I pray because otherwise I feel completely helpless.

We got a call last night from one of my hubby's maternal aunties telling us that another aunty is having quadruple bypass surgery today. I love Colin's three maternal aunties, to be honest, more than I love my mother-in-law. They welcomed me into their family with open arms and great good humor. They have been incredibly generous with my babygirl, sparing us much expense in terms of buying the material necessities for her. I have standing invitations to visit any of them anytime. The thought that one of these wonderful ladies is going to have major heart surgery today just chokes me up.

My hubby is an atheist and doesn't believe in or feel the need for prayer. I'm a very badly lapsed, nonpracticing Jew, but every now and then I do feel the need for prayer, usually when I feel completely helpless in a situation not of my own making. This is one of those situations. I am sending a humble prayer out to my Jewish g-d (Hashem?) that he hold my Irish Catholic auntie-in-law in the palm of His hand today, and in the difficult days that will follow. Please, I beg of You - she is still so young, and so loved, and has so much living and giving and loving left to do.

Attention K-Mart Shoppers.

Yesterday I bought an entire outfit at K-Mart - a suit, blouse, handbag and matching shoes - for about $75. I was pretty glad to be able to find something decent that fit for so cheap.




This is the concrete, physical manifestation of the choices I've made in my life - to work for the government instead of private practice, and to support my family while my husband stays home. Once upon a time, I shopped for suits in the department stores and didn't think twice about spending $200 for a suit, $40 for a blouse, $50 for shoes and another $50 for the handbag. I could even afford to pay cash instead of using a credit card. Now most of my suits come courtesy of K-Mart and Target, and I'm just pathetically grateful that they added halfway decent suits to their lines.

Fair trade? You tell me.

The dumbest emergency broadcast ever.

*boop boop boop* *boop boop boop* *boop boop boop*
~~wildly flashing lights~~
May I have your attention please. May I have your attention please. There has been an emergency reported in the building. While this emergency is being investigated, the building manager would like you to remain where you are and await further instructions.
*boop boop boop* *boop boop boop* *boop boop boop*
~~wildly flashing lights~~

Thanks, I feel very safe and productive staying put in my workplace while an emergency is investigated elsewhere in the building. Have I mentioned I work in a federal building?

She's really getting the hang of this potty thing.

She's already figured out that reading material is essential!

The most fun thing ever!

OMG, you just *have* to try this. It's so much fun, I may well never venture back out into the real world again.

My strip is in the archives under Lawyermommy. Couldn't figure out how to post it here.

Mall rat.

Yesterday after finishing up work early, hubby and I took babygirl to the Emerald Sqare Mall. I needed to do a little spring-wardrobe updating, and, more importantly, Emerald Square has a really nice indoor playspace with fun play equipment, a nice enclosure wall, and a carpeted, bouncy floor. (No dirt to eat!) Ever since Holy Terror, Hyperactive Boy, and L'il Cherub Baby moved out, I've been concerned about babygirl not getting enough interchild interaction and falling behind in her social development. Well, I'm happy to report that she's doing just fine. There were loads of other kids for her to play with, ages 11 months on up to probably 8 years, and she LOVED it. Within minutes she was running around the place and up and down the play equipment, playing with half a dozen kids at once, shrieking with joy. There were three brothers there, probably ages 3, 5 and 7, all competing for her favors. The 5-year-old discovered if he lay down on the floor near her, she'd walk over, lay down and hug him and give him kisses. I should probably be alarmed that she's already into, and attracting, the older men, but it just seemed really cute at the time. There were tons of moms, and even a couple of dads, there with their kids - I think it's pretty common to bring kids there even without shopping just to give them something to do and blow off steam.

We went shopping too - I got a cute work outfit at my current favorite JC Penney, and we picked out some clearance stuff for babygirl at Children's Place. Then a Peekaboo Kisses book at Borders and a copy of the new Harry Potter DVD plus a giant M&M's cookie at Starbucks so I could use their restroom key. Babygirl had a blast walking hand in hand with Daddy all around the mall. She took a detour into one of those open corner-spot mall jewelry stores, attracted no doubt by all the sparkly shiny things, and made a beeline for the cabinet with all the big diamond engagement rings in it. Good taste she has! And so the fascination with jewelry passes to the next generation...

