Easter Weekend

I started to post the other day and then realized my butt hadn't gotten out of this chair for hours, so I postponed it. I finally have MLS (Multiple Listing Service - not sure it's called the same thing in other countries) access, after several days of frustration with the local Board. So it's like Christmas for me, and it's quite possible for me to sit down to check out a neighborhood and just keep researching, and look up to see 2 hours have passed. It's like an eBay addiction for the real estate obsessed. I really am working - I'm identifying potential farm neighborhoods (a farm is when you basically become an expert in the area and work it, letting the people who live there know you are all over it and know how to price and market it) and found so many lovely neighborhoods on my drive-bys, it keeps me entertained for hours on a holiday weekend.

My official holiday cratered this afternoon, for a very sad reason. My future daughter-in-law's aunt, who lived in South Florida, has been sick for years, and recently her health took a turn for the worse. FDiL and Supergirl made a trip down with other family members to see her just a week or so ago. Her parents were down there too, of course, and had actually started to drive back and got as far as Orlando when they were called and told to turn around, so they've been down there for a couple of weeks. The aunt passed away this afternoon, so Babydaddy and Babymama and Supergirl are driving down to South Florida tomorrow to attend the funeral. This was not an elderly woman - I never met her, but FDiL described her as hilariously funny and looking and sounding a lot like Joy Behar - so it's not like you can say "Oh, the poor old dear lived a full life." Nah. She got dealt a shitty hand, and that's harder for everyone around her to accept.

So Easter's plans for getting together and maybe a picnic went out the window, but I did get my fill of quality time with Supergirl this morning. Dad had to close the bar last night, Mom had to work part of the day today, and Primary Sitting Grandma was already in FL. I canceled my plans and spent a few hours being run ragged by the suddenly chatty and even more busy Supergirl.

Damn, she's talking up a storm! Must stop saying "Damn," because she'll parrot it. I'm amazed by the words she knows - I had kicked off my sandals at the door when I arrived, and she crawled over to these unfamiliar shoes, held one up, and said, "Shoo?"
She asks for more "food" with "more." (So much for Teaching Baby to Sign - she skipped that shit and went right to just SAYING the words while pointing at the thing she wants.) She says yes and no, hi and bye, but also book and dog and ball and throw and uh-oh, and scads of other words.

Tonight her parents were warming up her dinner, and she launched into a soliloquy of near-words which we think was her opinion on the right number of seconds to properly reheat salmon in the microwave (because nobody likes dried out salmon). She knows "No!" very well, and today reached a hand toward an electrical outlet, solemnly told herself "NO!" and let her hand drop. She's not just parroting; she knows what she's saying.

She turned 1 last month. Oh boy, are her parents ever in for it - my son said they are already figuring out that the "Your Baby" guidance of the experts doesn't apply. "Your baby should know around six words...." She's SAYING 3 new words a day right now. I am laughing my ass off (oops, mustn't say ass) because when HE was a baby I didn't have the Internet Experts, but I pretty much threw aside every baby book I owned by his first birthday and never looked at them again. She's following her father's and aunt's trajectory, and I hereby predict that by her 2nd birthday she'll be speaking in sentences with correctly used adjectives and adverbs. Good luck with finding a preschool that can deal with her, kids! Been there, did that!

I took pictures and even video on my phone (badass phone is better than my small camera), but I'll have to go somewhere else tomorrow to send it to my own email. I live in a rare little pocket of Verizon Suckage in town, and when I start thinking I'm too lazy to move next winter I must remind myself of this issue, because it's a doozy. My office phone is forwarded to my cell. My cell doesn't work very well at all in my home office. I can dance around that for a while, but when the lease is up here, I need not only a small backyard but good cell reception. I can drive out of this neighborhood and have full service instantly. I'm just sitting in a weird little pocket of dead. But that's why you aren't seeing video tonight. I'll add it tomorrow, I promise. Not like the knitting stuff I've promised to photograph - this is already in my phone. It just can't get out.