Long overdue post

Its been a while and I really do miss blogging. I am short on time (explained below) so will use a bulleted list.

• We are struggling with the usual winter weather related illnesses. It seems like Beanie has had a perpetual runny nose for months. Most of the times we are able to handle it without Dr visits, I chalk that to her being older and me being wiser. But last weekend she was coughing a lot so I took her in. Today I am sick too with an awful cold. Luckily, I get every 3rd cold she gets so I am not in as bad a shape as the Winter of 2013 which took the cake!
• I went on a 4 day (gulp!) business trip to the West Coast last week. Its the longest I have been away from Beanie. She did very well with my parents. I told her she needed to be good and help them which she did. I enjoyed two nights away without a kids kicking me in bed, and actually chewing my food, and bathing and drinking wine, which was wonderful. I took a red eye back.
• The food situation is getting better. I am now offering more substantial snack when she come back from school since she is most hungry then.  She does not want "dinner" per se so I disguise dinner in a sort of "tapas" style plate. Today I gave her corn, BBQ chicken which she enjoyed, fruit, and a small bread-type thing.  Other times I give her sweet potato or other veggies along with her 'snack". As such if she does not eat dinner  feel she has eaten more of a meal and less of a snack - as in yogurt, crackers, etc
• Because of her being sick with colds I pretty much get no downtime. She will sleep quickly but as soon as I leave the room, within about 30 min will be up "Mama, mama". This goes on a  few times and finally I just give up and go to sleep too. Hence no time to blog :-(
• I am planning her 3rd (yikes!) birthday party...will write more about it. 
• Last weekend, we went shopping to the G.ap last weekend and I picked up two cute outfits for her . One for the birthday play party and one pretty dress for Easter or Mother's Day. We have been invited to a wedding of the girl who nannied Beanie over summer 2013. Hope to make the road trip for it in summer.
• I have grand plans to do travel with Beanie this year. I think she will enjoy travel, both air and car. Hopefully I don't get lazy!  I plan to buy her headsets to eliminate noise since I am sure she will not like the noise in the plane.
• I am making a few Mom friends. One of them I meet up with every month for lunch. Others I meet during pick/off drop off at school and we are planning play dates.
• My OB/GYN wanted me to do an ultrasound to check on my fibroids. During a routine IVF pre-check in Nov 2010, they found I had multiple fibroids and that I needed surgery.  Not only did I lose a whole year in the surgery/recovery, but it required me to have c-section and have Beanie no later then 38 weeks gestation since they were worried about rupture. Anyways, looks like I still have a bunch some of them since some were too small to remove back in 2011 Feb. One fibroid is bigger (about the size of a cherry tomato?), but my GYN hopes that I will not need to do much and when I hit menopause it will not be an issue. I don't have any symptoms.
• When I was at the GYN office, I ran into M, the midwife who helped me regain my sanity (see post). She hugged me and asked about Beanie and saw her picture. It was great to see her. She was such a guardian angel to us both.

Those are all the updates I can think of.  Life is busy. I feel I am constantly picking up, cleaning, doing laundry and somewhere in between working. I keep reminding myself to slow down and enjoy this time with Beanie. She is growing up so fast!