woe is me

The employment projects were turned in today from both my classes (which is a fancy way of saying resumes, cover letters, memos, job descriptions, etc.). At 20 minutes per each, it works out to 12 hours of grading.

12 hours, you say? Painful, but not too bad.

Well, throw a toddler into that mix.

Pretty much my afternoons and evenings are shot for the next long time. Oh--but wait! I still have to prepare my presentation/lecture/discussion thing for book club tonight, which slashes out my afternoon AND evening (since book club is at 8 pm).

The upside of all this, of course, is that I have a great job which pays really well, is wonderfully flexible, and allows me to continue to exercise my mind and use my education while simultaneously allowing Abigail to spend quality time with her dad.

but i miss my quiet Abigail-naptime-rest-thing already...

(more) back to normal

One of the things I am grateful for is a generally good-natured kid who will forgive me for all the unpleasantness of the morning.

Since my blog is also my journal, this is my "repenting of bad mother instincts entry." We had a much more pleasant evening, probably due to the fact that Abigail and I both crashed after our crazy morning and didn't wake up until five this evening. We spent some good quality time together reading stories and singing songs after Neil left for his exam (pray hard for him on that front!) and she went to bed happily. I also got to talk to Ruth for half an hour tonight, which was fun. It's still weird to realize that she's in college already--but she's really matured a lot and I'm proud of her. And of Mary Beth. And Elise and Rosalind (did I miss anyone? ;-)

So hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. In all honesty, it's really been hard on Abigail to have Neil studying so much these past few weeks--she doesn't get "Daddy time" and her mommy is completely exhausted by the end of the day, so she's really been a trooper. And today was really rough since she's pretty attached to spending an hour or so with me in the morning quietly coloring or reading or singing or something, and we just didn't have time for that today.

A week or so later...

I haven't been posting much lately because Neil's been using the computer as he frantically studies for his math test. And when I say test, let me expound upon that: this is the three-hour math test that tests him over everything he has learned in the last twenty-six years. It determines whether he gets to stay in grad school or whether we, um, put our house up for sale.

So keep us in your prayers Monday, and then again in a couple of weeks when he takes similar tests in heat transfer and optics. I will be really glad to have these over and have my happy non-stressed-to-breaking-point husband back again.

An interesting side effect of Neil's massive studying is that I have all these weird dreams about whatever books (or movies, as the case was yesterday) I spent the evening reading while he studied. I definitely need him back so I stop living these weird dream-lives after reading for five hours before I go to bed!

Anything that happened this week pales in comparison to area-exam anxiety, so I don't really have anything cool to report. Abigail has been on nap-strike, and that has not been cool, especially when added to the general melange (add an accent mark on there for you Francophones!) Oh, speaking of French, one cool thing from yesterday--we were looking at photo albums while waiting for our exciting lunch of macaroni and cheese to boil--and she saw a picture of my dad holding me when I was a baby. She recognized him and insisted on calling him to say hi, so it was fun to listen to her carry on a very small conversation ("Hi papa. Bye-bye papa") with him. Fun kid. She is really into calling people lately, probably because Neil is gone so much and she knows she can reach him via telephone.

Musings

I realized this morning that my schedule this semester has, for the first time in my life, allowed me to develop an amazing ability. If you've ever lived with me, you know that I have a pathological problem with falling asleep when I'm supposed to, and once I wake up, that's it. I can't go back to sleep.

However, I have now developed the ability to get up at 5:30, go to the gym and get in 2.5 miles on the elliptical and twenty minutes on weights, then drive back home, go back to bed (yes, I generally change clothes first), and promptly fall back asleep. Pretty cool.

I was also thinking last night while I was cooking dinner about all the nice things in my life since Neil and I were married; one of those nice things being a willingness on my part to try more exotic (read: anything other than PBJs) cooking, foods, and ingredients. Back in the good ol' single days, my culinary daring extended to things like...chicken pot pies. The frozen kind. Or--shout-out to Jenny!--our staple of dirty rice, sausage, and Kool-Aid. But after I met Neil, aside from a slight detour (Jen, you probably also remember this) with the Garlic Pizza of Nastiness that he concocted on our first big group date, I learned to start cooking with previously despised ingredients like garlic and onions and mushrooms. I really would just leave out onions if a recipe called for them, so that was a big improvement! And anyway, I was thinking this while I was cooking up chicken in a creamy dijon mustard sauce topped off with sauteed mushrooms and onions, and thinking, gosh, that's sure one nice thing about being married to Neil. My taste buds are happy. Plus, he's a really great cook, nasty garlic pizza aside (granted, he'd only been back from the Philippines for four months, but really--twelve cloves? Honey, what were you thinking?)

