Up for Air

No, we haven't fallen off the planet or moved into a cave following that big announcement. But we did leave for a week's vacation the day after posting the picture. We were in Marquette at the camp on lake Superior with no TV, phone, or internet access. Well, we did have cell phones. But mine stayed mostly off. It was great. Fuzzy and SNG drove there with DOTi the dog and the kayaks, while Peace, e-baby and I flew in grand style. Now before you say I'm a wuss for flying, the alternative would have been a rented Ford Econoline, pulling a trailer and guzzling gas for 2 days' driving with a fidgety almost-2-year-old and a nervous dog who doesn't quite trust knee-high humans. OK, now you can say I'm a wuss. But I'm a happy wuss.

I'll post more with pictures later. I just wanted to put my head above the waterline to say hello. Hello!

"I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No"

Guess who?

Home Improvement Project Unofficial Start

To do our big renovation, the builders will have to tear down the back deck. To tear down the back deck, we need to move the kayaks (who currently reside under the deck with a small colony of green tree frogs who will also have to be displaced. I hope they mingle well with the Shed Frog Colony or the Wheelbarrow Frog Colony). To move the kayaks, we need a place for them to go (the Wheelbarrow Frog Colony won't have them) and a natural choice is hanging from the ceiling of the garage. But to do that, we have to replace our old, perfectly functional albeit COMPLETELY jerry-rigged garage door opener which spans the entire length of the garage ceiling to bypass a poorly-placed roof beam with one that costs 5x more and resides compactly alongside the shaft that opens the door, with a total footprint of 0 space on the ceiling and about 1/2 sq ft on the wall. With the garage door opener installed, the ceiling in the garage is cleared with enough space for 2 kayaks (and one more bike! Tiny, tiny, Colnago- come to me!). Then the demolition can begin on the deck. After that, the new section of house can be built.

Yesterday, we got the new garage door opener installed. We still don't have final drawings or even a building permit, but we have a home for the kayaks. Let the project begin! (so that it can end!)

E-baby Stories-- You've been warned

I haven't kept up with blogging very well lately, and partly it's because most of my time is spent between work, sleep, and e-baby/SNG shenanigans. Anything else gets about 2-3% of my time so yeah, there's not much to say about other stuff. And e-baby stories have tapered off partly because things change so fast that something remarkable one day is replaced by something remarkable the next day and the formerly remarkable becomes mundane. The other problem with all the funny stories now is that almost all of them are You Had To Be Theres.

Still, there have been a few storyteller-worthy moments in the last few weeks that I'll take a crack at conveying with some structural integrity.

* The girl loves to sing. She's been able to start up songs for awhile, but now she's getting to where she'll sing an entire song or at least an entire verse, where before she'd just sing the first line. In the car on the way to the grocery the other day, she sang two verses of Old McDonald to herself: cows and horses, because we pass cattle and horse fields on the way to the grocery. She also likes to sing the ABC song, ring around the roses, Baa Baa black sheep, I'm a little teapot (my least favorite children's song, BTW), night-night baby... None of the others are as complete as Old McDonald, though.

* The daycare teacher told me this story yesterday. Everyone was playing around, getting ready for group story time. E-baby picked up a weeble (one of those tiny wobbly little people dolls) and held him up on her hand-stage, and announced (FULL volume), "Good morning, boys and girls! And here's Reese, and here's Abbie, and here's Skyler, and here's Adam, and here's Kathy, ..." The teacher fell over laughing because that's exactly how she starts group time. E-baby just saved her the trouble this time.

* I'm trying to teach her about talking to people on the phone, and had a great opportunity this evening. We were playing with a toy telephone, and e-baby asked to call Granddad ("Din-dad"). She wanted to hear him sing the ABC song. So I got on the cell phone, called Granddad, put him and Tuti on speaker phone and they serenaded her with her favorite tune. She LOVED it and asked for more. When she understands the phone, it might make some of my business travel easier.

* E-baby picks out her own outfits almost every day now. She'll get mad if I try to pick out her clothes, so we've had to talk about what matches and what doesn't. She's actually really good at picking things that match, although once in awhile she puts a hot pink t-shirt with cammo shorts and silver shoes.

It's not all puppies and daisies. Along with all this independence comes temper tantrums like never before. Most mornings I drop her at daycare without shoes on, because she'll kick them off in a rage. But it's more fun than trauma, and it's just impossible to keep up with all the great stories without occasionally blogging about them.

Wheee!

We've been all tied up in having fun with my parents, who have been here visiting since last Thursday a week ago. They'll head home Monday morning. From the minute they got here, e-baby was enamored with both of them; my mom and I seem to be interchangeable, and my dad is her own personal dancing bear.

I kept e-baby out of daycare and home with them Friday, Monday and Tuesday. By then, she asked to go back to school, so I sent her back on Wed and Thur, and she benefitted from the return to her routine. It's been a great visit, going to people's houses for dinner, having other people over for dinner, playing way too long and going to bed a little too late, visiting the children's museum, walking in the woods, biking, and only a few temper tantrums interrupting a good time.


That's all I got for now. See you!