according.to.kim

Un-freakin-believable

I thought my eye problems were over. Au contraire.

Yesterday afternoon, my eyelid started to ache. Then in the evening, I noticed it was getting a bit swollen and red. It seemed to have worsened a bit overnight, but really didn't bother me much today. Just by chance I mentioned it to a couple of my coworkers and they wanted to see it, so they came around to my desk (we had been talking over the wall). I wasn't even going to call the doctor, but Fiona and Heidi thought maybe I should, so I called. They said to come down to the office right away.

Well, there's an infection in my eyelid, which apparently is quite serious. My eye doctor was quite concerned and although he didn't actually say this, it sounded like I could die if the infection crossed a barrier to my brain. Nice. What happened was that after he removed the infected ingrown eyelash (two days ago), the site blocked up and the infection started spreading within my eyelid. Because of the blockage, the antibiotic drops I'd been using weren't reaching the infection.

He prescribed an antibiotic ointment to use at night and told me to hold a hot compress (a facecloth with hot water) on my eye for 10 minutes at a time, three to four times a day. It needs to be as hot as I can stand it to draw out the infection. Also, he said I needed to get a prescription for an oral antibiotic from my doctor--right away.

So... I went straight from the optometrist's office to my GP's office. You wouldn't believe the crappy reception I got from the receptionist. She said "we're not a walk-in clinic" and "you should have made an appointment" and "you should have phoned first" in a really snarky tone. I was NOT happy. I know what would've happened if I had phoned first; she would have said that they absolutely cannot see me today, so go to a walk-in clinic.

As I waited for the doctor, I got more and more upset. In the past year, they have told me too many times that I or Madeline could not be seen by a doctor in that office because they were all booked up. Also, earlier this year, they rescheduled three appointments I'd made for myself and the girls. And, when we do have an appointment, we generally have to wait at least an hour to see the doctor. It's ridiculous. I had been unhappy before, but today I just snapped; I told the doctor (the one in the office whom I'd never seen before) that I was extremely unhappy with how this office has treated me. I started to cry too, which was probably partly due to the disturbing news about my eye infection and the fact that I'd only had about 4.5 hours of sleep last night (Madeline was inconsolable in the middle of the night, I think from teething).

The doctor actually took the time to discuss the office situation with me (5000 patients and only one full-time and one part-time doctor until August) and provided some suggestions for when I want to see a doctor on short notice--call early, leave a message for the doctor, ask to speak to the nurse, call outside of office hours to speak to the doctor on call, even go to emergency, if necessary. Oh, how interesting! Why couldn't they have mentioned some of these options to me sooner, rather than just quickly saying "go to a walk-in clinic" every time I call with a concern?!

Anyhow, back to the eye problem... if it gets any worse, or I get a high fever, I'll need immediate attention; otherwise, antibiotic eye drops four times a day, antibiotic ointment at night, antibiotic pills three times a day, and hot compress for 10 minutes three/four times a day. Gee, what a lovely way to spend my extra long weekend (tomorrow is a holiday and I'm taking Friday off). Plus, I have to see the GP again in one week, and she's also booking me to see an opthamologist (but who knows when that'll be). Thank goodness we didn't try to get pregnant this month! It would be brutal to be in the first trimester and have to deal with all this on top of it.

Bits about the munchkins

Sophia has learned how to fold blankets and she's really quite good at it! She likes folding her blankets and is so proud of herself when she does it.

Madeline's ninth tooth--her first molar--came through sometime in the past week. I think the 10th is on its way.

The kids have been watching a video about learning Karate at Sharon's lately. They love it! Sharon says its very cute to see Madeline trying to do what the other kids are doing when they watch the video.

Interesting election

The results are in; well, almost all of them. There's still one poll to be counted in my riding of Palliser. What's up with that? Voting ended 11 hours ago! And this riding has to be one of the closest in the country with only 124 votes (with 154 of 155 polls reporting) between the Conservative, Dave Batters (leading), and NDP, Dick Proctor. This is new... I think Proctor has been an MP for quite some time.

