It's here!

Mikey gave me my birthday present last night (I got the 20" model), but I haven't hooked it up yet. I'm still looking at the manuals and stuff.

Plus I'm thinking of what-all I need to do before I unhook this one. Like all the pictures on my hard drive that haven't been printed yet -- almost a year's worth. Gah.

Yeah, I know -- I totally chickened out and went with a desktop instead of a laptop. I'm too scared that I'll somehow manage to totally destroy a laptop in no time flat. Or lose it.

Plus, mine still has wi-fi capability and it's pretty portable. I mean, I wouldn't take it on a trip but, since there's no ginormous CPU tower attached to it, it could easily be parked in different areas of the house.

I'm eager to try it out but nervous, too, since it'll be so different from what I'm used to.

Wish me luck.

It's coming!

Just four more days until my birthday. And my new computer.

And, hopefully, I'll be able to post pictures and videos again.

Hopefully.

And then, hopefully, I'll be back to blogging with a vengeance. Because, right now? I'm kinda all "Meh. What's the point?"

Anyway, I know my new computer will be a Mac, but I'm wavering on whether or not to go laptop. Because, laptop? Wheee, freedom! Desktop? Means being stuck in the office on a very limited schedule.

I want a laptop, but I'm scared. What if wi-fi is slower than cable and I don't like it? How much does wi-fi cost? Should I keep cable as a backup? Because cable is expensive as hell, you know. And that little hinge-thingy that holds the screen on? What if I break it? Will it cost a lot to fix? What if I drop the whole thing and break it? And a zillion other questions. I don't know anybody who has a laptop or wi-fi, so there's nobody to discuss these things with, except for the computer nerds at Best Buy, which is better than nothing, I guess, but damn -- I miss the free computer advice from the IT guys I used to work with.

But if I chicken out and go desktop again, then I'm stuck in the office for another five or six years.

(***sigh***)

Anyway, I hope everybody had a happy Easter. We did, and we also learned an important safety tip:

Do not get in Britt's way when there are Easter eggs to be hunted. She will mow you down.

In sickness and in hell (Pt 2)

So the Barf-O-Rama pretty much ended Friday morning. Pretty much.

And then the Shit-A-Thon began. Or the Shitstorm, if you prefer. Sarah called that night, but I didn't want to deal with her so I didn't answer the phone. She called again Saturday and left a snarky message, so Mikey called her back and lit into her for making the baby sick.

Of course, the day before Britt got sick, we went to playtime at the library and shared toys with 20 other kids, went shopping at two different places, and then stopped by Poppa's store to visit. It's entirely possible that she picked up a virus at any of those places but, somehow, it just feels better to blame Sarah.

The diarrhea started that Friday morning and didn't stop for a week. I'll spare you most of the gory details, except for my candidate for the WORST DIAPER EVER:

Britt had her very first ever poop-running-down-the-leg diaper. When I opened it, the whole thing was filled with a sea of golden liquid, just barely contained within the edges of the diaper. I mean, seriously, I was totally goggled-eyed when I saw it. Somehow I managed to get Britt cleaned up and get the diaper out from under her without spilling anything, and then I stood up to take the foul thing to the trash and it spilled all over the couch, my pants and the carpet. Yay.

But she's all better now and back to being her normal live-wire self. She definitely lost a few pounds during her ordeal because her arms and legs look slimmer. Not skinny, by any means, since she was fairly well-padded before. Bob and Mary took her to the circus on Saturday, as soon as she was well, where they took this picture of her:



As you can see, she may have lost a chin, but she's still a cheeky little thing.

In sickness and in hell

Sarah came over Thursday to see Britt, for the first time since October.

I didn't get any fresh gossip from her because I don't care enough to ask any more, plus I wasn't feeling very talkative since I wasn't the least bit happy to see her. She still showed me the tracks on her arms, though, just like she has every time I've seen her in the past year.

Gah! Why does she do that? How stupid does she have to be to keep waving her fucked-upedness all up in my face?

Anyway, before she left she asked if she could come back over to see Britt the next day. She said she wanted to be consistent.

(She hadn't made any attempt to see Britt since October. Not even a peep at Christmas.)

So Mikey and I looked at each other and said, "Uhhhhhh, we'll have to discuss that and get back with you."

After we went to bed that night, the Barf-O-Rama began.

Oh, God. The Barf-O-Rama.

We were sound asleep when Britt puked all over our bed. Alllll over. It landed on the sheets, the pillows, the headboard, the bed frame and the floor beneath the headboard. Mikey took care of wiping down Britt and comforting her while I stripped the bed and found the huge wet spot on the mattress. I gagged when I saw the mess on the bed frame and on the carpet beneath the headboard, so I switched off with Mikey and took Britt to get fresh jammies on while he finished cleaning up.

Then, we adjourned to the living room. Mikey stretched out on the couch with Britt beside him, while I was scrunched into the loveseat. We were just drifting off when Britt sat up and spewed again. This time the sheet in her lap caught it and it didn't get on the couch, but I said to Mikey, "It's ridiculous trying to sleep out here. Let's go get in the bed in Britt's room."

And so we went and crammed into the little double-sized bed in Britt's room, and I was dimly realizing that the reason I couldn't roll over was because Mikey's arm and Britt's leg were both jammed down the front of my shirt when Britt puked again!

Aaaaauuuugh! How could there possibly be anything left in her? By this time it was about 4:00 am and we were exhausted and frustrated and worried, plus we were quickly running out of clean sheets and towels and mattresses that didn't have big stinky wet spots on them.

So Mikey and Britt settled down in the living room again, and I passed out across the foot of the double bed after I stripped it. Britt barfed again and some of it got on the couch, but Mikey just cleaned up the mess and put a towel over the wet spot and went back to sleep. And that's how we spent the rest of the night.

And then the Shit-A-Thon began.

(To be continued)

Songbird

Britt loves to sing. She tries to follow along with songs she hears, but she'll also make up her own.

When she makes up her own songs, sometimes the lyrics are unintelligible, but other times they are quite clear. Like the song she sang when I was lying beside her, trying to get her to sleep:

Happy happy game
Happy happy game
Happy happy game
Pie
Cake!

She sang the last two words with such awed reverence that I almost fell off the bed laughing.

In other news, Jenny is pregnant with her fourth child. Taryn just turned one last month, and Piper was two in December.

Wow.

"You cannot be fucking serious"

is what I said.

We have tickets for the Eric Clapton concert tonight. It starts less than three hours from now.

Bridget gave Mikey the tickets for Christmas, and it made him cry because it was the first time either of my kids had ever put real thought into what kind of gift he might really like to get.

So we've had over two months to prepare for this night. Bridgie's coming over to babysit Britt. I just took a shower and was fixin' to get ready. And then Mikey called...

You see, there's a trade show in town right now. Our store has a booth there. Actually, we have a booth that covers six booth spaces. And Mikey and his sister are manning it while his brother and mother hold down the store.

So Mikey called and said that he doesn't think we can go to the concert. He's unloading a truck, which will take at least two more hours, and then he has to return the truck, and then he'll be filthy and will need a shower and there just isn't time to do all that before the concert starts.

This is where I said, "You cannot be fucking serious." Among other things.

He asked if I thought Bridgie and her boyfriend would like to use the tickets. I said, "Yeah, that would be like us going to a Hoobastank concert." Just not our cup of tea.

Anyway, I told him that if we aren't going, he's gonna have to be the one to tell Bridgie, because she's going to be very disappointed. Possibly crushed. So I gave him her number. And that's the last I've heard.

I'm so pissed. It's not that I really wanted to go that bad; it's seeing such a special gift go to waste that makes me so mad. Any other time, it would've been no problem. Tonight, of all nights, it's suddenly a problem.

I am just not believing this.

Stuck

I haven't posted a thing for almost two weeks. Not that nothing bloggable has happened; it's because I'm so bummed about not being able to post any pictures that I'm just stuck. Writer's block, I guess. Or blogger's block. Whatever.

I'm not depressed or anything. Just pissed.

I think the relative geezerliness of my six-year-old computer is the reason I can no longer install any software successfully. I think I'm getting a new one for my birthday, which is just over a month away. In fact, I'm pretty sure of it, because Mikey will not be allowed to be happy until I'm happy.

I think I might get a Mac this time. Or something. I need to go see what's out there and talk to some people about what's what. But I already know that I never want a computer with any Windows products installed on it ever again. Never ever again.

