The Moo Girl and I visited my parents. One of The Moo Girl's favorite games is hiding from her Buba (grandpa) when she first arrives at the house. We walked in the front door and The Moo Girl ran to my parents bedroom to see her Grandma. "Where's Buba?" she asked. At that moment, Buba jumped out from his hiding spot and growled at her. Wanting to hide, being caught off guard, all that The Moo Girl could do was spin around in a circle. I believe that she was trying to find a place to run and hide in, but never got that far. The only thing she accomplished was spinning.

Have you ever felt like that? In such a panic you can't manage to do a single thing? Heaven knows that I have!

When visiting my cousin and her baby, Little E earlier this year, I witnessed a similar act of panic. I was talking to my cousin about feeding her one year old. I suggested that she give the baby some dip. All the kids love dip! I remember when The Moo Girl was little she wanted to dip her food in everything. She loved to have salad for the simple fact she could dip the lettuce in dressing. I ended up having to have a house rule, no dipping in your drink. And, chicken nuggets do not taste better when dipped in water, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

My cousin bought into my dipping claim and put some ranch dressing on Little E's high chair. She showed Little E how to dip her daughter's dinner in the ranch and gave her a bite of the delicious'ness. Little E did not think that ranch was so delicious. Not delicious at all. Little E, in fact, gagged a bit on her food and tried to spit out the ranch. Unfortunately, ranch doesn't spit and tends to stick to your tongue. As Little E sputtered and gagged on the ranch, my cousin quickly tried to find a solution. In the past, Little E has thrown up her dinner due to its unpalatable taste. What to do, what to do? My cousin wanted to act quickly before Little E throw up, but all she managed to do was wave her hands in the air.

(This was written at the end of June, but I am only now getting around to posting...)

My friend, Jill-O has been sick lately. It has really been terrible. She hasn't been able to work for the past ten months. She has hardly been getting out of the house; she has been miserable. Although she is not back to her ol' self, she has been feeling a bit better of late. As she is not up to running around and playing on the floor with The Moo Girl, Jill-O has been forced to invent new games to play with The Moo Girl.

"I bet that I can make myself cry first!" Jill-O challenges The Moo Girl. And the game was on! The rules: You had to make a tear run down your cheek without the use of water.

Jill-O and The Moo Girl started off the challenge by trying to think of something sad. "Dead puppies!" Jill-O yells! No tears.

The Moo Girl invented the "open your eyes wide and stare at the light" strategy. Although it made both their eyes watery, it did not make them cry.

And then I started to come up with ideas... And what a help I was! "Pull a nose hair! That always hurts and makes your eyes water. Or, Poke yourself in the eye!" I suggest. Unpleasant? You bet! But no still tears.

"Ow, ow, ow!" Jill-O yells as she continues to poke her own eyes with her finger.

"I know!" I exclaim, "My eyes always water when there is an eyelash." I pull a lose eyelash from my lashes and hand it to Jill-O. The Moo Girl and Jill-O fight over the eyelash until it was lost in the struggle. That was when Jill-O turned to her dinner plate looking for something to stick in her eye. Cursing herself for eating all her onions, Jill-O (I kid you not) picks up a piece of meat and sticks it in her eye. I should mention, she is rather competitive and wasn't about to lose the Crying Game to a seven year old!

The meat really, really hurt. You think that an eyelash in your eye is bothersome? Well, you should try meat! 's Jill-O eyes got really watery as tears started to form.

The Moo Girl joined in on the challenge and poked her eye with rabbit food. I suspect that she didn't really touch her eye, but just wanted to join in on the stupidity. 

And, who won? The first to have a tear to trickle down their cheek? ME! I was laughing so hard that I started to cry.

I have terrible, terrible winter coat woes. I need to vent.

The Moo Girl is the most particular kid about coats. She always has been opinionated about the coats she wants to wear. To be honest, I shouldn't say that she is particular, she just hates puffy coats. I remember when she was turning three (so she was still two), my mom took her to the store to let her pick out a coat she liked. Why take an almost three year old to the store to pick out a coat? Because she had been fighting with us for the past year about wanting not wanting to wear her current puffy coat. My belief is that she she hates to wear anything that would inhibit her movement. The Moo Girl was walking at nine months. She was doing summersaults at one. By two, she was putting pillows on the floor so that she could do flip off the couch. She is an active, on the go kid and doesn't need a puffy coat to slow her down.

Fast forward to the seven, almost eight year old kid. Has she grown out of her hatred of puffy coats and come to realize in cold, snowy weather that a puffy coat has it's uses? No! How do you find a warm coat that is not puffy?

