Hope you made your guesses!

It seems our family dynamic is about to change dramatically. I guess having twins does that to you.

What's that you say? You already knew we were having twins? Well, sorry. But it's kind of a big deal. I'm going to be talking about that a lot.

I'm just joshing ya. Remember that one time how Mike currently lives in a house full of women (Katie and I being the quite loud, house-filling women)? Well, it seems that come next spring we women might be slightly outnumbered.

Yup. TWIN BOYS.

Here they are.

Thing 1:

Thing 2:

What did you think, I was going to display their man parts? Nobody wants that on the internet!

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this.

While we let that sink in, want to hear about our trip to the emergency room this week? We still don't know why it happened.

Sunday night after dinner, Mike started feeling queasy. (This was not a surprise. Boy has the stomach of a newborn child.) So we went about business as usual. Went to bed at a relatively decent hour, and I, amazingly, fell asleep quite rapidly.

Well, somewhere in the middle of the night, I realized that Mike was not in bed with me. I waited for him to come back, but he didn't. My brain fell behind and I went back to sleep. Sometime after 5, I woke up enough to be conscious and determine what was going on. Mike had slept for maybe two hours in the night (not consecutively) and had spent most of it downstairs throwing up where he wouldn't wake up the girls. I checked on him, tried to see if he could nibble saltines or if Fresca helped (the bubbles usually help my tummy). He told me to go back to bed, so I made sure our phones were in our respective locations. Sometime after 6, he told me something was not right and he wanted to go to the emergency room.

See, he had been throwing up all night, and who hasn't had a night like that? But things were only getting worse, and he couldn't even keep down sips of water. He actually was shaking quite violently. So I put on clothes and brushed my teeth and called my mom to come get Katie. (Katie would probably not make things more fun in the emergency room.) We only had to wait a couple minutes for Grandma (who I suspect was already awake getting ready to boot some kids out the door to school) and headed off.

Want to know something funny? This wasn't anything like the last time I took Mike to the emergency room. (Remember that delightful appendectomy last summer?) Then he had been throwing up and having real pain and I had been all freaked out because we'd never had anything like this and holy cow what am I supposed to do with my nursing baby? But this time? It's cool, man. It's cool.

No, I'm serious! Ask Mike, I was even telling jokes and being all friendly with the insurance lady and the nurses and stuff. I was so chill and not stressed about things, I felt like my dad. Weird, huh?

Well, they tried some Zofran on Mike (the magical drug that they give cancer patients and pregnant ladies for nausea), but that did absolutely nothing. In fact, he only started getting worse. So after a while of observation that was quite miserable and some rather frustrating waiting, they switched to Phenergan (which is the step usually before Zofran, which I tried when pregnant with Katie, and which had absolutely no effect on me). Happily, that began to work, but it also knocked mister sick boy out almost completely. Which meant that for the next period of observation and waiting, I was quite bored. (That's the only reason I was frustrated during this trip. No book.)

After they figured out that the Phenergan was (kind of) working, and after pumping three bags of fluid into Mr Dehydration's system, they gave us some prescriptions and a diagnosis of dehydration and hypovolemia (not enough blood volume) and sent us home, where Mike got a blessing and where he crashed until after dinner time. Good times, wot?

So, he didn't come with me to my doctor appointment this morning, because he's still home trying to make sure he can eat and not puke before going back to work. But he was no less excited about the boys. Trust me.

Hope you're all warming up for turkey day! Have fun!

The Sticky-Note Post

Remember that sticky note I mentioned last time? Well here it is. (It was real, by the way. Like, an actual sticky note. It's pink.) There are so many things going on with us right now and so many cute things Katie has done (mostly silly Katie things), I'm not really sure where to start. But I'm definitely going to be checking things off the list to make sure I got them all. (And also this is going to be one seriously long post. You might want to get some popcorn or hummus or something.)

Oh! Before I begin my sticky note, I should tell you: this next Tuesday is my 16 weeks appointment, and because we get an ultrasound at every appointment, there is a possibility (not a guarantee) that we could know what the babies are at this one! So if anybody wants to take a guess, you should do it now, and we'll see who wins. (Oh, and if you guess that they're the same, like two boys or two girls, then we'll have a competition on who thinks they're identical and who thinks they're fraternal. Because technically, they could be either.) But that one, we wouldn't know who won until the little ninjas are born, because there's no way to know until then. (Unless it's a boy and a girl. Then it would be totally obvious. Duh.)

Me at 15 Weeks=Yuck

 Okay, big news first: Mike was accepted to medical school! He had his first interview at the DO school at Midwestern University and two weeks later, they offered him a spot! (YAY!!!!) He has two more interviews lined up, so we're not for sure going there, but at least we have a plan. Be sure to congratulate soon-to-be Dr. Mike next time you see him. He's pretty awesome.

In other big news, the temple open house is still going on. We went that first week when Mike's sister was here (Hi, Amy & Co.!) and Katie has not stopped talking about it ever since. Every morning, her first announcement is "Go to a temple with Daddy today." She's not asking. Unfortunately, we haven't had a lot of time to go again just yet. Don't worry, we're planning on it.

But even when we don't go, Katie is definitely temple-focused. Any building with spires or that is white is a temple. In fact, there was a castle in one of her princess coloring books, and she got really excited and said, "look! A temple!" That's right. Castles look like temples. Not the other way around. Also, every time it's Katie's turn to say the prayer, it goes something like this as I whisper in her ear:

Me: We thank thee for our family
Katie: Thank thee for a temple
Me: And our family
Katie: And a temple
Me: (Sigh) Thank thee for Daddy
Katie: Thank thee for a temple!

I've tried saying "We thank thee for the temple" first to see if she'd move on, but no. She just is thankful for the temple.

My favorite temple moment so far happened last week when Katie wanted to sing the temple song ("I love to see the temple" from the Children's Songbook). Now, she's not like other nursery kids. She actually knows all the words and usually sings in tune with me. It's pretty impressive. And this one has become one of her favorites. However, I discovered that she doesn't actually know what all the words mean. (Surprise!)

So we sang through the song, and as many of you know, the song ends with saying that preparing to go to the temple is "my sacred duty." Katie immediately got about an inch from my face (this is how I know it's important) and said, "What's duty?" So I explained, simply, that duty meant doing good things, the things we were supposed to do. Katie thought for a second, then said, "like baptized?" After my initial shock, I said, "Yes, exactly, like getting baptized." This seemed to clear up the matter, and she moved on to "Wheels on the Bus."

Speaking of singing, remind me for next time to attempt to capture the "I am a Child of God" rap. Or, if we're lucky, the ABCs. I need some video. And you guys will probably just about die.

But as I don't have any videos of such singing yet, we must press on.

Katie and Daddy having a Benny Goodman jam session

One of the punkin's defining characteristics lately is definitely (attempted) independence. Yes, she is almost two years old. How did you know? And the most common way that this is exhibited is through all of her getting dressed times. See, Katie is quite a fan of her footie pajamas. She is very depressed about the recent retirement of the 18-month sized twinkle star jammies, but she revels in her cupcake jammies and her snowman jammies. They are her pride and joy.

But mostly the zippers. She LOVES zippers. And if Mommy or Daddy tries to zip up or down for her, there is drama. Oh man, is there drama. So jammies are Katie's territory. But recently, so is all of her other clothing. If I try to choose her outfit in the morning, there is a significant amount of screaming and clawing and I end up just giving up and letting her sit naked on the floor until she calms down. So we have now gotten into a pattern of "If you let Mommy change your diaper, you can pick your clothes by yourself." Which means I change her and retreat to my rocking chair, then watch as she spends a significant amount of time running around in her underwear before finally choosing her purple pony sweatshirt and some blue and green stripey pants. Or something equally as heinous. And I must employ all of my skillful persuasion tactics to get her into something I would let her wear in public. Sometimes, though, I just can't get to her.