In Palliser, the voter turnout was: 33,295 of 51,541 registered electors (64.6%). Nationally, it was only 60.5%. That's terrible in my opinion. Come on people, voting is important!

Now, the Liberals remain in power with a minority government. Although they certainly don't have the power they had previously, I still find this disappointing. I think they should have been punished more severely for the sponsorship scandal, and for their neglect of everything west of Ontario (though I'll give Paul Martin credit for seeming more interested in the west than his predecessor).

I think it's interesting that Saskatchewan seemed to exercise a bit of power yesterday when the two NDP incumbents, Lorne Nystrom and Dick Proctor, both long-time MPs, fell to the Conservatives. Losing those two seats means the NDP don't have enough seats to form an effective coalition with the Liberals. Also, the NDP or CCF hadn't been shut out of Saskatchewan since 1965.

P.S. Incidentally, our new MP, Dave Batters, lived in the room next to Neil in 'Rez' at the University of Saskatchewan about 16 years ago.

Go figure

It's amazing how I never seem to have time to do the things I hate doing.

Bubbles & tears

Sophia gets so upset when she can't do something perfectly right away. I let her try blowing bubbles on the patio today, and at first when only one bubble would appear, she cried and cried saying "I don't want one bubble!" She plunked herself down on the patio and almost had a temper tantrum over it.

After some encouragement and showing her how to blow softly and keep the wand further from her mouth, she started getting more and more bubbles to appear. It took quite awhile for her to cheer up about it though. Thank goodness she was able to pick up the technique fairly quickly.

Oh boy, we're in for many years of tears and frustration, aren't we?

Goodbye eye infections!

I'm so excited to have learned the reason why my eyes have been hurting and itchy for the past three months...and more importantly, to have a solution!

(Here's some background: I have been plagued with eye infections since March 31. The first case was clearly pink eye (that I'd caught from Sophia) for which I used a doctor-prescribed antibiotic. Since then I had two more significant infections for which I used two different antibiotic treatments--each time using the drops or ointment for the full seven days. Although the infection seemed to be gone while using the antibiotics, my eyes continued to feel terrible for several more weeks and the infection seemed to return every few days, although not as severe as the first three times. Fed up with the antibiotic treatments, I've been using colloidal silver in my eyes for several weeks now.)

This morning my eyes felt a little worse again, so I finally called my optometrist (I should have called much sooner in retrospect). As luck would have it, the receptionist said I could see the doctor in 10 minutes(!) or not for a couple of weeks, so I rushed from work to the doctor's office. Thank goodness!

It turns out that I had an eyelash growing down into my eye! I couldn't see it because it was almost under my top eyelid. All this time, that hair had been aggravating my left eye and causing an infection (though not the original pink eye infection). The doctor froze my eye and pulled out the hair. He also put dye in my eyes to see if any of the tissue had been damaged and there were some scratches on the one eye, but not the other. He gave me a prescription for an antibiotic combined with a steroid to relieve the pain and itchiness. What a relief!

Dr. Robertson said that both eyes were infected because the bacteria from the one eye was probably getting into the other eye from my pillow, or whatever. Also, due to the infection, the tear duct in my left eye was not producing enough tears, which is another reason my eye always felt dry and irritated. Furthermore, the fact that my eye was irritated made it more susceptible to infections such as pink eye. Good grief!

Anyhow, I'm giddy at the prospect of having my eye problem resolved once and for all. I just have to use these new drops for seven days and all should be fine!

