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Thursday
Aug072008

Just One of the Days I Want to Keep Forever

I wish there were a way to bottle up an evening. I want to be able to carefully tuck this evening into a little glass bottle, place it on a high shelf behind some books, and save it forever. I would take that bottle down from time-to-time, touch it, peer at it, maybe listen in for a few minutes. Then I would smile before returning the bottle to its home on that shelf, until the next time I needed a little pick-me-up.

Tonight wasn't an exciting evening. Just our usual dinner, 9-mile bike ride, and tucking in the Toddler, but during the drive back from the bike trail, Alexis and I had so. much. fun. Mundane fun, but fun. It started when I pretended to be asleep and snored really loudly. Alexis said, "Wake up!" so I pretended to wake up with a bit of an exaggerated flourish and a "What? Huh?" Alexis nearly passed out laughing when I did it, so I "went back to sleep." Lather, rinse, repeat. Over and over, each time just as funny as the time before. She laughed huge belly laughs that would light up Times Square, if only laughs could be converted to power like they were at the end of Monsters, Inc.

Nothing that interesting, but absolutely something that would be worth living over and over. Here's to hoping that paragraph will be enough to give me that little energy boost the next time I need it.

If not, this picture probably will.

(The answer was peanut butter and jelly. Next time? It won't be so easy.)

Wednesday
Aug062008

Move Over Warhol, Here Comes the Toddler

For as long as the kid has been able to hold a crayon, Alexis has loved all things artsy. She will color with crayons for hours, nearly passes out from the happy, happy! joy, joy! when I let her paint, and has realized that chalk is a blast when you take it out of your mouth and use it to deface the neighbor's driveway. Her craft table is easily the best investment we ever made. Because she sits at it every. single. day, I pretty much don't even mind that it's right smack in the middle of our living room. I'd be willing to strap that thing to my head if I had to because it gives me the opportunity to occasionally vacuum and maybe reheat leftovers from last month cook.

Seriously. Best purchase ever. (And, yes, we really did get it from One Step Ahead, despite my strong opinion that they profit unnecessarily from New Parent Stupid. Mir posted about the table when it was less than 30% of what we had seen it for at the mall and on Amazon. It was a no-brainer.)

Recently we have moved into a new phase in the artsy fartsy realm--the Toddler is drawing items from her life. She has drawn mommy, daddy, Meg, Jasmine, kitties, houses, rainbows, and even baby sisters (*LA LA LA I am oblivious to your blatant hints, Alexis LA LA LA*). She declares what she is going to draw, draws it, then repeatedly makes you look at whatever it is that she drew. The whole thing kind of makes me a little melty.

Yesterday she painted these two images:


They are apparently of the exact same thing. Yeah, so I'm not really seeing it. However, the Toddler is animate about what is depicted and made it a point to show Mr. Husband that she had drawn *blank blank blank blank*. There's nothing in it for you other than the joy of knowing that you think like a 2 1/2 year old, but wanna guess what it is?

Your hints:

* Some people eat it
* Some people make it while others (i.e. lazy people) go the frozen route
* One of my favoritest lurkers has a dog named after one of the words. She is married to someone who is entirely too nice at all the wrong times.
* You can't have one without the other
* blank blank blank blank

Tuesday
Aug052008

Her Shoe Closet is Already Bigger than Mine

I mentioned in passing that one of the requirements of a Girls Day Out with Alexis is a stop at the shoe store. The past Saturday, unfortunately, I held to that requirement. I should know better.

As we were traveling out and about, one of my missions was to stop at a particular Gap. It's time to start combing the clearance racks for fall clothes and the Gap at the Waterfront in Pittsburgh is usually the best for finding lots of good girls' stuff marked down to nothing. Unfortunately, we girls were a bit overzealous in some of our other shopping and ended up not being able to fall into the Gap until about 8:30.

You would think that by 8:30, the Toddler would be starting to drag. I mean, her tiny little legs had carried her all over the place, usually jumping the whole way since she seems to have sprouted a Tigger *bounce, bounce, bounce* complex lately. But no, she was all systems go when I pulled into the only parking space at the Waterfront, the one right in front of a shoe store. That was my first mistake. Never park in front of a shoe store if Alexis is with you, unless you have a few hours to spare.

The second she saw the store, she was all, "I try on shoes." I was all, "Let's not." Yeah, cause that works. So in we went and she darted her way back to the rear of the store. Apparently we're in shoes stores too much because she knows that is where the Dora shoes are. She instantly found a pair of tacky tennis shoes sporting the Latina Whore and plopped her hiney down on a bench to try them on. Then she darted off to find some Diego shoes, plopped her hiney down, and tried them on. Next was the Tinkerbell shoes. Then was the hooker boots. She tried on Crocs. She tried on light-up shoes. She tried on sandals. There were boys shoes. There were girls shoes. There were my shoes. There were shoes. Lots and lots of shoes.

About twenty minutes into shoe-a-palooza, I started to lose my cool. I tried convincing the kid that there was no point in trying on a particular pair. "They're too big" I said. "No, they're not," she replied, despite the fact that Kareem Abdul Jabar would obviously have better luck walking in the pair she had at the time. I tried telling her a pair was too small. "No, they're not," she replied in a tone that implied that I was the biggest moron of all time.

If I could have just laid down on the bench and taken a nap while she tried on every pair of shoes in the place, we would have been fine. As it was, I just stayed awake. And snippy. Alexis was oblivious to my commentary since she was in Shoe Heaven, but I'm sure the women perusing the nearby clearance shoes thought I was awful. I wanted to say, "Yeah well, you try raising Imelda Marcos and see how much you love hanging out in shoe stores," but I just kept quiet through the glares.

Finally, at 9:15, I ended up dragging the Shoe Princess out of the store, kicking and screaming. Thank goodness for the fit she threw, though, because when we dashed over to the Gap and she neededwantedhadtohave a pair of pink flip-flops? I at least had a semi-valid excuse to shoot her down.

For what it's worth, I wear three pairs of shoes. Total. I wear one pair of black semi-dressy shoes 90% of the time, with the very occasional need for tennis shoes or sandals. I am NOT a shoe whore.

So how is it that I'm raising one?

BTW, I'm raising a shoe whore who LOVES her frog boots and is very capable of striking a pose while wearing them.