The Mona Lexi

snow day

I'm generally not the type of person who can't get into the Christmas spirit without snow. Personally, I would be just as happy to sing a round of "Deck the Halls" on a beach somewhere. But, I will (reluctantly) admit that it was sort of nice to finally have snow on the ground. Over the course of a few hours, that which was once drab and grey was transformed into a magical landscape that glittered in the veiled sunlight. Since Tatyanna was in school for the day, I took advantage of the nice weather and headed to a park with Lexi. We met up with one of her friends from ballet and spent the afternoon playing on the climber and building a snowman. Truthfully, this is only the second snowman that I have ever helped build in my entire life. Yes I am aware that that fact is probably grounds to have my Canadian citizenship confiscated. That aside, I think our Frosty turned out pretty good!

.

I have always considered myself an open minded individual. During my years as a psychology student in university we spent hours discussing the role of gender stereotyping and its effect on children. In our "qualified"opinion, raising your child in a gender neutral environment and encouraging growth and exploration in all areas was the key to optimal development. We thought we were pretty clever, in our 19ish years of wisdom. Then, I actually had kids of my own and realized that it was all a crock of.....something. By the age of 2 my boy (despite the dolls etc that were available to him) was obsessed with monster trucks and earth moving equipment and Skylar seemed to have a innate homing devise for the nearest mall and was forever asking for more "pretties" for her hair. Tatyanna was a bit of a wild card (much like her mother) and was only obsessed with horses. Pink horses, brown horses, horses riding in monster trucks. She was only interested if it had a mane and tail....with or without "pretties". We always sort of wondered how Lexi would turn out, as she did seem to have a fairly broad range of interests. That is until she and I had the following conversation this morning:

(thus proving in my opinion that psychology books are only good in theory and in truth, girls will be girls and boys will be boys)

Lexi: What's your favourite colour mommy?
Me: Red
Lexi: Oh.
Me: What's your favourite colour?
Lexi: It's purple....I used to like blue....but not anymore. And you can't like red anymore either. You have to pick a different colour.
Me: But I like red. Red is most definitely my favourite colour.
Lexi: It can't be. You can't pick red. Blue and red go together. Keirnan can pick red because he's a boy and they are 'boy' colours.......how about pink?
Me (because I like to be difficult): Nope, I like red......red it is....in fact, I love red.
Lexi: Well, you can't pick red.

****the stare down begins****

Lexi: fine...is it sparkly?
Me:??
Lexi: I guess you can pick red.....but only if it's a sparkly red.
Me: Uh.....Ok....sparkly red it is.

So, just in case you were ever wondering, my favourite colour is red......but only if it has sparkles.

Some parents get the kind of kids that yell "I HATE YOU!!!" when they are mad, others have kids that think outside the box.

Lexism of the day:

"Yah, well your hair is NOT cool.....and that should make you sad....hrmph!" add a look that could kill and some crossed arms and you will have my lovely 4 year old after I told her that I wasn't impressed with her current attitude.

You can take the Lexi out of China but......

It was a rainy sort of day and with not much else to do in a rural Manitoba town we decided to browse around the local mall. Lexi, being a disturbingly avid shopper for a 3 year old quickly found a shirt that caught her interest. After informing me very seriously that it was in fact a VERY nice shirt, she wondered how much it cost. After checking the tag, I informed her that the price was $16. Immediately she shot me an incredulous look followed by an exclamation of "Tai gue la!!!! How about we pay$15"

Sorry kid, it doesn't quite work that way over here.

In a blink of an eye my daughter has been transformed from someone who looks like they should be playing an urchin child in a production of Les Miserables.....

to an extra in a sequel to Joe Dirt.

I'm still not sure whether to laugh or cry and I have a hard time looking at it without cringing, just a little....but I've got to say, we have been having a good time stocking up on funky hats.

"I DON'T want to go to my old empty house.......and I DON'T want to go to my new messy house........I'm just going to stay here.......AND SIT ON MY ASS!!!!!!!"

In case you were wondering exactly how the kids were adjusting to the move, the above conversation, which happened to take place in a main isle of our local shopping mall, should sum it up quite nicely for you. I'm not sure what the proper parenting response to that little scene is but it probably would have been lost on me as I was trying too hard not to laugh to make any form of speech possible.

If you give a kid some scissors......she'll give herself a mullet

There are certain things that are fairly concrete on my list of "Stuff I don't want to see on the floor when I walk in the house." (doesn't everyone have that list?) Large tufts of hair are one of them, making the list somewhere after "things that should be found inside the body" and somewhere ahead of "various foodstuffs." I've got to admit that initially my reaction was one of horror and I found myself wondering if our feline companion had suddenly satisfied her craving for cavy. As a ran to the guinea pig cage and heard their excited squeaks as my footsteps fell in the general vicinity of the fridge I was filled with a definite sense of relief. That is until I noticed that there was even more hair in various tufts all over the kitchen floor. Upon closer inspection, I realized that a majority of the hair was in fact human and could only belong to one member of our household. This particular individual could also be referred to as a repeat offender and has sat through more than one lecture on the requisite qualifications of salon personnel. Apparently these discussions fell upon deaf ears.

I felt at this point that it was fairly safe to assume that the darker black and grey chunks probably came from her tabby side kick and cringed thinking about exactly what the cat had to endure over the course of the evening's cut-a-thon. More than a little uneasy at this point I continued to wander the house in search of the guilty party. Then I saw her, standing under the glare of the hallway light with at distinctly guilty looking grin plastered on her face. To be truthful, I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry. My darling little girl with the long, wavy locks had given herself a mullet.....and done such a good job of it that it looked fairly professional. I wouldn't say that I'm a particularly superficial person, and I do have a strong belief in the importance of being able to express yourself, but at this point, I kind of felt sick. I stood there, dumbfounded, words eluding me as I realized that for the next while, every time we take her out in public it will actually look like we wanted her hair to look like this.

