School's out

and so one of my favorite new-to-me blogs is slowing down for the summer, dang it. And I was just about to add it to my blogroll, too.

It's the oddly fascinating Vegan Lunch Box, wherein a mom posts a daily photo, description and rating of the lunches she packs for her son each school day:



I'm not a vegan, but I would totally eat this stuff. Well, I would -- as long as somebody else did the shopping and the cooking for me.

Damn

I thought my meno was pausing.

I guess not.

Damn.

Greg's Wedding

Made the trip home to Tahlequah this weekend to see my youngest nephew get hitched. Here he is, enjoying his last few moments of freedom:



Amber was a lovely bride:



The kiss:



And it's a done deal:



We went over to Debbie's afterward, where Britt got to swim in the pool. She even got to ride in a kayak with Kelly Beth and Emily, with Eddie catapulting it from one end of the pool and Bob catching at the other:



And she went hot-tubbing with her Daddy; by this point her super-absorbent diaper was bigger than Bob's head:



Don't ask me what's up with Bob's facial hair. Could be he's Amish now, I dunno.

Missy is a lesbian

I forgot to tell Bridgie today when she finally came to get her dog that Missy has been humping my dog. Also, my leg.

Oh, yeah, Bridge -- remember when you came over for dinner Thursday and I couldn't find my little stainless steel saucepan? And I looked in all the cabinets, and I looked in the dishwasher two or three times and I even looked in the refrigerator and the freezer? And then I sat on the floor and looked through the pots & pans cabinet again? And it was nowhere to be found?

I hunted for it a few more times over the weekend, thinking it might magically reappear somewhere.

It did.

I finally unloaded the dishwasher on Tuesday and there it was.

Last night

I was in the garage smoking when Mikey popped his head out and told me he was going to mail the mail. Then he left.

A few minutes later, I was ready to go back in the house and -- guess what?

Yep. The door was locked.

I was locked in the garage with the baby monitor and an extremely tedious book and Brittany was asleep in her room -- alone.

I don't like being locked out of my house. I tend to freak out, just a little.

So Mikey came home and found me sitting here in front of the computer.

You locked me out.

What?

You locked me out.

How'd I do that?

Well, I guess you turned that little thingy on the knob when you shut the door.

How'd you get in?

I got in.

How?

I got in. You need to fix the door jamb.

Oh, great.

Oh, great? Oh, great? Like I'm the one who caused the problem?

I couldn't stay mad for long, though. He brought me a Blue Bell Texas Size Double Fudge Bar. Only 240 calories and 11 grams of fat. Diet, schmiet -- it's heaven on a stick.

Pre-season training

Britt's added two new words to her vocabulary: "pee-peep" and "poo-poop." Potty-training time is coming (sooner rather than later, I hope), and now she can tell me what's in her diaper. Maybe before long she can tell me before it's in her diaper.

She's also been supervising my bathroom breaks; she's fascinated by the whole procedure and insists on doling out toilet paper for me, although I have to keep a hand on the roll or else she'll take off running down the hall stringing paper through the house.

One day last week she was playing in her room so I thought I could slip in, go "peep" and get back to what I was doing without any fuss. I should've either left the door open or shut it all the way, but I didn't. I had pushed it almost closed, so when she came barreling through the door at top speed, outraged that I'd left her out of the loop, the door slammed open against the wall.

It wasn't until I was leaving the bathroom and felt resistance when I tried to pull the door closed behind me that I realized she had knocked the doorknob plumb through the wall.

(There used to be a doorstop there. Where'd it go?)

So now there's a doorknob-sized hole in my bathroom wall, and sometimes I feel like it's watching me.

Testing, testing...

I opened an account on YouTube so I could post video clips of Britt on here, but the cutest ones I have exceed their megabyte limit.

(**sigh**)

Anyway, I need to do a test post so here's a short clip of Britt dancing to some Zeppelin:



It's a lot darker and the action is jerkier than when I watch it in playback mode on my camera. I dunno what to do about that.

