Boop’s Christmas List. 11-15-14

Conversation last night:

Me: What do you want for Christmas?

Boop: Presents!

Me: What kind of presents?

Boop: Pink! Pink Presents! <pause> And Purple Presents!

Me: What kind of presents? What do you want inside the present?

Boop: Uhhhh… Bendy! I want bendy!

Me: What’s bendy?

Boop: Bendy! <in other words, just messing with you, Mommy.>

Me: A dolly? A pink and purple dolly?

Boop: Yeah, a pink dolly and a purple dolly.

Conversation this morning:

Me: Have you thought any more about what you want for Christmas?

Boop: Uh, Things! I want Things!

Me: Bendies?

Boop: Yeah, bendies.

Me: What are bendies?

Boop: <laughing> I want a happy face.

<In other words, surprise me, but it better be good.>

Boop’s Lexicon: A Brief Compendium. 11-4-14

1. “It’s birthday cake.” = It’s very fancy.

2. “I wanna watch Ping Pong.” = I want to watch Peppa Pig. That was a really hard one to figure out!

3. “I want Scoopy Bunny.” = I want you to sing ‘Little Bunny Foo Foo.’ Another hard one to figure out.

4. “I wanna see the Lil’Boy; I don’t wanna see the Lil’Boy.” = I’m afraid of the inflatable football player, but he’s standing in the way of something I want to do—like maybe go to the park.

5. “You a slunky!” = Something really bad. Something you don’t want to be called. I got this in response to me asking her if she was being lazy. We think it means something like slob and flunky, but she doesn’t know what a flunky is. I like this term a lot and can think of a lot of people who are slunkies.

6. “I want Skype.” = I want to watch YouTube kiddie videos on the computer we use to call Gammy on Skype.

Be funny!

Hence, “I wanna watch 4 Little Monkeys on Skype.” = I want to watch the 5 Little Monkeys video on YouTube on the computer we use to call Gammy on Skype.

7. “Be funny.” = Smile

8. “You be funny!” = This can go either way, depending on her mood. It can either mean, ‘That’s great; you’re laughing.’ Or usually it means, ‘Hey, stop laughing at me!’ and is usually followed by her giving me down the road, “You don’t do dat! You <something garbled and incomprehensible—maybe you a slunky>!”

9. “That’s my favorite.” = I mildly like this, and I want to do this/have this. It reeks of sarcasm, but I don’t know when the understanding of sarcasm develops in a child. I’m guess not before age 3.

10. “I wanna watch ganga/slunkalunk.” = I want to watch what is on Nick Jr., instead of Hogan’s Heroes. 

Do Me a Flavor, Open the Door, and Let Us In. 10-31-14

Sick baby today. No trick-or-treating tonight, but we did some trick-or-treating a few different times this week already. Our area trick-or-treating was actually earlier in the week. Glad that we were around to see the neighbors across the street. Poor baby had a runny nose and took a minute in the house to get warmed up. Mom and my cousin left this morning to go back home. So thankful that my cousin was able to get some things working for me! (including managing the trick-or-treaters while we were out walking)! It was nice for him to visit because I don’t get to see much of the family unless I go there.

Hey, Little Devil, I'm going to make an angel out of you??

It’s been a heck of a month. I’ve had about 3 grants go out—well one is almost out—this month. This is in the context of having multiple computer problems, due in part to some nasty malware, and in addition to planning for an event at work—not that my planning really mattered, though. Who knew Boop was such a bowler?? She insisted on carrying her ball from the ball return to the lane, and I braced myself for her dropping it on her toe, which fortunately never happened. If I only had a tenth of her energy. It reminded me of when I was a tot. My dad would take me on the lane at the end of their games and let me roll the ball granny style down the lane. Now they have automatic bumpers, a little ramp for the balls, and they even had bowling shoes in 9T.

I think I also made 3 trips back to see the family this month. Well, 2 trips to see the family (reunions and such); one to see Paul McCartney. Sigh. He was in good form and seemed to be feeling good, thankfully. A little late to let us in, it was a bit chilly, and we were hoping that nothing was amiss after his last cancellation. Night and day comparison of Sir Paul vs. the old geezers in my section; they acted like they were one step from the grave (except the senior in front of me who was sending a boring, random text, which is actually worse). I stood up and danced by myself; I dared anyone to say otherwise! It’s a rock concert. So strange to hear all of those songs played by the man himself. Lack of sleep and so much driving had me dissociating a bit. Of course, on my trip back home from the concert, I got a bad flat tire that couldn’t be patched and had to have a couple of new tires. “I wonder to myself: Will life ever be sane again?” I’m not sure that it ever was. And I’m not discouraged from trying to attend another concert—just would rather it be closer by.

Roots and Wings. 9-24-14

Little known fact about me: my mother picked out clothes for my dad and me each day until I was well into my teenage years. And when I did, she was not thrilled about my choices. She would be disappointed to learn that I have, on occasion, allowed Boop to wear her pajamas from the previous night to school! And Boop picks out socks and shoes that don’t match her outfit! I encourage Boop to make a lot of her own decisions, which may encourage some of the sass I get from her when things don’t go her way. However, I want her to know how to manage these things for herself. My instinct is try to do everything for her, but I have a little mental mantra, “Roots and Wings.”

Boop on her Hog (purchase from moi). Happy travels to her fellow cyclists!
This happens to be an outfit from her Gammy. Daycare loves those white tops ;)

My mother has given up hope on the way I look. Our taste is very different. And now every time my mother sees Boop, she has a load of clothes for her. During her last visit, she brought 2 big bags full of clothes. This after I was upset the previous visit that she brought more stuff for Boop plus 8-10 shopping bags full of Boop’s old clothes for the consignment sale—more than was humanly possible for me to sell. I guess it didn’t work out for her to sell them back home. It’s a positive step that she is starting to take things to Goodwill. 

I just got my check from the consignment sale and am putting it toward our trip to see Mickey and Minnie. Boop and I also took 3+ garbage bags full of stuff to the Goodwill. Purging brings such a sense of relief! However, I’m still reeling from the discovery of a lovely pink dress with layers of tulle that I found on clearance at Zappo’s last year; it looked like something out of a Bolshoi version of Swan Lake. I found it crammed in the closet last weekend, only to find yesterday that it no longer fit her. Never worn. Boop was so upset that it didn’t fit. I was upset, too, because I don’t buy her that many clothes, especially not new ones. So, I’m digging out the other couple of dresses that I have bought for her to be sure that she gets a chance to wear them. Boop is almost able to completely dress herself, and it won’t be long until she’s picking out all of her own clothes to wear. 

Time for Bed. 9-21-14

Boop slept in her bed again last night. Lasted until 4:30am when she spontaneously started a discussion about the 'little boy'. She fell asleep at 8pm while I was finishing laundry downstairs. Of course, she had no nap, which was a lot of fun yesterday. Fingers crossed for a nap today, which rarely happens on the weekends.

Boop reading a bedtime story:

The Little Boy Scare Me. 9-15-14

Boop has been very vocal about a new emotion that she can label: scared! This thing and that thing “scare me.” The thing that scares her most, and that has put a kink in walking back and forth to daycare (a mixed blessing), is an inflatable football player in our neighbor’s yard. They inflate him on game days, and he has a rather mean grimace on his face. Granted, they had one at daycare that never seemed to bother her before, but that was last year. And, she’s just now started talking about being scared. I’ve taken her over to the deflated football player in the neighbor’s yard while holding her, but she is still pretty upset and won’t look at him. She talks about ‘the little boy’ a lot at home. In one of her streams of talking, she was saying something about the little boy, and she lifted her leg up in the air. “Like this. On one foot. Like this, Mommy.” Mom started cracking up, but I didn’t see anything unusual. Mom thinks she was trying to show me the football player lining up on the field. She talks non-stop; so it’s sometimes a bit hard to follow her train of thought.

Mom gave me money this weekend to get another inexpensive modem to use for Skype-ing with Boop. This will be my 4th wireless modem since I’ve lived here, I think, and probably since I’ve had Boop. Hopefully, it will arrive soon and last longer than 6 months! Along with my home system, I’m having issues with my 2^nd work computer this year. My last one crapped out in the middle of a heavy grant submission time earlier in the spring. Granted the PC was older, but it was particularly poor timing. And now, I’m in the middle of another heavy grant submission time and having trouble again. The work PC I have now is pretty much top of the line, a Dell XPS. It started about 2 weeks ago, making a never-ending amount of spaces in my documents; then another day, it was tons of A’s; and then when the IT person came last week, it was going crazy with the Tab key, apparently. We’ve tried a new keyboard and mouse. This morning, my keyboard was not working at all. Hopefully, Dell will be able to get me back on track. Is there some message I should be getting here? 

Mouse Army: Unite! 9-10-14

Boop loves Minnie and Mickey Mouse, but she still can't keep them straight. Sometimes it's hard to wrap my head around the fact that Minnie and Mickey Mouse are supposed to be mice. I definitely prefer the former to the latter. We did however, have an encounter with the latter recently.

We were on our way to C's birthday party. I work with C's mother, and C goes to daycare with Boop. Everybody is connected in some way in a small town. Everybody. This was our 3rd birthday in the matter of a few weeks. So, Boop had just gotten her new silver shoes, and I had not yet removed the squeaker. We had to stop at the office to pick up some papers, and so Boop and I were squeak-squeaking along when out scurried 2 small mice from the hinterlands of the flowerbeds. One of them came up to run along beside my little Pied Piper. With that, my footsteps became more like stomps, which thankfully discouraged little Mickey away. Minnie had stopped her dash towards us. Boop was not quite sure what was going on but was unphased. Thankfully, she didn't try to reach down and grab one. 

The Pied Piper