Extensive Vocabulary

Today was "wear a hat day" at school. This is the one she picked to wear.

Ally has always used big words, but today I was especially impressed. This is how our conversation went at lunch today:
Ally: Can I have dessert now?
Me: Did you finish your noodles?
Ally: Yes.
Me: Really?
Ally: Yes. I will bring you the evidence that I ate all of my noodles. (I was doing the dishes and she brought me her empty bowl.)
Me: What does evidence mean?
Ally: It means I have proof.
Me: What is proof?
Ally: It means I am showing you I am right.

How am I going to win an argument with her in 10 years if she already uses words like that?

The Mind of a One-Year-Old

Isn't it amazing how kids learn something new everyday? However, there are some things I like more than others. Here's what my boy has been doing the last couple of weeks. I'll let you decide which ones I enjoy and which ones I'm ready for him to forget.

He puts his clothes in the hamper every night. When I undress him for his bath, he grabs all the clothes from me and runs across the hall to deposit them in his dirty clothes basket.

He's learned where the Dum-Dum Pops are and how to get one. This kid LOVES suckers! Several times a day he goes to the pantry and bangs on the door while yelling at it to open (We keep the suckers in there on the top shelf). He is just like a cat when you use the electric can opener. He can be on the other side of the house, hear the pantry doors open, and be there pointing at the suckers in 2 seconds flat.

He can follow directions. If I ask him to get his shoes or a diaper, he runs to his room to get them. This is one stage I hope he never grows out of.

He's discovered that French fries are better with ketchup. We drove thru McDonald's for dinner tonight and really enjoyed the fries. First, I try to hand him a fry. He looks at it, shakes his head, and won't take it from me. So I dip it in ketchup and he takes it with a big smile. A few seconds later he grunts and hands it back. He has sucked all the ketchup off without taking a single bite. He'd like it dipped again, please. My dad says he's just like my sister, "they can make a single fry last through a whole bottle of ketchup."

He puts himself to sleep. I didn't know if this would ever happen because he's always fallen to sleep within a few minutes of being rocked. Now I can just lay him in the crib and say goodnight. Yay!

He's conquored the stairs. Mike's been campaigning for the gate to come down for a few weeks, but I've just been too scared to really put it away. But it's been down for a while without an accident. I even put it in the storage room yesterday!

He helps me empty the dishwasher. I hand him all the sippy cups and he puts them in the drawer and closes it for me. Then he looks me in the eye and claps his hands until I tell him he did a good job.

He likes to turn off the lights. When I curl Ally's hair in the morning, he pushes the stool over to the light switch and turns it off. Then he laughs. But he doesn't know how to turn it on again. So there we are-- in the dark-- until I flip the switch back up. This brings peals of laughter from both my children because they know that the game has officially started. Yesterday he turned it off 17 times. I turned it back on 17 times. So I grabbed the tape and rigged the switch so it stayed on. Which brings me to his next trick:

He figured out how to take the tape off this morning.

Post-Op Day 5

Wow, five days ago already? We got to the hospital at 6:15 Friday morning and they wheeled my drowsy husband back to surgery at 7:30. Just over an hour later, the surgeon came to tell me that everything went well and handed me a plastic cup with a lid. I was totally grossed out when I looked inside (here's a good tip: if a surgeon ever hands you a cup as soon as he finishes removing a part of your husband, don't look). He got out five shooter-marble sized gall stones and saved one to show us. Thanks, Doc.

Mike spent a lot of hours watching old cartoons online while lying in bed. He's done better everyday and went to work this morning.

I drove the new car a couple of times while he was in bed. I really liked it-- is it wrong to be jealous of a car that's half yours? The first time I drove it was bringing him home from the hospital. No pressure! But I think I did okay. We all made it home.

It won't be long before pizza is back on our menu. And Mike can't wait!

Goodbye, Sentra

Mike bought the Sentra brand new about 6 weeks before we met seven years ago. Although it was pretty basic, it was a really good car. We only spent about $200 fixing it in seven years-- we're hoping it's not a fluke and we'll get the same luck with the new Nissan too. The gas mileage was fantastic, even when all four cylinders had to give all they had to get us over the summit of even the smallest mountain. We brought Ally home from the hospital in it, and interestingly, Crit has never been inside because his carseat wouldn't fit.

In the end it put up a good fight and died a noble death-- not in the neighbor's driveway like my Dynasty, but on the interstate waging the war of rush hour traffic. Goodbye Sentra, you will be missed, but not forgotten.

We've only got this one picture-- it's on the tow truck. The damage actually doesn't look too bad from this side.

Stimulating the Economy

So last night Mike and I single-handedly stimulated the economy. We... well, let me start at the beginning. I've been waiting until I've had pictures to post about this, but we didn't take any with the camera. So unless I can figure out how to get pictures from Mike's Blackberry to here, you'll have to use your imagination.

Last Monday (September 28th), Mike called me at 8:00 in the morning just a while after he left for work. He was on the freeway at 12300 South and just got in an accident. He was fine, but it didn't look like the Sentra was going to make it. He was stopped and hit from behind; the car was pushed under the truck in front of him.

So that started the week of phone calls and errands relating to the accident. Mike got a rental and has been driving that until today. The Sentra's fate was correctly assessed at the scene: it was terminal. We finally got the check yesterday and, wanting to get this done before his gall bladder removal tomorrow, we went to see his friend Thor at the Nissan dealership yesterday.

And that brings us to the stimulated economy (can you feel the good vibes in the financial air?). We bought a new (yea! the kids can actually fit in the back seat-- too bad Mike is hesitant to let them ride in it yet) Altima last night. I haven't driven it yet-- maybe in a couple of days when it's not so new and I'm not so scared to death.

Picture this with a completely crumpled hood, smashed headlight and front tire going the wrong way.

This is it-- dark grey and really really shiny. It smells really good too.