Britt's first-ever romp in the sprinkler

sprinkler8
Originally uploaded by littlesisblog.

It was 98 degrees today. In April!

I couldn't find her little blow-up swimming pool from last summer, so I hooked up the sprinkler instead. And OMG! The water was COLD!

She loved it, though. She had a great time, running and squealing for a good twenty minutes until she started looking a little pink and I made her come inside.

(Note to self: Buy sunblock ASAP.)

Britt's first Easter egg hunt

easter12
Originally uploaded by littlesisblog.

She didn't really understand the concept, but she did manage to snag four plastic eggs, containing a grand total of 41 cents and four mini Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

And she looked very pretty in her new Easter dress.

Easter greetings

(cribbed from Mother May I)

So I dyed a dozen and a half more eggs and shouldn't have. They turned out crappy. Now I'm cranky.

Anyway, have a happy one.

Gettin' eggy with it

Hey, look at me -- gettin' all crafty and shit!

Today I colored Easter eggs with some homemade brew:



Aren't they pretty? Well, with more practice they would've looked better, but I only had eight eggs. One broke during the coloring process, so I ate it. I used a white crayon to make the designs, which came out a little rickety because Britt was nipping at my heels the whole time.

I got the idea from a recipe for tsoureki, a Greek Easter bread with colored eggs on top. The bread didn't interest me but the eggs did because the color was way more intense than what you get with those stupid PAAS kits.

Now I want more eggs!

She's getting so big

Big enough to climb up onto the upper terrace of the backyard, which keeps me hopping when we're out there because I'm afraid she'll fall off and impale herself on a rosebush.

She was mad at me here because I wouldn't let her stand up on the chair...



but then she got happy again.



Heh, that chin.

Party's over

I got birthday greetings from everybody but Bob. My son has forgotten me.

Britt and I were playing in the backyard when Mikey came home, so I went inside and started looking around.

Puppy? Puppy? Oh, puppeeeeee...?

I looked at Mikey.

Hey, where's my puppy?

Oh, did you want a puppy?

(**sigh**)

When I saw the candles on my cake, a 4 and a 3, I started giggling. After he sang the Happy Birthday song, he asked what I was laughing at.

What year was I born?

1963?

(**snort**)

He dropped his head.

I got it wrong again, didn't I?

Yeah, like every year for the past twelve years.

Well, at least you always guess younger instead of older.

After Britt went to bed we were out in the garage smoking.

So you're gonna leave it to me to pick out a dog?

Yeah, pretty much.

So do I have to go and get it too, or just decide which one?

No, I'll go and get it for you.

Anyway, we split a bottle of Riesling and he passed out and now I'm working on the stash of Coronas that Phil left last time he was here.

It was a pretty good birthday, actually. Nice dinner, nice presents, a little freaky-sneaky, and now I'm getting a litte tripsy, er, tipsy.

Heh, tripsy -- I wish.

Yeah, so, it's my birthday

I plan on having a quiet day, at least until Mikey gets home. He's bein' all mysterious and shit, so I dunno what he's up to. I hope it includes alcoholic beverages and a puppy.

Mom had Phil send me this picture of me when I was about the age Britt is now:



I still had the same haircut in my kindergarten picture. I think it was Mom's revenge for all the stitches she needed after I was born.

Oops, she did it again

I sure am glad we dismantled Britt's bed, or else she'd be one banged-up baby by now:



We keep pillows lined up around the edge of the bed, and she still manages to roll off onto the floor.

Oh, well. I guess if she's not falling far enough to wake up, she's not falling far enough to get hurt.

Mmmm, pudding

Britt enjoyed an afternoon snack today:



Pudding! And cake!

After she was done, I wiped her down and cleaned up the mess and did a few chores and then I was in the kitchen fixin' dinner when she came running in with a delighted grin, holding up two chocolate-colored hands at me.

Sis, where'd you find that pudding? I thought I cleaned it...

(**sniff**)

Oh, my God! That's not pudding...!

Six months and one day

That's how long it's been since Sarah's seen Brittany. That's one-third of Britt's life.

Sarah's parents had one short visit with Britt in January, and we haven't heard from them since; the last time they saw her before that was in September.

Bob hasn't even called in a few weeks, and hasn't been down to see her in over a month.

Seems like everybody but us has lost interest in this child, doesn't it?

Bloody hell

We'd finished eating dinner, I'd mixed up a cake and popped it into the oven, and I was sitting in the garage reading a book and enjoying a long-anticipated smoke when I heard the scream.

I jumped up and ran to the door, where I was met by Mikey, who was holding Britt, who was wailing hysterically and vomiting all over both of them, which wasn't that alarming in itself -- she always vomits when she cries hard. No, it was the blood. Lots and lots of it, all over both of them. Pouring out of her nose and mouth, all over the front of her clothes and his.

Britt likes to bang on pot lids with a wooden spoon, which is fine as long as somebody's watching her to make sure she doesn't jump up and run around with the spoon in her mouth. But jump and run she did, and Mikey didn't catch her in time and she fell on the spoon. He couldn't tell if it got her in the nose or in the mouth because her back was to him and she was bleeding from both places. Anyway, no more wooden spoons for Britt, ever.

We spent the first five minutes flipping smooth out and trying to figure out what happened. Within ten minutes we had everybody's bloody clothes stripped off and had wiped Britt down and saw that the bleeding had stopped. Within fifteen minutes she was sitting on Mikey's lap contentedly munching on her favorite treat -- crushed ice (she calls it "dice"), which I figured was ideal since cold constricts blood vessels. Within thirty minutes she was running around, laughing, playing and dancing.

We went back and forth over whether or not to take her to the emergency room, but the bleeding stopped pretty quickly and she calmed down before we did and I'd already put the bloody clothes in the washer and you know if you have to go to the emergency room and don't want to sit there and wait for six hours to be seen it's best to show up covered in blood, so we finally decided not to go.

I gently wiggled her nose to see if it was broken but it didn't hurt her. She wouldn't let us look in her mouth, though, so when she went to sleep a couple of hours later we examined her as best we could. Couldn't see any damage up her little nose and all her teeth were intact, so we used the handle of a baby spoon as a tongue depressor and couldn't see any damage to the roof of her mouth. Couldn't see the back of her throat, though, and that's most likely where the problem was.

I stayed up until 4:00 this morning keeping watch over her, making sure she was still breathing and there was no more bleeding. But she was and there wasn't, and today it's as if nothing happened. No bleeding, no bruises, nothing swollen. She ate grits for breakfast and macaroni and cheese and cake (she calls it "caack") for lunch, took her regular nap and now she's awake so I have to wrap this up quick.

Oh, God, there was so much blood.

(**shudder**)

I'm surprised I didn't wake up white-headed this morning.

AWOL again

Last night I peeked in at Britt before I went to bed, like I always do, and guess what? She wasn't there. Her bed was empty.

She doesn't sleep in her crib anymore; she sleeps on the guest bed in her room, which we took down to just the mattress on the floor so she wouldn't fall off and get hurt.

Anyway, I peeked in and she wasn't there and panic started to rise because she couldn't be anywhere else. I stepped over the safety gate and started searching and it wasn't until I got past the rocking chair that I saw her -- curled up on the floor, sound asleep, about two feet away from the bed. I guess she rolled off and didn't wake up, because I'd been in the next room since I put her to bed and I never heard a thing.

So it wasn't nearly as bad as last time, but I wish she'd quit disappearing on me like that because it's plumb wearin' out my nerves.

Britt math

A warm spring day...



plus a new dress...



plus a matching hat...



equals one happy girl!

Doggy dilemma

I just want a dog, dammit! I never thought finding one would be so hard.

My only requirement is that it be small -- no more than 25 pounds adult size -- and Mikey's requirement is that it be a puppy. I'm open to a dog that's a little older, though, and already housebroken.

I checked local breed rescue sites and the local sanctuaries and shelters online. The dogs at the sanctuaries are all medium to large -- even the puppies will grow bigger than what we're looking for, and most of the places I looked at don't want to place dogs in homes with toddlers.

(***sigh***)

Mikey has three customers who breed dogs -- one sells Yorkies (too small), one sells pugs (not really appealing to me) and one sells King Charles spaniels -- so I looked up info about these breeds online and learned all about puppy mills and genetic health issues.

So now I'm scared to even look at ads in the classifieds. And no way will I buy a dog from a pet store.

So now what do I do? I just want a dog, dammit!

254 bucks

That's how much it cost to fix our 5-year-old fridge after the defrost heater went out. Now I have to throw out all the food in it. Gaaah!

