“What’s the special occasion?”
Dumbfounded he hesitantly said, “none”.
“I smell aftershave. You only shave on Sunday nights and it’s Wednesday.”
Laughing, “Tomorrow they’re taking pictures. I’m even going to wear my wedding tuxedo.”
“Did your boss tell you to not wear a t-shirt?”
“No, but he asked that I not wear a competitor’s shirt”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
I received two prepaid postage envelops with the junk mail today. I use them to return junk mail. “Do you have anything you want to send back to Capital One?” I asked waving the envelopes.
“Yeah, I have to take a shit.”
“Ok but I’m going to make you the one to lick the envelope.”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
Thursday last week, Kurt took Sophia for a walk around the block and at thirty-one months, she finally uttered her first three-word phrase. She said it four times on their walk. Kurt came home and asked me, “Have you been brainwashing our daughter?”
“Uh, no, why?”
Her first phrase was, “I want puppy.” And she really hasn’t let up on the topic either.
“What age did we stipulate for the trust fund?”
“Twenty-five, I remember because we wanted her to live a little before receiving money so she doesn’t just blow it on things like fur necklaces.”
*blink blink blink*
“Fur necklaces? It’s a good thing I’m not into jewelry. You would really suck at picking anything good.”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
Kurt made me promise that I wouldn’t blame him for the way Sophia was dressed since I told him to let her choose what she wanted to wear, so I won’t. It’s really my fault. I told him to let her choose her own clothes. I assumed that any normal human being would know that they need to select either the top or the bottom themselves and then give the toddler two or three choices of the other that are known to match. Kurt didn’t do that. He laid out three random bottoms and three random tops. I have pictures of the results. Please be warned that they my burn your eyes.
Sophia was oddly hyper that day (2/8/10). It may have been due to the bright color selection or it’s also possible that her selection was a reflection of her mood. I had such a hard time getting a good shot of her that I started running up and down the stairs hoping that would slow her down enough for me to focus on her. I put her hair up in a ponytail and wanted pictures of that, so Kurt tried to help me by holding her, and upside-down. Then she ran in and out of her room giggling as Kurt chased her. He finally caught the elusive toddler again to complete her look for the day. Those are dress shoes he’s putting on her, with socks, she insisted.
Yes, she actually went out in public looking like that. We aren’t cruel. It was her choice.
This weekend since we had a birthday party to go to on Sunday, we (Kurt) spent Saturday doing little projects around the house that he hadn’t completed when we moved in six years ago. Shut UP. When we moved in Kurt put in hardwood floors and sealed most of the nail holes with putty, but not all.
This nail putty is nail polish remover with wood chips in it. Just pick a can the coordinates with the color wood and when the polish remover evaporates, presto, little wood plug.
I went around the house doing laundry and collecting trash from our many little trash cans. Sophia occupied herself in her room for once, but after about twenty minutes, she became bored and wanted to play with daddy. At this point Kurt was working on the steps leading to the top floor, so much like a cat would while you read a paper or book, Sophia laid right in the way.
Kurt was filling the holes on the bottom step and Sophia laid across the step above with one arm and one leg dangling in the way. His routine was adjusted accordingly to, move toddler arm, putty, putty, move toddler leg, putty, putty, move toddler to next step up.
Last night Sophia was laying across the steps again. Kurt told me about telling this story to a coworker then asked Sophia, “Do you remember helping daddy finish the stairs?”
“YES!”
“Did you get your first contact high?”
“YES!”
After work Kurt’s job is to entertain the child while I fix dinner. If she’s too rowdy to sit on his lap and watch the news they start roughhousing and he’ll swing her by the arms and toss her on the couch…repeatedly. If I happen to be upstairs at the time, Kurt arrives from work it becomes our bed instead of the couch.
Instead of swinging her by the arms it more of a pillow softball game, Sophia will stand up on the bed giggling uncontrollably and Kurt will swing a pillow at her. He doesn’t swing nor hit her with enough force to actually knock her down, but she purposely falls upon impact. This game could go on forever.
