Friday, November 17, 2006
How in the hell?
My Southern credentials might get revoked over this! I've never even been near the Great Lakes. On the other hand, I always thought I probably had a generic midwestern accent. I can "do" southern, though. I really can, ya'll.

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Inland North

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have?
Take More Quizzes


And I don't call it pop, it's soda. Or coke. This was stolen from Jeanne, btw.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
What do I want for Christmas?
It's time to make the list for my family and I'm clueless as usual. The things I really want are too much money. It seems I put down the same things every year...

Scented candles (spicy)
Jewelry
Cool pens
Assorted DVDs

I can't even think of anything. So help me out here. What do I want for Christmas? Give me some ideas!
Dressed in yellow
Popi was in town today so we met him at the library after work.

The season is almost upon us
And I can feel the pressure sneaking up on me. I have to admit something. I almost ruined it for myself last year. By the time Christmas morning arrived I was so worn out and frazzled that I had to force myself to enjoy it. I was exhausted, my head hurt and I felt awful. I really don't want that to happen this year. Maybe having a weekend to get ready will slow things down a bit.

So what's the pressure now? I need to start shopping and the Christmas card needs to be prepared. If you didn't know it, Christmas cards are big with me. I'm very faithful. I've been doing them since jr. high when I used to draw and color in my own handmade cards. Last year my cards were so overdone that we had to pay extra postage for many of them. This year I thought I might actually do a picture postcard thingy from Snapfish or Costco. The pressure is coming up with the picture. I have many favorites from this year, but you've seen them all. The recent ones are fair weather pictures and will look strange on a Christmas card. In the next week or two I have to produce THE picture. No pressure.

BTW, if any of you, my loyal readers, would like to receive a Christmas card from us you can email me your address at the email link available at right. I promise not to misuse your address or stalk you. You should know by now I'm too lazy to bother.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Emma's ducks
I was trying to pack away baby things and she discovered this collection of ducks before I could hide it away. It's something we just never got around to playing with and it was still in the packaging. Once she saw it? Fuggetaboutit. So here she is, playing with her new ducks...



Serious accessorizing
I made the mistake of asking if I could take her picture. She said no and got all huffy with me. She even took a swing at me with her bag. Who does she think she is? Cameron Diaz?




P. S. She says "no" to every question you ask her. My bad.
Swinging in 40 degree weather
The woodstove went all psycho on us and drove it up to 95 degrees in the living room. We were driven outside.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006
I've decided to be fat for a while
Yes, I'm saying it out loud. I've been gaining weight steadily since our trip to Europe. Control of the situation has slipped from my grasp. I've been struggling with it for a while. I'll start dieting on Monday and last a couple of days and then something throws me off.

I know what I'm doing is self-destructive. It's not good for me, it's not good for my health. It sets a poor example for Emma and it makes me feel bad every day. I feel like I owe everyone an apology around me for gaining weight. Isn't that weird? It's my struggle, but I feel like I'm failing you. I'm an extraordinarily empathetic person; it's my curse.

Still, I eat. My behaviors would be classic signs of an addiction. I'm not going to detail them for you because I can only stand so much soul-baring at one time. Eating makes me happy in the short term. I love food, what can I do? I can't quit it cold turkey.

I'm not a martyr or a masochist so I'm not going to start a diet right before the holidays. The best I can do it try to eat some healthy food while I'm being ornery.

I will get control of the situation again, I always do. But my mind has to "click" before I can change my ways again. It's a definite mind-set I'm able to achieve when I'm finally ready. It's just that getting to that ready-point can't be forced.

I don't know. Feh.

Why this disclosure now? I'm tired of hiding from you in pictures. I may be meeting one or two of you soon and I don't want you to fall over in shock when you see me. Or worse yet, think that I've been misrepresenting myself. Yes, I know you're not my high school reunion, but it's that empathy thing again. Damn it all.

Please don't think less of me for being fatter. I'm still me.
Suppertime Freakout
This one was epic.

Daddy called us to supper, bacon and pancakes. Emma was watching an episode of Little Einsteins. I paused the DVR so she could resume it after supper. She freaked out. She didn't want to stop her show. She didn't want to eat supper. She started crying. We strapped her in her chair. She pushed away her plate, crying and red-faced. We gave her milk, she pushed that away, continuing her tantrum. She kept slamming herself back in her chair. She wanted down to watch her show and she refused to eat anything. If we put it in range she'd try to bat it away.

We ate our meal and let her carry on. She was working herself up so bad that twice she almost puked. I was determined not to let her down one second early due to her behavior. Finally I told her she could get down when Daddy was finished eating. I asked him if he thought she deserved to watch her show after all that. Thank goodness he said "no." It would have been so easy to let her have her way, but we just couldn't reward her bad behavior with what she wanted.

She got down and Daddy went in and turned off the TV. She escalated the crying. She huddled herself in a corner and put on a show for a bit. Then she came and got me by the finger and led me to the TV. I said no. She got on the couch and cried some more. Finally she just sat there quietly. I sat on the other end of the couch working with the laptop. Eventually she came over and wanted to see baby on the computer. I closed the computer and said "Let's read a book." We read four books and then she was ready to get down and play with Daddy.

We'll offer her some milk and a snack before bed. Supper was a wash for her.
Go get yourself some yellow sunglasses
We stopped by the store after work. Emma had to play with the sunglasses. Her favorites are the yellow ones.



In this video you get to see her doing some numbers and ABC's.

Sunday, November 12, 2006
Christmas Elmo
My friend, Mike, bought this for her. The first day we saw him Emma was slow to warm up to him. I explained to him that it would just take some time spent with us and she'd warm up. The next morning he decided to try and speed up the process. He bought her a gift. She liked it just fine, but it probably made no difference in the process.

As I promised, soon enough she was his buddy. We'd start out somewhere and she'd be saying "Mike! Mike! Mike! C'mon!" This morning when we got up to pack and leave Mike had already left for his conference. Emma did miss him. She mentioned him several times this morning and we had to explain again that he'd already left for the day. We ended up having her color a note and slip it under his hotel room door. "Bye, Mike!"