Thank You, Mother Nature

It's days like today when I most remember that I am extremely fortunate to work just a few miles from our house and daycare. Despite needing to put in a ton of extra hours as of late, I've been able to pick Alexis up from daycare in time to still enjoy 30 minutes or so of time with just me and her. We haven't been able to do much fun for a while because the weather has sucky suck sucked, but today the weather was spectacular. I snagged her little behind from school and headed straight to the park.

57 degrees + swings + a slide = A very happy kid. And lots of good photos.

(More over at flickr.)

And now I'm going to work on blocking the memory of a certain short person having a heart attack when it came time for us to leave. I need to not remember the kicking, screaming, and all out fit.

Good things there are no photos of that.

Outwitted. Again.

Alexis has been obsessed with running her fingers through my hair her entire short life. For whatever reason, twirling her chubby little fingers through my locks soothes her when she's upset, and it seems to be an unconscious habit that she does every single chance she gets. If I pick her up, her hand automatically makes its way to my hair and begins twisting, and turning, and flipping, and usually pulling.

It's when things escalate to pulling that I start to get annoyed. It's sweet that she lurves me so much, but there are only so many times that I can handle her ripping my hair out of my head before I blow my top. People, she has given me bald spots before. It's only cool if I don't start walking around like Britney Spears on a head-shaving bender.

Lately I've been trying to warn Alexis to knock it off with the hair twirling before I reach that point of being super-annoyed enough to chew the head off something. Snapping at her doesn't do anything to stop the behavior since it just upsets her, and then I end up trying to console her. Consoling her involves fingers in my hair, so it's a vicious, unproductive cycle. I've been trying REALLY hard to warn her to quit well before I'm going to get annoyed.

Last night Alexis was sitting on the couch with me, one hand twisting through my hair, the other hand tightly clutching a cookie. I felt my blood start to warm up, so I told Alexis to stop pulling my hair. She did for a very brief moment, but then went back to it. So, I told her to quit again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

By then I was REALLY annoyed, so I told her she quit immediately or I was taking her cookie. She quickly yanked her hand out of my hair.

She paused for a moment, glancing at her cookie, and then quickly shoved the whole dang thing in her mouth before clutching another fistful of hair in her chubby little hands.

Lesson learned. If you are going to threaten to take something away, make sure it isn't edible.

The Glamorous Life of a Disney Princess

I didn't have Barbies growing up. Nor did I care. I wouldn't have known what to do with them, other than to rip off their heads and throw them in the back of the closet. That's what tomboys do, you know.

You would think that the resident girlie girl would know what to do with them. She wanted them. I found a set of 6 on clearance at Target for $17, so she got them. And yet, the only thing they ever do is sleep. Face down. On the floor.

They might have been better off in a tomboys house.