Finally, we had a nice day, and she asked for candy seconds after I suggested we do the pictures and she refused again. I promised her the candy after we took the pictures. That was all it took. I didn’t have long, and I didn’t get many of the more portrait-y pictures I’d like to have, but what I do have is all Katie. And that girl has personality in spades.

Once we got back into the house, she wanted to see the pictures. Then she wanted to see the older pictures. She loved seeing how the shirt is getting shorter on her even though it still doesn’t fit. She wondered how old she would be when the shirt does fit, and if it will ever be too small. She wanted to see Maggie’s pictures to compare how they look different and the same. And more, and more and more. She never got the candy because she forgot all about it.

I can’t find the 4th year pictures at the moment.

Really, though, I think that March in Atlanta should be snow free.

For most of last year, I kept seeing a hard plastic cup at Starbucks that I really loved. It was one of their water bottles, but it was re-usable, had a permanent straw and a screw-on cap. It wasn’t anything really fancy, but it worked. It was convenient and could last a long time. And, as I learned while walking, I tend to drink more water when I drink through a straw than when I have to unscrew a cap and manage drinking out of a bottle. Maybe its the extra step. Maybe I’m just that dainty. Maybe I can just work a straw better than a bottle. In any case, I loved these cups.

For some reason, though, I always seemed to come across them at inconvenient times. Either I didn’t have my money, or there was a long line and I was in a rush, or I just thought, “Oh, I’ll have to come back for that.” And every time I came back to get one, they were gone. It even happened when I went to my parents’ for Thanksgiving. They had the new holiday ones out– these have a red and white striped straw instead of the standard green– and even though I had every intention of buying one, I walked out without it. This time, Stagg and I were heading to a movie, and I didn’t want to carry it into the theater with me.

Finally, I found one here in Atlanta, and bought it for a friend for Christmas. Then I told Stagg that I wanted one for Christmas. And I stressed that I REALLY, REALLY wanted one. He knew the whole story, so it seemed like a no-brainer to me. Somehow it came up a few days before Christmas, and he admitted he had completely forgotten. I had some errands to run that day, including a trip to Starbucks where I decided I’d get one for my friend’s daughter, who loved her mom’s and tried to steal it when she opened it. Katie was very excited about getting this present, and just as we were about to pay for it, a thought occurred to me.

“How would you like to give me my favorite present this year, Katie?” She did. And I finally got one of those darned refillable cups. I love it and I use it every day.

At first, I asked Stagg to look at it. He opened it up, took a look around, did something and made the squeak stop. For about 2 minutes. When it ran with just a few dry towels inside, there was quiet. But as soon as I put actual wet laundry in there, the horrendous squeak started again. He said he’d look at it again… soon.

So I spent a couple weeks dividing my laundry loads into thirds and trying that. The squeak was still there, but it was not nearly as bad. And, to be honest, there were some clothes that didn’t really need to be in the dryer right away like the sweaters that seem to shrink a little when I take the easy way with the dryer. And jeans. And the towels did fine when they had a little time to air dry first.

It was inconvenient, but I could manage. But then that was no longer cutting it and the squeak got louder and louder. I reminded Stagg he said he’d look at it again, and he said he’d get to it soon. Soon.

And then the squeak got loud enough for me to have had enough. Nothing, not even dry things could go into the dryer without a whine you could hear from the bottom of the driveway. So I decided it was time to take action.

At first, I tried to take the back of the dryer off. I saw Stagg moving around back there with a screwdriver, so I thought I was in the right place. Not so much. The back of my dryer doesn’t come off. I figured that out after I got all the screws out pulling only got me a few little cuts on my fingers.

So I turned to the internet. Ah, the internet. The magical place where I was able to find instructions on how to take my dryer apart complete with pictures. I took the top off. I took the front off. I saw where there was an obvious problem.

First, I tried to fix it with some tape. Duct tape fixes everything, right? Well, I couldn’t find duct tape, so I tried packaging tape. I slapped it on there, put the dryer back together and it worked smoothly. I did a little dance, told Stagg I was a goddess (he agreed) and enjoyed the 10 minutes of quiet drying until the squeak came back.

