Sorry Bees

We were walking out the door to the pool and two bees came buzzing at us. Daddy stayed behind to "take care" of the bees with the pool noodle he was carrying. Little bug didn't miss a beat, without turning around she muttered to herself, "sorry bees" and then went running off to the pool.

Golf Etiquette

We've started to make a routine out of heading to the golf course early on Saturday mornings to hit the driving range. Note the word "early" meaning - before it gets ridiculously hot. Daddy has been watching golf on TV with Little Bug and taught her to do a golf clap. Whenever I hit the ball, Little Bug would say "good shot mommy" and then she'd clap for me.

She is also obsessed with the Monkey Joe's bouncy place. A few times a day she looks at me and says "Monkey Joe's?" and starts bouncing around. Tonight we took her there and as she was chanting "Monkey Joe's - Monkey Joe's - Monkey Joe's" from the backseat, I told daddy that the place better be open or else we are going to have to stop for a huge bowl of ice cream for her to drown her sorrows. Luckily the place was still open, and as we walked in Little Bug screamed with excitement. She walked right up to the check-in counter with her arm out for her arm band before they even asked.

Lost

I love the irony in the fact that the toy in the Happy Meal was an Amelia Earhart plane. And it has since been lost in the car.

Daddy's Day Hijacked

Since today was Father's Day, I took little bug downstairs when she woke up so he could sleep in. She made him a card on which she drew a bunch of squiggles. I asked her what her drawing was and she looked at me like it was very obvious. "Horse, mommy". Clearly, it was a horse - how could that jumble of lines and dots be anything else. Well we made daddy coffee and decided he had slept long enough so we crept upstairs and little bug crawled into bed with daddy and handed him her horse card. She then force fed him hot coffee.

When we were hanging out on the deck, little bug pulled all of the seat cushions off of our chairs and laid them on the floor. She then pulled daddy and I over and pointed to the cushions. "Sleep" she instructed, pointing to the cushions. So here were the three of us, laying on the floor of our deck pretending to sleep. I think I actually dozed off, but I felt something looking at me. I opened my eyes and little bug was staring into my face. "Shhh...sleep mommy" she said, and she took her hand and slammed my head back into the cushion. Then she grabbed her Dora blanket and covered me up.

One of daddy's requests for the day was a red velvet cake, so I pulled out the hand mixer and started making him one. I handed little bug her little battery powered mixer and a bowl so she could be just like mommy. She seemed to be doing fine, so I turned my back on her and then I heard her shriek. Little bug put the mixer in her hair and it twisted and pulled out a little chunk of hair. She got over it pretty quickly, and it's pretty funny considering that I took her to get her hair cut yesterday.

When we went to the kids hair cut place yesterday, I asked the stylist to only cut little bug's bangs to be just above her eyebrows. I'm not sure where it got lost in translation, but after the first clip I knew we were in trouble. She now has bangs that aren't exactly even and are halfway up her forehead. I took some hairspray to them to try to salvage it, but we definitely aren't going to get any professional photos taken until those bangs grow out.

Anyway, after the hair crisis daddy decided that he wanted to go to the bouncy place. How she managed to turn Father's Day into a day all about her, I'll never know - but I guess having those big brown eyes not covered by her bangs any more might have magnified her manipulation. As we walked into the bouncy place she started screaming "Monkey Joe" over, and over. She loves this place. It wasn't crowded at all so she bounced her heart out and even went on the biggest slide.

In one of the areas we have to help her climb up a steep area so she can get to the slide. After I helped push her up to the top, she turned to me and said, "thank you mommy". Yes, little bug, after that - I'll let you do whatever you want to do on any of my special days, too.

