See If You Can Keep Up

I played basketball last night. The first time in two months; it felt good to get back on the court. The only problem is, when I get home around 10:30 or so, I'm to riled up to go directly to sleep. Last night I did stay in bed despite my wide-awakeness, but I spent at least 40 minutes laying on my side thinking over just one topic that has confused me for about a year now. The argument was held between my creative cooking self and my analytical self:

CC: A pint's a pound the world around.
AS: But a pint is two cups. Cup is volume. Pound is weight.
CC: I don't quite see your point.
AS: Well, there's just no way that two cups of feathers is the same weight as two cups of lead.
CC: Well, you don't cook with feathers and lead, do you? So that analogy is very poor.
AS: Look, there is just no way a pint is a pound for everything.
CC: And yet, it is.


The thing is, my AS can't compete with that. A pint really is two cups every single time! When a recipe says a pint of cream, I measure out the store-bought pint and it comes to two cups! When I read the label on a chocolate chip bag it says in one place: Nt. wgt. 1 lb. In another place it says: This bag is two cups. It's like magic! I DON'T GET IT!

You can see why I was up for an hour last night, just lying there arguing it out with myself.

So, Madie has started making elephant noises while she swings her arm in front of her face. It's adorable. Possibly even more adorable is listening to her read to you. I'm posting the video on FB. Don't you worry. In the mean time, let me entertain you with pictures of her new stuff:

Mike and I just couldn't take the pain of her biting our fingers on the nails while we brushed her teeth with a finger brush, so we finally bought Madie a real toothbrush. You can't see it, but it's the cutest little lion I've ever seen. Unfortunately, she loves to use it as a teether, so getting it away from her is kind of a hassle.

Since it looks like we will be staying here longer than we thought--which is already longer than we planned--we decided to set up a little more permanently. We moved the loaned card table and chairs over to the "dining area" of the apartment and put Madie's booster over there as well. It's great because now she can feed herself--her booster tray is just too small for her to do that with unless it's chopped up pieces of something. At the table she feeds herself eggs, bananas, sandwiches,  and yogurt. Mmmmmm-Mmmm!

Here's a quick story for you entitled Poor Little Feet! We got some great hand-me-down shoes from Tiff's girls over Thanksgiving--they were just perfect! They fit well and they had soft rubber soles so they were easy to walk in. Not to mention adorable, as always. We got compliments almost every time she wore them, which was a lot since they were really her only shoes. By the time we got home from Maine for Christmas they were already getting a little tight, but I figured we could use them for a couple more weeks while I looked around for some decent ones. I couldn't find any! Can you believe that?! I didn't know where Tiff had bought those shoes until someone said asked me what brand they were. I told her and she said, "Oh! Those are from Target!" Awesome! I never really shop at Target, but there's one not far away so I went and looked in their baby isle--nothing but slippers. Finally, on Monday this week (weeks after initially searching) I went to put Madie's socks on her and noticed a little pink blister on each pinkie toe. :( I tossed the shoes (they were also getting pretty worn after all the kids they'd been through) and took her straight to Target. It hit me right then: not the baby section! They're in the SHOE section! (It shows I'm in denial about the fact that she's growing when I don't even look anywhere but the baby section for shoes.) We found these babies.

She is loving them.