Phriday Photo Phun Phiesta: Photos, the Next Generation

Wow, I've totally deserted my blog of late, sorry 'bout that. I have many excuses, truly I do. It appears I last posted on a Wordless Wednesday a week ago, and now here we are with a Phriday Photo Phun Phiesta. I would have phantabulous photos to share, if I hadn't had my excuse-laden week happen. (By the way, I'm totally about to plagarise myself from a comment I left over on the fantabulous Andy's blog. Oh, and she is having a giveaway right now so you might want to pop over there, but then again, *I* want to win the giveaway, so maybe never mind, not to mention then you'd see this next bit in its orginal context....) Anyhow, I’ve been hit with a double whammy this week, part one consisting of a massive allergy attack following my lawnmowing escapades of Monday afternoon, which resulted in two subsequent days of red, watery eyes, red, stuffed up, Rudolph-would-be-jealous nose and a permanent fog from massive doses of antihistamines that would only clear for a few brief seconds during “damn, I think I actually just sneezed my nose off” sneezing spells. Whammy Part Deux came the day before yesterday, when, coming off the heels of my allergy attack, I was at the gym and pulled something in my lower back. Well, okay, fine, I actually began to pull the something in the shower before going to the gym, when I dropped my little scrubby bath puff thingy and had to BEND ALL THE WAY OVER to retrieve it from the shower floor and my back said “BEND ALL THE WAY OVER? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? SOMEONE YOUNG AND LIMBER? HAHAHAHAHAHA!” and twanged ominously. But, since hurting oneself at the gym at least sounds like one isn’t utterly pathetic and my back did twang ominously again while stepping down off the elliptical machine, I’m going with that. Annnnnnyhow, however it began, I pulled something in quite a painful way two days ago, and it got progressively worse as yesterday wore on, so I’ve been hobbling around slowly and heavily, all hunched over, for the past 24 hours, cursing myself for choosing to put the ibuprofen (along with all the other medicine-type things) waaaaaaay up on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet so Kiddo can’t get to them because, as I’m presently about 2/3 of my height, I can’t reach them either. Kiddo has proved useful in other ways, though, such as fetching me icepacks from the freezer…

"Wow!" you're no doubt thinking to yourself, "this blog post claimed to be full of Photo Phun and so far all I've read is Heather whinging on about her hunchbackedy sneeziness!" (Oh, and by the by, have you ever had a massive sneezing fit while suffering from extreme lower back pain? Ouch to the nth degree, let me tell you!) "Hmmm," you further are thinking, "When and where are these phun photos going to appear?"

Well, fear not, dear reader, because Kiddo has stepped up to the plate, pinch-hitting for her Rudolph-Hunchback mama. You see, Kiddo is a shutterbug in her own right, albeit one with a fairly lame, low-quality digital camera. Kiddo has been snapping pictures like mad all week, and since *she* took 286 photos this week to my 0 photos, she is going to be featured here today.

On with the show!

Here's proof that I am, in fact, Quasimodo:

Working hard on my computer, if by "hard" one means "playing Farm Town and Farkle on Facebook" .....



Sitting at the table, trying to read, eat breakfast and remain upright all at the same time:



(You'll note the abundance of wadded up tissues next to me in each shot above; sorry her camera isn't high-quality enough to capture the Rudolphian/W.C. Fields nose itself.)

As I was turning out to be quite a boring subject, Kiddo turned her camera to more exotic species of wildlife in the form of Chompy, one of the rabbits that frequents our yard. These were from Chompy's daily visit as taken out one of the office windows:







Once Chompy had ventured on to yards beyond our own, Kiddo found herself another model. This is Buster, a member of her Stuffed Animal Entourage...

Posing on top of a TV tray,



on top of my rapidly dwindling supply of Puffs Plus in my office,



on a placemat on the dining room table,



and in EXTREME CLOSE-UP!



Kiddo also took many self portraits.... This one's my favorite.



So, there you have it. Photo Phun courtesy of the Next Generation Shutterbug in my house! Hoping you are all having a much more upright kinda Phriday, and for more Photo Phun, pop on over to Candid Carrie's!

Happy Blogiversary to me!

Well, I'm sooooo close to my 300th blog post (!), which I'd thought I'd easily manage to time to fall on this, the one year anniversary of my blog. Then, Kiddo came down with what appears to be one nasty case of viral pneumonia (we've been to the doctor and had a chest x-ray, but beyond an albuterol inhaler - Kiddo's first - there isn't a heckuva lot that can be done for her since it is just the World's Most Persistent and Annoying Virus and therefore cannot be treated with a nice, strong antibiotic to knock it out of her system quickly), and my week just got away from me. Dagnabit.

So, post number 299 is going to have to suffice as the official Blogiversary post, but I'm going to postpone any serious partying until after all members of my household are healthy again. Stay tuned for that, and also for the upcoming debut of Carma's personal video. I've got the lyrics done, and just need to get my singing voice back enough to record the video. It's gonna be good, I think! *eyebrow wiggle* In the meantime, do me a favor and pop by Carma's blog and give her some comment loving, to help make up for the fact that this video is taking forever to get done. (And hint, hint - my Belated, Big Blogiversary Bash will very likely include another video giveaway...)

Now, as my blogiversary proper is today, I feel like I should do something to mark the day. I've decided that to celebrate the occasion, I will feature my first-ever guest blogger! Since she's home with me, that guest blogger is none other than my very own Kiddo. (Hey, the choices were either her, Crazy Cat or the Evil, Fat, Carny Fish. Trust me, you want neither fish pee water splashed upon you with a flourish, which is the best Swimmy could manage, nor a hairball gacked upon you, which is Crazy Cat's forte. I'd gladly have had George Clooney or Eddie Izzard or Hugh Jackman or perhaps Alan Rickman reciting an ode in my honor, but sadly, none of them returned my phone calls or emails or tweets. Humph.)

Here, therefore, is an interview about me (I mean, after all, this is my blog) as answered by Kiddo. I got the questions from an interview that's been floating around the blogosphere and Facebook as well. (On a side note, has anyone noticed the sudden explosion of memes and the like over on Facebook? It seems to be happening a lot more over there now, and I don't think it's just that I'm noticing it more with the really irritating new layout they've got going on...) Okay, here goes, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kiddo!

1. What is something your mom always says to you?

“You are my Bug of Love.”

2. What makes your mom happy?

When I scratch her back. When Daddy comes home for family dinner. When I listen to Mommy and Daddy and to my teachers at school and have good days.

3. What makes your mom sad?

When I whine and when I have temper tantrums and I kick her.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?

Playing jokes on me, like hiding and surprising me. Also, when she tickles me. When we are having Opera Day and she sings in a silly voice.

5. What was your mom like as a child?

Mommy was the same as me. She was a funny kid, and a silly kid and a smart kid.

6. How old is your mom?

37. (Ed note: At least she got my age right and didn't say 73, like she did at church on my birthday.... And yes, I am a little bit afraid to do that "What's Your Real Age?" quiz over on Facebook, as I'm a little nervous it will tell me I am, in fact, 73 and not 37.)

