The last two days

Have been torture. Animalia wakes up at 3 or 4am and is instantly and happily awake. I try in vain to put her back to sleep and she doesn't go to sleep. She wants to watch Scooby Doo and have a snack. This morning it was fruta, jugo, and Goldfish Crackers. See... at 3am or even 4am I shouldn't be awake. Waking up this early is bound to give me diarrhea or some other random and uncomfortable ailment. But there we are, in the "libbing room" watching Scooby Doo.

I don't think I've mentioned her love for Scooby Doo here. She loves him and I guess if that's the way we ruin our daughter then that's the way we do it.

Anyhow, there I am, eyes barely open. Then at around 6am she asks me to lay down with her on the couch. We cuddle, she falls asleep, I doze until my alarm goes off and I have to stumble around sleep deprived to get ready for work. I carry her sleepless body to the car where she seems awake enough for a brief conversation. Then she stops talking and I look back-- asleep again! I am terribly jealous of her, being chauffered around in a padded seat, comfortable enough to fall asleep. I take her to Nana's house and she continues to sleep as I arrange her on the couch.

She sleeps til 10:30. Of course that means that she didn't take a nap which could mean that she's in a terrible mood, an angry, vengeful mood. Or it could mean that she's tired enough by the day's end to fall asleep tonight without incident. Or she could wake up at 3am and be ready for her day again. And then I'll continue to be sleep deprived and diarrhea-ish.

Fixing it.

"Stop picking your nose," her Dad tells Animalia.
"I'm not picking it! I'm fixing it!" she replies.

Best excuse for nose picking ever.

Alright.

Alright. It's what she says when she's in agreement. Alright can be said with happiness and enthusiasm or with anger and resentment.

Last night, the Animalia was exhausted. She'd refused to take a nap and had an active day so at 6pm, about an hour before it's ok for her to go to sleep so that she won't wake up at 4am, she started to doze off. I came up with the brilliant idea that I would bribe her with a popsicle. That would surely keep her awake.

So I ask her, her tiny eyes closing, if she'd like a popsicle. Alright, she said quietly. I brought her a popsicle and opened for her. Her eyes were tiny slits but still, she took it. She held it for a second and her head drooped. Are you going to eat your popsicle? I asked her. She opened her eyes just a tiny bit. Alr...

She was done for the night. I removed the popsicle and put her in bed at 6:05pm. She slept til 5am. Alright.

Protein Monster

Animalia loves to eat:
Carne which includes beef, pork, and all veggie meats. Hard boiled eggs, but mostly just the white part. Pollo. Frijoles. Greek yogurt (more protein than regular yogurt). Almond milk, any flavor. Avocado.

She also loves black olives, tomatoes, cereal and milk, corn on the cob, pasta, queso, and sopita.

There are other foods she eats too, but this list represents her true loves-- mostly, as you can see, protein.

When does practicality become hoarding?

We sorted through Animalia's clothes the other day, me and Nana. It was something I'd wanted to do ever since we found out The New Baby is a girl. There were lots of clothes from the last two years, ridiculous amounts of clothes. Hoarding amounts of clothes.

I think was being both practical and lazy. Lazy? Maybe or maybe just busy. See, what happens is that there are lots of clothes. Animalia grows out of those clothes. I put them in a bag and put them in her closet for later sorting. I figured I'd sort them and keep some for any possible New Baby Girl or sell them for later clothes for Animalia or give them away to a friend or family member in need of baby girl clothes or donate them to one place or another. So I did that for over two years. Animalia's tiny closet was beyond stuffed. Then I pulled everything out into laundry baskets and said that I'd start the sorting project any day now. And I didn't, you know with little things like work and mothering and sleep getting in the way. And then one day Nana says that she has some things to go through, did I want to bring all the stuff over and we can do it together? Sure, I wasn't getting it done on my own. So I packed it all up. Three baskets and a trashbag full of tiny clothes. Nana had a couple of bags of her own. And we did it while Animalia napped on the couch.

The results? Poor New Baby. She has her complete wardrobe all set. No new clothes for her. She has her first two years wardrobe all complete.

Eighty-four Five

Eighty-Four Five is the name she's given to her notebook. It's just a regular old steno pad, maybe it looks official? Eighty-Four One Five is the name she's given to the pencil she uses to write in the Eighty-Four Five. Those are her favorite numbers.... those long, hyphenated sounding, official looking things. Those and "two."

Jan Brewer

You know the part of Sleeping Beauty where Maleficent, the evil witch, comes into the castle during baby Rose's (Sleeping Beauty as a tiny baby) baptism and curses her? Animalia asked me if Maleficent was Jan Brewer and if Jan Brewer was there to hurt the baby. So I said yes. What else was I supposed to say? No, baby, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, signer of the infamous SB1070 and HB2281, is a nice lady and wouldn't hurt anyone? I can't lie to her. At least not about Jan Brewer.