The little angel is in love.  I noticed she had been cozying up to J. lately.  He doesn't seem to mind that she can't walk yet.  I think he likes younger women.

Anyway, it was solidified yesterday. First, when my beloved went to pick the little angel up from the Emerald City, she was hugging J.  Then, as I was carrying her around the kitchen, she caught site of her class photo on the refrigerator.  She pointed and gurgled loudly.  I carried her over there, and she lovingly fingered his image with her chubby little pointer.  "Uh-oh," she said.  (This is a sign of pleasure right now.)

I didn't know what to say.  What's next?  J. showing up in a tricked-out walker, luring my little angel away for a night of cigarettes and Purple Passion?  Will she get his name tattooed on her bicep?  A mother worries.

She told me about their latest conversation. She tells me everything.

Little Angel:  You know, I really like a man with long hair.

J:  I know the sign for "bear."

LA:  I think you're awfully cute in cordouroy.

J:  I know the sign for "bear."

LA:  I love you.

"Wild nights are my glory."

I remember reading that line in Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time when I was about eleven.  Maybe that was the line, maybe it wasn't.  Maybe it was the right book, maybe it wasn't.  There were these witches or something named Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which and Mrs. Whatzit.  I think Mrs. Which said it.  Anyway, it doesn't matter.  The line always stuck with me, the way good sentences do.

I think the rain the other day seriously ended my slump.  I'm not necessarily affected by heat and humidity the way some of my Midwestern brothers and sisters are.  I don't seem to wilt as quickly in an unairconditioned room.  I much prefer hot to cold.  However, I need variety in weather. 

At the moment, it looks like a nice storm is brewing. The air coming through the windows is cool, and the sky is glowing from the sun hidden behind all those clouds.  It's going to pour.

My aunt J. moved to California when she was in her twenties.  She grew up in Iowa, like I did.  I remember her telling me the same summer I read that book that she was depressed when she first moved west because there was never any weather.  The days were always the same, without release.  I get headaches sometimes when the rain is coming, but then it comes, and somehow it's like my body chemistry rebalances.  Like the storm itself can release my tension.

Yesterday was a proud day for this mama:  My little baby got her first library card!  For someone with a graduate degree in fiction, this is indeed exciting.  She gets to check out as many books as she wants.  COULD THERE BE ANYTHING BETTER?

The side effect of this frivolity is that I can also gauge if she will look the book or throw it mercilessly to the ground (as she is wont to do) before making the mistake of purchasing its shiny self for $11.50 plus tax in Barnes & Noble.

We went to the big, pretty new KCMO library on the Plaza.  It has a huge children's section (carpeted - I was shocked the rest of the library is uncarpeted and has book-warehouse-looking shelves sporadically placed on the concrete - kind of like a cement plant with interesting furniture) that contains the following:  1) tiny chairs shaped like blocks 2) a globe you can sit in - how cool? 3) a bunch of stand-up boards with buttons to push and things to slide around 4) squishy pillows to jump on 5) little-angel-sized shelves 6) a fairy playhouse and 7) "boo - os", as the little angel frantically repeated, over...and over...and over.

We joined the summer reading club. She can now win fabulous prizes after three hours of listening to Goodnight Moon.  Ain't life grand?

Last night, the little angel realized her own strength.  I knew she was strong - she sometimes flails on the changing table and kicks me in the stomach hard enough to make me wheeze - but I don't think she knew she was strong. Now she does.

We have these fake-suede throw pillows on our couch from Costco (God bless you, Costco, maker of cute, fake, cheap things that still sort of look nice).  They are pretty heavy for pillows.  We usually throw them down on the floor when the little angel is scaling her anywhere chair so she does not split open her melon on the hardwood floor if she happens to miss the rug. 

Last night, she started picking up the pillows and hoisting them around like she was a member of a construction crew, making little grunting noises and sweating.  I could almost see her chewing tobacco while she was doing it.  I thought she would stop after a stack or two, but she just kept rearranging them, grunting, sweating, thumping those pillows around for at least ten minutes, apparently delighted with her own brute strength.  Aha!  I control the world!

When she was finished, she was so exhausted she threw up.  Not a lot, just a little. I wonder what she will do after they make her run a mile in the Presidential Fitness Test?

From time to time, especially when things are going along just fine, I fall into these slumps. I am in one now.  When the slump comes, it sort of lays on top of me and pushes its elbows into my ribcage, not enough to hurt, but enough to just be generally annoying at all times.

There's no real good reason for the slump. I don't know, maybe it's chemical.  I've been feeling extremely tired all the time lately.  Maybe I'm anemic. I doubt it, though.  I've never really been anemic, although I've claimed to be it many times.

When I took the little angel to the Emerald City this morning, her little friend S's mother informed me that S. had roseola over the weekend. I could still see hints of the rash on her legs.  I sure hope the little angel doesn't get roseola. That would not help my slump.

I think I need a sick day. I miss those.  Now I work from home, though, which makes taking sick days hard.  I mean, I could just sit and bed and work, right?  My family was in town over the weekend, and we had a lovely time.  Absolutely no good reason for this.  Get off my back, slump.  It's sunny outside, and it's a short week, and man, do I wish I were happy.

I think I've said before that I now work primarily from home.  However, we've been working on this software application for Large Corporate Telecom, so I've been obliged to haul myself down to the 'burbs almost every day to meet with people.  Sometimes (and this is fun), I have to get gussied up and haul myself down there just so that I can get into a NetMeeting from behind their firewall (yes, you got that - I have to get dressed and drive 45 minutes round trip so that I can sit in a conference room with no one else and dial in to a virtual meeting).  Don't you love how technology improves your life?

