Fish-sticks.

You know those parents who do their kid's homework? I am so not one of those parents, although if I wasn't me, I would assume I was that kind of mom. (And I'm not even sure that makes sense!) But guess what, I'm not.

BigM is actually only in preschool, so her "homework" assignments have been to bring in a picture of something. The first time, her homework was to bring in pictures of herself. Well, yes, I forgot so on the morning of, I was sitting outside of DM's office, painstakingly clipping words that described BigM out of a magazine. Thank goodness he has a waiting room with two copies of People!

Her homework for today's project was to bring in a picture of her pets, or the pet she would like to have. I knew for certain we don't have one (as if this is news to you!) so I last night I was going to try and find a picture of a fish in a magazine. I forgot again, but luckily I remembered this morning. So I was running around in our basement, looking for an old magazine while talking on the phone with my walking buddy (who was telling me she couldn't walk this morning, which suited me just fine... I overslept and was running really late. Thanks for sleeping in, Alarm Clock- aka LM!) I was describing my dilemma when she asked if I had a package of Goldfish snack crackers. JACKPOT!

Brand new pack! So I cut out a couple of pictures from the package and sent BigM with a bag full of fishies to share with her friends. Am I am awesome mom or what? (Or more accurately, is my friend an awesome mom and am I an awesome copy-cat or what?)

So here's BigM's description of her pet:

My Pet's name is: Dorothy
She/he likes to eat: purple seeds
She/he likes to play: with her other fish friends. She's friends with Gilbert, Twhita and Sarsa
If she/he could talk, she/he would say: nothing because she is paper
I love my pet because: he loves me

Classic BigM, I tell ya. And I have no idea who Twhita and Sarsa are nor have I ever heard those names come out of her mouth.

Natural Disaster

So yes, we've lived in our new house for about 7 months now. But no, DM hadn't gotten around to putting the cabinet latches- until yesterday. I consider myself to be a DIY kind of girl, but I also know it would give DM an anxiety attack if he had to imagine letting me loose in the house with a power tool- and he is the one who uses a drill on a daily basis.

Remember LM started walking about a month ago? She is now running. Not fair. I've started calling her "Hurricane Little Mouse" because she leaves a disaster everywhere she goes. One of her most favorite games is "go in the cabinet and take everything out and leave it all throughout the house." I already can't keep up with the housework, so an additional 2 hours every day worth of putting away is just too much. She has three *most* favorite places to ransack (even though nothing seems to be off limits)- the "sippy cup drawer" in the kitchen, the cabinet under the sink in my bathroom and the second drawer from the top in the same bathroom.

I hope it's obvious that she takes the sippy cups out of the sippy cup drawer. Sometimes it's cute, because she'll waddle over to the refrigerator and hold it up, as if she could use the water dispenser herself. Poor kid, she's only 2' too short. Once she figures out she's actually a midget, she tucks that cup under her arm like a football, wanders into another room and deposits said cup somewhere. Repeat until the drawer is empty. (And all this happens in less than a minute, which is why I am powerless to stop her.)

TMI warning: if you are male, this may be a little too much for you. Feel free to scroll down to the next paragraph. For my faithful readers, here goes. I keep my tampons in this huge plastic container in the cabinet under my bathroom sink. For some reason, only known to LM, she loves to grab one in each hand and she comes tearing out of the bathroom waving them like flags, laughing hysterically. (And I will never know why she only picks the green ones. She also has her choice of yellow and pink.)

As for the drawer, it's been designated for DM, so it contains whatever it is that men put in their bathroom drawers. For her, it's like the lottery because she can't see what she's grabbing because she's so short. Most of the time it's his brush, but yesterday when she came running out of the bathroom carrying an uncovered disposable razor, I knew it was time to childproof.

I think I've solved the bathroom dilemma by keeping my bedroom door shut all the time. DM went crazy putting those little latches on the kitchen cabinets. When he finished, we set her down in front of the sippy cup drawer and watched with baited breath...

Giddy, she cannot believe we are encouraging her to open the drawer. Cautiously, she pulls. And pulls again. It only opens 2 inches. She gives DM a curious look and shuts the drawer. She slowly turns towards him, throws out both of her hands and lets out a squawk, as if to say, "What gives, people?"

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she discovers a new favorite place to destroy, but until then, it'll be so nice opening that drawer and actually finding cups in there.

Let's Hear it for the Boy...

BigM is so funny. Seriously. (Must I start every post this way?)

In case you aren't aware (which I'm sure you're not- because no one in their right mind knows this much about Dora and her compadres) in the mornings Nickelodeon airs 2 episodes of Dora back to back, then 2 episodes of her fantastic cousin, Diego. Today was one of those days when I just needed some time to straighten up around our house- it was getting to the point where it would have probably been easier to move rather than clean up.

So yes, I let her watch spanish television for 2 hours straight. Afterwards, she ran to come find me (back to imaginative play again...) and excitedly reports, "Mommy, I'm Tiego and you're Aleeceea and who can LM be?" How about Tiego's, I mean, Diego's super awesome cousin, Dora? "Yeah, LM can be my sister, Dora." No, your cousin. "No, my sister." No, Alicia is your sister, Dora is your cousin (thinks- wait, tell me again why I am so concerned about BigM correctly knowing their entire family tree?)

We always meet DM at the drugstore for lunch on Mondays, and seeing as it was noon, BigM (I mean Tiego) needed to wear something other than her pjs to lunch. So we go upstairs and she picks out khaki pants and a blue t-shirt. As she is taking her pajama pants off, whoops- her panties come off too (sorry, Kristan, it had to be said) and she looks at me big-eyed and declares, "Uh-oh, my foxes just fell off!"

