if violet was on instagram

she knows she's supposed to ask first, but that rarely stops violet from digging my phone out of my purse, usually to play games, sometimes to send texts (i'm sorry if you've been the recipient of a half dozen lines of "rffffgttgtfllllllmnmjhyyyy" before i intercept), and most often to take pictures since she discovered how a few weeks ago. i love to find her surprises in my photo roll, and i have to say, she's gotten a lot better in a short period of time. in addition to the above works of art, evidence the evolution of the selfie:

then she figured out the turnaround button:

bonus feature: violet's debut guerrilla film (while mom puts groceries away).

fall days and sick days

i should cop to good old-fashioned procrastination as the reason for my long delay between posts, but... look at this sick child!

we spent several days at home working through the phlegm and grumps with a little help from these guys:

i don't talk about the dogs enough here. kevin and i were getting teary last night as we realized that rudy at age 6 is now older in dog years than kevin. he needs dental work. our vet nicknamed him "rudy old man" when he was 2, and i wonder what happens when an old soul actually grows old. petey "the muppet" is a year younger and roughly equivalent to my age, and since my birthday i've become much more aware of my knees. i'll have to leave climbing half dome to the progeny.

i had long ago scheduled a few vacation days to clean the garage as a surprise for my dear OCD husband, and after missing work for all the sick days i nearly scrapped that plan but am so glad i didn't. it's an underrated joy in life to open a box labeled "punch bowl" and find an actual punch bowl instead of a child's potty seat.

so that's where we've been these fall weeks, though as usual the photographic evidence shows that we've been some other places too. we hit up "boo at the zoo" and saw a gorilla stand to full height and beat his chest, which was so very awesome and something i had never seen before, despite all my summers of "zoo school" at the san diego wild animal park. for violet though, telescope > giraffes

and carousel animals > animals.

i still think we're going to raise an animal lover though.

before halloween i took her to ride the "ghost train" in griffith park.

sure, i had to cover her eyes for 80% of the attractions, like the psycho clowns, vampire babies and chainsaw murderers, but she loved it, a lot, as in we have to "play ghost train" with pillows at least once a week. the make-believe games unfortunately involve a lot of props. i'm like, can't you just IMAGINE that all these things are piled on top of the bed? one evening i went pee and returned to find her on the back porch "at the beach."

we also made our annual trip with the dietricks to the pumpkin patch, and while i know i have a dozen better pictures somewhere, including some cute family shots that lisa took for us, all i'm finding are these.

i love this one of violet and kevin watching the band. it's safe to say her mama preference is officially over. violet regularly gives me the stink eye and declares, "only me and daddy and petey and rudy get to do fun things!" usually this is because i've denied her request for "one super super SUPER duper yaaaast episode" of max & ruby after she conveniently forgets having agreed that the previous one would be the "super super duper yast one." i also get shut in and out of rooms a lot. it's never been easy to help her learn to manage her frustration, but so far, age 3 is surprisingly more challenging than age 2. violet practically banished me from the house after i served her a cut apple that was "NOT RIPE!!!" and then had a meltdown when i failed to "PUT IT BACK TOGETHER!!!" another day i threw some trash into a public bin and she then decided that she wanted to throw said trash away, so i started into my patient explanation of why dumpster diving isn't for me, and she expressed her disapproval by slapping me hard across the face in front of a crowd. "hit me again and i'll throw YOU in the trash!" i screamed on the inside as i whisked her off for a quiet timeout together on a sidewalk corner. ah, modern parenting. another favorite is that she gives me and kevin the hand and shouts "RED LIGHT!" usually it's when we try to sing or dance, but sometimes it's when we're mid-sentence into an explanation about why electrical cords don't make good jump ropes. on thanksgiving she refused to nap and when kevin later suggested that the lack of sleep was making her grumpy, she snarled, "i'm not grumpy. you're just doin' things that MAKE ME MAD!"

who, this child?

the cuteness only helps her cause, as she of course already knows. five minutes this, two m&ms that, one more monkey video. she'd have a rug dealer begging for mercy. at the farmer's market inflatable slide (the above pictured and hilariously named "vertical rush"), you get two turns per ticket. after her second slide, she evaded eye contact as she darted up for a third turn. when i snagged her at the bottom and reminded her of the rules, she looked up at me through her lashes and sweetly said, "i must not have realized." we try to talk about lies vs. the truth, but she's savvy. "i lied by accident," she loves to say, almost as much as she loves to say "penis." on thanksgiving morning, she kept insisting that her favorite stuffed dog brownie "wants to show you his penis." thankfully brownie the flasher kept it in his pants for the visiting family. she also cackled delightedly after she "put boobs on tinkerbell."

my actual favorite story lately just happened a couple nights ago. i was puppeteering her two hallmark dogs, jingle and bell, and she was dictating when they would jump, bark, hide, and at one point, bell hurt jingle. bell apologized but jingle refused to forgive her. i said it would break my heart if they weren't friends anymore, and violet teared up. she was quiet for a bit, and then she told me that jingle did forgive bell. i smiled and said how happy that made me, and with her eyes still shining, she said, "it fixed your heart." indeed.

candy grab

violet may have turned three, but kevin and i limited her to two halloween costumes.

she wore this cat jumper to school last year too, as we were reluctant to send her in the "real" costume for fear that it would come home soaked with paint or pee. here she is with her friend maile

who is exactly one year older and a confirmed only child, which means her mom gives me bags of awesome hand-me-downs, including the cat jumper. "it outgrew me," maile explained to violet.

violet insisted for weeks that she would be a jaguar again, and since the costume still fit and i'm cheap, i was like, great! but then two days before halloween, maile gave violet her old cinderella gown and light-up "glass" slippers, so violet decided she wanted to wear that instead. she also changed her mind about what piece of candy she wanted before trick or treating -- she said milky way but then went with a reese's (i acted nonpartisan, but i approve) -- but she stayed true to her post-trick or treating choice, a kit kat.

as was the case last year, she was super hyped about trick or treating. last year after every house, she would say, "i want to go to the next house!" this year after every house, she would say, "i want to go to 20 more houses!" on the child development chart, i can checkmark her understanding of more = better.

the funny thing is she doesn't really like candy, but she thinks she loves it. her face lights up at the mere mention. she grabs candy bars off the shelf at the store. but when she has an actual piece in her hand, she kind of licks or nibbles a corner for awhile until it starts to melt, at which point she says she's done: "it got too yucky." she does love to play with her candy haul though. she's been doing this

everyday since halloween. also here she is, as is our tradition, watching it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown after trick or treating.

as is my usual, i have a bunch of photos and updates that i want to post, but i thought i'd quickly get the halloween photos up before the starbucks cups turn red. or am i too late already? ah shit, you know i know i'm too late, and i love it, grinches!

three! (or as she says, free!)

violet may have turned three, but kevin and i limited her to two birthday parties.

since so many friends and family were in san diego for my parents' anniversary party, my mom got a cake for the next morning so that everyone could celebrate with violet. the prodigal granddaughter's 3rd birthday shalt not be overshadowed by 40 years of wedded bliss/"bliss"! 

nana fell down the proverbial amazon rabbit hole and bought all of the max and ruby paraphernalia she could get her paws on. she even found actual max and ruby beanie babies that are, needless to say, going to ruin my life if they ever go missing. ruby got dropped in the gutter on day two, and last week, max was lost for a night because violet hid him in the spaghetti pot and forgot about it.

if there is one thing i'll remember most about violet at this age, it is her near constant imaginary play, and in particular, her imaginary friendship with max, ruby and their whole neighborhood of bunny friends. as you may know, there aren't any parents in their world, only grandma, so that's who i get to be when i'm included in the play. fellow trader joe's shoppers were no doubt baffled when violet chased after me shouting, "grandma! grandma!" violet mimics a lot of max's expressions, and her favorite one is his mischievous face. her class did a singing performance at school a couple of weeks ago, and in the middle of it, violet made shifty eyes, hooked her little paws in front of her, and exaggeratedly tiptoed off the stage to "sneakily" grab a big drum that she'd obviously had her eye on. anything for a laugh. no idea where she gets it.

her annual check-up went fine. she's still tiny. as usual, i won't post her stats because it stresses me out. despite reminders that it was going to hurt, she was pretty excited about the two shots she was scheduled to get because dr. violet and her schoolmates had been playing with toy syringes all week like a bunch of giddy junkies. i don't know who to feel worse for, the kid or the nurse. sure, violet perked right up after i hurried her to the front desk for a lollipop, but the look of betrayal she gave the nurse was brutal. apparently she has already learned that misery loves company:

for birthday party #2, violet invited a small handful of buddies to this indoor playplace in our neighborhood that has a bounce house and huge twisty slide into a ball pit. it's so freaking cute how much these little kids understand that it's their big day, and how much enjoyment they get out of it.

a few parents remarked that they had never seen violet so animated. she was racing around that place like she owned it. this is six weeks ago, and she still talks about it on a regular basis. in the week immediately following, she piped up to anyone and everyone, "do you want to come to my birthday party? it's tomorrow/thursday/yesterday/this weekend."

she liked opening gifts of course, but not quite as much as she enjoyed settling into "the chair that me and nana sit in to watch tv" while eating leftover pizza.

thufferin' thuccotash, it's the land of the three.

the belated latest

violet turned 3! my baby! i should catch up first, but birthday post forthcoming.

our day-to-day schedule is tight right now. i don't mean it as a complaint, though i do of course wish i had more time to tend this little blog. most of all i wish kevin had more time to sleep. his work is all consuming right now, and while that's awesome for all of the reasons you can guess, it's a bummer when he misses violet's bedtime. as for me and violet, our weekdays typically look like this:

7:15am, wake up

7:45am, leave the house (looking like i stepped out of a maybelline ad, obviously)

8:30am, daycare arrival

8:45am, daycare bye bye

9:00am, i'm at my desk

5:00pm, i leave my desk

5:15pm, daycare reunion

5:45pm, we finally drive out of parking lot

6:30pm, sprint into the house to let poor mutts out

7:30pm, dinner

9:00pm, i shower while violet either joins me, takes her own bath, or runs around naked

9:30pm, pjs and stories

10:00pm, lights out

10:15pm, i sneak out of violet's room when she's finally asleep

at this point i used to join kevin for our precious couch time, but nowadays he's usually not home yet, so i do the chores that he used to be doing while i was rocking violet down -- food prep, dishes, laundry, making peanut butter kongs for our neglected/spoiled dogs, retrieving plastic tiaras lined up on "the balcony" (aka the cobweb-covered treadmill in the garage). i'm usually finishing up in the kitchen as the dogs skitter to the front door when kevin's car approaches from a half mile away. bills and bureaucracy have thus bled into my desk downtime, and i mean, is the government shutting down or something? i'll have to find out when kevin tells me his favorite jokes from the day. sadly i'm the worst audience for these since i don't get the topical references. or maybe i'm the best audience? in sharp contrast, kevin consumes far, far too much news. he's always sending me links to some crazy shit about a kid who got the bubonic plague from an elmo toothbrush or something, and i'm like, i don't have time for this crap! resend that link to the dog playing in a pile of leaves! reading about syria makes me feel dumb, and that dog has something important to teach me about life!

violet will still nap for three hours at school (i know!) though on the weekends she'll only nap a little over an hour. lately she loves to hike up her big girl britches and declare she doesn't want to nap, but she crashes out eventually. when she does take a shorter nap at school, she goes to bed earlier, which of course is a mixed bag because then it means we have less playtime but maybe i'm not washing tupperware at 11pm?

