Do not go gentle

Here we are at Jen and Jason's wedding rehearsal, where Lyla is one of three flower girls whose combined age is not quite four. Tomorrow an usher will pull the three of them down the aisle in a wagon. I think this is a highly intelligent plan that could not possibly go awry.

Unfortunately, the wagon had a conflict this afternoon and was absent from the rehearsal. It's okay. The actual wedding ceremony will be the perfect opportunity for Lyla to sit in a wagon for the very first time.

Jen and Jason's wedding coordinator is flamboyant and fastidious, sort of a Midwestern knockoff of Charlotte's friend Anthony on Sex and the City. Tomorrow when Lyla jumps out of the moving wagon and runs to me to loudly demand boogie wipes, I will have my camera ready in case his head explodes.

So anyway, after the rehearsal and before the groom's dinner, I drove Lyla to my parents' house. "Dada, shoe off," she said, and kicked it to the floor.

"You kicked your shoe off," I said idiotically.

"Dada, shoe on," she replied. "Shoe on, Dada. Dada, shoe on. Shoe on. SHOE ON. WAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Um, it's on the floor back there, kiddo. I can't help you. I need to, like, you know, drive the car and whatnot."

At this point she threw a shit-fit reminiscent of July's "Do you want yogurt?/Yeah!/Oops, we don't have any" debacle.


"DAAAAAADAAAAA SHOOOOE ON!"

She was very happy to be left at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and I was happy to leave her.


Of course, tomorrow she'll surprise us all by sitting nicely in the wagon, smiling for the cameras, and ignoring her shoes. But I hope not. Shit-fits make better stories.

Dear Lyla,

Do not go gentle into that good wagon.
Rage, rage against the usher as he's draggin'.

Love, Dada

Snipping the tip

"Tseese."

I'm tired of hearing the telltale plunk of a binky hitting the floor, followed seconds later by Lyla crying and baby-swearing. How long will it take her to get over their absence? Two days? Three weeks? Four years? I don't care. It's tough love time.

So next week I'm going to circumcise Lyla's binkies. It'll piss her off mightily when they don't feel the same in her mouth. Then the next day when they're even more cut up, she'll go temporarily insane.

Well, hopefully it'll be temporary.

It's cruel, but it's time. By February she'll have to contend with a screaming infant the next room over. A falling binky simply cannot continue to thwart sleep.

I feel like such an a-hole.

Climber

I was cutting a cheeseburger into Lyla-sized pieces when suddenly an eerie calm swept the room. If you've ever spent time with a toddler, you know that a lot of words could accurately describe any given moment, but calm is not one of them. Calm means someone has discovered the toilet bowl, the knife drawer, the chimney.

This is calm:


Yeah, she climbed up there herself.

Up there:


We gotta get this kid into a big-girl bed.

Sticky

When I was little, I'd head to the sink mid-meal to rinse off my hands. During especially sticky meals (pancakes, ribs, anything with honey, etc.) there would be multiple trips. Should've probably just eaten meals in the bathtub.

You know when your parents were like, "I can't wait until you have a child just like you!" Well here you go:

"Dada, ticky!"

"Lyla, just lick your fingers."

"NO! Dada, ticky!"

"I wiped them a second ago. How about we wipe them when you're done eating?"

"Ah done. Ah done. Ticky!"

I hand her a paper towel. She wipes her hands, throws it on the floor, and laughs.

"Lyla, we don't--"

"Ah-wee, Dada." (Sorry, Dada.)

"It's okay. Do you want some more apples?"

"No."

"How about some--"

"Ticky, Dada."

"Lyla--"

"TICKY!"

Sucky orchard

Today we went to an apple farm, a commercialized, crowded, overpriced sad-zone with, as far as I could tell, very few good apples still in trees. If they'd consider renaming it, I think Hell's Backyard is fairly accurate.

But Lyla got to ride a tractor. Whee!


It cost a dollar to ride the tractors, and Lyla got approximately 37-cents of fun out of it.

In the next photo, we are on a two-dollar-apiece hayride.


Look how much fun everyone's having!

Lyla did get to pet a goat.


I can't believe nobody charged money for that part; they're missing an opportunity. I should've pretended to be an employee and opened up shop: one dollar to touch the goat, two dollars to pet it, and five dollars to just stand there.

Bitch bitch bitch. It was fine. There was a nice bench, for instance.


And we did get five good apples.


Julie picked them...out of the bin in the gift shop.

Colony

The Eden Prairie mall play area is like a gigantic hill of toddler ants. They run around, climb on stuff, slide down stuff, and coexist in a bizarre hybrid of chaos and order. I can't believe how they manage to avoid crashing their skulls into each other.

I sat on the sidelines imagining what I would do if I suddenly saw Lyla or another kid fall off the upper part by the slide. A heroic leap and a dive, arms outstretched to cradle the head just as it--but it never happens, of course. They zip around each other without communicating, at least not in any way adults can detect. But close your eyes and you can almost hear a hum.

