Brinkley is my dog. He likes to eat bits of pieces of bagels and pizza off the sidewalk while I’d rather buy them. Brinkley is a great catcher! He was once offered a try out on the Mets farm team, but decided to live with me where he sleeps all day on a big green pillow the size of an inner-tube.


Yesterday was exciting and refreshing. I baby-sat Iris yesterday as usual. I tried to do something different so that she wouldn’t wig out on me. It was probably the simplest task I could think of for me and was increasingly difficult to include Iris. I went to the grocery store. What an event! I needed some odds and ends and Iris needed some soy milk (she is lactose intolerant). So we went together. Her mom was late for work so I met her across the street at the restaurant and stole her car and she went to work. Meg was all shot out and baffled because her life is in transition due to moving. (Hurray Meg will be close to me again!) She was frustrated and confused because half of her stuff was in Sautee and the other half in Demorest. Her car was half full of boxes and the other half of baby stuff. Anyway, first things first, Iris and I cleaned out the car. Then off to the supermarket. Well the market. Getting Iris into the market was not as easy as I thought. Shopping was easy enough though. I got her a bag of chips right off and she crunched them in one hand and had the keys in the other. She was tickled to be grocery shopping. Once we were done, we had a nice young gentleman carry our groceries out to the car, which made it super easy to get Iris back into her seat. Then back off to the apartment. This is where it got really hard. Remember how I told you I have started going to the gym again? Well I worked out legs and abs first on Monday, ouch. Then yesterday was back and abs, oof. By eight o’clock last night I was sore, but that didn’t make any difference: I still had to get both Iris and grocery bags up to the apartment. I took two loads of groceries and that baby up and down two flights of stairs. Oh, my, gosh…..THEN! I had to put them all away and Iris was not having being on the floor playing with toys, she wanted to be a part of the action on the counter tops. To compensate, I opened the fridge door to let her play in there. She was much happier. Then, I could see it in her eyes….sleepy time. She fought it too. I put on Harry Potter I, which I rented and I think between John Williams and a bottle of Soy milk, zonk, she was out like a light. Hurray! Normally she naps out at about seven o’clock until about eight thirty, but not getting that nap until eight thirty, she slept until Megan got back. She sleeps on my big green comforter that my folks got me with a whole set as my sixteenth birthday gift (along with painting my room and new pillows and …). She loves it because it is so soft. So do I.

While I was hauling Iris up and down the stairs with the groceries, I kept thinking that there was a lesson in all of this. I finally decided that this was God’s way of saying that I could raise a child if I wanted to or if I had to raise a child. I don’t know if that was the message or not though. I can’t figure out how Megan does the little things like taking a shower or eating. I was exhausted by the time Iris went down and bets are that she didn’t sleep through the night. Maybe she did. I was really grateful to not have to make the decision on having an Iris of my own last night. At least though, if I had an Iris, I know I could.