There's a Method to my Madness

A while back Jenny gave me a wonderful little sampler of Method products. She is definitely a Method Maniac - I am also a fan of Method, though mostly the soaps and baby shampoo as I love that they are natural and smell yummy. Oh, and currently also loving the little dishwasher orbs.

One thing that bugs Jenny - sometimes when I receive cute gifties, I "save" them rather than "use" them (thus the adorable, unopened bag of toffee from her London trip circa 2001 that she repeatedly mentions how delicious it would have been had I eaten it when she'd given it to me 8 YEARS AGO!!)

And the Method gift pack was in danger of the same fate, I mean, it's too FREAKIN CUTE to use! I want to display it, not use them up! But a few days later, Little Miss got it in her head that she wanted to clean the sliding glass door (not sure what triggered the desire)... and the adorable little - and most importantly NON-TOXIC - bottle of Method cleaner was perfect for her little hands! (I sure as heck wasn't going to let my 3 year old get her hands on old school window cleaner!)

So I let Lauren "play" (clean) and I invoked my get-her-to-love-cleaning psychology... that I'm assuming will have her, in a few years, dying to clean the entire house... with something along the lines of, "ok, I'm only LETTING you clean because you've been a good girl" to go along with my usual, "no, you're not allowed to use the vacuum! Don't even THINK about touching it!! Now run along and put on a bunch of tattoos while Mommy vacuums and drinks her coffee."

Then grabbed my cam and got video as she cleaned and professed her love for Method.

Took her a bit to get the hang of spraying, but she loved it. She cleaned that one spot on the window about 20 times before I finally had to take it away from her, of course, ending with a, "if you're REALLY good tomorrow, you can clean the muolding with the wood cleaner..."

Mall Meltdown

This was the before picture. Lauren happily sitting and reading at Pottery Barn Kids.

While I then got busy searching for deeply discounted stuff (the only way I buy from PBK), Lauren started running around, into the display window, etc. Not listening to Daddy AT ALL. Only got her out of PBK by offering the Merry-go-round.

Then we tried to make a quick pass through Williams Sonoma - and things went totally downhill from there. She started tearing through WS, right near all the glassware, then when Daddy picked her up to take her out, she started screaming and crying... and didn't stop.

We tried to calm her down and tell her we were heading to the Merry-go-round, but she wouldn't listen and kept crying. She didn't seem to have any intention of calming down, so we left, Daddy carrying her. She SCREAMED and cried as if being murdered... all the way out of the mall and 10 minutes more on the drive home.

We're now home and after nearly sending her to bed immediately, we accepted her promise to listen and be a good girl next time, and didn't send her to bed. But NO TV. So she's again, happily sitting and reading at home.

So the Mall nightmare is over - and I DID buy two big red buckets at PBK marked down from $20 to $2.97, so at least some good came out of it!

But with all that, I reflect on how lucky I've been to date with a mostly well behaved little girl who listened to her Mommy and Daddy. I think she took a bus to Cleveland on Lauren's 3rd birthday and this litte stranger took over. I'm going to Cleveland to get my Baby back.

Mini Me

Enjoying a hot chocolate at Starbucks. Ironically, she has started to take to saying, "I'm not Lauren, I'm Mommy." and today it was, "I'm not Lauren, I'm Tina." And with a Starbucks in front of her and that big grin, she certainly is acting like me.

Of course she was also telling us that she was "Boo" and "Woody" and "Sully". So I'm not sure if I'm flattered to be included or not.

President Obama

What an amazing day, President Obama. I was very moved by his speech, the man can speak! I know Lauren is only 3 (almost) and she won't remember, but I am doing all I can to try to get her to understand. And what's the best way to do that? SING!! So I taught her this song:

Lauren takes on Mickey Rourke

Stayed home today with a very sick little Lauren, coughing like the Marlboro man and talking like Bea Arthur, boogers running off her face. At first she'd tell me, "Mommy, I have boogers" and let me wipe her nose, but she got tired of that and just started wiping her face on her jammy sleeve to get that nice layer of booger crust.

And watching lots of TV. Elf, Sleeping Beauty, Elf, Baby Einstein, Elf.

WARNING: if you don't like to watch the same movie over and over and over again (with a safe bet that it's not a movie in one of your favorite genres), don't have kids.

