now what

Got a coupon in the mail for some Touch of Gray hair dye today. Yeah, the stuff for men...
What is the Universe trying to tell me?
I found another grey hair tonight also.
I can tell that both hairs started to be grey about 3-4 weeks ago. What happened in my life about a month ago? Oh yeah, I became a mother to a two year old.
Coincidence?

I blame Josephine

I used to silently mock the women who freaked at a few grey (gray?) hairs.
I mean, get over it.
Probably because I thought I had a good 5-10 years before I'd start finding them on my head.
I'm 26 and I found my first grey hair.
I'm mostly uncomfortable that I was so uncomfortable when I found it.

2 years

*oops, forgot that I had this saved and hadn't published it yet...*

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Josephine, Jojo, Joey,

Several days ago you had your second birthday. Turning two was pretty fun for you, you practiced holding up two fingers for weeks leading up to the day and you answer "2" to any question where an amount is appropriate.

How old are you? TWO!

How much is it going to snow today? TWO!

Do you want some more rice? TWO!

You are finally old enough to understand how to open up presents and even fake excitement when it's just socks. Actually you are probably genuinely excited to get socks. Your birthday this year was a car theme. I didn't plan on that ahead of time but every time we'd walk through the toy aisles you'd loose your mind trying to reach for all the cars and trucks. I told your aunts and your Nana that if they weren't sure which gifts to give you for your birthday and which to save for Christmas that they should give any car or truck gift on your birthday. Then you saw a few minutes of the Cars movie on TV one day and proceeded to loose your mind all over again for the next week asking to watch it again but we didn't own it and it wasn't on TV anymore. So you got the Cars movie, and a million different kinds of cars and trucks as well as other nice non-car things for your birthday. I even molded candy into shapes of cars on pretzel sticks for you. Blue candy, your favorite color.

I made a dump cake for your birthday, with mixed berries. Last year I made a berry pie but didn't let you have any because you were in a white dress, this year you just plain didn't like the cake. Sorry.

Christmas, two(!) days later was just as fantastic for you. I'm really really impressed at how well you did during your three day party. Opening presents, saying thank you, and you didn't have a melt down at all which is awesome since you melt into the floor pretty regularly these days.

Sorry but it's true baby, you are like the wicked witch and sometimes when I talk to you my words are like water. I tell you it's bed time and the next thing I know I'm standing in a puddle, and it's screaming at me. You cannot have as much chocolate as you can hold in your lap, you may have one piece. Boom, splash, screaming puddle.

This year was pretty awesome.

You are getting good at posing for pictures. (duck face)

You perfected the somersault.

You have become a much better eater, trying more things, eating more at meal times, and using a fork like a pro. (Scrambled eggs in an ice cube tray?)

We took lots of walks this summer. You were finally brave enough to sit in the swings and then absolutely refused to get back out. You were nearly passed on from exhaustion and heat but if I stopped pushing you all of your energy would come back and your head would spin and other kids at the playground would suddenly burst into flames. You like the swings.

We were outside a lot this year but nothing is as fun for you as playing in the snow.

I even built a sledding hill in the back yard for you. You LOVE it. Is loving snow something all kids do?

You finally met a big chunk of your extended family this year and refused to acknowledge any of them. For the last year and a half you have ignored all strangers by clinging to me as tight as you can and then looking off into the distance like What? I don't see anyone? Do you hear someone? Oh let's look at this blade of grass for a minute.

You also danced your butt off this year. I don't have a suitable video of you dancing to share here but you have to believe me, you are a dancing maniac. Every commercial with a catchy jingle must be re-wound ten times (thank goodness for DVR's) and you regularly ask for us to put on a music channel and dance with you. Your dance moves are incomparable. They are probably my most favorite memory of your second year, your fancy dance moves.

Finally, you decided you'd like to use the potty this year. Mostly. I had just bought a huge supply of flushable diaper liners and ordered a travel potty that I was going to give you for your birthday but before it even arrived you were wearing undies all day and sitting on the big potty. You refused to sit on the potty with the small seat adapter thingy once it came...whatever. You still have accidents when I forget that you are still just two years old and I have to ask you to sit on the potty a few times a day. You have so much fun playing that there is no time to stop and pee.

Your favorite food is Papa's dirty rice and Costco's rotisserie chicken. Your favorite color is blue; I have to prove to you that your clothes have blue on them or you won't get dressed. You sing Yo Gabba Gabba songs all day. Someone taught you to say shut-up and you say that more than any other word, though I don't think you know what you are saying really. Your aunt Sarah tries to teach you a bad habit every day ( when asked what you are doing you answer "nothing", on Sarah's prompting you tell me I am crazy or stinky, and if I'm not carefully watching, your aunt will tell you to go ahead and wipe your hands on your shirt...)

