Sunday road trip

I do numerous 4-10 mile drives day-after-day taking Maisie and I to and from all our varied activities but very rarely do I take my car onto the highway or out for a long drive. But here it is, that time a year when I have to take my poor old Volvo in for it's emissions test. Because my car is 18 years old with 209,000 miles on it and I consistently do short little trips, the car builds up gunk which just doesn't get burned off. About five years ago my car failed the emissions test and the guy that ran the test told me to get a bottle of G2P and follow the directions. I did exactly what the box said and the next morning I took the car back to be retested and it passed with great numbers. So now each year before I take the car for its test I add a bottle of G2P to gas tank and take the car out for a highway road trip.

Back in November Kathy, Chani, Maisie and I spent a weekend up in Chattanooga and the girls just loved the Creative Discovery Museum. So I thought perfect, a great way to spend the day and in my car, the trip from Atlanta to Chattanooga almost completely burns through a tank of petrol. Maisie was so excited to go back to the museum and it was a beautiful day so it was perfect. Also perfect was that Maisie napped for an hour of each of the two hour drives.

We had fun at the museum, Eammon and Maisie both painted their faces and pretended to be archaeologists digging up dinosaur bones, we saw lots of bugs, we played on computers, did crafts, played different musical instruments, pretended to be a doctor, had fun will electricity and air flow and worked our muscles spinning ourselves around in circles and pulling ourselves up on a pulley chair. For some odd reason though, my freshly charged camera battery decided not to work so I only took a few piccies with my iPhone.

After our time at the museum we went out for an early dinner where Maisie ate like she hadn't eaten in a week and then we drove home. It was a really fun day and the museum up in Chattanooga was so fun and is exponentially superior to the boring and pathetic children's museum here in Atlanta. Honestly if you live here in Atlanta, take a trip north and visit the museum in Chattanooga and you'll never return to the one here.

We're ready for another fun and busy week, keeping my fingers crossed that it's another good one for us as we seem to be having a nice string of good days, laissez les bons temps rouler!

Another week gone

It's M3's Fashion Challenge Friday and today Maisie picked out a Marie t-shirt, pink & orange polka dot shorts, hot pink Hello Kitty socks and pink sparkly sneakers and she proudly proclaimed that she was dressed in pink.

I have to say that Maisie is good at matching her clothes together but of course when you almost always go for pink, it's not too difficult. I'm lucky in that Maisie doesn't care what she wears as far as dresses, pants, skirts or shorts, she's just very easy going and when I dress her, whatever I put on her she's happy. When she dresses herself she quickly decides what she wants and thankfully doesn't create a giant mess of discarded clothes. To see her other fashion choices see: week 1 (but Baba helped so it really doesn't count), week 2, week 3.

We had a huge storm roll through last night with so much lightning that our house looked like a disco, just incredible. Of course all the thunder and light flashes woke Maisie and scared the cr@p out of her so I ended up taking the little kicking, constant motion, bed hogging girl to bed with me so this morning I'm bruised and tired, what else is new.

First thing this morning I had to take Maisie for a doctors appointment and once home next door neighbor A came over to play for a bit. Maisie and A had fun playing with trains, beads, in Maisie's kitchen and of course jumping on the trampoline. They were so cute together and played very well.

This has been a good week and WOW has it flown by. Now it's time to have lunch and then we're off to ballet. Wishing everyone a great weekend.

Picture day

Maisie had a bit of a rough night last night, which of course means I was up but basically today we had another good day but it seemed wicked busy. This morning we were all up early as we had to take Eammon's car to the shop to have the power steering worked on. So we caravaned to the shop, dropped off Eammon's car and then Eammon and Maisie dropped me back at the house and they headed to Maisie's school for 'doughnuts with Dad' day. Maisie loved having her Baba at school with her and gave Eammon a tour of her classroom. While I had an hour to myself, I worked on firming up plans for the trip Maisie and I are taking to Florida the beginning of June. We now have six trips on the calendar before the end of the year! Eammon then came home and he and I returned to the shop to pick up his car but on my way home I had to make a stop to pick up a few items. I returned home for about 20 minutes then it was time to go pick Maisie up from school.

From school we headed to Maisie's ballet school as it was picture day. All the little girls looked absolutely stinking adorable and look look, Maisie even allowed her teacher Miss Lisa to pull her hair back and put in a bow! Maisie was so into having her picture taken and did fabu with the photographer, posing and doing exactly as she was told, I can't wait to see her picture and the group photo too. After the photo shoot I was going to just waste the bit of excess time doing a little shopping but Maisie was tired and fell asleep in the car so we returned home for 30 minutes and then we were off to gymnastics. We returned home at 5:30, just in time for me to make dinner which trust me, was fast, easy and nothing special. Maisie's now in bed and after all the back and forth busyness of the day I'm just vegging on the sofa worn out, contemplating going to bed soon myself and thinking that I'm thankful that petrol isn't $4 per gallon right now.

Also can you believe it, two posts within two days...Haven't done that in ages!

Good Days!

Some days can be so.very.trying so when we have good days, especially five or six of them back-to-back-to-back, this Mama is in heaven!! I love when we have good days, woohoo!! We ended last week on a high and it's just continued...another big woohoo!! Sunday we spent a good part of the afternoon watching way too much television but only one thing, over and over as Maisie just adored the DVD that we won from Diana, Prima Princessa presents Swan Lake. From when Maisie and I watched the little video clip I knew that she would love watching the little girls and animals but thought that she might be a little bored watching the actual ballet but that was not the case at all. Maisie just couldn't get enough of it, dancing around and around pointing out all the characters, naming all the steps and completely enjoying the video. I especially loved watching her trying to dance and imitate the ballerinas when she watched the dance of the four baby swans, can't tell you how many times we watched that clip! Thanks again Diana for hosting such a great giveaway.

Sunday night was a late night for me as it was stormy and the tornado sirens sounded somewhere between 10:30 & 11PM with severe thunderstorm & tornado watches continuing until 3am but thankfully, once again we had no damage or problems. Well I had one problem, the power cord for my computer gave out on Sunday so just another computer related problem.

