Things that make me smile.

I was going to do this as a 'Thursday Thirteen' - but they seem to have a theme going on this week, and I'm not in the mood to follow rules right now!

Thank you all for your responses to my last post by the way - they help, a lot!

Feeling the need to focus on the positive at the minute - and not yet in the frame of mind to write anything of real substance, here are some little things making me smile these days - and look - there just happens to be thirteen of them!


1. Our new treadmill



It helps me start each day early and refreshed, with a nice endorphin buzz after I've done a 30 minute program, and showered, all before my kids get up.

2. All this exercising business not only helps my mood, but I'm losing weight, too. Four pounds down in 10 days. It would be more, but I have yet to manage tempering my desire for chocolate, chips, butter and all things fatty with anything resembling restraint.

3. We got our economic stimulus payment yesterday. This will help me with spending on our trip to Ireland later this month (not that it will go far once I convert it to local currency - thanks weak dollar!) I'll technically be stimulating a foreign economy - I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intent of the payment - oops!

4.I have kicked my Diet Coke habit.

I have wanted to do this for a long time - a can full of chemicals is just BAD!

5. I have fewer migraines lately. There is a direct correlation with number 3 - no Diet Coke equals WAY fewer headaches. I had to prove it to myself - after two weeks of no Diet Coke - I had two cans on a Saturday and was rewarded with a migraine that lasted 4 days!

6. Coffee and La Croix Pure Sparkling Water, lime flavour.

I have to substitute the caffeine and carbonation with something, right?!

7. Miss E is in bed, and fast asleep before 8pm every night.

A MAJOR, major breakthrough for us.

As you can see, she may not always fall asleep in the part of the bed one conventionally would, but I'll take it.

8. Supernanny!

We used Supernanny's techniques for Miss E's bedtime and they've worked a treat. She still protests bedtime, and still employs all the tried and tested stalling tactics that all kids use (I recognise many of them from my own childhood!), but the whole process is much smoother and faster - and hubs and I are not frazzled, agitated and spent at the end of it.

We have the Supernanny book, and it has been great for general discipline advice also. The combination of better bedtime, more sleep, and consistent discipline has made for a much happier Miss E, and fewer 'grumpy day' reports from her preschool teacher!

These are the small victories I alluded to here, like I said - pretty basic parenting approaches that just took us longer than many to implement effectively.

9. Jay at 18 months, has more than 30 words, and is already combining two and three words into phrases like 'all gone' 'where are you' 'I don't know' (he's picked this one up from his sister who uses this as an automatic answer to almost every question I ask her!) Speech and language acquisition is one of the things we've been asked to keep an eye on following Jay's numerous hearing tests, and his itty bitty, teeny weeny, hearing loss. We think his language acquisition is coming along just fine.

10. Jay's Audiologist had said to me in January at a routine hearing test that she'd continue to see him every 3 months until his second birthday - and after that she'd stretch the reviews out to every 4 or 6 months. We had another hearing test in April, and she's happy to stretch it out to 6 monthly reviews already! YAY!

And really - is there anything about this face that would not make you smile?



11.My new specs! I got them yesterday.

(If you click that pic and make it big please ignore the grey hairs and the pimply skin. I'm workin' on it!)

I feel much more up to date although they take a bit of getting used to - I kind of feel like I have blinkers on because I can see the arms in my peripheral vision. The best thing about these new ones is that I can actually see through them - there are no scratches or grimy fingerprints. I vow to clean them only with the cute little cloth that came in the case so that I won't be tripping back in a few months with more scratched lenses. (Forgot to ask for the protective scratch coat on my last pair, duh!)

12. My new yellow house. The house isn't new, but the colour is. Hubs took time off last week and painted the whole house. If that colour doesn't make you happy, don't know what will.



13. My aunt is coming in just over two weeks for a ten day visit. The main purpose of her trip is to be here to help me take the kids back to Ireland at the end of the month. Hubs is coming later, and there is just no way I'd tackle that journey by myself. I'm so happy and grateful to her for doing this - because I get to be at my other 'home' for a while to see family - and help with preparations for my sister's wedding.

Things are going to be busy around here for the next few weeks, then I'll be in Ireland for five weeks - so posting will be sparse, I'm sure - but I'll still be reading all of your blogs, and I'll try to post every so often.

Enjoy your May Day - and I hope the weather's being nice to you all!