Another Lame-o Bullet Point Post

• The only thing better than thrift shopping on 99¢ day? Finding a $10 bill in your cart on 99¢ day!
• Vi has been occasionally singing the alphabet song (and correctly, at least to the well-trained ear), but the thing is you can't prompt her to do it, you have to catch her doing it. She was also batting about .800 on correctly identifying her letters in her ABC book last night (as in, when I ask her what letter "this" is, she would reply "G" or "R.").
  
• As brainiac coincidences go, we were preschool shopping this past weekend. We've decided to apply to the two (of the three I saw) that had the best teachers. The fact that they're also the least expensive of the three is a bonus.
• Keeping with the brainiac theme, I just burnt my tongue on some wickedly hot lentil soup.
  

Clearly, Violet gets her genius from me.

Hope I Can Believe In

...Hope that she's actually going to go to sleep in a few minutes, unlike my two aborted attempts at naps earlier today...

[via DCoE]

Today's To Done List

• Brought coffee, fixins, and eco-friendly containers to co-op day care. The other moms lurve me!
• Dug out our driveway after returning from co-op to see all the snow the plows had thrown in there. Bitchcakes!
  
• During Violet's going on 3.5h nap (yes, I know how spoiled I am), wrote the first draft of a pitch letter.

Mama isn't gainfully employable and desperately needs to start executing Operation: Pleatherbound.

Oh and PS, it's currently 2F. I bet you're a little less envious of me now, eh?

It's Amazing How Much More Relaxed the 2nd Year Is

Is just fed Violet [apparently] expired cereal but it's organic, so don't the two pretty much cancel each other out?

ETA: I might be so relaxed since Violet slept in until EIGHT THIRTY this morning. And here I thought I couldn't sleep past seven any more! Sometimes I am very, very happy to be proven wrong.

A Boring Life Makes For a Boring Blog...

...but it certainly is a welcome change from the past year.

Nothing much to report other than the McCullough Three are all doing well despite ND's total sucking and the first sticking snow of the season.

Jody is unfortunately nursing his injury again, I am no longer cleaning clump after clump of hair out of the shower drain, we are thankfullly staying put (and not cooking!) for ToFurkey Day, and Violet...[WARNING: Parental blathering ahead!]

...she continues to be an amazing joy, with her latest "trick" being that she is incredibly happy when I put her down for naps and "nigh'-nigh's," waving and saying "bye!" with a smile behind her pacifier as I walk out of the room.

Sure, being a stay-at-home mom can be boring, maddening, repetitive, and exhausting at times, but I'm hard-pressed to think of anything else I would rather do.

Multi-Generational Rhythm Section

This Makes Absolutely No Sense but I DON'T CARE

Hey all--Apologies for the unplanned blogging hiatus...my laptop is still in the proverbial shop but by some freaky miracle, the keyboard on my now-resurrected desktop is somehow working? It seriously makes ZERO sense--It's not plugged into the keyboard port yet it's still allowing me to type?

Full disclosure--it is a USB-enabled keyboard and is the USB business is plugged into an appropriate port, but as far as I can tell, it had to be plugged into both in the past to work...?

But hell, I'm not going to look a gift working computer in the mouth hard drive.

It's actually a mixed blessing that my computer access has been mixed at best this last week or so since it has forced me to take some time to process some shit before posting about it.

The short version is that we gave up our dog Cleo last weekend, with Jody doing the heavy lifting while I was at ND with Violet. The long version is nearly seven years with a totally unsocialized dog that prevented us from socializing ourselves and gave us very little in the way of evidence that she would not be a danger to Violet.

I really don't want to talk much more about it than that as I'm still pretty busted up over it--even though she was a total bitch, she was my bitch--but for as upset as the surrender makes me, if anything were to have happened to Violet, it would have been like a knife to my heart, and I've already been through enough for one year in the way of heart-knifing, yes?

So anyhow, looks like the blog is back up and running...for now, anyhow.

Missed you guys.

In Other News...

...Violet had her first ever dental appointment and barfed twice today (unrelated...I think...), once after the first nap and once while in the grocery checkout line.

Hopefully she'll do better keeping things down tomorrow.

Catching Up

I'm way overdue for a recap of our week back east (and I know the longer I put it off, the less likely I am to actually do it), but that's going to take more time than I have this second, so let me give you the wee-cap:

1. Violet was a-MAZ-ing on both the flights out and back. Seriously. I've said it before and I'll say it again: we SO won the baby lottery.
   
2. They both said "I do."
   
3. My friends rule.
   
4. So does my family.

Travelin' Toddlers

Calling all parents! We are going to be taking our first trip via air with Vi this week. Rather than save a few bucks, we decided to bite the bullet and get her her own seat because while a 6 month old does well in a lap, a 15 month old does not. Not my mine, anyhow (referring to both baby and lap).

Please leave any and all insider tips you may have picked up along the way in the comments--thx!

Mayor of Squaresville

I had a bunch of business (or should I say "business") cards made up with the intention of being more social when it comes to connecting with other moms at playgroups and co-op daycare and other stuff that I'm hoping to engage in but as yet haven't really. GAWD, I'm such a loser suburban cliché.

I was actually about to post a picture of them (the cards, not the moms) when I realized that I would pretty much have to black out all of the info. I'm not that bright, but take my word for it that the cards are cute.

In other news, Violet can identify bubbles in books and real life (even tho her word for "bubble" and "bottle" sound pretty interchangeable) but has yet to start to referring to me as mama. :::sigh:::