Can't Talk, Eating

Hey, look! Two blog posts in the same calendar month! One month into 2015, and I'm still keeping one of my actual, CURRENT-YEAR resolutions! Go me!

Plus, this post is going to be about MULTIPLE resolutions at once. I win at ... something.

Anyway. When last we spoke, I mentioned a bunch of "guidelines" that I set for myself for this year and I am happy to report that I have been hard at work at #5 especially. Now that I have a semi-regular schedule (i.e., I work most days and am almost always home by 4:00, so I have time to make "real" dinner instead of just throwing random assorted frozen things on the table), I have been trying to expand my repertoire in the kitchen. I mean, I think I'm a pretty good cook anyway, but it never hurts to improve.

This means -- pretty much as I predicted -- that I'm experimenting a lot more frequently with recipes I find on Pinterest. And so far, I've found one that has been an absolute, unqualified slam dunk, and so I am sharing it here.

But first (OF COURSE), a story, which begins thusly: I just CAN'T with pancakes.

I mean, I love pancakes. LOVE THEM. That's the problem. One is never enough. Three are usually not enough. Add in butter, syrup, etc., and I end up feeling fluffy and sluggish for the whole day. (Carbs!) But I love them, and my daughter and husband love them, and I feel so ... difficult when I make them for everyone else, but don't eat them myself. Difficult, and sad. Everyone else has a plate full of golden-brown hotcake deliciousness in front of them, and I'm eating a sad little serving of scrambled eggs.

Enter the cream cheese crȇpe.

This recipe has been floating around Pinterest for a while, usually under something like "low-carb pancakes." I tend to stay away from recipes like that, because many low-carb recipes out there contain ingredients I can't eat or don't like -- almond flour (allergic), coconut oil (not worth the cost, I don't think), Stevia (ick), erythritol (what?). But I found one that has two ingredients, both of which I (1) recognize and (2) have in my house.

Cream cheese and eggs. That's it. WHAT?

Believe it or not: these are GOOD. I don't know what kind of culinary alchemy makes cream cheese and eggs (plus a little bit of vanilla extract, which I add, because I never follow recipes exactly) turn into something that tastes almost exactly like pancakes when you pour the batter out of a blender, but HELLO LOVER.

I made these for the first time about a week ago, and they were good. I was not 100% satisifed with how they turned out -- I had trouble getting them to come out "pretty" -- but they tasted fine, and instead of syrup, I only needed a little bit of topping. In that first batch, I only used three half-teaspoons of blueberry preserves (half a teaspoon on top of each crȇpe), and it was enough.

But, as I said, I wasn't completely sold. They were good enough, but not perfect. Something wasn't quite right. I needed a second taster to try these and guess what was wrong with them, or tell me I was bananas for liking them so much, or something.

We tried them again this morning, and this time they were an unqualified success. My husband declared this recipe "a keeper" -- and I'll agree, especially because I figured out what was wrong with the last batch.

Here's the recipe: 3 ounces of softened cream cheese (lowfat cream cheese [American Neufchâtel] will work just fine) and 3 large eggs (or equivalent -- I used 2 medium eggs and 1/3 cup Egg Beaters). That's all. I added about 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract, but you don't need to. Mix in a blender or Magic Bullet-type device, then pour onto a heated griddle or skillet. You'll get 6-8 crȇpes from this recipe, depending on how big you make them. They'll be thin -- they're crȇpes, after all -- but they taste like pancakes (somehow!) and satisfy that craving. I don't know how, but they do. Magic, maybe?

When I made this batch, I put about half a teaspoon of preserves in the middle of each crȇpe and then rolled them up, with a little extra of the top, and a squirt of whipped cream to look pretty. They tasted AMAZING, even better than last time, when I used all Egg Beaters.

And now I can have pancakes with everyone else. THE END.

Haul Out The Holly

Our tree, she is UP, you guys.

There she is in her original, unadorned splendor: about 7½ feet of fine Fraser fir. She smells divine. I love Fraser firs the best of all because they smell piney and citrus-y and they are really good about holding on to their needles.