Why does she even own these pants?

But the best part? Watching her try to get herself dressed. After a few tries, she'll usually come over and let me orient the articles of clothing before she pulls them on. But the other day, she put on a little pair of brown, fleece-lined pants that we discovered had a little itty-bitty zipper fly and snap. They were also elastic, so Katie had no problem putting them on, until she noticed the zipper and snap. And OFF they went. She asked me to undo the snap, and she undid the zipper, and then she could put the pants on. And then zip them. And then ask me to do the snap up again. Seriously, kid?

As you can probably guess, a significant amount of Katie's genes came from rather obsessive-compulsive family members. And they're definitely not mine. I don't know where she got them. (*cough cough Auntie Sarah cough*) And there are more hilarious examples of her OCD. Let me illustrate.

One of my mom's favorite things to tease all of her OCD kids about is that we (mostly I) eat my skittle/M&Ms/jelly beans in rainbow order. That means ROYGBIV. Red ones first. And I will not eat an orange one until I have finished the red ones. Well, Katie hasn't quite got the order down, but she's working on it. Every day, if she eats her lunch all gone, she gets to pick a candy from her Halloween bucket. Her favorites so far are the little things of M&Ms. And she will not eat a green one until the blue ones are gone. I haven't watched her through the whole thing, but I think it goes red, yellow, blue, green, brown. I think.

Another example! We have three cushions on our sofa. I didn't realize it, but I guess I had got into the habit of always sitting on the one on the left (so I could lean on a pillow on the arm rest, of course). Well, Katie has got it into her head that the left one is Mommy's couch, the middle one is Katie's couch, and the right one is Daddy's couch. Heaven help the one who crosses the cushion boundaries.

But I think one of the funniest ones has to do when we're hanging out with my parents. I have, on several occasions, been talking to one of my parents, and, thinking that Katie was in the other room completely oblivious to our conversation, called them "mom" or "dad." On such occasions, Katie has come running over to me, passionately announcing that "That's not Mommy, that's Grandma! This is Mommy!" (Gesturing vigorously at me.) The same thing happens with my dear father, should I forget myself and call him "dad." The last time it happened, we patiently tried to explain that "Katie, this is my daddy." Kind of like how we explained that Uncle Jared was Spencer's daddy. But no. "That's not daddy, that's Abuelo!"

In a similar vein, I made the mistake the other day of referring to myself as "mama" when talking to Katie. I was quickly corrected. "Not mama, Mom-MY!"

She has also become quite "helpful" of late. Mostly when it comes to cooking. I'm not allowed to cook or make anything without her, even her peanut butter sandwiches. She was quite offended last night when I wasn't going to let her help make the french toast. But the cutest thing ever was a couple weeks ago when Mike decided to make banana chocolate-chip muffins on a Sunday afternoon, and Katie decided to help. Of course she couldn't help Daddy unless they were both wearing aprons. (Note to self: next project is to make aprons that fit shorty cakes.)

And then there are all the things that she does that are just goofy. For example, last week her favorite animal was a frog. This means that all the time, she was a frog, hopping about and ribbiting. Her first announcements of the morning were "Frogs need breakfast! Frogs eat bananas and toast." Good to know, kid. She even got upset when I was trying to get her ready for the day because "I need to be a frog!"

One of my favorites came from Dr. Seuss. Ever read his ABCs? I is for itchy, itchy Ichabod! So the other day, Katie's sitting in her car seat as we're driving somewhere, and she starts furiously scratching her stomach. "I have a Ichabod!" Mike and I totally busted up.

