imaginationland

so, halloween. this is the first year that we've actually done anything for halloween with abby, so we were pretty curious to see how it would go. over the past week or so, she's had some weird reactions to halloween stuff, so i was a little apprehensive, but it actually has gone really well. this morning we went to the halloween storytime at borders with costume and all, and she LOVED it. her favorite part of it was the costume parade through the store. then tonight we went trick-or-treating with auntie bunna and her family, and she loved that too. in fact, she was pretty wound up about the whole thing. at first she wouldn't say "trick or treat" or "thank you", but she got used to it pretty quickly. the only issue we had was that she would get her candy and then either reach in and try to get more, or just wait for the person to give her more. you could almost hear her, "um, there seems to be a mistake. you see, you only gave me one piece of candy, and there is obviously supposed to be more. i'll just wait here while you rectify the situation." as you can see by the picture, she went as little bo peep. pretty darn cute, eh? :)

this morning we also had my weekly doctor's appointment. progress has been made...i'm at a 2 now. still nothing major, but progress nonetheless. my doctor doesn't think anything's happening this week, and i'm pretty inclined to agree. it's just as well, though, since i'm under orders from various people to not have the baby before monday. and my hips are much better lately, so i'm not in such a hurry to get this over and done with.

random abby weirdness: after her rest time today, she sat on the potty as usual, and then brought me her panties to put them back on, and she said, "these are my parachute panties!" not sure what's up with the mc hammer reference there.

access the uncrazy part of your brain

so, we've been eating a lot of food. yesterday we met grandma and grandpa r. for the annual foresters brunch. abby actually ate more than i did, i think. she had: 2 large pancakes, a piece of french toast, salad, black olives, cottage cheese, chicken strips, carrots, jello, breadsticks, bacon, cream puff, chocolate chip cookie bar, a bite of beef tips ("i don't like meat!"), peas, some cranberry juice, and her milk. i am not even kidding a little bit. then every so often that afternoon, "my tummy hurts." well, duh. :) then for supper she had a bite of string cheese and 2 cubes of watermelon. everything seems back to normal today, though.

today we accomplished quite a bit. we went to the mall because i noticed the other day that the fake diamonds in my earrings had fallen out at some point, so i've been walking around wearing just the settings like a moron. so, we went to claire's to get me some new earrings. 9 pairs for less than $9. can't beat that with a stick. then this afternoon after rest time, we went to the library. i've been such a fan of going in the afternoons because you don't have the storytime craziness and abby can pretty much do her own thing, but that backfired in a big way today. we came down the road and saw a group of about 15 grade-schoolers walking in a line toward the library. uh oh. apparently there was some sort of major library field trip today, and these kids were the last group. so, they pretty much took over the children's part, and effectively barred abby from playing with anything. she tried, much more so than i thought she would, but was denied. so, to make up for the library fiasco, we decided to use the beautiful day and my hips not killing me for a change, and head to the zoo. it was a good choice, even though we got there too late to see the monkeys. like her daddy, abby loves the lemurs. :) after that, we came home, abby had her supper and read her new library books, and then it was time for bed. then brian and i had brown-sugar steaks, which were yummeriffic, if i do say so myself.

awesome news of the day: brian read the capital times at the library, and apparently? madison now has a ruth's chris steak house. for those of you who don't know, we discovered this restaurant in the summer of 2000 on our trip to new york city that brian won. hands-down, the best steaks EVER. it's been our anniversary haunt ever since. we've been to the one in new york, minneapolis/st. paul, downtown chicago, northbrook, and kansas city. and now? we can just stay right here. aaaaahh.

sigh

well, i am seriously BUMMED. i had my doctor's appointment this morning, and there has been no change since last week. none. exactly the same. i know it's early yet, and blah de blah blah, but i'm just so ready to be done. i'm just a little ray of sunshine, i know, spreading misery and despair everywhere i go. well, you'll just have to deal with that. :)

and what's NOT helping at all is abby's sudden decision to go off her rocker and throw tantrums whenever we go anywhere. yesterday at the library? tantrum. today at the doctor's office? tantrum. i know it's her age, and i know to some extent she's probably reacting to my rays of misery and despair, but it's just really the last thing i need.

