Last Friday, my little girl came up to me, put her head on my lap, and said, “I love you.” Since that day, she’s said it to me every day. Sometimes she’ll put her hands on either side of my face, turn me towards her, and say, “I love you,” and kiss me. Nobody has taught her to do that so I don’t know where she picked it up, but it’s wonderful. It makes my day. I get up in the morning looking forward to hearing it.

A very happy baby at Baskin Robbins, where we went for ice cream last week. They had a super deal, 10 scoops per customer for 31 cents each … so I had 8 and she had 2. Soooo gooood. By the end, she had brain freeze but kept asking for more. It was also the day we painted her fingernails for the first time, sparkly purple like I used to. (Thanks to my cousin Christopher who cropped and doctored the pic for me.)

She’s also started repeating everything I say, which I’m enjoying for now, though I’m told it gets old after a few years. LOL. She likes to walk around the house nodding her head and saying, “I know, I know, I know.” But she gets that from her daddy. She also says, “Oh, man” most emphatically, something she learned from the pastor’s wife who watches her while I teach Latin a couple times a week.

Since the trip to Chicago, she’s been on a sort of potty strike and she’ll go if I take her but would not let me know when she needs to go and would always answer “No” very decidedly if I ever asked. A couple days ago, she started telling me again, which has been really nice. I was starting to wish I hadn’t tried EC because it didn’t seem worth it. She has been enjoying pottying and after peeing in the potty she does a little happy dance, stomping her feet, turning around in circles, clapping her hands, and telling herself, “Good girl, good girl.” Why is it I’m the only one who sees her cutest moments?

Here she is … very happy with daddy’s wireless keyboard.

Her molars have started coming through so she had her first iddy biddy bits of meat tonight. A chuck eye steak.

I first saw this on Moriah’s blog, and when I checked my mail later in the day, I found it in my latest Dr. Sears newsletter as well. I found it really encouraging.

No one on her deathbed ever wished she had spent more time cleaning, and no one on her deathbed ever regretted spending too much time with her children. - Martha Sears, 25 Things Every Mother Should Know

Lately, I have been discovering vinegar is good for almost everything around the house and even the yard. With limited money and a baby who licks things, I’m glad to have such a cheap, non-hazardous cleaning solution. (Oh, ho! Cleaning solution. Get it? Haha. OK, my baby brain makes me find even the simplest puns very funny. 70 days to go till we have another bawling bundle of blessing!)

For counters, floors, windows, tables, toilets, everything, I use a half water, half vinegar solution with a few drops of essential oils in it. And I’ve been having lots of fun experimenting with different essential oils. So far, I’ve tried tea tree, eucalyptus, orange, lavender, and cinnamon. I want to try peppermint next. So far I like the eucalyptus and lavendar the best. Cinnamon is OK.

When I mentioned to a friend that I didn’t know what to do with all the weeds that are multiplying at a dizzying rate all over the yard and I didn’t want to use harsh chemicals to kill them off if I’m going to have babies running and crawling around, she sent me this.

Kill weeds dead with a good shot of vinegar. For best results, don’t dilute with water and choose a time to spray weeds when there’s no sign of rain. Household vinegar is around 5% acetic acid concentration which will do the trick for baby weeds. If you can find a stronger vinegar (like pickling which is about 9%), that will give better results for more mature (and stubborn) weeds. (From TipNut.)

And this morning, when the fumes from the diaper load were a little much for my pregnant nose to handle, I went to one of my new favourite sites, Broomhuggers, where I found this treasure trove of vinegary wisdom. Then I got my trusty WalMart vinegar-cinnamon-water spray bottle and voila! … Bad smells were banished.

Go here to find out how to do the following using vinegar.

• Kill bacteria in meats.
• Dissolve warts.
• Grow beautiful azaleas.
• Kill unwanted grass.
• Deodorize the air.
• Relieve itching, a sore throat, a cold, or a cough.
• Relieve arthritis.
• Cure an upset stomach.
• Turn a chicken bone into rubber.
• Condition dry hair.
• Repel ants.
• Keep drains open.
• Remove decals or bumper stickers.
• Prevent lint from clinging to clothes.
• Prevent ice from forming on a car windshield overnight.
• Prolong the life of flowers in a vase.
• Prevent soapy film on glassware.
• Unclog a shower head.