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.