Hi Everyone,

Just thought I'd pass along some information about my friend's new, online bakery.  All of the cookies at Betsy & Claude Baking Co. are gluten, dairy, nut, soy and egg-free and make a great gift for anyone in your family, but especially those that have allergies or special dietary restrictions. 

The cookies are also vegan, and I know that they are good, since I was the taste tester when my friend was developing the recipes.  Right now, there are four flavors: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, mint chocolate chunk and gingersnap.

As an aside, a portion of the profits go to benefit Autism charities.

Betsy and Claude Baking Co. was featured in Daily Candy in their weekend pics section today and will be on the Rachel Ray show later this month as the snack of the day.

This is the latest question from my four year old. It came this morning as we were rushing off to preschool without a minute to spare. Anyone have an answer for her? I told her I'd get back to her on it as I couldn't think of an easy way to explain how we grew the first person since I'm not certain what I believe myself. I wish she just wanted the birds and bees talk because that would be much easier to explain! So I'm up for suggestions!!

Previous questions have been:

Lyla: "What do firemen do?"

Me: "If there is a fire they come to your house and put out the fire."

Lyla: "What else do they do?"

Me: "Well, they can get a cat out of a tree" ....Yes, I know that was a lame response but I couldn't think of anything else.

Lyla: "What if there was a fire at a fireman's house?"

Me: "Well, I guess they would have to call the fire department"

Lyla: "Why can't they put the fire out themselves?"

Me: "Because they need special equipment to put out the fire and they don't have the special equipment at home."

Lyla: "They should keep the equipment at home."

And the question that followed this was......

Lyla: "How do they build houses?"

Me: "hmm...well, they use bricks and wood and cement to build a house. Since I really have no idea and wanted to distract her said "you know how when you go with Daddy to Home Depot? Well you can buy everything at Home Depot that you need to build a house."

Lyla: "How do they build Home Depot if you need to buy everything at Home Depot?"

Me: "They bought it from another Home Depot."

and you can see where this is going.......

Lyla: "How did they build that Home Depot?"

Me: "I don't know, ask Daddy."

We're trying to plan a trip to Disney at some point during the time frame of March 29 through April 7 of this year. Can anyone recommend some place nice to stay near Disney? We need a suite (preferably with some type of kitchen and a nice pool) so that Lyla will have her own room. I really want it to be pleasant since I'm pregnant and I think we'll be spending a decent amount of time lounging around the hotel. We're looking on the internet and having a really hard time finding any place that stands out as looking particularly nice but it's hard to tell. I looked at the Disney site and it seems that most of the Disney resorts don't have availability. I guess this is our punishment for being indecisive and procrastinating. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!!

Also, does anyone know, if you aren't able to get reservations for any of the special princess activities are there still opportunities to meet the princesses. Lyla will be SO disappointed if she's not able to have some sort of one-on-one interaction with Cinderella but it might be too late to get reservations for dining with the princesses.

Also, in general if you have any recommendations for things that will be good to do with a 3 1/2 year old daughter that would be helpful too. I'm not sure exactly which parks are meant for that age group. We figure we'd want to do some of the parks with rides as well as maybe Sea World, Silver Springs (if it still exists), as well as just relax and have lots of pool time.

Thanks in advance!!!

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking for some easy ideas on items I can bring to a bake sale. I love to bake, but I don't really make the type of things that you'd bring to a bake sale (eg, they're not that pretty and/or not that easy to package). Anyway, I'd love to hear some ideas from some experienced bakers.

Me: Lyla, you're really bossy, did you know that?

Lyla: Yeah, I know, Thanks!

We hope you're having a great day celebrating!!

Love,

Dave, Tracy and Lyla

and Happy Birthday to Aunt Kathy too!!!!

Today at around 12:30 pm I had just put Lyla down for her nap. I was so grateful to have so time to rest since Lyla and I have both been suffering from the flu. Well, I suddenly heard loud music blaring outside my apt (for those who don't know we live on the 2nd floor on Columbus Ave). My first instinct was to run to the window because I was convinced it was some annoying high school kids playing their music and I was going to have to yell at them for waking up my child. Well, when I opened the blinds I first recognized Bono on a trailer being pulled down Columbus Ave. and then realized U2 was putting on some sort of performance. There were cameras behind the trailer and there was some sort of police escort as well. It was pretty cool! Needless to say, I didn't yell at U2 to keep the music down.

I did do a seach and found the following blog.

http://u2log.com/archive/2004/11/u2_to_surprise_nyc.php

So if anyone is in NYC today, you should be on the lookout in case there are other opportunities to see them.

I've been very tired and cranky lately since I haven't been getting much sleep. I decided to cheer myself up and celebrate my whole 7 hours of sleep last night and go for a run on the reservoir in Central Park. It's a beautiful day and I haven't been for a run in awhile. So, I'm running and looking around and thinking, "wow, this really is a beautiful city" when all of the sudden I could no longer run. There were police blockades along the reservoir path as well as the bridle path, which circles the reservoir. As I'm getting off the path to try to find a way to continue my run, a woman whispers in my ear, "it's a woman, I saw them covering her body. they’re investigating the area". So now I'm totally freaked out, but I have to get home. I walked on the outer loop for awhile, but then I had to get back on the reservoir path once it reopened otherwise I would have had to run much further. The whole way home I kept looking over my shoulder. Unfortunately, I can't find anything about it on the internet. For those that don't know, the reservoir is a very popular and safe place to run....normally. So, I guess I should make sure that going forward when I go for a run I always bring my id.

My brother and his family came to town yesterday. They're from St. Louis and it was their first visit to the east coast. They were visiting Rhode Island so I talked them into coming to Manhattan since it's a must see destination for everyone and I wanted them to meet my daughter Lyla.

They're staying in midtown so I decided to take the subway to midtown and meet them so we could all enjoy their first Manhattan experience together. So.....as I see their hotel, I noticed that I saw Kenny's vehicle in front of the hotel. As I approached, I also noticed there was a police car and two policemen circling the car. I immediately picked up my cell phone to call Kenny and make sure he was aware of the situation. Well, then I saw Kenny. Long story short, the hotel had told him he could park his car out front to unload it, but apparantly neglected to tell him that it needed to be attended at all times. The police wrote him a ticket for either $115 or $150 (not sure I understood correctly). Kenny was trying to "reason" with them and explain they were told they were allowed to do this and had just rolled into town. However, they just kept telling him, sorry, we already wrote the ticket, there is nothing we can do about it. At this time, I notice my poor niece crying. She almost made me cry. I asked her what was wrong and she said "I don't want my dad to get arrested". How sad? So Kenny continued to reason with them as did I.

Finally another policeman pulled up and after hearing the story, took care of the ticket and told us the other policemen were new to the job and didn't understand the process entirely.

Nevertheless, we ended up having a fun evening. We walked to Times Square and went into the big Toys R Us....I even rode the Ferris Wheel. Can you believe it? Yesterday I never would have pictured myself on a Ferris Wheel in Toys R Us in Times Square, but I guess I better get used to it now that I have a baby!

I had a conversation at brunch the other day that brought back some very bad memories. I just thought I'd share with everyone if for no other reason, than to just make people think twice before judging or making fun of someone with a physical deformity.

I'm not sure who knows, but the night I brought Lyla home from the hospital, I discovered I had Bells Palsy. I'm not exactly sure when it started because I was so tired at the hospital I wouldn't have noticed anything different. By the time I got home from the hospital on Tuesday I was so tired. I probably had at most 2 to 3 hours of sleep in the last 3 ½ days. My eye wasn't really blinking the way it normally would but I attributed it to exhaustion. That night while eating dinner something seemed weird about the way I was chewing. It came on very quickly. I mentioned it to Dave and we did a smile test. We discovered that my face didn't look right. When I smiled, one half of my face (the left side) wasn't moving as much as the right side. I paged my ob/gyn and started to explain my symptoms. When I mentioned the eye, she said it was probably from exhaustion, however when I brought up the smile, I got an "ohhhh..that sounds like something entirely different" and told me that I most likely had Bells Palsy.

Bell's Palsy is a form of facial paralysis or weakness resulting from inflammation or damage to the 7th (facial) cranial nerve. Needless to say, I was totally freaked out. Of course I started searching all over the Internet and getting more and more paranoid. Here I was with a newborn baby and now I was worried that my face was going to be paralyzed. My doctor told me to come in the office the next day. By the time I went to the office the paralysis was really severe. One side of my face wouldn't move at all and my eye wouldn't blink. He said that it happens sometimes in pregnancy and they don't know why but usually when it happens due to pregnancy it goes away rather quickly. This made me feel somewhat better but I still was freaked out by the chance that it might not go away after reading horror stories on the internet. People get it for many reasons, but nobody is in complete agreement. There are some that think it's caused by a virus or by cold air blowing on the face. For some reason, some get it during pregnancy. They're just not exactly sure why it happens.

