Sibling Love

Currently Soapfi doesn’t have any siblings, and no plans are in the works for there to be one in the future either. Considering Soapfi’s demonstration of her concept of sibling love the other day, our current lack of plans are probably for the best.

Soapfi was playing with the Calliou figures she had received on her birthday. Doing all kinds of nonsense things (well I hope they were nonsense, or we have even bigger problems than her idea of sibling love!) like putting them in a pot and cooking them on her new play kitchen. Or lining them up on the table and then knocking them off with her golf club.

At one point she was taking them two at a time and having them “kiss” – go ahead, this is the “awww, how cute” moment and it doesn’t last long! Calliou & Emma, Clementine & Leo, Emma & Rosie, Leo & Calliou it was a non-judgmental kiss-fest….. until it came to Rosie & Calliou. (For those not familiar with the show, Rosie is Calliou’s little sister, all the other characters mentioned are just friends.) When it came time for them to kiss, she smashed their heads together like they were protons at the Large Hadron Collider. I was waiting for quarks and bosons to go flying around the room, at a mere two years of age she would finally be the one to discover antimatter.

This did not happen once, it happened at least four times! Unfortunately the Sarlacc Pit has once again devoured the video camera, so the pictures do not adequately display the enthusiasm involved in the “kissing”. I even offered her an out, “Oh no, they bumped heads, ouch”. I received an exasperated “No Mommy. Kissing.” A few more head smashes for Rosie & Calliou before moving on to other characters and nice gentle smootches.

So far she has shown no indication of trying to smash her skull into ours during good night kisses, so my state of mind is hovering more around perplexed, as opposed to alarmed, in relation to her concept of sibling love.

Time to “Garden”

Even though it doesn’t feel like it, Spring has officially sprung according to the calendar. Time to dust off “the digger thing” and “the pointy thing” and remove all the morning glory and other weeds I let nature “take care of” over the winter. Our yard is definitely survival of the fittest, if you need any kind of care or pampering, you’d best just move along. If you can’t survive on rainwater then I want nothing to do with you, unfortunately that also means I have a lot of weeds. The rhodies in the back yard are barely more than climbing frames for the morning glory by fall. Every year I vow to do better, and every year I find something much more fun and interesting to do. I am not a gardener.

This year, however, may be different. Soapfi has taken a shine to “gardening”. She loves her little shovel and rake, and absolutely adores watering cans. If she is not sufficiently distracted when we leave the house, she picks up the big plastic watering can on the front porch, takes it over to the rhodies and tips it up making “shhh-shhh” sounds like she’s pouring water. Hrrm, maybe it’s not so much “gardening” as “watering” that she loves. And apparently she has figured out that watering the roots is what’s important, at least when it comes to her plastic flower.

I can only hope for unbridled glee when she gets to start pulling weeds. And if she weeds with as much enthusiasm as she waters, we may finally have a decent looking yard for more than one weekend a year!

My First Wordless Wednesday

F*ity, F*, F*, F*

One of my favorite blogs, Parenting Illustrated With Crappy Pictures, had a post today about cursing. This inspired me in two ways – the first was to go ahead and share a Soapfi cursing story. The second was that I’ve been using a few curse words today based on the results of my appointment with the urology specialist about my kidney stones.

And although inspired in the other order, I shall tell the not so fun stuff first! In the grand scope of things, it’s not a huge (although the specialist did use the word “huge” to describe my two kidney stones!! Is it weird that I feel some pride/sense of accomplishment about that?) deal, the condition is completely treatable and they can manage my pain until then. But the treatment is SURGERY…. involving anesthesia, F*ity, F*, F*, F*!!! I’ve had surgeries before, I’ve been under anesthesia before, with no bad experiences, side effects, or anything to make me think this time is different. But what is different is that this time I have a kidlet. That is a mental game changer for me. Again I say, F*ity, F*, F*, F*!!

Now for the funnier bit. This was related to me by Daddy because it happened on a trip I couldn’t make with them because of work. They were going back east last Christmas to visit Soapfi’s Babcia (pronounced “bop-she” – it’s Polish for Grandma) & PaPa. Soapfi has already made three trips back east by plane, and for the most part has behaved like a model child, at least in public! However, according to Daddy she did show a bit of sass on the last plane ride. They were about half way through the flight, things had been going rather well, and then it became apparent she needed a diaper change. Changing our Mz WiggleWorm can be a challenge during the best of times, I can only imagine poor Daddy having to do it in the sardine can of an airplane restroom. Apparently during his struggles/frustration a few (okay MANY!) F Bombs were dropped. Daddy insists they were under his breath, but he forgets that Soapfi has the ears of a bat and the retention of an elephant. He thought he was home free as he finally got her changed and was starting to walk back to his seat, and then our Mz Soapfi decided to joyfully share F Bombs with the entire plane, repeatedly! Daddy said it was a toss up between whether more people were laughing in sympathy or being appalled that he had “taught” her such vocabulary!

All things considered we’re lucky she doesn’t swear like a longshoreman by now, we have got to be better about remembering that little ears are everywhere!

Birthday Bingo

Same household, different birthday girl. Today is my turn!

Growing up I always figured I would eventually become a mother, in my twenties, with the naivety of youth, I figured I had plenty of time to find someone and start a family. Turns out I’m rather choosy, it took me until I was in my mid thirties to find one, but he is the right one, so it was ultimately worth the wait. However, once we did find each other we knew that we were on the clock and we needed to get busy busy busy, because I was adamant that I was *NOT* going to be a first time mother in my forties. Not because other people haven’t done it (and done it quite well – I admire those ladies immensely!), but because I know *me*. We certainly gave it the good old college try, but things just didn’t seem to be in the cards for us. Because in typical me fashion, I was apparently procrastinating! It was a mere twenty-two hours before my fortieth birthday, but I made my deadline, and Soapfi made me a mommy before I was technically forty!

Since narcotics don’t play well with driving or fulfilling my detail oriented job duties, I’m home from work while awaiting the consultation with the specialist to develop a plan of attack in regards to my kidney stones. So my mom (aka Gramma) picked me up and took me out for birthday bingo, lunch at the Tulalip Casino and even some slots. Luckily the narcotics didn’t completely dull my senses, I managed to pay close enough attention to win not one, but two $50 games!  And only managed to lose $4.56 of that on penny slots by the end of the afternoon.

Soapfi was this excited for me!

Birthday Box

Considering the our ineptitude as parents, I’m not sure how we managed to get Soapfi through her first two years mostly unscathed. Some of our friends probably lost money on a secret baby injury pool that must exist somewhere! We celebrated by having a party at Kids ‘N Clay. It was a win for everybody, the kids had fun painting their choice of ceramics, we didn’t have to clean up (the house before hand or the mess after!), and we have a commemorative plate with Soapfi’s hand print as well as thumb prints from all the kidlet guests.

Soapfi still takes awhile to warm up to large groups even when she knows everybody, but she was having fun by the end. She was a little perplexed by the whole concept of blowing out the candle, so daddy ended up having to assist.

Our friends were extremely generous with their gifts – beautiful spring outfits we desperately needed, fun Calliou toys that were naturally a hit, and even a play kitchen! Of course, in the end her favorite thing was the cardboard box that play kitchen came in!

O Binky, My Binky

As previously mentioned I have 3,000+ pictures of Soapfi to sort through. Roughly a third of them are no good just because they are out of focus, she is running out of the frame, or some other photography misfire – no flash, too much flash, flashing in general. No problem, those are easy to metaphorically toss (because lets face it, it’s digital so I never even bother to go in and truly delete them).

The next hurdle is the binky, the all pervasive, must have it, can’t live without it, bright green, takes up half my face, binky. It is my best friend when I’m desperate to just put a cork in her, and my worst enemy when I want to take a cute picture.

I loathe to let her be upset when I know something as simple as that rubbery green disc of comfort will turn off the tears like a switch, but at the same time I hate having to chase them down the street when she gets excited talking and it falls out of her mouth (damn those things can roll!) Or even worse, when she’s been without it for a few hours of her own volition, we get in the car and ten minutes into the ride she realizes she doesn’t have one, she needs one, and mommy forgot to stash one in her pocket.

The binky company has made a fortune off me, we have at least fifteen of the damn things stashed throughout the house, of which we are lucky to find one of at any given time. Her daycare has got her conditioned to only bother to ask for it at nap time, we are working hard for the same at home, however the binky faeries are working against us.  We tell her no, she can only have it for naps or at bed time, she pouts, and 30 seconds later she has found one under the coffee table, behind the sofa, or most likely pulled one out from behind her ear.  At least she will now ask us to “wash binky” when she finds one instead of just putting it, and the 5 million dust bunnies it has collected since it was lost eons ago, into her mouth.

