Riley and Avery

Ah, it's like spring here in the Springs! Oh, it's so absolutely great. Days at the park, open windows. So nice!

And we're getting a new computer in probably about a week, so that'll be really really cool. No pictures until then, I'm sad to say, unless I can do it at Kinkos, but I'm not sure if that's possible. Hmmm...

So I was at Barnes and Noble today (sans children, yay!) and happened to see an article in "Fit Pregnancy" magazine (it just caught my eye, no reason for me to be reading that mag) about he top ten places to be pregnant, give birth, and raise a family. Colorado Springs was #7 (Denver was #6, phooey). AND Colorado Springs was ranked #1 for the safest place to raise a family. Sweet. Apparently we rank in the top 10 percent in the country for lowest violent and property crime rates. Add that to Money Magazine naming Colorado Springs as the #1 place to live out of cities with pops of over 300,000, and I'd say we live in the best darn place in the country. Wahoo!

I cooked land-based meat today for the first time in a really long time (like three weeks) but I just had to have it. Pork, yum. Rudi isn't really getting the vegetarian thing at all. He'll come home with Beefaroni and lunch meat and such. Well, we're not really going vegetarian by any means, just MORE vegetarian. I'm just not cooking land-based meat really anymore. But did I mention?: pork, yum.

I am in the throes of organizing Riley and Avery's play room. I got a rockin' sweet floor lamp at Target on clearance. So cool. Wish I could post pictures. Riley rediscovered her dollhouse and played with it for hours. I got rid of two trash bags full of toys and books I don't like and I'm not even done the culling process. Avery was amongst so many toys that she'd never seen before that she just pretty much ran around and got nothing accomplished. Just overwhelmed.

Oh, blogging is no fun without pictures...

Oh my God, this computer is so absolutely horrible! I don't understand why with the Mac I could just plug in the camera and be off and running, and with this computer I need some mystery software (and the CD drive isn't working so even if I had it...). I can't even get into my gmail account. I think I'm going to go crazy! So if anyone knows where they're giving away free computers that don't actually S-U-C-K, let me know...

Nothing eventful happened today. We are planning on going to Denver tomorrow since Riley doesn't have school since it's the wonderful non-holiday of President's Day, whatever that's for. Can you tell that this computer has driven me into a foul mood? Hey, I got some cute pictures of Riley and Avery in the bath together, but wait, I can't get them on the computer, so I guess you'll have to take my word for it...

Oh goodness, where to start? My dental implants went well, except that my lower tooth was too infected to place the implant there. So he packed it with a bone graft and I have to wait six months to get that implant placed. The other two are great and don't hurt at all. The infected one, however, hurts like the dickens. So I'm on some pretty powerful antibiotics that make me nauseous every time I take them. Hooray. I am getting really tired of the care during the healing time and the restricted diet. Rinse with salt water four times a day, rinse with some prescription plaque-killer two times a day, liquid diet, antibiotics three times a day. Ugh.

Second, the Limey has crashed and burned. I don't know what is wrong with it, but it had been flickering for a few days, and then just went out. So back to the old horrible Gateway that I had to fix using mostly fists and paperclips (and a new dial-up modem, a waste of money but a quick fix). Ah, spoiled my the Mac. Hello, viruses, it's been a while...

Riley has been really cute today. She was brushing her Care Bear's hair and wanted a pretty for it. All the ones I offered were not good enough. She said the wanted the ones with "a lot of clips" meaning the claw type. I said that I didn't know if we had any more of those, and she said "yeah, of course we do. You just have to believe." I just thought that was so cute. Then she taped a lollipop to its hand. Then she found a Vietnam Purple Heart badge and taped it to the Care Bear because "it's on the best team."

You know, Riley is at the age where she can tell me just how awful a mother I really am. At bedtime tonight, she wanted to go back downstairs and I said that she had to wait until Avery was asleep first and why doesn't she cuddle with me until Avery's asleep (a favorite ploy of mine-it usually results in Riley falling asleep). So Riley cuddled and then in her most dramatic voice and grand arm gestures: "CAN'T YOU SEE HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU? Why are you mean to me? When you tell me that I can't go down it makes me sad and that's mean! CAN'T YOU SEE HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU?" And then the weeping. So I know that I wasn't being mean, but does it really matter if Riley thinks I'm mean anyway? The truth is her perception, so if she thinks I'm mean, then I guess I'm mean...

