I Must Learn to Enunciate

Every week at Maggie's gym class she is rewarded at the end of the class with a stamp of a cartoon doggy, or other similar creature, on her hands and toes. I think it might be the highlight of the class actually, you should see all the kids streak to the stamp corner and position themselves sweetly one by one on the red mat that sits there. Two year olds patiently waiting their turn, it's a tiny miracle every single Tuesday.

Because I know how much she loves these stamps, when I found a Hello Kitty stamp at Target for a buck (self inking) I snatched it up for her and put it in her stocking at Christmas. Even though she enjoyed the "Kitty!", I don't think she really figured out it was a stamp until last week. Since them I have caught her trying to stamp the wall, the coffee table, the sink, and the floor. I try not to take it away from her because this early in the game I think it's kinda my fault for not explaining the Calhoun rules on stamping to her. So instead of removal I tried reasoning, "Maggie baby, we do not stamp on the walls and furniture, that's not nice. We can only stamp on paper, our hands, and our body." Well, when she heard that she gave me a funny look and promptly stamped her (diapered) hoo-haa. I'm all like, um, well OK, I guess that counts as your body.

A couple days later we went through this same conversation when I caught her trying to stamp the window. "Remember what Mommy said? You can only stamp on paper and on your body." And again, she stamped her hoo-haa! So now I'm like, there must be something I'm missing, and it's my turn to give her a funny look. Then it dawned on me. The thinks I'm telling her she can only stamp her POTTY! Potty and body must sound awfully similar to a kid who can't seem to add consonants to the ends of her words.

I quickly changed "body" to "belly" and have since had no inappropriate stamping. I did however put a child to bed last night with about forty pink kitty stamps all over her abdomen. Oh, and the "only on paper" approach isn't foolproof either. She found the one piece of paper in the entire house that I would really rather not stamped - the one that lines the inside of the bathroom cabinet so you can't see all our toilet paper and cleaning supplies while you pee in our house - and stamped the hell out of it. What was once a nice, grown-up, half bathroom is now covered in Hello Kitty stamps and contains not only Maggie's potty seat, but her dolly's potty seat, a toy sink, two children's step stools, and many children's books. The older these kids get the more their crap permeates throughout the house. It's kinda like termites I think.

Our Little Rocket (wo)Man

Maggie Language 101

Welcome class, to your first online course in Maggie Language. Today I'll be sharing a list of terms and sentences that you can expect to use in daily conversation with Maggie, followed to the right by their translation.

1. Elmo Worll - "I would like to watch Sesame Street please." (sometimes preceded by "La la la, la la la, Elmo Worll" for added emphasis.)
2. Bebe - "Payton!" (our dog)
3. GeeGee - "Stevie!" (our other dog)
4. Guy - Any unknown male, or any male with a name she can't pronounce yet.
5. Doggy Show - "I would like to watch Martha Speaks please."
6. Baby Show - "I would like to watch Monsters Inc. please."
7. Birdie Show - "I would like to watch Up please."
(do you see a trend forming)

8. Hi-lo (with a hand held up to her ear) - "Where is my cell phone mom?"
9. Cangee - "Can I have a piece of candy please?"
10. Mama poopoo!!! - "Mom, I have to pee, now!!!"
11. Ah-dah - "All done" (commonly used when eating, playing, painting, shopping, and peeing)

When you come across a word or sentence you do not assume that Maggie is attempting to mimic an actual word, as she may be mimicking a sound associated with that word. Look for hand gestures as clues. Such as...

1. A clicking noise accompanied by jazz hands commonly means she wants to be tickled or wants to tickle you.
2. If she takes off your socks and starts messing with your toes she wants to do "This little piggy went to market" with you.
3. If she grabs your hand, tries to walk you in a circle and says something resembling "ashes ashes" she wants to play Ring Around the Rosey.

This concludes your first lesson in Maggie language.

My three favorite sentences from this week...

While letting me know that the dog had pooped on the deck outside the patio door window - "Mama, poopoo! Bye bye Geegee poopoo!"

When she dropped my pack of gum on the floor in the kitchen - "No doggy! That's Mama's Cangee!"

And last but not least - "Sorry Mama."

The Magic of Disney

Last weekend we tried a cold-turkey approach to potty training Maggie. No diapers, only panties. Didn't work out so well. So we spent the week reading picture books about bodily functions and how super duper proud the characters are of their ability to stop peeing themselves. All week long I could see little Maggie's gears turning, a little light bulb going on and off in her head each time I read one of these disgusting books. Then yesterday she found the clincher... she found... the Minnie Mouse panties. "Mama, mama, mama, MAMA! Minnie!!!!!" she screamed as she removed her pants and diaper all by herself in the middle of the living room. For the rest of the day she wore her Minnie panties, and didn't have an accident until about an hour before bedtime. Minnie panties are Magical!

So today we thought we'd give it another shot. Maggie decided it was a good day for "Ooh Ooh, Ahh Ahh," panties (monkey panties... you know, monkey's say ooh ooh ahh ahh). But we never got that far. As she was gallivanting around our bathroom butt-nekkid she suddenly got that special feeling, ran straight for her potty chair AND peed in it! Woo Hoo! That kicked off a whole day of naked-baby-butt potty training and the end result was NO ACCIDENTS! Every time she felt the urge she yelled "Poo poo! Poo poo!" and everyone ran to the potty. I can't believe she made it every single time. Looks like we're well on our way to being diaper free!

Welcome Back My Old Friend

It's a sad day in our house today. Well, actually, it's just a sad day in my brain today. For today is the day I had to bust out the maternity pants. NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

My vast collection of sweat pants and "lounge wear" has been tricking me into thinking I am not actually expanding. But today I have to go to work. And you can't wear Hanes elastic waist sweatpants to work. Apparently you also can't wear the gray dress pants you were wearing just last week either.

Welcome back black stretchy, low-waisted, big-butted maternity pants. You may be depressing, but you are comfortable, I'll give you that.

Don't Go Signing her up for the Iditerod

Payton does not do well in winter. She's a scrawny little thing and would rather not place her delicate paws in the cold, wet snow. It's frequent that a series of bribes and high-pitched coos are used to convince her that she does in fact need to get her butt out the door and do her "business". In fact, she's so ridiculous that she got herself marooned under Maggie's swingset slide the other day. Jason had let her outside and noticed about fifteen minutes later that she wasn't jumping up and down on the sliding glass door like the normal spazoid she is. So he called her name to come in, and then called again. Finally, he had to go outside and scoop up a shivering little ball of Jack Russell from her hidey-hole under the slide. I guess the long trek (15 feet) back to the patio door was just too daunting for her.

Maggie's New Favorite Word

Booger!

She can't say "I need a tissue," so instead she comes up to me and yells, "Booger Mama, Booger!" Fabulous.

Kill Me Now...

I spent an hour and a half looking for my car keys today. The last time I saw them was yesterday afternoon in Maggie's grubby little hand. I looked everywhere, under the furniture, in the furniture, in my purse, in my jacket, in the toy box, behind the TV, in the bathroom, in the garage, in the refrigerator, under the car, in my bedroom, in the laundry, in the dollhouse, even in the fish tank. The whole time I'm looking I'm trying to ask my darling little thief where she put them. She didn't know, but she have a grand ole time playing with all the toys Mama was tossing around the room. She did try to help a little though, and gave me her pink plastic keys as a consolation prize.

Wanna know where I finally found them? In a box of play-doh which had been put in the cabinet last night. I'm not even sure what made me look in the box of play-doh, thank god for mom-brain.

Cayman 2009

So lets see if Maggie can stay asleep just a few more minutes and give me the time I need to finaly write this post... please, please, please, please!

Maggie the world traveller spent another fabulous holiday season at her winter residence on Grand Cayman - otherwise known as "Gigi and Grandpa's Condo". She got to pet a turtle this trip, throughly bonded with her 10-year-old uncle "Guy", and spent so much time in the pool that she came back to the States with a very pleasant contact rash that she's still getting over.

Here are some of the best pics from our trip for all the Aunties and Uncles...

So Yeah, Pregnancy...

SUCKS! Yes, it's a miracle and a blessing. Yes, I love the result. And yes, I did this on purpose. But that does not mean I have to enjoy the process. In short, I am sick and tired... literally. I think I may finally be over the all-day-morning-sickness; HOWEVER, it has been replaced by all-day-heartburn which pretty much feels like the same exact thing. And before you get your undies in a bunch about my incessant whining... I'm pregnant, I can whine if I want to.

When I was pregnant with Maggie I was scared shitless about everything - even though nothing really happened. I got fat and I got heartburn, but that's about it. This time around I'm not scared, I mean I kinda know what to expect. I guess that's why God decided this time around I could handle the morning sickness, acne, exhaustion, prescribed "pelvic rest" (try to figure it out on your own, Jason was not at all pleased)and hormone suppositories, huge (painful) ta-tas, and just about every other annoying (albeit not quite debilitating) pregnancy symptom there is. Fun, fun, fun!

To finish up this post I'm going to stop my bitching and say just one more thing. I undoubtedly with turn to this blog to complain many more times. As I've said before, in many ways this is my outlet as much as your window into our lives. I can't complain anymore though, unless I make one thing crystal clear. We are SO LUCKY, so ridiculously, undeservedly lucky to have the chance to give Maggie a sibling and complete our family. I know not everyone has the same chance, and personally know too many women that would give anything to have things as easy as we seem to have had them. I will never, ever forget how precious this gift is or take it for granted(crap, now I'm crying, one more annoying pregnancy symptom) - even when I'm on my knees in front of the toilet wondering why in the hell I ever thought this was a good idea. Even then, I'm one lucky lady.