4 P's

I am finally getting around to posting some pics from Paul's trip to Poland. The first pic was taken the morning Paul was giving his presentation. The second is of the city of Krakow (where he was aside from his excursion to Auschwitz). The third (at left) is of a salt mine everyone at the conference toured. They had dinner together at the bottom of the salt mine. The fourth (below) was of a castle he and Shivangi toured in Krakow. The fifth was taken at Auschwitz. Paul said the hardest thing emotionally to see there was a mound of baby and toddler shoes. I toured Dachau with my family in 1997 so I have an idea of what it was like for him to tour this concentration camp. The sixth is of Paul and Shivangi eating dinner in the salt mine. Shivangi is Paul's officemate at PSU. She is the only other doctoral student in Dr. Garrison's group. Shivangi is from India, and she started her doctoral program one year before Paul.

Yesterday I enjoyed a bit of pampering. I got a haircut and manicure. I hadn't had a manicure in a full year. I got both done at a salon only 5 minutes from our house. I am very happy to say that after living here almost 2 years, I have finally found a new hairstylist. YAY! I really like the way she cut my hair, and her prices were reasonable. I also like that she also does manicures and pedicures. I am thinking that every time I go to get my haircut (usually about every 3 months, I will also treat myself to either a manicure or pedicure. It only took a little over an hour for her to give me a manicure plus shampoo, cut, and blowdry my hair. I smile when I look down at my nails. I can't even remember the last time I painted them myself. I want to start taking a little more time each week for "primping" even if that means taking time to blowdry my hair or floss my teeth. I don't think that's asking too much, lol. I never thought that blowdrying my hair would be a luxury, but most of the time I have to just let it air dry these days.

Yesterday morning didn't start out in a pampering manner. I had mowed on Friday (carrying a 19lb baby) so I wouldn't have to mow after my manicure. First of all Ian woke up really early. He's done that several times this week. Once he woke up at 3:50. I let him cry and thankfully he did fall back asleep (and woke back up at 5:45). That morning he took a long nap. His naps are still usually 30 minutes long. Today he took a VERY long afternoon nap. These give me hope that his naps will eventually be longer. Anyhow getting up before 6am on a Saturday isn't a pampering way to start one's day, but what made it worse was cleaning up puke. Nadia wouldn't eat her veggies on Friday night. I wanted her to eat 2 grape tomatoes. She wouldn't even try them. I figured she would probably like tomatoes because she likes pizza, pasta, and salsa. Since she wouldn't eat the tomatoes, she didn't eat dinner or drink any milk. She ate them easily Saturday morning because she wanted some milk, but then she wouldn't eat anything else. I thought that was strange because she hadn't eaten for about 18 hours. She drank LOTS of milk. I won't let her do that again because then she kept vomited a lot. I was planning to take the kids with me to church for a parenting workshop (childcare was being provided). I wasn't sure if I should take her, but after she kept down a few saltine crackers I let her eat yogurt and oatmeal, and she kept those down as well.

This morning was promotion Sunday at church. Everyone met together in the sanctuary for Sunday School. I was so proud of Nadia when they called her name because she walked up to the front and said "thank you" (without any prompting) when they handed her a Bible (her first). She is supposed to bring it to Sunday School each week. She currently earns one "Bible buck" for attending Sunday School. She'll earn two each week if she brings her Bible (and more if she says the first five books of the NT or OT from memory or John 3:16 from memory). I guess we'd better get working on those. Ian loved the puppet show. Nadia was promoted earlier than normal to the 2-5 year old SS class, but today was her first day going to "Wee Worship" - the youngest group of children's church. My girl is too old for the nursery! Ian is still in the nursery of course. He now goes there for SS and church. I miss holding him, but I'll be singing in the choir starting next Sunday so it's best for him to be in the nursery. I missed the first rehearsal (last Wed) because of having company at our house, but I'll start going this week. I'm going to miss the start of each rehearsal as I'm teaching on Wednesday nights. The church is about 25-30 minutes away from work. I'll be going straight from teaching to choir reherasal this semester.

Ian had one leaky diaper today (this morning at church and it went on my shirt),  but in general we haven't had any leaks lately. YAY! Putting solid food in his bottles has changed the color and consistency of his poop, and we've been cutting back on how much we give him by bottle right before putting him down for the night. I had tried a size 4 diaper on Monday night, and he still leaked right through it. We've gone back to size 3 diapers, and his sheets have stayed dry since then since we're not giving him as much right before he goes to bed.