In other everything's-falling-apart-around-here news, Mikey's been helping Chris install our new heat & air system. They had to run all new ductwork through the attic because the ductwork under the concrete slab foundation is corroded and full of sand and water.

Mikey only fell through the ceiling once:



I suppose I should be happy that it happened in the garage and not in the living room.

Don't tell him I told you; he would not be amused.

Well, that sucked

Took Britt to the Shrine Circus tonight.

She was less than enthralled. She wiggled and flopped and squirmed the whole time because she wanted to run around and play. She kept trying to grab the kid next to me, and she laid her head on the head of the kid in front of us, who jumped like he got a hot poker shoved up his ass and then shot us a fierce look. Hell, she was just trying to give him some love! Also, she threw her binky God-knows-where -- we never found it.

The circus itself was pretty cheesy. Everything looked faded and worn. The trapeze guy missed the triple somersault and fell into the net. The Wheel of Destiny guy almost fell off at least twice. Some of the cats in the cat act did not cooperate at all. There was a hula hoop girl and way too many juggling acts. Maybe they saved the good stuff for after intermission, but we wouldn't know because that's when we left.

Am I just too old for the circus to be a magical experience anymore, or should we have held out for the Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey version?

Oh, Kitty

It's been a year since we lost our beloved Kitty.



After he died, I found that if I wadded up the top sheet from our bed and wrapped my arms around it, it almost felt like I was holding him. It took me a month or two to quit doing that. Or three, maybe -- I can't remember.

I walked over to his grave when we went to Grandma Sarah's for Thanksgiving and started bawling like a baby, which embarrassed the shit out of me so I had to meander around outside for a little bit before I could go back in the house.

We've been asked several times if we plan to get another cat, but Mikey and I both feel the same way about it -- it wasn't cats that we loved, it was this cat that we loved, and he's irreplaceable. So no more cats for us.

I think we're fixin' to get a dog, though.

Scared spitless

Britt woke up crying hysterically at 2:00 this morning; we brought her to our room and it took over an hour to get her calmed down and back to sleep. Must've been a bad dream or something -- I dunno.

Then Mikey woke me up at 7:00 asking where Britt was.

What do you mean, where is she?

I can't find her anywhere!

We keep the safety gate across her bedroom doorway at night so she can't get up and roam; she can only stand at the gate and holler at us. But there was no gate across our bedroom door so she could've been anywhere in the house. So we ran frantically back and forth, looking in every room, under tables, inside the cabinet she likes to climb into. She was nowhere to be found.

It never occurred to me that somebody might've broken in and taken her. No, during those terror-stricken minutes the thoughts flashing through my mind were that she had gotten stuck somewhere and suffocated, or she did something with an electrical cord and was electrocuted, or she fell head-first into the toilet and drowned, or she pulled something over on herself and was crushed. And whatever it was would be all my fault because I didn't put the damned gate up.

Just as I drew breath to start screaming her name, I saw her. She was curled up on the floor by the back door, sound asleep.

Gaaaah!

Not my favorite way to start the day. Definitely. Not.

*****
Anyway, here's our girl later this morning, all safe and sound and reading a book:



Did you notice her cute jammies? It's hard to tell from the picture, but they're covered with words like moon, dreams, starligl, twinkle, wishes...

Whoa, back up -- "starligl"?

Ha! You thought you caught me in a typo, didn't you? Nope, this one ain't my fault:



Blooper jammies.

You know what's annoying?

When you unwrap four rolls of Smarties and try to sort them by color because you can only eat one color at a time and the damned colors are so pale that you can't tell the pink from the orange and the yellow from the white.

Gah! I hate that.

Misc. news

If you've been in our main bathroom lately, you might've noticed the pair of vice grips serving as the hot water knob in the bathtub. We've been meaning to fix that, along with the flourescent light fixture that doesn't feel like working sometimes (but only at night -- go figure), and then there's that lovely new cherry vanity and mirror that's been sitting in our garage for two or three or four years that's still waiting to be installed...

Anyway, the cold water knob in the bathtub finally gave way tonight. This is a problem, because we can't use the shower in the master bath because the shower pan leaks (we've been meaning to fix that, too, but we blew our home improvement fund on Bob's divorce). The vice grips were rusted onto the hot water knob, so Mikey dug up a pair of RoboGrips so I could give Britt a bath. The situation is getting dire.

BTW, Sherri, tell Chris to start thinking about getting busy on our new heat & air system, because our AC's deader'n a doornail and it's been frickin' hot over here.

I just checked to see if there are any registered sex offenders nearby. Our immediate neighborhood is clean, but there's a child pornographer in the little apartment complex across MacArthur that we tried to get Bob to move into when we thought Britt would be living with him. Also got a list of offenders in order of distance from my house; of the closest five, two are women -- one convicted of second-degree rape. Dang!

Speaking of Bob, he called the other night to tell me that he was taken to the emergency room last weekend because he couldn't breathe. The ER doctor diagnosed him with asthma and gave him some inhalers, but we both think that's crap because he's never any kind of breathing trouble. He's still having problems and plans to see another doctor to get a second opinion. We're afraid it might be welder's lung (see also here).

We've been trying to decide on an activity to put Brittany into -- Mat Tots, Kindermusik, or Gymboree -- so we'll have an excuse to get out of the house at least once a week. We gave up on baby playtime at the library because Britt wasn't doing much but hanging onto my legs and it wasn't very educational anyway, plus we don't like to get up that early. I think we're leaning toward Gymboree.

Anyway, here's a funny for ya, from Avert Your Eyes.

A year of Little Sis

I missed my blogiversary -- it was February 23.

Brittany turns 18 months old this week, and I wish I would've started this blog when she was first born. She mostly just slept and ate and pooped during those first few months, though, so there wasn't really that much to report.

She was three days old here and just over four and a half pounds of pure joy, and I was a brand-new grandma:



She's still my heart's delight:

Over the hump

Over the past few months, I blew up. I got fat. It happened so fast that my body feels alien to me, and I hardly recognize myself in the mirror.

None of my clothes fit anymore. Everything I own is either size 6 or size 8, and impossible to wear. I broke down and bought a pair of size 10 jeans just before Christmas and they were a little tight, but it hurt bad enough to hit double digits and I was damned if I was going to jump up to a size 12.

Now I have to lay across the bed to get my size 10s zipped up.

(Yeah, I hear you, Sherri, playing your violin for me.)

Anyway, I've been noticing something this past week while rocking Britt to sleep -- a big lump of fat at the back of my neck that made it hard to lean my head back against the chair.

OMG, I thought, am I getting a dowager's hump? What the hell's going on? I'm only 43, for Pete's sake! Why is my body betraying me like this?

Well, tonight it finally occurred to me to poke around on the lump, to see what the damage was. So I did.

Turns out the hump wasn't a lump of fat after all. It was just the scrunchie in my hair.

And it only took me three or four days to figure it out.

Scatterbrained much? Who, me?

Bob is divorced

He came in about 6:30 last night because he had a court date this morning. He thought it was just to settle division of property, but the judge went ahead and granted the divorce.

Sarah didn't bother to show up. She hasn't seen Brittany since October 5.

Family news

Jenny had her baby at 1:00 this morning; her name is Taryn Avery and she weighed over 7 pounds.

Aunt Faye, Daddy's twin sister, died in her sleep last night. She was the last of their generation still living, so they're all gone now.

Here's a picture of their parents -- my grandparents -- in 1909, when they were first starting their family (the baby is Aunt Pollie, Daddy's oldest sister -- Daddy and Faye weren't born until 1926):

Baby update

Lesley's baby had breathing issues and jaundice, but was finally released from the hospital last Thursday, eight days after he was born. Stay tuned to Sherri's blog for updates.

Jenny will be having her baby on Thursday via induced labor, if it doesn't shake loose before then.

Britt's learning how to feed herself with a spoon and bowl. You can see how well that's going:



She's put together her first sentence, saying "I stuck!" every time her movement is even slightly impeded.

She can count to one, holding up one pudgy little forefinger.

I've been trying to get her wild forelock under control, trimming it four or five times already. Now I'm trying to keep it in a cute little topknot, but she always yanks it right out. This one lasted a few minutes longer than usual:

Britt was playing

with her shape sorter today when she held up a round block and said, "Tircle!" Later, I held up the round block and asked, "What is this?" She said, "Tircle!"

It surprised me that she's able to make the connection between the shape of that block and the circles I've been drawing for her.

Smart girl!

Bob called last night

and struck fear into my heart. He mentioned taking Brittany back, for the first time in a long time.

I'd almost convinced myself she was ours, for keeps.

