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There’s been an ongoing war between me and a certain squirrel of infamy in our household.  Some people like squirrels - they think they’re cute.  I cannot stand a squirrel, and I have my reasons.

This particular squirrel has harassed our household for some time now.  I think it’s rabid or something.  My mother saw it with a BIRD in its mouth.  He even tried to get in the house.  He was trapped between the screen door and the French door.  I nearly had a heart attack.

Frankly, the squirrel makes me nervous.  Since the bird and door incident, whenever I see him twitching in the branches of one of our trees, I feel like dragging Buttercup back upstairs.  The dog runs around the yard barking and looking upward while I keep my eye on the stinking thing.   Apparently, he’s not intimidated by our ball of fluff dog, because he hangs around glaring down at us.  Now, I truly do think it’s just one squirrel terrorizing the household, because I’ve never seen other squirrels act that aggressive.  I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

To sidetrack, one of the things I love most in the world is fresh, clean, new drywall.  The places that have new drywall in the house make me so happy.  I love how pristine and white it looks.  My father had built us a walk-in closet that has new drywall.  I loved that new drywall.  Now, it has been marred by what appears to be some little effer trying to get in the house.  I’m assuming it’s the squirrel that has made it into the attic and is digging his way into the closet.  Now, I’m jigged up to no end that one day, I’m going to open up that closet door, and there’s going to be a little fluffy tailed neurotic squirrel terrorizing me.  I’m going to have to go Caddyshack on the squirrel shortly. 

I’m really not sure what to do about this, but I’m going to place a phone call to my father.  He’s got to be getting into the attic somehow, and we’ve got to seal that up.  Let’s just hope to God he doesn’t make it through into the closet before we can figure this out.

So, over the holiday, Buttercup received two dolls.  One of the dolls was from Aunt, an adorable Cabbage Patch doll w/red hair.  Now, Daddy and I had talked about getting her a Cabbage Patch doll, and he said that she was already getting one doll, and really, he doesn’t think Cabbage Patch dolls are cute.  I see where he’s coming from.  I guess, if you weren’t a little girl in the 80’s, it doesn’t make much sense why those fugly dolls are so cute.

I had a Cabbage Patch with red hair that I loved a whole lot.  My grandmother got her for me.  Aunt digs the Cabbage Patch fetish, and she and I were in cahoots to get Buttercup one for Christmas.  We’re a pair of very determined women!  So, Buttercup got her Cabbage Patch doll w/red hair - she’s decided it’s the “Mommy” doll, and I can’t imagine why :)

Lately, Buttercup has been overflowing with affection.  She wants to hug and kiss and squeeze anything that moves.  This has become a little bit of a problem, because sometimes - other kids don’t want to be hugged and kissed and squeezed.  It’s a heart-breaking little situation, and she’s been disappointed and too pushy with her hand holding and lovey-dovey all the time.  So, I talked with her about it very carefully and told her that friends are for giving gentle pats on the back, and family is for hugging and kissing.

So, over the holidays, the grand arrival of her cousins has helped enormously.  On Christmas Day, she played with them so much, I was relieved to no end.  They’re both incredibly good boys, and she’s miraculously been given an outlet for all her friendliness.  It reminded me so much of my own childhood with my little brother and baby nephew.  Oh, how we ran and played all over my parent’s farm.  Well, Buttercup and her cousins did the exact same thing. 

I was listening to them play.  P had hidden the Frisbee, and J-Bear was on a mission to find it.  Buttercup walked up to him and said, “Frisbee, please?”  J-Bear kneeled down in front of her and said, “Don’t worry, I will not fail you!”  And he ran off in the gallant tempest of a boy on a mission to help the princess.  It was probably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life :)

Over the weekend, they all came over to my house for a lunch, and they played and hugged her up to no end.  She ate it all up, and she let J-Bear carry her around the house, and she had no problem sharing her new Thomas the Train set w/the boys.  In fact, they rearranged it no end, creating new and fun paths for the trains to race away on.  She adores them, and I think between them and Daddy’s parents, she’s gotten enough affection and positive reinforcement to hold her for a while.

Yesterday, it all went reasonably okay.  She stopped throwing up in the late morning, and it all calmed down dramatically.  While Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa went to the store, I tried to my hardest to get her to take a nap, but it wasn’t happening.  Finally, when they came home, we turned on the football game, Buttercup laid down with me on the couch, and she fell promptly asleep watching football.  It has the same effect on me.

Really though, I think that while she was exhausted earlier in the day, she didn’t want to feel like she was missing anything.  Her grandparents were here!  She was absolutely thrilled with them, and it’s always hard when they go.  She says their first names so softly, as if in utter regret.  Daddy’s parents are magical bringers of good bagels, toys, and fresh affection.  So, she slept on my lap with all of us around her, and she just looked so peaceful and comfortable.  We were all with her.

We watched The Lion King with them, and it was the first time she’d seen it.  She was so excited, and she had a million questions about the story line.  Daddy kept skipping the upsetting parts, and even though he skipped over the stampede scene, she repeatedly asked, “Where did the Daddy Lion go?”  Oh, boy.  She loved all the animals, and she asked what they all were.  The singing was fun, too.  I’d forgotten what an emotional movie it is.  My point of view on things has changed so much since she was born, and any heroic act of motherhood/fatherhood or even a damn Johnson & Johnson commercial is enough to push me over the edge into tears.

She seems much better today, and so far there’s no fever.  Here’s hoping it was a 24 hour thing.  I think we’re going to have a quiet day at home playing with the new Christmas toys, all the same.

There’s nothing quite like a puking flu to make everyday healthy life look like a paradise.  I’m not sure why, I guess it is flu season, but we’ve been hit again.  Buttercup woke up in the middle of the night.  Daddy carried her into my room, and he said, “She’s wet,” and put her in my arms.  I thought she just needed a diaper change, but oh no.  My nose immediately told me otherwise.

Her bed and the wall next to the bed were covered in vomit.  It looked like something out of a horror movie.  She made it through the rest of the night in bed with me, but this morning she’s been so violently sick to her stomach.  We’re holding down the fort with Pedialyte and crackers, but she’s just miserable.  She threw up her Tylenol promptly, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the day.  I’m hoping this is over shortly.

I have a pile of laundry that’s so bad - I’m not sure how I’m going to get it all done today.  All the bedding in the house has to be washed.  It’s going to be a long day.

To make matters more entertaining, my in-laws are here - and I promised Buttercup and them that we’d take the tricycle they bought her to the park today and have a nice afternoon.  That is looking less and less likely.  I feel bad, and I’m going to have to be boots on the ground Mommy today.  Thank God, it’s Sunday, and Daddy’s home to help.

Christmas is over, and now I have the blues.  It’s hard to see it pass.

The morning was everything you could want from Christmas, and Buttercup let us sleep until after 7 o’clock, which is a gift unto itself.  We all exchanged presents, and it was lovely.  I think she got everything I could have wanted for her, and what more can you ask of Christmas morning?

La Husband gave me a 22 inch monitor - which I am so stoked about, because I can look at multiple docs, spreadsheets, and IE’s without a problem.  I love being on the net, and it makes the view of my little online world much more panoramic.

We went to my parent’s afterwards, and my brother hooked up his amp so the boys could jam out with the new guitar.  Here, musical freedom is limited because of our living situation.  At my parent’s house, the neighbors aren’t even in sight - so, it was literally a blast to get to hear them playing without volume limitations.  While Daddy chased the baby, my brother showed me the sound/playing difference between his Ibanez and the Gibson.  It was interesting to watch, because it looked to me like his fingers didn’t have to work as hard with the Gibson.  He praised the Gibson, and it made me feel like a million bucks.

My happy moment, and I think my happy place will always be the moment when Buttercup gave me this MONSTROUS unicorn.  She was so happy, and I was so happy, and I just - she picked out this huge larger than life stuffed animal for me.  It’s too much, and I think that moment is all I will need to get through 2009.

Here are a handful of my favorite things she’s said.

“No, Mommy:  I like to pick my nose.”

“No, actually, that not a Little Mermaid - that’s a BIG mermaid!”

Mommy:  My Peggy, My Peggy Sue!
Buttercup:  No, no, Mommy:  MY Peggy Sue.

“Lima beans - yucky!  Ice cream - cold, Mommy!”

“Someday, I work in a bank.”

“I don’t want Daddy to work.”

Mommy:  Are you a cool cat with your sunglasses on?
Buttercup:  Meow, meow!

“Maybe something in there for me?”  This is her standard response upon seeing a shopping bag.

Mommy:  What in the world are elephants doing in the basement?
Buttercup, after deep consideration:  Hiding!

“I love this one!”  On any toy she’s decided must be hers.

Daddy:  Take a picture of the fireplace.
Buttercup:  No, Daddy:  fire burn camera!

“The prince is a doctor?”  She said this one after reading Snow White - when the prince gives Snow White a kiss to wake her.

You know, I’m not sure what I did.  However, my comments have gone MIA from tons of my posts.  Now, the only reason I can see this happening is that I “deleted” those comment notifications from my Gmail inbox.  I definately didn’t do that to remove the comments, I just wanted the notices out of my inbox.  I can’t stand clutter! 

Have any of my other gmail buddies had this problem:  deleting the notification from your inbox results in deleting them from the blog?  The comments I have archived are still up and running.  It looks like it’s just the comment notifications coming into my inbox I read and then deleted.  Odd!  Sorry if I deleted yours:  it wasn’t intended!

The mine issue appears to be like the tides - ebb and flow.  We make enormous strides, and then suddenly, we’re right back where we started.  The mine situation appears most often with other toys and children.  So, usually, I’m standing guard for this.  A brief tug of war ensues, and someone comes out victorious, usually the other child, because I don’t let her win unless she had the toy first or some legitimate claim over it.

However, we were at a birthday party yesterday, and another little girl was sitting on my lap.  I was quite surprised at Buttercup’s reaction.  It was really very primal.  “NO!  MY MOMMY!”  Oh dear God, I put the little girl down and had a talk with her about it.  She calmed down, but for a minute, it could have gone either way.

On another play date, she did really well, and I was so proud of her.  She had the other little girl’s baby doll, and the other little girl was getting upset.  She walked over, handed it to her, and said, “Don’t be upset.  Here you go,” in that singsong voice.  I was so happy I could have cried.  EMPATHY!  What a concept!

It really is like walking around with the underlying and uncontrolled part of yourself:  like if you took out all your needs, desires, and unrestrained emotion and put them out on the table, you’d have a two-year old.  “I want, mine, no, but I love it!” 

The “But, I Love It” part is the hardest.  I have goals when I go into a toy store - the main of which is simply to get out of the toy store without buying something.  It’s a straightforward goal, really, but it’s rarely achieved.  The reason this became so hard is she started clinging to the toy in question, looking up at me with those ridiculously big blue eyes and saying, “But, I love it, Mommy!”  You know, that phrase just triggers some flood of maternal emotion, and I think she knows it.  She’s a smarty pants, and she knows which buttons to push.

I always balance these situations against the concept that her emotions are very pure and uninhibited right now:  so, it’s not like she’s doing something because she wants to cause a problem - she’s just learning how to express herself.  I think the biggest thing is to work on is empathy, just understanding that other people having feelings, too.  My mom says, “They only get to be queen of the universe for such a short time.”  It’s true, and I want to find the balance of respecting and being sympathetic to her emotions while teaching her how to share, be polite, and accept that a lot of the world is communal.  It’s challenging - but I guess that’s why this is called the terrible twos.

I think I might be one of the only people in the world that loves Christmas music.  It’s a total sentimental nightmare, I know, but I happen to love sentimental nightmares.  Also, little dancing queen loves them.  She runs around shaking it up all over the place. 

In the middle of the mall, she came to a crashing halt when she heard “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” come on the system.  Shaking her curls, waving her arms, and stomping her feet, she was dancing without inhibition in front of God and everyone.  It would take large amounts of alcohol to get me anywhere near ready for dancing in public, but she’s just so fearless and unashamed.  Let’s face it:  she knows she’s cute.

