Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.

What does next year have in store for me? … “Waste Time,” The Fire Theft
Sounds like nothing will be changing in ’07 …

What’s my love life like? … “Jackie Blue,” Ozark Mountain Daredevils
I don’t really know what to make of that.

What do I say when life gets hard?… “Why Don’t You Write Me?” Simon & Garfunkel

What do I think of on waking up? … “Kate,” Ben Folds Five
Our former neighbor, Kate, moved to Alaska recently. I just heard from her a few days ago. They were having “unseasonably warm” weather — it was 10F!

Favorite saying? … “Faraway Cookies,” Caitlin McEwan
That’s so spot-on it’s scary. It’s a song about cookies being “so high on the shelf.” So we have shortness and cookie-eating. Yep.

Favorite place? … “Into the Groove,” Madonna
Totally.

Drug of choice? … “Holiday,” Madonna
I do love a vacation.

Describe myself. … “If You Listen,” Elizabeth Mitchell
That’s not very descriptive, is it?

What is the thing I like doing most? … “Song for Junior,” Beastie Boys
Not far off. Junior and I do play music and dance quite a lot.

What is my state of mind like at the moment? … “Prime of Life,” Neil Young
It has been a nice day thus far.

via Verbatim.

. . . . . the end . . . . .

I should never have changed the sheets.

When Poppy woke up this morning, there was a little stain on her sheet. She has another molar coming in, so I’m pretty sure it was a bit of bloody drool.

(I know that’s gross. But trust me, this gets grosser.)

So I changed the sheet, and we went downstairs and did our thing.* While Poppy napped with The Buddies (Elmo, Ernie, Grover and Big Bird), I played Zelda** and washed the dishes and Flickred a bit. I heard Poppy wake up and gave her a few minutes of solo playtime before I went upstairs to fetch her.

That was my second mistake.

She was holding Grover triumphantly over her head, as she normally does after her nap. But instead of her usual greeting — “Halooooo! Grogo! — she said a single word that made my blood run cold: “Poop!”

She was so cheerful. And so stinky.

There was pooh everywhere. On the formerly fresh sheet. On Grover’s furry blue backside. All over poor Elmo. On Ernie’s fashionably stripey shirt. On Poppy’s big toe. E v e r y w h e r e.

I whisked Poppy up (at arm’s length) and into the bathroom. After gingerly removing her soiled duds and setting to work on the woefully inadequate diaper, I discovered an additional horror. An even more horrible horror.

Her feet.

She must have done the jig in the pooh. The soles of her dainty feet were coated in it.

So I scrubbed her feet with baby wipes*** and put her in the bath to scrub her some more and washed the buddies and dried her off and put on a new diaper and took off the nasty sheet and put Elmo (the only machine-washable Buddy) in a pillowcase and threw the whole shebang (minus Poppy, of course) into the washing machine and dressed Poppy, and then we went to the post office.

And then we came home. And I gave Poppy a snack. And I sat down to write this.

And then I found pooh on my sleeve.

. . . . .

*Our thing:

having a little breakfast

playing

watching “Sesame Street”

reading a couple dozen books three or four times over

playing some more

having lunch

more playing and reading

naptime

**A little freakier than normal this time. I turned into a wolf? Dude.

***and clogged the toilet with said wipes, which was a whole ‘nother adventure.

. . . . . the end . . . . .