To paraphrase and basically steal from my BFF Beth: "Whoever coined the term Terrible Twos hadn't gotten to age three yet"

Zoe is generally a really fun person to be around. Since I got back from my 10 day business trip she occasionally even busts out with an unsolicited "I love you Mommy" which melts my heart. But then there are those moments that melt my dwindling thread of patience, culminating last night in me throwing her into her room, slamming the door and letting her sit there crying (real tears) for about 15 minutes. Let me give you some background:

Here is the list of things that have brought Zoe to tears (when I say tears, I mean whiiiiiining, mooooooaaaannnnning, walking-around-repeating-her-request-50-times type of crying) in the last 5 days:
--We couldn't eat at Estella's house (the night I came home)
--Estella couldn't eat lunch at our house (the next day)
--Estella couldn't eat dinner with us (the second night I was home), starting to see a pattern here?
--There is no orange juice
--We have no bagels
--We have no cream cheese (ok, maybe it's time to shop), but we DO have cereal, yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, bacon, oatmeal, etc.
--(after we buy cream cheese) we have no STRAWBERRY cream cheese
--She doesn't want to go to school
--She doesn't want to go home
--She can't have a yogurt pop (because she already had dessert, AND because it turns out we don't have any)
--We can't make yogurt pops (no time before bedtime, and we don't have the yogurt, FINE, we'll go to the store someday, sheesh, get off my back supermoms!)

I'm sure there are more, but they aren't coming to me right now.

The frustrating thing is that most of the time these are not arbitrary rules (or even justified rules) that we are imposing, most of the time these are just truths: Estella isn't home, we literally have no orange juice, yogurt pops won't have time to freeze before you go to bed, etc. Yet she will beg, and please, and whine, and repeat her request for what feels like hours, but may actually be 5 or 10 full minutes! At least when she was two, you could usually distract her out of a tantrum, but no matter how logical the answer is, if she doesn't like it, she breaks out the tear factory.

So, what pushed me over the edge last night? I picked Zoe and Josie up from school yesterday and Zoe told me she was thirsty. My response: "we'll get some water when we get home." Meanwhile, the much beloved Estella is gleefully socking back a bright yellow cup of water right in her face, thanks E. I gather up my baby, her dirty bottles, jackets, shoes, school calendar, etc and head for the door, when I am informed by Zoe that she is too thirsty to walk home. I am not exaggerating when I say that our front door is 39 feet from the front door of the school. So I brush that comment off and attempt to cajole her out the door. She decides to take a stand on this issue and plants herself in the doorway of the school at the top of about 6 cement stairs. I'm holding a 25 pound baby on a busy city street, so I don't have a free hand or the confidence to drag her out without her falling and cracking her head open. The teacher and I manage to scootch her far enough out that they can close the door and go on with their lives, but she refuses to move any farther, because she is too thirsty. I tell her that the tears are just going to make her more thirsty, and that I don't have any water with me. I try the "I'm leaving without you" move, but she calls my bluff and just stands there. And in reality, I can't just leave her there, even 39 feet from our front door. It's a city, and she's 3.

After asking, demanding, joking, yelling, and abandoning don't work, I ring our doorbell, yell at Jed to come grab the baby and I storm back, pick her up (crying, did I mention that?), stomp home, up the stairs, into her room and dump her on the bed. I whip her shoes off of her, grab her minkee (pacifier/blankey combo, her beloved soothing object), yell "No Minkee" like a lunatic and slam the door. She proceeds to cry (loudly) the entire time I prepare dinner, although after 15 minutes, when I come in to tell her that her favorite dinner (quesadilla and beans) is ready, the waterworks go off like a switch. When I ask her if she knows why I punished her, she says no (love that!), so we have a little chat and we move on to dinner. Where she proceeded to down about a pint of water.

I guess she was thirsty.

Playing Memory tonight (you know, that matching game with the square cardboard picture cards?), Zoe was not doing so well, and I hate to brag, but Jed and I were doing GREAT! Jed started getting a bunch of matches in a row and the following conversation ensued:

Me: "uh oh, Daddy's cleaning up"

Daddy: "woo hoo, I'm beating a 3 year old at a preschooler's game" (or something to that effect, I may be paraphrasing)

Me: "Daddy, you're being mean"

Zoe: "Daddy, you're punching me in the butt"

It took a beat, but I figured out that she meant that he was "kicking her butt" which is a phrase I just recently shouted out in another game earlier this weekend.

The moral of the story is that if Mommy were better at watching her potty mouth, we wouldn't have gems like "punching me in the butt" to laugh at and become a long standing family inside joke. Blerg.

Erica is at home with us, expecting calls and eating bonbons.

This may not be working. If you don't see the video here, try this link.

Check out the latest photos from our trip to visit Grandma Gail in Palm Springs. The two little girls are Zoe's cousins Natalie and Sasha. We had tons of fun, and Zoe got her first dip in a swimming pool. Good warm up for our vacation to Hawaii in June!

Click the link in this blog, or navigate there by going to Photos (left menu of this page), click "Family" then April 2006 and then on the last page is a "Palm Springs Visit" folder. You can check out other pics along the way if you want...

Ok so being the amazing Aunt tht I am I have a picture of Zoe on my desktop at work (and one at home...but no one sees that). So since I am new at this job people are always asking me how old my baby is. So I just respond that she isn't mine...it is just some baby I am stalking.

So now all the people at my new job think I am some wacko who will kidnap a baby.

Ok so yes I obviously tell them that she is my niece. I don't want to scare my co-workers too much.

Jed didn't point out that there are also new pics in a few other albums: pictures from Kyle and Lee's wedding including Zoe in a space capsule (did I mention the wedding was on the moon?); pics from our trip for Shanti's wedding and visiting with Brody; also pictures from Christmas in CT and our trip to Chicago (all those cousins, Great Grandmas and aunts and uncles to love!).

Also watch this space for pictures from cousin Brody's birthday party! Coming soon. No pictures for 3 months and then it's a deluge. Enjoy!