Ruminations of a 2 year-old

We've started mini Family Home Evening lessons by reading from a new Book of Mormon lift-the-flap book.  Tonight Adrie looked at this new book and matter-of-factly said "Jesus gave it to me."

Her frequent soliloquoy goes something like this:  "It's Jesus!  He's in the temple.  Let's go see 'im.  The door is closed.  It's locked!  Oh no!  Open it.  Let's see Jesus in the temple."  She now associates the temple with His House no matter what.  Hope she's not disappointed someday :)

In general she's been asking "Where did Jesus go?"  I tried to explain heaven - all she got was "He's in the sky.  On an airplane.  Or he has wings?"  I tried not to laugh and assured her that Jesus does not have wings.

Secondly,

Our darling sitter Cherri is noticeably expecting, and Adrie has latched onto this idea.  All

 weekend she kept checking out my stomach and saying "Mom, you don't have a baby in there."  

I pulled out a scrapbook of pictures of myself pregnant and then Adrie's birth story, and she now begs to read "Baby Adrie's story" several times a day.  "There's a baby in there!  It's Adrie!  She's gonna come OUT!  And get BIG!  She's crying.  She's really tired."

At Sunday dinner Uncle Randy (Grandpa, as Adrie calls him :) said something about Adrie being bored, and she misheard him - her whole face lit up as she said "Yeah!  I was BORN!  I got BORN! I got BORN!!!"

This morning's soliloquoy went something like this:  "Cherri's got a baby in her tummy.  He's not big yet, mom.  He's naked.  He's really cold.  He's gonna come out so I can touch him."  

How can I possibly love this girl any more than I already do!?!?

Recipe for Friday Night

(1) trip to the grocery store for 

     a) chocolate chips

     b) honey-roasted peanuts

     c) dark chocolate orange sticks

(2) trays for teeth whitening.  After the junk food is done with, of course.

(3) hours of photoshop wedding-reception-processing.

(4) total hours of amazing music in the background.

(5) times I've avoided crying as I try to figure out my new Blackberry phone.  

(6) times I had to avoid throwing a fit in the past 2 days as I watched the screen on my Samsung phone bite the dust.  I loved that phone.  I don't want to fork out money or soul (aka contract time) to T-mobile, but I figured since it was unavoidable, I might as well make it an awesome phone.

At the conclusion of this amazing Friday evening, I will curl up in bed with my new phone and the manual.

Believe it or not, I really love my life. 

My little entertainment

Adrie's newest:

"Is that funny mom?  That's funny mom?"  

I hear this one at least ten times a day.  She'll put her cup on her foot and check with me - "Is that funny mom?"  She'll jump up and down, spin around, fall over, you name it - "That's funny mom?  It's funny mom?"  It's really cute how terribly she wants my validation.

One other memorable - she picked up a random piece of pork chop tonight and said "Look!  It's baby Jesus!"  I tried not to laugh and pay no attention, but she was absolutely insistent.  "Look!  Mom!  It's a baby Jesus!  Look!  Look!  Baby Jesus!"  Over and over and over and over she said this - I finally acknowledged her, and she added "I'm gonna EAT it.  Ampgh"  as she did.

Life is awesome.

I'm learning, slowly but surely...

Hazard #34 of being single:

You just might regret going to the bank in your pajamas.

My life with Adrie

My goodness, terrible two's just keep getting... better.  That's right... um...  BETTER.  (cough cough).

She's finally at that magical age where she's starting to say really funny things.  I've been dying for this age, so opposition in all things, right?  A few memorables lately:

• Upon seeing the letter " i " she says "Mom!  It's broken!  It's a broken letter!"
  
• She randomly said "Let's go see the cows in the barn.  We'll open the door and see 'em.  And put their boots on."  I said "Do cows wear boots?"  "Uh-huh.  We'll put their boots on."
  
• She's a little bit obsessed with scrubbing her heels... since every shower in this family has a scrubber.   I hope she doesn't really inherit those!
  
• She loves the music video of Lenka's "The Show".  She sings a good chunk of the words, and even does actions (see below.)
  
• She is SOOOO BOSSY.  "Mom!  Don't sing.  Stop singing."  Or "It's NOT a pink carseat!  No it's NOT!" (well, plainly it is.)  Or "Not that one!"  You should see her face, with lowered brows, while she scolds.
• She purposely makes noise during prayers at church just to see what I'll do.  She knows I won't get mad at her because I don't want her to cry loudly.  I am scheming some sort of bribery/reward system for this one.  I already bought stick-on earrings.
• When seeing other kids cry she sternly says "Stop It.  Stop Crying."  (wonder where she got that...?!)
• She loves looking for the moon at night and in the morning.  "Look mom!  It's the moon!  It's high in the sky!"  or if it's morning, she says "It's goin' to bed!"
• She fights with toys and characters in book who are holding something she wants.  The most memorable where Dad and I walked in on her yelling loudly "Gimme that!  GIMME THAT!"  It was a 3-inch cabbage patch baby holding a 0.25 inch ice cream cone.  She fought with it for a long time.
• She loves stickers of any sort - junk mail included - and pretends they are band-aids for her toys.

Of course there are more, but just thought I'd throw out a handful for history's sake...  She keeps me entertained!

"I Caught Myself"

Today's song: I Caught Myself by Paramore.

Better than a journal.

I do love Paramore.

I still love music

The song of today is Sorry by Maria Mena.

(it's in the playlist to the right if you wanna hear it)

I think it's breathtakingly beautiful.

Don't you love how music can feel emotion for you?

Thanks, Jessie, for a new artist.

Here's to 2009!

And so it begins...

...irrational mother-anger at the playground.

After a long stressful flight home with Adrie, I was happy to let her play at the airport kid's area while we waited for luggage.

As soon as we got there, a littler-than-Adrie girl came over and stole the toy train Adrie had picked up - grabbed it right out of her hands - screaming "It's mine!"  I jumped in and diffused the fight, getting Adrie interested in something else (even though by playground rules, Adrie plainly picked up a toy that did not 'belong' to anyone at the moment.)

The train was soon abandoned, and Adrie picked it up again - only to have the little girl come and try to wrestle it back.  Natually, Adrie resisted, and then the girl's big burly brother came over and plucked it out of Adrie's hands.  As he turned his back, Adrie grabbed at the sleeve of his shirt.  I was 30 inches away and couldn't stop her, but plainly saw that she only grabbed his shirt as he moved away.  Sigh... I can admit my child is not perfect.  

-BUT-

That little boy screamed "She pinched me!  Ow!  Mom!  Ow!  She pinched me!"  The mom called out something like "It's okay, don't worry about her honey."  

"She pinched me!"  He yelled on and on, starting the crocodile tears, as the mom shouted things across the 12 people sitting there like 'just ignore her' and 'she didn't hurt you that much.'  

Lies!  Lies!  

Adrie was naturally wary of this sibling duo from that point on so she would yell "Don't touch me" or "NO!" whenever they got near.  The littler-than-Adrie girl seemed to take this as a challenge, and sat down right next to Adrie, running her hands up and down her arms, her cheeks, the back of her head.  I said (mostly for the benefit of other listening parents) "Adrie!  BE NICE."  So my sweet Adrie started saying in the softest voice I've ever heard, "Please don't touch me.  We don't touch people.  I don't like it.  Please leave me alone."  

My heart melted, I rescued her, gave her a BIG hug, and left those bratty kids and their rotten parents.  

I think I have some long years ahead of me.

I have to mention - for the first time in this picture it's really dawned on me that my little girl is a completely independent personality with opinions that will from henceforth and forever clash with my own.   She was sitting here happily, cute as can be, until I pulled out my camera. I demanded she 'get back there and sit down', she wouldn't, so I 'helped' her sit down and hissed at her to look at me. See how well it worked.  She is plainly doing what I ask without liking it.  Hahahaha... oh I love her so much.  

How We Roll

Believe it or not, sometimes we actually leave the house, which also requires showering and real clothing.  Our New Year's Day venture was to see Twilight - Dad included.  It was great fun.  

Two HUGE Coke Zero cups, one HUGE popcorn bucket, smuggled Twizzlers and Dark Chocolate Orange sticks being passed up and down our row - I felt like I was 14 years old again.  I love every minute.

We had to show M&D the new self-portrait we taught G&G in Europe.  We got it on the first try - unbelievable!

It rains a lot here.  Thus, awesome umbrellas compliments of the parking garage.  It's a brilliant idea.