Back in the saddle!

My stomach is back to being okay. It took until Wednesday, but I tested my gut with Chinese food on Thursday and all is well. I know you're all glad for the update.

It took Mr. Fro 9 hours to put together the safety gate at the top of the stairs yesterday. I like the gate a lot and it's easy to use, but I have a feeling we will never speak of it. It angered him. While he was working on it, I took Lauren to Target and to the grocery store. She rode in the seat in the cart (as opposed to riding in her car seat) for the first time and was an absolute doll. She sipped her juice and played with her stuffed cheetah and otherwise just took in the sights at the store. The deli lady at the grocery store gave her a piece of cheese and you'd have thought that she'd handed Lauren a hunk of gold. The kid was so excited and she kept saying "cheese! cheese! cheese!" Weltek would be proud.

While I was gone, Mr. Fro decided to spray some ants that had gotten into the house through a crack in the sliding door frame for the patio door. He told me not to let Lauren go near where he'd sprayed, which was fine, except that he chose to block off the area with. . . baskets of her toys. Um. Perhaps the spray got to his head, because there could be little else guaranteed to make her beeline right for the ant area. Except maybe cheese. I moved the toy baskets and blocked off the area with baby gates, which were stacked up about four feet away from the ant area. I said nothing, however, since he had gone back to doing battle with the baby gate at the top of the stairs.

Tonight we're going to dinner with my family to get in an Easter celebration that was missed last weekend. I know what Lauren's going to wear but I don't know what I'm going to wear. I have no clothes. Last year at this time I was pregnant and wore the same pair of pants every day for two months. I want to go shopping.

Next weekend I have a plan to stop at the outlet mall to use my two Coach gift certificates to buy myself a new purse. I currently have a little short-handled Coach bag that was perfect when I was *cough* young and trendy but is completely insufficient now. Now, I need a Mom Purse. With the weather getting warmer, it will not be possible to transport cheerios and polar bears in my coat pockets anymore. I have $200 worth of Coach gift certificates, and I plan to use them at the outlet store to get more bang for my buck (since it's hard to get buck bang on Coach anyway.) I've been using tiny purses for years now, so if I'm going to have a Mom Purse, it's going to be stylish, dammit.

Fortunately, the outlet store is on the way to my sister in law's house, and we will be going there next weekend to visit my new nephew! He's going to be born Monday. He's big, so they're inducing her two weeks early. How selfish is this? I'm glad that he's going to be born on March 31 because that means that Lauren will retain April all to herself. (And he will be born Monday - the doc said that if he's not out the normal way by evening, it's going to be a C-section. ) I am excited about a new baby in the family - and it'll be fun to have another boy after the recent spate of girls. I bought him some little outfits at Target yesterday. Since my sisters in law gave me several boxes of girl clothes from their daughters, I haven't been buying any clothes for Lauren. (Well, I did buy her a little dress yesterday. On Sale!)

I'm in a cleaning mood today so as soon as Mr. Fro gets home I'm hoping he'll watch the kiddo (who is napping, now) so that I can act on the cleaning urge. I have to strike while the iron is hot, or else I settle back into my "I don't care" attitude about the clutter.