A Painful Sacrifice

Dear Alexis,

By the time you are old enough to read all this, you will most certainly already know this, but I hate Mornings. Like, HATE them. If I had my way, the day wouldn't start until double digits. Even then, I would much rather have a coffee enema while having my nose hairs plucked out one-by-one that have to face the day before lunch. Mornings and me? Not on friendly terms. At all.

Sadly, I am forced to co-exist with my enemy Mornings. Being an adult comes with sometimes doing things you don't like, so I wake up at 6:30 every day and tolerate Mornings. Recently, however, I have taken things a step further. I've been getting up an EXTRA 15 minutes early. For you. Just for you.

See, it recently started snowing again, and you, YOU are in love. Nothing makes you quite as happy as sticking your tongue out like a landing strip for snow flakes as you weave an intricate recreation of Swan Lake in the yard. It pleases you immensely, and I would happily let you play outside all evening long, but my other enemy Daylight Savings Time means it is dark by the time we get home. So, if you want to play in the snow and actually SEE the flakes, it's got to be in the AM. Before work. Early. I have to get up earlier so you can play in the snow.

I only mention this because there will be a day when you are trying to decide between the nursing home that promises to wipe my butt hourly and one who promises to do it every four hours. Pick the one-hour service, please. It will make me happy. Not as happy as snow makes you, but still.

Love,
The Woman Who Loves Snow Just as Much as You Do

Signs of Trickery

For an entire week I have had a little comment from another mom at gymnastics classes under my skin. It's been sitting there fermenting, perplexing me, leaving me wondering. It wasn't anything mean, in fact, it was sort of a compliment. It was, in many ways, a compliment of the highest order, but it seemed like such a lie. SURELY, it couldn't be true.

The mom had told me, "It's so amazing how well Alexis listens."

I am certainly Alexis' biggest fan, but I'm not blind to the fact that she's two and certainly not the best-behaved two-year old who ever lived. I don't drug her nearly enough to achieve that level. As for listening skills? I'd probably give her a C+. Some days she's really good about doing what I ask, other days she acts like I am a moron from the plant Snurp.

Tonight as Alexis was wandering away from the group during gymnastics, I suddenly figured out how it was that we had so totally fooled that mom. I should have realized it sooner, but I guess it's just second nature. As Alexis started wandering and acting a fool, instead of yelling or going over to her, I signed, "Come play here, please."

And she did.

Because she always follows signed requests. I don't know why, but she doesn't think you can argue with sign language.

I wish I had realized this sooner; there is a whole world of fun I can have with a kid who knows 300+ signs and will take all of them as Fact.

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Just in case you haven't been around for eons, we started teaching Alexis sign language when she was about six months old. We used DVDs from Signing Time and watch the videos with her so that we can learn the signs as she learns them. I entirely credit them for her starting to talk really early, as the reason that her vocabulary is still pretty advanced for her age, and the reason she's already starting to read a tiny bit. Right now we're all about Baby Signing Time #4, which is good because now she'll know the signs for "clean." You better believe I plan to make good use of that.

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I'm also over here tonight with my thank you to PittGirl.

Celebrate!

We were duped. DUPED. When we first brought Cody home, he was all sorts of angelic. He displayed absolutely zero annoying puppy behaviors. No chewing. No destruction. Heck, he came mostly paper-trained, so it's not like even the whole housebreaking thing was all that bad. For a week we marveled at his extreme tolerance for all sorts of torture, the way he didn't seem to care to chew on anything except food, how he really wasn't even interested in toys, and his total and complete lack of a Care Face. He was soooo chill. For a week.

I guess he thought he came with some sort of 7-day return policy because on day 8 BAM! There's the puppy! In the span of twenty minutes that I spent trying to put garland on the Christmas tree today(don't even start mocking me for that--Christmas is only 36 or so days away), I do believe I yelled at him 14,251 times.

"Cody, let go of the garland."

"Cody, quit eating the snowflake."

"Cody, put down the paper."

"Cody, quit pulling on my sweater."

"Cody, leave the tree alone."

"Cody, stop chasing the cat."

"Cody, let go of the garland."

Lather, rinse, repeat. Over and over and over and over. I would no more than spit out one command and he would have already moved on to the next object of his affection, weaving a path of destruction all throughout the house.

The split seconds of silence were filled with yet another . . . ummmm . . . challenge. Yeah, "challenge." It seems that there was a pop quiz scheduled for tonight. The 18,450 questions weren't all that difficult, just . . . "challenging."

"Momma, what you doing?"

"Momma, where's Cody?"

"Momma, what's that?

"Momma, what you doing?"

"Momma, where's Jasmine?" (Yeah, we still get that question, and we still like it about as much as we would like to be stabbed in the gut with a knife.)

"Momma, can I have crackers please?"

"Momma, what you doing?"

"Momma, why you doing that?"

Of course I had an answer for all the questions, but that doesn't mean I was all that interested in answering them. Over and over and over again. While trying to keep an eye on Destructo-Pup.

Just as Massive Brain Explosion was about to set in, Alexis decided the pop quiz was over and broke into song. The kid pretty much always has her mouth open, either talking or singing, and has been known to sing songs that I know she didn't hear in my car. For example, daycare loves to let the kids groove to oldies like KC and the Sunshine Band. Yet, I was still surprised to hear the new tune she belted out. As she sang, "Cele-brate dot com, c'mon! Cele-brate dot com, c'mon!" I totally forgot about the Duper Puppy and the Pop Quiz.

Celebrate dot com, indeed.