3 days until Canada Baby!!

The countdown till Toronto has started. I'm really excited. However due to my paranoid self, I'm concerned about not making the connection that we have. The folks at the airline claim that 35 minutes is enough. Have they ever traveled with a child? I have a carseat and stroller to lug. Luckily the stroller is light enough that my husband can pick up the carseat and stroller and I can carry Child and run like Forrest Gump. We are meeting Cousin Ashley at our stop and he's to hold the plane down until we get on. I always see on Airline, them holding the plane down for passengers. On the other hand I've seen the plane leave passengers too - but isn't that the risk of taking Southwest Airlines? They always seem to be overbooking their planes.

Child was crying for her friend today. I felt bad, but her friend is at school. What am I going to do? Thankfully today was the last day at Gymboree, even though Martie loved it - I was tired of taking her there.

Officially Have Acheived Mom Status

We got a minivan this week. It's the ultimate car that says "I'm a mom and I lug my kids around" We got a Nissan Quest SL - not the top of the line Quest, but it still has features such as a DVD system, heated seats, side curtain airbags - aack did I just mention side curtain airbags??? What happened to me? I used to be so cool!

Let me just say that minivans have gotten bigger and I guess better since the minivans of yesterday. The first car that I got to drive was my parent 1984 Toyota Minivan (which still drives today). I dubbed that van the Beast. It was great. It was silver and you could fold the middle row seats down to make a bed. The Beast had been broken into so the doors didn't even lock and the thief took the radio, so I had a little radio that sat in the front seat so I could listen to my tapes. The Beast was the best.

The new Quest is pretty larger, and heavier. The seats don't fold down to make a bed, but you can recline the seat all the way back. Child loves the van. She calls it a "super car". But what's not to love - she can watch Strawberry Shortcake if she wants to.

Child wants in on the action of pushing to stroller. 

Here's the logo and the UK flag. You can thank my mom for my love of all things British - including a certain Mr. Colin Firth. Well she can't be credited for Colin - it was the lake scene in Pride & Prejudice 

Close up - look at the joy on her face. When she saw the stroller she actually said "beautiful" and hopped right in. She's never had that reaction to a stroller before. 

Child in the Silver Cross Mini (Ascot)

Martie in the Silver Cross Mini

Hamming it up at lunch time

Child and I went to have sushi with our pals Zsazsa and Ang and C today. Child saw Z and with so much love in her voice said "Zsazsa". Child happily munched on her McDonald's while I was studying the new menu at Kanki. I have to say that Kanki sushi is still my favorite in the area. During lunch Child busted out in the alphabet song. My favorite part is at the end. . you know when you sing "Now I know my ABCs next time won't you sing with me". Child's version is "Now I babble babble ABC babble babble babble meeeee" Z, A, and C clap at the end of the Child's song, and wouldn't you know it. . . she starts bowing, in her high seat, and says "Thank You Thank you" It was priceless. She's so cute - I don't know where she gets it.

My super duper Silver Cross Mini came in today. I love it, it's so beautiful. I wish I could get a pram, but I'm not Madonna or Gweneth and amazingly our town doesn't require sidewalks to be built so I'd have no where to push it. I don't think you can put it in a car unless you have a trailer hitched to the back to carry it. What's going on here - I'm drooling over a stroller (which is the forth in our collection). I'm definitely a mom. If you are wondering why in the world I got another stroller - I got this one at a huge warehouse sale. It's for Child until the end of her stroller days and for future Child #2. I am going to sell some of my other strollers though to help recoup the cost of this stroller. It's like I'm trading my vehicles.

Lessons in Flying

Child and I have returned from the strange land of New Jersey yesterday. We went to visit Grammie. I learned that necessary items for flying are M&Ms and chocolate chip cookies. For our trip to Canada, I'll have to remember to buy these items before hand so I don't end up paying $10.00 at the airport for these two things. I've also learned that people are either extremely rude or extremely friendly. Traveling alone with a toddler is an adventure. It's not easy to take a child out of the stroller, take your shoes off, and shove the biggest carseat in the world through the x-ray thing. Oh yeah and you have to fold your stroller down and rip your child's security blanket away and put it through the x-ray machine too. You also have to reassemble everything too after it's been screened. For those of you who are wondering, how in the world do you carry a Britax Marathon carseat, push a stroller, and carry a 40 lb backpack that doesn't fit in the stroller. It's all about balance my friend. You flip the carseat upside down on the top of the stroller hood, hoping that it doesn't fall and smash your child's head in.

