Enjoy your weekend, whether it contains a holiday or not. I’ll be sitting over here in the kitchen assembling one of those cold vegetable pizza things with spinach dip and tiny biscuits. Also, please know that The Puddings are in possession of punks, glow worms, and smoke bombs. (J to the Ollification, Mr. Hancock.)

She knows how important experience is when applying for a position in a nail salon, so she asked Jeff if he would like to be her first customer.

He sat down on the (sort of filthy) kitchen floor and gathered his nerves as Harper prepared her polishes.

It isn’t often that the girls notice Jeff’s missing toe. (Long story short for those who aren’t aware: Jeff accidentally cut off his thumb while working in a blacksmith shop several years ago. A plastic surgeon decided to amputate his toe and place it where the missing thumb used to be. All is well, and Jeff still plays basketball.) Anyway, Harper felt a bit cheated when she realized that she had five polishes, and only nine toes.

Harper: Give me the thumb.

When the polish dried, Harper encouraged Jeff to show off his complete set of freshly painted toes.

The next day, when Jeff went to work, his boss immediately noticed the sparkly toe thumb.

Later that evening, Jeff and the girls went to the pool, where I’m sure the other dads admired his rainbow toes.

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The Puddings are Camping Out! Come over here to admire our tent and earn a chance to win a $50 Visa gift card from BlogHer!

Me (simply killing time as we waited our turn in the circle): Hey! Coach has a note in his hand! I wonder what it says.

Meredith: It probably says, “Christmas is coming, and I need to buy a present for Meredith.”

Me: Excellent. I hope he gets a present for me, too!

Harper: I know exactly what that note says.

Me: What does it say?

Harper: It says, “Don’t forget to take off your underpants right now.”

Me: That’s not what it says. Do you realize how inappropriate that is?

Harper: I do. Let me try again. I bet it says, “Take off your PANTS right now.”

Me: Interesting. Who do you think the note is for?!

Coach (opening the door and hopefully not noticing my perky eyebrows): Good morning, Meredith!!!

(Apparently, it wasn’t for me.)
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Fluid Pudding has Smoothie Moves! Come over here for a chance at a $50 Visa gift card from BlogHer!

The only photos we were able to recover were the tiny files I had put up on Fluid Pudding, Volume One. (That was the version done in Microsoft Publisher. When I put a post up, I had to manually move all of the other posts down the page. Heh. It was ridiculous, Sisyphus.)

Anyway, here is a photo of today’s birthday girl taken less than 24 hours after she was born:

That’s a big baby!

Here’s another taken when she was two days old:

She was almost crawling!

Today Meredith is Seven. And for some reason, Seven is very difficult for me. My theory? It’s the first age with more than one syllable. (Thank God we have three more monosyllabic ages before we move up to that dreaded eleven!) Seven is not difficult for Meredith. She is very wise for her age, she is clever and creative and has good taste in music (despite her current Justin Bieber fascination). She is thoughtful and considerate and when she grows up she wants to be a rock star scientist. (When I was seven, I was sent to the principal’s office for standing on a toilet.)

Happy Birthday, Meredith Claire.

(Jeff gets full credit for the video. I absolutely love how her bike sounds like the record album has reached the end of its side. I married a genius.)
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I’m drinking lots of juice and diving into the Tropicana Juicy Rewards Program. (AND giving away a $50 Visa gift card!) You can follow along by following this link!

The first light that baby saw was not that of the sun. It was the harsh fluorescent light of a cold sterile room in which everyone present wore gowns and masks. (Except for me. As you can see, I was (mostly) naked. Welcome to my humble abdomen!)

Because we went with this cruel and seemingly harum-scarum method of introducing Harper Rose to the world, she has chosen to retaliate by refusing to eat most vegetables, and nary a bean shall touch her tongue.

Happy Birthday, Harper Rose. You’re the coolest five year old I know.
(Happy Birthday to you as well, Harper Lee. You are the knees of the bees.)

By the way, seven years ago today I was eighty pounds up and looking exactly like this:

Meredith’s eviction papers were being written up, and I was eating gooey butter cakes faster than Dierbergs could make them. (Cindy was based on me.)

Fun Fact: That’s not a stretch mark you see climbing out of my pants, it’s an appendectomy scar! (The appendix was taken out during my tenth week of pregnancy. Luckily, my surgeon scored high marks on “Take Appendix Out and Leave Baby In.”)

Today I’m concentrating on brownies (once again, thanks for the ideas and recipes!), prayer shawls, and Jamie Oliver. Also, how to get a strapless bra this afternoon without leaving the house, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and why this song has been in my head for the past two days.

