Lying Liars

I'm always surprised that I can be further outraged by our administration.

Now, Bob Woodward's book, State of Denial, tells of a meeting between George Tenet and Condi Rice prior to 9/11. The problem here is that this is the first time the 9/11 Commission has heard about this. Don't you think this meeting would be an important detail in the 9/11 Commission's investigation? Let's see:

They went over top-secret intelligence pointing to an impending attack and "sounded the loudest warning" to the White House of a likely attack on the U.S. by Bin Laden.

Woodward writes that Rice was polite, but, "They felt the brushoff."

Hmm, add the details of that meeting to the PDB titled: "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US." and the so-called "Phoenix Memo" and I'd say the signs all pointed to a very likely attack.

Peter Rundlet, Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, writes:

"Was it covered up? It is hard to come to a different conclusion. If one could suspend disbelief to accept that all three officials forgot about the meeting when they were interviewed, then one possibility is that the memory of one of them was later jogged by notes or documents that describe the meeting. If such documents exist, the 9/11 Commission should have seen them. According to Woodward’s book, Cofer Black exonerates them all this way: "Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork about the meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn’t want to know about." The notion that both the 9/11 Commission and the Congressional Joint Inquiry that investigated the intelligence prior to 9/11 did not want to know about such essential information is simply absurd. At a minimum, the withholding of information about this meeting is an outrage. Very possibly, someone committed a crime. And worst of all, they failed to stop the plot."

Home Sick

Sophie was very snotty yesterday and then got progressively more cranky and restless as the night wore on. This morning, her mood is considerably worse.

So, I'm staying home to nurse my little moo moo and to nurse my sore throat.

We're hoping her cold doesn't turn into an ear infection because I had a lot of those when I was little and they are the absolute worst.

Babyproofing

I love this idea for babyproofing furniture legs. Baby socks! In lots of fun colors!

Bad Hair Year

I had just been in the bathroom at work, contemplating which pieces of hair to cut when I got home because I (stupidly) do not have scissors at work. I had cut my hair a week or so ago. Just the bottom. Because it was getting annoying and it's such an easy fix, right? And then I had to call Aaron into the bathroom to fix the bottom and maybe shave my neck a bit to make it look more even.

It's such a pain to try and make a hair appointment and I'm sure my new hair dresser was talking out her ass when she said she knew how to cut curly hair.

I got back to my desk and my sister had just sent me a link to a hilarious post about cutting your own hair. And cutting the hair of those you love. So frickin' funny. Wait until you see her dog. Hee hee hee.

The texture of my hair has completely changed since having Sophie. I knew my hair was going to fall out in clumps. Totally prepared for that. My sister had told me horror stories. What I was not prepared for was that it was going to turn into frizzy straw. Add to that a bad haircut complete with her using the thinning razor scissors (before I could stop her and then it was too late). Those stupid thinning scissors should be banned. They are like kryptonite for curly hair. And after you've used them, your hair is never going to grow out well.

My hair is a freakin' mess. I get to the end of the day at work and go to the bathroom and then recoil in horror at the thought that I've been walking around like this all day. I try to gel it into place and then pin it with bobbypins but all that is just to make me feel like I'm trying something. Anything.

I want my curls back. I want lovely waves that circle my face and caress me lovingly.

I have a hair appointment next weekend. With someone new. Who says she knows how to cut curly hair.

Quilt Raffle!

This is an incredibly touching story. You can help this family adopt the sister to their already-adopted daughter just by entering a raffle for an amazing quilt.

Bagged Salad Greens

Yuck. No more bagged salad greens for me. Or little baby carrots, either. The problem is more than just the spinach:

I’ll tell you that every sealed bag of pre-washed greens is like a little green house. The greens inside are still alive, as are the bacteria living on them. If the produce in the bag is clean, great, but if it isn’t the bacteria present has a wonderful little sealed environment to reproduce in, free from any threat until the dressing splashes down and the shadow of a fork passes over. Frankly, I think convenience is overrated.

Veronica Mars - hot tip!

Veronica Mars premieres on television on October 3rd. But I just found out that you can watch the premiere a week early online!

Yee!

Studio 60

I finally watched "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" last night. While it was interesting and I liked the behind-the-scenes machinations, it seemed a little full of itself. Heather Havrilesky's review was spot-on. They're writing sketch comedy, not saving the world. How about a little less gravitas?

I'm hoping "30 Rock" (stupid name for a show, by the way) is much better.

It's interesting that they're both on NBC.

I also watched "Heroes" on NBC. Interesting. I liked the premiere and the characters. So far. Who wouldn't want superhero powers?

Walking Videos!

Okay, I'll embed one good one and then link to the other two.

Walking, complete with an almost face-plant at the end:

Even more walking.

And just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any better, Sophie adds to the degree of difficulty by walking while carrying her Albert Einstein doll in her mouth. Albert is her favorite doll at the moment.

New Car Videos!

Sophie's new car, that is.

I'm not going to embed the video because I have relatives who are still on archaic dial-up and it takes too long for the pages to load. I know.

Here's Sophie, obviously excited about the car.

Now they're moving a lot faster.

Aaron's bored by now and he decides to kick things up a bit. Sophie is non-plussed.

We eventually had to park the car out of sight a bit. She was getting very worked up about it. Even before Aaron made it really fun and rollercoaster-like. She wanted to be in it and then she wanted to be out of it and then she'd get all upset if her wishes were not understood by us.

I have walking videos but I'll have to upload them when I get home from work. And after Sophie goes to sleep.

Walking and Squawking

Where to start? Saturday was busy, busy, busy. We went to a coworker's tag sale first thing in the morning and SCORED. A huge amount of clothes for Sophie (yeah, like we needed more) and an easel and 4 fun zooming cars. The cars, especially, were an instant hit. All for less than $10! I was kicking myself afterwards because there was a big bin of boy's clothes as well and now that there are/will be 3 baby boys in the family I'm sure they would have come in handy. One-track mind, I guess. Now Sophie has more jeans (great for daycare) and some snow pants! And some very cute dresses and more onesies.

Then it was on to UMass to Sophie's appointment with a child psychologist.

But it's not what it sounds like. They are doing a child development study on "handedness" - i.e.: can you tell hand preference at this age. All the babies were 11 months old. Apparently Sophie was one of the last ones - they'd already tested 36 other babies. Of varying ability. She had fun. The tests involved Sophie sitting on Aaron's lap, across the table from the tester. The tester placed a toy on the table in front of Sophie and then watched to see what hand she used to pick it up. Sophie was allowed to play with each toy for a minute and a half. She picked up most of the toys with both hands. There was one, a noisy cellphone with lots of buttons and sound effects, that was a hit. Sophie even stood up on Aaron's lap when she saw it. And when she hit the first button and it said: "Goodbye!" she made an "Ooohh!" face and looked up at the tester in amazement. The tester tried to hold in her laughter. It was really funny. And then it played music for another button and Sophie started dancing. She was a hoot. There were other tests that involved placing a toy on Sophie's left side and getting her to put it in a bucket in the middle. And then placing the toy on her right side and getting her to put that one in the bucket. She did a great job but she quickly became much more interested in the beeping, musical bucket. She kept reaching in there to push the noise button once she figured it out.

The tester said that the bucket test is one of the harder ones for babies of this age, but that Sophie did great. Which had Aaron all flushed and proud and "my daughter's the smartest baby ever". All. weekend. long. I'm sure tester said more than that and that Aaron will add to this. Let's just say that Sophie was more advanced than some of the other babies. Only about 10 of the other 36 could put a ring back on the stacker toy. Hmmph, she's been doing that for at least a month now. ;)

We then stopped for lunch and she tried out a restaurant high chair for the first time. She still doesn't really fit in one but she handled herself very well. She even tried some of Aaron's spicy chili ("You fed a baby chili?!?").

Did I mention the walking? I guess I haven't yet. She's taking a lot more steps and is becoming much more confident. She loves to just stand there without holding anything and she can bend down and pick things up and then stand up again without holding onto anything. She is getting stronger and stronger.

We have video of some of this. However, after Saturday's busy day, Sunday was spent letting Aaron get his homework done. So I had no alone-time on the computer.

I have walking videos and also some funny "Sophie in her toy car" videos. I'll see what I can upload tonight.

The "squawking" part of the title comes from the fact that Sophie has a sore throat. At least we think she does because she is hoarse and squeaky. She had a bit of a fever Saturday night and then last night was kind of rough. I may get her early from daycare today, depending on how her day goes.

Whew.

Colon Blow

I made the banana bread last night. Only I divided it into muffin cups. I froze about a dozen baked muffins this morning so that they don't go bad before we eat them all.

And I didn't use Splenda because: yuck. I substituted the same amount of brown sugar. They are not the sweetest muffins, but the banana taste was prominent and yummy. They are extremely moist so I think the next time I'm going to add more of both the flax seed meal and the wheat flour. I'm also going to add some cinnamon and maybe some nutmeg. And maybe some vanilla. All-in-all, it was a very fast recipe and Sophie made lots of yummy noises this morning.

I will tell you one thing - the banana + flax seed + whole wheat flour cleans you right out.

Eleven Months!

Wow. Where to begin? This month has been amazing. 4 new teeth (at least) (you're a little bitey)! You now have 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom. You look so different now when you grin.

First steps! (chasing after Otto)

I made you snort with laughter last night when I was tickling you!

You've said words like "Otto" (Aw Oh) and "cow" (ow) and "moo" (oooooo) and, just yesterday, "bye bye" and "beep beep" (beee beee). You are babbling a lot now and some of it almost sounds like words but we haven't been able to translate yet.

And the food! Where to start? You are imitating everything we do and this means that your old baby food (of which we still have a ton of jars) is so last month. Instead it's: "Dah!" ("that!") and gesturing towards whatever we are eating and drinking. You've tried spicy chicken and chicken sausage and bouillabaise and salmon and cucumbers and bananas and grapes and cheese and pretty much anything we're eating is fair game. You see us drinking out of a glass and you become very insistent that you need to drink out of that glass. Complete with "Aaah!" at the end. You also make a lot of yummy noises when you are eating and you haven't quite learned to eat with your mouth closed. All the noises are heartbreakingly cute and I just sit and giggle while you eat.

The imitating also goes for brushing your teeth. We have a baby toothbrush and some Tom's of Maine strawberry toothpaste for you and you have really gotten into it. To the point of when we have you in the bathroom, you gesture and point towards the toothbrush and smack your lips. The lip smacking basically means "more" and "Mommy" and "hungry" and "thirsty" and now "toothpaste". If you see either of us brushing our teeth, you want to try it out, too. Daddy lets you. Which is gross and I'm trying to ignore it.

Daycare seems to be going fine. You are napping better and eating more and the other kids really seem to enjoy your company. The panicked freak-outs have lessened considerably and that has made things a lot easier.

We love you little Snopher. Don't grow up too fast, okay?

Recaptastic

I ordered Sophie's Halloween costume. It so fantastic and so perfect that Aaron and I giggle every time we look at the catalog photo. No, I'm not going to tell you what it is.

I'm going to attempt to make healthy, whole grain banana muffins tonight. Sophie had her first tastes of banana, zucchini and pumpkin breads at my sister's house and she could not get enough of them. But I have no idea what was in those breads, so I'm going to make these as healthy as possible (apple sauce! wheat flour! flaxseed flour! bananas!). I'll let you know how they turn out.

My sister gave us our nephew's Little Tikes buggy coupe for Sophie. It was a HIT. Aaron must have spent an hour pushing her around the livingroom/hallway/dining room that first night. She honked the horn, clutched the steering wheel, lifted her feet and pointed her toes.

Last night was the season premiere of ANTM. The twins bug me and they eliminated far prettier women so that they could keep the twins on for entertainment value. At this point, I don't really have an opinion on anyone else.

Also, I'm pissed I missed the premiere of 'Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip'. I have other premieres marked down but I missed that one somehow. I'm hoping they replay it at some point this week. I read that they might replay the premiere on Bravo, but, of course, I don't get that channel.

Weekend

We went down to my older sister's house this weekend for our nephew's 8th birthday, my sister's belated birthday celebration and for our other nephew's 1st birthday. It was fun, although quite chaotic at times. We also got to meet my younger sister's new baby boy, Bryce. "New" meaning two-months old.

For the first nephew's birthday, we went to a really cool rock climbing facility:

[as always, click on any of the photos for more]

Sophie loved it:

There was a little bit of lounging around, playing in pajamas:

And a little bit of napping:

Then we all got dressed up and went out for a fantastic dinner to celebrate my sister's 40th birthday. Sophie ate bouillabaise and chicken and steak and pretty much everything except the baby food we brought her in case they didn't have anything she would eat. I guess we didn't have to worry.

Oh yeah, and there was another adorable baby. It was hard to look at him because of the extreme cuteness.

