I'm sure they'll be glad to hear about my mad cough drop unwrapping skilz

We're sick AGAIN. I'd like to thank/blame Annabelle for bringing home germs from all the nurseries she's visited lately. The germs are a souvenir that never stops giving. 

Normally I don't have anything important going on during the week but of course this week was a busy one. I had a doctor appointment yesterday, a play date scheduled for this morning that I had to cancel and an interview tonight. 

I applied to volunteer for the Big Brother Big Sister program and naturally the interview falls on a day when my head is swollen, my nose is red from blowing it every five minutes and my voice sounds like a seal. Just the first impression I was hoping to make! Add to that my general dislike of a) meetings and 2) being in the spotlight and it's recipe a for an awkward hour and a half.

I heard about a woman who has extensively studied body language and how it affects our performance. One pose is called The Wonder Woman and another The Starfish. It tickled me yesterday when I thought about standing like a starfish in the middle of the waiting room before the interview. Today I feel like a disco starfish floating through air and pumped full of cough syrup and motrin. I'll be a great asset to the program.

Currently- the January edition

Whenever I have a) nothing to blog about or b) TOO MANY THINGS TO SAY I do a currently post.

Drinking: A shampoo cap of "ice coffee" made from bath water with a side of soap. I told her it needed more milk. She gets some favorite child points for knowing one of my favorite drinks.

Unintentionally: potty training. I didn't mean for it to happen but it sort of just did. Occasionally AB will tell me when she has a dirty diaper and I tell her the real key here is to tell me before she goes. I bought one of those little seats that goes on the real toilet on a whim a few months ago and every so often she asks to sit on it. The other day she was sitting on it stark naked and she asked me to scratch her back while she waited to poop. WHAT HAS MY LIFE BECOME? What happened to my dreams of being a social secretary for the First Lady?! Or being the First Lady myself?

Reading: For the Love and The Secret Keeper. They're both due today and I have a combined total of 336 pages left to read. 

Slightly disgruntled with: the library. We went to a new library this morning for our big Monday activity. Before we left I did extensive research on which books I wanted and even wrote down the call numbers so I wouldn't have to drag Sesame around on a wild goose chase. I'd swoop right in, grab the book off the shelf and off we'd go. It was a flawless plan. Except nothing went according to plan. I couldn't find any of my three books. I've never seen such a complex numbering system. None of the books were where they should have been and I checked three times. I didn't want to ask for help because I was too proud to admit I didn't understand the library. I'm fine asking for help to find one book, but three seemed like a little too much. At that point I'd just hand them my grocery list and ask them to do that shopping too. I briefly considered telling the librarian I just moved to this country and my country uses a different system but I cannot lie. Meanwhile, Annabelle was climbing on chairs and telling the whole library about her snowman book. "I gotta s'owman book, Mama! I sittin in the chay-ya, Mama." Since I never found my books I'll be stuck reading Winnie the Pooh from A to Zzzzz and All You Need for a Snowman for the next three weeks. 

Not understanding: why people in this state insist on eating vegetables for breakfast. Every week at MOPS there's a platter of vegetables with ranch dressing. I enjoy carrots and ranch but not at 10 o'clock in the morning. We went out for breakfast and the lady next to us was eating salad. I don't understand this place.

Getting worked up over: someone telling me I could "just pray nausea away" when pregnant. You'd better believe I did pray for healing when I was throwing up 5-7 times a day for months on end. I prayed every day and God said N-O. Don't tell me all I needed was a little more faith and I would have been healthy as a horse. That's about as infuriating as telling me to "just eat saltines" or "all you need to do is wear a seasickness bracelet" or "have you tried ginger?" or, possibly worst of all, "I threw up a couple times so I know how you feel." I'm getting VERY WORKED UP ABOUT THIS. 

Watching: Downton Abbey and The Bachelor. They are so different but they both bring me so much joy. 

Internally crying over: Annabelle's upcoming birthday. She'll be two. TWO. Do you understand how much this upsets me? Just last week she wasn't even six pounds and newborn clothes were too big for her. Now she's singing the alphabet and pointing to Texas on the map. At this rate she'll be making me a grandmother by next week. 

social week continues

Every time I come home to visit I have too many people I want to see and not enough time. This time has been no different. It's tough to be so popular.

Joanna came over on Wednesday night. We behaved in the ruckus manner we're known for by spending an hour at The Christmas Tree Shop. Can't hold us down! Joanna discussed the feelings and repercussions of her recent breakup and I had a debate over whether or not to buy sticks wrapped in lights for my mantle. Between the two of us it's pretty obvious who can have an intelligent theological discussion and who wants to decorate a room with sequins.

My uncle took my cousin and I to the shooting range. Despite the fact I have a concealed carry license I'm not a big fan of handling guns. I can do it but I don't love it. I don't like gun ranges either. I'm always afraid someone will go crazy and shot everyone in the building. Christopher says that's crazy and maybe it is, but it still makes me nervous. Thankfully no one else was there so I didn't worry for my life as much. We had to staple our target to a piece of cardboard and I couldn't get the stapler to work. What a great start. I almost decided I should't pick up a gun after I couldn't operate a standard piece of office equipment. I did a little better than I expected but I'm no expert marksman. The US Olympic shooting team won't be offering me a contract.

Today is Grandma's 88th birthday. All week long Sesame has been saying "Happy bir'day, Memere! Happy bir'day, Memere!" and singing happy birthday. She wanted to give Memere a black balloon but I couldn't find one (not that I looked very hard) so I bought a flowered one instead. She was very excited about the balloon until it was time to present it along with a painted gingerbread man box. She dropped the gifts and didn't say a word. I guess she's not a monkey who performs on demand. (Don't judge my after-Christmas gingerbread man. We painted so many boxes during moments of afternoon boredom we'll probably be giving them away in July.) Once Memere brought out the music boxes they were BFF's once again.

I've taken on the responsibility of making the cake for her party tomorrow. Nothing like the pressure of creating what I hope will be the best cake of the last 88 years! Fingers and toes crossed it doesn't fall off the plate when I carry it across the yard.

over the highway and through the tolls, to Grandmother's house we go

Last Thursday afternoon Sesame and I drove down to see my family. The first fifteen minutes of the trip went like this:
1:40- We stopped at Dunkin Donuts for our pre-trip fuel.
1:42- I bust out the snacks.
1:53- I already misread the gps and took a wrong turn. I had to turn around in the parking lot of Pharaoh's Adult Entertainment. The place was much busier than I would have expected for the early afternoon but what do I know? I've become a person who thinks going out after 7:30 on a weekend is late. Not to mention that I seldom visit adult entertain stores at any time of the day.
1:55- I got myself on the right road and waited for the light to turn green. When it did turn I pushed down the gas pedal, the engine made all sorts of noise and we didn't go anywhere. Somehow I put the car in the wrong gear without knowing it. I held up the whole intersection while I panicked.

Once we got on the road it was smooth sailing. The first 278 miles were bor to the ing but I listened to podcasts and AB slept like a rock. She is such a good little traveler. She barely made a peep the whole 7+ hours. She did request multiple singings of The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle and while I sometimes pride myself in having a half decent voice, I wouldn't have won any awards for my renditions. 

We could have made the trip in one day but because we didn't leave until the afternoon I decided we'd stop at a hotel for the night. I kept telling AB we'd swim at the hotel and she talked about it the whole drive. The pool was across the hall from our room and she's stick her face up against the window and lick the glass while asking to put her bathing suit on. After literally hours of anticipation, we didn't even stay in the pool for 10 minutes. She said it was too cold and she wanted to go back to the room and watch a show. Apart from the fact that it took us longer than 10 minutes to get ready for the pool, I was glad we didn't stay in long. Everyone is worried about their bathing suit body in the summer but I think the real season people should worry about squeezing on a bathing suit is the week after Christmas. I wasn't emotionally prepared for what I saw in the mirror.

Annabelle had a hard time falling asleep in her crib so I let her sleep in the bed with me. I really didn't want to share the bed but she wasn't buying how exciting it was to sleep in a "special crib". I put her way over on the other side of the bed so I could still have some space. Somehow the child who is approximately 32'' tall took up 3/4 of the king sized bed. She kept pushing her feet into my back until I was at the very edge of the bed. She woke me up in the morning with a headbutt in the ribs. Reason #574 I don't cosleep.

AB is having the best time. She loves all the attention and finding new things to get into. I love that we're both sleeping in separate beds. It's a win win situation.

may 2016 be the year of bacon

2016 has been pretty good so far.

In the last few days I spilt coffee on the couch, went to two Sprint stores which ranks right up there with Toys R Us as my least favorite store, and get nail polish remover in a cut, but overall it's been better than the last few days of 2015. No one's had a fever, we haven't been to the doctor yet and the hole in our ceiling is almost fixed. Things have started looking up.

It snowed over the weekend. Annabelle was so excited to try snow. She was less excited about wearing mittens.

She built a snowman then promptly ate him too.

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I've spent some time thinking over my resolutions for the new year. I'm keeping it really simple and hopefully achievable:

+ eat more chocolate
+ take more naps
+ keep the fish alive
+