whimley & fizz

here's a post from a few months ago. thought i'd bring it back to share with those who don't facebook.



today brooke was sitting in the cupboard playing for a few hours and during part of that time i was in the kitchen too. while i was making muffins & we were passing notes to each other through the silverware drawer. i wrote one that said, "how many teeth are in your mouth?" she answered "7" since that's how many she's lost, as i'd expected she would. so i verbally asked her the question again so she'd really understand it & she said, "i don't know! whimley can't count in the dark!" according to her, whimley wormtongue is her tongue's name. i didn't press it any further. about half an hour later she resent the note w/ the 7 crossed & out & she'd written in "23". i asked her how she figured it out since she was still in the dark cupboard. she said, "fizz counted them for me." fizz is her left hand.

roger & roxy

this school year, brooke & i have been studying birds for a science thing as we do second grade together. in the process of that, we've put out a few feeders & more recently blocks of suet on our tiny back deck. daily chris & brooke & i go out there & pile up sunflower seeds & other little goodies to keep the birds coming & it's been pretty cool to watch who comes to see us & eat from our buffet. i can deal with the inevitable squirrels which have been deemed furry pigs around here. however, what i can't seem to accept is the freakin raccoons!

we have a motion detector on our back deck so if there's movement, the light usually comes on, and if you watch the door often enough, you'll see it go on. i swear, when i see that light flip on, it's like i suddenly have a shot of pure adrenaline through my veins! the first time i saw the light on, i looked out & found two furry monsters in a silent feeding frenzy on the suet & i believe i screamed because they both looked at me & ran away really fast.

the next time i was ready. even when the light wasn't on, i kept walking to the door & peering out into the darkness hoping to see some sort of movement on the deck rail & sure enough, i finally spotted one. i ran for the camera & filmed it while it popped its head up to see me when i flipped on the light & then it scampered off while i banged on the window.

ever since that night, i've been developing an increasing obsession with the dang raccoons! i dream about them & lay in bed at night thinking about them & wondering if they're down there snacking on my peanut butter and lard patties that we made so painstakingly for the poor hungry birds.

one night, i heard our neighbor's dog start barking & looked at the door & sure enough, the light was on, so i crept over & was looking out the window onto an empty deck. i figured it had to be close, so i stayed there for a few minutes looking around & then i discovered that there was a dark, furry shape on the deck steps! it was low enough so i couldn't see it well, but the dogs were still barking, so i figured it was just hunkering down & waiting till the commotion died down so it could go back to feasting on our goodies. i, of course, didn't want it to come back, so i started banging on the window, but the critter didn't move. i was making a lot of noise & still nothing, but i was pretty sure i could see it breathing, so i got the bright idea to run upstairs so i could look down at it from the bedroom window & see what was going on. i opened the window & leaned out & sure enough, it was still there, still not moving. i started hissing & barking loudly thinking maybe i could scare it toward the woods, but still it didn't move! i leaned over to the other side of the window & that's when i saw the stick. actually, it was a handle. to a broom. and at the other end was the "breathing" furry straw broom that brooke had dropped there earlier in the day. needless to say i was feeling a bit foolish afterwards for barking, hissing, banging & yelling ... at a broom.

last night i got one again on film & tonight i caught two of them out there. i can't stop looking at the door to see if the light's on! i can't leave the kitchen because i might miss it! i want desperately to see them because they're adorable, like fatt-butted, skinny-footed, waddly little bears. the one i saw last night was so close to the house that if the window panes had been empty, i could have reached out & touched him! i realize that he would probably have snapped my finger off if i'd tried, but still i'd love to touch one.

