Eva dinks with my phone a lot. Sometimes she messes up my settings, sometimes she calls and texts people accidentally, always she returns it with a sticky and crusty screen.
Occasionally I’ll find a treasure from her. Like this:
That’s worth a crusty phone.
It snowed yesterday. To borrow from Eva’s vocabulary:
I don’t love the snow. I grew up in the snow and I honestly didn’t mind it until I became an adult and realized that snow sucks. I’ve frozen my tongue to a flag pole, I’ve built snowmen and had snowball fights, I’ve sledded and skated down the street in my church shoes. I’m done with snow.
But Eva is not. Eva was so excited to see snow that she pulled up the blinds and sat by the window to watch it fall. I desperately didn’t want to go outside but seeing my little baby gazing optimistically out the window yanked at my heart. So I paraded into Michael’s office and told him he needed to build a snowman with his daughter. He gave me some flimsy excuses about “being on the clock,” and “having to get his work done,” and “you’ll get out of my office if you know what’s good for you, woman.” So I paraded right back out of his office and I volunteered to take Eva outside to build a snowman. That’s how much I love my girl.
Once I was into the groove, it was sort of fun. (Minus my freezing cold hands. Minus that I couldn’t bend over very well because my snow pants are tight. Minus the pile of squishy dog poo I stepped in.)
But…we built a cute little fella
Then we had hot chocolate
And tie-dyed an apron
And made cinnamon rolls
Maybe a snow day ain’t so bad after all.
But only one snow day. No more.
We have an old label maker that Eva carries around and calls her computer. It hasn’t had any label tape in it for years so she just types words on the screen and then erases them. It’s been a great way to teach her how to spell.
Michael decided to be a nice guy and bought some replacement tape for it so Eva could actually print out the words she spells. I have had the distinct honor of using my sausage fingers to pick up millions of tiny labels from off the floor; it’s hard work for my Jimmy Deans. At least Michael didn’t show her that they are actually stickers. (I promise you that man wouldn’t have any appendages left if he had hipped our daughter to that little fact.) It took Eva approximately 4 days to use up an entire cassette of labels. That’s a lot of garbage for me to pick up.
Eva spelled a lot of things with random smatterings of letters, but she also can spell actual words on her own. Here are some things that Eva can spell without any help from her doofus parents.
And naturally,
I’m so proud.
I had a birthday last week. I consider my birthday to be the most wonderful day of the entire year. I also consider anyone who doesn’t agree with me to be a jerk.
I’m happy to report that it was indeed the most wonderful day of the year. Michael took the day off from work and we were able to spend time together playing and celebrating my wonderfulness. My friend took Eva for a few hours so Myke and I could go to lunch at an adult restaurant with other adults, then we picked up Eva and went to the movies. We watched Trolls and ate a gigantic tub of popcorn and drank a Coke Zero big enough to make an elephant look dwarfish. We then sealed off the day with cake and presents.
Michael got me an electric knife sharpener and a cake stand. How did he know that’s exactly what I wanted? (It might have been the bullet-pointed birthday list I emailed him but it’s hard to say exactly.) He also wrote me a sincere note extoling my good qualities and overlooking my poor ones. It’s nice to have that guy around.
I initially felt weird about turning 37 but after a day of warm wishes from my family and friends, I felt grateful and blessed instead. And I got to eat German Chocolate cake with impunity.
37 ain’t so bad.
Eva loves to burrow into her warm, cozy blankets and snuggle up to her…
kitchen tongs?
They’re the best to cuddle with. As long as you don’t mind sharp edges. Or being pinched. Or the coldness of metal pressed against your face.
Cuddly, cuddly.
If you were a kid and your grandparents gave you 50 bucks for your birthday, what would you choose to spend it on?
Well, first you’d choose dress shoes because your mom is a buzzkill. But then…then you’d go wild at Target and choose lots of other really neat stuff.
Like a big T-Rex and Triceratops.
Or Minnie Mouse.
And the classic motorized fishing game. (This game is deceptively difficult. Or I’m just deceptively stupid.)
A light-up ball is also a fun choice. 50 bucks buys you a lot when you’re 4.
For days after her money was gone, Eva kept asking to go to back to Target to spend her money. She couldn’t wrap her little mind around the fact that her money was used up at Target, and in exchange, she had all these fun toys. After about a week of the same conversation about her money being gone, she announced that she wanted to give all her toys back to Target and get her money back so she could buy different toys.
Well, you can’t blame the girl for trying.
Michael and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. Let me tell you the best way to celebrate your 14th wedding anniversary.
First, make arrangements with a babysitter to watch your child on the Saturday before your anniversary so you can have a nice, romantic dinner out. Then, 2 hours before your babysitter is supposed to arrive, have your child develop a spontaneous case of explosive diarrhea. Cancel with your babysitter and spend the evening with the aftermath of a diarrhea bomb disguised as your child.
Have your husband get takeout from your favorite Thai restaurant. Enjoy your meal in between announcements from Miss Poopy-Pants that, “Uh-oh. I pooped again.”
On the actual day of your anniversary, go to breakfast with your spouse. Then, have your spouse spend the entire breakfast corresponding with work on his cell phone while you eat pancakes in silence.
Be sure to eavesdrop on the conversations happening all around you and judge the people involved for their ridiculous conversations.
That evening, plan a delicious meal of homemade pot stickers and Marion berry cobbler. Then, make sure you disregard the recipe’s instruction to use a non-stick skillet and use a regular one instead. Spend 10 minutes trying to scrape the pot stickers out of the regular skillet and herniate a disc in your back in the process.
Eat the mangled, yet delicious meal and be sure to have a second helping of cobbler because restraint really is an absurd notion.
Finally, sit on the couch and dink around on your cell phone while an episode of Hawaii Five-O blares in the background and your husband obsessively follows the election results.
But…just when you’re feeling sad that you’re old and comfortable in your relationship, look on the mirror and see the sweet note that your husband wrote for your anniversary.
Come to the conclusion that being old and comfortable isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you; having a 4-year-old with diarrhea is much worse.
And with that, you can go to bed happy.
That, my friends, is how you celebrate 14 years of marriage.
Happy old and comfortable anniversary, Mykey!
