Where's my baby?

A tragic thing happened on Friday afternoon: I cut Elliot's hair. Yes, in a moment of frenzy, a moment of pure stupidity, I cut my baby's hair. He was in the bath, I was washing his hair, and I couldn't deal with the bangs in the eyes, the fringe creeping around the ears, a moment longer. I got a pair of very dull scissors, and right there in the bath, attempted to trim the mange.
It was a very bad idea. I was going to take a picture to show you, but I'm too embarrassed. When Joe got home, he just laughed at me. We unfortunately had to go to dinner at someone's house just as Joe arrived home, so we didn't get a chance to repair the damage right then. My friends were kindly sympathetic; they assured me they had done similar things to their own children.

Saturday morning, we got out the clippers, and Joe and I repaired the hair. Did I mention how wiggly Elliot is? I definitely shouldn't have attempted anything on my own. Trimming his hair was like trying to ride a mechanical bull; you think you've got it, but 10 seconds later, you fall off.

Now that his hair is short, I can't believe how different he looks! Hence the title, "Where's my baby?" He's getting to be a grown-up toddler. And I know with the buzz his hair will just get thicker and thicker. Is this the death of his infancy?

And the token Dottie pictures. I can't take a picture of Elliot without her wanting me to take one of her. Plus, this is such a scary picture, I had to share. This is her attempt at the camera smile.

Holiday Update

First things first: the Halloween update. You know you want it. Every blogger out there posted Halloween pictures. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but once again, I was flaky with my camera and didn't have any pictures from the actual day.
However, for your viewing satisfaction, I dressed up the kids again today, just for you, so you can imagine that this is them on Halloween.

See our pumpkins? The little one is the one from the pumpkin farm. It's now completely caved in and corroding away. Dottie's sad about it.

I'm sorry my child looks like she's half-crazed in every picture. She still hasn't mastered the camera smile. Plus, she really is half-crazed.

I love my little pumpkin with his wild, constantly moving hands.

We are very into the holidays in our family. Dottie has dressed up as a witch several times since Halloween. And I anticipate that she will keep on doing this.
One of our favorite things about this time of year is the eggnog. Did you know that there is Halloween eggnog? Maybe not in every store, but definitely in your local Walmart. We buy it. It's one of those impulses Joe and I cannot resist.
Dottie also loves eggnog. Now that it's November, the Christmas variety is available. The particular eggnog we buy (not pictured below; I tried to find an image, but couldn't. And we already drank all of ours) has a Snowman on it. Dottie calls the eggnog "Christmas Milk." The other day I asked Dottie what the Christmas milk tastes like, and she replied: "Snowmen." Dottie thinks she's drinking snowmen because of the picture on the carton. That is actually an accurate assumption, since when you drink orange juice there is an orange on the carton.

One more Dottie holiday anecdote. She's very excited for Christmas. She's realized that she can ask for things, and that mommy has also hidden some things. She asks me all the time for a little mermaid jack-in-the-box (there is actually one that exists, but it's a little expensive), and for a pink stick horse (one of her Joy School friends has one). She also knows she is getting some Sleeping Beauty items: the movie, a dress, and a doll. They are all hidden in Elliot's closet. There's limited room in our small house for hiding such things. I didn't think she knew about it, but I will now find her looking in Elliot's closet at the toys. When I ask her what she's doing, she says, "I'm looking at my Sleeping Beauty things for Christmas."

One more unrelated story: the other day, I was putting Elliot down for his nap and I left Dottie in the bath. She just got a new shampoo, blueberry. When I came to check on her, I discovered her trying to shampoo herself. There was a big clump of shampoo at the front of her hair, and she also decided to shampoo her face as well. You can't see it that great in this picture, but there is blue shampoo all over her face. She cried a lot when I cleaned her face, because it ended up in her eyes, nose and mouth. She was spitting out soap for the next hour.

Elliot's My Sister?!

Dottie doesn't get the difference between a brother and a sister. I even had her chanting the other day: "A brother is a boy, a sister is a girl." Despite my attempt to indoctrinate her, she still says: "Elliot's my sister! And I'm his brother!" Geez Louise. I know she'll eventually figure it out, just like she did when she used to confuse "Dottie" with "Doggy." She'd go around saying, "I'm doggy!"
By the way, that is a headband on Elliot's head. Dottie puts things on his head all the time. The thing is, he doesn't even care. Maybe he should have been a girl; he's certainly better at keeping things in his hair than Dottie is.

Another favorite of Dottie's, the hat.


Dottie jump-roping with my phone cord. These are the things she does for fun when Elliot's taking a nap.

