Lucy & Ethel Have a Baby: The Adventures of Shrike & Whozat (& Peeper!)

Back to Ballet

2012-01-24T20:13:00.000-05:00

We missed a couple of weeks of dance class while we were in Texas, but we were back tonight, Peeper still loved it, and I've now purchased shoes and paid her tuition through the end of February. I guess we're official!

I swear, she was excited about going. You just can't tell it from these photos.

As she did last time (and as I'm sure will do every time), she napped in the car on the way there. This time we were running late, though, so she didn't have any wake-up time before going in to class.

I got her warm clothes off and took her into the classroom (studio? dance room?) where the other little girls (I think there were about five there this week) were already dancing.

The teacher came over to talk to us and I apologized for being late and for still not owning shoes (we were going to borrow then buy some from them tonight, but there was no one in the office to get them when we arrived).

She said it was fine, and Peeper could dance in socks (fine for ballet, but not so great for tap) and tried to get her to join the other girls.

Peeper started to melt a bit and reached for me, but when Mrs C suggested that "Why don't you just come sit with me and watch for a while?" she went (slowly).

I gave her a cheerful "Have fun, see you in a little while, love you!" and left. I wasn't feeling nearly as confident as I sounded, but I didn't hear from her for an hour, and when they came out, Mrs C said that right after I left, Peeper told her, "I'm awake now. I'm ready to dance." and she did great.

She seemed a little, I don't know, subdued or something afterward, while I was getting shoes and paying. I kept asking her if she was okay and she said she was. We talked about it on the way home and I couldn't really get anything out of her then, either.

I told her "You just looked like maybe you felt yucky, or you were sad about something, or something was bothering you."

So, she started talking about it, and you have to hear it in her "I'm making a list of things that I'm musing about" tone of voice, "Maybe I felt yuuuucky, or maybe I was saaaad about somefing, or maybe I loooost somefing, or maybe I lost a friiieeend, (what?!) or maybe I lost GirlCat, or maybe I lost BoyCat, (aha!) or maybe I needed gooody . . . .

I asked her if she was feeling sad about BoyCat and she said "Nope!" and decided to go with "I wanted goody."

I don't know, but for a minute there, as I was waiting at the window to pay her tuition, I thought she was either going to burst into tears or throw up on me. My tummy felt a little oogy while we were driving home (but fine once I ate) so maybe that was it.

Point being, though, she says she had a great time at dance class, and we're looking forward to going back next week!

That's All I Got

2012-01-23T21:00:00.001-05:00

I was too preoccupied today to even think about taking photos of Peeper. I snuck in and got this one after she was sleep.

Catless

2012-01-23T20:45:00.033-05:00

Well, it's done.

It went about as well as we could have dared to hope. Very peaceful, with all three of us petting him.

Peeper is doing well. We've had many, many conversations about it since Friday, and many tears (from all of us), but when the time came, she was the most composed one in the room, I think (vet and tech, included).

I don't know where kitties go when they go, but we've decided that we want to believe that he's playing bop-on-the-head with MamaCat right now, and has probably already tried to hump GirlCat, and been humped by BigBrotherCat, who went long before the others.

Rest in Peace, Ringeaux. We love you.
March 28, 1997 - January 23, 2012

"Oh, I Am So Fluffy!"

2012-01-22T21:34:00.000-05:00

Quality Time

2012-01-22T20:30:00.000-05:00

We're trying to do as much of this as possible right now.

How Her Head Works

2012-01-22T19:59:00.000-05:00

While playing in the basement with Shrike, Peeper built this caterpillar:

Not sure what the "tongue" is doing way back there but, hey, at least somebody's getting some use out of these weights.

Later, she insisted on "painting" her "metal harmonica" (the screwdriver tips). She then traded the real paintbrush for a tiny screwdriver and "painted" with that.

When she finished with the "metal harmonica," she "painted" the wall and my chair (with the screwdriver) and "made them incognito."

Ballerina

2012-01-21T22:46:00.000-05:00

Peeper performing the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and the Pas de Deux from The Nutcracker.

Cat Girl

2012-01-20T23:15:00.010-05:00

While we were at the vet's office this morning, the tech who was treating BoyCat gave Peeper this cool shirt. (The clinic's name and contact info are on the back.)

It's the smallest size that the7 had, and is just a weeeee bit big on her, but she doesn't mind at all.

We told her it can be her "kitty costume," and she wore it all afternoon, as she ran around the church gym while I helped set up for the MOMS Club yard sale.

When we got home, she took it off and put it right into her "dress up bin."

As you can see, she loves it.

Considering the circumstances surrounding how we acquired it, I hope I can manage to not hate it.

Boy Cat

2012-01-20T23:00:00.000-05:00

I might have mentioned to some of you that when BoyCat had his check-up a few months ago, he'd lost some weight, and we made a plan to take him back this month to have it checked. When I got the reminder about that around the first of the year, my reaction was "Oh yeah, I guess we need to do that. I wonder if he's lost any more? He looks about the same, and is doing fine."

Then, when I got home from Texas, it was obvious that he'd lost weight, and it really seemed to have been precipitous, not just a matter of being away from him for a while, and he suddenly looked much thinner, and just "not right." Sick and old. We realized that he hadn't been eating much over the past few days, either.

We took him in to the vet today, and found that he's lost more than 3 pounds in the past three months and is dehydrated and anemic, and his lab work confirmed that he is in end-stage kidney failure.

The vet said the other big possibilities were hyperthyroidism or diabetes, which are manageable, although his symptoms did point toward the kidneys. We weren't thrilled about spending money on testing that we didn't really expect to lead us to a treatment plan, but it did help us to confirm what we are dealing with, and what we need to do.

After considering all our options - from doing absolutely nothing and letting nature take its course, which would probably mean a very painful and unpleasant couple of weeks (at the most) for him, to hospitalizing him repeatedly for IV fluids, giving medications for pain and nausea and putting him on a special diet, and paying a ton of money for treatments which if he responded very, very well, might buy him, at most, a few months, but more likely a few weeks - we decided to have them give him subcutaneous fluids and injections of antibiotics and anti-nausea medication today, and have brought him home to spend the weekend giving him lots of cuddles and pets as well as some special food, if he's willing to eat it, and some more antibiotics and anti-nausea meds to make him more comfortable, and saying goodbye.

I plan to call them back in the morning and make an appointment to take him in on Monday, to put him down.

When I asked the vet what she would do if it were her cat, she said that she would probably have done it today or sooner, based on his kidney functions, but that with rehydration and some relief for his (assumed) nausea, he shouldn't be suffering much over the next couple of days, other than feeling generally tired and sick.

To be honest, I don't know that we're doing him any favors by keeping him going for a few more days, but we had to balance his needs with Peeper's, and we really thought she needed some time to prepare.

I talked to her about it this evening. She went with us today, so she knew something was up, but of course she was not privy to the nitty-gritty discussion (for part of that I was alone with the vet while she and Kris hung out in the waiting room, and then Shrike and I talked to the vet together while one of the techs took her in the back to visit with (and feed treats to) some of the animals who live there).

I explained that we took him to the vet because he didn't feel good, and that the vet said that he's a very old kitty and he's very sick and his body is about worn out and is going to stop working in a few days. I've told her that the vet says it will probably stop working on Monday (at least she's young enough to buy that we can predict such things, without having to let on that we're deciding when it will happen) and that we will take him back so the vet can give him some medicine, so he doesn't hurt any more, and then it will be time that his body will stop working.

We also talked about how we are all sad about it, and we will be sad, but it's okay to be sad and to talk about it, and we can all be sad together.

And we are.

Silly Girlie

2012-01-19T21:15:00.002-05:00

You may wonder why Peeper was lying on the filthy kitchen floor this afternoon, chewing on a jack o'lantern straw and giggling like a maniac.

If you figure it out, please let me know.

Mary, Queens

2012-01-18T23:44:00.005-05:00

I really wish I'd kept the camera running a little longer, she had this great mash-up of narration going: The Nativity, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, doctors, and I don't remember what else.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
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Home!

2012-01-17T23:16:00.001-05:00

"Mommy! Mommy! I got my Mommy!"

And some potty prizes.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

And, yes, while I had the camera turned off, she said, "It feel wike a bow. It smell wike a bow. It sound wike a bow."

Last Day in Texas - Really.

2012-01-16T23:32:00.000-05:00

We're (mostly) all packed up to head home tomorrow, but first we managed to pack in a full day of family visiting.

Peeper and I had lunch with Frappa and #1. We planned on Italian, but had forgotten (well, I never knew) that they are closed on Mondays, so we ended up going to a hibachi place for lunch and a show.

Two shows, actually.

Then we went over to their house and visiting with LadyKay (and then Frappa when she got home from an appointment) all afternoon.

Peeper played with cat toys and I put salt in my coffee.

A good time was had by all.

TV Face

2012-01-15T23:51:00.000-05:00

After Target, we got some lunch and the back to the house, where we mostly hung out. Peeper watched The Nutcracker 743 times, and way too much of this.

LIttle Pitchers

2012-01-15T23:42:00.001-05:00

This morning, Peeper and I made a run to Target, and while we were there, she was playing with some Angry Birds pillows.

(According to the tag, they are "soft and cuddly!" And, angry?)

We are not Angry Birders at our house, but BabyBro showed it to her, so she recognized them, and said, "I wan' dose Angwy Buhds!"

As she was cuddling them, she asked me, "Why he gotta talk to Dr.T?"

Shrike denies having ever made a smart-ass comment to that effect.

Whoa.

A Walk in the Neighborhood

2012-01-14T23:45:00.000-05:00

Today was mostly about hanging around the house, watching The Nutcracker way too damn many times, but when I took Anonymama's trash outside, I realized what a beautiful day it was - and those are hard to come by in January back home - so Peeper and I got ourselves dressed and went for a little walk.

We started with a stop at Dairy Queen for some ice cream,

and then took the slightly-longer-than-necessary way back home, with me giving her a bit of a tour of my childhood along the way. Maybe we'll head out the other direction tomorrow, where we'll pass alot more of the homes that our friends grew up in, because she was, of course, ever so interested in hearing about that.

Or maybe we'll just get more ice cream.

Feeling Fine

2012-01-14T00:42:00.000-05:00

Totally could have spent the day on an airplane. No problem.

But, we've got a few bonus days to visit and I'm going to try to get out and about and have some of that fun that we weren't having all week while we were feeling crappy.

Today, we did the beauty shop thing, which is a standard for our visits: Drop Anonymama at the beauty shop (she's a twice-weekly-standing-appointment kind of gal), go get some breakfast at Starbucks,

then go back to pick her up and visit with "Grandma's Beauty Shop Ladies" while our family hairdresser (she cut mine from age 6 until I moved out of state) combs her out and finishes her up.

As we were leaving Starbucks, we took a detour across the parking lot because Peeper wanted to see "That yewwow fing" which was one of those tall, skinny inflatable dancing guys. As we were about to leave, we stopped to wait for a car that was pulling in and I don't know what possessed me to actually look at the people in it, but I'm so glad I did, because in the passenger seat was my tenth grade English teacher!

I'd just gotten a quick glimpse and wasn't certain it was her, but I waited around and when she got out of the car I was about 99% sure, and when I called her name and she responded, of course, I knew that I was right. I introduced myself and we chatted for a few minutes.

She's in pretty frequent contact with one of "the big girls" (a group of women now in their eighties) from the summer camp I attended, and has heard various updates about me over the years, and I've run into her periodically as well - probably more frequently than any of my other former teachers. The last time we saw her was when we were all having breakfast together after my parents' fiftieth anniversary celebration, in the summer of 2007, and both Shrike and BabyBro's LovelyWife were with us, so we were both able to introduce them.

I was especially pleased to be able to introduce Shrike, since this teacher was one of two "not exactly 'out' but totally common knowledge" lesbian couples who were my teachers. Her partner was the honors and AP biology teacher, and they were two of the best teachers in the school, even though I didn't admit it at the time, because they were also two of the hardest teachers.

The other couple was a middle school English and reading teacher - I had her for "Reading Enrichment" which involved reading and talking to the teacher about your book, it was awesome - and our elementary school principal, about whom I've never heard a bad word spoken.

Unfortunately, both Ms. B., the biology teacher and Ms. G., the principal died many years ago, while I was in college, I think (the former of ovarian cancer, the latter of Alzheimer's), but Ms. C., the English teacher seems to be rocking along, and I will have to remember to ask Anonymama what's become of Ms. L., the reading teacher.

Anyway, Ms. C told me how beautiful Peeper is, and asked about where she got her blond hair, so I had an opportunity to tell her a bit more about how we made her. I also told Peeper that Ms. C. taught me about reading books (a good enough explaination of "English Teacher" for a three year old) and told Ms. C. how much Peeper loooooves to read.

No offense to anyone else that I spent time with, but I think that encounter was probably the highlight of my day.

Feeling Yucky

2012-01-12T23:13:00.001-05:00

Oh, I wasn't kidding yesterday. I spent pretty much all night with my belly in knots. The few times that I woke up thinking that the pain had passed, as soon as I moved (as in rolled over), it was back, and I was still hurting pretty bad when Peeper decided that it was time to get up.

On Sunday, when Peeper was so sick, I said something about really hoping that I didn't catch it, too and Anonymama said, "Oh yeah, there's nothing more miserable than a sick Mama with a sick baby."

Yes. Yes, there is. A sick Mama with a healthy three year old, who wants to plaaaay!

So around 10:30, I texted Frappa and pretty much begged her to come pick Peeper up and take her to lunch or anywhere, really, just to get myself some lie-still-and-try-not-to-hurt time without her stomping on my belly, or making me get up and do things.

Peeper liked the idea when I first told her about it, but by the time she was dressed and ready to go, she was telling me, "Noooo! I don' wanna have fuuuun!"

Of course, she was fine within minutes.