tonight, after i'd attempted to scare off the duo we've dubbed roger & roxy, they were moving more slowly. rather than running away quickly like proper theives should, they kinda waddled down to the steps & just looked up at me. as if they were realizing that i'm really impotent & won't do anything, so they can feel free to stay close because i'm all bark & no bite. it wasn't 10 minutes later that i was sitting here, writing this & i saw that the light was on again! i went to the window intending to film the rapscallions again, but this time, i saw that there was a baby up there with the fat-butted mama! something in me went a little bit nutsy because i realized that she had scoped us out enough to decide that we're a safe place to bring the kids! and when i banged, they didn't even leave! they went down off the railing, but stayed on the deck like they were just waiting for me to leave again so they could go back to their fine dining experience. this time i ran to the other kitchen window that i can open & i yelled as nastily as i could at that dang coon mommy & her rascally offspring. i heard them actually leave that time & i'm pretty sure there were three of them.

sigh... i don't know if i love them or hate them, but they're certainly taking up way more of my brain than i ever would have thought possible. i expect that by midway through next week i'll look out the window & bang, hiss & bark & all they'll do is laugh & maybe flip me a bird.

butt-crack bandit

we currently only have one car, so sometimes brooke & i don't get out very much anymore. it's been several days since brooke left the house, and earlier this week she made it to her "yay, you did it!" on her behavior chart, so i owed her something fun. i told her she could pick anything reasonable to do today & she wanted to go to chuck e cheese. yuck! i really don't like that place, but it does make me slightly happier to call it chuckie jesus like she used to back when she was 2 & thought that was the name. i've tried to make arrangements w/ a few friends to get together this weekend, but it hasn't worked out so far & we needed some out-of-the-house interaction & i guess the cheesey jesus is as good a place as any to get it, especially when it's cold & windy outside.

so brooke was meandering about, spending her tokens willy-nilly & i let her be free for a while before i wandered off to locate her. i found her at the ski ball games playing with another little girl who's probably 2-3 years younger than her. they were happily collecting tickets & throwing their balls spastically about into several different game chutes. every time brooke bent down to retrieve her wayward ball, there was a wee bit of butt cleavage showing. she got some new jeans that clearly don't fit her well, but she loves them because they've got icarly on the label & since they were on clearance, i bought them. what was i thinking? neither she nor i are built for the skinny fit, but i guess i had hoped i could still work it out on her. no such luck.

i reminded her to pull the jeans up, but whatever, every time she bent down, the crack was back. i gave up & tried not to look. instead i looked around at any of the adults in the area to make sure none of them was paying undo attention. thankfully, they weren't. i'd have hated to have to release my inner new york bitch in the middle of the cheese!

brooke brought her friend to the table to meet me & then her friend invited brooke to come meet her mom & said "you'll like her, she's nice!" and off they ran. brooke returned alone a moment later & her friend came back a minute after that & said, "my mom said i can't play with you anymore. she said since i brought a friend with me, i have to play with her instead of you. i still like you though & don't want to hurt your feelings." poor brooke sat there trying so hard to be tough & hold the tears back, but they were dangerously close to spilling over as she looked down w/ a supremely sad face. "i thought you said your mom was nice" she mumbled.

i have to say that i understand where the other mom was coming from, but i felt sad for my girl who was so happy to have found a friend only to have her whisked away so quickly! it wasn't long before she decided to go climb the tower tubes & i saw her sitting in the big overhanging corner box thing up at the top of the tube system & she was crouched down, glaring at the girl & her not-nice mom. she was bent down in such a way that half her butt was showing from the back of her pants & she was in that box thing that looked kinda like a bird cage & all i could think of was that she's a new species of bird, the butt-crack bird! and apparently they're a predatory bird because she looked like she wanted to tear up & possibly eat the prey below her.

brooke came back to my table after a while & told me that since she was out of tokens, she was going to walk around & look to see if anyone spilled their cup so she could pick up their scraps. i told her that would be equivalent to stealing if she saw it happen & then took one rather than giving it back, but there was a look in her eye that made me think she was of a different opinion. like, what mom doesn't know won't hurt me! i could just imagine, as she left me, that she was stealthily walking about, peering around the corners of games in hopes of finding some clumsy toddler who might "accidentally" trip or get distracted so that she could lighten their token load & have herself another ride on the roller coaster simulator! now i've got a butt-crack bandit on the loose!

