There's a partridge in my pear tree.

And I think I like it. Only 1 more day of work in 2007!

Conversation on the way to Betty's house this morning:
Jo: "Eve is my baby sister."
Me: "Well, yes, Jo... she is your baby sister."
Jo: "And I'm going to have a new baby sister."
Me: "Oh. Really?"
Jo: "Yes. At Christmas. A Christmas Eve."

I don't know with how many people she has shared this exciting news. But again, I'm setting the record straight right here and now. No new baby sister (or brother, for that matter) for Josie. And apparently we're going to have to find a different name for Christmas Eve.

Seeing that this may be the last chance I have to post in a while - I'll throw a coupla Merry Christmas greetings and Happy New Year good tidings at ya. Now duck.

Spittin' Images.

I knew it!! I always saw Barack and thought - WOW! We must have been separated at birth!!

Thanks for the fun idea, Meg. :)

The fog has lifted.

Or maybe the caffeine finally kicked in.

Okay - I'm out of my Monday morning funk. And now it's lunchtime! Not too shabby.

I'm sure as in most households with small children this time of year, we've been discussing the upcoming holiday. A lot. Everything from presents, to baby "Cheesus," to Santa and the "boots" hanging on our fireplace. Jo and I were snuggling on the couch after she got up from a nap. We were looking at our pretty tree, with the sparkly candy cane ornaments that I made many many moons ago, and which Josie helped me hang. As you can imagine, there is a large concentration of candy canes in one area on the lower portion of the tree. The conversation turned to Santa, and I was talking about how he's going to come to our house, down the chimney and leave a present for each of the girls on Christmas Eve.

I could see the wheels turning. She turned to me as she processed, and said, "So... Mommy, we're going to get another baby sister Eve this year?"

Whoa. So not where I expected this conversation to go. And no - in case you're wondering, there will NOT be another baby arriving any time soon. :)

It's been fascinating to see her comprehension and decision-making skills develop. She's growing so fast and understands so much and can communicate so well. Of course, have a lot of frustrating bouts of the "whys," but to see her really get something and ask appropriate questions has been amazing.

Patrick's parents came over on Saturday to just hang out for a bit, and ended up staying for dinner with us. This exciting event came the very next day after a much celebrated impromptu playdate with Lucy and Eddie, so Josie was in a very happy place. Her little mouth never stopped from the time Gramma and Grampa walked in the door until well after they left. At one point, she was "making boffee" for Gramma after dinner. Gramma asked her if Grampa could have some, too. She tilted her head and held up her hands and said, "Well, no - there's no cup for you."

She has also just recently started to actually sit and watch movies. She has always watched snippets of tv shows, and bits of movies, but would never sit and really watch for very long before she was off to something better. Eve, on the other hand, is a movie and tv freak - especially anything with Elmo in it. Not necessarily a good thing, but it sure does come in handy once in a while. You know - like when I'm trying to clean something, or maybe poop without an audience - that kind of stuff. Anyway - my point in all of this is that now we're really noticing how limited our kid movie selection is. Gotta add that to the garage sale list for next spring. Jo's favorite right now is "Milo and Otis." I think she watched the entire thing about 3 times this weekend. That's 3 times too many for me. The pug dog and orange cat with British accents are a bit much after a while. Pat's a lot more patient with that sort of thing than I am. Well, I guess he's probably a lot more patient with a lot of things than I am, but that's a whole 'nother topic.

So there. That was a much more satisfying ramble. More later!

Insert theme music from "Jeopardy" here.

Ok.

So I've been trying to think of something clever to write. Some cute thing Evie did over the weekend, something funny Josie said... anything.

I'm drawing a blank. Guess it's just not meant to be right now.

Maybe it's all the mucous in my brain. I'm feeling a bit slow.

We had a... nice... weekend. Shopping is pretty much done, tree is decorated, gifts are stacked in the basement, patiently awaiting wrapping paper.

Told ya. Nada. I'll check in later when I can think properly. Happy Monday! Only 3 more work days in 2007! :)

Heads between their Legs

A member of the Minnesota Wild made some reference to their crappy performances lately, and the fact that when they start losing, the team members tuck their heads between their legs... etc... and I'm pretty sure he meant to say tucks their tails between their legs - but I'm very grateful to him today, because that really creates one kick-ass mental picture.

Josie is a flasher. Sure, you say, just imagine the riches of beads you'll have someday after she visits New Orleans. So we've got that going for us. But seriously - we can't turn around lately without her bare cheeks looking at us, and Jo saying, "Mommy. Look at my butt."

Then Eve giggles and walks up to her and with this evil little voice says "tickle, tickle" and does exactly that to Jo's bare buns.

We have a Christmas tree. It has no decorations, but I figure we're doing good by at least having the tree in the house. I had a hard time getting a real tree this year. Our nice cat, Buford- rest his sweet little soul - used to love with every ounce of his furry little being having an honest to goodness piece of the actual outdoors in our living room. From the moment we dragged the tree into the house, until the moment we dragged it out again, you could find Buford happily curled up on the tree skirt, purring like there was no tomorrow. Not to mention that he had a bit of an obsession with fresh water, and would carefully watch our every move as we filled up a container of water and sloshed it through the house on the way to the tree stand. Then he'd happily lap away, as if we'd finally understood that this was the way things were supposed to be. One year when we lived in an apartment in downtown St. Paul and had an illegal real tree for Christmas, we were bagging up the violation and figuring out how we were going to cram it down the garbage chute without getting busted when I noticed a large bulge in the bag as Pat dragged it across the living room towards the door. Sure enough, there was Buford, in the bag with the tree, in a weak little effort to save his needly friend.

