I have decided that Anya’s special talent is frisbee. As someone who has problems throwing a “flying disk” after three decades of practice, I am in awe of her ability to fling that thing. In a few short sessions, she’s progressed from tossing it all wonky-skoodle to getting the disk airborne and delivering it to the intended recipient. Okay, so it only goes to the intended recipient if they are standing in the correct place, but shouldn’t they be doing that anyhow?

A nice thing about a frisbee over, say, a baseball, is that when Daddy throws a frisbee at Anya and whacks her upside the head or bounces it off her foot, it doesn’t really hurt. We are still working on teaching Anya about catching (and Daddy about throwing a baseball).

I don’t have any action photos of our practices, but here’s a cute picture of Anya on her jumpy.

Anya is now an old fart. (Her cake is not gray; it is purple. I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, and she said purple. So, I made her a purple cake with purple frosting. And sprinkles.)

I couldn’t take a picture of Anya in the ole picture spot because we threw that sad changing pad thing out pretty much a year ago. And we moved the cabinet it was on downstairs. And there is a couch in front of that window now. But hey! The couch she is sitting on in this birthday photo is that couch in front of that window, so some continuity has been preserved!

So, what has the old lady been up to this year?

+ Talks in multiple word sentences: “I no eat dinner. Daddy and Mommy eat dinner; I eat goldfish!” (Yes, she uses semicolons, too.)
+ Counts up to 10 or so, but the numbers aren’t always in the right order: “1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 4, 6, 13!”
+ Ditched the diapers! YESSSS!
+ Gained a reputation as “Oh, no, that girl!” at the library’s story time. You know, that girl who runs around going LALALALALA waving scarves and bouncing off other kids?
+ Can get on and off the potty all by herself.
+ Can get out the screen doors but not back in…yet.
+ Learned about frisbees, kites, and baseball.
+ Helped knock down a wall.
+ I’m sure there’s more, and I’ll add it when I remember, but this is all I can think of now especially since it is oh so late and past my bedtime.

Andy’s mom came down for the big 3 celebration. We took her to Mabry Mill and had lunch there. Yum. We’ll definitely be going back there. Anya ate so much, her tummy popped out of her shirt. See? Yeah, um, that’s what happened! Because Anya would never wear clothes that are too small. No way!

In addition to the Cinderella doll, Andy and I gave Anya a wagon for her birthday. It’s a honking big wagon and took about an hour to assemble. Anya really likes it but will not ride in it. Oh no. We put her in it and she wailed. So we put Buddy in it, and he scrambled out. In the end, Anya decided the best thing to do with a wagon is to push it.

After wagon pushing, it was time for some gymnastics. Andy showed off his mad tumbling skills by doing a front roll UP HILL. He then wowed the audience by standing. On. His. Head. I’ve been married to this dude for almost twelve years, and I never knew he could stand on his head.

All in all, it was an interesting birthday weekend.

After the Great Kite Incident of ’10, Anya kept asking when we were going to go “choppin” to get a new one. I finally got her one (two actually, so we had a backup), a bit ago, and she was oh-so-very-excited. Turns out the kite I got this time is the super economy model and is about as big as a legal note pad. I also picked up a handle/extra string thing that is (a) purple and (b) heavier and hopefully won’t float away if she drops it. I love the laugh on her face in this picture.

(In the upper left of the picture, you can see one of the two plum trees we planted.)

After Anya was done, Andy flew for a while. He got the kite stuck in a big tree on the other side of the power line, but he managed to free it. I was very impressed and did a little cheer.

I’m at home today, and every now and then I take a break from job-work to do a little house-work. One of the first things I did was grab an empty Easter basket and wander around the house in search of discarded plastic eggs. It was a bit surreal seeing the brightly-colored eggs split in half and lying empty on the floor, couch, counter, desk, table, toy shelf. The Easter Bunny hid nearly 60 eggs around the house, or so he told us, and I have no reason to doubt him. It took Anya a while to figure out what was going on, but once she did she was running around hollering for “CANDY!” When she found an egg, she’d squeal and do a little dance.

Saturday we went to the local nursing home for an egg hunt, where Anya found five or six eggs. It was hard to find eggs with all those other kids racing for them, but she had fun. It was a little weird because I felt a bit like we were on exhibition for the residents, which we were. I hope they enjoyed seeing the kids running around for a little while. I felt like we should stay a bit and read to some of the folks or something.