Babygirl was absolutely exhausted by the time we left. She passed out in her carseat before we even made it out of the parking lot and wound up taking a one-hour nap. All in all, we had a great time as a family. I've never been a big fan of the malls, but then I never needed to know what child-friendly places they are. Looks like we'll be going to Emerald Square a lot more often.

I bought myself a present online.

They sure do make nice costume jewelry these days. I could never afford this with real diamonds and sapphires in it. Hope the real thing looks as nice as the picture.

This is the downside of being the breadwinner with a stay-at-home dad for a husband - the only jewelry I get, I have to buy for myself.

Wonderful weekend with new, bigger Babygirl

Well, as I predicted, she's made us a bigger baby. Just for comparison's sake, here's a picture of her on the same ride-on car, before the winter and another taken this past weekend.




I took her for a ride on her new push tricycle to the local park.



There's a little skate/BMX/board park in the park, which was deserted so early in the morning, so I pushed her up the smaller berms and over the little humps in the floor. She loved this and laughed hysterically. (Please note the safety harness I rigged up in the other tricycle shot before you leave me bad-mommy hate comments!)



"I'm a thug. Better not mess with me!"



She practiced running in our backyard (after daddy and I spent an hour cleaning up a winter's worth of dog shit, that is.) Please be sure to note the super-cool toddler Chuck Taylors, a gift from Uncle T. It seemed like she'd *never* grow into them!



We went to the Pet Show at the Convention Center. It was sponsored by Petco and their mascot, a big red dog who looks a lot like Clifford but isn't, was there. Babygirl loved him and hugged him and gave him kisses.




Wish I had gotten more pics from the pet show - she was over the moon about all the great big dogs and tiny little dogs and bunnies and kitties.

And here's some pics from early Sunday morning, just hanging out with Mama. Look how tall she is! And what stellar bed head she woke up with!





I love my job, but it's hard being here without her and missing all these little moments. But at least we got the most out of our weekend together.

Proper packaging.

When I took Babygirl to the mall the other day, I went bra shopping at JC Penney. I was really impressed with their selection. What I wanted were some pretty things, things that were completely incompatible with nursing, things that my hubby would like to see me in, and perhaps remove from me. I love what I bought, but of course you can't run around showing off a bra the way you'd show off a new pair of shoes, so instead I'll just post pics here for any passing stranger to see. Note: these are just the bras, you're going to have to take for granted that I bought the matching panties.


I love this one - sky blue embroidery on pale purple fabric. I've never owned anything like this, sophisticated and fancy. I'm wearing it today.








This one is soooo cute - strawberries and vines on pink, with green gingham trim. Again, I've never owned anything like it.





And lastly, because I love my hubby dearly and he's waited so patiently for access to the boobies, this:

No accounting for taste.

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous outside (considering it's March and still officially winter). I finished my work tour early, and decided to take Babygirl to the playground. I figured it's nice outside, there'll be other kids to play with, and she loves climbing so she'll climb up everything in sight, right? Wrong. We get there, and there's three other kids to play with, two close in age to hers, and all this cool climbing/sliding equipment. What does Babygirl want to do? Crouch down, pick up handfuls of fine gravel/dirt, and PUT IT IN HER MOUTH. I pick her up to leave and she kicks up a huge fuss. I tell her, Fine, we'll try this again, and if you want to play we'll stay, but if you eat more dirt we're leaving. I put her down. Her feet hit the ground, her knees bend, her hands hit the ground and she instantaneously shovels more dirt in her mouth. Enough. Done! So I scooped her back up, buckled her back into her car seat, and took her to the mall instead, where she got to ride grumpily in her stroller while Mama did some much-needed bra shopping. I figured, at least one of us might as well be happy, and it wasn't gonna be her, seeing as the only thing that would make her happy was being allowed to eat dirt.

