Her Name Was Lola

I went for an early-ish run this morning and during the last push on the last big hill, I looked up from my heavy-breathing-heavy-stroller-pushing-trying-to-keep-the-dog-leash-untangled-from-the-wheel mode of concentration and almost freaked. About five feet away there stood a five-point buck (at least that’s what I think it’s called based on my 23 years in hunter-land SC) right beside the sidewalk I was climbing. He was staring straight at me and the dog hadn’t even noticed him. I made a quick right out into the street to give him a very wide berth. “No gun here, deer. Nothing to fear here, deer.” It wasn’t until I was yards away that I took a quick look back. He wasn’t even looking my way any more. Just munching grass and thinking, “Humans are stupid. She didn’t even check for cars before heading straight into the street with that baby.” Oh buck.

It’s been quite the eventful few weeks with the hubby jumping from one side of the continent to the other and back. I have to say that I handled things quite well. Could be too well. He gets a little snarky when he calls in the mornings and we’re dressed and done with breakfast by 7:30am. The other morning he called and asked Miss 6 what she had for breakfast. “Pancakes and breakfast burritos.” I was across the room and could hear his response, “WHAT?! Are you kidding me?” I smiled to myself. They were both frozen and all I’d done was nuke ‘em. But it was funny letting him sweat it out like that. I rarely step foot in the kitchen when he’s home, so it’s fun to let him think I turn into a freakin’ Martha when he’s gone. Very.

The Bean has turned a corner of late. She’s become a babbling brook of word sounds that sound distinctly like Japanese. So unless she a spawn of Heroes or something, I’ll just have to assume she’s a genius. Why just the other day Ruby started to bark and she yelled, “Baaaaaaa Ddddoooo!” I mean, how can you not see the genius in that. The other neat trick she learned is when we say, “Bonk!” she hits herself in the head repeatedly. That’s got to be a sign of an IQ above 200 at least. Hello Goethe. Am I right? And all geniuses have quirks – so she fits that requirement too. Absolutely, positively will not wear shoes. No matter what. I’ve bought at least 10 pairs trying to find ones she’ll keep on and the only ones that come close are the Robeez. I think it’s an early rebellion against her mother, the shoe whore. Only a true smarty pants would start that crap this soon. ☺

In other news, after over a year of scrambling around like a nut to balance/manage work around Bean’s naps and such, we finally found a sitter. She came in on Sunday for her interview wearing a golden halo. She’s that much of a savior to me. But we were afraid she wouldn’t come back because during the interview, Miss 6 asked her if she was Jewish. I actually couldn’t speak for a few minutes. The hubby piped up and said, “Uh, I think that’s an illegal question.” And broke the ice. Whew. She later explained that since Bubble Girl was Jewish, as was her friend at school, she was just wondering. Who knows were she gets this stuff. But after some reflection, I now think it has to do with the fact that Bubble Girl took her to a Rosh Hashanah celebration over the weekend that Bean was born and she really dug the food. At least it didn’t scare off our new sitter.

Against my better judgment, I let Miss 6 sign up for karate after school. This means that she has something every single day of the week. Insanity. And I swore to myself that we would limit her to one activity at a time…those words were mighty tasty let me tell you. The thing is that her Spanish class is almost all year. (At $400 it better be!) And her soccer is nearing an end (only two more games to go). So I figured three weeks of karate wouldn’t kill her. And she does love doing the kicks. She’s so darned proud of herself. And the first thing they taught her was a defense move against someone who grabs you. How can you say no to that? She’s now decided that she wants to keep taking it, “forever!” Hmmmm…

Yesterday she lost a tooth at school. One of the front ones. This is a very big deal because you get this special necklace from the nurse’s office to wear your tooth in all day. I was beginning to wonder if that thing would ever come out. The permanent one was coming anyway — on top of it. Like a shark mouth. So luckily it chose math class to just fall out. The first two she lost she asked the dentist to pull. He was so shocked that he didn’t charge us and called the next day to say how much the whole thing thrilled him. He’s still talking about it. But she comes home with this tooth. Tickled pink. She took it straight to her room to put in the special tooth fairy box — without telling us. And she put it under the other pillow on her bed because her stuffed dog sleeps under her pillow. So imagine her surprise this morning when the tooth fairy had forgotten to come. On such a momentous occasion. She quickly assumed, and relayed to us, that since the pillow in the box was white, the tooth fairy obviously hadn’t seen the tooth and went on without leaving anything. So being the industrious and quick-thinking Miss 6, she took out the pillow so the tooth would be more obvious on a pink background. But it appears that what really happened is that since she woke up so early today, the tooth fairy hadn’t quite finished her rounds and was scared off by the light. Lucky for Miss 6, she decided to climb in bed with mom this morning. And, wouldn’t you know, while she was in our room reading books with mom, that sneaky little fairy went into hers, turned off the light and made her drop — taking the tooth and leaving a dollar. Wonders never cease.

I can’t forget to mention that the other day, I was outside talking to Bubble Girl (she was in town last week) when something over her shoulder caught my eye. It was two teenage boys walking down my street with a huge blow up doll. It was immediately obvious — even from a distance — that this one didn’t believe in partaking in a good old-fashioned bikini wax. Eew. Oh the joys of living near a high school. One of the many, many components that make SoBo a really rockin’ place to be. ☺

TODAY’S THEME SONG: Crooked Teeth. Death Cab for Cutie. And you can't find nothing at all, if there was nothing there all along.