Hey, free dummy

Good Thing My Radio Stopped Working...

Remember a few days ago, when I mentioned my car radio was not working? Tony took my car in yesterday to have them look at it. One huge perk of his part-time job is that we can get our cars worked on and instead of having to pay big bucks right up front, they let Tony work it off. Anyway, it has been determined that the problem with my radio has nothing to do with a loose wire or a bad fuse (as we suspected, since it's gone in and out of consciousness before)--it's really most sincerely dead. I'm debating even bothering getting a new one, but I'm sure I'll cave, because driving for almost 2 hours every day in complete silence gets old really fast. And, as Tony pointed out, even if we have to get a new car really soon, we can always take the radio out and put it in the new car. He is so smart.

But my story of car woe gets even better. When the guy looked at my car (I guess he gave it a quick once-over--again, another awesome perk of having someone you know look at your car), he noticed that all 4 tires were in bad shape. He says the tread is nearly gone on all of them (with the steel belts showing through in some spots) and they all have dry rot (which means the rubber is cracking, which means it's a blowout waiting to happen). He declared the car unsafe to drive, and said we were lucky none of the tires had blown out.

As Tony told me all this, he said it with That Tone in his voice. That tone that says, "You know, it's your car--you should really take better care of it." Honestly, it bothers me that I don't know more about how to care for my car--I hate that I have to rely on Tony for it all. But when I got home and took a look at my car, I defended myself to him by telling him that, to me, the tires looked fine. Yes, I saw the cracked spots, so I suppose if I'd noticed those, I would have been concerned, but in my opinion the tread looked fine. Tony explained to my why it wasn't, so now I know (until I inevitably forget). And my car will be getting its new tires tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm driving Tony's car, which means I have music back in my life.

Karma

Yesterday afternoon, a co-worker (who usually leaves at the same time as me) asked me what time I was leaving. When I told her normal time, she asked if I could drop her off at the garage where her car was on my way to the highway. I said of course, no problem--it was on my way, and it literally took me no more than 1 extra minute to do it. This morning, when I got in to work, there was a small bag of Lindt truffles on my desk, with a note from her, thanking me for the ride. Do I have the best co-workers or what?

Happy 15 Months, Ari!

Today, Ari is 15 months old. I've kind of stopped keeping track of the months, now that she's past 1--to me, it makes more sense to say "She's a little over a year" than "She's 15 months." But now that I've been made aware of it, I supposed I should do a little update on what she's been up to lately.

As I mentioned a couple days ago, she spent the night at my parents' on Sunday. I called my mom on my way home from work on Monday to see how Ari was been, and got a good report. In the background, I could hear Ari babbling and Mom told me she was reaching for the phone. "Do you want to talk to her?" Mom asked.

"Sure," I said. I heard Ari's babbling get louder as her mouth got closer to the phone, and I hesitated for a moment before saying, "Hey, baby girl, it's Mommy."

Instantly, she screamed, "MOMMY!" Well, it may or may not have been "mommy," but it was definitely a scream that said, "Hey, I know that voice and am VERY EXCITED to hear it!" Later that evening, when Tony and I picked her up, she let out that same scream as soon as she saw Tony (which furthers my suspicion that she wasn't actually saying "mommy").

We hung out at my parents' for a while, and Ari was in this crazy mood the whole time--it was like she knew how cute she was being, and was pulling every last trick out of her bag of tricks to make us laugh. She kept wanting to go into the family room, which is one step down from the kitchen. She hasn't yet figured out how to crawl backwards off a step, and since no one was in the room to help her, she came up with her own solution. She walked back to Tony, grabbed onto his fingers, walked him over to the step, let him help her down, then immediately let go to run around the room. She did this several times--just using him to help her get down the step.

My brother Dave is staying with my parents while he does a short internship (I think that's the word for it) at a local hospital, and he brought his guinea pig Douglas with him. Ari just loves Dougie. She'll stick just one finger in the cage to touch his nose, but when he turns his head up to nibble at her, she'll quickly pull back--so at least she has that figured out. We keep telling her that it's Dougie, but then I said we're probably confusing her, since "Dougie" sounds so much like "doggie" (one of the few words that, without a doubt, she knows). At the end of the night, she kept offering Dougie her empty bottle--she was even giving him the right end too.

Speaking of sharing, that is her newest thing--she loves to hand things to people, and is so delighted when they thank her. She'll share her food with me, and giggle when I eat it and exclaim about how yummy it is. She brings me the remote control--which could be a useful skill, since we never could teach our dogs to fetch. One time, I was sitting on the couch, and she was wandering around with my cell phone. She came over to me, pulled open the fingers on my hand, and placed the cell phone in my hand. Then she grinned at me and continued on her way.

She's an expert at the sign for "more," though I think right now she only associates it with food. She'll even do it when you first put her in her highchair, even before she's had any food. I've tried to explain to her that it makes no sense to ask for "more" when you haven't had any yet, but that only makes her sign it with bigger hand gestures, as though she's saying, "I'm sorry, did you not see that? Do I need to make it bigger?" Once she learns to speak, she'll be able to throw in a couple age-related jokes about my failing eyesight.

She is walking so much better now. I tried to put my finger on what's different about it, and it's this--she can walk with her arms at her sides, instead of up in the air for balance. Of course, when she starts moving a little faster than her feet, her arms will go up, and amazingly, she can catch her balance almost every time. I know she doesn't get that grace from me, the person who can trip on absolutely nothing.

That's all that comes to mind right now, but we all know I could talk about Ari for paragraphs and paragraphs. I think this is enough for one day. I need to take some pictures of her soon, though...

Jack Handey QOTD:

If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.