Britt's first trip to the park

park1
Originally uploaded by Sandra D..

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

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

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

(**wheeze**)

Britt's first-ever romp in the sprinkler

sprinkler8
Originally uploaded by littlesisblog.

It was 98 degrees today. In April!

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

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

(Note to self: Buy sunblock ASAP.)

Britt's first Easter egg hunt

easter12
Originally uploaded by littlesisblog.

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

And she looked very pretty in her new Easter dress.

Easter greetings

(cribbed from Mother May I)

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

Anyway, have a happy one.

Gettin' eggy with it

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

Today I colored Easter eggs with some homemade brew:



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

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

Now I want more eggs!

She's getting so big

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

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



but then she got happy again.



Heh, that chin.

Party's over

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

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

Puppy? Puppy? Oh, puppeeeeee...?

I looked at Mikey.

Hey, where's my puppy?

Oh, did you want a puppy?

(**sigh**)

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

What year was I born?

1963?

(**snort**)

He dropped his head.

I got it wrong again, didn't I?

Yeah, like every year for the past twelve years.

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

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

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

Yeah, pretty much.

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

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

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

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

Heh, tripsy -- I wish.

Yeah, so, it's my birthday

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

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



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

Oops, she did it again

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



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

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

Mmmm, pudding

Britt enjoyed an afternoon snack today:



Pudding! And cake!

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

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

(**sniff**)

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

Six months and one day

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

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

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

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

Bloody hell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, God, there was so much blood.

(**shudder**)

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

AWOL again

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

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

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

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

Britt math

A warm spring day...



plus a new dress...



plus a matching hat...



equals one happy girl!

Doggy dilemma

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

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

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

(***sigh***)

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

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

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

254 bucks

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

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

Mikey only fell through the ceiling once:



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

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

Well, that sucked

Took Britt to the Shrine Circus tonight.

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

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

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

Oh, Kitty

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



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

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

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

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

Scared spitless

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

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

What do you mean, where is she?

I can't find her anywhere!

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

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

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

Gaaaah!

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

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



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

Whoa, back up -- "starligl"?

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



Blooper jammies.

You know what's annoying?

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

Gah! I hate that.