My Day

I literally took today off. I fulfulled my one obligation - getting Micaela to and from gymnastics - and then I took the rest of the day for myself. I've spent the past few hours laying on my bed, reading a good book. About two hours into reading it dawned on me that I'm not going to have too many more weekends like this, so I might as well enjoy it. Instead of putting my reading aside, I decided to let Kurt handle all Micaela's questions and answer all the phone calls, and I kept reading for another two hours. Kurt was great, leaving me alone and keeping Micaela outside. The only reason I stopped was because our friends are making dinner and hosting poker night and it's almost time to go. We have it pretty good here. We're going to have to convince Doug and Bob to cook dinner and host poker nights next year, although I'm not quite sure that tofu and salad will be the same as the brats we had last night.

Lemonade and Broken Bones

Last Friday Micaela had the day off of school, so she got to spend the day home with Kurt. She invited her friend Emily over and they decided they wanted to have a lemonade stand (Micaela's first). Kurt thought it was a great idea - he could take them to the store, buy lemons and waste some time, and then they would spend all afternoon outside and out of his hair (well, he doesn't have hair, but you know what I mean). I guess he didn't realize the appeal of two cute kids behind a lemonade stand, because after an hour, the first batch of lemonade was gone. Kurt spent the rest of the afternoon using our juicer to make fresh squeezed lemonade for the girls. They made out like bandits ($32!) but the lemonade was actually very good. Here are some pictures with Micaela and some of the kids from the neighborhood:

Okay, well, no one has any broken bones YET... but a family down the street with three girls that Micaela plays with is moving and they needed a home for their large trampoline. Kurt's first inclination was to say "No" because what are we going to do with it once we move? But my first inclination was to say "Yes", what a great way for Micaela to get all that energy she has out. Eventually we compromised and decided that we would take it and give it to Kristen before we move since she has a large yard and two energetic boys. The downside is that within minutes of placing it in our backyard we had all the kids from the neighborhood over jumping on it. I have no desire to be liable for other peoples kids and don't want to be babysitting all the time, so we're just going to have to establish some rules and figure out a way to keep kids off of it when we're not around (hmm...maybe some kind of electric shock system). Anyways, we had a great afternoon and it's only 7:30 and Micaela is already up in her bed passed out from exhaustion, can't ask for too much more.

This is Jessica (from the family that gave us the trampoline) and I doing our mean faces. I wanted Kurt to take a picture of my new haircut, but you can hardly tell in this picture.

A Great Weekend

I haven't been able to think of anything to blog about, but Amy just sent me some pictures that are definitely blog-worthy so I guess I will just tell you about our great weekend. Kurt was supposed to leave for PA early on Saturday, but thanks to some italian sausage, we ended up going to the emergency room on Friday night. My unit recently had a Soldier pass away from heart failure (very unexpected) so when Kurt complained about chest pain, we didn't hesitate going to the emergency room to get it checked out. It turned out that his heart was fine (most likely just heartburn from dinner), but when they x-rayed his lungs he learned that he never got over the bronchitis that he had three weeks ago and the doctor diagnosed him with walking pneumonia. Kurt had no idea such a thing existed, but then again, he didn't grow up in a daycare where you hear of every disease under the sun. So Kurt got to stay home and spend the weekend with us - yeah! Saturday was jam-packed with gymnastics, a easter-egg hunt at my work, and then a thorough house cleaning while Micaela was at a friends house. Saturday night my friend Katherine was in town visiting her fighter-pilot husband and they came over for dinner and some Wii sports. I wish I had a video camera to show you Kurt and Katherine boxing, it was hilarious. Sunday was also great - we slept in and cleaned up from dinner and then it was time for my baby shower thrown by two of my neighbors. I was worried that the two neighbors were going to be the only people there, but 4 other neighbors and my friend Amy who drove up from Fayetteville came to the party. It was very nice - great food and gifts. After the shower, Amy came over and played with Micaela who now has a new best-friend. Micaela wanted to play "spa" so Amy and I got food massages, back massages, and fantastic new hair-dos (not a bad game). Check out these awesome pictures:

