And Now She is TWO


At the skate park
Originally uploaded by BgKahuna

Today MAM will officially turn TWO. It feels like she’s been two for awhile now–since say, June, when the talking and the running and independence started to surge forward and take control of our little world.

Now instead of a baby, we’ve got a little person–a person who knows what she likes and what she doesn’t. A person who has friends–friends she can name and ask about on a daily basis. A person who can make choices like juice or milk, goldfish or honey bee crackers, string cheese or yellow cheese, Crocs or sneakers, pink socks or white. She has a keen sense of order and knows where things go-knows where her shoes go by the door, knows the dirty dishes go in the sink, knows how the car seat clips together, knows how to put on her shoes. She tries to get herself dressed, can take off her diaper, swim across the pool with water wings and jump with gusto.

She knows that to start any activity or to “go” you have to say, “1, 2, 3 GO!” first, or “Ready, Set, Go!”. She knows the difference between what a prop plane and a helicopter sounds like. After driving by a huge crane at a construction site all last week and asking, “what’s that?”, she pointed to it yesterday and said, “Look, Mommy–a crane!”.

And this month I’ve been upgraded from Mama to Mommy (except in times of crisis). Now I am greeted with, “Hi Mommy, what’s up?”

And when she asks that, I think to myself, “I’m the mom to the best girl in the whole wide world, that’s what’s up!”

Happy Birthday, my sweet, beautiful girl. Happy SECOND Birthday.

A weekend of Luuuxxxxury

This weekend has been rather indulgent.

Last night, BgK and I went out to celebrate our anniversary–my girlfriend’s four year old really wanted to “babysittered” MAM, and who was I to deny her? And while I love our teenage babysitter, there’s really nothing more relaxing than knowing MAM is in the hands of one of my very best friends. So regardless of what we did that night, free babysitting from a friend already made it a great weekend!

So what did we do? Well, I cashed in my gift card that I earned by running that monsterous fund raiser a few months back. The very appreciative committee gave me all sorts of goodies, including a very generous gift card to be used at Palomino.

OMG. The food was, well, for lack of a better description, orgasmic. The simplest, best salad I have ever tasted (bibb lettuce, basil, plum tomatoes, marinated gorganoloza cheese and creamy balsamic dressing). Incredible cedar-wrapped salmon and asparagus. Herbed orzo. Chocolate tiramisu. And while the portions were ample, they weren’t feed-you-for-the-week or even lunch-the-next-day, which is actually a good thing.

So last night was culinary bliss. Today was body bliss in that I cashed in my birthday gift card (almost 11 months old) and had a hot stone massage. Again, OMG. Warm stones relaxing every muscle, warm oil, massaging away all tension….it’s a beautiful thing.

I have to say that all of this luxury is making me feel recharged, and it’s a beautiful thing!