She's the one...

... that constantly makes my heart skip a bit

with her bravado and tender nature in superlative form

... that would give me such emotions

as varied and colorful as the fishes and the corals in the sea

... that kills me with too much laughter in a day with her silliness

because she's just too darn funny

and alive and full of energy and too crazy

... that for God's divine reason, has completed our family.

... together with hubby, makes life not perfect but absolutely wonderful.

Wordless Wednesday: It never gets done

After cleaning the living room, I proceeded to the messier kitchen... A few minutes after, I went back to the living room to take a peak on what the Little Spanish Pinay is busy with.... I'm back to zero.

Next phase: Daycare?

So we have decided to send Little Spanish Pinay to daycare.  Not for her to learn how to socialize but because she's such an active, happy, eager to learn toddler.  My idea of homeschooling her for at least her 3rd yr is unfortunately really hard to do.  Honestly? I feel defeated that I simply can't do it all.  I've been trying but, the hard truth is?  I am not a supermom.  But I'm over that.  I've come to accept that there can be other people who can share and help her learn new things, explore, discover and just play around with and enjoy things with. 

So, with a bit of a heavy heart and a growing knot in my stomach, hubby and I started looking around for a good daycare.  We have visited 3 so far and the last one we have visited, has been my favorite. It did seem like it's LSP's favorite too.  She liked the place at once, moved around and played with the toys.  She talked to the director of the daycare with enthusiasm (she is usually shy at the beginning and wouldn't talk), she ran around the center, went up the slide, slid down her own, squeealed and yelled with excitement.

The daycare has a blog as well  where parents can see the activities the kids have been doing.  As I was reading the blog and looking at the picture, my stomach started getting knotty again and my throat, lumpy.  I'm such a wuss.  It's like all of a sudden my baby has become a real full-time grown child - and it feels like this has just happened overnight. I know I've been talking about LSP as a toddler, etc but because technically she's already a toddler ever since she entered 1 - it's just how toddlers are called when they enter one and start toddling.  BUT this time? it's like she's really developed her wings and would start to fly away from her nest and will just come back whenever.  Ok, it's not whenever, whenever coz she's coming back on schedule but you know what I mean.

She won't start till September coz that's the start of the school year here so I still have about 3 months to enjoy more time in a day with her.  I've already asked for a week's vacation on the first week of September so I can also adjust well but it seems like it is going to be a little bit complicated with work.  We'll see.  Maybe heaven will pity me and make my bosses agree on giving me a week vacation leave.  But I am not putting my hopes too high.

I just have too many what-ifs and worries (hello! what's new?).  I'm not really used to having her away from me for more than 2 hours in a day.  Whenever she feels uncomfortable, mami comes to the rescue with a hug, a kiss and the power of boobies.  She has never, ever taken her nap without nursing first.  How is she going to take her nap in the daycare?

I know, she's going to adjust and will enjoy her time with other kids playing and learning with her. 

Maybe she will adjust better than I would. 

Tell me I am over-dramatizing things?

The one where she wants me to be far from her

A couple of weeks ago (or maybe that's 3 weeks ago already), we have celebrated Little Spanish Pinay's second year birthday. It is only now, it sinked to me that my baby is not a baby anymore.  She's in her halfway towards leaving toddlerhood.  Although she's still afflicted with mamtis, she's showing interest on independence more and more. 

Yesterday, when we were in the park, she wanted to go to the slide alone.  While this is not the first time, it's quite different this time though.  She wanted us to be far away from the slide.

The picture above is how far she asked us to stay away from the slide.  She kept pushing us and telling us LSP sola! LSP sola! (LSP on her own! LSP on her own!).  If we ever move one step closer, she'd scream and would run towards us to push us even farther.  She was asking me, her mami whom she has been sooooo clingy with, to step back and just let her be.  I've my mouth agape.

While my heart was thumpity-thumping nervously watching her go up and down the slide, it swells with pride at the same time

Now, we are eyeing for her to join a daycare.  Originally, I wanted her to stay with me till about 3yrs old and just go straight to pre-school.  In a perfect world of mine even, I was imagining her to stay with me at home till about 7yrs then she'll go straight to grade school.  But with my full-time day job, I can't focus on her and spend more time with her. 

She's a child with big appetite for learning and discovering.  She has a huge reserve of energy that needs to be channeled to different activities otherwise it just gets wasted then she gets bored then she gets fuzzy.

