Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

... from your truant friends here at Squeaker central. Squeaker and I have had a nice week with her grandparents and great grandparents. Her favorite song "1234" has been replaced by Jingle Bells. She needs some prompting here and there, but does a pretty good rendition.

Sorry for the short and late post. We'll resume a normal schedule next week.

Cookie Dough and Grammy's House

Thanks for coming back for this late post. Squeaker and I arrived at Grammy's house on Saturday. Granddad and I piled into the car and headed north through the rain, sleet, snow, and cold to watch a basketball game. For the record, the Keydets won this round. Squeaker was a little upset that she didn't get to go, but given the amount of yelling (by both of us), she's probably better off not to have been there. She was a little nervous with the Daddy Person gone, so Blankie stayed with her most of the time. Squeaker tried hard at bedtime to convince Grammy that it wasn't time to goto bed. When Squeaker realized she wasn't going to win the argument. She said "Grammy go. And close the door." So she did.

Brite will tell the story of the Cookie Dough...

One of our new neighbors invited Squeaker and I over to make Christmas cookies this week. Squeaker is a fan of cookies, but she also really likes these neighbors and we have never been to their house. She likes their doggies and they have a beautiful horse which came to visit us at our house once. We mixed up all the cookie dough and she let Squeaker lick a little batter.
When my little friend pleaded for more, I explained that we shouldn't really eat the dough. I told her she would like the baked cookies much better, so she would have to be patient. Squeaker was sitting on the counter, so the doggies wouldn't lick her face and so she could help cut out the cookies. We gave Squeaker a cookie cutter so she could out some stars. Instead of using the cookie cutter, she bent over and did a face plant into the dough. She happily raised her flour covered face while she was chewing the bite she had taken out of the dough. Needless to say, I was extremely embarrassed! Our neighbor chuckled and after I cleaned off Squeaker's face, she promised not to do that again. It was great fun, and Squeaker thought the baked cookies were quite yummy.

Have a good week everyone.

Coloring and a Cold

Squeaker seems to be fight off another cold now. She's been cute this weekend though, cute but really out of it most of the time. Aunte Brite got some good video of them coloring together.



Bedtime Friends Watch

This week her bedtime friends have been Elena, Grammy, and Granddad. We're not sure, but we think she's getting excited about her Christmas travels. One afternoon after nap time should have started she had built a hill out of Blankie and Elena was climbing it to find four-leaf clovers (an idea she pilfered from a Pooh book).

The 97th Post!

Rather than celebrate the 100th blog post, the Daddy Person had decided to mark the 97th post instead. Squeaker marked the occasion by being a tough girl. She was running on the sidewalk and slid. Her tights got the worst of it. She has had a busy week adjusting to being home and not being surrounded by doting grandparents and great-grandparents, aunt and uncles. We have spent much of this week working with her on that most difficult of lessons, doing what we're told the first (or second time for that matter). When not working on that Squeaker has been practicing with being very sweet. I asked her if she wanted to get a present for Aunte Brite. With out missing a beat, she said "Yes a turtle and a alligator for daddy." Don't worry Brite, I'll keep pushing for a sweater.

Story of the Week

One of the first things she and Aunte Brite did was visit her fan club at the library. On the way home, Brite overheard Squeaker saying slowly and carefully, "When we get home we will probably read books." Silence from the front of the car. "When we get home we will possibly read books."

Bedtime Friends

No new aliases this week, but in order to throw off our investigators, Squeaker bedtime friends have been cycling through many of the old ones. Most notably, after a long hiatus, Clifford has been masqurading as Dr. Mugwort.

Squeaker and I have been visiting her grandparents this week. Saturday we arrived at my parents house at nap time. It seemed like it I would get a lot of resistance (on many fronts) to putting her to bed right away, so I let her play a while. She was pretty punchy when I put her to bed. Even so, I was a little surprised then when she asked me to kiss her foot. The Daddy person loves Squeaker and all, but she's been walking on that foot for a long time, and you have do draw the line someplace, so I said no. Besides, its really hard to kiss her for when I am already wrapped around her little finger.

She does not have any aversion to kissing her feet though. In case you've forgotten how flexible little people are, she had no trouble pulling her foot up to her face and kissing it. Just in case her foot didn't know it was loved at that point. She also pulled it up by her head and gave it a couple of big hugs.
During breakfast on Saturday these two numbers were up on the table. Squeaker had finished her eggs and was down playing. She waked up to the '4' and deliberately ran her fingers along the letters and said 'four'. We were all flabbergasted. Oblivious to the gasps, Squeaker puttered around a bit then came back to the table, ran her fingers along the letters "t-w-0" and said 'six'.

Story of the Week

Squeaker and Brite were running errands last week when...

