Itch

So for weeks now I've been itching everywhere. I have gone through tubes of lotion suggested by everyone from friends, co-workers, dermatologist. I had about a half hour to kill before my train heading back home from work yesterday - so I walked into Kmart and picked up a jar of Gold Bond and holy cow - it's the first in weeks that I am not at my desk scratching away as if I hadn't showered in days. I'm told too many showers have the same effect although two showers hardly seem like too many. Totally pointless post, but this is exciting news to me. Noone really actually looks at this to read it right? So here's the most important part of my not so daily blogging.

My kid is such a girly girl. Her expressions, reactions, coyness and attitude is all girl it's hilarious.
























- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What If...

...I'm doing this all wrong - is a question I ask myself frequently. I've probably mentioned this before, I wish when I was walking out of that hospital with a newborn baby to take home, that they'd have tucked me in a manual along with the samples of diapers and formula they sent me home with. Happy Mommy; Happy Baby, right? At least sounds about right? That for the most part is a theory I firmly believe in, but comes with it a rather delicate balance and a trunkful of guilt. Tons, really. Some days are hard because babies are naturally narcissists - that want and need whatever it is right then and there. I think it's healthy to nurture some parts of that narcissism. Sometimes you cave just because you don't think you can survive another second of the whine-turning-tantrum first thing in the morning and it is a "here you go, please be quiet. Mommy needs coffee - right.this.very.second.or.mommy.is.going.to.lose.it". Other times you battle with them to teach them boundaries, out of principle or because they're attempting to dive off the couch because they think they can fly and you just don't see it ending well. The balance of it is difficult. Sometimes what you want interferes with what you feel they need. Sometimes what they want means you set aside what you want for the moment. Sometimes what they want you just can't bring yourself to do because you're exhausted and then the guilt settles in nice and thick so you lose anyway. Other times - you don't want anything at all because you see that perfect to you creation and wonder what more you could possibly want in this world except that reality doesn't quite work that way, ya know? Am I making any sense here? I told you... Writer's block. End conclusion? I need that fricking manual. With that said - here are some of my "I need nothing else in this world" moment pictures. Of course, right following that was a full blown tantrum that made me forget that it's all I want in life. It's hard to remember that and smile when your kid is shrieking at the top of her lungs and "nooooooo"-ing you all the way to the car that seems so damn far away than where you thought you parked it.
















I love this view



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

'Tis the Season

Now I get it - it's eye candy season. Guys live for the warm weather where they can enjoy the sun and the women during their breaks spending it drooling publicly. There is an acting/drama school right by my workplace with girls wearing what I am not sure I would even wear to sleep. I'm so tempted to take pics of them some days but how weird would it be to stand in the middle of the street stalling to pull out my iPhone and start snapping away at other women's legs and half their asses I see sticking out from their 5 inch skirts? Note to my beanie, if you so much as leave the house ever with shorts and skirts that short EVER - I will shred them to strips and use them to tie you up in your room where you will be home schooled until grad school is completed. For now however, you're as cute to me as a button running around in your pampers. Hopefully the days you fight me on appropriate apparel will not come too soon. Stay my baby a little while longer, yea?









- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Perfect Days

I really want a puppy. Not just for the Bean which is a big part, but I'd love to have a puppy eventually. I just don't think we can handle another "baby" in the house and so that'll be on hold for some time, but I am in love with the sun and it was the perfect afternoon for this.
















Thanks Uncle Jem and Auntie Shell!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Dare Devil

Baby's got herself a nice helmet...



So she doesn't hurt herself playing with a toy stroller. That's right. Because you know, those strollers can be super daring... Well at least we know she'll keep the helmet on.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Expressions

Her "I don't want to take a picture!" face.








It's getting harder and harder to catch her in pictures unless she's taking them herself. Of nothing. Or of just the top of her head.












- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Outlet Adventure

So we - okay, I - think it's a great idea to take the late afternoon to hit the outlet. It is about an hour's drive. The shopping thing, by the way, isn't the greatest idea with a toddler but whatever - I don't learn because I do it all the time and I say the same thing every time - "what was I thinking!?". On the drive back, and this is of course as soon as I hit the highway, she starts crying "Mommy ouch. Mommy ouch". All mommies know when their kiddies are faking it because they don't want to be stuck in their seat and when something is really bothering them. This is the real kind but I am on a highway with a really narrow shoulder that I am not about to pull over onto. She starts to cry her big fat tears. I pull over once the shoulder starts to open up further into a ditch-y kind of area so as not to risk oncoming traffic pummeling into us, turn on all the lights in the car so other cars can see that I'm pulled over, crawl around to her side and get her out. The button of her pants is digging into her belly so I pull off her pants and off comes her diaper along with it. That is the moment she decides she needs to pee out the two full cups of water she drank during our outdoor shopping adventure. All over everything. Herself. Her clothes. Me. My floor. I stick on a dry diaper and she comes home with no pants on because I am not about to get out of the car in the middle of the highway to dig around in my trunk for a pair. That was our weekend adventure. How was your weekend?
Here are some totally unrelated photos. I would have taken the time to pull out my phone for the camera but I was far too concerned about the oncoming traffic and the pee to think of it.




















- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Toddler-ism

She says a lot of funny things now. Most of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense except probably to her. My favorite is "help you". She confuses "me" and "you". So she'll try to put her shoes on and when she can't she'll pout, look over at me and say "Mommy? Help you?" or like this morning I'm getting dressed while she's trying to put her hat on. It keeps flipping inside out so she gets mad and starts crying, comes over to me to be picked up and cries "Help you mommy? Hat!". This little girl kills me. Oh motherhood. Being a toddler, I realize, is just as rough, maybe more so - than motherhood to a toddler is. It's all momentary, however, and when the fits are over and kissed all better - there's always this that makes up for it. You'll get your shoes on right one day, baby. Your hat too. Don't you worry.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Color

Don't ever let anyone tell you that adults know best or that they know better or that they know what they're doing. Most of the time, I'm near certain we know less than you do. I think you are much more sure of how things should be than any grown person I know. You're still so small yet so big. You're dependent and you're not. You're full of fire, but so easy to love. You are a lot of things, baby, but most of all, you're perfect for me. Life is full of colors and messes - just like finger painting. Sometimes all the colors blend to form that perfect shade and other times, it just creates a big glob of mess. Like paint, nothing is set in stone, and until you find that perfect shade, in that perfect shape you want, all you can do is keep trying for it. Perhaps you'll make it. Perhaps it'll be a few shades off. As long as you've given it your best, it'll be beautiful. It's so easy to say this to you because all I picture for you are the greatest things in life in all its glorious colors - but should there come a time that not everything looks as though they fit, please try to believe that eventually they will come together. It's about faith baby. That things somehow work. Even when it doesn't immediately feel that way. Mommy isn't so good at it but we'll work on that, right? So remember that the next time it feels like your little world is coming apart on the way home in the backseat of mommy's car because I didn't give you the piece of candy I didn't have, okay? I love you to pieces, munchkin. Tantrums, giggles and all (though, tuning the tantrum part down while mommy's driving would be super appreciated).
















- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Things That Make You Go "Hmmm"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-little-gir_b_882510.html

That's a super interesting read.

And look, she can almost do a ponytail. Almost...



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone