Car Counting

We visited the in-laws in Illinois this past weekend, for the first time in a disgustingly long while. It was a very nice visit, though too short. Greg and Dave opened the pool, and by the next time we visit, the girls will be able to go swimming.

It was a lot of work, and all I did was watch. When we left in the morning to visit Greg's Grandma Gertie, the cover was still on and it was covered with incredibly nasty green, slimy water. By midafternoon, the lovely blue water of the pool beneath was visible, with just an occasional dead baby mole or shrew or something floating here or there. And worms, lots of dead worms.

Really, it looked lovely! You just had to pretend not to see the floaters (or the stuff on the bottom) and think about how wonderful it will be to slip into it in another month or so. After it's dosed with lots and lots of chemicals. Nice, cleaning, purifying chemicals. I like chemicals. At least in this context, I do.

The girls had a wonderful time on the visit, except for the nine hours or so strapped in their carseats to get there and back. While we were driving back on Sunday afternoon, we played games that I played with my sisters on car rides as a kid. One involves everyone picking a color of car and then seeing who gets to 20 cars of that color first.

It was a lot easier 30 years ago on a two-lane highway. Allie liked it, but she had to rely on me and Greg to tell her what some of the car colors were across the interstate. Fortunately, central and north central Illinois is flatter than a pancake and boring as hell to drive, so I didn't endanger us all too much.

I'm glad we weren't playing "Punch Bug."

Castles and ships and trucks

It was warm today. Really warm. Sunny, breezy, and about 85 degrees at the end of the afternoon. Completely unseasonable for mid-April, but fun. Kind of like a visit from summer for the day--see you soon, ta tah.

We went out to eat dinner in a neighboring town and then to their enormous park and big playground for kids. You know the type--all wood chips and wooden walkways and ramps for kids in wheelchairs. There's the aforementioned castles, a ship, several trucks, a spaceship, a barn, loads of swings, a sandbox with a digger machine, rubber mat bridges to jump on, towers galore, a creaky wooden bridge, a bunch of slides, parallel bars and rings--you get the picture.

The girls had a glorious time. Greg stayed in the car (reading his favorite, an Onion newspaper) and I chased Julia hither and yon for almost an hour while Allie ran wild.

It's funny how different the girls are. It's not like I expected them to turn out the same person, but I think we're basically raising them the same and yet Julia is so different.

She's 33 months old and she's already just as brave, if not braver, than her 6 year old sister. Julia is not afraid of the dark and she will walk up a dark staircase and walk through our darkened bedroom looking for me in the master bathroom. Allie still has to turn on all the lights to get something from upstairs in the evening, if you can get her to go at all.

Julia never met a playground slide she wasn't willing to try immediately (sometimes at her peril). Tonight, she flew down one slide before I could get to the bottom to catch her and she fell off the end onto one leg and her butt, at least a 20 or so inch drop. I got there in time to help her brush off her muddy butt and check her leg, then she was off.

If Allie had taken the same fall even last year, there probably would have been tears and much subsequent fear on every other slide that it might happen again. On the other hand, Julia is at that terrified-of-bugs stage, and Allie thinks they're cool, as long as they're not actually on her.

I wonder if this all means that Julia will turn out to be some kind of sports fiend while Allie will get excellent grades and be part of the chess club. Isn't it wonderful to wonder?

Umm, still trying to think of something clever

The Lee family traveled this weekend to the frozen north. Not really, but we did see, pardon my french, a shitload of snow on the way.

I am not happy about seeing snow at this juncture of the year. There are crocuses blooming in our neighbor's yard and my tulips are about to send up buds, so snow is now supposed to be a thing of the past, except for maybe some very occasional flakes floating picturesquely and then immediately melting as they hit the ground.

At my parents' house (our destination), there was no snow, but the wind was biting cold and yet another reminder of why it's nice to live even a little south of them (where it's warmer!).

We had a lovely early Easter weekend, relaxing for all those involved, since one of my sisters had a recent health scare that turned out well this past Wednesday. We shared a stack of recent portraits of the girls, taken at a great place at the mall a little while back. New pictures all around!

And tomorrow it's back to the salt mines. Easter, however, is still on it's way (hippity, hoppity). There's a bunch of bunny poop in our yard, so the Easter Bunny should be able to find his way back. No more candy for the girls, however. Auntie Pam had her second annual, amazing, Easter egg hunt and they each have a pile of chocolate as big as they are.

We're taking donations now for future dental care.

Now I have to think of clever titles

We had a very quiet weekend. Very quiet, which means we stayed home for the entire time.

We had a better excuse than usual, too. Our usual excuse is that we're being lazy. Our excuse this weekend was that Allie has been sick. She's had a low-grade fever for four days now. Never higher than 101.

No real other symptoms--maybe a little stuffy nose, that's it. And this dang persistent fever.

She's been a good sport. She's eating normally and sleeping a little more than usual. Allie gave up afternoon naps last summer, but until today, she'd napped for at least an hour each of the last three days.

She hasn't complained too much about being bored, and Julia hasn't gotten it. I think, if Julia was going to, that she'd have it by now.

Do you think it's a spring fever?

Titles! I Have Titles!

My husband, Greg is the most wonderful man on the face of the planet. The fact that he is sexy, remarkably powerful (both physically and intellectually), talented and often well groomed should be enough to set him apart from most other men. But there's more. So much more that I swoon at the mere thought of the man.

I'm dizzy just writing about him.

I am truly a fortunate woman.

When I was in college, I wrote a paper for Ethics class on the ethical dilemma I faced in trying to decide whether to discard a plant I loved that had scales. I think that's what the disease is called--little brown hard half shell kind of things clinging to the leaves.

I wrote about how I'd had the plant for years and had tried to medicate the plant without success, and how the disease was getting worse. But I couldn't bear to throw the thing out and was it fair to keep a plant around, knowing it was going to die a horrible death by having these things suck out all of it's juices instead of just dying for lack of water or something if I threw it in a dumpster.

I think I got an A.

I'm always like that with plants. I torture my plants by not watering them for weeks, literally weeks. They do OK regardless, and when certain sentinel plants droop excessively, I water them all and they come back, repeatedly.

Most of my plants, if not all of them, need to be repotted. I've got golden pothos-philodendrem thingys with big stretches of vine that are dead and therefore should be cut out and restarted.

I need a live-in horticulturist. Madison is a pretty educated town--I bet I can find someone with a horticulture doctorate (is there such a thing?) who's driving a cab and looking for a second job, helping out horrible houseplant people. I'll sign right up.

I love James Bond movies. Even the bad ones. Even the ones with Roger Moore, which Greg can't bear to watch because he says Roger Moore doesn't act, he just smirks his way through films.

American Movie Classics has been running another of their periodic Bond series this weekend, so I've seen at least parts of about six or seven different Bond movies. They range from ones in which Bond still wore a hat everywhere to the awful one where Bond fights the voodoo-Tarot influenced African American bad guys in Louisiana.

That one made me cringe because it featured a caricature of a Southern sheriff who called everyone, "boy." Such a product of their times, these films were.

That chase scene through the long-changed downtown streets of Las Vegas in "Diamonds are Forever." The time when Bond "died" after being shot in a Murphy bed, only to be buried "at sea" in the harbor in 15 feet of water, so divers could pick him up and take him to a submarine for his next mission. And who could forget the car in "The Spy Who Loved Me" that turned into a submarine and then back into a car as it drove out of the ocean.

What's not to love in these movies?

And yes, I also worked for three hours on Saturday and got plenty of fresh air and playtime with my daughters and watched my husband spend hours on the computers. When is spring coming???

When we ride in the car, Allie is usually talking to herself, telling stories to entertain herself while Greg and I are talking about grown-up stuff. Julia is usually pretty quiet, unless we all decide to sing songs.

Then the girls take turns entertaining us, with Allie singing her ABCs or Mary Had a Little Lamb or We Are Santa's Elves (from her All School Sing in December, mustn't call it a Christmas Concert). Julia always, always, sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and only Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

The rotation takes place, Mommy or Daddy throwing in a song occasionally and everyone applauding between each number, with Julia always, always singing Twinkle Twinkle.

Until tonight, at home.

My parents are visiting and my mom was trying to get the girls to sing a song together. That never works. Julia hates it when Allie sings with her, so she'll stop singing immediately and yell at her, "No, I sing!" And Julia won't chime in on Allie's songs.

Somehow, Mom convinced Julia that singing together was an OK idea. The girls sang Twinkle Twinkle together and did a wonderful job. We all applauded and Mom asked what they wanted to sing next.

Allie spoke up and said ABCs, then started singing. And, lo and behold, Julia sang her ABCs along with Allie, not missing a letter. I've never heard her do that before. I didn't know she even knew the song.

It was cool. Ah, the power of grandparents.

Julia has a new game. She sits on the potty chair, which she's been doing a lot but completely successfully lately, and she reads a book.

Her favorite book is "Everybody Poops," which actually belongs to her daddy, for reasons I won't go into. Great book.

She likes to have company, so she'll often insist I sit on the rug at her feet.

This weekend, she finished her book and kept one hand inside the pages. With a sly grin, she said, "Mommy, where's my hand?" Actually, it came out more like "where my han," but that's just cute, so we don't correct her.

I played along and told her, "I don't know, Julia, where did it go?"

She got a huge smile on her face and said, "Here it is," as she revealed her missing hand (once thought lost forever but now miraculously found).

I smiled the first time, then started laughing when she did it another six times.

Greg thinks I'm weird when I laugh at this stuff. I don't care.

Another one of her favorites is to take her booster seat off her dining room chair. She puts in on the floor and stands on the seat, about four inches off the ground.

Then she calls your name until you look at her. She says, "Are you ready?" and then she STEPS OFF THE SEAT AND WAITS FOR THE APPLAUSE.