7. How tall is your mom?

12 inches tall. No, wait, she is 130 inches tall, and Daddy is 131 inches tall because he is taller than Mommy.

8. What is her favorite thing to do?

Help me and play with me.

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?

Mommy feeds the cat and the fish, cleans my room and gets treats for me.

10. What is your Mom very good at?

Mommy is very good at Mario Kart Wii and catching me.

12. What is your mom not very good at?

Making omelets, Mommy burns them.

13. What does your mom do for her job?

Taking care of me. And Daddy. And the cat and the fish.

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
Raspberries, ice cream and Cheez Doodles but NOT pepperoni!

15. What makes you proud of your mom?

When Mommy wins at Mario Kart Wii.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?

Belle, because Mommy looks like her and because Belle likes to read books all the time and so does Mommy. Also, Alicia from Diego because Mommy loves animals and would rescue them.

17. What do you and your mom do together?

Play together and sing songs and have Opera Day.

18. How are you and your mom the same?

We have the same eyes and we wear glasses and have brown hair. We are both silly. Our whole family is silly! And we both like to sing.

19. How are you and your mom different?

Mommy has black glasses and I have pink glasses. Mommy is a grown up so she is the boss, and I’m just the kid. When I’m a grown up, I’ll be the boss but I’ll be nice to everybody.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?

Mommy gives me hugs and kisses and takes care of me and calls me Bugaboo.

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?

Disney World or New Jersey!

Well, what can I say? Kiddo has been sheltered from my love of all things George Clooney, also Las Vegas and Hawaii. So, I couldn't really expect her to say "George Clooney's Italian villa" or "Vegas, baby!" or "Hawaii - or alternatively, some lovely Caribbean isle..." And it is sadly quite true that I have zero skill at making a decent omelet. I cannot flip/fold an omelet without making a horrific mess and it does usually wind up burning. I am hopeless at omelet cooking. I can fry a mean egg though - sunny side up or down - and I make killer scrambled eggs.... well, nobody's perfect, right?

So, there you have it. My first ever guest blogger for my first ever Blogiversary. It is hard to believe that it has been a whole year since I first dipped my toe into the blogosphere, with nary a follower or a comment or blogging community. Now, I can't imagine my life without my blog and the blogosphere as a whole! I am so glad that my little blogging thing has led me to discover so many wonderful folks out there around the world, and I plan to celebrate that as part of my Belated, Big Blogiversary Bash. (Like I said, stay tuned!!) In the meantime, germ-free, great, big, giant, squeezy (((hugs))) to you all!

When urban legends are true

As any of you who have read my blog in the past week are aware, Kiddo has RSV. With the RSV has come thick-n-plentiful congestion and a frequent cough. I'd posted about this on my Facebook status the day before yesterday (because if one is going to whinge on about something, one might as well whinge on in any available forum, eh? I Twittered about it too...). Within an hour, I had no less than three of my friends reply to my FB status update to suggest that I rub Vicks on the soles of Kiddo's feet at bedtime.

Now, I'd heard of this practice before and dismissed it pretty much out of hand. I mean, when I was a kid, sure, Mom would slather my throat and chest with Vicks (then wrap a dishtowel around my neck, safety-pinned at the back, under my jammies) whenever I had a bad chest cold/cough. But that makes some amount of sense, what with the vapors having good proximity to the breathing and all. How on earth could having Vicks on the bottom of one's feet be beneficial, if one sleeps like a normal human (or even like Kiddo, with her various contortions and shiftings about in her sleep) and not pretzeled up like some master yoga practitioner?? Plus, the instructions include covering the Vicks-slathered feet with socks (for bed linens-protection purposes) which adds a further layer of vapor-blocking to the enterprise.

But still, THREE people. Three mothers who I find to be not only quite sane, but utterly trustworthy, no less. All three of them were telling me of their first-hand experience doing this and swearing to me that this Vicks-on-feet thing worked. I told Hubby about it, and he scoffed. I told him I thought I might try it, and he rolled his eyes and scoffed further, then remarked that it would "ruin the bedding" before considering the matter closed. I googled it and proceeded to read the Snopes article (oh Snopes, how I adore thee and thy debunking ways) which didn't give a solid confirmation or denial. I clicked back to my google search results and proceeded to read blog after blog after message board after message board post about how mom after mom tried this with much success. (Of course no one hopped onto the interwebz to announce they'd tried this method and found it to be full of hooey....) It sure seemed like a lot of anecdotal evidence... I considered the idea some more.

When I announced my intention to Vicksify her feet at Kiddo's bedtime, Hubby threw his hands up and shook his head, as Hubby is wont to do when I'm on to one of my "crazy schemes", but I persisted. I slathered the bottoms of Kiddo's feet with Vicks (well, actually, with Generic Mentholated Rub Goo) and double-socked them, just to be sure that the linens and vast horde of stuffed animals that share Kiddo's bed wouldn't be too camphortastic come morning. We also ran the cool mist humidifier (set to "tropical rainforest") with the Vicks scented pad thingy in the holder for additional mentholated effect. Hubby was rather skeptical, and to be honest, so was I, but I figured it wasn't going to hurt anything, except maybe a stuffed animal or twelve who might need a bath come morning.

Kiddo fell asleep. Time ticked by. Nary a cough sounded from her room. I was up until almost midnight (thanks to an afternoon nap that threw my schedule totally off) and still, not a cough. Kiddo is an impressive cougher, too - it rings out through the house, reverberating off the walls in such a manner as to make our house seem like one of those sanitarium tuberculosis wards of old. All I heard was silence. I checked on her before turning in at twelve. Sleeping soundly and breathing pretty well (she was snoring, as she does whenever she's congested). Hmmmm.

This morning, Kiddo woke us up shortly after seven. Not by coughing up a lung, mind you, but by scampering into our room, relatively bright eyed and bushy tailed. Well, bushy haired at any rate - the kid does an awesome "bed head" look, even with her hair secured in a pony tail or braids before sleep. No coughing. None. Her nasal congestion also was markedly improved - I did the "squirt squirt" routine (nasal saline spray and much nose blowing) with her this morning and there was hardly anything produced compared to the floods of ick that scoffed at the Puffs Plus and exploded over my hand of yesterday.

Now, it is entirely possible that this is all coincidental, that Kiddo would've been this much improved without any wacky old wives'-urban legend remedy. Hubby thinks it was just the added presence of vapors in the room and posited that had I done as my mother did and rubbed it onto Kiddo's chest/throat instead, it would've worked as well if not better than the feet. Hmmmm. All I know is that 24 hours ago I was thinking there was no way Kiddo was going to be healthy enough to go back to school tomorrow, and now today? I totally think she could. She has no fever, hardly any congestion, and has only coughed once since she woke up. We're staying home again today and having one more day of "taking it easy" just to be safe, but all signs point to YES on the return to school, and you'd better believe I'm rejoicing over that.

Either way, you can be darn sure I'm going to Vicks her feet again tonight!

Step right up, spin the wheel...

