thursday

Piper woke up with a fever this morning. She had one when she went to bed, but we were hoping she would have slept it off, but alas she didn't. We have a fun wedding coming up this weekend and we are dropping her off overnight with our friends Carol and Greg, so I kept her home for the day with me so she could get plenty of naptime and get over the fever so she won't jink our weekend plans.
We ended up having such a fun day together. After Patrick left for work I got her dressed and we went and bought a really nice (new) baby potty from a chick off of craigslist.

Then we headed over to my favorite thrift store...appropriately named The Thrift Store. Seriously, this place is amazing. It is huuuuuuge and has everything you could ever want. Outdoor furniture, TONS of kids stuff, great clothes, shoes, plastic bags for $2 filled with random, but well-organized stuff like a bag full of streamers/party plates/party cups/napkins, another bag full of outdoor string lights, another bag full of stuffed animals. 9 times out of 10 if I go in there specifically looking for something I'll find it. Today I went in for the sole purpose of kids outdoor toys. And whamo, I found it. I got a little push truck that makes obnoxious noises that Pip can ride or push around. Some sort of play front door thing where she can walk through a tiny front door and push the doorbell and play with the mailbox (it's hard to explain) and a mandatory child toy - the play car:

My total came to $16 and it was 3 big ticket items. Sweet. We headed out of there and went downtown and met Patrick for lunch. We sat in Hemming Plaza with all the homeless people and had a sweet little family picnic.

After lunch Piper and I headed home, she went down for a long nap while I studied at the kitchen table. She woke up around 3:45 and was SO freaking cute and funny. I took a ton of videos of her wandering around the house talking and being just funny and toddlerish. We went outside and she played with the new thrift store finds while I got to weed the garden, check on my newly sprouting beets, carrots, collards and lettuce. I've been dying to get out in the yard more, but it's really hard to with my little shadow following me around and digging in the dirt minutes after I planted seeds, or wanting me to pick her up when my hands are in the bottom of the compost pile. Hence the frantic search for outside kid play toys.

Patrick came home around 5:30 and we headed up to Piper's school for their open house night. We chatted with the teachers and talked about how she's doing ("She's great! So outgoing, social and very very chatty!"), then we loaded back in the car, stopped at the Chinese restaurant for an order of Orange Chicken. Came home, did the dinner-bath-book-bedtime ritual with Piper and then ate our Orange Chicken over a quick episode of Jeopardy and now we are both sitting at the kitchen table studying. I have a microbiology quiz that I have to take online by Sunday, but since we are leaving on Saturday to head down to the beach for the night for a wedding, I need to take it tomorrow.

In other big news. I got my period today. Tada! It only took 19+ months. I forgot how annoying/crampy they are.