Roaring River

Today my grandparents, Jack, Emma, and I all went fishing at Roaring River State Park. We've gone there plenty of times before, but Jack is officially older now. I can tell. In previous years he's been much more interested in playing on the playground, throwing rocks into the water, or eating very nearly an entire sack of *puffy Cheetos during the day as opposed to partaking in any of the actual fishing business. But today he was quite the little casting man and also a great assistant to have at the net whenever I caught a fish. And I did... FOUR TIMES!!! (A little shameless bragging there.) We all had a wonderful day.

*puffy Cheetos - a traditional, and very necessary staple food for bringing along (footnote in Jack's Guide to Good Fishing)

This was about the only moment of the day that Emma was alert. A rippling river and a comfy Grandma combo make for a drowsy set of events.

What an assistant, I'm tellin' ya.

Proud and posing.

A classic incredulous Jack facial expression when he sees something that he finds particularly impressive... in this case, some big fat fish.

My favorite picture of the day.

I didn't mean to imply that there wasn't any playground playing,

or puffy Cheeto eating.

Wordle.net

My mom emailed me today, forwarding a really neat website: http://www.wordle.net/

The website apparently takes text that you type in and converts it into a graphic representation called a "word cloud." Its design seems to be based on the word frequency in provided text, etc. Anyway, she thought it was cool, and so do I.

As an example, I will take my previous entry and feed in the text. Let's see what comes up, shall we? (I think you can click on these to make them larger?)



I am fascinated - Mom knows just what tickles my fancy. Okay, so this time I'm not going to provide the story for you. All you get is the word cloud. Let's see if you can get my message, which is also the current state of my life. What a fun little game!



First one to solve this puzzle via comments gets a.... umm.... what do I have here in front of me.... a bottle of Aquafina water! Yes, the next time I see you, winner, I'll bring you this fabulous prize.

A Picture is Worth...

One of my favorite children's authors is David Wiesner. I like his books because they have few, if any, words in them at all. Yeah, I know that seems ironic from me as you're reading this blog. I tend to get a little wordy on here, my figurative diary. I wonder, sometimes, if it seems strange to you when I behave in just the opposite manner, in person, most of the time? Hmm.

Anyway, if you have a moment, you should stop by the children's section of the library sometime and check out Tuesday. I love the idea of frog shenanigans. (Once, when I was little and my mother was getting a perm at the hairdresser, I wrote a full story about a little frog who sat down beside a man on a park bench. They kept silent company for quite some time. The man enjoyed his newspaper, minding his own business, and the little frog sat there... beside him on the bench. Upon folding the newspaper in preparation to stand up and go on about his day, the man glanced over to see the frog once more. I liked to imagine the man's reaction as he realized that frog had now turned its head to look back at him and was in the midst of delivering a wide, toothy smile. Yes, the frog had teeth. Now, I'm not sure if I ever really finished that story, but I do remember the facial expressions of the other customers in that hair salon. It was obvious that they were slightly disturbed by the kid who would write on her pad of paper and then laugh hysterically every few seconds. In my defense, perms take a long time, and when you're an only child you have to create much of your own entertainment. (Sidenote: I also remember that story contained a clown who rode around on a bike in that same park and threw pies in people's faces for no real reason at all. The recipients of the pie throwing would get extremely irritated and chase the clown, screaming at him in anger. Inevitably, though, he'd just ride away really fast and go find another person to assault. I see now that it was kind of a weird story, in hindsight, but ahh... it was so funny. I'm laughing even now... tears. I am a stupid little kid once more.)

Anyway, Wiesner's Tuesday is about a flying frog phenomenon on, what appears to be, an ordinary weeknight in the suburbs. Chaos ensues and all without any real narration by the author - just really great illustrations. I became a fan on page two.

As an exercise, I'll show you a sequence of photos taken by my grandpa when my grandma recently attempted to feed Emma her baby food. Now, you are probably armed with a little bit of background knowledge about Emma's eating habits if you've read previous entries. And if you haven't... well, I still think that you'll understand this Wiesner style, wordless story. Here we go.

Very Bad Cat

We have a cat named Cookie. She is a horrible excuse for a cat, but we love her. If you've ever been to my house, I know that I owe you an apology for having been bitten. It's just what she does to our guests. (I wouldn't innocently rest your arm on the couch like that, by the way, minding your own business. It's not safe.) We like to think of her as our somewhat sadistic Welcoming Committee.

And since I don't want anyone to feel left out, I'll address all the people who've never been to my house but are expecting to come someday. I'm sorry in advance. You'll be initiated, I'm sure, unless something (or someone) kills off this lunatic animal. I do have bandaids though. They have SpongeBob on them.

How did Cookie come to be this way? I'm not really sure. Jim acquired this little black cat (with menacing yellow eyes) in college. During a portion of that time, he lived in a fraternity house. I'm pretty sure that has something to do with it. As if THAT were not enough though, she came from a litter of kittens in which the majority of her siblings were eaten by their father. I'm told that Cookie hid out under a dresser in order to survive in that original house and that it was a job to get her out when Jim came to adopt. So, you can imagine that you kind of feel sorry for her. She'll takes a chunk out of your finger, though, and that feeling will pretty much go away right then.

During her kittenhood, she started to demonstrate her aggressive tendencies by stalking Jim in his dorm room as he slept. He reports having to make sure that every inch of skin was covered by the bedspread in the early morning hours as she would attack any bodypart that was left exposed and sticking out from under the covers. This included one's head.

Later, Jim thought it was a neat trick to show his dorm room guests that Cookie could use her claws to scramble up anyone's jeans (ankle to hip) on command. This was a fun game until Jim would make the mistake of wearing shorts. I think, shortly thereafter, Cookie lost her front claws to the veterinarian.

