Pajama Removal

This seems to be Henry's lastest phase. When I went in to get him up this morning (after much wailing and a way too early wake up), I arrived to find little man, PJs in hand, saying "wan put on! wan put on jammies!"

So, I'm getting ready to crash for the night (after I watch the news, like the old lady I've become), so I went in to check on him. Found my skinny little man all curled up, wearing only the white onesie from under those jammies. PJs were in a heap in his bed. So, I put a couple of extra blankets in his bed, covered him up and kicked the heat up a notch. Didn't figure it was worth waking the kid up to re-dress him!

Lamp Love

I did a bit of much needed clothes shopping at Marshalls yesterday on my lunch hour. However, I cannot shop at a Marshalls without perusing the home section. I saw the cutest lamp. Round silver base with a chocolate brown shade. It was $29.99. I *really* wanted to buy it. And then I realized, I don't own any table lamps. Nor do I have a place for any!? How cute is this:

I've decided I really want a pair of table lamps for our bedroom once we get bedside tables figured out. We are most likely going to need some sort of custom tables, probably built in wall shelves actually, because of the storage drawers in our bed and the small width we have to work with. My mom keeps trying to tell me table lamps won't be as good to read by and the lamp will take up too much room on our nightstands, but I really, really love this look:

(nyclq from Rate My Space)

(David Jimenez)

In An Instant

As you know, I'm not really a coffee person, I'm a Chai person. Not that I don't like coffee, because I do, but once I made the shift to Chai I pretty much abandoned the java. But I thought the news of Starbucks VIA was pretty cool. Tiny packet + water = Starbucks brew? Interesting for sure. I'll give it a try. Maybe this could help out my friends who lost their Starbucks stores recently...

Weekend recap

Well, it's official, I'm the mom of a two year old. How on earth did two years fly by SO FAST?

The "weekend" kicked off Thursday night with me writing Valentine's from Henry, individually wrapping small playdough pots into heart covered cellophane bags, and attaching the aforementioned Valentine's to the bags with curling ribbon (because I didn't want to use the red wire twist ties on gifts for toddlers). He received a whole bag full of Valentine's Day cards and candy. TONS of candy. Mind you his room at school has kids possibly as young as 15 months and it goes up to age three. Some of the crap that parents chose to send made me stabby. *Sigh* let the school years begin. On a nice note, my parents arrived Friday afternoon and were able to see Henry's school during our early afternoon pick-up. Of course it was Valentine's chaos, but it was still cool for them to see where Henry spends his weekdays.

Saturday was the big birthday. In the morning the guys took Henry to McDonald's playland (I was bummed that Prescott Playtime was closed for the holiday) to burn off some steam. While they were out, Mom and I took care of last minute odds & ends and balloons! Henry woke from his nap, thrilled find six regular balloons and one "NUMBER TWO!". We quickly realized that other gifts were probably unnecessary ;-) But we pressed on and Henry opened a staggering amount of loot from both sets of grandparents and his aunts, uncles and cousins.

Award for the noisiest gift: Parents My First Remote Control Car. Despite my attempts to hide it, he kept asking for it. For the record, I will remember this Aunt A & Uncle W!!!

As expected, Henry hopped directly on his Wheely Cow and took off. He immediately began pushing it, riding it and referring to it as his Wheely Cow. As long as your kiddo is sturdy on his/her feet, I'd highly recommend the Wheely ride-ons.

After the gift madness, we all sat down for delicious cake from Sweet Mandy B's - white frosting, white cake with blueberry filling since blueberries are H's favorite! And, to pay homage to Henry's favorite monkey, Curious George, the party did have a monkey theme. I did manage to avoid most of the tacky character "stuff", but gave in a little here and there. My best buy of the party though, where these awesome Monkey hats from Michaels! I'll spare their dignity here, but I have lovely photos of everyone wearing these puppies.
Now that my sis and her fam are in China, we had the cool opportunity to wish my nephew N a happy birthday since it was Feb. 14 here and already Feb. 15 there, he and Henry shared a birthday for a bit. So we all donned our monkey hats, Skyped away and sang Happy Birthday!

One last note for Henry's birthday weekend, between Christmas and now his birthday, the number of noisy, plastic, flashy things has increased. Rapidly. My orderly and anal nature forced me to buy furniture to hide some of this. Mom & I hit IKEA on Sunday and now our living room has this lovely number behind the couch, perfect for hiding the "stuff" I'd rather not look at when H is not around (bonus glimpse of the Wheely Cow in the corner)!!!

Fried Rice Fog

So, the past two days I have eaten leftover Combo Fried Rice for lunch (thanks Mom & Dad!). While completely delicious, I'm certain it does not have enough protein, and thanks to my current read, I have realized that this food practically puts me into a coma! Both yesterday and today, post lunch I have wanted to crawl in bed almost immediately. Perhaps I need to eat some at night when I'm feeling that old familiar insomnia?

I'm trying to work on step 1 - breakfast with the appropriate amount of protein and a complex carb. Breakfast of choice these days? Half a 100% whole wheat bagel, a bit of cream cheese and 4 ounces of salmon. Yum!

Potatoes? Really?

As usual, I've been struggling to eat healthier, but it seems that every time I try to make a change, no matter how gradual I try to ease into it, I end up falling off the wagon and heading right back to my carbs, carbs and more carbs diet. It's weird because I feel much better when I balance my diet, yet somehow I can't stick to it. I blame being a skinny kid with an amazing metabolism. I can remember going to Taco Bell, drinking a large Mountain Dew, eating an entire Mexican pizza and then topping that off with three more tacos! Still skinny as a rail. *sigh* Those were the good old days (though horribly unhealthy!).

So, in my seemingly endless quest to straighten up, I googled sugar addiction, because I'm pretty certain I'm addicted. I found the book Potatoes Not Prozac and the author's website, Radiant Recovery. On her website, the author posts this quiz:

Am I Sugar Sensitive? See Which Apply to YOU (Me)
I really like sweet foods
I eat a lot of sweets
I am very fond of bread, cereal, popcorn or pasta
I have problem with alcohol or drugs
I am in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction
One or both of my parents are alcoholic
One or both of my parents are/were especially fond of sugar
I am overweight and don't seem to be able to easily lose the extra pounds
I continue to be depressed no matter what I do (maybe not depressed per say, but definitely in a funk)
I often find myself overreacting to stress
I have a temper or short fuse (my poor husband!)

If you checked:
3 or more, it is very likely that you are sugar sensitive.
5 or more, you have come to the right place! Let's explore an answer you have been looking for a long time. You don't have to live with the craziness you have experienced for so long. You can work with the simple solutions and change your life. Get Potatoes Not Prozac and read it carefully.

I'm only a few chapters in, but so many of the behaviours I've read about are totally me. The author compares sugar addiction to alcoholism and basically claims that unless treated properly it is very, very difficult for the sugar addiction to "cure" him/herself. Who knows if this works, or if this will work for me, but so far I like the concept and plan to continue reading!