Mii for your Wii

I have been having so much fun with my wii fit, I'm telling you-- run right out to the store this very moment and get one for your damn self! hours of entertainment.

One of the best parts of owning a wii is that you create an avatar, your mii. She and I sat down togejavascript:void(0)ther last night to generate her very own mii- and it was so funny, looks like her if she were Charlie Brown's little sister. She loved creating it too, we put mustaches and beards on her character and she giggled herself silly. I found a site online where you can generate a mii without a wii, yippie! (no more rhymes now I mean it. Anyone want a peanut?)
Make your own mii

Later, I plugged her into the wii fit board to take a shot at downhill skiing. It was hilarious. The board registers body weight and balance then takes those findings into consideration during game play. The board told her she was under weight (big surprise) which was noticeable as she hardly had enough girth to make her character ski. None the less it was hysterical watching her try her hardest to race down the hill.

Hannah Montana?

Will somebody please tell me what the big fat hairy deal is with that pumpkin-headed gummy-smiled brat Miley Cyrus?

I announced to Salem that had I downloaded some Hannah Montana songs to play on my ipod. (insert proud abreast-of-pop-culture parent moment here...) She squealed with delight as her eyes rolled back in her head and just before she foamed at the mouth she ran to my computer to play the songs.

The jubulation was terminated shortly after when she discoverd that I had failed to download a certain Hannah Montana song - "The Best of Both Worlds". Are you kidding me? Since when does my 4 year old have a persnicketly little playlist?

Not long after I caved in and download that song to turn her frown upside down. Yes, I thought I was spoiling her too, but hell.

She knew all the words; she danced and sang while twirling around the living room. She even brought out her signature "kick move" where she puts her hands on the floor while kicking backward in the air with one leg. This move looks much like a donkey rearing or a dog covering up its business.

I know she's happy when she busts that one out.

Dreamhouse

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas!

Salem got a Barbie Dream House from Santa this year. It took over an hour to assemble, but once it was all complete, admittedly I wanted to play with it. There's something to be said about the giant pink plastic Barbie palace; once it was built there's an overwhelming magnetism. I kept walking by it and staring. It's enormous, pink, and decorated in that shabby-chic style that draws out the little girl in me.

Once she got her hands on it, she was completely entertained for hours. I had to drag her to bed. After she was in bed I casually walked past it again (addict) and noticed that she had the Barbie laundry basket full of clothes and placed next to the washing machine, plates and silverware were stacked neatly in the sink and the bed was made up. One of her Barbies was placed in the bathtub with a Barbie-sized toothbrush tucked neatly in her hand. It was adorable. If only she was this excited about keeping her own bedroom so tidy!

So yeah, the Dreamhouse was a big success. She loves it.

Chatting Teeth

Not a single activity we perform ever goes without Salem's incessant chatting. She babbles on to me, to herself, and to anyone around us who will listen. Most of the time she has something strange, funny or interesting to say--hence this blog. However, rarely she'll have chatted so much that she has run out of things to say. This is where she'll speak in her made-up language enabling her to continue running her mouth.

As we lumbered through the aisles of the grocery store the other day I could tell that she was dangerously close to the bottom of the story-barrel. But something in the store must have triggered her mind and she began a new rant about her great grandmother.

her: "Hey mom? Pop Pop (her grandpa) get's scared when Mommo takes her teeth out."
me: "Oh yeah? Well that is kinda weird to see someone with no teeth."

She rambled on for a while noting a few points about dentures and how they make her feel as well as touching on her opinions in regard to dental hygiene.

her: "You know what I think about when she does that? When she pulls her teeth out?"
me: "I have no idea, kid. What does it make you think?"
Her eyes fluttered around in her head as she searched for a cue in the store. I could tell that she needed some kind of trigger to complete her little story.
her: "Well, her teeth are made of plastic. Plastic teeth are scary to me because they remind me of plastic bags."

With that tid-bit of info her monologue finally came to a close. I smartly chose to avoid asking any further questions on the subject.

Hittin' the Blood Hole

While we were eating dinner the other night:

Her: “Mom! I just felt my noodles hit the side of my heart while I swallowed them!”

Me: “Ew! What do you mean? I bet you can feel your noodles pass down your throat, huh? Pretty cool…”

Her: “Yeah! I can feel them touching my heart; the part of my heart on the side where the blood-holes are!”

