I'm ready for my close up......

Emma and I like to play 'total chaos' a lot. I stack her rings up, or put the shapes into the sorter, or fill her bowl with toys and she likes to run and try to catch me doing it so she can destroy it. Here's a video of her tearing her farm apart while I try to get the animals back in the barn. Until she sees the camera......



Emma is soooo observant. Last night Mark and I were in the kitchen and Emma was in her high chair. We started playing around - Mark threatened to smack me with a wooden spoon for some smart ass comment I made and I splashed him with water, then he chased me around giving me raspberries while I screamed. I looked at Emma and she had a piece of chicken in one hand and a carrot in the other and was chewing really slowly and intently watching. She looked like she was watching a thriller movie and it was the edge-of-your-seat moment right before the scary part where everyone jumps. I wonder what she makes of all our ridiculous behavior? We really have to watch ourselves around her.

When she was about 6 months old, she did this 'extreme close talker' thing where she'd put her forehead on yours and stare at you. All you could see were two blurry marbles looking at you from an inch away. Now she thinks it's hilarious when you do it to her. And I enjoy going up to Mark and putting my forehead on his, staring wide eyed at him and asking him to guess who I am. I never knew how much hilarity was involved in this whole baby thing...

And this morning Emma and I walked for an hour! It's nice and cool now and we decided to go pay the water bill on foot. We can take the neighborhood the whole way to City Hall. It was over 3 miles and I tried to keep my pace up. The Nike+ told me I burned 567 calories! Crazy - and more than I meant to. I need to eat a bigger breakfast if we do that again, but it was fun. I think we might start extending our walks while the weather is nice.

My Happy Ending

I finished Twilight. As soon as I did, I fought the urge to run to my bedroom, slam and lock the door and blast Avril Lavigne from my Ipod while I cried about how no one understood me. Hehe. It was good, in fact, I bumped the movie up on my Netflix queue, but I'm not starting the next one tonight. I learned my lesson.

Emma's First Halloween!

Sorry to disappoint you if you were hoping for a cute costume, but we just went to Grandma's house and had pizza this year. She didn't mind. Now I have a year to think of a super clever get up. The pressure is on.

Twilight to Midnight

I am very excited. I am going to Austin this weekend and my friend, Karen, and I are going to see Dusk. It's a live improve spoof of the Twilight series. I hadn't read Twilight and I thought Dusk probably wouldn't be as funny to me, so I got the book ($7 at Costco if anyone is interested in checking it out) today. I hadn't read it previously because I didn't want to get into the hoopla and be the fashionable teenager who reads those kinds of books. It's kinda like when I wouldn't go to Starbucks for YEARS after they became all crazy cool. But I thought, "Well, I'm only reading this so that I can make fun of it later" and it seemed alright. It's a 500 page book and I finished over 300 pages tonight. Retarded. Especially because I've been complaining to Mark about the conversations being a bit juvenile (duh) and there being quite a bit of filler. Yet it's nearing midnight and I had to make myself stop.

Before I started that bit of ridiculousness, I had a thought... I was wondering why the brown M&M is the only one not animated. Are they afraid they'd be racist? Let's face it, Christopher Walken can't play the brown M&M. It would have to be Chris Tucker or, even better, George Lopez. I may never see the shunned M&M come to life, but forever in my thoughts he will exist and say things like, "Wha cha!".

I have a totally adorable Halloween pic for you, but I'm going to bed. If I can resist that damn book. I'll be back tomorrow.

Train Ride, Train Ride, Going On A Train Ride!

We went to the zoo! It was so much fun! We went with our friends who have a little girl Emma's age and I think we need to go ahead and get the membership because they both really liked it. They have a little train that goes through the park next to the zoo and we rode it. One part of it is a tunnel. There are no lights and I was really curious to see what Emma's reaction was going to be so I got the camera ready to snap a shot as soon as we went in. Here's the before of Ems enjoying herself and being nosey and wanting to look around:

Then we go into the tunnel:

Funniest. Pic. Ever. Ever. She didn't freak out, so if I hadn't gotten this I never would have known. Funny.

And this guy was a riot as well:

I was pretty sure he was going to come over the fence and eat the stroller. Emma had discovered her fan at this time and was too concerned with getting it down so she could eat it to worry about the goat. I was also sure that if I turned around with my back to him that he would eat my ponytail:


Fun, fun, fun. They had a really cool play area for kids with - you're not gonna believe this - RUBBER FLOORS! They were sooooo soft! And Ems enjoyed watching the fish. I'm pretty sure she's saying, "Is he following me?":

Look at how cute Mia is:

Emma totally knew what to call this:

Don't be fooled, this one wasn't at the zoo. This is the one legged chicken from her farm. The one she was chewing on in the pic a few days ago. Weird, huh? Did anybody get my fowl mouth joke? Oh well, here's the special needs chicken:

Duh.

I'm really disappointed in consumers today. Disney is giving refunds on Baby Einstein videos because they don't really make your baby smart. Duh. Like this is news. I thought it was pretty common knowledge that TV produces less brain activity than sleep. I still like TV, and Emma will get to watch more of it as she gets older, but come on. This irritates me because it just encourages the idea that consumers don't need to research anything they buy. Like diet pills and wrinkle creams and videos to make your 6 month old read. Whatever. I recently bought an "As Seen On TV" product. It didn't work. Surprise. I considered the $10 I lost to be my 'dumb tax'. Let's move on...

So Emma had a really rough night last night. She took her 2nd dive off the bed. Since it was Mark's fault this time, I won't go into details. But just to be clear - Mark did it. He can tell you himself how he fell asleep with the baby and didn't have her guarded properly. Not me. He did it, so he can tell you. Hehe. The bump this time was so hideous that I couldn't stop crying when I looked at it. I'm sure that didn't help Mark feel any better, bless his little heart. She's fine, but we had to stay up really late because we didn't want her to sleep afterward. We're going to the zoo today so I should have some nice pics of my bruised up baby later. It actually looks a lot better today, but geesh. I want rubber floors.

And Emma's infatuation with cats continues. We were at Target yesterday and she saw a stuffed Elmo and called it a cat. Target is having some super great clearance deals right now, but my super sale shopping info for the day: Kohl's has all Fisher Price toys half off and all Playskool 45% off until November 2nd. If you have a Kohl's card you probably have a 15% off coupon too. Go use it.

Fowl Mouthed Baby

She makes her mama proud and her daddy worried. And I really am proud of her today - she was in the kitchen playing with a bag of cat food and said her word for cat. Mark looked around for Olive or Ruby and thought she was mistaken, then she grabbed at the picture of a cat on the bag and said it again and again. I am so amazed that she was able to correlate the similarity between our cats and some random gray cat and know it was the same. She can mimic til the cows come home, but when she actually puts two and two together it's just amazing. Her bag of tricks is getting bigger at a pretty steady pace. She blows kisses (she was blowing kisses to people at HEB yesterday) when you tell her you love her or when the "If You're Happy And You Know It" song comes on - it doesn't matter if it's the 'pat your head', 'shout hooray', or the actual 'blow a kiss' part - she does it. We figured her open mouth kissing act should end with flu season underway. She waves if you tell her "hi" and sometimes she says it back. I started working on her holding up one finger and saying "one" so that she can tell people how old she is soon, but she's more interested in grabbing my finger for now. She'll get it.