Because, everyone wants to have Billy Ray's love child, no?

Things you'd prefer not to hear from your child....all in one day

1. canyoutakemepottycanyoutakemepottycanyoutakemepottycanyoutakemepottycanyoutakemepottycanyoutakemepotty.....nevermind
2. I'm a big girl...i fixed it all by myself....with grampa's tools!
3. Wanna do magic mommy? Come and find the turtle....he disappeared!!!
4. Come and see what happened.....there's POOP!!!! It's all over the kitchen floor!! I think it was Winston.

Life with a 3 year old, it is anything but boring.

Same pig....different day

"I'm going home....I'm going to school to see Keirnan and Skylar!" Lexi emphatically announced as she stood poised at the room door wearing nothing but her sister's pink sneakers and a white plastic shopping bag containing all of her clothes, slung across her back. A magnetic story board with its assortment of princesses and pretty dresses was in one hand and a colourful plastic pony in the other.

I think it's safe to say that she's had enough! I wish I was closer to the camera because that was truly a "kodak moment" Her feelings echo those of everyone around her, but this is only the halfway mark....there are still 4 long weeks to go.

perspective of the 2 year old variety

Tatyanna (gleefully sending her plush dumbo through a series of gravity defying loops and dives) - Look!! Dumbo flying!!!

Me (because I'm a mom and as such like to state the obvious and then ask dumb questions about it) - Wow, look at that! Dumbo is flying! Is he using his big ears?

Lexi (interupting with all the disgust and self importance that can be mustered by a 2 year old) - No! He has a flying mouse. (this is followed up by the "are you stupid?" look)

Hmm. Maybe we had it wrong all along. Maybe it has nothing to do with the ears. Maybe it's really the mouse that somehow imbues its magical powers upon a poor deformed elephant and gives it proxy flying abilities. I've got to say, I've never seen it quite like that before.

Trent - "Lexi, I'm going to count to 5. You'd better have stopped what you are doing before I finish counting....1.....2....." (he's a big softie. I only count to 3)

Lexi - "3.....4......6......"

Trent - "Hey!!! What happened to 5?"

Lexi - "huh? oh...i dunno"

Today I overheard her in the dining room talking to the dog. It was kind of cute until I overheard her tell him, " Winston, you are such a pain in my ass!"

When I lived in Edmonton and was surrounded by an awesome circle of organic eating, co-sleeping, attachment parenting style moms, my decision to allow my daughter to self wean was made without any real thought. In that group of people, it was the norm and when we got together on a weekly basis it wasn't uncommon to see a mom tandem nursing their 2 year old as well as their newborn. Here, on the stark (and currently frigid) planes of central Canada, my decision has not been met with the same warm and fuzzy reception. In fact, upon finding out that I am still nursing a two year old I am often met with looks that are a mixture of shock and discomfort. In this part of the country, cattle lactate, not women and although a majority of the local establishments have those funky "breast feeding friendly" stickers in their windows I have yet to actually see a mom try it.

Despite my admittedly over opinionated views on the whole "breast is best" mentality (and I do understand that for some women, bottle feeding is the right choice - yes I know how conflicted that sounds, but hey, I'm a realist) I have a confession to make. I want mine back. It has, after all, been 4 years since I was able to buy a bra without having to consider whether or not it had "easy access". If you want to put it into a time frame, my total time breastfeeding thus far works out to 6.47 years.....not consecutively. That's a long time. The whole self weaning thing is all well and good if your child actually weans them self. My little darling must have been out when that memo came around and has made no motion to even attempt to gain some independence from "the boob". In fact she will regularly tell me that they are hers and gets downright indignant when I inform her that the bar is in fact closed. At the moment, I'm trying a gradual decline in the number of times in a day that I allow her to nurse and would consider it a moderate success thus far. I thought about cutting her off cold turkey but as there are no 12 step programs for 2 year old boobie addicts it seemed a little harsh. My goal is to have her entirely weaned by the end of February. It seems relatively far off, and I'm optimistic that I can do it without causing any undue emotional trauma. There is a part of my though, that has doubts and is afraid that we will someday end up on some cheesy daytime talk show discussing the logistics of breastfeeding your child as they enter grade 3. I hope it pays well.......

share and share alike???

When you have little kids, you begin instilling in them a certain value system of what your culture believes is acceptable behaviour. Things like saying "please" and "thank you" are encouraged from the moment language first begins to emerge (sooner if you practice signing). A great many of the kids shows out there have menagerie of colourful characters, all of whom extol the virtues of proper manners and the importance of sharing. But, as I noticed this evening, there are some instances when perhaps sharing is not the appropriate course of action.

"Lexi, what are you doing?" (knowing full well what it was that was keeping her so engrossed)

"I picking my nose. You want some? I can share with you."

"Umm, thanks for the offer sweetie, but I think I'm going to pass."

This would be one of those times.

Things you should never mention to a 2 year old

I always knew that she would be the first of my children to do this and the moment my sister announced her forthcoming wedding I knew, without a doubt, that the moment in question would be soon.

This morning my father-in-law casually made the suggestion to Lexi that perhaps she should get her bangs trimmed. They were, after all, hanging in her face and causing her some degree of annoyance as she had to continually brush them aside as they watched t.v. together. Lexi, with all the burgeoning independence of a typical 2 year old decided to take it upon herself to perform the necessary task herself. Why wait to have something done for you when you can do it for yourself....right??!!

The damage: