We are raising a cave dweller.

I spent the afternoon in a cave with Jill and her Grandparents Grandinetti and 30 other people. This the 2nd cave trip in 6 months. The child is fascinated by every aspect of science...just read the other blogs...the circulatory system, the Snake Farm. She loves Earth science, chemistry, physics, and all natural sciences. I swear, if she doesn't pursue a career in the science field, I will truly be shocked.

Well, the 1st cave visit resulted in Jill co-leading the tour, along with the poor sap who was getting paid to actually lead it. Jill would ask a question, then report back to the group both the question and the answer. In a big outdoor voice, she's bellow, "there are bats, but don't worry, THEY WILL NOT BOTHER US."

On today's trip, we were able to see some very tiny bats up close...and I mean too damn close for my taste...like I was 5 feet from them. They are the size of chicken nuggets...hairy, sonar-lovin', blood-suckin' chicken nuggets, who were ready to go into hibernation, so "no flash photography, please." This did not stop the rebel behind me, who thought I'd make a great human shield in the event Lil' Fuzzy was going to swoop down in retaliation.

The tour guide had been very complimentary of Jill's haircut and festive red corduroy Christmas dress and snowflake tights, when we met her in the gift shop. Jill took a real shine to her and 10 minutes into the tour, Jill was holding her hand slogging up the damp path and announcing to the group that,"the E.T.'s finger formation is coming up next. You know, when he touches Elliot's owie and says 'ouch' and then it gets all better?! Yeah!"

The Nightgown

I was so inspired by my friend Sara's blog and picture of her little girl wearing her first nightgown, that I felt compelled to blog on 'our first nightgown,' too.

Maybe the nightgown is a rite of passage, the first blush of femininity for a pre-schooler...the end of nights spent looking like an oompa-loompa. I don't know why, but the first time your little girl wears her nightgown is somehow magical.

I picked up a pink number for Jill when she was about two. It had 3 cats on it, some lace and pleats. She fell in love. I have a great picture of her wearing it for the first time and doing a seat drop onto our bed...sheer glee [I'll try to find it to post].

My mom and I just packed Nightie #1 away with the 18 month clothes. Jill tried to highjack it in the process...it used to clear the floor by only a few inches...2 weeks ago, it was a mini-dress at best.

The first nightie has been followed by The Monkey Nighty, The Strawberry Nightie and the Tinkerbell Nightie, which she received for her birthday this year. She wore it to blow out her candles.

Old School

I'm sure that we are not the first parents of the New Millennium to encounter this situation, but increasingly, I find myself explaining antiquated technology to Jill.

By the grace of God, our local librarian chooses to show old-school film strips during Saturday Story Time, and I'm not talking about the "Your Body is Changing" one. I told Jill that when Dad and I were kids, we watched movies from a projector at school. Amazing! And it was only on a RARE occasion that we got to watch TV, like when a space shuttle was taking off. Shocking!

Other things we've had the privilege of describing with no tactile visual aides:

• Record players. Jill: "You played a round piece of plastic on it and music came out? Well, do you have one that I can see?" Somewhere, there's a stack of 45s containing Madonna, Duran Duran, Jefferson Starship and Howard Jones singles.
  
• VCRs. "Why is this Snow White movie so big?" I can distinctly remember when the first of my friend's families got a VCR. Intrigue! Living rooms packed with 13 year-old kids to watch The Sound of Music. You had to rent the tapes from the furniture store where you bought the VCR. Hilarious...now our DVD come in the mail!
  
• Having to actually watch commercials on live TV...we've had a DVR since shortly before she was born; frankly a godsend for families with young children. We routinely hear, "Can you skip 'it'," in reference to commercials. I feel like sitting her down and telling her that commercials are what keep a roof over her head; alas, too nebulous for a 4 year old. Related to this, pre-VCR, the neighborhood kids and I would record The Dukes of Hazzard and Knight Rider on a shoe box tape recorder, then relive the excitement, commercials and all, in Johnson's upstairs. Good times.
  
• I wonder what the heck she's going to do with all of her free time once research-paper season rolls around? No more lugging around a stack of 3x5" cards and sifting through the Readers' Guide to find some odd article in Mother Jones. Just log on to the Information Super Highway! She'll have so much information, there will be no need to use flowery language, triple spacing or extra wide margins to stretch the report to the requisite 10 pages.
  
• I'm not even going to start on microwaves.
• This does not include the toy category, but to her, markers and crayons have always been washable. I tried to explain a real Slinky to her after she got a tiny plastic knock-off at the dentist's office. It doesn't take batteries, but it can "walk down stairs alone or in pairs"? Right on...then it gets tangled up and ruined.

I know what Santa's bringing!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

We hope that you either have your pizzas ordered or are prepared to flee to the closest movie theatre in order to avoid this evening's festivities.

Lizzie will be sporting a Monarch butterfly caterpillar get-up designed by yours truly. This was a darling idea spawned by Jill's initial desire to be a Monarch butterfly. Sometime after she turned 4, though, the game plan changed.