I never fail to give it, so needless to say, she does it over and over again.

I was almost sorry last Friday night when she started hopping off the seat, which is actually pretty good. I miss the old ways, and my little baby. She's a big girl, and getting bigger every day.

Julia has been wearing big girl panties fulltime for 9 days now and she hasn't had another accident since the first day. This is a big deal. Last night, she protested about having to wear a pull-up to bed so she went completely big-girl with pajamas for the first time. And there was success! No accidents.

The only problem with this system is that when she wakes up in the morning, she doesn't play quietly for a little while any more. Instead, she immediately start yelling, "Mommy, I gotta go potty. Mommy, I gotta go potty." Needless to say, you don't dally in bed.

But why do they always have to call for Mommy?

Allie called for me twice in the middle of Friday night. "Mommy!" "Mommy!" She had bad dreams. Last weekend, she threw up in the middle of Saturday night. Frantic calls of "Mommy!"

All right, I shouldn't complain. I'm the one who wanted children and this is part of the package. I'll sleep all night through and late on weekend mornings when they go to college.

We forgot that today was the day for Allie's third kindergarten field trip. An exciting excursion to the Madison City Bus Garage!

Yes, you read that right. She went to the Madison Metro Bus Garage, I guess to look at busses (buses, how do you spell the plural of bus anyway?).

She said she liked it, except that it was dirty and she got her pants dirty. Allie is nothing if not a girly girl.

I don't know how they could keep things clean though. We got about an inch of snow this morning that later melted and made dirty, slushy sprays out of every vehicle's tires.

Meanwhile, Julia has spent the last two days at daycare wearing big girl panties, not pull-ups. This afternoon, she had her first accident when she pooped, but she hasn't peed in her big girl pants yet.

She's only 31 months. It seems early to me to try this considering that we potty-trained Allie at 33 months, but she seems ready. Onward to the end of diapers!!!

My mom urged me to write about something that happened to my brother-in-law this weekend, so here goes . . .

My family's suite at the hotel this weekend was three rooms. Two rooms on either side, each with a bathroom and two queen beds. One room in the middle with a full kitchen, dining area, breakfast bar, fireplace, balcony, sleeper sofa--and then beyond double doors, a kingsize bed and a bathroom.

My immediate family (me, Greg and the girls) was in one of the side rooms and my parents were in the other side room. My sister Pam and her boyfriend had the area with the king bed and my sister Claudette and her husband, Mike, had the sleeper sofa area.

My parents went to bed early Friday night and so did the Lee family. My sisters and their men went to a couple of the hotel bars and then came back to their room. Pam and her boyfriend, Jeff, went to bed, and Claudette also crashed.

Mike wasn't sleepy yet, so he had a few drinks and then fell asleep, still wearing his jeans, either in the chair or on the sleeper sofa. He woke up about 1:30 a.m., needing to pee.

He didn't want to turn a light on and wake Pam and Jeff, so he walked quietly through the double doors, past their bed, and towards the bathroom. He must have still been asleep though, because instead of going left into the bathroom, he went out the door into the hotel hallway. The door locked behind him and there he was, barefoot and wearing just jeans, at 1:30 a.m., in the hallway.

He could have just knocked on the door, but he didn't want to wake anyone and he still had to pee, badly. He wandered around the hotel looking for a bathroom and he got lost.

He wandered around some more and then found his way eventually to the main lobby. Even though he didn't have any I.D. on him (and in any case, the hotel rooms weren't in his name), he convinced the hotel clerks that they should give him another key to our rooms.

Mike says he remembered all three room numbers, but I still think it's amazing they gave him a keycard. I guess they figured--1:45 at night, only wearing jeans when it's 10 degrees outside, barefoot--it's gotta be a true story.

So he found his way back up to the fourth floor, let himself in, and went quietly back to bed. We all had no idea, until the next morning, that he had had such an adventure.

Now, if my husband wants to explain how he completely ripped out the crotch of one of his pairs of jeans-----

My feet hurt. And not in the oh-I-walked--a-little-more-than-usual-in-the-last-couple-of-days way, but in the ow-I-think-I-have-a-bunch-of-microcuts-on-the-bottom-of-my-feet way.

You spend the better part of two days walking around barefoot in an indoor water park with hundreds and hundreds of other people. You stand for a total of a couple of hours in lines on always-wet staircases where other people stood just moments before and you hope that foot disease transmittal rates are low. Because you know no one is disinfecting those stairs at night.

That's the kind of thing I think about, not about cryptosporidium, like my husband. The women's locker room at Kalahari was always packed, with every locker taken and the floor wet and kinda slimy always and bits of old bandaids and pieces of waterlogged food and paper slowly disintegrating along the walls (you hope).

I did not ever intend to walk through the locker room without shoes on, but unfortunately, right before we started to leave, Allie suddenly had to pee and the other bathrooms (that are a little less used) were a good block away. So we walked in the locker room without shoes at the busiest time of the day. Ick.

This was right after my family watched the efforts of about six or seven people to disinfect the kiddie pool after four floaters were found (and I don't mean air-filled floatie toys).

It was a fun trip overall and we'll definitely go there again despite the germies because it's a good time, but it's good to be home.

There was music playing. Julia had on a pink princess dress and she was dancing around the living room.

Allie started to get up, saying, "I want to dance too."

And Julia hollered at the top of her little lungs, "No! You sit on butt!"

Such a wonderful sibling relationship.

When we met, I had a cat and Greg had a cat. The two of us moved in together after we got engaged and so did our cats. The transition did not go well for the cats (HUGE understatement).

My cat, Butterscotch, had been living in my condo for two years already. Poor Pig, Greg's cat, had never lived anywhere but Greg's apartment. Pig also didn't know she was a cat. You might laugh, but that's because you never saw her sitting on the bathroom counter, mournfully meowing at herself in the mirror because that thing that she saw wouldn't come and play.

Anyway, after the move, Pig lived in the spare bedroom of the condo by herself for a good two weeks (her choice). Then she came out, only to growl and hiss at anything that moved (and this is a very mellow cat) and to slink around with her butt pretty much touching the ground.

Things got better eventually, but only very gradually. We have a picture on the fridge of the two cats lying on our bed at the condo somewhat together, because that was such a rarity.

Back in 2002, Butterscotch got very skinny (liver cancer, the vet thought) and we had him put to sleep (sniff). Pig was once again the queen of the home and she seemed pretty happy.

Last spring (April), Pig started getting skinny, and she also starting drinking ALL OF THE TIME. Yep, $400 later, we had confirmed what we knew--diabetes. After much soul searching, we decided not to treat her (no comments please). We bought her some special prescription diabetes cat food and waited to see what would happen.

I remember worrying last year on our trip to Europe (in May) if our catsitters would have to deal with her dying. I left a power of (cat treatment) attorney document, just in case.

Uh huh. Yep. That was nine months ago. Yep, nine months.

Pig is just peachy. She's still much skinnier than she used to be (but she used to be pretty fat, especially when she ate most of Butterscotch's food for the months he was sick). She still drinks like a fiend. She still eats the prescription cat food.

And she's still sweet and mellow and a real lap warmer. She's very patient with the girls (even the 2 year old) and she decorates our house with her hair (like all cats). We love her very much, and even though she's not going to live forever, we're very happy she's still part of our family.

Now get off the back of the upholstered chair, Pig. You're ruining the cushion (and enjoying the softest place to sleep in the house).

We visited Barnes and Noble a couple of months ago, which we don't do very much these days. The girls always want new books read to them and we don't get to just read things ourselves, which is half the fun of going to Barnes and Noble.

Greg, bless his heart, volunteered to take the girls somewhere and I had an hour or so to myself. This was right after Oprah had selected "A Million Little Pieces" as her book club selection, so the book was front and center as I entered the store.

I grabbed a copy and found a vacant cushy chair. I didn't want to buy the book, just figure out what Oprah had seen in it. I started reading and I was completely hooked. I sat there and devoured the pages.

I even started crying at one point. And I don't think it was from reading the description of his non-medicated root canals.

I thought it was a wonderful book. I really don't care that it's not truthful. It moved me. I learned from it. Time flew while I read it.

Greg bought it for me for Christmas. I'm glad I own it and I'm not going to stow it at the back of some shelf and pretend I wasn't entranced by it. It's a great book, no matter if it's fiction or nonfiction.

Doing performance appraisals is the pits.

Even when you work in Human Resources and it's your job to make sure that the appraisal conversations that take place in your company are productive, informative, and motivating, you know that most appraisal conversations leave the appraisalee at least a little ticked off.

The boss never seems to think they're as great as they themselves think. Don't believe me? Try having people appraise themselves and then compare your scores to theirs. Not fun, but it induces productive, informative conversations.

It's too bad someone ends up unmotivated most of the time.

I read in the paper today that OK is the most common spoken word in the English language.

Tonight, I was bathing both girls in the bathtub. They'd both been scrubbed and next I sudsed up Julia's hair. I put a rolled-up washcloth on her forehead to help divert some of the rinse water and then pushed her head back gently as I said, "Look up, Julia, look up," to help keep more water off her face.

She wasn't looking up, so I repeated myself, but my gentle push was a little too hard for her resistance. She started slipping backwards in the water, so she put her hands back and started yelling as her butt slid a little bit on the slick bathtub bottom.

She didn't go under or anything, but she definitely wasn't happy, especially since she now had water dripping all over her face. I immediately wiped the water off with the washcloth. I told her, "I'm sorry, Julia. Are you OK, are you OK?"

Her emphatic reply--"I NOT OK."

I guess this was one of those times when that word (plus two others) said it all.

Allie and Greg have both been taking piano lessons for about two months now. Neither of them practices nearly enough, unless you consider 1/2 hour just before their 1/2 hour lesson enough.

