If you're looking for a dog, read this first

I think I'm a dog-aholic. Or maybe just a pet-aholic. I can't help it. I see a little green poster with black permanent marker writing on it that announces: "Free Kittens: to a good home!" and I cave in. Or I go to a pet store and think "$5,000 for that cute thing?! That's a deal!" Michael has gotten extremely sick of coming home from work to meet the new addition to our household.

The sad thing about my condition is I'm not a pet keeper. I fall in love, buy a pet, get sick of the pet and re-sell it two weeks later. (If I were smart enough I could turn it into a business and earn a profit!) Michael has wised up to this strange obsessive disease of mine and has grounded me from buying animals of any variety. If he were smart, he'd ground me from pet stores and the Thrifty Nickel.

But I'm starting to learn some tricks about finding the perfect dog for you. Here are some things to look out for in ads for dogs:

• The term "Friendly" actually means the dog jumps up on people and gets excitable in public settings.



• "Energetic" means hyper and disastrous.



• "To a loving home" usually refers to the fact that the animal was never house-trained.



• "Can't keep because of allergies" is an all-out lie and is code for "get this dog out of here before I kill it!" another thing to look out for is the word "Free." In this economy, anything that's free has a reason for it.

That cat was a BAD experience. Demon Banshee Cat.

Impending DOOM! (Pretend the font is scarier)

Parenthood. It just keeps getting more interesting the closer Evelyn gets to 2 years old. She signs just great now and we can typically understand what she wants, but now signing is "Old School!" she refuses to do it, because talking is "In!" The only problem is: she can't talk. She only thinks she can. So when you try and get her to say something, it goes as follows:

Momma: "Evelyn, say 'I...'"
Evelyn: "VVVVuh!"
Momma: "...Want..."
Evelyn: "Gush!"
Momma: "...To Color!"
Evelyn: (Shriek, Giggles.)
Momma: "Can you say 'please?'"
Evelyn: (gurgles in the back of her throat, more resembling a dog growling than a word.)


As you can see, it's not the most adult conversation, and it gets even worse when she's trying to ask for something by herself. A game of 150 questions inevitably follows.


The other thing Evelyn has discovered is that it is FUN to hide things. So we walk through the house finding all sorts of things crammed in the strangest places; ie. crayons shoved in the piano's hard drive, mashed potatoes hidden in the back of the lazy boy.... the list goes on! It wouldn't surprise me too much if she placed that mouse in the silverware drawer!

Being a parent certainly keeps you on your toes:

• picking up a child throwing a tantrum that is disturbingly similar to picking up a melted laffy-taffy--a very LOUD melted laffy taffy.


• having your child spit out anything they don't want to swallow in your lap: like a chewed walnut that resembles soggy sawdust saturated in saliva (say that 5 times fast!), or a chewed up grasshopper. or a fruit of the red berry variety that stains anything that looks at it wrong....


• getting so excited that your child is finally the age to go to nursery and then having her REFUSE to go.


• getting every minute flaw on your face or body poked accompanied with the sign "hurt"--repeated indefinitely.


• Books are fun to read, but they're so much more fun to rip into packing material!


• If the child is being too quiet, it's time to check on them. You never know what fun thing they've discovered that will turn you instantly into the incredible hulk.

But everything's looking up! I was talking to my sister Jane (who has a 2-year-old) for comfort yesterday, and she gave me something to look forward to: Potty Training. AAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is it too late to change my mind about being a mom?

No, honestly being a mom is the best thing in the whole world. There's nothing better than watching your own posterity develop their own little personality...and yes, even gain their independence from you.

(*whew!* There, I said it.) After all, where would we get all our funny stories if it weren't for kids?

The object stuck to the door behind Evelyn is a slice of cheese. Who can help but love her?!

Wanted: $100,000 Reward

At work today Michael had a big shot Master Sergeant come to inspect the facility. When he was introduced to Michael, he exclaimed: "Are you right out of High School?!" Later, Michael's manager was bragging to the Master Sergeant that all her employees had military experience, and Michael added, "Yeah, even 'Baby-Face' over here has ten years of experience!" (He can say things like that now that he's not government property.)

Here's some mugshots of "Baby-Face Adams" and his accomplice....."Baby-Face Adams."

Star Kitty

Evelyn has a favorite toy. It's a little white kitty with a star on it's foot. She adores this kitty. She carries it everywhere. She feeds it her bottle. She drops it in mud puddles. Michael and I have tried to get her to love some other, less-white toy, but all in vain. If she ever loses it, we'll be hard pressed to replace it. As my brother Sam says, we'll have to buy another star kitty and tie it to the back of the car and drive all over the city in order to make it look like a suitable replacement.

Thank you George!

Surprise A La Mouse

This morning I was making Evelyn and me a nice breakfast. I went to my utinsil drawer for a couple forks. Instead of getting forks I got: A MOUSE! I nice fuzzy, brown, cute mouse in my silverware drawer. The said mouse looked up at me as if to say: "Well, Hello! May I have some of that delicious egg you've been cooking?" And I replied: "Certainly not! Don't think I haven't read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie!"

Okay, I didn't really say that. I think what actually came out of my mouth was more like: "AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" The mouse looked at me indignantly and said: "I'll take that as a 'No." Now I suppose I'll make my exit." And so he casually disappeared over the side of the door into the safety of my other cabinets. Insert mouse here (One top of my knives):

Michael says I still can't have a cat. Bummer.
My only fear now is that Evelyn LOVES to play in the cabinets. One of these days I'm going to walk into the kitchen and she's going to look at me with a little brown tail hanging out of her mouth. Euuuuugh! ...Maybe I'll escape to my parents' house for the day.

"Dugga-Dugga"

Bugs. Evelyn loves bugs. Why I wasn't blessed with a daughter that screams and runs the other way or stomps on them, I will never know. Evelyn daily goes on Bug Hunts. While signing "where" she starts walking around saying "Dugga-Dugga-Dugga". (I think it's an appropriately creepy name for such yucky creatures.) Then when she gets so lucky as to find a bug, she picks it up and lets it crawl all over her while giggling. When she's quite through torturing the insect of whatever variety, she takes the bug and throws it on Momma. Then, when Momma is done screaming, she throws the bug in the toilet. FUN GAMES! I personally think it's worse than having a 9 year old boy have a crush on me.

This is Evelyn playing with her most common bug friend: an ant. She also has found ladybugs, grasshoppers, various beetles, a couple spiders, praying mantis', and most recently a fuzzy catapillar. She was in heaven. Luckily so far I have been able to find all the desert centipedes and dispose of them properly before she sees them.

The Legendary Sour Face

Evelyn's got the cutest expresssions. One of my favorite is her "Sour Face." This face originated when we gave her a lemon slice to suck on in a restaurant, but because we laugh at her so hard everytime she does it, it has become her "This-Tastes-So-Darn-Good Face." We're wondering if this expression will last to her teenage years when she's out on a fancy date and they go out to eat.
"No, really! I like it!" *Puckers!*

Picture of us

Playing at the Screen Door

She's going to kill me when she grows up f0r posting this. :D

Evelyn my "Pretty Girl"

Evelyn is vain. It's my fault I know. Everytime I put a bow in her hair I tell her she's a "Pretty girl" so that she'll leave it in longer than 2 seconds. So she loves to look in the mirror and put every hair clip in the house in her hair, but as soon as she leaves the mirror, everything comes out. Typical.

Here's Evelyn telling Mama that she's a "Pretty Girl."

Teenage Boys

One of my favorite past-times is to try and figure out what makes people tick: big people, little people, people who climb on rocks....I love it! My favorite thing to ponder on is the difference between men and women. Poor Michael has to listen to all my theories and frequently answer the unanswerable questions such as: "What is it about guys that makes them love explosions so much?!"
A few nights ago, I was on another kick, this time trying to discover what motivates teenage boys. A dangerous subject, I know. I asked Michael what he thought about it. After thinking for an exhaustably long time (One was hoping that meant something really philosophical and intellegent was going to come from all that thinking!) he stated simply: "Food."
"Food?"
"Food."
I was hoping for something a little more deep and profound than "Food," so I exclaimed: "That's it?! Not "impressing girls" or "popularity" or "Independence?" just "Food?!"
Michael looked a little sheepishly at me and said: "Well, I didn't want to sound shallow and say hormones."

Kansas Trip

Michael and I just got back from a business trip to Manhattan Kansas. I've never been further east than Colorado, so this was a first, also it was my first time on an airplane. The flight was interesting, especially considering we took out 17 month old baby with us. I never knew someone that small could have that much energy. You never know what children are capable of until you get them in a small, confined area with lots of other people they can bother and no escape. She did alright though. Thank heaven for pop tarts.

About the trip itself: if you're planning a trip to Manhattan Kansas, my suggestion is keep it down to one week. Five weeks was a wee bit too much to see the sights of the mideast. We got to see cows. And fields. And trees. And lots of tattoos (I think that's the only thing to do in Kansas: drink and get tattoos. I saw a girl there who was covered with tattoos with various degrees of artistic ability--my favorite being simple a stick figure.)

This was my favorite sight from Kansas:

We also had the opportunity to be in Abilene Kansas for D-Day. Abilene is where President Eisenhower was from. They had an impressive museum there and, for D-Day, they had a lot of WWII memorabilia and people walking around in WWII uniforms and costumes. I was reading the Children of the Promise series at the time, and everything just seemed so realistic to me that I walked around the displays bawling my eyes out.

Just as we entered the museum, Michael nudged me and pointed to this little old man in class A uniform surrounded by a group of people. "There's President Eisenhower," he stated.

"Are you sure?!" I hissed back.

"Absolutely. Look, you can see his nametag and his Five Stars."

Here I started thinking thoughts like: "Wow! The real President Eisenhower! Won't my dad be jealous!" I asked Michael if he would get a picture of the president for me, but he said he was too shy. I understood that, but I simply COULDN'T let the opportunity pass me by, so I begged him to go ask until he gave in.

Michael got the picture. I asked him what happened. "Well, I just went up to him and said: 'Excuse me, sir, but would it be awefully rude of me to ask for a picture?' He said it would be alright, so I took the picture." I grabbed the camera and held it carefully. What a souvenir!

As we continued to walk the museum, we actually stayed pretty close to the president, which meant that I could hardly pay attention to any of the exhibits. I was too busy trying to keep one eye on Pres. Eisenhower. But I started to notice something fishy: no one was paying any attention to him! I keep thinking "Wow, these people have no idea who is in their midst!"

We were just about through the whole museum when things started falling into place. I turned to Michael. "Are you positive that was President Eisenhower and not one of his sons?" I asked.

"Oh, that was him alright, " he assured me. "No one can wear those stars unless they were the general."

"It just doesn't make sense...he fought in WWI." I started doing the math to see how old he must be, and just when I reached the conclusion he would have to be about 120 years old and he looked really good for his age, Michael realized what was going on.

"Pamela, you do know that he's just an actor, don't you?"

Michael had me going for upwards to an hour that he was the REAL Eisenhower. And he didn't even know it! He was even shy to take the actor's picture! I made him make it up to me by buying me Cold Stone Ice Cream. But here is our picture of the REAL fake President Eisenhower.

You know, he really doesn't look that much like President Eisenhower after all.