One of her favorite games is to play pretend, but only if she can stay one step ahead of Mommy. For example, "I'm a horse!" (enter her blowing raspberries like a horse) "Oh yeah? You're a horse?" "I'm not a horse, I'm a bunny! Hop, hop!" "A bunny?" "I'm not a bunny, I'm a puppy! Arf!" "Oh, you're a puppy now?" "I'm not a puppy, I'm a Katie!" It usually lasts much longer than that, or she'll just correct us once. "I'm not a super hero, I'm a Katie! No, I'm a super Katie!" It's pretty great.

But my favorite, definitely, has been since we went to see Sarah and Parker's marching band show from this year. Most of Katie's toys since have become some sort of wind instrument, and she periodically starts waiving her arms around when there's music. I'll say, "Are you conducting the band like Auntie Sarah?" And she says, "Yes. I'm a marching band!" The best was when we were at the farm a few weeks ago. Katie found some sort of toy hammer and something that could be a drum, and spent most of the weekend marching around the house, banging on her drum, and singing "toot de toot!" Whenever she'd get close to one of the grown-ups, she'd say, "I'm a marching band!" This kid has a good future, does she not?

Just catchin' some sun.

Well, that's everything on my sticky note. Sorry the post was so long. Hopefully you enjoyed it anyway. And I might attempt to keep my posts slightly shorter in the future. It would help if I remembered to write more than once every other month, huh? Well, we'll see. Happy November!

I love candy! I need more trick-or-treating!

I know what you're thinking. You're saying, "Britt, Halloween was on Wednesday. Seriously, what took you so long?" And I'll say, um, well . . . I don't have a good retort. But at least I'm telling you, right? And it's the whole story. Complete with (limited) illustration.

Overall, I believe it was quite successful. We began the day with my mom coming over to finish our costumes. (Not Katie's. She had hers ready and was practicing wearing it for about a week and a half before.) Mine was quite awesome.

Remember that whole thing about how I've having twins? Well, there is an enormous wealth of awesome things to do with Halloween when you're pregnant, but this is my one chance to wear something awesome that has to do with growing two babies. So, enter a bunch of felt and some tacky glue.

Yeah, I'm pretty cool. But my mom's costume was even cooler. We stuffed some nylons, stuck some velcro on her sweater, and dug through a spare magazine for makeup ads full of eyes and lips. And voila!

Meanwhile, Katie made a nest in Grandma's box full of batting. I wish we'd gotten a picture of that. She was tucked in with most of her stuffed animals and several novels I only acquired because of my English classes. But she also got Shelley's Frankenstein. That's Halloween-y, right?

Then we had to stick her in her chair for lunch, and she couldn't understand why she couldn't go to Grandma's house to go trick-or-treating right then. We had to promise that she could when Daddy got home from work. And then Grandma bribed her with jelly beans. Typical.

("These are tomatoes, Mommy. More beans, please?")

My mom had to leave to go take care of somebody's class Halloween party (yes, I do have a brother in 1st grade. I'm awesome like that) so Katie and I finished off the jelly beans by ourselves. It was difficult, but we managed. As soon as lunch was over, Katie insisted  that it was time to go trick-or-treating and proceeded to put on her costume, which she wore for the rest of the day. And still I did not take a picture.

MEANWHILE, AT A NOT-SO-DISTANT DOCTOR'S OFFICE . . .

Mike and I had spent the night before frantically trying to figure out what he should dress up as, because he was the only one who didn't have a costume planned out. And (surprise!) we couldn't think of anything. I think we could have if we'd kept trying, but he kind of chickened out. Well, when he got to work the next morning, other people had dressed up, and there was a costume contest. Rather than admit that he hadn't dressed up, he told his coworkers that he was a supermodel. Typical.

The best part though? He won. There was a tie, but he won the costume contest as a supermodel. This is ridiculous. Thanks, coworkers. Really appreciate it.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE HOME FRONT . . .

