Cold Spaghetti

Three animals Kate adores:

Dragons, Dinosaurs, and Tigers.

*

At 3 days:

*

Three things Kate will tell to “GO AWAY” when she sees them lurking around the house:

– Monsters, Bears, and Buggies.

*

At 3 weeks:

*

Three things Kate will enthusiastically eat an entire container of, in one sitting:

– Mac & Cheese, Cookies, Raspberries

*

At 3 months:

*

Three topics of conversation Kate never tires of:

– Smoke detectors.  “Has a red light.  Makes loud noise.  Get out of the house!”

– Fireworks.  “Don’t touch them!  Big ow-ee.  I stay over here.”

– Baseball.  “Man throws ball.  Man runs.  I eat hotdogs.”

*

At 13 months:

*

Three books Kate likes to reference in conversation:

– When Sophie Gets Really, Really Angry.    – Barnyard Dance.   – Pajama Time.

*

2 years, 3 months:

*

Three phrases recently said of Kate:

– “She tells the funniest little stories” (Kate’s new teacher at Ecole Bilingue.)

– “She’s really got this thing figured out, hasn’t she?” (Parent observing her on her second day of school.)

– “I have to marry Kate because I love her so much more than anyone and will love her forever”  (Will.)

I knew they were tourists before we climbed inside.  Even with Will boldly clutching the $2.50 for the driver, I was still weighed down with a large tote bag, stroller, and Kate, all in my arms.  If they were from here, I wouldn’t have so much as put one foot onto the unfolded step before someone soundlessly took an object from me to help us on board.  It’s just the way things happen here.

Eventually the kids and I stumbled into the Streetcar and rambled down the isle to an open seat.  Two open seats, actually, as the kids took turns hopping between empty benches on each side of the isle, changing with each stop.  It is July in New Orleans and it is hot: both kids wanted the breeze from the open windows and to be out of the sun.  Their seat experimentation was just them working to find the coolest space available.

“This area doesn’t look like it got hurt by the storm,” the lady in front of me says.  “Oh, right,” her companion incorrectly chimes in, “but the Garden District got it real bad.”  Definitely tourists.  I am about to ask them where they are from, to chat them up and welcome them here, to be that friendly spot of hospitality one expects here for good reason.  But then the stroller I’ve laid beside our seat comes to smack me in the shin; the companion sitting in front of me is pushing it back, away from where one end has rolled into her personal space.  I decide to say nothing, listening instead to the women periodically comment on the “interesting” and “unusual” and occasionally “beautiful” architecture that unfolds before us as we roll along the tracks.

Finally, we turn the corner to Carrollton Avenue, where the Streetcar driver announces: “End of St. Charles, Carrollton Avenue, Camilla Grill!”  Everyone around us gets ready to depart.

One of the women asks, “Isn’t this it?  Camilla Grill?  Is this where we go?”  She is looking around as if her expectations weren’t quite being met.

“I’m not sure.  I guess so.  Everyone else is,” her friend answers.

Then Will, who has been silently looking out the window snaps to attention.  “Get a Cheeseburger.  They’re the best here.”  He says it right to the women, who take a moment to realize from where this sage advice has come.

“Really?” the first woman responds, “cheeseburgers?”

“And a chocolate milkshake,” Will remembers.

“Cheeseburger,” Kate adds.

For a split second I find myself wistfully wanting a third child, one who would pipe up and offer that last bit of important advice, “and get it dressed.”

For the past two weekends, we have attended Baybears baseball games, where your ticket comes with two free hot dogs.  Kate was into the hot dogs.  You mention baseball, she’ll channel Yello and in that ‘oooh yeaah’ voice, will tell you HOT DOOOOGGGG.

Click on the audio link below to hear Kate discuss baseball over dinner.  (I’ve taken to audio capture dinner, since it’s when she talks the most.)  Listen for the HOT DOG at around 2:50.

ds300024

But, as Kate points out in her discussion, there are more than hot dogs with the Baybears.  You could also be one of the lucky kids to get a coupon for a free taco by chasing the giant taco across the field between innings.

