Left alone for just a moment...

...and this is what I walk in to find.

Yard sale: life's memories, best offer

Today I feel completely selfish and stingy. I can't believe that I no longer have a parent living in Wynne. I am so very happy for Daddy and we absolutely love Linda and are so eager and ready to welcome her into our family on Saturday when they get married. It does sting to see him move from our home. To see all of the things that were accumulated over the years go to whomever wants them (or has room for them) and then on to the yard sale. It is as though that part of our lives has closed forever.

Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. The result: "For sale: baby shoes, never used." It's rumored that Hemingway thought it was his greatest work, and it's invariably offered as the standard to which micro-fiction should aspire.

Yard sale: life's memories, best offer.

11:56 AM

Only a few hours to go until my little monkey girl is back in my arms. I am not sure why this time that she is away from me has been so hard. Maybe it's because all I have heard about since she left is how wonderful she has been and how funny and sweet she is. All of these things I have known about her but to hear them again makes me want to kiss her and hear her sweet little voice say all of those funny sounds. Five more hours!

Get Emmy home!

For our date night, John and I walked to do's, a sushi restaurant in our neighborhood. It was nice to not have to accomodate for a stroller but we spent a long time looking at each other as if, "what's strange about this scene?" We went home and spent a very romantic evening cleaning the basement afterwards. It is something we have needed to do for a long time, especially since John's idea of putting things away is to stand at the doorway and throw them into a room. I love that about him. The heavy rains caused the basement to flood as well so it was quite emotional for him to see vinyl records and other memories soaked and ruined (because they were piled on the floor). We filled up lots of bags of trash and John has sworn to never put anything down there again.

He only has to say that once for me! It's on to decorating the playroom down there now!!! And I will keep things tidy and up off the floor!

I absolutley cannot wait to get my little munchkin back into my arms. I feel naked and empty without her.

Strange night's sleep

Emmy is staying with Uncle Neallio, Auntie B and Solomon for two nights. I got home last night around 9pm after dropping her off with the intention of getting some things done around the house that I can't do with a tiny munchkin around. Of course, that didn't happen. I didn't even make it through Law & Order before I was out for the night. I guess that I slipped into some deep sleep that I have not had since I got pregnant since this morning, I overslept and I feel kind of loopy still.

The report from Wynne is that Emmy and Solomon are having a great time. Neall called last night and said that each baby was tied to a ceiling fan blade and the higher they ran the ceiling fan, the more they giggled. That's one funny uncle Emmy has. Tonight they are going to an event in Wynne and I made Neall promise to dress her in something adorable. I sent several dresses with her but I also sent some play clothes, so hopefully she won't be at this event wearing a "I listen to Slayer with my daddy" onesie. Fingers crossed.

TARA!

I swear that Emmy can be heard calling me "Tara" sometimes. John just looked at her last night and told her that no matter how hip we were, we weren't parents that were hip enough to let her call us by our first names.

Quick Emmy note and other stuff

We are trying to teach Emmy how to blow kisses to people and last night, she spent lots of time kissing her fingers. And that is it. Just kissing fingers and holding them to her mouth. Slowly, but surely, we will get it.

A lovely woman told me yesterday what a beautiful pregnant woman I am. I didn't have the heart to tell her I wasn't pregnant.

April begins the horror known as the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It's just so long. And the games are on every night. And every one will be on my TV. But little things like this make me giggle. Are Canadiens the same as Canadians??

New Car

On Monday, my Prius broke down on the way to work. I was pretty lucky that it died a few blocks from Emmy's babysitter's house so I just got the stroller out from the back and walked her to her sitter's house. My CEO lives only a few blocks away and since we are good friends, she came and waited with me on the tow truck. It took several hours and not only was I disappointed with the time but I was very upset with the reasoning of the dealership about my car dying. The reason they gave me was that the car was out of gas---but when I picked it up no one had put gas in it and it ran fine. Really, this was just a final straw since I was getting frustrated with how small the Prius was. Although I appreciated all of the perks of the car, I was pretty nervous with how I seemed to get blown away by the semi-trucks on the interstate every day. The recent heavy rains scared me when I was being thrown all over the road with the wind.
Never being one to take my time, I went looking for a car and bought one on Tuesday during my lunch hour. I love it! It is not great on mileage but I can fit our family and Tara, Jorge and Lucas, which is worth a lot. It's a white Chrysler Pacifica.

I do not use paper towels and I always use my canvas bags at the store so I feel like I am still doing my part for the environment without having to purchase carbon offsets.