Apple drama

After some pasta, some string cheese, some bread and hummus, and some screaming, I prepared some delightful apple slices for my hot mess of a daughter. Then her mother walked in and undermined my apple-slicing authority.

Look at that apple-eating grin.


Upon seeing her mother's big-person apple, Lyla enthusiastically rejected my slices.

"Lyla, can you--"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAH! AH-PULL!"

"Dan, just give her--"

"What, yours?"

"WAAAAAAH!"

"No, another one."

"Lyla, do you want a big apple?"

"WAAAAAAAAAAH! Yeah."

Probably a molar

After Lyla moaned and groaned much of last night, I took her to Target Clinic this afternoon. In their semi-professional, semi-incompetent opinion, Lyla does not have an ear infection. It's probably a molar. Or a demon. But to combat her runny nose, the nurse, who was possibly an insane asylum patient posing as a nurse, said I should give her Children's Zyrtec.

When I did not find it on the shelf, I sought a second opinion from the pharmacist, who helpfully pointed out that Children's Zyrtec had been recalled and that you're not really supposed to give it to 22-month-olds anyway.

At that moment Lyla suggested we go bye-bye, and I was overwhelmed by her intelligence.

And earlier in the waiting room, we overwhelmed my camera.

Sock on hand

Sock on hand is currently the epitome of leisure time enjoyment.


Yes, she is eating Cheerios with a sock on her hand. Ick.

On our commute home from daycare, we hit a lot of red lights, and Lyla's favorite way to entertain herself is, you guessed it, to get a sock on her hand as soon as possible. It's easier said than done since she's in a car seat and has the eye-hand coordination of a 22-month-old.


"Dada, yock off!" she yells. And I have to put my hand back there, find her foot, and yank.

Not today. I finally said no, told her to figure it out herself. The world is not going to take your socks off for you.


"Dada, YOCK OFF!"

"Sorry kiddo."

"WAAAAAAH!"

And then suddenly it came off with a shloop.


Four seconds later, sock on hand.


"HI DADA."

"Hi Lyla."

"HIIIII DAAADAAAA."

"Hi Lyla."

First comes arm

"Uh oh."

"Yeah, 'uh oh' is right."

"Uh oh, Dada."

"Your arm is all silly."

"Sih-wy awm."

"Silly arm in your shirt."

"Ha ha ha!"

Why does this feel like the ominous precursor to Lyla stripping naked in public?

Mullet and booby

Someone at daycare took out Lyla's pigtails and gave her a skeet-shootin', tobacco-chewin', pork-rind-eatin', Nascar-watchin' short-long, ape-drape, business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back mullet.


Sorry, sweetheart, makeup ain't gonna make up for that hairstyle.

When it's just Lyla and me in the house, I will sing to her the following: "Hey Lyla, shake your booty-booty. Shake your booty-booty." I'll leave the tune and rhythm to your imagination. Then some booty shaking ensues. And the day goes on.

"Dada, ake booby booby!" is how Lyla greeted me this afternoon. Niiice.

Good morning

Julie took Lyla to Starbucks and Target this morning while I stayed in bed and played video games. It was totally awesome.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get her some ice cream.

Uncouth

Lyla will look at these photos in five years and be like, "Wow, Grandma's phone is ancient."

My son-fetus isn't kicking yet, but he's certainly swimming around a lot, occasionally bulging out his mother's belly in alien ways. "Is that his elbow?" I ask, my hand on a bulge before it disappears. "His head? His butt?" Julie knows where this is headed. "Is it his knee? Hey, you don't suppose--"

"Dan, I don't understand why you think you're funny."

"What? You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"You are going to suggest, as you always do, that our son's penis was pushing out my stomach."

"That's uncouth. I would never say that."

"Whatever. And don't put it on your blog either."

Snot particle ferris wheel

Lyla has a terrible cough, possibly due to her secret unending love of cigars. "But I don't inhale, Dad." Sure you don't, kiddo. Sure you don't.

It's the worst at night when her horizontal sleeping position allows gravity to pull her snot into her throat's most ticklish spot. Then she coughs, shooting snot particles upward from her mouth, where they arc parabolically before plummeting into her nostrils again, and the cycle continues. Come over and watch; it's like her head is powering a turbo-speed snot particle ferris wheel.

And so now, just shy of 22 months old, Lyla is still not quite allowed to take decongestants. I don't know why; I think it's some backroom deal where the decongestant companies get a cut of the profits from all the extra coffee I have to drink just to appear alive.

Of course, now an ear infection is a foregone conclusion. Maybe Lyla will end up with tubes, which I've never quite understood. "Oh, just get tubes put in her. My kids all had tubes. Tubes tubes tubes." Is there a do-it-yourself tubes kit? Can you rig the tubes so they drain into little cups taped to the outside of Lyla's shirt? That'll impress the kids at school.

Grand theft jacket

That's Lyla's flower girl dress for Auntie Jen's wedding. Apparently she's also wearing perfume.

Lyla's daycare teacher told me that Lyla struggled to listen to directions today. She was allegedly pulling the other kids' jackets off the hooks and trying them on. Then when the teacher asked her to stop, she did not stop. And when the teacher asked her again, Lyla threw a jacket on the floor and then ran away laughing.

We had a serious talk about it in the car.

"Lyla, were you trying on jackets today?"

"Yeah."

"And did you throw a jacket on the floor and laugh at your teacher?"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

It must have been a case of mistaken identity.

Afternoon slice

Julie picked up Lyla from daycare today so I could take Tulip the diarrhea dog to the vet for a second time since Monday. On a side note, I might never eat creamy peanut butter again.

Sorry if I just ruined your lunch.

The kids were in the little gym area, and when Julie looked through the window she saw Lyla holding a hula-hoop and sobbing. As soon as she opened the door, Lyla saw her, dropped the hula-hoop, and sprinted over.

"Lyla, what's the matter?"

"Up peez." Sniffle.

A teacher came over and pointed to the wall, where other hula-hoops were hanging. "She's crying because she wanted a different color."

By this time, Lyla was happy again. "Bye bye!" she said and waved to the teacher. Then she and Julie came home, where I had already given Tulip her first dose of shit-thickening medication and started making pasta.

And pasta is why Lyla looks like an Oompa-Loompa in the above photo.

The big helper

That's a mirror.

Today the daycare nugget was that Lyla said no to something. Her favorite word is yeah, so she has a reputation among the teachers as being very agreeable. The teachers in the two older toddler rooms are fighting over who will get her in two months when she moves, though I have a theory that the fight is partly due to how handsome I am.

It's not a serious theory.

So today Lyla said no, and her teachers were like, "She said no! Lyla said no!" The conversation went like this: "Lyla, do you want to help us put toys away?"

"No."

She helped anyway.

Despite it all

Auntie Lori asked if we had cut Lyla's hair.



Uh, nope.

We have bees. Had bees. The Orkin man came out today and caused a bee-pocalypse in the nest below our porch. On Saturday the dogs got attacked, swarmed and pelted by those things, to the point where Tulip wouldn't even run away, just cowered there and howled, so I had to enter the fray and grab her. I couldn't detect any welts on the poor dog, but that was about the point she stopped eating for two days, opting instead to spend most of her time hiding under the couch.

The vet got her to eat, though. Nice how that works out: I'm playing my 6th game of iPhone cribbage in the waiting room, when out comes the "doctor" (yes, I know vets are actual doctors, but this girl was like 25 and introduced herself as "Dr. So-and-So," all fresh from graduation and self-important as hell, before taking my dog to the back room to stick her finger up its butt, I mean seriously) and...where was I at the start of that sentence? Oh yeah, so Tulip ate a liver treat from the doctor, so we're all good, just give her some of this canned prescription food, and that'll be $68, please.

Anything conclusive on the rectal, doc?

She was clean.

No shit.

I guess you could say that.

So before the vet but after the Orkin man, I picked Lyla up from daycare and brought her home to her mother, who has thrown out her back somehow and stayed home from work today in agony but is convinced that she'll be in tomorrow guaranteed, but just in case, could I go to her sister Jen's place, who picked up her laptop from work today, in case she actually does stay home tomorrow, so she doesn't have to use my school laptop again like she did today. Are you with me? Oh, and bring home a McDonald's McFlurry on your way home, snack size should do, Reese's, and feel free to get yourself one, too.

Dinner?

Order pizza.

So Orkin, Lyla, vet, pizza, Jen's, McDonald's, and now I'm home. But here's the thing: when you put Lyla to bed and you're holding her with the fan on and the music on and the lights off, she puts her head down on your shoulder. Every time. But sometimes, and tonight was one of those sometimes, she lifts her head from your shoulder, says "Other one," and lowers it onto your other shoulder. And those are the last words she says all day, and you think to yourself that despite it all, everything's cool.

Sock club

Those are all singleton socks, socks that don't have a buddy, socks that only an amputee would wear. I think Lyla must have an identical set stashed under her crib mattress or something, all part of her master plan to stall the morning routine.

Look at her:


You have no idea what she's capable of.

Example:


She climbed to the top of that today. I contorted myself under it and kept hands on her the whole way, but I didn't help her. At the top when I finally intervened (she was horizontal and a wee bit precarious) by threading her between the bars and lowering her to the ground, she cried. Then she did it all again.

And she's becoming a respectable dog walker.


And an excellent bee.


(Thanks Great-Auntie Jean!)

So anyway, I'm convinced Lyla is behind a high-level conspiracy to rid the household of half her socks. Maybe she started a club at daycare. "The first rule of sock club is, you do not talk about sock club. The second rule of sock club is, you DO NOT talk about sock club." And then they pummel each other with socks.

Hey, the truth might be stranger.