"i melt for no one"

if you're annoyed by christmas trees before thanksgiving, you can take your bah humbugs elsewhere because how can this pic not melt your heart? i was excited for baby's first christmas last year, but i'd be lying if i said i wasn't WAY MORE excited for baby's second christmas this year.

we met friends for lunch at the grove farmer's market on saturday, but because violet has transitioned to one long midday nap most of the time, we took her down early to make the most of the outing before her nap. the dreamworks marketing team has erected a huge happy feet 2 display in front of the movie theater -- an apparent penguin habitat complete with dyed blue "ice chips" (with which violet insisted upon hydrating). violet ran around for a good hour.





she also kept tossing handfuls into the air like it was 1999. it's the small things like this that continue to take me aback. how did her little brain figure out that throwing things into the air and watching them fall back down is fun times? i don't know, but i love it. new baby trick: making it rain.



there was of course the vendor shilling remote-control toys that "don't break." i was happy to have that verbal warranty agreement before violet caught the car and flung it down.



we quickly moved onto another of violet's favorite play-places, the bench, where she plotted operation: shoe removal.



love you, grove. we'll be back for some good ol' christmas consumerism soon.

bonus pics of the day:





kevin had a shoot at universal citywalk last week, and he couldn't stop himself from picking up this awesome onesie. when i laughed at the irony that violet's already overprotective father picked out the green onesie for his daughter (you may of course remember the middle school urban legend that the green m&ms specifically would put girls "in the mood"), kevin defended that green is the only girl m&m. tell it to the boys at school, dada! nonetheless, i corroborated his defense on the official website, where lady green's featured quote is "i melt for no one." man, irony upon ironies! violet melts (down) for everyone! she is still the clingiest of mama's girls, and it's not easy on any of us... but that's fodder for another post.

as i think you all know, violet melted down at daycare drop-off for a good six months straight until poof! it was like a switch flipped, and the drama was over. but for the fourth week in a row, violet has been all smiles four days a week, and total meltdown on one -- oatmeal day. the first couple of times, i thought it was a fluke, but this morning i knew. as soon as she saw the bowl of mush and peaches, she started to sob. not only does she hate the oatmeal, but oatmeal day is the only breakfast where the kids have to don full smocks instead of just bibs. (shackled by velcro! must scream until freed!)

i had a hunch last week that the meltdowns were attributable to oatmeal, so violet and i left the house early on oatmeal day and shared a croissant and berries at bottega louie on the way in. (girl likes an overpriced pastry as much as her mama.) sure enough, when then offered the oatmeal at school, violet wept fat tears. today i unfortunately forgot to check the menu in advance and was disheartened to discover oatmeal on the table this morning -- but not as disheartened as my daughter, who will hopefully double down on baked chicken strips and sweet potato fries at lunch to make up for her breakfast strike.

the other irony is that violet gobbles my homemade oatmeal, which i make on the stove every weekend, so i can't blame her for having discerned that the lumpy instant stuff they serve at school -- cold by the time she gets there -- is a pretty poor substitute (if i do say so myself). champagne tastes, little green. (and how does that dirty colander taste?)

ladylike

violet has finally grown into several adorable outfits that she of course received as gifts, and i've been making a recent effort to actually dress her in them on the weekends. so much of what goes to daycare is ruined in a blink -- paint stains, mud smears, blotches of chili mac n' cheese -- so i try to reserve her nice clothes for special occasions. but as my mom says of having made this mistake too many times, the nice things will never get used if you don't use them. so although we had no particular plans this past weekend, violet sported her winnie the pooh dress and gap tights, followed by her ralph lauren shirtdress and leggings.





there's something hilarious about violet in dresses because she's just so physical and active. everything ends up askew in a matter of minutes, especially the hair. it would be easy to say this is true for every toddler girl, but i don't think so. we were sitting on a blanket at the park one sick day, and another mom (who was warned of violet's quarantine) laid out her blanket adjacent to ours. her daughter was decked out in something frilly, bows in her hair, the whole nine, and there really was something regal about the way she drank her juice. something about her demeanor made me want to fan her and feed her grapes (cut into quarters of course). i snapped out of my daze just in time to prevent violet from eating two fistfuls of dead grass.

in other news kevin and i met with an estate-planning attorney yesterday and signed the execution copies of our will, trust, health care directives, community property agreement and nomination of guardians. goodbye jagerbombs, hello responsible adulthood! the occasion was punctuated with more than a little gallows humor, as you can imagine, although jagerbombs probably would have been even more successful at taking the edge off the anxiety. you really do end up having to contemplate scenarios like who decides when to pull the plug if you're in his and hers comas, and what measures should be taken if your now one year old (who is busy lunging at every available electrical outlet and shaking her snack trap upside-down as hard as possible because clearly what the beige carpeting needs is a little pattern in the form of broken cheerios to perk it up... where was i? right, if your now one year old) endeavors to one day blow your life savings on crystal meth. then when you're done envisioning your baby smoking a crackpipe and you and your husband meeting your violent ends -- you try to stop your brain, but your brain won't quit it with the blood and gore and teen prostitution, thanks a lot, csi! -- you get to write a fat check to your very nice lawyer, who will probably spend it on another oil painting of his very cute children, before you walk out the door with nothing but theoretical death paperwork to show for it.

do you like how i transitioned into the second person there? thinking about this stuff is hard, not to mention a highway to prozac.

luckily there's always a little lady wanting to show off her knickers to make us laugh. this is all for you, you little rugrat.

