Look at the Fountain!

This past weekend the girl said her first full sentence! And since she's only 17 months old, I'm going to have to come right out and admit that she is truly a genius.

Anyway, her most favorite word for the last three or four months has been, "LOOK!!!" Said just like that, with all-caps. She relishes the ability to make you look at something. I suppose at some point we'll have to teach her that this is a quite juvenile way to engage in humor, but until she's old enough to understand the word juvenile, I assume we'll have to put up with this kind of thing!

I've gotten very used to her pointing at things and saying, "LOOK!!!" at which point, I will look in the general direction and say, "Yes, I see the kitty!" or whatever else I think she might be looking at until I guess the correct thing and she stops saying "LOOK!!!"

So, on Saturday, she was looking out the window at our finally finished back patio, saying, "LOOK!!!" I couldn't see anything she was looking at, so I asked her, "What? What do you see?" And she said, "Look at the fountain!" Just like that. Not "Look fountain" or "Look at fountain" but "Look at the fountain!"

Ok, ok, I suppose it's possible that her tongue just somehow stumbled over some sounds and made it sound like she said those specific words and I suppose that anyone who doesn't hear her on a day-to-day basis and knows how to decifer her language might not have actually heard those words, but I'm telling you, it was clear as day.

In fact, yesterday as we were walking over a bridge close to our house, she said, "Look at the truck!" and pointed at the construction trucks that were down below us.

Of course, hubby thinks I'm overexaggerating her volubility (yep, used a thesaurus to come up with that one) and doesn't seem to want to believe me. It doesn't help that when he asks her about it, she either looks at him with a blank expression or responds, "Dikuh badah kup."

But it was real and I'm marking it in her baby book.

Bakalah!

Since both hubby's and my clothing has seemed to be shrinking lately, we've decided we'd really better get back into some kind of exercise routine. We're also hoping that adding exercise back into our lives will help us to stretch our patience a little further than the current 2-second breaking point.

Anyway, we prefer to do things all together as a family, so going for bike rides is a perfect way for us to get some exercise while the kids get to see all kinds of cool things like trains, ducks, bayous, and puppies. :)

Both kids like to go for bike rides and the girl has taken to expressing her excitement every time we mention going bicycling by raising her arms over her head and yelling, "Bakalah!" Which, obviously means, Bicycle!

HAAARRRRDDD!

As I stated before, I became interested in curling during the Olympics and subjected the family to several hours worth of exciting curling coverage while we were on our vacation (and even after we got home!).

For those of you who didn't watch this riveting sport, one player slides a large "stone" down the ice and once they let go of it, it's up to the other members of the team to sweep the ice to make sure the rock goes where they want it to go. The person who initially throws the stone, watches it travel down the ice and yells to the other players whether or not they should sweep. They will yell things like, "Yes!" or "No, no..." or "Hard!", making anyone in an adjoining room, unable to see the TV, wonder what in the world you might be watching.

So, every once in a while now, the boy will go get his little broom that came with his Dirt Devil play set and start sweeping away at the floor, yelling, "HAAARRRRDDD!!"

I'm so proud.

Redundant Hdrs

About 10 times each day, when I walk down the hallway and past the piping group's aisle, I read this note on the wall of one of the piping engineers' cubicles: "Redundant Hdrs"

It refers to the client's insane idea that if we were to include two loops of piping (redundant headers) for each of the plant's utilities, then the plant would never have to stop production in case of required maintenance or a leak in one of these utility headers. They actually made us include these redundant headers in our design for several months until they finally got wise and determined that it was going to cost them way too much for all these extra one-mile-long pieces of piping (the plant is gigantic, I must say) and it really wouldn't make the plant be able to always be on-production, so then we had to delete them all out of our design.

Anyway, every time I walk past and see that note, I read in my head, "Redundant Hors d'Hoeurves" ......Huh?!!

Apparently I'm much more obsessed with food than I'd like to admit.

Pedicure results

Well, the pedicure on Friday went well. I managed to survive without somehow embarrassing myself completely.

However, I wouldn't say that I'm going to become a pedicure "junkie" anytime soon. It was fine and my toes look nice now, but I'm not sure they look nice enough to justify the $45 price tag for the "spa pedicure". I'm so cheap!!!

The woman (no men working in the pedicure area, by the way) who did my pedicure was very nice and didn't laugh at my feet. She even found my pinky toe toenail and was able to paint it. I was impressed.

The chairs had heating and massage capability built into them, so that was interesting to play around with. But to tell you the truth, I was so pre-0ccupied with watching what the woman was doing, I didn't really notice much about the chair until the very end.

I got a little worried when she brought out what appeared to be some wire-cutters and began cutting my cuticles and toenails with them. One wrong move with those things and you would be a world of hurt!!! Luckily, she seemed to be very familiar with the instruments of the trade and I survived unscathed.

I would post a picture of my toes, but I haven't figured out exactly how to do that yet. I'll check into it...

So, overall, it was fine. It wasn't earth-shattering or life-changing. Just fine. I can't see myself wanting to make it a habit. Maybe if there's some kind of really special occasion where I needed to have nice looking feet, like a... ummm..... well, I can't think of anything that would be so special I would need nice looking feet. Looks like I'm not getting another pedicure any time soon.

UPDATE:

I think I may have figured out how to post a picture of my pretty toes...

Our Vacation

So, I never did post an update on how we spent our vacation back in February.

The vacation was horrible and relaxing, great fun and stressful. I guess it's what every vacation with small children is like!

The vacation was inaugurated by the boy deciding to not eat any of his normal foods for the first four days, existing only on that one toddler foodgroup: Goldfish.

This, of course, caused all kinds of annoyance to hubby and me, leaving us just as on-edge as the boy was. Once we finally decided "to hell with it, let him starve!!" the boy started eating again.

