Dear Diary,

I'm sure the thought has crossed my mind that a blog is like a diary, but I haven't approached our blog that way before today. From time to time since about fifth grade, I've journaled like crazy, mostly writing prayers to God about what was good, offfering praise, or bad, asking for help.  Lately I haven't been in this habit but I'd like to get back to it.  Today though, I'm absolutely using our blog as an outlet...to write things down so I don't hold 'em in.  Now you probably think I'm going to get all serious and sappy. Nope, I just want to complain for a minute.

Ries was up most of last night with diarrhea. And Louisa went to bed at a reasonable hour, but then insisted on being up (with Nate, thankfully) from 12 to 1 o'clock in the morning.  She partially-redeemed herself by sleeping until nine this morning.  Around 10 am, we went to run some errands, leaving the diarrhea-dog at home.  When we came home, Ries had thrown up on the carpet.  At this point, Louisa asks for food, so I sit her in her chair and give her some crackers.  She eats one, then gives one to Ries. "NO," I say, "food is for Lou, not for Ries," and I go clean up the vomit.  I hear giggling in the kitchen, and go back in to see Lou purposefully throwing goldfish crackers on either side of her chair, down to Ries. What really got me is that the vomit I was cleaning up was yellow/orange.  In a split second, no doubt carried away by fatigue and nausea, I decided to give Louisa her first timeout.  I plucked her from her chair and carried her into her bedroom, laying her down in her crib.  Yes, she cried this time.  I calmly closed the door and proceeded to vacuum to drown out the sobbing.  Sorry Louisa, you might be too young for a timeout, but I reached my limit.

Thankfully she is now happily playing by herself with her toys that were somewhat hidden behind the red couch I was trying to sell on Craigslist for the past two weeks.  It's like Christmas now that the couch is gone!  With all this free time, I may just read about how early timeouts are effective.