Curly Straight

Julia is a hot commodity at TJ's daycare.

The upstairs teacher, who we walk by to get to TJ's classroom, LOVES her! She takes her from me sometimes and hangs out with her while TJ and I go downstairs. "This is my girlfriend," she says. If she doesn't hold her, she at least yells Julia!! Julia!! Hi Julia!! as we walk by.

Julia likes the attention. She gets a kick out of it.

She would be doing the beauty pageant wave and looking at me to see if I approve, if she knew what the beauty pageant wave was.

This has been going on for a few months now, so all the little kids in Miss Kathy's room are witness to the Julia love.

Now they have started their own Julia chants when I walk by with her. Two boy twins, in particular, will come to the door and yell Julia, Julia, Julia!!! as I walk by. Sometimes I stop and show her off, much to their 2-year-old delight. They yell louder and with glee when she is right in front of them.

She beams.

I heard from a good source that the Easter Bunny is going to hook up TJ and Julia, as long as they are good!

When TJ was a little boy, not the big strapping three-year-old he is now, he would say Thank You so it sounded like "dick-daw" - John and I still use that every now and then in conversation.

He used to yell "ay-nay" from his crib, when he wanted us to come...again and again, "Ay-NAY!! Ay-NAY!! Ay Nay!" - we never did figure out what it meant or where it came from.

Julia, I'm positive, says "Thank You" when I give her a bottle of milk. "Thank you."

She also yells "Georgia" in the same tone that we do and when we do.

TJ's first word was very clearly "cracker" - I am not entirely convinced that her "real" first word has announced itself as of right now.

We have had too many incidents lately with rodents. A rat in the garage. A dead rat on the side lawn. *shiver* Mice that decided my car was their gourmet lunch.

They all skeeb me out to no end. I don't like unexpected things with sharp teeth in my life, I really don't.

So, imagine my joy this morning when John, just before he leaves the house, drops this one on me: "Oh, I think there is a squirrel stuck in the exhaust fan. I could hear it scratching when I was in the shower."

Oh. My. Freaking. God. Are you kidding me?

So, now my heart is all clenched up in fear and I cannot get out of the house fast enough.

I also just had to teach TJ the meaning of the word "irrational" because I KNOW that's what I am, but I just can't help it.

He told me that squirrels are really, really, really, really, really, really, nice and not bad. He also wants to know if they have claws.

Best line heard at the 5k today.

When I ran by a guy and said "isn't this fun?" he said "this is why cars were invented."

there's not much cuter than a mullet in a ponytail.

Suddenly I have more purple in my wardrobe than I ever have before. It wasn't really a conscious effort, but I am ok with it.

Sometimes TJ loves to sing with me, sometimes he says "don't sing, Mommy. You are not in the radio."

I sing in the car, along to music, if I know the words. Today I am free singing the one song I know all the words to - Gimme Three Steps by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

I sing a line - TJ repeats it or his rendition in his little voice. Hearing him say "I was cutting the rug down at a place called the Jug, with a girl named Linda Lou." - in his little voice where his letter R sounds like a W, oh my.

Another heart melter: "Hey there fellow, with the hair colored lellow."

I had to change a few words - like gun to stick - and anything else not appropriate.

Good clean fun.

My little chunk of love is one solid baby. She's still all baby, pretty much still completely bald, but with a patch of hair in the back. She has some hair. Sort of. Her eyelashes make up for any lack of hair though, they are long and fluttery and beautiful.

She loves pushing cars around as she crawls.

She has no desire to walk. Every now and then, she seems like she is going to stand up on her own in the middle of the floor, but then says Nope, and instead crawls as fast as she can to her next destination.

She eyes whatever anyone else is eating and will yell until she gets some of it.

Loves strawberries like nobody's business.

Does her own sign for shoes and banana, cat, dog, Mommy, Daddy. Has her own sounds for Dada, cat, dog, TJ, Mama every now and then. Definitely has a set of lungs and is not afraid to express herself.

One of my favorite heart-melting moments is when we are in the car and stopped at a red light or arrive at our destination. I turn to look at her and smile at her. Her face lights up and a big grin takes over her face. It's very sweet.

At Friendly's, an old woman walks by our booth and tells me Julia is a cute little boy.

She stays at our table for just a little too long and I realize that maybe she has dementia, I can kind of see it in her eyes a little.

I am kind to her, but I don't like the fact that she is holding TJ's hand and telling him to "be nice to your little brother, don't hold his hand so hard." I'm getting worried that she is squeezing my son's hand a little too hard and I don't really like this, don't like people messing with my boy.

I communicate this with eye contact to the woman she is with, and the woman says "you are hurting his hand, let go."

She does, they walk off, the old woman looks back at me, and flips me the bird.

Somehow along the way, TJ has picked up a fear of trolls.

He can't sleep because there are trolls in his room.

So luckily I just remembered about some Troll Spray I have.

Sprayed it in his room. "Under my bed," he tells me, "and way up high, for the big giant troll."

Two minutes later, he comes out. "One got by."

"No way," I tell him.

He decides he needs to be under the covers so the trolls can't see him.

Poor kid, that can't be a good feeling.

TJ: If I am a daddy, then there will be two daddies.

Mama: What do you mean?

TJ: If I am a daddy, there will be two daddies.

Mama: Who will be the other daddy?

TJ: Daddy.

Mama: Oh, I see. Well, Daddy would be the grandfather if you had a baby.

TJ: Julia's grandfather.

Mama: Hm. OK, if you had a baby, what would you name the baby?

TJ: Um, um, um. Daddy.

Mama: Oh. OK. So, Daddy your daddy, would be Daddy your baby's grandfather.

Mama: What do you want for breakfast?

TJ: Oatmeal.

Mama: Oatmeal with raisins?

TJ: No. Oatmeal with plain.

TJ was showing us his school picture, which includes his little girlfriend, Ava.

When he shows me, he names just the names of the kids, no commentary, but when he gets to Ava in the photo, he adds in "Ava, looking like a princess with a princess dress on" and then later, when he was showing John, when he got to her, he added in "Ava, with a cute dress."

Julia has finally grasped sign language and does the following signs with finesse and precision:

cat
shoes
dog
milk
mommy
change
more (only a couple times)
up (possibly)

Maybe a couple of more. If we knew more, we would teach her more, but we only know the real basics...

Julia loves putting things over her head.

She will take any cloth item and drape it over her head, so it hangs around her neck and crawl around with it hanging on her. Sunglasses, too.

Yesterday, she just happened to do it with one of TJ's little scarves, and she greeted me at the door with a scarf around her neck, which was a very cute sight to see.

She picked up a jean fishing-style hat of mine and put it on her head, of course, it's giant for her and slid down over her eyes and essentially her entire face. This did not stop her from crawling 100 mph around the living room and the dining room. Unfortunately, the dining room table did stop her.

I see her crawling with a hat, completely covering her whole face, although by the time she was in my sight and it was apparent she was on a crash course, it was too late to stop her from bonking into the table.

She shook it off almost immediately, after shedding a few tears and a couple of wails.

The dead bird on our garage roof can't be good feng shui.

These last few weeks have not been fun.
I had a visit to the emergency room.
TJ sick, Julia sick.
Now John has it worse than any of us.
Work issues.

Watching TJ try to walk in my clogs makes me wonder why I wear them.

Oh I know, because they are CUTE.

Oh my gosh, he's going to try to attempt the stairs, gotta go save a life.

So suddenly, it may be time to think about sending TJ to pre-K on a daily basis. Yikes, this really scares me.

We went to St. Matthew's tonight, I was impressed with the teachers, but the building and the play-yard left much to be desired. My son playing outside on blacktop, 10 feet away from a busy road? I don't think so.

Giant statues of Mary. Old storage, very cramped. Not that clean.

Onto other options.

Mama: When there are two babies from the same momma at the same time, that's called twins.
When there are three babies, that's called triplets. When there are four babies, quadruplets.

TJ: And when there are ten babies, that's a lot!

We went to a PawSox game yesterday.

Today TJ informed me that he would like to go to an ElmoSox game.

Just got back from a walk to the playground. Good clean fun. I rode on the roller slide with TJ and slid about 200 miles an hour down it, surprised I didn't go airborne! I highly recommend it to all.

The entire walk and back, TJ demanded I hand him dandelions so he could do "Mama had a baby and her head popped off!" I complied, because, really, I understand the appeal of that. He judges the length of the stems, "this one is so short" or "this one is really long." Then pop the head off. Then demand another one or two or three. Once he asked for three, but I gave him two. "I said three!" he tells me. Bossy little thing.

We found an abandoned Garden Gnome which now resides in our yard, per his request.

I am watching him eat ziti. He just put about eight in his mouth at once. Which reminds me, true love is letting someone spit their half chewed food into your hand. And also kissing someone and not minding if you accidentally kiss a booga. Is that how you spell booga? Euw. But like I said, true love.

On the way back from our walk, we were crossing at the busy intersection and I hear someone yelling "HEY, HEY!" and a lady runs across the road to hand me the yellow and blue star blanket and the green elephant that fell out of the stroller. Oh, so very nice of her! Good thing the gnome didn't fall out, I may have had a hard time explaining that one.