Tiny Kristin and Little Papa

I know both Mike and I are so tired.
I really realized the extent of my lack of sleep today.
The blue darkness under my eyes reflect my bruising brain.
I'm seriously forgetting words and can't understand step by step systems.

-phew-

And Mike is doing two jobs and making the house comfortable on his little sleep. It's craziness.

Maybe there is still adrenaline from his Jack Brown's job offer?
I am so happy for him.
I know this is totally what he wanted and he made it happen by working his ass off.
I've said it many times before- My husband is awesome.

I've been making up lots of lyrics and am excited to put them together and work them in w music.
I really miss playing my electric.
Maybe someone wants to play keys while I play guitar for the Crypts.
But let's not think too much about that...

Ami is really really getting imaginative and it is really very wonderful to watch and play along w her.

There is a first part to this video, but the computer won't upload it :(

On the Ami potty training front, again, we've decided she is just not ready.

She just doesn't like peeing in the toilet- any toilet.

When we put underwear on her, she denies she has to pee and refuses to use the toilet. She can hold it for hours... until she can't hold it any longer and wets herself.

I wonder why she doesn't want to use it? 

She's been telling me lately that she's 'tiny' (as opposed to 'big') and that she uses a diaper.

I just don't know.

She's wet the bed before and had accidents in public places- it doesn't bother her, so the embarrassment factor isn't there.

She's pooped in her pants- it doesn't bother her.

One week a few months ago, I had her naked and she ended up pooping and peeing where ever she wanted- she didn't care.

I can't get mad, or she'll have even more issues.

I think now, maybe we shouldn't even bring it up unless she does.

It's gonna be hard because... physically- she is just so, so ready... and she is so smart!

I never thought I'd have such a precocious child.

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Little girl is being a baby.

Being good at it.

She's a little Papa, which is what I've been calling her...

Mike has been calling Ami, "Tiny Kristin," cuz she's annoying, haha.

-In his words, "She does what she wants and is stubborn and funny and cute and uses these things to do what she wants."-

He is so good with her because he's used to dealing w me.  I, on the other hand, have not had to deal w that part of myself, and I never have had a desire to.

I love my kiddies.

Apocolypto?

Right now I'm in bed w Mike.
He's checking his facebook and watching Apocalypto.
Ugh.
I told him, "Mel Gibson."
He said, "I know."

Ami is sleeping and has slept in her bed the whole night through 3 nights in a row.
It's been really nice to have snuggly mornings w my husband.

This morning I woke Ami up and we ate a delicious 5 grain oatmeal/quinoa mixed w raisins for breakfast.
Then Ami and I went to gymnastics.

I was having a hard time. My belly is getting big and my whole body hurt (still does).
Ami wanted me to bounce on the trampoline w her instead of Miss Beth and I couldn't not double bounce her every time.

I know next session (starting next week) she will be even more involved and rely on Miss Beth more and more.  I tell her to listen to Miss Beth because she is the teacher- not me, and we can trust her.

We then went to Nina's house and waited for my friend Amanda to visit from NoVA so we could hang out. Nina's house has more close guest parking spots and I didn't have to go up and down 3 flights of stairs more than I needed to, haha.  Dude. It's seriously getting rough.   My junk hurts.

While we waited, Ami and I put on Pee-Wee's Playhouse and she was enthralled, entranced, totally engaged.

She loves that Pee-Wee.

Amanda came and we (I) decided we should go to Guru for some Indian. After Moo's house, I have been dreaming about Indian food.  

I want to say towards the end of Ami's term, we ate at Guru several times- as well as Soup and Taco.

I could eat at Soup and Taco right now, haha.

-Mike just told me he misses Bean. He wants to hold Bean and kiss and hug Bean.  I told him we're gonna see him TOMORROW!!!-

Anyway...  We walked in to Guru and the FIRST thing I see is Moo! Moo eating at Guru w Blackmore.

It was pretty epic.

Moo asked me if after Curry Night I was craving curry and absolutely I was.

He was wearing one of his 2 favorite shirts. It was good.

Then Amanda, Ami, and I went to Toys R Us to walk it out and get some Cabbage Patch diapers for Brianica.

First world problem- couldn't find diapers for Cabbage Patch Dolls.

I did get doll diapers, however, and hopefully they will fit.

I also got her some more ABC flash cards and excited about the awesome toys in that store. I forgot how awesome toy stores are.

We went to CRAVE for some frozen yogurt.

We bid Amanda adou and went to Wegmans for some food.

