Back from the Desert

We're back after a 4 day weekend from the land of Grandparents and Giant Cacti. We stayed with GranJanne where Addie slept 4 blissful (for us) nights in her own room, skinny dipped in Sabino creek (Addie not us) and fed a giraffe and some ducks.



Pop Pop, Nana and Uncle Drew also swooped into town to snatch some Addie time visiting the Desert Museum, digging for fossils, seeing a ball game and chowing down on avocado enchiladas and soft serve ice cream. When she wasn't off on adventures, Addie could be found drawing with crayons or markers just about anyplace she could spare 5 minutes.



I just can't believe that I haven't seen this crew of family since this time last year. That's just not right! Sniff Sniff! Addie was sometimes confused. After we'd leave dinner, she'd ask where are friends were going. Oh, my lil pepita, they are your family! You'll want to make this distinction later when you need to hit them up for cash.

I already miss the smell of that desert air. Good thing Cap and I are sneaking off to Palm Springs this weekend to celebrate our 5 year anniversary (a month early) and watch a sickening amount of tennis.

Check out more pictures of our adventure in Tucson here.

Numero Dos

Fingers and Toes, 11 weeks


I've already broadcast the news on the ever so personal medium of Facebook, but it wouldn't be right for the archives if I didn't also have a post dedicated to Baby #2 on the blog.

So, I am thrilled to announce that we are expecting a little one in early September. Labor Day could be just that.

Wanting to wait until we know the gender, we have not told Addie yet. However, I think she knows something since she attempted to "out" me several weeks before I was ready to spill the news. I went to pick her up at daycare about a month or so ago, and was asked, "So, I heard the good news!" Trying to play it cool, "Oh yeah? What good news?" "Addie said she was going to have a little sister!" So, Addie appears to know it's a girl, and according to my co-worker's hoodoo voodoo dangling necklace test, it's a boy. We shall see in a few weeks!

The Make-up Artist

Addie has discovered that, if she moves the step stool over by the sink, she can reach my make-up drawer. Danger!

She's always been in love with nailpolish and we have to hide chapstick from her or she'll apply and reapply for hours. When I went out Friday night she wanted to watch me put on lipgloss and asked if she could wear some too. Why not? It's only pink Burt's Beeswax gloss. (I don't have very sophisticated taste in make-up these days.)

Saturday though, we got out all of my make-up out. My knowledge, I admit, is limited, but I do know the basics: lipstick goes on lips, blush on cheeks and eyeshadow on eyes. Oh and eyeliner, lash curlers and mascara are not for little girls to play with. I uncovered some Chanel eyeshadow I must have bought when Velvet Goldmine was in theaters and remember Urban Decay?



Addie didn't agree much with the eyeshadow on eyes part, and instead carefully applied shades of browns and pinks to her cheeks with the eyeshadow brush along with the blush using my new fluffy contoured blush brush. She also was enamored with a lipstick brush I uncovered, applying it to both herself and me. Here she is even learning the fine art of blotting. She was really so careful and meticulous during the whole thing. Either she'll make a great painter or a surgeon, or Paris Hilton.

Thankfully, she's made significant improvements since October, when I let her play with the black lipstick I bought for Halloween.

My Fair Lady

Addie: It's MY fair lady
Mama: No, it's MY fair lady
Addie: No, it's MY fair lady
Mama: Uh, nope, definitely MY fair lady
Addie: MY fair lady
Mama, No, MY fair lady
Mama: Well, who's fair lady is it?
Addie: It's your fair lady and my fair lady

Therapy

These are all sad faces including "sad mommy" (little one floating below right) and "tiny sad face" at the very bottom right.

Do you think Addie needs a child therapist? Or maybe we are just hoping for some sunny skies after what feels like an eternity of rain and clouds. Or a vacation for all of us. Good thing we are heading to Tucson in 2 weeks!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We started our celebration with slightly wonky heart-shaped pancakes and are ending it with homemade spinach fettucini by Chef Cap, heart-shaped sugar cookies decorated by Addie, and handmade glitter valentines (I glued, Addie glittered) for the three of us.

xoxo

A Sticker for My Chart

The end is in sight.

Addie has starred two potty charts along with the sweet, cavity-inducing help of skittles. Her diapers are dry during the day and, yes, even at night. Oddly she has no inhibitions using public toilets either, unlike me. I wasn't sure when it was appropriate to stop giving her skittles every time she uses her potty, but we're plum out of potty charts. She's cold turkey right now, poor gal. "Can we go buy a chart?" she'll ask. She's been doing so well, but we aren't in the clear yet. Not sure how to phrase this, but we are still "practicing" with, um, #2. For the first time this week, though the fear factor was overcome and Miss A was rewarded with a brand new xylophone. Think reward not bribery. Perhaps, we'll be off to buy purple underwear this weekend - her choice.

Otherwise

Addie's becoming quite the chatterbox. Her vocabulary continues to expand and she shocks me on occasion with the words she knows, like "otherwise." For some reason, that really got me.

"I have to hold my cereal bowl with two hands, otherwise I might drop it. I need to be very careful."

She frequently likes to tell me What Is. Yesterday she told me matter of factly, "Everyone has a bum. You can't take off your bum; that would be owie."

She is also learning the way of the modern world. She came home from daycare and told me:
"Roman has one Mommy. He doesn't have a Daddy."
"Teddy has a Daddy and a Papa. He doesn't have a Mommy."
I explained that there are lots of different kinds of families.

I wasn't sure though what to say when she asked me, "What is die?"
Thankfully it was in reference, not to one of our dear departed fish, but to the song about the Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. I think I'm going to have to change that last line.

I'm Happy!

Addie likes to play a little game.
She shouts, "You're happy!" and we're expected to make a happy face.
"You're sad!" sad face.
"You're mad!" mad face.

Tonight I turned the table, and the camera, on her.

After Addie did sad, happy and mad,
she also added a few faces of her own.
"This is pizza face!"


and

"pasta face!"


Now, where's her agent?

adaptation by addie

The Farmer in the Dell according to Addie

The farmer takes a wipe
The farmer takes a wipe
I don't hairy-o
The farmer takes a wipe

This reminds me of my own version of the song Bingo where I was certain, well into age 5, that Bingo was his stable, not his name-o.

Day at the Beach

Check out Addie's cool new shoes. She's like an urban Dorothy in these. Thanks GranJanne!

MLK day seems like ages ago. After all Bush was still President. I had that holiday off for the first time in almost a decade, and we drove up the coast to a quiet mansion laden stretch of beach in Malibu. Addie poked at shy anemones and Cap wrote her name so big in the sand that all we could see from our picnic blanket was "DIE." Perhaps fitting for the end of the last eight years.



Check out more photos of our day at the beach on the left.

Potty Mouth

Addie, Mommy is leaving for work. Can I get a kiss good-bye?
No
Can I have a hand kiss?
No
Can I have a chin kiss? forehead kiss? eyebrow kiss?
No, No, No
Well, what kind of a kiss can I have?
Poo-poo kiss.

Quiz Show

I swear we look at her animal cards for fun in a no-stress environment, but Addie seems to think she's under the gun to identify 26 animals in under 2 minutes. She almost buckles under the pressure a few times and stumbles early on by the cow but recovers. Will she win the rattan dinette set or the washer/dryer?

The End

I'm glad we don't have carpet because I think a spark of static electricity might have ignited our Christmas tree.
I thought I was going to be sad to see Christmas go, and, if you had asked me on New Year's, I would have said yes.
However, I'm ready to move on - to Chinese New Year! We're thinking of throwing a Sarah is getting Old/Year of the Ox party.
When I told Addie that January was my birthday month, she told me she wanted to make me a strawberry cake.
I'm down with that.
When I told her I was turning 35, she said,
"No Mommy, you're turning 40."
That, I am not down with.

Rarities

It's a rare thing indeed for us to see snow - and we only had to drive 50 miles away from our house on Sunday for the honor. Addie doesn't own winter clothes, but we improvised with two sweaters, tights and jeans, and her hat, now skin-tight, from last year.

Another rarity is a photo of Addie and me, so I'll post three!

Zoo x 2

Lucky Addie got to go to the zoo twice last week. On Tuesday, Addie and I tagged along with Clara's family to the Santa Barbara Zoo because Cap was at work. Then on Friday I went back to work and Cap took Addie (her idea) to the LA Zoo. The zoo in Santa Barbara is pretty awesome. It's perched on a hill between the ocean, a marsh and the mountains - gorgeous. The elephants had prime real estate views in one direction and the giraffes on the other. They even had a great play area where Addie showed off her skill of rolling downhill while protecting her slice of pizza.

Happy New Year!

Well, we didn't make it to New Years - at least not for our own time zone. We went to an awesome party (thanks Jake's family!) but when we tried to extricate Addie from the festivities around 10 pm, we departed with her in hysterics. So much so, that she broke out in hives on her face and them vomited strawberry yogurt all over our car about a block down the road. That signalled the end of New Year's Eve for me, and I crawled into bed early to read a few more chapters of Twilight.

Here's to hoping for Peace and Good Health in 2009!

