A Tale Of Teething

A long long time ago, maybe 6 hours ago, there was a lonely little girl resting boringly on a play mat in the sunshine, with nothing and nobody but a Lumpy heffalump to keep her company.



Gee, it sure would be nice if I had a hand to chew on right about now, she thought to herself.

And then, like magic- along came a big brother, with not one, but two hands!!



Share with me? pleaded the baby.

But hands aren't something that we just go around ...sharing. Are they? Especially with girls, for obvious yucky germy reasons.

So the big brother thought about it. He sucked on his bink, and talked it over with his Lovey. And a few minutes later, they decided... sure, why not.



But the cuteness of it only lasted for so long, because you see- the brother thought they were holding hands for tra la la reasons. He had no idea what the baby's real intentions were.

Until she went for it...



Yes ma'am, she suuure did. She grabbed that hand of his, pulled it to her mouth, and dug her gums into his pinkie finger as hard as her toothless little face would allow.



While most big brothers might feel threatened by an attempt at hand eating, her big brother just pulled his arm away, and had a good hard laugh about it.

Which made the baby very angry.

Couldn't they just be friends? The way that siblings should? Interlock fingers and fetch pails if water and skip to Grandma's house- that sorta thing??



Well, apparently not.

The big brother rolled away from the baby.

"You will not eat my hand!", he told her. "My hand is not a chew toy".



Realizing that her slobbery behavior was maybe unacceptable, she called out to the brother "Come back! ...Don't go!".

"I have to go", he said ...the same way that Daddy says it to him every afternoon when he leaves for work.



"But know this, little baby" said the wise brother from behind the security of his comfortable orange bink, "...you have two hands of your own".



... and so she did.

Stare at the picture, stare at the picture

Particularly, on a day like today, which is turning out to be much like all of last week- the scale arguing with my intense fitness routines, sick children with runny noses and food sensitivities, and the worst of them all ...I forgot my very best friends birthday.

Just stare at the picture, just stare at the picture, just stare at the picture...

But even with another day down in the dumps- the sky is still blue, my babies still laugh, and hopefully my best friend will forgive me.

Especially after I present her with an airline ticket to come see me, as well as a deliciously home baked birthday cake to totally pig out on- Kalii are you reading this?!

Maybe this afternoon I'll take the kids out on the tractor. Nothing says Texas like a toddler on a John Deere. Even if the John Deere is miniature and designed for a butt the size of a 3 year old.