The kids next door have moved out.   No longer will those long-haired young men receive visits from the Convertible Cotillion, their groupies of long, blond hair, short skirts and small, yappy lap dogs.  I could never figure out what a bunch of marginally employed twenty-something boys had that appealed to the spoiled rich girls.  The boys were either really good in bed or gave the girls pot.  Or maybe some combination of the two. 

So,they're gone.  No longer will we have to listen to the Grateful Dead being played at full volume through the missing windows of a Jeep.  No longer will we smell the sweet scent of the ganja drifting over from their backyard.  No longer will we have to wonder whose car will be next door in the morning.

The duplex next door is a rental.  One half is now occupied by a family with a child a little older than the little angel. It's been something of a revolving door in the four years we've lived here.  Our favorite neighbor was the one who was there when we arrived, a firefighter who couldn't fight fires due to back trouble, and her hippie girlfriend.  The firefighter was damn good with power tools, and she stopped by to comment on the goings on in our backyard while we ripped out a huge flower bed and a chain link fence, laid down fourteen tons of river rock with a shovel and a wheelbarrow (one of my greatest athletic achievements to date) and built a sunroom where a leaking screen porch used to be.  It is my only regret that she didn't get to watch us build The Retaining Wall That Almost Claimed Our Marriage - she would've really enjoyed the ride-on earth mover that we rented during the rain for that experience.

I wonder who will be next?  I can guess.  I doubt the duplex rents for too much, but it's enough that it doesn't attract the absolute dregs of society.   I'm hoping for another little family with small child. Maybe we can get enough in the neighborhood to start a cricket team.

This morning the little angel and I were on the couch at 6:30 when I thought we might be under siege by Fox 4.

Little angel:  "Sky fishies?" (This is her term for helicopters. She thinks they look like fish.  I like it, it's kind of like calling the Lake Patrol the Sea Pigs.)

Me:  "Yes, there do seem to be a lot of helicopters.  Go back to sleepy."

But they didn't go away.  It sounded like they were right overhead, ready to parachute helmet-headed investigative reporters onto our rooftop.

After about a half-hour of this, we went upstairs and watched the news with my beloved.  It turns out there was an attempted bank robbery two blocks away at 6:20 this morning.  A security guard was shot, his car was carjacked, and he apparently dragged his bleeding self across the street to the gas station where we normally buy the paper and sometimes Baked Lay's.

The coverage was on two of the three local news channels.  I thought the helicopters might possibly be playing Sky Chicken as they circled around, trying to get good shots. It is a wee bit disconcerting to be watching a reporter and hearing the same sirens in your own neighborhood as you are hearing in the background on the television.

Of course, they don't have much to go on.  The teller apparently couldn't open the vault because he or she didn't have the right key.  I tried to comfort myself by telling myself we don't have a vault here at the house.  This didn't make me feel a lot better, because I saw two policemen coming out of the Crazy Ladder Woman's blue house earlier this week, and last week I confronted two policemen with a paddy wagon right across the street. 

I thought our neighborhood was getting better.  Two of the houses on my little block have been beautifully rehabbed in the past year.  I have no idea what all of the policemen are doing. Perhaps they are selling tickets to their ball. Somehow, though, I doubt it.

Me:  "Don't worry, sweetie.  They sky fishes are outside, and they are just looking for news."

Little Angel:  "News?"

Me:  "Yes, I'll explain that when you're six."

She wandered off, making fishie noises with her mouth.  And another day begins.

Last night after work, my beloved and I took the little angel on a rousing trip to the UPS Store in order to finally, FINALLY get the wills we had drawn up in April 2005 notarized.  I think subconsciously we'd been putting it off, thinking we couldn't possibly die before the wills got signed by someone who would charge us almost $5 a signature.

Fortunately, the man cut us a deal, because there were SIXTEEN signatures required in order for us to leave everything to each other or the little angel.  There were also some other forms in there, forms about which I had forgotten.

Me:  "So, do you realize I'm signing over to you the right to pull the plug on me?"

Notary: (shocked inhalation)

Beloved:  "Yeah.  Will that require power tools?"

