Things I learned this weekend

1. Being stuck in a traffic jam that isn't moving at all makes me claustrophobic. As my sister put it, it makes you want to abandon the car and just start running up the highway to escape.

2. People who drive on the shoulder during a traffic jam, thereby impeding access for emergency vehicles, are fucking ridiculous. What if someone had a heart attack in your car, and the ambulance couldn't get to you because you were blocking the road with your sense of entitlement and deep held belief that you deserve to get in front of all of these other cars?

3. Blending up fresh herbs with some garlic, lemon juice and olive oil makes an amazing condiment. (Thanks to my BIL for that one.)

4. Even if one's toddler falls asleep late every. freaking. night. this does not mean you can delay her bedtime. Just no.

5. If you have insomnia, a little strip of melatonin is a wonderful thing. Unless you are going to be jarred awake every hour by a disoriented toddler. Just a warning.

Happy Father's Day

Losing my "time out" virginity

I am a little giddy.

I put my child in time out for the first time ever tonight, and it actually worked.

She decided to yank my hair - which hurt - and I told her to stop. Then she yanked it again, and I started to yell (trying to restrain that impulse). Then she did it again. I looked her in the eye and threw down the gauntlet.

"If you pull my hair again you are going into time out."

Her eyes grew wide and she immediately said, "No." I'm not sure how she even knew about time out. We definitely haven't talked about it.

She stroked my hair and looked at me. I gave her a final warning. "Remember, if you pull my hair you are going into time out."

She waited, just a moment.

YANK!

"Okay. You are going into time out."

This was a good one for me. I wasn't at all stressed or angry by the situation, and could handle Will crying and yelling "No! No time out!"

I pulled out a chair in the dining room and placed her on it. "You need to stay here for one minute." I walked away into the kitchen.

Of course she got off and ran to me.

I put her back on the chair. "You need to stay here. For one minute."

We did the back and forth dance a few more times. This was where I got a bit anxious. She was overtired and should have been in the tub. What if she never stayed on the chair?

Then on the sixth or seventh return, she stopped crying and sat.

I walked into the kitchen, turned away from her, and watched the clock. I could hear her mumbling "Mommy . . ." under her breath. After about a minute and a half, I went back to the chair and crouched in front of her. She gave me a big smile.

"Why did you have to sit in time out?"

"Pull Mama's hair."

"That's right. Are you going to pull anyone's hair again?"

"No."

"Good job."

She gave me a big hug.

I think I did a pretty good job myself.

That's my girl

Sitting in the bathtub, she holds each of her three ducks under the water, letting them take a drink.

"Blue: Daddy duck. Yellow: Mama duck. Small: Baby duck."

The three crabs make up a similar family, but she inserts her name onto the baby crab.

Then she gets to the turtles.

"Daddy turtle. Daddy turtle. Baby turtle." She holds them up for me to see. "Two Daddy turtle."

Sounds right to me.

Still summer, despite the weather

So far, today has been the least summery day this week. But that didn't stop us from behaving as though the sun was shining and we were on our way to the beach (or at least a picnic).

I have come to the realization that a one-litre water bottle is too big for me. It makes me feel guilty when I don't finish it, and it is way too big to carry on our excursions, so I end up without water when I really need it. So after music class, we headed to the outdoor store to get me a new Laken. Will has been loving her "happy monsters" Laken a lot, so we picked up a new green one for her too, with frogs on it.

Summer also requires a good hat, and now that Will has four (hopefully preventing us from being anywhere without one) I realized that I need at least one that I'm not embarrassed to wear. Surprisingly, my choice is a baseball cap (so much for the hair) from Life is Good that says "Hello Sunshine." Loved it and bought it, but couldn't quite justify wearing it out in the rain.

Then we drove through the rain to our local strawberry farm for a quart. Strawberries are my absolute favourite. (I still can't get over the year I actually missed the whole harvest. Seeing the fruit at the market without a chance to stop, and going the next week to realize that had been the last of them. Awful.)

Apparently Will has quite a taste for them too, since we ate almost half the container on the ride home, sun nowhere to be found, singing along to a song about "sand in my sandals."

Being unable to resist eating fresh strawberries is one of the best things ever, and totally worth ruining a yellow t-shirt because you need "another one." Pleeeeeeze?

One, two, three . . . shake!

For a long time, Will would only count to "two."

Then she suddenly started counting to "five," then "six," and if you gave her "seven" she could get all the way to ten.

Now she's on some sort of a loop.



My favourite part is when she starts shaking her booty against the screen door. That's the way to count, baby.

And they weren't even ladybugs

After nap this afternoon, Will and I made a trip to the "pajama store," aka the new Carter's/Osh Kosh outlet on our side of the border.

The selection of PJs was a bit disappointing. I was hoping for more footless, one-piece jammies, but the summer stock for toddlers was purely tops and bottoms. The girls' pants also tended to be that slippery faux-satin material, so after choosing one pair with an apple motif we wandered over to the other side of the store.

An act which caused one of the sales associates to rush over in a panic.

My daughter had already spotted a pair covered in brightly coloured bugs (the shirt declared, "don't bug me!"), and we were trying to decide between a crocodile and a dinosaur when the clerk made it over.

"Um. Hi! Has she seen the ones . . . " She gestured to the girls' side of the store. "There are lots of pajamas over there. You know. Too."

"You mean on the girls' side?"

"Yes! The girls' side." She seemed relieved that I knew why she was upset. "She would probably like them. They are really cute."

Will, meanwhile, had chosen her favourite pair. "Crocodile! And bird! Yellow bird!"

"I think she likes these ones."

I almost bought a package of boys' briefs just to make her fear a little more for my child's gender identity, but thought it might be a bit much. Will liked the purple ones better, anyway.