I'm dogsitting

Missy & Pepper
Originally uploaded by Sandra D..

Bridgie's geriatric pooch while she's off to Manhattan this weekend.

Manhattan, Kansas, that is.

When she brought Missy over yesterday, we took her out in the backyard to meet Pepper, who promptly went nuts.

Before we got Pepper I studied up on keeshonds and read that they are watch dogs but not guard dogs. I didn't quite understand what that meant, but it's clear to me now. It means they'll bark their fool heads off to sound the alert while scrambling away from whatever the potential danger is.

Anyway, now that they've had time to thoroughly sniff each other, they're getting along just fine.

Cathy's crash

I guess everybody in the family's heard about the accident by now. Sherri wrote about it here, and posted pictures of the car here.

I feel just sick about it, but I'm thankful she wasn't seriously hurt.

A big fat surprise

I went shopping with Mom and Debbie Saturday for dresses to wear to Greg's wedding. It should have been fun, and it was -- until I got into the dressing room.

I knew I'd put on some weight because my size 10 low-riders are pretty tight, so I started with an armload of size 12 dresses.

Uhhh, no. Nope, nope, nope and nope.

Crestfallen, I ditched the 12s and rounded up some size 14s.

What the hell? You've got to be kidding me! Why won't this fucker zip?

My head was beginning to pound by this point, but I soldiered on and tried a few size 16s. They zipped, but I looked like a battleship. I didn't buy anything. I'm not used to seeing myself that way.

Actually, I'm not used to wearing fitted clothing at all, spending most of my days in pajama pants. I can usually count on one hand the number of times I get dressed in actual clothes within a month's time. I finally broke down a couple of months ago and bought some bigger tops to cover my muffin top, but the full measure of my weight gain wasn't clear to me until I tried to find a cute little dress to wear to my nephew's wedding.

It's painfully obvious now that I won't be finding a cute little dress to wear. I'll have to find a large figure-concealing dress to wear. Like a muu-muu.

Remember the blue dress I wore as Sherri's matron-of-honor (happy anniversary, Sherri and Chris!) a year ago this weekend?



It was a size 6. I've gone from a 6 to a 16 in one year. No, wait...I'm looking through the archives... On July 16 I was 129 pounds, so I've gone from a 6 to a 16 in just ten months!

I haven't felt so traumatized since my cat died.

Dare I say it?

Britt hasn't had a binky for three days.

Not that I decided to wean her from it; it's just that we just can't find one anywhere around here, and I won't buy any more.

Shhhhh! Don't tell anybody -- she's doing fine so far and I don't want to jinx it.

Guess what I got for Mother's Day?

Go on, guess.

You'll never guess.

Did I get cards? Flowers? Phone calls? Hug and kisses from my beloved offspring?

Um, no. As a matter of fact, I didn't.

I did get a shake-it-up no-battery-required flashlight from Mom, but it didn't work so she took it back.

Other than that, not a sausage.

Mikey did give up spending the day with his own mother to drive the six-hour round trip to Tahlequah and back so I could see my mom and attend Greg & Amber's bridal shower. But we didn't leave here until almost 10:00 am and got back home at 7:30 pm, so there was plenty of time for my kids to call. Or come over. But they didn't. And there were no messages from either one on my answering machine.

(**sniff**)

Thanks a lot, kids. It's nice to know how loved and appreciated I am.

(**sob**)

Happy Mother's Day

to all the moms in our family, especially this one:

Twenty months

Can you believe Britt's almost two years old already? Me, neither.

She loooooves books. We read lots of books together every day and, when we're not reading, she stacks them up and carries them from room to room. Her new thing is to sit on the floor and throw all her books up onto the couch, one at a time. Then she'll climb up on the couch and throw them down on the floor one at a time. And then she'll do it all over again. And again. And again. They're getting a bit worn, as you can imagine.

