diary

Looming Large

Bella's second birthday is in less than three weeks, and we have NO clue what we're doing for her party.  We've invited 11 children and their parents, along with some other friends of ours, so we have the potential for about 30 people in our house.  I really hope it's a nice day outside!  C. wants to get JoJo-themed or Elmo-themed crap like cups, plates, balloons, party favors, but I want to keep it simple.  A couple of activities and a cake. 

So, readers (all nine of you - I know there are nine of you now!), tell me, what did you did/will you do for your child's second birthday.  And are we completely insane to have this many people over?  Let the panicking begin now!

"Cereal...biaper...owie!"

Over Labor Day weekend, we took a trip down to the family beach house in South Carolina.  Tropical Storm Ernesto was passing through North Carolina/Virginia on our way down, but we were determined not to let that ruin the vacation.  The weather was gorgeous when we got down to South Carolina, and we had a fantastic weekend with Bella and our cousins, who have a 3-year-old daugther and an 8-year-old son. 

The drive back was another story entirely.  When I do the drive by myself, I can do it in just over seven hours.  With Bella, it normally takes about 8.5 hours.  However, the ubiquitous traffic between Richmond and Northern Virginia (GOD, I HATE I-95!) had stretched this trip to over ten hours.  Elmo had been going non-stop on the DVD player (ten hours of Mr. Noodle, Dorothy the Goldfish, "Drawer" and "Shade" had C. and me bonkers by this point).  Bella decided she wanted some cereal.  I wasn't paying much attention with what she did with the Life cereal, until I heard the whining - "cerealllll....biaper....OWIEEEEE!" 

Huh?  I didn't quite get what she was trying to tell us.  Did she have a cereal poop, and needed to be changed?  I was pretty sure her cereal poops were just like most other poops, and I didn't smell anything, so that didn't make sense.

"Cereallll...biaper....OWIEEEEEE!" - her tone was getting more urget. 

"C., you need to pull over," I said.

Upon closer inspection, we discovered that poor Bella was so bored that she had stuffed the cereal inside her diaper by sticking it up the leg holes of her shorts and diaper.  Life cereal is kind of sharp, and it was starting to hurt the skin on her little pudgy thighs.  OWIEEE!  Indeed!

I can't wait until she's sixteen and C. and I can tell her dates that she used to stuff cereal up her diaper!   

I'm back (but not necessarily better than ever)

After about a six-month absence, I've decided to start blogging again.  Mostly, I miss writing for myself, chronicling my daughter's life.  I know there are things I've forgotten, rare moments that have occured in these past six months or so that are lost because I didn't write about them.  I may remember snippets, but I won't remember them like they happened yesterday.

A few things are going to change - I'm not going to post pictures of my daughter, mainly because some nutcase stole them from my previous blog and tried to pass her off as her own daughter.  I was completely freaked out, and that's why, for the large part, I took down my previous blog.  I'm also not going to use my husband or daughter's real names.  I'll call my daughter "Bella" (Italian for beautiful, by the way), and my husband simply C.  A few more things to protect our anonymity in scary blogger-land.  We'll see how it goes.

I may go back and edit some of my previous posts, which I saved from my last blog, and put them back up, with the new names.  If I have the time.  OK, here I go...blogging, round two.