This wasn't the plan, you know. We took custody of Britt because Sarah's parents were threatening to, because Bob no longer had a home or a steady job after all the chaos their daughter caused. The plan was that he'd get his own apartment near us and get settled in a good job and then he'd take her home with him, which would be perfectly fine because I'd still get to take care of her every day.

Then he had to go and move himself 150 miles away, which changed everything. If he moved her up there, she'd be yanked away from everything that is familiar to her, and how would she handle that? A different home, different people, no grammy and no grampa?

I'm not questioning Bob's parenting abilities; he was the one who took care of her when she wasn't with me (because her meth ho mama couldn't be bothered), and he did a fine job. But he can't be with her 24 hours a day like I can and she'd be left with strangers while he works, who couldn't possibly love her and care for her as tenderly as I do.

He can't take her out of the state until six months after his divorce is final and it isn't yet. There's a court date on that next month, so I have at least until September with her. We'll be able to celebrate her second birthday here, before he can take her away.

Oh, God.

Come home, Bob. Please, just come back home.

The plot thickens

I am now the proud owner of four burial plots at Hogan Cemetery. In the old section, not the new one across the road.

When I go, I want to go home. Where my roots are. Where my dad, both sets of grandparents and one set of great-grandparents are. And lots of aunts and uncles and a few cousins.

Mikey doesn't have a family cemetery. There's one grandpa buried in Chicago and one grandma buried in Alabama. I don't have a clue where he'd try to plant me if I kicked off any time soon, but I don't want it to be here. I followed Mikey in life; he can follow me in death, can't he? I mean, fair's fair. Right?

Of course, I haven't discussed any of this with him.

So Mom's been busy getting my plots for me and she called the other night to tell us the deed was done. Mikey answered the phone and chatted with her awhile, like he always does. Then I heard him say, "No, she hasn't said anything about it to me."

(***wince***)

Busted!

We still haven't discussed it. I'm kind of waiting for him to ask, and kind of hoping he doesn't. I feel so awkward about it now.

Little Sis is 17 months old

She learned how to climb up on the couch a few weeks before she learned how to climb down. I'd walk into the room and find her standing on it, grinning from ear to ear. I was terrified she might take a header off it and break her little neck.

We draw together on her Doodle Pro -- she doodles, I draw shapes. She can say "tircle" and "trango."

When asked, she can correctly point to pictures of a ball, a horse, shoes, a bird.

When she sees food, even if it's a only a picture in a book or on TV, she goes "Nyum! Nyum! Nyum!"

She likes to play This Little Piggy, and to rub noses.

When she says "nyah" and shakes her head no, it means "yes." When she means "no," she says "nonononono" and waves her hands back and forth. We've been trying to teach her how to nod her head up and down when she means "yes," but she seems pretty satisfied doing it her own way.

She likes to hang out on the bench out back...



...watching the birds go by:

Brandon Martin has arrived

Born at 4:42 this morning (Pacific Time), he weighed 5 pounds, 6 ounces. Mother and baby are doing fine, as far as I know.

I noticed Sherri's been calling him Beamer on her blog, but I didn't really give it much thought. It finally hit me as I climbed into bed last night -- his initials are BMW. Okay, duh, I get it. Perhaps this was discussed when Lesley was here visiting last month, but I was busy keeping Britt corralled in Sherri's non-baby-proofed house so I didn't get to hear much of anything. Except when Lesley introduced me to James as "the cool aunt."

BTW, Sher, I still don't have Lesley's address so's I can ship all this baby stuff to her. Holler at me when you get it.

What I learned today

A fresh episode of Jack's Big Music Show premieres Monday. You have no idea how happy this makes me.

Do not order the Zen Chicken Potstickers or the Shanghai Chicken Salad at TGI Friday's.

That is all.

A throne of her own

I wanted to find Britt a pink princess potty chair, but I settled for this one. It's still a throne, sort of, and it plays a royal fanfare when she makes a "deposit." Not that she has yet, but she loves it. Plus, it was only 20 bucks.

Oh, great -- now I'm reading the reviews and they mostly say this potty chair sucks.

And now, a couple of potty-training stories to embarrass my children:

Bob had a wood-frame potty chair that he kept tumped over on its back; using the feet for handles, he pushed it all around the house for months. It was his "tractor," just like his Grampa's Gravely. He was horrified that we wanted him to potty in it, so we finally had to buy him a new one.

Bridgie potty-trained herself at eighteen months -- I didn't have to do a thing (yay, Bridgie!). She learned by watching her brother and me. Mostly her brother, I guess, because when she first started trying she would stand there and fumble around for her wee-wee, not quite understanding that she wasn't equipped like her brother and therefore she could not pee standing up.

The winter that wasn't?

Hard to believe it's still warm enough to play outside nearly every day. Sometimes even without a jacket:



It's still chilly in the morning, though:



Not that I'm bitchin' about nice weather, but there's already fresh growth on my roses and clematis vines and there are morning glories sprouting already, so if we get a hard freeze now it might really screw things up.

I haven't kept track of who or where, but I've noticed a lot of other bloggers commenting on higher than normal temps in their areas, too. It just makes me wonder what's up.

Cleaned out the miscellaneous cabinet

in the kitchen. It's where I keep the juicer and the blender and big Christmas platters and jello molds and assorted other odds and ends that I hardly ever (or never) use. I thought I might find my old Tupperware rolling-out-dough mat in there, but I didn't. I did, however, find a rolling pin, nearly identical to the one I just bought.

(**sigh**)

Britt pooped in the bathtub

the other night. She'd done it once before, a long time ago, but it was more solid and easier to deal with that time. This time the bath water instantly turned into poop soup.

It was everywhere -- all over her legs, her safety seat and her bath toys, and then she stuck her hands in it and was trying to touch her face. Way too much to cope with alone so I had to holler for backup. Mikey came and held her up while I hosed her off with the hand-held shower thingy. She was flailin' and a-wailin', and so was I.

I am not the person you want to have on hand in a poop emergency. I can handle poop in a diaper, because it's (usually) neatly contained and I can make it go away quickly. But when it's scattered all over tarnation and covering the baby from head to toe and I have to disinfect everything in sight, I tend to lose my shit (no pun intended).

Holy cow

It's Mikey's birthday, so we went over to his folks' house to celebrate. They had Italian beef sandwiches shipped in from Portillo's in Chicago.

I made it almost two years without eating any non-organic beef, due to madcowaphobia, but in the last month I've had it four times. Man, the things we do for family.

Of course I ate the beef. In fact, I had two. They were pretty darn good. I prayed first, though, trying to remember what Romans 14 said, and whether or not it applied to this situation. I had look it up when we got home:

If your brother (or mother-in-law) is distressed because of what you eat (or do not eat), you are no longer acting in love...

Same thing over at Chris & Sherri's. How could I not eat Cathy's lasagna?

If your brother (or sister) is distressed because of what you eat (or do not eat), you are no longer acting in love...

And Chris's damn-near-midnight steaks:

If your brother (or nephew-in-law) is distressed because of what you eat (or do not eat), you are no longer acting in love...

Those were the second, third and fourth times. The first time was at my mother-in-law's birthday party right after Christmas -- I was so freaked out that the party wasn't a family-only affair that I ate a meatball and a half before I realized what I was doing.

Anyway, please don't invite me over for dinner for a while, unless you're serving chicken.

Been trying to

get interested in cooking again, but it's not working. Didn't think it would, but I did find two or three new recipes to add to my repertoire so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Finished reading through all my cookbooks, and the one I found the most useless was The Cook's Encyclopedia of Four Ingredient Cooking. Sounded like a winner when I bought it, but a more apt title might be The Cook's Encyclopedia of Ingredients You'll Never Find in This Town. Dude, I live in Oklahoma! Where the hell am I going to find Halloumi cheese? Or strained sheep's yogurt? Oh, and it included this bit of helpful advice:

Mealy varieties of potato, such as Pentland Squire, King Edward, or Marfona are best for mashing as they produce a light fluffy result. Waxy potatoes are more suitable for baking, or for salads, as they produce a dense, rather starchy mash.

Uh, right. Around here, we get to choose from the five-pound bag, the ten-pound bag, or baking potatoes by the pound. That's pretty much it.

Finally went and spent my Bed, Bath & Beyond gift card that Bridgie gave me for Christmas a year ago (thank you, Bridgie!). Got a new shower curtain and liner (that drafty old green thing is gone so Mom, Phil and Jamie, you can come back now and shower in comfort), a double boiler (never had a one before and always thought I ought to), and a new rolling pin.

