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28 February 2007

Case of the Disappearing Snow

Ahh crap, now my font is all woogy. Anyway, so before bed last night Caayn informs me that we're supposed to get -12 inches of snow overnight. I ran over to the window to see if it had started yet, because well, that amount of snow can take a long time to fall around here. (We're not like New York, ya know.) No snow yet. He said it wasn't supposed to start until midnight.

Apparently North Dakota is the only place where weathermen are allowed to be so completely inept. I used to watch the news back home, simply because those were 'my' channels, and I knew the newsanchors. Had grown up watching them. Our meterologists never got the weather wrong that bad. I must be kooky or something, but I'd much rather my weathermen predict good weather and have it be bad. Out here it's always woe and doom. Except when they are predicting we'll have -really- great weather... and well... its North Dakota. There IS no great weather. Especially in winter. Those days we had 40 degree weather? Utter fluke. The weatherman going on to say we'd hit 50? Utter nonsense.

Here's the weather forecast for today.

Heavy Snow Warning

  • Snow accumulating 5 to 8 inches during the day.

  • I got this from Weather.com, my go-to guy for weather. I have the little weather thingy on my Google page, and its pretty accurate. It's also set to show York, PA, and it often predicts ice storms for them... but since I'm not there I have no way of knowing if its true or not.

    Oh, and if anyone is wondering what happened with Edward? We let him go. I took him back to where Artemis found him and chased him into that drain, and low and behold, he has a little burrow under our house. Yeah I know, it's really actually bad to have dakrats burrowing under your house, but I'm crazy, okay. Deal with it. I'm going to be Crazy Gopher Lady who has like 20 gopher holes in her front yard and is excited every time she sees one. Well, assuming we're living in PA, then maybe I'll be Crazy Woodchuck Lady.

    Oops, this made me think of a short story. Yesterday Caayn and I were discussing how we always end up with animals at out house. And it's so true. We've had way over 10 different dogs, cays, birds and now dakrats, in our home. They find us, we take them in and find their owners or attempt to nurse them back to health, in the case of the crow. I told Caayn if Sully brought home a woodchuck, I'd be perfectly fine. I'd be like, "It's your responsibility to take care of it!" And Caayn laughed and asked me if I knew how big woodchucks were, which I did because I saw them the first time we went to PA. They were big fat lumps on the hillsides. So yep. Silliness.

    26 February 2007

    Edward the Dakrat

    Well damn, so much for not posting more than once today.

    So I let the dogs out to romp in the snow and do the business that dogs enjoy doing outside. After a few minutes, I opened the door and whistled for Artemis. She didn't come. I ran over to the window to see what the hell was keeping her and Achilles occupied. She was digging underneath the house. I yell at Caayn to get his damn dog in. That doesn't deter her, and she never disobeys Caayn. Both dogs are acting all twitchy at the bottom of one of our rain gutter thingies. Except what this gutter thingy is doing, I don't know, since it's not attached to anything and is actually just laying along the house... Anyway! There was a loud squeak coming from the drain.

    Now Caayn is outside corraling the dogs, I'm hanging out the window and Sully is standing on a table near the open window yelling, "Cold!" "Daddy!" "Abby!" at turns. (Abby is the hellhound we used to own, I thought I blogged about her, but after a brief search of my archives and it doesn't look like I did, but Sully now thinks most dogs outside are Abby.) There was a search of some lighting, to see if we could see up the tube. No flashlights to be found. Caayn takes the gutter into the garage, since I'm all worried whatever it is inside might fall out.

    After a whole lot of banging and scrabbling and various gloves and towels, a tail emerges. By this point, I had already figured it was a dakrat. They have very distinctive whistles. Finally I catch it by the tail and pull it the rest of the way out (much to his discomfort).

    The little bugger is now sitting inside of our kitchen trash can, sans trash bag. I've taken 12 pictures of him, but without more film or digital camera, I can't take any more. He is SO damn adorable. Have I ever said how much I love squirrels?

    Oh, in case anyone is wondering what the fuck a dakrat is, let me tell you. A dakrat is really just a gopher, more or less. The real name is Richardson's Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus richardsonii). Dakrat is just some screwed up name the North Dakota natives have donned on them. When I made my first friend on base, she was always talking about dakrats, and I was so confused until she pointed them out. When Caayn was going to tech school at Vandenberg AFB (where I met him, since I lived right near there), that base was literally crawling with regular ground squirrels. It was awesome.

    So yeah. There's a dakrat in my trash can. He's damn cute. I've named him Edward... I while I really really really really really want to keep him... I won't. I don't do good with caged animals, despite the fact I've had many many various types of rodents and small furry creatures and carpet sharks throughout my life. Plus I don't think Jimmy would consent to watching both our cat AND a wild critter. Hahaha.

    *sigh*

    I figure if I keep posting, I won't have to go upstairs and pet his little head one more time before sticking him back outside. Poor thing. He should have kept hibernating. Geez. It's damn cold out.

    Bookless in Minot

    By all rights I should be sobbing quietly in the corner.

    Thats right. Last night I finished A Feast for Crows. It's amazing. The more I reread the series, the more little threads I pick up on that he left throughout the books for folks who are far more observative than myself. I found myself going, "AHHH!" several times, realizing why one thing had happened a certain way or not. Very very good. I wish Caayn would finish reading Black House so he can get around to reading this... I hate having a good book that I can't discuss with him! It's just as bad every time a new Harry Potter comes out. Maybe I'll finally be able to go to sleep at a normal hour though.

    Our trip is getting closer... I'm so excited. Caayn's getting a new tattoo, and if I can decide on what I want and where I want it, I might too. I'm horrid at making those decisions, and it takes me forever. I'm always thinking, well, what if I want a different tattoo right there in the future?! I'm very sure that I want a large dragon on my back some day... so I don't know. Gah, even just thinking about it makes me crazy. I just sat here for 10 minutes going, hmmm....

    I had a dream that we co-slept last night and it worked. That's so weird. I've been having a lot of strange dreams, moreso than normal. Like night before last I dreamed that I was trying to kill a polar bear who was rushing me, with two wooden poles. The poles snapped and the polar bear bit my head off. How fucked up is that? The co-sleeping thing though is definitely from me worrying about if we can while we are in PA. I don't think we can, since Sully is pretty bad about it. In fact, I'll be honest. Any time he has tried to sleep in bed with us, it has ended up badly. No one sleeps until he goes back to his crib. Oi.

    Mmm. Cocoa. Here's to hoping I don't think of a million other things I feel the need to tell the world about later in the day. Have a good Monday!

    23 February 2007

    Jokes

    Today was super super windy. It calls to mind a joke. Why is North Dakota so windy? Because Minnesota sucks and Montana blows.

    (Not that they do, since both states are 100% better than North Dakota..)

    And any joke calls to mind my favorite joke. Why are seagulls called seagulls? Because if they flew over bays they'd be baygulls! HAHAHA! Yeah, lame, but whatever. Don't knock it. I used to laugh so hard thinking of that joke that I could hardly get it out. I am so one of those people who can't tell jokes because the further into the joke they get, the harder they laugh. Yep. I'm a shame to my mom. She lives to tell really awful corny jokes. Seriously. And she never ruins it by laughing. She also is really good at coming up with zingers, on the spot. (Hmm... did I just reveal that I secretly like You've Got Mail? I definitely thought of that movie when I said zingers.)

    Ooh. Here's another joke. Why can't a bicycle stand on its own? Because it's two tired. You know? That's not a good joke. The punchline works, and is funny, but written out you realize that the question part should maybe relate to the too-tired thing, maybe something with sleep.

    Whatever. Who's the freak analyzing bad jokes? Me. I'm off to watch Kingdom Hospital with my man. Here's another secret: I can't stop calling it Kingdom Hearts. Freakin' A! And thats another thing. What the hell does the 'a' stand for? I've been saying freakin' a for as long as I can remember (which, admittedly, isn't very long, although in this case, I'm thinking at LEAST 6 or 7 years)...

    Before I go, I have to say thanks to Jimmy and his music. Because of him I now have Sublime's Second Hand Smoke, which was a cd my brother gave me forever ago and then a friend borrowed and never returned.

    22 February 2007

    Dwarves and Yorry

    One more thing about my kitchen. Last night I was getting a cup to put some milk in, and I noticed that my cupboard smells like a man. How freaking weird is that? It's specifically ONLY the cupboard that holds the glasses and not any other. I'm not sure which cologne it smells like exactly, since the only one I can readily identify is Obsession and its not that one. There were comments made about a very small dwarf maybe, which then led to strange questions regarding Tyrion the dwarf in the Song of Ice and Fire series (by George R.R. Martin--seriously, go read it)... So yeah, I needed to share that. Because its weird.

    For the record: I know they are called little people. I've seen the shows on TLC. I've seen the one dude rant about how it is so fucked up to say midget/dwarf, but seriously, its way more insulting (in my non-short opinon) to be calling them little people. As if they didn't realize they were little. Which they aren't. Little often impies young. We should really just be calling them short people. Hmm. I better shut up before I dig myself into some sort of hole.

    One other thing, which I wasn't going to post about, except Sully demanded it. He has two cds (well, 3 if you included his lullaby cd) that he enjoys listening to. One is the soundtrack for Season 1 of Jack's Biog Music Show. We love that show. The other is a cd that was included with a Laurie Berkner dvd. It only has 6 songs. Laurie is Sully's very favorite girl. Even moreso than Rachael Ray, who we called his girlfriend for a long time because she always makes him stop in his tracks. (It could be her grating voice/laugh though...) I'm digressing. So anytime Sully sees me head towards the computer, he starts following me. "Yorry. Yorry. Yorry. Yorry! Yorry!! YORRY!!" He doesn't stop until you play the damn cd. Caayn and I sing Laurie songs all damn day, because aside from the cd, we also know all the ones from Jack's Big Music Show. It's so embarrassing.

    Peep, yo. Word.

    It's not that time of year again, but if I wait for it to get here, I'll forget to post this.

    Last night, while waiting for Caayn to finish watching that train-wreck of a tv show Lost, I was using my free-time to read Rude Cactus archives. Why not? I don't like to think that I'm reading him every day, if I don't know where he's come from, you know? I came across this little nugget of joy. LoTP. All I can say is: "Wow." It's hilarious and must have taken whoever did it ages to complete. Of course, it put me in the mind of Peep Research.

    Then there is your brain on peeps:



    There is also jewelry made from peeps. Well, the bunnies. And she stopped using -real- peeps.

    What is it about these marshmallows that freak people out and make them do all sorts of weird things? You don't see people doing anything strange to normal marshmallows. I think they're kind of gross, really, and don't ever eat them. (They are cute though.) I once dated a guy who kept a package of the halloween cat ones in his fridge. Never ate them, he just had them, and woe be anyone who even touched the package. Then again, the same guy had dead koi in his freezer because he couldn't bear to bury them... Hmm. I wonder if those are related...

    21 February 2007

    Funny Facts

    Want to know something funny about me?

    Every time I open a jar of salsa, I cut my left index finger. I'm not sure how or why, but it always happens. Kind of funny. Worth it though, because I love me some chips and salsa.

    Also: there is a new cereal out that is pretty tasty. I'm too lazy to get up and see what the actual name is, but its something like Nature Valley, Oats 'n Honey. It's basically corn flakes and chunks of yummy granola bar. Funny story about those particular granola bars (the only kind I'll willingly eat). I once went camping with a bunch of friends. It was kind of something we just thought up and then did. So we were at the store buying various meats to barbecue and various alcoholic beverages to drink. I think some tortilla chips were chosen as well. Me? I picked up a box of those granola bars and was like, hey, thats enough to tide me over. Yeah, thats what I took camping. Nothing like granola and a 40 of King Cobra. Yum.

