halloween preview

violet will be dressing as a jaguar tonight, so those pics are forthcoming, but i thought i'd tide over her most rabid fans (hi grandma and nana) with a few halloween themed pics.

this past weekend, violet attended her first "princess party" for a neighbor friend's birthday. the age of princess obsession has officially begun. what's incredible is that violet hasn't seen a single princess movie, and yet she loves the disney princesses so much already. SO MUCH, seemingly based entirely on aesthetics. has anyone read any interesting research on this? kevin and i have been meaning to watch that documentary about the man who created elmo's voice. it's just mind-blowing how some of these characters are universally appealing to kids. at first, violet had but one single disney princess book (which is read by the recorded voice of her cousin reese), and i'm not exaggerating when i say she wants it several times a day. then she received a disney princess bath set from her auntie courtney for her birthday, and the princesses now bathe or shower with her every single night. she washes each one lovingly and "writes their names" on the steamed-up glass. she knows all of their names of course. her favorite (as she will tell you) is cinderella, but she also really loves tiana, so she was bewildered to discover that tiana was ne'er to be found in her bath set. "where teeAHnuh?" she'll ask as she looks for her with true bewilderment. ah, her first lesson in racism. see? disney is educational too.

after bath one night, i sang "the work song" from cinderella (as she danced naked on our bed - a favorite pastime), and now she asks me to sing "cinderelly" every night. i'd forgotten (blocked out?) the last verse, so i looked up the lyrics online. "leave the sewin' to the women! you go get some trimmin'!" poor little jacques just wanted to make haute couture, but because the fashion world is no place for a boy mouse - even a frenchy one! - he was relegated to a life of crime. like i said, educational.

when nana found out violet was invited to a princess party, she surprised her with a tinkerbell gown. violet was thrilled. i don't think darcy and charley really understood what the big deal was.

violet has yet to see any princess "cast members" at disneyland, but i'm pretty excited for how excited she'll be. now that i have an annual pass (i'd brag about how i finagled this, against policy, by using a conglomeration of backdated tickets, but i mean, this blog is where i brag about violet, right?), we made a quick stop on our way back from san diego because violet was just begging to go. or maybe it was because i wanted to see the halloween decorations? this was over a week ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy.

violet is scared of a few things lately: swiper; tico the purple squirrel ("he have big teef. he could BITE me!" we don't need to go into the irony here); the dark; motorcycles; and, most of all, witches. but, despite her fear, she's also slightly obsessed with witches. we've been listening to a halloween song where the witch cackles at the end, and the other day, completely unrelated, i was saying how something funny made me laugh, which i punctuated with a laugh for emphasis. "that not a laugh. that a cackle, mama," she corrected. this immediately surfaced all of my high-school self-consciousness about my laugh, which friends loved to tease they could identify from across campus. was it a cackle then too?

what was i talking about? oh! big thunder ranch is so awesome with its seasonal holiday activities. violet rejected the witch mask and selected the bat to color.

suddenly, a crowd descended, cameras flashing paparazzi style, and then, we saw them... minnie and mickey! i waited for violet's fear of the big characters to appear, but instead, she smiled with pure joy. she was patient as we waited our turn to meet them, and she went over to minnie and gave her a big hug. we escaped the mass and went to play a carnival game involving spinning a fortune wheel. and guess who came over?

violet told minnie that she did NOT want the wheel to stop on a witch, so minnie gave the extra nudge needed for the needle to land on a ghost. violet smiled as everyone clapped. minnie blew her a farewell kiss, and violet talked about it over and over as we headed for the exit gates... at least until we came upon the jazz band in new orleans square. "i want to DANCE," she said, running ahead to do just that.

i've been meaning to post this video for awhile. man does this kid love to dance. we also had a pretty epic dance party in san diego this past trip, thanks to auntie c's 80s divas playlist. nana and auntie may get their wish for a dancer after all. maybe not a skilled dancer, but definitely an enthusiastic one.


love the big finish so much.

nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see

we were excited for our second visit to the annual fall harvest festival at underwood farms. while it was decidedly not fall weather, it was also not as blazing hot as last year and was, in fact, quite a pretty day that we enjoyed with nana, auntie c and the dietricks. the tractor parade comes but once a year, and we booked our tickets accordingly.

we didn't get a picture, but there was an amazing woman in her 80s driving one of these babies. violet was inspired.

we went on the tractor-pulled hayride, and it was great to see the full landscape of the farm. violet and her friend jack didn't really agree, but we ran interference with a cheese snack. if anyone wants my advice for outings with a toddler, edict #1 is bring cheese. of course, it's always helpful to have nana too. look at how much munch adores her.

her spirits bolstered, violet became especially fond of pointing out all the black plastic tarps covering certain crops and exclaiming, "lake!" she's also really into labeling things as "dada" "mama" and "baby" based on their size, so the biggest scarecrow is a "dada scarecrow" and the littlest a "baby scarecrow." if there aren't (as there usually aren't) three of whatever thing in sight, she'll ask with true bewilderment, "where's mama scarecrow?" she's satisfied by most any explanation: the mama is at the store, at home, at work. the only time she's looked at me suspiciously is when i've said the mama was taking a nap. "NO! she is NOT!" indeed.

