Ch-ch-ch-changes

This is going to come as a shock to you, but I recently made a big switch-up in my life: I learned that eMeals now has a Paula Deen menu and switched from 30-Minute meals to that for a while. I know, I know: How are we going to make that work with James's gout? I'm not sure we can! So maybe I'll just save a few weeks' worth of menus while using these vegetarian meal plans I found and that we are using this week. Note that if you choose to do it, you can start at the bottom, like I did, so it will be seasonally appropriate. Also that there is a shopping list at the end of the menu; I realized that after I'd hand-written my shopping list like a Neanderthal.

Okay, so that's not the only thing. Though I'm a little offended by your lack of enthusiasm.

Also, the Lakeline Disney Store closed Monday, so I'm not sure what we're going to do when Mal wants to spend hours browsing toys now (and, yes, I realize that's probably why they closed). I wish this area had a cool local toy store, but I haven't found any closer than a 30-minute drive.

Waiting for the store to open the last day; watching the animated window for the last time.

A serendipitous thing happened this weekend, too: a woman in a local homeschool group posted that their church needed childcare help for MOPS. They're too far away, but I thought that'd be perfect for Mal and me: a place to go with new toys, friends to play with, and I would actually pull in a couple of bucks in the meantime. I found the closest church with a MOPS program and it turns out that they actually have something at the same time every week (instead of every other week) and they were pretty desperate for people, so we started this week!

Where James used to work, the employees could purchase company stock at a slightly-discounted price. They'd withhold from each check, saving it up for 6 months, then buy the stock. Even if we sold it immediately (we didn't), we'd have been ahead because of the discount. Two things: That has saved our family butt, as it were, during this season of unemployment. But also... James didn't receive the money that had been collected from the couple of months before he stopped working for this company, so we were waiting for the stocks to show up at the end of the year. They didn't. James ended up having to contact them, and they're cutting him a check. This seems shady to me. They're legally obligated to return all monies owed to employees in 48 hours, and no one should have to follow up to make sure they got ALL of it. Oh well. It'll be nice to have a little cash infusion in a couple of weeks.

James has received a job offer, and should start work toward the end of the month. So yay! Mal will be terribly disappointed that his dad isn't here during the day, though. Maybe the weather will warm up so they can have a special day together. I say this because I think it'd be cool for them to spend a lot of time bonding, not because I want a day to myself. No. That's not it at all.

Speaking of that, though... The night before last, I'm pretty sure Mal slept through until 6 AM before asking for "deedees." And last night, he sat straight up in bed, crying and whining, and let me lie him back down and cover him up without nursing. Baby steps, I guess.

Mal has been watching portions of Star Wars for months now. He usually only watches certain parts of certain movies, so I have those parts memorized, then really don't remember much about the rest. For instance, his favorite scene in "A New Hope" is where the Sand Person (Tusken Raider) attacks Luke. He'll literally back that up and watch it 15 times in a row. But he'll watch that movie until just after the scene at the Cantina, then he's about done. I think he's only seen the Death Star blow up once, because we made it a point to fast forward it to that little chunk for him to watch.

With "Empire Strikes Back," he'll watch more of it, but his favorite is Hoth. He's watched the Hoth segments of the movie repeatedly, mostly when Luke escapes the Wampa and when they take down the AT-ATs. When we play these scenes out, he gets frustrated that we don't know the exact words. He also thinks "Seagulls" is canon, because, you know, he's 3.

For "Return of the Jedi," he watches until the gang escapes Jabba the Hutt, then he's sort of done. He likes where Wicket meets Leia, and because he has an Endor Micro Machines set, really wants to see the logs take down the AT-STs. That's about it.

And he's watched the opening scene of "Phantom Menace" several times, losing interest after the arrival at Thede. Then he has kind of played around with the other two prequels, but he doesn't know anyone but Amadala and Jar Jar, so he doesn't really care.

Actually, Mal wants to play AT-AT take-down right now, so I must go rope him until he falls. Isn't being a mother fun?