Last year, The Moo Girl needed a new coat. Her current coat was almost too small and would not make it to the following winter season. I searched high and low for the perfect coat. Finally, as a Christmas present, I settled on a coat and matching pair snow pants. To complete the ensemble, I also purchased coordinating snow boats, mittens, and hat. There might even be a scarf floating around that also matches. The coat that I picked was (1) on sale! (2) reversible, one side pink fleece, the other black with pink slickery, waterproof cuteness, and (3) came with a removable vest that could be worn with or without the coat. I loved the vest idea. When put with the jacket made a puffy warmness and without the coat, arms were free for extra playful movement. It seemed to match all my criteria. Does The Moo Girl like her new, wonderful coat? Of course not!

"This coat scratches my chin." "This coat is too puffy." I can't get her to wear the coat without a complaint. When I force her into the coat, I get cheers of joy when she is allowed to finally remove it form her overly confined seven year old torso.

She finally broke me down. I took her out with me after school on Monday to purchase a new coat. Already on edge for having to replace a virtually brand new coat, I wanted a cheerful shopper on my side. Did I get such a shopper? Heck no! She just hates winter coats...

"Do you see any coats?" I ask her as we enter into Gap for Kids.

"There is a coat!" she tells me.

"Do you want to try it on?" I ask kindly.

"No," she responds.

"Do you like it?" I ask patiently.

"No, you just wanted to know if I saw any coats," she replies honestly.

On and on we shop. Five stores and an hour later she finally settle on a coat we found in the first store we entered. *sheesh* I worry that it is not warm enough (it is not real puffy) and although it seems like it should be waterproof, I am not positive. I guess we will find out soon enough!

The real kicker? The brand-new coat that I purchased and is no longer being used is currently on sale at Costco for less than half what I originally paid. Not only do I have a coat she won't wear, I over-paid for said coat! *@!$^

(The coat we had to replace. Same coat, but shown with different colors. Cute, huh?! Darn kid.)

I was driving The Moo Girl and some of her friends to soccer practice. Soccer mom? Yup! I am not sure if I am proud, their is such a stigma to the term soccer mom, but life is what it is. The kid should be active and in sports; soccer fits the bill. This was my day to drive the gang of girls to practice. Listening to The Moo Girl talk with her friends is one of my favorite activities. The things they say to each other! What is important in the life of a seven year old... It is just great stuff.

The Moo Girl's best friend is on soccer with her. Surprisingly, her best friend is also called Moo at home. For the sake of this entry, we will call her best friend Moo 2.

Moo 2 was sitting in the back of the car watching people drive. One of the new activities in our life is watching and waving at other people as we drive by. I remember doing the same thing when I was young. As a parent, I take great comfort in the fact that we have privacy glass on our car and people cannot easily see the girls waving at them. As the girls have quickly adapted to the privacy glass, the game has evolved into watching and talking about what the other people are doing in their cars.

"That person just picked their nose!" Moo 2 exclaims from the back seat.

"Gross," a chorus of girls respond.

We drive by some more drivers and I hear several comments coming from the back seat. This person is on their cell phone, that person is eating, this person has a movie on for the kids. All of a sudden, we pass the principle of their school. Moo 2 is beside herself with excitement. "I can't believe I just saw the principle! It was our principle! I can't believe I just saw the principle! AND, she was talking on her cell phone." Apparently, without her knowledge, the principle had committed a horrible sin.

I speed up my car a smidgen so that we can pass by the principle again before I need to turn off the road. As we pass her, she does the unthinkable. The principle eats a bite of apple. I know, I know. The girls all squeal in the back seat. "Our principle is an eater!" Moo 2 yells, "I cannot believe that I have categorized the principle of our school as a cell phone talker AND and an eater." I can almost hear her head shake in the back seat. "She seemed so nice," Moo 2 adds seriously.

The Moo Girl learned to decorate a cake today at Girls Scouts. All the girls got their own cakes AND decorating tools to use and take home when they were done. How fun is that??? I am not sure if you can tell in the picture, but I had her told up her hands to show off the nice purple hue.

Isn't her cake beautiful? She told me that it tasted delicious, but I am not brave enough to try it myself. My guess is that someone may have already put their taste buds on the frosting.

And since I had my camera out, I had to take some pictures of Jellybean. You know, I just don't have quite enough pictures!