I feel like we’re on the verge of kicking the binky habit. All it will take is a little desire to “be like the big kids” and maybe some creativity on my part, perhaps a special binky box that we can put them in with a little bit of pomp & circumstance and a ceremony to donate them to the babies who really need them. She is starting to show more signs of understanding what it means to help and take care of others, or at least I’m assuming that’s what it means now that she is no longer smacking her dolls heads against her plastic car with glee and abandon, but instead is gently laying them on the couch and running around to us going “shhh, shhh, baby sleeping”.

And even though the photographer in me will be glad to have binky free pictures, the quick problem solver in me is really going to miss that cork…. hmmmm perhaps I’m the one with binky issues!

Behind The Eight Ball

So as Soapfi’s second birthday rapidly approaches, and I am home on good drugs while they figure out exactly what to do about my 10mm & 7mm kidney stones (so if today is a total rambling failure, I place the blame squarely on the Percocet), I have been trying to organize the 3,264 pictures of, or directly related to, Soapfi in hopes of really getting around to making that overdue photo album for the GP’s, and maybe make a legitimate push to put things into her baby book. The actual making of will wait until I’m drug/pain free so that it doesn’t end up looking like Picasso and Escher got into a brawl.

I came across these pictures and just wanted to share. Firstly because my friend Amanda Waltman kicks photography ass.  If you are in the greater Seattle area you *really* need to check out her work and have her do a session with your family, it’s worth it. Secondly because they are just so damn cute and you can see how much she looks like daddy! And thirdly because I can’t muster up enough clearheaded-ness to come up with a better blog subject today. Besides, who doesn’t love pictures of cute azz kids?

Digital Convenience

Being in the age of digital photography is great on many levels. No waiting to see if a picture turned out, the ability to instantly try again, only spending money to print out pictures you really want, apps like instagram, and being able to take a halfway decent picture from your phone. However, it can have it’s downsides!

Since I’m not concerned about wasting money developing film that may yield unwanted surprises, I’m much more lax about leaving the camera in reach of Soapfi, as a result I now have about 100 pictures that look exactly like this:

(Part of me really wishes I was better at photoshop, because it just screams out for Storm Troopers or any other photoshop meme of your choice.)

Since digital makes it easy to try repeatedly for a good photo, I find that I don’t even make the effort to stage a good photo, I just expect it to eventually happen if I take enough pictures. Of course I tend to forget to even *take* pictures to begin with, it’s like I go on these photo rampages where I take fifty photos in two days, and then do nothing for three weeks, no matter how cute she is acting. My lazyness of not wanting to walk two feet to the Sarlacc Pit to retrieve the camera (since it’s most likely still hooked up to the computer from downloading the last photo rampage) is embarrassing, even for my fat azz.

I’m over due for making a photo album for the GP’s back east, and as I was going through my pictures trying to figure out where the last album had ended, I realized I didn’t have nearly enough decent pictures from the past six months to make a less than anemic album. Maybe if I put one picture per page, use a lot of text and embellishments… compared to the albums I made that first year it will be completely pathetic! What I did have was plenty of bad pictures… I mean really, I still have all 100+ of the pictures of the chair, do I really need them? Hell no…. so why can’t I bear to part with them?  Because digital storage is cheap, doesn’t take up any more space that the computer already does, and if Soapfi becomes a famous photographer some day won’t I want all her early works?????

One thing we did manage to do before we got lazy about taking pictures, was take a picture every week of Soapfi with Turtle (being science geeks we insisted on a reference subject) for her first year.  After her first birthday we managed to do one every month for about five more months, then it became a combination of Soapfi not putting up with it and us getting lazy about remembering.

So as Soapfi’s second birthday approaches, I give you her first 52 weeks:

Hopefully the copyright gods will be kind since I credited the music I used and YouTube didn’t completely pitch a fit after the upload…. this kind of stuff makes me paranoid that men in riot gear will break down my door at 1am and drag me out of the house like my own personal “V for Vendetta”. 

Not Just For Your Feet

So this is the obligatory parenting post about the kidlet being fascinated with wearing their parents shoes. Naturally Soapfi has to do it her own way. Don’t get me wrong, she loves to wear them on her feet and tromp around the living room, but she prefers to wear them on her hands and smack them together like she’s in 1950’s detention cleaning erasers.