Liza got picked to help the magician at the circus preshow last night

Coolest. Thing. Evar.

I think I just peed myself

I don't find 'em, I just pass 'em on:

Reason # 56 to never stop by my house unannounced

The houses Liza builds for the cats have gone viral, taking over entire rooms in the length of time it takes me to, say, use the toilet. Yesterday I announced that I was going to ride the exercise bike, and before I could get into my workout clothes, she had built a shantytown in the family room that depended on the exercise bike for its main structural integrity.

And don't even get me started on Liza's room. She wrote a sign that says "No Mom or Dad" which she tapes to her door all day, which means we're not allowed to come in. She reinforces the idea by tying a piece of plastic lanyard from her doorknob to the dresser next to the door and then hanging Bob the Blanket from it, leaving the door open but effectively roping off the room as if it was in a museum or something. The only time we're permitted to enter is at bedtime, and even then we have to wait for her to take down the sign before we can come in to read her stories.

On the positive side, though, if I can't go in, I can't clean her room, which means it's not my responsibility anymore. Hurray!

Boo at the Zoo

Last weekend we attended Boo at the Zoo for the third year running. Liza has been declaring for weeks that she was going to be a fairy princess, using her sleeping beauty dress and some wings ... but she decided at the last minute that she wanted to design her own costume, and I was frankly too tired to argue it with her as long as it was warm enough. Which is why we ended up with this:

For the record (and from the top), that's a princess tiara with stickers all over the netting at the back and two butterfly hair clips clipped to the front, a butterfly t-shirt over top of a pink fleece sweatshirt, a butterfly hairband as a bracelet, two cheap dress-up skirts with hair bows clipped to the hem, a pair of tights, and white dress shoes that are a size too small. And apparently she was a garden pixie (or a garden sprite, or a garden fairy with no wings, depending on when you asked her).

This was the first time we've managed to get Liza to willingly go ask for the candy, and talk to the cello players, and even volunteer to be a helper during the magic show. It was also the first year that the animatronic dinosaurs have been on display at the same time as Boo at the Zoo, which is why we got to see things like this:

We all agreed that the one they dressed up as a hula girl (complete with lei, shell bikini top, and grass skirt) was the funniest, but this one was the best-lit, so that's what you get to see.

It will be interesting to see whether Liza repeats the costume on actual Halloween, or comes up with something new. I'm guessing we'll get some new mash-up of 400 pieces of stuff from her dressup trunk, but maybe she'll surprise me. You never can tell with Liza.

Ack! My eyes! My back! My ears!

If possible, skip the first 45 seconds of meaningless lyrics sung by girls with no diction skills. The rest is worth the wait.



Holy shit. And I thought Cirque was good, but those tiny Chinese girls have nothing on the Ross sisters.

Maybe my mind is just in the gutter too much, but ...

Doesn't this sound a little, um, suggestive?

"But before she could get the words out, Mr. Rogers put something in her mouth. It was so good Mrs. Rogers forgot about being angry."

In context**, it makes perfect sense, and I'm sure it wasn't meant to be inappropriate, but darn, I just about choked when Liza read that to me tonight.

**"Mrs. Rogers was angry. She was very angry. She opened her mouth. Mrs. Rogers meant to tell Amelia Bedelia she was fired. But before she could get the words out, Mr. Rogers put something in her mouth. It was so good Mrs. Rogers forgot about being angry. 'Lemon-meringue pie!' she exclaimed."

Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

Dude, you have got to click over to see the Queen of Hearts costume she is giving away. OMFG. I waaaaaaaant that, even though I know there is no way I could get Liza to wear it. I just want to hang it up and gawk at it for the next couple of years. And maybe pet it occasionally.

Snort.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/consumerist/2009/10/10-9-2009_8-27-54_PM.jpg

Hmm, a cucumber and a tomato, or something more, erm, erotic? Guess that depends on where you squirt the icing ...

No, I did not just write that about a cookie cutter based on a Christian kids' show. It was a figment of your imagination.

Look! Free press for Lazy Mama!

http://www.parenting.com/activity-parties-gallery/Activities-Parties/Click-to-Buy-Homemade-Halloween-Costumes/16/

Mermaid costumes ... get one before some strangers at parenting.com snatch them all up!

