Yeah I wrote this whole post without realizing that Jonathan wrote an entire post on this already. Oh well. My version is funny and cute too.

On Sunday afternoon, the girls were playing in the dining room playroom and Claire started yelling about Daddy and a cat. The child has a very active imagination, so I just assumed that she was making something up. Then Jonathan, who was working outside, came to the deck doors, opened them (just slightly) and told me to go get some food for the cat.

Food for the cat? We don’t have cats. We don’t have cats because I’m extremely allergic to the little fur balls and (secretly) I think they’re creepy. Jonathan however, LOVES cats. Always had cats growing up. (I’ve had this hunch that if I wasn’t around for some reason, the first thing he would do was get a cat)

I look out the window and there is an admittedly adorable black and white cat all loving on Jonathan. He’s petting it. I can hear the purring through the window.

I say, “if we feed the cat it will come back”. Claire is like…”Mommy, he’s so hungry, you need to give him the food”. Then she proceeds to NAME the cat that’s on our deck. (His/Her name is Spots in case you were curious). Jonathan gives me the boo boo lip, so I take a can of tuna out, put it on an old plate and hand it to him outside.

Grumble grumble grumble

The cat devours the food. I mean in record time. Kinda like Madeline eating anything.

So here we are…Jonathan’s outside with the cat and the lawn, Claire and Madeline and I are watching him through the doors. Madeline is pointing at the cat and screaming her terrified little head off and Claire is telling me the story of the cat’s life (”the kitty is so hungry because it lost its mommy and didn’t get any food today. and if we don’t feed it it’s going to be bumped over by a car and squished like a bug“)

After confirming with the neighbor that the cat is a stray but has been living in the neighbor’s 3 season porch (and they’ve been feeding it!), and after about 20 minutes of fun, the cat takes off.

Madeline, who has been previously pointing at the cat and screaming her little head off, now stands at the back door to the deck says “where puppy?” Over and over and over. She walks through the house the rest of the day, looks out the windows by the front door and says “where puppy go”.

I’m so in trouble.

Yesterday, I was out doing lawn care stuff, when a stray (presumably) cat popped up and attached itself to my legs, meowing at me and purring. I actually had to avoid stepping on it once or twice, so I went to the back porch (it following) and rapped on the window. Cats cause Anne to swell up like a balloon and she gave me a concerned quizzical look (and a warning that “we’re not keeping it”), but I managed to get her to give me a can of tuna on the plate for the cat (who, as it turns out, has been residing on a neighbor’s three-season porch). The cat ate the entire can and licked the plate completely clean.

Meanwhile, the girls were peering out the window. Claire, who loves anything that moves, kept asking Anne to let the cat inside. Madeline was severely concerned that this might occur, and kept pointing, yelling “puppy” and generally voicing her unhappiness. (No surprise - she gets the crying shudders anytime a dog gets too close.)

However, after I came inside and the cat left (and I thoroughly washed my hands), Madeline begain walking around and peering out various windows, and saying in quite a sad-sounding voice “Where puppy?” This went on for ten minutes, her wandering from window to window, asking the same thing. Finally, Anne said “Kitty went to home to see his daddy,” which (since Maddy is in a Daddy period right now) seemed to satisfy her.

Very adorable.

-j.

Woo hoo!

The plateau is over!  I’m down 3.4 pounds this week.  Only 10 more until my 10% goal!

Goals this week: 2 pounds and 3x at the gym!

Today a student at Penn High School was held in custody for planning a Columbine type plot at our district high school.  This is just insane.

http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/18139289.html

We put a pillow in Madeline’s crib a week or so ago.  I thought maybe she was uncomfortable without one, and that is why she never would sleep.  She sort of fussed at it for a few days, but now I think she’s embraced it being there, since this is how I found her this morning when I went in to wake her.

Incidentally, she has been sleeping better since we put the pillow in her crib and since she started on the medication for her asthma.  Let’s pray that it is a trend that will continue!

