Little Activist

I'm in mommy Heaven.  Eating gelato and watching House Hunters International...all by myself.  HHI is the best show on TV.  I love watching naive Americans in places like Guam asking things like "Will there be air conditioning?" and "Is that the refrigerator?"  Oh oh oh -- just overheard: "You mean we're gonna have a baby on this island?"

It's been so long since my last post I forgot my login info.  But things have been so crazy lately there are some things only a blog can understand.  Like the fact that I started a new job this week and under much duress, found a new nanny a week later than I really needed one.  Let's just say we've been living off of canned soup and the house looks like a tornado ripped through it.

Since the fridge is barren and, though exhausted I feel a need to maintain some semblance of housewifery, I took LO to the grocery store today.  She just turned 4 and is fully asserting her own wants and opinions.  LO fussed the whole way, trying to convince me to buy silly toys and Lucky Charms and singing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" at the top of her lungs.  I got my share of nasty looks from old ladies in the aisles.

By the way, when I'm an old lady, I pledge to be nice to young moms.

Passing though the meat section, she turned activist.  "Mommy, are those animals?!  People should not eat pigs!"  She couldn't get past that and it only got worse when we saw the fish and yelled to the butcher that he should stop hurting them.  In fairness, I can see how it feels like we've killed Nemo.  Then we get to check-out line.  LO sees something on a magazine cover that prompts her to ask if pets die.  Then she asks if people die.  I say yes.  Then it's "Are we going to die?"  I tell her we can talk about it when we get home, but that's not good enough.  She throws a mini-tantrum, demanding loudly that I explain whether we're going to die.  I'm completely flummoxed with all eyes on us.  I manage to distract her but I know this question will crop up again.

Allergy Mom

I'm a mother of a child with severe food allergies.  LO was diagnosed with a laundry list of them when she was 1.5 years old after we gave her peanut butter for the first time and instead of delight on her face, she started screaming and breaking out into hives after just touching it to her tongue.  I think since then, I've been in a bit of denial about the seriousness of all of this while secretly holding my breath every time she tries a new food, eats at a restaurant or even goes to school.  Yes, we have EpiPens in every corner of the house and a set goes with her everywhere.  We've never had to use it but I fear the day that we do.

So we're only an hour into week 2 of preschool and I get the call.  It's her new teacher who very calmly  said LO had ingested a few soybeans at snack time.  It was 10 minutes ago and she seems ok, but she wanted me to know.  10 minutes?!  That's an eternity so I ask politely if next time they can take action immediately.  I tell her the allergist's advice, which is to administer Zantac and Zyrtec and keep a close eye on her.  Soybeans are a 4 out of 5 on the scale for LO and not anaphylactic, but I worry about the doctor's statement that each exposure can bring more severe reactions.

When I was a kid you worried about strangers, now it's everyday foods that can get you, for some kids that is.  The biggest challenge for me so far in this journey of being an allergy mom is keeping my child safe while avoiding being too overprotective.  I'm always the one going early to brief caretakers, teachers, etc. and sizing up anyone who doesn't seem trustworthy, as in unable to deal with LO's needs or handle an emergency properly.  I adore LO's school and her teachers and they do a great job, so I know she's in good hands.  The school is nut free and even though I had a long conversation with the teachers and parent who supplies snacks, I can't be there to read every label or keep quick toddler hands from grabbing food that has been set out.  Today's call was just a reminder that I must always be on my toes.

Nanny Wishes and Caviar Dreams

I think the best way to describe LO is as a "force of nature."  She's extremely outgoing to the point of stopping complete strangers in public places to tell them about her bug collection.  When we go out to eat, she ends up sitting with families nearby just chatting and having a grand time showing them her coloring books or whatever toys we've brought.  On our last flight, she made friends with the girl sitting by the window.  Cute, except the girl was 25.  And yet, she had so much fun she wanted to take a picture with LO when we landed.