Choose Your Own Adventure: #3

Sunday was Cap's day to pick our adventure, and he wanted to check out the neighborhood of Silverlake - home to modernist architecture and the height of 90s hipness. That morning, however, when we told Addie we were going on an adventure to Silverlake, this was her reply:

(shouting)
"That is a Mommy-Daddy adventure! Not an Addie adventure! I want to go touch things!"

I guess she had enough of cool shops where we kept having to ask her not to touch anything. Poor girl. So we changed our plans a little and decided to take Addie to the Natural History Museum. I've never been and often forget the place exists. I had my fingers crossed that there was something there for her to touch.

Thank goodness for the Discovery Center! Addie dusted off dinosaur bones with a brush, inspected live insects and spiders, petted a skunk pelt and tried on some real antlers. In the Hall of North American Mammals, she reminded us (and herself) at every exhibit that these are not real. "That's not a real fox. That's not a real moose. That's not a real polar bear. Look a baby bear, Mommy bear and a Daddy bear!" Addie loves to identify anything that looks like a family of three. She even frequently picks three leaves off the jade plant at our house and tells me that one is a Daddy, Mommy and a baby leaf.

After the museum, we figured we had at least another hour or 2 before she collapsed, so we snuck off to fulfil Cap's wish. We had an awesome brunch at Millie's in Silverlake. Addie played with her utensils in the water cup and wolfed down 2 veggie sausages. I even managed to get us into a cute boutique store before we headed back home for a well deserved nap.



Check out a few more photos from our Sunday Adventure.

Choose Your Own Adventure: #2

Mama's turn! Saturday I got to choose our adventure.



I woke up inspired to check out LA via our subway. I've lived in LA for a little over 4 years and have never ridden the metro. I've taken the bus, but never the subway - mainly because it doesn't go too many places. We drove to Hollywood and Highland to catch the red line. We changed to the gold line at Union Station and the got off one stop at Chinatown. It seems like Chinatown has gotten a face lift since the last time I was there including a gorgeous new upscale shop full of things that Addie thankfully didn't break. We ate strawberry eclairs, a red bean pastry and an egg custard tart at the Phoenix Bakery, and I bought a precious paper parasol for $4.50 which I want to save for Addie's birthday in May (that girl does not need any more Christmas presents!).


We hopped back on the train to Union Station and then walked to Olvera Street for lunch and shopping. We went from China to Mexico in less than 15 minutes! I had my eyes on a pink ukulele, a pair of maracas and Mexican shirt for Addie (also to squirrel away for her birthday).



After watching some street performers (Addie using Cap's head as a chair), we had to cut the shopping short as this girl was in serious need of a nap. We jumped back on the train where Addie pretended to nap. This is one of her favorite games.
"I'm napping!" she shouts and then fake snores. The other day, she was running up and down the hallway shouting, "I'm funny!"



Check out a few more photos from our Saturday Adventure.

Choose Your Own Adventure: #1

With daycare off and no specific post-holiday plans in sight, I was getting a little antsy.
I'm not very good at just relaxing at home like a cozy bear by the fire. That's what weekend nights are for!
Vacation time, however, must be used for adventures, otherwise I feel guilty that I'm wasting my precious
time-off from work. Since we didn't have any exotic travel plans, I decided instead to explore our own city.

On Friday, Addie chose our adventure - and her outfit. Decked out in her new pink “ballerina-ballerina” tutu (thanks Auntie Snorg!) and her black boots (that was my touch) we headed off to the aquarium. It was exciting to see many of the
same critters that we have in our own saltwater aquarium and to greet a few fishy friends like the
clownfish and damsels that got the "ich" and had to go to fishy heaven. Addie of course was always the one
to find them floating belly up in our tank at home. "Mommy, that fish is scary!" and when the last of the yellowtail damsels died last week she told me, "Mommy, that fish doesn't make sounds anymore." Broke my heart. We buried that
one in the front yard. At the Long Beach aquarium, Addie’s favorites are now based more on the characters from Finding Nemo. Clownfish and Palette Tang (Dory) are high on her list. Divers are considered bad news and are to be avoided, and she still has a fondness for sea horses and moon jellies.

After the aquarium we checked out a few stores in the Belmont Shores neighborhood of Long Beach including this amazing candy store where Addie picked out a piece of green clownfish gummy candy, and I drank a rather syrupy cherry-limeade soda called Frostie. Cap called it hummingbird food.

Inspired by the aquarium, we drove to our fish store and bought some new hermit crabs, snails, a carnation anemone and two new yellowtail damsels. Oh and some anti-ich drops. (thanks Mom for the gift certificate!)

Check out a few more photos from our adventure here.