Tow Your Tomato

After we walked E to school this morning I got a call from a friend that a store near us was offering 2Qt. tomato plants at 2 for $5, a deal!  So since I had a seat open in the jogger I filled it up with plants.  2 cherry Super Sweet 100's and 2 slicing Super Bush varieties.  N was very curious as to why the neighboring seat had suddenly turned into a garden...

*Thanks for the heads up Christi!

The Berries

We're trying a lot of new things in the garden this year. Some will be a hopeless failure, but I'm holding my breath that a few might surprise. I'm doing Eversweet strawberries in a pot and got a few great tips from DigginFood and the article she mentions in the post. I don't know why I haven't tried it sooner, I absolutely adore strawberries. I do have a few memories though, of when I was teaching preschool and our mouths would water as the children and I watched the berries fatten and turn from that sickly green color to a healthy deep red in our class garden. As we'd prepare to pick them in the mornings for snack we would find little nibbles in each one! Mice I think. So we'll see.


In other exciting outdoor news; my raspberry plants are starting to show signs of life just as the lady who sold them to me predicted! Hooray!

Last in the Lot

Just looking for a way to pass the time this evening, and wasn't expecting the all-powerful Costco to close at 6:00pm on a weekend! When I go with the kids I push that gigantic cart up and down each aisle, E and I discuss various items, N's busy people watching and plunging his hand into his snack cup; there's no hurry. But by the time we were heading to the check-out the warehouse was definitely getting quieter, then we noticed a few cashiers cashing out their tills, some of the employees horsing around, and the food service starting to clean up the kitchen! When we got out to the car I just had to laugh, ours was the only vehicle around.

Looking Out

There's been a fair amount of window watching today:

 N discovered a window just at his height and was shouting from the mountain tops about watching his big sister sitting at the picnic table.

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E has been standing at her window for the last 20 minutes waiting for her dad's van to round the corner.

Garlic Mullein Drops

I was advised by my sister-in-law to invest in these ear drops for earache or infection. So far so good. I've been using them before bed for N the last 2 nights, and I believe we may have avoided a trip to the doctor's office. He has been so congested and snotty lately, and with previous experience behind me I know that when there's that much slime coming out his nose and hanging out in his lungs, it's bound to be making it's way into those ears too. It doesn't seem to matter how much I have him drink water or nurse, how much I use saline and a bulb syringe, warm or cool mist vaporizers, my kids just seem predestined to wind up with croup & ear infections. If I can keep antibiotics as far away from him and for as long as possible, I'm gonna do it.



Plus he smells like pizza when he wakes up!

First Teeth

The lower left central tooth popped through on Wednesday and the lower right central tooth today. When it rains it pours, whew!

Waah, Waah

You all are probably tired as can be of hearing me whine about my lack of sleep lately. Yes, I was apparently spoiled with a 8 month-old who was sleeping 10 hour stretches at night. So what happened, you ask? A combination of things that when they all came together were insurmountable for that little dolly-boy of mine:

• Ear Infection
• Onset of Separation Anxiety
• Trip to Phoenix
  
• A case of Roseola
• A cold
• Teething
• Another cold
  

Mix 'em up in whichever order you want, what you get is unsettled and uncomfortable. For both mom and babe. Throw in the lovely timing that he's learned to push himself into the sitting position this last month no matter how drowsy he is then cannot for the life of him figure out how to lay back down, the picture becomes a bit clearer doesn't it? He wakes only briefly to cough or whatever, sits up, and then finds it impossible to fall back asleep BECAUSE HE'S SITTING!!!! I've tried all methods to keep this kid sleeping, but each night I'm called to his crib repeatedly to rescue him. I've pinned him in with pillows, I've jolted out of bed the instant I hear him stir to shush him back down, I even closed my door to let him cry, thinking, "Well he'll eventually just fall over," but no, he kept on for 2 hours folks, from 2AM to 4AM, and I can assure you that by 4 I was ready to wheel his crib through the hall, down the stairs and park it out in the driveway.

And where has D been during this whole circus event? Well, doing his job. I don't hold anything against the man for putting food on the table, I just really really cannot wait to see him tomorrow: the changing of he guard. The other day I likened our little man to a vampire; relatively docile during the day, but SUCKING THE LIFE OUTTA ME AT NIGHT!

It hasn't though, just been nighttime sleeping either, oh no. When I need my break during the day, and he actually does fall asleep he'll give me maybe 45 minutes tops, and then we're back at the whole charade. He's overly tired and it's a vicious circle! Until today, when I had the epiphany to lay him down with D's music playing in the background. Do you know what he did? He started singing along! Well, you know baby-babble-droning along, and then he drifted off to sleep. And that was over and hour and a half ago! No tears, no sitting up. I don't even know what to do with myself! I should have taken a shower or folded my mountains of laundry, but I had no clue all this time would have been afforded me, I feel kinda lost.


(sigh)


Would you like some white noise?

Nope.

Classical piano, perhaps?

Pass.

How about driving guitar rifts & loud drum beats with Daddy crooning along?

I'll take it!

* UPDATE 4/10/2010 - N has been sleeping like a champ the last 2 nights and for naps both days!! Hip-Hip!

Here Comes Trouble

Now that he's on the move we're back into keep-everything-off-the-floor-phase. I walked out of the living room for a minute, only to come back and find him in the dinning room with his mouth pressed up against the laminated map we use to keep track of where D is daily. We use an overhead pen to trace his route, and then wipe it off when he returns...N's just few steps ahead of us!

Didn't fully come off either...

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On another note, he has started entertaining us to no end with little games. Like this one; He'll put something on his head, let it fall, then go after it. It's cute until he tries it with his lunch and ends up with tofu cubes in his shirt pocket, green beans all over the floor, and banana slime in his hair...

*I love how he pulls down his shirt at the end, so funny!

*Also please excuse my stuffy-nosed-half-naked-one-sock-little -rugrat.

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Finally cut his first tooth this morning...hopefully that explains his completely terrible sleep patterns lately...maybe I'll try a preemptive strike of Motrin tonight just to be on the safe side.