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New pictures of Jillian are up in her gallery!

Jillian and I spend a great deal of time talking about animals and the sounds they make. We point them on in books and as we walk around the neighborhood, and we are getting really good at barking, meowing, and such.

Right now, I am serving her dinner: chicken, carrots, and cheese. She holds up a piece of cheese and says “cheese!” I confirm. She… throws carrots on the floor and I say “carrots. Do not throw them.” She holds up a piece of chicken and says “whut dat?”

I say “chicken.” She answers “bok bok!”

Hmmmmm.

I wonder if she connects the chicken (bok bok!) that she’s “eating” with the chicken in her bedtime book who takes a bath, brushes his teeth, and wears pajamas. And if a connection is made, I wonder what she thinks of all this.

With cows and pigs and sheep, this isn’t going to be a problem. But with chicken… we’ll see if she figures it out.

I have big plans for my yard. Last week, I planted a bunch of wildflower seeds in the front, and when I checked them yesterday, some had sprouted!

Yesterday was a very busy day - we got up, fed The Jillian, and made coffee while we decided which lawnmower to buy. I was minding my own business with my coffee when The Jillian came up with a tennis ball in her hand.

“Ball!” she said.
“That’s right, that’s a ball.” I always try to reinforce what she’s saying. Except for those times when she says “Shit!” This happens more often than it should, really, but I’m hoping that by not making a big deal out of it, she will never figure out that SHIT is fun to say!

So, like I said, I’m minding my own business with my coffee and then it happens. The chubby hand curved around the fuzzy chartreuse orb moves with steady purpose toward the end table. Before I can even react, PLOP! Tennis ball in the coffee.

Sigh.

I survived. We went to the big hardware store and bought a lawn mower, a weed wacker, and some gardening stuff. Freddie surprised us all by getting the lawn mower assembled without me having to go out and read the instructions to him all sarcastically. He mowed the front yard while I dealt with a nutso baby person who wasn’t interested in lunch and preferred a nap instead.

I am never one to argue with unexpected naptime, so I dumped her in the crib and headed outside to start my tomato seeds and think really hard about what else should go in the open space of my front garden.

Plus, I mowed the back yard. Keep in mind that it hadn’t been mowed since last… November? Maybe? So the grass was a leeeeeetle big higher than it otherwise might have been. Plus, the landscapers put down some topsoil/fertilizer/grass seed mixture on the [many] bare patches out there so it was sort of like mowing the surface of the moon.

Because Freddie is an odd human being, we have a lawn mower with a bag attachment. Because the grass was SO high, I had to stop and empty the bag SEVEN TIMES. How irritating this is, I cannot tell you. I would just be getting into a mowing groove when I’d have to stop and take off the bag, get grass all over myself, and start again.

Good times.

Eventually, the entire backyard was mowed (mown? Did I just make that up?), the grass was bagged, and then Freddie went to work with the weed wacker. As much as I love power tools and construction equipment and stuff that makes REALLY LOUD NOISE, I have a phobia of the weed wacker - I’m pretty sure it wants to chop my feet off.

Once the greenery was taken care of, we pushed some sand around on the patio and Freddie hung the birdhouse that my dad made for me. On Wednesday, the patio furniture is being delivered and we’ll be able to actually spend time outside in our yard without rolling our eyes and heaving great big sighs over the pitiful state of the grass.

It’s a good thing, too - we’re poor again and cannot afford to go out so we’d better enjoy our Very Expensive Yard to the utmost!!

We have a patio! After roughly a week (including two full days when nobody was out there working on it), a portion of the backyard was chopped up and replaced with paving stones. A portion of the fence was moved, and some topsoil/grass seed/fertilizer mix was put down in the backyard. It is no longer the lumpy wasteland it was when we moved in! Hurrah!

We also have a driveway! The disintegrating asphalt was pulled up, a portion of the front yard was peeled back, and after a few terse phone calls to the paving company, the asphalt was put down and is currently roped off. We had to call the landscapers to come get the huge giant dirt pile the pavers had left, but the landscaper is a stand-up guy and didn’t charge us for this service. Yay, because we have given him quite enough money already.

The front garden has been pulled out, and this Sunday I plan to put stuff in the ground. Maybe. Saturday is Passover and we are having between 8 and 12 people, so all day will be given over to that, but Sunday, weather permitting, will be a big outside improvement day.

Photos to come, maybe.

Last month, I took Jillian to the doctor for her 18-month checkup. We were a bit late on this because Freddie had changed jobs and insurance and I wanted to make sure everything was effective before I started scheduling stuff.

The routine at the doctor’s office is always the same: they call Jillian’s name and show us to an examining room. The nurse asks me to get Jillian undressed to her diaper (and socks - it was chilly) and then bring her out to the scale to get weighed.

After weigh-in, the nurse says “the doctor will be right in, leave Jillian in the diaper (and socks).” This is a huge lie, since it takes at least 10 minutes for the doctor to appear. With a nuclear-powered toddler, 10 minutes might as well be six years.

Since Jilly refuses to be held when she can walk around and destroy stuff, I set her down in just her diaper (and socks) to wreck the room as best she could before the doctor showed up. Finally, after thirteen “No, Jillian - do not pull the paper off of the exam table” and twenty-seven rounds of “LA LA LA LA LA!” the doctor opened the door.

As she did so, a small, flesh-colored blur sped past her and headed out to the [full] waiting room.

“Hi! Hewwo!” said the blur, waving. “Ahhhm! Hed! Haaaar. Leg! Bellleeee. Butt! Pee-pee!” Oh, great! An anatomy lesson!

I scooped up Her Nakedness and headed back to the exam room.

“I was going to ask if she had a lot of words yet but she speaks very well for her age,” the doctor said. “And she doesn’t seem to be shy.”

“Not shy at all. I’m just glad I was able to stop her before she started pointing out everyone else’s pee-pee as well as her own.”

Well. Our week in Ohio was fun. Jillian got to be the pack leader of my mom’s dogs, and a good time was had by all. Unfortunately, what I thought was The Sniffles turns out to be an ear infection. Jillian was feverish and snotty from Friday onwards, and when it didn’t go away, we went to the doctor. Sure enough, it’s an ear infection. She is otherwise fine - destroying things, attempting to jump, saying “shit,” etc.