Went to Weight Watchers…..

Down……0 pounds.

I don’t get it.  I had the freaking flu from hell for most of last week and couldn’t keep one blessed thing down. The days I did eat, I ate well.

I just don’t get it.

On the other hand, I ran a 5k the other night at the gym with no problem.

I guess that’s progress.

Though my friends from California described it as minor, they noticed it too. Apparently, an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale struck (not sure of that term) in the middle of southern Illinois at about 5:40 EST this morning. Here’s a map:

And here’s a link to zip codes who report feeling the quake:

http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/STORE/X2008qza6/ciim_stats_1.html

Fun stuff!

-j. 

an Ant just crawled up my arm.  Ew.

Now I feel like I’m being invaded by those nasty black insects.  My legs are itching.  My back is itching.  Even my feet are itching.

Those things are so creepy.

A trip to the Pediatric Allergist confirms that Madeline does not have a dairy “allergy” (nor a soy, gluten, corn, peanut or shellfish allergy).  Hooray!  She has a lactose intolerence yes, but not an allergy.  So this means we can try adding cheese or yogurt back into her diet and see how it goes.

She does however, have asthma.  I was sent home with a bunch of samples of different medicines to treat this.  But the doctor seemed to think that her sleep issues and very aggressive behavior may be related to the asthma (kids with asthma often have a constant runny nose, constant headache and stomach ache which would cause irritability, aggressive behavior and lack of sleep)

I suppose we’ll see how things go after she takes the medicines for a while.  We get to go back and see the doctor in a month — hopefully she’ll be improved by then!

Get your mind out of the gutter…that’s not what I meant!

Just a few thoughts and a little cuteness here for Tuesday.

• Kenny McWalker’s wedding was awesome. It was great seeing everyone, despite me being sicker than 2 dogs put together. Cute picture….alert…alert!

• Food Poisoning/nasty viral things stink and I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy.
• I am to the point where I have too much yarn. So here is my public vow not to buy or trade for any more yarn in the near future. I’m going to participate in the Bare Sheep Yarn Company stashbuster blanket knit along and only use yarn that I have on hand just to get rid of some of it. Me thinks this is not going to be the cutest blanket, but WHO CARES.
• It is April 15th…Madeline is 17 months old and FINALLY we are supposed to have 7 straight days of 60+ degree weather. Could this finally be a turning point?
• I’m convinced that 3 1/2 year olds are the most hysterical beings in the whole world. Claire was singing in the car as usual yesterday and well….I had to take a video. Sorry for the poor camera work…taking a video on my cell phone, while driving isn’t the easiest task in the world.

That is all. Have a good Tuesday!

I haven’t posted my WW numbers in a few weeks.  I missed my meeting last Thursday because of my trip to NY, so I went today at lunch. I’m pleased to report a loss of 1.8 pounds, which is great considering the fact that I ate like crap the entire time I was in NY.  (But who could blame me…that was some of the best pizza I’ve ever had)

My totals are thus…

7 weeks

-9 pounds

Kinda blah.  But still a negative, so that is good!

A positive is that I had a really good day at the gym on Monday — did an aerobics class and ran just about 1.2 miles in 10 minutes on the treadmill. (I was EXHAUSTED after mind you).

My goal for next week is 2.5 pounds — and to get in 2 gym days and one day of outside exercise (either raking leaves or doing a run outside…or both if I can!)  2.5 pounds means really sticking to my points, so I’ll need to be extra careful on our trip to Kevin & Jenny’s wedding in Cincinnati on Saturday.

This morning Claire came downstairs and had REALLY bad morning breath.  I mean REALLY.  Like a fish had died in her mouth sometime during the night. (the kid has always been a mouth breather….probably because she had enormous tonsils until about a year ago)  I told her she needed to go brush her teeth — and she gave her very normal, canned response of “why?”.  I told her because she had bad breath and needed to clean the germs out of her mouth.  To which she said…”ew. Germs are yucky.  What is breath mommy?“  I paused…wondering how to explain breath to a 3 1/2 year old.  I said…”well Claire, breath is the air that comes out of your mouth.”.  She looks me in the face, with the nasty fish breath and exhales right into my face…”like this Mommy?“  (I refrained from gagging) “Yes Claire, like that,”  I said.  “Now go brush your teeth”.  She skipped off to the bathroom.

About 8 minutes later (yes 8 minutes…the girl is very thorough…and I think she really likes to make funny faces in the mirror), she returns and announces “Mommy, my air is ALL GONE, see?” (blows again in my face).  Aaah yes, strawberry scented air is much better than fish scented air.  Especially 1st thing in the morning.

…is a lifesaver!! We subscribed a year or so ago, and have used so many of their ideas! In this month’s issue they have a special section on organization…something I REALLY struggle with. Two of the ideas I’m totally going to adopt for our family.

The first is a Family Notebook. It’s just a 3 ring binder with those plastic divider sheets where you put all the emergency numbers, class lists, takeout recipes, log ins for certain websites, etc. so everything is centrally located for those times when Jonathan or I are out of town or we have a baby sitter. We could have it live on our somewhat not cluttered counter top as a reference. Super great idea.

The second, is to take a Priority Mail box from the Post Office (preferably one that’s already been used), cover it with paper and use it to store all the “art” that comes home from school. The parent who wrote in that suggestion says that they get one at the beginning of each school year and fill it with the art that the child wants to keep. The pictures stay flat and not damaged in the box. Claire is such a prolific “artist” that literally I bring home a bag full of “art” each week from preschool. I never know if I should keep it ( a lot of it hits the recycle bin) but I’ve wanted to find a good system and I have a few extra priority mail boxes lying around from ahem, yarn purchases. We’re totally adopting this one.

Oh and for you parents who don’t subscribe to Family Fun…run, don’t walk, to eBay and get a subscription. eBay you say? Yeah eBay. Most magazine outlets sell off the subscriptions they don’t normally sell via wholesalers on eBay. We’ve gotten more than a few magazine subscriptions from eBay for about 1/3 (or more) of the cost if you were to go to their website and subscribe. Just make sure you pick a seller with good feedback!

When we landed last Wednesday, Keith told me that he had a surprise for Claire. One of his parishoners wanted to do something for her and it was ready for her visit. Thursday morning we went over to his Parish — met the staff who of course mooned over Claire. Then we went to visit a few parishoners in their homes. The second house we went to was a woman named Mary. Mary’s brother Frank was a tailor by trade in the Mechanicville area most of his life. He learned the skill from his father who was a tailor in Italy. He had heard Keith talk about Claire so many times that he decided to make Claire a very special dress.

The only words I have to describe this dress are breathtakingly beautiful. It is made of a duponi silk with hand appliquéd lace on the bottom hem, sleeves and front collar. What an amazingly touching gift from someone who doesn’t know me or Claire at all — just loves his pastor so much that he wanted to do something nice for his very special Goddaughter.

Now…this man is 90+ years old. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that he never had met Claire before — only knew that she was 3 1/2 years old. It fits her like a glove. This dress was finished shortly before he became seriously ill — so this dress was literally one of the last dresses he ever made. We had her pictures taken in it today, since we didn’t want to risk her outgrowing it.

What a beautifully amazing gift to us.

…in an accessible place when I’m around.

I’ve had this *habit* of taking self portraits for years, whenever there is a camera present. My college friends can attest to this…between self portraits and pictures of my feet, I’m sure I annoyed them to no end with this.

So, even though its annoying…I do it anyway. And I’ve roped my kid into it. She now asks to take pictures “just you and me with the camera on the end of your arm like this”

Sorry Keith…don’t leave your camera on your desk…

We did get home safely last night. Claire and I had a wonderful time on our visit to NY! It was so nice to meet all the people we’ve heard copious amounts of stories about for the last 3 years. I promise it won’t be 3 years before we come back again, ok?