you got it wrong AGAIN!

it's almost summer in the valley and our kid is two, so

and also

the neighborhood's sprinklers are working hard in the escalating heat, so there's more of this too

early parenthood is best for homebodies, isn't it? i feel bad for the adventurers; it must be that much harder to adjust as the radius of life narrows so sharply, like the best camera lens. i love being at home, so much, and even i get claustrophobic. some lazy afternoons i just want to get out, i don't care where, do we need any milk? but violet wants to jump off the couch into my arms one two fee fo fih six seveh eight nigh ten yeven tehv thirtee sixtee sevehtee eightee nightee hunduh times! and then she wants to arrange her dozens of stuffed toys into her bed for a slumber party and any suggestion i make for an out-of-house activity is met with "shhhh! it's nighttime." a baby is portable, but the world we live in doesn't make it easy. it's easier for a toddler, but then it's the toddler who isn't easy. some days i have to bribe violet to come get gelato with me. isn't gelato supposed to be the bribe? the other day she told my mom, "i'm hungee fo' ice keem." my mom dutifully bought her a scoop of strawberry, and violet took one phony lick and was on to other things. kevin ate that one, but rejected servings usually work out in my favor. i'm sure i'll miss these days.

i got what i wanted for mother's day, which also worked out in violet's favor: the blow-up pool seen above. she splashes around while the dogs run laps and wrestle, and we sit in lawn chairs with white wine in juice glasses. it's very 1950s backyard pastoral, but with more melee than malaise. kevin also took me out for an incredibly delicious early saturday brunch to avoid the swarms at farmshop, who serves my #3 favorite coffee in town (current #2 and #1, who serves verve if you're obsessed like me). this also worked out in violet's favor, since the country mart has rad ride-ons.

there are two horses on this kmart throwback, but she likes to ride the lion. what i love most about this picture is how it captures her seriousness. i feel like i'm always documenting the giggly side of violet, and granted, she is pretty giggly, but she's actually fairly serious a lot of the time. maybe most toddlers are like this? i love it when she gives grave consideration to a newly encountered thing, like the goffin's cockatoo.

she studied it for a long time and then said, as if she was gossiping down the hall from a disgraced coworker whose muteness was recently discovered to be a disability sham, "that bird can TALK but he doesn't want to talk right now." but seriously! she's serious about things, and i do mean as a genuine personality trait. many of the kids in her class are goofy and chatty, and next to them i realize she's quite reserved, but in a way she's not around the teachers and other adults. i was surprised recently when her primary teacher told me that of the twelve kids in her class, she and little russian polina are the ones they're really trying to encourage to "play more with friends. violet almost always prefers to play by herself." whenever kevin and i ask who she played with at school today, violet most often answers "no one" or "max". or polina. her teacher added, "she really likes to play with the teachers."

here she is, living the dream, just her and max:

we also went on a last hurrah trip to disneyland before our pass expires and violet turns three and isn't free anymore. it's been a good run. i'm loving violet's cheese face these days.

we celebrated at wine country trattoria with patio seating during the pixar parade, which she loved.

despite my efforts to instill good eating habits, it's become apparent that my enthusiasm for tasty treats been effectively modeled. i won't even try to pin this one on kevin. at a recent birthday party, she had the whole crowd awwing over how she absolutely lit up at the cake's arrival. the birthday girl's enthusiasm was a 7 to violet's 10.

she also had her first piñata experience at above birthday party, adding fuel to her wild enthusiasm for candy. overheard in the kitchen this morning:

kevin: do you want a waffle or english muffin?
violet (long pause for effect): candy!

upon kevin's arrival home the other night:

violet: daddy, did you bring a speshuh keet for me?
kevin: what kind of special treat, violet?
violet: FRENCH FRIES!

kevin recently brought home elephants cannot dance for violet, who thinks it's pretty much the funniest thing ever when elephant does the wiggle-waggle when he's supposed to be doing the robot walk. she is BIG into the hilarity of mistakes. i spent the 45-minute drive home yesterday mistaking clifford (the big red dog) for brownie (a yellow lab) and vice versa, and oh, clifford, i love your blue fur! i mean your pink fur! i mean your purple fur! the dogs growl at me for every offense. "you got it wrong AGAIN!" violet exclaims. hilarious, right? and i mean, this bit really holds up too. who knew it would be just as funny the hundredth time? i can't wait until she discovers fart jokes. she's already well aware that her "toots mcgoots" are comedy gold. now which parent could have taught her that?

i honestly can't figure out why this kevin photo is stretched out like a funhouse mirror, but it works, right? violet is anti-beard, so kevin thought she might enjoy this look. i told her the story of how, back in our baby-name deliberation days, her name made the cut because it passed both the supreme court justice test and the "not a porn star" test, which dad's facial hair had just failed. "you shave your beard, dada!" violet beamed.

whereas she usually opts for the petting zoo or the bounce house at the farmer's market, last week she wanted a tattoo from a sketchy booth that uses airbrush paint. "how do you get it off?" i asked the woman. "rubbing alcohol or sunscreen," she replied. so it's organic then? there are easily a hundred stencil options, and as you can see, violet enthusiastically chose mater. ($8 and they apparently didn't have brown paint?) she's only seen about two minutes of cars (she wants to turn it off because the green car is mean), but her big crush at school, a 3-year-old boy named yash, naps with a lightning mcqueen toy and wears a mater shirt, so i think there's a transfer of affection going on. i want to send violet to school with a "yash forever" tattoo, like really, really badly.