A Fetish Emerges...perhaps

I'm not sure which of our two girls will have the shoe fetish, but one of them will develop it by her teen years.

Marissa has been saying the word "shoes!!" for a very long time. If she sees shoes, anyone's shoes, she sits right down, takes off the ones she's wearing and puts on the ones she sees. This has resulted in her wearing 3-inch high sandals, Wayne's big sloppy slippers, Lindsey's flip flops, and so forth. She walks around in them for a while, giggles and kicks them off, then puts her own back on or goes around barefoot.

Today, however, Lindsey came home and told me she wanted "the white shoes with the pink and purple polka dots on the bottom of them." Hmmm...I'm wracking my brain, trying to think of which shoes in our house look like that. She finally says that they were ones Alexis had "a long time ago" and she would like a pair, please, and could we please go to the store to get them?

Keep in mind that Lindsey uses the term "a long time ago" to mean anything that happened 2 hours ago, 2 days ago or 2 years ago. They are all "a long time ago" in her mind, so it's possible that these shoes are currently available at your local Target (which is wear Alexis apparently gets all her shoes, all of which Lindsey wants), or that they were purchased last season and are no longer available.

Based on Lindsey's fascination with dresses and skirts, I suspect that she also will develop the love of shoes, but Marissa is one up on her on that...for being almost two!

She is Truly Amazing

Wayne and I joke that Marissa is "our boy," and in many ways, she is. She is rougher, tougher, more active and all around more "boyish" than Lindsey was at this age. By this age Lindsey was already loving skirts and dresses and wanted all things pink and purple. The last time we tried to put a skirt on Marissa she tugged at it and yelled "Off! Off!"

But I digress...

Tonight she got into an incredible amount of trouble in the shortest time span I believe ever accomplished by a toddler. This evening we were having our usual dinner time craziness, trying to get dinner on the table while keeping two children from pestering each other, the dog, or us. I had to wash Lindsey's sheets this evening (she'd had an accident in her bed that morning), so the two girls were playing nicely on Lindsey's bed while I ran the sheets down to the basement and into the wash. I was gone perhaps a total of three minutes.

In that three minutes Marissa walked over to the hallway closet, opened the door, got out the jar of Mineral Ice (a version of Icy Hot), went back to Lindsey's bedroom, sat down on her mattress, managed to pry the jar open and proceeded to slather the stuff all over herself. Luckily she got the bulk of it on the mattress pad (which now ALSO needed to be cleaned) but she did manage to get her legs, feet and part of one hand.

When I came back upstairs she was still trying to slather it on while Lindsey was asking her to put some "lotion" on her. I immediately picked Marissa up and threw her in the bathtub, clothes and all, in an attempt to get the stuff off of her before it started to activate. I think I was fairly successful, though I could tell it had started working because she was whiny for the next 15-20 minutes after her bath.

It's difficult to know which things to keep out of Marissa's reach because:

1) Marissa's range of reach continues to amaze us.
2) We are running out of closet space that's 5 feet or higher than the ground, which is apparently Marissa's reach.

Even the mundane things that we believe are "safe" to store on lower shelves are proven to us to be not so safe. She has pulled apart entire rolls of paper towels, entire rolls of toilet paper (directly into the toilet, mind you), emptied out newly-opened Kleenex boxes one Kleenex at a time, managed to pry open various food items, i.e. applesauce, fruit cups, and splash or wear sticky juice all over the kitchen.

One time she dropped an applesauce cup and it landed right-side up on the floor. You would think that that would be a good thing, except the "splash" of the applesauce reached our ceiling, the upper extremities of our cupboards, the top of the microwave, top of the frig, the underside of the handle on the oven door, and so on and so forth. We're still finding places that we missed the first five times we looked for applesauce splashes.

So if you're visiting with us and you see Wayne or I get visibly nervous when Marissa is not within eyesight for 2 minutes or less, and there is too much stillness coming from the general direction in which she last was seen, you will excuse us if we suddenly jump up to run and see what she's gotten herself into now.

Fatherhood Revisited

Wayne got a little taste of what Steve Martin's character must've felt when his daughter sat across the dining room table from him and announced, "I'm getting married!" In real life there is a full grown woman sitting there, but in Steve Martin's eyes it's a little girl with pigtails and a sing-song voice breaking the news.

I have some peonies that grow by the side of our house that I cut for the first time this year. I asked Lindsey if I could take a photo of her holding the flowers before I put them in some water. She said, "Yes Mommy, but I have to put my white dress on!" Okay, I thought, I'll entertain this.

We traipsed upstairs and she donned her white dress, promptly came downstairs and went outside for her photo shoot. This is the only photo I took; I knew I didn't need another "just in case" as I usually do. She then ran into the house, ran up to Wayne and said, "Daddy! Daddy! Look! I'm getting married!"

He promptly replied with a really big hug.

Memories of Relations

Some things never change.

This photo of Marissa and Lindsey on my father-in-law Neil's "big chair" reminds me so much of my own Grandpa Floria's "big chair." My Grandpa used to sit in a large dark La-Z-Boy -- I want to say it was leather as well but I don't honestly remember. I remember him, however, sitting in that chair watching football with my dad, smoking cigars and chuckling at the Packers.

Lindsey and Marissa had lots of fun playing on this big chair of Neil's. Then Neil decided he wanted it back, so he tipped it up from the back and dumped them out. They kept trying to scoot to stay on, scoot to stay on, and next thing you know they were both on their feet on the floor, looking up and wondering what had happened, too shy to cry or give him a hard time about dumping them out. He sat back down for a few minutes, just to prove it was still his chair, as he put it, then he let them have it back. In two seconds flat they were back on, giggling and "reading" books.



This photo reminds me of my Aunt Phyllis -- she was (and probably still is!) a fantastic piano player. She was always encouraging us to play piano whenever we went to their house. My sister, who was always a MUCH better player than I, would give concerts to all of us when we went to their home. For a time I was jealous of the attention she got; then I realized it was better to sit back and enjoy, or I would be asked to play, God forbid!

While it was mom who got us going on lessons, and it was she that we heard more often and who really encouraged us, she never had a full head of white hair like Millie and Aunt Phyllis!

Why we don't take Marissa out to eat

Enough said.

What I come home to

After a day such as today, it's such a nice thing to come home to these two...

(My husband's pretty cool, too).

Rough Day at Work

I don't write much about my job here, this is mostly for my friends and family to keep up on my own family, see pictures of the girls and how big they are getting. But today was a rough day at work. Rough. Ugh.

It's a rarity that I come home from work feeling exhausted by the events of the day, but today I did. I won't say any more than that now, I just am hoping that things will be getting better again soon.

My new piece of technology

Note to self -- others cannot hear the music in the iPod, just me. So singing along with the music is a really geeky way to show others that I really AM closer to 40 than to 30, and that perhaps I'm not ready for this technology after all.

I have to RESTRAIN myself to keep myself from singing, at least now I'm down to soft humming during choruses.

This guy cracks me up

Check out the toolbar on the top of this page. There's a little link called "next blog." It used to be called "next random blog," and it does just what it says -- randomly pages you through all the blogs on blogger.com that people choose to make public. Browse at your own risk.

I came across this guys' blog and had to bookmark it. Man, is he funny! He's a stay-at-home dad of a 2-year-old boy in Des Moines Iowa; just had his 36th birthday too. I love how brief his postings are but funny as hell.

Here's his latest post from yesterday:

This evening my son and I were hanging out outside when a mosquito landed on his forehead. I instinctively smacked it. Therefore smacking my son on the head (not too hard).

Afterwards he looked at me, furrowed brow and all, with a look that most likely meant -

"Dude. Don't ever do that again. Someday I'll be able to kick your ass."

Okay, that's it, I officially have to go start my day.

Something that Freaks me out

There is just something about hearing electronic toys go off in the middle of the night in a fit of dying batteries that just freaks me out.

I awoke this morning to the sound of "bee booop! bee booop!" coming from inside the house. It was the sound that one of Lindsey's toys makes when it turns itself off. It kept doing it over and over, which makes me believe that there is a ghost child down there, turning the toy on and off over and over in wispy silence, wondering what new piece of technology this is since last being alive 100 or so years ago.

Or perhaps a burglar invaded our home and tripped over the damn thing in his rush to steal...what? Our 200 lb flat screen TV? The most valuable items in our home sleeps in the beds anyways, not sure what a burglar could steal that I'd get too riled up about.

Perhaps it's the thought of those Chuckie movies, or the twice-in-my-life reading of Stephen King's "It" that makes me nervous when I hear these electronic twitches in the night. But needless to say, once getting up to turn off and de-battery the toy, I was up for the day.

My Birthday

My birthday was this past weekend. I LOVE my birthday. I like feeling extra special for just one day, all the cards and the calls that I get throughout the day. Thanks to everyone who sent a card or gave me a call, by the way, I really appreciate it!

I'm always amazed by people who get cards out on time. Usually I'm sending them the day of the big event. I've finally stocked up on belated birthday cards, so now I'm even lazier -- if you get a belated birthday card from me, I probably didn't even buy it with you in mind, I bought it knowing I was going to miss someone's birthday, just didn't know it would be yours.

I got a slew of gifts from the family -- a Cinderella Barbie, supposedly from Lindsey but really for Lindsey, a Cinderella baby doll, supposedly from Marissa but she seems to like playing with it best, and a new workout bag with an extra special something stuck in the pocket -- an iPod shuffle.

This is my first foray into the latest technology, and I've been wanting it for my workouts. I have a Discman, and a couple of years ago it wouldn't have been too unusual to see it in a fitness club, a bulky round gadget strapped around my waist. Now, it would be downright embarrassing to be seen with something like that, when everyone is walking around with these little tiny MP3 players and iPods.

I was trying to describe to my dad the size of this thing, so I finally measured it -- 2 1/2 inches wide by 1 inch long, and 3/8 of an inch thick (that includes the clip to clip it to your clothes.) It holds a maximum of 240 songs which can be played continuously or in random order (thus the name "iPod shuffle.")

It is a technological wonder, though it is incredible how the "wow" factor goes down dramatically once you reach out to those under 30. Even Lindsey knew when I opened the package what it was and wanted to put the earphones in to "listen to the music." Huh?!? How does a 4-year-old know this? Turns out her pre-school teacher has one and plugs in before leaving work every day, every once in a while letting someone listen in on the music before taking off.

For an idea of how small it is, click here.

And yes, my iPod is pink.

Outside Play

I just wanted to quickly post a couple of photos of Marissa playing outside. She LOVES to play with water, and she loves to play outside, so the nice weather finally makes it possible for her to do both.

She wore this skirt because all of her other shorts (all four of them) were in the wash. She did NOT want the skirt on and then after I wrestled it on her, she pulled and pulled on it and said, "Off! Off!"

I suspect she will not be the dainty fairy princess of all things girly that Lindsey is.

Lindsey's Birthday Party

All I have to say is, it was a lot of fun AND a lot of work! Big thanks to my friend and neighbor Amy who helped throughout the whole party!

Activities included:

• making butterfly wings with posterboard and lots of craft glue, feathers and foam stickies
• making pretzels and baking them up
• having lunch which consisted of a hot dog in a crescent roll (which Lindsey helped me make!), fruit kabobs and macaroni and cheese
• Eating the pretzels once they came out of the oven
• Trying on our now dry butterfly wings and dancing around the room with great abandon
• Eating Dairy Queen cake

Whew! Lots of activities, but all so great so that Lindsey didn't even notice that nobody brought her gifts, and there was no gap where a "gift opening" would have happened. She was polite, had no problem sharing with her friends, said "Thanks for coming!" as everyone was leaving and didn't ask where her gifts were.

Even better, we raised almost $100 for Children's Cancer Research Fund, which I'm sure they will greatly appreciate. I will probably make my own donation to just round it out to $100, but it feels good to give to someone else rather than look at a bunch of stuff sitting around our house and wonder where it's all going to go. Hopefully someday the lesson will sink in with Lindsey and she'll be grateful for what she's got and not want for more.

Marissa

It seems like it's been a while since I've posted a photo of Marissa. She is getting bigger and bigger -- her hair is getting longer, too!

Yesterday and today it was beautiful out -- highs in the 80s! We spent lots of time outside. Or as Marissa likes to say, "Outsiiiiide! Outsiiiiide!" She says more words all the time now -- she now says "sit" (appropriately), and "wet." I have no idea why she started saying "wet," but she'll point to a puddle and say "wet," then promptly stomp in it, splashing mud everywhere. Have I said yet that she's our boy?

It's difficult to get a photo of her, I followed her around the backyard for probably 5 minutes before snapping this one, and it's the best I could get. She moves too fast, is always busy, and looks very serious much of the time as she's focusing on...whatever she's focusing on at the time.

So here's a photo of the smallest peanut, not so small anymore, with a nearly-blonde head of very curly hair! Hard to believe she's related to the rest of us with that light hair.

Lindsey's B-Day

Lindsey's and Marissa's birthday seem to eclipse anything they are near, including Wayne's and my own birthdays. This year Lindsey's birthday is almost a month-long celebration. I was traveling on her actual birthday, so she was at Children's World (for once) on the actual day. I flew in from my trip the morning of her birthday and stopped by over lunch to bring cupcakes for her to share with the class.

Then, the next day Wayne and I took the day off work and took her to the Mall of America. She was so excited the night before she didn't get to sleep until after 10:30, then woke up at 6:45 a.m. Needless to say, we had to leave the mall when the meltdown started, and ended up carrying her kicking and screaming to the car.

But she recovered after a long 4-hour nap, during which time Wayne and I got an amazing amount of work done around the house! I managed to clean out most of the baby clothes that Marissa's outgrown. I still think of her as a baby, until I see what size a "newborn" size really is and realize that she's in 2T's now. So out went four garbage bags full of baby clothes. I was going to donate them to charity, only to find out that my co-worker was having a garage sale, part of a big neighborhood garage sale, so I gave all of them to her and said, "Hey, if I see any money, great, if not, but none of the clothes come back, even better!" Hopefully they all sell.

I had to keep a few nostalgic pieces, though, like the little tiny stretch-knit pink and blue caps that both girls wore to come home. In comparison I also kept the "I was born at Fairview" onesie and cap that was given to us after each of them were born. I kept them to remember that each of them were too small to fit into them -- the caps fell over their eyes and the onesies came down to their knees. Both of them are still "new" and have never been washed.

I also kept the little outfits that Marissa and Lindsey both had their one-year photos taken in. Wayne's mom gave me his outfit that his one-year photo was taken in as well -- some day I may put all three in a shadow box to put over their three baby pictures in our hallway. My one-year baby picture does not grace the hallway...because I never had one taken. (Guilt trip, Mom and Dad! Don't you feel awful? ;-))

Okay, so there was a long tangent...back to the birthday thing...

Lindsey's actual birthday party is this Saturday, May 12th, since she was invited to a playmate's birthday this LAST Saturday. So now she thinks she's turning five, since she already turned four. I don't need her to grow up that fast, she can stay four for a bit longer!

A Musical Joke: groaning is appropriate

An E-flat, a C, and a G go into a bar.

The bartender says: "Sorry, but we don't serve minors."

So, the E-flat leaves, and the C and the G have an open fifth between them.

After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished and the G is out flat. An F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough.

A D comes into the bar and heads straight for the bathroom saying,"Excuse me. I'll just be a second."

An A comes into the bar, but the bartender is not convinced that this relative of C is not a minor.

Then the bartender notices a B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and exclaims: "Get out now! You're the seventh minor I've found in this bar tonight."

The E-flat, not easily deflated, comes back to the bar the next night in a 3-piece suit with nicely shined shoes.

The bartender (who used to have a nice corporate job until his company downsized) says: "You're looking sharp tonight, come on in! This could be a major development."

This proves to be the case, as the E-flat takes off the suit, and everything else, and stands there au naturel.

Eventually, the C sobers up, and realizes in horror that he's under a rest. The C is brought to trial, is found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of DS without Coda at an upscale correctional facility. On appeal, however, the C is found innocent of any wrongdoing, even accidental, and that all accusations to the contrary are bassless.

The bartender decides, however, that since he's only had tenor so patrons, the soprano out in the bathroom, and everything has become alto much treble, he needs a rest - and closes the bar.

Are you smiling?

WalkAmerica

I don't know why but the last Sunday of April, which is always when March of Dimes' WalkAmerica is, feels just a little bit like Christmas to me. It's a single day's event that I've planned for for a long time. I've gotten friends and family involved (who donated generously to my walk, thank you!), have been emailing updates to the PM team at work on the walk, etc.

I woke up this morning excited to get the girls ready and go. I am ever grateful for Wayne -- if it hadn't been for him we wouldn't have been out the door before the walk started.

Our team met at Bruegger's near our old office for some breakfast, then headed down to the walksite. It was a beautiful day, and it was so nice to have a great excuse to get out and enjoy it!

I didn't even see Lindsey the entire walk -- my friend Bridget was pushing her stroller and got so far ahead of me that I didn't meet up with her until the finish line. They told me she did wonderfully, was very well behaved and even...quiet! That's that thing that she is around other people, not us.

Marissa did fairly well, though she did have one meltdown when she wanted out of the stroller and I refused to carry her. (She's 29 lbs, have you seen her lately?) I ended up having to strap her in because she wouldn't sit in it nicely, so she screamed for about 10 minutes about that.

But overall, it was a nice day, we had a nice lunch and some free music after, then went back home to take a nap, which Lindsey and I both did, Marissa not so much.

What made it even better is that our team raised $4,212 dollars for March of Dimes this year, well over our goal of $3,000. Thanks again to everyone who sponsored us!

Lindsey-isms

Lindsey did two things this evening that really struck me that I thought I would share.

Thing #1:

Tonight Lindsey and I were "dancing" to a children's CD. It has funny songs on it like "Lonely Peas," "The Crabby Song" and others that are actually quite fun and not grating to parents.

We started out dancing by holding hands and going around, pretty soon I was carrying her around and dancing backwards and forwards, practically spinning her around as I went about the room. (It was a GREAT workout, highly recommended!)

She was giggling and hanging on to me as we twirled around, faster and faster. She laughed once and said, "Mommy, I am happy!"

She stated it so matter of factly it took me by surprise. My response of course, was, "I am happy too!" and gave her a big hug and an extra fast twirl.

Thing #2:

After her bath, I was attempting to blowdry and comb out Lindsey's hair as she was "playing" with our four toothbrushes. (You have no idea how frequently we change our toothbrushes around here!) She was holding all four in her two hands, lifting them up and down and pretending to "wash" the mirror with them. She was saying in a sing-song voice, "Let's wash Ava's red dress! It'll be fun! Let's wash Ava's dress! Okay! You take this brush, I take that brush, let's wash Ava's dress!"

What struck me about this is that she was looking herself directly in the eye as she was singing this, smiling and waving the toothbrushes around.

When's the last time you looked yourself in the eye in the mirror and said something? Sang something? Wished for something??

I did not too long ago, prepping for a presentation I had to give in front of a crowd of 160. I'm glad I walked through my presentation this way too, because wow, was it uncomfortable, and I found myself floundering in talking to myself and was able to smooth out the rough spots by the time I got to the actual presentation.

When do we lose touch with ourselves so much that we don't look ourselves in the eye? The closest I get is when I inspect my eye makeup before leaving in the morning, or to get an eyelash out of my eye.

Try it sometime, see how honest it feels, to say something to yourself while looking yourself in the eye in the mirror. It was really amazing how natural it was to Lindsey.

Nostalgic Parenting

Tonight I was putting the youngest to bed and got a blast from the past. She likes to curl up with a bottle (I know, she's too old for a bottle, no lectures, please), have some warm milk, then snuggle up on your shoulder before hunkering down in her bed.

Tonight she was having her bottle, snuggled in her little pink blankie and I started doing something that my mom used to do to my sister and I when we were kids -- I began clicking my fingernails against each other on her head. It sounds very strange, but I remember it being very soothing when I was a child.

I've done it to Marissa, Lindsey and my friends' babies with alternating responses -- some are soothed and their eyes practically start to shut, others are distracted by it, start looking around and don't like it at all.

Marissa finds it soothing. I did this to her for a while, then I stopped. She promptly picked up my hand and put it back on her head again, signaling that she wanted me to continue! She did that twice, picking up my hand and putting it back on her head, all without saying a word since she was busy with her bottle. It brought me back to those days of having my mom do this same thing on my head during church -- I suppose it was the one way she could keep us quiet for an entire hour.

On an unrelated note, I was in an internal meeting today with some co-workers and one of my friends asked me, "Have your feet always been that vein-y?" (I was wearing a skirt and heels -- no pantyhose, of course!) And by the way, this was a close friend, so it wasn't unusual at all that she would ask me that, as varicose veins bulged out of her own legs as she waddles around in her 9th month of pregnancy.

I said yes, my feet and hands have always been "vein-y," and then told her how I remember "playing" with the veins in my mom's hands during church. I used to push one over the top of the bones in her hand, only to watch it slide back over to the other side...eventually. She started re-counting how she used to pull on her grandmother's skin on her arm during church, just because it took so much longer to go back to its normal place than her mom's did!

How funny, all these little pieces of nostalgia attached to memories of these things we did to comfort ourselves...all at the expense of our patient, understanding parents.

Writing Down the Words: STILL GOING STRONG

Writing Down the Words: STILL GOING STRONG

I happened across this blog and this particular posting in this blog and knew that a certain someone who reads my blog every now and then would appreciate the nostalgia and sentimentality of the thoughts written there.

Follow the above link to see what I'm talking about.

Enjoy, Dad!

Pretty Princess Dancing

I had to put up these photos of Lindsey and her friend Jamie. They both love to play dress-up. We found a beautiful little white pleat dress over the weekend at Gap Kids that Lindsey LOVES. She wants to wear it all the time, even though I'm trying to keep it clean for her birthday party in a few weekends.

