In Which We Show You Our Bear Behind:

Moodles is very quickly changing from a baby into a little girl. With OPINIONS. One of those opinions is that stairs are a fun challenge. One of her other opinions is that baby gates are for sissies. Blocking off doors with plastic walls worked for about two or three weeks before Maggie showed Moodles how to move them aside, and now I cannot take my eyes off the kid for a second, or she'll be climbing the stairs to Daddy's office all by herself. This morning, I managed to get an action shot for you, and as you can see, she's wearing one of the new outfits that her Nana bought for her while we were in Pittsburgh. (Bear behind, get it? I slay me.)

While Moodles is busy developing by leaps and bounds, I had a parental first. It wasn't really a good first. On the plane coming home from Pittsburgh, I was actually horrified by an act perpetrated by my spawn.

Which isn't to say that I really blame her. Moodles is allowed to ride on my lap on the airplane until she is two - or so the airlines tell me. I saved money on our trip to Pittsburgh by booking Moodles as a ride-on-lap child. On the way out, she was very well behaved, a bit of squirming aside. Unfortunately, the way home was another story.

The plane from Pittsburgh to Detroit was crowded and even with the air-conditioning on, it was exceedingly muggy and hot. We were in a 17" wide aisle seat, next to a woman who apparently wanted nothing to do with children. Moodles was too hot to sleep, and while she remains quiet and soothed in her baby-backpack, the airline won't allow you to wear it during takeoff and landing. So I had a squirmy, hot, overtired Moodles in my lap, and I was trying very hard to keep her from touching the jewelry of the Nice Lady in the window seat. Up until now, Moodles had never met someone who she WASN'T allowed to climb on, so she really didn't understand why I wouldn't let her go look out the window and eat the Nice Lady's necklaces. To reduce her frustration and keep her entertained, I started feeding the child pretzels, which she dissolved into mush with massive quantities of drool and her new top teeth. This plan remained marginally successful until the plane started to taxi, at which point, Moodles got very excited and gleefully raspberried a mouthful of pretzel goo all over the Nice Lady.

The Nice Lady screamed and started flailing as much as a 17" wide seat would allow. I was truly horrified and tried to dab at her with a burp cloth. Moodles thought that screaming was a fun idea and started yelling about the quality of service on the plane, and thus went the rest of my 40 minute flight. Moodles was bathed in sweat, I was bathed in sweat, Moodles wet her diaper as soon as the "fasten seatbelt" sign came on, and then started howling about it rather loudly. After 4 minutes of howling that seemed like eternity, I convinced the stewardess that I could stop the howling if I was permitted to change the bebe, turbulence or no. I nearly concussed myself in the airplane lavatory, trying to change Moodles on the SMALLEST CHANGING TABLE EVER, after which, Moodles was finally dry of diaper, but extremely displeased about returning to the captivity of our seat. At least with a dry diaper, and stripped down to her onesie, she was finally able to fall asleep - five minutes before the plane landed.

Ironically, the plane from Detroit to Madison was utterly deserted, and had working air conditioning. This time, the lady across the aisle from us had been talking to Moodles in the airplane terminal and thought she was perfectly ADORABLE. She would have loved to hold my little monster. Moodles had 3 seats to herself, including the window, but was totally uninterested in the experience, as she was out cold through the 30 minute runway delay, and the rest of the ride home.

SEKRET HANDSHAKE

Moodles' Cthulhu Face is rapidly becoming a sekret handshake of sorts around our house. Moodles is tickled with it, because it's something she can do that she knows Momma and Daddy will do back. These last two days, she has gone out of her way to look at me and then give me the Cthulhu-finger-waggle. She then looks inordinately pleased with herself when I respond in kind.

This is made more amusing to me because, for all our many repeated attempts to show her how, we still can't get her to wave goodbye or hi-five reliably... But she will now make the Cthulhu face very nearly on command.

The most recent variant on this theme is the "Kiss of Cthulhu," which has become highly popular at diaper changing time. When she tries to roll over on the changing table before her diaper is firmly affixed, I have only to palm her face and make kissing noises on the back of my hand while tickling her cheeks and ears with my finger tips, and she dissolves into gales of giggles. The giggling usually gives me enough time to get her dressed again without struggling or tears - if I'm quick!

In my 20's, I used to tell people that I wasn't going to have kids until I could get my pets right. To this day, most people will tell you that my dogs just ain't right... They are affectionate, and they mean well, but they ain't right.

... At least my results continue to be consistent...

In which we are somewhat blurry:

I wanted to show you a picture of Moodles' fantastic morning bed-head, the only problem being that the bebe is blurry in the morning. Initially, I thought it was just that there isn't sufficient time for my coffee to start working by 7:00 AM, or perhaps the lack of glasses - that item often being misplaced the evening before by one of my "helpers." Usually under the couch. However, it has been confirmed, and my camera agrees. Moodles is, in fact, blurry until close to 9:00 AM. (At which point the need for a nap finally slows her down...)