Along with grocery list items, I decided to get some more tea and tapioca pearls to make bubble tea.

I think Ami would get a kick out of that.

We got home and I brought up Ami and the perishables. 

I cooked up the fresh whole wheat tortellini for us. 

I used fresh basil and low sodium veggie packed spaghetti sauce to top off the tortellini.

I gave her a side of applesauce and Nina's curry.

Mike came home early which was a lovely surprise. 

Ahhh, I love my family.

Tomorrow's gonna be fun, too. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm going to be dreaming about breakfast at Forum tonight.

"Where Is Your Ice Cream?"

Today is Mike and my 5th wedding anniversary.

The day kind of started when I woke up at five a.m. due to a full bladder.
I then drank 20 oz of water and ate some peanut butter puffs while looking up the Goons on my phone.
I forgot about this band and that I like them.

Ami was awesome at gymnastics today. She tried stuff she learned in class and had a great attitude.

It was towards the end she got pretty cranky.
We came home, she had a snack and she crawled into bed. We read Put Me In The Zoo then I popped in some Joe Scruggs. She was out.
She uses a little Fisher Price cassette player if you want to make her a tape.


Then we went to Moo's house for the most delicious curry dinner EVER.

On our way there, I shot this video...

I wish I could eat at Moo's house all the time. Moo's mom is a terrific cook. I had the best fish ever. OMG.

After dinner, we went to Carl's for some frozen custard.
Billy got a cherry chocolate slushie float. I got a small strawberry sundae w nuts. Mike got a chocolate malt shake and Ami got a kiddie chocolate cone.

Halfway through, Ami wanted to trade w me. I didn't mind and we did.  Then our ice cream was gone and she  asked Billy if she could have some of his ice cream.  Billy shared.
Then she asked for Mike's ice cream.
As she was holding Mike's shake, she asked Mike, "Where's YOUR ice cream?"

It was a lovely end to a lovely day.

Pleasantly Productive Tuesday.

This morning was the first day of a new gymnastics class.
We woke up early and ate some yummy breakfast.
I had whole wheat toast spread w goat cheese, mashed raspberries and a drizzle of agave- mighty tasty.
Ami had Greek-strained yogurt w raspberries and a 60% juice 40% water blend.

Excited, we got dressed and played a little bit with Papa and then we said goodbye to him.

The weather was a little rainy and had cool breezes (which was a much needed weather flavor).
We drove to gymnastics and Ami ran into class.
I  loved her confidence today.

She had Miss Beth (my boss) as a teacher for the first time and she was very attentive and participated.
It was really really lovely to see.
She only got grumpy towards last 5 minutes.

We got home and took out the play doh and her little plastic zoo animals. We played with those.
I told her this afternoon's plan- I'll make lunch, then we'll eat it.  Then we'll play for a little bit and it's time for a nap.

For lunch, she had soy beans in their pods, some spaghetti w awesome garden vegetable sauce sprinkled w parm and nutritional yeast w some banana and milk.

She tore it up.

We played some more. The animals ended up face down in the play doh.

We went to bed and read Punk Farm on Tour. She sings the lines w me and it is so awesome. Gawd I love her.

While she slept, I made lotion and an appointment w my finger surgeon for next Tuesday.
I made the appointment because my finger keeps swelling and hurts. I don't want to wear the finger glove forever.

The whole worker's compness involves so many people it's overwhelming who I need to go to for what.

Beth really helped me get back on track and I owe her so much.  I feel pretty damn retarded with this mess.

The lotion I made today was based on the one I've used before w Jojoba oil, but I added lanolin and vitamin E. I also used a premade relaxing mixture of essential oils. I was thinking Bean would like it.
I hope he does. He sure is darn cute.

I also called PL Pediatrics to see if I can get the kids in to Dr. Yum's practice.  Yes!!!  I am so excited.

I did laundry while watching Simpsons and trying to put shit away.

When Ami woke up, I was still folding laundry and she asked so politely to watch Despicable Me.
We did and she asked me to stop what I was doing sit on the couch w her. This prompted a short nap for me.
It was pretty nice.

Ami and I went to Bloom for some much needed dinner items- cucumber, mint, spinach, ice cream cones.
Bloom didn't have mint!

 
I tried out a recipe I got out of a book about power foods I recently got (thank you, Borders). It's an avocado, asparagus, spinach chilled soup.
This is the link to the book and the soup recipe.

While I was blending soup ingredients, I gave Ami some more edamame and the rest of her banana.

I served the soup with out mint (it would have been banging w it, but still pretty tasty... I'm gonna have some more in a minute).

I called it "Green Soup." Ami tried it, but said she didn't like it.  I made her oatmeal w raisins and milk instead. She was down with that.

Then I started on Papa's dinner. Spinach salad w sprouts, cucumber, red onion, red bell pepper, broccoli, steamed asparagus, sesame seeds, squirt of lemon, and oil/vinegar dressing.

I steamed corn on the cob and cooked his whole wheat farfalle.

I also cooked some really really good pudding. OMG so good.
I set them up in the regular sized ice cream cones and put them in the fridge to later put ice cream on top.
Epic failure. I didn't wait long enough for the pudding to cool and the cones got soft and kind of ... melted?
Mike and I later ate them anyway as they reminded us of eclairs. Did I mention the pudding is REALLY good?

Dinner was done and Mike wasn't home yet. Ami took a bath while I cleaned up the bathroom some.
I put some of the relaxing oil in there w her along w a few drops of jojoba.
She made me hot tea in the tub and a water fall.

Papa came home and gave the Doodlebug her latest BabyBug that came in the mail.  The very first story was about a little girl playing w clay or play doh or whatever... using blue as water, green as grass and playing w her little plastic animals.  How weird! It was pretty darn cosmic.

 Papa ate. He said dinner was bangin.
Awesome.

Doodle had her after bath snack which was ice cream on a baby cone- perfect size for her!
We watched some Sesame Street and learned about the letter U and weather- which was PERFECT because it rained pretty much all day today.

She brushed her teeth and we snuggled in bed. We read Punk Farm on Tour again.

Now I am eating more green soup and am excited about downloading Grinderman.

We lost all of our music.
All of it.

Slowly, we've been downloading what we've lost and new shit.

I have all of the Bad Radio demos which when I listen to the songs, makes me feel better about where I am musically, haha... and where I have been...

Saturday It Rained Outside and in My Brain.

I think we're going to have to skip Nina's gymnastic's class on Saturdays. Ami is just too wacked out and tired... Unless I can find a way to make it work. She asks about it often. 

After class, we went to Springfield to meet up w Aunt Jecca and Paul. We drove to Alexandria and ate at a place called Bilbo Baggins. Ami and I ordered bruschetta and fresh rolls (rice paper) and remembered how much fun we had had the night before.

They have excellent bread, btw, as Ami here, is demonstrating. 

We visited the Torpedo Factory. Some things were inspiring. There was really awesome metal work, as well as paper mache shizz.

Then we went to get some ice cream.
I got red velvet cake ice cream- it was way too sweet but it was good.
Ami picked out cookies n cream.
We later traded... then traded back.

After ice cream, we went back to Paul's house and left for  home.  It took 2 hours!  I was amazed how backed up 95 was. 

We were rocking out to some Ida Maria.

Ami can rock this song out, Dude.  More than Iggy Pop :)

After she fell asleep, I hit random, I guess on Audio Galaxy, and it really wanted me to listen to Andrew Bird and Built to Spill. I nearly fell asleep in the stop/go of traffic.

I found out I don't like Rilo Kiley during this trip which bummed me out.  Oh well, right?

Ami and I got home in time for us to chill just ever so slightly before she went to Nina's house and Mike and I went to his show at Eyeclopes.

It was an all ages show so there were a lot of kids. I made some friends- a bunch of shorties. We were talking about my belly.

The first band was from Charlotte, North Carolina. They were old and they could rock.
I just don't understand how one can be that old and still not sing like him/herself. The singer was trying to sound like Lemmy.
I totally understand kids trying to emulate someone, but I imagine when you're 40 or 50 you should be yourself... but... what do I know. I'm only 29.

We left in the middle of the third band. They were pretty lame. I just don't understand that music. I can't even remember what they were called so I can't give an example.

Anyway, Mike and I came home, I was exhausted. We made pizza on whole wheat flat bread. It was good.
Then I died.

"I Had Fun at Gabby's Baby Bath."

Did you know Jay works at Giant?

On Friday, I sang, "Who are the dumbasses in my neighborhood... In my neighborhood..."

I had to park a bit a ways. I didn't have Ami with me because I had my guitar lesson, but I had two loads of groceries and my guitar I wanted to carry up before I picked her up.
I walked towards our building and found a driver of the UHaul.  Honestly out of breath, I asked him if he could move the truck so I could park.
He still hadn't moved when I came down for my second load.
Finally, I could move my car and carried my guitar up.

Coming down, my downstairs neighbor was asking me if I needed any help and we were talking about my being pregnant the heat and my living on the third floor and if I ever needed any help, I shouldn't hesitate to ask her- all in front of our new neighbors.  It was kind of funny.  Also, downstairs neighbor is really sweet.

Ok, here, these folks were moving in or out. They were telling me to just go around them. Obviously I can't squeeze through the exit.  I waited a bit.  They were getting impatient.  I rolled down my window and said, "You are asking me to do something illegal because you are doing something illegal and I don't appreciate it."
They moved.
There are serious repercussions driving out the entrance way. I was avoiding it at all costs.

On Saturday, Ami joined Nina's early morning class at the other Y because Gabby's baby shower was at Ami's usual gymnastics time. It was just Ami and another two year old... kinda cute...

Afterward we played on the playground and chatted with a mom who had two daughters, one was 3 and the other one was a new baby. Ami was curious about the baby which was awesome. The mom and I talked about gymnastics and she told me how her older daughter handled being a big sister and all that good stuff.

Ami was helping Gabby pick out and open her presents.

She was sort of playing with a 9 month old and playing with one of Bean's new toys.

The party ended and as I was putting Ami in her car seat, she said, "I had fun at Gabby's baby bath."
She slept hard after all of this.

 And random fun...

Cranky Day

I got maybe 3 hours of sleep last night. I was cranky.
Ami woke up at 6- three hours earlier than her usual. She was cranky.
Today was rough.
I just couldn't sleep. My body was restless.  I coped by watching a Runaways documentary and daydreaming about decorating my imaginary house.


Couch
chair
hanging lamp
chair
bed
coffee table
end tables
door mat
awesome mug
clock
bowl
wall art

co

"It's 72 degree inside your head- all the time!"

I stepped outside today to go to Amelie's gymnastics class and thought I was in Heaven.

72 delicious degrees hit my body and traveled in my mouth and through my lungs.

I said to Mike and Ami, we can do ANYTHING today!!!

I want to live some place where the weather is like this- all the time.

So, we went to gymnastics and Ami ran around. She played on the slide, the tumble trak, and walked on the beam. There were 6 plastic bowling pins set up at the end of a long velcro strip. She was supposed to log roll down and knock over the pins. As Miss Dawn was showing her how to do it, Ami soccer kicked the pins over.... I picked them up, she kicked them over again. Miss Dawn said, "It's like both her parents play in a rock and roll band or something."

Haha, I told her it wasn't MY fault!.. It kind of is.

They went up to the pit then down to the balloons.
It was a good time.

Miss Dawn gave her end of class stamps of Cookie Monster and Elmo.

On our way to the car she found some flowers and decided to frolic :)

This week I don't have to let Max out and I'm just not knowing what to do with myself. I base all my plans on going to King George at 12 and play w the dog until 1.

We drove up to the bank teller and Ami shouted, "Ice cream!!!"

Haha... I love this kid. I told her this was the bank, not McDonalds. After I put money in, I had a great plan to get lunch downtown at Soup and Taco for some vegetarian tamales and papusas. I would use my birthday gift certificate and get Mike some papusas, too.
We got there and AGHHh... I forgot they're closed Mondays. Instead, we decided to sit outside at Sammy T's. No one else was out there at the time, and luckily the ladies who later sat down didn't smoke.

I got my usual bean and grain burger, Ami got a grilled cheese. She ended up sitting on my lap which I totally embraced. It's not often she's snuggly. The perfect weather reflected our little moment.

After lunch, we ate some Sammy T's frozen yogurt. Just to let you know, this picture DOES NOT reflect her excitement.

When we were all done with downtown, we hopped in the car to make our way to the grocery store. During the ride, I was listening to the new song the Crypts wrote last night. Ami kept saying, "Again!" after each ending until she went to sleep. It was a few times.

This is me tickling the ol' ivories on Civil Servant Cyborg- the song we were rocking out to. I recorded the video on my phone the same time we recorded on the Mac. I was hoping it'd help me visually but nope.

It may, however, turn you on. So be aware.

I suggest hit play and close your eyes.

My mom sent me this picture when we were at band practice last night. They made a house out of the box her big girl car seat came in. They decorated it and ate in it :) Ami is eating spinach.

I dropped Ami off at Nina's house so I could go to work and right before I left, I took this video.

After work, I picked her up and went home. I was met by Mike who said there was going to be pizza waiting when I got home from open mic. Rad.

I uked it up at open mic and left as quickly.

I opened the apt door and saw Jenna on my couch watching House and a very pretty armoire.