Monthly Archive for July, 2007

But spiders are scary!

Published on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 in Blog Business. Closed

I’m trying a new thing on Technorati. One of these links is for this site, including the WordPress stuff, and the other is for this site without the WordPress stuff in the link. (If this doesn’t make sense, just ignore this post. It’s all for technical mumbo-jumbo purposes anyway.)

Technorati Profile
Technorati Profile

It’s actually asking me to click on a button that says, “Release the Spiders!” *shudder*

Okay, that wasn’t too scary. Now, I have a cute little button to add to this site. I wonder if it works?

Until I get my re-design up and running, here it is:

Don’t talk with your mouth full…

Published on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 in Claire and Photos. Closed

Claire has a lot of hats, but I couldn’t resist getting her another one. It is part of a swimsuit set I got for her this weekend. As you can see, it comes with a built in chew-toy! How convenient!

Mmmmm…tasty! Here she is mid-chomp…not very lady-like, but pretty cute, nonetheless.

Floor tile installed? Check!

Published on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 in Home Improvement, Home Improvement - Master Bath and Photos. Closed

We got the floor tile installed last night! Here is a picture of the progress so far:

Installing it over the heating element was pretty tricky, but not as bad as we thought it would be. We used a plastic trowel, so as not to nick the element, and it actually went very smoothly. It helped that we’d painstakingly fastened the mat to the floor.

Now, all we need to do is grout all the tiles (wall and floor) and paint the walls! (We’ll refinish the cabinet and sinks later…our main goal was the shower area and the floor in front of the sinks.)

The end is in sight!

20-months old today!

Published on Monday, July 30, 2007 in Claire, Milestones, Month-at-a-glance and Photos. Closed

My baby is 20-months old today! I know it sounds so cliché, but I just cannot believe how time flies. It seems as though we’ve been in a whirlwind up to this point, and at other times, I can’t remember a time without her.

I took this picture today. Try not to be distracted by the zebra-print created by the reflection of the dining room blinds on our child-proofing guard on the railing!

The insane twister game

Published on Monday, July 30, 2007 in Claire, Home Improvement, Home Improvement - Master Bath and Photos. Closed

We had a great weekend!

We continued working on the Master Bathroom Remodeling Project, which has included gutting that bathroom, installing tiles on the shower walls, putting in a heated floor and then tiling the floors. We have the tiling of the walls done, and we’ve been working on the floors. All the cement backerboard has been installed, and this weekend was devoted to the installation of the heated flooring system.

Saturday, my handyman hubby got a lot of the floor tiles cut and then our babysitter (we’ll call her Molly) came to play with Claire while we went out downtown with a couple of friends. Claire was so happy to see Molly, and when we told her we were going bye-bye and would be back later, she wouldn’t even stop playing, and just said, “Bye-Bye, Momma! Bye-Bye, Daddy!” Kinda like, “Okay, great! Get outta here, already.” It was pretty funny. Molly said she was great and cried for “not even a minute” when she put her down for bed. Whew!!

Sunday, we got the rest of the floor tiles cut and the heating element installed for the heated floor. We wanted to get all that done plus the floor mudded and tiles installed on top of the element, but we didn’t get to that point until 7:30 p.m.!! The heating element is pretty straight-forward, but tricky. It’s very delicate, so you have to be very careful with it. We checked the conductivity three times, and it still works (in theory), so we should be good to go. He is coming home early today so that we can mud and install the tile. We’ll test it one more time after that, and then it should be good. (We’ll probably test it again after we grout, just to be sure nothing gets nicked in that process, too. After the floor is grouted, it should be okay.) We just have to be sure that no one drills through the floor and into it, in the future.

We are both sore and exhausted today, but we consider it a great weekend. I’m so glad we got the heating element installed. Putting it down was like this insane game of twister. On one hand, it’s simple. “Roll it out. Fasten it to the floor. Install your flooring!” On the other hand, there are all these “rules” that apply, which make it not so simple after all. For example, the blue wire can’t cross itself (“Don’t cross the streams!!”), and it can’t be closer than two inches to itself. It needs to be 4 to 6 inches from the walls/showers/toilet, etc.

It comes in a big roll, woven into an orange mesh. You lay that down and then cut (or remove) the orange mesh to free up the wire to do turns and flip it around to fit your area. You use hot glue to attach the blue element on the floor and double-sided tape to stick the orange mesh to the floor. Oh, and try not to step on it as you’re doing all this. (Which means you have 4 inches of walking space along the wall and maybe three inches between each element ‘loop.’ Oh, and don’t accidentally stand on the double-sided tape with your bare feet. And? Hot glue is really hot.)

My hubby is really intelligent when it comes to projects, but he could just not get his head around how we were supposed to cut the orange mesh and flip the mat to get the starting point where we needed it to be. (Oh, that was another rule! The end of the mat connected to the wiring had to be at least one foot from the shower opening AND had to be as close as possible to the opposite – inside – wall, which is technically in the middle of the mat). I’m not a genius, by any means, but for some reason it was very clear to me how we had to do this. (Luckily!! Or, we’d still be there scratching our heads.) He just didn’t get it. He handed me the scissors and told me to start cutting. (Gee, no pressure!!) So, I did, and by the time I got things kind of laid out the light bulb went off in his head, and he got it. Whew!!

Anyway, while the tile-cutter was working in the garage, I took Claire to Target yesterday for groceries and found the cutest swimsuit outfit for her (for our trip to Santa Fe). She insisted on wearing the hat throughout the rest of the visit to the store, and the nice lady in the check-out scanned it first so that it could be put back on the Princess’ head.

Oh, speaking of Claire…you may be wondering where she was during the insane twister game? We set up the pack-n-play from the trip so that she could see us and play with her toys. It worked like a charm!

A new milestone

Published on Friday, July 27, 2007 in Claire, It's a paycheck, Language, Milestones and Parenting 101. Closed

Well, we’ve reached a new milestone. Claire successfully took off her diaper to pee on her bed. It’s so much more difficult to pee on your bed with that nuisance of a diaper in the way. Luckily she did it while standing up, so most of it got on the floor. How convenient! I need to be a little more prompt in getting her out of bed when she has her nighty on (as opposed to her PJ bottoms), I guess!

Normally, I let her play in her crib in the mornings before getting her up for the day. Selfishly, this allows me to do some more work in my office, and she really doesn’t seem to mind, so I figured it was a win-win situation. Lately, however, my days of doing files in the morning have been limited, and with this new development, it may be time for a schedule change on my part. I either have to get up at the crack of dawn or really try to hit the files hard later in the day. The only constant is change…

After discovering what had happened, I got her to sit on the potty, but apparently, she’d done all she had to do on the mattress. I’ll take her a couple more times today to see what happens. I just know that once it happens on the potty she’ll really understand what’s supposed to happen on the potty.

The cool part about all this? She told me she’d done it. She told me she took off her diaper and peed. I guess we’re making some sort of progress. She’s not even 20-months old yet, so I’m not worried.

In the meantime, the files just keep piling in, and I’m trying to take deep breaths.

Is it time to go home yet?
Oh, that’s right.
I live here.

Attack of the poisoned potatoes

Published on Friday, July 27, 2007 in Christmas, Claire, Language, Milestones and Parenting 101. 3 Comments

I can be a pretty sarcastic person. I’m not a mean sarcastic person, necessarily, but I love a punny exchange and quick, light-hearted banter. I’m very careful not to swear in mixed company, but I haven’t quite figured out how to turn off my sarcasm when around small children.

Small children don’t get sarcasm, and why should they? Kudos to them for actually understanding the words that are being said let alone the nuances of sarcasm. In fact, I know some adults that are still learning.

One of my sisters still looks at me sideways for making one of her boys cry at the Christmas Dinner table last year. We were all sitting around my parents’ table, and because there were so many of us there, we were all jammed in pretty tightly. It was hard to get up from the table, so my mom had actually made two dishes of certain popular items, so that we didn’t have to pass around the hot dishes and/or get up from our place to get another serving.

So, we’re all sitting there, shoveling food into our mouths, laughing and having a good ol’ time. (Meals at my parents’ house are far from quiet.) My brother-in-law asks me if I could pass the potato casserole. Neither he nor I realized that there was one on our side of the table, so I asked Mom to pass the potatoes. She tells us that she’s not going to, because there is one down there by us. So, I look at my brother-in-law and say, “She won’t give them to me. The potatoes must be poisoned. We need to eat these.” Everyone laughed, and we went on shoveling food in our mouths.

A few minutes later, my sister notices that her three-year old is really quiet, and he’s crying. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “I don’t want Daddy to die!” he said. “Why would Daddy die?” my sister asks. “Because the potatoes are poisoned, and I saw him eat them!!”

“Oh no! No, the potatoes aren’t poisoned, even though your aunt, one of those trusted adults, said they were.” Uhhh…oops!

So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, it’s been seven months, and I’m still having trouble with turning the sarcasm off. The other night, I found a squished raisin on Claire’s bib, and I said, “Oh! What is that? A bug!?” I know it’s not a bug. I’ve jokingly called raisins bugs for years. I realized my mistake as soon as I heard myself say it. It all happened in slow motion, and I tried to suck that word back into my mouth, but it was too late.

Great. Getting Claire to eat raisins is already an intricate game, and now you’ve referred to them as bugs! Good goin’, Momma.

Claire seemed a little confused, and handed it to me like it was a bug. Immediately, I tried to distract her with some other things, so hopefully Momma’s little comment is forgotten.

I know I need to try my hardest to behave from here on out. And, if I don’t succeed, my daughter will be the only child in Kindergarten that makes the other kids cry with her sarcastic remarks.

It will be our little secret

Published on Thursday, July 26, 2007 in Claire, Milestones and Parenting 101. Closed

Claire gets to try all kinds of new foods when we go to a really cool salad bar/buffet place close to our house. It’s actually the perfect place to try new things, because they have such a big variety of items, and you’re not stuck with a huge container of whatever it is if it doesn’t suit someone’s fancy.

One night, we stumbled upon her love of raisins. She ate them by the fistfuls; she just could not get enough! So, on our next grocery run, I bought a box of raisins for her. I put some on her tray that day for lunch, and she would have nothing to do with them. I ended up putting them back in the container, wondering about the quirkiness of my child’s eating habits.

That night, Daddy got home and saw that I’d bought raisins. He loves raisins, so he grabbed a handful and gave some to Claire. She gobbled them right up! Okay…maybe she does like raisins, after all. The next day, I put some on her tray, and she just pushed them around and refused to eat them. Hmmm. Sure enough, that night, Daddy comes home, gives her raisins, and she acted like she couldn’t get enough. These are the best food ever! Thanks, Daddy!

This same pattern went on for weeks. It didn’t matter what meal it was, if I was involved in the doling out of the raisins, she didn’t want anything to do with it. As soon as I’d leave the room, (or even turn and look away!) she’d thank Daddy and eat them by the handfuls.

Last night, I had to go finish up some things in my office, so Daddy and Claire were hanging out in the kitchen. On my way down the hall, I could hear him talking to Claire. “Here, Claire. Do you want some raisins? Momma said you only like the raisins if I give them to you. That’s okay. It’ll be our little secret. Momma doesn’t really like raisins anyway…but you and I know that raisins are yummy!”

It’s true. I’ve always thought they looked like bugs.

The Princess and the P…ieces of Peaches

Published on Wednesday, July 25, 2007 in Claire, Language and Parenting 101. 2 Comments

I’m sure you know the story of The Princess and the Pea, by Hans Christian Andersen. If not, google it. It’s a wacky little story about how a true princess was bothered all night by a teeny-tiny pea that had been hidden under a stack of mattresses (20 mattresses and 20 feather pillow-tops, to be exact). These must be old Danish mattresses, because I’m not sure how she would be able to get on top of 20 mattresses and 20 feather beds by today’s standards.

Anyway, this story popped into my head today as Claire was trying to eat the “yo” she’d demanded. Claire’s word for yogurt is “yo.” Usually, she calls it “Daddy’s Yo,” because my hubby always has a lot of yogurts in the fridge to take to work. He’s told us both, time and again…they are his yogurts. Thankfully, there’s always enough Yo to go around.

So, it’s breakfast-time, and we’re sitting in the kitchen, and Claire asks for Yo. I said earlier that she demanded it, but she was actually quite polite and added the “Please Momma…” to her request. She LOVES the Maple Syrup version (don’t ask), the Cherry version, and the Banana & Vanilla version, and before our trip, she would eat the Peach version as well.

On the trip, Granny served a different kind of peach yogurt that was totally unacceptable to the Princess, and she would have none of it. Granny had the audacity to serve peach-colored yogurt that tasted more like peaches than real peaches do. She had no way of knowing that the peach yogurt we have here is white with peach chunks, and just tastes like a peach wearing peach fragrance walked by the table on the way out the door.

Anyway…I pour the Peach Yo into a bowl and put in front of Claire. Normally, I have to pull my hand away quickly for fear of it being eaten as well. This time, she shoveled a spoonful in her mouth and made a funny face. She then proceeded to stir it and watch the chunks drip off the spoon. She wouldn’t take another bite! She would only eat the yogurt that didn’t have chunks in it, and do you know how hard it is to strain peach chunks out of yogurt!?

Life is entirely too short for that process.

I poured it into another container and opened a Chunk-less Banana & Vanilla Yo for the Princess. That time, I nearly lost a finger.

Almost caught up

Published on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 in Blog Business, Claire and It's a paycheck. 2 Comments

Well, the “offline blog” is almost completely transferred and edited. I’m almost caught up to the present day. The only things left in the “offline blog” are some random story ideas and the notes from our Tour of the Midwestern Trifecta. Because we just got back on Saturday night, and my hubby got my blog up and running on Sunday, I haven’t had much time to get those thoughts organized. I will. One of my main objectives was to get all my previously completed content on the website, and I think I have that goal accomplished.

No, I’m not obsessing.
Okay, maybe I’m obsessing a tiny bit.

But, it could be worse! I still worked on files today, and I didn’t stay up past my bedtime last night, and I didn’t get up at the crack of dawn to work on my blog…and Claire is clothed, fed, and happily playing right here. What more do you want?