A lovely 68 degrees this morning. A fabulous 80 yesterday. Who doesn't just love spring? My house has a lot less ivy hanging on it, and the bush by the front door, well, it's still an ugly bush, but there's about half as much ugliness there today as yesterday. The tulips and other unknown green things are popping up all over, along with one lone purple flower by the sidewalk.

My kitchen got painted at last, see the house page. It's not terribly interesting, but you're welcome to take a peek anyway.

You know what I said about mimicking? Well, yesterday a bunch of the kids were coughing and Annika was not going to be left out. She made a few fake hacks and we all got a good laugh.

What a fun age. Annika is mimicking everything these days and beginning to follow simple instructions. 11 months old and a baby has a hold on language already?!? And 2 of them at that! I told her to sit down in the bathtub (in spanish of course, that's all she gets from me). She sat. She stood up again immediately and I told her to sit down. She sat. For another half second. So, there's still a little progress to be made. Andy also asked her where her doggy was (spanish) and she went and got it.

She was playing with a pen this afternoon and pulled the cap off. She sat looking from one hand to the other at the cap and the pen, trying to figure out just how this thing worked. She proceeded to drop the cap and pull some more on the pen... I guess to see if another cap would magically appear in the other hand. Right now, she's doing a pretty thorough inspection of my vacuum cleaner. It's got a cool button that you push and the cord comes flying in. She had quite a surprise the first time she leaned a little too hard on the button.

If you're noticing a pattern with the last few pictures, you're right. I spend my entire day sitting next to the little princess in her throne.

Yesterday, we dropped my mom and sis off at the airport and I thought I'd run a few errands on the way home. We made it through Joann Fabrics and I was starved so I grabbed a bite at McDonalds (cheap, cheap!). While I ate, she screamed. I realized I didn't have anything for her to eat, so we drove home. She screamed the whole way home. I changed her diaper, attempted to stuff something down her throat, and put her to bed. She screamed through the whole thing. Finally, I got her up to play, which she was happy with for about 20 minutes or so. Then, she started whining again, and I sent her back to bed, where she screamed herself to sleep. Lucky for my sanity, she fell asleep rather quickly. From there, she took a very short nap, woke up, and whined the rest of the afternoon. I was ready to tear out my hair. But I didn't. I only have a few precious strands left.

I had this dream the other night. I share it, only because I could not have come up with a more creative story if I tried. The scene was so bizarre, I laughed myself back to sleep.

My friend and I were visiting a foreign country. We came out of the post office and took the local taxi service back home. The taxi was an enormous dump truck, painted dark brown. There were two such vehicles waiting for passengers outside the post office. My friend, braver than I, chose the one where the chauffeur was munching on a hamburger out of a McDonald's bag. She opened the door, and we peered up at the driver. He was an oversized gorilla with the head of a bull, completely brown like the truck, wearing brown pants and a brown shirt, sitting on a brown bench seat. The bull nodded at us, set aside his french fries with his gorilla hands, and took the wheel. We breathed a sigh of relief when he acknowledged our presence and took the wheel because that meant he wasn't going to eat us. We hopped up next to the grotesque beast and off we bounced. The bull gorilla was a good driver. He yielded to the other dump truck taxis driven by other bull gorillas. Plus, we didn't have to tell him where we were going. Somehow he just knew.

So, the next time you have one of those, "I'm the strangest person in the world" moments, you can remember my dream and know that I've got you beat.