…HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
(More to come! I hope everyone is able to get out for a little trick-or-treating tonight!)
On Monday, we were bracing for Superstorm Sandy to come roaring through here like, well, a hurricane.
As it turns out, we were lucky. Things didn’t get nearly as bad as the experts were saying it could have been—not here, at least. We had crazy wind and rain for several hours last night, and although thousands of people in the area lost power, we were not one of those households. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. last night, and listened… the winds had died down significantly, and I knew the worst was over for us. We got up and went to work this morning. It was a normal day.
But for so many millions of others, I know that today was far from normal. And I’m not quite sure when “normal” will come again.
Looking at the damage from downstate was (is) very sobering. And unimaginable. To all those who live in areas that suffered severe or catastrophic damage… my thoughts are with all of you. I hope that your lives are able to return to some semblance of your everyday lives very soon.
How did everyone out there fare through the storm? I hope everyone is safe, and HOME.
It sounds like we’ll be meeting a not-so-lovely storm named Sandy over the next couple of days.
I’m not sure how worried I’m supposed to be about this.
Part of me is in the holy-crap-do-we-have-what-we-need camp. And another part of me is in the I-bet-this-won’t-be-nearly-as-bad-as-they-say camp. Because you know, the weather guys (and gals) don’t exactly have a track record of being 100% correct about these things.
For those who are directly on or closer to the coast, this is all very much more predictable (I think, anyway). Schools are cancelled, businesses are closed, mass transit is shut down. Everyone’s hunkering down. But for us, we are still getting up and heading into work tomorrow, despite being firmly in the RED/ACTION zone here:
The winds are expected to be a pretty big problem, so I guess my biggest concern is power outages. And downed tree limbs. We lost two pretty big limbs during two separate thunderstorms this past summer, and I don’t think the winds on those days were anything compared to what they’re predicting now. I have my fingers crossed for our trees, since we have a lot of them.
The power goes out at work ALL.OF.THE.TIME. Well, at least in the summer, when wind/heavy rain is often a factor. We must be on a weak portion of the power grid, because it’s actually quite comical. Any time it starts raining or the wind picks up, e-mails go out to all staff—”save often!” We’re sent home due to no power at least a couple of times per summer. So I’m pretty interested to see how we hold up tomorrow/Tuesday.
Back at home, I also have an inkling of concern about flooding in our basement. We don’t *think* our basement is prone to flooding, but we’ve only been here for a year, so who knows. Although the berber carpeting and wood paneling that are in the finished portion of our basement certainly look as though they have seen a couple of decades… so I’m guessing that if it has taken on water in the past, it has been a long time. Still, I’m ashamed to admit that the basement remains in a state of disarray—let’s just say it hasn’t been high on the priority list to organize it since we moved in—so there is a TON of stuff on the floor. I’m probably going to go down there and take a peek before bed tonight just to pick up some irreplaceable stuff off of the floor just in case.
Otherwise, all we’ve really done to prepare is to buy a car charger (finally) for our iPhones/iPad/iPod, buy a little bit of extra food, and move the deck furniture into the garage. If the power goes out, we will be gorging ourselves on the ridiculous amount of leftovers we currently have in our fridge before they go bad. And then we’ll be living the rest of the time on peanut butter sandwiches, crackers, and cereal.
I guess only time will tell how severely we will be hit and whether our day-to-day lives will be affected this week.
For all of you on the coast, and within the “danger zone”—Stay safe. Stay dry. Stay warm.
You’re in a store. Or a restaurant. Or, for the love of God, on a plane to somewhere wonderful. It would be peaceful, except… well, you brought your kid.
Your toddler, to be specific. And for some inexplicable reason, she starts to FREAK THE F*%# OUT.
Thankfully, this is the 21st century and we have a glorious tool called an iPhone. I seriously don’t know how my mom got through parenthood without it, actually. I know it’s a luxury, and some people are probably against “pacifying” a crabby toddler with an iPhone, but sometimes, you do what you need to do to survive.
Nora is scary good at operating an iPhone, and has been for a while. She can easily swipe to unlock it, and swipe to scroll from page to page of the apps. She scrolls until she finds HER apps, which she recognizes by the picture. And then she knows how to select them, select things on the screen, and how to return to the apps pages to pick something else. It’s pretty incredible. And honestly, she really doesn’t even use it THAT often. It’s certainly not a daily habit.
Still, this thing is a godsend when we need it to be. If you are a stranger to the toddler-silencer-known-as-iPhone-apps, I thought I’d share the current kid-friendly apps that I have on my phone, and tell you which are Nora’s favorites.
Here is the page that has all of Nora’s apps (and a few stragglers of mine, too). Her top 3 are undoubtedly 1) PBS Kids, 2) ABC Song, and 3) Disney Junior.
