I think I might have to move...

if the weather doesn't get better soon!

It's raining. Again. Nothing new, I know. But it is the last day of May! And yet it is 53 degrees and raining. It makes me want to stay in my pajamas all day and never leave the house.

But that's what I did yesterday while it rained - stayed in my PJs all morning and read Stieg Larsson. So I would like to do something a bit more original today. Actually, I really want to go downtown - I need craft supplies to make decorations for Marc's PhD completion party (or whatever it should be called). But I have so little desire to pack up the Bean and then go out in the rain.

Ahhh, I need some sunshine and a good dose of motivation.

P.S. The LOST finale was such a major disappointment.

P.P.S. But the finale of Grey's Anatomy - now that was DRAMA! It had me bawling and really nervous. So nervous, in fact, I locked the door to the apartment, which we never do. It could have had something to do with the fact that Marc wasn't home.

P.P.P.S. Happy Memorial Day!!

I think I have mentioned before that lunch is our main meal of the day. Dinner usually consists of bread and cold cuts or a salad. So, lunch is the time to get my "warm" meal in. But I really hate cooking elaborately just for me. I'm always on the lookout for good, healthy ideas. Or at least good, not totally unhealthy ideas.

Marc often does our grocery shopping and he brought home tortellini recently. So I cooked that up, defrosted a little spinach (a staple in our freezer) with a little margarine and mixed it in with the tortellini. Then I sprinkled parmesan cheese over it and VOILA - easy and tasty! This is one dish that I will definitely make again.

The Saga of He Who Did Not Sleep (and his mother)...

I have an amazing sleeper. Not a sofa, not a mattress and definitely not Marc (he sleeps, but not long enough for my taste!). No, this amazing sleeper is the Bean. The Bean is 7 months old and still takes 3 naps a day. These naps are usually at least one hour long, if not longer. Then he goes to bed around 8 p.m. and doesn't get up until 7 a.m. the next morning.

This amazingness is a gift unto me. Because I very much enjoy sleeping. I (unlike my husband) need at least 8 hours of sleep a night to be fully functional the next day. And since I don't generally make it to bed until 11 p.m., a waking time of 7 a.m. suits me just fine. (Bean, if you read this, I would totally be up for not getting up until 8. :o)

But YESTERDAY....oh the horror that was YESTERDAY....

There were NO naps. Not a one. Well, there was that snooze in the car. But that was it.

I saw it coming, but I couldn't have imagined the extent of it's horribleness. You see, when the Bean misses his first nap, it kinda makes the whole day go south. But if he gets a short nap in, then things will generally be ok. So I put him in the car, as we had a church thing to go to. I fully expected that he would sleep for those 20 minutes in the car. And it was very, very silent in the car (no raspberries, no sonar noises, etc.). So imagine my surprise as I opened the door to find a smiling, very awake little man. Uh oh.....

He did, in fact, fall asleep on the way home. But we all know that a 10 minute nap is not sufficient. So, even though he woke up as I was getting him out of the car, I put him in bed. I was certain that he would fall asleep. Oh, how wrong I was.

He cried for the next 90 minutes (not solid - I did pick him up several times and I fed him). But when I wasn't entertaining him, he was crying.

Who's kid was this?? Not mine - he almost never cries, almost always goes to sleep cheerfully.

A trip to Ikea was on the agenda for the afternoon. I thought about canceling, but if I had stayed home, I might have begun to go crazy from the crying. So we went. And he was awake. The WHOLE time.

Seriously? Seriously!!

He fell asleep on the way home (do you see a pattern here?) and stayed asleep as I brought him into the house. I rejoiced, but my joy came too soon. About 10 minutes later, he was awake. So I fed him and as he almost fell asleep drinking his bottle and since he had only slept a total of about 30 minutes the whole day, I laid him down.

He didn't cry.

He also didn't sleep.

Then he started to cry.

So his papa took him on a walk. This goes against all of our sleeping principles --> We do not take extreme measures to make him sleep. He will go to sleep on his own and in his own bed. So we don't and he does.

Why the exception? Well, his mama was sooooo tired. She just couldn't take any more. So this was his papa's gift to his mama.

It took almost a full hour of strolling to get him to fall asleep.

But then he slept the whole night.

And now? My friends, he's sleeping again! And has been for almost an hour.

The Bean is back!

Little Rays of Sunshine

You know that song you used to sing as a kid as you stared out the window at the falling raindrops and wished as hard as you could for the sun to come out: "Rain, rain, go away; come again another day."

It doesn't work.

I know, I'm sorry to burst your childhood bubble. But I have concrete proof that it doesn't work. Because I sang it almost every day for two solid weeks. (Just to entertain Noah, of course.)

And it just kept on raining.

Finally, finally it stopped on Sunday. It's still cool and the sun often disappears behind the clouds. These, however, are conditions I am willing to accept, in order to receive brief glimpses of the sun. And the clouds are of the "must photograph" variety:

(photos taken from the living room window)



I'm certain that you are now asking yourself how I survived these traumatic two weeks of rain.

Well, I'm glad you asked! Flowers, my friend, flowers! Blooming plants and cut flowers in the house....

and blooming flowers in the garden.







































These are my little rays of sunshine.

And here is my big 7 month old ray of sunshine: