We don't need no stinkin' quarters!

Lazlo and I won a washer and dryer on ebay for $51. I really believe that this is going to change my life. I've never owned a washer and dryer. The last time I had access to them in my home was when I lived at the Hampton House with 10 other girls. So it was more or less like a laundromat. I forsee a pleasant future of not rationing diaper covers, and washing the duvet cover -every- time (rather than every fifth or sixth time) it gets spit-up on.

Next on the to-do list- fix the oven. It's been broken since we moved in and I'm getting pretty sick of stir-fry. We eat a lot of rice. Last night our culinary school friend talked me through poaching, and I'll definitely be giving it a shot to break up the saute monotony. But I miss pies and bread and cookies and roast chicken and damnit even casseroles. If anyone knows how to replace an electric igniter on a gas stove [for less than $50 (no thanks, Sears)], give me a call.

Here, for those of you who read this exclusively to hear about Wren, are some baby updates. She's showing a terrifying tendency to fight her naps. My mother tells me this is payback for my years as the "Napless Wonder". Whatever. She starts looking a little raggedy and frayed around the edges a few minutes before naptime, but she's still playing happily so it's tempting to just let her hang out for a while longer. This is a bad move. It's my one and only chance to convince her to go to sleep peacefully and if I miss it, even by minutes, then we're in trouble. The next hint comes when a gleeful laugh sound will suddenly turn into a sad squeal, and then her babyface just teeters back and forth from comedy to tragedy, ending, of course, with tragedy. From there it's total disintegration and I'll be rocking a grunting, barking, back-arching, swaddle-fighting baby until she goes limp from exhaustion and mutters herself to sleep. It happens at most once a day. For the rest of her naps she'll just flutter her eyes at her mobile a couple of times and when you turn around she's out.

Outside of the mystery nap-hating, the baby is doing fine. She's recovered from her shots with a minimum of spit-up. She continues to flap her arms and grab her toys and shove anything she can reach into her mouth. She has an enormous toothless smile, that's sometimes coy and sly and sometimes so big her face can't contain it and she has to bounce and wiggle in ecstacy, like a dog. Her favorite thing is to catch your eye across a room and smile and wiggle at you. Her finger and toenails seem to grow at an alarming rate. And she bobbles her head around seriously, from toy to toy, like a little owl. So that's the update. Come babysit sometime. I'll bake you a pie.