Lucky Number Seven

Tomorrow will be my 7th wedding anniversary. Every time I tell people that they say "ooooh, the seven year itch, huh?" Well, I've had about enough of that. I've been lucky enough to have had 7 years of a really good marriage. There have been way more highs than lows. I won't tempt fate by saying we have been blissfully happy, but it's been pretty dang good. So there world! Here's to at least 7x7 more!

*whew*

So, Hurricane Fay fizzled into nothing before we even woke up this morning. There were some strong winds and it rained all day long, but really, it was a lovely relaxing day. It was wonderful to hang out with the girls all day, and I even had a nap. And for lunch my husband made us grilled cheese sandwiches, and he makes the best ones in existence.

I could take more hurricanes like this one.

Waiting for doooooom

Well, not really. In fact, we will probably be just fine. But we're waiting for Tropical Depression/Potential Hurricane Fay to hit and its best to not be under-prepared. Which we are definitely not. We have food (and snacks!), water, light, batteries and entertainment. Not to mention the day off work tomorrow. We will bunker down behind our non-plywood-covered windows and try to pretend that all is well. We've been through hurricanes before (we lost a nice chunk of our roof to Wilma in 2005), but this time we have two little girls and they're old enough to catch on when things aren't going right. So keep your fingers crossed for us!

The bugs! The bugs!

So, I don't like e-mail forwards much. Well, I don't mind reading them, but I rarely if ever forward them. But I got one today that majorly tickled my funny bone. Mostly because it's painfully true.

Florida Blessing

Bless this house Oh Lord we cry
Keep it cool in mid-July
Bless the walls where termites dine
While ants and roaches march in time.
Bless our yard while spiders pass the fire-ant castles in the grass.
Bless the garage, the home to please Carpenter Beetles, ticks and fleas.
Bless the love bugs two by two, the gnats and mosquitos that feed on you.
Millions of creatures that fly or crawl, in Florida, Lord, you've put them all.
But this is home, and here we'll stay, so thank you Lord for insect spray.


Ahhhhh. If only I knew who the credit for that little gem goes to.

Come in!

Occasionally about an hour after my husband puts Elizabeth to bed we start to hear a little rustling over the monitor (the one we'll keep in her room until she's ten if she doesn't catch on), a little shaking of Effel (a once pink elephant with a barely functioning rattle inside). We hear a few whimpers (totally for effect), and a little voice calls out "Come ih-in.....come ih-in". Boy that's really hard to spell. Imagine it very singsongy. If you check on her she pops up in her crib (we'll keep her in that until she realizes that she can climb out any time she wants to), and says "Hi!!!! I peed!"
Even though we bicker over whose turn it is NOT to check on her, I have to say it's nice to see her again so soon and maybe get a little cuddle since I'm in charge of nighty-nighting the baby sister. But let's not tell my husband that!

Laughing

I was thinking that I didn't have anything to post about today, when it ocurred to me that the very nature of a ramble is that it doesn't have to be related to anything in particular. So I would just like to state for the record that I really like the way my girls giggle. Elizabeth laughs like a little waterfall. Very musical and burbly. Is that a word? It's a beautiful sound. And Lilli chortles just as musically and sounds so happy that sometimes I tickle her when I'm supposed to be putting her to bed. They are sweet, sweet happy little girls, and I'm a lucky Mama.

Sometimes I wonder...

Have you ever heard of "Brown Bottle Flu"? Me neither. However, my Subway...baristo? Server? Guy? We'll go with "Guy getting our sandwiches together". Anyway, he was apparently newly 21 and very proud of it. Now, I'm not a drinker, but even I am pretty sure that it is impossible to drink 9 boilermakers, 7 shots, 3 Appletinis and a Long Island Ice Tea without dying. No matter how beefy someone happens to be. At least it seems far-fetched to me. But apparently this gentleman's only after effect was a massive hangover. i.e. this new variety of flu. I don't think that's the only thing he was suffering from though. No wonder my sub tasted a little funny.

