adventures in parenting

this weekend was a bit of an adventure, and not just because of the crazy weather we had yesterday.

saturday, nissa and i ran errands, one of which included the pet store. of course she asked about it the whole time as we ran our other errands (pet store first?) but was worth the wait. she loved the fish, birds, mice, frogs, even a bunny. the highlight was waiting in line with a very young kitten- nissa was absolutely mesmerized. my favorite thing was nissa proudly carrying around her bag of new fishies- showing them to everyone, including the 2 dogs in the store. hilarious.

sunday was a cold and windy day- miserable for being outside. but we planned some errands for that day too, so off we went. nissa was in a mood, chattering away the whole ride out to the burbs. the fact that she didn't nap the day before was probably a factor (she was in bed, just not sleeping, grrr). i "ran in" to make a return, only to exit 30 minutes later. adam assured me that nissa pined for me the entire time, with tears, screaming and overall unconsolableness. she even watched the crowd, looking for grandma and grandpa to offer some salvation. weirdo. our next stop was a necessary one- picking out snow gear for adam and i. playing in the snow is very important to me, so i wanted to make sure we were both equipped to keep up with nissa, who is already outfitted with a purple sparkly set of bibs and jacket. we both tried on pants and while i was in the changing room with nissa, she was not having any of it. she was yelling "no pants" and "bad pants" so i had to be quick. my goodness is that child loud and crazy when she's tired. i took off the bad pants and returned my jeans to my person- thankfully finding a pair before it got too crazy. while adam looked for his jacket, i was oh so grateful for the audubon society's collection of cards nearby.

at dinner, nissa played with her pizza a bit, making it a puppet of sorts. she'd put the crust on its end and hop it along, "hello mommy!" i'd reply, "hello, pizza crust. i sure do hope nissa takes a bit bite out of you!" for some reason, that worked. i've asked nissa countless times to not play with her food, insisting it's not a puppet, toy, car, what ever. in the end, i'm content that she eats. i'd like her to be polite, but not creatively stifled. we'll work on striking that balance.