They went to Target, where they hit Starbucks and bought Frappa a few shirts, then Peeper played for a while at the Mall play area ("Grandma's Target" is in the mall. How weird is that?)

and went to a deli (also in the mall) for lunch, where Peeper evidently had milk and potato chips.

She brought home most of a roast beef and cheese sub with au jus, which I'm eating right now, so I'm just as glad that I didn't think to suggest that Frappa get her something like grilled cheese.

They were gone almost three hours, and when they got home, Peeper was glad to see me, but also seemed very excited about her little outing. While I had the break, I mostly just sat still, and also talked to the airline, and changed our return flight from tomorrow to Tuesday, because even if we both have full control over our bodily functions, I just couldn't imagine dealing with the whole flying thing and being one-on-one with Peeper for so long, feeling like that.

Of course, within a couple hours of making the change, my belly pain when away, and I'm feeling fine now.

Of course.

Out of the House! (Also, it's my turn.)

2012-01-11T22:23:00.004-05:00

Other than another diarrhea incident (this time with warning, whew!) Peeper seemed to be feeling fine today, but I was starting to feel a little iffy, so I took the opportunity to both get her out of the house for a bit, and pick me up some immodium, just in case.

First we went to Starbucks, which of course, we both enjoyed.

Next, I took her to a park that I used to hang out at when I was in high school. I was hoping the ducks would still be around, and I was not disappointed.

Then, we stopped at the grocery store for a few things, then back to the Anonyparents' house. By then, I was starting to feel progressively worse, with abdominal cramping and I'm pretty certain some fever. I'm not thrilled about the prospect of getting on a plane in about 36 hours.

Feeling Better

2012-01-10T23:03:00.001-05:00

Peeper woke up pretty much full-strength this morning, and held up all day, including dinner out with some friends of mine.

I won't declare her All Better yet, though, because she had diarrhea this evening, so now I'm nervous about that.

We postponed tomorrow's lunch plans with Frappa, and will just hang around the house, hoping that it was a one-off, and not a sign of things to come.

Recovery Day

2012-01-09T22:58:00.001-05:00

Peeper started out the day pretty slowly, spending the morning in my lap, much of it asleep (I was asleep, as well, for much of it.) but perked up in the afternoon, and by evening seemed to be almost back to herself again.

See?

Poor Baby

2012-01-09T00:51:00.035-05:00

I woke up just before 7 am, to the sound of Peeper puking in the bed beside me.

Such a lovely way to begin "Christmas" Day!

I stuck her in the tub and got her all cleaned up (as you do for the first puke, when you're still in denial about the inevitability of there being more), and we were, of course, up for the day.

I texted LadyKay and Frappa, who were planning to come over (along with #1) for dinner, BabyBro and HisLovelyWife, who were upstairs with their kids, and, of course, Shrike. Who was puke-free back at home.

A while later, BabyBro took the twins out for a drive, to look at firetrucks and such, and when he came home (after Peeper had puked another time or two) he walked in the door saying, "I need a towel, DaNephew threw up in the car."

Oh. Dear.

As it turns out, DaNephew just seems to have been carsick, because both he and DaNiece were fine for the rest of the day, but poor Peeper was just pathetic.

She spent the vast majority of the day in my lap, nursing, sleeping, whining or some combination of the three.

She threw up a total of five times, poor thing.
I was amazed how well she handled it, mess-wise. Normally (okay, both times she's been throw-uppy) I would just hold her and take it as it comes, but I have a limited amount of clothes here with me, so I was pretty concerned about getting all my pants pukey, so I gave her a bowl and explained what it was for, and mentioned the possibility of doing it in the potty. And the combination of the two worked.

Once, she actually told me "I need to go to the potty" and when I asked if she needed to pee-pee or poop, she said "I need to frow up." As was standing in front of the toilet, in between bouts, she was telling me "I'm all done frowin' up. I'm all done frowin' up."

She was just so sad about it all. After about the second or third time, she started saying, "I don wanna frow up. I don gotta frow up. I not gonna frow up." every time I asked how she felt - as though I was going to make her do it again!

We already had all the food either cooked or ready to cook, so there was no cancelling dinner, but LadyKay and #1 are fighting a nasty cold and feeling awful, so they decided not to come over, and we blew off the fancy china and the formal seating, and just used disposable dishes and all went and fixed a plate as we were able (I wasn't very able) and made do.

By the time we were eating "Christmas" dinner early afternoon, Peeper was feeling well enough to have about half a piece of toast, and she kept it down, as well as another half-piece around supper time. Plus lots and lots of nursing.

She spent a big chunk of the afternoon watching all three of her ballet videos in succession, while my parents and I dozed on our respective chairs and couches.

She took two naps during the day, and still went to bed for the night just after eight, and she was feeling a little warm still, as of bedtime, but at least she's keeping things down, so far, so I'm optimistic that tomorrow will be a recovery day, and she'll be good to go by Tuesday.

I just hope that if I get it, it will fall in that narrow window between Peeper being well enough to not need me 100% and when we have to fly home.

Yikes.

Merry Christmas?

2012-01-07T23:56:00.002-05:00

What do you mean, it's almost the middle of January? It sure looks like Christmas Eve where I am.

In Texas!

2012-01-06T23:54:00.001-05:00

We made it to Texas, safe, sound and dry!

Peeper did great on the plane, as usual, and I took her to pee-pee a million times. At one point (before we ever even got on the plane) she said, "We goin' to potty again?!"

Here she is on the plane, ready for take off.

Eating fruit snacks.

Potty Problem

2012-01-06T07:56:00.000-05:00

Peeper and I are leaving for Texas later today, and I've got a bit of a dilemma. So much so that Shrike reached out for help on Facebook. Where, of course, we got 100 conflicting opinions:

Shrike Okay, question. After your child is "pottytrained," do they then regress? Do they need potty charts for a while after they are trained? Peeper is getting on a plane for 4 hours tomorrow and we don't want her to pee on the plane.
Thursday at 8:03pm ·

LiPA Ours didn't regress. Depends on how long she has been doing it. Maybe offer her a reward for a dry flight.
Thursday at 8:10pm ·

Whozat More info: Potty charts with stickers for telling us she has to go got her to the point where she was always telling us with very few accidents.She finished her 3rd chart in a row and was doing great, so we declared her trained, and had a potty party the week before Christmas, so that's been about 2 weeks.

Suddenly, about 3 day ago, she's started having accidents. Lots. What the heck? Are we just getting less vigilant about reminding her? Does she have no incentive w/a sticker chart?

Sometimes she's peed 2 or 3 times very quickly in succession. Did she just cut it off the first time, then finish? (Altho I always put her on the potty after to finish.)

Could it be something physical? (It's the opposite of a UTI, I think. For that she'd be asking to go, then not going. And hurting. Been there, done that.)

We just told her we'd do sticker charts for the flights and asked her what prize. She asked for a violin and drum. Fine. Whatever it takes. If she gets X # of stickers she'll get the prizes. I don't want to say "if she stays dry" because if she pees 30 min into the flight, she's got no reason not to pee 5 more times before we get there!

I may also buy some candies that she really likes and give her one when she tells us, during the trip down/back, even though I suspect there will be much begging for them at other times.

I really, really, really don't want to put her in a diaper or trainers for the flight because a> she'd just pee freely in them and b> I think it would be too, hmm, demoralizing?

Any other ideas to keep her from peeing on the plane?

Also, is a pretty immediate regression after being declared trained common?
Thursday at 8:11pm ·

Friend A When mine were that age and we were flying, I told them they needed to wear a pull-up. They demanded to know if there was a toilet on the plane and did not need the pull-up. But we brought them along. Good luck
Thursday at 8:13pm ·

Whozat We did cloth, and have packed away the diapers, which are really too small for her now, anyway. As luck would have it tho, I just TODAY received a shipment of some new pull-on cloth trainers for my store, so (altho I now can't sell it as new) I've opened one set (shell + 5 liners) and put it in the carry on bag. I have a big chamois towel to put on the seat under her, which should catch a pee and if she has an accident, I'll put the trainer on for the rest of the flight. I want to give her a chance to do it all in panties, though.

Also, a sticker + candy for every pee when I tell her or telling me she has to go. If she gets 12 (door-to-door, including 2 hour drive + stop to eat each way, airport time and flight, we're talking a bit more than 12 hour) OR stays dry the whole way, she'll get her prize.
Thursday at 9:53pm ·

Whozat FINGERS CROSSED!
Thursday at 9:53pm ·

Friend B I was going to suggest pull up for plane too....esp. with the recent events!! Better safe than sorry. Course this is from a Mom who once flew 18 month old to Europe and packed all the diapers in the "under-the-plane" luggage!!! Had to run around 10 of them airport kiosks and buy them all out of diapers at $3 a pop!
Thursday at 9:56pm ·

Whozat I should add that she has only had accidents (knock wood) at home. Out and about, she's been fine. Probably because we make her pee every time we pass a bathroom.
Thursday at 10:04pm ·

FriendA Whozat, I brought my twin girls to Ireland right after potty training. They were very proud to be big girls and not need the pull-ups. Keep praising her and she will be fine. Try not to stress, and enjoy your trip. :)
Thursday at 10:04pm ·

Whozat I'm debating whether to tell her the trainer is there and I'll put it on her if she pees. Will she be "oh yeah, I don't have to go to the potty then!" or will she be "Oh NO! I dont' want a diaper! That's for babies!"

A friend, w/a son who is 20 mos picked up a trainer today, and I think she knew that he was getting one, because he's just starting to learn to go in the potty, so I think she'll see it as a baby thing. I do NOT want it to be a punishment, I just want to be allowed on a plane again!
Thursday at 10:06pm ·

Friend A I would tell her she has to wear it and see if she fights you on it. Either way, airline crews see a lot worse than a little pee. Enjoy your trip. Where are you going?
Thursday at 10:19pm ·

Frienc C i would go for the undies. just bring pull-ups in case she has an accident, then you can put her in those if you need to. my guys always have an uncanny ability to 'hold it' when we're out somewhere, or on 3 1/2 car trips to NJ. if they have to go, they hold it or tell us. i think it's different peeing on your floor than peeing in your seat on the airplane! B will still have accidents at home, but never out anywhere. i have noticed that (especially with G) if he has an accident at night, the next day he will come down with a cold or some other illness, so keep an eye on her! that's my 2 cents :) enjoy your trip! :)
Friday at 6:13am ·

Whozat Ok, here's the plan:

Potty Chart (hand scribbled) and Stickers AND Candy ("Mrs Darlene Kuhn Smith mints") - Each time she tells me she has to pee (emphasizing this) or goes when I ask her to (mumble, oh yeah, that too) she gets a sticker and a mint (I never do candy rewards, but desperate times / desperate measures).

If she gets 12 stickers OR stays dry all the way to Grandma's, she will get a toy violin. (This was actually on her Christmas list. If, by chance, someone in my family has bought it already, she'll get a drum.)

If she's dry all the way there, she'll get to finish the rest of the candy (I will buy a reasonable amount!) when we get to Grandma's house.

Same deal for the trip home, but the next prize is a drum. These prizes were both her idea. Right off the top of her head.

I have a big chamois towel to put under her on the seat, to absorb and pee, and a pull-on cloth trainer in the bag. I've told her that if she has an accident, we'll switch to the trainer (it has multiple swtich-out liners)
but "I know you can do it!"

Oh, and I changed our seats to the back row, so we are sitting right by the potty. Faster to get there, and more acceptable to sneak there with the seatbelt light on.

Btw, we are going to Texas to visit my family. We go about every 3 months, but this is the first time we're doing it without diapers.
Friday at 7:11am ·

Shrike Friend A, they're going toTexas, where Whozat's family lives. I am staying home to guard the house.
Friday at 7:13am ·

Shrike There have been a rash of burglaries in our area in which pee-covered office chairs have been stolen
Friday at 7:26am ·

Whozat LOL!
Friday at 7:39am ·

Whozat Thanks for the input, everyone! I'll be sure and let you know how it goes.
Friday at 7:44am ·

Fresh and Clean!

2012-01-05T23:32:00.000-05:00

Peeper and Mommy after a bath.

Easter Bunny

2012-01-05T23:23:00.000-05:00

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Brrrr

2012-01-04T23:12:00.000-05:00

The temperature right now (at around 11 pm) is 24 degrees. It was in the low teens last night.

A lovely day to take my little panda out to play.

In Case You're Wondering

2012-01-04T00:41:00.002-05:00

This is why we're taking dance lessons.

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Little Ballerina

2012-01-03T23:15:00.000-05:00

This evening was Peeper's first dance class, and from all appearances, she loved it!

Here she is, all dressed (with street clothes on top, sorry - it's cold out there!) with her dance bag, ready to go!

We'd told her that this was "one class to decide if it's something you might want to do when you're a little bit older," because I wasn't sure how she'd handle the non-Mommy-and-Me setting, but she followed the teacher right in there, without even stopping to give me a kiss or tell me goodbye.

The teacher tells me that she did great, and she tells me that she had fun, and a MOMS Club friend who teaches a music class there, and had to sneak through the room they were in to get something tells me that she looked like she was having a blast, when she saw her half-way through the class.

So, next week we'll be in Texas, but the following week, we'll be back at the dance studio, checkbook in hand.

Well, actually, we may wait a couple of weeks, because we have until January 30 to decide if we want to pay for the whole semester, for a 4% discount. I think we should give her a few sessions before we make that kind of commitment, and we may decide to go ahead and go monthly, just to be safe.

The class she's in is Kinder-Dance, for 3 - 5 year olds, but they are separated into levels 1, 2 and 3, depending on experience, so everyone in this class is brand new, and based on our conversation in Target the other day, I think they are all three, and many are barely three.

I'm tossing around words like "all" and "many" like there are twenty little girls in there. Actually, tonight there were three - with one teacher (the owner of the studio) and two assistants. There may be more kids in future weeks, when we're a little farther out from the holidays and it's not 20 degrees out and snowing off and on all day.

