short and sweet

I've never been more thankful for the state of Arkansas than I am today.

if only

Baby loves helping me check the mail when we get home. She thinks it's a most amazing thing, especially if we see a school bus while we're at the street.

After we check the mail we come inside and she gets a sippy with 1% milk. I set my purse down and sort mail. She gets the junk mail circulars, political ads, and catalogs, all magical things.

Earlier this week I got a circular from Victoria's Secret. I opened it and glanced to see that they sent me a coupon for a free pair of panties. (Which is super exciting because there's no way I'd pay that much for them from my wallet.) I took the coupon off of the paper and handed it to her with some other junk goodies. She sat down on her step-stool with her milk in one hand, the ads in the other. This particular circular seemed to hold her attention and I was able to get a lot of things done without her pulling on my britches, begging me to pick her up.

She handed me her sippy with an, "All done". I was ready to throw away her junk mail treasures and she was eager to help. All this time she still had the Victoria's Secret circular under her arm. After we had everything else thrown away I asked her if she was ready to throw that one away, too. She wasn't, "No! No-no no."

She sat back down on her bench and opened it up. This was one of those typical VS ads with scantily clad women. I started to wonder if this was really the most wholesome thing for her to study. I asked again if I could throw it away. She wasn't ready to budge. I asked her if we could read it and she looked at me, seriously considering it. She turned the page and I asked her what she saw.

She pointed to a beautiful blonde model in her underwear and said, "Mama!"

I laughed. Only a child of one could make that mistake... but it still made me feel good.

And then we threw it away.

lesson learned

I emailed some of you with little ones last week with a poll for tempra vs acrylic paint for small ceramic figurines for some surprise Xmas goodies for the grandparents. Baby picked out two very festive colors - royal blue and purple with glitter in it.

I rolled out some wrapping paper over the floor, changed us both into smocky-like clothes, handed her the toddler brush, and held my breath. She did so well... and we managed to get paint on every piece. I cleaned up and figured we'd do the next color the next night. She was excited, I was excited; it was fabulous.

The next morning I woke up and saw that you could hardly tell we painted them. They totally absorbed it so that the streaks of bright purple looked barely pink with a little glitter. Tempra paint was NOT the way to go (if you're thinking about a similar project, don't bother with it!)

So we were back to the drawing board... and her options changed to what acrylic colors I had in stock. She chose bright pink, lavender and UT orange. Over several sessions this weekend we at least have some of each color on each piece. We also experimented between using a bristle-ended toddler brush and the 1" foam sponge brush (I noticed very little difference between the two.).

In her infamous words, "Ta-da!"

She didn't eat that much paint, either - so that's good, too!

Speaking of eating, tonight we figured out that Baby really likes fried okra. She gets it honest.

voting on values

My work has a policy where you can take off to go vote, so I plan on leaving a little early this afternoon. This morning, while driving to day care, I was trying to decide if I wanted to take Baby with me or not. She’s at fantastic stage where she repeats the end of every phrase I say back to me. So the convo goes something like this:

Mommy: Baby, we need to talk about something important.

Baby: im-pah-tah

M: Today is an election day, which means we have to vote.

B: vote

M: That’s right. It’s our civic duty.

B: doo-dee, doo-dee, doo-dee

(etc)

I won’t give you the whole lecture, but I was trying to decide if I wanted to take her with me to vote. On one hand, she’s gone with me to every election where I’ve voted since she’s been born. And that is im-pah-tah. However, it’s not like she’s going to remember this; she won’t know if she misses one. But at the same time my parents did a really good job modeling this for us, and the nerd part of me wants to be able to tell her that she’s been to every election since she’s been born. It’s a conundrum. Do I push the longer drive and take her to vote in the afternoon when she's already fussy – or do I do it before I get her? In a moment of brilliance I just asked her…

M: Baby, do you want to go with Mommy to vote this afternoon?

B: No. No. No-no-no.

M: Well, that solves everything.

Except it doesn’t, really. Any time you ask her a direct question the answer is always no. The easy answer is obviously to vote before I get her because that would make my life much easier. But voting is a huge deal, not to be taken lightly… Can you really impress any character-building moments on a nineteen month old? It’s a quandary and I had the rest of the day to mull it over before I made an official decision.

Speaking of voting, I’m about sick of the robo-political calls. It’s like junk mail on your phone, and it really gags me. We had 4 msgs on our answering machine yesterday plus got 4 more yesterday evening after we were home, including one at 9pm. I wish that had been a real person because I would’ve gone off on them about how no candidate who claims to support family values could possibly think that calling a home that late on a school night was a good idea. But, alas, it was a robo call. The one before it at 8:30 was a real person from the “Junior Chamber of Commerce” – that was Steve, and I told Steve that we didn’t accept political calls after 8pm, that my husband and I would be voting tomorrow and to have a nice day before I hung up on him. … I think there should be an opt-out type of policy for people to get their numbers off of the political call list. Personally, I’d like this to be based on your voting record attendance. If you’ve voted in the last three elections, you’re exempt from getting the phone calls (unless, of course, you’d like to get them, in which case an automatic referral to mental health services could be started). That way you’re rewarding the people who vote anyway. Furthermore, I wouldn’t get the calls that way, and since it’s my scenario, I’m going to devise a plan where I don’t have to get them.

And that was the big dilemma of my day. I decided to take her with me. At day care when I picked her up the workers gave me the what-in-the-you-know-where-are-you-thinking look. They told me that on the news it said that it was taking people 15-30 minutes after they got their ballot to vote. I explained to them that I'd already gone through and knew for whom I was voting and what I was voting for each of the state questions.

I ignored their doubts and went with Baby on a leash. The very nice poll workers tried to give her a sticker, but she wasn't interested. I walked up to the fancy cardboard podiums, picked up the marker, pulled out my cheat sheet, and was done in about two minutes. Ta-da.

Most likely she won't remember any of this particular day at all, which is okay because we've got to start somewhere. If nothing else she'll learn that the "I Voted!" stickers are worth the wait to get them.

grand total: eight

So far we've had more spooks than ever and we're up to a whopping eight. Wouldn't you want to come to our house? We've got about twenty of these ghost milk cartons in the flower beds.

I was dressed as a cow walking around the front yard. I had a red glow stick around my neck and was wearing a cow bell (circa 1996 for the LCHS - Giles County "cowbell game"). One guy told me he could hear the cow bell a mile away... and I waved at every car I walked by.

Even then, people just walked past us. Seriously?

The Hater, who is way more into this than I am, was posed and ready on the porch:

He really wanted to scare kids. The first two kids who came up just laughed at him. The little girl dressed as a fairy told him, "You're not really that scary." I told him he was, indeed, scary. But, really, after a little girl laughs at you there's really not much redemption to be had.

Although one little boy was too afraid to take the candy from the bowl.

We're glad to have had eight kids... but we're still disappointed. The HOA acted like we should prepare for waves and waves of kids. We were worried that the one bag of candy wouldn't be enough. (So the two additional bags that I bought were pretty much not needed at all. This is best for the kids who have come because they've all gotten huge handfuls of candy.)

Baby slept through all of this fun. She couldn't help it because we've had a huge day. We started out at the zoo. We were adventurous and did parts of the zoo we've not done before... which yielded in getting up close and personal with a white-tail deer, an ostrich, and bears. She loved it and we captured some FANTASTIC pictures, not to mention found a few more areas where we can let her run without worry. Great trip - the family zoo pass really is one of the smartest things we've done.

Oh, let me mention that Baby wore her skeleton sweatsuit to the zoo. I had on my Ghostbuster shirt. We're embracing the holiday spirit.

We came home after the zoo for a much-needed nap, but woke her up a little bit early so we could put the fairy costume on her and take her to the mall to trick-or-treat. She loved it. It didn't take long at all for her to figure out that people were giving her things to put into her plastic jack-o-lantern. She really liked it when they handed her the candy and she put it in the pail herself. We spooked the entire mall and she walked most of it. There were hundreds of kids in costume; all three of us had fun. We took her to the petri dish to play, but there were too many bigger kids playing rough, so we didn't stay long. We did, however, discover the escalators at Macy's and spent about twenty minutes going up and down, up and down, up and down.

She's been in a fabulous mood, despite our all-day adventures. Tomorrow will be easier because our plans focus on going to church, then spending the rest of the day being low key and doing laundry. Good times.

And now I'd like to report that we're up to 10 spooks! Double digits. This is the big time.

another fun day

Baby's congestion is getting better, and with that she's also been letting us sleep later than 5am. And let me tell you, that wake up call was getting OLD. The last two days she's not gotten up until 6:20-6:30am, which means The Hater has gotten to sleep later. It's amazing how much better you feel when you get a better night's rest.

While he entertained her I finished my shower and getting ready, at least partially. He handed her off and I prepared baby cereal and fruit while he went back to bed to catch fifteen more minutes of shut-eye. He jumped in the shower while we ate our bites (breakfast at 7am). When he finished we handed her off again and I finished my makeup and dressed.

In a whirlwind we changed her, packed the car, and headed out for fall pictures. We had so much fun. We started out in costume, then played on the playground. Baby was bummed when we left the playground, so the great ideas of posing next to the first letter of our last name just didn't work out. However, the chocolate ice cream DID work out. (What one year old is going to turn down their nose to ice cream?) My cousin had some ice cream pictures earlier this summer and we loved the concept. By the time we were done Baby had ice cream and sprinkles just about everywhere. It was a great day with perfect cloud cover -- a little wind, but when isn't it windy in Uglyhoma? Our favorite photographer made it fabulous - and it'll be a tough decision to pick which one will be our Xmas card picture.

After all of that sugar we took Baby to Pet Smart. I'd read that they were having a huge adoption weekend and were hoping to get a ton of animals adopted. They had tents set up in the parking lot and she had a ball running around looking at and petting all of the doggies in the cages. And the kittys in the trailors. She had her leash - doggies had their leashes - it was a great way to run off some extra sugar-induced energy.

From there we went to TGIFridays (lunch at 11am) and the guy who sat us was not very nice. I really like their pecan-crusted chicken salad. The lettuce is shredded, the dried cranberries and pieces of mandarin oranges make me happy, the chicken is yummy - it's great. But it's huge, so I have leftovers in the fridge. The Hater got a sandwich that he said was a disappointment. Baby ate mandarin oranges and a little bit of cheese pizza. By the end of the meal the sugar had worn off and she was tired.

She fell asleep on the way home. It was simple getting her changed and put down. By the time I had her down The Hater had brought in all of the things to put away. Once that was done I laid down to enjoy her nap, too. She slept for about 3 wonderfully magical hours. It was fabulous. The Hater brought her in to see me after she woke up. I pretended to be asleep, and she climbed over my shoulder and started kissing me. It was super sweet.

We played and split a huge apple for a snack. The Hater went out to get a few last minute groceries (milk). Baby and I stayed home and played and read stories.

Supper at 5pm. We played for a little while outside (with bubbles!) while The Hater grilled burgers for us to eat when the work week starts back. Baby and I ran around the yard, then came inside for a bath (with bubbles!). The big decision after that was to wear the horse pajamas or the Dora pajamas. The horse won out this time.

She's not nearly as fussy with the lotion as she used to be. Usually if I hand her a book she's great. I have most of these memorized, so I recited it and she turned the pages while we were lotioning. (Incidentally, The Nose Book won out over The Foot Book tonight.) Her new thing is to pull her feet up and try to put her toes in the book after we've "read" it a few times.

Tooth brushing was easy. I gave her the regular toddler-sized toothbrush and one of her stuffed animals to brush their teeth while I used the silicone tooth-brusher over my finger with baby toothpaste to brush hers while she's still on the changing table. It works for us. I sing the broadway hit toothbrush song (to the tune of For She's a Jolly Good Fellow) while we brush: "We brush our teeth in the evening. We brush our teeth in the evening. We brush our teeth in the evening. We do it every day. // We do it every day. We do it every day. We brush our teeth in the evening. We brush our teeth in the evening. We brush our teeth in the evening. We do it every day!" (Don't you wish someone sang the brushing song when you brushed your teeth?!) (In the mornings we sing the same song, except substitute morning for evening.)

Because we played outside we didn't have much time to play after we had her ready for bed. We sat down and read our usual four night-night stories. After the last one, per her usual routine, she slid off of the couch, said "night night!", and walked to the kitchen where we give her teething tabs and milk. We also give kisses in the kitchen. Then I took her to her room and rocked her while I sang the night-night song. When the song is over I say "night-night", turn on the sound machine, and lay her down in the crib. She said "night-night" as I hand her the baby she sleeps with and cover her back with the buh-buh that Nana made her. I turned on her sound machine to 45 minutes of the ocean and snuck out of her room.

We know that we're fortunate that for now our bedtime routine is easy.

Now we're watching football. We're cheering for our Vols and are excited at how well they've played in the first half. It's halftime now, so we're hopeful that they'll come back out and continue to play well... but historically our 2nd half isn't very good, so I'm nervous. We're also cheering for Mizzou to beat Zero-U.

The cat is cuddled to my left. My arm is warm from her love.

It's been a great day.