The PBS Kids and Disney Junior apps are WONDERFUL. They stream full episodes of TV shows on each of the respective networks, and it’s awesome.With PBS, Nora likes to scroll through and watch a few minutes of Daniel Tiger, Dinosaur Train, Arthur, etc. On this app, she is a “channel surfer.” But with Disney Junior, there aren’t as many options, and “turning the channel” isn’t as readily available, so she tends to watch the episodes with a longer attention span. Both of these apps are 100% FREE, which obviously puts them at the top of my list, too. And if you have a certain cable provider, I think you can enter your account info to gain access to more Disney Junior shows and episodes, but it’s not available through our provider.
The “ABC Song” is a free app that I downloaded randomly before or during our Boston trip. Nora’s favorite song is the ABCs, and she loves letters in general. It’s a SUPER cheesy looking app, but it sings her the ABC song, with the letters appearing in bubbles on the screen. She’s a fan. This app is free as well, but the free version has annoying pop-ups at the end of the song, which Nora hasn’t figured out how to “x” out of by herself yet. This leads to a lot of me having to help her be able to play the song again. I just looked and the full version is only $1.99, so yeah, I’ll be downloading that shortly. :)
The first three apps on my screen there are Old Mac, Bus, and Peek-a-Zoo. All of these are from a developer named Duck Duck Moose, and they’re great apps. I first heard about them from Kate. Old MacDonald and the Wheels on the Bus are based on the songs, so there are pages of the app dedicated to different farm animal scenes, or verses of the Wheels on the Bus. Each page has items on it that are interactive when the child taps them, swipes them, etc. Old MacDonald is $1.99, and Wheels on the Bus is $0.99. Nora LOVED these when they were completely new to her, but now she has to be in the right mood to spend a decent chunk of time playing with them.
Peek-a-Zoo is the same type of thing, but features a ton of animals. When Nora taps them, they say things like, “Hi, I’m Linus the Lion!” as they scroll by. There are also pages that ask interactive questions, like “Who is sleeping?” and shows four animals, one of which has its eyes closed. It lets them know if they’ve selected the right one. It’s cute, and obviously somewhat educational, too. Peek-a-Zoo is $0.99, and this is one that Nora still plays with pretty often (when she is given the chance).
Phone4Kids is the least favorite and is honestly pretty lame. It’s made by the same developer as the ABC Song app, so it has the same type of cheesy graphics. Nora doesn’t care for it much, but will select it occasionally so I keep it on there. It has a numbers keypad where the child can “dial,” and has “apps” like weather, texting, maps, etc. Nora might be more into it when she gets a little older and understands more about what each of these play apps is supposed to be. This app was free, so eh, who cares?
We’ll be taking a long road trip to visit my dad within the next month or so, and I’ll probably download some new apps prior to that to help keep Nora entertained. For those who have tried these apps with your own kids, do they agree with Nora’s favorites? :) And do you have any recommendations for new (to us) tried and true apps that your toddler loves?
I think Mother Nature must’ve heard me talking about her, because last weekend, we were blessed with two beautiful fall days. Potential rain was in the forecast, but it never came. We spent a good chunk of both days outside, mowing the lawn, hedge trimming, cleaning up the flower beds, spray painting Nora’s learning tower, raking leaves, removing a HUGE overgrown shrub from the side of our house… we certainly made the most of Nora’s naps.
And when she was awake with us? We had her outside with us, blowing bubbles, “helping” with leaves, and just generally having fun.
On Sunday after the Buffalo Bills managed to squeak out another (embarrassing) loss, we took off for the pumpkin patch to pick out this year’s pumpkins. We went to the same one as last year so we could take this photo:
… and compare it to last year:
OMG. My baby! (And wow, we had a much nicer day last year. Look at those vibrant colors thanks to the early morning, warm sunlight! This year looks so drab.) As you can see from this year’s photo, she wasn’t nearly as cooperative as last year. That one was the best we could do.
Nora’s favorite part was undoubtedly the animals. There were a couple of goats and a bunch of chickens. We made the mistake of letting her see these before actually heading over to the pumpkins, because once she saw them, she just wanted to stay with them.
We finally carried her over to the pumpkins and she kept saying, “gooooat!” Awesome.
But we managed to convince her that pumpkins were pretty cool, too. At least for a few minutes.
That’s her, trying to lift a pumpkin that’s half her size. I hope she didn’t pull any muscles in her back. ;)
We eventually picked out our four pumpkins, but not without taking two breaks to go back to look at the gooooooats. :)
Carving pumpkins is on next weekend’s agenda… along with a trial costume run to convince Nora that wearing a costumer is the best.thing.ever. (or so we hope).
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