The class includes tap, ballet and tumbling (and at level two they add baton), so we'll need to get both tap and ballet shoes. They sell the used at the dance studio, but didn't have her size at all in ballet, and the teacher said that the tap shoes she borrowed tonight were a little big.

She did say that she might have some others available in black. (They wear white for recital, but she's not doing that, so it's okay to buy black.) I guess we can buy some new ballet shoes from them, if we need to.

After class, I took her out to dinner at Red Robin, where she talked to Red several times, and ate mac & cheese, apples (the whole serving, minus the skins), honeydew melon and ice cream. I guess you work up an appetite dancing.

Just So You Know

2012-01-03T23:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's post received a comment that I thought deserved its own post, just in case anyone else got the same impression from it.

Anonymous (not Anonymama) wrote:
You are so organized! I aspire to be organized, but I seem to lack motivation. Down in my basement is a rather large pile of stuff from when I used to teach full-time. I don't really need that crap anymore and this week is throw-away-anything week so I should be filling a garbage bag and getting it to the curb. So far I've tossed the bag down the stairs, now I need to go down after it and start filling it. I find that once I start going through stuff, I start thinking I might need some of it sometime and then I start making keep and toss piles. I need to just get rid of all of it. Wish me luck.

Oh, no. No, no, no!

We are the farthest thing from organized. Or productive. Or motivated.

That's why this day was so newsworthy!

You've just described our basement to a T, except that it's filled with baby gear / clothes, holiday decorations, old computer parts, books, probably still some stuff from when I was a teacher, and I don't even want to think about what else!

We are an awful mess around here, but trying to take some baby steps toward getting our act together, in many different areas, just one of which is the house itself.

I have a list a mile long of things that I want to (or at least feel like I need to) change or improve about my self (and our home).

In fact, it would be much, much quicker to list the areas in which I feel like I actually have it more or less together:

Um.
Well
Hmmm.
I think I'm a pretty good mom.
When my kid isn't mauling our friends' children.
Yep, that's about it.

Everything else? Big mess.

The number one reason for the big mess (literal and figurative) is lack of motivation. Because it's just too much damn effort to go stick some dishes in the dishwasher or fold some clothes or plan a menu or cook a meal or go for a walk or eat a vegetable or pick up the toys or throw out some crap we don't need or clear off my desk or a million, jillion other things that I know I "should" be doing.

I try to read books about getting organized or getting things done, but they all have subtitles like "Stop spending all your time cleaning and make more time for yourself!"

Um, yeah. That is so not my problem.

Where's the "Get off your lazy ass and do something!" book? That's the one I need.

I don't usually blog about that stuff because, well, mostly because it doesn't really make me look so good, but also "Sink Full O'Dishes" isn't exactly scintillating reading, nor is it newsworthy at all over here.

When we actually do accomplish something, though? Stop the presses, because that's something to brag about.

When I read all those blogs that I find via Pinterest and I think about how together and organized and ridiculously motivated those women are, I'll try to remember this comment. Maybe they're as fucked up as I am, and are only blogging about the good stuff.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Holy Productivity, Batman!

2012-01-02T23:37:00.001-05:00

It was ~~bad~~ good enough that I got the Christmas stuff down yesterday, but today I we just went nuts.

This afternoon, Shrike and her dad took Peeper to a model train show, and while they were gone, I decided to eliminate two of the most annoying things in our home.

(No, not them. They can stay.)

Several years ago, someone - I think it was probably my sister - told me about an article she'd read that said when everything in your house is bugging you and there are a million things you want to fix or change, but there's no way you can do them all, that you should pick the one that annoys you the most or the most frequently, and fix it, because that will have the biggest impact on your day-to-day life.

The author's example was that she had very poor lighting in her master bedroom, and it basically pissed her off every time she went in there. They installed a new ceiling light, and all was well with the world. Or, at least she wasn't annoyed quite so often.

So, I've been thinking about what pisses me off most often about our house, and today, I addressed not one, but two of the worst offenders.

Annoying Thing One
Back when PerfectPup was an only dog, and the cats were a bit younger and sprier, we kept her out of the laundry room (and cat food, and litter box) by just sticking a big box in front of the door, like so.

Even if we left it open enough for us (and the kitties) to walk through, she stayed out. All she required was a visual barrier, no matter how dog permeable it actually was.

Galoot, not so much, so after he came along, we needed a more solid barrier. We took a piece of plywood that we had lying around, cut a cat-size (or almost cat-size, in the case of GirlCat, bless her little kitty soul) hole in it, and propped it across the doorway, with one end tucked behind the fridge for "stability."

This has been a pretty good system for keeping both pups and Peep out of the kitty things, but the problem is that it does its damnedest to keep us out too.

As you can see here, it's just a few inches higher than is comfortable or for me unawkward to step over. I cannot count the number of times I've stubbed my toes, scraped my feet, and busted my ass (or, more accurately, knees) trying to get over it.

I don't know how Shrike has survived it, given that her legs are several inches shorter than mine. Perhaps she's just that much more graceful.

Every time I go into the laundry room - which is more often than you might think, because in additional to the laundry facilities and kitty setup, we also have our "annex" pantry back there, and we actually tend to use it more than the cabinets in the kitchen - I cuss that damn thing.

With the holiday baking I've been doing recently, I've also had to go in and out over that damn board carrying trays of cookies and other treats, and I can't believe I never dumped any in the floor. (I swear I didn't.)

For years, I've been fantasizing about making it lower, I mean look at it, there's even a nice neat "cut here" line already on it!

Today, I finally got off my ass, got out the circular saw and did it!

Much, much, much better!

Annoying Thing Two
This one was made even more annoying by the fact that I thought I had it fixed a few weeks ago, but it only lasted for a few minutes.

When I was pregnant with Peeper, we bought a ceiling fan and light for her room. It wasn't installed until she was several months old, because Shrike's dad wasn't comfortable doing it himself, so we waited until we had a handyman here working on other things, and had him do it.

Because we don't have - and often wish we did have - a remote for the fan/light in our bedroom, we made sure to get one with the remote for Peeper's room. We also got one with a dimmer switch on the light, so that we could use it as a nightlight as well. What a huge mistake, all around.

Once we got the damn thing installed, we filled it up with compact fluorescent bulbs, like the good tree-hugging lesbians that we aspire to be, and went on with our business.

Very quickly, we started having trouble with the lights - they would dim and brighten on their own, and we could never get them to full brightness. I couldn't see a damn thing in that room, and it pissed me off every time I went in there. We thought that there was a short of some sort, so we had the handyman look at it again, and he told us that you can't use CFLs with a dimmer, so we switched to regular bulbs, and that problem was fixed.

Before long, though, the second big problem arose, when the remote stopped working. This might not seem like a big deal, but there are no pull-strings on this fan, the only way to control it is either using the remote, or using the wall switch to turn the whole thing on and off.

That wall switch think would have worked okay, except that when the remote pooped out, the fan was on high, which means we now had two choices: dark and warm, or bright and freezing.

We tried putting new batteries in the remote and it still didn't work. We've been like this for, oh something over a year, at least, I know, because we went through last winter with the fan blowing in there any time the lights were on.

When we were moving Peeper's furniture around a few weeks ago, I came across the package of tiny batteries, and tried putting one in the remote. As soon as it was in, a little light came on, so I knew it was powered up, but it still didn't work. I saw some dip switches, and read in the manual that they have to match the ones in the receiver - which is now hidden in the ceiling. So, I tried all the options and hit on one that worked!

I turned off the fan, and we started using the remote again.

For about a day, until it stopped working again.

I tried the battery again, and changing the dip switches and everything, with no luck. I've tried it a few times in the interim, and still no luck.

Today, I was feeling so cocky after trimming down that board, that I thought I'd give it a try. Popped in the other battery, and on came the remote light! I grabbed a pin and started flipping switches, and on about the seventh one, the ceiling light went off when I hit the button! And back on! And off again!

And then - glory of glories - I hit the "O" button for the fan, and it stopped!

I'm considering taking the battery out and throwing it away, so we can't accidentally get the fan stuck in the "on" position again. I am more than happy to just use the wall switch to turn the light on and off, and consider it nothing but a really funny shaped light fixture.

When Shrike came home, I told her that "I accomplished two things while you were gone, but I'm not telling you what they are, you have to figure them out."

I practically had to draw her a picture, telling her that one was in Peeper's room, and then trying at least three different ways to lure her out into the laundry room, in hopes that she'd notice the board.

Our other huge accomplishment for the day is that I (sort of) cleaned off my desk (the main surface only, don't look in or on top of the hutch) and we did the big computer switcheroo:

My computer out of my desk
My new (thank you, Anonydaddy!) computer into my desk

(It was cleaner than that for a while. The big pile of stuff on the left side is from this whole computer installation thing. It's still there.)

Shrike's computer out of her desk
Shrike's desk moved across the room
My old computer into Shrike's old desk, and Peeper-friendly keyboard and mouse installed

Order and eat pizza
To Staples for a network cable for Peeper and a new (moisture-proof) computer chair for Shrike
Shrike's new desk moved from garage, through house, and into office
Shrike's computer reinstalled in new desk
Pee-pee chair to Peeper's new desk
Assemble Shrike's new chair

Of course, where am I right now? On Shrike's computer, because I'm in the middle of transferring files from my old one to my new one, and it says not to use either one while that's happening.

That could take a while, but when it finishes, I'll be able to process and upload the photos of all this badassery.

{Edited to add: Nope, it will take like twelve hours. I'm saving that for while we're in Texas. In the meantime, I'm processing images on my old computer and getting annoyed because the kiddie keyboard is weird.}

Then I'll still have plenty of work ahead of me, installing software to the new one, and uninstalling a bunch of software and deleting a bunch of data files from the old one, then installing some more kid-friendly software for Peeper.

It will be a while before everything is the way we want it, but the heavy lifting is done and there were no major fights involved and only a couple of minor injuries. For now my old computer is behaving well enough to play Sesame Street videos, my new computer is zipping along at the speed of light, Shrike's getting moved into her new desk and seems to be happy with it and Peeper is beside herself over having her own computer.

Now, tell me how we're going to deal with the next Most Annoying Thing Ever: The crib frame and dresser that are still in our bedroom, because that's as far as we made it, when moving them out of Peeper's room.

Who Is This Kid?

2012-01-02T23:16:00.000-05:00

And when did she start looking like she's six years old?

New Year's Day

2012-01-01T23:37:00.000-05:00

I started off the new year too damn early, when Peeper's nine-ish o'clock bedtime from last night bit me right in my sleepy ass at 6:57 am.

But, she's a big girl, she can take care of herself, right?

Evidently, she can, because I set her up on the computer with some longish Dr. Seuss videos on YouTube and went back to bed, well her bed, in the next room.

Before I did, though, I made her go pee-pee, which was a bit of a challenge, because she is some sort of inhuman freak who doesn't need to pee first thing in the morning. Not only does she tell me she doesn't have to go, but quite often she sit on the potty and either doesn't go, or just dribbles a bit.

What the hell? I'm dying there, waiting for her to get out of my way so I can do, and I haven't been nursing off and on all night long!

But, I digress.

As I was trying to get her into the bathroom I said something along the lines of, "C'mon, Mama's sleepy and grumpy . . . ." and she said, "Oh. You're grumpy? I didn't know you were grumpy."

And got up and went to the bathroom.

Seriously?!

But, at least that was done, and I could go lie down for several ten-to-fifteen minute stretches, while she entertained herself.

She ended up playing in the bedroom, which was probably a much better plan, but actually did a really good job of letting me (mostly) sleep, and I didn't get up for real until around 9:30.

Shrike got up shortly after, and I fixed us some breakfast/brunch/something.

We had leftover cheesy pigs-in-blankets from last night, and canned cinnamon rolls, which were pretty damn good for Aldi brand.

I don't think Peeper ever tried the cinnamon rolls, because she was too busy eating all the piggies. Actually, after a couple she declared that she wanted "Just a plain ol' hotdog," which meant that she only wanted the sausage inside, without the biscuit. (Mmmm, more cheesy biscuits for us!) She must have eaten six or seven of those, which is a lot for her.

Later Shrike and Peeper hung out while I deChristmasified the house.

Once the tree was out of the way, I was able to return Peeper's bookcase to its proper place in the corner. The little round table that lived beside it seems to have found a home in the sun room, and there's been much shuffling of toy storage, in preparation for having three desks in the office, so I put this toy storage unit (which has been from sun room to office closet to the other side of the living room over the course of the past week) in its spot.

When Peeper came in the room, she went over to that corner and looked at it and said, "Oh! Beautiful!"

Now, if only I thought she'd do her part in keeping it that way!

I also did some rearranging here and hung up the newest Peeper collage (bottom center). I'm not sure what happens next. I guess we could move the painting of her and DaCousins to another location and then we could fit in one more.

I also hung our 2012 calendar. Every year, Shrike gets me the "Play With Your Food" calendar. They are filled with pictures made out of fruits and veggies. This year's theme is "Sea Food." January, as you can see, is a bok choy goldfish.

Shrike spent the afternoon visiting with her dad and grandparents, and while she was gone (well, during a very small portion of the time that she was gone, actually), I whipped up a semi-traditional-ish New Year's Day Dinner:

Rice, black-eyed peas (from a can, for me, Shrike won't eat them), egg rolls (the only way either of us will eat cabbage), and cornbread.

You may have noticed that I got out the fancy actual-glass-that-can-break glasses for the occasion. So did Peeper. We'd barely started eating, when she said, "Why you got new glasses?"

I explained that it was a special occasion, so we were using the fancy glasses. She had to have a sip or five or water from each of ours, and then said, "I didn't get a fancy glass."

Oh, the guilt.

So, I told her that, if she would be really careful, I'd let her use a Peeper-size fancy glass.

The glass survived, but she was so enamored of it that she filled up on water and didn't eat another bite.

Oh, wait, that's not true. She asked for a "plain ol' hotdog" and finished off the sausages of the last two "piggies."