I've never in my life been able to roll out dough without it wrapping itself terminally around the rolling pin, causing me to throw the whole mess across the room, so I don't really know what I'm going to do with the damned thing. Maybe I'll bake a pie or something.

If I do, no one will be more surprised than me.

Communication breakdown

Been trying to get Sissy to speak English. She won't, much.

For instance, I keep trying to get her to tell me what she wants instead of pointing at it and going "uh, uh, uh." I say, "You want some cheese? Can you say cheese?" and she keeps pointing and going "uh, uh, uh." She has said "chaze" once or twice. Well, once.

Anyway, we're still working on it.

When I was giving Sis her bath this evening, her towel slid off the counter and onto the floor, contaminating it so that I had to run across the hall to the linen closet to grab a fresh one, and I hate to leave Sis alone in the tub for even a second. So I said, "Shit."

Sis grinned up at me and said, clear as a bell, "Shit!"

Shit.

Ice Princess

Britt's new favorite snack is crushed ice. Hey, it works for me -- she can spill it all over herself or the carpet and it'll just evaporate. No messy cleanup! No stains! Woo-hoo!



She carries it around in this little bowl; I keep refilling it until her little fingers turn pink and then we give it a rest. She'll also sit in her high chair happily munching away on ice while I'm cooking, which is fan-freakin'-tastic because otherwise she's wrapped around my legs like Velcro.

Britt held her first gallery showing of original art today. This one is called "Orange Crayon on Dishwasher":



Her other major work on display today was "Orange Crayon on Kitchen Floor." Her Grampa and I are so proud.

Went and bought myself

an 8x8 Pyrex baking dish, because I haven't had one in a long time and when Mikey does the grocery shopping for me he always comes home with the brownie mix that you have to bake in an 8x8 baking dish.

I decided to make brownies from scratch to inaugurate my new 8x8 baking dish, so I searched my cookbooks, found a likely recipe, whipped it up and waited eagerly for the finished result, and was crushed to find that the first brownies ever baked in my new 8x8 baking dish tasted more or less like dryer lint with nuts in it.

Speaking of brownies, I made some one night (from a mix, so they were good) and Mikey sneaked one to Brittany, her first ever. When we went outside the next day, Britt marched straight over to one of my flowerbeds and popped a dirt clod into her mouth. She spit it right out again, but up to this point she'd always been pretty good about not eating dirt, so I could only surmise that for a few glorious moments she had imagined that the ground under her feet was made of brownies, and that she could pick some up and eat it whenever she wanted. What a letdown that must've been!

I'm trying to get interested

in cooking again. I used to have a rep as a pretty good cook but after doing it most days for more than 25 years it's more of a chore than a pleasure. My heart hasn't been in it for a long time and even I don't want to eat my cooking anymore.

So I've been reading through my cookbook collection while sitting out in the Smoke Hole (a.k.a. the garage), trying to get inspired. My big hardback Southern Living cookbooks are the most interesting, full of all kinds of stuff I'd like to eat -- if somebody else did the cooking. There's lots of handy tricks and tips sprinkled throughout their pages, and one of them was a reminder that baking powder and baking soda don't keep forever, so I dutifully went and checked my containers for expiration dates. The baking soda wasn't so bad -- it expired in 2004. My baking powder, however, expired in 1999.

And there was a reminder that herbs and spices don't keep forever, either, but they're not usually marked with expiration dates. My little can of allspice was one of the few that was marked -- it expired in 1987.

Can you tell I haven't done much baking lately?

The recipes tempting me the most right now are the ones for slushy, fruity, rummy beverages. And I don't even drink, aside from champagne at New Year's and a very occasional bottle of wine. Haven't touched liquor in years, but now I'm getting an itch to whomp up a blenderful of Red Roosters or maybe some Lady Birds. Might go on a wee bender sometime soon -- you never know.

Britt experiences snow

up close and personal for the very first time ever:



Shortly after this picture was taken, Britt experienced a mud puddle up close and personal for the very first time ever. Didn't get a picture of that, though -- I had to get busy cleaning her off.

Little Big Sis

Sixteen months old and wearing "high heels" already:



She has a mouthful of teeth (eleven at last count) but the novelty's worn off the tooth-brushing thing and she's so over it. I do my best to do it anyway, but it's not fun.

She's learned how to "gimme five" and "high five."

She can almost say "butterfly" (buh-by) and "paper" (peh-pa).

She discovered her nose during her recent bout with a cold, and now she usually has a finger in it. Caught her trying to shove green beans up into it, too.

Meanwhile, her education in the classics continues -- tonight she danced to Grampa's Stevie Ray Vaughan DVD.

I'm not taking my Christmas shit down

because I didn't put any up this year. Last year it stayed up until March.

You think that's slackin'? Well, my Christmas present from 2004 -- my big beautiful upright freezer -- is still sitting in the middle of the garage. It's never been plugged in. It hasn't been scooted up against the wall to be plugged in yet because Mikey's friggin' weight bench is still in the way. The weight bench that he parks his ashtray and Coke cans on.

(***sigh***)

Peaceful

Spent the weekend with a few of my favorite people -- Mom, Phil and Jamie came down to visit us. Bridget, Chris and Sherri came over, too, but didn't stay to ring in the New Year with us.

Mom brought and cooked enough food to keep us going all week. She gave my kitchen a good scrub, too (thanks, Ma!). We finally ate some of her black-eyed peas for dinner, which were pretty darn good but now I have terrible garlic breath and need to go brush my teeth but I don't feel like standing up that long.

We downed our annual bottle (or two) of Moët at midnight, then watched Steve McQueen and Andy Griffith's girlfriend in The Blob before going to bed.

Yeah, we live big, I'm tellin' ya.

They left (relatively) early this morning, and I forgot to send Jamie's new mop and vacuum cleaner home with her. I'll send 'em with Mom if she comes back next weekend.

It's been a blissfully quiet day -- as quiet as it can be with an energetic toddler in the house. Now the baby's sleeping, I'm playing on the computer and Mikey's reading his Big Book o' Beatles.

Ah, my happiness is complete: Mikey just told me he brought home a fresh tub of Bluebell ice cream when he went out for milk earlier. I b'lieve I can get on my feet long enough to get me some of that!

Merried out

It's Friday already? Geez.

After we got around and got exposed to everybody's germs, we've been illin' all week. Mikey has a sore throat/coughing thing, I have a queasy stomach/body aches thing, and Britt has a fever/barfing/snotting thing.

Poor Britt -- it's only the third time she's ever been sick, and she's not sleeping much. Neither are we. She won't eat much, either. Trying to get baby Tylenol into her mouth is like wrestling a bear. She doesn't like the booger-puller much, either, but we gotta do what we gotta do.

I've managed to get through without barfing on sheer willpower so far -- I hate throwing up that much. Finally got over over my anti-pharmaceutical self long enough to pop an Advil for the body aches, and that made me perky enough to try out my new Swiffer Wet-Jet that Santa brought me (yes, I did ask for one). Well, not perky enough to try out the special scrubber pad, so the stubborn spots are still there -- but otherwise my kitchen floor looks pretty good. The rest of the house is a pit, though. It's been a rough week.

Anyway, we took our first long car trip with Britt -- three hours to Tahlequah on Friday and three hours back on Saturday -- and she slept a little and squirmed and fussed a lot but mostly she glared at us like we were the two most heartless people in the world for keeping her strapped into the car seat all that time.

Tried to get her to show off her dancing skills for my family in Tahlequah, but of course she wouldn't do it. Then we spent Christmas Day back here with Mikey's family and she danced her little butt off for them.

Had a couple of misadventures over the weekend -- one of Kenny's boys was chasing Britt around Debbie's sofa and she fell face-first with her binky in her mouth and busted her lip. It bled a little -- all over the front of my new Ralph Lauren sweater -- but she got over it pretty quickly. On Sunday at Mikey's folks', she went to give Buddy the Bernese Mountain Dog some love and he knocked her down and did the Happy Dance on top of her tiny little body -- a horrifying moment because Buddy is one big-ass dog. He knocked me down a time or two while I was trying to grab her out from under him. It's a miracle that there wasn't any damage done -- to her or to the dog.

I was pretty well used up after that but the holidays were not yet over for us. Oh, hell, no, because my mother-in-law's birthday was Monday. We usually go out to a restaurant for a family-only celebration, but Candy and her husband just moved into a new house and wanted have the party there, so we showed up at the appointed time and it was one of my worst nightmares -- a roomful of people I didn't know. And a few people I knew slightly:

WELL, HIIIIII!!! HOW YA BEEN? HAVEN'T SEEN YEW IN AAAAAGES!!!!