Micaela may have a future in hairdressing when she grows up

I now know that I look super pregnant when I try to wear regular clothes

Bear and Spot didn't quite know what to think of Amy's dog Dixie, they kept a close eye on her

TGITh

Yeah, it's Thursday!!!! I love being my own boss. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow at 11:00 so I'm just not going to go into work in the morning. What's the point of going in for just 2 hours? That will give me time to clean up the house a little bit. I've also decided that since it's Friday and we haven't had a holiday in a while (3 weeks) that I'm going to take tomorrow afternoon off as well. So after the appointment I'm going to pick up Micaela and head out to Mari and Gabe's house. No one will miss me, right? I didn't exactly ask my boss these plans were okay with him (I asked my supervisor instead), but I've been working hard lately so I don't think he'll mind. This is rough job :)

Drama

Micaela is going to make a lot of money someday (I hope). She was doing her nightly reading out loud last night and everytime she got to a part where one of the main characters was saying something, she would read it once to figure it out, and then read it again with the proper inflections, usually going over the top, just because she wanted to. She's going to be good at drama. I'm hoping she becomes a movie star and makes millions (but not the kind of movie star that's in rehab every other month). On a good note, your suggestions seem to be working. She's making her own lunch and eating almost all of it and my attitude has changed that if she doesn't eat her whole dinner, it won't kill her, but no dessert. Makes my life a lot easier.

New Furniture!!!!

Our bedroom set came in yesterday and it's great! I'm glad we got two dressers, I love having my own sock drawer so that Kurt can't steal and stretch out my socks. Hopefully I'll be more encouraged to put away clothes now (something both Kurt and I don't particularly like to do). In the show room, the furniture didn't look nearly as big, but the mover explained to me that there are no walls in there so you have nothing to judge it by. It's a good thing we have a large room. Here are a few pictures and a short video:

Single Mom

This isn't going to be as much of a blog as it is a venting session, but Kurt's been gone and I need to complain. Taking care of a 7-year old is harder than you'd think! Especially when the 7-year old is sneaky and practicing to be a teenager (I sound like my Mom). Micaela and I have our routine down and we manage to do pretty well getting the basics taken care of while Kurt is away - breakfast, feed the dogs, go to school/work, come home, eat dinner, do homework, do chores, shower, tv, bed. Often we run out of time and don't get to watch tv or we just skip the chores, but it works. The tiring part comes in right at the dinner and homework part. I really hope Jonathan likes to eat, because Micaela doesn't (except McDonalds, fruit rollups, and chips). Kurt's philosophy is to send her to bed hungry, but the flaw is that she's okay with that, and she'll get even skinnier than she already is. If I sit there with her and hound her to eat all her dinner, she'll eat it, but it's exhausting for me. You might think that it has something to do with my cooking, but no, it's her just being difficult. Today I packed in her lunch a PB sandwich, apple slices, goldfish, doritos and a drink (all things she likes). Guess what she ate... the doritos. That's it, that's all she ate. Maybe I just need to be more mean and threatening. The next tricky part comes when it is homework time. It must be inherited, she knows all the ways to get around doing her homework. This week her assignment is to read for 15 minutes a night and she is good about wasting those minutes. Last night I finally got fed up and I made her sit on my bed and she wasn't allowed to blow her nose, get a drink, tell me her predictions, go to the bathroom, or anything else besides read for 15 minutes straight. It was torture for her. On a good note, her reading and writing skills are very much improved. So, all this time that Mari thinks I have now that Kurt is gone is really spent giving extra time to Micaela ensuring that she is doing the right things. It's exhausting some days, but she's a really good kid despite the sneakiness which I do believe is inherited, so I don't mind being tired enough to go to bed at 8pm. Okay, she should be done with dinner now, so I'm off to finish up the rest of our to-do list... wish me luck!