The boy also decided to begin using the one word, with which I'm pretty sure all parents have a love/hate relationship: "WHY?!" And he hasn't stopped saying it since then.

While I know that it's an important milestone in a child's development, I swear, every night as I'm going to bed that if I hear that word one more time, I'm going to go Van Gogh and cut off both my ears and then stick some crocheting needles in there just to finish off the deal.

To make matters worse, the girl has begun it too. Now all we hear around the house is a chorus of tiny voices saying, "Why? Why? Why? WHY?!...." I'm surprised the cat hasn't joined in.

Getting back to the vacation... We took the kids out sledding every day. It was difficult to get them out in the snow because the boy, of course, didn't want to wear his snow pants. He seemed to be generally freaked out by the entire vacation experience and forcing him to wear these weird things was just too much.

But once we actually got outside and in the snow, he had a lot of fun. And the girl enjoyed it, too. Every time we asked her if she wanted to go out sledding, she would raise both arms over her head and exclaim, "Woo hoo!!!" Very cute.

Hubby and I took turns skiing. One of us would go in the morning while the other was sledding with the kids, then the other would go during "naptime" and get in a couple of hours.

Ah, "naptime". Notice I didn't say during "naps". Neither of the kids took naps the entire time we were there. That was both good and bad. On the one hand, that left us with two manic, over-tired kids the entire time. On the other hand, it meant we put them to bed early every night and we ended up with the rest of the evening to sit and watch the Olympics!

This was the highlight of the vacation for me: watching the Olympics. I LOVE the Olympics. And during this Olympics, I became a fan of curling!!! For some strange reason, I found it fascinating. Even though I had to watch 2 hours of coverage just to see the outcome of the game, I couldn't tear myself away from it. I've decided it's my new favorite Olympic sport. (Ok, not really, but it's close!)

Anyway, the best quotes from the trip:

The boy, in response to a woman's question on the parking shuttle bus at the end of the trip - The woman said, "Do you love your baby sister?" The boy replied, "Yes. Her so cute. And she's got pockets!" (showing just how tired he was - he becomes like a sloppy drunk when he's tired - you have no idea what he's going to say, what he's thinking about, and it usually causes him to begin radomly spouting, "I loooovvve you. I want to give you a kiss....")

The girl, as previously stated, "Woo Hoo!!!" to any mention of sledding.

H-I-J

So, as I was getting ready to go to my pedicure, hubby and I were discussing what he and the kids should do tonight.

I said, "Maybe you could go to C-H-I-C-K-F-I-L-A"

Husband said, "Yeah, or I was thinking we could go to W-E-N-D-Y-apostrophe-S"

The boy said, without missing a beat, "Or maybe we could go to H-I-J!" (?????)

I had such a hard time not laughing...

Big Plans

Big plans for the weekend? Well, tonight I'm going to get a pedicure for the very first time. A friend of mine is treating a group of us to pedicures tonight.

I'm a little nervous. Since I've never had a pedicure, I keep wondering if the person giving me the pedicure is going to exclaim, "Wow, I've never seen something like that before!" When she/he sees my dolphin-shaped little pinky toes that have virtually no toenails on them. And that would really be saying something, taking into consideration how many feet they must have seen.

I wonder how in the world she/he (are there actually any men who give pedicures? I doubt it, but I wouldn't know because I've never gotten one before!) will ever get any toenail polish on it. Surely she/he will not do what I always do, which is just paint the entire area around the nail and then assume that after a couple of showers, naturally, the only place the polish could still stick would be the nail part. I mean, how am I really supposed to get close enough to my microscopic pinky toe toenail to actually see it and paint only it?!

I'm also nervous because all of my other friends are pedicure pros. Having had so many pedicures in their lives that, I'm sure, they're able to actually tell what is a good pedicure and what is a bad pedicure.

I always feel like an out-of-place ugly duckling around this set of friends. I'm the only one who doesn't regularly wear makeup. I'm the only one who doesn't absolutely adore going shopping and buying whatever the most current fashion magazines say you're supposed to buy. I'm the only one who doesn't know the names of all the movie stars and what type of handbag each one owns.

I sometimes wish I could fit in with them a little more, but then when I think how much extra effort that would take, I just can't find the energy to actually want it enough.

I'm happy that I have no idea what to look for in designer handbags and footwear. (the only thing I look for in a purse is a strap long enough so that I can wear it across my body like a Miss America sash, something that would certainly never be found on ME!) Call me practical, call me a bit of a tomboy (except when I really actually want to dress up and look nice and then I'll attempt to knock your socks off), and call me out of style, but I'm pretty sure I can have a whole lot more fun in my jeans and hiking shoes or my biking shorts and funny biking shoes with the cleats on them than I could ever have while wearing stylish clothes and makeup. AND I get to include my hubby and kids in those fun times.

Good times, indeed.

Love it!

I totally want one of these! (thanks, Courtney, for sending me this link!)

But, since I already have a fish tank here at work, I find it wasteful to buy another one. So, would somebody else get one of these, get some fish, and send me a picture of it so that I'll know someone else is enjoying it as much as I would?! :)

The Verdict

Mah-2 is a success!!! The package came in the mail today and according to hubby, the girl grabbed Lamb(2) away from him and hugged him/her immediately. Apparently there was no wide-eyed, surprised, grateful, "thank goodness you found him/her" kind of reaction - only a "it's about time you gave him/her back to me" kind of reaction.

The boy at least said, "You found Lamb!"

Lamb(3) is now safe and secure in a plastic bag with babydoll(2) in our closet, just in case the unthinkable ever happens again. Yes, I was able to find another babydoll just like the boy's beloved. It even has one eye that sticks open and the headband has already been ripped off. Those toy bins are murder at Walmart!