    Man. I hope Sully never asks me questions about my youth.

    It was up to 40 something yesterday, I think. Or maybe just the 30s. Whatever, it was freaking nice. No jacket sort of weather. They called for 50s even today. However, we have shit of weathermen. Seriously. Caayn was excited about the weather prospect this morning. I glance out the back door and proclaim it would snow. Or rain. On the way back from his dentist appt, he called to tell me there were tiny snow flakes in the air. Ha! But sadly, its now 21 and windy, making it 4 degrees with windchill.

    Damn, have I already said I hate North Dakota?

    20 February 2007

    Two things...

    ...in my kitchen that are bugging me.

    One is my milk carton. As a household with a toddler goes, we fly through milk rather quickly. And every time I open a new gallon, it goes without saying that I will spill a good portion of it! Every time. It's the shape of the container or something. I always dread opening them.

    Item number 2 is my salt shaker. It's just a teeny little shaker. Every time I take the little lid off to pour more salt in, quite a bit of salt comes out from the ridges where the lid sits. I have no idea how the salt gets there. It isn't there when I fill it, and the lid is twisted on as tightly as possible.

    It's strange. Thought I'd share those two insights.

    19 February 2007

    Yada yada

    Things always happen here all at once. March, for instance, will be a busy month. It starts off with a double dog vet appt. Both dogs need their yearly shots, plus their vaccine for going to the kennel.

    Next up, we're going to Pennsylvania. Yipee! A week-long vacation! Caayn's dad has this wonderful house at the far end of Dover, with this long twisty private lane that goes through loads of trees (some type of oak, no less)... I love it. Their property is to-die-for gorgeous. Plus, all of that area is hilly, mountainy, tree-filled goodness. It -almost- ties with the Central Coast for my favorite place.

    Then we come back. The following Monday, Caayn's surgery.

    3 days later--the cat is getting her goddamned girl parts removed.

    You freakin' got it. She is BACK in heat. This is my punishment for not getting her fixed sooner. I'm sure there are things more annoying, but at this exact moment, I can't think of any.

    I'm reading Feast for Crows right now, by George R.R. Martin.

    The book rocks. I've been reading the series since, well, forever. A group of friends and I used to hang out at our local Denny's, drinking coffee, smoking, reading books, playing board games, etc. One friend brought the first book, A Game of Thrones. I looked through it, and said (and I quote) "Hey, your book has cussing, whats up with that?" My sort of books never had cussing, unless it was Stephen King. He told me the general jist of what it was about. Unfortunately he was borrowing it from a friend too, so I had to wait forever to get my hands on it. The book was very good. I promptly bought the others that were out. They remain a favorite of mine.

    Anyway! I'm very particular about my books. I don't bend them more than necessary, I don't fold pages. They all have to match, if its part of a series. Meaning, I can't have tradebacks or hardcovers if I have others that are normal paperback. So when Feast for Crows came out, I had to wait for paperback. (Yeah, can you say freak? :D) And then I forgot about it, because I'm always reading something new and I've got a bad memory.

    So when I saw it in the bookstore, I bought it and then started reading the series from the beginning again. YAY! I love these books. Did I say that already?

    Thats all I've got for now. I KNOW there was something I wanted to add, but I forgot what it was the second I opened this window. Go figure.

    Have a good night!

    15 February 2007

    Melting in Minot

    We have 2 dogs and a cat. There have been times where its 4 dogs and a cat. They all sleep in our bedroom, and usually all on the bed. That is the reason we now have a king size bed. But because of that, our room is also always the hottest in the house. We always turn the vents off in our room, have a fan on, and we used to also have a window AC unit that was used pretty much year-round (that says a lot, considering we live in North Dakota, where it is currently -13.)

