Riley and Avery

This is a post from yesterday that I had to save and publish today because I was having problems posting pictures. All is well today, but I know the formatting is all messed up. I just wanted to post a lot of pictures!

Riley and I made some really delicious vegan cranberry-orange muffins this morning. The recipe isn't a vegan recipe, so I had to veganize it by substituting the egg with 1/2 cup applesauce and a couple extra tablespoons of orange juice. They puffed up nicely, but not too much, which is difficult in both vegan and high-altitude baking. I found high-altitude flour at the store. Not sure what makes it so special, but it seems to help. Rudi was like, "oh, yeah, muffins!" until I told him that they were vegan. I shouldn't have told him and I'm sure he wouldn't have noticed. But I convinced him to try one and he said they were really good and he ate several. We did make fifteen of them and only two were left at the end of the day, so the must be pretty good at least. Score!


Wow, look at this beautiful girl! It would have been better if she didn't have a rash and a few crumbs around her mouth, but oh well. She was headed straight for the bath anyway. She was very proud of herself for figuring out that she could put crayons in her piggy and blatantly showed off her stuffed piggy.

Avery has been so happy lately, just bopping and laughing for absolutely no reason. It's a nice change. She still makes for the steps every chance she gets, so I'm getting a work-out constantly going up and down the steps. She struggles now during diaper changes, so that is absolutely no fun. I think that my Prowraps are about to fall apart. That's what I get for only having three diaper covers. I tried using the gerber pants but they are not breathable at all. I like pull-on pants better. For some reason I don't feel like I'm cloth-diapering when I use the prowrap. I think I'll try the Stacinator So Simple pretty soon. I like using the Snappis and a wrap diaper cover doesn't really cover the diaper right. Plus, the leg gussets on the prowrap hold in poo well, but they fold inwards, so they're always covered in poo. Very yucky. Although I'm tempted to try the Bummis Super Whisper Side Snap. I like snaps better than velcro. In fact, I detest velcro, except when it's on my shoes (because I detest velcro less than I detest tying shoes). Ah, who would have thought that my life would be consumed by the quest for the perfect diaper cover? The twenty-year-old me would never have thunk it.

Riley has discovered the joy of colloquial speech. She now says "ya" instead of "you" as in "I made some tea for ya." The "ya" is so emphatic and pronounced that it really sounds funny. She persuaded me to get her the laundry hamper to play with and she piled it full of towels and covers and put a tube from a roll of wrapping paper in it and said that she made rainbow tea for me. How imaginative to work on such a grand scale. I tried to put on They Might Be Giants "Here Come the ABCs" and Riley said "No, those are stupid songs and they won't stop singing the stupid songs. I'm really disappointed with that." I was trying unsuccessfully to brush her hair while she was playing with her kitchen and she told me that I had to wait until she was done. I tried again and she said "Mommy, what did I tell you? You need to wait!" Oh so sassy.

Avery took one 40-minute nap today and that was it. Both girls went down at the same time, and I thought I was the luckiest Mom alive to have some time to myself in the middle of the day. Not so. Avery woke up 40-minutes into her nap and I tried desperately to nurse her back to sleep, but she was having none of it. I decided to give up before our struggles woke up Riley too. She really started falling apart around 5pm and I was just trying to keep her awake and happy until 7pm so I could put her to bed. I enticed her with mixed fruit and she sat in her high chair and ate it while Riley sat on the floor at her feet and read her story after story, and when she was done, Riley would say "Do you want me to tell you that one again, Avery?" She can really be a good sister sometimes, when she really tries. On a side note, Riley didn't nurse at all during the day, and only for one round of ABCs at bedtime. Sweet.

Rudi was home sick today with hernia pain. I really wish that he would get that taken care of. His doctor in Columbia told him like 20 years ago that surgical repair would involve cracking his ribcage. I told him that many advances in surgical procedures would probably be minimaly envasive. I just worry that one day he'll feel what he thinks is hernia pain and it'll really be a heart attack or something and he'll ignore it.