In the last two photos the two of them are dancing to the "Cars" soundtrack, Sheryl Crow's "Real Gone" song. What dainty dancing for such a hard rockin' song!

Whenever we have Jamie over she's only in the door for a few minutes before both girls are stripped down and digging in Lindsey's closet, pulling down the dresses from the hangers and putting them on. What girls!

Updated my Links - check them out!

I have a new favorite ad on the "Very Funny Ads" website -- check out the link to the right.

I've also got a link to my WalkAmerica page if you would like to donate to my walk which is Sunday April 29th. I'm nowhere near my own personal goal of $700, but that's because I'm heading up a team this year where many donations have gone to the team and not me personally -- we've already hit our goal of $3,000 for our team. Yeay team!!

Easter

Easter is a low key event in our home. We don't go to church, we don't get together with family, in many ways it's just an ordinary day, made special by little things.

We have a neighbor who leaves "Easter bunny tracks" on the front stoops of the homes up and down the street where little kids live. We awoke and retrieved the paper to find large, human-sized bunny tracks on our steps (I think she uses corn starch and a stencil of some sort).

Lindsey and Marissa were happy to come down the stairs to find Easter baskets awaiting them on the piano. Unlike many of their counterparts, their Easter baskets are small. They don't need much, they are perfectly happy with the little treats that they get, and I get really annoyed by the commercialism of Easter of all holidays. Christmas, okay, it's a birthday, let's celebrate. But Easter? Someone died, okay? Have a little respect.

The jelly beans were a hit with Marissa, not so much with Lindsey. Chocolate eggs, also a hit with Marissa, not so much with Lindsey. But they both enjoyed the little chicks that had Play-Doh in them.

We had our friends over for Easter dinner which, in typical fashion, was delayed by my not-terribly-planned-out prep work for the meal. (I could've gotten more done earlier, prior to their arrival, but opted for a nap instead. Who wouldn't??)

Everything was ready on time except for a side dish that I was trying out for the first time that took longer than expected. Thankfully the ham stayed moist while it stayed in the oven an extra half an hour, and the potatoes were done all the way through (unlike other years when they aren't QUITE done when I have to take them out). So we ate later than scheduled, but we certainly passed the time with fun conversation and entertainment from watching the kids.

Lindsey and Jamie had lots of fun playing dress up. Jamie looked so beautiful when she came to our house wearing a beautiful spring dress with an adorable cropped pink sweater. This was promptly traded for velcro-on dress up clothes and "noisy" shoes, as Lindsey calls them, or those dress up high heels. They took turns being Cinderella in Lindsey's Halloween costume from this past Halloween. Lots of running around and giggling abounded, with Marissa behind them, trying to keep up and be a part of the action. Unfortunately she and Molly are just a little too far apart in age (and size!) to really be playmates right now, though Marissa did have fun "dancing" with Molly (see photo). So Marissa was handed the role of annoying little sister who always follows us around, and Mom can't you make her leave us alone?? Oh...I remember those days...but from the point of view of the little sister, not the mom!

Weekend in Tracy

I've got just a few photos here to share of our weekend in Tracy. It was a short one, made miserable by a sinus infection that I developed. I feel bad that I filled all of my in-laws little trash cans throughout the house with loads and loads of nasty Kleenexes!! Ugh -- sorry all, for exposing you. The good news is by the time Sunday rolled around it was no longer a cold and was a sinus infection, so hopefully it wasn't contagious anymore. And I washed my hands so much they were raw, so I hope I didn't leave too many germs left in the house.

Marissa's been sick as well, she stayed home w/me Monday with a temp of 101.2. I think that since having kids I've only taken one sick day for myself when it was only actually just me at home -- every other time I'm also responsible for a little one who's sick as well. Makes it hard to rest and nap, especially with Marissa, our little busy body.

I'm on the mend now, got a good night's sleep last night, though I awoke at 4 am from a terrible dream in which I believed I was being suffocated. Turns out I was in a way -- both my nostrils had closed up and I was no longer getting the air I needed. I must have been struggling for air until I woke up enough to open my mouth to breathe.

By the way, this last photo of Lindsey was taken about half a mile outside of Tracy. Lindsey didn't like the DVD we put in the van. We put in one of Marissa's, knowing that if we put one in that Lindsey had really liked she wouldn't have fallen asleep. I should've taken a photo again about 2 minutes after this one, with her head lolling to the side as she slept.

New York Economics

Last post of the evening. I was in New York this past week for work. Spent one day in "The City" (everyone on the East coast knows that "The City" refers to New York City, I get a big kick out of it), then spent the next day traveling to and visiting March of Dimes in White Plains, NY.

Apparently spring break has the same effect on NYC as it does in southern climates, high demand of hotels lead to decreasing supply and thus higher rates. I still do not know who on earth would go to NYC on spring break and not go south, but whatever. So the best hotel rate I could get was $320 a night, for a hotel we usually get for $249 or so. The hotel closest to my company's office was running $400 -- ouch!

So I opted for one in mid-town, $320 a night. I had to be a big hick and take a picture of the room -- you can fit the entire room on one photo, it was so small. I thought you all might enjoy seeing what $320/night can buy you in NYC.

The Logic of Lindsey

Last night Wayne and I went out to a nice dinner with another couple and his nephew, Travis, and his girlfriend Elizabeth watched the girls for us. They had a good time w/them, got them off to bed on time and even got Lindsey to sit on the potty once before bed.

Elizabeth was with Lindsey in the bathroom when she convinced her to sit on the potty. Lindsey tinkled for a little bit, then started getting off the toilet. Elizabeth asked, "Are you sure you don't have to go more?"

Lindsey replied, "No, that's all I drank!"

Weekend in Wisconsin

We spent this past weekend in Wisconsin, visiting with the Lau/Schafer/Hoyt families. It was lots of fun watching Marissa and Paulie play together -- the fact that they are only two weeks apart in age means they go through a lot of the same stages at the same time.

Little Paulie has glasses due to being far-sighted, a condition that he will hopefully outgrow. I found it interesting that when Marissa was smaller (and still today, sometimes), she would take pacifiers out of other childrens' mouths, she apparently just thought they didn't belong there. But she never once tried to take Paulie's glasses off. Lindsey didn't seem to notice them until the morning we were leaving she turned to me and said, "Hey Mommy, did you know Paulie wears glasses??" Wow, hadn't noticed those adorable little frames with his dark brown eyes peeping out!

This morning the kids all had one last time by and in the pool before we all went our separate ways. Lindsey used her little water wings and an innertube to dog paddle her way from one end of the pool to the other -- pretty good feat for an almost 4-year-old! (Considering she was swimming in water that is 5 feet deep on one end).

Marissa and Paulie never actually got into the water, but walked around the outside at different paces, alternately giving little toddler screeches at each other. Here's how it went:

Paulie: Aaahhh!

[pause]

Marissa: Aaahhh!

Paulie: Aaahhh!

Marissa: Aaahhh!

[giggle giggle]

Paulie: Aaahhh!

[pause]

Marissa: Aaahhh!

[more giggling]

It was entertaining an entire hot tub full of adults; thank God they were all tolerant of the noise!

Doh!

Homer Simpson has been resurrected in the Floria/Horsman household.

Marissa has finally learned the word "No!" And, as when Lindsey learned it, the only way to say it is loudly and with a scowl. Yet it doesn't quite come out "no," it comes out with a "d" sound in front of it, so Marissa is channeling Homer Simpson -- "Doh!" "Doh!"

She gets quite emphatic about it, striking away whatever thing we were trying to give her, or shaking her head emphatically from side to side while saying "Doh!"

We try not to smile and laugh when she says "Doh," it only makes her more mad, which is even cuter.

More Snow?!

We've been recovering from back-to-back snowstorms the last week of February that left us in quite the winter wonderland. Our office actually closed on Thursday, March 1st, and Wayne's didn't re-open until Monday the 5th. (We did re-open on Friday, though the staffing was quite slim.)

Here are a couple of snowy photos of a walk in the snow the weekend of March 3-4th. We had a good time making a snowman after the first snowfall, which was promptly buried by the second snowfall.

Bible Stories

We always read a story or two to Lindsey before bedtime. Lately she's been pulling out her children's versions of the Bible, most recently the New Testament. She'll turn to a page that has interesting pictures, then ask us to read the story around those pictures. (Thanks to aunts Sherrie and Kristi, by the way, who provide these tools of religious learning which our children would otherwise have absent from their lives because of their heathen parents.)

Yesterday she picked out the pictures around a group of men glaring at Jesus and asked me to read the story about the angry men. Sure enough it was the Easter story, and I wasn't so sure about reading this to her. After all, it deals with death, a concept that she knows no further than "Spiderman is going to 'kill' his enemies," something the boys in her pre-school playact. And to be killed means that you fall down.

So I started at the Last Supper and read through to when Judas betrays Jesus, he is captured and crucified, then the stone is rolled away from his tomb and he re-appears to the apostles. This version did a great job of putting the story in terms children could relate to, by calling Jesus the apostles' best friend, and they were very sad when their friend went away, but happy when he came back. (Friendship is a concept Lindsey definitely understands.)

When I turned the page to keep reading, the one on the left showed the apostles looking up at heaven to where Jesus ascended to God, while the angels asked, "Why are you looking up at the sky? Jesus is still with you." The next page had a picture of the apostles standing around smiling, while Jesus appeared as in a thought bubble over all their heads. (Cheesy, I know, but something that young children would understand.)

I barely got through the first page when the angels told the apostles "Don't look at heaven, Jesus is not there," when Lindsey gasped and pointed to the page of Jesus in the thought bubble. "Look!" she said, "Jesus is with them! They are sooooo happy!"

Now there's the meaning of Easter.

The Kindness of Acquaintances

I was going to write the kindness of strangers, but these people weren't really strangers, they were acquaintances.

Today I was supposed to be on a flight to Washington DC from Minneapolis, after we had gotten 12 inches of snow on Sunday. We were concerned about making it out at all, and I'm still a bit concerned about making it back in time, since the weather system has now hit DC. I'm actually sitting in the lobby of a hotel we're not staying at, since the hotel we're staying at doesn't have power right now.

Monday morning I was leaving later in the morning to go directly to the airport so I was going to drop off the girls at daycare. I drove the three blocks there on roads that are only 1 car wide, due to plowing and snow depths. I got to the center and as I attempted to turn into the parking lot I realized that it wasn't plowed out! But it was too late, I was already stuck in the snow, with two girls in the backseat, I'm in nice dress clothes that have to somehow continue to look nice through a flight AND a meeting, and...now I'm running late to the airport because I'm stuck in snow.

One of the other moms who just dropped off her kids saw my dilemma and, with the help of a stranger who stopped, helped push me out of the snow. She then stuck around long enough to help carry both girls into the center, as the sidewalk was not shoveled out and I had to go along the street, right along with the cars, to get into the center. It would have been extremely dangerous with me shepherding the two girls, as it was it was only semi-dangerous with her carrying Lindsey and me carrying Marissa.

I was ever grateful to her for her help that morning, and for the help of the man who stopped to help me get out of the snowbank. It's those small gestures that truly make me so appreciative, and desire the opportunity to reciprocate.

Finally...Momma!

As with Lindsey, Marissa took much longer to enunciate "Momma" as opposed to "Dada" which she's been saying since about 10 months. They are both on the same schedule -- they started saying "Dadda" or "Daddy" near 1 year of age, they both started saying "Momma" around 18 months.

But "Momma" sounds so warm and smooth rolling out of Marissa's mouth -- it comes out "Muhhmmmah." It sounds like a long, warm hug and brings tears to my eyes, just the way it did when Lindsey first said it.

Now Lindsey says it ad nauseum -- "Mama," she'll say, with nothing to say after. I'll say, "Yes Lindsey," and she'll repeat, "Mama," with, again nothing to say after. She'll say it four or five times in a row with nothing more to say after, I think it's just her way of reassuring herself that I'm still there and listening.

After this past weekend, after bouts of "Baaahhbeee!" and "Maaahhhmmaaah!" from Marissa, Lindsey informed us this morning that Marissa could go to Children's World today, say "Bobby," and he would be there!!

Marissa's been saying his name non-stop this weekend, we ALL were getting tired of hearing it.

On a side note, Children's World will be changing its name to KinderCare. They were bought by the same corporation (Knowledge Learning Corp, or KLC) about a year ago, we were wondering which brand was going to win out; apparently KinderCare is more well known than Children's World, so CW will become a KinderCare. What is Lindsey going to do when we no longer go to Children's World but instead go to a KinderCare?! It's never been "daycare" to her, or "school," it's always been known as "Children's World." Guess we'll just keep calling it Children's World, even after the new sign goes up.

Pronunciation

Marissa has been learning more and more words all the time. One of her favorite words right now is "Bobby." There's a little boy in her class named Bobby, a cute little blondie with big blue eyes. She'll point to him and say, "That's Bobby." She also wanders around the house randomly saying "Bobby. It's Bobby. Bobby. Baaaaahhhh-beeeeeee." We don't know why, we don't pretend to understand.

Today she came home from daycare saying a new word. She looked right at me and said, "Shit." Clear as day. "Shit." Not once, not twice, but three times over the course of putting her coat on and getting her home. I would respond by saying, "Sit!" thinking that perhaps her diction was such that it was coming out as a naughty word when she meant "sit."

Tonight she and Lindsey were taking a bath and Marissa clearly enunciated "Shit!" Lindsey looked up at Wayne with a shocked look on her face and said, "Daddy, she said shit!" So now we know that even if the little one doesn't know what the word means, the elder one has an idea and knows it's not nice!

It was HOW cold??

We're finally getting out of a four-week long cold snap -- I see that we might hit 40 today. Yippee!!

The first Sunday of the cold snap (can't remember which one) we had heard that the temp in the morning would be our high for the day. We woke up at 7 a.m. and it was 18 degrees. We kept checking the thermometer and watched it plummet -- 10 degrees, 7 degrees, 2 degrees by 2 pm, then zero, -2, -7, until by Monday morning at 6:30 a.m. the temperature was -20 degrees. (That's air temp, not windchill.) It stayed below zero for a week, and then after that it stayed in the single digits for the high temps for some time.

This photo is of the window in our upstairs hallway -- it was covered with beautiful ice crystals every morning. It was really amazing to see the temperature drop like that while staying in a nice, warm house that never varied. Thank goodness for radiator heat!

In the meantime, we amused ourselves by marveling at Marissa in her new Mater jogging suit. (Mater is a character from the movie "Cars" that we all get a kick out of.) We also played with balloons and made Lindsey's hair stand up on end.