And Riley has been lamenting about how she wants to be thirty like me. "I want to be firty just like you!" and the weeping. "I want to be just like you and do everything you do!" and the weeping. I don't know what's up with her recent obsession with growing up and not growing up. Today she said "I don't want Avery to get big. I want her to be brand new again." Where does she get these things?

I did find the origin of her use of "stupid." Turns out I use it when I tell her Hansel and Gretel (her current favorite) and I tell it to her at least five times a day, no joke. When the witch tells Gretel to check if the oven is hot enough to cook Hansel and Gretel says she doesn't know how, I say that the witch says "Get out of my way you stupid girl, I'll check myself..." So there it is. Ta da.

Holy cow, I just used the printer that my parents got us for Christmas to go with the digital camera and it is phenomenal! I can't believe it, it looks just like I printed it from a lab! So totally cool.

I really don't think I have the energy to figure out how to download pictures from this computer, and I have traumatic memories of how unbelievably slow this computer was last time I used it years ago. I think I'll save the aggravation for another day...How totally cruel of me to post for the first time in over a week and then not include pictures. Tomorrow, I promise...I'm downloading Picasa right now.

Riley had her Valentine's Day party at her school yesterday. Like a complete idiot, I volunteered to bake some treats. I made vegan chocolate chip cookies (from a mix) and vegan Chocolate Oreo cupcakes with vegan Buttercream Oreo frosting and vegan chocolate cupcakes with vegan chocolate buttercream frosting. So needless to say, I was quite busy. I didn't get started until 10:30 at night, so I was up late. I ran out and got a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. That book is so totally awesome. I can't wait to make more cupcakes, particularly the Pistachio Rosewater cupcakes which are pictured on the cover of the book. Oh, yum!! The fist batch of cupcakes didn't turn out all that well appearance-wise (they sunk-but still tasted great) so I had to do some high-altitude adjustments (add more flour and increase baking temperature) so the next batch came out perfect. I tell you, these cupcakes were so incredibly moist, you wouldn't believe they were vegan at all. So Riley decided that she was going to get up at 1am that night, and since I had batter downstairs waiting to be baked, I didn't have the time to wrestle her back to sleep. She ended up staying up until 4am when I forced her to go back to bed. She said "Let's play all night long!" Uh, no way. She been waking up at night to itch her rash, especially on her inner elbows, but also on her back. It is a vicious rash, but I don't know what is causing it or what to do about it...

I had my pre-op appointment on Thursday. I got a lot of prescriptions. Rudi requested off on Wednesday and Thursday, so we'll see how well he performs. Luckily, I have the fact that I took care of him when he had his back surgery before Riley was born and I had to clean up the infection, and wash the couch cushion when his back exploded at least two cups of infected cider-looking puss all over the place to hold over his head. And I will. I didn't really want to call this procedure "surgery" because I just thought it was really serious dental work. But no, I now know that this is actual surgery. Horay! And I'll have to be on a liquid diet for a couple of days, and be in pain for a while, and do all sorts of other stuff. This better be worth it, I tell you. For 6K, they better work miracles. I can't believe that I'm spending this much on my teeth. But truth-be-told, if Rudi had let me spend a couple hundred on my teeth six years ago when I knew I had this problem, this all could have been avoided. So there. I'm going to make sure that this house is absolutely spotless before the surgery, so that Rudi can struggle with keeping it clean, and know what I actually do all day.

As always, when I go to Riley's school, I get ideas on activities to do at home. Last night I dried out some used coffee grounds in the oven and put them in a pan, so that she can practice writing her numbers in them, and just shake to erase. She's really enjoyed it so far this morning, although it looks more like she's writing Chinese calligraphy. Oh well, it's still fun. She did surprise me by choosing to write "10" all by herself. Avery loves putting her fingers in it too. Luckily she's too dainty to make a mess out of it.

Speaking of Chinese, I've been eagerly anticipating the premier issue of National Geographic Little Kids magazine, remembering how much I loved getting "National Geographic World" when I was a kid, and thinking this new mag for preschoolers would be great for Riley. So I finally see it on the magazine rack in Borders, and I get all excited. I see that Pandas are the cover story (always a crowd-pleaser) and the magazine is filled with educational activities and things to do at home. Then I see that article on the Chinese New Year, and a two page cartoon spread depicting a Chinese market scene in which the reader is supposed to find certain items. And I look at the picture and I'm like "Wow, I've never seen something so stereotypical in my life!" Of the eleven people in the picture, only two had eyeballs, all the rest had just slants for eyes. And every last one of them had the goofy WWII-propaganda-esque grins. I didn't buy the magazine and I was really disappointed. Has anyone else seen this? Am I being overly sensitive? Riley is at the age when she is just now noticing the differences between people (she asked me what color our neighbor's skin is). Not just between races, but noticing that boys tend to have less hair than girls, and that african-american boys have less hair than other boys, and so forth. I didn't really want to expose her to an over-simplification of a whole race of people. Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. Go check it out and tell me if I am.

So I did it. I bought Riley tickets for Disney's Monster's Inc. On Ice. You can only resist for so long. It's like realizing that once you have children, you are probably going to wind up in Disney World at least once. At least it's not some girly princess production. I liked Monsters Inc. so I hope Riley will enjoy the show. I only bought two tickets, so Rudi or I will take Riley (probably me, but I'd like Rudi to do something like that with just Riley). It's next month, March 22nd. I had been thinking about it for a while, but thought that tickets would be out of our price-range, but on a whim I look in the Entertainment Book that I bought from Riley's school and I find a coupon for 50% off tickets. Wahoo! Okay, as I'm writing this, I'm thinking that maybe I should have made this a family thing and bought another ticket (Avery wouldn't need one). Oh, now I don't know! I'll have to ask Rudi what he thinks. I'm not sure that Avery would sit through it, or enjoy it in any way. But I always feel like I'm leaving her out.

Ooooh, I get to pick up the new bobbin case for my sewing machine today. I've been waiting for it to be ordered. Hopefully this solves the problem that I've been having with the machine, bird-nesting on the bottom of the fabric which eventually jams the needle and breaks the top thread. Fingers are crossed.

I made a huge vat of homemade minestrone soup, chock full of veggies. Avery particularly loved the zucchini. Here's the soup smeared on Avery's face...

So Avery learned to walk backwards last Sunday. She was pretty proud about that. This kid can really move. She goes through a hyperactive stage in the evening where she runs around panting like a dog. Just runs and runs. It's so cute. She also says "uh-oh" regularly.

Avery was so cute the other night. She likes to take my hands and clap them together, but one of my arms was wrapped around Riley and my hand was under Riley and the covers. I watched her eyes go up my arm and back down to where my hand should be. Then she holds up my other arm and studies my hand, and then her eyes go down my arm and back up, and then she looks at my other arm again, knowing here my hand should me. She's studying anatomy. How adorable. She was so confused. Then she figured it out. It was fun watching her brain work.

In the car last week, in an aborted attempt to take Riley to school (she started coughing uncontrollably half-way there) Riley says "do you know what I want to do when I am big?" I say "No, what do you want to do when you're grown up?" She says, "I will clean and sweep and do laundry and carry my baby and cook and wash." So my little girl aspires to be a housewife. I don't mind if she chooses to be a SAHM, but I would like her to have other options. Obviously I know the benefits of a mother staying home and the sacrifices involved.

Last Thursday when I was driving Riley home from school, she says "Malachy said I couldn't sit next to him because he doesn't like me (Malachy is usually Riley's friend, but I think he was with older boys so girls aren't cool) and Christopher (an older boy) said I couldn't sit next to him either." And my heart just breaks. I tell Riley that Malachy probably didn't mean it, that he was just joking with the other boys, and so forth. Then Riley says "That's okay. The boys don't like me but the girls like me."

So I was already feeling defensive of Riley when we went to Barnes and Noble for storytime. After the story, Riley and Avery were sitting by me and another mother, pointed at Avery and says "That one is a doll, an absolute doll." And I'm like, what about my other beautiful daughter who is sitting right here? Why do people worship the blond haired blue eyed idol? I know that Avery is a cutie, but Riley is equally cute. That's what sucks about having two girls. They'll always be compared on their looks first, not their intelligence or their abilities. Boys, on the other hand, are hardly ever compared first on their looks. It's always math and science and athletics for boys, which they have some control over (suck at sports and math?-try harder!; ugly?-get plastic surgery (??)) Do people ever think that constantly gushing over Avery's blue eyes to her brown-eyed mother (hey, she obviously didn't get my eyes) might be ever so slightly offensive? I guess that since I have two girls that look as different as night and day I'll always be defending one of them in my mind. I guess some people prefer one eye color over another. I still get a lot of compliments on Riley's eyes, mostly that they're huge. As I already said, I was feeling defensive of Riley that day.

This is the best picture I could get of Avery's habit of running away while scratching her butt as soon as I take her diaper off. I'll try to get some more.