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Friday, February 27, 2009

Frozen fish (not a meal idea)


My mothering resume continues to expand each day. I never know what new skills I will add to my repertoire. Last week Abby's blue betta fish, Olivia, died. She was clearly not feeling well, so we weren't completely shocked to find her floating aimlessly on Wednesday afternoon. I did my best to break the news carefully and gently to my daughters. (Craig was gone for a 14-hour-er, so I was on my own). Emily's idea was then to bury Olivia and mark the spot with a giant blue X. Abby's idea was to return her to the sea. My idea... well, you can guess...which was deemed unacceptable to the fish's mother. Knowing that we couldn't dispose of the fish that day, I debated what to do with her. With all of Carson's baby food jars just begging for new uses, I thought it was brilliant to put her in one with a bit of water (it seemed too wierd to add no water). Well, it turns out that wasn't a fantastic idea. Long story short, we ended up with a dead betta fish, double-bagged in ziplocs, in the freezer. How was I supposed to know how to store a dead fish?! This is valuable life information that was not covered in any of my college courses. Also, what about "How to break the news of a dead pet to your child" or, "How to help a child deal with the loss of a pet" ...information you don't realize you're missing until seconds before you need it.



I am happy to report that Olivia has since been successfully and happily released into the wild; returned to the water from whence she came. And I now have several more skills and valuable knowledge to add to my resume.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

One blessed mommy

This morning I was reminded of the many blessings in my life. My husband got up with the baby who awoke on the early side. By the time I got up and threw on sweats, the baby was already napping and there was a warm breakfast waiting for me. My eldest daughter had just gotten up and gotten herself dressed. She greeted me with her sparkling eyes, a cheerful grin and a giant bear-hug. Shortly thereafter, my youngest daughter toddled out in her nightgown and had a loving just-waking-up snuggle for me. When I asked her if she was hungry, she said, "I want what you're having." (as a mom, it doesn't get much better than that!) It was just one of those cozy, beautiful, "Ah yes, I am so blessed" kind of mornings. Who needs Mother's Day?!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

All you need is love...

...and sleep. Yes, it's a subject I've brought up before. But today, on Valentine's Day, it's quite poignant. You see, our 8 months & 10 days old son slept through the night for the first time last night. THE FIRST TIME. (So if you're wondering why we sometimes appear insane, it's because we sometimes are insane, resulting from insane sleep habits.) But I wasn't bringing the whole subject up to complain. Actually, I just thought it was cute that he chose last night to sleep from 11 pm to 7 am without a major need. Truthfully, he did stir at about 2 am, and we (alright, Craig) got a bottle all ready to take in, but he resettled himself... So the bottle sat on the counter all night long - spoiling. We joyfully dumped the entire spoiled bottle down the drain this morning :) Here's hoping we can dump out more formula in the near future!

Happy Valentine's Day to all our friends and rellies! xoxoxoxo