Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer...

I have no idea what to do with this...

She's doing exactly what you think she is doing...

Plié...using Noni's end table as a Barre...

I got a girlie girl supreme...  Tutus and dresses and barrettes that cover her entire head like a crown are my life for the FIRST time in my whole life.  Thing 1 was not this way.  She patronized her grandmother with the fufu dresses, the gloves, the ruffle socks, the ribbons in the hair with every color in them coordinating with her exact ensemble...

But YOU had to do it... YOU had to ask her if she wanted it, if she wanted to wear the fufu... and usually she said no..It became one of those things where she would say, "But that's what I wear at grandma's, that's not for home."

Damn...

That doesn't mean, though, that this Tomboy doesn't have a few tricks up her sleeves... I have a way that we can have our cake and eat it too... Thing 2 likes frilly dresses and grabs them with gusto to get dressed in the morning...Like this...

Oy vey...how was I supposed to leave this today?  It's not easy, I tell ya.

I can't believe I actually found a cute little ruffly tutu legging combo thing in the clearance rack at Target for $6...  HAD to get that for my girlie girl... Thing 1... well, she's 8 1/2 going on 30... so she's fine with her Kindle books. 

My baby is not a baby, I have a toddler.  NO matter how we slice it, she's a big girl now...  She has her specificities with things, she's not much for words, but that doesn't mean she's not paying attention to everything you're doing at any given time.  Because SHE IS!  I have slowly started the move from silicone sippy cups to hard plastic sippy and with everything else so far she is making the change like a trooper...maybe I"M not the one ready for her to leave the crib behind, but I love the replacement crib I got her and she loves it, too.  There are some things that will need to go on in the not too distant future as far as making a large bedroom fit for two girls of such different ages... but not right this very second.  I'm enjoying this stage, drinking in the last drink before I quit cold turkey in the morning, so to speak.

Last baby, and we're done... No mas bebes... and it's sad.  It is, even the mister said it was sad...but then he gets all logical on me and rational about how there are so many firsts we have to look forward to and that's what she be focusing on...damn him... and his perfectly reasonable logic.

We are still toting a stroller everywhere, because I would rather push a stroller than pull a toddler.  She gets plenty of running around time in the backyard these days.  Especially with this bullshit, crazy ass weather... I'm already considering bathing suits for these two.

We'll be dusting off and pulling out the ol' potty trainer soon too...but I think we'll wait a little while longer before that trauma begins... Not gonna lie... I'll probably bawl my eyes out when I pull the last diaper out of the diaper box...  good thing those bad boys are so absorbent...

...I KNEW IT!!!!....

Blogger chick that I love so much for all the reasons we are so drastically different just as much as we are alike on so many things finally did it...she blogged about her pictures she takes for her blog.  I knew it was going to come one day because she was so heavily into film photography at one point and now it's the expression of the photos along with the words that move her blog...  I love that reading her blog sometimes is more like "reading" ...  more like osmosis if you will... 

I was sitting here thinking that it must be something awesome...awesome-ER than my camera...my meesely little Nikon 3100 that I got in red cause I could dammit...  and then I see the filters on the pictures and before I had Instagram I was completely in AWE by the filters on these photos and the moments she captured...  And then the blog hits and she talks about ALL of it!  I can't believe myself and how fast I soaked it all up like a slurpee in August...  **SLURP** done gone and all comprehended and accounted for. 

I KNEW IT...  I just did...  I knew that she used her damn iPhone...  top of the line awesome sauce iPhone that fits everywhere...  and I knew it.  I knew it because of the sheer amount of accessability demanded from the pictures she took... I just knew.  And now I know, next year when I get my new phone, I am getting either an iPhone or a badass camera phone... but probably...iPhone...  I am still getting my point n shoot Nikon Coolpix P520 ( in red because I can) to take the place of my DSLR which we WILL in fact be keeping because a) we are getting $$ back from the IRS and b) Choni can use it in his ventures.  Also I was only really selling so I could justify the purchase for my name is Ebeneza Scrooge, you may know my great great great grand uncle...

Fantastic news as that is, I am going to want something point and shootable that takes great pictures and then I'm going to want something that takes great video and then I'm going to want something with a great zoom feature and it just all pointed to P250...Also getting a Fuji instax mini.  I have been putting that purchase off since the goddamned thing came to the market and I'm doing it now... and it comes in yellow...  But someday very soon, it will be just me and my iPhone...taking the video and pictures that mold and shape our lives.  Because it's not about the tools you use on the photos but the passion with which you take them... disagree all you want... I'll just mock you...  heehee.

I Should Have Listened to My Dad and Become A Lawyer....

...or a mediator.. that would have been good too...

My Pop was a smart cookie...and I knew that even as a kid.  I knew that if I wanted him to see my way on something, I was going to have to step up my game.  And I did a pretty damn good job of it, too!  I could easily argue my way into a new Barbie, some matchbox cars or a couple of Archie comics from the impulse aisle of the Lucky's ...

Just when I started to think maybe I wasn't that good at it, I met my fabulous hubby.  He became witness to these moments of my arguing my way out of a paperbag (some people can't do that) and was once again self aware of my power of Justification.  The Ends Justify The Means...  probably would be the name of a semi-auto biography about my life :) 

Today I am justifying why I need a new lens for my Nikon, of which there are many.  But just now I was checking out a blog I love!!  The chick takes awesome pics with her iPhone...bare with me here...  I don't have one of THOSE and I don't have the $$ to buy a new one cash outside of the available upgrade for my cell plan that comes up NEXT year...  So I'm thinking, since we are due a good sum on our taxes, I would like to get a 55-300mm lens for my Nikon.

I didn't realize it until I read the blog as to WHY... 

I open my followed blogs and the first thing I see is an adorable and obviously instagrammed pic of a cute 18 mo old girl in her messy room.  Obviously Blogger Chick was standing above her child. Said child is happy and not screaming.

  Immediately my mind goes here:  Hey, that's a really cute picture and how come I don't have more pictures like that because i don't have an iPhone would it matter if I did have one I don't think it would because everytime I have my phone out Marysu wants to grab it and eat it and then I let her because I'm a sucker and then she gnaws it and then I have to take it and then she gets mad and then I have to dissuade her intentions away from my phone and then I don't get the cute picture I wanted so why don't I just pull out the Nikon because if you pull out the Nikon stupid ass then the baby will want that too and you won't get the good picture you wanted you will get a series of much too close up pictures because she will be on your ass like a fat kid on a cupcake and you shouldn't say stuff like that because your husband used to be a fat kid but thats okay because everyone of your boyfriends in middle school was a fat kid and hey didn't one of them give you a necklace for your birthday where the hell is that did it survive any of the moves why didn't you check and make sure that it made it okay it probably got lost with one of the tubs that had your matchbox cars in and now you have a spare room full of cars because your former fat kid husband makes an effort to put a new matchbox car in your stocking at xmas every year...

... I go from why don't I have a Nikon lens that I can zoom and take snaps from across the room to "There are way too many matchbox cars in my spare room"...

I'd like to avoid these head space convos... and I need to take snaps from across the room so I can Ninja-Photo my kids...

Therefore: I need a new lens...

CLEARLY, I chose the wrong profession...

...and speaking of photos.. think I should integrate more photos in this thing? Is it too boring without something to look at?