See, I'm a Good Helper

I promise, Mommy, if I do this I'll stay clean.


See?

Spice Up Your Life

Oh, the horror.

This was the very first thing Clara did this morning after being released from her mandatory breakfast confinement.


Sob.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part the aftermath

Out of the garage in four minutes. Streets a little backed up. Kristin put it best: if I had to see the spice girls I guess the box is the way to do it.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 23

Spice up your life ... Great closing. Sign said mission accomplished. Ears not working. Screams crazy.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 22

Wanna be rocked.

Spice Up Your Life again.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 21

If you can't dance? All the girls in boxing robes. Hiding the next costume underneath. (Was a dance interlude to Humpty Dance.) Robes off screams up.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 20

Goodbye was amazing. They're not lip syncing everything. Betting wanna be is the encore.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 19

One of my favorite songs: Goodbye. Came to sit next to my lovey love. She's the cutest in the world.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 18

That's the way I like it turned into we are family. Are we playing older songs to appeal to the parents or are they royalty free?

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 17

Scary thanked everyone for her dancing with the stars votes. (When they danced earlier, she rocked.)

Celebrate Good Times. Hello band. Hello dancers. (Someone is off key.)

Update: Let's Dance and Shout Everybody on to the Ground. Mel C. is jumping and the crowd is mimicking. The floor is rocking.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 16

Ginger just took a video camera from the crowd. Dang!!! They're passing it around. For a few minutes. Wow.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 15

Sporty rocked. Ah, my Sporty.

Another song from the Geri-free years. Girls on different parts of stage. Posh and Sporty on our side. Bliss.

Let love lead the way.

Song ended. Geri is back. All the girls together.

Next song is ... hold for screaming ... (Pictures of girls as children) .... Milking it .... Song for all the mommies out there ...

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 14

The male dancers just ripped off their shirts. Not very manly men, but technically men.

Sporty doing techno. Must watch.

Song is I turn to you.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 13

Ginger's "solo" interlude: Its Raining Men. Even the lady from corporate finally knows one!!

Loud and rocking. These speakers are amazing.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 12

Viva Forever was nice. At the end Ginger disappeared into the floor before the closing line: "searching for the one". Good riddance.

Now Holler. Love this song. Whoa. Shocking. The dancers on all fours with leashes. Girls walking behind them.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 11

Interlude led to the most amazing Who Do You Think You Are.

Amazing!!!!!!

Ginger in the union jack. Baby in a baby doll dress. Posh in an amazing black dress. Scary in a leopard body suit. Sister has a little weight from the baby and looks sexy as h*ll. Glad they are accepting a fuller woman. Sporty in a track suit. Purple even.


Now posh vogueing to Like a Virgin. She did a runway walk to deafening screams. Dang they even have a wind machine on her!

The Scary doing "Gotta Go My Way."

What next? Two single spice events. Who's next?

Baby doing retro sixties. Cubes moving all over the stage. She's walking from one to one. Awesome!!!

Whoa. Gypsy Kings!!!! For whom? Wait. Gypsy Kings gone TECHNO.

Dancers trying to look manly doing flamenco. Laughable. But good dancers. Amazing production quality.

The girls are back!!!!

Viva Forever. Amazing arrangement.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 10

Costume change interlude has amazing music and dancing!!

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 9

Okay, I'm outting ZZ.
He's here. And just proclaimed, "I'm a Spice Man."

Granted it was after a song with the ladies in not-much clothing.

Now on to 2 Become 1. This is rocking.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 8

She's a tramp? Something like that. Was fun.

Now a totally swung out version of Too Much! AWESOME.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 7

Dancers are killing time. Can you say fruity dancermen? Costume change. Ladies just reappeared!

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 6

The scripted banter is none-the-less enjoyable. Now on to a slow song I don't know. (The horror.)

Let's talk about the ladies. Sporty looks amazing as always. She's got her little tattoos that are tasteful and tasty. Also sporting the cool eye shadow. Man she's hot. And she is a showman. She's rocking this song!

Scary has obviously had a child and almost "busts" out of her shirt. She's also with it tonight.

Posh, former love of mine (pre fake boobs and skinniness) looks great and is drinking in adoration.

Baby is growing on me. Used to annoy me but has matured into a glamorous woman.