Squeaker: Look Aunt Brite! There is a little white doggie over there. I will get to pet it sometime?
Brite: Sweetie, I don't know that lady and her doggie, so I don't think so. I think you will get to see some doggies this week, though.
S: My get to go to Grammy's house! There will be doggies there! She has lot of doggies. Dorey and Freckles and Heidi and Freckles and Dorey.
B: Well, maybe you can pet them.
S: Aunt Brite, I can't pet Dorey.
B: Why not?
S: Dorey gets frustrated about me sometimes. I can pet Heidi. She is nice.
For the record that Daddy person thinks it is inconceivable that Squeaker used 'frustrated' in a sentence. Furthermore, I do not think it means what she thinks it means.
A little later on in the trip the her thoughts moved on to other adventures.
S: Aunt Brite, my will go to fish like Connor. Daddy will show me. My will fish all by myself, too. My will obey Daddy when we fishing.

Bedtime Friends Watch

We were away from most of our bedtime friends this week. We got home from Thanksgiving dinner with some of the Daddy person's friends last night and Squeaker was very glad to see Ducky and Froggy. Ducky was quickly renamed Baby Linda, at which point I couldn't resist asking if Froggy was "Mr. Nelson"....

Squeaker's Entourage

Since Squeaker has had her first real cold this week she hasn't been very photogenic, so I don't have a great picture of her as I promised. We have mentioned recently that Squeaker has been in the habit of renaming her bedtime friends, sometimes weekly, sometimes daily. Sometimes they are named after people we have seen, sometimes after characters her library books. The editors have decided add another weekly feature. In addition to the story of the week, we will also let you know what roles her bedtime friends have been playing this week.

Hope Bunny, AKA Hopa - Past Aliases: Gramie, Rachel, Mrs. Rayome, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Arllen, Froggy's Mom, Nurse Laura, Elizabeth's Mommy

Ducky - Past Aliases: Jake, Kamile, Mr. Arllen

Froggy - Past Aliases: Granddad, Libbie, Jacob, Eliot, Froggy, Dr. Morita

Clifford - Past Aliases: Elena, Baby Sidney, Elizabeth, Dr. Mugwort

Squeaker has a new favorite song, her previous favorites include "Cows", "Advarks", and "I like blue lemurs". Her new favorite comes from a recent episode of Sesame Street: Feist's 1, 2, 3, 4. Play at your own risk, especially if you have a tendency for songs to get stuck your head. The editors of Squeakerpants.com are not responsible for what may happen if you show this video to a toddler, though Squeaker seems to really get the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 now. If your child becomes truly obsessed, you can find a couple of mp3 versions out there too . Aside from some counting, this song has inspired a lot more singing. Squeaker sings now, often, out of tune, and mostly original compositions. Tonight she sang that all time favorite, the 'some' song, "Some, somey, somey, some, SOME", instead of eating her last piece of chicken.

Story of the Week - Squeaker provided more than half of the past aliases of her bedtime friends. Put another way while we were cataloging them during dinner. Not surprisingly, she knew as many as the Daddy person and Aunte Brite combined.

Basketball not Ball Ball

Squeaker and I have both been sick this week. She seems to be over her cold. The Daddy person is still working on getting rid of it. We went to our first basketball game of the season today. One of the Daddy person's colleges beat another of his colleges. I thought of course of going to 'ball ball' games with her last winter. Then she kept staring at the jumbo-tron, pointed at lot and periodically said 'ball ball'. Now from our seats in the rafters, she asks me, "What that blue thing?". Since one of these schools has blue as a color, there were lots of blue things, "That's the out of bounds line. No. Scoreboard? No. The mascot! Yes". She liked sitting in her seat and spent most of the first half eating the provisions I had brought along. We spent halftime wandering the arena together watching the 'bimp'. She sat peacefully on my lap during the second half. So peacefully that I realized she had fallen asleep. She slept until the final minute, despite a very noisy crowd.

In blog posts long ago I made the joke that Squeaker would sign please when she wanted a book read to her, because it seemed like she was memorizing them. Brite wanted me to mention that the last phase of reading Squeaker a book is that she sits on the floor and reviews each page, doing her best to retell the story.

Story of the Week
Brite: Squeaker are you awake?
Squeaker: Yes. (softly and curled up on her pillow) There was a 'pider on my pink blanket.
B: There was a what?
S: A 'PIDER was on my pink blanket over there.
B: What did you do?
S: My pulled my legs up, up, up.
B: How did you feel about there being a spider in your bed?
S: My pulled my legs up.
The next day (after Squeaker's linens had been laundered), Squeaker got a wooden spider from one of her puzzles and hid it under her bed.
S: (giggling) There is a 'pider under my bed. Find it Brite!

That's all for this week. I didn't take any pictures, so I don't have any new ones to post this evening. I'll get some good ones this week.