I told Greg that we need to get serious both about Allie practicing piano (Greg is a big boy, he can remember to practice by himself) and about Allie practicing reading (Greg has that one covered).

Last night, we worked a little on her reading. Tonight we were in the living room, watching TV with the sound on low, while Allie tried to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb," among other songs, in the dining room. She was doing well, so we hollered some encouragement.

She did not think she was doing well, so she hollered back, "This one is called Head Music." Blamm, blamm, blamm, blamm, came the sound. She's a prodigy!

Back in the day when I lived in central Illinois (before meeting and marrying Greg), my family developed this custom called "Blank" Family Weekend. No, obviously not really "blank," but I don't know that my parents want their last name splashed over the internet.

Each February, we'd plan an annual weekend getaway somewhere in northern Illinois (about halfway between our homes). We went to Rockford and Elgin (I believe it was Elgin because don't they have a casino there?) and so on. Stay at a hotel with an indoor pool and either shopping or the aforementioned casino readily available.

It was fun and a nice break in the winter. There's a photo somewhere of me and my sisters jumping on a hotel bed. We'd have drinks and snacks in the room, go swimming, and eat somewhere highly recommended by AAA.

Then I had my first date with Greg and shortly afterwards, the first time my family met him was on a Blank Family Weekend.

We had one more family weekend the next year and then we lost the habit. I lost my job, Greg and I moved to Wisconsin, we bought our house and we had Allie. Since her birthday is at the end of January and everyone comes to our house for it, we didn't revive the custom.

Well, I figure it's been 10 whole years, but we're bringing back the Blank Family Weekend. Sometime in February, me and Greg and our girls and my parents and my sister Pam and her man Jeff and my sister Claudette and her husband Mike are all going to vacation together in Wisconsin Dells.

I am really truly looking forward to it. The rooms we're getting have a full kitchen and dining area, fireplace, four TVS, three bathrooms (one with whirlpool tub), and three balconies (which I'm sure we'll make much use of in February, but it'll make for a nice view). It's at one of the many resorts with an indoor water park, so our girls will exhaust themselves and collapse happy.

How many weeks do I have to wait?

So I got my new business cards today. I'm ridiculously proud of them. Human Resources Director. I can't thank my old boss enough for being entrepreneurial minded and wanting to open her own business, so I could earn her job.

It's been an OK three weeks so far. Lots of overtime. Finding my feet, while Greg holds down the fort. What a sweetie.

And he remembered to send me beautiful flowers on the 11th anniversary of our first date. I am indeed a lucky woman.

But I knew that already.

I got it! I got it!

I got the promotion that I've been trying for since, literally, May. It was May when my boss gave notice and, as of December 25 (Merry Christmas to me!), I've been promoted. Woo hoo!

Woo hum--oh, boy. Do I have the challenges in front of me, boy howdy. But I work with good people and I'm mostly excited. It's going to be a challenging, interesting, amazing time. If I don't wear out and die first.

Wish me luck!

Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming!

And now that I spent hours yesterday shopping and wrapping, I'm OK with that. I bought a bunch of gifts, including a couple for my husband that he is going to love (tee hee--he has to wait six more days). The stores were crowded, but not too bad.

The longest wait I had to check out was shopping with Greg on a Tuesday afternoon for the girls at Toys R Us--twenty minutes from when we got in line to when we walked out. On a Tuesday. That place must be insane on a Saturday.

I bought the gifts I owe my sister and dad for their birthdays from October (oops) and at work, open enrollment is finally over (we met with about 650 people, individually). There's only four days of work this week before a long, long weekend and I'm excited about that.

Life is good. Happy Holidays!

All of us in the Lee household made Christmas cookies yesterday. Flour everywhere. It was fun.

I used to make cutout cookies with my sisters and my mom every year when I was a little girl. We'd pull out the bag of cookie cutters and wonder why we never made cutout cookies at any other time of the year, so we could use the heart cutter and the clover cutter and the bunny cutter.

Then we'd make a double batch of Christmas cutouts and we'd remember why we didn't do them at any other time of the year--it took a really long time to roll and out bake that many cookies.

I don't have my mom's recipe (I should ask her for it), so when my family has made cutouts for the last three years, we've used a sugar cookie recipe from someone I used to work with. Here's a shoutout to Bev Gardner of Decatur, Illinois, who I unfortunately haven't talked to in at least five years.

It's so sad and so typical. You spend literally years of your life with people at work and then you leave or they do and you both vow to stay in touch and after, say, three years max, you don't talk to them anymore.

Well, Bev, your Eisenhower sugar cookie recipe is an integral part of my family's burgeoning history. Thank you! Onward to frosting!

We decided to make Julia's crib into a toddler bed. It converts by just taking the front rail off and tah-dah, toddler day bed. We were stupid.

We thought that Julia, the second child, would be like Allie, the first child. Allie stayed in her bed. She woke up on weekend mornings, called us to tell us she was awake, and stayed in bed, sometimes even when urged to join us in our room. Allie woke from naps, called to tell us she was awake, and stayed in bed until we came to get her.

Julia does not do this. Big surprise.

We put Julia in her bed and she stands up and jumps on her fun, bouncy mattress. Even though she always could reach, she's now figured out that she can reach the overhead light switch from her bed. So she turns on the light. And turns it off. And turns it on and leaves it on when it's an hour past her bedtime.

She gets out of bed and knocks on her bedroom door, trying to get us to come and let her out. (I said we were stupid, but we're not that dumb. Her door sticks, so she can't pull it open. She does have to stay in her room if we want her to.)

Julia lays on the floor just inside the door, with the overhead light on, and revels in her independence and control of her environment. It makes me smile and tear up at the same time.

Big girl.

I can't believe this is my 107th post. Who da thunk I had so much to say.

So it's time for a lecture--hey you, go donate blood! Yes, you! Don't be a chicken, you can do it. It's really no big deal. Hey, if I've done it 55 times so far (over the last, oh my god--could it be, 20 years), you can too.

Think about it. How much do you really do for charity. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah, we send a lot of clothes to St. Vinnie's too. Uh huh. Boy, that isn't a very impressive list, frankly. Did you know that I used to tutor a woman for the Literacy Council of Green Bay years ago and she got so much charity food at Christmas and Thanksgiving that she offered some to me? Sorry, off the subject. But occasional food donations still aren't too impressive.

You know, you could donate blood. All it takes is a little time and you don't even have to open your wallet, except to take out your donor card the second and subsequent times you donate.

They're really nice to you. They give you kool-aid or orange juice and brownies, cookies, and crackers galore afterwards. AND YOU HAVE TO EAT THEM! Isn't that the coolest? You have to eat them to get your sugar levels back in balance (plus drink water, but that's boring). So no matter what you ate for lunch or how close it is to dinner--EAT UP! You've earned it. Doesn't that sound tempting?

Donate blood, give it a try. You might need some someday, you know. And you'd have paid your psychic debt if you've donated even a few times in the past. See, it's karma! Everybody needs good karma, right?

So seriously, try donating blood. It's a good thing to do, only 3 percent of Americans do it, and you can actually save a life. Donating an old can of sauerkraut just doesn't compare.

Julia is now 27 months old and she knows how to count to ten. How do I know that she can do it without coaxing her by getting her started? Allie, me, and Julia play hide-and-seek. And when it's Julia's turn to count, there you go.

Allie and I usually count to twenty, so Julia counts to ten, then goes llellen, then she pauses and starts over with one again. The second time through, though, she says one, two, three and then uncovers her eyes and hollers, "Here come!"

Julia is also completely in love with her candy bucket from Halloween. We really need to hide the buckets of both kids, but Greg and I aren't completely finished stealing all the chocolate yet. So Julia carries her candy bucket around the house, tries to take it to daycare (I don't think so!), and insists that her bucket be next to her head when we lay her down to change her diaper.

In the morning, she wakes up a little and almost immediately remembers (well before any thought crosses Allie's mind) that she has a bucket full of candy somewhere, so off she goes to look for it. I don't let her eat candy for breakfast, obviously, but the hope in her little brain springs eternal. We're planning an addict intervention for next week Tuesday.

My sisters love Cancun. They love it so much, in fact, that they recently planned for and paid for their fourth (yep, you read that right, fourth) trip to the same resort in Cancun in the last 8-9 years.

Unfortunately . . . . .

They're scheduled to leave on November 5 for their resort. Wonder if it's still there?

In other news, Betsy and Chris (of the tornado tale) are expecting their third baby! Congratulations to them and their two girls. It turns out that Betsy was about 2 weeks pregnant when they lost their house. Rebuilding is underway, and with any luck, they'll be in their rebuilt house about a month before the baby comes.

Destruction and construction all around.

Happiness all around!

This month is the time to celebrate my parents' 45th wedding anniversary, my dad's 67th birthday, our 9th anniversary, and my sister's 44th birthday. Hallmark is earming record profits this month, by the way.

Last weekend, I took the girls to a fast food place for lunch while Greg was off at his vroom-vroom class. We were eating (or Allie and I were eating while Julia busied herself sucking ketchup over and over again off one french fry) when a bride-to-be came in, complete with veil and attendant.

Someone asked her when the wedding was (it was about 12:30) and she said 2:00. I told her that Saturday was my parent's 45th and she exclaimed, "that's a good omen." Indeed.

Ah, wedded bliss. Right now my loving husband is downstairs on the couch, watching a trashy show about celebrity couples while moaning that his stomach is upset, and I'm on a different floor of the house surfing the web and blogging. We do love each other, honestly. But, at least some of the time, I believe this is how we got to 9 years.

Happy Anniversary, Honey!

The other night, Greg and I were in the kitchen talking about work when Allie came over and said, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to tell you about something that happened at school today." Where does she get this stuff? She's 5!

