Snap, Crackle, Pop (posted 4/2/2009)

When I was a little kid, the coolest breakfast cereal we were allowed to have in our house was, by far, Rice Krispies.  Even though I was told numerous times throughout my childhood that I should become a lawyer because of my effective arguing skills, there was no amount of effort on my part that ever resulted in products like Cookie Crisp in our cupboards.  Granted, I am sure I ate more than my share of chocolate chip cookies, but at least they wouldn't be found in my breakfast--if Mom had anything to say about it.  Of course, she was correct.  There probably isn't any difference between Cookie Crisp and a bowl full of cookies.  So anyway, back to the Rice Krispies...

The thing that makes Rice Krispies so cool is the sound effects.  Once you pour the milk on them, little tiny bubbles form and then they pop.  It's this sound that formed the basis of their famous "Snap, Crackle & Pop" slogan (and cartoon characters, of course).  Well, lo and behold, Rice Krispies showed up in our kitchen recently.  Mike saw them advertised on sale at the grocery store and decided to buy them.  When I saw them, it was a real "duh" moment, as in "Duh, why didn't I think of buying those for Katy?"

When the weekend came around, I poured a bowl of them for Katy, and a bowl for myself.  I set her up for the excitement of hearing snap, crackle, pop... poured the milk... brought them to the table and we both sat down together and had them for breakfast.  I was impressed that a) she actually ate something new and seemed to like it, and b) she sat in Mike's chair and used her own spoon and actually got most of it in her mouth!  But I admit, inside I was slightly disappointed because she didn't seem to absorb or react to my enthusiasm about them.

My disappointment quickly disappeared the next morning, when Katy came to the kitchen for breakfast and asked me for "Pop-Pops."  I not-so-immediately understood that she was referring to the Rice Krispies.  Yeah!  She likes 'em!  She asked for them!  Woo-hoo!  (I'm still not entirely sure why this is a big deal to me.)

Now, with her finicky toddler ways, at least I have Pop-Pops to fall back on.  One day, when she wasn't feeling well, she actually refused anything but Pop-Pops all day.  I don't know how you can enjoy Pop-pops for breakfast, lunch, and dinner... but that day, she did.  I decided not to worry about it since she wasn't well that day, and luckily she hasn't done that again.

So yeah, Pop-Pops now reign supreme in our house, like they did most of the time in my house growing up.  Cool.

Cuteness Chronicles (posted 3/16/2009)

What can I say?  My Katy Rose is a Talker.  And a Dancer.  And a Giggler... sometimes she's a Whiner, frequently a Runner, and most recently she transforms into a panting puppy close to bedtime (not quite sure why.)  She is still a sweetheart and extremely cute for the overwhelming majority of the time, although yesterday she pulled my hair--on purpose, and hard--twice.  Nipping that in the bud!!

 

Lately her favorite thing to watch is Dumbo.  She has huge sympathy for Dumbo's mommy and baby Dumbo, and when they cry, she makes sad sounds too.  And when the weird Pink Elephants on Parade scene comes on, she gets up and marches and dances to it.  I'm glad, because I think I was kinda freaked out by that scene when I was a kid.  But she gets a kick out of it.  I know she doesn't grasp the whole circumstance of that--that her baby elephant and his mouse buddy are hallucinating because they are totally drunk, immediately after gulping water that was tainted with a bottle of booze the clowns accidentally knocked over.  And I don't think I realized as a kid how the black birds are a total racial stereotype.  But hey, it can't be all that much worse than the stuff on television today, can it?

 

Last night we went to the Olive Garden.  By the way, they have one of the best kids' mac 'n' cheese of any restaurant we've been to.  Little shells and a great, creamy cheese sauce that tastes better than your typical Velveeta shells 'n' cheese.  They had a really large booklet for the kids to color on.  Katy spent a lot of time coloring in the characters.  She's getting surprisingly good at coloring (in my humble Mother's opinion). 

