Bella’s pushing the vacuum cleaner back and forth in the dining room. Mama’s little helper. Of course, if it were on, that would be a different story. She screams when I turn on the vacuum. Or the food processor, or the blender, or the stand mixer or when Dom grinds coffee. She really hates loud noises. Which is why the kitchen floor looks like it does. Really.
I’m a minivan mom now. Dom’s lease was up on his car and it didn’t cost any more to trade in the car for a newer one. In fact, they said we wouldn’t have to make the first payment until April, so in the short term we’re saving a bit. The leasing company didn’t have a huge selection, but we liked the first car we looked at, a Buick Terraza, which I have to admit I’d never heard of before. It’s a 2006 with only 20,000 miles. It has remote keyless entry. And the nice thing is we don’t have to move the driver’s seat back and forth anymore. We can both drive with it in the same place. Bella likes it because she can see out more. So the whole family is happy with the new car.
Bella has taken to finger foods with great gusto. She loves bread. And cheese. She’s still got to work on the actual mechanism of getting the food into her mouth. Even though she can pick up things between her thumb and forefinger, that’s not her preferred method of self-feeding. Instead, she will pick up a chuck of food in her fist, or transfer it from the pincer grip to the other fist. And then try to shove the fist into her mouth. Which half the time results with the food in her lap. And since she screams when I run the vacuum, the seat gets pretty crumby between my sporadic attacks with the hose attachment.