Today we had a couple of meltdowns, and the kids were acting up too, so everyone's down for long naps, hopefully everyone will wake in a better mood!

Can she...or can't she??

My mother (and grandmother) both tell me that my mother was reading at age 3. My sister was reading at age 4. However, between my husband and I, we began reading at the average age of 5.5. And the fact that neither Lindsey or Marissa get as much one-on-one time as they would if one of us were home with them makes me believe that they will be more on track with both of us than with any of their other family members.

The night before Valentine's Day I was organizing all of the valentines that I'd written out for Lindsey's and Marissa's classmates. Lindsey wanted to look at her classmates' valentines. I asked her to read for me which of her classmate each one was for. (She has 18 classmates). She read them all off and only got "Cyrus" and "Colton" mixed up. She even knew Ava, Alison, Alexis and Alexander and did not get them confused with each other.

So the question is...is she reading, or isn't she??

I don't believe she actually is -- I think she had a select set of names to choose from (18 to be exact) and could recognize the length of the name to know which name it was. When I asked her to read off Marissa's classmates names, she didn't get any of them right.

I would like to think she is precocious enough, but I don't think she is. But I have to say, it was still amazing to hear her read them off -- she did it again for Wayne and he was surprised!

Boop Poop

It wasn't until after we went on vacation and returned that we realized that so much of the "babble" Marissa has been saying has words in it. She has such unusual intonation and speech that it was difficult to hear the words in there, plus we only really see them for 2 hours every evening between arriving home and bedtime. It wasn't until Wayne's sister Kathy and his mom Millie spent time with the girls (LOTS of time) that they informed us that Marissa has plenty more words she says then we were giving her credit for.

Now that we're listening better and hearing them, we're encouraging more use and repetition, so her speech is really starting to take off, as is her comprehension.

Saturday morning we were awoken by her babbling in her room. She gave a couple of little coo's, then the subsequent "Uh-oh....uh-oh....uh-oh...." I went in to her room to find her sitting on her head, pointing to her butt and saying, "Poop."

Yep, sure enough, she had a dirty diaper.

On Sunday afternoon she was playing downstairs when she went off and was quiet for a while, then began pointing at her butt and saying, "Poop. Poop." Once again, a poopy one.

Prior to this we thought she was just saying "Boop" or some other nonsense language. Now that she's got the actions to go with it, we finally associate the word with the action. It's not that we train our children, our children train us!

Even if she never tells us "Milk" or "More" or "No," I'm just happy she tells us "POOP!"

Luggage Limits

I was telling my co-workers of the story of our travels back to the US from Mexico. Wayne and I had shared one large suitcase, and I had thought upon our return that we may run up against the 50 lb weight limit. Sure enough, we get to the airport in Cancun and it weighs 52.5 lbs. So we move out of the line, open up the suitcase and start to search for ways to make it lighter. Wayne holds out my toiletries bag and says, "I bet this weighs at least 2 and a half pounds, why don't you put this in your carry-on?" I immediately agree - yeah! It'll be easier than trying to sort through everything else, which all feels much lighter than my toiletries bag.

So we check the luggage and make it through security no problems. When it comes time to get ON the plane, however, that's the point at which they screen for the liquids. Oh, yeah. I forgot! The whole reason why my toiletries bag weighs 2.5 lbs is because it is filled with....liquids. New TSA regulations do not allow more than 3 oz of liquids on the plane, and by the way, they should have been declared back at security. (Apparently in Mexico they don't screen for it until you get to the gate, though.)

I watch in resignation as the security agent pulls out product after product: hair gel ($8), hair serum ($12), facial lotion ($14), pomade ($8), he tries to get rid of my prescription facial cream but I convince him it's a cream and not a liquid. And the kicker, my Proactiv solution, $45 worth.

I think his reasoning was not the total ounces that anything equaled, I think he was looking to see what he could potentially give to his wife for her to use, which is why my argument on the prescription cream was successful -- it was a prescription, did he really want to give it to his wife?

The following weekend I went to Target and Walgreen's to replace my product -- $90 total.

I tell this story to my co-workers, then one of them asks, "How much is the extra charge for the additional weight on the luggage?"

The answer? $75.

"So..." as she continues to follow the obvious logic all the way through now, "it would have been cheaper to pay the $75 for the additional luggage weight than for you to lose all your products."

Yes, yes, that is correct. And thank you for pointing it out! I travel HOW often?

And last point, thank GOODNESS most of my product can be replaced at Target and Walgreen's, and not at the Macy's cosmetic counter. Can you imagine??

Final point -- yes, it is amazing that my hair can yet be THIS frizzy and out of control with all that product in it. Anyone else with naturally curly hair have any favorites to help tame the curls?? I'm always up for new product trials!

A Surprising Benefit of our Vacation

This one deserves its own post.

While on vacation in Cancun Wayne's mom Millie and sister, Kathy, stayed at our house to watch the girls. During this time, Lindsey was officially and finally fully potty trained. Now, if you are a non parent, or perhaps not so fond of the details of bodily functions that go along with being a parent, just stop right there, join the jubilation with us, know that a milestone has been reached and move on to some other post. For those of you who are more used to the discussions around our children's bodily functions, read on.

Lindsey's been potty trained in so far as she'll go peepee on the potty for quite some time. Going "poopy," however, has been met with fear and reluctance. She's been going poopy in pull-ups for months and months, even going so far as disrupting her bedtime to do it because she'll wait until she has a diaper or pull-up on, which doesn't happen until bedtime, and then will do it and need to get changed before going to sleep.

We've encouraged, we've discussed, we've rewarded, we've talked about prizes she would get should she ever go poopy in the potty. Her answer is always, "I'll go poopy in the potty when I'm bigger." Never mind the fact that the girl is 3 years and 8 months old, and that everyone else in her pre-school class is already fully potty trained.

So we were shocked when on our first day of calling back to the house on our vacation we were informed that Lindsey had gone poopy on the potty, and was rewarded with a piece of gum and a popsicle. Perhaps it was the fact that we weren't home at all and she may not have wanted to ask someone other than one of us to change a diaper on her. She told her Aunt Kathy that her tummy felt better after she went poopy. Yep, that happens!

We were hoping this would keep up upon our return. On our first day back, she said she had to go and she sat and sat on that potty several times and never did go. She ended up going in her underwear at about 5 in the morning. Sigh...

But the next day was met with success! About 7 at night she announced she had to go poopy, and sat right down in the little portable potty chair in the kitchen and went! Can I just say, I didn't realize a body that little could create something so large? Yikes!!

So hopefully we're on the road to good potty habits and no more pull-ups or diapers for the biggest kid in the house. Whew!!

Now on to Marissa...hopefully she will be a bit younger than 3 years and 8 months when she finally hits that milestone. I know that someday this will all seem so far in the past, but a day without having to change diapers seems like a utopia that's so far off in the distance, and it's now gotten just a little bit closer!

Bringing Down the House

I just added this book to my "favorite books" listing. It's the first adult book in my life that I've read in one day. Wait, let me re-state that. This was the first book that was not being read to my child that I read in one day. Where was your mind?!

I picked it up in a bookstore in the airport one day when I did a daytrip to Washington DC. I read the first half on the plane on the way there, I read the second half on the plane on the way back.

It's the story of six M.I.T. students who figured out a system to counting cards and took Vegas for millions. The amazing thing about this is that they never actually broke the law. As long as they didn't change the outcome of the game and they didn't use mechanical means to count cards, they were not breaking the law.

