Missing Ella

Today was one of those mornings I wish I was a stay at home mom. Ella got up before me so instead of getting myself ready then getting her up I had to find a way to get ready with her. She was really enjoying cuddling with me and watching Between the Lions, this cute Sesame Street-esque show on PBS. So I thought I would turn the show on in our bedroom and have her sit with her daddy while I got ready. She really wanted me though. And she was a little fussy on the way to the sitters. And once she got there, she still seemed to cry a little and hold out her arms for me. Heartbreaking. Like I said yesterday she’s getting new teeth so she’s just not 100% I think. I would definitely stay home if I thought she was really sick, but I don’t think she is. And she was probably having fun playing two minutes after I left.

Yesterday when I took her to the sitters she ran right over to the other kids. She seemed so excited to see them. On days like that I think the social aspect of being there is so great for her. And I think she gets bored around our house with just me sometimes. But then there’s days like today …

Too bad I can’t just can’t have an endless amount of vacation days to stay home on days like that. Or on really sunny days. Again this week it’s going to get up to 70 during the week, then be low 60s during the weekend. Shoot!

Anyway, she was a little crazy last night at home. She seemed really hard to please. And she did not want to wait for dinner to cook. I gave her a pot and wooden spoon. That kept her happy for awhile. Then Steve said “How about I put some water in there for her?” I said “Sure! If it will keep her happy!”

Well, I think he put a little too much water in there. Soon the floor was covered with water and so was her bottom and the bottom of her dress. Now I’ve got a wet floor, a wet baby and I’m still trying to cook dinner. Thanks, honey.

Later that night Sara came over to watch Idol. Love our weekly Idol night. By the way, she sent me a link to a story about Idol’s ratings falling possible because of their outdated song choices — I guess I’m not the only one irritated by this. And last night was no different – but if I could pick one star from the 70s?, 80s?, it might be Neil Diamond, so I was happy with that at least. David Archuleta was surprisingly upbeat – he did pretty well. David Cook was OK. He didn’t blow me away, but he’s done so well in the past I think he’ll be fine. Brooke’s first song was all wrong, but her second was my favorite of the night. Cute boy with the dreadlocks and Syesha were kinda boring. I think one of them are going home.

More teeth and ANOTHER cold

This weekend really had its ups and downs. First I was so mad it was grey and cold after a week of beautiful weather. Still we kept our plans of going to the Kendallville city garage sale at the fairgrounds. It was supposed to be really big this year and I have been on the lookout for any kinds of outdoor kids toys. I scored a collapsable tunnel at a garage sale on Friday for $2! I’ve really been wanting some kind of little plastic playset to deter Ella from our big playset that is way too high and dangerous for her yet. And do you know how much the little plastic playsets are? Usually around $130 for basically a tiny slide and stairs with a little platform at the top. Maybe a telescope or something. Seems overpriced to me.

Anyway, we get ready and Steve said he’s changed his mind. He’s not going. I finally convince him it would be fun – which never starts me off in a good mood.

Then as Ella’s sitting in the front play room I go out the front door to put a few things in the car and when I come back in and close the door a picture frame falls of a shelf on the wall and shatters, just about a foot from Ella. This scares me to death. And when you have glass break and a toddler you have to be sure to clean up every single little bit. So after that, I take Ella out back to play for a minute. She’s just dying to go outside. I had been putting it off since it’s so cold. But I give in. And while she’s running around I decide to wind up the hose. As I wind it up out comes a big gush of water, all over my pants. Uugh. After blow drying it with a hairdryer for five minutes we finally take off.

It was really cold at the garage sale and they didn’t have much that we were looking for, but we did get a really cute little play pizza set for $3 that Ella has already gotten our money’s worth out of.

So we went home and relaxed the rest of the day, but Steve and I were just irritable. It was gloomy and everything he was doing was getting on my nerves. And when Ella had stinky diaper number three, I said, “it’s your turn.” He argued. And I insisted I had just done two and it was clearly his turn. Then Ella came near me and Steve threw a box of wipes to me and said “she’s near you, so why don’t you just do it?”

This was the final straw. I needed a time out. I walked straight upstairs to our bed where I layed watching tv, reading and then closed my eyes for the next hour or so. It was exactly what I needed. I was utterly exhausted. But Ella started looking for me and that was OK, I was ready again. And this time Steve layed down. It must have been about 5:30 p.m. And he went to sleep. And didn’t get up until about 10:30 the next day. Yes, he slept about 17 hours. I guess we were both a little more than tired, huh?

The rest of the weekend looked up from there. Obviously exhaustion was a big part of our weekend starting out rough. The weather was even a little better Sunday, so we played outside. Ella climbed in and out of her tunnel and her car and pushed her little lawn mower. She’s been a little off though. She wants to be held a lot more when she’s not feeling great. And I can see two more teeth coming in on the top and have noticed she’s drooling a lot. She’s teething again. Poor girl. She also started getting a runny nose this weekend. And so did I. And mine’s turned into annoying sinus headaches. I hope she doesn’t feel like that.

Anyway, during her first nap I ran a few errands, part of which was searching for a playset for Ella still. I didn’t get anything.

And when she napped for a second time Steve and I moved our new patio set in our screened in porch. Our outside area is looking really nice and I’m so happy we have a nice place to let Ella play. I even got online and ordered a little playset.

