Odd Bits

Questions:
My crockpot manual says it has a programmable cooking setting for up to 26 hours. HOURS? What on earth would you need to cook for that long? Shoe leather?

Do you buy that the groundhog said late winter? (says she who is awaiting 6 inches of snow tomorrow afternoon......) Come on, Winter started like 2 months early! Surely that means early Spring, right?

What kinds of things would you suggest to help hand eye motor skills? (Lil'Bug is frustrated she cannot draw the pictures in her head or operate a keyboard mouse with accuracy....is this the excuse we needed to get a Wii? I know, she's only 3, but she's frustrated!)

Photo Challenge 5- Create

I know. Again, with the vague word. Do what you want with it! What it will mean for me this week is to document everything we create: art, food, atmosphere, friendship. I am having trouble this weekend and today with blogger- both the spell check and the photo upload are not working, so my Release photo will be released once I am able!

Busy-ness and Return of The Evil Sniffles

This weekend we had two birthday parties to attend, plus Dear Husband's band practice was moved to Saturday to accommodate Super Bowl Sunday. Oh, and all the times were the same. Gah. I worked out a plan so all could happen and we set to our day. At noon, the first call came in, party #1: birthday child is very sick, party will be rescheduled. Call number 2, birthday party #2: family member died, party rescheduled for Sunday. THEN Dear Husband became really ill and canceled going to band practice. Suddenly our super busy Saturday became a relaxed family day. Lil'Bug, not happy about another day of disappointing cancelations, asks to go to Grampa's house.

We did the kid exchange at the grocery store, took care of the week's shopping and picked up Pirates of the Caribean 2&3. Lovely. Except that Dear Husband was really sick, so I had to load and mostly unload/put away groceries (he did carry them from the truck to the front of the house for me). He said I could blog that because once I typed Johnny Depp pirate movies, no one would remember that he put his pregnant wife on grocery detail in the ice and bitter wind. Perhaps. He was really sick and I am not an invalid, just pregnant. He's still really sick. I get to kick back next to a steaming hot radiator with a nice cup of tea and blog while he had to shovel the walks and go to work across town.

Lil'Bug is sick again. Just when we thought she was over it, the same crud came back, complete with the red face rash and evil snots.

I'm posting the photo challenge right now. Then I'll go make butter.

Yoga, Art, and Friends

We did a lot of art this week. I still need to clean up the chaos, but it was well worth the time we spent together, creating.

This week something clicked. Many moms have been blogging about their young tots needing more attention, structure, activity, ect. This last month has been strained here at Chez Podkayne and I just wrote it off as post holiday burn out.

Hmmmm. I was wrong. Lil'Bug was bored. B O R E D. She needed to level up. How do I know this? She picked out Magic Tree House books and wanted me to read them to her. Now, instead of reading time lasting 3 minutes and then exploding in mutual frustration, she begs me to read more and more and more. She asks questions. She imagines her self in the story and makes new story lines. She tries to say the "big" words when we encounter them like sarcophagus. At the museum, she asked more advanced questions too. Board games have finally clicked with her as have computer games.

Another brain spurt indeed. Once I figured this out and engaged her, started strewing "better stuff" (her words), then the tantrums and grumps dissolved.

Then there's yoga. I've never done yoga before but my midwife suggested it as a low impact exercise and stress reducer. So I bought a DVD and started by just watching it. The next day, I followed along for the warm ups and then was pooped. The next day, Dearest Husband bought me a rug because most of it is floor work and my hardwood floors are frigid. I could then do about 25 minutes and then for the rest of the video I repeated the stretches.

My hands, for the first time in a long time, were not vampire cold. I felt warm all over. Circulation improvement indeed. Then I slept better than I have in a long time.

Still, I didn't realize how out of shape I was. My thoughts on exercise have always been away from "meaningless" machine workouts and more toward house work and outdoor play- like Karate Kid- wax on, wax off. Up and down the ladder, up and down the stairs. Go go go. But this yoga stuff is different. 1) It addresses stress and... 2) circulation 3) strength is built from poses not weights.

It feels right.

Also, many of the poses are exactly what the Bradley exercises are. I can barely do them, so it is good I have a foundation and guide to work from.

Then, the update on the play date on Thursday. I think it went well. Her daughter and mine played awesome together. We caught up. She made the tastiest blueberry banana bread. I was not stressed out before like I thought I might be, but a little bit after. Over analyzing everything, worried I'd said the wrong thing, etc. but that passed quickly. All is well.

Friday did not go as smoothly as I'd planned. We were supposed to go snowshoeing at 10am. Fine, I leave for all events like this about an hour early. We suited up, packed out bags and then I told Lil'Bug to find her boots.

Yup. No boots. Left in Daddy's truck the night before with her gloves. It's 30 degrees out and we are not going on an outdoor nature hike without proper raiments and footwear. So we headed out to the suburb where Daddy works and by the time we had acquired the missing gloves and boots, we were too late for the class about 30 minutes away.

Lil'Bug was devastated.

We headed out to the mall and the play place to try and find something closer for her to do. She was still sad and angry but felt better after a huge fruit smoothie. She hung out at the book store for a while too. Somewhere in there my throat became red, itchy, and inflamed and, well, I became nauseous and all that goes with that. We stopped by and visited Grampa before heading home, but by the time we got home I was out and out sick. Good thing we didn't do the winter hike!

Wow. Long post. Whew. Now I feel caught up!