What went on in my head after that conversation:
….mkay. That’s enough talk about hearts and blood-holes. I’m trying to eat a steak and now feel like I’m gonna hurl.

I'm Not a Big Girl!

Chuk:
I was putting Salem to bed and we read a story etc. and she did the whole "but I want to go sleep next to you in your big bed" deal. I told her "No you're a big girl and big girls sleep in their own big girl beds."

She gave me the mad Salem face, looked me right in the eye and said. "Dad, I'm not a big girl! Haven't you noticed I'm only 4 and I'm very small?!" She then ticked off her fingers one by one while saying "I'm afraid of monsters, the dark, the butterfly on the wall, and dolls that are hard to see. I'm a little girl and I get scared! That means I should sleep in your bed with you!"

No Time to Make Up

Just some tid-bits of what my kid has to say when we're running late for school, she tends to drag her feet as school is not her favorite place to be:

"Well mom, if you put your make up on faster, we could leave the house earlier!"

"I'm sorry! My tights keep bunching in my bum and it doesn't feel good! I need to put on different tights."

This one kills me:
"I spilled the juice and had to run spit out my vitamin because the juice on the counter made my vitamin taste bad. And then the juice got on my clothes and now I need to change."

"We can't leave yet, I don't like these shoes! I need different shoes!"
Then she runs in her room and grabs flip flops to put on over her socks--it's December. I have the same argument every time, I robotically recite this diatribe in monotone:
"You can't wear flip flops to school...You can't wear flip flops in the winter...You can't wear flip flops to school..." Really, I should just record myself saying it and hit 'play' every morning. That way I could save time by playing it while I "put my makeup on faster".

and lastly:
"We can't leave! My ponytail isn't tight enough!"

After we've moved on from the clothing battle and have left the house, we go on to battleground #2: Getting in the car. As I strap her in her car seat each day I'm required to perform a kid-frisk. The purpose of this operation is to extract any stow-a-way toys she has tucked into her pants, coat sleeves, under her hat or in her pockets. She's not allowed to bring toys to school, but Salem's never been much of a rule-follower. After I remove said contraband she always begs me to "Drop it off at the sitters on the way to work so that I can play with it after school."

Are you kidding me? The sitter has 1,000s of toys to play with. This is 4 year old manipulation at it's finest.

Toilet Material

Last night I had to run a few errands between picking up Salem from her sitter and getting home. While driving around, she complained a bit about not going straight home to play with her "littlest Pet Shop" toys. (btw: what is the appeal of teeny tiny toys? I can't seem to grasp why children are obsessed with toys the size of a california roll.)

On my front seat I had some junk mail from Walgreens which was advertising a few drugstore toys. (you know the kind; off-brand low-grade plastic 'Barbie' and the crappy bag-o-farm animals made of rubber...) I asked Salem if she'd like to look at a "the Walgreens magazine" while we were running our errands.

"A magazine? You want me to look at a magazine? (insert snicker) Looking at magazines is only for when you're on the potty mom. That's just silly."

Help Santa!

Hey guys,
Salem has asked santa for a kitty this year. I asked her to clarify; real or fake. She assures me that it's fake. It comes in what she calls "a little purse". Oh, and she also made a note that it was fuzzy and sweet, like a real kitty only it's a fake kitty.

Any ideas?

This image is of Salem telling Santa in great detail about said fake kitty...

Makin' Glitter Balls

We had craft day to make some new ornaments for my sad little 4' tinsel tree.

1. Fill a paper bag with your choice of colored glitter.

2. Glue up a styrofoam ball, get it all gluey. (do not allow your 4 year old to assist in this step.) Put the gluey ball into the bag full of glitter.

 

3. Shake, shake, shake the bag to get the gluey ball all glittery.

4. Reach inside and inspect if the ball is glittery enough.

5. All shiney!

 

6. Let your glitter balls dry. Here, we have both balls and a star. Yes, very shiny, sparkly and twinkly.

7. After your balls dry, now you can make ornaments. You need wire and wire cutters. Straighten the wire then plunge it down the middle of your glitter ball.

8. Poke it.

 

9. Twist up the wire to hold it in place. Make a loop on the top of the ball with the wire to hang it on the tree.

 

 

 

All Done! Nice and kitschy.

