Chebbles made a "Tower of Babies" in her crib yesterday. Baby V was the base baby in the tower, lucky girl.

Maybe it was a mistake to let her read the "Bible Stories for Young Hearts" book because I'm pretty sure this was a take on the "Tower of Babel" which she found most fascinating and pointed out all the shirtless laborers who were building it.

But anyway, we have several things going on around the Shaken household...

* I really want Chebbles and Baby V to have the same kind of relationship my sister and I do. We can be very different, but ultimately we like the same songs and we have a special shorthand for making fun of our parents. I think this is very important. How do I foster it? How do I not wreck it? I've already enacted a "No Tattling" rule in this household for Chebbles and her friends. And I let Chebbles use Baby V as a building block, obviously. But beyond that, how do I MAKE these two be VERY BEST FRIENDS? My best guess is that Hub-D and I should be as weird as possible, inspiring our children to band together for survival.

* I think there is a ghost in Baby V's nursery. I know, I know, I'm being weird already, but seriously. Two nights ago, when she was crying as I changed her diaper, I heard someone say "SHHH!" behind me. I could dismiss this as sleepless delusion if Baby V hadn't turned toward the noise too, and immediately stopped crying. "Did you hear that!!??" I asked her as she gazed at the wall behind me.

* Chebbles says she sees a ghost. "There is a ghost who comes in my room, Mama," she told me as we read "Spongebob's Halloween" for the 500th time. "Oh really?" I asked. "It's a mama ghost and she hugs me when I'm sleeping." I never go in her room and hug her while she's sleeping -- I'm glad someone's got that covered.

* Does it somehow effect one's psychic energy to have one's chakras surgically opened with a C-section? Will this whole thing stop once my incision totally heals? But anyway, I've started having dreams about K.'s memory again. You know that thing that happens to me, where I dream K.'s past? It hasn't happened for at least five years, until two nights ago. I was in Stockholm at night, searching for change in a strange tin cup because I needed to take the train back to my house. I realized several hours after I woke up that K. used to live in Stockholm. I called her. "Sure! I always had to take the train back to the suburb where we lived. And I used to keep my change in a rattling silver cup, did you see that?" she asked.

* "Sorry mole, I'm sorry you died," Chebbles said at the mini-funeral we had today in the backyard. We wanted you all to know that the mole is buried, so our backyard is no longer a fly-filled stinkfest. The mole was really cute, to tell the truth. I hate it when the cats kill cute things. Moles and hummingbirds are totally off-limits, dudes. Stick with the rats, the neighbors love us for that.

* How did Chebbles learn every word to "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid? Perhaps I shouldn't complain, as it gets her mind off the shirtless dudes of Babel.