hello mr. president

my toddler goes to daycare and I sort of figured that it was -- at best -- 80% play and 20% learn, which is fine considering she's only 2.

so every couple of days or so, she comes home with "art" work (note the intentional quotation marks...c'mon, she's just 2).

a couple of weeks ago, she brought home this masterpiece. no clue what it is. we thought it might be some kind of contemporary interpretation of the cross, since she goes to daycare at a Christian school:


in any case, whatever it is, it's been in my mama-mobile for the past two weeks, sitting shot gun. it's not that it isn't worthy of bringing inside our house and perhaps even getting displayed in our gallery of masterpieces. it's just that at the end of the day, literally, my arms are full with toddler, brief case, lunch box, empty juice box, etc. that I just don't have an extra arm, finger or other appendage to hold it.

as fate (or luck) would have it, the other day, I turned the corner a bit too fast and a bit too sharp, and the masterpiece that was sitting shot gun got tussled about. and then it became clear what the heck it is:



it's genius! it's a president lincoln mask of sorts. imagine a little cutie-pie-face in the middle of the circle. and now it makes perfect sense since we just celebrated Presidents Day a couple of weeks ago! it must've been one of the crafts that week!

Jackass!

this evening, my hubby and I went on a jog/walk (mostly walk) with our toddler in tow, safely strapped into the baby jogger.

we were walking back and as we were crossing the street (in the crosswalk and while we had the "WALK" luminated), this Dodge-Caravan-driving jackass couldn't wait 10 seconds for us to make it all the way to the other side. he clearly saw us, because first of all - you can't miss the baby jogger...it's pretty big and it has reflective stuff on it. and second of all, he actually sped up to make his left turn immediately when the light turned green. problem is, he turned right in front of us!

I was soooo pissed! so as he crossed in front of us, I yelled out, "JACKASS!!" I couldn't help myself.

but here's my uh-oh situation: my toddler immediately mimicked me and started saying "jackass!" over and over... and then she would start giggling after she said it. I tried to divert her attention by singing "Happy Birthday" (it's her favorite song at the moment), but to no avail -- she would not stop saying "jackass!" then, I tried to switch it up to try to get her hooked on saying something else. So I exclaimed, "TA-DA!" (you know, like when the magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat....'ta-da!'). but she wasn't into that. "jackass!" "jackass!" "jackass!" is all I got from her.

thankfully, the way she said it, it didn't really sound like "jackass"...at least that's what I keep telling myself :-/

Toddlerville

my little princess has officially ushered us into the world of toddlerville. one moment she's yummylicious, and the next, she's throwing a tantrum.

the tantrums, at first, were kind of amusing. easy to say that when they lasted only 15 seconds. now...not so cute, the tantrums, that is. it's definitely a test of patience, sprinkled with a dose of humility.

toddlerville is also an interesting phase cuz she's talking more and more. trouble is, is that we can't understand what she's saying half the time. she gets frustrated, we are baffled, and it's like trying to play charades to guess what she's trying to say.

and the thing is, she's clearly trying to say something when she's uttering the same sound repeatedly. recently, she kept saying what sounded like, "abby tutu". she has a cousin named Abi, and she has a tutu, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what Abi had to do with her tutu.

then, as luck would have it, a few days later we were watching an episode of Blues Clues and it happened to be Blue's birthday. and then wa-laa...when they were saying "happy birthday" to Blue, my toddler princess chimed in with her "abby -tutu". all that time, she was trying to say "happy birthday"! mystery solved!

my love/hate relationship with The Hills

this season of The Hills feels more contrived than ever! first of all, it's no fun watching the dramz between heidi & spencer and wondering if they're gonna stay "on relationship vacation" or get back together when you see pics of them at random e-list festivities together in the weekly tabloids (which I only browse through to pass the time while waiting in line at albertsons...really!)

then there's the new threesome: lauren-audrina-lo. lo's just a meany. and she's the worst kind. she's the passive-agressive meany. and she seems very possessive of lauren. okay, we get it...you two have been BFFs since you were young tykes. get over it already. lo's been ostracizing audrina, and for no good reason.

it's just a lame season. I think The Hills has reached a turning point of no return. it's kind of like when cousin oliver came to stay with the brady's on the brady bunch. after which, it was all downhill.

just bring back "newport harbor"....chrissy & clay forever!

American I-dull

now that it's down to the final 4, you'd think we'd be watching the Tuesday night performances with lots of excitement and anticipation, wondering out loud, "who's gonna be the next Idol?!?!?"

at this point in the show, usually I've committed to 1 (okay, maybe 2) contestants who I diligently vote for....at least 10 times each...to do my part towards ensuring their passage to the next week's competition.

instead, I can count on 1 hand, how many times this season I voted for anyone once, much less 10 times, in a single Tuesday night.

it's just a snoozer of a season. and that's not to say there isn't any talent, cuz there is. for instance, not only does david archuleta have an amazing and pure voice, he somehow manages to make his eyes sparkle into the camera. (how does he do that?!?!)

then there's the other david - david cook - who dared to take on old school 80's hits like "billie jean" and "hello" and completely, irreverently, rockified those songs. and I liked it, surprisingly. yet I didn't feel compelled to vote for him in those weeks.

maybe after this season, A.I. needs to go buh-bye for awhile.

Oh blissful day!

over the weekend, my almost 18 month old uttered her first sentence: "I LOVE YOU" actually, it sounded more like one giant word, "eylaahhyoo" but my hubby and I both knew what she meant.

okay, so she didn't say it on her own. and she's currently going through this parrot-like phase where she tries to mimic what you say. oh, alright, and yes, I said it first and she boomeranged it right back to me as best she could say it. but there it was. her first sentence. and what a sweet, lovely first sentence it was!

projectile vomit

the other night, my toddler daughter barfed....3 times: 9pm-ish, 10pm-ish, and 11:30pm-ish. and it wasn't just a yack-and-barf. it was full-on, projectile vomit. I saw pieces of macaroni from the mac & cheese that I packed for her lunch that day. and I saw recognizable bits of strawberries that she snacked on that evening. it was totally gross and for the time being, mama's having a moratorium on mac & cheese and strawberries. I'm not barring the baby from it, just me. I personally have lossed my appetite for m&c and strawberries... 2 of my favorite things. but hopefully it's just temporary.

I don't have OCD, but when there barf involved, it calls for immediate laundering. yup, I did 3 "loads" of laundry that night. 3 environmentally-unfriendly "loads" of laundry. and I say "loads" in quotes because I don't think that a 2-piece toddler pajama outfit, (1) pair of adult sweats, and (1) adult t-shirt makes for an environmentally-responsible load of laundry. they say to be kind to the environment and to conserve water and energy, you're suppose to only do full Loads of laundry. whoever came up with that green rule of thumb has got to be kidding me. there are exceptions to that rule, right?

the thing with barfing toddlers is that after the first projectile vomit, you convince yourself that it's done. that there can't possibly be another episode when so much stuff came out in the first place. clearly I was wrong in my judgement, 3 barfs later. but at the same time, even if you anticipate that there will be another barf incident, are you suppose to just let the soiled clothing from the earlier barf incident just sit around and possibly stain?

if you spray and wash or shout it out then let the garments sit around, does the stain remover lose its stain-fighting power?