Riley and Avery

I picked up a few things today from Freecycle. It was kind of strange. I picked up the area rug first, at a uberCatholic family. Signs and statues all over and half-dozen homeschooled children in floor-length skirts. The rug is bigger than I thought, so that's cool. It's perfect for the girls. Then I picked up the bicycle at a home with pagan symbols and the car had the "Jesus/Darwin" fish on the back that said "Satan". What a strange dichotomy in the space of half hour. The bike is definitely used and abused, but it works and Riley is SO happy to have it. I'm kind of proud that my daughter doesn't need everything to be shinny and new to be happy. I have to get her a helmet, not that we'll be going on any great adventures, but I want her to get used to it. The only thing that I'm nervous about is that the bike doesn't have brakes, and never did. I don't know if toddler bikes are normally designed that way. I'll have to check it out. I definitely will only let her ride it on our dead-end street, not on the sidewalk or anything, since it doesn't have brakes. It's the absolute perfect size for her, training wheels and all. She had a hard time keeping her feet on the pedals, so that makes it difficult, but she's really motivated. It's just so strange the things that kids have to learn. I just assumed that I would have to teach her to ride without training wheels eventually, but teach her how to ride with training wheels? It seems so simple to me, that kids should be born knowing how to preform such a simple task. I know, it's ridiculous. She's doing pretty well, considering that she's never even had a tricycle before, so pedaling is totally new to her. I'll have to get pictures, but had to take the batteries out of my camera to put in the evil Elmo toy that Avery discovered in the trash, and hugged and smiled, that I gave Elmo a reprieve. For now. As soon as no one's looking, it's back in the trash.

Another warm day out today, so Avery and I cleaned out the garage a little more and played with a big ball outside while Riley was at school. Avery's a totally different person when Riley is not around. Not clingy at all, not jealous, or pushy. It's pretty nice. Riley absolutely insisted on wearing her pajama bottoms to school today, because they're pink. I can't keep up with her clothing preferences. No jeans, no khakis, sweatpants only on schooldays (and only sometimes), leggings on every other day, no white socks, no socks that match. And she HATES green. Not that she knows green, but says "I hate that color." I wonder if it's because she still has a hard time telling green from red and this makes her hate the green. Her teachers at school think it's great that she is able to dress herself, and gave me kudos for not detering her. One time when we were going to the mall, she put her bathing suit on top of her clothes, and Rudi drew the line there and made her take it off. I don't know, I think that most people realize when they see a crazily dressed child, that the child dressed themselves. It's not a judgement on the parents. Especially if it's a girl. How many of us have seen girls dressed in the Halloween princess costumes in the middle of the summer at the grocery store. Or a boy in his SpiderMan costume. I don't think it's that big of a deal. In short, I would have let her wear her swimsuit if it were up to me alone. Although I didn't look forward to the logistics of how to go potty that way. And then she'll say "Look at me, I'm all pinked out!" I think it's cute.

I'm so looking forward to the zoo tomorrow. It's supposed to be warm, but perhaps rainy. I really don't care, they have buildings at the zoo. We're going no matter what. It doesn't rain for long in Colorado and it dries up in a mater of minutes, so I think we'll be fine. I want to see what Avery's reaction will be to feeding the giraffes, if she will even try it. Riley will get a free t-shirt as part of our membership, so that'll be fun for her. I have to go to Whole Foods tomorrow after picking Riley up from school, and before the zoo, and get her some natural sunscreen. The Banana Boat stuff really irritated her eczema, to the point that she was crying over it. Of course, she gets confused over which lotion is for moisturizing, which is for medicating, and which irritates. She kept wanting more of the sunscreen because of the rash, but the sunscreen was causing the rash. Poor thing.

You know, I'm really glad that the Howard County School System made me take keyboarding. Yeah, aren't you glad...extremely long blogs courtesy of Oakland Mills and my mad typing skills. Oh, yeah...

