shameless mommyness

For any of you reading who are interested in another pursuit close to my heart, you can check out my banjo blog. Now you can bounce back and forth between Gaz's childhood and that of my banjo playing.

I know I am very far behind here, and just as bad with photos. After I catch my breath, I'll be posting a proper update. But really, it's just more of the same, except for when it's not.

milestone!

Yes, we've finally done it. Only threeish years after getting the necessary documentation, today I took Gaz and her Very Important Papers to the bank and got her a savings account. Those of you who sent checks for her birthday will be happy to know that not only did we finally cash them, they're now actually in her very own account! This has all been on the to-do list for a while, and since it's finally stopped raining, I decided it was high time we get out for that errand. The nice bank men even had a fresh shipment of child-placating stickers, which Gaz immediately stuck to the nice bank mens' desks.

And then we went looking for a bath toy and ended up bringing home a Hello Kitty dollhouse, complete with furniture and Hello Kitty and some of her friends. They've moved all their furniture onto the back lawn and a dump truck, and have been happily eating fish crackers there ever since we got home and got everything unpacked.

Other milestones are in the works, sort of, but still a ways off. After crowing about Gaz's near perfect potty record, we had a relapse and have been oscillating wildly between "we don't need no stinking diapers" and "Mommy, I want to peepee in my diaper." She knows exactly how things work, and has no trouble with using her potty chair or the big potty (with the assistance of the step stool and a little seat of her own), and will even use her potty chair with no prompting, then empty it, clean it out, and put it back together before throwing herself into my arms amid joyous squeals that she did it all by herself! She just doesn't feel like using the potty all the time. And forget about anything of the more involved potty activities. She's sure she doesn't want to do that in a potty.

So we're in a holding pattern. Big girl underpants, with fairies and everything, were not enough to encourage her, so we are back to pull-ups/diapers, with the option for training pants or big-girl underpants being presented often. One of these days she'll make up her mind that it's worth paying attention to, but it clearly has to be her idea. I'm cool with that. Mostly.

She's singing right now, one of her many songs about I have no idea. The joy of nonsense is extra joyful these days now that she's realized that not only can she babble when she speak, she can babble when she sings! It's like living in a foreign soap opera musical with plastic tea sets and other things that hurt when you step on them.

As the World Whirls

I know, it's been too long! Many things have happened.

• Birthday! The pictures are up, but I haven't commented. The weather turned out to be as beautiful as the beginning of August could possibly be. We had a break in the temperature and the humidity, and, bestest of all, the neighbors with the aggressive barking dog finally put up the privacy fence they started last year. Woo! A peaceful and lovely time was had by all. Gaz had a great time with the cupcakes and presents, especially, and she scored many awesome gifts, including some that came all the way from Norway and Iceland (courtesy of Grandma Judy and Grandpa Will's recent travels). The only thing we forgot was the enormous pink burro pinata, a last-second request from Gaz that she forgot as soon as she demanded it. It's still sitting in the library, and she likes to go in and take care of it. She does still want to break it, though. Might have to wait until we visit someone who's got a tree on on their property, as we have none.
  
• Cooking! She loves helping whenever I'll let her, which must be often. I am getting better at figuring out busy work for her so that she doesn't try to do any helping that involves grabbing a knife. If I cut up veggies in the dining room instead of the kitchen, for instance, then I can distract her by sending her to the fridge for all the other veggies I "forgot." She had the best time making corn tortillas with me the other day because I let her operate the tortilla press. She was so focused, I was very impressed by her attention span. It wasn't quite long enough to last through the whole batch of dough, but it was good. The tortillas were tasty and Gaz was very proud, as well she should be.
  
• Art! Another thing I've learned is that if I bring her art easel into the kitchen, she will happily paint pictures while I wash dishes. Usually she wants to "help" with that chore, which of course, makes it take twice as long, and if it's been a few days since I've really been on top of getting the dishes done . . . you see where I'm going with this. The Play-doh Fun Factory also works wonders for getting various things done (except keeping the room with the Play-doh clean).
• Smartening! As I type this, Gaz is typing words with Daddy on his laptop. They're sounding out words together and finding letters and having a great time. Earlier today she had me making words with alphabet blocks: cat, fat, keep (she insisted we use the K and P), and then chair. Then she added U and P to cat, and we laughed over UPCAT, and then the teachable moment devolved into an orgy of stringing random letters together and making me try to pronounce the five-foot words. She's been doing this for a goodly while now, but today she used more vowels. Progress!
  

In addition to these things, she's said and sung so many pithy, random, insightful, and hilarious things. I can't remember them, now that I sit down to record them for posterity, but I assure you that you would be mightily impressed by her giant brain and how well she uses it. We still have our RDA of tantrums and frustrations, but considering that just after her second birthday she became a complete monster, this year we're not doing so badly.

More updateyness as I remember things!