So nap time came, and I really couldn't sleep. (Seriously? Sleeping becomes medically necessary for me now and I lose my ability to do it? Seriously?) The Katie totally crashed though. Like, for a long time. I managed to sleep for, like, maybe half an hour, and then woke up to put some finishing touches on Katie's costume and to put on some dramatic Halloween makeup (or maybe any makeup at all.) Mike got home and Katie woke up and we all got dressed and Katie decided she wanted some dramatic Halloween makeup too. To her shock and amazement, I said yes just for Halloween, and put a minimal amount of glitter on her cheeks (leftover from my glittery teenage girl days) and drew a purple star on her cheek (to match the purple ribbon on her hat.) She was pretty adorable.

I had had a stroke of genius while Mike was at work (and he was NOT going to go trick-or-treating as a "supermodel"), so he was a sock monkey. It turned out pretty well for how last-minute it was, I think.

So we set off for Grandma's house (her neighborhood is much more lucrative than mine in the candy department) and I still did not take any pictures. Are you seeing a pattern in my intelligence level yet?

Immediately upon our arrival, Katie was swarmed by adoring fans . . . er, aunts and uncles. And they made her giggle, so I snapped a couple pictures with my phone (because I had realized my enormous mistake by this point.)

From here on out, the pictures are provided by my parents and their camera. They're dark and blurry because of all the Halloween-iness, and because I was a dunce and forgot my fancy camera that can deal with dark and blurry situations. But I am SO glad that somebody had the presence of mind to have a camera out. So there is evidence.

So Daddy and Abuelo took Katie and her uncles out trick-or-treating, and because I love to watch other people fawn over my adorable baby, I tagged along. Man, was it worth it. All the people who usually give you one or two (if you're lucky) were like, "Oh my gosh! She's so cute! Here, sweetheart, take as much as you want!" So she did. Mike actually had to pull her away from a few doors because the sweet old ladies weren't going to stop her from taking the entire bucket of candy.

My favorite story of the night? She had just trick-or-treated at someone's house, and was coming down their front steps holding my dad's hand, and her pumpkin bucket swung over her shoulder so she was holding it behind her, and she actually began to fall over backwards from the weight. The bucket of candy was heavier than the girl could carry. You know you've really scored when you can't even carry your bucket.

So the next time we saw my mom (she was roving in an actual vehicle for our transportation convenience) my dad emptied most of Katie's bucket into a bag so that she would still be able to carry it. She did not see him do this. She did not see the extra bag of candy. But when we got out of the car at a different part of the neighborhood and Abuelo gave her back her bucket, she noticed. She looked in the bucket, saw only a few pieces of candy, and got super mad. "Abuelo! Give it back!" Yeah, he was in a lot of trouble. Luckily, we managed to distract her by taking her to another house for more candy.

Well, we went at it for a while, saw a lot of other people we knew, got a huge 'ole bucket of loot, and stopped to go home when Mommy and Daddy were tired. Seriously, Katie could have gone all night. Come on, Mom. There's candy involved. We really have to stop?

So we went back to Grandma and Abuelo's house and evaluated the results of our evening. Katie did pretty well. But then she noticed that there was candy that could actually be eaten, and I don't think she let her mouth get empty of jelly beans for the rest of the night.

Well, after she did about 300 laps of Grandma's house, we decided it was time to attempt to go home for bed (mostly because Mommy was weeping from exhaustion and back pain.) We managed to get the witchy-poo and her candy out to the car and back home to bed, and oh man. That sugar crash sure did her in.

The next morning she didn't wake me up until 9:30 (Wonder of wonders! Miracle of miracles!) and then we had a super lazy day where I didn't wear makeup (um, surprise . . .) and we just kind of rested and played. And also Katie couldn't understand why I would think that she had to eat lunch before she could dig into her Halloween candy.

That night she got really mad when we said we weren't going back to Grandma's house to go trick-or-treating with Abuelo again. Come on, Mommy! I need more trick-or-treating!

Stay tuned for next week when I'm going to write another whole post about all the random funny things the Katie has taken to doing. I have a whole sticky-note list of them to remind myself. They're quite fantastic. But this post has already been way too long. So you're just going to have to wait.

BOGO Babies!

After my 12 week appointment on Tuesday, we went to talk to the billing department at my doctor's office to talk about how expensive babies are and how the heck are we going to pay for them. It was a very encouraging and uplifting meeting.

See, the way I figured, one big fat pregnancy, one big fat delivery, one big fat bill. Right? It makes sense, doesn't it? Well, no. Turns out the first baby is regular price and the second baby is discounted. So, it's like buy one get one half off. They're Payless babies.

Okay, so it's still not as bad as it could be, because we have much better insurance than we did last time. They might both still be about the same amount we paid for Katie. But we'll see. It just kind of was funny to me.

In other news, Zofran is not the completely miracle drug I hoped it would be. Okay, so, yeah, it kind of is. I really only puke about three times a week, instead of every half hour. But the lamest part? I can't eat anything remotely delicious or I throw up a lot. This includes but is not limited to lasagna, pizza, spaghetti, and lemonade. So, basically, anything acidic or tomato-ey, which is unfortunate, because if you're my friend you know how I am about tomatoes. Oh man.

Also, Katie has inherited my love of tomatoes, and gobbles them down quite ravenously whenever they get within arm's reach. And I just have to look on in envy. Hmph.

All in all, though, things are going well. I can't walk too much or lift anything or really be useful to anybody or I start getting all hurty and, frequently, dizzy. Which makes me do ridiculous things like wobble like an old woman. It's freaked Mike and my mom out a little bit. But it's cool.

The big news right now, though, is the Boise Temple open house. That's right, OPEN HOUSE! It's totally available to the public for tours. You should probably make a reservation here or just go. Go to the temple. I can promise it will be an experience you will never forget.

In a similar vein, Mike's youth in our ward made a video advertising the temple open house and put it online. It's a little bit silly. But mostly awesome. They're pretty cool kids. I think Mike should have been in the video, though.

We're taking Katie to the temple tonight because Mike's sister and her family are coming to see us (hi, Amy!) and we're all going to go together. I hope Katie doesn't wreak any havoc. Oh man, that could be bad. Hopefully she'll like it and we'll be safe.

Be excellent to each other!

Okay, fine, you can start telling people now.

Yes, Mom and Mike, you can. I've tried to keep it just in the family for a long time, but now I don't really have a choice anymore. The picture below might help explain why.

Do you see that? That's me being 10 weeks pregnant and already showing like a crazy person. You might say, "Well, Brittany, sometimes when you are having not your first baby, you show earlier." And I will say to you, "Yes, that's true, but there are extra circumstances related here." Also, you might want to sit down.

Do you know what that is a picture of? Two babies. Two. Babies. TWO BABIES!!!!!!! Yup. It's true.

Come April, Katie will be joined by a couple 'o' little twin siblings.

Are you okay? Did you sit down when I told you to? No adverse reactions? Good.

So, my official due date is April 29, but twins come early. They don't usually go all the way on their own, but also it's not safe for anybody to try and wait until 40 weeks. My doctor already told me he won't let me go past 38 weeks. So . . . early to mid April. Right after our insurance deductible starts over. Ironic, eh?

Also, I'm twice as likely to get everything twice as bad with twins as with regular pregnancies. More likely to get gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, premature labor, etc. Also, my nausea was getting way worse way faster, and I'm automatically on "modified bedrest" after 28 weeks. (Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'm definitely sure that Katie won't appreciate it.)

But remember last time how I delivered at the same weight I was when I got pregnant? Well, that's not going to happen this time. Because . . . (drumroll please) . . . Zofran has a generic now! Woohoo! I didn't get it last time because it's absurdly expensive nausea medication and we didn't have fabulous insurance. But this time, I don't even have to worry about that because the generic is super cheap! Yay!

That means that so far, this pregnancy is already slightly better than the last one. I am bigger than usual, and I have more heartburn, headaches, and dizziness than I ever did during my last pregnancy, but at least I'm not puking! Man, am I grateful.

(I made this cake when we found out we were pregnant, and it was supposed to show that we don't know if it's a boy or girl. Now we know it could be . . . both . . . )

Now, before I begin my definitely promised photo gallery, want one more anecdote of Katie (which I may have simply forgotten last time but definitely think is still hilarious?) Okay.

Mike's current calling is in the Young Men's Presidency, and he works with the teachers. Well, one Wednesday night, we had finished dinner and he was getting ready to head out to mutual, and Katie was rather distraught. (If you look up "Daddy's Girl" in the dictionary, there is a picture of Katie with her daddy quite literally tied in a knot around her little finger.) Here's what happened:

Katie: No, Daddy, not go to work! [Enter lots of tears and clutching of the pant legs.]
Mike: I'm not going to work, Katie. But I have to go to church!
Katie: Church? Go to nursery? Please? Okay! [Tears instantly gone, grabbing shoes.]
Mike: No, it's not Sunday. There's no nursery today.
Katie: Nursery not?
Mike: No, I just have to go be with the boys.
Katie: Boys? I love boys!

As you can probably guess, the end of this little repartee may have made Mike want to take Katie to the young men's activity even less. We are off to a bad start with this little flirt.

It's okay, though. One of her favorite games is to shout, "I love you!" at each other and see who starts giggling first. (I always win.)

Okay, fine, here are all the pictures. But I realized I never put up pictures of our trip to Mike's parents' house at the end of July, so that's where we'll start. Also, I have trouble narrowing down pictures. Brace yourself.

(The following picture was taken as we were pulling out of Mike's parents cul-de-sac. About 24 seconds after we buckled Katie in.)

Helping wash Daddy's car (notice that the sponge is firmly clamped under her other arm.)

"Watch out, chickens! Watch out!"

Phew! That was a lot of post. I hope you guys are satisfied for at least, like, a week or something.

It's been a while now, hasn't it?

Hello, everyone. I'm sorry I'm the worst ever slacker-pants. I was recently alerted to the fact that I could lose my three readers if I don't write soon. GASP! Well, I'm back.

Sadly, I don't have my camera handy. BUT, I will next Monday. Next Monday you are guaranteed a new post. With pictures. Did you see that word I just used? I said guaranteed. That's a big deal for me.

But for this post, you will have to be contented with a series of anecdotes about how ridiculous my toddler is. Not that you didn't already know . . .

SOMETIME IN THE RECENT PAST--I was making dinner and Katie was just playing toys around my feet. At one point, she crawled between the legs of her high chair and sat down underneath it. When I looked around, she said, "Birdie cave! Tweet tweet! Tweet tweet!" I said, "you mean birdie cage?" She said, "No! Birdie cave!"

LAST TUESDAY--For those of you who have seen a version of The Pirates of Penzance (and if you haven't, you really need to. Yes it's a musical by Gilbert and Sullivan, but it's hilarious even if you're not into musicals. Even Mike loves it. And we have the movie with Kevin Kline, Rex Smith, George Rose, and (alas!) Linda Ronstadt, and Mike's taken me to a live performance of it. Recommended.) Anyways, since it's a long time since I started that last sentence, I'm just starting over. For those of you who have seen The Pirates of Penzance, remember the song in Act 1 where Frederic is singing to the "bevy of beautiful young maidens," and because the only woman he's seen since he was 8 was his middle-aged nursemaid, he doesn't know if they're really top product? "Oh is there not one maiden here whose homely face and bad complexion has caused all hope to disappear?"

Well, the other night when we were cleaning up after dinner, either Mike or I started singing this song because we like being ridiculous and imitating the silly voices and Elvis impersonations and stuff. When we got to the part where the girls start yelling back "Alas! There's NOT one maiden here!" I began singing it in my most annoying voice, accompanied by the furious fanning that they do in the movie version because they've been reduced to tears.