We did manage to go to the Kite and Wind Festival, and it was too hot outside! I never thought I'd say it, but with the cold weather so recently, 80 felt really really hot. I'm such a complainer. I forgot to put sunscreen on myself, but lathered it all over the girls. They're still lily-white and I'm fried. Avery did get a little burn on her scalp, so I have to get used to having a blonde child. Oh, Riley calls sunscreen "sunset".

I know the purpose of going to the festival was to fly our kite, but after all the hoopla, once we got ready to fly it, we realize that the crossbar for the kite is awol. Then we went to the kite sales booth, but they were out of children's kites, and only had $30 kites, which didn't fly with me. Luckily, they had a balloon man there, who was very popular and we ended up waiting in line for way more than an hour for his creations. Well,I waited while Avery played in the dirt (who knew that there was a dirty girl under the dainty girly-girl facade?) and Riley played with some boys in the grass, looking for bugs and such. They managed to find a caterpillar, and Riley was trying to move it to safety with a blade of grass while another boy tried to pulverize it with a rock. I had to physically stop him from killing it. In the large group of people, I wasn't sure who his mother was, but I pulled Riley aside and said in a loud voice for the benefit of the mystery mother "You were being really helpful trying to move that caterpillar and I know that boy was trying to hurt it. No mater what any body else does, we DO NOT KILL living things in our family. That boy was HURTING that caterpillar and that is WRONG. The caterpillar is alive and it feels pain, so I'm glad that you are helpful and kind to bugs and not cruel like that boy..." blah blah blah. And the people in the balloon man line were letting their children request three or four balloon creations each (they were free) knowing that people have been waiting behind them in the sun for hours. Argh...

And the guy standing behind me was a single father (and custodial father) of a 6 year old, and he was putting the mack on me, until I conveniently mentioned Rudi in a conversation about Avery's hair color. Then he turned and put the mack on the single mother behind him. He was nice, though, and we all did pass the time in line with pleasant conversation. He did mention a lot that he was a single father...

In short, we had a lot of fun at the festival. We sat on a quilt under a tree and ate watermelon and colored. We left the house at around 9:30 am and didn't get home until a little after 4. It was the longest stretch of babywearing that I've done since my shoulder/arm thing, and although I used the mei tai, I can feel the effects. You know, I think regarding the mei tai, I really need to switch to the back carry. I'm just so comfortable with the front carry that I'm hesitant to switch. Avery may be small, but she's still almost 20#, so I think it's time. I just don't like feeling like a beginner again. And I always have performance anxiety when babywearing in public. I can get Avery in a wrap perfectly fine at home, but in public I feel like people are watching and judging me like "what is that crazy woman doing with 15 feet of fabric? Holy cow! She's throwing that baby over her shoulder!" and so on. I guess I'll just have to get over it...

Oh yeah, in the nature center Riley had an absolute blast using the binoculars and telescope and microscope. She really got into it, which pleased Rudi when I told him, because he's all into science. Avery became really attached to a raccoon pelt and really didn't want to let it go. It was kind of creepy, actually.

The amount of dirt than came off the girls during their bath was astounding. It didn't help that when they came home, they were pretending to bake and made a huge mess of a bag of old flour. Dirt and flour, yum.

I keep meaning to blog about this, and don't know if it'll really come across in writing, but: I made Riley and Avery some noodles for lunch and gave them each a bowl and fork, and Riley says "Avery's not eating her noodles!" and I say "That's okay, she probably doesn't know how" meaning that she doesn't know how to use the fork. Riley gets in Avery's face and says, in her you're retarded voice "Avery, you put it in your mouth and chew it!"

Ugh, I'm too lazy and tired and sunburnt to insert the photos into the blog, so they'll just be jumbled at the beginning. I'm sure y'all can figure out what they're about. Night night.