I cannot say I am ready for this.  About 4 months ago,  out Little Spanish Pinay felt for the first time how is it to be in a daycare.  She entered the area, without looking back, followed the care giver everywhere she went, went to the explore the toys by herself, observed the different kids in the daycare, etc.  She didn't show any sign of anxiety - just pure curiosity.  She did have a serious face all through out though.  She was very attentive with everything around her.  She seemed to be ready for a real daycare.  But not me.  She's growing and I must too... so we'll see how the search for a daycare will be and how will I adapt to the new schedule.  This will mean I'd have to organize myself in the morning so my work and schedule may fit to the hours that she'll have to be in the daycare. 

We'll see, we'll see.  I hope everything works out well.

We Now Conjugate Verbs!

A little Spanish lesson, here we go:

Saber means to know in english.  In Spanish, verb conjugation is a bit more complicated than English as each subject has a different verb conjugation.  Let's see below:

Yo (I)  se (know)

Tu (You) sabes (know)

El/Ella (He/she/it) sabe (knows)

Nosotros (We) sabemos (know)

Ellos/Ellas (They) saben (know)

Vosotros/Vosotras (You-all) sabeis (know)

See what I mean? That's 6 (Spanish) vs 2 (English).  But wait, the complication doesn't just end there. The ver saber is an irregular verb because it doesn't completely follow the general rule for verb conjugation.  What general rule?  I won't discuss all the rule but only for the verbs that end in -er (e.g. comer) since this is the one that plays important rule in this particular story of ours :)

The verbs(regular) ending in -er are conjugated for each subject by changing the -er part to the following:

Yo como (I eat) - here the -er was taken and exchanged with o. i.e. comer =  comer  = com + o = como

Tu comes (You eat) - here the -er exchanged with -es. i.e. comer = comer = com + es = comes

get the gist? So we move along to the rest of the subjects:

El/Ella come (He/She/It eats) - er changed to e

Nosotros comemos (We eat) - er changed to emos

Ellos/Ellas comen (They) - er changed to en

Vosotros/Vosotras comeis (You-all) - er changed to

I tell you, verb conjugation is my weakness in Spanish.  So what do you do with the irregular verb? Memorize them! So, you just have to remember that saber for the subject  Yo (I) is se and that you should not apply the rule for the verb that ends in -er even if the verb saber ends with -er.  Capiche?

So yesterday, Little Spanish Pinay and I were playing dress up.  She was rummaging through her drawer, picking up things like socks, shirts, dress and telling me if I like each of it and if I say yes, she'd try to put it on me or just throw it up in the air. Yes, the room ended up like a jungle after.

She saw one of her clown socks I made for her past 2nd year birthday celebration and asked me if I like it.  I answered with a resounding YES! but then this time she said she wants to put it on her foot.  She told me to put it on her.  I told her she should put it on herself because she can.  The conversation goes like this:

Mami: Ikaw na magsuot, kaya mo yan.  Ponlo tu, que ya sabes. (Put it on by yourself, you already know how to.)

LSP:  nooooo! mami!

Mami: Sige na anak, kaya mo yan.  Venga, ponlo tu que ya sabes. (Come on, put it on by yourself as you already know how to)

LSP: noooooo! no sabo!

Mami: *blank face* (after a few seconds) *eyes wide, mouth open* (after another couple of seconds) *shrieks with excitement*

Ok, before spanish philologists out there would condemn me, I KNOW that sabo is incorrect. But what actually excites me is the fact that our LSP has just shown that she conjugated a verb deliberately!

She does say No lo se (I don't know it) or simply no se (I don't know) but because surely she has heard someone said it this way.  At this point, we can say that she has learned her verbs by just repeating what other people around her say.  BUT yesterday, she has clearly shown that her mind tried to consciously conjugate the verb based on the pattern that her mind is learning (see the rule above on the verb comer)

Of course I had to correct her because the right verb would be se and not sabo.  But I was nonetheless ecstatic about it.  It's just sooo amazing and sometimes mind-boggling how a mind of a child develops and much more if the development thrives right before your very eyes.

.... the joy of parenthood :)

Wordless Wednesday: What Having a Toddler Means

Poor TV rack...

Behind the Scenes of Terrible Two

I wrote about us officially going through the terrible-two phase about three months ago.  When parents would say Oh, we are on the terrible phase now - the normal reaction is an empathetic with a sorry-feeling "uffff, let's hope she'll go past that soon..."
Terrible two phase has such a negative conotation like it's a hurricane one need to be prepared for.  The tantrums, the fits, the meltdowns are thought to be the protagonists of this phase but I'd say they are actually the antagonists.  These antagonists often overshadow the other milestones and wonderful changes in this phase.  When we normally here the phrase terrible-two, we hiss and grit our teeth and do the empathetic bending of head sideways followed by a non-verbal-poor-parents pout.

It seems that every emotion of a 2-yr old toddler is hightened to a ten-fold level - not only the anger and the frustrations but also the happiness, the excitement, the empathy, the sadness, the admiration, the surprise, the anticipation... every.single.emotion. And that is not exactly an unfortunate thing.

I, for one, have been wishing that this "terrible two" phase would be over soon... I was getting clouded by the frustrations and pressure of her meltdowns and for many parts, failed to see pass this behavior.  All I was seeing was her tantrums and meltdowns especially upon waking up from her naps and I just couldn't understand where are these coming from. I was feeling helpless and finding myself defeated.  I am really thankful that I have a husband who knows when to step in and help me see beyond what is just obvious.

At 2 yrs old (or maybe a little earlier), children are discovering tons of great new abilities, interests and a whole new exciting stimulants around them.  This is what is exactly happening to our Little Spanish Pinay.  She's been learning new abilities and independence that most often than not, she doesn't know where to start and at the same time she feels like she can even do more when she's still limited with some of her physical abilities.  She wants to explore everything and do everything at the same time because y'all? These are all new and in the eyes of a 2-yr old, eager to absorb everything the world can teach her, she.must.try.everything.because.she.can.  So, imagine the frustration and disappointment if met with sudden limitations... can be too much for a 2-yr old to handle.

But on the other side of the coin, where her needs to discover, to explore and to express herself are met, it's a whole new world ala Jasmin and Aladin in their flying carpet.  Even for us parents.  Seeing her squeal and open her mouth in such awe and excitement upon arriving at her favorite park is beyond joy.  Receiving an unexpected hug and brute kiss from her (even if it means she'd step on my foot and head-butt on my nose) is a reward to keep for life.  When she tells different stories on her words with ultra cute and funny expressions, our hearts are filled with laughter filled with admiration.  These moments would then make me wish she'd be in this phase forever or she'd carry over this characteristics on to different phases of her development.

One time, she was eating her sandwich and suddenly she wrapped it around her dress smudging it with tuna and cheese. With my hand on my head, first in my brewing tempter was the dress! the stain! the work needed to remove the stain! As I tell her that this is not right to do, she defensively tried to tell me El tawiks tiene frio! (The sandwich is feeling cold!)  She was definitely playing one of her make-believes games.  She then told me that it's a baby tawiks (sandwish) and therefore it's cold.

I couldn't get mad with this 2-yr old just trying to explore on her imagination (tender andcompassionate if I may add).  The ruined dress? I can just exhale a big sigh.  I told her that the baby sandwich is now fine and prefers to be eaten by her because it will never feel cold inside her tummy.  It took her a few seconds to digest what I just said and told me no and a a lot of thumping and crying.  Yeah, I know another sigh.  I figured she's not hungry anymore so I took the sandwich and told her that the baby sandwich needs her mommy sandwich so we have to bring her to the mommy.  It took a bit while to convince her but in the end, she agreed. I gave her her doll so she can continue to play-mommy.  This hasn´t been the first time this happened and by the looks of it, it wouldn't be the last.  Yesterday, she wrapped a lollipop with her trench coat.... with the same story.

It wouldn't be easy and I am sure that there will be times(many) that I will lose my composure and just see the mess that's been made but knowing and understanding what's behind her different behaviors, it'll help me see passed the tantrums and the meltdowns and the messing around the house.  It's not that she misbehaves rather, she's just a 2-yr old filled with life and emotions and hunger to learn and explore her environments, her abilities and her own limitations. And my role? Participate and help foment his development through discovering, experimenting and playing.

