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Anna has begun to have imaginary friends quite often now. Actually, they're usually imaginary animals, so maybe she's like me in that regard (liking animals - not having imaginary friends, that is). Usually she'll be pretending they are asleep, (Shhhh! My pretent baby kitten is sleeping!) or eating with her (My pretend giraffe wants a bit of my chicken.) or snuggled next to her in bed (My pretent pig needs some covers too!). But, there is danger in the fact that SHE is the only one who can see them. Mommy and Daddy are clueless. Tonight Curtis was chastized for pulling the covers over Anna, and leaving her pretend mouse without covers. And he also stepped in the imaginary frog poop.

Yesterday, she came to me with her hands held out and cupped and said "Here, Mommy!" I said, "Mmmm...yummy apples (munch munch munch sound)." Anna looked at me horrified and said, "NO! Don't eat my pretend baby giraffes!!" Ooops.

We had another nearly tragic moment about this tonight. This weekend we had mice in the garage (because it turns out my MOTHER (ah hem) had left a bag of food packaging wadded up behind the garage trash can). So, we had traps set up in various places (which worked like a charm , I must say), and it seemed that they were all gone. Then, while we're laying on our bed talking tonight, Anna comes in the room and says, "The cute little gray mouse isn't feeling good." Oh shit. We both bolted up and looked at eachother.

"What mouse honey?"
"The little gray mouse. He's not feeling good."
"Ummmmm....where is he?"
"He's out there."
(This is where Mommy goes to distract Anna while Daddy goes looking for the illin' little gray mouse.)
After Curtis leaves, Anna opens the door and picks up the Little Golden Book she'd been playing with in the hallway and turns to the back.
"See, Mommy. This little mouse is not feeling good. He looks sad."
(This is where Mommy starts breathing again.)
"Oh....THAT mouse!"

*sigh* I guess it could have been worse!

Or maybe it's just our family. Our maybe life is just good, but when Daddy gets home from work, and Anna is all wired to see him, we always bundle up on our bed and talk about our days. So much fun, and so many laughs.

We're trying to teach Anna about interrupting people. We've gotten across that you should say "Excuse me..." when someone else is talking and YOU would like to have a turn talking. Unfortunately it usually goes something like this...

ME: (To Curtis) So I answered the phone and then...

ANNA: Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.

ME: Anna, Mommy is talking right now.

ANNA: But I said "Excuse me" and now you stopped, so I want you to keep stop talking and I'm going to tell you about the car who would never be able to get up the red hill. (We're still not sure what the deal is with the red hill....but she keeps telling us about it.)

Other funny thing she said tonight....when Curtis couldn't find a diaper in her closet and called me to ask where one was...
"Oh, it's OK Mommy. Daddy was just being confused."

Anna, that is, not me.

This is what Anna kept crying last night. I finally took her back to the doctor yesterday, because even though it seems like the cold has passed, she just hasn't been her usual, cheerful self. She does indeed have an ear infection now. Poor baby. But, atleast now she's on antibiotics, so hopefully she'll be feeling better soon. At bedtime she kept crying and we'd hear her from the other room in the most pathetic voice...

"I'm having a rough day!"

We finally just snuggled her until she fell asleep. She's such an angel. I think she'll be feeling better soon now. We're going to bake cookies today and hang pictures. Just a quiet girls day around the house. We may go next door to visit Aunt Sandi, because she's still in her PJs too - recovering from back surgery.
We're looking forward to having Daddy to ourselves ALL week next week! Yeah!

What the hell is up with that? All these years, I have just assumed Bambi is a girl. I know I saw the movie when I was little, but I don't remember anything about it. But Bambi is a girl's name, isn't it? (Albeit, usually a girl who is a stripper or a hooker in a bad B grade movie - but still a GIRL!)

Sorry - this just disturbs me. A boy? Gee...I should watch some grown-up TV once in awhile, huh? Don't get me started on Thomas the Train.

That is what Anna told me today.

We're having a resurgence of potty training interest (YEAH!) so we're trying to capitalize on it. We have had a potty chart for awhile, and when Anna tinkles on the potty she gets 1 sticker, and when she poops, she gets 2 (which has yet to happen). She gets to pick her own sticker to keep too. When she fills up a row, she gets a prize (a My Little Pony, or a doll, etc.)