Then I conked out on the couch while Shrike and Peeper played and bathed, Peeper came to me all jammified and asking for goody around 7:40, and the next thing I knew, I was tucking her in bed, before eight.

Shrike wasn't too far behind her, and I'm thinking I'd better get to bed at a decent hour myself, because a certain little someone is going to be ready to play way too fucking early in the morning.

Happy New Year from Peeper!

2012-01-01T23:07:00.000-05:00

2011 - A Look Back

2011-12-31T23:59:00.024-05:00

Once again, here's a bit from the first post of each month.

~~~(flashback sound effects) ~~~

January 1: Happy New Year!
I owe the Anonyparents' next-door neighbors an apology. For two years, I've been bitching about their New Years Eve fireworks that go on from about 8 pm to 3 am. (At least that's what happened when Peeper was two months old.)

Actually, it turns out that it's the whole freakin' neighborhood.

February 2: No. That's Not What They're Supposed to Look Like

Our MOMS Club is holding a big (we hope!) indoor yard / bake sale on Saturday, to benefit a local family who has two children fighting a life-threatening hereditary illness, one of whom is not expected to win that fight. It's an incredibly sad situation, and I really hope we can help them.

(If you're local, please email me for details!)

So, today and tomorrow, Peeper and I are baking. And baking. And baking.

March 2: Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!
Today our MOMS Club celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday.

Or, perhaps I should say we celebrated it again, since so many of us were at the Target event on Saturday!

April 1: Last Day in Hometown
This is our last full day at the Anonyparents' house, before head to BabyBro and HisLovelyWife's for Phase II of the trip.

This morning, we dropped Anonymama at the beauty shop, and made a run to Starbucks for some coffee and breakfast while she got her hair did, then back for a brief visit with "Grandma's beautyshop ladies."

May 1: Nothing
Shrike has been pee-testing since Monday (although at least the first couple of days of that were pure folly) and we've seen nothing.

We keep thinking that if we stare at the sticks long enough, maybe something will show up, but alas, no.

June 1: Flyin' Free
We had big plans to grill this evening, but since we once again, neglected to buy new Matchlight charcoal for the new season, and once again, last summer's has dried out and once again, it would not light, and since it was still about 85 degrees out when we got hungry, we just cooked the chicken inside, with big plans to dine al fresco an hour or so later, when it was a bit cooler out.

July 1: Meet the Hopsicles!
All three embryos survived the thaw and (we are told) they looked great.

The transfer went as smoothly as it possibly could (unlike last time) and they're now tucked safely inside Mommy's uterus where, hopefully, one is getting ready to settle in for eight months or so.

August 1: Water Baby
For the second time in a row, a MOMS Club pool party was on swimming lessons day, so we figured we'd better not go - but, as luck would have it, Shrike's nephew's birthday dinner (14!) was this evening, right at lesson time, so we went to the pool party for lunch, out for dinner with the family, and will make up swimming lessons on Wednesday.

September 1: Gymnastics
This evening, Peeper and I took a free demo class at a gymnastics and dance studio near our house.

She loooooved it, but I think that instead of enrolling there, we'll probably take what we assume is a very similar class at the city recreation center, starting in a few weeks, because it's cheaper.

October 1: Happy Birthday to DaCousins!
Well, technically, they won't be two until tomorrow, but the big party was today. And I do mean "big." There were about fifty people, including something like fifteen kids. And several animals.

November 3: Well Child Check
Today was Peeper's three-year-old check up, and she did great!

She was super-cooperative, and the doctor told her that she's "the perfect patient." Once again, when he asked "Can I listen to you?" she said, "Yes!" and held still for everything, and even trying to lie down to be examined before she actually needed to.

December 1: Advent Kickoff
It's December 1, so Peeper opened the first drawer on her advent calendar today!

There, she found a Hershey's Candy Cane Kiss (yummmmm) and a note with the picture that you see at the right.

It was a hint about a very special video email for Peeper - from Santa Claus!

But There Were Cookies!

2011-12-31T23:45:00.000-05:00

New Year's Eve Fireworks

2011-12-31T23:26:00.003-05:00

It's been quite a busy day around here. A few days ago, I finally got off my ass and decided that if Peeper and I were going to have New Years plans (Shrike is working) I would have to make them.

So, I put together a low-key, family-friendly, early evening New Years Even party. Of course, when you don't start inviting people until December 28, it's pretty much guaranteed to be low-key!

We ended up with just two other moms, plus kids (a barely-three boy, two recently-one girls, and Peeper) which was just the perfect size, actually.

While that was in the works, our friend MommyA had a death in the family (our deepest condolences to you and yours) and we offered to help out any way we could, specifically by watching "Baby"J (who is now 21 months old, and at least as big as Peeper), since all of her regular sitters are relatives who would also be attending the funeral.

As it turned out, that happened today, so J was here from about 9:30 this morning until right about the time that our party guests were arriving. (Yes, I did invite A and J to stay for the party, but they were, understandably, not up to it.)

I got most of the clean-up done yesterday, then prepped some food this morning, while Shrike hung out with the girls, and this afternoon, I actually did a load of dishes, or maybe even two, and mopped the kitchen floor, while they "helped" by running around, around, around, and through the kitchen.

Given all that, it actually went pretty smoothly, until this evening, when Peeper started taking out (I assume) her frustration at sharing both toys and Mama all day long on our friend A's little girl, H.

It was not cool the couple of times that she bonked J on the head with a stuffed toy, but they are pretty equally matched and it was a soft thing, and J was yanking toys back from her, too.

This evening, she was bonking a teeny fourteen-month-old on the head with hard toys.

This was not. Cool. At. All.

We had much Talking. About. It.

and the best I can get out of her is that she did it "because I like her" or possibly even, "because I love her."

Oh jeez.

With prompting, she agreed that she was tired of having company and wanted everyone to go home, and she may have volunteered that she was feeling "mad" but I don't know, it was an exercise in circular logic, really. There was also a lot of "because I hit her."

This isn't the first time that she's pushed her or played rough with her, and we're really not sure how to make it stop. We so do not want her to be That Kid.

For this evening, each of the toys that she weaponized (I believe there were three. Plus some pushes.) were put away until tomorrow, and I did a "time in" with her - taking her aside to talk about why it is not okay to hit, and how H and A aren't going to want to play with her (she looooves both H and A - she kept chasing A - yes, the mom - saying "I gonna get you!" and tickling her) if she hits H.

I told her that if someone hit her, I would be very mad and very sad and wouldn't want to be around them anymore, and that's how A feels when she hits H.

She could say all the right things and told me she understood, and then, two seconds later - wham!

At this point, we've not done "time outs" with her (for anything) mostly because we've really not seen a need for them, and also I'm not sure how effective they are at her age.

I much prefer the whole "gentle discipline" and "natural / logical consequences" thing, but I have described "time out" to her, in the sense of "do we need to do that in our family, to help you to remember. . . ?" and so far the threat usually does the trick.

Given that, I think it goes without saying that spanking is out of the question for us, and yet I will say it.

(Your kid, your choice, your business, but for us, it's 100% off the table, for many, many reasons. Not the least of which is that we both have tempers that tend to "snap" and, for myself, at least, I know, without a doubt, that if hitting her were an option at all, it would happen primarily when I am not in control of anger, and that truly frightens me. There have been many times, when I have thought, at the height of frustration, "If only I could hit her," and then a few minutes later, "Thank God I can't hit her." So, yeah, not gonna happen.)

Our goal, of course, is not to punish her for the behavior, but to change it - and to either eliminate her urge to hit, or to help her learn to control it.

Tonight, especially, I think that a time-out would have probably exacerbated the problem, because I'm almost certain that she was acting out as a reaction to having had other kids in her house all day, and having to share her toys and her Mama, so if I'd reacted by further isolating her from me and her stuff, I think that would have only made it worse.

I would think that the natural consequence of beating on your friends is that they don't want to play with you any more, or their mothers won't let them play with you, so it seems that a logical consequence for hitting would be to not be able to play with her friends.

I've told her that if we're at an activity (these are MOMS Club friends) and she hits, we will have to leave, but I'm pretty sure that's going to bite me in the ass. For one thing, I can't always leave, because I'm the president!

Also, there are times when she asks to go home, and I either want to or have stay, so I'm a little concerns that she's going to go bonk somebody in the head, so I'll take her home.

Maybe I need to revise the consequence to just having to sit with the grownups and not play for a while?

More importantly, though, I think we need to figure out why she's hitting, and address that, rather than just doing something to her after the fact.

I know that tonight she was feeling especially stressed (although you wouldn't have known it from her behavior other than the repeated toddler-head-whacking) so maybe this was kind of a one-off thing, but it's certainly not the first time she's pushed H, and she and C (T's almost-two-year-old) can really get into it.

At least they are pretty evenly matched, size-wise, and the toy yanking and pushing is pretty reciprocal and C has a big sister, so she - and her Mommy - are used to that sort of thing.

Poor little H is just like "What the hell?" As is her Mama.

A and T, and thus H and C, are probably the friends we see the most often, and Peeper really likes both kids (as well as C's kindergartener sister, whom we don't see as often) and is very comfortable with them, so maybe that's a factor in how she feels free to wail on them. (She never laid a hand on the other little girl, almost the same age as H, who was here tonight.)

Whatever it is, we just want it to stop.

We really don't want to be those people that the other moms avoid, because of their little bully of a kid, and I really don't want her to be that kid.

We're open to advice, of the gentle variety.

Dr. Peeper, On the Case

2011-12-30T22:55:00.003-05:00

Here, she is exhibiting her excellent bedside manner, hugging and comforting "Herr Drosselmeyer" after he was "hurt in a campfire."

The next step, of course, was to lay him out on the exam table and instruct her assistant (me) about the exact location of his bo-bos, so I'd know where to put the medicine.

You'll be happy to know that he's all better now.

All Dressed Up....

2011-12-29T19:23:00.003-05:00

In the bathtub tonight: "I can't go out wifout dis on, cause somebody would say '(gasp) dere's a gurl wif her tummy hangin out!'"

Says the child who checks the mailbox in her panties.

Target Nurse-In

2011-12-28T22:50:00.000-05:00

Finally! After three-and-a-bit years of breastfeeding, I finally got to attend a nurse-in!

If you've not heard about the international Target nurse-in this morning, here's some more information about it, from Best for Babes.

When I first read about it, and didn't see my local Target on the list of locations with events scheduled, oh, you know I took the cow by the boobs, added us to the list, and started spreading the word.

As you can imagine, I've nursed at Target a million times, and have never had a problem, nor has anyone that I've talked to had a problem at the local store, so we approached it as an opportunity to raise awareness, to thank our local store for their support, and to ask corporate to be sure that all stores are following their own policy and the applicable state laws.

It wasn't huge, but I was still pleased. We had five moms planning to attend, and ended up with three. Most of the time, it was just me and Peeper and our friend A and her fourteen-month-old daughter H. We hung out at Starbucks visiting, nursing for a while, and drinking coffee.

Then we tracked down a manager and presented him with the following letter:

Dear Manager:

We want to thank you for your store's support of breastfeeding mothers and children. We have nursed our children in your store many times, and have always been treated with respect.

Unfortunately, that was not the case for a mother who recently nursed her infant while shopping at a Houston-area Target store. She was asked to move to a changing room, in direct opposition to both Target corporate policy and Texas law.

We appreciate that, in our experience, the Chambersburg Target and its employees have always acted in accordance with Target's policy and with the Pennsylvania law that guarantees the right of a mother and child to breastfeed any time and anywhere that they are allowed to be.

We will be sending a copy of this letter to your corporate office and asking that they strive to insure that all of their locations and employees are as well-trained and well-educated about the rights of breastfeeding mothers and children as are the ones in Chambersburg.

Thank you again, for your support of mothers and children.

Sincerely,
(signed by the moms, including our kids' names/ages)

Later, another mom and her two kids showed up, and we did some shopping. About then, Shrike called to remind me about our haircut appointment, so Peeper and I had to bail and go get "spiffy."

Oddly enough, we didn't actually get any photos of us nursing, probably, because we were doing it at the same time, so our hands were full, but A and I each got a cute one of Peeper showing off her Target Nurse-In sticker.

And one more, just being cute.

Sweet Treats

2011-12-27T22:15:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I suppose I should have posted this before Christmas, but that just didn't happen. Sorry.

I made several different sweet treats for the MOMS Club cookie exchange and to put in some gift bags. Some old favorites, some I've always wanted to try, and a couple of new ideas from Pinterest.

I had Peeper help me with the pretzel treats, which maybe wasn't such a good idea.

There! 104 pretzels, all laid out in a grid, while she watched!

"Dere! I spread dem out for you!"

Can you get which Candy Cane Kisses I put on, and which she did?

There was a lot of this.

Finally ready to melt. Did I really neglect to take a photo of the finished product? Oh well, they look the same as previous years.

The rest, I did on my own.

That night, after Peeper was in bed, I made mint hot chocolate truffles, based on this recipe that I found on Pinterest.

The original recipe calls for:

12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (about 2 cups)
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar (optional)
1/8 teaspoon salt

but I discovered, after I'd shopped, that it only makes 9 - 10 balls, and I needed more than that.

Luckily, I'd also picked up a bag of Andes mint chocolate chips, and had bought a pint of cream, so I used:

1 bag (10.5 oz, I think) of milk chocolate chips

1 bag (11 oz, I think) of Andes mint chocolate chips

1 pint heavy cream