You know what Katie says? "Calm down, Mommy! No freaking out!"

Mike and I had to sit down for a moment until we could stop convulsing with laughter.

SATURDAY--As you can probably guess, Mike and Katie finished getting ready in the morning before I did. So they were downstairs, playing in the family room, reading stories and whatever, and I was upstairs in the bathroom putting on my makeup. During this process, I knocked something off the counter. And because the things on the counter could be made of glass and even if they're not they echo like crazy people, I yelled "aaaah!" Well, immediately, Katie ran to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up, "What's a matter, Mommy?" I responded "Nothing's the matter. I'm okay." So she says, "that's okay, Mommy? That's okay?" I say "yep." So she mutters "that's okay," and goes back to her stories.

SUNDAY--In the evening we went to an Eagle Court of Honor for one of Mike's scouts, and they were playing a little movie about what the Eagle Scout award means. Of course, with a movie going and the lights off, they attracted Katie's attention, so she was standing on Mike's lap to see over the people in front of us. At one point it had a picture of a bald eagle show up (just its head and shoulders) and Katie got really excited. "Look, a penguin!"

The missionary crouching next to our row of chairs almost fell over he was laughing so hard.

TODAY--We went out to my grandparents' farm to pick raspberries and tomatoes. The way I kept Katie where I could see her was by letting her hold my bucket while I picked grape tomatoes. Well, I'd pick a handful, and hand them to Katie, saying, "okay, put these in your bucket!" Pretty sure 1 out of 5 ever made it to the bucket. Same with when she was helping with raspberries.

TODAY AGAIN--Partway through the morning, Katie and I went with Papa to go collect eggs from the chicken coop. Well, Katie's perfectly okay with chickens unless they get too close to her. So she follows Papa in after I chuck some food to get them out of the roost, and starts dancing around singing about eggs. When a chicken gets too close and she looks afraid, I push it away and say, "watch out, chickens." Soon enough, whenever a chicken gets too close for comfort, Katie flaps her arms like a crazy person, saying "Watch out, chickens! Watch out, chickens!" After a while, there were just too many for that to scare them and she got a little sad. But still, watch out, chickens!

AND AGAIN--After getting the eggs, we went to collect all the grandmas and Auntie Hannah for lunch. We made some sandwiches and all sat down around the table. After a couple minutes of gobbling down the individual pieces of her sandwich, (tomato first of course,) Katie looks over at me, slightly surprised. "Hey, Mommy! Whatcha doing' here?"

Good to know I'm really needed around here.

MANY TIMES RECENTLY--Katie has a little magic wand with a "twinkle star" at the end, and it's all glittery. Well, if you ever get too close when she's holding her magic wand, she'll come over to you, wave it furiously, and say, "1, 2, 3, Punkin!" And poof! You're a pumpkin. If you're lucky, she'll giggle for a second, then say, "1, 2, 3, Mommy!" And turn you back into Mommy. Unless you're somebody else. Then hopefully she doesn't turn you into Mommy.

She also loves to wear sparkly "barina" skirts over all of her outfits. And if it's not a "barina" skirt, it's her owl hat. Or sunglasses all day long. Or a sparkly hot pink headband. Really, I don't know where she gets it from.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. Let it be known that my daughter has way too much imagination for anyone's good. And I will renew my promise: Monday, you will have a new post. With pictures. Maybe even one of me! (But only if you promise not to tease me or anything.) Bye!

The cutest thing you have EVER seen.

Okay, so I put this up on a family website, but I have had protests that it needs to be available to other branches of family and also people to whom we are not strictly related. So here it is.

Note: there is one point where Mike and I totally aren't connecting what she's trying to say, so we just kind of wait for her to move on to something we understand. It has since been deduced that she says she needs to "rinse."

Enjoy.