I swear sometimes it feels like taking a kid to the doctor's office is like spinning the Great, Big Wheel o' Diseases.......


This time around, the wheel landed on RSV. Yee-ha. The good news is that as of today, Kiddo's lungs are clear, so there's no sign of pneumonia or bronchial infection. We have to keep an eye - or more accurately, an ear - on her and if we think her breathing is getting worse, wheezy or if the cough worsens, we have to bring her back. Otherwise, treatment doesn't include any wonder drugs, since it is a virus and all, but rather the good old Mentholated Rainforest. Hubby is scrubbing out the humidifier and I bought more of the Vicks pads for the vaporizer, and Kiddo is steaming in the shower even as I type...

Oh, so the weird doctors' office closing thing? I had made an appointment at the Urgent Care center, but the only one of the centers that was seeing peds patients was the one across town in a rather rough neighborhood. I wasn't thrilled about that but wanted Kiddo to be seen, so I was going to suck it up and take her. Just as we were leaving the house, the phone rang. I almost didn't answer but thank goodness I did, because it was Kiddo's pediatrician's office saying they'd reopened and could see her in half an hour. Woo! When we got there, I asked the receptionist why they had closed. "Mercury spill" was her answer. Before I could ask for further details, another woman behind the counter shot the receptionist a warning look, as if they weren't supposed to be spilling the details about the spill. So, who knows? Perhaps a sphygmonometer burst or something (don't those still have mercury in them?)... At any rate, we wound up getting to see Kiddo's actual pediatrician so that was all good. I think I survived the brainwashing effects of the various hold musics at the various medical offices - I was on hold for aeons both to make and then cancel the Urgent Care appointment and I swear there are subliminal messages broadcast in the Muzak...

Anyhow, we've spun the wheel and gotten our diagnoses o' the day. As long as it doesn't evolve into any chest infection, Kiddo should be back to 100% in short order. Of course, with RSV being as crazy contagious as it is, Kiddo could very easily pick it up again at school next week... The doctor said that as long as she is fever free and feeling all right, she can go as early as Monday. We shall see (is it wrong that my fingers are a little bit crossed in the hope that she'll be fine by then?)...!

And that's the update from the Mentholated Rainforest here in the snowy, frozen expanse of upstate New York! We may be stuck here in our patheticicity (thanks Texan Mama!) but at least we have a George Clooney DVD courtesy of the local Redbox machine to watch tonight! (Burn After Reading - totally wanted to see it in the theater, of course never had the chance, and way excited to be watching it tonight. I'm even caffeinating just in case so I can stay awake!)

Wake me when it is 2010, part deux

So, apparently when we were down in NJ visiting my family (along with that day trip into NYC using many forms of public transportation and bumping through crowds of tens upon thousands of people), we all picked up a germ or three. First it was me sneezing and sneezing and aching and aching and having *no* energy pretty much from Sunday on until this morning. Kiddo started earlier this week with some impressive but not terribly frequent nasal emissions. Yesterday, Hubby started with the sneezing and the runny nose and overnight, added a headache to the mix, while Kiddo started running a low grade fever and added a cough to the repertoire. Not to be outdone, my germs opted to zero in on the throat region, setting my entire throat from tonsils back on fire and making swallowing uncomfortable at best, fairly agonizing at worst. This morning, Kiddo further upped the ante by having her cough evolve from a dry, occasional thing into a horribly tubercular, wet, breath-stealing, nonstop hacking fiesta. Given our combined state of utter patheticalness (yes I just made that word up), we felt it wisest to cancel our plans for yesterday and lay low. Given our worsening state of utter pathetictude (yep, another one) this morning, I canceled our plans for today and just called the pediatrician's office.

Now, our pediatrician's office opens at 8:30am. I began dialing my way through the automated menu system at 8:29 so that I could be one of the first calls answered by a real, live person. (This works better some days than others - I have been stuck in the auto-hold chain for over 10 minutes in the past.) This morning, I was talking to a real, live person by 8:31. That was the good news. The not-quite-so-good news is that the first appointment Kiddo's doc had available isn't until 11:45 this morning. Guess we aren't the only germy folks in town (even if our germs are of a more exotic, imported, New Jerseyan/New York Cityean variety).

Kiddo is now tucked into my bed, where she is hacking and coughing germs all over my pillows and linens. (Note to self: change bedding before climbing back into bed tonight.) She's running a fever so she is pretty low energy, which she appears to be trying to conserve for the aforementioned coughing bouts. Hubby sniffled and sneezed his way off to work today, returning who knows how late tonight as it is his first day back in the office since before Christmas. (He worked from home over the holidays, including while we were in NJ, but that doesn't help with all the mail etc that accumulates when one isn't physically in the office...) I hopped in the shower as soon as I pulled the thermometer out of Kiddo's mouth in anticipation of being asked "Can you bring her in right now?" which actually only ever happens if I *haven't* anticipated that. Hmmm, maybe I should've just stayed in my jammies in order to ensure a first-thing-come-right-away opening. My bad.

To sum up, we are a generally pathetic bunch here in my family today. I just hope that Kiddo doesn't have anything serious (various relatives with whom we broke bread and shared air over the holidays are now on various antibiotics for their various ills, any combo of which we may be brewing up here right now) and that whatever she has is sufficiently in hand before school starts on Monday. Because (guilty, bad Mommy confession coming up here) I was rather looking forward to Monday, with normal life resuming and Kiddo going back to school and such. Not that I don't love playing Sorry, Trouble or Connect 4 for hours, really. Nor do I mind letting Kiddo pretend she is a dog and feeding her as she sits under the table, barking and pawing at my leg. I enjoy having everyone home and together, really. I truly do. I just was looking forward, just the tiniest little bit, to getting back to Life As Usual. In the meantime, I just hope that, along with Kiddo - and Hubby! - getting better quickly, that I don't get worse myself, because we all know, mommies can't get sick....

In other virus-related-esque news, after reading blog post after blog post about folks having horrendous computer crashes and losing all their files, I am very relieved that Hubby just signed us up for an online back-up service, which will automatically back up everything for us, including my (literally tens of thousands of) pictures and videos and everything - even my iTunes collection. Whew. It's doing the initial back up now, which is slowing both of our computers down, but once the initial back up is done, it should be an invisible and painless process.

Time to brew myself a cup of tea and make something for Kiddo for breakfast. Hoping everyone else is less germy and blah than our patheticocity here! (Woo, the made up word trifecta!)

RANDOM AND WEIRD UPDATE: Okay, just as I was spellchecking (go made up words!) and getting ready to hit publish on this, the phone rang. Twas the doctors' office calling, so as I answered, I was totally thinking "Woo-hoo, they had a cancellation and can see us earlier!" as this has happened in the past. Nope. Totally, completely NOPE. Instead of getting to go in earlier, the receptionist said "I need to cancel Kiddo's appointment. We've been told we need to close the office and leave the building immediately." Whaaaa?!?!?! I asked her why that was and she didn't know. All she knew was that they were closing immediately for an unknown period of time. She said my options were either to wait and see if they are able to open tomorrow morning or take Kiddo to an Urgent Care center instead. So, so weird. I wonder what the heck is going on that they have to close the building.....? The doctors' office is in a complex of medical buildings, so it seems like it could be any number of things. Hubby guessed it was some sort of landlord-tenant issue to which I said "Huh?" because that seemed like a much more farfetched guess than my immediate thoughts about some sort of plague outbreak (Ebola, anyone? I mean, who's to say that someone didn't visit some much more exotic location than NJ over the holidays, bringing back much more exotic germs than ours?) or more likely, a water main break or heating issue or something that requires power to be shut off to the building...

At any rate, I now have to wait until 11 and call the UC clinic to see if I can get Kiddo in there instead. Whee.

Filled with dread...

Hubby is out of town tonight. Kiddo, who I kept home from school because of a cold she's been brewing, has been campaigning all day to take his spot tonight. I am filled with dread at the prospect.

Now, it isn't that I don't love snuggling with my child. It isn't even that I mind the way she twists around in her sleep, invariably winding up perpendicular to me with a foot jammed into my armpit or a knee/elbow combo in my ribcage. Truly, I can handle that. I wound up sleeping in bed with her every single night while we were in the hotel in Florida last August. It's not even that she snores or hogs the covers and pillows.

It's this:



Except, instead of water cascading over a rock ledge, it is snot cascading down my beloved Kiddo's face. Snot and germs galore.

Yeah, really do NOT want that inches away from my face all night, dampening my pillow and befouling my flannel sheets. I mean, I've been Mommy the Human Kleenex all day today, so it is highly likely I'm contaminated with her germs already (despite fanatical handwashing, liberal use of hand sanitizer and several vigorous applications of Lysol to various rooms). I just don't want the Niagara Falls Nostrils snuffling into my room and beseeching me to snuggle all night long. I admit, I am virtually powerless against the charms of my child in the night, even when she's sporting the Glazed Donut Monster (tm Bill Cosby) look.

Hoping against hope she falls deeply asleep and doesn't stir until morning...

(Oh and the good news is this cold hasn't been nearly as bad as it seemed like it was going to be - *knock wood* - so unless her symptoms are dramatically worse in the morning or she begins running a fever, she is totally going to school. So much for the kindergarten perfect attendance award!)

Sick Day

Yesterday, I had my first sick day in over five years. "Whaaa? But I remember you complaining about being sick many times before, even on this very blog!" say you. True, true. It isn't that I haven't been sick at all in the last five years, for I certainly wind up coming down with most of Kiddo's illnesses (something to do with being Mommy the human Kleenex, I suppose). But yesterday was the first day that I actually had a sick day since Kiddo was born.

As in, I stayed in bed almost the entire day, save a trip downstairs for some food and getting up to shower in the afternoon. Hubby got Kiddo her breakfast and made her lunch (which I'd been too wiped out and feverish to make the night before, as I usually do), so all I had to do was get her onto the bus before I could go back to bed, and then I could stay in bed until it was time to collect her from the bus at 3:15.

Now, when I was working, I rarely took a sick day. I had to be really, really sick - I even went to work in the waning stages of a migraine, though granted, I don't know how productive I actually was during those moments... Anyhow, to give you an example of how little sick time I used, by the time we adopted Kiddo, I had accrued so many hours of unused sick time that I was able to take a month and a half off, paid, out of that stockpile. (Because, you know, when you become a parent through adoption, you're not necessarily going to get maternity leave, especially paid maternity leave...) But when I was really, really sick, nothing helped me kick the germies more than just huddling in bed with a box of Puffs Plus and possibly a fair amount of Nyquil coursing through my veins. That all changed once Kiddo came home. There is no "sick day" for a stay-at-home mom with a child at home. Yes, there certainly have been times that I've been sick, and times when Hubby came home or stayed home and took over the childcare duties so I could stay in bed, but it wasn't the same. (I'm sure all the other stay-at-home parents out there know what I'm talking about!)

Yesterday, with kiddo gone for the majority of the day, hearkened back to those pre-Kiddo times when I'd stay home, sick. I slept and slept. I watched some TV - I got sucked into the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet for a few hours (I am a sucker for Shakespeare, it's true) and then balanced that with half an infomercial about a "miracle" ceramic hair styling contraption and part of the Tyra Banks show. (Turns out that while I love her on America's Next Top Model, and oh yes, but I love that show - cannot wait for next week's makeover episode woo-hoo!, I am not such a fan of her talk show. It's a little too "Look at me, I'm TYRA!" for my taste.) I read and slept and ate some yogurt and cereal and blew my nose about a zillion times. Seriously - I could've recreated the Great Blizzard of '93 with the number of balled-up tissues I went through in a matter of hours. I did pop in on the internet a couple of times, but not for very long, as my head was pounding and much preferred the comfort of reclining on a pillow. (Yes, I know, I was pathetic - barely able to keep my head upright, yeesh.) Eventually, I went and stood in the shower until the water ran cold, then got dressed and shuffled off to the corner to wait for the school bus. That was the most taxing thing I did all day - walking to and from the corner.

While I miss many things about the way things were up until two weeks ago when Kiddo started kindergarten, having the chance to actually take a sick day and spend it in bed is definitely a silver lining to that cloud. I'm feeling a good bit improved as of today - still have a fever, but it is lower, and my head isn't pounding like it was yesterday (hence my ability to sit here and blog) - and I fully credit that to the ability to sack out and sleep it off yesterday.

Oh, and on the Kiddo IEP front - a quick update. We have an emergency CSE meeting set for first thing Monday morning that Hubby and I will both be attending. Also, the school managed to do Kiddo's full sensory diet both Thursday and Friday, and guess what? With the full sensory diet, Kiddo had two perfectly good days. Whaddya know - give her the sensory input that she needs, and she is able to be successful in school, imagine that... I'll let you know how things go after the meeting.

School days, school days

(Sorry, I've been meaning to post about the big First Day of School, but Kiddo and I both have been battling a pretty congestion-filled head cold - thanks, recirculated airplane air chock full o' germies! - and I haven't managed to finish this 'til today.)

So, the first two days of kindergarten are over. I must report that there were, in fact, tears on the first day, but I survived! Isn't that what you wanted to hear about? Oh, no? You wanted to know how Kiddo did, didn't you? She did just fine - I was the one who was crying!

Here she is, heading off for the school bus....



...and with barely a pause to say goodbye to Mom and Dad (photographing and videotaping, respectively), off she scampered onto the bus as soon as it pulled up to the corner.



She returned in as ebullient a mood as ever, bursting at the seams with tales of her first day. Friday was a repeat of Thursday, with great joy and excitement over school and sadness and disappointment that she doesn't get to go to school again until MONDAY. (Apparently, Kiddo thought kindergarten was a seven-day-a-week thing, not a mere five days like preschool was last year.) I wonder how long this "I LOVE school and can't wait to go back again!" mindset will last - sadly, I'm guessing not for the next thirteen years...

