2.04.2010

finding my marbles

NOT A BABY

Still just two, but oh what a much more pleasant two than just weeks ago. She entered two with a crash and continued her Hulk Smash attitude for weeks, scaring the crap out of her mother.


How was I supposed to survive months of this? Would it end, ever? Would she transition from tantrums over M&M's to tantrums over homework? And then curfew? Then coming home from college? Would she ever shut up?

Then we had a day of quiet. It stood out so much that my mind bounced back and forth between enjoying the peaceful happy day and scrambling to figure out how this happened so that it could be repeated.

Now she regularly says (and signs) “thank you” without prompting, as well as “pease” and “you’re helcome”.

She pretends to be a robot for about half the day. It probably has nothing to do with the fact she wants to (and usually gets to) watch Robots every morning. She also wants at least one random episode of Blue’s Clues which is followed by a request for a specific episode of Yo Gabba Gabba. Yes, I let her watch them. She doesn’t actually sit through all of it.

She’s been a kick butt sleeper at night lately too. Took her long enough, but she’s finally there. After months of trying to get her to take a normal nap at a normal time she just up and started to tell me that she is “seepy, mama” at the same time every afternoon and takes my hand to lead me to the bedroom. She still doesn’t always stay napping long enough.

I’ve heard 2 year olds with better verbal skills than Josephine’s, but I’ve also heard worse. She is definitely catching on to new words and sounds at super speed now though. Kinda freaky. The best is that on one of her Yo Gabba Gabba episodes the “cool trick” is a beat-box demonstration by Rahzel and she tries to make the sounds along with him. She’s getting good.

So, she is pretty radical as of late, I hope it lasts.

HOMEMADE

I made some homemade ketchup a while back and it was really good. Except I don’t eat ketchup normally anyway so I spent the next few weeks making food that I could use ketchup with, I ate a lot of french-fries and burgers . No one else liked it much which was a bummer but whatever. It didn’t taste like normal store-bought ketchup but I thought it was better (and healthier!)

Last night I made yogurt. When I announced that I was going to attempt this, my family all made a stink face and asked if that was even safe, they think I’m trying to poison them. Whatever, it’s not difficult but I suspect it takes a few attempts to get it to the taste and texture you personally want. So far mine is a good taste but I’d like it to be thicker so I’m trying to drain it a little this morning. I’m still considering it a success.

Next up is homemade mayonnaise. I’ve been meaning to do this for a long while now but I guess I was putting it off thinking I shouldn’t be eating mayo anyway. Whatever, I eat lots of mayonnaise and I like it, so there.