Tidbits

Lots of little things to report.

1. I've heard from many of you via comments and e-mails that Dr. Science is wrong about this one. That, regardless of the reason for the mild anemia, the treatment--e.g. eating foods high in iron--would be the same.

And as for foods high in iron, I forgot to mention that I've also been eating the heck out of Cheerios, which have 100% dv in just one cup!

Also on the recommended food list is spinach. But my problem is that fresh vegetables are very hard for me to think about, let alone eat right now. And I don't really like cooked spinach. There IS a salad at Applebee's that comes with a bacon vinaigrette dressing that is AMAZING! Anyone have a good recipe for that?

And, of course, I shall not be shying away from red meat.

2. Speaking of which, I ate a piece of steak, leftover from my last broiling adventure, for breakfast yesterday.

Gemma asked, "What are you eating?"

I said, "Steak."

Joshua asked, with much apprehension, "Why are you eating snake?"

And so leads into a few kid-isms I've been meaning to tell you about:

When the weather is nice, the kids and their friends often end up in the backyard, which is awesome, because they don't require much supervision there. So one day, they played for a long time, unsupervised.

Then I went outside myself to pick up the yard a little, and I found myself saying, "No, Josh, don't do that," or, "Josh, you can't throw that," or, "Hey, Josh, put that down."

And he finally said, "Mommy, you need to go inside!"

As for his sweetness:

We have a little game where I hug him and hug him and hug him and say, "I'm going to fill your heart up with love. Tell me when you're all filled up!"

And eventually he says, "All filled up!"

Most recently, he then said, "Now I'll fill YOU up," and he hugged me back and back and back again. Then he said, "Now we're both all filled! You and me!"


We recently enrolled Gemma in a tumbling class. I had promised her last summer that she could do this worship dance class held by a family in our church. But they cancelled it. And I'd been avoiding the topic ever since. After all, we don't have the easiest schedule right now for adding a weekly activity.

But there's a place just up the street that does a really terrific job with the kids AND they offer a class for her at the exact one time of the entire week we knew we'd always be able to take her! So she's pretty excited.

And half the excitement is due to getting a new leotard. She calls it a "leotart."

"Do you know what's fun about a leotart?" she asked. "I can lift up my skirt and you still can't see my underwear!"

Other words she says in such a great way, we don't correct her:

That fantastical animal that looks like a horse with a spike coming out of its forehead?
It's a uni-horn

And the place where you stay on vacations that usually has a swimming pool downstairs?
A hoo-tel.

The animal with all the quills?
That's a poky-pine.

And Betsy's son, who is named TJ?
She has always called him PJ. And we all think it's so cute, that when she's around, we call him PJ too, lest she catch on.

3. Well, went out with a friend yesterday afternoon and it felt great to be out and about. I was pretty tired the rest of the time, but managed to make it to a proper bedtime before going to sleep.

Another friend is coming this morning to take me out. How nice to have so many dates lined up!