Also, on the first day? I followed the bus. I told you I was one of those mothers. I should point out that I wasn't the only parent following the bus - there were at least three cars behind me and one in front for the five minutes it takes to get from our street to school. Now, when I got to school, I didn't want Kiddo to see me. This was not the case for a lot of the other parents, who were forming a crowd to one side of the entrance that rivaled the crush of reporters covering the red carpet at the Oscars. One dad even had his video camera set up on a tripod on the sidewalk, all the better to capture his child getting off the bus and heading in to school. Seriously, it was nuts. I used the throng of camera-wielding, madly waving parents as a cover and watched Kiddo happily hopping off the bus and greeting one of her summer program friends, who is in the same homeroom, and then skip merrily off into the building.

I was pretty okay for this whole portion of events. I teared up as the bus first pulled away from our corner, but recovered quickly as I hopped in the van to chase the bus. I was dry-eyed on the sidewalk at school. I got home and walked into the house, and that's when it hit me. First of all, the house seemed somehow quieter and more empty than usual, which I know was entirely in my mind as I have been home alone without Kiddo many, many times before (every morning last year while she was in preschool, for example...) But it struck me as being different yesterday. Then, I spotted this:



Kiddo's teddy bear (the most beloved, since she was a baby, of all her stuffed animals), sitting forlorn and alone on the couch where Kiddo had abandoned him as she dashed off to school.

That's when I started to really cry. I cried for a good five minutes, truth be told.



But by Friday - Day 2, I was over it. Totally fine and dry-eyed as I waved Kiddo's bus off into the distance. I still felt at loose ends with so much time to myself, but I thought of it as a sort of vacation day. I mean, last year, I'd get home from dropping her off at 9:30ish and then would have to be back on the road to pick her up at 11:00, so it wasn't really all that much time to myself. Yeah, I'd work in some errands or hit the gym - I was efficient about it and had things timed to the second - but now? I'm back in the house at 8:12 and the whole day stretches out before me, since I don't need to be back at the corner until 3:05. It felt weird and not as liberating as I thought it would. I suppose I ought to kick my job search into high gear, so I have something to occupy my time more productively than browsing the stacks at the library (I came home Friday with five new books to read) or sitting and reading blog after blog after blog and playing game after game after game of Wordscraper over on Facebook. (Not quite as wondrous as Scrabulous, but I'm getting addicted to it nonetheless.)

It has been a long time coming, this first day of school - five years, in fact. But while I know in my head that it has been five years, in my heart it still seems like yesterday that Kiddo was still this small:







So, while I know that this BIG kid will come bounding off the school bus and into my arms every afternoon, I can't believe that this BIG kid was my tiny peanut not all that long ago... All this time, the First Day of Kindergarten has been this distant dot barely looming on the horizon, even as this last summer flew by to its end. Although I was preparing for it - buying the backpack, the lunch bag, the school supplies - and talking to Kiddo about it, when the day arrived, it still seemed to have snuck up on me, somehow. Now, I'm just relieved that it is behind me, and ready to hurl myself headlong into the next chapter of parenthood. I've already joined the PTA and if Kiddo wants to do Girl Scouts this year, I'll volunteer with the troop, too. As much as I looked forward to and enjoyed being a stay at home mom of a little kid, I'm looking forward to being the mom of a school-aged kid, too - the field trips, the sporting events, the dances and plays and recitals and later, the dances and proms and college visits. Okay, maybe I'm not looking forward to the college visit trips just yet.... One year at a time, right?

Now if someone could just tell me how to get my kindergartener to actually eat her food in the 25 minutes they allow for lunch in the cafetorium (auditeria? I know it is a combo word for the multi-purpose room, but haven't gotten down which combo it is), I'd be all set. Kiddo is skinny enough without skipping meals. (Seriously - I have been able to find exactly TWO pairs of jeans that fit her this fall - Children's Place "Skinny Straight" and Target's Circo brand "Slim Boot Cut" in size 5 are the only ones that don't make her look like she is an "After" picture in "Before" jeans in a weight-loss ad or go four or five inches past her feet. What's up with that?!) We had better success with Friday's lunch than Thursday, when 90% of the specially-requested bologna and provolone sandwich, grapes and Cheerios-Chex mix came home untouched (not to mention the mini-Milky Way bar - what kid skips the chocolate? I've got to work on her priorities, clearly). Friday, I'd say she ate more than 75% of her food, and she reported that she wanted to finish her mini-pizzas but the lunch lady told her she had to stop eating and go line up right away, so she couldn't. Maybe we should practice speed-eating at home? Kiddo is fond of dining at a rather leisurely pace... Any hints or tips would be welcomed!

One Day More...

Today is officially the end of an era, the closing of a chapter in my life. Kiddo starts kindergarten tomorrow, which is full day. She will be getting on the school bus at 8:10 and not be home until 3:22. Yes, she has been in preschool for the past two years, and last year she went five days a week, but it wasn't the same - preschool was just 2.5 hours a day and I drove her, so I was there for every drop off and pick up. From here on out, she is officially a Big Kid, a kid who waves goodbye and hops on a school bus without a backwards glance, no longer part of the Mommy-and-Kiddo team that we've been since she first came home from the hospital at 15 days old. I am really, really sad about this. (Seriously - I've got tears in my eyes just writing this.) I know that every chapter ending is a new chapter beginning, and this next one will be a long one - thirteen years or so - but this is the first significant change to our life, and especially with Kiddo being my one and only, I'm really feeling it.

It doesn't help matters that Kiddo developed a runny nose yesterday that this morning appears to be a full-on cold. I blame the airplane ride on Sunday - three hours of breathing recirculated air is something that all the Purell in the world can't combat - but dagnabit, I didn't want her first day of school to come with Niagara Falls Nostrils! Ew! I debated letting her sleep in this morning because of the germies, but opted to wake her up at 6:30 because she will have to get up early tomorrow for school. (Ordinarily she is up by 6:30 on her own.) Hopefully the excitement of the first day of school will counteract any germ-induced sleepiness or crankiness tomorrow...

This morning, we're going over to school as we missed the big Check Out the Classroom and Meet the Teacher day last week since we were in Florida. Kiddo will get to meet her teacher and the aide who will be providing her sensory diet three times a day, and I will have a chance to go over the sensory diet with them, as well as hopefully with Kiddo's new OT. I'd asked to meet with the OT and PT as well as the teacher, but my one email account is giving me problems so the emails I'd sent a few weeks ago never got to the teacher (and presumably the principal, with whom I also spoke about meeting), so this is all happening on shorter notice than I'd wanted. Thank goodness her teacher was willing to spend a week playing voicemail tag with me while we were in Disney World, or we wouldn't even have this morning's meeting set up.

