Bits and Pieces

This is what happens when I ask each of my girls to smile for the camera:

I think goofy is the default setting for 3.5 year olds.

***

You know how you go along in life thinking this one thing, and then find out you're actually wrong, and it's all kinds of embarrassing? Yeah. That. So.

Some examples:

The Secretary of Defense has a name, and it's not Lee Onpanetta. It's Leon Panetta. Where you put the break in those two words does, in fact, make a big difference, and will also probably cause your partner to laugh at you when you say something about what you heard Onpanetta say on NPR, and he's all confused, and then you clarify.

Also: my mom had a hearty laugh at my expense one day when I was much younger (I believe I was in high school at the time), and I said something about Nat King Cole's daughter, Carole King. (His daughter is actually Natalie Cole - at least I knew his daughter was also a famous singer, right?)

My favorite one of these is not mine, but my sister's. One day when she was being an annoying little kid, my brother and I told her that if you ring the doorbell too many times the basement would flood. See, she was ringing the doorbell repeatedly, and my parents had just had a very stressful time dealing with a flooded basement, so this made an impression. So much so that she still believed this to be true until one day, when she was about 15, she panicked when her friend started ringing the doorbell repeatedly. She started to tell her why she shouldn't do it, when halfway through her sentence, it clicked that we were full of crap, and had tricked her.

Ahhh, good times.

***

Gabbie had a tough day yesterday, starting with excitement due to preschool happenings (it was green day, our snack day, show and tell day, and I was coming in to read a book to her class), and then went into a nose dive when she realized I was going to leave her at school when I left after reading the book. She starting hysterically sobbing, and was crying on and off for the next three hours, upsetting her friends and disturbing some other kids' nap time. I feel horrible about it all - about having to go back to work and leaving her there, about the teachers having to deal with the crying, about how sensitive she is (and that's all my fault, I was the same way). When she gets like this I can feel it in my heart, because I have so been there.

I explained that I have to work so that we can have a house, and clothes, and toys, and food, and I know she gets it, but she still wants me, and that doesn't change. So, Friday, because she's feeling attention-starved and because she got an awesome report card last night, I'm taking the day off and we're having a day to ourselves. We're thinking about going to the zoo, meeting up with Aaron for lunch, and perhaps some shopping. It should be fabulous.

And now I should go back to working so that I can get everything done and can actually take the day off.

February Details

Here's what ate my February (and most of why I'm so glad it's March):

Sicknesses (diagnosed by doctors): 4 sinus infections (3 for Aaron, 1 for Sophie), 4 ear infections (all Sophie), pink eye (Sophie again)

Sicknesses (not diagnosed by doctors): stomach flu (me and Sophie), random 2-day cold (Gabbie)

Prescriptions: 6 antibiotics (3 each, Aaron and Sophie), eye drops, ear drops, a steroid inhaler and spacer (Aaron)

Number of sick days left, cumulative, entire family (including daycare sick coupons): A Big Fat Zero

It has now been decreed: No one is allowed to get sick for an entire two months at least!

Also, 2 birthday parties (out of four invitations: two overlapped, so we had to choose, and one was at Chuck E. Cheese, and with our run of illnesses, no way was I taking my one healthy child at the time into that house of germs), an impromptu trip up to my parents' house (because we were sick of our four walls), and all the other things that go into making a 4-week month seem like it lasts a year.

I'm not going to comment on how everyone is doing now, because I don't want to jinx anything. However, I will comment that I'm going home for lunch today because I feel like I've been punched in the face, so I've scheduled a lunch date with my neti pot. (Dammit.)

Dubious Superpowers and Two Other Fun Things

1. I'm convinced that everybody has a superpower of some sort. I have two, but they're not the best superpowers to have. They are always chosing the seat at a table that is right in front of the table leg (I often come away from conferences/meetings and formal events with a bruised shin) and the ability to travel down any road that the pothole filling truck has just visited. My car suffers greatly from that second one - I'm always having to take it through the carwash to rinse off the tar and rocks.

2. Sophie has started saying hi, and it's adorable. It's especially adorable because she likes to walk around the house and say hi every time she enters a room, occupied or not. Since our house is arranged in a loop, she walks around in circles saying hi repeatedly, while waving and smiling. I love having little kids for reasons like this one.

3. Aaron has been training for a 10K, which takes place in one of my very favorite places on earth (Traverse City, MI) on Memorial Day weekend. This is a pretty big race, so hotels have, of course, raised their rates for that weekend accordingly. We've stayed at a couple bed and breakfasts up there, and with the hotel rates being even higher than the B&B rates, we booked a room at our favorite for the weekend. This is also a weekend that is proceeded by me attending a meeting in New Orleans during the early part of the week. Gabbie turns four (!!!) that Friday, and then we have the following Monday off work. This is shaping up to be the best week ever, for serious.

Two? Three?

Ever since Sophie hit the one year mark, and started being more toddler than baby, Aaron and I have been having "the talk." The "are we good with two" talk. As we put away baby toys, and baby gear that she has outgrown (or set it aside for my brother's baby due this summer), we are experiencing all sorts of feelings and thoughts. I think, if we're just going with feelings, we would like to have another kid. I mean, our family, as it is, would feel fine and complete to me, but there's always room in my heart for more.

Back in November, we were pretty set on trying for another in a couple years. As of right now (and the whining, obnoxious child-filled weekend we just had), two seems to fit us just fine. Babies are a lot of money and time, and we're about at our limit on the availability of both of those things. But, then I see a friend with her nine-week-old, or I finally put away some of Sophie's newborn clothes (and completely tear up over several different tiny oufits), and I'm not so sure.

So I think we're officially on the no-plan plan. If we do ever have another kid, it won't be until Gabbie is in grade school (there's no way in hell we can afford three in daycare), which is a little later than we'd like to have kids. But, oh, another tiny baby would be so awesome.

How does anyone ever make this decision?