Yummy Rice Cereal!

We tried Anna on very watery rice cereal this weekend with some success. Of course she spit most of it back out, but we did get SOME in there! I'm hoping the transition to solids over the next few months will help her sleep better.

The lure of the Mustang

I never really understood what the big deal was about muscle cars until I drove one up in Virginia. I had a rental car for the weekend for work and got bumped up to a Mustang convertible from the economy car because they were all rented out. Of course there were no complaints from me!! After driving it for a few days, I began to see why they're such popular cars!

So when my sister's neighbor gave her a red Power Wheels Mustang convertible for their kids, we've been more than happy to help them break it in. Usually Jack's cousin Lexi drives the car, but yesterday he got to try it for himself. Anna even got to sit in the passenger's seat, after we unplugged the battery of course!

I just hope Jack doesn't get any big ideas about his parents buying him a Mustang when he learns to drive!

THIS is why I have two children!!

Ok, so it's not the only reason I had another child, but it sure is one of them: a playmate that isn't mommy!!

Bob and I were thrilled to watch Jack entertaining Anna in the exersaucer yesterday. For about 30 minutes, she sat quite contentedly watching her brother play with all of the gadgets in front of her. We were able to put dinner together without any crying or whining, which is quite a feat these days! Plus it was just so darn cute to watch Anna watch Jack with those big eyes!

Being a mom is a lot of work, but moments like these make it totally worth it.

This confirms it: I don't get out much.

As if I needed any more reminders about just how little I get out of my house these days after 7pm...

So last Friday night Bob and I were searching for something to watch on TV. After circling through the channels about five times, you'd think we would've wised up to the fact that reading a book would've been a better entertainment option. Bob finally said, "Did you check TLC?", to which I promptly switched over and was greeted with the opening credits to the new show called "Toddlers and Tiaras" about young girls competing in beauty pageants.

Within two minutes of watching this show, as a mom I quickly found it to be the latest train-wreck-you-can't-take-your-eyes-off-of hour of television. I believe I had drool coming out of my mouth because it was gaping wide open for so long, and probably asked my husband no less than ten times, "Are these people for real?" A quick synopsis for you: mothers (and even fathers!) desperately living vicariously through their children, fake eyelashes and hair and teeth and spray tans, and creepy 50-something male judges.

The saddest part to me was when the camera showed two little boys, maybe twins, exhausted and sleeping on their dad as their sister, a 2-year-old, was waiting to find out how she did at the end of a long day. From the way the story was edited, this mom and dad were completely wrapped up in the pageant life with their girl...I just wonder how the little boys felt being dragged all over the place to those silly shows.

My favorite part, which I say very sarcastically, was at the end when the pageant director went on and on about the pageant winner and her natural beauty. Excuse me? Can someone please tell me what she's smoking that has permanently whisked her off to la-la land? There wasn't anything natural about ANY of those kids on that show.

It's a bit of a soapbox for me because I'm frustrated with the narrow image of beauty portrayed in the media and how as a teen I bought into it. Now with a daughter I worry about her sense of worth becoming tied up in whatever will be deemed beautiful by society in the next 5-10 years.

I've got lots of praying to do!!

And no, I don't plan to make "Toddlers and Tiaras" a part of my usual Friday night activities.

THE shower curtain

Ahh, some time to blog again :)

So here it is in all it's glory (I wish I could play some triumphant music in the background), my $90 Pottery Barn shower curtain! Looks an awful lot like a $10 shower curtain from Walmart or Target, huh? It was made in Israel though, so maybe that's what makes it so expensive?

My husband sarcastically threw a fit when I told him I bought plastic rings to hold it up. He said, "You spent $90 on a shower curtain and got cheap ($1!) plastic rings to hold it up?" I sarcastically told him I would be happy to drive back to Target and buy the nicer $15 hooks and he quickly backed down.

It's been a relatively uneventful last few weeks around here at least as far as the kids are concerned. We've managed to avoid more colds somehow, which has made a huge difference in everyone's outlook! I wish I could say the same for our dachshund Haley. She's been struggling since the first of the year with some kind of back problem. We're not sure what caused it because we can't remember any obvious incident where she injured herself. Bob accidentally caught her foot with his one time, but that probably didn't cause a back injury. Anyway, she's dragging her back right leg when she walks, which is a sign that a disk is pressing on her spinal cord to some degree. We had an x-ray done, but there wasn't anything out of the place in her spine that we could see with the vet. The next step would be a specialist and possibly surgery, but it's so expensive that it's not really an option for us. It's been really hard to watch her quality of life erode over the last month, though she still acts fairly happy. She's only five and half, so we didn't expect anything like this to ever bother her until she was much older. Steroids have helped somewhat, but haven't allowed her to regain complete control of her leg. It's really been depressing :( Even though we love her a lot, I feel silly asking for prayer for a dog when there are so many people struggling with tremendous obstacles in their lives!

Anyway, nap time approaches, let's hope I can get some nap time of my own today!