Kiddo and I went to the butcher shop yesterday and picked up some cold cuts and cheese for her school lunches (she'll be brown-bagging it, or more accurately, pink bagging it) and per her request, she'll be bringing a bologna (ick) and provolone sandwich on whole wheat tomorrow. This is the first time I've ever bought bologna, as I can't stand the stuff, but I figured she should have whatever she would be most likely to eat as she'll be eating on her own without Mommy watching to make sure food is actually going into her body. So, her first day of school meal will be the aforementioned bologna sandwich, green grapes, pretzels, a cheese stick and water (she prefers water to juice). I'm going to put money into her school cafeteria account so that she can get milk at school. If we have time this afternoon, I may bake cookies so she has a cookie for dessert tomorrow... All her school supplies are labeled and packed and ready to go in to her cubby this morning, I've got an outfit in mind for her to wear tomorrow, her bus pass came in the mail while we were gone so we got that with yesterday's mail bonanza (we sure get a lot of mail in one week), and we're all set and ready to go tomorrow.

One day more, wow. It's going to be hard to get through today and tonight - for ME, not her. I've got choir rehearsal tonight so I won't be home for bedtime, which is probably a good thing. Hubby is much more calm and less emotional about this than this pathetic, emotional puddle of goo I've turned into in the past few days! I just hope I manage to not cry in front of Kiddo - it will take a lot of will to keep the tears at bay in the morning!

Oh, I'm so pathetic. I don't recall my parents being sad over any of our first days of school, though my dad told me yesterday that it was. I'm the wimpiest Mommy ever, I think! I'm sure that a few years from now, I'll be doing that Staples commercial "Most Wonderful Time of the Year" dance when the first day of school rolls around, but for now? This is my baby, how can she be such a big kid? Where have the past five years gone?

I can't wait until tomorrow is over, as much as I wish it never would come...

As the petunia basket turns...

Okay, I spent a lot of time yesterday afternoon stalking and trying to get a picture of Mama bird, and I am now certain that the sparrow I caught at the bird feeder is not the bird that is sitting on the nest.

Unfortunately, this is the best shot I could get of Mama on the nest. I had to take it from inside the house with the window closed, because if I do anything else, even just try to photograph her through the open window, she flies away and gets really irked - cheeping and cheeping from what she deems a safe distance. Apparently Mama bird isn't yet ready for her close-up...




If I had CSI or Law & Order technology, I could put that shot into some computer program and with a few keystrokes, be able to "enhance" it to the point where we could see every detail of her smallest feather and probably even do a DNA analysis, but I am a mere mortal with a not-terribly-fancy digital camera and not-very-advanced PhotoShop skills. I also tried to catch a shot of Mama bird after she had flown away and landed on the neighbor's roof:





Based on these two pictures and the fact that Papa bird defintely resembles the house finch picture I found online, I'm feeling pretty sure that (a) the Mama and Papa are both house finches - though that one, larger egg doesn't appear to be (see Nora's comments in the post below, and thanks Nora for your sleuthing!) and (b) at this point, the house finches are still in control of the nest. I have noticed sparrows in the general area, and given last year's similar egg configuration in the nest, I'm guessing that the bad end to the baby birdies last year was due to the sparrow ultimately taking over the nest. Evil sparrow.

We're not going anywhere today as the kiddo has brewed up her first batch of 5 year old germies (nasty, wet cough, Niagara Falls nostrils and most worryingly, a fever of almost 103 this morning) unless we head over to the pediatrician for a "listen to the lungs" check, and it is pouring rain out, so I'm guessing Mama bird will stick close to the nest. I am going to try to get a better picture of her, and if I do, I'll post it. Also, if the weather worsens, I'll have to take down the baskets (so they don't blow over) and if I do, I'll take a picture of any egg-hatching developments. I didn't take the basket down yesterday as I'm trying to disturb it as little as possible. Stay tuned for further chapters of As the Petunia Basket Turns...........

This and that

It feels like it has been ages since I've posted anything, though in reality it hasn't been that long... We've been dealing with the nasty head cold the kiddo caught while still on the antibiotics for her strep (I know - virus vs. bacterial; still, you'd think that being on megadoses of medicine would somehow grant immunity to all other germies) and then subsequently passed on to me, despite my rigorous handwashing following every nose-blowing assist given. For me, it's just all jammed up in my sinuses as well as a pretty decent, breath-stealing cough every now and again, whereas the kiddo has a hacking, wet, thick, gooey cough that makes your lungs hurt to hear it to accompany her Niagara Falls Nostrils (now with Magnificent Snot Bubbles!). Mostly the cough is occurring at night while she's sleeping, thank you post-nasal drip.

Seriously, I am so sick of germs. I don't know if it is because she was a preemie or what, but the kiddo manages to pick up seemingly everything that goes through preschool. I'm assuming she'll have an immune system made of freaking adamantium by the time she starts kindergarten... As for me, well, I was feeling a bit smug at how I managed to avoid her strep germs, so of course I had to catch the head cold. At least it didn't sideline me for more than a few early evenings when I was sound asleep by 8pm, and only once of those while under the influence of my magical elixir, aka Nyquil. The kiddo is generally healthier in the summer months, so hopefully this will be the Last Bad Bug (*knocking wood*) for the foreseeable future.

***

In other illness-related news, I've been dealing with a rather nasty eye disease (I'd been calling it a "condition" but was corrected by the eye doc; it is, in fact, a disease - whee!) for the last six months. The disease caused bumps to form on the underside of my eyelids, and when those bumps grew menacingly large enough, they began to mess up my corneas, scratching them and putting pressure on my eyeballs in weird ways that affected my vision and also rendered me unable to wear my contacts. I had to use steroids in my eyes along with other eyedrops and gels to get things under control, so I've had to deal with occasional bouts of eyelid 'roid rage - not pretty, all that overly-aggressive blinking and winking. Hee. Seriously, though, for a while there was the very real possibility that I'd have to have a surgical procedure done to the insides of my eyelids (I won't go into gory detail - I'll just say the procedure involved membrane peeling and allow you to shudder sufficiently at that) but after two visits with the eye surgeon, the verdict thankfully came back that no membrane peeling was required. (The actual exam, by the by, made me feel like I was a victim in one of the Saw films... seriously one of the more unpleasant things I've ever had to endure and something that made me more convinced than ever that I shall never undergo any sort of eye surgery - Lasik or what have you - unless the choice is that or utter, permanent blindness.)

So, this morning I had an appointment with my regular eye doc, following up on the follow-up with the eye surgeon from last week, and I had more good news: I may be able to wear contact lenses again! That was the biggest downside (well, other than the possibility of permanent corneal damage and all that) to this disease - the fact that I've had to wear my glasses for the last six months. I'd barely been able to wear my contacts for a while before that, as the eyelid bumps made the lenses shift around on my eye - not good for the whole "visual clarity" thing - but to be told officially "No contacts" made me a bit sad even though I'd mostly given up on them already.

See, the thing is, I'm ridiculously - nay, ridonkulously - nearsighted. Have been for decades. Started wearing glasses back in elementary school, and one of the happiest days of my teenage life was my 16th birthday, when I was fitted with my first pair of contact lenses. Having suffered through either the indignity of glasses back when they seemed to have more of a stigma (Four Eyes, Mr. Magoo, etc) than they do nowadays, or the indignity of having to squint with fuzzy vision while not wearing my glasses (eg - I refused to wear them for my role in The Mikado one year in high school, and then had to find my mark onstage by lining myself up with the reflection of the spotlight off our music director's bald head in the orchestra pit, as I couldn't see clearly enough to find a mark on the floor). So, I began wearing contacts at 16 and they became my primary source of vision correction for the following 20 years. That is, 'til this disease slammed me in the eyelids and I was thrown back into the world of glasses.

