Fiesta!

The Goose likes to get into things. Things that she shouldn't... Like Mom's cosmetic bag (we've demonstrated the wrath that brings), or her sister's room (post on that one coming soon), or... The pantry.

Along with the fridge and the bathroom, the pantry is one of The Goose's favorite places to cause trouble. Do you suppose this is a preliminary interest in culinary adventures? Or is it more like mastering the art of domestic monstrosities? Probably a little of both, huh?

Usually, The Goose is fairly pronounced about the things she gets into. Often when I catch her tinkering with something she shouldn't, she takes off running.... laughing hysterically until I catch her. If she's in a more serious mood, instead of laughter she will protest relentlessly. I usually find this hilarious, which makes her even more angry. (I guess one of us is always getting the other's goose!)

But yesterday, The Goose took this pantry maraud to a whole new level!

Yes, here she is... with taco seasoning she took from the pantry. And she's hiding out with it.... IN THE CLOSET!

She was having a grand ole time... sprinkling it on some clothes she took out of the drawers, smearing it on the floor, and also eating it. (Gross) Her breath smelled like onion and chili powder for the rest of the day. That was a lovely little bonus!

You know it's bad when you have a child that gets in to everything. But it's REALLY bad when they have the forethought to plunder your stuff and then hide out with it. And God help me, this child is barely 2 years old!

On the bright side... while I'm sure The Goose (who beleaguers this house with a military like force) will create  many more disasters in the wake of this revelation... She will also create many more stories to share with all of you... So at least these adventures (um, maybe undertakings is a better word) are good for something, right?

Busted!...

Thought you all might like to know that my assumption the other day was correct....

Here she is, at it again.... Who needs a sippy when you can chug it right from the carton? Thankfully, this gallon is towards the bottom, so no mess. (Is it a problem that I've just busted my 2 year old drinking out of the milk jug & I'm actually pleased, since there is no disaster in the wake of this?) Seriously... you might expect this out of a teenage boy. But a tiny little 2 year old girl.... Only The Goose!

My apologies for the short commentary this evening, it's been a long & busy day. I don't know about Gigi, but MY goose is cooked... I'm sure she will conjure up more antics for me to share tomorrow!

The Pedicure

Cleaning up after dinner should be a relatively easy task. Right? Not where The Goose is concerned! Instead this equates to Mom being distracted for a few minutes. Aka.....Prime time for causing trouble!

As I'm doing the dishes, The Goose must have decided to give herself a makeover.

Here she is, proudly painting her toes. Is it me, or are the curls of her hair looking a little like devilish horns today? Of course, she is proud as a peacock of the masterpiece that she has created. "Mom! Look at Dis.. my TOES!!!"  Then she stands up, and shows me that she has also adorned her belly.

Oh My! She is just so tickled with herself, never mind the mess she has just created for me. So what is an exhausted mom to do in a moment such as this?

Well, after all the antics she puts me through.... She owes me a pedicure at least. Don't you think?

The Goose is a milk junkie.  The amount of milk that this child consumes in a day is crazy. Even more amazing, is that she can chug a sippy full of milk in seconds. One of these days I'm going to time her with a stop watch. I'm not kidding, she could challenge a house of frat boys in a chugging contest and make them look like chumps. (Lets just hope that this is a skill that she never realizes!)

So this habit is getting seriously expensive, and I've been spending the last couple of days trying to put her through a milk detox program. Easy enough concept, right? And yes, I've tried the obvious... Offer something different to drink... Distract her with something fun to do... Cut her off, put my foot down, & just say no... yeah right.

If you've been following along with the blog, I'm sure it comes as no surprise when I say that The Goose is: independent, determined, & tenacious; among many other wonderful things. This translates into many leadership qualities, that will serve her well, I'm sure. But the translation right now means "Give me what I want, or I WILL find a way to do it myself." Let me just say that this has been a battle of wills all day long!

It doesn't matter the subject... When I say no, The Goose takes that as a start point for negotiations. Naturally, I got rebuttals and arguments this morning when I said "Enough milk, let's try something else." By mid-day, she resorted to some pretty good temper tantrums when I offered juice and water in her sippy cup.

By this evening, she concluded that her normal fluency in getting her own way was not going to work, so she tried a new approach... After two cups of milk with in the hour prior, I cut her off again. So The Goose toddled off into the kitchen, and brought back the entire gallon of milk.

(I wonder what goes through her mind as she does this? Perhaps she thinks I'm just tired...After all The Goose has been at it double time today, and she wants to do me a favor. Maybe she's proud of herself for taking such initiative...What a "can-do" attitude, right? More than likely, it's more like "get me my freakin milk, woman!" Yep. That last one is probably right.)

So while I was giggling at my adorable curly-headed girl, I gently told her no. I got up, put the milk away & brought her back some juice. After all, I am determined to get this habit under control.

Surprisingly enough, there were no arguments or tears. She toddled off into the kitchen to get her favorite blanket. Here I am, thinking "success!" we've made considerable progress. Now you know what this means..... Yep. I got goosed.

Uh yea... It wasn't but a short time later, while I was helping one of her brothers log on to a computer game... she just went and took matters into her own hands.

(I have a feeling that she decided to bypass the sippy cup, and down it right from the jug. Sadly enough, she has done that before. But it worked much better because the jug was less than 1/4 full. This one had quite a bit left, so it probably got too heavy.)

So this is how I found her, I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but she has a towel & was trying to scrub up the mess. (I gotta give her that at least.) I got another towel, and finished cleaning up the ocean of milk on my floor. As I am wringing out the towel in the sink... I feel the familiar clanking of an empty sippy cup on my hip and The Goose starts in: "Milkeeeey...MAMA!"

Ok, Goose.... You win!

Goodnight friends... The Goose & I will catch up with you after the weekend!

Technical difficulties

Hello All!

Yesterday I had a brilliant idea... but brilliant ideas never work out for me. It's been a busy couple of days, so I thought I would just jot down a quick little blurb and share the most hilarious video of  The Goose's version of hide -n- seek. Simple, right? Oh no. I spent THREE hours trying to get than darn video from my phone to the computer. Technology is wonderful until it fails, or in my case, you can't figure it out. In computer years, (like dog years) ours is ancient. So I'm thinking outdated software is to blame. But than again, it could be the user.

And in the three hours I spent trying to get this video up, I could have written about something else. (I'm sorry!) But it was a battle of wills between my self, the phone, and the computer. I don't know who won, but it wasn't me. I give. One of these days I will figure it out, and will share the video with you. It really is cute!

So, I will leave you with a small sweet sentiment. (The Goose has plenty of those to share too.) This is her leading prayer at the dinner table. After saying prayer and starting dinner, apparently The Goose didn't think we'd done a good enough job! She threw her hands upwards towards the sky and slowly brought them down...dramatically closing her eyes, she starts: "Thank....babble babble....Jesus...babble......food...ahh-MEN!!"

The "AMEN" at the end is loud and huge, because The Goose doesn't do anything small.I tried to catch her arms stretched out, but she was bringing them together when I finally got the picture snapped. Seriously, she looked like a dramatic TV evangelist, we were rolling!

Have A Blessed Day!

Mean Mug and Medicine...

Jen G... You inspired me on this one, so here is a post about the famous scowl!

I thought you all might like to know, that Gigi encompasses "goose" any which way you look at it. Geese can be downright mean. And for those of you who have met The Goose, you might have noticed that she's not always so friendly at first. A first greeting usually consists of an encounter with her scowl. Here at the nest, we call it her "mean mug".~This comes standard issue from the Aller side.~

I've yet to figure this out.. Perhaps she's wondering what your story is? It could be that she's trying to decide if you're worthy of her attention, or a way to keep people out of her bubble. Or... it could be a dominance thing. She might be sizing you up to decide if she can take you down. Seriously. It wouldn't surprise me if one of these days she punched a sweet old lady full of "Hi Sweeties" and "Aren't you cute"s right in the mouth. 

You might know, she is just a treat to take shopping. I mean what else would you expect out of this child, right? I'm going to go ahead and chalk this behavior up to the "stranger danger" phase that most kids go through, so this isn't all a bad thing... On a side note,  if The Goose did this while out with her Daddy... I'm 100% certain that this would be one of his PROUDEST moments as her parent.

I, on the other hand, have dealt with her lack of grace for well meaning strangers one too many times. The classic response to her mean mug is: "well aren't you a serious little thing?". But I have gotten a "What's she doing?" or "Is she ok?". And I've had a person just flat out do an about face once in awhile, nothing more said.

Most often, I just apologize and tell the sweet onlookers that "she's just tired" or "grumpy". I genuinely feel bad, as these people have gone out of there way to tell me what a cute little girl I have, and here she is giving them her best Walter Matthau impression. 

Occasionally, she adds some theatrics to the show. Scrunching up her face worse than normal and tacking on a scratchy "NO!". A time or two she has thrown an object, aiming for the person who is clearly a donkey in her opinion.

But so far, nothing beats the time she goosed the most adorable older man, who was approaching her in my favorite thrift shop, telling her what a cutie she is. Mean mug going in full force, she slowly blinked her eyes, opened her mouth.... and let out the loudest, most blood curdling scream you have ever heard. Not a cry, but a deliberate, controlled, "I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey" kind of scream. This sent every eye in the store straight to our direction. Seriously, he turned a million shades of red, and so did I. He didn't stick around to let me apologize. No doubt embarrassed, likely wondering if the bystanders thought he was trying to kidnap her or something, he promptly left. I'm surprised he didn't have a heart attack. 

I'm sure Dear Daddy would have been doubled up in laughter for quite a spell, but I  on the other hand, was mortified that my little girl would waylay such a sweet old man. So you see, she even gooses strangers. You just never know what she's capable of. It really wouldn't surprise me if she hauled off and hit some unsuspecting stranger with a dose of "the medicine" right across the smacker.

Oh yes, the "medicine" is a favorite in her arsenal of antics and ambushes. She mostly pulls this trick out on her brothers though. I'll share more on the medicine in a post coming soon...We're going to have to drag Uncle B. into that story! 

For now, I will leave you with one last mean mug.

~Larissa

The Inspiration...

Here it is... the event that started this whole blogging adventure. Yes, that's my mascara....in the toilet. I know...the HORROR! If there are any guy readers out there, this is pretty much the equivalent of a toothbrush in the toilet...DISGUSTING!

First, let me disclaim that upon entering the bathroom...my cosmetic bag is kept zipped, and tucked away in a drawer. This is not a mere easy grab, "ooops it fell into the potty & look what happened" kind of thing. Oh no... this is deliberate. Now ~why~ The Goose chooses mascara over all of the other pretty trinkets and treasures, I have no idea. (Honestly, it scares me to think of all of the obscure things that will cross her mind over the years.)

You should know this is not the first time she's decided to gussy-up our porcelain thrown. Facebook friends, you might remember my post about her mistaking my mascara wand for a toilet bowl brush...that was several days ago. This photo was taken last night. Yeah. She got me twice with the same goose...SHE'S THAT GOOD.

 The first time she graced me with a bathroom makeover, I just had to vent. This wasn't the first time she goosed me that particular day. She started that morning with a bang, and so the afternoon continued, getting into this & climbing on that. (sorry to be so vague, but it's all material for future posts!...) So when I walked into the bathroom to discover not one, but two tubes of mascara in the toilet & half the room painted black... I  wanted to scream. Or cuss. Or drink. Or just walk away and pretend that I don't live here... Just kidding. 

But I did laugh, and yell. And laughed again. I mean, you HAVE to laugh, or go insane. Not that it's funny that things get ruined or wasted, or that it's literally impossible to stay one step ahead of this kid... but it is funny that this tiny little 2-year old, wild as a march hare, is capable of all these things. Like sitcom funny....(any TV producers out there?)

So all I could think to do was blurb about it on Facebook. When I talk about Gigi, "rotten" is almost always included in the sentence. People smile and laugh... but really have no idea! Aside from close friends and family, I kept most of her antics to myself, but this particular day... I just had to get it off my chest. And I'm glad I did.

Thank you to those who encouraged me to start this blog about her daily misadventures... I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. And... I hope that The Goose will someday look at it, get a kick out of herself during her toddler years, and brace herself for the payback (that I am already plotting) for when she has a little flock of her own.

Goodnight Friends....