Spinachy Noodles

Henry has a new habit of picking up his entire bowl and putting it to his face when he gets frustrated with using his fork. This makes for a very messy face. He sure does think it's funny, though!
Today we are trying to empty out closets and pack things up. De-cluttering in hopes of better house showings. The place two floors up (above Jerky) has just gone on the market. They are listed at $12K higher than our place, but they also have a garage space and are on the 3rd floor. We also think they have already moved all of their stuff out and possibly refinished their floors, so it may be showing very well.
Tune in later for demonstration photos of the amazing jumbo space bag (as seen on t.v.).

Boom Boom

(This posting actually written Sunday night but delayed due to slow blogger photo uploading) Normally a photo of my bath water is not something I would share with friends and family. This bath water, however, was special. After throwing in a Christmas present fizz ball, my bath water not only fizzed, it also turned lavendar. When the fizzing stopped I was left with a mysterious note floating in the water and an overwhelming fragrance. The entire experience was not entirely unpleasant....though I don't look forward to scrubbing the ring-around-the-tub, and I'm not entirely certain that my body isn't slightly more purplish than before.

It's Sunday

It's Sunday, and that means we're kicked out of the house again, for another open house. Please cross your fingers that at least one person came through today and that that person really wants to buy our place, and makes an offer. Thank you. So while we're out of the house we usually hang out in Deerfield. While Pete and Henry try to nap I thought I'd steal some photos off Grandma Mary's computer. So here you can see an example of a couple of the things Henry likes to do while he's out here. In the first photo you can see that Henry already knows how to use a microphone. He located this on the floor, picked it up and immediately put it to his mouth to croon like the mini-Sinatra that he is. In the second photo he is enjoying a ride on the rocking horse. Henry, of course, calls it "dog". I'm not sure why he's still in his pajamas. It must have been one of those mornings when he slept in and I was in a rush to get to work.

Messy

Henry decided today that he wanted to start working on his valentines. We picked up some supplies at Target, then came home, stripped down to a onesie and went to it. You can see by the photos that the situation quickly devolved into a messy mess. Henry had fun, but had trouble remembering that he was supposed to keep the paint on the paper and his body on the plastic garbage bag. After the whole affair he turned his bathwater pink.

A few randoms..

A few pictures to share.....Henry's new next-size Robot Robeez.
Henry's hilarious 'look of terror'.
Henry's valentine's sweater (progress to-date) with apparent self-striping effect.

Over it.

I just watched most of the Oprah with James Frey this morning. We taped it last night, since yesterday it was interrupted by the president. You know, I read the book. I liked it. I'm not surprised that he changed details or exaggerated parts of the story. I pretty much expect that when I read a memoir. Maybe it would have been better if he had something in the front of the book that said "parts have been changed" or something like that. But it doesn't really effect the impact of the book for me knowing any of the things I know now. The most annoying thing about the Oprah show to me was how melodramatic she acted. If there's one thing I hate it's melodrama. And she bullied him into saying he had lied about things. I don't think he lied. When you lie it's with the intention of fooling someone, usually maliciously. I think he changed things to make it a better story, and to me that's just fine. If I had been reading a history book or a biography of a famous person I would be reading it to learn something about events or that person's life. When you read a memoir you're reading it for the story. Bleh. I feel bad for the guy, he seems like a really nice guy. And I think I'm just done with Oprah. I'm even annoying myself with this blog entry....hopefully I'm not boring away my millions of faithful readers.

It's about to get serious

Took a trip to A Close Knit today. Not just to browse the cute things they sell, but to actually get some yarn and tips to start my first serious project! So here it is....a sweater for Henry, of course. Because he's small and forgiving. The plan is for it to be a Valentine's present for him....thus the red. It should go pretty quickly, as it's all garter stitch. On the advice of the clerk I bought six instead of eight balls. She didn't even want to sell me six, really. She looked at the pattern (in a book from the libarary) and thought the amount of yarn they called for was crazy. She did think I should try size ten needles instead of the elevens it suggests. So I bought those too.....and some embroidery needles to do the sewing up. Now I just have to find the time to start! When Pete gets home tonight I must go to the Y, and then I ought to get ready for conferences-as they're tomorrow. Won't have energy after conferences tomorrow, since I won't get home until close to 8PM. Maybe Henry will stay occupied with his piano long enough for me to start now.....not likely.
In other news: someone is moving out from upstairs. There haven't been 'for sale' signs...so no idea who it is. It doesn't sound like Jerky, which is sad news for us. Though, we're moving soon enough....so we'll be done with him either way.

Oh dear.