Monday morning Maisie was up early and crawled into bed with me and said "Mama I love you, you're my best girl in the whole world" what a great way to start the week! We had a free morning so we headed to Target to get Maisie some new sneakers and some shorts. Would you believe that she's in a size 2...if they're cinched in. The 18 month ones fit better in the waist but were just a little too short so we went with the twos. We then headed to the computer store to get a new power cord. I brought along the dead one so that I'd be sure to get the correct replacement and the guy who helped me made it easy, showing me the replacement. Yeah, until I got home and found that the new cord didn't want to power my computer...OY. So after nap we returned to the computer store this time with my laptop and $90 later we had a working power cord, another OY! We then headed over to Maisie's gymnastics practice where she just rocked, Maisie just loves her gymnastics.

Last week when Maisie was out riding around on her trike I decided that she had outgrown it and needed a new big girl bike. So today after school and her nap we headed to the store and once there Maisie immediately picked out the bike she wanted and after a little test run down the isle we had our prize. It was a really blustery afternoon but Maisie couldn't wait to tryout her new bike. She was especially excited to be out and riding because her neighbor friends K & A joined her on the street riding along with her. Of course she was riding in part thanks to K & A's Dad as he filled the tires with air and raised up the training wheels a bit. Maisie quickly learned how to use the brakes and even though she needed a little push now and then to go up the slight incline of the road, she did great.

Maisie's really looking forward to tomorrow as it's doughnuts with Dad day at school and she's so excited to have her Baba go to school with her. Hope that we have another great day and that the fun just continues.

Pollen, playdates and parties

Even though I'm late in posting this due to some computer problems and lack of time and desire to be online, here is Maisie's fashion choice of the week for M3's Fashion Challenge Friday. This week I didn't give Maisie any direction or limit her in anyway and she put her own spin on her outfit. She chose one of her favorite Indygo twirly-whirly dresses, a pair of black leggings with lace bottoms and her very favorite pink princess shoes. I think she did great again and I'm proud to be her Mother. The first week we did this challenge Eammon "helped" Maisie choose her outfit and...well if you can't say anything nice...{ silence } The second week I did tell Maisie that she needed to wear pants because of where we were going and on her own she did great and looked coordinated and I could hold my head high. So basically if I keep Eammon out of choosing or helping to pick out clothes I'll be able to walk out the door feeling pretty good about what Maisie's wearing...we'll see how long that lasts though as Maisie may have other ideas, we shall see.

After spring break week which was filled with sickness, major allergies and a little to much down time it was great to return to our regular schedule and have a busy and good week. Maisie and I are still suffering with allergies but the pollen count was lower this past week ranging between "only" 286 - 974 but remember, anything over 121 is considered extremely high so even though it's lower than the past few weeks, it's still outrageous. Maisie is off her inhaler but will be on a nasal spray for the foreseeable future. Thankfully she's gotten used to having the nasal spray so the once nightly treatment is no longer a struggle.

Maisie was happy to return to school this week and see her friends and teachers again. She was also excited to have her bentos again, I didn't realize how much she missed them when we were on break. I was happy to have those few hours while Maisie was in school to run errands and catch up on a few things.

We have new neighbors that just moved in next door to us and the best part, they have two children, a six year old girl K and a four year old boy A. Maisie has been having a blast all week riding bikes, using chalk, playing house and having bubble wars with K & A. Friday afternoon Eammon arrived home early from work and all three kids were playing out on the deck & dock with bubbles. So Eammon went out to watch them for a while and to play with them and ended up inside Maisie's playhouse with Maisie, K & A attacking him from all directions with bubbles and they weren't neat about it so he was just covered from head to toe in bubble goo.

Friday morning Maisie and I met up with Kathy & Chani and Lisa & Briana for some girly-girl get-together time and it was great to see everyone. The girls had fun making numerous trips to the bathroom, coloring, drawing, playing with stickers, goofing around together being silly and making & eating candy necklaces. Even though Lisa, Kathy & I all live relatively close to one another we're spread out far enough that it's not quick or always easy, especially with all our busy schedules, to meet up so when we do, it's always a good time.

Here's one more picture from Friday morning, my little angel with her drawing of an angel. Not sure why her angel has such a sad face but I'm glad that my little sweetie was sporting such a big and happy smile.

To finish off our week, Saturday night we attended a party hosted by our new neighbors. They have some really nice friends, it was a beautiful evening, the food was divine and all the children were well behaved. We stayed until well after Maisie's bedtime as she was having so much fun and so were we. Before we could put Maisie to bed though we had to go pick up Eammon's car from the shop as we had to have new brakes installed and we had asked them to just lock the car and leave it for us to pick up at our convenience. By the time I got Maisie in bed it was a few hours past her bed time so I had hopes of sleeping in this morning. Even though she went to bed so late, she was still up before 7am...oh my gosh, how does this girl function on so little sleep!!!

Off to get some laundry done and getting ready for a new week.

My funny bunny and we won!!

We had no Easter egg hunts, no baskets filled with chocolate and candy, no special dress or outfit and not even a special meal but what we did have was a quiet day and our second year of building a bunny house. Maisie and I had fun building our foam bunny house and let me tell you, so much easier and neater than last year when we made a gingerbread hutch. (Maisie was actually twisting her head back and forth being silly when I took the picture so that's why her right pony tail looks so short and chopped as the ends of her hair hadn't caught up with her yet.) Looking back at the picture from last year, I can't believe how much my little Maisie has grown, from a toddler to a little girl.

Funny little story, today at gymnastics Maisie's coach asked the girls what they received for Easter and the two other girls said the usual, candy, chocolate, bubbles and toys. Maisie's response, without even a second of hesitation... "Toothpaste and I don't like the flavor." I don't know how she came up with that one but I guess she's letting me know in no uncertain terms that she doesn't like her new (week old) toothpaste and next year I'd better get her candy, chocolate, bubbles and toys if I want to avoid getting the stink eye from her gymnastics coach and friends!