I've also been thinking a lot lately about how grateful I am for Abigail. There are lots of times when I wish I had free time, or just the leisure to spend twenty minutes on my own somewhere away from home sitting in Borders people-watching, but it's really a blessing to be able to spend so much time with her and watch her grow and develop. She's becoming a tiny little friend now, instead of just someone whose needs I take care of all day (I loved her even so, but it's nice when she can communicate and interact. Preferable to the small limp slug stage). All the things I've "given up" are worth just one good "Yuv yoo Mommy!" from her (and I write this now so I will remember that I feel this way on the not-so-good days!)

Since this blog is also my chronicle of Abigail's general coolness, here are my favorite moments from yesterday:
1) Reading stories together. We have been able to do this every (week)day since the first of the year, and it has really been a lot of fun. Her attention span is much longer now, and we can read "real" books like How the Grinch Stole Christmas instead of sticking to board books with only 5 or 6 pages. Hurray!
2) Watching her play with her Little People yesterday--I looked over at one point and she had them all sitting in their chairs surrounding the table. How cute was that!
3) Playing with her kitchen: she brought me a wooden steak in her little frying pan, then warned me very seriously "Hot, Mommy," and blew on it to cool it.
4) Lying under her crib with her. This sounds weird, but I'd crawled under there to distract her from storytime, since my throat was getting pretty hoarse, and she thought it was a great game. By the time Neil came home, we were playing "nite-nite" under there with an enormously varied collection of stuffed animals and blankies. Abigail had a blast (and Neil couldn't find us, which she also thought was hilarious!)
5) Watching her run around after her bath. Before we put on her diaper, she always does this weird high-stepping dance that is really comical to watch. Of course, since Neil laughs like crazy, she gets even more into it and goes berserk running around the house doing all kinds of silly moves. It's a great way to get her nicely worn out for bedtime!

Stories?

Lately, Abigail has started telling me very long and complicated stories, out of which I generally understand a grand total of five words. Usually it goes something like this...

"Mommy honey a gluoo noo a sni poh a car bye-bye," except fill in about five minutes of baby blather and chirping in there too.

On Saturday, she spent about fifteen minutes trying to convey some very complicated message ("Mommy! A gluu!!!") and then finally stared at me in exasperation, grabbed the seat of her pants, and said "Mommy. Me poo."

That solved it.

a week later...

I feel like I haven't posted in forever, but I don't know how long it actually was. Mostly I haven't posted because I have been so incredibly tired this week that whenever I come into my bedroom (where the computer is) I detour to bed and stay there until someone forces me out.

But I feel human again today, since Andrea called last night to say she wasn't going to work out this morning, and I figured that since I have yoga tomorrow I could skip too and sleep in for one day in the entire week. And let me tell you, it was BLISSFUL to wake up at 6:51, smile at the clock, and go back to sleep. Absolute bliss. I slept until eight am. And my wonderful husband made biscuits for breakfast while I showered.

I am really glad today was a sleep-day, however, since I spent the morning visiting teaching and hanging out with Abigail at the library, and we have babysitting for date night tonight. Lately I've been ready for bed around 6:30 in the evening, which would not be a good thing when we're babysitting until 8 pm.

We've had a few exciting things this week--all our fire alarms went off one morning (waking up a trembling sobbing Abigail), Neil left his backpack (containing all his area exam study materials, all his textbooks for this semester, his lunch of sweet and sour chicken, and Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince) on the bus--we managed to get it back within an hour, and we heard that Mom and Dad's garage door motor caught on fire (vicarious excitement). What else...I've done a lot of teaching, grading, lesson prep, etc--teaching resumes and cover letters is always hard, because students tend to think that the resume they've been using is great, and they don't have to do any work on it. Except they really really do need to work on it, so it makes my job a lot harder than if they didn't have a resume to start with. It's always easier to write a decent paper when you start from scratch, rather than trying to adapt a shoddy version (and I firmly believe that it takes much less time in the end).

