the season

have you missed this mug? i've managed to fall pretty far behind here, but i'm happy to report that i've finally replaced my android with an iphone, so i'm hoping photo quality will improve drastically moving forward. i had a bunch of random pics left over, so here's another hodgepodge post of the latest.

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas around here, which of course means the usual southern california weather.

our friends monica and london were housesitting in malibu, so we went for a visit. monica sent these pics with the title "ridiculously gorgeous day." it really was. violet was of course thrilled to run around the empty beach in her undies. she eventually got bowled over by a wave - "i fell down," she kept saying pitifully - but she was hilariously delighted to get hosed down prison-style on the back porch.

one thing i've been meaning to record is how much kevin and i love to anticipate what violet's first sentence will be when she wakes up. the day after the beach, she sat up and announced, "wave got me. i fell down." anything that leaves a big mark on her subconscious will no doubt make an appearance in her first declaration of the day. here are a few recent favorites off the top of my head:

"i don't want to watch bobo episode EVER AGAIN."

"there's no fruit strips in bed, christopher robin."

"i don't want to be happy. i want to be sad."

"i didn't know santa was going to be at dizzyyand."

"rescue pack will turn into a 'brella so rain won't get on diego and me."

"winnie pooh eat so much honey that he got a chubby tummy!"

"I YUV CANDY CANES!"

kevin took violet to the zoo the other day, and she likes the real-life animals almost as much as the animated ones that shout "ayúdame." elephants were the biggest hit, in part because they'd just been fed and were eating lettuce with their trunks. of course no matter how much money you spend on these types of novelty outings, inevitably these toddlers are most entertained by something you could do at home for free, like playing in the dirt.

why go on the park swings for free when you can pay $3 to put your trust in a carny?

why make flour-based play dough on the stove when you can buy plah doh with mystery ingredients from china?

one of violet's favorite activities is taking her toy dogs for walks around the house, by which i mean using our real dogs' leashes to drag jingle the husky pup through the half-inch of dirt and dog hair that is perpetually covering our floors. "cuh hon, guys! cuh hon, pals! cuh hon, buds!"

her most favorite activity these days is "I RUN AWAY!!" she's somehow devised that it's most fun as a sneak attack. like in the grocery store, she'll just be standing next to me, devotedly pulling blocks of butter off the shelf and loading them into our cart, and then all of a sudden she'll clutch a bag of pork rinds to her chest and take off shrieking like she's just snagged the game-winning interception. her ruthless pummeling of the defensive linemen (/unsuspecting old ladies) is something to behold. we were buying a gift in the american girl store the other day, and she nabbed meatloaf and licorice and sprinted away. by the time i caught up with her, she had already freed them from their shackles. (this symbolic toddler act reminds me of this old favorite video i found during my post-droid organizing.)

we had a great thanksgiving in san diego, and it's so cool to watch violet grow closer with her extended family. she was absolutely obsessed with her "big kid" cousins nick and noah, so of course i got zero pictures of that. like the mature mom that i am, i instead took two photos: one of this cozy-looking nap pose

and one of that rule-breaking nana, giving in to violet's begging for "one diego" even though it wasn't the weekend.

the only other family pic i got was with cuzzy kristy a week later in los angeles. kristy shared her hot cocoa, and now they're friends 4 life.

we decided to hit disneyland on the monday after thanksgiving, and i know how i sound, but it really was a magical day. the park was the least crowded i've seen in years. even the staff agreed it was an unusually quiet day. on the drive, kevin was hypothesizing about why it wouldn't be that crowded - something about how people spent all their money on black friday yada yada - and i was like, buck up, grinch, it's gonna be CROWDED. well, i was wrong, and it was awesome. over at christmas central at big thunder ranch, there was no line for santa. violet wanted to sit on his lap, but not without us next to her, and (because i'd been prepping her for weeks) she told him she'd been nice and that she wanted a diego doll for christmas. do you think disney marks you as naughty if you ask for something off brand??