Fortunately, she still acts like a little girl most of the time. Recently, I called her "buttercup." She smiled, then asked me what a buttercup was, then gave me a huge hug (with a face-splitting smile) when I told her.

She's sweet. Even though she looks grown up these days. Something about her wearing jeans and Converse tennies and hoodies--- And she's getting so tall. Allie's going to be 6 in about 3 months and I can't believe it. What happened to my baby?

I was reading an article in a human resources magazine the other day about how something like 40 percent of Americans lose some vacation every year because they don't take it. And something like 68 percent said that they check either voice or e-mail messages while they're on vacation. And something like 85 percent did not take 5 days of vacation in a row last year.

It's official, we're vacation deprived. Especially, as the experts like to point out, compared to Europe. Would I like the entire month of August off? You betcha. Would I actually do it? Of course not. The world would fall apart, wouldn't it?

We're all so absolutely necessary. At least we tell ourselves so--how immodest.

And how many of the past 10 years have I taken off 5 days of vacation in a row? This year was the first year in 10, since Greg and I went on our honeymoon. Sigh.

Date Night!

Last night, Greg and I got to go on a romantic, no kids-- date. My parents were here at the end of this week, taking care of our two girls because our daycare was closed and they stuck around so we could go out for dinner and a movie last night. Thanks for everything, Mom and Dad!

We ate at Crave, which is one of those oh-so-modern, trendy food type of restaurants and everything was very good. The best part of the meal, however, was the dessert. Strawberry shortcake, in a tall skinny glass, layed and yummy.

After dinner, we walked around the Monona Terrace rooftop garden and looked at the views. It was a beautiful night, not too cold.

Then we drove to the theater and saw, "The 40 Year Old Virgin," which was excellent. Bawdy, sweet, cringe-inducing, very funny.

We did call to say goodnight to the girls. Sweet dreams, glad you aren't here!

My mom, who is one of the few who reads my blog, told me this morning that I needed to update it because she was tired of facing my tornado story. This demand for update on a blog is, by the way, from a woman who didn't know what a blog was until about 2 1/2 years ago and who didn't own a computer until about 4 years ago. When she got the computer, she said she was only going to use it to look at the pictures we were posting of her first grandchild. Uh huh. Now she asks for blog updates and whizzes her way around the internet.

So what's been happening? Lots of things in our town, in the aftermath of the storm. I drove out to see what was left of Betsy's and Chris's house a few weeks ago, once the state police took down the roadblocks intended to keep out gawkers like me. I drove to see Betsy's house and then came home, so I don't know that I win a gawker's first prize.

By the time I saw where their home used to be, there was nothing left but the foundation and they were waiting for a report from an engineer to see if they were going to be able to rebuild on it--they are. They still hadn't drained the murky swimming pool in the backyard yet as of last week and because they can't see the bottom, they have no idea what might be in it. For all they know, there could be a car down there. They're not going to be able to safely garden in their yard for years, too, because of all the broken glass in the soil.

The 3-year-old, Erin, talks a lot about the poopy tormado (not tornado) that wrecked her house. Maddie, the 5-year-old, doesn't talk about it at all. She started kindergarten on schedule, though. They're going to be OK.

Allie started kindergarten on September 6 and she loves it. Last night, as she did last Friday night, she almost started to cry because she wasn't going to be able to go to school on Saturday. She's made new friends, including a little girl named Maddy (different girl than above) who sat at Allie's table at lunch every day and cried. Allie's nothing if not a sensitive soul, so I don't think she ate lunch for the first 7-8 days while she too tried not to cry.

Allie's not too crazy about hot lunch--she likes her daddy's sandwiches, made fresh every morning. She got to go on her first field trip yesterday, to a nature center, and she learned all about plants and bugs and saw a real tarantula. Allie did not want to touch any bug, by the way.

She's had gym class 5 times so far and all the games they play sound like they involve extensive running. She's had art a bunch of times and she's working on some project that she hasn't talked too much about. Allie likes music class, and she loves her reading buddy (reading with a 4th grader) which is once per week. She's already brought home three books from the school library (sequentially, they can only take out one at a time).

And she's doing great walking the three blocks from her bus stop to daycare, thank goodness. That was the thing Greg and I were the most stressed over. She's done it completely by herself at least a couple of times and she often walks at least part of the way with other kids. Now we can just start worrying about winter walking.

Meanwhile, Julia is doing just fine at daycare. She's talking in phrases all the time now. When I opened her window shade this morning, she saw a bird and called my attention to it, then spent a good 3-4 minutes telling me the bird was "Up, in da sky. Up, in da sky. Up, in da sky." Yes, I got that, Julia.

She hasn't bitten anyone in ages, knock on wood, but she does hit. I have to confess that I'm not going to worry about that. It's usually Allie and Allie usually deserves it. Now if she would just eat------ Well, I suppose she eats like a normal toddler, but that's not very much. The kid is still skinny and tall.

I got a raise last month, which is awesome, and we're spending a little less on daycare now. Pig, the cat, is still doing OK despite her diabetes, and the grass outside is actually greening up in places now that it's cooler. The newspaper said we should be giving our trees a drink, though, since it hasn't really rained in ages.

That's the update on our family and household. How are you doing?

Tornado Stories

Some information about what happened to us and to our friends yesterday . . .

Our girls were sitting at the kitchen table, eating some apple slices, and Greg was going in and out, grilling leftover prime rib, when our weather radio went off. We shushed the girls to listen to the broadcast, which said that we were under a tornado warning, with severe weather to the far north and far west of us.

We looked at each other and then silenced the radio. I ran upstairs to get on the computer in our bedroom, so I could see the radar and tell whether stuff was coming our way. As the computer booted up, I looked out the side window of our bedroom and saw clouds in the not-very-far-away distance, black and rotating.

I ran downstairs, yelling to Greg, who was now sitting at the kitchen table with the girls, to come outside now to see the clouds. We both saw the formation of the tornado.

I ran back in and grabbed Julia from the table, where she was screaming because everyone had gone outside. I pulled Allie with me and we went downstairs to the basement. Greg stayed outside.

I booted up the computer downstairs and tried to get a weather radar up, and turned on the TV. Just then, the cable went out and both girls started crying because they were so scared and because the TV was turned up really loud (it made a static noise).

Our lights flickered a couple of times but we couldn't hear anything happening. The online connection on the computer didn't work because we have a cable modem. The girls and I stayed downstairs for perhaps 5 minutes while Greg stayed outside, taking the video you see on the main site.

When I couldn't stand not knowing any more what was happening, I went upstairs with both girls--there was no way they were going to stay downstairs without me. By then, the tornado had moved probably a mile or so to the east and was clearly not going to hit us.

Greg had watched it go behind our water tower from west to east, which meant it was at least 1/2 mile away, but we didn't know how far exactly. It turns out it was about 1 mile away or so--an F3 tornado with winds estimated at 200 miles per hour. The path of severe destruction is 1/2 mile wide. This thing looked huge. Greg's video doesn't do it justice. The news tonight said it was Wisconsin's strongest tornado in the last decade.

One man died in his basement when his chimney fell on him, so sad. The saddest story that touched us personally was about our friends, Betsy and Chris. They lost their house, their beautiful 1 1/2 yr. old all brick, three-car garage, inground pool, screened-in porch home on the golf course.

The garage is gone, the bricks (that they agonized over the choosing the color of) are stripped off, the second story is gone, the roof on the screened in porch extension fell straight down, and the pool is, of course, full of debris. Some of the walls of the first floor are still standing, but the house is completely ruined. Most of it that didn't blow away fell into the basement, where Chris was sheltering with their two girls who are 5 and 3.

Betsy had gone to play in a softball game, which means that this morning all she owned was her game t-shirt, shorts, and cleats. Chris saw the tornado coming across the golf course and took the girls to the basement. They just got there and hunkered down when the tornado hit and the house fell apart.

After the noise stopped, Chris managed to find a way out--he doesn't remember anything about how except that he carried both girls and kicked things out of the way with his bare feet (he hadn't been wearing shoes in the house). They had to get out immediately because of the strong smell of gas.

They started walking towards Betsy's parents house, which is about 2 blocks away, out of the path of major damage, and someone gave them a ride there. In the meantime, Betsy's brother, Dan, came running from his house, which is about 2 blocks in the other direction. He saw Chris's wallet in the car, which was now in the driveway, more or less, instead of in the garage, and knew that Chris and the girls had been home.

Dan had the presence of mind to turn off the gas (and he knew how to do it, heroic guy) and he eventually figured out where they had gone. Shortly after Dan left, Betsy arrived at the house with a couple of other people. You used to be able to see the house from about 1/2 mile away as you drove in, and Betsy could tell that the house wasn't really there anymore.

She got to what was left of the house and things were dead silent. The three of them spent what had to be an agonizing 15 minutes or so calling Chris's and the girls' names, trying to figure out if anyone was still in the house, before they found out where Chris and the girls had gone. Can you imagine how Betsy felt for that time? It makes tears come to my eyes.

They're all OK, at least physically. Erin, the 3 year old, asked for a nookie last night when she got tired enough to sleep, and Betsy's family managed to find one for her. The family didn't have anything to call their own until this morning, when they bought some basic supplies. That is, except an exceptional family support network that will get them through this.

Another friend and co-worker was driving and ended up just south of the tornado when it cut across the highway. She ended up lying in a muddy ditch while it passed, next to a man and a woman who was sobbing hysterically. They're all OK.

Two cars had a t-bone accident right in front of her, right before she went into the ditch, and I haven't heard that those people were injured too severely. There are 4 people hospitalized, one in serious condition.

Another co-worker had an aunt and uncle whose house was destroyed. Her cousin was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom before she ran to the basement and she ended up outside after the tornado passed wearing only a silk nightie. As of last night, she still didn't know where her car had ended up. It was gone.