Ever since she was a wee little one, she’s been a dancer.  I put on the Beatles, and she’s ready to rumble.  I still love it when I put on “Drive My Car.”
“Baby, you can drive my car.
Yes, I’m gonna be a star.
Baby, you can drive my car,
and maybe I’ll love you.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, yeah!”  Just as the beep beep starts up, she starts pushing her little hand in the air like she’s honking a horn.  She KILLS me with the dancing.  So, this holiday season appears to be filled with the theatrics of our little ballerina, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

My husband was the one who pointed out to me that it would be important for Buttercup to buy us Christmas gifts.  I hadn’t really thought about it like that.  Rather, I’d been planning to make craft gifts for her to give to him.  I guess that’s pretty routine around here, though.  It seems like everything she makes is to show or give to him :)

So, I asked her what she thought he would want for Christmas.  She paused and considered this for a surprisingly long time.  In a few moments, she looked up with the biggest smile on her face.  “A puppet!”
“A puppet?  Daddy wants a puppet?”  She then proceeded to tell me that he wanted a puppet from our favorite local toy store.  Now, for those of you that have been in the store with us, this makes total and perfect sense.  One of the reasons we get along so well, is my husband is the most lighthearted person I’ve ever known.  So, promptly, upon entering the store, he finds one of their huge varieties of puppets, and comes to harass me with it.  Now, if he can manage it, sometimes this takes me by surprise.  Mostly though, he gets the exasperated wife look.  Sometimes, I find my own puppet, and we have a big time.  We’re quite the pair.

So, when she finally decided what Daddy wanted for Christmas, I was thrilled.  We went to the store, and she picked out my personal favorite - the bunny rabbit puppet.  They wrapped it all up for us, and she’s been whispering to me, “Santa Claus brings a puppet for Daddy?”  It’s the sweetest thing in the world.  We’ll have to see how life with a puppet in the house goes - if Daddy keeps up his antics, the puppet might go MIA.

Since Buttercup was a newborn, she’s been able to sit through short “one sentence per page” books.  She loves stories, and it reminds me so much of myself.  I’ve always loved the classic fairytales even as an adult.  I’m devoted to the originals, but Disney is down with me, too.

There’s an elemental beauty there - the stories are told with such texture and color.  They remind me of tapestries, and if I could illustrate the classic fairy tales - it would be through tapestries and embroidery.  There’s nothing else that would give them the same raised height - almost like reading Braille - that they had from my childhood perspective.

Having said that, some of these stories are pretty intense.  Buttercup is a sensitive little person.  I think it was Snow White that pushed me over the edge.  I started editing the classics for her.  In a way, this was hard for me to do at first - I felt like I was committing some kind of literary crime.  Now, I don’t care at all.  These are some prime examples of what I’m talking about.

Snow White:  This is a classic.  She’s always loved Snow White.  I think what drew her in was the animals in the beginning of the story when Snow White is lost in the woods, and the animals come to help her.  She loves looking at all those adorable characters.  But before that, there’s the scene with the huntsman who takes her into the woods to kill her and ends up leaving her - well, that’s been changed by yours truly.  Instead, he’s taking her on a walk in the woods, and they get lost.  Clean cut there.  Next, when the Queen comes back and gives her a poison apple - oh, forget that altogether.  Snow White goes to sleep in her glass coffin or whatever it is, and the prince gives her a kiss to wake her up.  That’s my latest version of Snow White.

Anything referring to a cat as a p-u-s-s-y:  Okay.  I’m probably going to get all kinds of bizarre traffic from that statement, hence the dashes.  I don’t want my two-year old running around saying p-u-s-s-y in public.  No more to say on that topic.

Beauty and the Beast:  The worst part of this one is simply when the father leaves Belle with the Beast.  Oh, hell to the no.  This one drives my husband nuts.  He also doesn’t like the beast in general.  I’m kind of with him on that.  I mean, it does have value as far as appearances aren’t always what they seem; don’t read a book by its cover, and a bunch of other random clichés on human nature.  I really don’t care.  Daddy doesn’t leave his daughter with a beast.  Her interest in the story has been increased by my repeatedly skipping it, but I’ll figure that out as we go along.

