Pea’s first Halloween – well, technically it’s her third, but it’s the first one that she knows exists. This can be proven with her request for Smarties from the Halloween goody basket awaiting tonight’s trick-or-treaters by the front door. I wasn’t going to give them to her, either. But then she said [...]

I found this old picture of Pea and me on my computer this morning. I don’t really remember it being taken, can’t even really say how old she was in it. Somewhere around two months, I’m guessing? I like it. A lot. Once I get past Pea not looking anything [...]

Last night was Pea’s first night in her new bed, and it went pretty well. I was prepared to get no sleep at all, but since she refused to nap yesterday, she was absolutely exhausted when we put her down at 7:30. She sang to herself for a little while and [...]

So my husband dismantled Pea’s crib this afternoon, right before nap-time. It has been officially decommissioned.

But I’ve been told not to donate it just yet. We’re putting it in the attic. “Just in case,” he said. Naturally, in my little mind, “just in case” meant “honey, we’re probably going [...]

Oh boy. Pea just keeps crawling out of her crib. Yesterday, my husband lowered it to the very last setting and still, this morning, there she was. Only this time? I heard a little “thump” and when she found me in the den, jaw on the floor, she announced that she [...]

I do not clean. I don’t even make beds. I think it’s some kind of a deliberate rebellion against my childhood, when as the oldest child of a single and hard-working mother, I had way too many “chores” to do. So now, I am a 35-year old woman who will argue over [...]

When my mother was visiting with us over the weekend, we spent a lot of time comparing my girls to myself as a kid. You know, who looks like me (they both have sparkling blue eyes, mine are an oily dark brown), who has my “don’t tell me what to do” attitude down pat [...]

Our house was built in the late 1930s. The original structure is about 1500 square feet, comprised of a kitchen, a dining and living room, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. The previous owners renovated the first floor and then added an addition – a second floor, adding two more bedrooms, a bathroom and [...]

My mother, GiGi, flew in on Friday afternoon from Chicago to spend the weekend with us. Well, to spend it with the girls. It was a whirlwind affair, a lot of shopping, a bit of eating and a lot of she and Pea sitting at Pea’s little table and chairs in a corner [...]

We took the girls to the state fair this afternoon. I’m usually not one for crowded places like a huge fair, but it’s kind of a big deal here. We couldn’t resist the guy who does the caricatures. I was reluctant at first, mostly because the drawings they always have up at [...]

A change is due. Long overdue. I’m thinking red. But not Debra Messing red. More of a Kate Walsh red. Which I guess would make it more of an auburn, right? Better off auburn?
I found this neat site, called makeoversolutions.com, and although it costs money, it amounts to [...]

Wow. There are just some days that feel like they are never going to end. This was one of them. Both girls have runny – very runny – noses, and Coco has been fighting me to go to sleep for the last two hours. Her bedtime is at 7, and it’s [...]

Every Sunday, we go as a family out for an early lunch at our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant. It’s a fairly new “tradition,” but one which we have all fallen in love with fairly quickly. Pea prefaces the outing by running around the house chanting “I want a big bowl of cheeeeeeese…” That [...]

You wouldn’t think there’d be such a huge selection of cookbooks for kids, but there is! An enormous selection! And when I say “for kids,” I mean recipes for you to make for your kids. Not the ones where your kids do the cooking. Nope, we are a good few years [...]

On Thursday mornings, I take both girls to a music class at the university down the street from us. It’s an award winning class, hugely popular, kind of hard to get into if you don’t enroll super-early. We got lucky, and managed to snag two spots for the girls at a late date. [...]