It's so hot, and Violet's a toddler now. And it's hot. Too hot.

Boy, howdy, summer barged through the door without knocking this year, and made itself right at home, didn't it? As it turns out, the lack of preschool, combined with the face-melting heat, and Violet's transformation from mellow baby to Toddler Avenger, are not so blogger friendly.

The heat is really, really throwing me off. I'm a California girl, born and raised, and all my life I've known mild, temperate summers. A couple of heatwaves are to be expected, sure, but they usually blow over in a couple of days, and then it's right back to perfect weather. But this? This is madness. Ninety degrees? Every day? For a solid week? With little kids hanging on me and making demands that simply can not be met with my ass parked on the couch in front of the fan? That's just cruel. I just can't sit down and think and type, all at the same time. I think my brain is fried.

Our little air conditioner does it's best, but it can't compete with the 90+ degree afternoons. It keeps the kitchen and living room cool, but only if we trap the cool morning air inside by 8:30 a.m., and go into full lockdown mode, with the blinds and curtains drawn by 8:45. It only lasts for so long, though, and it's never quite cool enough. By 4:00, the sun has started it's descent, and is burning through the bedroom windows at the back of our tiny house. The heat seeps through the walls and under the doors, so we have to throw open all the doors and windows, head out to the yard or the park, and pray for a breeze.

I try my best to deal with it gracefully, but I have an extremely low threshold for heat. I get that from my mom. I top out at 80 degrees, and after that, I'm a total bitch. You don't even want to know.

I try to keep it in perspective, and think of my brother, in Okinawa, where it's 110 degrees in the shade, and 90% humdity. I think of the millions of people in Africa and the Middle East, who have found ways to live in temperatures that reach 130 degrees. I try to go with the flow, and say to myself, So what if your eyebrows are sweating? It ain't no big thing! So you have a pool of sweat in the hollow above your upper lip that is the size of Half Moon Bay? Who cares? And sometimes, that works. But most of the time, it doesn't. And then I hate myself for being a miserable, short-tempered troll, who growls at her own children to stop touching her, and hogs the fan.

But enough about the heat. I must be one of a million bloggers complaining about it, right? Let's talk about Violet instead.


In lieu of a babybook, we have this blog, and it's photo contents, to mark Violet's journey from sweet, mellow Babyland, to back-arching, trash-eating, food-spitting, tantrum-throwing Toddlerville. So if I go into extreme detail, please bear with me; it's only because I don't ever want to forget wild child she is. I swear, I didn't even see this coming. I mean, she was such a sweet baby! Now she's the kid who walks up to strangers at the park and steals their sippy cups. She takes a handful of Hazel's hair whenever the mood strikes her, and brings her to her knees in pain. She eats whatever trash she can get her paws on at the park, and I'm ashamed to say, I once caught her stretching and pulling on a gelatinous blob of raw chicken. She's the tea party guest who upends her chair, climbs on top of the table, then up onto the kitchen counter, and stands there shouting "Mama! Up! Mama! Up!" She's the kid who, just last night, tore off her diaper and took a huge dump on the carpet.*

On the flipside, though, at fourteen months, Violet is learning a new word just about everyday, thus greatly reducing the amount of screaming and grunting around the house. She is a champion walker, and having recently outgrown all her Robeez, has finally got the hang of stumping around the neighborhood in her first pair of real shoes. She is the kid who will go out of her way to pet a dog, any dog she sees. She'll offer you a kiss, even if she's never met you before, by smacking her lips and staring at you with her big, unblinking eyes. She loves to dance, she's very good at playing hide and seek, and she makes all kinds of animal noises. She loves the Teletubbies, and calls them all LaaLaa ("Yaaya. Yaaya. YAAAAYAAAAAAA!") She still takes two two hour naps everyday AND she sleeps through the night. I really can't ask for more than that, can I?

Despite all of her unsavory habits, she really is a sweet natured, funny, adorable little girl, even in the dog days of a hotter than hot summer. Clearly, she gets it from her Dad.

* She gets that from her Dad, too. ;)