Force of Nature is officially 3.5 years old now.  We reached a major milestone this week that I never saw coming.  We were riding in the car and she was looking out the window pensively.

ME: What are you thinking about?
LO: I'm thinking I wish I had a nanny.
ME (remaining calm): What makes you say that?
LO: Nannies pick you up from school, they give you snacks...
ME: But Mommy does that.
LO: I wish I had one Mommy, one Daddy and one Nanny.

And there you have it.  Sure, she's just responding to seeing her friends with their nannies.  (Hell, I wish I had a nanny).  But there's a part of me that's wondering if I'm TOO accessible.  I will remind her of this one day when I'm back to work full-time and she misses all of the baking projects, museums, play dates, afternoon swims, infinite hugs, etc.  

The Haves and Have Nots

There are two kinds of people in this world: the Haves and Have Nots.  What do the Haves have that others don't?  KIDS.  I was reminded of this recently since LO is refusing to take naps.  Not just simple defiance but full-on screaming, flailing tantrums like a demon possessed.  Some days I can overcome and get her down; others I give in and we run errands or hit the playground.  A part of me is distraught at losing my hour and a half of solace in the middle of each day.  But I'm starting to see the light.  Literally.

We ran errands the other day and it occurred to me that the afternoon daylight is quite nice.  There's a whole world out there between 2-4pm!  People who are not on kid schedules are out and about while there's a whole subset of the population that's rushing to get back home by 1pm to make the nap.  The upside of not napping is that LO will go down earlier and we can actually have an evening.  So far this is going down very well with us adults, who just the other night fulfilled our dream of making it through an entire movie without falling asleep.

Christmas Sprint

Santa Claus came to our town last weekend and LO was more than excited to sit in his lap and chat.  She brought him a few Post-its she had drawn on as a present and declared that for Christmas she wanted a tree, ornaments, a nutcracker and toys.  Funny what a difference a year makes because last year she was terrified of the big man.

What's significant about this picture also is what happened before it.  I took LO to the tree lighting ceremony with some friends in our village.  The ceremony was on a triangular patch of land in the village center off of Sunset Boulevard.  The tree lit up, everyone was amazed and the crowd of little children enjoyed running circles around the tree.  LO's neighbor friend was there and the two of them were delighted to play together.  I looked up for a second as one of the parents spoke to me, then I looked over and saw LO and her friend running out of our area.  His father shouted to him and I shouted to LO to stop as we ran after them.  LO, however, is a runner.  This kid is destined to become a track and field star given the way she can sprint.  Never has she been the type to hold our hands and just walk with us; she's always darting in whatever direction she can.

LO heard me shout and took that as a cue to run away FASTER.  She rounded a corner, putting hedges in between her and busy Sunset Blvd. and everyone else.  I was in full sprint and would just be able to reach her in the nick of time if I was quick enough.  I felt myself slip and that moment while I was falling seemed to last forever as I watched helplessly as she kept going away from me, toward the busy street.  There was nothing I could do but hope she had the sense to stop.  I hit the ground HARD, flat on my face but still with my eye on LO.  She didn't stop at the street -- she turned right and headed toward another intersection!

I don't know about you, but this was the stuff of my nightmares playing out for real.  What flashed through my mind as I fell was how I would scoop her up out of the street and take the hit, but I'd have to quickly lift her up high enough to keep her away from the impact.  As soon as I hit the ground, I got right back up, rounded the corner and, from what they tell me, I wiped out again.  This time as I fell, I got a hand on LO and knocked her down with me.  Finally, the toddler train stopped.  She was fine, just a little scratch on her elbow and a lot of tears.  My knees are pretty banged up but I don't care.  It was a teachable moment and I'm thankful it turned out the way it did.  Next time I'll be wearing my running shoes.

Mommy Smackdown

I saw this on CNN today.  A Florida woman boarded a school bus and got into a fight with her son's bully.

