Toddler Dictionary, Second Edition

Captain Destructo is growing so fast. She's learning to swim, starting to go on the potty (!!!) and speaking much clearer. Here's a few of her new words.

All berry self (awl-bear-y-self): Manner in which all things must be done- without help from Mommy, as in "no! I do it all berry self!"

Bee seester (be sea-ster): Older female sibling.

Widdle seester (wid-el sea-ster): Younger female sibling. Exclaimed several times per day : "new baby's a widdle seester!"

Sweeping (sweep-ing): Opposite of being awake. Mommy's favorite time of day.

Sheeps: Linens that cover the bed while Captain Destructo is sweeping. When potty training fails, they become soaked and she yells "Mommy! Change da sheeps!"

Dance-a Waka (dans-a wok-a): Used to communicate desire to watch Shakira's Waka Waka video on Youtube and dance along. While the dance is cute, it is also exhausting, as she also yells "Mommy, Daddy, do dat!" so we are forced to dance along. (P.S.? That dance is a crazy workout. No one Shakira's got such a smoking body.)

Jay beans (j-ay beens): Candy usually found in Easter baskets, currently being used to bribe/reward Captain Destructo for using the potty. She may have eat them after using the potty for the rest of her life, but if I'm not changing toddler diapers anymore I don't think I care.


So prowdayoo! (sew proud-a you): When Captain Destructo is in a sweet mood, she wraps her arms around the deserving person/cartoon character's neck and says "I so prowdayoo!" Makes all the changing of the sheeps and dance-a wakas worth it.

Your Shoes Look Stupid and You Tick Me Off

Dear Skechers Shape-Ups Makers,

Howdy. How's it going? You have been on the news lately and I have a few things to tell ya.
First off, let's just get one thing out of the way. Your shoes might be the ugliest things to happen to feet since Crocs (yes, I know, Crocs are sooo comfortable). I have to admit you had your work cut out for you with the marketing. Using Kim Kardashian and her rockin' booty to sell those bad boys was pretty smart. But let's be honest here. I could wear those shoes for the rest of my life and still look nothing like Kim K. No, I think her butt is more due to not eating and possibly a good deal of surgery. Ditto for Brooke Burke.
But if you duped a bunch of adults that would be OK with me. We're responsible for our own choices, right? What gets me is the fact that you targeted kids. I'm talking about the commercials on Cartoon Network featuring skinny girls wearing your fugly shoes and being followed by boys dressed like cupcakes (which is weird and creepy, btw). What exactly is the message here? Girls, as young as 7, should be worried about toning their tushies and impressing boys?
YourPR guy must be a genius because he says the shoes are a way to combat childhood obesity. You know what won't do a thing to help obese kids? Wearing stupid shoes. If you want to help, worry about teaching your own kids to eat healthy and possibly lay off the video games.
In a world where moms are Botoxing their 8 year olds and buying pushup bikinis for their tweens, these shoes are just one more thing adding to low self esteem and eating disorders in kids.
So, Skecher's Shape Ups guy? Stick to ugly shoes for adults.

Love,
Pissed Off Mama of 2 Girls Who Will Never Buy Your Shoes

The Mess

Did you ever see the episode of Friends where Ross dates Rebecca Romijn and she's a huge slob? That's my house. I realized the other day that my house is a friggin' pigsty. And since I am a stay at home mom, and therefore spend my whole day in squalor, something must be done. Right now, looking up from the computer, I see the following:
-coffee table covered in 1 stuffed Abby Cadabby, 1 container of trail mix which is spilling onto the floor, and handprints possibly made of yogurt,
-carpet that is stained with strawberries and also covered in aforementioned trail mix,
-Captain Destructo's play kitchen which contains about 15 million tiny pieces of plastic food, half of which are scattered on the floor.

The problem of the dirty house has several roots. First of all, whatever cleaning schedule I had got shot completely when New Baby came along. Now I feel all my cleaning energy is focused on necessary things like laundry and before you know it, a week goes by and I'm all "when's the last time I cleaned the toilets? Oh yeah, 2 WEEKS AGO." Secondly, I have a 2 year old tornado known as Captain Destructo. This is actually her nickname around our house as she has an ability to destroy the most indestructible of objects. Often I don't discover that she has destroyed them until days later when I trip over a 15 year old formerly glued together puzzle piece. Also, her new favorite game is "changing Elmo's stinky diaper" which apparently involves both taking every single wipe out of the container and throwing it onto the floor and smearing Desitin all over every exposed surface in her room. Finally, I let her eat snacks in the living room. I am a pushover.