***
In other news, I tried to wax my eyebrows for the second time ever, and botched it horribly. I still have eyebrows, but also a laceration where my thumbnail grabbed and ripped the skin instead of the wax.

And I wasn't even drunk this time, like I was the first time when I did it perfectly.

Go figure.

Mikey fixed something!

Holy cow!

My totally-not-a-handyman husband took something that didn't work and made it work again! Like, successfully!

Okay, here's what happened:

My dryer quit drying, so Mikey pulled it out of its cubby to check for a lint blockage. And there was a big-time blockage, so he cleaned that out. Also, the vent hose was all kinked and falling apart, so he went and got a new vent hose and went to work installing that.

And then, somehow, he managed to drop his pliers into the hole in the dryer where the lint trap goes.

(**sigh**)

But!

He fixed that, too!

He unscrewed the back of the dryer and the whole lint-trap housing thingy and got the pliers out and put it all back together and hooked up the new vent hose, and guess what?

My dryer works like new!

Is that amazing or what?

Yay, Mikey!

I took your advice, Sher

I downloaded the driver for my photo software directly from the website, followed the instructions to install it, and got a message that said, "Error extracting support files: Access is denied."

So now what?

Picture This

I've been dicking around with my new photo software, trying to figure out why it is that I can't figure out how to upload pictures from my new camera.

It turns out that it's not me that's the problem. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not me. I could be wrong.

Anyway, according to the manual, the uploading part is supposed to pop up automatically when I plug the camera into the computer. It doesn't. There are instructions for how to make it pop up manually, but that didn't work either.

So I looked further in the troubleshooting guide and I found instructions on how to look for two particular drivers in my device manager. Well, they weren't there.

Ooookay... so how do I make them get there?

Beats me.

The installation wizard doesn't give me the option to install individual components; it's an all or nothing deal. So I uninstalled the whole thing and reinstalled it. The two particular drivers still aren't there.

So that's what the problem is. Without the drivers that won't install, I will never be able to upload photos from my new camera.

(***scream, tear at hair***)

So what the hell am I supposed to do now? I could:

• trade the camera in for a different make/model, but will they take it back since I've had it for more than 30 days and I've opened the software packet? And will they take back the $50 memory card after I've had the cute pictures of Britt at the zoo printed? Because I'm pretty sure this $50 memory card won't work in any other make/model of camera.


• call the technical support number, but after waiting on hold for three hours will I get to talk to someone who speaks English? Will they just try to read the manual to me? Or maybe a a miracle might happen and they'll say, "Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. Do this and this and you're all set." (Yeah, right.)


• take my computer to the Geek Squad at Best Buy and pay $30 to have them install the software for me.


• buy a new computer, because maybe the problems I've had trying to install this software and Mikey's camera-phone software are related to the advanced age of my computer?

Hmmm, what to do, what to do?

It's freezing!

No, not the weather, although it is kind of nipply out there.

It's my big, beautiful freezer! You know, the freezer I got for Christmas in 2004? Or was it 2003? The freezer that's never been used because it's been sitting in the middle of the garage, marooned in a sea of household castoffs and blocked in by Mikey's weight bench?

Yeah, that one.

Finally, it has been dug out of the debris and pushed over to the wall. It has been plugged in! It works! Even though the warranty has surely expired by now.

Bob did it when he came to visit this weekend. Yay, Bob!

There's nothing in it yet, so it's just freezing air at this point.

But it's plugged in! It's working! It's one less thing on my list of things to bitch about!

Yay, Bob!

I'm pooped

Britt is not only peeing in the potty now; she's also pooping in it! Yay!

But... there's a problem.

Gah! Isn't there always?

Here's what happened:

Bob and Mary came down to visit this weekend, and Mary put Britt on the potty. And Britt sat on the potty without crying or flailing or screaming, like she'd been doing whenever I tried to put her on the potty. And she peed in it and she pooped in it, and we were all so happy. And she decided it was a fun thing to do, so she happily went to the potty whenever it was suggested to her. She even came up with the idea herself a few times. So, it was all cool.

And then Bob and Mary went home, and we continued with the potty-sitting program, and Britt continues to pee and poop in the potty. Except now, she doesn't want to get off the potty. She wants to sit there. All. Day. Long. She cries and flails and screams when I try to get her off the potty so that we can go do other things.

And it's not the potty chair she's using that I can move into another room so we can do other things while she sits; she refuses to even try using that. Nope, it's the potty seat that fits onto the big toilet that she loves to sit on, so we're stuck in the bathroom until I can talk her down from it. This is not so cool.

Seriously, it's from one extreme to the other with this kid. What is up with that?

It's always something

I'd planned on having a fresh post up by now about Britt's first class at the zoo last Saturday, complete with cute pictures, but there was a problem.

I got a new digital camera for Christmas; it's got twice the mega-pixels of my old camera, and it's only one-third the size. And no more floppy disks, ever! Wheee!

But there was a problem.

When I push the button to take a picture, it hesitates for about two seconds (to focus, I guess) before it actually takes the picture. Which is fine for landscape shots, but not so good when you're trying to capture cute expressions on a very active two-year-old. So I've taken lots of pictures of the side of Britt's head, the back of her head and the top of her head, but not so many of her face.

I wasn't sure whether I was going to keep this new camera, so I never installed the software that came with it. This is the third digital camera I've owned and I've never had this problem before, so I asked everyone I knew if they'd ever heard of such a thing, and they all (except Bridgie, who has an older model) said that their digital cameras also hesitate before taking the picture, which sort of convinced me that they all do these days, and so I finally decided to keep it.

So I grabbed my new camera on my way out the door Saturday morning and got some good pictures of Britt in her class at the zoo and, on Sunday, I finally installed the software so that I could post some of them here on my blog.

But there was a problem.

I got the software installed, I got the camera plugged into the computer with the USB cable, and then I couldn't find any way to upload the pictures from the camera. I mean, seriously! I looked at all the menu choices and even tried a few, and I studied the manual and I still can't figure out how to upload the freakin' pictures off my freakin' camera! I even had Bridgie try it when she came over yesterday and she couldn't figure it out, either.

Gaaaaaaahhhhh!

So, anyway, that's why you haven't had a full report yet, complete with cute pictures, from Britt's first class at the zoo.

Britt has a cold

She woke up with it after her nap yesterday, coughing and rattling all evening, and even vomiting a little bit. She woke up feeling much better this morning; her main problem today has been a snotty nose.

Mikey was trying to wipe her nose this evening while she shook her head from side to side to avoid the dreaded tissue. Finally, she exclaimed in frustration, "No, Poppa! MY booger!"

Potty Pooper

No, no, Britt hasn't pooped in the potty yet, but she has peed in it for the third time ever.

She's been doing this thing lately where she crosses her chubby little arms across her chest, tosses her head, and goes "Hmph!" to emphasize her indignation whenever I try to get her to do something she doesn't want to do. Like pottying in the potty:

No, Grummy! No! No potty! (cross arms, toss head) Hmph!

Anyway, she now has a potty seat that fits on top of the regular toilet seat, in addition to her potty chair. She was perched on that potty seat and I was sitting on the edge of the tub, reading books to her, when I noticed that the top of the toilet tank behind her right shoulder sat a whole lot higher than it did behind her left shoulder. Like, a couple of inches higher.

I made Mikey come and sit on the edge of the tub to see if he saw what I saw, and he did. There was some head-scratching and a few I'll be damneds tossed about, and we finally decided that the big bolt we found on the floor behind the toilet a few weeks ago -- a mystery we never got around to solving -- must have been part of what held the tank onto the toilet. And so it is tilting, badly.

Thus it appears that we have an imminent toilet disaster on our hands. And the toilet in the master bath hasn't worked for several years now, so if this disaster should happen to unfold before we get around to doing something to prevent it, we will literally be left without a pot to piss in.

Meanwhile, Britt's vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and her pronunciation is improving, if not always spot-on. Spongebob Squarepants is now Ungebob Pants instead of BobBob, for example. And tonight she was running around looking for "asswipe"; it took us several minutes (of choking back hoots of laughter) to figure out what she really wanted: her flashlight.

Things That Are Cold

So this morning was our very first class at the art museum. I woke up bright and early, peeked out the window and saw that it was snowing! No, no, no! No way!

Then I turned on the Weather Channel and they said it was 38 degrees outside, so I decided that the snow could go screw itself because I'd been looking forward to this too long and we were going.

And then Mikey got up and saw that it was snowing and I was afraid he'd try to stop us because he's so anal about safety issues, but I told him that it wasn't cold enough to be icy so he didn't put up much of a fuss and, sure enough, we had no trouble at all getting there.

