Top Ten Things I Say To Ava Over and Over Every Day

1. Whatcha doing Boopy?
2. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeere's the baby? THERE SHE IS.
3. LALALALALALALALA (repeat ad nauseum)
   
4. Boop boop boop
5. What do you see? Do you see the sky (or cars or people or clouds or trees)
   
6. The Itsy-Bitsy spider went up the water spout...
7. MMMmmmm tasty sock
   
8. Nom nom nom apples!
9. USE YOUR DAMN TURN SIGNAL!!! (actually, this one is not so much to her, per se, but she hears it a lot in the car and there's a good chance it will be her first full sentence)
10. Are you ready to play?

Pumpkin Patches Are Disgusting Places

We went to Gilcrease Orchard yesterday because I was all geeked out about getting a super cute picture of Ava sitting among a bunch of pumpkins and autumn-type stuff. Right. So it's like 85 degrees and 2% humidity so it's all hot and dusty and rather disappointing. And the place was a zoo, both literally and figuratively. Literally, in that they have chickens and turkeys and this poor sad pony with its tail and mane dyed bright orange (envision the Vegas holiday version of a Tijuana Zonkey) that was schlepping ill-mannered children around a pen. Figuratively, in that it was packed with the aforementioned ill-mannered children and their equally ill-mannered parents and they were handling the pumpkins after wiping their noses (and God only knows what else) and eating what passes for autumn-themed food here (what the hell are "pumpkin chips"?). We were in and out in probably 10 minutes, sans picture. Ugh. We may try again but maybe not. It was not fun and I think we've decided that we're not going to kill ourselves just to orchestrate minor holiday pictures.

So what about other holidays? Are we going to do Crying Baby With Santa? Easter Bunny? Are there more holidays with people dressed up who are waiting for me to bring my poor unsuspecting child to them so I can plop her on their laps and hope she doesn't freak out before they get a picture that doesn't end up here?

Jeez.

Our jury is still out on the whole Santa Picture thing. I've always thought that the Easter bunny costumes are scary, so there's really no question of that picture ever happening. But Santa troubles me. I hate to miss out on it entirely, because they can be such amazing pictures. I hear tales of the Perfect Santa at this mall or that and I want to at least try it, and then I watch movies like Bad Santa (OMG this movie kills me...) and A Christmas Story (HO HO HO) and I just don't know.

Holidays are stressful indeed.