I went to a neurologist. He prescribed high doses of prednizone and acyclovir. Acyclovir is an antiviral. Even though mine seemed to be related to pregnancy, it could have been in conjunction with a virus. Since they don't know why it happened they wanted to cover all bases. Apparently, the sooner you treat it, the better your chances are for a full recovery. He told me he couldn't say for sure when/if it would go away, but to come back in a month. Based on what I read on the Internet, I could expect it to go away in two weeks or two years, or possibly never in rare cases.

It was really awful having this condition. I had to wear a band-aid over my eye because it wouldn't blink and eye would dry up and would hurt badly because of air and particles blowing into it from the street. One day Dave and I were outside without a covering and I started freaking out because it hurt so badly. It was also awkward to do things because since I couldn't see out of one eye due to the covering I felt off balance. I also felt like I couldn't express myself or be social because when I smiled or spoke I felt like people were staring at me funny because of the way I looked and I was really embarrassed. The worst was that I had a newborn baby and I wanted to be able to smile at her. They also say you should rest to speed up the recovery which was the last thing I was able to do with a newborn baby.

Anyway, it eventually started going away. I'd say I started to see a little bit of improvement at around two weeks and it improved each day until it was gone completely in 2 months.

It was just a really tough experience for me. I really was concerned that I would look that way for the rest of my life and at the same time felt guilty for being so vain that I cared so much about my looks. I'm also a little nervous about having another baby. Obviously, there are worse things that could happen but in a looks obsessed society it's really hard to live with a physical deformity.They say there is no reason for me to think it will happen to me again, but I don't think I'll try for another child until I've spoken to many specialists. My concern would be that I would get it during the pregnancy and not be able to treat it, which could hinder my recovery.

I just want people to be aware of this condition because it's really hard for people that have it. I know people sometimes see a physical deformity and react strangely to the person because it makes them uncomfortable. It's even more uncomfortable for the person who has the problem. I can't imagine if I had it permanently.

Luckily my husband was really supportive and sweet about it and kept my spirits up. I came home one day from the doctor crying because some child on the subway yelled to his mom "Why does that lady have a patch on her eye?" When I told Dave what happened he said I should have said "I got stabbed in the eye on the subway!" He made me laugh which was the best medicine for me.

I want to share the reasons I love multiply since I’ve bugged my friends and family so much about joining. A lot of them have finally joined which makes me really happy.

I have family and friends all over the country. I grew up in St. Louis, MO, then moved to Washington D.C. for 6 years, then moved to NYC for a few years, then to Ft. Lauderdale, FL for 1 ½ years, and now I’ve been back in NYC for 2 years as of June. During this time of my life I’ve had friends also move to the west coast and various other locations. Needless to say, it’s hard for me to keep up with everyone. I love all of my family and friends and I want to keep in touch with them and really feel like I know them and know what is happening in their lives.

Unfortunately, with everyone being so busy, it’s very hard to keep up relationships and really know what everyone is doing with their lives. If I had never left St. Louis, it would be much easier. I could just have a party and invite all of my friends and family and everyone could mingle and get to know each other, which in turn would allow them to get to know me better. Since I can’t do that, Multiply is the next best thing.

For one, I can post all of my pictures from past vacations and pictures of my daughter for everyone to see. I can also share parts of my life with them by letting them know what kind of books and movies I like, what type of food I enjoy, and what I think about various topics. To be honest, sometimes I can’t remember when I’ve last spoken to individuals and how up to date they are on my life. Most importantly I get to learn more about them. When you don’t talk to people on a regular basis, there is so much you miss from knowing about them. For example, I have a friend that I talk to almost every day and we never run out of things to say, but sometimes when you haven’t spoken to somebody in a year, you don’t even know where to start the conversation.

I feel like with Multiply I have a continuous conversation with my friends and family. I’ve gotten to learn a lot about my friends and family that have joined. It’s such a cool and easy way to get to know people. I love when a friend or family member gets in on a conversation started by another friend or member of my network. How else would I ever know what my cousin thinks of one of the thought provoking questions posted by Joanne or her favorite movie, book, or quote? I would probably never think to ask these questions. I don't get to talk to my family and all of my friends every day so I really don't know what they think about current events and this is a way I can get their opinions easily.

Also, it’s fun getting to know all of the other people in my network that I’ve never met in person. I know I can count on some good jokes, some freaky looking animals to view, interesting points of view on random topics and interesting reviews to help me decide what movies to see, books to read and recipes to try.

There are many other things about the site that I love, but what I've said above is most important to me. I'm sure everyone has their own reasons for enjoying the site. Feel free to share them.