all in all, the trip to the cheese ended well, in spite of our bumps & security wasn't called, so i guess that means the bandit didn't strike any unsuspecting prey or else she was so smooth that i need to watch closely next time. maybe count to check that the tokens don't magically multiply when i'm not looking.

whattaman

i realized in church on sunday that chris & i met 13 years ago as of saturday. it made me feel all smiley & young to grin at him & remember when we first met back all those years ago. i was working at a pager & cell phone store in charlotte & he came into my store to see a friend of his from high school who also worked there. the store was in a strip mall, so i could see the parking lot from my desk & i saw him park & amble slowly in my direction & i wondered if he was coming into my store or the comic book store beside me. i was pleased to see this cute guy w/ the shiney red pontiac headed my way! when it turned out that he wasn't a geek heading into the comic shop, i was glad to greet him at the front door. there was some flirting & smiling & somehow in the course of conversation, he was invited to come back later that night for "billing night." the store i worked in was a very small company, just 3 employees & we printed & stuffed all the bills to our customers each month ourselves, so we would try to bribe our friends into helping us by giving them pizza, beer & loud rock music for the few hours that it would take the get the job done.

so chris took the bait & he came back that night to help us with our billing, or as i prefer to think of it, he came back so he could look at me some more (although i'm not sure why since my hair was just barely starting to grow back after shaving it). at some point in the evening, chris & i went for a walk down the sidewalk to another store & while we were walking, he asked me some things about myself. i told him that i'd been living a pretty wild lifestyle at the time & then he asked me a question that i'll never forget. he said, "is that who you are, or is it what you've done?" that stopped me in my tracks because i'd never thought you could seperate the two. i thought that since i'd done a bunch of foolish stuff, then by default i was a foolish person. but somehow, deep down, i knew that i wasn't going to keep going on the track i was on. i was already at a place in my head where i was sick of the partying & random dating & ready to reconsider God again. so i was able to answer chris that it was what i'd done, not who i was & i think it profoundly changed me to realize that.

he called me at work the next day & asked me to go out for dinner & we've been together pretty much ever since. we were both coming back to God after time spent away & living life as if it was ours to throw out. we both had moved back into our parents houses & were looking for something new & by finding each other when we did, we helped each other through that process. chris is much more thoughtful about life than i generally am & by listening to him, i've learned to think more rather than just act. he helped me install a filter between my thoughts & my mouth so that i don't just yell out every stupid thing i think anymore. he helped me learn that it's not okay to scream at someone who you love just because you're mad, even if you have a reason to be mad. he restored my faith in the male gender of my generation because he was neither a dirty perv nor a judgemental hypocrite. most of the guys in my age range seemed to me to fall into one of those 2 categories & i was very put off by it.

chris & i have been through a lot of different life things, both good & bad & we've never lost our faith in each other. he's still the first one i want to call when something good or bad happens. i never feel like he's ignoring me if i call him while he's working and he doesn't answer. i know that myself & brooke are his first priorities & i never doubt his committment to us. even if we don't have a lot of time together, just knowing that he's my partner is very comforting.

i've been extremely blessed to have a father who's a godly man & raised me well & was involved in my daily life & now i have a fantastic husband who supports me & loves me & treats me better than i could have ever dreamed. chris is an involved dad to brooke & i know that someday she'll grow up to say that she learned what she wanted in a man by watching her daddy & the way he treats us. i'm so thankful to God for giving me the gift of chris riley. if i had to go back & do it over, i'd pick him again, every time.