Jillian will be wearing a layered Princess Leia costume for Halloween this year...her yellow Speedo bikini [as in Leia's Jabba the Hut slave 2-piece], under the white Padme Amadala unitard [she does not care that this is not REALLY Leia, just likes the holster and "shooting gun"], which will be topped off with the traditional white gown, but not the cinnamon bun wig. She "wants to use her own hair."

She will also be toting her green light saber [from her 2005 Yoda costume].

Yes, you are noticing a pattern, here.

Super Peanut Butter Cookies

This recipe is so unbelievably easy, I didn't think that it would work since there are only 3 ingredients, but I must say, these cookies may actually be pretty healthy.

But I must warn you, if you are on the fence when it comes to peanut butter, log off.

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
2. Mix together 1 cup of peanut butter [smooth or chunky], 1 cup of sugar and 1 egg. You'll need 1/4 cup extra sugar to roll the dough in later.
3. Refrigerate the dough until it's firm. If you don't chill it, it will be really gooey for the next step.
4. Roll the dough into 1" balls with your hands, then roll the balls in extra sugar, place on an ungreased cookie sheet 2" apart.
5. Do the fancy criss-cross with fork as you flatten the balls out.
6. Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges turn golden.
7. Cool for about 10 minutes and remove from the cookie sheet.

They will not lose moisture due to the raging amount of peanut butter. I left them uncovered for 3 days and they got better each day!

The Circulatory System

Ever since Jill had some blood drawn at the ripe old age of two, and thought it was ketchup, she's had a love/hate/fascination with blood. In an anesthesia induced rage, she removed her own IV after getting Tubes #2 implanted in June 2007.

For a while, she insisted that there was no blood in her body, just bones and skin...we think that this is due to the Tubes scenario and a trip to the Austin Children's Museum in which the human body and all of it's systems were on display. For months afterward she would actually cry about her having/not having blood.

A few weeks ago, I was driving her to school and we had quite a discussion about the heart, blood, blood pressure, cuts & scrapes, and scabs. I'm telling you...I told her everything I know, which seemed to satisfy her...for the time-being.

Happy Birthday, Steve!

I am wishing my wonderful husband a very happy birthday, today!
AARP called. They want their money.

I Stand Corrected

Upon the firing of Frank Solich, I was first in line to support modernizing the Husker offense to the West Coast style. I still believe removing Solich needed to be done solely on the fact the players lacked desire and discipline under his leadership.

Here is what I was wrong about. The belief in the Huskers inalienable right to be on top of college football every year would continually attract top talent. Also, the pre-game understanding of Husker opponents they were undermanned against Nebraska and were going to lose and probably lose badly.

After watching other programs follow the same path as Nebraska by bringing in new coaches with the high flying offensive attacks and seeing them fail as well (i.e. Arkansas, Texas A&M, and, Auburn) I have figured out why.

Two reasons:

One, and most important, are the facilities. Osborne had a state of the art fitness facility in the Boyd Epley Fitness Center. If a player wanted to be the biggest, fastest, and strongest he could be his best choice was to go to Nebraska. Now every school in the country has as good of facilities as Nebraska so we have lost our edge. The athletes also understood they would be playing in front of the most amazing fans in the country and they would be treated and viewed as state heroes. And don’t forget about the stoic Dr. Osborne himself.

Second, there is not enough talent to go around with the new scholarship rules. Every team in the country has at least a few top athletes because the top programs are not allowed to stock pile talent simply because they could afford it anymore.

So Huskers, what to do about it?

Go back to the Triple Option offense and here’s why. Very few programs run it now so you have little competition in recruiting for the top athletes. Do you think Southern Cal is out there looking for the next Tommy Frazier? If you are the next Tommy Frazier where are you going to go? Also, run blocking is easier than pass blocking and allows the o-line to punish the defense as opposed to being knocked around themselves all game.

Unless you are able to stock pile talent every year the West Coast and Spread offenses are too complicated for college students. So, go after the punishing style offensive players and run the ball to the short side of the field. By doing this the smaller speedy guys on defense are unable to benefit from their speed and simply get run over.

Steve Grandinetti
10/10/2008

We rocked the Snake Farm

If you are a fan of Discovery's Dirty Jobs, you are somewhat familiar with The Snake Farm in New Branfels, Texas. Apparently, they cleaned out an alligator pen on the show. We headed out early Saturday afternoon to get a load of the animals and hopefully try to persuade Jill to take interest in another species of pets. Didn't work, but luckily, we missed "feeding time" by a good 15 minutes.

Well, our trip was focused on the snakes, of which there are about a hundred on The Farm, more than I've ever seen in one place and surprisingly, albino versions of every variety. There is also a true menagerie of other creatures [more on that later]. Clad in a retro 70s print dress [of course] and her trendy haircut, Jill was immediately taken with the snake collection, especially the venomous ones. The anacondas, pythons, boas, cobras, rattlesnakes, adders, mambas and what I think was a pit viper, did not phase her one bit. I just kept saying, "Yeah, [suck in breath], that one could really hurt you." I admit that I kept it together, for the most part, until I came upon an empty tank and wondered where the animal had gone.

