5:55 am Karin is awoken from a dead sleep by…

the church alarm going off. Yes, we live about a quarter of a mile away from our church and when the alarm goes off, I hear it. And if I’m asleep, it wakes me up. Since Mike is #2 on the list of staff members to call I woke him up figuring he would probably get woken up anyway and plus he can get there faster than the other staff members.

He got there and the #1 person on the list was already there or got there right after him. There is a men’s retreat there this weekend and the person in charge of that who had been given a key decided to get there early. As in before maintenance got there to turn off the alarm. And the person who gave him the key (who I shall be nice and not name *ahem*) didn’t know that she should tell him that whole alarm thing. Because who thought he’d get there at 6 am? Crazy people. Anyway, as usual, it was nothing. But poor Mike had only been asleep for an hour. And poor Karin does not like getting up at 6 am.

Mike came home, got in bed and we both fell back asleep. Until Mike started to snore which woke me up again. *sigh*

BUT, the good part of this story is that Little Girl and Melody chose to let mommy sleep until almost 9. Yay!

And to entertain you today, we have Little Girl’s impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger (or however you spell that).

Yesterday I went and bought white eyelet and a pattern to make the little pantaloons or bloomers or panties or whatever you want to call them to go under Little Girl’s new dresses. I bought enough eyelet to make two pair and right now I’m working on the first pair. The other parts of the pattern are a dress and a pinafore to either go over the dress or wear as a top on it’s own with the pantaloons. The pinafore was so cute and looked so easy that I bought some fabric to make that as well. And the notions. It’s not the fabric that costs, it’s the stupid notions! Anyway, when I got home I realized that the pinafore was supposed to be reversible and I needed another fabric. Luckily, last summer I had purchased fabric to make her some outfits and I got stuck on one step and got frustrated, so the first outfit never got finished and I had the fabric for the second outfit sitting here waiting to be used. And even more luckily, it looks fabulous with the fabric I bought yesterday. Hurray! So hopefully in the next week or so she’ll have two pair of eyelet panties, a reversible pinafore and two pair of panties to match that. That’s presuming everything goes as planned. But this is Karin’s life we’re talking about, so we’ll just have to wait and see. I promise to put up pictures if they turn out all right! :)

Hope the rest of you are having a lovely Friday and have a lovely weekend. So far no pink polkadots on my little one, so my mood is improving. And plus, Lent is just about halfway over and I’ve survived without any refined sugar! Yay! (I am specifying refined because people keep telling me that EVERYTHING has sugar in it and yes, yes it does, but I’m talking cakes, cookies, ice cream, stuff like that…you know the GOOD stuff.)

Wow. Sometimes America really surprises me. (Read on …)

Today I cleaned Little Girl’s room – as in swept, picked up toys, cleaned out her drawers and put away her laundry. She was in there with me “helping”. I had a plastic storage tub in which I was putting some of her 18 month winter clothes that I knew she wouldn’t be wearing again. She was pulling them out of the tub as fast as I could put them in and carrying them around the room and leaving them other places. Or she was putting them in the drawers I was emptying out. Or trying to pull the clothes out of the drawers I was trying to close without smashing tiny fingers. I finally got that done and went to get the swiffer vac. As I was preparing the floor to sweep, she was carrying the swiffer around the room. Then after I was done, she grabbed it and pushed it around just like I had been doing a few minutes earlier. It’s really quite amusing to see an under three foot toddler pushing around a four(ish) foot swiffer. And while her “help” may not actually be “helpful”, it is definitely entertaining and it’s a lot more fun cleaning up in there than it used to be. I really love being a mom. :)

I’m feeling very grumpy this week. Especially since I found out that my 3 yo niece did NOT have the chicken pox vaccine. I’m not going to go into how absolutely pissed off I am about that right at the moment. But if Little Girl ends up with chicken pox, I will. So you have been warned. Today is the 7th day since she’s been exposed, so we are now in the 7-21 day incubation period. I’ll be checking for pink dots every time I’m near her. Poor kid. She had a tiny pink dot on her tummy last night. I figured it was nothing and just let it go til this morning. And this morning it was gone. So far so good. But I might be a little edgy the next three weeks.

In other funny news, LG has added a new word to her vocabulary this week: “Feh!” when she “throws” Melody’s ball for her to chase. That translates to “fetch” if you were wondering. She knows three words that relate to the dog. Four if you count “ball”. She has also learned how to climb on and off of her little push car and move it backwards and forwards. Mostly backwards, but maybe that means she’ll learn how to drive in reverse quicker than I did. ;)

Songs from the 50s! Coached by the Great Barry Manilow! How can you go wrong? (Read on …)

My vehicle is finally at the dealership getting that whole airbag light issue taken care of. But it’s not coming home until sometime tomorrow because they had to order a part. Yesterday Mike’s truck had a little breakdown and I had to go pick him up at the dealership and then he took my car for the rest of the day. Today he drove my vehicle over to the dealership and switched with his truck. So two days without a car going on three. And it’s not like I would have actually gone anywhere today, but when you can’t go anywhere you feel like you are trapped whether you were going anywhere or not. Ya know? Tomorrow is usually grocery store/run errands day, but I guess that will have to wait until Thursday.