Liza says:

"I have a sug-gest ... sug-chest ... sug-glet ... I have an idea!"

Wild America (or at least Florida)

We started off today with Liza making a final visit with her "friends," the egrets who haunt a stream near Frontierland.

Then we did some nature photography in Tomorrowland, capturing a snail on film (SD card?) while we sat out a thunderstorm.

And since I think I've finally gotten through to Liza that she will not be allowed to take home an anole, we had to get a picture of one of those, too.

Oh, and we rode some things, too.

The end.

So much for planning

Today's planned itinerary involved a return to Sea World in the morning, followed by an early afternoon nap, ending with an evening at Magic Kingdom to pick up the rides we missed last time (and hopefully see the fireworks).

Things started off well, with the projected upper-90s weather not as bad as it could have been, thanks to occasional breezes and some intermittent cloud cover. By lunch time we were still going strong, and Liza wanted to run through the special Halloween trick-or-treat stations.

The weather by then had hit sweltering, so after we visited all the treat stations and ogled all the cool costumed performers, we changed Liza into her swimsuit so she could visit the water play area. She hated it, as you can tell.

She was hilarious. It was like the big dumping buckets had some sort of magnetic pull, and although she didn't want to get her face wet, she couldn't resist standing underneath them, so she found a solution in covering up her eyes every time the bucket got ready to dump. Sort of like an ostrich with its head in the sand, only wetter.

By the time she was done in the water, it was pretty much time to get dinner, so we headed out. Liza was still going strong, but I was just wiped out, and we never did make it back out to hit another park in the evening. The fireworks just started as I was typing this. Oh, well. It's not like Liza even knows what she's missing ... there are definitely pluses to visiting the parks with a clueless kid who hasn't read the tour books.

******

Coolest thing I've seen recently was the jumping stilt performers at Sea World. We saw them a couple of times, and it totally makes me want to invent a time machine so I can go back and learn to be a really kick-ass gymnast so I could do this for a living. Except, you know, for the sweating and the lycra.

Speaking of which, Jason and I were really embarrassed to be laughing at the stagehands at the dolphin show, who were sometimes visible to the audience and therefore had to wear the same wetsuit-style costumes as the performers. I mean, if I were a 250-pound guy, I'd feel bad enough about myself without having 2,000 people laughing at me when I went to my position backstage ... four times a day. But Bubba had a gut on him, and that shiny wetsuit wasn't helping to hide it ... sort of looked like he was smuggling a frozen turkey. Luckily for you, I didn't take a picture.

This is where the title will go, if I ever think of one.

Today we visited Epcot, which I wasn't sure would be that much fun for the kiddo, but we found plenty for her to do. One of the best parts of the day was seeing her playing on the same activities I remember from my visits to Epcot as a kid ... they've been redesigned to look more current, but the idea's the same.

The other best part of the day - when she passed out in the stroller and we let her sleep for an hour while I put my feet up and crocheted in a nice air conditioned exhibition hall.

It was in the low 90s today, and Epcot is virtually devoid of shade in some areas, so we all needed the break by this point in the day. Jason would have enjoyed that little interlude a bit more if his paperback hadn't been buried at the bottom of the backpack Liza was using as a pillow. Oh, well - at least he had time to try riding a Segway (and find the place to get free samples of sodas from all over the world).

Oh, and this will probably not make sense to anyone but me and Jason, but here goes nothing:

At dinner tonight Liza was making up really dumb jokes about what one corn chip said to the other corn chip. She kept asking if they were funny, and we said no, and she said that we should have a contest between me and Jason to come up with the funniest joke. I went first, with the ever-witty, "What did the jet chip (don't ask) say to the curly chip that wasn't behaving? Straighten up and fly right!" Jason followed, and in a brilliant maneuver he tailored his joke to his judge. "What did the jet chip say to the curly chip that was standing in the way? Move out of the way, I have to go to the bathroom!" Liza, who has been telling bathroom jokes for two days straight, thought this was the funniest thing she had ever heard, and Jason won the contest. Next time, i think I'm just going to say "poop" a bunch of times instead of telling a joke. It would get a better laugh from the judge, I think.

