Belated Birthday Pics

The Kid all ready for her party
Dumping out the bag of clothes.
Checking her email.
Having her cake and eating it, too.

Happy Birthday!

Today my little girl is 3 years old! I am so proud of the sweet, funny, kind and loving little girl she is growing up to be.

I love you, sweetie! Happy Birthday!

2 years - A family!

It's not Ivy League, but it's a start

I got a call today that The Kid has been accepted into the preschool I was hoping for. I was so late in getting her name in places that I figured she would be attending Uncle Billybob's Preskool-atorium, so I was uber excited that she is in. And when I came home tonight, The Kid declared that she wanted to go to preschool RIGHT NOW! Aye yi yi....they aren't going to know what hit them!

I've already started shopping for her first day of school outfit.

A catch up post

Lots to show and tell. But first a story. So tonight, The Kid and I were watching the end of Big Brother, and she notices a cyst that has been on my wrist for as long as I can remember. She points to it and says "What eeees eeet?" I told her it was a cyst and then she was silent for awhile. She looked at it again and said "That's a n1pp!e*." I was dazed momentarily, and then said "Nooooooo. It's a cyst." And she said "Oh. It's a button." That's better...

Here's the big news! I think I made friends with a mom and a daughter for us to play with! And....even better than that, the mom speaks Mandarin. So, she can teach The Kid all the Mandarin that I was going to learn and failed miserably at! Yay! It was kind of pathetic when I was trying to work up the nerve to giving her my phone number. I was so awkward and I think it came out like "You...me....kids play nice. Do....again?" Luckily, she didn't seem to notice that I'm a complete idiot when it comes to social situations and she took pity on me and took down my number. So, let's see.....you wait three days for someone to call you after you give them your number? If I haven't heard anything by Wednesday, I'll take it that she wasn't interested and will assume that the name and phone number she gave me were fake. I honestly believed her name was Janet???

And finally, we spent the morning Saturday getting some pictures of The Kid and the fam taken at the gardens at the Art Center. Auntie J and I snapped a few as well so here is a teaser for what is to come from the pro.

*funky spelling to keep weirdo G00glers away.

Yellow Spotted Fever

I will be alerting the CDC that the cure is apparently suckers and juice.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!!

Today is my mom's birthday and I just wanted to thank her for being such a great mom. I just hope that I am half the mom that she was (and is!) to me.


(Grandmumsy, on the left, on her first day of High School)


Grandmumsy in the birthday hat The Kid made her
And The Kid with Mickey Mouse shoved down her pajama pants. Don't ask why....

And finally, here is a grainy little video of The Kid singing Happy Birthday to her Grandmumsy.

Teeth, Treetops and Friends

No pictures of The Kidlette this week. We didn't do anything terribly interesting that would have warranted schlepping the camera around. BUT, The Kid did have a dentist appointment (her first, in fact). Here is a little interesting tidbit about me. I am terrified of the dentist. I suppose, dear reader, that you are wondering if that might have had anything to do with the fact that I'm just NOW getting around to taking her to the dentist. Well, since you asked, yes. If I even think about the dentist I start working up to an anxiety attack. So, the fact that I even called one and made an appointment for her AND showed up? That's a pretty big deal. (Lookit me! I'm all growed up!) Her appointment was fine and great and all that. When she came out, I noticed she had a sticker on her shirt. I didn't pay much attention to it, since she usually has a sticker somewhere on her person. We had an early morning appointment and we both needed breakfast. So, we left the dentist's office for six months of tranquility and went off to have ourselves a yummy breakfast of bagel sandwiches. Yum! It wasn't until yesterday that I found her sticker on the floor of the car and actually read what it said. "FLUORIDE IN PROGRESS - NO DRINKS OR SNACKS FOR 30 minutes!" Just when I think I've got this parenting thing all figured out.





We also went to a park the other day and The Kid wanted to play on the swings. She loves to go as high and fast as possible. She also doesn't like to hold on, so we usually end up on the little baby swings. Anyway, The Kid was having a great time and kept wanting me to push her higher and everytime I would give her a shove she would yell 'Treetops!!' and laugh uncontrollably. Pretty soon, all the other kids dropped what they were doing and wanted to swing, too. Once all the swings filled up and all the other kids got moving, each time they would go forward, they all yelled 'Treetops!!', too. It was so cute. But, it pretty much confirmed what I already knew, that my girl is going to be a ring leader.





And The Kid also has a new friend. His name is Gerber and he's very quiet and he mostly sleeps, but that's okay. I wanted to share a picture of him with you.

Yep. He lives in the bathtub and for a long time, we had to be very quiet when TK took a bath because he was sleeping. Sometimes, we had to make sure he got clean, too, but mostly we would just smile and wave at him. Then one day, TK asked me what his name was and I told her that his name was Gerber (it's right there on his forehead) and that was it. They have been best buds ever since. At least TK thinks so. She talks about him all the time. "Mama, Gerber is my friend. He's sleeping. SHHH!!" "Mama, Gerber needs to take a bath." Personally, I think the friendship is one-sided and destined for failure, but what do I know. My best friend at her age was Casper, The Friendly Ghost.

Baby Blue Bird

4th of July

In her cute little patriotic dress that Grandmumsy whipped up for her.
The Kid and Auntie J doing.....what, I'm not sure.


Waiting for the fireworks to start. "Mama! They go boom boom BOOM!"






Hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th!

2nd Referral-versary

Two years ago today, I saw The Kid's face for the very first time. I'll never quite forget that day. If you are curious, here is what I had to say about it last year. It's funny. Before I ever saw her picture, I loved her. Then seeing her picture, that love was intensified and I didn't think there was any way I could love her more. But now that she's here, that love was just a small drop in the bucket. I love you, sweetie!!

Finger Painting

Summer F-U-N

Summer '06

Summer '07

Why I love my sister

This is her hockey shrine. And she is teaching The Kid to yell 'Hockey RULES!' and 'I LOVE HOCKEY!'

After her bath

As I was drying The Kid off from her bath last night, she turned to me, with the most serious expression on her face and said, "You need not blow dry my hair, mama."

Man, she cracks me up.

Here's a couple of pics from a wedding we attended last weekend.

All dressed up.

With Auntie J

We love you, Sarah!

Eating her big glob of frosting.

I'm proud of her, but I'm also proud of ME!

Since The Kid’s 2nd birthday last August, when she got 2(!!) potty chairs, we have been slooooooowly working our way towards potty training. At her 2 yo checkup (which I was a couple of months late on) her doctor asked if we had started potty training. If you count talking about the potty and sitting on the potty with all your clothes on as a start, then YES! That answer did not seem to be what he was going for, so being the fast thinker that I am, I told him that we were going to start getting SERIOUS about it after the holidays. And we did…for about 2 days. The Kid just wanted nothing to do with it and every time I would suggest that we sit on her potty she would scream and cry. And if I would suggest putting on a pull up instead of a diaper??? Oh, THE HUMANITY!!!!! How, on earth, could I suggest such a thing???? NO! She wanted a diaper and that was that! (And truth be told, I wasn’t ready for it either. I really love all the hugs and snuggles we would have after a nappy change.)

So I tried other tactics.

-New Little Mermaid underwear (Didn’t work)

-Sitting on the potty and singing our favorite songs (Fun, but didn’t work)

-“TK, did you know about ALL THE FUN THINGS YOU CAN DO ONCE YOU ARE POTTY TRAINED!!!!” (She merely rolled her eyes and went back to her novel)

-“TK, did you know that Gracie (her friend) goes on the potty? She’s such a big girl! Don’t you want to be a big girl like Gracie?” (Peer pressure had no effect – which is a GOOD thing, but still not helpful)

Honestly, all of that was crap. Because one afternoon, after we had taken a break from training for a few days, I said, “Hey TK, would you like to sit on the potty? I’ll give you an M&M if you do. And if you go, I’ll give you 2 M&M’s.” Her response? “Okay, mama.” And that….was pretty much that. I never realized that parenting was all about bribery. And chocolate... in a candy coated shell.