Popcorn and drinks have free refills.  And if some random football player that I’ve never heard of (which means any past or present footballer) can throw the pigskin out of the park, everyone gets a coupon for a free Hardee’s sausage biscuit.  Folks in Mobile are serious about their junk food.

I got in a little sports photography.

And a few of the kids, when we weren’t wrestling Kate or keeping Will from ODing on diet Pepsi.  (I did do the good Mommy thing and bring smuggled in drinks for the kids… they just didn’t last long.)

Kate.

After a ‘tribute to the services’ where each branch of service has their musical moment and standing recognition, there are fireworks.  Pretty darn decent fireworks, all things considered.  I didn’t have the tripod the first week.  But I was able to get Kate’s face lit up from the explosions reflecting on the glass.  The first weekend this was possible because there weren’t as many people in the stands.  The second week, with the tripod, they let me on the field during the fireworks, but there were too many people to really get what I wanted… which was more of this picture below, just better.

Here’s Paul and Will.  BOOM.

The weekend of the Fourth, Emily and Skip were in town!  Will was Uncle Skip’s Mini-Me.

I had the tripod and was able to get some standard fireworks shots… but there were too many people to get the crowd shot I wanted.  I like this one because it reminds me a bit of the final home run in ‘The Natural’.

This is the best I could do at getting everyone’s faces lit up by the fireworks.

Lately, things have been hard for Will. He has a sister who is a “crazy monkey” (his words) and adores him to the annoying level of copying EveryThingHeDoes. He just started at a new school where his teacher and a ton of the students speak French most of the time. He misses his friends at his old school. And his parents NEVER feed him hamburgers. Or let him stay up all night.So it’s understandable that tonight, during the bedtime lament that has become the standard in the past week, Will became upset. SO UPSET that I was not only declaring it bedtime, but also time for teeth brushing, that he would say terrible things. To me. His Mother. Really terrible things.

And this is where I had my Big Moment. All those words and threats rolled off me as cool and clean as water and I got down to meet him eye to eye and said in a most natural and pleasant voice:

“It’s okay, Will. I know that you love me and you don’t mean those things. And it’s okay, because no matter what you say or what you do, I will always love you more than anything in the world. In fact, I love you SO MUCH that I am making you go to bed, even if it means you will be mad at me, because I know that you need rest to have a good day tomorrow and I want you to have a good day. And I love you SO MUCH that I want your teeth to be healthy, so I make you brush them, even when it makes you so angry that you don’t want to cooperate with me. So it’s okay to be mad at me. Because I love you.”

Then, just in an instant, everything changed. All that stuff about love being the salve for anger? Apparently it’s on the mark. Will’s angry tears dried up and, much to my surprise, his mouth opened for the toothbrush. He even went to bed without too much more fuss. (Okay, he whistled and woke Kate up, which lost him TV privileges tomorrow, but compared to what was in the works 15 minutes earlier, this was nothing.)

Mommy got the GOAL! tonight, but will have to ice her knees and rest for tomorrow; because we will not be having hamburgers for dinner.

— We’re moving (the website, not us) although it may take a little bit of time to get set up and functional. I figure since I’m working out a whole new way of operating in terms of photography, word processing (no more MS Word!), spreadsheets (no more Excel!), and all the other random things that connected me to my past work, photography and otherwise (stuff like the bibliography of my prospectus/first part of my dissertation, which was done in Endnote)… I may as well just go for it and do the jump. The website has been there for a year, hosted and ready, so hey… one more thing to use to procrastinate.

— The Dean’s Office Communications Department looked over the photos from the trip and are selecting which they will use. So soon I will be free to get everything else viewable. Of course they want some of the best work and I am not really sure what kind of rights I’ll retain for future use (still working this out). I’m waiting to talk about the trip when I have photos to tell the story… and also in the hopes that my travel notebook will show up. I’m trying not to think about it’s current ‘lost’ status, as it is just one more thing to contribute to that nausea that won’t go away.

— The guy who laid the tile, the one we trusted so implicitly in ways we have never, ever trusted anyone before, never called us back. Despite our several messages and despite his own sister calling him on our behalf. What else can we assume, except that he ripped us off? Going down this road is worrisome, considering we gave him our key and unfettered access to our empty home. Being trusting was a very expensive mistake.

— We have some ideas for how we might salvage part of the poor tile… but need some professional input to really feel good about it. We’re just not sure. We were so hopeful that this guy would come around and want to make it right that we have tried to let it go a little in our minds just to recover enough to keep working.

— In the meantime, we ordered some wooden closet pieces. They arrived, we installed. Last night, we HUNG CLOTHES IN A CLOSET. We haven’t done this since before Thanksgiving! Granted, the closet has no doors and only has room for a small amount of shoes (we’ll do seasonal rotation like we do with clothes), but! still! A closet!

— Countertops for the laundry area/utility sink and master bath vanity will be installed either tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday morning. Paul finished the plumbing prep yesterday and just painted the primer around the install area. This means that we may have a BATHROOM SINK and a UTILITY SINK by as early as tomorrow night!

— Will is miserable at his new school. He misses his friends (several of whom, surprisingly, won’t be moving on to other schools this fall) and I think is struggling with a strict activity schedule. It doesn’t help that we pick up Kate after Will. When Will walks into Abeona each afternoon to get his sister, it is like Norm walking into Cheers. The kids line up to greet and embrace him, some of the hugs lasting several minutes and including kisses and whispers. I’m not sure that he’s totally miserable all day in school (he’s told us that he talks silly with ‘the boy in the soccer shirt’) and certainly his teacher seems to think he’s fine… but when he is out of school, he is clear that he is not interesting in going back.

— Paul went to infectious disease last week for the 3-weeks of (ahem) that we’ve been dealing with since he swam in the Amazon. Not that I am drawing any conclusions by pointing that out; in all likelihood I had as much exposure to the very same river water in the shower as he did swimming and showering. Still, the garlic treatment held it aside while we were on the road and the 2 cycles of z-packs didn’t make a dent in curing it so he went in for tougher stuff. Ironically, the vote was giardia… the same stuff we were concerned that Will had… and they started him on treatment. It started working quickly, so maybe it’s a match? No confirmation yet on the exact bacteria he had/has, but I’m really happy he is finally feeling better.

— Between insurance phone calls, house stuff, reduced school hours, and getting everything set up from the Peru work, I have not been able to follow-up with anything for my dissertation. I’m feeling defeated, dumb, and un-engaged. I feel like writing some stupid survey, going door-to-door, and analyzing it with statistics that I can make say whatever I want. Isn’t that what public health is, anyway? (Okay, so maybe I’m feeling sort of grumpy, too.)

— Paul’s job… and all our health, life, and whatever other insurance one carries for wellness and security… ends on FRIDAY. Currently, we have no plan for any of the above.

— Will is out of school for three weeks in August. Kate has the first week of school off for Abeona, which is NOT one of the three weeks in August that Will has off. There is a distinct possibility that we may have kids at home for an entire month. We have no idea what we are going to do.

— Paul is sporting a painful crick in his neck, I have stress ezema popping out on my left hand and have bit off all of my nails. Not that the stress is getting to us or anything.

UPDATE: The International Health Newsletter for the Summer just came out, with a really nice blurb about me being recognized as a Schweitzer Fellow (this project is actually going better than planned at the moment) and has bouyed my spirits a bit… thanks INHL! (sniff, sniff)

The last three weeks.

