Please When You Want It

Alexis has really mastered this whole sign language thing. Our daycare, unfortunately, doesn't have any ASL certified teachers. So day in and day out, Alexis tells them all kinds of useful information and they completely miss it. Some teachers make it a point to ask me to try to interpret because they really want to understand, but it wasn't until recently that we really made any headway. And it was all because I demand a little manners around here.

About a month ago, I started to require Alexis to say "please" and "thank you." She can be as bossy and mean as she wants to be, just as long as she's polite at the same time. So I taught all the teachers at daycare "please" and "thank you" and told them to start some enforcement. They obliged, and while they were at it, they taught ALL the kids to sign "please" and "thank you". So now they have 20 toddlers that have more manners than most adults. This afternoon, when I picked up Alexis, about six of them showed me "thank you" all together. And Daddy says I can't make everybody do things my way.

I'm pretty sure the baby sleep police would have a heart attack over this, but Alexis sleeps with stuffed animals every night. There are three that live in her crib. As of late, glow-bear has been the star of the show.

Seriously, I Need to Win this One

This is officially turning into a real problem for me. Now that baseball season has ended (What's that? No, no, no, it IS over. Here's proof.), I NEED to listen to ESPN Radio. And Miss Thing will not let me. Today I wanted to here the details of Troy's contract and all about the rigors of 35 Steelers running 110 yard sprints and Alexis would not let me. At all. Ideas? Anyone?

Oops!

In my quest to create a child that cleans up after herself, I think I may have inadvertantly created a monster. A "the world revolves around me, therefore, you shall applaud every move I make" monster. This is just one link in a very long chain of recurrences . . .

Earlier today Alexis decided it would be a great idea to dump every wood block she has all over the living room floor. The box claimed there were 103 inside, but by the time she was done kicking and throwing them, I'm pretty sure there were at least 10,003 scattered all over the place. I'm sick cleaning up after other people, so I sat down with Alexis and held the bag while she put them away. After each and every block made its way into the bag, all persons in attendance had to stop what they were doing, applaud, and say "Yay!" And you had better say it with some enthusiasm or she would stop for a few minutes and stare at you with her piercing eyes, as if to say "HELLO, did you not just see how awesome I am? Bow down and behold my majesty". This went on, one painful block at a time, for what had to be six hours. And when she FINALLY got to the last one, she fully expected the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders to do a routine, a parade to be held in her honor, and a 20-minute fireworks show. We might need to work on that humility thing at some point.