The Bug has been a giant handful for the last month or so and I've been feeling really deflated because I don't know what to do to curb her punky behavior. I've tried time outs and gentle warnings and screaming and this and that and everything except full-blown spankings. Nothing has really worked. After talking it over with a good friend and whining to Dude endlessly about it, it came to light that maybe she just needs more undivided attention. Duh. Of course that's the problem!

Today is the last day my girls are one. The last day I could say "23 months." Tomorrow they will be two and I well up every time I think about it. I just can't believe that those teeny, tiny babies - the smallest babies I'd ever seen - are KIDS. There's no denying it, either. They can say their full names, as well as mine and Dude's. They are working on counting and the alphabet. They are, quite simply, pretty cool little people and while I miss their babyhood something fierce, I am dazzled by their toddlerness (look at me making up words as I go - wheeee!). I thought about writing this post as a letter to them, but I think it's more than I can handle right now. I'd end up blubbering all over the keyboard and I just can't go there tonight. Instead, I give you a list of some of the things that I think make my girls two of the most awesome people I know.

Have you ever eaten crickets? I have had them on several different occasions and I think they're pretty tasty.

Dude is many things: a great dad to our girls, the best companion for me ever, an excellent dish washer, etc., etc. (I could expound upon this at length, but that's not the point of this here post). There are also many things he is NOT: dancer, reality television watcher, shopper, and more than anything else - waster. Oooohhhhh noooooooooo. My man does not waste. Waste what? Anything. He is very mindful of the environment and doesn't waste water or electricity or gas heat. He doesn't waste those last dribs of toothpaste in the bottom of the tube or those couple drops that seem to take three years to get to the cap in the upside-down shampoo bottle. He most definitely does not waste money or time. And he does not waste food. Let me repeat that: The man does not waste food. No siree. I just watched him down the last of the rainbow cake, even though he didn't want it, because he couldn't stand to let it be thrown away (nevermind that it's more than a week old and just a cheap cake mix anyway). He will drink iffy milk, carve out the moldy part of cheese, eat cooked meat long after I would consider it a goner. If he doesn't, that would mean wasting the food and he simply will not tolerate that. I hear on a pretty regular basis about my wasting habits when I throw old produce away out of the veggie drawer in the fridge. I don't mean to let stuff go bad, but I have a very difficult time using everything perishable within its shelf life. Some things have to be sacrificed (often this includes half-full containers of buttermilk, baggies of long-forgotten chopped onions, and stray yogurt tubs that have wandered to the very back of the fridge).

So, some of you have let it be known that you want to see the object of my house-love affection. I can understand this. It is, after all, the Charmer. I haven't really posted pictures previously because I don't have any "perfect" pictures - you know, the ones where there aren't toys scattered or dirty dishes in the background. I'd love to be able to post pictures of my darling in "show" condition... but that's just not reality around here. I have two toddlers that leave a wake akin to that of a category 5 hurricane and, well, I'm a stay-at-home mom, not a housewife. In my mind at least, there is a HUGE difference. I think of a housewife as someone who stays home to keep the house neat and tidy, bakes pies, wears pearls. I am decidedly not that person. My daily activities are much more kid-entertainment-education-centric with a large side of coffee, friends, Facebook, minor errands, etc. I try to do a sweep of the house at least once a day to put everything back in their places but I've been pretty lazy about even that lately. ANYWAY - my point is this: I'm posting pictures and they are not perfect shots. And they're only of the rooms on the main level (there's also upstairs and the family room downstairs in the finished basement). I'll post more pictures as I get it together (which will be... ?). I've also decided that it's not wise to post pictures of the outside of the house in case I were to get some sort of crazy blog stalker. Conceited? Oh, probably. Likely? Oh, probably not. But I'm erring on the side of caution. So here we go - tour of the main level of the Charmer:

Standing just inside the front door, looking down the living room (left side of the house). The red couch in the background will be disappearing, but we haven't gotten around to that yet. Eventually, I'd love a piano back there. The stairs are just to the right of this picture and you can see up them from the front door. That's the sun porch/play room at the end. There are glass French doors between the living room and play room, but they're open so you can't see them.

Sun porch/play room - there's a big cradle to the left filled with stuffed animals, some bins of blocks, etc., that didn't make this frame. And you can see out to the back deck and back yard. There's a pink dogwood that comes up through the deck. It is GORGEOUS when it blooms, and it just drops crap the other 11 months of the year.

Okay, turning back around and looking the other way down the living room. You can see the stairs on the left now. See that second step where the stairs curve around? That's the Time Out spot - a very important landmark in our household.

Details of the stairs - I have visions of the girls sneaking down to see if Santa has arrived...

This is the library. Standing at the front door, this is the front-right corner of the house (note the front door in the background). This room was brown before we painted it lavender. 

Standing the other way in the library and looking down the right side of the house, toward the dining room and kitchen. There are glass pocket doors (the kind with a bunch of little windows) that slide out between the library and dining room.

Dining room - this room was blood red. Now it's pea soup! To the right of this picture is the double doorway into the far end of the living room. It's got a circular flow, see? The girls run laps. That doorway also has a pocket door, but instead of glass, it's a heavy, solid wood door. To the left of this picture are 4 tall windows that look out onto the driveway and our neighbor's house. The girls give a running commentary on the comings and goings of our neighbors.

Here's the kitchen from the doorway of the dining room. The kitchen was a soft green color. I painted it tangerine so it will be cheery even when we are in the throes of Portland gray outside. There are more cupboards, a small counter and the fridge to the left of this picture. And see that closed door on the left? Go through there and down three steps and you're in a little hallway. Turn right to go out the back door or turn left to go down more steps into the laundry room and the finished basement/family room + full bath beyond that.

And that's it! Upstairs is a full bath, a sitting area that is totally empty at the moment, Dude's office, our bedroom, the girls' bedroom, some closets, blah, blah. Maybe I'll do an upstairs tour once we get Dude's office redone. Or maybe you will be so completely bored after this post that you will beg me to not do any more tours...

It's been six days since my last post and it can almost be entirely summed up with this: First the girls had colds and then Belly has had a fever that keeps spiking in the 102s. I took her to the doctor this morning and she has an ear infection. Hi, amoxicillin! You're our new friend! We're also hosting a birthday party tonight for my nieces and nephew. A bigger, better post will follow in the next day or so, hopefully with some pictures of the chemically-enhanced rainbow birthday cakes I made!

Two weeks ago, I called the OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University) Women's Center to make a couple appointments for myself. I needed an annual exam and also just a general visit because I needed a new prescription for an allergy medication. I checked the website first and then verified with the scheduler that I could do all of this on the same visit. Fast forward to 3:15p this afternoon. I was one of two not-pregnant women in the waiting room and it seemed pretty evident that this was going to be a straight-up GYN visit. Bummer. I asked the nurse about it while she was taking my vitals. She said she didn't think they could do the prescription but she'd ask the doctor. I changed into my gown and the nurse stuck her head in to say the doctor would be with me shortly. She'd asked him about the allergy medication and he said he wanted to talk to me about it. Great. I started to feel like I was coming off as some sort of pill popper. When the doctor came in, one of the first things he asked me about was this prescription that I was after. I explained the apparent miscommunication when I scheduled the appointment.

Okay, I know that I said I wouldn't talk much about football in this forum but tonight was so dang bittersweet. I'm sitting here all emotional and I gots to get it out.

I am LOVING the internets right now. I just spent about 30-45 minutes watching my friend Blaine on BlogTV. An artist friend of his in Britain is doing a 24-hour BlogTV benefit to raise money to buy his young son a prosthetic hand. Trying to help him out, Blaine was on spilling celebrity stories from his many years of working at Spago (which is how I met him - I worked there from 1997 to 2002; Blaine still works there). Blaine also happens to be one of the funniest people I've ever met, better than most successful standup comedians I've seen. He even does impressions. Anyway, I haven't seen him in about two and a half years and all of a sudden there he was - talking to me, doing the celebrity impressions that I was calling off, telling the funny stories that I reminded him of from years ago, etc. We even got someone to give a $50 donation just to hear Blaine's Julio Iglesias impression. How fun and in-the-spirit-of-giving is that?