All I want for my birthday...

is my car back!! Ryan's is in the shop so he took mine on Wednesday and due to a series of ever increasing problems, his car is still in the shop and he still has mine. It sucks to be stuck at home and I'm going stir-crazy. I was supposed to drive him to work today and then pick him up but he wanted to let me sleep in on my birthday so he didn't wake me up and now I'm stuck here once again. Really simple wish, just my own car back to me today. I think I get one wish every 4 years so that's mine.

Lauren sees snow for the first time

Arrived

Ah, technology! I'm typing this out on my Treo in Selkirk, NY. We arrived safely last night in Albany. (Sort of, my mom got bonked in the head with a suitcase as we were disembarking the plane, and she hurt her head and shoulders. We had to fill out an incident report with the airline.)

Anyway, drove to Aunt Julie & Uncle Andy's last night & Lauren got to play with Cousin Elizabeth, my youngest cousin, who is 12. This morning E took her outside to play in the snow, her first time ever. She loved it except refused, in 29 degree weather, to wear her mittens, so naturally got cold. It was not the right kind of snow for a snowman, and we are heading further south where less white stuff is on the ground, so I fear that might have to wait until next trip.

Okay, wrist tired of pecking keys!

Happy Heart Day

Happy Valentine's Day, a few minutes late.  What did you do?  Lauren & I baked heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink sprinkles & cream cheese frosting and made cards.  I got the recipe from "How to Read A French Fry" and after I tried one, and realized I've never made sugar cookies before in my life, and that maybe I should have gotten a recipe from a friend (I'm sure I remember Kate making some delicious ones) or at least a well-reviewed web site.  They weren't that good plain, so I had to turn to "The Joy of Cooking" for the icing recipe.  Live and learn.  Other recipes I've made from HTRAFF have come out really well.  

We got takeout from Natalee Thai and enjoyed that.  Lauren got her favorite "rice, rice, please please, rice, Mama!" and the rest of us had noodles.  

Ryan surprised me with a big gift bag full of different kinds of dark chocolate, and a potted rose plant.  (I told him I would be mad if he wasted money on cut roses, they were $79.95 at Vons!  Crazy!)  I also got my KitchenAid food processor which is sort of a late Christmas/early birthday gift but arrived in time for Valentine's.  I haven't gotten it out of the box yet.  As Lauren would say, "I 'fraid".  There are lots of warnings about not cutting yourself, and specific instructions for how to take the pieces out an assemble them. 

We are going to my parents' house for the long weekend and as we water the plants and get ready to leave, I really hope I remember to feed the fish or else we will find Pacoo floating face up when we get back.  My dear friends Greg & Kara have a betta fish and travel frequently and they told me theirs doesn't eat for 3 day stretches, frequently, and is fine.  They also don't change the water once a week as I had been instructed to do.  The first week, my mother-in-law happened to be here, so I had her do it to show me how.  The second week, in the morning I tried for about 5 minutes to catch the little bugger with the fish net but gave up.   Then my little 9 year old friend came over and I had him do it.  Tomorrow will be one week since the last cleaning and I'll give it the old college try but if I don't succeed, then Pacoo will have to be in 'tinky water on top of being hungry.  If he's floating belly up then, we'll know it was a suicide.

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Mines! A 22 month Lauren update

Lots of new things this month. One thing she likes to do is say "Mine's!" and grab something that is hers. She went from saying "yeah" last month to very clearly saying "yes" and from "thank YEW" to "thanks". Picture her in the living room when she wants me to get something in the kitchen. She will say, "This way. Hand. Hold." and give me whatever she's holding so that her hand is free to pull me where she wants to go. And then you need context for what she wants. "Elmo" in the kitchen means she wants the Earth's Best cookies that are in the Elmo box. In her room, it means she wants to wear something with Elmo on it."Elmo" in the living room means she wants to watch one of his DVDs. We maintain the myth that Mommy can't operate the DVD player so only Daddy watches DVDs with her. Except that recently, she's started showing me how. "Hand, this way, ON" and pushes the television on and then hands me the remote.

If she wants to leave, she will start to put on her own shoes, get her own purse or bag (shopping bag, gift bag, any bag she can find) and fill it with things she wants to take, usually her milk and some toys and a book. Then she'll stand by the front door and say "Open, please. Out!"

She is very interested in having a baby brother (no, I am NOT pregnant, let me reiterate) and will pat my belly and say "baby, please,". Her little friend Sophia has a new baby brother and we visited them in the hospital in November so ever since then, she's been especially interested in the idea of pregnancy and a sibling. She has no idea what the actual sibling would entail! And she's not getting one for awhile, but she likes to remind me that she wants one.

Oh, we do have a new member of the household, though! Ryan's mom bought Lauren a betta fish. Lauren named him Paco. But her nickname for him is Elmo. He's not too exciting but that's okay, if he was, we might be sad at his eventual demise. The lifespan of a betta fish is 1-3 years.

We got a new (well, used, but new to her)MacLaren stroller that she loves and wants to be in, except sometimes she'll be in a certain mood, more lately than usual, and she'll say "hip, please, Mamma" and want me to carry her on my hip. She likes to go "shoppin'" (she leaves off the "g" at the end of verbs) and threw a pout once when we had to leave Macy's. She likes to know everyone's name and for example at one of our favorite stores, she will name the salespeople, "Peter, Tony, Jessie, Monka" (Monka is Monica) as we're on our way there. At the store, any time she sees something a small baby would use, she will tell me "buy this. Mina. Katie." and it will invariably be something that is 1)expensive 2)not something Mina needs. However, she did find some socks once that Kate appreciated. And she actually picks out useful things to buy once in awhile, like a red spatula at Ikea.

In books, she likes to point to the minor characters and tell me who they are. One time in a Sesame Street book, I didn't know the name of one of the puppets so I told her, "um, let's call him...Michael?" and now when she sees this puppet, she says "Michael!" and she'll probably correct whoever tells her the real name. She still loves to read her books and Curious George books and any books about snow have been the favorites this past month.

Laptop Purgatory

IBM is holding the laptop hostage since they say I caused the screen damage and I maintain that I didn't. Honestly, I just picked it up and the screen went out, I didn't do anything to it, but they don't believe me and say I must have slammed it really hard or dropped it. :( So, I've "escalated it to the dispute department" and they will contact me in 5-10 business days. Meanwhile, my dad has loaned me his old one and I'm using it just for email mainly, since I don't have my Adobe Suite installed to do graphics stuff for work. And it doesn't have a built-in card reader so I can't get the pix off of my camera just yet and upload them to the 366 blog. So meanwhile, go there and enjoy the work of the more talented people who are still posting. And if you miss my Lauren pix, then it's time you just come and visit her in person!