Me: Do you want mommy and daddy to get you a baby brother?

Lillia: Yeah

Me: What should brother's name be?

Lillia: Umbrella.

We built this city on so-lid iiiiiiiiice! We built this city!

Also, I am fully aware that all my photos lately are blue and white. Unfortunately, it's February in Alaska, and those are about the only colors that exist, with maybe a little brown thrown in here and there. DEAL WITH IT!

"Gosh darn it!" I said when I saw that Lillia had, once again, taken all her puzzles from the shelf and turned them upside down to form a giant, scary-looking pile of various animal and princess parts on her bedroom floor. It was five minutes before her bedtime and I have a hard time putting her down when her room is a mess. Call me anal. Everyone else does.

"Darn it!" she repeated. "Darn it! Darn it!"

And then... "Damn it!"

I glanced her direction and said, simply, "No, we don't say that. We say 'darn it.'" She went back to spouting 'Darn it! Darn it!" over and over again. I am a firm believer that a parent's reaction to their child's behavior plays a huge role in whether or not that behavior will continue or not.

However, I feel differently about how a wife's reaction influences her husband's behavior, as evidenced by the verbal beating that Matt got (out of Lillia's range of hearing, of course) regarding his inappropriate use of language around our daughter.

Translation: Matt did it.

We finally got things together enough at the house for me to feel good about having people over.

So, we threw a party. There were lots of work friends, old friends, and family friends.

But mostly, there was lots of wine.

And now I'm looking forward to enjoying my home because, thanks to everyone who came by to give us warm wishes, I think I finally feel like I have one.

When I was pregnant, the thing I ate the most was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I didn't think of it as a craving at the time. It just sounded good. Plus, it provided servings of several of the food groups. When Lillia was born, I joked that she was made of the stuff and eventually, I started calling her "Peanut berry."

Which is ironic because the first time I gave her peanut butter, she spit it out and said "No like it peanut butter." So I didn't feed it to her for a while. A few months later, I gave it another try. This time, it seemed like she was okay with it at first. But then she started trying to scrape it off her tongue, whined, and said again: "No like it peanut butter." I was starting to believe her. But something about the way she tried to remove the food from her mouth, the way she had seemed to enjoy it for a few seconds, and her delayed reaction made me think there was something else going on there. Like, it wasn't that she didn't like it, it was more like...she was UNCOMFORTABLE with it. I quickly tried to brush the thought aside, and convinced myself that she probably just didn't enjoy the texture.

But a few weeks later, I gave her a peanut. One little, tiny peanut that she happily chewed about three times before she got that same panicked look on her face, spit the nut out, and then coughed till she threw up.

FUCKING. PEANUT. ALLERGY.

I haven't had this diagnosis confirmed yet. I didn't think it was so bad - I mean, minor peanut allergies do exist, and she hadn't gone into anaphylactic shock yet. But then, one day last week, the babysitter tells me that Lillia managed to get a hold of a bag of peanuts that had been sitting on the counter. She shoved one in her mouth before there was time to stop her, but then immediately spit it out as she had done in the past. A few minutes later, the babysitter said, Lillia had hives all around her lip. Which is bad. Not minor. And peanut allergies get worse, or so I've heard.  

So, I need to make an appointment with the pediatrician. In the meantime, my babysitter has had to de-peanut her house. I'm pissed off at the world for whatever has happened to this planet that is making allergies and asthma more prevalent, that is making it so that a child with NO family history of food allergies - I mean ZERO - whose mother ate better than I have in my whole life while I was trying to be, and then was, pregnant, and who was fed only breastmilk and organic foods till she was a year old, gets one of the worst kind of food allergies around. WTF, world?

Lillia loves food. Or, more precisely, she loves breakfast and lunch food. Dinner? Not so much. When it comes time to sit down and have what is typically our only meal together, Matt and I don our armor and prepare for a battle. Unless the menu features yogurt, Cheerios, or fruit, we can count on most of what is on Lillia's plate ending up on the floor.

And the fact that she doesn't put a lot of food into her mouth is only one front in the dinner-time war. There's also the Battle of Spitting, the Battle of Spilling her Milk, and the Battle of the Unprovoked, Blood-Curdling Scream (which always results in Lillia becoming a POW in her own bed for a minute or two).

This not-even-remotely-relaxing mealtime has been getting to Matt lately. So I prompted him to take a lunch hour with me one day last week (he doesn't usually get one). We sat down for a meal together at a run-down little diner sans child and, get this: CONVERSED. Two people. Married for nearly seven years. With a two-year-old daughter. And we actually managed to talk.

Matt was giddy with excitement. "I feel like I went on a date," he said. Novel idea, I thought.

So, that weekend, we went on another date. Matt's dad watched his darling granddaughter while we saw Avatar (recommended) (Also, the first time we've been to the theater since Lillia was born) (The last time, I was pregnant and we saw 'Knocked Up'). We packed some books, movies, and some food, as well as a booster seat for Grandpa to strap her into for the torture that is dinner, and dropped her off at his house.

When we came back from the movie, Lillia was still wide awake despite the fact that her bedtime had come and gone. "How'd she eat?" Matt asked.

And we must be starving our child, because after she ate her whole bowl of yams, plus the crackers and cheese I packed - just in case - Grandpa had to feed her several items from his own refrigerator. "She ate me out of house and home," he said.

Apparently, Lillia's only beef is with us, her loving parents who, as evidenced by our recent retreats, are slowly losing the fight.

It's been cold. But I don't mind it as much as I used to because, at our new house, you can see a lot of sky from the front yard. Winter skies are awfully attractive.

This is the completely insensible and totally irresistible Gymboree outfit I got Lillia for her birthday. After all, what is the point in having a little girl if you can't dress her up in pigtails and an abundance of tulle every once in a while?

Just trying to enjoy the winter weather while we wait for the summer to arrive...

A few days ago, Lillia woke up from what must have been a horrible nightmare at 4:30 in the morning. She was screaming and yelling for daddy so hysterically that I ran down to her bedroom in a panic. I rocked her and sang to her while she continued to snivel for several minutes. When I tried to put her back in her bed, she wrapped her arms and legs around me and clung for dear life.

So I got down on the floor, grabbed a blanket, and tried to get the both of us another hour or so of sleep. But it was freezing. So when she started drifting back to sleep, I put Lillia in her crib and then crawled back into bed to warm up for a few minutes before my alarm went off.

The next morning (luckily after I was already up and showered) I heard her sobbing over the moniter again. This time, she was crying "I want an apple! I want an apple!" Probably not a nightmare, I thought. But she sounded pretty upset so I went and got her out of bed. After I changed her, we went to the fridge.

"Do you want this apple?" I asked, holding one out to her.

"No want it, apple!" she snapped.

OK. "Do you want an orange?"

"Noooo!" she screamed.

"How about some grapes?"

"No grapes!" She was starting to whine.

"Well, what do you want to eat, honey?"

She surveyed the contents of our refrigerator, then smiled.

"I want cake," she said.

Two. Definitely two years old.

Matt is good at pretending to be oblivious. So good, in fact, that sometimes I think he really just isn't paying attention at all. Ever. An example: Yesterday he was looking for a glass so he could get a drink of water. We have lived in this house for almost two months, and he looked in every single other cupboard before he got to the right one. Also, on his birthday last week, he asked me how old he was.

But I overheard a telephone discussion he was having regarding some issues with the contractor working on our floors the other night, and was reminded that I did, indeed, marry a smart man.

His side of the discussion went something like this:

"She's taking it all in stride. Well, not really, but she's being quiet about it."

Pause.

"Well, I think she realizes that I'm pissed off enough for the both of us."

And he was EXACTLY RIGHT. I was ENRAGED, but I knew he was too, and that two enraged people don't make a non-enraged person. Or people. Or...something.

Dude. Expectations? Raised. Even though he was pissed, he picked up what I was putting down. AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO SAY A WORD. Maybe we were communicating telepathically. Or maybe we finally know each other as only people who have been married for six-and-a-half years should.

Another gem, from the same conversation:

"I just had to hook the dishwasher up again, and will have to unhook it tomorrow."

Pause.

"No, she was all ready to wash them by hand. But I figure if she makes my lunch everyday, the least I can do is get the dishwasher up and running for her."

It's like he can read my mind!

I've decided to end the weekend lists. They were feeling a bit forced, and a lot like they were the same every week. Especially when I was consumed by moving, painting, flooring, etc. Instead, I'll just try to write more, occasionally in list form. But only when it is fitting to do so. I also plan to post more pictures, as I've declared 2010 The Year That I Take my Photography to New Levels. It's got a nice ring to it, no?

She thinks so.

It's almost done. But I just couldn't wait to give you a sample of the new flooring in all it's smooth, golden, glorious beauty.

Now that several weeks have passed, I'm recovering from the shock that was Christmas At My House, featuring approximately 20 family members, several of whom aren't speaking to each other, and I can now write a coherent sentence about how it all went down.

You may have gathered from my invitation to my family that there is - always has been, always will be - a bit of infighting amongst us. I always assumed this would get better as we all got older and, presumably, more mature. In reality, the exact opposite has occurred. The fights are more serious, last longer, and involve more violence. It's a problem. Knowing is half the battle.

But the fam did a pretty good job of following the rules and, even though I was too busy forgetting to cook the corn and deciding that lumpy mashed potatoes aren't all that bad to enforce them, I even overheard a person or two yell "This is Switzerland!" in warning to whomever had forgotten that talking down to or about anyone else would not be tolerated.

It was no monumental event. No old arguments were resolved, no tearful makeup sessions occured. Matt sat in the corner by himself most of the night, just kind of watching like some eight-year-old boy whose mom told him not to get dirty.

But there were no snide comments, no pulling of hair, no food fights. No one murdered anyone. And get this: MY PARENTS EVEN HUGGED. Plus, I got a brand spanking new iPod Touch out of the deal. Now I can put an end to this three-year stretch of not buying ANY music because "there's no use in buying a CD now that they're obsolete." Also, I can check my Facebook from work (during lunch and bathroom breaks only, of course). Overall, a very successful holiday season.