Sometimes she'll go off to her room and get real quiet and, when I go check on her, she'll be sitting on the floor with books piled around her, paging through them and moving them from one stack to another.

She also loves mud. I got off easy all winter because of the drought, but now that it's raining gullywashers every other day she winds up a muddy mess every time we go outside. It's ruined several outfits, too, in spite of all the Shout-ing and Spray 'N Wash-ing I do. Even her bluejeans are stained orange from that damned red clay soil.

The garden gate isn't the only thing she's learned how to open. I thought I was going crazy, or my dishwasher was, because I'd start unloading it and realize that the dishes were still dirty. And sometimes there would still be soap in the soap thingy. And when I'd shut the door to re-run them it would start running mid-cycle, so I'd be trying to remember if I'd opened the door for some reason and didn't shut it all the way. This went on for about two weeks before I saw Britt walk up while it was running and squeeze the handle until it quit. It took me four tries to get that load done.

It is imperative that she monitor all my showers by running back and forth along the tub, throwing out the shower curtain behind her so that water goes everywhere, especially all over her. It's either that or shut the bathroom door and listen to her howl with rage on the other side.

"Watsat" is her favorite new word, accompanied by pointing at anything and everything. It goes something like this:

Watsat?

That's the dog's food.

Watsat?

That's the dog's water.

Watsat?

Dog food.

Watsat?

Water.

Watsat?

Dog food.

Watsat?

Water.

Watsat?

How 'bout ice cream, Sis? You want some ice cream?

Happy birthday, Phil!

I hear your computer got fried so I dunno if you'll see this, but I look forward to seeing you this weekend.

Love you, Bro!

Escape attempt foiled

I was hanging out on the patio with Britt and Pepper today when Britt disappeared around the side of the house. I got around the corner just in time to see her pop the latch on the gate and head out into the front yard.

(**yikes!**)

There's a padlock on the gate now.

Nameless no more

We finally named our dog, I guess.

Mikey and I couldn't agree on anything, so we sort of let Britt do it by default. She still calls the dog Cat, mostly, but we've been trying to get her to say "puppy" and the best she's been able to do is "peh-poo," which sort of sounds like "pepper," so we named her Pepper. Officially, her name will be "(our last name)'s Peppermint Patty," once we get the papers filled out and sent in.

I'm trying Lesley's suggestion to sprinkle peppercorns in my flowerbeds to keep Pepper from digging in them. Sort of. I do have a jar of peppercorns, but it's got a grinder built into the lid and I couldn't get it off, so I sprinkled freshly ground pepper on the places where she's been digging. She sniffed around for a while like it smelled pretty interesting, but I haven't seen any signs of fresh digging since then. Of course, it rained last night so I'll have to do it again to see if it really works.

Anyway, I've been trying to teach Britt to say "Pepper," so now she calls the dog "Pecker."

All stocked up

Mikey went grocery shopping for me last night, which he does occasionally because he knows I hate it. I sent him off with a list and he even took Britt with him so I could enjoy a rare hour alone.

When they came home, the first thing I saw was the humongo bag of Lay's Potato Chips, a special weakness of mine. I can't eat just one, but I can eat a whole bag. Then I saw the two 12-pack boxes of Pop-Tarts, the bag of chocolate and peanut butter-flavored Chex Mix, FIVE boxes of Little Debbie Cakes, including the one kind I can't resist -- Marshmallow Supremes, and a can of mixed nuts (which I'm poking through right now looking for cashews).

I pointed at my pudge and hollered at him.

Do you not even care what I look like?

Well, you don't have to eat it all at once.

I wouldn't have to eat it at all if you wouldn't buy it!

And with that, I tucked the humongo bag of Lay's under my arm and waddled off indignantly.

Gaaaah!

A dog named Cat?

We still haven't agreed on a name for our new dog. I hate everything Mikey suggests, and he hates everything I come up with.

Britt still calls her Cat.