Riley has a renewed fascination with dirt (this happens every spring) and got her sand bucket and started to shovel dirt from Rudi's potted plant. Of course, this made quite a mess, which I wasn't happy about, but I sucked it up and vacuumed it up thoroughly. No sooner did I turn around than there was another pile of dirt by the pot. I ask Riley who did it, and she said "Avery." So I say "Avery Claire!" and Riley says "No, I did it." So I ask her to please not do it again. Then I start vacuuming again, at which time Avery takes a handful of dirt and puts it right in front of the vacuum. I notice that since the plant had been recently watered, her hands were fairly dirty from touching the dirt. So I looked at Riley's hands and they were absolutely clean. So I asked her who really made the dirt pile, and if she said that she did it so that Avery wouldn't get in trouble (how much trouble can a 16 mo old get into? What? Take away her priveleges?) and Riley said yes. So what is to be done about a lie told to protect a younger sibling? Rudi praised her for it, which I wasn't very comfortable with, but I didn't want her to get in trouble for it either. Hmmm...so I did nothing. But I was kind of proud, and I think Riley picked up on that.

It is supposed to be in the 70s and 80s this weekend. I am planning on taking the girls to the Kite & Wind Festival on Saturday. Looks like perfect weather, and Riley was been really eager to fly her kites. I want to take the kids to the zoo on Sunday, but probably should wait until Monday or Tuesday so that Rudi can come. Since it is a mountain zoo, some of the areas are quite up-hill and knowing my luck both girls will probably want to be carried. Plus there's some new exhibit that Rudi wants to see. Once we get the initial visit out of the way, I'll be more comfortable taking the girls myself just to feed the giraffes and see the favorites.
So Avery has been a special kind of difficult lately. Whiny and attached to my leg like velcro. I think this is the storm before she starts really talking. When uh-uh-eh and screaming don't produce the desired result. Listening to Avery try to talk is like listening to Pres. Bush trying to talk...painfully annoying. For such a small package, she has one huge attitude and a scream to wake the dead.
I had another interesting conversation with Riley:
Riley: I want to go to 7-Eleven.
Me: I'd really like to take you, but Mommy and Daddy just really don't have the money right now.
Riley: But I want to go.
Me: I know, honey.
(several minutes later, Riley is playing with the floor lamp)
Riley: Why is this lamp wobbly?
Me: Because it's a cheap lamp.
Riley: What is "cheap?"
Me: I means that the lamp didn't cost a lot of money.
Riley: Why didn't it cost a lot of money?
Me: Because Mommy and Daddy didn't want to spend all of our money on a lamp. We wanted some money left over to buy other things.
Riley: If you didn't spend all your money on the lamp, you should have some left to take me to 7-Eleven.
That's pretty strong logic for a three-year-old. I really look forward to the teen years...I already feel pretty stupid when I'm around Riley. I'm not saying at all that she's some intellectual giant, but I can tell that she's smarter than me, that her natural capacity for intelligence is greater than mine. Which I guess is what parents are supposed to want...

Riley had her SOMA workshop yesterday, which she really liked. This is a workshop to enhance the mind, body, and sprit connection. Riley tried to participate in all of the activities, but wasn't really sure, as usual. She really brightened when the teacher brought out the paints. They children were traced on huge pieces of paper and then they got to color themselves in. Another boy nonchalantly drew a penis on his picture, and Riley threw a fit because she wanted to draw a penis on her drawing, but it was time to put the paint away (thank goodness!). On another school note, I have Riley's end of the year conference on May 7th. Don't know why I'm nervous.

We took Roxy to the vet yesterday, and although we were kind of expecting it, we had to put her down. It was actually worse than we had expected. Because of her eye condition, she hasn't eaten in a really long time. So she had a calcium deficiency that made her jaw soft, so she couldn't eat even if she recovered from the eye thing. It was all pretty sad. We did like the vet, though, and made an appointment for Rosie next month for her annual check-up. Oh yeah, we took Roxy's body so that we could bury it, but now realize that we don't have a shovel. Now we're not sure. Just throwing her in the dumpster seems really crass.

Yesterday morning Riley woke up with one heck of a bloody nose. It was absolutely all over the place. She also said that her tummy really really hurt, so I'm imagining that she probably managed to swallow some blood before waking up. Then today she was going up the stairs and bumped her nose on the stair and bloodied it. What's up with that all of the sudden?

Avery calls Riley "DeeDee" which is sometimes confused with "DaDa". Oh well. She is saying "baby" really clearly now.

My arm is still not better, and tomorrow will be a week since I last went to the doctor about it. I was supposed to check back in with them in a week. Ugh. I don't want to. I really can't fit physical therapy into my schedule. And it doesn't sound like it will be fun or helpful.

So it's been snowing all day today. Figures, since we got our zoo membership card today. Now it's supposed to be cold for a little while, and I'm anxious to go to the zoo. If it had been just five degrees colder today, this would have been a blizzard. We do have a few inches here and there, really wet snow.

We went to our second NINO meeting, but it wasn't really an "official" meeting since the normal hostess had sick children. It had to be held in the leaders diaper shop, which was a lot of fun. Riley had a blast playing with a 15 mo old girl who thought Riley was the cats meow. They had dogs though, and Riley had a pretty vicious facial rash that took a while to go away.

So I went to the Whole Foods Market in search of shampoo and body wash that won't make Riley totally break out in a rash. While there I saw that the g diapers were on sale. These are cloth diaper covers with a flushable insert. I had to get a starter kit to try them out. I figured that when we are out on a day trip, or in Maryland, we can use these instead of toting around the cloth diapers. Will still use the cloth for most trips to the park or to Barnes and Noble and such, but longer trips we'll use the g diapers. They seem pretty cool so far. We have such a small cloth diaper rotation (16 in all) that if I keep two in my car and two in Rudi's car just in case, that only leaves 12 in our rotation, and that's not enough. Avery has one on now, and it fits really well, trim and snug, but we haven't had to change her yet, so we'll see how the flushing part goes. I'm not sure if these would be considered better for the environment since nothing is left in landfills and no hot water is used to wash them. Hmmm...but I really love my cloth diapers, so I don't think I'll be a total convert. Rudi thinks that we should totally switch because he thinks that cloth diapers are making Avery bow-legged. She is bow-legged, but I think that's genetic.

I am so eagerly awaiting our zoo membership. The fee cleared our bank account but the membership card wasn't in the mail today. Poo, we'll have to wait until Monday. It would be really nice if it came on Monday so that we could go to the zoo on Tuesday...

And I got the brand new issue of Mothering Magazine. Wahoo! I was so surprised to find it so early. I've read almost all of it. There's a really interesting article on the Guardisil vaccine. My children will absolutely NOT get this vaccine! If it becomes mandatory, then we'll just have to convert to a religion that doesn't allow vaccines and say it's against our religion. So Jehovah's Witness, anyone? I promise not to knock on your doors...

Okay, just flushed a g diaper insert and it worked fabulously. It totally disolved right away. How cool is that?

My arm and shoulder are getting a little better, I suppose. It used to be a constant fairly moderate pain all the time. Now there are times when it doesn't hurt at all, and times where it absolutely KILLS me. Is that better? The pain is mainly in my shoulder and back now, and just a numbness and tingling in my arm. We'll see what condition I'm in when I wake up tomorrow.

So I woke up this morning with arm pain worse than ever, so I eagerly waited for my doctor's office to open and called them first thing. Went in this afternoon, and yes, it's a pinched nerve, or two. She offered painkillers, which I declined, in part because I'm breastfeeding and prefer not to take medication, and also because she said that nerves don't really respond that well to narcotic painkillers. She told me to keep it in a sling, which I bought but haven't used yet (and really, with two kids, do you think I'll ever get to?). She told me to give it a week and if it's not better they'll do some imaging on it. I really expect it to be better within a week. Hopefully.

