A big truck just pulled up in front of our house, and a big, fluffy wallaroo hopped out! I had been hoping she'd get here last week, so we could dress her up as the Easter bunny... but, oh well. She's here now! I can see her through the window, hopping up the front steps... So exciting!

Elaine's language skills have been progressing fantastically albeit patchily. She clearly understands a vast number of words, and she can say quite a few. However, her pronunciation often leaves something to be desired. She has a few standard babyified words -- "doot" is milk, and "shoop" stroller. (She came up with both of those herself, but they've stayed consistant for months.) And there are some words she can say perfectly like "hot soup" and "shoes." But, then, there's the third category -- words she tries to pronounce properly and yet completely fails at. These can be tricky. For instance, if we're in the kitchen talking about things to eat, it can take me a while to work out that "suit" means spoon. Or, if it's late in the evening and Elaine suddenly insists that she must have "taupe," there are a lot of possibilities to work through before discovering that she's substituted 't' for 'cr' and the 'p' is really supposed to be a 'b'.

So, she stayed up half an hour later than she might have if I had only known "taupe" meant crib. I'm looking forward to her being better able to enunciate.

We've ordered up a wallaroo translator. I know they speak English in Australia, but there are bound to be cultural differences. And these wallaroo translators are supposed to be entire cultural guides, familiar with the most minute customs. It's all the rage -- indigenous animal guides. So, since it'll be a week or two before our wallaroo gets here, we went to the zoo to show Elaine some of the wallabies and wallaroos there. Pretty cute. Not as intelligent as the genetically/cerebrally enhanced wallaroo that we've ordered -- but, then, you wouldn't want to put one of those in a zoo.

It's a lot farther away than I would have liked, but Daniel's really excited about the job... And, in the end, that's what's really important to us. So... We'll be moving to Australia this summer!

It's really peaceful to finally know where we'll be living next year.

A brilliant innovation: instead of making cookie dough and baking cookies, make cookie dough and keep it in the refrigerator all week. Then, bake only enough cookies to eat while still warm every night. This way, the cookies are always freshly baked! No stale, week-old cookies wasting away in a tin. Only warm cookies with gooey chocolate chips melting the vanilla ice cream on top of them. Oh yeah. It's so simple... And, yet, somehow I'd never thought of it before.

I decided to run the dogs through their tricks today. For Trudy, that means "sit," "lie down," and "shake (hands)." For Dale, it means "sit," "roll over," and "turn around" -- though, she can't tell the last two apart. Needless to say, they're not all that impressive.

However, it's been a long time since I've bothered quizzing them, and, apparently, Elaine doesn't remember seeing it before. From the look in her eye, you would think I had performed actual magic. With mere words, I had controlled the movements of wild beasts!

If only she could have seen Patrick...

When people -- especially other writers -- hear that my husband and mother are my main editors, they usually suggest I might be better off with... well, editors who would be more comfortable being cruel. These people, of course, have never had their work edited by Daniel.

In response to the various drafts of the story I finished earlier this week, Daniel suggested:

"Perhaps it would be more exciting with space voles?"
"The end is unsatisfying, and the characterization of the friend is superfluous."
"You could try cutting the entire second half."
"This is better... I can see potential here."

And, finally, "I can't find anything wrong with it.

Yeah. With responses like that, I probably wouldn't even let Daniel read my stories (or at least comment on them) if he wasn't a really good editor.