Sure, I laughed at the part when she says "He just needed a good old fashioned whoopin'!"  But there was a large part of me -- larger than I expected -- that was actually rooting for this woman.  I feel like this is a more and more common occurrence that gets buried somewhere in the CNN home page as part of the freak show news stories of the day, but it's really telling of a bullying trend that isn't going away. I worry about bullying in school and imagining LO subjected to it makes me want to board a bus and open a can of whoop-ass like none other.  I can only hope incidents like this turn into change in the community rather than focusing on punishment.  Until, then, I know it's wrong, but YOU GO, Florida mom!

Mommy's Working and Other Issues

I stared into her eyes, trying to discreetly find something the background check did not.  As we exchanged niceties about the weather and traffic, little did she know I was sizing her up faster than you can say "nanny cam."

The news in our house is that Mommy's working full-time.  Okay, I freelance, but this is a long-term gig with long hours and frequent weekend shoots.  And so we entered the world of nannies.  We borrowed a friend's nanny on occasion last year, but I was always working at home when she was there and still very connected to what was going on.  That lady disappeared back to Mexico without a trace.  This time, we wanted to find someone legal since, hey, don't Americans need jobs?  We were under a time crunch and ended up having to use a posh West side nanny service.  We settled on a bubbly, twentysomething part-time student and LO already loves her, which makes me feel good.

What doesn't make me feel good is that feeling that I'm hiring someone to do my job of being a mother. Just farming out my motherly responsibilities and abandoning my child.  I miss her during the day.  I'm jealous that someone else gets to hang out with her.  Yet when I had the luxury of being a SAHM, I guiltily yearned to get back out there in the working world.  I think being a SAHM is much harder than the paid working world.  There's no one patting you on the back saying "Great job!" and nobody evaluating your performance for a possible raise.

In other news, in the week that DH was at home keeping LO, she picked up some new vocabulary.  I came home the other night to find her saying "F*ck" after dropping her Play-Doh.  Just in time for preschool!  Potty training is going at a snail's pace and we only have a couple more weeks until school starts.  I'm just picturing her peeing on the classroom floor and yelling "F*ck!"  Can't wait to get that call.  But then again, I guess I don't have to stress TOO much about fixing her vocab and toilet habits -- that's the nanny's job!

Potty Training Progress

I've had to get my bum in gear on this potty training thing since LO starts preschool in the fall and they have a mandate for all kids to be trained.  After a few half-assed starts, DH and I finally decided to go for it.  Our friends advised us to just let her go around the house with no diapers or anything for a week and that'll do it.  They clearly don't have white carpeting.

I am happy to report that she used the potty for the first time today.  What's a little concerning is that I'm so excited about this.  I immediately texted DH and we had an entire phone conversation about her full toilet experience.  Which reminds me, we have to tell Gram and Gramps.

The scene was this: I had a job interview this morning so I was dressed up.  LO had an accident on the carpet (#1) so I was cleaning that when the phone rang.  Our bank was calling to inform me that my account was overdrawn and I had a bunch of bank fees to pay.  This is for an account I don't use anymore, so lesson learned -- read those annoying mailings that say "Important information about your account."  They may be trying to tell you something, like the fact that they're going to start charging monthly fees.  Anyway, I'm speaking to Pearl, the collections gal, when I notice LO hiding behind the sofa.  That only means one thing: she has to go.  I ushered her into the bathroom and sat her on her little potty, handed her a toy and voila!  I had the phone in one hand while trying to block LO from touching her poo with the other and her shouting, "Nice poopies.  Look mommy, they're so cute!"  I dodged a disaster and got everything cleaned up and Pearl knocked off some of the fees, so overall it was a win.  Can I put multi-tasking on my resume now?

A New Auntie

I became an Auntie less than 48 hours ago.  I spent night #2 in the hospital with my sister, constantly reminded of my experience with LO in those precious moments before we ever got home.  After a difficult birth, I spent my night #2 desperately trying to calm a screaming infant and trying to keep the doubts about my mothering abilities out of my tired mind.  My sister, on the other hand, seemed to be sailing through the experience as if born to do it.  I was afraid to leave the hospital, even asked if my insurance would cover an extra night; my sister wanted to leave early.  I could barely walk or sit for a week or two afterward; sis looks like she's ready to go mow the lawn.  Breastfeeding wasn't working for me initially; she and baby are already a well-oiled machine.  This being Texas, the hospital near their house is brand spanking new and offered a bonus new parents just can't refuse -- steak and lobster dinners the night before discharge.  I wondered if they'd sweeten the deal with a free rifle if my brother-in-law were to get his tonsils out.  The staff looked THAT bored.

Everybody is home now and baby seems to be happy to be out of the hospital and the bad lighting.  I miss LO tons and can't wait to call her in the morning.  

Cool-ometer

As I look more closely at my wardrobe, I realize that it has changed along with me over the years.  I guess you could say my fashion became less fashionable as years have passed, most notably because I can't wear those daisy dukes I used to love anymore, I have less time to spend shopping and now as a mommy, if it's not functional, it's gathering dust.  The wardrobe is a symptom of a more universal truth -- I've become uncool.

I see our lives as a timeline of coolness.  For women, it looks something like this:

When you're born, you're cool.  Period.  Your wrinkles are cute and at least one person out there loves you unconditionally.  You've got your whole life ahead of you, so no matter how much of a loser you're destined to be, everybody still imagines you're going to Harvard.

Coolness in your teens depends on your personal experience, but for myself this was a low point.  I had braces in high school.  Enough said.

In your 20's, you're way cool.  You don't give a rat's ass about the world at large, the awkward body issues you had as a teen are ironing out and, well, you're hot.  Some of your hotness is due to sheer youth.  You're in great shape and you've got hair where it's supposed to be.  You've most likely made it through college and the world is your oyster.  Even if you didn't go to Harvard, you still have time to f**k up your career and personal life and turn them around later. 

Here's where it gets tricky: the 30's.  Your coolness is rapidly descending with each breath you take.  You become aware that your eggs are drying up (thanks, mom) and there is indeed a biological clock.  You get married.  One major life event where your coolness starts to slip away.  You're no longer a young, party going vixen, you're a WIFE.  Off the market.  You gain a spouse and lose your prior identity all at the same time, even if you don't change your name.  The up side, however, is that you've become a woman who's confident in her own skin.  I think 32 is my ideal age. 

Notice the dip below the bar at 40.  A 40-year-old woman is the most uncool person on the planet.  Those fine lines are showing, gravity is your enemy and now you need mammograms. You went from wife to MOTHER.  I know celebrity moms would have you believe you can be a "cool mom," but it's just a distraction from the fact that nobody wants to hire them anymore either because of their age.  (Note: the sheer use of the word "cool" is uncool).  This is when you find yourself saying to your husband, "They don't make music like they used to."  You get a little jump in coolness in this decade because you embrace your plight and possibly have the MILF factor going.  You may also have achieved some professional success by this point that makes the uncoolness more palatable.

The good news is that we do have something to look forward to.  We get to watch our kids grow while reaching that age where only a scalpel can make you look 30.  So you don't have to spend so much effort trying to fool everybody (unless you live here in LA).  Coolness skyrockets when you get into the 80's thanks to the Betty White factor.  

All of this is, frankly, exhausting.  But since I'm not getting any cooler, I keep wishing LO could see the me that's still this side of cool.  When she's older, she'll never be able to believe I used to be a fun-loving young person too.  I tried cigarettes, went to keg parties and was once an athlete, but she won't know that version of me.  To her, I'll just be Mom.  I want to document this time with her and through writing and pictures, preserve little postcards from her youth so hopefully she can know the complete me.  Before the winds of uncoolness carry me away.  Quick, I can see the trees swaying...