We had a week-long visit from:
Nana. Who brought presents, time, patience, and recipes. The day she left, Kate wandered around calling “Naaaaa-Naaaah, Where ARE youuuuuuu?” (Subtext: “Save me from these crazy people!”)
Having a third adult in the house was a huge relief. It was also well-timed, because the day she left and returned us to a house of two adults, we downloaded a child.

He was thrilled to be spending almost a week away from home, his parents, and his particularly his sister. In Will’s words: “Mommy, I needed a break from that crazy girl. She’s too much for me.” I dropped Will off with my Mom in Gulfport (our half-way meeting place) and he joined Granna and PapPap on a trip to visit my brother and sister-in-law. (My incredible sister-in-law, who by all accounts spent 5 hours a day on the floor re-reading the same books and cards so patiently to the-ever-curious-Will, has posted adorable photos from the trip.)

While Will was away from home for the longest time ever, Paul turned 38 on May 5th. This is remarkable only because I told at least 3 people that he was turning 36. I also wrote that I was 30 on a doctor’s form a few months ago and only realized the mistake because “date of birth” and “today’s date” were close enough together to make me do the math. I’m not forgetting little things, I’m actually forgetting years. It must mean that it’s time for us to have some sort of life crisis.

Also on Cinco de Mayo, our friends Alex and Dawit were married. (The wedding date was chosen because it’s Alex’s birthday, too.) In between a day of picking up tiles, switching cars, dropping off kids, and buying paint, I took photos of the event and you can see them here.

Meanwhile, back at the station, the house continues.

Drywall took a long time. There were delivery problems. Supply problems. And daily layers of drywall dust… dirty, gritty, drywall dust… ALL OVER the bedrooms and hallway each evening to mop, dust, polish, and wash off. And, we’re back to no washer and dryer. Still, the crew (comprised of a husband and wife) did a very good job.

Here’s the site of the future cat-door to Scout’s litter-box “room” under the washer and dryer.
Outside, Paul spent a good 20 hours on the roof over 2 days. It’s done, although these pictures show it as still-in-progress.

Now that it’s done, I’m thinking we may finally be able to remove the ever-present can of Goo Gone from our shower?
We discovered that Kate can work the garden hose. WATCH OUT.
Note that Will’s head is soaking wet. Coincidence with that last picture? I think not.
Kate also discovered an obsessive love of ice. Workers (read: Daddy) must carefully guard their precious cups ice water, lest it be plundered by the Sweet Pea with the dirty hands.
Also: Kate loves Crabby Jack. Oysters. Shrimp. And duck. (Domilise’s for Roast Beef, though, of course.)
Kate turned 2 and got presents. Including ELMO UNDERWEAR from Gwen & Co. Here she is, putting on Every Single Pair.
And dancing.
My Fellowship Year officially began with our Orientation Retreat. At first it was going to be an overnight event, but it was shortened to a Really Long Day in Baton Rouge. Who knew the LSU campus was so darn pretty??? The group is inspiring and interesting; I left the day feeling an unexpected excitement for the coming year. We did a variety of team-building exercises, including ropes. I surprised myself by having fun, and realizing that my recently-developed fear of heights is more extreme than I thought. I was Very Impressed with the folks that climbed the 60 foot pole, stood up, and jumped for the trapeze. Here’s Jonathan, the only one to touch the bar, in one of my favorite pictures from the day:
This one of Kemi is probably my favorite:
Meanwhile, back at the station, drywall finished. Tile started.
Tomorrow, the base of the washer/dryer platform will be grouted and trimmed… so we’re hoping to have these back by Wednesday?Paul ALMOST finished the plumbing today while I wrangled kids and house. The tub plumbing is hooked up and tested perfectly. The ONE LEAK in his intricate shower plumbing? It wasn’t from a failed joint… it was a failed PIPE.
The darn elbow had a crack and hole. When Paul went to Lowe’s to get another elbow, he came home with the wrong kind. When he went back to trade, they were closed. As was Home Depot. Plumbing to Paul is like Cryptonite to Superman. Utterly defeated and forced to wait until the morning… because, after all, tomorrow is another day.