Ginger, always me least favorite, has puffy eyes and is totally flat. She's also toothpick thin. Very unattractive.

Sad. The ladies just disappeared into the floor.Photo courtesy of ZZ

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 5

Ginger is totally flat.

Always hated her.

Love me my Sporty and Posh!

Posh getting loudest cheers.

Now to Say You'll There.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 4

Opened with Spice Up Your Life.

Now Stop.

Was right on with the screens. Saw their heads in the floor - they raised out of there.

Bad lip sync for first song. Singing now.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 3

Lights just went down!!!

I'm losing my hearing.

Thousands of girls screaming.

And me.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls, Part 2

Smoke machine has started. Little girls are screaming. Mothers trying to relate to their teenage daughters are playing along.

Kristin is not pleased.

Blogging the Event: Spice Girls

Here Kristin & I sit. In the Post box at the Verizon center. Waiting for the Spice Girls concert to start.

Kristin is mortified.

I am so excited.

In the Wake of Disease

Lately various forms of illness have been spreading throughout our group of friends, and up until now I've been lucky enough to avoid it all. My luck has run out. Fortunately it seems to be just a head cold (which is better than what most of our friends have had), but it was enough to keep me up most of last night. So this tired mom spent most of the day sitting on the floor, feebly trying to interact with my little one as she went about her day. Given that I was just not feeling well enough to either object or keep up, she took full advantage of the situation. Behold the aftermath:






These pictures were taken around mid-day...it only got worse from there. And keep in mind this is just the main floor. We won't talk about the bedrooms.

Something About Presidents

Today is Monday, but my daddy was home today. Mommy told me why, and it's something about presidents, but I don't know what a president is. All I know is I got to play with Daddy again today instead of only seeing him at dinner and bath time.

This morning I sat with him and he showed me some videos on his really cool iPod. I think the little earphone was the best, especially when Daddy let me hold it myself. I kept putting it next to my ear and moving it away to see what would happen. It worked best when it was right next to my ear.


Since it was so nice this morning, Mommy and I went to the grocery store to get some food for a picnic with Daddy. We went to a place called Frying Pan Park and had lunch and then went to see some animals. They have a small farm at the park with cows and sheep and pigs. Mommy says they have more animals during the summer and we'll have to go back when it gets warmer.

First we saw some little cows who kept poking their heads out of the fence and trying to nibble and lick me. That was pretty funny.



Then we walked over to another barn where there were some mama sheep with their little babies.



We saw some pigs too, but they were really smelly and it was really muddy around their pens so we didn't look for too long. I started to get tired before we could find the chickens, but I did get to see some flocks of birds flying around. Daddy says they were pigeons, and that pigeons are the rats of the sky. What does that mean?

Then for dinner we went to this new restaurant because Daddy and Mommy had a buy one, get one free coupon. I really liked their black beans. I mean, really, really, really. Mommy wished she had the camera because I was such a mess when I was done. People in the restaurant kept coming over and laughing. I laughed too, because I like it when people pay attention to me.

I think I like this whole president thing. Can we do it again next week?

Valentines

Today Kristin and Clara made valentines! This is an event of considerable consternation, as Kristin and I do not celebrate Valentines Day. If you can't say "I love you" the other 364 days of the year, one day does not sufficient atonement make. You may say that in my mind Valentines Day is the death-bed confession of relationships. Though it may seem to the contrary, we're not quite to the "death bed" stage of our relationship. Regardless, Kristin strapped Clara in her high chair, gave her paper and crayons, and away she drew.

Clara chose winter colors to express her point of view that, even in the declining years, one can yet experience joy through loving and being loved. Overlapping abstract constructs demonstrate the coming-together of individuals, and arcs and lines cutting across the canvas showing how both space and time are overcome by love's power. One final touch, the use of pen, juxtaposes mortal physical love with the deeper eternal metaphysical connection.

I hope the grandparents are appropriately touched when they receive the valentines.

Overheard on the Couch

"... from the first time you laid eyes on me and were smitten by my manly charms."

"Don't make me laugh: I have to pee."

Where is the love?

Lost Recap: Confirmed Dead

1. Primary objectives. Sounding a little Star-Treky.
2. Sayeeeeeeeeed!
3. Ben: "Me, James, they want me." Best character and best actor.

Paradigm Shifts

When we embarked on this parenting thing nearly 14 months ago I didn't really have much of an idea of what to expect. I knew that we would be welcoming a miniature human into our midst, but what does that really mean? I didn't realize just how flexible my mental state would need to become just to keep up with the never-ending change that Clara has brought to our family. Now I do.

Looking back, I realize that those first few months were kind; the changes to her eat/poop/cry/sleep/repeat routine were gradual, and even though sleep deprivation is cruel, at least I knew where I would find her at any given moment. Even when she began to roll over it wasn't like she could get away very quickly. Then over the course of about six months came solid foods, crawling, babbling (loudly), standing, reaching, stair-climbing, and more. The pace picked up but was still reasonable; I mean, I could still reach things more quickly than she could.

And now we arrive at the present day.

Oh.

My.

Goodness.

Clara started walking almost exclusively on Christmas day, and it seems like that was the major developmental leap where infancy was left behind and childhood began with this lovely stage known as toddlerhood. Her physical and mental capacity expands each day and I feel like I'm running to keep up. Instead of having two months to adjust to having a baby who can hold her head up I now have two minutes (tops) to adjust to having a child who can now reach into the silverware drawer.

We now have a toddler who is aware of what she wants when she wants it, and tries desperately to communicate those wants even though all she can say is da-da, ma-ma, ra-ra (Clara), that, and no (my personal favorite, of course). The result is often much pointing, grunting, and crying if I don't get it right. Some signs are pretty clear, though; when she's hungry she'll run over to her highchair and try to take the tray off, and in the evenings near bedtime she'll ask to be picked up then points to the stairs as if to say, "Bed. Now." She's also quite adept at the "rag doll" move; if you're holding her and she wants down she'll just go limp and try to drop out of your arms, or if she's walking and you try to guide her in a certain direction she'll just lay down on the ground. This happens in public quite often.

Her climbing skills are improving all the time as well; just a couple of days ago she made it up onto her kid-size table.


I'm sure it'll be only a matter of days before she masters the dining room table as well. Her problem-solving abilities are also becoming more advanced; she now realizes that her little chairs can be pushed around and used to give her a height advantage. I caught her trying to scale the piano today by first climbing into her little chair then onto the piano bench. I think she's also grown about four inches in the past week because she can now get items out of the upper drawers in the kitchen, a feat she was unable to perform just a few days ago. It has necessitated some rearranging in order to keep the knives away from little fingers.

She has been able to open doors for about a month now, so the bathroom on our main floor is locked all the time and she makes multiple raids on the pantry every day. A couple of days ago I found her sitting in the pantry with a box of graham crackers, systematically taking one bite out of each before crushing it to smithereens and moving on to the next.



She's becoming much more independent with food in general; she's getting better with silverware and wants whole pieces of fruit instead of the small bites I would prefer she have.


Her sense of humor is developing and she loves to do anything she can to make us laugh. She has this great goofy grin where she smiles wide, squinches up her eyes, and throws her head back.


She loves to play tickle games and hiding games; one of her new favorites is to be covered up with the pillows from the couch and then just lay there laughing and laughing.



She is also very determined to have things her way and will move mountains to accomplish her aims.


If you ask her to find her nose, eyes, mouth, belly-button, or head, most of the time she'll get it right, although sometimes she'll just reach over and try to pick your nose instead. And if you're really lucky she'll try and strip off your shirt in order to find your belly-button. Yesterday she mastered the moo of a cow, although she now uses it as an all-purpose response to a request for any animal sound. Did you know that ducks moo? According to Clara they do.

Are you tired yet? I am, and that's only a fraction of what she has begun to do during the last few weeks. I'm guessing the pace will not become any less frenetic over the next several months and years, hence the daily paradigm shift this mom is experiencing. But you know what? I'm having more fun that I ever expected to. Even though there are days where she wakes up before 6am, takes a one-hour nap, and nearly drives me to try and sell her on Craigslist, I still can't get over how great it is to watch my little baby become my little girl.

I also never expected to have my heart quite so consumed by such a small person, but she's done it. Maybe that's why I never quite make it over to the computer to post that ad.