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I thought of so many titles for this post, I just couldn’t decide on one. Here are some of my top picks:

Why I Won’t Ever Be a Disney Princess
Why We Won’t See the Nutcracker This Year
I’m Not a Dirty Person
Why Me?!
It’s Just Not Christmas without a Rat in the House
Yes, so we had a rat in the house. It started about a month ago when we called the exterminator to set traps for mice. They’d eaten out of some of our dry goods in the kitchen and upstairs where we keep our extra boxes of cereal etc. So the guy came and laid his sticky pads in the basement where he thought they were spending most of their time and in the kitchen, and we set some extra snap traps and tricky homemade bottle traps for extra measure.
About 3 weeks later — after having reset many traps that were detonated, throwing away some sticky traps that were just debris covered, and putting ever single piece of food either in the refrigerator or in a tin can — we were still hearing scritchy-scratching in the walls. So we left the beast-hunter dog at large in the house over night to guard us. And she did her job admirably. There was quite a skirmish at one point, and then she got our problem cornered in one room. She never left her post all night or the next morning. Good dog.
So our mental health assignment for the day was to “take the risk.” Alrighty. I’m a strong, modern woman and I can handle a little mouse, for heaven’s sake. Plus he’s probably not really there anyway. So I moved the furniture away from the walls. And screamed. And snatched up the baby. And ran out of the room. And closed the door. And stuffed a towel underneath. And called the exterminator back. Because, dear friends, there was a rat now locked in a room in our house. A rat.
A series of very unfortunate miscommunications later (and more than 24 hours later, I might add), we had the technician at our house sneaking into the room in question and laying traps. Am I just old fashioned? Or have I been watching too much King of the Hill? But since when do exterminators just go in, set a trap, and say “call me when you smell something and it’s dead”? Really. I want you to go in, with your shotgun cocked, or at least your net unfurled, and chase the sucker down. Come on. I have a rat in my house!
So, we checked in on progress a couple times, ascertained that the situation had been rectified, and called the exterminator back to, um, remove the, um, unfortunateness. They said they could come in two days (again, really?!), so Bill gallantly performed the necessary task and our house was once again rat-free.
We have now spent the past week completely — and I mean completely — cleaning the house. We started at one end and went from top to bottom with bleach and wipes and windex and mops. Then we went to the next room and went from top to bottom. And then the next. And the hall. And then The Room. Every fabric laundered and dry cleaned. Every stick of every inch of furniture disinfected. Every window and base board ledge scrubbed. Every wall and picture frame wiped. Every square foot of hard wood floor swept, mopped, and hand-scrubbed on my knees. With bleach. Twice. The only thing we have left to do is behind the refrigerator.
We have the cleanest house for Christmas you’ve ever seen. You could eat Christmas dinner off the floor if you wanted to. We have every single hole in the foundation blocked. All the pipe chases are foamed in. All the radiator entrances and outlet holes are stuffed with steel wool. We are rat-free for Christmas and forevermore.

Maggnificent Monday

Major accomplishment: Maggie is weaned. 100%, completely, comfortably weaned! She no longer sticks her little paws down the front of my shirt when I’m holding her, she doesn’t throw a fit at the table when the last morsel of solid food has been eaten, and she goes to sleep after a little snack drama-free. She’s drinking her milk straight in the mornings, and only a little bit of banana gets added in the afternoon and evening to sweeten the pot. Mostly she eats a portion of our own meal and smiles and interacts with us as the table. It’s wonderful! Three cheers for having a toddler!
Along other lines, she’s in the midst of a reaction to her measles-mumps-rubella vaccination at the end of November (it takes 10-14 days to show up if it’s going to). She has very rosy cheeks and a rash on her sweet little bottom. The rash seems to be painful, since it’s in a place she uses (you know, sitting, scooting, being held with an arm under your bum) and because diapers are gross places that get wet and smooshed and etc. We’ve tried to keep her aired out for as long as possible during the day (only one accident on the hard wood floor so far**) and keep smearing the zinc oxide all over her tush. It certainly looks better now than it did the first day it popped up, but I think she’s still bothered a bit. Poor girl, but better than getting the measles I guess. We also think she’s getting a tooth. Bill says he spotted a little ridge on the bottom, so that’s probably adding to her testiness. We’re trying to keep the excitement and cuddle levels way up. It’s nice it’s holiday time and we can go for walks to say “ooooo” for all the pretty lights — very distracting until we get too cold to stay out. As always, this, too, shall pass.
**Yes, as alluded to in the comments section, there was An Incident this morning. It involved the false sense of security after a dirty diaper, leaving naked Maggie alone long enough to draw a bath, curious fingers and a new “toy,” two interested dogs, three shocked adults, and a large load of laundry. Oops.

Maggnificent Monday


This is a little girl; a baby no longer. She’s not technically a toddler yet (no steps or really much desire to try), but she’s exhibiting some much more grown up behavior. For one thing, she’s become much pickier about foods. We’ve always had problems with the color green; things have not really improved on that front. And now that she’s discovered she can point to a particular dish and receive it, she feels in control. Now she won’t eat turkey meatballs or pumpkin or cheerios if she’d simply prefer to have the apricots. She’s still a big fan of cheese and yogurt and all things fruit, and most of the time good bread — all healthy choices. So it could all be worse. I guess we’re saving our battles for big things. Like putting on your coat and hat to go outside.

One behavior that is absolutely endearing is playing pretend. I guess I never thought about when imagination would begin, but I was surprised to see it so early. She likes picking things up and putting them away, so sometimes, if there’s nothing around that fits the bill, she’ll pretend to pick something up with and place it in the container. Or pretend to pick up a fuzz or thread with her pointer finger and thumb and then hand it over, which we dutifully thank her for and take. It’s very gratifying, somehow, to witness a little kiddo play pretend. We think she’s going to be a smart cookie. What do you think?

As We Speak

Bill is in Virginia at Browntree College for his first onsite interview. He arrived late yesterday afternoon and will spend the next 2 days meeting with every professor in the chemistry department, the heads of the physics department and biology department, 2 deans, the president of the college; giving a presentation on his PhD and postdoc research; and teaching a sophomore level chemistry class. Then in between these appointments he’ll have dinners and lunches and breakfasts with various members of the faculty and some students. Solid-packed scheduled days from 7:30 AM to well past 7 PM. Yikes.

This is a really good place for the first interview experience. It’s a school that neither of us are absolutely invested in (although it’s certainly on our list of possibilities) so there’s no real pressure about the learning curve, plus Bill has already met with one of the professors at a conference this summer. They spent an hour and a half chatting over coffee, so someone on their search committee has been spreading the word about how wonderful a candidate Bill is — should be a piece of cake from here. Or it’s nice to have some groundwork laid. So here’s hoping!

Chestnut Experiment #3

Here’s the result of our last resort baking method:

Yes, they’re inedible. But not because they’re bitter and poisonous. Just because the little suckers burned to a crisp. I kept waiting to hear them pop, since that’s when the instructions said they’d be done. No popping. Just smoking. Then utter ruin.
Followed by the scrapping of the rest of the chestnuts and all of my dreams. That’s right. We threw them all away. All three of those gallon bags filled to bursting with beautiful amber nuts, free and chock full of promise. No more.
See, we gave serious thought to the buckeye possibility. They look so similar, and we picked up chestnuts, or nuts at least, from so many different trees, in three different states — how were we going to distinguish the chestnut from the buckeye? In a different era, perhaps I would have made an effort. But life changes, meals get simpler, and foraged nuts go by the wayside. Or in this case, the curbside.