Five on Friday

1.  It MUST be recorded for posterity that when Anna Reaghan had a fever over the weekend and we kept checking her temperature, Asa made one his funniest/sweetest word mix-ups EVER.  We used our temporal artery thermometer, so he saw us swiping it across her forehead several times throughout the afternoon.  When I checked it again at dinner, he announced, "She has a beaver on her forehead," while wiping his fingers across his brow.  Be.Still.My.Heart.  We actually heard him say, "She has a beaver," one or two times and were confused.  When he added the "on her forehead," it all clicked... "She has a fever on her forehead."  Oh, I want to always remember it.  We laughed so much about it over the rest of the weekend (whenever he was sleeping, so as not to embarrass him).  Love love love.

2.  Another funny Asa story for you.   His imagination is just SKYrocketing.  He's playing with his toys in new ways, and he himself is starting to play in new ways.  Yesterday that involved pretending to be lots of different things (fascinating).  It all started while I was making his breakfast.  He crawled into the kitchen saying, "I'm a snake!  I'm a snake!  I'm crawling on the ground.  I'm a snake!"  Then, his next comments CRACKED me up.  The background is:  Asa's only significant knowledge of snakes at this point comes from the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  We have several other nature-filled books with snakes, but he's gravitated toward other animals in them in general.  So after telling me he's a snake crawling around he added, "I'm eating my fruit.  I'm in the garden eating my fruit.  I need my fruit," and crawled off in search of his "fruit."  He is TOO funny.

3.  We stopped by a local health food store to try to get some herbs I've been taking (that helped get my milk up, and I've just been slow to start the process of weaning off of them... I guess that decision was made for me when the manufacturer became behind on production and they're not in stock??  Thankfully, it's just blessed thistle--the "helper" herb, not Fenugreek--the all-important one).  The first time we went, I found a little pack of 2 dairy-free chocolate chip cookies for 79 cents.  I bought it for Asa as a treat.  That store is now known as "the cookie store" according to Asa.  I'm sure if the HEALTH food store employees knew they worked at "the cookie store," they might have a thing or two to say about that. ;)

4.  I tried a new carpet cleaner yesterday (thank you, Pinterest!).  It's called Folex and it had rave reviews, it's cheap, and it's not chemical-y (I have a baby I still feed a couple times in the middle of the night, so I think I get to make up/use words like chemical-y).  I found out I could procure some at KMart (and some other stores, but we don't frequent KMart and somewhere new is always fun), so we headed there after we finished at "the cookie store." ;)  We had a spot that had returned after a steam cleaning, and that was my test for Folex--could it get rid of that spot (again).  Lo and behold, the spot is GONE!  It even almost entirely removed some rust-colored spots in Asa's room (disclaimer: they were there before we moved in)!  I haven't had a chance to see what it does long-term, as I just bought and used it yesterday, but so far it looks like it will be replacing Spot Shot in my "kids are messy...husbands can be too" ;) arsenal of cleaning products.

5.  Anna Reaghan has started pulling at/batting at one ear.  I started to wonder about an ear infection.  Asa has never had one, so it made me feel like SUCH a newbie to wonder about one but not be sure.  I read up about them, and everything I've read says if the baby is pulling on an ear but there is no fever and no recent cold, it's usually either self-discovery or teething discomfort.  We have no other symptoms, and she is napping/laying down fine (praise the Lord!), so we're chalking it up to teething for now (she did bite down a few times yesterday while nursing) and keeping an eye on her.  I hope it's just teething!