Confessions of a Suburban Housewife: Part 2

Today I get a pat on the back. I cleaned my entire house - and not just to everyday cleanliness standards. I cleaned to Martha Stewart standards. How do I know this? I used her cleaning checklist in her Homekeeping Handbook (handbook is a joke - this thing is an encyclopedia). What's the reason for the blatant self-tooting of my own horn (apologies for any unintended dirty undertones to the previous sentence)? This is the first time I actually cleaned the whole house in one consecutive time period to this level of cleanliness since having a baby. So in my suburban housewife world, this is a major feat. Hence, the back-patting.
Tomorrow is apparently phone-call day. I hate days when I have a zillion phone calls to make: pediatrician appointment, phone company, life insurance guy, bank, etc. And phone calls must be made during a nap unless I want to risk having to ask the customer service person to hold on while I have to wrangle a baby who is crying because she's rolled herself into a corner and can't figure out how to escape.
Tomorrow is also grocery shopping day. Also not a favorite chore because of the necessity to speed shop because of having a baby. Eden is pretty good in a cart, but I only have a good 30 minutes of content-baby-time before "Pick me up or I'll wail" starts threatening to happen. And grocery shopping in the commissary on base is a hard place to speed shop because of all the old retirees (I mean, bent-over-with-age, can-only-see-the-label-from-3-inches-away old) who stand in the middle of the lane and won't move even though you know they see you coming.
The silver lining of the grocery store trip is that I get to buy the ingredients to make my birthday cake for Thursday. I'm going to bake either a chocolate mousse tart or a classic chocolate layer cake. I can't decide. Maybe both?...
And finally, some photos of Eden:


Since Eden has discovered how to (sort of) roll where she wants to and reach for toys, she decided that Ruby's rear would be a great toy! Luckily Ruby did not mind the tail fondling or munching.


I painted our bedroom this past weekend. It was interesting trying to accomplish that with Eden. Finally I gave in and let her "help" me along with Ruby.


When I didn't let her "help" me anymore, she pitched a fit in her chair until she passed out (complete with toys burying most of her face). If you look close you can see a loan tear near her eye.

And now for Halloween photos:

At first she was a great pumpkin model.


Then she was not.


And the next night (on actual Halloween - the previous two I took the night before on trick-or-treating night) she was perfect. Perfectly cute! (This is why adults spend money on costumes that their children only wear for five minutes in the living room.)