By the way, let me just say it's very hard to fish tiny tiny gravel out of a 1 1/2 year old's mouth. It gets EVERYWHERE - along the gums, under the tongue, packed away in the cheeks. And she hasn't figured out yet that when I say "Don't Bite!" what I mean is "Don't Bite!" and not, say, "Yes, please do bite me some more!"

And so continues my babygirl's metamorphosis into toddlerhood.

Making us a bigger baby!

Babygirl is seriously about to make us a bigger baby. Ever since we introduced her to solids, she's been just a nibbler - a bite here, a bite there, nibble nibble all day long. And only when presented to her; she's never been one to ask. Well, no more. She's known the sign for "eat" for a long time and now she can say the word "eat" too. And the last two days, she's actually been ASKING to eat. I fed her an entire turkey hotdog on Wednesday. And yesterday morning, when she woke up, she woke up my hubby with kisses and then as soon as he opened his eyes, she smiled and said/signed "eat eat!" Literally the first words out of her mouth. She ate constantly, nonstop, all day long. Every time she ran out of food she'd say "eat eat!" again. Hubby was able to feed her an entire banana at a shot, first time ever. She ate macaroni and cheese. And two Danimals drinkable yogurts. And two big sippies of soymilk. And a bunch of Pirate's Booty corn/rice/cheddar puffs. And a packet of Clifford fruit snacks. And half of one of daddy's waffles. And kielbasa chunks out of daddy's dinner. And a bunch of canned carrot slices. And a bunch of those freeze-dried sweet corn niblets for toddlers. Oh yeah, and she's been sleeping a lot too. Solid two-hour naps. Last night she insisted on going to bed an hour early. I'm making a point of dressing her in all my favorite size 12-month clothes now because in another week, they aren't even going to come close to fitting anymore. Yet another bittersweet moment - I'm happy to see her finally getting enthusiastic about eating, and happy she's about to have a nice healthy growth spurt, but sad because she's moving even further away from the sweet petite little baby I loved so much. I'm smiling through my tears.

WW Day 3; babygirl update

So, it's day 3 of Weight Watchers. So far, so good I guess. I'm in sort of an adjustment period as I learn what things I need to give up as consuming too many of my daily points (2 scrambled eggs = 5 points) and what other things I like that I should make a point of eating now because they take up fewer points. (Broccoli and mushrooms = 0 points, sashimi = 4 points for 8 pieces). My one weakness comes as a total surprise to me. I just love, love, absolutely LOVE my daughter's Silk brand Very Vanilla Soymilk. I can't stop drinking it. I bought her a carton of it in drink boxes but she can't really manage them yet so I've been drinking them myself. 2 a day is 6 points. I try to just have the one in the morning, but come afternoon time I can't resist opening and nursing a second one. Oh well, at least it's extra protein and calcium, and counts as a dairy item for WW purposes. Anyway, yesterday I only needed to use 3 of my "mad money" weekly points, down from 4 on Monday. Today I'm going to try to not use any. So far I've been able to keep my nose out of the feedbag. Hopefully that will continue throughout the day.

Babygirl continues to grow intellectually at an astounding pace. The day before yesterday we were "reading" one of her soft baby books with a tiny rattling stuffed elephant sewn onto the cover. She pointed to it, went "ah ah ah ah!!" and ran away to point out the multicolored elephant dangling from her mobile. Yesterday we were "reading" an alphabet board book and came to a picture of a horse. She said "oooh oooh oooh!!," jumped off my lap, ran into her room, and came back with the little horsie from her barnyard play set. This morning she ran from me reading a Clifford book to her great big stuffed red Valentine's Day doggie to our dog lying on his couch in the living room. She just makes these associations across the board. Also, another piece of big news - on Saturday I gave her a bath, noticed she looked like she was pushing, and whipped her out of the bath and onto the potty. I wrapped her up in her towel and let her sit a minute. Then I heard the soft sound of tinkle hitting the plastic. Sure enough, she had peed in the potty for the very first time! I was kinda hoping it would be a poopy, but oh well - it's still a victory and I'll take it. Kind of makes me wonder how often she's been peeing in her bathtub right along... She's only pooped in the bath twice - now THOSE times I remember!