Kentucky Blue Grass (KBG) is probably the dominant grass used in lawns in the Salt Lake Valley, so that is probably the grass you have now. It can deal with drought by going dormant, but as hot and dry as it has been lately, if it didn't get any water for three weeks, it may have died (part of my lawn died when a sprinkler head stopped rotating right after I did my monthly inspection). You could try to water it and see if it comes back, but you might be better off reseeding. If you want a lawn that will stay green without any additional water, you have pretty limited choices. Buffalo grass or a mixture of buffalo grass and blue grama will stay green without additional water (you may need to water once or twice in a year like this year). They're a little different color than what you're used to seeing. Buffalo grass is sort of gray green and grama is sort of blue green. The grama is a bunch grass and the buffalo grass spreads (and fills in) by stolons (above ground runners like a strawberry plant has). If you want a really soft lawn, you'll want to get a buffalo grass like legacy, that you can plant from plugs (no seeds that way--buffalo grass has prickly seeds). Buffalo grass isn't cheap, though, especially not from sod. Blue grama is pretty easy to get started, but it's tough to spread the seeds (they're like dust and often have a lot of chaff with them). In Orem, a buffalo grass lawn will probably not start to turn green until sometime in May and will probably start to turn brown in September. You might get a week or two more of green on either end than I would, so maybe early May to late September/early October. But it will definitely turn brown earlier in the fall than your current lawn and will definitely stay brown later in the spring. The grama will be green a little earlier in the spring and a little later in the fall than the buffalo grass. Two cool season grasses that will stay green with no water (may need a little in a year like this) are western wheatgrass and sheep fescue. I think Arizona fescue and Idaho Fescue will also stay green. western wheatgrass can be difficult to get started initially, but it spreads aggressively once it gets started. The fescues are all bunch grasses. Streambank wheatgrass and crested wheatgrass will stay alive with no additional water, but they'll go dormant once the rains stop and will green up again in the fall. Streambank wheatgrass spreads via rhizomes like western wheatgrass. Older varieties of Crested wheatgrass are bunch grasses but newer varieties like Roadcrest and Ephraim are mildly rhizomatous. Crested wheatgrass was introduced from Russia, and the others are all native. For buffalo grass and grama, you're probably too late to seed. Those should be seeded in late spring or early summer. I seeded a little grama a couple of weeks ago, but I was already cutting it close. The other grasses can be planted in the fall. If you haven't planted by September 15, I think I'd wait until early winter and dormant seed (seed when it's too cold for them to sprout and they'll germinate in the spring as soon as conditions are right). You'll have best results with any of these if you kill your existing lawn first. For the buffalo grass and grama, it's probably necessary. I'm assuming the water in the spot that died from too much water is from your watering, right? The reason I ask is that none of these grasses deal very well with too much water. They can generally deal with spring flooding, but if you water them like a KBG lawn, they'll die. The wheatgrasses and sheep fescue are less expensive than buffalo grass, but they're still a little pricy (although maybe not compared with the elite KBG seeds many people here buy). I can provide links to some places that sell the various seeds if you're interested.

"What exactly are Cheetos?" Cheetos were invented to torture health food nuts past the brink of insanity. Try as they might to block the craving for useless cheezy temptations Cheetos invades their pleasure cells causing a serotonin/dopamine cascade resulting in total addiction from just one orange dusted nibble. Even causual addicts can be spotted by the tell-tale orange coloring of their thumb and forefinger. Hopeless hardcore addicts may even sport an orange ring around their lips. ; ) lyra Here is a link that might be useful: the cheezy facts

Between 3 and 6 months you should begin to notice little (at first) tiny improvements. It's really hard to work with a 3 month old because they are still on survival autopilot and will do what they need to do, as driven by their brains and development. They don't yet communicate 'normally' in a 2-way sense so it's really hard to work with them. If there is a part of the pattern that leaves her screaming when you can reasonably know she's not 'too' anything and she is safe, then you can try soothing her without touch (she may still need your touch though, so use your best judgement and experiment). You can probably soothe her with your voice, singing, humming, and things like that. The 'trick' is to get her attention with that soothing thing that reinforces for her that you are present/near _before_ she is worked up to the point of panic or screaming (at that point, touch will probably soothe her most effectively and quickly). Use the vocal soothing as if by reflex, and it might help buy you some time and help her to cope while she's all freaked out because of change or the pacifier gone or whatever it is she thinks/feels. 2 hours later for bedtime maybe? (you could try adjusting times bit-wise by about 15-30 minutes at a time and staying at each step for 5-7 days to see if there is any change). when you need a pep talk, look at her at that 4am waking; smiling, it's quiet out and there's just you for her and life is probably very good for her at those times and when she is shattered by imposed unanticipated change (the noticed absence of the pacifier), she can trust that you can make things right and good again P.S. Is there a baby-safe way you can secure the pacifier (or a pacifier) to her sleeping clothes, or bed? It might be possible (don't count on instant results) to kind of teach her how she can find her own pacifier. (She might have initial trouble finding her mouth with it, or with letting go at the right time though... by 6 months odds will improve that she can manage this task on her own).

That's what I was thinking, Flamingo! Sounds like she did everything herself. Yesterday I had a pretty lazy day, then I went out late in the afternoon to pull weeds and took the firepit out and put it on the patio. I tried to start a fire and then Alex took over after he started to mow the grass. The grass never got finished because he was playing with the firepit instead. And of course, it rained again overnight so it's not going to get done today either. I'm going to work on cleaning the sunroom today. I have to wash all the covers and put away the Christmas ornaments that I left out there. Then put together the little table I got last week for the patio. We got an umbrella to go with the table but the table is tall and Lauren took the umbrella out last night and it looks too short on the bottom to use with the table. It has a crank that stops it short. Oh, well, guess we'll just use it near the table. The worse thing I have to do is cut up the cardboard boxes that the firebox and table came in. They're huge and I hate having to do that.