Facebook "Friend" Farming??

something suspicious is going on. over the last few weeks, on an almost-daily basis, I've been receiving random Facebook friend requests. these requests are coming from people who seem to be on the other side of the world. even though I've ignored all the requests, I can't quite shake the notion that something about this sudden influx of friend requests is not right.

here's my suspicion: with the rising, meteroic rise in popularity of Facebook (and Twitter, for that matter), I think there's an underground, shady business of Facebook "friend farming." could it be that there are people out there who are being paid to build up a huge friend base that will be ultimately "sold" somehow for commercial uses? (or something along those lines...)

why would Muhammad Noor Akbar Shabir send me a friend request??? who are you? who's your daddy? and what does he do?!?!

I'm just saying...something ain't right here.

toddler-speak

my 2 1/2 year old toddler is now fully conversant. it's a treat to have complete conversations with her, although it does require some "translation" at times. here are translations of some of my toddler's chatter:

• "refrigilator" = refrigerator
• "eleventeen" = eleven
• "pie-brow" = eyebrow
• "bathing soup" = bathing suit
• "bup-bup" = butt
• "mo-kee-yo" = Pinocchio
• "pack-cack" = backpack
• "boops" = boobs
• "bandee" = bandaid
• "lellow" = yellow
• "chalk-skits" = chopsticks
• "new-gitz" = music
• "boo-berry" = blueberry
• "coonchalada" = ??? (we're still trying to figure out this one...she uses it interchangeably as a noun, verb and adjective)
  

then there are her expressions that...well, need no translation:

• "did I make a clogger?" - when flushing the poo from her little potty into the toilet
• "meenie-meenie-mynie-mo...catch a tiny-tiny-toe. my mama picks...YOU!" - her interpretation of "eenie-meenie-mynie-mo..."
• (while patting my butt) - "mama, do you have poos?"
• "do you have boogers?"
• "excuse me! did you fart?"
• "get out of my bupp, poo's" - when sitting on the potty to go #2
  

she seems to have a strange facination with bodily functions. but I suppose she had to learn that somewhere...clearly she learned it from her daddy :-)

P.I.P.

two days ago, my little toddler girl made her very first P.I.P. -- Poo In Potty. I didn't want to mention it right away. didnt want to jinx it. but today, she had her 2nd P.I.P. so I'm hoping that this is not just one, poop fluke.

and I have to say this: the first P.I.P was ginormous! it was an adult-sized poo that came out of my petite daughter's bum-bum. no joke.

so large, in fact, that it clogged the toilet! after dumping the poo from the little potty to the toilet and flushing, the toddler said: "did I make a clogger mama?" she was strangely delighted by the bloop-bloop-bloop sound of a clogged toilet trying to flush.

clogger aside, we were so overjoyed by her first P.I.P. my baby-daddy and I jumped up and down, hootering and yelping out of joy...you'd think we won the lottery!

adventures in potty training

BIG milestone today. my lil toddler went to daycare wearing "big girl chonies" for the first time today. And...[wait for it....] NO POTTY ACCIDENTS! That's my girl!

all day long, while toiling away at work in corporate america, I was distracted, wondering: "did my lil one wet herself? is she gonna be upset? are the 3 extra outfits and 2 pairs of chonies that I put in her cubbie gonna be enough to get her through the day at day care today?"

I felt so anxious as I left the office at the end of the day and drove to pick her up. I'd know right away whether or not she made it through the day "dry", based on her outfit when I pick her up.

as I approached the playground, my eyes scanned the scattered crowd of toddlers as quickly as I could, trying to spot my girl. and then there she was -- in the same deliciously cute outfit she was wearing when I dressed her in the morning. SUCCESS! and the added bonus - her little piggy-tails were a bit tweaked out... a sign of a good, fun day at "school" for her.

we celebrated by going to In-N-Out for a "hamberg" (that's little shorty's way of saying "hamburger") and french fries.

next: adventures in potty training, part 2 - P.I.P (Poo In Potty)

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!