quirky dog-girl

today, as usual, brooke spent her day running around the house in a costume. she was a dog, which usually consists of some odd combination of her own clothes in "natural" dog colors w/ ears, snout & tail strapped on. now that she's 7, i rarely let her leave the house in a full-on costume like that because it's just starting to seem weird. people don't understand why there's a kid running around walmart on all fours barking & growling at them. but i will frequently allow her to wear a piece of the costume, such as ears or tail & i try to remind her to act like a human. i never dreamed i'd be having to tell my 7 yr old offspring that she's a human & to please act like it. she seriously believes that she has some animal DNA in her body. she told me today that it's one of her dreams that one day she'll be riding in the car, wearing her dog ears & snout & sticking her head out the window with her tongue hanging out & some news crew will see & film her & put her on the news as the amazing dog girl. when she's in costume, she really feels like she becomes one with it & it becomes a real part of her. it's like her grasp on reality shifts a bit & she no longer sees herself for who she is.

today at walmart she was scampering around the checkout area (wearing her dog ears, of course) while i was scanning & paying & i saw that she was over at the next register interacting with a lady & a couple other little kids. as usual they were looking at her oddly, as most people do when she's in costume, and then she ran back over to me & told me that she made them laugh. i asked her how she made them laugh & she said it was because she was sniffing them & they liked it. holy crap! who knew that i needed to tell my kid that she can't sniff strangers in public?! i mean, i wasn't watching as closely as i should have been, obviously, but i really hope she was doing a humanish form of sniffing rather than the real doggie deal of going straight for the butt/crotch area!

last weekend we were at the mall & ran across a group of people at a display who were selling sugar gliders which are tiny little marsupials. they like to hang out in your pockets or inside your clothes & will always come back to you if they fall on the ground. brooke, of course, fell truly, madly, deeply in love with these little critters & wanted desperately to take one home. it cost $600 & wasn't an option for us, regardless of how cute it was, but that didn't stop brooke's heart from breaking as i walked her, weeping, out to the car. we had taken a paper handout thing from the sales person & as soon as we got home, brooke cut out some pictures of the gliders & one in particular became her new pet. it was as if it became a real animal when she looked at it and petted it. she even wore a special shirt all the next day so that it would have a comfy pouch to sleep in while she romped about with it.

we went to a deli for lunch & had to stand in line for a while & there was a little girl in front of us. brooke kept holding the paper sugar glider out to the girl. i don't even think she said anything to the kid, just held that thing out with the sweetest, happiest & most expectant look on her face. and the girl just stared at her & the paper critter blankly. she asked someone else if they wanted to pet her glider.

i have a hard time watching those interactions in brooke's life which are entirely too common because it makes my heart ache for her. she sees the world through different eyes than the rest of us boring folks. her world is full of excitement & adventure & possibilities that only she can see. she wants so badly for someone else to be able to join her in her world, but the rest of us just stare blankly at the little paper thing or ears & snout & wonder what she's doing. wonder what she's talking about. wonder what's wrong with her & wish that she'd stop. i don't want to tell her to put the paper glider down because i don't want to be the one to make her sad. but i don't want her to be hurt by the world when some unkind person makes fun of her either. i don't know where the balance is between letting her be herself & be carefree & quirky and when i need to put my foot down & make her act "normal." i only care a little bit about how she's percieved by the world, but there is that piece of me that does care. i want people to like her & find her interesting as much as i do. i want her to act in a way that other kids can understand & relate to. but if i try to make her more like the rest of the world, then if people like her, they're not seeing the real brooke. they're seeing a mushed down version of her.

i wonder if this is something that i'll have to deal with through her whole childhood. or is there a time when she'll mellow out? will there come a time when i won't have to try to think of the different things i need to teach her that seem so obvious to the rest of us? like don't sniff strangers butts. but then again, her version of life is way more colorful & amazing & innocent. i wish i could find it within myself to join her in her adventures. if only i could cut loose & drop all my inhibitions & gallop around barking & growling with her, chasing my tail & howling in the wind. but if i did, we'd probably both end up on the news, only not for the fun reason she had dreamed.

hooters

ya know, boobs are a part of most women that aren't spoken of often, at least not in public. and that's probably for the breast, i mean best, since men might get a bit too happy about that. but there's a seriously unsexy side to these things. i was reminded of that tonight when brooke asked me to tell her the story of the night she came home from the hospital.