Bittersweet Shopping Spree

I don't have many winter items. Not that you need a whole lot down here, but still. Last year I was getting over having a baby and still wearing a lot of maternity clothes. The year before, I was in the middle of my super diet and was at least 2 sizes bigger than now, and all those clothes got ditched in the spring. So I was really excited to get a deferred billing coupon from Avenue last week. It's a fat girl store. Their smallest size is a 14 (although it is a very generous 14). I ordered some sweaters and some pants all in their smallest size and my eyes sparkled as I hit the "Submit Order" button knowing I wouldn't have to pay for them for 3 months. They came today. I don't get to shop there anymore. I can still wear their pants, thankfully, because I really like the ones I got today, but not one sweater fits. I am bummed, but Mark said, "That's a good thing, isn't it?". I guess. I'm not bummed about losing a shopping place, I'm bummed about losing a coupon.

Speaking of shopping and coupons - I finally found a coupon at OldNavyWeekly! I went to get Emma some new tennis shoes because I LOVE the ones they have for babies and she has outgrown hers (she already outgrew the Cherry Squeaks, too, dang it!). On our way out, we passed through the women's clearance section. No, really, it was on the way out, we had to go through there. And look what I got for $7:
It was marked down to $16 and then half off, plus I had my trusty coupon. I really love it. My heart was all a-flutter on the way home thinking about how cute it will be with my zebra striped ballet flats. I hope I can get at least a good month out of it before it has to go away until spring. Shut up, Amanda, I know I am such a girl. But I still like beer and poker.

Blah, blah, blahg post.

Emma got her first flu shot today and she was sooooo good. I actually thought that the nurse didn't give her the shot because she didn't flinch, cry, growl, or anything. I had Mark check for a puncture when he took the band aid off. I guess she got it, but just didn't mind. She did get really fussy tonight but she had short naps today and one of her molars is in, so the rest should be coming. It could have been any of those things. So, yay for flu shots! I get mine tomorrow. I've had a heck of a time tracking them down and got lucky enough to find out that the CVS by our house will be getting some in for a one day only shotfest. I'm really anxious about us all getting them after seeing the doctor's office today. Sick people everywhere. I didn't even sit down while we waited because I didn't want Emma to touch ANYTHING in there. Even on the 'well baby' side, the parents were coughing and sneezing. Hmmm. Thanks.

Today was the day for the Medina Children's Home to come around and pick up donations. I placed two boxes, a vacuum and a huge trash bag of baby stuff and household stuff by the curb and taped the bright yellow flyer to it so they would know it was for them. Someone stole the vacuum before they got there. WTF? Really? Your carpet is so dirty you have to steal from a charity? A kid's charity? WTF? Well, whoever this desperate vacuum-er is, I guess their life must pretty much suck, so I'll get over losing my tax deductible Hoover.

The other night I decided I would like to have an adult beverage. But I haven't been in a drinking mood lately (GASP!) so I didn't have any beer in the fridge. I did, however, have some chocolate vodka sitting around getting dusty and some diet strawberry soda. I wasn't quite chocolaty enough so I added a shot of sugar free German chocolate cake syrup to it. Mmmmm. It was so good, I decided to name it. I must have spent half an hour trying to figure out how to cleverly tie strawberries, chocolates, Germans, cakes, and Russians (vodka) together. Finally I decided to give it a normal name. I wondered what Strawberry Shortcake and Hitler would name their baby - a girl who loved chocolate and was born in Russia. Then I realized that this person's name already existed in Karen Walker's alias: Anatasia Beaverhausen. Perfect.

Some side notes for you:

Don't eat green bananas. I feel like I have little socks on all my teeth now. It's gross.

I have a confession. I like 'Top Gear'. You will too. Watch an episode and make your husband happy.

I got 2 new summer dresses from Kohl's today. Wanna know how much I spent? Six dollars. Emma was very patient while I tried on 16 other dresses to find two good ones, but summer clearance is still the bomb diggity.

We went to the pumpkin farm this weekend with some friends and their little girl. It was super great and we got some cute pics. I don't feel like posting them, but they are on our website if you are curious. The one on the top of the page is from our trip. Look, Amanda! It's Kenzie's dress! But I didn't get the super cool cardigan. I am jealous.

Emma can high five now. It's the cutest thing ever, it took her two days to get it down, and she thinks it's really funny. I have to think of some more tricks to teach her.

Nature Vs. Nuthouse

Emma is so Emma. I have really tried to make sure that I do everything I can to raise a kind, polite, smart, respectful little girl. Everyday I teach her things, I love her, I discipline her, we gave up a lot of time and convenience to get her on a good schedule so that she could have a strong start in her development. She should be perfect and agreeable, spending her whole day giggling and farting rainbows. Maybe it's too early to tell, but I think I'm screwed. She is insane. She's funny - but insane. I don't know how to explain it fully and most people don't see it because she is a closet insane person - or, as we've called her for a while, "the frog in the box baby". I am not surprised to find out she's nuts, I just figured it would appear later, after she'd had a chance to learn it. Turns out, it's in our genes. Nature is a bitch.

JD came over the other night and Emma was eating and she coughed a little, like she swallowed wrong. So I said, "Oh no! Oh my goodness! Are you ok?" and she, as usual, did some fake coughing to get me to repeat my question. After the second time, JD said, "Oh, she's fine." I told him, "I know, but she likes the drama."

EVERYTHING is a big deal to Ems. When she was trying to bite I would tell her, "No biting!" and put her down away from me if she didn't stop trying. She thought the world was ending. After a week or so of warning her, she would open her mouth and move towards my shoulder while I was holding her and then look at me, mouth still open, and start crying. It worked out ok, she doesn't bite me.

She has a lot of toys that activate by pounding on them. So if she makes her "music cube" turn on and then walks away, when the music stops, she pounds whatever is in front of her. Including her stomach if that's all that's there. The other day she started pounding on me and looking at the TV. Over and over again until I turned it on.

I said I would not let Emma watch TV until she was 2 because they say that babies cannot learn anything (without parental input) from TV until then. Then I read that even though they aren't going to learn anything, you can still use it if you need a break. This sounded like a pretty good idea to me and now, every day, I get 24 minutes of undisturbed "Yo Gabba Gabba" time. Sounds like I'm going to the spa for 24 minutes, but actually it's a great chance to pee and do laundry - some things are better and easier to do without a crazy person following you around. Amanda said that thanks to "Yo Gabba Gabba", she now gets to shave her legs in the shower. Sweet. Thank you, DJ Lance Rock.

I am SO not happy about it being flu season again already. I have recently realized that going out in public with a baby is like dating a rock star. People are all over you. They like to touch your baby. Why? Don't cough in your hand and rub her cheek, ok? Surprisingly the grandma's out there tend to have some manners. One of them smacked her husband's hand when he went to touch and told him to keep his germy hands off the baby. Another told Emma that she wanted to squeeze her cheeks, but she knows better. I'm pretty impressed that these women not only abide by their children's rules for grandparents, but they are taking the rules to the streets. On that note - here's a great thing:

Take a box of wipies and pour alcohol in it (be sure and mark the box so you don't accidentally burn your child's genitals off on accident). They are super great for wiping down toys, counter tops, whatever. It dries really quickly and sanitizes without using a lot of chemicals. After Emma eats, and throws her food all over the floor, I wipe it down with one of these. When she's on the floor 15 minutes later looking for fur balls, pill bugs or anything else that looks really tasty, I don't have to worry about her eating cleaning supplies with it.

Feel Like Makin' Lists

1. I want to tell you in detail all about lots of stuff, but I don't feel like it, so I'm doing yet another list.

2. I think Emma is trying to talk. I have always been nuts about telling her the names of things and describing all of our activities to her and I think she's trying to say: ball (buh), cat (ah), and done (duh). She's been working on these for a while, but I thought it was just her mimicking me until Mark said she started saying, "Ah" (cat) when Ruby came up to her.

3. I bought her a birthday dress today and the cashier asked if she was going to be 2. Yes, she's huge. Thanks. My mom told me that we were all so big as babies that she worried people thought we were retarded because we looked so much older, but couldn't do anything. I get it now. At Sam's company picnic someone suggested she go play in the bounce house. We laughed and said she couldn't even walk. Thinking back, that lady probably felt sorry for the couple with the developmentally challenged baby who couldn't walk at 18 months.

4. I am totally exhausted. Mark just got back from working in Victoria for the past 2 days and it has taken an incredible toll on me this time. I don't know why, Ems was super great, but I am tired.

5. It's 7 pm. Goodnight.

Can you help me???

Yeah! Can we dance? Yeah! Well alright, break it down.

Emma finally made it to her 9 month appointment with her pediatrician today. She was scheduled to go the week that Suanne passed, so we had to reschedule. She looks great! She's OVER the 95th percentile in her height now at a whopping 31 inches. Her weight is in the 80th at 21 pounds. She did so super great for the blood draws (just toe pricks) and her lead test was clear and iron levels are good. They were out of flu vaccines, so we have to go back next month to get the flu and swine flu shots. She hates shots. Ugh. And although the doc could see the molars under the gums, she says it doesn't look swollen like they are cutting, which we had been suspecting due to her insatiable desire for chewing on Mark's flesh (for some reason, I'm not as much of a target as he is). When we asked her to check on them, Mark told her, "Either she's teething again or she's just a twerp." She asked if she could write "just a twerp" as the diagnosis in Emma's file.

Poor Mark. He's the sweetest guy you could ever meet, but something in his brain just doesn't have the right firing order. I told him that every day with him is like Groundhog Day. He wakes up and doesn't remember anything he learned the day before. Did I tell you about the time he was nice enough to load the dishwasher for me and when I went to put the soap in I noticed the coffee pot teetering on top of the dishes on the bottom rack? It was just waiting to get ping ponged around by the water jets until it smashed into a million pieces. Here's something I ask him all. the. time..., "What were you thinking?" Once he was filling up the container that we keep the cat food in and I stopped him half way through and told him I wanted to wash it before we refilled it. I told him not to worry, I'd just do it in a couple of weeks when that ran out. So I turn around and I hear him pour the other half of the bag into the container. "What were you thinking?". I organized Emma's clothes the other day and got out some shorts that I had hidden from Mark in her dresser. I hid them because even though I kept telling him that they were too big for her (I bought her shorts for next summer when the season clearance started at Kohl's and Target), he kept putting them on her. THE VERY FIRST DAY that I put them back in the closet, he put them on her. I said, "Ya know, I thought about telling you that only the top shelf are the ones that fit her now, but I figured you would see that the ones on the top shelf are the ones she always wears and that you never see her wear the ones on the other shelves and put it together."

This brings us to today. Mark was on a 'work call' and I was feeding Emma her dinner and getting her bath stuff ready. When I went to get her a towel, I heard Mark in the office talking about the cool tailgating he did on Saturday, so I gave him a dirty look since he knew I was waiting for him and went back to the kitchen. Finally I got tired of waiting and didn't feel like being mad at him, so I poured out the Dr. Pepper that I had bought him and went on with my business. When he came in the kitchen he immediately started apologizing for taking so long and I said, "Don't worry about it honey, I'm not mad at all. I started to get mad so I poured out your Dr. Pepper and I feel fine now." He had a look on his face like I had slapped him in public and recommended that I try out this new yoga for people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But I may have a new idea for getting through to him that works - when he pisses me off, I'll go get him Whataburger and then cram it down the disposal while he watches and cries. Poor Mark, what did he ever do that was so bad to deserve me?

And my final thought for the day: I am old. I am finding gray hairs and have noticed some serious laugh lines lately. I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor this morning and one of my knees buckled up and it felt like the knee cap had popped right off. My wrists are still a problem because I am old and I decided to have a child that I have to care for with my abused and broken down body. I'm still waiting for science to come up with a titanium skeletal replacement. Just get it all fixed at once. If you really are only as old as you feel, I should file for my Social Security soon.