So it turns out that the office in New York where Matt will be going is not "comfortable" with him working four-day weeks so that he can come home every other weekend. So he's going to at least start out with regular five-day weeks, and if they don't change their minds, the only weekend in the whole two months that he'll be able to come home is President's Day weekend, and even that will be a nightmare, driving ten or eleven hours Saturday, spending Sunday at home, and then driving ten or eleven hours again on Monday.

It doesn't change things for me that much, at least not realistically. So I'll be taking Penny to visit my folks or friends every weekend instead of every other. It's not that much of a stretch, really. But I'm furious on Matt's behalf. They're expecting him to go two months without seeing his two-year-old daughter? That's ridiculous.

Mind you, I live in a heavily military area. If Matt was in the Navy, two months would be a drop in the bucket. I know other people have it lots worse than this.

But that doesn't make it any less ridiculous.

One reason Matt agreed to this nonsense is that it was... not even implied. Just insinuated. That if he didn't take this trip, his job would be in jeopardy. But I'm beginning to wonder if it's a job worth keeping, at this point. Matt and I aren't married to our jobs. We work because we have to, and our family has always come first.

When the places and people that we work for start assuming that they rank higher in our priorities than our family... it's time to go. There are plenty of reasons to dislike my office, but despite being a workaholic himself, my boss does get it that I'm not -- that I'm willing to work an occasional late evening when we're in a pinch, but overall, Matt and Penny come first.

Matt's office... not so much. So he's going to do this trip, since he said he would. But he'll be spending some of his time on those weekends polishing up his resume.

Enough bile and vitriol. Funny toddler stories!

So Penny's seen The Lion King about seven billion times now, and she's started randomly spouting quotes from the movie. Since she does this with no context whatsoever, it can be pretty funny.

The first time was a copy of Timone the Meercat being disgusted over Simba and Nala's burgeoning romance. "Not you! Them! Him! And her! Aloooooone." Timone folds his hands up by his face and flutters eyelashes at the "aloooone" bit.

Penny copied the gesture and tone of voice exactly, but what she said was, "Hellooooooo."

I fell over laughing.

The next one took us a little bit to figure out. We thought at first that she was being a bit of a brat, and then Matt connected it to the correct movie quote. In the movie, young Simba is being bathed by his mother. He impatiently messes up his hair again and says, "Okay, okay, I'm clean! Can I go now?!"

What Penny does is wipe furiously at her cheek after Matt or I kiss her, and say some variant of the line, always including the "Go now?!" bit. Not every time we kiss her; just when the mood takes her. It's pretty amusing, and we've been known to give her extra kisses when she's in that mood, just to hear her say it again.

But the most recent... We were in the car on the way to my parents' on Sunday. Stopped at a light. Not really doing anything; Matt and I were chatting about some random whatever, and Penny was playing in her seat with a teddy bear.

Out of nowhere, she suddenly yelled, "I'm not a murgler!"

Bewildered, Matt and I looked at her. We looked at each other. Matt's lightbulb went off, and -- climactic confrontation scene from the end of the movie firmly in mind -- he agreed, "No, sweetie, you're not a murderer."

Penny knows that's it's dangerous to catch the tiger by his tail... If you're going to ride the tiger, you have to hold his ears.

--Liz