(Oh, God, don't hug me please don't hug me don't don't oh nooooooo...)

By this point, I was ready to spill my own blood on my other new Ralph Lauren sweater.

Anyway, we got through it and then we went home and got sick. And that's about all we've been doing all week.

Little Sis says

I want YOU to have a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

Me & Sis went Christmas shopping

yesterday (Mikey's been taking care of most of it, but I still had to do a little), and she was such a good girl. She always is when we go out, probably because we don't get out much.

Her exceptional cuteness was oohed and aahed over by customers and salespeople everywhere we went, to which she responded by waving and blowing kisses.

She sure knows how to play to an audience, Sis does.

Two not-so-fabulous firsts

Britt's been scribbling with crayons on scrap paper, so I thought maybe it was time to introduce her to coloring books. So I bought a couple yesterday and thought we'd have fun coloring together.

We sat down last night to color some kitty-cats -- Britt would scribble a few strokes and hand her crayon to me and fret. I'd scribble a few strokes with it to show her what to do and then I'd hand it back to her. This went on over and over again until she was getting too stressed out over it, so I put the coloring books away for a few more months. I was like, "My word, Sis, don't take it so hard. This is supposed to be fun!"

I dunno what her issue was, unless I have a budding perfectionist on my hands and she just didn't feel like she was doing it right.

The other first: Brittany had her first Happy Meal! I know, I know -- bad Grammy! But the key to handling this child is to keep her on a regular schedule and she was late for her nap after our running around all morning and I didn't have time to cook a proper lunch, so she had chicken nuggets and fries and apple juice. It was also her first experience with a juice box and of course she had to squeeze it and squirt juice all over herself.

I was really pissed when I saw what her first-ever Happy Meal toy was. It was a little character figure from Narnia. Lucy, I think? I dunno, I've never read any of the Narnia stuff -- fantasy is not my cup o' tea. Anyway, she had a book in one hand and when you move this little button on her back, the arm with the book goes up and down, like a Heil Hitler salute.

We had a helium balloon from one of the stores we went to yesterday morning, so I tied the string around Lucy's neck to see if she would float but she was too heavy. I probably shouldn't let Britt see me exhibiting passive-aggressive behaviors like that because she's such a little copycat, but I was so bummed that her very first Happy Meal toy was so lame.

Grammy's little helper

Brittany's learning how to be a proper little housekeeper, just by watching me.

Hey, quit snickering. I'm a better housekeeper than I used to be, but nobody ever comes down here to see me so how would you know?

Anyway, she helps unload the dishwasher by handing me one piece of silverware at a time. She hasn't figured out the distinction between clean dishes out/dirty dishes in yet, so I have to load the dishwasher with one leg thrust out along the edge of the door so I can block her from grabbing the dirty silverware as soon as it goes in.

She helps me do laundry, too, but if I don't hand her some clean things to throw into the dryer, she'll grab things from the dirty clothes pile and throw them in.

When she's finished eating, she'll yank off her bib and wipe down the tray of her high chair, sending bits of leftover food flying all over the floor.

She takes good care of her baby doll, too. She kisses and cuddles it and feeds it a bottle, just like I do with her.

She'll be stirring a spoon around a bowl at her little play kitchen and she'll come over and give us "bites" of whatever it is she's cooking up. It's awful cute and all, but I'm glad she's too short to help me at the big stove.

Oh, the horror

Took Britt to her 15-month checkup this morning and she screamed, squalled, flailed, thrashed and kicked all the way through it. I don't know if it was stranger anxiety (she acts that way when Aunt Bridgie comes over, but this was worse -- Aunt Bridgie should come visit more often, BTW, so she won't be a stranger) or if she remembered that it's the place where she gets needles poked into her legs, but it was pure hell.

Anyway, she weighed 23 1/2 pounds and was 28 1/4 inches tall -- if they managed to measure this whirling dervish of a child accurately, which I doubt -- dropping her down to the fifth percentile heightwise, meaning 95% of babies her age are taller than she is. I'll measure her myself later and see how close they got.

And yes, she did get more needles poked into her legs, poor baby.

Then we went Christmas shopping for two hours and I managed to get exactly one item knocked off my list. Woo-hoo!

To tree or not to tree, Part 2

Mikey has decided he wants to put up the Christmas tree after all. I said, "How do we keep Brittany off of it?" He said, "We'll just keep telling her no, until she understands not to touch it."

Um, yeah. He means I'll keep telling her no, since he's gone to work all day. I've been trying to keep her out of the kitchen trash can ever since she got mobile, and she's still fascinated by it. I tell her no daily, and it seems to have no effect whatsoever.

Anyway, somebody suggested putting up the tree inside the playpen, where she can look but not touch. That's an excellent idea, except:

1. It's currently being used as a toybox, but we could move the toys somewhere else temporarily.

2. It's currently parked in front of the aquarium to keep Brittany from tipping it over on herself somehow (I'm very paranoid about that), which is not an ideal spot for tree placement.

3. The playpen measures 28 x 40 inches, so the tree wouldn't fit inside it unless we left all the bottom branches off.

(***sigh***)

I'm less than enthused about this -- can you tell?

Brittany the Orange-Nosed Cutie

She has carotenemia, which was pointed out to me at her 9-month checkup by her pediatrician and again at her 12-month checkup. She's due for her 15-month checkup next week and it's still there, even though she doesn't eat much baby food anymore. I hope the doctor doesn't jump my ass about it.

I still think she's a beauty, even if she does have a little carrot nose:



It matches this autumn leaf box hat she likes to wear:



But it clashes with her fuzzy pink hat:



Dunno how long it'll take to fade away. I guess her doctor would know.

Britt has a molar!

Been watching closely for the two lateral incisors on top to come through. They're almost but not quite offically there yet.

In the meantime, she snuck a molar in on us!

PS: Plus a new lateral incisor on the bottom -- just discovered that one this evening.

To tree or not to tree

is the question we're grappling with.

We usually have our Christmas tree up by now, and the only place to put it is in the dining room, but that's Brittany's toy room now and she's gonna think it's a big new toy for her to play with. How do we keep her from stripping everything within reach off of it? The space is too big to block off. And if we do put up the tree, we can't put presents under it anyway because tearing paper is one of her favorite activities.

(***sigh***)

Maybe we'll have to skip it this year. I dunno.

Sleeping like a baby

Finally got Brittany adjusted to her new naptime/bedtime schedule and the past three nights have been blessedly peaceful. The two nights before that were not.

Sunday night she woke up at 1:30 am and didn't go back to sleep until after 4:00. I gave up on rocking her and brought her into bed with us, where she spun and flailed and delivered a hard kick to my left boob that nearly made me swallow my tongue. But she also kissed and patted my face so sweetly that I couldn't get too mad at her.

Monday night she woke up every time we tried to put her down -- Mikey and I took turns rocking her and were so frustrated that we started snapping at each other, which we never do. When I finally decided she was just gonna have to cry it out, she went right off to sleep.

The next three nights she went to sleep right on time, and stayed asleep through the night, so I think we're through the worst of it. I hope so anyway.

The Chair

The Chair has become the bane of my existence. It's the gold swivel rocker in Brittany's room where I spend at least two hours a day rocking her to sleep -- late morning nap, afternoon nap, and bedtime. I get numb from having 25 pounds of baby stretched across my lap for so long.

It's been getting harder and harder to get her to sleep at night. Sometimes when I've rocked her to sleep, she'll pop awake as soon as I stand up from The Chair to put her in her crib, and then I'm back to square one. Some nights it takes an hour and a half -- I'm not kidding.

Anyway, I've been thinking about eliminating one of her daytime naps so that she'll go to sleep earlier at night, say 9:30 instead of 11:00. It would be wonderful to have that extra free time.

So I started yesterday by skipping her afternoon nap, but it didn't work because she climbed up on my lap at 7:00 and fell asleep. I only let her sleep about 15 minutes and made her wake up, but still had a hard time getting her to sleep last night.

Today I skipped her late morning nap and let her decide when to climb up on my lap and fall asleep, which she did at 3:00. Then I went and put her in her crib, but she only slept for an hour so I thought I'd have it easy tonight. I was wrong.

I made Mikey feel sorry for me so he rocked Brittany to sleep tonight. I was so happy -- a whole day with NO time spent in The Chair. Woo-hoo! Grandpa rocks! Then we went out to the garage for a celebratory smoke but our delight was cut short by the friggin' baby monitor.

(***sigh***)

So, I rocked Brittany to sleep again, and when I stood up to put her in her crib she woke up again, so I rocked her to sleep again, and I am damned tired of rocking.