 

www.abosslady.com

You wanna visit me but forget my silly-ass blogspot addy? well, all you fellow bloggers / readers I have some great news! This blog now has a real web address. From now on, type in this addy:

www.abosslady.com

Now Salem antics, stories, and photos easily stream out of your monitor and into your brain hole. Blogger will never be the same. I welcome myself into the year 2009.

Scratchin' up the place

Salem fans are aware that she's all about the gore. lately the focus has been on miscellaneous minor skin abrasions like: scratches, scratching, scrapes and cuts.

We were dining out last night at our local pizza joint. They supply the standard issue bucket of crayons and a paper place mat to color on. This one had dinosaurs.

"Mommy, see?" She pointed to her dinosaur where she had scribbled some green crayon on it's back.
"Yes. Good job. What are you gonna do next?" I said.
"I'm gonna scribble some red in there because that's where it got scratched! I'll make some bleed poke out of the green scratch!"
Then she proceeded to use her crayon like a knife and scratched violently at the dinosaur as if it were a lotto scratch ticket.
"Quit! Stop scratching so hard! Let's chill out and color nicely, k?" I said quietly as the pizza shop patrons were starting to stare.

All this scratching reminded me of when she had a buddy over to play. They were in the kitchen giggling to each other and the laughter escalated into craziness. I then overheard my daughter say, "I'm feeling crazy! I'm a crazy monkey and I'm gonna scratch up all the walls!!"

wtf?

Bad, Bad Hurty-thing

The kid and I were making an apple pie to take with us to our friends house one day. She wanted to help, so I thought it would be a good activity for her to use a vegetable peeler to remove the apple skins.

I prepared the materials for a small demonstration on how to "safely peel the skin from an apple" with the apple in my hand and the peeler in the other. Salem refused to be humored by my tutorial claiming "I know how to do it! I know how! I want to do it! Give it to me!" Alrighty, I handed over the goods to said whiny-pants.

Not more than 30 seconds later after several failed attempts to remove the apple skin, she grated over the top of her thumb and got really upset. There was a small ouchie, nothing to even put a band-aid on, however an ouchie just the same. She whimpered about her battle wound but was more upset at her inablilty to properly peel an apple.

< Start Rewarding Parenting Moment > "Mom! I should have listened to you! You tried to tell me how to do it and I didn't listen. I will listen next time."

Beaming with pride, I began to assure her that she was correct in her hind-site but she stopped me short.
"Mom! Why did you let me use that yucky vegetable peeler? That's not for kids! It's a bad, bad hurty-thing"
< End Rewarding Parenting Moment >

As she grumped around the house, I finished up and put the pie in the oven.

The next day as we were cleaning up after breakfast, she opened the drawer that is home to the dreaded 'Bad, bad hurty-thing' looked inside and taunted the peeler itself:

"Hey you bad peeler! You're not gonna hurt me today!"
(That a girl! You tell that peeler!)

Paper Man

The kid had some issue leaving school last week. Her after-school-care-giver picks her up everyday along with a few other kids. This woman (we'll call her Moe) sat there for a while waiting for Salem to come out of the school. Finally, a custodian showed up outside with little Salem in tow. She had apparently not been paying attention and wandered off during the end of day school exiting ritual. Moe made sure I knew what had happened but I needed more information.


me: "What happened to you at the end of the day when you didn't leave with the other kids?"
her: "I wasn't paying attention when everyone was leaving."
me: "Okay, but what diverted your attention?"
her: "I was looking down. Then I looked up and everyone was gone! Then I started to cry and the man that watches the kids throw their papers away came and found me. He took me outside to meet Moe and then I went home with her."
me: "Well, that sounds like it was scary for you to be alone! You really need to focus as hard as you can at the end of the day when you are leaving so this doesn't happen again."

I notified her teacher what had happened, giving the 'Salem' description of the "man who watches the kids throw their paper away." Turns out her teacher confirmed the incident and apologized. She also went on to say that Salem "Has a very active imagination, huge vocabulary and is very opinionated."

Makes me wonder which of Salem's convictions are more pronounced at school. Do you suppose it's the '08 election, abortion rights or the war in Darfur? I mean seriously, opinionated at 4?