A year ago:

Aged Cat, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I still miss my kitty.

Jon is on his way home, none the worse for the wear (but we won't talk about his rental vehicle).

Yes, I will be watching the Bionic Woman tonight. Katee Sackhoff plays the bad cyborg (she plays Starbuck on BSG). Matter of fact, several BSG alumni are involved with this show including producer David Eick. If he can re-imagine dreck like Battlestar Pondersosa into some of the best TV going, it will be interesting to see what he does with a show I recall liking a lot more.

I'm also going to be watching Life, which is uncomfortably a lot like House only with a cop instead of a doctor. But said cop is Damian Lewis so I'm there.

The language therapist visited him yesterday and was way impressed with his leap in verbal skills. Here's the latest Brenden dialog exchange (said about 100 times the last 48 hours) :

"Dada choochoo!" (Or "dada ado!" or "dada milk!" or "dada bobob!")

"Call me mama, remember?"

"No, mama!"

Jon in Switzerland

Jon in Switzerland, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

The world is a very small place, these days. Jon just emailed me this photo while he was out drinking with his buddies after a relaxing day of jumping off mountains. As you can see from this photo, its no wonder BASE jumpers like to vacation there.

Yesterday I went to Target to get some prescriptions filled, and I thought of a little present I wanted to get Brenden for when he actually called me 'mama'. I found a little 'Terence the tractor' figure (one of Thomas the Tank Engine's friends). Brenden adores Terence. Every time the episode comes on where Terence pulls Thomas out of a snow bank Brenden will run around the house looking for Jon and I going "Ooo dada wook! Ooo dada wook! Dachoo! Dachoo!"

Anyway, I got home and wrestled with the packaging to extract the toy (that plastic is tough! You almost need a blowtorch to cut it), put it in my pocket, and went and got Brenden. He almost immediately called me 'mama' so of course besides showering him with love like an overaffectionate labrador (without all the slobber) I gave him his tractor.

He played with it all night and took it to bed with him. In the morning he asked me where it was so I retrieved it from his bedsheets and he took it with him to daycare. Brenden loves Spongebob but Terence is a God to him.

And to remark on Nancy's comment from last post: Fun with pronouns! I can see why they can be a difficult concept to grasp. Brenden, when he wants to be picked up, runs around in front of meand holds up his arms with an expectant smile on his face. He doesn't do it often; mostly after we've run to and around the park for several hours and I'm exhausted.

Breakthrough!

himom, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Brenden is not only now acquiring new vocabulary at a fairly active clip, he's saying "mama"!

Of course, he's not calling me mama. Here's a fairly common conversation:

B: "Dada, ado! Dada, ado!"
Me: (points to my chest) "No, I'm mama!"
B: (points to his chest) "I'm mama!"

One step at a time, I say.

More Randomness

swinging3, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Arr, everyone! It's Talk like a Pirate Day. I still think it should be "Drink Like a Pirate" day so that more people will participate. If you are a Pastafarian I know it's a holy day for you. Avast!

Jon is leaving for Switzerland this morning. He's going to go jump off some cliffs. It will be just Brenden and I for a week. I would love to go, but I have no vacation time, plus I don't want to make that kind of travel will a small child in tow. Jon is taking the camera and has promised lots of pictures.

He asked me, by the way, if I minded if he went. No, I don't mind. Of course I will worry some but he's a grown-up and I trust him to make good decisions. Sometime next year I plan to take a mini-vacation by myself, but it will probably be somewhere warm and near an ocean (with no cliff-jumping!). No firm plans as of yet.

Brenden seems to have some allergies - many people are suffering right now and he's had a runny nose, runny eyes, and a slight fever. It's not bad enough where I want to take him to an allergist just yet.

I forgot to mention: I took a bunch of photos of Sportsman's Lake Park in Cullman. If it looks deserted to you it's because it was 8 in the morning on a Sunday. We had the whole park to ourselves! Jon came along and he was as entertained by Brenden feeding and chasing ducks as I was.

Random Musings

sitting, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

We finished up Deadwood. I shall miss all those -ers.

I know all the trains and songs in the Thomas the Tank Engine series by heart. My favorite engine is Edward, of course.

I finally saw Mike Judge's Idiocracy. Like all of Mr. Judge's work, this movie is funny and underneath scary as poop. Imagine going to sleep one day and waking up in a world 500 years from now where the average IQ is roughly the same as Patrick the Starfish (or Beavis and Butthead, if you will). This movie has my favorite Wilson Brother (Luke). He plays an ordinairy (G.I.) Joe who wakes up 500 years in the future because of a messed-up military experiment. It's a world where the #1 movie at the box office is called ASS, which features 90 minutes of the same butt on screen the whole time punctuated occasionally by a fart. It's a world where no one drinks water - they drink a gatorade-like drink, which has electrolytes. No one can tell him what electrolytes are or what they are good for, but it must be better than water because it has electrolytes. Nobody listens to him because he talks like a fag and he also reads, which is a fag activity. Sound familiar? Getting scared yet? Mike Judge is a visionary.

In other news: Robert Jordan has died. He was writing the last book of a 12-book series. I have read all 11. My condolences to his wife, family and friends, but damn damn damn damn damn. I demand that George R.R. Martin be placed in the Witness Protection program.

In other other news: My sense of smell is now working fairly regularly now which is nice. Brenden is starting to cooperate when we try to get him to say specific words. He still draws the line at "mama", though. ("ball" "baw!" "bat" "ba!" "baby" "bebe" "cat" "kyat!" "mama" "DADA!")

