Introducing Flippy the Fish

When I was little, my family lived in a 3rd floor apartment in Brooklyn.  I don't know if the rental agreement expressly forbid dogs and cats, my parents thought it would be kinder to the dogs and cats of this world not to try to squeeze them into the apartment, or if three little girls were enough trouble without adding four legged creatures into the equation.  For awhile we did have a series of goldfish named after the '86 Mets, however.  My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I feel like they lasted quite awhile, and then we got some really stupid silver fish who kept getting stuck between the filter and the tank wall, and died off rather quickly.  I think that was more or less the end of that experiment.

I know fish don't rank very high up on the exciting pets list, but I'm weird.  Heck, as a kid, my favorite part of the Natural History Museum was the rock/gem section.  I like boring.  Anyways, I always wanted another fish, but my sisters all ended up with cats, and the odds of my 25 cent goldfish living more than a week in a house with three cats just weren't that good.  Somewhere along the line I ended up with a husband, two kids, and a dog instead.  Funny how things work out, no?

Anyway, yesterday I went into Petsmart to get our dog some rawhide treats so she'd leave WeeBee's crayons alone.  (Don't ask.)  We use it as our local aquarium/zoo, and take WeeBee to see all the animals.  Hey, it's free and you can pop your kid in a cart and keep them from running off - can't beat that.  Well, this time my husband suggested getting WeeBee a pet fish.  I had just found the dog treats for 75% off simply because there was a red Christmas bow on them, and being in a good mood, I agreed, on the condition that we could find a round fish bowl.  Not a roundish one with flat sides, a real round fish bowl like you see in cartoons.  They're really quite difficult to find in real life, and I really wasn't expecting them to have one, but they did.  Ten minutes later we were the proud owners of Flippy the Fish, Petsmart's finest 13 cent goldfish.  (WeeBee named him after the fish from Oswald the Octopus before I could come up with a suitable Doctor Who name for him, but as it really is his fish, I'll let it go this time.)

The cutest part of the evening, though, was when WeeBee insisted that we walk quicker in the parking lot on the way back to the car.  "Mommy, walk quickly!  Walk quickly, Flippy will get cold, Mommy!"

Happy New Year to You All!

I've had a cold since the day after Christmas, but I hope you all are having a better time of it than I am.  I'm sorry to report that we had the most boring New Year's Eve ever.  After WeeBee and Lowly went to bed, my husband and I started channel surfing.  After 5 minutes of a special on the Children's Miracle Network that left me paranoid about what mysterious diseases my children could suddenly come down with, we switched to the coverage of the Times Square New Years Eve spectacle.  Around 10:30 I realized I had been staring at some rapper bouncing around on tv for the last five minutes and I had absolutely no idea what I had just watched.  At that point, I grabbed a box of tissues and headed to bed.

Apparently New Jersey isn't enforcing their anti-firework laws this year, because I awoke at midnight to the sound of everyone in the immediate area setting them off...for the next 20 minutes.  (I was too tired to be annoyed, just vaguely curious as to where all the fireworks came from.)  And then at around 5 pm that evening, my neighbors must have found a box they drunkenly misplaced the night before, because they started setting them off again.  I wish I hadn't been so sick, because it was a really clear night out and I probably would have gotten a pretty good view of most of the fireworks, but what can you do?

Aside from all of us being sick at the same time, the New Year hasn't been too bad.  One of my New Year's Resolutions was to do a better job of using up everything in my fridge.  I'm not horrible about wasting food, but I have a tendency to get towards the end of a container of something and then forget about it.  I know it's only the 4th, but I've managed to use up 3 eggs, 2 tomatoes, a bowl of roasted potatoes, and a ham bone.  I think I'm going to have to buy ham more often, because the ham bone turned my slow cooker split pea soup from pretty good to absolutely amazing.  (And that was with a cold that is seriously impairing my sense of taste/smell.)

Unfortunately, my head is very fuzzy right now, so I'm going to stop before I type something completely incoherent.  Sorry if this post sort of went round in circles.

We Are So Ready For 2012

I've really had enough of this year.

Sorry I haven't been around for the last two weeks.  Our poor little computer randomly stopped recognizing some of the drives, and while thankfully it was all covered by the warranty, it took a few days for the parts to come in.  Then, WeeBee's Nonna died.

Nonna was his name for his great-grandma, and it was the first name he learned to say aside from Mummum and Dadda.  She was 92 years old, still sharp as anything, and always had a bag of cookies for WeeBee.  She had even gotten him a coloring book for Christmas before she died, and kept it hidden from him under a couch cushion incase he came over before then.