well, that first night, chris & i were all psyched up to have a go at this thing called parenting all by ourselves, right off the bat. my mom, who lived nearby had offered very kindly to come stay that first week, but we thought, nah, chris has the week off from work, i'm no stranger to babies, we'll be fine! so we bring our sweet lil bundle of joy home from the hospital to much fanfare from the family members, but a while later they all vacated & there we were, just the three of us.

it seemed like it was going well until brooke decided to bite & chew my left nipple & scream loudly the whole time, every time i put her on that boob. she did okay on the right one, but that left one, boy, she was determined to mangle it every time she was presented with it. it was like there was a secret grudge she was holding for it. maybe it was the fact that it was three times the size of her itty bitty head. but then, no, the right one was too & that didn't seem to put her off. i don't know what her problem was(she apologized for that tonight, by the way, and said she doesn't remember why she didn't like it), but i found very quickly that me screaming or jerking violently around didn't help matters at all. just made her bite harder. who knew that those cute little pink gums could be turned into viscious weapons!

after a long night of a nasty cycle of screaming, falling asleep, pooping in her sleep & then being awakened by the diaper change that repeated itself 11 times that night, i was ready to put her outside & hope a stray dog would feel motherly toward her. maybe mama dog would have nipples she liked better since she clearly didn't appreciate mine! i almost called my mom around 3am, but then felt compassion toward her & was able to hold off that call til about 6. i think she was secretly laughing at me as i cried about my screaming, nipple biting, excessively pooping monster baby.

so yes, the hooters have in turn been something to be embarrassed about when they first showed up & then once i was married they became fun bags & once brooke was born they once again changed roles & became food bags. now, at the rate they're dropping they'll soon be reassigned a new role of saddle bags! they're also really good at catching food. i was at a baby shower yesterday & had some good laughs w/ a few other busty ladies about how exciting it is to get through a whole meal w/ no food landing on your rack! you almost want to do a little happy dance to celebrate. but only if you're wearing a sports bra ... or two. you wouldn't want a back injury or a black eye!

today i think i embarrassed chris in a restaurant when i dropped some ice cream onto my cleavage & it rolled straight down into the abyss where i had to then follow w/ a napkin for cleanup duty. i frequently find popcorn in my bra when i get home from seeing a movie, but i think the worst one was when i was taking communion in church & managed to drop the whole wafer straight down between the girls. at first i thought i'd just leave it there & fish it out later, but alas, it must have broken on its journey in because suddenly i felt the scratching & irritating from a nasty little broken edge & i knew it had to come out. for some reason it didn't occurr to me to go into the bathroom to deal with this. looking back that seems pretty obvious, but at the time, all i could think was "should i go in from the top or the bottom?" i attempted a discreet dig from above, but by that point, it was too low down, so then i tried to slowly maneuvre my hand up my shirt all the while singing along w/ the congregation & trying to keep a neutral face so i wouldn't give away that i was getting to second base with myself. i did finally manage to free myself from that scratchy lil morsel, but then what to do with it? i didn't want to eat it after it had been hanging with the meatbags, but they don't serve napkins w/ communion, so i settled for putting it into my pocket, only to be reminded of the incident when i found the remants in the laundry a few days later.

so yes, boobs can be a beautiful thing, but for me, i think i'd trade them, or at least a portion of them, for something more useful to me. like a steak.

am i still a northerner?

i realized tonight that i've been living in the south for as many years as i lived in the north. i've always been a hard core northerner in my heart & i've spent more than a few of the past 17 years feeling rather snobbish about it. but i have to say that there are some definite perks about living down here and they don't just include the weather.

