Children's Museum and other Frivolities...

This week Maggie attended her first major league baseball game. And promptly left after about three innings. Note to all those baseball fan parents out there - don't take a toddler to a major league baseball game. It's just a bad idea. It's dirty, it's cramped, it's loud, and it's boring. AND your kid may end up with a stomach flu 24 hours later, inexplicably, unless you blame the fact that she insisted on sitting on the concrete floor of your box seats, with the peanut shells and other grime. Ugh.

Any-hoo... in addition to first baseball game this week, Maggie got to experience her first ride on public transportation (the "L") and her first visit to the Children's Museum at Navy Pier.

I love that Children's Museum, they do a really good job of making the exhibits interactive for kids of all ages. I had to drag Maggie away from many exhibits (a few pictures follow, natch) HOWEVER, next time I go to the museum I will call first and ask how many school groups they are expecting because DAMN! Other people's kids are sooooo obnoxious! I mean, you know something is out of whack when the care-givers lack the self confidence to stand up to a four year old. On this particular day a whole army of pre-schoolers in purple t-shirts ran rough-shod all over that place and twice I had to tell a purple marauder to get the hell away from my kid. What did their "teacher" do? Nada. Thanks for the help lady.

So this experience got me wondering about the affect of the group on the individual, because I have to hope that most of these kids do not behave like this with their parents, and if they do they must get disciplined in some way, right? So does coming together as a herd and dressing alike, with the promise of "field trip!" looming before you, suddenly turn kids into creepy little brats worthy of a Stephen King novel? It's the only explanation. I really hope I'm raising a thoughtful, helpful, and respectful child, and I really hope she doesn't mind having the mom that volunteers to chaperon ALL the field trips.

Michigan Pictures

A few of the best pics from this past weekend. We all had a wonderful visit! Thanks for having us Gigi and Grandpa!

The Car is Hell

This past weekend we took a trip to visit the Michigan grandparents - a five hour drive one way. Maggie is 17 months old. And I have approximately 17 reasons why taking a toddler on a five hour car ride is a bad idea.

1. 17 month olds wear diapers. While crazy lady astronuts in Texas may enjoy sitting in their own pee-pee for a nice long ride across state lines, not a good decision for anyone that wants to keep their toddlers tush from turning the color of a strawberry.

2. 17 month olds get bored quickly. Hey Maggie, look at this book, then look at this see-and-say, then look at this dolly, then look at this plastic-do-hickey, then look at the owners manual of the car, then look at this bag of ketchup from the drive thru, then look at mamas cell phone, etc, etc, etc.

3. 17 month olds cry. And now they are old enough to know what they are crying about, so they can make it especially distracting and life-threateningly loud.

4. 17 month olds get hungry. Often. Goldfish, sippy cup, pretzels, chicken nuggets, banana, don't be surprised if you get in my car two months from now and say, "What is that smell", and I pull out a half eaten cup of Dora the Explorer yogurt from beneath your seat.

5. Post trip baby diarrhea. Ew.

6. "Uh oh!" I dropped my binky! "Uh oh!" I dropped my binky again! "Uh oh!" Again! Uh oh! (you get the picture)

7. When you have a toddler in the back seat trying to figure out how to undo her car seat straps, hitting traffic in the last hour of the trip feels like your dog just died.

8. Hour one.

9. Hour two.

10. Hour three.

11. Hour four.

12. Hour five.

13. Can my kid catch many diseases from dirty Wendy's highchairs? How many, and are they curable?

14. Please GOD no detours!

15. Please GOD no more verses of "Wheels on the Bus"

16. What kind of moron puts a deadline on a car trip with a child? THIS moron, that's who! (pick up the dogs from the kennel by 5pm or it will cost you an extra fifty bucks)

17. 3 hours of peek-a-boo in the back seat. The game that never gets old... to a toddler.

We will never, ever again... yeah right, we're doing it again Labor Day weekend.

(we love you Grandparents, can't you move closer?) :)

In need of a little extra comfort...

Maggie put on her 'jammies early tonight and got to come back downstairs to hang out for a while. BUT she would not leave her room unless all of her comfort items came with her. Can you count how many lovies you see here? One, two, three... plus one blankie, one pacifier (a second on the floor out of frame), one cup of milk, and two of her best stuffed animals (coincidentally both of these dolls are Grandpa related - one from Grandpa J and the other Grandpa G). I guess someone just needed a little extra comfort tonight.

Her Favorite Sweater

Maggie has shown us her many favorites lately. Her favorite marker, her favorite food, her favorite toy, her favorite dolly. She even has a favorite sweater. Many of these items were gifts given at one event or another (baby shower, birthday, etc.) and subsequently many of them I have a difficult time attributing to a specific gift giver. However, I'm pretty sure I remember this sweater correctly, and I thought it might be nice to let the gift giver know how AWESOME we think it is! If I'm remembering correctly, it's homemade, which makes it unique just like my girl, and was given to Maggie by my best friend and her mother Linda (the maker). Becky, is that correct?
Maggie absolutely adores this sweater and it often has to be wrestled away from her - I'm sorry sweetie, but it's 95 degrees out and too hot for a wool sweater! She gets complements all the time about how cute she looks in this cute sweater ("where did you get that sweater? It's so nice!").

Thanks Becky and Linda! And if by some chance I got this one wrong and the real maker of the awesome sweater is reading... thank you instead!

Cousins

A few pics from last weekend babysitting:
Who needs San Francisco when you can visit the Golden Goat Bridge just minutes from home!

Maggie's first goat-feeding experience.

Two squirrels in a tree.

Granpa and Girlie.

Two prisoners.

Two Vegetarians in this Family

Unfortunately for all those cows out there, the vegetarians in this house are the dogs not the humans. Did I ever tell you my dogs are vegetarians? Um yeah, after years and years and hundreds of dollars spent trying to figure out what the HELL this dumb dog is allergic to that makes him gnaw his feet off and sprout little red welts all over this big dumb dog belly, we have discovered that cheap-ass Beneful made with soy protein is the winner winner chicken (soy) dinner. My dog is allergic to meat. Seriously? Is he really even a dog? Maybe he's a sheep or something and just looks rather dog like. Sheep are herbivores right? He's about as dumb as a sheep so this is a actually a pretty good theory. Baa-ram-ewe! To your breed, your fleece, your clan be true! Sheep be true! Baa-ram-ewe!

Stupid dog.

Frustration

Jason has a very peculiar way of teaching Maggie how to deal with her frustration when she's fallen down, bumped her head, stubbed her toe or otherwise injured herself in any manner of ways. He grabs the crying baby up, then strikes the offending coffee table, toy box, or similar inanimate object and says, "BAD coffee table! Hurt baby!"

Now, I'm not sure how I feel about this one. In some ways I think it's good for her to have a way to voice her frustration that isn't continued crying, screaming and carrying on - and a way that very directly states what she is upset at. On the other hand, what do we do when she says "Bad Lily," and hits a playmate. We're going to wish we had never gone in this direction.

But it may be too late to debate this particular form of child rearing, today she showed me once again what a quick study she is. Her potty chair conveniently turns into a step stool up to the bathroom sink and after watching her older cousin use the step stool to wash his hands all weekend, that is ALL she wants to use it for. So today we went in there to "go potty", and as she tried to climb on top of the step stool she tripped and slid off, face planting into the towel cabinet. She wasn't hurt, but of course she was unhappy, "BAD POTTY!" she yelled, and slapped that potty chair as hard as she could.

One is like one and two is like ten...

And three is like the entire Hun army is rampaging through my living room! I'm sitting here wondering how everything got so damn sticky? That's a side effect I didn't anticipate.

My niece and nephew have been staying with us this weekend, and let me just start by saying I LOVE L-O-V-E LOVE my niece and nephew. But... oh. my. god. I am sooooo tired! Individually Maggie and her cousins are just dolls, but good god put them together and I think I've gone deaf and blind because it seems that one is talking to me and I have no idea what he's saying, and another is dancing on the coffee table and I have no idea how she got up there. The third, wait a minute, what happened to the third one?! (just kidding)

As tired as I am, and I mean so tired I think I'm going to postpone baby number 2 for at least a further six months, I can still find time to write just how awesome these kids are. Cousin E for example, has given me some of the best hugs ever in the past 24 hours, and watching her fall asleep in the crook of Uncle Jason's arm this morning was just priceless. And Cousin C, four year olds sure will keep you on your toes won't they. Watching him hold Maggie's hand to walk around the farm we visited today, and hearing him tell the girls "We're almost there Sweetie Pies!" on the way home... adorable!

But seriously, don't expect any happy pregnancy surprises before Christmas - we're delaying that particular grand idea until we can be sure the first one is capable of walking in a straight line first (how many times can a kid trip over her own two feet?).

I'm not cut out for manual labor.

Why is it that six years ago I decided to replant the backyard of the apartment I was renting - at my expense - and barely broke a sweat, and now I can't even pull up a few feet of grass in my front yard without feeling like I'm going to die? GAWD I feel so old! I mean C'MON! I should be able to lift a shovel more than 15 times without giving up to go in the house and have a glass of wine. Did I tell you that we had our front walk and steps replaced yesterday? Yeah, the new stamped concrete path looks super awesome, but now I have to clean up the space around the awesome path and make it look like five big, sweaty concrete guys didn't just trample all over it. Now I'm trying to pull out the grass around the path so I can plant a row of bushes, and each individual blade of grass has decided to stage a sit-in and chain themselves to the dirt. I'm the moron in her front yard at 7 o'clock at night using her rubber band muscles to jump up and down on a shovel, driving it a miraculous inch and a half into the earth before throwing down the shovel in disgust and crouching down with her ass in the air, while have the neighborhood drives by behind her, to pull out the renitent grass with her hands, the whole while muttering, "there must be some teenager out there I can pay to do this!!"

I Don't Care What You Think

Did you watch the Michael Jackson service yesterday? I don't care what you believe about that man, if you think he was a pervert, or an angel, I don't know how you could watch his little girl get up on that stage and not feel anything but sorrow for that family. Regardless of whatever he was to the rest of the world, he was her dad - and her dad died. What a terrible thing to happen to a child. If anything you must admit that Michael Jackson has contributed a great deal to our collective pop history. I'd like to think his daughter has contributed a lesson in compassion. Shame on you Rep. Peter King, trying to make a name for yourself by blasting a dead man. Hold your tounge! There are many everyday people that we may dislike or may have done us wrong, but would you stand in front of their family upon their passing and tell them what a horrible person you thought they were? I would hope not. If you believe in a higher power, isn't he/she supposed to work it out from here? If you believe this is it, then what difference does it make what you thought of that person while they were alive, they're gone now. If you believe you're more important than you actually are, then you're Rep. Peter King.

Way to go Clutz.

First baby dance class today. You might think she'd do great, right? You might think she'd be all about dance class, seeing as how she jumps straight to the middle of the wedding-reception-dance-floor-circle-of-humility every chance she gets. But nooooo. She walks in and immediately after being introduced to the teacher trips over her own feet, falls on her face, bites her lip, and bleeds all over that damn Baby Gap outfit I put her in this morning. FUN!

Pee Pee in the Potty! Pee Pee in the Potty!

Maggie got a potty chair last week, due to the unwavering insistance of her Granny. I said, "No, it's waaaayyy to early - they say not to try until she's 18 months." I was sure I was right, although I don't really know who "they" is... must be the same "they" that say your child won't start sitting up until she's six to nine months old, and the same "they" that say your kid won't start walking until she's a year old. "They" have never really been good judges of my child's development however, and apparently "they" are a little off on the potty-thing too.

I put the Potty in the half-bath on the first floor, where Maggie and I spend most of our time (um, we spend most of our time on the first floor, not in the bathroom) and the past day or two I've been letting her sit on her Potty (fully clothed) while I was on the grown-up version. At this point I'm still thinking, it's way too early for this, but since she likes to mimic right now I'll at least let her sit here. Today when we came home from the store I rushed in to use the bathroom and Maggie was hot on my heels - she says "Potty?" and I say, "Yeah, I'm gonna go potty, wanna come with Mama?" This is the first time I actually go to the trouble of taking off her shorts and diaper before putting her on the potty. She sits there, with a cute little look on her face, and when I say, "OK, all done, lets go!" she gets up off the chair and...ta da! THERE'S PEE PEE IN THE POTTY!

"Woo hoo! You went pee pee in the potty! What a big girl! What a good job!" etc. etc. etc. It had to have been lucky timing, right? I'm still shocked. (seriously, are these the kinds of things that shock me these days? a toddler peeing in a bucket? I have to get out more.)

So the fun begins, we are officially starting potty training, wish us luck!

Happy Birthday USA!

Happy Independence Day ya'll -

Too Much of a Good Thing

As you may know from previous posts, Maggie is quite the mimic these days - which is usually pretty great. She likes to push the broom after Mommy has pushed the broom, so we bought her a kiddie broom to push on her own. She insists on a paper towel of her own to when Mommy pulls out paper towels to wipe up a spill on the floor. Very helpful girl... but you know she's programmed a little too well when you're in the women's bathroom at a restaurant and you hand your daughter a paper towel to dry her hands, and she immediatly drops down to her hands and knees and starts wiping the floor with it.

I May Be Converting

I wasn't sure... I mean, change is scary, and you can't teach a old dog new tricks, and if it ain't broke don't fix it, etc. etc. BUT - Westin, I think you may have me converted! I am LOVING this new software he installed on my computer for photo editing, Photoshop Lightroom 2. Sooo much easier to use! It may be because I'm slightly amatuer in my photo editing ability, I don't really know, but the pre-sets are so perfect. I took photos I would normally have trashed and sent them through this thing and saved them (mostly saved anyway) - super!

BEFORE
AFTER


TWO OTHERS THAT ARE JUST CUTE :)

Welcome to the Jungle

Today I wielded a big stick and tried to whack my way through the jungle that is my front yard. The previous, previous, owners of this House must spent a good deal of time and money landscaping - however, the in-between owners didn't seem to give a crap. And hence, bushes attack my car every time I exit the garage, and small woodland creatures have taken up permanent residence amongst the hostas and the weeds. I don't think I've ever actually seen a thistle before today - unless it was in a cartoon protecting some kind of elf or fairy.

I had thought to leave this labor to the pros and hire a landscaper, but apparently the landscaper doesn't want to deal with this mess either because it turns out it would cost $2,000 to dig our way out of the Amazon. I may have four feet tall spiky weeds slowly encircling my home, but you know what I don't have? Two thousand dollars! So a-whacking I shall go, doing my best to tame this wild earth, one thistle at a time.