I am taking a SPA WEEKEND!!!

I am so excited, and stupidly nervous. I almost didn't do it because it means crossing the border by myself. How dumb is that? I don't know why it is such a big deal!

Anyway, I am getting a swedish massage and a seaweed body wrap and staying for one night. I suddenly can't wait for St. Patrick's day!

I never posted pictures of the more than two feet of snow we got over Valentine's Day. This was the following day, when the drifting had begun. Now that we've shovelled, the snow banks are all up higher than those porch railings (the bottom ones, I mean!)

Yesterday, I snowshoed for a while, with Eva strapped to my chest. She loved looking up at the tree branches in the woods.

After a week with the new sitter (T), things seem to be going well. T calls me to check on foods, sends me pic of E via email, and keeps a daily journal of E's activities, eating and sleeping. The kids there all seem so happy and there seems to be an innate sense of order, without it seeming restrictive. That sense of order was completely missing at A's. And so I am happy to excuse the fact that T gave E an ice cream cup for dessert after lunch yesterday. You can't win them all and , really, no one really loses when ice cream is eaten. Ice cream is goooooooooood. Especially after fish and brocolli and noodles for lunch.

Last weekend my mom and I took Eva to the W!ld Center for some winter fun. We went this summer and it was packed, so it was really nice to have the whole place basically to ourselves! E really enjoyed watching the fishes and playing the sound piano, which plays bird and frog noises. The speakers were at E's ear level and she was CRAZY about it!

Today Miss Eva is at her new daycare. She was a little shy with little D. who wanted to hug her tight right off. What can I say, he's 2 and cute as a button so I would have let him hug me but Eva is a little more picky than I am. By the time I left, though, she was chatting away on a phone handset. Sitter T says she slept 2 plus hours this morning, so she must be somewhat comfortable.

E. spent the weekend hugging her Grandma and Momo, who came for a visit.

She is also a successful cup sipper!

I'm going out of my mind at work, and I don't know whether last week's snowday and a half helped or hurt things, but it did allow Bill to take his valentines out for lunch at the Cottage, where we watched the snow fall and took this picture, among others...

Eva's on the pink bubble gum drugs for her ear infection and I am awaiting the results of my throat culture to see if I will also be zapping my bug with antibiotics. I have somehow managed to catch every illness that has ventured within 50 miles of my home in the past year. We are hoping that a better day care situation, cleaner and with fewer (and better mannered) children, will result in less illness for Eva and me. She starts with her new sitter a week from tomorrow, so we shall see!

In the meantime, Bill has made it his personal mission to wean the Junior Miss from bottle to cup this week. Go Daddy Go! She really likes using a straw, as we discovered at our poorly conceived trip to HoJo's (one of the last three left! and no wonder, it was GROSS-bad food, dirt-ay, and over priced.)

She also enjoyed the Winter Carnival Parade...especially the Lawn Chair Ladies and any brass band. I had pictures, but deleted them by accident! Curses!

siiiiiiiiick.

and in the process of firing/hiring day care providers.

What next, 2007? What next?

Don't answer that please.