Last week Kurt and Sophia played this game. On one occasion after knocking the toddler down, Kurt put the pillow down at the head of the bed. Sophia got up from her fall, saw that Kurt didn’t have his ammo, retrieved a pillow, and handed it to him to continue the game. Kurt laughed and obligingly hit her with the pillow, then set it down to come tell me about it.
As Kurt tells me the story we hear the most pathetic little cry, “daddy”. She sounded like she was either in tears or near tears. Kurt ran up the stairs to see her leaning off the edge of the bed, holding a pillow.
The motorcycle rolls in, “Daddy’s home,” I say. She runs to the window watching him check the mail, then runs to the top of the stairs. “Eh-Low!” She shouts.
“He can’t hear you from there.” Down the stairs she goes, pushes open the door purposely left ajar, “Eh-low, eh-low, eh-low”. She says in rapid fire.
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
The Laura as you know from yesterday’s post is our couch. Last year my parents bought Sophia her own couch and it’s pink with Dora the Explorer all over it. We dubbed it The Dora, it’s The Laura’s illegitimate child.
We keep some of Sophia’s toys in the living room. We can mostly push them back and sort of make them blend in. The Dora is not something that blends well. It’s not that we don’t want it to look like we have a kid, we just don’t like making it look like the kid took over the entire house. Dora has lived largely in Sophia’s room. That is, until not-a-nanny (AKA Smarmoofus) came to visit this year.
Kurt and I had talked about covering The Dora so that Sophia could have her couch in the living room but we never got around to doing anything about it. Smarmy dragged me to the fabric store and I found three yards of red upholstery that somewhat matches The Laura and three yards of a mossy color upholstery that somewhat matches The Farris. All of it was on clearance and all for nine dollars.
Smarmoofus and I finished most of it before she left and Kurt and I finally got around to putting the finishing touches on it Sunday.
We figure Sophia will be able to relate to the new Muppet Couch since she has watched all the first season Muppet shows. She’s never seen the Dora the Explorer show, and that’s not a hidden request for Dora videos.
For two years after Kurt and I moved in together we had two couches. One was his red leather couch, which our cat was slowly destroying with his back claws as he dug in for powerful lift-offs across the room, and then there was my couch. My couch was some black velvet-like 80’s couch with rainbow colored glittery pinstripes. Don’t laugh it was free! I promptly covered it. The cover for my free couch cost $50. You may laugh now.
Almost six years ago we bought our current house and soon after that sold Kurt’s couch because our living room was too small for two. We needed more seating so we purchased two Ikea chairs. About three years ago, we decided it was time to toss the free couch and buy a real couch both of us liked and that wouldn’t get destroyed by our cat’s jackrabbit impressions.
We probably went to every furniture store in the county and a few outside the county. We went everywhere! Finally, we went to La-Z-Boy. I always thought they only sold recliners and had cheap furniture. Not that I wanted something super ‘high end’, but I didn’t want anything that would fall apart after a couple years either. Turns out, I just don’t know jack about brand names and such. I absolutely fell in love with a curved couch and the huge ottoman in front of it. We looked at everything in the store, but I kept coming back to that one.
La-Z-Boy doesn’t refer to their furniture by model numbers. They use proper names, so anytime the sales lady heard me refer to *that couch* she would say, “The Laura”. “Umm yeah, that one. The curved one, with the ottoman.”
“The Tasha”
After Kurt sat on everything in the store at least twice, including the recliners that tilt forward to help old people back onto their feet, he finally agreed that was the couch for us. We picked out colors and fabrics for the couch and the pillows and then went through the process of completing the sale. One of the other sales people stuck up a conversation with us while we waited for paperwork.
Our sales woman to sales man: They’re buying The Laura
Sales man: Oh, are you buying a chair too?
Kurt: No, not yet, but once we see it with the Ikea chairs we’ll probably come back
The man looked like Kurt had just killed his favorite pet right in front of him and ate the heart.
Sales man: You’re going to put Ikea chairs next to The Laura?
Kurt: No, we’re putting The Laura next to Ikea chairs. We had them first.
If it hadn’t been for that exchange we would have never bothered to remember the names of our furniture. We did go back weeks later for a chair and bought the Farris.