5 days left until Sunday… April 23, 2008

and we are all so very hungry! Since cleaning out the house on Friday, the 3 of us have gone through 2 boxes of matzah, a canister of matzah meal, two dozen eggs, and somewhere between 2-3 oz of horseradish (not the kind cut with beets). I miss bread! I even bought Kelly some meat the other day, so maybe he wouldn’t be so hungry at least. He’s still complaining about matzah, though. I don’t mind the matzah, I just miss all the wonderful things that come from wheat, oats, barley, spelt & rye. I want a bagel so very much. I’m already trying to pick what I want for dinner Sunday… pizza, an eggplant parm sandwich, that yummy breaded eggplant dish from the Chinese place near Kelly’s office, Indian food with one of those bread baskets…

This afternoon I’ll be giving my second knitting lesson, which I’m looking forward to. I’ve wanted to teach someone to knit for a really long time now.

And there are 5 days left until the gender predicting ultrasound (and the unnerving weigh in). Giving Baby a gender makes him/her seem so much more like a real person. At least it did the first time. I’ve already felt some movement in there.

Happy Passover! April 21, 2008

It’s been a really busy weekend. Friday after we cleared all the chametz out of our house, we went to the synagogue to help get ready for the community seder. Norrie got a little fussy, and I thought she was just unhappy about not having my full attention, but it turned out there were two top molars coming in. They were parallel to each other and breaking through her gum at the exact same rate. She didn’t sleep very well, so we didn’t go to the seder at my parents’ house. I was sort of relieved about that. My sister and I haven’t been getting along, and I really didn’t want to be crammed 10 people in an eating space that only comfortably seats 6 with her. Not to mention the two hour drive with a child that hates being strapped in her car seat. We had a seder at home, just the three of us, and it was pretty nice. We wrapped up the afikomen, put it on top of Norrie’s rocking horse, and waited. She didn’t notice it. We set her in front of the horse. She turned around and ran away. We picked up the afikomen, handed it to her, and she shook her head. We gave up.

(I can’t make that “Photobucket” go away, and it’s really aggravating.)

Yesterday, we went shopping for a booster seat, since Norrie seems frustrated by her high chair now, and spinning books. Why spinning books? The other night, Kelly said he needed a hobby, and I suggested he learn to spin and make me some yarn. I wasn’t entirely serious, but he’s actually interested. I figure, if he follows through with it, he’ll make the nicest yarn I’ve ever seen. He’s very detailed. After that, we went to the community seder. While they were serving the meal, I took Norrie to see a girl a couple years older than her that she really likes, but she was running around the back of the room with a bunch of other little kids. I took Norrie back there and set her down to run. She ran straight into the corner and picked up what I thought was a used napkin some kid had dropped. It was actually a piece of the afikomen. So, at home, we can’t give it to her, but there, she finds it in 15 seconds flat. Of course, I think they hid a piece for each child, but I also think she was the first one to pick one up. We didn’t get home until an hour after Norrie’s bedtime. I didn’t even change her out of her dress, I just put her straight in her crib and let her go back to sleep.

The Magic Happened! April 18, 2008

I walked past the nursery just as Norrie woke up this morning, and when I went in to get her, her diaper was dry. I yanked it off and raced into the bathroom with her, and after a couple of minutes sitting on her potty in between Kelly and me, she peed! I think it was because I got her as soon as she woke up, but Kelly credits his “Everybody Pees” (sung to the tune of REM’s “Everybody Hurts”). Either way, she peed in the potty, and it was very exciting for everyone. I’m not sure she really knows what happened, but oh well. I think we might be doing this early anyway, so I’m not setting my hopes too high…but I really don’t want two running around in very expensive diapers at once.

I hate Zune’s software April 16, 2008

After our third Creative mp3 player in 2 years stopped working, I bought a Zune.  I really enjoyed the Creative Labs mp3 players we had.  They were really easy to use, we could put any files we wanted on them, including protected content.  The problem was they just didn’t last very long.  I love my Zune player.  It’s attractive, it’s a nice size, it’s got a great screen…but the software I have to use with it SUCKS.  Trying to load files onto the player is one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever done.  I’m not even talking about illegally downloaded files; I’m talking about things I paid to download, songs from CDs I bought, and mp3s I used to check out from an audiobook library.  When I first loaded up the player with all my mp3s, only about half of them copied over.  I still haven’t been able to get the other half copied, or figure out what the problem is.  Not to mention that it’s really pretty confusing.  First you have to add it to the library, then from there to the Zune device.  Everything loads into the library; it just doesn’t all make it over to the Zune.  Then there are a few songs that I have only once in my library, but somehow have 30 copies of on my Zune.  I guess you’re not supposed to buy a Zune unless you’re willing to buy all of your music (and rebuy what you already have) from the Zune marketplace.  I also thought the podcast feature was really cool when I first bought it, but it doesn’t work very well.  Often the podcasts I’m subscribed to have been uploaded to their websites for days before the Zune software picks them up.  It also deletes some of them before I’ve had a chance to listen to them.  As much as I love the actual player, when I buy my next mp3 player, I’ll switch brands again, to something with more user friendly software.

I’ve been dreading this… April 14, 2008

So today we’re starting potty training. After actually giving birth, potty training is the part of having a baby that I feared most when I got pregnant the first time, and that fear hasn’t abated any in the last 18 months. So far I’ve been periodically taking her to her little potty every hour or so and hoping that something will magically land in the bowl. No luck so far. She really likes sitting on it, but she wants to sit on the edge, so she’s not really over the hole. It’s maybe a little early, but I’m determined she’s going to be out of diapers by the time she becomes a big sister. That gives us 23 weeks.