We started with apple juice and animal crackers while we got our aprons on and waited for all the kids to show up, then we listened to a story about a snowy day, then we played with ice cubes (Britt ate hers), and then we went on a gallery tour. And this is where it got dicey.

We didn't go look at paintings hung up on a wall or sculptures made of metal. Nah, that would be too easy, wouldn't it? We had to go look at the Chihuly glass exhibit, where things are, you know, made out of glass and are extremely breakable! And lots of the pieces sat on platforms that were only about a foot high. And Britt went into high-energy mode and ran me ragged, trying to keep her from touching, climbing, bumping and/or running out of sight.

Happily, the Chihuly exhibit was left unscathed by the time we returned to the classroom, other than some fingerprints on the platforms. And then it was time to paint!

I knew Britt would love it, and she did:



and then we washed up. And still somehow we managed to walk out of there with paint all over us (washable, so the instructor said -- we'll see) with a huge piece of paper covered in wet paint that flapped in the wind all the way to the car.

Anyway, we made it home safely and the picture is drying out in the garage (where Britt can't get hold of it and transfer paint all over the house). Our next class is February 24 and is titled "Chihuly's Colors." But of course.

This week we have playtime at the library on Wednesday and then next Saturday is our first class at the zoo. That one is titled "Scaled Down," but there's no course description so I'm not sure what we'll be doing. I'm assuming there will be animals with scales involved (snakes? fish?), but Britt is leery of creepy-crawly things so perhaps this is not the best class to start her off with, but we're going to anyway.

It'll be my revenge for that heart-stopping Chihuly tour today.

Weighty issues

We went to Mikey's birthday party at his folks' house last night, had some awesome BBQ brisket and a huge chocolate cake, and learned that Mikey (who was born when his parents were both 18 years old) was conceived in the back seat of a 1966 Mustang Fastback.

Anyway, I had Britt's weight on my mind since I'd just been looking at booster seats and there was a scale (I don't own one) at my in-laws' house, so I weighed myself, had a minor heart attack, then picked up Britt and weighed myself again, and did the math. She weighs 39 pounds, almost nine pounds heavier than at her two-year checkup in September. I'm not saying what I weighed, except that it's a three-digit number that does not start with a 2. Or a 3.

When we got home, I asked Mikey what his optimum weight was (he's 6'2") and then I told him I weighed more than that. And then I told him seriously to quit buying the fucking chips already! Because if they're there, I will eat them! He finally agreed that we have to quit it with the cookies and the chips and the cakes and the chocolate, because he's packing several extra pounds his own dang self.

And then I measured Britt -- she's 35 inches tall now, almost two inches taller than she was at her two-year checkup -- and looked up a height/weight chart for her age and saw that she needs to quit it with the cookies and the chips and the cakes and the chocolate, too. She really doesn't look overweight to me, but I don't want to get her headed down that road already.

If I wasn't so happy about having my car back, I'd be feeling really depressed about all this.

Busy day

We had to go shopping today because it had recently (very recently) come to my attention that Mikey's birthday is TOMORROW (yikes!). He's turning 37, which just astonishes me to no end. We've been together since he was a young and tender 23. And I was a cradle-robbing 31.

Something I've noticed since getting my car back: Britt's gotten a lot taller and heavier in the past six months; now it's hard to hoist her up into her car seat because its sides are so high, and sometimes I even bang her head on the roof. My car is tiny and there just isn't much room to maneuver back there. So today I looked at booster seats, and guess what? They have arms! That flip up! Which ought to make it easier to get her in and out of the car. Also, their recommended weight ranges start at 30 pounds and I know she's heavier than that so I think we'll be getting one very soon.

When we left the house today I fixed her up with a CD Walkman (my 1995 Zipmobile still has only a cassette player) so she could listen to her new Baby Einstein music CDs. It cracked me up to watch her in the rear-view mirror, bopping her head and clapping along to music I couldn't even hear.

Today was our first day back at baby/toddler playtime at the library; I only had to tell Britt once not to take a toy away from another kid, so that was good; I was afraid she'd be more aggressive since she's pretty demanding at home. She did great until the end of the session, which closes with a story and lap games. She didn't want to sit on my lap; she wanted to run around gathering and stacking books like she does at home, so she had a mini-meltdown when I had to put the iron grip on her.

Our next scheduled activity is Saturday morning at the OKC Museum of Art, where we're supposed to explore "Things That Are Cold" and then paint with chilled finger paints. Britt's never painted before except with, like, pudding and melted ice cream and stuff, but I think it'll be right up her alley.

Speaking of art, she drew this on her Doodle-Pro today:



Can you tell it's a puppy? Britt says it's a puppy. I say it's a puppy hiking its leg.

Sprung, briefly

Mikey decided to go grocery shopping on his way home from work last night, so he didn't make it home in time to take me to the libarary. This is probably because I called and told him I had nothing to fix for dinner. He asked if there was anything we especially needed, and I said, "Yes. Toilet paper and hot chocolate mix."

(I've been keeping the toilet paper at the back of the bathroom counter instead on the holder and I still had to use the toilet plunger handle to fish two more of Britt's paper piles out of the potty yesterday.)

Then he called from the grocery store and asked if there was anything we especially needed, and I said, "Yes. Toilet paper and hot chocolate mix." Also, I asked him what he already got. He rattled off a list that started with chips, donuts and Little Debbie cakes and I almost sprained something rolling my eyes. "Did you get any meat?" I asked. No, but he'd go by the meat aisle and see what they had.

When he got home and I started unloading groceries, I decided that he was never going grocery shopping alone again, because he always gets stuff that we already have (or don't need, i.e. chips, donuts and Little Debbie cakes). So now we have five bags of fries, three bags of hash browns and three half-gallons of Bluebell ice cream (two of them are Moo-llenium Crunch, which I'm not crazy about) in our freezer, four packages of spaghetti noodles, four cans of Progresso chicken corn chowder, two full jars of Parmesan cheese, etc. You get the picture.

But he didn't get any toilet paper or hot chocolate mix.

Also, I had a small conniption while trying to wedge all the frozen stuff into the tall, narrow and tightly-packed freezer compartment of my fridge, and rather testily pointed out that if my big, beautiful freezer that sits in the middle of the garage was pushed over to the wall and plugged in, I wouldn't have to go through all that wrestling and rearranging after every shopping trip.

So tonight, after I thawed a package of chicken breasts, I remembered that he also brought KFC for dinner last night so I wouldn't have to cook. And I then had leftover KFC for lunch today. And somehow I completely forgot all about that when I decided to fry some chicken tonight. So tonight we're having hot dogs.

Anyway, the sun was shining this afternoon and the temperature was 38 degrees, so I went outside and poked my toe around the yard, the driveway and the street and it was slushy! Woo-hoo! So me and Britt piled into the car and went to the library. And now I have five new books to read, which should do me until this time next week, which should give the snow we're supposed to get this weekend a chance to melt. So, I'm good.

Except that I have no hot chocolate mix and we're damn near out of toilet paper.

O cruel twist of fate

I had one week of blessed freedom before the Arctic Circle apparently decided to move south for the winter. And now I'm shut down again.

I kinda heard that it was supposed to stay really cold through the end of the month, but I didn't think the ice would last that long. There was 24/7 weather coverage on all the local stations this weekend, but I was burned out on the whole thing after the first couple of hours, so I didn't watch another weather forecast until yesterday and, guess what?

It's not supposed to get above 32 degrees for at least two weeks. And more icy shit is coming this weekend!

This is so not fair!

Fortunately, Britt's only scheduled (and paid-for) activity is an art lesson on January 27; maybe the ice will be gone by then. But we did miss storytime at the library this morning.

Speaking of the library, I'll tell you what's really freaking me out: I have nothing left to read! I finished all my library books and most of the books that Cathy left here last month to clear some space in the back seat of her car. All that's left from that stack is a Jean Auel caveman book and a copy of "The Thorn Birds." Which, I don't even want to go there. I did read Jane Pauley's autobiography, which was the fluffiest piece of nothing ever, and two Reader's Digest Condensed Books, which should tell you how desperate I am for reading material.

I wonder if I can get Mikey to drive me to the library tonight? It's only like a mile away, but still...

Icebound

Stuck at home but this time it's only for a few days -- I hope. The streets are pretty slickery and my trusty little zipmobile would turn into a skatemobile on the ice, so me and Britt are waiting for things to clear up before we venture out again.

