Did I mention we went for a walk after dinner last night? The four of us: Mike, Little Girl (in her stroller), Melody and me. All was going well until we were almost home and all of a sudden Melody’s leash broke. Talk about a major shot of adrenaline. We don’t live too close to any major streets, and most of the streets in our neighborhood are dead ends, but still. It was almost dark and Melody is not really good at coming when you tell her to. Luckily, she’s really good at sitting. And staying. And so Mike got her to sit. And stay. And he was able to grab what was left of her leash and we walked to rest of the way home with no further incidents. I don’t like that kind of adrenaline. Time to get a new leash.

I haven’t written a lot about Melody lately, but today I need to sing her praises. Not only does she let Little Girl poke her in the eye, pull her ears, shove things into her mouth, pull things out of her mouth, pull her tail, half-sit on her, yank her feet and legs around, go near her when she eats, feed her all sorts of interesting things, hug her, “pat” her (not always gently), kiss her (Mwah!), and various other things with never a growl or a snap to be heard, today Little Girl decided to use her as a stepstool to try and reach something on the table. Luckily, I was right next to them and made her stop as soon as I saw what she was doing, but the dog, to her credit, didn’t move until LG was safely back on her own two feet, didn’t growl, didn’t snap, didn’t even react in any other way except to gaze at me with that “why do you let her torture me so” look on her face. LG got a little bit in trouble. “We do not climb on the dog!” And Melody got some major praise. “Good girl! You are such a good girl!” And pets. So yes, I think Melody qualifies as the most patient dog ever. Even LG has learned how to say “good girl”.

I sit here on the front porch of my house enjoying the last of the cool weather that we have enjoyed this weekend. Well, it’s cool by our standards. It didn’t even hit 90 yesterday and today the high was about 93. By the end of the week we’ll be pushing 110, which is when I officially use the word “hot” (can’t psyche myself out too early you know) and we won’t look back until about the middle of October. It stinks that I was sick this weekend and spent most of the time lounging in bed while Mike became the primary caregiver to Little Girl. Anyway, I’m sitting on my front porch typing on my laptop and enjoying the weather. Are you jealous?

We did have a good weekend. Mike was home a lot and took over taking care of LG and that was nice for me as I actually got some rest and relaxation that I needed. I even woke up this morning without a sore throat.

Yesterday for dinner I gave LG yogurt and even let her try her hand with the spoon for a change and she actually got a few bites in right side up before she decided that chewing on the spoon was more fun than eating off of it. So I fed her the rest of her yogurt with another spoon. Hey, whatever works.

The yogurt didn’t all go in her mouth of course, so i decided to give her a bath before bedtime. When I went to take off her clothes, I discovered a poopy diaper (still can’t smell those…hehehe) so I took her to her changing table to wipe her down. Then I let her run down the hall to the bathroom naked. Once we were in the bathroom, I had to adjust the temperature of the water slightly, so I let her walk around the room sans diaper. I turned around to get her into the tub and I saw a puddle. Yep, she peed on the floor. Hey, at least it wasn’t in the tub. *sigh*

Mike surprised me this morning by telling me he wasn’t going to work. Whoa. I had myself all prepared to be alone with the munchkin all day and surprise! I wasn’t. So I took the opportunity to go to Michael’s and Target all by myself. That was nice.

I spent the last week eating only healthy things. I actually went 7 entire days without putting a bite of junk into my mouth. I’m not sure it worked since number one, I got sick and number two, I was feeling weak and dizzy by lunchtime today. My body must have been in shock. ;-) Anyway, I also made sure to drink at least 64 ounces of water per day and I was supposed to also be working out, but being sick sort of messed that part up. I did manage to lose 5 pounds in a week, though, and that’s not too bad. I was supposed to do the healthy eating thing for 10 days, but I gave in today because I wasn’t feeling so good and had some ice cream and some Mexican food for dinner. I feel much better now.

Had I know Mike was going to be home today, I would have planned to barbecue and make home-made ice cream or something. And of course this morning we talked about all the things around the house we could get done, and we got exactly nothing done. But who cares? We all need a big fat day of doing nothing once in awhile.

Hope your weekend was wonderful!

…slip and fall down against the stairway closet door making a very loud noise and when I rush over to make sure you’re okay, open your mouth only slightly to cry letting me see the piece of red apple peel you are still chewing on, which upon first glance, made it look like you had a mouth full of blood.