Fourteen months

Are you kidding me that our girl is over fourteen months old already??? We were at the mall and shopping the sale racks the other day, seeing the 0-3 month clothes almost did me in, thinking of how my girl used to be too small for even those clothes at one point. Now, she is such a girl. A little girl, not a baby girl, but a little girl.

She is still not talking much and I am worried of course. Everyone tells me that I am crazy for being concerned. Not only is she brilliant already, but with her family history of me and her YiaYia, she will be certain to talk a LOT! I know this and I try to not worry too much but I can't help to be concerned that if I am not active, she will be behind all of her peers in school. That is the last thing that I want.

This month Emmy has just bloomed into a little lady. I can't tell how many times I have seen this girl run through the house in her diaper carrying a purse. She cracks me up with the purse! Such a little lady! She has started really playing with her toys as opposed to just having them around. Lucas and Emmy are always giving each other kisses and hugs and even thougth I try to hide it, it almost brings me to tears each and every time.

I told Emmy about our trip to Gulf Shores in June and she was distraught when I told her the trip was still six weeks away.

Bozo--The Afteryears

It's no wonder so many people have clown phobias. We worked on cleaning out the attic this weekend at Daddy's house in preperation for his move. There was lots of stuff and it was really dusty but it was good to get it out and start going through stuff. At some point, I finally have to say "enough is enough" and just stop looking at and examining every agonizing thing. It is tough to think of doing but I just can't have everything and it is heartwrenching to read every note and card. It's just too much.

I thought I had done an okay job during this but maybe not. I found that Saturday night and Sunday afternoon were tough days for me (and subsequentally tough for John as well!) but I am sure that I will get through it soon.

What I wouldn't do for just one picture of Momma and Emmy. Just one shared look between the two of them would melt my heart.

Flip Flops

This is a very important day in Emmy Ruth's life. She wore flip flops for the first time. We even trimmed her toenails (a pedicure if you will) last night in honor of the special occasion. Here she is at Wal-Mart showing off her toes to the nice lady in the fabric department.
I had this really cute sterling beaded necklace that was Momma's that I wore almost every day. I loved it and got so many compliments on it. This morning when I was taking Bill out for her daily constitutional, I felt all the beads go flying across the yard. It was pretty sad to think I can't wear that any more since I loved having a piece of her so close to me all the time.

Lovely weekend

Oh it was so nice this weekend! The weather was great and we had a big time outside almost the entire time. Emmy loves to be outside now and will stand at the door and point and cry to get out there. Saturday Lucas and Emmy played in her sand/water table for hours. NaNa got her some pink sand for Easter so they had a blast with that. Then on Sunday, Papa Richie came to visit, when he left, we went to the new playground in our neighborhood. Home Depot built a new playground behind Peabody Elementary School so it is really close for us to run to visit. We convinced NaNa and Dan to go with us and then went for a quick bite to eat at the Young Avenue Deli where Uncle Neallio stopped by for a quick visit.

Whew! A busy weekend for such a tiny girl.

Rain, Rain Go Away

It just keeps on raining. I write about this so that when Emmy is older and reading this recount of her life, I can tell her about the great floods of 2008. I drive over the bridge(s) four times a day--to West Memphis and back to work and then to West Memphis to pick Emmy up from the babysitter and then back home. I get a lot of quality time looking at that water and I can say that it is high. There are billboards that are now resting in water, street signs that are covered, walking trails that only have the tree tops that line the way showing. I really want to get out there and take some pictures of it and I am still going to try and do that, but, oh wait... it's still raining. Not really big on taking pictures in the rain.

The ground is so saturated that the basement has started to leak. This has only happened three times since we have lived in our house--a small price to pay for such a great space that we have. But, when it does happen, ugh!!!! I will try to get pictures of Emmy in her rainboots trying to do laundry tonight.

You know you are a greenie...

When the guy behind you in line at Whole Foods asks where you got your cool bag (my canvas shopping bag that reads “Paper or Plastic? Neither.”).

Wal-Mart. $1.

Life after tubes...

... is nice. Really nice. The Girl is babbling and babbling like there is no tomorrow. It is almost like a switch was flipped when she recovered from her surgery. She is still not saying a lot of words, but I am confident that will come in time.

However, the best thing about Post Tube Emmy is bathtime. The Girl hated baths. Hated them. It was a tortoruous event every time we took a bath, to the point that she rarely got one. I know, it is awful, but she was beside herself. I would try to give her a bath every night in hopes that she would just get used to it but that didn't help. Now, I realieze that she hated baths so badly because her ears hurt when they got wet. Even if we didn't wash her hair, she would scream, just from fear of getting water in her ears. Now, she has to wear ear plugs every time we get in the tub. She splashes and she laughes and actually cried last night when I got her OUT of the tub! Amazing stuff.