Man, Stella was in the zone today! Something was just different. I don’t know if it was because Steve mailed off his last CLAD packet today, or because he found out that he will not ultimately be held accountable for the long-term production and development of his campus website (a good thing), or that Stella, Porter and I successfully completed our first dry-run of a new afternoon routine, but damn it if our household didn’t stand witness to about 37 fewer melt-downs and some hilarity in the process. It is good to see that deep, deep, deeeeeep down, Stella hasn’t lost her mojo.

So, I am sitting there while she chillin’ in the bathtub, chatting it up with her – glass of wine in my hand (don’t judge me!) and she looks up and says, “Mommy, can I have some of your wine?” “Nah,” I reply, “Kids don’t drink wine.” To which, she replies, “But I loooooove coffee!” [saying the word love with extra operatic flair – arms outstretched and lots of vibrato] And for those of you wondering, no, we don’t feed her coffee. Duh, it would be like giving a pyromaniac a book of matches. Then, after the whole wine – no, coffee debate, she proceeds to make herself into the human triangle, (bathtub forming the hypotenuse), and with her behind straight up in the air, proceeds to start singing the look-at-my-huge-booty song. Dwuh? I swear, I’m not making this stuff up.

On our way to the mall last night I asked Stella if she knew how to spell her name. Without even missing a beat, she jumped right in:

S – T – E – E – E – L – L – L -L – L – A

Holy crap. In my world, this falls in that horseshoes and hand grenades category. After all, isn’t this how half the people in the world pronounce it? (At least the half whose favorite party trick is to channel Stanley Kowalski?)