Hoping everyone had a happy holiday. I know I haven't been on in a while but things have been crazy, crazy, crazy and I'm not even talking about the usual holiday hoopla. I swear my DSD is trying to send me to an early grave , I am back to smoking after 3 years of not, and I had to call DFCS (department of family and child services) on her. Not fun, not in the least and also completely in effective, she's going to end up losing her children and doesn't seem to be able to stop partying long enough to care. My 3 yr old granddaughter is more responsible right now than her own mother is.

But enough about that, I still, despite the nicotine coursing through my veins, had a pretty enjoyable Christmas! We bought the DGD an 18" doll that my mother and I spent the weeks before Christmas making clothes up for. The doll got a big hug then tossed to the side in favor of the piano we got her too, but she did give the dollie a hug first . And spent the rest of the morning alternating between playing with the doll and creating migraine inducing music for all. But she had fun and worked up quite an appetite as shown at dinnertime when she ate all the adults under the table by munching down on 4 big pieces of ham, potatoes, stuffing, carrots and corn and still wanting some more ham.

She's only 3, but looks like a 6 year old, and eats every meal like it's her last meal on death row. Yet she isn't fat, she burns through every last calorie she eats, and this spring we're going to buy her a pair of rollerskates to help with her abounding energy. She goes 0-60 every day, crashes out for a 2 hour nap then jumps right back into running around. Her father would like for me to start doing flashcards and little workbooks with her, but I say for now, it's more important that she just play, she really can't keep herself settled down to anything right now. We read to her a lot and she has a brand new early Christmas present bookshelf that is over flowing with books. And on the rare time she decides she needs a break from running, jumping and dancing about, she'll sit down and "read" her books to her stuffed toys and kitten. But come August she'll be starting pre-K and then we'll start working on things like workbooks and making her letters, counting properly to ten and such. Right now she can get to five, but for some reason thinks 7 is 4. So she'll count 1, 2, 3, 7, 5 . I take that as perfectly appropriate for her age since she is only 3 and can count to 3 without an issue. And if you substitute 7 for 4 and 4 for 7 she can count to ten as well. It's just those 2 numbers she can never seem to get in the right place.

Anyways so settles my bragging on the DGD, otherwise, my health has been indifferent, thanks largely due to my DSD, and going back to smoking and I've nearly landed myself in the hospital twice I think since the last time I've been on here. I've decided to quit smoking again come the first of the year, we'll see how that goes. And I have a new ipad that I got for Christmas . So the DGD gets to inheret the old one under Nama's supervision.

So Happy Holidays again folks, hopefully I won't be quite as much of a stranger at least for the next month, my DGD is down with her dad now, so I have a bit of piece and quiet minus the DSD and trying to get her to get her life back on track.