Happy Valentine's Day!

Yesterday morning I took Nadia to Walmart as a keyboard bench I had ordered online for her red piano was ready to be picked up. She wanted a burger from McD's, and since I hadn't agreed to her request on Tuesday, I decided to get her a happy meal. For the first time ever, she ate the entire burger (before we even got home!). Her appetite definitely returned yesterday. She fed herself oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast and then wanted a banana an hour later, and she ate the entire banana. Maybe she's in a growth spurt? As I went through the drive-thru at McD's, she asked for ice cream. I was impressed that she remembered that the last time Grandma & PopPop took her there that she had an ice cream cone. Paul's parents came to visit us this afternoon, and they brought her a burger from Burger King. This was bigger than the one at McD's, and she ate almost the whole thing (all except for a couple of bites of bun).

Nadia and Ian made out like bandits for Valentine's Day. Paul got each of them a card. Paul's parents got each of them a little teddy bear and a card. Nadia also got Elmo stickers and some marshmallows. Both kids also got some new clothes (size 2T for Nadia and 0-3 month for Ian). Their grandparents love them very much! Speaking of Elmo, I bought Nadia her first pack of underwear yesterday. I let her pick, and she chose the Elmo ones. She carried them around yesterday. A few times last week she pointed to the toilet and said "pee pee" and asked me to put her on it. She didn't actually go, but this was the first sign of interest. I am thinking of trying to potty train her during my spring break (in 3 weeks). I welcome any tips anyone has for potty training a little girl! She'll be 20 months old at that point.

Hopefully by then Ian will not need to be held quite so much so that I can devote more time and energy to Nadia. It's been awhile since he's taken a nap in the Nap Nanny during the day. Last night was a rough night. He was in my arms from 10:45pm until 5:50am when Nadia woke up. Prior to that he had slept 90 minutes in the Nap Nanny and 90 minutes in Paul's arms. I did get a 45 minute nap today while Paul's parents were here. It was my first nap in 8 days. It would be a lot easier to function on less sleep at night if I could at least get one nap a day. I'm taking Tylenol or Advil every morning as I have a splitting headache in the morning. I have considered trying tea and coffee again to see if I drinking some caffeine each morning would help.

Last night Paul and I thought we were going to Red Lobster, but when we got there we found out there was a 100 minute wait for a table for two. We went down the road a couple of blocks and found the situation was identical at Olive Garden. I had only brought my Darden gift cards (the company that owns both of those restaurants) so last night was definitely a splurge as we paid for dinner plus the babysitter. We picked where to go based on which one had the fewest cars in the parking lot. Our wait at Ruby Tuesday was only 20 minutes. Usually I only get an entree and Paul gets an entree plus a soda. We never get an appetizer unless it's free. Every once in a long while I'll splurge and get a dessert. Last night was the first time in the 13 years we've gone out to eat together that we bought an appetizer. It was nice to have an adult conversation with my hubby without needing to divide my attention. I will admit though that I still have a hard time understanding his work when he tries to explain the computer program he's working on for his research. I didn't date when I was in high school or college. Paul was my first boyfriend, and I was 25 years old when we started dating. Prior to that point I used to dread Valentine's Day. I am very happy that I now have a Valentine. :-)

At first I wasn't sure I was going to go to church this morning considering how little sleep I got last night and also the fact that Ian is still sick, but I did end up taking the kids to church. We were 5 minutes late for Sunday School, which I thought wasn't too bad considering I gave both kids a bath before dressing them in their Sunday clothes. Unfortunately, Abby has an ear infection so she wasn't at church. Nadia was very disappointed. I forgot to bring my flute to rehearse with my choir director who will be my pianist next Sunday night when I'm playing a flute solo. So I will be heading to church on Wednesday night at 6:30 to rehearse with her then. I haven't played my flute in over a year. It will be good to play it again. Nadia wanted to hold my flute. I let her hold my piccolo while I was playing the flute (selecting which song to play next Sunday). I picked "Heaven Came Down." There's another lady in the church who plays the flute. Maybe we'll play a duet sometime this summer. I have some nice flute duet music. I wonder what instruments Ian and Nadia might want to play some day? I plan to teach both of them to play the piano, but I'm hoping they'll also want to play in their school band. We shall see what sports or musical instruments they'll be interested in.