2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix everything up in a microwave safe bowl, and heat a minute at a time, stirring well in between. Just like the recipe said, it magically all came together when it didn't look melted at all. I whisked it a bit to get it all smooth. That's the whisk from my immersion blender that you see in the photo, but I did it by hand. If Peeper had not been sleeping, I probably would have used the blender.

Stick the bowl in the fridge for a while until it's thick and scoopable, then make quarter-cup (or so) plops, and put it in the freezer. This is not the most attractive stage of the recipe.

When they are firmish, make them into balls. First, I used my bare hands to make the balls, and picked them up to wrap in plastic, but that was a big mess.

Then I just used a spatula to scoop it onto a piece of plastic wrap in my hand, and then use that to make it into a ball and wrap it up.

Keep them frozen until you're ready to use, then put in a mug, one ball to about a cup of milk, and pop it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Yummmmmm.

The next thing I made was also a Pinterest recipe - chocolate peppermint dipped marshmallows, which I found here and here.

I used just a packaged meltable chocolate candy . . .

. . . and regular old peppermints, crushed up in the blender. (They got a lot more crushed than this.)

For the sticks, I used some really small-diameter chocolate-dipped peppermint sticks that I found at Aldi. I just snipped the wrappers open and stuck out enough to go into the marshmallow. Then I dipped them in the chocolate and rolled them in the peppermint.

I make it sound easy, but there was quite a bit of experimentation with the dipping and drying set up. This seemed like a good idea, but didn't work at all.

Shrike convinced me that it would be fine to just put them down on the marshmallows, and that worked great. Thanks, honey!

If you look at the one in the foreground of this photo, you'll see that I had a small problem with the wrappers, in that there's now about an inch sticking out. So, I took each one off, snipped off about an inch or so from the open end, and stuck it back on.

Then I wrapped the marshmallow in plastic and tied it all with a ribbon.

These were delicious, if I do say so myself. The concept is that you would stick one in a cup of hot chocolate, but I've been making that minty anyway (First with the truffles, then with a bit of peppermint schnapps. What?) so I've just been eating them.

Peeper likes them, too. When I was working on the other things, I let her have one of the not-so-pretty ones. She and Shrike were in the other room while she was eating it, but I kept hearing her say "Thank you, Mama! Thank you, Mama!"

I asked Shrike, "Why does she keep thanking me?" and she said that "She's saying 'thank you' every time she takes a bit of it!"

The last things I made were chocolate and vanilla dipped pretzels, with crushed peppermint sprinkled on them. I've never made them before, but they were pretty straight forward. Dip, sprinkle, chill, done.

After I'd used up all the whole pretzels and all the peppermint, I spread the pretzel pieces on a pan and drizzled the rest of both candies onto them.

The gift bags each included a bag with some of each kind of pretzel, a bag of pretzel / M&M treats, four marshmallow pops, and four hot chocolate balls.

I took big pretzels and pretzel M&M treats to the cookie exchange. I really should have photographed them before I put on the plastic wrap, but I wasn't about to try to take it off and rewrap it.

Thirty-Eight Months

2011-12-27T18:15:00.000-05:00

Dear Peeper:
You are thirty-eight months old today, and other than Christmas, of course, by far your biggest news in the past month is that we have recently declared you Officially Potty Trained.

YAY!

A month ago, I was hoping to hear just one "Mama! Pee-pee!" soon, and now you're telling us on a regular basis that, "My pee-pee's tryin' to fall out!" or "I got a biiiig giant fing in my booty tryin' to come out!"

(This is what I get for talking to you about exactly what "the feeling" actually feels like, to help you recognize it.)

And, a couple of times yesterday, we discovered that you were in the bathroom, on the potty. You had gotten your step stool and potty seat into position, climbed up, gotten your pants down and sat - all by yourself!

As soon as we figure out how to help you with tearing off some toilet paper without unrolling the whole roll (it's not intentional, you just have trouble tearing it) and work on your wiping technique a little bit, you'll be able to handle pee-pees all by yourself!

Not only do you tell us when you have to go, but you've had very few accidents lately. Off hand, I can think of maybe three pee-pee accidents, one of which you were able to "cut off" and finish in the potty, one of which was totally our fault (in the car) and another that you reported as soon as it started.

(Christmas Eve at your aunts' house. In a fancy dining chair. I think I grabbed you up before anything soaked through your tights and corduroy pants.)

~~And I don't remember the last time you pooped in your panties.~~ And today, you pooped in your panties (but finished in the potty) for the first time in probably at least a week or two.

There are still the occasional wet beds (including last night) but from what I hear from friends, that's to be expected for quite a while.

It's not such a big deal when Mommy's home to change the sheets while I goody you, but it is pretty unpleasant when I'm trying to get them changed super-fast while you cry, because you just want to go back to sleep. So, yeah, let's work on scheduling that a little better.

Last night, you got the comforter, too, and when Mommy brought us a throw blanket from the couch, you wanted nothing to do with it because "It doesn't maaaaatch!"

You are all about the matching. If you start out the night in jammies (Which is rare, you prefer to just wear panties. All the time.) and something happens to either the top or the pants, we always have to change the whole set, to make them match. I've had to explain to you a few times that things don't have to be the same color to "match." (You have several outfits with coordinating, but not same-colored pants and shirt!)

You are also all about dress-up, especially in your Sugar Plum Fairy gear.

Oh, and the ballet. You are loving all things ballet-related these days. It started, of course, with Nutcracker, but you now have DVDs of Swan Lake and Sleepy Beauty, as well.

For Christmas, you not only got a sparkly tutu, tiara and wand for dress-up purposes, but also some real tights and leotards and a ballet skirt.

What's all that for?

Well, next week, you are going to go to "one ballet class, to see if it's something that you might want to do with you're a little bit older."

What I've not exactly told you yet is that "a little bit older" probably means "two weeks later, when we get back from Texas."

One of the local dance studios, where many of your friends take lessons, has a KinderDance I class starting next week, for 3 - 5 year olds. When we ran into the teacher at Target last week, she told me that, so far, it's almost exclusively barely-threes, which sounds like a good fit for you.

The class will be an hour each week, and will include tap, ballet and some tumbling. It's not a Mommy-and-Me, which makes me a little nervous, and I'm a bit concerned about your tendency to go off and do your own thing, but the instructor (who is also the owner of the studio) has told me that that's pretty much par for the course at that level, and not a big deal.

When I mentioned the possibility of you "dancing on the stage" you freaked out a little bit, and almost backed out of the whole thing, so you will not be participating in the recital this year, and you never have to participate in it, if you don't want to.

If things go well with the free sample class next week, you'll start going weekly when we get home from Texas (you'll just have to miss one week) and if it doesn't go so well, I think we'll try the "Fun-Dementals" class that's aimed at 2 - 3 year olds.

I hope that one or the other will work out for you, and that you'll enjoy actually learning to dance as much as you enjoy playing at it. And if not, then we'll stop the classes, and you can just do all your performances right here on the coffee table.

Now, let's see if I can remember some of other things that you've said and done lately . . . .

A couple of weeks ago, you were watching videos on Mommy's computer, and I was on mine, when you said, "Here, here! Take this pen! (pencil)" When I asked why, you said, "Because I write on this desk," and showed me the pencil marks.

You know your not supposed to write on the desk, but evidently you also know that if there's a pencil available, you can't control yourself.

A couple of other times you've said, "Take this away from me!" when you were spraying your hair detangler, which you also know you're not supposed to do.

When you want me to leave you alone, you tell me "Go to you computer and type an email!" The other day, you threw me out of the bathroom, saying, "Mommy's gonna help me. Get outta here and check you email!"

You've also got some great excuses when we want you to go to the bathroom. My favorite, I believe is "No, I'm trying to cut back!"

You are all about the nakey. The other day, we were expecting dinner guests at five, and around four, you were watching Nutcracker and dancing naked on the coffee table, when I heard you yell, "Mama! Our friends are here!" It was actually another friend dropping something off, and she swears that her daughter does the same thing, but yeah. Big picture window in the living room.

The next day, you were up there when I heard, "Mama! There's a roofer at the door!" It was actually a neighbor dropping off a mis-delivered package, but he was in jeans and a tshirt and you've seen a lot of roofers lately. A year ago, you probably would have called him a plumber.

I think you've decided that we're starting our New Years exercise program (not that we necessarily had one planned) early, because you had us huffing and puffing to The Elmo Slide in the office.

Your little sayings and mannerisms crack me up. Many of them, I'm pretty sure you've picked up from Sesame Street, but others, I have no idea.

When you're playing with your toys, and getting things set up, you'll say, "There you go, there you go, and there you go!"

The other day, you added, "And there you have it!" on the end.

When you were opening Christmas gifts, you were channeling Bert in the Gift of the Magi sketch, saying "Let's see here, um, let's see here, um . . . " and once we showed you the trash bag for wrapping paper, every single scrap that you pulled off, you handed to her, saying "Here you go, Mommy. Here you go, Mommy."

I love how you talk to inanimate objects, too. If we're in Target and I bump into someone with my cart, you'll ask "Why you said, 'Excuse me?'" but you will say it to some blocks on the floor, if you have to move them out of your way.

You also talk to my "goodies." When you want to nurse and I'm not fast enough on the draw, you'll say "Oh goody? Goody? Where are ya, goody?!"

One day, you said to them, "Goody! Oh goody. Speaking of goody, I want goody!"

And speaking of goody, at thirty-eight months old, you are still going strong, with no signs of stopping any time soon, but I am seeing some subtle changes in your nursing habits, especially about going to sleep.

Before you started sleeping in your own bed, I would nurse you to sleep - sometimes in bed, sometimes in front of my computer, sometimes in front of Wizard-of-Oz-on-da-tee-vee - and then it would be this huge thing to get you unlatched and sneeeaaaak away without waking you up.

Now, you still nurse to sleep, but usually in your bed, while/after reading several night-night stories (including three - count 'em three - versions of The Nutcracker) and once you're asleep, either you'll unlatch and roll over on your own, or I can just whisper "Roll over, Baby," and you will.

Occasionally, you'll even unlatch and roll over while you're still awake, then fall asleep while "just cuddling" and talking to yourself.

When you're cuddling and going to sleep while not nursing, you always whisper to yourself. I so wish that I could make out what you're saying, but I usually just catch a word or two every now and then.

And what else?

Yesterday, you grabbed the drawstring of Mommy's jammies, and pulled on it, saying "C'mon, leash! C'mon!"

Speaking of jammies, Eena and Papa got me some cupcake jammies for Christmas, and when I tried them on, you hugged my leg and said, "Oh, I love you!" I asked, "Do you love Mama, or do you love my cupcake pants?" and you said, "I love Mama's cupcake pants!"

And speaking of love, your newest funniest-joke-ever is to tell us that we don't love you. You like to tell me, "Only Mommy loves me, not you!"and you tell Mommy "You don't love me!" (Somehow I don't get credit for "only" loving you. Hmmm.)

You're cracking up when you say it, so we consider it a good thing that you consider "my parents don't love me" to be the most absurd thing that you could possibly say.

But you do know that we love each other. A few days ago, we were out running errands, and at one point, i said, "Target next, my love!" and you asked, "Why you say 'Target next, my love?'"

(Because "WHY" is your response to everything these days. I know. Three.)

I said, "Because we're going to Target next, and because you are my love. Are you my love?"

"Yes," you said, so I asked, "Who else is my love?"

You told me, "Mommy is you love," and then asked (of course), "Why Mommy is you love?"

I said, "Because she's my wife and I love her."

And you said, "You like to kiss you wife, and you like to hug you wife."

I said, "I sure do!" and asked you what other things I like to do with her. You came up with "talk to her" and "eat with her," and I added "spend time with her, and spend time with Peeper with her, and go places with her," and yeah, that pretty much covers it, I think.

As distracted as we are at times, and as crazy as our schedules can be, and as little us-time as Mommy and I tend to get, it really made me happy to know that you know that we like to hug and kiss each other.

I'm also pleased that you seem to be pretty in touch with your feelings, and able to verbalize them.

A few weeks ago, I decided that one of your pumpkins (yes, there's still one around, even now) just had to go to compost immediately. I probably could have snuck it out there when you weren't looking, but I told you that it was getting squishy and yucky, and needed to go out, and asked if you wanted to help me take it.

Of course, you did, so we talked about how it will rot and make compost that will help to grow new pumpkins and other veggies next year. You tossed it in the can and looked at it and said "Bye-bye, pumpkin. I am sad about you pumpkin."

It about broke my heart, and I so wanted to just make it all okay, but I know that it's important to have these experiences, and to be okay with being sad about things, so I just acknowledge it and gave you a hug and reminded you about next year's garden.

Sometimes the things you're "sad about" don't seem like a big deal to us, but they certainly are to you. This evening, we were in the basement, and you were playing with a painted canoe paddle, swinging it around. We took it away, and told you that it wasn't a very good toy, because it was going to break something.

Oh, you'd think you'd lost your best friend. You teared up, and cried, "I am sad about yoooouuu!" When I said, "I know you're sad about it," you asked, "Why I sad about it?" So I said that "You were having fun with it, and Mama took it away, because she didn't think it was a good toy, because it could break something, so you are sad."

On the way up the stairs, you said, "I thought it was a great toy!"

And there you go, breaking my heart again.

I'm also very pleased with how you verbalize your questions and concerns about our feelings, too.

Last week, I was telling Dr. T about how I lost it with you when we were making Christmas treats, and yelled at you, and a few minutes later you asked, "Why you were angry with me?"

Her response was basically, "Ouch. But good for her!"

So I did explain that I was frustrated and angry that you weren't cooperating and that you were touching everything I'd told you not to touch, but I also apologized for thinking that what I was working on was something that would be fun for you to help with, which it clearly - in retrospect - should have just been a Mama thing.