Things for glasses-wearers certainly have improved over the years. The stigma seems to be fading, if not gone, of being a Magoo. Even the glasses themselves look a lot nicer, and with the invention of the "featherweight" lens, my glasses are now down from Crazy Coke Bottle thickness to a more flattering half-inch thick. (I'm not kidding - I just measured. Seriously, a half inch thick. Yowza.) The biggest downside for me to glasses is my photosensitivity - I can get a wicked migraine from too-bright light, and am therefore a bit paranoid about light. (I'm also allergic to sunlight, but that's another post altogether...) So, with contacts, I could whip out the darkest, largest pair of sunglasses I could find (for years, I wore Ray Ban Wayfarers in tortiseshell, but alas, their price has gone from merely steep - $54 for the last pair I purchased, several years ago - to utterly insane - over $100 a pair for non-prescription glasses!) and I'd be good. I did have a pair of prescription glasses with those cool, clip-on, magnetized sunglass overlays, but these came with problems, the first being that they weren't really dark enough for my liking and the second that they were miiiighty delicate. So delicate, in fact, that one of the bajillion times the kiddo accidentally knocked them off my face, they broke in such a way that repairing them was impossible.

My solution for the past six months has been to have two pairs of glasses - one regular, one sunglasses - and I've felt alternatively like my parents back in the 70s, who used to do the glasses-swap (my dad most nervewrackingly while driving, tossing the pair he was removing onto the dashboard while polishing the pair he was about to don on his shirttail, thereby rendering his vision blurred for waaaay too long in his passengers' opinion), or like some bizarro Mr. Rogers, having to whip off my glasses, invariably having to hold them in my teeth while I replace them with the other pair, and then stuff the removed pair into their case in my purse every time I walk in or out of a building.

This has just been a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. I could have a lot worse to deal with than the double-glasses issue, I realize that. That doesn't mean that I didn't get just a wee bit giddy, though, when the eye doctor handed me 5 trial pairs of daily disposable lenses, with instructions to try out the first four pairs for no more than 8 hours per pair over the next two weeks, then wear the fifth pair to my next appointment to see where things stand (um, pun intended...hee!). Daily disposable lenses are way more expensive than my previous 2-week disposable lenses, almost prohibitively so. If they do work for me, though, I will most probably get a supply and then just not wear them every single day, thereby stretching out the boxes to a more cost-effective value. It would be nice to have the option of contacts for things like taking the kiddo to the pool, for example... There is still a decent chance that the contacts will aggravate my eye disease and that, in fact, I will not be able to ever wear contacts again, but I am cautiously hopeful about the possibility of returning to at least an occasional spectacles-free state.

***

Stephen King (whose latest book, Duma Key, was awesome, btw) wrote a column in a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly (aka my favorite magazine) in which he listed his Top 20 songs, as decreed by what were the most frequently played tunes on his iPod. That made me wonder what my Top 20 are according to my iPod, so I just looked. Wanna know? Well, here is the current Top 20 Most Played songlist from my (full to the point that I can't get one more song on there right now) iPod:

- Macavity, the Mystery Cat and Mr. Mistoffolees, Cats OBC. This is because of the kiddo, who is presently obsessed with Cats and has most of the soundtrack memorized. She frequently requests that we listen to various tunes from the show while driving to and from preschool. (A girl after her own mother's heart: I was once caught by my younger sisters (who whipped my bedroom door open without knocking) dancing around in a "cat-like" manner and belting my heart out to the record, while wearing a belt around my neck as a pseudo-cat collar.) (I cannot believe I just admitted to that in public.)

- Envelop Me, Obsolete and Nothing Here to Hold You, Magne F. For those of you not in the know (or not 80s pop music junkies like myself), Magne F (Furuholmen) is a member of the band a-ha. I've been a fan of a-ha since the 80s, and now am a fan of Magne's solo work. These are my favorite three tracks off of the album, and I'm hoping that his next album (out this month) will also be available on iTunes since his stuff isn't exactly stocked at the local Best Buy or FYE.

- Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, Billy Joel. What can I say, I'm a diehard Billy Joel fan, and this is my favorite Billy Joel song.

- Hangman Jury, Aerosmith. What can I say, I'm a diehard Aerosmith fan, and this is one of my favorite Aerosmith songs.

- Never Let Me Down, Life on Mars? and God Only Knows, David Bowie. What can I say, I'm a diehard Bowie fan, and these three are among my favorites.

- Imagination and Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone, Harry Connick, Jr. Love Harry. I was, for a while back in college, a true Harry groupie. Saw him in concert several times in a short period, including the opening night of his first Broadway run, and hung around various stage doors as well. Not only did I get to meet and talk with the man himself a few of those times (and I have the autographed poster, framed and now stashed in the basement, to prove it) but I was ultimately on a first-name basis with several members of his band. They were all really nice guys. I think I even convinced one of them that Syracuse was a good school for his son to consider... Go Orange!

- Cara Mia and From Me To You, Bobby McFerrin. Cara Mia is another kiddo-assist, as it is her favorite Bobby McFerrin tune. From Me To You is one of my favorites.

- Days of Elijah, Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. This, aside from being an awesome song, was a song we did at church a few months ago in which I had the solo, so I listened to it even more than usual for help in memorizing the part.

- Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Meat Loaf. Please bear in mind that I generally only listen to my iPod while either driving in the car or when working out (so, mostly when driving in my car...). This is a great, driving-with-the-windows-down, arm-hanging-out-the-window, blast-it-from-the-stereo kind of song. Yeah, not so much with the minivan but hey, I've still got a fondness for it.

- Travelin' Thru, Jason Castro. My hubby and my best friend both are utterly bemused and disbelieving that I - or anyone - could possibly be a Jason Castro fan, but then again, he's made the Top 4 on this season's American Idol, so I'm not the only one out there who likes him. They just don't get him, I guess. (For that matter, neither does my mom, who was quite upset that he continues to remain while Carly went home...) It doesn't help that I find his charms rather inexplicable, so cannot adequately detail my reasons for liking him as much as I do... there's just something about his voice. I've downloaded several of his songs from this season, but this is my favorite.

- Elvira, The Oak Ridge Boys. Another song whose appearance in the top 20 is kiddo-assisted. Yes, I will confess to being a diehard ORB fan (I've even seen them in concert - more than once!) and I will further confess to trying to influence the kiddo in her musical tastes by playing the occasional ORB song (as I've likewise quite successfully done with Harry Connick Jr., Bobby McFerrin and the showtunes genre). I didn't realize that she'd take to the oom-pah-pahing of Elvira with such gusto, however! (Sad but True Story: for my tenth birthday, my family went to a "fancy" restaurant for dinner to celebrate. I was allowed to bring two friends as well. This restaurant was so fancy that they had an accordian player wandering about, taking requests. When he approached our table, I was allowed to make a request, as I was the birthday girl. After telling me he couldn't play The Entertainer (because really, wouldn't Joplin sound totally awesome on an accordian?), my second choice was Elvira. It was the year the song came out and it was burning up the charts, and the dude actually knew it well enough to fake his way through a bit. He did not, however, know the lyrics, which I graciously supplied by singing along. Are you getting this picture? Me, with the badly permed, big hair, ginormous glasses and mouth full of glistening metal and elastic, singing Elvira along with the accordian. In public. Happily.)

