Ratatouille

Dan is out of town in Houston, so this evening as I was surfing on the web, I pulled up the trailer for "Ratatouille", the new Disney Pixar movie. Morgan was looking over my shoulder and expressed an interest in it. "Want to see it?" I asked her. She sure did. So we caught a 6:30 showing of it.

Boy was it a great movie. I think Morgan liked it. This was her first full feature film which she sat through in its entirety. We tried this once before with another movie last year and she freaked out. Fortunately we only went to the dollar theater for that venture; we rather expected some sort of disruption and thought it best not to pay full price until we knew she could handle it. So tonight was the big night... the night I determined that Morgan and Mommy can go out on "dates". Girl time. It was wonderful.

Morgan was thrilled from the moment she saw the building. Naturally I couldn't let her first movie-going experience be void of popcorn. I gladly forked over the dough for the overpriced snack and poured the greasy buttery-ish goo on top. We went hand-in-hand into the theater.

The movie is very good. Like a lot of Pixar films, it crosses age boundaries easily. There was a variety of generations present this evening, all laughing easily at the exciting plot and snooty humor.

As a foodie, I enjoyed the movie on another level. I was glad I ate dinner before I came. Terrific.

The movie ended and we walked back to our car holding hands. I felt my daughter's soft little fingers in mine and wondered what age she would absolutely refuse to hold them anymore. Four? Five? I banished the thought. Tonight was special. Mommy and Morgan time. I was acutely aware that we were "bonding" which made me tear up a little.

I should add that Dan was missed. As we left the theater, Morgan saw a family in front of us and started to cry a little, "I want Daddy to come home." I assured her he would come home tomorrow. But this night, Morgan, is ours.

GastroenterOLLLLLogist

So I went to see my gastroenterologist today. Say that once and you'll develop acid reflux. heheh

Anyway, I have an observation to make: if a nurse is particularly rude in a doc's office, it's because the doc is ESPECIALLY nice. Just an observation that I haven't found to be wrong yet. I mean 2 out of 2 times can't be wrong. And if the nurse if NICE, then you're toast b/c the doc is probably a bear.

Naturally I'm talking about the appointment I had this morning. The nurse gave took my vitals and asked the "summary" questions so that the doc could quickly scan the sheet in the 15 minutes that the corporate office allocated to him (INCLUDING bathroom breaks) and script out his remedy. Whew. (Good job, run-on sentence. Good job.) She was particularly curt with me, cutting me off somewhat and "toning down" my remedies. She convinced me that the migraines I got from a medication were NOT an allergic reaction. I fell under the spell of her dictatorial nursing style. I answered her as I would the Soup Nazi or "no doctor for me".

So then my doc came in. Very pleasant man. He proceeds to read the summary. He said "It says here that it hurts your tummy when you eat veggies." THAT'S HER SUMMARY? I've been having semi-asthmatic attacks from acid reflux for 3 months now and she thinks I have a problem with produce? I even mentioned to her that I started blacking out from lack of air and she tells the doc that my veg o' the day gives me an ouchy tummy? Grrrrr and more grrrrr. I knew she wasn't taking me seriously. Taking a deep breath I asked the nice doc if I could tell "my story". He was very kind, listened intently and treated me like a respectable human. He will definitely benefit from my business again.

But to the doc: Thank you, sir for showing me concern and respect. It's nice to have a medical professional like you.

Photographer

We have a budding photographer. Would you believe that Morgan took this photo with my Nikon camera? She's pretty good about waiting until she sees the right image and shooting. Not the best photo of me, but if you could have seen what I saw, you would be as proud as me: a very particular artist. :)

Love Fest

Sweet nothings Morgan told me this morning:

"Mom, I love you more than trash heaps."

"Mom, I love you more than toots."

"Mom, I love you more than tears."


*Side note: I think the "trash heaps" comes from watching Oscar the Grouch

Homemade Confetti

You've heard it before: kids tend to like the toys that cost the least. The amount of cost of the toy is directly proportional to how much they'll use it. If it costs $100, they'll play with it one hour. If it's a 5 cent yard sale find, it'll make the journey to college with them.

I bought Morgan a pair of $2 scissors. She loves them. Several times a day she'll just cut paper into little confetti pieces. The paper scraps have to be swept up every night, but who cares? She's very proud of herself and looking for anything to cut. We continue to indoctrinate with the mantra "Only cut paper. Only cut paper." But we do have to beware as bills come in paper form as well. :)

Meanwhile, we're planning on profiting from her paper cutting. Homemade confetti: 5 bucks a bag. Make checks payable to Morgan's College Fund.

Crate and Barrel Outlet

Something really cool happened today.

My husband and I were in need of some end tables. Our sectional couch could not entirely fit in our new living room, so we took the end off of it. As a result, the shortened couch fit a lot better but since there was no "arm" on one side, the pillows kept sliding off. I saw my sister Noel do this trick in one of her rooms: she had the same situation with a sectional, so she purchased a heavy duty end table to "anchor" the side. It worked. The pillows stopped shifting.

Operation heavy end table was in progress.

I had been looking on craigstlist.com for a while but unless I wanted a glass top table or a wiry framed one, I couldn't find an end table. My husband and I weren't interested in spending $400-600 a pop for new ones. We were more in a much smaller range of budget.

Before we left shopping, I asked God for success in our shopping trip. We don't have much time to shop together anymore; Saturdays are pretty much the only day. And the way our couch pillows kept shifting, we were going to have to put boulders on the end if we didn't find something soon.

So here's what I told God: " Lord, we need some end tables and we'd like to spend X amount of dollars. Please help us."

We went to the Crate and Barrel outlet and found just what we needed. There was an end table on the sale floor that we liked and another that looked pretty good. Dan wanted matching ones, but we would have to accept these similar looking ones. Additionally, they were a bit more than we wanted to spend, but we were willing to do it. One table was more expensive than the other by a lot.

Here's the cool part: when we went to pick up our tables in the warehouse, it turned out that they had TWO of the one we liked the best that was cheaper. They were having a 50% off sale which helped us get $30 lower than our already low price point. Yippee! Can you believe that? A Crate and Barrel set of end tables for super cheap? It's very hard to find two matching end tables at the Crate and Barrel outlet. They tend to be bought quickly.

So with a tired husband, an active three year old and a small budget we were able to get what we needed. I'm very grateful. God knew our situation and heard our prayer.

Questions

Today, Morgan said something that I ALWAYS hoped she would ask me:

"Mommy, if we eat poopies we'll get really sick, won't we?"