I took it apart again. The girls came home from school. I found some duct tape (technically, “duck tape”). It happened to be hot pink. I ran the dryer with the top off as a test. All systems go. Quietly. Re-unplug, put it all back together and plug it back in. I don’t know what I did wrong at that point, but I got the shock of my life. I know I screamed because Maggie came running. She looked horrified. I was horrified. And tingling. And more than a little scared. I re-plugged the dryer in with my foot. 5 minutes before an even worse noise started. Maggie came running back and wanted to know why I was running a lawnmower in the house.

Back to the internet. New pictures, and something caught my eye. The picture I saw said the “drum glides” on that dryer looked worn. My dryer didn’t have drum glides. It had spots where the drum glides should have been, but nothing that looked like the drum glides in the pictures. I thought this might be the problem, and I told Stagg that is what I needed to buy.

He decided he needed to take a look. He tried some duct tape. I told him it wouldn’t work, but he tried it anyway. To hedge his bets, he added some WD40. That made it quiet for 7 minutes, but the lawnmower noise came back.

Finally, he admitted that my diagnosis was correct. After calling Home Depot to see if they had the parts I needed (they laughed at me), I found an appliance parts store– I had no idea these existed for normal people. I went to a store, picked up 4 drum glides and another piece, took the dryer apart again and put in all the new parts. I put the dryer back together (very carefully so I didn’t give myself another jolt) and let ‘er rip.

My dryer might be running right now, but I’m not sure. It is now too quiet to hear from the next room.

Katie has been reading little things for a while; even the occasional Eric Carle or Dr. Suess book. And she has looked longingly at Maggie’s longer, more grown up books and asked for chapter books of her own. She’s even tried to take some of Maggie’s books to read, but she just couldn’t quite do it.

So last week, while I was at the library, I picked up an easy reader chapter book for my baby. She “read” it in the car one day, and left it open to a page somewhere in the middle. This past Friday, I brought it back to her and mentioned that I was very proud of her for reading so much of the book.

Nah, she told me. Its too hard for me. I just looked at the pictures and skipped the words.

So we started on the first page. Honestly, I thought she was probably right. She couldn’t possibly read this chapter book. Not my baby. But she did. She read the first chapter aloud with me sitting next to her, and then decided she could tackle the next two chapters on her own. And she read every word on every page.

I think it is time to call her, officially, a reader.

Stagg and I started listing off all the problems with this idea, including:
* A train coming through the living room would make it hard to watch TV
* A train going through the kitchen and laundry rooms would also make it hard to cook, eat and do laundry
* A train going through the house would make it very cold on days like today when it is 20 degrees outside.
* Carnivores are not actually as nice as they seem on TV.
* Our trees would be eaten by the herbivores.
* We are all made of meat, which is what carnivores eat.
* The dinosaurs would probably eat us. quickly.

Maggie thought about it for a while and decided that it would no picnic to have the train in the house. And then she thought about the carnivore part a little more, and decided that she wouldn’t like it if dinosaurs ate Stagg, Katie, Lucy or I, but it would be ok if they ate Oscar and November.

I knew I liked this kid.

Scratch that! I see snow!

Katie’s day was pretty fun-packed. We had Christmas presents in the morning that Santa had left in the room my parents stay in. And then we had her birthday party, where Katie got her wish and had both cupcakes and fruit kabobs. On top of that, she got to see some of her friends from pre-school last year, which made her very happy. And we ended the night with more presents and dinner with her favorite people at a hibachi place. She even got to wear a silly had and had people sing to her 2 times– once with the had and fake cake at the end of dinner, and once when the hibachi master made a candle out of onion pieces.

My baby is 6. Katie, you are a sweet little girl. You give wonderful hugs and love to cuddle, and I hope that never changes. When you want to, you play wonderfully with your sister, and you can play with other kids of all ages without worrying that they are too much older or younger than you. To you, they are simply friends, and you love to play.

And, I think she is pretty good, too. Her team this year has not been a winning one. This fact does not upset Maggie at all. She’s there to play, and the outcome does not really matter to her.

Maggie has had several shots on goal, but she hasn’t scored yet. She wants to really badly (and I’m not sure what will happen if Katie does scores next weekend before she does).