Ramblings of a Crazy Woman

This morning we switched Ms. P's car seat from backwards facing to forward facing and it's a whole new world for her! Same could be said for millions of gay and lesbian couples who are now equal under California law. It's a whole new world for a lot of people today. It's very exciting!

Our blockbuster film got off to a good start on Friday, so my boss let us all go home early. I picked up Ms. P from daycare and we started our weekend early! Yay! When we got home we found Papa hanging up Vinylmation display cases in the dining room. I am not quite sure how I feel about having so many dolls in our dining room but alas, it makes Papa really happy and I guess that is what is most important. After watching Papa fill the last, of 7 display cases, it was time for dinner. Papa offered to pick up some food from The Oinkster for dinner. I really wanted to get a pulled pork sandwich but alas, I am learning how to pick the healthy thing on menus now so I went with Chicken and a salad. It was actually pretty good. At least now, thanks to diabetes I am trying new things on the menu. Ms. P wasn't interested in chicken nor the salad and went for the French fries. I think she likes the act of dipping fries into ketchup more than the taste of french fries themselves. With k...

Gosh, all of the sudden it's the middle of June and we are nearing the 4th of July! Where did the last few weeks go? We've been quite busy these past two months. We had eye appointments, A Mother's Day Celebration at Verona's, Mommy Club, visitors from Chicago, trips to the museum, The Grove, and Disneyland, Diabetic Training, A trip to the nutritionist, a few trips to Santa Monica, a few lunches at Lulu's, Penny's 18 month check up, FUDGE Day party at Daycare, a bonfire on the beach, brunch with old friends, swimming with friends and a big Father's Day tri-tip BBQ party at the LaScala's House. Then there has been work on blockbuster movies for me and hubbers has had two months off from his job but that didn't mean he wasn't busy. He took on a big project of redesigning and re-landscaping our front yard. Yep, the front is completely redone! All the old shrubs are gone! Then the both of us have been dieting. Hubs lost 30 pounds won a w...

Even though just a year ago she was my little baby, after seeing her care for "her" baby I had to admit Ms. P was growing up. One of her favorite things to do at school is care for her babies. She loves tucking them in and giving them blankets. Ms P is also the classroom "Mom" she is very caring and nurturing to her fellow classmates. She loves going back to the infant room and seeing "her" live babies. One example of her kindness and her momness occurred this morning when I dropped Penny off at daycare. There was a group of toddlers looking at pictures of their families taken at the Father's Day event last week that were taped to the wall. One little boy saw his dad in the picture and started crying. That's when Penny went over to him and put her hand on his shoulder and patted his back. Then she leaned in and hugged him. I've never been so proud!

We;ve gotten to know Dave and Verona's family over the years and they have graciously started to invite us to family gatherings since we do not have any family in town. They are a fun bunch of Italians! On Father's Day, Verona's cousin Chip and his wife Nena hosted a BBQ party. Chip told us to come over a little early so Ms. P could go swimming with his children. Ms. P not only loves playing with older children (if you call 4 and 7 old) but she loves water so I thought swimming would be fun. Ms. P has been in pools before but it was last year when she was only a wee little thing. Now that she is a wee bigger and is more aware of her surrounding I can safely say she enjoyed her swimming experience. All the squeals and the fact that she wanted me to let go of her despite the fact that she can't swim, gave me a pretty good indicator that she liked the water. The kids played in the water for over an hour or rather until their lips turned blue and I had to p...

Since Dad likes pie so much we decided to take him to THE HOUSE OF PIES in Los Feliz again. We are hoping to make it an annual tradition. Unlike last year, we only stopped in for pie which was actually kind of nice. Ms. P decided to have one of her toddler tantrums so it was a rough couple of minutes before the food came and turned her "No's" into signs for "Please" and "More." Unfortunately, THOP didn't have hubs favorite pie. Chocolate Peanut Butter so he decided to go with Banana Cream Pie. Ms. P loves nana's so of course she took to the pie quite quickly. I am not sure Dad got to eat much of his Father's Day treat. I ordered a bran muffin. They didn't have any sugar free pie so I figured bran would be healthier. The muffin was probably just as bad as the pie considering it tasted really good and was the best bran muffin I ever had. I didn't want to temp my health too much so I only ate half which was good because w...

Ms. P has taken to feeding our dog Moses. It first started with her playing in his water bowl then to feeding him dinner and now, she has found his treat drawer. Ms. P by all respects is a very caring person. She is always concerned that Moses (and mom and dad) get some bites. This, along with the reduction in human food for Moses has made him quite the aggressive little guy when it comes to food. He pretty much stalks Ms. P whenever she has food because he knows he is going to get something from her whether she a) gives it to him, b) it drops accidentally or c) if he is really inclined, he will just take it out of her hands, reducing her to tears. Despite our constant warnings, Ms. P still finds it fun to play in his water bowl. I think she tips his bowl over on purpose to see how mad her father and I get. We just can't understand how she doesn't understand why its wrong. Surely, she understands our "No's." Well, I guess that is why Ms. P's very fi...

Each year at Ms. P's daycare they have FUDGE DAY. It's an accronim for Father's Day but since we live in a world where families are made up of different people, the daycare has expended their father's day to Father's, Uncle's, Dad's, Grandfathers and Everyone Else! In addition to her dad, Ms. P invited a few uncles to enjoy in the ice cream sundae fun and fun they had. Since Mom and Dad couldn't eat ice cream our friends ended up having our servings and it was quite enjoyable for them. Ms. P even presented Papa with her gift. A unique clay creation.

Ms. P is 18 months old! We made it a year in a half and so far haven't broken her! We celebrated with a trip to the doctors for the necessary shots which Papa said she took like a trooper aka no crying. The doctor said she is very advanced socially and was impressed with how many words she knows. She is 25 lbs and gaining weight exactly as she should. My girl is growing sooo quickly!

Do you know what a serving size is? Since becoming diabetic I've quickly learned what a serving size is and I realized that all those years of eating out and eating at home I was over eating!!! A serving is actually pretty small. One serving of pasta is so small that restaurants are probably serving 6-7 portions as one meal!! My visit with the nutritionist was a productive one. We set goals and she took me through the do's and don't of eating. She made me a meal plan that I think I can live with. The cool thing is that I can eat almost anything within moderation. Of course I can't drink a soda outright or down a bag of m&m's but she taught me if I need a sip of coke or I need a few m&m's its okay if I am exercising and if I don't do it all the time. She even said I could spurlge and eat at In and Out burger as long as I eat protein style with lots of veggies and no salt on the fries and only on an occasion. Yay! The thing that has helped...

Mommy has been eating 100 calorie Healthy Choice Fudge bars. For a low sugar item they are quite tasty. On a whim one day after returning from a day at the beach I gave Ms. P a bite of my fudge bar. Well, I never got the bar back after that! Here she is chocolate face and all enjoying her frozen treat.

We decided to leave our neck of the woods and head to the beach. We left fairly early in the morning and beat the traffic. We made it to Santa Monica in 20 minutes. How cool is that? We hit up a small farmer's market before plopping ourselves in the sand. Ms. P was a little leery of the big bad ocean. A wave came and got her wet fairly early so she approached it with caution. It wasn't a sunny morning. Instead it was overcast but the temperature was perfect. We had fun making castles and by the end of the visit she was approaching those waves with a smile. We ended up catching lunch at the nearby LuLu's with our good friend Jung and caught up with his life while Ms. P squirmed around. Luckily nap time approached and she knocked out while mom and dad visited with their friend.