Somebody to love

Before I was born, my mom happened upon this little giraffe in a store and decided that it was so cute, it would surely become one of my more treasured possessions. She imagined me carrying it everywhere I went until it became threadbare from too much love and travel.

Sadly for her, that giraffe and I never hit it off. Instead, I've focused almost all of my affection on a small, hard plastic Mickey Mouse that came as a part of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse play set given to me by my Grandma and Popi.

To differentiate him from the other various Mickey dolls/figures in my collection (Big Mickey, Little Mickey, Giant Mickey and Safari Mickey -- almost all of which are, just for the record, cuddlier than this one) we named him Red Mickey. As you can see, he's suffered no lack of love.

In the early days of my Red Mickey obsession, my dad took us on a trip to Target and Red Mickey stealthily jumped out of the cart while no one was looking. My mom made my dad go back to Target on a recovery mission, but sadly Red Mickey was never heard from again.

Fortunately for all parties involved, that was before the point in my life where I became unable to sleep without Red Mickey, or my dad may never have been welcomed in our home again.

My mom called our friends at Mattel the next day and they happily sent us a new Red Mickey (but only with the purchase of another Toon Car, Pluto and Minnie), and once again all was right with the world. Luckily I didn't seem to notice that he was missing for a couple of days. Nor did I notice once we were reunited that he looked significantly less loved than I had remembered.

Since that time, however, all Hades breaks loose if bedtime rolls around and Red Mickey is unaccounted for. After my parents tore the house apart and sent frantic texts to Mary ("Have you seen Red Mickey??!!") more than twice, we put him under permanent bed arrest. He needs special permission to leave, which is only granted on extremely rare occassions (i.e., never). Bed time's tended to be a big enough production, as is.

When Rowan was born, Mom knew this was going to be the giraffe blanket's best (if not, last) chance. Once again he's been passed over. This time for his distant cousin (monkey blanket), which was gifted to Rowan when she was born. Just this week she's started carrying him around in a way that suggests that a real bond is forming. This warms my mom's heart.

I shall not comment on the fact that the other items she regularly totes around are the alarmingly gigantic waterproof training pants, which she retrieves from the drawer almost daily.

It seems attachments to the most unlikely of items run in the family.

Matz-uh-uh

While there are many things that are enjoyable to do with me and Rowan, taking us out of the house for dinner is rarely one of them. With few exceptions, it tends to play out like that scene from the Gremlins where they feed the Mogwai after midnight. One minute we're smiley and cute, and the next one of us is all slobbery and mad and melts down in an exhaustion-fueled rage. People run for their lives. (Or, at the very least, shoot us disapproving looks.)

This is the reason that when Passover comes around, it's in everybody's best interest if the Seder comes to us. And by the Seder coming to us, I mean the Sunset Foods delivery from Nannie, which we eat while thinking about our ancestors. (Whatever it takes to get us bathed and in bed on time.)

During our Sederesque dinner, Rowan had the opportunity to partake of her first piece of matzo, but partook a pass. Turns out that matzo isn't Rowan's thing.

Ritz crackers are. She argues that they're so flat that any leavening is really of no consequence.

Happy Passover!

Lesson learned

Shoes with laces are not harder for Rowan to get off. Just harder for Mom to get back on.

And with the confidence of knowing that she can remove any type of footwear, Rowan set her sights on dismantling something a little more complex.

Whoops, my bad

While I was out of the house today with my dad for opening weekend of How to Train Your Dragon (in 3D!), Rowan seized the opportunity to sit down at the Tinkerbell table and color her first real picture.

She also took a bike ride to the park and crawled around the house. In peace. Without fear of an overzealous big sister falling on top of her, smashing her face into the hardwood.

Not that that's ever happened.

More than once. (Again, Rowan, sorry about yesterday!)

Based on her somber expression and repeated refusals to use any color except brown, I have to imagine that the picture is an abstract interpretation of her pain and suffering.

