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!

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?

Nuances of Brass Instruments

Sometimes I forget that Soapfi isn’t even 2 yet. She soaks up everything like a sponge, and what is even more astonishing to me is how much she retains and then applies it appropriately at a later date.

My favorite example, even though it involves her probably watching way to much TV for her age, is the “Eh, Mickey” (how it sounds when she tries to do the pirate “Argghh, Matey”) that she picked up from Calliou. Calliou gets a pirate book from the library, he and his dad say “Argghh, Matey” back and forth a few times in the episode in relation to pirates being pictured on screen. Last week we realized she was retaining what she was seeing and applying it to other things far better than we imagined.

We were at Toys ‘R Us letting her try out tricycles and bike helmets in anticipation of buying them for her birthday. Conclusion: “No Like It”, so she will be getting Gator Golf and a cash register she was completely enamored with.  

We were walking down the isle with all those Playmobil sets when she starts growling “Eh, Mickey”, sure enough – we were walking by the Pirates. Holy crap, Mommy’s mind is now officially blown away – kidlet recognizes chunky plastic men are pirates, kidlet connects chunky plastic pirates to cartoon pirates from TV, kidlet remembers what cartoon pirates are supposed to say and shares it with us.

So now that we realize how much she is actually remembering, are we starting to unintentionally overload her with information?

We were playing some Monster and TRAIN, as well as participating in the much beloved “Run around in circles and fall down” dance with the hockey game on in the background. At some point an ad came on with a band featuring a closeup of the trombone player. Soapfi started shouting (when she is in identification mode, it is *always* a shout and usually repeated in triplicate) “trumpet, trumpet, trumpet”, at which point Daddy points out that it is actually a trombone. “Oh, tombone”.

Then Daddy wonders aloud “Does she really need to know the nuances of brass instruments at her age?”

Does she? Shouldn’t we just be happy she was at least in the same section of the orchestra and didn’t think it was a woodwind??

First Steps

Soapfi’s second birthday is just around the corner and I’ve already managed to forget the time and date of over 95% of her “firsts”. I remember that they happened…. first tooth “Mr Bitey”,  first word “Dada”, first obsession “Caillou”, but I don’t remember when.

They make baby books specifically to record these things, it is tucked away on a shelf in the Sarlacc Pit (aka the den/computer room) – it does have one entry – from when she bunched up her legs and flung herself out of my lap at 5 weeks old, because nothing gets you motivated to preserve something for posterity quite like guilt.

So I’ve decided my universe needs a better timeline than the one given to me by Facebook. So now all my random crap about whatever will have a time stamp. I guess I will have to change my G+ tag line, I’m officially no longer too lazy to have a blog…. of course having a blog and maintaining it are two completely different issues.

Welcome to my universe, let the proper documentation begin!