Toenail Tune-up Time

Sometimes I'm glad that the ladies at the nail salon don't speak English.  That way I don't have to get a lecture on how bad my feet are.  I showed up yesterday for my bi-annual pedicure (shameful, I know) and I think it took the lady 30 minutes just to buff down my callouses.  Mani-pedis just never seem to fit into my mommy schedule but I managed to make it work.  Hooray!

On my quest to be more fashionable, I decided that by giving the old toenails a tune-up, I'd be expanding my footwear options exponentially.  It's a whole new world in my closet.  Now I'm not stuck wearing only close-toes; I can break out that new pair of yellow wedges I got for Christmas hoping they'd get some mileage this year.  No more waiting for a jaunt to the Skybar to sport the new duds.  The duster is out and the sandals are seeing the light of day.  Look out!

Mommy Chic

I just finished working on a new YouTube series, Big Girl in a Skinny World, for Marie Claire magazine's Hello Style channel launching on April 15.  While I'm not a plus size, I learned a ton about fashion.  The other day I took LO to a play group and the hostess commented on how fancy I was dressed.  All I did was wear a bright colored Old Navy top with jeans, a necklace and cuff bracelet and voila!  It's not that I looked great, it's just that I looked put together.  As the fashionistas would say, I accessorized.  Which really says a lot about how sloppy I must look on a regular basis if that's all it took to wow the other mommies.

This got me thinking.  Most professions have uniforms.  Doctors get the white coats, policemen get the blue outfits, even the check-out lady at the grocery store has a uniform.  I think Mommies have a uniform of sorts too.  I call it Mommy chic, which is misleading because it's anything but.  It's loose fitting pants, tennis shoes and a cotton t-shirt or sweatshirt with crusted food particles, spit-up and other souvenirs from the day.  And don't forget the ponytail.  Because who has time for the flattening iron?

Really, this would be more appropriate:

But we can't all walk around in haz-mat suits every day.  So here's my take on what every cool mommy needs for a day at the "office."

1. Shirt you don't care about.  It will become a canvas.

2.  Pants you don't care about.  These need to actually fit, not be ones you used to wear before you got pregnant that you still wear with the button undone.

3. Flat, slip-on shoes because you don't have any free hands to tie anything and you may need to sprint after runaway toddlers at a moment's notice.  The slip-on feature also makes it easy to dump playground sand out of your shoes whenever necessary.

4.  Sunglasses you don't care about.  Even if you don't live in sunny California, because the reasons to hide your identity seem to be multiplying.

5.  Accessories you don't care about.  Children love to pull really hard on shiny things.

Now take all of the above, hold your head high and imagine you look fabulous.  My wardrobe is full of stuff I don't care about but I'm making it my personal mission to add a splash of color here, a little flair there, and beef up my mommy style so I can go from playground pariah to mommy chic.  

Anyone with me?!

Lagniappe

Yesterday in the car LO was asking for "moneys."  I asked why and she said "I want five million dollars."  I'm secretly wondering if she's been playing the lottery without my knowledge.  Fully expecting to find a bunch of crumpled tickets shoved in her car seat.  If she won, would it be wrong if I used part of the winnings to buy an Aston Martin?  She'd still have enough left over for college...DH has come down with whatever sore throat-upset-stomach-stuffed-up death flu has been going around but he's handling it pretty well.  Taking it like a woman....LO asks for cookies for breakfast every morning.  I try to explain that they're for dessert, but she gets very upset.  Is Cookie Monster somehow a bad influence?  Think I'm going to have to create my own puppet -- Veggie Verna...I went to the allergist to finally get tested since I've been sniffling and sneezing my entire life.  The skin test came back negative.  They can-NOT be serious.  I can inhale the pollen on my car for free and show them a result...right now LO is into puzzles, her stuffed octopus, singing "Firework" by Katy Perry into her microphone, saying "of course" and Nemo, her first movie...my jeans have all officially developed holes in the knees, something which never happened to me until LO became a toddler.  Is anyone else having this problem?...My mind is tired.  Time for bed.

You'll Never Work in This Town Again - Part 2

I told DH my toddler play group stalking story and he said "Oh, yeah, that guy was there last week (when he brought LO)." He apparently chatted the guy up in daddy solidarity since they were the only men in the place.  DH said he felt like he knew the guy from somewhere but couldn't remember where.  In other words, he thought they'd met before.  DH is really bad at star sightings.  One night he swore left right and center that Natalie Portman was at a table near us in a restaurant.  After much not-so-covert head turning by everyone at our table, it turned out to be a 7-year-old girl with her grandmother.  Needless to say, DH had no idea who big time TV guy was when he was chatting him up.  So one day when we bump into him at, say, the farmer's market in our neighborhood, he'll see us, the stalker couple with the obnoxious, cow-snatching little girl who thinks he's her daddy, and run the other way.  I'll be sure to greet him with a loud Texan "Howdy" just for good measure.

You'll Never Work in This Town Again

I take LO to a play group at the preschool every week and this time one of the kids' dads came. He happens to be a popular TV personality, which was a surprise to me, but this being LA, everybody played it cool. It was funny, though to see the striking resemblance between him and his kid. Anyway, mister TV  persona was sitting down watching his kid play when LO went up to him, pointed and said "Daddy!" (She does this when we see dark-haired men sometimes who resemble DH). Well, instead of thinking it was cute and laughing, he got defensive and was all like "Uh uh, I'm not your Daddy" and quickly escaped to the other room. Like he was afraid his cover was blown or something.

So LO and I play in the kitchen area, where she sets up a little tea party. She pours the tea and sets a cup on a little saucer and carries it into the other room. I round the corner to find her offering it to big time TV guy who looks like he wants to climb the walls. I stand LO down and we chat for a polite minute about the merits of home-made play-doh, we back away and thankfully, LO takes interest in a different play area. But I'm convinced the guy now thinks I'm stalking him via my child.

Then came circle time where everybody sits in a circle with child on their lap and listens to a book reading and sings songs. LO is the only child of the bunch who will not sit with her parent. Instead, she stands in front of the instructor and dances until she's asked to sit or I drag her away. During her favorite song, "Jell-O in the bowl," LO let out one of her blood-curdling screams of joy (working on taming these) and was a wee bit obnoxious for the rest of the time, including snatching a plastic cow out of TV guy's kid's hands. The entertainment industry is a small world, so I'm just waiting for the day I have a job interview at TV guy's company and he spots me in the hallway and tells them not to hire me. Ugh!

Preschool Panic - Sorted!

LO got into our preschool of choice.  Hooray! The call came during LO's nap.  The director personally called to say they have a spot for LO.  I was so excited, I was fist pumping all afternoon until...I realized that it meant LO would attend 5 mornings per week.  Our backup preschool had 2 and 3-day options, which we were all set to do, but this school only allows 5 day-ers.  I became consumed with pre-separation anxiety at the thought of this.  She'll be in school for the rest of her life is my thinking.  A child that's 2.5 years old should be at home with her caregiver.  Right?  Then I look at LO and remind myself how much effort it takes to keep her stimulated all day, every day.  She needs the interaction with other kids and I can tell when we're at play groups that she's very out going and independent enough to handle it. In fact, it's going to me pining in the hallway outside her classroom, not the other way around. The idea has settled in and we've accepted it.  Now we're just excited and thankful to have gotten the slot. But don't think I won't be shedding a tear the first time I have to pack her little purple backpack.

The Real Hunger Games

Cue sweeping, urgent music.

VO: In a world where toddlers rule and parents only think they have power,
The quest for nourishment is an ever raging battle...

MOMMY (offering broccoli): "Want a bite?"
LO: "No way!"

VO: Give her a vegetable and she'll hurl it to the four corners of the kitchen...

(LO hurls perfectly blanched french beans over her shoulder.  Mommy scolds.)

VO: Give her a cupcake, cookie, chocolate chip or ice cream of any flavor and she'll scarf it down ten seconds after declaring herself too full...

(LO stuffs chocolate chips in her mouth.): "Mmm.  I love it!"

VO: Can Mommy prevail or will little one send the veggies packing?

(Mommy puts broccoli in a cheese sauce in front of LO.  She picks broccoli out, eats cheese.)

(Mommy takes a bite of collard greens, makes sour face.): "Look, this is delicious!" 

LO (not sold): "Try again, Mommy." 

The Real Hunger Games -- coming to a kitchen near you soon.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Oscars Mania

Tonight we're having an unconventional Oscars party -- the grandparents, DH, me and LO, who is recovering from bronchitis.  It's fun living in LA because we get to watch it all in real time and hear the helicopters flying overhead for hours on end.  If we were hipper, we'd hit a party or two, but really it's not worth the drive (says a tired parent).  Gram is making cabbage rolls from scratch, an endeavor that is taking her the entire day.  It's a cheap party since Gram & Gramps are off the sauce for Lent and I figure why not join them.

I've printed out Oscars ballots for everyone and I'm looking forward to scrutinizing everyone's red carpet looks.  Think about it -- half this town has spent the entire day getting hair, makeup and wardrobe done.  At least we get cabbage rolls for our efforts.  As far as the picks go, there are many nominations that baffle me.  "Tree of Life" was so bad it got booed at film festivals, "The Artist" is nothing special and why isn't it in the foreign film category, anyway?  Good old fashioned Weinstein politics, surely.  My vote for best screenplay is Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" and Meryl Streep for best actress (despite the fact that the film was lousy) and Brad Pitt for "Moneyball."

So there's my completely biased POV.  I'll be watching it all with LO, explaining the whole process to her and how she should really avoid a career in entertainment.  One day, if I'm ever nominated, I'll tell her the same thing.  "NO WAY," as she would say.  

Back in Cali

DH and I had our first adult get-away last weekend since LO was born.  Yes, it's been 2 years.  We went to NY for a friend's 40th and left LO at our place with Gram and Gramps.  DH and I reveled in our freedom, went to museums, saw friends, we even splurged on a movie, "The Artist" (yawn).  The highlight for me was the amazing Italian dinner we had at Lupa Osteria Romana, http://www.luparestaurant.com/.  I had the Cacio & Pepe -- highly recommend.  I'd eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could.

With all of our exploring,  I was proud of myself for keeping my separation anxiety in check.  Gone for 4 days and not one tear shed.  Then I find out LO did not ask for us while we were gone.  Only once the night we returned, she asked Gramps where we were and he explained that we were flying home.  She said okay and went back to playing.  What's up with that?  

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my little sweetheart!  LO turned 2 on Friday and we had a small family party in the park to celebrate.  She made out like a bandit in the toy department, but we can't help it -- it's just too darn fun to buy her toys.

Curious George was the theme since LO is in love with the books and cartoon right now.  She liked that plus the big bouquet of balloons, stack of presents and cake.  I think she got what it was all about, or at least she got that it was a special day all about her.  After opening each present, she wanted to stop and play with it rather than move on to the next one.  Her favorites are the Play-Doh, the Playmobil pirate ship (some girls get doll houses, ours gets a pirate ship), the Dora karaoke mic and the Schoenhut piano.  She sits at the piano and plays while singing into the mic like Elton John.  I don't know where she picked that up, but it's hilarious.  Yesterday she and I rocked out to pop music, her singing into the mic and the two of us dancing in the mirror.

It was a whirlwind, to say the least.  Now that the relatives have flown home and it's all over, I have to admit there's a tinge of longing for that little baby to be back in my arms again.  But then I look at her an am so blown away by what a little person she has become and I want to see more more more.