A few days ago, 2 of Tony’s 3 kids from Michigan flew in for the summer and we barely had time to catch up before we broke out into a high stakes game of Reality TV-style break neck challenges.

Team one: The Elites
Dalton, Ethan, Addy & Tony (to make it even)

Team two: The Monocellular Organisms
Paige, Teegan and Noah

Tonight’s Challenge: in 10 minutes or less, as a team make a sandwich no bigger than 2″ tall for the other team to eat.

Team MO’s sandwich:
rye bread
peanut butter
jelly
honey
frozen peas
sour cream
pickles
hot sauce
steak sauce
chili & lime almonds
applesauce
town house crackers
Italian dressing
cocktail onions
parmesan cheese
sauerkraut

Team TE’s Sandwich:
rye bread, burnt
honey
coffee grounds
smoked salmon, skin still on
sauerkraut
pickled cauliflower
capers
cocktail onions
sour cream
ketchup
applesauce
pickles
red curry paste
vanilla yogurt
dried apples
uncooked macaroni

Rules of the game: teams could use as many members to eat as they wanted. Both teams basically had two eaters. They had to eat as much as they could in 10 minutes. If the person threw up or spit food out, they were eliminated but their team could continue. If the person threw up or spit out ON the other team, the other team won. You have to cover all your bases

The winner: Team TE, by a landslide. Poor Teegan and Paige, the eaters on Team MO, both almost threw up multiple times. Apparently the salmon was just too much to get beyond. I thought for sure they would win so it was definitely an underdog victory. And in a shocking turn of events, one of Team TE’s members who shall remain nameless for his own protection actually loved the sandwich and ate long after Team TE was eliminated. Wow.  I actually have video of the whole thing. Maybe I’ll post it tomorrow. It’s not great: mostly a lot of screaming and me laughing so hard the camera shook. Nice.

The reward: No one but me knows the reward before the teams begin. Sometimes the reward will be totally lame, like a bar of soap. Sometimes they will be awesome, like staying up late or ice cream for dessert. Tonight’s reward was soda pop flavored icees. The winners totally thought it was worth it. I felt bad enough for the losers that I gave them 100% fruit popsicles just for being good sports

Addy got bonus points for sneaking off with the cocktail onions for an after dinner “snack”. gag.

I’m taking requests for other challenges. They don’t all have to be awful but the awful ones are the most humorous for me, keep that in mind! ha!

My Addy, she’s so crazy!  Lately she’s been having so much fun with her imagination. Plus also I think she’s had another growth spurt because suddenly all her clothes are too short. Again. Ugh – I will never keep up with this girl’s growth.

Yesterday in the pool I had the fun idea to play ’store’ with Addy. I pretended to be the salesperson and she pretended to be the customer. She asked to buy a squishy ball. I offered her red or blue and, in true Addy style, she said “green”. Not to be thrown off my game, I “looked around” for a second and found an imaginary pink ball and offered that up to which she said “Hmmm. No. Blue’s fine.”.

When Addy plays imaginary games she plays to the extreme. Life is no more simple in her imaginary world than it is in the real world. Once she set up a shop of her own, there were many rules and you have to be ready to expect *anything*.

She moved herself into our whirlpool, for her ’store’ and made the water pass-through that goes from the whirlpool into the pool her special slot where money and merchandise is exchanged. I thought that was good enough but then she explained that no, there was an invisible door to the shop. It took me a few attempts to find the door, frequently coming up too short or too far. I finally got it and figured I was home-free. She said “Who is it?” and I answered. She wandered over to open the door and let me in only to discover….it was locked! So she had to go find some keys and then find the right key on the key-chain to open that door. Several minutes later, I was in.

I placed an order for a pair of pants and a shirt. After rummaging through piles of what I presume were clothes, she came up with an outfit, “I only have shorts. I hope that will be alright.”. She took some measurements and then I had to wait while she painstakingly rolled up the measuring tape. Twice. Because it came unrolled a little the first time. In her head. Finally I asked for a price when she rolled her eyes and told me I first had to try ON the clothes. I was worried that they would not be a good fit but thankfully they were She offered me a price of “3 monies”. When I tried to look for the cold hard cash, she said “oh ok then. 2 monies will do it.” ha.  I got a bargain!

And so it went. Eventually with all her profits she installed a mechanical door opener that involved a special sequence of  buttons. One wrong move, she told us, and the wrong button would kill you. Good to know! Too bad she never quite elaborated on WHICH button was the dangerous one.

Fun times. Later we played a family game of invisible catch. The funny part was when Addy accidentally threw the make-believe ball outside the pool and had to get it and try again. ha.  I think my girl would ROCK at charades!!!