    Needless to say, I woke up this morning sweltering. My dog was off the bed, and as the resident greyhound, he is the biggest and warmest of the pets, and all I had covering me was a blanket. Freakin' A. Our connecting bathroom was so warm that the doorknob, floor and toilet seat were almost too hot to touch (ha). When I made it to the thermostat, thinking maybe we'd forgot to turn it down from the 75 I keep it at in the daytime, it read a whopping 81!!!!! I was like, "Holy shit!" But guess what the temp was set at? 73. Which is the nighttime temp, since Sully's room is the coldest in the house (how the fuck does that always happen? poor kid) and if it wasn't at 73, his room would drop pretty low and he'd freeze.

    So apparently something is broken. Caayn turned the whole heater off before we left this morning, and it now says 79. It's still freaking on though. Damn. I probably should call housing and have them get some guy out here. Gah. I hate doing that. They never cover their shoes, so they always track in loads of snow to melt all over my floors. And the only time they come over is when Sully is napping (and it doesn't matter what time of day that is). Idiots.

    Whatever. I'm off to go swelter all over Subeta.

    14 February 2007

    Rambling



    I thought I'd start this off with a picture I found of my beach. Well, its one of my beaches. I have several. Pismo (the one in that picture), Avila, Pirate's Cove, and Port San Luis. I guess Shell Beach counts too. You can find them in my favorite place in the world--the Central Coast of California. They march along from Oceano (Grover Beach) up to San Luis Obispo. Pirate's Cove is a "nude" beach. It's this very difficult to get to sliver of beach in a small crescent-shaped cove (hence the name). It's got to be like half of a mile or so, very small. Tall cliffs on the back, ocean to the front. When the tide is in, there's like 6 feet of beach left. I got married in an open-ended cave above that cove that looks out over the ocean there. That's the picture I have on the right. I love my ocean. I love those rolling hills that follow the coast line and highway 101. Stupid North Dakota doesn't have hills. Or mountains. OR a beach.

    Am I the only person who uses normal English when text messaging? It takes longer than normal (I guess), but that could also be because I've only sent like 3 text messages in my whole life.

    And to share a little more geekiness, Subeta is now doing a restocking war to test the limits of their new servers, and I'm all super excited. I've joined Sebastian Phoenix's team (duh), and already have over 200 points. Yeah, I'm lame like that.

    In Sully news, he has a new friend. Ippo. It's a little ridiculous. We were at the mall and the Hallmark has like 200 of the little buggers all lined up in the entry way and along the large glass windows... Sully was super interested. We went back the next day and bought 3 cards so that it would be cheaper... But now it's like a top ranked toy. It's up there with Beckett the blanket and Robert (or Raby, Baby or Raby Baby) the ancient stuffed dog. We can't go anywhere without all 3. Kids are silly.

    In baby news--there isn't any news. No baby for the month of October. And while I didn't want to have a baby that would be born in November (I'm secretly against Scorpios, considering a majority of my family was born then and I am one, and well, we aren't a pleasant bunch. Moody, independent, stubborn to a fault, etc) we decided to just keep trying. Sigh. I just know we'll get pregnant this month, so this baby can spite me. Grr.

    Caayn is having surgery in March. March 19th to be exact. On Sully's birthday. He recently discovered that the fucked up problem with his nose is a deviated septum. So they're going to correct that for him, in hopes that he can finally sleep like a normal human and wake up refreshed. All I can say is that I have it good. A lot of people with deviated septums have sleep apnea too, but he never had that. The gods were kind. Well, maybe not. If he had snored, I probably would have sent him to the dr sooner. Hate snoring! Anyway, so that will be exciting and nerve wracking at the same time.

    I think that might be all the interesting things I can think of right now. Happy Valentine's Day! Tomorrow go buy all the chocolate you can because it'll be on sale. And it'll be tasty. Maybe, if it doesn't have any kind of gross filling. If it has gross filling, throw it away.

