Part of me thinks, "Advertising fail. I will never smile while because of using a whisk broom." On the other hand, part of me thinks, "It would probably be better for my mental health and general well being if I at least gave smiling while using a whisk brook a shot."


Newest favorite activity for The Boogaloo: taking off the door to the filter for the washing machine. As you can see, we're slightly concerned about the fact that it won't go back on as easily as it comes off, but that's okay. We'll just throw it in the cat litter as usual.

It's incredible how much they learn the first year. I'd like to replace the milestones listed in the Boogaloo's baby book with others that are more pertinent to what she's actually learned and accomplished:

Making a noise as if you are struggling greatly to do a task which is beyond your abilities while miming the activity increases the chance that someone will help you reach your goal.

It's never a good idea to stand right next to the hose while someone is turning it on.

A sense of urgency can be conveyed without words.

Everything is urgent.

Waving and blowing kisses gets positive attention from almost everyone.

Torturing the cat is a never ending source of amusement, as are splashing in the toilet and unrolling the toilet paper roll.

Pretending to be obedient and then running away at the last moment is even MORE amusing, as is hiding when you know people are looking for you.

Sign language for "done" is all well and good, but deliberately tossing pieces of food onto the floor while maintaining eye contact with the nearest adult is a much faster way to gain freedom from the high chair.

And perhaps most importantly -

You can probably get away with it if you look like this:

I realize the baby has been usurping blog space for her entire 12 months of life, but surprise! The rest of the family still exists! For example, there's this one:







This kid still lives here, much to his enjoyment.



Can't you see how excited he is?

Ok so maybe not...but I can still make him laugh -



Sometimes...



Plus, The Sweet Pea is even a high school graduate!



And this kid continues to make as much trouble as she possibly can!



Happy week everyone!

The youngest resident at Casa Twipply Skwood turned a year old last week. We didn't have a party, and I'm not a big cake fan so I'm not that great at making them. This did not go unnoticed by baby, apparently.

I did go hog wild with five and a half sticks of butter though, so it tasted better than it looked. Still, the baby was only interested in was the candle and nothing but the candle.



This tastes a lot like wax.


You want me to eat WHAT?!?! I thought I just had to eat the candle!



Sure. I can sit here and look cute for a picture. But I am NOT going to eat this cake.



Okay, I'll taste it.



I'm eating it! You told me to eat it, so I'm eating it!


Can I be done now?



I'm going to put my foot in this cake if you don't get me down from here



Yay! We're done!


That's a wrap.



So yeah, she hated the cake, and so did everyone else's arteries. In fact my Boy kept saying that he wouldn't have to worry about his AP World History exam, because the butter would kill him off before the day of the test. Needless to say he ate his fair share.

One first birthday down, one high school graduation to go! Tune in text time I get my act together for another exciting episode.

I've tried different programs for becoming a better housekeeper. I've tried the Fly Lady, I've tried Motivated Moms, and I've tried lists from Pinterest and trying to tackle one room a day. But the truth is, no matter what the program something else always seems more pressing.



The Beeb on the other hand is very devoted to her chores. She makes sure that as many pieces of clean laundry as possible are unfolded and grace the floor before being refolded and put into drawers.

She's committed to a perfect filing system for the CDs. She makes sure her filing is kept up to date at all times, especially if someone has needlessly put the CDs into that funny little bookshelf looking thing.



She goes through the diaper bag meticulously. She likes to make sure there's enough diapers, chomp on any paper she finds, and chew through any plastic. Also, she likes to make sure no cold packs have been left in there.



She's taken it upon herself to make sure all the items in the kitchen cupboards are spread out around the floor each day...



and that she helps with unloading the dishwasher. Only unloading though, never loading, regardless of whether the dishes are clean or dirty. And only onto the floor, obviously.



Often these chores have to be done multiple times a day. It's an ambitious job for someone who's almost a year old, but somebody has to tackle the housework around here. It obviously can't be left up to me. Happy almost Mother's Day to everyone!

In fact, it's more than a little stressful. So much so that my title hardly even makes sense.

Around here we've been trying to figure out how to get The Sweet Pea to college. The Beeb had roseola. I've been trying to plan the The Beeb's first birthday party AND order invitations for The Sweet Pea's graduation.

We got Zumba for the Wii, so now not only does it call me fat and clumsy and a poor parent, it lies to me about being a good dancer:

But, what can you do? It's way better than joining a gym.

Meanwhile the Beeb is getting bigger. Here she is when she turned ten months looking all studious:



Don't let that fool you though. She is only seconds away from eating the book. Not innocently mouthing it, not sucking on it a little, not teething on it a bit. She's about to bite off as many morsels of the made-for-destructive-baby pages as she can possibly chew up and swallow before someone makes a mad dash to rescue the poor book. Books that survived both the Sweet Pea's gentle care and even the Boy's rough treatment are now crying for mercy.