More on the Grocery Game

I've sent some referral emails to a couple of you from the Grocery Game site - it has a lot more information on how it works. To answer Jean's question, it seems to be U.S.-focused. BUT, below is a link to Attila the Mom's site where she outlines how she saves a huge amount of money at the grocery store. She has a few commenters from Canada who give their tips on how to work the system up north.

Cheaper Than Therapy (Attila the Mom) has her own crash course that is extremely informative. I've linked to Part 4 of the series as it contains the links to Parts 1 - 3. Belinda from Ninja Poodles references this in the comments. Attila had a couple of shopping trips where the savings were in the 90+% savings range. Amazing.

The basic gist of the system is that companies release coupons for their products. The grocery stores know which coupons have been released and when. Both groups expect you to *maybe* clip a coupon for that one box of cereal and use the coupon as soon as it is released. However, grocery stores know when the coupons expire and they tend to have a big sale right before the expiration. Grocery Game keeps databases on the sales cycles of most items at the grocery store. And then each week, you can print out a list of the best items to buy that week as well as a list of which coupons to use.

I get free weeks if you sign up on my referral. So, let me know if you are interested and I can send you a referral email.

Hmm, it sounds jumpy

I hope you have a great weekend!

Grocery Game

So, since I signed up for my $1 Grocery Game trial on August 27, I've already saved $320!! That's huge! I'm averaging about 45% savings and am working on getting that number up a bit more.

And it's all on things I would normally buy. Granted, I have 10 tubes of toothpaste but I paid almost nothing for them and as Aaron said: "We're going to need toothpaste until we die."

You should really check it out. Leave a comment if you're interested and I'll send you a referral email.

Moxie

I adore Moxie. And today's column is particularly wonderful and spot-on. It deals with the stress a new baby puts on the parents' relationship. You should read it and forward it to every new parent you know.

Houston, we have walking!

Aaron just called to say that Sophie took three steps on her own. Chasing after Otto. And then she sat down. She probably doesn't even realize the significance of what she did even if her daddy is in tears.

Christopher Buckley

Another great article, this time by Christopher Buckley:

"Who knew, in 2000, that 'compassionate conservatism' meant bigger government, unrestricted government spending, government intrusion in personal matters, government ineptitude, and cronyism in disaster relief? Who knew, in 2000, that the only bill the president would veto, six years later, would be one on funding stem-cell research? A more accurate term for Mr. Bush's political philosophy might be incontinent conservatism...."

And from a Republican, no less.

Go read the whole thing.

Tiny Street Art Project

I'm loving this site called Little People. The artist takes tiny toy people and creates little scenes with them out and about in the world. Very cool.

(via the morning news)

They remind me of another site with the little toy people, but I'm drawing a blank. Anyone?

This hole in the ground

Very powerful piece by Keith Olbermann.

This hole in the ground.

I'm just going to grab a portion of it. You should go there and read the whole thing. He's one of the great voices of our times.

"And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful."

Holding Pattern

Well, it's mom-dar vs. Internet-dar (Inter-dar?). I called the doctor and talked to one of the nurses. She doesn't think it is Roseola because Sophie never had a fever spike and, generally, babies don't have cold symptoms at the same time. She thinks it could be a rash just from the cold virus entering its last throes. It could also be eczema since Sophie has had some dry patches in the past.

We're going to give her some oatmeal baths and maybe add some baking soda to her baths to help dry out the rash a bit. And then moisturize with Eucerin and a little hydrocortisone to see if that helps.

One week of this and then we'll see where we are. Luckily I don't have to cut out allergen-prone foods yet. Because cutting wheat, eggs, milk, peanuts, soy and fish would be extremely hard. As Aaron said: "You'll starve!"

Easy like Sunday morning

Well, she's feeling better. We all took it easy this weekend in order to allow her to recover. She was in a jolly mood despite the overabundance of snot and snorfling and coughing.

[click on that photo for more]

Now she has a rash all over her torso and we're thinking it's an eczema flare-up. I'm going to make a doctor's appointment to see what he thinks. Excema is genetic (I have a little) and it is also allergy-sensitive. My mom-dar thinks it is a mild wheat allergy as that is what we've introduced fairly recently - pasta and bread crusts, for example. Any excema advice out there?

Sick as an "Ah Oh!*"

*That's "dog" in Sophie-speak.

