Yesterday I heard a paper in Northwest Indiana layed off more than 20 people and are dropping several sections of their paper. The newspaper industry has been slowly evolving with the popularity of Internet news, and now with the economy as it is, it’s really going to start changing.

Foreclosures are up, job losses are up, advertising is down … It’s starting to get a little depressing and a little scary isn’t it?

Well here’s a dose of cuteness for you today, now that you’re depressed too! This is what Ella’s been up to the last week or so …

I, on the other hand, went to bed at my normal hour (normal for elderly, young children and me): at 9 p.m. But today, yet again, it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed. And I hit snooze as long as I possibly could. Right up to the point where I only had 20 minutes to get both Ella and I ready to go. Not a lot of time.

So as I got myself ready I propped up Miss Cheerful in bed with daddy and gave her a fruit breakfast bar, a banana, milk, put her bib on her and turned on her favorite PBS show. She was so sweet. She just happily ate away.

She hasn’t been entirely sweet lately though. The other night I watched my sister’s kids for a few hours – with help from my husband. One too many times Ella pushed Finn and took his toy. So the time-outs begun.

I’m so torn on the whole discipline thing. Part of me thinks she’s too young, and that seems to be the gist of the Internet philosophy out there, but then I also think kids are individuals and she really may get it and I need to do what I can to make her STOP beating on other children! I could go on and on about that, but there’s other happy things to think about.

1. My dear friend is having a baby GIRL, as she found out yesterday. I figure I’m not really breaking the news because her husband has posted his own blog about it here.

2. My BIL is in recovery from having his spleen removed. Hope you feel better soon Matt.

3. My girlfriend’s daughter, Emma, who’s 7 years old, has started a blog. And it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever read. Check it out here.

And now I’m way too tired to think of a clever way to wrap this up.

1. Schedules are very important for toddlers. Late nights + fewer naps = crazy baby.

2. Aunt Becky carries a lot of stuff in her purse. Including a flashlight.

3. Little Maximilian loves an audience and has a hundred faces to amuse them.

4. Ella doesn’t like cold pools. But a heated pool or a lake with waves and she’s completely satisfied.

5. Parades were invented for children. Lots of waving, lots to look at and candy being thrown right to you. It’s like heaven on Earth for kids.

6. There’s nothing better than going to another person’s house who has different toys and a child-proofed home. Thanks Tami!

7. We should take our pop-up camper for a test run before using it for an 8-day stretch. Working water would have been really helpful this week.

8. Always prepare for rain the week of the fourth. It will rain at least once. Have a book and dvd player as backup.

9. Shirley throws a mean baby shower. Loved the chicken salad sandwiches, sausage/bacon rolls and cream cheese/beef bites.

10. Bryan is a master outdoor chef. I didn’t know you could even cook a casserole on a grill.

11. Having older cousins is extremely helpful.

12. Ella really likes to grab and poke at people’s faces.

13. We’re encouraging more toe grabbing.

14. It’s really hard to get a good picture of six kids.

15. But it can be done.

You may now realize I have a really good excuse for not blogging for over a week – we went camping. No Internet, no TV, barely working phones. Now I’m trying to conquer heaps of dirty laundry and round up some food for us to eat this week … so hopefully this post will keep you all happy for now. More later!

I sorta look forward to these milestone appointments because A. I get to find out how she compares to the average kid as far as weight, height, head size go and B. I get good advice from my doctor and learn a little about what’s to come.

I have also had some trying times at the doctor’s office though. Seeing your baby scream and look at you like a traitor while holding her down letting a stranger inject her with a needle is no day at the park. Also no day at the park: Waiting for 45 minutes with your toddler in a tiny doctor’s office with counters that have sharp edges and a dangerous rolling stool. And that’s after the 45-minute wait in the main waiting room.

After only waiting 5 minutes in the main waiting room today our name was called. Hallelujah. I almost commented on the quick response time but then realized I would totally jinx myself and could be spending the rest of the day in the tiny office.

Another 5 minutes later though and the nurse practitioner was there to see us. Yes! Since I had to reschedule my appointment I didn’t get to see our regular doctor, but the nurse practitioner was very friendly. And Ella was cute as can be running around the room and playing with a basket of dinosaurs they had in this particular room. Also lovely – this room was set up differently than any other office I had waited in. No sharp corners. Rolly stool out of view. And more playroom. It was awesome.

So they did the usual testing: Ella’s at 50 percent for weight and 75 percent for height. This means she’s average for weight, but actually taller than average. In the top 25 percent. Crazy. Her dad and I are not really above average in the height department. We’re not really short, but nobody ever has referred to us as being tall.

Anyway. Ella didn’t like it when she stuck the cold stethoscope on her or felt around her abdomen. And she especially didn’t like her vaccination shot. But she got over it quickly. And she has NO ear infections, her chest cold is completely gone and the doctor seemed really pleased with her diet. Yay!!

Afterward we went home and waited to hear from Steve’s cousins. They were on their way home from a trip and were going to stop for a visit. They called and the idea was presented that we could instead meet them at Cracker Barrel off the highway, saving them some time.

We had a really nice time seeing them. They had their three young children with them and a young cousin. Misty and I talked a lot about camping. They also have a pop-up camper and had just spent 3 days camping with a lot of their relatives. I asked her a lot of questions as I have only been camping once in ours. It made me really excited to use it too. And it sounds like her kids love it. We’re making plans to meet and camp with them later in the summer.

Now Ella is taking a nice long nap, since the doctor visit interrupted her morning one. She’s been taking really long naps lately too. Maybe it’s from all that growing …

 1. How was I ever going to get up that early? and

2. How was I going to function, and not only function, but work quickly at a job I had never done before?

It turned out to not be so bad. I did pretty well actually. It was fast-paced and very busy so time flew by too, which was great. And now I’ve had a few days off to recuperate.

On Saturday I went to the mall with my mom, sister and her kids. They have a new toddler play area there that Ella had already been to earlier in the week, but we had fun, so we went again. This time though it was much busier. And there were hardly any toddlers there. They seemed to mostly be 4-7 year olds that climbed on top of everything and practically pushed Ella aside to go up the stairs and down the slide. Note to self: Don’t go there on a Saturday, only on weeknights when it is dead.

Next we went to Olive Garden, with the three young kids. It was pretty much a blur of sippy cups, pasta on the floor and clanging silverware. I’m not sure they want us to come back.

Sunday was a nice day – a lot of playing. Ella and I walked to the park. And at night we had arranged for my mom to come babysit while we went to a movie. We saw the new M. Night Shamalama movie (I don’t know how you spell his name and I’m not going to bother looking it up.) It’s called The Happening. And it is craaaazy. I mostly liked it because he is so good at suspense and I was on the edge of my seat. But there are some things I didn’t care for about it – but I don’t think I should say much about them or I’ll ruin it for you. I will say that it is very gory, and disturbing. You may have nightmares. You may even need therapy.

Afterward we went to some friends’ house for wine and snacks. It was really nice. We looked at their new awesome deck and fountain they built and they made a yummy greek salad and had all kinds of good cheese and wine. And nobody threw anything on the floor or yelled at me to get them a drink.

And now here I am, wondering how I should fill our Monday … not really ready to return to zoo, we’ve sure been to the parks a lot, just went to the mall … hmm. We were expecting company tonight – Steve’s brother, his wife and their two kids. But unfortunately Matt (the brother) just found out he needs both his spleen and gall bladder removed immediately. They’re enlarged from the spherocytosis – the condition that Steve and Ella both have. I feel so bad for their family. It’s not too uncommon of a procedure – but they were just about to leave on a nice 3-week family vacation, and now they’re going to be spending time at the hospital or home recovering. That’s not fun. And we were really looking forward to seeing them. It also makes my stomach do flips thinking that some day Ella may be going through that. I guess it could be worse.

Today I’ll just concentrate on doing something fun … as soon as I think of what that is.

Ella was really irritable tonight. Not sure what was wrong, but I had trouble making her happy. She went to bed at 7:30 so I guess she was tired. We had a nice day – went to the park across the pond and played in her splash pool in the backyard, but somewhere around dinnertime things headed south.

I wasn’t sure how to spend the rest of my evening, but Steve opened up this (big) bottle of beer brewed at Granite City and here I am. I’d probably be watching TV otherwise, but because he and I don’t agree on what to watch I decided to play on the Internet for awhile. The other TVs are: in the office (and I like to be comfortable when I watch tv, not in a office chair) and in the bedroom (I feel like a loser drinking beer in bed).

What I should be doing is getting my small garden ready. It was close to being ready and life just got so busy. Now, it’s midsummer and I’m really late planting a lot of stuff, but there are still some possibilities. But, will I do it? It’s not looking good.

A big part of me wants to shop on the Internet -look at new sheets for my bed, look for a cute little entryway table to replace the coatrack that I hid because I worried it would fall on Miss Nosy, or just buy a new bathing suit, or a wagon for Ella … the list goes on and on. But the thing is as soon as I get those things I have a whole new list. I’m trying to buy less things I don’t REALLY need and pay off my car instead. It’s so boring. But I hate when we keep filling our house with stuff we don’t need when the smart thing to do would be to pay off debt …

OK, there’s gotta be a bad reality show I’m missing.

She arrived at Sara’s house Friday night around 7. I couldn’t wait to go visit everyone. My mom and dad would be there too. So we all hung out for a few hours at Sara’s house, just letting the kids play and sitting around. Steve and my dad went to get ice cream, which may have resulted in some blue stains in Sara’s carpet. Ew. Hope that comes out. Sara jokes that she’s going to burn her house down when her kids are older anyway. She said it will be destroyed by that time anyway.

Also, Sara told a funny story about how at London’s daycare she had been having show-and-tell every week for months and Sara didn’t know about it. So London has been showing her Dora blanket every single week. Sara thought she better go big next week and joked that she should bring in her brother Finn in for show-and-tell and say “In your face!” Well my dad thought this was hilarious, and the rest of the weekend he would use the phrase “in your face” often, even when it didn’t fit the situation at all.

After taking Ella home I went back over to have some sister time with Sara and Emily. We had some cocktails and just sat and talked in Sara’s kitchen. Before I knew it, it was 1:30 a.m. Crazy late! I went home and went straight to bed.

In the morning, I begged Steve to get up with Ella. And he did. Thank goodness. But by 8 a.m. Ella came barging in looking for me. I begged for more time. At 8:30 I got up to relieve Steve and he went back to bed. Ella and I played and by 9ish I could tell she was ready for a nap. I put her down, and planned to have lunch as soon as she got up, then we would need to hit the grocery store. My brother was having a Father’s Day get together at his house Saturday night and I was to bring veggies and dip, so I needed to get that among other things. Also, I had invited Em, Sara and the kids to come over to my house at 1 p.m. to walk to the pool in our subdivision. So we were on a tight schedule!

Ella was still sleeping at 11:30. I decided I would need to leave for the store by noon to get back by 1, so there wasn’t really time for me to feed her lunch before we left. So, I decided I’d go without her. She was a tired girl. She rarely sleeps more than 1 hour at a time. But of course as I was getting ready I walked by her room and she sprung up from her bed. I took her down and got her started on lunch then left her with daddy.

I was really runnning behind – I got home at ten minutes til 1, so I was happy that my sisters and the kids were running late too. I had to change into a swimsuit, change Ella, pack a bag, clean up from lunch …. By 1:30 or so, we too off for the pool. It’s really nice to have one in our subdivision. Yeah, it would be great to have your own, but I would be too scared having a little kid and a pool out back. So, it’s perfect now.

Ella and Finn seemed content most of the time behind held in the water. London had the time of her life. She repeatedly wanted to jump in, making Aunt Emmy catch her. She loves Aunt Emmy. Sara and I compare her to our Aunt Jeannie. She was the youngest of our aunts and she lived in Georgia, so it was always really neat to see Aunt Jeannie. Emily is London’s Aunt Jeannie. Sara kept joking that she hoped Em didn’t want to relax at all. Em was busy playing with London a lot of the pool time. And also Em mentioned there was an incident where London may have gotten into Em’s lipstick and put it all over her face! Oops.

It was about 3 when we decide to leave the pool. And it was a good thing we didn’t stay a minute longer. We had to leave at 4:30 for the Father’s Day party, and it took us all the whole time to get our crews around. Luckily Ella napped for me the whole time, but I still was busy getting cleaned up and ready.

The party was fun. It coincided with their neighborhood block party so there was a huge bouncy house there and also the small bouncy house that belongs to Nate and Rachel. Ella had a lot of fun. I was tired though. And it was still so hot out.

We left around 8, and that night Emily was staying with me and we stayed up talking and watching tv for awhile but by 11, I was beat and went to bed.

The next day we were all invited over to my mom’s house for lunch at noon. We all kinda slept late so the morning went very fast and we left around 11:30 for my mom’s. We had a nice time there. Of course she had all these awesome new dishes she was trying out and a new playhouse for the kids, so it was pretty dreamy being over there. We kept talking about leaving – Emily would have a two hour drive ahead of her and Ella needed a nap, but it’s so hard to leave Grandma’s house. The endless stream of good food (that you don’t have to cook yourself) and the change of scenery is so nice. Plus it’s in the country so you feel like there’s just so much space and so many places to go.

Once in the kitchen, my mom pulled out another delicious treat and said “I made a peanut butter pie.” My dad excitedly replied “Oh! In your face!”

We left around 4ish, and Em loaded up and left when we got back. The rest of the night we were pretty lazy around my house. It was a busy, but fun weekend. We loved it. And now I’m going to go rest for awhile. A certain little girl used her powerful good looks and capacity for yelling for long periods of time to score a night in bed with mom and dad – so we didn’t sleep too good last night …

In a few weeks, we’re taking off for our annual Michigan trip. And finally, a week off. Actually, 10 days to be exact. I haven’t had a full week off in a year. I shouldn’t complain, I have a lot of 3-day weekends, but still, a whole week off is different. You actually get to that place where you’re not forming to-do lists in your head constantly or planning out your schedule. I can’t wait.