After a quick run through the 1st room, The Snake Farmer offered to let her hold Benny, the Ball Python. She was just tickled and went in for the grab. The 8 and 9 year old boys, who where there for a birthday party, looked on in amazement as the 29 pounder with the mental fortitude of spoon-bender wrapped the thing around her neck. Keep in mind, this is a child who would not go down a slide until she was almost 4...I just don't get it. Turns out, Ball Pythons are "good entry-level snake pets." Right, kind of like marijuana is a gateway drug. I'm still Just Saying No.

Outdoors, there are a number of monkeys, peacocks, hens and chicks, tortoises, free range chickens and "ungulates, Dad, that means hooved animals." There was also a curious collection of what looked like giant ground hogs, but with legs that looked like they belonged to an Italian Greyhound. Turns out, they are the world's smallest breed of deer.

The petting zoo had a llama and a family of pigs that had 2 piglets. Apparently mother pigs are not as protective of their babies as mother dogs are, since Jill was able to coax a piglet away from it's mom with a handful of petting zoo feed. Frankly, I'm surprised that she was not trampled by swine.

No tourist trap trip would be complete without a run through the gift shop; now we are complete with a 5' long stuffed snake named Queen Amadala, after her other new passion, Star Wars. That night, as I was putting her to bed, she started to giggle. I asked her what was so funny and she said, "Hee hee, I want to go live at The Snake Farm. Hee hee." I told her that we'd sure miss her; she countered with, "Hee hee. OK, then I want The Snake Farm to move to our house."

Thank God for deed restrictions.

Pets

We re-entered the pet sub-culture about a year ago. Previously, Steve and I had 2 parakeets, Lamont and Lola. We had a few madcap misadventures with Lamont [clipping his toe nails, accidentally pulling his tail feathers out and letting him fly around the inside of an enclosed car], but had calmed down by the time we got Lola, so named as the bird turned out to be a male. Thanks to The Kinks for making naming the She-Male so easy.

Seems that our pet calamity is genetic. Jill got her first legitimate pet about a year ago...Freddy, the beta fish. He was a beautiful shade of blue and she actually took interest in feeding him for about 2 weeks. Freddy kind of lost his luster until Jill realized that if she was alone and could push her stool up to the counter, she could PLAY with Freddy. Needless to say, Freddy didn't tolerate their playdates for long.

After buckets of tears and sobs for forgiveness, we welcomed Freddy II into the house. This Freddy is a girl Freddy, though.

Since Freddy II's arrival, we've added a collection of anole lizards [both purchased and captured] and a wild juvenile skink, to the Lizard Habitat. All of this collecting and observing really feeds Jill's need for information on animals and fosters her lightning quick hand-eye coordination, at least, that's how I'm justifying it...plus, Steve cleans the cage.

However, I'm drawing the line here...
Somehow, Jill has learned about corn snakes and likes to remind me that they don't bite. "But you know what I really want, Mom? A python."
Me: "I don't think that a python is a good pet for our family"
Jill [whining]: "But why?"
Me: "Well, they are really big. And they like to eat small living things. So, having one would not be safe for Lizzie and you. Dad and I don't want you to get eaten by a snake."
Jill [contemplative]: "Well, I'll just train it not to eat us."
Me: "How about we go to the Snake Farm [this is Texas, people] next weekend and take a look at the snakes and ask the Snake Farmer if a python is good or bad for a family with a baby and a 4 year old?"
Jill: "OK, Mom. That's a good idea!"

Continue to pray for our sanity.

Pink Thunder in full effect.

As many of you know, when Steve and I got married, I added a "khaki load" to my laundry routine. Now nearly 11 years later and with 2 lovely little girls, I have added not only a "pink load," but a "hot pink load" as well.

Never in my life did I think I'd be so inundated with the shade. I'm pretty sure that I'll be tapped for a focus group for "Woolite for Pinks."

Thanks to Katy's mom's gift of the book Fancy Nancy, Jill has now been acquainted with variations on the color...fuschia, coral, blush.

Next year's Halloween group costume: The Pink Ladies.

Lizzie vs. Carrots

I have given up on keeping the cloth cover on the high chair. This picture evidences why.

The child earns the nickname "Messie Bessie" daily. In this shot, she has carrots on the top of her head all the way to her toes. She will put her hand in her mouth while there's a spoonful of carrots in there already, then rub it on anything within reach; this includes me, who noticed, while at the neighbors, that I had a thin film of carrots on my hand, yesterday.

She has worn edible mascara several times. If I'm not careful, she will kick the food container out of my hand.

It's true, moms of singles, the 2nd one will probably be the polar opposite of the first...we barely needed a bib with Jill!

Bon Appetit!