We woke up to a death in the family on Sunday. Our plecostomus was lying motionless on the bottom of the tank. I don’t know how long he was dead, because I don’t remember noticing him moving for the last few days. Gina said she saw him alive Friday night. Abby was less than devastated. She said, “It’s gross!”
The garage is turning out to be a pretty good photo studio. It’s nice for Abby because the mosquitoes aren’t as bad in there as they are in the back yard. I gave Abby the white-background treatment like I did Gina the night before. (See those on Flickr.) Then we put the bubble grill in there and Abby went crazy rubbing the bubble elixir all over her arms and legs.
This is the 10,000th shot on my Nikon D40 I bought back in November. (The camera started over with the numbering at 0001. It skipped 0000. The first shot started at 0001, of course, and the camera isn’t smart enough to know that this wasn’t the very first shot.) I bought it to take pics of Abby, mostly. Our little digital point and shoot was getting outdated and I wanted something a little more flexible. I didn’t realize that the DSLR would reignite my latent interest in photography. I’m looking forward to the next 10,000.
Gina found a tiny toad in the back yard and we took Abby out to see it. I put it in her hand and it kept jumping onto the ground in an attempt to flee. Abby would yell, “COME BACK TOAD!”
Then she gave it a kiss. It didn’t turn into a prince, though.
Today we let Abby run around without a diaper again in the hope for a repeat potty performance. Well she went in there, sat on her little potty and POOPED! We danced for joy again. But poop is a lot grosser in that little potty than pee.
Here’s a twofer for Abby Monday.
Sunday was a red-letter day for us. We’ve been sorta encouraging Abby to use the potty with little luck. But she was saying she had to pee, and Gina let her run around sans diaper to see what would happen. Generally when she gets loose in the house without a diaper she pees on the floor. Once she even pooped on the floor in the laundry room.
Gina was messing around in the bathroom when Abby walked in and sat on her tiny blue potty. She does that sometimes and Gina didn’t think anything of it. Directly, Abby says I pee-peed. Gina skeptically leaned over and looked in and what do you know, she actually had peed. You can imagine the dance of joy we all performed.
This morning when I was taking Abby to school, I said to her, “Remember yesterday when you peed in the potty?” She replied,”Yeah, my Daddy proud of me. My Mommy proud of me.” And so we were.
It’s getting pretty summery in NWA so Gina bought a blow-up back yard pool for Abby to splash in. Gina insists Abby wear the floaties on her arms even though the water’s not deep enough for them to actually keep Abby afloat.
Abby persuaded Mama to get in with her and she had a big time pouring cold water on Mama’s back.
Abby, Gina and I took a little trip over to Eureka Springs today for a little walking and window shopping. We had Abby in her full tourist get-up. She likes to push Dora the Explora around in her baby stroller. You have to be patient when she’s got that stroller going.
A banjo, a fiddle and dog. Three reasons why Eureka is so much fun. That and cross-dressing bikers. (I didn’t have the gumption to shoot the cross-dresser.)
We took a little rest near the airbrush tattoo stand where these disembodied, yet sexy, legs were kickin’ it.
We watched a middle-aged woman get a butterfly tramp stamp.
The taffy puller at the candy shop was the most interesting thing about the candy shop, but Abby started yelling CANDY! so we had to go in. In order to get Abby out of the candy shop, Gina had to tell her that the candy was in her purse and we’d get it out when we got back to the car. We didn’t actually buy any candy.
We went down to Spring Street to see the Grotto Spring. It was apparently dug out in the late 1800s and a cool stone arch built at the entrance.
Ned in the first reader lives on Spring Street, evidently. We saw several of his trademark works along the sidewalk.
Thornecrown Chapel was out last stop. It’s made mostly of glass so it feels like you’re sitting in the woods at church. Except it’s about 15 degrees cooler and there are no mosquitos. The attendant was a little annoying with his photography rules and shushing the visitors.
Abby had her 2-year-old doctor visit today. She weighed 28 pounds, 60th percentile. She was 34 inches tall, 75th percentile.
Dr. Rogers listened to Abby’s heart for a long time and finally pronounced she had a heart murmur. She said it was a benign type called a musical heart. It was so pronounced, she thought Abby was actually humming. She even had another doctor come and listen. They both said it was nothing to worry about. Other than that, she got a clean bill of health.
Abby had a little trouble coping with all the festivities going on for her birthday last weekend.