Bird Season, Bitches!!!!!

It all started with a bird. 

Actually, no.  That’s not true.  It really all started with the people around me being terrified of birds and some of their fear rubbing off on me.  I’m trying not to be too easily influenced, but they make logical points.  My friend, Maria, used to drive me to school every day during my first two years of high school.  I specifically remember us driving down Taft street by Rotary Park (where there is a shit ton of electrical wires and therefore, a shit ton of birds) (Can I please insert here that I love the phrase “shit ton”!  I know that it’s a fad phrase but I really feel that it is very descriptive in an almost nondescriptive way.  When people say it, I don’t necessarily picture a ton of shit, but I immediately think ‘oh crap, that’s a lot of _____ (fill in the blank of what you’re talking about)’).  I got side tracked.  OK, driving down Taft Street, lots of birds on wires.  Now picture Maria screaming “ROLL UP THE WINDOWS!!!! THEY’RE GONNA FLY IN THE CAR AND ATTACK US!!!!!”  And then the two of us cranking up the windows as fast as we can because those birds did look like they wanted to peck at two little teenagers.  Oh, and when I said “crank”, I did mean that it was a car that had manual crank windows.  You know, the kind where you had to use both hands and put all of your body weight into it?  I’m just trying to paint you a picture here.  So there was that.  Plus, my sister is pretty terrified of birds.  And she makes equally good points about attacks and pecking.  Plus, birds have feathers.  And beaks.  And scrawny legs…never trust anything with scrawny legs.  So, pretty much, my dislike of birds is a learned behavior.

At work, we have a break room area that contains our lockers, a table and chairs, refrigerator, a bathroom, and a storage cabinet thing.  Everything gets piled up in there, including any holiday decorations.  About a year and a half ago, I was getting my lunch out of the refrigerator, I turned around and there was this big, nasty (fake) crow perched up on top of the cabinet, looking at me. Totally creeped me out.  I swear that the thing was not there the night before and it must have turned to watch me.  What do I do?  I made it my mission to move the crow in a different location every time that I worked to try to creep out other people as well.  At first, I tried to be discreet about it.  I put it on top of the fridge, inside the cabinet, on top of the lockers.  Then I started to get a bit more obnoxious by putting it on the window sill, on the table and on the counter by the sink.  Pretty soon, my friends Denise and Maureen joined in the fun and they moved it to my favorite location which was on a cabinet in the bathroom positioned perfectly so that when you were washing your hands, if you looked into the mirror, it was just over your shoulder staring back at you. Genius!  This went on for several weeks when suddenly, the bird was gone. Someone (I’m pretty sure I know who, but that person shall remain nameless here) apparently was offended by our treatment of the bird and decided enough was enough.  Well.  Apparently, that person did not know who she was dealing with because when the one big bird disappeared, three little birds promptly took its place.  J  There have been birds attached to telephones, birds on car door handles and birds swinging on the insides of lockers (to name a few of my favorites).  When I came back from maternity leave, there was a note, a rice krispie treat, a pepsi and a bird waiting for me on the counter of the nurses’ station. 

About two months ago, Maureen got me two little birds from Hobby Lobby.  I had them in my locker because I kept on forgetting to take them home.  Then, when I was in the waiting room with Kate for her 6 month check up, I get this text:

Denise: CPR needed!!!!!!!!

To which my response was: OMG that is fantastic!!!! I love how the other two are looking at it too.  They're like 'what the hell!  Someone's laid out!'

And then: Ok so after looking at it further, I have decided that the bird on the pumpkin is all like "well shit, now we have to do something about this" and the one in the back is saying "I'm not looking! In not looking! Maybe if I don't see it, I can just quietly walk away!"

Then, a few weeks ago, Denise and Maureen came over to my house and we had a crafting day to make creepy bird wreaths.

The latest part of the bird saga is this little beauty: 

 It’s like one of those pens at the doctors’ office with the huge flowers attached to it…except it’s a bird.  And it’s in attack position.  And it’s perched in a handmade play dough penholder that says simply ‘BEWARE.’  Really, what more could you ask for?  Also, please notice the equally creepy (and equally fake) trach baby on the counter across the nurses’ station.  Now, would you believe that the bird pen disappeared too?!  I may or may not be going to Target (and possibly, Michaels) after work today.  And I also may or may not be donating certain Halloween decorations to the unit.  Possibly some small, black, winged creatures that have black glitter on them.  And do you know why?  Because it’s bird season, bitches!!!!

