monday miscellany

1) Henry is 8 weeks old today. He's quite a happy guy. I even got some real laughs out of him yesterday. Wish I'd gotten them on video.

2) Chris and I got stuck in a revolving door on Thursday. We're pretty cool people. See, we thought we could fit together, with Henry's stroller, in one section of the revolving door into Children's Hospital. By the time we got ourselves all the way inside, it was apparent that the door was not, in fact, meant to fit two adults and a baby in a stroller within one of its sections. We were wedged in there so tight that we couldn't really move at all. We had to inch our feet forward in tiny little shuffling steps in order to move, and as we shuffled I entered a state of laughing hysteria. It was the funniest thing I'd experienced in a long time. So, imagine sitting in the lobby of a busy hospital building and seeing two people and a stroller wedged in the revolving door, shuffling inch by inch, while the lady is doubled over in hysterics. And then I kept laughing pretty much all the way through the lobby. And I kept laughing when we left after our appointment, drawing some stares in the parking lot. Chris didn't find it funny at all, so now picture a man pushing a stroller through a parking lot, stone-faced, with a lady trailing behind him laughing hysterically. Yep. We're cool.

3) The nicest woman carried a package into the post office for me the other day, when she saw me with Celia, Henry in the stroller, and a big box. I was trying to figure out how I'd get us and the box inside! She offered to help me, and on our way inside she said "I have three kids. It does get better." Haha! I was feeling pretty good that day, but I probably looked totally frazzled anyway. It was nice of her to encourage me. Kind of made my day.

4) We had Celia's birthday party on Saturday. She had the best time. We had some people cancel because it snowed and the roads were bad, but we ended up having just the right number of people anyway. More might have been too much. Celia was so cute and enjoyed seeing her friends who came. She also got some great presents. Highlights were a nice easel (she loves drawing and painting), a sit n spin, remote control car, and a tent with a tunnel.

5) Pita says the cutest things these days. Yesterday we had soup for dinner, and it had celery in it. Celia said, "I don't like celery. Three-year-olds don't eat celery." Then since yesterday was her real birthday, I gave her a cupcake with a candle for dessert. Chris said that I had made the cupcakes all by myself and Celia said "Mommy you must be very tired!" We went upstairs for her bath and Celia was talking about all the people she loves. Then she said, "And everyone loves me, of course". Ha! Then after her bath, Pita was talking about wearing her pull-up overnight and she said "I'm gonna surprise you and show you how dry I am!" She's so funny. I never get tired of hearing what she comes up with.

6) Speaking of that soup, I made up my own vegetable soup yesterday because we had lots of leftover cut vegetables from Celia's party. My mom thought of making a soup with them, so I did. I just heated a whole lot of broth, added garlic and some leftover tomato paste I had in the fridge, a whole lot of leftover vegetables, seasonings, odds and ends of beans, pasta, barley, and lentils from the pantry, and we had ourselves a really tasty soup. Even Celia liked it. Except for the celery. We had enough for dinner with leftovers, and about four or five more meals worth to freeze.

Altogether I got six meals worth of soup out of things I already had languishing in the fridge and pantry. What a great way to use up things that otherwise might not get eaten.

7) I saw this in the local newspaper the other day. How ironic.

8) We stopped at a grocery store I don't usually shop at before music class on Friday morning. Usually, I can't fit Henry's car seat in a grocery cart and still have room to open up the little seat for Celia to sit in. That means either Celia has to walk, or we have to find a tractor-trailer sized cart with a little car in front for her to ride in. But, I discovered that the Shaws shopping carts can fit both Celia and Henry in a regular-sized cart! It made shopping so much easier, so I guess I'll be going there more when I have both kids with me.

9) Chris and I need to figure out some sort of schedule that allows us both to get things done around the house on weekends. We also need to start scheduling times when we each have alone time with Celia and Henry. I have Henry to myself quite a bit, but Chris doesn't. And I would really like to spend time alone with Celia, maybe go out together while Chris watches Henry.

10) Speaking of getting things done, there is so much I want to get done this week. You'd think I'd have plenty of time to get things done now that I'm home all week, but infants sure are good at sucking up time!

Here's to a productive (but not chaotic) week!