Violet, grrr.

Violet is driving me crazy these days by a) being cry-ey and whiny, b) running around loudly and screaming in my elderly parents' home, and c) being really disobedient when I try to manage her behavior.

I have to remind myself that she is my beautiful, one and only, daughter. One of these days we'll figure it out, right? Hopefully before she's a teenager.

Dude.

Baby Wright doesn't mind if you play Guitar Hero...you just have to make sure you give him the 2nd guitar. He likes to push the neck buttons, pluck the fret bar, and wiggle the whammy bar back and forth. I discovered this after unsuccessfully trying to play and swat him away from my guitar at the same time. Not so good for the "You Rock!!" screen.

Last night while we were playing through "Paint it Black," Violet came in (*ahem* GOT OUT OF BED) and whipped out her keyboard to play along as well. When I forced her back in bed later, she told me, "Mommy, but I was so happy when we were singing songs!" :)

Sometimes hardship means...

...cooking dinner whilst enduring the nostril-raping odor of your dad's nearby feet. It smells like week-old salami left out in an Egyptian sewer. He hath devised a two-pronged attack so that when you first step through the front door, you pass directly over his abandoned shoes. Synthetic, non-breathing shoes + no socks = unprecedented & unnatural chemical compositions. Then, before you realize you should not be breathing anymore (coma imminent!), you must walk by the other half of the team: his actual bare feet, left out to air in the closed-window environs of the living room.

It is insidious. I am three rooms away, and I can still memory-smell it, like it has left airborne molecules in my nose.

And now I must go make tri-tip steak and baked potatoes, armed only with minced garlic and one lone Mackintosh Apple scented Yankee Candle. I shall put the candle at the edge of the counter closest to the living room, to ward off as much as I can...

Blue stuff

A few weeks ago I checked out The Apron Book from the library, and that's when my mom and I went a little crazy. Okay, my mom went a little crazy. I just made this one apron as a Christmas present for my mother-in-law (and gave her a copy of the book as well). My mom whipped up like 7 aprons from various patterns as Christmas gifts, two of which she sent off to Ireland for a couple of our distant cousins. My mom! Seriously, she rocks. Anyway, what a find the book was. It is a collection of stories, vintage aprons (and their stories), and even a couple apron patterns, all of which celebrate the art of homemaking and mothering. I read through this book in between child-rearing one evening, and at the end I felt high on life and proud of my choices. I also felt inspired to be better. I urge any fellow mom to check it out.

In the spirit of blue Christmas presents, I also managed to squeeze in this custom dress for my niece, Lily. Thank you so much to Shari, who created the AWESOME sew-in tags and hanging tag for me. I just ironed the sew-in image onto twill tape, and I'm pretty happy with the result. You can't really see it that well in these pics, sorry--my camera is so much classier than I am. :p~ Also, the dress is not bumpy, that's just the leggings underneath.

Violet-ness

Just when we are feeling too serious, Violet knows exactly what to say to lighten the mood. Here are a few of her recent gems:

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Sam farts.
V: Daddy, do you have to go potty?

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Standing while I wipe her after she goes number 2.
V: Mommy, you are doing such a good job wiping my bottom! I'm really proud of you!

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V: Can I watch somethin'?
Me: Okay, what do you want to watch?
V: I wanna watch KPBS Kids!

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Every day.
V: Can I do my Avalynt calendar, pleeease? (Avalyn + Advent= Her Trader Joe's chocolate "Avalynt" calendar.)

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Me: No, no Baby Wright, get Violet's shoe out of your mouth, eew!
Wright continues to eat the shoe.
V: Baby Wright, that's 1! (As in 1-2-3 Magic.)

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My favorite is when she messes up opposites and quantities...she always has worthy intentions, but they just come out wrong:

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Flicking a stray Kix out of her carseat.
Me: Violet, honey, don't do that. You need to pick that up.
V: That was just a Kick, Mommy. I don't want a Kick in my carseat.
Me: Kix. We say Kix whether it's one Kix or lots of Kix.
V: No, that was a Kick. I have Kix in my cereal. Heheh, Mommy, you're silly! (Apparently my English degree means nothing to her.)

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Sucking thumb and possibly whining.
V: Mommy, I want you to hold me for big minutes. (As opposed to "for a little bit" or "for a few minutes".)

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Me: Violet, would you like some more milk?
Pushing her cup towards me.
V: Yeah, I'd like a bit much.

---

...

Life has been ridiculous around here lately. The holidays were/are a whirlwind of cleaning, shopping, making, cooking, etc., and it seems like neither my mom or I have been able to catch our breaths. Not to mention, Poophead I and Poophead II.

Ugh.

Seriously. My two evil children. Between the two of them, I have figured out that each day I actually fall further behind in my to do list. I don't quite understand how it happens over and over, but each day I basically run around getting snacks, holding Wright, taking potty, nursing Wright, calming tantrums, holding Wright, dressing Violet, finding something for Violet, more Wright duty...and so on. If I hoped to cross 3 things off my list, I actually only get to do 1, and so the next day it is 4, and I only get to 1 or even 0, compound that, blah, blah.

And then I think, I really want to have another baby to take up all my time and start this all over again???

No, I don't, I can't. This is seriously awful. Baby Wright, can you please go back to taking decent naps? How about getting through the early evening w/o waking up 1 billion times, huh? Cut me some slack, here.

All day long I dream about...reading...sewing...cooking...watching a show of my own...doing something without my kids. I look at single people with envy. They get to come home after work and have hours and hours to themselves. HOURS! They get to take baths. They go shopping alone with time to think, and not feel like they have to rush because their kids a) incredibly distracting and/or bad, or b) are inconveniencing someone else.

I don't think I'm cut out to have lots of children. I'm too selfish...

Okay, I just had to go put Wright back to sleep. Here is his schedule so far tonight:

8:45 Asleep
9:21 Awake
10:35 Awake
11:52 Awake (dude! He made it 1.5 hours! <---I actually thought this to myself)
1:00 Awake

And so on and so forth. He will go longer stretches once I'm in bed, but sheesh. Is it any wonder I'm so unproductive (for instance: this blog)? Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself for letting Violet watch so much Dora. I mean, I'm basically brain-dead, and, hey, it's educational!

I have so many other, less-whiny, blog posts in my head. Maybe when I get the chance--hah!--I will write them.

Santa Baby

This weekend Violet had her first visit with Santa. We didn't "take" her to go see Santa, it was just sort of the by-product of a local commercial plaza promotion. For some reason, they wanted you to come with your kid, decorate a Christmas stocking, and collect stocking stuffers from the stores in the plaza. All for free! You also got a picture with Santa in the bargain. I wish I could post a picture here, but a) they used Polaroids, and b) dumb me forgot my camera. For the record, he was a cute grandpa-y Santa who made a real effort to talk to each kid. Kudos to him for coming out in a Santa suit when it was, like, 1000 degrees out!

Here is how his conversation with Violet went:

Santa: Well hello! Violet, that's a pretty name! What would you like for Christmas?

Violet: A bicycle. (I coached her to say, "tricycle," but whatever)

Santa: Oh, a bicycle! How nice! Are you old enough to ride a bicycle with training wheels?

Violet: Yep. (Not remotely true.)

Santa: Wow, what a big girl! Is there anything else you can think of that you would like me to bring you for Christmas?

Violet: Thinking for a minute. A cheese-stick? (It was lunchtime)

Santa: ??? Oh, okay, a cheese-stick, that would be interesting! Well, maybe you could write me a letter telling me what you want for Christmas and put it in the mail. Do you think you could do that?

Violet: Nodding head. "R."