I was getting Henry's bottle ready in the kitchen this morning. When I came back in, this is what I found. He is truly a t.v. junkie, like his Mama. In case you're wondering....that's The Wiggles he's watching. It's the 'Little Wiggles' version of Captain Feathersword. We do love pirates!

Argh

It just goes along with the general feel of the day that I typed up this whole blog entry and then somehow deleted it and so now I have to start over.
So this time I'm doing it in abbreviated fashion.
Crappy parts of the day:
-Annoying email from real estate agent saying we had another open house with no visitors (that's 3 out of 4).
-Totally unhelpful call to Northeastern to figure out my last class. Learned that summer session starts the week before Ellen's wedding. Crappy.
-Headache
-Henry screamed the whole way home from Deerfield.
-Worse headache.
-Remembered I had hidden pans in the oven.....20 minutes after preheating it for dinner. See photo of my casserole pan with (the late) plastic cover.
The good part of the day:
-Henry's sweater from Auntie Amber arrived. It's lovely. I sent her photos to post, but for those of you that don't read Amber's blog....

This Blog

According to the Mechanical Contrivium (http://thesurrealist.co.uk/trivia):

Ten Top Trivia Tips about This blog!

This blog will always turn right when leaving a cave.
In Vermont, the ratio of cows to this blog is 10:1.
There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat this blog, though it may feel uncomfortable.
This blog has four noses.
In 1982 Time Magazine named this blog its 'Man of the Year'.
Scientists have discovered that this blog can smell the presence of autism in children!
Medieval knights put the skin of this blog on their sword handles to improve the grip!
Early thermometers were filled with this blog instead of mercury.
Dolphins sleep at night just below the surface of this blog, and frequently rise to the surface for air!
This blog has often been found swimming miles from shore in the Indian Ocean.

Getting ready to move

Our current rule is that for at least one meal a day we have to use something that is already in our cabinets. You know, to start the long, slow process of emptying them out. This morning it was 3-year-old scone mix. The chocolate chips were a bonus find. The other day we used up some old noodles in a soup. Then we had a (pretty yummy) spinach palak paneer from a trip to Devon Ave. this summer with Joyce. I finally took several boxes of Betty Crocker Chicken Wonderful Meals In A Box out to my car. They're on their way to a food pantry, as soon as I can locate one. If anyone has any recipes that include both noodles and tea that would fabulous, please share. The good news is that I bought those Terra chips several weeks ago and still haven't opened them. I guess I"m not a hopeless junk-food junkie.

It's true!

So, you know those yellow lines at grocery stores and Target and whatnot? The ones where they have a sign that says if you take your cart past that line the wheels will lock up? Well, it turns out they actually do! But who would think they would put the line IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PARKING LOT??!?!? If a person happens to walk down the wrong row of cars and then they can't just walk through the cars because there is a curb, grassy-knoll thingy, and then they decide to walk all the way around because it's a nice day, and it's difficult to ramp the cart up over the grassy-knoll with the baby in it, the wheels will actually lock up! You might think you could still pull the cart a little bit. You might try to push the cart, then you might go around to the front and pull, but it really won't budge more than a few inches. So then you might take the baby out of the cart and THEN try to pull it a little bit, because you have a new iron and big package of diapers and other random things that would just be a pain to try to carry, but the cart still won't move. And now you look like a freak. A freak with a baby in the parking lot. If you get into this situation the best plan of action is to abandon the cart in the middle of the parking lot and juggle the baby and all of your crap from Target -(hey, you've done it before!) and just hoof it back to the car. And be thankful that at least the weather is nice and your hair is combed....oh wait, no it's not.

If you like pina coladas....

This morning I discovered that my new pina colada tea brews a lovely shade of bright pink. Now I can't get the song out of my head...

Spelling.

Henry got out his alphabet letters today. We figured the floor was maybe finally somewhat clean enough to feel okay about him playing there. He likes the letters and he did some spelling. Truly, the boy is a genius. Take a look at what he spelled. Really. Take a close look. Zoom in.
















































What could it mean?!?!?

Divine Intervention

We buried St. Joseph today. This was not a custom I had heard of before. I guess that Joseph is the patron saint of home selling. You're supposed to bury him with his feet pointing heavenward and facing where you want your new home to be. You are also to say a prayer asking him to use his holy influence with the lord. I forgot to take a photo of him before we buried him, and I thought maybe it would be bad luck to dig him out again. Here he is....you can see his little base sticking out of the dirt. Here, also is a photo of what he looks like (artist's rendering) and a copy of the prayer that we said...it was a long prayer.
Henry mostly just listened. He did give St. Joseph his blessing though, he held him and banged him on the table a little bit. Is it inappropriate for me to say a baby gave a saint his blessing? Hm. True story: a half hour after we said the prayer and buried St. Joseph we got a phone call for a last-minute showing tonight! We took the excuse to go have dinner at Dave's. No word yet on the showing...