This year we used two strands of plain white lights and two strands of clear globe lights. I'm pretty sure all our lights will need to be replaced for next year, because they're all starting to unravel. If anyone has a line on frosted and/or pearl globe lights, let me know. I love me some globe lights.

We let Shae put the star on the top of the tree this year. I'm pretty sure that by this time next year, she'll be able to do it without even needing a stepstool. I really wish they would stop putting Miracle-Gro in all the food at school. Maybe pizza really IS a vegetable.

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches! (G says that in the original German, the words to "O Tannenbaum" translate to "how lovely are your needles," but we don't listen to him.)

We have more ornaments on the tree this year than we did last year, but we went with the same color scheme: bright aqua, lime green, hot pink, sparkly purple, gold, silver, and white, with a couple of random clears and bronzes, and that one blue sweater ornament up there near the top. We only got four new decorations this year (two aqua butterflies, a pink-and-purple fish, and my new favorite.)

Sparkleduck, ladies and gents. Isn't she lovely? Isn't she WONDERFUL? This is probably the best dollar I ever spent at Target on Christmas ornaments in the last two weeks. Shae and G did most of the decorating while I stood around and freaked out because my Martha Stewart Complex got aggravated by all the straight lines and color-non-randomization, but Sparkleduck is all me. (Oh, and yes, we hid the Hula Pickle, but I can't tell you where because I am not sure if Shae knows how to work the Internet. But TRUST ME.)

The Big Dig

The world is collapsing around our ears.

You think I'm being melodramatic as usual, but of course I am absolutely not making this up. Our roof is leaking into our bedroom and this is causing no end of emotional, psychological, and physical distress to me. You can probably guess why: emotional, because "oh noes, all our stuff!" (which is totally fine); psychological, because "oh noes, we are forcing our poor child to live in squalor and disrepair because we're terrible people!" (which is not entirely the truth, although I'll let you figure out where the line between fact and fiction is perforated); and physical, because "oh noes, we're beating ourselves up over this!" (which, all that self-flagellation really takes a toll, you know?).

(And oh by the way -- that is A LOT of punctuation, right there. My former English teachers and lit professors are either insanely proud, or insanely appalled, or just insane.)

Of course, most of these things are non-starters. The roofing guy came out to the house today to take pictures and assess the damage and the good news, so far, is that it seems like the damage is pretty minor, or at least it only affects a small area of the roof. It's rained on and off for the last two days and we haven't had any more drippage, but in the event that it does, we already have the big plastic trash can from the office in position. On Friday, when we discovered the leak, we found only a tatty old sweater had gotten wet. As far as damage goes, that's so insignificant as to barely register -- that sweater doesn't fit anyway, and it was about to go into the "giveaway" pile.

But now we're waiting on the estimate and then once that comes, and we figure out how many kidneys and liver chunks and potential first-born children we need to barter in order to come up with however much money is going to be needed to pay to fix a roof on an 83-year-old house with a lot of the original fixtures, and then after that there will be strange people tromping through my bedroom on their way to the busted-up spot, and that means that, at some point probably sooner than later, I will really need clean my room.

Our room is a mess. Not quite a federal disaster area, not yet, definitely not at risk of qualifying as a Superfund site, but  ... we have A LOT of stuff. Right now our room is filled with laundry, clean clothes that need to be put somewhere, but our closet space is limited, and some of it is potentially in the leaky-roof danger zone, plus it's time to switch out the winter stuff for the summer stuff, and I don't really have anything that fits, so I don't know what to keep and what to give away and where to put everything in the meantime. There's just SO MUCH STUFF, and when we try to make some headway (a thorough cleaning would take at least a few hours, even if we were uninterrupted by a four-year-old whose idea of "helping" is basically to move stuff from one end of the room to the other and then jump on the bed), we get about half an hour in, tops, before it gets so overwhelming that we both end up fighting and yelling and crying and "accidentally" throwing away the other one's perfectly fine pair of slightly-used-but-still-good-condition Crocs with absolutely no tread left on the soles BUT THEY ARE MY PHILLIES CROCS, DAMMIT, AND I LOVE THEM.

Plus, one of us might possibly have a slight over-accumulation problem, but that's only because I keep losing one sock of each pair every time they go in the wash and it is my fault that I have to wear socks with most of my shoes so that my feet don't freeze and my toes don't fall off? It's sad, really, that two grown adults -- one of whom is an engineer, and one of whom purports to have a major Martha Stewart complex -- just cannot get themselves together, but there you are.

We've gotten exactly nowhere so far, but thanks for asking. We're planning to make a plan as soon as we get the estimate back and we are both in the same place at the same time when the sun is still up, or at least when it is on the sunset side of the deep dark night, and not the sunrise side.

One good thing has come out of this, though: aside from clean clothes, one other big thing that takes up valuable real estate in our bedroom is stacks and stacks of books (most of them mine, I admit), and our bookshelves are just about full to bursting, and I don't want to start moving the clutter from one room to another, hoarders-style, because let's face it, it's not just our bedroom that needs help, and moving the junk around would just make a bad situation worse because eventually we'd need to move it somewhere else, so I've decided to start culling the collection and start a paperback book swap at work. I took three bags full of books into work this morning, and I am taking more tomorrow, and G said he has some he'll contribute to the cause, and you know, I don't even care if nobody else brings any books in, as long as someone takes these off my hands. So far three books have been taken out of the box at work, and not everything is trash, either -- there are Pattersons and Evanoviches and Sookie Stackhouse novels in there.

And I managed to find a beautiful, untouched, unopened copy of Little Women, which I am sad to admit I have not yet read. That might be the most embarrassing thing about this whole plight -- I'm potentially a hoarder AND I am apparently the worst former Writing major EVER.

Anyway. Send us your thoughts and well-wishes and any spare sacks of money you might have lying around. And also, send shovels.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

It's a great day -- I am eating clementines for breakfast, I'm 99% finished with my shopping, and somebody else is paying for lunch today (it's our department holiday luncheon), so rather than kvetch about what I don't like about Christmas, I thought I'd talk about the stuff I actually like -- namely, my tree.

I complained to my husband earlier that I "hated" our tree, but I really don't. Maybe it isn't quite as Martha Stewart as I would like it to be, but it's really quite lovely. Nothing in the world smells quite like a real tree, and nothing is as pretty as a family tree decorated with ornaments that are quickly becoming new favorites.

Somewhere in my mom's house (probably the attic) there is an entire box of light-up ornaments that used to be belong to me, and will again some day, including the complete collection of Star Trek ships from Hallmark. Somewhere between college and marriage I switched from bright and noisy to classic and shiny, and I acquired this golden pear. It's no USS Enterprise, but it will do for now.

We also have acorns on our tree. I don't know why we have acorns on an evergreen tree, but I love these things.

We also have pine cones, don't worry. (With glitter, natch.)

No idea what this thing is supposed to be besides pretty. I love it. It's one of my top five favorite ornaments on the tree. (I apologize for the weird shifting colorization on these pictures, by the way -- I tried to brighten everything up but I still don't know how to work all the camera features so stuff was destined to get borked.)

We have this butterfly near the top of the tree, right underneath our star. It's supposed to represent something: my obsession with glitter and sparkles and bling, probably. Yes, I am part magpie.

Ironically, this cupcake ornament (Shae's) is the only breakable thing on the tree. I didn't want it to feel lonely, which is why we decided to add some color this year. It was a good decision -- our tree looks less "sterile" and "department store" with the added pops of pinks and greens and blues.

Another of my top five favorite ornaments. From the dollar store. Much more sparkly than this picture shows. I love this thing.

Of course there is a tree ornament on our Christmas tree. I wouldn't be a good ironic little wannabe hipster if we didn't have at least one "meta" decoration, now would I?

A giant, two-pound reminder of whose tree this really is. Okay, maybe not two pounds, but this "S" is silver and rhinestones and it weighs a ton relative to everything else on the tree, which is why it is actually sitting on a second branch, instead of being suspended. This week Shae has been saying the "S" is for Santa Claus.

This year we're starting a new tradition -- the Christmas Pickle, hidden in the tree. Of course other people have been doing this forever, but this is our first time. I actually have a gorgeous pickle ornament that came with the Bride's Tree ornament set that I got as a bridal shower gift, but we have those ornaments packed away somewhere safe until Shae is older and the cats are ... less catlike, because everything is made of glass. In the meantime, we're using this Hula Pickle that (obviously) came from my mother. When Shae finds it in the tree on Christmas morning, she gets an extra present. It's a double bonus for us ... a cute new family tradition that represents our pickle-loving cupcake.

Carpe-ing the Diem

We did some housework and yard work today, because we have a full and busy week coming up and we aren't going to have much time to get this stuff done. I volunteered to rake the leaves in the front yard, in part because it isn't a very daunting task, since we have this grotty little tiny yard that I believe is the smallest in captivity.

Seriously, I'm pretty sure my cubicle at work is bigger than that. Also, I knew I would have help.

Because if there is an outdoor activity, my kid will volunteer for it. She thinks weeding is FUN. I can't wait 'til she's old enough to be able to actually identify what is a weed vs. what is a plant, because I hate weeding. Not as much as I hate dishes and laundry, but still.

Oh, and I had an ulterior motive for wanting to rake: valuable photo opportunities.

It was a perfectly-sized leaf pile for one small person, and Shae didn't let me down.

Of course, now you can hardly tell that we ever raked the front yard, even after we collected a full garbage of leaves. Funny how a kid jumping in a leaf pile for ten minutes can actually make a bigger mess than the leaves just falling off the trees for three weeks.

But we had a great time, so it was worth it.

A Very, Very, Very Fine House

I had a doctor's appointment today, because I caught my annual pre-Thanksgiving plague, and it isn't getting any better. I still go to see the same doctor that I have seen since I was about 12 years old, the office where I used to work in the billing office, with my grandmother and my grandfather and my mother as my bosses. Good times, those.

I took a half-sick day off work and went to my parents' house to have lunch before my office visit. As it turns out, my father was meeting my mother for lunch, so when I got there, I was the only person in the house. That is the first time that happened in at least five years, and possibly ten. Because there is always someone at my parents' house -- it's like Grand Central Station up in there.

In the spring and summer, my mother's garden is THE place to be, but the inside of the house is greatly underappreciated. I love my parents' house, not just because I lived there for so long and still spend so much time there, but because there are so many things in the house that say "Home" to me. Totally weird and random things.

Like this bowl. This bowl is my very favorite bowl in all the lands and the skies. Don't ask me why, because I'll be damned if I know. But it's always a special treat to me when I can eat out of this bowl, which I did today. Chunky Sirloin Burger soup will never taste as good as it does out of this bowl.

I love this grandfather clock, which we have had for about a hundred years. Well, okay, like 35 years, but still -- I always remember it being in my parents' house, so it might as well be generations old. It hasn't worked right since before I got married, I don't think. But when my sisters and I were little girls, it used to play a tune, and when my father would tuck us in at night, we used to sing the song together, and take turns being kissed goodnight on the long "BOOOOOING!"

This tatty old Monet poster is probably 20 years old. I got it when I was in high school, on the day I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and saw my very favorite painting for the first time. This poster has been in three bedrooms in my parents' house, plus four different college dorm rooms. Lucky for me that my mother and I have the same favorite color palettes, and this poster still matches the walls in the room that is now the "guest nursery." (Ironically, the poster is NOT a print of "A Bend in the Epte" -- the PMA did not have any copies of that poster left when I was there back in 1990.)

No idea where this weathervane came from, or why my mother has it, but her house generally has a vaguely-nautical-slash-beach-cottage decor, and this thing fits right in. This is in the guest bedroom, and sometimes when I'm sleeping over I will watch it reflect streetlights and headlights and taillights and the occasional tealight, and it helps me sleep.

If I recall correctly, my mom got this dresser either from "salvage" (i.e., she knew someone was getting rid of it and she picked it up and brought it home) or from a yard sale. Either way, she got it for next to nothing. It matches EXACTLY ZERO other pieces of furniture in my house -- my decorating style is more a cross between kind of colonial and a little bit Scandinavian and sort of hand-me-down -- but I call dibs on this wardrobe anyway.

