Theme Song

Angie has a theme song: My Energy by Laurie Berkner We have all of Laurie Berkner's albums but this song is a clear favorite.

She loves it. She runs around our house singing, "Me! Me! Energy!"

I can't think of anything more appropriate.

Careers

Angie was a little fixated on the doctor today. She really likes going to the various doctors' offices and being examined. Often, pediatric doctors will let her hold a medical instrument--one that isn't susceptible to breaking. She charms them. For days, weeks and even months after a doctor's visit, Angie will say things like, "Angie had fun at the doctor's office."

So I wasn't really surprised before dinner, when Angie thanked me for being with her at the doctor's office and for taking her to the doctor's office. She even thanked me for being a doctor. Then she decided that she should verify this statement and asked, "Mommy are you a doctor?"

I said, "No Honey, I'm a Magistrate."

"A Magistrate." Angie then wandered out to her Father and asked. "Daddy are you a Magistrate?"

I heard my beloved husband, father to the sparkling inquisitive girl looking admiringly at him, say, "No sweetie. Daddy's a Bum!"

Angie wandered back to me and asked, "Mommy, are you a Bum?"

"Well dear, sometimes. But mostly I'm just a Magistrate."

The little darling wandered back out to her Father and asked, "Daddy, are you a Bum?"

Dear husband proudly replied, "Yes I am!"

Soap

We have Angie well trained to wash hands before eating. It's a ritual: Wash hands, sometimes sing while washing, dry hands on towel, put stepstool away and then go eat!

I originally went with foamy soap because it was familiar thanks to Gymboree and because it is already sudsy so she can clean more quickly. Unfortunately, the only foaming soap we could find was an Anti-bacterial Dial Soap that foams. As we understand it, there is some concern that certain anti-bacterial soaps do more harm than good. We ran out of the foamy Dial and I moved a spare soap dispenser into the bathroom and filled it with anti-bacterial hand soap. It has a frog on the dispenser and Angie thinks it is cool. With the recent round of sickness running through our house, I thought it was time to change the soap we use for washing hands.

Last week after Gymboree, we ran some errands at the neighboring K-Mart. We could not find any regular foamy soap until we looked in the baby section and found Kandoo. Kandoo also had a frog on it so I thought it would appeal to Angie. We decided to go with the fresh scent because, well, how bad could "fresh" be? Bad. It reminds me of sour apple candy. It reminds Chas of candy that is supposed to be fruit flavored but tastes nothing like any fruit found in nature.

When I took Angie to wash her hands the next night, she chose the frog with the anti-bacterial soap.

Today after she received her flu shot, we went to Target to pick up a few things. I thought I would look for another regular, non-anti-bacterial foamy soap. Target had a plethora of choices. (Who knew?) I picked a Soft Soap dispenser that was purple and had a penguin on it. I thought Angie would like it. We put it in the bathroom. Now the tiny bathroom sink has a penguin dispenser, the Kandoo dispenser and the frog one with the anti-bacterial soap. Angie looked at all the choices, hestitated at the penguin, then chose the frog with the anti-bacterial soap.

Chas laughed at me.

Trouper

Today Angie had an appointment for a flu shot at her doctor's office. She is in the high risk category--of course you would never know that from the way she bulldozes through everything.

Anyway, she recognizes the Doctor's office building and was very excited about going to see the doctor. She was enthusiastically chattering about going to the doctor's office, but it was so far away (uhh we had parked next to the handicapped spot near the door), and how were we ever going to get to the doctor's office? I had dread in my heart, knowing that we were taking her to get jabbed with a needle. Chas was just amused by the whole situation. I guess that is a Mommy versus a Daddy mentality.

Somehow, we made it to the doctor's office, but we waited for several minutes before being called back for the shot. Angie bounded around the waiting area, energetically trying to open the door to the exam area, pushing the "doorbell" (the door stop) so that the door would open, and asking the door to open.

She chattered to the other kids who came into the waiting area. The first little boy was confused by her attention but finally took off his jacket to show Angie that Batman was not only on the back of his jacket, but he was also on the inner lining. I said, "wow." Angie said, "Wow." The little boy was very encouraged by her interest, unfortunately, he was in the wrong office (our doctor has three buldings across the county), so he and his dad left.

Next came a little girl in a fluffy pink jacket who just seemed very confused by Angie. She eventually warmed to Angie and asked all of us what were our names. She had a baby sibling and Angie pointed her out to me "Mommy it's a cute little baby!" Another woman left the office carrying her child in the baby bucket. As she left Angie said, "Another cute little baby!" That made the mom smile.

Another mom and small daughter came into the waiting area. The young girl was perhaps a year or two older than Angie and was very offended when Angie pointed at her and said, "Look Mommy! Another baby." I explained that she was a little girl. Angie repeated "Little girl," but the girl was still not pleased. Angie and the fuzzy pink girl "read" magazines at the children's table until the girl, her mom and her baby sibling were called back to the exam area.

Angie watched them go through the door to the exam room and woefully said, "I want to go too!" That made the remaining mom laugh. Fortunately, they called for us almost immediately and Angie grabbed our hands and bounced excitedly through the door.

Nurse Donna looked almost mortified at Angie's delight, knowing that she would be giving the little happy bundle of energy that shot. We went back to the exam room and the nurse asked a few questions then left to get the vaccine.

She returned and at her direction, we stretched Angie out on the exam table with her pants down so that Nurse Donna could jab her in the thigh. Angie jabbered about Nurse Donna having band aids on her shirt, as Nurse Donna just looked pained at the thought of perhaps permanently traumatizing this very cheerful kid. I leaned over Angie and held her hands while Chas thrust a book in her face to distract her. Nurse Donna murmured something about just a pinch, Angie looked frightened and quickly pulled her left hand away from mine. There was just a bit of blood and tears as Nurse Donna covered the site with a bright yellow band aid and told us to pick Angie up and love her.

Angie immediately stopped fussing and called Nurse Donna "Doctor" and smiled at her. Nurse Donna melted completely and explained that she was Nurse Donna, which Angie promptly repeated. Nurse Donna melted more than I thought possible by a medical professional. She complemented Angie for being so pretty and good. She was clearly impressed by how well Angie took the whole situation and reminded us to get stickers for Angie on our way out because she deserved it. I managed to get Angie to thank Nurse Donna and we were on our way. We gave her two stitckers: a Christmas-y Tigger sticker and one with several kids holding a flag.

Angie and I walked over to Target and Angie thanked me for the doctor's office and helping her stomach to feel better.

She is a tough little kid.

Food Critic

Angie can have good moments with food, and bad. Recently she has been very adamant about not eating certain things offered.

So it was a relief tonight when Angie ate most of her turkey burger. Chas was complimenting her on her good manners and dining tonight, just as Angie picked up the last piece of her burger.

"So Delicious!" she exclaimed as she admired the final piece.

We, of course, started laughing.

Angie then pinched a dainty bit of burger from the final piece and proclaimed:

"Delightful!"

This week, Daddy's food gets two thumbs up.

Sweet Dreams

As I was attempting to put Angie bed Sunday night, I said, "Sweet Dreams Angie." Then I asked her what she dreamed about.

A big smile spread across her face and she said, "I dream about animals."

So I asked her what kind of animals.

She smiled again and said, "Jaguars and toucans and tree frogs."

I told her those were very good things to dream about and kissed her good night.

I thought her dreams were inspired by an episode of Go Diego Go, but there is no toucan in the tree frog episode. She also has a book with rainforest animals--just beautiful pictures of animals in the rainforest and the name of each animal. She loves that book and creates her own adventures when we "read" the book together.

Sweet.