We bought cabinet hardware today. Finally. This is basically what they look like. And there is a whole long story to go with them, but I do not feel like trying to type it and you probably do not feel like reading it anyway. Suffice it to say, that we went back to Home Depot Expo to see what they had gotten in compared to what they had last week, and they had yet a third different run of the same pull. But we decided we were okay with them after we found them at The Great Indoors for the same price but at 15% off. They only had 33 of them, though, and we needed 43. Yes, you read that right. 43 freaking pieces of cabinet hardware. So we went back to Home Depot Expo and got ten more at regular price (which is not the price on the link above - it was less thank goodness). I will talk more about the cabinet hardware later. But anyway, we have now picked out pretty much everything for the kitchen except the fabric for the curtains. Finally.

I still don’t feel all that well, so doing even just that little bit wiped me out and when we got home, I crawled back in bed leaving Mike in charge of Little Girl.

He went outside to do some yardwork (pulling weeds and trimming some of the trees) and took her with him. She had a marvelous time, playing in the rocks and exploring and just being an almost 18 month old. Mike got his work done even though he had to stop now and then to chase down a wandering toddler.

When they came in and I questioned his sanity because he let her get *gasp* dirty and he in turn related to me how much fun she had, I realized that was yet another reason that we compliment each other so well.

Let me confess something about myself - even as a child I was what you might describe as “anal” for lack of a better word. My mother told me that if I got one speck of dirt on my clothes, I demanded that she change them - even when I was a toddler. My mom did a lot of laundry. I have no idea why I was that way - I’m not quite that ridiculous nowadays, but I guess in some strange way I’m trying to project that onto Little Girl.

Luckily, Little Girl could care less if she gets a little dirty (or a lot dirty) and also luckily Mike helps me remember that she’s a kid and she needs to act like a kid and dirty clothes are not that big of a deal. That’s what we have washing machines for right?

Mike keeps me grounded. He keeps me from being too stuffy and paranoid and perfectionistic and reminds me that the most important thing in life is to experience it. And that’s what I want for Little Girl…to experience life. Even if it’s just playing in the dirt and the rocks and the sunshine and not worrying about a few little specks of dirt on her clothes.

One positive side effect to having a cold is that I can’t smell Little Girl’s poopy diapers.

But Mike can.

Bwahahahahahaha….

Little Girl: Achoo Achoo

Mike tries to wipe her nose as she turns her head from side to side.

Mike: Yuck! Now I have your snot all over my hand.

Karin: Welcome to parenthood.

I’m trying to stay in bed as much as possible today since my head feels like it’s going to explode and I have a sore throat. Little Girl seems to have pretty much recovered from her bout with whatever lovely virus we have, but it’s still kicking me around. Mike is rearranging his schedule so he can be home a little more today and I can get some much needed rest. So you may not hear much from me today! Then again, I do have a laptop. ;-)

Thirteen Things About Me Today 1. I am very happy that Taylor won American Idol last night although I really did like Katharine’s dress. 2. I am also very happy that the Suns won game one of the Western Conference finals last night. 3. In fact, I switched over to the game during Idol when there were four seconds left and the Suns were down by one. 4. When they scored to go ahead, I screamed so loudly that I made Little Girl cry and Melody bark. 5. I felt so bad for scaring her and making her cry, but I tried to make it up to her by cuddling with her. 6. Our old dogs were used to me going crazy over sports. 7. In fact, BobDog would actually run out of the room and hide whenever he saw basketball on the television - even if it was just a commercial about basketball. I was known to bang on the floor with my hands in those days. 8. I am too afraid of getting my heart broken again (think Suns/Bulls 1993) to get too excited about them winning though. I am taking one game at a time. 9. I still can’t hear or see the name John Paxson without cringing. *cringe* 10. As noted in the title of this post, I have a cold today. My head is stuffed up, I’ve gone through half a box of Kleenex and my throat kinda hurts. 11. Little Girl also has a bit of a cold. She has been coughing and snuffling a bit, and I think she has a little bit of a sore throat because she doesn’t want to drink a lot. So I bribed her with wuice (juice and water) and she drank a whole sippy cup full which made me feel better. 12. The Lost finale was amazing and is going to drive me crazy all summer long. WHO are the Others? And why did they want Jack, Kate and Sawyer? 13. Last night Little Girl was trying to get Melody to let go of something, so she kept yelling “GO!” at her. That kid just melts my heart with the cuteness. :) Check out the Auto Link and visit the new Thursday Thirteen website. Please only leave your link if you’ve done a Thursday Thirteen. And leave a comment too to make me feel good. :) Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Thursday Thirteen will be up later. I am tired after the drainingly long American Idol finale and also I still have to watch the Lost finale so it’s just not happening until later folks.

Public Service Announcement: If you don’t want to know who won, do NOT read this post. (Read on …)

Yes, I know the Idol finale is not over yet, but I really have to talk about the originals they sang last night, because really…. (Read on …)

Whose voice will reign supreme? (Read on …)

Dooce wrote a very interesting post today talking about how she worries about telling her daughter she is beautiful and smart because she doesn’t want her sense of self tied to those quantifiers. She wants her to know that she is loved not because of those things but because of who she is.

It got me to thinking. “Beautiful” is a pet name I call Little Girl all the time. Because she is. I also tell her how smart she is when she does something new or shows us she can do something we’ve asked her to. And I give her a round of applause. Sometimes she’ll even give herself a round of applause when she has accomplished something like putting the plastic rings on the post or stacking the cups. If that’s not self-esteem, I don’t know what is.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to tell her she’s beautiful or smart or funny or sweet or kind. I think kids need to hear those things. I know I sure did and I didn’t always hear them when I was little. Not because my parents didn’t think that about me, but because they didn’t want me to be “conceited”. I often wonder if my self esteem would have been greater had my parents said those things to me instead of holding back. I don’t want her to be conceited. But neither do I want her to ever doubt that she is beautiful, that she is smart, that she is funny, that she is kind or that she is loved. I don’t think you can ever say those things to your child too many times. As long as you don’t say I love you BECAUSE you are beautiful or BECAUSE you are smart. That’s when I think a child’s sense of self becomes intertwined with beauty or brains or whatever. I think you need to just say “I love you” out of the blue and often. I don’t think saying it often takes away the meaning at all. I also think that a child needs to know that their parents believe they are the prettiest/handsomest/cutest/smartest/funniest or whatever because every child needs to be the best to at least one person in the world. And that should be their parent. Of course, I only have one child, so that makes it a bit easier.

I think it’s Dr. Phil that says children look for your eyes to light up when they walk into the room. That’s how they know you love them. My eyes do light up when I see her. My heart swells. And I can’t help but tell her she is beautiful because to me she is the most beautiful thing on earth. But it’s not necessarily physical beauty that I’m speaking of here. She is physically beautiful. But when I look at her, I don’t just see a beautiful child, I see a dream come true. I see the love between my husband and me in physical form. I see the future and I see the past. I see my heart living outside of my body. And I see nothing wrong with telling her that again and again.

Mike has definitely been on top of his game the past two days. Last night, he suggested giving Little Girl some Tylenol when she went to bed to help with the teething pain and get her to sleep through the night (hopefully). It worked like a charm. Not a peep out of her all night, which meant I slept very well also. So I wasn’t so tired today.

And he got a call to do a church gig tonight and he actually asked me before he accepted it. Well, technically he accepted it on the condition that he would talk to me first and make sure it was okay, but I’ll take that. Just being respectful of me!

So, I think I’ll keep him. ;-)

Teething officially sucks. Okay, I know I probably do not have it near as bad as some people have had it when they’re kids have been teething, but man. Little Girl is cranky. Well, cranky for her. Which means she whines a lot and cries at things she wouldn’t normally cry out. Whiny crying. You know the kind. And she doesn’t sleep soundly. Which means last night she woke up at least four times during the night and cried for a few minutes. She didn’t cry long enough or upsettish (yes I made that word up - shut it) enough that I actually had to get out of bed to go check on her. But it still woke me up. And then I had to manage to get back to sleep. So I didn’t sleep very well last night. And I’m tired. And yes, I know that many of you have probably had to get up and go to the child and hold the child and listen to the child constantly cry all night long and you’re thinking to yourself “puhleez Karin, cry me a river when you have something to really complain about”. But, see the thing is, when you’re used to sleeping soundly through the night (unless your hubby’s snoring wakes you up of course), it’s hard to deal with NOT sleeping soundly through the night.

So bottom line, she’s cranky. And clingy. I’m tired. And cranky. Mike has been conspicuously absent most of the day. Sure he has some excuse about filling in for the music director at another church and doing our regular weekly mass tonight (which I’m not at because I’m so tired and she’s so cranky - for her), but I think he just doesn’t want to deal with it.

(Joking! He would totally deal with it if he didn’t have to work!)

But yeah, teething sucks. At least there are only 8 teeth left to cut. :P

Here is a link to the tile we chose.

We got the first two on the page: Country Polished and Country Bright Satin and also the Country Polished trim. The demo kitchen we saw had a checkerboard pattern between the polished and satin, but one of the satin boxes was gone, so it will have to be a little more random with the satin tiles.

Here is a picture of some of the tile actually in a kitchen.

Since we have black appliances, black slate countertop and stainless steel stovetop and sink, I think it’s going to really help tie everything together.

My original idea had been to have a mosaic for the backsplash, but when I saw this, it all just sort of clicked for me! And Mike agreed, so that helped…lol!