Yesterday Cagey talked about co-sleeping and how she felt about it.  She dedicated her post to me, since I complain loudly to complete strangers about how I never get any sleep.  Or at least to my friends, anyway.  I have, over the past year, asked some of the Internet goddesses their opinions on sleep. One told me that she had worked with her famous toddler, who has slept great since four months despite having some other challenges that she has now overcome.  One told me she solved the problem with a family secret, but I can't tell you what it was, because, well, it was a secret.  One told me all three of her kids have ended up in bed with them at some point, and well, she just didn't stress over it. Some just said, "Hey, I feel for you.  This, too, shall pass."

It started me thinking about sleeping in general.  Last night, for instance, I got a lot of sleep.  The little angel made it through until 4:30, then we got some milk and went down on the couch.  She fell back asleep by five and we slept until seven.  It was blissful.  Her little head (well, it's getting heavier all the time, particularly when she's full-on passed out, but still) fits on my right shoulder, and I can turn on my side and breathe in her toddler-hair smell while I doze.  My arm goes around her waist, and she snuggles in like a kitten.  Sometimes, like last night, Sybil will crawl up on the couch and sit above my arm with her tail draped over my elbow.  She twitches her tail like that, and it sometimes occurs to me that this sensation is like touching the underbelly of a dolphin - something you think you should probably not be privy to, but are so astonished and happy that you are.  The feeling of the underside of a tail wrapping around your wrist is akin to stepping through a wardrobe into snow. 

Before the little angel came along, I thought of sleep as a reward, as a necessity I could not live without.  When I was 21, I graduated college a semester early and started working as an advertising account executive a town over.  My four roommates were still hard-partying college seniors who regularly held after-hours parties in our apartment, sometimes until four in the morning. I typically got up at six for work, and it was the kind of place you had to wear pantyhose at.  It was a hellish experience - I was always tired and hated my job, but most of all, I hated the lack of sleep.

I'm a baby about sleep. I love sleep. I function so poorly without sleep, I would never make it in the armed forces, on Survivor or back in a four-year institution on the student side.  However, now I view sleep as a commodity.  There is no bad sleep.  There is just sleep, or lack of sleep, and ANY kind of sleep, even the drooling, mouth-open, so-embarrassing-on-the-airplane sleep is far, far better than NO SLEEP AT ALL.

And the kind of sleep accompanied by a snoring husband (thank you, Lord, for making those squishy yellow earplugs) or a sweating toddler is especially wonderful.  It means you're not in the house or the world alone.  And that is a lovely thing.

So Cagey, sleep with Arun. 

Last night the Parents As Teachers lady came over to tell us that the little angel is normal again.  She did well on all the little tests, but since the Parents As Teachers lady tends to talk the ears off a brass monkey, PATL also stayed well into the little angel's dinner hour.

In an effort to distract the little angel, I gave her some goldfish crackers.  She threw them forcefully on the ground and stomped on them.  I was surprised - she's only recently, at twenty-two months, began acting like a two-year-old. Unfortunately, she did this just as I was telling the Parents As Teachers lady how she hardly ever acts up.

PATL:  "How do you intend to discipline your child?  Will you use time-outs?"

Me:  (Prior to the goldfish incident)  "Well, I suppose so.  I doubt we'll spank her unless she runs into traffic. I'm not positive that they work, though."

(GOLDFISH DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH ON THE HARDWOOD FLOOR HERE)

Me:  "Ha, ha. That's unusual. Ahem."

PATL:  "You know, you should put her in time-out for one minute for every year of age.  Where is your spot?"

Me:  "Oh, the spot. Well, we haven't exactly defined the spot yet."

PATL: "You have to get to her right away."

(Little angel is now chasing Sybil around the house.)

Me: "Well, yes. We'll have to discuss that."

PATL:  "How about potty training?"

Me: "I don't know if she's ready for that."

(Little angel pauses from chasing Sybil to announce she is going poopy.  )

Me:  "Hee hee.  Well, we were hoping to wait until warmer weather so that she could pull her pants down herself."

(Clanging noises of pots and pans from the kitchen by my beloved, who can't stand PATL and wants her to leave.)