happily the grind grinds to a halt on weekends, and while i'm about to post a bunch of pictures that make it look like we've been busy on the weekends too, we haven't really. we did enjoy my parents' anniversary party followed by violet's birthday party, but most weekends we just kind of play by ear. one weekend we made it to the aquarium of the pacific in long beach, and while violet was into it

her enthusiasm couldn't possibly have beaten mine. i haven't been to an aquarium since i was a kid (i know, i know, i didn't smoke enough weed in college) and OMG have you been to an aquarium since you were a kid?? we watched the seal and sea lion show, got "hugs" from the sea anemone, and narrowly stopped violet from leaping into the shark reef. apologies again for my lousy photography skills, but did you know that at an aquarium there are penguins a few inches from your fingertips?!

and how could i have forgotten about otters?? the only cuteness that can rival a good kevin-violet pic

is an otter. i could watch otters all day.

on the topic of cuteness rivalry OMG

we spent a swim afternoon at our old roommate bianca's place. her doggie, mclovin', used to sleep with me and kevin until 4am when bink would get home from work, at which point he'd shotgun down the hall to be with her. she also has two chihuahuas, cashew and chestnut, and we spent most of the visit watching violet's giggle fest as she snuggled in their doggie bed. now whenever she sees a chihuahua, she asks, "is it chestnut?" kevin brought home a flyer for some glorious $1.5 million home for sale in our neighborhood, and violet beamed: "look! it's bianca's house!" of course i relayed this story to a very pleased bianca.

we also made it out to the fair. that petting zoo is out of control. as kevin understated, "these guys are a little aggressive." no matter. as long as it's not a chicken (we exited the farmers market petting zoo early this past sunday due to "too many chickens"), violet is all about it.

the fair had this rad play experience for kids where they harvest produce, collect eggs from chicken coops, milk cows, sell their goods and take their (play) money to the grocery store to buy processed foods (seriously!) like animal crackers and top ramen.

we posed next to the feed sign because my mom's best friend's family is, in fact, these kruses.

in other weekend fun, here is violet with her best friend, hana, at their very first play date outside of school.

kevin heard there had been a slip n' slide involved, and the next day he sent me an article about how many kids die of the bubonic plague on trampolines every year or something like that.

i also keep meaning to mention that violet's absolute favorite song right now is the jackson 5's ABC, and after i showed her a clip of their ed sullivan show performance, she initiated michael, jermaine, tito, marlon and jackie into her posse of imaginary playmates. as you would expect, it's comedy gold. of course it can be a little disconcerting when michael joins her for bath time, and also every night when we "pajama race!" against jermaine, who always, at the very last moment, fumbles his bottoms while violet pulls up hers and throws her arms over her head in victory. you can't make this shit up. my mom was babysitting recently and enjoyed playing play doh with max, ruby and tito's cat. i wouldn't have pegged tito for a cat person. at least i'm assured that violet has a feminist streak because she regularly asks, "why were janet and latoya not in the band?"

leapfrogging the forthcoming birthday post (does it count as postmodern if it's just lazy?) here is violet this morning, delighted by the porch she decorated last night with trader joe's pumpkins.

whenever anyone asks what she's going to be for halloween, she insists she's going to be a jaguar again. thankfully last year's costume still fits. she pulled it out of the dress-up bin last night while we were playing trick-or-treating, a game that involves traipsing around the backyard in the dark with nothing but a flashlight to help us avoid the dog poop.

v: we need to get your costume out of the closet, mama.
me: what am i going to be?
v: a tuna fish.
me: what's daddy going to be?
v: a pig.
me: should we dress up the dogs too?
v: yes. rudy will be a sea director.
me: a sea director? what's that?
v: like sebastian the crab.
me: and what's petey going to be?
v: a sea director too.