Anyway, there is good news: Brittany's brushing her teeth now! Or rather, I am and she's letting me! To know how truly amazing this is, you have to understand that this child won't hardly let me stick a finger in her mouth to check for new teeth (only four so far), so I wondered how on earth I was gonna manage it.

She loves to copy whatever we do, though, so when she takes her bath I leave her in her safety seat to watch me while I go brush my teeth at the sink, and then I brush hers and she loves it! I'm not sure if it's because it makes her think she's a big girl like Grammy or because she likes the taste of her Strawberry Shortcake toothpaste but, as long as it gets the job done, who cares?

Tiny dancer

Brittany practices her dance moves all day every day, and has added a number a steps to her repertoire. There's the Brittany Quick-Step, which is basically running in place; the Bounce, where she bends both knees to bob her booty up and down; the Rock, where she shifts her weight from foot to foot; the Hippy Hippy Shake, where she bends one knee to shake her booty from side to side; and the Turnaround, which is not quite a spin, but walking around in a circle.

Along with this fancy footwork, she'll slap her knees, belly or chest with her hands, clap, throw her arms up in the air, or try to snap her fingers, but she hasn't really got the hang of that yet.

The music she most often dances to is on our cable music channels. She makes us circle through Bluegrass, Classic Rock, Party Favorites, '80s, '70s, Solid Gold Oldies and Big Band & Swing until we find something with the right beat.

She's been playing music with Grandpa, too. He'll let her strum his guitar until she drops the pick into the sound hole (because she likes to watch Grandpa shaking his guitar over his head to make the pick fall out), or else she'll take off running with the pick, giggling gleefully because she knows one of us will chase after her and she does love to play Chase.

Can't hardly get bored with Sis in the house, I tell you what.

Cutest clown in town

Brittany in her Halloween costume:





She's been saying "Shazbot!" a lot lately, which helped me to finally figure out what language she's speaking -- it's Orkan!

We're down to just one binky now. I've been hunting all week and can't find any trace of the other three, which is incredibly maddening. They have to be here somewhere, dammit!

Binky hunting

is one of my regular daily activities now. We have four in circulation -- pink, purple, blue and green -- but it's rare to turn up all four at the same time. First, there's the walk-around visual search, then the hands-and-knees looking under the furniture search and, if neither of those turns up a binky, I have to start looking inside anything that has a binky-sized opening. Sissy's pretty sneaky sometimes.

We were down to two binkies for a couple of weeks, until I found the green one in the back corner of the patio and the blue one under the ottoman that blocks the electrical outlet next to the aquarium. Now I haven't seen the pink one in a few days.

The reason I have an ottoman blocking the electrical outlet next to the aquarium is because Sis likes to pop out those little plastic things you put in the plug openings to keep babies' fingers out. Yep, she just pops them right out. Repeatedly. So I've had to arrange chairs, mirrors and whatnot in front of them to keep her little fingers out of danger. Plays hell with my decorating scheme but, oh, well.

Lately I've noticed that Brittany will cock her binky over to the corner of her mouth so she can chat and chew at the same time. It's hard to carry on a conversation with her, though, because she doesn't speak English. I tried to write down some of her chatterings, but a lot of her words seem to be all consonants and defy any attempt at transcription. Anyway, it goes something like this:

Shekh! Thulom deegumm tcheegah. Ah didi dah, haw put tleekow. Shedecomow dugawah digum. Wah duk op shuk bubu da. Shigilum bugulayah gigum. Bwoogah ummegom dibidah. Awayah!

And she sings, too:

Dah! da-da-da, Dah! da-da-da
Dah! da-da-da, Dah! da-da-da

And on and on...

She's pretty good at getting around now. She learned how to stand up without pulling up on something and she started running around the backyard for the first time this week. She has a little toy lawnmower out there that talks and makes lawnmower motor noise but she likes to dance to the motor noise instead of pushing it around the yard.

She was playing in the Toy Room (used to be the dining room) the other day when I heard her making distress noises. Not quite crying, but it sounded weird so I looked around and saw that she had high-centered herself on the side of her little doll-sized playpen. Head and arms inside, feet flailing outside.

Ain't never a dull moment with Little Sis around.

I killed Bob's fish

Woops!

It was a betta that he left here when he left. All I did was change the water; it was dead the next morning.

Well, I don't guess he was all that attached to it, since he didn't take it with him. I hope not, anyway.

Tooth #3

just broke the surface of Brittany's gums. This one's on top; the other two are on the bottom.

We took her to the zoo Sunday and had a lot of fun. She's such a good baby -- she never cried or whined or anything while we were there. Plus she took a nap as soon as we got home so Gampaw and Grammy could rest up a little after three hours of hiking.

She can show me where her ears are and sometimes her eyes, but we're still working on where her nose and mouth are.

Her walking is getting better, but she still staggers like a two-foot tall drunk most of the time.

Have I mentioned her dancing? She's been dancing for months now, to commercial jingles and TV show theme songs, Gampaw's Zeppelin and Creedence DVDs, and various musical toys that she plays constantly. She'll bend one knee to rock her hips and pats her leg or claps her hands in time to the music and it's just awful darn cute.

Still amazed at the sight

of this itty-bitty little girl toddling around the house:



I took better pictures of her walking today, but the stupid disk kept going into error mode when I tried to upload them, and they're gone. This is the only one I was able to salvage.

Grrrrr...I hate my camera! I need a new one, desperately.

Baby steps

Brittany is walking! Not very steady at it yet, but she's doing 8 or 9 steps at a time today. It was 5 or 6 steps yesterday, and 3 or 4 the day before.

Her daddy was here to see it; he came in from Kansas Friday night with his new girlfriend in tow. Which would've been fine, I guess, except that he never bothered to mention her to me until they walked through my front door together.

Anyway, we were finally able to celebrate Bob's 26th birthday and Bridgie's 24th birthday yesterday. I now have a combined total of 50 years of motherhood under my belt, which is weird to think about since I'm only 43!

Took Sissy to the fair last night

Should've known better, but it's been a looooooong time since I went to the fair. Forgot about trying to find a place to park, and the crowds, and the lines.

We went and checked out Kiddieland, but decided Brittany's not quite ready for any rides yet. Maybe next year.

Gampaw bought her some cotton candy, but she cringed and batted it away like we'd tried to hand her a live rattlesnake. She never would even taste it. The kid has good instincts! Well, truth be told, if we had handed her a live rattlesnake, she probably would've thought it was some cool new toy, but you know what I mean.

So we went and looked at the animals. Saw lots of horses and cows and goats. Lots and lots of goats -- three barns full. Pretty little Boer goats, but I never knew there were that many goats in the state. Brittany oohed and aahed over all the animals, especially the horsies, but she really went nuts when we found a donkey. She grabbed hold of the side of the pen and jabbered like crazy at it. Had to peel her little hands off so we could finally move on.

Might take her to the zoo next weekend. Or maybe not, since that's the family reunion and Bob's supposed to come down to visit, if he can afford to. Maybe the weekend after.

My little one-toothed wonder

finally sprouted her second tooth! Right next to the first one, on the bottom. No sign of any others yet.

Okay, so my nekkid ladies

aren't actually Naked Ladies, as it turns out. They're Spider Lilies and they look like this, except mine are more of a salmon color. I tried to take a good picture of them today, but you know my crappy camera...

Anyway, they're in full bloom right now and pretty spectacular, so hurry on by in the next day or two if you want to see them at their peak.

Happy birthday, Bridgie!

Mommy loves you!

Brittany at twelve months

Took Little Sis to the doctor Friday for a checkup. She weighs 21 pounds, 10 ounces and is 27 1/4 inches tall. Still in the 10th percentile heightwise, meaning 90% of one-year-olds are taller than she is. Finally got caught up on her immunizations, her hemocrit was fine, and Doc says it's time to wean her off formula and baby food.

We've been letting her feed herself bits and pieces of our dinner this week, and now she won't hardly eat baby food anymore. She loves cheese. And birthday cake and ice cream:



(Hey, Bridgie -- e-mail me the birthday pictures, would ya? And remember to shrink them first.)

It's almost time for her first haircut. I'm not really ready for that yet, but her little forelock is starting to get in her eyes, so I'll have to do something about it soon. Tried a couple of different kinds of barrettes, but they don't stay in very long. Tried to do a little ponytail, too, but she squirms so much I can't get it fastened without hurting her.

She can stand alone, but doesn't think she can. She's steady on her feet holding on to nothing but my hair, so we're working on that.