After living through your brother at the age of 3, I became totally cool with the “terrible” twos. Not a problem, I thought, bring it on. So as you have approached age 2 and started to show independence (read: pushing tired parents to their limits of sanity), I have been feeling pretty laid back about it. I’ve done it before, so I figured it would be easier this time around.

I forgot the Number One Rule of parenting. NOTHING EVER GETS EASIER.

I am realizing that a toddler at age 2, when accompanied by an older 4-year old sibling, is a Very Different Experience. Just like how watching all that water spill down Niagara Falls from the Canadian shoreline is a very different experience from, say, rolling down the falls in a barrel. In one, you can admire the power and majesty in relative safety. The other could kill you.

It is impossible to talk about how you are changing and growing without mentioning your brother. He is your best friend, your constant advocate, your watchdog… as well as your bully, your punching bag, and your collaborator in the grand plan to Break Mommy. I admit that it’s all my fault that you both are bent on my destruction; I set it all up myself. I’ve thought about this, ruminating on how you have identified my weaknesses and have pinned it to the moment when I found you happily eating cat poop. There you sat, brown smears all over your face, and watched enthralled while my entire body went boneless and my tongue fell out of my mouth, and I had to fumble around for 10 minutes groping for words, cleaning supplies, and whatever drug erases memory. In stark contrast was your Dad, who sort of looked over his shoulder, like, ‘what? cat poop? dude, I ate WAY worse in college.’ You realized two things then and there: 1. that I am an easy target; and 2. the melt down is totally worth it.

I figure this is proof positive that you are The Brain to Will’s Pinky, because I swear I didn’t have nearly as many break downs when he was this age. And it’s not YOU. And it’s not HIM. Separately, both of you can be quite pleasant. It’s THE TWO OF YOU, TOGETHER. You’ve worked out each and every one of my buttons so well that working together, the pair of you can naturally and seamlessly move between one area (say, grossing me out) to another (like, flirting with dismemberment) without pause.
This is not to say that you aren’t a challenge on your own. Mostly, your challenges come from the fact that you are stubborn and can seriously hold a grudge. Case in point: when I took you inside at dusk and removed your wet dress to ready you for the shower. The following pictures document a solid 15 minutes of Conniption Fit, where you picked up your dress from the floor and worked hard to put it back on, growing more angry the more tangled you got. Two days later, when I took this dress out of the laundry to hang it up, you grabbed it from the hanger and threw it to the ground. Whoa, I thought, THAT is an impressive grudge.

Now that I think of it… the dress has little flowers on it, which is making me wonder if you are associating your anger with the dress on my petunias, since your “helpful” dead-heading is kept primarily to new, fresh blooms?
For someone that knows how to keep a grudge, you are amazingly forgetful about your own transgressions. It goes like this: you and your brother are locked in some kind of epic tickle or bouncing or running event and someone (read: your brother) gets hurt. Or alternatively, you just walk right up to him and smack him on the head. Either way, Will ends up crying and you end up apologizing. We ask you, “Kate, did you hurt Will?” And you blink all blank-face and say, “yeah,” in this ‘did I do that?’ way that makes it hard to keep a straight face. Will is ready and set to brood for at least 10 minutes, but you recover in an instant. Like, ‘I know I totally just power-drived you into the floor, but hey, let’s go empty Mom’s sock drawer and see if we can make her face split open to the bone, ’cause that is totally cool.’ And in an instant, you’ve turned him around. Because no one can stand mad at you.