She's been very good with Britt so far. She hasn't nipped or growled at her a single time. They romp around the backyard together like... well, like a couple of puppies.

We knew she was a chewer; I read about that before we got her, so we supplied her with plenty of chew toys. It didn't work, though. My purple clematis had two branches growing from the root; she's already chewed through one of them. My pink clematis had five branches and she's chewed through four. It's was in full bloom, too.



The left side is what it's supposed to look like. The right side looks how I feel: sad and droopy.

We did not know she would be a digger. She's been digging in my canna bed, and she dug two huge holes in the flowerbed around the bay window.

(**head in hands**)

So we had another "what are we gonna name our dog" session last night. I suggested "Calamity Jane."

My little artistical prodigy

Britt's artwork
Originally uploaded by Sandra D..

As I've mentioned before, Britt and I like to doodle on her doodle pad. She scribbles, I draw mostly shapes, sometimes numbers. So far, she only likes circles -- or kerkles, as she calls them.

More recently, she's been drawing kerkles herself and I've been adding faces to my kerkles, just for variety.

Today she drew a face, too!

See that wart-looking thing on the left cheek with a hair growing out of it? That was the original left ear, until I tried to get her to finish the right ear, but she drew the bigger left ear instead.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty darn good since she's only 19 months old.

Our new baby

Our new puppy
Originally uploaded by Sandra D..

She's a keeshond (pronounced kayz-hund), and she's 10 weeks old. We haven't decided on a name yet. She's Penny if you ask me, Bubbles if you ask Mikey and Cat if you ask Britt.

We brought her home Sunday and she rode all the way home from Newalla on my lap without peeing on me. We took that as a good sign, but we were wrong. It doesn't matter how much time we spend outside; I swear she holds it until she comes back into the house.

Uh, Bridgie? I'm gonna need my carpet shampooer back, like real soon.

Anyway, Penny/Bubbles/Cat is like a fluffy little teddy bear and her fur is really soft. Britt spent most of today playing in the backyard with her; she's a sweet and playful dog and very patient with Britt, who's doing better than I expected. She doesn't try to pick up the dog or pull her fur, but she won't give her a minute's peace either.

It's like having a new baby in the house; she kept us up all last night, whimpering for attention instead of sleeping. I guess it's gonna take a while for us all adjust to each other.

I just hope she lets us get some sleep tonight.

Spoke too soon

I guess I shouldn'ta said nuthin', dammit. I jinxed myself.

Sarah called at 2:00 this afternoon wanting to see Brittany. We agreed that she could come over at 3:00. She finally showed up at 6:00.

So we all went outside and played with Britt, and played with Britt, and played with Britt some more, and then it was almost 8:00 and we hadn't had dinner yet and me and Mikey were looking at each other going "What do we do about dinner?"

We aren't rude people. Well, Mikey is, but with a judge looking over our shoulder who could take Britt away from us, he isn't. So we ordered takeout from Charleston's and bought Sarah's dinner, too, since she wasn't offering to go away.

(**sigh**)

Anyway, she gave Britt a bath after dinner and wanted to put her to bed, so me and Mikey sat on the couch watching TV and listening to them playing and reading books. Then, I was all absorbed in watching "Tuckerville" (shut up) when Britt came wandering into the living room. I carried her back to her room and found Sarah stretched out on the bed -- sound asleep.

Gaaaah!

So I read some more books to Britt and rocked her to sleep and put her in bed, and then I shook Sarah awake (none too gently) and sent her home.

And, yeah, she spilled some juicy gossip about herself because she doesn't have the good sense to keep her mouth shut, but I'll have to tell you about it later since I've had about enough of her today.

Britt's first trip to the park

park1
Originally uploaded by Sandra D..

When she tried to climb on the jungle gym, she was yelling "Open it! Open it!"

She hated the swing and was too short for everything else, so we prob'ly won't go again for a while.

I did finally find her little blow-up swimming pool from last summer. Now I dread blowing up the damn thing.

(**wheeze**)

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!