Chair Fight

So Lena has this chair that she LOVES. She loves to sit in it and watch Shrek. She loves to "surf" on it. And she especially loves to climb on it. She has (unfortunately for me) figured out that she can use it to escape the baby jail, or "thunderdome," in the living room. I point all this out because last night she was forced to defend her sovereign right to the chair and lost. First there was the chair fight. She battled bravely (and loudly) but Tristen was just too big for her. We told both of them that they needed to share the chair which, as you can see, was never really an option. Finally, Lena gave up, played with the legos scattered around the thunderdome, and watched the end of Polar Express. Tristen, as you can also see, was a worthy foe, what with the growling and baring of teeth. Lena retaliated later by comandeering the plastic kitchenette and hiding all the musical instruments, but really the night belonged to T. Right now, Tristen and Lena are mostly adversarial, but I am not looking forward to the day they figure out that there is strength in numbers.

Christmas

So Christmas is over. I find that this year I'm actually glad for it to end. Not because I didn't have a wonderful holiday (I did), but because I'm just tired. It's Wednesday already and I still feel like I'm recuperating. But Lena has a lovely new pink and purple plastic kitchenette (thanks mom) and some loud musical instruments (thanks Gina) to occupy her so it's all good.

We spent Christmas morning at my sister's house so that my parent's grandkids could open presents, swap presents, or fight about presents all together. Apparently, even on Christmas, someone else's toys are much more fun than your own. The older boys, Anthony and Kyle, got game boys, so spent their morning in electronic bliss. Tristen and Helena, however, spent much of the morning deciding who would get the elmo doll and who would get cookie monster. (Lena has Elmo and T. has Cookie in case you wondered.) Nick and Kelly, Who spent the weekend on the aerobed in the living room, were smart and slept in. We spent the evening messing up my parent's house and eating ham and tamales with many cousins. One of these years I will find my grandfather's tamale recipe and make enough to last all year. (I really am still looking, Emily. I promise) Although, there's something about eating tamales on Christmas that makes them extra good.

We will be heading up to Portland soon for Christmas #2. This is the third year we've done this and I find that although I wish our families could all be together for the holidays, there's something nice about prolonging the season. Not nice in a doilies on the couch, "my-what-a-lovely-sweater" sort of way. Nice in a kickin' back on the couch all day listening to Air America sort of way. It's a vacation I look forward to.

So that was my holiday. I hope yours was just as fun.

At least she'll eat tomato sauce

So remember when Lena would eat anything? Anything. Well, not so much anymore. Miss Stiffler has discovered that she has preferences. For example, she would prefer you didn't try to feed her those green beans anymore thank you very much. She would also prefer cookies to those cheerio things you keep trying to pass off as yummy. She knows the difference you know.

So today I tried to feed her the organic spaghetti-o knock offs that she has been eating and proclaiming "nummy" for the last week. After the second bite she gave me the "why-are-you-trying-to poison-me-mother?!" look and refused to open her mouth again. (sound familiar mom? I know you're behind this somehow.) I then pretended to eat the rest of her lunch exclaiming "num num num" with every fake bite. She looked at me, looked at the spoon, grinned, and opened her mouth. I put the food in, smirking and thinking, "ha, joke's on her. See, I'm smarter than a 17 month old." Still grinning, she immediately, spit the food onto her plate and started happily throwing it against the kitchen wall. Ha, joke's on me.

Sick

So much for dodging the sick bullet. Late last night (actually early this morning) I started feeling achy and at about 8am I woke up with a sore throat. Jason stayed home and watched Lena so I could sleep in. I feel a little better for having slept, but still swimmy. I can see why Lena has been so CRANKY these past couple days; this headache sucks. She had a major screaming fit when Jason tried to read to her last night and I was worried she had an ear infection. I called my sister - who, with 3 kids, is the fount of all kid knowlege - and she agreed. But this morning Lena's fine. She lets me touch and put pressure on her ears, no ear redness, she still voraciously sucks on her pacifier and there's no fever. Jason's sure she's fine and just being her cranky and demanding little self. I'm paranoid about ear infections for some reason.

Well, at least we got this out of the way before Chistmas. (Jason was sick like this for a day before Lena got it) I will probably spend the rest of the day cleaning the kitchen and coughing. Lena will spend the day watching dvds and yelling at me because her apple juice is 1 degree colder than she likes it. Wish me luck.

Crappy house, pretty blog.

So my house still looks like tiny, sticky elves ransacked it, but check out my blog! I spent most of this evening editing and posting pictures on my new flickr account and watching Jason play with html. I'm sure my time could have been better spent cleaning the floors or dusting or something else I never do unless someone (or many someones) are coming over. Nick and Kelly are driving down from Palo Alto to spend Christmas weekend with us, which means I actually need to clean under the couch since they sleep on the aerobed in close proximity to the floor and the aformentioned elves which, I believe, live under the couch.

One thing I realized today is that along with the house, I must also clean Lena's toys. They are covered in dried apple juice. Some of you may remember that I had a hard time just getting her to drink apple juice (or anything that didn't cost $30 a carton). I am now regretting that effort. My new goal is sippy cups - the future does not look clean for me.

Cuddle Bunny

Lena is sick. Not anything terrible, just a cold. She ran a fever between 101 and 102 on Saturday (which is why we missed the reindeer romp at the LA Zoo) but her temperature has been normal since. Thing is, because she's not feeling well, she's been really cuddly and she's NEVER cuddly. I feel sort of guilty for enjoying the affection since she obviously feels icky, but it's been so nice. Over the weekend all she wanted to do was sit on my lap and watch Shrek 2 for the millionth time. So, while my house still looks like crap and we have no Christmas tree, I had a fulfilling weekend. Hours of cuddling can do wonders for a person.

She's feeling better today as evidenced by her happy dance at the Mongo attacks part of Shrek. (yes, she's still watching movies - well movie) so no more love for me. Now I have to clean my house. Damn.

It's all about me... ME!

Testing .. testing ... Marty, could we bring up the high end a little bit?
is this on? it is? good....
Hi to everyone reading this (okay, Hi mom). So look, I've started a blog. I'm not really sure why just yet. Yes yes, there's the "keep everyone updated on the doings of Lena" aspect, but I think it might have more to do with the internal monologue set to to turbo in my head. I've been a stay-at-home mom for more than a year now, and while I would not trade this time for all the tea in China (and I hear there's a lot of tea there), I need an outlet for the constant conversation I seem to have with myself. Don't worry, it's not paranoid schizophrenia- no voices telling me to drive of a cliff- more like the ramblings to which I used to subject my co-workers and to which I will now subject you who choose to read this.

I can't say I'm bored since Helena is nothing if not entertaining company, but I do need adult conversation now and again. My friend Deb and I started a mommy group and it's looking promising. The mommies are all great, as are their kids. However, Lena is still in the all-roads-lead-to-my-mouth stage so I spend more time chasing her around than having interesting, indepth conversations with the others. I will be teaching an evening course (English 1A - composition) beginning in January, and though my students are certainly adults, the conversation is mostly one way. so... enter this blog. I'm hoping it will be fun. You should keep posted to see.