Riley's sense of fashion has taken more turns. I went to Old Navy and bought her four pair of super-soft sweatpants that were on sale (since she won't wear "paper pants") and she loved them and refused to wear anything else. Now she says that they are only for school, otherwise she needs to wear her old leggings (which are 18-24mo and 2T sizes, way too small). And she also won't wear white socks anymore. She always needs a hat in case it's windy. Always. Here's a picture of Riley wearing two hats:

Avery is quite the Daddy's girl, and she's becoming more so everyday. I thought this picture was really cute. Rudi was outside having a cigar and she just wanted to be near him so she sat down by the window. This is the age where Riley started to become more of a Mommy's girl, but Avery is moving in the opposite direction all together. So here's the picture:

I made a double batch of the vegan cranberry oatmeal cookies, finally. I still haven't used all of the batter. This picture is of Avery eagerly anticipating the cookies (she has a hard time waiting):

Goodness, I haven't been paying attention! I just noticed that the past few blog have pictures that didn't upload correctly. So I fixed them, so scroll down and check it out! Or maybe it's just my computer. Not that many can be messed up! Whaaaaat? What's going on?...

Ugh, I am so tired of losing my posts! I don't even remember what I was writing about...oh, this just sucks!

Well, Riley's rash is worse than ever. I don't know what to do about it. We ran out of Zyrtec and won't be getting more, since it's $48 for a month supply. The allergist suggested Claritin over-the-counter, so we'll see about that. I just don't like giving the kids medicine on a regular basis. But maybe it's the only thing that will help her until the weather gets warm and stays warm.

Oh yeah...Avery got a hold of a whole box of Cheez-its in the car on the way home from dropping Riley off at school. Riley needs a snack and a drink at all times, even if she's just eaten, so I always have a snack in the car. Anyway, with the car seat rear-facing and directly behind me, I can't see what Avery is up to. I don't know how she even reached it. I don't know how many she ate, but she really has a nasty rash on the side of her face by her ears. Just when I've gotten her allergies under control...

So my shoulder is killing me again. It's not a sore muscle, but it's making my muscles sore trying to accomidate the pain. I am starting to suspect a pinched nerve aggravated by wearing the ring sling. It's a more acute pain than muscle pain, and it makes my arm and hand tingle. Unlike muscle pain, there is no position that relieves the pain. I don't know what to do about it. I don't want to bother going to a doctor if they're just going to tell me to rest it, and isn't that all that doctors do nowadays "wait and it will get better on its own." Thanks for the $200 sentence of useless advice. Even if I saw a doctor, I wouldn't know who to go to. So poo.

I registered for classes today. I'm taking three paralegal classes on campus and one accounting couse via internet. So Rudi will be on his own with the children for 3 hours three days a week. We'll see about that...

I lost the post that went with these pictures twice due to my own idiocy, I can't even blame blogger for it. No more energy to do it again right now, so I'll have to do it later...

Here are some pictures of Riley washing her baby's "poopy diaper" in the toilet. Future cloth diaperer, anyone?



So we've had an eventful night. I made a delicious dinner, Riley's favorite, and she refused to eat it saying that her tummy hurt. Now, in my defense, she uses "my tummy hurts" to indicate any abdominal discomfort, whether it's hunger or over-fullness. So I didn't take it seriously. Until she vomitted. Three times. She insisted after the third time that she must be better because she's three so she can only throw up three times. Then she got the trots. Luckily she made it to the potty three or more times. Then she was getting me some peaches from the fridge and toots, and says "Uh-oh! Sorry Mom!" And I say it's okay, when you're sick you sometimes have a toot that turns into poo. She said, "that's funny, a toot that turns into a poop! Like a caterpillar that makes a crysallis and turns into a butterfly!" Ah, my educated child.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part. I was in the middle of changing Avery's diaper when the whole vomitting thing started, so I leave Avery without a diaper to attend to Riley in the bathroom. So Avery is wandering around the kitchen, pees on the floor, slips and falls in the urine, landing with her head in the puddle. One kid covered in vomit and the other covered in pee. Ah, what an evening.

Now Avery is finally sleeping and Riley is burning the midnight oil. She should be exhausted. Firstly from only sleeping eight hours last night and taking a one hour nap. Secondly from the whole barfing thing. I am in bad need of some time to myself.

Currently I am having a conversation with Riley about why we don't hold Roxy. I tell her that if we touch Roxy her tail will fall off. She says, what will happen if her tail falls off? I say, nothing really, she'll just look funny. Then I say, well what would happen if your arm fell off? And Riley says "I will have a peg arm!"

Avery is surely becoming quite the handful, and doing things that Riley is doing. Avery is learning mischief early and from the master. She got the chocolate syrup from the frige, indicated that she wanted a cup from the counter, and then got herself a spoon and starts squeezing the chocolate into the cup. Ah, I'm going to have two supreme mess-makers on my hands.

We have our annual apartment inspection coming up next week, and I mean all next week. Anytime from Monday through Friday. I hope we're one of the early ones just to have it over with. I wouldn't have any problem making the place squeeky clean, but I also have the urge to purge. You know how spring cleaning usually makes a bigger mess at first before it gets better.

I tried a posting on Freecycle today for the first time, although I've been lurking around the group for a while now. I posted an offer for our old Gateway computer. Dude, talk about dozens of email on that one! We'll be rid of it tomorrow. I also posted a wanted for a child's bike. Who knows. Of course, with spring coming, people may not really want to part with their bikes. But we can hope. Enough blogging for now...

Yeah...so it's snowing today, and we're under a blizzard warning tonight until tomorrow morning. That's great...

At least Rudi cleared out the garage enough that I can squeeze the car in, and I mean s-q-u-e-e-z-e. I have to pull the car out in order to get the kids in. It's all really not good at all, but it's not like we can afford to get my window fixed.

I took the girls to Baby Cotton Bottoms today. I got Avery an Aristocrats wool soaker and a Thirsties diaper cover. And Dani mentioned that her husband is a mechanic and can take a look at my window and see if they can beat the $430 quote. Sweet! Plus, as a Springs NINO member, I got 15% off my diaper covers. Not too shabby...

I think Avery can say "mine." Of course, it doesn't sound like "mine" more like "maaa!" but she uses it in situations when she's fighting with Riley over something and Riley is shouting "mine!" I remember that Riley was well over two years old when she learned to say "mine", but I guess having an older sister kinda forces a kid to pull out the big guns.

Okay, Avery just crawled by me, which caught my eye because she never crawls anymore. So I look and she has a shoe on her hand, so that's why. She's being a dog, a la Riley.

You know, the way Riley screams and carries on when I cut "her" vegetables for dinner ("Don't cut up my zucchini! Don't cut up my orange pepper!") makes me really glad that we don't raise chickens or something like that ("No! Don't cut my chicken's head off!"). Just a little sidebar.

So I got the schedule of classes for the Fall, and of course they are not offering the hybrid classes for paralegal next semester! Double Doh! So it looks like I'll have to be on campus for 12 hours a week. Yeah, Rudi will love that. I haven't told him yet. Also, classes start at 5:30 and go until 8:15. Talk about inconvenient! I would have to put the kids in daycare for an hour and have Rudi pick them up. And then he'll have to deal with them during their whinny pre-bedtime time. Oh, this is going to suck really really bad. I am so not looking forward to this that I even looked for a career change. Nothing else would work either.

Okay, update. I told Rudi about the whole school thing and he's like, I could work part-time or leave at 3:30 three times a week...blah, blah. He's such a slacker, it's so aggravating. He thinks that because I am getting the VA money, he won't have to work! He's already getting an early retirement when I get a job, what more does he want? The VA money was supposed to be for bills! Oh, I need to go...