“So…” She says this at the start of a sentence, often with her hands on her hips.
“Packanoni” Her word for pepperoni.
“He’s got new rain brother, in His hand” translation: He’s got you and me brother, in His hand.
“Ee-oh-pee-opah” translation Ethiopia
While at Underwater World “Look! It’s a zone, zone, zone” This took a while to figure out. Her favorite movie is Finding Nemo and Mr. Ray (the sting ray) sings “oh, let’s name the zone, the zone… and she’s decided that sting rays are called zone, zone, zones
Another Nemo, she retells part of a joke in the movie that starts “so there was a mullusk and a sea cucumber” and then at some point they finish with “with fronds like these, who needs anenimeas?” Lexi will randomly say “a mawwusk and a sea cumber fronds like these who needs ananemies?”
“Really?” We’ll tell her the name for something or what we’re doing and she’ll give us a very incredulious/disapproving, “really?!”
ex:
Us: Lexi, that’s a school bus.
Lexi: A school bus? Really?
She has started calling Kevin and I by our first names and shorting Kevin to Kev.
“PPL” translation peanutbutter
If you ask her what a sea turtle says she will answer with “Dude, totally, sweet” (another Nemo reference).
“Salts and Peppers” is salt and pepper.
She’s a big fan of the letter “w” and points it out all the time.
She calls band-aides “bandanas”
“Spacket” translation basket
For a while she was introducing herself to strangers as a 3 year old named Emily.
“I’m carefulling.” translation I’m being careful.

Today was the last day of GAC (Great Adventure Club). This was Lexi’s first year as a participant and she loved it. (and I loved it because she came home everyday exhausted and slept for about 4 hours.) Her favorite part was the music. She sang the songs, usually adding her own words, did all the hand motions and was right up front jumping and singing. Next year, I’m looking forward to not doing anything - just dropping my kid off and enjoying time at home with the younger one. Although, I’ve said that every year and every year I end up doing something. Maybe next year I’ll do behind the scenes stuff like shop for snacks.

If you’re interested here’s a couple of songs Lexi has rewritten the words to (some are GAC songs and some are Veggie Tales songs):

Original version:

I’ve got love like an ocean, I’ve got love like an ocean, I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul.

Lexi version:

I’ve got love like a lotion, I’ve got love like a lotion, I’ve got love like a lotion in a hole.

Original version:

The Lord has given this land to us
No need to fuss, He knows what He’s doing
We know that He will take care of us
If we will follow Him.

Lexi’s version:

The Lord has given this land two bus

No need two bus, He knows what He’s doing.

We know that He will take care two bus

If we will follow Him.

Here’s a short list of the things Lexi has done in the past week.

Note: If you are one of those people who can’t tolerate kids being kids and making a mess and doing gross things then just stop reading.

1. Discovered the joys of eating playdough. (Really she discovered the joy of playdough and then she learned how great it tastes.)
2. Ate dog food. And declared it good.
3. Played with bubbles in the sink. This resulted in a wet shirt, wet pants, water on the counter top (read: flood), soaking wet kitchen rug, and one happy kid.
4. Found the dog food that spilled a couple weeks ago and ate it.
5. Mixed playdough and water. (I didn’t see it, but I’m guessing she sampled some of the water.)
6. Mixed orange juice into her playdough-water cocktail. Sampled it. This is declared gross.
7. Poured orange juice into a bowl of raisins to make “cereal”.
8. Used markers to color a picture on paper and then her hands, face and arms.
9. Smeared sour cream all over her face because she was “shaving like daddy.”
10. Couldn’t reach handles on the sink so she filled her cup with water from the toilet.
11. Dipped her bagel into orange juice.
12. Dipped carrots into milk.
13. Dipped wheat thins into water.
14. Okay, really she just dips whatever is in her hand into whatever is in her cup. At lunch is was PBJ sandwich in water.
15. Dumped about 4000 foam cut outs from my kindergarten art supplies onto the floor so she could look at them.
16. Took the orange juice container from the fridge and tried to pour herself a glass of OJ - in the living room.
17. Discovered she could climb onto the counter tops and reach the cupboard where the snacks are kept.
18. Spends at least 20 minutes a day chasing Mazie up and down the hallway screaming “I’m gonna get ya!”

So that’s been my summer. How’s your summer going?

