Cockroaches and Fleas. Life is Awesome.

Things have gotten cold around here! Awesome for nights when I want to snuggle up in a fleece blanket and sip some cocoa. Not so awesome that the local insect community has voted our condo the hot spot to hang for the winter. We have seem SO many cockroaches and spiders lately, I literally lie awake at night in fear.

The cold also seems to have induced this strange rash on Natalie's body and back. We first noticed it late last week, then it continued to get worse through Sunday. She woke up from her nap and was red and bumpy all over. The redness has passed, but the bumps remain. I've been rubbing her down with lotion and laundering everything. 

And yes, her hand is down her diaper. This is her usual stance.

We set up the Christmas tree and Natalie is in love with it. 

And Natalie can officially reach all areas of our kitchen counter. Nothing is safe. She usually goes for the dog treats. I've found her half a dozen times dumping them out in piles for the dogs to eat. Urgh.

I had a date to meet up with a potential applicant for Nick today, but she was a no-show. She texted me hours later apologizing. It's going to be difficult to line up another meeting because of her crazy work schedule and the fact that she lives waaaaaaay far away. Today, I had to take Nick to a special vet that was 45 minutes away, so it was almost halfway to where she lived. The visit went great except.... they determined that he is completely blind. He may have an endocrine disease. But worst of all, they found evidence of fleas. I'm getting very frustrated with fleas-last month we were having problems with Sammy and it seemed to improve for a while but then in the past few days he's been back to scratching. Both dogs are on expensive preventatives, I give them flea baths regularly, I've been vacuuming and cleaning everything I can and they just can not seem to leave these poor dogs alone!

Natalie Flies

Why Have I Not Done Yoga Before?

Natalie has been getting really smart lately. She is very interested in letters and numbers and colors and shapes. Her favorite letter is B, but she is also fond of identifying and asking you to write the letters P, F, Y, O, S, E and recently C, G and D. 

As she seeks out new adventures, she has to adapt some of her old toys to make them more challenging. Thus the socks on her hands as she maneuvers these beads....

Natalie mostly terrorizes and bullies the dogs and they spend their days trying to stay out of her way. But after breakfast this morning, I came upon this lovely scene of her petting Nick nice and soft.

Other items of recent news:

Natalie finally started staying in the nursery at the YMCA. For the longest time, I would drop her off and they would come and get me 15-20 minutes later because she wouldn't stop crying. Starting about 3 weeks ago, she would still cry when she went in, but then once they started showing her toys, she would stop and play. Now, she goes in and doesn't cry but stands against the wall for a little bit. Sooooooooo. This means I now get to go to classes! I went to Yoga last Monday because I felt a little too sore for the zumba class that I originally intended on attending and it was so awesome that I went back on Friday and went Monday and Friday this week. How have I never known how awesome Yoga is before?! I guess I've only ever done yoga moves as warm up stretches for other sports. My only other exposure was Micah doing P90x yoga, which was pretty crazy. So, this is my first time attending a live class and it's been so awesome. It's great for stretching and balance and building strength. I love that I don't feel out-of-breath and sweaty during the class, but I still feel like I'm pushing my body. I can definitely feel how much I used my muscles the morning after. I leave feeling relaxed and energized instead of nasty and exuasted. I feel like the instructors say very thoughtful things throughout the workout without getting too touchy-feely.  Like, they talk about love and gratitude and goals without getting too weird and spiritual, which I really appreciate. So, hopefully I can continue to enjoy that. I might even add Pilates on Wednesdays, since the zumba class I went to last Wednesday gave me a massive headache. Yay!

Natalie Loves Pumpkin Roll

Because even before it's made, she gets to go through two whole beater-lickings: one for the batter and one for the frosting. 

Copycat

Here's some footage of our Halloween spoils

They say that you get a good, objective glimpse of what kind of parent you are when your child starts to model your behavior. Well, I caught Natalie this morning sweeping the kitchen floor. I must be awesome.

Couponing, Halloween, Ladybug Bed

I love Kroger and Target. But mostly, I love that Publix accepts their coupons as competitor's coupons so I can score major awesome deals like this haul from Thursday.

It may not seem like a ton because it wouldn't stack very easily to show it all, but it's almost $60 worth of groceries and I paid $2.18. The real cool part? At least half of it was fruits and veggies. It's easy to score a zillion bottles of free soy sauce, but when I can get a great deal on food that is actually nutritious, it makes me feel like I'm doing a good job as a mom.

The groceries included:

1 package celery

1 package spinach

1 package carrots

7 bags of frozen vegetables

1 bunch of bananas

4 cans of tomatoes

a bag of pears

2 cups of yogurt

1 jar peanut butter

2 dozen eggs

4 packages pierogies

10 protein bars

Natalie heartily approves

And, I had a cute video to share from halloween, but my battery died, so I'll have to post it later.
Basically, Natalie liked trick or treating a lot. Micah didn't want to take her to very many houses, but she was having fun, so he was lame and sat in the car for the latter half. Everyone was so happy to have her trick or treat at their house and gushed about how cute she was. I was worried that she would be too shy. She definitely wasn't her cute, smiley self, but she came out of her shell a little bit and said trick or treat and thank you, even though at times I was the only one who could hear her. Natalie did a lot of walking and I enjoyed the nice weather. It was shorts and t-shirt type weather. Yeah. And here it is November 3 and we still have to turn on the a/c in the afternoons. Ay, the south.

Anyway, she was definitely interested in the candy part. Here, she enjoys some chocolate before bed:

Speaking of bed, Natalie has not been having it. Like, any of it. A couple of days she protested taking a nap and was a nightmare at bedtime and as Micah went in for the zillionth time to quiet her down, she was hanging quite athletically from her crib, screaming her head off. So, the cage-submission-sleep-method that we have been going with is no longer going to work I guess. We already had a bed in her room, but we took her to pick out some bedding to finally make it "hers". She opted for this lovely pink-and-green ladybug motif (after I refused the disney princess garb because I think that they make bad role models) and so far we have spent two restless nights and fitful afternoons trying to get her to sleep in it. I'm pretty sure that if we just let her chose her sleep schedule, she would just never sleep. Which is a problem.