Dolls!

And, here is the companion photo to the Trains! post. She's only 10 months, but young Miss Vivi is fascinated by dolls.

Trains!

A quick update to say I’ve re-entered the world of the living, but I am still very much recovering. And, now back to our regularly scheduled post-a-day challenge post.

I think every boy goes through the train phase. I feel like just yesterday, young Master B had one contained train set, nothing fancy—three wooden trains and a figure-8 track. Then, over the holidays, he acquired another a Thomas the Tank Engine set and then another set with loads of track and suddenly I feel like we have to install the train set and de-install the train set in the living room EVERY DAY.

We live in an urban apartment, so room is at a premium. We can’t just leave the train set up for young Miss Vivian to trip over while she attempts to cruise the entire perimeter of the play room.

The thing is, Bertram likes the train set, but Parental Unit #2 loves the train set. By far, I believe that Parental Unit #2 goes out of his way to make crazy configurations that sprawl across our main living space. I guess you can take the boy away from the trains, but not the trains away from the boy.

A Sick Day

I'm old enough to know that I can't do it all--work full-time, be a mom, be sick, and participate in this post-a-day blog challenge. So while I take a day or two to recoup from this rather nasty cold, take a gander at this post on Clio Confidential. It made me think about how we use blogs, and I, too, am guilty of trying to present the more positive aspects of our family's life rather than those issues that are more painful, and harder to express via the blog form.

Hair

When I saw Vivian for the first time, I was shocked by her tiny mane of dark brown hair. Before she came into our lives, all we knew was Aryan race poster boy Bertram. I could not believe that we had produced two children who looked so different. At 9 months, Bertram was still kind of a baldy. By contrast, Vivian at 9 months is either ready for a haircut or ready for her mother to purchase infant girl hair accessories.

Baby barrettes are a sham. I know this. The clips look good for all of two minutes until the kid starts to futz with them, and then they just kind of dangle precariously—threatening to drop to the floor. The other option is a stretchy hair band that makes the baby appear to be an infant version of Olivia Newton John circa her “Let’s Get Physical” phase.

Helen’s Mom over at the sadly defunct Storkbite (join us for the February post a day challenge!) says the solution is Aqua Net. Thusfar, hair spray has done the trick, but young Miss Vivi’s hair is starting to get into her eyes.

I vascillate between wanting to let her hair grow and being practical. I do like those little bob hair cuts. But, what compares to the vision of a little girl running around with a snarl of hair flowing behind her. Or with silly braids! Or crazy ponytails sticking up every which way. As a theatre person, I never liked musicals, but I can’t help that these lyrics spring to mind when I think about Vivian’s hair--

Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair