Household Help

After over two weeks of fighting it, the Sheffers seem to be free from the germies that had laid siege to the household. Charlie and I both had a bout with a head cold complete with sinus headache. (Decongestants being a nursing no-no made for a rough couple of days for me.) Charlie's lingered while I got healthy just in time to have a horrid stomach bug that put me in the ER from dehydration. We have now scrubbed the household, and I'll be doing one more round of doorknob cleaning this weekend.

My sous chefs. This is why we eat so many PB&Js.

We have a little speedster on our hands now. I am still amazed at how fast she can move and get herself into trouble. We are working on determining the best placement for baby gates and furniture to limit her explorations to areas that aren't likely to result in more than the normal bumps and bruises of childhood. Her favorite toy remains the bright orange yardstick that she uses to hit things from a distance. New milestones from these last two weeks have been that she is now up to six teeth (!) and has figured out how to get to a sitting position from lying down. She doesn't like to actually do it and will normally just scream in hopes of being rescued, but every once in a while she thinks that it's fun.

Gretl's training has been going really well, and we are now to the point where she shouldn't embarrass herself at the class when we go for obedience training and then go through the process for certification as a therapy dog. Once the snow is gone, we will also be beginning cart training, so we can have her pull a wagon. If all goes well, she will be pulling a wagon by the time Oktoberfest rolls around, so we won't have to push a stroller or carry our goodies to the parade route. Here's to hoping that she continues to learn commands quickly.

Charlie has finished the first half of his first term at school. We're starting to get into a good routine for him to get his homework done and for me to get all of my errands done with our only using one car. (Yes, there are three vehicles parked in our driveway. We are trying to see if we can go with just one plus the Comet, so we can simplify our lives.)

I've gotten into enough of a routine that the basic cleaning can get done while still having time for me to get back to reading/duscussing classic literature and practicing music. It has meant cutting down on the time that I spend (ok waste) on Facebook and watching TV shows. I'm enjoying it enough that I'm hoping to be able to maintain the current trend.