Letter to Brenden Month 27:

copping a rest, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Well, Brenden; you are two and a quarter years old and you still refuse to speak anything other than Brendenese. You are picking up words here or there and even the occasional sign-language sign. You are comprehending more and are able to follow complex commands. You wanted to use your computer yesterday. You said "Dada, wagh! Dada, wagh!" "Wagh" is your word for 'light', which you have logically compounded to mean computer. I told you (as I've been telling you for almost 2 weeks) "Dada isn't here. I'm mama!" to which you will look at me like I've gone stupid, and say "Wagh! Wagh!"

When dada is home, by the way, I will respond to you calling me "dada" by saying "dada is in the bathroom/kitchen/computer room." Whereby you will head to that room to investigate instead of having to stoop to call me "mama".

But back to the computer, when you dropped the "dada" bit and just referred to the "Wagh" I said "First we must pick up your toys in the living room". Usually I have to point to each and every toy, but you picked up many things on your own. Most of them ended up in the correct boxes, which impressed me.

So I let you play on the computer. You can point and click pretty well, and you know where the "B" key is (also known as the "beeeeee!" key). I had to punish you and remove the computer, because you shut it down by pulling out the power plug. That's a big no-no, there, Cochise.

I'm very proud of you that when we walk around the neighborhood, if you hear a car, you will run up onto the grass away from the street. Yesterday you even reprimanded me for not getting on the grass. I was standing in the gutter. You told me said "dada ado!" "dada ado!" and pointed to the grass next to you. "Ado" is Brendenese for "let's go there".

You must taste real good to ants because you are finding all the ant nests around the house. You are covered with little bites. Every time we find a nest we try to kill it but the survivors manage to move somewhere else. I wish I could rent a couple of anteaters. Of course you would just chase them around like you chase poor kitty.

What We're Watching:

DSCF0089, originally uploaded by Drewnl09.

Not much, but Spongebob has a competitor now for Brenden's little toddler heart. It should be no surprise to anyone but I finally bought him a Thomas the Tank Engine dvd (narrated by George Carlin!), mainly because we caught an episode on PBS over the Labor Day weekend and he went ballistic because I couldn't play it again. Brenden already has lots of little TTTE toys, shirts, and books.

Jon and I are watching the last season of Deadwood when we can. If Brenden is still up we turn the sound down, because that is the most foul-mouthed show *ever*. Nevertheless I'm still cringing thinking about the day he calls his babysitter a "c--- s---ing c--t".

Despite the vulgarisms, Jon and I realized how much we love the show because we really missed the characters. The two protagonists (and occasionally antagonists) are Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) and Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant). While Al, a saloon keeper, was ostensibly introduced as the bad guy and Bullock as the good guy, (he sets up shop in Deadwood to sell hardware but eventually becomes sheriff), they've traded places and allied occasionally throughout the series. Right now they are best buds because someone even nastier than Al, (George Hearst, patriarch of the infamous Hearst family you might have heard of) has moseyed into town trying to buy up everyone's gold mines and he has the muscle to make it happen one way or the other.

I've really come to love Al, even though he is one evil sumbitch. He is such a howl and despite his murderous ways he is brave and follows his own code of ethics. (I came to sympathise occasionally with Tony Soprano, but I never liked him. I love Al). Seth Bullock is so upright and upstanding I'm sure he poops diamonds (don't get me wrong, I like him too; especially when he gets his sense of justice all in an uproar. There wasn't one person watching who didn't cheer when he hauled Hearst off to jail literally by the ear).

But it's not just them; there's the ill-fated Wild Bill Hickock (not a spoiler if you know your history), his friends the decent Charlie Utter and the wonderfully loopy but good-souled Calamity Jane (she's our favorite). There's also Doc Cochran (Brad Dourif in a non-slimy role) who saw way too much during the Civil War and has perhaps the biggest heart in town (and pays for it).

I really care about these people and what happens to them. I curse the powers-that-be at HBO for cancelling this most excellent show. Now that they've cancelled David Milch's John From Cincinnatti (no offense Mr. Milch, but that cancellation was warranted), maybe he can get around to making those Deadwood movies he promised us to wrap up all the story lines.

Labor Day

Hi dad, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Brenden and I had a semi-busy weekend. Friday we ran to the park near the house and investigated many rocks, leaves, pine cones, and small animals. Brenden passed by a slide he had fallen off about a year ago (I swear I looked away for only a second!). He pointed to it and said "Ow!" and rubbed his butt with his other hand. (He fell on his ass). Pretty darn good memory!

I really can't remember what we did Saturday. I'm sure it had something to do with shopping and swimming in the pool. Sunday morning I went out to tackle some overgrown bushes in the back yard when I heard Brenden screaming. I ran to him and found a swarm of ants on his feet. Poor kid was standing in an ant's nest! I took him inside and slathered his feet with hydrocortisone and gave him some benadryl. He was out of it for most of the day - not sleeping, but not really active. I used the time to catch up on some couch potatoing and finished William Gibson's 'Pattern Recognition'. Science has finally caught up to his fiction so he's writing modern-day thrillers now.

Brenden made up some time on Monday, when we went to Sportsman's lake park in Cullman. It's a nice SHADY park with a little lake. The lake has a duck and goose population that are spoiled by people feeding them bread and crackers. Some folks were good enough to share their bread with Brenden. He got a big kick out of feeding the ducks.

In other Brenden news he has another tooth coming in. He's not supposed to get another one for a while, but he's got another upper molar peeking out. He's also still refusing to say 'mama'.