Thursday, September 28, 2006

Oh, wait -- it gets better...


Sherri took pity on me after reading my tale of plumbing woe yesterday, and sent Chris over to see what he could do. Which turned out to be not much. We need a new faucet.

As an afterthought, I had him listen to the wall next to the bathtub faucet to see if it sounded like there was a leak in there. There was. We called a plumber.

The plumber and his helper came and looked and said they'll have to jackhammer the concrete slab so they can reach the leak. They'll be back tomorrow.

So now we have a shiny new faucet ready to be installed, a coat closet floor that's about to be jackhammered up, and two strangers who will be in my house most of the day tomorrow. Woo-hoo!

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

(Driving Me) Plumb Nuts


Gawd, I wish we had a plumber in the family! Because now I'm gonna have to call one, and that means having a stranger in the house, and you know how I am about that.

The sprayer on my kitchen sink quit working a while back, but I could live without that. I used to use it all the time and I missed having it, but I could live without it.

The other day, I turned the faucet on and no water came out. WTF? Every other faucet in the house worked -- I checked -- but there was no water coming from my kitchen faucet. I stood there, scratched my head, twisted the knobs, and finally picked up the sprayer and squeezed it. And, suddenly, water came pouring out of the faucet. Well, all righty then. Problem solved!

Or so I thought.

Last night, Mikey tried to wash his hands and there was no water. I tried squeezing the sprayer again, but it didn't work this time. Well, the sprayer works, but the faucet doesn't.

Now I'm almost halfway through a day with no water coming from my kitchen faucet and I never before realized how often I use it. I wash my hands every time I change a diaper, and I rinse them every time they get sticky, which is all the time with Britt around. I rinse dirty dishes and I wash down Britt's highchair tray.

So now I have to do all those things using the sprayer, which hadn't been working for at least a year but is now magically restored. And it's a damned pain in the ass, lemme tell you.

Anyway, I guess it's a blockage of some sort. A chunk of mineral deposits that got knocked loose, or something.

Oh, and have I mentioned the shower thing? That's been going on for a few months. You turn on the shower in the main bathroom and hop in and then something in the pipe (**shifts**) and the water pressure cuts down to about half of what it was.

Another mineral deposit, I suppose.

And we still can't use the shower in the master bath because the shower pan leaks.

(**sigh**)

My beloved husband, though wonderful in many ways, is completely useless in situations like this. A handyman he is not. If I didn't have Britt underfoot, I might take a wrench to that stinkin' faucet myself just to see if I could clear the pipe.

I might yet. I dunno.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Britt pee-peed in the potty!


When we woke up this morning I changed Britt's diaper as usual, but it was dry! This has never happened before.

I was worried about her kidneys, so I said a little prayer.

After breakfast she started talking about pee-pee, so I asked if she wanted to pee-pee in the potty. She ran down the hall to the bathroom and I took her diaper off (finally wet, thank God) and she sat on her potty. And she peed!

I yayed and clapped and asked if she needed to poop, and we sat there for a while but nothing else happened. Finally, I wiped her little poony and when I turned around to put the paper in the toilet, she grabbed her little green boat and put it in the "water" in her potty. So then we had a talk about what does and doesn't go in the potty.

We don't have any pull-ups so she got to wear her first pair of big-girl panties. I brought her potty into the living room so she'd have easy access to it, and we called Poppa to tell him the good news, and then we colored for awhile and "ate" lots of food from her new super-deluxe play kitchen (Mikey found a replacement for the incomplete one she got for her birthday) and then, about an hour later, she pooped in her new big-girl panties. I'd been watching for that, but her face doesn't usually show it when she's pooping, so she caught me by surprise.

Well, you know, it's been almost 25 years since I've had to deal with poop in big-girl panties, so it was pretty awkward trying to get them off her without getting it everywhere but I finally managed it. I put a fresh diaper on her so I could relax for a little bit (because it's hard work being vigilant), and then I went to put the wipes in the trash before going to the bathroom to empty the poopy panties into the toilet, and the poop fell out of the panties onto my kitchen floor.

(**sigh**)

Anyway, it's a start. I'm happy.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

There's a bruise on my head


Britt pegged me just above the right eyebrow with her little red car yesterday.

There may be some brain damage as well; I poured tea instead of milk on my Lucky Charms this morning.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Bouncing Baby Britt


Mikey went with us to Britt's two-year checkup on Monday, and it helped a lot. She always pitches a fit when we go because she's gotten so many shots there, and it's hard to handle her by myself when she's thrashing and flailing and screaming her little lungs out.

She measured 33 1/4 inches tall and weighs 30 pounds, 4 ounces. The good news is that she's jumped up to the 25% percentile in height, which was a relief; it's always been the 10th percentile before, so she's finally catching up a little. The bad news is that her weight is in the 95th percentile. She's two pounds overweight.

Oops!

She lost a lot of baby fat last year after she started walking and then she reached the picky eater stage, so I worried about her getting enough to eat. The doctor told me to put a variety of foods in front of her at mealtime, and that's what I've been doing. It just hadn't really registered with me that her picky eater stage had already passed.

I guess me and Mikey aren't the only ones who've been eatin' like show dogs around here.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

He's real!


Little Brandon Martin, our own family's version of the mythical Suri Cruise, really does exist! I've seen the pictures, and he's a cutie:

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

For more pictures of Brandon and the rest of the Washington contingent, see Lesley's Flickr page.

Monday, September 11, 2006

I walked into the kitchen today


and caught Britt standing in a chair pushed up against the counter, helping herself to big gobs of frosting off her leftover birthday cake. So I grabbed the video camera and got some really cute footage of the little dickens.

Alas, when I went to upload the video so I could show it to you, my imaging software wouldn't work. I tried this and that and every other damn thing I could think of to get it to work, and I'm stumped. The only thing that's different from the last time I used it is that Bridget uploaded her Kodak software on my computer this weekend.

Thanks a lot, Bridge!

Luckily, I also snapped a few still photos of Britt in her frosting-induced ecstasy:

Afterparty

Mmmmmm!

Mmmmm, cake!

I wish I knew WTF is wrong with my imaging software. Maybe the driver got messed up? Maybe I should uninstall and reinstall the software? Do I even know where the hell that disc is?

(**sigh**)

It's times like this that I miss having techie friends.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

The 2nd Annual Celebration of Britt


was a smashing success, with plenty of food, family and loot. And cake!

Dinner was interrupted by the Horned SpongeMonster (a.k.a. Cousin Abby); Britt responded by flipping her off:

Birthday Girl

Always happy to be the center of attention:

Birthday Girl

She's been to enough of her cousins' birthday parties by now to know the drill, so she blew out the candle right on cue:

Birthday Girl

Yay! Cake!

Birthday Girl

And then she showed her daddy how to use her new laptop:

Birthday Girl

Yep, Britt has a laptop now and I don't. That is just wrong.

There were only two things that didn't go as planned. When we ordered our 1/2 sheet cake, the stupid cake people didn't bother to mention that the SpongeBob decorations were sized for a 1/4 sheet cake, so I was pissed when I went to pick it up. It looked ridiculous (see cake photo above), but it was too late to do anything about it.

And then, after all the other gifts were opened, we brought out the grand finale: Britt's new super-duper deluxe play kitchen! And guess what?

When we opened the box, the accessories were missing. So were the decorative stickers. And the frickin' cabinet doors! Gaaah! Mikey took it back to the store last night and got a refund because they didn't have another one in stock. We'll try to find a replacement for it sometime this week.

Anyway, I'm glad it's over and that I was able to rest today because tomorrow is Britt's two-year checkup. She raises hell every time we go the doctor's office because those people stick needles in her legs, so I'm not looking forward to it. Not at all.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Britt's turning 2


on Saturday. Everyone's been invited (everyone local, that is), the cake's been ordered, gifts have been bought, and frantic housecleaning and de-cluttering have commenced.

Geez, I'll be glad when this is over.

I picked out a perfectly lovely cake: three layers cleverly disguised as gaily wrapped gifts and a fourth layer that's actually a plastic purple gift box that opens into a picture frame. Also, a disposable camera was included in the deal. Woo-hoo!

And then guess what?

I couldn't have it. They didn't have the picture frame or the disposable camera to go with it. I should've ordered it anyway without the extra doodads (at a lower price, of course), but that only occurred to me as I was typing this.

Geez, I think so fast on my feet.

So we're having a SpongeBob cake.

(**yawn**)

Anyway, we did manage to locate a perfectly lovely and hideously expensive play kitchen to replace the one Britt outgrew. Also, a couple of new Baby Einstein videos so we can give the daily round of Baby da Vinci, Boobah and Laurie Berkner a rest. And we may get even more stuff for her, because she's just so darn cute.

I've been flailing around in a panic trying to figure out where to hide all my clutter. Every surface higher than Britt can reach (unless she's using her old play kitchen for a stepstool) is covered with things I don't want her to get hold of and I can't figure out where to put it all so that my house will look somewhat tidy.

Also, the bathroom still needs a thorough scrubbing. Mikey and I are in a Mexican standoff over who gets to tackle that one.

Geez, I'll be glad when this is over.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Diggin' in my drawers


Britt is almost 33 inches tall now.

Which means she's tall enough to open drawers, reach in and grab their contents, and strew them about the house.

(Surely you've figured out by now that I don't mean my underpants.)

So now I get to go around several times a day gathering up potholders, oven mitts, dishrags, dish towels, bibs, and her tiny little socks and bathing suits.

I still keep the bathroom door shut because we haven't started potty-training yet, so the two drawers in there are still safe for the moment.

Yesterday I caught her playing in the spice drawer, but luckily she hadn't unscrewed any lids yet. That would've been fun.

I suppose I could try some of those baby-proof drawer latches, but I already tried the baby-proof cabinet door latches (which were expensive as hell) and after installing them, one broke the very first time I used it, which made me very unhappy and I said a lot of bad words.

Also, countertops! I had to move her little toy kitchen out to the garage because she's outgrown it already and the only time she was using it was when she'd tump it over and use it for a stepstool for easy access to whatever's on the kitchen counter. It didn't faze her much, though; now she just pushes a kitchen chair over to the counter and has a go at whatever she wants.

(**whimper**)

Help me.