Joy School Halloween Party

Yesterday was Dottie's Joy School Halloween Party. It was a much-anticipated event, because Dottie knew she could wear her witch costume. It was a nice short party; it only lasted an hour. They sang two Halloween songs, iced cookies (and ate them), and made two crafts. I just love Halloween. I love it so much, I left my kids in their costumes all day long. They went to a doctor's appointment and the mall in their costumes.

The kids singing their Halloween songs.

Making their spiders.

Elliot is impossible! He kept on rolling over or trying to grab the camera as I took this picture. Crazy kid. I'll get a better shot when it's actually Halloween.

My happy little witch.

Oh, the media

I try not to get political on the blog, because I don't want to offend people one way or the other. I think as long as people are voting, that's great. Vote for who you feel is the right candidate.
However, I have noticed, in this presidential race, a definite media preference. The following story confirms this belief for me.
Two nights ago, I was watching ABC news with Dottie. The story changed to the presidential race, how each candidate was doing, the latest scandal, etc. Now, I noticed that there was more negative press about McCain and Palin, and more positive press about Obama. Not only that, there was considerable more airtime on Obama. I wouldn't think a three-year-old would notice. Dottie turns to me and says, "Mommy, we're watching Obama." Now, I don't talk about politics to Dottie. She might hear me and Joe talk about politics occasionally, but the fact that she picked up from the news Obama's name and not McCain's is proof to me that there is a media bias.
Now me telling you this has nothing to do with what candidate is the best, but rather, it shows how there is unfair media coverage. Dottie says she likes Obama; she thinks he's fun. A three-year-old is persuaded to like Obama more than McCain. Isn't there something wrong with this picture?

The Pumpkin Farm

Last Friday, we went to a pumpkin farm with another group similar to Joy School. I think the other kids had a good time. My children, on the other hand, were extremely out of hand. This picture is probably the peak of Dottie's happiness at the pumpkin farm, for she knew that once she had her pumpkin, she could leave.

I like this one. Dottie, and the little boy, Aaron, showing their misery.

These are pictures of the whole group. They're all about equally as bad, so I figured I'd post them all. I especially like Serenity (the one mommy in the picture). She has three young kids, and they were also struggling that day. Her face says it all: "is this even worth it?" We were having similar sentiments that day.

I'm sorry; I should have a better attitude. I mean, like I said, for some kids, it was awesome. But I could only get Dottie to get out of the stroller to touch this hog, and then to see the horse. She did like the hog. He was enormous. She said his hair was "rough," which it was.

This is where the big meltdown happened. Dottie is with her best bud, Amelia, who loves horses. The horse turned around and whinnied, and Dottie thought he was trying to eat her. So she cried and cried. See how she's wringing her hands? Then, when we left the horse, she started crying that she wanted to see him again. It was probably a bad idea to go at all; both kids were up until 9 pm the night before because they went to Daddy's concert.

On a happier note, this was our first time dressing up Elliot in his huge winter coat. I don't know why, but I just think babies look so dang cute in these coats. I especially like seeing Elliot try to crawl. He can hardly move he's so bundled.

So have you noticed I changed things up with the background of my blog? I don't know how I feel about it. What do you think? Is it me?

No Gender Roles Here . . .

That's right. My baby boy is wearing a butterfly smock. And he's not happy about it. I don't know if the rest of you out there with baby boys have noticed, but there is a huge discrepancy in the amount of boys' clothing vs. girls' clothing at any store you go into. The ratio is usually 3 girl outfits for every 1 boy outfit. Also, baby boy clothes are usually butt-ugly. I mean, why does every retailer think I want my child plastered with footballs and soccer balls, with the inevtiable sports number somewhere, as if he were already some boneheaded jock?
I went to Babies R Us, which is supposedly the best baby store out there, with the specific purpose of finding bibs that covered EVERYTHING. Elliot has recently decided that baby food from the jar is no longer cool; he wants to feed himself. This presents a problem since there are only so many foods he is capable of eating. So now it is a complete disaster when he eats. A pear? He squishes it all over himself.
So I moseyed on over to Babies R Us, knowing that they would have covering bibs. The only covering bib was this one, the butterfly smock. When I asked one of the store workers if there was baby boy bibs like this one, she told me (very unsympathetically, by the way) that there were just more girl bibs than boys'; that's just how the shipments came in.
Now why, I ask you, would there be more girl bibs than boys'? Aren't boys supposedly more messy than girls? So Babies R Us, I'm deeply disappointed. You've also fallen into the retailers' trap of gender biases.
So I bought the butterfly smock, as you can see. Only for in-house wear. The kid has to have something. I'm tired of going through 3 outfits a day.