Bye, Bye, Blankie

We said goodbye to an one who has been our constant companion lo, these many years (well, three, actually) and it was a sad goodbye, for some of us. We took Blankie to Target and traded it in for a Spiderman Scooter, and is it weird that I got a little teary-eyed as we handed it to the cashier? (had to make it look like a bona fide "trade") I guess I was mostly saddened by what the passing of the blankie represented, that my little guy is growing up. Also I have a tendency to become sentimentally attached to just about every inanimate object I come into contact with.

Charlie has had his blankie with him to comfort him every night and at every naptime since he was about 9 months old, as well as anytime he was upset, or on road trips, or in airplanes, or in timeout...you get the picture. Many of you have witnessed "the blankie cram" wherein he would search around for his favorite corner/edge of the blankie and begin stuffing as much of it as he could into his mouth. And many of you have probably been disgusted by the looks of a blankie that has been sucked on daily for almost three years, I certainly was beyond disgusted every time I looked at it. So there was much relief mixed in with the sadness as the blankie passed out of our lives, and not nearly as much drama as I expected. We had been talking about taking the blankie to the store to trade it in for a scooter for a while, to get him used to the idea. Charlie's little chin quivered just for a moment as he watched me hand the blankie to the cashier, (I explained what we were doing and quietly asked her to just toss it in the trash for us) and he has asked for it with tears in his eyes a couple of times since, but he seems to be over it now. The Spiderman scooter really sweetened the deal, I'm sure.

In other news, Antonia continues to refuse to take a bottle out of sheer stubborness. She will, however, scarf down a huge bowl of rice cereal mixed with formula, so I know the issue is not with the taste of the bottle's contents. Hmmmm... any suggestions, moms who have had this problem? In every other respect she's just delightful and really, practically perfect. She's taking good naps, sleeping 12 hours a night and a delectable feast for the eyes. Sometimes I'm so struck by her cuteness that the only thing I can think of doing is eating her. Just gobbling her right up. Put her together with Charlie when they're being cute together and I am absolutely beside myself with how to handle the cuteness.

Also this week we had yet another run-in with the local law-enforcement, in another heart-pounding moment. (There have been several heart-pounding encounters with police since we've lived in Henderson, most notably one involving officers bursting into our house and pointing a gun at Will. I don't have time for that story right now if you haven't heard it, sorry.) So the other night Will and I were sleeping soundly when there arose such a clatter that I sprang from my bed, well, tumbled out of my bed, to see what was the matter. Someone was banging on the front door with a large, heavy object, and there was some yelling that I was too drowsy to comprehend. Will can sleep through just about anything until I yell his name several times, so I roused him and we hurried downstairs to see who was at the door. I could only imagine that something terrible must have happened for someone to be banging on our door in the middle of the night, and my heart was racing. We opened the door to four policement, hands on their guns. We were both too astonished and half-asleep to form coherent thoughts, so we stood stupidly and answered their questions, which were:

Is there a John Graham living here?
-No
We looked him up in the system and this is his last known address. We're looking for his son.
-Well, I've seen the name on mail before, but we've lived here for two years...
Two years? Ok, well sorry to wake you. You know, kids get in trouble sometimes and we're looking for him... (no further information offered)
-OK. No problem.
Have a good night.


The aforementioned gun-pointed-at-Will episode was also the result of police officers trying to find somebody but working on old/bad information, but that was at our previous residence. I wonder if it's only coincidence that we keep buying houses where criminals have resided, or if it's just statistically probable in this town. Maybe there are so many criminals in Las Vegas that one would be hard-pressed to buy a house with a criminal-free past.


Here's Charlie with his Spiderman scooter. I guess we stumbled into some bad lighting...

When Charlie gets his hair cut we cover him with baby powder so the hair will brush off easily because he has zero tolerance for hair getting on his skin. This way we can brush away the offending hair quickly, before he has time to have a panic attack. He really is a fastidious little guy, that Charlie.