She chatters incessantly in her own little language that none of us can understand; Mikey says she must be Pentecostal, because she's already speaking in tongues.

She's gone horse-crazy already -- she's in love with her big furry rocking horse. She's not interested in riding it, though. She just pets it and lays her head on it and loves on it all day long, which is almost unbearably cute.

Happy Birthday, Sherri!

One year closer to the Big 4-0!

Nekkid ladies

Hey, Sher! Remember that clump of stuff you brought me from Nina's a couple of years ago that never did anything?

Well, it's doing it now. I counted ten blooms sprouting this morning.

Celebrating Sissy

Y'all missed a heckuva party.

Bob came in from Wichita, and Bridget, Sherri and Mikey's whole family were here.

The pictures I took on my crappy digital camera didn't come out so good but, happily, everybody else brought cameras, plus I had my videocam going, so the whole thing was recorded for posterity.

Brittany was the cutest little one-year-old princess in town, and actually wore her tiara for about 30 seconds at a time before yanking it off. She fed herself some cake and ice cream, and wore the rest. We discussed taking her out in the yard to hose her off, but Sherri wound up giving her a bath. Then she put on her new jammies and now she's sleeping like a baby.

Which is what I should be doing, while I have the chance.

Ordered Brittany's b-day cake

It's a princess castle. And it comes with a little tiara for her to wear.

Still have housecleaning and shopping to do, but right now I need to take a nap. Haven't had an uninterrupted night of sleep in ages.

(**yawn**)

Bob's gone

Moved himself to Wichita yesterday to get away from Sarah and to get a fresh start. He says the career opportunities are much better and it's cheaper to live there than here.

I have legal guardianship of Brittany, so she's staying here with me. If he eventually manages to get the guardianship lifted, it'll tear my heart out if he takes her up there. A hundred and fifty some-odd miles away from me.

I'm trying not to think about that.

Doug died last week

Kyra's daddy (Lesley's husband) passed away in Washington on the 15th. Sherri had just heard about it, so I don't know if anyone else knows yet.

A terrible thing, to go so young. I couldn't remember what his disease was, so I looked it up on Sherri's blog -- read about it here.

Brittany was invited

to Cousin Gracie's birthday party, where she tasted cake for the first time.



She'll be eating her own birthday cake in just a few more weeks. And ice cream, too -- she loves ice cream. No idea what kind of party we'll have -- I haven't managed to plan a thing yet.

Semi-sorta back to normal

The court crap is over with for a while; Mom, Bridget and Sherri have all the pertinent details if you haven't heard them yet. I'm trying real hard to get back into my usual peaceful and contented state of mind, so I prefer not to talk about it any more.

Now that I have my life back, more or less, I'm working on getting my house in order. It's been all I can do to keep the dishes and the laundry and the baby clean, so piles of clutter have sprouted everywhere. My garden's a mess, too; there's grass growing in my flowerbeds. And my fish -- poor fishies! -- desperately need a water change.

Anyway, the baby's napping and I have work to do, so I'll holler at you guys later.

Two big milestones

Brittany is finally crawling! Mikey taught her how a couple of weeks ago by tempting her with veggie crackers, a favorite treat. Now she's a speed crawler -- if I take my eyes off her for a second she's gone, and I have to hunt for her from room to room.

Also, she finally has a tooth!

Mikey & me

Many years ago, the company I worked for moved my department from Fort Gibson to Muskogee, and a guy was hired for several weeks to do some repairs and maintenance on our newly-acquired building.

The girls in the office all thought he was cute, but I was happily celibate at the time, following a string of failed relationships, and I wasn't looking for romance. No way, no how. Besides, he was impossibly young and would never be interested in somebody like me. He was 23, I was 31 and raising two kids.

My buddy Joycie couldn't resist a little matchmaking, though. The only other single girl in the office was a bad-tempered redhead, so she started nudging Mikey and me together. We had some friendly conversations and peeked around corners at each other, but neither of us really thought the other was that interested.

When his time working for us was almost through, a group good-bye lunch was arranged but, as the appointed hour arrived, everybody suddenly remembered something else they had to do.

So, twelve years ago today, Mikey and me went to lunch together -- alone. Afterward, when we climbed back into my Jeep to go back to work, he laid a big wet one on me and I was both shaken and stirred. So rattled that I got lost driving back to the office, on a route I'd driven dozens of times before.

Eight years ago today, I married the great love of my life and the best friend I've ever had.

Thank you, Joycie, wherever you are.

Crazy from the heat

Well, not just from the heat, but anyway...

Saw Chris and Sherri today for the first time in ages, and gave them the rundown on what-all's been going on around here. Then I ran out of conversation because this custody battle over Brittany has been all-consuming. It's taken over my whole life -- I haven't even read a newspaper in I don't know how long.

Went to court again Thursday, but the results of the hair follicle tests weren't in yet so we had to get another continuance. As soon as we left, Bob's results came in and he's clean.

The lady from SoonerStart came out Tuesday to test Brittany for developmental delays and didn't find any. She's finally crawling, a little bit, but she still has no teeth.

I took Brittany to baby playtime at the library on Wednesday and now she has a cold. I'm pretty sure that's where she got it. She's been snotting all day and puked a couple of times, too.

Went to my followup appointment with the orthopedist yesterday and was diagnosed with tendonitis. I'm supposed to take Advil twice a day and go to physical therapy, but I dunno how that's gonna fit that into my schedule.

(***sigh***)

I sure could use a vacation. The only escape I get is working on my egghead blog. I put a site meter on it, which tells me somebody's been reading it, so it doesn't feel like a total waste of time. Currently averaging 8 hits a day. Woo-hoo!

Dang, I'm running out of conversation again...

On a happier note

Me & Mikey hit the furniture stores yesterday to distract ourselves from our woes.

Found a very nice TV cabinet at the first one, a Bassett loveseat at the second one, and two nightstands and a dresser to match our crazy big bed at the third one.

Our home will be no longer be underfurnished, once the bedroom furniture gets delivered on Wednesday. Well, except for the dining room -- it's still empty except for my aquarium and our crazy big buffet, but I'm not in any hurry to fill it. I've grown used to having lots of open space since we bought this house, and I don't want to start feeling claustrophic in it.

The winner of the Great Coffee Table Search of 1997 turned out to be a fortuitous choice. It's a drop-leaf that makes an oval when the sides are flipped up, so there aren't any sharp corners for Brittany to crack her head on, now that she's finally starting to cruise around it a little bit.

Bookcases -- we still need bookcases. We have tons of books stacked in the office closet that need to get off the floor and onto shelves. Dammit! That's what we forgot to look for yesterday...

Sarah's lawyer

has got to be regretting that he ever took her on as a client. She's a disaster.

The judge recommended that Bob let Sarah have two supervised visits with Brittany before our next court date. The one on Saturday went all right, though it was a terrible hard day for us. Brittany came home on time without any hassle.

The second visit was yesterday, again from 12 to 7, but Sarah never showed up. Her mother tried calling but couldn't reach her, so she finally called her own attorney, who called our attorney, who called Bob at 2:30. Sarah finally called her mother at 6:40, saying that she'd been up all night talking to Jason (the guy she's not supposed to be hanging out with) on the phone, and then she slept all day.

She's also balking on taking the hair follicle test that the judge ordered.

Our attorney is supposed to call her attorney today to see if she's ready to give up yet, because she cannot possibly win and we are so ready to be done with it.

Oh, please, please, please...

Wearing me thin

Went shopping for household supplies the other night and passed by the bathroom scales display. I stepped on one and weighed 129 pounds, which is pretty skinny for a chick as tall as me.

Oh, well -- that's the least of my worries right now.

Went to court Thursday. The judge decided he needed to hear witnesses and to see the results of hair follicle tests, so he rescheduled us for next week.

Sarah's been shacked up with this guy, who has pending felony charges hanging over his head. She already told Bob over the phone that her lawyer advised her not to be associating with him, but then she brought him with her to the courthouse anyway. Her lawyer made him leave the building before the judge could see him, but not before the rest of us got a good look at him.

(***shudder***)

So, anyway, Sarah and her parents came to an agreement yesterday and she signed over full guardianship of Kayla to them. Now we're supposed to drop Brittany off at Sarah's parents' house to visit with her and Kayla from 12 to 7 today, and we're flipping smooth out about it because none of us are allowed to stay and supervise. Had a long, agonizing phone conference with our attorney last night, and she assured us that they will seriously screw themselves if we don't get Brittany back on time.