One of the most exciting parts of being with you these days is your incredible language development. You blow everyone away with your words, which is impressive considering that no one understands more than 25% of what you say. When you really get on a roll, babbling on and on about this and that, gatos and doggies, Emmy and Elmo (favorite points of conversation), I run for the camera. I am so eager, desperate even, to capture these precious moments of your turn from toddler to child. Which explains why the emergence of the camera always causes you to shut right up.
It is amazing that you speak as much as you do, mostly because you still spend a lot of time with your pacifier stuck in your mouth. We have high hopes of potty training you in the next few months, so between that and starting a new school, we’ve decided to hold off on pacifier removal until the fall. Even mentioning our desire to wean you, partially or completely, from the Thing causes your Granna great distress: she’s certain that the root of every problem Will has or is going to have for the rest of his life is connected to our weaning him from the pacifier at age 3. But we have a plan. Although your brother is still 3 years away from having permanent teeth, he has already been given a referral from our dentist to see an orthodontist. We intend on forwarding on all orthodontia bills to Granna and figure that this will bring drastic change to her extreme support of the pacifier. But it will be okay. You are the strongest kid we know and will do fine without the Abby (your name for the pacifier, why, we have no idea). Although I admit that seeing you with it makes me feel that you are still my baby, at least, for a little bit longer…

Paul and I have been married for almost 8 years and in that time, we have developed an excellent relationship based on great communication. For example, this afternoon, I heard Paul say to me: WE HAVE A WORKING LAUNDRY. TOMORROW, I WILL MAKE DINNER FOR NEXT WEEK AND PUT THE KIDS TO BED.

And it’s part true. He said those words. I just didn’t hear what was in between them: WE don’t HAVE hot water in the back, but we are close to having A WORKING LAUNDRY. I need to be under the house working on it all day TOMORROW, so I can’t handle WILL with me in the back. Also, I’ll need you to MAKE ahead some DINNER FOR NEXT WEEK when you have your board meetings. Remember that I’m working tonight AND you’ll be alone with the kids. I’m sorry that I can’t help you PUT THE KIDS TO BED.

This may explain why he reminded me repeatedly that he needed to go to work when I insisted he put Kate to bed. He’s a very good sport.

Similarly, when I told Paul about us having a naked salad with no dressing and chicken breasts for dinner, I’m pretty sure he only heard the words “NAKED” and “BREASTS,” which is maybe why he looked disappointed when he came in for dinner.

So maybe it stands to reason that our children do not hear anything that we say to them. Perhaps hearing the words people say takes the same kind of time and practice required for something like learning to read or riding a bike. Until they develop those skills, maybe it’s unfair to hold them accountable for their actions. Maybe it’s not that they are choosing not to hear, but just absolutely cannot hear due to a completely underdeveloped skill not yet at maturity.

So when we tell Will, “Wash your hands and sit down for dinner,” maybe then it’s not that unreasonable that he would hear “DUMP OUT THREE MORE PUZZLES AND TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS.” Or when we ask him to “Help Kate put on her shoes,” he hears “GRAB KATE’S SHOES AND RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN. THEN TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS.”

It could be a completely developmental issue. So we can stop beating our exasperated heads against the wall.

The threat of not having indoor plumbing during Paul’s renovation work this weekend drove me to Mobile to stay with the parents Saturday night. It was a desperate situation; my Dad was on death’s door (literally, he didn’t go to work Thursday or Friday — we called in a priest to perform last rites) but I felt that we had no choice. Plus, I had to retrieve the kids’ old summer clothes from the attic if I were going to sell them back to the CCEX this week.

Right before we left, Will complained of being cold. Then sneezed. Uh-ho.

Then we got to Mobile, where my Mom was getting sick, too. I spent the weekend caring for my parents and Will… with a perfectly healthy Kate driving us all crazy. Sunday night, we sped home… I was terrified that the kids would bring the end to my dear parents, who were both sick and exhausted or that both Kate and I would succumb.

Monday morning, Will seemed better. We had assumed he would be home from school, but Will insisted he was okay and was running around with enough energy that we decided to try it out.