1. She wants to be a ninja when she grows up
2. Or a monkey
3. Her favorite princess is Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)
4. She talks with a lisp
5. She is very funny and likes to make people laugh
6. She is very social... sometimes a bit too social in school
7. She is very active and coordinated
8. She swims, surfs, plays golf, rides bikes, rollerblades, snowboards
9. At 2, she would do front flips off the couch
10. When she draws a picture, she likes to label all the parts (ie head, eyes, feet)
11. She loves to cuddle and is very affectionate
12. She always wants to have a massage or her back scratched
13. She is very sensitive and hates to see other people who are sad. It is really cute to see her comfort her friends.
14. When she was born, she looked exactly like her father. We made jokes that we didn't know who her real mother was. "We have pictures of before and after the birth, but none OF the birth," her dad would say.
15. She cannot remember names but can recite lines from a movie that she has only watched once
16. She hates to be wrong! She will not try something new for fear she might not get it right.
17. I often her from her "Oh, I know that!" Will she ever grow out of knowing everything?
18. When she was little (around 1), we called her Destructor! because she could make a mess so quickly. It was her WWF name.
19. She is extremely structured. When she was little (around 2), she would cry if things were not in the right place.
20. She loves babies, particularly her little sister. She always has. She tells me that I should have 100 babies. Or, at least one more!
21. One day, she will tell me that I set out for her outfit makes her look like a dork (quite the fashion critic) and the next she will want to wear purple pants with an orange Halloween shirt... in the middle of May
22. She LOVES pickles and takes great pride in loving pickles. One of her favorite stories is that on her first birthday, she refused to even touch her birthday cake, so we gave her a pickle that she ate the pickle with delight.
23. She does what we call a "silent scream". When she gets excited about something, she will tighten up every muscle in her body and make a face like she is screaming without making a noise. She has done this since she was a baby
24. Her favorite color is purple
25. When she was little, she loved the theme song to "Third Rock from the Sun" and would dance when she heard the song on TV
26. As a baby, she would tease us even as a baby. She could not even talk yet, but she would hold out an object for us and then when we went to grab it from her, she would pull it away and laugh at us!
27. When we said "crazy baby" to her, she would shake her head back and forth
28. She loves to collect small objects, like coins and rocks
29. She prefers small items to big items. If there is a stuffed animal at the store, she will always pick the smallest one. This is great for me as they are always cheaper!
30. Her favorite stuffed animal type is dogs. Her "special" stuffed animals have always been dogs. She lost her stuffed dog, Woof-Woof when she was little. We replaced Woof-Woof with a new stuffed dog, Crystal. The Moo Girl thinks that Woof-Woof may have turned real like The Velveteen Rabbit and does not want the same thing to happen to Crystal. She keeps Crystal on a leash so that she leave her if she becomes real.
31. Her favorite non-stuffed, real animal, is the monkeys
32. She is better at math than at reading
33. She is an artist and tells us so often
34. She is very creative
35. She is athletic

The Moo Girl had the BEST day ever today!

Today, my mom and The Moo Girl decided to walk to school. The weather has been wonderful and in Seattle, when it is nice, you go outside... because you don't know when it will be nice again or for how long it will last. So, as they were waiting outside the school for it to start, the school went into lockdown!

When I was in school, we had fire drills. I believe it was in 4th grade that we started having earthquake drills. But, we never had lockdown drills. I actually find the need for such drills to be a sad statement about modern society. They are important and I understand the need with some of the tragedies that we have had at our schools, but it is still sad. In a lockdown, the teachers turn off the lights to the rooms, they close the shutters on the windows (so no one can see into the classroom), and I believe that the kids sit under their desks. If not, they are required to be as quiet as possible.

Today’s lockdown wasn't a drill. There was a suspicious person in the area that was being pursued on foot and by helicopter. Two schools, an elementary school and a middle school across the street, went into lockdown and the kids that road the bus were diverted to other local schools. Ultimately, the bomb squad was called in and a "suspicious" container (or thermos) was blown up at the middle school. A thermos, on a school campus! Who would think?! What next... the staplers? The school remained in lockdown for about 2 and a half hours.

As my mom was with The Moo Girl when the school went into lockdown, she just took her home. The Moo Girl was a bit bothered by the change of routine, and why have her sit in a quietly room unnecessarily? This was the answer to The Moo Girls' prayers! She was ready to quickly bail on school for the day!

As my mom had a doctor's appointment, I meet her and took The Moo Girl with me to work. While at the office, she watched a movie, colored on giant paper, and kept stealing pennies for the gumball machine. She claims that she ended up with nine pieces of gum in her mouth! When grandma re-appeared after her doctor's appointment, The Moo Girl instantly went into hyper-mode, trying to squeeze every last bit of fun out of her trip to the office.

At this point, it was lunchtime. Lunch out with mom, grandma, and grandpa was defiantly in order. The Moo Girl continued in hyper-mode, so it is amazing we made it through lunch without any major spills or messes.

Even though the lockdown concluded around lunchtime, The Moo Girl did not go back to school. I think that my mom felt that it was somewhat pointless at this time of the day... So, The Moo Girl spent the afternoon with grandma eating ice cream, reading a book, and as a final topper, the two walked back to the school to pick up tadpoles from her teacher! After she returned, she played outside with her dad.

Does life get any better?