Quotables to remember

Little A says way too many awesome things right now that I kind of want to never change, but I know they will. Soon. Too bad I can't remember them all RIGHT NOW so I could write them all down. But here's a few:

"I'm gonna carry you d'round." She's really starting to rock the pretend play and this is one thing she will say to her animals a lot.

"You love me, mommy?" The cutest. She is also saying "I love you" all the time with no prompting lately.

"The dele." She is always calling herself this. She has the first syllable of her name confused with the article "a," so I guess she figures you must also be able to use "the." It is hilarious.

"Green Bear and Little Bear--they're all our friends!" She said this on Thanksgiving morning when I first came into her room.

"What should I watch?" As in what video--apparently choosing is getting to be a bit much for her sometimes.

"Would you say doo dee da?" This is just an example. "Doo dee da" could be replaced with any word or phrase, real or made up.

Currently she loves to talk about her "big girl bed," though that does not always translate to sleeping it. Overall, she is not doing too bad with the transition.

Thanks

Have I said this before? One of my favorite things is when I am cleaning up after dinner and it's LCD's turn to give the munchkin a bath. I listen to all the weird, silly things he comes up with to tell her or to play with her and I listen to her giggles and excitement and "love you, Daddy"s as I work. And that is when I realize I live a charmed life. So what if the dinner I made was mediocre at best? So what if Little A has been hell-bent to destroy every last thing in our house lately? So what if my income is on hold (well kind of so what)? So what if I have hip pain and just rounded week two and am moving into week three of a cold? So what if the turkey didn't get cooked in time for our meal yesterday?

I have a couple of strange and wonderful people that fill up my life with so much love, that give me hugs and kisses and make me laugh. I have interesting, supportive, and GOOD extended family. I have some loyal friends and some newer ones, all of whom give me a piece of something I need in my life. And we have leftover turkey that we haven't even tasted yet.

Is it bad to let your toddler sleep on the floor?

After the intrepid explorer learned how to escape the crib yesterday, we put her in a "big girl bed" tonight. But of course she didn't stay in it. She instead knocked on her door (luckily her door is one of the harder-to-open ones in the house so she can't get out yet with it closed) for about fifteen minutes and was then silent. I went to check on her an hour later and barely cracked the door before I ran in to her body lying on the floor. I've learned over the months not to move her if she's sleeping, so I just closed the door and let it be. I feel a smidgen of guilt about this, but I think it might just be a rite of passage.

Edited to add: Okay we couldn't do it all night. I kept asking LCD . . .

Should we move her?
No.
Should we move her?
No.
But, are you sure we shouldn't move her?
No . . . yes let's move her.

All in all, she slept beautifully all night. So this morning I am definitely giving thanks!

SW Challenge 8 entries are up for voting

I almost got to the point where I was too ashamed to post them since I'd been sitting on them so long. But the songwriting challenge is about having no shame. I found an easier way to upload and listen to them too, so check it out, yeah.

Hi baby brother!

I am pretty bad at telling what is going on in an ultrasound picture, but this one -- also Little A's favorite -- is pretty clearly a ghostly baby hand waving. I like it because it's the synthesis of creepy and cute. Little A likes to wave back and say "Hi baby brother!"

Otherwise, November is fantastic

Lest someone get the wrong impression from recent posts. I've had a couple ego blows recently but Little A and I have been digging all the sunshine November has shown us (until today). We've spent many hours playing and basking in its glory and I have loved being her mom lately. Yesterday we went on a little hike, took pictures in the fall leaves, played on a playground, played with leaves and sticks (stick-gathering is her favorite past time right now), and later built a fort in the living room (with lots of help from LCD when he got home).

This was also on facebook but I'm too lazy to upload the others:



I'm pretty sure she's the cutest toddler on the planet.

Sometimes you just feel incompetent . . .

which according to a personality test I once took for work is the WORST feeling for me. (On the flipside, it's probably really good for me, too.)

It helps, though, to have your almost two-year-old say, "You okay, Mommy?" and then offer you some of her beloved macaroni-and-cheese at lunch to make you feel better.

former love life has been replaced by work life

So I haven't been single in a while, which is fine with me. You know, beautiful growing family makes up for the missed fun.

But apparently not completely. The uncertainty and the roller coaster ride of it needed a replacement, I guess. I would think parenting would be sufficient for that role, but I admit the range of emotions of a toddler starts to become the routine after a while.

Enter freelancing. Short-term contracts, negotiating rates, just-when-everything-is-looking-peachy curveballs. Yup that works.

Just got another curveball today and it's making me highly nervous. O ye single life, you are always with me.