Kathryn

My next door neighbors raised their first baby in Germany. They speak German at random times. They correct their children in German. They count to three in German but never make it to three. I only know how to count to two. They call binkies “Shnulis” (like shnoo-lee) and I absolutely love it. So we’ve started calling them that too.

Wanda is our first Shnuli Baby. She loves it but doesn’t need it except to sleep. I use it when we’re somewhere very germy so she won’t shove her bacteria-ridden fingers and toes in her mouth.

My mom made her one of those big soft cover things for shopping carts and I’ve recently started strapping her in like a big girl. She loves to find ways to get the schnuli dirty despite my most earnest efforts. If there is one piece of plastic showing on that cart, she will use the schnuli like a paint brush, rubbing uuuup and doooowwwn very slowly and periodically checking out of the corner of her eye to be sure I’m watching. Then when the trip gets really boring, she chunks it out through the leg hole and watches as it gets smaller and smaller and smaller in the distance.

Recently I looked over at her with her schnuli in and thought, “I’m so glad she has that thing in to prevent her from swallowing Legos or buttons that may be lurking around where I can’t see them. She can always find something to choke on no matter how clean I make things.

As far as I could tell, she kept the thing in her mouth until lunch time. I took it out of her mouth, put her in the high chair and fed her several bites of rice cereal before noticing she had something purple in her mouth. It was a heart-shaped candy which she had been sucking on behind the schnuli and WHILE eating the cereal. That kid is a diabolical schnuli-faced sneak. She hides behind it so I don’t know what’s really going on in her mouth.

Freaks me the heck out.

My approach to gardening this year is to kill kill kill everything in sight.

I wanted to plant some things but there is no room in my yard for useful vegetation because it’s all been taken over by crazy soul-sucking weeds. Blackberry vines that I thought were cute and semi-useful have multiplied by such an alarming rate that I fear they may be organizing to overthrow our family and crush our home. Some of the vines are as thick as small tree trunks.

Then there are the dandelions, the morning glory vines, the moss, the crab grass, the terrifyingly invasive Japanese Knot Weed and all of their friends. Any time I clear an area to plant something, the weeds come in thicker and stronger because they have so much freshly churned earth to grow in.

So this year I’ve got chemicals for the areas around the yard where I won’t be planting other things. And for areas where poison would compromise the soil and surrounding plants, I bought a flame thrower.

For reals.

It’s also known as a garden torch but when I ignite that thing and walk up and down the rows of my vegetative nemeses, an area I like to call “The Kill Zone,” I feel mighty powerful indeed. All of my childhood pyro tendencies and all of my current pent-up frustrations come out as I pull my little red wagon full of propane around the yard, laying waste to every living thing that I don’t choose to let live. It’s kind of magical.

Dan stands by as fire marshal and every once in a while I let him have a turn with the big flaming gun, which he assembled for me.

At one point on Saturday I hit a patch of dried leaves that got a little bit out of control and Dan doused it, worried that someone might call the fire department if they saw the smoke.

I think of fire fighters differently lately.

Laylee’s been playing my Style Savvy game on the DSi. I was hooked for a couple of weeks but got over it pretty fast. It’s a little repetitive and there’s only one body type in the game. But Laylee likes it and I had a fun couple of weeks with it. She was recently telling me all about the shop she’s set up and what her favorite clothing suppliers are.

“I don’t really like Mad Jack,” she said of the goth punk clothing supplier. “It’s my least favorite of all the clothes. I don’t even know who would wear it except like punk rock people and firefighters and stuff.”

Apparently firefighters wear spiked dog collars on their necks, dress nearly all in black, carry their wallets on chains and enjoy wearing their hair in purple striped Mohawks. I hadn’t noticed that before but if they have to come out next time I’m Rambo-ing the weed bed, I’ll keep a closer eye on thier fashion choices.

Wanda doesn’t so much like to nurse any more. If the room is dark and silent and she is extremely tired but not deliriously tired, she will maybe possibly nurse. She is more likely to nurse if we are lying on a semi-firm mattress facing each other. She prefers Manfood.

This makes outings harder. Today when we went shopping for several hours, she did not get food for several hours because there is no part of my body that squirts out applesauce or mechanically separated organic turkey and she would have none of the milk. She is also too small to throw pretzels at. Correction. You can throw pretzels at her but it is about as effective as putting her to the breast at satisfying her hunger.

The slightest variance in food temperature causes outrage or fits of hilarity. Slightly-hotter-than-Luke-warm baby food is horrendously awful for the first .0009 milliseconds it’s in her mouth. And what exactly is “slightly-hotter-than-Luke” warm? I’d say “Han-Solo” warm is a little too hot but what else is there, “Uncle Owen”?

If the food is cold it makes her laugh. Rice cereal with cold breast milk? Hilarious. Cold water straight from the fridge in a sippy cup? Forget about it.