ChrissieRocks!

Laid Back Mom

One of the best things I did after moving was joining a Mom's Club. Why I didn't do this early is beyond me. It has made the world of a stay-at-home-mom so much easier and enjoyable. I look back over Leina's first year and it was so difficult and stressful and lonely. Kevin was working long hours with a long commute and there were days when it was literally just me and Leina all day long.

Looking back, I realize this is not healthy.

You need to distract and engage children and moms need the reassurance that only other moms can give. Now that I'm in a very active Mom's Club, life is so different. Every week I have a whole host of options awaiting me. Each mom has different ideas and secrets. What stores offer story time, which coffee shops have play rooms, off the beaten path parks and indoor play areas and even trips to local farms or petting zoos. It's amazing what's out there if you know where to look. Even better is my play group. We have four moms and a total of six girls all together. We rotate homes and ideas each week and it's such fun to make new friends. Especially friends with kids.

It's funny how your friends change through life. After colllege, I went on to law school and my friends who jumped right into the work force, well, we slowly drifted apart. Different schedules, different priorities, different life styles. After I left school, I found myself on the other side of the fence. It was hard to find time for my friends still in school. They were sleeping in late and studying all night while I was up early every morning heading to work and completely free all evening with no papers or exams looming over my head. I should have known that having a child would trigger another change in friendships.

Suddenly, I'm on a kid friendly schedule. We eat dinner at 5:30 and have lights out at 8pm. I can no longer meet at a resturant at 7pm or catch a movie that starts at 9pm. I have to laugh when I get a call at 10am asking if I want to go to breakfast. 10am?!?!? I've been up since 7am and breakfast has come and gone. So it's wonderful to have a new group of friends who are on the same wave length. Girls I can call at 9am on a Sat and know that not only are they up but they are probably also fed, showered, and heading out the door to do something with their kids.

As we get to know each other, we've started sharing our grips about husbands, kids, being home all day, and the drudgery that child-rearing can often be. All of us used to be full time workers and we wonder what it would be like to put our kids in day care and hit the work force again. To have someone else worry about naps, and changing diapers, and eating enough at lunch, and keeping busy minds entertained. We've thought long and hard about the "working out of home" vs "working in home divide" and decided that being home is the right choice for us. It isn't an easy decision and it's so nice to be surrounded by women who support and validate you.

Playgroup has also mellowed me out big time. Before playgoup, Leina got sick about once every six months or so and when she did, it was minor trauma time. I was worried every time her nose began to run or her eyes water. Now, after circulating germs around playgroup, I'm the most laid back mom. Runny nose, no problem. If Leina doesn't mind, neither do I. No longer do I cancel all appointments and sit about the house waiting for her to recoup. Oh no, we just jam some kleenex in the diaper bag and head out the door. And I must say, it's much easier to deal with a distracted kid with a cold than a bored kid with a cold. And so, about two days after playgroup, Leina comes down with a cold like clockwork. Nothing serious. No fever or vomiting. Just a runny nose, watery eyes, and a mild cough. By the time the next playgroup comes around, we're hearty and healthly and ready for the next batch of germs. You'd thing, eventually, we'd run out of cold strains but no, there's always another variation looming on the horizon.

Before Leina, if I saw a mom in the store with a kid whose nose is dripping and is coughing away, I'd think to myself, "what a bad mom, she should keep her kid at home if he's sick and nurse him back to health." I've now learned that if one followed this advice, you'd never be able to leave the house because childhood is one runny nose after another. The best you and do is teach your kid to use a kleenex and cover her mouth when she coughs. The rest, well, the rest is just part of being a child.

Breakfast with Elmo

Every now and then Leina likes to eat breakfast with her good buddy Elmo...

Picture of the week

Some people just like sittin' on the poddy...

Twice in One Day!

I know, I know, I already blogged but this house is just a barrel full of laughs and I'm afraid if I try and wait till tomorrow, I'll forget and then...bammo...the moment will be gone. So for today, two posts.