Oh Sea World, I love you so

For many, many years, Cedar Point's Raptor has been my favorite roller coaster. But Sea World's Manta just kicked the bird to the curb. It's got the smoothness and the loops and twists that I like, with the bonus gimmick that you go through the whole ride head-first, face-down. You hit the first loop and when you get to the bottom you realize that your stomach is at least three cars behind you. Awesome!

I managed to get on it right after the park opened today, and it was so awesome (and the line was so short) that I rode it twice before I called Jason to tell him it was his turn. Then he got in line, it was under repair for 20 minutes, and when he finally got to ride it made him feel so sick that he took a Dramamine once he got off. Score! Now I don't have to alternate turns with him when we go back this weekend!

I wasn't the only one enjoying the roller coasters at Sea World ... after going on every spinning ride in sight, Liza was jumping up and down with excitement to go on the Shamu Express in the kiddie area.

That's my girl, on her first "real" coaster (that is, the first one that was built more recently than 1956 and goes more than 20 feet high), and yes, we're in the front car. Why bother with a middle car when the kid is so short she can barely see out of the car in the first place?

Liza loved Sea World, as I knew she would. She loved the pet show, she was okay with Shamu, and she loved the acrobats. She had a great time at the aquarium next to Manta, too.

When I asked her what her favorite part of the day was, she told me she didn't have one. When I asked her what her least favorite part was, she said she didn't have one, because everything was so much fun.

Guess where we went today

No, really. Guess. I'll wait.

Bet this wasn't your answer:

Been there.

Done that.

Bought the $10 balloon.

Liza's favorite ride so far is the Winnie-the-Pooh storybook ride. But that pales in comparison to things like chasing down lizards in the condo parking lot and rescuing stinkbugs from the condo pool, so I'd say she's not exactly a Disney-a-holic yet.

And yes, it's 5:20, and we've already been home from the park for almost two hours. We pushed Liza slightly past when she was ready to go, but after that, it was just going to get ugly if we stuck around any later. We hit most of the "important" little kid rides at Magic Kingdom, and we still have four days of Disney park access, plus two days of Sea World access, so it's not going to kill us to leave early in the day. As it was, it was nice to leave without having to fight for a seat on the ferry back to the parking lot, and I'll be done on the computer and have taken a shower before Liza and Jason get back from the pool, so we'll all be refreshed and ready to watch a movie or go for a walk or something after dinner.

I am so, so glad we're here.

The whole nine feet

It started with some pretty yarn. And a cool pattern. And when I combined them, they colors of the yarn sort of obscured the lace pattern, but I was having so much fun knitting, I kept going anyway.

And going. And going. And going. When I hit the halfway point in the pattern, it was looking a little, um, long, but I forged ahead. And after complaining about not having time to finish it, I finally found time to finish it (thank you, Bill Nye).

All 9'2" of it.

Okay, it's kind of ridiculously long, but it is virtually weightless. Keep in mind that the whole kilometer of yarn that I used to make it weighed about 100 gm or so. It was so light, I went and bought some beads to add to the ends so that the whole thing wouldn't fly off in a light breeze.

And yesterday it was nippy enough to wear it over my t-shirt when we went for a walk in the evening, and I lurrrrrrve my new shawl! It's only slightly too long to wear with one end draped down my front, the middle part wrapped loosely around my shoulders, and the other end flipped over the same shoulder so it hangs down my back. So you get to see the awesome ends whether I'm coming or going - lucky you!

I've already got my next "ridiculously complicated" shawl planned out, yarn bought, beads purchased, needles set aside. But I'm not allowed to work on it until I finish another repeat of the 71-row chart for a blanket that I've been "working on" since, um, October. It's a bit of a bear to work on, and it's so heavy now that I gave up on it entirely for the summer. But I've decided I want to try to finish it by Christmas, and I can only handle one high-maintenance project at a time, so I'd better get it done before I start the shawl. At least it's pretty to look at while I'm slogging along ...

Coolest. Fabric. Ever.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/spider-silk/

The mind boggles.

Butter and weaving and dulcimers, oh my!