I'm completely wrecked about it, but we've got the Steamatic people coming this afternoon to clean our carpets and ducts, so I have to keep moving. Still got lots of stuff to shift off the floor and out to the garage, but I'd rather just lay around and cry.

Sissy's pulling up!

I've been working on it with her and she's been needing less and less help, and she finally did it all by herself for the first time this morning.

Still not crawling, but maybe she'll skip that part and go straight to walking.

Still no teeth, either.

Brittany saw her mother last Sunday for the first time since the breakup, and she just looked at her like, "Who are you?" No big reaction at all. Of course, she hadn't seen her mother a whole lot for several months before the breakup, so her lack of enthusiasm wasn't terribly surprising.

Sleepyheads

Arrrgh -- they're killing us

Sarah's parents have allowed four court dates to be postponed/canceled so far. Yesterday's was canceled because Sarah wanted to settle out of court (she does not want to face that judge again), giving her parents custody of Kayla for six months. Now Sarah refuses to sign the papers because she can't get unsupervised visitation without completing a residential rehab program.

I'm so tired of this already, and Bob's first court date for Brittany's custody isn't until next week. We hoped theirs would be done by then, but who the hell knows?

Mikey's on a stress spiral and I feel like I could sleep for days. Everything will work out all right, I'm sure, but the waiting sure is getting to us.

Oh, yeah -- almost forgot. This is Sarah's attorney. Now, ain't that something?

Little Sis

Brittany will be ten months old next week, and the outfit she's wearing today is size 3 to 6 months.

We called her pediatrician a couple of weeks ago and learned that she hadn't been in for any checkups or immunizations since she was seven weeks old, so we made an appointment and took her. Her weight was fine -- in the 50th percentile -- but her height was only in the tenth percentile, meaning 90% of babies her age are taller than she is. She's still behind on her shots, but it will take a while to catch up.

She still has no teeth and isn't crawling or pulling up. She cannot get herself into a sitting position, or from a sitting position to her tummy -- her leg gets caught under her. She will stand at the coffee table and play if you put her there, but she doesn't make any effort to move around it. She does love her scootie, though, and has no trouble making it go where she wants to go, as long as it isn't onto carpet or grass. She's bright and alert, and an excellent mimic. She babbles and plays ball and waves bye-bye and gives such sweet kisses...

Anyway, I worry.

Julia, the attorney for Sarah's parents, specializes in guardianship cases involving kids under state supervision, and she's seen the aftereffects of drug abuse during pregnancy many, many times. I discussed my concerns with her Friday night and she told me that when Brittany's teeth finally do come in, they may be rotten because they were deprived of calcium in the womb, and that Brittany might be developmentally delayed as well, so she advised me to take her to SoonerStart to be evaluated as soon as possible.

I'm so angry. I'm angry at Sarah for endangering my granddaughter's life and I'm angry at my son for bringing this unwholesome woman and all her issues into our family.

I guess I've led a more sheltered life than I realized because I've been getting quite an education here lately, learning all kinds of things that I never dreamed I'd need to know.

Met with Sarah's folks

and their attorney for over four hours last night. Julia (the attorney) left with eleven pages of notes, an armload of evidence and the mystery box, which we have finally seen the contents of.

Julia also confirmed our suspicion that we need a specialist for Bob's custody case instead of the business lawyer and family friend that we hired because we were desperate to get temporary custody papers filed before Sarah could,

.......,pl'//'/l02n (Brittany says hi)

so we hired the specialist today.

Sarah's mom just called to tell me that Sarah's already been kicked out of the place she was staying because of her out-of-control behavior. Her new ex-roommate says she thought Sarah genuinely wanted to clean herself up so she could get her girls back, but now she's willing to testify against her.

Now, ain't that something?

Had an MRI yesterday

on my gimpy hip, and my orthopedist did a very poor job of preparing me for what to expect.

I assumed they would do an IV and inject stuff into that, but no. They injected it directly into my hip joint from the front side, which it was a bit more of an ordeal than I was expecting. I was already freaked out because of my chemical phobia and wasn't at all sure I wanted them shooting anything into me, but when I found out where they where going to shoot it, I nearly fled in terror.

I did, however, grin and bear it and waited until I got out of there before giving in to the weak tremblies.

Man, I hope I never have to do anything like that again.

Bob & Brittany update

We've been in full lockdown here at the ranch, afraid some goons might show up and try to snatch the baby, and we've learned things about my daughter-in-law that went far beyond anything I could've possibly imagined.

We're about 99% sure that Kayla's Nana and Papa will wind up with full custody of her and that Bob will be granted sole custody of the baby. We were in court for Kayla's custody hearing on Tuesday, but it's been postponed until next week. Brittany's hearing is still a couple of weeks away.

Tuesday was when I found out what's in the mystery box Bob's been toting around. If I hadn't been sitting down, I would've fallen to the floor.

Oh, dear Jesus...

I would tell y'all to call me if you want the gory details, but I don't really want to talk about it right now. Just pray for us, okay?

Happy birthday, Cathy

Love you, Sis!

Hell week

My firstborn's failing marriage finally reached a rather spectacular conclusion over the weekend. It's really for real this time -- he filed for divorce and full custody of Brittany yesterday, and they've moved in with us.

Reactions from the few family members I've spoken to ranged from "Cool!" to "Yay!" to "It's about damn time."

Kayla is with her Nana and Papa, who are once again filing for custody of her.

Anyway, this past week was one of the the rougher ones in recent memory and I'm totally depleted, so I'll have to holler at you guys later.

Dang, we're hot

We haven't looked this good since our own wedding eight years ago.



Mikey looked so yummy in his tux; now I'm wishing he'd buy one to chase me around the house in.

Irises were blooming last week

in Iowa. Ain't that something?

I know Iowa's 500 miles north of here, but it still amazes me that there's such a big difference. My irises finished blooming two months ago.

What a huge place this country is.

Gawd, I feel stupid

You know those black birds living in my purple martin house? The ones that I couldn't figure out what they were?

Um, well...they're purple martins.

How was I supposed to know? The picture in my field book shows a very purple bird, and I only get to see them flying or perched 30 feet up, backlit against the sky, and can't see any purple at all. Plus they live on the far side of the birdhouse, facing my neighbors, and never come down to feed in the yard so I can't study them very closely.

It was the female that finally tipped me off; the only picture I could find that looked like her was of a female purple martin. Didn't think she really was one, though, until I listened to an audio clip of its song. Which I recognized instantly. Felt like such a doof.

A new tattoo?

Bob brought the baby over; now he's off to Edmond to take Kayla to her grandparents.

Sarah still hasn't turned up.

The other day Sarah was putting the kids in the car when I noticed a large tattoo on her lower back. I knew I'd never seen it before, so I asked Bob about it today. He said, yeah, he saw it, too, and it was a new one. But he didn't know where she got it, or how she paid for it.

Good heavens.

Bob just called

to tell me he's throwing Sarah out because she stayed out all night. Again.

He fell asleep waiting for her to come home; Kayla woke him up at 10:00 this morning. He was supposed to be at work at 7:00.

Oh, my Lord.

It'll be a year in August since Bob and Sarah dropped into our laps. Okay, we thought, they're going through a rough patch and we'll do what we can to help them get on their feet. We helped with the apartment and with the baby and with Kayla. And with Sarah's car. They've tapped out our cash reserves. They've used up our patience.

Here we are, almost a year later, and there's not a lot of progress. They still can't pay the bills, hold onto jobs, get along, etc, etc. I'm starting to wonder, "Is it always going to be like this? Will it be the same thing next year? And the next?"

Well, maybe not, if they're not together anymore.

Sarah's still not home yet. Bob started to bring the girls over here so he could deal with his wife, but I pointed out that we don't have a legal right to keep Kayla if Sarah wants her, so he's going to call her parents and see if they want Kayla. If so, he'll take her up there and bring the baby to me.

Flight school

Noticed some birds gathering on the terraced part of my backyard, which was odd, so I grabbed the binoculars and saw that it was a mama house sparrow feeding three little chickies. Then the mama bird flew up on the birdbath and her babies followed, one at a time. She flew up on the fence and again they followed her, one at a time. Then she flew down from the fence and they followed her, one at a time. Then she fed them again. Then they were off again.

Way too cool.

Birding

Saw a house finch for the first time yesterday.

It was the first time I was able to identify any new bird in a while, because the trees leafed out the moment I finally got a pair of binoculars, so it was a pretty exciting moment for me.

Tot wheels

Sissy still won't crawl, so we we went last night and found a walker to help her explore the concept of personal mobility.

I'm eager to see how she likes it, but Sarah's suddenly unemployed again so I dunno what they're doing today.