- The Swing of Things, a-ha. Yep, I love me that 80s pop. Have for decades, since I was a teenager and it was actually current. This is one of my favorite a-ha songs, though I could rattle off others. (Strangely enough, Duran Duran, which was my absolute, most-favorite 80s pop band back in the day, and also the first "rock" concert I ever attended, doesn't make my top 25. I guess that is because I listen to all the songs as opposed to just one over and over again. Hmmmm. I was going to marry John Taylor back in the day, you know. Shame on me for not letting my former-future husband into my top 25.)

- Ain't No Cure for Love, Leonard Cohen. There are other Leonard Cohen tunes, including Hallelujah, in the top 25 playlist on my iPod, but this is the one that cracks the actual top 20.

Oh, and honorable mention has to go to Hooked on a Feeling by Blue Swede, which is a recent addition (late last week) to my iPod and has completely entranced the kiddo. She is getting quite good at belting out the "ooga-chaka" part while I sing the lead vocal over it. Keep an ear peeled should you spot a silvery-green Toyota Sienna cruising about town with the windows down one of these days...

***

Birthday party update - the invitations went out to the kiddo's class today. (Or "Valentines" as she kept calling them, before correcting herself.) We've also managed to secure a cake topper (one of those edible sheet thingies) that matches the kiddo's chosen party theme for this year - the Little Einsteins. Turns out that Disney has a stranglehold on all things children's birthday party-related in the Little Einsteins genre, and without resorting to Ebay or other online stores, LE stuff for parties is kinda hard to come by. We're baking the cake ourselves (half chocolate, half vanilla), but it will look a lot nicer with the professionally done topper than, say, last year's cake, when the best I could do for the Go, Diego, Go! theme was frost the cake with chocolate icing, call that "the ground" and then jam a bunch of Diego and his animal posse action figures into the top. The stupid scarlet Macaw kept keeling over into the "dirt" too... Now I just have to obtain and stuff a piñata that preferably matches the LE theme without being able to actually procure an official LE piñata thanks to the aforementioned Disney stranglehold. Maybe I can find one that looks like a music note or something... We've got the menu planned (pizza, fruit salad, pretzels, veggie tray, cake, water and juice boxes) and some games in the works as well. Hopefully the weather cooperates and the kids can run around the playground and we won't wind up crammed under the pavilion in the rain for the entire two hours. I wonder how many of the kids from her class will actually attend? I hope a decent number, though the distance may factor in, as folks in our area are notoriously xenophobic about burbs other than their own. (Hmm, agoraphobic? Burbaphobic? Well, they hate driving to "the other side of the city" at any rate.) The kiddo really wants ALL her friends there, and we've given enough advance notice that we should be able to get on folks' calendars without conflicts. We shall see!

***

In gardening news, the seed starter trays that we planted a few weeks ago have really done well. So well, in fact, that the kiddo and I had to transplant the corn and sunflowers to the actual ground because they were straining against the lid of the tray. The other stuff isn't far behind, so we're gonna have to get the garden bed prepped sooner rather than later. We also added some blackberry bushes to our berry patch yesterday, courtesy of a woman in my local freecycling group who was thinning out her own berry patch. They look like they withstood the transplanting pretty well, so hopefully we have some delicious blackberries to harvest along with our other berries this summer! Our strawberry plants already have blooms on them, which is the earliest they've ever blossomed, too. Woo-hoo!

Wow, this is a pretty darn long post. Guess that'll take the edge off my blogging jones for a bit! Off to get the kiddo scrubbed in the tub and then sample the new mac and cheese recipe I tried in the crock pot for the first time today. Hopefully she likes it - she is a bit picky about her mac and cheese. A regular mac and cheese gourmet, my kiddo....

Why I will never, ever use a neti pot, except on one (highly improbable) condition

I know, I know, neti pots are fantabulous and using one would cure me of all my ills. Here's the thing about why I will never, ever willingly use a neti pot. I haaaaaaate getting water in my nose. Actually, in my nose, eyes or ears. Now, regarding the ears, I have good reason - I'm super-prone to getting ear infections and even getting a drop or two of water in them in the shower can bring on a doozy. As a kid, I had loads of ear infections, including a double-eardrum-rupture sitch on an airplane en route to Florida. Ow. So, my over-caution with water in the ears, not an unfounded concern. The eyes and the nose, I have no valid reasons, it's just a thing of mine. You know, a thing... we all have 'em, right? When I had to swim underwater as a child, like for swimming lessons, I would suit up from goggles through nose clips and ear plugs. Seriously. Nowadays, I have no reason to go underwater. If I'm in a pool (and I am quite a bit these days as the kiddo appears to be part fish), I do that genteel, leave-my-glasses-on, half-assed backstroke or pseudo-doggy-paddle/frontstroke that keeps my ears and face nice and dry. If heat-induced insanity or other madness takes momentary hold and I do decide to dunk underneath the surface, I will close my eyes and hold my nose and ears closed for the entire time I'm submerged. Yes, it is a tremendously funny sight, I know. But, it is a thing of mine, and thus, I will never willingly insert anything up my nose that will flood it with water or any other liquid. Unless George Clooney asked me personally to do so, and I seriously doubt that George is overly concerned with or even aware of the state of my sinuses. I won't even do it at my doctor's suggestion/advice/order - when we lived in NH, I had a crotchety, old country sort of doctah who advised me to fill a serving spoon with warm water and salt and snort that concoction every two hours 'til my sinus infection cleared. Never did it once, though I have become accustomed to using the saline nasal misty spray stuff. So, there you go. I have many things and this is one of them. Maybe I'll post about one of my things each week... that'll be sure to entertain and amuse the masses! Hee!

At least the nasal steroid spray (which smells weirdly of roses and geraniums - kinda like an old lady-esque perfume) is not that bad to administer and working very well. By this afternoon, fully dosed up on the nasal stuff, Muccinex, Tylenol and Advil, I felt up to the task of bringing the kiddo to a classmate's birthday party. I lasted as long as the kiddo did, but an hour and a half inside one of those "greenhouse-style-glass-from-floor-to-ceiling" McDonald's Playplaces with 18 screaming, crazy 4 and 5 year olds? Not what the doctor, George Clooney, or anyone else ordered. Whew. I'm so beat now that I'm planning to be in bed by 8pm. Maybe 7...

Oh - one last thing, have to give a quick shout-out to my hubby for subbing for me as worship leader in church this morning, which was a Communion Sunday on top of everything else. Thanks, dude!