Big news in McLaughlin land.

First, baby sister has taken her first bite of real food. (So long as you don’t count those candy wrappers). She is an eating machine just like her sister. She loves her booby cereal and after each bite she licks her lips with her little tongue. It is so cute. I had forgotten that those first few meal most of the food ends up everywhere but their stomach and Leina got a real kick out of watching Kulia spit up almost every bite. Unfortunately, Leina’s amusement quickly turned to desire.

She wanted to feed Kulia.

So here I am, trying to feed Kulia with Leina literally hanging on my arm yelling, “my turn, my turn!” It was chaos so I finally relented and passed Leina the spoon. She carefully scooped up some rice cereal and held it in front of Kulia. Kulia opened wide and Leina jammed that spoon down her throat! Poor baby! She started gagging and I quickly pulled the spoon back out again. Leina, of course, was thrilled by this and immediately wanted to feed her another bite. As a compromise, I let Leina scoop up a bite and then we held the spoon together to feed Kulia. Leina was laughing and clapping and telling her sister, “good job!” after every slurp. I just wish I got it on camera ’cause it was too precious for words.

The fun doesn’t stop there. Oh no. Things are hopping here as our new bed has arrived! Yes, after years of sleeping on The Worse Mattress Ever, we have arrived. We had been saving up for a new bed all year but we totally drained our new bed funds to zero paying for our airline tickets to San Diego. We were resigned to waiting another year while we re-saved when my parents announced they were going to buy us our bed as our Christmas present! Kevin actually got a little teary-eyed when he learned our bed was once again a reality. So we loaded up the kids and hit the bed store. We waited until one hour before closing on a Sunday to strike. Kevin took the girls and chased Leina around the store while I bargained away. Our tactics paid off because we walked away with a great bed at a great price and it was delivered yesterday.

So last night, we Slept. Heavenly. No creaking or rolling into eachother. In fact, because we up-sized to a queen, we didn’t even touch eachother all night. It was strange. And today, Leina, Kulia and I all lay on it watching Sesame Street and I wasn’t afraid of Kulia toppling off the edge because suddenly there was more than enough room for all. Ahh, I can’t wait to hit the hay tonight. I just wish I didn’t have to wake up at 3am and get out of bed. Sigh. Well, hopefully the solid food will help sister sleep longer. Here’s hoping!

One of Kevin’s Christmas traditions is Satsuma Oranges. I had never really heard of these fruit before I met Kevin but his family tradition was a box of Satsumas under the tree at Christmas time. So every year for the last few Christmases we’ve gotten a box to keep his tradition alive.

Flash forward to Monday. I’m at Safeway with little one strapped to my chest and the big one in the front basket of the shopping cart. Little one is alternating between chewing the carrier and spitting up all over me. Big one is eating a donut and vibrating in the seat from the rust of sugar. We are almost done with the shopping and are powering through the produce aisle when Leina spots the Satsumas.

“Oh, mommy, can we get some oranges pwease?” she asks, tidbits of sugar glaze falling from her lips.

“Sure honey, daddy loves these oranges.” I reply and sling a box into our cart.

“Can I eat one now pwease?” Leina asks and rubs her sticky fingers on my shirt sleeve.

“No honey, we have to pay first, we can have one when we get home.” I reply and head toward the cashier.

When we get home and I manage to lug everyone and everything inside. Leina remembers my promise and demands a Satsuma. I pull one out of the box and begin to peel it but Leina snatches it away exclaiming she can do it herself. Happy she is occupied, I turn my back and begin unpacking the groceries.

A few minutes later, Leina approaches with a wedge of orange. Amazingly enough she has managed to peel the Satsuma, place the peel in the garbage and tear apart the wedges. I happily eat the orange offered to me and continue my unloading.

Imagine my surprise when Leina appears again by my knee offering up yet another orange. I eat this one as well. A bit slower mind you. But it’s still tasty. Now the third orange, not so tasty. And the fourth? I think that day I ending up eating six Satsumas and poor Kevin got tackled with another four when he came home. It appears our eldest loves to peel the Satsumas. She has no interest in eating more than a nibble or two. Oh no, she saves the eating part for her poor parents. I think the box came with about 30 oranges on Monday.

We have 8 left.

If I have to take another bite of orange I may lose mind. Even Kevin looked a little green this morning after Leina fed him a few more for breakfast. I’m thinking we may have to retire the Satsuma tradition this year ’cause if I see another orange wedge, I may run for my life with Kevin close at my heels.

OK, I have a confession to make. I’m addicted to Romantic Mysteries. Yes, I know, this is sadly pathetic but I can’t help myself. I found them from a blind recommendation and I’m horribly horribly addicted. I’m desperately blogging right now to keep myself off of Powell’s or Amazon where I’m sure I’d order the whole series in a flash. In the last few days I’ve read three in a row and I don’t have another and I’m going crazy. These darn kids keep falling asleep on me so I can’t get to a bookstore to buy more and if I order them online that will take, like, days to get here and that’s too long ’cause I need more….more I tell you!

Deep breath.

My house is a mess, Leina’s watched like 100 hours of tv in a row and poor Kulia. I have no idea what Kulia has been up to. Every time she fusses up I throw another candy wrapper at her. I think she’s injested a dozen or so but it keeps her quiet which mean I can read!

No, won’t tell you who the author is ’cause then you might go and read the back cover and email me taunting comments about my taste in literature. But they are such fun! The main characters are flawed women who are divorced or chubby or wear glasses and have frizzy hair. And yet, these ladies manage to land the hottest guys because who they are on the inside makes them irresistable on the outside. Yeah, I know. True fiction. I have yet to met a man who can find a woman beautiful based solely on who she is. Except for my wonderful husband! Err, yeah, of course, Kev isn’t lumped in with the rest! No! Never!

Ahem. Anyway, I think I’m ok. I’ve wasted enough time and Leina is now up so I can’t order anything online. However, it is only 3:45 so I could throw both McNuggets into the car and head for the mall and get back before Kevin gets home and then I’d have another book to read tonight. Hmmmm. Possibilites.

Oh, someone, please help me. I’ve fallen into a new author and can’t get up!

I agree with Dan and Suzy. It

Halloween has come and gone at the McLaughlin household and I still think any holiday where you get to dress your children in crazy clothes and give them candy is the best holiday of all

I knew I never should have blogged about their great sleep habits. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. In fact, after reading the last entry Kevin burst into our room screaming “what have you done you fool of a Took!” See, even he knew that I was tempting fate. And boy, She wasn’t so happy with the taunting. You see, I had forgotten one minor detail.

The time change.

Oh, the evil, evil people who decided to randomly play with Father Time. They have cursed this household. If I hear one more person blather on about how nice it is to have an extra hour of sleep in the morning I will commit a tort upon their morning sleeping body.

There is no sleep in this house now. None.

I had made such progress with Kulia. She was waking regularly once between 3-5am and then sleeping through to 7am. Leina didn’t peep up until after 6:30am like a champ. And now?

Well, lets see. Kulia woke up at 2am & 4:30am. Every time I put her in the crib she’d look at me like, “um, mom, rise and shine ’cause I ain’t going back down!” She wasn’t kidding and her crying woke Leina so we had both kids wide eyed and bushy tailed by 5am. 5am! Ack. This morning was the same. 2am booby call with a rise and shine at 5am. Repeat, 5am. I actually started crying in the Safeway parking lot this morning at 9am when both kids decided they were tired and started wailing together. Thankfully, it was raining buckets and no one could see into the car so I just cut loose. I then proceeded home where I raided Leina’s Halloween candy for a sugar rush and keep feeding it until Kevin arrived home for lunch. Thank goodness for Halloween.

Leina and Kulia are sharing very nicely. Leina eats the candy and Kulia eats the wrapper. I think I”m going to have to list Tootsie Roll wrapper as Kulia’s first solid food in her baby book ’cause I think she chomped one up this afternoon. Sigh.

My only hope is that the candy will last until I get them adjusted to this new time. Because right now, I”m running on sugar baby. Pure sugar!