I have no good excuse for not posting in so long. It just seems that by the time I sit down at the computer in the evening that I'm wiped out. The brain is fried, and I can't think of anything to say.

Life is good. We had a great holiday. We didn't go anywhere or do anything special, and it was absolutely wonderful. We holed up at home and recovered from our various ailments. We ate turkey and potatoes for days. We watched movies, and most of all, we played with Sera.

She's starting to add phrases to her vocabulary. Her favorites are "I see you" and "sit down." Her newest game is to run up to Shadow's side and tickle him. She wiggles her fingers over his side and giggles and says, "tickle, tickle." He turns to look at her to see what she's doing, and either his head or his tail knocks her down. She then laughs hysterically, gets up, and starts all over again. It's really funny to watch because the top of her head finally clears his back when he's standing. Have I mentioned he's a really big dog?

Sera is very clear on what she wants and doesn't hesitate to make her wishes known. We're hearing a lot of up, up, up and go, go, go and no, no, no and yeah. When her nose is stuffy, she points to it and says nose, then she reaches towards the tissue box. When she wants music, she pumps both arms and wiggles. She demands cheese, milk, and juice all the time. Luckily, she's fine with the diluted juice, and she loves water. She still loves to go owsigh even though it's really cold out there now.

When I pick her up from daycare, she runs to her cubby and grabs her coat sleeve. As soon as we walk in the door at home, she tugs at it and yells, "off." After I take hers off, she pulls on mine and says, "off." Then she plops to the ground, sticks her feet in the air and yells, you guessed it, "off!" She refuses to wear shoes, socks, or slippers at home. Jim and I are always wearing slippers at home, but she wants nothing to do with hers.

All dolls aren't nanas anymore. Hers is still called nana, but if she sees a picture or a commercial now she calls them babies. She gets very excited when she sees doggies, duckies, and kitty cats, any animal for that matter.

Over the holiday break, I became mommy. I think she picked up the word from daycare. The lady who runs her room has her son in that room, too. I think Sera hears him call his mom mommy and picked up the word. It had taken her so long to even get to mama, that we hadn't even really started using mommy at home. She still calls me daddy sometimes, but she stops and corrects herself now.

We had two minor breakouts on Saturday and Monday. Saturday night, we went out for an early dinner and stopped to pick up a few groceries. We put Sera in the cart with the car in front. She's been afraid of it in the past, but loved it that night. When we finished shopping and I got her out of the car, I noticed her hands were bright red and that she had hives on the back of her hands and wrists. She also had one spot on her cheek. By the time we got home, her right eye was puffy and teary. Jim got her bath ready while I searched for dosing instructions on Benadryl. By the time she was out of her bath, everything was back to normal, so I didn't give her any medicine. We remembered that she'd been playing with the pepper mill at dinner and thought she might have a reaction to the pepper on her hands. Then it happened again. On Monday when I picked her up from daycare, they told me that she had broken out in a few hives on her face, but they quickly cleared. They didn't seem to bother her either time and didn't appear to itch.

I know that hives are an allergic reaction. It could be to food, cold temperatures, or something on her skin. It was cold Saturday night, but she didn't go outside on Monday. She had pepper on her hands Saturday night, but not Monday. She had pizza and some of my spaghetti for dinner on Saturday and spaghetti for lunch on Monday. You'd think that was it, right? But she's had spaghetti plenty of times, at daycare, at home, and even at Carraba's where we ate Saturday night. I called her doctor's office on Monday. There's nothing they can do without seeing the welts themselves. Even then, it would probably be a referral to a dermatologist. They said it was probably not the spaghetti because she's had it before without problems and it was just a coincidence. We're just going to keep an eye on her for now and see if it happens again. If it affects her breathing, we'll head to the ER, but for now it was just a few random welts.

Part of me thinks I should never feed her Italian again. Part of me wants to make it for dinner right away, so we can see if she reacts again.

We put our tree up over the weekend, too. Sera loves it. She loves the lights. She also loves her new toy. Her Christmas tree plays music when you press the star on top. I had a $25 gift certificate for Amazon and bought it there. I just checked Amazon as I was going to link to it, but the price has more than doubled since I bought it. It's being sold through one of their affiliates. Toys R Us has it for a much more reasonable price.


In one of the classes I teach, I have the students take a personality assessment test. Here's one I found the other day. It's not the one I use in school, but it's fun! Which HP character are you?

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.