So here another year comes to an end. I usually make some comment about the years' previous events and trends. So here goes: Katrina, gas prices at $3 a gallon, Gov. Taft's corruption staining my whole state, more dead in Iraq and no end in sight. Tweed shoes and chocolate brown clothing. Brangelina and TomKat (and if I have to ask years later what the hell those words mean, thank god, that means I haven't heard them anymore!)

But let's look at the homefront, here at Casa Warren: Five jobs total for me during the year, as well as a really rough financial time. Pita's death. Illness abounding, as Veronica finally caught stomach bugs and Jason and I both vomitted more than we had since meeting one another. Debbie moving to Arizona.

I'm not saying good things haven't happened. My new job, Veronica growing up a little more and more. Veronica's love of her preschool and Sara moving back to Ohio. The fact that we DID manage to keep a roof over our heads, albeit due to much help from our family and friends. The help we got. But still, I can't say I'm sorry to see this year end. Here's hoping 2006 brings all the good things that 2005 sure as hell didn't bring. For me, Jason and Veronica, and for all of us.

Well, Christmas has ended. Thanks to my new job, Veronica ended up with a pretty impressive amount of toys, as well as an Imaginarium train table. Her favorite items thus far, however? The Dora playset from my mom and dad, and this Littlest Pet Shop pack with a cat and a hamster (which she also thinks is a kitty) that set me back about $6.00. Of course.

She also learned what Santa Claus says, walking around the house saying "Ho ho ho, Merry Chris-mess, ho ho ho!" She sounds just like a pixie version of the demented Santa that Ralphie encounters in "A Christmas Story." It's comical.

And she can count to ten now! I know she can actually count objects up to three, but she can recite all the numbers from one to ten. She can identify the letter "M" and the number "4" (although she also gets the capital "A" confused with four.) And with her Dora playset comes Tico the Squirrel. He doesn't look like any damn squirrel I've ever seen, but I digress. On the show, Tico only speaks Spanish. So whenever she asks me to play Tico, I make him speak Spanish (albeit the little bits I can still remember.) At first I thought she was irritated by this, and maybe she was, but certainly not anymore. She doesn't even ask Jason to play Tico now, and better yet, she's starting to understand "Tico's" part of the conversation. She mentioned she wanted to play with Boots, Dora's monkey, while I was playing Tico today, so I had Tico ask "Donde esta Boots?" And Veronica answered "Dere he is! Dere's Boots!" and pointed to the computer desk, where indeed a little figure of Boots sat in front of the monitor. As you can imagine, I'm really proud of her. (What mommy blog would be complete without a little brag now and again?)

And for those concerned: The bite marks are gone, and Veronica seems unscathed by the biting episode. My blood is no longer boiling either. So we spoiled Kiddo rotten for Christmas, she's soaking up info like a sponge, and all seems to be well for now. More later, and hopefully soon. :-)

I know, it's late, but something happened earlier today (technically, yesterday) that has really upset me: Veronica was bitten by one of her classmates. On the face. HARD. Her preschool wrote up an accident report, complete with how they treated it and what was going on at the time (a transition between activities, apparently.) But I actually got the name of the kid from Veronica herself, and one of Veronica's teachers filled in the blanks. He went to hug her, and they thought he was going to give her a kiss (as the kids are sometimes wont to do at this age) when he just lunged and bit down. She still has lower teeth marks on her right cheek, and her eye is a bit red underneath; I think she may have something like a black eye here soon.

Now, Veronica doesn't seem too fazed by this; don't get me wrong, she cried like hell at the time, but she seems to be OK now. And I know that this probably couldn't have been prevented. That this kid is just going through some phase and never meant to hurt her. That his parents probably don't even know he'd do such a thing or, even if they did, are at their wits' ends trying to figure out how to handle the situation and are horrified this happened. That it could've just as well been MY kid who bit someone (Veronica's never had a propensity to do such a thing, but since when have two-year-olds been known for being predictable?) And even with all this justificaiton, I'm just so angry. I just want to yell at someone, or at least be justifiably pissed at someone, but I can't. I have this anger that has no outlet. I just have to live with the fact that someone hurt my little girl, and there's nothing I can do about it. And that's the hardest thing of all to deal with right now.

Anyone who's spent a decent amount of time around me (especially in the month of December) knows how stressed out I get over the holidays. And on top of the usual stress is Jason's stomach flu, which has been coming and going now for over two weeks and is just awful. I'm worried about him and, frankly, exhausted because I'm pretty much caring for Veronica myself (and him a little too.) I had the same bug this weekend and lemme tell ya, it ain't pretty. I'm still not up to par. Add to that too the normal stresses of starting a new job, although I'm really liking it there and I think I'm catching on really quickly.

But why focus on the negative when we have a tidbit of joy: Aunt Emily's wedding, which took place on Saturday. It was lovely. It was a nice ceremony, and Emily looked positively radiant in her gown, with her tiara and her hair up in curls. The reception was very nice as well (at least, what I saw of it before I had to leave, being that I was in the throes of a stomach bug.)

The best part of the wedding, however, at least for me and Jason: Veronica as the flower girl.