We’ll be camping with my husband’s family. We’ve been doing it for, oh, 7 years maybe. It’s probably like the last thing on earth a lot of my family would want to do. They’d much prefer a Ritz Carlton. But we like it. We use to camp in a tent. And that was fine then. We upgraded to an air mattress a long time ago. No way would I sleep on the hard ground again. And just last year we went in on a pop-up camper with another couple. It has air conditioning and heat, among other things, like a king bed, and a full size bed and water and a fridge …

I used to think it wasn’t really camping if you have those amenities or I just wondered why people don’t just get a hotel room if they want all that. But I get it now. We all hang out all day with the family and all the kids. We walk around on trails, go to the pool, lay around and read. We’re just outside all the time. I love it. And at night we have campfires and just sit around and talk or play games. Eat s’mores. And the camper gives us a little space of our own, and an air-conditioned space at that.

We’ll take trips though. We usually take our nieces to the beach one day and stop at the local ice cream shop afterward. We’ll go to a parade in town. One day we might go downtown for shopping and lunch. I think Ella’s really going to have fun this year. And hopefully one day she’ll have fond memories of camping in Michigan …

Did you know that you can track how many visitors a Web site is getting each day and where they’re from and how they got to the site and all kinds of stuff like that? Well, I had an idea about that, because I’m married to a guy that sits at a computer 3/4 of his waking hours building Web sites, but now I’m actually getting into it. Sorry Steve.

So, what I’ve discovered is … there have been about 85 unique visitors to www.mommatimes.com. About 10 people a day check out the site. People from 25 different states in our country. And people from 8 different countries all together. Someone from Yemen once visited.

I think that’s really fun. Averaging 10 visitors a day is lot to me – I’m sure not to many bloggers. But really, I know two people that are Internet obsessive like myself that probably check regularly, and they are also very biased – my sisters. I know a lot of other people, including my husband, who get on occassionally, and catch up on what they haven’t read. So the fact that I have around 8 people everyday who aren’t a part of my immediate family that find my blog amusing/sad/weird/terrible enough to return everday is exciting to me!

It’s also interesting to see what posts have been read the most:

No. 1: “Sex and the City lives up to the hype.”

No.2: “Hello, Internet” (my first post)

No. 3: “Will it be David or David?” (American Idol)

No. 4: “The future is brighter”

Now, a couple of those are about current events/pop culture, so I’m guessing people stumbled upon my site while reading everything they could on those subjects. The other two, I have no idea why those would be well read. The last one is more recent so maybe they’re was more of a following, but then there was my first post. Maybe my husband has some sort of Internet knowledge that explains this phenomenon.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this information with my loyal readers. I appreciate every single one of you. All 10 of you.

Apparently the tantrums are starting. She’s been getting extremely furious when I go to change her outfit. I don’t know why. It used to be so quick and painless. She’d just put her little arms up in the air and off her shirt would go and on with the new one. Now she acts like she’s an abused child. She actually threw herself on the ground on her tummy and banged her fists on the ground. It was like out of a cartoon. And I just was putting shorts and a t-shirt on her. It wasn’t like I was trying to get her to wear a wool sweater and leather pants or anything uncomfortable like that. Geez.

She also was a little mad when I put her in the car. So this makes me wonder. Is she associating getting dressed with me taking her to the sitter’s? Not that she doesn’t have a great time at the sitter’s. I really think she does. But maybe she doesn’t feel like going. I don’t know.

Anyway, we got to the zoo yesterday and she was mad again when I went to put her in her stroller. What is going on? I thought. I worried the trip was a mistake. But I got moving and she was pretty pleased when I handed her a box of raisins. And as soon as we started seeing animals, life was good.

She just pointed and stared at every animal. A few times she said “dog.” “Nope, that’s not a dog. That’s a monkey.” I would tell her. Or “That’s not a dog. That’s a bird.” OK, she isn’t perfect at her animal identification skills just yet.

After about an hour and 1/2 I was tired and she was yawning, so we made one final stop, at the fountain. It’s more of a wading pool. And some really prepared parents with older kids were letting them play in it in their swim suits they had brought. Well, I didn’t think about this option. And honestly with her changing fits I’m not sure I would have brought her suit anyways. But after seeing some other little tots in their diapers I figured why not. So, I pulled off her shorts and let her play in the water in her diaper and shirt. She loved it. There are little spurts of water that come up and little animal sculptures in the water. And she loves watching other kids play.

This went on for awhile. I finally decided it was time to head home. And boy, she did not want to go. I struggled getting her in the stroller.

Then I changed her diaper in the car. In the heat. And it was not a good diaper to change in the heat, or in the back of a car. So I decided not to fight the getting dressed battle even though we did have a spare outfit in the car. So, I took my little girl home in just her diaper. And she went right to bed when we got home. Ah zoo day.

And now I can’t get one of her books out of my head that goes Zoo Day Hooray 1-2-3 ….