NSF...well...TS or EO...

That is this post is not suitable for the easily offended or squeamish. It has nothing to do with her miniature cuteness and everything to do with a very random rant. So if you're either squeamish or easily offended or even if you just plain don't like things not having to do with babies, look away now. Really it's for your own good. Go ahead. I'll wait while you navigate away from this post.

OK. so only the not faint of heart are left, yes? Then we move along.

I have a pretty long and sometimes horrific commute to and from work. You may wonder how one puts up with being in the car for hours by herself. Or you don't care. Either way I'm going to tell you. I think of ridiculous things, daydream and try to remain calm as large trucks inevitably try to kill me. I can't die, I have a daughter who needs me. Stupid trucks.

I digress.

Never let it be said that I would want to be a guy. Without going into a rant in an entirely different direction, that would be far more serious than I would like to be just now, the only real upshots of being a guy involve peeing standing up and lack of a monthly visitor. Really, I think boys are cool and stuff. I mean I DID marry one. So they, like, have their uses and stuff but I'm pretty glad I'm not one.

Yet I find myself quite often thinking, or saying, the phrase "If I had balls I would make {insert whatever is pissing me off just then} suck them." Now I understand that this may be difficult for some of you to believe as it doesn't fit with my gentile feminine mystique. *snicker* But alas I say it quite often.

This brings me back to the part where I remind you that I don't want to be a boy. Nor do I particularly want boy parts. It seems that they'd be messy and a pain to deal with (in more ways then one). And uncomfortable. But alas my rage needs retribution.

So I think we should make gross little balls, that are kind of hair and sticky and stinky, that I can throw at people, or more specifically their cars, when they piss me off. I don't want them to hurt anyone but I do want them to visit my annoyance back on them.

I was thinking of this on my way home yesterday and I have kind of an idea of what they'd be made of. And they'd have to be cheap. After all you don't want to hurl something out of your car on the beltway if you paid more then a dollar for it. My crunchiness be damned though because I need them to also be biodegradable. This is seeming impossible.

Meh. Back to the drawing board I guess. Voice activated LED scrolling display? Water guns that come out of the front of my car James Bond style? Hover craft? Who knows? But I think that if a few people started deploying any of these maybe the world and the beltway would be a better place.

Feats of bad parenting

So it's been a pretty hot summer. You wouldn't have guessed it was going to be so hot after that insane winter we had. I mean 3 blizzards!? When does that happen. This all supposedly has something to do with lack of sunspots or the end of the world or something. Whatever. We're still alive and as such would like to do some fun summer stuff.

Typically this would mean hanging out outside. but we've had our share of days in the triple digits. Well one day, towards mid June, when the heat wave was just starting and we thought we were being overly sensitive to the heat, we ventured to the park on Putty Hill Avenue. You know the one, across from the American Legion.

Well the park itself is super duper awesome. Alex will love it even more when she's a bit older. It has a bunch of slides and a zipline and a moving balance beam thing. Oh and of course swings. Alex LOVES swings.

And on this day the only breeze to be found was from swinging. It was hot. But worse yet it was still.

We only stayed for about 30-45 minutes but we were all really hot by then. Alex has that fair skin that turns bright red when she's hot. Let me tell you, it was bright red. So we went in search of snowballs. Having decided to try the place on Harford Road we went there. But there's an ice cream stand sort of right next to the snowball place, it's confusing. Anyway we ended up accidently ordering ice cream not snowballs.

And who wants dairy on such a hot day? It was ok ice cream but the popsicles we had at home were far better. Besides Alex really needed to cool off. But before we knew it we were back outside playing in water and all was well.

OH! and YES! that IS a ponytail you see in Alex's hair! Our little girl is bald no more :) YAY for hair!

How to catch lightning bugs (if you're a toddler)

Step 1: Start dressing up as a buggie earlier in the day.



Step 2: Complete the buggie dress up (after dinner). In this way you can lull the buggies into a false sense of security



Step 3:Get a proper bug holding device.



Step 4: Grab a weird-cute-useless little bug catching net thing.



Step 5; Run around the yard screaming and being happy while daddy catches buggies.



Step 6: Stare at your light buggies



Step 7: (not pictured) Put 'food' in the buggie holder and leave buggies in your room overnight.

And one more post (for now at least) about stuffs from June

Ahh Father's Day. The day when dad's get remembered for all of their hard work. And we make them fun things that they feel obligated to wear if only for a day.




OK there was going to be something snarky there but not only have I stopped myself but have decided I should sing the praises of the hubs.

He's a pretty great dad. Alex loves him to pieces and they have a great time together. If you notice it is often me taking pictures but just as often Jason ends up in the picture with Alex because he's helping catch June bugs, or tromping up and down stream with us at Double Rock Park or whatever....as long as it isn't messy. A good portion of the time we don't even have to drag him along for the fun, he's a willing participant.

So here's to Jason. The one who goes to church with us (when he's not working) and plays silly games of flomps and catches lighty buggies and who even understands most of what our daughter says and often worries she doesn't say enough. In short here's to good dad's everywhere. You may not do it the same way us mom's do but your way works and that's all that matters.

Ahhh Mother Nature

Double Rock park is quickly becoming one of our favorite family spots. We have been going there pretty much whenever we can, as long as the weather isn't too bad.



I mean the place is gorgeous. We like to travel down to the water and go up and down stream. It's always pretty darn interesting getting Alex down to the water because the hill to get down there is just too steep for her to go up or down on her own. So she gets carried. I'm sure that before we're ready for it she'll be able to go down and back up without our help but for now it's kind of interesting keeping all of us safe. Once we're to the water itself much fun is had.



This trip was the first that found Alex going into the water herself. We had to keep her from the deeper bits, which would have been to her thighs, maybe waist. I'm not sure but it seemed like a bad idea. Before and after the stream we walked through the woods a bit with the mini one. We'll make a crunchy nature lover out of her yet. :) Shouldn't be too hard since she LOVES the great outdoors so very much!



Before and after the nature stuff we played on the playground. It really is the playground of sheer awesome. Complete with slides and steps and boingy things. Yeah i have no idea what they're called but Alex sort of, kind of, mostly liked them. Well there was a lot of getting on then off of them at least.



Most importantly there weren't any big kids around, it being the middle of a school day and all, so Alex got to try the super big slide. Now I'm pretty laid back with this parenting thing... except when I'm not. But this giant slide scared me. But that's me. I hate heights. I hate the feeling of falling. Adrenaline junky I will never be called. My daughter....she has no such inhibitions. She gets this from her dad. He knows all about this living life and getting the adrenaline going thing. So they loved the slide. And I took pictures at the bottom figuring the the impending ER visit would find us in need of evidence that we didn't abuse our daughter. No such evidence was needed. She loved it and kept going back for more. My worry lessening with every trip and her joy never dwindling for a moment.



And that's what I always want to see from her. Joy that is never ending. I mean she's a kid it's her job to have as much fun every waking moment as she can. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and before we knew it we'd been at the park for almost 2 hours. We were hot and tired. So home we went in search of the awesomeness that is popsicles. After all the park will be there next time.

The bit where I test out the waters of this picture embedding thing

Well we've already established that I have a super cool kid (more on that to come) but now it's time that I catch up with her super awesomeness and learn how to add pictures into the blog. A still I really should get down before I go inviting people to follow me.




Assuming that this worked and you see the pic (taken by the most awesome Mrs Jesi) you can see how super spectacular and adorable the munchki-moo is. If you can't see the pic then the experiment has failed and it's back to the drawing board. :) Thanks for playing along.

The part where I rant about child develpment

For quite awhile I’ve been disenchanted with those books that tell you what your child should be able to do at a certain age. You know the ones, “What to expect….” I started reading this series when I was pregnant. At the time I grew convinced that all they do is increase ones level of paranoia and that’s the last thing I needed when I was already having problems with the pregnancy.

The distaste for these books, and others like them grew as Alex grew. Sure there are helpful bits here and there; like how to know when to freak out over an illness or when to ride it out. But really even the helpful bits are just common sense on a page. So at some point I vowed never to read these damned books again. But there was a problem. I already owned them, so there they sat in the corner of the bookshelf. Lurking. Taunting. Singing their siren song. All to get me to read them.

But I held strong. Well I held strong until I’d had enough of Jason trying to convince me that our daughter is ‘behind’. Clearly Alex is practically perfect in every way but Jason continually and unintentionally compares her to a little girl at day care -and if said girl heard me refer to her as a little girl she would raise quite a raucous as she is in fact a big girl that uses the potty and everything- that happens to be 1 year and 4 months older then our little head. Now in, say, 3 years, that age difference won’t really mean didly except to the school system. But now it makes all the difference in the world.

So out came the damned book. I had to prove to my husband that our daughter is doing precisely the sorts of things she ought to be doing. Well I found something entirely different. Yep she’s even more awesome then we thought. I offer the following as proof.

From What to Expect the Toddler Years copyright 1996, New York

Chapter Nine; the Twenty-Second Month
By the end of this month your toddler
…should be able to :
use 6 words
walk up steps
…will probably be able to:
build a tower of 4 cubes
follow a 2 step command without gestures
…may possibly be able to:
build a tower of 6 cubes
identify 4 pictures by pointing
wash and dry hands
…may even be able to:
jump up

And really for the fun of it let’s see what she should do by the time she’s 3

Chapter Sixteen; the 34th to 36th Months
By 3 years old your toddler
…should be able to
identify 4 pictures by naming
wash and dry hands
identify a friend by naming
throw a ball overhand
speak and be understood half of the time
carry on a conversation of 2 or 3 sentences
use prepositions
… will probably be able to:
use 2 adjectives
put on a t-shirt
broad jump
… may possibly be able to:
balance on each foot for 2 seconds
describe the use of 2 objects
…may even be able to:
prepare a bowl of cereal
copy a circle
dress without help
identify 4 colors

Now before I dive into how awesome my daughter really is I feel it’s important to state that I think this entire ‘kids should do y by x age’ thing is a load of crap. As long as a child has the basics the rest will come. Everyone develops at their own pace. It all evens out around the age of 4 anyway.

I’m glad that’s cleared up because it’s now time to go down the lists above and assuage any fear that anyone may have that Alex isn’t where she should be regardless of her level of perfection.

• 6 words? Ha! She had 6 word a year ago. I don’t know how many words she knows but it sure is a lot.

• She’s been going up and down steps since about a month after she could walk. Now she can even go back down them like a big girl (stepping, going forward)

• Yeah last time we played blocks she stacked 10….then promptly knocked them over and giggled manically.

• Is she a dog that she should follow commands? Yeah she does any way and can even follow like 3 step directions.

• She can identify way more then 4 pictures by pointing. Not to mention how often she’ll just look at a picture point and tell us what it is.

• She’s more then happy to wash and dry her hands…when we let her. Usually she’s stuck with a baby wipe to wipe off her hands and face, which is fine for all of us.

• She’s working on jumping up…. We think that there’s a fear factor here. She’ll happily jump (or flomps) on our bed all day but on a hard surface not so much.

• Not listed above but in one of the chapters in between something about kicking a ball is listed. Yeah she’s been kicking play balls for months. Not her favorite thing to do but she’s capable, just stubborn (gee wonder where that comes from).

• Everyone whose name she knows she calls by name. Well as long as she can and wants to. She will gladly tell you about Baby Wowan, Teagan, Jules, and Cordy not to mention Tom (from next door) and many others. Shown pictures of any of the people she knows and she’ll tell you who they are.

• If she says it you can understand it about 75% of the time. That’s not just me as mommy talking. She may not speak in sentences but you know what she’s saying when she speaks to you.

• Her overhand ball throwing skills aren’t going to earn her a place pitching for little league just yet. But the ball usually goes forward.

• She certainly can take off a t-shirt and she’s working on pants. Regardless of her distaste for getting dressed she can put on panties (even if she still wears diapers) and can get a short mostly on.

• While pointing at something and saying in 2-3 words what it does isn’t the same as describing what something does-it’s a step in that direction..

• 4 colors? By 3? Really? She can say and correctly point out black, white, pink, purple, green and yellow. She also knows orange and grey though she chooses not to say so. Admittedly sometimes she jut says the first color that comes to mind but she knows her colors…or at least as many colors as she needs to.

In addition to the aforementioned awesomeness – she understands what a potty is for and how to use a potty. But her little bladder isn’t quite ready to use the potty. Of course there are all the animals and animal sounds she knows but that list could take awhile. And finally in the realm of ‘yep my child is awesome’ not only can she count to 2 on her own but she knows what it means-and how long it will take- when mommy counts to 3 (usually means stop what you’re doing or get spanks) or 5 (going to turn off the bath water thus ending playtime in running water).

Am I proud of my little girl? Oh good Lord yes. Would I be proud of her without a BS list? Yep. I mean just 22 months ago we hadn’t seen her face yet. 20 months ago she couldn’t so much as roll over. 12 months ago she couldn’t walk. 6 months ago she couldn’t help me in the kitchen. 4 months ago she needed help getting up onto her ‘helping stool’. And a month ago she could barely blow bubbles herself. What is there not to be proud of? I see her grow and learn daily. It’s truly amazing. You’d have to have a heart of stone to not be proud of that.

Let’s face it everyone thinks his or her kid is super awesome. It’s your job as a parent. So why do we need lists to tell us how truly awesome our kid is? Most kids balance out by 4 years old. There are some parents who have atypically developing children that need a little extra time to catch up to their peers, if they ever do.

My point is this. These lists make me think, even more then usual, that my daughter is Super-kid. But the truth of the matter is that her development now has little to do with how she’ll cope with life later. For that she’ll need to know she has a safe place to land. And to me that’s far more important then any stupid list.

For crying out loud, she’s a child, some might even say baby. Let’s let her be one and have fun. Whatever happened to just letting babies be babies? Do we really think that any of us will get to be old and think ‘man I really should have spent less time with my family’ or ‘I should have had less fun’? For my part I want her to have a joy and zest for life and love for everyone around her. You don’t get that from some stupid list. You get it from your heart. A heart that needs to be nurtured now far more than we need to worry about checking crap off of a list.