Riley and Avery

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...