Abigail cute-isms from the week:
1) She's started calling us all "honey." I'm glad that's the name she hears us use most often, instead of something like "little stinky." If she wants to get my attention, she says "Mommy? Mommy? Honey?" and she also refers to herself as "Abdal honey."
2) "Please" and "thank you" (or "peez" and "tan-doo") seem to have moved into her vocabulary permanently. Yay!
3) She has become obsessed with her backpack ("pah-pah!") and likes to wear it everywhere. And I mean everywhere.
4) Yesterday she was helping me to roll out crescent rolls for dinner, and I grabbed her Play-doh rolling pin (way easier to use than the big one!) and she looked down at the rolls in surprise, then nodded confidently and said "Day-doh!"
5) She likes to make sure her dollies and animals are well-fed. She spent fifteen minutes a few days ago patiently holding up peas to her dolly's mouth, saying "Yummy!" and then demonstrating proper eating by popping the pea into her own mouth. Unfortunately, when she tried to share her milk, the dolly had to go sit on the couch and wait for the end of lunch (usually she lines them all up next to her on the benches of her table).

Finally...some snow

It started snowing last night and presumably snowed all night long, giving us a grand total of 1-2 inches. Enough that the car skidded all over when I left this morning at 7:10, and enough that my normal 7-minute drive to campus instead took half an hour, and I walked into class 10 minutes late (the roads weren't too bad once I got out of the neighborhood, but they were full of very paranoid people who inched along at a rate that let exactly four cars through each light change. They all need to move to Michigan for a year and learn to drive in snow).

One incident will encapsulate what kind of day yesterday was. As I was changing over the fourth load of laundry to the dryer, having just frantically raced to put away a carload of groceries while simultaneously feeding my ravenous screaming child, Abigail wandered over to the counter and pulled a cup of cherry juice (set down by Neil when he heard the garage door opening) over her head, drenching her hair and clothes and reducing her into a cherry-flavored puddle of tears.

Thankfully, she took a four-hour nap later and allowed all of us to recover from the morning.

And lastly, I have a case study for you psychology students out there (Elise, take a break from your exam studying, and btw, hope it's going well thus far!) I keep dreaming I'm stuck back in high school. Most recently, I had to go back because I'd never graduated, and my teachers said they couldn't teach me because I'd finished my master's, so I ended up in three classes: English 8 (don't ask!), bowling, and The Sandlot, where we did nothing but watch the movie over and over again (which I've never seen). I had that one for two periods. Oh, and calculus.

And then...I'm trying to think of the other one I had recently. All I know is that I had to take physics again, but it wasn't on my schedule. Hopefully the weird back-to-school panic dreams will subside once I'm a little further into the semester.

We have a yoga class tonight for enrichment--I'm really excited!

Children's Museum

Here are some pics from our visit to the Children's Museum...



Driving--one of her favorite things to do these days!

Dancing in the Playscape area

She's not quite certain about tunnels yet...

This thing was really cool--you turn the handles and the little car moves along the track. She thought it was awesome!

I think Neil enjoyed all the bulldozers and trucks more than Abigail did...

Her favorite part of the museum--playing in the Falls Creek watershed. She was SOAKED after we left the creek and boat area!

Fishies!

Dressed up like a fish in front of the blue screen--there was a video camera that then broadcast her onto a TV with other fish in the background. Pretty nifty.

Coming out of the submarine

End of the morning--looking at the T. Rex (several of them!)

It was a nice little break, and we spent a fun three hours or so there. We'd been planning on doing it sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it was good to finally get around to it (and get the pictures up!) Abigail had a good time, but she was pretty worn out by the time we left. She's not really comfortable with little kids that she doesn't know, so the parts of the museum that she most enjoyed were the parts designed for elementary school kids, since they weren't as crowded and hectic (to do her justice, I thought the preschool area was pretty insane myself!)

In other exciting news, our niece Mikal was baptized today (Saturday). Unfortunately we weren't able to make it up there to be with her (area exam studying! argh!) but Neil called her this evening after dinner and she sounded really thrilled. We are so happy for her! She is such a sweetheart.

This weekend was pretty typical--Neil spent most of it studying, although we did have date night last night, which was fun. We ended up just hanging out at home (the weather was awful, and all our plans were for outside things), but it was nice to eat a leisurely dinner and spend a few hours just talking without any pint-sized interruptions. We finished up with a quick jaunt to Krispy Kreme and then watched A Man For All Seasons after we put Abigail to bed. We're really looking forward to the end of the area exams when Neil will have more time--hopefully we can swing up and go to the temple and visit Caleb and Juli's family, especially since they may be moving this summer or fall!

Cool title here...

Tonight while we were finishing dinner, we were "tracted" by the missionaries. We have some new ones in our ward who have only been over to dinner once or not at all, so they didn't recognize our house--but when we opened the door, they suddenly looked a little confused! We invited them in for some hot chocolate (it's around freezing with a really nasty wind chill) and they shared a great message with us about the power of prayer, so it was a nice unexpected spiritual boost.

We picked up the Cars DVD on our way home from the church tonight (I had to drop off some food for a dinner the RS is doing for one of the community organizations), so I'm excited to watch that tonight. Neil hasn't had much fun to look forward to the last few weeks, so we'll take a little break tonight. I must say, I really love the $1 rental at the grocery-store-box-thing. What a great idea!

Abigail and I had a pretty good day together today. She's started screaming again for no apparent reason--I was hoping we were past that stage, but evidently it's hit again--but aside from that, things were good. She chased me around the kitchen for awhile this afternoon--I had a big hole in the knee of my jeans, and she stuck her cold little hand against my skin, so I yelped and jumped back. She thought that was pretty fun and kept trying to do it again--hence the chase.

One nice piece of news I got today is that the campus institute is going to give me a parking pass for this semester, even though I'm not enrolled in any institute classes. This is a much-appreciated act of mercy on their part, since I would have to leave our house at 6:15 to walk the half-mile to the bus stop in order to get to class on time--and the institute is literally a 30-second walk to my class, so it's perfect. Fortunately I'm done teaching before the institute classes start, so they have some extra parking at that time! Teaching is going well thus far (all one day of it!) and hopefully will continue that way through the semester. Abigail and Neil seemed to enjoy their bus ride together to campus, so that was a relief (Abigail initially refused to get on the bus).

Free day!

Today Abigail and I were fighting the wind while we walked to meet Neil at the bus stop. I was just starting to think that maybe we should turn around and go home, and why did I bring my poor kid out, etc., when a woman who had just driven past us backed up her car, rolled down her window, and asked "What size is your daughter?" When I responded, she said "I have some clothes in that size--do you want them?"

So our freezing cold walk ended up with two bags of clothes from sizes 12 months to 6T--most of them are in the 18-24 month range (too bad she's almost out of those), and there were 4 different snowsuit-type things for 24 months, 3T, 4T, and 5T. Yay!

Cute Abigail things from today:

--I picked her up and was swinging her around so her head hung down by my back. Then I felt two little hands pull up the back of my shirt, and she started blowing bubbles on my back and laughing hysterically!

--Watching her reaction to the popcorn popper (we made carmel corn for FHE treats tonight). She was clapping her hands in excitement, and yelling "Pop! Pop! Pop!" each time a kernel came out.

--Seeing her try to whistle after dinner. It's something you've got to see--I won't even try to explain it.

--Hearing how often she's started saying "peez" when she wants something. Hopefully this betokens a polite toddler AND teenager...

Hanging out with a little kid really puts things into perspective for me. It's been a long time since I thought making the bed was the coolest thing in the world (if ever!) and it's fun to see how much enjoyment Abigail gets out of all the things I view as mundane or routine. You know you're really content with your life when the most you could ask of any day is that it include grapes (or maybe you have very small horizons).

Mine Papa?

Today in church Abigail was looking over my shoulder during the opening exercises, and she caught sight of one of the ushers through the glassed doors. He had graying hair, glasses, and was about the same build as my dad, and she went crazy! She was jumping up and down, yelling "Papa! Papa! Papa!" Unfortunately, when he turned around, she was pretty sad. So she will be excited the next time she sees her grandpa!

Our fun news today is that we got a free mattress and box springs from someone in the ward--they had three frames and a mattress/springs that they were giving away, so hurray, we don't have to buy a bed for Abigail now!

Abigail did really well today with the 11-2 meeting time, but it could also be because she slept in so late. I sure felt sympathetic for the nursery leaders today--it's hard to have a bevy of little kids who really just want to nap.

quick update

I've been really tired the last few weeks, and I have mixed feelings about school starting on Monday. On the one hand, it will be good to be back into a more regular schedule; on the other hand, I would enjoy it more if that schedule did not begin at 5:30 am every weekday. Coupled with aforesaid tiredness, it could be interesting.

I spent most of today sleeping--I slept until about 11 this morning and then laid down again as soon as Abigail went down for her nap. Then I went out around 5 with a big group of friends from the ward--we had a girls' night out dinner at Applebee's to celebrate my friend Dani's birthday. It was really fun and I had a great time, but...I went to right back to bed at eight (and will go back when I finish this post--I just got up to take off my makeup and take my contacts out).

Part of the fatigue is due to all our late nights, I think. We've gone to Indy the last two days to pick up people from the airport (last night we didn't get back until 12:30. Fortunately, my wonderful wonderful friend Andrea graciously agreed to watch Abigail, so we didn't have to worry about keeping Abigail up that late--just Andrea! :-( So hopefully school starting will kick us back into our routines...

Abigail continues to be her sweet self. Today when I came home from dinner, she threw her arms around my legs and said "Mommy! Mommy!" When I picked her up, she threw her arms around my neck and snuggled down. It was a great welcome! She has been really good natured about the fact that we haven't done very exciting things lately--I've been too tired to even do simple things like go to the library for story time. On Friday she helped me wash windows ("help, wipe, please!") which was fun for both of us.

A few notable quotes from the last few sleep-deprived-recovering-from-illness-days.

Neil (to Rachael): "My wife is way prettier than you."

Rachael (to Neil when he came to bed when she was already asleep): "My husband's going to beat you up."

On a sidenote, the weather pixie is actually wearing a shirt that covers her belly--a concession to the 30 degree weather--but no coat. Interesting. I like knowing the weather, but I am amused and faintly scandalized by the pixie's general disregard for stomach clothing. Credit goes to Jen, from whose page I stole the pixie (credit for the pixie, not her scandalousness).

Puppet time

Today Abigail's activity of choice was singing "Little Bunny Foo-foo" with her finger puppets. It's fun to watch her bounce the puppets around, then smack herself on the head with them at the part where Little Bunny Foo-Foo is bopping the fieldmice on the head.

It was a nice quiet home day today--we read lots of books and Abigail fed me all kinds of interesting plastic meals. She had a fun evening with Quincy and Elise (the Westovers babysat her tonight while we went to pick up the Williams from the airport).
Unfortunately, Neil now has our circulating cold--let's hope it's finished before school starts Monday!

Journaling

I've been reading through my journal (most of the entries are from my freshman year in college. After that I kept it on the computer or not at all) the last couple of days, and it's been an interesting experience. Part of me felt sort of sad, because I'd had so much fun during my freshman year and grown in so many ways. Another part of me really missed certain people (namely Jen! So many good times!) and all the free time that I had to myself. Jen and I went to the temple at least once a week, and I just really--have a hard time with not being able to do that now, and it was hard to read about how wonderful that was for me then and realize I didn't have the same opportunity now. Only having to get myself ready in the morning is something I never appreciated before I had Abigail--I was reading about getting up half an hour earlier to have scripture study time, and I thought about much earlier I'd have to get up now to ensure quiet time. And another part of me sorely missed doing things that brought me so much immediate gratification and fulfillment. That sounds selfish, but I mean things like all the leadership and service work that occupied a lot of my freshman year. One of my very favorite memories is of the three days that Jen and I spent being Master Teachers for the Foundations of Leadership conference at BYU (I recommend volunteering for that whole-heartedly. It was seriously one of the most meaningful experiences I've ever had), and I wish I still had opportunities like that. And my journal really just made me miss Utah and student life. I'm sure if I was back in the "I only slept four hours tonight because I have so much homework" I would be miserable, but they really were good days.

Which brings me to why I wanted to write this post. I think since Abigail was born, I've spent too much time thinking about the things I could be doing instead of the blessings I have now. I really wouldn't be happy living freshman year over and over again in a sort of Groundhog-Day thing, and the same thing goes for the first year that Neil and I were married, or the first year of my M.A. work, or dozens of other things that I look back on as idyllic. I have so many blessings now, and I really want to focus on appreciating those to the utmost. So this blog posting is a sort of reminder to myself to do that. Actually, one of my journal entries when Abigail was about six months old talks about that, so I'm going to write that in here to remind myself: " I think I spent too much time thinking about the "good old days," when during those times I just wanted to fast forward to now. I guess that's one of life's paradoxes. It seems to me that one is truly happy is simply one who looks on the past with fondness and the future with anticipation, but loves and lives in the present."

Another unrelated entry four years earlier from my journal that really made me think--one of my friends remarked in a leadership training session that "sometimes we get so caught up in who we're leading that we don't think about who we're following," about which comment I went on to write "you know, out in the big wide world we're so worried about protecting our followers that we don't even stop to think about who we're following, and whether that person is worthy of our emulation. And if we're not following Christ, then we're leading them the wrong way--that's all there is to it." As a leadership teacher, this provided a lot of food for thought for me, and it becomes even more meaningful as a mother.

So those two quotes are going to be my goals for this next year--my real "New Year's resolutions," persay. To appreciate the moments instead of looking forward to something else, and to focus on Christ as my role model and in turn, enact a similar model for my children.

Firsts

We had a couple of "firsts" today--some good, some not so good.

On the good side, Abigail said her first more-than-two-word phrase. We were in a parking lot, and the car next to us pulled out, and she said "Car go bye." Sophisticated, I know, but it was very cute (plus she waved bye-bye to the car).

On the not-so-fun side, Abigail refused to eat dinner today (chicken saag), so we tried Neil's theory of "if she's hungry, she'll eat, if not, she's done." It was both stressful in that I worried about a malnourished child (not that one meal will do that much, but she hasn't eaten well today) and also nice not to spend an hourpreparing various mini-meals and coaxing her to take just one bite. She didn't seem too hungry after "dinner," which may have been the ear infection, but she sure threw a big "I want to be out of my chair" tantrum. It's frustrating--she loves something one day and won't look at it the next. I know it's all part of being a toddler, but as I was explaining to Neil the other day, it's hard for me because it's at the point where literally the best thing that can happen to me all day is Abigail eating breakfast without complaint. Fun fun.

She did do one pretty cute thing during dinner--I kept telling her to eat just one bite and then she could have whatever she wanted, and so I held up my finger when I said "one." She would very solemnly look back at me, hold up one finger, and say "two."

Saga of the Pea

Well, the happiness continues. This morning we took Abigail in to the doctor's office, where it took Neil and me plus a nurse to hold Abigail still so the doctor could investigate her nose. Good times.

No sign of the pea, so he agreed with Neil that she may have just sucked it down and swallowed it (but we got a referral to a ear nose and throat specialist in case she gets worse), but he did find signs of a budding ear infection, so she's back on Amoxicillin, or however you spell it. Fortunately she's taken to it better than she did the last time, where it took both of us to pour it down her throat (and ended up with pink-spattered faces after she'd spit it all out). I gave some to her today and she, of course, threw a tantrum because she wanted more.

Speaking of tantrums, we've had some of the best today that I've seen yet. The doctor's office one was a particularly fine specimen, but then I took her to the library later and it was CLOSED! argh! until noon, and she absolutely lost control when I tried to put her back in the car. An enormous power struggle ensued, with lots of kicking and smacking from the Abigail end of things, and I ended up taking her to Wendy's after we got gas and picked up her prescription so that she would have some lunch and we could go back to the library. I just felt so sorry for the poor kid--she had one bright spot in the whole morning coming her way, and then it was gone! So we spent a happy half-hour reading books and watching the library fish.

The rest of this week should be interesting--tomorrow I am watching one friend's son from 12-4 while she has a C-section, then another friend's son from 5-8 while she goes out with her husband, then on Thursday we go to Indy to pick up some friends from the airport, then we go back again to Indy on Friday to pick up another set of friends. I hope we can have some quality family time together tonight, since it will be in short supply the rest of the week. Then...sad day...we start school on Monday, and I am REALLY not looking forward to teaching at 7:30 am, especially since I've grown sluggardly and started sleeping until 8:30! It will be a real wake-up call (no pun intended. heh heh).

Homophones

Tonight at dinner I was trying to get Abigail to eat her peas, so I turned to her and said "Eat your peas! Put your peas in your mouth. Peas in mouth."

Neil (unfortunately) chimed in "Peas in nose."

Guess what happened.

We aren't quite sure that the pea is still there, but Neil is pretty sure it dropped down from her nasal passages into her mouth--he says she stopped crying and swallowed, but it was an unpleasant experience for all. I spent a long time calling around trying to find an urgent care center that would answer the phone, a pediatrician who would answer, a hospital who would give me info over the phone, etc, all to no avail. Plus some quality time with tweezers and flashlights.

But if you google "my kid put a pea up her nose," you'll come up with quite a lot. And the article that suggest that you should have your child inhale pepper so they will sneeze is a BAD IDEA. Unfortunately, Neil didn't come back in until I'd already tried that one.

But by the end of it all, Abigail was happily eating again and drinking her milk, so we decided she was probably okay. We kept her up for another two hours to watch her, but she seemed pretty normal, so hopefully we don't end up regretting not taking her to the ER tonight. (If anyone knows if we should go, please tell us!)

Anyway, when we finished up, Abigail was singing "Peas, peas, peas!" as she ate her peas.

Then we put her in the bathtub when she finished dinner, and she started singing "pea, pea, pea" again...except as the water turned a sickly shade of daffodil, we realized she had mastered her first pair of homophones. Lovely.