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.