Potty Time!

Here I am again needing to apologize for only writng occasionally. However, life is very busy this time of year and well…no excuses.
My precious Drama Princess began using the potty last week. She is doing very well with this potty concept. The only drawback is that she will not verbalize when she needs to go at daycare. Therefore, she is stuck wearing diapers for 8 hours a day. My hope is that we can soley focus on the potty for just about 2 weeks during Christmas break.

Saturday morning was the best…Princess pee peed in the potty, we took it to the toliet, waved goodbye and flushed it.  After the proper goodbye, we retreated back to the toy room where I proceeded to finish my coffee and Princess played.  Shortly after our return, she sat back on the potty, exclaiming “pee – eeee”…I dashed back over to sit next to Princess for fear she would get up in the midst of a “pee – eeee” and she motioned me back to my coffee drinkin’ on the other side of the room.  A few moments later, the potty was filled with a poopy!  It was amazing.  On a side note, 10 years ago I would have never imagined myself cheering about pee or poop.  What motherhood does to a person

Now, I don’t want to give myself credit, so I will allow a fellow Mommy friend of mine to do so….here is blurb from Mommy friend’s email (names have been changed to protect the innocent)…

“…I have decided that Princess’s stellar potty ability is due to your acrobatic skills of holding her and doing “business” when she was a baby.  And, of course, her following you into the bathroom now.  So, once again I tried to do it while holding Prince, hoping when he is Drama Princess’s age he would be so potty-aware.  I just can not figure it out.  I still can not believe you could do that….”

Thanks for the props Mommy friend!!!!  I do my best!

Holiday Cheer – or maybe Queer???

I can sum it up in 5 words – I have seen it all!!!!!

Let me break this down for you!  As the holiday season is upon us (only 2 weeks until Christmas, on a side note), I have seen 4 very outlandish, that deserves a double take, off-the-freakin’-wall holiday incidents. 
1.  A car that is decorated with Christmas lights – INSIDE!  Yes, this person actually hung a string of lights around the interior of their car.  Is that even legal?
2.  Christmas Card Portraits.  While waiting for our family portrait on Sunday (which did not happen due to an excessive back up on the Studio’s part), I experienced one pushy Mom.  She had 3 children that were also waiting to have thier Christmas protraits taken.  She was extremely stressed out – she yelled, most likely loud enough for everyone in the department store to hear, at her daughter, “God Bless-it, if you mess up your hair, you WON’T be in the picture”.  Okay, really?  How is she going to explain that to her Christmas card recepients?  Well, Daugther number One is not on the card because she turned too quickly while waiting for our portraits and a few hairs were out of place.  Come On?  Where is the holiday spirit?  Relax….they are children.  They mess up their hair.  They throw trantrums.  Deal. With. It.
3.  Santa took a nap in his santa chair while all the children waited!  Yes, I am not joking.  We went to see Santa this weekend and as we approached the “workshop”, we saw that Santa was slumped over in his chair – and there were no paramedics in sight, so I assume he was taking a snooze.  Again, really?  His break wasn’t even scheduled for another half hour.  I guess listening to all the Christmas wishes from the excited children was just too much.  (sigh)
4.  Drive down Norbeck Road lately?  We do each morning and wow, did one of the homeowners get all Clark Griswold on his house this Christmas!!!  I truly wonder how they can sleep at night with the bright lights flashing!  We hope for a red light each morning, so Drama Princess can gawk to the left and check it out.  All we can say, each morning without fail, is WOW!

You have heard it from me….I have seen it all.

Memories….

Princess’s red dress:  $14.99

Dinner at Buca di  Beppa’s: $50.00

The purity of true joy on your loved ones’ faces:  ABSOLUTELY PRICESSLESS!!!!

The Name Game

Drama Princess is becoming more vocal each day – yesterday after picking her up from daycare, I thought it sounded like referred to me by my name…and I do not mean Mommy!  As the afternoon continued to pass, she definitely was calling me by name.  Everything she needed or wanted was pointed to and there was a dominant “Monca” or multiple “Monca’s” to get her point across.  (Have I mentioned that my Princess just might be a wee bit bossy???? Oh yeah, and a wee bit impatient????).  It is just so amazing to see her develop into a little person with her own mind!  I love it.

Let me catch you up!!!