Enjoy your weekend. I hear it’s supposed to rain. But that won’t stop us.

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I’m drinking lots of juice and diving into the Tropicana Juicy Rewards Program. (AND giving away a $50 Visa gift card!) You can follow along by following this link!

When we got home, my computer decided it would no longer communicate with the camera, and the memory card within the camera decided it would only retain seventeen of the photos we had taken.

Toni at Creve Coeur Camera saved the day by recovering those seventeen photos (and one video!) onto a CD for us. (We then reformatted the memory card, and all is well. I’m boring you so much right now. Do you want to hear about my new eyebrow gel? I bought it with Blackbird in mind, and now my brows look much less anemic. Sleep tight, my friends. I’m eating Ritz crackers.)

Anyway, here is my favorite photo of the day.

I’m wearing a penguin necklace! Harper is wearing one, too! AND, according to Harper, when we both wear our penguin necklaces, we’re BFFs!

The video is worth the cost of file recovery. (Which was five dollars, if you’re keeping track of my expenses.)

Aren’t you glad I went with Paganini instead of Butterfly Kisses?

I need to tell you a weird story about my milk man. (I now have a milk man.) Meet me here next week?
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I’m drinking lots of juice and diving into the Tropicana Juicy Rewards Program. (AND giving away a $50 Visa gift card!) You can follow along right here!

Yesterday afternoon, Harper went to school and wrote a note to me on funeral home letterhead.

Obviously, I love this note for many reasons.

I plan to stash it away in a light-fast, non-bleeding, and acid- and lignin-free box to heighten the chance that my great great great great granddaughter will discover it while constructing some sort of branchy Pudding family tree. I picture her asking my great great granddaughter how old Great Great Great Grandma Harper was when Great Great Great Great Grandma Angela passed on, and what are the chances that this note was actually written at the funeral?!

Ahhhh. It’s been a long day.

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Time is running out!
I spent a week driving a Lincoln, and if you check out my review you could win a $500 Visa gift card! (And more!) This is a really great giveaway!

On Monday, I’m giving away a $200 Visa gift card, and it’s all about pizza.

(Thursday contains the words Stendhal Syndrome. I’m not sure why I wrote that, but I do love the concept.)

Sadly, today features the following phrase: MC home sick.

Did you know that Meredith has GERD? She had it when she was a baby, and then everything seemed to clear up when she started walking. Last April, she started complaining of stomachaches. After a few weeks of complaints, she started throwing up every morning. Her doctor put her on Prilosec for six months. When six months passed, Meredith was going through a challenging time at school and was scared to death to stop the medicine, so the doctor signed us on for another three months.

A few weeks back, the prescription ran out, and Meredith was cool with that. Onward!

We noticed last week that she was hoarse.

On Sunday afternoon, she had a really awful cough.

Last night at 9:45 she yelled out and was wiggling around her bed in pain.

Me: Do you think you might need a puke bowl?

Meredith: Yes.

Seconds later (before Jeff was able to deliver The Silver Bowl), Meredith unloaded a pile of blueberries onto her bed. And I thought I could handle cleaning it. I totally did. Jeff took Meredith to the bathroom to clean her up, I approached the bed with the intention of removing the sheets and wiping up as much as I could. And then I started in with the gagging and bending over and saying a lot of things like, “Yeesh! Um, I can do this. I can do this. Blergh. Yes. Holy holy holy. Oh. Boy.”

Once again, Jeff came to the rescue and dealt with the sheets while the girls and I watched a bit of Olympic figure skating. (Did anyone else catch the Canadian skater who fixed her partner’s hair during The Way We Were?! It was just like Streisand and Redford! I don’t care that she fell down and repeatedly stumbled. That subtle move should have clinched the gold for them. Go Canada!)

So, anyway. As I sit at my computer and type, Meredith is sleeping off her rough night (we now have more Prilosec), Harper is at school, and there are at least 20 more chapters on reptiles that need to be templated.

If I have time later this week, I want to talk to you about the crush I have on Bobby Flay.
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I spent a week driving a Lincoln, and if you check out my review you could win a $500 Visa gift card! (And more!)

I’m giving away a $200 Visa gift card, and it’s all about pizza.

Lately, Meredith feels she is not getting enough respect.

After much consideration, she has determined that throwing a party will be the best way to gather her housemates and confront them in regard to their general lack of respect.

Therefore, a Give Meredith Respect Party is being thrown. (Gifts are appreciated, but not required.)

If the proper amount of respect is not shown, attendees will be evicted from the party.

(And, yes. I’m now teaching her the difference between Your and You’re. It’s a difficult but important lesson for a six year old who gets no respect.)