Riley and Avery

Just announcing the arrival of our new guinea pig, Mya (pronounced "Meeee-uh). Avery pronounces it "mee-um" which is exactly how she pronounces "William". In fact, Riley has named her Mya Lizzie William. Mya was the name that her previous owners gave her. She was free off of freecycle. She's black and white and swirly and much smaller than Rosie (and doesn't bite like Rosie does). She's a little aloof and spends a lot of time in her shelter and runs when you try to catch her, but once you hold her she settled down and doesn't eat my clothes like Rosie. Hopefully she'll make the catching part a little easier over time. As it is she kicks up bedding through the cage bars and makes a holy mess. We hope to get Mya and Rosie into the same cage together, but need a bigger one. I found a website that describes how to make a large cage for really cheaply, with levels and ramps and such. Too cool. I hear that guinea pigs do much better in pairs or herds, so we'll see. Rudi had effectively banned me from freecycle.

This is a long one, for no other reason than that I'm stuck at home with the kids. So sit back with a cup of coffee...


So far I am still the only one not sick. Call me crazy, but sometimes I just wish I would get sick. But I probably wouldn't get any help around here anyway. Perhaps I'll wish for a coma. Then I'd get some rest.

I have taken the girls out yesterday for a few short bursts. It's really really really nice out and I thought fresh air would be good for them. I pushed Avery on her bike, and Riley rode hers. Poor thing didn't have all that much energy and pooped out after a figure-eight of our development. We went out for another figure-eight a little bit later.

So far I have resisted Rudi's suggestions to give them medicine, and that's no small feat. Their coughs are nice and productive and their occasional fevers are low-grade. No need to medicate. I do keep a bottle of fever-reducer on the nightstand since my girls tend to go above 105 frequently and quickly. Just in case. Riley just came and hugged me and I can tell that she's getting feverish already. Usually it starts around bedtime, so I hope this doesn't mean 105+ tonight. I was hoping to sneak out tonight and get a cup of coffee for the first time in a week nearly. I desperately need to get out of the house by myself for a minute.

Oh a funny little occurrence with Avery the other week or something. I was talking to Rudi in the kitchen about something regarding the kids, and was trying to talk in "code" to they didn't know what I was talking about. I don't remember what it was now, but Avery figured it out, and I said "I can't get anything by Avery!" Well, Avery was standing in the doorway to the kitchen and moved aside and said "get by me, Mom!" And she wasn't content until I walked by her. The literal world of a toddler.

Oh, another thing, I was reading stories to Riley and Avery last and they were on each side of me and I could feel that they both were getting rather hot, and I said so. Avery said, "We oven babies!" I thought that was cute. I must have called them oven babies or something similar last time they were feverish. Try sharing a bed with two 105+ degree children on either side of you, and see if you don't feel like you're in an oven! That also explains how a few months ago she started putting her baby doll in her play kitchen oven, saying "Oven baby!" I thought she was mentally disturbed. Well, she still may be...

It just dawned on me that Avery is almost 2yrs 5mos. I always thought of her as closer to two, but she's actually closer to 2 1/2. Well, when we run out of disposables, I'm not buying any more. She'll just have to potty train. She can go an amazing amount of time in undies without peeing, but she just won't go in the potty. Just won't. She likes sitting on the potty, but nothing ever happens. I can't believe that my baby is almost 2 1/2!! And still so tiny!

Riley keeps talking about her 5th birthday, as if it's around the corner or something. She wants to invite all of her school friends to the trampoline gym. The other day she told me that she wants to have her 6th party at home because she wants to get art supplies for her birthday again. Poor kid thought that she would only get presents if she had a party at home. And what four year old plans parties two years in advance? One with transition problems, that's who.

Speaking of her school friends, Riley has some now. Which only further complicates the decision to send her to school next year. I think it's likely that I will send her, if Rudi gets a job, which is no small obstacle. It's hard to find a job if you aren't looking, right? Maybe he can get a job as a pillow-tester. Or as a test subject in a research program to determine how long a person can remain totally sedentary before their joints fuse and they turn to stone.

Which brings me to my next bone of contention with Rudi. We were watching "The Science of Obesity" on the Discovery channel. It was a very interesting show, but I was totally baffled as to how Rudi can not seem to look at himself when confronted with science like this. I mean, he's hovering around the obesity mark himself. Anyway, when the guy on the show gets a heart scan to see if his heart is healthy enough for bypass surgery, they show his enlarged heart, and Rudi says "I have an enlarged heart." And I'm like WHAT?! Thanks, for telling me, Sparky! And I get to wondering how much else is wrong that he doesn't tell me. I may have to start going to the doctors with him just to make sure. I mean, really? Seriously? An enlarged heart? And that isn't alarming? Ugh, I swear, sometimes I could just hit him over the head with a pot. He always comes home from a doctors appointment and declares that he is extremely healthy for what he has and so forth. I think that he just hears what he wants to hear and ignores everything else. His last doctor told me that he has decreased blood flow from his lungs to his heart, and I'm sure that he wouldn't have told me that himself. Not deceptively, but just not finding it important. Add to that an enlarged heart and I don't know what to think. He always complains that no one cares for him, yet he withholds information that would allow people to properly care for him. Anyway...

I'm seriously considering growing a container garden this spring/summer. I am asking around for what grows well in Colorado and how to go about it. I would like to teach the girls about growing food. I think it would be fun. I'm not looking for anything high-yield and am not really interested in canning/jarring, so just something to supplement our diet this summer. I was thinking of herbs (Riley would love a tea garden), tomatoes, berries if possible, and I don't know what else...

So, here's a link (http://www.beastar.org.uk/archives/46) for an advertising campaign in the UK to increase breastfeeding among young mothers. It's pretty cool.

So, Easter was quite the blast. The girls loved their bikes and I was able to delay taking them out to ride them until the afternoon. There was still snow on the ground and in the street, but by mid-afternoon the street-snow was melted. It was still a little nippy, so we went for one loop through the neighborhood. Riley's bike has brakes, so she has to get used to that. With her old bike she would pedal backwards just a bit to bring the pedal up to the top so that she could pedal forward, but she can't do that on this bike. So I kept having to tell her to keep pedaling and not to stop. She tends to stop mid-pedal and I have to give her a boost. Avery is so small that she can only rest her feet on the pedals, but she can't pedal yet. Thank goodness Mina suggested the tricycle with the push bar for parents.

For non-Mom readers: For some reason, though I have been a mother for over 4 years now, I still haven't mastered the art of stocking-stuffing and easter-basket creating. I don't so too bad of a job, but when I compare my attempt to my mother's I always come up short. My mother's stockings and easter baskets are like Mary Poppins' carpet bag. There's always an amazing amount of stuff unbelievably packed into such a small space. And she always finds the most appropriate things.

For Mom reader: Way to go! You've got skillz!

So everyone in the house but me is sick. Riley's had a bit of a cough for a while now, but it's gotten really bad over the last day or so. Avery woke up in the middle of the night with a vicious cough. I wonder if I'll get it. I usually don't. The day before Easter I was unnaturally tired and managed to sneak naps in here and there. That was probably it for me. Usually I get really tired when I'm about to get sick and then I sleep for a bit and never get sick. I hope so, since if I go down, all hell will break loose. Or so I'd guess since I've never been down yet. Darn rock-solid immune system. What a great way to spend spring break, right?

I broke with tradition and made tacos for Easter dinner. Both Rudi and I just had a craving. I made 2.25 pounds of ground beef for tacos, so it's safe to say that we'll be eating them for days. Which was the goal. I don't like to cook all that often, so I usually made an ungodly amount of something and eat it for days. Well, it's not that I don't like to cook, but with the girls hanging all over me and "helping" and Rudi, in his sickness, being unable to distract them, it's tough to get dinner on the table every day. At least for now. And I seriously need to get more recipes. I get so bored of the same-old same-old and I get into a huge cooking rut. Time to browse allrecipes.com. And I need to search for vegetarian recipes too. Chicken, no matter how it's cooked, is still chicken, and chicken gets boring.

Oh, I made rouladen and German potato salad the other week. It was delicious! But I literally started cooking at noon and had it done at 4:30. Rudi aid that he hadn't had homemade rouladen since his mother made it and it's one of his favorite foods. I hoped he liked it, because I'm not making it again anytime soon. And he said that the German potato salad was the best he'd ever had. Nice. Hmmm...I think I have potatoes left, maybe I'll make more German potato salad.

