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.

Time Will Tell

We made another trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo today. And let me just tell you, Alexis was in a FOUL mood. We didn't stay long because of it. And as we were leaving an event occurred that will either lead to a funny little story or will lead to a life long tale of woe. I won't know how the story ends until next Friday, so you'll have to wait to hear it. But if you could do me a little favor, please cross your fingers for a happy ending. Pretty please?

MUCH better:

Any guesses at who bought Alexis that swimsuit? Hint: Could it possibly cover any more skin? I mean, it's practically a turtleneck. She learns fast, though, she started hiking her nearly knee length shorts up just as soon as Daddy was out of sight.

Pirates are for Kicking, Boys are for Kissing

Alexis and I are traumatized. Severely traumatized. I had a ticket to go to the Pirates game tonight as part of a work function. The plan was that Daddy was going to hang out with Alexis at home while I went, but then he got stuck at work until 8:30. So she went with me.

Alexis' trauma came in the form of a 7-foot tall nasty looking pirate thing. For whatever reason, the Bucs have two mascots. The Parrot is cool, the other one is frightening. Actually, make that he's Frightening with a capital "F." Not only that, but his body is possessed by a moron. Picture if you will, a content one-year old lounging in her Mom's arms. Then picture what would happen if a dummy in an enormous, gaudy costume suddenly ran up and started tickling that one-year old. Shrieks of laughter? Shrieks of terror? Shrieks of "you moron, don't touch my kid?" Let's just say there was no laughter.

My trauma came in the form of about two dozen serious make out sessions between Alexis and my friend's one-year old, Peyton. It started out with Peyton just kissing everyone, but Alexis decided she LIKED the kisses and the two of them spent the rest of the evening pretty much acting like a couple of teenagers. I have never seen so much tongue action. So I guess that "you're not dating until you're 35" thing isn't going so well.

Here are the lovebirds in action. The captions just sort of write themselves.