 

What was really cute was that I asked her if she wanted mac 'n' cheese or pizza, and she decided on the mac 'n' cheese.  So she kept asking for it before it arrived, and I kept explaining that the lady would bring it in just a minute.  When the waitress brought the salad, Katy looked at her and asked, "Cheese?"  I even got her to say please and thank you to the waitress for bringing the food and her milk.  There is not much cuter than a chub-faced 2-year-old that says, "Puweeez?" and "Tain koo."

 

Katy's fascination with blankets is fading.  In its place is her fascination with "Kay-ee's aah-mals."  There's a whole family of Pooh bears, several of Pooh's friends, and some random other favorite stuffed animals that are often piled on Mommy or on the floor or in her crib, and then she lays on top of the pile and snuggles in, complete with a "Kay-ee's aah-mals" in a warm and fuzzy type of voice.  What's also funny is that there is a "Mommy Pooh" and a "Baby Pooh" in addition to several other Poohs.  As Katy herself says... "Cute."

 

Since her 2nd birthday, Katy has gotten lots of play out of her Mr. Potato Head, her new Little People Builders set, her little kitchen, and the tricycle.  She's not quite there with the trike yet, but she is trying.  She understands how to get on and off, and put her feet on the pedals, but getting going, staying in motion, and steering have yet to be mastered.

 

Yesterday I took her to a local park that has a great mostly-shaded playground.  We had been there for a while, and she was having fun and going down slides and running & screaming for fun like some other kids.  Then a little boy about her size came toward her.  They were both kinda smiling, and it looked like they were going to reach out and hug each other any second.  But then the little boy reached out both hands and shoved her right in the chest, knocking her down.  She broke into tears and ran to me, her little heart broken from such unprovoked meanness.  Fortunately, his mom was right there and witnessed the whole thing.  She tried to get him to apologize to Katy but he was silent.  So she picked him up and said if he couldn't play nice then he couldn't play at all, and she took him off to the parking lot and left.  She apologized to me on his behalf, which was really nice.  I was glad she handled it the way she did.  Katy's still sheltered, having been with her parents and grandparents all this time, and is not accustomed to other kids being rough with her.  I admit, I do wonder about this and whether it is good or not for her to be so protected from "the real world."  I know, only a mom would worry about stuff like that, right?

Full Blanket Jacket (posted 2/20/2009)

As Katy rapidly approaches her second birthday, her vocabulary has pretty much exploded.  She now adds words at a rate I can't keep up with.  Sometimes she even does the random conversation with herself that is full of gibberish, or sings a song that I can't understand (think Boo in "Monsters, Inc." when she sings to herself in the men's room while Sully waits for her).

I recently had a conversation with my mom over Katy's newfound obsession with blankets.  I have noticed that in the last week or two, Katy is insistent on having not just one, but multiple blankets with her.  If there is only one, she'll ask, "Wheh ah bonket? Kee get."  That translates to, "Where's the other blanket?  Katy will get it," and she takes off running to retrieve another one from her room.  Sometimes we play peek-a-boo with them.  Her daddy likes to build tunnels for her with them, and they play tent with them.  And sometimes she wraps it around herself and walks around like a little Yoda, except cuter. 

My poor mom can't distinguish between Katy's pronunciations of "jacket" and "blanket," which gives me a little laugh because I consider them quite different.  She tried to explain to me how she determines the difference based on Katy's action at the time.  I guess Katy is saying that her blanket is her jacket when she wraps it around herself.  I'm actually more impressed that when I ask Katy to put her jacket on, she actually gets her hands into the right arm holes if I hold the jacket up for her.

My little chatterbox is also picking up people's names much more quickly now.  And she's getting good at using magic words, please and thank you.  She actually insisted on having apple with the skin left on the other day, which amazingly led to no diaper issues.  Along with getting into more mischief, she's turning into a big kid before my eyes.  But thankfully, she is still a major Mama's Girl, and I'm still loving that.  All I have to do is look at her funny and she'll bust out laughing.  Oh, if only this stage could last...

Hey You, On the Bike! (posted 1/23/2009)

Phoenix has officially leapt into the new millennium.  We now have a light rail system!  Over the past 3 years or so, as we dealt with ugly construction zones and ever-changing lane closures, I fantasized about how cool it would be to "take the train" into work.  They said it would open in December 2008.  Yeah, right, nothing major like this ever opens on time without a major problem.
Well, apparently hell has frozen over.  Not only did it open on time, there haven't been any crazy accidents yet, and oh wait, what was that?  The Arizona Cardinals are playing in the Super Bowl?  Yes, hell has frozen over.  Suspicion confirmed.

But I digress.  Now that Mike's schedule has returned to some semblance of normalcy, I only need to drop Katy off in the mornings for 3 weekdays instead of 5.  So two days a week, I can actually try to take public transportation to work and home again.

We've had a bus system for longer than I've lived here, so that is nothing new.  The problem with me taking the bus to work is that I have to transfer at least once, and that adds up.  The stops are so frequent that it takes over an hour to get to work.  If I drive to work, I can get there in about 20-40 minutes, depending on traffic.

Enter the METRO, our new train system.  I can Park & Ride or take a bus to connect with the rail.  If I Park & Ride, I drive a couple of miles out of my way and end up at a train station a little further than I should need to be.  But once I get back to the station, I can go home in my car immediately.  If I take a bus, I have to be subject to the whims of the bus drivers, who aren't that great at keeping to their schedule.  During peak times, the trains come every ten minutes.  But my bus isn't as frequent, even during peak times.

The whole deal ends up taking about an hour if I get to the bus stop at a good time.  Considering I have to transfer from bus to train, what's the difference between just taking the bus?  It shouldn't matter.  But, let me tell you, it does!  The train is cool!  And sometimes I like thinking I'm cool!

Why am I explaining the ins and outs of Wendy's Commute via Public Transportation?  Because this is Wendy's Pointless Story Hour.  (Duh!)  But something funny did happen this morning.  I walked out the door to catch the bus, and just after I got out to the sidewalk, I noticed my bus was approaching.  I still had to get up to the intersection and through the light to get to the bus stop, though.  Uh-oh.  But wait, the light is turning green!  My bus is going to be on the other side, and I will have to wait 20 minutes for the next bus!  NOOO!! 

Let me pause here to interject that at my present body weight, fitness level, and with recurring ankle tendonitis, I am in no shape to be running.  I'm not even wearing my orthotics today.  But I went for it anyway.  I flat-out sprinted to the intersection, across the street in the crosswalk (even though I did not have a "walk" signal), immediately thanked God for making sure I didn't get run over by a car turning right, and ended up catching the bus.  Phew!!!  To be perfectly honest, I did not believe I was actually capable of running like that.  I thought surely my chest would bounce up and hit me in the face or something if I tried to actually run.

After catching my breath and silently cursing myself for wearing a jacket (I was starting to sweat), I got off the bus about 10 minutes later.  My bus was a couple of minutes ahead of schedule.  I had about half a block to go to the train station in downtown Tempe.  Once I got there, I would have to cross the tracks to the opposite platform and activate my bus card before the train arrived.  I started to worry because this is a section of track that curves, so I wouldn't be able to see the train coming ahead of time.  I stepped it up and started to half-run (I think they call that jogging?  Or yogging?).  Turns out that I made it just in time!  If I hadn't hurried, I would have missed the train.

So the stars aligned for me this morning.  I got to work almost an hour after I stepped out my front door, because I got a little jump on the schedule.  I'm glad I don't have video of myself sprinting to the bus.  I'm sure I gave some people a chuckle.

I'm going to start working on the stationary bike at the gym, because I have a plan.  *evil laughter commences*  While I work on bicycling indoors and losing weight, I will continue what I'm doing now with the bus and train.  But if I get through the summer (which is autumn to everyone else) and I prove to myself that I could bike to the rail in relatively easy fashion (time and distance), then for my next birthday I'm going to get a bike.  I want to be that girl, the one hanging her bike up on the rack in the train and then locking it up in the parking garage at work.  I want to be independent of those darn buses.  I want to pay for one fare—the train—and not two because I had to transfer from a bus.  If I was cool enough to ride a bike, and cool enough to take the train, I think I'd be pretty darn cool.  Hmm... better get a helmet.

