There are milestones that occur in a child's life that are never covered by the pediatrician, and we experienced one of them tonight: the sleepover. Now, Lil' Puddin' Tater is nowhere NEAR ready to spend the night at a friend's house. But when she and the little girl next door came to me after playing for a couple hours and informed me that "Hey! Guess what! J can sleep over!" my stomach did a little flutter and I realized (perhaps even more than her first day of school) that my wee one, my first born, is growing up.

Of course, she being my first born, my Lil' Puddin' Tater, I should have known that the evening would not go as I planned. Everything began well enough, with the requisite pizza for dinner, then playing, then a movie before going to bed. We made up the couch in gnome sheets, with a girl at each end and lots of fluffy covers. We made popcorn, and I had to tell them a thousand times to be quiet. I went into my bedroom and told D that the midgets in the living room were to be sleeping in 45 minutes. Deviance from this would be acceptable (I'm not some wretched mother) as long as they stayed on the couch. Talking, giggling, etc. were all acceptable behaviors.

Then the shit hit the fan, and I feel like a tool for being blindsided by it. Ok, first a little background: Friday nights are "Girls' Night" in the house with the blue door. Midget 2.0 goes to bed, D is working or out with friends, and LPT and I stay up late and watch cartoons (Ok, we watch Hannah Montana.) and give each other manicures and pedicures and make popcorn and talk. Most importantly, LPT is permitted to sleep in our bed, and D sleeps in hers. It is truly a Girls' Night. In the morning, we all make cinnamon rolls together and bask in the glow of momentarily being a picture-perfect family.

Anyway, when the time came for LPT to actually sleep, she kind of flipped out and wanted to sleep with me. D told her no, that she had a guest and that they could either sleep on the couch or they could go upstairs and sleep in her room. LPT started crying, quietly. I had no clue any of this was going on (maybe I dozed off?) but I heard them go up the stairs. I thought that the girls had gotten up and were going to play. I yelled "Lil' Puddin' Tater?" up the stairs. This was not the correct thing to do. LPT realized that Mom was awake and could save her from mean ol' Dad. So she really loses her shit and cries even harder, and then the inevitable happens. She coughs, then pukes on the floor of her room 4 times. At that point, I hauled her into the bathroom, where she threw up again, in the toilet. D took J home and I got LPT in the tub because she had vomit all up in her hair.

Yes, I hate cleaning up puke. Yes, it still reeks up there. (washing the room down with vinegar is tomorrow) And as soon as I had everything cleaned up and had successfully gotten LPT to sleep (7 minutes! a new record!) and had gotten back into my bed with a book, Midget 2.0 realized that it was his turn. Luckily, that was a brief and not-stinky endeavor. But there's a part of me that is a little bit happy that LPT isn't quite ready for sleepovers yet. I get to hold on to my girl for a while longer.

AND! Reading Rainbow, one of the staples of my childhood and near the top of my list of Favorite Kid Shows, is over. Let's sing the song one last time, and I know that you all know the words:

I have decided that I'm going to "go green" with my lunches. I found a tutorial to make reusable snack bags here (why can't I reuse regular snack bags, you ask? Because they're thin and they rip and then it's just not worth it, and by that point I'm so frustrated I just need to sit down with a drink.) THEN I found a tutorial for a reusable sandwich wrap and got all excited. I'll post pics if I actually get around to making them. (I know myself. There have been plenty of things I was dying to make that are not in existence.) I'll also post a pic of Lil' Puddin' Tater exhibiting her disapproval of said bags and wraps. She's turned into a teenager at the age of 5, and she can be (forgive me) quite bitchy at times. Oy. And no comments about her being just like her mother, thankyouverymuch.

Going out for the best food ever tonight with the ladies. Mmmm mojito.

It's fall here. Granted, it will be 81 degrees this afternoon, but the mornings are definitely fall. I actually had to turn off the fan in my office because I was cold. Do you realize how rare this is? I don't get cold. Ever. Usually I sweat.
But! The arrival of the autumnal winds means that there are events on the horizon that will be absolutely gobs of fun: The Light the Night Walk (to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society), the St. James Art Fair (everything is incredibly expensive, but it's a lovely walk through Old Louisville and St. James Court), A's bridal shower and subsequent wedding! Of course, after that we're thrust head on into The Holiday Season and my head begins ramping up to it's inevitable explosion, usually occurring somewhere around Christmas Eve. This year, though, I get to add the task of providing snacks for Lil' Puddin' Tater's class the week before school lets out for winter break. So, let's see: 26 kids x 5 = 130 little foodstuffs and juice boxes. Jeebus.

Speaking of school, today was amazing. Last week, I was still walking Lil' Puddin' Tater into her classroom, a habit frowned upon by the administration, and rightly so: the kids get more worked up the the farther into the school the parents go. On Thursday, I spent 25 minutes trying to calm Lil' Puddin' Tater down enough to go in and sit down. Now, I am not one of those parents who "need" to leave but then continue to say goodbye for an hour, and secretly love it when the kids flip out. No. However, I am a mom who hates to see her daughter start the day sobbing with a possibility of throwing up. So I let D take her the next day, thinking it had something to do with me dropping her off. Nope. SAME THING. But today! We had a plan! We would wait in a different-from-normal spot for a friend to arrive, then they would walk in together. I was hoping this would minimize the tears, but boy was I surprised when M pulled up, got out, and LPT took her hand and said "Bye Mom!" over her shoulder as she walked in to the school. I stood there for a minute, trying to comprehend what had just happened; did this actually mean that I successfully dropped Lil' Puddin' Tater off with no consternation? No feelings of guilt? I could just leave? It was a heady experience, let me tell you.
See all these vegetables and fruits? Everything except the strawberries is what we brought home from The Farm yesterday. We picked all these ourselves. And see that big tomato in the middle? The purple-y one? That there is the best damned tomato you'll ever eat, bar none. (it's a Cherokee Purple, and I'm going to keep some seeds and see if I can grow some next year. They're that good.)