the band was on break but the PA was playing carols, and we looked over to see mickey alone on the dance floor like a loser on prom night. mickey tried so hard to get violet dancing with him, but as she'd just seen santa sixty seconds ago, she was a little preoccupied... with her candy cane. "I YUV CANDY CANES!" she declared over and over. how hysterical is this photo? let's caption it candy cane > mickey.

another favorite from the day was getting nana to ride the teacups, which she would never do when we were kids. we promised her she wouldn't puke, and she did not.

melting my heart as always, a girl and her daddy:

we staked out a spot near small world, right behind the reserved VIP seating for the holiday parade

which also ended up being right in front of the staging area for the princesses. cinderella, aurora, belle, tiana, ariel and snow white all made their way to this little spot right behind us, where they showered their affection on some lucky daughter of a major disney executive, and as they then filed right past us to take their place in the parade line-up, violet waved elatededly and snow white plucked her little hand from the air and kissed it.

after the parade we stopped for ice cream on main street, and as we emerged with cones in hand, it started "snowing." magic, i tell you! i mean, sure, we got a few soap flakes in our ice cream, but the disney multi-sensory experience team made sure they tasted like fresh snow, i swear it.

appuhs!

i know it's kinda city slickers, but when our neighbor friends invited us to caravan out to a u-pick apple farm in yucaipa, i jumped at the chance. true to my so cal roots, i have a love of the fall season incommensurate with experience.

i'd been talking up the trip all week, so violet was excited to go to the appuh fahm with her friend viv. violet was especially thrilled when the "big girls" (viv's sister stella and her pal phoebe) wanted to ride in our car. violet turned an episode of diego on her kindle, and the preteens squealed. as it turns out, the kid who is the current voice of diego is a member of their middle-school cafeteria posse. OMG! if only violet could understand there's only one degree of separation between her and her first celebrity crush! oh the hours i would while away, dreaming of meeting mikey from goonies, how he would be my date to my first school dance, how we would kiss with our lips closed so that our braces wouldn't get stuck together. the other night kevin actually used the words "looks like sean astin" to call someone ugly! i gave him a one-way ticket up troy's bucket.

back on the trail

violet thoughtfully considered which apples she wanted to bring home, take one bite of, and regurgitate into my hand.

as a book in our daily rotation says, "no biting our friends! what do we bite?"

does this look like a child who prefers the taste of human flesh? at least i know which side of the family she gets her carnivorous bent from.

once we'd collected our bounty, we headed to a general store where the apples cost less per pound than the ones we'd just hauled down the dusty trail (and by "we" i mean kevin).

violet's favorite things were taste-testing the fresh-pressed ciders - "i yike goose now" says the juice snob - and sprinting up and down the aisles of glass collectibles. she also really liked this hat, but we ain't moving to echo park, kid.

since i know how much kevin loves to sacrifice his sunday mornings during football season - almost as much as viv's dad paddy - i'm pretty sure we'll be making this an annual tradition. cheese!

mraow mraow!

as you know, violet is quite possibly the World's Biggest Baby Jaguar Fan, so when i showed her a few costume options on amazon, i knew it was like offering her a dinner choice of "salad, worms or pasta." sure, amazon billed this "jaguar" costume as a leopard, but who knows the difference? well, i'm sure the almighty diego knows the difference. as violet recently told her talking purple puppy doll, who is also named violet: "hey! vi-yet! my name is vi-yet and i wahn watch diego ALL THE TIME!" that's just one example of what i find to be her totally endearing and hilarious habit of shouting out random bits of information to various people/characters/inanimate objects, especially when said person/character/item is nowhere in sight. this kid has about a dozen imaginary friends already. another example, from our commute home yesterday: "hey! gak-o-yantern! i dohn yike witches! i dohn yike skulls! rudy has skulls on his doggy coyyar!" and after a dinner out the other night, she went up to this random little girl and started sharing her life story: "hi little girl! i have two dogs (holding up five fingers), rudy and petey. they go pee pee ow-side, little girl. i'm a big girl. i'm not a baby anymore. i'm two now (holding up five fingers)."

we were so happy with how this costume worked out. the whiskers divided by the pouncing and the "mraow mraow!"-ing equals a pretty high cute quotient, right?

violet picked elmo for this year's jack-o-lantern, and we did an owl craft. here's our humble stoop:

we took violet trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, and she LOVED it. even though we'd been talking it up, i wasn't really sure how she'd react to the strangers ("neighbors"), but she wasn't shy at all. we'd walk her most of the way up a walkway, but she'd go the rest of the way on her own, knock, say "trick or treat" to the grown-ups and eagerly plunge her hand into the proffered bowl. nana would have been appalled; she taught us proper manners involving holding out your bucket and waiting for the candy to be dropped in. sorry, nana.

as soon as she'd get the candy, violet would turn heel and exclaim, "i wahn go to the NEXT HOUSE!" we'd halt her and prompt a "thank you" - which she still pronounces as "shoo"- but since pretty much everyone was laughing, i'd say the snatch-and-grab was met with incontrovertibly positive reinforcement. violet's jaguar-hunting (for candy) instincts were so strong, in fact, that only a few scary decorations stopped her in her tracks - witches, of course, and those thunder/lightning trip sensors. even the smoke machine at one neighbor's awesome house didn't deter her once we'd promised it was "not hot."

violet hadn't eaten a piece of candy since easter, but she's obviously learned that candy is awesome because she'd been asking for kit kat and reese's all week. after dinner, we indulged and watched it's the great pumpkin, charlie brown on the couch together. we rewound "blagh! agh! poisoned dog lips!" about twenty times. even a week later, violet is still talking about how lucy kisses snoopy: "that part is very funny." if left to her own devices, this would be her life:

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.

two!

violet is so sweet right now, so huggy and kissy and "i yuh yoo" with the monkey neck squeeze. when she half-nelsons the dogs and exclaims, "i miss you why i was at schoo too-day," my heart melts faster than the ice cream at her birthday party in 100-degree valley heat. it's not that i didn't enjoy her unchubby baby days, and it's not that i'm not looking forward to the sassy 3s. well, i'm not entirely looking forward to those. when she was picking her nose a few days ago, i said, "i see your nose is dirty. let's get a tissue." she said, "no! it's not dirty. it's very clean. i pick my boogers. i eat them!" she laughed at the hilarity as she ate a booger. i said, "boogers aren't food. we don't eat boogers. it's yucky. it's not funny." she erupted in giggles: "no! it's funny! it's very funny! it's yummy!" she licked her finger and guffawed. i mean what with the sassiness already? but, well, she has a point. it is funny, isn't it? if i had only one thing to say about violet on the occasion of her second birthday, it would be that she has such a sense of humor already. she laughs all the time. she loves to laugh. the baby giggle attacks were amazing of course, but there's a knowing glint in her eye that wasn't there before and that just makes her laughter all the more contagious. i know that all parents wonder what their favorite age will be. will mine be the "terrible" twos? we're having so much fun already.

a year ago, violet couldn't walk or talk, but even more amazing is watching her grow into the parts of herself that have been there all along. we called her "tigs" as a newborn because she was born in the year of the tiger with all of the trademark ferocity, and the same traits we identified in the early days - her energy, her intensity, her strength - are becoming ever more defined, and are ever more defining her. even in the toddler room, the teachers tell me there are leaders and followers, and they say violet is a natural born leader. not being one myself, i marvel. i spend a lot of time considering how we're shaping our child - hopefully to be generous and compassionate (and to have her heart spark when a christmas tree alights) - but how we only want to mold her to the point that she can look at that piece of clay and see enough of her image to take over the sculpting herself. but even if we wished it, i know tigs will never be a little stevin jr., running around in a black t-shirt and long cardigan. she's violet, and she prefers the fashionable layering of her cherry print "babing suit" over her clothes. she's 2 now, and she knows what she wants... and what she doesn't. "I DOHN WANT CAHNDUHS ON MY BURFDAY CAKE. IT'S TOO HOT. I COULD GET BURNED." that cute little green "2" candle was removed before we sang.

we held her birthday party at the park. a modest event with cake, ice cream, bubbles and water guns. it was probably the second hottest day of the year. we took shelter in what little shade was available, and we were touched that people waded through the heat-haze to celebrate with us. we realized we took almost no pictures, so also many thanks to those who sent us these.