So, I know the problem, but it is driving me nuts that I can't stay on top of it. When I sit on the couch and nurse New Baby, I watch Captain D. make a huge mess and I'm powerless to stop it. She's getting better about cleaning up after she plays but she and I have apparently vastly different standards of cleanliness.

So, help out there!! How do you keep your houses clean? Or am I doomed until they graduate high school?

Off to vacuum up some trail mix.

Playground PSA

Attention fellow playground goers:
It has come to my attention that there needs to be some set of rules we can agree on. There is, of course, a list of rules at the entrance, but let's be honest, none of us read that. Here's a few I have come up with. I hope you find them agreeable.

-Parents, get off your phones.
Or at least turn so you're facing your kid and pretending to pay attention to him. It would help if you would also not text/play Angry Birds/check Facebook while your kid is climbing the slide and throwing rocks.

-I don't want to push your kid on the swings.
Really. He's cute and all, but I'm not going to stand here and push him while you chat. Pushing my own kid gets boring, and I like her a lot. Also, don't give me a dirty look when I tell him "go find your mom."

-Go down the slide.
Hey, dad. See how the rest of us are saying "no, go DOWN the slide" over and over? Guess what we think about you when you not only let your kid climb up but give them a boost? Yeah. Don't be that guy.

-Don't freak out.
When your kid trips and you say "OH MY GOSH!! ARE YOU OKAY?" he's crying because you freaked him out. No one ever died from a scratch. Better to say "awesome fall!" and send them on their way.

-If you are a teenager, get off the darn swing and give my kid a turn.
See how she's standing next to you and yelling "swing now?!" Go find a bench. Or maybe grow up and leave the playground.

-Enough with the photo sessions.
Yes, I do snap cute pictures of the kids with my phone and put them on Facebook every 10 seconds. I don't, however, break out the huge Nikon with the neck strap and follow my kid around like a papparazo. I saw 2 dads do that this weekend.

So, fellow patrons, if we can all agree to follow these, we will all have a much better time. Until they hear the ice cream truck and no set of rules will help us.

My Epic Failures

Although this list could be much, much longer, here are some of the things I currently suck at.

1. Paying attention to my husband
And I'm not just talking bom-chicka-wow-wow. I mean I forget to wake him up in the mornings and occasionally forget to buy him food when I go grocery shopping. Apparently if you are over 3 feet tall you don't exist in my mind. Sorry, honey. I'd like to blame lack of sleep for that one (as I do everything else). Which leads me to #2.

2. Tolerating other people's complaints about being tired
For the record, I exclude all moms from this intolerance. Not included? People complaining about being tired on Facebook, due to (a) various pets keeping them up, (b) being hungover, or (c) staying up too late. You may very well be more tired than me, but I am full of self-pity and don't want to hear about it. You can put your various noise-making pets outside for the night, whereas putting a crying and hungry New Baby outside is generally frowned upon. As for being hungover or staying up too late, yeah, well, been there, done that. Still don't want to hear you complain about it.

3. Falling to sleep
Since all I do is whine about how tired I am, you'd think I'd fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. But instead I lay there and think about how I need to sleep and how New Baby is going to wake up any second, and then my heart starts beating faster and I'm up for another hour. It doesn't help that every major news event seems to happen between the hours of midnight and 4 AM. When I do fall asleep, I have crazy dreams. Last night I dreamed I was talking to Osama bin Laden, and last week I dreamed I interviewed Will and Kate. I may or may not have had a naughty dream about Shawn T from the Insanity workouts too. Oops.

4.Learning from my mistakes.
You think by now I would learn to keep doors shut. The answer to "where is Captain Destructo?" is never good, and usually involves some type of personal care product. Yesterday she rubbed a tube of Desitin in her hair.

So there you have it. Since I also suck at remembering, I'm sure I will add more to this list tomorrow.