What's cute is that she is not really eating a lot of anything that I consider a snack.  She takes a handful and then eats a few and tells me, *I done*.  All matter of fact.  Her shoe tab was broken on her new tennies.  It had come loose so the velcro tab section was fine but it wasn't attached to the shoe.  I took some of my Bondini and fixed it.  It's nice and secure now.  But it works really well on leather to leather.  It's much better than Superglue.

The baby, of course, wanted to watch *Zilla* so I bit the bullet and let her select which one she wanted.  We watched *Godzilla's Revenge* first and then *Godzilla, King of the Monsters*.  She wanted a third one but I told her no and said we should watch another monster movie and let Zilla rest for a while.  I took down my various  monster movies and she finally picked out the *worms with teefs* (her words) or *Tremors* as the rest of us know it. 

When she ate her lunch, (thankfully) Sponge Bob was on so I let her sit there and watch it happily.  After she finished, I told her it was time to read her books.  I have several different books of hers here but she wanted Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham first of all.  I had to read it to her three times before I finally convinced her we could read another book.  I know she thinks it's funny because of how she laughs at certain parts of it.  How much of it she really understands, I have no clue.  Heck, I'm not sure how much *I* understand about that strange world he seems to live in.    But....I have found that kids everywhere just love those books.  And he has certainly written enough of them.  I guess I am going to have to get her a few more.  Even if all it does is teach her how to rhyme, it's certainly worth it.  Even Chewlee seems to have picked up some of the different lines as little as she is.

 Then it was on to Mother Goose.  Some of the rhymes she didn't want me to read.   She just wanted to point out what the pictures were.  Others she insisted I had to read.  When I read a word she didn't know, she would stop me and say the word with a kind of question mark tone of voice so I would explain it to her or show her what it was in the picture.  Then she would let me go on.  She finally was ready to settle down comfortably in my recliner and watch some more monster movies.  She was asleep in about 10 minutes.  I had been rocking her and darn near fell asleep myself.  I laid her down gently and got on my computer to play a game or two on Pogo while I talked to Bratfink.

She woke up in a good mood and wanted me to scratch her back.  She even insisted I had to pull her shirt up to scratch it.  Then she wanted me to get a hot rag and wipe her back with it.  After that was done, she just HAD to do my back and then she told me she had to go wipe the dogs face off because it was dirty.    Since he's a black-and-tan dobie, how could she possibly tell?  She then brought the rag back to me so I could put it somewhere.  She didn't care what I did with it but SHE was through with it.

When Johnnycakes came to pick her up, she was so happy it was him.  I wish you could have seen her face.  It just lights up and she yells a happy *Daddy!*  After he put her shoes on her, she nestled against him like she was so content to be there.  It makes me just love him more and more for the way SHE feels about him.   My mom always told us to trust the feelings of little kids and dogs.  I've found it to be true most of my life.  She feels loved by him and that's good enough for me.

The Beast spent the day thinking and checking out prices on various types of electrical/gas/propane/radiant heaters.  The man is obsessed with bringing down the electric bills more and more somehow.  I DO know that running our reverse cycle AC unit with it's emergency heat and electric heat strips runs the bill up horribly here where the weather gets so much colder than in Florida.  I think they were actually designed for Florida cold.  It seldom gets down into the 30's during the winter there except in Northern Florida, of course.  But, with the high humidity we had in Central and South Florida, the chill affect was cold enough to make you shiver and shake badly. 

What does he come up with?  Get this.  How about a propane fake fireplace with,  I believe he said, a 100 lb. tank?  The cost initially?  Try about $650 which would include the initial filling of the tank.  It does NOT include his running the line(s?) to it which I think he intends to run from the crawl space into the wall so it's hidden from view.  It also means that wherever we put it, it won't be able to be easily moved without some repair work, I'm sure.  *sigh*  I swear, the man drives me nuts.  I asked him....*and just how long will it take us to recover the expense of this?  I mean, just how many YEARS?*  He, at least, spared me from any bull shit and just looked at me.  Somehow, I think for a bit more money, we could have put in a real fireplace and it would have increased the value on the house besides.

Okay, done for now.  I want to get this ready for liftoff later so I can watch the second *Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers* episode on TNT.  After that, it's *Men In Black*.  It's my kind of night on TNT. 

I spent my day cleaning.  I'm no where near done.  I still have to clean up the guest bathroom.  I almost died when I saw all the dog hair around the base of the toilet.  Since I am the only one that closes the lid on it, the dog uses it as his watering hole.   You would think with their more sensitive noses, they would stay far away from there when you consider it.....

I swept the floors, then used the dust mop (and it picked up more darn dog hairs) then I washed them all.  I washed all the scatter rugs and dusted everywhere.  I even cleaned up my computer room except for vacuuming it.  After the Beast drove Buttmunch to the bus station, I went into the bedroom she had been sharing with Sheepie (well, they ARE mother and daughter after all) and got rid of the boxes and bags that were left behind.  I'll have Chewlee again tomorrow and we will be reading Mother Goose.  I think every child should know Mother Goose and all her works, don't you?  So cute and interesting when you get older and realize how political most of them actually were.  But, as a child, they are just cute!

I heard a quote from G.K. Chesterton that I really liked.  You have to think about it.  *You don't tell children stories about dragons to convince them that there ARE dragons.  Children already know there are dragons.  You tell them stories about dragons to teach them that dragons can be killed.*

I have to tell you a story about Chewlee that had us laughing all day long.  I had given her a few dark chocolate candies that are like M&M's.  Maybe 8 of them.  She ate six of them and then handed two back to me and told me, *I don't want them.*  I figured she didn't like the dark chocolate so I put them on my desk.  Later, while we were watching Godzilla movies, I reached over and popped one in my mouth.  OMG!  Chewlee's face looked so startled and she yelled at me, *NO!  That's MINE!*

With that she jumped off my lap, put her little hand under my chin and said to me, *Spit!*  When I just looked at her, she said it again! *Spit it OUT!*  Well, I had already swallowed it so I opened my mouth and showed her it was gone.  With that she looked disgusted, grabbed the last one and said, *This is mine!*  She put it back on the desk and watched me intently while we watched the movie.  She kept an eye on where my hand was and at one point grabbed both my hands and put them around her waist while she kept her hands over mine.

I knew exactly where she got that from.  If she takes candy without her mother's permission, the Princess makes her spit it out and then throws it in the garbage.  But to see HER do it and be so intense was just hysterical! 

Well, time to get this posted.  It's late and I am very tired.  Love you all and I hope you had a wonderful time celebrating the New Year.  Oh...and if you see that New Year's baby?  Grab it and change the diaper, please.  Let's start off nice and fresh.