The next number

Monday has arrived and so has cooler weather. Feeding Rosie in my normal attire: Steve's shorts and a t-shirt, slippers and hair standing up on one side of my head made me a little cold this morning. I'd thought it'd be safe to slip something in the mailbox by the road, but just as I turned my back to raise the little flag on the side of the box, I hear honking and turn around, deer in headlights look, to see my neighbor from down the street saying hello and waving frantically out her window. Great. Some things are inescapable.

We returned home yesterday from a trip to the Minneapolis area. The trip was gorgeous. The leaves have changed up there and the drive was phenomenal. Well, minus the fact that our DVD player didn't work and the girls were less than pleased on the way home, but we made it...forced to eat at a sub-prime Taco Bell/KFC, which always leaves me squeamish. The girls must have been too happy there because they laughed at each other non stop, so much so that the older couple in the booth behind us, moved to another table across the restaurant from us. Geez. I thought laughing was acceptable. Wouldn't incessant crying be worse? We must have interrupted their date at a roadside Taco Bell/KFC, where they came for a romantic dinner. Maybe they moved because Sophie pointed out the old tomato chunk in the window sill and picked it up to show us. Was that too gross? Had we gone too far?

Despite the restaurant experience, we made it up to Steve's sister's house where we celebrated little Aylee's 1st bday. There were lots of kids there...to my surprise, ours were some of the oldest. We had fun and the food was great, which it always is, especially when Steve's dad, Larry, is there. Homemade ice cream and their awesome chocolate cake put a stick in my diet spokes, but it was only one weekend, well, maybe two weekends since I suggested that they also not be afraid to bring the homemade cake to Sophie's birthday party as well. I would not protest.

I'm excited for Sophie's birthday party this year, for her to get her next number as she calls it. Four years old. This makes me stop and think where I've been the last 3 years. Last I knew I had a toddler and a baby...now both nearing adulthood it seems...well maybe childhood, but still. Remember Fosie? Our tiny, scratch that...chunky funny baby with wild curly hair and seventeen rolls on each thigh? The child that could not be sad, the happiest baby on earth, and the cutest for that matter. I remember how she'd crawl across the hard wood floor as fast as she could, head down, barreling through. Then she'd stop at your feet and raise up her head and GRIN!!! Big blue eyes and all. Now this little baby towers over the real little babies now, bigger than any of them, tall and getting leaner all the time, transforming when I wasn't looking, ready for her next number. Her self proclaimed self improvements upon getting this new number include no pull ups at bedtime and no training wheels on her bike. Noble causes, really. I'm excited to celebrate this next number of my little Fosester Gracer, Sopapilla, GGpop Clark. Poor thing. Has more nicknames than anyone should.

Big girl