Well, perhaps the teething is also making her miserable, but now Sophie has a full-fledged cold. Last night, however, we were prepared. We discussed the events and the failure to communicate from the night before and then stood together, along with our saline nosedrops and liquid Tylenol and baby Motrin and our nose sucker, as a united front in the fight against the snorfling and the crying and everything else that lead to a miserable baby.

I picked her up from daycare (with no crying, thanks Jean!) and she looked really tired and really sick. But that did not prevent her from being super goofy and funny and from having way too much fun with her gobs of snot in the backseat. She zerberted through it, blew bubbles with it and smeared it all over her bare feet and arms. Yeah! Fun with snot!

We stopped at CVS on the way home to pick up the reinforcements and that is where I discovered I had to pee and carrying a baby on one hip apparently puts added pressure on your bladder so I was getting a little desperate and was *this close* to reaching down and holding it all in by the time the cashier rung me up. My pee desperation caused me to pick up the wrong Tylenol Cold. (why are there 40 million varieties of one medication? Don't they know that people have to pee?) Dr. Sears told me to get the one with the decongestant AND the antihistimine and I got the one with just the decongestant which may have made her speedy little spastic baby instead of a speedy baby slowed down by antihistimines.

Anyhoo, I discovered my mistake once we were home. I waited until Aaron got home and then headed back to CVS to return/exchange the drugs. Apparently the local fair is this weekend. And last night was the big fair parade through town. I chose to go to the drugstore that was on the main parade path so everyone and their brother had parked in the CVS parking lot and in the hour since I'd be there, there were lawn chairs and balloons and people tailgating and antique cars. EVERYWHERE. Gah! I hate people! and crowds of people extra-specially. So I double-parked behind a huge van overspilling with enormous parade-loving people holding hot dogs and cotton candy and defiantly ("I have a sick baby, dammit") walked into the stupid store to get the right stupid medicine.

This time I also bought saline nose drops. Just to shoot a little more moisture up in them thar nostrils and make Sophie's cold experience that much more enjoyable.

This is an exciting story, isn't it?

She had a rough night. But she slept a lot. She woke up coughing this morning so this weekend might be a little rough as well. The best part of all this? The discovery that my child is an eternal optimist: even though she couldn't breath through her nose and even though we kept shooting things up there and sucking things out, she was still trying to make us laugh while she was miserable. We have a great little baby.

Disney/ABC - rewriting history

As you have probably heard by now, Disney/ABC is going to be running a "docudrama" starting on Sunday called "The Path to 9/11". Disney/ABC has admitted that it is a fictional telling of history. With a definitive slant towards laying the blame on Clinton and none of the blame on Bush. There's more on all of this if you are interested.

But, if you already know about it and you are already outraged, you can go here to join in the petition asking ABC to tell the truth about the program they are going to run.

It's one thing for Disney to take a fictional story about a little mermaid and change the ending so that she lives instead of dies. It is quite another to portray actual people and actual events and change the details so that they move far away from the truth and, instead, towards pure fiction.

It has only been 5 years since that tragic day. It is still too real for me and for many, many others to have the events distorted for entertainment and ratings.

Ugh on a cracker

I think I got an hour of sleep last night. Sophie has two more top teeth coming and and has been a bit stuffed up. They might be connected. However, last night she was REALLY stuffed up and spent most of the night screaming and crying and snorfling and coughing and gagging on her snot.

I spent hours with her strapped into the Ergo carrier so that the snot would drain from her nose. She'd eventually fall asleep each time so I'd very carefully remove her from the carrier and lay her down into bed with us. Where she'd be fine until I had just about almost fallen asleep and then she'd forget to keep her mouth open and gasp for air. This freaked her out and then the crying would start again. It was awful.

Aaron and I are both zombies today - all bloodshot eyes and desperate for some sleep. Never mind little Sophie. She's still very stuffed up and miserable and tired. We've never had a night like this with her.

Because we were both tired and it was all very stressful, neither Aaron nor I handled things very well. It was a lot of yelling to each other over the screaming about sucking her nose or not sucking her nose or don't we have anything we can give her or just hand her to me and I'll walk around with her. We need to get on the same page on these kind of situations before they happen. It helps nothing to have philosophical discussions about nose sucking while yelling over a very pissed off, very tired, very upset little baby.

