Wanted: The Boy

For as long as I've lived in Pittsburgh (eight years), I've wanted to do the Just Ducky tour thing. If you aren't so fortunate to live near the fabulousness that is The Burgh, Just Ducky tours are this WAY fun looking thing where you ride around in a World War II amphibious vehicle, traversing across land and water as you see the sights and do lots of quacking. I can't really say that it's so much about seeing the sights for me as it is having an excuse to quack at random pedestrians as you ride around in a vehicle that is built for war. OK, so really I just want to quack at people without having them try to commit me to a mental hospital.

Anyway.

With the grandparents coming to town, I figured I might FINALLY get my chance at a little quack action. Mr. Husband not only looks grumpy all the time, he IS grumpy all the time and thinks quacking at people is just plain silly. I know, he's weird like that. But, when out-of-towners head our way, we always try to do a few "local" things like go to a museum or two or five, eat at a few restaurants that are unique to Pittsburgh, and generally do things that our guests can't do back at home. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the grandparents would want to do a Just Ducky tour, so I set it up.

I woke up this morning all sorts of excited because it was Quack Day. I picked out my best quacking clothes, made sure The Toddler was adequately trained to contribute to the quacking, and mentally prepared myself to quack like no woman has ever quacked before. This day was eight years in the making, and I planned to enjoy every second of the quackiness.

And then the monsoon hit.

No, really, it was a monsoon in Pittsburgh.

A couple of hours before our quacky departure, it started to rain. And rain. And pour. It was raining cats and dogs AND ferrets AND sheep AND even elephants. It was raining HAAAAARD.

No quacking for me. :-(

The rained out quack-a-thon left us scrambling to figure out alternate plans. You know what? Nothing says "local" and "Pittsburgh" and "PERFECT!" like Chuck E. Cheese. So that's what we did. We went to Chuck E. Cheese and spent about a quazillion tokens so The Toddler could get a Wonderful! Fabulous! Fantastic! prize valued at . . . $1.00. Maybe $1.05.

(For the record, that was more Mr. Husband than me. The man walked in, bought the quazillion tokens, then handed me about a dozen of them. He could hardly lift his little token cup he had so many, and he fully intended to Play! Play! Play! all in the name of procuring The Toddler a dream toy. I quacked his head off, so he ended up sharing a little more fairly.)

Towards the end of our grown-up play date, The Toddler finally discovered the giant hamster cage and went all sorts of crazy climbing up in those tubes and slinking her way all around the place. Along the way she met The Boy. He couldn't have been more than four years old. He was probably about 40 inches tall, had light-colored hair, and was a scrawny little thing. (The physical description will become important soon, I promise.)

The Toddler and The Boy instantly bonded and became great friends. They followed each other around all over the hamster tubes, crossing back and forth in the maze, chatting along the way. At one point, they settled into one of the cars that hung at the end of a tube path and sat down for a nice long chat. I didn't actually see them settle for a spell in the car, but it was called to my attention by Daddy O' Mr. Husband who so kindly pointed out that our dear sweet daughter was PARKED WITH A BOY. I shrugged it off with a little smirk since they were just sitting in that car, chatting and giggling and having a great old time. Like kids should.

It wasn't until later that The Toddler gave us the low down of the details of her time with The Boy. As we were driving away from Chuck E. Cheese, she said, "I got kiss at Shucky Cheese."

"You got a kiss at Chuck E. Cheese?" I asked in my best Clint Eastwood make.my.day sort of voice.

"Yes, I got kiss. I got hug at Shucky Cheese, too!"

There's a warrant out for the arrest of that 40 inches tall, light-haired boy. Just bring him straight to me.

You Would Think

You would think that after two days of having the grandparents in town, I would have something blog-worthy. Add in the fact that in that time span we have ridden on a very large boat AND gone to the Zoo and you would think SURELY something funny or interesting must have happened.

Not so much.

Other than the fact that the Toddler acted like she would surely die right there, at that very moment, any time someone looked at her for the first little bit that her grandparents were in town, there has been nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Since the Toddler got over her allergy to family members pretty quickly the first full day they were in town, I got nothing.

Nothing.

Wait! Well, um, she did wake up grumpy from her nap today! Oh yeah, she's two. Two-year olds do that sometimes (32-year olds do, too).

Back at nothing.

How about photos from the boat ride? Yup, we'll go with that.

(Note to Alexis: Next time throw something valuable into the water, dance the macarena on the table, or scream some obscenities at the top of your lungs so I've got something to write about, mmkay?)

It's a Tradition and Stuff

Once upon a time, there was a photographer who gave me what I thought were very wise nuggets of wisdom. He said that I should be sure to get portraits of The Toddler taken at 18 months of age because once she turned two, she would no longer be game for portrait taking festivities. I took his nuggets of wisdom to heart and made sure I got those 18-month portraits.

They were HELL.

HELL.

The Toddler wouldn't pose, she wouldn't sit, she wouldn't stand, she wouldn't anything. The only reason any portraits were purchased that day was because somewhere along the line, it became fun to play peek-a-boo by running around and around and around the background. That game of peek-a-boo required that I run around and around and around the background chasing The Toddler and that the photographer manage to snap a photo at exactly the right moment so as to avoid images of my booty jiggling as it chased a short somebody with an unbelievable amount of energy. Somehow, the portrait session was a success, although I nearly passed out from exhaustion right in the middle of the store.

The things we do to capture memories.

That portrait session was so bad that I didn't take The Toddler back again until around her second birthday. Considering that for her first year I took her monthly, that was quite the change in operations.

For her two-year portraits, I thought it would be wise to bring Mr. Husband along so that I could have a second parental unit helping to keep things under control. That didn't quite work out as expected. We'll just say it was an instance where Mommy's devil horns were in full display while Daddy stood around saying, "Do whatever you want, honey!" Looking back, it's not terribly surprising that things unfolded that way.

That brings us up to a few days ago.

I pulled into the driveway and realized the Shasta Daisies were in full bloom. I LURVE Shasta Daisies. I LURVE to pick Shasta Daisies and take them to Picture People for portraits with the kid. In fact, I had done it two years running. See:

Six-month portraits:

(Channeling her inner Jennifer Aniston.)

(Baby booties are the best!)

(She spent the entire portrait session eating flowers. It was fabulous.)

18-month portraits:

(Running.)

(Still running.)

(She looked at the camera? GOOD ENOUGH.)

OF COURSE I had to do it again. So, I picked out a white dress for The Toddler, picked a few dozen daisies, and drug our booties over to South Hills Village Mall fully expecting to be tortured for an hour.

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THE KID IS WILLING TO HAVE HER PORTRAIT TAKEN NOW?

She sat. She posed. She smiled. She laughed. She made it REALLY FREAKIN' HARD to pick out just a couple of photos.

That moron that told me to make sure I got 18-month portraits because Two wouldn't be happening? Needs clubbed with a 2x4.