Bridgie had cabin fever and came over to visit this afternoon; after she'd been here a couple of hours, she glanced out the window and saw that her car had slid down the ice on the driveway and into the street.

Not much else going on lately, except that potty-training has once again come to a complete standstill. When I try to put a pull-up on Britt, she grabs it and puts it back in the package, hollering, "No, no, NO!" Then she grabs a diaper, slams it down in front of me and firmly insists, "Dopper!"

She does like to hang out in the bathroom, though; twice this week I've caught her unrolling the toilet paper and piling it into the toilet, which finally overflowed last night when Mikey flushed yet another of her paper piles. And after I go potty, she waves at the water swirling down the toilet and says, "Bye-bye, pee-pee! Bye-bye!"

Gymbo-wheeee!

I went shopping last night to augment my miniscule winter wardrobe and stumbled upon a humongo sale, so I got five new tops and a pair of tennies for only $92. Or actually $22 after cashing in one of my Christmas gift certificates.

I'm not an athletic-shoe type of person at all. I mean, I bought my last pair of sneakers on my honeymoon almost ten years ago. But my entire footwear wardrobe consisted of summer sandals, a pair of fine Italian leather boots and a few pairs of heels left over from my late, unlamented career days and I had nothing to schlep comfortably around in. So I hit the shoe department and looked doubtfully over the sneaker selection.

I really, really hate the funky-shaped soles they put on athletic shoes these days. They're hideous! They look like wads of chewed-up gum, don't they? I couldn't even bring myself to try on a pair. So I bought a pair of Vans. The brown ones. It was either that or Keds, and I'm not matronly enough for Keds. When I got home with the Vans, Mikey said, "Oh, so you're a skater now?" I don't care. They suit me.

So today was our trial Gymboree class.

We got there thirty minutes early and they were having playtime for about half a dozen younger toddlers, but they let Britt join right in. She climbed ladders, slid down slides, threw balls through a basketball hoop, walked the balance beam, jumped on the mini-trampoline and rocked on the rocking thingies. She was running here, there and everywhere at top speed and, since we have to stay within arms' length, so was I.

And then it was time for Britt's age group. Only three other kids showed up. There was more playtime and the woman leading the class would call us over occasionally for songs and parachute play, but Britt wasn't interested in that; she just wanted to play on all the cool stuff.

And that was pretty much it. I left thinking, "That was it? That's all it is?" I was expecting something more structured, more educational. So, I don't know.

They want $59 a month with a three-month minimum enrollment, plus a one-time $35 enrollment fee. So that would be $212 for Britt to play on the cool play equipment once a week for 13 weeks. According to the website we can also attend free Play Gym, but the lady who explained all this to me didn't mention that so I'm not sure what it means.

Mikey says to go ahead and do it since she enjoyed it and it does give her a chance to socialize with other kids her size, but I hate to spend that much if she isn't going to be learning anything. I really wanted to put her in Kindermusik, but the website said the class for her age group was full when I looked at it last week. I looked again today and it doesn't say that it's full anymore, so we might go try a trial class there to see what it's like.

Out and About

Me and Britt finally hit the road in my trusty zipmobile today. The good news is that I remembered how to drive a stick shift. The bad news was... well, there wasn't really any bad news, except that I had to circle the block and come back home to grab our overdue library stuff. But that was minor.

Wait, there is some bad news to report: my printer no longer works since we tried to install that software for Mikey to use to upload pictures from his camera phone. It says the cable's unhooked or something, but it isn't and I can't figure out what the problem is.

So, anyway, the first thing we did today was to go visit Mikey at the store so we could use his computer to print enrollment forms for art classes and gymnastics. And then Britt browsed the toy section, which is depleted from Christmas but she did manage to find a new spinny light-up thingy to whack herself (and me) in the head with.

And then we went grocery shopping, which I normally hate but I enjoyed it this time since it was the first time I'd been able to shop without Mikey in six months. Don't ask me why it's better to shop without Mikey; it just is.

And then I got hit up for a dollar by a scraggly woman in the grocery store parking lot who said she needed to buy a bus ticket to get to South Penn to get stitches taken out of her face. And I'm a big giant marshmallow, so I gave her the friggin' dollar.

And then we came home. Britt was so good the whole time we were out; she can be terribly two sometimes, but today she was an angel.

I just remembered one more bit of bad news: Britt's scheduled for her first Gymboree class on Wednesday and I thought I'd get to sit in a chair and watch, but that's apparently not how it works. The instructions I was given said to "come prepared to take off your shoes and play awhile in your socks." Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! I'm 44 years old and I have a bum knee and I don't want to go galumphing around in my socks in front of strangers!

But I'll do it for her. I guess.

(***sigh***)

There better be other grannies there. At least one. I don't want to be the only person there old enough to be all the other mommies' mommy. That would well and truly suck, wouldn't it?

Britt has wheels, too!

Mikey gave her a little battery-operated four-wheeler for Christmas, but she acted like she was scared of it so it's just been sitting in the toy room since then. Tonight, when he got home from work, he finally took it outside to see if he could get her to ride it.

Boy, did she! He spent the next hour chasing her up and down our little street and around the cul-de-sac:







He had a heck of a time getting her to pull into the driveway when he was ready to quit; she'd speed up and zoom past it because she wasn't ready to quit!

I finally got my car back!

Except Mikey took it today to get an oil change and to be generally checked over to make sure we're ready to roll.

According to the invoice, it cost $68 to have Bridgie's car towed, $120 to put the stuff back together that Bob took apart, and $95 for a new battery -- which is ridiculous and Mikey's supposed to be talking to them about that today. So, if Bridgie's car had gone into the shop six months ago when it was still driveable, it only would've cost about $480 to fix. And Britt and me wouldn't have been stuck here at the house all this time.

It turned out to be a cracked radiator and a bad ignition, by the way.

Anyway, we're reserved and paid up for the February and March Toddler Two classes at the OKC zoo; the January class (which is tomorrow) was already full. I'm fixin' to sign us up for art classes at the OKC Museum of Art. Also, the Oklahoma Children's Theatre is doing Treasure Island later this month and Britt likes pirates, so we'll probably go see it.

So now that we're about to go public, I'm feeling a little bit of stage fright. I'm not sure I'll remember how to act. I need a good haircut, and I've only got two long-sleeved shirts and two pairs of jeans that fit, which was enough when I never went anywhere, so I guess I need to go shopping.

Ugh, I hate shopping.

Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better than I have in a while. We've got stuff to look forward to and interesting things to do, and I think Britt will have a lot of fun. And if she's having fun, I'll have fun just watching her.

P.S.: I've finally decided to get serious about potty-training. I kept Britt in pull-ups today and planned to sit her on the potty every two hours, but she foiled me. She kept pooping in her pants 15 minutes before her two hours were up, and at 4:00 she peeped while she was standing in her bathwater. And then I gave it up for the day. Maybe we need to try every hour and a half or something, I dunno. I really don't remember how to do this.

$762.84

That's how much it cost to get Bridgie's car fixed.

O happy day

Mikey came home last night and told me he was planning to have Bridgie's car hauled to a repair shop today.

Uh-huh, I've heard that one before.

So imagine my surprise when he spent an hour cleaning out her car before he went to work this morning. I dunno what-all she left in there, but it's been festering for about six months, and it made Mikey puke. He was not amused.

Then he went on to work and guess what happened next?

A wrecker came and took Bridgie's car away!

Hot dog!

It looks like Britt and me are finally fixin' to be sprung from our cozy little prison here, so I've been studying our options, trying to decide what we're going to do with ourselves once we're mobile again.

The Oklahoma City Museum of Art has classes once a month for Britt's age group that only cost $8. And the zoo has a Toddler Two program that's also once a month and costs $10. Storytime at the library is once a week and it's free.

And then there's Gymboree and toddler gymnastics, and I'm looking at dance schools that will take two-year-olds, but these all cost a lot more and are a bigger commitment, so I dunno yet which ones we'll be doing.

Also, Britt peeped in the potty this morning for the second time ever!

A new year, a fresh start

We were disappointed that Phil and Jamie weren't able to come down and spend New Year's Eve with us, but we still managed to end the year on a happy note, splitting a couple of bottles of Moët. We let Britt toast the new year with us, with a beverage normally forbidden to her -- a glass of Co-Co (that's what she calls Coke).

Actually, Mikey passed out after the first bottle of Moët, so I polished off the second one myself while watching Cinderella for the 117th time with Britt, and then I waxed my eyebrows, which turned out amazingly well since I'd never waxed my eyebrows before and I was pretty well toasted.