Jacksonville

 We went to Jacksonville this past weekend for a dance competition.  It was the first one of the season which, I'm not gonna lie, was a little bit scary.  Especially since a lot of the girls have never competed before.  There were some pretty good studios there, plus it only lasted one day from 9am to 8pm, which for a dance competition is short.  The girls did really well, too.  The soloists both got Golds, the little girls' group got a Gold (I think they did as well if not better then some of the older groups, but at competition my opinion doesn't count) and all of the older groups got Platinums.  My large group got 1st overall and my small group got 2nd overall!  Woo hoo!  Plus the other dances that I did with the other teachers got 1st place Line, 3rd and 5th place small group!  I know that means just about nothing to most people, but just take my word for it...they did really good.

This is my large group.

And this is all the competition girls in their 'Boot Scootin' costumes.  Cute costumes, right?  I can not even begin to explain the controversy that those things caused.  We are not dressing them to go to church, we are dressing them to compete as dancers.  I just hope that all the parents noticed some of the costumes that the other studios had because this is just how it is.  Everyone looked cute, there was no flab or cellulite hanging out, they looked classy and awesome.

Oh yeah, and Nick and Alexa came with me to Jacksonville.  Let me just tell you how crazy it was to get Hot Stuff to sleep on Friday night.  We drove there after Nick got out of work, so we got to the hotel right around her bed time.  We set up the pack-n-play, put on PJs, read our books, tried to put her down and then the screaming began.  I understand that it was a strange room and she was scared so we didn't get irritated.  Plus, she is usually great at bedtime.  We put her in her crib and if she cries, it's only for a few seconds before she puts herself to sleep.  Well, in that hotel room, she just couldn't handle herself.  Let's just say that, finally, at 9:00 she was asleep in the bed with me.  We eventually moved her over to the pack-n-play and she slept most of the night in there (minus one more hour in the bed because she was woken up by the crazy drunk lady across the hall).  Her lack of good sleep on Friday night plus a crappy nap on Saturday led to her asking to go to bed on Saturday night.  We got back to the hotel after competition and she walked up to the pack-n-play and pointed to it.  When I asked her if she wanted to go to bed she said yes and then fell asleep immediately when I put her in.

On Sunday, we decided to go to the Jacksonville Zoo.  It was raining on and off and we left around 2 to drive home but got to see a lot of animals and I think Alexa had fun.  Although I'm not too sure seeing that she had her Disney face on.  She loved the birds (of course) and had to point all of them out like a little crazy.

This bird was especially creeper.  It was huge and it was obviously not scared of people which made me obviously more scared of it.  The guy on the side of this picture actually touched it and the bird didn't move!  Creeper bird.  Alexa thought it was awesome but when we walked passed it (as far to the other side of the bridge as we could) I told it to go away and leave my baby alone.  Seriously.  I tried to take a picture of it, you know, for documentation purposes, but it turned it's ugly head away from me.  Nasty creature.  We walked by another aviary but I told Nick that I couldn't handle it again.

Instead we looked at elephants and giraffes and other animals that are kept in enclosed areas where they can't potentially attack my child.  We walked through the Florida exhibit, more for educational purposes then anything else.  That area of the zoo is like a small collection of my least favorite things.  We looked at alligators (Alexa did the Gator chomp, which I was very proud of, but I still despise those horrible animals), deer (those are OK), snakes, wolves, and bald eagles.  There was a black bear but he was hiding (just beyond our field of vision, I'm sure.  Sneaky.).  As we walked through, Nick pointed out all the cool things about the animals and I explained what to do if you ever saw one.  For example, if you ever see a snake, put your hands in the air and run away.  Of course I had to demonstrate this which caused Alexa to laugh and Nick to roll his eyes.  I'm not sure that they realized how serious I was being.  (The hands go in the air to prevent the snake from biting them.  We are assuming in this scenario that Alexa would have shoes on so her toes are more protected.  What?  When you see what happens to a kid with a snake bite then you can come talk to me about how crazy I am!)  Anyway, that part of the zoo was kind of stressful.  But the rest of it was pretty awesome.  We are going to have to go back another time because we weren't able to do about half of it (due to the rain and having to drive home).

Purple Weed and a Fuzzy Baby

I don't know if I've written about this, but Alexa doesn't say 'Mama'.  She used to.  I still think it was her first word and she used to say it all the time.  But for some reason, since she has really started trying to talk, the Mama thing has disappeared.  She says 'Dada' and 'Daddy' with no problem, but never 'Mama'.  So when I picked her up from day care the other day, the strangest thing happened.  They were playing outside and when I walked out on to the playground, Alexa saw me and started walking real fast toward me saying 'Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama'.  She wasn't loud or screaming, but almost saying it to herself.  Of course, I was super excited to hear her finally say it!  She came up to me and I gave her a big hug and a kiss and asked her to say it again.  Do you want to know what she did?  Shook her head no.  That little crazy.  She can totally say it and flat out refuses!  Hmmmm.

The continuation of a super long post describing our week (or at least two days of our week) in pictures:
  

Oh, so many things to be said with this picture.  First of all, yes, that is our Christmas tree, still drying out and waiting to be turned into firewood.  Alexa picked out this outfit to wear and she thought she looked super cute.  Especially the shoes.  She threw an absolute fit when I tried to put her sneakers on her.  I told her that we have to have shoes on to go outside, so she went into her shoe basket and pulled out the purple crocks.  OK, kid, whatever, as long as you have shoes on.  She was probably trying to coordinate with the shirt.  It has Mickey on it and the shoes are Minnie Mouse.  I don't know how that all works.  I don't do fashion.  Obviously. Oh, and her hands are over her mouth because she's coughing.  We are currently working on coughing into our elbow, but it's proving to be slightly more difficult to learn.

 Playing with rocks.

 Now that is a handsome looking dog!

 Is it bad parenting to take a picture first before taking the rock out of your kid's mouth?

 OK, two pictures.

 And....she spotted a bird.

 Yup, there it is, in the tree.

 She's showing me her teeth ;)

 We went to the baseball park to watch Travis, Chase and Brayden play.  It was pretty windy! (Nice hair, Lex! hehehe)

 Just checking things out.

 Look at Hot Stuff climbing the fence!  Hopefully, she won't use this new love of climbing to get out of her crib!  I'm not ready for a toddler bed yet!

 I shall call this picture: "Purple Weed and a Fuzzy Baby"

 "Hey"

 Nick and Alexa planted two of the trees that we got on Arbor day.  And of course they had to use her car to transport them around the yard.  Actually, the pots fit very nicely in the 'trunk' of her car.  Have I talked about the car yet?  She's obsessed.  Every time we go outside she has to ride in her car and then most of the time throws a fit when it's time to go inside again (actually, the going inside part is getting better).  She just walks up to it, sits down in it and looks at you, waiting to be pushed around.  She loves it.  It's the best $3 my mom has ever spent...yay for garage sales!

Big helper girl. 

 Planting the dogwood tree.  See that black thing in the background?  That's our compost bin.  Nick got it for Christmas from his dad.  He loves it.  I fear it and call it the bear magnet, which Nick does not understand at all.  I'm not sure what there is to not understand.  We had a bear in our back yard who went all through our garbage (and ate the food).  So the obvious thing to do after something like that happens is to put a bin in our back yard that is full of old, rotting food.  Because that won't attract bears at all, will it?  Exactly.

 She found an extra tree to be planed.

 Lexi learning the fine art of digging with a shovel.

Tree #2 ready to go in the ground. 

Hi Glynniss.  Glyn says that she's embarrassed to have this picture up because of her rough hair cut.  I told her that maybe if she would stay still while she's being shaved, her hair would look beautiful like Minnie's.  Minnie looked at her smugly, then Glynnie gave her a look and walked away.  (what?  Not everyone has conversations for their dogs?  Because that is totally what happened!)

Animal Love

We all know about the crazy bird obsession.  And the undying love for Wolfie.  But apparently, Hot Stuff is in love with animals in general.  Evidence:

 Doesn't it look like she's trying to eat her?

Instead of taking  'a bite out of crime'  Alexa takes 'a bite out of cats'. 

And yes, I did just reference an early 90s TV commercial. 

You love it.

 I would like to point out two things in this picture.  #1 - how Alexa is totally loving on the ugliest cat in existence.  #2 - how I am making a face at my mom which clearly says 'can you believe Alexa is totally loving on the ugliest cat in existence and that I am actually holding it...nasty!'

In all honesty, this is actually a very nice cat.  I am not a cat person at all but for some reason, our neighbors always have very nice (not so nasty) cats.  Despite being the hairless kind.  Of course they have another cat who is full of nice soft hair but does Alexa want to pet that one?  No, of course not.  She wants to pet the bald cat.  She followed Ally (the cat) onto the patio at their house and pointed to her nose and gave her a kiss on the mouth.  The pictures were taken during our attempt to make her do it again.

Lexi was also in love with Patches, my brother's dog.  At first Patches and his other dog, Allie, completely freaked her out.  They are much bigger then what she's used to, but once they calmed down it was another love fest.  Pats, hugs, kisses, I'm surprised she didn't try to ride her.  Alexa even tried to pick Patches up (which obviously didn't work out too well).  Patches just sat there the whole time, what a good girl!  After this, Alexa kept walking around the house pointing at Patches and saying 'Paa paa'. 



