You may recall that when we brought the Burt Squirt home from the hospital, Miss Dorian Gray was none too pleased. Mr. Burt was hissed at any time he crossed her path, while I was ignored. As was Liam.

If the contents of my purse the other day are any indication, I am forgiven.

I am referring, of course, to the stuffed giraffe lying on top of my coupon organizer. I went to grab my cell phone to charge, and found him, too. He’s not a baby toy, he’s one of Dorrie’s toys–her oldest and favorite, in fact. Many a morning Mr. Burt and I’ve emerged from our bedroom to find it outside the door. Friends with cats inform me this is the equivalent of an outdoor cat presenting her master with her kill. Really, I’m very touched. And I wonder if this is Dorrie’s way of asking me to go out less often and pay more attention to her instead of the Chubby Loud One.

What Ms. Gray needs to realize is that the Chubby Loud One would love nothing better than to lavish her with all the attention and affection she desires. As is proven in the little buddy comedy that unfolded here yesterday. I shall not narrate, since sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words–and is quicker for a busy mom to post, too!

"I'm gonna get you, Dorrie! Or I would, if I could crawl!"

"Finally, she's not feeding the Chubby Loud One. The comfy chair is mine again! Mwahaha!"

Burt Squirt: "Together at last!"

Dorrie: "Not on my watch, kid!"

"Usurper!"

"Got any more bright ideas, Mom?"

I think it’s going well, don’t you?

It’s a prerogative of parenthood to have your child professionally photographed at least once a year — or every few months, if you have a new baby. This can be pricey, but JCPenney meets our needs by offering frequent coupons for affordable portrait packages with no sitting fees. At the Burt Squirt’s last session, the JCPenney portrait staff went above and beyond and let Mr. Burt and me jump in for a couple of family shots without charging us an additional sitting fee.

Of course, that got us to buy more pictures we otherwise wouldn’t have purchased, because we are new parents and therefore suckers. So it was really just a slick business move on the part of JCPenney, but I won’t hold it against them, since I got cute pictures out of the deal.

Or funny pictures, in this case:

When I posted it on Facebook, my mother-in-law commented that it needed a funny caption above the Burt Squirt’s head to reflect his thoughts about his situation.  She’s right.

However, seeing as I haven’t come up with anything cleverer than “Yuck!” or “Bleurgh!” I invite you all to submit your best caption to the very first LRBurt.com contest.  The winner will get a prize, though I can’t promise anything more than a post featuring my favorite submission.  Though that would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?

Feel free to enter as many times as you want.  You can simply post your caption(s) in a comment (if you followed this link from Facebook, please comment in this post rather than to the Facebook thread).  Or, if you’re Photoshop-savvy, snag the pic and edit away.

The contest will run through next Wednesday.

Tell a friend!

You wouldn’t think it would take me a month to post about the most important event of my life to date.  Then again, the sort of event that qualifies as the most important one of my life to date isn’t exactly conducive to having the time to write the sort of blog post that does it justice, so maybe you would think it would take me a month.  Of course, it only took me a few days to post pics to Facebook, so maybe this is just yet another of those cases where Facebook has ruined my ability to blog.  Seeing as there are all of ten of you who actually follow my blog and you’re all on Facebook, there’s probably very little point to posting now.  But A) it seems wrong not to mention the birth of my first baby on my blog and B) even though there are captions on my Facebook pics, they don’t convey my point of view.  Not that I’m likely conveying much through these sleep-deprived words.   But anyway, here goes…

All through my pregnancy, I watched TLC’s A Baby Story religiously. All five times a day it airs. Then I called it preparation for childbirth. Now, twenty-nine days after giving birth, I’m still watching it, only I call it all I do is nurse my baby every 2-3 hours, what else am I supposed to do? comparing notes.  Herein follows my baby story:  Read the rest of this entry »

…at least until tomorrow, when the high temperature is going to be a good twenty degrees below today’s high temperature.  Of course, it was 85ish today, and I do realize that 65ish isn’t exactly winter weather.  However, unlike today, I will not be lying out on a blanket in a linen skirt and spaghetti strap top for six hours if the high is only 65ish.  (Maybe I’ll lie out on a blanket in jeans and a light jacket.  My mildly sunburned shoulders and upper back would probably appreciate that.)

But I think someone once said not to worry about tomorrow, so for now I’m going to focus on today, and the fact that while out on my morning jog, I noticed that amid the brown barrenness of winter, things are wick.

Such as the Bradford pear trees:

The cherry’s also a-bloom:

As is our next-door neighbor’s pink magnolia, which I can see from my kitchen window, but had to stand on one of the patio chairs to snap a picture:

Lilies are starting to sprout, though I doubt they’ll be blooming in time for Easter:

The irises are coming up, too:

Trimmed all the way back for winter, in just a few weeks, the rose bushes are thick with new growth.  (I love the deep red.)

Here and there are even little bursts of colorful bloom:

And daffy daffodils sway in the breeze:

For those of you who have real winters, I’m sure the signs of spring are even more affecting than for those of us who live in milder climates.  (I’m thinking of Alyssa in Illinois, who has been clinically diagnosed as in hibernation, and my in-laws in Minnesota, who are having a snowstorm, and my favorite author Neil Gaiman, who blogged today about digging a van out of a snowbank.)  Yet even though I haven’t experienced much of a winter by any definition, I couldn’t be kept indoors today.  I wanted to soak up the sun, to be surrounded by reminders that life doesn’t stay the same all the time, that it’s a constant cycle of change and rebirth and growth — and that I’m a part of that cycle.

This time last year, I was muddling along writing a short story a month to try and break myself of the winter of uncreativity that followed the completion of my first novel.  But when spring came, the flowers bloomed, and so did an idea that is now a novel of 70,000 words and counting.  (By the time I finish the first draft, I anticipate it being at something like 150,000 words and subtracting — because I think about half those words need to be edited out.)

It’s not a brilliant novel.  It’s just a romantic comedy — well, maybe a romantic comedy.  While it’s funny, I’m not sure it exactly falls into the comedy category.  But I can’t really call it a romance, either, because it’s not full of bodice ripping and torrid sex.  I guess it’s really just chick-lit.  Hopefully smart chick-lit.  But I’ll settle for chick-lit, if it means I have an audience.  That’s one of the things I’ve realized from last spring to this spring, one of the changes I’ve undergone from writing my first novel to working on this novel:

I don’t have to write something important.  I just have to write something important to me.

And so I’m writing a novel that takes place at my alma mater, Baylor University.  It’s about a pianist and a singer.  It’s about past relationships and the hold they have on us.  It’s about difficult friendships.  It’s about the ways people cope with those things — religion, drugs, relationships, music.  It’s about dreams, and goals, and compromise.  It’s about love.  (Between a young woman and a slightly older man, because, I’ll admit it, those are the kinds of pairings I always go for when I read.)  All things that are important to me.  And, I hope, important to enough other people that I can get a publisher’s advance and a few royalty checks.

Today I chose to spend six hours outside, listening to the classical radio station on my mp3 player, scribbling ten pages of a notebook to bring a couple of imaginary people to life.  Not because I’m destined to be the next Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, but because I’m lucky enough to get to do what I want to do.

Today, I think I did it well.