Late explanation...

Michele has been working crazy hours lately. She worked the week of the fourth, which was supposed to be vacation. She worked this weekend. She is gone early and back very late. She recently moved to logistics at work, and when things go wrong all hell breaks loose.

Until tonight, the explanation of, "Mama has to work late" has been sufficient... that is she accepted my answers to "why?why?why?". Tonight she needed more detail, so this is what I came up with...
There is a plant in Mexico (eraser) that makes parts to build a car. It ships the parts by train (train) to a plant that puts the cars together (black box). There was a flood and the river swelled and broke the bridge (note broken bridge). It was too dangerous for the train to go on the tracks...
So Mama and her friends have to figure out other ways to get the parts to the car plant. They use other trains, planes, and trucks to move the parts before the plant gets shut down...
I left out the part about the banditos robbing trucks at the border... all I had left was Mrs. Potatohead and it wasn't to scale.

Happy....

Alexandra's cousin Maxwell had a birthday party. There was swimming...



...there was cake...


...and then we left...


The end.

Say ahhhh...

Alex has no fear of the dentist. She just had an appointment, and looked forward to it... no, longed for it, for two weeks prior. Why? Because she remembered that the dentist had a train. From six months ago.

She asked if the dentist was a doctor. Yes. "The doctor has fishes." she said. Well the dentist is a doctor but not the kind of doctor that has the fish... the dentist just has a train. "A fish train?" No.

We were called back and she asked to see the train. It is on a rail overhead, and the hygenists cooed and aahhed and turned it on for her. She smiled and clapped. Aahh! Then they turned it off to get down to business. "Why did the train stop?" she asked.
"It has to pick up the people!" several hygenists quickly answer as if prepared for this line of questioning.

The cleaning went well. She showed off her brushing skills. She opened wide. She chose strawberry paste because, "strawberry is my favorite because I like it because I had strawberries last night, but not strawberries, strawberry ice cream but it was cold because it was in the freezer." Now the other hygenists were ignoring their patients and adoring her.

We were waiting for the dentist to give the final thumbs up, and they turned the train back on. It went round and round, she smiled and clapped. Then it took a turn too fast and derailed. "What happened to the train?" she asked.
"It crashed. No big deal, they'll pick it up later." I reassured.
"But what about all the people it picked up?" She cried. Brilliant.
Multiple people, at this point, asked how old she was... and promptly told me to shut up and that I was a liar.

Toot toot...

Done. Finished. Kaputt.

Alex has been potty trained for months, as chronicled here, but the long, slow ride is finally completely over. She took to the potty like she does everything else... quickly, but on her own schedule. But some combination of fear and frugality (we still had diapers on hand) kept her swathed at night. It was never necessary. She maybe once in the last four months peed at night. Never caca. Then last week, diapers dwindling, we asked if she should wear panties to bed. Okay. No problem. And not a problem since. This left only one hurdle.

When she first started the training, we bought her a little toilet...
It was the cutest thing ever. She used it, she used the big potty. Then, over the last few months, I have waged war on the little potty. You see, ever time she uses it, you have to clean it. Dribbles of pee. Smears of poo. And occasionally touching an unusually tall pile on the way to a wipe.

I started to convince her that big girls use the big potty. "Like Mama?" she asked. Yes, yes. And she has, more and more, used the big potty. Almost exclusively of late. Then today I asked her if we could just get rid of the little potty. "Yeah... that's for babies." she condescended.

Our tiny little bathroom just got a touch bigger.

10 years...

Ten years ago today Michele and I started dating. That is, ten years ago today, we had our umpteenth date but it was different and we never again have been apart. We went to the movies, then to the bookstore, and then to have beers at Ashley's. Michele forgot her newly purchased books at the bar. There is a picture in my head of us sitting there drinking beer and laughing that seems like yesterday. But it wasn't yesterday, it was ten years ago.

After that night we were dating. We started our Tequila Friday tradition. We laughed, and hung out, and had fun. We went up north and I proposed. She said yes. We lived with Carmen to save money. We planned our tiny, odd wedding. I do... I do. We went to Hawaii. We bought a house. We pretended to be adults. We got pregnant. Cancer. And, two days later, a baby. Chemo, diapers, surgery, bottles, radiation, crying. The tumor gone. The baby grew. We suddenly had a toddler. Then it's ten years later. We are still pretending to be adults.

The picture in my head of us rosey cheeked and laughing at the bar seems an apt summary for the whole ten years. Because through it all we have made each other smile, laugh, and enjoy. So tonight we'll go to Ashley's and have a beer. I love you Michele, and I love pretending with you.

This was not my idea...

Alex got a new toy. Technically she got it a while ago, but yesterday it came out of the box... and into the gargage... I thought it would take a while for her to get the hang of it, but it was only about ten minutes. She has already driven down to Miss Jane's house twice. Miss Jane lives at the end of our block, and has since buying the model to our subdivision in the 50's. The neighborhood kids flock to her for treats, and the adults flock to her for gossip. Now she needs a drive up window.
Who gave her this ridiculous contraption? I'll give you one guess...