Today was Jinx’s turn. She wanted something from me and was determined to stare at me until I figured it out. (If you guessed litterbox, you guessed right.)

Thanks to snow and ice falling off the roof, which she sees as a sign the sky is falling (it is pretty loud), she spends a lot of time under the coffee table.

If I do convince her to ignore the impending Armageddon and sit with me, she refuses to look at the camera.

And let’s just say Taz isn’t all that helpful.

Though I do love Mini’s expression in that last picture all to bits, I’m determined to get a “birthday portrait” before her birthday—one worthy of Mommy’s Pretty, Pretty Princess. (Yes, I am that frou-frou dog owner.) (No pink sparkly outfits, though, and I don’t carry her around Walmart in a little tote, so I’m not too far gone.) (Yet.)

I do not think that George Washington was a good leader for a few different reasons. On page 216 his soldiers were dying, and he sat there on his horse, watching, while the rest of his men fought back at the camp and died! Also, on page 210, while his men climbed ashore, bloody, soaked, and cold, he stood there draped in a cloack, basically “living the good life”. Another thing is that if he hadn’t made those plans, they wouldn’t have died! Finally, those men were in pain, and [he] didn’t stop to give them a break. Don’t you think he wasn’t a good leader for those reasons?

And the teacher’s note:

An interesting opinion for sure! It is well supported.

It’s obvious the short kid shares my love of the comma, though I’m totally blaming the exclamation points on his father’s side of the family.

And I’m pleased to report he got full marks for this assignment. We’ve had great luck over the years with teachers who let kids buck the party line if they fulfill the technical requirements of the assignment and can back it up. Whether it’s history, politics or anything else, we love a rowdy debate at home and we’ve raised our boys to not blindly drink anybody’s Kool-Aid, even the flavors we serve, so they could have run into trouble with a rigid teacher. Luckily, with the exception of one (and she was just dim-witted, not rigid), we’ve had great teachers every year, and with a high school junior and a fifth-grader, that’s a lot of teachers.

I picture those three pounds like the little bit of snow you pack in your hand to start a snowball. It’s going to keep rolling and rolling, getting bigger and bigger. Someday, instead of those pounds being on me, they’re going to be a big-ass snowman I can keep at a distance.

Anyway, moving on because I don’t intend for this to become the Diet Blog of Doom, this morning the Short Kid needed a little help with his spelling homework early this morning. (Yes, he had Wednesday evening, but he gambled on the snow day, then he had all of yesterday to do it. He gets his procrastination skills from Mom, apparently.) The assignment? Use spelling words to form tongue twisters. He’d already done a few, but he was stuck on the last one.

This is what we came up with:

Nonvenomous nefarious nematodes nick nifty knickers.

(Nonvenomous being the word from the spelling list.)

Me: “Your teacher’s probably going to guess I had a hand in this one.”

SK: “I’ll probably be the only kid with underwear-stealing parasitic worms.”

Probably.

SK: Mom, you’re singing it again.

Me: Oops. At least, as earworms go, it’s not bad.

TK: Somebody call 9-1-1

Me: NOOOOOO!!!

SK: Moves like Jagger, moves like Jagger

Me: Ohimigod, you are both SO GROUNDED!

As you can see, Mini’s getting used to having a little brother. There are a lot of wrestling matches, much jockeying for position at the water bowl, and some snuggling together while mom and dad watch TV at night.

A little after that photo was taken last night, their relationship suffered a minor setback, however. We have hardwood floors and Taz managed to grab hold of Mini’s tail and drag her backwards around the living room. There wasn’t a damn thing Mini could do about. Very undignified.

We, of coure, told Taz no, but we were laughing so hard I’m not sure he got the message. Mini’s still a little peeved about it this morning and has returned to her unreachable-by-puppy perch on the back of the couch. But, on a good note, my floor’s dusted!

Keeping in mind that Mini is physically smaller than the cats, you can see Taz is even smaller. She weighs 11.5 pounds and yesterday he tipped the scales at a wee little 5 pounds.

So far the cats are, for the most part, ignoring him and being quite patient when he does get a chance to get in their faces. Mini’s afraid of him, and she won’t even touch her favorite fleece blanket now that Taz has cuddled on it. I don’t think we’ll have peace until Mini gets sick of it and gives him a good cuff upside the head.

Then we found a little spot of grass in the airport parking lot and set him down. He spun in circles, ripped apart a small bush, tried to kill my husband’s sneaker, and spun in more circles. Somebody compared him to the Tasmanian Devil in the cartoon and that was that. Nobody called him anything but Taz after that and it stuck.

Eventually, though, even a cyclone of fluff has to rest…

Mini is terrified of him. Gizmo and Jinx are plotting revenge for this new indignity. And I need to remember to buy a bottle of whine today. <—(I totally meant wine, but I’ve decided to let that typo stand.)

Then the little guy said, “I’ll be Tom Brady again. It’s okay, Mom, I know you’re busy.”

Heartstrings. Tug. Yeah. So yesterday I did a little overpriced, last-minute shopping and…*drum roll*…

The Dread Pirate Fabio!

He did his best to Fabio the hair, but it was a wig and not a very expensive one, so he couldn’t get a good wind-blown flip. But he got a lot of compliments on his costume and he was a happy dude, so all’s well. And I have candy.

Also, Barnes & Noble has links now, so you can preorder Mistletoe and Margaritas for nook as well as for Kindle. And the Holiday Kisses collection is also available to preorder for nook and Kindle if you want all four contemporary novellas!