Sweet Pea update

This is Tia at her Grandma's 80th birthday party. She is a big 2-year-old. She sits at the grown up table and eats off 'big' plates. People say she looks three. I think she's tall, because a lot of her size 2T pants fit in the waist, but are too short.

She's also very chatty for her age. She now says 'stupid,' 'idiot' and 'dammit,' thanks to Mama and Dada.

Back to Work

I am back filling in for my co-worker who's having her second baby (no baby yet, she's on bedrest and due June 10th). She will be out for 3 months.

But I forgot how hard it is to get up for mornings. Usually when my alarm clock goes off, I lie there for a minute and try to wake up, no matter what time it is. But this morning, when the alarm went off, my husband nudged me to turn it off (I'm sorry, was that bothering you??) and that instantly put me in an annoyed mood. That, and I have to work a double shift today!

That said, I'm still glad to be back working in the world of 'adults'. It makes me appreciate Sweet Pea more.

Evil Comes in Small Packages*

Sweet Pea had cheese slices, turkey lunchmeat and fruit for lunch. She sits at the 'big' table now with Mama and Dada. She puts her bare feet up on the table while she eats, saying, "Look at me Mama, I got my feet on the table," like a little toddler dare that really says "What are you going to do about it?" I threaten to clip her toenails because she hates it, and she takes her feet down. But 2 seconds later, they're up on the table again with the same mocking look on her little toddler face. I get out the baby nail clippers and wrestle her while I clip her big toenail. She's screaming in anguish because it 'hurts', but after I'm done 2 seconds later, she's miraculously recovered...and she seems able to laugh at me with her eyes...with her feet up on the table again! I try to ignore it.

I ask her if she's done eating. She says yes...I make a fatal mistake...I leave the table without collecting her lunch plate first... which has chewed up cheese, turkey meat remnants and sticky fruit cup juice on it. As I turn the corner to the kitchen sink, I don't see it but I hear it: her plastic Pooh bear plate and all its leftover contents flipping up into the air and landing face down on the floor...toddler lunch spread some two feet in all directions. And she's smiling at me.

I briefly lose it: "TIA! No throwing your plate!" I swat her on the butt. I turn her around to look at her face. Have I done anything that will bother this girl? No. She is smiling at me... with that open-mouth smile and her one little dimple in her left cheek like she's about to laugh. And she looks so damn cute. And that makes ME laugh.

There goes any chance of being taken seriously.

Curses on her cuteness!

*I forgot to take a picture of the described event. But the one above will do: it's what you get when you tell her not to stand on the coffee table.

Tia's First Easter Egg Hunt

It was actually Tia's and OUR first egg hunt at Edmonds City Park... and will likely be our last. No parents ever warned me about this! There were literally HUNDREDS of people in the park and I had drop off Ian and Sweet Pea and park several blocks away. Needless to say, by the time they reached the '2-year-old section' all the eggs were gone.



But she did find one lonely piece of candy, Smarties, on the ground that she almost stepped on, and that was her Easter find.



Luckily, she had a lot more fun playing on the slides, swinging and climbing on the jungle gym, after the crowds left. Who needs eggs, anyway.