So pretty

My stove arrived yesterday. It is so pretty. I can't wait to be able to use it.

Mike worked on converting it from natural gas to propane last night. Hopefully he'll be able to get the rest of the installation done tonight.

My doctor's appointment went very well. I have gained a total of 7 pounds so far. Well, I've actually gained 10, but I lost 3 during the first trimester's barf fest, so the net gain is 7. I think that's pretty good, considering that any cookie or dish of ice cream is in mortal peril if I am nearby.

I also took my glucose tolerance test and haven't heard anything, so I guess that means I passed. I'm sure I'll hear from them if there was a problem.

I don't have much else to tell you guys. Hopefully I'll have more exciting news (and pictures of the functioning stove) later.

Finished!!

I finished my cross-stitch this morning. That gold cording on Santa's jacket was a pain in the butt. But it is still very exciting to me to have this one done. I think I started it sometime early last year. There were a couple of months where I didn't work on it at all, so finishing it in about 15 months seems pretty good to me. Now I have to figure out what I'm working on next.

I bought this pattern, but I'm not sure I want to go from one really involved project to another one.

I have an OB check-up this morning and the glucose tolerance test. I'll post an update later today with any exciting baby-related news. I'm not expecting anything to be out of the ordinary, so it should be a pretty quick appointment. Lucy has been feeling very frisky the past few days, kicking and rolling and generally making her presence known. I love this part of being pregnant. I'm not huge yet, but I look pregnant and I can feel the baby moving. Lots of fun!

Keep the email addresses coming! I've had lots of fun writing back to everyone who comments.

3 things that make me smile

You can't see it very well here, but Emily has a bunch of curly ribbons in her hair. She looked so darn cute yesterday after her hair cut.

The stove has been removed. That right there is enough to make me smile. I painted the wall on Sunday and am so pleased with how it came out. It blended with the existing paint well and only has 1 drip and 1 bit of fuzz from the roller stuck in it. I think I might be getting the hang of this painting thing. I hate painting when I'm pregnant, though.

Sigh. So pretty. Spring is coming.
These crocuses (croci?) are in a little garden in our front yard, near the road. I see them out of the corner of my eye as I drive away and they make me smile every time.

Now it's your turn. Tell me what is making you smile today.

*******
On a totally different subject, I would love it if you guys would include your email addresses with your comments. I love getting the comments and always want to respond, but Blogger doesn't give me your email address when you comment. I know that spam is a problem. I promise I won't send you chain emails. If you put your email address in the comments like this: erin[at]looneybin[dot]com, I think the spammers can't get it.

Books

I'm borrowing this meme from Jess. I'm usually pretty good about returning books I've borrowed and I'm a quick reader, so I'm getting it right back to her.

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?
I don't really have a preference, but usually wind up buying paperback, just because they are less expensive.

Amazon or brick and mortar?
Brick and mortar. There's something about going into a store and wandering among the shelves and shelves of pretty books. I find it so much easier to browse in a brick and mortar store.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?
Meh. Either. I don't have any great attachment to either one.

Bookmark or dogear?
I try to be a good book reader and use a bookmark, but when one isn't handy I have been known to dogear the page. And I don't use actual bookmarks. My current book is marked with my jury summons from January.

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random?
Only my Reader's Digest Condensed books are organized at all, and they are grouped by dust jacket color. Everything else is sort of stuffed on a shelf, somewhat sorted by size.

Keep, throw away, or sell?
Keep the really good ones, give some away and am trying to get my stuff together enough to sell the rest. (Anyone a seller who has tips? I would love to hear them. It sounds like the local used bookstores aren't interested in my books.)

Keep dust jacket or toss it?
Keep it. That's part of the book. Throwing it away would be like ripping out a page!

Read with dust jacket on or remove it?
Take it off. They have to stay pretty. I put them back on after I am done reading.

Short story or novel?
Novel. Short stories always leave me wishing I knew the rest of the story. They just aren't long enough for me.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)?
Either, I suppose. I really tend to stay away from short stories. They frustrate me too much.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
Harry Potter. I never got into the Lemony Snicket thing.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?
It depends. If a chapter break isn't in sight, I'll stop at a page where the sentence ends at the bottom of the page.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?
I guess neither. They both are kind of overused.

Buy or Borrow?
Borrow.

New or used?
Either. Though I don't often go to used book stores, I should.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse?
Browse.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
Tidy ending.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading?
I read whenever I can. Usually that is at night, after kidlet has gone to bed.

Stand-alone or series?
Stand alone, for the most part. I have enjoyed the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I read the whole Mitford series, but felt like the last couple weren't as good as the rest. And I cannot wait for the last HP to come out.

Favorite series?
Either Little House on the Prairie or Anne of Green Gables. I am looking forward to introducing Emily to these books. They were some of my favorites as a kid.

Favorite children's book?
The Phantom Tollbooth, any of the Anne of Green Gables series.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?
Rascal by Sterling North

Favorite books read last year?
Last year? I don't remember that far back.

Favorite books of all time?
Wow. That's quite a title to give to a book. Maybe The Watchers by Dean Koontz. Or something by James Herriot. To qualify as a favorite book of all time for me it would have to be one that I can go back and re-read and still enjoy just as much as when I read it the first time. Most books don't stand up to that for me.

Least favorite book you finished last year?
I can't think of one. I have started to give up on books that I am not enjoying. My reading time is so precious, why waste it reading something that isn't enjoyable?

What was the last book you finished?
Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult. Very good, but intense. And somewhat frustrating, because you never really find out whodunnit. (sorry, hope I didn't ruin that for anyone!)

What are you reading right now?
Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult.

What are you reading next?
Either another Jodi Picoult (mom and I stocked up when a bookstore went out of business last month) or a Reader's Digest condensed book. Or something else to be determined.

Feel free to borrow this! :) Keep it as long as you like.

Something not so clever

On a typical day, I sit down after Emily goes down for her nap to check the blogs I read. The list in my Favorites is lengthy, about 45 different blogs. Not all these are updated every day and though I want to, I usually don't comment on every one. In fact, as those of you with blogs know, I rarely comment, even though I stop by daily.

Yesterday I went to leave a comment on a blog and discovered that I couldn't. Because I had been banned by the webmaster.

*sound of needle scratching across record* WHAT?!

I have commented a couple of times on her site, nothing recently (I think the last comment I left was congratulating her on her pregnancy) and have never heard anything from her. She never indicated that I said something to upset her.

I found the email address of the owner of the blog and sent her an email. In the note, I said something to the effect of sorry if I've offended you and then included the comment I was going to leave.

I haven't heard anything from her in response to my message.

At the time, I thought there must have been some misunderstanding that caused her to ban me from commenting on her site, but the more I think about it, the more upset I get.

Like everyone, I want people to like me and I work very hard to be considerate when leaving a comment so that my meaning is not misconstrued.

I am very confused and hurt by this, especially by her lack of response to my email or even a message telling me "hey, you're banned because of x." It seems like if you are going to ban someone you should at least take the time to tell the person what they have done to warrant such an action.

I'm starting to wonder if the banning was some sort of popularity thing. I don't get it. Anyway, I have decided that I'm going to cut my losses. I'm going to remove her site from my Favorites list (ooh! so mean!) and I'm not going back there.

On Politics

Recently, Governer Elliot Spitzer introduced his budget (health care reform? I'm not sure) in New York. Apparently, it calls for some cuts to health care, specifically nurses and nursing homes.

And ever since, we have been subjected to political commercials from both sides. It's like election season all over again.

The "against" side is especially annoying. One spot features nurses discussing why they feel that the cuts are a personal affront against them, as though the Governor said "Thank you for your vote. Screw you." Another one features elderly women who voted for Gov. Spitzer, again with the personal affront.

The "for" side is slightly better, if only because they don't seem to have purchased as much air time.

I hate election time because of all the negative campaigning that happens on television.

I admit that I don't know the issue and, frankly, I don't care. Do what you need to do to make the taxes in New York be more on a par with the rest of the country, give me a property tax rebate and let's move on.

Ok, back to posts about my kid... :)

Happy St Patrick's Day!

This is what we saw when we woke up this morning. So far, it looks like we've had 6 or so inches of snow and it just keeps coming! So much for the temperatures in the 60s we had earlier this week. It is definitely still winter here.

We're going to have corned beef and cabbage for dinner (though I forgot to buy the cabbage so I have to go back to the store to get it. grr). And I'm going to try to find some kind of Irish dessert to make.

Now we're cooking with gas!

Mike and I decided this week to use some of our tax refund to replace the stove in our kitchen. I have spent the majority of the week running around to appliance stores trying to decide what I want in a stove and how much that will cost us.
This is a picture of our current stove. It is 28 years old. The upper oven doesn't work and it takes approximately 3 years for the lower oven to preheat. (Oh, and the dishes in the sink are clean. :))

After lots of research and price comparisons and arguing with salespeople because they wanted to charge me extra for a bisque-colored stove, we went with this: It has 5 burners, a fancy split rack in the oven, a self-cleaning oven, and umm... is related to one of the Consumer Reports Best Buys.

The abject terror of spending so much money in one go has started to wear off and now I'm starting to get really excited (it helps that I'm making brownies in the old oven and had to start preheating 30 minutes before I wanted to start cooking). We're also talking about putting in a microwave-hood thing above the stove and a cupboard above that (if we do the micro-hood we have to have a cupboard to install it to). We'll see how that goes. I kind of busted the budget on the stove, so the hood and cupboard might have to wait a while.

It is being ordered, so it should be here in the next week to 10 days. And before that, we have to pull the old stove out and make sure that there is a 110 volt outlet behind it for the new stove. Oh, and it has been at least 2 years since someone has cleaned behind there, so I'll have to do some cleaning. And possibly some painting, if Mike's mom didn't paint behind the old stove. I'm kind of betting she didn't.

So! New stove! Such exciting lives we lead... :) I'll post pictures when it arrives. It's going to look so pretty!

Cancelled

I took Emily to the orthopedic surgeon today.

I was very impressed by this place. For starters, it was HUGE. I put Emily in her stroller and loaded her up with a sippy cup and cheerios just in case we had to wait a long time. We were out in the waiting room for less than 5 minutes before the nurse brought us back to the room. She walked us through a large maze of rooms and hallways until I was sorry I hadn't dropped cheerios as a bread trail to find my way back out. As she showed us into the exam room, she said that the doctor would be with us in a minute.

And, about a minute later, the doctor walked in.

He talked with me for a few minutes and then had me strip Emily down to her diaper and had her walk up and down the hall so he could see how she walks. He examined her and then said that he doesn't think that her in-toeing is a problem that needs to be corrected. He said that in most cases, the leg corrects itself as the kid gets bigger.

He also said that orthopedic doctors have started to notice an interesting group of characteristics among kids with in-toeing. He said that for the most part, they are early walkers (Emily walked at 9.5 months), active children, athletic and grow up to have nice legs. He said he doesn't think that the in-toeing causes all of those things, but that in-toeing is part of the package.

I have always planned on putting Emily into soccer and other sports when she is big enough, mostly because she kicked the heck out of me when I was pregnant with her. And her little sister is going to join her. Lucy is even more kicky than Emily was and that's saying quite a bit. This kid is always flailing some body part around. When I wake up at night, Lucy's kicking merrily away. Sit down during the day? Wham! There's one in the bladder for you, Mom.

So anyways, I have cancelled the appointment to have the cast put on. We'll keep an eye on it and if it looks like her leg is giving her problems then we can reconsider the casting option.

De-germing

This afternoon, while Emily napped, I went on a disinfecting spree.

I took several antibiotic wipes and went around the house wiping down every germ-laden surface I could think of. I wiped down the counters in the kitchen, the cupboard doors, the knobs on the stove, the microwave control pad and door, the control panel on the dishwasher, the faucet handle, the liquid soap dispenser handle, all doorknobs, all light switches, all baby gates, the cordless phones, the remote controls, the coffee table in the living room, the end table where my laptop lives, the table where the phone and remote controls live (also where tissues might accumulate until one of us got the energy to dispose of them. I know, ick), the handles on the stove and the coal bucket and shovel, the keyboard of my laptop, Mike's alarm clock, Emily's crib and changing table (done this evening since I didn't want to wake her up from her nap!), the handles on the toilets, and um, I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of it right now. I used a bunch of wipes.

I threw out all our toothbrushes and took the communal cups from the bathrooms and brought them into the kitchen to be run through the dishwasher. In all fairness, the cup from the non-master bathroom probably doesn't need to be washed, but I'm not taking any chances! I bought disposable paper cups to use in the bathrooms for a while.

I also took the syringes I use to give Emily her medicine and put them in the dishwasher. (we go to Target where they have these cool things to insert into the necks of liquid medication bottles that allow you to use a syringe to dispense the medicine. It makes giving medicine super painless.)

Today was Emily's last day of antibiotics and the first day I didn't feel the need to take a decongestant. Mike's coughing is much improved today so it looks like I won't have to make good on my threat to send him back to the doctor. Yesterday, he couldn't go more than a minute without coughing. He said his chest and head were starting to hurt from coughing so much.

Hopefully the cleaning I did today will help us get out of this cold cycle. The weather is also improving and that will definitely help. It was in the 60s today (heat wave!) and I have had the sliding door open for most of the afternoon to get some fresh air in here. It smells like spring outside. It won't last, they are predicting snow for this weekend. But it is nice while it lasts...

Medicine Head

Last week, I went to Target and did my part to support the cough & cold product industry. I bought 3 different kinds of cough medicine in the hope that just one of them might help Mike stop coughing.

One of the medicines I bought was Delsym.

Mike took it Sunday morning to avoid coughing through church. As we were getting ready to leave for church Mike said suddenly that he was feeling very woozy. He recommended that I drive us to church, since he didn't feel up to it.

By the time church was over, the wooziness was gone and he seemed ok. He blamed the Delsym. I thought that was slightly odd, since I had taken it several years ago and didn't recall having a problem, but we're all different and Mike could be having a reaction to it that I didn't.

Sunday night Mike started coughing again in the middle of the night and couldn't stop. At 3 I got tired of listening to him and forced some more of the Delsym on him, even though he had sworn it off after the whole woozy thing earlier. I didn't care. I just wanted to sleep.

When we talked yesterday afternoon, Mike again said that he'd had the woozy feeling again when he woke up and that it lasted until 10 or 11 that morning. I told him why I had forced it on him and apologized for giving him medicine-head.

Last night Mike and I were discussing the advisability of him taking both the Delsym and a Tylenol Cold formula before going to bed to make sure that he wouldn't cough in his sleep. While we were looking at the ingredients on the bottles, Mike also looked at the dosing instructions for the Delsym.

They are: take 2 teaspoons every 12 hours.

Mike had been taking 2 TABLESPOONS.

Oops.

He had been taking 3 times the recommended dose.

No wonder he felt woozy.

Our little nudist

Emily has recently begun shedding her clothes at every opportunity.

It started with her socks, because those are easy. Then she started pulling her pants down and taking them off.

Yesterday, she not only took off her pants and shirt, she also wriggled out of her onesie undershirt (she pulled her arms out through the neck hole and shucked it down her torso to bypass the snaps at the crotch). She was walking around in just her diaper.

She was trying to take her tights off this morning on the way to church, but fortunately, the car seat impeded her progress so that we didn't have to re-dress the child before taking her in to church.

So far, I'm letting her strip at will. Except her diaper. That's off limits. I don't want to be elsewehere in the house and discover on my return that she's not only taken off her diaper but has made a deposit of some kind on the carpet.

I figure you have to know how to take stuff off to be able to learn how to put it on and as long as we're at home, it doesn't really matter much.

*********
I kind of hesitate to say it, but we all seem to be somewhat on the mend. Emily made it through most of last night without having a major coughing fit (which made me worry when I woke up that something had happened. I had to go in and do a breathing check.)

I bought 3 different kinds of cough medicine last week for Mike. One of them, a Tylenol Cold formula, totally knocks him out. He says he remembers laying down to go to sleep and then me yelling at him (at 7:30) to go cough somewhere else. Between the two is blank. I also got him some Mucinex, but it doesn't seem to be doing very much for him so far.

**********************
Fuddrucker's was... not everything I had hoped. The food was good, but not really worth the trip. And I think the atmosphere of the regular restaurants really adds a lot to the whole experience. So we probably won't go back. I'll just have to get my Fuddrucker's fix when we're in Michigan.

Fuddruckers

A quick little history lesson for you.

I was born in Michigan, in a town called Ypsilanti. The biggest claim to fame for Ypsilanti (pronounced "ipsy- (rhymes with tipsy) lan (rhymes with can) tee) is that it is the home of Dominos pizza. My parents divorced when I was 2 1/2 or so and my mom and I moved to Minnesota with the man who eventually became my first step dad and his daughter (my sister - my mom adopted her because her mom died when she was 3). We lived in a town called Bloomington (home of the Mega Mall) until I was 14. Either in Bloomington or in a nearby town (Mom? you'll have to help me with this one) there was a restaurant called Fuddruckers. As a kid, I absolutely LOVED Fuddruckers. My parents would take us there for dinner some Friday nights. They had an area where they would butcher their own meat and you walked up to the ordering station through a maze of beer crates. I loved it.

When we moved to New York, I was sad to be leaving so many things, but Fuddruckers has always held a special place in my heart. I have gone with my Michigan parents to a Fuddruckers in Novi and it was like revisiting my childhood.

(there is a point to all this, I promise)

As I was driving to take Emily to the pediatrician this morning, I saw that the renovations on the rest stop between had been completed and they had put up the sign for the new restaurant.

IT'S A FUDDRUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited! I never thought our town would be cool enough to get a Fuddruckers. I think that we are going to go there for dinner tonight when Mike gets home. Yippee!!

******************
Thank you all for your kind thoughts and healthy wishes. I took Emily back to the pediatrician today and was reminded why I love her doctor. Instead of patronizing me and telling me the obvious things I already knew, she came up with a more definite diagnosis (adenovirus), an idea of how long this might last, and reassured me about how I was handling Emily's coughing fits. She also changed the antibiotic that Emily was on, because she says that Emily still has a lingering infection in one of her ears. (I won't go on the rant about the persistence of this infection, I already did that to Katie in an email - thanks, Katie! mwah!) She also gave us a referral to an orthopedist to get a second opinion about Emily's leg prior to getting it casted. {I woke up in a cold sweat a couple of days ago, realizing that Emily's ear check appointment was scheduled after Emily was set to get her cast and I hadn't really said anything to her pediatrician about the whole casting plan. I had terrible visions of her doctor yelling at me about not consulting with her on this or something. I am really glad I had a chance to tell her about it since she said it might not be necessary.}

The bummer about this being adenovirus is it's a virus. There's not a lot we can do to cure viruses other than to let them run their course and it would appear that we have been passing this one back and forth for a while now. I'm going to have to summon the energy to go around the house and clean all surfaces where germy hands might touch to try to eradicate this bug. I bought anti-viral tissues at Target today while I was waiting for our prescriptions to be filled. They might be just an advertising ploy, but I'm not taking any chances.

I think the other thing that has helped my outlook improve is that today's weather was warmer and sunny. It's been very cold here and it was really starting to drag on me. We're not anywhere close to spring yet, but this was a nice preview.

I think I am talked out now. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Are you tired of the waa! we're sick posts?

I am.

But, here is another one just because.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday after what I thought was a turn for the better became a definite turn for the worse. I had(have) no energy and am perpetually stuffed up. The doctor said I have a sinus infection and kindly gave me antibiotics.

That night was possibly the worst night of sleep I have had in a very long time.

Mike came home from work with a deep, hacking cough. And when we went to bed, he coughed and coughed and coughed and coughed... and I was having a terrible time breathing. I'd feel like I had to blow my nose, but when I did it was worse than if I had just left it alone. Most of the night was spent with my nose completely plugged.

When Mike's alarm went off Wednesday morning I told him (probably more than a little snottily) to turn it off, that he wasn't going to work that day, he was going to the doctor after we both went back to sleep. Yes, Ma'am! Mike went to the doctor and was given antibiotics (he says to get his nagging wife off his back) and some drops to put in his eyes. Oh, did I mention that Mike has PINK EYE?!

When Emily got up Wednesday morning, she looked like Quasimodo. Her right eye started swelling on Tuesday night and it just got worse over night. She has continued to have a slight fever and with the eye swelling, I was done. I called the pediatrician and accepted an appointment with the doctor I really don't like (he was my pediatrician for about 5 minutes when I was 15 and was very very mean to me). I think that he missed part of the history of the eye swelling that I gave him and he said that her eye is just puffy, probably from the way that she slept the night before* and that it should go down by noon Wednesday.

Her eye is still swollen, but slightly less so today. She continues to have a slight fever (100 degrees). She also has had several episodes of asthma coughing where I have had to give her an albuterol nebulizer treatment lest she cough so much she throws up. Which she did on me this afternoon. (That one was more my fault. She was coughing and then she leaned over the arm of the couch and fell onto the table and my knee-jerk reaction was to say "See?! That's why I tell you not to do that!" At which point, she started sobbing hysterically. The crying, combined with the coughing resulted in upchuck.)

But, with that puking episode, something inside me snapped. As I am carrying Emily into the bathroom to clean both of us up, I am thinking "That is IT! I'm calling the doctor! I have had enough of this!" I did call the office to see if our pediatrician was in the office this afternoon, but she didn't have anything available. They don't "pre-book" appointments for the following day until after close of business of the current day, so I couldn't make an appointment for tomorrow for another 15 minutes.

As I sat there, thinking about it, I regained some perspective on the whole situation. I'm not sure what rushing Emily to the doctor this afternoon would have gained us. It's not like the doctor can snap her fingers and make Emily better (if she could, I would totally ask for a blanket snap to cover the 3 of us). Waiting until tomorrow for an appointment puts me right back where I was anyway. I had decided that I would wait until tomorrow to see how Emily's eye and fever were doing before taking her back.

I think (*fingers crossed to prevent jinxing*) that the antibiotics are starting to help me. I haven't taken any decongestants since this morning and while I am still stuffy, it is manageable. And I had been croaking like a bull frog (to the point that a nurse from the pediatrician's office thought I was Emily's dad Monday) and now my voice is more normal, just a little scratchy.

Insert conclusion here. I can't think of one.

*here's where I think he missed part of what I said. I told him that her eye was swollen Tuesday night before we put her to bed. I should have been more clear, i.e. her eye was swollen when Mike got home from work at 5 pm.

Cute, kid

The scene:

Morning in the Looney Bin household. Mike is getting ready to leave for work, putting on his shoes and jacket. Erin is holding Emily waiting to say good bye to Daddy.

Emily looks over and sees a bunch of bananas sitting on the counter. She points to them and says "ba da da" (banana).

Mommy: Yes, those are bananas. You had a banana for breakfast, didn't you?
Emily: {Nods head} aah (yes)
Mommy: It was good, wasn't it?
Emily: {Nods head} aah
Mommy: That was good breakfast, wasn't it?
Emily: {Nods head} aah
Mommy: Mommy's a good cook, isn't she?
Emily: {shakes head no vigorously}

Cute.

I made dinner!

Not that this is really a big newsflash, I make dinner nearly every night. But tonight was special because I not only made dinner, but it was good.

I bought a big package of chicken breasts earlier this week and stuck them in the fridge, intending to separate them into family-of-3 sized packages "later". I kept putting it off and finally decided that tonight's dinner was going to use some of that chicken and while I was at it, the rest was going into freezer bags.

Part of my procrastination was centered around what to do with the chicken breasts. What do I make out of them? I do a lot of marinading chicken breasts in Italian dressing and then tossing them on the grill, and while that is really good, I am sick of that.

Then inspiration struck.

Make chicken fajitas. I found a recipe on the web that didn't call for the meat to marinade overnight and off we went.

The recipe says the meat should marinade for 2 hours. I pulled it out after about an hour and a half, mainly because Emily was starving and starting to lose her mind. The fussies were in full effect over here.

The recipe I linked to just gives you the recipe for the marinade. It doesn't talk about what to serve with it. From the few times I've had fajitas at a restaurant, I remembered them coming with peppers and onions, so I cooked some of those up (sooo easy: melt about 2Tbsp butter in a skillet. Add sliced onion. Saute. Cut up green pepper. Add it to the onion. Stir when you think of it until cooked.) and when the chicken was done grilling, I brought it in and cut it into slices and tossed it in with the peppers and onions.

