Like Mother Like Daughter

At 7:53 a.m. on Sunday, August 14th, Audrey said her first swear word. It was "Shit". Of course she said it right after I said it (which was right after I slipped on a HotWheel and spilled an entire coffee tin of crayons on the floor.)

I have a bit of a reputation for swearing like a sailor but have significantly curbed my predilection for profanity since Audrey was born. I figured I needed to clean up my act, as my proudest moment would likely NOT be having my daughter put in a "time-out" at pre-school for calling a classmate an "Asshole"

But yesterday I was proud. I put it in the baby book right next to the date of her first haircut…that’s my girl!

Twinkle Star

There’s a groovy little CD that we sometimes listen to in the car with Audrey called For the Kids. For the most part, the songs are pretty decent…especially the first track by Cake and “Wonderwheel” by the hipster kid’s music czar, Dan Zanes.

My favorite track by far though is the truly over the top rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” This version of “Twinkle Star”, as Audrey calls it, is so deliciously overwrought that it’s sublime. With it’s soaring crescendos, heartfelt background vocals, inspiring duet moments and soulful instrumental interludes, it would be a perfect karaoke tune. Needless to say, I live to blast it at full volume on our way home from work and do a little interpretive dance during the especially dramatic parts – much to Bryan’s INTENSE chagrin…I have rarely seen my husband in so much abject agony.

And, now you’re expecting me to say that Audrey loves it…singing along in the backseat…totally blissed out. Well I could, but I would be lying -- shamelessly covering up the fact that this song utterly and completely rocks my world. Whew, admission is the first step. That felt good.

Is There a Minimum Age Requirement for the Betty Ford Clinic?

So our little Audrey is a fan of the drugs. It’s really no surprise, I mean, since our first bout of colic set in at 4 weeks, she's been on the road to addiction...from sweetly satisfying Mylicon (yes, I've tasted all her drugs, surprised?) to eye drops for her blocked tear duct and ointments-a-plenty for her delightful baby rash…good thing we loved her so much, because the kid looked pretty scary for the first few months. We moved onto the hard stuff when apocalyptic teething and raging ear infections lead us to nightly doses of Motrin or Tylenol and, of course, the antibiotic du jour.

Now for those of you that know us well and have seen the inside of our medicine cabinet, you know that if you get sick at our house, you’re set. Whether it’s cramps, a stuffy nose or cough, blisters, a headache, cholera, pancreatic cancer… we’ve got you covered. And Bryan lives for the drugstore. If I send him to CVS for, say, some batteries or diapers, I inevitably end up reworking our monthly budget to accommodate his spoils (vitamins, herbs, Chloraseptic, three different shapes of band-aids...) Let's just say at one point during college he thought he wanted to be a pharmacist, and as a result we have 3 different versions of the Physicians Desk Reference at our house, which is lovingly called the PDR and referenced often even though neither of us is a physician. As for me, I’m definitely an advocate of better living through chemistry. I wanted an epidural when I FOUND OUT I was pregnant. I mean, why wait until the pain actually begins?

With this rockin start in life and her DNA, it’s no wonder that our little bean is an addict. And due to our recent foray into the world of ear tubes, she hasn’t needed more than an occasional squirt of her allergy spray and two gummy bear vitamins every morning. She’s jonesing. Big time. Every night in the bath (this is where we gave her the bulk of her antibiotics during the ear infection epidemic), she points longingly at the medicine cabinet and cries “mae mae” (the universal cry for medicine of the under two set I’m sure.)

Poor Audrey…I feel your pain kid, I really do!