How I get through my day

I have a folder in my Firefox bookmarks called "Emergency".  This is where I keep my secret stash of pictures to make me smile.  I will now share them with you.

First, my favorite:

 

Ah, youth.

I don't know either.

 Emergency kittehs

For days when I don't want to go to the gym

 For when end users freak out about stupid shit

 There's some kind of life homily that can follow the viewing of this picture but fuck it -- I just think it's funny.

Babies.  lol.

  What I envision my future to look like

 Oh, you're having trouble logging on to your Hotmail account?

You've just noticed that my socks don't match?

 You're soooo right.  Women totally should be making you sandwiches all the time.

 Awe yeeeeeee

Remember: use these for good, not evil.

Yo Gabba Gabba and/or Target, we need to talk

Lily loves Yo Gabba Gabba.  I mean, really loves it.  Until we introduced her to Blue's Clues and Word World, she wanted to watch it every single day.

Don't give me the mommy stink-eye, either.  We allow her two episodes of any TV show per day while dinner is being prepared.  She wanders in and out of the kitchen and, despite my encouragement, generally has no interest in helping me cook.

We can't find any YGG merchandise anywhere in the Twin Cities.  Not even at Nickelodeon Theme Park Place Thing Of America at the Mall of America (you can find all the Dora/Diego you could ever want there, though).  I'm generally opposed to buying character branded crap but in YGG's case I make an exception (or I would, if I could find it) because I like the people, the production company, and the animators behind the show and would like to support them.  (*Note: I know the Aquabats as a band aren't behind YGG, but Christian Jacobs is the co-creator and there's a ton of Aquabatty stuff in YGG.)

So I heard that Target was going to carry YGG bedding in select stores.  And wouldn't you know it, the downtown Minneapolis Target that I frequent on my lunch hour is in the selection.  Awesome!  Lily could use some new bedding!

So I found it today.  It was a "four pack" of toddler bedding.  Let me tell you what this "four pack" includes:

• A pillowcase
• A fitted sheet
• A flat sheet
• The bag this stuff comes in (?!)

And the price?  $34.99.  THIRTY-FOUR DOLLARS AND NINETY-NINE CENTS.  For toddler bedding.  Not even twin bed sized stuff.  Comforter not included, not that this Target had one anyway.  And calling the bag a part of the set?  Pretty low.  By the way, the toddler blankets are another $15-16 and the twin comforter is another $35.  I saw a couple of cute generic Target sets with comforters and all the goodies on a clearance shelf for $7.  I'm thinking about going back and getting them if they're still there next week.

Now, I know that character licensing can be expensive, but the Dora and Disney Princess toddler sets that actually have a blanket or comforter included are around $37.  Supply and demand be damned, YGG is one of the most popular kids' shows out there.

 

So I pulled one of these and walked away.

I don't care if these sheets are made out of magical pesticide-free organic cotton grown by fairies and transported via unicorn.  I'm not paying $70 to put sheets on my toddler's bed.

And there was pee

For months I've been asking Lily if she wanted to try and go pee and poop in her big girl potty.  Most of the time I get a "uh-uh!"  Sometimes she sits on the potty but demands to be read books and nothing actually gets accomplished.  Last week I went to the library and got three "hey child, you should go potty like these kids" books and we've been reading them every night in addition to the one that she already owns.  I've been able to see the gears clicking away in that little head of hers.

First thing this morning I asked her if she wanted to try her potty again.  She said yes and sat down, still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, too sleepy to even ask for a book.  I even ran the water in the sink to set the mood.  I was about to use the "pour warm water on her" trick until I noticed a reflection in her potty.  Could it be?

It wasn't even a little bit.  This child filled the potty halfway with pee.  Aha!  So the trick is to catch her while she's too sleepy to protest!

There was much joyous celebration and hugging and clapping.  I managed to spill some pee on the floor in my excitement to get it over to the big potty.  I helped her to flush the toilet and we both said bye-bye to Lily's potty.

I am relieved.  She is 28 months old now -- right on target.  So far she's hit every milestone right on the nose except for speech, which is coming along very well now.  I printed off a bunch of potty training charts and I'll be taking a trip to the store this afternoon to get some stickers.  I think we'll go shopping for big girl underpants this weekend.  And I'm thinking... cupcakes with brown and yellow frosting to celebrate?

...too much?

I'm resorting to a Friday Five

From Friday5.org:

What is the longest distance you’ve traveled (in one trip) by foot?
I've taken some pretty epic walks but I'm not sure what the longest was.  The hardest was an MS Walk I did a million years ago for work that went from the MN State Capitol to Minnehaha Park, which is around 8 miles or so.  It was in May.  There was sleet and rain.  I had done absolutely no training beforehand.  I was cold and sore for days.

What is the longest trip you’ve taken by car?
My family used to roadtrip every year.  I think the longest distance-wise was the trip alllll the way down I-35 from Minnesota to Mexico.  We went arrowhead hunting in Laredo, visited Nuevo Laredo, and stopped on Galveston Island on the way back.  I've since learned that these days Nuevo Laredo is no place you want to be if you're a Gringo.


We did a lot of trips to Colorado to go camping in the mountains when I was younger.  One epic trip involved going through South Dakota to stop at Mount Rushmore and some crazy human maze, then through to Wyoming to see Devil's Tower, then to Colorado to camp by Pike's Peak, and back home to Minnesota.  Or was it the other way around?  Anyway, when I look at it on the map it was a long-ass trip.

What is the longest trip you’ve taken by plane?
Minnesota to Korea by way of Anchorage. Or maybe Minnesota to Guam by way of LA to Japan to Wake Island.  I'm not sure which trip is longer.

What is the longest trip you’ve taken on some kind of water craft?
Hmm... maybe the water taxi from Ixtapa to Ixtapa Island in Mexico?  It was like 10 minutes.

What is the longest trip you’ve taken aboard a bus or train?
We took the train from Lincoln, NE to Denver, CO.  I LOVE train travel and I think there should be a whole lot more of it in the US.

We don't do a ton of travel these days outside of trips to Duluth and Omaha.  Who can afford it?

Dear karma,

I think I've been a relatively decent human being for a while now.  How about throwing a girl a bone every now and again?  I'm dangerously close to resorting to cynicism.

Sincerely,
PPC

Waiting is the hardest part

But no popcorn

So what have I been doing for the past two weeks?

• Studying
• Worrying about my final project
• Short bursts of Minecraft
• More studying
• Enjoying the heat
• Drama-free roller derby for us retired folks
• A small amount of D&D
• Watching movies
• Not missing cable TV
• Introducing Lily to Blue’s Clues

Not having cable satellite TV has been fantastic.  We don’t have broadcast TV either because I just can’t be arsed to hook up the antennas to the TVs and they don’t work very well anyway since we’re directly under a flight path.  So it’s just us and our Netflix account.  I’ve been getting caught up on some things I’ve been meaning to watch for... well, decades.

Battlestar Galactica

So far we’ve only watched the first part of the miniseries.  I can see myself watching this whole series, but it didn’t hook me emotionally like other shows have (ST:TNG, Primeval, Stargate Universe).

Iron Man 2

Sweet holy cats on a rowboat, I can’t stop being attracted to Robert Downy Jr. in this movie.  I’m not normally a screaming fangirl of his, but the way he plays Tony Stark, a character I’ve always loathed, just gets me all riled up.  It’s that loveable asshole thing again.  The movie itself was pretty good – not great – and I really hope they can talk everyone into a third movie.

Rock-A-Doodle

I had never seen this before.  The animation is absolutely fantastic but it had the typical Don Bluth plot hole problems.

Rubber

Just... go watch this movie.  Everyone.  Tell everyone you know to watch this movie.

The Color of Magic

Another series for us to watch.  The casting for Rincewind and the Tourist was PERFECT.  I’m really excited to keep going with this one.  This was Husband’s first introduction to Discworld.  I’ve read four or five of the books.  Terry Pratchett is a very close second behind Douglas Adams in my mind.

The Business of Being Born

I was pretty sure I was going to do a home birth on the next kid before, but now I can’t imagine doing anything else.  Knowledge is power.

Wallace & Gromit: Loaf and Death

What can I say?  It’s Wallace & Gromit.

Cool World

Seriously, I’ve been meaning to see this movie since it came out.  I loves me some some Ralph Bakshi.  You wanna talk about Wizards?  Fritz the Cat?  Love that stuff.  And then there’s this movie.  Brad Pitt was really young and doing a half-animated-half-live-action movie is hard, but it really could have been better.  Everyone compares this to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the gold standard of the genre, and Cool World absolutely flops in comparison.  The live-action parts aren’t terrible, especially in the beginning of the movie.  The animated parts are amazing.  But when the two meet it just gets, well, bad.  It really seems like a bunch of important plot points were left out.  Like, why can’t Doodles and Noids have sex?  Where did Whiskers go and why?  What, exactly, did the sex-having do to threaten anything, and how did it tie into the spike?  Where did Jack’s “destiny” come from?  Was this pre-ordained?  Why and how did he become a Doodle and stay that way when Holly couldn’t stay a Noid?  What the fuck?  And why did Frank stay in Cool World?  Why is he a cop?  What would a real gun do to a Doodle anyway, and where did he get it in the first place?  What did he eat in Cool World?  Why was he immortal?  What the fuck?  The end was bad.  Really, really bad.  It helps to know that this movie was originally intended for a much younger audience but underwent a bunch of patchy re-writes.  So it went from serious to bizarre to campy to sexy to confusing to stupid and sappy.

Archer

Yep, this show is as funny as everyone says it is.  I play D&D with a guy who almost exclusively communicates via Archer quotes, so it’s nice to know what the hell he’s talking about sometimes.

Re-watches: Blade Runner, Fooly Cooly, Muppets from Space