Coach Buggy

Daddy and I went jogging tonight with one of our friends, but unfortunately Little Bug didn't want to stay in her jogging stroller. After taking a bunch of breaks for her to get out and walk, I finally told the two guys to run on ahead so I could have a talk with buggy. I've seen Super Nanny, so I've started disciplining her by getting at eye-level and holding onto her shoulders while I explain what she is doing wrong and ask her to say "sorry" and give me a hug. Apparently I've been disciplining her a lot because as soon as I kneeled down and grabbed her shoulders she looked me in the eye and said, "sorry" and gave me a hug - saving herself a lecture.

I asked her to get back in the jogging stroller and she climbed right in. I told her we were going to catch daddy and our friend. So as I started jogging, I could hear her yelling, "I'm coming daddy, I'm coming daddy." We jogged onto a long stretch where I could see the guys in front of us, and Little Bug noticed them, too. She started yelling at me, "mommy, daddy, run". At this point I was in a full sprint and was starting to lose energy, so having my little coach hollering at me really didn't help. The guys turned around a corner, out of site and poor little buggy just said quietly, "daddy...." Nothing like the motivation of a sad little girl to kick me into high gear and start sprinting again.

I sprinted until I caught up with the guys and little bug was so happy to see them. As we got closer to the end of the path, she decided that she was finally through with the jogging stroller, so daddy decided to take her. I jogged on ahead with our friend and the jogging stroller. We got lots of strange looks from people as the two of us were jogging with an empty stroller and no kid in sight.

Apparently, as soon as I was out of site, Little Bug started saying, "I'm coming mommy!" and made daddy carry her, and jog with all 28.5 lbs of her to the end of the trail. She was a good coach, pushing us to run, but not the best jogging buddy overall.

Hereyougoduck

We went over to feed some ducks this morning and little bug was so excited to toss all the bread in the lake. Every time she tossed them something she yelled, "hereyougoduck".

This summer is definitely the summer of the pool. We've been in the pool every day this week after work. I made the mistake one night of just taking her for a walk, since it was getting close to bedtime. We walked by the pool and of course she wanted to go in the gate and see what everyone was doing. I let her sit on the side and splash her feet in the water. Then when I was talking to another mom, I look and see that she's now standing on the top step with soaking wet shorts.

I took her shorts off, so she decided it was time to just dive in. Clothes and all. So we let her scoot around in her t-shirt and diaper, and finally wrapped her up in daddy's t-shirt to walk home. The other parents laughed when we showed up the next day, fully dressed in swim suits, with pool toys and towels. We were ready that time.

Yesterday when I was done with work, I took little bug upstairs and told her we were going to the pool. So she ran around in a circle screaming, "pool, pool, pool." She saw me put on my swimsuit and then she tore off for her room. She ran back to our room with her swimsuit that she took out of her drawer, a bottle of sun tan lotion and a pack of wipes. She took off her shirt all by herself and almost put her swim bottoms on, too. If she could actually swim with both of her legs through the same leg hole.

So we've got a water bug for the summer.

Snack for the Drive

Little bug and I were playing around in the house and I handed her some puffs to snack on in a little bowl. She turned around the corner and handed me back an empty bowl. I thought she polished them off in a hurry, but that is nothing new. A few minutes later she was riding around the deck on her tricycle and I watched her as she stopped, stood up and said to herself, "hungry? okay" then opened up the trunk on her tricycle, pulled out a puff and ate it. She apparently packed snacks for the road trip.

Pool Party, It's What's for Dinner

I picked up little bug yesterday from the nanny's and they had her out at their pool running around with all the neighborhood kids. Little bug looked like she was having a blast pretending to be a big kid and was fearless in the water. When she saw me, she ran over and jumped up on me, soaking wet onto my work clothes. It was awesome.

I sat down and hung out with her godparents and our nanny and watched as little bug packed away a cookie every minute or two. She had trained one of her little friends to get two cookies, one for herself and one for little bug. Little bug sat like a queen on my lap, hanging out and eating cookies that were brought to her every few minutes.

Her godmother told me that little bug gets excited about the pool, but REALLY excited about the buffet of food they bring with them.