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Wednesday, February 3rd

Pictures, quickly

Hey, it's only the first week of February. I guess I should get around to posting a couple of Christmas pictures right? And then I can go take down my Christmas tree or something.

(Just kidding. I take down the tree on New Year's Day, religiously. And like the heathen I am, this year I waited until the day after New Year's Day. It was so exhausting that only now am I getting around to Christmas pictures. That's my story. And that's all I'm gonna say.)

Anyway.

Dessa in her Christmas finery in front of our fireplace:

She got an easel and paints from Santa and Grandma, respectively (how Grandma knew exactly what Santa was bringing and thus paired her gifts accordingly is one of the great grandmotherly mysteries of our time!) Here's our budding Picasso:

And just in case you were thinking I exaggerated about the multitudes of plush bedtime friends? This one was taken about 15 minutes ago as I was putting Dess to sleep. Can you find her amongst the rabble? (And yes, she does sleep in that direction. A few weeks ago she decided that was the way to sleep and no amount of cajoling will convince her to put her head on the pillow at the headboard. We let it go. Pick your battles and all that.)

More soonest. For now, I need to go work out.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 02/03/2010 at 07:46 PM [1 Comment - Go read it!]

Friday, January 22nd

Manipulated Mama

We've been dealing with a Dessa sponsored nap strike at our house lately. While she sleeps just nifty-keen at Nana's, she has decided that her room chez nous is a veritable playground ripe for joyous madcap adventuring. Fact is, she's pretty accurate in her summation, as her bed looks more like the plush animal section of FAO Schwartz than a sleeping platform most of the time.

She's graduated from Dee-Dah (her sheep hand puppet) and a book to greater things. I don't exactly know how it happened, but along with her (two!) baby blankets, comforter and a pillow, Dessa is usually joined in bed by the following cadre of "friends":
- a Tinkerbell pillow and matching blanket (shout out to Jeannie - she lurves it!)
- Mickey Mouse
- Minnie Mouse
- a blue and white stuffed soccer ball from IKEA
- Dee-Dah the sheep puppet
- her baby doll "Baby"
- a yellow rubber duckie

and her most recent addition, an enormous stuffed hippo that's at least 2 feet tall (shout out to the fam in Oregon!). His name is George, after Dessa's favorite book-based hippo couple "George and Martha".

This makes, as you can imagine, for a rather crowded bed situation.

I actually have absolutely no problem with her friends being in bed with her. When I was a kid I was mostly restricted to one or two bedtime companions and it never made sense to me. Who cares how many stuffed animals I packed in there as long as I slept? And Dessa generally does sleep just fine, so the ongoing addition of plushy bedmates doesn't cause me any alarm. Plus, it gives me a bargaining chip when she's being naughty. As in:

"Do I need to come in there and take your friends?" (This makes me feel like an ogre by the way. Who threatens to take people's friends from them!? A sad accident of nomenclature, I'm afraid, but still.)

"No!"

"Then be quiet and go to sleep!"

Long, thoughtful pause...

"OK!"

But sometimes even that backfires and the conversation goes more like this:

"Do I need to come in there and take your friends?"

Long, thoughtful pause...

"OK!"

And then I go into Dessa's room and she, in a display of pique I thought I would get to see only at 13 years of age, is flinging her friends to the ground in an attempt to assist me in evacuating them from her presence.

She's so helpful.

Sometimes the conversations go on a bit longer because I want to argue (after spending my work time with 8th graders, of course I want to argue with a two and a half year old! Why do you ask?). I firmly and resolutely repeat the refrain "Dessa, go to sleep!" and she offers her rationales as to why that's not in her best interest:

"But I don't want to go to sleep!" (this piteously whined, "But I don't waaaaaant to go to sleeeeeeep!" as in "I don't waaaaaant my fingernails pulled oooooout!")

or the ever popular:

"It's NOT nigh-night time!" (this is generally in rotation when it is so far past nigh-night time that the next bedtime is visible on the horizon. In effect, she is right. It's not nigh-night time. Nigh-night time was TWO HOURS AGO!)

or a personal favorite of mine, "No!" Its simplicity is its beauty, you see.

The other night she hit a real whopper of a fit and busted out with the manipulation. In general Dessa's not at all manipulative yet. Oh I know it will come, but she's still in the earnestly honest stage at the moment. Well, usually. Unless she asks for something and is denied. Lordy does she hate that, mostly because, it must be said, she asks so nicely. "May I please have...?" she'll go. Or, "May I have a..., please?" - just as we've taught her. And then, like bitches, we say no.

And she? Is NOT BEST PLEASED.

So then she approaches the other parent and asks again. Nicely. Painfully nicely. And so we're tasked with making sure she understands that Daddy and Mommy are a team and we play by the same rules, so it's naughty to ask one of us for permission and if you don't like the answer, approach the other parent. This leads to a lot of "Did you ask Mommy?", "Yes", "And what did she say?", followed by mystified and very sad silence because what Dessa wants to say is "Yes! Yes! Dear God yes, Mommy said I could have my fourth cup of chocolate milk of the day!" but she knows that what I actually did just say is... "Nope".

Anyway, after using all her tried and true favorites to get us to release her from the prison that is bed at 8 pm, holy Christ we should be reported to CPS!, after pulling out what Dave and I call "the fakey cry" (the whiny one with no tears whatsoever) and being told in no uncertain terms to "Be quiet and go nigh-night!" she yelled with all her might the one thing that she thought would bring down all the walls of Jericho at her feet, the only pronouncement guaranteed to bring her parents running to her side:

"I DON'T LOVE YOU!!!!"

Was it wrong that Dave and I were laughing too hard to mount the stairs?

**********
P.S. - Yes, I know. I KNOW. I will really try to do better. And I know I owe you pictures. This weekend. Really. Fer sure. Kisses!

Posted by GoddessKristin on 01/22/2010 at 09:20 AM [3 Comments - Read 'em!]

Tuesday, December 15th

Quickly

This is how much full-time work and parenting have taken out of me.

The other day Dave, Dess and I were at the bookstore. After a fun-filled excursion replete with the constant chorus, "Dess, honey, put that down" and "Dessa, come back here", I made my selections, paid and was heading to the door. While passing a particularly colorful display, one of the book titles caught my eye and, laughing, I turned to Dave.

"My god, who on earth would buy 'The Sylvia Plath Cookbook'??" I wondered aloud.

He looked at me like I was nuts, returned to the display and pointed out that the title of the book was not, in fact, my absurd interpretation (I mean, really! "The Sylvia Plath COOKBOOK"??? The hell?) but something far more logical. It was, in fact, "The Silver Palate Cookbook".

I used to be so lucid. What in heaven's name happened?

Posted by GoddessKristin on 12/15/2009 at 02:24 PM [1 Comment - Go read it!]

Monday, November 16th

Have you seen this?

You need to see this.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 11/16/2009 at 02:40 PM [1 Comment - Go read it!]

Wednesday, October 7th

Trip Report

Where shall I start?

We definitely have a Disneyland lover on our hands, though what kid doesn't like Disneyland?

She was a champ on the plane. We were a little leery of flying since Dessa doesn't like loud noises and can really freak out if things get loud. I could just imagine a terrified girl screaming for the whole flight. But we got her settled in her seat and she was totally interested in everything. As we got up to speed she just looked out the window and demanded to know when we would be in the clouds. And then we took off and she was calm as anything. I'd brought some movies on my video iPod and tricked her out with headphones and she watched "101 Dalmatians" and ate airplane cookies for much of the flight. A real angel.

She loved meeting the characters. We'd shown her pictures and Travel Channel shows where kids were meeting the characters so she knew they were going to be big. She went right up to most of them and hugged and hugged. The first day we made a beeline for the Winnie the Pooh ride because it's gentle - we thought that'd be a good introduction. It definitely was, and then we got to meet Pooh himself!

A few minutes after that picture was taken, Auntie Mandy got Dess her first pair of ears and she wore them continuously for the next 4 days. She probably would have slept in the darn things if we'd let her. She cracked me up. And I think Minnie was impressed, too.

She met this guy a few times and was pretty tickled with each visit.

Since the park was decorated for Halloween, a lot of the characters had on their holiday garb. Dessa likes Goofy but this particular costume made her a little nervous so Nana went with her to meet The Goof.

Same problem with this rather creepy version of Donald Duck:

The daily parade at Disneyland is a music and dance extravaganza with tons of characters and audience participation. The characters come right up to the kids and interact (Stitch from "Lilo and Stitch" came over to Dessa's stroller and played with her at the beginning of the parade when we saw it the first time but I didn't have my camera ready. I learned to have the darn thing prepped but although we saw the parade twice it didn't happen again). At one point in the parade they invite kids to come out and dance and then later they invite them back out to join in a conga-type line where they hold a rope and go around the floats seeing the characters.

Well, we weren't sure if Dessa would be OK with all that but once she was out of her stroller, she was into it. She danced in the street and when I pulled her back she insisted, "I want to dance with Pluto again!" Then the dancers invited the kids out for the conga line and one of the cast members took Dessa's hand and just led her off to the party. And off she went:

I don't think she quite knew what to make of it but she was wide-eyed and taking it all in. None of us went with her - she just did her own thing. It was about the cutest thing ever.

Dessa was most enamored of the Dumbo ride (how did I know?), It's a Small World, the Monorail, the train and Winnie the Pooh. She liked a lot of other things as well but those were huge hits. She wasn't sure she wanted to go on some things, but once on, she loved them. Case in point? The rockets, which she rode with me.

She had the same reaction to the various carousels. Wanted to go on them, then fought not to sit down, then loved the ride. She's a weirdo sometimes.

I particularly like this shot of my two honeys in the Happiest Place on Earth.

All in all we had a fantastic trip and I'd go back with her again in a heartbeat. We may have to, and soon, since the minute she woke up on Saturday morning (in her own bed here at home), she informed Dave that we had to "go to the airport and go to Disneyland now!"

Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, kiddo. Your Mommy is up for it anytime you are.

Posted by GoddessKristin on 10/07/2009 at 08:53 PM [1 Comment - Go read it!]