My husband turned 30 on Sunday. I know he's not actually old, but it's funny to tease him about it. I only get three more months of teasing, though, and then I'll be in the same boat.
I had a title for this post....then, while typing that first paragraph, I thought of a better one.....and now it's gone. Can't remember what it was. I do remember it was awesome, though. So that should give you a brief overview of how life is with me lately. I'm a little spacey.
And, just so you can be in on my whole stream of consciouses nonsenses, I just wrote the end of this entry, and came back here to finish the beginning, because I thought of funny things to say at the end while I was in the bathroom. I know that's generally where we all do our best thinking.
Anyhoodle.....I threw Brian a surprise party on Saturday --OH, THAT'S WHAT IT WAS! The title I was going to use was "Blame my husband for my absence." That's not really better than the one I'm actually using, is it?
The party planning took up all of my free time, which is why there have been very few entries lately. I'm sure you're all deeply upset, so I give you my most sincere apologies.
The party went great. He was surprised. I had tons of help from family, so they went and set up the room for me and picked up the food and everything, so he had no clue anything was going on, because I just layed around all day. Plus, the party was pretty extravagant for a 30th birthday, apparently. I rented a room at a really cool building downtown. There was a bar, free beer for all, tons of food, and the room was decorated with all the crap from our house that we had accumulated and never used. I gave a short speech explaining it, because everything looked weird. None of the plates matched; everyone drinking from the keg was getting glasses from our house, some big, some small; some black, some green, some blue, some red; there were wine bottles filled with pink buttons on the tables with tissue paper flowers sticking out of them, and our Christmas cards were layed out on all the tables, too.
So the explanation was that Brian is insanely cheap. It's not really a bad thing, because our bills always get paid, and we have a savings now. But I'm really not cheap. That is a bad thing. I don't look to see if the Christmas lights from last year work, I just buy new ones. I don't buy one bag of pink buttons online for the cute project in Ellie's room, I buy five bags, because I DON'T WANT TO RUN OUT THE WORLD WILL END WOE IS ME!!!!! Thus leaving me with four and a half bags of unused buttons; I don't count the number of people I'm sending Christmas cards to before I order them, I just place an order, taking advantage of the deal where I get 200 cards for the price of 100, when I only have about 60 people to send them to; I buy tissue paper to match each gift I give to someone; and I make sure, when I throw a baby shower or Ellie's birthday party, that all the cups and plates and plastic silverware match. So obviously there is a surplus of all of these things, and my gift to Brian was using them all to decorate, and then letting the staff who cleaned up chuck them when we were done, thus eliminating them from our house. He loved it.
And he's still talking about the party. He said, "It's the best birthday party I've ever had. Probably the best one I'll ever have."
So all that work -- Totally worth it.
I'll get pictures up as soon as I can. I'm waiting for my uncle to send me some. He tried this morning, and I couldn't open the zip file, which makes me think I'm probably going to have to go over there and just save the pictures from his computer onto my flash drive.
***New subject***
Ellie will be 15 months old on Saturday. We're working on listening and following directions. A lot. Like, we spent five minutes one afternoon standing in the kitchen, hovering over the sippy cup she placed every so carefully in the middle of the floor, and telling her to pick it up. We were calm, but firm about it, and didn't stop until she picked it up like we asked. We've had to do that with a lot of things lately. It's tedious, but she's getting better at doing what we ask her to do every day.
She's talking like cray-zay. According to www.babycenter.com:
By 15 months, the majority (about 75 percent) of children have a vocabulary that consists of "Mama" and "Dada" plus at least three other words, usually nouns, such as "cookie," "ball," and "dog." "More," and of course the all-time toddler favorite, "No!" are also common early words.
She says the following:
"Hi, Daddy!" "Hi, Elmo!" - Still can't get her to say "Hi, Mommy!"
"Put the cup away!" - As she switches it from one cup holder to the other on her highchair tray....or as she puts it in her toy box so Mommy and/or Daddy will get a very nice surprise one day. And I'm sure it will smell awesome.
"All done."
"Ball"
"Duck"
"No, Owie!" Owen is our daycare provider's son, and he likes to hug Ellie, apparently a lot, so she's learned to tell him no. Hilarious.
She can tell you what a cow, a monkey, a doggie, a sheep, and a duck say. But if you start with the duck, then everything says "quack." She loves that word. When she first started saying it, she would just wander around the house or sit in the cart at the grocery store, or whatever, just quacking away.
Brian taught her the sign for "more." He learned it from my sister's girls when they were little. Ellie caught on to it in one day.
These are from a picture book she got for Christmas (Baby's First Words or something). We point at things and she tells us what they are:
"That's a cup." - And she's always right, that is a cup.
"broccoli" - She pronounces this one "uckey." I think she's correct on the pronunciation. Broccoli is ucky.
"corn"
"apple"
"carrot"
There are more from that book, but I can't think of them right now.
She adds at least two words a day to her vocabulary. Last night we added:
"Sock"
"Cheerios"
"Cookie Monster"
"Oh, fall down!" (when her tower of blocks fell over)
"Up" and "down," and correctly using them.
"Ear"
And last, but certainly not least *drum roll, please*........................
"Crap"
It didn't come from me, either, which was shocking. It was on tv. So now I'm going to have to censor myself, because apparently Ellie has never heard of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which allows freedom of speech. I think I'll read that to her tonight before bed, and also explain to her that, much like Eminem does not create douchebags just because he, himself, is a douchebag, someone saying naughty words doesn't mean you can use that as an excuse to say naughty words. I'm sure she'll understand. I mean, the kid can say, "Oh, fall down!" at 15 months old. The whole freedom of speech thing should be easy to understand for her.
Speaking of reading, have any of you read The Cat in the Hat lately? Brian got it for Ellie for Christmas. The first time I read it to her, I was SHOCKED. It reads more like The Child Molester's Guide to Gaining Access Into Homes Occupied by Small Children With No Adult Supervision. Seriously.
"Hey, kids! I'm walking through your front door totally uninvited so we can play while your mom is gone! I know some really fun games *cue creepy smile.* Your mother won't mind at all, I promise."
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back is worse.
"Hey, kids! Remember me? I'm the one who prayed on you when your mother was out and scarred you for life. But I was just released from prison, and I came back to show you all the new tricks and really fun games I learned from my cellmate, Vinnie."
I know, I know. They're fun books for kids and Dr. Seuss is a saint and blah, blah, blah. But I don't like the fact that they have kids letting strangers into their homes. Especially strangers who are six feet tall and dressed in a cat costume. That's almost scarier than a clown. Kind of on par with that guy in the rabbit suit in Donnie Darko. I still check over my shoulder all the time to make sure that giant rabbit isn't just standing behind me staring at me. Yikes.
***In case anyone was wondering***
My family continues to cause drama. Right now I'm caught in the middle of a very mature game of I'm Not Going to Call her First; She Should Call Me. The Phone Works Both Ways.
It's really fun. Fun in that makes-you-want-to-punch-someone way. But fun nonetheless.
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