Fourteen-ish months.

Well, Harper, your not-so-consistent mother skipped month 13 (and several others along the way), so here's a quick recap of fragmented memories.

You

-talk ALL the time. Loudly.
-are shy in front of new people or strange places.
-can WALK! You started walking more than crawling at 13 and a 1/2 months.
-your father and I sometimes refer to you as 'Old Yeller', usually when we wake up to you hollering in the morning.
-sleep from 7pm to 7:30am, take a short nap in the morning and longer one in the afternoon.
-just discovered Sesame Street.
-started signing! Finally! You can sign 'please', 'thank you', 'more', 'milk', 'eat', and we're working on several others.
-say 'hi' a lot. Sometimes I feel like I pushed your 'repeat' button because you walk around all day saying hi. Of course, you never say it when the cashier at Target says 'hi' to you or any other time you're prompted.
-also say 'all done', 'love you', 'dad', 'ouch', and 'uck'. Notice that you seem to have forgotten 'mama'.
-loved to be chased. Whenever we say 'I'm gonna get you!', you giggle and take off in the opposite direction.
-are getting 2 molars and couldn't be grumpier about it.
-wear mostly size 18-24mo clothing.
-love your tubby.
-constantly have 'conversations' with yourself.
-play with the most random of toys. Yesterday you carried a bulb syringe, a Little Person sheep, and a packet of Domino's pizza seasoning around all afternoon.
-dance whenever you hear music. Usually you just do this hilarious move where your shoulders start twitching and then you clap like a fiend.
-love Mac & Cheese.
-moved up to the Walker Room in the nursery at church.
-never cease to entertain us.

You are just so fun right now. I know I'm biased, but you have the quirkiest expressions and gestures. They are hilarious. I completely love being with you every day and don't take it a bit for granted. It is the best (and hardest) job in the world.

the scent of it.

My husband stopped at the store on his way home from work the other night to pick up a few things. A common occurrence, seeing as I'm a pretty awful cook and usually attempt to make supper without having the key ingredients. He gets home, we're emptying the grocery sacks, when suddenly, two bottles of rubbing alcohol materialize in Ben's hands. Now these weren't on THE LIST (which is capitalized because of the importance of purchasing items only found on THE LIST), so you can imagine my curiosity as to what my husband proposed to do with two bottles of isopropyl alcohol.

-'Uhhhh. What's with all the rubbing alcohol?'
-'Well, what do you use alcohol for?'
-'Um, cleaning things? Sterilizing things?'
-'Yeah, cleaning things.'
-'Ok, what exactly do you plan on cleaning with rubbing alcohol?'
-'My hands. To kill germs so I don't get sick.'
(Long pause during which my eyes bulge slightly out of my head and I begin my incredulous tirade)
-'So...you're going to wash your hands with rubbing alcohol? Just straight-up pour it all over your hands? With that open cut you've got there? Who in the world gave you this idea? Why did you buy 2 bottles? Did it not occur to you to buy hand sanitizer gel like normal people? Or maybe the fact that your wife works IN A HOSPITAL and could get you some? Oh, wait, are you seriously gonna do this? Cause I wanna watch. Yeah, go ahead, pour it all over your hands. Right now. Tell me how good that feels. Who gave you this idea, anyway?'
-'Some guy who lived at the mission while I worked there.'
-'Nice. Taking advice from a homeless person.'

A couple points should be made regarding the above exchange, 1) I realize the main proponent of any effective hand sanitizer is, in fact alcohol, and 2) the endearing (yet odd) part about this is that my hubby truly just wanted to find the cheapest way to kill germs on his hands, so rubbing alcohol made complete sense to him. And I must ask, because maybe I'm the slightly ridiculous one--does anyone else out there do this? Because maybe I'm just the odd man out, but soaking my phalanges in alcohol doesn't sound like a fun night in.

Anywho, this story is actually pretty irrelevant to what I was intending to write about. Because when my husband opened that bottle of rubbing alcohol, 5 seconds before I cringed at the thought of him pouring it over his bare hands, I was catapulted 20 years back in time (can you technically catapult backwards?). You see, the scent of rubbing alcohol brings the distinct memory of a new baby brother and sister to my mind. Because I remember my mom using it to clean their umbilical cord stumps. Yeah. How weird is that? And it is a fiercely vivid memory. Kind of like how the smell of  Thermasilk shampoo reminds me of a missions trip I went on and a hint of Sun-Ripened Raspberry lotion always makes me think of my cousin Lori. How crazy awesome is it that our senses can distinguish a scent and immediately associate a specific memory with it?

Almost as awesome as my husband washing his poor hands with rubbing alcohol.

cracked out.

Because that is what my week feels like. Fuh real. And its only Wednesday.

It got off to a weird start when I worked the entire weekend, then came home and decided to watch the Grammys. Normal enough, except that the Grammys left a terrible taste in my mouth, so I decided to top off that tanker with a dose of the Kardashians. Now, this truly ranks near the bottom of the sacred totem pole of reality television, somewhere near Rock of Love and Flava Flav (whose only redeeming factor is that there is a man out there who refers to himself as 'Flava Flav'). But every once in a while, there is a noteworthy quote from Bruce Jenner or Scott Disick and I can't help but tune in. After that hot mess of a trainwreck, I figured I should find something redemptive to polish off the night with. You know, so I could sleep soundly knowing I hadn't just flushed 3 hours of my life down the toilet. Enter the Duggars' Sunday night special. I fall a little bit more in love with this family each time I watch, but surely they could have prefaced this show with a WARNING: YOU ARE ABOUT TO CRY LIKE A BABY ON 7 SEPARATE OCCASIONS. Uhhhh, yep. Surprisingly, this cocktail of television left me wondering if this is what it feels like to be on drugs. Ok, maybe that wasn't a surprise.

Fast forward. My husband stayed home from work sick on Monday. As charming as he is, this REALLY threw my already teetering equilibrium off. Really off. Pretty sure he won't be taking another sick day anytime in the near or far future.

On Tuesday I had to run into work to complete a re-certification, which was just weird because I never work on weekdays. It did, however, mean that I was showered and dressed at a remarkable hour, which I'm pretty sure threw Harper for a loop.

Which brings us to today and the fact that I really have no idea what day it is, but I'm fairly certain we're muddling through the middle of the week. I haven't been able to get visions of Chipotle and red velvet cake out of my head, except when I found myself eating almost an entire head (do you call them heads?) of broccoli in the midst of baking said cake. Seriously.

plumbing.

So last week, we called a guy to come fix a leaky faucet in our bathroom. Guy came, fixed faucet, happy ending for everyone.

EXCEPT that he somehow changed the mechanism (do sinks even have mechanisms?) so that now you have to turn the handle the OPPOSITE way to get either cold or hot water. Let's just say I've brushed my teeth with scalding water on more than one occasion this week and it was less than enjoyable.

...annnnnd the superstar parenting that's going to get her into Harvard.

intellect.

This is my daughter. She can say 'hi', 'wow', 'ouch', wave bye-bye, and is on the verge of walking. We're notifying Harvard. 

warm fuzzies. sort of.

Yes. These are my husband's new address labels. Courtesy of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation. You could imagine my excitement when I tore open the envelope and found these gems, at least a hundred of them, dripping with testosterone.

Ahhhhhh. I'm still reveling in it.