faboo mama

Happy Birthday little girl. Mommy and Daddy can’t believe you’re 5 already. You’re such a little lady, so polite and funny, stubborn and friendly.

We love you.

Last night was Ilia’s 3rd ballet recital. It was a close call, as the instructor couldn’t get into the room. Luckily, one mom has a background in breaking and entering and we got inside the church. Okay, not really…she just tried the door and it opened.

Ilia was really excited about last night, not only would she get to dance to 2 songs from The Wizard of Oz, but she would get to wear a brand new dress.

They started off with warmups and that spinning thing. This time Ilia actually moved across the room and didn’t get stuck spinning in one place.

One of the most annoying things…cellphones. You’d think that in this day and age grown folks would know better than to go into a recital with their damn cellphone on, let alone freakin’ answering it. Yes. That’s right. One of the people in there, not only had a stupid music ringtone, that she took forever to get to (4 rings), but instead of shutting off the phone, she answered it. I wanted to just kick her chair over.

They started out with the theme song to the Backyardigans. That was kind of weird because the opening has dancing, so you’d sorta expect to see the kids doing that dance or something similar. I’m sure they all know it by heart.

They did Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious (which I spelled from memory, thank you very much!) from Mary Poppins. In this one, Ilia clearly decided to do what she wanted to do. OMG, they did this really annoying song from Cinderella. I realized then, that I’ve never seen the Cinderella movie and this song pretty ensured that I never will.

Then they did the Grandma Mambo, which always cracks me up:

There was some issues during the recital. One little girl pretty much kept the whole place hostage to her drama. At first she was scared of the Wizard of Oz sign and ran off the stage. Then it was moved and she came back up, only to try to run off again because she wanted to wear her Dorothy costume. Sigh. Then there was the bathroom drama in between, which sorta snowballed into everyone having to go to the bathroom. I knew Ilia was going to say she had to go soon, but there was no way I was having that nonsense.

Finally, they did their Wizard of Oz songs:

And here’s the class:

This is what I had to tell the girl because she wouldn’t take a nap. I’m sorry but that ain’t even normal. It’s not even in the neighborhood of normal. To fully understand just what she’s whining about take a look a little lady’s newest obsession:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLPbrSjiJI8&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1]

You can thank my husband for that one. He kept singing the song and had to find it. Ilia fell in love. I think she watched the clip like 5 times in a row.

Speaking of bad disco music from foreign, she’s also convinced that Boney M. made songs for me and daddy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/BIkpLXeU2fA&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1]

Clearly, this is daddy’s song

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/Dt77ZqE1bCA&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1 ]

Here’s my song…

It’s clear that she has interesting taste in music. Her newest things she likes are punk rock and The Specials. She thinks The Specials sing Halloween songs (Ghost Town). Hey, even though I’m not a Boney M. fan, I can’t complain. It could be worse, she could like current pop music or hip-hop.

At the rally on Sunday, some lady stole the sign that was for my daughter.  My kid was pretty upset.  I was at my coffeeshop this morning and some Obama volunteers came in to pick up coffee.  I asked for a sign and they gave me this one.

So, I guess we’re Latino for the day.

On Tuesday my father called and Adrian put her on the phone. Now keep in mind that she’s been obsessing over “Grandpa” and carries a picture of Adrian’s (deceased) dad around. When she found out to she was talking to a real live Grandpa she was so happy. The conversation was like 3 sentences long and she recounts them:

“My grandpa said, ‘How are you?’ and I said, ‘Fine.’!”

Ilia is supposed to be taking her nap. For the past hour, she’s devised ways of getting out of it. We finally put her in our bedroom only to hear her crying to go potty. I let her go to the bathroom and thought nothing of it. About 5 minutes later I heard Adrian yelling at her to get into bed. I came into the house to see him blotting blood off her face and asking her how she cut herself. We narrowed it down that it wasn’t her or Alton.

I took her into the bathroom to get some peroxide on her cuts. She was bleeding under her nose and on her bottom lip. Strange cuts. I kept asking her how she cut it thinking that taking her back to the scene of the crime would jog her memory. I cleaned and applied pressure to the cut. As I did that, I noticed black hairs on her face. Strange. I wiped them away and let my eyes dart around the room to see what could have been the culprit. Nothing. When I took the tissue away from her face I noticed the telltale cuts of a razor. Aha. Then I saw it. Way up high on the built-in was a blue razor.

I asked Ilia, “Did you use mommy’s razor?”
“No!”
“Ilia. Tell the truth. [picking up the razor] Did you cut yourself with this?”
Ilia, round-eyed and backing away wailed, “That’s daddy’s razor!”
Now, I’m kind of smiling because of the semantics. I held it up again and asked her to look at me. “Ilia. You need to tell mommy the truth. Mommy and daddy don’t like it when you lie. Did you cut yourself with this?”
She looked at me, looked at the razor and started crying. She walked back to the tissues, “That’s daddy’s razor!”
Drama.
I can’t get over how stubborn she is.
I asked again, but got no answer. Fine. She knew she was busted and felt bad enough. I betcha now she’ll stay in bed.

I’m overhearing a conversation right now, by Ya-ya Mama.

Alton: Bee-bee (binkie)
Ilia: Alton you’re two now. You don’t need your binkie.
Adrian: Give it to him, it’s his birthday!
Ilia: But he’s two now. He doesn’t need it any more. Alton can you say ‘two’?
Alton: [crying] Bee-bee!
Ilia: You’re two now!

So, you know how in Madagascar, the animals are all excited because it’s Field Trip Day and they put on a show and all the kids just love them? Well, going to the LA Zoo, I’d laugh because the animals there are almost as lazy as most of the city. They’re usually just laying there. It’s rare to see them moving.

Well, I guess they knew it was Field Trip Day because they were cracked out. The zebras were moving. No. They were running. I’ve never seen them run. In the last 6 years we’ve been going to the zoo regularly, I’ve never seen them away from that back wall.

See, I got a pic because I knew you wouldn’t believe it. The bears were active too:

The kids loved every stinking minute of it. Adrian left Alton’s stroller at home, so we decided to wing it and see if he could handle not being in the stroller. That meant that this was pretty much his first time actually seeing a lot of the animals. We even made it up to Treetops because we weren’t inhibited by a stroller. Ah…I can taste the freedom (potty training, here we come!) of not having babies any more.

And now for some gratutitous photos of my family:

The zoo is already setting up the Christmas crap.

This is the last photo in a series of weird. Check my flickr page to see the other 3 photos.

Leaving the zoo.

I took these pictures yesterday at the Getty Center. They were taken right after each other and as much as I like them, I find it interesting that Ilia is defying us in every single photo.