Greg's Wedding

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



Amber was a lovely bride:



The kiss:



And it's a done deal:



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



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



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

Missy is a lesbian

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

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

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

It did.

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

Last night

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

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

Yep. The door was locked.

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

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

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

You locked me out.

What?

You locked me out.

How'd I do that?

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

How'd you get in?

I got in.

How?

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

Oh, great.

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

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

Pre-season training

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

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

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

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

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

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

Testing, testing...

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

(**sigh**)

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



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

I'm dogsitting

Missy & Pepper
Originally uploaded by Sandra D..

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

Manhattan, Kansas, that is.

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

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

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

Cathy's crash

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

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

A big fat surprise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Dare I say it?

Britt hasn't had a binky for three days.

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

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

Guess what I got for Mother's Day?

Go on, guess.

You'll never guess.

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

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

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

Other than that, not a sausage.

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

(**sniff**)

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

(**sob**)

Happy Mother's Day

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

Twenty months

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watsat?

That's the dog's food.

Watsat?

That's the dog's water.

Watsat?

Dog food.

Watsat?

Water.

Watsat?

Dog food.

Watsat?

Water.

Watsat?

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

Happy birthday, Phil!

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

Love you, Bro!

Escape attempt foiled

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

(**yikes!**)

There's a padlock on the gate now.

Nameless no more

We finally named our dog, I guess.

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

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

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

All stocked up

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

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

I pointed at my pudge and hollered at him.

Do you not even care what I look like?

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

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

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

Gaaaah!

A dog named Cat?

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

Britt still calls her Cat.

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

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



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

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

(**head in hands**)

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

My little artistical prodigy

Britt's artwork
Originally uploaded by Sandra D..

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

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

Today she drew a face, too!

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

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

Our new baby

Our new puppy
Originally uploaded by Sandra D..

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

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

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

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

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

I just hope she lets us get some sleep tonight.

Spoke too soon

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

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

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

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

(**sigh**)

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

Gaaaah!

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

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