No, I’m not dead. And no, Leonard hasn’t run out of things to drink about.*

But yes, I realize that seven (Good Golly SEVEN) months ago this blog became as quiet as suddenly as an Old West saloon when the mysterious stranger saunters through the swinging doors…..

What HAPPENED? you are all asking. And by “all” I mean the 1-2 people who a, were reading this in the first place and b, have not forgotten Leonard’s existence in the last SEVEN MONTHS. 

May I direct your attention to the last post, seven months ago? I won’t even bother linking to it, go ahead, just scroll down, I’ll wait.  

Yeah. That one. Specifically the part where The Kicker is about to crawl. 

There is a BIG difference in workload between a baby who pretty much stays put where you put her, and one who can scamper on all fours at the speed of light to any corner of the house not barricaded off like a medieval fortress, where she WILL find the worst possible thing she can put in her mouth and PUT IT IN HER MOUTH. 

My mother has for many years had a saying, which she trots out when she sees any small child engaged in parent-exhausting behavior. “THIS is why, ” she says, “you have your children while you’re young!”

Oh…how she must be laughing. 

So Leonard has no shortage of things making him drink, I’ve just have a shortage of time and energy to chronicle these things. 

NOW The Kicker is a year old, and entering the toddler phase. No, she’s not actually toddling yet, although I am sure that will come soon and with at least the average amount of head bumping plus Being Able To Reach All New Forbidden Objects. She IS however, already embracing that other well known milestone of toddlerhood. 

Tantrums. 

We stayed at a nice hotel. There was a glass top coffee table. She wanted to pound her little hands on it, loudly. LOUDLY. “No”, said The Canadian to her; gently, reasonably. 

She LOOKED at him, carefully lowered herself to a prone position on the carpet, and began to wail to the heavens……

We went out another day and left her with Grandma. Typically she has NOT been good for Grandma, and has cried a reasonable amount, because Grandma is not Mommy and Daddy. Fortunately Grandma doesn’t care, because her last baby had colic for a year and a half straight, plus The Kicker is as cute as a basket of baby bunnies and Grandma is determined to enjoy her. So she Managed the Crying. 

Now however, The Kicker has figured out that nice things happen at Grandma’s, where she is spoiled and adored. So THIS time, it was reported to us, she was happy and good as gold. 

Until we got her home. And then she let us have it. Loudly.  LOUDLY. 

“What’s WRONG with her?” asked The Canadian. He always asks me this, possibly because I am completely brilliant and also telepathic, but more likely because I have double his previous parenting experience.  

So I explained to him the toddler phenomenon of claiming to be Traumatized by Abandonment to one’s parents, even though one actually had a Marvelous Time while said parents were gone.**

If she could talk the conversation would go something like this:

“YOU LEFT ME!!!”

“But you had a lovely time with Grandma!”

“BUT YOU LEFT ME!!!”

“But ….but you were happy! You played and cooed and clapped your little hands!”

“BUT YOU LEFT ME!!!”
Toddler logic. I’ve warned The Canadian that the answers to the question; “why is she crying?” are about to get a lot more surreal. The Hair once threw a tantrum because I walked in the wrong direction around the dining room table. The Voice once threw a tantrum because I wouldn’t take my friend’s kitchen clock down off her wall for him to play with. The Drama once threw a tantrum because……you know what, we’re not even gonna go THERE. We’ve got enough New Toddler Hi-Jinks to look forward to, and there’s only so much Leonard can handle. 

See you in seven more months!***

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*and no, I also haven’t quite figured out wrapping text around my picture, or how to use a footnote plug-in.  It’s on my list, right under “learn how to make The World’s Best Martini”, and “petition Elon Musk to genetically engineer unicorns, for giggles and kicks”

The photo above, by the way, is NOT The Kicker. It is The Hair, circa 1996, but The Kicker gets the same expression on her face……which is a little terrifying. 

**this is a thing. Really. Trust me. 

***or maybe sooner. Apparently I’m a much bigger optimist that you’d expect a snarky bitch like me to be.