It's an incredible book -- anyone who has any interest in math or science, or how geeks always prevail over the jocks, should read this book. I loved it!

CanCun!

For the first time since becoming parents, Wayne and I took a vacation just the two of us. It's the first time EVER that Wayne has been away from the girls overnight for more than two nights in a row. It's the first time either of us have been away from them overnight without it being a business trip.


While we love them dearly, we needed a break. It was so nice to be able to sleep all night through, without having one ear being "on call" for cries or calls in the night. And we took a nap almost every single day, whenever the hell we wanted. Although I was irritated as all could be when our nap one day was interrupted by a phone call from the hotel informing of us of some special promotion we could get, a free steak or lobster dinner or something. I'm assuming there was some catch to it, like we would have to go listen to a timeshare presentation or something. All I knew was, this was my one time to nap and get up when I was good and ready, and instead I got woken up by a phone call. Needless to say, I wasn't polite, and they never called us again.


Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate terribly well; it was sunny only one day, otherwise it was cloudy and it rained two of the four days we were there. But even when it rained, it was a WARM rain, and the breeze was always warm. I'm sure the locals thought we were all crazy, sitting on the beach in our swimwear, when they were all wearing long pants and sweatshirts.


My trip, however, was definitely colored by my experience in Honduras in 2002, in which I saw the abject poverty that many of these Latin American people live in. One day we took a tour bus to see Tulum and Xel Ha -- a normally spendy tour that we got for free through a promotion (but that's another story). As we were being driven back in the nice air-conditioned tour bus, we saw a lot of people walking across a pedestrian bridge over the highway, obviously all just getting off a public bus from a day's work in the city. Sure enough, just down a ways you could see the street where most of these people live, and I use the term "street" in the crudest fashion -- it was simply a path down which to travel. You could see the braced up walls, the "roofs" made of blue tarp, the cardboard resting along the side of the homes. These were the landscapers, the bellhops, the housekeepers, the servers working in those luxurious hotels that line the coast living in these hovels.


I can't imagine what it would be like to get a glimpse of how some people live, with running water, electricity, air conditioning, strong walls and a roof over your head, only to have to take a bus back to your own abode in which you have none of these things. It's amazing there hasn't been more labor rebellions in Mexico, but I think they are so beaten down they can't afford not to work, and for every person who has a job there are five more in line, waiting for any opening, ready to work under any conditions.


Our hotel was all inclusive, and everything we read said that the gratuity was included. I think they say that because people get tired of spending $100 or more per vacation tipping people, but I can guarantee you, if gratuity was included in our bill, it was not making it down to the people actually doing the work. So we tipped well everywhere we went -- the bellhops, the housekeeper, the servers at the restaurants.


I had forgotten that Hurricane Wilma had come through Cancun in October 2005 -- you would hardly be able to tell by looking at it today. Only a few resorts were still under construction, some were re-opened 3 months after the hurricane. We were told that the beaches had been entirely washed away, all you could see was the large rocks that are the actual landscape itself. The government spent untold money bringing beautiful sand in again and rebuilding the beaches back to their former glory. Like I said, you could hardly tell they had been decimated.


A couple of people told us about a Sheraton resort that had opened in August 2005, only to be brought all the way down to the ground by Wilma 3 months later. Only two resorts actually went down in the hurricane, the rest were damaged but mostly intact. Theirs had gone down entirely, and was still being re-built. Ugh.


I mentioned Tulum and Xel Ha -- I'll go back and tell you what those are. Tulum is a Mayan ruin south of Cancun by about a 1 hr 40 min drive (or 3 hours if you take a tour bus). They did not allow people to walk on the structures anymore, since some people were tapping off bits of the stone to bring back home w/them as souvenirs, and they even found graffiti on these beautiful buildings. The Mayan people were incredibly smart, mastering mathematics, astrology and creating a calendar based on the soltices and equinoxes that equaled 364.3 days (thus not needing a "Leap Day" every fourth year). Pretty smart, eh??


We then went to Xel Ha, touted as a natural aquarium. It's an inlet from the ocean that's quite craggy and full of caves. Because of this, sealife is naturally attracted to it, so you can snorkel to see the beautiful fish that you normally have to go out into the open ocean to see. They also have underwater caves that you can scuba dive in, if you can stand the thought of rock above your head instead of open water. They left as much of the natural landscape in place as possible, but created trails, shops, little restaurants and places to get scuba gear, towels, life jackets, etc, all around this inlet.


I was really interested in trying snorkeling. I'm not very comfortable in or on water, but wanted to give this a try and see what I thought. It had been cloudy most of the morning tour at Tulum, and as we got to Xel Ha it started to clear. We hadn't eaten yet, though, so we sat down to get a little something to eat, and that was it for the sun. The clouds came back over and it began to rain. Then it got cool enough that even looking at the water (which now appeared a deep blue, as it was reflecting the sky) made me feel cold. It was also quite windy, so I was more than happy to skip it under those conditions. Yikes!

An Inconvenient Truth

You may notice on my "favorite places" listing I've got the link to climatecrisis.net, the site affiliated with the movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

I was given the movie to watch by my boss, who asked that everyone who works on the World Wildlife Fund account with him take a look.

I was watching the movie one evening after the girls were in bed a couple of nights after Christmas, and if this isn't the biggest wake up call that we are creating our own end, and not within a 100 years, not within 50 years, within our own lifetimes, I don't know what is.

In the latter half of the movie I heard Lindsey stir and I went upstairs to see what was up. She had woken up and wanted to be rocked to fall back asleep. I sat rocking her and began crying, thinking about her future and how different the world was already for her. It was December 27th and we were listening to the pitter patter of rain on the roof. Rain in Minnesota in December, because it was too warm to snow, all of 38 degrees. When we did finally get snow (per previously post "Finally...Snow!") we got 3.5 inches, which dissipated in the next couple of days because we hit 40 again.

These are not the winters of our own youths, when snow fell in November and lasted through until March, streets lined with feet of snowbanks. Sleds sit unused for the most part in our garage, Northern Minnesota resorts that rely on winter snowmobilers to make it through the year are crying for business and closing up shop -- three years in a row. 2006 marks the third "brown" Christmas (i.e. less than 1 inch of snow on the ground) in Minnesota in the last 10 years. I can see the difference in my own short lifetime -- what does this mean in the larger scope of the earth's lifetime?

Yeah, you say, boo hoo for nostalgic winters, if that's the only change brought about by global warming, I'll keep my gas guzzler, it's worth it to not have to deal with ice and snow anymore. Right? Uh huh. Yes, it would suck to live on the coasts, considering that in 20 years they may be a mile under water. But what does it mean to me?

I thought about an article I read last winter about how the lack of snow cover allows the farmers' fallow fields to lose more and more topsoil every year to the strong plains winds. Some of the richest soil in the world is in the Midwest, and it is blowing away before our eyes every year. And every spring farmers are on edge, waiting for that first rainfall because we didn't get enough moisture over the winter to give the fields a good head start on the growing season. Yes, farmers are inherently nervous about the weather, it's the most important subject of conversation in their worlds. But the statistics are backing them up; there is reason to be concerned.

I thought about what the rising seas would mean to the rest of the continents not swallowed by water -- let's take a world population of 6.1 billion people and give them 1/3 less room to live. Wait, yes, we'll kill a bunch of them first, especially those poor people living on the Indian peninsula, on the coast of China, where one quarter of the world's population reside, so there won't be too much crowding for the rest of us, that'll solve that problem. Maybe I'll still have room to drive my gas guzzler.

I thought about the loss of the Galapagos Island and the thousands of species that call those islands their home.

I thought about the polar bears that are already drowning at the poles because they sometimes have to swim for 60 miles before reaching ice strong enough to stand on.

I thought about the nasty insects that live in warmer parts of the world that are now surviving our winters because they don't get killed off by cold. No wonder Dutch Elm disease is on the rise again in Minneapolis -- for the second summer in a row, over 1,000 elms were taken down by the city of Minneapolis due to Dutch Elm. City arborists said they hadn't seen an outbreak this bad since it first hit the Twin Cities in the 1970s.

Still want to buy that SUV? Is it still worth it to you? Now look at your child, your niece, your nephew, and ask yourself that again.

I urge anyone reading this to see the movie, to take action, to do your own part to conserve energy. Write to your legislators, your representatives, tell them the US must lead the way, not be dragged, towards our own rescue. We must sign the Kyoto agreement, improve our emission standards for vehicles, and help developing countries to not take the path we've already broken.

In the movie they make the point of the frog who, when placed in a pot of boiling water, will jump out. But when put into a pot of lukewarm water then the water temperature is gradually increased, the frog will sit there complacently while the temperature rises and rises...and is eventually rescued. (It's important to rescue the frog.)

Who will rescue us?

Two Daddy's Girls

One morning last week Wayne and I were getting the girls ready to go to Children's World. Wayne was wrestling Marissa's coat onto her, trying to get her hat snapped on before she could rip it off of her head and so forth while Lindsey was sitting on the couch, waving her mittens in the air yelling, "Daddy put my mitties on! Daddy put my mitties on!"

I say, "Lindsey, I can help you with your mitties."

She says, "No, Daddy."

I pretend to sniffle and cry and say, "Lindsey, don't you like Mommy? Mommy likes you."

Lindsey looks me straight in the face and suggests, "You can like Marissa."

How did I rate this low on the totem pole? Even the dog gets more unsolicited affection some days.

Sigh....

Finally...Snow!

We've been waiting and waiting, and finally, on December 31st, we got snow. A good amount of it, enough to go sledding in.

We didn't wait for it to stop, we headed out as soon as both girls got up from their naps. Lindsey was so excited, she got herself completely dressed in her snowbibs and coat, just needed a zip and a hat and she was ready! Marissa, on the other hand, looked like Ralphie's little brother Randy in "A Christmas Story." We struggled to get her in the almost too-small snowsuit, and once she was in she wasn't able to move much. She even whined a little bit like Randy did.

Since it was still snowing we could pull their sleds down the sidewalk. We went down to the park and went down the hills for a while. Then the next morning, before any of our neighbors were up it seemed, we got out there and did it again. Lindsey loved it, Marissa wasn't quite so sure.

Christmas 2006

We knew it would be an interesting Christmas, what with Marissa being more interested in opening and playing with presents than it was last year, when she was only 5 months old. We made it through the day with only two timeouts and one major meltdown -- on Lindsey's part.

We started the festivities on Christmas Eve, by going to the local United Methodist Church's 4:30 service. They tell the Christmas story with participation from any children from the audience who would be interested in wearing costumes to play the parts of angels, shepherds, wisemen, sheep, etc. Lindsey, of course, would have none of it and was only interested in seeing the baby Jesus, played by a 3 or 4 month old (a girl, we found out!). She was rather disappointed in the baby Jesus, as s/he was wearing a bright red jumper, and wasn't in swaddling clothes as the story told. And she could only get a glimpse of the baby through the congregation.

Near the end of the service, one of the pastors came to the front to announce that they typically took an offering on Christmas Eve, and they hoped to raise $10,000 for their various missions that day. I later said to Wayne, "How many months do you think it would take your hometown church to raise that kind of money?" I'm sure that for a church of this size, packed to the rafters for all four Christmas Eve services, $10,000 was not a stretch goal.

We went home, had dinner (stuffed pasta shells that had been baking all during the service), then got ready for bed. Lindsey was in bed and sleeping earlier than usual -- we had said many times how Santa only comes when you're sleeping, and she was insistent on being asleep as soon as possible. We put out the traditional cookies and milk, and as Lindsey followed us around for these preparations she said to me "I'm scared!" I think the thought of a stranger entering our house was frightening to her, and she wanted her bedroom door shut all the way. I told her Santa was much too busy to come up to see her, he would just drop the presents off by the tree then would be on his way to deliver presents to all the other boys and girls. She was out by 8:45 -- usually it's after 9:00 by the time she's done reading her books.

Then...Christmas morning. Lindsey awoke at 5 am and Wayne put her in our bed to finish out her night's sleep. She kicked me in the back all through the next two hours -- unintentional, but obviously in need of some legroom! Then at 7:00 we heard Marissa wake up, and two seconds later, Lindsey was wide-eyed next to us: "I think Santa came!!"

We were downstairs in a few minutes, and both Lindsey and Marissa were enamored with the train set that was left for Lindsey. Marissa glossed over the Little People house, but she couldn't get enough of the balloons that were in their stockings that Wayne blew up for them! Another highlight was the $2.99 play cell phone that was in each of their stockings, too. Who knew?

We took turns opening gifts and alternately eating and playing with what had been opened until about 10:00, stopping once for a meltdown when Lindsey didn't want Marissa to play with her Hippity-Hop, and insisted on trying to open a present with one hand while hoarding her Hippity-Hop with the other. A time out and a scream fest for a bit, then back to one present, and finally some breakfast.

Marissa is better at eating than Lindsey -- she doesn't get distracted by things like toys, Christmas and Santa -- she was downstairs and right to the table. Any time Wayne or I took a break to grab a little something to eat Marissa was right there with us, ready to sit down to nibble some more. Lindsey, on the other hand, didn't want to stop opening presents to eat, thus the meltdown. She finally got a little food in her tummy too and was in a better mood.

After all the gifts were open, though, the struggle continued between Lindsey's desire to play with Toy #2 while NOT allowing Marissa to play with Toy #1, which Lindsey had been ignoring until Marissa decided she wanted to play with it. Lindsey was even hoarding Marissa's toys, until we finally had to sequester Lindsey to the upstairs until she learned how to listen and share. It took a good half an hour of screaming and kicking, but finally she settled down, got dressed and was polite and sharing. We had lunch, then off for a nap.

Aaahhhh, a nap, the pleasure of having Christmas at your home with no relatives coming (Sorry, Mom & Dad!). Marissa went down, followed by Lindsey -- Lindsey wasn't even asleep yet and Wayne, Dax and I were snuggled in as well for a lovely two hour nap, all of us. Dax couldn't be happier than being under the covers, curled up against your legs for a nice snooze.

We all awoke at about the same time, then watched Lindsey's new DVD, Cars. Then Wayne made dinner while I pre-emptively fed Marissa. Seeing as Marissa doesn't eat steak, we decided to feed her first, so that we could enjoy our dinner instead of feeding her at the same time. She ate two (count 'em, two) hot dogs, a whole cup of corn, 8 oz of juice and then when our dinner was ready, she ate a little potato all by herself, too. Yep, I'm not worried about this one getting enough to eat!

All in all, it has been a wonderful Christmas!