Odds and Ends

Well I shared some happy news in my last post, but now I have sad news.  A few weeks ago I had a miscarriage.  Unfortunately it's a surprisingly common occurrence.  It was a strange experience.  Not nearly as dramatic as you often see in movies or read in books (for me).  In the end, everything happened naturally, and I think that helped me to accept it.  We're all doing fine, and things around here have returned to a relatively normal level of craziness.  It's like I explained to our three-year-old.  We were wrong.  It's not time for us to have a baby yet.  We'll have to wait a while longer than we thought.

And perhaps in a bout of stress-induced madness I attempted to start potty-training my youngest last week.  The attempt only lasted two days.  It was pretty clear early on that she doesn't yet sense the urge to go potty.  I seem to recall a similar attempt with her older sister.  I'm totally in the get-it-and-get-out camp of potty-training.  No pull-ups.  Bring the potty to you.  Living room, kitchen, wherever you are.  Give it a solid try for two days.  If there are no signs of progress, wait.  Then try it again the next time there appears to be a real interest.  Her older sister was potty-trained in a week, before she turned two, and when her sister was a month old.  I can already tell there will be new challenges with this one.  Gone is our pee-resistant leather sofa.  And here is the older sister to provide constant distractions.  And they are constant.  But I'm still confident that when the time comes it will work out.  Until then, I will just have to be patient and continue buying diapers.  Already I can tell she's one step closer.  Now instead of saying "potty" after soaking a diaper, she tells me after what seems to be a little trickle or occaisionally even before it happens.  I think I'll give it another try in a couple of weeks.

This past week of work has been perfect.  Just enough to keep me feeling productive but not enough to take over my life.  I've been able to get and more importantly keep the house picked up, and I've had time to spend with my husband at night after the kids are in bed.  We wrapped up season four of Breaking Bad last night.  Brilliant show.

This morning I whipped up a batch of spicy tortellini soup for a mom who just had a baby.  I'll be delivering it along with salad, garlic bread, and chocolate zucchini bread this afternoon.  I think it's impossible to understand just how awesome it is to have a meal delivered until you've had a baby and you're not getting any sleep and you're ravenous because you're breast-feeding every two or three hours.  It's such a blessing.  And there just happened to be a little left over for me.  Bonus!

And since I actually thought of it, I started a beef stew in the crock pot this morning.  Two meals banged out before 9:30 a.m.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

So that's what's up around here.  A belated Happy Halloween to you all.  I hope you have a generous Spiderman in your family who is happy to share candy.  I swear sometimes my daughter sounds like she's pushing dope.  Mom!  Don't you want some candy.  Here, it's really good.  You should have some.  Do you like this kind? Try it, Mom.  Mom, would you like some candy? She's very persuasive.  And I don't mind it a bit!