Kids!

I don't remember exactly why I didn't get to bed last night till after 4 a.m. but when I did crawl into the old sack, my little "bed buddy" -Miss Maya -was awake and watching one of her favorite DVD's to boot! The DVD playing was one from the tv show on "The Learning Channel" of Jon and Kate plus Eight, which is Maya's favorite show, even likes it better than cartoons, if you can fathom that! Truth be told, I enjoy this show too, very much, as a matter of fact.

Now, I know she had been asleep because off and on I had heard the strains of the music this particular DVD plays, over and over, once it is finished. And the only way though that it was actually playing the DVD when I went to go to bed was because Miss Maya apparently has figured out how to get it restarted on the dvd player on my new tv in my room! How she managed that, is beyond me cause I haven't even figured out anything pertaining to operating the DVD player on the new tv!.

Matter of fact, as I moved her over a tad in the bed to make room for Gram's fat self to lay down, I was looking for the remote and she looked over at me and gave me orders, very strict orders, "DO NOT change this because I am WATCHING THIS!" Guess she told me didn't she!

When she arrived home this afternoon from her school -shortly after 4 p.m. -she was in a bossier mood than her usual -telling Mandy she wanted her Mom to give her lunch. We told her no lunch now as I was cooking supper but she didn't like that answer. She came into the living room, tapping me on the arm as I was typing and then, shoved her little face right smack in front of mine and told me "NO! Lunch is now, supper is for later! You give me lunch now!"

I was making chicken corn soup with kluski noodles and biscuit-type dumplings but she announced then too that she didn't want soup but instead she wanted "Something with sauce on it!" Go figure! Apparently she wasn't joking either about not wanting soup because when Mandy put a little bowl of it in front of her, she promptly picked it up and dumped the contents on the floor. That action got quite a reaction then from both her Mom and Dad who, after they finished cleaning up the soup off the floor, sent her to sit on the hall steps and promised her she would be going to bed, minus any supper then tonight and how did she like those apples, ya know.

I'm really somewhat surprised that we didn't get turned in to Children and Youth Services tonight for "cruel and unusual punishment of a five year old" based on the sheer volume- and quantity -of her screams! She sat on the steps, screaming, shrieking, the whole time Mandy, Bill, Kurtis and I sat at the table and ate soup along with a couple slices of homemade Swedish Rye bread. Every now and then, she would interrupt her screams/shrieks by tossing in a sentence here and there, one of 'em being "I need parents!" Hmm, think she was trying to tell us something?

I told Mandy I fully expected her to crash really early this evening though because of her having been awake at 4 a.m. this morning, watching the damned dvd movie and I was right because by 7:30, she was sound asleep on the loveseat! I love it when I am right!

I've been busy this week working on the tablecloth I am embroidering. It has a cluster of flowers in each outside corner, then the same cluster at four point in the center of the cloth, with four small clusters in the middle of each side. Time consuming, very time consuming, but relaxing too. I do enjoy working on this! And after tonight, I have two of the inside corner clusters almost completed! Starting to see "daylight" as it takes on a really pretty appearance as I start doing the colors of the flowers -all in a lovely satin stitch! I know a lot of folks who do embroidery and say they hate to do satin stitch or lazy daisy or french knots more than any other stitch, but I really don't mind this abundance of satin stitches, for some unknown reason. Another "go figure" in the life and times of me.

Tonight though, I got a hankering for apple pie. Had a bag of apples I got the other day and two already prepared frozen pie crusts in the freezer, so I decided to peel and cut up all these apples and make us two pies -with an open top -more like making an apple crisp in many ways than a pie but I figured it would suffice.

However, as I was putting the apples in the pans and then, dropping dots of margerine, sugar and some seasonings on the apples, after I had finished getting one pie ready to pop into the oven and was starting the process on the second pie shell, it suddenly dawned on me that there was something wrong with the container of stuff I had shook over the first pie. Yep, something was wrong alright as I had inadvertantly grabbed a bottle of paprika, mistaking it for the bottle of cinnamon, and had sprinkled the pie quite generously with this paprika too! I was kind of worried how it would affect the fruit (apples) but when it was through baking -still very warm -I cut a big piece of it and slapped two big scoops of butter pecan ice cream on top of the hot pie and scarfed up this big hunk of stuff.

Gotta tell you this too -paprika doesn't hurt the falvor of fresh hot apple pie ala mode. Not. One. Bit! Matter of fact, Mandy was so impressed with the flavor that she said it was calling to her, demanding that she eat another helping of the mixture!

And now that I've given my report here for today and can barely keep my eyes open, I'm going to head to bed but since I don't hear any strange noises coming from there, Mandy must have figured when she carried Maya out there to bed tonight that turning the tv on to use to put Maya to sleep wasn't going to be the least bit necessary.

Wish falling asleep was that darned easy for me!