Adult Conversation

The first photo I took with a flash which is why it's darker. We have not had a fabulous day here in the Dillon household. We are super busy getting ready to leave for LJ and I discovered this morning, after washing my hair, that it's been totally fried by a cheaper (though not cheap!) hair salon. I have a bunch of friends that pay much less for hair straightening than I do but I think I have different, coarser hair than most salons here are generally used to. So, this morning after I washed and let my hair dry, I looked a little poodle-ish. Even Dan felt badly about it though he tried to cheer me up by saying it's not that bad, when I know it is. So, never again because, despite the economy, it will cost more to fix it than the savings. I bought a hair mask that should do the trick temporarily so I'm chill for the moment.

But, anyway, instead of going to Tuesday playgroup we went into the mall to run errands and on our way to the tea shop, Stella told me she was hungry. So, we stopped for a quick carrot raisin muffin. As you can kind of see in the background, this cafe has cubes for some of it's seating. Stella pulled out her cube, climbed on it, sat down, folded her arms on the table and started to babble and gesticulate like we were supposed to be talking about the weather or some soap opera. It was soooo funny. Then her muffin came and she kept on rambling about whatever. It was very funny. The big deal is that she's actually sitting on her own across the table from me.

There was an 8-month-old baby sitting at the table behind us. The mom brought out a wind up turtle that would roll over the mall floor after it's string was pulled. Stella thought that was great. We chatted briefly with the mom and baby. Stella would smile at the baby and then point to the baby's eye while yelling, "Eye!!!" and then she'd stealthfully grab the turtle and run away. As if pointing our attention to the baby's eye would cause us to not notice that she was running away with this poor baby's toy. I admired her cleverness, but when it came time to actually give back the turtle and leave to run our errands, she screamed her head off.

"We had a great time when you were gone. I taught her how to make music by banging stuff on her head..."

That's what Dan told me excitedly after I came home from my hair appointment on Saturday.

I can FINALLY leave Stella alone with Dan for short periods of time without him freaking out. I go to bootcamp very early in the morning which leaves Dan to get Stella out of bed and feed her breakfast before he goes to work. The first few times, I laid out her breakfast the night before and left him detailed instructions. I came home the first time and they were both happily eating Doritos together in bed. As you can see, the hotel has expensive Italian sheets and they were very orange after the Doritos incident. I wonder what housekeeping thought of that! The next time I came home from bootcamp, Dan had made her a box (it was organic) of mac and cheese for breakfast which she was also happily, happily eating. This was on the grounds that he thought she needed some carbs. So after a few other similar incidents, I don't bother laying out breakfast in advance anymore. Usually, he gives her fruit and yogurt but every once in a while something random gets thrown in. He got in trouble for the Doritos incident. But all in all, he does a great job and I'm only writing about it because both the mac and cheese and Doritos incidents made me laugh quite hard.

It's all good really--more freedom for me. I just have to accept that there will be some odd things happening in my absence. I'm sure there's a lot they aren't telling me about.

Word to Your Mother...

Quick update, as we're busy cleaning house and getting ready to go back to LJ for an ultra busy holiday season. She says a lot but here's the latest.

"Ah-meee" means Elmo
"Ay-vee-vee" means elevator
"Tick-uh!" (while pointing to her chest) means sticker. I think she points to her chest because the people at the front desk have been giving her stickers for ages and they seem to put them on her chest.
"Gooh" means read Mother Goose or put on my Mother Goose DVD. It's usually the latter.

She also says, "eat" and then opens the fridge to rummage around for something to eat. Luckily, she only ever wants fruit so that's what she goes for. I'm grateful we have a Sub Zero in LJ and am positive she can't open it.