To read makes our speaking English good.

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So. How's it going?

Not bad over here. Still a little more tightly wound than I'd like, thanks to some unforeseen changes that I've talked about privately, but I'm nothing if not resilient, right?

I'm having to take a day off tomorrow, to cover Bean's not being in school yet, and had planned to take the girls up to the zoo in Waco. But all this rain has me a little worried that all the animals will be sittin' on a big boat when we get there ... it's not a super long drive but long enough that I'd hate to waste the trip.

Have you heard the kerfluffle about the Baby Einstein DVDs? How people are all excited that Disney's offering refunds because - shocker - baby's brains really *aren't* improved by watching the DVDs?

Disney says that it's just their standard policy, and the big fastoosh is actually people making mountains out of molehills (the four-year-old's new favorite phrase) for their own grandstanding.

To me, it's more a statement of how lazy we've become as parents, if we truly believe that a video takes the place of us and what we're supposed to do for and with our children. There's no way I'll be seeking a refund because I never bought 'em thinking they'd make my kids smarter - I bought 'em because they were a more developmentally appropriate babysitter than Buffy the Vampire slayer was.

Yeah, I said it out loud. Babysitter. Anyone who really expected a video to make their kid smarter doesn't need a refund - they need their own set of brain-building videos. Seriously. TV and videos are just ways to buy time for parents. Sometimes it's time to pursue noble causes like a shower or making a meal; sometimes it's time to pontificate on a blog. But it's not called the boob tube for nothin' folks.

I actually never really dug on the DVDs because the midi-style classical music annoyed the crapola out of me. And I just never got how watching a bunch of wind-up toys was a vast improvement over TV + commercials. I was a much bigger fan of Classical Baby - good music, good art and nice little animals.

What do you think? Should people be walking around, fist-bumping because they feel like this is some kind of admission on Disney's part? Does anyone really deserve a refund because a video didn't make their kid smarter?

You know, people underestimate the value of a good ramble.

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Miss O is a bit of an imp ...

Wednesday night at bedtime, I was reading to Bean, and Miss O was in the room with us. I hadn't yet closed the bedroom door because, honestly, I encourage O to skip storytime before bed. If she's in there, she screams bloody murder until Bean hustles off my lap with a gentle "It's okay, O, you can sit with mommy". It's very sweet of Bean, but O can't keep 'winning' like that or the screaming will never end. And it has to end. Soon.

Anyways, Miss O toddled on over to the door, grinned at us and started easing the door closed with one hand while waving 'bye-bye' with the other hand. It doesn't sound nearly as silly or cute when I type it out, but trust me - between that impish little grin on her face and the wave, it was wicked cute.

Last night while I was fixing dinner for her and I, I let her play with some dry lentils and bowls and scoops. Yeah, the stuff got everywhere, but she was perfectly content with what she was doing, and there was no whining, screaming or demanding to be picked up.

As the fun was winding down, I got out the small hand broom and dust pan to clean up. O wanted to use them, so I let her for awhile. When dinner was pretty much done, I started to sweep again, and she wandered over to the pantry, got a cloth napkin and came over to start wiping up the floor as I swept. How sweet is that?

For the past two nights I've let her more or less self-soothe to sleep. Not really crying, tho there was a bit of fussing. But when she gets wound up, I've discovered that gently scratching her head is like an 'off' switch, if the planets are in their proper alignment. So with some fussing, some skritching and some soothing, Miss O has wound down on her own, instead of the usual nursing to sleep.

I tried getting her to take a bottle of formula on Wed night, but she was angered mightly at the suggestion. So it was back to nursing last night, but I did make her fall back to sleep a few times without the boob.

She was up a lot doing this really congested sounding cough last night, and was pawing at her ear a bit before bed. I have no idea where the cough came from - she's not been sick or sniffly or congested at all. I'm hoping her ped is open today ...

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Since my desktop computer kept giving me the "holy shiznit, you're almost out of space!" message every single time I booted up, I sprang for a 1.5TB (that's like a gigolo-zillion bytes or something like that) external hard drive at Costco.

While I know I have a bunch of stuff hogging space, I think my biggest problem is fragmentation and a messy C: drive - but how the heck do I run a defrag when there is next to zero free space?!? I've deleted everything I don't use, but can't move the dial from 3% free space. And the darn defrag wants 15% free space to run. Grrr ...

I'm going to end up downloading (to my D: drive, thankyouverymuch) a bunch of system mechanic type programs, because I figure $70 worth of software, plus my googling skills and (limited) computer savvy is a better option than paying someone by the hour. Right? (Someone say right. Because I have never been my own tech support!)

The clean up and file moving exercise uncovered a strange sidebar: what the heck do you do with a marriage's worth of digital images?

Do I delete old vacation pictures? Is that what one does when one gets divorced? I'm sure that Dave did, as he had a whole Sherman-esque approach to "us" when I moved out ... but it's not like I look at the pictures (ever) or, now that I've had my memory refreshed that there are pics of the places 'we' went, I'm waxing nostalgic and feeling reunion feelings. I guess it's not something like the wedding photo album, that the girls may some day want to see. Any mention of "I went on a cruise with your dad" is unlikely to be any more than a passing thing, and that's only until I go on a different cruise and the one with Dave isn't the only point of reference.

It's different for pics of family trips, once Bean was in the picture (ha, I made a funny). But pre-Bean, I guess there's really no point, is there? Is there any need to be a memory keeper when no-one really needs or wants the memories?