France, Round 2

Viewer beware! Dry bones ahead.

Ambitions

This morning, Annika stood in front of the mirror and said to her reflection, "I'm 2!" Then she held up two fingers. Or three, I didn't check. She went on to say, "Pretty soon I'm going to be a doctor." There was another pause and she followed up with, "A REALLY doctor."

I didn't tell her that "pretty soon" might be pushing it.

My garbage disposal

Keira protests loudly anytime anyone eats anything and doesn't share a bite with her. This morning was no exception, as I fed myself and Annika, trying to get all 3 of us out the door without arriving hungry to our destination. Keira sat in a chair next to me, lamenting her lack of a plate, and between whines she pouted, "Me too!"

She's also apparently not very selective on what her bites contain. This morning, while picking through her diaper looking for the plastic coin she ate yesterday, I found a 2 inch piece of plastic string. What a tasty morsel. And calorie free too! Now don't laugh. As a mother, you too will administer suppositories and sift through poo and wipe away vomit with your bare hands and capture big juicy spiders that just lept underneath your child in her carseat. Okay, so I left the last one to Grandma, but hey, every other imaginable disgusting thing you will do. It's in the contract. Of course, you don't get to see the terms of this mothering contract until it's already signed, no backsies. Sleepless nights are about the least of a mother's obligations.

Now, as I try to post this, I'm called away from my desk to "get the bug on the table." It was a little piece of chopped onion. Whew. I can handle an onion.

Hide and Seek, 2.5 year old style

Daddy and Annika played hide and seek this evening. It sounded like this:

     Daddy: 1... 2... 3... 4...
     Annika (while hiding) counts with Daddy: 1... 2... 3... 4...
     Daddy goes searching. Annika says, "I right here! No, Papi, I'm by Keira's chair."
     Daddy keeps searching. Annika gets frustrated and screeches louder, "Here I am. By Keira's high chair! Right here, Papi!"
     Daddy "finds" Annika, and Annika goes off to count.
     Annika searches for Daddy and can't see him. She calls for Daddy, finds him, squeals with delight, and immediately hides in his spot.

Repeat.

You learn something new everyday.

A couple of weeks ago, Annika went with Daddy to a chinese take out restaurant. When they went to get straws for their drinks, Annika spotted the wooden straws and immediately wanted one. He told her, "Those aren't straws Annika, those are chopsticks." She still wanted them, so Daddy agreed and got her situated in her seat. He came back with the food and Annika was wiping her lips with the wooden sticks. "What are you doing?" Daddy asked. "It's not wet!" She said, perplexed. Daddy was puzzled too, but only for a moment. "Oh, honey, it's not chapstick, it's chopstick."

Rain

Basements are to busy preschoolers what baby swings are to whiney infants.

If I didn't have a basement today, we would be sitting in the rain while somebody runs around the house 10 times. How is it that the biggest burst of uncontainable energy always arrives on a rainy day? While rainy days make big people sleepy, somehow they wind up the little ones like tops. It's like rain sucks the energy out of grown ups and jams it into the kids. One of mother nature's methods of population control, I guess. I brought in the outside toys to the basement, Annika played drive-thru with her car, and purchased 2 boxes of ice cream salt from the "supermarket." It has a picture of ice cream on it so surely it must be ice cream. No? How disappointing. Maybe we'll have to eat ice cream for snack.