She's also learning to walk as a means to an end. The end being to make us all smile and coo, of course. She's otherwise not really interested.

Here she is walking between The-Guy and Older Gal:



Last but not least, she's saying several words. The first word is "Wawa," which means water and cup and perhaps even, "I'd like to try your beer." She also says, "bawa" meaning both bottle and "I want that."

Her most frequent word is "BAOW!" which as far as I can tell means bottle, but also means book and "Let's torture the cat!"

That's the update from here. Hope all is well with everyone.

Freshly bathed baby - one of my favorite types!



Baby is now outnumbered seven to one. Grammy and Grandpa are visiting! So that means two more people are here who think it's unacceptable to suck on the soles of shoes.

Of course, there are four more feet around the house, so possibly we'll have better luck at keeping her from the paper, penny, and glass eating.

I forgot to mention way back during Mardi Gras that I got the baby from this year's Mardi Gras King Cake! It probably slipped my mind because I was terrified of the incredible danger. It's so dangerous that the Mardi Gras baby doesn't even come inside the cake anymore.



Here it is with a penny so you can further appreciate the actual scale of the incredible danger:



You have the option of putting it in yourself if you want to take your life into your own hands, but I just asked if I could pocket it and take it home.



So now we have two incredibly dangerous babies in the house.



In any case, happy spring! I hope everyone managed the dangers of Mardi Gras cake!

It's hard to tell a bunch of old people that your baby has a black eye because she knocked an autoharp on her face. That mark on her cheek in the picture below is the only part you can see anymore.

But at least they just smile and nod, pretending either that they heard you or that the know what an autoharp is or both. It's even harder to explain to a bunch of former coworkers who can actually hear.

But they wouldn't think it was so odd if they spent an afternoon with this baby.



Because she sees each and every day as a new chance for a minor catastrophe.

Since last time I posted she's tried to choke herself on an acorn and my camera card, eat a piece of glass, attack who knows what with a steak knife, knock an old fashioned kajillion and a half pound ironing board on herself, and that's not even to mention her normal, everyday attempts at eating as many reams of paper as she can get away with.



Luckily I was able to rescue her from her from all but the autoharp.

By the way, for anyone who remembers my "All Babies are Boys Unless Proven Otherwise" post, I have an update. It's still true as far as I can tell. I brought the baby dressed just like this (pink pants with a pink, purple, and white shirt) into the music store.



So of course, the store owner thought she was...

A boy wearing a barrette.

No really! In fact, he even told me he wondered why I would put a barrette on a boy. So...that's it from here. The baby girl who looks like a baby boy is bent on self destruction and getting reacquainted with her much hated playpen!

Despair! Oh despair!



The misery! The injustice!



Wait, we're going to a carnival you say?



Never mind. That's okay then.



Put me in a tutu and a tiara.



No really. I don't mind at all.

Unfortunately for the two people left reading that come here for the silly signs, it turns out that most of my pictures are yet again of that kid that kept us awake so many nights:


I did see a truck like this out on the road the other day, and I wondered "How do you really know if your trash is good enough for them to take? Does the trash have a grade point average?



The problem was that I didn't manage to have my camera. Just the baby and her 20 pounds of stuff. Which means that her stuff outweighs her by about a pound and a half (and that I borrowed the trash truck picture from their website).

So it's back to the baby. She now responds to the words, "bye bye, no-no, hi, bottle, and her name", around as many words as the cat knows. It's probably also a toss up as to who is more obedient.



But of course she has her own ways of communicating:



She loves any food we've ever given her. And flowers:


So that's about it for now. Hope everyone has a good President's Day!

In the war of the babies against the safety devices, the babies are expected to win. You can tell because it says right on the package that the baby will "defeat" the electrical cord cover:


My favorite part is that you're supposed to "discontinue use" once the baby can defeat the safety device. Because surely it's better to give the baby direct access to electrical outlets.

But then what do I know? I pulled wasp wings out of baby's mouth last week.

In another win for baby, I returned from a 20 minute run to the drug store to find The-Guy struggling to free his bowl of pomegranate seeds from baby's hand, her other fist already fat with the seeds. I helped him get his bowl back as he explained that her mouth was full of cat food and that he thought she had also managed to ingest a little cat vomit.

"No-no-no!" I scolded her as the fistful of pomegranate seeds made their inevitable way toward her mouth, "Finish the cat food first!"

Look, here's the little victor now:


Although she hasn't actually managed to "defeat" the plug covers yet. Just us.