be to find? ; )

Thing Two

Last night after Alaina's bath, we marched downstairs to pick out our pj's

Which led to a lot of hopping since she picked the frog pajamas.

After she practiced "hopping" into the pants, Alaina was being silly and suddenly turned to face Jeff and I and began doing the most impressive belly roll I had ever seen! You know, like Mike Myers in Wayne's World (for some reason that's the only example I can think of. . .)

Jeff and I struggled not to laugh too hard at her since we were trying to keep our game faces on for bedtime.

But we were failing.

I'm not sure yet, but is this a pretty neat thing for your kid to do?
Do I giggle at her antics, thus encouraging the development of the belly roll . . .

or do I stay straight-faced and try to keep her from seeing how impressed I am by her muscle control?

Holiday? What Holiday?

I had forgotten the thrills of working retail over holidays. . . .

I worked everyday this weekend at my parttime job and am looking forward to having two evenings off. I worked up until the start of the Husker game and then decided I just couldn't sit around watching tv, so a friend who was down from up by South Dakota and I went shopping at SouthPoint.

She mentioned that her husband would be very angry if they started talking politics while we were gone. I was a little surprised that they woudl feel that was because isn't everybody talking politics these days?

That of course led us to have a bit of a heated discussion about politics of course.

She feels it doesn't matter who gets into the white house because all politicians lie.

I stated one of my main reasons to vote was that I felt our soldiers should be brought home and I felt that Obama would be most likely to make it happen . . .

And the feces hit the fan.

I was not so peaceably informed that many of the soldiers who have returned home have said they are doing a lot of good and I shouldn't think that our assistance in the mid-east is worthless.

Okay, please scroll back up at this point and see if I made any negative statement about what our soldiers are doing overseas.

Really? You mean I didn't scream obscenities about war and billions of dollars and rant about the evils of oil?

I've tried to learn the subtle art of polite politics discussion and I have the talk about war down to a science (I hope.) I simply feel that our nation is struggling right now and that it is time to focus more on internal problems, which is hard to do while we are all gazing across the globe, worried for our loved ones safety.

The End. . . .that's all I try to state about the war with someone that I know doesn't share the same political beliefs.

Of course, everything else in our discussion went down hill from there . . . .On to other things.

Alaina spent the weekend with Jeff's parents. I missed her, but it is hard to create an argument to have her stay here while I was working most of the weekend out of the house. She got a lot more play time and fun with Grandma and Grandpa.

But that about sums up the weekend.

A quick note

So many things going through my mind right now . . .

Alaina came home after a week with Grandma and Grandpa B. Truly, that was too long to be without my little one, but since I had a going away party on Thursday night and worked my part time job on Friday, I didn't have a leg to stand on to argue for an early return home.

I tidied up our main floor bathroom a bit this week, but not to the level that I'm willing to display it on Org Junkie. Frankly I can't justify buying lots of containers that I may not use in a year because we are hoping to redo said bathroom. Also with the camera missing in action, I have nothing to display pics with anyway.

I'm about to breakdown and buy a little $100 - $150 camera to use temporarily because I feel my daughter's childhood slipping away. I mean seriously, did people cry at the end of everyday before cameras came around because they couldn't save clips of their lives for infinity? The way I feel right now, you would think so!

I guess that's about all I can squeeze out of my jumbled thoughts right now . . .