    06 February 2007

    Cats and why they bug

    I have to start this with a not-so-honorable mention. The cat. First off, I'm not overly fond of them. My mom had them when I was growing up, and so did my grandma. Well, my grandma had one, a Siamese named Tiffany. Anyway, and the cats I grew up around were specifically their owners' cats. As in, generally they didn't want to be around other people, just my mom or grandma. One cat my mom had was really bad. His name was Stinkin' Eddie. Yeah, that was his real name, and what we called him. I have clear memories of walking from my house to my next-door neighbor's house, half the house was hedged with a particular kind of bush--I see it in my mind but don't have a name--and Stinkin' Eddie was laying across the top of it. As I pass him, he would scramble up and pounce on me. I also have memories of him chasing me in circles. Evil! So that mostly led me in my teen years to assume that I just hated adult cats and that maybe I liked kittens. My mom got a kitten. It was kind of funny, but involved a lot of scratches.

    Flash-forward to my twenties (remember, I only just turned 21 in November)... We bought a kitten for Christmas. Oops, too far forward. In November (not this last one, but the one before) the weather was cold like it usually is. We saw a mom cat and 2 babies meandering around and then jumping into a storm drain. I promptly tell Caayn that he has to go out there and see if he can get them. (One of us is always rescuing animals.) No dice. We see them again the next day. We take turns in the cold waiting above the drain where they can't see us, hoping to catch one. We call the Security Forces, who tell us to call some Bio something or other, who I think called the Fire Department, even though it is that Bio places job to catch "wild" animals and move them (the damn idiots). The fire department has no luck. Apparently the drain is like miles long, and while there are many exits, they have no way of knowing which one they went out. They leave. Anyway, suffice to say, after more nights of seeing the family troop in the cold and snow, I notice the smaller kitten is really starting to lag. I'm sure if she was out any longer, she would have died. They are running along the 4-plex across the street from us, jumping up on the porches as they go. The little kitten can't keep up. I jam my feet into my shoes and haul ass across the street. She tried to run, but I pinned her against the house and scruffed her. We kept her in the bathtub for awhile, not knowing what to do. The next day, a neighbor in the next 4-plex over brought us the other kitten. He'd tried to help a bit so he knew we were trying to get them, got bitten pretty bad while doing it too! Long story short, we named them Captain and Tenille (heh). Captain died one night. It was really awful. We called Security Forces and had them take Tenille, since I just couldn't keep her after that.

    Caayn realized he liked cats, and I agreed. It was nice having them in the house. So we went cat shopping. I picked out this really funny looking spotted, striped, red and grey and white cat with a black nose. She was hilarious looking!

    Anyway, it turns out that I can't stand the psychoness of a kitten, how they run around the house at full speed and play with everything. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is that bugs me, because overall, it doesn't... And no matter how much I tried to ignore the cat, she somehow ended up being mine. She freaking follows me everywhere and is always all laying on my head at night or stepping in my gut. She's not too bad as an adult, I must say. We did remove her front nails (yeah I know, I'm really opposed to it, but it was either that or get rid of her since she had just left track marks down Sully's face and over his eye)... However...

    She is in heat. We've dealt with it before, and ended up with kittens. Mighty fine kittens, which was kind of cool. Even though my mom bred dogs when I was little, I've never witnessed an animal birthing in front of me. (And whatever nurses and OBs say, this cat did not purr during birth--she yowled in pain. DUH. It hurts. The idiots!) This time though... we were supposed to get her fixed. Too late. It's driving me utterly insane. I can't have her in the house because it totally brings out this primal need to destroy. As in I literally have to fight the urge to do bodily harm to her. Geez, that makes ME sound like a good person, huh? Caayn doesn't understand, he thinks I'm crazy (I am) but I can't help it. When dogs go into heat, if a male is around, she'll get kind of rabbity and a little slutty, and depending on the breed, she'll bleed a little (or a lot). Thats fine. When a cat goes into heat, she's writhing about obscenely, laying with her legs spread, cat crotch waving about in the air while letting loose this brain-jangling "YELLO!" (I do a fine impersonation, if I might add, enough so that she will come racing to me, hehe)... Over and over. She'll jump on the table we eat dinner on (grr), writhe around, knock everything off the table, counters, etc. Sully finds it utterly hilarious, and will try to lay on her, which he does all the time anyway, and she'll like try to rub herself on his head. Seriously.

    We have a storage room in the garage that is heated to whatever temp we keep the house (weird, huh?), so I've been trying to keep her out there where I won't have to get annoyed watching the cat try to prostitute herself to the dogs... Except now she's "YELLO"ing so loud that I can hear her in the house.

    Anyway want a cat?

    And here I was thinking I was going to write about an article I read on WebMD. Keep your fingers crossed, we're in the homestretch now. You don't need to know why you are keeping your appendages crossed right now, but I'll explain in a few days.

    01 February 2007

    Breakdown of the Day

    Kids are funny things. Sometimes I wonder if people have them strictly for the entertainment.

    Sully has several favorite things to do, aside from staring at the tv. One of them is an activity he refers to as "dupping". Dupping requires one parent, two if you can find them, and an expanse of bouncy material. For example, a king sized bed. It starts with him mulling around the bottom step of the staircase, peeking around to see if anyone's looking. That is quickly followed by the declaration, "Seepy!" This is to inform any listeners that Sully is sleepy and is going to go lay down on his parents' bed. He zips up the stairs and hurls himself up turned-over nightstand at the foot of the bed. (Tall bed plus short little dog doesn't work well when said dog will urinate like a cross between a fire house and graceful fountain if touched... and with no doggy stairs, it's an upside down table. Enough said.) Now at this point, a parent MUST be upstairs, or the game becomes something different. It turns into more of ransack and hide. So a parent and a boy are in the room, boy is laying on pillows, thumb in mouth. Usually the parent will sit on the bed, or lay down and pretend to "seep". Thats when it happens. Like the first little chirp of a bird in the morning, its:

    "Dup?"
    "Dup??"
    "Dup?!"
    "DUP!!"

    The parent then holds Sully's hands, arms or chest and helps him jump up and down for as long as they can before their limbs fall off. Sometimes its more fun to dup in front of the mirror. It's like double the dup for half the work. Dupping can also take place in the crib or on a couch. Sometimes even in a bathtub. Never on a table. While dupping is taking place, Sully giggles like a little schoolgirl and has the biggest grin ever. It's clear he was meant to dup.

    The second activity that is mucho mucho fun is "pia-yo?" That would be playdoh, for the uninitiated. He asks for it the second you go in his room in the morning, and asks for it at least once an hour the rest of the day. I keep it and all playdoh accessories in the linen closet, on the bottom shelf. He knows right where it is. When you open the door though, he lets out this VERY excited gasp as if he never knew such bounty existed! Then its all about choosing which colors to play with. Usually its pink and brown, which are referred to as "gween" and "gween"... Which is funny, because he never really wants to play with green.

    I like playing with playdoh too. It reminds me of when I was little and would have KILLED to have even one tub of playdoh. I blame my lack of ability to do anything creative with playdoh or legos on the fact that no one would buy me any. So while Sully is busily playing with all the playdoh toys and holding one ball of playdoh in a fist, I'm busy rolling. First I have to break all the tubs of playdoh down and roll them into a whole army of balls. He likes have his playdoh in a sphere, or in the shape of a butterfly (which is a butt-fye, did you know?)... Once I'm done helping his Majesty, I end up stealing back all of one color. Then I roll it flat with a little tube. Yep. Thats all I do. Over and over. How dull is that? Oh well. I tried making a dog yesterday. That didn't go so well.

    He's also been eating hotdogs for breakfast for the past two days. His favorite food is ketchup (cottie), but he needs something to eat it with... his choices are nuggets or hotdogs (occos).

    Like I said, kids are funny.