PATL: "Well, you know, there's a WINDOW.  If you miss the WINDOW, she could be in diapers until she's sixteen."

Me:  "I think you have to pay attention to the individual child. We tried to do everything by the books earlier, and it backfired."

PATL: "Is she sleeping better?"

Me:  (thinking of how she was up from midnight to three on Sunday night)  "Yes, oh, yes, she sleeps great now." At this point, I didn't want to discuss anything anymore.

PATL: (watching the little angel stand on the couch in her blinky shoes) "Well, she certainly is precocious.  You have to watch these smart ones.  Every minute. Your distraction techniques will stop working soon," she said, looking over at the little angel. "Maybe they have stopped working already."

Me:  "Hmm, yes.  Well, should we schedule our next appointment?"

I hurried the PATL out the door, just as the little angel shrieked "EAT! EAT!" and sent another school of goldfish crackers to a certain death on the hardwood floor.  Sybil took cover.

I guess I should start thinking about time-outs.

I slept eleven hours yesterday.  My parents came down on Saturday to see the little angel and to give my beloved and I a chance to go drown our sorrows and play darts at Lew's down the street, but I fell asleep on the floor of the little angel's bedroom while putting her down on Saturday night.  After sleeping there for 45 minutes, I was unprepared to face fun with pillow creases on my forehead.  We ended up sitting downstairs and watching some reality cops show instead.  Ah, the romance.

Ma took angel duty in the morning, and I slept from 11:30 until 9 a.m.  After they left, the little angel fell asleep for three hours.  At hour two, I tried desperately to wake her up, but she wasn't having it.  I know that when she naps longer than an hour and a half, it's going to be bad news at night, but I couldn't get her to wake up, and I ended up falling asleep with her on the couch for another hour. 

We put her to bed around 8:30.  My beloved started trying to put her to bed at 8, then I had to take over at 8:30 so that I could work my magic in time for my favorite show in the whole wide world, Grey's Anatomy.  I want to see what happens with Addison and Mark, dammit!  I finally got her down just in time and rushed down to immerse myself in someone else's drama, knowing that I would be paying the piper later.  Sure enough,the little angel woke up at midnight complaining of a poopy and sore teeth. After I fixed both of those problems, she climbed over me to play.  She wanted to change the diapers on all of her stuffed animals, even Elmo, who can barely fit in a size 6.

This diapering-the-animals thing has been going on for about two weeks.  She tells us now when she needs to go poopy.  She is probably ready to be potty trained.  But I, Prudence's mother, am unprepared to face the challenge in the dead of winter, what with all of those snaps and zippers and such. I'm waiting for warmer weather and fewer items of clothing.  Until then, I, Prudence's mother, will keep changing her.  (Does anyone but me wonder why the narrator in this book feels obligated to keep clarifying who "I" is?  Hasn't she already established she's the narrator?  Is this for the child or the sleep-deprived parent?  One wonders.)

So anyway, when she started insisting on a diaper change for Red Bear, I took her down to the couch.  The child drank three cups of milk from midnight to three a.m., when she finally, FINALLY conked out.  I knew I was in trouble at 7 when I felt her crawl out from under the nice, warm, soft blankie and demand, "Mommy, wake up."

ARGH.  I, Prudence's mother, need a nap.

The Emerald City's mascot is the warrior. I've always found it humorous that a Lutheran private school would adopt such a belligerent mascot.  I'm Lutheran, a descendant of a Lutheran minister and generations of stoic, back-pew, silent stock.  Those Lutherans, they don't say much, and if you step on their toes, usually they will apologize first.  So, even I was surprised when my beloved was maliciously attacked the other day at drop-off.

I guess the little angel snacked on Baby M. again.  She's never bitten anyone but him.  Some of her friends have gone so far as to try to hug her by strangling her, but all she did was run away and cry. Baby M. and the little angel, though - they have a personality conflict.  She never liked him, not from the day he and his designer leather shoes arrived on the scene.  To be fair, he's not the best-behaved kid in the bunch, either. He steals food and toys and prefers to use the little angel rather than a chair for pulling up.  His behavior is age-appropriate.  Unfortunately, her retaliation is, too.

We didn't know the little angel had bitten Baby M. until Mother M. walked in to Waddler B two mornings ago. My beloved was removing the little angel's coat when Mother M. started talking to Baby M. in his earshot.

"We have to keep you away from the mean little girls," she said.  My beloved paid no attention.  "They're biting you, and they're bad," she added.

When this failed to register with my beloved, she confronted him directly.

Mother M:  "So, what have you been doing for the little angel's teething?" she asked.

Beloved:  "Oh, I don't know.  The usual.  Teething rings.  She really hasn't been teething that much, though she's been drooling again lately.

Mother M: (skipping right to the point, fast as the White House press corps) "Well, it seems to me she's been using Baby M's back and neck."

My beloved was dumbfounded.  He launched into a muttered apology, noting that the little angel has been bitten several times and sometimes that happens, they're young, we'll talk to her, blahdadee da da.

Mother M. went on muttering and eventually left. My beloved called me. I felt my mother bear hackles rise, even though I know I reacted that way in reverse when the little angel was the bitee.  However, I didn't go talking smack to the other mother, and felt her statements were inappropriate.  I mean, we can't very well draw battle lines near the changing table, now can we?

I called the director and she agreed to ask Mother M. to bring her complaints straight to the teacher next time.  I was about to go when she added, "You know, Baby M. bites, too."

I thought as much.   I talked to the little angel about it before she went back the next day.

"Now, when you want to bite Baby M., I want you to scream 'FIRE!'"  That'll get their attention.

The little angel has decided that all the stuffed animals must wear diapers, and when they greet each other, they must kiss hello.  They are apparently all from Europe or a nursing home.  Maybe a European nursing home.  I bet they'll all start smoking cloves soon, too.

All of this diapering of the stuffed animals was funny at first, but it is taking up valuable diapers.  And huge diapers.  The little angel is now sporting the size 6 - and folks, this is apparently as high as they go.  She's going to have to get potty trained this summer, or I will have to buy her Depends.  That's all there is to it.  Thank goodness she's not adverse to at least sitting on the potty right now, though she has yet to put anything from her body in there on purpose.  (She once did on accident, but that is a story too graphic and personal for the Internet.  Catch me when I'm drinking.)

So anyway, here are all of these stuffed animals wearing monster-sized diapers, sitting around air kissing.  So far, the little angel is very particular about only intra-species kissing.  The bears kiss the bears, the ducks kiss the ducks and so on.  When they greet.  And when they say goodbye.  I got to wondering last night, though, what would happen if they crossed that stuffed line?  What if Elmo starts kissing the Red Bear?  What if Gray Kitty macks on Tad the Singing Frog?  I mean, it happens on the Muppets.  Piggy and Kermit did get married.  And what does it mean to the stem cells?

MWAH!

The little angel has decided that all the stuffed animals must wear diapers, and when they greet each other, they must kiss hello.  They are apparently all from Europe or a nursing home.  Maybe a European nursing home.  I bet they'll all start smoking cloves soon, too.

All of this diapering of the stuffed animals was funny at first, but it is taking up valuable diapers.  And huge diapers.  The little angel is now sporting the size 6 - and folks, this is apparently as high as they go.  She's going to have to get potty trained this summer, or I will have to buy her Depends.  That's all there is to it.  Thank goodness she's not adverse to at least sitting on the potty right now, though she has yet to put anything from her body in there on purpose.  (She once did on accident, but that is a story too graphic and personal for the Internet.  Catch me when I'm drinking.)

So anyway, here are all of these stuffed animals wearing monster-sized diapers, sitting around air kissing.  So far, the little angel is very particular about only intra-species kissing.  The bears kiss the bears, the ducks kiss the ducks and so on.  When they greet.  And when they say goodbye.  I got to wondering last night, though, what would happen if they crossed that stuffed line?  What if Elmo starts kissing the Red Bear?  What if Gray Kitty macks on Tad the Singing Frog?  I mean, it happens on the Muppets.  Piggy and Kermit did get married.  And what does it mean to the stem cells?

MWAH!