hopefully better mood and better post tomorrow. i posted an extra-cute and happy picture to counteract the misery and despair.

ambition

abby has a new life's calling. last week she was going to be a firefighter when she "gets bigger." as of today, her new ambition is to be (and i'm totally not making this up) a "super manager dancer."

a super manager dancer.

so, if anyone sees any openings for such a position, let me know.

bob and lofty save the day!

a new feature on the rogers family blog starts today. with every post will come a picture that i've randomly chosen from the vast photo archive that is our computer. enjoy!

yesterday we headed to fitchburg for our second trip to the apple orchard this year. we, along with about 20 million other people, had a great time. we got 10 pounds of apples, which, based on how quickly we went through the 5 pounds we got last time, ought to last us about 2 weeks. big apple eaters, the rogers family. we also drove past a couple of apartment/duplex possibilities, so it was a pretty productive day.

on the way to the orchard yesterday, we were driving down the beltline in the left lane, and passed an orange (!) ford focus in the middle lane. abby was looking out the window and saw the car and said, "look! it's the same car that we have!" yes, our not-quite-3-year-old daughter can recognize the make and model of our car. is that a schultz trait or what? :)

this morning brian let me sleep in a bit since i've been sleeping so poorly; then after i got up, we took the car and truck in for oil changes and miscellaneous other car maintenance tasks. this afternoon we made a trek to the bread outlet for "bread and quesadillas" as abby says, and then headed to the mall to walk a lap in the ongoing attempt to convince baba ghannouj that it's time to come out. so far, not working so well.

37 weeks

so this past thursday i had my first weekly doctor's appointment. i've been hoping and hoping for progress, and i finally got my wish. i'm at 1 centimeter, which is of course not much, but enough to give me hope that this pregnancy is finally coming to an end. baby is super-low, which is very good too. in fact, the baby is so low that my belly actually looks about 4 weeks smaller than it did 4 days ago. so sometime wednesday night, time turned back a month or so. :) i've been trying to walk and do stairs and be active to move things along, but it's so very hard. a common pregnancy side effect that i seem to suffer from more hideously than most is loosening of hip joints to the point where it feels that your legs will pop right out. it's insanely difficult to walk for any length of time, and anytime i have to bear weight on my right leg causes incredible pain. when i get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, i almost fall over every time.

yes, i'm complaining. you would too, so don't judge me. :)

well, hi!

thanks for finding the new one-stop-shop-blog for the rogers family! no longer will you have to visit 2 separate blogs to find out the goings-on of abby and baba ghannouj! formatting of this blog is still in progress. once i figure out how, i plan to merge those 2 blogs into this one so you can still go back and read old posts without having to go back to the blogs themselves. blog blog blog.


so, yeah. we went to the monona fire station open house this past sunday, and she LOVED it. she has her own fire helmet now that she wears around the house repeating, "i'm firefighter abby!" this is especially hilarious when she isn't wearing any pants.

she's having a hard time lately with this whole "almost 3" thing. she's developing an attitude that mommy and daddy don't care too much for, and is generally becoming more difficult. but, she's also becoming more and more hilarious with each passing day. today we went to borders to meet grandma schultz (who needed boxes), and abby wandered around the store musing, "where oh where could grandma schultz be??" with the HUGE upward questioning inflection at the end. she also learned to sing the rain rain go away song, but her version goes, "rain, rain, go away, comin' back in anuvver day." repeat ad infinitum.

baba ghannouj is done cooking now and can be born at any time. as much as i'd like to say i think it'll be soon, i think it'll be another couple of weeks at least. still no dilation or anything, so he/she's nice and comfy and not ready to go anywhere quite yet. me, on the other hand? i'm ready to be done, which you could probably guess. we'll see what tomorrow's appointment brings.