Christmas magic

I read somewhere that one perk to having children is that it can give you the first four years of your life back. You can remember through their eyes just how miraculous and freaking incredible every little detail of life is—from the giant trash truck that magically appears every Monday, to the way dry leaves swirl in the wind, to simply adding colored lights to a semi-alive tree in the living room.

Everything is wondrous to Violet right now. Every light-covered house or bush is the most beautiful one she has ever seen. Adam and I are frequently called “the best” simply for doing the things we’ve been doing every day. But because the bedtime story now involves Rudolph, it’s the best one ever.

Today Violet decided it needed to snow. Of course, it’s 60 degrees outside and the last time LA ever saw snow was 1962 (I love the internet). But that didn’t stop her. She stuck on some boots, crunched up some sheets of computer paper and had herself a good, old-fashioned snowball fight. After the snowball fight (which I totally won with my ginormous imaginary snowball) we made snow angels (or princesses) on the living room rug.

Beckett played along happily, rolling back and forth on the floor squealing with glee.

Then we sang some Christmas songs and made hot cocoa.

And the best part? Not having to peel them out of soggy, semi-frozen marshmallow-man body suits afterward.

But the kid inside of me is looking forward to having snow in Colorado at Christmas. Even a 30-year-old still finds that magical.

The dentist...da, da, dum

A couple days ago Violet had a dentist appointment. She was completely thrilled. And I mean the kind of thrilled that is lacking any kind of sarcastic inflection whatsoever. I told her she would get a new toothbrush after her appointment. Add to that the memory of the giant toy bin she got to pick from at her last checkup and her inner hoarder was completely psyched.

But then, dot, dot, dot, we get her in the chair, Peter Pan playing on the little TV overhead and the little stinker refuses to open her mouth. The dentist finally coaxed her into letting her at least look at her teeth – but don’t touch them! – and was completely gracious and encouraging to Violet about being so brave.

And I was like, “Really?” The girl barely had a bicuspid tickled. Seriously. I distinctly remember being practically strapped into a dentist chair as a kid so my teeth could be scraped clean until my whole mouth was throbbing. And there was no blueberry-chocolate-macadamia-nut fluoride crap back then. It was not pleasantly flavored whatsoever. And I was lucky to get a sticker. This kid ends up with a bag full of goodies AND now she knows there is a movie called Peter Pan which she is insisting we must have owned at one point before someone stole it from us. Because there cannot be any other logical reason for not owning every single Disney movie in existence. I don’t know where she gets these conspiracy theories.

But of course we’re building the cornerstones for future dentist visits—so she can look back at this one and smile and remember happy times and stickers and sparkly fairies. 

And she really did try to be brave. She didn't run screaming from the office, after all, which based on her temperament lately is quite an achievement. But I’m still a little bitter about the candy-flavored fluoride.

The mind of an almost-four-year-old

It takes about seven minutes to go from Violet's preschool to our house. This stream of consciousness took about one-seventh of that.

“Look at that sign, Mama. It's a cat. Wearing a hat. That’s so silly. Isn't that silly, Mama?”

“Who’s in that taxi? Where are they going? Do they want to come to our house? I think they're going the wrong way.”

“Remember when Paco made that rat dead and we found it in the backyard? What do rats eat? Why aren’t they purple? Or pink. Pink would be OK too.”

“Why don’t snakes have legs? They’re really slithery but if they had legs they could walk. Geckos and chameleons have legs.”

“Beckett’s a boy and I’m a girl and you’re a girl and Daddy’s a boy. That's two boys and two girls.”

“When I was up in heaven with Jesus before you had me in your tummy, what was I doing up there? Do angels like playing dress up?”

“Why can’t I see the baby inside Alexa's mommy’s tummy? I think the baby would be happy if it had a window.”

“I’m sleepy, Mama.”

My new baby

I got an iPhone over the weekend. Initially I was just excited to get any phone that worked when I needed it to. My last phone took an unexpected dip in the kiddie pool and I’m pretty sure it came out possessed by something unholy and annoying. 

I didn’t really understand all the hype about iPhones before this. I’d seen them before and played with friends’ phones but I guess it’s kind of like kids—when you have your own it’s just different somehow. And by different, I mean awesome. 

