Happy Feet

No doubt I've previously mentioned my child's obsession with all things penguin related (you'd hope so, given the title of this blog!).

In the latest penguin related identity crisis, and almost directly quoting Happy Feet aka The Reason My Child Thinks She Is A Penguin, all week all I've heard is

"What's up with her feet and the way she is walking?"

Miss V has decided to walk like a penguin.  As in, take a look at how penguins waddle and how they hold their flippers next to their body, and that is what my two year old now walks like.

But it doesn't stop there.

She's also turned herself into a one toddler version of the cast of STOMP! with Happy Feet to the extreme.  And when I say extreme, I mean extreme.  Any surface is acceptable to tap dance on, including the wall next to her cot while she lies on her back (and while I'm in the bath of course).  We tap dance when we're happy, we tap dance when we're bored, we tap dance when we're annoyed, we tap dance just because we can.

I'd like to impose a Happy Feet ban, but I just don't have the heart to do so.

And hey, it's better than her belting out a touching rendition of a medley of Jesus Christ Superstar songs at the top of her lungs at 2am, while getting super passionate about 'people who are hungry, people who are starving' mattering more than Jesus's "pepe" (feet) and head (see the lyrics to Everything's Alright to 'get' that reference).

But oh for a normal life sometimes...

Cookie Bathroom Checkers

The other day I stupidly left a batch of cookies to cool on the table, and promptly forgot about them.  Miss V spotted them, obviously, so I gave her one and neglected to remember that she is now tall enough to reach the table on her own.

At some stage she decided she wanted to taste all of the cookies, and as I've mentioned before she has some serious lightning fast magpie tendencies.  If my back is turned for a minute, she has the ability to grab something and stash it where she wants it.

The cookies vanished, and silly me assumed she ate them.  Oh how wrong I was...

That night when I went to have a bath I walked into the bathroom and was faced with one of the strangest things I've ever seen.  I should also point out that I take major issue with ants in my house, so in my haste to prevent that I didn't bother to take a photo first...

In the middle of each tile in the bathroom floor was a half eaten cookie.  I'm still unclear as to why she decided to play a game of cookie bathroom checkers, or why she only wanted to eat half of every cookie she used.

In fact, as I'm sitting here writing about it the only thing I can think (still) is "WTF?!?!"

How to effectively sing showtunes...

Miss V. is moderately obsessed with showtunes.  When she was younger, the only thing would settle her was songs from the show Glee.  For 20 hours a day it's all we listened to, and it drove me insane.  For it, it spawned what I think may be a lifelong obsession.

Last night while she was in the bath, she wanted to listen to music, including the Glee version of 'Anything Goes'.  This is nothing out of the ordinary, but last night she decided to take the song to a whole new level of dramatic.  The attached photo is almost exactly how she apparently must now sing the song; arms outstretched, head thrown back and holding her high notes at the top of her lungs.

It was seriously one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life!

My Penguin has Mondayitis

For reasons which are completely unknown to me, my daughter absolutely hates Mondays.  She always has, and I suspect she always will.  Mondays for us go one of two ways:

1. She spends the day laying in bed like a princess, demanding I be her personal food and beverage service to prevent her being "dis-peesed" (displeased) with me.  Once she's stopped being a diva, she usually has a huge nap, wakes up for dinner and then goes back to sleep.  These lazy Mondays are pretty awesome.

2. She becomes a complete antichrist.  These Mondays are not so awesome.  Everything pisses her off, no food will satisfy her gourmet tastes, and I gain approximately 15 new grey hairs every single Monday.

Today, luckily, is the former.  Which gives me a chance to catch up on work, bake her penguin highness some cookies and schedule some blog posts.

It's actually kind of a shame... because I'm having a bit of a lazy Monday myself and would love to go have a nap as well!

French perfumed bubble baths and purple gumboots

Nothing beats getting into a nice, perfumed bubble bath after an emotionally exhausting day, laying back and then hearing

THUMP. Pitter-patter pitter-patter pitter-patter pitter-patter...

"HI MY BUBBA!"

Splash.

The thump would be Miss V. jumping out of bed.  The pitter-patter would be her running into the bathroom from the bedroom, greeting me and then throwing her purple gumboots into my bath before she starts stripping off so she can join me.

After all, what's a nice relaxing bath without a toddler to splash water in your face, dump approximately 60 toy boats into the tub with us and sing at the top of her lungs?

But you know what?  After the day I've had, it was exactly what I needed.

The Hummus Drama

Most days I am the first to say I have one of the most chilled out toddlers in the world.

Today is not one of those days.

I don’t know if it’s residual tiredness from the four day extravaganza that was her second birthday over the weekend, the full moon or what... but Miss V has been getting her antichrist on over the past 24 hours.

Yesterday, despite not being toilet trained and apparently having no desire to be toilet trained, she refused to wear a nappy.  This obviously did not end well.  After the third time she took her nappy off and wet her cot I ended up putting it on backwards so she couldn’t reach the snaps.

And then she decided she didn’t want to be in her cot.  Her short little legs are not long enough to climb over the edge of the cot, so Miss V decided to solve this issue by breaking her cot, kicking the side of it until the bottom came off the runners (and snapped one in the process).  Houdini style she managed to wiggle her way out of the gap and proudly declare that she got out all on her own.

And then there was today...

Miss V has some serious magpie like tendencies.  If my attention is diverted for even a second, she’ll grab something and hide it somewhere.  Today she hid a tub of hummus in the bedroom.  I put her down for a nap, thought that all was fine and when I checked on her she was asleep.  Washed a load of nappies and then went to check on her again.

Somehow she managed to open the hummus, get back into her cot and proceeded to eat three quarters of the tub using a hairclip to scoop it up with.

Hummus. Everywhere.

The garnish on the hummus cake was that when I went to grab her clothes after her shower, she got away from me, ran into the family room and proceeded to pee all over the floor.

This was not what I signed up for with this motherhood gig...

Granny Knickers

Knickers, undies, panties; call them what you want, but the fact is I am horrified at my latest underwear purchases.  Last night I went shopping (at K-Mart, no less!) and decided I would purchase some new underwear and bras.

The dilemma started over the weekend when I realised that all my underwear now falls down my butt, and after trying on my first normal, underwire bra after two years of wearing nursing bras and having a right little tanty at how uncomfortable it was I decided I needed to buy some new ones.

I'm embarrassed to admit how excited I was when I discovered underwire free, seamless bras almost identical to the nursing ones I've been wearing. What's worse is that they came in multi-packs and I got three packs of them.

And then there was the underwear... I walked right past all of the popular, pretty ones, scoffed at the mere idea of g-strings, and found myself frowning at the boyleg section; which I previously have loved.  But no, now the fabrics are "crap" apparently.  I then stumbled upon multi-packs of plain, grandma style cotton underwear.  And with glee, I stuffed a whole bunch of them into my trolley and strutted to the register just daring somebody to comment on it.

The fact is, these days I prefer comfort over cuteness.  The joys of motherhood.