Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2006--The Screamapiller

Halloween 2007--Funshine Bear

Halloween 2008--Minnie Mouse

Halloween 2009--Violet


What I Like to Call Sweet, Sweet Revenge

Pooh Can Keep His Squishy Cute Halloween. BOO!

There is no doubt that our decision to buy a new house in July was a very good one. There are a million reasons why it has been fantabulous, but the neighbor upgrade is a pretty significant one. We have gone from having a neighbor complain to the home owners' association about the swing we had tucked under our deck to having a free swingset walk its way into our yard.

Definitely a neighbor upgrade.

Another clear indication that we are in a good place is that there are Halloween decorations in probably half of the yards in our neighborhood. In fact, despite my love of all things tacky and holiday, we don't have the most yard decorations around. Next year, it's game on. This year, however, here's what we have on display:

Different is OK. Not Better.

The phrase, "I want more for my kids than I had" has always made me uncomfortable. It seems like an excuse, an insult, and a cop out. I think it's fair to say that nearly all parents do the best they can with the resources they have available to them. To say that it wasn't enough, which is what you are saying when you say, "I want more for my kids," is a backhanded criticism of your own parents.

Alexis doesn't have it better than I did. Just different.

My first visit to Disney World was when was for a high school band trip. Alexis has been there twice in three years.

I slept on a fold-out bed in our living room from the time my brother was born until I was seven. Alexis currently has two beds in her room.

I grew up wearing the best Blue Light Specials KMart had to offer. Alexis fell into the Gap the minute she was born.

My mom was more likely to let me go play in traffic than she was to let me squish some Play-Doh. I have chuckled as I cleaned Play-Doh out of Alexis' teeth. Many times.

All of my childhood toys fit in one medium-sized box when I was growing up. Alexis has enough toys to very nearly fill a 15'x15' room.

Perhaps if I had the opportunity to take ballet lessons as a kid, my life would be vastly different. Perhaps I would be more successful. Perhaps I would be better cultured.

But I doubt it.

Alexis doesn't have more. She has it different.

But I Did Have to Walk Uphill Both Ways to School

I should know better than to trust him.

He has tried to control me.

He has worked to trick me.

He has lied to me soooo many times before.

And yet, I brought TomTom with me on this trip. I depended on him to get me from the airport to the hotel. FAIL.

As I pulled out of the airport parking garage, the GPS advised me to stay left. And again. And again. Ten minutes later, I realized I had driven in a full circle. The TomTom wanted me to go back inside the parking garage.

I don't know what that says about how TomTom feels about Atlanta, but I'm thinking it's not good.

As I went all crazy and defiant and veered right to avoid the parking garage, I remembered that TomTom hates me. It's either that, or TomTom really thinks I'm cute when I'm mad.

When the TomTom told me to turn left down a one-way street? I bet I was REAL cute. Having smoke pouring out of your ears always has that effect. When TomTom told me that my hotel was in a mall parking lot? SO ADORABLE!

Way back in time, I traveled for work all the time. I would leave on Sunday night and run around to three or four cities before returning Friday night. I relied heavily on maps, internet directions, and signs. Never once did I wind up driving the wrong way down a one-way street, driving into a parking garage when I didn't want to park, or navigating straight towards a pier.

As I sat in the mall parking lot trying to figure out which way to go, I thought back to the days of yore, looked up, and realized I had been in that mall parking lot before. In fact, I had stayed on that very street for nearly six months early in my consulting career. I'm blaming the fact that every street in Atlanta is named Peachtree something or other for me not realizing that I was headed towards familiar territory. I blame TomTom for making me take THE REALLY FREAKING long way there.

Life was simpler back in the good ol' days of maps and internet directions.

Le Sigh

Today was Day Two of Sick? Not sick? Sick? Not Sick? wherein my mission was detect even the tiniest of fevers. Not that I would ever lie about the health of my kid, but if I had spotted so much as 98.7 on a thermometer, Alexis' little butt was going to the doctor's office. Period. Even if I had to "misread" the thermometer as I reported to the on-call nurse so that there was no waffling about the necessity of the trip.

Of course, since I had the thermometer handy and I was doing my best to impersonate a helicopter parent, I was greeted with a child who was literally bouncing off the walls. LITERALLY. Apparently if you make a kid stay indoors for a couple of days, she will start vibrating. Like, wooooah. She. was. nuts. Even the Bulldog was freaked out and decided to hide in the basement so that no vibrating kids knocked her unconscious.

And then came the time for me to leave. As in, out of town. As in, I needed to leave Mr. Husband home alone with the vibrating preschooler for two days. And guess what! Go ahead, guess!

Her damn fever returned.

Just like that, the poor kid started saying, "I don't feel so good" and laying around on the couch and putting off more heat than a cup of Starbucks coffee. All it took was for Mr. Husband to pull into the driveway and me to grab my suitcase. It was already past hours for the doctor's office and well past the point of return for my trip.

So now I'm sitting in the Pittsburgh Airport and waiting to board a flight while my poor husband gets to deal with a sick kid. All by himself.

Godspeed, Mr. Husband. Godspeed.



