Stop Signs

Scout has long been obsessed with stop signs.

Not these:

I'm talking about this variety:

I am not sure, but I think it started with a Blue's Clues episode.

You've already gotten a glimpse of this obsession, remember these from No Snails Allowed in My Mom's Garden?:
We have had these hanging up outside of our bedrooms for a while now (they are so cute, I can't take them down):They are "no" signs for Lola telling her she isn't allowed in our bedroom and there is one hanging on Scout's bedroom door (she isn't allowed in there either). The happy one is on our bedroom, since Lola is just fine not being in ours, but she is very sad (apparently) that she isn't allowed in Scout's super fun room.
I love the ears.
I bring up the "no" signs today because yesterday she made the cutest (and saddest) one of all. I was in the office, and Elinor had just drifted off to sleep for a little afternoon nap in her bouncy seat next to me and Scout was downstairs watching tv, and I was talking to Rob on the phone. Scout came bursting in saying something loud and I was violently trying to shush her as fast as possible and be on the phone with Rob at the same time. (You know, the frantic silent sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh! With the arms flailing? That was me.) For what ever reason, she wasn't getting it, choosing to ignore me, felt whatever she had to say trumped Elle's nap, take your pick. But I had to keep shhing her and I couldn't really give it my full attention, cause Rob was still talking on the phone. So finally with an angry eeeeeehhhhhhhhrrrr she stomped out of the office. After a few minutes, I finished my conversation with Rob because- surprise! Elinor was awake and also I needed to go see about Scout.
I found her about to hang up this sign on the wall:This is a "no" Scouts sign. Isn't it sad? She said that I don't want Scout living in this house anymore, so she made this sign and was going to leave. Look at our faces! I am so mad and she is so sad.
So we had a little hug out and a good talk and it must have been good, cause she got up and made a new sign:
That's me hugging her, and she wrote "yes" (well, she sounded it out and came up with "ys").
So this is a "yes" Scout sign. Even though the no sign is so funny (in a sad way),
I much prefer the ys sign.

Annihilation

Last night at soccer Scout beat her personal best and got 6 goals! --Leading the Rainbow Dragons to victory. I was able to get one good shot of her scoring a goal, but I am really missing the loaner camera Matt has supplied me lately so I can get some zoom ins.
So this was the best I could do with my ipod:



I think we have pinpointed her success at the sport: 1. she is a fast runner and 2. she is focused (which is a rare trait in 4 year old sports-mans).

Now if we could just get her to focus on other tasks she does......

The First and Last Day I Fed Elle in the Jumperoo

Side by Side - 6 months

Elinor....................Scout

I'm Official.

I am now a bona fide soccer mom....and a proud one at that! Scout is actually good.

Who knew?

A few weeks ago, my friend mentioned that they were doing sign ups for Tiny Tot Soccer for our neighborhood and I decided that would be a fun thing for Scout to do to get a feel for team participation and such. So I signed her up, bought her a little pair of cleats and didn't do much else. Her first game was last night and they had a little 20 minute practice before it started and this was Scout's introduction to Soccer. She didn't know anything about it aside from being able to point out a soccer ball from a line up of balls. She learned a few fundamentals, did some stretches (pictured below), and was thrown to the wolves (by wolves I mean a game comprised of other 4 year old novice soccer players). I don't know what the score ended up being exactly, I do know the "Rainbow Dragons" (Scout's team) got clobbered by the other team (led by some 4 year old wunderkind -either that or he was hopped up on growth hormones-) . Anyway, Scout's team got 4 goals and our very own Bean scored 3 of them! No one was more surprised then Rob and I, I tell you. She IS very competitive, but I guess I wasn't prepared for that quality of hers to manifest productively in competitive sports (call me naive I guess).


She really didn't get it at first and played the first few minutes kind of confused and without direction. Then she got subed and daddy gave her a little pep talk:
After her pep talk, she was put back in the game and wanted to take her unicorn with her. I told her it would get dirty and to leave it with us and Unicorn would watch and cheer for her. So we propped her up on the bag we brought and she watched. Soon after that, Scout scored her first goal and we cheered loudly and she came running to see us and high five us......................... or so we thought. Upon her approach, she beelined it to Unicorn and clapped it's little hooves and gave it a hug and propped it back in place. We had to give our cheers and high fives as an after thought.

Scout and Eli (Eli was the one that scored the other goal).

So here you have the power force behind the Rainbow Dragons

Pre game stretches (as promised)

Lining up during practice to kick the ball

Team huddle.

So, we had a great time and look forward to 6 more weeks of fun. We will most likely have to reign in Scout's competitive qualities (had one mini huff in the middle of the game when she lost the ball), and towards the end sat and cried when she didn't manage to wrangle the ball from growth hormone boy, she also got one mini fat lip during a fall and got kicked in the shins once (we will invest in some shin guards by next week). Good times!
As far as the soccer mom stuff goes, am I a full fledged one if I don't own a mini van, suv, pair of mom jeans, or 8 other kids?

Creep and Conan

Radiohead - Creep (Conan O'Brien 1993) from Guillermo Delicia on Vimeo.

I've always loved the fact that Radiohead was Conan O'Brien's first musical guest on his first show, but I had never seen it. Green Plastic posted it today making me very happy! I loved watching it and the band, and it's always fun to see how much bands have changed and evolved (and what stays the same).
Anyway, enjoy! Enjoy Thom's hair, the cars in the background, Jonny's guitar, enjoy Thom and Conan standing next to each other at the end (heehee), but most of all, enjoy watching Thom sing Creep at a time when he seems to still be passionate about the song.



Ps I watched the last Conan O'Brien Show with a secret hope that Radiohead would make a surprise appearance. You know- to kind of bookend the show, I wouldn't have hoped with any degree of anticipation if it wasn't for the fact that I knew that Thom was in LA at the time.
Alas, they didn't, but it's hard to be disappointed when Neil shows up instead.