On almost every available surface in the house, there are pictures. Tons and tons of pictures, of everybody and everything and every occasion, some of them literally decades old. Just in this one corner on my mom's living room, there are pictures of (clockwise, starting at top left) my wedding from 1999, my parents' wedding from 1973, me and my sisters from approximately 1987, my father's parents and their kids from around 1955 when my dad was still the youngest (there are only five kids in that picture, so my grandmother would go on to have EIGHT MORE children), a picture of my father and his brothers from my aunt's wedding in 2000 or 2001, and a picture of my mother and her siblings with my grandparents from I don't even know what year. Stuff like this is EVERYWHERE. My mother has my great-grandmother's elementary school graduation diploma on the walls. It's AWESOME.

And, OF COURSE, she still has roses blooming, because she and her dirt are made of magic.

Going Full Griswold

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS. My new next-door neighbors -- the ones on the detached side, not the other half of our double -- have PUT UP THEIR CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ALREADY.

Seriously, I am not making this up. They only moved in three weeks ago or so. (That house has had more residents than Spinal Tap has had drummers, for serious.) We don't know their names yet. They have not introduced themselves. Clearly they don't understand the way the on-street parking works on our block, because they keep parking next to that one telephone pole that everybody knows is supposed to be my spot. And then I come home from work last night, more than a week before Thanksgiving, and I see this:

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT MESS? I have nothing against Christmas lights, of course. I mean, we don't really decorate the outside of our house, primarily because I am a lazy-ass, but also because our house is kind of a pit and what's the point? You can't really polish a turd, you know? We don't live in the worst house on the street -- that honor is reserved for the house at the other end of the block that is totally dodgy -- but we definitely have a leaky front porch and a water pressure problem that makes it difficult to power-wash the moss off the steps, and so inadequate lighting is beneficial. Kind of like smearing Vaseline on the lens for an aging actress. But in theory, I don't mind when other people decorate.

How does anybody even know where their Christmas decorations are already? My husband puts our boxes of lights and ornaments away, and I have zero idea where they are. A couple of Longaberger baskets have been on the mantle for the seven years we've lived in that house. And I just won a tinsel snowman at a bitch bingo. But if I got challenged to some kind of decorating slap-fight right now, the only things I'd be able to pull together are the Lionel train and some random assorted tchotchkes that never got put away last year, like so:

Okay wait, the colored glitter balls are new. I got them at Target a couple weeks ago, because they were in the $1 section, and I was trying to decide if I wanted to go with colored ornaments this year or not. (We are. I think. But not too many, because I really like my classy elegant understated Martha-Stewart-style tree with the silver, gold, white, and clear color scheme, and I can't just jump headfirst into all these crazy colors because what if I don't actually like them? And what if they aren't trendy next year, and I can't replace them? Then what? I am telling you RIGHT NOW, I am NOT doing a black-silver-and-white tree, ever, because I am STILL bitter about the 1981 Super Bowl.)

Plus, WHAT THE HECK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN? We still have it, in its original unadorned form, from when we went apple picking. Wasn't that 100 years ago, already?

Anyway ... now I am wondering if My Anonymous Neighbors have just thrown down the gauntlet and challenged me to a decorating contest. They already have a LOT of lights up, and they keep adding. My only defense is going to be to go Full Griswold on them, and I don't want to do that if I don't have to, because my very favorite outdoor decoration is my lighted Moravian star (mine is not pictured, BTW), which pretty much sets the world standard for simple and classic holiday decorations. I love my Moravian star, and I don't want to see it sullied. But you BETTER BELIEVE that I will throw down if I have to.

Oh, be quiet, you.

Terms and Conditions

Shae will be 3½ this week, and recently we decided that it was time for her to start doing some chores so she could get an allowance.

I'm not really sure why we decided to give her an allowance -- it just seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to teach her responsibility and cause-and-effect. If she does X number of pre-determined things, she'd get $1. We made up a little chart and everything. Nothing too crazy on there, mostly stuff she should be doing anyway: putting her dirty dishes in the sink, putting her dirty clothes in the hamper, putting away her toys and books before bedtime, that kind of thing. Every time she does one of her "chores," she gets a sticker on the chart, and when she gets 15 stickers, she earns a dollar for her piggy bank.