What? (Thinks for a minute...) Oh, you mean your boxers just came off? Why are you wearing boxers today? Is it because you're Tiego and you're a boy? "Yes, and see dees cwothes are what boys wear."

Sure thing, kiddo. Fast-forward... What would you like for lunch today? "Well, I cannt hab a gwill cheese cause that's giwrl food. How bout a chicken sammich wif a piece of cheese on it? Das what boys eat."

Scratch and Sniff

This morning, while watching our favorite semi-spanish speaking little friend on television, BigM asked me to draw her a picture of Dora. Because I'm cool like that, I grabbed one of those super awesome gloves off BigM's hand and whipped up a picture of Dora. You wouldn't want to hang it in the Smithsonian or anything, but I was an art major for awhile in college so BigM could definitely tell who it was.

I left her to color in her new best friend and came back a few minutes later when she called out, "Hey Mama, want to see my picture?" Of course I do! (And by the way, she colored everywhere on the paper except on Dora, until I got there, that is.)

BigM: [drawing red lines on Dora's face] See dat? She has scratches on her face.
MM: Uh-oh, how did that happen?
BigM: She's sad. She got dose scratches right dere. See?
MM: I see that, how did she get those scratches on her face?
BigM: [rolling eyes, very exasperated with her mother, whose intelligence is obviously incredibly sub-par] I drew dem dere!

Vaminos!

Have I ever told you how much I despise Dora the Explorer? Well just in case I haven't, guess what, I despise Dora the Explorer. Normally I would feel bad about despising someone, but since she's a cartoon and she's apparently trying to take over the world, I don't feel guilty one little bit. Please please can someone explain to me why it's necessary to have her picture on everything? Like cans of soup? Or tennis shoes?

BigM really likes Dora. A lot. As does any other toddler, so at least I'm not alone here. The moms and I commiserate together at the park. Despite my dislike, it's hard to deny BigM the pleasure of watching the cartoon, it could be worse, it could be Yo Gabba Gabba. I tried really hard to keep Dora out of our house (I much prefer the PBS shows to the Noggin ones) but when we were moving in, she spent a lot of time at Lolli and Pop's house and got very familiar with all the Noggin characters. (It was a decent trade, we could have never gotten the truck unloaded with her underfoot.)

Last year for Christmas, DM's grandmother gave her a pair of gloves with a picture of Dora on them. She asked me why there was a little girl on her gloves. Recently, I (re)organized our coat closet and she found them in the glove basket and has worn them every day around the house since. (And we live in the south and we're having a "cool" spell with the fall weather coming in- meaning it's been in the 80s instead of the 100s.)

As we were leaving Sassy & G-pop's house last weekend, BigM announces loudly, "I'm Dora." (She's into this imaginative play business. Woohoo.) So DM plays along and says, "I'll be Boots and LM can be Swiper." I didn't want to be left out (actually, really, I did want to be left out) so I said, "I guess I'll be backpack then."

BigM ponders that for a minute (I could actually hear the wheels turning in her little brain) and she says, "Well, I guess that means I'll hafta wear ya."

Lost my Marbles

We had the pleasure of meeting my little bro's girlfriend for the first time this past weekend. BigM thinks she is the coolest thing since sliced bread, and I actually have to agree. (I'm not saying that because she has the link to this blog- really truly, I think so.)

Caroline and BigM hit it off immediately- and anyone who thinks my kids are awesome automatically scores major bonus points in my book. They headed to the media room to play and I found them hours later lining up marbles in rows. Riveting stuff here. My mom has a vast collection of marbles and there just happens to be some prints of marbles hanging on the wall down there- really, truly, she's not obsessed, despite what it looks like. I mentioned this fact to Caroline, who said, "Oh, I didn't even notice- BigM and I are having so much fun, aren't we?"

To which BigM replied, "Yes, we are having a marbleous time."

(Okay, okay, I think she believes that's the correct pronunciation of the word, but it was really really funny. I'm going to go with "she's just really clever" because that makes the story that much funnier.)

Twinkle Toes

BigM started ballet lessons today. (Her birthday present from Lolli and Pop.)

She couldn't be cuter in her pink leotard, pink tights and pink ballet slippers (thanks to AuntB who got her a fabuloso pair from the Consignment Store, compliments of little Mackenzie who no longer wears a size 9.)

Don't ask- no, I didn't take any pictures, at least today anyway. It was all I could do to get Princess Bubble-yum out of the house. Yes, we were late. Yes, it was because said ballet lessons are smack dab in the middle of "quiet time" and yes, BigM is a Big Pain during quiet time. Yep, I said it- my big mouse really truly would benefit from some afternoon shut-eye, but when she does that she's awake until 10 at night and that's not beneficial to anyone. Especially me.

There's nothing cuter than a bunch of 3 year olds in ballet outfits learning how to plie. Except maybe LM toddling around the lobby trying to hijack all the trophies the studio won at competition off the shelf. (I'm afraid I thought that was a lot cuter than the director thought it was. Don't worry, she didn't actually steal any of them, and I made her put them all back. She never got further than 1" away from the shelf. I'm not *that* mom; *that* mom is obnoxious.)

Next time I going to Wal-Mart during BigM's lesson. Even though it was kind of fun to watch her through the teeny tiny little peeking window.

Just for you, here's a picture of BigM in her ballet get-up.