mama [məˈmɑː] Old-fashioned an informal word for mother

So an amazing thing happened this past couple of weeks. Joon said, "MAMA". I was pretty excited. Jesse was a little sad that she hasn't said "DADA" yet, but I am trying to get her to. I will admit, I do have the bragging rights now that she said "MAMA" first. Another interesting thing that we have been dealing with is mice. Our food storage room as ransacked by mice getting into our rice, hot chocolate, and spagetti. Strangely enough, they didn't get into our flour, sugar, or any boxed things in our storage room. I was very sad about the hot chocolate... it was a beautiful big box. *sniff*

That wasn't our only encounter with a mouse. A few days later, we were sitting in the kitchen just enjoying the day. When Squirt, our black cat, dashed across the room in one leap. I thought she was just having one of her crazy moments where she chases nothing around the house. Or maybe she just ran into the wall, but it wasn't that. She popped out from behind the piano with a mouse in her mouth. It was really funny.

But, if you know what a cat is like, then you know that wasn't everything that happened. She put the mouse down to play with it. Squirt would catch it, then let it go, then catch it, then let it go... and so on. She played with it for about 30 minutes, or so and then Who, our calico cat, came in to see what was going on. Eventually she wanted in on the action so she stole the mouse and walked off with it. Squirt didn't know this, she just kept looking frantically for it in the spot she dropped it.

This picture of Squirt holding the mouse in her mouth was the second time this had happened in our kitchen. And sadly, for Squirt, Who ended up stealing her prize. I also found out that I am not scared of mice, unless they are running in my direction, or if they jump out of my cupboards... Which happened last week.

These pictures of Juniper are recent. I just love the way she smiles, so I thought I would share her smile to brighten everyone else's day, like it brightens mine.