This weekend we bought two plum trees, which I hope we’ll plant tonight. I also got two rows done in the berry bed and planted the blueberries and one type of raspberries. I dug another row out this morning and plan to make it cozy this evening and get more raspberries planted. This is going to take a while. I also planted some onions and a few flowers to make the berry bed look a bit happier while the berries are still pretty much sticks. While I gardened and Andy painted more, more, more trim, Anya ran around and did Anya things. Like put a bunch of rocks to bed in a bucket of water. They were safe there from the monsters, and we were not to disturb them. I tried to teach her how to pee outside, but she wasn’t going for that, which sucks because the potty is a long way from pretty much everything.

We’ve all been busy as bees around here lately. (Except the bees, who are dead. We’ll try again in a year or two.) Here’s what we’ve been up to.

+ Moved all the furniture out of Anya’s room and the sun room and crammed everything into the kitchen and living room.
+ Sanded, stained, and polyed the floors in Anya’s room and the sun room and started putting up new new trim.
+ Painted the walls and trim in Anya’s room.

+ Found the rams a new home.
+ Planted a bunch of daffodil bulbs purchased last fall and ignored.
+ Moved the living room furniture into the sun room, now known as the living room.
+ Bought curtains for the new living room and flung them over the rods. Tonight we may actually hang them up!
+ Moved most of Anya’s stuff back into her room.
+ Got a quote to pull down the wall we want to pull down. Shrieked at the cost. Asked a friend to help us.
+ Picked out the materials / styles for the new kitchen cabinets and counter tops.

Also, last weekend I went to another scrapbook thing and got a lot done towards finishing Anya’s first year book. All the pictures are in, and I’ve finished up to month 8! Yay! I also discovered I really like ribbon. Go figure. I’m still working on the squares for my brother’s blanket. I finished the eighth one yesterday. Anya has informed me that after “Bubba’s Blankie” is done, we have to make one for her. I haven’t told my mom yet. Hi Mom!

Back in the day, Andy and I and some friends of ours (Kc, Josh, Ying) would get together every few weeks for cheesy dip, margaritas, and anime. One of our favorites was “Kodomo no Omocha,” and the main character was a wacky little girl named Sana. Another one of our favorites was “Fushigi Yûgi,” which had a character named Tamahome.

When we went to the humane society to pick out a new kitty in 2000, we already had one in mind. A little girl named Wheeza who had been dropped off when her people wanted to go on vacation. We’d seen her on the humane society’s website and gone in to see if she was still there. She was, and so was another really cute kitten named Shadow, who was one of a little dropped off. We couldn’t decide who to adopt, but luckily the humane society was having one of its BOGO sales. We took both kittens home. Wheeza became Sana, and Shadow became Tama.

We lost Tama after about two months to FIP, a disease he probably got from his mother.

Yesterday, ten years later, we lost Sana.

Around 2004, she was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure, and I thought we would lose her then, but with special food and fluids, we kept her with us for six more years. I remember when I first found out she had kidney problems. I did all sorts of research and even pondered a kidney transplant for her. And then, when I called to ask how much a set of fluids would be and the vet tech said “nine ninety-nine” and I was terrified she meant $999 and I would have to come up with that every month. Thank goodness for decimal points.

So, I learned how to give a cat subcutaneous fluids. With a needle. Yikes. It took us a while, but we finally found that hanging the bag on a bent coat hanger hung on a hook on the bathroom door was the best set up. I’d put a towel or sweater or my flannel froggie nightie on the floor for her to sit on so she wouldn’t get cold. In the winter, I’d heat up the fluid bag in an old orange juice pitcher.

One of the fun things about Sana was her obsession with tissues. She loved to grab a tissue out of the trash and carry it around like a mouse. If I was in the bed reading, she’d bring one up to me and meow and meow and nudge my hand until I threw it for her to go fetch. Over and over and over. If she couldn’t find a tissue out and about, she’d just go grab one or two or eight right out of the box. She even taught Anya this trick. At night sometimes we’d be upstairs and hear Sana chirping and meowing. She was hunting. She’d eventually show up with something, usually a tissue, sometimes a sock or hairband, in her teeth.

Sana also liked to bury herself under the covers. I’d try to find her and look all over only to see just her nose peeking out from a pile of blanket or sweater. She’d make a little cave and crawl in. I think the other cats were jealous because they could never figure out how to create their own kitty igloo.

Even after she grew up, Sana was still like a kitten. Tiny and playful. Treefrog adopted her, and they often snuggled and napped. When Sana was sick, Treefrog gave Sana baths and kept her warm.

At night, Sana’s favorite place to sleep was on my tummy, staring at me. Goodnight my little Sanabear. I miss you.