On the other hand, Little Girl is being quite entertaining with her mad skills. This morning the phone rang and she immediately put her hand up to her ear and said “hello?” so I think the whole cause and effect thing has sunk into her little brain quite well thank you! This afternoon I read her a Clifford book for the first time and as soon as she saw the cover she said “Woof!” (which is her word for dog). She can also identify a picture of a dog when you point to it as either a “woof” or a “dahhhh” or point to the picture when you ask her to show you the dog. My daughter is a genius! :D

When trying to get daughter to walk toward you, please do not accidentally call the dog’s name instead of the daughter’s name while I am trying to hold onto said dog to keep her out of the daughter’s face while she walks toward you. It makes that task nearly impossible. Thanks.

Put new batteries in the Elmo guitar. “Jam with Elmo!” “Shake it up!”

If you don’t hear from me for a few days? Check the insane asylum :P

The time goes too fast. They grow so very very fast…too fast. As I read in another post today, don’t blink. Don’t blink or you’ll miss things like:

•Scrapbooking Friday night, chasing a toddler around and trying to keep her out of everyone’s stuff and still get something done.
•Daddy teaching her to ring the doorbell as we came in the house last night after church and then telling her to “do it again” and her doing it without hesitation. How did she learn what those words meant?
•Seeing her toddling around with her cousins when last year at this time she couldn’t even sit up by herself.
•Holding her foot up so I can put on a sock or a shoe.
•Copying my actions when we sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
•Asking her to get a ball and she gets it. Or a book. Or a cup. Or her toy.
•Watching her play keepaway with Melody. And with us.
•Hearing her say “thank you” as clear as a bell – so clear that other people can understand what she is saying.
•Not being able to get her hair to do anything anymore because it’s grown so much and she won’t keep a clip in it so save her life. This time last year, she only had a little fuzz.
•Watching her take the brush from my hands and attempt to brush her hair – with the correct side of the brush at last.
•Stacking cups and stacking blocks and putting things inside of other things and getting them out again.
•Petting the dog and “throwing” the ball for her to fetch.

Where did my tiny helpless totally dependent baby go? Who is this strong-willed independent little girl that has replaced her? One thing is for sure, I love getting to know her. She is truly amazing.

I woke up this morning to the sound of raindrops for the 2nd time in a week. After 143 days with no measureable rain, we’ve had rain 3 out of the last 9 days. I just checked the temperature which sits at 49 degrees at 3 pm. The high is supposed to be 59, but unless the sun makes an appearance soon, I don’t know that it will even hit 50. That’s mighty cold for the desert. By the end of the week, the high is supposed to be 84. And there should be an abundance of green around by then as well. I really wish we could have just all stayed cuddled up in bed all day, but we have to go do music for mass, so we’re all up and getting things ready. It sure would be nice to have a rainy day when all three of us have nothing else to do the whole day. *sigh*

So remember how I went to my in-laws on Thursday to take pictures of my niece, my nephew and my daughter? Yeah, well, apparently my niece has now come down with chicken pox. Little Girl got the vaccine with her 12 month shots, but there is still a 10% chance that a child will come down with the chicken pox (albeit a mild case, but still). So now we have to wait 3 weeks to see if the nasty little blisters appear on my daughter. I think I’m going to cry. Send good warding off chicken pox thoughts our way okay? *sniffle*

We went to Red Lobster for lunch and had a lovely time. Little Girl entertained the old ladies sitting near us by smiling and waving and saying “hieee” to them and they made a point of stopping by to talk to her as they left. Which makes me feel good of course.

Then my husband decided that since we were halfway to where he had to go for a client meeting, he’d just drag take us along with him since it “would be quick”. Famous last words. We met the client and then had to follow her to BFE. We drove and drove and drove and drove and drove. And all the stuff that I needed to get done today didn’t get done. We finally got home and I had about an hour and a half left before I had to leave for scrapbooking.

One thing I had to do anyway was put in a load of laundry for Little Girl because she was out of clean jammies, so I did manage to get a load of her clothes washed and in the drier before we left.

Scrapbooking was fun – the chatting and the girl time. Little Girl wasn’t walking the last time we had a scrapbook night and she was everywhere and in everything. She exhausted me until she finally went to sleep for awhile. Maybe that’s why my creative juices weren’t flowing so much. I think i only got two or three pages done.

—-

Three things that annoyed me today:

On the way home this afternoon we saw a teenager dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. Okay that’s normal right? Except for the fact that over his t-shirt he was wearing a suit jacket and over his jeans he was wearing plaid shorts. What is that and why does he think it looks cool?

When we stopped to get gas, Mike left the driver’s door open and someone at one of the other pumps was being so kind as to allow the rest of us to listen to his radio along with him. *ahem* The bass was up so frigging loud I literally had to plug my ears because it was causing me physical pain. I really do not understand why people are that inconsiderate. I really don’t. It also woke up Little Girl who had finally decided to take a nap. Jerk.

And finally, on the way home from scrapbooking, as I was driving through the sidestreets near Marlene’s house, I was heading north coming up to a corner and I could see another car heading east coming up to the same corner. When I saw the car I slowed down a bit to see what he was doing (because I do not trust people) and he literally cut across my lane and pulled into the yard of the house I was passing at the time. Idiot.