Happy MLKJR

I don't have much to say about MLKJR day. Didn't really celebrate. I had some cheesecake while we were vacating for a showing, but I didn't really think about MLKJR while I was eating it. Pete asked how my mom feels on this day....I guess he knows she was a big fan. I said I guess she probably thinks about him more on Will's birthday, as she was in the hospital for delivery on the day he was shot. I need to ask her though, (I don't know if I ever have) if Will was born before or after the shooting.

Here's what's happening in my life.....I'm Snaggletooth again. Yesterday, while eating frozen pizza, I felt a funny thing on my little tooth. I always think I've got something stuck in my teeth, but really it was a chipped cap. This is the first tooth I had capped. It's the one that came back in all funky after I pulled the playpen over on myself when I was two days shy of my first birthday. I think this may be the first time I'll have had it re-capped! The top one I've had redone at least twice.... I was going to take a photo, but I just didn't think it would be very attractive.
Okay...The Bachelor is over. Time for bed.

Oh no.

So today we had Merry Maids come to do some deep cleaning before our open house tomorrow. It will be the third open house, and the third time's a charm, right? The weather is supposed to be really nice, so that should get people out. Of course, the Bears play at 3:00, so that may be a bit of an impediment... But we're thinking positively. Even just one person coming in would be nice. The cleaners did a pretty nice job. The first thing I noticed was that the fans and window blinds look great. They also did an excellent job on the stove, microwave and toaster oven. Then I walked into the living room. I guess they got all the way under the couch....somewhere we hadn't been in a long, long time. They left two things on the coffee table that they found under there. The first was an old Franklin-chewed Frisbee. The second was this:

I must say, I was startled. I've cleaned a lot of nasty things out of the many fridges I've owned over the years. I would never try to fool anyone into thinking I was a neatnick, but this offended even my sensibilities. I don't even know when the last time Henry used a shortie bottle was. I'm not sure if you can tell in the photo, but there was some stuff dangling in there, and sort of a bead of goo coming out of the tip of the nipple. So, I don't know. Maybe this is just too much information to be sharing with whoever is reading this (Mom). But I think a blog should be about truth, and what is more truthful than letting people know about the funk under your couch? By the way...after taking the photo I threw the whole bottle away. There was no amount of sterilizing that was going to make me feel okay about using that thing.

Hey!

I just discovered that there's a setting where you can allow anyone to comment. Amber-it's under template and comments- I think. And then you can set it up to email you when someone comments. Fun!
I have to start being careful...I've shared my address with a few more people, and with the link on your site who knows who's reading what I write? And I'm so prone to writing incendiary entries...

"Where's your nose?"

Henry has a new trick. He just started this one spontaneously yesterday when I said something about his nose.

















So cute.






















Oops! Too far.
Your uncles will be so proud.

Finally!

Thus Hustle Up The Hancock is only 6 weeks away. I had a dream last night that is was super-easy and over in about 10 minutes. That probably means that I'm fooling myself into thinking it's too easy....
The good news is that Mr. Guy finally called me (and emailed me) back today about membership at the Y. They aren't doing their no-joiners-fee thing, rather they're doing a half-off fee. Whatever. I had to go for it anyway. I checked out the child-care center. Apparenlty it's getting a face-lift, courtesy of a donation from Kraft, tomorrow. Henry seemed very comfortable there. There was one guy I REALLY didn't like..he was telling a child to stop being a "cry baby" because he was 3 years old and he wasn't hurt! But I guess that guy is a college student and won't be there anymore after tomorrow. Besides, if he is there, I don't have to leave Henry. I can turn around and walk out. It's very scary to think about leaving my kid behind with strangers...but I really don't think I'll do it that often. Tonight I went to use the eliptical (25 min. for my first time back) and it worked out really well to leave when Pete got home and come back in time to bathe the baby and put him to bed.
Speaking of bed....

