It's a Mystery, Mary Bullock!

Facts:
On Thursday, this peanut M&M jar was full.
They are Mary Bullock's potty rewards.
Mary Bullock has yet to pee pee or poo poo on the potty.
And yet, the stash dwindles.

Weird.

What She Wore

Because I know you don't care what I'm wearing.

Gator pinafore and hairbow- Blue Whale Boutique
Jeans-  BabyGap  (purchased with a Groupon)
Tretorns- Lands End
T-shirt- Target
Busted Lip- Neighborhood street
Sweetness- homegrown

TGIFF

That's Thank God It's Finally Friday. And thank God it's a date night. Maybe this time we can preempt a sobbing trip around the block with the wagon.

Because y'all, today has been one of those days. Get ready-- this has to do with poop. Feel free to click away if this isn't on your list of acceptable topics.

Our first real outing with pull ups [a library date] was a poop-tastrophe. I think I can reasonably [and not melodramatically] call it this when we spend 20 minutes of a 30 minute story time in the bathroom covered in poop. I probably should have predicted and prepared for this after Mary Bullock failed to poop this morning despite ample time and potty trips. But by the time we finally got out of the house this morning, all faculties of logic were zapped.

I'll save you all the details [actually just re-thinking the details makes me anxious, so I'm really doing myself a favor] and skip to the end, when I stripped her down, washed out her dress in the sink, and dried it under the automatic hand dryer.  I wish I could say that I laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of this, but I didn't.

My mother of the year award is so, so far gone.

Dear Mary Bullock, forgive me for all of my shortcomings as your mother.
I promise to keep trying.
If you promise to try limit the poopy messes to times when Mommy has packed spare clothes.

I just said we'd try.
Deal?

What We're Reading Now

Mary Bullock is a girl with opinions.

She gets this from her father.
Not that I don't have opinions--I do. It's just that [maybe because I was a youngest child and my household sway was minimal] I'm just as likely to say ok to whatever anyone else feels strongly about.
Law & Order marathon for the seventeen bajillionth night in a row? Ok. [Just for instance.]

But whether its a genetic inclination or a first child phenomenon, she cares about all sorts of things, including her books. The ones she's loving now are a mix of pleasure and pain for me, the reader, but I'm slowly gathering that pleasure and pain are going to be the running theme of her coming third year of life.

Pleasure:

It rhymes. It has cute animal pictures. And it glorifies my role in my baby's life.

It also provides MB the opportunity to say super cute stuff-- like uppy duppies!! for whoopsy daisy. I like it when she says super cute stuff.  Kind of makes the whining more bearable, if you know what I mean.

Then there's pleasure and pain in combination:

I actually love this book. The only part that gives me pain is the glimpse into my future seen here:

Dear Lord, please don't let MB ever decide she'll wear nothing but a polka dot blankie. This is not a battle I can win, and there's not enough wine in this world to make up for it. Amen.

And then, of course, there's purely pain:

Yes--this is a Where's Waldo kids' meal book from Wendy's. If we're being honest, she requests this book about as much as anything else on her bookshelf. She's not too bad at it, either. But this book sends her normally kind of cute Uh-DAT???? questions into another stratosphere.  One page, for example, has about forty dinosaurs on it. And she must know what each and every one of them is before the page is turned.

As much as I dislike Where's Waldo, reading with MB is high on my list of Birthday Things, and I know one day, years and years from now, when she's too old to snuggle up with before bedtime, I'll miss even this.

Zucchini Bread

I wonder things like this all time:

Who was it who first looked at a zucchini and said: You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take this vegetable, and I'm going to shred it. And then, I'm going to bake it in some bread.

I mean, really. Who thinks of things like that? 

 And then I stuff my face and remember: I don't even care.

I may be losing my mind...

Proof:
1. I realized this morning that the expiration date on Mary Bullock's milk is September 18th, which yesterday I remember thinking was some point in the distant future. Like, next week maybe? And then today it dawned on me that that couldn't possibly be true. A calendar check verified this. A smell check double verified. Ick. Sorry, baby.

2. I got into the shower this morning with my glasses on. And this was after 1.5 cups of coffee.

There is good news, however.

A. It's naptime.
B. I DVR'd Glee last night. Oh yes.

Don't bother me for the next hour. I'm re-programing my brain with teen melodrama in song.

After

What do you think?

I think it says a little more Mary Buck-Buck, a little less Hot Mess.