Rocks: Waking up to the sound of her singing Amazing Grace from the other room.

Sucks: Having her meltdown at the shoe store. I’d gone in on a whim; I can feel where her toe is in the shoe, and it’s not exactly roomy in there, but nor are her feet going to be horribly deformed if she wears them a little longer. I was debating the merits of the shoes that light up when the shoe guy came over with that foot measuring device, which is apparently an instrument from the Spanish Inquisition, Toddler Division, because C started crying hysterically. Oh the humanity! All she wanted was some light-up shoes and a sticker, and here comes Torquemada in Dockers and a golf shirt.

Rocks: C decided that the treachery of the shoe store could be forgotten with a granola bar, which I had brought along and was giving to her in bite-size pieces. She kept asking for more as we whisked through the mall, but I was distracted, and when I finally snapped to I realized that she was bugging me incessantly for it:
‘Nola bar?
Have a ‘nola bar?
More ‘nola bar?
‘Nola bar?

God bless America, that’s annoying… wait a minute.
She’s asking for a ‘nola baR. Not a ‘nola baw.

Somewhere between the Spanish Inquisition and the Orange Julius, C learned how to say the letter R.

We later went to TaRget, where she drank from the wateR fountain.

Rocks: Tomorrow is R’s birthday. In preparation I hit five stores in three hours with a two-year-old. She was fantastic. In the car she was practicing her birthday shtick:
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear daddy (sorta all over the place tonally)
Happy birthday to you! (back spot-on in the original key)
…Yay! (applauding)
(a quick puff of exhale)
That’s a great blow!
Oh my Lord and Savior, where on earth does she get this stuff?

Sucks, but just a little: I already shared this at St. Casserole’s Rant-o-rama, but… After our errands, C and I went through the drive-thru at McD’s, which is a Friday treat sometimes. Okay, a weekly treat. (But we eat healthy at other times!)

I ordered her a Happy Meal and when the woman said, “boy or girl?” I almost said boy, because boy Happy Meal toys seem generally cooler. For one thing, they’re actual things you can play with, like this cool Tony Hawks skateboarding figure that spins out and rolls down a ramp. Today, the girl toy was a plastic Barbie bracelet with a big blue gem on it. (It is fitting that our home’s impermeable Barbie barrier would be breached by McDonalds.)

The bracelet came in a light blue plastic egg-thing that pops up and reveals the bling. C asked, “What’s this called?” I said, “What would you like to call it?” She said, “Girl toy.” Yeah, pretty much. She’s napping in the bracelet as we speak. She didn’t even want to sing or rock like we do for the couple minutes before naptime. She just wanted to get in bed and be left alone with her plastic jewelry. OK, whatever.

All in all, a very fun day.