Clearly We Have Failed as Parents

Like most toddlers I suspect, Zoe has been having a BLAST playing with the ornaments on our Christmas tree. Needless to say (although I'm obviously saying it) we've made sure to put the most 'child friendly' ornaments near the bottom for her to play with. Although her reach clearly exceeds what we were willing to believe and some of the "indestructible" ones aren't nearly as indestructible as one may think... So let's just say there have been some casualties and I see a lot of gluing in Robb's future.

Now, Robb being the Simpsons fan he is, he's acquired a couple of Homer Simpson ornaments over the years and we designated them as "Zoe friendly"... Cause let's face it, every parent looks forward to the moment when they yell out to their child, "Zoe, stop eating Homer!"

Now behold exhibit A, the Homer Simpson ornament in question...


Being the dutiful parents we like to think we are, we of course refer to the ornament as "Homer" since that is, in fact, who it is a representation of... and being the dutiful toddler learning to speak, Zoe refers to him as such. In fact, she's somewhat obsessed with Homer. Perhaps because of the bright colors, or the incredibly annoying sound file it plays when she hits the button, I don't know... but she adores it none-the-less...

So here is where I believe we have failed as parents (no, oddly enough the failure does not begin with us introducing our 2 year old to Homer Simpson)... Let me set the scene... It's Christmas day. Family is gathered around the child to adore her (of course) and fawn over her every move. My mother is engaging her in a game of "name that picture", which Zoe proudly does as she shouts out every answer in her Klingonesque way... and then it happens. My mother holds up a picture of Santa Claus and says "Zoe, who is that?" to which my daughter proudly exclaims... "Homer!"... The room of course errupts in laughter and all I can think is, "ooops".... Clearly we have failed ;)

Christmas 'Ham'

Our Christmas tradition for many years now has involved the obligatory Christmas ham with usual trimmings... yams, wild rice with dried cranberries, brussel sprouts in a hollandaise sauce, etc... Festive, yummy and relatively simple to prepare (which is one of the things I like best about it, besides the yumminess of course). However, thanks to our darling daughter, there is apparently a new Christmas 'ham' in town... Weighing in at about 28 lbs and 36" no less. Yes, our sweet little girl has proven to be quite the stage ham!

Last week was Zoe's very first Christmas pageant!... I was thrilled at the thought of silly school productions starting already!... After all, she is only two. Now, considering she (and her classmates) are only two, there wasn't a whole lot for them to do other than stand there and look cute, or in many cases, bewildered, scared, hysterical, you know, usual two year old stuff... except of course for our little ham. I think (lord help us) she was born to be on stage!... Her face lit up when she saw all the people there to watch 'her', cause lord knows they were all there to see 'her' and not their own kids, right?... suuuuuuure.

We've never seen anything like it. OK, well, being her first show, we really haven't seen anything like it... but still, it was a riot. There she was all bouncy and happy... gigglefest '09, that's for sure!... She danced and clapped and laughed.. She was, well... a ham... the cutest little ham I ever did see :)

But don't take my word for it.... See for yourself : (Note: Due to compression, it's hard to tell who is who. She's the one in the white top and red Santa hat)

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