++Random Jottings++

It's been a while since I have done one of these. I feel like all I have done is recap big events. Believe it or not, day-to-day life does go on.

++Spring is in full effect in Tennessee. This is by far the nicest time of year here. If it wasn't for the frequent rain, which leads to the soggy yard, it would be perfect.

++Claire is now sleeping in her own crib in her own room upstairs. I much prefer it to having her right next to us grunting all night. As part of my weight-loss efforts I moved all the diapering stuff up there too forcing me to climb the stairs all day. Mark isn't so thrilled that this now applies to him too.

++Mark's work threw us a shower this week. Claire wore her very first dress. If you ask me she looked cute and silly all at the same time. It just seems like a lot of fabric. Since we didn't really need anything, we asked for books. We were given some really cute ones as well as a nice gift certificate with which we bought some girly stand-bys: Madeline, Olivia, Beatrix Potter, etc.

++Is it me or are the return policies in stores these days just ridiculous? I tried to exchange a box of diapers that Claire is clearly going to be too big for and because of receipt was "out of date" I had to pay $8. In my eyes it was an even exchange. A box for a box. I guess Babies R Us didn't see it that way. So annoying.

++Wyatt only has ten more days of school before the summer break (but who is counting?) I am really going to miss it---and I think he will too! Mark and I comment frequently about how we thought having one baby was hard. Claire is easy. It's entertaining the toddler that remains the challenge.

++I had my six-week post-baby check-up and am now cleared for exercise (which is humorous because pregnancy seems like a distant memory to me). Claire is also old enough to go to the health club day care. We went once last week but I'm super-excited that we can get back into that routine. All the ladies missed Wyatt. It was fun to go back. I'm enjoying all this stuff until the window closes and Claire will need to nap at home. Maybe I'll resort to exercise videos.

++We now have a cleaning lady. It's fabulous. It even forces us to corral our clutter to make it easier for her to clean. My only wish is that she would use natural products as her stuff is a little strong smelling for me. I'm afraid to ask as I don't want to be "that girl."

++Wyatt learned how to pedal his trike! It's great. Now we can go for walks and he can go on his trike and I don't have to worry about pushing two things at once. The only bad part is that he hasn't quite learned how to pedal and pay attention to where he is going which is dangerous if other kids are around.

++Did you know there are no economies of scale when it comes to buying for two children? Diapers, clothes, shoes...whew! I often think of those people with all those kids and wonder how in the world they do it.

++We are finally done with phase one of our attempted Ipod transition. We are so musically out of it. We have 3 Ipods in this family (two were given to Mark) and we don't use any of them. We finally decided to upload all our music from CDs onto our computer so we could have it on our Ipods. That was a task. We laughed the whole time at our severely out-of-date music collection. Put it this way, when Itunes groups the music, most falls into the category "90s music". So sad.

++This was the scene the emerged from my closet the other day. These are his "tools". Lovely. Can't wait to curl my eyelashes next time.

++I'm working on a photo recap of the last couple of weeks with Claire. Don't think the lack of photos of the little one doesn't mean hundreds weren't taken. Check back soon. Then I should be all caught up...phew!