There are more - lots of little nursery rhymes/stories that she loves but are so oddly inappropriate.  For instance, last one, I promise, and maybe taken out of context, nevertheless…

Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he alive, or be he dead,
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.

I’m French-Irish, and I still have to disagree with this one.  I know the English have had their moments that may or may not have led to massive populations of people disliking them a great deal, but we can’t start her off by teaching her revenge and death are the way to go.  Nevertheless, she loves shouting, “Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum!”  My little giant, it’s really amusing, but I dislike it.

So, I’m thinking that because of her ability to sit through longer children’s stories, we’re just going to have to be careful to remember she’s our two-year old audience.  Parental supervision is required.  I don’t know what I’ll do when she learns to read, but as my father says, “One crisis at a time.”

During Halloween, everywhere we went Buttercup would spot the holiday decor.  Pumpkins were her favorite, and she seemed to be on a mission to find every pumpkin where ever we happened to be.  I deliberately drove past the pumpkin patch time after time.  She would sit in her car seat and kick her legs and wave her arms shouting, “Pumpkins, Mommy!”

Since the Christmas decorations have been out in full force, she’s thrilled.  Everywhere we go - she spots the trees, wreaths, bells, and snowmen and dances her little jig in excitement.  “Mommy, Christmas tree just like my Christmas tree.”  We were on a play date yesterday, and she pointed out their Christmas tree behind the couch and turned to me and said, “Santa Claus bring Aiden a baby doll just like me?”  She loves the holiday seasons, and I can’t say I blame her.

So far, it’s been such a good holiday.  All the gifts have come into place without the use of credit, and I just feel like this is the first year she’s been so aware and excited about Christmas.  It’s truly infectious, and I feel like a child again.  I have to start baking this weekend and next week.  I want the entire house to smell, feel, and taste like Christmas.

I know I’m going to cry on Christmas morning.  I always get emotional on Christmas morning and have to leave the room.  It’s what I do.  Now, I never do this in front of her, but I always have to go lock myself in the bathroom and cry for a few minutes.  We’re a little family, and nothing quite makes me feel as sentimental about it as Christmas morning.

I want to go out this week and buy us all pajamas for Christmas morning.  I say I’m going to do this every year, and I never quite get it together to do it.  It is, after all, a photo shoot.  I better get on it this weekend.

I found the guitar, and it should be on its way here today.  I’m very excited.  I was talking to the nice customer service guy on the phone, he read the product number, and I said, “That’s my girl!”  He said, “Already referring to the guitar as a girl, are we?”  Really, guitars have always been the other woman to me.

So, I got the Gibson Les Paul Studio - and I’m thrilled and excited.  I never thought I’d find something I’m as passionately covetous of as jewelry.  My infatuation with guitars apparently surpasses my love of jewelry, because I got sucked into the guitar vortex.  I truly tried to buy a moderately priced Fender Strat, and my boy at Sweetwater called and told me it was out of stock.  The world conspired against me, it really did.

They retain value, these guitars.  I tried to find something on eBay at some point, and it was all priced comparably to traditional e-tailers.  So, that just pushes the right button for me.  I always gauge the worth of material goods by their resale value.

Besides that, I didn’t want the Fender.  I wanted the solid mahogany body, made in the USA, single cut out of the Gibson, and now, I’ve made something up to my husband that has lifted a weight from my shoulders.  I am free of guilt!

He wanted the ebony finish w/chrome hardware and that’s what I got him.  Now, if it had been my guitar - keep in mind, I don’t play, lol - I would have gotten the root beer finish.  HOT!  It looks like a tigress.  So, maybe I’ll let Daddy of the Year teach me how to play.  I just want more guitars!

The first time I remember meeting Cindy was in 5th grade.  She’s extraordinarily petite: probably 5′2 and she currently weighs less than 100 pounds.  Her hands are the most fragile things I’ve ever seen in my life, like twigs you could break.  I think that’s the first thing that made me love her - that enormously fragile appearance and her extremely strong personality.

We were exact opposites.  I’m tall and fair - she’s tiny and dark like a little bird.  We’ve been friends for over 15 years.