(Yes, she's riding her bike in our dining room. Why? Because SHE CAN.)

The Furry Phobia is Still Alive and Well

I often wonder how much of Today Alexis will remember Tomorrow. From the giggles to the tears to everything in between, I have to wonder what is making a lasting impression.

One of the first things I was afraid she would remember, even if only on a subconscious level, was the time she spent in the emergency room when she was three months old. A bad reaction to vaccinations coupled with a very poorly timed cold landed the poor kid front and center of an army of doctors and nurses whose primary task was to get an IV into her arm and a urine sample from the place urine comes from. It. was. awful. She screamed. She cried. She howled. It took several tries for the medical staff to accomplish their goals, and each and every second of it was the very definition of a nightmare.

I would not have been surprised if some part of her brain had grabbed hold of the image of doctors and needles and decided they were Evil. Phobias have to start somewhere, right? It would be completely understandable if she had come out of that mess with one heck of a phobia. I know *I* did.

The whole big mess was prominent in my mind today as I sat at home with a feverish and fatigued 3-year old version of that kid. She was very nearly as miserable as she was the day she found herself in the ER, the only difference being that she now has the power of words to keep her from getting dehydrated. I hounded her about drinking some water, and she did a good job of telling me where to shove that cup as she sucked down the liquid. I decided to overlook the sass since she was, you know, actually listening to what I was saying.

Her fever was such where a trip to the pediatrician's office was sort of an option, not necessarily a must. Given that there have been several confirmed cases of H1N1 at her preschool, I was leaning towards STOP THINKING AND GO, WE HAVE INSURANCE, MORON. A few phone calls later, I was back to THERE ARE MORE GERMS THERE THAN HERE, MORON (you gotta love a pediatrician who tells it like it is). Alexis was fully aware of who I was talking to each of those calls, and she felt the need to weigh in.

"Am I going to the doctor?" she asked. Repeatedly.

Several times I replied, "Maybe." Then came a dose of Motrin and another phone call and the answer changed. "No, I think you're feeling a little bit better," I told her.

"No, I not," she replied. "I want to go to the doctor."

"We'll see, but we're not going right now," I told her.

She turned her head so that her eyes could meet mine in a stare-off, thought for a second, and said, "But I sick."

Her face hovered inches from mine as she waited for my reaction. Then, as if to accentuate her point, she mustered the best fake cough she could.

*cough*

"See, I sick!"

I guess I can kick Fear of Doctors off that list of things to worry about.

Black, Gold, and Awesome All Over.

If there is one thing Mr. Husband is guilty of doing, it's acting as a remote control for the pint-sized person. He will hunt down a program that she wants to watch pretty much all of the time. Hannah Montana? Sure. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse? Of course. High School Musical? He totally has a man-crush on Zac Efron.

There is an exception to his Remote Control impersonations--he will not appease the child during hockey or football. Ever. Fortunately for him, the kid bleeds black and gold and is perfectly happy watching her boyfriend Sidney Crosby skate around or her future father-in-law Troy Polamalou run down the field with his hair in tow. It never ceases to amaze me how well she adapts to the severe Pittsburgh Sports fever we have going on around here. She just gets it.

Today we spent the day wincing at the Steelers game and gutting some pumpkins. In most circles, that's what is called a Perfect Sunday. When the Steelers finally wrapped up the game and sent old man Favre back to his hidey hole, Mr. Husband grabbed the remote and began hunting for Kid-friendly TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's so nice. Anyway, he finally encountered what seemed to be a good program--a Halloween figure skating special.

As the witches and goblins spun through the air, Mr. Husband and I whispered to each other that the program was kinda lame. It had the makings of Most Excellent, but there just wasn't enough scary going on. (We don't do that Winnie the Pooh OoooOOooo Christmas thing. We want blood-sucking, carnage-filled BOO.) No matter, though, if Alexis wanted to watch it, fine. She had happily sat through about five hours of football. It was definitely her turn.

Alexis glanced up from her pumpkin gutting activities a few times, remarking about how she wanted ice skates, too. I took her ice skating once last winter, and she's mentioned that she wants to go back every single time ice has been on TV since then. The skaters made it through about two performances before Alexis let out a big sigh and said, "Turn it off. I want to watch football."

Damn I love that kid.



(For those of you keeping track, Christmas Crazy for Kids will get its start later in the week, no later than November 1.)

I Might Have Passed Out Laughing as I Made This

Zoo Boo and the . . . uh . . . Biker Ballerina

(It's not her Halloween costume, but it was what she wanted to wear. No point in arguing, even if I'm not exactly sure what her "costume" was supposed to be.)

Fishy Macaroni by Her, Pumpkin Cheesecake by Me

Fishy Macaroni by Her
1 cup cooked macaroni
1/3 cup cheese
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup Goldfish Crackers

Throw it all in a bowl together, mix, and eat.



No, really. She ate it.




Pumpkin Cheesecake by Me
(Modified Cheesecake Factory recipe)
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
5 tablespoons melted butter
1 1/3 cups sugar
24 ounces softened cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 can pumpkin
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 teaspoon allspice
whipped cream
1 teaspoon cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Make the crust by combining the graham crackers with the melted butter and 1/3 cup sugar in a medium bowl. Stir well enough to coat all of the crumbs with the butter, keeping the mixture crumbly. Press the crumbs onto the bottom and about two-thirds of the way up the sides of a springform pan. Bake the crust for 5 minutes then set aside to cool.

In a large mixing bowl combine the cream cheese, 1 cup sugar, and vanilla. Mix with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the pumpkin, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice and continue to beat until smooth and creamy.

Pour the filling into the pan. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes. The top will turn a bit darker. Remove from the oven and allow the cheesecake to cool. Refrigerate once the cheesecake reaches room temperature. Top with whipped cream as desired.

The cheesecake is ready to eat once cool, but tastes best if allowed to cool for 24 hours.

This is Why Contests are Stupid.

First, let me start by apologizing. I am sorry. So, so, so sorry. If I could go back in time and avoid the entire disaster that I'm about to write about, I would.

I know that many of you spent hours of your life diligently clicking so that I could win a contest. Unfortunately, that was all in vain as I have asked The Bump to remove my blog from the contest. I wanted to do some good and have a little fun by giving some toys to kids in need. However, I'm not willing to sacrifice my beliefs in order to do that.

To explain, I'll start at the beginning.

I'm not sure when it first began, but within the first day of the final round of the contest, I started to suspect that there were some shenanigans going on with the voting. In looking at some of the percentages and the vote totals, it didn't make sense how some people had the numbers that they did.

(It's not hard to predict how those contests will end. Google subscription counts, twitter follower counts, and facebook friend totals give a pretty good indication of how many votes a person can muster, and all of that information is readily available online. In fact, I very nearly didn't pay any attention to the final round of voting because I knew there were some Big Kids in that sandbox. The only way they could be challenged was if my peeps worked their clicky fingers off. I know my peeps, though, and I knew that they WOULD work their clicky fingers off, so I went ahead. Again, I'm sorry to those of you who spent time voting.)

Later in the day, the numbers became even more skewed in favor of one site. I was positive that there were shenanigans, but they seemed to be the kind of shenanigans that could be beaten. It would be a challenge, sure, but as long as whoever was behind it all didn't get too greedy, I knew that my readers and friends could overcome it. At that point there were about 30,000 votes in the contest and it looked like there were shenanigans going on for one blog.

(BTW, "shenanigans" means someone had written a script to log votes automatically in the poll. I'm nowhere near smart enough to know how to do it, but I know it can be done if the poll doesn't have the appropriate security measures in place.)

The next morning, there were very clearly suspicious votes for two blogs. A few hours later, there were suspicious votes for three blogs. By this morning, there were over 700,000 votes cast, and the percentages were rapidly changing. Think about that for a minute. 1% of 700,000 is 7,000. In order to move that single percent, a blog would need over 7,000 votes. No one in that poll has the pull get 7,000 votes in a matter of seconds.

I DEFINITELY don't have the pull to get 7,000 votes in a matter of seconds, especially on a site that loads as slowly as The Bump. Yet, I saw my number go up. I immediately tweeted:



After that, there was a flurry of communications wherein I learned just who I know that knows how to write scripts to cheat a poll like that. There were offers to "level the playing field" and such, which I shot down.

(That's just not how I roll. Although, I can understand the rationale of those programmers. If The Bump wasn't policing the site and didn't care that someone (or several someones) were autovoting, why not? At that point it was very clearly about who knew the most programmers, not who generated the most traffic to The Bump's site.)

The same people then started monitoring the site. Whatever Programmer Spidey Senses they have they used to determine that there were automated votes being logged for eight sites, including mine. EIGHT SITES.

I don't know if it was one person running scripts to mess up several of the blogs or several people working against each other, but I knew that at that point, the whole thing was a joke. A disaster. A mess.

I emailed and asked to be removed from the contest.

Since then, The Bump has acknowledged "problems," shut down the poll, and offered an alternative way of determining a winner. I'm asking that none of you follow through on that alternative way. The money is tainted and I do NOT WANT IT. Please, thank you, and I mean it.

Look. Bloggers can't control what their readers do. The people whose blogs are in that list are NOT responsible for this mess. The Bump is 100% responsible. If little me can click around a few times and determine that something is off, they most certainly could have caught it sooner. If I can find people who can confirm that hacking is possible and they can figure out to what extent the hacking is happening, so can The Bump. When money is at stake, you have to assume that someone will get greedy. The site is responsible for making sure it doesn't happen.

Again, I apologize to all of you who wasted your time on that site. I wish I could undo it, but I can't. All I can do is try to find another way to make Christmas Crazy happen for some needy kids. That's exactly what I plan to do. I will be posting a new way to bring some Christmas Crazy to Toys for Tots (via Stuff-a-Bus) and a local Domestic Violence shelter some time this weekend.

Hopefully you'll still be here to help with it.

(P.S. I expect every single one of you to smash me over the head with a brick if I EVER post about another online contest. Not. doing. it. again.)

(P.P.S. I didn't do any linky linking to "The Site" intentionally and will be deleting any prior linky links right after I hit Publish. I refuse to send any more of my readers to that site.)

CAJONES!

Her Highness long agree hath issued a decree requiring that her royal subjects greet her as follows:

* If she is in the mood to mingle with the peasants, thou shalt ignore her. If so much as one royal subject dares to make eye contact, Her Highness shall morph into a terribly heavy growth and attach herself to thine mother. Thine mother will be rendered incapable of moving and it will be all YOUR fault because YOU made eye contact.

* If she is in the mood to celebrate her royal status, thou shalt stop everything, turn, and shout her name in unison. Think Norm at Cheers, but without the mouthy wait staff. Failure to celebrate her existence shall result in The Silent Treatment. Her Highness will cross her arms across her little chest, stick out her lower lip, and silently glare at you.

There shall be no hints as to which greeting Her Highness will expect on any given day for you are expected to be psychic.

Unfortunately, the teachers and kids at dance class are not psychic. They were supposed to yell, "ALEXIS!" They didn't. She was mad. Her Highness went into hissy fit mode immediately, shrinking back against the wall as she sent Death Stares to all of her royal subjects who had erred.

The teachers tried to coax her into participating. She refused.

Other kids tried to coax her into participating. She refused.

Momma don't pay for dance class so that the kid can stand against the wall in a huff.

I shot her the I'm Going to Kick Your Ass if You Don't Knock it Off Mom Stare through the observation window. She responded by suddenly growing a very large set of cajones and GLARING BACK.

We're talking about a child who bursts into tears when I yell at her. The Mom Stare is usually enough to make her run away in fear. However, it seems that the Mom Stare doesn't work through glass. Why wasn't that detail in the instruction manual?

I tried The Mom Stare again. She huffed, recrossed her arms, and stared right back, inching her way closer to the glass. She stood no more than three feet from me, separated only by a thin pane of glass and several onlookers. I wanted to kick her sassy little butt.

I decided to try ignoring her, in hopes that she would grow bored of a one-sided standoff and go back to being her usual good listener self. She grew bored all right. So bored that she resorted to doing half-assed cartwheels while all of the other kids were on the other side of the room listening to the instructor.

There were too many witnesses. I couldn't yell. I could, however, give her hell via sign language. I caught her eyes long enough to sign for her to go play and listen to the teachers.

I know she understood because she signed back, "No."

THE CAJONES!

Eventually Her Highness grew bored of the standoff and joined the class. And by "eventually," I mean about ten seconds after I decided she was going to spend the rest of her life in time out.

When the class ended, she came strutting out of the room, proud of her show of CAJONES! right up until she caught sight of me. It was then that her face melted with apprehension, her shoulders hunched in fear, and she whispered, "I didn't do a good job today."

It's a damn good thing the CAJONES! fell off once the window wasn't there to protect her.

Ahem.



(Pssst . . . Go (link deleted)! Let's bring some Christmas crazy to some kids!)

Shouting the Obvious

It may come as a surprise, but it's not exactly fun to have a kid who enjoys yelling, "COW!" in the car early in the morning. The whole shouting and exuberant and perky thing is MUCH MUCH MUCH cuter once the clock makes its way around to at least double digits.

Yet, every morning it's the same thing. I navigate to daycare through the fog that is early morning Mom Brain and Alexis spends the entire drive hunting for animals. Every morning she acts completely shocked and excited to discover that the cows that were there the prior day and the day before that and the day before that and the day before that are still there. It's amazing, really. The cows just stay there in that fenced-off field as if they have no where better to be. Maybe they hang out there especially so Alexis can yell, "COW!" and I can jump out of my skin. Because, you know, it's not like we haven't both lived that moment before.

Anyway, this morning we were navigating the curves in the road and Alexis was keeping an eye out for her cows, just in case they had flown a few miles down the road. As I sat peaking through barely open eyes, somehow I managed to notice a gang of turkeys at the edge of the road. I'm pretty sure that if you're as ugly as a turkey you live in a constant state of suicidal consideration, so I slammed on my brakes, knowing full well no one was behind me.

"TURKEY!" Alexis screamed. Thank goodness she did since, you know, I might not have known what the big ugly birds were if she hadn't told me.

Through her excited chatter, I watched as at least a dozen turkeys leisurely crossed the road in front of us. One after another, they took a few steps into the road, stopped to stare at the car, considered the meaning of life, thought more about how they could commit suicide, smoked a cigarette, recited the Bible, and then finished crossing the road.

I started to consider just how much damage a turkey or ten would do to the car if I just plowed through them. If I had been a little more awake, I probably would have been able to figure out that since I was driving Mr. Husband's SUV, I should have just done it. He wouldn't have cared. In fact, he might have been proud of me.

And then there was Alexis' reaction to the slow motion parade in front of us. I'm thinking the apple doesn't fall far from the Daddy Tree. I swear a little light bulb suddenly came on over top of Alexis' head, her eyes popped wide open, and she proclaimed, "LET'S DRIVE OVER THE TURKEYS! IT'LL BE FUN!"