It was a mistake. He did fine all day, but when we had him home that night, my Mommy instinct kicked in. No real reason in particular, but Ana’s strep, combined with the fact that he seemed to have stalled in the getting better department made me think he needed to be seen. He stayed home today (despite being incredibly annoying before school this morning — he clogged the front toilet, which started overflowing and didn’t tell anyone until Paul noticed two inches of pee water pouring out of the bathroom door — annoying and bad behavior was another clue that he was probably less healthy than he was appearing). We traded childcare all day between meetings until his doctor’s appointment late this afternoon.

He’s got strep. Now Paul is saying his throat hurts. Kate came home with goopy eyes and has sneezed a few times. The jury is out on those two, but Will is definitely home one more day.

It took a ginger ale tonic and 30 minute of intense work, but we managed to get Will to get the classic pink stuff down. 19 more doses over the next 10 days to go. I’m dreading each and every one.

My Dad’s company does a lot of business in New Orleans and rents an apartment here for business use — thankfully, it’s not being used for the next few days, so the kids and I are using it. It’s letting us do laundry (still no washer and dryer) which is a great thing considering we had three huge bags of wet stinky towels from the morning’s exploding toilet. Tonight and tomorrow night are going to be in the 30s, so the kids and I staying here will hopefully help keep them warm and healthy — when the wind blows, the back rooms are freezing. Paul is home, using every minute of in-house-with-no-kids to put in extra hours at work and on the house. He’s closed off the back rooms and is sleeping in a sleeping bag in the front of the house.

Paul is hoping to work nonstop on the house this weekend, so we need a healthy house. Germs, be gone!

On Saturday afternoon, we made Paul clean himself of debris from the back and walk around the block to Octavia Books, a local bookstore that also was one of Will’s first words. (He loved walking in the bookstore during our walks around the block and would request “Octavia Books!” as a way to tell us he wanted to go for a walk.)
Here is Kate. Storytime had ended and we were waiting for The Big Event.
MEETING ELMO. WOW.

Elmo “signed” a book (a bookstore clerk stamped it with Elmo’s signature) and I took some pictures.

Then, the day continued. Paul and Will went to the back to work on the house and Kate and I walked hand-in-hand to Whole Foods. We had just walked into the parking area when Kate saw The Dog. I had to tighten my grip on her as she tried to run with all her might towards the animal, who had noticed Kate and was equally struggling to reach her. The dog was probably a year or younger, of medium size, golden like a retriever with a fluffy tail and with big floppy ears. Very Cute. The dog and Kate finally met at the door, where they kissed and hugged and squealed with delight. I said to the woman holding the dog’s leash, “What a cute dog.” She hopefully replied, “Oh, the dog is up for adoption. He needs a home.” I looked down at Kate loving on that puppy. Uh-oh.

“We have a cat,” I quickly replied and scooped her up. We said goodbye and went into the store. Kate was great in the store, but I was worried about having to walk past the dog again. Then, I saw the dog’s keeper in produce — so I assumed that the dog had already found a home.

WRONG. We left the store and found the dog and woman again; she’d put the dog in the car for a second to get him a some watermelon. The Kate-dog love fest began again, with even more intensity. Seeing the dog was even more exciting to her than seeing Elmo, if you can imagine such a thing. I was getting desperate.

“My oldest got bit by a dog when he was little and is deathly afraid,” I lied, knowing full well that Will has been begging for a dog for weeks.

This time, when I scooped up Kate, she began to cry. “Doooooooggggggg, Nooooooo, DOOOOOOGGGGGG!” She wailed, reaching with all her might over my shoulder.

And then, the dog started to whimper. Over her cries, the garage filled with his whimpers… followed by (and I am not making this up) his HOWLING. So there I am, holding a snack of groceries and a squirming, crying Kate who is reaching behind me calling out to this dog who is whimpering and howling to her.

I am pretty sure this puts me in striking distance of “The World’s Worst Mommy” award. But we are not getting a dog!!!