Finally, I had to pick her up in order to keep her still enough to capture her fantastic 'do. (In future years, I'm sure she'll spend HOURS in front of a mirror trying to accomplish just this look using all manner of hair product and a curling iron...)

You're probably wondering why I've asked you here today:

If you know me in person, or are familiar with my facebook, livejournal, instant messenger, etc, you may be wondering why on earth I decided to set up a brand new blog? And why, in setting up this new blog, did I choose one with ads on it?

Well, I'll tell you: College is ridiculously expensive.

I'm 33 years old, and never finished going to college myself, and I'm only just now paying off my student loans. Husband is even older than I am, and he's got student loans too, and the cost of an education is rising.

I have the usual Roth and savings accounts set up for Moodles, but I'm very worried that they won't be enough to send her to school, and I can only put away so much per month before we have to start telling her that she's going to need to cut back on her formula intake if she wants to be able to go to a good school. I think that's kind of sad, and that's where all of you, this blog, and the advertising come in.

Any and all funds that I receive from the ads on this blog are going to go straight into Moodles' college fund. It would be the coolest thing ever if someday, she is able to say, "the internets paid for me to go to college."

I don't intend to run any more than the one ad at the side of the page, and the relevant links to Amazon.com (This includes the little store widget under WELCOME, because after two days, I've decided that I'm too lazy to keep up this constant linking. I'm doing it all once and putting it where y'all can find it if you're interested.). To keep things from getting obnoxious, I will only ever link to things that I own*, or am saving up my allowance for. Moodles will only make a commission if you actually BUY the thing in the links or the store widget, so there's no point in me linking to a bunch of useless dreck that none of us needs**.

If you share this blog with friends who have kids, or friends who like crafts, or friends who are going to college and wish their parents had had this idea first, I would be much obliged to you. But in the end, I hope you're all just here because I am sometimes funny, or interesting, or creative, or inspiring and make your work day seem that much shorter.


*I have paid for this. Twice. (Once for myself, and once as a review copy for a friend who writes for Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.) To say that I have buyer's remorse would be understating things egregiously; however, if you are the kind of person who enjoys the tantrums and obnoxious behavior in "reality TV", this might be the novel for you. I did write a review of the book on the product page, if you want to know more.

**I don't need this, but that won't stop me from licking it if I ever see it in the store...

Cleaning out the animal cages:

Yesterday for breakfast, Moodles and I made some honey wheat bread in the bread-maker.

• 1 1/8 c water
• 3 T honey
• 2 T vegetable oil
• 1 T molasses
• 1 T gluten
• 1 1/2 t yeast
• 1/3 t salt
• 3 c whole wheat flour

Add all ingredients to bread maker in order suggested by machine manufacturer. Set machine for light crust. Entertain bebe and goggie intermittently for 45 minutes watching the dough go 'round in circles. Go do something else for the other 2.5 hours... Sadly, bebe will only watch the dough for so long before she tries to figure out how to open the bread-maker and presses a bunch of buttons, resulting in the machine getting set for "pasta with medium crust".

Moodles greatly approved of the resulting bread, and nommed on "heel strips" all day long. She'd get about 1/2 way through each piece of bread before Maggie would interpret all the delighted bread-waving as an invitation come eat. There were crumbs EVERYWHERE in the bebe enclosure. If I find a musical toy with a bread crust in the battery compartment, I'll know how it happened.

Eventually, I had to take the bebe enclosure apart, shake off all the stuffed animals, and sweep, because Moodles was trying to "save" little bread balls in the corners. I felt rather like a zoo-keeper, cleaning out the lion cage. I transferred Moodles to her jumparoo, from which she supervised me with a grave countenance and violent bouncing. Maggie took notice of all the uneaten food while I was sweeping, and decided that the inside of the bebe enclosure was an untapped source of mana that she should harvest at the first opportunity. A few minutes later, I had the bebe changed and dressed, and the enclosure back together with the bebe inside. Maggie implimented her plan with all due haste, and found out almost immediately why Jasmine had declined to join her:

She had failed to realize that being inside a bebe enclosure would limit her ability to back up or turn around, while giving Moodles an unprecedented "reach advantage." And adding insult to injury, was the fact that there weren't even any treats in the enclosure anymore, because Maggie executed her plan right after I cleaned. Maggie is just lucky that she's a short haired pooch, or Moodles would have had her in corn-rows and bows by now. Jasmine and I sat at safe distance on the couch and laughed up our sleeves while Moodles stretched out Maggie's lips and drooled on her ears.

Despite being somewhat embarrassed over this mistake, I still managed to convince Maggie to clear all the crumbs out of the bebe enclosure this morning... But only if I took the bebe out first...