for instance, it is considered acceptable (at least from my observations) to go to the grocery store in your pajama pants. i've seen lots of plaids, several spongebobs & a random pair of cloud/rainbow pants strolling past me in the store over the last few years in tn. and certainly slippers are acceptable as well, but somehow the pj shirt seems to be off-limits. as if going into a store in a full-on matching jammie set would be over the top, but if you have carebear pants, fluffy slippers, curlers in your hair & you top it off w/ a sports team t-shirt, you're still in the clear. i still haven't stooped to that level, although i admit to being tempted earlier this week, but i do need to admit that there's a freedom in shopping in a store like that. it doesn't matter what time of day it is, you can wear your slippers out. and actually i've found that i can embrace this southernism. so much so that i actually got slippers this year w/ a real sole on them so i can wear them out regularly w/o worrying that they'll get damaged or nasty if i step in a puddle or traipse in the dog pile that my neighbor's dog so kindly deposited in my driveway. again.

another thing that i never saw up north is people going barefoot in public places. i know it's nasty & your feet turn black, but there are some days when i've worn a cute shoe that's just not practical, that i've been known to glance furtively around & then quickly chuck my shoes into the walmart shopping cart, aka: buggy, and proceed w/ my shopping w/ my tootsies bare.

and for some reason, there are a lot of people around here who feel like clothes are optional on children. i went to the dmv when i first moved here when brooke was a baby & i was trying to have a PMA (positive mental attitude) about accepting my tn citizenship. as i walked through the door, i was shocked to find that the place was crawling w/ kids & most all of them were filthy and/or missing clothing items that i had previously thought to be essential for going out of the yard. there were small boys w/ no pants or shoes on. there was a girl, at least i think it was a girl (hard to tell w/ the mullet cuz that can really go either way), w/ no shirt on. and several of them had passies dangling out of their mouths even though they seemed to me to be too old to still cart this around. they were friendly & smiled a lot & one even tried to check out the contents of my purse, but i felt like i was on another planet! or at least a third world country! don't these people have running water? don't they have wash cloths for their kids' faces? and for god's sake, potty train the kid who looks about 6 & is walking around w/ no pants & a diaper!

all that to say, i've readjusted my personal standards somewhat when it comes to how brooke is dressed. i still feel that she needs pants, shirt & shoes when we go out, but if she's got a stain on her shirt, i might let it slide if i'm in a hurry. and once when she was a baby i even changed her diaper right on the bottom shelf of the camping department in walmart because the bathrooms were closed & i had shopping to do and it just couldn't wait. my friend beth who's from ohio was mortified for me since i clearly didn't have enough sense to be embarrassed for myself, but i figured that the people around here shouldn't bat an eye. they've all seen baby booties before & at least this one wasn't waddling through the produce section!

so eventually, maybe i'll be able to embrace the fact that after this year i'll have lived more of my life down south than up north. and i have a southern husband & though i hesitate to admit it, my kid's fairly southern too. many of my best friends down here are southern & i love them! i don't know that i'll ever call myself a southerner, but i can happily live here & appreciate the things that are quirky & unique about this area. and i'm glad to live right here in tennessee.

tattletale

tonight my mom told me that she had consumed a few lil bits of candy out of the cookie jar that brooke likes to nibble from periodically. she wanted to tell me that so that should i notice something missing, i wouldn't think brooke had taken it without permission. that made me laugh because brooke is way too guilty in her guts to steal candy & not make a rapid & tearful confession.

case in point ~ last year, for christmas of '08, we had each gotten one of those really big, fat hershey kisses in our stockings. of course brooke and i quickly dispensed w/ ours, but chris took a couple bites & then wrapped it up & left it on his bookshelf. for months! it was frequent torment for brooke who couldn't walk into our room w/o eyeballing & coveting that thing. so one night she asked me if she could just eat it already & i explained that first, it's bedtime & we don't eat crap like that at bedtime & secondly, it's not mine to give her. she seemed sad but resigned, so i went into the bathroom to start the bath water. a few seconds later she came bounding into the room w/ a big smile on her face & i asked her what she was so chipper about. then the smile crumbled & she confessed. "i was trying to act happy so you wouldn't know what i did!!" then with tears streaming down her face she told me, "i just unwrapped a corner of daddy's kiss & i scraped it with my fingernail & got a little chocolate & i LICKED it!!! i'm feeling so guilty i can't stand it!" she apologized to me & asked me to forgive her & then she called daddy at work to apologize to him for wronging him so rudely.