8-8-08

Well, of COURSE I would write about the date. I've honored this kind of date annually since I started my first non-electronic journal when I was 12 or 13. Doesn't matter whether it is 9-4-94 or 8-8-08, I get a little thrill out of any kind of numerical symmetry. I salute 11:11 whenever I happen to catch it. I was strongly hoping that my Lilli would be born a week early and come on 7-7-07. Instead, I got 7-14-07 (which also has lovely symmetry), 4:44am, and 7lbs, 7oz. Just as pretty if you ask me. I did read about this little baby in Minnesota named Haley who was born this morning at 8:08am AND weighed 8lbs 8oz. Now that is as good as it gets.

Zoom!

It ocurred to me that I haven't really mentioned much about my baby. Well, if you can call a freshly turned one-year-old a baby. She's my baby anyway. I've been wondering for a while just how much she understands since at this age her sister was a lot more verbal (although just barely cruising go figure, while the little one toddles at top speed). Lilli's vocabulary consists of "Mama", "Dada", "Papa", "Up" and "Buh!" That last one was "bird". Sometimes when I ask her questions (such as "where's your ear?") I get a nice blank look. "Were you speaking to ME, Mama?" So today I was trying to get her to demonstrate to her Grandpa that, as I've been telling him but somehow he has never seen, that she can, indeed, say "bird". More or less. So, she wasn't particularly co-operative despite that fact that her big sister was helpfully "bird"ing and tweeting right in her face. So, I sighed heavily and said "Where's your sister?" Her little pointing finger zoomed out so fast she almost took my nose off. This was a first. Thrilled, I clapped excitedly and said, "Where's Papa?" Zoom! Out came the finger. "Where's Mama?" That was greeted with a pointed stare. As in "DUH!" Dejectedly giving up again. I sighed and said "Oh Lilli". ZOOM! The little finger pointed right smack dab at her chest. So she does understand. She just chooses not to talk about it. Thank heavens for baby sign.

F-L-O-R-I-D-A. That Spells "Bear"!

This was something my two-year-old said this morning while she was getting her diaper changed.

Side tangent: Yes, she'll be three in September and she's not potty trained. So shoot me. If you ask her she clearly says "I don't want to use the potty, I pee in my diaper!" Bribes don't work, threats don't work, let her run around bare bottomed and she holds it indefinitely. She's got my number and she knows it. Because her lack of pottying, when she has all the skills and can perform perfectly fine when she feels like it, totally stresses me out. So I'm trying to play it cool. I have a chart on the wall opposite the potty with a picture of Dora's backpack (a toy she wants desperately), stickers handy, a cute potty seat or three, I casually mention all her friends who use the potty, and that's where I'm leaving it. My mother keeps reassuring me that she won't go to college in diapers. I wonder though. If she can find someone to change them...

Anyway. She's been able to say the alphabet and recognize all her letters since she was around 20 months old. She also counts (to thirty!) and sings (the entire first verse of the Star Spangled Banner on key among other things) and does random other smartypants stuff. She's just now getting interested in spelling and what letters make up words even though she has been able to recognize a couple words on sight for a while. And she names every business we go by on our way down a major street in our town. I think that's just a memory thing though. So, she always wants me to spell words for her, although the only one she can do on her own is Wal-Mart. That's spelled W-A-L-star-M-A-R-T in case you were wondering. But she THINKS she can spell. This morning my dad handed her a stuffed beanie bear that happens to be bright orange and have "Florida" on its tummy. Hence the title of this post.

Amazing

You know what made my older daughter ridiculously happy today? The kind people at Beall's stamped her little hand with "70% off". You would have thought they gave her a million bucks. Or at least a new toy.