Two kind of crazy things that happened today...well, yesterday (it's after midnight)

#1 - Alexa and I got swarmed by birds in the Walmart parking lot.  She loved it, I thought I was going to die.  I can't believe I'm actually admitting that I shopped at Walmart.  Don't judge me, it's by far the cleanest Walmart I've ever been in (not that I've been in many) and the nearest Target is something like 30 miles away.  Alexa is still obsessed with birds and can spot them even if they are just specks in the sky.  There always seem to be birds around the Walmart or Winn Dixie (again, no Publix for miles) parking lots so we usually stop to look at the nasty creatures, I mean, birds.  So we were walking out of Walmart, looking at the birds, doing our usual routine when a flock of seagulls (hehehe...I am not even kidding) started flying right over and around us.  They didn't come any closer then about 20 feet from us so the logical part of my brain was staying relatively calm but the other, non logical part of me was freaking out.  Those nasty birds with their beaks and their feathers flying all around us, threatening to poop on us.  Ughhhh.  Gross.  Meanwhile, as I was having a minor attack, Alexa was in heaven.  She sat there in the buggy pointing with a huge smile on her face saying things like 'oh' and 'hi' and 'ba' (which is Alexa for bird).  I was ducking and running to our car and she was having the time of her life.  Then, just as I'm finally starting to escape the bird attack, my brother in law and nephews drive up and see us both acting like fools.  Me cowering, Alexa screaming in laughter.  Awesome, just awesome.

#2 - Alexa asked to use the potty today.  We have a potty in her bathroom that pretty much just sits there looking pretty.  I realize that she won't be able to use the potty for awhile but why not have one there so that she can get used to seeing it, right?  It's pretty obvious that she's seen me on the toilet plenty of times (as evidenced by previous posts) and I feel like that's a good thing (hopefully, she will never think that the potty is scary).  We were putting towels away in my bathroom today when she walked up to the toilet and pointed at it.  I asked her if she had to use the potty just to see what she would do and she shook her head yes.  OK, interesting.  Then I asked her to bring me to her potty (thinking that she would bring me into her bedroom or the office or something like that).  She grabbed my finger and walked in front of me all the way to her bathroom door and then banged on it.  I opened the door and she pointed to her potty.  So we took off her pants and diaper and she sat on it.  Nothing happened but we sang some made up potty songs and she sat there for a little bit, until she got tired of sitting, at which time we put back on the pants with a fresh diaper.  I know it's not super exciting and I know that everyone thinks their own kid is fantastic but I was impressed that the 16 month old wanted to sit on the potty.

Alexa's Birthday Party!!!!

Well, the party event of the century is over. I'm talking about Alexa's first birthday of course. hehehe. We did a bird theme (obviously) with pink and orange and it was super cute. Nick called our house the shrine to Alexa because I pulled out every single picture frame we own and displayed pictures of her first year all over the house. Slightly ridiculous? Sure. But I don't care. I busted out the baking skills and made cupcakes instead of ordering a cake from Publix. Birthdays on a budget...this is how I roll. Plus, the cupcakes are so much easier to serve...no cutting involved...obviously. I used the banner that I made for family vacation and changed out the letters to say "Happy Birthday" and then cut out a bird for each end on my cricut. Oh, and I got those birdhouses at Michael's for $1 each and Nick and I painted them one night. I know, you're jealous of my party planning skills! I wanted to make her a little birdie shirt but mom bought her a 'Birthday Girl' shirt from Target so we just went with that. I did, however, make her a tutu!!!! Definitely one of the easiest things I've ever made. All you do is cut small strips of tulle and tie them around a ribbon. Easy peasy. Lots of family and friends came over to help celebrate and Alexa did great with all the people. I was a little nervous about how she would react to 50 people being in her house because she had been running an off and on fever for a few days before her party. A real fever, it went up to 103.7, so she had been fussy. We had hot dogs and hamburgers plus beans by mom and pasta salad by Carol. Alexa ate her cupcake:Opened her presents:And hung out with her friends:All in all, I think she had a pretty good time. :) She got lots of wonderful presents (did you see the beautiful quilt Aunt Babs made her in the present opening picture?!) but I think she likes this one the best:

Oh! And she finally figured out how to clap her hands. (Yay for milestones she should have met three months ago!!!) And of course now she thinks it's the greatest thing ever and claps every chance she gets. Anyway, the birthday weekend was a success. Carol and George stayed for 4 days (which was great!) but I wish my parents could have stayed longer. Oh well, we are going to see them next weekend in Orlando for a trip to Disney World!!! I can't wait for Alexa to meet the princesses! Speaking of which, have I ever written about my utter dislike for Tinkerbell? That might be worth a post of it's own.