conversation before daycare

If you were rushing around with me this morning, getting Alice ready for her day, you would have seen me frantically trying to clean her face off (somehow she managed to get banana caked into her cheek) before we took off in the car for daycare. I actually did the whole "spit and wipe" thing on my poor baby's face. You remember that one? Where your mom grabs your face, spits on her fingers, and then rubs furiously at some small spot? I have excellent memories of that myself.

Alice "whatcha doing, mommy?"

Me: "Trying to rub your face off"

Alice (shocked) "what???" she pulls away from me

Alice (very very upset, meltdown pending) "no mommy, you can't wipe my face off, that's my face and it belongs to me." (accusatory finger pointed at me)

Me: (long exhale). well said, my friend, well said.

Grumpy Barbie

My daughter has recently officially entered the girly years. Suddenly, and without much warning to me, she is all about pink and bracelets and GOD FORBID Barbie. I wasn't a Barbie girl myself - never really understood the pleasure of matching miniature shoes and dresses. But suddenly, since she has started a new daycare that has some Barbies, Miss A has fallen in love with the tall, boobs-overloaded, small-ankled perma-smile Barbie.

She recently became the proud owner of this strange book of Barbie stickers, as a result of this new love affair. It's the oddest book - it is full of just Barbie heads. Tiny little Barbie faces that are about the size of a thumbnail. And like, 20 pages of them, 25 to a page.

We were playing with these odd friends the other day, and I was putting the little heads on my fingers, and acting out a puppet show for my delighted girl. I called one of them "grumpy Barbie" and, using a high pitched drawl (don't ask me how or why) was saying things like "I am grumpy Barbie. I am sick of this perma grin on my face. Why does my hair always have to be so perfect?" Alice giggled and giggled.

Of course now, she is obsessed with grumpy Barbie. To the point that she always wants to look at that one Barbie head (out of the hundreds in this book). She will peel it on and off out its respective sticker "hole" in the book, again and again.

And just this morning yelled out "I HAVE TO FIND GRUMPY BARBIE'S HOLE, MOMMY!"

I kid you not. I, of course, had myself a good morning giggle and went to her, straight-faced, to help my daughter find grumpy Barbie's hole. What a great way to start my day.

my kitchen is kicking my ass

So I've been slacking at this blogging thing. I'll think of a whole bunch of interesting things to write, thinking "oh yeah, that's a good one." And then never get it down here. Might have something to do with the fact that I usually have these brillant ideas just as I am falling asleep after climbing into bed after another exhausting day. Of course, I can always find time for some television, but that's another entry.

Yep. excuses, excuses.

I've been battling with my kitchen lately. It's been giving me a good fight. I'll go down there in the mornings to make some coffee and then it starts - coffeepot slips out of my hands and onto the floor. Water everywhere. 6:30am. As I bend down to pick it up, one of the cupboard doors that NEVER CLOSES hits me in the face. Toddler wanders in requesting "hot milk, please?" (well - who's kidding - I'm lucky if I get that "please" so early in the morning). I open the fridge to get Miss A's milk and the crisper falls right out on the floor. Once I get the crisper sorted out, I start to warm the milk in the microwave and I step on a cold piece of pasta from the night before. Nothing I hate more than the feeling of old food stuck on my foot.

By this point, it's only 6:45AM, I'm frustrated and ready to climb back into bed. How can a kitchen get the upper hand so early in a person's day?