Bethany's Birthday

Bethany's birthday was a really good day. It didn't start out so good, though. She started complaining the day before that her ear was hurting, so I took her to the doctor that morning. She's doing much better with doctors, but it's still not her favorite thing, and barely cooperated with him looking in her ear. She does have another ear infection, so we got some antibiotics and went home. All in all, it was a decent doctor's appointment--very quick and relatively painless.

We'd been home for about twenty minutes when I thought we were going to have to go back, though, this time for Meagan. When we got home, I went into the kitchen to start making Bethany's cake. The girls decided to dance in the living room, so I turned on some music for them. I was just finished cleaning up and getting ready to start the cake, when Meagan started screaming. I went in the living room, and she was huddled on the floor, clutching her foot. I never figured out what happened, but Bethany was apologizing to her, so I'm guessing Bethany stepped on it or something. Anyway, I had Meagan sit on the couch for a few minutes, and she stopped crying, but when she got up, she collapsed as soon as she put her weight back on her foot. I was afraid she'd broken something. By that point, I was in the middle of making the cake, too. I was having visions of having to take her to the ER and getting a cast and giving her baths with a cast on, etc, etc. I gave her some ice in a baggie, and had her sit back down and hold it on her foot while I finished the cake. I was just about done and was going to go check on her again, when she came sauntering in the kitchen like nothing had ever happened, and asked to help, too. I watched her for awhile, and she seemed just fine, thank goodness.

I didn't really go all out with Bethany's birthday this year. I've gotten a little crazy with them in the past, but I didn't feel like it this year. Instead, I tried to just spend some good time with her and have some fun activities. Instead of a fancy cake, I let the girls help me decorate it. They had a blast, especially when they got to eat the leftover sprinkles in their bowls.

Meagan and Bethany, holding the cake stand steady for me.

Bethany adding frosting to the first layer. As I added the second layer, she said it was a peanut butter and jelly cake, because it looked like a big sandwich to her.

Meagan frosting the top layer.

Yummy sprinkles!

The finished product. Bethany especially liked the balloon candles. Notice the swipe in the front of the cake, though? Meagan kept asking for a taste, and snitched one as soon as she could.

After we finished the cake, I got out some streamers and balloons and a big sign that said "Happy Birthday" and we all decorated the kitchen together. Okay, I mostly did it, but they got to choose colors of streamers, and they each picked out five balloons for me to blow up and where they should be hung. Bethany's were all in a cluster at the top of the hutch, and Meagan's were all on the blades of the fan, where I'd already put some streamers. When Nate got home, Bethany insisted that he blow up five balloons and put them up around the room. I think this was one of Bethany's favorite parts of her birthday. It's five days later now, and the decorations are mostly up still. She doesn't want me to take them down.

Bethany and her cake. She was so excited to get to blow out the candles.

Thar she blows!

This was one of her favorite gifts, a bowling set from her Aunt Brenda. She and Meagan played with that for a long time. Her other favorite toy is a dinosaur that walks and growls when you push a button on it's back. I didn't get a picture of it for some reason, just some video clips of the girls playing with it. Fortunately, Bethany opened that one first, and Meagan played with it the rest of the time Bethany was opening presents, and so she didn't feel bad that she didn't get any.

She also got the binoculars which Meagan is holding (but hasn't really played with them) and the 'birthday bear' she's holding. She loves her birthday bear, and has to sleep with it.

The outfit Bethany is wearing is a gift from my mom. It made me laugh, because I'd gotten the exact same one for Meagan just a week or so before. We'd been out running errands, and Meagan had an accident and I didn't have anything clean for her to wear, so I popped in to Walmart and grabbed something new. Now they match, and love it.

Unsolved mystery

I think our lamp is possessed. Well, two of them actually. Two days ago, I went to get Sean up in the morning, and the little touch lamp in his room was on. I'd assumed that Nate had gone in for some reason and left it on. The next day, though, I woke up in my room to find that the matching lamp in my room was on. I went into Sean's room, and his was on, too. I turned them both off, and mine stayed off, but his kept turning back on. This morning was the freakiest, though. There are three settings to the lamp, and this morning, it woke me up by flashing from the middle to the brightest setting and back, over and over. The only way I made it stop was to unplug it. Hmm...I think we have a ghost in the house.

I'm tired of sleepless nights

Bethany's ear infection is finally getting better. She made it through last night without any tylenol. She still woke up, but didn't need any medicine. She seems to do this--some illness will cause her to wake up at night, and she almost builds a habit of it, and keeps waking up at night for week or more after she's better. It's quite aggravating, because it wakes me up and Meagan and then Meagan is cranky because she hasn't gotten enough sleep. Maybe I'll get lucky, and she'll stay asleep tonight, because I'm starting to get rather sleep-deprived.

Two nights ago, Sean woke up at about 2:30, ate and fell back asleep. Just as I was finishing with him, Bethany woke up crying. I got her back to sleep, and about an hour later Meagan woke up crying. She was easy to get back to sleep that time, but then she woke up again screaming bloody murder at about 6:00am. When I went in that time, she clung to my arm and wouldn't let go. She said something about the snake trying to get her and she had to smash it. Must've been a vivid dream, because she's never reacted like that before. I took her back to bed with me, and she never really went back to sleep, she just kept me from sleeping. That was a yucky night.

Last night wasn't so great either. Sean's had his two bottom teeth for awhile now, and it seems that his top teeth are about to come in. Yesterday, he didn't sleep much at all during the day. He had three naps, but they were only 30 minutes or less. Then when we put him to bed for the night, he kept waking up and crying. Finally I just held him out in the recliner and slept with him out there. Every so often, he'd start to wake up and fuss, and I'd shush him back to sleep. It was a long night, but at least he got some sleep.

I'm not really counting on it, but here's hoping for a better night tonight.

Moose-kaka??

I made moussaka tonight, a traditional Greek eggplant dish. From the time I started slicing the eggplant to the time I took it out of the oven, it was over two and a half hours. And it's something my kids won't eat and my husband tolerates (I leave a section without the eggplant, and he's happier that way). Needless to say, I don't make it often. Today, however, I was really craving something good, and Sean was just happy enough that I put him in his high chair and he watched me while I cooked. There are lots of variations of the dish, but the recipe I use has a layer of sliced potato, a vegetable/meat sauce, a layer of eggplant, the sauce again, and then a cream sauce covering the whole thing. I make it totally from scratch, which is why it takes forever. Right toward the end, I was trying to hurry, because Sean was done with his chair and needed a nap, so I wasn't paying enough attention to the cream sauce. You're supposed to melt some butter, add flour, then slowly add some milk, then a couple of beaten eggs, then pour the whole thing over your layered eggplant concoction. So Sean was crying, the girls were screaming in the background and I was trying to finish quickly. I poured the sauce over the casserole, then stuck it in the oven. I turned and got Sean out of his chair, and then I noticed the beaten eggs still sitting in a bowl. Oops. I forgot to add them. I thought about just leaving it out, but I didn't want to waste them either, so I put Sean back down (to even louder screaming), took the moussaka back out of the oven and poured the eggs over and tried to sort of mix it in without messing up the layers. It only sort of worked, but luckily it tasted okay anyway. I would've been really irritated if I'd messed up the whole thing after all that work. It's good stuff, but I probably won't be making it again any time soon.

P.S. In case you don't know, the title for this post comes from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

First Tooth

After several very whiny and fussy days, Sean finally cut his first tooth today! The second one will be out any time now, too.

"Uh huh! Presents!"

Bethany's birthday is coming up, so I've been using it to teach her about the calendar and days of the month and stuff. Today we counted down the number of days to her birthday, and then I asked her if there was anything special she wanted to do for her birthday. I was thinking maybe a trip to somewhere fun, or something like that, but she said, "Uh huh! Presents!"

Old memories

I saw this book at the library yesterday, and I just had to check it out:It brought up so many memories of late nights where I hid under my covers to keep reading. I occasionally had a flashlight, but more often than not, I read by the light of my electric blanket controls. The light was so weak, I had to move it left to right along the page as I read. I shudder now to think about the strain that must've put on my eyes, but it didn't bother me then...and I got to stay up to read. Not that I want my kids to stay up late, but I do hope they like reading as much as I do.

Speaking of old memories, last night I was sifting through some old photos in search of one particular photo. My kids have both grown a lot in the last year, but it was really brought home to me in looking at those pictures. They've changed so much. Sigh. Where has all the time gone?