Crazy Fun Family Time

My little Anna is getting older and older.

Tonight after a yummy dinner of homemade pizza (made by moi..., ahem.), Anna, Curt and I played forEVER with her new Pea Pod. For those not "in the know" a Pea Pod is a snazzy little tent that will TOTALLY replace pack n' plays someday. My hip college roommate Kylie had one and we splurged for one for the upcoming family camping trip. (Gulp.)

We decided there was no way Anna-the-Floppy-Fish would sleep on an air mattress with us and we assumed the pack n' play was illogical in a smallish tent. Anyhoo... Here's a picture of it:


I broke out the Pea Pod because I wanted Anna to get used to it and also because it's so dang cool and when it arrived in the mail today I squealed like a you-know-what! I hid it in my room all afternoon till it was dough-rollin time for the pizza. Sure enough, it caught that gal's attention right off the bat. She climbed in and out and had great fun.

BUT TONIGHT,

With a belly full of pizza, Anna went bonkers in the Pea Pod. The same girl that can't do the same activity for more than five minutes and who [sure as heck no way I don't see the point] never wants to play alone, climbed in and out of that thing for a while. THEN, Curt and I joined in and all fun broke loose. Curt and I were on the back (non door) side of the tent. Anna would dive into it and launch herself at us and smash her face into the mesh and try to tickle us. Then, we alternated closing the window flap and leaving it open so the little monkey never knew what she'd get when she dove in. Then, we alternated being on the back or on the sides. It was great fun and giggles had by all.

The neatest thing was, Anna created the game. When she'd climb out, she'd yell "AN-NA!" to indicate we were to yell her name. Then, she'd dive in for some parent location-guessin, face-smashin, tickle-tryin fun. When she'd had enough, she'd climb (fall) back out of the pod and yell "AN-NA!" again so we'd call for her and start the fun again.

As the game wore on (I'm talking 20-25 minutes at this point), she changed it up by staying in the pod, holding still, looking sideways at us and slyly saying, "Uh-oh" before trying to get us through the mesh.

People, we wore out WAY before she did. She was so much fun. We FINALLY folded the Pea Pod up, which is fun all by itself, only to have Curt let go and have it SPRING open into it's tent-y shape. Oh boy she LOVED that! We did that for a while.

What a night! What a big girl making up her own fun! Ahhhhhhh Anna Banana!

The Evolution of "Yes"

Anna has the cutest ways of saying "yes".

She began with a cute little shoulder wiggle dance, at times accompanied by a whiny, desperate little noise (the sound of a girl SO GRATEFUL to be understood or given a choice).

Then, it mysteriously morphed into saying "die" for "yes". Goodness knows where that came from. We'd say, "Anna, do you want more juice?" She's respond, "die!"
Funny.

Now, she's doing this slow and exaggerated up and down head nod, with an occasional "die" thrown in.

What a creative and crazy little girl!

Because you asked..

I got a FULL BODY massage last night from Curt.

Yep.

I didn't even ask for it.

Just saying...

Concerning Princesses:

Stolen from KG:

(I think you ladies will appreciate this letter as much as I do. It's written to Pixar from Linda Holmes and it reads as follows:
(You can also click here to read it from the NPR blog)

Dear Pixar,

This is not an angry letter. It is especially not an angry letter about Up, which I adored. I could have sat in the theater and watched it two more times in a row. I cried, but I also laughed so hard in places that it wore me out.

So I'm not complaining; I'm asking. I'm asking because I think so highly of you.

Please make a movie about a girl who is not a princess.

I'm counting on you, after the jump...

Of the ten movies you've released so far, ten of them have central characters who are boys or men, or who are anthropomorphized animals or robots or bugs who are voiced by and imagined as boys or men. These movies feature women and girls to varying degrees -- The Incredibles, in particular -- but the story is never "a girl and the things that happen to her," the way it's "a boy and what happens to him."

I want so much for girls to have a movie like Up that is about someone they can dress up as for Halloween, as Anika Noni Rose said about starring as the voice in The Frog Princess. Not a girl who's a side dish, but a girl who's the big draw.

And I'd really, really like it not to be a princess.

My understanding is that after the summer blockbusters of 2010 and 2011 -- Toy Story 3 and Newt -- you're planning The Bear And The Bow, a Christmastime fairy tale rather than a summer adventure. And your first one about a girl -- way to go!

But why, oh why, does it have to be about a princess? Again?

Et tu, Pixar?

I have nothing against princesses. I have nothing against movies with princesses. But don't the Disney princesses pretty much have us covered? If we had to wait for your thirteenth movie for you to make one with a girl at the center, couldn't you have chosen something -- something -- for her to be that could compete with plucky robots and adventurous space toys?

Or more to the point, why couldn't your first female central character be as specifically drawn as the women and girls (and girl robots, etc.) you're already writing as secondary characters? Ratatouille has a chef! WALL-E has Eve! The Incredibles has superheroes!

And Up...oh, Up has Ellie, who I could have watched forever. Seen only in flashbacks to the main story, Ellie is warm and hilarious, ambitious and fearless, and then gone for most of the movie. She provides the engine for the story, in many ways, but it's an old man and a little boy who actually get to hit the gas.

I don't like to make movies political, especially kids' movies, if I can help it. Sometimes a princess is just a princess and should be taken as such.

At the same time, little Russell, in Up, is Asian-American, right? And that's not a big plot point; presumably, he just is because there's no particular reason he shouldn't be. You don't need him to be, but you don't need him not to be, either. It's not politics; it's just seeing the whole big world.

Well, the whole big world has a lot of little girls in it, too. And not all of them are princesses -- and the ones who are princesses have plenty of movies to watch.

And even many of them who do aspire to be princesses are mixing their princess tendencies with all manner of other delicious things. Their tiaras fall off when they skin their knees running at top speed; they get fingerpaint on their pink dresses; they chip their front teeth chasing each other in plastic high-heeled shoes.

There's nothing wrong with the movies you're making; I'm sure your princess movie will be my favorite one ever. I'm just saying, keep them in mind, those girls in Band-Aids, because they want to see themselves on screen doing death-defying stunts, too. You're making some of my favorite movies in the whole world right now.

Please, please make one about a girl who isn't a princess.

When do you know you are a big girl?

When you eat your very first corn on the cob...




And when you use your potty correctly for the first time (A #2, nonetheless)!!!!
Hooray Anna!
Hooray Potty Pal!

And by the way:
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY GRANNY AND GRANDPA!!! WE LOVE YOU!

Things that will break your heart:

An overwhelmed daddy.

And an angel crying.

Everyday pics

Dad, I'm really tired of smiling.

But I don't mind showing off!

But sometimes I just want a nice book with my friends Sophie and Michelle.

After a nice, long bath (complete with punk hair).