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It isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It's only necessary to be rich.
Alan Alda (1936 - )
Well, I watched the Oscars last night, of course. But, before the Oscars can begin, we must have about 4 hours of pregame Countdown to Oscars. For this, you now have the option of watching Joan and Melissa Rivers on the TV Guide channel or Star Jones-Reynolds and Kathy Griffin on E!. Hmm....what a choice! You can either watch Joan in her dress straight out of the 80s and her daughter who would not stop pushing those little glider pens and the text message polls. Or you can watch Kathy Griffin (who would win hands down in the most annoying voice category) and Star Jones-Reynold try to catch the eye of everyone coming down the red carpet. Joan with her horrible sex jokes or Kathy who pretended to be just getting off the cell phone everytime the camera cut to her. Can you tell I watched them both? That previous channel button came in handy.
And the dresses! Apparently, every designer in Hollywood has gone with the mermaid dress look. You know what I mean. The dress is form-fitting until the knee or just below where is flows out in several extra yards of fabric. Very few women avoided the mermaid dress. On some it looks good. On others, they forgot to ask if it made their hips/butt look big. Of course, there were a few that I loved. I thought that Kate Winslet's dress was gorgeous. I also liked Virginia Madsen's dress and Kirsten Dunst's dress (and I thought that it was so cute that she brought her brother).
What did I not like, you ask? Laura Linney, Sean Combs (I just don't think that fabric looks right for a tux), and Melanie Griffin (I especially like the part in the back that comes up so that her butt crack doesn't show).
Thus ends my Ocsar rant. Can't wait for the shows that criticize critique everyone's dresses and tuxes. I think it's on tonight!
Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
John Wesley
If cleanliness is next to Godliness, well my daughter is very Godly. Actually, I don't think that Godly is a word, but that's beside the point. My daughter is a neat freak. I don't know where these genetics come from, but they are definitely not mine. They must have come from my husband's side somewhere.
Please don't get the wrong impression; we are not total slobs. We keep our dishes and laundry washed and our house picked up. But, really, how many 18 month olds do you know that like everything to be neat and tidy? My daughter likes to clean. She keeps her little kitchen clean. She had managed to spill chocolate milk all over one side of it, and we had to clean that up. Unfortunately, I didn't know she had done that until about 12 hours later. Glad I found it then. The smell would have gotten much worse. Of course, she spilled it on the side with the "cutting board." It's got a cute little woodgrain look (lots of cracks and crevices for chocolate milk to get into and dry in a sticky mess). Where was this going? Oh, yeah. We had to clean it up before it got any worse. I got out the orange cleaner and started spraying it down. Then I started wiping it off with a paper towel. She pulled a paper towel off the roll (picture the paper towel roll rolling across the floor as she rips the first sheet on the roll in half to get it off) to help. But those paper towels couldn't be left out on the floor. They absolutely had to be picked up. Right away. Before we could do anything else.
That done, she moved on to helping clean her kitchen. She "scrubbed" out the sink and part of the door. Then she decided to do some cooking. Even my neat freak can get distracted, she is after all only 18 months old. She made macaroni and cheese. She took the tongs from the kitchen and was "feeding" me the macaroni and cheese while I finished cleaning her kitchen. I say "feeding" because most of the time she starts off getting the end of the tongs near my mouth. Then she puts them back in the pan. Then they don't get as close to my mouth. Then she starts giggling and moving the makeshift spoon back and forth to the pan in double time. Does this sound like an eye-gouging incident waiting to happen?
She feels the need to pick up after her parents. If we are watching a movie on a Saturday afternoon while she is napping, the first thing that she does when she wakes up is pick up our popcorn bowl and hand it to us to put in the sink. She doesn't like for there to be anything on the floor. Getting a glass of water? Drop some ice on the floor? She will pick it up for you. If this keeps up, I'm going to have the only teenager who picks up her room and does her own laundry.
It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"
Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne Have you ever been in the store and seen the mother pushing the cart along with a toddler in the front? The one where the baby says something that sounds like gibberish, but the mother responds as if the child was speaking perfect English? I am now that mother. My daughter is quite the little talker. She has quite a vocabulary ranging from the obvious Mama (which she draws out like Maaamaaa and says really loud -- do you think it sometimes takes her a minute to get my attention?) and Daddy to other words I'd rather her not say. I was quizzing her yesterday to see what all she is learning. She often surprises me by coming up with some word that I didn't know she knew. Me: Sweetie, can you say Mama? Her: Maaamaaa.Me: Good. Can you say Daddy?Her: Daddeee.Me: Can you say Mimi (her grandmother)?Her: Mimi.Me: Can you say Bitsy (our cat)?Her: Bisssssss.Me: Can you say Fungo (our other cat)?Her: Gugo.Me: Can you say Buddy (our dog -- yes, if you couldn't tell, we are pet lovers)?Her: Woof. Woof. It was so adorable. We haven't really been working with animal sounds becuase I haven't thought to, but apparently she picked that one up on her own. Further quizzing revealed that she knows what sounds are made by cows, ducks, kitties, and dogs. I thought it must be daycare teaching her because I also caught part of an E-I-E-I-O in there somewhere, but then I remembered what my brother got her for her birthday. It's a little tractor with Old MacDonald, a cow, a duck, and a pig. And it sings....you guessed it....Old MacDonald. So, now I'm not sure where she learned it, but I'll have to remember to keep working on the animal sounds.
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I took my daughter to daycare this morning, we walked in as usual, and I set her down on the ground to walk by herself. She's heavy. I'll carry her through the parking lot because, well, even though everyone driving up either works at the center or is dropping off their child, no one feels the need to slow down.
Anyway, we got inside, I set her down and as I was readjusting the diaper bag on my shoulder, she took off for the water fountain. The daycare has two water fountains side by side. One is designed for younger children and is at their level. I think some evil, cruel person decided to do this to torture parents by evoking temper tantrums in their children when the parent drags the child away. My daughter isn't tall enough to get a drink yet (thank goodness because that's a water-soaked shirt waiting to happen), but she does like to push the button and watch the water squirt out. For minutes on end. Now, as tempting as it may be to punish the cruel person who created this design by running up their water bill, we usually try to bypass the water fountain by focusing on the aquarium a little farther down the hall.
The center has a big salt-water aquarium full of very colorful fish. They have Marlin, Nemo, and Dory. They have a starfish and some sort of crab. I really think they were going for the Finding Nemo look. My daughter has a fun time watching them swim (and so do other children judging by the number of fingerprints on the glass). So, this morning, as I steered her toward the fish aquarium using the diaper bag to shield her from the water fountain, she saw one of her classmates. He had arrived earlier and was walking down the hall with their teacher. The little boy recognized my daughter and started squealing and jumping up and down. My daughter, recognizing him, said, "Hi!" and started running down the hall. That worked well because it saved me the trouble of prying her away from the fish aquarium. I knew we were getting close to the age where social interaction was going to be more important, and I'm glad to see that my daughter is making friends. Not that I ever really had any doubt. She is quite the little extrovert which is surprising because my husband and I are not. We are social with the groups of friends that we have, but we aren't the kind of people who are comfortable starting up a conversation with a complete stranger. Our daughter, on the other hand, will say hi to a stranger in the store or bye-bye to any car she sees leaving. Unlike a lot of kids her age, when a little old lady in line behind us at Walmart smiles and says something like, "Well, aren't you a cutie?" she just smiles and starts jabbering. No bashfulness or shyness in my child.
Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
I've been very busy at work today. But, I think that I've gotten everything accomplished that was on my to-do list this morning. Or at least most of it. There was a lot on the list. The rest of the week should go pretty smoothly. My boss is out of town for the rest of the week, so I'll catch up on reading a few blogs and message boards. Post some comments and post to my blog. I still have a few things that need to get done, but when my boss is gone, our office is very quiet. Only a few people coming quickly in and out to get coffee.
I'm going to have a hard time giving notice. My stomach ties up in knots just thinking about it. Ugh. I know that they hired me hoping that I would stay on for at least a few years. Now I'm leaving after 6 months. But, I don't have a choice. My husband got a job that was too good to pass up. They will understand that I have to do what's best for my family, but I know they'll still be disappointed.
On a happier note, my husband comes home tonight. It's only been a couple of days since I've seen him, but I've missed him.
My daughter has been a little pill. :) She's like that sometimes. Last night we had macaroni for dinner because I'm a pasta freak and could eat pasta for 5 meals a day every day. We had elbow-roni with a little butter and cheese...mmm....but I digress. My daughter likes this meal as well.
We were eating at the table because she now refuses to sit in her high chair. She just stands up. Since she's not much of an eater anyway, anything that will distract her away from a meal has to go. Therefore, she sits in a chair next to me. I'm going to buy her a booster seat this weekend, but for now, she sits on a couple of phone books in the chair. Or, at my parents' house, on a big dictionary. It makes her the perfect height.
Anyway, back to the macaroni. She also feels the need to put salt and pepper on any food she is eating. This has been going on for a couple of months now. She sees my husband and I salt and pepper our food, and she has to do the same thing. And she has to do it. I can't put on just a little. So, last night, she wanted a little pepper. But, it apparently wasn't coming out fast enough. You know the part on the inside (after you screw the lid off), the little clear plastic thing that sifts the spices out? That was in the way. Using her teeth (her usual manner of prying), she took that part off and dumped almost an entire bottle of course black pepper into her food. Now, really, what can you say to that? She started sneezing, and I took the bowl away to dump it out. Then, she got mad! I don't know if she was planning on eating it or what, but she was hacked off when I took it away. And, she was still mad after I gave her more food. That wasn't good enough. Probably because it didn't have any salt and pepper on it.