Leina will only take one nap a day. Why is this important? Because it is literally true. She will only fall asleep once each day. As I have learned, a five minute snooze in the car seat is the equivalent of a three hour crib nap. Take your pick. Same with a two second head nod in the stroller or a ten minute snuggle snooze on the sofa. Once she has closed her eyes, that's it folks. See you tomorrow. What you are left with is a kid who has had way too much fun and not enough sleep. And so, I am very vigilant about where Leina sleeps.

I am the master of the Oh-Dear-Lord-We-Are-Five-Minutes-From-Home-Don't-Let-Her-Doze-Off-Now technique. This involves reaching behind my seat while driving and pinching her toes, throwing food behind my head in the vain home that she'll catch and eat it (or, at the very least, it will hit her in the face and keep her awake) and the hysterical singing of every children's song I know. Kevin has witnessed my power and is in awe.

So today, we had a free morning and Kevin offered to take the Munchie to Costco to pick up supplies. I hemmed and hawed. A Costco trip is very dangerous. Munchie does fine on the way to Costco, she has a blast shopping at Costco, but getting her home awake takes every last iota of my Oh-Dear-Lord-We-Are-Five-Minutes-From-Home-Don't-Let-Her-Doze-Off-Now power.

I almost didn't let them go until Kevin said, "come on, how hard can it be to keep her awake?"

Ten minutes later I was waving them good-bye as Kevin drove off with my child, my checkbook, and the list.

Two hours later, I watched them return. Kevin had this panicked look on his face and he jumped out of the car so fast I figured his bladder must be about to burst. But instead of rushing into the house, he open the back car door and pulled Leina out of her car seat.

"Hurry, hurry," he cried, "you have to help me! I think she's about to fall asleep! We have to get her moving STAT!" (OK, he didn't say stat but I wanted to convey to you the urgency in his voice.)

Sure enough, Leina loved the trip over, she loved shopping, and elicited cries of "how cute" and "what beautiful eyes" from complete strangers. Kevin later admitted that he was secretly thinking, "pashaw, that Chrissie, what an exaggerator. This is a piece of cake."

And then they headed home. They had only gone five minutes out of the twenty minute car ride when Kevin saw her head start to bob. Somehow, he managed to keep her awake. I suspect he used the throw food behind the seat technique because Munchie was covered in pizza sauce. But even though he fought the good fight, she managed to nod off.

How do I know this? Because at 2pm today, when my child should have been cuddling her blanket and asking for "nappie" she was, instead, screaming "HOP! HOP! HOP!" and bouncing after the cat. When Wicks wisely decided to head out the cat door, Leina began screaming and running in circles around the kitchen island in a game of imaginary chase.

"Well, look at the time," Kevin exclaimed as he slapped on his pager and grabbed his badge. "Gotta go to work. Good luck with that nap, hon," he snickered as he headed out the door.

The bum.

But this tale has a happy ending. Calling forth my Oh-Dear-Lord-It's-Past-2pm-And-Leina-Is-On-Fire power I managed to slowly amp her down and get her into bed. Probably not for long but hey, beggars can't be choosers, right?

My LIttle Cow

Leina has fully recovered from her horrible illness. Kevin and I are still trying to catch up with her. Sometime during this whole ordeal, it appears that she grew a second stomach because she is eating like a fiend. Today for lunch she ate an entire slice of Costco cheese pizza. The whole thing! About every hour or so, she'll wander into the kitchen with her latest food request. Soup, chips, grapes, white bread, O's... the sky's the limit.

I suspected she was feeling better the other day while we were eating dinner. With Kev on swing, dinner is just the two of us and a bit hectic. I'm usually trying to prep my food and Leina's food with the dog circling about looking for scraps. So when we finally sat down to eat, I was a bit preoccupied.

"Mama," Leina began "nose!"

I looked up from my plate and saw her pointing at her nose.

"Yes honey," I replied, "that's your nose."