It could have been much, much worse, really--small consolation to those who lost everything. If it had come 1 mile further south, into our town proper, there probably would have been multiple deaths and millions more dollars in damage. We're just giving thanks that things are OK for us. We were lucky, really lucky.

Allie asked what would happen if a tornado came again. I told her that tornados don't come very often at all, and now that one came close to us, it will be a long, long time before we see another one. I pray that that's correct.

Allie and I played Snow White this afternoon. Originally, she wanted to play Hide N Seek, but then she decided to watch the movie, and afterwards . . .

To play Snow White, Mommy has to become the evil queen. She looks in the mirror in the bathroom and says the "Mirror, mirror" line, then when she gets the answer, she looks at the beautiful Princess Snow White and strikes her dead with a bolt of evil magic from her fingertips.

She gloats over the dead princess, then turns away to plot and mumble aloud about her next step (something involving a glass coffin, I would assume). And then, magically, Snow White comes back to life and runs away.

The next two rounds involve Snow White running, getting struck by evil magic, waking up and getting away. Then Allie's rules say that the fourth time she's struck, she doesn't wake up.

The evil queen puts a baby blanket over her face (cause it was it the room) and the beautiful princess has to lay there until the evil queen becomes the handsome prince and kisses her awake.

As soon as we've finished one game, Allie immediately wants to switch places and make me die four or so times. After we switch roles twice more, Allie decides that I have to stay dead. I lay dead on the couch (the floor got hard after dying that many times) while she tells me the prince isn't coming.

He isn't? Bummer.

My husband has been playing Metroid on a GameBoy for three straight hours--no exaggeration. I don't even think he's gotten out of the chair to pee.

Oh, he made a wonderful dinner first, but then he disappeared. The girls and I played together, I got them in their jammies, and I put them to bed (Allie did kiss Daddy goodnight--he paused the game for that).

He's going to develop carpal tunnel, I know it.

Allie, by the way, is learning to read. Tonight we read, "Harry, the Dirty Dog." Allie read as many as four words in a row. She's not going to be the most advanced kid in kindergarten, but she should be able to hold her own.

In comparison, there's a boy in her tumbling class who is so backwards in behavior. He has to be at least 4 or 4 1/2. But he starts to cry when he doesn't get to sit on the red stripe on the floor. He won't stretch unless he's pretty much in his dad's lap.

And his father futilely warns, "We're going to leave, Danny (name changed to protect the problem child)," when you can tell they've never left anything due to his behavior.

My children are very imperfect, but at least they're independent children who can do things on their own and demand to do things on their own. We're lucky. At least we're lucky so far!

It's been three months since my boss gave notice. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has happened yet. There's one silver lining to that. If I actually got the job, I probably would never have time to blog anymore.

We had Julia's birthday party and a surprise early birthday party for me. If you know me well, you may already have a customized U.S. Department of Toast t-shirt from my party. They're gorgeous and my husband is a wonderful man.

Forty is coming up fast. I decorated the house for Julia's birthday with gold streamers and Greg said, "Well, Deb, we can just leave those up for 10 years and have them for your 50th birthday party."

I hate my husband.

Julia is going to be two years old next week. That means I've been blogging for over two years. Not that I've put that much effort into it at times, I must admit.

We've been teaching Julia to say "Two," when someone asks how old she is, so she already thinks she's two. Unfortunately, that extends to her behavior.

The terrible twos have arrived early. She has huge tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants or when you don't understand what she's telling you. She'll repeat the same word over and over, louder and louder, while you vainly try to suggest things she might want.

And, oh my god. The child loves to Go. I say Go with a capital G because she'll Go anywhere. To Madison, to the mailbox, to Chicago, to the grocery store--it doesn't matter as long as it's out of the house.

On the plus side, she nearly always says Please and she is excellent about saying Thank you. So after she finished screaming "Q - pee" at you for the tenth time and you figure out she wants her "cuppie," even though she's already holding a cup (she wants juice instead of milk), she will say Thank you in that now-cute-again little voice.

She sings, she dances, she gives great hugs and she's damn cute. We just have to get through the next 16 years and we'll be good-to-go. Hah.

I have to head out now. We're taking the girls to see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." I hope the bratty one behaves (which one I mean by that, I won't know until we get there).

I just read a comment someone wrote on my last post where they asked what had happened with my possible promotion.

The answer is, nothing yet. Because of a combination of factors, the president told me on June 3 that he expects it to be 2 months before any decisions are made.

I'm thinking 3 months, personally. Nonetheless, I'm still in the running!

Wimbledon. It definitely turned out to be Greg's favorite part of our trip. Even though, since it was only a little over two weeks until the tournament when we were there, they wouldn't even let people touch the grass on the practice courts.

Just to finish my trip narrative, after Wimbledon we went to Abbey Road Studios and took pictures at the famous zebra crossing. Then we did some last-minute shopping for souvenirs and got ready to head home. We'll go back to England, especially, some day. We had a wonderful adventure.

Since then--we've both been catching up at work and enjoying time with our girls. Since Nana cut the hair on both of them while we were gone, they really did look like different kids when we saw them for the first time in 10 days.

Shannon and Anna got married on June 11--Congratulations to them! Very nice wedding, awful weather. The reception hall, while it had a gorgeous view, did not have air conditioning. It literally was about 100 degrees in the hall. It's been two weeks; I think I'm back to normal body temperature now.

I got my wisdom teeth removed, finally. Two of them were partially exposed and my dentist had been bugging me for literally five or six years to have them removed because a pocket made it a certainty that I'd someday get a cavity there.

I would not recommend the surgery. I would recommend being put to sleep for it (I'll pay the $325 for anesthesia myself, I don't care). It's been about 1 1/2 weeks and I really wish my stitches would come out because I'm tired of chewing on them, now that I can kind of chew again.

It's been very hot, weatherwise. Where did spring go so quickly? And life goes on.

Here's the story of our trip so far--

Arrived in London on Saturday morning, exhausted, legs aching, flights 'over the pond' suck.

Checked in at our hotel, thank god they had a room available early. Went upstairs and upstairs and through doors and through doors (they take fire doors and fire safety very seriously here--that whole Fire of London thing, I think). Tried to sleep but the fan to the hotel's restaurant was in the air shaft just outside our window, noisy.

The room was hot and smelled like fried food. We laid down to try to sleep and Greg said--I can't do this. He went down to the desk and we got a much, much better room--their handicapped room in fact, which was not overly warm, twice as large, and had a huge bathroom. Yay!

We slept for a couple of hours, then visited the Museum of London and Piccadilly Circus. They say if you sit at Piccadilly Circus long enough, the whole world will pass by. I have no trouble believing it.

The next morning, we did our Grayline tour to Oxford, the Cotswolds (completely stereotypical beautiful English countryside) and Stratford-Upon-Avon for a 'cream tea.' The only bad part was that Greg and I were most interested in the Shakespeare sites and those were rushed because they were last. We did finish before the pouring rain, however.

The next morning, refreshed, we visited the Tower of London for about four hours (it's pretty cool), then St. Paul's Cathedral, then tried to go to Westminster Abbey (too late) and saw Big Ben and the London Eye and Parliament, then Buckingham Palace, then to Harrod's (where we ate chicken at a counter in the Meat Hall for $70).

On Tuesday morning, we took the Eurostar train to Paris, which I would highly recommend. We were cheated out of about $20 by an oh-so-helpful man at the automated ticket machine for the Metro when we arrived (we should have known better). And that was our first contact with a Parisian, isn't that nice.

We saw Notre Dame and I almost killed myself climbing the stairs. Seriously, we've walked so much on this trip that I think we're both in better shape than we've been for awhile, but my chest hurt from these stairs. 411 steps, all winding counterclockwise, with only one place to rest on the way. The chest thing went away as soon as I got my breath, but then I kept coughing and I thought I was going to throw up.

On Wednesday, fully recovered, we went to the Louvre (oh, our aching feet), the Eiffel Tower (fun but very, very high, Greg would say), did a boat cruise on the Seine, visited the Place du Concorde, walked back to our hotel through the Tulleries Gardens, and called it a night.

On Thursday, we traveled to Versailles via suburban train, where we stayed for hours, and where it got very hot and very sunny (91 degrees, the London paper said today). We ate at McDonald's at Versailles (thank you, Gregory, for letting me eat American food), then returned to Paris.

We tried to visit the Catacombs of Paris (closed for renovation, gotta clean up the bones, I guess), visited the Arc du Triomphe and Champs Elysses, then called it an early night--so wonderful to just rest.

This morning, we took the Eurostar back to London, then dumped our bags at our new hotel (thank you, God, they have free internet access and we could get into our room early).

We headed off to Westminster Abbey, which is really like a big cemetery because there are so many dang dead people everywhere. I wonder what you had to pay to get buried inside, because it seems people from 1200 onwards have been put everywhere in this place.

We liked our boat tour in Paris so much that we did one for London, which was a good idea because we've spent so much time traveling underground that we didn't see a bunch of neat things along the Thames.

We saw Tower Bridge again, then traveled to Trafalger Square briefly before heading back to our 'neighborhood.'

All we definitely want to do tomorrow is go to Wimbledon, which should take up a good part of the day since it's a ways out of town.

I could write on about blowing the black stuff out of our noses every night and the weird times we've been eating meals and the incredible sums of money we've been spending, but I'll leave that for another time.

For now, know that we miss you all, especially our girls. We take out their pictures every day, at least once per day, and we look at the pictures of them that Greg has stored on the digital camera. We talk about how we know they'll have seemed to grow and how we hope Julia doesn't cry when she sees us or refuses to come to us.

According to Marcia, Allie isn't quite ready to go home yet, but I think we've about had our fill of Europe for this trip. We're not looking forward to the horrible, even-longer flight home (I asked Greg if they could just drug me for it), but we're looking forward to getting back to our corner of the world.

Happy Birthday, Pam!!! See you all soon.

Debbie in London

Ah, babyhood.

Julia's on the waning edge of babyhood, what with being 21 months old (time to start saying "she's almost two") and with her speaking phrases and running and walking down stairs holding the railing (that one scares me, yes, and I always hold her arm when I catch her doing it).

But you know she's still a baby when she cries out in the night and doesn't stop and so you head to her room and pick her up. Then you realize that her stomach moving against your chest is her retching and she pukes all over your shoulder.

Yup, nothing says you're a parent more than a nasty, warm, wet, oh-my-god-that-stinks gift from your sick child on your shoulder.

She seems to be feeling better tonight. She hasn't thrown up since first thing this morning and she doesn't have any other symptoms, other than not wanting to eat much.

And when I carried her up to bed tonight, she was back to putting her normal sleepy, heavy head, warm and sweet, on my shoulder. Feeling better, thank god.

Big changes at work--changes that could really affect things for me. My boss gave notice. I was floored to hear it.

She has a milestone birthday this year, and she decided that if she was ever going to pursue her goal of starting her own business, she needed to get going. She'll be doing HR consulting.

So----- I'm the obvious successor, her right hand person. I have a good reputation in the company and with upper management. I just don't know if it's good enough to take over control of the human resource functions for a company of 1400 people.

And if I don't get the position, will I be able to stay, working for someone who will really needs my help but who I resent?

Yeesh.

It snowed here off and on all day today. When I drove home, it was 39 degrees on the thermometer at Walgreen's. That sucks.

Then Greg told me it's supposed to be 18 degrees tonight. Yuck. I want spring. I want it now. This crap isn't spring. This is playing winter when everyone is already sick of the game.

It's supposed to be up to 70s by the weekend. It had better be, or Mother Nature is going to get her butt kicked.

Today was our company's "Take Your Child to Work" Day. Allie loved it, though she really just came for an hour and then for pizza. She was happy that there were no crying babies. It's funny, though, since when Allie was Julia's age, I brought her for this day!

The girls are doing really well. We were just starting to be convinced that Julia was past her biting stage (though I still have the mark from when she bit my arm two months ago). And then she bit me tonight because Greg and Allie were going to the store and she wasn't going.

On the plus side, (ALERT: Don't read further if you don't want to hear a potty story!), Julia was acting like she wanted to use the toilet the other night. So I went upstairs, got the potty chair, and Greg took off her diaper. Sure enough, she sat down and looked for something to read.

Or at least looked like she wanted to find something to read. In any event, she said down and peed! What a prodigy. She's only 21 months. Which means, of course, that she probably won't do it again for another year.

I know why I don't blog more in the winter. It's cold down here in the basement! Unless Greg has been down here and has had the heater on, it's not very comfortable sitting wrapped up in a blanket and typing. The thermometer says it's 63.4 degrees. Yes, if you know my husband, you're not surprised we have an electronic thermometer down here.

A couple of weeks ago, we took the girls to the doctor for their checkups--Allie's 5-year checkup and kindergarten physical and Julia's 18-month checkup. All went well, except that the doctor doesn't seem to have any helpful advice for us about Julia's biting.

Greg and I agree that she needs more words, so she can express her frustration. We both think Allie was talking more at this point, but I know Julia's going to come out with some elaborate sentences when she feels like it.

In the meantime, they're both fine--growing up fast. And Julia is still skinny and tall. Whose kid is she, anyway?

All I can say is that it's a darn good thing she's cute. I remind myself of that every time I look at my arm where I still have a red mark from when she took a nip almost two weeks ago. Little vampire---

Rats! I didn't do a single post in the whole month of February. That's because I've become a "Sex and the City" junkie. My dear husband bought me four seasons of the show on DVD and I'm completely hooked.

So far, I've watched all of the first and second seasons and I'm on disc 2 of the third season. Don't tell me what happens next!

Actually, I kind of know what happens next because the reason Greg got me the DVDs is because I was watching the cleaned-up versions of the show faithfully on TBS, every Tuesday and Wednesday. They're at about year 4 or 4 1/2, I think.

I love this show. I'm thinking about going back and counting how many people each of the women has had sex with after I get all the way through. It seems unbelievable to this naive soul how they all jump into bed with someone at the drop of a hat. Or the drop of a condom.

Nonetheless, it's very entertaining.

At the rate I'm going, I figure I'll be through season four sometime in the week after next (and remember, I have young kids around and can only watch for about 1 hour per night). You won't hear from me until after then, most likely.

Are seasons five and six out? Almost time for a trip to Best Buy! Race you there, Gregory (though he has completely different reasons).

Illness is ravening the ranks of our family and friends. Nothing too catastrophic has struck our family yet, but I'm holding my breath. Julia turns 18 months and Allie turns five on Sunday and the birthday party is Saturday. No one can get sick.

Who am I kidding. Allie had a nasty fever for her first birthday party (she looks very flushed in all of the photos) and neither Julia nor Allie ate any of their respective first-birthday cakes. We'll see if this party can turn out better.

Don't tell, but Allie's getting an Easy-Bake Oven. Her Grandpa Mike in Florida actually bought it for her when she was two and we figure she's now old enough (and she's been begging for one enough lately) that we'll give it to her.

It freaks me out a little. The box says, Age 8+. As my boss said when I commented on that, however, at age 8 Allie will be using the real oven. She already loves to bake. She started cracking eggs, more or less successfully, at age 2.

I know her favorite part of baking is licking the bowl (I know some eggs have salmonella, so sue me). She's always a little annoyed when she has to share the licks of the bowl with her daddy.

I never had an Easy-Bake, but my friend Connie did. We couldn't use it very often though, because the mixes were too expensive. Since we're not actually buying Allie the oven, I want to go hog-wild with getting her Easy-Bake mixes.

She can mix a batch of little brownies and eat the whole thing for all I care, without baking it. As long as she eats a good dinner first (don't get me started on her eating habits lately).

Anyone for a cupcake size cake?

Greg and Julia were somewhere else in the house the other day when Allie said, "Mom, I need to tell you something. And I don't want you to tell Daddy and I don't want you to tell Karina (our daycare provider)." She was intensely serious.

She said, "Come here and I'll tell you. OK, bend down and give me your secret ear." So I bent down next to her and she moved my hair aside to whisper in my ear.

I could hardly wait. She gave me a very serious look and said, "OK, mom, now you can't tell anyone." I said, OK.

And Allie said, "Mom, I'm on a secret mission."

I almost looked around for M. She really gave me pause for a minute. Then she went on to say, "Sabrina and I hid in the closet to make plans, and I didn't want to go because it was really dark, but we had to figure out the mission," and I felt better.

My daughter wants to be a spy. I've been watching too much James Bond lately, obviously.

We were on the way to daycare the other morning when Allie said, "Mommy, Karina (our daycare provider) says that God is invisible." I said, "Yes, that's true, honey. Nobody knows what God looks like."

She said, "I know what God looks like. He has a green pointy hat with a red poof on the top. He has a green shirt like Peter Pan, but he doesn't have a green skirt made of leaves like Peter Pan. He wears green tights, and he has big black shoes."

I guess the eternal question of what God looks like has now been answered for all humanity. He looks a lot like Peter Pan, but with black shoes.

Too bad Michelangelo isn't around anymore to produce the definitive painting.

I do benefits at work now, and it's open enrollment. I've probably seen about 150 people this week, most wanting to drop one insurance or another.

They come see me and say they want to drop their insurance. I say, "Health, dental, short term disability, long term disability, or voluntary life." They go, "huh."

It's no surprise that I've gotten sick again, either as a result of the long hours I've been putting in or all that contact with people, some of whom have probably just finished coughing all over their paperwork.

I saw the doctor today. New guy, again (our clinic can't keep a doctor). He glanced at my chart and said, "History of tonsillitus, history of asthma/bronchitis, and back for throat today." I thought, "What?"

I was in in March for a throat infection, but I haven't been diagnosed with bronchitis since I was 11 and I don't have asthma. The wonders of modern medicine.

I don't have strep, according to the rapid strep test. Just another throat thing that's lasted for over two weeks. What fun.

It's always nice to see your family at Thanksgiving and exchange germs.

The other day, we were asking Allie if the brother-in-law of our daycare provider (who is temporarily living at the daycare house) is there all day, because we were wondering if he has a new job or is still looking for one. I said, "Does he go to work during the daytime?" Allie said, "I think he gave it up."

About a week before that, during dinner, Allie asked her dad for more milk, because he was already by the fridge getting something. When he told her (jokingly) to get it herself, she said, with a big grin, "If you don't get it for me, I'm going to crack you over the head and then eat your brain."

Meanwhile, Julia is into dropping things while eating in her highchair and saying, "Uh Oh!" while looking for them on the floor.

She doesn't have too many other words yet--just mama, dada, hi, bye, and something that sounds a little like thank you at the times thank you would be appropriate to say.

Given how her sister's vocabulary has developed, that might not be a bad thing. Though Allie did say something the other day that I thought was cool. Julia, Allie and me had shopped at Target and were heading for our car in the parking lot when Allie said, "Mom, there's a thicket!" I asked her to repeat it and she said "thicket, over there," and there was a thicket of woods across the way.

I wonder how many four year olds use "thicket." Maybe all hope isn't lost.

Greg is traveling, as you probably know, so last night I was on bath duty by myself.

I am just not thrilled about the idea of trying to bathe the girls together (though Greg does it that way), so I decided I'd bathe Allie first. Julia could crawl around the bathroom floor, getting god knows what on her hands, and then I'd get her all clean before bed.

The only problem with that plan was Julia. As soon as we all went into the bathroom, she started trying to crawl into the tub. It just goes to show that she could probably already get out of her crib if she put her mind to it, because she got on her tiptoes and got a leg up and she was almost on the edge.

Just to see what she'd do, I steadied her so she wouldn't fall and she promptly slithered into the tub (which was empty) with all of her clothes on. Allie was taking hers off as Julia was climbing, so as soon as Julia sat down in the tub and started playing the bath toys, Allie was naked and getting cold.

I would have just stripped Julia and let them bathe together, but just then Julia decided to fill her diaper. So I hauled her out of the tub and washed Allie from top to bottom as fast as possible while Julia complained (loudly, needless to say) about not being in the tub. She also tried, for the entire time I was bathing her sister, to climb back into the tub.

Allie got out and I took Julia in her room to clean her butt before I bathed her. She screamed the whole time, but eventually I got her back in the bathroom and filled the little tub. I dumped her in it, and she immediately started that contented baby humming thing while she grabbed all the bath toys she could reach and started playing.

Who needs playpens, expensive mobiles, sound and music makers, dollies, or strollers. To entertain your kid, dump her clothed butt in the bathtub and she'll be happy for hours. Apparently.

Hello, yes, and how have you been?

I'm doing better, thank you. I've been doing my new job now for almost a month (including when I was being trained) and some things are now coming instinctually instead of "OK, pull out the notes, how do I handle that." Most of the time, I'm able to help people without having to look things up in front of them, which is also progress.

I "only" worked 10 hours today and I could have worked more, but didn't feel that I needed to. I could just be forgetting something huge that I need to take care of, but for the first time, I didn't leave work thinking, "oh my god, I should be staying to start on that huge pile."

The girls are thriving, despite not seeing much of me lately (not that they NEED me but I hope they've missed me). My husband is getting over resentment about being a most-of-the-time single dad because I got a huge raise last week, and the cat seems stable.

Life is pretty good.

It's been so long since I posted that I don't know where to start. I'm still wearing a brace on my hand every day because of my tendonitis, so I haven't been typing here at all. As far as the girls--

Julia went to the doctor last Wednesday for her one-year checkup. She's gained some weight, thank goodness. Her head size is in the 90th percentile, her length is in the 75th percentile, and her weight is in the 50th percentile. Not symmetrical, but cute nonetheless. Greg really needs to get some new pictures of her on his part of the site.

Allie seems more grown up every day. She entertains herself (and not always by watching TV), she gets her own drinks (including glasses) sometimes, she helps us keep an eye on Magellan (otherwise known as Julia, fast-crawling baby), and she has adventures away from us (like visiting Nana and Papa for a week at the end of June).

I have a new job at my same place of work. Our benefits administrator gave notice, so I'm taking over most of her duties while keeping some of my old, getting an assistant and a new title--either Benefits Manager or Employee Services Manager (my vote is for the latter) and I'm getting more money, but the details still aren't fleshed out and it's been 1 1/2 weeks. It's pay change time in our department, so my boss has just put in on the back burner. We should have a chance to talk this week.

I have a birthday coming up one week from today--the big 3-9. Things are changing everywhere.

I know I haven't posted in a long time, but that's because I'm having symptoms of tendinitis or carpal tunnel syndrome or something and I don't need the additional typing at home.

My right arm hurts most of the time (my mousing hand and my 10-key pad hand, of course) and it's a huge pain in the ass. I've tried mousing with my left hand at work. Since Greg is left-handed, our mouse is on the left side at home and so I can do that ambidextrously (is that a word). But mousing with my left hand has just given me almost as much pain as my left arm.

It's hell to get old and have your body fail you. I know, I should be grateful it's not something horribly worse, but this is not any fun either. I wear splints on both hands every night to bed and all day at work I wear one on my right hand.

I would type more, but this hurts. The Lee family is all fine, otherwise. Lots of adventures that Greg will have to write about for the time being.

A woman hit my car on Monday. Why, in three out of the four times in my life that my car has been hit, has it been a old person. Hmm. (Who hit me the fourth time, I don't know--it was a hit and run in the parking lot at work with a company vehicle. Someone in Maintenance got away with it.)

When I was 18, I was driving with my parents back to college and a 72-year-old guy who'd stopped at a bar for a Sunday afternoon drink pulled out from a parking lot to right across the highway, and I was unable to find enough road to avoid hitting him.

About 6-7 years later, my car was legally parked in front of my parents' house when the neighbor across the street backed out of her driveway and apparently never considered that there might be a car back there. In fact there were two, but my sister's car was behind mine and didn't get hit.

On Monday, I pulled into the parking lot at Pizza Hut to pick up a personal pan pizza. This 70 to 75-year-old woman was backing her Cadillac Seville out of a space right by the door, so I stopped completely to let her get out. I was actually turning right to go to another space but I stopped to give her plenty of room to stop backing up and go around me.

Well, she did OK getting out, but she cut it too close when she turned left around me. I saw her car really close to my window and I thought, "Man, she's close." And then she hit the back driver side of my car, which was sticking out about six inches further than the rest of my car because I was starting to turn.

$900 damage on my car. And she scraped the entire side of her Cadillac on my car, so I'l bet her's is going to be a lot more. A lot more.

I got out of my car and just stood there to see what she would say. She kind of threw up her hands and said, "I've got State Farm!" Gee, that really makes me feel better, ma'am. And I was polite, too. I called her ma'am, instead of idiot.

My insurance company was great--the check arrived today. We need a loaner for the 2-3 days it'll take to fix it, so I have to wait until the 28th, but it'll get back to normal eventually. And the body shop says they'll fix where Greg scraped my passenger side mirror on the garage frame for free!

There's a silver lining for ya. Sigh.

Gosh, it's been awhile since I posted. Nothing too interesting has been happening. Let's see . . .

We've had lots of guests. Dinner/playdate guests (wrote about that last time), then my family visited for Mother's Day (and we all got crazy in the jumpy), then Dwayne, Raquel, and Lourdes visited, all in three weeks time.

We had our big Syttende Mai celebration in town, but it rained a bunch so we didn't do as many events as we normally do. The weather was great for the Saturday parade though.

Allie is partway through a five-week series of tumbling classes. And she's the only student. Yep, the only one. Normally, there's two brothers, twin sisters, another boy, and Allie in her class, at a minimum. Apparently all the other parents decided to take a break at the same time.

Two weeks ago, Allie had two instructors just for her. Last week, she had one instructor all to herself. She gets worn out in that half hour, needless to say. Normally she has to wait her turn and she gets to rest between somersaults or cartwheel attempts or jumping on the trampoline, but she's coming home from these classes sweaty and thirsty.

The tumbling class people aren't going to cancel her class because there are classes immediately before and following hers and they'd just have to sit around between. We can't get her in the class before because it's a little too early. And the class afterwards has kids that are at least a year older than her.

Alexandra, despite her middle name of Grace, isn't the most graceful or coordinated kid. It's just recently that she walks down a balance beam that sits on the floor without going tentatively and slowly sideways. I think she'd really feel behind if we put her in a class with older kids.

So it seems she'll continue her solo excursions in tumbling for another three weeks.

On Wednesday night, Allie and I spent two hours transforming a box from Howie (if you know us and have been to our house, you know Howie) into a castle. I cut a door, three windows, made turrets, made an angled roof, made curtains, fixed shutter latches and a doorknob, and then we made a bed inside and Allie laid down to watch TV through one of the windows.

The next day, I strung a string of Christmas lights inside so she has power. It's pretty cool, but I'd like to add wallpaper (so you don't see the writing on the brown cardboard) and flower boxes on the windows and color at least the front (maybe paint?). I know, you're thinking, whose project is this? I think that should be obvious.

This weekend, Marcia and Dave visited, I made a quick trip home for my sister Pam's 40th birthday party (Happy Birthday, old lady!), and Greg and Dave tiled the backsplash of our kitchen, on the wall with the stove. Greg can now make tomato sauce with impunity. It looks great. Good job, honey.

What have you been up to?

We had a great time yesterday. We spent the whole day cleaning and then had guests for dinner and a playdate--Maddie, who is probably Allie's best friend, her parents (Chris and Betsy--I used to work with Betsy and they also used to live almost across the street from us) and her baby sister, Erin, who is 22 months old and wild.

We had Papa Murphy's pizza (we really like Papa Murphy's) and they brought cookies for dessert. Allie could hardly speak, she was so excited. All the drudgery of cleaning the entire house (which was desperately needed, by the way) was completely made worth it by the expression on Allie's face when they arrived.

There was an immense amount of running, hopping, and screaming. Two 4-year-olds, one almost 2-year-old, and one puzzled-at-all-the-excitement but smiling 9-month-old. The older three girls were endlessly running, screaming, from the kitchen to the living room and back. Our ears were ringing, but no one wanted to yell at them and spoil their excitement.

Needless to say, the girls didn't really eat any pizza. We adults ate a bunch of it, almost finished off the cookies, and talked our way through the entire evening. It's just a shame Betsy is allergic to cats. Within minutes of arriving, she was suffering with a runny nose. They had to leave when she started getting wheezy, but she was a wonderful sport and made it through over 3 hours.

Allie was completely exhausted and said she had the best night ever. We really, really need to do this kind of thing for her more often. She's at a daycare with only a 14-month-old and her sister and she's starved for playtime with older kids.

And this morning, she slept until almost 9:00 (almost unheard of). Yay for play!

We've been busy lately doing spring things. No illnesses per se have hit us, but Greg did sprain his ankle on Monday night. He was helping our daycare provider's husband move a playset and he just stepped wrong.

Of course, that was the same night he got our lawnmower back just for the night from the repair/tuneup place, so I went out and mowed the yard. I like mowing, as long as it isn't hot, and it wasn't this night. Good thing, too, because it took forever. There was an awful lot of grass in our yard (and weeds, and dandelion blooms, and dog poop, since a popular walking route runs alongside our house).

Greg has been limping around the house and work ever since and he says it doesn't feel better. Sigh. We must be cursed or something.

Julia is having adventures in food. She'll be nine months old tomorrow and she's experiencing new food flavors almost every day. Yesterday, she had baby lasagna for the first time. She voted no to the noodles and yes (or at least OK) to the sauce.

Her favorites (besides the plain fruits, of course) are the fruit/meat combinations. Mmm-mm. Ham with apples. Chicken with pears. Chicken with apples. Beef with carrots--of course that's not a fruit, but carrots are sweeter, so you'd think she'd be OK with it. Nope. It's not fruit and she knows it. And it's amazing how much orange baby food can stain a bib and clothes.

And so much is orange--carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, beef with carrots, garden vegetables (carrots, potatoes, peas all together), peaches, peaches with mango, mango with apples, you name it. Am I making any of you hungry?

Well, consider this. Orange baby food leads to orange baby poop. I'm going to just leave that thought there, thank you very much. Have a good day!

I've been sick again. Yeah, yeah, who cares.

Today I served a pizza lunch to 683 people. Well, I made the arrangements for 683 people at work to have pizza, to celebrate a large order we received from a company I won't name but whose initials are UPS.

It's enough business to keep about 1/3 of our workforce busy for about 8 months. Worth celebrating. And thank god the pizza party is finished now and we had enough pizza for everyone but not too much left over.

Our bill for pizza, just for the city that I work in, was almost $1700, without tax. We gave them a $40 tip. That's 2%. Before I get nasty e-mails from waitstaff and delivery people, I want to state that we based the tip on information from one of our supervisors who works at Pizza Hut nights delivering pizza.

He said that $10 per driver would be a respectable tip but not outrageous. Gosh, they only toted around 162 pizzas, no big deal!

I should add that I am in absolutely no hurry to see sausage, pepperoni, or cheese anytime in the near future.

An acquaintance of mine was robbed last week.

She lives, along with her husband and their two kids, in a two-story house with a partially exposed basement. Both the basement and their kitchenette area have sliding glass doors.

In the middle of Thursday night, she woke thinking she had heard something. When she didn't hear anything else, she went back to sleep. In the morning, she went downstairs and her slider was slightly open and the door to the attached garage was partially open.

She said she never even considered that they had been robbed; she just thought one of the boys had left the sliding door ajar and the wind or suction or something had caused the other one to open.

She got ready for work and was set to leave. That's when she realized that she couldn't find her purse. Even then, she said she didn't think robbery. She just thought she must have left it in her car.

When she went in the garage, she found that the door from the garage to outside was open also and that her purse was not in her car. That's when she figured out what had happened.

The thief had come up on their deck, got in through the slider (which she can't swear was locked, but she thinks was), stole her purse and her briefcase, and left by way of the door to the garage and then outside. The police found muddy men's size footprints and no fingerprints.

There were four other houses hit on our side of town the same night. Did I mention she lives two blocks from us?

She lost $5 cash; that's all she had in her purse (and she and her husband are both lawyers!). She had taken most of the papers out of her briefcase to work on and hadn't put them back, so she didn't lose much work-wise. Though she knew not to keep her social security card in her purse (you all know not to do that, right?), she did have a paystub in her purse. Of course, her social security number was on her paystub.

She and her husband have signed up for some kind of monitoring service on their credit cards that watches for fraudulent charges and other signs of identity theft. And they bought curtains for their basement sliding door. And deadbolts for the doors into the garage and into the house from the garage. And they're faithfully using bars in their sliding doors now.

She says she lies awake at night listening. She can't stop thinking about what might have happened if the thief had decided to come upstairs, after her husband's wallet, for example.

The biggest loss, of course, is their sense of security. And some of mine, too.

Another week has gone by. The only good thing about that, I suppose, is that it's closer to spring and the weekend.

Last weekend, we took Allie to the ballet as planned. She loved getting dressed up and getting to go out with Mommy and Daddy while Julia had to stay home (though she really likes our babysitter too).

She was eager to get into the theater and we showed her our watches to let her know how much time was left until the show started. We sat in the front row on one side.

Then the music started, the lights went down, and the ballet started. She did wonderfully. She asked questions, but did it quietly and not very frequently. She stayed in her own seat (unlike last year when she was afraid of the folding seat and spent the show on our laps). She knew the basic story this year, too, so she was waiting for the crocodile.

It was very nice, except for the annoying little girl behind us (who was old enough to be told to behave and do it), who continually asked loud questions about what was happening. And her parent answered back just as loudly and very, very frequently. I almost wished Allie would do like last year when she shushed the people behind us. We should have spoken up, but what do you do at a kids show.

Afterwards, we took Allie out for ice cream. She loved that best of all, though she did start complaining that her dress shoes hurt (she had nasty red marks on her feet, we unfortunately found later).

It was wonderful and I think we'll do it again, but I have to admit that it didn't have the same sense of magic as last year. My expectations were too high, though. How can you expect that your daughter will always be as thrilled as she was the first time she saw theater.

I guess we'll have to look forward about two more years, when we can take Julia!

Would you believe I've been sick again? Considering I never threw up with morning sickness in either of my pregnancies, I've done more ralphing in the last month than ever in my life.

Monday I started feeling like crap at work and I spent most of Monday evening in bed instead of with my family. Just like clockwork, almost exactly one week from when I threw up last week (within 1/2 hour of the same time), I was throwing up this week. Greg got it this time, too, on Tuesday morning.

I dragged myself in to work on Tuesday, idiot that I am, to prepare some weekly reports that a VP relies on. I went home in late morning and crawled into bed at noon. I didn't wake up until 4. I can't ever remember sleeping that long in the daytime. Maybe when I was 2 or so?

In any event, to cut boring blogs short, I'm feeling better. Thank god.

Julia and Allie are doing fine. Julia has been a little snarky healthwise for the last week but she seems to have rediscovered her appetite with spades in the last two days.

Tonight before bed, she ate baby applesauce, sweet potatoes, AND peaches. Have you seen those little jars of #1 baby food? She ate the equivalent of two whole jars, easily.

Happy family.

And, we get to have a family day this weekend. We're getting a babysitter for Julia (WHAT--but they never do that? Well, we're going to!) and Greg and I are taking Allie to see the Peter Pan Ballet.

You might remember Greg's blog about seeing this with her last year. She adored it. For a long time, it was her favorite thing in the entire world. And now she gets to see it again.

When I told her tonight that we were going, she was thrilled. Then she said, "This year, Mommy, when the show is over I'm going to talk to the people that were on the stage for sure. I'm going to be brave."

She chickened out last year, which was no big deal. Isn't it a shame that even a four-year-old can be bothered by regrets? Well, she's getting the opportunity to resolve the situation and I can't wait.

I'm not that excited about seeing the ballet again, though it was cool and I always love live theater. It's watching her face as she watches the ballet that I can't wait for. She'll be flying through her dreams again.

I give up. Four weeks ago, all four of us were sick with vomiting and stomach symptoms. Two weeks ago, I got my nasty throat infection and found out I'm allergic to penicillin, and this week, I'm sick again. Last night, my stomach just didn't feel right when I got home from work.

By the time Greg finished making shrimp scampi for dinner, I didn't want any part of it. I was nauseous, in the bathroom, and at 10:30, I threw up. I made it through two pregnancies without throwing up once and now I've been tossing my cookies with some regularity. What is up with this crap.

The good news is that I felt slightly better after throwing up and I slept OK. I went to work today, despite feeling like someone beat me up.

I hate winter. I love spring. Is spring coming what it's going to take for this family, and especially me, to get healthy?

At least the rest of the family are OK. If you haven't heard, Julia has her second tooth, and she's sitting up for long, long periods of time now. Her favorite hobby is chewing on the remote control (don't tell her daddy). What have you been up to lately?

No, I haven't up and died. Hard to believe it's been three weeks since I blogged.

First my parents were here and Greg was gone, which meant I spent almost no time on the computer. Then, if you read Greg's blog, you know about my illness.

What it was, we'll never know. It felt like strep throat, but wasn't. It could have been mono, but thank god, it wasn't. All the health care professionals I saw kept saying what a large collection of pus I had in my throat, so I guess we'll just leave it at that and be grateful that I'm back to normal.

And I'm going to be very grateful that no one else in the family got it. I hibernated in our room for most of Friday, all of Saturday and Sunday, and most of Monday while Greg held down the family fort and I guess I kept my germs to myself.

Things were fairly insane at work when I got back--I'm still doing two jobs, but I've hired a clerk now and she starts this coming Thursday, so that should get better.

Otherwise in the world, congratulations to Raquel and Dwayne on little Lourdes. I'm having kind of a hard time imagining Dwayne with a baby. I'm sure he'll be a great father and he's very good with kids, but an infant is a whole different matter.

He sounded completely in love with her on the phone, so I think the Springman family is off to a good start.

In our family, Allie looks like she's gone ten rounds with an unfriendly and lost. She has a black eye. Last night, I took the girls to a McDonald's with an indoor playland and Allie disappeared for a hour inside the tunnels. She loved it. However, when we got home, she was crawling across from the back seat to come out of the car by my door and she fell somehow.

She got a lovely bruise on her cheek and it's spread up to her eye. Greg took the girls out today while I did our taxes and he said people would always smile at the three of them, until they saw Allie's face, when thoughts of abuse and authorities would cross their minds. Poor little girl, she'll probably look bad all week. We need to take pictures!

I'm not really gleeful or anything, of course, but I had two black eyes when I was about two from climbing on the kitchen cupboards and bonking myself with a door, so she comes by the look honestly. Here's hoping you and your family are healthier than ours!