They’re singing AndyZ to sleep. It didn’t work. Go figure.

We hung out with Aardvarks last night and it was loads of fun. I was worried because NikkiZ can be - well - kinda evil at times. She’s not keen on sharing and she likes to yell at people and throw things in frustration. Or - at least she does that at our house to us. She’s even quite abusive with LilZ at times - I think because she knows he won’t fight back. (Whereas I’ll chase her around the house with a whip.) (Kidding.) (But it does give me an idea…)

But at Scout’s house? She was perfect. She shared and was sweet and loving and was simply a perfect angel. No whining, no fits, no snotty yells, “No!” when I ask her to do something. I didn’t even have to threaten discipline, much less actually follow through on any threats. She acted better than I’ve ever seen her act in that length of time.

(She’s pretty obedient in 30 second increments.)

Of course, the second we got in the van? She started whining, and when we got home? She pitched a fit. And before she went to sleep? She yelled at me and threw a toy at my head. And then growled, “I’m so frustrated!” My evil daughter was back. Oh, how I missed her so.

Do your children do that? Is there a split-personality trend amongst toddlers that I should be aware of? How can I get that sweet obedient girl back? And where do I send the evil one as an exchange?

Very sweetly tucking Scout into bed

I’ve mentioned before that the only remotely crafty thing I do is make cards. They’re not always perfect and sometimes they’re lame, but it’s what I do. Especially Thank You cards - I really try to hand-make those since I think it makes for a very sincere Thank You. I’ve just recently, attempted to get NikkiZ to make her own cards. It’s turned out to be quite an effective task. Stamps are easy for her to manage and she can even decorate them with stickers. I’ll usually give her a “Thank You” stamp to put somewhere on front and I’ll sign her name inside.

My only issue is, I haven’t really found any washable ink pads. Does anyone have any suggestions? It’s a great task but it would be much better if she didn’t have to walk around with the word “Thanks!” on her arms and legs for three days afterwards.

Of course - if I gave her a bath once in awhile - maybe that wouldn’t happen. Motherhood is tough.

Dooce and Sundry both wrote about their children’s eating habits this week. Since I’m nothing but an uncreative lemming, I thought I should touch on the same topic in our home.

First and foremost: My husband will eat ANYTHING. No one ever talks about whether or not their husband’s are picky eaters, but I am grateful for the fact that MrZ will eat whatever I put in front of him. Now - he has preferences of course. But - my hatred of cooking and my limitation in the kitchen seems to not phase him at all. Or at least he doesn’t say anything about it, which is smart because I would love the excuse to quit cooking all together. This is the key to our healthy relationship: He doesn’t complain about me being a crappy cook with only five meals on my menu and in appreciation I will actually cook dinner for him every night. One of those five meals.

Now - onto NikkiZ.

When she wouldn’t eat baby food - we knew we were in trouble. There have always been guarantees for breakfast - for awhile she ate YoBaby every morning. Sometimes for all three meals of the day because that would be all she would eat. Then she started eating oatmeal. And again - she eats it every morning. Without fail. So breakfast has never been a problem for us. Of course - eating YoBaby (she wouldn’t eat any of the cheaper yogurts) and Oatmeal doesn’t seem like the healthiest menu a toddler could have. So, we continued to at least try to get her to taste other foods. I’m not as pushy as MrZ, but we both try.

She made progress around turning 2 when she tried chili for the first time and LOVED it. From that day on, she would eat any tomato based saucy meals. Spaghetti sauce (noodles only recently), vegetable soups, chili. We tried to feed her something like that every night for dinner, and she ate it most of the time. It was AWESOME. She’s also learned to love some rice and beans as well, which was probably an adaptation of survival since the only restaurant we frequent is a Mexican food dive down the road.

But recently? We’ve learned that she will eat ALMOST ANYTHING - as long as she has ranch dressing to dip it in. Baked chicken, pizza, sausage, hamburger…even pretzels! We just put a dollop of ranch on her plate every night and she’s bound to find something she can dip it in to eat. It has been our miracle ingredient. The day she decided she liked ranch dressing was one of the best days of my life.

I obviously don’t get out much.

What about you? Who are the picky eaters in your home? Do you ever use the threat, “If you don’t eat it you’ll just have to starve because I’m not fixing anything else!” Because I have that on a recording in the kitchen that I play on repeat several nights a week.

I will also eat ice cream, but she won’t feed me that at every meal. I don’t know why.

NikkiZ woke up crying a few nights ago. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does I usually just have to go in, re-tuck her covers and kiss her goodnight again. All is usually fine and most of the time I don’t really think she’s even awake. However - a few nights ago - she woke up again. So, this time I asked her if she wanted me to tell her a story to help her get back to sleep. I had never done the spontaneous story composing for her before, but LilZ used to like it, so I figured while she was sleepy was a good time to try.

I have now created a monster.

She loves for me to tell her stories now. And let me tell you - it has turned out to be just as entertaining for me. I told one the other night about her getting one wish and wishing for one of those giant inflatable slides for our yard like she rode at Bridge Street. She emphatically interrupted me chanting, “Yeah. YEAH. YEAH!” Like, Dude. That is totally what I would wish for. I also told one once about the Halloween Parade at school. Halloween is the new thing she loves to talk about, so I assigned all of the kids in her class costumes. However, after each assignment she would interrupt and say, “No…no…I will wear the [insert costume here] costume!” By the time the story was done she was wearing 10 costumes and the rest of the kids in her class were all Elmo. Evidently she doesn’t want to be Elmo for Halloween.

Living with this child is much more entertaining than should be legally allowed.

She’s taking his picture. Do you think she gets that stance from me?