Lexi went swimming today. We went to one of those wading pools that only gets about 2 feet deep and she loved it. She was not coming out of the water for any reason. All the kids got out to eat lunch and Lexi would get out, come eat a carrot, go back in. Five minutes later she’d get out, come eat a grape, get back in. This process repeated until most of her lunch was gone but she was not going to stay out of the water for more that a minute.

I learned today that my kid is very bouyant (is that how you spell that?). Anyway, she fell over quite a few times today and for the life of her could not figure out how to get her feet to go back down to the ground. So she would tip, her butt and feet would go up and she would be stuck. She could keep her face out of the water but not enough that she was comfortable. At one point she tipped, got herself upright, took one step and tipped again. She did that about 5 times before she got really frustrated and started crying. All evening she’s been talking about how she doesn’t want to put her face underwater anymore.

Today was a fun filled day of getting free stuff and running errands. Lots and lots of errands. And then a few more errands.

This morning started with gymnastics classes for Lexi (or as Lexi calls them snacknastics). And they were free. A friend teaches the classes and invited Lexi to come for this session. It’s actually the same class we took this winter but now that she just a few months older she’s gotten really good at following directions and using the equipment the right way.

After we got home I went through the huge bin of material my mom gave me. Remember my love for fabric stores? Well free fabric is even better than a fabric store. Especially free fabric that has some great potential. I’m debating trying to make a stuffed letter alphabet, possibly a couple baby slings, or maybe a small quilt for Lexi’s dolls. Possibilities are endless.

Next up - free hair cut from Juut salon. Yup, free. Apparently, when you cut your hair for Locks of Love the hair cut is complimentary. I had an 11 inch ponytail cut off. And believe it or not I still had enough hair to keep it at about chin length. (Okay, so my entire trip to the salon wasn’t free - I also had my brows done and they talked me into buying shampoo - but still, free hair cut.) Oh, and if you are a new customer to the salon you also get a free book by the founder. It’s a page-turner.

When I got home we decided to go get dinner and run errands. It’s a long story but the short version goes like this:

5:30 leave for Rosedale Mall for dinner. Traffic sucked so we got there around 6:15. We were supposed to be at Barnes N Noble at 6:30 to drop off books to sell so we changed our plans and went there first.

6:15 Dropped 4 boxes of books to sell to Barnes N Noble

6:20 - 6:45 Eat dinner at the food court

6:45 - 7:30 Go to Victoria’s Secret to use the $10 off card I had. It’s the huge semi-annual clearance sale so I had to wait in line for most of that time to try stuff on.

7:30 - 8:00 Back to Barnes N Noble to see how much money we made on the books. They only bought about 20 of the books. Shopped for a while, bought 3 new books.

8:00 - 8:30 Drive to Half Priced Books to drop of the still full boxes because Half Priced books isn’t picky. They’ll buy anything.

8:30 - 9:00 Grocery shopping.

9:30 - 9:45 Get home and put Lexi to bed. And considering she was up 2 hours past her bedtime, Lexi was very cooperative for the whole evening.

Here’s Lexi’s afternoon, from about 4:00 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.

4:00 - 4:45 She stood at the kitchen sink playing with bubbles and water. And the kitchen rug, counter top and her shirt look like a tidal wave hit. Oh well. It’s just water. It’ll dry and tomorrow I was planning on washing the floor.

Before that she unloaded about half her toy baskets into her bed. No clue why but she was entertained, happy, and completely focused on something for over an hour.

4:45 - 6:00 We ate dinner. She tried to entertain the restaurant and then offered to cut everyone’s food.

6:00 - 6:30 Took a bath. Repeatedly put cups on her head and called herself a birthday cake.

6:30 - 7:00 Took all the couch cushins off the couch and piled them on the floor. Tried to get Mazie to sleep on the “bed” she built but Maize wasn’t having it.

7:00 - 7:30 She wanted to color. With markers. I gave her a box of markers and a huge piece of paper. She colored happily for about 30 minutes. She also got some on the table (on accident) and her hands are very rainbow colored but it all washes off (and she liked washing it all off too). Should’ve waited with the bath.

7:30 -7:45 Now she’s back at the sink again - more bubbles and water. My favorite part was when she set the cup with holes in the bottom on the counter and tried over and over to fill it up. Took her about 3 tries to realize there were holes in the bottom and water pouring on her feet.

7:45 - 8:00 Okay done with bubbles again. Now all the toys that are on the living room floor are going into her doll buggy because the baby wants them. Nevermind. There back on the floor again.

