Random Ohio Thoughts

Going back to my home town as an adult is always a great but strange experience. I feel like I'm in a time warp. Everything looks relatively the same, but I am a completely different person than the 18 year old who left 11 years ago. Going away and then coming back provides a nice perspective on things. Here are some things (mostly trivial and random) that I thought about while I was home.

• I love pedicures, but I'm always conflicted about the fact that it's another human's job to wash my feet and paint my toe nails.
• Hands down - white bread tastes way better than wheat bread. If you don't agree, you are just fooling yourself.
• The farm country of Northeast Ohio is some of the most beautiful landscape in the world.
• It's vitally important to keep in touch with your extended family even if they live far away. You share experiences and have an understanding that no one else in the world can match.
• Not being able to just fix my baby when she is sick is the hardest thing about being a parent for me.
• Having a beer with an old friend from high school is good for your heart.

Home Again

Well, our trip back to my home town didn't quite turn out how I wanted it to. On Thursday, Harper came home from baby school with a runny nose. No big deal (or so I thought). By Saturday night, I was contemplating taking her to the emergency room. Don't worry. She's fine - just a respiratory infection and an ear infection. Although Harper wasn't 100% we did manage to do a couple things while we were home.

My mom and I took Harper to Boardman Park to swing on the swings. This kid loves to swing.

We also went to my aunts house to have dinner with my grandma, my cousin and her children, and my mom and dad of course. Dinner was soooo good. No one makes pasta sauce like my family does. The highlight for Harper was making a new friend.

We also managed to squeeze in a trip to a Boardman institution - Handles Homemade Ice Cream. This is the best ice cream in the whole world. If you think that your local ice cream is better, it's only because you haven't had Handle's yet. Celebrities like Oprah and Bill Cosby have it delivered to them. National Geographic recently named it one of the best ice cream shops in the country. I got a single scoop of cake batter ice cream in a sugar cone and the girl literally put three scoops of ice cream on the cone. When she handed it to me, I said "Is this a single scoop?" and she said "Yep." And guess how much it cost. $2.00, not $4.00 like all of the big chain ice cream places. $2.00. Perfect.

For as sick as Harper was, she was a real trooper. We'll just have to make another trip home to do all of the things we missed out on this time around.

Off The Grid

We are headed up to Northeastern Ohio this morning. Going to spend a long weekend with my family. Harper has a nasty cold and was up half the night, so the flight should be fun... Anyway, I'm not taking my laptop and I'll have limited internet access. So, I may disappear for a few days. But, I promise to take lots of pictures and tell you all about our trip when we get back. Talk to you soon!

She's A Rainbow

Harper and I rocked out to this song last night. It's my favorite Rolling Stones song. I think it's her favorite too (especially the Oh, la, la part).



Also, on a somewhat related note... Have you seen the newly released pictures from Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland? Totally awesome. Can't wait to see it.

Earning Her Keep

Rob has to shine his police boots every day for the academy. Harper likes to help.

Work In Progress

I think I got negative parenting points over the last 24 hours:

 

   1. Last night I took Harper with me to the gym (she likes to play in the child care area with the other kids). While she was there, she totally had a poopy diaper blow-out. The child care workers must not have noticed it and I didn't notice it until I was putting her in the car. Totally gross. I put her changing pad thing down in her car seat so that she could sit on it on the way home (yes, I made my child sit in a very poopy diaper until we got home - she didn't seem to mind). I called Rob to get a bath ready for her, because she was going to need it. 

  

   2. After her bath, I let Harper stand on the bath mat while I dried her off. She likes to stomp her feet and dance on it. She took two steps off of the mat and totally wiped out on the tile floor. All while I was standing right there. Nice job, mom. 

  

   3. While driving to baby school this morning, Harper threw up in the car. She's not sick, just puked up the milk that she drank for breakfast. We were almost half way to baby school, so I decided not to turn around and go home to clean her up. I did pull over onto a side street to do a quick clean-up job (which wasn't very effective). When we got to baby school, I took her inside hoping that a little water and some paper towels would salvage her cute outfit. It was not to be. She smelled like sour milk. I took off her cute (but smelly) dress and changed her into her mismatched emergency outfit that we keep at baby school. 

Oh, well. No permanent damage done. I will try to do better tomorrow. 

They Say It's Your Birthday

Happy birthday to my mom! She's pretty fantastic and I'm excited to see her this weekend.