"Mama," Leina repeated, "nose!"

"Uh huh."

"MAMA MAMA! NOSE!" she insisted.

I put my fork down and leaned closer to see what the ruckus was all about. I mean, she's known about her nose for months now. I was a bit puzzled why the sudden interest in this appendige. As I leaned in, I noticed somthing a bit off. There appeared to be something green sticking out of her right nostril.

"Pea!" my devious daughter exclaimed with glee. Sure enough, there was a single pee stuck up her right nostril. Leina was quite proud of this accomplishment. I was torn between horrified and amused. Having learned my lesson, however, I kept my stern face and refused to crack a smile as I pried the small legume from her nostril saying, "no no Leina, pea in nose owwie - pea in mouth please."

I settle back into my chair, pleased that my poker face had held, and picked up my fork, ready to resume my dinner when....

Phweeet.

I watched in hilarious awe as me daughter exhaled sharply and a second pea came flying out of her left nostril. Leina seemed quite pleased at this feat. I managed to grab a napkin and cover the face splitting grin that was plastered all over my face as I once again attempted to correct this behaviour between bouts of ill-suppressed laughter.

Who knew that a nostril made such a great pea launching device?

Light?

Leina slept soundly last night. No wakings or blowouts. We awoke this morning to the sound of her little voice holding a long conversation with Elmo about Artie-dog. I was so relieved! Of course, she then had a major blow out but so far, we've seen glimmers of her old self.

She ate a whole piece of bread for breakfast and drank a little water. Yipee!! I called the doctor anyway because yesterday and today she's been having trouble walking. She's wobbly and falls down on her own and has started using props to walk - chairs, sofas or our hands. This worried me and the doctor was concerned too so we're watching her today, counting wet diapers, and monitoring progress. If she is still stumbling and falling tomorrow, I have to call back and probably take her in. But, the rest of her symptoms are normal dehydration & diarreha related so we know how to fix that.

Drink. Drink. Drink.

I have every cup filled and placed around the house. The kid is never more than two steps from liquid and I'm practically forcing drinking her. She sees me reach for a cup and starts crying "no no no!" but it doesn't deter me. We need a wet diaper and we need it now! She's winding down for her afternoon nap which is good. She's been up and playing since seven this morning. I never thought I'd be so excited to hear that dolly needed her diaper changed.

Here's hoping the munchkin is on the road to recovery!

Never Never Never Land

Leina is asleep.

No big deal, right?

Yeah, except she's on this major sleep marathon. I mean, I thought I could snooze but this kid is in a class all by herself.

Yesterday, after a three hour morning nap, she fell asleep at 3:30pm. She didn't get up until 8am this morning. She was awake for all of one hour during which time she was a screaming grump machine so I put her back down. That was at 10am. And she hasn't made a peep.

I guess this is a good thing. She's probably just revving up after her long illness but it makes me a bit worried. I mean, she needs to eat, right? And drink? How long can you go without food or water 'cause this kid's testing the limits.

Kevin and I have given up trying to be quiet. After the first, oh, five hours of sitting quietly on the sofa we reaized that life went on and began running laundry and washing dishes. And through all that racket? Nada. The bambino slept on. And on. And on.

So here's hoping all this sleep means she's getting better 'cause this house is miserably lifeless without her terrorizing ways.

The Worst Yet

Leina is sick.

Sick seems so benign a word to try and begin to describe her right now. If I took every cold and fever and illness she has ever had since birth and rolled them all together, they still wouldn't come close to what we have on her hands.

It started Friday afternoon. She was happy and playing and them....whamo...vomit. Lots of it. This was the first time she's ever thrown up so both she and I were seriously freaked out. I stripped her down and threw her in the bath to clean her off all the while teaching her a new word. Vomit. She looked up at me with her big blue eyes while I rinsed her down and said in her serious baby voice...."mommy, vomit yucky." I couldn't agree more.

I chalked it up to something she ate from breakfast 'cause she seemed fine. Until she woke from her nap. I heard her, via the baby monitor, fuss up, cry, and then start gagging. I rushed upstairs to find her shaking and sobbing "vomit...vomit...vomit." Once more we stripped down and headed for bath. Surely, I thought, this must be the end of it. Ha!

For dinner I gave her plain rice which she wolfed down. Of course, about three minutes later, up it came. It was about 6:30pm and I was getting a bit freaked out so I called Kev and he came home to a very sick child. From about 7pm until 3:30am she threw up every hour. It was heartbreaking. Kevin and I turned into the dynamic parent duo.

When we'd hear the gagging start, we'd hop from our bed and rush into her room. Kevin would wipe her down and hand her to me. I'd do my best to clean her face, cloths, and hair while Kevi stripped the crib and threw on new sheets. Then I'd rock her back down to sleep while Kevin ran laundry all to start the process all over in an hour. We were changing sheets so often that we ran out of fresh ones. All we could do was clean the messy area as best as possible and then turn her around so her head was on a clean spot. Once the sheet was soiled on both ends, then Kev would strip it off.

So, at 3:30am, I'm thinking, "wow, this is horrible. It just can't get any worse." Ha! The next time we rushed to the crib not only was our poor child covered in vomit, she had blown her diaper with the worst diareha I've every seen. Gross. And so it continued with the double whammy of vomit and pooing all over the sheets every hour.

Saturday dawned and Leina had a fever. The vomit had stopped but she was still blowing out diapers. And she was listless. She wouldn't talk or walk or even eat. If you did coax a word out of her, it was in a hoarse whisper from a throat rubbed raw from non-stop puking. All she would do was sleep in our arms. Our house was so eerily quiet. I though, "man, how could this get any worse?" Ha!

Saturday night, no vomit. Yippee! Still changing sheets due to diaper overload but we were thinking she was getting better.....until we saw the wierd rash/blisters forming all over her body. They'd start small, then merge together into these giant hot welts. By now, I was beyond freaked out so I paged the on-call doctor to find out if an ER visit was in our future. She assured me that it was probably just a food or bacteria reaction and not to worry. Easy for her to say. Nevertheless, Leina did appear to perk up Sunday night and I thought, "phew, looks like we're out of the woods." Ha!

Last night, at 11pm, we heard her wake and start gagging. Yep, we had another round of vomit and blown diapers last night. Today, she has just given up on eating all together. I don't blame her really. The rash is going down just as the doctor predicted. The newest twist is that every few minutes Leina grabs her belly and diaper area and starts to scream "OWWWWIE! OWWWWIE!" Best I can tell, she's having some horrible stomach cramping and there's nothing I can do.

She's down for a nap right so. So far, every nap as ended with screaming from either vomitting or severe cramping. I've given up thinking this is going to get better. We are, after all, on day four of this horrible stomach bug and she hasn't really improved at all. I keep telliing myself that this too will pass but it seems like a bad groundhog day to me. The same horror over and over. I dread what the night will bring.

I miss my girl so much. Her spirit is gone. She won't eat a bite and will only lie listlessly on the sofa in a sort of semi-coma daze between stomach cramps. I haven't had to put away toys or books for days. Dishes are minimal. Our washing machine hasn't stopped running since Friday and the sound of the churning is the only noise in the house right now. My only consolation is the knowledge that Leina is not the first. Every mom in my play group has been hit by this bug. They all said the vomited lasted four days, the diarreha even longer. So I guess all I can do is keep clean sheets on hand and press the fluids but it's hard, so hard to see my little lion without her roar.

The Hooks Rock!

First let me say, "thank you Suzy!"

As some of you may know, Chrissie and I have a differing of opinions on the subject of laundry.

Most recently Chrissie has become exasperated with my clothing classifications:

1) Clean - can be worn at anytime and should be neatly folded and stored in the appropiate drawer

2) Dirty - should not be worn, should be put in the laundry hamper (aka basket at the side of our bed)

3) All Most Clean - Worn just a little, not really dirty, and can be worn again without any loss to personal hygiene

4) All Most Dirty - Worn several times, not very clean but not so dirty as to affront personal hygiene standards of most dearest wife (usually)

Now classes 1 & 2 do not offend my wonderful wife. But she takes great offense at classes 3 & 4. I think it's really because groups 3 & 4 do not have a storage area. Clean and Dirty clothes have the appropriate storage centers and are thus very well organized. The main storage area for classes 3 & 4 is the floor. More specifically the floor on my side of the bed in close proximity of the wife's clothes closet. Often I've heard the Wife growl in disgust as she tromps by a pile of class 3 or 4 clothes on the way to her closet. Typically she will often kick a pile of said articles and mumble, "are those clean or dirty? And why do they have to be left on the floor?"

After I cringe because she's just sullied an almost-clean pile, I'll usually reply, "they're almost clean (or dirty) and they're stored on the floor 'cause they're too clean to be neatly folded and put back in the drawers (they would contaminate the actually clean clothes). Or they're not dirty enough to be put in the laundry basket (and would become contaminated themselves)."

"Grr.." Is my usual answer.

It seems perfectly logical system to me, but then again I came up with it :)

So, on our daily lives went until Chrissie was complaining about my system to her sister Suzy, who said, "why don't you just get some hooks to put the clothes on?"

Genius, shear genius. It often takes an outside perspective to solve very complex problems. It wasn't the actual classification system that was the problem it was the storage area! Now the class 3 & 4 clothes hang on some hooks on the back of the closed door (the dirty the clothing is the closer it is to the hamper) and Chrissie doesn't complain (or even care). As long as all types of clothes are stored in their appropriate place the Wife is happy.

Thank you Aunty Suzy, thank you!

Do It!

This morning I went to take Leina out of her car seat. As I started to unbuckle her, she said to me, "do it."

"Yes honey, mamma's gonna unbuckle you," I replied as I fiddled with the different locks.

"No, no, no!" Leina cried and pushed my hands away. "Do it!!" she repeated even more emphatically.

"Alright Leina," I said tersely, "momma will do it!"

Once again my hands were shoved aside as I tried to remove her arms from the now unlocked straps. Leina looked right at me and said, in her most authoritative voice, "no momma, Leina do it!"

I sat back dumbfounded as Leina slipped her arms from her car seat straps, turned around and gently lowered herself out of the seat. Then she turned to me, face beaming and said "Leina big girl!"

Yes, my baby girl is gone. In her stead is this little force of nature who wants to do it her way. I have to restrain myself from rushing to help her. If I show up too soon, she shooes me away with a stern "Leina do it" and so I'm left to hover nearby, watching her stuggle on her own. If she needs help, she asks but mostly, well, she *can* do it.

I can't believe how fast she's grown. It seems like in just the last week she's decided she can take on this world on her own. She wants to get on her scooter herself, get out of the stroller on her own, feed herself, and get the milk from the refrigerator without a helping hand. And she takes such pride from each accomplished task. We pretty much walk around the house beaming at each other, smiling together, and saying, "Leina do it!"

Oddities

If you ask Leina what color she wants, she will always answer "blue!"

If you ask her how many she wants, she will always answer "nine!"

And today, I taught her how to say "drama queen" after a particularly moving meltdown because I refused to let her put the steak knife in her mouth.

"Damma keen!" she now gleefully shouts.

I've decided to mount the video camera in the living room and just keep it recoding all day long 'cause every moment she is too precious.

"Damma keen! Nine! Nine! Nine!"

Here's Your Breakfast!

Here's our standard morning routine.

Leina wakes up anytime between 6:45 andf 7:20am. When she does, Kevin takes her downstairs and gives her a cup of milk and they sit together on the sofa watching PBS or a DVD for a while. At 7:30, I lumber out of bed and head downstairs to take over while Kevin eats his cereal and heads up to the bedroom to bath and get ready to head to work. Usually, while he's leaving for the day, Munchie and I are just starting our breakfast routine. This all works out wonderfully. Kevin gets precious snuggle time and I get an extra couple of minutes of shut eye.

Of course, all this changes when Kevin is on swing.

Now, he gets home anytime between midnight and 1am so when the Munchkin starts calling "UPUPUPUPUPUP!!!!!" from her room, we'll switch off who needs to get her. If Kevin goes, he'll snuggle on the sofa, half asleep, until I get down there and then I send him back to bed for another couple of hours. But lately, he's been too tired to be roused even for Munchie snuggles so I've been taking over in the morning.

The other day, while Kevin slept and Leina fed herself and dolly, I made Kevin breakfast. This consisted of scrambled eggs with melted cheddar cheese, southern style hashbrowns, three strips of crispy bacon and freshly butted wheat toast finished with a big glass of milk. When Kev managed to get downstairs, lulled by the smell of the food, he was estatic.

That night he got home from work early at 11pm so the next morning, he rolled out of bed to get Munchie. I slept in till after 8am and when I awoke, I was hungry.

"I wonder what goodies Kevin has for me..." I mused as I trapsed down the stairs.

Imagine my surprise when I rounded the corner to the kitchen to find empty counters and no delicious morning smells.

"Hey Kev," I cried in dismay, "where's my breakfast?!?!"

Kevin looked up from the paper and reached over the table.

"Here's your breakfast, hon!" he exclaimed as he tossed me an unopened package of instant oatmeal.

Where's the love, I ask you?

Sweet & Sour

Kevin is working swing shift this month. He's been putting in long hours and working hard on a bunch of time sensitive projects. His day starts at 2pm and usually ends sometime after midnight. This this afternoon, at 1:30pm his pager went off with a message for him to call into work.

Now Kevin, being the sweet, optomistic person he is, immediately thought it was his boss telling him not to come in and take the day off.

Myself, however, being a realist (aka pessimist) immediately jumped to the conclusion that something had gone so horribly wrong that they couldn't even wait 30 minutes for him to get there.

It's now 1:45pm. Kevin is at work.

I don't know whether to be pleased for calling it right or despondent. The tool broke and it looks like a working weekend for Kev. Sigh. At least the sun's still shining and the kid went down for her nap lickity-split so all is not lost!

Hope your friday is more sweet than sour.....

The Pusher

Leina has a bully.

I'm part of the mom's club here in Sherwood and it's wonderful. Full of fun, energetic moms who are always planning outings and adventures. The best part is that each child is assigned to an age appropriate playgroup. Leina's group just happens to be all girls and Leina is the youngest by about three or four months. The moms are a blast and it's a wonderful thing to look forward to each week.

At least for me.

Leina, however, is learning a very hard life lesson. Kids push. They take your toys. They don't always share. And most of the time, you want what they have. For an only child these are all new and (more often than not) not so wonderful facts of life.

The one girl closest to Leina's age is going through a pushing phase. Since Leina is the only one smaller/younger than her, Leina's the target. She shoves, Leina falls and the crying begins. Leina has no idea what is happening to her. She is completely mystified as to why she's being pushed. She'll run up to me, tears dripping, and stutter....."Leina push! Leina fall down! Leina owie!"

While I comfort Leina, the pusher gets a time out, a "no pushing" lecture and is made to say "sorry". Of course, right after the "sorry" she pushes again. Sigh. She is, however, getting better. Today at playgroup there was only one push and it occurred when both kids went for the same toy.

And while Leina's been learning about the hard knocks of life, I've been learning a thing or two as well. I'm well aware of the fact that in a short time Leina will go on her very own pushing/biting/hiting/kicking binge so I'm watching my friend as she deals with her daughter. It ain't easy and I shudder to think that all too soon I'll be apoligizing and trying to keep a firm eye on my very own trouble maker.

But so far, Leina has resisted the urge to push back and instead seeks refuge in her mother's arms. Of course, this kind of defeats the purpose of playgroup since Leina refuses now to play with anyone at all. And while part of me wants to teach her to fight back, my wiser half knows that teaching her to turn the other cheek is also an important skill. Of course, try explaining this to a toddler with a very limited vocabulary and sensitive tushie. Ah my poor baby girl!

Death By Milk

It all started over five measily dollars. Oh, what I would pay now to avoid what happened. Hundreds? Thousands? But enough crying over spilled milk. Here's the story.

My little city of Sherwood boasts 14000 residents and two grocery stores - Safeway and Albertsons. When we moved in over the summer I shopped both stores and found the following facts. Safeway was cleaner and had better meat and produce but Albertsons was cheaper. For a while, I bought produce and meat at Safeway but made a seperate trip to Albertson's for sundry items like ziploc bags and cereal. After a while, I got lazy and found myself an exclusive Safeway shopper. Sure, it cost more but they had better quality food and (equally as important) a better Starbuck plan. Albertsons must have noticed that I had disappeared because they sent me a coupon that saved me $5 bucks for every $20 I spent.

This seemed like a good deal.

So Munchie and I did our weekly shopping at Albertson's last week. It hadn't changed. The lettuce was wilted and slimy, the donuts stale, the aisle dirty but hey, I was gonna save five whole bucks! I limited my total to $20 and walked away feeling pretty darn good.

Until Sunday.

Sunday morning dawned over our fair city with a glorious burst of blue sky and sunshine. The birds sang, the cows mooed and all was right in our little bit of suburbia. Kevin awoke with The Kid and snuck her downstairs for breakfast while I slept in. He gave her the end of the Safeway milk and used the remnants for his cereal. Being a milk lover, he opened the brand new Albertson's carton of milk and poured on an extra helping of milk. Then, he hooked up the dog, bundled up the kid, and went for a morning stoll.

As soon as I heard the door slam, I rolled out of bed and waddled downstairs for a nice quite morning alone in the house. No husband throwing dirty socks on the sofa, no small child insisting she needed to sit in my lap, and no dog drooling down my leg as I ate my own bowl of cereal with just a splash of milk. It was wonderful.

Kevin, kid and mutt returned all too soon and our day began. About half an hour later, I noticed I was feeling a bit off. No big deal really. I mean, I *am* seven months pregnant. I chalked it up to general pregnancy ickiness and tried to shake it off until I noticed Kevin looked a little green and kept visiting the bathroom. We compared notes and were not please. Both of us had an upset stomach and Kevin admitted he thought the milk tasted a bit funny. Yes, the I-saved-five-bucks-Albertson's-milk. The expiration date was March 13th but it was bad.

We went from bad to worse. By noon, we were both curled on the sofas, groaning and green faced in absolute food poisoning hell.

Poor, sweet Leina. She didn't drink any of the Albertson's brew and, as such, was feeling great. She wanted to play outside. She wanted to swing. She wanted to go for a walk. She ended up spending most of the afternoon tugging on us pleading..."out mommy...out daddy...peeeeease!"

Aroung 1:30, I caved in. I went and got Leina's training potty and placed it on my lap. Kevin took munchie upstairs. The next wave of sickness that hit, I didn't fight it, just bent over that small blue seat, held onto those little yellow handles and hurled down the hole. Over and over and over.

It felt wonderfully horrible. I was free. Exhausted, but no longer nauseaus. I immediately fell asleep and when I awoke, I felt like a new woman. So I took the kid and advised Kevin to follow my lead. He refused and decided to tough it out. He still looked green around the gills when we went to bed that night but he seems to have recovered fully. Of course, we lost a whole day. One beautiful, sunny, Sunday down the toilet (literally) all to save five measily bucks.

I don't care how many coupons Albertson's sends me, I am never going there again. But on the bright side, I learned that Leina's training potty makes an excellent puke bowl so I suppose all is not lost.