YOH-GWIT

Dear Laney,

I know it's been days since I posted an update. In the interim, you have been to a family reunion, attended the Perry National Fair, met dozens of relatives, accidentally ridden a death-defying carnival ride, tried peach cobbler, ridden a real horse, learned how to operate a slot machine, careened off a slide, and battled the gnats of south Georgia that even your peacenik of a dad described as "homicide-inducing." And I have about 120+ photos on my camera from each of the above events to sort through so I can (and will!) do a post on each.

I can say that the most amazing thing thus far about our whirlwind tour of the Confederacy is that you haven't once pitched a fit or thrown a tantrum or cried over anything that wasn't actually painful. OK, I take that back - there was this one thing that happened the day before yesterday:

I bought you some snacks to keep in our hotel room, including a pack of Dora the Explorer yogurt cups (I know what you're thinking and you're right - that hussy is on everything).

You were hanging out in the hotel room, watching a movie, enjoying your yogurt and sitting on what I helpfully coined, "The Yogurt Towel." See? It just sounds like fun. When you had eaten all the yogurt you could reach with your spoon and had reduced yourself to waggling your tongue around the inside of the empty container, your dad (crazily, wrongly, stupidly) assumed you were done with the yogurt and threw the container away.

Oh holy hell at the storm that rained down in our hotel room. It sounded something like this:

NO, DAD! IS MY YOH-GWIT! MINE! MINE! DAD! YOH-GWIT!!! YOOOHHHH-GWIIIIT!

...And then real tears started springing to your face as you clutched at the sky and thrashed around on The Yogurt Towel and otherwise mourned your loss. I swear, if it had been a scene in a movie, the part of Laney would be played by Marlon Brando, and it would look like this:

And that's when - God help us - your dad and I tried our hardest not to laugh. I don't know if it was the histrionics, or just the way you were pronouncing yogurt, or just the effort involved in not openly mocking you, but I think both of us actually cried.

Sure, it may have scarred you for life, but it was a vacation highlight for us.

We're terrible people, but we love you very much. So there's that.

Love,

Mom