I did tell Mikey last night that if somebody doesn't do something very soon to get me my car back, I'll take matters into my own hands and call a wrecker take Bridgie's car away to be fixed, and I'll charge it all to my credit card.

Which apparently gave him fresh incentive to make me happy, because he spent today cleaning out the garage with the goal of getting my freezer (the one I got for Christmas in 2004 [or was it 2003?] ) pushed over to the wall and plugged in so I can finally use it. He took a truckload of merchandise back to the store and hauled away another load of trash/Goodwill stuff, but the freezer is still sitting in the middle of the garage and it's still not plugged in. He says he'll get it done tomorrow, but we'll see.

I gave Mikey this for Christmas so he could upload all the pictures he's taken with his camera phone, and he's tried to install it several times but never could get it to work. I've been sitting here tonight, uninstalling and reinstalling it and I can't get it to work either. Now I'm looking at customer reviews and every one of them is negative so now I feel like we got ripped off.

So that was our first day of the new year -- a little bit good and a little bit bad, but I'm feeling hopeful that most of the things that have been making me unhappy lately will be taken care of soon.

They damn well better be, anyway.

Merry Fuckin' Christmas (Grrrrrr, Spit!)

I survived. We survived. Whatever. It's over and thank God for that.

Christmas has never been my favorite time of the year. Well, at least not since I was a poverty-stricken young single mom. I'm not poverty-stricken anymore, or young or single, either, but I can still take it or leave it. This year I would've preferred to leave it.

The past few months I've been dealing with the worst bout of depression I've experienced in six years. If you've noticed that my natural wit and charm have been missing from this blog lately, it's because they're buried beneath the ton of lead that's parked in my chest.

I know why I'm depressed. I just can't get the reasons why I'm depressed fixed so I can be happy again, and I'm really pissed off about that.

So I had a miserable Christmas and I pretty much made sure everybody else did, too. I'm not proud of my behavior, but during my worst hissy fits I was detached from my body, watching from the sidelines, and just as shocked and horrified as everybody else.

A big part of my depression is the Bob/Brittany thing. It's an awkward situation and no matter how it ends up, whether Britt stays here with me or goes to live with her dad, somebody is going to hurt. I just don't want Britt to be hurt, no matter what happens.

Another big part is that I haven't had a car since, um, June, maybe? I don't remember. Too damn long is all I know. Bridget's car broke down and she borrowed mine so I've been waiting all this time for either:

• Bridget to get enough money together to get her car fixed,
• Bob to come here and fix Bridget's car, or
• Mikey to get Bridget's car fixed somewhere, anywhere, I don't care where
  

so I can have my car back.

Y'all know I'm a dedicated homebody and when I do have my car, I haven't been known to go anywhere very often. But that was my choice. Now I don't have any choice, and I feel like a prisoner in my own home.

I used to avidly study schedules for kid's activities all over the metro area, waiting for Britt to be old enough to go out and do things with. Now that she's old enough, we can't do anything. No story time at the library, no Gymboree, no dance lessons or music lessons or art lessons. No Crossroads Kids Club once a month.

Instead, we're stuck here at the house every single day, with the same old books and toys and videos and TV shows and she's bored and I'm bored and I feel like our time together is coming to an end and this is not how I wanted our time together to be.

And then suddenly Christmas came bearing down on me like a runaway freight train and I couldn't get any shopping done because I don't have a fucking car and it's Mikey's busiest time of the year and he couldn't get off work in time for me to use his car to go out and get anything done before everything closed for the night and then suddenly it was the week before Christmas.

Mikey and I both were totally dog sick for three days this past week and could barely stand upright (Britt had a runny nose and cough for like one day) and then on Thursday, or maybe Friday (I can't remember; I never know what day it is), Bridgie let me borrow my own car and babysat Britt so I could finally go get some shopping done. But I didn't get it all done, because there was too much to do and I still felt sick and weak.

I knew Bob was coming in for the weekend but I never heard from him and, like I said, I never know what day it is, so when he and his girlfriend showed up at my door completely unannounced, I went completely apeshit. I was not ready, I had no warning, I needed more time and, by the way, it's so rude not to call first! Even Sherri knows to call first before she comes over!

Anyway, I don't remember what I said or did, except that I burst into tears and ran to the garage to hide out. And I cried most of the weekend. And I wasn't very nice to anybody. I felt used up, exhausted and sick. And bleak. I never did finish my shopping. I simply declared that I was done and left Mikey to do what he could to make sure everybody was taken care of and that was that.

So I'm sorry, Bob (and Mary) and Bridgie and Mikey, that I was such a bitch and that it wasn't a happy and peaceful Christmas. If I had it to do over again... Well, if I had to do it over again I'd just shoot myself and be done with it. But I wish it had been different.

Gawd, I hate Christmas.

New Year's Eve can't come soon enough, though, 'cuz Mommy's ready to go on a bender.

Home from the Holidays

We went to Tahlequah Sunday for my family's Christmas gathering, which is an arduous journey but well worth it because it's the only time of the year I get to see everybody together (except for Sherri & Chris, who can only drive that far if there's hunting or fishing involved). We had a good visit, ate a lot and did the Dirty Santa thing.

While we were there, Brittany attended her first-ever tea party (with cousins Madison and Piper),



and discovered that she loves jumping on a trampoline almost as much as riding a pony:



Then we came home and crashed; Britt and I didn't wake up today until Bridgie came over for lunch. And then I had a frazzling day because I had too many chores to catch up on, because Britt wouldn't take a nap so I could catch a break, and because of one other reason that is just Too Much Information but it startled the hell out of me, so when Mikey called to say he was on his way home from work, I may have whimpered a little. So he brought me a bouquet of beautiful coral-pink roses to cheer me up.

It worked.

And now I need to Google pre-menopausal symptoms to see if I can figure out why that TMI thing happened.

"Pree Yights!"

We've noticed several vehicles circling around the cul-de-sac and pausing in front of our house lately. We wondered what was up with that, until we drove Britt around to look at all the pretty lights and it finally occurred to us that they must be spectators looking at our Christmas lights.

Mikey went shopping again, so now there's a fence of snowflake-shaped yard lights in front of Santa and the Iceman, and a big star on the front of the house. And he's still not done yet:



(The light bulb in the Iceman's head keeps burning out, which is pretty annoying. Also, the red and green candy canes look like they're marching straight across the yard in this picture, which is odd because they line the curved walkway up to the front door.)

We still have a bunch of snowflake lights (that match the yard lights) to hang in the trees, and the trees and the fence by the garage will also be wrapped with lights. I think next year Mikey's planning to put stuff on the roof as well.

So, anyway, that's our Clark Griswold Christmas so far. It's hard to look at it and not smile, but I'd be feeling a lot more Christmas spirit if I had any of my Christmas shopping done, but I don't, and that's a whole 'nother post.

I think I'm going to

change the name of my blog.

I always meant to, because I never really liked "Little Sis." I used to call Britt that sometimes when she was so tiny, and I'm a little sis too, so when I had to come up with a name for this blog, it was the only thing I could think of that wasn't already taken.

I never call Britt "Little Sis" anymore.

I call her Big Sugar, Sugar Booger, Sugar Pie, Sugar Fuzz, Fuzzy Sugar, Sweet Baby Love, Britty-Boo, Pretty Britty, Doll Baby, Pooty-Poo, Stinkbait, Silly Putty, Punkin Poopers, and the Sweetest Little Girl in the World. And that's all in one day.

(I never call her Baby Girl, though; Bridgie will always be my Baby Girl.)

I don't know what I'll change the title to yet but, after Christmas is over, I'll be changing my colors back to frosty blues. So, if you came here and saw different colors and a different title, would you think you came to the wrong place?

The Countess

I told you that Britt is counting, right? First, it was just reciting the numbers, then she started counting things, like crayons and books.

Now she can identify written numbers. Her little laptop has a bunch of different number and letter games on it, and she's a whiz at the one where she has to push the right number when prompted. She's starting to get pretty good at the letter version of the same game. We yay and clap for her or, if we get distracted, she'll yay and clap for herself and say, "Bitney smaht girl!"

I have no idea whether a kid her age should be able to do that much already, but I'm impressed anyway.

When she sees someone dancing and singing, like the Wiggles or Hi-5, she tries to copy the movements and sing along, but she usually only manages to shout out the last word of each line, so "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" goes something like this:

........................ star!
........................ are!
........................ high!
........................ sky!

So I borrowed this from the library the other day. She's watched it four or five times already and her singing has improved quite a bit. Today she was even singing into a little microphone-shaped booklight that she found somewhere.

It's all just cuter than shit, but we try not to giggle about it in front of her because she might develop a complex or something and get all self-conscious, like me.

I took a nap

and dreamed that Britt got into Mikey's shaving cream and slathered it all over her head, and then she took a razor and shaved big swaths of hair off the top, leaving long pink strips of baldness. I cried and cried when I saw it.

And then I woke up and saw this:



It's not nearly as bad as the shaving thing would've been; she only got into my makeup bag, so I had to laugh. And grab the camera.

Thanks given

Went to my in-laws' house for Thanksgiving dinner.

During the blessing, Mikey thanked God that the Democrats won the House and the Senate, which caused a ripple around the table.

The nieces and nephews ate in the kitchen, except for little Karlee who sat on my mother-in-law's lap two seats to my right in the dining room. Karlee is allergic to beef, pork, wheat, eggs, dairy products, and a half dozen other foods. There isn't much she can eat, so her mother fed her spaghetti before they arrived (aren't there wheat and eggs in pasta?) and Karlee vomited it all over my mother-in-law, the table and the empty chair between us. Yay.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the kids set off the Low-Rider Santa 126 times during dinner. After dinner, I waited until no one was looking and I hid it.

That night, Mikey started pulling all the Christmas stuff out of the attic and got lights strung across the front of the house. While we were standing out in the street admiring his handiwork, Mikey told me he's gonna be Clark Griswold this year, and then he went shopping. So now, among other things, we have lighted candy canes lining the flower beds on both sides of the front door, along with an air-blown Santa and a snowman, both eight feet tall, where the weeping mulberries used to be. Britt insists on calling the snowman the Iceman.

Did you catch that? The weeping mulberries are finally gone! Woo-hoo! Clark finally chainsawed them down yesterday.

Anyway, he's not done yet. The rest of the trees still need to be strung with lights and Clark will probably go shopping again, but we're already the most festive house on the block. I tried to take some pictures last night but they were too dark, so y'all will just have to come over and see. Britt is thrilled.

And now the question that plagued me last year has arisen yet again: To tree or not to tree? We, or really I, finally decided to skip it last year, but Clark says of course we're putting up a tree this year. Two, in fact! Our regular one and the antique aluminum tree that Grandma Sarah gave us. Oh, yay!

I've had a bad case of the blues lately, but Clark's infectious enthusiasm is actually making me feel slightly less Scroogish than usual. So now I must go select some html color codes so I can dress my blog in Christmas colors.

Checking in

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately, but I just haven't been in a computer mood. Instead of spending all my free time reading stuff online, I've been reading... books! Actual real live books!

Imagine that.

Bob and his girlfriend came down to see Britt and spent Sunday and Monday nights with us.

Britt can count to ten already!

Bridgie just got a big raise at work.

I'm supposed to be boiling eggs right now, but I don't feel like it. I shouldn't complain, though, because Mike's mom and sister are being all Martha Stewart about Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow and all I have to do is deviled eggs and a cheese and cracker tray.

I haven't had Thanksgiving dinner with my own family since 1994.

I hear Britt terrorizing the cat again, so I'd better scram.

Suddenly, a menagerie

Mikey volunteered us to dog-sit Toby, Grandma Sarah's dog, while she's in Chicago for her annual two-month visit with Uncle Max and family. He is cute, and he's a sweet-natured little dog:



Unfortunately, he's a flatulent dog. Also a pisser, an upchucker, and a barker. The horrid stank of his farts burned all the hairs out of my nose, and he was peeing on the outside of the kitty litter box, leaving nasty yellow puddles on the bathroom floor. He vomited on my carpets at least once a day. And when I'd exile him to the backyard for his sins, he'd stand at the door and bark non-stop for hours and hours and hours.

I stood it for eight days. The final straw came last Saturday night when we were kicked back for the evening and Toby yakked up a big stinking steaming pile right in front of the TV. I looked over at Mikey and said, "Toby's got to go." Mikey took him over to his parents' house the next day. So that ordeal is over.

Okay, wait -- back up. What was that about a kitty litter box? Since when do we have a cat?

Well, it happened like this: A week ago Saturday, the doorbell rang. It was Cathy. With a cat. The cat Phil brought her. The cat she was supposed to bring over a month or so ago to see if we wanted it, but I hadn't heard a peep from her since then so I thought maybe she decided to keep it.

She brought the cat, cat food, a litter box, a box of kitty litter, and many boxes of kitty box liners. I said, "So is this is a trial run or a forever deal?" She kind of slumped and said, "I guess it's a trial run."

He's a pretty kitty, snow white with pale ginger ears and tail and ice blue eyes. He's tiny, too. I forgot to ask how old he is.





So now we have a cat. We named him Ginger Baker, and Britt loves him. To death, if I don't keep a sharp eye on her.

Little Angel

Sis went trick-or-treating for the first time last night and she loved her costume -- except for the halo, which she refused to wear:



I took loads of pictures, but she was in a contrary mood so I didn't get many good ones. She even hid behind a chair, yelling, "No! No pictures!":



I had no idea she was so popular here in the cul-de-sac; several of our neighbors had little Care Bears and dolls on hand to give her. After making the rounds, she shared the wealth with her Poppa,



and with me:



I got lots of video of her actual trick-or-treating experiences, but I can't post any of it here since my computer no longer recognizes my camera.

Dear Auntie

Remember when I thought it would be hilarious to hear Britt start calling her Aunt Bridgie by name? Due to her pronunciation issues, I was so sure it would come out "Aunt Bitchie".

Well, it didn't. Aunt Bridgie was dubbed "BeeGee" shortly after I wrote that post. And I was so disappointed.

So Aunt Bridgie came over for lunch yesterday and, when she was headed out the door to go back to work, Britt ran after her for a hug and a kiss, calling, "Bitchie! Bitchie!"

Bridge shot me a look. I tried but failed to conceal my glee.

Dudes, I am so pissed!

Have you ever seen "Boohbah"? It's like Teletubbies on acid. Trust me on this.

Anyway, Britt loves Boohbah, but it only comes on at 5:00 in the morning and we are sawing some serious logs at that hour, so the only time she's ever seen it is on the one Boohbah DVD we own. It features the "Squeaky Socks" episode, the "Painting the Fence" episode, and I can't tell you what the third episode is because by that point I'm drooling and my eyes have rolled back into my head. We've watched that DVD over and over and over again so many times that if I have to live through "Squeaky Socks" one more time I will gut myself. I mean it.

So this morning I popped awake from some stupid dream I was having where I was at somebody's wedding and I bent over and my glasses fell off and went to pieces all over the floor and I was freaking out because I had to find someplace to get them fixed before I had to drive to work on Monday morning. I don't know why it didn't occur to me in my dream that I could just put my contacts on to drive to work, if I had a job to drive to on Monday morning, which I don't. Or why I didn't have contacts on in the first place, since I don't wear my glasses in public. But that's all beside the point.

The point is, I popped awake this morning and looked at the clock, and it was 5:00! Straight up! Awesome! I could record a fresh episode of Boohbah for Britt! So I ran to the living room, turned on the TV, popped a tape into the VCR, changed the channel to Sprout TV, and...

Teletubbies? WTF?

I pulled up the TV guide and there was no Boohbah. Just a solid hour of Teletubbies. So I tried PBS. No Boohbah there, either. Apparently there is no Boohbah at 5:00 on Saturday mornings. So I said a lot of bad words (a lot) and went back to bed. And tried to go back to sleep.

But now I'm screwed because I'm wide awake and I didn't get nearly enough sleep and if I sit still too long this afternoon I will nod off and Britt will be unbridled in her toy-strewing and getting-into-things-ness and I will have a hell of a mess to straighten up when I wake up.

Seriously though, with my luck, if Boohbah had been on this morning it would've been the "Squeaky Socks" episode. I just know it. And I wouldn't be here to tell you about it because I would have gutted myself already.

Bored

I haven't touched the computer in three days! And my internet service wasn't even out! Shocking, I know, but I'm burned out on it right now. Can you believe that?

I'm also burned out on our little hand-held Texas Hold'em poker game, which has been my keep-me-busy activity during smoke breaks in the garage lately (though I've won several tournaments on it, at $180,000 a pop. Woo-hoo! Pay me!)

After thoroughly scouring the house for any books or magazines I haven't already read or could stand to read again (I'm not big on reruns), the only thing I turned up was Stephen King's Rose Madder. After finishing that, I made an impulsive trip to my local library and picked up Cell and Black House. I made the mistake of not leaving Cell out in the garage and so I finished it in less than eight hours, and Black House only took two days. So now I'm bookless again and, since the library closes early on Fridays and Saturdays and doesn't open at all on Sundays, I can't get any more books until Monday night, and I'm feeling kind of antsy about that.

Speaking of feeling antsy, I saw a huge spider out in the garage last night. It must have been at least two inches across, like a baby tarantula or something. Anyway, I only got it halfway stepped on before it scuttled off under Mikey's weight bench and into the assorted clutter on the other side. I know it must be hurt, and it's probably pissed, too. I know it's watching me when I go out there now, plotting vengeance while marshaling the spidey forces. Mikey's gonna come out there looking for me one day soon and all he'll find will be a big ol' white cocoon-looking thing.

So, if you don't hear from me no more, you'll know what happened.

Sunday in the Country

We took Britt to Chester's Party Barn out at Piedmont yesterday. It was a gorgeous day -- not too hot and not too cold. She had a blast, and we had a lot of fun just watching her have fun.

She fed the goats,







and got to see peacocks, chickens, rabbits, geese, ducks, pigs, sheep, horses and cows. And then she rode a pony:



Rocking in the saddle, she'd holler, "Geeyup! Geeyup, horsie!"



Mikey stayed close by her side, keeping her safe.



When the ride was over she pitched a fit until we bought her another ride. And another, and another... She rode four or five times, and finally had to be carried away flailing and wailing.

And then she picked out some pumpkins for us to take home:



We skipped the hayride and the three-acre maze and the big hay slide, but we'll definitely be back next year.

The Night Giggler

I've caught Britt laughing in her sleep three times this week.

I'd love to know what's she's dreaming about.

Trying to get organ-ized

Does anybody remember the little electric organ Mom dumped on us when we moved into this house? I know Bridget does.

Anyway, it occurred to me that Britt might enjoy playing it, or playing with it, whatever. Actually, it occurred to me that banging away on it might distract her from, you know, coloring. And the noise? What-everrr! As long as it gives me a break from coloring.

So this afternoon, I unearthed it from its parking space in the garage, cleared a trail, and dragged it into the house, where Britt promptly crowed, "Panno!" She'd never seen the thing before and I hadn't opened the lid yet so she could see the keyboard, so I was mighty impressed that she knew it was a piano. Well, an organ, but close enough.

I washed it down and tumped it over, only to discover that the entire base of it was hollow. And filled with little white balls of spider eggs.

(***shudder***)

Which should've been my first clue that I ought to drag it right back out to the garage.

So I cleaned it out and dragged it through the dining room toy room, after clearing yet another path, and parked it in front of the window. I plugged it in, turned it on, and...

Nothing. Not a whimper, not a wheeze. Just nothing.

I dragged it around and tried it in six different electrical outlets just to make sure, and then I dragged it back out to the garage, where it has frozen in the winter and baked in the summer for the past six years. And has also, apparently, served as an incubator for generations of little baby spiders.

(***shudder***)

Anyway, Cathy's supposed to be giving us her old piano. Also a cat, which she's bringing over tomorrow, but the piano has to wait for coordination between truck-borrowing and storage unit visiting. I'm thinking about taking down the aquarium to make room for it. Does anybody want any fish?

Arrrrgh, plumbing issues again

The garbage disposal quit working this week. It spins but doesn't grind. Also, the stuff in it that doesn't get ground is making it drain verrrrry slowly, leaving a thin film of nasty all over the sink, especially after the dishwasher drainage backs up into it. I've been using this as an excuse not to cook or wash dishes, but the situation is getting on my nerves already.

Also, the water pressure problem in the shower was not fixed by fixing the leaky pipe after all. I only got one good shower and then it was back to its old tricks.

When it rains it pours, doesn't it? Except out of my shower head, of course.

Two and counting

Two weeks after her second birthday, when me and Sis were sitting out on the front porch, she pulled some flowers off the monkey grass (which she called "grapes") and put them in my hand one at a time. And she went, "Two, three, fo, nine, ten!" And my jaw dropped.

Since then, she's been counting quite a bit. She skips numbers, but she never gets them out of order. I've been trying to get it on video, but she doesn't perform on command so I've had no luck with that so far.

Mostly, we color. A lot. Every day. Yesterday, Britt graciously took time out from her busy coloring schedule to pose for a few pictures. Did I mention that we color? A lot? Every day?





(She'd been playing with the squirt bottle I use to fix her hair; that's why her shirt was all wet.)

We finally got some Pull-Ups for her but she won't have anything to do with them, and we're kind of stalled on the potty-training front. I think I need to start keeping a big bag of M&Ms on hand for bribes.

The Donut Bandit

Britt and her Poppa went grocery shopping for me this evening and, as usual, they brought home 29 different kinds of junk food.

Shortly afterward, there was a break-in on the premises. I caught the perp red-handed, ripping open a box of donuts:



The perp showed no fear of authority,



nor any trace of remorse:



Once order was restored, the perp was sentenced to a diaper change and bedtime without the possibility of parole.

Now we're cookin'

Britt loves her new play kitchen; she enjoys cooking a whole lot more than I do. Also, the ponytail? Looks adorable on her:



Here she demonstrates what Grammy looks like every day at 6:00pm while pondering the eternal question: "Oh, jeez, what am I gonna cook tonight?"
She even nailed the whimpering part:

Stuffed

You know those big long cushions on the back of our couch, er, sofa (Mikey says for that price you call it a sofa), and how squashed and lumpy they've gotten?

Well, they aren't any more. Mikey bought two 10-pound boxes of pillow-stuffing stuff and he re-stuffed them last night. Except -- you know how he tends to overdo things?

Yeah, he did. He stuffed them good.

Now I'm afraid to flop down on the couch, er, sofa like I normally do, because I might crack my skull on a cushion.

Fixed

Our plumbing problems have been resolved. Yay!

I thought I felt a chill wind from Sherri's direction (or she might've just been gone to Arkansas), so I re-read my last post and saw that I didn't clearly say what I meant to say. I didn't mean that Chris wasn't willing or able to fix my kitchen faucet, it's just that he didn't happen to have a new one on him at the time and I wasn't able to go get one unless I wanted to pull a Britney Spears and haul the baby off to Home Depot without a carseat. He did plan to come back the next day after Mikey had a chance to bring one home, but it became a moot point after the bathroom leak was discovered, and that's when we called a plumber.

Happily, the bathroom leak repair also seems to have fixed the water pressure problem in the shower. I just wish I'd had the video camera ready when the jackhammering started. Britt was standing in the entry hall peeking around the corner to see what was going on, and I warned her that it was fixin' to get pretty loud in there, louder than the vacuum cleaner (which she hates), but she didn't believe me.

On second thought, it probably wouldn't have done much good to try to film her. All I would've gotten is a blur. It was the fastest I'd ever seen that child move, and that's saying something.

Oh, wait -- it gets better...

Sherri took pity on me after reading my tale of plumbing woe yesterday, and sent Chris over to see what he could do. Which turned out to be not much. We need a new faucet.

As an afterthought, I had him listen to the wall next to the bathtub faucet to see if it sounded like there was a leak in there. There was. We called a plumber.

The plumber and his helper came and looked and said they'll have to jackhammer the concrete slab so they can reach the leak. They'll be back tomorrow.

So now we have a shiny new faucet ready to be installed, a coat closet floor that's about to be jackhammered up, and two strangers who will be in my house most of the day tomorrow. Woo-hoo!

(Driving Me) Plumb Nuts

Gawd, I wish we had a plumber in the family! Because now I'm gonna have to call one, and that means having a stranger in the house, and you know how I am about that.

The sprayer on my kitchen sink quit working a while back, but I could live without that. I used to use it all the time and I missed having it, but I could live without it.

The other day, I turned the faucet on and no water came out. WTF? Every other faucet in the house worked -- I checked -- but there was no water coming from my kitchen faucet. I stood there, scratched my head, twisted the knobs, and finally picked up the sprayer and squeezed it. And, suddenly, water came pouring out of the faucet. Well, all righty then. Problem solved!

Or so I thought.

Last night, Mikey tried to wash his hands and there was no water. I tried squeezing the sprayer again, but it didn't work this time. Well, the sprayer works, but the faucet doesn't.

