Anna isn't very snuggly in the summer. Although if I'm reading in bed she'll climb on my lap. I sleep on my side and sometimes I'l wake up with her perched on my side looking down at me.

In the winter she turns into a catlump.

ION, Naturalizer online is giving 50% off the sale prices. So tempting to do damage because they carry my wee size.

I KNOW!! They carry my Fred Flintstone size (rectangular) and it is one of the few stores that I can find shoes to fit me right. But, I just paid tuition and bought a plane ticket. I can't afford it right now. But, come my next paycheck?? Momma needs some new shoes.

If I was going to put my Dutch SiL on the page, I would try to capture the flavor of the way she speaks English. She will say something like "We were most happy to see the Mother on her visit." Which is a combination of translating from Dutch in her head and learning English from schoolbooks. Cleaning up the grammar on her sentences would not be accurate.

Happy happy birthday, Aimée!

I wonder if I can get a nice bendy sole that doesn't die. That would rock.

Yes, you can. I had very thin, bendy soles put on my latest pair of vintage pointy-toe buckle boots, because those sorts of boots ALWAYS have thin leather soles. They extend the life of the boots, and with the added bonus of traction!

Jilli, I just found a pair of wee pumpkin tights!

Raq, I'm sorry you're feeling oogy all over, but the above might be my favorite Buffista statement in recent memories. How cool is that--that you get to mention walking up to the frigging Acropolis, the way the rest of us would mention walking to a bus stop?

Wrod.

In writing, very few things annoy me as much as poorly written dialect. When it's done very well, it's fun even though it's hard to read. When it's done poorly, I just want to throw the book across the room. It's funny, though, as I feel competent to judge poor dialect writing even when I am not completely familiar with the dialect in question. I think I've mostly seen it with Scottish, when writers throw in some dinnas, etc., even though the overall flow of the speech is clearly American. Ack. I have a romance book at home with a lovely cover (much plaid) that I just can't finish because the dialect is too annoying.

Jilli, I just found a pair of wee pumpkin tights!

Yay!

We're babysitting an 8 week old kitten for a friend. Yesterday I went to take a nap, the kitten kept trying to sniff my breath (or something) and I finally got it to stop and fell asleep. When Greg came to wake me, I was sleeping on my back and the kitten was asleep on my tummy. He said it was very cute.

I really dislike regency or historical characters that sound like modern americans too, and have no other input on the dialect subject other than to say that it also annoys me when iincluded dialect makes a character sound stupid, or the book or its characters feel racist or classist.

I am so boooorrrrrrreeeeddddd.....

I need to be motivated and figure out stuff to do in my downtime.

Oh Plei, she's too precious

FYI Cindy, that's Ellie, not Lily. Unless you knew that already and were just agreeing with the person who brought it up.

Nope, I was clueless. I didn't look at the account. I thought she looked different, but wow, still so beautiful. Man, we have beautiful babies in this group.

How are you doing today, Cindy- have you been able to speak to your doctors about yesterday's events?

I think I had something approximating a mild bout of PTSD this morning. My mother's here (I think she's making sure I don't go completely around the bend) playing Go Fish with the kids. She brought lunch, and then insisted I nap, but I couldn't. Still the half hour of quiet helped, a lot, and she started my laundry during the faux nap. so yay. And yes, today I have...

a) Made myself crystal clear to whomever answered the phone, this morning, that this was a huge error and that I'm furious. When she played (or at least seemed to be playing) obtuse when I requested that they submit a Vaccine Adverse Event Report through VAERS.org, I got specific, and detailed, and extra haughty and righteously incensed.

b) Received call from the PA who administered the shot (and who has been with the practice for as long as we have). She listened, apologized, and offered to research some of my concerns re Chris's health. Agreed the office staff flubbed, and was as accomodating as could be. She is a lovely person to begin with, and my favorite on staff with that office, and our conversaton was actually good, and not so snarky.

c) Received call from doctor. The first words out of his mouth after making sure Chris was okay, was to let me know he'd had a long, involved discussion with the entire staff over what went wrong. He's decided to prescribe Zyrtec for Chris for the next month, and give him a short course of Prednisone, just in case, because the hives lasted longer than he was aware.

I told him he was lucky this happened to the child of experienced parents, because if some young, inexperienced mother who was intimidated by doctors had been in my position, it could have turned out much, much worse. At some point the words, "Because, you know, basically, if you don't take me seriously, I'm confident enough in my mothering to say 'Screw you' and take my kid to the E.R. anyhow, where a young mother might not be," may have entered into the conversation.

As for him missing the signs in the office, I understand some of that. We were all trying to hustle the boys out to the waiting room, so that we could talk to him privately about some developmental questions. He honestly thought Chris was just upset when we were in office, because his breathing and heart sounded fine, and the popsicle seemed to console him, some. He had missed some of when Chris first started to react, and of the worst of it happened in the car on the way home, so I'm confident enough that his part in the error was understandable (it was certainly no worse than my own, because I *knew* there was something else going on, and failed to trust my gut when the doctor and dh's attitudes didn't match my own).

Should he have insisted Chris stay a while longer? Yes. Do I understand how he failed to see what he would have needed to see to make that happen, yes.

As soon as he knew it was an allergic reaction, he was on the phone, telling me to rush Chris to the E.R., so for now, we're good. He's been our Pedi since Ben was born, and I took a Childcare class from him when I was pregnant, so I have a decent amount of confidence in him, and know doctors aren't infallible, and the signs he saw weren't crystal clear.

Apropos of everything and oddly enough, I didn't have to wait to talk to anyone at that office, today. My name was more priceless than MasterCard. It's funny how that works, huh? *g*

Also, I have remembered two valuable lessons from my Nana:

• Tell, Don't Ask

• Nobody Knows Your Kid Better than You Do