Seriously Silly (posted 11/10/2008)

I just wanted to share an observation I have recently made about Katy Rose.  That girl is positively silly.  To be honest, it didn't really occur to me how silly she is until I tried to relate to some other children the way I relate to her.  Most of the time, other children give me a look that makes me think they either think I'm nuts or maybe from another species.  It's happened to me on many occasions.  Granted, it could just be that I'm a stranger.  In which case, this whole argument is pretty much null & void, so I'm going to ignore that possibility and concentrate on my observation—Katy is a silly child.

The logical assumption is that Katy is a silly child because she is the child of very silly parents.  As one of the said parents, I can vouch for the validity of this assumption.  Mike and I are quite silly people, and truth be told it is the third reason I was attracted to Mike when I met him.  First being his eyes, and second being the fact that he was employed.  I didn't find out how silly he was until after I knew about the first two.

When we talked about the possibility of having a baby, I said I was concerned about tension building up between us, because having a baby would certainly be a stressful thing for new parents, and we don't fight enough to do it well.  Mike's response?  If that situation occurs, one of us will simply hold up the baby and say (in a baby-talk-ish way) "Oh, look at the cute baby!"  Ta-dah—tension broken.  Everyone laughs and all is right in the world again.  It actually sounded like a good plan.  (Like I said, we're pretty silly.)

So far, Katy's life has been a course in silliness.  She's immersed in silliness every day, whether it's a daddy-daughter day, silly with mommy time, or fun days with her grandparents.  I guess it stands to reason that if I argue Katy is silly because her parents are silly, then her parents are silly because their parents are silly.  This is, in fact, the case.  All four of Katy's grandparents are also silly people. 

Which brings me back to the reason I made the observation about silliness in Katy Rose.  Some people are not silly.  Their children are not silly.  Being a silly person, it's a little difficult for me to relate to non-silly children.  I mean, Katy spends a good portion of each day giggling.  Much of that is due to being tickled, however there are times that I can't figure out what she's snickering about.  And I absolutely love it.  It brings balance to my life as a grown-up. 

I know some of those more serious children seem more "ahead" of Katy, developmentally speaking.  They might be doing some things before she is.  At first I wondered if this was something to be concerned about.  But when I really thought about it, honestly, I decided I'd rather be grateful that my child is healthy and normal.  I wouldn't trade her silliness for any amount of achievement or development.  Most of my adult life I've wondered about "happiness" and what it means to have it.  Now I have it.  My child has it too, and I will do the best I can to keep it that way.  Seriously.

All Fanned Out (posted 9/27/2008)

This is a special Pointless Story for two reasons: one, it is Especially Long and pointless, and two, it actually does not revolve around Katy Rose.  In fact, it is about my experience as a Bulldog at home here in Phoenix.  And just so you know, if you start reading it, you'll want to finish it for the little nugget of Wendy-ism at the end.  It's almost point-ful instead of pointless!

For the past three years, I have been excitedly awaiting September 20, 2008—the day my Dawgs would come here and play in my own backyard.  That would be the day that my friends, Sun Devil fans, would see what college football is really about.  I like going to Sun Devil Stadium and cheering for the Devils, but this would be the one instance I have to go against them.  Yes, I have a degree from both schools.  But for me, Dawgs trump Devils.  The Bulldogs are my team, even though they didn't play well when I was in school.  It was a big deal the one year I managed to get myself student season tickets, and an even bigger deal that I didn't really get to go to the games.  But that's behind me, and is one of the reasons I am involved in a regional group of UGA Alumni who gather to watch the games on TV.  There is nothing like Georgia Football, especially here in the realm of the Pac-10.