Circus themed 2nd Birthday Party

Yep, two years... just like that.  My birthing experience is still very fresh in my mind... every second of it, I can still remember in detail but here we are, already on our 2nd year of being parents.  And we survived those two years! With flying colors if I may say ;-)

We had a very simple celebration last Saturday and it had been really fun.  We had a birthday merienda circus-themed party only with close family.  Sadly, 3 of my close friends weren't able to make it because of different personal reasons.  One of my friends had to fly back to her country of origin due to a family emergency.  My heart is bleeding for her but I know God will give her strength and her family will recover from this in His time.

Although partly broken hearted, we went ahead and celebrated Little Spanish Pinay's second birthday as everything was already planned and her godparents were only here for the weekend. 

As I've said, it was a simple celebration anyways.  Everyone had a very nice surprise when they were greeted with the birthday celebrant dressed as a clown.  Their reactions were priceless.  Each died of cuteness overload! We've also died of sugar overload from the sweets prepared by yours truly :-D 

I've tried to do everything on my own but time fought really hard against this poor trying-hard mami. With all the limitations, I just managed to do some party garlands and a poor birthday poster finished in 10 minutes!  If time hadn't been mean to me, I would have done so much more... like pinwheels, stars everywhere, baloons (can you believe we didn't have baloons!?) and flowers, flowers, flowers.  Those will have to wait another year, I guess :)

Let me share some photos of Little Spanish Pinay's special day celebration. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy looking at them over and over again. 

She's getting ready. 

She was her own clown on her own birthday ;-)

Great idea for clown shoes by my friend V. 

We really missed her and her daughter D!

All prepared to greet her guests

I tried to make a birthday poster but alas... in 10 minutes, I whipped this up... poor, poor thing.

It looked so small in the wall where it was hanged.  (See the background of the first picture) 

Can a clown get any cuter than this?

Just a simple effort I did to give some more circus-y party mood

The table full of sweets and some sandwiches

The cake pops!

Far from professional looking but hey, it's my first time to do these

and I am more than happy with the result :-D

The buttery sugar cookies ready to be served

The sandwiches! My hubby's obra maestra ;-)

The fillings are hmmm, hmmm, good!

Hubby and I couldn't get enough of them we even had them for dinner!

The crowd is singing happy birthday in 4 languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Filipino and Engish)

and she was singing along :)

She blew her candle like a 2yr old should! ;-)

Ok, the cake.  It is supposed to be a circus tent... but it looked like Aladin's turban in a bloody state LOL.  I really had fun laughing at my own work after.  But I was really in too much of a hurry and that's all I could do with the limited time and resources I had. 

But with the birthday celebrant this cute?  The cake by her side looked cute just as well ;-) 

Apart from it's unpolished look... the cake was unbelievable moist and oh so chocolatey.

I had a little cake accident and I swear, I almost ruined the entire thing.  I was so lucky I was twittering with Kristeta and she helped me save the cake! Oh the power of cyber friends communication or whatever it is called ;-)

She missed her nap that day but she was still amazingly hyped and gleeful.

Even Roque has a gift for her!  She was really touched by the dog's gesture ;-)

I just had to include this.  They are totally cute! 

On the left is LSP's grandfather and on the right is her godfather she lovingly calls ninong :)

(ninong is godfather in my native language) 

 

The whole troop!

All in all, we all had a blast.  LSP was incredibly still with tons of energy after - even after around 12 midnight!  To think she didn't take her nap in the afternoon.  She must have been super energized with happiness and excitement for the gifts.  As for me? I was really glad that hubby and I were able to pull this off - inspite of little time for planning and preprataion.  The best of all is that LSP really enjoyed her party!

Happy 2nd birthday, our precious little star! Looking forward to many, many, many more birthday parties with you :)  We love you sooooo much!!

p.s.
The Copy-Kids giveaway is still on-going!

Wordless Wednesday: I will protect you even in my sleep...

My heart melts over and over everytime I look at this image

The one where she kept denying she did some serious business...

This is sort of a potty update.  I regre to say that I haven't been religious with our potty training.  She started getting used to sitting down on the toilet bowl or on potty but I really don't know well how to teach her to tell us when she needs to go.  What's been going on is that she got used to the routine every morning upon waking up to sit down on the toilet bowl and do her thing.  During the day,  I got used to reading her signs and would sit her on the potty whenever I see her showing these signs.

Lately, she has already learned to tell us when she needs to poo.  Almost always, she does this but not for peeing.  For some reason, she doesn't mind having this kind of accident.  Around 11 months, I let her go around the house without diaper so she'll get more aware of the feeling of peeing then getting wet or getting dirty.  So to this date, she doesn't have problem sitting down on the potty when we tell her to and she has the need to go.  She would also do this on her own from time to time... not most of the time though.

Having reflected on all these, I guess she's not doing so bad... but she can definitely still improve and by golly, I hope soon!

Anyways, funny thing the other day is that she had been soooo active and wouldn't want to take even a few seconds of her precious time playing and discovering to go and sit down on her potty.  One time she told me she need to poo so I sat her down but after a couple of minutes trying to concentrate, she decided she doesn't need this and want to continue playing.  So off she went.

At night, before dinner, she again told me she needs to poo so I sat her again on her potty and patiently "help" her concentrate.  After a good while, she decided again to stand up and play with her toy push cart and scatter her toys around the house instead of doing her needful business.  I don't like forcing anything to anyone so I let her be while I prepare dinner. 

Just before dinner is served, I heard hubby ask the little one if by any chance she pooed and didn't notice. LSP started yelling no-no-no-NO! In a quick defense.  Hubby asked her again if she was sure... or perhaps it was just gases because it sure smell like it.  LSP answered with the same defensive tone no-no-no-NO!

I was laughing on my own hearing hubby and LSP's conversation.

Mother's instinct said there's some monkey business going on so I put down the wooden spoon and went to see LSP and just by a quick look from a far, I already see something protruding her behind.  I chuckled.  I asked her if she want to sit down the potty or the toilet bowl.  As expected, I got a resounding no-no-no-NO! Then I said to come with me so we can clean her up.  She ran for her dear life.  I caught her and naturally, she tried to wiggle away from mami.  It suddenly occurred to me to tell her that if we don't clean her behind, ants will surely go up there and eat the nasty thing between her behind and her leggings. 

I know.  What a thought.  Sometimes a mother can get desperate and think and say things like this.  But this sure caught LSP's attention and kept her quiet with a thoughtful-look in her face and definitely made her cooperate and confess that she DID the serious business.

Why do we call it serious business by the way?  Because...

It's each one's business, y'all and when ya hafta do this, you gotta be serious!

I hope I didn't cause her trauma because of what  I told her about the ants?

On Tantrums and Throwing Fits

It's here definitely.  We are on the terrible two phase.  It has started a little early actually... the intensity gradually levels up and right now we are at the peak level of the phase.

She easily gets so frustrated whenever she can't verbalize what she wants or what she feels or if she can have something her way.  One second she's this very sweet little happy angel and the next second, she's like a little angry monster throwing fits.

She has learned the word no for as early as I can't remember but at this moment, her no is a big NO! with the index finger pointing upward in a very snappy way.  Eyebrows crossing.  Eyes stern.  Yeah, she got the attitude.  Don't ask where she got that.

She has also started the twisting and back-arching and diving on the floor and punching and kicking and yelling and sometimes nail scratching when you try to force her to calm down.  She'd want everything on her sight to go away.  Go away, chair! Go away boots! Go away, jacket!  Go away, doll!  Just go away all!

What's even more frustrating is that sometimes we can't understand what has caused her to suddenly throw into some big fits.  She'd try to tell us but she still lack words for all the big emotions she's going through so all the more that she'd get frustrated. 

It is a difficult moment but what I have learned and still trying to learn is to accept the situation and not get frustrated myself.   I've tried different ways to help her calm down but most often than not, it'll be just in vein.  One day, when she had one of these moments at my in-law's house, my inlaw tried to help in calming her down.  She tried to "correct" LSP's attitude by telling her that LSP is being bad and that good kids don't throw themselves on the floor and cry out loud.  She was also telling her that she doesn't like bad kids.  Of course she's saying all these in all her good intentions to help and somehow to "discipline".

While I understand how people can tag this kind of behavior as "bad" behavior, I do not share this connotation.   I am not an expert on child psychology so I will just speak for our LSP being her mom.  At barely 2 years old,  our Little Spanish Pinay is growing up so fast.  Her mind makes her want to explore on so many things; learn; express emotions and ideas and yes, opinions too, why not.  But her words and ways are still too limited and it frustrates her.  Whenever she experiences a lot of excitements learning new things, wanting things,  she gets overwhelmed and couldn't process the tons of emotions she's feeling.  And when she can't get through to adults, she falls into fits.  At this age, I don't think she is doing this because she just wants to get her way. It's not bad behavior. It's the only way she can vent out whatever frustrations she is having because of incapacity to communicate well and/or incapacity to understand the amount of emotions she's dealing with.

What she needs is not discipline.  During this sensitive moments, what she needs is help.  Help in sorting out her feelings.  Find the words to express her frustrations, understand what has caused this and understand that she's not alone in dealing with all these.

I am neither saying that she'd be let alone when she's having the fits or give in to what she wants even if it's something dangerous or is not good for her.  This one, will just eventually (especially when she's already in an older age) help her develop the bad habit of throwing herself into fits if something is not going her way and that is not what we are going for.  There are things that no matter how much she'd cry for, we can't just give in to her but it's also not just about saying NO and that's it.

What I have learned to help her somehow slow down on her tantrums and eventually overcome it is by trying to help her verbalize what she's feeling or going through by telling her things such as:  "You are upset, aren't you?".  "That socket looks really interesting but it's dangerous and you can get hurt.  You don't want to get hurt, do you?".  "It's been a long day, isn't it? You've played a lot, you ran around, you've met a lot of children and now, you are tired. It's normal you get so tired and sleepy after all those activities!"

Normaly when we start to "re-live" all the activities that she has done for the day especially the ones that were really interesting for her, she'd start to calm down and would join in on remembering the fun things that happened.  It's not an easy road though, and it's really a challenge not to get frustrated nor raise my voice while I try to calm her down by talking to her and then she'd fight back with an even louder cry.  But it pays off.  The storm would calm down.  Then it's time for even more hugs and kisses again.

This is also a difficult time for her as much as for hubby and I and  we'd really like to let her know that inspite of this ugly phase she's going through, we'll still be here for her and we love her just the same.   There will be no "I don't like you anymore because you've been bad or you're acting bad!".   Instead, "We're here and we'll help you go through this rough road."

Carnival Fiesta!

Warning:  This is going to be picture-heavy post.

Sunday had been nice to us and we were able to bring Little Spanish Pinay to the carnival fiesta in the afternoon right after she woke up from her nap.  It seemed like she knew our plans for today becuase she woke up a little bit earlier than the usual in the morning and then took her nap a little bit earlier in the afternoon too.  Just great for the schedule.  Thanks to my in-laws as well for joining us.  Below are some pictures from the activity. 

I tried to convince her that Mario doesn't bring a purse... but no avail.  She must carry a purse.

Ready to rock and roll upon arrival. 

In the car, she saw this wooden clown so she forgot about the purse. Good thing.

Mami is quite excited too.

Mesmerized by tons of people and tons of kids wearing costumes.  There was a family all dressed as The Smurf and the mommy and daddy smurf scared her.  She loves smurfs (she calls them fufos for pitufos - spanish for smurfs) but giant smurfs?? She wasn't quite ready for them.

Papi is always afraid to let her go on her own... look how he grabs her.

She loves to enter this tunnel.  There are 3 entrances.  She enters on one and then by the center, she can choose to go out between to exits and what we do is see what exit she'd take and then run for our life to go to that exit so she'd meet us there.  That game gets me my tongue out after a few repeats.

Coming out from the tunnel, she came upon this little boy.  She was like make way for me!

I had to remind her that she's going for Mario not spiderman.  Coz this pose? I believe that's for spiderman.

It has gotten a little bit chilly but it didn't stop her from enjoying.

We went inside to rest a little bit and she saw the "daycare" room.  It's not really a daycare but it's a place where parents can leave their kids under 6 yrs old for a couple of hours under a care of a professional care giver.  It's like a daycare where do also do activities but not quite daycare because it's just for a couple of hours.  So when she saw the room, she immediately want to go there.  Of course we let her while papi and mami take their little break.  Running after an almost 2-yr old is quite tiring.  Or I am getting old and not fit at all.  I think it's the latter.

It's been a tiring but fun day for all of us.  I was also quite surprised that LSP maintained her Mario hat.  I was already expecting that she'd remove it around 5mins max after I put it on her.  Mami was wrong.  I should have a better expectations on my child, shouldn't I? 

Happy carnival season, everyone!

February is almost over! Come check out this just-for-fun snail-mail jig