From Dogwash to Carwash, It Was a Jam-Packed Saturday

This was a pile of Brian's muddy clothes from a mountain top experience at work. He came home CAKED in mud, telling me wild driving stories down muddy mountainsides and near-death experiences that make me think that cop's wives must do what I do, and that's listen, get scared, then put it out of one's mind what could/did/might happen.

And just in case you have never opened a washing machine to throw something else in and you wondered if you should bother...I opened it, saw the amount of dirt in the wash, added an extra rinse to the thing and closed the lid.

I love my new washer.

Speaking of washing, we decided to try out the experience of taking Lucy to a dog wash nearby, where Nora and Daddy ran free, and Jules washed Lucy in someone else's tub, using someone else's shampoo, a doggy hair dryer, five different hair brushes that basically finished the shedding process (good thing since it's November), and got Lucy clean enough and de-flea'd so she could be back in the house.

While Nora napped Saturday morning, Brian changed the oil on the Subaru and cleaned up the engine, topped off vital fluids and all the other stuff Grease Monkeys do.

While he worked on that, I cleared out the entire car, vacuumed it for the first time since I bought it last year while I was pregnant with Nora, then worked on removing MORE but not ALL the sap of when it was parked at Jeff and Judy's house last year.

Sap, by the way, is DURABLE...

Anyway, Nora and I then took the car to a carwash, also I think for the first time in nearly a year, and we went through one of those posh carwashes where people scrub off your car, and you go through a really nice big brush-car experience.

Nora was fascinated with it all...

This week we've been working on brushing teeth too.

It's hard to get a kid small enough to only have 5.5 teeth to stand still while you brush them, but I manage to get a few swipes in before my Fiercely Independent I Don't Know Where She Gets That Either -- Daughter decides to grab the toothbrush and do it herself.

This weekend (Friday morning exactly) Nora saw me and said "Mama" intentionally, then repeated it.

And ever since then, she's done it when she sees me.

She's 14 months old today, and she finally figured out who Mama is and how to say it.

High Five!