Fashion Forward?

Yes, that IS an inside-out pajama shirt being upcycled as a skirt. AND another t-shirt bunched around her waist as a belt. AND a pair of underwear with both legs through the same hole up around her waist also.

Witnesses report that she put on this ensemble and said, "Look, a dress! Pretty dress!"

(And the creative make-up is a lovely washable -- thank God -- blue magic marker. The rest is dinner.)

Meet Buddy

Char's newfound love of worms and other insects should have clued me off that we would have a new pet. Meet Buddy, an inchworm or caterpillar of some kind anyway. We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" (or "paterpiwwar" as Char says) often enough that i hope she isn't disappointed when her "beautiful futterfy" turns out to be a plain old moth lol.

Char named him "Buddy". Probably because i was saying things like "Come on, buddy" lol. She is in LOVE with this caterpillar! She wants to look at him constantly, and she even wrote him a song. i'll see if i can get it on video. It is a little hard to tell if she's saying "buddy buddy buddy" or "buggy buggy buggy", but she's definitely singing him a song. It's sooooo cute! (Here it is!)

We've already had one "is he dead?" scare. i came home from work at lunch (dizzy, whatever), and Buddy wasn't moving. He had also pooped or something and it made it look like his back end was squished and fried, like maybe it got too hot in the window somehow. However, it would seem that eating and pooping were pretty exhausting and he took a little nap, because he woke up and resumed eating. Whew!

i will reassure those of you in the Southeast that Buddy is the ONLY insect we will be taking on as a pet this summer. That's right; there will be NO FREAKING CICADAS in my house if i can help it. OMG i hate those things, and they've already been emerging at our house, leaving their nasty molted shells everywhere and driving me crazy. And i REFUSE to walk barefoot or let Char walk barefoot outside anymore.

i have such horrible memories of the 13-year cicadas from the first time i encountered them when i was 9 almost 10 years old. It was the first spring after my family moved to the Nashville area from Knoxville, and i was miserable. i felt like this new place was cursed or something. Thankfully i was in Memphis 13 years ago and they don't emerge as much there, but i'm bracing for a horrible spring.

P.S. A few hours later and i'm having my second "is he dead?" scare. He's not moving and was partially submerged in water. i may be doing a lot of searching on that tree for subsequent Buddies!

My Mother's Day Gift

i love my husband's videos! (Please ignore the fat woman; she keeps popping into the frame and it's kind of driving me nuts).

Hope you enjoy it!

Happy Mother's Day

A couple of years ago, Mother's Day was this horrible thing for me. It also fell on my birthday, and i was miserable to be childless. Truly miserable.

Now i am so happy to be a mom, and they day just seems trivial. i don't get to spend it with MY mom, who passed away 5 years ago, or even my mother-in-law, who lives in another city. i don't know what my still-sleeping husband and child have planned for me, and i'm sure it will be wonderful, but i'm totally content just to BE a mom, and i don't need a card or flowers or an expensive gift to make me happy today.

Hope Mother's Day brings everyone peace and joy, and for those who are still waiting, ((hugs)) and hang in there! It will happen, i just know it.

Food of the Gods

i feel so empowered today. Like i ran a marathon or something (i didn't; i refuse to go anywhere NEAR downtown on Music City Marathon weekend lol). Nope, i made YOGURT! Roar!

Yogurt? Yes, yogurt! Also known as food of the gods. Mwahahaha!

Once upon a time when i was a hippy in college, my Thermodynamics professor, who happens to be very, very Greek, told me how he makes yogurt. It sounded incredibly difficult. It involved cooking on the stove off and on all day, and using certain types of yogurt as a starter, etc. He encouraged me to do it, but i lived in the dorms and i didn't have access to a stove except in the basement and i wasn't going to literally slave over it all day. i shoved that thought aside for far too many years.

i toyed with getting a yogurt maker recently. They're about $50 and i thought maybe i could save some money over the long haul, but in researching and asking friends for help, etc, i found that i don't need a stinking machine. There are a LOT of ways to make yogurt, and some of them are difficult and some are easy. i'm lazy, so i chose easy.

My way: Heat the oven to 100 degrees F (or 17o as that's as low as mine goes, so i opened the door a bit and fanned it out some). Pour 2 quarts whole milk and 3 Tbsp plain yogurt in a covered casserole dish, stir, cover, and put in oven. Turn oven OFF but keep the door closed and the light on, and leave it overnight. Pour the clear liquid off in the morning, and you've got yourself yogurt. Yup, no more complicated than that!

You can slave over a stove, or you can use a crock pot and turn it on low for a few minutes every couple of hours. You can even make it by putting a heating pad in a box and putting a dish with the milk and yogurt mixture in the box, or by heating the milk and yogurt up, putting it in a thermos, and leaving it for hours. But you don't have to. You can be lazy like me!

i usually buy four cartons of whole goat milk yogurt for $3 each plus two or three 4-packs of YoBaby yogurt at about $5 each every week. That's roughly $20 a week i can save and have the same amount of yogurt! Yum!

"What do you think i could do?"

i've been asking Char what she could do for months now. If she's throwing a fit because her wagon is stuck, i say, "Oh, no! Your wagon is stuck! What do you think you could do to get it unstuck?" Or, "Oh, your daddy is sad because you hit him. What do you think you could do to make it better?" i figure at least it's good practice for me to learn how to use "problem-solving language" if nothing else, but surprisingly she's actually really good at it. She usually doesn't use words but shows me what she could do, which solves her problem. Sometimes there are surprising results (like the time she hugged her puzzle piece after throwing it instead of just putting it away lol).

Last night, she was upset when her babysitter left, and had a little meltdown. i guess she also had an accident, and because she was wearing training underwear that holds some urine, i didn't notice it until after she'd come to me and wanted to read a book in my lap. She felt the wetness when she sat down, and said, "Wet! Oh no, wet!" She got down and saw that my pants now had a wet spot and said, "Oh no! Mommy pants wet. Mess!"

i said, "My pants are wet because you went pee pee in your underwear and made your underwear wet. What do you think i could do now?" She thought for a second, took my hand and said, "Come on!" Well, actually more like "Tome on", and led me to the bathroom. She reached up and tried to unhook my button, and said, "Pants off." Then patted the toilet seat and said, "Potty." So i obliged, and she handed me some tissue. Then she did a dance. LOL.

Then she took my hand again and said, "Tome on!" and led me to the closet, where she picked up a pair of my husband's pajama pants and said, "Pants on. Det dressed!"

My little problem solver lol. i just adore her so much!

Then, and Now

A little over a year ago, i met my sister at my dad's house for a little fun with her kids, and i snapped this gem of a picture:

The dress is one i found at Kohl's; a little yellow halter sundress with bold colored flowers on the bottom and a ribbon at the waist and bottom.

The other day at Kohl's, i found this dress:


They didn't have it in yellow, but it's the same dress! i love it!