Easter Weekend

Auntie LouLou came into town for Easter. As usual, it was super nice to see her, but this time it was extra special because six hours after she arrived, I got sick with some sort of stomach virus. I'm not implying that she made me sick, rather, I became even more thankful for her presence once I was sick because, let me tell you, NOTHING is worse than having to take care of a small child when you are sick. NOTHING. I don't know how adults with chronic illness care for their children, because at one point Lola was throwing one of her terrible two tantrums and for a brief moment I envisioned myself vomiting all over her and then shouting, "Karma!"

Luckily, since my sister was here, I got to take a nap instead.

In the meanwhile, they made cookies in the shape of butterflies (or, "flutter-flys" as Lola calls them.)






and they decorated eggs with markers.






The next day, I dragged myself out of bed and Auntie LouLou and I took Lola to the local egg hunt. There was a small petting zoo, which contained a demonic turkey, some pigs and a few goats.





Outside the pen, there was a man with a large bunny. He appeared to be affiliated with the corralled animals, but Lola exercised caution when petting the bunny.



We also went on a small "train" ride around the parking lot.





On Easter morning, Lola was excited to see that the Easter bunny left her a nice basket.



Her favorite gift were the Hide-and-Squeak eggs. I had wanted to buy these for her for a while, but I held out until Easter. It's a great toy for 1-2 year olds.




Later that day, Josh hid some eggs in the front lawn and we attempted to get Lola to take some photos.

For once, we were rather successful.

Eggies

A small video for you, until I able able to do a proper post with photos.

Houseguest

Please say hello to Phoebe.



She is staying with us for a month, while her parents are on vacation.

Lola has made herself quite comfortable with Phoebe's things. Here she is, in "Feet-ie's bed."



Archie and Phoebe love to play together. And while Gizmo wasn't too happy about having another female dog in the house, she has adjusted and mellowed out a bit.



One thing that we have learned about Phoebe is that she LOVES water. Whenever I give Lola a bath, we practically have to restrain Phoebe from hopping in the tub with her. Here she is, watching Lola play with her toys, and waiting for the me to tell her that she can join her (which I don't, but she remains hopeful.)




Phoebe has lots of energy, but a very sweet disposition. She also has the ability to eat a bowl of dog food in less than three seconds. Seriously, I have never witnessed such fast food consumption. (Our dogs are nibblers.) The only thing I can compare it to are those hot dog eating contests that you see on cable channels. If there was such a contest for dogs, Phoebe would win and then we could all watch her on ESPN2.

Maybe I Should Rename this Blog, Garycakes

Just because male betta fish have to live alone doesn't mean they can't have pen pals.

Meet Gary's BFF:

Ace!



Ace lives with Liz, in Seattle. There are no current play dates set up between the two, but I am hoping we can schedule some time for them on skype.

Gary is going to flip when he sees Ace's tiki man.

A New Use for Argyle

She calls them robot hands.

"Look, Mommy!" she yells. Lola runs over to me, her hands encased in my socks. "Robot hands!" She begins to open and close her hands, while simultaneously making "rrrrrrrrrrr" and "eep eep epp" noises. "Robot hands," she cries, running to chase Gizmo onto the couch.

I ask Josh if he taught her about these robot hands. He says, no. I didn't either. Did she learn it from some TV show or movie or some other kid? I don't think so, he says.

Our little girl loves robots.

While I don't have a photo of her engaging in robot play, I do have this one which involves one of her favorite robot socks (on my foot) and her wearing my childhood pajamas (Carters circa 1982.)

Disco

The morning after we acquired Gary, Lola woke up singing, "Goooooood Morning, Gary!" This is was a different line from her usual tune of, "MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY, WHERE ARE YOU?" (Note, the "where are you?" line is done in a voice that sounds very much like Arnold Schwarzenegger, which is something I have been trying to capture on video for the last week, because man, this little Arnold-girl is going to go viral.)

Happy that Lola remembered our new pet, I picked her up out of her crib and went straight to the fish bowl.

When I saw it, my heart dropped.

Gary was resting on the rocks at the bottom of the bowl, and the water in his bowl was PINK.

I've mentioned that I think my fish is gay, right?

I tapped on the side of the glass. Gary fluttered to life. "Goooooood Morning, Gary!" Lola said. Looking at the pink water, I was a little baffled. Then, I realized that the dye on one of his fake plants must be the culprit. But, I didn't know what to do. We didn't have another container for him, or water prepped for a quick switch, nor did I even have anything to use to scoop him out of his toxic environment.

When I called Josh at work and told him about the water situation, he suggested prepping some new water for Gary and waiting until he got home to do the big switcheroo.

So, I prepped the water, got Lola dressed, and took a photo of her with the iridescent bowl.


Poor kid. Polka dot turtlenecks should be illegal.

When Josh came home, he insisted that we move Gary into another container so we could clean out the fish bowl. Our big problem was that due to the narrow neck of our re-purposed vase/fish bowl, only my skinny hand could fit into the bowl. After a ten minute argument between Josh and I about how I was (NOT) putting my hand into the bowl and scooping out the fish, I demanded that Josh go to the pet store and buy a net.

Three dollars and twenty minutes later, we scooped Gary out (via the fish net) and plopped him in a mug.




Once we cleaned out his bowl, and replaced his toxic tree, we transferred Gary back to his home. Crisis averted. Kind of.

Book Club for One

In many ways, I think law school stole a small part of my soul.

It's not like it swooped in and sucked out all the life in me. Law school was such a long, arduous, all-encompassing process. Three years of non-stop briefing for my doctorate, another year of studying statutes for my master's degree, and nearly a year of memorizing laws and outlines as I prepared for the bar exam. By the end of it all, I was exhausted. Those five years created a gaping black hole in my mid-twenties while it simultaneously ruined my love for reading.

Or so, that is what I thought.

I used to love to read. Some of my favorite childhood memories involved going to the local library and carrying home as many books as they allowed me to check out (26.) I specifically picked English as one of my undergraduate majors because I loved my English classes more than any of the others. I used to read and read and read, and I enjoyed it.

Then, I got to law school and I stopped. During my five years of studying law, I did not read a single non-law book. Not one. I tried, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was too tired of reading.

Then, I went on my honeymoon. I read three books:
Wicked
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Eat Pray Love

After returning home, I started studying for the bar exam. That time I read two books (in addition to all of my bar materials):
The Kite Runner
Peace Like a River

(Looking back on this now, it's clear that I had very light reading for my honeymoon, and very dark violent sad books for when I was studying for the bar. Says something about my mood, huh?)

Then, I found out I was pregnant. I can't even begin to list the books that I read, because I read so many that I know I have forgotten the names of most of them. Plus, those are kind of boring, and now that I know Curtis does in fact read my blog, I will refrain from talking about how a cervix dilates and the postpartum state of being. Not that I really talked about those things before, but if there was a time to talk about all the crazy things that I read in those pregnancy books, now would be it. You can thank Curtis for my exercise in restraint.

Continuing on with the time line that is my life.

Two years ago, when Lola was born, I began reading parenting books. Those involved child development, breastfeeding and how to make your child sleep. Since Lola didn't really start sleeping until last October (when she was 20 months old), I re-read the sleep books a few times.

In the meantime, I didn't really read anything else. I bought a few magazines, but was largely disappointed by the current magazine market. Real Simple was boring, Nylon gave me ADD, InStyle had too celebrities, Redbook made me feel old and matronly. The only thing that I found myself reading was the magazine Parents.

That's when I knew I had a problem.

I decided to tackle this issue similarly to how I tackle most problems: by setting a goal, creating rules, and applying psychotic discipline. So, I told Josh that as part of my New Year's Resolutions, he was supposed to pick out books for me. Whatever he picked, I would read. And, I would do this for an entire year, with the hope that by making reading for pleasure a requirement in my life I would fall in love with it once again.

As you can tell from the books mentioned above, most of the time I am drawn to stories involving women, coming of age, or midlife crisis. Josh loves books that involve aliens, zombies, mysteries, and stuff that I classify as weird fantasy-sci-fi-shit.

I was really desperate.

So far, with Josh as my book connoisseur, I have done very well. Since January, I've read:

The Catcher in the Rye
The Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (started, but did not finish. It was literally too crazy for me.)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book 1)



I'm currently reading Book 2 in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I wasn't intending on reading the second book (there are five total), but the first book really didn't wrap anything up. There is no way that the first book could independently hold its own ground. I have a feeling I will be reading all five books.

I recognize that I've only read four books so far and each book is pretty small, but I consider this to be quite an accomplishment given that I'm usually only able to read for 11 minutes before falling asleep.

Lola says

While on the jungle gym at the playground, Lola loses sight of Josh. "Daddy, where arrrrrre you? Where arrrrre you, sweetie?" Upon seeing him again, she says, "Honey, I found you!"

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Last weekend, I asked her what she wanted to do for the day. She said, "Lola go to Heinz Field!" (home of the Pittsburgh Steelers.)

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She wasn't feeling well, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I asked her if she wanted anything to make her feel better.

"Lola wants drugs."

(Don't worry, Dad, "drugs" are her reference to Children's Tylenol.)

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I asked her what she wanted for breakfast, she said, "Cannoli."
"What about toast?" I asked.
"No. I want cannoli for breakfast."

(We settled on a granola bar.)


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