BLEH!

Everybody around here has sore throats and snotty noses! Boooo. They set in at the weekend and have been getting worse... except for Greta, who had it first, and today seems to be feeling better. Martin took off work yesterday AND today, and its quarter after 9:00 and he and Anja are STILL sleeping. Meanwhile, Greta and I have been up for hours, dancing around the kitchen to my new favorite song, "Abiola" by Ellis Paul. I think it's Greta's new favorite too, and I'm going to add it to our "Happy Morning Time!" mix. It's kind of revolution-ish. Oh, and we made pancakes that nobody else seems to want to wake up for.... so we're eating them all ourselves. I love having kids.

Last night we ran out to Target for cough drops and Cheerios, and I felt the need to document our bad parenting:

Can you see what's going on in this picture? Nobody's strapped in! Nobody's even sitting in proper seats! Anja is perched on top of the Silly Seats and Greta's standing up free as a bird in the basket!! WHO OWNS THESE CHILDREN?!? DON'T THEY READ THE WARNINGS ON THE CART SEATS?!? Well anyway, they had fun. Greta's favorite thing in the world--no matter how she's riding--is to ride across the parking lot in a shopping cart. The look on her face is priceless... we have lots of pictures on our phones of her grinning hugely as we push her into a store.

What you can't see in these pictures are what Anja is actually wearing. You know those old school jammies, the kind with the white plastic feet and the synthetic, fireproof body? Wicked 80's? Well, my mother-in-law found a brand new pair last fall in Anja's size, except they didn't quite fit. She wore them once or twice normally, but she was really too tall for them and they weren't comfortable, but she LOVED them. So we cut off the feet. Last night when getting into jammies, she found these in the bottom of her drawer and insisted on wearing them. My mother-in-law had more recently given her a new pair of purple shoes (and for Greta too... ADORABLE) so she's wearing these yellow pajamas cut off at the shins, socks and purple shoes. Awesome.

So, if Martin doesn't wake up soon I'm going to be completely jazzed up on this WHOLE POT of coffee that I've almost finished.... He'll have to make himself a new pot!

Oh, our coffee maker! It's revived. (I know you were all worried.) There must've been some gunk stuck in an inconvenient place that finally came free or something.... because after doing everything we could think of to fix it with no positive results, one morning it just started working normally again. Weird! But I'm glad.... it's practically a member of the family, and I'd hate to see it replaced.

Greta has started talking a little bit. I think it can be determined that her first word was "bleh." She will pick up a bit of trash from the floor and say "bleh" and hand it to me. Very cute! I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that she's learning her words from Anja.... it might be a little difficult to have TWO children who don't use real words to communicate..... other words include Baby ("beeba"), Maizie (panting sound, just like Anja), and "Bah-boooom!". I've heard her make the inhaling "cat" sound, and say "aaah!" when a loud noise or truck is heard. All exactly like Anja. This morning when the music ended, she said "aah! aaah! aaah!" which is what Anja says when she wants music. Very cute! And as long as Martin and I are the only ones taking care of them, they'll always be understood, hahaha.

Remember a few posts back when Martin ordered me that back issue of Mothering magazine? Well, shipping was absolutely ridiculous, but didn't go up but a few cents for other items added. So in order to get it without feeling completely robbed, we got a few more things--another back issue (the issue that was out when Anja was born, both for sentimental reasons and because the cover articles looked interesting) and a book written by the magazine's editor. I'm excited to dive into them! I loooooooooove Mothering, even if they do get a little extreme sometimes in their "lefty" views.

Spring is on its way in for sure, so we have dedicated the few weekends after Easter to getting the garden ready. Our fabulous neighbor is giving us her vegetable boxes, leftover from our other fabulous neighbors and I have a map of our garden all drawn out and hanging on the fridge. Yahoo! It'll be a lot of work to start it up this year, but TOTALLY worth it. And all our vegetables shrivel up and die, we'll still have fresh produce available to buy three times a week just a couple blocks away! Sometimes I absolutely LOVE living downtown. This summer is going to be great.

But my big project today is finishing the wrap skirt I started more than a month ago. Now that the weather is warming up, it needs to become wearable! (don't ask about the project of sorting the girls' clothes..........)