Baby's First Funeral

A regularly scheduled visit to the old homestead took a weird turn when my paternal grandfather, whom I've mentioned before here, died. He had been on the decline for a while, but none of us were quite prepared. No one ever is, are they? So that's what our visit has revolved around. I'm really glad we were already here.

Gaz, for her part, has been so amazingly good that I am still amazed. She was much-needed comic relief during the long hours of visitation at the funeral home. She and I camped out in the cry room at the church my grandpa founded for the requiem mass. She really was a trooper. She even came into grandpa's room at the nursing home, after he'd been cleaned up but before the funeral home came to pick him up, and just climbed up into a chair next to me and just sat with us for a while before demanding a trip to see the birds in the lounge area. That just blew my mind that she didn't pay anything any mind.

The only problems we've had have been a sudden need to nap in the afternoons to compensate for the very weird hours we've been keeping, and of course, Gaz getting upset when she sees me cry. Poor kid, she had no idea why Mommy was upset. Things are evening out now and we're getting back to the regular fun of visiting Nana Cel and Papa Charley. The ice storm and rain and snow have made outdoor play impossible, but we're doing well indoors.

One bit of silliness, in the spirit of my silly grandpa: Gaz said that Pugly, my parent's chow/shepherd mix, was stinky and that we should "get a new Pugly that's fresher."

Seven Random Things

To give you an idea of what today has been like so far:

- Gaz enjoys wearing nothing but some pull-ups and sunglasses while running around the dining room table singing "Jingle Bells."

- Gaz says that The Velveteen Rabbit is full of "nothing but bills" when she flips through its pages.

- Gaz has a yellow dump truck named Daddy Truck and a small blue and red garbage truck named Baby Truck, and me giving these trucks voices is more important to her than me scheduling a doctor appointment.

- Gaz says "Every time I ask, you say 'be patient.'"

- Gaz likes chichimilk, but Baby Truck prefers gasoline. Gaz still offers chichimilk to all of her toys, just to be polite I guess.

- Loves teeny tiny mints, but will eventually cave to demands that she eat a meal composed of real food before she can have one.

- Yesterday Gaz ran off with one of my bao, talking to it and cradling it for most of our train ride home from downtown until it was nice and cold, which was when she suddenly decided to eat half of it and give the rest back to me.

welcome to my nightmare

Gaz was following me around the apartment this morning, as she usually does. I went to set something down in the kitchen, but when I turned around she wasn't there. I thought she was playing in her bedroom, but no, she wasn't there. I called for her and the reply came from down the hall . . .

She was standing on the bathroom vanity, having climbed up there with nothing more than her death-defying nerves and a boost from the toilet. Fortunately I contained my shock well enough that I didn't startle her into a fall.

She's also just figured out how to use her pretty pink Ikea stool to open the top drawer on the entertainment center (the one where we keep her crayons and makers).

Now we are well beyond the stage where we can keep her from doing scary and/or destructive things by simply making them unavailable. Now we have to hope that she listens to the things we tell her. This has worked pretty well so far for the knife drawer, but that doesn't have anything fun in it. I don't know how we're going to deal with the markers yet.

I'm never going to sleep again. Not until she's forty.

Baby Tracks

The sheets we have on Gaz's bed (yes, the bed she never sleeps in) have stripes that are covered with various abstractish flowers. Yesterday she said that these were clearly baby tracks, and so we followed the baby tracks for a while. We never found those mysterious babies, but maybe next time we'll run into one.

We've been watching some of those old Hanna-Barbera Godzilla cartoons (you know, the ones where not only is Godzilla really helpful and nice, he also comes to the rescue at the push of a button, even when his pet people are cruising along the Nile) which we found on DVD. Gaz and I were enjoying some popcorn while we watched one of these cartoons and Gaz happily shouted "Godzilla save the day!" while she rubbed her nose. But she wasn't actually rubbing her nose. She was shoving an unpopped popcorn kernel into her nostril. She let me know there was a problem, fortunately, before she managed to jam her finger in her nose again, so I was able to fix the problem without any trouble or ER visits. Gaz gave me a big hug and declared, "Mommy, you save the day!"

A few mornings ago, Gaz followed me into the kitchen when I went to make my morning coffee. "Mommy, I hungry," she said, so we opened the refrigerator to have a look. I asked if she would like some cheese and held out a piece for her to consider. She threw her arms around my leg and squealed, "Mommy, you my hero! You my favorite color!" So score one for the mommy and the cheese.

The early incarnation of Gaz's storytelling, I understand it, is very popular among our Wisconsin friends. The current version goes something like this: "(Ahem) Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome home! And now I tell you a story. Once upon a time a girl walk down the street. The end!"

A bit o' digital housekeeping now: I just rearranged the Flickr photos, breaking out each of Gaz's years-in-pictures into their own sets. The link to the right >> should take you to her current year, with the pictures arranged newest first, so there's no long loading and scrolling to do to get to the new stuff. A thousand apologies for not doing this a long time ago. Believe me, I have just suffered aplenty in the tendon to get these spiffified. Enjoy!

Overheard

Gaz to her new cow toy: "Cow, I have something to tell you. Godzilla knock over buildings."