Jason had to bribe her with her favorite outfit - her "jaguar" clothes, a leopard-print jogging suit my mom bought for her in Vegas - to get her into the gown. As a compromise, he let her wear the jaguar pants under her skirt, which was fine because the skirt was too long to see it. We had a bit of a snafu trying to get her to go down the aisle, resulting in me walking her there and tossing the petals myself. Once we got there, Veronica handled the first two steps up to the altar before lifting up her arms for the final one and saying "Pick up?" which made the congregation titter. And once the procession and the music stopped, she put a little finger up to her lips as if to say "shhhhh...." Too cute. Throughout the ceremony, she pretty much stayed in place, was silent, and was overall very well-behaved. Frankly, Jason and I were amazed.

Of course, however, we're dealing with a two-year-old here, so of course something went wrong. (And no, nothing to do with Zane - his parents pretty much decided that it wasn't going to happen with him, so while Anne was in the wedding party as a bridal attendant, Ben stayed back at Emily's house and played with Zane.) About a minute or two into the ceremony, Veronica starts rubbing her nose. Then she starts to pick it. She really goes to town, digging for gold, up to the second knuckle. This is enough to make Jason and I swallow laughter. But it gets worse.

Veronica actually gets a booger out of her nose, on the altar, in the middle of the wedding. We really can't see it, even though we're in the front row. How do we know this? Because she instantly looks perturbed, and puts her little hand up to Jason's 11-year-old cousin Maria, the maid-of-honor, so she can wipe it off. This is old hat to me and Jason, but of course, not to Maria. Maria does nothing, so Veronica looks very vexed. She starts shaking her hand like mad, the offending finger flapping in the breeze. She rubs her hands together. She rubs her face. She shakes her hands again like a madwoman. And then suddenly: problem solved. No more shaking. Problem is, if the trajectory we guessed was correct...

...wait for it...

...

....

My daughter flipped a booger on the bride's gown.

(sigh)

Jason and I are about dying at this point. I've literally got tears streaming down my face. One of the attendants, Jason's cousin Beth, has her husband seated behind us, and he's losing it too. We look up at the bridesmaids, and although we can only see their backs, we can see some shaking. We can see Anne's profile. The gowns are red, and Anne's face matches the gown.

At the end of the ceremony (which was 25 minutes long - I timed it just to see how long my kid would be that quiet and well-behaved in such a strange setting for her), Veronica yawned and sat down on the altar. Everyone else proceeded out. The pastor tried to offer her a hand, but she wouldn't budge. So Jason walked up, she held up her arms, and he swooped her up. He held her at our front seats, and then he heard giggling behind him. Yup, you guessed it. Her little hoopskirt had flipped up and just revealed the infamous jaguar pants to the entire congregation.

I just had to share this with everyone because I'm still laughing over it. And after this, Veronica and Zane had a wonderful time playing together. She really doesn't play with any other kids like she does with him, and according to Anne and Ben, vice versa. She kept asking today if she could go see him. It's really so sweet to watch them playing together.

So here's to the positive, the good points of this stressful week. And a funny anecdote to boot. Hope y'all enjoyed. :-)

My family is home. Jason has gone to get a prescription; as soon as he's home, I'm going to work. Veronica is finally sleeping. They just have a stomach bug, but it's really hitting them. Just didn't want anyone to worry.

This middle-of-the-night link is courtesy of one stressed-out mom.

Veronica woke up soon after her bedtime by vomitting. Have you ever heard your child throw up? What a horrible noise. Jason stayed up with her, and then HE ended up vomitting too. So now both of them have headed out, just minutes ago, to the emergency room so he can stop throwing up long enough to take care of her. And I'm a mess, not physically (and I hope that I won't be) but mentally and emotionally, as I can't take off from my new job but I'm worried sick about my family.

Time to go, as I await their phone call from the hospital, letting me know they arrived OK.

The post that makes me feel like an idiot, but I can't think of any other way to go about this:

SARA:

I can't find the e-mail with your new address, I think I accidentally deleted it. Your old e-mail address is kaput. And I can't leave comments on your husband's blog for some reason or another. So PLEASE write me when you get a chance, and I understand if that takes a while, being that you just moved....a very far distance, actually....with a baby.

If I weren't feeling so icky, a real post would follow. Job's going well, Veronica is, well, Veronica (cracking us up most the time, but giving us a real headache when she doesn't get her way), and I'm somehow surviving the cold weather. But my tummy hurts. Whah. So off I go for now.

Need to get to bed. It's been a busy few weeks. Thanksgiving was spent in the Marietta area with Jason's family, and this past weekend was spent with my family and friends in WV. Veronica's been full of energy, both when she's having fun and when she's having a tantrum. Jason's been under the weather, and was full-out sick on Saturday night to the point where I was very worried about him and cursing the fact that nothing in my hometown is open past 8 p.m. so I could buy him some medicine. (OK, there's a gas station with a convenience store that's open, but who knows if they'd have something? Nearest late-opened store: Wal-Mart, 12 miles away. Fortunately he was feeling better before I had to pick apart the mini-mart for Immodium.)

But now I'm giddy yet nervous as hell, because I start a new job tomorrow. I'll be working for the State of Ohio. I'm on a probationary period. I think everything should go well, that I will be good at this job and enjoy it, but I'm still scared half to death. Things have been so tight around here financially that I'm terrified that something will go wrong, and that we'll be broke again. So please wish my paranoid ass some luck. :-)

Hopefully, a longer and more Veronica-centric update soon.