You know what makes my baby happy? Meeeeeeeeeee. :)

Owwwwww

Just thought I would mention that Pump it Up locations should be used by the Army for basic training. My older daughter went to a birthday party there last Saturday. It's a franchise of an indoor play gym of the bounce house variety. Not being 3 yet, she needed assistance on some of the inflated climbing walls and obstacle courses. Having left Daddy and baby sister at home for a nap, guess who got to assist? Yep. We spent a good 40 minutes in each of two play areas and I was pooped before we got to the second room. Where I encountered the Inflatable Maze of Doom. Through a tube, under a low hanging "beam" over a slippery hill with no handholds (I pretty much had to throw myself over that one), up a higher hill, through another tube past a blockade, and up a climbing wall to a slide. Over and over again. Because of course a certain small someone thought it was the best thing ever.

I still hurt.

Oh, the Love.

A nice thing about having two little girls, that I didn't expect, is that so far they get along.

I hope it lasts.

Line Jumpers (p.s. mild Breaking Dawn spoiler contained, so bear that in mind please)

Let me tell you a story about a story. I'm a fan of the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. I'm not completely rabid, although I do listen to a shockingly large number of Twilight related podcasts. If you are somehow not familiar with the series, it is "Young Adult" fiction that can really be summed up by my saying that Human girl and Vampire boy teenagers fall in love and chaos ensues. I was extremely excited anticipating the release of Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the series, today. Or maybe by the time I finish typing this, yesterday. Excited to the point that I made plans to attend my first ever "release party". I enjoyed the Harry Potter series, but had no interest in wandering around a bookstore late at night with a bunch of teenagers dressed up as various wizards and witches. Apparently I don't mind wandering around with a bunch of vampires though.

Anyway, my friend (we'll call her "C", she's not really into being splashed all over the internet) agreed to attend with me. She has had limited exposure to the books, mostly an ill-fated dalliance with the audiobook version of New Moon. What she knows about the series has mostly come from me. But she likes release parties. So, after much contemplation (Borders or Barnes and Noble? Borders or Barnes and Noble? What to do? What SHOULD we do?) we made our plans, left our little ones in the care of their daddies, and off we went to our event (Borders).

It was a good time. Lotttts of teenagers though. C and I fall into the category of "Twilight Moms" so we were in the minority. Have I mentioned that the teenyboppers were EXTREMELY excited? I mean, I was excited, enough to periodically spasm with joy, but I can't say I did a lot of shrieking. We did semi-dress up though. Amazing how a red satin ribbon draped over a black shirt looks like the cover of "Eclipse". Well, I had pre-ordered my copy of Breaking Dawn and requested that it be shipped to the store. But I did it kind of late so I fully expected that I wouldn't be picking up my book this (yesterday) morning when everyone got in line at Midnight. But I happened to call, and my book was there, locked up in the managers office. And I found out that I wasn't going to have to wait in line. They were just going to hand me my book. My buddy C, who, remember, has not read the books, got herself on the waitlist at the store just for fun, and picked up a raffle ticket. The two big prizes of the entire event were to be first in line to buy your book. Or get a free book. So guess who won the free book? Yep, you guessed it. The one person in the store who would take this triumph totally in her stride. Yep. She was too busy putting everything back in her purse to even shriek a little. Hearts were broken last night. To her credit though, she was pleased. Free is always a good thing.

We casually sauntered up to the front preparing for 12:01, completely and totally skipping the pushing shoving mass of teenage girls. I was the second person in the store to get my copy, she got her free copy and we ran for it. And I got to read the whole thing unspoiled. Ahhhhhhhh. Bearing in mind I did that though, I should probably go to bed.

But before I go, here is my only spoiler about the book. It had a happy ending. And that's my kind of ending. I love you Stephenie Meyer!

The Five Ws

Who: Rachel, working mama of two little girls, married to a pretty fantastic husband
What: This blog/online journal/outlet for rambling. But don't expect it to be fancy.
Where: South Florida
Why: I type faster than I handwrite, so this is much better for journaling purposes. Also I've been a blog lurker for many years, but finally realized just how many people I know are doing this and I decided to jump on the bandwagon. It's nice up here, I play tambourine.
When: Well, we'll see about that. But I suspect it will happen pretty often. Babies generate lots of material to go on and on about.

Welcome!