How To Eat, Toddler Style...

Words are not necessary...

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Toddler Friendly Insta-pizza...

1. Take open hot dog bun and get it all nice and crispy using your BBQ, toaster, toaster oven, or your oven.

2. Squirt any tomato-based sauce on the insides. Use bottled pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, BBQ sauce, or like I did, ketchup. Cause we gotta teach them young to love the ketchup. That's how we roll in this house.

3. Pile shredded cheese and various toppings on. I just used plain ole mozzarella and nothing else.

4. Nuke until the cheese melts.

5. Cool and serve.

6. Viola! Easy toddler friendly insta-pizza.

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Energy-smenergy...

Guess who finally feels better?

Took long enough! The books all say by week 13ish you should be getting all your energy back and be a glowing beauteous pregnant goddess.

Uh, do old yoga pants and my husbands t-shirt count at appropriate goddess attire?

I'm not even going to mention the lack of makeup or any recognizable hairstyle.

So here we are at 16 1/2 weeks along, starting to feel that old familiar friend come back again...without the use of coffee! I'm finally getting some things done and not feeling bedraggled by 4 pm.

I'm actually running around playing with Bubbalu to chase and tickle him.

It's good to be back...

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Voluntary Smoke-Out...

Any of you ever tried the self-cleaning feature on your oven?

As you know, we have been in a variety of apartments over the last 4 or so years. Imagine my surprise upon moving last month to find that the oven in my apartment (that I had lived in for 6 months) had a self-cleaning function.

Clearly this conveys the appliance standard I have been accustomed to.

Well, we were moving out, so my very helpful Mother-In-Law (who wouldn't let me clean the kitchen or bathroom saying the bleach fumes would probably not be so great for grandchild #6) started the self-clean function.

Now first let me say that while I am not a meticulously clean cook, I am by no means messy. I clean up after myself and during the cooking process as well.

However, smoke started POURING out of the oven. I was upstairs packing my clothes and wondered why I was looking through hazy air. I started coughing and my eyes started to water. Mind you, my bedroom door was closed and the window open.

I meander downstairs to see what the heck is going on, and Lance and my MIL are busy fanning the air away from the smoke detector so it won't go off, opening windows and starting fans. We have 4 fans, but that wasn't enough, so we borrowed 3 more from the next door neighbor.

Bubbalu was napping so we put towels at the bottom of the door so his bedroom air wouldn't get too smoky. I went in and checked on him later, his fan being on and the window open worked great...his room was the least smokey in the entire house.

So, that being my first experience with self-cleaning ovens, I was wary to try mine out today. I NEEDED to use it though, as I had a messy bake-over that required my attention.

I am happy to report there was no smoke and only a minimal chemically smell that the owners manual said to expect for the first few times using the feature.

Still, I decided the minimal chemically smell warranted an entire morning and most of the afternoon of sitting outside in the sun watching Bubbalu enjoy his pool rather than us tempt fate by being inside and, you know, doing HOUSEWORK or something equally worthwhile.

So, I think I'll be cleaning my oven on a weekly basis, but only on the really sunny days...

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Life With A Toddler...

Sometimes I think my child is exceptionally brilliant. Other times...not so much.

Bubbalu was having a full conversation on the phone with himself this morning, which made me smile. He had all the different facial expressions down and everything. Too cute. Then we read some books and he pointed out everything I asked him to find.

Oh so brilliant, right!?

Then a few minutes later I turn around and he's trying to eat diaper cream right from the tube.

Life with a toddler...

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Sunglasses Are My Friend...

Guess who feels beautiful again!?

My eye is back to normal, THANK GOODNESS!

And NO, I won't post the picture...mostly because I can't find the camera cable, my ipod cable, the video camera cable and my cell recharge cable (and blue tooth earpiece and instruction book, which I now need to learn to use, thanks to the new law). We are in the land of lost cables. I keep reading the labels on the boxes hoping one will say:

ALL THE THINGS YOU NEED ARE IN HERE.

Anywhoo, my eye was nice and puffy thanks to a nasty mosquito bite. I am kind of allergic to mosquito bites. I mean, EVERYONE is allergic to mosquito bites, we all get some sort of allergic reaction, but mine is quite significant. I'm talking an inch wide lump of redness, not to mention itchiness. AND, they last almost 3 weeks. Yep, allergic. I have close to 10 mosquito bites at the moment, which I gladly show anyone, expect for the one on the side of my abdomen. That requires flashing a white expanse of belly that should be hidden.

The eye swelling did go down quite a bit, and is gone now. My sunglasses got a lot of action. I decided it is not rude to talk to people with your sunglasses on when you have major eye troubles.

Do you take your sunglasses off to talk to people? Keeping them on while talking to people makes me feel like I am hiding something or have the ability to be fake. So I usually take them off to talk to someone, except if I know the person really well, or if I am laying out on the beach. Which in that case means that I get wicked raccoon tan lines.

Thank goodness for sunless tanning cream and bronzing powder!

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Eye Think We Have A Problem...

I wrote this late last night :

Today I am in an El Crappiola mood.

I woke up this morning pretty tired after a night of having my husband try to steal my pillows while he slept. WHAT was he dreaming about? Finally about 4 AM I was giggling about the whole annoying thing thinking, "What's so special about my pillows? They are no different than the last 3 you stole from me and discarded in a pile on the floor". Apparently he thinks I am his never-ending pillow distribution center.

Anyways. Despite (or maybe because of) the pillow war of '08, he let me sleep in a bit and got up with Bubbalu.

I finally woke up and opened my eye. Yep, my EYE. As in singular.

I thought that maybe because my face was squashed into my last remaining pillow that it just got stuck from all the eye goo.

I tried to open my eyes really wide, but it didn't really help.

Perplexed, I walk into our bathroom and am greeted by my face sporting a right eye that is SO swollen it can open 1/4 of what it should.

My face is a thing of beauty, let me tell you. With the loss of my tan (because of my 6 week first trimester cave dwelling recluse season), dry itchy skin in the T-Zone, and oil and zits everywhere else, I am feeling quite haggish.

I actually laughed as I went down the stairs to show Lance. He laughed too. Then he took a picture of my face.

I stopped laughing when I saw the pic.

I don't think I have enough self-esteem to post my eye trauma pic. Believe me, you should be spared the horror.

Reason? Cause? Diagnosis? I don't know. I have been quite delectable for mosquitoes lately. Why, even this morning I woke with 4 new bites! Could I have gotten bit on the eyelid? Maybe. But I don't see any bite on my eyelid. Could the culprit be the new (actually really very old) eyeliner I used on Sunday because I ran out of my normal stuff? My eye is clear, no visual problems (despite the blockage of sight!) and I am wholly confused.

At least the swelling did go down quite a bit with cold compresses. I wore sunglasses all day, and (of course) managed to smear my mascara all over the place, making me look like a raccoon with one really puffy eye!

Oh so very cute.

SEE? El Crappiola mood. Tomorrow can only get better.

My other eye better behave tonight.

This morning my eye looks about the same...so off to the Dr. I go. My other eye DID behave, although I do have another mosquito bite on my leg, bringing the total to five. What is WITH this mosquito!?

I must be quite tasty.

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