Then that night when Ella went to bed I made us each a margarita and prepared some chips and bean dip and we watched the movie Walk Hard. It was pretty funny. It was a good way to end our weekend too.

Ella and I had a really good day Monday too. Went grocery shopping. Took Kennith, our cat, to get his hair cut. (He gets dread locks that will not come out). Then we just played around the house. Poor Kennith though. For some reason Ella’s all over him more than ever. At one point, Steve said she was hitting him with a wooden spoon. Usually she’s grabbing his ears or pulling on him. And he’ll swing at her with his paws. He’s been declawed but I can’t believe it doesn’t scare her. Instead she thinks it hilarious. At least it’s got her mind off those painful teeth …

The beauty of an empty inbox

My husband wrote a post a while back (yes, we’re a two-blog family – actually he has many blogs, that’s a whole story on its own) about a new approach he was going to take at keeping his e-mail inbox empty at work. (Steve’s post here) Interesting, I thought.

My method at handling my onslaught of incoming e-mail goes something like this. If it’s something quick I’ll respond to it, but I don’t delete the e-mail. I always fear I’ll need to look back on it for some reason. If it’s something that takes longer than a minute of time, I’ll flag it so that I’ll notice it and follow up on it later. Sometimes I forget though. If it’s really important, I’ll write it on my to-do list hanging on my bulletin board. I also have a few folders that I’ll move certain e-mails into. I get a lot about Family magazine, so it has its own folder. So as you can see, I don’t delete e-mails. And procrastination is the cornerstone of my method. Once in a great while I’ll go back through and delete some e-mails, but it’s always so overwhelming I stop after a while to move on to something else.

I always thought I had a good reason for my method though. I have a lot of deadlines to meet throughout the week and some have a really quick turnaround. If I stop and respond to all the e-mails, it will a. interrupt my thought process and b. possibly make me miss a deadline.

But just recently my email has been moved to another computer. Aaaah. A clean slate. It’s so refreshing to not see a list of thousands of messages just waiting for my attention or that I’ve possibly fallen behind on. So, I’ve decided to take Steve’s approach. I started last week actually.

And I have to say, it’s awesome. I just feel like it’s taking me so much less time to just tackle these issues right when they come up instead of going back to them and trying to remember what they were all about in the first place. If they contain a photo or a story, I move them into the correct place on our work servers first. Then after I’m done, I delete them. My inbox is usually completely empty now. It’s so much less stressful!

Interesting idea huh? Taking care of things right away instead of procrastinating? Who knew? Well, it sounds obvious now that I mention it, but it seems pretty profound to me.

Well, I gotta go, I got an e-mail.

American Idol, yardwork and other random thoughts

In TV news, American Idol was really boring last night. A tribute to Andrew Lloyd Weber. He may be a genious at composing songs for theater, but I don’t want to hear theater songs on American Idol. Also, I don’t want to hear songs from the 60s, songs from the 70s, 80s or 90s while we’re at it. Here’s an idea – while you’re doing a search for today’s next relevant popstar, why not have them sing current songs? My husband has a theory that it’s just too expensive to buy the rights. Is that it? Doesn’t the show make gazillions of dollars? Isn’t it the top-rated show so they charge prime prices for advertising? And then make money off the kids’ record contracts too? I don’t know, but it’s frustrating. Anyone remember Rockstar INXS? They sang current songs. And it was fun. Anyway …

Ella has a new lease on life with this new thing called sunshine. I thought for sure she would start to be more tired at night from all the fresh air and running around she’s doing during the day. But nope. She even went to the park with the babysitter yesterday and her friends there, which makes me very happy. Then my husband and I walked her to a nearby park last night for a while, then we played in the backyard for a while after that. And she did seem tired, but when I layed her down a little after 7, she was not happy. After 45 minutes of listening to her rustling around and babbling I got her back out of bed. She was so happy. And she ran around the house like she was making up for lost time. And Aunt Sara was there. I think she was excited about that.

She’s also very into her new baby-stroller these days. I found an $8 toy stroller at toys ‘r us this week for her. I remembered how much she loved the one at the doctor’s office. The $40 junior slide I got her, not so much. I was hoping I could lure her away from the tall dangerous slide in our yard. Not happening. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

So, while Ella and I played outside I couldn’t help but look at all the work that needs to be done. Our lawn needs fertilized and mowed. We have a gravelly area for a fire-pit that needs weeded and recovered in gravel. We have a screened in porch that badly needs cleaned. And we bought a new patio table that needs to go in, replacing the old dingy one. The sandbox, or I should say, giant outdoor litter-box, needs cleaned out and refilled and COVERED this time. The garden area needs tilled before we can plant the vegetables. And this is just the backyard.

It’s worth it though to have a whole new area to run and play in though and enjoy fresh air. I just hope the summer isn’t half over by the time we get it all done. So, I got started last night by nearly emptying out the screened-in porch. Tonight I’ll finish and do some vacuuming in there. One step at a time right?

Well that’s it for now. Sorry if the post was really boring today. If it makes you feel better, there’s going to be a good fashion post soon. My friend Karly said she wanted to see all these clothes I bought for Ella recently … I don’t want to disappoint one of my five readers!