The other day, I got dressed in my skirt and top, but I didn't feel like traipsing around my house for three hours in a pair of LCT-appropriate heels.  So I put on my flip-flops ( I used to call them "thongs" until I was informed that we can no longer refer to them that way - pop culture has retired the word "thong" from polite society, just as it crucified the "happy" version of "gay."  Hmph.)

As I was driving to LCT, I looked down.  Yup, still sporting flip flops.  Black with little bead flowers.  They really didn't look that bad - the skirt was the springy sort that could probably pull it off - but it was the SOUND that they made.  I was mortified. 

I walked across the parking lot, followed by a woman in Manolos.  Thwok, thwok.

I entered the marble-laded lobby. Thwok, thwok.

I walked down the hall to my conference room. A long haul.  thwokthwokthwokthwokthwokthwokthwok

I was happy that it was a NetMeeting that time.

Thwok.

The other day my beloved went to pick up the little angel from the Emerald City.  All the kiddos were asleep.  When he asked why they were sleeping so late, he was told that none of them had taken their afternoon naps.  I can just hear them now:

Little Angel:  "My parents hate it when I'm still sleeping at 5:25."

D:  "Yes, mine, too."

J:  "I know the sign for 'bear.'"

S:  "Sometimes when my parents aren't looking, I fall just to get their attention."

S2:  "I fall even when they are looking. It makes them feel worse."

Little Angel:  "It would be fun to all skip our naps."

J:  "But that would make them mad."

Little Angel:  "Exactly.  That's the fun part. They really can't do anything. They can't make us sleep.  I know:  the kitty peed on Mama and Daddy's bed the other day.  They couldn't stop her because they were changing my diaper.  They really don't have control."

S2:  "Really?  My parents always tell me they're in charge."

Little Angel:  "They're not.  Sybil told me so."

J:  "I'm scared."

D:  "I think it sounds fun. Let's do it."

J:  "I know the sign for 'bear.'"

So they held out as long as they could. Finally, in desperation, the daycare people put them in the buggy and took them for a walk. The motion was too much for them and they all conked out on the buggy ride.  Thus, they were sleeping when my beloved showed up.

This is how things get accomplished in the child world.

Yesterday we had the house fogged for spiders and other icky bugs.  Since the beginning of spring, I have probably been killing an average of three spiders a day.  I can just hear some of you sighing that I would not let Charlotte live - I KNOW most spiders don't bite. I KNOW they are good friends that eat the nasty flies.  I DON'T CARE!  I HATE spiders.  So I called the Death Star - Gunter Pest Control.

Part of the Death Star treatment involves some pretty severe fogging.  So severe, in fact, that your beloved pets must be removed from the house for at least four hours.  So, I took Sybil, our 16-year-old cat, to the vet for the day. 

I was sort of surprised she didn't meow plantively like she usually does on the way there. I explained that she was just going to hang out because of the fogging.  She pointed out that she had four legs, not eight, so it shouldn't affect her.  I told her she could suffer from fog inhalation.  She said she thought she could probably hide in the chair and be okay.  I told her she was going to the vet because I am the mama and she is the cat.  She didn't speak to me for the rest of the ride there or the entire ride home.  She even turned her furry back to me in the car.

We should've known she was plotting.  When we arrived home, I realized she had no food, so like the dutiful pet owner I am, I drove to the pet store and bought two bags of the very expensive "senior diet hairball formula" food that she must have at her advanced age.  Total for two small bags:  $17.17.

When I arrived home, my beloved was upstairs changing the little angel's diaper.  Suddenly I heard him screaming, "Help!  Help!"  He only screams like a little girl when afflicted with something too gross to deal with on his own.  I felt my stomach curdle a little.  The cat strolled by, grinning.

I ran upstairs to find Sybil had jumped on the bed, peed as though she'd been holding it all day, and hopped back down gracefully.  It had soaked through the duvet cover, the feather comforter, the sheets and the featherbed. Thank God we have enough feather crap on our bed to stop cat pee from making contact with the mattress. 

As I hauled all these feather items to the dry cleaner (where of course they told me that cat urine is sort of like Agent Orange in that it can never fully be removed), I thought about how much I would've like to kick some furry ass after that one.  We JUST let Sybil back onto the bed, after over a year of floor confinement, about three months ago.  She liked to pee everywhere when she found out I was pregnant.  But she'd been so good!  I thought she was cured!

Late last night, as we locked her out from the upstairs with the handy baby/cat gate, she did look contrite.  She meowed low and brushed against the gate.  She pleaded for mercy.  I told her that I loved her, but she was being punished.  It was a good test, I think, for when I find the pot in the little angel's backpack and she still wants to go to the prom.

We took the little angel to the zoo for the first time this past weekend.  She was excited enough about getting to ride in the jogging stroller WITH snacks.  Then she saw the animals.

For the first half hour or so, she just stared, transfixed, at whatever was in front of her.  For a normally talkative girl, her silence sort of befuddled me.  I've never seen her too surprised to speak before.

The best part was when we got to the elephant.  It raised its trunk to tear some leaves off a tree (did you know elephants ate trees?  I did not know this) and it made that elephant noise - is it trumpeting?  Anyway, the little angel looked at me, eyes like saucers, then pointed to the elephant's trunk, as if to say "Are you SEEING this shit?" 

I looked at the elephant again.  His baggy skin.  His soulful, Willie Nelson eyes.  His hairy little head.  His long, wispy tail.  His very obvious toenails.  I guess I sort of accepted that elephants are the way they are, but upon second glance, they really are goofy-looking.  Maybe she has a point.