Now I'm almost halfway through a day with no water coming from my kitchen faucet and I never before realized how often I use it. I wash my hands every time I change a diaper, and I rinse them every time they get sticky, which is all the time with Britt around. I rinse dirty dishes and I wash down Britt's highchair tray.

So now I have to do all those things using the sprayer, which hadn't been working for at least a year but is now magically restored. And it's a damned pain in the ass, lemme tell you.

Anyway, I guess it's a blockage of some sort. A chunk of mineral deposits that got knocked loose, or something.

Oh, and have I mentioned the shower thing? That's been going on for a few months. You turn on the shower in the main bathroom and hop in and then something in the pipe (**shifts**) and the water pressure cuts down to about half of what it was.

Another mineral deposit, I suppose.

And we still can't use the shower in the master bath because the shower pan leaks.

(**sigh**)

My beloved husband, though wonderful in many ways, is completely useless in situations like this. A handyman he is not. If I didn't have Britt underfoot, I might take a wrench to that stinkin' faucet myself just to see if I could clear the pipe.

I might yet. I dunno.

Britt pee-peed in the potty!

When we woke up this morning I changed Britt's diaper as usual, but it was dry! This has never happened before.

I was worried about her kidneys, so I said a little prayer.

After breakfast she started talking about pee-pee, so I asked if she wanted to pee-pee in the potty. She ran down the hall to the bathroom and I took her diaper off (finally wet, thank God) and she sat on her potty. And she peed!

I yayed and clapped and asked if she needed to poop, and we sat there for a while but nothing else happened. Finally, I wiped her little poony and when I turned around to put the paper in the toilet, she grabbed her little green boat and put it in the "water" in her potty. So then we had a talk about what does and doesn't go in the potty.

We don't have any pull-ups so she got to wear her first pair of big-girl panties. I brought her potty into the living room so she'd have easy access to it, and we called Poppa to tell him the good news, and then we colored for awhile and "ate" lots of food from her new super-deluxe play kitchen (Mikey found a replacement for the incomplete one she got for her birthday) and then, about an hour later, she pooped in her new big-girl panties. I'd been watching for that, but her face doesn't usually show it when she's pooping, so she caught me by surprise.

Well, you know, it's been almost 25 years since I've had to deal with poop in big-girl panties, so it was pretty awkward trying to get them off her without getting it everywhere but I finally managed it. I put a fresh diaper on her so I could relax for a little bit (because it's hard work being vigilant), and then I went to put the wipes in the trash before going to the bathroom to empty the poopy panties into the toilet, and the poop fell out of the panties onto my kitchen floor.

(**sigh**)

Anyway, it's a start. I'm happy.

There's a bruise on my head

Britt pegged me just above the right eyebrow with her little red car yesterday.

There may be some brain damage as well; I poured tea instead of milk on my Lucky Charms this morning.

Bouncing Baby Britt

Mikey went with us to Britt's two-year checkup on Monday, and it helped a lot. She always pitches a fit when we go because she's gotten so many shots there, and it's hard to handle her by myself when she's thrashing and flailing and screaming her little lungs out.

She measured 33 1/4 inches tall and weighs 30 pounds, 4 ounces. The good news is that she's jumped up to the 25% percentile in height, which was a relief; it's always been the 10th percentile before, so she's finally catching up a little. The bad news is that her weight is in the 95th percentile. She's two pounds overweight.

Oops!

She lost a lot of baby fat last year after she started walking and then she reached the picky eater stage, so I worried about her getting enough to eat. The doctor told me to put a variety of foods in front of her at mealtime, and that's what I've been doing. It just hadn't really registered with me that her picky eater stage had already passed.

I guess me and Mikey aren't the only ones who've been eatin' like show dogs around here.

He's real!

Little Brandon Martin, our own family's version of the mythical Suri Cruise, really does exist! I've seen the pictures, and he's a cutie:



For more pictures of Brandon and the rest of the Washington contingent, see Lesley's Flickr page.

I walked into the kitchen today

and caught Britt standing in a chair pushed up against the counter, helping herself to big gobs of frosting off her leftover birthday cake. So I grabbed the video camera and got some really cute footage of the little dickens.

Alas, when I went to upload the video so I could show it to you, my imaging software wouldn't work. I tried this and that and every other damn thing I could think of to get it to work, and I'm stumped. The only thing that's different from the last time I used it is that Bridget uploaded her Kodak software on my computer this weekend.

Thanks a lot, Bridge!

Luckily, I also snapped a few still photos of Britt in her frosting-induced ecstasy:



Mmmmmm!



I wish I knew WTF is wrong with my imaging software. Maybe the driver got messed up? Maybe I should uninstall and reinstall the software? Do I even know where the hell that disc is?

(**sigh**)

It's times like this that I miss having techie friends.

The 2nd Annual Celebration of Britt

was a smashing success, with plenty of food, family and loot. And cake!

Dinner was interrupted by the Horned SpongeMonster (a.k.a. Cousin Abby); Britt responded by flipping her off:



Always happy to be the center of attention:



She's been to enough of her cousins' birthday parties by now to know the drill, so she blew out the candle right on cue:



Yay! Cake!



And then she showed her daddy how to use her new laptop:



Yep, Britt has a laptop now and I don't. That is just wrong.

There were only two things that didn't go as planned. When we ordered our 1/2 sheet cake, the stupid cake people didn't bother to mention that the SpongeBob decorations were sized for a 1/4 sheet cake, so I was pissed when I went to pick it up. It looked ridiculous (see cake photo above), but it was too late to do anything about it.

And then, after all the other gifts were opened, we brought out the grand finale: Britt's new super-duper deluxe play kitchen! And guess what?

When we opened the box, the accessories were missing. So were the decorative stickers. And the frickin' cabinet doors! Gaaah! Mikey took it back to the store last night and got a refund because they didn't have another one in stock. We'll try to find a replacement for it sometime this week.

Anyway, I'm glad it's over and that I was able to rest today because tomorrow is Britt's two-year checkup. She raises hell every time we go the doctor's office because those people stick needles in her legs, so I'm not looking forward to it. Not at all.

Britt's turning 2

on Saturday. Everyone's been invited (everyone local, that is), the cake's been ordered, gifts have been bought, and frantic housecleaning and de-cluttering have commenced.

Geez, I'll be glad when this is over.

I picked out a perfectly lovely cake: three layers cleverly disguised as gaily wrapped gifts and a fourth layer that's actually a plastic purple gift box that opens into a picture frame. Also, a disposable camera was included in the deal. Woo-hoo!

And then guess what?

I couldn't have it. They didn't have the picture frame or the disposable camera to go with it. I should've ordered it anyway without the extra doodads (at a lower price, of course), but that only occurred to me as I was typing this.

Geez, I think so fast on my feet.

So we're having a SpongeBob cake.

(**yawn**)

Anyway, we did manage to locate a perfectly lovely and hideously expensive play kitchen to replace the one Britt outgrew. Also, a couple of new Baby Einstein videos so we can give the daily round of Baby da Vinci, Boobah and Laurie Berkner a rest. And we may get even more stuff for her, because she's just so darn cute.

I've been flailing around in a panic trying to figure out where to hide all my clutter. Every surface higher than Britt can reach (unless she's using her old play kitchen for a stepstool) is covered with things I don't want her to get hold of and I can't figure out where to put it all so that my house will look somewhat tidy.

Also, the bathroom still needs a thorough scrubbing. Mikey and I are in a Mexican standoff over who gets to tackle that one.

Geez, I'll be glad when this is over.

Diggin' in my drawers

Britt is almost 33 inches tall now.

Which means she's tall enough to open drawers, reach in and grab their contents, and strew them about the house.

(Surely you've figured out by now that I don't mean my underpants.)

So now I get to go around several times a day gathering up potholders, oven mitts, dishrags, dish towels, bibs, and her tiny little socks and bathing suits.

I still keep the bathroom door shut because we haven't started potty-training yet, so the two drawers in there are still safe for the moment.

Yesterday I caught her playing in the spice drawer, but luckily she hadn't unscrewed any lids yet. That would've been fun.

I suppose I could try some of those baby-proof drawer latches, but I already tried the baby-proof cabinet door latches (which were expensive as hell) and after installing them, one broke the very first time I used it, which made me very unhappy and I said a lot of bad words.

Also, countertops! I had to move her little toy kitchen out to the garage because she's outgrown it already and the only time she was using it was when she'd tump it over and use it for a stepstool for easy access to whatever's on the kitchen counter. It didn't faze her much, though; now she just pushes a kitchen chair over to the counter and has a go at whatever she wants.

(**whimper**)

Help me.