so, no. i doubt i need to worry about brooke swiping candy from the cookie jar because even if she did, it would only be a wee morsel & she'd have to tell on herself. she tells me often that she has a tender heart & i sure believe her. like tonight when i was praying w/ her before bed she prayed to thank God for her cool church. she thanked him for the cool bible verses she gets to learn & memorize while she's there & that she gets to "praise His existence." i guess when you're brooke & you pray & ask God to take away your fear in the night & He surrounds you with a "force field" of angels, yeah, you'd want to praise His existence often & w/ a truth that most adults can't muster up.

it's all in the name

my mom's here for the weekend & she was wanting to figure out how to become my follower on here (which is rather amusing to me because it feels like a reversal of sorts) and i was wanting to help her because it would help my ego if i had more followers. i clearly don't know what the heck i'm doing because instead i suceeded in becoming a follower of myself. and now i don't know how to un-follow myself, so there i go - chasing my own tail.
i have often felt the need to write stuff out because otherwise it spins around & around in my head, composing itself & tying up my brain until i purge it out. i've had some success at using facebook as an outlet, but sometimes it just seems like i need more & so that's how i find myself here, blogging. and as for the name, "laughing my abs off," it just seems like an apt name since, as brooke's mom, i find myself being continually amused by her creative use of english & interesting view of the world. one day she was watching spiderman w/ chris & there's a bit of language in there which i was hoping would slip over her head, but then spideydude was in the ring w/ the bad guy & i heard her yell, "yeah, kick his abs!" and then i was in the kitchen laughing my abs off & talking to a friend & hence, the name was born.
she's a kid w/ a fabulous imagination, for better or for worse. yesterday she told me that she loves it & hates it sometimes & that on the days when she hates her imagination, she wants to just break it because it gives her bad stuff that just doesn't work. and other days she loves it because it creates things like "project poodle runway" which required that she dress in a gray outfit w/ a fluffy pink fur vest & strut around on her cardboard runway on her hands & knees for a couple days while imagining that she could hear the roar of the crowds who were seeing her as the prettiest poodle in town.
i love that about her, but sometimes i'd just like to see her wear real clothes by choice, even when we're not going anywhere. but then again, if she did that, she wouldn't be my funny girl in the cat/dog/tiger/chipette/bolt/brittany/hannah montana/icarly/dinosaur/bunny suit. and maybe i wouldn't be laughing my abs off!

random moments with brooke

when i became i parent, i never realized how random my life would end up.
this morning around 5am, brooke came sobbing into my room telling me she'd had a dream that belle (my parents' golden retriever) had to be put to sleep and she couldn't stop thinking about how awful that would be. she said, "it was just terrifying!" that word, terrifying, woke me up completely because even though i was feeling sympathy, i was also feeling pride at her good useage of such a big word. anyway, i realized that she really was scared & upset, so then i was hoping to distract her before she sunk further into her dispair, which she's definitely prone to & that would have been the end of sleeping for either of us (not so much for chris though cuz he can sleep through about anything). so i found myself talking in a muy, muy small voice & doing my best spanish accent as i attempted to sound like skippyjon jones as i sang, "my name is skippito friskito (clap -clap), i fear not a single bandito (clap -clap), my manners are mellow, i'm sweet like the jell-o, i get the job done, yes indeed-o. (clap -clap)
then we made our accented way to the bathroom where brooke sat on my lap while i sang her another skippyjon song. i'm skippyjon jones & i bounce on my bed. once or six times, i land on my head.
8 years ago i never would have expected to find myself sitting on the toilet in the middle of the night with someone sitting on my lap while singing in a funny leetle spanish voice. sigh... but i guess i have to admit that it's better than i would have imagined!