8:00 - 8:11 Went into her room packed up several little back-packs and bags with her toys (for the baby) and is back to piling them on top of the baby in the buggy. The baby has just been dumped on the floor because “the baby is crying and doesn’t want the toys”.

8:11 - 8:12 Pulling empty yogurt containers from the Tupperware drawer and filling them with water to feed the baby. (Which really means she almost dumped a cup full of water on her doll’s head.)

8:12 - 8:14 Back in her room. Came back out wearing 2 necklaces and a bracelet. And all her doll house furniture is shoved in a backpack that she is desperately trying to zip shut.

8:15 - 8:30 (This has not happened yet, just a prediction) Bedtime. I tell her it’s bedtime. She runs, yelling no and telling me she can’t because she’s “finishing.” I put her to bed and tomorrow the day starts all over again. (Which by the way, today started with her shouting over the baby monitor “Daddy! Hey Daddy! Come get me out of this bed now!)

And you wonder why parents of toddlers are tired.

Tonight’s activities included a haircut and baking cookies.

First we went to Kid’s Hair in Highland Park but they were booked for the rest of the evening. So we got back in the car and drove to the one in Roseville (after the nice lady at Highland called ahead and made us an appointment). We were the last customers of the evening. If you’ve never been to a Kid’s Hair, I’d recommend it. They only deal with kids’ hair (hence the name) and so the stylist can get the cut done in about 10 minutes and there are little T.V.’s at each station to keep the kids entertained. Lexi was a little freaked out because yesterday we mentioned to her she needed a haircut and Kevin made a comment about shaving her head like Daddy. To which she replied, “I don’t want to shave my head like Daddy.” When it was her turn she wasn’t too excited to sit in the chair but recovered when she got to watch cartoons - although she was more intrigued by the mirror than the television. We left with a happy kid, a cute haircut, a sticker and a sucker (which she didn’t understand how to eat or enjoy the taste of).

After the haircut adventure we made cookies which is always exciting. She was in charge of dumping the ingredients in the bowl. She would pour something in and then ask, “And now the choca-chips?” She asked after every ingredient. When the choca-chips were finally dumped in she picked them out and ate them as fast as she could.

And after the chocolate buzz she ran a few laps around her room, doing interesting jump-turns while I attempted to change her diaper and then crashed in bed.

Lexi has taken to calling everyone either “Honey” or “Buddy” or sometimes “Honey-Buddy”.

She will say things like, “I need milk please, Honey.” or “Come on Buddy, let’s go.”

Sometimes she’ll stick our names in there too. “I need milk please, Mommy Honey.”

She also likes to add -ing to her words. “I’m finishing.” and “I’m carefulling.”

For the most part, Lexi is a creative kid. But when it comes to naming her stuffed animals and dolls her creativity hits a brick wall. Here’s what lives in Lexi’s room with their names in parentheses.

Pink bear (Pinky, although, this one came named and is her all time favorite. He’s not looking very pink anymore)

Puppy (Pinky’s Puppy - actually, this is pretty creative. She decided a while ago that this puppy belongs to Pinky.)

A bigger puppy (Puppy)

Leopard (Leopard)

Small sheep (Baby Sheep)

Different small sheep (Baby Sheep)

Duck (Duck)

4-5 Dolls (all named Baby)

There are several other animals - a frog, a couple monkeys, a giraffe, a zebra, a bunny - but I’m guessing you’ve figured out her complicated naming systems and I don’t actually need to list their names.

Tonight we took Lexi shopping for a pair of summer shoes. I get her shoes at REI because they hold up, their cute and I know they are good for her feet. First she tried on Crocs (in orange) which she liked because they were orange but we weren’t sure if they would stay on her feet. Then she tried on Tevas but we couldn’t find her size.  I was really hoping to find them in her size because she had a pair last year and they were great. Last she tried on Keens first in purple and then in aqua. She ended up choosing the aqua. While trying to fit her feet I realized that she’s getting really big. She didn’t fit into the toddler sizes. She’s officially in “kid size” shoes. And she and Kevin have matching sandals. I was hoping to find sandals that would look cute with a skirt or shorts but she really liked the Keens and didn’t want to take them off, so there’s probably another pair of sandals in coming soon. Or she’ll just wear these all summer (which is probably more likely).

The best part of the shopping trip? Getting to the check out counter and discovering we had a $45.00 dividend credit on our account. Free shoes (sort of).