Déjà vu

Going to Ethan's birthday party at the paddling pool in Weyburn reminded me so much of the same trip last year with a similar series of unexpected delays. First off, we left a little late (of course) so were going to be hard-pressed to make it on time anyway. We decided to pick up lunch on the way out of the city because our visitors (Grandma, Margaret, and Sharon) were at our place from 11:00 to noon. We were in a hurry so we went to McDonald's drive-thru. I ordered something unpopular I guess (a McVeggie Burger, and no, I'm not a vegetarian, but 7 grams of fat just seems a whole lot better than 35), so we had to wait in the drive-thru parking for our order to be ready. Meanwhile, I had to change Madeline's diaper in the van while we were waiting (I guess it was convenient that we had to wait for our food). Then very shortly out of the city, we had to stop and wait for highway construction. Before we reached Yellow Grass, I had a coffee cup failure in which coffee leaked out the seam of the cup and onto my shirt, so we stopped at Mom & Dad's briefly while I changed and put stain-remover on my shirt. When we finally arrived at the paddling pool in Weyburn, about 20 minutes late, it was raining! The girls were able to go in the pool for maybe 20 to 30 minutes before it was time for cake...and another down-pour. The party moved to the play area at McDonald's during which it was bright and sunny outside. Of course!

Last year, Neil wasn't able to come to Ethan's birthday party so I was on my own with the two girls. Madeline was only five months old and Sophia almost 2-1/2. Sophia had fallen asleep on the way which was exactly what I wanted, but then Madeline started crying...loudly. I really wanted Sophia to stay asleep, so I pulled over to nurse Madeline. While I was nursing her, she had a huge bowel movement that could not be contained by her diaper. It came out the top of the diaper at the back and miraculously did not get on her dress or the matching overpants; however, it dripped on my pants and the seat of my car. Not nice. I remember I was wearing navy pants and was able to clean them up enough that it wasn't noticable. Of course, I had to change Madeline's diaper in the car. Then, just a few minutes after we got moving again, we had to stop for highway construction! Sound familiar? And so we were late for the party at the paddling pool in Weyburn.

What's going to happen on the way to Ethan's party next year? Is it going to be like the movie Groundhog Day (which I love, BTW) where Bill Murray's character just keeps reliving the same day over and over again, the only difference being that we'll all be a year older?

Busy week ahead

The next eight days are going to be crazy. Thank goodness Neil isn't terribly busy with the farm right now, so he'll be a big help with the girls (as he was last evening for the Marketing Barbeque at Candy Cane Park).

Tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. my Grandma Byrns, Great Aunt Margaret Byrns (of Washington), and her daughter Sharon Streeter (of Oregon) are coming to our house for a brief visit. Their main purpose in stopping here (as we'll see them in Yellow Grass later) is to deliver the Byrns family bible. I'm very excited to get it, and honoured that my relatives who were in possession of the bible thought I should have it! My Dad's cousin Marilyn, who had the bible most recently, passed away last year and so the bible had to go somewhere. She had intended to give it to me--I guess since I had met her in 1995 and displayed my enthusiasm for family history.

Then at noon, we'll be heading to a paddling pool in Weyburn (or just to Y.G. if the weather is poor) for Ethan's third birthday party. After the party, we'll spend the rest of the day in Y.G. visiting Mom and Dad, Rob's family, Grandma, Margaret, and Sharon. Not sure if we'll stay overnight or not.

On Sunday, I'm going to my Clothing Club party (last one for this year) in the afternoon. It would be nice to get some yard work done on Sunday too.

I only have to work Monday to Wednesday next week, so that's not bad! Monday is the federal election day, so we'll have to vote. I'll have to go to the polling station either at lunch time or after work before 7:30 p.m. There's no clear winner at this point, so it'll be interesting to see the results.

Neil's planning to golf at Long Creek on Tuesday. He's really been itching to go golfing this year and try out his new driver, but this will be the first time.

Hmmm, Wednesday; I think Wednesday is free, unless we don't get the yard cleared sufficiently on Sunday, in which case, we'll have to do that because... Thursday at 7:30 a.m., we have a bobcat company coming to regrade our back yard. Yay!!! (This is another story, but I've had no luck getting a landscaper to do an estimate, so today I went to Waxy's and discussed the situation with them; basically, I'm cutting out the middleman (i.e., many landscapers would subcontract Waxy's to do the bobcat work and supply materials). It couldn't have worked out better (except to have had the work done before all of the rain) because I don't have to work (Thursday is Canada Day) and Neil can be home too. This is imperative so that one of us can have a decent conversation with the bobcat operator.

Friday we're going to a barbeque before the Rider game which is at 8:00 p.m. (The girls and I won't be going to the game.) The barbeque is being hosted by Aly, a woman who sits with Derek and Neil at the games (they have season tickets).

Saturday is Bronwyn's 4th birthday party at 3:00 p.m. That will be fun, of course, and perhaps an opportunity to get to know Bronwyn's Dad, Grant, a little better. (We don't see much of him because he lives in Toronto.)

There better NOT be anything happening on Sunday, July 4!

My life at Mobility

This is my 50th posting!

For anyone who doesn't know this, I work at SaskTel Mobility. I will celebrate my 10th anniversary at Mobility on October 3, 2004. Yes, celebrate. I like my work here! And SaskTel is a great place to work (it's actually one of Canada's Top 100 Employers). It probably helps that I've had two full years of maternity leave (2001 and 2003), so it doesn't seem like I've been here that long.

Right now (and for the next few months), I'm working almost exclusively on the technical, procedural, and marketing documentation for our LoadTrak(tm) service (I'm not actually working on the website; this link is just to show the subject of my work right now). Earlier this year, I spent almost two solid months working on Downloadables.

A little fun thing I'll be doing soon is to be featured in SaskTel's employee newsletter. Here's the request I received from the editor: "We are going to strand you on a desert island (on paper anyway), and ask you to throw a dinner party for 10 guests of your choice. You can invite anyone - alive today, or living forever in history, to join you on the island for an evening. You also have to plan the meal that would be served... appetizer, main course, dessert, etc."

Well, I agreed to do it, so here's what I'll have to submit by July 21:

• A brief bio... my location, job, interesting things I've done while employed here, my family, things I've discovered about SaskTel, etc.;
  
• A favourite photo of myself;
  
• A list of 10 people (living or dead) I would invite to a dinner party... and why (they suggest selecting well-known people, not just people who I know); and
  
• The menu I would serve them, including recipes if I have them.
  

I'll post my submission here when it's ready.

Busy weekend

I took a vacation day on Friday, but still took the girls to Sharon's. I need to do that once in awhile, just to have a bit of extra time for me and to do some things I just can't do with the girls in tow (such as getting my hair cut). That evening, we went to Presutti's for supper and drinks hosted by Envision Group (our farm consultants/accountants). I really enjoyed that. We sat on the patio, and while a bit on the cool side, it was wonderful to see the blue sky (finally!). Mostly I visited with Neil's family, but also met a few people and chatted with acquaintances whom I hadn't seen for a long time. Later, we went to the Free House to join some of the Mobility Marketing group for drinks. All in all, it was a nice evening. The girls stayed overnight at Laurel's.

My Aunt Val, Uncle Cliff, and Aunt Bev came to our house for a short visit on Saturday afternoon (they were in Regina to attend my cousin's bodybuilding competition in the evening). We took the girls over to the park so they could play in the splash/spray pad. Unfortunately, it was very windy and not very warm (only about 20 C), so not the best conditions for that activity. Sophia seemed to enjoy it anyway, but Madeline wasn't interested in getting wet (smart girl!). They both had fun on the swings. Shortly after that, Laurel brought Bronwyn over to stay overnight while she went out for the evening.

On Sunday, we went for brunch at the Delta Hotel to celebrate Mom and Dad's 35th Annniversary, Father's Day, and Val's upcoming 50th birthday. It just worked out that Mom was picking up Grandma and Colleen at the airport at 10:30 a.m. (they'd been in Ottawa visiting Janet and Roger), and Val and Cliff were planning to see them in Regina too. Rob, Robyn, Ethan, and Jordyn came to the city for brunch, and Dad came with Mom (he's very busy right now, so it was great he took the time off). It was really great to be together in person to acknowledge and celebrate all of these special occasions! Also, it had been much too long since we'd seen everyone.

I don't want to do it!

Madeline has been asleep for 2.5 hours, and Sophia has been asleep for about 10 minutes. I really have to wake both of them right now or they won't go to bed well tonight. If only I could just let them be!

Degrees of separation

This past week I was reminded several times of the connections between people, and of how small a community Saskatchewan really is. Have you heard of the Six Degrees of Separation? "Six degrees of separation is the theory that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries." (That's just a bit of the explanation on whatis.com. There's also an online experiment regarding the Six Degrees of Separation.)

Based on recent experiences, I'm thinking there must be fewer than six degrees of separation (on average) between people in Saskatchewan...

Thursday evening I attended a Weekender Clothing party at an acquaintance's home. I just met Stacey last fall when she joined our Clothing Club through Krystal, whom I've known for several years because she married a guy from my home town. Krystal was invited into Clothing Club by another friend of mine, Deana, whom I've known since Neil and I started dating. She and Krystal had worked together at Cypress Hills many years ago. So they were friends and I knew them separately. Plus, on Stacey's email invitation, I noticed the name of someone who works at Mobility, and who happens to be Stacey's aunt.

On Friday I had my hair cut by Teighen at Salon Fli. Well, it turns out that Teighen is the step-sister of the husband of Shannon who works at Mobility (and whose office is right next to mine). Furthermore, Teighen's boyfriend's sister used to work at Mobility. By sheer coincidence, on Friday evening we had drinks with Shannon, her husband Lance, and the former Mobility co-worker, Heidi (who now lives in Ontario). The surprising thing is that I didn't learn about Teighen through those connections, but through other friends of mine who raved about getting their hair cut by Teighen and her brother.

Friday evening, we attended a supper hosted by Envision Group, our farm consultants/accountants. That was fun and full of more connections! Our accountants, the Klippensteins, are from Neil's home town of Avonlea, so it's not surprising that we know many of the same people; however, there were so many other people there (clients of Envision Group) who I knew through various other circumstances. For example, there were two couples from my home town of Yellow Grass. Then there was Chad from Milestone who I met at University (whose sister, by the way, used to date Neil). There were people from Rouleau who are related to another coworker of mine, Amy. While talking to someone I'd just met that evening, I learned that she and her husband are close friends with another guy from Yellow Grass.

Another chance connection is that my cousin Carolyn's boyfriend, Eugene, is a brother of Velda, another co-worker of mine at Mobility. I think the only time I met Eugene was five years ago at our wedding. I met Velda the week before I went on maternity leave for Madeline, so have only really worked with her for the past five months, but we've been working together on a few projects lately (just did a major posting for her product on Thursday). It's interesting to have that connection. Coincidentally, Velda just got married on June 5 this year--the very day of our fifth anniversary!

You see what I mean? And that was just Thursday and Friday!

The federal election

The election is 10 days away now. It seems like forever since it was called. I'm so sick of hearing about it and of getting phone calls from parties and independent polls. The NDP have called at least twice and came to the door, each time asking if they could count on our support (not likely). Our Conservative candidate's office called this morning (from Toronto of all places; Neil is planning to ask Dave Batters about that). I should thank the Liberals for not bothering me.

I hate election campaigns (in fact, that's the first entry in my new list of peeves)--especially the mudslinging. I didn't even try to watch the leaders' debate, though a tiny part of me feels like I should have. I can hardly imagine a more unpleasant way to spend an evening.

I never feel certain about who to vote for; it's usually the case that there's one candidate I know I won't vote for, and then I need to choose the least objectionable from the remaining candidates. Plus, I'm not sure I've ever voted for someone who has actually won. The whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. (Neil, on the other hand, seems to like elections and always knows exactly who to vote for--which I think is more a result of family history than critical analysis, but must be an easier route to take, nonetheless.)

I really like what Luke at Attaboy.ca said today in his post, The Scare Vote:

Fellow Canadians, do not vote Liberal out of fear. The Conservatives are not bogeymen. If, like me, you don’t agree with their platform, then vote for somebody else. Vote for the NDP. Or vote for the Green Party, whose leader, Jim Harris, is a noted fiscal conservative. If you do agree with the Conservative platform, then don’t let empty election rhetoric change your mind.

Make your vote count for someone, and not just against them.

Now I just have to figure out who that "someone" will be.

This really bugs me

I like the Saskatchewan Roughriders, I really do (it's a requirement of living in Saskatchewan, and Regina in particular), but I can't stand the emotional investment Neil puts in them. Tonight was the season opener and the game was on TV from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. First of all, during the game, he may as well not even be in the house; he's so focused on the game, he only contributes about 3% of what it takes to take care of/entertain the kids... except you can't actually forget that he's in the house, because he's constantly shouting "Oh, come on!" or "You stupid idiot!" or "You've got to be kidding me" when the Riders are having a bad game. (I must give him credit for not using really bad language though.) Plus, he gets so upset if someone dares to interrupt his attention during the game. Then, after a poor game, he's in a bad mood and he feels "let down." Whatever!

I may be biased

...but I think it's pretty darn clever of Madeline to go to the cup drawer, get one out, then go to the water cooler, use the lever to put water in her cup, and then drink it! She's only (almost) 17 months old!

Clumsy me

I don't know how I forgot to mention this... Yesterday, I almost fell down the basement stairs, but I stopped the fall with my elbows--one on the concrete wall and one on the aluminum railing. Both elbows hurt quite a bit today, but mostly the one that left a thick layer of skin on the concrete. It actually didn't hurt that much at the time, but it's rather unforgettable now that it's constantly oozing and the bruise beneath it is more than apparent. The other elbow is just bruised. I'm not sure how I could go all of my life (not counting the toddler years) without falling down stairs and then have two incidents in just over two months! What the #$%&!

To baby or not to baby

That is the question. As the time nears to try again, my thoughts are dominated by the question of whether or not we should try this month. Before I fell asleep last night, I was sure we should wait (six months or more). This morning, I'm not so sure. Let's see here...

Pros for sooner (Mar '05) baby

Kids would be closer in age.

I'd get to go on maternity leave sooner.

All three kids' birthdays would be closer together (I don't know why I care about this; perhaps to go into birthday party mode for awhile each year and just have it overwith).

We'd be able to start doing more adventurous things (e.g., camping, travelling) with the kids sooner.

Cons for sooner baby

Neil would only be home (i.e., available to help!) for a month after the baby is born (we have to assume he'll be busy farming from April to October and he stays at the farm Monday through Saturday during the most busy times).

Neil would only be home for a month after I return to work.

We'd have three kids in daycare for at least five months, and possibly much longer (when should Sophia start kindergarten--at 4 1/2 or 5 1/2?).

I'd feel like crap (first trimester) this summer while Neil's busy and when there's so much yard work to do.

Sophia and Madeline would only be barely four and two (birthdays in January) when new baby arrives.

We still have a bunch of debts and no guarantee the farm will come through for us this year, so we could be totally broke again.

Pros for later (Oct '05...Feb '06) baby

Sophia and Madeline would be older (and more mature?) when new baby arrives.

Neil would be home for longer after the baby is born.

Neil would be home for longer after I return to work (and he expressed a strong desire to stay home with baby for at least as long as he did with Sophia and Madeline--two to three months).

Neil would be home during my first trimester (hmmm, that would be nice).

Maternity leave may be that much sweeter having had to wait longer and knowing I'll have to return to work for the rest of my life after this one.

We'd have three kids in daycare for five months at the most and maybe not at all (much cheaper!).

More time for me to continue improving my eating habits and start exercising (but would I really?).

More time for us to get into a better financial situation.

I'd feel good this summer, so I can be more fun for the girls and maybe get some landscaping done.

Cons for later baby

I'd have to wait so much longer, and I don't wanna!

Okay, I guess it's pretty obvious what we should do (or rather, not do) this month.

Weekend bits

It rained all weekend. We've had almost two inches in the city and two and a half at the farm. I don't think they'll be seeding again. Our front lawn looks very lush, but needs cutting very badly. Our backyard looks horrible. There's a lake behind and beside the garage again and the weeds are starting to get too big; will have to call the WeedMan about that. Plus, we've been soaking up the water at the bottom of the stairs all weekend. What's worse is there's still more rain in the forecast for tomorrow.

We went to Weisshaar's to celebrate Jill's convocation this evening. She's earned a Bachelor of Admin, all the while being a single parent to her son, Jacob. That had to be very tough. I know she's worked really hard to earn her degree and she deserves to celebrate!

We discovered on the way home from Weisshaars that Madeline can say "five" as in "give me five!" She also calls Neil "daddy" instead of "mama" some of the time, and she can say "ya" (yes) now.

I ordered two books from Amazon.ca last evening:
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation and The Healthy Food Directory (had seen this one in the chiroprator's waiting room yesterday). Can't wait to get them!

We watched The Last Samurai last night. Great movie, and beautiful scenery! Speaking of movies, we watched Bruce Almighty last weekend which was pretty funny--we really needed comic relief last Sunday after Sophia's episode!

Finished ceiling

Neil came back to the city before noon on Thursday. It started raining Thursday morning... and it's still raining. They've had more than two inches at the farm and we've had an inch and a third or so. Unfortunately, they only had about two days of seeding left to do and they may not be able to finish now.

The good part of this is that I had the day off yesterday, Neil was in the city, and Neil's Mom and Dad offered to take the girls for the day! Neil took them to Corinne and Lou picked them up there. As a result, we were able to finish the ceiling in the laundry room! Yay! It took more time than I expected (about five hours) and wasn't much fun, so I'm really glad the girls weren't here while we tried to get that done.

We also took advantage of being kid-free yesterday and went out for supper at Earl's. We used to go there fairly often, but it had been a long time--a couple of years at least. We couldn't even remember the last time. The food was awesome! I stuffed myself, of course. It was a nice and relaxing time. The only thing that bugs me about that place is the noise level. I definitely prefer quiet dining.

Donna and Lou are bringing the girls home this morning sometime, so I should go get more work done before they arrive!

The 4:00 a.m. kiss

Sophia often sleeps with me when Neil is at the farm. I know it's a bad idea, but it's so much better for me!

Last night, she had to go to sleep in her own bed because she wasn't trying very hard to go to sleep in my bed. I had her tucked in at 9:00 p.m. (which is actually quite early for her, but Sharon had said she only had a 30 minute nap) and I was going to lay down with her until she fell asleep (I really hate doing that, but I gave up my refusal to do so after having countless evenings ruined by endless excuses and crying). Well, Sophia wouldn't stop talking or whispering, so I warned her that if she kept talking, I was going to leave. When she started talking again, I jumped out of bed, but she made such a fuss, I immediately got back into bed and gave her another chance (I realize that's most likely the cause of any failed attempt to discipline her). I said if you talk any more, I'm leaving, and of course she started talking again, so I left. At least 20 minutes of screaming and crying ensued, and the result was that she had to go to sleep in her bed without me in the room.

Back to my main point. When Sophia sleeps in her bed, she almost invariably wakes up crying or screaming at least once during the night and I have to get up to comfort her (even when Neil is home, it has to be me or she screams her head off). Last night, I had to get up twice between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. That just ruins my sleep!

Yet, when Sophia sleeps in my bed, she either sleeps all night, or if she does wake up, it's brief and there's no crying or screaming. For example, the night before last, I was awakened at 4:00 a.m. by Sophia kissing my eye. Then she said "I love you Mommy" (isn't that the sweetest thing?!) and went back to sleep. Just like that! Nothing more. Well, I can tell you that's a much more pleasant experience than the alternative! Not having to get out of bed is just so much better.