Cliff Notes

I can’t believe I haven’t been to my own blog in over a week.   What on earth have I been doing with myself?   And of course now, with time to sit at the computer, all I can do is surf stories about the Swine Flu.   We just found out that there is a “probable” case at the elementary school where all our friend’s school-age kids go, so we are on lock-down, to say the least.   Casey has a half-day business trip to NYC tomorrow, and is out buying hand sanitizer for the Amtrak trip… I want to know if I can petition a Lysol bomb over the train car, just as a precautionary measure…

Tonight, I decided to produce a quick Cliff Notes version of the last week for tonight’s post, so that I can get back to my Swine Flu research:

Cooper’s two top teeth STILL haven’t come through.   It’s been two weeks now of seeing them just under the skin – they did actually pop through once and the skin grew back!   I ache for him.   And we’re out of Motrin.   Again.

The weather here has been close to that in WHOville… we had 90+ degree weather Saturday through Monday, then high 80’s on Tuesday and today was 58 and drizzly.   Go figure.  

On Sunday we went to our first Oriole’s game of the season, and Cooper’s first game ever!   It was 96 at game time, making it most likely the hottest game we will ever attend.   Today we went to a noon game, and it was struggling to stay in the 50’s, making it most likely the coldest game we will attend.   How ’bout that?

Cooper is still saying, “BALL!” all day long, and chasing them non-stop, but it now also saying “Baba” for “bottle” and said, “Bock!” several times today, pointing at the blocks in the floor.   He is also starting to imitate general sounds better.   I was feeding him some pasta tonight, and said, “That’s good, huh?”   and he said, “ah duud!” and clapped.   Genius, I tell you.   Genius.

Dudley finally succeeded, after three years, of ridding our yard from his nemesis – a grossly obese ground hog who has been living under our back deck since Kenny was a baby.   He chased that thing nearly every day, sometimes even crawling on his belly under the deck (and getting stuck a few times) to try and catch him.   But yesterday, the unfortunate mammal ventured onto our dock, and Dudley spied him from the other side of the yard.   He tore down there and the poor waddler jumped off in terror, trying to swim to shore.     Kenny and I watched from the yard, not sure if we should root for him or not, as we were certain that if he climbed ashore, Dudley would finally catch him.   The brave little soul made a go for it, but gave up as Dudley kept him from climbing up the bulk head.   Kenny got big eyes and said, “Mama?   Why’d he stop swimming?”   “He died, honey.”   “Oh.”   Our next door neighbor, who was also a witness piped in, “I’m sure he’s in Heaven, Kenny!” leaving Kenny with another 800 questions about life, death, dead bodies, animals and the like.   Rest in peace, Mr. Groundhog.