Saturday morning book club

Lately I've been enjoying reading books to myself in bed. While I only know select phrases from a few books, my evergrowing sense of independence prevents me from allowing my mom to tell me what any of the books I'm unfamiliar with actually say. Nonetheless, I can occupy myself for upwards of 20 minutes.

Deciding that being a reader like me is not a prerequisite for getting in on the books-in-bed action, I allowed Rowan to join me this morning.

Unfortunately, she turned out to be one of those people who joins book club not for the enjoyment of outstanding literature, but rather for the food and fraternization.

It's all in the presentation

When you have a kid like me that subsists on a very limited diet, your mom feels a great sense of pride and personal victory when kid no. 2 turns out to be an eater.

And when kid no. 2 starts to go on a hunger strike for a day or two, she writes it off as teething-related discomfort.

But when two or three days turn into a week, she starts to wonder if maybe someone's been brainwashing Rowan with their bird-like eating antics. Or if perhaps the universe is demanding payback for overdelivering with a kid who sleeps until 7:15 am everyday.

After five days of watching pieces of waffle, pancake and banana be thrown to the floor at breakfast without even so much as a nibble, Mom decided to try a new approach. She stopped cutting up Rowan's food.

And by golly, it worked!

Because while some kids go hungry for no real purpose (like me), other more crafty kids use starvation for the purpose of getting something that they want. (Genius!!)

In Rowan's case, she apparently just wanted to be fed like a big kid.

Taking inspiration from a baby who is clearly clever beyond her years, I'm considering initiating a hunger strike of my own. But for the sake of efficiency, I'll likely draw up my list of demands ahead of time.

A girl can only go without Pringles for so long.

So maybe she needs to work a bit on making it look elegant.

Noncompliance

You can tell Rowan a lot of things.

You can tell her what sound a cow makes. You can tell her how to drink out of a big-kid cup. You can tell her incessantly about the kid at school who pinched you. She'll listen in an interested kind of way.

Yep, you can tell Rowan a lot of things. Just don't think about telling her what to do.

Don't tell her that she has to sit in her high chair. She'll stiffen her legs in a way that makes it impossible to get them through the openings and refuse her cooperation until presented with a compelling reason to want to sit down. (For the record, milk, Clif Bars for Kids and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse all qualify as compelling reasons.)

Don't tell her that she has to participate in circle time at gymnastics. She'll wriggle free at her first opportunity -- no matter how exciting the activities are -- and crawl out of the circle like a baby on a mission. And if you try to bring her back, she'll throw herself to the ground and scream until everyone takes note of just how much she doesn't want to go for a lap ride or make thunder with her hands.

Don't tell her that she has to get out of the bathtub. Ever.

Clean up the toys. Drain out all the water. She'll just scramble from one end of the empty tub to the other with a devilish laugh and a sly grin until Mom finally has to step into the tub to snatch her up, kicking and screaming. Every. Single. Night.

Don't tell her that she should be walking like all those other 15-month-olds. She'll just insist on crawling even more...especially on the neighborhood sidewalks and the mulch-filled playground.

And speaking of playgrounds, definitely don't tell her that socks and shoes are non-negotiable in 50-degree weather. The more you put them back on, the faster she removes them.

People probably walk by the park in the afternoon and say, "Oh look, the barefoot baby is back." And then they probably give a sympathetic look to my mom, because anybody who's had a kid like Rowan knows it's not negligence.

It's defeat.

Oh, Rowan. If she could figure out a way to wriggle more than just her arms out of the jacket, that'd be off, too.

Traditionally speaking

Let me preface this post by saying that I got to wear pajamas. To school.

I got to wear pajamas to school.

A couple weeks ago, my preschool class started a special project where we get to share a special family tradition. Your mom comes in. You present your tradition. It's kind of a big deal.

So today was my day and my mom came in to talk about our special Thanksgiving tradition that she's dubbed Pajamboree. It's an evening of synchronized sleepwear, really.

The event requires hours of intense research by Grandma, who scours the Internet looking for THE cutest coordinating pajamas for all of us cousins -- no easy feat given the nine-year span in age between the youngest and the oldest.

Rumor has it that she's considering including the adults next year. Popi seems worried.

At any rate, we figured what better way could there be to share this tradition with my classmates than to wear the 2009 Pajamboree selection to school?

I got to wear my pajamas. To SCHOOL.

I polished off the outfit with a classy pair of dog slippers. And when we walked into class this morning, I announced my arrival by shouting, "I'm wearing dog slippers!!"

Five times.

When I believed that my peers had been sufficiently briefed about the slippers, we all gathered in a circle where we looked at Pajamboree photos and my mom read Llama Llama Red Pajama, a riveting tale of a llama who wears red pajamas. But not to school. Like me.

I GOT TO WEAR PAJAMAS TO SCHOOL.

I think that, in and of itself, sufficiently sums up the whole experience for me. But Mom added a nice touch by showing up.

H2Oh boy!

As a preschooler, I consider exhibiting enthusiasm to be my full-time job. (Whining and manipulation are just hobbies.)

It is no secret after my first swim lesson that I am quite enthusiastic about the water.

It could be argued that this enthusiasm is rivaled only by my love of playgrounds. The passion is so intense that my mom is often forced to spell p-a-r-k when discussing the subject in my presence for fear of unleashing a fervor too intense for mortal man to withstand.

So to learn today that such a thing as a "water park" exists -- well, that was almost more than I could mentally digest.

Swimming on a playground?? I couldn't help but wonder what other prayers of mine had been answered. (I will be checking the backyard for a pony when I get home.)

As if the water-park concept was not enough, Papa and Yaya found one that would let me spend the night! And deliver pizza and popcorn to me in my bed!

Although she didn't get to stay the night, Rowan had The Best Time time at the water park, too.

But, then again, she came home and had The Best Time in the bath tub.

Her bar is set real low.

Here are Papa and I playing it cool before we hit the water park. We're all like, "Oh, a water park? Sure, why not?"

Yaya, on the other hand, was unable to contain her excitement. Either that or it was the delirium from not sleeping the night before due to her counting down the minutes until check-in.

We wasted no time with assessing our options. Papa and I headed straight into the area closest to the entrance.

Yaya and Rowan prayed at the altar of the water gods, where Rowan attempted to squeeze the Mayan water god's cheeks. What a joker!

Trip 4 of 90

Fancy eats

Fancy Nancy eats all of her fanciest meals at the King's Crown. You can just imagine my excitement when my dad informed me last week that one of the restaurants we eat at occasionally is, in fact, the same King's Crown! I know it's true because they serve ice cream and have booths just like the ones in my Fancy Nancy books.

My mom says that learning to read will be both the greatest achievement and greatest letdown of my preschool experience.

Fancy that

Every year for my birthday my Nana Stelle sends me a gift card to the book store and we get to run up and down the aisles of the kids' section throwing things into our bag like we were on Supermarket Sweep. (I don't know what Supermarket Sweep is, but my mom told me that you probably would.)

The first year we went, I met Madeline (and the other 11 little girls in two straight lines), Curious George, Max (and his Wild Things) and Trixie (and her Knuffle Bunny), among others. The second year I added to my library such classics as Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, Edwina: The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct, Splat the Cat and Knuffle Bunny, Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity.

While I've enjoyed reading all of my "birthday books," over the years, never has my enjoyment reached the level of obsession I am currently exhibiting with Fancy Nancy, one of my mom's suggestions for my third-birthday book-shopping extravaganza.

In exchange for an elaborate bedtime routine of turning out the lights, doing "extra huggies" (something that started out as a giant hug from dad and somehow morphed into an acrobatic stunt that requires a running start from inside my closet), meticulously locating all of my friends in my bed, singing a song, doing "squeezy cheeks," getting tucked in by my mom and my dad (separately), two to three extra trips to the potty and at least one distress call (usually to file a missing-friend report) -- a 15-minute affair at minimum -- I now happily settle for a reading of Fancy Nancy and Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy.

That's it. Two books and I go to bed. No song. No dance. No distress call.

But my mom says that what's even better than providing an end to the meticulous and laborious bedtime routine is the fact that Fancy Nancy has really motivated me to start reading by myself. In fact, every morning promptly at 7 a.m. (oh, Mr. Holiday, you came through for us in the end!), I emerge from my room holding both Fancy Nancy books. I carry them downstairs and read them quietly on the couch before breakfast.

The books have even started to influence my dress-up ensembles.

And while tiaras, sunglasses and other accessories are nice, nothing's fancier than a 3-year-old who reads.

Transcript

"I carry the tray like a fancy waiter... I trip. I slip. The tray does a double flip...I don't feel fancy anymore. I want to go home...Thank you for being fancy tonight...I love you, says Mom. I love you, says Dad...There isn't a fancy or better way of saying that."

Going off the shallow end

After repeated attempts to swim in the tub, Mom decided the time had come to sign me up for swimming lessons, and yesterday was my first class.

Despite the fact that I missed the first day and was the youngest kid by at least a year, my enthusiasm for the sport was unmatched by the other three kids combined!

My mom was a little nervous about keeping Rowan entertained for my 30-minute class and, therefore, came armed with two My Little Ponies and a sippy cup full of juice. Unfortunately, they were of little consolation to a very ANGRY baby who discovered shortly after we arrived that everybody got to go swimming but her.

Patron of the arts

When I was 22-months-old, my dad took me to the movie theater for the first time. We saw Madagascar II and my eyes were glued to the screen the entire time.

Since then, we've made trips to the movies "our thing." We've gone together to see The Princess and the Frog, Planet 51, Astro Boy, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, A Christmas Carol, Bolt and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Technically, we saw Alvin and the Chipmunks 1.25 times in a total of two different theaters. And I took away from that movie a number of valuable life lessons, not the least important of which was that you should always chew your popcorn well before swallowing. Or you will need to return for the second showing to an entirely different theater in an entirely different town where you needn't fear being recognized by the custodial staff.

I digress.

My point is that going to the movie theater is a special thing I enjoy doing with my dad. And with all the practice under my belt, we decided to kick things up a notch and go to a theater to see my first live show.

For those of you who enjoy a good trip to the thee-ay-ter, I highly recommend the musical Nickelodeon's Storytime Live. The singing was excellent. The acting superb. And the souvenirs second to none.

Working girl

Right after I turned one, I excitedly signed onto the family business as Chief Tissue Paper Officer. An integral part of the packing and shipping department.

Sure I was disappointed when I found out that it was really just a fancy title for "peon," but for the past couple of years I have been gutting it out and lobbying for a promotion. And at last my hard work and dedication have been recognized.

As the new Director of Logistics, I have several core responsibilities, including gift-card management (passing gift cards to my mom), box relocation and stacking, shipping-label smoothing and wastebasket oversight. I carry out each of these tasks with a level of enthusiasm that my mom says only a 3-year-old could possess.

Next order of business will be to address my compensation package. While there certainly is satisfaction in a job well done, satisfaction ain't gonna buy me that pony I've been needing. Maybe next year.

Hoping for a little spring action

After a couple days of (relative) warmth and sunshine, we stepped outside yesterday afternoon to find what felt more like a damp fall day than an early spring one. I have decided that if spring won't come to us, then we'll just have to come to spring. And what better way to announce our arrival than bubbles!

I certainly hope that Mother Nature gets with it, because if I am forced to usher in more enjoyable weather using wishful thinking alone, it's going to be a rough jaunt through the sprinkler in my swimsuit next week.