Cooked Cereal

So, you have to let them feed themselves, right? I mean, that's how they learn. They'll never figure it out if they don't have the chance to do it on their own. But somehow Henry always seems the most interested in feeding himself when it's breakfast time with cooked cereal. It starts out okay, he takes the spoon out of my hand and mostly gets it into his mouth. But before long there's some in his ear and in his pajama pants and between his toes. I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture or not, but this cereal is like a million tiny super-sticky pellets. They are impossible to clean up, and if you don't clean them up within two-and-a-half minutes they dry up and turn into cement. So after Henry had emptied the bowl, turned it over to use as a drum for a moment, then thrown it on the floor so the dog could lick up the remains, I had to take him to the sink, strip him down and rinse him off. On the way he managed to transfer a few more of the mega-adhesive bits to my sweatshirt, neck and hair. Now he's in his onsie and sweatshirt (wasn't patient enough to let me put pants on him) and working very hard to close his fingers in his dresser drawer. He also seems to think the computer is called "dog".

What The...?

So, Baby is a little bit ill. His cold is bringing him down. Runny nose, little tiny cough. So I called a sub for tomorrow. I figure if Little Man can sleep in and not have to be bundled up and toted about it may help him get better. So he had his dinner a little late...around six. Spinach and sweet potato. I tried to give him a little thawed out frozen peach for dessert, but he didn't care for that. Don't know why...he just kept spitting it right back out. One time he stuck it back in his own mouth so he could spit it out again, which was pretty cute.
But here's the crazy thing.... He ate late, then I changed him, washed his hands, brushed his teeth (Grammie taught him to spit, but he doesn't actually spit anything out, just sort of says "ptt!") I had nursed him when we first got home (around 5:30) because he was upset and I thought it couldn't hurt. So I decided to try putting him down to sleep without nursing. The light was on, his eyes were open. I layed him down in his crib, gave him his Nuk and blankie, tucked his quilt around him and walked away. He didn't even whimper! I shut off the light and left and he just went to sleep! Craziest darn thing! I did go peek about half an hour later (7PM) and he sat up and looked at me like "Oh yeah, I thought you'd be coming by..." I tried to walk away and he cried a bit. But when I layed him back down with his nuk again he just went right back to sleep. Don't quite know what to make of it all. I guess I"m just a genius of a mother.

Sharing

When Mom left today she left Henry's hawkeye hat on the baby doll. Henry was intrigued. He wanted to peek under the hat, he wanted to take the hat off and put the hat on himself, then he put it back on the doll. I did have to set him up to reenact the whole scenario so I could get some photos....but none of this was actually staged. My son is brilliant. I wish I had video of him yesterday at lunch. We went to Mexican Cafe and loved the music so much he could hardly sit still long enough to eat. He had a new little sideways shoulder move he was trying out.

Hubby Gone, Mom to the Rescue

Hubby is gone for a few days, so Mom came to help out. She leaves tomorrow, Monday. The next couple mornings will be the true test of my womanhood. Full time job (Monday-Wednesday) and a baby to take care of. I think showering at night will be the key. Tried to take Mom to see the new house today, but we couldn't get in so we had to peek in the windows. I'm so excited for the move. So excited to have a yard and laundry and parking. SO excited to be able to walk to Baskin Robbins.
Watching a little thing about Bode Miller on 60 Minutes right now. Very interesting guy.
Also today: made a couple weeks' worth of food for Baby. Spinach, carrots and sweet potato to freeze. Brown rice for the next few days. That always makes me feel like I've accomplished something worthwhile...preparing healthy food for my child.
Does anyone know when Ellen is back in town? Yet? I'm so bad....just sent Christmas package yesterday. Are you out there Ellen? Sorry I was so pokey.

While Baby Sleeps

What I should be doing:
-cleaning the litter box
-emptying the dishwasher
-exercising
-writing thank-you notes
What I am doing:
-knitting
-eating chocolates
-watching Beauty and the Geek

Other things I did not accomplish today:
-joining the Y (the darn guy has not returned my call or my email)
-plucking my eyebrows
-getting to the post office

I have no new photos, but the lack of photos is getting boring....so here are some old favorites:

Scrabble Sadness

After reading Amber's entry last night about Scrabble I really needed a Scrabble fix. Pete actually said he would play an ENTIRE game with me, but then we remembered that Scrabble is already packed. Why didn't we at least keep Travel Scrabble out??? So sad. I did do some knitting, though. So that was good.
Today has been productive as well....got to Target and the grocery. Returned a phone call I've been putting off for a while. Called Merry Maids to set up a consultation....we're going to have them come before our next open house. Also fed, diapered and napped the baby. Even got a shower in for myself!! Feeling good about myself.
There's a very pathetic couple on Clean Sweep right now...they're motivating me to find some stuff of my own to throw away. A project for tonight! I'll add it to the list.
The baby is doing his new scream. Guess I need to pay him some attention.

This entry by Henry

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