Now, I am just a regular girl, not entirely knowledgeable about everything that goes on and all the players and all the rules.  I know just enough about football to really enjoy watching it.  And when Georgia Football is on, it's part of who I am.  I can't quite explain what makes it that way—maybe I just drank the Kool-Aid one day without realizing it.  But getting together with my fellow Dawg fans is just a whole lotta fun.  And I knew that the day the Dawgs came to Tempe would be a great day.

Last Thursday the President of UGA hosted a small reception for Phoenix UGA Alumni.  It was a wonderful venue, the crowd was friendly, the speakers were great, and I was stoked.  One of the gals I knew from my sorority now works for the university and she was there—what a treat to see her!  I got to meet a lot of people, including President Adams, and reconnected with a few game-watching friends that had fallen off the map the last few seasons.  The UGA staff brought a few goodies like lapel pins and fans in the shape of UGA football helmets.  Even little pocket-size football schedules.  These are the kind of things we crave out here in the desert, where we don't have regular access to Georgia stuff.  And for once, I was among an entire crowd of people that would never ask me if that was a Green Bay Packers "G."

Saturday came and it was Game Day, at long last.  Mike and I live just a few miles from downtown Tempe, so we decided to take the bus instead of forking over $40 for a great parking space that we probably wouldn't be able to get anyway.  Our Bulldogs HQ was Gordon Biersch, which we discovered was completely packed long before we ever got there.  I ended up with extra tickets to the game that I had not been able to get rid of, so I needed to sell them.  After not having much luck getting around the restaurant, we decided to walk toward the stadium to see if we could sell them.

Thus began the long walk.  We went from downtown to the stadium, talked to several people on the way, finally asked the ticket window for advice…nada… back toward downtown, meandering through some tailgating parking lots… still nothing.  The problem was that Bulldogs fans would have bought them… except that they already had tickets, otherwise they wouldn't have travelled 1900 miles for the game.  ASU fans, however, are fair-weather fans.  The most I could get anyone to even think about paying was a third of face value.  If the Sun Devils hadn't blown it in OT the Saturday before, maybe it wouldn't have been so hard to sell the extra tickets.  Alas…While talking to some Bulldogs in a parking lot, a cameraman and reporter from WSB Atlanta stopped by and got us on camera for a minute.  One of the gals introduced her daughter, all decked out in red & black, who is a freshman at ASU.  Ha!

Back downtown, we ended up talking to some more people on a corner about tickets.  There was a young couple who are Bulldog fans that had purchased ASU season tickets in order to get a ticket to the game.  Their trouble was that they live in Florida, so they wanted to get rid of the remaining ASU game tickets.  We made a deal, trading them a pair of our really great seats for the rest of their season tickets.  Then we decided to use the other great seats for ourselves, and we sold our upper-level seats to a scalper for not quite half of what they cost.

For about 2-3 hours, Mike and I had been walking around outside in the heat, with no food or drink.  There was no place to buy food or drink without waiting at least an hour to get in.  Once we made the ticket deal, we knew we would get free food and sodas at the game in our good seats, so we gave up searching for sustenance and headed back to the bar to try to find our friends.  After marveling that the Big Dawg--the big, bald guy that we see on TV with the Bulldog painted on top of his head-- is sitting right here at Gordon Biersch eating lunch, we found out that some of our friends were on the other side of the bar.  We patiently, steadily inched in that direction and finally found our people.  Now the fun could begin!  

Having made it to the other end of the bar, where our friends had staked out a pair of barstools since 10am, we started drinking.  Then I took over one of the barstools and began the important work of chatting with the people behind me, and advocating for their drink orders with the bartenders.  It was so much fun talking to all these strangers who are all here for the Dawgs.  Plus, I really can't argue with people who call me a sweetheart for getting their beers poured and passing them back to them.  People don't even use that word here, so I don't remember the last time someone I don't know called me a sweetheart.  It's a position of power, sitting at the bar.  Well, okay, not normally, but in this instance it really was.  

Eventually we headed back to the stadium and split from our group to head to the Loge level.  The free food consisted of pulled chicken barbecue sandwiches, hot dogs, and baked beans.  It was decent.  And free.  And we hadn't eaten since breakfast, so we were pretty hungry.  I think Mike actually ate five hot dogs! 

When we sat down, there were two Bulldogs next to us and a row of them a couple rows behind us.  In the Loge level, there aren't a lot of rows deep (maybe 10?), so it's much less crowded, easier to get around, no crowding at the restrooms, and the bleachers are actual folding seats with backs.  Unfortunately, the bulk of the Bulldog fan base was at the opposite end of the stadium, so we couldn't hear them very much from where we were.  But I was in utter amazement at the showing of red vs. gold in the crowd.  I've never seen such a large visitor contingent at a Sun Devil game!  The only part of the stadium that we could see from our seats that didn't have any red in it was the student section.  Everywhere else had Bulldogs heavily sprinkled in.  I heard some people estimated there were 15,000 Georgia fans were at the game.  Sun Devil Stadium only holds 72,000 or so, and the game was sold out (this is unusual for ASU).

The game was great to watch, the young couple we traded the tickets with was on the other side of us, and it was a lot of fun.  I got the impression that I surprised some Sun Devils around us by how friendly and courteous I was at the food tables and in our seats.  But not only are these people normally on the same side as me, it's just the Southern way.  I wanted them to see Southern hospitality in action, and particularly Bulldog hospitality.  We're nice people, we all want to have a good time and cheer for our beloved team, and we don't delight in poor sportsmanship or bad manners.  Of course, I am generalizing here, but there is a small point that I'll make in a minute.

When the game got into the 4^th quarter, UGA was still ahead, but anything could have happened.  ASU had scored some points, so it wasn't like the fat lady sang already.  But not surprisingly, gold started to file out of the stadium.  I know most UGA people traveled for the game, so they aren't likely to leave before the game is over, but let me tell you, I didn't see any red trickling out.  In fact, it looked to me like the entire upper north end zone (which was almost solid red) stood up and stayed there the whole 4^th quarter.  When the game was over, it was over, and I knew I had done my job for the Dawgs when I realized how hoarse my voice had become.

We walked back to Gordon Biersch and hung out for a while for the traffic to start to clear from downtown.  When it was moving again, we walked to the bus stop where we had arrived.  The buses were coming every half hour, so we figured we should walk further down the route while we waited.  And here's where I'll make my point about Bulldogs generally being nice people.  While examining a sign at one of the bus stops (looking to see if there was a map or schedule for our route at that stop), a disgruntled Sun Devil fan looked right at me and said, "The buses aren't running."  He obviously didn't know that I happen to live here and I'm not some tourist who doesn't know any better.  He just wanted to be a jerk because he's mad that my team beat his.  Generalizing or not, I'd rather be a Dawg fan any day than be a friend of his.

We did finally get on a bus and get home.  And then we went to pick up Katy Rose from my parents' house.  Unbelievable—she was still awake after 11pm!  We headed home and I started to wonder how long it would be before the ibuprofen I took would start to relieve the pain I was having in my arm and hand.

I have carpal tunnel syndrome, so for a long time I thought that was causing my pain.  I tried sleeping, tried putting my brace on, and ended up on the couch tossing and turning.  Finally, at 5am, I realized my hands were swollen.  My ring was completely immovable and that must be what was causing the pain!  I hadn't had enough water, and I had drunk alcohol in the heat—a combination I almost never do because it makes me swell up.  Oops.

I started drinking water and tried icing my hand so I could remove the ring.  No dice, but eventually I fell asleep when the swelling went down some.  The next evening, I was finally able to remove it with hair conditioner.  But there was still some pain, even hours after I took the ring off.  And then it dawned on me.  The Georgia football helmet fans that I had picked up at the reception Thursday night… I was so hot on Saturday, with all the walking and the heat, that I had fanned myself for probably about 8 solid hours.  And that's when I realized that I had soreness in my forearm because I was… yep… All Fanned Out.

Are We at the Circus? (posted 9/14/2008)

This past week has witnessed huge milestones for Katy Rose.  For some reason, they are not mentioned in the typical child/baby care books.  The books talk about milestones like first steps, first words, first time using the potty, etc.  But they don't mention the ones I'm going to talk about here.

First Boo-Boo

Last Sunday, Katy and I were off to go shopping while Mike was at work.  We were walking out to the car, hand in hand.  Katy tripped in the parking lot and fell on her knee.  She started to cry, and I could tell this was more than the typical fall-down because she doesn't usually cry right away unless it really hurt or she's really tired.  I picked her up and took a look at her little knee (which was her featured named-body-part-of-the-week), and sure enough, she was bleeding.  So we went back inside, and I got to do the band-aid routine for the first time.  Surprisingly, she actually sat there on the toilet lid and let me clean her up with a soapy washcloth and put on a band-aid.  Someone gave me Hello Kitty band-aids in my Christmas stocking, but I couldn't find them on such short notice.  I settled for the ones that Mike got in his stocking—Spongebob Squarepants.  The cutest thing was the way she would periodically point to her knee and say either "Boo-boo?" or "Bob" for Spongebob.  That routine went on for about two days, although the band-aids were only on for about 24 hours.  I put antibiotic ointment on it too, and even though it was just a little scrape, I do think it helped it heal faster.  Those Neosporin commercials were right!

First Lunar Sighting

Katy and I walked down the street to talk to some neighbors the other day.  It was after I got home from work, so it was almost sunset. All of a sudden, out of the clear blue sky, Katy points and says, "Moo!"  Of course, I'm thinking, there's no way she sees a cow up there… So I looked to where she was pointing and I saw the slice of a moon.  I was flabbergasted.  Since when did she learn about the moon and I didn't even know it?  My neighbor then asked her where the sun was, and Katy looked around and then pointed toward the west, where the sun was hidden behind trees and buildings.  Holy cow!  I mean, moon!

First Fruit Naming

Yesterday, Mike was home with Katy when he had to go into work unexpectedly.  He called me when he realized the situation (they were having meetings about layoffs), and asked if I could come and get Katy for a little while.  It was about lunchtime, and I went to pick her up (Mike's office is about a mile away from mine in Phoenix).  I brought her back to my office to hang out for a little while.  We went into my coworker's office next door, and Marina had an apple sitting on her desk.  Katy pointed up to it and said "ah-puhw" and Marina and I looked at each other… Did she just say apple?  I guess I should stop being amazed, but it was déjà vu—when the heck did she learn to spot Golden Delicious apples and I didn't even know it?  She doesn't even eat apples.  Applesauce, yes, but not real, whole apples yet.  Marina gave it to her and told me she hadn't washed it yet.  For the next 20 minutes, I was very busy keeping Katy from trying to take a big bite out of Marina's apple.  There was a meeting in the conference room, so I didn't have any place to wash it, but Katy insisted on holding it (sometimes succeeding in holding it with one hand so she could play with something else at the same time).  She referred to it often, and when I did finally distract her enough to take it from her and hide it, it only took her a minute or two before she started asking for it and looking around for it.  I played dumb.  (I know, not a big stretch.)

Well, that's about it as far as the milestones.  These days she loves shoes, and especially trying to wear Mommy & Daddy's shoes.  She also loves to dance, play with tennis and bouncy balls, go outside, play with water, color, and play with her toy animals (particularly her dogs and horses).

Oh, and I must apologize for using an inside joke in my title.  But since it is my blog, I don't have to explain.  Let me just say that I think we are at the circus.  And for those of you that have never lived in Arizona, here's an example of why I'm now considering myself a Phoenician.  You know you're a Phoenician when… it's 94 degrees and cloudy when you walk outside after work in September, and you think to yourself, "wow, it's really cooled down!" and drive home without air conditioning, not even breaking a sweat.  **See, I moved my tangent to the end of the Story Hour, so it didn't break up the flow of the Milestones discussion.  I write real good.  J  Enjoy the circus.