Clifford The Big Red Dog

Last week Camille took a little plastic Clifford the Big Red Dog action figure out of Sadie's hand and she got so upset she stopped breathing for what seemed to be four hours.

There was a dramatic heaving cry and then silence. She was in such distress her respiratory system actually seemed to fail for a few seconds. Her lips turned a little bit blue before she finally inhaled.

"What happened," Gioconda asked.

"She lost Clifford to Camille," I replied.

"Give her the right side of the pink door from the house, she likes the door it calms her," she replied. Since the pink door was actually attached to the house I carefully removed it and handed it to Sadie. It did work to normalize her breathing.

I have no idea how Gioconda knew the pink door off the Fisher Price Little People Cottage was a fair trade from the Clifford action figure, yet apparently in baby currency these two items have the same value.

Its been a year now I have been living with the music of Johnny Cash played as lullaby(s) floating around in my auditory memory. It seemed like a good idea at the time we bought the CD, but "I Walk The Line" is really not a comfort tune.

Sadie really loves music and so whenever we are in the car, we play " their music".

The side effect being I find myself thinking about the words of the songs, all the time.

"Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, no more monkey's jumping on the bed...".

The good thing about Johnny Cash lullaby is there are no words, just instrumental Johnny Cash music, played to sound like a lullaby...and in all honesty, its a little creepy.

Creepy in that kind of evil children of the corn kind of way.

"We have to stop playing this music, I think they find it confusing, and it's causing Camille to lash out at her sister," I told Gioconda yesterday.

I have no idea if that is the basis for Camille's recent "behavior" , but that guess is as good as any other. Since she turned one, I have completely lost all control. Keeping in mind, I didn't have a very strong handle on what I did control and so my loss of all control was a predictable inevitability.

"Maybe we should stop wearing lotion with any kind of cucumber scent, I am thinking she doesn't like the smell of cucumber," I suggested the other day.

"Maybe we should Feng Shui their room," I added.

It's hard to know. Everything seems fine and then someone stops breathing over an action figure.

There is no dearth of toys, in fact we are very close to our toy capacity yet somehow there is constant bickering over the front cover of the ripped apart book about kittens, the duck piece of the farm animal puzzle, or the star fish that bull dog chewed the left hand corner.

Then there is any remote. The remote is definitely the most sought after item in our entire house.

There is no fair trade for the remote. Taking away the could result in cardiac arrest if not approached properly.

Its all these little things no one bothers to tell you....