Daddy Doll

Warning: Do Not Attempt to Read this Blog Post Without a Box of Tissues


Have you got them?



Ok. Good. You may proceed.

 

See why you needed the tissues?

Hannah received her "Daddy Doll" in the mail today. This has got to be the cutest, sweetest, most precious idea of all time. The military Moms who came up with this seriously deserve a medal of some sort. Or at least like, free chocolate for life or something. This 12" totally soft doll has a picture of Hannah's Daddy printed right on the front and an American flag printed on the back. It also has this nifty pocket for a voice recorder, which the company was kind enough to send weeks ago so that Dean could record a message for Hannah before he deployed. So now Hannah can give her doll a hug any time and hear her Daddy's voice say "I love you, babygirl. Night Night."

If I could put sounds on the blog, I would. But it would probably just make you cry harder so I guess its for the best.

I really wasn't expecting Hannah to ask for her Daddy so much. But she does. Every single day. When she sees my phone she points to it and says "Dada?" (his picture is on the front screen, cause hey, I like to look at him too!). When it rings she calls out "Dada? Dada??" And of course whenever she sees pictures of him around the house she exclaims "Dada!" and points or waves. And sometimes blows kisses.

I think shes trying to break my heart. But at the same time it makes me really happy because it means she KNOWS him. And she knows him well enough to miss him. Which is a good thing. Even if it does mean I go through a lot of tissues.

 

 

 

This is Patches.

This is Patches in Hannah's diaper drawer.

Why?

You would have to ask her, cause I have no clue.

I was changing Hannah's diaper, as I frequently do, and Patches jumped up on to the changing pad. Hannah was laughing and smacking her, and then I thought she jumped down to get away from said smacking. Apparently though instead she decided to climb IN to the diaper drawer and see if there was anything exciting going on. At this point I must have shut the drawer.

About 5 minutes later I hear "meow! meeooow!" I'm going all over the house, opening doors and cupboards (she tends to go in those too when I open them, and then gets shut inside). I can't find her anywhere! Finally, I go into Hannah's room. And there is a teeeeeeeny tiny paw, just peeking out of the drawer. "Meow1 meeeeeeeooow!" and the little paw waves back and forth. I rushed over and opened the drawer in a panic, worried maybe I had crushed her or something. But she popped her little head right out, shook it off and jumped down. I did not have the foresight the first time to catch this on film. However, this cat is not exactly the "intelligent" furball in the family, and the next day she did it again.

This time I grabbed the camera.

Eden gets his Bobcat

 

 

 

Eden Got his Bobcat. YAY! Its the very first thing you have to do in Cubscouts to start earning other patches. Its been slow going towards this first goal for a variety of reasons, but tonight he got a bit of recognition, a handshake from the NEW (THANK YOU!) Scout Pack Leader, and a Marshmellow Blaster. Thats the prize he chose for the amount of popcorn he sold. I'm reeeeeeeeeally excited about it. Really. Ok. No, I'm not.

Cubscouts has been a bit of a mess. But Eden REALLY wanted to do it, so we are trying our darnd-est to get involved and be good scouts or whatever. This is difficult when our "den" hasn't met all year, and now we are in some other "den" supposedly, but no one has ever called....blah blah blah. Don't even get me started on the whole Popcorn Sales thing. Its a nightmare.

The good news is we have a new Pack Leader who seems to be both organized AND interested in more then just decorating his own kids with so many patches and belt loops they can hardly walk upright. This is a major step up from the previous pack leader, who was one of those people who laughed at her own jokes. I hate people who do that. I am hoping this means things will start moving, and we can have, you know, activities to do. Which is why Eden is involved in the first place.

Yay for Bobcat Badge!

 

 

 

These are our cats. Zillah, otherwise known as "Kitty", is the big one. Patches, otherwise known as "pain in the a**" is the small one. I find them all over the house, sleeping in a variety of strange positions as demonstrated above. Patches for some reason does not sleep curled up like a "cat" She sleeps all stretched out, flopped over, twisted and folded and usually on top of some portion of poor Kitty. Lucky for her, Kitty is the most tolerant animal on earth. When we got her about 3 years ago, Jude was 2. Jude was not, and is not to this day what you might call gentle. Or careful. Or capable of slow movement. He used to also lay on top of Kitty as Patches does now, and when I would tell him not to his response was "But I hug kitty! She like it!" Kitty was not smart enough to protest, and would just lay there, with the air slowly being pressed from her body, not even attempting to escape. Not one hiss or arched-back or scratch or bite ever came. That is my kind of cat.

Patches, on the other hand, will bite anything that moves and frequently things that don't move at all. She is convinced they may move at some point in the future and so they should be pounced on and shredded NOW, before they have the chance. Pre-emptive kitten strikes. This applies to shadows, windows,and walls with absolutely nothing on them. And also the broom, because she has seen it move and she knows at any moment it could spring back to life and become a threat. Being constantly on guard means she is constantly on the move, darting from one end of the house to the other until she is so exaughsted she has to find Kitty to pass out on. Kitty who, by the way, has been sleeping peacefully for hours.

This morning though there was a strange scene. By our tv we have a little cat perch by the window. The cats usually jump on top of it to get behind the tv stand. They can also lay inside of it as it has two small cubbies. This morning though. Kitty was on top of the perch. Sitting completely upright. Behind the tv was Patches. She was trying to get out by jumping over the cat perch, but was getting repeated "smack-downs" by Kitty. Patches would jump, Kitty would smack, and Patches would hit the floor with a thud. After about 5 minutes of repeated attempts, Patches crawled through the tv stand instead and ran away. Kitty looked awfully proud of herself as she curled up for a nap, all by herself, on her well defended perch.

Don't worry, they made up later. That last photo was taken this afternoon a couple hours later.