It just amazes me that you are big enough for us to have these sorts of conversations, and I really hope that, as you get older, you keep wanting to talk to us about these things.

And about every thing else.

And now, I'll shut up and maybe even go get some sleepy. We've got a goody party to go to at Target in the morning.

I love you, Roodle!

Love,
Mama

Panda Pics: Thirty-Eight Months

2011-12-27T15:01:00.000-05:00

"I gonna give the camera a kiss!"

My favorites.

Boxing Day

2011-12-26T22:00:00.000-05:00

As is traditional, Shrike, Peeper and I headed out to Target this evening, to make some returns and check out the after-Christmas clearance sales. Toilet paper and paper towels were also on sale, so we spent what seems like a ridiculous amount on them, but was a lot less than we could have (and we got two $5 gift cards out of the deal!) and picked up a nutcracker that Peeper's been eyeing - 50% off`! Plus some groceries, because the cupboards, they are beyond bare.

Then we made a stop at Staples, because they were having a 15% off anything-you-can-stuff-in-this-bag sale, and I need toner for one printer and ink for another. We also picked up some washable do-a-dot markers to replace the permanently-skin-staining bingo daubers that cheap-ass Santa thought he could get away with.

Then we popped over to PetsMart to visit the animals, and then to Michael's (Or "Mike's" as Shrike called it. Evidently they are big buddies.) to take a look at their clearance stuff. Of course, Peeper found a ballerina ornament that we had to have (at 60% off). For something like $2.50, we told her that it could be a toy if she wanted.

Now we just need Clara. Of course, her monkey does an excellent job with that role.

By then, of course, we were famished, so we got some dinner. (I should probably photoshop these two pictures together, huh?)

When we got home, she stripped down and dressed up, then climbed in my lap and said "You gonna take a picture with the Sugar Plum Fairy."

So I did.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

As you saw, Santa did his thing last night, and Peeper was a very happy girl this morning - once we reminded her about it.

She went through her presents a lot faster than last year, without too much stopping to play in between, and she handled it pretty well when we got to the end of them.

Christmas Goldfish!

Should we be concerned by the fact that this little guy and his ladybug friend are still oozing enough petroleum product that they left a grease stain on the wrapping paper.

"Oh! Santa brought me a panda! It's a panda piwwow!"

Opening her stocking.

Her stocking haul. There was also a little M&M guy and the big M&M Nutcracker.

Chocolate Santas, all in a row.

The Big Truck! It came with three guys, their tools, and a steam roller.

The guys and their tools.

I think Santa should have sprung for the washable, non-toxic Do-A-Dot markers, instead of going with the Dollar Tree bingo daubers.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

She even enjoyed watching me and Shrike open our gifts to each other, after she was all done with Santa, although they weren't anywhere near as exciting.

Once everything was opened, we just hung out and played, had some brunch, and hung out some more.

Around midafternoon, about the time we started trying to get Peeper cleaned up and dressed to go over to Shrike's grandparents house (it was a drop-by affair, since Grandma's not up to a big thing), she was kind of starting to lose it. Nothing overly dramatic, but pretty out of control, compared to her usual easy-going ways.

She was throwing toys around, coloring on the (sunroom) carpet with a (washable) marker, and being quite uncooperative about washing up and putting on clothes.

"No! I just want to stay here nakey!"

So, I picked her up and said, "Christmas is pretty exciting isn't it? There's just too much excitement isn't there? You don't really know what to do with it all, do you? How about if you go out in the back yard and run around and yell 'Yay! It's Christmas!' Do you think that would help? Do you need to put clothes on first?"

She decided that she could do it in her panties, if I carried her. (It was in, oh, the upper 40s at the time?)

So, I carried her out the door, and she jumped down and ran around, as prescribed, yelling "Yay! It's Chwismas!" over and over, until she came running back to me and said, "Can I put some clothes on? It's kind of cold out here."

Energy diffused - Check
Clothes on - Check
Mother-of-the-Year highlight reel complete - Check

All dressed up (finally) at Grandma and Pappy's house.

Those Damn Sleigh Bells . . .

2011-12-25T00:55:00.001-05:00

. . . wake me up every year!

Stockings for everyone (including some treats for the critters).

The pile o' presents!

Panda pillow pet (well, an off-brand version)

"Nutcracker Sweet" M&M dispenser!

This train table is so gay.

Cookies for Santa

2011-12-24T23:45:00.000-05:00

I did not have it in me to produce any more cookies, so I told Peeper that we'd save out some of our haul from the MOMS Club cookie exchange to leave for Santa. As I was saying it, I was thinking "Yeah, we'll save the ones we don't like for . . . Oh. Wait a minute."

As it turns out, by this evening, there weren't too many left - a handful of sugar cookies, which are Peeper's favorite, so I couldn't give those away, and some oatmeal raisin, which (not this specific mom's recipe, but all oatmeal raisin) are not only yucky, but also evil, because the masquerade as delicious chocolate chip cookies.

I hope the big guy likes oatmeal raisin.

Update: He does!

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T23:35:00.000-05:00

After our delicious breakfast, we took the doggies for a walk, and (as per usual) stopped at McDonald's for an ice cream cone (Peeper) and peppermint mocha (Mama).

After getting cold ice cream everywhere, including her hands, I think Peeper told Shrike "You talked me into hot chocolate next time."

When we got home, I tossed Peeper's clothes in the wash finished up some wrapping, while Shrike tossed Peeper in the tub. Then we called BabyBro and His Lovely Family to wish them Happy Birthday (the rest of the family will be getting their calls tomorrow), got dressed, and let Peeper open her gifts from us.

Actually, the first gift was from one of Shrike's coworkers. A truck, with a guy in it. Loves. It.

Now, we're getting to the stuff from us.

Fisher-Price Little People Nativity.

Lacing beads, which she was just using as blocks. She was making snowmen and buildings and faces and diamonds-out-of-triangles, and I don't know what else.

Paints.

I just got a new computer (Thanks, Anonydaddy!) and Shrike just got a new computer desk (Thanks, Craig's List), neither of which is actually set up yet. When they are, we will put my old computer on Shrike's old desk, clean it up and replace the keyboard and mouse with these Peeper-size ones, and it will be Peeper's Very Own Computer.

Leotards and tights. The forecast calls for an 80% chance of dance lessons within the next two weeks.

She also got a box full of miscellaneous dress-up things. Not pictured: Sparkly bracelets, pirate vest, panda mask, and replacement firefighter hat (she stepped on hers a couple of days ago, and broke it).

Oh wait, there's the panda mask.

Oh! And ruby slippers.

When we finished with that, we went to Shrike's sister's house for dinner with the family and gifts for the kids.

After dinner, we stopped by for a quick visit with her grandma, who wasn't up to attending dinner, and then to the Christmas Eve service at the Unitarian church that her sister's family attends.

No, I did not intend for her to be bare-legged. In fact, I was so super-efficient, that I went ahead and put her black tights on, under the pants that she wore for the dinner portion of the program. And then she peed in them. Her red tights were sitting at home, where I'd taken them out of the bag when I decided that the black ones would look better with the ruby slippers.

Luckily, I had two pairs of red socks in the bag, waiting to be returned to Target, because they weren't the kind that I meant to buy. I will only be returning one pair.

We also try to get a photo of the three of us, all dressed up for Christmas. Meh.

That's better!

This pile is most, but not quite all, of the gifts that she opened this evening, plus the gifts that Shrike and I will be opening tomorrow, to and from each other.

Back home for Peeper to play with her new toys for a while and put out some cookies for Santa, then teeth and jammies, and stories, and she didn't even make it through all of the books in her bedtime lineup before she conked out.

Whew!

Christmas Eve Breakfast

2011-12-24T23:30:00.000-05:00

Several months ago, I spotted this on a clearance end-cap at Target, and I immediately thought "Christmas morning!"

A couple of days ago I realized that we'd have more time to mess with making pancakes today than tomorrow, so they became our "Christmas Eve Morning!" breakfast instead.

Of course, Peeper wanted to help.

When I tasted the batter, it wasn't quite pepperminty enough for me, so I tossed a few in the blender, and added some peppermint dust to the batter. Perfect!

Peeper agrees!

The "serving suggestion" on the box was to top them with a dollop of whipped cream, sprinkled with crushed peppermint, but I simplified that a bit by just mixing some powdered peppermints directly into the Cool Whip.

Shrike and I ate them like this: Double chocolate peppermint pancakes, topped with peppermint Cool Whip.

Peeper with with a slightly different variation: Spoon topped with peppermint Cool Whip.

Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel

2011-12-23T22:49:00.000-05:00

To go along with our learning about other non-Christmas holidays that are celebrated at this time of the year, I thought that I'd do a little Hanukkah activity with Peeper this evening.

I thought menorah lighting seemed a bit much, but when I found one-dollar dreidels and bags of chocolate gelt, I couldn't resist.

I don't actually know the dreidel rules, nor is Peeper big enough to follow them, nor can she actually make the dreidel spin herself, but she sure did enjoy the gelt.

"Shugaw! Dat's shugaw! Oh, I wuv shugaw!"

Great.

Magic Mint Seeds: The Harvest

2011-12-23T21:44:00.002-05:00

I guess the moon and stars and wind (and rain) must have been just right!

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I tried and tried to get a photo of Peeper holding her harvest, but she kept running away. I thought I had a couple of good shots, but when I looked at them, I realized that you couldn't see the candy canes in any of them!

Oh well. This is what she looks like when she's way too pleased with herself for running away from Mama and the camera.

Oh. Oh my.

2011-12-22T23:29:00.001-05:00

I was just looking at my blog stats, which I haven't done in a while, and checking out the search terms that have found me.

I've recently had two hits from each of the following:
naked fairy coloring pages for adults
santa claus naked

I can only hope that they were sorely disappointed with what they found.

Magic Mint Seeds: Sowing the Seeds

2011-12-22T23:12:00.001-05:00

Our solstice plans might not have panned out, but we did have a bit of festivity today.

This afternoon, I went to get some, um, things out of the car, and Peeper went along with me. In her panties, of course.

When she headed back into the house, lo and behold, hanging on our front door was a mysterious bag.

It came with no label or instructions, but Mama Knows Things, so I immediately recognized it as a bag of Magic Peppermint Seeds, along with a packet of Magic Peppermint Seed Fertilizer.

Well, of course, we planted and fertilized them right away. . .

. . . and if the moon and the stars and the wind are just right, by morning, we should have a nice crop of . . . well, you'll just have to wait and see.

(I have had to tell Peeper two or three times that they are probably not going to grown into pumpkins.)

Solstice Bust

2011-12-22T22:56:00.001-05:00

We've been reading a book lately called Lights of Winter, which is an overview of several winter festivals of light, through history and in various cultures.

Of course, it talks about how they are all related to the winter solstice, so it seemed appropriate that we do something to mark the solstice today.

(Or yesterday. Or last night. Or whatever. She's three, she doesn't know.)

My plan, such as it was, was to go drive around and look at some Christmas lights, going with that whole light-lights-to-lure-back-the-sun thing.

She didn't want to do that, though, and she was pretty sleepy around darklish time, so I was hesitant to put her in the car.

So, I suggested that she and I take a walk around the block after dark and look at the lights in our neighborhood, but she wasn't interested in that either.

So, yeah, we really didn't do much of anything about it after all.

Potty Girl!

2011-12-21T22:51:00.000-05:00

Peeper completed her last (knock wood) potty chart last night, and earned her third (of three available) Prima Princessa videos. As luck would have it, numbers two (Swan Lake) and three (The Sleeping Beauty) both arrived in the mail today, so she was able to watch them both by the end of the day.

Since about halfway through the previous chart, she's been really good about letting us know when she has to go to the bathroom, by telling us that either, "My pee-pee's tryin' to faw out!" or "I have a biiiig giant fing in my booty, tryin' to get out!"

(This is what I get for talking to her about what "the feeling" actually feels like, to help her to recognize it)

She's had very few accidents within the past few days (maybe a couple of pee-pees, including in the car last night, which was totally our fault, and no poops) and she's telling us consistently so, while we know that she still needs reminders and there will still be accidents from time to time, we have declared her officially Potty Trained.

To celebrate, we surprised her with a little Potty Party at lunch today.

While she and I were at the cookie party, Shrike went and picked out a balloon, and I dug the ballerina panties out from under the tree. I told her that she could choose where we were going to lunch (She picked Applebee's, which is really weird because we've only been there a couple of times.) and Shrike met us there with the balloon, final potty prize and the certificate of achievement that came with her Sesame Street potty chart.

(At the time that she completed the chart, I couldn't find it, and also she really hadn't "achieved" anything major at that point. This was more appropriate.)

When we got home, I put all her charts (Well, no, I realized that I don't have her very first one, that was just for actually going pee-pee at all. I think it's in her box-of-things-to-save-forever.) and her certificate on the wall in her bedroom, beside her Big Girl Bed.

She's pretty excited about it.

Cookie Party

2011-12-21T22:35:00.000-05:00

This morning was the MOMS Club Christmas party and cookie exchange. Somehow I neglected to get any photos of the actual cookies, but look for a post soon about my own personal treat-making adventures.

I did get lots of photos with a certain special visitor who stopped by to see the kids.

You'll notice that before Santa was even seated, Peeper was right there, hopping up onto his lap. I felt a little bad that she got to be first, without any sort of line forming or other attempt at organization of the kids, but I figure that the kid who is willing to follow him across the room and crawl right into his lap probably deserves to go first.

She kind of liked the cookies, too.

Baby Jesus

2011-12-20T22:38:00.000-05:00

Peeper has become quite the fan of Baby Jesus, so I've had my eye out for a book about him. I found one that I liked at Michael's, and when I got at 25% everything coupon, I bought it.

I like it because it tells the story, but isn't too heavy-handed with the God stuff. I mean, there are angelic messengers and all, but it's leaves alone a lot of the other stuff, which is just fine by us.

She was very excited to get the book, and of course, Shrike had to read it to her right away.

Later, she recruited one of her dolls to play Baby Jesus, and me and Shrike to costar as Mary and Joseph, respectively, and she was a Wise Man, and we reenacted the story. Here she is bringing her gifts for Baby Jesus. I think a radio and a lunch box are much more practical than gold, frankencense and myrrh, don't you? (Well, maybe not gold.)

Christmas Carolling

2011-12-20T22:11:00.000-05:00

This morning, we went Christmas caroling at a local retirement home, along with some of our MOMS Club buddies.

Everyone seemed to enjoy it, but I think next year we might want to rehearse or something.

Peeper was rockin' the jingle bells.

Did I mention that there were cookies?

Tiny World

2011-12-19T23:00:00.000-05:00

Shrike's off work today, so we planned a nice evening for the three of us, visiting Tiny World (you'll see) and then dinner.

After a morning with me in the kitchen and Peeper and Shrike anywhere-but-the-kitchen-please, and then a visit with our friend T and her girls for Peeper (and a visit with Dr T for us), that didn't quite pan out as planned.

Peeper fell asleep on the way to Tiny World, and when we got there, she was pretty discombobulated. She wanted goody "At Tiny World!" or "In da cah!" or "Not in da cah! At Tiny World!" and "Wanna go to Tiny World!" ("We are at Tiny World, honey. This is Tiny World.") and "Wanna go home!" but then she eventually realized that Tiny World is totally cool, and (more or less) enjoyed herself.

By the time we left, she was down with the idea of going out to eat, but just as we were about to pass the turn-off to our house, she said "I can pee-pee at Red Robin. I have the feeling that I need to pee-pee. I pee-peed!"

Which was totally our fault, because we'd not given her a chance to go since we'd picked her up, despite the fact that T had told us she hadn't peed in about forty-five minutes, and had drunk two cups of milk.

I headed home to change her clothes, and as we got out of the car, she was saying "Oooh, oooh, dis is a pwobwem!"

Needless to say, we blew off going out to eat and just had some leftovers for dinner.

Yes, Again. What?

2011-12-18T23:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, Peeper and I were doing some shopping, and then stopped by PetsMart to visit the animals (her request). When we walked in, I saw a sign saying that Santa had been there taking photos with pets, but had left about twenty minutes earlier. Ack!

On the way out, though, I read it more closely, and saw that he'd be back today. Score!

I told her ahead of time that "Today it's the doggies' turn, so I don't know if little girls will be allowed to sit in his lap today," but he did invited her to sit in his lap (there were no dogs there at the moment) and let us take a couple of photos with my camera.

I thought the ladies who were taking the $9.95 (for the animal shelter) photos kind of gave me the stink-eye about it, but if Santa says it's okay, it must be okay.

Looks okay to me.

Choo Choo Day

2011-12-17T23:40:00.000-05:00

This afternoon, Santa was hanging out downtown, on his train (which we saw on Candle Night), so you know we had to stop by and take some photos.

Then it somehow turned into an all-day, mostly train-themed affair.

Because nothing is ever simple with us.

We started with Santa, of course, where she was her typical photogenic self.

Then we grabbed some coffee and a cake pop, where she was slightly less photogenic . . .

. . . and then headed over to a model train display.

I took lots of photos there, but the ones with Peeper in them all pretty much look like this.

From there, we sent Mommy off to work, and then Peeper and I did some shopping, hitting Staples, Michael's, PetsMart (just for fun) and Target.

When we got home, I realized that it had been something like seven hours since Peeper had last nursed. She was asking for "goody" as she got out of the car!

Heritage Christmas

2011-12-16T23:50:00.006-05:00

This evening, Peeper and I made a trip to a nearby town's "Heritage Christmas" celebration this evening. They do this every Friday in December, but this is the first time I've ever been.

They had middle school kids singing, every church and organization in town handing out cookies / hot chocolate / cider / smores, carriage and buggy rides (didn't do this, they sell out really, really fast), balloon sculptures and, of course, Santa Claus.

Thank goodness she got to see Santa, after our advent calendar fiasco this afternoon.

She also ate lots of cookies and s'mores, and got a balloon sword. As we got near the balloon guy, she saw a little boy walk away from him, holding a sword, and she said, brandishing an invisible sword, "I wanna sword!"

So, we got in line, and when it was her turn, she told him "I wanna soh-wuhd," and when he asked if she'd rather a ninja sword or a pirate sword, of course she said "piwate soh-wuhd," because she's heard of pirates.

Technically, she got two swords, because she popped this one.

The Night 'Afore Christmas

2011-12-16T11:41:00.014-05:00

Originally, Peeper and Shrike were planning to go to a MOMS Club "Book and Cook" (read a book, make a related snack) activity this morning, which I think was going to involve a story about Baby Jesus and some angel cookies. Unfortunately, the hostess' son was throwing up in the night, so that was cancelled.

I had another possibility up my sleeve, but wasn't sure we were going to make it there, so I went with this for Peeper's "official" activity "in her drawer."

See that image over there on the right? That's what was on her paper. When she looked at it, she said "It's Santa! It's Santa!" and I said, "Yes, that's a picture of a book about Santa. That's the book that Grandma recorded for you. Remember it? Do you want to listen to it?"

That giant smile instantly disappeared from her little face, she got quiet and said, rather politely, but doubtfully, "Yes."

I believe the word I'm looking for here is "crestfallen."

I. Felt. Awful.

It never occurred to me that when she saw the picture of the book, she would assume that she was going to see Santa Claus. Next year, I will just use a picture of a generic book.

Of course, I immediately started making promises that "We will see Santa again soon. Maybe not today. Or maybe today." and asked her, "Are you disappointed?" and she said "Yes."

Again with the awful.

But, hey, at least I didn't do this to her.

And I think she got over it.

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And then we went to see Santa.

Role Play

2011-12-15T23:38:00.002-05:00

I've picked up several little Christmasy things on the dollar aisle, or on clearance last January, and I need to start remembering to give them to Peeper as "fillers" for those days with no "big" activities.

I finally brought a few more up from the basement, along with a handful of gift bags, for the sake of presentation.

Tonight, I gave her a couple of one-dollar foam visors: Santa and a reindeer. She could have gone on for hours with them. I was kicking myself for turning off the camera when I did, because of course, that's when the baby reindeer hatched from their eggs and got goody (huh?) and had all sorts of other adventures.

Christmas Chat

2011-12-15T04:47:00.002-05:00

Gingerbread house, Santa requests and the Gospel according to Peeper.

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Reindeer Games

2011-12-14T23:22:00.000-05:00

At art class this morning, Peeper colored a picture of a reindeer, made a "jingle stick" (it's exactly what it sounds like - jingle bells on a stick) and made a picture of a reindeer using her hand and foot prints (much like the Christmas ornaments we made last year).

Then the kids jingled their sticks and sang "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and ate candy canes.

A good time was had by all.

This evening, Peeper found a Rudolph picture in her drawer, and I suggested that we watch the movie. She was down with that at first, but only lasted until about the part where "Wudof an' da denis" take off before she wanted to "watch bawway."

While she watched that, Mama took a little nap on the couch, and when she woke me up to get her some Goldfish, she asked me "Do you feel better?"

I told her, in my very sleepy voice, that I didn't feel bad, I was just tired. She asked "Are you sad?"

I said, "No, baby. I don't feel bad and I'm not sad, I'm just sleepy."

"You not crying?"

"Oh no, honey. Mama's not crying, I'm just sleepy. Why did you think I was crying?"

"I can't hear you voice."

Back to the Mall

2011-12-13T23:44:00.001-05:00

Can you believe that we went to the mall again?! We've probably been there more in the past two weeks than in the past year.

We picked up my glasses, stopped to visit with Santa again, and then has some lunch at Bonanza. Yeah, I know. But it wasn't bad, actually.

And I just love it when Peeper spots and salad bar and starts begging for it. I told her there were several "bars" with all kinds of food, and she kept pointing at the salad one, saying "How 'bout we start with that one?"

(Evidently, she had not spotted the ice cream and sugar cookies yet.)

And then, when I take her through the salad bar, pretty much everything I ask about, she says "yes" to. She might not actually eat everything she took, but she asks for all of it, and generally at least tries it.

(She was happier about it than she looks in this photo.)

Oh yeah, my glasses.

I don't know what you think of them, but Peeper says they look "fabuwous!"

Movie Night, Again

2011-12-13T23:36:00.000-05:00

We were going to go to "Tiny World" (more on that when we actually make it there) this morning with MOMS Club, but Peeper's threatening to be sick (congested, coughing at night) and I got to bed late and was up several times with her, so we blew it off.

I needed something for the drawer, so I declared that Peeper and I were going to watch The Year Without a Santa Claus, or as she called it last year (a thousand times a day) Humhummuh! Humhummuh! Humhummuh!

She seemed to enjoy it, but I don't think she's going to get re-obsessed. She was dancing The Nutcracker while it was on.

Gingerbread House

2011-12-12T22:48:00.003-05:00

We went with the pre-built, ready-to-decorate option again this year, which is a good thing, because I don't think Peeper would have stood for sitting around and watching me build it.

She barely stood for sticking the candy on it. She was much more about eating the candy and licking off the icing.

Oh well, that's half the fun, right?

But Wait, There's More!

2011-12-12T19:31:00.000-05:00

Random

2011-12-12T03:33:00.001-05:00

Eight-and-a-half typical minutes in the life of a three year old.

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And On The Other End of the Spectrum

2011-12-11T23:04:00.002-05:00

DaNiece and DaNephew, not so thrilled about Santa.

The feeling appears to be mutual.

Catching Up With Old Friends

2011-12-11T22:59:00.000-05:00

Peeper may spend much of her time these days in the Land of the Sweets, but she hasn't forgotten about her old pals in Oz.

Christmas Party

2011-12-11T22:57:00.000-05:00

We had our Christmas party this afternoon, and can you believe that I didn't take any photos at all!

Not even of the food!

What's the matter with me?

Afterward, I did get this one shot of the festive dishtowels hanging on the oven.

A little something for Peeper, a little something-something for Mommy and Mama.

Walk Through Bethlehem

2011-12-10T22:46:00.000-05:00

Peeper has become (oddly enough, given her parents) quite the fan of Baby Jesus. Of course, I told her a bit of the Christmas story last year, when she started noticing the babies everywhere, and this year, I filled out the details a bit.

Probably a bit too much.

If you let her help with the story, she will tell you that the reason Mary was surprised by the angel's messages is "because she didn't got any sperm."

Ahem. Yeah. Sorry.

She will also tell you how Mary was "soooo tired" on the donkey, and how she "puuuuushed Baby Jesus out."

And she'll also tell you that "Christians believe Baby Jesus got born."

This evening, we went to a "Walk Through Bethlehem" at a local church, and it was really very cool. I was impressed at how organized and well-run it was, given the size of the crowd, and I was very impressed at how they handed out "census cards" that each family had to complete and turn in to the Roman soldiers. Including address and email. Hmmmm.

I considered not filling it out, because I don't especially want to be on their mailing list, but on the other hand, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if they want us. So, we shall see.

While we were waiting for our group's turn to take the tour, we hung out in the "Family Life Center" (evidently, churches don't have "gyms" anymore), eating cookies and listening to a guy sing Christmas carols.

There was also an activity for the kids - making shepherd's headpieces. Peeper made one (okay, she scribbled on it and I put it on her head) and she wore it the whole time.

The tour was actually quite entertaining and even pretty funny at times. We were citizens on our way to Bethlehem for the census, and we met up with a shepherd who offered to lead us there. Our first stop was to visit his brother shepherds, who were tending their flock by night.

You can see where this is going.

Then we went around looking for the baby, incuding stops at the marketplace, the water well, the inns, the shepherd's cousin's house, and finally, the stable, where Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus were hanging out.

Peeper really seemed to enjoy it, and she was very quite and cooperative and attentive through the whole thing.

And damn cute.

Our third Christmas activity for the day was another pass by the super-duper Christmas light display. Which was evidently just a bit too much for her.

Baking Cookies

2011-12-10T22:30:00.000-05:00

We actually did ~~two~~ three Christmasy things today, which makes up for some of our recent slacker days. Our "official" (picture in the advent calendar drawer) activity was to bake and decorate some cookies for our Christmas party tomorrow.

I took the semi-easy way out, and bought the premade, preformed break-and-bake sugar cookies, so we just had to bake and decorate them.

We added M&Ms - or as Peeper calls them "any ems" - or as we call them "the c-a-n-d-y which cannot be spelled - to one batch, and iced and sprinkled the other batch.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-10T15:34:00.002-05:00

Colorful Joy Christmas Card

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Note: Shutterfly.com is giving me a $10 credit for posting this card on my blog. You can get the same deal if you have a blog and order a Shutterfly.com.

Nutcracker Nut

2011-12-10T10:31:00.003-05:00

I wasn't kidding.

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Christmas Light Show

2011-12-09T23:42:00.000-05:00

After at least two, possibly three, failed attempts to go see the cool Christmas light display that's not far from our house, Peeper and I finally made it over there after we did some shopping this afternoon and evening.

It being a Friday night (oh. yeah. that.) there was quite a line of cars stop-and-going down the street, and I felt bad for Peeper that, being rear-facing, she couldn't see the house until we were on top of it.

However, I was able to park just past the house for a while, so she could get a good look, and I think that next time we go, I'll just go around everyone else and do that.

Here's a little peek at what they've got going on:

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Obsessed Much?

2011-12-09T23:22:00.000-05:00

We're at Target, and she asks to see the "widduw bitty wight gween Chwismas twee."

And then asks me "Can it do bawway?"

Here's she's inspecting it, after I told her that it would probably be difficult for it to do ballet, since it doesn't have any feet or legs.

Clifford!

2011-12-08T23:57:00.000-05:00

While we were at the mall, Peeper couldn't resist the riding toys, of course.

When she and I got there (Shrike met up with us), I didn't have any change, so I told her that she could sit on them, but I couldn't make them go.

As she moved to a different one, I reminded her that "I can't make it go, because I don't have any quarters."

She said, in this dramatic, pained, sympathetic voice that she does, "Oh, I sooowwy, Mama!"

I asked what she was sorry about, and she said, "I sowwy 'bout have no quarters!"

"Progressive" Is Good, Right?

2011-12-08T23:55:00.001-05:00

The three of us went to the mall today, for the second time in less than a week, which is really weird for us.

I had my appointment with the eye doctor, and Shrike had to pick up her glasses.

Not bad, eh?

Mine will be ready in three to five business days.

I really don't understand the results of my vision tests, because he told me that on the distance vision, I'm 20/20 and would pass the driver's license test to drive without glasses, but that I'll see better with them. I'm not sure how this jives up with the fact that I can't read a street name until I've pretty much missed my turn.

For the close-up vision, he told me that, again, I am 20/20, but with "about five steps of magnification to make it clear."

Yeah, "clear" versus "Are there words there? Because it just looks like a gray blob." That seems sort of significant to me.

He said that my prescription is "very weak" but, again, I'll "see better with glasses than without."

Well, I should hope so, because I can't see shit without them.

Then he began to describe the glasses that he's recommending: "They'll have one area that's for reading, and one that's for distance vision . . . "

I said, "Yeah, I like how you said all that without ever using the word 'bifocals.'"

He just laughed and said, "Welcome to your forties!"

Actually, he said that they are not, technically, bifocals, because those have the line and these will be progressive lenses, that also have an area that's good for middle-distance vision, like the computer or the dashboard.

When I get them, I'm supposed to wear them full time for a couple of weeks, to get used to them, and then I can go to just wearing them when I need them, like for reading or driving. I suspect that's a trick, because I'm guessing that after wearing them full time for a couple of weeks, most people decide that they need them all the time.

I thought that my crappy insurance had some sort of a glasses discount, at least, but it turns out that I have no coverage at all for vision, so I restricted my frames search to the cheapest ones. I found a pair that I think I'm really going to like, at the lowest price, so that's cool.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I could have found some that I loved at a higher price, too, but I wasn't even looking at those.

Although, I would have liked to have gotten the ones with "Magic Clip" magnetic "clip"-on sunglasses, but they were way more expensive, and I don't think there were any in that style that I liked as much as the ones I chose.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do for sunglasses, because I have to have them to drive during the day. I guess I'll get the dorky clip-ons. I will not be getting the giant ones that go on over your glasses. That is for sure.

Between the exam, frames and lenses - which were more expensive because I went with the progressives instead of traditional bifocals - I got out of there for a smidge over $200, which we don't really have to be throwing around, but I guess isn't too bad, all things considered.

Movie Night

2011-12-08T23:50:00.000-05:00

This evening, Peeper and I hosted some of the MOMS Club gals and their kids for our second monthly "HOOT and HOWL" night (Honey Out Of Town / Honey Out Working Late) for moms and kids who are on their own for dinner time.

We had a lasagna potluck dinner, and then the kiddos watched Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, while the moms visited.

A good time was had by all, when Peeper wasn't head butting them.

(Sorry, T.)

Christmas Jammies - Finally

2011-12-07T23:53:00.000-05:00

We gave Peeper these Christmas jammies on December 1, but tonight is the first time I've actually gotten them on her, because she generally sleeps in nothing but panties.

Miss Independent

2011-12-07T22:39:00.004-05:00

Shrike took Peeper to art class this morning, where she made a handprint-on-a-pretty-blue-ball ornament. Sort of.

She put her handprint on it, then messed with it and smeared it all off.

And then she smeared all her paints together and got them all over herself. Or so I am told.

The class is from 10 - 11 am. They were home by 10:45, because Peeper said "I am all done," and Shrike said, "Yep. You sure are."

The day before, at gym class, while everyone else was doing the parachute, Peeper was jumping on the trampoline.

While everyone else was kicking a ball across the gym, Peeper was at the other end of the gym, climbing on the bleachers.

While everyone else was holding one tennis ball and throwing it at a target, Peeper was dumping out the entire fucking bucket of tennis balls.

So, we have to ask ourselves whether she's intentionally ignoring the instructions, or just doing her own thing.

Is she being anti-social or thinking independently?

Is she preparing for a life of crime, or to discover the cure for cancer?

Or maybe she's just being a typical three-year-old, compared to her relatively more compliant two-year-old classmates?

Never Say Never

2011-12-06T21:57:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I don't know if this qualifies as a "Christmas Activity" but it's the closest we came today.

I put the picture for going to look at Christmas lights back in the drawer for today again, but somehow that didn't pan out again, because Peeper opted to stay home and paint with Mommy instead of everyone going to the grocery store, and then by the time I got home, she was in the tub (see above, re painting) and didn't want to go back out.

Okay. Whatever.

So, instead there was much Nutcracker play again, and Peeper's role of choice for most of the day was the Mouse King, because he is pretty much her favorite character.

(Remember The Wizard of Oz? In which her favorite character is The Wicked Witch of the West? Yeah, we're a little concerned about what might happen when she starts dating. She does seem to have a bit of a Bad Boy/Girl fascination going on.)

But, I digress.

So, this evening, I walked into the sunroom to find Peeper on the couch holding that plastic stick thingy that you twist to change the direction that the miniblinds are tilted (does it have a name?) and saying to Shrike, "I am the Mouse King. You are the Nutcracker. Dis is my sword ("so-wurd") and I gonna bonk you on de head wif it."

Shrike suggested that we might need to break down and buy her a foam sword or something. (For her safety, I think.)

So I grabbed an old FedEx box, a pair of scissors and the aluminum foil, put my very limited creativity and craftiness to work, and voila!

Mama: Hey, Peeper, look what I made you!
Peeper: What is it?
Mama: It's a sword!

Peeper (to Mommy): I could bonk you on the head now?

Mommy: Yes, you can bonk me on the head with abandon.
Peeper: No! It's a sword!

(Oh, if only she'd said "It not a bandon!")

So, you think she likes it?

And, yes, I am the person who swore that my child would not play with weapons.

This is totally different from buying a three-year-old boy a toy gun, right?

Looking Through the Glasses

2011-12-05T22:53:00.008-05:00

When we finished up with Santa, we went down to the optometrist's office to pick out some frames for Shrike's new glasses.

She actually had her appointment a couple of weeks ago, and found out then that her prescription had changed, but she was waiting for me to help her choose the frames.

As I told her last time around: You only have to see with them, I have to look at them. I'll let you pick the lenses, but I get a say-so on the frames.

Actually, she pretty much ended up picking them out herself. The ones she ordered probably are not the ones that I would have chosen, just looking at the display, but when she put them on, they were pretty damn cute, so I gave them my blessing.

Before we left, I made an appointment to get my own eyes checked later this week, because crappy insurance be damned, I'm forty-three years old, I can't see to read and I can't see to drive.

Looks like Mama's gittin' some store-bought eyes for Christmas.

Of course, there will be photos of my and the Missus in our new spectacles later, but today, I just have photos of Little Miss making a spectacle of herself.

Behind the Scenes With Santa

2011-12-05T22:50:00.001-05:00

Before we headed over to the mall, we went out to lunch at a little Italian place that's very near our house, but for some reason we never go. Afterward, we changed Peeper's clothes in the bathroom, and then took a few photos of her in front of their Christmas decorations. I hope they didn't mind.

As you've already seen, she did a great job with Santa. I really can't believe that I got the kid who loves to do this!

As we were getting set up, I didn't hear this, but evidently one of the "elves" asked Shrike, "Are you mom?" and she said (of course), "We both are."

What I did hear was when she said, in the middle of the photo shoot, "She (" . . . is so cute? . . . is adorable? . . . has a great smile?" I don't remember, exactly. All those things were mentioned at one point or another.) "You two are very lucky mothers."

Yes. Yes, we are.

Comparing notes on fuzzy clothing: Her velvety dress versus his furry cuffs.

The key to all Santa photos: the candy cane!

And one more, for good measure, on the bench outside his workshop.

Santa Claus!

2011-12-05T22:48:00.000-05:00

We did the big visit with Santa Claus this afternoon, and Peeper loved it, as usual.

For the first time, Shrike actually got to go with us, which was a very nice bonus. It also meant that we got some candid "behind the scenes" photos of Peeper just enjoying her visit with Santa, instead of posing, while I talking to the photographer-elf about which photos we wanted to buy.

Once again, I felt like a total stage mom, because although the first couple of shots were cute enough, they weren't cute enough for me, because I knew that those were cheesy fake smiles and not-quite-smiles, and that Peeper could do much better.

As with last year's photo session, the trick to the genuine smile was handing her a candy cane.

And then we started coaching her on the other poses we wanted. This is a reenactment of a photo that exists somewhere of Shrike with Santa at about the same age. We're hoping to find that one and frame them together.

And you can't beat this for adorable.

First Advent Audible

2011-12-04T19:39:00.000-05:00

According to the "drawer" we were supposed to go look at Christmas lights this evening - there's a house not far from us with a big, fancy display - but Peeper didn't want to do that and didn't want to go out to eat, she just wanted to stay home.

So, instead, we ordered pizza and watched her Nutcracker video (we were hoping for The Year Without a Santa Claus)

and then she and I worked on a little secret (for now) project.

She went straight from there to the tub, and from the tub to goody, and conked right now. I just stuck her in bed and now Mommy and I are going to watch a movie all by ourselves. Hopefully.

Christmas Adventures

2011-12-04T19:03:00.000-05:00

As you saw the other day, we're using our Christmas-tree-with-drawers advent calendar again this year, and I'm filling it with candy (Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses and Mint Truffle Kisses - Peeper and I are both all about the chocolate and mint.) and little pictures that are hints about the Christmas activities that we're doing each day.

I'm running a little behind with finding all the pictures (check), printing them out (check) and getting them in the drawers (nope).

This year, I did a few extras for when I need to call an audible or when something comes up unexpectedly.

For example, last year when we woke up to snow one morning, I was scrambling to find and print a picture of a snowman. I have one in reserve now, thus guaranteeing a warm, or at least snow-free, December.

Here are all the pictures that I have so far (including the ones we've already done).

Anyone want to guess what we've got planned?

Nutcracker!

2011-12-03T18:00:00.000-05:00

I took Peeper to see The Nutcracker Suite this afternoon - on stage, and everything. We decided that it was best to show up at intermission and just catch that part, rather than expecting her to sit through The Gift of the Magi first, then wait through intermission, before finally getting to The Nutcracker.

We ended up catching the very end of Magi. I told them we were only there for Nutcracker, but they said we could go on in anyway. So, we came in at the point where the guy comes home and sees that his wife has cut her hair.

I'm still not sure why this is such a "touching" and "heartwarming" tale. It's just pretty depressing, if you ask me.

I like Bert and Ernie's version much better, where Mr. Hooper sweeps in at the last minute to save the day and give the story a happy ending.

What? Oh, yeah, Nutcracker.

Exquisite.

And the ballet wasn't bad, either.

Candle Night

2011-12-02T22:22:00.002-05:00

Peeper and I went downtown this evening for "Candle Night."

It's one of the "First Friday" events, with a special holiday twist. The businesses are open late and many are offering sales and specials, there's live Christmas music, and luminaria line the sidewalks.

The weather couldn't have been better for it, it was clear and cold, but not unbearably so. In fact, Peeper refused to wear her coat, and after a bit of walking (and any time we went inside) I was kind of wishing I'd not worn mine.

Luminaria

Brass band

Listening to the band and drinking a skinny decaf peppermint latte.

Santa!

Checking out the poster for tomorrow's Nutcracker performance.

Walking back to the car, hands in pockets because she was getting cold. Yes, I had not one but two pairs of her gloves with me, but she wouldn't wear them, either.

She looked at this window display and asked, "Is dat da Mommy and da Mama?"

Christmas Train. With Elmo and Pooh.

Santa's Beard

2011-12-02T20:49:00.003-05:00

Nutcracker Tea Wrap Up

2011-12-01T18:03:00.001-05:00

Art class is in the same venue as the Nutcracker Tea and some of the decorations were still there yesterday, so we took a few photos.

Showing off her Gingerbread Man.

This was supposed to be a smile.

A reenactment of last year's photo.

Last year.

And then, as luck would have it, look what arrived in the mail today!

Advent Kickoff

2011-12-01T16:58:00.000-05:00

It's December 1, so Peeper opened the first drawer on her advent calendar today!

There, she found a Hershey's Candy Cane Kiss (yummmmm) and a note with the picture that you see at the right.

It was a hint about a very special video email for Peeper - from Santa Claus!

He gave her a peek at her file in his big book, where he has photos from our beach trip and of her potty training progress. He said that he's very proud of her success with that, and mentioned that she should try very hard to get to the potty on time.

Wow. That Santa knows everything!

Opening the drawer.

Watching the video.

Run, Run, As Fast As You Can

2011-11-30T18:00:00.000-05:00

Today's art class was all about the Gingerbread Man.

First we read a couple of stories, then the kids made stick puppets and acted out the story.

Peeper hard at work on her puppet.

Putting on the puffies.

Then she took the strip of paper from the glue dots, wrapped it around his waist and said, "He have a belt!"

Running, running, as fast as they can!

Snoozing

2011-11-29T22:45:00.000-05:00

This evening was MOMS Night Out, so we dropped Peeper off with Shrike's parents around six o'clock, and headed over to the ~~bar~~ lounge. It didn't officially start until seven, so we had time to have a drink and a little one-on-one conversation before our friends arrived.

We had a nice visit, some dinner (Ladies Night special menu) and drinks, and then Shrike - because she is wonderful - left and picked Peeper up around nine thirty, before her parents turned into pumpkins, and let me stay for another hour or so until everyone else was ready to call it a night.

When I got home, I discovered that Peeper had fallen asleep in the car on the way home, and stayed asleep when Shrike brought her in.

This is what I found when I peeked in on her.

Shrike was brave enough to get her shoes off, but not stupid enough to try to get her out of the coat.

We'll see how long she lasts like that.

Update, morning: Holy crow. Didn't hear a sound from her until 8:45 am! Of course, the bed was wet by then, but I'll happily wash pee sheets if it means she'll sleep almost eleven hours without a wake up. My boobs were perhaps a little less thrilled that she went from around 5 pm until almost 9 am without nursing. That's the longest she's gone since she was NPO for her heart surgery and by far the longest I've gone without either nursing or pumping since she was born. I wasn't hurting, but once she did nurse, I sure could tell it had been a while!