Now how cool is this? Diana over at She's a-DORI-ble held a giveaway contest for a DVD, Prima Princessa presents Swan Lake and I entered because Maisie just LOVED watching the video clip and couldn't wait to see more. Guess what, we won!! Thank you Diana for having such a great giveaway and we're so excited to have won and can't wait to watch the DVD.

No breaks for Spring break week

I have to say, this has been a rough week. The weather has been mostly uncooperative with rain, snow, more rain and today tornado, high winds, hail and severe storm warnings...thankfully we've only had the rain, thunder, major lightning, hail and high winds...thus far but the tornado sirens have gone off a couple of times. Even if the weather had been more conducive to being outside this week, our pollen count of over 1200 each day would have nixed that idea. Even though I've kept Maisie busy with lots of activities, indoor play gyms and three hour gymnastics practices two afternoons this week, it just hasn't been enough to burn off all her excess energy. I'm of course still trying to get over bronchitis and could really use a full nights rest or maybe even an afternoon nap but neither of those have been part of Maisie's agenda. Yesterday she was so wired and spinning out of control like a whirling dervish and I was completely done and exhausted that I put her to bed at 6PM and I was in bed by 7. Of course Maisie had me up at 2:20am for over an hour but what else is new...

This afternoon I had to go for a follow-up appointment for my kidney stone incident. Instead of bringing Maisie along for all the "fun" I instead dropped her off at PLAY where she had a great time doing all the Easter activities and playing with all the other children, with games and in the gym. To join in on M3's Fashion Challenge Friday, when getting dressed this morning I asked Maisie to pick out her own outfit with my only direction being that she needed pants and a shirt because she was going to PLAY. She did well picking out her outfit, black velvet pants, a pink Lilly Pulitzer top, light pink socks, sparkly pink sneakers and even pink Elmo panties. She did much better choosing an outfit on her own than she did last Thursday when Baba "helped" in choosing clothes and I was happy that I didn't have to hang my head in shame when I dropped her off this afternoon.

Spring break hasn't felt like much of a break so I'm ready to get back to our regular schedule next week. Have a good weekend and we wish everyone a Happy Easter and Passover.

I spoke to soon

Well after that whole kidney stone episode of last Thursday I wrote on Friday that I woke up feeling better than I had in weeks. Unfortunately *THAT* didn't last to long. By late afternoon Friday I was coughing, sneezing, congested and my eyes were streaming all of which I attributed to the obscene pollen count of 1071. Over the weekend though I just got worse and worse so Monday morning I followed my new 3-day rule, (if sick and not getting better after 3 days, I go to the doc) so off to the doc I went. Sure enough I have a full blown case of bronchitis but thankfully, by going to the doc early, I've hopefully avoided another bout pneumonia.

Poor little Maisie has been suffering with allergies and is a snotty mess. We have to do daily inhaler treatments which she's good with but it's the nightly nasal spray that she really dislikes. It's amazing though what the girl will suffer for a mini-package of two little Starburst candies.

The weather here is Georgia has been crazy and hasn't helped with my being sick and Maisie's allergies. Yesterday we had snow! In Georgia...In April...Are you kidding me? Of course none of it stuck but still it was cold, wet and windy and then this morning I had to scrape ice off my windshield, seriously I moved south to get away from weather like this. Then the pollen, Monday the count was 3583 and on Tuesday in the stinking snow it was 1797. Anything over 121 is considered extremely high so our numbers are just obscenely outrageous. I'm holding tight waiting for some nice warm weather and the pollen count to drop...a lot!

I'm thinking of adding yet another trip to our busy 2009 travel schedule. I'm looking into heading down to Florida with Maisie sometime during the second week of June to visit with my parents and one of our China travel mates. I'd like to do a day at either SeaWorld or maybe one of the other parks, just not sure yet. So, if you're in Florida and would like to hook up while we're there either at whatever park we end up visiting or for lunch or dinner, please email and let me know.

The pictures are from Monday, another crazy cold day so for Maisie's nap I changed her into a sleeper to keep her warm. Our Gardener Tim brought his 4-year old son Daniel along with him while he worked in our yard. Daniel had fun playing outside until...he ended up knee deep in the pond. So he came in and joined Maisie for some animal crackers and Go Diego Go on the tube. I popped his pants and socks into the dryer and much to Daniel's delight, Eammon got him dressed in a pair of his Sponge Bob pants and dry socks. By the time Tim finished the yard Daniel's clothes were dry and he could lose the giant pants. Maisie and Daniel also had fun playing on the trampoline and rolling around on the mat. They were so cute laughing together and being silly, a nice way to spend a cold afternoon.

So long, farewell and good riddance

No I'm not blowing off all my bloggy friends & followers or anyone else for that matter, what I am saying goodbye to, and hope it never returns, is to the kidney stone that landed me in the E.R. yesterday morning. I had been having a little on-and-off pain since last Saturday but nothing major or debilitating so I didn't pay much mind to it but Wednesday night into Thursday morning I was waking with pain in my left side and needing to go to the bathroom every few minutes. By 5am the pain was excruciating so I woke Eammon to tell him that I needed to go to the E.R. I had guessed at a kidney or bladder infection or maybe even a kidney stone but because I've never had any of those conditions, I was just guessing.

We arrived at the E.R. and after only a two or three minute wait they took me back to a room. As soon as I told them my symptoms they guessed at a kidney stone and soon, after three sticks and two different phlebotomists, I had an I.V. and pain meds going into me. The pain meds helped ease the pain for only about 15 minutes and then what I thought had been excruciating pain at 5am was nothing, not even close, compared to what I was then experiencing. Considering that I had major pain meds on board and the pain was as intense as it was, I can't even imagine trying to do it without drugs. Come to find out that I was in the final stages of passing the stone...thankfully! After a CT scan, four more doses of pain meds, two doses of anti-nausea meds to counter act the affects of the pain meds and a little rest I was cleared to go home. I spent the rest of the day resting, sleeping and basically trying to overcome the feeling that I had been run over by a Mac truck. I went to bed for the night at 7PM and thankfully had a good nights rest (and Maisie helped out by sleeping through the night for the first time in weeks) and awoke this morning feeling better than I have in ages, Yeah!!

So while I was at the E.R. Eammon got Maisie dressed and to school. Yeah, the two of them assembled quite an "outfit" as you can see in the picture to the right. I'm hanging my head in shame knowing that she was seen in public dressed this way. Next time that I'm sick, no matter how sick, I'm going to lay out what Maisie needs to wear to school or for that day. All I can hope is that when people saw Eammon bringing Maisie into school they figured out that Mom had nothing to do with dressing Maisie that morning...One can wish.

After school and a nap Eammon took Maisie to her first swim lesson and said that she did really well. I'm sad that I missed it but after spring break next week I'll be able to see her in her swim class. It's amazing how many activities we now have with school Tues, Wed & Thurs mornings, gymnastics Mon & Wed afternoon, swim lesson on Thurs afternoon and ballet on Friday. Of course this is only until the end of May and then our busy travel schedule starts up along with ballet camp, gymnastics camp, two days per week with her new gymnastics team and most likely more swim lessons, busy but always fun.

Today was costume day at Maisie's ballet class so all the little girls tried on their costumes and received cute little ballerina dolls. Talk about stinking cute and pink! As you can tell by the piccie, Maisie's just not all that into dolls and when it was time to leave she was ready to leave her doll behind. All the other girls just thought the doll the greatest. The one girl without a costume is part of a wedding the day of the recital but the teacher Miss Lisa ordered an extra doll just for her. Maisie's costume needs some alteration as it's a little big even though it's the smallest size the company offered. I can't wait to see these wee little girls up on stage. Anyone want to place bets on whether Maisie actually gets out on the stage, freezes on stage, continuously looks stage right to see what her teacher is doing or, the one I'm hoping for, performs like a star. It should be fun and to top it off, my parents are flying in for that weekend to see Maisie's first recital.

Don't forget, only two days left to enter the Maisie Eats Bento 100th Bento Giveaway so pop on over to Maisie Eats Bento and enter for a chance to win the random drawing.

Have a great weekend.

Testing 1,2,3...Testing 1,2,3

Oh my gosh what a l.o.n.g. week this has been. Maisie's sleep continues to be atrocious, waking up every-single-night in the wee hours of the morning for a good hour or so and then still getting up at sparrows fart to start her day. She did nap twice this week but both were hard fought and way to brief. During the night she wakes up screaming and it takes a long time to settle her back down. I've asked if she's having bad dreams or what wakes her up but she seems unable or unwilling to voice what is going on. I hope that this phase passes for Maisie as I hate that something is causing her pain and bothering her and I hope that this phase passes for me as I need a full nights sleep.

Maybe it's because Maisie's over-tired or maybe it's because she's three, or a combination of the two but the girl is testing, testing, testing and pushing limits. I feel like a broken record counting to three and sending her time-out, in fact we were late to school twice this week because she was spending so much of those mornings in time-out. When Maisie's over-tired she she seems to go faster and faster, spiraling into attitude and bad behavior, oh how I wish that she would be able to sit back, relax and chill but this is my girl and we'll work through this. Oh and to top it off, we've had rain all week so confinement & Maisie...not a good mix!

So to calm my frazzled nerves and to give my over worked and stressed hubby something fun to look forward to, I went and booked another trip! Come October Eammon, Maisie and I are going on our first cruise, I'm so excited. Since we're heading to the western Caribbean for a week, during hurricane season, I'm keeping everything crossed that the weather smiles on us and that we have a great trip. Hopefully too, things with Maisie will have settled down and life and sleep will be normal again as we now have five trips planned for this year! Just in case anyone may be interested in meeting up with us, we're heading to Boston/Hartford/Nashua in June, Salt Lake City in July, cruising in October...yeah, Aruba the beginning of December and London to finish off 2009 and begin 2010! Gosh, just typing all that makes me smile and forget about our trying week.

In other news, this coming week I should be posting Maisie's 100th bento over on Maisie Eats Bento. To celebrate I'm doing a bento giveaway so pop on over and give yourself a chance to win a nice stash of bento items. If you've never packed bento, the giveaway is a great starter set and really everything you would need and if you already pack bento, what an easy way to add to your collection.

This morning we ventured out through pouring rain to meet up and have coffee with Kathy & Chani. It was nice to be able to sit down and chat with Kathy as between our schedules we barely get the opportunity to see one another. The girls were both on good behavior and spent time coloring, playing with stickers and for Maisie, with Chani in tow a couple of times, seeing how many times she could use the bathroom and wash her hands. Check out the cute hairband that Chani is sporting, Kathy made it. We tried to get Maisie to wear it but no go. I'm going to have to try again as Kathy's hairbands are so pretty!

The girl's out to kill me!

Last Saturday I posted that I was rested and ready to take on the week. Maisie though decided that I had gotten too much well deserved and needed rest and did her best to suck the life out of me all week. She seems to have decided that sleep is unnecessary for both of us. All week long she managed to skip her nap by never slowing down. I'd put her in bed for a nap and she'd jump around, go the bathroom 8,000 times, change her clothes, sing songs and constant calling to me, basically anything to avoid sleep. So you'd think she'd be tired at night but no such luck. Instead of going to bed and falling to sleep between her usual 7:30 & 8:00PM, she'd still be wide awake and wired until 9:30 or 10:00PM. Then she'd wake up at 2am and want to play or eat something, staying awake for an hour or more only to fall back to sleep to wake up for the day around 7am. I don't know how she was functioning on such little sleep but let me tell you, I was definitely dragging my tush around.

Even though exhausted (both of us), cranky (oh yeah, that would be both of us too), we still did our usual activities. Friday morning Maisie and I went to Miss Tina where Maisie got her haircut. Usually Maisie's just interested in eating her cookies and letting Tina do her thing but this time Maisie actually paid attention and was checking her self out and making sure that her hair was styled properly.

I'm so happy that spring is here and we've been having some really nice weather allowing us to be outside more. Got to get it in before the heat and humidity arrive. Funny thing though, here it is the first full day of spring and I was craving a roasted veggie soup...go figure. I made a delicious and easy Curried & Roasted Veggie Soup which is great served either hot or chilled and even Eammon, the squash hater thought the soup FABU. Go check it out over at Cook Lisa Cook.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Maisie rocks with videos

Oh my gosh, it's been almost two weeks since my last post. In addition to both Maisie and I being sick, I just haven't felt like blogging, being online or even opening up the computer. I've had back-to-back days go by where the computer remained unused and other than a quick check of email via my iPhone I was unplugged. You know, it was sort of nice...Being unplugged, not the sickness bit.

Maisie's thankfully over her stomach bug but before this latest sickness departed our home, it decided to kick me in the tush too...Not fun.

To celebrate the departure of the stomach bug I decided to book yet another trip. So now on our 2009 travel calendar we have Boston in June, Salt Lake City in July, Aruba the beginning of December and London to finish off the year and to ring in 2010.

Back on February 27th Maisie attended the "invitation only" team tryouts at her gym. The tryouts were from 5-7PM and even though that was at the end of a long and very busy day, the beginning of her not feeling well AND her being nap free that day, the girl rocked!! She's not eligible to be on a competitive team until she's five so she was trying out for one of the pre-competitive developmental teams. This past year she was on Fireflies and I figured that she'd move up a level to Hot Shots but instead she was invited to join the Jr. Pre-team, Go Maisie!! Maisie and one other girl from her current team will be on Jr. Pre-team and her other current teammates will be on Hot Shots. Maisie really loves her teammates and come June when the new season starts, she'll really miss being with all her friends. Check out the two Maisie gymnastics videos at the bottom of the post as I think they're pretty impressive for a three year old. But of course it's MY three year old so I'm just a proud, boasting Mama. (And yes, in the top video she is wearing her beloved Little Einstein p.j's and Princess shoes.)

The weather lately has been killing me. On Sunday two weeks ago we had snow, last Sunday it was 80 degrees and Maisie helped Eammon wash his car and this weekend is cold and rainy. One week from spring and I'm ready for some consistently warm Georgia weather.

I just bought Maisie's a hula-hoop and it's her new favorite toy. The girl's really coordinated and can get 6, 7, 8 revolutions going before it drops. Give her a week or so and I'll bet she'll be able to keep it going for minutes at a time. I love that she's having so much fun with it as I have good memories of using mine when I was a child.

I still don't get Facebook and barely ever venture there. I must not go very often as everyone is complaining about the new look and home page and I didn't notice nor do I notice any difference.

Eammon walked in on this conversation and was a bit stunned:
Maisie: But Mummy why is he so sad?
Me: Because you keep breaking his arm off.
Once he realized we were playing with Mr. Potato Head, his concerns were laid to rest.

Back in November when I was in the hospital some medical issues were discovered but this month I got only positive medical news and all those problems are worries no longer. Also positive is that meds that I've been taking since days before leaving for China back in December 2006 are done, finished and outta here!! Hopefully the side effects from taking those meds will quickly vanish too and it will all be just a distant memory.

Today I didn't get out of bed until 4:17 and that wasn't A.M it was P.M.! I just really needed a day to sleep late, relax, read and doze at will. Eammon took Maisie out for brunch and they did a little shopping and it was nice. I feel so refreshed and ready to take on another busy week with the whirling dervish Maisie.

The top video was taken today and the bottom video was taken at Maisie's gym back on February 23rd.

Sick day

Little Maisie's home sick today with what appears to be a stomach bug. Poor little thing has thrown up a couple of times and is running a fever. She's even laying down and resting which is so unlike her, I can't even remember the last time she willingly stayed still and in one spot for any length of time. She now has her own little bucket which hopefully won't be needed but in the meantime, the sanitary cycle on the washing machine is getting a good workout.

Snow day

It's snowing in Georgia today and in Atlanta there are actually white-out conditions! In our area the snow isn't accumulating on paved areas and from the radar images, the storm should pass today and tomorrow the snow will hopefully be a distant memory. I moved south from New England to get away from weather like this!!

I was on a roll doing five posts in a week and then nothing for this past week. The week seemed so busy and before I knew it, it was over. Eammon was in Houston all week for business and I managed to get quite sick before he went away. But thanks to my new three day rule*, I went to the doctor before I got really sick and landed myself in the hospital again.

Maisie is such a character and her new favorite love is band aids. I have to limit her daily access as she'd go through an entire box covering all her imagined aches, pains and spots that are bleeding. How do I know that all the aches and pains are imagined? Because no matter where she hurts, she always requests that the band aid be put on her pointer finger.

On Friday I booked three trips and I'm so excited. In June Maisie and I will be heading up to Boston to visit friends and then in July we're going out to Utah to see some of our bloggy friends. In December Maisie and I will be going to stay with my parents in Aruba. After last year of almost no travel, this should be a fun year.

Today's Eammon's birthday and we're just enjoying a quiet snow day at home with an home cooked steak dinner on the menu for tonight.

* Since being so sick back in November and landing in the hospital for two weeks, I decided that I needed to be better about taking care of myself when I get sick. Now if I'm sick for three days and I don't seem to be getting better I call the doctor.

Mmmmm, more Valentine's candy!

Thanks to the U.S. Postal service for damaging and taking f.o.r.e.v.e.r to deliver Valentine's cards and treats from my parents, the holiday candy continues. Maisie loved her Sweetheart treats, thanks Gamma & Gampa!

In other news, I braved the mall again so that Maisie now has two sets of her beloved Little Einsteins p.j's. I can now at least attempt to keep her in a clean set.

Another first

On Sunday I blogged about Maisie having her first taste of cotton candy. But that was cotton candy and other than fairs, the circus and other big events, how often do you really come across the stuff? Then again, it was only two weeks ago that Maisie had her first chicken nugget, but we don't "do" fast-food so not having that before is totally understandable...Right? Today's first is probably a bit more surprising as Maisie is 3 years, 4 months and 1 day old and it was today that she had her very first lollipop! Maisie is an extremely energetic little girl and sugar just revs her up that much more so even though she gets sweets, I really try to limit her intake. In addition, I've just honestly never thought to give her a lollipop. Chicken nuggets, cotton candy and lollipops all firsts within two weeks, what's going to be next??

