Random Toddler Collecting

I think that Ardyn is probably doomed to be a collector. Evan and I are both hoarders. We love to keep things. We love to find alternative uses for things. I watch her doing that Toddler "collecting" thing and it makes me giggle. She walks around with seemingly unrelated objects, and becomes very attached to them. It's hard to get her to leave the house without whatever she has in her hand at the moment. Tonight she was struggling to carry around her cabbage patch newborn, a stuffed dog, a 10x10 piece of cardboard, and ONE pink sketcher clog. She gathers these things up and puts them in her little red chair and sits with them to watch the Good night show on Sprout. She carries things like a keychain and a plastic seal from a milk jug, out the door with her and into the van. Small misc things (aka choking hazards) are her favorites. She's going to be that kid with the treasure chest under her bed that has all kinds of odds and ends inside. Bits of ribbon. Sticks. Things that sparkle or have an interesting texture. Her big thing now is that something is "acky" or "garbage" and she will find it, show it to me, and then I will say "yep, put that in the garbage for mommy" and she does that and amazingly walks away without digging out an old toilet paper tube, q-tip, or whatever else good she sees in the garbage.

We have launched into peanut butter, which is cool. She used to just eat sunbutter (sunflower seeds) but Just at 18 months I gave her peanut butter with no issues, and also allowed daycare to give her honey.

As I type this, I am doing laundry and running a load of dishes through the dishwasher. Our ppor clothes dryer has been slowly decining, forgive me for not remembering if I actually blogged about it, but it was to the point of drying one load to every three loads I washed. Totally not cool. We decided to finally just get a new one, and set off looking Saturday night. The in-laws kept Ardyn and we went to Best Buy and Lowes. We found the Whirlpool Cabrio 7.0cu foot that we wanted to get, it was on clearance, and then the Best Buy guy came out and said that it was the last one (floor model) and that he couldn't get any more. But they would give us a whopping $70 off the floor model (which was scratched and the door wasn't quite latching right.) We said no and left. Then at Lowes we saw SO many models that we liked, it was difficult to choose. Their prices were MUCH better than Best Buy, and so I guess it was a godsend that they didn't have any Cabrio's at Best Buy. We picked a HE Samsung, and got it all invoiced, the guy went to get it, and we went up to the cashier to pay, when we realized that the grand total was HIGHER than the daily limit on our debit/credit cards. OMG were we upset. We drove an hour from home, finally found the one we wanted, and couldn't get it. Our whole tax return was sitting in the bank account but we couldn't touch it! We felt so bad! But being a Saturday, and having a small town bank, we couldn't do anything about it. We grabbed supper at 9:30 pm finally, and then went to get Ardyn. It poured all the way home, and all overnight, and everything around here is flooded, creeks out of their banks, roads covered in water, etc.

Late last night Evan looked online and discovered that our local Sears (where I wanted to just go and get the dryer anyway, but whatever) had cheaper prices STILL, and we wouldn't have to pay the bigger city sales tax which ended up saving us $100! So we went to our family brunch today (although we were late because we didn't know the time changed) and then went to Sears, picked out a Kenmore Elite HE Dryer, and paid for it, and came home. I am so relieved. The dryer's consumer reviews state that the dryer does 16 pair of jeans completely dry in 23 minutes. I think of the kid's clothes, and our clothes, and cloth diapers for two, and king sized bedding, and I am so so excited. It will be in this Thursday. Our washing machine is probably about 3 years old or so, and we have had it repaired once, and we decided that when it quits, we will go get the matching HE Washer. In the meantime, the washer is at least King Capacity, and does a good job, so I am just thrilled to have a dryer that will keep up with the washer and can fit the size loads that I wash. We also bought the extended 3 year warranty, so that's a good thing.

When we got back home this evening, Ardyn and I were both EXHAUSTED and fell asleep together in bed. We slept for 2-2.5 hours and woke up at what I THOUGHT was 7:30, but I realized several hours later that it was actually 8:30 because we forgot to change any clocks at home. So I decided to let Ardyn stay up a little later, because we napped so late, but then I realized that it's already two hours past her bedtime and she is still going strong. I see bedtime in her immediate future, and then I need to get diapers washed so that there is a possibility of having them dry by tomorrow night. right now I am only one load of clothes behind, but that's because I was so frustrated with the dryer that I just quit washing so that I could catch up a bit. Luckily the diapers take a prewash, wash, and second rinse, so they take more time and will likely be finished in the morning when I can then easily switch them to the dryer.

Our sicknesses are pretty much tapering off, Ardyn is no longer "nigh-coughing" although I am. Last night I was able to sleep without tylenol or cough medicine, but had a headache STILL at 6am and ended up taking tylenol then.

Well, diapers are prewashing, and soon will need soap, and Ardyn's about ready for bed. Everyone have a good start to the week. We have an EXCEPTIONALLY busy week so you may or may not hear much from us. All three of us have dentist appointments, Ardyn has her 18 month checkup and shots, We have a weigh in appointment at WIC, an appointment to pre-register me at the hospital before the baby comes, an appointment to get the oil changed in the van, the new dryer coming in, hopefully attending the town's mayoral debate, and Ardyn goes to school and I get a prenatal massage. And that's all BEFORE the weekend!