Insanity?

Last night I asked Neal how many parents spend hours on something they can't keep and may never see again? The preschool children's network (Cbeebies) here in the UK shows birthday cards every day. They have several requirements like size, the child's name and age on the card, what kind of picture of bday child, and what characters go on it. Saturday Kaitlyn and I went to a local grocery store to raid their magazine rack. Who knew you could actually buy preschool/toddler magazines? We bought three. Kaitlyn was thrilled when she saw all her favorite characters on the magazines. My plan was to cut them up for the birthday card. I felt really guilty cutting up some magazines she seemed to take joy in; I opted to go to the community center and print off her favorite Cbeebies characters instead. I think I will put the magazines away for our plane trip next month. My original plan was to paint the three puppets from The Shiny Show. After drawing Tiggs then panting the picture I decided I couldn't take out the time to pant Mukka and Dogsby too then send them off never to be seen again. When Kaitlyn saw my version of Tiggs she knew who it was right away. She kept pointing saying, "Shiny Show". I still have to put a picture of Kaitlyn on it.

This is the one I'm going to use. It will go at the top between the star and number 2. As a disclaimer I just want to say I didn't draw any of these characters. The only thing I can take credit for is the foil star and her name. The star is the "super shiny" from The Shiny Show. When you win the game show you get the super shiny. The dog, monkey and cat below it are from The Shiny Show. The three hand puppets on your left are the Doodle Do's. Kaitlyn sounds so funny when she is talking about the Doodle Do's. I think it's one of the few double word things she can say fast. By the way, the Doodle Do's are chenille gloves with eyes on top of the hand and feathers, rope, and/or other random bits covering the puppeteers wrist and arm. The dog on the bottom right is Pippin. She is always getting into mischief. Kaitlyn loves watching her and has even cried on several occasions when the show ends. The #2 is from the Numberjacks. I used it mostly because it's a 2. Kaitlyn does watch Numberjacks, but I think the math is over her head.

Because we will be in billeting on Kaitlyn's birthday and not getting Cbeebies we are saying her birthday is on the 17th of December. We are hoping the card is actually used so Kaitlyn can see herself on TV. They show them on the child's birthday hence the reason we are making her birthday come early. Our household goods will start being packed up on the 18th. On the back of the card I have to write her birthday, name, and a message from us.

Alright I need to go get ready to leave. The Kodak store will be open in about 30 minutes and I want to get that picture printed.

The Bathroom

In our house the bathroom isn't a private place you go to use the toilet, shower, and so forth; it's a battle zone! I've always used the bathroom as a place to get away. If I want to read I go to the bathroom. It has always seemed like a good place. I mean come on, where is the one place you can go that people leave you alone? Up until Kaitlyn was born it was the bathroom. Don't misinterpret this Kaitlyn isn't always the one bothering me. And just to make sure she has the art of knocking on the door down Neal is right there with her. They are upset if the door is locked. If I happen to unlock it (or Neal does) they stick their heads in and say, "what are you doing?" *Insert eye rolling* Ummm, what am I doing? Oh, yeah... "Get out!"

Really though, bathrooms are magical places. A bathroom, whether a home restroom or public, is where a mom learns what she is really made of. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a public restroom having to balance Kaitlyn on one hip or over my shoulder while I pull up my pants or all the other tasks that go with being in a bathroom. It can be a serious juggling act. I also must play bathroom defence on a regular base. Honestly this one can really drive me nuts. Kaitlyn's game is "let's see what I can get out the door with". My job is to stop her. *sigh* There have been quite a few tampons earn their wings as they fly down the stairs. Kaitlyn will snatch something just out of my reach, play with it for a moment, then take off running out the door while I call her back. Sometimes she giggles while running out while other times she completely ignores me. My goal is to snag an arm, piece of clothing, anything really as she runs out the door. I'm getting better at the game so Kaitlyn has changed the rules. She doesn't always run out the door with her bounty, sometimes she brings it all to me. Yes, this may not sound bad, but when you find yourself with three boxes of tampons and the extra rolls of TP in your lap then see the toilet bowl brush coming at you, bristles first... not so cool. This really happened. Yesterday actually. Or was it the day before?

My favorite time in the bathroom is chat time. Kaitlyn is a girl who completely understand why some women's restrooms have couches and she fully supports them. She can be more chatty in the bathroom then anywhere else. At different random times I'm in the bathroom Kaitlyn will stroll in, put her hands behind her back (not always) and go off on some topic. I can't always understand her, but for a while she would talk about the Shiny Show. Now she has expanded her discussions to different characters on the CBeebies toddler channel. Her and I will go back in forth (which I love) saying names, portions of toddler show theme songs, and show names. It's the funniest thing. I must admit it's like talking a foreign language in front of Neal and it tickles me.

Some of the main things we say are: The Shiny Show, come on, Mukka, Pippin, "Ooh, Pippin", Upsy Daisy, "Upsy Daisy here I come", Igglepiggle, Makka Pakka (our favorite), ogpog, and Tombliboos. Just for kicks we throw a little counting in too. Kaitlyn's actually good at counting. She can count to 10, but tends to leave 8 out. She will not repeat numbers after you. If you say, "Kaitlyn say 1" she will say, "2, 3..." What makes our conversation so great is Kaitlyn's attitude about it all. You wouldn't think we were throwing out a big bunch of gibberish.

Kaitlyn's 22 months old today. You now have two months of shopping days left before Christmas.

18 Months Old

*Sniff, sniff* My baby is a year and a half old today. She doesn't seem to understand how big she is getting. She is still just under 31" so I think her arms must be growing because she can reach so much more then she used to. Nothing is safe anymore. Our bed is about 3' off the ground and she can climb on it. Once on the bed she will play with stuff on our headboard. Books, clocks, and so forth all have Kaitlyn's grubby fingerprints on them. Someone her in the UK got the bright idea to put on/off switches on plug-ins. I'm not sure what they were really thinking. I now have problems keeping our phone upstairs charged and my clock on the right time because Kaitlyn turns off the switches. She thinks it's a fun game.

Oh, my goodness Balamory is going to drive me nuts. This is the dumbest show ever. Seriously it is one of the shows on Cbeebies I hate the most. I also dislike the show with the car that is always chasing criminals. It's stupid! I'm not a Barney hater because I think Barney can teach kids good things. However one of the ladies on Balamory was just yelling at a cop saying his slowness in sorting through the lost and found is putting her off in getting her book back. I'm think, "hmmm, you left your book somewhere and now you're blaming someone?" Seeing how this is a kids show you would expect something good to come from the lady yelling. Nope! They made the lost and found boxes the cops fault until the end. The lady didn't apologize nor help sort the boxes. Tell me what Kaitlyn is supposed to learn from that?!!! Great now The Shiny Show is starting. I just find this one annoying. At least they do teach some good things on this show.