Oh, I caught Rudi watching telenovellas. He said that he watches them a lot. Add that to Jerry Springer, and he's your mainstream housewife.

So even though I already told everyone of the futility of Riley's Occupational therapy appointment, I'll post about it anyway. It was a waste of my time. Totally. I am brushing Riley as frequently as I can, but she thinks it's a game. And then Avery wants to be brushed, and then Avery wants to brush her baby dolls. After she's done brushing her baby, I can never find the brush. Argh. So after asking me questions, the woman at the therapy place proceeded to test Riley's fine motor skills. Which is not anywhere near my area of concern. She can draw pretty intricately, tie her shoes, and write legibly when she tries. So, whatever...

It's snowing tonight and has been all day. Which throws a huge monkey-wrench in my whole give-the-kids-bikes-for-Easter-so-they-can-ride-them-all-day plan. Of course.

Riley read her first book the other day. All by herself. We had just gotten the book set (BOB books) from her school book order, so I had never read it to her. It was really simple, only about seven different letters and one sight word ("on" which I did have to help her with). It basically went "Mat sat. Sam sat. Mat sat on Sam. Sam sat on Mat. Sad Sam. Sad Mat. Mat sat. Sam sat." She was really pleased with herself. The first letters her school teaches are a, b, c, m, s, t, so those are all that she needed to read the book. It's great motivation to not have to know all of the possible letter sounds before being able to read something. Anyway, I highly recommend these books. They introduce one or two letters at a time and the pictures aren't distracting. I'm pretty sure that any child vaguely familiar with the alphabet could read them. Very motivating!

Hmmmm...what else? Rudi is sick with a cold. He thought that the had the Flu, but the doc gave him an inhaler and a decongestant. It's nothing that he couldn't get over on his own, but Rudi likes medicine. He does have pretty nasty cough and I know he's miserable. All I can do is make him chamomile tea as often as he'll drink it.

So, I'm COMPLETELY retarded. I was trying to go through and get rid of all the programs on the computer that I'm not using, particularly since it came with a lot of game demos. I delete iDVD because I don't think I use it. WRONG!! As I'm trying to burn photos onto a disk, I can't do it because not only did I put iDVD in the trash, I emptied the trash! Well, if you're going to screw up, at least do it well, right? So now I can't find my iLife disk (surprise surprise) and I'm stuck. I was really making head-way in getting the 1500 3MB pictures off of iPhoto. Poo and double-poo.

The camera batteries are recharging in anticipation for Easter morning, so no photos today. Oh, wait, I'll pull some off of iPhoto...

So it was in the 50s yesterday, total Springs jacket weather, and then this morning, well...I wake up and try to turn on the news to see how to dress Riley today for school and it said that there was no satellite signal. I'm baffled as to why there wouldn't be a signal and then I look out the window and it's a blizzard outside! What!? I had to get the broom and bang the snow of the satellite dish. There is about four or five inches on the ground right now. Since it was warm outside yesterday, the roads were slushy, but not too bad. School was still scheduled. However, if we were going to a neighborhood school I would have taken Riley in, but with a 20+ minute 12 mile commute one-way to her school, there is no way we could make it. I'm glad I didn't take her in now, since the snow is now sticking to the roads a lot and picking her up would have been horrible. And it's still snowing. One the news, they are baffled as to why school wasn't delayed or canceled. I guess no one was really prepared for this snow, including the school-closing people.

I have been busy making some Montessori activities for Riley. Mostly because I'm a total nerd. For this one she matches pictures with the beginning sounds a/b/c/m/s/t. She's got this one pretty much down, but I haven't finished the next set yet, r/n/h/i/f.