I have a long lunch meeting so I couldn't stay home with her. Aaron's classes start later today, so hopefully they can nap for a bit before taking her to daycare. I have a feeling I'm getting a call today to come pick her up early.

Guess Who?

another day, another instance of wtf?

From Crooks & Liars:

In August of 1966, a young Republican Congressman from Illinois gave a lengthy speech about the need for Congressional oversight over Vietnam war related contracts.

This congressman insisted that only "an investigating committee to be controlled by the minority, can assure vigorous investigation . . ."

By the way, the company that had obtained the contracts that this congressman railed against was Brown and Root - which later became Kellogg, Brown and Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton that is now the largest contractor in Iraq.

Facing South:

As a Republican congressman from Illinois in 1966, [he] raised questions about the 30-year association between Halliburton’s chairman and then-president Lyndon Johnson. "Why this huge contract has not been and is not now being adequately audited is beyond me," [he] said. "The potential for waste and profiteering under such a contract is substantial."

The name of that Congressman questioning long term relationships with war profiteers and demanding minority party oversight?

---------------

Guess who? Donald Rumsfeld.

Disguise your dog!

This made me giggle:

Poodle disguise kits for Dobermans

(via and i wasted all that birth control)

Monday in the park with Sophie

Photos and a video from yesterday's jaunt to a local park.

On a side note, the pick-up from daycare went really smooth today. I parked away from the house for a bit and slowly walked to the car, all the while talking about how we were going home, etc. No crying, no freaking out at all. In fact, she was quite goofy and silly on the way home. THANK YOU to Jean for the suggestion.

However, Aaron almost lost it this morning because she had a complete meltdown when he went to leave her there. So, the pick-up went well, but the drop-off did not. We shall see how the week progresses.

Cutie-patootie video of Sophie on the swing:

Daddy is the greatest:

First time down a slide:

There are a couple more if you click on either of those photos.

Eggcorns

I'm loving these. "Eggcorns" are malapropisms people use. Named as such because someone once called an acorn an "eggcorn". Did you know there is a whole database of eggcorns?

Examples:

"get one's dandruff up", "marsh pit" (for "mosh pit"), "coming down the pipe" ("coming down the pike") and "butt naked" (it's really "buck naked").

"spitting image" should actually be: "spit and image" (I think I only learned that one as "spitting image")

King George

The Bush Administration has now decided that whistleblowers within the EPA (although I'm sure this is going to extend to other departments shortly) are no longer covered by whistleblower protections, erasing more than two decades of precedent.

How can they do this, you ask? They "invoked the ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity which is based on the old English legal maxim that "The King Can Do No Wrong." It is an absolute defense to any legal action unless the "sovereign" consents to be sued."

I'm not making this up.

Live! Cute! Baby!

I forgot, she also says "baby" (Bay Bee or Bee Bee). And apparently she also knows "Moo" and/or "Shoe" because she said "Ooo!" in context for both today. She was playing with her shoes and looked up at me and said "Ooo!" and then today at the park she saw an enormous Great Dane that was white with black spots and she got very excited and kept saying "Ooo!" and "Ow!" The dog's owner was very impressed and she agreed that her dog did look like a cow.

No, I haven't caught any of this on video.

But here is a cute video from earlier this weekend. I also have some park videos and photos that I'll have to upload a little later.

Okay, one more. I taught her to make duck noises with her little bowl. She didn't get the hang of it until this weekend. It's right at the beginning of the video. And then she notices that I've got the camera and that is so much more interesting.

Weekend

Ah, rainy days at home with my loves. It's quite crappy out - chilly, rainy, gray, yucky. We did sneak in a walk into town on Saturday morning and a quick jaunt to the grocery store (40% savings; I'm slipping) today, but the rest of the time has been at home.

This will be quick because Aaron and Sophie are in the bath and I will be called away at any moment.

I realized I haven't talked about the words Sophie has said. We're going to count her first word as "Otto" (our orange kitty). Pronounced: "Ah Oh!" Otto also stands for kitty and Tabitha and possibly dog at the moment. Not to be confused with "cow" ("OW!"). She also says "kitty" ("itty"), "Daddy" ("Dad deee!" or "Dee Dee!") and "Hi" (said on the phone to my sister. Twice!). Notice that lack of "Mommy". Don't think *I* haven't noticed.

Ooops, I have to go. Video and a couple of photos in a bit.