Two completely suprising (to me, anyway) fruits nabbed the top spots, with raspberries(!) coming in at number two and mangoes(!) coming in at number one.  Seriously, I never saw those coming.  I’ve got nothing against either one, especially in margarita form, but had no idea they were so popular in general.   Bananas came in third, and we had quite the few duking it out in a fourth place tie, including tomatoes, pears, avocadoes, and strawberries.  My personal favorite are tomatoes.  I love them in almost anything, except obviously something dessert-y.

Today I’m completely celeb-centric.

To no one’s great surprise, Cam Gigandet won out over David Schwimmer by a fairly large margin.  Not completely embarassing, but close.

Today I’ve got a babydaddy who is more of a celebrity-by-association, as the mother of his child is world famous.  But the man can sure wear a suit.  Good job, Halle, in ensuring his genetic material will live on. Although a definite sad face for their ongoing custody battles.

VERSUS

Parenting is hard, y’all.

Today was one of those days when the end of the day sees me wanting to run down the block tearing my clothes off and screaming.  Well, perhaps not the clothing part, but definitely the screaming.  Or taking an endless shower where the hot water never runs out and I don’t get tired of standing there.

It was one of those days where it seemed like nothing got done, nobody was happy, and I kept trying to contact people that I needed to contact and I was completely out of luck.

We recently took my daughter to a speech evaluation because along with her (improving, thank jebus) sleep situation, is also not much of a talker.  Well, it seems the speech therapist agrees with our concerns and she has officially been diagnosed with a speech delay.  She was given a “good” prognosis, although I wondered to myself why it wasn’t “excellent.”  Do they even give excellent ones anymore, or is that too optimistic for our lawsuit-happy society?

The fun times never end.

Has anyone else gone through a speech delay diagnosis?  I am a bit out of my depth on this one, although the one thing I am great at is being an advocate for my children’s well being, so I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it soon enough.  There was so much medical jargon in the evaluation that I’ve asked for clarification on some points.  I’ve swanned my way through Dostoyevsky, but this report was too much for me.

I’ve not mentioned my daughter’s speech problems before on this blog because I was almost ashamed to admit that she had a problem.  I’ve got a gifted son, but my daughter can’t speak?  It sounds weird to me, and I’ve had a hard time wrapping my  head around it.  But I’ve come to realize that there is nothing for anyone to be ashamed of, that early intervention will be key to her future success, and the prognosis WILL be excellent, damnit.

This toy is practically perfect.

It is beyond sturdy, (my 9 year old can ride on it quite violently and it holds up just fine) is low noise-producing, (unlike that damn cat piano my sister bought) and it promotes physical activity.

If you’ve got a 2-3 year old, look no further for your next toy purchase.  We got this as a gift for Christmas, and it is used a LOT, which is saying something for a two year old with a short attention span.

They only sell this at Toys R Us, so accept no substitutes.

Not too surprisingly, potatoes won out as your most favorite veggie. This is not hard to understand since there are so many delicious ways to eat them. Next up were asparagus and broccoli in a tie for second. Not a big broccoli fan, but give me some grilled asparagus brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt, and I’m a happy person. Eggplant and carrots were tied for third. Which was a bit shocking, as I had no idea people loved eggplant so much.

Now, you know I just have to ask about fruit.

The real Ben Browder won out handily over David Blaine, and thus shall ascend to the vaunted CDF Hall of Fame.  Maybe I should start handing out cigars to the winners?

So I’ve got a brand new set of papas for you today.

The first is an actor who was apparently on The O.C. and was in Easy A (fantastic movie!) and Twilight  (crappy movie!)but isn’t someone with a huge amount of name recognition.

The second is also an actor with quite a bit of name recognition, although has faded out of the spotlight since his uber famous sitcom stopped airing.  But there’s always reruns!

VERSUS

If someone could answer that question for me, I’d be grateful to know when the light will be showing at the end of this long and torturous tunnel.

You see, my beautiful, outgoing, mile-a-minute 2 1/2 year old still does not sleep through the night.

Well, Glinda, that’s fairly normal for her age, you say.  It’s a myth that all toddlers sleep through the night.

You would be right.

However, do most toddlers stay up for HOURS?  When I say hours, I mean that last night she was up from 3am to 4:30am and the night before she was up from 12:30am to 3:30am.  This goes on for usually three to four days a week.

She used to spend most of this time screeching, but she’s gotten a little bit better.  We used to think that it was teething pain, but that is no longer the case as she now has all the teeth she is going to have for a while.  We will give her some water, maybe change her diaper, and we certainly don’t sit there and entertain her. However, she has a horrific time going back to sleep, even though she initially falls asleep fairly quickly.

We co-sleep with her, but have also tried leaving her alone, which hasn’t worked very successfully.  And truly, we just can’t take it anymore.  It is impossible for me to predict if she will nap or what time she should go to bed from day to day, which drives this routine-loving mom crazy.

We tried speaking to our pediatrician about the issue, but he blew us off and said it was probably just teething.

My tired husband (who has to get up at 5am for work) and I, who usually have to take shifts during her awake periods, are at the end of our rope.  We talk daily about leaving the kids with some water and crackers and checking ourselves into a hotel.  Uh, jokingly, of course.  As if! As if I would think of doing that.  For more than five minutes.

I never knew how wonderful a sleeper my son was until my daughter came along.  He was sleeping all night from 9 months on, and can still sleep through almost anything.

Any advice?  Because I will admit that I am far from a perfect parent.

My son is going on a trip to Sacramento this weekend with his grandpa, and we told him he needed to get a haircut this week.

“I can’t get a haircut!  I want a mohawk!”

Uhhhhh, whaaaat?

As a child of the 80’s, I have absolutely nothing against a mohawk.  I actually don’t have a problem with my 9 year old sporting a Mohawk if that is what he really wants to do, which it apparently is.

But.

I’m wondering where the hell this came from.  We currently don’t know anyone with a mohawk, and I’m trying to figure out where he saw a person with a mohawk that he now wants to emulate.

I tried to discuss with him that despite the fact that it seems to be a rather carefree, rebel hairstyle, it requires quite a bit of work to keep it looking decent, including rather frequent haircuts.  I also told him that he would probably have to start using a lot of hair gel.

The mohawk is currently on hold, pending my son’s decision on how exactly how much he hates hair gel and haircuts.  Which up to this point has been quite a bit.

Self-expression is a bitch.