Our holiday shopping is underway. The annual cookie bake is done. Santa hasn't been visited, yet, but perhaps that will be added to this weekend's ever-growing agenda.

Funny how all it takes to make me happy is a Mint Mocha, and for someone else (who shall remain nameless, but whose name starts with P and ends with T and married me - hey. That rhymes.) happiness is watching a car's odometer turn over to 100,000 miles. That miraculous event happened in our super-cool '95 Ford Taurus on the way to work this morning. Good thing there weren't any peds in our way, because there was NO WAY he was missing it. And now I'm going to have to hear about it for the next 4 months. Seriously. Because he missed it in like 3 other vehicles he's owned, and I haven't stopped hearing about that, either. (I love you, anyway, honey.) You'd think we saw a celebrity on the streets of St. Paul. Or even better, a Wild player with his head between his legs.

Odds and Ends

Oh. So I think I forgot to mention that I got a promotion at work. Yea me. I get to stay in a place I like, with people I like... permanently, and still part-time, to boot. No more Milton for me.

Then there's nothing like accepting a "new" job, and turning around to your "new" supervisor and telling her all the time off that you plan on taking in December. :) I have never ever ever in my long-legged life had any substantial time left to take off at the end of the year. I'm beside myself with excitement - I have off every Thursday (and Friday, of course,) the entire week of Christmas and New Year's Eve day, if I so desire. Color me happy, there's a sofa in here for two!! Would you look at that... if I do take those days off, that means I only work 6 more days in December. hee hee hee hee hee...

Coupla Josie-isms I want to get down before I forget:

The other night we were going outside to play in the snow. It's a process. Sometime during the preparation we decided that they should actually put their snowpants on in case they "went off the beaten path." Jo picked up on that one and kept saying that she was ready to "go off the beat path." She wouldn't drop it, and was getting a little frantic when we weren't ready yet. So I told her that we were just going out in the yard to play, and that "the beaten path" was merely a figure of speech. So then she said that she wanted to go out and play in the "figure beach." I just can't win.

Everything in Jo's life can be negotiated right now. Give her a cookie, and she wants "just one more." Give her a piggy-back ride, and she wants to do it "just one more time." Give her a little bit of yogurt and she wants "lots." And when she's asking for "just one more..." of whatever, she says it real slow-like, with her chubby little index finger up in front of her face.

She recently started to flip-flop words around... like the ball pit at the indoor playground is now the "pit ball." Her Elmo backpack is her "packback." You get the picture.

She's got a memory, and she's not afraid to use it. Most of her convos start with the phrase " 'Member when..." then she regales us with stories of the time that Eve ripped off her band-aid in the bathtub, Baxter tried to bite her or we rode in the "Gunos" van (that's the Gronaus, to the rest of us.) on the way to the playground.

Baby Parts

The following phrases would have been heard by a fly on the wall in our house last night, or maybe more appropriately, by a mouse in the basement:

"Brewster loves me. Does Brewster have a back?"

"Daddy has boy parts. Mommy has girl parts. I have girl parts. Evie has baby parts!"

"Ooop? Ooop?" Evie runs from wherever she is in the house when she hears the toilet flush. She points and assumes that any activity in that room is poop-related.

"Dance! Dance! Dance!" It's a command more than an exclamation. Evie also runs from wherever she is in the house when she hears any sort of music on tv or the radio.

"Eve just put her french fry on the toilet seat."

"Mommmmmmy - I awake a little bit."
"Daddddddddddy - my fingernail is long."
"Mommmmmmy - there's too many books."
"Daddddddddddy - my arm hurts right here."
Josie used to be our rock, our reliable bedtime girl. She now realizes that life goes on after she goes to bed. There have been some rough, late nights with her the past couple of weeks as we try to convince her that it really is time to go to sleep. These are just a sampling of what we hear from her room after we've tucked her in.

Moo Moo Here Moo Moo There

I've been known to overexaggerate from time to time. No, really - I'm serious. But this time, I have witnesses. On the way to daycare this morning, Eve was singing "Old MacDonald." Sure - she's not ready for American Idol (although she was more in tune than Sanjaya,) but she was distinctly singing "E-I-E-I-O," and "moo moo here, moo moo there." My kids are geniuses. That goes without saying, of course, but it just feels so darn good, I had to see it in print.

All this singing occurred right before she took her boots off on the ridiculously long 6-minute car ride to daycare. Seriously. Nothing drives me battier than having to re-dress them in winter gear after I've JUST DRESSED THEM IN THEIR WINTER GEAR. But the boots are the bane of Eve's existence. Right after the mittens. And the hat. We put her boots on her for the first time last night before going out to shovel the walk, and you'd think that we cast her precious little feet in cement and asked her to run the Boston Marathon. This morning after the Evil Boots tripped her, she rolled herself to her back on the kitchen floor and laid there, fully dressed in outerwear, arms and legs splayed, as if to say, "this is it. I give up."

It's going to be a long winter.

Although Jo is getting more and more imaginative, so that's been really fun to watch - and should help during those days that it's subzero and we can't go out and play. She pretends she's a "worker man" who fixes things around the house, and a doctor, a dentist, a mommy, a daddy, a baby, a kitty, a princess (pronounced pri-pess) and a queen. Oh - and the other night, she was Santa. We were playing in the living room while Pat was using the snowblower in the alley, and I had the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, aka, Lots of Women Singing and Dancing and Looking Exactly Like One Another and Having Legs That Go Up To Their Noses, on in the background, for ambiance, or something. Josie took notice during one of the rousing holiday numbers and excitedly pointed out Santa. Then she turned to me and said, matter-of-factly, "Santa has boy parts."

Now I'm a little nervous to take them to see Santa. Who knows what she's going to ask him.