How to eat an ah-boo

Lyla's a bit of a hot mess. When we give her apples (ah-boo!), she stuffs them in her mouth like it's a chubby bunny contest.


You can tell by looking at her that this is the only logical way to eat apples. Why would you chew and swallow one piece at a time when you can cram them in like people on a Japanese subway?

Into the lion's den

Ask Lyla what a lion says, and she'll say "ROAR." It's quite intimidating. Like, she'd kick Simba's ass.

As you can see from the above photo, I forgot about taking a photo of the young lady until after she was in bed. So I crept up there while an Australian and/or British safari guide whisper-narrated in my mind: "What we have here is a fatheris stupidis. Watch him tiptoe into the lair of the ferocious wildebaby and try to get a picture. Shh, there he goes with the door. And...he got it without waking her up. How splendid!"

In other news, Lyla is learning that Sesame Street characters all have different names. For the longest time, she has called them all Elmo. We have a Zoe puppet, who is a newer character that the Street created to appeal to girls since all the other monsters are boys except for Big Bird, who is a hermaphrodite. To Lyla, Zoe is Elmo, which I imagine to Zoe is confusing indeed.

But Lyla learned Bert the other day, and we're very excited. So now every character is Elmo except for the pointy-headed yellow dude with the unibrow. He's "Buht."

Bedtime failure

That's the lens cap. Lyla doesn't always appreciate the paparazzi.

The child is currently in her crib crying her ass off, and I'm writing a blog about it. It's 45 minutes past her bedtime, and she's had plenty of food, milk, and Motrin in case she's teething. I just ran upstairs to consult with Julie, who's ironing in the next room. "You realize she's only been crying for about two minutes, right?" Julie said.

"Seriously?"

That's some role reversal. Usually I'm the one telling Julie that it's only been a minute or whatever. So I went downstairs and set the microwave timer for nine minutes, and I've been here typing ever since.

Lyla stopped crying when I typed the coordinating conjunction in that last sentence. It's a Christmas miracle, 11 days late. Actually, this whole deal is the fault of the holidays. Last week Lyla got to sleep in until 7:00 or 7:45, and now we haul her out of bed at 6:20. She got multiple naps last week if she demanded them, and in the serenity of her nursery. Now she's down to one nap a day amid the excitement of daycare. The kid doesn't stand a chance.

So we tried to put her to bed early tonight, but then she slept for 30 minutes and woke up and totally called us on our shenanigans. I think she thought it was a nap. Then when we gave her a little more milk, some food, etc., and I put her down again, she was like, "Why the HELL do I have to take another nap, idiot?"

The nine minutes are up. She hasn't cried in two paragraphs, so this is definitely promising.

Whoops, there she goes again. Wanna come over?

*Update*

She's asleep again. Man, she's tired--overtired, which is the problem. In other news, and this is probably an over-share but it's your own fault for reading this blog, here's some Dan-and-Julie banter.

Dan: How do you manage to look at me without being immediately aroused?

Julie: It's very easy.

Feeling pathetic

Lyla has been such a mama's girl lately that I might as well be a jar of peas. I picked her up at daycare, and she gave me one of those head nods that you reserve for people you might have met once but you can't remember. We got home and she crumpled to the floor and sobbed when she realized Mama was gone.

So I carried her around the house and distracted her with various objects. When we got to a picture of me, she said "Dada!" and pointed to it.

"Yes, that's Dada." Then she got upset and asked about Mama again. I'm pretty sure she likes pictures of me better than the actual me. One day I imagine she'll change my name from Dada to Not-Mama.

"Look who's here, Lyla," they'll say at daycare. "It's Not-Mama."

"WAAAH!"

Garbage man-ette

This was one of those days when Julie and I put Lyla to bed and then looked at each other downstairs and said, simultaneously, "Did you take a picture of her today? No. You didn't? Jinx, buy me a Coke! Stop saying what I'm saying. Stop saying what I'm saying!"

But then luckily I remembered that I did snap off one photographic masterpiece with my cellphone at the zoo. Those blurry objects on the left may or may not belong to a tiger.

I think it's possible that Lyla will become a janitor. When we take her to an expensive, wonderful place, she likes to veer off toward the waste receptacles and examine them carefully. We tell her no and pull her away, and sometimes she goes all squiggly and limp and cries. At 13 months old it's not embarrassing, but it will be in nine years.

It's okay. Lyla can be whatever she wants to be, including a janitor or a garbage man. I mean garbage woman. Garbage lady? Garbage man-ette? Whatever.

I don't know what she's pointing at in that picture, incidentally. Maybe I had garbage on my shirt.

Kid bowling

We took Lyla to Edinburgh Park today, which is an indoor kid paradise. And since it was like -74 degrees outside, it was packed with families and probably a pervert or two.



Lyla especially enjoyed the chair on wheels. Julie would sprint as fast as she could toward a gaggle of children before letting go and seeing how many she could knock over, like bowling. Now she's in jail.

Lies. But I'm sitting here typing this while Julie talks to her preggers sister about getting shots in the back and other gory details. My brain is happier in the bizarro-world where Julie gets thrown in jail for kid bowling.

The toddler zone

Our friend Luke fed Lyla breakfast this morning. It was her first meal of the decade, and she wholeheartedly approved of his technique, or rather lack thereof.

Lyla is starting to climb. We have this crappy square butcher block on wheels thing in our kitchen, and under it is a shelf. I sat on the floor for 20 minutes this afternoon watching Lyla pull herself onto the shelf and awkwardly slide off it. I was spotting her the whole time but trying to be cool about it, lest she roll her eyes at me and say, "Da-ad, quit acting like I'm a baby."

There's not always a lot to talk about when she's busy with something. It's like she's in the zone and cannot be bothered. Up the shelf, down the shelf, up, down. "So Lyla, what in the world are you thinking about?" Up. Down. Up. Down.

Sometimes it's the drawer of photos. Lyla gets this determined look in her eye as she transfers every single photo to the floor. Same with Julie's purse. She'll take her mama's small purse out of the bigger purse (it's like babushka purses), and run around with the credit cards. Lyla's in the toddler zone during those moments, and there's nothing you can say that would be of any consequence. "Ooh, Lyla, you found Tic-Tacs!" She does not hear you because she has forgotten you exist.

It happens at mealtime occasionally, too. Certainly during the Kix and yogurt bloodbath this morning, she was in the zone. Then tonight she had pizza and, well, you can see for yourself.