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 Good, the bad, and the Ugly. . .

The Good:

IT'S A GIRL!!!!

The Bad:

DAYCARE RATES WENT UP!!!

The Ugly:

Jeff and I spent an hour after Alaina went to bed sitting on the couch reading the books we picked up at the library. Jeff was reading Stephen Colbert's "I am America, and So Can You!" and I was reading Nina Garcia's "The 100: A guide to the pieces every stylish women should own." We took turns reading outloud things that we thought were interesting and funny and I can to one conclusion . . .

I have no fashion sense.

I cringed at half of the things mentioned in Nina's book. I have no desire to own a designer purse, a hobo bag, espadrilles or a kaftan. Yep, I am doomed. I think I had about 5 things on the list.

My fashion sense is ugly!

I liked all the little tips in the book about accesorizing. I think that I could make/buy a few of the essentials, but the few things that I really took to heart where the recommended coats. I still have to repair my peacoat from 1998 to wear again because they are THAT CLASSIC!

And starting next year, the search is on for the perfect trench coat.

Big Weekend leads to big weekday . . .

This was supposed to be my weekend to be the big event planner for Alumni . . .but I didn't get near as much completed as I wanted too . . . but I did get three more addresses.

I now only need 3 addresses, 2 of which are probably one call away . . .

I need to send out an announcement letter by Monday Jan 19th as a save the date.

I need to remember to bring home tylenol from work.

It was an aches and pains weekend. I can't seem to shake the nasty backache and headache that are plagueing me this pregnancy. It may just be rose colored glasses and all that, but I don't remember having this many aches and pains last time.

At least not this early, ANYWAY . . .

We have a great potty training weekend! Lots of trips to the toilet, not a single poopy pull-up. And we were rewarded with many treats and MPH pieces.

And to top it all off . . . we watched Snow White for the first time. It wasn't as scary as I remembered it for a 2-going-on-14-year-old I guess, but a few questions were brought up that I had to ponder before I answered.

Asked after the Queen transforms into the old hag-
Q: Where's the queen?
A: She's dressed up as the old lady to be sneaky.

Asked after the Queen falls off the cliff-
Q: Where did the queen go?
A: She went away. The dwarves made her go away because she wasn't being nice.

How did I do?

Oh and today is the big baby day. ULTRASOUND! Hopefully the little one cooperates and we get a good picture. If I can I'll update this post later today . . .

MPH

I still marvel at the intelligence of a two year old.

She is cunning, sneaky, coniving . . . which is probably why she and the cat can't seem to get along.

To set the premise for the story meet the I must tell you about the Mr. Potato Head plan. For christmas, someone got the bright idea to give my daughter a Mr. Potato Head accessory pack. The plan was brilliant, except we don't have a Mr. Potato Head. Said cunning intelligent child immediately recognize what these pieces were for (I saw a Mr. Potato Head at daycare a few days later . . .) and kept asking in a small sniffly voice where her "Tomato" was.

So I decided to buy her one . . they can't be more than $5-7 dollars right?

Wrong.

The only Mr. Potato Head dolls that I could find where an R2-D2 potato head for $15, an Optimus Prime spud for $11 and a Santa spud for $7 on clearance and the BIG BAD POTATO depicted above.

The 80th anniversary Delux Mr. Potato Set. The Potato is about 2 feet tall, the hat comes off so that you can get to the pieces inside, and you can remove the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears from the container itself. From here I out I will dub the big guy MPH.

So I broke down and bought MPH for $18. Not a bad deal considering the amount of pieces you get compared to the five pieces with the other small spuds. I told Alaina she could pick out a piece everytime she went potty in the toilet and two pieces for everytime she went poop.

So on to our Goldilock adventure this morning. . . .

Joy of all joys, she woke up with a dry pull up so I corralled her immediately into the bathroom where we had to fuss with whether to use the big toilet or her little potty, first sitting on one and then the other.

This of course was a big improvement over yesterday, where when I praised her for having a dry pull up, she demanded to be changed. I said she didn't need to be changed because she was dry, so she paused, pottied in her dry pull up right then and there and demanded to be changed because she was now wet . . .

sigh

Anyway, back to goldilocks

The toilet was too big - so we pottied in the potty chair for the first time in months. But she wanted to prove that she was actually going potty, so she proceeded to try and show me while she was going, creating a bit of a mess.

The stepping stool was too small to use to wash her hands - So I had to fetch the chair from her table. But because she wanted to get it all by herself and I wanted to hurry, we comprimised and I brought it from the other room to the doorway to the bathroom and she carried it to the sink.

And since she did everything just right . . .she reminded me that she could pick out another piece for MPH. She hasn't remembered this deal since we bought MPH on Jan 1st, but this morning as we were running late, it was very important to get her pieces out because she had forgotten to get one last night so she was rewarded with 2 arms.

The morning progressed at a crawl as she demanded a drink of milk, then a drink of water, her gummy vitamins, two scobby snack, her makeup (transluscent powder and shiny chapstick), and two ponies (pigtails) on her head, and more scoobies.

I caved on all demands except the pigtails.

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.

Fashion Show!

Happy New Year!

My resolution is to get through this pregnancy!

Actually, I resolve this year to keep a better handle on the family finances which entails sticking my nose into my husbands sacred bill paying area, which iritates him to no end. But since I do all of the extra curricular spending (groceries, clothes, gifts) I need to be able to justify spending.

Add on resolutions:
1) Get more organized at work.
2) Get more organized at home.
3) Stay active (I'm wearing my pedometer today for the first time in months!)


And that's about it. Nothing that I can really fail at on the list yet, but I try to keep things vague because they I can't fail at them, but can recommit to them throughout the year.

But have I got a tale for New Years:
I hope that everyone had a great time with friends or family, because I spent my New Years Eve cleaning my house.

Yes I know, not a big deal . . .until I tell you why.

I , for once, was not the person who dropped communication in our house. My husband forgot to inform me that his parents were staying with us New Years Eve.

Exciting.

Not really a big deal except my husband decided he needed to set up his "man cave" downstairs,

Which involved:
Moving a large TV downstairs,
Moving ALL of the extra TVs in the house to said area,
Moving ALL couches in the basement to sit around the TVs,
Not entertaining our daughter,
Cleaning the typically unused bar and organizing the alcohol in it,
vacuuming done by my mother in law,
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I was not a happy camper all evening because my plan had been to fix the chili for our bowl game party and then sit down to enjoy watching Anderson Cooper try to keep Kathy Griffith in line on CCN for the New York City ball drop.

Turns out, I had to madly clean the upstairs to make it presentable (sorry I didn't do this for you sis) because it was a mess and then made the chili at 10 p.m. while my husband and his parents fell asleep on the couch watching my beloved Anderson.

*sigh*

At least I got to consume a whole bottle of sparkling non-alcoholic apple juice by myself in the kitchen while I cooked.

And p.s. - GO HUSKERS! I LOVE YOU PELINI!