I really wasn't sure how WeeBee would handle the whole situation.  In his world death refers to computer batteries and cell phones that need to be recharged - neither of which is exactly permanent.  I tried to explain to him that Nonna was very sick all of a sudden, and she would go live with Baby Jesus so He could take care of her.  I wasn't sure how that would go over either, since the last time we went to visit Baby Jesus in church, he kicked pews and bounced around to the point that I had to drag him back to the car, screaming "Noooo, Baby Jesus!  I want to talk to Baby Jesus!" the whole time.  Let me tell you, it is absolutely impossible to feel good about yourself as a parent after that.

Anyway, when I told him about Nonna, he changed the subject.  Repeatedly.  At first I thought he was just being a typical two year old with the attention span of a gnat, but then I started to get the impression he was changing the subject because he didn't like what he was hearing.  When we got to Nonna's house, he didn't go looking for her, as he always had in the past.  He didn't mention her at all.  Somewhere in that little brain of his, he had accepted that she didn't live there anymore.  That was a bit of a relief, but I was then worried that on the day of the funeral he would get to Baby Jesus' house and throw a fit because he expected Nonna to be there.  Thankfully he amused himself by taking the hymnals out of their plastic protective covers, and was the most well behaved he's ever been in church.  He hasn't forgotten her, though - whenever he sees a picture of her, he says, "Mommy, that's Nonna!" right away.  So I guess that's really all we could ask for - that if Nonna had to go, at least he was old enough to remember her, and he's ok with  Baby Jesus taking care of her.

Unfortunately, in the week since the funeral, WeeBee has gotten a stomach virus and all four of us here have gotten terrible colds.  I have yet to decide whether it's worse for all of us to feel like we've been run over by trucks at the same time, but get it over with, or for it to drag on for a month while we get sick one after another.

And now I must go - WeeBee is slithering around on the ground underneath the Christmas tree rather like the Grinch who stole Christmas, and I'd better go figure out what he's after before the whole thing comes down.

Some Thoughts For the Day

1. No matter how good you think your child's eye/hand coordination is, never let them eat pastina on the couch.  You thought Cheerios were a pain to get out from in-between cushions?  Try rubbery stars the size of the head of a pin.
2. There's a quarter of a loaf of bread missing in my house.  I remember taking the bag away from WeeBee and putting it up on top of the refrigerator.  It's possible that my husband or I moved it afterwards.  Anyway, the thing is gone.  It's not the end of the world in that we had another loaf in the freezer, but I'm more concerned that I left it out on the counter and WeeBee swiped it, took it somewhere to eat in secret, and now there's an eighth of a loaf of bread hidden behind a dresser, becoming a mold farm.
3. It's very difficult to type when a small child is standing behind you, popping his head over your shoulder on alternating sides saying, "Ogurt!  Ogurt!  Ogurt, Mommy!  Ogurt!  Ogurt!  Ogurt, Mommy!  WeeBee NEEDS Ogurt!"  Of course you do, sweetheart.  We won't speak of the giant bowl of Cheerios and the sippy cup of milk you just had for breakfast.
4. Lowly speaks!  For seven and a half months she's been the quietest baby ever, perfectly content to watch WeeBee carry on.  Maybe once a day she'd get excited or indignant about something and babble for 30 seconds, and then go right back to observing the chaos around her.  Earlier this week she started shouting "Dyadda!  Dyadda!" when she woke up from her nap and wanted to be picked up.  Then yesterday she was puttering in the living room in her walker and Daddy came into the room.  She threw her hands up in the air towards him and squealed, "Dadda!"  :)

Happy Birthday, Mommy and Lowly?

WeeBee likes to wander around the house and talk to himself.  Sometimes he even sings.  Today, he apparently decided that it was Mommy and Lowly's birthday, and has been belting out "Happy Birthday" at the top of his lungs.

I have no idea what brought this on.  I had mentioned to him about a week ago that Christmas was Baby Jesus' birthday, but we didn't sing about it.  I didn't even think he knew the "Happy Birthday" song.  I don't think he's heard it real life since some time in October, and they generally don't use it on tv because of the royalty issue, so he didn't learn it from there.

Sad part is, I'm in the mood for birthday cake now.

I Guess Paula Deen Won't Be Going to Norway Anytime Soon

Some odd news for y'all...

Norway Runs Out of Butter

So if I go spend $10 on butter at my supermarket, is there a way I can sell it to the Norwegians online for $130?  Maybe set up some sort of cash4butter business?

A Real Cowboy

We've been watching quite a few Westerns at our house lately.  I don't remember what started it - probably a random suggestion on Netflix.  (Does your Netflix account make really strange suggestions for you?  Ours does, but more on that some other day.)  I haven't seen too many of them in their entirety, since WeeBee is usually puttering around, but Daddy has taught WeeBee to say "John Wayne."  Trust me, it's adorable.

Last night, whatever movie Daddy was watching happened to catch WeeBee's attention.  We then had the following conversation.

WeeBee:  Mommy, what's that?
Mommy:  That's John Wayne.  He's pretending to be a cowboy.
WeeBee:  (very serious)  No.  He is a cowboy.

I'm not going to argue with that.