Snow White vs Belle
Cardin has suddenly become obsessed with Snow White. She goes through phases like this where she will watch one movie, and ONLY one movie, on continuous play for a few months. Just long enough that you would rather poke sharp sticks in your eye than hear “Just whistle while you work.” Fuck off Snow White….nobody likes their job enough that they actually whistle while performing mundane tasks.
I’d much prefer if she’d fall in love with a cool movie. One where it did not look as though the main character was a blind widow. I’m not kidding….I guarantee that the majority of this movie, Snow White actually has her eyes closed. I secretly think it was Disney’s way of cutting costs. I can just see these exec’s reviewing the storyboard. “Well, if we remove the cornea’s from Snow White, we can save .002 per frame”.
Listen Lady, people who talk with their eyes closed in real life annoy me. Imagine how annoyed I get when an animated princess can’t open her eyes.
To proliferate this fetish, my mom decided to buy Cardin a Snow White dress up outfit. I’m going to tangent here for 1 minute…. Of course my heart starts doing palpitations at this point with the whole pretend dress up thing. I get it…its a normal part of childhood. I’ll bite my lip and get onboard because I realize that she wants nothing more than to look like Snow White. Except my head starts doing marathon sprints of the conversations I’ll need to have with her, if only to instill the idea that she 1) should not trust creepy old ladies who try to give her fruit and 2) she should not rely on a man to come to her rescue. Equally important lessons.
So my mom gets out the “Snow White” outfit she bought, except its not a Snow White outfit at all, its a Belle outfit. Ya know….from beauty and the beast. Hopeful my mom isn’t suffering early onset of dementia I’m all “uh Mimi, that’s not Snow White’s dress.” My mom pipes back with “Well I know, but that’s all they had and the bottom of Snow White’s dress is yellow so it’s close enough.”
How do you argue with that logic? Clearly the two different characters can easily become 
mashed together into one dress because their dresses share the same hue. WOMAN, what is going to happen when she watches Beauty and the Beast the first time She’s going to think that blind widow is making another appearance when the yellow dress shows up.
One day when Cardin is 20, I’m going to pull this picture out and explain to her that she was decieved into thinking this was Snow White’s dress by an evil woman who liked to give her fruit.
FOUR
Yesterday afternoon the sun was out, so I bribed Cardin with outside playtime if she would eat her lunch. It worked! I don’t really like to consider it bribing though….I like to think of it as small behavioral modifications with merit based raises. I’m really just trying to get her ready for the working world. Listen lady, I am doing her a favor in the long run.
While we were outside playing, Brett decided he was going to rake the front lawn to get rid of some of the matted down grass from the winter snow. Cardin wanted to help. Except all her toys are put away in the shed for storage right now and I wasn’t about to go digging through lawnmowers and weedwackers just to find a dumb rake. Let’s be honest…that’s an emergency room trip waiting to happen.
I found this small sand rake instead. 
She was happy as a clam with it. Going around and helping daddy “ake”. Until she started to dig up some grass. There is now a small section of our lawn that has 15 divets, as though a pro golfer was attempting to get out of a sand trap.
It’s a good thing I got her to stop raking before she made it over to the landscaping stones and we started dodging small rock pellets.
TMI
We spent much of the past weekend in and out of funeral homes and visiting family. The myth that things come in three’s is not really a myth at all; things really do come in three’s.
On Sunday, we were at one of the funeral homes paying our respects to a family friend whose mother had passed away unexpectedly. She had chosen to be cremated and while I’m not down with the whole burning thing for myself, to each his own. We were are all standing in a nice single file line, waiting to speak to the family, whispering softly to pass the time, when out of nowhere my Grandmother chirps in with the following sentiment:
“It’s so sad. You’re alive one day and the next you are in a jar.”
Listen Lady, there are times where the old adage of “Think before you Speak” really should be put into good use. This would have been one of those times Grandma.
What you need to understand here is that my Grandmother, who is 80 years old and whom I love dearly, has absolutely no filter on her mouth. We could be in the biggest, noisiest crowd of people and my Grandmother would manage to pick the one second where silence befell the crowd to yell out “THERE ARE A WHOLE LOT OF NAZI’S HERE”.
This is not the only instance where my Grandma has perpetrated social taboo by speaking her mind. There has been many a time where those around her have wanted to crawl into a hole and die just to avoid the glaring eyes from strangers who have overheard Grandma’s remarks.
There was one time that is particularly special to me. Rewind about 6 years ago. Brett and I were engaged and planning our wedding. I had purchased my dress and was going for an alteration and had I asked my Grandma to come along as she had yet to see the dress. My mom helped me into the dress and laced it up for me (and I’m not joking when I say laced, it was like a shoelace up my back). I came out and stood in front of the mirror while the seamstress begin to pin up the hem. It was then that I asked the question that will forever scorn and mock me…”What do you think Grandma?”
Her response was simple, elegant really. Right to the point. Never had I heard such honesty. Grandma’s response:
“It’s really nice, just don’t get any fatter.”
Our conversation ended at that point. I mean, what else could I possibly say. There is no recovery, no comeback from that. Even the seamstress didn’t know what to say. So it hung there, awkwardly, like a lazy eye. I moved on and I get to tease Grandma about this moment we shared. If nothing else, I learned that Grandma can always be counted on for honesty, even if its brutal.
A little snotty
We have been trying to teach Cardin how to blow her nose…..it’s not going so well. We can only get her to blow out her mouth and vibrate her lips. Not an effective snot removal technique, though it provides much entertainment
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X0XWVMFdk
Frat Party or Toddler Time
I saw this on Facebook the other day and it pretty much describes my life perfectly right now.
Why Having a Toddler is Like Being at a Frat Party
10. There are half-full, brightly-colored plastic cups on the floor in every room. Three are in the bathtub.
9. There’s always that one girl, bawling her eyes out in a corner.
8. It’s best not to assume that the person closest to you has any control over their digestive function.
7. You sneak off to the bathroom knowing that as soon as you sit down, someone’s going to start banging on the door.
6. Probably 80% of the stains on the furniture contain DNA.
5. You’ve got someone in your face at 3 a.m. looking for a drink.
4. There’s definitely going to be a fight.
3. You’re not sure whether anything you’re doing is right, you just hope it won’t get you arrested.
2. Bodily Fluids easily consume 75% of the conversation.
1. You wake up wondering exactly how and when the person in bed with you got there.