17 month old monkey, turkey, jokes, and my little rant/rave on dvrs.

Little Miss Fearless sees Elisabeth do flips on the trampoline bar multiple times every day - so it really shouldn't have surprised us to see this:

She's a determined little thing, who is physically very strong. She does this 30 times in a row, stopping to clap for herself in between each "trick."

She's also a little bit of a smarty pants, and not in the "oh my kid is brilliant" sense... This past weekend, we went to visit with Doug's dad, step mom, and sister. Charlotte was being particularly difficult at one point - she did not want her diaper changed, but she stank to high heaven - and so I looked at her and said "Charlotte! You are being such a little turkey!" My kid who says exactly no words on any sort of regular basis looked into my eyes and said "Gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble." She continued to gobble, almost with a maniacal tone in her voice. I didn't even know she knew what a turkey said - but she really waited to use that one at an effective moment. Nothing disarms my anger like a hilarious kid moment. Charlotte - master of the delivery.

Oh, speaking of delivery, here's Elisabeth's favorite joke:

Pete and Repeat were in a boat. Repeat fell out, who was left?

This leaves everyone who has ever heard the joke in sort of confused silence. They look at her. Look at us. Look back at her. The response is split - about half quietly say, "Pete?" to which Elisabeth squeals with delight. The other half assume she has delivered the joke erroneously and answer "Repeat." She says, "no no, try again," and lets them try again. It is about a hundred times funnier than the typical Pete/Repeat joke.

Elisabeth goes back to preschool tomorrow for the first time in 2+ weeks. I think I speak for everyone, except perhaps the preschool teachers, when I say the angels are singing. This is also the big week where Elisabeth starts baseball classes. She's wildly excited.

So, on a note unrelated to children in any way - I think that one sure sign I'm a grown up is that Taco Bell ads repulse me. There was a time when virtually everything that entered my mouth cost less than a dollar and was sold to me by a talking chihuahua. Now, the commercials make me feel actually ill.

While on the subject of commercials, I am so thankful for PBS and for the nice people who invented digital video recorders. Until this year's football playoffs, I hadn't realized how wonderful it is that Elisabeth virtually never sees commercials. I mean, sure, I'm thankful that my house isn't outfitted in every "My Little Pony" or "Strawberry Shortcake" piece of junk ever created (I mean, where would I find room amongst all of the Fischer Price toys???). But what I'm really thankful for is that Elisabeth doesn't wander around singing all of the jingles. She heard the "Five dollar footlong" song from Subway, and we've heard it about 20 times a day since then. She even arranges it so that Doug sings part and "then the ladies sing" - the backup singers. And something many of you might not know about me is that I despise - no I actually hate - Subway. So hearing about $5 footlongs makes me gag. But, it is kind of funny to see her cue Doug and then mimic background singers.

I also didn't realize that movie trailers contained such foul language. Really? Is that necessary during NFL games? isn't the NFL supposed to at least be ostensibly family friendly? At least in the comfort of my own home??? I'd rather her see Janet Jackson's nipple than learn the phrase "I [fill in the blank]ed my ass off." And the road to me actually becoming my mother just got miles shorter...