Two Sides to Every Story

Mommy's Birthday Princess:
Hi, I'm 3 today. Welcome to your next year of challenge...

The RARE movie review.

Hee!! So Cesar and I snuck out of Leila's school auction (for which I'd put in about 80+ volunteer hours) at 9:30 Saturday night to catch a 9:40 show of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Loves it! Seriously. I guess I finally need to give in and start watching How I Met Your Mother, for a regular dose of Jason Segal.
Huge Crush! And that in spite of his routine nekkidness in this film. Likewise crushing on Russell Brand as Liam/NoelGallagerchannelingMichaelHutchins - or rather Aldous Snow. Aldous...what a great name. Aldous Abarca anyone? And yeah...Paul Rudd - that is just unspoken right there. Even working with the short-term memory (/drug addledness) of Dory the fish in Finding Nemo...HAWTNESS. Jonah Hill's the only not hotness in the movie, but hello hilarious. And Mila Kunis - hi, girl crush. Never got into That 70s Show, but she is gorgeous - I've never seen bigger eyes. I don't know, my crush may just be on Judd Apatow and his way of bringing the improv style laughs, but I've laughed harder and harder with each film of his I've seen. Heartbreak, naked boys, Hawaiian seascapes and Dracula musicals in one film = priceless/

Decisive Much?

So the theme for the 3 year old's birthday party next weekend, for which we're likely spending a good $800 when all is said and done, is...DoraElmoShrekCarebears... Dora invites. Elmo pinata. Shrek cake. And Care Bears decorations/paper products. Something for everyone I suppose!!

Not quite ready for this one...

So the kid looks at me as I think she's falling asleep tonight and says through her laughter: "Cale (a school/ neighborhood friend) was singing a Hannah Montana song today!" OK, Cale has sisters who are about 7 and 5, but am I ready for my not even 3 year old kid to know the first thing about Hannah Montana?! Nope. I guess it won't be long before the two of us are appreciating Zac Efron's purdyness together!

Do I have any problem brainwashing her into liking Bob Dylan, Outkast, the Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash...? Again, negative, but I'd like to skip over Tweendom if I could...Alas, she very dismissively takes my In Rainbows disc out of the player and says "I don't like Radiohead!" Then replaces it with Ricky Martin. I can take a little Ricky here and there and Shrek 2 managed to turn her onto "Living La Vida Loca." Big time. It is pretty darn hilarious to watch her shake her little hips as she sings in very clear miming "she'll make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain..." I do admit.

Getting ready to play the Birchmere...?

A Pull Up Free Home??

Can I really plunk that $30 or so a week back into our non-existent entertainment budget? Not sure I'm ready to give away our collection of nighttime Pull Ups just yet, but for the past 2 nights, Leila has insisted on sleeping in underwear and has woken up DRY! She has also woken up at some point between the hours of 12:30 and 4:00 those nights and would only go back to sleep in our bed, which is a whole 'nother matter to take on this weekend...Thursday morning I was told that she was awake crying for me at 4:00 because "the mean lady from the dog movie (i.e.: Cruella from 101 Dalmatians) was in my room trying to unzip my pyjamas." Have yet to be given an explanation for last night, but if it happens again, I'm sure to face eviction from my husband - her forcing herself nearly horizontal between us don't so much work in the full bed! The only downside to our (/her and her teacher's - we get get about 2% of the credit) potty training success is that bedtime is now stretching to 9:30 with the "but I have to get out of bed and go to the potty..."s and, I probably sound like Rainman in my paranoia over accidents any time we're out when I'm going "wanna go potty? wanna go potty? wanna go potty?" every 5 seconds.

Still waiting for my gold star...

... for "sleeping" on an air mattress all last week. My neck and back is somewhat recovered. The in laws were lovely and Leila was thrilled to have them here, but it is nice to be able to get her to bed before 11:00 (11:00!) and to be able to walk in the house w/o tripping on people and/or suitcases. That 3rd room and basement in the new house should make all the difference for future inn-keeping.

And speaking of the new house, we did survive settlement on Friday - I have a lovely bottle of Signature Mortgage label Cabernet to commemorate our closing costs and cramped hands from the hundreds of signatures. We possess a key, but chances that the sellers are out before the remaining 56 days of our rent-back agreement have passed are about -0. Their 1st choice purchase is a short sale, with a backup contract on a for sale by owner... seems a bit nuts to me, but whatev... That puts us in the last week of May and I have enough to tackle in April/May w/ Leila's school auction, her birthday, then Cesar's 35th birthday... yeah, and all the organizing and purging and packing and furniture ordering that needs to be done.

And the kid - who is now about 3 weeks shy of 3 - CRACKS ME UP like always. She's always spoken at a somewhat - not to brag - advanced level, but the words coming out of her mouth these days are unreal. I thought her use of "actually" was impressive for a while, but the most recent one she's tossing off, in proper context no less, is "otherwise." Otherwise? For reals? I don't think I even use otherwise in my routine parlance and here she is stating "Mom! I need to go potty, otherwise I am going to wet my underwear..." etc... It is something. Last night, in lieu of her book before bed, we were occupied with a "celebration." "Mom, sit down over here, we're having a celebration for Ella's (a school friend) birthday...mom, we have cupcakes for the celebration...mom, what else did you bring for the celebration?...no, you can't clean up these yet, we haven't used them for the celebration..."