1998

You'll have to check Grandma and Grandpa's blog for a few pictures and videos of the last few days because I have mostly been working as they galavant about the Cape.

Working and doing this.

Do you know what you were doing in 1998?

- Michael and I were juniors-going-on-seniors in high school. HIGH SCHOOL.

- Titanic was released, was the highest grossing film to that date, and won Best Picture.

- Google, Inc. was born.

- President Bill Clinton was impeached (and later acquited).

- More than 76 million viewers watched the last episode of Seinfeld (did you?).

And this Mountain Dew was canned.


Our neighbor (who shall remain nameless) was cleaning out his/her basement and found a few cases of Mountain Dew from a few years back. Actually at least ten years back, because the date stamped on the bottom of the cans is 1998.

Knowing Michael's love for Mountain Dew, our neighbor gave us a can, and being the loving wife that I am, I insisted Michael try it.

He looked a little skeptical.


But agreed to pop it open, in the name of science.


The pour was promising.


Still lots of fizz in it.


After the first taste...


His response was: "It's reasonably good."


So he drank the rest.


And he feels fine. Well, as fine as anyone feels after drinking any Mountain Dew.

So, in conclusion, if you ever come across a 10-year-old Mountain Dew and wonder if it is safe to drink, it is. Was there ever any doubt, really?

George

I would tell you about the last couple days, but honestly they're kind of a blur. All I know is that we picked Daddy up from the airport this evening and Catherine made him ride in the back between her and Mary, who agreed with the idea wholeheartedly.

So here are a few funny pictures of Catherine from the last couple weeks that don't relate to much of anything.

She's been wearing a lot of princess dresses. And layers (under that princess dress is a skirt, jogging pants, a sweater, and a t-shirt). And hats. If you ask her about this particular hat you will get a response something like this: This is my hat like a boy's. It doesn't have a hole in the back like a boys', but it's like a boy's.


Another day I was working on the porch and she disappeared for a bit and came back like this:


Bunny ear hat, nursing cover that she thinks is actually a baby carrier, and George inside. George has been getting a lot of attention lately. We actually might have to find a Twin George to join the family, or George might just get torn in two. Look at this picture. You try and convince her to share George.


Now we're gearing up for a visit from Grandma and Grandpa and Mary's 1st birthday party!

Mooooooove Over

Mary got a bit over-confident with her early success with the spoon. Her cavalier attitude had, well...you can see for yourself.

Almost right off she dropped a large spoonful of "prune with apples" on her front.


Fortunately I outlasted her in our tussle over the bib.

She still managed to get the spoon to her mouth almost every time, but maybe the handle was messing with her a bit, because somehow the prunes were rarely still in place on the spoon when it made contact with her mouth.


With her cheeks, eyebrows, and nose, yes. But with her mouth, no prunes.


Always looking on the bright side, her efforts were not derailed at all.


And yes, those are prunes in her eyelashes.


For two days now Catherine has been obsessing over the zoo. I don't know if she's been reading zoo books, or if there is a zoo segment in any of her Elmo videos, but she has zoo animals on the brain. I have heard this sentence at least two dozen times this week: "Mama, you never take me to the zoo." She says it like I promised to take her to the zoo and forgot. Her sad puppy face is top notch.

Clearly, a trip off-Cape to any of the surrounding zoos on a breezy, bright Saturday is the worst idea ever. So I asked her if she wanted to go feed the chickens at Bray Farm. Apparently this was an acceptable substitute so off we went.

I'm thinking now that maybe Mary put Catherine up to the whole thing. Mary likes a lot of stuff, but she really likes animals. She's normally pretty good about staying out of the street when we're playing outside, but the other day some people went by walking their dogs and she took off running. Ok, she toddled at a high rate of speed, but she had a clear goal of getting her hands on those dogs. She was none too pleased when I scooped her up before she hit the end of the driveway, although she did convince our neighbors to stop so she could chat with the dogs and she just looked at them and laughed for about five minutes. When they left, we had to go inside because I couldn't keep Mary from following them.

So back to the farm - Mary also loves chickens, goats, donkeys, sheep, and cows. She really loves big furry horned cows. And things that say "baaa".


After we watch the herd for a while and fed grass to the chickens, we took a walk up the field to check on the blueberries. I had to carry Mary because when she was walking holding my hand she just kept looking back at the cows and falling over. We made it across the field and I put Mary down so Catherine and I could see about ripe blueberries (it wasn't a picking day, but we wanted to see if they are getting close), and four seconds later I look back and Mary is halfway back to the cows. And it was a long walk - "halfway" is quite a distance.


Catherine ran ahead to catch up with Mary - that's her, the little yellow/pink speck at the end of the road tracks. She ran (toddled at a high rate of speed) the whole way back.

And finally reached the object of her quest, this beautiful beast:



They mooed back and forth for a while.



Then Catherine was begging me to go take a walk on the bridge over the marsh, so I tore Mary away from the cow (feet kicking frantically) but once she saw this runway, she was fine.


We toddled a few miles on it, resting at the end to enjoy the view.



Eventually we were all hungry and thirsty, which is usually the only motivation strong enough to get them to willingly walk away from such fun. I still had Catherine's sad puppy face burned into my retinas, so we stopped at a playground on the way home and played for a bit after our snack.

Catherine hunkered down for a big 4-wheeled adventure


but Mary's drive seemed a bit more leisurely.



Also: we miss Daddy.

Miss Manners

Mary still has a little finesse to work out, but she's doing quite well with her utensils.

Where's My Daddy?

I love when the kids just make random decisions about being grown up. This week Mary has decided that she is plenty big enough to put on her own shoes (she has been taking them off for weeks now) and to use a spoon by herself.


I think her first try wasn't the raging success she imagined in her head, but she is never disappointed in anything that creates a mess.


Catherine saw Mary using a spoon by herself, and decided to upgrade.


Yep, that's a serving spoon. And she didn't do half bad eating her cereal with it.


This picture is actually from a few days ago, but several times this week the girls have opted for afternoon naps at the same time - it is a revolution in my day.


Catherine isn't really understanding that Daddy is going to be gone for several days. She keeps asking "Where's my Daddy" and then answering her own question by telling me that he's sleeping. I've counted out the days Thursday to Monday for her but she's not having any of it. We ran some errands after work today and when we were walking up the steps to the door she said, "I think my Daddy's waiting for us for dinner" - she said it very matter-of-factly, as if it was not so much a thought, but a sure thing. She also tried to tell me she couldn't go to bed until Daddy came home, but I think that was partly because she could still hear kids playing outside and really did not want to go to bed.

Anyway, she's been blowing kisses to Daddy since he left this morning.



And every time she tells me that Daddy's sleeping or coming home soon, Mary starts looking down the hall saying "Da-da".

Seriously Michael, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. They just like you. But they're not totally depressed: