Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Babies, Beauties, and Beasts

I spent my laborious day toiling away in the Sam Hughes neighborhood of Tucson... I had a full day of babysitting (as opposed to my usual half day) today because the mom -- who has a PhD in biochemistry -- had to sit in on and monitor an afternoon class that is using a textbook she's been writing.

In her absence, I swam with the 4-year old in the morning while the baby napped, and we all watched Madagascar and colored after lunch. I'm pretty sure the giraffe in that movie was voiced by Ross from "Friends," who didn't even try to not sound like Ross.

Luckily Baby S. loves playing in her cage... err, I mean playpen...

She has more toys than FAO Schwartz... which frees me up from having to hold her all the time, which would be a serious drag. Of course, I do play with her too, outside of her playpen, but I can't say I'm sad that she's a very self-sufficient child. Not to mention she's pretty damn cute.

And here's her sister, M...

... who is a total coloraholic, which is fine with me since I secretly love coloring. The only thing that annoys me is that she always wants to color on the same page and in the same book as me and then she sticks her head in my way so that I can't see what I'm doing and then she screws up my pictures.

And really... 96 colors in a crayon box?!? I remember being pretty psyched to get 64 with a built-in sharpener. Plus burnt sienna and cornflower aren't the craziest colors in the box anymore... now there's "macaroni and cheese" and "granny apple green" and a whole range of metallic/glitter shades.

I also gave S. a baby mirror to play with today...

... and as you can see, she was thrilled about looking at herself.

This actually reminds me of one of the bridesmaids in my brother's wedding several years ago. She was from the Ukraine and was friends with my sister-in-law and was very possibly the most vain creature I have ever encountered (put it this way, her entire wardrobe was from Bebe and she wore nothing but stiletto heels and cowboy hats). My mom and I actually started counting how many times this woman looked at herself in the mirror before the wedding. Every window, metallic surface, and mirror was fair game for her primping. My guess is that she looked in a reflective surface about 50 times per hour that day under the auspice of fixing her lipstick or hair, but I think she just loved the way she looked.

And speaking of weddings and beauty, I read an article in Gawker this evening entitled "Christina Aguilera's Husband is Huge," that literally had me cackling out loud in my apartment. If you don't read anything else today, I highly recommend you read the post (and the associated Zach Braff tirade) because, well, it's really really funny. And just a little catty.

Beauty and the Beast...

PS - And if you're my mom or someone in that age range, and/or you're totally disassociated with mainstream American pop culture (i.e.: You do not have hours to pore over Perez Hilton's website or the latest Us Weekly headlines), I will just tell you that the article conjectures why the attractive female singer Christina Aguilera might have married her less than attractive husband, Jordan Bratman.

2 comments:

nop.bot said...

ross was a guest star on curb your enthusiasm for a few episodes, playing the real actor, david schwimmer.

he not only had the exact same voice as ross, he was the same whiny bitchy character. i bet ross is just david schwimmer.

that's what helps me sleep at night, anyways. believing that.

Italianissima said...

Ali G was the voice of the King of the Lemurs, Ben Stiller was Alex the lion, Chris Rock was Marty the Zebra and Jada Pinkett-Smith was the hippo - yes, I am a total loser, but in my defense, Dan's 26+ nieces and nephews love this movie so I have watched it many times over.