All hail....

As if her royal lineage was ever in question by the way she rules this household...now there's proof.

Pull ups anonymous

That's right! The girl that was to be married in a diaper hasn't worn a pull up to bed in over a month! She did have one, uh hum...."incident", but we have since then restricted liquid intake before bedtime and outfitted the mattress with a fancy plastic cover. I had planned on letting her where a pull up, well forever but was pleasantly surprised she settled for 2mths! Proving once again, no big girl pants before their time.

I do know of a couple of toddlers that actually initiated the potty training , but mine was not one of those children...not even close! I don't know why I thought it would be hard to try and convince a toddler to poop in a cup.

Alas I feel this is the first concrete, tangible evidence that I'm succeeding at my job. Sure plenty goes on behind the scenes that the public doesn't see, cuddling, feeding, praising, teaching, disciplining. But this, this undeniable proof that after much adversity a milestone has been reached, a goal has been accomplished!

Now how about that raise?

Three things

I saw three annoying thing at the pool today.

1. The Mom/Victoria Beckham impersonator complete with tummy tuck and boob job who couldn't stay seated to save her life! As though I needed to be reminded every two minutes as she walked past me of my not so toned tummy and breasts that aren't exactly standing to attention.

2. The boys that kept throwing a football two inches from my baby's head, and their Mother who said nothing! Which also happened to be the same boys who hogged our toys, and took a bite out of our noodle (A noodle is a long Styrofoam thingy that floats) ...really? So that's how all the noodles get that way! This one kid must go from pool to pool, preying on intact noodles!

3. The two mystery swimmers that claimed the two best seats at the pool by way of a perfectly folded towel on each seat had yet to show themselves. In our two hour visit to the pool no one used the seats, or had the guts to move the towels. Who are these people? Some masochistic pool goers that get there at 8am and set the towels down just in case they decide to actually go to the pool. This is genius! The first time i experienced it was on a cruise ship. As my husband and I headed off to the pool on our 1st day at sea only to find the same perfectly folded towels on several of the seats. No doubt placed there by a half asleep shipmate at the crack of dawn to secure a seat when they decide to roll out of bed at noon.

I just hope when the day comes that I have new boobs, and have developed some sort of sickness that allows me to believe my children can't do wrong, I just hope someone has the guts to take my perfectly folded towel and throw it in the water!

Red wine...

Call me oblivious but I haven't realized until recently that my three year old know the words to most of the songs on the radio. I discovered this the other night at bath time when out of the blue she belts out, "red wine! I've had a much too much!"

Since then I've realized that even though I don't hear her, chances are if I look in the rear view mirror her lips will be moving. Case in point Pink's song rock star, of course her favorite part in the song is "I'm gonna get in trouble, I'm gonna start a fight, nah nah nah....great! That should go over real well at play dates!

So, now the question is do I have to go out and buy a Disney's greatest hits CD, and turn off my beloved radio for good? The very thought gives me heart palpitations! I'm supposed to listen to "a small world" during one of the only conflict free times in this SAHM's day, not to mention one of the only times I can legally restrain a toddler and corrupt it with "when you wish upon a star"?

I guess there are worse things.

Popsicle on safari

No good deed goes unpunished! Today at the zoo I let the child have a Popsicle, and guess who got stuck holding the Popsicle?

Popsicle in the lion's den.

Visiting with Dumbo, and meerkat manor.


Checking out the fish, while you know who holds the you know what.

and sadly it's demise.

Ok so maybe this post should have been titled Mommy's lost it, wouldn't be entirely untrue.

Where's the mote?

Have you ever seen a grown man lose the remote control for an entire day? I have...it's not pretty. A transformation occurs, and not like the good butterfly kind.

Last week the child lost the "mote" as she calls it, or at least she was the last one seen with it. So my husband bless his heart thought he would simply ask the child the location, and she would simply lead him right to it...wrong. Oh she was obliged to hunt for the mote, what a fun game! "Where's the mote? Where are you mote?"

That day my Husband went through the 7 stages of remote loss:
Hope-the search
Anger- when I find the remote I will be the only one to use it!
Hope-more searching
Denial-changing the channels manually, and acting like nothings wrong.
Revelations-buy a new remote
Hope-more searching
And finally hopelessness.
After hiding all the pills and ropes on the premises I decided to search the couch one last time...Yep there it was the whole time.

Mommy needs a day off!

Today was the kind of day that shortly after waking up I found myself wondering how long until nap time.

Today was the kind of day that after everyone awoke from nap I found myself wondering how long until bedtime. Or happy hour...hmm could that start right after nap?

I started to challenge our nightly chores, like bath time. Do they really need a bath, after all we did go to the pool today, that should count for something.

Are corn dogs an acceptable meal two nights in a row?

Maybe bedtime could be moved up an hour tonight, I've been meaning to do that eventually.

Does Happy Baby 123 qualify as a bedtime story for a three year old?

And then the moment finally arrives, everyone is in bed, I have the biggest glass of chardonnay I could get my hands on, the most mindless reality TV I have DVR'd, and the inevitable happens.... MOMMY!!!!

Who invented the monitor anyway?

A cautionary tale for cat owners

Today I found the child screaming and jumping for her balloon we had gotten at the grocery store earlier that day. The balloon was stuck to the ceiling and the lollipop was on the ground, both had only an inch of curling ribbon left.

Now to understand why this struck fear in my heart I have to take you back to a much simpler time...Imagine if you will August 2005, 6am, our tiny one bedroom apartment in San Francisco, I was awoken by a smell that can only be described as "cat poop". I opened my eyes and saw our cat Winston sleeping next to me in his usual place, but something was different about him this morning...hmm what was it? Oh yay he was covered in poop! I immediately jumped out of bed and saw it was on me, on my pillow, on the sheets...ahhh! To make matters worse I was 5mths pregnant. As I looked at him I could see there was something hanging from the backside of the cat...so that is where the curling ribbon from this weekends unwrapped birthday gift disappeared to. As I chased through our 900sq. ft apartment in an attempt to do as much damage control as I could, the ribbon dangled from side to side hitting every wall, door, and window in it's path.

The bandit was finally apprehended, and because I was not so much as to clean the litter box because of my delicate state, poor Hubby left to clean the entire mess.

The moral of the story: Cats and curling ribbon do not mix.

Strike!

When would you ever normally give a three year old an object that weighs 14lbs and tell her to throw it...hard! At a three year old My little pony bowling birthday party of course!

Ava has been talking about going to the "Birthday party bowling party" all week, and it was finally here. The kids colored, played, and ate pizza.
But we're missing something...Bowling takes energy, so bring on the sugar!Giving cake to a bunch of 3yr olds at 11am might not be the best idea, but a Birthday necessity none the less. So bring on the cake, and soda! Can't forget the soda! And they're off...it's Ava on the far side, and Madison on the near, now it's Ava, now Madison...

Bowling was so fun that someone forgot to go to the potty. Out of the blue Ava started crying hysterically exclaiming she had to go pee pee, the crying was a dead giveaway that she waited too long. So we are running through the bowling alley mowing over slower moving patrons as we go. As I suspected...too late!

That was the beginning of the end, we left shortly there after, but will be back to bowl another day. Minus the cake and soda.

The Mother's Day Elf

In an attempt to pump the toddler full of good Mother's day present ideas for Daddy I took her shopping to my favorite upscale, outdoor, you better just take your a** over to Macy's if you think your going to actually be able to afford to buy something here plaza. Like a real life Lucky magazine you want to break out the YES!, and MAYBE stickers and hope that the sales associates will mistaken them for money.

As we pulled up to the normally impossible parking situation, there it was, a parking space right in front of Tiffany's, like it had some sort of force field around it impenetrable to everyone except for the Mommy's worthy of treasure! As I started to pull in I was cut off by an even more deserving Mommy apparently. And by the car she was driving she might have been president of the PTA.

After finding our "new and improved" parking spot we started on our un-shopping spree. We visited countless stores and with each one improving on my child psychology.

" I like cookies, do you like this purse?"

"Look don't these shoes look like Cinderella's Slippers?"

"Mmmm smell...doesn't this necklace smell like gummy bears?"

To which she excitedly answered, "mmm I like some chocolate chip cookies!"

"But look at this cute iPhone!" To which she responds, " I like some fruit chewies!"aka gummy bears.

Feeling bad about trying to manipulate the child I took her to her favorite place to eat, chick fil a where they also conveniently had chocolate chip cookies. I'm thinking of stapling a wish list to her pajamas Saturday morning, and hope for the best.

A the Ladybug

I hadn't seen her so excited since her own birthday party as she left Bailey's with own pet ladybugs in hand...or so she thought. The whole way home she talked to the ladybugs and introduced Moo to her new pets, "look Moo twenty ladybugs!" (In actuality five) " Look Moo, are the Cute?" Look at his little wings Moo!"

And the whole way home I wondered how I would break the news that we would have to set the ladybugs free. When we got home I realized how close we had come to an early release, she had broken the tape on one of the sides and was working on prying the top off. I instantly had a renewed love for chatty toddlers, If it hadn't been for her lengthy, and repetitive conversation with Moo she might have actually set her "twenty new pets" free.

Surprisingly she was very excited to let the ladybugs go once she discovered they would fly away, apparently a departure worthy of applause. The ladybugs flew away one by one except for the last, she must not have gotten the memo about wing plucking toddlers. Lucky for "A the ladybug" A the three year old did not want to touch her, just observe her until she finally flew away.

All fours no more

Moo Moo, our little speed crawler has hung up her knee pads! Well kind of, crawling is still her preferred mode of transport but last night she took three steps, and this morning she was up to five! My first thought after what a proud Mommy I am is the poor cats! She's already been catching them pretty well, but now there is no stopping her. I wonder if they make rogaine for cats?

Date Night

Grandma came for a visit from California and with her came date night!!!!

Date night only comes twice a year...so far. But you can rest assured it will be more often as soon as Moo moo is " baby sitter ready". This is just some random age that will alleviate some of the guilt and worry that accompanies date night, A's "magic" number was 2, but I have a feeling that Moo's will be a little lower!

Now, back to the good stuff the date! We decided to go to the Alamo Drafthouse again, this is the location of every date night since we've been in Austin. This incidentally the only place kids aren't allowed, and bars and casinos of course. Speaking of Casinos, we did have a fleeting thought of driving right past the Alamo, and not stopping until we got to Vegas. After much fantasizing we did stop at the alamo and watched a not so stellar movie, but when you have good food, great drinks, and your chivalrous husband back...does it matter?

Unfortunately with Grandma's visit comes an unconsummated date night...now that would be a interesting blog, "Busted by Grandma".