Watch out, turkeys. The kid will be eligible to get her drivers license in just over twelve years.



(Pssst . . . go (link deleted)!)

A HUUUUUGE Thank You!

There is no way that I can possibly thank you all enough for all of your votes that helped Burgh Baby to WIN the Best Local Blog poll at The Bump! You are AMAZING! And a little scary, if we're being honest. Let's just say that I would be very afraid of crossing y'all because you have clicky fingers, and you know how to use them.

Anyway, in thinking about ways I could repay you all for your awesomeness, it dawned on me that the best way to thank you was to pay it forward. So that's what I hope to do. The voting that took place this past week over at The Bump was for category winners. There is a Grand Prize round which pits all of the category winners against each other. Initially, I had planned on ignoring that round for a lot of reasons, chief among them that there are several people who I adore and who I consider friends in that round. I prefer to support friends, not go head-to-head with them.

But.

But then I started thinking about what I could do with $1000 cash. I could have a hell of a lot of fun with $1000. Like, WOAH! Brain explosion! And you know what would be the absolute most fun a person can possibly have? Bringing Christmas crazy to some kids in need.

$1000 buys a lot of Christmas crazy.

So, here's the plan. If Burgh Baby wins the voting over here, I'm taking that money to Toys 'R Us and loading up on a truckload of toys. I'll deliver half of that fun to Mikey and Big Bob of 96.1 KISS for their annual Stuff-a-Bus promotion supporting Toys for Tots. The other half will go to a local domestic violence shelter so that kids at risk can have the kind of Christmas they wouldn't otherwise have. (I know the name of the shelter I have in mind, but need to confirm with them that the gift is appropriate for them. If it's not, I'll pick another shelter. It's all about bringing Christmas crazy to kids, yo.)

Voting ends at 11:59 Eastern Daylight Time on October 26th. It will not be easy to win at all because WOW! are there some big time fantastic bloggers in that list, but it can't hurt to try, right?

GO (link deleted)!

And (link deleted).

And (link deleted).

And (link deleted).

Ballerinas and Gummy Bears

She's crazy enough to want to sit through a 3-hour ballet performance, and I'm crazy enough to let her. After a successful voyage to see Cinderella, I figured a trip to see Pittsburgh Ballet's The Sleeping Beauty was definitely in the cards.

This past Saturday Alexis and I headed downtown for the matinee performance, along with pretty much every little girl under the age of 10 who lives in the tri-state area. As Alexis and I shuffled into our seats, I looked around to find that every third seat was occupied by a short person wearing a pink poofy dress and hauling around a doll dressed exactly the same way.

Alexis, because she is deprived, was dressed in an old H&M skirt and t-shirt and had been forced to leave all of her toys behind. The poor child will never know the joy of having a doll that looks and dresses just like her because I am soooooo mean. At least, I'm sure that's what she will say later in life. I like to think that a few years after that, she'll thank me.

As the ballet started, I was reminded how weird it is that the kid truly enjoys that sort of event. I have the attention span of a gnat so I can't be bothered to follow along when there aren't words telling me the story. Alexis, however, was captivated. She sat contently watching the dancing, whispering to me when she spotted a new character or when a significant plot line played out. I was mesmerized by her enthusiasm and amazed by her ability to interpret the story line when literally there wasn't a single word telling the tale. It was all about the music and the motion, and if you asked Alexis, it was in great part about the dresses.

My goodness, the kid LOVED the dresses.

An hour and a half passed and Alexis never once flinched or whined or complained. There was no place she would have preferred to be than sitting on my lap and watching the characters on the stage. Then came time for intermission, and my tired brain darted for the caffeine and candy.

We had made it through the first 90 minutes of ballet without a single snack and I'm sure Alexis could have made it through the last 90 minutes in exactly the same manner. I, however, needed to chug some Coke and inhale some chocolate. Fortunately, overpriced food stuffs were available. I grabbed my own stash and then offered Alexis her choice. She's a dork, so she selected bottled water and gummy bears. I would have thought only aliens would pick gummy bears over Reese's Pieces, so apparently I gave birth to an alien.

We settled back into our seats after the intermission. I resumed watching Alexis' reaction to the show. She grinned and cheered when the prince awoke Sleeping Beauty. She laughed when a pair of dancing cats pranced across the stage. She oohed as the fairies performed synchronized steps.

Alexis sat radiating joy for another half hour but then cracks in her perfect facade started to show. She wiggled. She whispered. She squirmed. She squawked. I was invested in her happiness, so I gave it a few minutes and tried a little sugary bribery. Then I realized that the real problem was not that she had run out of patience. Instead, it was that the show had evolved into a series of performances without any real story. The full plot of the tale had already been told, but yet there was still another half hour left to go.

I made the call; it was time to leave. I gathered up our belongings and told Alexis to quietly sneak out. As I walked down the aisle, I realized that the once full theatre was nearly empty. While there had literally been hundreds of little girls watching when we first took our seats, there wasn't a single kid to be seen anywhere.

Not. a. one.

Except Alexis.

I gave birth to a ballet loving, gummy bear eating alien.

I'd have it no other way.



*******************************************************

An announcement regarding the Bump contest is forthcoming. Thank you all so much for your votes!

Heeeeeelp!

It's the last day of voting over at The Bump, and I need your help. Go clicky clicky votey votey. I will reward you with a bottle of air straight from the Bully's rear end. Sounds like a great deal, no?



OK. Maybe that isn't a good reward. How about a huge THANK YOU? And maybe a little something else, but you'll have to stay tuned for details about that.

GO VOTE.

And again.

And again.

If You Are Looking for Cute Kid Stuff, Come Back Later

I went into Podcamp Pittsburgh expecting to learn a lot. I was not disappointed. In a matter of minutes I learned:

* Pittsburgh's social media community truly is the best in the world. I actually already knew that, but I saw "the machine" in action on a grand scale, and it's amazing. There is no other group of people who are as supportive of one another. When you can stick tech experts, beer podcasters, sports bloggers, GLBT podcasters, newspaper reporters, radio rock stars, masters of mayhem, CNN.com cover girls, and a mommy blogger in the same room and have everybody come out laughing hysterically? You know you have a good thing going.

* Creative Commons licenses are the shizznet.

* There are a heck of a lot of people who are interested in learning how to keep their blog going, especially when it comes to finding things to write about.


(Photo source)

It just so happens that I was the one presenting about that last thing. I am by no means a blogging expert, but I guess I have to admit to knowing a little bit about "finding fodder." I base that solely on the fact that I've blogged almost daily for over four years (you can try hunting for the early stuff, but you won't find it unless you break into my house and find the exact cabinet where I've stuffed the printouts from blogs long destroyed). There is video of the presentation coming to the Podcamp Pittsburgh site, but basically I think the trick to keeping a blog going for any extended amount of time comes down to exactly one word: Why?

I've stood on the sidelines as hundreds of blogs within my circle have come and gone. Every once in a while I run through my blogrolls and delete sites that haven't updated in the past three or four months. Every time I do it, I say goodbye to at least five or six sites. The writers cite varying reasons for closing up shop, but I think there tends to be a common thread: the writer was never clear on their "Why?" Why blog? No, really. WHY?

Look, if you're blogging to make money or you are blogging because you want attention, you're going to end up in trouble before you even get started. I'm able to keep going because I know that I'm doing it for Alexis. I want her to have this history of her childhood. It's like having a baby book, only better. Much better.

Any time I start to wonder if a story is appropriate for this space, I ask myself, "Why?" If the story isn't in line with my overall goals, it doesn't get posted.

Any time I question if a photo should be posted here, I ask myself, "Why?" It only takes a second to figure out what to do once I'm focused on my motives.

And when it comes to figuring out what I should put in this space, I almost always fall back on my go-to fodder finding question, "What about today made it different from every other day?" It could be something good, something bad, or something ugly, but it's always followed up by, "Why?" Why did that event stand out? Why did it make me laugh? Why did it bother me?

I'll link to the video once it has been posted. In the meantime, how do those of you who maintain blogs find things to write about? Have any tips you care to share with the class?

You Caption It

(Psst . . . don't forget to vote. Often.)

Thanks to Everyone Who Took the Time to Stop By

(Photo by Jayesel)

More about PodCamp Pittsburgh is coming soon (tomorrow?), but I wanted to be sure to say thanks to the people who squeezed and crammed into the room for my presentation. I didn't even have to pay them to sit there!

(Psst . . . voting is still very much so appreciated. Thanks!)

Conspiracy Theories

The mission is to freeze her face off. Every day, no matter the weather, the kid rolls down her window in the car. E-V-E-R-Y day. Today it was 40 degrees and rainy, which can only mean that somehow she managed to convince Mother Nature to go in cahoots with her. It's a conspiracy.

I asked her to close her window. I was met with what I assume was an eyeroll and some sass. I'm not sure because I was too busy shivering as the 40 degree wind and freezing rain blew all through my car. It was then that I remembered I had let Alexis eat dry cereal in the car earlier in the day. I distinctly recalled that she had picked through it, hunting for and consuming marshmallows while tossing the actual cereal over her shoulder. For some reason, I don't have "Scrape Frankenberry goop out of the car" on my Bucket List, so it was definitely time to close the window before water met cereal.

I reached down and closed the window using my Master of the Universe buttons.

She rolled it back down.

I rolled it back up.

She rolled it back down.

I rolled it back up and locked that sucker so she couldn't keep on keeping on.

The short person in the back seat got angry. She kicked my seat, sassed off, and then promptly shut her face when I threatened her with a trip to time out.

I'm full of win.

The CD changer flipped over to Jonas Brothers and everything went back to quiet. (Side note: SHOOOSH! with the Jonas Brothers grief. Once I had heard the High School Musical 2 soundtrack for the eleventy seventeenth bazillionth time, I switched our listening time over to regular radio. That lasted about fifteen minutes until words the kid isn't allowed to say came wafting over the airwaves, so I tried tossing in a little Black Eyed Peas. That lasted about three minutes until I had to shout, "THANKS FOR THE PARENTAL WARNING, ITUNES" because apparently their list of Not-Cool-Coming-from-a-Three-Year-Old words is different than mine. Jonas Brothers it is. I can't handle my kid hearing and saying words that would make my grandma cringe.) As we cruised on down the road, the song "Paranoid" came on.

Alexis loves to sing along with music. A lot. The only problem is that she doesn't know all of the words to that particular song. In fact, she knows exactly one word. Paranoid. She managed to scream that one word approximately all. the. way. through. the song.

PARANOID!

PARANOID!

PARANOID!

Never before has a child managed to spread so much fear and paranoia in such a short amount of time. Between the expectation of revenge for the Window Thing and her shouting PARANOID!, I figured I was screwed. For reals.

My fears were realized when I suddenly noticed that silence had fallen over the person in the backseat. I glanced in the mirror and saw the ultimate threat a kid can make: she was sound asleep.

I'm pretty sure she took a nap just so she can exact revenge in the middle of the night.

I'll be sleeping with one eye open tonight.



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Psst . . . If you have a minute, I would love you forever if you ran over to The Bump and tossed a vote or two or ten in for me. There's a real prize in this one and it turns out I snap to attention when somebody says "Pottery Barn Gift Card." Thanks! And HUGE thanks to Firemom for the nomination!

Vote!

That Suggestion Sure is Mean

Suggestion holds an iron grip over the minds of preschoolers. At no time is it more evident than while watching dance class.

Each week the room full of parents sit with clenched fists and furrowed brows silently willing their kid to not be The One--The One who starts the Potty Train. It never fails, if one kid utters the syllables, "I need to go potty," the rest of the class will be soon to follow. All it takes is for that one short person to break the seal, so to speak, and the power of suggestion will take care of the rest of them. Nobody wants their kid to be The One.

Last week the Potty Train rolled through the class, just like always, but there was a new twist in the events. As the caboose rolled back to class, she turned to her mom and said, "My belly hurts." Every parent in the room suddenly snapped to attention, quickly surveying the premises to be sure that their own kid hadn't heard the evil words.

It appeared we were safe; only the adults had heard the proclamation.

The mom sent the little girl into class with an eyeroll and a shrug, turning to explain that the kid would chop off a finger if she thought it would get her some attention. (I won't even delve into how epically awful that statement is, or the fact that it's probably true.) We all sat staring through the window, willing the girl with the maybe bellyache to keep her mouth shut.

Then we saw it. Time stood still as a room full of parents suddenly were granted the power to read lips, "I don't feel good," the girl said in a super slow motion voice. The teacher suggested she sit in the back of the room and watch the rest of the class.

We all knew what was to come next. One after another, high-pitched voices joined in the Bellyache Chorus. Normally it would be the kind of tune that we would all ignore. We would just shove our fingers in our years and shout, "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA," knowing full well that it would get real boring to complain about fake illnesses if there was no audience.

But this year is different.

Nobody would admit it out loud, but how could we NOT all start wondering if maybe, just maybe, this time it wasn't a fake? What if they really were sick? What if they were complaining of early flu symptoms? WHAT IF IT WAS THE SWINE FLU?

You'll never catch me wandering around wearing a medical mask unless I'm actually standing inside an operating room or something similar. I mock people who stress out over every little germ. I don't *do* sick. And yet, even I started to question if we should take the proclamations of stomach discomfort seriously. Even then, I kind of wanted to punch myself in the face for even pondering whether or not the complaints were valid.

And then I felt it--the possibility of nausea. Just hearing everybody talk about bellyaches and the flu and pigs was enough. If I would have thought about it for five minutes longer than I did, I absolutely could have convinced myself that I was sick, even though I wasn't.

Apparently Suggestion holds an iron grip over grown-ups, too.

The Grass Was Greener Before We Jumped the Fence

The leaves are morphing into a kaleidoscope of colors. The construction cones are preparing to hibernate for the winter. Mums are replacing Impatiens in gardens all across the city. The sounds of hockey and football have replaced . . . uh . . . nothing, because we don't have baseball in Pittsburgh. (Ahem.) Fall has arrived and change is in the air.

With the change of seasons have come a few changes in my favorite 3-year old. Just like *that* she has gone from wearing nothing but sundresses to genuinely finding joy in jeans and sweaters. Seemingly overnight, she has started speaking like A Kid--not a toddler, not a preschooler, like A Kid. And suddenly, out of nowhere, she has started posing for the camera.

I'll just let that last one settle in for a second.

Ready?

Yes, indeed, the child who has spent her entire life actively making sure she didn't look directly at the camera has suddenly decided that maybe it's fun to pose for Mr. Canon. For years I have resorted to trickery and shenanigans to get her eyes to focus on the lens and suddenly, there they are. Not only is she suddenly willing to look straight at the camera, she has randomly begun asking me to take her picture.

It's so weird.

To celebrate this new found level of cooperation, I thought today would be a fantastic day to stop and explore this barn:



We frequently pass that old abandoned barn during our commute between home and daycare. I kind of love it. The surrounding area is amazing, and quite the change from the bumper-to-bumper traffic I once endured.



As we drove towards the barn, I asked Alexis if she would like to stop and take a few pictures of the barn. "YES!" she eagerly squealed.

"Do you want me to take your picture with the barn?" I asked.

"YES, PLEASE!" she yelled.

Thinking that this may just wind up being the greatest picture day of my life, I pulled off to the side of the road and grabbed my camera. We ran towards the barn, Alexis eagerly explaining that she wanted to go see the animals who lived in the barn, just like in her favorite episode of Signing Time. She broke into song, melodically blaring lyrics about cows and chickens.

As we moved close, I let her get in front of me and started taking photos. She stopped, thought for a second, and then posed.



And again.



And again.



Sooooooooooo . . . how do I get her to go back to that thing where she won't pose for the camera? I'm thinking trickery and shenanigans resulted in better pictures.

That's What I Call a Nightmare

I have long suspected that Alexis has nightmares. I figure that has to be a contributing factor as to why she is so determined to drive me insane at all hours of the night. While she may very well be conducting a top secret governmental experiment to see if you can create a dangerous weapon out of a woman just by depriving her of sleep (answer = yes), I think she truly does start out each night fully intending to do the right thing and stay in her own bed. Someday maybe her good intentions will win out and I'll actually get six hours of uninterrupted sleep. OK, maybe not, but I still hold on to a speck of hope.

I've talked to the short person many times about her bad dreams. I've heard about monsters under her bed, monsters in her bed, monsters hanging from the ceiling, and monsters in the closet. I still remember the days when I was scared of the dark (shut up), so I try to cut the kid some slack. The dark is a scary place. (Again, SHUT UP.)

Last night the kid managed to make it all the way to 5:30am in her own bed. It would have been fantastic, if not for the fact that lately she's been waking up around midnight, so I had sat up waiting for that which never happened. I do believe I heard her yell "PSYCH!" in her sleep at some point. Anyway, she came hobbling into our room at 5:00, visibly upset.

"Did you have a bad dream?" I asked her.

Her bottom lip quivered as she wiped away a tear, "Yes," she whispered.

I gave her a big ol' momma hug and hauled her up into the bed to cuddle for a few minutes. My alarm was close to going off, so I figured I would try to snuggle her back to sleep before it did. I'm trying to let her sleep as much as she can now, because once she is a teen I fully intend to exact revenge for all the sleep deprivation she's putting me through at the moment.

"Do you want to tell me about your bad dream?" I asked.

"I dreamed about Dora and Swiper and Swiper is really mean and he was swiping my toys and Dora was yelling at him."

No wonder the kid can't sleep through the night. If the Latina Whore and her "friend" were invading my dreams, I'd be huddled in the corner rocking back and forth.

Puppet Master

Alexis sat in the middle of a sea of tiny people and furniture, happily playing with her dollhouse. The good news is that she's had that dollhouse over a year and still loves it. The bad news is that she's had that dollhouse over a year and the damn thing still makes noise.

"Ding dong," the thing shouted as Alexis pushed the doorbell button.

"WROOF WROOOOOOOF," Meg loudly responded.

"Mommy, Meg's barking," Alexis reported. I'm glad she did, too, because I totally didn't hear the deep Bulldog barks that were so loud the windows shook.

"Ding dong," the dollhouse said again.

"WROOOOF WROOOOOOOF WROOOOOOOOOF," Meg retorted. Again.

"She's still doing it," Alexis said.

"Ding dong." AGAIN.

"WROOOOOOOF WROOOOOOOF WROOOOOOOF." AGAIN.

"Mommy! Meg is still barking!" Alexis reported.

Sensing that this little pattern could very well go on for hours (or until I flipped out from a severe case of The Crazies), I walked over towards Alexis.

"Ding dong." The kid had lost the ability to keep her finger off the doorbell.

"WROOOOOF WROOOOOF WROOOOOOOF," Meg responded. She apparently had lost the ability to think. She was standing right next to the dollhouse, but still didn't have the sense to realize that the doorbell sound wasn't an indication that a living being was going to walk through the front door. . . . Unless the living being was the size of a flea and marching in our carpet . . . Maybe she imagined that there was a whole army of tiny little people dancing the Macarena and high-stepping their way through the dollhouse door.

"Mommy, Meg won't stop barking," Alexis tattled.

"Ding dong."

"WROOF WROOOOF WROOOOOF."

"Ding dong."

"WROOOOOOF WROOOOF WROOOOOOF."

"Mommy, Meg is barking."

Finally I interrupted and told everyone that I'd heard enough noise. As I managed a glimpse into Alexis' eyes, I could see pure devious joy. It was the look of a kid who had just found the strings to a puppet and was now enjoying making the puppet dance.

A glance at Meg reinforced that Alexis was right. As I looked into Meg's eyes, I realized there really isn't anything going on inside that thick skull.

"Mommy, watch. I can make Meg bark if I push this button," Alexis said.

Heaven help us all if that kid ever decides to use her powers for evil.

File Under: Things That Confuse Me

This is What Happens When Daddy Says, "When You Feel Like Sucking on Your Lip, Put This on Instead"