So, today, she woke up and first thing said, "I need to go potty!" And we went in, and she actually did! Yeah! We did the happy dance together. Then Anna fell over on the floor and proclaimed that she "...Must have done too much happy dance, and made herself fall over onto the floor."

So much fun was the pottying, that she wanted to try it again right away! Hmmm....well....what the heck. So off comes the diaper again and we go back to sit on the potty. After a few moments of expectant silence, Anna said, "I think we ran out of tinkle, but maybe we'll have some more later, so we should try to go potty again later."

Ahhh....maybe I'm biased, but does it get any cuter than that?

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.

I truly believe that being happy is a choice we make - day to day, minute to minute. I think far too few people make that choice. I don't think I've been making it very well lately - which I am going to try to remedy now. I am a happy person, in general. Life is just too short, and I am too blessed, not to be. Seriously, you don't have to look very far to see people with far greater problems than your own, most of the time. So - smile.

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. -Hugh Downs

How can I look at that precious, peaceful face, and not feel like God is working miracles in my life? What did we ever do to deserve her? Please, God, help us to raise her well, and to know you.

[ WHISPERED ANNOUNCER VOICE ]
We've secretly replaced Anna's ORIGINAL Sleepy-time Care Bear (who has become FILTHY after so much sleepy-time snuggling) with a newly purchased IMPOSTER Sleepy-time Care Bear (who is sparkly clean and sweet smelling). Let's listen in....

Mommy & Daddy: (Tucking Anna into bed...crossing fingers). Good night. Here's Sleepy-time Bear. We love you.

(Mommy gently places STB against Anna's back, where she always reaches her arm back to rub his heart shaped nose while she falls asleep.)

Anna: Good night, I love you. (Mumbled around her thumb, already relaxing into bed. Eyes drift shut. Mommy & Daddy make a break for the door.)

Then, Anna reaches back to find STB's heart, her hand gropes around on him for a minute, then she grabs his arm and whips him around to face her. Holding him out in front of him with both hands, she examines him....looks suspiciously at Mommy & Daddy....then looks back at him, weighing her options. Sleep wins out, as she snuggles him close and goes to sleep. (It is at this point that Mommy & Daddy resume respirations.)

I think she just wanted to make her point that we didn't fool her - but she never complained. I was too scared to thrown him in the wash, because if he wasn't OK, or he didn't dry in time, we'd have had a ROUGH time. As it is, STB Original washed up just fine, and now we have an emergency spare. Such a bright little girl....good thing she cuts us some slack now and then.

I know, I know. Goes with the toddler territory, but it really does seem like we've all been sick for months now, and it's only NOVEMBER!! First Anna, then me, then Curt, then me again for 2 flippin' weeks, and now Anna again. Poor punkin. Atleast I can take Nyquil. Nyquil rocks. She keeps waking up all disoriented and whining/crying....but holding her or soothing her doesn't really help because she's just so out of it. So, she's been in our bed for the past few nights. If she's going to cry either way - I'd rather she cry while I'm holding her. I can't stand letting her cry by herself. But, fortunately during the day, she's in pretty good spirits. She mostly wants to sit on the couch and watch Diego (Mommy! I wonder what ami-mi-mal will be in trouble today!?") and snuggle her sleepy time bear. So sweet.

So, multi-tasking as usual, I'm half listening to Anna when I hear, "Mommy, listen to me! Listen! I need a baby dildo!" Clear as day. I think I just stared at her slack jawed for awhile, blinking. WHAT?! Seriously, not to be a prude, but there is NOTHING like that in our house. I'm thinking, "Where the hell did that catalog go from my cousin's Bachelorette Passion Party?".

I finally get my brain functioning long enough to ask her to repeat it. Maybe I misheard. "What do you need?"

"A baby dildo!" Huh.

"Ummmm...why don't you show me what you're talking about."

She pulls me into our bedroom and shows me this book - "Tails". If you look closely, you'll see that the "a" of the title is formed with an ARMADILLO tail. And the Mommy armadillo has baby armadillos, which Anna apparently thinks are irresistible. After I started breathing again....and pissed myself laughing....we had a serious enunciation lesson. Heaven help us - what a crack up.