Okay…I have been slacking, I apologize. Let’s back up to Thanksgiving. We traveled to Ohio to be with family during the holiday. Princess warmed up with everyone very quickly…which everyone was thrilled about. However, the excitement was at a standstill when I woke up Friday with the stomach flu! Now, if you know me at all – you will see what a catastrophe this is. The stomach flu on Black Friday could possibly mean not wanting to indulge in Thanksgiving favorites for quite a while. And I love me some of my Mom’s homemade sausage stuffing. So, I am truly hoping that I will be able to enjoy Thanksgiving food by next year. I mean, I have an entire year to mentally prepare for it, right??? Okay, so I come back from the flu – however, I did miss my Wal-Mart trip (sigh…I was really looking forward to it – had to go to Target back here instead) and Monday, early morning, Princess wakes up vomiting! Oh no….but, it was only twice and I proved to be a much better Mommy than I every thought I would be when faced with the throw up situation. (Two pats on the back for me and how about a chorus of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow”???) Daddy finished up the flu bug in our house this past weekend and I hope we are all back up to par and we do not need any more puke in our neighborhood!

On another note, we finally made our way back to the indoor pool this weekend and Drama Princess had a swell time. She LOVED being back in the water and she was walking up and down the shallow end “beach”. It was great to enjoy an outdoor activitiy while we had our first snow here in MD!

The Viral Game

1. Grab the book nearest to you.
2. Turn to page 56.
3. Read line five.

Host, Dan Aykroyd & Bette Midler (from Access It! Project-based Microsoft Access Activities)

Tis’ the Season

Daddy and I made an executive decision last night.  Due to the fact that Princess is very blessed (aka spoiled rotten) with wonderful grandparents, aunts and uncles, she will receive TONS of gifts this Christmas.  So, we have decided not to buy her any gifts (other than the 3 books I bought in early October).  Instead, we are going to spend Princess’s Christmas money on gifts for Toys for Tots. 

I am not trying to shove this idea down anyone’s throat here, but think about it…could your Prince or Princess live with one less gift?  That one less gift could make a very Merry Christmas for a less fortunate child. 

So…..Drama Princess, this Christmas, will make out with EVERYTHING…..just not EVERYTHING and MORE!!!

2 Meijer and a Walmart…what more can you ask for???

The Michigan trip was awesome!  I fell in love with Ann Arbor.  I can so see us living and raising a family there.  It is a small town but with the city feel and culture thanks to the University of Michigan.  You can make it across the city in 15 minutes, the school stystem is wonderful (I hear), there are 126 parks in the small city, and, I saved the best for last.  Ready?  Good.  There are two Meijers and a Walmart in the city.  Oh yeah!  And here is the added bonus, I saw Mancino’s and Mr. Spot’s.  Two of our favorite restuarants from Bowling Green. 

Seriously, I am sold.  Ann Arbor….I am ready to make the change.  Bring on the delicious food and red neck heaven shopping.  Oh yeah, and a new house and so on too!  

Now….we will wait and see what the future brings!

My little Mommy

Drama Princess is SO girl!  She is very into clothes, babies, helping around the house, etc.  It is so cute…she will try to undress to put on something new.  Feeds her babies, throws away trash and, depending on the mood, LOVES to help with laundry.  Whenever it is time to put the wash into the dryer, Princess really enjoys taking each piece of laundry and tossing it into the dryer – she even wants to get in…we need to work on that.  Just yesterday, I opened the dryer to fold the clothes and she rushed right over to take the lint out of the lint holder and tossed it into the trash. 

I think I might need to take video of her love for chores so ten years from now when she is moaning and groaning about how awful I am and how could I make her do such things, I can throw it in her face that she used to find pleasure in such housework!

The Po-Po was knocking at the Do-do!!!

Drama Princess, at the ripe old age of 18 months had her first encounter with the police!  Let me set the scene:  Two Saturdays we were sitting around in the living room waiting for Daddy to finish the Penn State game so we could go to the grocery store.  All of a sudden there is a knock at the door.  I immediately think, “hmm…who would be at OUR house without us knowing????” (don’t get me wrong, we are swimming in popularity, but make sure our friends understand that they must be invited to enter the House of Shah )  Anyways, I answer the door and there are two police officers facing me!  I thought that we were going to get in trouble for the leftover trash from the move…silly, yes, I know.  They asked if we called 911!  We didn’t – they asked if our child could have, they heard a small child in the background.  Crazy! 

In conclusion, and this will probably be the only time you will ever hear this come out of my mouth, thank goodness for the football game. What would have happened if we were already at the grocery store when the arrived?  Would they have had to get a warrant and search the house for us????