Happy Halloween!

Meet our little carnivorous dinosaur (dragon).

Not only did Addie shred up the halloween block party last Saturday
in her costume, but she also ate (part of) her first non-tofu hot dog.

Tonight the dinosaur will strike again
and hopefully score some candy for her parents.


Happy Halloween!

Tunnel Vision

I have come to learn that I have Addie Tunnel Vision,
especially when I'm behind the camera.

A week ago Sunday, we drove an hour to the wide open spaces of the
San Fernando valley to Underwood Family Farms with three other families.
If you base our experience on the photos, you would think we went alone.
Not only are there no signs of the Clara, Jake or Petra, but you can barely tell
that half of LA was eating corn, petting goats, going on hay rides
and picking pumpkins along side us.

I guess I got eyes for you only, my little pumpkin.

Check out more photos of Just Addie on the left.

Safety First

Story Number One
I was telling Addie the story of the Three Little Pigs, a bedroom ritual that,
as I've mentioned, is usually Cap's domain. Since he's out of town,
I'm left to stumble my way through on my own. Somehow our nighttime
ritual now includes 4 books (read), 2 stories (told) and anywhere from
1-3 songs (sung of course). Addie is very familiar with the Three Little Pigs
and the Three Little Bears but Cap may tell the story slightly differently.
When my wolf blows down the house made of straw, the little piggy runs
down the street to the house made out of sticks. At that point in the story,
Addie stopped me. "No, Mama. little piggy don't run in the street. too many cars.
stop. mama and dada. (something I couldn't quite catch) . . . no crying."
Ah yes, so true Miss Safety Patrol Addie! Running into the street is not a good idea.
Now my piggy has to run down the sidewalk instead.

Story Number Two
Addie and Roman, who is maybe 6 months her younger, were playing out
front of daycare last week. Little Roman started to walk down the driveway
heading straight for the street. His mom was right there and the kid was walking
slow as molasses so there was no imminent danger, but Addie threw her arms
around his waist crying, "No Roman! Don't go into the street!"

Maybe we can get her a reflective vest and a stop sign paddle,
and she can be crossing guard for Halloween.

And since the poll is over, the winner was Red Dragon with 47% of the votes.
We found a green dragon/dinosaur costume (final classification will depend
on Addie's mood) on-line. Fingers crossed she'll wear it or maybe
I should get out the reflective tape.

(p.s. we miss you Dada!)

Daddy's Little Girl

Our routine of late is that I pick up Addie from daycare and cook her dinner
(if you can microwaving fake-chicken fingers cooking) before Cap gets home.
We paint or draw, watch tv sometimes or look for roly-poly bugs in the front yard.
But when it comes to her bedtime it's all about her Dada.

Not only am I not allowed to read to her at bedtime, but I'm actually banned from the room.
I am sometimes given clearance to cross the threshold during book time only to bring
her a refill of milk. If I do try to break the code, I'm screamed at, "Mama, You go!"
And guess where she sends me? "You go kitchen, Mama!"
Am I raising a 3-foot tall Donna Reed dictator?!
Once I got close-fist punched in the face trying to kiss her good-night.

So what is it gonna take to get back into Addie's special club?
If I learned anything in middle school about popularity, it's not to appear desparate.
"Please can Mama read you a book? Pretty please with sugar on top?"
I can't even believe I'm trying to win over my own 2-year old.
Tonight though I tried a new tactic - bribery. I painted both her fingernails
and toenails tomato red and wouln't you know it?
I was granted three books.

Tiny Tiny

What's smaller than small?
Tiny
What's smaller than tiny?
Little tiny
What's smaller than little tiny?
Little tiny tiny

Addie's got a thang for little tiny ting things.
"My have a tiny tiny pony" or
"tiny tiny pizza," or
"little tiny tiny roly-poly bug."

Kicking off the Halloween season, Addie also a few little tiny tiny pumpkins
from the pumpkin patch in Beverly Hills.
After sorting through a giant bin of pumpkins, she ended up
with one orange tiny tiny and one white tiny tiny but what she really dug was
the single cob of indian corn she picked out.

Don't worry, we'll be picking some big big pumpkins next Sunday when we head to a giant pumpkin farm.

Check out a few other photos of Addie decked out in her seasonal regalia on the left side bar.

(p.s. now she announced she wants to be a rhino for halloween.)

Happy Birthday GGV!

Great Grandma Vede turned 94 years young last week.
Addie wanted to bake her a cake.
A pink cake.
A pink cake with raspberries.
And we did.




Addie loves birthdays. Happy Birthday to Addie is a frequent song she sings
and often times ordinary toys are transformed into delicous cakes
complete with candles to blow out. Remember that toy where you
pound in the colored pegs with a mallot? Addie and I were pounding
away when suddently the pegs where candles which she blew out.
She then served wooden block cake slices to her guests.
Sometimes those same blocks are cookies or ice cream.
Addie gave me an imaginary ice cream cone so I paid her an imaginary doller.
Then she went into the living room and gave Cap an imaginery cone and the imaginary dollar.
Hey Dada! What kind of a racket are you running anyway?

Time-Out!

Our little sassafras likes to be her own boss - and the boss of everyone else.
When I ask her to climb into her car seat she tells me, "No Mama. Time-out Mama! You cry!"
Um, sorry lil' monkey but it just doesn't work that way. Still, she makes her stuffed animals
go into time-out, and the other day she yelled at a house fly that was zipping around the kitchen,
"Go a-way! Time-out Fly!"

the economy fairy

Remember the pink octopus of 2006?


and the itsy-bitsy spider from 2007? seriously. too cute.

For the past two years, we've had an unplanned, eight-legged theme.
Addie hasn't quite grasped the concept of halloween and costumes,
but this year I feel like she'll have an opinion about what she wears,
and should I select incorrectly, we'll have a 2 year old dressed
as herself. Maybe we'll call it the Terrible Twos. Cap suggested
we dress her as a dumpster baby, but we later decided she had
to be an infant for that to work.

I asked Addie this weekend what she wanted to be, and she replied "purple."
Later in the day, after I told her that Teddy was going to be a penguin and Clyde a frog,
she said "dragon. red dragon."

While she was napping on Sunday, I decided to start the hunt for dragon costumes.
"Oh, this looks like a dragon!"
"Oh, no it says it a dinosaur."
What the heck is the difference anyway?
Per Cap, dragons always have wings.
Oh.

I found a green dragon costume at Pottery Barn. For $70. Um no.
The search continues.
I was having trouble navigating one of those enormous on-line stores and ended up
looking through all 376 matches for "toddler costume." No red dragons so far,
but I did find a costume called "Toddler Economy Fairy Costume".
I think our fine nation might need a few of those!
Some other noteworthy choices for toddlers include the Barbie bride (seems wrong to me),
UPS guy, and the Cute as Can Be Rapper costume. The description read,
"Yo! Hook your toddler up with this fly rapper costume."