new kicks and sicks

some of you may be aware of my stomach of steel. it's the stuff of legends. i haven't thrown up since the fifth grade, and with the exception of two isolated incidents and the first trimester, i haven't even dry-heaved in over two decades. it pains me (in more ways than one) to report that the reign is now over. oh my god we were SO SICK this past weekend.

because i know everyone loves a good vomit story, i'll give you the timeline of our nasty viral friend's infiltration. on friday around midnight, violet threw up all over her bed. less than an hour later, she threw up all over me and our bed. how that much puke can come out of a 1%-ile baby, i have no idea. kevin had fallen asleep on the couch, and while he escaped getting puked on every hour until 5am by staying there for the remainder of the night, he was relegated to cleaner-upper, which i think is actually worse -- and that's saying something, considering that at one point violet somehow threw up in my mouth. aerodynamic, that kid. cut to saturday at midnight, and my toilet-hugging escapades began. kevin was felled around noon on sunday. we all stayed home yesterday, and kevin is still home today. nasty nastiness i tell you.

obviously we've been very worried about violet, but she is in good spirits and has plenty of wet diapers. i called to check on her at school, and she had just hoovered a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, so i'm happy to report that her appetite is back. (i'm sorry if yours is lost.)

in happier news, violet has been sporting her first pair of "real" stride rite shoes. i was genuinely afraid that she was never going to wear shoes without screaming bloody murder, but it seems to be sinking in that we put shoes on before we do fun out-of-the-house activities. i think it helped that we went to the kids shoe store at the local mall, and i asked her which pair she wanted. she pointed at a sweet hot pink style, and that's what we got. she seemed fascinated as the pretty russian salesgirl measured her foot and then gently slid on the shoe as if it was cinderella's glass slipper. violet wore her new kicks out and held my hand as we walked a few storefronts down to the disney store, where she then proceeded to run around like a madwoman. i freaking loved it, in case you couldn't guess.

here are a few pics of the shoes in action:

trick or treat recap

i know halloween is so last week already, but kevin's phone pics are just too awesome not to share. violet was wary of the whole trick-or-treating racket. she usually has big smiles for our nice neighbors dave and roberta, but she wasn't so sure about them hawking their wares.



kevin and i tried to coach her to say trick or treat; she said, "that's-a spicy meatball-a!"



despite her suspicions, she ultimately couldn't resist the lure of the candy grab (although as kevin reminded me, this is actually a picture of her selecting a piece of candy and then offering it back to the giver. awww).



her first trick-or-treat stash included classics like dots and red vines, along with a leaf that she found on the ground.



her favorite item was the giant carnival lollipop



that she eagerly dropped on the floor and watched shatter into a dozen pieces. UH OH.

i know that halloween with a baby is one of those "more for the parents" events, but i can genuinely say that we all really had fun. well, we humans anyway.



and ever since, violet has been obsessed with her bag of candy, not to mention our giant bags of leftovers that seriously need to be rehomed.





needless to say the dogs have been obsessed with her.



we explained that dogs can't eat chocolate, so violet tried to make them a platter of their own treats.







needless to say the dogs are still obsessed with her.

cat, i'm a kitty cat

and i meow meow meow and i meow meow meow.

actually violet doesn't meow yet. her only real animal sound thus far is panting like a dog. kevin taught her that one a few months ago, and he begs her to perform it for everyone we see. she snubs him every time. she is not one for public performance but of course loves to ham it up at home.

as aforementioned, we failed to buy a carving pumpkin at the real pumpkin patch, so we paid quadruple price at the parking lot patch near our house. i don't regret a thing. a couple of weeks ago, violet hadn't taken a full-fledged step outside the safety of home or school, but by this past sunday, she was walking up and down the aisles of pumpkins. kevin and i ate it up like the mushy-mushes that we've become.



increasingly aware of her ability to hypnotize us with cuteness, violet first requested these two pumpkins.



until she laid her eyes on these.



because kevin and i are already total pros at "setting boundaries" (known to those outside our house as "distraction technique"), we only bought one carving pumpkin (for the price of four). despite my still ailing hand

(i don't think i've yet shared the tale of how i crushed my right hand in my own power window... or the story of another day when i rear-ended a 2011 hybrid escalade on my morning commute... or many other details of how my once minor klutziness has bloomed like the chernobyl cloud)

i managed to get that pumpkin carved on sunday night at 10pm. i don't know if violet (or anyone for that matter) could recognize the likeness of a furry blue sugar junkie, but she seemed to enjoy the newly illuminated pumpkin. or "puh" as she calls them.





kevin has all of the trick-or-treating photos on his phone, so i'll have to get those from him to post. violet was a little intimidated on the doorsteps of neighbors, but she was thoroughly fascinated by the bigger kids running around in costume. while a few visiting toddlers got a good halloween scare on our doorstep by the hounds of hell barking from behind their gate, violet's biggest thrill was seeing barking dogs behind gates in other houses. the neighbors would be offering her a bowl of candy, and she would completely ignore them while grinning broadly and doing her waving-at-myself wave at the dogs. "hhhhi dahhh" is her first two-word phrase. (meanwhile, kevin or i would eagerly offer violet's bag for the filling. "hello, first-time parents," one man greeted us. well, if anyone needs candy...)

our own energizer kitty clearly does not need candy, but we let her eat a kit kat anyway. c'mon, a kitty cat eating kit kat? who can resist that photo op?





and in case you've got a sweet tooth like mine and need even more sugar, here's a sample of what we hear about a thousand times a day around our house:



and for your halloween pleasure, evil laugh: