Thank Heaven For Little Girls

I've come to realize that one of the hardest parts about raising two little girls is less the fact that they are little girls and more the fact they have a daddy who is clueless about little girls.  Certain aspects of girldom simply mystify the lone male in our midst and he remains steadfast in his belief that certain things are not necessary.  For example, Alex has hair down the length of her back.  It's also baby fine but she has a lot of it.  As a result, it gets tangled and needs to be brushed at least twice a day, once in the morning and once after bath time.  One of the beauties of living in the modern age is that their are now products made specifically for helping get tangles out of hair.  However, getting Marcus to both agree that brushing hair is important and that using detangler makes it easier is like trying to understand why he should brush and detangle his own hair.  He just doesn't get the point.

Equally exasperating is his question for clothing and shoes.  I think if he had his way the girls would run around in their diaper and underwear forever.  The other day I allowed Alex to pick out a pair of shoes for the fall/winter.  She was really into a pair of fuchsia cowgirl boots but I subtly directed her towards a pair of brown cowgirl boots with pink trim (something that might actually match her clothes).  I thought her choice was cute and proudly showed them to Marcus who then questioned why she needed shoes at all.  So, along with running around in her skivvies I guess she could just attach some palm fronds to her feet with twine and we'd be good to go.

The other day we were talking about getting Jo's big girl bed together.  My mom gave us an old metal bed frame that needs to be cleaned and painted and I was starting to feel pressure to get it done.  However, Marcus reminded me that we could just put Jo's mattress on the floor in the meantime since she is still adjusting to not being in a crib.  He then proceeded to state that he didn't understand why the girl's needed bed frames at all and they could just sleep on mattresses on the floor.  I'm beginning to suspect he's a caveman in disguise.  

We Need A New Car

For starters I had been planning on writing a post about a vehicle.  It's just that I had planned on writing an ode to my vehicle, not this particular vehicle.

Remember that time three years ago when we had a newborn baby girl and I was stressing to Marcus that we needed a bigger and more reliable family car?  In response, Marcus brings home a ten-year-old, 100,000+ miles, saturated with cigarette smoke Jeep Grand Cherokee that he hassled the guy down so low on the price he practically gave it to us?  Then, a few short months later the front axle broke and we had to fork over $1,500 to fix it?  Then, less than a year ago we forked over another $1,000 to fix the AC thus totaling more money to fix it then how much we actually paid?  Doesn't ring a bell?

Well, regardless of whether you remember or not we now find ourselves needing a new car.  I'd like to say if Marcus hadn't been such as he is (read: cheap) then we would still have a family vehicle and I wouldn't find myself stuck at home with two little kids and no way to leave.  Leave with them, that is.  I should probably specify that.  I'd also like to say that if he had looked at the amazing spreadsheet I had made three years ago in an attempt to appeal to his nerdy engineer side we would still have a family vehicle.  Alas, none of the above is true and now Marcus must face the facts and purchase a somewhat nice, reliable, slightly-more-expensive-than-a-couple-grand vehicle.

So, we've been looking at cars and debating which is the best option for us.  The best part, and I mean it, is that Marcus has decided we should get the Tesla Model X, an SUV that is currently in production and with a starting price of around $75,000.  Who is this guy?  Naturally, I don't take him very seriously in this and I expect that we'll be cruising around in a 1971 Ford Pinto because it was a "good deal."

Birdie Head

I've been meaning to write a post about this but hadn't been able to come up with something witty to go along with it.  In the end, the picture speaks for itself and nothing I say can diminish it's awesomeness though that doesn't mean I won't try.

So, without further ado I present to you, Alexandra's "Birdie Head," dated June 2nd, 2014, in Play-Doh.

Of course, a piece of art such as this requires a proper critique:

The artist was clearly in an unencumbered state of mind, not concerned about the limits of her creativity.  As this was some of her earlier work, Alexandra was clearly still finding her own style, however, the attention to detail is impressive.  In fact, the texture given to the sculpture is realistic, and evokes Michelangelo or Rodin.  The brightness of the red makes one think that she may have been particularly happy to be creating and in a positive frame of mind.  The thing I find the most interesting of the sculpture is it's naivety and juvenile name "Birdie Head," as if the artist knew not what she was doing.


Tepaske's Birdie Head

Leaf Eating T. Rex

We may have inadvertently perpetuated a lie.  In our desire for our children to eat there is a chance we insinuated that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was a leaf-eater, though it's not completely our fault.  Alex was the one who stated the T. Rex, her most favorite of all the dinosaurs, ate leaves and she was now going to "eat leaves like a T. Rex."  Leaves, in this case, are anything resembling such, e.g. baby spinach, arugula, lettuce, broccoli, asparagus, etc.  Now, during meal time she asks Marcus to hold the "leaf" above her head so she can eat it like a T. Rex.  Of course, she's most certainly confusing the T. Rex and the Brontosaurus (or whatever they're called now) but who am I to correct a three-year-old?  Of course, this will all come back to bite us in the a$$ when she realizes that T. Rex's most certainly did not eat leaves and this will probably be a topic with her future therapist.  In the meantime she'll have excellent fiber, iron, and overall roughage in her diet.