Recently though, Maisie's really been fighting nap time so I've started bribing her with the dreaded yet her favorite, candy or treat. Today I told her that if she took her nap, afterward when we were getting ready for gymnastics she could pick a treat from the stash of Valentine's candy from her school mates. Maisie's already finished off her favorites of M&M's & Skittles and what remains are some various chewy taffy things, lollipops and an awful lot of Pixie Stix which she's tried and didn't like at all. With such a limited selection she decided to go for the unknown and picked a lolly.

When I first took the wrapper off and handed the lolly to her she just stared at it not really knowing what to do. I told her to lick it, put it in her mouth and taste it but she wasn't having any of it until I took a lick and said a big yum! She finally gave it a go and at first wasn't too sure but then once she got a good taste, decided it was a good thing. She only ate about half and then decided she was finished. Honestly, I think she's more of a chocolate girl like her Mama!

We then had an interesting afternoon at gymnastics. All the coaches and children were involved in their activities and I was sitting upstairs watching from the viewing area. About 20 minutes into the practice I noticed that like a wave, everyone down on the floor was calmly moving towards the entrance. At that time of day the older kids were just starting to arrive and there were probably already a dozen plus coaches on the floor each with a group of young children, so to have them all move in one direction was very off and strange. Then one of the other parents sitting in the viewing area said that tornado sirens were going off so we all made our way down stairs to safer areas of the building. The ease and calmness of how the coaches moved all the children to safer areas was just amazing. There were just so many really young children and most without parents in the building so it was great to see how well the situation was handled. Thankfully it ended up that there wasn't a tornado and once it was deemed safe, practices resumed.

We've had some severe weather pass through the area today; thunder, lightning, high winds, straight line winds, rain, hail (in some areas chunks were up to 4-inches across) and even tornadoes. Thankfully we experienced very little of it with no problems or damage but I'm happy that it's mostly past us now.

For the love of p.j's

Yesterday I looked past my loathing of all things malls and ventured into the Disney store because I'd heard that they had some cute bento boxes on sale. While there I checked out the other sale items and I happened upon some Little Einsteins p.j's. Maisie loves the Little Einsteins so when I saw them on sale I just knew I had to get them for her. To say that she L.O.V.E.S her new p.j's is an huge understatement.

She of course wore them last night and then this morning she wanted to wear them to school. After convincing her that it wasn't pajama day again and that she had to wear daytime clothes, she reluctantly got dressed but as soon as I picked her up she was all about the pajamas again. First thing she told me was that, when we got home she was going to put on her Little Einsteins pajamas and take her nap...And so she did. It's now well past nap time and thankfully we didn't have anywhere to go this afternoon as Maisie has insisted that she not take off her new p.j's and that she needs to wear them to bed again tonight. I may have to brave the mall again to get a second pair as the girl may flip when I have to take them from her to actually wash them.

First and Greatest

Today Maisie had her first taste of cotton candy at The Greatest Show on Earth, Ringling Bros And Barnum & Bailey Circus. She wasn't oh too sure about the cotton candy at first but then she realized how sugary sweet it was and the girl was hooked.

Maisie really enjoyed the circus especially the elephants and tigers, the trapeze and Chinese acrobat acts as well as the motorbikes in the steel cage. Seeing the clowns and the smaller acts didn't thrill her much but overall I'd have to say that she sat wide-eyed and engrossed throughout the entire show. She was also super cute when something caught her eye as she would call out, "look Mama, look Baba" as she pointed and made sure we were seeing everything that she thought was wonderful.

It took Maisie all of about five minutes in the car on the drive home before she sugar crashed and fell fast asleep. Today's going to be the last day of sugar as five days in a row of sugar crashing is not good for anyone let alone a three year old. Also on the drive home, Eammon who seems to recognize and remember voices and faces all the time and from everywhere, did it again when he told me that he thought he recognized the Ringmaster from a show which also starred Desi Arnaz, Jr. When we got home I looked it up and sure enough, as always with faces and voices, Eammon was right. The Ringmaster Chuck Wagner starred in a one-season sci-fi television series, Automan. Eammon said that he watched 3 or 4 episodes twenty-five years ago, so of course he recognized the voice! Yeah I'd recognize him from that too...NOT!! Me, I could watch a show for years, see every episode, in person sit next to the star, talk to the star, be told whilst sitting there that they were the star and I still, most likely would not fully recognize them.

I think the last time I saw the circus, it was at Madison Square Garden in NYC and I was maybe in first grade at the time. It may have been the venue, the show itself or that I was just a child but the show today seemed so, so, so much smaller. It was still fun though and seeing Maisie enjoy it so much made it a wonderful day.

My sweet Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day 2009!

By bedtime Wednesday evening, Maisie thankfully had recovered from her Valentine's party sugar high and slept well. On Thursday I made a Valentine's bento for Maisie which was all hearts of pink & red with lots of sugary sprinkles and she loved it. Her bento turned out to be more nutritionally sound than I had first imagined but Maisie didn't care or notice, she just thought it was wonderful.

Friday after ballet Maisie and I made the little Valentine's house in the picture. I had found the kit a while back and loved that it was foam & stickers and thought it would be easier and less messy than doing a gingerbread house. Last Easter Maisie and I made a gingerbread bunny hutch which was fun but oh so messy, sticky & sugary. In addition, for days after making the hutch, Maisie couldn't resist feeling the coconut grass and poking at anything frosting and it just seemed to be a continued mess until I happily tossed it in the bin. This little foam house was great and I have one already for Easter but from making this one I did learn a few tricks for our future projects.

Maisie didn't have any problem piecing the structural house, roof and base pieces together but when we started decorating, if she pressed too hard, picked it up or turned it funny, it would cause the structure to come apart. I ended up taking it apart and hot gluing the house, roof and base together and that made all the difference, Maisie and I were then able to add all the decorations. The girl does have a little glue and glitter fetish so it wasn't as mess free as I had first hoped but now that it's dry, she's not poking at it, nothing is flaking off and no continued mess. In addition to hot gluing the structure together, when we make the Easter house, we'll do our glue and glitter pieces first so that they can dry and then when we decorate the house Maisie can add the glittered pieces without glittery glue squishing in her fingers.

Hope everyone had a wonderful day.

The face of a sugarholic

Today at school was Maisie's Valentine's Day party. The children each passed out their cards with attached candy and just before dismissal time they partied with the cookies that Maisie and I had made yesterday. Maisie's bag of Valentine's cards & treats held 20+ pieces of candy and the poor girl was just desperate to get her hands on some. I did allow her to pick one treat to have in the car on the drive home but I should have known better. Between the cookie and the candy, by the time we got home Maisie was flying high on the sugar and nap time just wasn't going to happen.

Late afternoon we headed off to gymnastics and Maisie fell asleep in the car five minutes before we arrived at the gym. Surprisingly when we parked she woke up in a good mood and did really well during her practice. At the end of practice, one of Maisie's teammates Mara, passed out really large white chocolate lollipops. It was very sweet but of course Maisie wanted the chocolate right then and there and how could I say no, so on the drive home she ate a good part of the lolli. My thought being, no nap, two separate sugar highs, a busy day of school and gymnastics practice, the girl should crash early and well tonight.

Once home Maisie forgot about all the candy as we got involved in activities and making dinner (plus I had already hidden her V-day bag of treats so that she wouldn't see it when we got home.) We had dinner and played then Eammon came home and she played with him for a while, then off to bed she went. She is loving all the Valentine treats and she has enough candy already, three days before Valentine's Day, to last her an entire month!

The sugar won't end today though, as tomorrow is her last day of school before Valentine's Day and I have an extra special bento planned for her. The bento will be high on fun, color, favorite treats and sugar with almost no nutritional value, woohoo, what more could my little sugarholic ask for!!

First (and hopefully last) of 2009

* Saturday a headache started and I thought it was just a bad sinus headache brought on by our temperatures going from 17F to 70F over the course of two days, but I was so, so wrong. By Sunday I was seriously hurting and increasingly over the day I was seeing auras and light flashes, having nausea, sensitivity to light, sounds and smells, I was barely up and about for more than a total of 30 minutes all day. I can't believe that I got a stinking migraine. It's now three days later and though I'm not completely incapacitated like I was on Sunday, I still feel like cr@p.

* I used to have devastating migraines that would incapacitate me for weeks out of every month but after years of prophylactic treatments, trigger management, recognizing and treating the onset of a migraine and of course pain management, I was able to break the cycle and thankfully since then, migraines have been far and few between. Now that it's been more than a decade of being relatively migraine free, I have no tools a.k.a drugs to help me deal with the pain and associated symptoms. Hopefully tomorrow I'll wake feeling better and this will be my last migraine of 2009 and forever.

* Even though I'm hurting life must go on. Last week I volunteered to make Valentine's Day treats for Maisie's class this Wednesday and in addition I decided to make multi-part Valentine's Day cards with Maisie for her class.

* We had fun making and decorating cookies together this afternoon and Maisie had fun taste testing them too.

* Next year for Valentine's day I'm buying those lousy little cards where all you do is sign your name. After assembling cards and candy treats with Maisie for 2 hours this afternoon, I thought the red on the Valentine's cards was going to be from blood spewing from my brain, eyeballs and ears as my head was throbbing beyond belief. Maisie was great and had fun putting everything together but she wanted to do so much of it all by herself (though she needed help) and it took f.o.r.e.v.e.r!!

* I'm so happy that the warm weather is back as the freezing weather of last week was enough cold to last me a lifetime. I knew that when I moved from New England I should have moved farther south, I'm so not a cold weather person, even one week of cold is too much for me.

* See the shirt that Maisie's wearing in the piccie? M3 gave it to me way back in August 2006 at our first Utah bloggy bash. Remember this piccie of us bloggy gals holding matching shirts with our daughter's names? In some ways it seems like so long ago yet in other ways it feels so recent. It's amazing to think how much things have changed since that piccie. Going from right to left in the piccie: Tiffany now has two beautiful children, Eliza and Solomon. Donna has been home for less than a month with her beautiful daughter Lauren, Julie and I were in China together back in December 2006 for gotcha of Tess & Maisie and Lisa, oh my gosh her wait has been so.very.very.long, should be receiving her referral in the near future and soon will have Tate in her arms and let's not forget the photographer M3 and the Salsa twins. Maisie wearing this shirt always brings fond memories but if she grows any taller the shirt will have to be retired, so sad. It's surprising that the shirt still fits her at all or as well as it does especially considering that the first blog post having pictures of her wearing it was back in June 2007! Check out that post's video for an adorable Maisie blast from the past. Hmm...Maisie wearing this shirt and on a trampoline, I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've seen that exact scene repeated since the video was taken.

* One final thought before I take myself and my headache to bed. How is it that all the laundry was done on Saturday yet today in Eammon's laundry drawer there were seven, yes seven towels???

Goodnight...

Birthday & nuggets

Wednesday morning we celebrated Chani's Birthday at one of the local large inflatable jumping places. Happy Birthday Chani!!

Maisie has never been a fan of inflatables and in the past, the noise alone has totally freaked her out to the point where she wouldn't even enter the facility. For Chani's party Maisie did pretty well with no freak outs but she was very reserved and cautious, only jumping on one inflatable when she
had it all to herself.

After the jumping time it was lunch of chicken nuggets, chicken salad sandwiches and birthday cupcakes. Maisie ate her very first chicken nugget and thought it was okay. It surprises many that she's never had a chicken nugget but we never go to fast food restaurants and it's just not something that I've ever thought to make at home. Funny thing is, next week at school they're having Chick-fil-A day and they're bringing in nuggets so this month she was destined to get her first taste.

Happy Birthday Chani, wishing you a wonderful year!

Cravings

Ever since I was a little girl, I've always had the same favorite cookie. Rainbow cookie, three-layer cookie, tri-color cookie, Neapolitan or Venetian cookie it didn't matter what they were called because when there were brought home from the Italian bakery it was just pure delicious delight. Unfortunately the bakeries that make the cookie now are far and few between and other than one bakery up in Connecticut, which has the perfect tri-color cookie, when I can find them they are just poor quality, dry or they have a fake almond flavor, just not like the cookies of my childhood. For a number of years I've had the recipe for these delightful cookies, in fact I've had a couple of variations of the recipe but every time I pulled it out, it always seemed so daunting I would tuck it away along with my cravings. I guess my cravings got strong enough because yesterday I took on the recipe. In the end, making the cookies wasn't difficult at all and really much easier than I thought it would be, but the time involved to make them, oh my!! Between the preparation, the baking, the assembly, letting them set up, getting the chocolate on and cutting, it was about 12 hours. So was it worth it? Oh my gosh YES!! These cookies are exactly as I remember them, dense and moist with a rich almond flavor, the perfect amount of chocolate and the sweetness of the jam...pure heaven!!

I've posted the recipe at Cook Lisa Cook if you're interested in making these delightful cookies.

April & Maisie

Last night we met up with friends Ilene and Michael and their daughter April at a favorite local Chinese restaurant. Even though we had tried to get together numerous times over the past year, between various sicknesses, business trips, personal trips and life in general, it just never seemed to happen. It was so fun seeing them again and we all had a fun night. April & Maisie were both shy at first but after just a short time they took to each other and had so much fun. As it worked out, for most of our time at dinner we had a private room so the girls were able to run around some and boy, did they did have fun chasing, catching and hugging each other. They also had fun playing peek-a-boo through the large fish tanks with the big child Eammon on one side and the two girls on the other. It was amazing how much energy those two girls had because even though they didn't tire out themselves, they managed to wear out all four adults. Hopefully we'll get together again soon and I'll have to remember my camera because my cell phone didn't do well with the piccies.

A style all her own

Maisie sometimes has a style all her own. Today she was dancing around the house in a pink sweatshirt sporting remnants of breakfast & lunch, camouflage sweatpants with roses, giraffe slippers and a pretty pastel tutu. Maisie thought she was hot stuff and who was I to argue?

* We had another fun week filled with the usual activities, school, gymnastics and ballet.

* Tuesday afternoon Cameron, Maisie's 9 year old friend from our street, came over for a play date. The two of them had fun making beaded necklaces and bracelets, playing with glue and glitter and playing together outside. Maisie keeps talking about playing with the big girls and can't wait until next Tuesday when Cameron will come play again.

* On Wednesday I had fun getting together with Kathy, Lisa & Randi so that we could celebrate Randi's referral of Emma, one very cute little girl.

* My not so fun part of the week was all the phone calls I had to make dealing with the obscene number of medical bills from back in November. Fourteen days in the hospital for me, four days for Eammon, three ER visits, one ambulance ride, dozens of doctors, lab services, radiology, nuclear medicine, IV therapy, specialty services, pharmacy & drug charges, respiratory therapy, OR and surgery services and the list goes on. Well over 100K in charges, thank goodness for insurance but still a huge bill remains.

* Maisie loves to skip and she has it perfectly coordinated and she moves fast. Now everywhere we go she's off at full tilt skipping she goes.

* Friday night Eammon, Maisie and I went to an absolutely FABU Japanese restaurant/sushi place. Every plate looked like a work of art and it tasted just as wonderful. We can't wait to go back and because it was so good, I don't think we'll be waiting oh too long.

* Tonight we're off to meet friends for dinner and it should be fun because it's probably been over a year since we last saw them.

* One final bullet, Maisie is obsessed with violins. All sorts of items turn into pretend violins. She's so cute playing her pretend violin and singing along as she plays. Music lessons may be in her future but oh how I hope that she moves away from the violin as I'm not sure my ears could take the practicing.

Busy, busy weekend

As a general rule, I am not one to pack a lot of activities into our weekends but this past weekend was just one activity after another. Since we always have such busy weeks, by the weekend I'm usually happy to just do one activity or honestly doing nothing specific at all is often fine with me too. After this past weekend I'm now ready for a break... but once again tomorrow is Monday and yet again the beginning of another busy week. So, what kept us so busy?

Friday night I met up with Kathy and a few of the gals in her Moms group. We started our evening with dinner...sort of, as they somehow lost both Kathy and my dinner ticket and by time it was realized it was too late as we had somewhere else to be. We then headed over to Just For Giggles where we spent the evening painting the "Blueberry Tree." It was a lot of fun and seeing all the different variations of the same painting was very interesting and the evening did provide for lots of giggles.

Saturday for lunch we met up with John, Ann & Katie at Tasty China to celebrate Chinese New Year. Even though neither of the girls was particularly interested in having their picture taken, both Katie & Maisie looked adorable in their Chinese outfits.

The food was all wonderfully delicious and spicy. Below are a few of our selections.

Hot & numbing combination hot pot

Kung pao scallops

Dry fried eggplant

Maisie loves her noodles

Katie loves noodles too!

Saturday night I headed over to Kathy's as she hosted a Dove chocolate/chocolate martini night. Chocolate candies, truffles, dipped strawberries & marshmallows, cookies with chocolate and chocolate martinis, O.M.G were those martinis gorgeous!! It was fun spending an evening with the girls whilst enjoying so many wonderful chocolaty treats. No piccies because I was too busy licking the Dove milk chocolate and Aztec dusting powder off the rim of my glass...Did I mention that the martini was awesome!!

This afternoon Maisie's friend Tommy celebrated his third birthday. Lots of little friends running around My Gym and monkey cupcakes, a three year old's idea of heaven!! I honestly could have gone for and would have preferred another one of those gorgeous Dove martinis but that will have to wait at least until all the goodies I ordered last night at the party arrive...something to look forward to!

After we arrived home from the party, two of the "big girls" (9 years old) from the neighborhood came over to play with Maisie. Sydney, Cameron and Maisie had fun playing together out on the deck, playing catch, blowing bubbles and just being little girls. 

It was a very fun weekend but I'm exhausted and ready for bed and a good nights sleep. If you've made it all the way through this post, congratulations and you too deserve a good nights rest...sleep well.