Negative Creeps

Have I ever sent you an email pointing you to my YouTube page, where I occasionally post videos of the girls doing cute things? Have I ever mentioned how cute my daughters are and talked about the adorable thing they did the other day, and then said "I have it on video, check it out on YouTube"?

If so, and if you actually want to see the videos, you'll need to sign up and send me your username so I can add you to my friends or family lists (Mom, you're already set up). I uploaded a bunch of stuff over the weekend, and almost immediately two people I don't know subscribed to the videos. When I went to check them out, I saw that one of them has listed as their favorites nearly 200 videos of people, mostly but not entirely children, getting wet. Playing in pools, lakes, sprinklers, whatever.

I don't know what it means -- it just seems, I dunno, creepy. Maybe it's totally innocent and this person just enjoys videos of people getting wet the same way people enjoy videos of cats falling off railing, or I enjoy videos of people wiping out while trying to do skateboard stunts. They're welcome to their videos, I've just decided to not have videos of my kids be among them.

So, videos on YouTube are now private. Send me your info if you want to be able to see them. Also, any recommendations for a different video sharing site would be much appreciated.

What Kind of Name Is 'Lady Horizon,' Anyway?

Yesterday we took the girls to see the Harrisburg Lady Horizon basketball team. I was shocked to see that there actually was professional women's basketball in Harrisburg -- apparently they're part of something called the Eastern Basketball Alliance, which as near as I can tell is about a sixth-string minor league. The teams play a double-header, women first followed by the men's game. The men's league seems a bit more substantial than the womens' -- the women's page on the EBA website lists seven teams, but one of them has no roster and two others apparently only play road games.

The game was played at the Harrisburg High gym, and kids got in free with an adult, so it was a cheap afternoon out. Zosia really got in to watching the game for about the first 15 minutes we were there, remarking that the players were doing "cool stuff" like jumping and running and shooting the ball. After a brief conversation about how "shooting" and "time outs" were good things in basketball but bad things in life, her attention drifted and she found herself much more interested in the snacks at the concession stand and the mascot than the game, so we decided not to push our luck and stay for the men's game.

She has been playing soccer at pre-school (Soccer Shots) and I think she is just starting to think about the concept of a team sport. We've talked a little bit about what it means to "win," and just about every time we go up the stairs, when we get to the top she says, "I beat you." Of course, that's often followed by "What does 'I beat you' mean?"

The Horizon looks like a good (and cheap!) way to introduce her to these sorts of sports -- certainly cheaper than my original idea, which was a Hershey Bears game -- and I expect we'll be going to quite a few games over the rest of the season.

(And an aside about the title of this post -- today in the Patriot News there was a picture of a player on the Penn State women's basketball team. Across the front of her jersey it said LADY LIONS. I'm pretty sick of the practice of naming the women's team the Lady Whatevers -- it's extremely patronizing, and brings to mind antiquated phrases like "lady doctor" -- but in this case it's beyond ridiculous. There is a word in the English language that means "lady lion": LIONESS. If the men's teams are the Nittany Lions, why not name the women's teams the Lionesses? This would have the added bonus of being extra fierce since it's the lionesses that go out and do all the hunting while the male lions laze around and try to decide which of their cubs to kill.

Anyway, Lady Horizon. Feh.)

The Saddest Music in the World

It's been obvious that, over the past few weeks, our visit to the Baltimore Museum of Art has stuck in Zosia's mind. Not to a worrying degree or anything, but this episodes illustrates that she's been spending time thinking about what she saw.

A few days after the museum trip she asked to hear some sad music while we were driving in the car. She's been getting into the music she hears on the radio more & more lately (the other day I taught her to sing along to "Roxanne") but this was the first time she expressed a preference to hear a specific type of music. I scanned around the stations and couldn't find anything that satisfied her criteria for sad music -- I did find Soundgarden's "Burden In My Hand" but I don't think Zosia was listening for lyrical content -- so I told her I'd play her some sad songs when we got home.

While she was in the bath I got the iPod and portable speakers and set them up for her. She was playing with some toys, including an Elmo doll, and I asked if she still

Poor dead Elliott

wanted to hear some sad music and she said she did. So I cued up Elliott Smith's 'XO' record, which would make the Dalai Lama cry, and as Sweet Adeline played I watched for her reaction.

She seemed to be listening as she played, and after a few seconds she said, "this boy is very sad." I was taken aback -- I mean yeah the song is in a minor key and very sad-sounding, but I wasn't expecting her to key in on Smith's state of mind so quickly -- so I asked her what she meant.

"This boy is sad because his brother isn't coming to swim with him," she said. It was at that point I looked at her and saw that she was pointing at her Elmo doll. So, not so much instant empathy with poor Elliott, but who knows, maybe she got her singer songwriters mixed up and was feeling sad about Jeff Buckley?

America's Next Top Model...

...probably won't be my daughter. Yesterday afternoon we went to the JCC for their fashion show, which was a fund-raiser for the Early Learning Center. Zosia was one of the models, resplendent in an Audrey Hepburn-esque pink dress. In my completely unbiased opinion she owned the runway with her signature style, which is two parts ebullient three-year-old and one part "oh my God, I hope she doesn't trip over her own feet and fall off the catwalk":

Matisse: Painter As Sculptor

On Sunday the whole family headed down to Baltimore to see the Matisse: Painter As Sculptor exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Despite living in the Hbg for 2 1/2 years, we had never been down to Baltimore; for some reason I had it in my head that it was as far away as Philly, when in fact it's just over an hour away, a straight shot down 83. This turned out to be a fantastic day out, and I also gained some insight into how the three and a half-year-old mind (or at least the mind of my three and a half-year-old) works.

We got there right as the museum opened. We had originally decided to get lunch at the restaurant in the museum after the show, so as to avoid having to go outside in the bitter (for the Eastern Seaboard) cold. Upon arrival we learned that, without reservations, there's no way to get into Gertrude's for Sunday brunch. This put a significant crimp in our plans, but after a bit of minor pleading, the very nice hostess agreed to squeeze us in right then. I imagine it wasn't easy to decide to seat a brunch-crashing family with a small, hyper child and an infant, but they did and we were grateful. Kudos to the fine folks at Gertrude's. After a very nice meal (crabcakes, natch, and a mimosa) we bought our tickets and headed into the museum, but not before picking up a FunPack. The BMA does lots of things to make itself family-friendly, and this is one of the best: free activity packs for the kids. We opted for the sketch pack, and will be getting the costume pack next time we go.

So on to the exhibit -- it was fantastic. It's a shame that it's closing in a few weeks, and apparently not being shown anywhere else; if you were lucky enough to see it in Baltimore, San Francisco, or Dallas then you saw one of the best art exhibits in a while. It was, of course, focused on Matisse's sculpture, which was my first revelation. I didn't even know he was a sculptor, and it turns out he spent a large portion of his career sculpting. This exhibit brought together dozens of his sculptures and paired them with some of his paintings and other works to show how his sculpture fit in the context of his entire career.

Zosia and Genevieve were both troopers; Genevieve was either asleep or quietly looking around, while Zosia really seemed to get into the art. About halfway through the exhibit, we walked into a gallery that had, among other things, Alberto Giacometti's 'Woman Walking' sculpture. As we were looking at it, she told me that

she didn't like the sculpture, that it made her afraid. I asked her what she didn't like about the sculpture and she said she didn't like the face, especially the ears. Not surprisingly (since she hasn't had a lot of interaction with headless torsos) she didn't initially grasp that the sculpture was of a headless torso, and thought the breasts were eyes and the shoulders were the ears.

We talked about it for a while and I told her that it actually was a body without a head or arms, that was OK because it was just a sculpture and not a real person, etc. She thought about it for a while and said that she understood it didn't have a head, and that was OK, but she still didn't like it.

Eventually we moved away from the Giacometti and went to look at Matisse's 'The Yellow Dress,' which was in the same gallery. She said she really liked this painting, and we talked about it for a while, but the whole time she kept looking over her shoulder at the Giacometti. Expecting her to say no I asked if she wanted to

go look at it again and to my surprise she said yes. So we went back over to it and she looked at it silently for a good 5 seconds. I could see she was getting upset and maybe even a little teary-eyed so I broke her away from it and we continued on with the exhibit.

I was surprised so see her have such a strong reaction (both positive and negative) to any art, to be able to give voice to her dislike, and also to want to actually go back over and look at it some more -- to process it more, I guess? We talked for a little bit about how one of the purposes of art was to make you feel, and that the sculpture and the Matisse painting were perfect examples of that. A friend suggested that she might have been subconsciously reacting to the strange proportions of the Giacometti, which were certainly in contrast to the nice, orderly Matisse painting (which included bright colors and a beautiful hat and dress, both things she loves), and that's certainly possible. Whatever it was, it was a fascinating experience for all of us.

She mentioned the Giacometti a few more times over the afternoon ("the sculpture with no head what I don't like") but didn't seem to dwell on it. Interestingly, a few galleries later there was another Giacometti, one of his typical super tall-and-thin sculptures. Unbidden, Zo told us she didn't like that one either. Apparently she hates Giacometti -- who knew?

I didn't go into go into too much depth about what was actually in the exhibit, because I'm afraid the Matisse family might come and beat me up. Apparently, when Daryl was in the gift shop, she overhead a museum employee tell a visitor that the reason they couldn't find a print of a specific work was that the Matisse family was extremely stingy with what it allowed to be reproduced. This also explains why, when we were in the activity room, a guard came in and asked me if I was using a flash on my camera (I wasn't) and reminded me that no photography was allowed in the exhibit (never mind that we had already been all the way through the exhibit), and also why there were so many disappointed art students with sketch pads wandering around, unable to even sketch anything in the exhibit. Seems a bit ridiculous, but then again I'm not the trustee of a collection of incredibly important art.

Wonderful Christmastime

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. We did -- this was the first year that Zosia really got the idea of Christmas, and the last few weeks were full of anticipation and "is it Christmas yet" and "it's so hard to wait! I'm so impatient." When it finally was Christmas, I think she was so relieved it was finally here that she forgot to be moody and as a result spent the entire day (except for the briefest of meltdowns at teeth-brushing time) in a remarkably good mood.

As befits the first granddaughter of eight grandparents, she got a ton of stuff, as did her sister. Whatever your feelings about rampant consumerism (I admit to being both fascinated and a little squicked-out by it) there is no denying how great it is to see one's kid in a state of frantic excitement, running from room to room and toy to toy, eagerly monopolizing her sister's presents as well as her own (big hits: Viewmaster, tiny pony with comb-able hair, bongo drums), all the while with a huge smile on her face. It did a papa proud.

We manged to get the girls to sit together in their matching Christmas dresses just long enough to snap a couple of pictures. Here's one of them:

In their Christmas dresses
Originally uploaded by Ruzich/Johnson

We finished our day with dinner out at a Chinese restaurant -- we thought about a movie but didn't want to press our luck -- and evening fell with Daryl wearing her moisturizing gloves & booties and paging through the Complete Sandman collection while I rocked my way through Guitar Hero III for the Wii. We collapsed into bed exhausted but fully suffused with the Christmas spirit, ready to move on to New Year's, 2008, and everything it has in store for our little family.

Family Videos

A couple of grainy, shot-with-our-Nikon video clips, for your viewing pleasure. First, D-Jo's friend Sarah stopped by with her daughter Katie, and Zosia enjoyed bonking the balloon off her head:



And then we are proud to present Genevieve, the Farting Baby:

On Top Of Spaghetti

Last night at the dinner table:

Zosia: "Daddy, I have a question to tell you."
Me: "What is it?"
Zosia: "I love you."
Me: "I love you too, honey."
Zosia: "And mama, I have a question to tell you, too."
Daryl: "What is it?"
Zosia: "I love meatballs."

In her defense, they were pretty good meatballs.

Nothing To Get Hung About

Looking for something to do this weekend? What if I told you there were places you could go which would let you do the sort of backbreaking labor that falls into the "illegal immigrants do the jobs that Americans don't want to do" category? Is that something you might be interested in?

Last Saturday the famiy loaded into the minivan and headed to Loysville, where Spiral Path Farm was holding its annual pick-your-own-strawberries weekend. We lurrve Spiral Path; they're an organic farm that has a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program -- you pay an annual fee and every week from May to October they deliver baskets of freshly picked organic to drop-off sites throughout the area. It's great to eat tomatoes, lettuce, peas, etc. that were picked the day before, and in this age of increased awareness about farming techniques and food miles I love knowing that my food was grown less than an hour away.

(By the way, apropos of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Spiral Path hipped us to Jujo Acres, who deliver organic and free-range beef and other meats. It's all good.)

So anyway we drove out to Loysville, ready to pick our allotted two gallons of strawberries. It was a beautful day, sunny, with a light breeze, and when we arrived the fields were already full of other city dwellers:



We quickly got to work; I took charge of Zosia while Daryl got back in touch with her Polish peasant roots, picking berries with Genevieve sleeping (and occasionally screaming) in the sling:



After an hour or so, we had our berries and were ready to head home. After some hardcore hulling and culling, we had the loot, ready for consumption in pies, ice cream, or as-is:



One of the main reasons we wanted to do this was to start introducing Zosia to the idea of where food comes from. It's an easy thing to not think about; you go to the market or grocery store or restaurant and get your food, and it's easy to forget what went in to getting it to that point. I don't want my kids to think that food comes from "the store," and we're lucky enough to live in a place where the actual production locations of so many foods are so close by.

Plus we wanted to get out in the fresh air, and give Zo something fun to do. I think she enjoyed it, as you can see from this shot:



Want to go strawberry picking yourself this weekend? Learn everything you need to know, including locations and how to do it, at PickYourOwn.org.

Enjoy!

Getting Ready For Passover

It's been very interesting to see what Zo brings home from the JCC. The other day, in preparation for my birthday, she sang "Happy Birthday" to me in Hebrew.

Passover is coming, and it's really entertaining to hear the Passover story filtered through a 2 1/2 year old. For example, last night we found out that the fourth Plague of Egypt was a plague of butterflies ("and I love butterflies!" she editorialized), and we've had this conversation more than, oh, a hundred times:

Us: "What did Moses say?"
Her: "Let my people GO!"
Us: "And what did Pharaoh say?"
Her: "NO!"

After which King Pharaoh, who was a mean guy, had to go into time out.

She's also been singing this line of a Passover song over and over. Apparently it's the big favorite at school, and I have to admit it's pretty catchy:



Next year I think we'll need to pick up some ten plagues finger puppets.

I Heartily Concur: Bill Maher

Writing on Salon a few weeks ago, Bill Maher started an op-ed about the current HPV vaccine controversy this way:

New Rule: If you don't think your daughter getting cancer is worse than your daughter having sex, then you're doing it wrong.

I don't have much to add to what he wrote. I have a daughter, and another on the way, and as soon as they can be given this vaccine (at age nine), they will be.

Am I worried that giving her this vaccine will make her want to have sex? No. I'm worried that not giving her this vaccine will increase her risk of getting CANCER.

According to the National Cancer Institute (a division of the National Insitutes of Health), 10,000 women will be diagnosed with the cancer caused by HPV this year, and 4,000 will die from it. The vaccine prevented nearly 100 percent of the precancerous cervical cell changes caused by HPV, and the NCI estimates that it has the potential to reduce cervical cancer deaths around the world by as much as two-thirds.

It's pretty simple: this vaccine prevents cancer. Many people who get cancer die. Therefore this vaccine prevents people from dying. It will help prevent my children, and yours, and everyone's, from dying.


Buy your Fuck Cancer patches and hats from Deviant Goods

As far as the sex thing is concerned, giving my daughters this vaccine will give them a better chance of living to the point where I have to worry about them having sex. I'll deal with that issue then, and I'll be glad I have to worry about it at all.

Hooray For The JCC!

Zosia switched to a new school last week. OK, I suppose it's not technically a school, but it's more than a day-care center, too. Let's go with "early childhood program."

For the last year she's been at the East Shore YMCA, which has been extremely convenient. It's less than 5 minutes away and right on the way to work, and we got a free gym membership when we signed her up. So for us it was ideal.

For her, though, it was OK. Good but not great. The teachers are very nice but there didn't seem to be a whole lot of learning going on. I feel a little strange complaining about some of the things I didn't like -- lots of coloring on photocopied drawings, snacks consisting of discount sugary cereal -- because those things were done that way due to the shoestring budget they operate on. Other things were more significant -- for example, the Y lacked an outdoor play area. On warm days they would pack everyone up and go out to Riverfront Park, or even over to City Island, which was great, but most days their physical play consisted of a couple hours in the gym. And there were no art facilities, no sand or water tables or the like, no chances for the kids to get dirty.

Still, Zosia really enjoyed going there, she made her first real friends among the other kids, like I said her teachers (Monica, Margaret, and later Kasey) were great. Plus, you know, they totally potty trained her, which was worth the cost of daycare all by itself. Over the last few months, though, we sensed that maybe it was time for her to move on. She was getting close to the age when she'd move up to the next class up, and that class had gone through a significant amount of teacher turnover. The next result was, it seemed to us from observing during pickup and dropoff, lots of time spent watching videos and playing on the computer. Plus it seemed like the way discipline was doled out was different than in Zo's current class -- it's not that the teachers were rough with the kid, but they raised their voices more (and more quickly) than we would have liked. That might be how they thought they needed to deal with rambunctious three- and four-year-old boys, but it just seemed wrong to us.

So we started looking around and ended up visiting the JCC Early Childhood Center and loving it. The vibe was fantastic, with lots of kids of lots of different ages running around doing lots of stuff. There were art stations set up, water tables, books, dress-up, blocks, you name it. The teachers seemed extremely involved with the kids, and, to top it off, they have a huge outdoor playground that they use every day (as long as the wind chill is about 20 degrees). We were sold right as we walked in, and the more we learned (they're moving over the a Reggio Emilia program, they have weekly music and art classes, the JCC has a full gym and pool for us to join), the more we wanted to get Zo there right away.

Alas, we had to wait a few weeks since they were full. But they were working on hiring another teacher so they could increase the number of students while maintaining their ratio, and within a few weeks the new teacher was hired and Zo was in!

She started about a week and a half ago and I think she's really liking it. She already talks about her new friends (including Ben, with whom she discusses Blue's Clues and lollipops), and the things she does throughout the day. It just feels like she does more -- at the Y I feared that she was getting bored and therefore acting out a bit, and I don't get the sense she's bored at the JCC. In fact, I think they run her a little ragged -- she's been sleeping more at night and taking longer naps on the weekends -- which is great. Today the temperature is in the 30s and I'm psyched to think she's out climbing on the jungle gym.

Sleeeep!

So Zosia's been having some sleep issues recently and a large part of me wishes i could wiggle my fingers at her, shout "SLEEP!" dramatically, and have her sleep through the night. Now I know that in the grand scheme of parenting, her sleep issues are minor. Some of our friends have been dealing with serious sleep stuff for several months now, and Zo herself had more severe issues in the first year of her life. Of course, that's when we were living in a SINGLE ROOM with NO BATHROOM in THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, so it's understandable that things might have been difficult. Not that having no bathroom had anything to do with her not sleeping well, of course, but it really did suck. Damn you, Sergio Martinez. Seriously.

But I digress. Right before the holidays, Zo learned how to climb out of her crib. She announced this with a thump, and by the time we got down to her room, fearing a separated shoulder at best, she was already downstairs on the couch, asking for some milk. Never mind that it was 4 in the morning. The next day we took one side off her crib, and voila -- Big Girl Bed. She's taken to it very easily; we keep a chair right next to it so she doesn't roll out, though I think that's probably unnecessary.

The problem, however, is that since it's very easy for her to get out of bed, she does. Every night. Multiple times. She gets out of bed, opens her door, walks down the hall (usually whimpering a bit), and climbs the stairs to our room. Usually I'm awake by then, and I meet her at the top of the stairs, turn her around, and put her back in bed (then I drain the washing machine, which has started mysteriously filling with water, but that's a story for another post). I head back to bed, hopeful that I can get another couple hours of sleep before the next one.

(BTW D-Jo does take her back to bed sometimes, but seeing how she's in her third trimester it seems like a bad idea for her to sleepily traverse the steep stairs multiple times in the night, so I do it the majority of the time.)

We've tried a number of different tactics to try to get her to stop. We try not engaging her, and mutely taking her back to bed. We try talking to her at bedtime about what she should do, which she happily parrots back to us: "no go out! Stay in!" We try plying her with the stickers that worked so well with the potty-training, but all that leads to is a morning spent repeating the same thing ad nauseam: "I got out! I didn't stay in! No stickers!"

We tried being nice, soothing her by rubbing her back while she falls asleep, but in true give-an-inch take-a-mile fashion, that resulted in Zo screaming "RUB IT!! RUB IT!! RUUUUUBBBBB IIIIIITTT!!!" at the top of her lungs, and it was really hard to get to sleep between her screaming and our laughter.

Over the last week she's settled into a pattern of getting up three or four times a night, and it looks like we're going to need to move to drastic measures before I end up talking about my daughter the way Louis C.K. talked about his on The Daily Show earlier this week:



Tonight, we lock her bedroom door and hope that she goes to the door, tries to get out, gives up, and goes back to bed.

God, I hope it works.

Christmas With The Family

We're back from our long weekend in the Chicago suburbs, a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas visit to the old homestead. Unfortunately all three of us got sick to differing degrees, and we're still dealing with that days later.

Zosia spiked a 102-degree fever the night before our flight. Joy. Luckily that fever came down before we left, so we were still able to go. The drive down to Washington National was uneventful, though the GPS in the car routed us through the surface streets of DC. Luckily we had left an extra hour early (fear of lack of parking), so we got to the airport in plenty of time. It may be far away, but National turns out to be a nice airport -- small, easy to navigate, and very little traffic even on the Friday before Christmas.

The flight was uneventful -- it took off about a half-hour late, but thankfully we had no connections so that wasn't a big deal. Zosia was kept occupied thanks to the Rip Roar portable video recorder I picked up last week. I haven't even begun to explore what it can do -- apparently it can be set up to automatically record shows off the TV, but I have Tivos for that. I just dumped a couple of episodes of Blue's Clues and Backyardigans onto it and that's all she needed.

We stayed at my mom's house, and my brother and his girlfriend came as well. We basically sat around playing the bowling game on Graham's Wii, talking about his new record label, and trying to think up ways to keep Zo occupied that didn't involve going out into the Midwestern winter too much. We walked to the playground one day, and drove around in search of an apparently non-existent Gymboree another day, but she spent too much time cooped up and by the end of the trip she started losing it pretty regularly. I can't say I blame her, being stuck in an unfamiliar house without much to do, and still not feeling 100%. If it hadn't been for the heroics of Grandpa Jim, who can apparently read the same book 15 times without growing bored, I don't know what we would have done.

All in all it was a good trip, if fraught. For a lot of the time I felt like Zo was one move away from a tantrum, and since her tantrums had recently begun to include the occasional hit, kick, or headbutt, I spent a lot of time on edge and I know D-Jo did too. Of course, it didn't help that she hadn't shaken the cold/bronchitis she picked up just before we left, either. We both got it, but because she's pregnant her immune system can't fight it off as well, plus she can't take the good drugs that would allow her a full night's sleep. So she spent a lot of time sleeping and trying to get well, to little avail.

By the time we flew home, Zo was pretty much a wreck. Now I recognize that we've been extremely lucky, and my definition of "a wreck" is very similar to other parents' definition of "a normal day," but still it's no fun to have to shepherd a squirming, unhappy, about-to-lose-her-shit kid through an airport and on to a plane. Incredibly, she stayed tantrum-free during the flight, even when she had to pee before the Fasten Seat Belts sign turned off (and thanks to the flight attendant who let us take her to the bathroom a few minutes early). More judicious application of the portable TV assuaged her, though she was not happy when, upon descent, we had to turn it off. She stewed over that until we landed and celebrated hitting the jetway with a full-fledged tantrum.

But, she was asleep within five minutes of us hitting the road, slept the rest of the two-hour drive, and slept through the night. After a couple of days back at the YMCA she was her normal wonderful self again.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like D-Jo is -- her cold seems to have morphed into a sinus infection, with all of the head-throbbing, tooth-aching joy that comes with that. Her face hurts, and believe me it's killing me, too.

So here it is, New Year's Day. Zo is down for a nap (After a minor freakout that included her screaming at the top of her lungs for me to Rub! Her! Back!), Daryl's upstairs eating a sandwich and watching Law & Order, and I'm posting before I head downstairs to do some more cleaning up and maybe watch the end of the Penn State game.

And I couldn't be happier, or more looking forward to a fantastic 2007. Here's to another great year!

Weekend With The Kiddo

It's 7 o'clock; do you know where your kid is?

Mine (Zosia) is down on the couch, snuggling with her mama (D-Jo) and watching Madagascar for the eighty-seventh time. She's properly exhausted after a trip to the YMCA to play in the pool while I got my ass kicked by a beginners' Pilates class.

That was just the last event in what turned out to be quite a weekend for her. It stated a bit early (6:30, which is about 45 minutes earlier than normal) when she walked into our room and announced that she wanted to snuggle with us. After a half-hour of snuggling which was much nicer in theory than in execution (she's a little wiggly) we came downstairs and she and D-Jo took a shower and we got ready to go to the market.

Our market trips end up being pretty epic these days; we used to be able to just buckle her in and walk over, walk through, buy what we needed to buy, and head home. That was before she became, you know, her own person. Now she wants to help push the stroller instead of riding in it, turning a 10-minute walk into a 20-minute one. We now get breakfast there, usually at Cafe George where the owners fawn over her a bit. By the time breakfast is done she's usually read to be buckled in, but this week she was still go-go-going so we put her to work sherpaing vegetables into our basket. After that she was pretty worn out and consented to ride in the stroller for the duration.

We got home and called the lady who cuts her hair to see if she could fit Zo in that day; she could, but at 12:30. Right in the middle of nap time. Zip-zam, into the car, drop D-Jo off at the spa, over to the haircut place for a quick cut and (as a special treat) to get her nails done. You should see the shade of orange she chose. Unsurprisingly she fell asleep in the car and was easily transferred to bed for her nap.

The rest of the weekend was sort of a blur: walk to the playground, walk home from the playground so she could use the potty, walk to the laundromat where D-Jo was camped out (remodeling has left us momentarily washer- and dryer-less), walk home, set the table, help "cook," dinner, play play play, no bath tonight, into bed.

After a three-wakeup night (two more than usual), she was back in our room early, giving us the impetus to get to the grocery store at a reasonable hour. Then it was home, play play play, lunch, nap, decorate the Christmas tree, the aforementioned trip to the Y, and back home for some brief downtime.

I hear Sasha Baron Cohen singing "I like to move it move it," which means Madagascar is over, and it's time to head downstairs for a little dancing before dinner. After dinner will be bedtime for her and a struggle to stay awake for the Survivor finale for me and the wife.

Move it!