I served them with tortillas (I used 8 or 10 inch because it's what we had on hand), lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and sour cream. We also had green beans and some left over garlic Tuscan bread from the world's greatest supermarket.

All through dinner I kept remarking about how good dinner tasted and how excited I was that it came out so well. I have been feeling a little stuck in a rut when it comes to making dinner and so it was nice to have an original idea come out well. I'm posting this here as a continuation of the "Wow! This is really good!" conversation that Mike and I were having, since I think he was getting tired of telling me how good it tasted.

Ok, well, Emily is dying for someone to read her a book, so I have to go read to my kid.

Help, please!

Mike and I are having a hard time coming up with a middle name for the baby.

I mentioned before that the current favorite girl name is Lucy. However, now we need to come up with a middle name that goes with Lucy.

Let me give you some tools to work with.

1. Our last name begins with an R.
   
2. I would prefer the initials not spell anything.
   
3. Emily's middle name is Elizabeth. That is a family name; my mom's mom, my mom and I all have Elizabeth as a middle name. I have thought about giving Elizabeth to Lucy, too, but I dunno... I waffle on that. What do you guys think?
   
4. We like Lucy Anne, Lucy Abigail or Lucy Grace. I'm not sure about Lucy Grace because the initials would be LGR (makes me think "larger"). My girlfriend (hi Darice!) doesn't like Lucy Anne because of the initial thing. She said LAR is worse than LGR.
   

Ok, um, go! :)

Miscellaneous pictures

As promised, here's baby!!!

This is kind of a side view. She's sucking on her thumb in this one. I'm kind of assuming that everyone knows what they are looking at. If you don't, email me and I'll try to translate. :)

These 4D ultrasound pictures kind of freak me out. They are cool, but also kind of ... disturbing. Or maybe its just me. We have a video that is pretty neat, where you can see her playing with her hands.


And because I am a mean, mean mommy, I took pictures of Emily's swollen eye.
If you think she looks bad, you should see the other guy!! :) The swelling has gone down in both eyes, though she still looks like she put on WAAAY too much purple eye shadow.

A big bologna and dirt sandwich

Our house has been struck by another plague.

Emily started it last week, with a persistent cough. It wasn't too bad at first. She would just cough while she was lying down. Over the weekend, Mike and I both started to get sore throats and stuffy noses. And Emily started to cough more and more and have a runny nose of her own.

Monday morning, Mike and I both woke up with very stuffy noses and sore throats. We have been staying very close to the tissues ever since.

Yesterday, I took Emily to the pediatrician because the persistent coughing was making my mom sense twitch. I was convinced that the cold had progressed into something more.

I was right. But it wasn't what I thought.

She has two ear infections.

And I DIDN'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Argh. Never did this kid give me any indication that her ears were hurting her.

I took her home and put her down for a nap. When she woke up, she had an eye boogie in one of her eyes. I didn't think much of it, just cleaned it up and let her go play.

10 minutes later, the eye boogie is back.

Uh-oh.

Have I mentioned that eye boogies gross me out? My parent's dog gets these huge eye boogies that just about send me over the edge. When Emily was really little she had an infection in her eye that made it ooze green goop and it was awful. I was so glad when that infection cleared.

Her eye continued to get more and more goopy as the night went on and Mike and I were pretty sure that Emily's eye was going to be glued shut in the morning.

Emily spent at least part of the night with her head at the bottom of her crib (we propped one end on some 2x4s to help her with the drainage) so when she woke up, her eye was all swollen. She looks like she was in a fight. And the goopies were back in full effect. ICK.

The nurse at the doctor's office said that eye goop can be part of ear infections and it should clear in a couple of days. I really hope so.

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As I wrote this, I had the television on and Emily had been kind of watching it. She came over to me and said "All done" and then pointed at the remotes and started dancing, her way of saying that she wants me to turn on the radio. Put that all together and you get "Mommy, I'm done watching TV, let's turn on the radio!"