Along with these new intricate imaginary games come a heightened sense of independence. There are more days than not where we are not allowed to pick out her outfits. Most day she will not let me do her hair. Instead she insists on picking out the most gaudy bow or hair accessories which she then must put in herself. Although she’s doing a lot better, she pretty much always looks like a mess these days. It’s hard picking your battles sometimes! Along with the gaudy hair accessories come the other accessories. Always socks that are colorful and not weather appropriate. And a necklace. Those three accessories finish off any Addy Original outfit.

Another funny thing she did recently was bust out the Spanish. One of Addy’s favorite iPhone apps is just a bunch of flashcards with words and pictures. She loves them. The first time she used the app, though, she came across the picture of a dress and said what she insisted was the Spanish word. She was extremely consistent and since then has been adamant that she is in the right. I checked with Google (since my Spanish skills end at the number 10 and 4 or 5 colors of the rainbow) and could not find anything to translate that way.  I asked my Mom last night and she sent me an email this morning explaining that she was actually saying two words – pretty dress.  So another point for Addy in the make-shift Spanish department. 

Have I mentioned how much I love this age? I’m still waiting for the awful 3’s to set in but so far, easy going. And so much fun!

Scary: last year I blogged about the dichotomy that are the Pool Floaties. They are awesomeness because they allow kids who aren’t  yet ready to learn to swim the confidence and ability to really enjoy the pool. They are dangerous because they provide a false sense of confidence. Last year Addy totally had a false sense of confidence with them and I worried that she would think she could swim without them as well as she could swim with them. This year, she knows better and talks a lot about drowning, not being able to swim without them, etc. It’s been annoying to me because I’d like to see her learn to swim and as long as she’s attached to the floaties, that won’t happen. As it is, she won’t actually take them off even when I promise her I will keep her in my arms or even when we are in the hot tub and she can stand. She is petrified of having them off in the water. But she doesn’t really like to have them on outside the pool either. So the other day she asked to take them off when she was done swimming. She played around the outside of the pool while Tony swam with Teegan and Noah. She does this alot. This time, though, she started playing with her buckets and shovels at the edge of the pool. Tony reminded her she did not have on her floaties. Still she got engrossed in play. Several minutes later she had one of those moments where she just acted and didn’t think at all. She turned around and dove into the water like she does a million times a day – but without the floaties. Thank God Tony noticed but was half-way across the pool when it happened so it took him a second to reach her. Poor baby. I know it scared her to death. It has totally validated my fears about floaty-dependence. And there is no real lesson for her here at all. She had a ‘brain hiccup’ and it could happen again any time she is engrossed in play like that in or near the pool. So scary.

My little ET, how she can be found every day after swimming:

Cute: Guess who we brought home tonight? Bodacious Junior!!! Bodacious, addy’s rat, was shipped off to the Baby Daddy Farm when he had a little too much testosterone for his own good. He has produced several fine litters of snake food babies. The arrangement we had with the breeder was that we would trade him our stud (is this what they call breeding male rats?) for a baby from his future litter. Deal. We picked up the baby tonight and omg he is the cutest thing in the whole wide world. addy is absolutely in love. crazy in love.  I just hope it doesn’t squeeze out of his cage before he grows a few inches!

Yes Addy’s hair is really that insane. she did it herself today. it has a pony, a barrette and a clip – all clashing colors:

Sad: all these celebrity deaths. I’m seriously stunned over Michael Jackson’s death. I wasn’t actually ever a huge fan (except when I was 7) but he is just one of those people I thought of as immortal. I could imagine him old and insane. but not dead at 50. I’m also sad that news of his death (or to be precise: the coverage of the helicopter picking up his dead body, the coverage of the ambulance delivering said dead body to the coroner’s office, etc) is preempting some of my favorite shows. Apparently I have developed an unhealthy adoration for tv.

Super: 5 dental exams today (guess who was NOT included!!??) and NO CAVITIES!!! Whew. Huge relief. I’ve been nervous about noah’s adult teeth since he was 18 months old. So it is so awesome to finally get confirmation that his newest adult teeth do not have the same enamel defect that destroyed two of his baby teeth.

bonus super: my friend Amy gave me the most excellent idea for a new project targeting the allergy community. I’m really really excited about it. By far the best part is that she is brilliant with graphics and ideas and she totally pulled it together graphically and has exact precise details which is, seriously, my dream come true in a customer! She was like “I have an idea” and by idea what she meant was a full-color real life mock-up with intricate details. *heart*. Love you Ames – thanks for giving me a reason to get excited about a new project!