a few more pics from a fun day (and thanks to lisa for her contributions, and also for the adorable comparison photos from last year):

a big girl now (a quasi-list)

it's been such a long time since i've done a "life lately" post that it's hard to know where to begin. trying to keep up with all of violet's latest developments is like physically trying to keep up with her.

that's violet at the verizon store one weeknight at 9pm. as you've probably heard from the source or the trickle-down, kevin lost his job. he's a television writer, and should he continue in the profession, he will also surely lose his next job, and again the next, and so on. it comes with the territory (and its pesky 13-week contracts). so it sucks of course, blah blah, yin and yang, and hey, speaking of silver linings, kevin got a new contract! it's for two whole years! thanks, verizon. you'd think it would be easy to get a spouse added to your longstanding verizon account, but it turns out it's almost as difficult as landing a job in late-night television. but back to those silver stitches, while we were enjoying a perfectly civilized evening in the company of our neighborhood branch customer service representatives, we were also treated to a nice chat with dr. 90210, who showed me an iphoto of his kids and complimented me on my post-baby weight loss, which i imagine is an icebreaker for his tummy tuck offerings, which i escaped at a literal sprint after violet as she made a break of her own for the parking lot.

so i don't know if you've heard, but violet has an announcement: "i'm a big girl now. i'm not a baby anymore." we (ab)use her hearty embrace of this concept to the fullest. for example, babies go pee pee in diapers, but not big girls! truth be told, we weren't in any kind of rush on the potty training front, but day care told us she's ready, so fine, we went to target, let her pick out some dora undies (well, she wanted the diegos, and while i hate "for girls" and "for boys" conditioning, i guess i hate dealing with the potential for sideways looks at school even more) and, at least for the moment, she's now 100% in undies. we wanted to keep the diaper overnight, but violet had a thing or two to shriek about that, so she's in undies overnight too. as long as we head straight to the bathroom at morning wake-up, she's good, but naps are hit and miss. "i have poo poo" were her first words after her sunday nap, and she wasn't lying. as i picked her up and told her no problem, we'd clean it up, she said very apologetically, "i dohn want get my poo poo on you, mama." i tell you, not even poop can grease her hold on my heartstrings.

i can't believe how much violet talks now. it's just so awesome, i really can't overstate it. seeing her language develop will no doubt be one of the greatest joys of my life. i know i need to write down more of this stuff because she cracks us up every single day. on saturday morning, she was running around shirtless and declared, "mama, i can't see my boob." i said, "you can't see your what?" "i can't see my boob!" "your what?" i mean, i didn't think she actually meant boob, but then she said, "you have big boobs. i have leetle boobs." she pointed (at my almost B cups) for emphasis. i said, "oh! your boob! well, look in the mirror." she did, and she broke out in a big grin as she admired her boobs (or lack thereof). then when i went to put her shirt on, she yelled, "no mama! i want to see my boobs!"

violet's current favorite game is hiding. under the covers, in the closet, behind the curtains, under my skirt, in the linen cabinet, and especially face down in the disgusting fuzzy bath mat whilst pulling the edges up around her cheeks. she was very disappointed to find that she couldn't get herself into the fridge and close the door. when in any hiding spot, she squirms and squeals with delight as we exclaim how worried we are that we can't find her, she was right here a minute ago. whenever she's discovered, she shrieks, holds up a finger and declares, "i want one moh time!"

her imaginative play has really picked up over the past couple of weeks. it's especially amazing when she's running around, moving invisible items from here to there ("i give dis to you, jack" and "i give dis to you, viv," she'll say, since those are two of her buddies). most of the time, though, she's still using her actual toys. it was all i could do not to laugh this morning as she played with boots

and baby jaguar in her carseat, and boots told baby jaguar, "you're not listening to me! you need to listen to me, baby j!" she also put them both on timeout the other day and wagged her finger: "you need to listen to your mama! you could get hurt!" seriously, do i wag my finger? it's pretty humbling to relive my discipline failures through her dramatic play with beanie babies, but at least i'm building abs of steel via laughter suppression.

if you cue violet with this line from where the wild things are - "the monsters said, 'oh please don't go - we'll eat you up! - we love you so'" - violet grins and gleefully recites, "but... max... said... NO!" i'm sure it's been said the world over, but maurice sendak knew what he was doing.

violet's other favorite books this week are knuffle bunny, i am invited to a party and the aforementioned the ghost of nicholas greebe. at school violet drew a bunch of skewed yellow circles with dots in their centers and then told her teacher that two of them were ghosts. "we've been reading some halloween books at home. they're friendly ghosts," i explained. "mmm," her teacher replied as she cast a wary eye over our little haley joel osment. so, is it wrong if i teach violet to say, "i see dead people"? i mean, you can teach these little sponges anything! there is so much potential for comedy, it's really, really hard to resist.