I wish I could keep track of more of these....Anna is such a ball of laughs. And half of it is in the delivery, so if you don't find these funny in type, come on over for a show with the comedienne herself.

ME: Dora is coming on next.
ANNA: No, I don't think you're right.
(A few minutes later, while I'm in the other room, I hear screamed...)
ANNA: NO!!! I AM WRONG!! It's Dora!!!
(I just called Curtis to tell him that Anna has been picking up phrases that he uses a lot, but I didn't elaborate.)

ANNA: You shouldn't talk with food in your mouth. You should only talk when there isn't any food in your mouth.
(Nice to have manners. Embarrassing when your 2 year old corrects everyone who passes through the front door. Or maybe we just know a lot of people with poor manners....Hmmm.)

ANNA: My favorite on Winnie the Pooh is Chris-a-miss Robin.

ANNA: There was a dog, and he was walking, and then he fell. [doubles over laughing] Do you think that's TIL-A-RIOUS?! Wait, let me tell you my joke again and it will be til-a-rious again. There was a dog, and he was walking, and then he fell. [doubles over laughing] Do you think that's TIL-A-RIOUS?! [Repeat as needed....she did.]

ANNA: Let me tell you a story. Once there was a little girl on the potty. And it all happened in the Hundred Acre Woods.
(I kept asking, but she said that was all there was to the story.)

ANNA: Mommy, are you having issues?

ANNA: Oh no!!! Get me a Kleenex! My Zebra stepped in poop and I need to clean his foot!
CURT: What Zebra?
ANNA: This Zebra, right here. He's a baby Zebra. (Ahhh...he's a pretend zebra. OK.)
ME: What poop did he step in?
ANNA: (Giving us the silly parents look) This pretend poop, right here!

To set the scene.....Curtis and I are working on the computer in our bedroom, and Anna is in the living room "helping" my mom fold clothes. After the "helping" was getting counter productive, this ensued:
MY MOM: (In her best mean mommy voice to Anna, after warning her several times to stop unfolding the clothes) NO!
ANNA: Grandma, don't speak to me that way.
(While my mom is doubled over laughing, Anna comes to tell us in the bedroom...)
ANNA: Grandma is not being nice to me.

While reading to Anna on her bed, our often annoying dog Rigby jumped up on her bed (this is Anna's dog, mind you) and I "nudged" him off with my foot.
ANNA: Mommy! Please don't beat my dog. That's not nice.

WARNING: The following contains blatant whining and self pity. Proceed at your own risk.

Do stay at home mom's get sick days? I mean, if I'm really sick, either Curtis will stay home, or my mom will come over to help me out, and I am so blessed to have such support. But, seriously, that's not the same as a REAL sick day. Sick days before we had kids were way better. (Not that I'd ever trade my Boo for all the sick days in the world....I'm just having a pity party.) You know, the kind where you wake up and leave a message for your boss saying, "Ain't happenin' today - I'm on my death bed." You fall back asleep in bed until about 11am. Then wake up and drag yourself to the kitchen to make some peanut butter toast, which you eat while dozing, bundled up on the couch, watching horrible Jerry Springer re-runs. (Horrible Jerry Springer shows? As opposed to good Jerry Springer shows? Right - no such animal. Sorry - it's the Nquil talking.) Then you doze on and off all afternoon catching part of Oprah and the last half of Wheel of Fortune.

*Sigh* I want a sick day. Instead, I'll probably spend tomorrow making Nemo waffles for Anna, watching the Winnie the Pooh Heffalump movie for the zillionth time while snuggled on the couch with my Boo-bear. Awwww...nevermind. It doesn't get any better than that (well, unless Curtis were home to snuggle with us, that is).

First, let me say, Anna has been doing a GREAT job sleeping in her own big girl bed, staying there all night, and even falling asleep on her own in her room. But, we have the typical 'call backs' for one last sip of water, a new Kleenex, a missing Care Bear, etc.

Well, the other night, we had a new one that had both of us looking quizzically at each other. "Come take this. Come taaaaaaaaake this." Her little sing-song voice is enough to crack you up. Take this? Take what? We both shrugged and Curtis went to 'take it'.

He came back with a wry grin. It turns out "this" was a big booger on the end of her outstretched finger. "Here Daddy, take this," she whispered. What a crack up.