Well it's back to reality where I have loads of laundry to do. A sink full of dishes to clean and a non-napping 2 year old to chase.

Happy Birthday P-U

I'm laughing very hard as Child is circling husband singing "Happy Birthday P-U, Happy Birthday Poop Poop" She cracks me up.

Today we went to Portrait Innovations to get her pictures done for Father's Day. She looked super cute in her NC State cheerleading outfit. We also had a profile done of her. The difference between last year's profile and this year's is amazing. She's grown up so much in a year.

Husband is also teaching Child to stick out her tongue and spit whenever she hears "Tarheels" He's trying to foster a hate of UNC-CH in her already.

Go Fug Yourself

I rediscovered a hilarious site that rips apart the fashion choices of celebrities. I'd thought I'd share it with you. http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/ I love how they say "Fugly is the new pretty"

Too tired to post

Swim lessons are exhausting. Child is really gifted at swimming. She does get tired after a half an hour and doesn't want to participate anymore. I'm also starting to get cheesed off at the other little kids who steal her pool toys. I hate being the pool toy police. Child gets very possessive when she sees someone else playing with her water can or her ball.

Child woke up at 2:30 AM - for no apparent reason. It's a good thing that I went to bed at 8:30. Yep folks you read that right. 8 fricken thirty PM. We stayed up until 4:30 and then we both fell asleep watching Gordon Elliot following the life of marshmallows. The good thing was that I was able to watch Tony Bourdain's A Cooks Tour. He was in St. Martin. That looks like a great place to go. He didn't really eat anything gross in the episode - unless you count pig snout. But I've seen him eat iguana and read about his adventures in eating a beating cobra heart. Pig snout is much more tame than that.

Accomplishments:
-Waking up to go to the pool on time

Goals:
-Get the dishes done
-Fold laundry

Ugh, I'm so tired. Laundry and dishes can wait.

Always Bring Snacks to the Pool

Child had her first swim lessons this morning. She loves being in the water. However the two other little boys in our class do not, therefore she cried a lot. She seems so natural in the water. She kicks, blow bubbles, scoops water with her hands. After our lesson we went to the baby pool for a bit and then the water park. Child spied a prepared mommy who had Goldfish and wanted to have a snack. Since I had no snacks but a few cheerios in the car we left. Of course Child trips on the pavement and once again her knees are skinned even more. I have a feeling that I'm going to have to put knee pads on herfor the summer.

Getting ready for the show to start 

Child ready for Sesame Street Live in her fancy Naartijie duds. 

My day off

This morning Husband took Child to go see Sesame Street Live. He said that she was mesmerized by the show and went crazy during Elmo's World. By the time they returned, Child was asleep and I had to leave to go to a baby shower and a Creative Memories party. When I returned home, Husband was exasperated. I couldn't help but to feel smug, knowing that he felt just like I did when he returns home from work. I've also noticed tonight that Child knows the placement of all of the words on a computer keyboard. This is because of an Elmo game that she loves. Is it too early for Child to become addicted to computer games?

one more popsicle picture. I thought this was too cute! 

Yummy Popsicle 

Bean pic from yesterday 

Bubbles Everywhere 

The Maxima's back!

We've finally got our car back and it looks great. Too bad they couldn't pay for the whole thing to be painted. I was in a car accident, in April, after I dropped Child off at school. Someone ran a red light and I hit their rear back passenger side. I hit them b/c there was a pedestrian crossing the street parallel to my car and their car slowed down. This whole accident has been a PIA.

It is raining again and Child still has a stuffy nose. She's been calling out for her best pal S. I feel bad. I talked to S's mom and she said that he was sick too.

Daily Goal
1. Prevent rainy indoor boredom in Child
2. Prevent any beans from going up nose

Daily Accomplishments
1. Picked up car w/ husband. Child was a crankenstein this morning though
2. Fed Child - she is no longer in crankenstein mode.
3. Successful play with beans today - until Child threw them in the air like confetti
4. Went for a walk - hooray the rain has stopped. Child strolled her baby doll and half way through the walk I noticed that the baby doll's diaper had been taken off and that the baby doll had been flashing herself to all the construction men. The baby doll goes to the potty, so it's a little anatomically correct.
5. Child had fun eating a popsicle
6. Tons of fun playing with bubbles. I was stomping them to put them out and of course my neighbors pull up as I'm running around the driveway like a mad woman.

Stats
Accidents: 2 falls on the sidewalk while taking a walk - gravity bites
Spills:
Cool Children's Song Stuck in Head: Dig, Dig, Dig My Excavator. I usually have an annoying song stuck, but I think it's cool that they could come up with a song that involves construction trucks.

Ashley's Blog

My cousin Ashley's blog inspired me to create my own. He lives an exciting bachelor life and he produces video games. How exciting! My brother also works there in the quality assurance dept., which basically means he gets to play video games all the time. Even better, Ashley loves my child so much. He has pictures of her up on his computer. Ladies, he's available and is a great catch! He also loves dogs. . . oh wait the point of this was to point you in the direction of his blog. You can read about his super cool hi tech life at: http://ashcheng.blogspot.com/

Rainy Days and Mondays get me down

It's 6:00 AM in the morning. Child woke up at 5:00 asking for milk in the sweetest little voice. She just fell back asleep though. Parenting tip that I've discovered: when your child wakes up early don't put on Play House Disney, put the news on! Child still sounds sick from a cold and it's raining and supposed to rain all day. This puts a real damper on plans today b/c we can't visit friends and we're stuck in here all day. Maybe I can teach child to scrub the toilet or something. Ha! Even more depressing is that I went to weather.com and see that the 10-day forcast includes thunder showers all next week, when we are supposed to start swim lessons - at an outdoor pool. Yep, rainy days get me down.

Accomplishments
1. Child dressed and fed. She ate two waffles, which is a huge accomplishment for her
2. Kitchen swept and tidied up
3. Went to the banks, went to Wal-mart to get some rainy day activities, went to Harris Teeter. We went to a Harris Teeter that we've never been to before and child says "Cookie, balloon" as we stop. Sigh - she knows her bribes at that particular store. Was stopped at HT and told that child was beautiful. I have to agree
4. Came home and set up the bean activity. This is something that I saw while subbing for the 4 year old class at Child's school. There a basically a bunch of dry beans that are placed in a large plastic tub and then Child can put them in cups and play with them. Of course as soon as the first bag of beans is opened I catch Child with beans very close to her nostrils. What is it with beans and noses? The quote of the day "Beans do not belong in your nose" I guess there is a reason why the beans are for the 4 year olds and not the 2s. I suppose that the 4 year olds know better then stick beans up their noses.

Goal for June 2
1. Prevent major inside boredom in child
2. Vaccuum
3. Research steam cleaner for carpet. How is it that in a little over a month of living here, my carpet looks horrible?

Stats for June 2
Spills: only beans so far
Accidents: 2, head bumped on car door, smacked face on drawer in kitchen (not really sure how she did that)
Annoying Children's Song Stuck in Head: Theme to 64 Zoo Lane

Here's a link to the doll that I made of myself. I thought I would share it with you. It's a great time waster though. http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/26627.html

Mission accomplished, child is napping! 

My daily accomplishments

1) My child is not in her pajamas
2) Went to Gymboree, just to turn around b/c child was hacking and covering me in some sort of ectoplasmic goo
3) Ran some errands including getting child a sand/water table so that she'll have something to do besides destroying areas of house
4) Was able to run laundry and attempted to clean kitchen, while child was destroying living room
5) Put child in room so she could nap and was able to finish cleaning the kitchen, including mopping - woo hoo. The stain from child spilling OJ on the floor on Sunday is finally cleaned up. The whole time that I was cleaning I heard mysterious bumps and noises from child's room up above. Ignored it until I heard the crying.
6) I freed child but she was extremely cranky and I put her up there again.
7) I talked to my pal Melissa on the phone for a while, however I have reduced my mountain of laundry to a large mound.

Goal for June 1
-To get child to take a nap
-To clean at least one room in my house

Most hated chores:
-Folding and putting away laundry
-Putting clean dishes away

Spills: 1 -> chocolate milk stain on couch
Accidents: 1 -> trip down the stair
Annoying Children's Theme Show song stuck in ear: Hey It's Franklin

**I really have no idea how to add pictures and I tried to put in cute links but it didn't work. For example, I found this site where you can make your own doll -but it likes like an anime cartoon. I want everyone to have the joy of making your own personalized anime character. If you know how to do this, let me know***