This kid is robbing me blind.

She never really showed much of an interest in following directions before -- dinnertime and bedtime in particular have always been a struggle. After 6:00 PM she seems to lose focus, gets a touch rowdy and unruly, starts dithering around. Now she wants to do these things, all day, all the time. She cleans her plate at supper time almost without fail so she can drop her cup and plate in the sink. I think she wants to make sure we hear her doing what she's supposed to, so we have no excuse to keep from giving her that precious blue dot.

And she's started haggling over the terms and conditions.

We have some leeway to withhold stickers from her, of course, because we're the parents and all. If she puts her clothes in the laundry at the end of the day, but she fusses over brushing her teeth or saying her prayers, we threaten: Listen, or no sticker. That snaps her back to attention. But she doesn't really understand what we mean by "Put Dishes In The Sink After Every Meal." She wants a sticker after breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. She wants to change her clothes three times a day and drop her "dirty" things in the laundry.

She's being a stickler, a rules lawyer.

And we figured that we would only manage compliance two or maybe three times a day, but she is right on top of her chores now. It doesn't really help our wallets that we have a new schedule and we're taking her to school a little earlier in the morning, so now she's still asleep when her alarm goes off.

Still, even if it's going to end up costing me $3 a week instead of just the $1 I was expecting, I'm still glad we decided to do this. For one thing, we're practicing counting every day -- she goes into the kitchen and counts off the little blue dots on her chart. She's trying to count backwards from 15 to determine how many more stickers she needs to get her money. As we get closer to the holidays, and she gets into a more consistent routine of functioning in "polite society," we can add some more chores and change the payout table.

Hey, we're the parents, and we're allowed to change the rules if we want.

A Note From Management

O hai! Just a little note, which I have conveniently buried between posts because I know you're probably not going to care about this anyway, but I am all about the FULL DISCLOSURE, savvy?

Anyway. Because I am a COMPLETE AppWhore, I have made a few small eensy-weensy changes to my sidebar and added a little Formspring box. You can type a question in there and I'll answer it. It's that simple. If I like your question, I might even be able to make a blog post out of it, because let's face it: neither one us wants to see another post about toddler underpants, do we? I thought not. To make room for the sidebar, I deleted the "Cast of Characters" box. Don't worry, G and Shae and the cats will still make regular featured appearances.

So now that I have that box over there, why don't you ask me something? Or tell me something? Or something? The box doesn't know whether something is a questions or not. It's like commenting anonymously. If you don't want to tell me who you are, I will never know, and that's OK. I won't judge you, or make fun of your spelling errors, or anything like that. Except maybe in private, but never in PUBLIC, because I have MANNERS, ferchrissakes. But help me entertain you, 'k? Thxbai.

O Tannenbaum

And now it starts: that part of the year when all my posts get Christmas carol names instead of regular old lame punny song titles. Sorry. (Not really.) Anyway ... one whole day earlier than last year, we have our tree up back at the ol' homestead.

Some of the particulars for this year: instead of a Frasier fir, we got a balsam fir. The reasoning is simple -- cost. Our tree is about 7" tall, and the balsam was almost $10 cheaper for that size. We're still quite happy with it. It has a nice pine-with-some-kind-of-random citrus scent. Oh, and I think I might be allergic to it because I've had a sore, gummy throat since we brought it into the house. Zyrtec, baby.

This year's tree is decorated pretty similarly to last year's. What can I say? When I find a Martha-Stewart-approved design scheme that I like, I tend to stick with it. This year, I did add some white to the mix, so our "official" holiday colors are gold, silver, and white, with accents of "last year's wrapping paper." Lots and lots of sparkles. Fewer lights than last year, and I did NOT buy any more lights this time around.

You can see here the (mostly) completed tree. I think I am going to see if I can pick up some more white ornaments, just singles here and there, but for the most part, we are done with this bad boy. The only decorations that have any "not approved" colorings are the cupcake (about halfway down, on the left hand side, near the giant bedazzled "S") and the little blue sweater (near the bottom, center-right). One thing you might not be able to tell -- no balls. Just bells and pinecones and finials and glittery springs and random sparklies.

We did go shopping for my Christmas presents over the weekend, and one of them is a tripod, so I will try to get some nice pictures of some of the new favorite ornaments soon. In the meantime, if you're really interested, you can see a couple of pictures I took with the iPhone camera here and here and here. (That last one is a joke, but you better believe that I would hang that sucker if I had one, because I find it best to hedge all bets at holiday time, you know?)

A House Is Not A Home

Way back when, I promised pictures of Shae's bedroom once I was done redecorating it to accommodate the big girl bed. Um, looks like I never did that, so I guess now that we have a new wardrobe and hanging lamp from Ikea, it might be a good time to give you the grand tour.

Here is what the bed looks like these days (L-R, mostly): Little Nutbrown Hare, a dalmatian Beanie Baby, Bedtime Bear, Cheer Bear, Gentle Heart Lamb (a Care Bear Cousin), Grumpy Bear, a stuffed cat, Linny from Wonder Pets!, a Cabbage Patch doll that Shae got for her 1st birthday but whose name we can't remember so she is called "Baby,"* a sock monkey that Shae calls "Monkeyhat," a stuffed crocodile, one of G's old Garfield toys, the stuffed bear that I got at my baby shower at work, and a stuffed dog that G gave me while we were still dating.

Yes, she actually sleeps in this bed.

Under all that mess are the "polka dot fairy princess flower butterfly" sheets (that's what she calls them), and at the foot of the bed is a "Nannie Hallman blanket." Shae can't say "Haldaman" yet. In these pictures I can tell how badly we need a dust ruffle -- I'll have to work on that tomorrow.

Probably the girliest stuff in the room are the things hanging over her bed -- a couple of tchochkes from her Easter basket, some ribbons from a bouquet of flowers that she got from my mother-in-law on Adoption Day, and her bouquet from my sister's wedding. We also have kite tails hanging in her room.

The night stand. You've seen the switchplate before. She knows most of those books by heart already. And that's our "travel monster," there on the right -- we take him with us when we go anywhere, because he fits in the side pocket of the diaper bag or, in a pinch, a jeans pocket.

Shae's name, in "lights." This is probably her favorite thing in the room, because she knows what it says. My mom picked these letters up for cheap at a yard sale or something -- they're some kind of foam that I painted and then coated with glitter paint.

The dressers. These were (one of?) my sisters'. A bed and at least one dresser to match are in my parents' house -- they've made up a room for Shae for when she sleeps over. I wanted to give Shae my old bedroom furniture, but that suite has a double bed, so it's probably going to end up in a guest room at some point in the future when we buy a house that isn't so damned small.

Here's the new wardrobe and lamp in action, next to the bookcase full of books that I won't let Shae touch yet. I know, I know, I'm a terrible mother -- but I have complete sets of Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, Unfortunate Events, and Septimus Heap novels, which are out of her age range, and I don't want them destroyed. (She's not really interested in them yet, anyway, since most of "my" books have minimal pictures.) Someday she's going to have the best damn kid's library ever.

Shae really likes her new room, even though it's the same room with the dirt just moved around. (Yeah, that last picture is completely gratuitous.)

* = And you'll notice that even in a toddler room, nobody puts Baby in the corner. RIP, Johnny Castle.

Bananagate

We just spent the last hour negotiating with a tiny little terrorist over eating a banana. How do toddlers do that? She ate everything else we put in front of her, but she REFUSED to eat her banana. While we were "ignoring" her until she ate her breakfast, I entertained myself by making this:

I promise that I won't fill every blog post with scrapbook pages, but considering that I put this together in an hour, I think it's pretty alright. Maybe I'll get the hang of this yet.

(Design credits: Background and frames from "Thank You Dad" add-on kit by Delicious Scraps. Newspaper alpha also by Delicious Scraps. Bow from unknown source -- please let me know if you know where it came from.)