For this one I printed out pictures of the sun and eight planets (poor Pluto, no longer a planet). She had to order them up using the number in the upper left. Then she looks at the bottom to figure out how many moons each planet has and puts the correct number of pennies under the planet (well, some planets have like 64 moons, so I just went by how many large/named moons the planet has). Basically, just an exercise in number-recognition. It's quite a bit too easy for her, but she likes looking at the pictures of the planets:

Oh, and apparently a neighbor called the cops on Rudi one day while I was at school. Let me start from the beginning...A neighbor who lives further down our building has two dogs (not that they're allowed to have two dogs, but whatever) and she walks these dogs past our house and through our yard several times a day. This woman moved in last summer and as they were moving in we were always outside riding bikes and I always tried to make eye-contact with them so I could say hello, but they avoided eye-contact. So they're those kind of people...but I digress. So one day we find a pile of turds in our yard and are none too pleased. So, I was at school one day and Rudi looked out the kitchen window and sees the woman standing there letting the dogs pee in our yard. So, being uniquely Rudi, he runs out, sans shirt, and yells at the woman to not let her dog go in our yard because our kids play out there. She says a few things back and goes back to her house and then comes back to our yard with her dog no more than two feet from our kitchen window. So, being uniquely Rudi, Rudi runs out again. The woman goes home and apparently calls the police. The police apparently think it's a joke and Rudi laughs with them over it, everyone knowing that the complaint was unfounded. So when I get home, Riley runs up all excited "Me and Avery saw the police up close today while you were at school and you missed it all!"

Later, the other neighbor-lady across from us comes over to give Rudi kudos for standing up to that woman and says that she saw the whole exchange between them (but hadn't realized that the police had been called) and she'd say so if the leasing office got a complaint or whatnot. Heck, this is Colorado, home of the "make my day" law. After the first warning, Rudi could have gone out there and shot her dead and it would be legal. Not that we own a gun (oops, I mean, a "weapon")...

Alright, I'm going now...

Just some pictures that I'm trying out. I'd still like to try them outside in natural light...and the wrinkle on the left side of Riley's picture is driving me crazy!


Ack! I just realized taht Flickr doesn't upload full-size images! Poo! So, does anyone know of a free or almost-free (read: cheap) photo editing program that is Mac (old Mac) compatible?

No pictures this time, sorry...just a quick one about our day yesterday.

So we had a babywearing meeting at the library yesterday. There was a conference table with a whole row of chairs. I was putting Avery on my back and Riley was jumping/climbing from one chair to another. I hear a crash and a scream. I pick Riley up and she's covering her mouth with her hand. I ask her to move her hand and as soon as she does, the blood flows forth. She looks at her hand, covered in blood, and screams. I take her to the counter/sink to take a look and there is so much blood I can't even see where it's coming from. I have NEVER seen so much blood in my LIFE!! The other mothers were so helpful. One had a glass of iced tea so she gave Riley a cup of ice to suck on, and that really helped slow down and eventually stop the bleeding. Three of her bottom teeth cut into her lower lip pretty deep, and one of her teeth went all the way through her lip. If the other mothers weren't there, I probably would have taken her to the hospital. Many of the mothers said that their children have done that and as long as the bleeding stops, the doctors just let it heal on its own. Apparently stitches result in more scars than letting it heal naturally. It suddenly occurred to me that I don't even know where the public hospital is (the private one near our house already turned us away because of our insurance) and we don't even have a doctor. I think I'll be calling on Monday to get the girls a doc, since I found one that is highly recommended and also takes our insurance. So Riley may have a scar just below her lipline...oh, and in the midst of the commotion, Riley says "It's not fair that my nose is bleeding and Avery's isn't!!" All the while, Avery is calmly watching the action over my shoulder.

Riley just asked me a rather intelligent question, I think. She asked me how the computer printer can print circles since the cartridge only goes back and forth. She also said something funny first thing this morning. She said, "Daddy said I can go to a different school and start liking boys!"

Riley has a birthday party today at Pump It Up. I am only taking Riley since I don't know about younger siblings and I didn't want to ask. I know those parties are expensive and they only get to invite a certain number of children, and since Avery is two, she would count towards that number now. So Rudi is going to take her to Family Fun Time at the library. Last night Avery got confused, repeatedly, and put her shoes and clothes on and got a bag ready and kept saying "Go storytime with Daddy, Mommy no storytime, go storytime with Daddy!" So he's going to take her today, although it's not storytime per se, I think they're having an african drummer who is going to teach the kids about drums and oher percussion instruments.