We went through all of our first experiences together, the whole slew of adolescent experiences.  She taught me how to wear make-up, dress, and be generally socially acceptable.  I think I would’ve been lost without her. 

Cindy’s been my most fierce advocate.  No matter what stupid thing I’ve done, she’s stood by my side through it and screamed at the people who even looked at the carnage.  It’s who she is with me.

She had children before me.  I’ve been there for the birth of two of her children, and they wouldn’t let me go in for the caesarian section she had for the third.  I would’ve been in there if I could’ve shoved her husband aside :)

She was my matron of honor, and I truly think if I had said, “Cindy, I’ve got to get out of here,” she would’ve hiked up her dress and said, “Let’s go,” and told everyone to go to hell.  It’s what I love about her:  she puts me first in my own life.  It’s a rarer quality in people than I thought.

When Buttercup was born, she was pregnant.  I did my best to keep her out of the labor and delivery, because first, I wanted to keep it private.  I’d also read that a pregnant woman can be thrown into labor by being in the room with another laboring woman.  So, I didn’t call her when I went into labor.  I laid there for 8 hours laboring and feeling my body being torn apart before she got there.  My little brother told her I was in labor :)

The minute she got there, I calmed down.  I watched her face, and I felt like she was the only one who knew the amount of pain I was in.  She looked so calm and understanding but steady and irrevocable as the labor itself.  It was like she knew she could not make the pain go away, but she’d stand next to me through it - like she always has.  I swear to God, she looked like Mother Theresa to me:  an angel with a calm face and soothing voice.

There was only one way I could keep her out of the operating room when the doctors decided after 18 hours of laboring that I had to have a caesarean:  I told her I needed her to go to the nursery and wait for my baby, to watch my baby while I was in recovery.  She understood that, and it was okay.  I sent everyone, including my husband, to follow my baby immediately after the c-section…

Our friendship has been one of the constants in my life.  I’ve never been afraid of losing it.  Today, she’s leaving on a flight to Texas, and then to Mexico.  I am going to miss her like a limb.  I’ve always known that no matter what’s going on, I could find sanctuary with Cindy.  She’s more than a friend:  she’s a home, she’s a defender, and she’s as dear to me as family.  I’m thinking we’re going to vacation in Mexico this summer :)

One of our local churches had a Christmas festival over the weekend.  There were tons of crafts for the little ones to do; they had a band singing Christmas Carols, and lots of good food.  I can’t quite explain how much I love it when all the kids come together to kick up their heels and frolic:  all those tiny hands trying to reach the cookie tray and push each other out of the way.  I can’t help but feel a little sympathetic to the cookie frenzy - I take my cookies pretty seriously, too.

We made a clothespin angel, which turned out looking like a Vegas showgirl.  I was highly diverted by it, and Buttercup loved the feathers.  Between the glue and the feathers, we looked like we’d had a fight with a peacock by the time we got away from the table.

Later, Santa Claus showed up.  I was very surprised that Buttercup sat down on his lap without a problem.  She was completely speechless.  When he asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she just couldn’t answer.  I think she was too excited.  Finally, he said, “Do you want a baby doll for Christmas?”  Her little face lit up with the biggest grin - Santa knew exactly what she wants :)

When he asked me to marry him, it was the most beautiful night, and he took me outside, and I saw the ring sparkling brighter than the stars, and his eyes and he was down on his knee, and I cried and laughed and let go of everything holding me back except that he loved me and I loved him. 

It was beautiful after that, and we were as good as married from that moment on.  To be honest, I’ll always feel like that was our wedding night.  We had the grand ceremony years later, but it was that night we promised ourselves to each other without the need for witnesses other than God and the stars, moon, and sky.  I gave up my reservations that night - life is for living.

Later, I woke up my mother and showed her the ring, and I cried and sat with her for a long time talking about him.  It sounds old-fashioned and archaic, but when he gave me that ring I felt like I wasn’t unspoken for or unprotected anymore.  I belonged to someone.

So, then I told him that I didn’t want to rent an apartment:  I wanted a house.  Renting made no sense to me at all, it never has really - so, he found a way to buy a house for me.  I am still surprised it worked, but it’s just one more reason he’s given me not to doubt him and always be careful what I ask him to do for me, because he’ll find a way to do it.

Marriages aren’t easy things to explain.  Recently, I met a couple, and I sat there watching them rip each other to shreds, and I was amazed by it.  Despite our differences and opposing views on various subjects, my husband and I fight on the same side.

I think, initially, it was our friendship that created a foundation for us to stand on.  He’s been my dearest most intimate friend for almost six years.  I had a variety of reasons for feeling hesitant about romance entering the relationship.  I didn’t want to harm anything, and I didn’t know where I was standing at the time.  The first thing that shook that away from me was the car accident.

I’m not sure if I’ve written about it before, but the car accident was a disaster.  We were planning on taking a trip up north, and we were driving to my college to sell back some books for quick cash.  We were laughing and talking about something, and I was driving.  My parent’s live in the country, and there are tons of tiny unmarked roads.  We were on one of them, and someone came over the crest of a hill in the middle of the road, and I had to swerve to my right, then I swerved to the left to avoid a telephone pole, and we hit an embankment.  It was very fast, as car accidents are.  We hit hard.  The car was a cluster of crushed metal and broken glass.

Immediately after the accident, I was no good to anyone.  I was bruised up, banged up, and generally a wreck.  He was in the same boat.  However, he saw the situation, realized we had to get out of the car before another car came over the hill and hit us again.  So, he tried to open his door, and it was crushed shut.  So, he climbed through the broken glass hell of the window with his beautiful musician hands to get me out of the car.  Somehow, he managed to get my door open.  My seat and I were crushed against the steering wheel, my sandals and glasses had flown off during the impact, and the airbags had not gone off.  I don’t know why.  My chest was so bruised I couldn’t breathe well.  How did he open that door?  I don’t know - I think it must have been one of those situations where adrenaline gives the body what it needs to do what it has to do.  He pulled me out of the car and got me out of there.

Afterwards, when we were in the hospital and the world was going crazy around me, all I wanted was him:  this incredible boy who had not cared that his hands were getting cut to pieces and his body was torn up to no end, he had to get me out of the car.  It was after that - I just saw clearly that he loved me.

Where did my baby go?  I was looking through our endless files of pictures, and I found all these cherished pictures we took when she was just a little one.  How does it change so very fast?

She was the happiest little baby.  She wasn’t big on crying, didn’t drool except for a couple weeks when teething, and didn’t spit-up.  She’s never been a sleeper:  my little angelic child has fought sleeping from the time she was born.

She loved it when Daddy played his acoustic for her softly.  She watched and listened while he played like this was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.  He is a musical genius :)

With her books, she’s always loved to read.  Her favorite was “Puppy’s Tail.”  The book has a little tail on the binding.  The other favorite was “Chicka, Chicka ABC.”  I love these books, still, even though they’re practically falling apart.

There have been so many milestones:  her first sip of juice, milk, food, sitting up, rolling from side to side, crawling, and finally walking.  Then, suddenly, she turned into a big girl overnight…

For several weeks now, I’ve been living life without a doorbell.  It started ringing incessantly one afternoon from a malfunction of some variety, and I unplugged the speaker up here.  I haven’t plugged it back in or pursued fixing or replacing it.  In fact, I’m relishing life without a doorbell.

Here’s the deal:  if anyone I know comes calling, they call my cell phone rather than ringing the doorbell, because Buttercup might be sleeping.  Ringing the doorbell downstairs causes a chain reaction up here.  We can be peacefully playing and relaxing, and then that doorbell goes off, the dog goes insane and starts barking like Satan is at the door, Buttercup drops everything and runs into my arms, and I start frantically trying to get ready to answer the door.  Now, as often as not, the caller is either for our tenant, the mail man, or some freak I don’t want to talk to.  Like I said, people I want to see know to call my cell.

In case of emergency, I can hear if someone is banging on our door downstairs, and I have my tenant to help folks figure it out.  You so much as open the door to the foyer, and the man is right there checking things out.  So, I’m not too worried about getting another doorbell.  In fact, I think I’m going to ignore the situation a while longer.  My days have been so much more peaceful lately.  Anti-social?  Not me.