Fast forwarding to my entry into Cookie's life... she came to Florida with him when he came down after his college graduation. She lived with us, but she made it clear that she hated me and my whole existence as "the other woman." I remember lots of growling when we were in the same room with each other.

When we came back to Missouri after I graduated from college, we brought Cookie back with us, as well. Around the same time, we acquired an orange cat named Pickle. And yes, Jim and I developed our favorite children. I hold a grudge, and so does Cookie.

And that brings us to the present. Today, good grief, we STILL have this terrible cat. She vomits all over everything, sits on your chest and hurls phlegm at your face when she inevitably sneezes, and pretty much just stinks at being a good housecat. She is currently sitting in the kitchen, yowling about wanting some wet cat food. The incessant yowling is just another way she offends me. Never give your cat a taste of wet cat food, by the way. They will demand nothing else for days and days. The only reason we made this stupid move was because we ran out of dry cat food. I thought perhaps this would be a good opportunity to starve her, and thereby rid ourselves of her, but Jim insisted we go to the store. Ugh.

I know I speak really unkindly about this cat, but someday (after you make a hasty exit from our house minus your upper appendages), you may understand me better. Even despite all of this, I love her.

In honor of my own crappy cat, here's a shout out (I don't think I've ever used that phrase before) to all the bad cats of the world. Two others come to mind at the moment: SNL's Toonces, the driving cat (my mother is laughing now) and Karen, the angry cougar behind the wheel in Talladega Nights. This was an awfully stupid movie, but when I heard, "Get down, Karen!" it totally redeemed itself.

To the Movies!

Yeah, you're in the right place. Sorry, I'm just playing around with my blogs lately. Need to change things up every once in awhile, you understand.

We took Jack and Emma to a movie tonight - Kung Fu Panda. It was a good movie, by the way. Watch for my favorite line (about three minutes in): "There is no charge for awesomeness... or attractiveness." Jack Black makes the movie.

Emma enjoyed her first movie theater experience. She was in awe of the large, colorful screen. And she sat there absolutely riveted for the first 20 minutes of the movie. And if you don't know Emma, you won't be as appreciative of the fact that that is a really long time for her to be still. Although we were amused by the movie, we were just as amused at watching her reaction to it. And then, yeah, we snapped a picture. Oh geez, moviegoers, there was a flash for a brief moment... relax. I have to show you.

New subject: My mom and I have often joked about how funny Emma can look in pictures. Of course, we say that in the most loving of voices. She is absolutely beautiful in person, but it seems like every time I review a picture I've snapped, I have to start laughing. We've discussed this before if you've been a reader for awhile. Remember her crazy eyes? Yeah, well... check out her poses below. And I hope this makes your Monday read fun.

Dopey Dwarf's extremely cute understudy.

What was wrong with THAT one, Mom?

If I could... just... grab.... that.... GOT IT!

Eat the Food!

Emma's six month appointment was today. Here are the baby stats: Weight - 15.2 lbs (25th percentile), Height - 26 inches (50th percentile), and Head Circumference - 17 inches (75th percentile... I attribute this to all the brainpower she's gotten from her mother. No smart aleck remarks, Jim.)

Anyway, I reported the eating problem. And the doctor seemed like she'd never heard of it before. "What? She won't open her mouth for the spoon? She cries, really? It's like you're in a knock down, drag out fight with your infant? Seriously?" Well, so I've misquoted there, but there WAS a puzzled and surprised expression across her brows. She offered to call a speech/occupational therapist to give some suggestions. Oh goodness... I don't think it's that bad. Surely, she'll come around. I passed on her offer but did agree to aggressively try with Emma twice a day to push the spoon and babyfood issue. Okaaay... but somewhere inside me, it feels like I'm traumatizing her with my left pinky finger moonlighting as a crowbar and all. Any suggestions, Mommy friends?

In the meantime, I'm trying to be patient. But I never have been a terribly patient person despite what I do for a living. Sure, I can fake it, but deep down I want the child to eat the food. Dad gum it. Good ol' Napoleon sides with me and urges the importance of ingesting the nutrients. And then there's Paul who says, 'Let it Be', Whitney. Sighhh. Oh, Paul... you and your infinite, Beatley wisdom. I am conflicted.

Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody... This is just me singing now, by the way. It's an unrelated and purely coincidental choice of song. The Beatles recorded a lot of songs, you know. Yeah, yeah... I hear what you're saying. It DOES fit well, but I just don't think it's about pureed peas or any other kind of babyfood woe. I have no more time to argue with you.

Six Months Already?

A few days ago, Emma turned six months old. Can you believe this? She's a sweet little thing, and it's amazing how much I'm finding out about her now that I'm home with her 100% of the time. Here are things I've learned:

1. She hates Baby Boot Camp. This is my nickname for the summer as it is the time that I'm buckling down and teaching her to go to sleep on her own. I had gotten into the habit of rocking her every time she needed a nap. Great Grandma and Grandpa did the same. As a result, we've created a high maintenance baby. So, bless her little heart, she absolutely hates it when Momma lays in her the crib, covers her up, and walks out of the room. But then again, it's not all that easy on Momma either when she protests for longer than 3 minutes.

2. She loves her brother. Well, duh. I didn't need much reinforcement when it comes to this understanding. Jack is her favorite person in the entire world, it seems. And while not much gets her to deep-down-belly-laugh, Jack seems to know the trick.

3. She hasn't quite mastered eating yet. Come on, little Emma. It helps if you OPEN your mouth. Even carrots, her favorite, aren't all that magical anymore.

4. In general, she looks very much like Jim, I think. But there are split seconds that, every now and then, make me think I'm looking at my old baby pictures. Just split seconds. But I did catch one on camera the other day. You can decide below.