Storytime

I used to take Kitty to storytime at the library every week. Kitty is such an intelligent girl that I decided to continue the tradition with Baby so she can be smart also. 

Baby wasn't as excited about it as I thought she would be. She was mostly just curious about all the other babies and sat quietly staring and gathering data.  I was hoping she would laugh and be animated during the songs, but she really just wanted to observe. 

Here's the thing about this particular storytime: I had to sit cross-legged on the floor.  For 30 minutes! I looked around and realized I was the only mom seemingly having an issue with this contortionist pose. I also realized that I was at least 10 years older than all the other moms.  This is my life now.

Now that I think about it, maybe Baby wasn't interacting with me because she didn't want the other kids to know that she came with the senior citizen.  I'm sure that's it.

It wasn't all bad. I did have a nice conversation with the woman sitting next to me.  I had to limp back to my car when it was over though. My poor old legs.

Sheesh. All this so my kid can learn to read good.  I sure hope it works.

Smiley

Baby has a special way of smiling.

It involves her tongue poking out.

It's pure joy for me.

No Need for School

Our school district builds snow days into the calendar and then we have free days off from school if there's no snow.  Being the perpetual optimist that I am, I scheduled a weekend getaway for one of the Friday snow days.  Surely it wasn't going to snow and we would bask in our free day off from school.

Surely.

Well...I made reservations, we became excited, and then...it snowed and snowed. Kitty missed school for an entire week.  When the free snow day came around a few weeks later, it was no longer a day off from school.  It had been cashed in weeks prior.

But I have reservations!

So Kitty ditched.  And I felt wonderful about it.

We headed to the ol'stand-by of Pigeon Forge.  We ate at our favorite restaurant, we played in the hotel arcade, we walked through a magical light show in the trees called Astra Lumina, and we visited the Alcatraz Crime museum - Kitty was slightly creeped out but was able to do a laser obstacle course so it wasn't all bad.

It was a spectacular weekend and it felt great to be naughty and skip school.

This really worked out for me. I learned a valuable lesson about ditching school.

We should do it more often.

More New Skills

Baby has picked up some additional skills recently.  Things like:

Riding in a shopping cart (a buggy if you're from TN)

Sitting in a high chair

Bathing in the bathtub

Holding her own bottle

Removing her sock. Always just the right foot.

And being a drama queen - she learned that one from her father.

Hooray for Baby!

Brrrr

"Holy crap, it's cold in here."

Those words tumbled out of my frosty lips multiple times during a recent cold snap.  The temperatures outside ranged between below zero and slightly above zero.  The temperature in our house steadily dropped from 68 to 59.  

Holy crap, it's cold in here.

Our HVAC guy came on a Thursday morning and confirmed we needed a new furnace.  But...they couldn't install it for a week.  We'd be chilly.

Later that evening, I was puttering about making dinner and blasting my Pandora station - per usual.  Just as I was about to cook up the chicken for our cobb salads, the entire house went dark.  The only sound was Pandora squealing from my phone.  I looked out the window and what did I see?

All of the neighbors had lights on.

We waited 2 hours for the electric company to come over, my stomach rumbling in hunger, only to have them arrive and say it wasn't their issue, our main breaker was blown.

Good luck getting an electrician out at 9:00.  We bunked in a hotel that night.

The electrician came first thing in the morning and didn't have the correct part to fix our breaker.  In fact, no one in town had the correct part.  He patched it up but only gave us 60 amps to work with.  

Our dying furnace was drawing more power than that.  So the furnace was shut off completely.

And that's when the holy-crap-cold really set in. We hit a balmy 48 degrees.  INSIDE.  We huddled in the TV room with the door closed and a space heater running at full tilt.  I had 2 layers of clothes on and 3 layers on the baby.  We were icicles for 3 days until the temperatures climbed past freezing outside.

Michael even changed from shorts to pants.  He never wears pants.

Thankfully, our furnace was replaced and we didn't die.  Thankfully, our breaker was fixed 10 days later.  Thankfully, the adventure is over.

But holy crap, we were cold.  

Never-ending Projects

I hope you have the theme song for NeverEnding Story running through your mind right now.

I know I do.

Michael still hasn't finished our flooring project.  Apparently replacing the baseboard isn't titillating enough. Seems like the appropriate time to divert his attention and tear out the laundry room floor instead.

Granted, the floor is hideous, it barely supports the weight of our washer and dryer, and the entire house rumbles during the spin cycle.

But still...the baseboards.

Nevermind, the laundry room floor it is.

First he tore up the floor.  Then he added more joists, then he laid self-leveling compound, and then he tiled the whole thing.  I stood by and nagged him to hurry up and get it done.  Laundry was piling up!

And I painted the walls.  (I promptly remembered that I hate painting walls.)

You're welcome.

But, don't she look purdy?

And it doesn't feel like our house will tumble down during the spin cycle.  Success!

Now, if only he'd rehang the laundry room doors...

Happy New Year!

You can tell a lot about a person by how they choose to spend their New Year's Eve.  For example, we chose to watch Field of Dreams; that makes us old.

Kitty protested loudly until I convinced her that it was a delightful movie and she would like it.  About 20 minutes in, I realized it is a movie that plods along and is more endearing than exciting.  So I let Kitty play Nintendo while Old Man Mykey and I finished the movie.

Then I taped my eyeballs open so I could make it to midnight.  

But before that, I conjured up a delicious feast for the revelers:

Cheese ball with bacon jam

Deviled eggs and delectable meatballs

And Muddy Buddies for me and Kitty

Baby let loose and wore crazy Harry Potter glasses

And at midnight we blew our horns and Kitty did her famous dance for us. It was perfect. 

The next day we played games and had a relaxing day.  Afterall, we needed to recover from our riotous night. During our favorite dice game called Fill or Bust, Mykey scored an epic 2,850 points on one turn.  

I think it's a sign that we're going to have a great year. Happy 2024!