I've been plotting all month to drag my family to the Cedar Valley Settlers Celebration and Music Festival, which was held Sunday at the local metropark. I was not going to be deterred by minor setbacks like a grouchy toddler, a husband who was watching the minutes tick by until football started, or a crippling sinus headache. No, sir! We were going to see square dancing and we were going to have fun, dag-nabbit!

I believe Liza's heels actually left furrows through the parking lot as we hauled her to the gate.

And then she saw the "paint your own leaf stamp t-shirt" booth, and all was right with the world. Add to that some butter churning that resulted in getting to eat your own butter on cornbread that had been baked in a real dutch oven under hot coals, mix in some overachieving music teachers who didn't mind humoring a 4-year-old, add a splash of "sure, you can have a Sprite," and it was apparently the best trip ever.

Who's the cutest little fiddle player in the world? Liza, that's who.

She was oddly creeped out by the whole fiddle experience, and she couldn't wait to put it down. Something about having to hold it with her chin? Or maybe the lady was just freaky up close. I don't know, but I don't see Suzuki lessons in our future.

And who's that trying to beat a dulcimer into submission with a credit card for a pick? Liza, that's who.

Mr. Musically Inclined helps Liza get through a rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star that caused dogs to howl in three separate counties:

Liza loved that dulcimer. I don't know if it was the fact that it seemed more familiar because she knows how guitars and banjos work, or if she liked being able to read the notes on the chart and play along with other people, or she just liked the song, but we had to pretty much drag her out of that tent. And heck, for $60, we can buy a beginner one of our own! Much cheaper than getting a quarter-size violin, that's for sure.

One of the activities they had for the kids to try was a full-sized loom they were using to make a rag rug from strips of old t-shirts. Liza wanted nothing to do with it until she found out that if she helped weave it, she could put in an entry to win it, at which point she was practically knocking people out of the way to get to the contest entry forms. I persuaded her to let me sign up for the contest, as I didn't feel like waiting for 15 minutes for her to write her name just so on the little card. With hundreds of people there, it's not like we were going to win, anyway.

At 5:30 Sunday I found out that we won The Ugliest Rag Rug In The World. I had to scrape Liza off of the ceiling, she was so excited that she had won, especially when she found out we had to go over to the Nature Center to pick it up. So she got to visit the birds and the turtles and the frogs and the fish and the crawdad and the snakes and the spider, and I got to get my picture taken with TURRITW. I'll have to link to the photo if I find it - my hair was sticking straight up, I had on a shirt that I (ahem) may have recycled from the day before, and I wasn't wearing makeup. But next to the rug, hell, I look like a supermodel.

So, how was your day?

I woke up with my side of the bed looking like an abattoir, on day 3 of The Sinus Headache That Laughs At Medicine While Bludgeoning Me Between The Eyes With A Cricket Bat, to a child that has done virtually nothing all day but drag her feet, whine, and defy me. The stains did not come out of my pajamas or my sheets. I have about 40 books checked out of the library, and she refuses to read anything by herself other than a Baby Max and Ruby board book.

We have no bread or juice or soda or chocolate or decent alcohol in the house, and I'm not about to drag Little Miss Positive with me over to the grocery store at rush hour.

I have 40 tiny rows left on my first ridiculously hard lace project, and The Child will not leave me alone for half an hour to finish them. I'm not sure why I'm in such a hurry to finish it, since it's a bad match between pattern and yarn and it's going to be 8' long after I block it, but I feel frustrated all the same.

And I have "Proud to be Aborigine" stuck in my head.

For Leah and Lindsey

We got to have our own experience with Pablo today at the natural history museum ... only there it was named Polly and was a lot less demonic than your version.

Yes, that's an opossum wandering around the museum with my daughter. Polly the Opossum was there as part of today's "meet the wildlife" experience, and the handler was pretty confident that she wasn't going to go all feral and make a break for it. Given that she's been raised by humans since she was still in her mother's pouch, I'd say that's a pretty safe bet. Still, she doesn't look exactly trustworthy, does she?

More like "batshit insane" than "trustworthy," but she was a total sweetie. We were able to pet her, see how she used her tail to help with climbing in trees (and down her handler's legs), check out her little hands, and even examine her pouch. Plus Liza got to get some photos that I plan to enlarge and randomly hide in Lindsey's room if she ever annoys me, so tell her she's on notice :)