I want to express my sincerest thank you to the folks behind the kids movies that interject over-their-heads adult humor for those of us they know are stuck in repetition hell. I can handle most. Horton Hears a Who - NOT SO MUCH.

We were waiting for Daddy to get home from his golf vaca in sunny, warm florida - to come home to 1.5 sick chickies (I'm just half sick right now) and a dose of arctic air. Just before Daddy got home, Lauren had me paint her nails. Then before they were dry, she did the booger sleeve wipe, only to spread red nail polish on her nose, cheek, eyelid, and forehead. And it looked EXACTLY like bloody scratches. And it didn't wipe off. So here I am with my little one who looks like SHE was in the ring with Mickey Rourke. Daddy was going to freak.

So after trying to take some pics, I tried again to get it off... had success, kinda scratching it off. So other than a little bit of red, she looked like a porcelain faced doll when Daddy got home. A porcelain faced doll covered in boogers.

Spit Spot

So it's 2009. I was a very bad blogger for most of '08... then, the first comment of the new year on my last post, from Prissy - "You should blog more often, I miss the daily bite of the daily bite!"... so with that motivation (thank you Prissy), here I am, trying to be a better blogger.

I will try not to be ALL about Lauren, but it's hard not to be when the little cracker jack just does funny stuff left and right... like strip the clothes off her Mary Poppins doll faster than you can say, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!"

So this is what I come home to. Naked Mary Poppins dolly. And as Bridget Jones would say, "it's kind of pervy, really."

Lauren Acts

Happy New Year! Perhaps this will be the year I become a stage Mom and Little Miss pays the bills with her acting skills. Or perhaps not =)

Lauren dancing with santa

Whoa! The little one is channeling her inner Elvis!!

Baby Bumble Bee Song

I taught Lauren the Baby Bumble Bee song, and she was singing it quite sweetly. We tried to get in on video, but then she got very quiet. So I asked her to sing it loud... here's what we got:



She says, "Bumble Bee Song! Won't my Mommy be so proud o me cause I'm throwin up my baby bumble bee. Won't my Mommy be so proud o me cause I'm throwin up my baby... do it loud. (me: you do it loud). YOU do it loud!

Lauren learned to sommersault a while ago and loves to do so, she also loves jumping. So when the Olympic Gymnastics came on, she was enthralled. She said, "Mommy, she's wearing her babysoup (bathing suit)" - she demanded to have her bathing suit on, then started sommersaulting around. She copied other movements (arms in the air) and at one point just dropped from standing to sitting position (this was pretty damn funny).

I got a little nervous that she'd try a no handed cartwheel or something, but she stuck to sommersaults (probably did at least 20).

I guess it is certainly time to enroll her in a gymnastics class!

Lauren has become an all out Mary Poppins addict. She will actually sit in front of her mini-dvd player and watch the ENTIRE thing (if Daniela only knew what a lifesaver this gift would be when she got it for me while I was on bed rest in the hospital, pregnant with Lauren!!).

She attempts to say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but basically says superalishus, it's a start.

Honestly, I never though a non-animated film would hold her attention, I could not have been more wrong.

She also managed to pick up on our conversation last week where I said, "he drives me nuts"... next thing you know, "drives me nuts, drives me nuts". Miss Repeater in action. Hub got her to say, "Mommy drives me nuts".

I wanna have...

The other afternoon, in the car after picking Lauren up from daycare, she started saying what sounded exactly like, "I want s e x, Mommy. I wannna have s e x". I almost passed out, until I realized she was talking about her favorite little fruit snacks - "I want snacks, Mommy. I wanna have snacks!" She's a repeater too (aren't all 2 year olds?), so she kept saying it over and over. Then I found it to be quite funny.



The next morning, when she was asking again, I said, "no, Lauren, no snacks, you're going to have breakfast at school." To which, Hubby said, "It's ok Lauren, Daddy doesn't get snacks either."

Isn't he HILARIOUS. NOT.

Go Tiger Woods!

Now that Lauren is at that stage where she repeats almost anything, I had some fun today getting her to cheer for Tiger Woods during the Masters golf tournament. She is saying, "go Tiger Woods, go Tiger Woods, get a birdie, get a birdie, get a hole in one!"



I am still working on, "whatchyou talking bout Willis?" and "may the Schwartz be with you".

Orange Monkey Face

As Jenny pointed out on Sunday at Sprague's Maple farm, while we were eating pancakes with fresh maple syrup, fresh maple syrup is more expensive than oil, and we probably ate over $30 worth of the stuff that morning. Yummy delicious amber goodness, but not cost effective as an alternate fuel source.

Also doing my best to raise Lauren as a goofball. I think she has inherited my silly side. Daddy is not very silly, but then again, he did show up at Jenny's halloween party one year wearing spandex leopard print pants and a mask (and some strategically places socks). So he's definitely got a silly side.

Lemme see... quick updates...

GOLF GEEK - becoming a golf geek as I work on the PGA Partnership team... went to Miami for one day of the CA golf tournament last week... sweet ocean breezes...



LITTLE PICKER - when I went to get Little L out of her crib this morning, she had picked the little hemangioma (booty mark) over her eyebrow and there was dark red blood smeared across her entire eyelid and on her hand. It looked like she had started to make herself up as a clown. Mommy almost fainted, she wasn't fazed.

OMG - then, on the way to daycare, as we drove by an accident with a car off the road, she exclaimed, "oh my goodness! oh my goodness!". She is funny.

Delayed no more

Lauren gave us a scare last week with a 103 temperature. Looks like she had the one day flu I had the week before, but she was feeling mostly better by Friday. On Friday, she had her 2 year developmental follow up appt. They track preemies for research purposes. They had her do various tests, like stack blocks, point to a dolly's various parts, find hidden toys, etc.

She was still pretty subdued, so she barely said a word, but she warmed up to the tests.

After the session, the doctor came to tell me that in the 8 years he had been doing these tests, you could count on one hand the number of kids doing as well as Lauren. I about burst in to tears. It's just such a relief to know that given such a rough start that Lauren is doing so wonderful.

We are truly blessed.

Then tonight I come home and she and Daddy both have has pants on her head as hats - her idea. Will her genius be used for good, bad, or ridiculous. You decide.

(oh, and just to be clear, the doctors did not imply that Lauren was a genius, just very caught up developmentally. But hey, that's a parent's job to assume their kid is a genius =)

So the video shows what Lauren did NOT do for the researcher,

Fire Insurance for Ladybugs

Since she was little, I've sung the first verse of the "Ladybug Picnic" song to Lauren - not remembering all the words from my early days planted in front of the tv watching Sesame Street...

But then I realized, HELLO, this is 2008, EVERYTHING is on YouTube, EVERYTHING!! Sure enough, I found it.

Well, Lauren is obsessed. Every night, grabs my hand and pulls me to the computer, "adybug icnic Mommy, adybug icnic".



I also know ALL the words only TOO well now and can rattle off the entire song when needed.

Oh, and you can just imaging how excited she gets when we actually find a LIVE ladybug in our house (because, apparently, they are making babies in my walls or something... something I choose not to think too hard about and am only thankful to GOD that it is ladybugs and not bees... for if it were bees, I'd be moving out... "Honey, I'll be at the Hyatt, let me know when our bed is set up at whatever new house you buy in the next 3 days.")

Birthday Video

Jenny created this video montage from Lauren's birthday.

Lauren officially LOVES cake and LOVES birthdays! Between the pink piano from Jenny & Aaron (HOW FREAKIN CUTE IS THAT?!!) and the music class at Hochstein she starts next week (Music for Tiny Tots), by this time next year she will be my Mini-Mozart.

TEE NA!!

Somewhere along the way, Lauren picked up on the fact that my name is "Tina" and decided to address me this way. I always reply with the correction, "Mommy", so she knows it doesn't thrill me... so now she does it to get my goat...

and I finally captured it on video... Jenny says it looks like "Lauren TV"...

In the video she even gives a very stern look - one I must give her when she calls me "Tina"... the things kids pick up is scary!

Now I don't really know my ABCs

All that crap about blogging more and making lists and I've still been horrible about both. Today I am actually in Orlando for the PGA golf show for work. Met Omarosa and she is so nice. Can't say I'm shocked because I know that they edit the crap out of TV.

Lauren turns two in a couple weeks, the girl is cracks me up. I finally captured video of her singing her ABC's (somewhat) but gets stuck in a loop at the end - qrstuvwy tuv wx tuv wx tuv (and so on)... This particular time, I thought she was going to go on forever, but then she noticed the camera and asked, "I see Lauren Clark?" which she says when she wants to see pics of herself.