Mostly though, you have been the most powerful motivation for me to work hard and be a better person. You have made me laugh so hard I cried on many occasions and love so hard that I cried on even more.

half a thought

Josephine's birthday is tomorrow.
So I'll be working on the long mushy post in the next few days, with pictures!
until then......
I cooked a lot of my Christmas gifts this year, I haven't done that before. I made meatballs and tomato sauce, candied nuts, truffles, and herbed oils and vinegars. Everything turned out really well. Mostly. Sorry to those of you that got the nuts because I had never done that before and I tried several different recipes and last night I finally found the perfect one...so you got the "good enough" version and my family here got the "oh my freaking goodness" version.
Two nights ago I decided to make some of the recipes from the Hanukkah section of the website I use and it was absolutely the best dinner I've ever had. Kugle, matzo ball soup, latkes...mmmmm. Have you ever had kugle? I was skeptical but I ended up hogging all the left-overs. Except I did share with Josephine, she insisted on eating it with chopsticks, I wish I had a picture. I'll be making matzo ball soup again tomorrow night since Jose like it so much (and so did the rest of us).
I have a hair person now. I've gone back to the same girl 4 times now and have my next appointment already scheduled. This is kind of a big deal for me, I've been to a million other stylist in town and hated every one of them. Well, no, not hated, but I've never cared enough to schedule my next cut right away. I feel fancy. Also, I have super short hair now.
Going to see Avatar in about half an hour. In 3D. I've never sat through a whole 3D movie as far as I can remember. I saw a 3D nature film at a museum last year but it was kinda boring so I didn't have my glasses on the whole time. And I think I took some kids I babysat for to a 3D under the sea movie but they weren't the best behaved kids and half the movie was spent telling them to sit down and shut it.
I know I sat down because I had a story for you but now I'm drawing a blank- oh well.

oh right, I have a blog

You'd think having someone else link to me in their fantastic blog would get be to post something new already... gah, it's like I can only be one thing at a time. Or maybe two things. But that's it.

I can be a toddler wrangler and a student...but not both and a blogger! Who do I look like? Someone who has their act together?

Anyway, I've been given an award.

So there's that.

Several years ago I spent one year at a small private conservative baptist college in Minnesota. I'm much too liberal now for you to ever believe that I chose to attend that school...but I did..and I met some of the most ridiculous people there. But, I also met a few really amazing women. One young lady in my dorm was Jillian and she was so fun and cool that she really didn't belong at that school either. I met most of her friends as she was more-or-less a local and I had only been in the city about a year, and I soon call many of them my friends as well. Jillian had some really great friends, like, I was flattered that she liked me because she obviously had good taste in friends.

Jillian doesn't have a blog. But! One of her friends that I got to know, Jill, does!! Lucky us! Jill is one of those people that even if you only spend a few hours with her you don't forget her when you leave. I never had to say, "oh that one girl, what was her name?" I'm glad she has a blog.

So...I'm supposed to lay out 10 honest things about myself now- here goes-

1. Candy Cane Hershey kisses will be the death of me. Of if not death, they'll put me back into my maternity pants by the new year.

2. My daughter has just potty trained herself- in about a week. Don't hate me. She's even had dry nights the last two nights, as well as dry naps the last three days. I planned on getting her a potty for her 2nd birthday (in one month!!!) but that's out the window now. It converts to a travel potty so it's not a loss. I lucked out on this one, I know.

3. The best thing in the whole world first thing in the morning is hot coffee with a little cream. I am super picky about my morning routine and it can really set the tone for my whole day (and yours if we cross paths). I need to have a hot cup of coffee first, maybe while I'm checking some blogs and watching the news, then I can have some breakfast. If my breakfast is cold I can have another cup of coffee, if it's hot I have to have something cold to drink. I cannot have a hot drink and hot food at the same meal, especially breakfast.

4. I dressed Josephine up as Bessie Colman for Halloween. Never heard of her? Yeah, well, Josephine isn't two yet so she gets no say in her Halloween costume yet. Anyway, click over to read about her, she was the first African-American to have a pilots license. I have my grandfather's old flight cap that he wore in WWII and beyond so it was pretty neat to see my baby in it.

5. Josephine can say a lot of words but "Josephine" isn't one of them. She started calling herself Jojo and every one else picked it right up as well. Tonight I proposed to her that she go by Joey. It's been long enough since Dawson's creek has been on the air right? So anyway, she tries to say Joey and says JoLo. Nice, but maybe she should wait for a record deal before taking that one. Then JoLo turns to Jello, so most of tonight I've called her Jello. Mmmmmm.

6. I am not a huge fan of Thanksgiving, or most holidays I guess, but anyway, Thanksgiving, right. I don't really like turkey, or stuffing, or anything with mushrooms, or those Pillsbury crescent rolls. And I can't convince anyone to stray from the "traditional". I try to contribute one dish to dinner so that I know I'll have at least one thing I like on my plate, this year I made this. You need to click over to that recipe, it was FABULOUS. Even better this morning for breakfast (after my coffee of course).

7. I squealed, out loud, like I was 15, when I saw the commercial for Scrubs coming back on Tuesday.

8. All I want for Christmas is to go swimming with Josephine. We had so much fun this summer at the pool.

9. Some of my fuzziest memories are from when I was in Jr High and High School. Like, entire holidays, vacations, even years are missing. I never did drugs so that's not to blame...

10. Number 8 is a lie, I also want a whole day of no obligations, including no toddler (except for select moments) so that I can spend all day playing Mario Kart, drinking diet Big K, and eating the tin of Christmas cookies from Costco in my pajamas.

I'm not giving this award to anyone. The people who I would've given it to just got it from someone else and most of the blogs I read are by people that would never read my blog...I should change that.

You know what I've been meaning to ask? What the hell are the Roots doing on Jimmy Fallon?