It has this thing called Siri on it—evidently new to this operating system. Basically it’s this little woman hiding inside your phone that can find restaurants, set up reminders, find out random stuff, and field questions from an almost-four-year-old. You just push a button and ask away and Siri does her best to answer you. Today Violet asked her where she lived and Siri replied, “I’m not allowed to tell you that.” Violet was a little miffed but then went on to tell her about our cat, Paco, and to ask if Siri had any cats. Siri is very patient.

If only she were available for babysitting.

Paco loves having his picture taken with my new iPhone

Somewhat festive fall wreath

Last week I had this brilliant idea that we were going to make a fall wreath for the door. Violet had been asking for Halloween decorations for weeks. I think she was leaning more toward the ghost/spiders/dead-men-rising-from-the-ground variety, but I’m a wimp when it comes to scary, and also, I really wanted to use spray glitter.

So we walked around the block picking up any leaves that we could find—which mainly just came from the trees in our own front yard because everyone else sucks and doesn’t have trees with removable leaves. But we had a nice little collection of them, even had some bark and a few dead bugs courtesy of Beckett.

I found a plain little wreath at the dollar store and we hot glued the leaves and bark on to it (I left the bugs outside). Then I took it outside and spray painted the crap out of it. I kind of want to cover the world with spray paint glitter.

When Violet saw it after her nap she declared it was, “G-G-Gor-GEOUS!”

(She really likes the Glee spoof from Sesame Street. We watch it pretty much every day.)

Anyway, it’s a happy little wreath for as long as it decides to last and it made our pretty purple door a little more festive—without having to resort to severed heads and skulls and stuff like that.

Weather notes

It's been hot here this week. Way too hot for October. It just makes me grumpy. So does sleep deprivation. And since a certain nineteen-month-old has decided 5am is a great hour to greet the day, I'm double-grumpy lately.

Some friends invited us over for a backyard pool playdate a couple days ago, which was refreshing. Especially since all the kids decided the water was more fun when it was being splashed on the mamas.

I guess my inner midwesterner just won't give up the idea that October = chilly. Even Violet seems to be perplexed by my desire for cable-knit. Just today I wrapped a cozy scarf around my neck when it suddenly became foggy and delicious outside and Violet was all, "Why is that scarf so BIG, Mama?"

"To keep me warm, sweetie."

"But it is warm, Mama."

I know, hon. Just let Mama pretend for a moment that the pumpkins on the front porch actually belong there and this cup of coffee isn't burning me alive from the inside out.

Pit stop

Without fail, every time we go on a car trip that lasts more than three seconds, Violet has to go potty. It doesn’t matter if she went right before we left or if I refused to let her drink anything all morning (which I have never done) she always has to go.

And every time I mention this to Adam he suggests, being the king of logic that he is, that I put the little pink training potty in the back of the van for bathroom-related emergencies. And I’ve thought about it, but that little pink potty is out in the storage shed and there are spiders out there. Big ones.

So of course today on our way to the zoo just as we entered a stretch of the 405 that has no exits Violet announced from the back seat that she needed to go potty. NOW!

I promised that we would find a bathroom soon but in the meantime, look at those pretty clouds—aren’t those the prettiest clouds you’ve ever seen?

“I’m going to peeeeeeeee!”

“OK, honey, hang on, I’m getting off right now!”

Thankfully, angels built a Mobil station just off the 101 and I managed to maneuver into the smallest parking spot known to man.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Beckett had fallen asleep in the backseat. Quick back story:  he woke up at 5am this morning. Five. Eh. Em. And was grumpier than a one-eyed cat. And we were going to the zoo for the afternoon where he would need to sort of behave for at least two solid hours. So I was a bit put off at the thought of waking him up to lug him into a plague-infested gas station bathroom.

But those angels had foresight and believe it or not, that bathroom was located right next to the parking spot. I mean, I could have spit and hit the toilet. Well, no, I probably would have just slobbered on myself, but either way, the bathroom was close enough to the car that I felt somewhat safe leaving him inside for a few moments. Don’t judge me. I took all the guns and knives with me.

So I grabbed Violet out of the van and propelled her to the bathroom, all the while she’s clutching her nether-regions and yelling, “It’s coming! It’s coming now!”

Of course there would be a crowd of people milling about just outside the bathroom door. Why wouldn’t there be?

OK, it was only one lady who seemed a little drunk anyway, but I know she was judging me.

But all the stars aligned and Violet made it to the potty in time, Beckett stayed asleep, and we managed to back out of the parking spot with little or no damage to the car.

All in all, a successful pit stop.