Thursday, September 14, 2006
Happy Birthday, Noni!


(Fudging with time again, y'all understand ;)
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Picture of the Day
Sweet as sugar.

The rest of the outfit
This is an 18 mo. outfit Emma received for her birthday last year from Aunt B. When summer arrived I was sad because she had never been able to wear it and I was afraid she never would. However, I'm finding that Emma is still too small for most of the 24 mo. and 2T outfits we have. This outfit fit just fine so she wore it for the first time today. I imagine she'll get much wear out of it this fall.


Special Elmo watching mode again.

Oops, I did it again!
I traded paint with another car today. This one was my fault. I was parked in front of the store. I had backed into my spot so perfectly and pictured myself pulling out so easily when I left. Except when I went to leave some cow had illegally parked her car so that I was boxed in. I didn't have enough room to even pull out of my spot. Well, I should say I thought I could just make it. Sigh...but I didn't.

I was watching closely as I tried to pull out and it looked like I was close without touching, but I did touch. I scraped the paint off of the back bumper of a Subaru. At first I was so sure I had made it I went up the street to my next stop. It wasn't till I came back to my car that I realized I now had some blue paint on the side of it. Uh oh. What was on my car rubbed right off. I went back to see what I had done to the other car. Basically, this is what I did...



I knew who the car belongs to. She's the secretary for the lawyer that works across the street. She always parks in front of the store. I went over and told her what I had done. I told her if she wanted to make a claim for insurance to just let me know. I told her I was sorry. She said "Well, at least you told me, the last person to mess up the car didn't say anything." She didn't even get up to have a look. She had been talking to the lawyer when I came in so I thought, "Great, this should be fun." But aside from feeling bad about "hurting" her car, my conscience was clear. I had done the right thing. If it went to insurance I would take my licks.

Of course I still worried all day about how long it was going to take her to make up her mind. I imagined her going home and her husband seeing it and picturing the car with a whole new bumper, courtesy of my insurance company.

None of that happened. She came in to see my husband and told him to tell me not to worry about it. She told him the story about how it was the first new car she had ever bought and four days after she bought it she had it parked at work. Someone backed a dumptruck into it and crushed the hood. She showed him the rust marks where it had been fixed. She also showed him the body damage on the side where the person hit her and didn't tell her. She said she wouldn't even fix the mark that I had made.

I'm sorry I marred her nice bumper. It makes me feel bad because I wasn't careless, I just didn't see as well as I thought I was seeing. But seriously, where she parks her car is terribly high traffic for cars pulling in and pulling out around her. She ought to park in a quieter area. M. gets annoyed because she parks straight in a place where people usually park on the diagonal (there are no lines).

I'll just happily take the grace that was handed to me today and try and be extra careful from now on. Oh, and that stupid cow that blocked me in can kiss my ass.
Happy Birthday C.!!!
Hope you're having a fantastic birthday! We can't wait to help you celebrate on Saturday!

Thank you Leslie and Riley!
On my mommy board we did a birthday exchange for our soon-to-be two year olds. Leslie of Gelbspot got Emma's name. She got her a cute leopard outfit, a Kid Jazz CD, and a "I Love Mommy" framed photo. Mommy will be borrowing the framed photo for her desk at work for a while ;)

Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Mommy and Emma night
Daddy was going to be shopping right up until bath time. I couldn't face scraping together boring stuff for supper at home so we killed time at the public library until after 5:00 p.m. and then went to the restaurant. We came home and played outside for a while. Then we came in to warm up (it was in the mid 50's) and watch some Elmo.


Here's the daredevil. She's doing her balancing act crossing the edge of the cattle guard. She did slip once and that was the end of todays practice. Carry me, Mommy.


We have a new Elmo DVD that we tried out for the first time on the new portable DVD player. So now when Emma wants to see that DVD she pulls up the chair to the counter and points at Elmo on the portable. Whatever works.

Monday, September 11, 2006
I choose to remember
Last year I posted at length about the wake-up call on September 11, 2001.

On this fifth year anniversary I want to examine why I dwell on it, rather than putting it behind me. Some people don't want to see the images again. Once was enough. They feel it's burned into their brain and they don't need a reminder. Not me. Every time a see a picture, or television footage, or hear a someone's story from Sept. 11, it's fresh again. I feel the vulnerability of that day, the confusion and the anger. After that day, there was no going back. My eyes were open to the wider world.

I feel like it's a betrayal to all those who died that day, to "just move on." It's a betrayal to their families, who must cope every day with the hole left in their lives where their loved one used to be. After September 11 everyone seemed to be laser focused on what was important, their families, their community, and their faith. All the fluff fell away easily. Football stopped, TV shows suddenly seemed silly and I wondered why I ever wasted my time with tabloids and celebrities. We focused on serious matters, like war, and security and starting families.

Incrementally, the silly stuff eased back into my life, but everything is now in perspective, what's important and what's not. We need diversions, but our lives can't be all diversion. We need to pay attention, and to remember.

I watched the realtime CNN news coverage on CNN Pipeline this morning. It was a crappy streaming product so it was more frustrating than not. Then I realized FoxNews was doing the same thing so I watched their feed. It was fascinating to hear the coverage and see how speculative and uncertain some of the reporting was, from both networks. Now we know, or we think we know all the details. What you get from watching the coverage from that day is the feelings, the shock, the alarm, the gut-wrenching sorrow when you began to comprehend the scope of the loss...

I'll finish with a copy of a poignant photo, first printed in the Village Voice, which really spoke to me...

Chilly evening in the mist
Emma's well dressed for a damp, cold evening.


She decided she wanted to play in the truck and since it's sheltered we could hardly argue. I can see where it will benefit us to teach her proper sweeping method.


She's practicing her jumping. There's little risk of her hitting the ceiling as she doesn't manage much ground clearance yet.

Three shirts, two pairs of pants and one dress
That's the laundry Emma went through yesterday. She loves to play in water, she'll get herself saturated and then reach a point where she finally realizes she's wet and cold. Then we must change clothes immediately. She gets dirt and sand on her clothes for good measure too.
Checking out the new player
Daddy and Emma are watching a Sesame Street sampler DVD that came with one of Emma's books. Emma seems to like it just fine.

Sunday, September 10, 2006
Second molars on the way
At least one has already popped through. Popi checked for us yesterday. He may still have the bite marks to show for it. Fun, fun!
Finally made up my mind


Here's our new portable DVD player. I've been thinking about getting one of these for a year now. I got this one at Costco. They were running a special with a $20 off coupon. It came with a carry case, car adaptor, A/C adaptor, cabling to hook it to a television, remote control and two sets of headphones. So far I'm pleased with everything except the case. I have no idea how it's supposed to be used in the car. The strap system makes no sense whatsoever. I'll have to buy another case so I can suspend the player between seats in the car.

We've got a couple of interstate trips coming up this fall and a stay in a hotel, so this should come in quite handy.
Cruise in at Church
Noni and Popi's church had a cruise in. It was conceived as a father-son event, but it attracts everyone. Popi wanted to take their Nissan Patrol. Emma and I were to meet them there after work, but it was pouring rain when we got there. We picked them up at their vehicle and went to McDonalds to kill an hour till the rain stopped. When the rain cleared away the event resumed. There were actually a lot of cars there. Emma was loving it. She loves cars and trucks and motorcycles better than dolls or anything else. We'll start with Emma and Popi checking out the two loudest cars...


Someone has customized themselves their very own Love Bug...


Checking out all the fancy cars...


We're listening to the "decibel contest." You could take your car up and rev the engine and they'd measure how many decibels it registered. The contest was to guess how high your car would go and whoever was closest to their guess won. I think 116 decibels was the loudest, and believe me, that was loud.


Popi debated trying out the contest the whole evening. Finally and Land Rover went up there and the dude guessed 75 decibels and ended up hitting 85 decibels. The vehicle was pretty quiet and after some of the previous monsters it was almost comic relief. I think that prompted Popi to finally try it. His guess was 85 decibels and his ended up registering at 83. I think he had the quietest vehicle there. Good guess though.

Happiness is...
A cool Happy Meal toy. This one was fun for Emma. You whack the paddle and the ball pops in the air. It's even funnier when Popi or Mommy have to chase it across the room!