Note the poll -------------->
The recent Mickey obsession has me thinking about Disneyworld. It would sure be cool to go while she's still enamored with Mickey.
I don't worry about waiting until they're old enough to remember most outings, but when you're spending that much for tickets, it starts to make a little more sense.
So leave me a comment - how old were your kids when you did Disney? Was it a good age, or should you have gone earlier? Later? Should we take MG by herself and leave MG with a grandparent, or should we wait until they're both old enough to go? Or should we just plan to go every year and damn the cost (hi Julie!).
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Count the Product Placements
Just hanging out today, nothing to report. MG has started to use "blog" as a verb, as in, "Mommy, we have to blog!" as she bangs on my computer. *SIGH* Check out that hair. We buy No More Tangles by the barrel in this house, I'm telling you. It's much cuter now, though, since I combed it out. MG has gotten about 37 time outs for hitting, pushing, pinching, hair pulling, etc. today. I am about sick of it. Time outs better start having some sort of effect, or I'm going to start spanking butts. Honestly.....
At least she's too small to really hurt us. Well, except for poor Claire. Most second children survive, though, right?
Friday, January 4, 2008
A Pocket Guide to Speaking MG
Mary Grace has about a hundred cute little non-standard-English words and phrases that she uses regularly. Half the fun of living with her is trying to figure out what on earth she's talking about at any given moment... Here are a few of my favorites, things that I don't want to forget as she gets older and forgets her own slang.
Adventure: (n) An outing or field trip.
Big cheese: (n) Parmesan cheese. Etm: we went to Costco and got a 24 oz. container of Parmesan cheese. Now whenever she wants it, she says, "I need some big cheese!"
Biggle: (adj) big girl, this was one of her first made up words. I do not like my biggle potty. Etm: contraction of "big" and "girl."
Bickits: (n, pl) Biscuits. Also the name of beloved stuffed cat.
Big Yuck!: (ph.) Anything dirty or gross is a big yuck.
Boat: (n) Laundry basket. Our Claire is in the boat!
The Bucket: (n) The infant car seat.
Claires: (n, pl) Our baby Claire and all the other babies named Claire, who agree with our Claire on a variety of topics. Claires don't like the bucket.
Cuppy: (n) Sippy cup.
Cute suit: (ph) I think I actually coined this one, but she says it often enough that it has become hers. Everything she wears is a cute suit. This is my cute suit, Mommy. Syn. outfit.
Grandma Dinana: (n) Grandma Diana is hard to say, sometimes it comes out "Dinana." Rhymes with banana.
Guys: (n, pl) Stuffed animals, Little People, etc. All of her toys that have faces are "guys." BJ didn't even realize that he used this word all the time until MG started using it, too.
Kiddle kiddle kiddle: (n) kitty kitty kitty. BJ and I were totally bummed when this one faded from use, because it was so cute.
Mimi: (n) My sister, Aunt Megan.
Much I love you: (ph) What she tells Gramma when she wants to melt her heart.
Nosrus Tap: (n) Rhinoceros Tap, the CD.
Our Claire: (n) Claire Prettybaby. Not to be confused with all the other Claires who don't like the bucket. Our Claire's awake!
Puffs: (n) Gerber Graduates cereal. Our Claire likes puffs.
Spit the milk: (ph) spitting up. Our Claire spit the milk!
Spray: (n) No More Tangles.
Squish: (v) She'll grab me from behind and pull me back into her, so that I'm smashing her into the back of my chair or the couch and say, "Squish!"
Tiny oranges: (n) Mandarin oranges.
Tummy crummies: (ph) Upset stomach. From The Lorax.
You can be happy: (ph).
Can you think of anything I'm forgetting? Leave it in the comments!
Adventure: (n) An outing or field trip.
Big cheese: (n) Parmesan cheese. Etm: we went to Costco and got a 24 oz. container of Parmesan cheese. Now whenever she wants it, she says, "I need some big cheese!"
Biggle: (adj) big girl, this was one of her first made up words. I do not like my biggle potty. Etm: contraction of "big" and "girl."
Bickits: (n, pl) Biscuits. Also the name of beloved stuffed cat.
Big Yuck!: (ph.) Anything dirty or gross is a big yuck.
Boat: (n) Laundry basket. Our Claire is in the boat!
The Bucket: (n) The infant car seat.
Claires: (n, pl) Our baby Claire and all the other babies named Claire, who agree with our Claire on a variety of topics. Claires don't like the bucket.
Cuppy: (n) Sippy cup.
Cute suit: (ph) I think I actually coined this one, but she says it often enough that it has become hers. Everything she wears is a cute suit. This is my cute suit, Mommy. Syn. outfit.
Grandma Dinana: (n) Grandma Diana is hard to say, sometimes it comes out "Dinana." Rhymes with banana.
Guys: (n, pl) Stuffed animals, Little People, etc. All of her toys that have faces are "guys." BJ didn't even realize that he used this word all the time until MG started using it, too.
Kiddle kiddle kiddle: (n) kitty kitty kitty. BJ and I were totally bummed when this one faded from use, because it was so cute.
Mimi: (n) My sister, Aunt Megan.
Much I love you: (ph) What she tells Gramma when she wants to melt her heart.
Nosrus Tap: (n) Rhinoceros Tap, the CD.
Our Claire: (n) Claire Prettybaby. Not to be confused with all the other Claires who don't like the bucket. Our Claire's awake!
Puffs: (n) Gerber Graduates cereal. Our Claire likes puffs.
Spit the milk: (ph) spitting up. Our Claire spit the milk!
Spray: (n) No More Tangles.
Squish: (v) She'll grab me from behind and pull me back into her, so that I'm smashing her into the back of my chair or the couch and say, "Squish!"
Tiny oranges: (n) Mandarin oranges.
Tummy crummies: (ph) Upset stomach. From The Lorax.
You can be happy: (ph).
Can you think of anything I'm forgetting? Leave it in the comments!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Pop-you-hoo-ler! Lar! La la, la la...
So, I've been listening to the Wicked soundtrack in the car. A lot. I need to learn my part (Elphaba) before my mom or my sister and I have to drive in the car together again, or I'll lose cool points. So I've played it a squajillion times in the last few days (I'm getting pretty good - it's right in my range).
As we were getting out of the car tonight, on the way home from the grocery store, Mary Grace said, "Mommy, you know about popular!"
Which is funny (aside from the fact that it's funny when she's precocious), because I really don't. I'm not a girl's girl, and I haven't been since like fourth grade when the cool girls, inexplicably and irrevocably, decided that I was no longer one of them. By the time we got to middle school I was persona non grata*. When I heard that Tammy Faye Baker had died this year, my first reaction was (still!!) to blush, furiously, because that's what they used to call me. I used to cry pretty much on cue. Not a charming trait in the wild jungle of middle school girls' locker rooms, lemme tell ya.
Even now, my closest female friends tend to be on the tomboyish side (and I mean that in the good sense, girls, so don't get your boxers in a twist). Amanda is getting her Ph.D. in underwater archeology and is in the habit of staring down tarantulas, snakes, and other assorted creepy crawlies without breaking a sweat. Barb is in the Air Force (she was active for a while, and now she's in the Air National Guard), and while more and more women are in the military, it's still not the sort of thing you'd expect from a "girly girl." I can't see Cher from "Clueless" joining up. After all, there are no manicures in boot camp. Jenny is a cop. Shannyn and Karen are harder to define. I'm not sure why I have the sense that they're tomboyish, except maybe that they're tough and smart and strong, and those qualities aren't always associated with girly girls. Certainly they're not traits that I associate with girly girls...
As a rule, I try to avoid women in groups. My experience of them has tended to be more like Mean Girls than Steel Magnolias. (If you haven't seen Mean Girls, do, because it's hysterical). I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out why I don't do well in groups of women, and I've narrowed it down to a few things:
1) I don't defer well. I'm opinionated (those of you who know me are sarcastically saying, "Noooooo..." right now). I'm right often enough that I have a hard time letting go of my opinions, no matter who is disagreeing with me. It's bad form, in a group of women, to not defer to the alpha female. Well, as far as I'm concerned, the alpha female can kiss my butt, most of the time. This tends to make me unpopular in groups of women, obviously, because the rest of the group will follow the alpha.
2) I don't like group projects. Women tend to do things by committee, which, in my humble opinion, takes longer and is generally twice as difficult as just doing it would be. It only takes one person to make lemonade - we don't need to have a discussion about how everyone feels about various lemonade making techniques, just make the damned lemonade, already!
3) I tend to side with the underdog. So, if there's someone else like me in a group of women, who is being ganged up on, I'll side with her and be ostracized by association.
And the fact is, in general, men are a lot easier to be around than women. With men, what you see is what you get. Being pretty lousy at subtleties (which could be reason #4, I'm about as subtle as an elephant), that quality makes it a lot easier for me to interact with men. Given the choice, I would've much rather joined the Boy Scouts. They did all the cool stuff, anyway.
So, really, it comes as no surprise that they're closing ranks around that other blogger and baring their perfect nails at me on the blog (and, since I started working on this post, in my own comments on the Mama Karma post...) I mentioned the other day. Same thing happened with the duck thing a few months ago. I've got 20 years of toughening built up on this hide. A few snarky comments aren't going to ruin my day.
However, since most of you know me in real life, I want to know (and feel free to post anonymously, you chickens), is my assessment of myself correct, or is there something else that I'm doing that causes me to constantly bump heads with other women (particularly women in groups)?
And, to bring it all back on topic, how do you think my apparent inability to play nicely with women in groups is going to play out over the course of my girls' childhood, considering that it won't be long before I'm dragged kicking and screaming to a variety of venues (school, scouts, ballet, soccer, etc.) where I'm going to have to play nice with the other mommies? Should I repress my natural tendencies and defer, withhold opinions, do everything by committee, and let the cheese stand alone in order to make the path easier for my kids? After all, they aren't going to be invited to many activities if their mom is constantly getting into heated political debates with the other moms. Do I need to suppress myself so that I don't impede their social development, or would it be better for them to learn that there's more to life than being popular? For me, I choose to be Wicked. For one thing, the wicked one gets to sing all the best songs...
* if you're cheesy, are you a persona non au gratin**?
** That was for you, Dad.
As we were getting out of the car tonight, on the way home from the grocery store, Mary Grace said, "Mommy, you know about popular!"
Which is funny (aside from the fact that it's funny when she's precocious), because I really don't. I'm not a girl's girl, and I haven't been since like fourth grade when the cool girls, inexplicably and irrevocably, decided that I was no longer one of them. By the time we got to middle school I was persona non grata*. When I heard that Tammy Faye Baker had died this year, my first reaction was (still!!) to blush, furiously, because that's what they used to call me. I used to cry pretty much on cue. Not a charming trait in the wild jungle of middle school girls' locker rooms, lemme tell ya.
Even now, my closest female friends tend to be on the tomboyish side (and I mean that in the good sense, girls, so don't get your boxers in a twist). Amanda is getting her Ph.D. in underwater archeology and is in the habit of staring down tarantulas, snakes, and other assorted creepy crawlies without breaking a sweat. Barb is in the Air Force (she was active for a while, and now she's in the Air National Guard), and while more and more women are in the military, it's still not the sort of thing you'd expect from a "girly girl." I can't see Cher from "Clueless" joining up. After all, there are no manicures in boot camp. Jenny is a cop. Shannyn and Karen are harder to define. I'm not sure why I have the sense that they're tomboyish, except maybe that they're tough and smart and strong, and those qualities aren't always associated with girly girls. Certainly they're not traits that I associate with girly girls...
As a rule, I try to avoid women in groups. My experience of them has tended to be more like Mean Girls than Steel Magnolias. (If you haven't seen Mean Girls, do, because it's hysterical). I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out why I don't do well in groups of women, and I've narrowed it down to a few things:
1) I don't defer well. I'm opinionated (those of you who know me are sarcastically saying, "Noooooo..." right now). I'm right often enough that I have a hard time letting go of my opinions, no matter who is disagreeing with me. It's bad form, in a group of women, to not defer to the alpha female. Well, as far as I'm concerned, the alpha female can kiss my butt, most of the time. This tends to make me unpopular in groups of women, obviously, because the rest of the group will follow the alpha.
2) I don't like group projects. Women tend to do things by committee, which, in my humble opinion, takes longer and is generally twice as difficult as just doing it would be. It only takes one person to make lemonade - we don't need to have a discussion about how everyone feels about various lemonade making techniques, just make the damned lemonade, already!
3) I tend to side with the underdog. So, if there's someone else like me in a group of women, who is being ganged up on, I'll side with her and be ostracized by association.
And the fact is, in general, men are a lot easier to be around than women. With men, what you see is what you get. Being pretty lousy at subtleties (which could be reason #4, I'm about as subtle as an elephant), that quality makes it a lot easier for me to interact with men. Given the choice, I would've much rather joined the Boy Scouts. They did all the cool stuff, anyway.
So, really, it comes as no surprise that they're closing ranks around that other blogger and baring their perfect nails at me on the blog (and, since I started working on this post, in my own comments on the Mama Karma post...) I mentioned the other day. Same thing happened with the duck thing a few months ago. I've got 20 years of toughening built up on this hide. A few snarky comments aren't going to ruin my day.
However, since most of you know me in real life, I want to know (and feel free to post anonymously, you chickens), is my assessment of myself correct, or is there something else that I'm doing that causes me to constantly bump heads with other women (particularly women in groups)?
And, to bring it all back on topic, how do you think my apparent inability to play nicely with women in groups is going to play out over the course of my girls' childhood, considering that it won't be long before I'm dragged kicking and screaming to a variety of venues (school, scouts, ballet, soccer, etc.) where I'm going to have to play nice with the other mommies? Should I repress my natural tendencies and defer, withhold opinions, do everything by committee, and let the cheese stand alone in order to make the path easier for my kids? After all, they aren't going to be invited to many activities if their mom is constantly getting into heated political debates with the other moms. Do I need to suppress myself so that I don't impede their social development, or would it be better for them to learn that there's more to life than being popular? For me, I choose to be Wicked. For one thing, the wicked one gets to sing all the best songs...
* if you're cheesy, are you a persona non au gratin**?
** That was for you, Dad.
Wake up call
I woke up this morning to Mary Grace prying my eyelids open with her fingers. "You can get up, Mommy."
I am not a morning person. It's even worse that I haven't slept through the night in three years. BJ is wonderful about letting me sleep in, but I find myself yawning through the day. I can have one cup of coffee per day without it affecting Claire, so I do, and I try to live through it. I mean, they have to start sleeping through eventually right? Right?
Ugh, I can barely keep my eyes open. I have to go to the office, too. Yuck. Thank God, Allison will be back next week, so we can resume our usual routine. I have been neglecting my work duties pretty severely.
But it's hard to think about work when all I want to do is go upstairs and take a nap. Unfortunately, I didn't get the kids to nap simultaneously today, so there will be no nap for the Mommy.
Sleep is one of those things that, in a perfect world, one would be able to do on credit. If I could've saved sleep before I was a parent against these sleep deprived days, I'd be in much better shape. One should also be able to lose weight on credit. I'd have a lot easier time eating tiny portions of fat free salad and stuff if I were already a size 6.
Ok, no more stalling, time to make the donuts. It's going to take me half an hour to get everyone bundled up and ready to go, and if I wait much longer I'm going to start saying, "Oh, it's too late to go today, I'll just do it tomorrow," (which is what I've been saying for a good week, now.)
Someone take a nap for me, okay?
I am not a morning person. It's even worse that I haven't slept through the night in three years. BJ is wonderful about letting me sleep in, but I find myself yawning through the day. I can have one cup of coffee per day without it affecting Claire, so I do, and I try to live through it. I mean, they have to start sleeping through eventually right? Right?
Ugh, I can barely keep my eyes open. I have to go to the office, too. Yuck. Thank God, Allison will be back next week, so we can resume our usual routine. I have been neglecting my work duties pretty severely.
But it's hard to think about work when all I want to do is go upstairs and take a nap. Unfortunately, I didn't get the kids to nap simultaneously today, so there will be no nap for the Mommy.
Sleep is one of those things that, in a perfect world, one would be able to do on credit. If I could've saved sleep before I was a parent against these sleep deprived days, I'd be in much better shape. One should also be able to lose weight on credit. I'd have a lot easier time eating tiny portions of fat free salad and stuff if I were already a size 6.
Ok, no more stalling, time to make the donuts. It's going to take me half an hour to get everyone bundled up and ready to go, and if I wait much longer I'm going to start saying, "Oh, it's too late to go today, I'll just do it tomorrow," (which is what I've been saying for a good week, now.)
Someone take a nap for me, okay?
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