Please excuse typos and apparently the lack of paragraphs. The ipad editor is all weird on me tonight, so i will have to go back and fix everything later. Today marks the fifth day that we have been without J.Tom. He really mneeds to hurry back for two main reasons: lexie and I miss him like crazy and the dark beer and spinach dip I’ve been consuming for dinner are probably packing a lot of fat on my ass. I’m not cooking for just myself while he is gone, so what did I do? I went to walmart and bought snack foods- tropical trail mix, spinach dip, wheat thins, and of course my favorite German beer. I’m pretty sure the spinach dip is doing the most damage at this point, but I know the sugar packed trail mix is coming in at a close second… But the most important thing is that we miss him. Lexie isn’t eating like her normal miss piggie self, at least twice an hour she says “daddy?” and looks towards the entry way for him, and her naps have gone all wonky. I just miss him making me laugh and providing me with fun, meaningful adult conversation for the day; evidentally other people are too busy being consumed by their freakin idiot box to talk to me for 30 minutes. So I just surf the Internet and look at houses and house plans for fun. I found a website similar to TheHousePlanShop.com and fell in love with a gorgeous house. It has always been a dream of mine to build my own house but I’ve never had the funds for it. Moving and building my own house seems like quite a good idea at the minute. One of my best friends has recently done it and her new house is stunning. I’m a little jealous, I have to admit! Tonight lexie and I went for a run, and on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s I run with my group, so I’m not only sitting on my butt all night. I do get out some, haha. I’d much rather have Jtom to talk with and spend my evening. Ha, funny story- I poured a beautiful franziskaner with a perfect head on it, took a picture and sent it to him with the caption “wish you were here.”. He sent me a picture of the beer he was drinking which said “wish you were here, too.”. Now I realize this probably makes us sound like alchies to this who don’t know us that well, but you must understand that jtom and I share a love of many things, one of which is a good dark beer. But he had good cigars to go with his, while I was stuck with just the beer. We also share the enjoyment of a good cigar… I miss my best friend. But he did get to call from Canada, get this, through gmail! Gmail has a calling feature, which is free. This is super great since he couldn’t find an international calling card during his flights from Oregon to Canada. Oh, the world in which we live these days. I remember when calling cards and 1800 collect were the only ways to talk to your parents out of state, let along out of country. The call was very static-y and his voice didn’t sound quite the same, but I’m still thankful for the chance to talk to him, so thank you gmail. 🙂 So, I haven’t had a chance to blog in a while … Well, I have I guess, I just haven’t sat down to do it. Last week, my 13 month old told me she wanted her diaper changed. My THIRTEEN MONTH OLD. Seriously. I’m serious. I was headed from the kitchen to the living room, cup of coffee in hand and baby in towhee, when she wanted through the baby gate. I reached for her hand and told her we were going to “go play.” she proceeded to throw herself down (which she is doing more frequently these days… ), whine and cry “mama mama.”. So I got on her level and told her to “use your words, mama doesn’t answer to whines,” which is when she did it! She looked up at me, red faced and said “booty! Booty!”. So then, realizing what she wanted, I asked”you need your diaper changed?”. She hopped up, grabbed the gate, I opened it while she totted through. She then walked to the dresser and looked up at the changing table. I mean, seriously. Genius, no? Needless to say, I am so very proud. But I don’t think that means she is ready to potty train; everyone says if they can tell you it need changed it’s time to work on potty training but I think she only knew it needed changed because it was very soaking wet; I hadn’t changed her since I picked her up from school and I don’t know the last time they changed her before I got her. So it had prob been a while…. Anyways. Pretty cool. What’s not so cool is that the fits and whining are becoming more frequent. I try not to react to those behaviors, but I don’t know exactly what I should be doing. I really need to get some books on behaviors, because someone has a bit of a temper. I’m just not sure what to do. I mean, I know the technicals: if you know what triggers them, don’t do it, distract distract distract. But I mean, when she is refusing to eat I can’t shovel it into her mouth. And now she turns her head the opposite direction, it’s rather frustrating. I will walk away, give her a minute or five, and then try again. She will usually eat a few more bites and then refuses again. So I’m pretty sure it is all just power struggles and she wants to win. But I will always win. I think .. Well, I hope. Hopefully when daddy gets home all will be right with the world, at least for a little while. ———- On a happier note, my daddy came to visit us this weekend! It was a lot of fun, lexie enjoyed playing with him. They read her favorite book, snuggled, and played with her toys. She really enjoyed teasing him, which was pretty funny. Hopefully he can make it in town more often so we can see him more. I know it is hard for family in Memphis to get here very often. But maybe between us coming there and them coming here, she will get to know everyone better. So my daddy was here Saturday and sunday we did nothing. Lexie wouldn’t nap, I think we spent all day just trying to get a nap in, and she finally dozed off during the time I was supposed to go to a lunch with my girlfriends. So needless to say, nap trumps luncheon. today I did what is left of laundry, did the floors, and washed diapers. I also made lexie some food, apples, spaghetti, and sweet potatoes are all in the freezer. This week will be spent mostly just waiting for jtom to get home. No big plans. But, I will try to get up some of the pictures JTom sent me from Oregon and Canada, as well as some from the weekend with grandaddy Payne, oh, I almost forgot- while my dad was here, lexie was saying “grandaddy” but it mostly came out “nandaddy.”. Pretty sweet, none the less.